Blade (UBW!Taylor Worm Quest)

You are Taylor Hebert, fifteen-year-old high school student at Winslow High in Brockton Bay. And you are twisted, broken in some way deep inside. You had been cracking slowly ever since the start of high school, The Locker just finished the job.

Two months ago, you were shoved into your locker, filled with bodily fluids that made it into a biohazard. You wished for anything and everything: escape, to understand why your bullies (including one who used to be your best friend) hated you, the power to make a change, the chance to save others before you die.

And you got it.

Information flooded through you, far more than you ever wanted to know about the bugs and used tampons surrounding you. And exactly what you needed to know about the shoddy lockers. At your command, a screwdriver appeared in your hand, allowing you to dismantle the door’s hinges from the inside. It only lasted long enough for you to escape, but that was enough.

You spent the next two months in therapy and the hospital. You’re lucky you had health insurance -- you heard your doctor joking about double pneumonia or something. You didn’t have much time to experiment with your new powers.

Most of it was just learning how to pretend to be a human being again, how to fake normality.

Nobody knows that you have powers yet. Not your dad, not your therapist, no heroes or villains or anyone else.

You know one thing, though. You want to save people. It’s a stupid dream. People are ever in conflict with each other, and it’s impossible to save one person without hurting another. But you are driven to try, no matter how many times you expect to fail. If you must sacrifice twenty people to save eighty, you’ll sacrifice ten to save ninety instead. Even if you were to live forever, surviving through the universe’s cycle of death and rebirth, you will not give up. This is your pledge.


But enough with the weighty, momentous thoughts. Morning jog is almost over. Today is supposed to be your first day back at school, assuming you don’t chicken out again. For all that talk about saving people, the Trio are still terrifying to you. Either way, you still need to get out of the house for the day or Dad is going to give you trouble. So, what’s the plan?


[ ] Go to school
[ ] Go to the library and get online
[ ] Go downtown and have some fun
[ ] Other (Write in)

 

Here are your powers, as best you know them. You haven’t had time to look into all of them in too much detail, so this is currently based on hints your power gives you and a scant few weeks of experimentation.

Hill of Knives(?): Your power claims this is your soul made manifest. It appears to be a blood-red hill (clearly, the dirt comprising it is very iron-heavy). At its peak is an unidentified but very fancy scabbard, currently empty. In the sky above it, a forge endlessly churns out blades you’ve analyzed. Said blades stick out of the ground all over the hill. In total, the Hill is maybe a few hundred meters across at its widest.
The Hill of Knives(?) currently manufactures the following items:
Knives, assorted materials and quality
Glaive (Oversized) [Menja]
Estoc (Oversized) [Fenja]
Golden Sword[Uber/Link]
Lange Messer [Taylor]
1803 Pattern Light Infantry Sabre [Taylor]

Structural Grasp/Structural Analysis: By concentrating on an object at close range (usually touching it), you can fully understand the structure and design of an object as if you were viewing a blueprint. This ability works faster on some objects than on others, seemingly without cause. As well, using it on a plastic knife in the hospital and some knives at home added them to the output of the forge above the Hill of Knives.

Prana: Your body has a very limited amount of mystical power, which your power refers to as prana. According to the internet, it’s a Hindu term for life energy or vital force. Like MP on the mages in Final Fantasy. All living things supposedly contain some amount of prana, with some beings having more than others. Some of your power expend some of your prana to function, which naturally regenerates over time.

Reinforcement: You can push your prana into objects at close range (usually only touch range). This makes the item more durable and just generally better. For example, your experimentation on a metal butter knife made it sharp enough to slice through meat as if it was, well, butter. Said experiment also revealed that if you put too much prana into something, it detonates violently. You’re still not sure how you managed not to fill yourself full of shrapnel that time.

Alteration: You can force objects into new shapes and add or remove properties from them.

Projection (Tracing): You can create something from nothing, like a wizard or something. It’s pretty awesome. There’s a few limitations, though. Creating stuff expends prana -- the bigger or more complex the object, the more it costs. You can pull items from the Hill of Knives with significantly less cost -- they already exist inside your soul, just waiting to be pulled forth. Items created via projection slowly fade out of existence over the next few hours. The better you understand an object, the higher quality it is when it appears and the longer it takes to fade out of existence. Having blueprints or using Structural Analysis first is therefore ideal. You can also improve the quality of your generated items by having the physical materials on hand that it would be made from. Speaking the words “Trace On” helps you focus your power, making projection better as well. Your power refers to this as an aria, and also seems to indicate that using the aria does… something more than just making the projection stronger and longer-lasting. Using projection to create objects that aren’t touching you takes significantly more prana.
The following notable items are not produced on the Hill of Knives, but are still available for Tracing:
AK-47 with 30-round magazine [Merchants]
Flamethrower with stationary napalm tank [Squealer]
Kite Shield (Oversized) [Fenja/Menja]
Armsmaster’s Power Armor, Mk.15L.Ver26.01 [Armsmaster]
Kid Win's Hoverboard [Kid Win]

