Okay, I want to point out my way of picturing how Coil's power works.
Picture it like this: He has two roads ahead of him, and he walks both at the same time. In canon, it's more that he watches two versions of himself walking down each path, and he can cancel them both and reset them when it suits him. I prefer it to be that he has two timelines, so one is his throwaway timeline that he experiments with, and the other is the primary timeline. This makes more sense in my head, so that's what I've settled on.
Sure, not canon, but Skye isn't canon either, so suck it =P
Chapter 11
"Skye Rivera?"
Blinking, she stared at the masked man stood outside of her apartment, folding her arms. It had been only a week and a half since her sixth sense started freaking out, and every so often it suddenly sparked up with danger in various levels of threat. "Who's asking?" She said, her eyes narrowing as she flicked her tail from side to side in agitation, her entire posture and body-language practically screaming danger to the man in front of her.
Admirably, he didn't even tense up, nor did his voice sound even a little afraid. "My employer desires to meet you, and to inform you that your friend will be there." Skye inhaled slowly, her grasp on her arms tightening as she glared at the man stood outside her door. Flicking her gaze past him to the stairwell, she noted the fact that there were more men waiting out of sight, their breathing audible to her ears. "He also wished to make it clear that he only 'requests' to meet you, and to make an offer to you and your friend, one he believes you will be accepting. He is not in the business of making offers to just anybody."
Skye raised an eyebrow, eventually sighing and turning to the side slightly. "Do I need to bring anything?" He shook his head, to which she nodded. "Well, wait here for just a sec, inside or out I don't care, I need to grab my keys. That bowl there." She jerked a thumb at the bowl on the table, waiting until the man nodded before heading over to grab the keys and shoving them into her pocket. "Didn't want you shooting me for assuming I was fleeing." She said with a gesture at the pistol holstered on his thigh.
Her lips curled into a frown when he didn't even acknowledge her words, instead wordlessly striding towards the stairwell. Shutting the apartment door behind herself, Skye followed along, tucking her hands into her pockets. Her nose twitched a few times as she detected a few new scents, including a chemical smell she didn't recognize, and assumed it was some kind of pacification measure, maybe an anaesthetic or something.
The man led her to a black van, directing her to get into the back. "You will put on this mask." The voice of one of the two men sat in the back spoke to her, making her roll her eyes as she sat down and they put a black bag over her head. "Do not speak or attempt to move without permission until we arrive. Our employer takes operational security very seriously and we are authorized to pacify you by any means necessary if you attempt to escape."
She bit back her urge to retort that she wouldn't have gotten in the damn van if she was planning to escape. Besides, sure the guy who showed up said that their employer had no intention of harming her, but that was probably because he was going to use his alternate reality knowledge to try and manipulate her. Rather than do that and potentially get hit with a taser or something, she settled for memorizing the route they were taking, weaving around the city, presumably in an attempt to stop her from doing exactly what she was doing.
It wouldn't work, unless she was knocked out she would be able to easily track what twists and turns they had made. She would be able to backtrace her journey all the way home again if she needed to, though she doubted that'd be necessary, unless whoever this mysterious employer was decided to operate through a proxy. He definitely seemed like a stickler for keeping his own hands as far away from projects as he could, so it was definitely possible.
After maybe ten minutes of driving, they dipped down a ramp and underground, the sound of a mechanical door opening in front and closing behind leading her to presume an underground garage of sorts. When the doors of the van opened and she was allowed to take the bag off, her presumption was confirmed, with concrete walls and a sturdy-looking metal door blocking off the way the vehicle came in from. "This way."
Following the guy who spoke, she found herself analyzing their weaponry, their equipment, their movements, and decided that whoever this employer was, they were serious business. These mercs were kitted out in tactical gear that she'd attribute more to elite special operations soldiers, and their rifles were definitely powerful, the magazines large enough for 7.62 at the very least, probably .308 or some other powerful round. There was tinker-tech attached to the front as well, and she idly decided she would copy one later to test it out.
