PomPoko
Chapter 9: The Lives We Touch
The hospital room was quiet. A lanky teenaged girl lay in her hospital bed, thoughts passing through her mind rapidly. The doctors had patched her up, connected an IV, and delivered copious amounts of antibiotics into her bloodstream. Her father had come, stayed too long, all day in fact, and had finally gone home when the nurse forced him out. A police detective, one who she thought she had seen in the locker room, had taken a statement from her. The man had been furious, Taylor was sure, but she was equally positive that his outrage was on her behalf. It was a novel experience for the bullied teen to have someone actually care about her welfare, even if only enough to show concern. The day had been long, but now it was night and she was alone with her thoughts.
Taylor could admit without reservation that today had been one of the worst of her relatively short life. There were perhaps only two days that compared; the day when her mother had died and the day, a few weeks after returning from summer camp over a year ago, when she had admitted to herself that her best friend Emma was no longer her friend at all, and never would be again.
Since arriving at school this morning and meeting up with her so called "friend" Julia, she had been taken on a physical and emotional rollercoaster the likes of which she had never expected would happen to her. Elation when Julia still wanted to be her friend. Wary surprise and fearful anticipation at Julia's announcement that she had a surprise Christmas present for her. Abject helplessness, and then terror when she had been beaten and forced into… there. Despair. Horror. Resignation. Loss of Control. Then something broke inside of her mind and she was changed in some indistinct and yet irrevocable way.
Taylor knew she had lost a part of herself while trapped in the locker; more specifically she had lost some of her concept of "self". She had been missing a piece of her soul, something infinitely important that made her who she was deep in the core of her being. And part of her self, her soul, or whatever you choose to call it, had been permanently shattered, never to return.
The brown haired teen had felt something take the broken piece's place. She had connected with a creature that somehow felt limited, and yet compared with any human was nearly omnipotent. Its mind had been simple, but it was nearly omniscient in its area of influence and expertise. For a brief moment she had felt like she was touching the edge of some unfeeling yet nearly perfect deity; definitely not the Christian God her mother had worshiped... Taylor felt embarrassed to even think it, but it she had received the impression from the mind she had touched that it was more akin to God's autistic first grader cousin.
It was ridiculous, unthinkable. But it had happened, the stoic girl was damned sure of it. And only a brief few seconds after contact she had completely lost her connection to the other mind. If she had not felt herself being torn from it so soon after joining with the other mind, she might not even have realized that she was somehow mentally communicating with another sentient consciousness, so natural had it been to exist beside it.
Taylor had felt the other mind call out in fear as it was ripped from her being. She still felt a vague sadness thinking about the creature. Really, though, she hadn't even had time to get used to the mingling of minds that she had been subjected to. And there was the other factor to consider… the being she had briefly merged with had left something behind when it been forced out of her. Something amazing.
Tall, skinny, formally helpless Taylor Hebert wasn't so helpless anymore… She was now a Parahuman, and a very strong one if the information her power was whispering to her was any indication. From the moment she had been pulled out of the metal tomb she had been imprisoned in, she had been able to feel every living thing around her in a respectable radius.
She had felt Kitsune's strange body when the young fox-girl had rescued her. She was so human, and yet not. The young girl had enhanced senses and so much of her body was physically upgraded that it was insane. The young cape had also possessed what was clearly a second and entirely independent circulatory system, but it had been meant to move energy, not blood or lymphatic fluids. Maybe some kind of bio-electricity power? Taylor felt herself grow excited at the thought of studying the girl further to see what abilities and powers she could replicate in herself…
Taylor froze for a second; what had she been thinking? She could replicate powers? Was she some kind of Tinker, like Armsmaster? The name of another Tinker, whose abilities were much closer to her own than the leader of Brockton Bay's Protectorate, passed through Taylor's mind, but she refused to even think it.
She could sense and change biology with her power, that was obvious, but it seemed as though she could also do so with powers as well, at least to a degree. She could especially affect abilities which made physical changes to their owners' bodies, her power whispered to her. Now she was getting bouts of inspiration and designs were starting to flow through her head. She was definitely a Tinker, as well as a Shaker and Trump, if she remembered the power classification system correctly.
Taylor thought that she would probably get a fairly high Thinker rating too, for being able to sense biology and cape powers from a distance. The hospitalized teen was beginning to understand the scope of her powers, and she was becoming more and more wary as she did.. If she could do even half of what her power was suggesting to her that it could, then she would already be considered an "S-Class" cape, even without any time or preparation involved. Her power was basically a mix of Panacea's and Bone… A Tinker's... rolled into one, with a small helping of Eidolon on the side. She needed to know more about how her ability worked.