Noble Phantasms: Legends and belief instill gear with the power to do more than merely what is physically possible. Because Tracing also mimics the history of an item, it can be used to create copies of Noble Phantasms, which can otherwise not be created with Projection. Gear made in this manner is of slightly lower quality than the original, but multiple copies of unique legendary gear can be made using Tracing if you have enough prana.
You can create the following Noble Phantasms:

Power Suit (Stun Only) [Taylor Hebert] {Power Suit: Evasive Armor of the Completionist Fake Bounty Hunter}:

Spoiler: Power Suit

This facsimile of Samus’s powered armor was created by the supervillain Leet. Though crippled in many ways compared to its source, it was still upgraded as thoroughly as possible by its first and only bearer, Taylor Hebert. It bears memories of seeking out upgrades and of recognizing attack patterns. For a small amount of Prana, it will show the direction (but not distance) towards the nearest upgrade, or nowhere at all if there is no outstanding data. For a larger amount of Prana, If an attack that can be dodged is used against it (regardless of whether it hits), the suit will automatically dodge the same attack pattern for the rest of the battle. This ability cannot break the laws of physics or causality.

Armsmaster’s Halberd Mk.16C.Ver02.01 [Armsmaster] {Halberd: A Library of Weapons}:

Spoiler: Halberd

While already packed full of functions, there’s a limit on how much stuff a given model of Halberd can physically hold. However, each new model of Halberd is imbued by its creator and through its use with the memory of the weapons and uses held by previous Halberds over the past fifteen years and counting. By spending Prana, these functions no longer present in this Halberd but found in any prior model may be made manifest.

Medkit [Leet/Black Mesa] {Medkit: The Impossible Healing Solution}:

Spoiler: Medkit

Despite its size, this medkit contains only one thing: a giant syringe, full of a mysterious green liquid. When injected, it recovers up to a quarter of the patient’s maximum health. Oddly, touching the kit while injured causes it to permanently disappear, healing you as if you had injected yourself with its contents.

 

INDEX POST

Character Sheet

1. The Grandmaster (Music)
1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, 1.x (Interlude; Grue)

2. Zero Mission (Music) (Old dead Music)
2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 2.5, 2.x (Interlude; Lung)

3. Level Select (Music)
3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4, 3.5, 3.6, 3.7, 3.8, 3.x (Interlude; Coil)

4. Brockton Bay Capes (Music)
4.1,

 

School doesn’t exactly seem like the best idea. You’re pretty much certain that the Trio would bully you again, and that’s not entirely conducive to a learning environment. You do have powers now, though. If you’re willing to join the Wards, you should be able to get a transfer to Arcadia. If not, you can look up what it takes to get a GED, which you suspect is far easier than enduring Winslow High until you graduate.

You can work on that later, though. You haven’t really had a chance to enjoy yourself in weeks, and you feel like you’re going to do something stupid if you don’t spend the day relaxing. You decide to head downtown. It’s generally pretty safe, so even if Dad finds out you skipped school he won’t be too worried.

On a whim, you enter an arcade. You have the occasional fond memory of the machines -- mostly watching other people play or the demo play itself. As things go, a few quarters per play is a lot cheaper than going shopping. The place is pretty empty, probably because it’s the middle of a school day and most adults wouldn’t hang out somewhere like this. You head over to an unoccupied machine: ‘Metal Slug 3’.

You’re not very good at it. That, or the game is just absurdly hard. After your first game over, you opt not to continue playing, instead examining the machine with your power. Sadly, you’re no electrical engineer. Just because you know where all the wires go and how the boards are made doesn’t mean you know what they actually do.

You slide down a few machines to a pinball table themed after the Terminator movies. Here, you perform better. Still nowhere near enough to hit the absolutely absurd high scores. The only names up there are ‘137’ and ‘999’. Weird, most people use their initials or a shortened first name.

Pinball’s fun, though, so you give it a few more rounds before realizing that you’ve been in this arcade for over a full hour. And during that whole time period, there’s been one guy who hasn’t moved from his machine the whole time. Tall, sculpted muscles, very handsome. Not the kind of person you’d expect to see in this kind of place.

