AN: A few different happenings that arn't shown in the story proper because of point of views and skipping some time.
1:
Taylor: "So. You got yourself tazed by Armsmaster."
Shepard Grins. "It was quite shocking."
Taylor: *Groan* "And what were you planning on doing if he didn't object?"
*raised eyebrow and smirk.*
Taylor: "No. No. Don't answer that. Don't want to know."
2:
Vista: "Over a year Armsmaster!"
*Frown* "Be that as it may, Shadow Stalker is an effective Ward and..."
Clockblocker: "Feminine hygiene products! Used, rotted..." *Violently shudders.*
*Frown intensifies* "While that sounds terrible, I'm afraid we only have her word..."
Vista / Clockblocker: "Fucking bullshit."
*Frown reaches critical levels* "..."
Is cut off by intercom. "Boss. Dauntless here. After I finished with the school I got in touch with some of my old police buddies and from there poked into medical records with Panaceas help who was quite horrified when I told her why I needed confirmation. Turns out she knows the girl."
*Frown breaks and he sighs.* "What did you find?"
"You're not going to believe it boss. There was an incident involving a locker..."
3:
Taylor: "So. You weren't in there very long at all. Were you actually able to build it?"
*Blink* "Uh. Build an entire omni in 5 minutes? Anthropologist no. I'm good, but I doubt even Tali was that good and she was the best biological combat engineer I knew. No. I used his nanoforges to flash me up the key parts I couldn't make with more mundane means and then used his more mundane tools to cut off and steal of few pieces of the more rare elements and materials I'd be hard pressed to get my hands on otherwise."
*Nod* "Ok. That makes more sense.
...
4:
Dennis: "Hey, Taylor!"
Taylor: "What's up Dennis? Dean not coming?"
*Shake head* "No. He's busy. A, uh, friend wanted to play with us though. If that's ok."
*Smile* "Of course that's ok."
*Younger girl steps in* "Hi Taylor! Dennis told me about you and your crazy friend! I'm Missy!"
And then the girl hugged her.
*Blink* Ah. Well. That answers that question.
"So, you look over the character creation process at all?"
"Yeah. I think I'm going to play an Eclipse caste. They seem pretty awesome."
*Shepard as she walks in from a back room* "I'm going to play a Dawn."
Dennis flinches slightly. "I know you're new to this so I guess I can expect you to know these things. Dawn caste aren't really...optimal."
*Raised eyebrow* "How so?"
"Well, it's the spread of their innate favored abilities. It's suboptimal to actually specialize in a bunch of different ways to inflict damage..."
"Psh. You're seeing it all wrong. You -always- have the tool you need for a job..."
*chuckle* "Ok, ok. That's fine. The campaign is designed for unoptimized characters anyways..."
AN2: Keep in mind before reading: Shep -is- mentally 30, teenage body and hormones aside.
...
It had taken her nearly a week to track down her target. I week of sorting through all available data (granted, that only took a few minutes to organize) and then actually applying her human mind to solving the problem with the pieces of data she had. Things like ranges of operations based on the movement speed of the dogs, how frequently they did their jobs, outlining various gang territories within the field of research, jobs over time...
It was a mess and probably the most complicated problem that she had ever solved. But she also had the most satisfied feeling in her brain and body when she found herself vindicated by having caught sight of the gang shortly after they had robbed the Ruby Dreams casino.
From there she had followed them back to what was likely their base of operations. It took a little guess work given the speed of the dogs but she'd rightfully guessed that they wouldn't ride them all the way back to their base so the actual area that she had to search using her 3 block radius was reasonably small. The dogs having (A surprisingly small number) of flees helped.
She'd camped out at a nearby shop while they were in their base and only started moving again once they broke to go their separate ways. From there she'd tailed Tattletale back to her apartment and noted it down before leaving to go report in to Shepard.
It was actually pretty crazy how well she could tail someone with her power. It was a pretty large range of omniscience. To account for the fact that she didn't know the other girl's thinker power, if she had one at all, she hadn't used any kind of active scanning or tracking. rather, she'd relied on the senses of bugs in her area as they went about their normal day and made sure to never once enter anywhere near their lines of sight.