As she concentrated on understanding her new superpower Taylor's Tinker ability whispered the recipe for fixing the chemical imbalance in her brain which was causing her depression and self-isolationist tendencies, and then a shortcut to purging the fear inducing hormones which were overtaking her now. It listed all of the tiny ways in which her brain was damaged, ways that her mind could be optimized to run faster, better, with no loss of "self" or problem with continuity of consciousness. It supplied instructions on how to heal the damage to her body caused by the locker, and then to enhance her physiology so that nothing as simple as forced confinement could ever harm her again. She shuddered at the scope of her abilities.
As she explored her power, Taylor's face turned white in her anxiety; she had never even suspected that she was this messed up physically. She had dozens of microscopic cancers in her body, and her cardiovascular system and heart were both running very suboptimally. Hardening her resolve to never, ever be hurt again like she had been on this, the worst day of her life, Taylor began reworking herself. Soon, she would be strong enough to become a Hero. And then no one would ever hurt her again. She nodded her head resolutely, eyes narrowed. Or else.
… … …
As she had begun working she had briefly worried about not having enough material to work with to effect the intended changes. It soon became a moot point, as her power seemed to generate the needed biomass from nothing as she went along. She decided to work on her mind first, as naturally increasing her brainpower would make the rest of the changes that much better. Her power pulsed as she increased the amount of neurons in her brain by orders of magnitude, cleaning up her synapses as she went. Her gift showed her how to change the cells into a type of flexible organic bio-crystal, allowing for lightspeed communication between the individual cells instead of merely chemical speed. Her nerves were converted to this material as well. When she had made her mind as perfect as her power told her was possible without severely changing her personality or losing continuity of self she paused.
The world around Taylor was the same, but different. She found herself having to purposely slow down her movements as to not tear muscle and connective tissues, so great were her reflexes and reaction speeds. She smiled wickedly, her thoughts racing orders of magnitude faster than any human had ever thought before. She could feel her brain recording each piece of sensory data entering her awareness in a permanent, lossless fashion; her memory was absolutely perfect, and would be forever more. The change to her awareness was amazing. She got back to work.
Hours later, Taylor was finished. Outwardly, she mostly looked similar to how she had appeared before her upgrades; the young teen was still noticeably herself, she was just much more beautiful now. She had made several concessions to vanity, however; her face was now perfectly symmetrical, and several minor facial features that she had disliked were smoothed out. Her face was still Taylor Hebert's, but a gorgeous, idealized version. Taylor had also shed all of the hair on her body, save for that adorning the top of her head, and of course her eyelashes and eyebrows; this, she felt, made her feel better and also saved hours a week in grooming time.
The empowered teen had also increased her height by five inches, taking her from 5'7, tall for a 15-year old girl, to a statuesque 6' even. She had once hated her height due to her lack of a feminine body, but she didn't have that problem any more. Taylor had completely restructured her body, creating for herself proportions more befitting an Amazon than a sophmore in highschool. Her gracefully muscled neck led to broad, lightly muscled shoulders which sprouted capable arms that embodied both strength and femininity. Her bust was probably the biggest divergence from her previous self; it nothing like what she had sported before. It wasn't grotesque, she thought, but her breasts were definitely much larger than average, even for a women of her new height.
Taylor had originally intended to opt for a bosom that was smaller than her current zaftig state, but she had kept upping her size little by little, all the time becoming more and more pleased with the results. Seeing her previously nonexistent breasts swell was like gourmet food served to a woman dying of hunger. She had focused her will, and eventually stopped increasing the size of her breasts as soon as the part of her that had always seen herself as a flat, ugly little girl could bear to. Something about having the ability to give herself so much when she had started with so little… was intoxicating.
Her tummy was flat with washboard abs in the shape of a light six-pack, and her waist was small though not wasp-like. The new rear Taylor had designed for herself was muscular yet womanly; a round "heart shaped" butt that was plump, jiggling flesh layered over solid muscle. Her legs were a work of art, miles long and stronger than steel, yet svelte and soft to the touch. Taylor had changed her body into that of an over-endowed centerfold in her early twenties who had taken up strength training. As she contemplated the changes she had made to her looks, she couldn't keep the bright smile off of her face. Never, ever, again would she be called a "stick" or a "surfboard". Emma was a sow compared to her now, and Sofia an undeveloped child.
