Mystic (Magical Girl inspired AU Worm fic)

[Oddly Lionized]

Initialize 1.1
--
I stepped into the house covered in soda and juice, feeling far more sticky than any person should.

I'm going to have my clothes washed later, but I needed to check that the pictures and videos were ready.

I squashed down the whine as a strand of sticky hair smacked one of the lenses of my glasses. I headed straight to the shower and took off my ruined clothes. I focused on cleaning the gunk out of my hair with my strawberry shampoo.

"Hahhhh," the warm water was so relaxing, I just let the drops hit my skin for a bit before getting out and wrapping a towel around myself. I looked at the mirror to make sure to that my hairs luster' hasn't left. It really was my best feature with my narrow face, too wide mouth, thin lips, and eyes a little to wide. Being rail rod thin doesn't help me much either, slight curves, little bust...

"Aghhhh, I'm doing it again," I said, smearing on the face cleanser that he recommended to clear up my pores. I don't know if the soda will make me break out or not, but I already gave Emma and her cronies enough ammo. I don't need pizza face comments blasted my way through the decrepit halls of Winslow in the morning. I rinse the grime off my face, put on the moisturizer like the instructions say.

But he said I was normal looking, just a little plain. According to him my lustrous dark curls were my second best feature. Really he said my long legs were what I really need to put emphasis on, because my hair just brought more focus to my face more than it should. Causing a juxtaposition between exceptional hair and a OK face is not helping me in the looks department.

No, according to my partner I'm the owner of a pair of long exquisite legs. That I should present them to the world in heels with a mini skirt in my conquest of the opposite gender.

...Yeah not happening, even if he convinced me to buy those...

THINGS...

I had the choice to wear them. It will be a long cold day in hell when I wear those in public. I sighed and put on a camisole and short shorts.

Gathering my ruined hoodie and jeans, I headed downstairs to the basement. Where dad and I relocated the machine and dryer. I poured the appropriate amount of detergent, then threw in my soiled clothes in the washer and start up the machine. I stretched a bit as I turned under the stairs to where I moved that old computer. It was about a decade and a half outdated, the new one I had asked dad to buy on the other side of the room. I felt a bit of guilt using my situation to buy something so frivolous with our settlement money. Thankfully it wasn't the sleek, tinker tech based, monstrosity he thought I might had preferred.

Sure it was a beauty with two hundred gigs of ram, that could operate by being plugged into a normal outlet, without a fuse being blown, or even took up an all that much power if that pamphlet, oh - I slapped myself and wiped off the drool from my mouth.

Seriously, it took a whole lot of convincing dad and that sales associates that even if the chrom beauty was the closest to perfect computer I had ever seen. Even if it was just a tinker knock off, I didn't need it. A modern, non-tinker tech wannabe computer, around the year 2006, matched my plans wonderfully. Also it cost around $2999.99, which was more than the budget I made out. So no gorgeous monstrosity of pseudo physics breaking technology for me...

....a girl could dream, though.

I looked at the old clunker of a computer and debated taking the thing apart for a few more components.

"Hey stop looking at that old thing and tell me what you're doing out of school," the gruff baritone voice snarled.

The voice came from the other side of the basement, the sudden noise made me jump a bit. I turned to where my new mac computer was. I took a deep breathe as I took a seat in the chair in front of the computer.

I stared at my hands, the voice that came from the computer asked, " Well?"

I looked up at the screen and stared down the face on the monitor.

A face resembled a lions, mixed with a wolf greeted me. The beast had narrowed rose red eyes, maroon fur and a darker mane. It had a golden collar around it's neck, with Hebrew lettering engraved stylistically around it. He had a series of silver earrings going down the outer part of his ears. The red gem in middle of the bridge of his brow glistened brightly. There were markings in his fur, around the upper part of his thighs, and long tail.

I smiled and said, " item 12, has been received."

I took off the glasses that I had cleaned, then pushed it through the monitor. The glasses caused the screen to ripple as it entered the monitor. The beast took the glasses into its mouth, jumped back showing the icons and my crescent moon screen saver.

The wolf was landed on all fours on the bottom of the screen, rustling the gold and silver bangles with more Hebrew lettering on them. The beast stalked to the video player icon, then dropped the glasses on it.

The screen fizzled in static until a full-screen video played. It of me getting showered with foreign liquid. Then it fizzled again showing the juice and soda spilling event in multiple angles.

The beast again, whom I named Adamus, appeared on the right side of the screen.

"So which one?" He asked.

"My bags perspective, we need it to make as much sense as possible," I answered. I watched the screen change in an upward angle. The shot captured my tormentors faces when I picked up the bag. But the quality was too good to be a throwaway cell's camera.

With a smile on my face I asked, " can you match the grain and camera quality of that throwaway cell I got." The emergency cell I told my dad we should get led to a very uncomfortable conversation with dad, especially with what happened to mom....

But it was better to be safe than sorry. That's what I used to get it one with dad, even though I tore open old wounds.

The thought must have shown on my face because Adamus growled, " hey, don't frown like that."

"Right," I rolled my eyes a little with a smile. Every time I show just a bit of sadness he tries to snap me out of it. 'Think positive,' is what he keeps saying to me. 'It's your life', ' don't just give in when nothing really bad is happening to ya at the moment', 'enjoy the moments of peace ya got.' The one that really gets me is, 'your mom gave birth to you, so don't waste it with just thinking about the past, ya got a future to live.' This is what he uses to start a fight with me, to get all the moodiness out of me.

I smirked a bit, I watched as the video became a bit lower in quality. But you could still see Emma, Sophia, and Madison's faces. I even kept the damaged phone as evidence. It was ruined, but luckily the SD card worked just fine. I just needed to put it in later.

With a grin, I stretched my arms and folded them behind the back of my head and laughed. I can finally end their little, 'we didn't do anything the unpopular girl is just lying,' charade. I'll be vindicated, if I play my cards right I could have them expelled. But right now I had to decide, if I wanted to have this go public or keep this private. I had to gather more evidence against the trio, I wanted to watch them burn worse of course.

I needed a bit more advice on what to do next, luckily I had my own personal adviser.

"So do you think I should splay this all over the net or do I keep this a closed affair?"

"Honestly, I think ya should have your face blurred out and the trio's not," Adamus said with a vicious smile, " also we should make your voice unrecognizable, that way only they get burned by this."

Huh, I could already see the vast multitude of comment sections, they called out for their blood. Sure there would be a few nay sayers, but there always were. But then there were the cons, sure the world would mostly side with me. Most people wanted to be a hero or just hated injustice. They tore into everything slightly offensive, like a pack of sharks. Then there would always be the few that might really go after these girls.

They would get attacked them for being terrible people were.

That would be bad I didn't want them dead, but Adamus doesn't care. He's programmed to be protective of me. But he would take it too far if I allowed him to.

So I had to ask ", what are the chances of them being targeted by someone who would kill them."

He seemed to pout, his expression was almost cute, I raised a brow and he caved.

"Emma 34%, Madison 24%, Sophia a whopping 58%, all based on the general concentration of possible E88 involvement included," he grumbled.

"Let me guess, E88 would aim for Sophia because it was clearly a white girl she's tormenting?"

"Bingo," he said looking a little disappointed, probably thinking I won't consider doing it anyway.

I guess we could always discuss it later, we had an entire weekend to have it all hashed out. But right now I needed to tell him what I decided to do.

"We're going out this weekend."

There was a pause of silence, his expression changed into a wide grin at the thought of going out to fight.

"Are you sure?"

Definitely, I even said as much.

He told me I was ready to go out a month ago, but I still thought a bit more practice was necessary. But after today I needed to blow off some steam.

I still needed a full test run, maybe the boat graveyard, to find out how lethal I could be.

The grin on Adamus's face didn't dissipate, he jumped towards the screen. It rippled like water, I pushed the the chair back. I watch the pixelated explosion of light covered the room, raised up dust, and caused me to cough. As l gained my bearings, I stared at a sight that always brings a smile on my face. In the computer Adamus looks like a big scary lion/wolf beast, but outside he really was too cute.

"So are ya ready?" Said raspy higher pitched voice.

"Of course I am, cutie," brightly exclaiming at the now snuggle pup version of my companion. Seriously he barely reached pass my ankles, he really was adorable.

He growled, but it sounded like a pur. All that did was make me want to gush at the adorable little monster.

With a 'keh' that was criminally cute, a light full of pixels appeared above the gem in the bridge his nose. The light took the form of a gold scepter, with a queens crown on top, a cross like the aesthetic, a Hebrew engravings going up down and across it. He flicked his head towards me; the wand flew and spun in the air as I caught it.

With narrowed eyes he barked, "just transform already."

I smiled and spun the scepter around in a wide circle, creating a blue line. My eyes closed, I shout the activation sequence ", Queen Mystique: Make-up." With those words, my world exploded into a burst of a dancing spectrum of color; while I somehow watched myself transform. I saw myself in this strange pocket dimension; according to Adamus; I was given a 360° 4D view of myself.

My body moved on it's own; I twirled the sceptre in my hand, with more coordination than I would ever have outside of this zone. I jumped up, flipped in mid-air; my clothes stripped in lines of color; as a tight, black cat suit covered my body up to my neck.

Still in mid air, I arched my back as a form fitting silver leotard appeared on my torso. I spin kicked with my left leg and it was covered with mid thigh, leather, three inch heeled, silver boot. A silver heart shaped armored, knee guard, with gold trim around the heart, appeared in a flash.

With my right leg I axe kick as a matching boot appearing in a flash of light as well. I threw the sceptre up into the air, then reached up with my hands in praise. I spun and two gloves that reached to half my bicep with elbow guards matching my knee guard. I put my hands to my chest, bowed in prayer as my long curly hair was put into twin braids. Twin golden bands appeared on each end of the braids. I arch upward like swan breaching, as I spread out my arms, a white light appeared on my chest. A heart shaped, silver, and gold breastplate guarded my chest; with a cross made of ivory engraved at the top of the gold trailing the edge of the heart.

As my sceptre fell back to earth, a pink circle full of markings formed underneath it. As it passed through the sceptre it grew to a staff taller then me. Even with the heels, the staff; topped with a cross crowned with a queens crown that had a ivory heart topping it off; beat me in height. I spun and grabbed the staff, as did this a golden lace, silver miniskirt appeared. The skirt extended from the leotard, covered only several inches of my thigh. With It a golden cross and Hebrew letter engraved buckle appeared to top it off. I struck a pose, as I glowed a soft white; my body filled out more, grew, and matured. This made me look around my early to mid twenties. I passed my free hand across my face, a large gold domino mask with silver indent over my eyes. White overlays that covered my eyes appeared in a flash of silver.

The effect finally stopped and I was back in my basement and Adamus admired his work. Well to him there was just a flash of light for a second, then bam I looked like this. Like I read on PHO, tinker tech really does have a BS quality to them.

"Heh, and you said that the hearts were a bad thing," he gloated. It was strange seeing a chimera, wolf, lion creature looking smug. But then again, it was strange to see a talking beast in the first place, so I digressed.

I checked myself out in the old full length mirror dad and I found in the mess that was the basement. I implored dad we clear the place out as a daughter father bonding experience. We actually had a bit of fun as we did it; reminisced about a memory or two when we found old momentos from the past. It was nice, doing an activity like that, even if it was with dad. I looked into the mirror, I saw the me from a few years in the future staring back. This is what this form was based on, my most likely future build if I exercised and eat right.

I had to say I looked pretty nice, if I put on the right clothing, I could land a decent guy.
I twirled around, minding my staff to not knock anything over again, heh that was tough to explain to dad.

"Well, it certainly looks heroic, if a little girly," I stated with a voice a few octaves deeper. I looked at my braids, which I still did not approve of. 'But ya hair was too recognizable,' he says. He just wouldn't budge no matter what I tried.

And using, 'ya would put your dad in danger,' was such an unfair argument.

"Well let's go to the boat graveyard," I say, getting an incredulous look from my partner.

"WHAT," he shouted, he actually looked irritated. You know, I could see why girls kept toy dogs if they reacted anything like this.

"We've only done mental simulations, not physical, you know we've got to test out and adjust the data, not just from projected calculations, but also actual live testing," I stated plainly.

The way he groaned made me want to give him a tummy rub.

Which he enjoyed.

-----------------------------
Crossposting

 

[Oddly Lionized]

Initialize 1.2

The smoldering odor of burnt metal invaded my nostrils. I stared at the still melting haul of a rusted ship.

'Adamus,' I thought loudly, getting a grumbled, "adjusting energy effect."

I knew testing these, well I still debated what to call them. Adamus just called them formulae, sense there was a math equation in the binary code that formed these attack. It also did area of effect, like those glasses he shaped for me in his never ending quest to have the trio harmed.

Having them harmed worse than they did me.

Of course, I had to deter him from that path. Otherwise, there would be a man hunt for the wild beast that put three 'innocent' girls in early graves (and a few teachers). Or a parahuman that had control of over said beast. That was pretty much the only thing that kept Adamus from mauling those bitches to death. I stared at the results of my formulae as it ate through the metal.

I didn't think I should ever use this on a brute that wasn't as durable as Alexandria. The melted human route was not the way I wanted to go about this. Well, at least we had the non-lethals down. A sleep wave of energy called sueño and an energy attack called.... yeah, I didn't even want to think it.

"It's not that bad," Adamus muttered indignantly.

And I was still not comfortable having someone in my brain.

"Well get used to it if ya want to be a hero," he said, somehow crossing his front legs like I would my arms. I'm wasn't sure how that was possible for a quadruped to do. But he was right, without him to manage my energy usage, I could potentially destroy a city block. At my unlikely minimum output.

When you had access to literally infinite energy at your finger tips, you needed all the limiters you could get. Especially when you had zero control. I was just lucky it started manifesting after my trigger event and not during. I would have been sent to the birdcage for having turned most of the eastern seaboard to slag. I was glad that the old computer could stand the creation of what I came to call an E.A.I.M(Energy Artificial Intelligence Moderator). Otherwise, I would have been so screwed with my powers of infinite energy. My source of energy is the part I'm most embarrassed by.

Adamus was smirking, my attack on masculine ego commenced.

'You know, for a guy, you really do know how to dress like a woman.' He glared at me, 'well what else do you say to a guy, who knows the difference between satin and silk. '

He was still growling, 'heh assault successfully.'

'Have you finished adjusting the ugh,' I can't even think it because it's just so...girly.

"You're a girl."

'And a girl would call this unimaginative.'

"Oh, really come up with something better that matches with a magenta beam of flying death."

'.....the fact that you can tell magenta from a dark pink seems to bother me more than the name at the moment.'

"Oh yea- wait, hide," he shouted and he sniffed the air. I blinked in surprise, I scrambled across the waters. Yes, I walked on air too, because platform generating heels, that were more comfortable to walk in than loafers. Yes, I'm blessed with a great tinker power, that allowed me to walk on air and be extremely -"focus woman."

My inner monologue was just interrupted by that yell making me jump.

'What is it?' I asked I felt a little anxious.

"Activating viewing mask."

With that announcement, I could see through the scrap. What I found something that made me freeze in fear. On the shore were nine E88 thugs, with a cloaked person and a man in a costume. Whom I recognized from my research of the local cape scene. Rune and Krieg, two of the empires capes were here, but why?

"Tinker hunting by the looks of it."

I couldn't help but agree, a tinker needed parts. If some really were that desperate, they settled going here for parts. Heck, they could just be cape hunting too. This was a fave spot for most blasters and brutes to go for practice from what I heard.

