Worm/OC. Abandoned when I realised that I had no plan for it and the OC characters were insufferably powerful

A Dance of Bones

"Give up, Sable! You've already lost!"

The broadsword screamed as it swept towards her, and she barely avoided it. The man wielding the blade pivoted smoothly on his heel, his following stroke almost taking her arm off, and she panicked. She knew Sternsman: he was nothing if not committed and dangerous. That was why he was regarded as a peer by men and women with powers far outstripping his own. The ability to cut almost anything. Basic, low, melee range. And yet, he stood shoulder to shoulder with a woman who could fly, take unholy amounts of punishment and control the weather. Then again, Valiance and Sternsman were siblings. It was sort of expected. A tremendous crash heralded the appearance of one of her creations, a hulking humanoid form that smashed into Sternsman's armoured frame and carried him through a wall. Sable wasn't stupid enough to think he was down. Although he rarely revealed it, Sternsman was legitimately superhuman in terms of toughness, with an increased healing rate and the ability to increase it even further. In fact, Sable suspected that his powers were nothing like he said, and he had far more than anybody knew. It would explain his ability to survive, at any rate. At least he suffered for his rapid healing afterwards, but in the heat of the moment he was nigh impossible to put down. Sable ran.

She was, herself, far more than human. Her own power, twisting her body into something that gave her a little defence. Faster. Stronger. Tougher. A pity that everybody else was so much better. Sable slid around a corner, ran down brushed steel corridors, away from the howling and crashing that signified the attempts of her creations to hold back the Saviours. Trying, and probably failing. The Saviours were the best super team in the world. Valiance. Sternsman. Maelstrom. Shrike. Argent. All of them more than capable of taking her down. Her powers were immense, yes, but not suited to single combat. For that she needed help. Her finest creations waited in her lab, just ahead, and she crashed through the door to find them still there. Still waiting. Reborn Ein to Zwolf. God she hoped they could save her. Or at least, hold the Saviours off while she escaped. She had a back-up plan, but it was-

"So, this is what you've become."

The voice sent a chill through her spine, and she turned on her heel slowly. Argent and Shrike had entered the room already, and Sable suspected that she could see Maelstrom just behind. He would be reluctant to act against her, she knew. He was a psychic of unsurpassed power; he would know why she left the Saviours. Why she did what she had done. Besides, Maelstrom didn't like fighting- he preferred to put his enemies to sleep with his powers, but she was long immune, and so were her creations. His mental powers didn't work on the dead. If he got involved he was still the biggest threat, well able to fling anything about when using his powers to physically affect the world, but Argent and Shrike were the more immediate threat.

"You should just give in, Sable. You'll get a fair trial, maybe the courts will be lenient." Argent told her. His voice was warmer than Shrike, much warmer, but it still had a hard edge to it. Argent was a teleporter, technically. Technically. Really, Sable suspected that it was something different, probably something in the class of reality warping, because Argent's power was insane. All he needed was a touch. Sometimes not even that, and he didn't need to be able to see of even visualise the destination. Sable had once seen Argent flick his hand at a massive, bioengineered monster menacing a city, and a silver oval had swallowed it in an instant. A short while later the beast had been confirmed to have been transported to Jupiter. The only consolation was that Argent would have to get to touching range for her, unless he wanted to teleport half a country. Large scale was much easier for him. Shrike was the most frightening of the group currently present, in her opinion. Shrike was, like her, not entirely human. He was, in fact, more akin to the Terminator. The bad guy from the second film, in fact, composed of living metal…and with the ability to convert metal into himself from a touch. Add onto that a ruthless streak and a fanatical adherence to the law, and you had a very effective, very terrifying enforcer. He was only with the Saviours because they could reliably control him- considering that all but Sternsman were rated as at least continental threats should they go rogue, the belief in their ability was not exactly misplaced.

"You should not give her false hope, Argent. She is a traitor and a murderer and will be treated as such." Shrike declared, his cold tone austere and disapproving. Sable felt a violent urge to kill him. Well, in for a penny…

"If the charges are set, I may as well add more!" she snarled. "Reborn, destroy them! Ein, Zwolf, with me!"

She vaguely saw a look of approval cross Argent's expression before the Reborn rushed past her with rasping, snarling warcries. Shrike let out a grating growl and the metal floor spiked suddenly, ripping through two Reborn before Ein cleaved through the spikes with a bony blade that had sprouted from his arm.

"Warscythe. I thought I recognised those Reborn. So, you thought that the Armoury would make good puppets, Sable? How far you have fallen." Said Sternsman, walking through the lab doors rather than using the gaping hole that Shrike, Argent and Maelstrom had torn. It must have been Shrike: she had barely noticed its presence. Absorbing the metal to create the hole would have been child's play for him.

"They deserved everything they got! Do you know how many people they had killed? How many more would have died when Falchion finished his newest invention?" Sable screamed. Sternsman frowned. His helmet had been knocked off and his short beard and hair were spattered with blood, crimson on black and white, but he seemed unharmed.

"Not nearly as many as could die to you." He replied quietly, and Sable felt a coldness settle in her heart, hatred and sorrow intermingled.