They ventured through the sizable underground facility, finally coming across an imposing red door. The merc knocked on it, and after a moment, the door buzzed, swinging open. As the man stepped off to the side, she peeked inside, seeing Taylor sat on one of the two chairs in front of a desk, and a man sat behind said desk in quite possibly the silliest costume she'd ever seen, forcing her to resist the strong urge to snort as she entered the room and the door shut behind her, locks clicking into place.
It was a black bodysuit with a black-striped white snake wrapped around his leg and chest, the open mouth of the snake visible on his head, as if attacking the person in front of him. Honestly, the only thing funnier would have been if it was pink or something. "And the final piece of the puzzle emerges. Skye Rivera in the flesh. Please, take a seat." His tone was light, not quite friendly but not inherently hostile either.
She glanced at the chair he offered, then at Taylor, before walking the few steps to sit down, not breaking her line of sight with the man. "I can't say the same. And I don't appreciate implied threats, no matter how dressed up, so threaten my friend again and I'll make sure this entire base is ground into rubble before you could even finish your sentence." The costumed man leaned forwards, putting her hands together as he observed her.
"Such fire. Though, I think perhaps you overestimate yourself. Certainly, you are capable, and an apt deceiver, but here, in the middle of my base?" The man shook his head. "I digress. I'm sure you're wondering who I am, and why I would decide to bring someone as under-the-radar as yourself to me for a meeting. I am Coil, though I don't presume for you to know that name, few do. As for why I brought you and your friend here, it is simple. I wish to offer you a job." Skye raised her eyebrow, waiting patiently for him to explain.
After a moment he stood up, making vague gestures as he spoke. "You see, I wish to see this city cleaned up. The Azn Bad Boys, the Empire Eighty-Eight, the Merchants, Trainwreck and her group, they are all contributing to making this city fall. I wish to see this process halted, by any means necessary. I do not say that I need your help to do this, but with what I know about you already, it would make the task cleaner and with much less strife."
Folding her arms, Skye watched Coil calmly, though inwardly she was piecing together his plan. He was probably using an alternate reality at the moment, meaning he could pitch two different speeches to her at once. Her immediately counter-threatening him probably put him off of trying to pressure her, so instead he was appealing to her. This reality was appealing to her sense of wanting Brockton Bay cleaned up, and the other could be anything, but from the fact she wasn't experiencing it, it made it likely that...ugh, thinking about alternate realities like that gave her a headache. "So you really think I'd actually help you clean up this city?"
"Not exactly. I know you have expressed interest in simply staying under the radar, and I respect that. I myself prefer not to attract attention with flashy bank heists or stealing priceless art, those are the actions of criminals and scum. No, the only reason I am deemed a villain is that my actions are too extreme for the Protectorate to accept." Skye suppressed her urge to twitch as her sixth sense went off a few times before stopping.
Apparently, in the alternate reality, he tripped up and pissed her off. "So you admit you're a villain?" He shrugged, spreading his hands in an ambiguous gesture. "Look, honestly, I don't get why you'd be so interested in dragging me into whatever power play you have in the works. You already know what I can do, and honestly, it isn't some amazing power that could turn the tide of Brockton Bay." Coil sat back down, tapping a finger on his desk.
"I think you undersell how valuable your powers can be. Let me make this expressly clear, you are capable of a lot more than you believe, if only you used your power to the fullest." Skye froze up slightly, her eyes focusing harshly on Coil's face. She didn't think that she would have revealed more than her powers were capable of, but maybe he managed to force her hand somehow? "You don't just replicate weapons or ammunition or armour, you can replicate anything you focus on."
Blinking, Skye watched as Coil opened a drawer and took out a pen, placing it on the desk and gesturing at it. "Go ahead. Focus on that pen, and attempt to use your powers on it." Without letting her relief show on her face at Coil's belief of what her 'full-strength' powers really were, she focused on the pen, replicating a copy of it and catching it in her hand, nonchalantly raising an eyebrow as she placed the pen down again. "And there is the reason why I am so interested in you." Turning her head to look at Coil, she waited for him to explain. "You just replicated a Tinker-tech pen."