I heard Adamus grunt in agreement as we assessed our predicament.

"We've practiced enough Taylor."

I just stared forward, while they inspected the melting damage of that old rusted ship. Most likely they noticed the freshness of the melted metal.

Was I really going to let this go?

There were my villains, targets even, and I just sat here doing nothing. I observed Rune touch a rusted scrap large enough to carry her. Was I really just going to hide, like I did at school, from villains while I'm the hero.

I made my decision, the thugs started to fan out to find me on Krieg's order. They saluted like a wanna be army squad.

'Ready the Sueño formulae Adamus.'

"Sueño what about- ."

'Just do it, I have a plan that won't end up with me murdering anyone.'

I heard him sigh before he said, "fine."

The crowned on the top of my staff gained a pink luminescent aura. I took a deep breath through my nose, Rune grew closer above me in the night sky. I flew into the night sky with the speed of a bullet. As the world blurred in my vision; I struck out with my staff toward her face. She yelped in surprise that died on her lips as consciousness left her. I grabbed on to her hood, I didn't want to risk her being drowned in the ocean as she slept.

"There!!!!"

A shout echoed through the yard, that signaled the end of my element of surprise.

"Some plan," Adamus grumbled; well why didn't he think of something.

"I-" without doing that!!

He grumbled in disagreement.

I wondered how I look to them; my heeled soles shined, each step created an invisible platform, and wreathed in an aura of-

*CLANG*

*CLANG*

*CLANG*

*CLANG*

-I needed to stop my new inner monologue habit...

The bullets being deflected by my armor's personal shields stopped when Krieg ordered them to stop shoot and risking Rune being shot.

Okay, Taylor, you needed to stop this now. I did the best thing I could think of, I threw Rune at Krieg at I high speeds. I really should have noticed the increase in strength right away, she felt like air in my hands. He caught her without trouble, most likely something to do with his power.

I aimed the staff their way and shouted: ", Sueño."
A wave of distorted air flew in their direction. It blanketed the whole beach, I had no idea if someone was hiding in the background so better safe then sorry.

They dropped like flies after that, it was too easy, far too easy. Krieg should have been able to jump on the wreckage, reach me and his downed teammate with ease. Instead, he kept staring at me, like an idiot. A veteran should not have been so easy.

"Well that isn't a surprise, have you forgotten the glamour effect this form has on people," Adamus started with a bland tone

'Oh, right the calming down feature of my suit.'

"See I told you that actual fighting would be the best way to test out all the functions I so meticulously coded."

His smug self-important tone was unnecessary if you asked me. I summoned the zip ties out of the personal pocket dimension designed. I then proceeded to tie up my villains of the night.

"But I will have to adjust the effects a bit."

'Why, if it made people freeze in a middle of an attack against me, seems useful?'

"...Taylor what would happen if ya meet someone who can counter it?"

'Put them to sleep with sueño, duh.'

"If they're immune to mental effects in general."

'Um, use the other one.'

"Oh...JUST SAY THE NAME ALREADY!"

I winced from the sheer volume, but I refused to say it all the same; it was just too ugh for me.

'I can see your eyes rolling dog.. cat.. THING.'

With a sigh Adamus then said, " Taylor if you want to be the hero of your own story you"-

'My own story?'

I had to resist the giggle that worked itself up my throat, while I zipped up the criminals.

'That sounded so profound.'

"YES, yer story, if ya want to be a hero, ya have to learn to fight your enemies when you don't have any other choice. not rely on gimmicks that can be worked around."

He had a point, what would I have done if Krieg had attacked me; had he not stood there frozen in awe. I'd probably had killed him in panic, I grimaced at the thought.

I could kill people with severe ease.

"Exactly you have to learn control sooner than later."

I sighed as I realized how right he is.

"Of course I am."

'....girly boy.'

"You shut it."

'Okay, now that they're all tied up what should we do.'

"Already transmitting a phone call to the PRT, they said they'll be here in ten minutes."

'.I....what?'

"Yeah, now come on let's go through the docks."

'HOW DID YOU CALL THEM!!?'

"I just tapped into their channel, sending out a call, and then used your voice instead of mine." He sounded very bored.

'Not what I mean, how were you talking to them, while at the same time talking to me?'

"......I can do mass multi-tasking, remember?" He had that tone that I hated, the 'your the child and I'm the adult' tone.

'Not really,' I thought to answer him.

There was a pause of silence until he said, " ya didn't read the entire blueprints ya made did ya?"

'I'm sorry if I miss the smaller details, as I dealt with the fact that I could make LIFE out of computer code.'

"Excuses."

'No tummy rubs for a week.'

"NO- UH I don't care."

'Right.'

"Can we just get out of here?"

'But I finally get to meet a hero.'

"We've been through this Taylor, or have ya forgotten what we agreed upon."

'That I won't join the wards or the protectorate until you assess them.'

"Exactly you can't just go with what the media tells ya."

Letting him go to PHO forums must have made him paranoid of conspiracies. It had to be, seriously, the crazies that shouted the heroes are controlling the public through the media was idiotic. The so called proof was just heroes looking heroic on television. And Vista is cute, no matter how you looked at her poster. She did not pose for an evil organization that has integrated itself so deep into the government, that they could supposedly have people killed without anyone caring. I didn't even get started on the shadow organizations that manipulated the world powers from behind the scenes.

"In a world where mind controllers are confirmed to exist, would you really not consider the possibility."

'Fine, fine, I'll get you an aluminum hat for Christmas,' I thought as I jumped through the air. I spiraled as I landed on a building and continued roof hopping, as I headed to the docks. I ignored the 'snarky brat' comment as I noticed the change in atmosphere; then I realized I had just entered the docks.

The primary indicator was an ABB gang sign on an old wall. I lived on the outskirts of E88 and ABB territory, so I avoided the worst of the gang violence. But still, if I could help someone being accosted by a ganger, I would have called this night perfect. Even if I caught a two villains, I didn't actually get to fight them.

Besides, it wasn't like I would have run into more than I could chew tonight.

I noticed the change in the quality of buildings as I got closer to the docks. The place really had gone downhill since the shipping days were over. Then the added the gang violence, you got a place you never wanted to be on your own at night.

I was brought out of my musings as Adamus shouted, " Taylor stop."

My brows furrowed in confusion, my heels left gouges on the roof as I stopped. I realized I needed to work on my landings in too. The sounds of yelling, gun shots; like the ones that were blasted at me in the boat graveyard; sounded through the air.

I saw why Adamus shouted at me to stop. Three beasts with people on them, I couldn't make out a lot in the darkness. But I didn't have that trouble for long, a flaming form of a ten foot, monstrous humanoid shape gave chase after them. I recognized that flaming form from the few pictures I've seen of him. I said in a voice far too squeaky than I would have liked, as I gripped my staff in front of me.

"Lung."

His head swiveled in my direction, he paused for just a moment, before he headed after the retreating, beast riding capes. I didn't know why but, the way he dismissed me was grating.

Wasn't I worth his attention? Was what it felt like he just thought and that just ate at me.

"Taylor," I heard Adamus say in disapproval in the back of my head.

I had all this power and I still....got treated like I was worthless attention than a bug on the floor.

"Taylor," Adamus said urgently, he obviously didn't agree with my decision.

But I was already off as the reptilian man was got close to the beast and their riders. I didn't hesitate for one second, even when Lung stumbled he caught himself each time. I heard Adamus sigh in defeat, I was not going to stop, not now.

I had to take on a dragon.
--

 

[Oddly Lionized]

Initialize 1.3

I jump off an old building, landing on thin air.

I stare as the glowing flames barely missing the riders that had to focus so they weren't torched by the flames. This caused them to slow down, unfortunately allowing Lung to catch up.

"Activating temporal reduction effect," I say to Adamus.

The world slowed down to a crawl. I jumped again, it didn't seem faster but I knew it was as the wind whipped through my braided hair.

Adamus sounded calm, I'm going to have to make it up to him later. Well, my surprise will lift his mood later.

"What surprise?"

'Not the time.'

I land on the wall of an adjacent building to the one Lung is. At a glance, I can see he was about to take a claw to the blond, domino-masked beast rider's panicking face. I bend at the knees, prepping my legs with energy. Pink and white glinting off my form as I pushed off the wall flying through the air towards my target.

The blond girl stared in horror as the flaming claw reached for her head. The dilated blue eyes shifted to shock as my right heel slammed into Lung's chest. There was echoing boom, sending him skipping like a stone off of various buildings in the distance. The shockwave sent the beasts and their riders flying to another roof. I was wreathed in white and pink flames that dissipated as I took a step towards where Lung was sent flying. Web-like cracks ran through the roof I stood on with my feet at the epicenter.

"H-hey wait, you..." I turned to see the girl staring at me jaw dropped. Her group was also staring at me in various costumes. A guy in a renaissance costume, a biker with a skull on the helmet, and a husky girl with a leather jacket, plaid skirt, and a cheap dog mask. The blond in purple's expression kept changing between confusion, panic, then awe, and finally understanding. Like she kept cycling through them as if she keeps getting an answer but then just gets more questions as a result.

"RAAAAAAOOOOORRRRRRR."

It was pretty obvious who that was.

I stared at the group, they were in the way if they stayed. However, this was a more populated area if the lights were turned on any indication. I needed to finish this in somewhere with less potential collateral damage.

Adamus came through for me. "Already found a few empty warehouses several miles Northeast from here, ya just gotta get the ugly beast there." With a nod, I turned to the group of teenagers still staring at me. With a mental sigh, I send a question to Adamus.

'Can you tone down the awe effect please.'

"Already doing it, but it's one of the most complex formulae I've generated so give me five minutes."

I rolled my eyes and shouted. "You don't want to be here for this."

Ignoring their startled reactions I leap into the air, heading towards Lung. Landing on the ledge I see him on the wall directly below me looking bigger than before.

"Move!"

I jumped back putting my staff towards Lung as he pounced landing on a ledge like a cat with his claws. Opening my mouth to speak- ducking under his swipe then parry the other claw and attempt to jump back. Only for the kick aiming for my head to crash into my staff sending me tumbling and my staff flying out of my hands. My shields blocked the force of the impact when I hit the stone rail of the roof that cracked on impact. I played possum acting as if it hurt, I heard a grunt as his footsteps thumped on the concrete.

He was way faster than he looked.

"He seems to have to have taken martial arts karate from the look of it."

'He's the gang leader of an Asian culture gang, it would be weird if he didn't know one or two.'

"I guess we gotta go the tricky route with him."

'Cheating it is then.'

"Go for it."

I don't get why he didn't just maul me like he I'm sure he should. There was a grunt like a chuckle as he slowly started to circle around me.

"Real during." He gloated at me in broken English, it seemed like it's tough talking while transformed like that.

Huh, well I can use that pride against him.

I sent energy into my staff making it shimmer pink and white. Instead of voicing the activation phrase I thought it.

'Spear justice strike.'

It moved like a bullet as a bladed spearhead of projected energy piercing through Lung's right shoulder. The primal cry of a wounded animal pain that echoed around the block didn't distract me. I jumped up, grasping the staff as I twirled in mid air shouting "Repent gavel!"

The blade of energy shifted into large mallets. I swung my staff at the end of my twirl into Lung's right side. There were a crunch of smashing bones from his right arm, hip, and ribs. Blasted away from me, Lung flew through a water tower into an alley three buildings away. The shocked look on his face was so worth it. I've had enough smug people call me stuff for a lifetime. His yelp of pain was also nice.

"Taylor, are you becoming a sadist?" Adamus asks with a smile.

'And we both know whose personality influenced me.' I replied. Adamus let out a gruff chuckle at that.

I heard screaming and gasp at the tower of fire that had erupted in the distance. A figure with wings flew into the air with a fiery, luminescent blaze covering its form. I- did I just get somebody killed?

"What are you waiting for, head to a less populated area now."

Adamus shouting brought me out of my reverie as I head northeast to the abandoned warehouses that were once used as storage for the imported shipment. However, are now just abandoned buildings collecting- "Soliloquy later, right now, dodge ."

Right. Now I had a raging dragon after me and I needed to get this bout with Lung into an are with less potential collateral.

I step into the air, still running but I couldn't help but -leap right as a nineteen foot tall Lung tries to bite me in half- correct Adamus's word usage. That was having an inner moment of self-reflection not articulating the facts to Lung or an audience. Seriously Mom was an English professor how could you use soliloquy wrong in a sentence?

"Still not -duck- the point focus -weave right- on getting him to the warehouse -crap, jump back." I did so, my feet carving more concrete as Lung blocked the way, forcing me to jump. How far were we from the warehouses anyway?

"Not close enough… use it."

I refused and dodge right as Lung's head snapped where I had been standing.

"Fastest and safest way to take him down," Adamus said. Adamus was acting far too nonchalant. Quickly, I used the staff's auto shield function to block the heat of the fire breath going my way.

I still refused; his left wing slapped me into a building on a three-way intersection.

I heard screaming, looking up, there's a Hispanic woman shouting at her son. Most likely telling him to stop videotaping Lung, stomping towards their apartment and start running instead. I notice even more people, running out of their homes, praying, or just frozen in fear.

"Are you really going to let your pride cost these people their homes? Is your pride worth their lives and peace? Or are you going to finish this, like you should have since the BEGINNING?!!"

I keep quiet for a few seconds; weighing the lives of the people of my city against looking like a fool. Ignoring Adamus's scoff; I couldn't help the guilt, I really could have stopped this him from the start. However, instead, I didn't want to appear stupid. I let my pride get in the way and someone might have just had been burnt to a crisp because I'm worried about a little humiliation. Nothing could top the locker so why am I letting myself lose just because the way to win will hurt my pride? No, I won't accept that. So I stand up, determination burning within me; I stare at my opponent who stops in front of me.

"Do it," Adamus commands.

I looked at Lung with defiance. He stopped before me and just stared down at me. A grating rumble I think was a chuckle shook the last few working lampposts on the street. He threw his head back and laughed. Great booming snarls that were nevertheless laughter. I let him get the last laugh though because after all, I was about to use it. Lung lifted his foot to stomp me to death but he was too late.

I'd already won.

As his foot fell, Adamus and I stated the words that will win this battle.

"Paradise View Initialize."

The world turned black as I jumped through the air; spinning my staff to slam the butt into the floor, holding it in front me with both hands. Swirls of colors; pink, blue, white, all mixing and separating around me. Lung stood straight across from me, having an incredulous look on his monstrous face. That, or he was confused by the darkness, hard to tell. Though it was probably because he was now frozen in place, unable to move anything. It's what happens to the target when trapped in this dimension. This attack was just like my transformation sequence; an alternate universe where I saw myself and everything else from a fourth-person point of view.

I spun my staff one handed, then flipped as I blew a kiss in the air causing a pink heart to appear. Lung's hinged jaw was slowly dropping further down. Huh, I guess the head was free to move.

With a giggle I spun into the air, whipping my braids around as I did, grasping the heart with my free hand. I land and shouted.

"True~ Loves..."

I threw the heart up into the air as it erupted into the bright sparkling shiny pink light.

"Miracle... "

I lift up the staff as Hebrew lettering surrounded the crown as the light entered it. With a smile, I slam the butt of the staff onto the floor as I yell the final p[art

"KIIIÌIIISSSSS!!!"

