The Marvelous World of Taylor Hebert!
World 646
It was exhilarating. Swinging like this from building to building, nothing below to support her, nothing but the thin strand of webbing between her and a very messy death. It took her breath away each time she did it.
Allowing herself to curl into a somersault Taylor landed in a crouch on the roof of the Medcorp Tower. This was it. She'd traced the money, and it all came back to here. Medcorp. Max Anders. He was a criminal, a veritable Kingpin of crime, and no one seemed to notice. Shipments of drugs routinely disappeared from his trucks without ever being looked for. his insurance compensated him for the "loss" which he made back two-fold having thugs sell the drugs on the street. he was financing one of the gangs, but Taylor couldn't quite pin down which, the Merchants probably. She'd met Skidmark early on in her career and he didn't seem smart enough to think his way out of a paper bag, much less smart enough to run a gang without the PRT and Protectorate coming down on him like a ton of bricks.
It was going to stop now. The PRT and Protectorate couldn't stop him, he wasn't exactly a Parahuman after all, and the police looked the other way. She needed the evidence to bring him down. that's why she was here on the Medhall rooftop in an old blue and red Leotard she had in her closet and a pair of Blue tights with red slippers that matched her gloves. reaching up to check her mask to make sure her identity was secure, Taylor opened the roof access hatch and slipped into the building.
her powers were incredibly useful, not just her increased strength and agility, but her danger sense. It was phenomenal, tuned not just to physical danger, but all sorts of danger, including, as she had learned when her father opened the door to her room when she was sewing some tears in her outfit last week, the danger of discovery. It was this sense she focused on as she let her body move almost on autopilot, clinging to the ceiling, bouncing around laser beams and crawling on the walls to avoid the gaze of the security cameras. Her powers were perfect for this sort of work. It's why she wasn't out fighting super villains, she could do more work like this, as a sort of friendly neighborhood superhero, dressed in bright primary colors fighting villains that no one else was doing anything about.
Finally she was there. Max Ander's Office lay just through the door. Clinging to the ceiling she opened the door slowly so as to allow her power to warn er if she was about to trigger any alarms. Nothing. Taylor looked inside.
Max Anders was there, standing at attention with his arms behind his back looking out the window at... what was that?
There was a glowing woman hovering just outside the window. Carefully Taylor took out her camera and snapped a picture, making sure the flash was off. the sound of the shutter was deafening to her in the silence of the room, but Mr. Anders seemed to have more important things to worry about.
The glowing woman knocked on the glass and it opened. Taylor couldn't help but stare as the woman drifted into the office, the light around her fading to reveal a woman with brown hair and hazel eyes. Who was that? that wasn't one of the merchants...
"Kayden. It's been a little while." Clearly Anders knew the woman. Knew her well enough that he knew she was a cape. Taylor suppressed the urge t cheer. She was right, Anders was dealing with Capes. though... not too right, because this qoman certainly wasn't Squealer. A glowing woman... why did that sound so familiar?
The lights turned on and the woman seemed to relax. "Max. Thank you for the light."
"You're fine, I take it?"
"I'm fine." Small talk. Taylor's heart was racing. She could be discovered at any second. And this small talk wasn't enough to prove anything. her hand reached down to her utility belt and switched on her MP3 recorder.
"And our daughter?" Apparently Max knew her very well indeed.
"Aster's well, Theo's babysitting her tonight."
"I know. He called a little earlier to ask if he could spend the night. I told him that was fine. It'll do him good to spend time with you and Aster. Some female influences in his life." Taylor hoped that she wasn't risking spying on Max Anders and his cape consort just to find out their plans for how to take care of their kids. It certainly wasn't illegal to have a relationship with a cape after all... Still, there could be more to this.
"So, what can I do for you?" Max asked.
"The ABB is moving into more respectable neighborhoods. Lung is recruiting heavily for a push. I want to take them down before they make the first move. To do that, I'm wanting to reunite our old team."
okay, So Max anders wasn't working for the ABB, or the Merchants. An old team? Taylor didn't know many of the retired capes in the city, her search had focused more on active capes.