Looking at the pen, she flicked it around her fingers for a moment, stopping to snort and withhold her laughter. "Sorry, it's just, you have a tinker-tech pen?" Coil let out a light chuckle of his own, and interestingly enough, it seemed he really was slightly amused. "So, Taylor, he say or do anything you don't like?" Her friend shook her head, reaching out and grasping her tail, threading her fingers through the fur slowly.
"No, he just offered to support my dad's project to get the ferry up and running again if I came along and listened to what he had to say. I...he's been working on that for years, even before mom died, and I figured that saying no wouldn't have mattered anyway. It's hard to say no when a guy in full military-style gear shows up in front of you with an offer like that." Skye snorted, picturing it in her head.
There wasn't really an easy way to turn that sort of thing down. "Okay Coil, here's the deal. Right now, I'm listening, I'm a little interested even in what you're saying, but I'm also pissed off at you for offering something like that and effectively emotionally blackmailing my friend and then myself, just to come to this meeting. So what I'm going to say is that you can make me an offer, and I will listen to it. But try to coerce me, and my previous threat will become fact." The villain leaned back in his chair, a few moments passing before her sixth sense pinged danger for just an instant, then nothing again.
Coil himself folded his fingers together. "Alright. My offer to you is thus: I want you to replicate something for me. A glass vial, including the contents. If you can replicate this object, I would be willing to fulfil near-any request you could make of me. If you are unable, I would still like to hire your replicative services on-demand, allowing for your education and other necessary engagements." Narrowing her eyes, Skye frowned.
All that testing, just for him to make such a simple request? But...why? Did he have some kind of supersoldier serum or some crap like that? Whatever the case was, it was definitely setting her on edge. As she opened her mouth to speak, her sixth sense went crazy, and this time, it felt real. She darted her head to the side, avoiding the bullet that split the air, whipping around and bringing out her own sidearm, firing two shots at the woman with a wide-brimmed hat that was stood behind her, surprise evident on her face that Skye had avoided her pistol.
The two rounds impacted her chest, burning holes in her suit and the skin underneath. Realizing she was using the de-powered version of the pistol, Skye let it go and made it vanish, darting forwards to grab the woman, swatting the woman's pistol out of her hand with a swing of her tail as she grasped the lapel of her suit. The pure shock on the woman's face was the only reason Skye didn't immediately slam her fist through her chest. Instead, she turned her focus onto Coil, only to see that he was staring at the woman. "You know her?"
Surprising her slightly, she actually heard Coil gulp. "That's...Contessa. She works for Cauldron, which means...shit." Skye raised an eyebrow as Coil pretty much entirely dropped his mysterious and powerful act. "But how did you...precog interference. But...that means you're as powerful as Glaistig or Eidolon." Coil pinched the ridge of his nose, releasing a sigh. "I guess I might as well tell you, it's the only way we're going to get out of this in one piece. Who you're currently holding is the Contessa. She's basically the bogeyman of Cauldron, killing anyone who messes with them. And a Cauldron Vial, superpowers in a tube, is what I intended for you to try and replicate."
Turning to face the woman, she could see that she was still shocked, staring at her. "Hey, is what he said true?" She said, frowning when the woman gave no reaction. Skye leaned to the left and right, watching her eyes track her face. She was awake and aware, but it was like she'd run into something she couldn't properly comprehend. Shrugging lightly, she shook the woman a few times, which seemed to jolt her out of her daze, her eyes focusing on Skye's face. "Is Coil telling the truth?"
Contessa blinked, looking up from her to stare at Coil. "You shouldn't have tried to go behind our backs." Her voice was firm, and she tried to take a step towards Coil, only for Skye's hand grasping the front of her suit to stop her, attracting her attention again. "And you...why do you not exist? Your existence isn't plottable or even comprehensible to the Paths. You...things change around you, throwing the Paths themselves into disarray. Coil's intentions were not clear until he made them into reality, because of your presence."