It was with a great deal of excitement then that at 10am she barged into Shepard's new apartment that she'd acquired with funds beaten out of gang members over the past few days.
"Aimei! Success!" I shouted into the room with a great deal of cheer.
The cheer faded away instantly as I noticed the strange man (and the fantastic aroma) walking out of the kitchen. Maybe a slightly above face but a very nice body, late teens to early 20s...mind out of the gutter Taylor. I was on the defensive until I noticed Shepard reclining on the couch in a bathrobe. It took me a few seconds to connect the dots before I blushed beat red.
"Uh. Hi?" The man finally said, holding out his hand. "I'm Jeff. I guess you're Taylor?"
I nodded slowly while tossing Shepard a questioning glance to which she rolled her eyes.
He must have picked up on it because he quickly cut it. "Oh, no. She hasn't mentioned anything important. Just that you were a friend of hers that might be dropping by this morning."
"Though I didn't actually expect you to barge in like that. Could have been awkward. Well, to you and Jeff anyways." A shrug and a glance tossed to Jeff who shrugged as well.
"You don't make it through living in a college dorm without getting used to it."
My blush intesfied slightly before he tossed both of us a smile and headed towards to door. "Anyways, breakfast is in the kitchen. I've got some things to take care of. Call me sometime."
And then he was gone out the door.
I took a few minutes to compose myself and thought over what Shepard had been up to the past few days. Working in her lab, investigating Leet and Uber. When had she had time to meet someo...
Blink. "That was Uber?"
She gave me a smirk.
"You -slept- with Uber?"
The smirk intensified. "He can master -any- skill Taylor. -Any- skill."
My blush reached critical mass.
"Did you at least use protection?" I managed to deadpan in my best dad voice.
"Of course!" She replied cheerfully. "We had our costumes on almost the entire time!"
If this was one of those Japanese cartoons I would have fallen with my legs twitching in the air. Instead I facepalmed and very loudly groaned.
"That was bad and you should feel bad for it."
Smirk.
Damnit.
"You know. I saw the add that someone posted about kidnapping Uber for a date. I'd hadn't taken it seriously, let alone suspected you. He was ok with, you know, the age thing?"
"Huh. That was silly of you. And yeah. I just told him my power de-aged me. That's more or less true."
Groan. "Fine. Fine. Did you at least get something productive out of it?"
"Oh, we were very pro..."
I held up my hands. "NO! No. I meant towards our plans and stuff."
Blink and the fading of a smirk. "Oh. Kinda. Leet's got some old tech that doesn't work any more I can scavenge parts from. They're going to sell them to me at a reasonable cost. As far as he knows I'm a Thinker that can salvage bits and parts of other peoples tinker tech and make things from them. Oh, and they're more than happy to follow our rules once we take over the city."
I paused. "Wait. Really?"
"Yeah. Don't know if he thinks I'll actually pull it off, but if I do...well, I can be quite persuasive."
Blink. "Wait, you traded..."
She held up her hand. "Whoa. No, no. Not at all. I mean, not that there's anything wrong with that. I mean it's a good or service that people can trade just like anything thing else as long as it's strictly and 100% their choice to do so but that wasn't the case! We had a business meeting about the Tinkering stuff and then my plans for the city. We hit it off and got along. Everything that happened after that were two consenting adults that were interested in each other... and very good at what they do." Wink.
I blushed anew and pinched the bridge of my nose. "Fine, ok. I get it..." I smirked at her. "But I thought we had something Shep."
She just grinned at me. "Oh honey, of course we do. This is just a fling. Besides, as good as he is, he's still a guy. He can't "master" being a girl...well, not without Panacea's help, anyways. And there's just some things you need a girl for..." She chuckled, probably at a mental scenario that was conjuring for her before shaking her head.
My blush intensified again. "Fine. Fine. Point Shepard. Every damned time."
She pouted slightly. "It's not about winning Taylor. It's about enjoying the bout."
She stood up and cinched her bathrobe closed before walking to the kitchen. "Now, how about you tell me what had you so excited while we eat a breakfast cooked with masterful skill?"
With the things the smell was doing to my stomach I had no recourse but to agree to this course of action.