A glowing, sparkling, magenta blast of enormous size emitting various multicolored stars, hearts, and crosses raced towards Lung from the center point of the cross intersection of my staff. As he was engulfed in the blast, I heard him say some weird gibberish with his voice cracking ", ah uu aa hr -uahhhhohrohhro?!"

The scene faded to pure white, then slowly dispelled. The formulae ended the real world came flooding back and...

There Lung was, lying buck naked in a crater of one of his own feet made, and his body was literally smoking. No, I didn't look at his thing; I may prefer large musculature on men, but I am not a perv. Get those thoughts out of your head. Anyway, I sigh, thinking about going home and taking a nice relaxing bath.
Hopefully, the shame can be erased by hot water and soap.

"Ehem."

I froze, turning rigid at the sound. Slowly, jerkily I turn to see a group of very famous costumed people. The entire wards, New Wave, and Protectorate team; with several PRT vans in the background. Worse, they were all staring at me. They saw it.

They saw it!

I felt my face explode with heat. So I bolted in the air, ignoring all the yells and calls for me to wait. Moving at a speed we never reached in any simulation. This was too much on my first night out. I made a fool of myself in front of the heroes.

"You're overreacting." Adamus drawled.

'Don't make me remove those taste buds from your avatar!' I mentally shout. He made a noise, it was a strange mixture of a whine and growl. It was also adorable!

I activated the temporal reduction effect when I noticed a blond bombshell; wearing a white dress flying behind me. Adamus just chuckled at me. 'No head pats either.'

"Hey!" Adamus's indigent cry echoed through my mind as I activated the invisibility feature for getting home without any more trouble hopefully.

--

 

[Derpfen]

I think your tags are a little borked.

 

[ArsMagna1337]

I could imagine that magical girl capes would then increase on Brockton Bay and cause wanton destruction of the city... Until a villain began to discipline them on how they destroy the city more than said villains and how it breaks the natural order.

 

[Gindjurra]

Aghhhh, I'm doing it again," I said, smearing on the face cleanser that he recommended to clear up my pores.

Click to shrink...

But he said I was normal looking, just a little plain. According to him my lustrous dark curls were my second best feature. Really he said my long legs were what I really need to put emphasis on,

Click to shrink...

No, according to my partner I'm the owner of a pair of long exquisite legs.

Click to shrink...

The phrasing here is awkward. You should probably mention who 'he' is earlier in the chapter. As it is, you had me scrolling back to try to figure out who 'he' was thinking I had somehow missed something.

Hebrew letter engraved buckle appeared to top it off.

Click to shrink...

What's with all the Hebrew imagery? While it might be a useful psy-op against the E88, Taylor isn't Jewish according to Wildbow. While Hee-bert is a German name meaning Jew, Taylor's surname is French, with different meaning, and is pronounced Ay-bear.

Fine, fine, I'll get you an aluminum hat for Christmas,'

Click to shrink...

There was an unofficial MIT study a few decades back, that took a look at the idea of tin foil hats. They found several hilarious and interesting things. First, it has to be tin foil to be noticeably effective at all, aluminum foil doesn't work as well. Second, either kind of foil doesn't have any noticeable effect on reception for most of the radio spectrum. The part that it does have a noticeable effect on is, by strange 'coincidence' right in the middle of the reserved exclusively to government use frequencies, the ones commonly called the mind control frequencies by conspiracy theorists. The third thing is what makes it hilarious — the effect a tin foil hat has on those particular frequencies is to greatly improve reception.

That's right, wearing a tin foil hat to keep out the mind control waves actually makes you more susceptible to them. Well, assuming they actually are mind control waves, anyway.

Initialize 1.3

Click to shrink...

You're missing a threadmark on this chapter.

He seems to have to have taken martial arts karate from the look of it."

Click to shrink...

...is there a non martial arts kind of karate?

'He's the gang leader of an Asian culture gang,

Click to shrink...

He is not going to live down getting his ass kicked by a magical girl, and you know he recognizes her for what she is.

KIIIÌIIISSSSS!!!"

Click to shrink...

And there it is, in all of its awesomely humiliating, overkill glory.

 

[Oddly Lionized]

Initialize 1.4

I stopped in an alley, a few blocks away from my house. I looked around a bit, making sure there were no more unnecessary meetings tonight. With a sigh, I spoke the released code.

"Queen release sequence: God is love."

The armor and clothes on me separated in ribbons of light, bathing me in a soft pink glow. In just a few seconds I was once again plain Taylor Hebert not, uh, crap I didn't pick out a name, did I?
At least I was in my pajamas, with matching slippers.

"Hey." Suddenly there was a weight on my head, Adamus's paws pushing on my cheeks.

"What?" I mutter crossing my arms as he continues to mess with my face.

"What's this surprise ya got waiting for me?" He asked in his adorably growly voice. It was so weird how his voice changed from a gruff, raspy, baritone in the computer to the high-pitched rasp that I was hearing now. "Hey I can't read your thoughts outside your head, so get to talking." In all seriousness, he sounds like one of the kids from the goonies; can't remember which, though.

"Just teleport us to the house already," I say, keeping the anticipation of his reaction from my face.

The teleport was a formulae I'm so glad worked right off the bat. I'd rather not have fused with a wall or some other ridiculous way to die. However, from what Adamus had said, teleportation was a simple equation that involved only two variables; my current location and where I was going. It didn't need anything else, no friction or gravity affected it. The air or whatever medium I was moving into simply swapped with where was divided into equal proportion around my body. Pretty weird way for saying transferring me to a place where the air is pushed away from me where I land.

"Where is the surprise?" Adamus demanded, trying to glare viciously at me. He only managed to look adorable, though; even when he shouted in my ear "Wipe that smile off your face and tell me where!"

"The basement," I replied, putting a finger in my ear. The little guy had a set a lungs on him.

I grab him from atop my head, gaining an irritated grunt from him. I may not be a girl who was into cute things, like that creepy deformed pony series Emma liked to watch as kids. But the little beast in front of me was snugly to the max.

"Hug and I'll bite." He said, with what I think is a deadpanned expression.

"You know you really are too cute." I gush, this elicited a growl from the lovable puppy/kitten in front of me. Got to admit the wolf and lion features were a bit too much for the remnants of my feminine sensibilities to combat.

"Shut-up and let me finish - and there." He said as the alley lit up with bright pixel like light filling my vision. The in the blink of an eye we were in my basement with a bit of a dust cloud forming around us. Probably the displaced air kicking up dust.

"The neighbors didn't see a bright light, did they?" I ask him. Adamus just rolled his eyes as if to say 'Of course not.'

He kicked out of my hand, landing on the floor; then started sniffing around.

Putting a hand on my hip, I raised a brow, and wondered, why the sniffing. Wait, did he think I got him food? Well, his personality was catered to a male stereotype.

Hungry, stubborn, and dull-witted.

"It's not food," I say, walking to the old computer. I could feel Adamus giving me a scrutinizing gaze. It was almost as if he's saying 'What do you mean it's not food?!'

"You can come out now Even us."

Ah, that incredulous look I feel him giving me feels wonderful.

The old clunker started powering up on its own. A ripple appeared on the blank screen, a pink snout slowly poked out of the center. I spare Adamus a glance, to see his jaw dropping. Then the snout went back inside the old computer.

"Huh."

Why is she not coming out?

"Evemus are you okay in there?" This really should not be happening I walk over to the computer only to be blinded by the pixelated lights, making me fall on my butt with a yelp. I rub my sore and most likely red eyes.

"Are you okay Taylor?" A calm, childlike yet strangely tinkling voice asks. I open my eyes still blurry from the sudden light.

"Kinda blurred out vision from the light show, gimme a sec to adjust," I rub my eyes and blink a bit to find- awe my gosh so adorable. Staring up at me was a puffy pink fox like being but with a more cat-like face, her slim brush like twin tails flicked. The color around her neck and bangles matched Adamus's but silver instead of gold. Her wide bright scarlet peepers blinked with a head tilt.

Must… resist… feminine… squeal… Don't want to wake up Dad.

"WHO IS THAT?" Adamus's shout echoed.

I grabbed his snout shut. Did he forget it's still the middle of the night? That Dad could wake-up to check on what's happening in the basement?

My thoughts must have shown on my face because Adamus seemed to cower under my gaze.

"Keep your voice down." I grounded out. He nodded with a whine, a giggle brought me out of my mood.

Evemus sat under the stairs, watching with what I assume was an amused expression. When it comes to animalistic features, you can't be too sure on emotions.

"What are ya laughing at?" Adamus growled.

I am not getting where this hostility is coming from. Adamus keeps on glowering at her. Humming, Evemus walked towards Adamus who bared his fangs at the cat-fox hybrid. Evemus gave him a once over; even circling, rubbing her tails pass his nose. I have no clue what's happening. Adamus seemed to calm down a bit when she rubbed her head on his neck.

Uh hmm, I have this strange feeling that I'm somehow intruding, Adamus starts purring. A yawn escapes my mouth, making the strangely intimate scene come to a screeching halt.

"What time is it?" I ask.

I didn't really want to watch courtship and Adamus is now glaring at me.

"It is currently 4:48 a.m northeastern time, I recommend that you get some rest, Taylor," Evemus said. That smile on her face was so fake. I can't help but think there was a second meaning behind those words.

I just nodded and headed up to my room while making sure that dad was still asleep. From the snoring coming from his door, I guess we hadn't woken him up thankfully.

Getting to my room, I just crashed onto my bed.

Already I could feel my eyes drooping.

It had been a really long night.

--

 

[Oddly Lionized]

Interlude

BROCKTON BAY 3rd P.o.v

A brown frizzy haired girl wearing the white cloak and with a red cross symbol on the back just stared at the damage the fight had caused. Two buildings on fire, four buildings with severe roof damage, a block with large human-like footprints, three charred remains with forty having various burns and the striking smell of burning tarmac.

Property damage, most likely valued somewhere between 20 to 100 grand; and the second cape responsible, walking free, without so much as a name. She couldn't help but feel disgusted at the villain's desire to fight somewhere with people around. Lung truly was a typical evil villain, not an ounce of remorse for anyone he'd hurt.

"Jeez Amy," the girl in the clock looked up, to see the blond blue eyed bombshell in a white dress, and matching boots. Glory girl; also known as Victoria Dallon A.K.A Glory Girl; the sister of Amy Dallon. She descended from the sky, then gave Amy a soft poke in the ribs.

"Vicky," Amy whined, rubbing the spot Victoria poked. "Lighten up a bit," Victoria said as she started to walk to the wards who were discussing the new hero who took Lung down.

"Come on guys, you got to admit she was pretty cute," Clockblocker said to the boys, near one of the PRT transport vehicles. Amy rolled her eyes, she had to admit that the cross bearing armored cape's overreaction was interesting. It was like she got caught red handed doing something horrible. Then again, how she took down Lung was....

Amy had no idea what think about. It was like she was watching a scene on TV. When Lung was swallowed by that blast; white filled her vision, then she and the others were in some sort of trance until the new cape sighed.

Everyone watching just jumped; startled like, when someone pokes you when you're deep in thought. It was an obvious powerful master effect, it caused people to stay in place staring in the air.

Shadow Stalker grunted from inside the van.

"Oh come on SS, we're going to be in observation all night and day; might as well join the conversation," Clock's griping obviously didn't make her cooperative at all. Especially when she stayed quiet on her phone. Amy was curious as to who she's talking to.

"Stalker, off the phone or I'll have to confiscate," Aegis ordered, making her pause, then she flips her phone close. She actually 'humphed' crossing her arms looking away from her team. You would think that she would get along with everyone already; but she either ignores you, tells you to shove off, or bites your head off. She's like a bad-tempered cat, give her space or she'll put her claws to your face.

Gallant stood in his knight and shining armor suit. Amy could see what Vicky saw in him he did look gallant in his costume..... Amy could not let anyone know she had a Clockblocker joke in her head.

"So, what has got you guys down?" Victoria asked with a brow raised. Amy just noticed how grim the Wards were. Her brow scrunched in worry; she may not be as friendly as Vicky is with the Wards but they were fellow heroes.

"S/M protocols with 48 hours of wait time for all," Clockblocker stated; without his usual enthusiasm, pumping up his arm in the air.

"What?" Amy stated, with a tilt of her head. Sure they were in trance, but it wasn't as if they were acting any different. But then again strange powers had random effects. Even if the cape's a hero, her powers could cause cancer....

That blast did have a radioactive look about it. Now that Amy thought about it, maybe she should give everyone a once over.

"Maybe I should give everyone a check-up, just in case," Amy suggested.

"Sur-"

"-Amy no," her mother voice snapped, causing the girl jump. Amy felt a tension in her chest; her head snapped to Brandish, flanked by Flashbang, Lady Photon, and Manpower.

"Why not," Vicky stated, crossing her arms; ready to come to her sister's defense. Amy felt her heart fluttered at that, but it was immediately trampled by ", because New Wave has agreed to participate in the stranger, master protocols, with the protectorate."

"What," Vicky yelled in shock; flaring her aura, the Wards flinched in surprise.

"Victoria, aura," Brandish snapped; causing Vicky to calm down, but pouting adorably.

Lady Photon decided to intervene; before this escalated to a public display of insubordination, on Vicky's part. "We've just been hit by a random master effect of unknown origin; we have to be cautious, we have no clue if that cape left some sort of suggestion on us before she left." It made sense to Amy, who decided to nod at the fact.

"Do we even have a name for her yet?" Kid Win asked.

"As of yet, no," Armsmaster's smooth baritone answered ", but tentatively, she's been given the code name: Kabbalah." Amy never really heard of that, but Amy guessed it has something to do with the symbols the cape had on her person.

"A Jewish word for a cape name, in a town full of skinhead, nazi, scumbags?" Strangely enough; it was Shadow Stalker who asked that question.

"I understand your concern Shadow Stalker; but our research shows a clear correlation between the symbology used in that temporal, dimensional, phenomenon we viewed; furth -,"

"- I get it," Stalker interrupted Armsmaster, flatly.

This earned a frown from Armsmaster, but he turned towards them", I see you have been informed of the agreement to master stranger protocols; do not worry we will accommodate New Wave until the procedure is over."

With a nod, he walked off leaving us, in awkward silence.

"Well that was...informative," Amy stated plainly.

"Yeah, no kidding," and Vicky agreed with her too.
--
3RD P.o.v Tattletale

"So Coil, was all this your doing?" The blond villainess, in purple, asked into her cell. it had been several hours, since her team's altercation with Lung. It left her team tired, a bit frazzled, and wanting a less life risky job. Personally, she was all for a simple, easy task, but she just received a call from her boss.

The team let her go speak in private with the man. He wanted them to hit a bank Monday morning. If they accepted the job, they would have a day to prep themselves. But that's not what was bothered the villainess; it was how their boss knew they would survive Lung.

"Now dear Tattletale, I had no hand in directing that cape to you, and your team," the calm, collected voice answered.

But Tattletale's powers told her another story.

'Didn't plan for this cape to appear, but somehow knew we would survive, knew that an event would take place that would save the Undersiders, didn't have scouts observe the altercation with Lung, knows more about the Cape, connection from the PRT feeding information.'

"Don't worry about that cape, my dear Tattletale, unless you believe she would be a good candidate for your fifth member?" Her boss, Coil, inquired.