Parsing that information, Skye firmed her grasp on the Contessa, turning her head to glare at Coil. "Don't ask me. I just intended for you to replicate the vial, and I thought Cauldron would have interfered before I got the chance to even bring you in. Their non-action led me to believe that there was something going on, giving me an opening to proceed with my plan." Skye stared for a moment longer before shaking her head, turning back to address Contessa.
"Alright, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to let you go, and you are going to fuck off. Coil, I just...fuck it, you can fuck off as well. I can't be bothered to deal with this underhanded shit, not today. Either of you try anything to me or to Taylor, and I stop holding myself back." Skye then tilted her head. "Actually, Coil, you should know where Parian is, so you can get in touch and tell her that Taylor and me want to work with her. And, since I know you two aren't going to be idiots and spread this information, you can also tell her that Taylor can use spiders to make spider-silk clothing. Got it?"
She grinned at the speed at which the pair agreed, idly wondering whether their necks were doing to snap from how quickly they nodded.
After her encounter with Coil and the Contessa, Skye was honestly a bit surprised Taylor wasn't more freaked out.
On the way back to their house, Taylor just had this happy little smile on her face that widened a little every time Skye looked at her, and she couldn't figure out why. Maybe she was just happy that Coil had promised to keep to his word and support Danny in re-opening the ferry. The villain had been considerably subdued when Skye treated the Contessa like a minor nuisance, and honestly seemed a bit worried about things. Not once did she feel a twinge from her sixth sense, nor did she feel as though she was being watched, leading her to believe he had pulled back his mercenaries out of worry that he'd piss her off somehow.
She racked her brain several times and drew blanks every single time, eventually just giving up. Taylor was obviously in a good mood about something, and that meant that she wasn't scared or angry...well, it didn't explicitly mean she wasn't pissed off that thanks to Skye, she'd been all but kidnapped to encourage her attendance. "So...-" She started, rubbing her neck as Taylor turned to smile at her. "-why are you in such a good mood? I mean, we did just kinda get dragged into the base of a villain because of me."
Skye slumped her shoulders and sighed. That was not exactly a great way to put it, but she wasn't really cut out for the whole talking about feelings kinda thing. "I'm just...happy really, that you actually think of me as a good enough friend to say what you did." Frowning, Skye ran over what she said. Sure, she threatened Coil pretty explicitly for effectively blackmailing them both into coming to his base, but...well, wouldn't any friend do that? "Anyway, you then made sure that Coil understood that threatening me or my dad would annoy you, and it's...nice to know that you think well enough of me to stick your own neck out so far. So...what I'm trying to say is thank you, really."
Listening, Skye couldn't shake the feeling that there was something she was missing. But...what? Taylor had literally just explained why she was happy, and it was a totally reasonable reason to be happy, knowing that your friend would be willing to mess someone up if they tried to threaten you, and yet, it felt like that wasn't really the reason. So, with a shrug and a smile, she started rolling over what the Contessa had told her, or rather, what she had asked of her.
It was fairly simple, the woman wanted to meet her privately for a conversation, one she wasn't comfortable having in front of Coil or Taylor. Since Skye herself was considerably curious about her, she saw no real issue with accepting, and the Contessa didn't really strike her as the kind of person used to having someone interfere with their powers. What they were wasn't explained by Coil or the woman herself, but she pieced together a few pieces from what was said. It was some kind of precognition involving 'paths', which led her to assume that the woman saw different paths, routes through any given situation, before picking the optimal path and following it, a similar kind of power to Coil's, except far stronger.
Skye's mere existence and presence meant that those Paths were able to correctly plot for her existence, and thus they acted as though she wasn't even there, up until the point something changed around her and that shifted enough Paths that the Contessa noticed the change, went to Coil's base following a Path to stop him, and was then shocked when Skye was there. If the Contessa practically lived through her Paths, through a constant assurance of victory, encountering someone like her, who literally tore that entire way of living apart simply by existing near important events, would definitely generate the kind of reaction the woman had given her.