"And you're admitting you can't do it without my help." it was a statement, not a question. It puzzled taylor, why would this parahuman need a normal human's help? Did she require funds? Did she not know where her other team members were?
"Yes."
"Not interested," he said, spinning around in his chair to face the computer. There was a click, and the window began to open again.
There was something going on here. Some sort of power struggle Taylor was missing.
"I've talked to the others, but nobody that's worked for you is willing to be the first to join me. Some say they're worried they'll offend you. Others are just spooked, or they've already given up. They ask me why would a group of your rejects do any better than they'd managed as part of your team? I'm not getting anywhere, and time's running out. All it would take would be one word from you, and I'd have a team of four or five people. With that, I could root out and squash the ABB."
Max stood up and sat on the edge of his desk so he was facing the woman, Kayden "I don't see it being worth the effort. What's in it for me?"
That was more like it. Taylor tensed, she knew that she was about to get the information she needed to put this all together.
Suddenly, her MP3 recorder beeped. "No room left to record, please clear data cache and retry."
Well... That wasn't a good sound.
May and Kayden whipped towards the door, where she was hanging just barely in view.
"A Spy!" Max called out. "Purity! Dispose of her!"
Purity! That's who she was! That white supremacist member of the... oh. Oh. Well... that's a... DODGE!
Her Danger sense screamed at her as she flipped out of the way of purity's blast and into max Anders' office. The window was still open, and it was almost certainly the fastest way out of the building.
From the way her danger sense reacted to those blasts she did NOT want to be hit by them.
"What is this!? Some sort of mongrel!? One of the insects of the lesser races here to spy on my private life?"
"No sir! I'm just your average gay Jewish black lesbian KKK member here to collect your union dues!" Why did she say that!? What was wrong with her? And now Purity was trying to murder her harder, why couldn't she just keep her mouth shut?
"Was that a Joke? Do you think this is funny? I'm going to kill you! Squash you flat like the bug you are!"
For a moment, Taylor hoped she was getting this on tape, before she remembered just what had triggered this sequence of events in the first place.
Hoping around like a cricket on speed Taylor dodged and wove her way towards the open window before her danger sense started SCREAMING at her to spot shot.
Metal. There was a wall of blades just where she was about to land. A wall of blades blocking her escape completely.
She knew this power. She remembered it. It was on her list of capes to run away really fast from, right after Lung. Kaiser. Leader of the... Oh. Well, that's what she was missing.
Taylor Glanced at Max, no, Kaiser. He was fully armored already. Glancing at her like a pest about to be squashed.
"Well, that's a surprise. Kaiser. I never would have guessed!"
Purity was holding back now. Taylor didn't know why, but she was grateful. Kaiser was talking, more insults, more death threats. It was amazing how quickly those stopped sounding so important when you have more pressing issues to think about like getting the hell out of kaiser's tower of evil.
"Are you done now?"
"You mock me Worm?"
"Well actually, one thing?" She raised her hands placatingly palms towards Kaiser and Purity
Kaiser looked shocked at her flippant attitude, maybe it wasn't such a bad idea after all?
"You keep comparing me to bugs, but the thing is, that's not really correct. You see..."
In a flash she let the middle and ring fingers of each hand touch the base of her palms spraying webbing at both Kaiser and Purity.
"Bugs don't have webbing!"
She dived out the window, using her webshooter to swing around the corner of the building and cling to it like an aforementioned spider.
"KILL her! Purity, she knows who we are, she cannot be allowed to live! Hunt her down and kill her. I'll give you your team, just kill her first!"
"Don't worry max, I'll get that Spider-girl!"
Taylor breathed a sigh of relief as Purity streaked off into the night, headed down to the street where Taylor assumed Purity thought she had fallen. With a negligent gesture, Taylor took to the skies herself, using the Medhall tower itself as cover.
As soon as she could she was changing out of this costume. Tonight was a bit higher risk than she envisioned for her career as a friendly neighborhood Spider-Girl.