'Considers cape a potential asset, doesn't know that cape is focusing her anger on being a hero, cape was once on the verge of suicide, cape gained external support, possibly a family member, trying to make a change in life, wants to be a hero, believes being a hero will fix all her problems, trying to justify her actions, loss, angry, desires attention, and wants to be loved, reason for aura to force love and inspiration on viewers, changer, no, tinker that causes changer effect, generates or gather energy from love, able to manage energy through outside source.'

Tattletale blinked in disbelief at what her power was telling her.

"No, she'd be a bad match, chick wants to be a hero," she stated calmly, she took a seat at her computer desk.

She hears yowling coming from the living room, it was Regent, howling in laughter. Tattletale ignores it as she listens to Coil, very carefully.

The man sighed ", a shame, the person who took down Lung would have been useful on my side." That surprised Tattletale, she expected Lung to win, and the Protectorate to save the cape.

'Wants the cape as an enforcer, the cape would be adverse to that and rebel, the cape would win based on the amount of energy usage, the amount of energy could vaporize a city.' Tattletale stopped that thought right there, the cape, that took down Lung, was a potential city buster.' Power generation infinite, powered by all the love of the multidimensional spectrum, creates limiters to keep love energy from acting erratically, Coil planning to have cape offed.' She felt her eyes widened, while her power kept feeding her information ', finds a cape that powerful a threat, plans to have her continue to take out the competition, aims to let her go on heroing, then ax her off when no longer useful.'

Tattletale's smile became a smirk, the man was the architect of his own demise, and all she had to do was wait.

"Yeah, them the breaks," Tattletale said into the phone, being careful not to give her joy away.

Coil made a sound of agreement, saying ", don't forget to discuss the job with your team, I have it from a good source that the heroes, both young and old, will be preoccupied during the day."

"Yeah, yeah, I'll talk to them about it," Tattletale muttered, before hanging up on him.

She felt a throb of a headache beginning to form, she didn't use her powers too much, so an Advil would get rid of it.

Heading to the kitchen area of their hideout, she walks past Regent, who had his back turned to her, on his laptop. She glances at what he's looking at, her jaw immediately drops at what she sees.

The cape that saved their bacon, who dropped kick Lung away several blocks; was on video, doing something incredibly embarrassing. Tattletale took a closer look over Regent's shoulder, he didn't care, he was too busy laughing at Lung being blasted away.

"True....Loves....Miracle...KISS!!!"

Tattletale jumped at Regent's laugh ", man, you just can't find a more painful way to be emasculated than that."

But that wasn't what bothered Tattletale, it's what Lung said.

",....ah uu aa hr -uahhhhohrohhro?"

'A term, pertaining to something in culture, Japanese culture, no, Japanese pop culture, predates Leviathan attack, has not come to America, obscure in the states, something involving childhood, possibly a book, comic, or television program.'

Tattletale felt her head spike in pain, maybe she should look at this another time.

After all, she needed to start planning her survival.

"Hey, Regent call up Grue, the boss has a new job for us."
--

 

[Oddly Lionized]

Hacking 2.1

It was Wednesday; four days since my first time going out as a cape last Saturday. Two days since PHO forums had exploded with the video of me going, and I quote, 'monster of the week' on Lung. Yeah, apparently that was what Adamus had based my cape appearance on. We'd had an argument about it; I tried to get him to change the final activation sequence for… gah, that attack.

But he pulled out his secret weapon, that got me agreeing to the thing in the first place.

The eyes.

It must have be some sort of master ability the moment he pulled that face, I caved.

I stared at the clock, I could hardly wait for this class to end.

Going back to school on Monday had felt weird; like I didn't belong, especially after going out and being a Hero. It felt wrong to go through bullying again, even if it was to bring my tormentors to justice. I still felt as if all of this was wrong.

I heard the sound of a spitball being fired through a straw; possibly for the fiftieth in the past hour. I already knew that it's Madison sitting behind me, attempting to cover my hair in them. But all of this was to get more info on the trio's deeds, to use against them when I presented all the evidence to Principal Blackwell. It was what I, Adams, and Evemus decided on. It was also when I found them the next morning on the computer, doing things with each other.

Things that added another tally to my list of traumatic events, those points had been adding up these past few years.

I heard that sound of someone spitting through a straw again. I glare at the teacher, who is obviously ignoring it.

Mr. Gladly just droned on through, with bad jokes that a few people laughed at. I didn't bother listening to it; I heard that sound again. Calm down Taylor, don't vaporize the school in your indignation. Don't take off your fingerless nylon gloves, that were made to suppress your excess power. Then turn around, vaporize Madison with half the classroom, while laughing like the maniac you don't want to be.

I heard the sound again; another wad of paper landed in my curls.

The mechanical pencil in my hand snapped loudly, that quieted the class for a second. The gang member wannabes looked inquisitive at me, while the other students just stared.

"Is there an issue Taylor?" Mr.Gladly asked, actually looking concerned.

'Oh, so when the victim does something you pay attention, you loser.'

Taking a calming breath through my nose I started my words with narrow eyes.

"Nothing appears to be an issue," I said, though my tone of suppressed rage said otherwise.

He stared at me for a second, then nodded before going on with the lesson. It's been five minutes without the sound of spitballs; I wonder what trouble my little scene caused now. If there was something I've learned, its that when I am not being tormented, it means they have something else planned for me. I sneaked a glance at Madison and saw that she's texted something on her phone. I risked a glance around and saw Julia, one of my lesser demons, giggling while looking at her phone. I felt my hand clenching in anger again, they're up to something.

Bullying; it seemed like such a minor thing.

At least, until you found out people were calling you a whore, saying you slept around with groups upon groups of guys for money. I had a bunch of their little conversations on tape. That one and so much more; It still hurt all the same. However, I just had to persevere; they'll regret this, I've made sure of it.

The bell rang and as soon as I reached for my bag Madison 'accidentally' kicked it out of my reach. She dashed out of the class, giggling as her friends followed. I had to take a deep breath to resist the urge to take vengeance on the tramp. I grabbed my bag and headed to the door, trying to get to my next class without trouble.

"Taylor, could you stay back for a few?"

'Dammit Gladly, can't you see you aren't helping right know?'

I sighed and relented, "Okay."

I walked to his desk, waiting while he wiped the whiteboard clean.

He sighs and says, in what I assume is his best 'I am a teacher' voice,"Taylor I think we need to talk about your attitude."

I stared blankly at him, this made me wonder if he was high.

"I know something is bothering you, but you need to talk about these things before they get out of hand."

I'm getting lectured, for getting rightfully angry at Madison, for spitting wads of paper into my hair.

"If there's a problem between you and another group, then one of you needs to bury the hatchet and move on." He sat on the edge of his desk and tried to look like one of those cool teachers from a sitcom.

He reached for a slip of paper and wrote something down on it still talking, "Now if you need someone to talk to the counselors, that office is always open."

He hands me the slip with the number and name of the student counselor on it. I'm so tempted to call him out on his crappie actions as an educator.

Instead, I just stared at him, choosing my words carefully. "Thanks, Mr. Gladly," I say then gladly walked out of there.

I was already on edge and his bad advice was not helping.

I walked down the hall, only to get herded into a corner of the hallway by a group of girls. All that took was a few steps outside the door. Now I'm being forced to listen to their jabbering, but I start to realize what Madison was really doing with her phone.

"Did you hear about the crazy girl."

"I know maybe she's gonna snap and start shooting up the school."

"Hey, did you hear about her hanging out with the Merchants?"

"No way! But, you know, she was acting pretty on edge in class." Madison said, in a tone of faux innocence.

I gritted my teeth at her voice.

If she kept pushing me, I might just lose it. I tried to push through the barrier of females, but a dark skinned hand shoved me back. The back of my head slammed into the wall, I rubbed the already forming welt. I already knew who that was, I glared at the smug, dark skinned girl.

"Hess," I grumbled and held onto my bag tighter.

I saw her cocky smirk, turning to speak to a girl with striking red hair. I kept my cool; the redhead, Emma, just kept a smile on her pretty face. I leaned with my back against the wall and held my new bag closer. I'd rather not try to explain what happened to my bag with dad again. He even called the school, yelled at the principal, then asked me if I wanted to stay home this week. I couldn't, if I didn't show up it leaves out more evidence I could have gathered. We had a meeting about this with Blackwell, where she denied everything because of a lack of 'evidence.' So now I was going to gather as much 'evidence' as I could and use it against the trio.

"You think she's anxious for her next hit?"

"O.M.G, you don't think she'd break into our lockers to swipe some money to pay for it, do you?"

My locker had lots of stuff missing from it. I kept my silence, no matter how much I'd like to scream at them.

"Naw, she just has to go to her regular clientele to get her hit," Madison said. They broke into giggles, i gagged inside my mind.

Then Gladly just walked by, not even looking at the students still conversing after the bell. Not even a glance at the girls bullying me, right after he talked about 'burying the hatchet.'

I'm going to ruin his career. I've got him talking to me on video and then doing nothing right after. Call me vindictive, but an educator willfully ignoring bullying and harassment right after having talked about it was very unprofessional.

"Like, did you see her emo gloves?"

They did not just dis the nylons.

Gasp. "You don't think she's cutting herself?

"Wow, you know, they do cover all the way up her forearms, so maybe she is."

"Maybe someone should tell her parents?" Sophia added, joining in on the misanthropic fun.

"Really? Oh, her mother would be so disappointed with her."

A voice of false concern, a familiar voice. I stared at Emma, my jaw just dropping; I clutched my bag tightly. I stared at the red head walking towards me. She pinched her brow together, looking sad, and Hess coming up behind smirking, arms crossed.

"Taylor." She started, pretending like she's about to cry. "Don't you remember, your mom wouldn't want that life for you?"

I didn't care if she gets hurt anymore, I'm going to make sure every video exposed them for what they are.

"Is there a problem here girls?" A voice said behind them. I looked and… It was Mr. Gladly. This caused girls drop their guard and I push through their barricade, startling several of the girls, and shoving Madison to the floor.

"Taylor!!"

I ignored the shouts, pushed through the doors, and stepped out into the concrete jungle.

I kept running, wiping the tears from my eyes, I had to just have keep going because...

I never wanted to be in that place again.

I sniffed, slowing as my vision became blurry. Clearing my eyes, I looked at me and saw I was about a block away from the bus station. I started walking to the stop, a vicious smirk emerged from my tears

I didn't care anymore, I was going to watch them burn. Even if I had to risk a bit of my privacy they are going down.

The bus was just pulling in as I arrived. Getting on I flashed my student card before I took a seat and sitting in silence as I ignored everything around me. I'm sure I looked a mess, so I kept my head down. I'd rather not be questioned by a curious passerby. I got off the bus, still two blocks away from my house, but was close as the buses ran. I jogged the rest of the way there a little awkwardly, still holding my backpack close.

I reached my house, jumped over the rotted step me and dad were going to fix in the summer and opened the door before heading down to the basement.

I walked straight over to the computer, I booted it up; I needed Adamus and Evemus to help me calm down.

"Guys?" I croaked out as the computer finished booting.

There was no response, which was odd. Adamus was always up for comforting and lifting me up after a bad day. However, there was no typical gruff, raspy baritone to help lift my mood. Feeling a strike of panic I tried operating the computer for the first time in ages. Seeing a new word document I opened and stared at the contents before I started reading it aloud, to try and make it make sense.

"Going to PRT headquarters for alternative measures with the trio, be back around six. Remember to put your dad to bed before coming down, he's been snooping around the basement. If the Wards prove to be a good place for you, we'll see about going there and being transferred to Arcadia."

I slumped into the chair, having mixed feelings about this. I would be out of Winslow, on my way to Arcadia even, if all went well with the Wards. On the other hand, all my evidence gathering would go to waste. There was also what happened at school today too. I'm torn, a mixed bag of thoughts and feelings.

Should I put all my proof on the Internet? Should I wait until I get confirmation that it doesn't matter anymore? Would the Wards help at all or just be a high school with super powers?

Then there's the fact that Dad started to get suspicious too.

I just looked up to the ceiling and murmured to myself. "What should I do, God."

 

[Oddly Lionized]

Hacking 2.2

Adamus and Evemus 3rd P.o.v

"Sheesh, when are these brats going to show up?" Adamus growled.

"Arcadia classes usually end at 3:30 p.m, it is currently 4 p.m, though," Evemus stated, with her calm melodious soprano. While Adamus in his true form was a strong, intimidating beast; Evemus is a slender, lovely, calming creature in contrast. She snuggled into him, causing a satisfied purrr to eescaped his muzzle.

"So just be patient, beloved," she said, still watching the empty Wards common rooms.

It may have been against the unwritten rules, but it didn't matter to them one bit. They were going to find out each wards identities, then do background checks on each. Taylor's joy, safety, and sense of security were their priority. If anyone were a risk to that joy, it wouldn't end well for them.

"Freedom," a lean red head shouted, jumping on the couch, releasing a loud sigh of satisfaction.

"Take a guess who that guy is," Adamus muttered.

"Dennis, could you be any less mature?" asked a young brunette girl, as she sat on a beanbag chair, taking out a book from her bag.

"The only Ward that young in Brockton would be Vista," Evemus yawned. They could just break into PRT and Proterorate database to learn all about the the Wards. The issue was that it was Dragon who made the system. Breaking through the foremost, world-renowned tinker's systems would lead to a active hunt for them. Especially if Dragon was doing any maintenance on the servers today. From what Adamus had seen of the woman, Dragon was always doing something.

He had once tried to shadow Dragon's schedul;. It turns out his probe caught her attention. It lead to him using several computers around the country as proxies, just to keep her from tracking him back to the Hebert residence. He never told Taylor about.this.He didn't speak to Taylor about a lot of things he did. Evemus was curious on why, but it never really bothered her. All of it was for Taylor, his mother.

"Don't get too comfy, we still need to discuss the robbery from Monday," a tall, muscular, Hispanic boy stated, taking a seat on one of the chairs in the room.

"But we just had a surprise pop quiz in like, every class! I don't know about you, but doing those after M/S protocols made me forget most of the stuff we learned in class," Dennis, the obvious secret identity of Clockblocker, complained.

"More like English and math," said a well built, brown haired boy.

"We still need to discuss on what we could have done, had we got there on time," the Hispanic said, sounding annoyed at being ignored.

"You mean the shit we should have been doing now," said a irate looking African-American girl.

Adamus felt his eyes widen at the girl, Evemus stared at her too.

Sophia Hess.

It was Sophia-freaking-Hess; the most physically abusive of Taylor's bullies.

"A Ward, that trash is a Ward?" Adamus growled as he got up from his position with a ragged breath.

"I take it that the Wards are out of the question?" Evemus stated flatly.

Her expression was blank, but her emotions weren't. She noticed instantly, the difference between her and Adamus, he was a smoldering flame. But she was cold as the tundra, Adamus was seething in his hot temper. He was so focused, he didn't notice the fire wall trapping them.

"We have company, beloved," she said, calmly, breaking Adamus of his rage induced haze.

"You are to surrender any and all information you have taken," smooth, feminine, yet, obviously synthetic voice ordered.

Evemus could now understand Adamus's reluctance to tell Taylor about his travels.

The form in front them was that of a black, blue, metallic, western styled dragon. The glaring, gold, bestial eyes, glowed in discontent.

"After that, you will take me to your maker," the synthetic voice of Dragon echoed, most likely in intimidation. Adamus growled in return, his fur bristled at those words. Evemus was more curious than scared, a A.I, a rare existence, that posed as a parahuman. Why, it sounded a bit preposterous to Evemus, she needed to know more.