That still left her with questions like why the hell she even interfered with the Paths at all, and her only running theory was that it had something to do with the Argent Energy bonded to her soul somehow fucking with such a direct form of precognition. But then, why did it not work when Coil did it? And it was him that was doing it, he confirmed as much to her. His power literally split time as she assumed, and both timelines continued parallel to each other, in which one he could do whatever he wanted, including literally destroying the entirety of Brockton Bay, only for him to drop that timeline with zero repercussions.
Maybe it was because it wasn't pre-cognition, just two separate instances of reality, one of which could be dropped at any moment. Two versions of herself existing, which was why her sixth sense came across the gap? That just left her with more questions, as she'd been assuming that her sixth sense was just an instincts thing, knowing when someone was looking at her without ever seeing them directly, scaled up by several orders of magnitude. "So, how about you?" Skye raised an eyebrow at Taylor, waiting for her to elaborate. "You seem pretty out-of-it, more than I've ever seen you."
With a light sigh, Skye shrugged. "I'm just trying to figure things out. So many things about this whole situation just don't make any sense. Maybe I should stop trying before I give myself an aneurysm or something." Taylor hummed, reaching over to put her arm across her shoulders. Smiling thinly, she reciprocated, her tail coming to rest across her arm, which found itself slung across Taylor's back, hugging her gently. She let her head dip to the side, resting lightly against Taylor's shoulder. "I just...I feel like what I'm doing is just...wrong. Like I should be using my abilities to help people, not just trying to have a normal life and finding a way to support myself."
She then blinked in surprise when Taylor rounded on her, her other hand coming down to grip her other shoulder as she was on the receiving end of a glare that made her tail freeze up and her ears fold down. "No, you don't get to say that, not after you pointed out what I can do with my powers. You could do a lot more than you assume. What about replicating universal blood, or organs? Maybe you could even find a way to copy and replace missing body parts! And that's just for the medical side of things!"
Skye's eyes widened as Taylor ranted at her, at some point migrating back to being at her side as they started walking again, her arms occasionally being used in broad gestures as Taylor extolled just how amazing her powers really were. She hadn't established a time limit with them, just that they would make her get tired based on how complicated and large a copied item was. So replicating a building would be beyond her, as would replicating really advanced technology like one of the suits Dragon used, but most things would be fair game to her.
And from the lengths Taylor went to, it was obvious that Taylor was pissed off at her for being unhappy about trying to find a way to avoid fighting. Normalcy was nice, and the past week had been quite possibly the best week of her life, but there was always that itch for conflict in the back of her mind. She'd gotten so utterly used to fighting that not fighting just...it didn't fit her any more. But that wasn't what really worried her.
No, what scared her was that if she ever went out to be a vigilante, Taylor would almost definitely demand to come along and help her. That fact alone was like an ice-cold shower every time she thought about going out to pick a fight. If she went out to fight, Taylor would definitely get pissed at her if she didn't tell her, but if she did tell her, Taylor would not let her leave without helping. Neither situation was something she wanted to accept. It was why she was trying to hard to get in contact with Parian, not that doing so when she had no basis for which to reach her was an easy feat.
If she could get in touch with Parian and have something serious and at least somewhat interesting to do, maybe it would help her to stop wanting to dart up the nearest building and hunt down the nearest criminal to beat down. She still remembered how cathartic it felt when she got threatened, and subsequently put the asshole on the ground with a knee-strike and an axe-kick. But therein lay the main issue, the fact that she thoroughly enjoyed it.
She just- Skye stumbled back slightly, registering what had occurred while she was distracted. Taylor had flicked her ear. Not hard, but it still served as a pretty harsh reminder that she was meant to be walking back home with her friend, not bouncing around huge moral quandaries in her head. "Okay, spill, what the hell are you thinking about? I tried to get your attention like five times, and your ears barely twitched." Skye blinked, honestly surprised at how obscenely distracted she'd been.