Early on in her upgrades Taylor had realized that unless she was willing to keep herself sick and injured and to change almost nothing about her body, to stay vulnerable, she would have to out herself as a cape, at least to her father and the medical staff here at the hospital. She hadn't been gifted with a real "Brute" power which would increase her strength and durability to ludicrous proportions while still allowing her to retain her former lanky appearance; she had to physically modify her body to give herself upgrades using the biological portion of her power. And if she was going to be outing herself as a cape, then she may as well give herself the body of her dreams, she had decided.
What Taylor had not known was just how far the body of her dreams would diverge from her original appearance. She was a pragmatic girl, and had not really considered the matter before. 'Oh well,' she thought, 'Go big or go home,'. It wasn't like she was planning on hiding her status as a cape from her father; with ridiculously obvious powers like the ones she possessed it would be insane to expect to keep that kind of a secret. She could function as a healer now, and it would be a crazy to lie to not tell him about that. And now that her brain was no longer covering her view of the world in a coat of shit she didn't want to hide things from her dad; that would only hurt their relationship in the long run.
Taylor's appearance was the least of what she had done to herself. Her bones were now made up of a neutron-heavy allotrope of carbon that was structured into a shape similar to carbon nanotubes, which her power had helpfully supplied the recipe for. They were nigh-unbreakable now, and more flexible than regular bone as well, which would help reduce soft tissue damage. Her muscles were now made up of thin strands of a metamaterial stronger than anything known to conventional science outside of Tinker-Tech, and could continue "flexing" to the point that the strands would fuse with each other to create larger, more powerful strands when needed, and then separate out when unclenched. This allowed Taylor to scale the strength of her muscles from just over double human-norm on the low end to hundreds of times normal at peak performance.
The organs running Taylor's body were now protected by reactive sheathes, and were themselves modified and made smaller by orders of magnitude, as well as incredibly more efficient. She used some of the extra space created by shrinking her organs to create at least three redundant backups for each organ in case the original encountered problems or was damaged. Her heart didn't beat anymore; the solid state bio-device which had replaced the original organ continually circulated her "blood" without moving at all.
None of her organs or cells really required oxygen anymore. Her power had supplied alternatives to oxygen respiration that were superior in every way. Her heart analogues now circulated a fluid which acted to repair any part of her that was damaged nearly instantly; the programmable stem cell like fluid could do the same for other people and even animals as well, if she configured it to. This upgrade might have seemed redundant given her ability to repair her body at will with biokinesis, but power nullification was a thing after all, and she didn't want to take her ability for granted. Redundancies were always a good thing.
The teenager's body was now resistant to infection and poisoning of any kind and didn't need nearly as much nutrition, now that it was more efficient and no longer growing. Foreign organisms and objects infecting her body would be broken down and added to her fat reserves. Now that she could convert mass to energy with a staggering efficiency, Taylor thought that she would be able to subsist just fine on an ounce or two of sucrose-laced water a day. She would only need real food if her body was missing mass, and only then if she couldn't use her power to generate more for some reason.
Taylor had also laced each of her internal organs with a small "Seed" composed of the crystalline brain matter that she was now using to think. Each seed was a continually updating copy of her mind. She was able to make them small enough to fit dozens of them into her body by compressing the material into a small inactive sphere, which did nothing but stay synchronized with her brain. Each seed was capable of expanding itself at need, unpacking into a full version of her brain capable of thought if she ever lost the primary or it became too damaged to function. The seeds would not actually function as anything more than an archive unless unpacked. Her power had been particularly insistent that she develop this upgrade right away when she had queried it for useful upgrades.
Once active, the copy of her brain in the seed would use her biokinesis to grow or repair the rest of her body around it, letting her recover from even death. If for some reason her biokinesis wasn't functioning the seed would convert any mass around it into her body using a matter-to-energy-to-matter reaction. She had secreted one of the seeds , which was about the size of a grape, from her body, discovering that they could stay linked to her brain even when not in contact with the rest of herself. Instantly grasping the implications, Taylor created dozens of seeds and flushed them down the toilet in the bathroom adjoining her room, waiting several seconds between releasing each one. This would be her insurance package for the future in case something terrible happened. As each seed maintained a link with her original brain, and instantly came aware if the original was destroyed, there would always be a continuity of consciousness, allowing her to survive even mortal situations.
The teenager didn't know how her new upgraded body would perform in the real world compared to "real" Brute class capes, but she was very eager to find out. She hoped that tomorrow when she spoke with her father he wouldn't freak out about her being a cape or give her a hard time about how she had changed herself. Taylor didn't know if she wanted to join the Wards, go independent, or join another hero group like New Wave, but she was absolutely sure that she was going to be an "active" cape. She could be of some real use out on the streets, fighting bad guys and healing allies and civilians. She would need to get some tips about healing from Panacea; she was sure the famous cape could teach her a lot. Finished creating and flushing compact crystalline copies of her core consciousness into the sewers, the high-school sophomore washed her hands out of habit and stepped out of the restroom.