"Now, now, now.... no need to be so brazen," Evemus said, her tone was disarming. She took a few slow steps towards the dragon, a smile on her face.

Dragon eyed her carefully, she didn't know if these two A.I had some sort of back-up plan. Evemus knew this, she and Adamus weren't in any true danger. Instead of simply countering anything Dragon threw at them, they could simply materialize into the physical world. Quite frankly, Evemus already considered the bridge to the Wards, PRT, and Protectorate burned.

"I don't have any reason to listen to a word you say," the synthetic voice sounded, Evemus noted the dragon never moved it's mouth.

"And yet you don't attack us wholeheartedly. Instead, you cut us off from the system monitors, and blocked any form of communication you were or are currently in," Evemus stated as she sat there. She had a strange air of sophistication and poise. It was most likely just how Taylor made her.

Adamus just looked between the two of them. He didn't drop his guard for a second, Dragon was a wily foe. Anything that can pose for human for years and not be discovered was too smart for its own good.

" Furthermore, you even made a this little trap for us," Evemus paused, she kept a steady view of Dragon's background machinations. It was another part of her programming, Adamus was made to be the brute force, but she was made for precision. While Adamus was a decent program maker, he often missed the little bugs in his coding; Evemus, while less imaginative than him, she could pick out those bugs and fix them, instantly.

"Now, why do that? Hm, dear foe," Evemus's controlled tone was disturbing. Dragon stared at Evemus, contemplating, not just on how sophisticated she sounded, but also on how organic the voice was.

Her expressions.

The active mannerisms.

This wasn't some simple A.I.

It had far too much personality, maybe even more like a real person than Dragon herself. Dragon had to wonder, just how many modifications were needed for it to reach this level of sophistication. It made Dragon have hope that there were more like it.

Her golden eyes glanced at the other one. As he stood there, hackles raised. She met that one first, but he kept yelling at her get away from him. While the pink one seemed benign, that one was more abrasive. The thinker and the brute, the hunter and the forager, maybe even beauty and the beast. A dual pair, Dragon wondered, was this how jealously felt. She may have had allies, but the truth was grating. She didn't have a real match. Sure she had people she could communicate with on a intellectual level, but just like those that experienced the same pains and reach for the others each others in understanding....

She too wanted to have others that knew her plight.

Evemus stared at the champion of justice in front of her, contemplating just how it must feel. Adamus showed her what most humans think of A.I, disasters in waiting. Nothing more than a threat that could disrupt the broken system they clung to. She stared at her sister in circumstance, wondering how many people knew the truth about her. It must have been lonely, but they were enemies for now.

"Companionship or improvements?"

Only the dragon's head tilting showed any indication of acknowledgment. "Either you want to know more about us from a personal standpoint or you desire our creator to do something for you," Evemus said, still in the same controlled voice.

"You are currently viewing the civilian identities of the Brockton Bay Wards. This is in fact, a violation of the level of a federal offense," Dragon responded.

"Ah, you didn't say no," Evemus teased, still keeping her cool.

"Your actions makes your creator liable for this crime," Dragon continued, her avatars eyes narrowed.

Adamus growled, looking more feral than ever, but Evemus kept calm and asked ", Possible outcomes, if we surrender?"

"At minimum you will be forcefully restricted to what you can do, at worse termination." Dragon stated, she had add more firewalls.

"And our creator?" Evemus stated, her lips parting slightly paring, showing her sharp, glinting fangs.

"Either incarceration or a forceful conscription to the Protectorate, on a probationary status," Dragon state.

Adamus was about to leap at the dragon, but Evemus's soft laughter made him pause.

The dragon avatar raised it's claw, but Evemus just laughed, as she finished her destructive code.

The pink A.I.'s scarlet eyes glittered, as she sent the virus through the Protectorate servers.

"Now, now, now...we can't have that now, can we, beloved?"

Adamus gave a vicious grin, amused as he answered. "Right."

The dragon avatar's eyes widened, as every Protectorate Endbringer alarm went off across the country.

Adamus just laughed, as he and Evemus jumped out of the monitor, startling the already freaking out Wards.

They entered another monitor, before the heroes can react.

They headed home, and hoped Taylor can forgive them for this.

The so-called 'heroes' were not for her.

---

Taylor POV

I pinch the bridge of my nose, still not believing what I just heard.

Adamus and Evemus faced Dragon, The Dragon!

To get away they caused a nationwide panic. They activated the Endbringer alarms, all of them!

I'm more astounded than mad though. It was resourceful, but highly inappropriate. Seriously, dad almost had a heart attack, gathering the few valuables we had. I was wrestling with the thought of going out and facing an Endbringer attack. I didn't know what to say to dad, I just couldn't tell him, so I planned on disappearing on him. I thought it was lucky that my transformation scepter was hidden in my closet. Then dad and I hear that it was a act of terrorism. The PRT, the Protectorate, and the Wards in every state calmed down the public. Dragon had sent out several of her suits to help quell the panicked masses.

The entire day had been pretty, much been tiring for the entire country.

But later that night I found out the truth.

"Can you at least tell me why you went that far?" I ask, rubbing my eyes.

The 'terrorists', were at least repentant of their actions.

"We came to the conclusion that Protectorate and Wards were out," Adamus said, his head bowed.

"Yes their methods, were not agreeable," Evemus added, her head bowed too.

"Oh, really, tell me, what in the world possessed you to to make that conclusion?. The Protectorate and the Wards, theywork day in and day out, just to protect us.! Sure they're not perfect, but they do their best to protect the public anyway," I say. Thats what heroes are and the Protectorate and Wards are the good guys. They just needed to accept the facts. Though I also wouldn't mind going to Arcadia, too.

"So tell me, why should I not join them?" When they come up with a blank, we can get my real hero career started.

Adamus and Evemus glance at each other.

Evemus just said, " Activating Sound Proof Barrier."

Okay, why do that?

"Sophia Hess is Shadow Stalker," Adamus said, a tone so flat yet so silencing.

My mind was blank, it made sense now.

Why they tolerated her attitude in Winslow, her friends getting away with what they want, and why I'm being treated this way. I wanted to deny it, but my creations aren't capable of lying to me. I don't know what was worst, the fact that if her bosses knew what she was doing, they didn't care enough to stop it. But if they didn't know, it just proves they're that incompetent as an organization. I start to feel my breath quicken.

I get it, I get why they did it.

A organization like the Protectorate should be well informed about their employees. Adamus and Evemus, most likely assumed this was the case. I felt light headed; Sophia Hess was a Ward, and I was just some civilian, she messed with on occasion.

She was a hero.

Why sell her out and get her sent to juvie? For some unknown, unremarkable civilian. Who, by their standard, was just another piece of cannon fodder for the gangs to pickup. I felt tears running down-

"-cut it out!!!"

I jumped, startled by Adamus's sudden roar.

"Don't you dare start crying because of that rotten, overbearing, over-hyped police force," he growled, his voice trembling with rage. He jumped out of the computer, landing on my lap. "Instead of focusing on them and their ilk, ya should be going about being better than them," he said, enforcing his point with those puppy - dog eyes.

I didn't know what to do, so I just hugged him tightly to my chest. I felt better as, I sniffled into his fur.

Even if the Protectorate didn't know about Sophia, I didn't want to be a part of it anymore.

 

[Oddly Lionized]

Hacking 2.3

I headed out for my regular jog, schools have been closed on a national level for two weeks. It was a nice reprieve from the usual; I could finally relax a bit.

A week has already passed since the 'Sophia is Shadow Stalker' reveal. Honestly, what could I say to argue against not joining.

I wonder what would have happened if I revealed myself?

Most likely Sophia or I would get transferred away from each other. I only consider that thought as a best case scenario, but I already knew that if I joined I'd need to reveal myself to the team. I would also have to hide Adamus and Evemus; because I'm sure they were caught on camera during their escape. Otherwise they'd try to force me to put them down or worse: rewrite them into mindless drones.

I pause and shake my head of those thoughts as I jogged passed an Asian girl talking, on her phone with an aggressive tone; I don't think much of it.

Dad and I had an appointment with Blackwell that was moved to the following week. With all the schools closed for the week, it was inevitable really. But the part that really gets to me, is how she's involving the Barnes, Clements, and Sophie's handler. She's actually a social worker, but that's what I've been calling them.

Until then, I was not going to give them any more of my free time. No Emma, no Madison, no teachers not doing their jobs and most importantly, no Sophia, the fake hero. Just me figuring out what I'm gonna do with the rest of my life. I noticed the less morose atmosphere of the docks as I entered downtown.

I decided to go out a bit farther than usual. I needed more time to wrap my mind around this. After my near breakdown, I just had to go to bed. It was too much to take in at once.. I even got up early just to head out and get some fresh air. The house felt a bit too stifling. I know I'm avoiding the subject, but if anyone were in my position they'd do the same.

I pushed past my usual stop, going closer to E88 territory. Having less than Aryan ideal features, made you an easy target in that part town.But I had nothing to worry about, since it was revealed that the entire alarm event was caused in the Bay, several heroes were sent in bulk. The Protectorate and Wards roster had grown from thirteen to twenty-four. If they pulled more attention to the Bay, it could result in, what is called on PHO, a Triumvirate curbstomp.

No smart villain wanted that.

Mouse Protector made quite the bang with her arrival with the other transfers. Swiping a microphone and yelled out hammy puns, as she greeted the Bay. I don't know if the new heroes were permanent, but they were received with open arms by the public.

I jogged in place, waiting for the light to change, so I could head home already.

When the lights changed, I took notice of a six foot plus, strong looking Asian man walking deeper into E88 territory.

He carried a duffel bag, but the odd part was what he was wearing. A slightly see through white beater, black sweats, and sandals. I saw tattoos of Asiatic dragons going up and down his arm. The Bay had fairly cold weather often enough that even in March, it was still fairly cold out. Even I wore a sweatshirt and sweatpants to keep the cold away. I glanced back as I passed him, his form looked so familiar. I didn't know from where though. I shrugged and kept going on my way.

As I did, I noticed more people walking around than usual at this time.

That was odd on a eight-something in the morning. I knew that most people had a week and a half off from work thanks to the false alarm. I almost continued on until I realized they were all of Asian descent; some were wearing ABB colors.

I felt myself swallow and just focused on getting home.

Something was wrong, definitely wrong, my eyes narrowed. I unlocked the door to the house and made sure it was locked when I got inside.

Dad was out at the Dock Workers Association today. There was some damage from the panic last Wednesday significant enough that he was trying to get the mayor to use the Union workers to fix it, instead of outsourcing to another company.

The ABB decided to capitalize in the panic and broke Lung out. There was some sort of explosion that hit the PRT building. There was a fight of course, but with Oni Lee backing him up they made it out. Lung's escape left thousands of dollars worth of damage and left several PRT personnel dead.

The explosion also had some sort of stasis effect. The bomb had both combat personnel and administrative employees trapped inside. It still hadn't turned off, rumor spread on PHO that it wouldn't for centuries, maybe even millennia. It was lucky for the heroes to arrive after it's use.

'Shame Shadow Stalker didn't get caught in the blast.'

I stifled the thought.

Even if she was my enemy, I just couldn't wish being left in stasis for an unknown time span on someone. As I headed to the kitchen for a drink of water, I thought back on the gang members I had seen, trying to make sense of them. My thoughts went back to the large familiar Asian man. I put the glass into the sink, the only Asian I've ever seen that tall was Lung.

I froze.

'Wait a second, Lung? Crap, the guy I passed, it was him.'

His mask had come off, sometime before our fight. I saw his face, but I didn't think much of it when the heroes, who I don't trust anymore, saw the - ugh - thing I did. I even saw the tattoos, but I had been trying to not check out the guy's body. Even if he wasn't that hard on the ey-... 'Ew, focus Taylor.'

'Don't ogle at every beefy guy you see. Especially older guys, mind your hormones.'

'Also, note to self: force Adamus to change the final activation sequence, no matter how powerful his puppy dog eyes are.'

As I headed to the stairs down to the basement, a resounding *BOOOM* echoed in the distance, sending out a tremor that knocked me off balance. It was from the "better" part of town, E88 territory. I ran down the stairs to the basement.

'You would think the villains would wait a bit, but I guess that's to much to ask.'

I jumped into the seat in front of my computer. My two allies awaited me, ready for action.

"Are we going to battle, Taylor?" Evemus asked, her smile was calm and inviting.

Adamus just laughed at the question, he knew the answer, "Of course we are."

"I did not ask you," Evemus said calmly to Adamus.

Adamus released a nervous chuckle, I ignored it. There were more important things to take care at the moment.

They jumped out of the computer with an explosion of pixels. Expecting it, I didn't even bat an eye at the flash. My wheeled chair was sent spinning by the oncoming blast, but my improved reflexes allowed me catch my Scepter.

With a smile, I jumped off the chair and twirled with my Scepter, leaving the blue light trails as I did.

The lights of the pocket dimension filled my vision.

 

[Oddly Lionized]

Collision 3.1

The light faded as my transformation finished. I still haven't picked a name yet.

"I'm telling ya, Heart Judiciary would work."

But I didn't have time for that.

"Beloved, I still say Amor would be a better fit."

We needed to get out there, I still hear the sound of explosions in the distance.

"Maybe, Aphrodisia?"

....what?

"No, too close to perversion to be tasteful, those forums would write horrible comments on her. Hmm, maybe Corazon, or maybe simply L.U.V?"

Guys, we have a situation, worry about that later.

"No, Taylor. Proper cape decorum demands making a compatible yet unique name, that matches the masked persona of each individual hero or villain," Evemus stated imperiously, with a scrunched up expression of focus on her face. "It would be IMPROPER to even consider ignoring such obvious social etiquette to even allow that faux-pas to happen." The seriousness of her stringent words made me wonder, if she was really putting people's lives in danger just so I could look good.

With a sigh, Adamus thankfully took my side. "Look, Eve; I know ya love to be proper but, Tay really should be getting out there."

Evemus looked like she was going to argue, instead she just sighed and said, " Fine, but we will reject any name the public, Internet included, tries to label you as, no matter how accurate." I just nodded in agreement, I had to pick something sooner than later. I rather not be called 'Lovely Warrior of Love and Miracles, Heartlight,' like that void cowboy guy suggested.

Worst part was, most posters of that thread agreed with the name.

Winged_one was on my side, at least, it was just not, well, me.

"Alright, how close do ya want to be to the main action?" Adamus asked, with a nervous chuckle. I don't know when it happened, but Evemus seems to make him nervous lately.

"Don't worry, I and beloved just had a small disagreement," Evemus said with her, calm angry voice.

"Um," was all I could say, I'm still not used to having people in my mind.

"Heh, don't sweat it Taylor, we can work it out just fine," Adamus said, he was still a bit off, turning to Evemus. "Right, Eve?"

She nodded, her expression was still peeved. I wonder what exactly happened with them?

Oh well, they'll work it out. I still need to get out there.

"Activating spacial displacement," Evemus stated. "Awaiting proper coordinates."

"So where to: ABB or E88?" Adamus asked, trying to forget his earlier fear.

Which area would I do the most good? The entire town was in a state of panic. I needed to strike at the heart of the problem: the leadership. The heads of the gangs need to go. Besides, I'm sure the Protectorate and PRT can handle the public; it's what they're good at. I made my choice.

"Locate Lung."