"I'm...ugh, I hate this sometimes. Can...can we talk about it when we get to your place? Please?" She tacked on at the end, folding her ears slightly and resolutely not grinning as Taylor bit her lip and looked indecisive, debating between trying to make her spill whatever she was thinking immediately before she could forget, or respecting her wishes and waiting until they got to her house.
Eventually, Taylor rolled her eyes. "I swear, you should need a license to use those damn things." She grumbled, making Skye snort and dip her head when Taylor's hand whipped out to clip her ear again. Reaching her tail around, she settled it on Taylor's other shoulder, managing to distract her as she latched onto the soft fur-covered appendage and began working her fingers through it. "This doesn't mean I've forgotten, you're still telling me when you get home, or so help me, I'll..." Taylor trailed off, eventually re-affirming her face. "I'll find something to do about it!" Skye held in her amusement, instead just nodding and continuing to walk, all the while Taylor spent her time distracted by her tail.
As they reached her house, she extricated her tail from Taylor's grasp and waited as the girl hopped up the steps and unlocked the door, nudging it open. On their way back, Taylor explained that Danny was working, despite it being Saturday, and wouldn't be back for a while. She then pointed at the sofa, waiting until Skye sat herself down before a grin pulled onto her lips and she sat down beside her. So, spill. What were you thinking about so hard? A boy maybe? Nah, you wouldn't look at any of the boys in WInslow like that. A girl then? But there's nobody there still, you wouldn't pick any of them. That means, by my infinite power of deduction, you want to go on a date with me! I wholeheartedly accept."
Skye watched, pretty stunned, as Taylor made her grandiose announcement, gesturing widely with her arms. She managed to hold in her myriad of expressions and emotions for all of a moment, to which Taylor simply grinned as she stared at her. "You are utterly incorrigible." Taylor nodded, miming a bow. "That wasn't meant to be a compliment. Ugh, just...look, I've...told you how much time I really spent fighting, and...I just can't leave it alone. I wanted to work with Parian to try and find an outlet of any kind, and being with you is awesome and I wouldn't change it for the world, but...I just keep on..." She trailed off, trying to find the words.
"You just keep on wanting to find something to stimulate yourself?" Glancing at Taylor, Skye tilted her head in consideration before nodding. "I know how you feel. I mean...not in terms of what you went through, obviously. But, ever since I got my powers, I've wanted to use them to fight villains, even knowing that I can use them for other ventures like clothing design." Skye brushed a hand through her hair, leaning back against the sofa cushion as her eyes traced the ceiling patterns
After a moment, she looked from the ceiling to Taylor, her lips curled into a frown. "Then...what if we just do both? I know I can't exactly hide who I am, but the unwritten rules mean that anyone who tries to go after me will get the very short end of the stick. And that'd be after I'm done tearing them into pieces. So as long as I respect those rules, hopefully I won't end up like Fleur." Admittedly, not a very happy example of the unwritten rules being broken, but the rest of New Wave hadn't been attacked, and the guy who did it got cut into literal chunks by Kaiser for breaking the unwritten rules, a very firm message by the man that breaking that truce would see the perpetrator meet a very violent end.
Even Lung didn't break it, even though he could easily burn the houses of New Wave to the ground. Doing so was a very easy way to get a fast-tracked Kill Order or at the very least a Birdcage sentence. Sure, he was already past three strikes and if he was caught he'd be sent to the Birdcage, but he hadn't done anything so extreme as to get a Kill Order.
And Fleur was an outlier, killed by a 'lucky' E88 wannabe thug with barely more muscle than sense who shot her before she could do anything, at least according to the media, which had reported extensively on the case. Even if someone got the drop on her and put a bullet through her head, she would survive it. And maybe they would claim that they had shot her, but it would be her word against her assailant. She could easily pretend to have made a modification to her suit, or that the bullet hit her incredibly durable implant which absorbed the damage and the kinetic energy, leading to no real injuries.