Returning to her bed, Taylor closed her eyes and mentally mapped out strategies that she could use tomorrow to get her dad on her side. She didn't need to sleep any longer, but she did a good enough impression of it that the nurse who peeked in on her an hour later didn't realize that anything was amiss. Her vitals weren't being monitored, so the nurses shift change happened without anyone realizing that she had heavily modified her own body; the new nurse would simply think that Taylor had always looked like this. It wouldn't be until after her father arrived tomorrow that the changes she had made to herself would be noticed by anyone at Brockton Bay General Hospital.
… … …
Kerako Kirakawa was terribly bored. She had been intangible and invisible for hours, watching over her new friend to insure her safety. The thirteen year old fox-girl had precisely two people in the world who she cared about at all these days; her mysterious partner PomPoko, and most recently a teenage girl she had helped named Taylor Hebert. PomPoko could take care of himself, she knew, and she was angry with him besides, so she chose to stay with Taylor for now.
She was hovering in a corner of Taylor's room completely invisible to the naked eye, able to sense the world around her in a large radius due to the mix of information gathering powers that she had. After seeing a video earlier depicting the most vile and cruel behavior she had ever personally witnessed, she had decided to follow Taylor and keep an eye on the poor girl to make sure none of the psycho bitches who had tortured her came to finish the job.
Kerako had been happy with Taylor's recovery so far; the tall white girl had snapped out of the shock she had been in less than an hour after being admitted to the hospital. Afterward Kerako had been treated to a heartwarming scene of Taylor and her father tearfully reunited, hugging each other for all they were worth. She had smiled, yet felt an aching emptiness in her chest; both of her parents were gone and she would never see them again. After the father-daughter pair ended their embrace the two of them had become suddenly shy and bumbling; an awkwardness which infected Kerako herself even invisible and intangible though she was. She had blushed on both of their behalf, letting out a silent nervous chuckle.
That had been hours ago, and nurses had been in and out since then every hour or two. Eventually Taylor laid her head back, and Kerako thought that she was about to go to sleep, something that Kerako didn't need anymore after PomPoko had shared his Absolute Stamina power with her. Kerako had been wrong. Looking down at Taylor's face, the asian teen saw it begin to change. Moments later the slightly too-wide mouth and minor acne were gone, along with every other imperfection that she could have named. Facial features straightened themselves, and new lines appeared, giving the teen an ethereal beauty while still allowing her to retain the bulk of her former appearance. It looked as though the girl had been airbrushed; her skin was completely smooth and every party of her body that Kerako could see or sense was now without any visible flaws.
Under Taylor's blankets, Kerako thought she saw the rest of the girl's body begin to change as well. She sharpened her vision with a thread of Chakra, activating her Sharingan. 'Yes,' she thought, 'She is changing her body.' And boy, what a change young Kerako was observing! The thin young teen was becoming positively stacked, making Kerako feel simultaneously jealous and something else, and emotion that she ruthlessly repressed, not ready for its emergence yet. Taylor's feet slowly crept further and further toward the end of the bed as her torso and legs lengthened; mostly the legs, she noticed. The sheet covering her chest began to cover less and less of it as Taylor expanded her bust more and more. Kerako squeaked inaudibly, phased out of reality as she was, and averted her eyes before they were inexorably drawn back to the spectacle before her. Both of the little fox-girl's cheeks were an incandescent red by now.
Kerako kept observing, her Sharingan eyes each gaining another tomoe as she watched all of the changes Taylor made to herself. She could hardly believe the 'upgrades' she was able to understand, and hardly able to understand the others. When she noticed that Taylor's formally flat little derriere started shifting itself into a plump, round "ghetto booty" Kerako finally fled, flying as fast as feasible through the very walls themselves whist still cloaked and out of phase, trailing a thin stream of intangible blood from one nostril and trying in vain to cover her nosebleed with both hands.
Kerako "Kitsune" Kirakawa flew straight upward through the twinkling night sky, allowing herself once more to re-enter phase with the rest of the universe around her. She could now feel the cool night air surrounding her young form as strange thoughts and never before noticed desires danced through her head. Stopping just below the cloud layer she changed trajectories and began heading home to her warehouse. After the events of the day a serious conversation with PomPoko was necessary if they wanted to continue working together long-term.
'I should visit Taylor tomorrow to see how she's doing,' came a breathless thought to the fox-eared teen unbidden. Kerako realized that between the events of the last few days and the present night, she had a lot to consider.