Taylor hunkered down behind the conveniently-placed air conditioning unit and bided her time. It was tough, being a rogue thief in a cutthroat town like Brockton Bay, but it definitely had its high points. Side note: stakeouts like this were not one of the said high points.
She clutched her damp jacket around her, keeping a watchful glare on the building below her. It gave her no pleasure in profiting off of other's hard work, but she had learned the hard way how Brockton Bay works. It wasn't about the money, it was about the image.
She raised the night vision goggles to her eyes, checking the perimeter of the museum one last time, before releasing them to dangle from her neck. The coast was clear. Time to get to work.
In all honesty, Taylor wasn't sure why museums held priceless stuff. It was like they were asking to be robbed. Then again, considering the stock put into flashy cape battles, maybe that's what they were looking for. Well, too bad for them: Taylor wasn't at all interested in getting involved in the cape scene. She was perfectly content to keep turning over dinky little museums like this and pickpocketing people on the boardwalk.
It was childishly simple for Taylor to cut a hole in the first window, flip the latch, and make her way inside. If anything, it was an even simpler matter to avoid the clichéd security laser grid and pick the lock on the heavy wooden door. What was the point of investing in such a strong door when your locks were so awful anyway? Taylor gave a mental, and physical, shrug. It was probably about the image again. She couldn't really talk; she was here for an image as well. Except it's an image worth a few grand.
Taylor gave one last glance over the room before slipping through the door. She'd visited the place just hours before, she knew exactly where to find the painting. Far right of the room, hanging between a shoddy knockoff of the Mona Lisa and what looked like a child's painting of the Triumvirate. Everything was copacetic, just as she'd hoped for.
She slipped across the room, silent, graceful, standing on tiptoe in order to carefully lift the priceless painting from the wall. A piece of cake. Taylor spun on her heel, practically sprinting across the room to push open the heavy door with her foot and make her escape. Of course, the otherwise successful evening could only go for so long without any trouble.
"Hey! What the fuck are you doing with my goddamn painting?" a harsh voice called from the end of the room. Taylor's head swiveled slowly to the windowsill, currently occupied by a slender, but nevertheless intimidating figure. If her memory served her, that would be Circus, one of the only other solo capes in town and also a thief. Oh dear.
"Please, watch your language," Taylor said. She slowly turned, inching away from the outside wall in in order to put her back to a display of ancient clay jars. "I didn't know you were after it too."
Circus' baleful glare sent a near-painful tingle down Taylor's spine. She'd never been in a cape fight before. She'd really only dealt with some rude thugs who'd accosted her, or some overly enthusiastic security guards. But a fight against a real life, superpowered villain? Taylor didn't know if she could handle that. She didn't want any trouble. Couldn't deal with any trouble. She managed to croak out a hoarse "please" that squeaked at the end.
Circus leapt down from her menacing position, looking no less dangerous when on ground level with Taylor. The villainess took a few steps forwards, and Taylor took a few steps back, straight into one of the fragile, ancient clay jar displays. Alarms blared throughout the building.
"Uh oh," Taylor gulped. Circus said something to the same effect, only ruder. Taylor was pretty sure that some of the words wouldn't even show up on urbandictionary when she would search them up later. "Um, language?"
"Goddamn you!" Circus snapped. All bets were off now. The rogue swept her hand through the air, pulling a large-headed mallet from seemingly nowhere. Taylor gulped again. "I had fucking plans tonight, you shitstain! Plans like..." Taylor sort of blanked out for the next part of Circus' rant, only reasserting her attention when she saw the hammer coming towards her.
Quick as greased lightning (and really, why was that even a phrase?), Taylor back flipped out of range of the hammer while balancing the painting precariously on the glass case beside her. She quickly snatched it back as Circus' giant hammer pulverized the display and sent shards of glass everywhere. If possible, even more alarms were set off. Really, was that truly necessary?