Taylor, on the other hand, would be able to hide herself, but not the fact that they were friends. Because Skye couldn't hide her ears or tail properly, it meant that if Taylor was seen as being her partner, then people would draw the conclusion that Taylor was the one with her, based off the fact that Taylor would match the description of her, as well as the fact that they were friends. Anyone who she was seen with would see scrutiny after all.
Of course, that still meant the unwritten rules would apply, if they deliberately went after Taylor or Danny, Skye would be able to beat them into the ground with a lot more legal leeway. With Coil practically bending over backwards to assist her with Parian, maybe she could even leverage that into getting him to have their backs if it came to a serious confrontation between them and one of the big gangs.
But she doubted it'd come to that. Sure, when in-costume they'd kick the shit out of each other, but when outside of their costumes, it wasn't likely that she'd be attacked, not unless she caused someone to have a grudge against her, one strong enough that they'd decide to take the repercussions of breaking the rules. And if they did that, attacked her or Taylor or her dad, she wasn't going to be holding back on them. She would tear them into literal pieces. "So...you want to become a vigilante?"
"Not really. Most vigilantes break the unwritten rules, and I don't intend to do that. If I break them, then that opens you and your dad up to being attacked to get back at me, since as soon as I start being noticed, people will be able to put two-and-two together, just thanks to these." She twitched her ears and flicked her tail to the side, her lips curling into a smile. "So I just won't address it. People can label me as a good vigilante, or as an active rogue, or maybe even an unaffiliated hero, I don't really mind. Only problem is that, if we do this, we basically yell our existence to the world. You won't be able to hide this from your dad, because he's not dumb. He'd see my tail, and all it takes is a picture or video of you being with me and he'll know you also have powers."
Taylor frowned, wrapping her arms around her knees and drawing them to her chest. "I guess. But...well, we have two choices I guess. Either we don't do this, or we do it all the way. No half-assing it. I'd...have to tell my dad about my powers, and it'd be revealed that you have powers beyond the obvious, meaning Winslow will be even more of a nightmare than usual. So we-" Taylor cut herself off, glancing at the door. Skye raised an eyebrow at her. "I was...using my bugs to train, seeing through them and stuff, and someone I don't recognize is opening the gate. After that guy showed up to take me to Coil, I figured using them as an early-warning system would be a good idea."
Getting up from the sofa, Skye walked over to the door and peeked through the peep-hole, eventually shrugging. "I don't recognize her either...should we let her in? Taylor closed her eyes, presumably focusing on her bugs, and Skye returned her attention back to the peep-hole, watching as the stranger observed the house for a few moments before stepping through the gate, swinging it shut with a clatter.
Her ears flickered slightly as she heard Taylor get up and start approaching. "I don't know. She looks pretty non-threatening, but...I just don't know." Worrying her lip between her canines, Skye kept her focus on the approaching girl, noting her clothing, the way she walked, trying to figure out anything she could about her. What she was wearing was concealing enough that she could easily have a pistol in a shoulder holster, or a knife hidden pretty much anywhere.
But then, why would she need to worry about that so much? If push came to shove, she could just subdue her. After all, she was the one approaching Taylor's front door. So, if the police were called and there was a gun or a knife with her fingerprints on it, it'd become a pretty open-and-shut self-defence case. Nodding to herself, she glanced at Taylor, then flicked the lock and opened the door, amused at the surprise on the face of the approaching girl. "Can we help you?" The blonde-haired girl stared for a few moments before a grin pulled across her lips.
"Wow, I can see why the boss is scared of you."
So, things are starting to pick up now.
One thing I'm curious about is whether anyone can think of an interesting cape name for her. I think Quake sounds nice, but the problem is that it doesn't match her materialization powers. Maybe something related to her animal appendages? Amarok, perhaps, from Inuit mythology, said to stalk those foolish enough to hunt alone at night. Or Lupa, the she-wolf that nursed Romulus and Remus.
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