"That's it? That's why? You'll kill me because I might be a threat?" she rasped out. Her Reborn had halted, formed into a line between her and the Saviours. Sternsman looked honestly sorry, but he was a good man. A hero. He would do whatever was needed to save the world, even should it cost him his soul. And Sable knew she deserved the treatment. She probably deserved the distrust, for all she had done, but it still hurt. Well, so be it.

"Reborn! Kill them." She ordered flatly, leaning into Zwolf and pressing her right hand against Ein. A flicker of her mind gave an order, and the familiar dragging sensation of Zwolf teleporting overtook her. He had once been Flagellant, of the Armoury, and although he could only transfer himself to something he could see his power was invaluable to her. He only took her to the other end of the lab, but that was all she needed. The inner laboratory would be far harder to break into. Sable hastily typed in the passcode to the inner laboratory, and thrust her hand against the combined DNA scanner/fingerprint reader, waiting impatiently for the door to unlock and slide open far enough to let her through. As she had expected, her Reborn were being annihilated by the Saviours. Really, although the Armoury had been a large and strong enough group to take over the small country they ruled, they weren't individually powerful enough to take on her old allies. Warscythe was maybe strong enough to take on Sternsman or Shrike, but he was protecting her. Zwolf- Flagellant- was no match for Argent, even if he wasn't protecting her. Albrecht and Sigvald, the Armoury Elementals, had no way of actually harming Maelstrom, their streams of fire and electricity being easily turned aside by a psychic shield. Turncoat and his clones were proving utterly ineffectual against Sternsman, who could quite clearly tell which of them were real, and Shrike was decimating Rapier and Claymore in hand to hand combat. As it turned out, being able to turn into rock was outclassed by metal, and the advanced healing Claymore possessed wasn't enough because he couldn't actually hurt Shrike. Three of the other Reborn were simply her Juggernaut creations, and Argent was practically toying with them. That left only Falchion- whose greatest asset was his mind, making him rather less useful when used as a reanimated puppet- and Halberd, who was moving his head as though to track something through the walls. Probably Valiance.

"Inner Lab, opening." Drawled a voice behind her, and Sable cursed Falchion. The man was the most goddamn cliché supervillain in existence, and the voice had drawn the attention of all the Saviours present. Maelstrom slowly closed his outstretched hand, and the Armoury Elementals and two of the Juggernauts twisted into shreds of meat and pulpy flesh. Evidently he wasn't squeamish about killing things that were already dead. Argent turned, his fingers tapping Reborn within reach, and the last Juggernaut and Rapier vanished in a blink of silver portals. Zwolf, flickering forward, managed to save Falchion, but Sternsman cleaved Turncoat in two and Shrike obliterated Claymore with a storm of metal fragments that whipped from the ground below him. Sable doubted even Claymore could regenerate from that, and even if he could it wouldn't be fast enough.

"Enough playing, Sable. Whatever you're trying to do stops here." Sternsman said, pointing his broadsword at her. The blade still gleamed, untarnished by dirt or blood, and it made him look more threatening that any amount of gore would have. The last of her Reborn not clustered around her, Halberd, dropped into a fighting stance. The Reborn wielded the weapon that was his namesake, the edge lit with a slight glow, and wore powered armour. Both weapon and armour were designed and built by Falchion and, in theory, would allow Halberd to hold his own, utilising the more than human speed and reflexes his power granted him. A lot like Sternsman, in fact: Halberd had relatively weak powers but the ability and determination to make them work. Assuming that Sternsman was honest about his powers and not a full blown reality warper like practically every other member of the Saviours. Still, it didn't compensate for Maelstrom or Valiance, wherever she was-

"Sable!"

The shout was accompanied by a terrible crash as Valiance smashed through the ceiling, coming to a hovering halt mere inches from the ground. Thunder boomed, and rain poured in from the breach Valiance had made, all due to her power. Sable automatically flinched away. Valiance was practically the definition of shock and awe, and very few people were immune.

"Valiance." She replied softly. Valiance looked at her, the lines of her jaw softening under her visored helmet.

"I…Sable, don't do this. Give in. Don't make me do this." She said quietly. Sable shook her head.

"I can't. You know that. It's already over. Besides, I'd rather it be this way than rotting in some prison or lab."

"Lab? Sable, I-"

Sable cut Valiance off with a raised hand, pushing her hood away from her face. She saw Valiance flinch slightly, and knew it was because of the lines of scars and stitching.

"What happened to you?" Valiance asked quietly. Sable smiled bitterly, feeling her desiccated skin crack slightly.

"My powers only work on the dead. Didn't you ever consider the reason why I could affect myself?"

A look of horror crossed the exposed portion of Valiance's face, and Sable saw Sternsman and Argent flinch slightly. Shrike didn't blink, the unfeeling bastard. Sable shrugged.

"Doesn't matter. I'm not going to be taken prisoner, not even by the Saviours." She said, stepping back into the inner lab and slapping a button to turn on the lights. A mental command sent Reborn Acht- Falchion- across to the massive machine in the centre of the lab, while Ein, Zwolf and Drei- Halberd- closed around her.

Basics- Sable is basically Panacea, except her powers only work on the dead and got a bit crossed with Bonesaws. That's it, really.