AN: Worm is the exclusive intellectual property of Wildbow.
Penny liked to think she was a sensible individual. Being an adrenaline junky didn't make her insane, or impractical, or thoughtless; it just made her a risk-taker. She liked to live her life on the edge a bit, so what? She didn't think it was something she deserved to go to jail for. Surely these guys would understand, right? That she just got a little carried away sometimes? She hadn't meant to kill anyone, and she'd tried to tell them as much, and yet, here she was, 86'd, sitting in the back of an armored vehicle with thick metal cuffs covering her hands and arms halfway up to her elbows. Director Sherigan's tight expression of disapproval without a single ounce of sympathy had created a pit in her stomach, and none of her team mates had stepped up to defend her. Not a one.
Every fiber of her being screamed at her to break out, to go prove them wrong. She was four capes in one! She didn't need a team to go out there on her own and stop crime. The problem was that she'd drawn clubs out there during the fight, earlier, and they knew it, too. They knew she wouldn't be able to get the chance to even try to break her way out of non-Tinker cuffs for the next half hour. It was the only reason she was sitting in the back of this PRT van by herself. If she decided to pick a card, now, and she drew hearts, she could probably talk any officers in the back of the van into simply letting her out, and they weren't going to risk that, either.
The blonde groaned in frustration and slumped back against the cold metal wall. Penny had wanted so badly to prove that she could actually make something of herself when she'd gotten her powers, that she wouldn't spend all her life as a card dealer. Of course, there weren't too many better ways of making such good money here in Atlantic City, but her parents had never approved of her staying out all night "facilitating vice". To them she might as well have been a whore. Triggering when the casino got held up had been a hell of an overlay, and her parents had called her for the first time in years when their baby girl had been on television, helping the police escort armed robbers out of the Borgata.
"Heads up, girl, you're a real lucky Penny." There wouldn't be any pride in their voices when they talked about her any more, and she knew they wouldn't bother talking to her at all.
With a determined frown, she reached inside for her power, praying she drew diamonds. If she started hacking away at the cuffs now, she might at least have them separated and give herself a fighting chance to get away when they opened the doors. She could hear the honking of horns as the van slogged through traffic and figured that she had maybe five minutes before they reached the headquarters. Atlantic City had a fair amount of crime but wasn't a big enough spot on the cape scene to merit separate Protectorate and PRT installations; she was more than familiar enough with the facility if she needed to find her own way out. She knew her team mates' powers as well they knew hers, but it still felt like she was betting blind, here.
When she drew, the power coursed through her, and, much to her shock, she grew. She shouldn't have been able to draw clubs so soon! Feeling her teeth sharpen and her nails turn to claws doubled her surprise. Clubs and spades? Since when had she been able to do this? The transformation left her cramped and hunched in the back of the van, now too tall to sit straight, and the black tail with the spade-shaped blade at the end left her unable to sit on the bench like she had been, the seatbelt stretched to its limits. The metal of the handcuffs had bent here and there where she'd grown.
With the way her power worked, she never should've been able to hold two powers at once, and yet here she was. She hadn't had a second trigger, that she could tell. Penny shook her head, deciding to set the concern of how to replicate this effect aside for now. The handcuffs bent and broke beneath her clawed fingers like cheap plastic, the reinforced seatbelt tore like paper, the back doors flew off, and she dropped onto the pavement in the middle of dead-stopped traffic. Looking around wildly to see if any capes or PRT members had spotted her ten-foot-tall figure emerging from the back of the van and come running, she made the snap decision to bolt when all that met her sweeping gaze were the surprised expressions of nearby drivers.