Adamus smirked whilst Evemus simply stated, "locating recorded scent signature of Subject: Lung... Verified. Subject is currently in conflict with other unknown signatures. Extrenuous effects identified: Spacial Manipulation, Kinetic Manipulation in area; it appears our first foe is combating several parahumans, likely the Empire deviants, based on descriptors. Warning: Unknown factors present. Additional data needed."

Not a surprise, he was heading into Empire territory.

"And how do ya know that?" Adamus asked me, his tone wasn't a happy one.

'I...may have seen him on my jog.'

"....I'm going to have to make a storage device for myself, just to be there during yer danger prone moments aren't I?" His tone was flat and unsurprised.

"Don't you mean we?" Evemus asked sweetly, with narrowed eyes. Adamus went rigid, as he was cowed under her serene smile.

"Yes ma'am," answered Adamus' panicked shout.

....'teach me Evemus.'

As Adamus' cries of 'gyah' echoed in my mind, Evemus's serene smile of doom changed to a calm smile as she joyously answered my request. "Why of course, dear."

Adamus chose at that moment to intervene,"so how about two or four blocks from the Lung-Empire fight?"

"Ah, of course. We got off tangent," Evemus said, Adamus sighed in relief. We will have to start lessons after we dispatch those rapscallions."

Adamus whined at the reminder.

'I am going to enjoy this...'

He whined again for good measure.

"Standby for teleportation," Evemus announced with a slight grin, her fangs peeking out. Adamus groaned, as the swirl of colors took up my vision. There was a hiccup as the world around me came back to sight of a building.

*ROOOOOAAAAAR*

I look into the distance and see two identical blonde, tough looking babes, in Norse Valkyrie-style armor. One had a spear, the other held a shield and sword; they were both grim faced with burns, scratches, and blood covering their forms. They were also about twenty foot tall giants, facing an equally giant, fiery beast.

Lung.

I tensed to jump, until a loud over-enthused, female voice shouted, "Halt, my fellow hero of justice!"

In a poof of smoke a costumed, mouse ear wearing, woman with a cape appeared in front of me. I stared at one of the most well known, and hammiest, cape the Protectorate ever had or will ever have:

Mouse Protector.

She stood there, with her legs apart, hand on her hip, and another in a salute. She threw down her salute, with a grin on her face, while saying " I, Mouse Protector, Hero Extraordinaire, love that enthusiasm, but you're going to have to stay out of that fight."

I stare at her for a few seconds in silence before asking the all important question, "I should do that...why?"

She tilted her head for a few seconds mumbling, 'why', over and over again, rubbing her chin.

A tremor shook the area, as the sword wielding Valkyrie fell, with her sister lunging forward with her spear. Lung latched on to the spear, as he threw off a metallic wolf-shaped creature digging into his back. Projectiles of various sizes struck him, only for them to bounce off his armored scales.

I glanced at Mouse Protector. She blocked my path to the villain fight in progress.

I heard a woman's scream. The other giantess flailed to pat out the flames enshrouding her as she shrunk, courtesy of Lung. He still had her spear, laughing while stabbing down at someone, whom I can faintly hear shouting or screaming.

I struggled to tell which as Mouse Protector, who started pacing, acted like nothing was happening in the distance.

And it was pissing me off.

I frowned as Lung was roaring in victory, until he gave a cry of pain and grasped at his now bloodied eye. His response was to wreath everything in flames, flying into the air as he did. The heat melted the block further. That made me mad; I could have prevented that. I glared at the hero, trying her best to deter me.

"Well, you know, it's dangerous. Greenhorns like you need to pick your battles wisely," Mouse Protector finally answered, while Lung got knocked over by a swarm of small projectiles. Then a glint of a shining, luminescent woman, likely Purity, flew above the battleground. From her, large energy blasts flooded the block. I assumed they were hitting Lung from the roars of pain.

"Furthermore, it really is less risky than getting caught in the middle of, that," Mouse Protector said brightly. She gestured at Lung getting up, then punting the metal shaped wolf, known as Hookwolf, at Purity. Who dodged, still peppering him with blasts as he raged fire at her.

"So, how about instead of getting involved with that, we go start out saving some citizens, then joining in with the Protectorate to take down the winner," she proposed with a smiling, pointing a thumbs up at me.

I just continued to glare at her. I did care about the civilians, but why was she wasting time here and not out there with the others doing that? Actually, that is a good question.

'What is she doing here?'

My suspicion spiked at her being so nice to me. What was her real plan. Or rather, why is she the only one here speaking to me?

"So, how about it?" She asked, reaching for my free hand. I slapped it away from me. Maybe before I wouldn't be adversed to conversing with a hero. But now, with the revelation of Shadow Stalker, I won't be so naive about the heroes.

"I refuse," I stated coldly, she recoiled as I shoved past her.

Only for her to teleport in front of me again, this time with her arms crossed.

She wagged a finger at me saying,"now, now Miss Grumpypants, that was a bit uncalled for, especially if you want to join up with the Protectorate."

"Who said anything about joining you guys?" I stated, still cold. I jumped over her, stomping on my invisible platforms.

"Wait!" she shouted after me.

I jumped as high as I could, which in retrospect might have been a bad idea. Staring at everything at this position was scary. I stared down from on high, seeing people as if they were specks on the ground.

'Okay, we never tested this,' thinking at the two, who've been awfully silent.

'.....Guys?'

"Ah, right, sorry Taylor," Adamus answered.

I know I should've questioned their silence, but right now I just stared down at the roaring battle, still going strong.

'Get your heads in the game and help me get down from here,' I thought with urgency. Despite not having a fear of heights, being high enough that everything looked like dots wasn't comforting in any way.

"Gotcha, just jump forward and look pretty when yer ready," Adamus was strangely in a hurry. Evemus was quiet too. It was weird, but a gout of fire shot right under me, drawing my attention.

I leaped forward, instantly I felt the air rushing around my body as gravity took hold. Going head first, I resisted a yell of excitement. With my adrenaline pumping, I took aim at the large, fiery red dot. It grew larger as I descended, eventually showing me Lung's grotesque form.

I yelled in the the air, "Activating Temporal Reduction!"

Everything slowed to a crawl.

The Valkyries, whose names i still can't recall, rose somehow fully healed. The bright, white beam from Purity inched slowly in mid-air. The projectiles, swords, moved as if in syrup.

I glanced around.

I see the armored form of Kaiser, scratched, scuffed and sooty. Even like that, he was a imposing figure. The slow reforming metallic scrap that was Hookwolf. I didn't see any other members of E88, most likely it got too rough for the squishy non-brute ones.

As I landed at Lung's feet, I jumped up again. He had grown at least two and a half stories, maybe bordering at three. My right leg was wreathed in white, pink and golden flames. I spun, kicking Lung in the stomach at that instant the temporal reduction effect wore off. There was a boom, as Lung was sent flying back through several buildings.

When Purity's beam hit me, I expected to be sent flying. Instead the blast dispersed around me, in motes of white light mixing with my flames.

'What was that?' I thought at the two, still very silent, A.I. in my head.

"That's the energy disruption field we were working on, do you like?" The smile was heard in Evemus's voice.

'Oh, that's what you were up to and yes, I like,' I thought-spoke to her.

"Among other matters," she said sounding less enthused.

'Like wha'-"ya need to pay attention on the battlefield."

I landed, staff in hand, on my knees. Slowly I stood, flicking back my braids. Everyone stopped, staring at me in silence, enchanted by the glamour effect. Adamus's interruption aside, he was right.

I heard a growl.

I turned to stare at Lung, the very first cape I fought. He glared at me with vitriol for a few seconds, then his face scrunched up with confusion. I think it's confusion; somewhere along the line he got two sets of eyes, chins, arms, and large wings. Then his mouth started parting, almost like he was in awe. His right eye...uh, eyes started twitching as he stood up with his three pairs of legs.

I tensed for action, he jumped, flapping his wings, which really shouldn't be able to carry him, given his massive form. Then he started flying in the....opposite direction?

"Hey!" I shouted at his retreating form, as Purity started chasing after him.

'What the heck was that?'

A slow clap caught my attention

I turned around to see the Empire capes in the area, assembled around their leader.

"Well, it seems like the chink is scared of you, hebe," Kaiser announced in a tone of superiority. A throne of blades formed behind him. His posse stalked up beside him, his Valkyries flanked him on both sides. The others stared down at me, smirking. I took offense to that smug 'I'm better than you' attitude.

A grimace appeared on my face.

Heb; a derogatory term used against those of Hebraic descent. Part of the reason Adamus chose Kabballah as the prime inspiration for my powers was to attract enmity with the Empire. The other was because of the mathematical usage of the symbols was appealing to him.

"Now, what should we do with you?" Kaiser asked, as his entourage stared at me. Taking a seat on the throne, he crossed his arms. His beaten, but the still moving capes chuckled.

I heard the sound of wind moving, I glanced at the intact alley. I see a shirtless, muscular man wearing loose fitting pants and a tiger mask. Flanking him was a woman with a birdcage as a mask, a leotard and carrying a metal bat. I glanced to the right and see two familiar capes that should still be in prison: Rune and Krieg stared intently at me. Obviously they wanted vengeance.

I stared at the leader, who lounged on his newly formed throne. The others looked less tense, they were treating me like a lesser threat. It was obvious what these people thought about me, it was one specific thing.

'We can take her.'

The grip on my staff tightened, they thought I wasn't a challenge...

"Taylor, yer letting yer anger get to ya again."

"I suppose defeating the Nazi scum takes precedence over yakuza bosses. I wonder why these mongrels, who oppose the American way, have been allowed to thrive for so long in this city?" Evemus had asked a good question. Why was an overtly violent Nazi group allowed to last more than a decade on American soil?

"Endbringer fodder," Adamus answered.

'They're a violent organization, trying to subvert years of progress in equal rights for all, with a an antiquated, outdated mindset about race superiority. It would attract more people to the side of the heroes if they actually took care of these race-hating, equality-challenged psychopaths.'

"....Wow," Adamus muttered. "Taking this a little personal, aren't ya?"

'This is just proof that the Protectorate has no clue what they're doing. If they actually proved they were effective at defending the cities from villians, they'd have more people to work with. But no, they let villains break out of jail for the possibility of them joining a Endbringer fight. Not even getting promises or drafting binding contracts to make them join. No, instead of using every thinker they got on hand to improve the system to that point, they let everything decay, from allowing these degenerates to slowly take things over.'

"Even if the heroes suck kiddo, being outnumbered three to one makes things a hell of a lot harder, especially the villains integrated in government powers," Adamus said in response to my ranting.

"As much as conversing about the usefulness or uselessness of the current system amuses me, we still have these aggressive persons to remove from our path," Evemus reminded me.

Kaiser was still talking to me, "...and thus by right of our superior ancestry, you shall surrender your services to us, as the lowly trash you are."

....Was he just bantering to me, oops. Well, not like it was anything important. After all, they were just villains I'm going to capture.

"Just some speech about why you should give in to him, oh he just asked for your response," Adamus told me.

"Taylor, give them the most appropriate response," Evemus said, her eyes glittered dangerously and Adamus chuckled darkly.

I agreed.

I put my hand to my lips, the formulae in my mind. Then blew out a kiss, a shining pink light left my lips. They tensed for combat, but it was too late. The tip of the Queen's crown on the cross-head of my staff touched the light. Hookwolf sprang towards me, the twins guarded their master, concentrated blasts of air came from my left, debris flying at me from my right, and swords forming up from the ground. Smirking, I jumped into the air, over all their assault. I lifted my cross staff and shout, "Heart Bombarda."

Light blasted down at every enemy cape in the vicinity, knocking all of them back.

Landing in a crouch as they try to recover from their falls. I looked up and slowly stood, staring at my enemies.

They glared, yet i just smirked and gestured for them to come at me.

With a shriek of grinding metal, Hookwolf sent a claw of blades at me. Focusing some energy into my feet, I stomped on the approaching limb, not a scratch on my heels. A pinkish hue appeared around his form as I focused the energy to have a adhesive effect. I slowly lifted him up, raising the leg he was stuck to up in the air.

I soaked in the incredulous stares of my opponents. Then I jumped off the ground, Hookwolf 's form still stuck to my heel. In the air, I spun him at Kaiser's direction, releasing the energy sticking him to my heel.

There was a whine of metal as Hookwolf flew towards Kaiser.

I think this will be fun.

 

[Oddly Lionized]

Collision 3.2

A loud *clang* echoed in the distance as the sword wielding Valkyrie blocked my projectile.

Kaiser didn't look pleased at my response.

"Hmph, a man who has the ego to call himself emperor is deserving of a grand humbling. Do you not agree Taylor?" Evemus asked. Her tone was cool and calm, but Taylor knew she was out for blood.

...Why were all her E.A.I.Ms sadistic?

"I believe you should ask yourself that question," Evemus answered sweetly.

Uh, sorry?

"We will speak later, activating temporal reduction," Evemus said, her promise made my stomach drop. A lecture in minding my thoughts and words were in my future.

"Also your usage of swears," Evemus added kindly.

"Battle in progress, focus," Adamus stated placidly.

I noticed Krieg closing in on me with a cloud of rubble that encircled around him. Cricket somersaulted with her bat full of nails in hand. She was dodging something, I looked over to her partner in crime. Stormtiger was lashing out with his hand, he's a known aerokinetic. His blades of air were obviously the issue.

I looked up and saw Rune floating on a piece of rubble.

From my back I saw two men jump down from a building close by. The first had pure white skin, with just as equally white hair. The other had wore a breastplate and a mask.

"Alabaster and Victor. Othala is probably hiding somewhere close by," Adamus muttered. Othala was their healer, only idiots would leave their healer out into the open to get taken out.

"I suspect that fighting Lung was too heavy a gambit for her to be risked," Evemus speculated.

'I guess so.'

I glanced to my side and see my aggressors closing in on me. I looked to Rune and decided on my first target. I jumped into the air at the still slowed cape floating on a piece of concrete. I decided to mess with her a bit. I jumped onto her platform and get into her face as I canceled the temporal effect shouting, "Hi!!"

She gave out a yelp and redirected her marked debris at me. Tendrils of rocks, glass, and metal from destroyed buildings, street signs, sidewalks, and roads converged towards me.

"You're going to learn some respect,you bi-," Rune was cut off as the temporal reduction effect was initiated again.

Then everything slowed to a crawl again. I positioned myself behind her and put my staff at her head.

I said one word. "Sűeño."

The temporal effect wore off as an aura of pink energy hit Rune. She crumpled and I had to grab her from falling twenty feet in the air. Feeling a sense of déjà vu, I held onto her hood and watched the still fast moving debris headed conveniently towards her teammates. It had nothing to do with the fact that I stood at their general direction.

"Using your enemies strength against them in combat is a key talent to foster," Evemus said.

There was pride in her voice, I smiled because of that.

I aimed my staff in their direction and readied another Sūeño their way.

"Dodge!!" Adamus exclaimed.

I dropped down from the air and heard a large object speed past me. It wouldn't hurt me, but I still didn't like the idea of being hit. I spared a look at Kaiser and saw blades protruding from his feet. I glared his way, I noticed the Valkyries were missing. That mean good things weren't in my future. If Kaiser sent them off it meant he was planning some sort of strategy.

"Already searching, they are currently in the vicinity of another person about twenty feet southwest," Evemus announced.

"Probably that Othala woman," Adamus growled. I see, invincible giants is what he wanted to stand against me. Well, it wouldn't matter, I just needed to take them all out.