You edge behind him, curious to find out what’s kept him playing so long. It’s tetris, and holy shit the pieces aren’t even dropping, they’re just appearing on the bottom of the playing field. Which is invisible, by the way. And credits are scrolling up the screen behind the blocks? This is a thing that Tetris does? The pieces reappear as the credits stop, and the screen reads ‘EXCELLENT MASTER MODE ALL CLEAR’.

And then the guy notices you, turning away as the screen reveals ‘TODAY’S RANKING: 8TH’.

“Sorry, did you want to use the machine?” He indicates behind him.

You really aren’t sure what to say. Your brain decides to go with “You’re really good at Tetris.”

“There’s this guy in Japan, I still can’t quite beat him. Still practicing.”

Behind him, you finally notice his name on the machine. Apparently this is ‘999’.

“You play all these games?” You ask.

“My childhood. My best friend and I have been working through this place lately. This week it’s Tetris. Ever see a grown man dressed as a Tetromino? It’s even sillier than it sounds.”

“I, uh, I’m Taylor,” you manage to communicate. Shit, what are you even doing?

“Daniel. Not Danny, sometimes Dan. Sure you don’t want to give it a go?”

Well, it is Tetris. Even you’ve played it before. It’s fun, even if you’re nowhere near as good as ‘999’. He takes another turn after you, completing the entire game in less time than it took you to lose, but still not beating his best. You trade off for a few runs, Daniel explaining the mechanics of how the individual pieces are more likely to show up if you rotate them more. It helps a little, but the blocks inevitably start falling too fast for you to handle.

You lose track of time, only noticing that it’s after school would let out when Dan’s friend shows up. He’s ‘137’, or alternately Ted. He’s also a lot closer to what you would have expected from someone who hangs out in arcades -- average height, kind of scrawny, glasses. Pretty much your stereotypical nerd.

You cut all conversation short, rushing home. Fortunately, you still get back well before Dad does, so all is well. Over dinner, you just grunt about your day, not sharing anything. You go to bed early, actually catching a few hours of sleep before your alarm quietly wakes you around midnight. This is your chance to start saving people… right?

[ ] Don’t go out yet. You don’t have a costume, you need more sleep, and your power is currently in the sweet spot between too lethal for mundane crime and not lethal enough for superpowered crime.
[ ] Find someone to save. You’ve waited long enough for this chance! You can use Projection for a mask and armor, although you don't know enough about any armor to generate anything that will last more than a few minutes.
[ ] Look for trouble, but just watch. You’re not sure what causes things to be added to the Hill of Knives, but you’ve got a good guess based on the name and what’s already in it.
[ ] Other (Write In)

 

You want to save someone tonight, you really do. But your common sense overrides your dreams and reminds you that you’re not yet ready. Go out tonight and your identity will probably end up revealed and then bad guys will go after Dad and you don’t even really have your power in the right shape to deal with anyone, cape or otherwise. You can’t save anyone tonight, no matter how much that hurts.

You mentally separate the problems into two major issues.

First, you don’t have a costume or mask yet. You can use Projection to generate one, but that has the risk of failing at the worst time possible. Even if you were willing to take that risk, you don’t know anything about armour. You’re a mid-tier Thinker/Striker, not a Brute. If you don’t get some way of dealing with guns and superpowers, one hit and you’ll be dead.

Second, your power doesn’t exactly cover anything that would be useful in a fight. You need to go find some objects to run Structural Analysis on. Something nonlethal like the PRT’s foam grenades would be ideal for not killing ordinary people, and you should find something more lethal like a sword or a gun to deal with some of the capes. You don’t exactly have anything in mind for dealing with something like Lung or Hookwolf yet, but that might be a good idea.

The extra sleep does you well. You have no problems waking up for your morning run, and don’t run into anything of note while you’re on it. There’s a lot you need to do, and you’re pretty sure that as long as you keep better track of time today you can probably get more stuff done. If you’re willing to risk getting home after Dad and having to come up with an explanation for what you’ve been doing, maybe a lot more. Actually, why not short circuit that now?

“Dad, I’m planning on going to the library after school. I’ll be home late, but I should be back before dinner.”

There, all good. Now you have plenty of time.

Pick Three (options may be chosen repeatedly, order may matter):
[ ] Go to school
[ ] Try to meet your new friends at the arcade
[ ] Go to the library and figure out how to get a GED/start working on one
[ ] Go to the library and do some cape research
[ ] Find a weapon for your power (Write in a plan)
[ ] Find some kind of armor, either real or something that you can make with your power (Write in a plan)
[ ] Other (Write In)