Taylor was forced to dodge back again as Circus stashed her hammer and withdrew what looked something like a fancy torch. The villainess blew through the flame, sending a torrent of fire in Taylor's direction. Taylor ducked and rolled under the legs of an exhibit, this time spinning the painting safely out of the way. The fire scorched the model of a colonial Brockton Bay above her, but Taylor wasn't concerned. It was probably another fake.
"Please, be careful of the painting!" she called out. Circus seemed to be on the warpath. In any case, Taylor's pleas were ignored as the follow-up with the hammer finished off the colonial Brockton Bay.
Taylor's eyes widened as the now hazardously-askew clay jars threatened to fall and shatter against the floor. And she was sure those weren't fakes.
"Sorry about this!" she called before kicking the half-decimated Brockton Bay display at Circus. Circus easily leaped atop the projectile, but it bought Taylor the time to slide across the floor and catch the three jars as they fell. She breathed a sigh of relief. The temporary rest was soon interrupted as Circus resumed her assault, twirling her hammer around for another swing at Taylor. Taylor was forced to toss the three vases in the air in order to kick aside the blow, which would hopefully slow Circus for a scant few moments. She proceeded to catch one of the vases on her head, another on an outstretched foot, while depositing the third on the precarious edge of a glass display. How many glass displays did they have here?
Unfortunately, the jar that Taylor did catch on her head landed mouth-down, leaving Taylor with a vase on her head and utterly blind. She almost missed the torrent of fire that Circus spat at her, forced to fall backwards and catch her palms on the edge of the display to keep from landing back-first on the ground. This caused the jar balancing sedately on her foot to fall, as well as serving to jostle the jar on the edge of the display. Taylor pinned the first jar between her legs and shoot at her right hand instinctively to catch the second as it fell. This left her supporting herself on the edge with a single hand. Circus raised her hammer for a finishing blow, but Taylor rolled with that single hand, dodging to the left and landing on the floor with all jars intact.
These she carefully placed beneath yet another display before she turned to face Circus. Taylor raised her fists. "Okay, now I wouldn't mind a little trouble," she grinned, a bit savagely.
The clown-themed villainess returned the smile before rushing forward to oblige. Her mallet whistled through the air, streamers trailing behind the comically large head, but Taylor was already on the move. She skidded across the floor on her knees, swung her damp jacket from her shoulders as she moved, and tangled it around the heavy weapon. Before Circus could attempt to store it, Taylor twisted the object out of her hands and let it clatter to the floor. Circus' glare intensified.
She was still a pyrokinetic though, and withdrew her torch again to blow fire at Taylor. However, the younger woman had already untwined her jacket from the hammer and tossed it over the torch which temporarily extinguished it. As Circus got a face-full of singeing polyester, Taylor followed the gesture up with some downright unsporting strikes to the face and shoulders. She proceeded to jump in the air and kick off of another exhibit, maneuvering around Circus to pull her down to the ground hard with the jacket.
Taylor secured Circus' hands and feet with a pair of convenient zipties that she tended to carry around with her. She could hear the police sirens in the neighborhood already - no PRT, as they had no reason to believe capes were involved.
"I really didn't want any trouble," Taylor told the unconscious Circus. The girl's expressionless face turned almost cruel. "But I kind of appreciated the chance to make some."
The police never saw the dark figure that leapt out the tall window of the museum. That was just how Taylor preferred it.
Call it what you want. Sure, maybe it's a crack-y altpower!Taylor fic in which she has all of Jackie Chan's traits poured into a distilled badass. Or maybe she's a psychologically damaged combat thinker whose martial arts prowess and danger intuition scale upwards exponentially the more her delicate sensibilities are threatened; seeing a work of art destroyed for example, or a baby harmed, or people causing trouble. Except that her shard constantly pushes her into situations in which she is faced with such dilemmas, because it wants her to experience conflict, thus leaving us with Troublemaker.