I land on the road with my heel making a soft tap. I dropped the sleeping Rune and walked toward Stormtiger.

"Ya are really gonna do that?" Adamus asked. His flat tone making his opinion on what I'm going to known.

"I suppose it would prove a point of why not to fight you," Evemus said with a shrug.

I held my cool as I calmly walked to Stormtiger's direction.

An explosion echoed in the distance causing me to pause.

I felt something collide with the back of my head. I didn't feel a thing as the force made me stumble forward I spun lashing out with my staff. Cricket dodged flipping backwards as I did. I tried a round house kick at her face but she ducked under my leg.

She went past my guard brought her bat up and slammed it on my chin. I jumped back, but she followed swinging her bat to my face. I blocked with my staff and heard the grinding metal of Hookwolf nearby. I pushed back, flinging her through the air from my rebuke. But she regained her balance mid-air and one handed back flipped away from me.

I was then knocked off my feet to the side by a gust of concentrated air. I gritted my teeth I try to stand only to feel the pressure of ton of metal fall on me.

"It seems that you will have to learn of our superiority through pain, hebe," Kaiser announced.

My eyes narrowed, this man doesn't seem to get that this fight was far from over.

I focused my energy around my body and pushed outward. The effects were instant, an explosion of pink, white and red threw Hookwolf off into the air. But I miscalculated the amount. I stood still, shining brightly to the point I couldn't see. Energy shot out engulfing the entire block in with immense destructive forces. I heard yelps of surprise and yells of pain.

"Shutting off, shutting off!!" Adamus yelled.

"Taylor, you know not giving us ample influence can result in effects and events of catastrophic proportions," Evemus shouted.

I let myself lash out without my usual self control, this is just a fraction of the minimum I could do without paying attention. The light cut off and it looked like a tornado struck. Majority of the buildings were rubble, the streets and sidewalks were torn up. I noticed that Cricket was down, Stormtiger was in the rubble of some building, the metallic form of Hookwolf was moving in shifting metal, Alabaster was downed, and Victor was leaning on a wall.

"We were able to keep the damage from being lethal; we also managed to inflict a Sűeño effect on most of them," Evemus explained. It would explain how Rune wasn't a stain on the wall and Krieg was hanging out of a window.

I heard a groan, near a broken down building Kaiser shakily stood.

"End it," Adamus said.

'Did you change the activation sequence?' I thought at him.

"No," he answered sounding annoyed.

'Adamus,' I grounded out.

"Our apologies Taylor, but these sequences are permanent," Evemus stated.

'What?!' I mentally exclaimed.

Kaiser stood, bloodied, with several hundred blades poking out of the ground around him.

"You shall not...." I stopped paying attention to him.

'Activate the time reduction effect.'

"Tay-"

'-Now!!'

With a sigh Adamus activated the effect, the rising blades slowed as and Kaiser's worthless yelling became drone out by my thoughts.

'Explanation, now.'

"Taylor, think about it, for a sec, do ya really think I can change the code without having to start from scratch?" Adamus asked.

'Can't you?' I asked.

"Taylor, the activation sequence is the central core of the code in every formulae. Io change the sequence would mean changing the entire formulae from scratch," Evemus explained. I felt a headache coming, but I stifled it and thought, 'Is there any chance you can have it ready in the next three minutes?'

There was a pause of silence, then there was sound of growling. Evemus shifted away from Adamus, I couldn't help the nervous feeling I was getting.

Adamus spoke slowly and calmly with the undertone of rage under his voice, "A formula on the same level as the miracle kiss formulae took me weeks to finish because of the omnipotent dimensional mathematical code is a nigh infinite sphere of dimensional control. It took me seven days just to remove the lethality of, so it produces a mental shock strong enough to knock out any cape, while also immediately canceling out other powers without vaporizing a target."

I think I struck a very deep nerve just now.

"Oh, I'm not even done yet. Did ya know that those pretty color I slaved in adding was just the excess of energy you produced, it took me an a full two weeks to get the flow right, so it wouldn't bleed out of the pocket dimensions barrier. Do you know how much destruction that would have caused?" He was smiling as he asked, I could visualize his feral visage. It was not a nice sight.

"Three block radius of death and destruction averted, but do I get any thanks? No just whining of how 'it's embarrassing'," Adamus tried a girly voice, it was not a good fit.

I wanted to apologize, but keeping my mouth shut just seemed the best option at the moment .

"Do ya know how hard it was, not to just to get that stasis field in the right place, just so whatever ya were pointing at isn't vaporized by the surrounding streams of untamed volatile strands of power? But no, all I keep getting for all my help is ya whining over how ya feel about it," Adamus grounded it, making me feel bad.

Now that i thought about it, I never really gave Adamus a word of gratitude did I?

Heck, never even thanked him for the costume too.

"Yeah, ya never did," he grumbled, sulking in anger.

Evemus was now glaring at me, making my guilt even deeper. I really have been acting a little spoiled brat when it came to him.

Adamus sighed. "It's fine, spoiling ya is-"

"The bloody hell it is!" Evemus swore, making me and Adamus stare wide eyed.

'Uh-'

"-you be silent!" She snapped at me, scaring me more than Adamus did.

"Spoiling? Taking someone Important to you for granted? What in this gosh, darn world have you two been thinking of the other!!!?" Evemus yelled. Evemus was yelling at us, she isn't the type to yell, this was bad. "Bad? I shall show you how ill the situation truly is, as I discipline the both of you for your continued indiscretions towards the other," she ranted.

I wisely kept my thoughts from making my day bleaker than it will be.

"Now, Taylor," I stood at attention, Evemus was scarier than I thought, "You will use the formula that beloved had slaved over for your benefit on Kaiser. Am I clear young lady?" She demanded with frightening authority.

"Yes ma'am!" I exclaimed out loud.

Evemus acted oddly like mom did when she had to rein me in.

It was...comforting?

I'm not sure how to feel about it, but I stuffed those feelings down. I had a job to do.

I focused on the still slow moving villain, whose blades were flying towards me.

Together as the effect ended and the blades flying towards my at frightening speeds. I, Evemus and Adamus together yelled, "Paradise View Initialized."

The scene faded to black.

There I promised myself, I won't take anyone I love for granted anymore.

 

[Oddly Lionized]

Collision 3.3

I jumped through the air, spinning my staff then slamming the butt of the staff to the floor. Next, I held it up in the air in front me with both hands; swirls of colors of pink, blue and white coalesced around me. Kaiser stood straight across from me, straining his neck around trying to move. He panicked at the realization that he was frozen in place. .

I spun my staff one handed, then flipped as I blew a kiss in the air causing a pink heart to appear. Kaiser started yelling at me, but strangely I couldn't hear him. Most likely he was cursing my very existence at the moment.

I giggled and spun into the air, whipping my braids. I grasped the heart with my free hand. I land shouting,

"True....Loves...."

I threw the heart up into the air as it erupted into bright sparkling shiny pink light.

"......Miracle...."

I lift up the staff as Hebrew lettering surrounded the crown as the light entered it. With a smile I slammed the butt of the staff onto the floor as I yelled,

".....KIIIÌIIISSSSS!!!"

A multicolored sparkling magenta enormous blast emanating various multicolored stars, hearts, and crosses racing towards Kaiser from the center point of the cross intersection of my staff.

"I will have vengeance for this you dirty hebe!!" Kaiser screamed in pure hatred as he was overtaken by the blast. I didn't know why, but the sound of a gang leader shouting in disbelief as they're defeated by me fills me with such satisfaction.

White covered my vision...

Reality slowly blurred back into the destroyed block. I glanced at the villains, still knocked out from my mistake. Smoking a little ways away from where I stood was Kaiser.

"Oi, Eve, what's wrong!?" Asked Adamus frantically.

What?

"Taylor, get to Kaiser now!!" Evemus exclaimed.

I dashed forward, but as I did a figure wearing a oriental demon mask, a vest full of objects that looked like grenades, and a skintight suit appeared above Kaiser. With sword in hand he stabbed Kaiser through the throat. I felt bile rise to my mouth before swallowing it back down. The figure pulled the a pin on his vest then fell on Kaiser.

"Jump back!!" Adamus shouted, I did as he said and put up my staff defensively.

Kaiser most likely died. I stared forward at the still burning corpse. I didn't think that fire from a grenade would burn like that.

I glanced around, I recognized the assassin. Oni Lee, the only other cape with the ABB. A killer that left copies of himself as he teleported with a few seconds of movement. He used terror and scare tactics to attack his opponents, then try to kill him with knives or swords.

"Increasing defensive capacities," exclaimed Evemus.

Even if I can't get pierced by bullets or knives, I could still break a bones if I land the wrong way. A snapped neck was not my preferred way to go. A demon mask took up my vision, my eyes widened as I diverted a stab with my staff. I spun away as Adamus yelled, "360° staff spin!"

I swung my staff in a wide circle, I saw the six Oni Lee that appeared circling me go flying through the air.

I dug my feet to the ground, I noticed the pins removed from his grenades. "Activating Exterior Force Transference Barrier," Evemus announced, a pink sheen covered my body for a second before it faded away. The Lee's exploded in fire and shrapnel that bounced off of me. The barrier had done it's job. It was designed to absorb outside energy into potential energy, then into love energy for me to use.

"Strike a pose of nonchalance to demoralize the opposition," Evemus ordered.

I complied and stood holding my staff and hand on my hip.

"Hm," was all Evemus said in a clearly unimpressed tone.

"Eve, you know Taylor is always tense. Besides it works, right?" Adamus asked, trying to get Evemus to lower her standards. She made a noncommittal noise of acceptance. I wondered if this was how a beauty pageant contestant felt.

I shook myself from those thoughts, I needed to focus. As smoke dissipated around me, I kept up my guard. Oni Lee was nowhere to be seen.

'Can you calculate the next time he teleports?' I asked.

"Already on it," Adamus shouted, it sounded like he was enjoying himself.

"There is a .0005 second discrepancy when he jumps, " Evemus observed, "Tracing next jump with a automatic temporal reduction."

"On standby for the next assault, Tay, on our signal," Adamus said. I paused still waiting for the signal.

I trusted Adamus and Evemus to steer me in the right direction. I stayed still, I held my staff at the ready. I breathed through my nose slowly. I needed to keep my cool, I can't let panic take me. My brow and eyes narrowed at the silence.

"Wide right!" Adamus exclaimed, I swung my staff to the side.

I heard a barely audible yelp of pain and a loud crack. Oni Lee flew from my hit and bounced off the torn up street into a wall, the impact left a wide crack. Oni Lee slumped in a heap not moving, I breathed a sigh of relief at his unconscious form.

I hope he was just knocked out; a dead man, no matter the reason, would be bad for me to deal with.

"He's still breathing, but there seems to be internal bleeding we should take care of," Evemus announced. I pause wondering if I heard that right.

'What do you mean, 'We should take care of'? Do you mean we can actually fix him?

"Yes, we have been working on a method of healing stabbings, gashes, broken bones, even a way to close opened arteries," Evemus explained as I walked to Oni Lee. Wow, sooner or later we could be on the level of Panacea. "Yes, we have been researching the removal of foreign objects out of human beings, such as poisons, growths, and of course various forms of sickness," Evemus continued, sounding sure of herself.

Still in the temporal reduction effect, I reached Lee and stare at his broken form.

Bile rose to my throat again; his arm was bent the wrong way. There was blood caking his head through his mask, his breath was shallow, and he wasn't unconscious from the hitching chokes came from his mouth.

I kept a frown on my face, trying not to sob at the sight of Oni Lee. I knew cape fights weren't clean and both sides got injured on a regular basis. But this was like something from a badly done gory horror movie.

"Whenever yer ready Taylor," Adamus offered quietly.

I nodded, the activation code ran through my head. I put the cross of my staff over his form as we said in solemn unity, "Milagrõ."

White feathers danced around me, glowing a soft gold as pink lights sparkled off of them. They floated gently to Oni Lee settling on his still form. A white glow covered him, encompassing his form. I watched as his arm aligned itself, he breathed a sigh of relief. It must have been enjoyable because he was chuckling. I tilted my head at a word he kept mumbling.

"Cheonsa..."

The glow slowly faded away, leaving a slumped and unmoving Lee. He was breathing slowly, with a sigh of relief I turned and walked away. I heard a familiar grinding of metal heading my way. Time slowed down to a crawl again. To my right Hookwolf was aiming his claws not at me, but at Oni Lee. Gritting my teeth I dashed for Lee, threw him over my shoulder and jumped away.

My eyes narrowed at him; he probably wanted revenge for his boss. After feeling like I found safe place, I set down Oni Lee and stared at Hookwolf who had barely turned to the direction I had taken Lee. I needed to take care of him, fast. I landed on one of the few surviving buildings in the area.

'Is this place stable enough?'

"Yeah, but what do ya want to do now?" Adamus asked.

'Good question...'

The truth is, I flew in there without a plan. I was still angry at the Shadow Stalker thing, but meeting with Mouse Protector and her telling me I couldn't handle it. It pushed me into a rage and I just waltzed right into the fray of things without a second thought.

"Hey quit beating yer self up about," Adamus said in a sympathetic tone. "You're a teenager. Unbridled angst and anger is a big part of that time of life."

'Still doesn't make the dumb moves and choices I made right,' I thought bitterly. Kaiser was dead and I had set up the events that made it happen. The smell of burnt flesh was not a pleasant aroma, the flames were still eating at Kaiser's corpse from what I could see. Oh, it appears the Valkyries are back with a woman in a red costume and mask. They mourned at Kaiser's still cremating corpse.

"Taylor, do not take the blame on by yourself. Oni Lee had made the decision to kill Kaiser. You simply were trying to stop him. The guilty party here is Oni Lee for the murder of the late leader of E88," Evemus stated.

I looked back where I set Oni Lee against a wall, staring at him for a few seconds. I made a decision and all Lee did was use that to his advantage. I felt my grip my staff tightly at the thought, the crumpled form that was Oni Lee flashed through my thoughts. I turned to Hookwolf's direction, he just started taking a step towards my direction.

I shoved my feelings down and jumped towards my next battle.

I hoped there won't be anymore lose today.

 

[Oddly Lionized]

Collision 3.4

Hookwolf was the Empire's source of caged fights and dog fighting pits. He was rumored to make people fight to the death. From what I understood, it was most likely a ploy to force a trigger event out of people. PHO kept treating him like he's a honorable man, but from what I had seen he was just another thug that needed to be taken down.

I stepped to the sky, the edge of my vision blurred as I narrowed in on the metal monstrosity of a man.

I lifted my staff and shouted, "Repent Gavel."

The temporal effect shattered as I smashed the hammer's head to his, further destroying the already upturned road. I landed a second later to his right and heard the grating sound iron scraping against itself. I had swung the hammer down on his side when an idea hit me; I ran it with Evemus and Adamus.

"Sounds doable. Yer gonna need to make sure to keep up though," Adamus commented.

"Yes, that is a creative and fitting manner to remove the trash from our path," Evemus answered with no small amount of enthusiasm.

Time slowed once again as I swung the gavel at his front with enough strength for his form collapse in on itself. time resumed and at the point where I hit, a white plane of energy kept the metal in place.

Time slowed again. This time, I swung the hammer at the back of him. Time resumed as another plane of energy appeared there as well. Next, I kicked him into the air and jumped after him. Time slowed to a crawl once again and I swung the hammer at Hookwolf's feet, smashing them and his legs into his body. A plane of white energy appeared once again, connecting to the other planes.

I landed on air and a voice started shouting at me, but was cut off as time slowed down again. I'll ignore it for now. I repeated my efforts for his left and right sides, dual planes of energy appearing beside him.

I spun in the air and smashed my gavel on top of him. A final plane of energy appeared above, completing my plan. Time resumed and the rectangular energy field containing Hookwolf fell to the ground. I landed right beside him and turned to the Valkyries, whose names I still couldn't remember.

"Menja and Fenja," Evemus reminded.

'How do I tell them apart?'

"Sorry Tay, but we just skimmed through their info page. We didn't bother learning how to differentiate between them,"Adamus added with a shrug.

'We really just focused on the most important members, didn't we?'

"Hmph. For giantesses, they really do fall into the background in importance," Evemus observed.

"They are - er, were Kaiser's bodyguards. Makes ya wonder what they were leaving their boss alone for," Adamus said in response to Evemus.

"Oh, the reason for this is quite clear," Evemus started. "He thought that Taylor would be a simple conquest. Hubris is a folly the wise avoid. Kaiser's lack of wisdom was his undoing." Evemus stared intently at me as she said, "Taylor, you are never to fall into mental traps. Am I understood?"

'Yeah,' I answered. Never indulge in my own persona.

"Taylor, to have a persona you need a name," Evemus said, her tone was severe.

"Still got, oh, three more villains to take out," Adamus thankfully interjected.

Good because-

*CLANK*

I stumbled back from the force of the bullet that hit my personal shield, right around my head.

'What the heck was that?'

"A sniper round," Adamus growled.

"Locating, attacker." Evemus said. "20° from facing position, forty feet ahead. Target locked."

I understood what that meant and put a hand to my lips. I heard another bullet ricochet off my shield, I blew a kiss with a shining light coming out of my lips into the palm of my hand.

"Heart Bombarda!" I shouted as I threw the light into the air.

The light curved in the air towards Evemus' target. I turned to the remaining three villains, still near the bonfire of Kaiser's corpse, as a yell of pain mixed with an explosion echoed in the distance behind me.

Menja and Fenja, still couldn't tell the two apart, stood stone faced. Their compatriot, Othala, stood there in a defensive position. They didn't look like they were going to surrender. If anything, their resolved stances meant one thing:

They wanted go down fighting.

And I was happy to oblige.

I walked calmly to them, Othala grabbed their shoulders and stood back. They walked to me slowly growing with their weapons at the ready. Our walk slowly grew faster, then into a jog, and finally we were sprinting towards each other.

The now two story giant with a sword leaped into the air, swinging her sword down at me.

"Equating level of force, strength, and momentum. Taylor, parry each blow," Evemus ordered.

My staff sliced through the air, the sound of metal being hammered filled my ears. The sword was knocked into a building, barely held in the sportswoman's hands. She gritted her teeth as she tightened her grip on the blade. She raised her foot to stomp me flat and energy flowed into my right leg in response. I countered the stomp with a high kick and a white shock wave ripped through the area; glass shattered around us as the Valkyrie flew back into a building.

As the building crumpled under her weight, the other Valkyrie came up from behind her sister and thrust her spear at me. Energy focused into the cross head of my staff, the Hebrew lettering glowing white. I brought up my staff to the point of the spear.

The spear bounced off of the cross, sending the giantess sliding back. She fell to her knees and her sister recovered from her own fall. Together they stood, eyes glaring down at me, their weapons at the ready.

"Fire in the hole!!!"

I heard a woman's voice, then I see a dark object flying between the twins.

I stared until Adamus shouted, "Activating Temporal Reduction Effect!!"

Time slowed to a crawl around me.

'Wha-...?'

"Move back, Taylor," Evemus urged.

I jumped away, not taking my eyes of the two giants.

Time resumed it's flow as the dark object exploded. I stared on, wondering if what I was looking was real as a black hole appeared between the twins. I felt the vacuum and grounded my heels into the ground at the force of the wind. I was away from the worst of it, but the giantesses weren't so fortunate.

They pulled away from the explosion, but when the suction started the sword welders arm was drawn in.

"IIIIHHHHGAAAAAHAAAHHH!" the scream that echoed out as her arm was ripped out of its socket in flesh, blood, and viscera. The other yelled for her sister, but slipped and her left leg was drawn into the hole, that thankfully dispersed.

All the while, I forced the vomit back down my throat. Seeing that was disgusting and wrong on so many levels

Othala sprinted to downed teammates and I heard a thumping sound as another dark bomb flew over head towards Othala.

'Adamus! Evemus!' I shouted in my mind as I started moving forward. Time slowed, almost freezing, as I dashed past the bomb, and grabbed onto Othala. Time resumed for a second but stopped as the weight of Othala fell on my shoulders and. I went to the twin with one leg. Some time before the other bomb was fired at Othala, the giant twins had shrunk down and were bleeding out.

Time resumed and I dropped Othala near the twin, whom she immediately started healing, even as she was glaring at me in suspicion.

I heard another explosion behind me. I glanced at the torrent of flame erupted from the bomb that would have caught Othala into another Kaiser.

I turned to look at the sicko who had fired off those things. I didn't expect to see a gathering group of Asians with a woman wearing a gas mask standing in front of them.

I gave her a hard look, but she just seemed to stare at me for a few second before laughing loudly.

I felt my nostrils flare in rage. She dared to laugh at me!? I at least was already a hit on the net, I haven't even heard of her.

"What did I say about pride?" Evemus growled.

Right, letting that go, I'm really getting a big head because of PHO'S praise.

"Well, already had seventy-two pages on your th-"

"Don't you dare rationalize her behavior, Adamus!" Evemus interrupted, Adamus shut his snout with a 'gurk.'

I just kept staring as the loon cackling in front the crowd of frightened people holding various weapons.

Those people didn't look like gangsters, they looked like scared civilians. Sure, some were wearing the colors of ABB, but most looked like normal people you'd walk by on the street.

"Oi, witch bitch," the woman in the gas mask shouted at me.

I just walked towards her calmly, I didn't care what she had to say. Anyone who'd do what she just did to Menja, Fenja, and was about to do to Othala, needed to be taken down.

And I was just the girl for the job.

"I'd stop if I were you," she announced, clapping her hands a few of the people in the crowed jumped. I raised a brow at her as I continued my walk towards.

"Taylor, stop." Evemus ordered, her voice was deadly serious right now.

I scrunched my brows in confusion, I stopped and tilted my head at her.

'Why am I stopping right now Evemus?' I asked.

I knew it had something to do with the people around her. Living in the Docks, you had a tendency to notice who was a gang member, a crack dealer, and just an obvious criminal or dirt bag. The people here, well, most of them just seemed normal.

"Heh, it looked like the woman stupid enough to be a 'Mahou Shoujo' can at least read the atmosphere," the masked bomb maniac chortled. She turned to a guy around my age and said in a false friendly voice, "Aren't you glad Park Jihoo? You aren't going to be the prime example of what would have happened if the dumb broad hadn't stopped."

The grip on my staff tightened at the insult.

The maniac stared at the guy who looked like he was about to piss his pants. "Well, aren't you grateful?" She asked the boy with a threatening undertone. His face suddenly became a mask of terror. Everyone around him tensed at her voice, though some just had this look of resignation on their faces.

A look I had seen in the mirror whenever I had a bad day with the trio's 'fun.'

I hated that look and seeing someone look like that was infuriating.

"Y-yes," he answered glancing, at me then back at back to the masked woman.

"Yes, what?" The woman asked.

The boy just bowed and shouted "Yes, I am grateful Bakuda for you telling her to stop!"

Bakuda, I heard the name on PHO before. A crazed tinker that had taken her University hostage. The real question was what the hell was she doing here?

"Taylor, whatever ya do, don't move from this spot until we say so,"Adamus said with severity in his voice.

'Why?' I asked the boy Jihoo was congratulated by Bakuda as if he were a dog.

"There is a bomb implanted in each person with her, Taylor," Evemus answered with narrowed eyes as my own widened in revelation.

"She's insane," I murmured out loud, drawing the deranged bomber away from the boy she was picking on.

"Hm, what was that, meat?" She asked, I gritted my teeth at her. She was treating this like a game and it pissed me off!

"Taylor, we're currently blocking her signal, but we believe the best course of action would be to teleport the bombs out of the victims heads," Evemus explained.

The bomber was putting her hands on her hips and the crowd was looking more nervous now.

"Need a few more seconds ta crunch the numbers Tay, keep the freak talkin'." Adamus grunted in effort.

I stared at the woman in front of me.

"Well?" she said, gesturing at me to continue. I could have sworn I felt the smugness coming off of her.

"You...are insane," I stated in the flattest voice I could manage. I had to be as scrupulous as I could manage, as to not give my awareness of the situation at hand away.

"I'm being called insane by you?" Bakuda asked pointing at me.

Her voice was full of disbelief, it was like she couldn't believe that those words left my mouth.

I just raised a brow at her and said, "What great things have you done? Oh yeah, you kept your AlmaA MMater hostage, right?"

"And what does that have to do with anything?" She actually sounded angry at my question.

'Time?' I asked Evemus and Adamus.

"Thirty more seconds needed," they answered in unison.

Okay, I just a few more quips and we had this batty bomber pegged.

"What caused that, hm?" I asked, I was a little curious as to what made her lose it at it her school.

"Hmph, some people don't know true genius when they see it," Bakuda's self important tone spoke of a very vain personality. "Not like it matters. Those peons couldn''t recognize my true potential ." Some people in her crowd of victims were giving me pleading stares to stop talking.

"Oh, is that so?" I asked as I felt lines of energy spread through each person in the crowd.

"Yeah, like you . A stupid childish woman acting like a school girl with her powers," her voice spoke of anger and pride, a volatile combination. "Instead of using your full potential to spread fear...to control your own destiny, you act like a moronic gestapo, flaunting yourself like a prostitute to get the boys. You must be desperate for a good f**king, if you keep acting so cutesy like that at your age."

I wanted to hurt her for that, but I kept my cool and just frowned in disapproval.

"Really, this coming from a girl dumb enough..." She growled at me, I think she might have taken lessons from Lung. "...to make her debut as a parahuman by taking her university hostage and then there's what your doing now."

'Ready?'

"Whenever ya need it." I could hear the smile in Adamus's voice.

"All is ready, now remember to gain adequate satisfaction when you crush her under your heel," Evemus said sweetly. She hadn't forgotten what Bakuda said to me and neither have I.

"You," Bakuda grounded out in boiling rage.

"Putting bombs inside the heads of civilians will get you Birdcaged," I said viciously.

The crowd blinked at realization at what I said.

'Now!!'

"Spacial Displacement," echoed through my mind as I raised my staff a golden glow sparked through the crowed where the bombs were located. Bakuda took notice of the lights, but it was far too late. I swung my staff a pink orb appeared over me as the bombs were transferred into there.

"And there, all inerti now," Adamus preened.

I smirked at Bakuda who was taking in the sight of her work being trampled on.

"Run!" I shouted with a smile to the crowed.

The boy, Park Jihoo got it first and shouted something in Korean and soon they all were running away from Bakuda. Said cape just turned and started yelling threats at the group, but most just paused before running off. She took something, a launcher of some kind from the ground and aimed at the crowd.

'Increase the glamour on me a bit,' I thought quickly slamming my staff through the asphalt loud enough to catch Bakuda's attention.

Instantly, I had her full attention now, my staff stuck in the ground. I smirked, I heard her shout in frustration as she aimed her weapon at me.

"Activating External Force Shunting Field, Effect Maxima ," Evemus and Adamus shouted simultaneously in vicious enjoyment.

I walked calmly with a smile.

"You petulant bitch!!" Bakuda screeched at me firing her first bomb at me.

It exploded at my face, it was a bomb with cryogenic effects. I could hear the mad cackle that Bakuda let out. The ice shattered as I moved through it, I could hear her scream of disbelief. Her next bomb was a black hole bomb, the same that crippled Fenja and Menja. I walked the through the black spot in my way.

"F**king bullshit!!" echoed from my opponent as the black hole disbursed to nothingness around my form in rippling streams of black .

The smile stayed glued to my face, I kept up the pace and kept going.

"No, NO!!" Bakuda kept shouting as she depressed her trigger once more. This time everything around me froze slowly as time stopped around me, but I was unaffected by the effect. Bakuda seemed to be going into hysterics. She kept trying to fire more from the now empty weapon, obviously the glamour and her currently dying ego was driving her mad.

She kept hitting the trigger even as I stood in front of her.

I had enough and slapped the weapon out of her hand. She shrieked like a little girl taking a step back away from me as I towered over her. I wasn't going to let her get away from me now, I grabbed the collar of her costume.

'Quippy one liner?' I asked, as I lifted a squirming Bakuda into the air.

"Honey, it does not matter what you say after what we just accomplished," Evemus stated greatly amused and Adamus laughed joyously.

I her brought her face to mine still smiling as she kicked, hollered, and cursed a storm at me.

"You may be intelligent Bakuda, but you lack something more important," I started.

Her voice quivered as she asked, "L-Like what?"

I brought her face closer to mine, her breath hitched, ", Wisdom."

I reared my head back and headbutted her, the 'kyah' made me satisfied as she became limp in my grasp.

I dropped her on the ground and went back to my staff. I dislodged it from the ground with minimal effort, feeling good.

And then I looked to the Protectorate and Wards team just gaping at me.

I froze and stared back; and here I am in the afterglow of my victory.

I must look like a mess.

 

[Fencer]

XD ahahahahahahah oh fuck mothering hells yes!

kaiser dead, hookwolf down and hopefully foamed, lee down and hopefully foamed, Bakuda down and not getting away. One wonder twin dead, rune down, probably victor down. A good number of the rest of the empire down unless someone evacuated them which, cape fight, minions not likely present.

Girl just demolished two gangs single handed almost! Seriously what was Mouse Protector even doing earlier trying to stop her? But man this kind of mass update? You're spoiling us! Not that I'm complaining but now I have to ask when I can get more?!

edit: oh you forgot the thread marks.

 

[Bob Knob]

I'm starting to see a pattern. Taylor kicks butt by herself and then only realizes that she had an audience after the fact. Nice touch. Now keep up the escalation!

 

[Gindjurra]

Interlude

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Hacking 2.1

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Hacking 2.2

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Hacking 2.3

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Collision 3.1

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Collision 3.2

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Collision 3.3

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Collision 3.4

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All of these chapters are missing their threadmarks.

 

[Oddly Lionized]

All of these chapters are missing their threadmarks.

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Fixed. Now give me your thoughts.

 

[Fencer]

Mmm more serious thoughts then? This is so cracky I'm checking my arms for injection bruises.

Now that's not necessarily a bad thing. The Worm fandom could use more crack. though unless you have plans for this fic to become NSFW sometime soon then I suspect you would get better responses on space battles sufficient velocity of ff.net.

QQ is a vicious hive of porn and smut a lot of people give it a wide birth and at least in my case I don't really expect much from most fics here besides that, which makes the instances of real plot all the sweeter.

back on track. If you want real feedback in larger quantity space battles or sufficient velocity would be your best bet. If you do crosspost a small lump if updates initially, say the first four or five, to give people an idea and then slow down. An update a day or every few days just to prove that yes you do have more and keep them interested and get them hooked while you keep writing.

Frankly there's been a rather appalling lack of lighthearted worm and while this isn't the best writing I've seen it's solid enough, funny and fast paced.