a/n: This is my first bit of creative writing, and my first fanfiction. I've lurked in SB for a long while, reading the fanfics, and thought I'd try to write my own. I wanted to avoid the Taylor only in name trope, so I've decided to make it an OC who will go to Brockton Bay, and interact with our intrepid cast of personalities. Fear not, Taylor will still be in it. Just... later.
Evelyn ran down the well lit street, checking desperately through the windows of the suburban houses for any sign of someone watching. She had swung way out of her weight class tonight, going after Grotesque.
"Come out little girl," rolled the oily voice of the rotting beast, as he clomped down the street behind her. The stench carried all the way to her nose, and good lord did she wish she had one of those fully sealed face masks the local Protectorate wore.
She was only in Andover for several days, and then she was moving up north to Brockton Bay and she wanted to give a goodbye that the city would remember. She thought she'd go on a big spree of stopping muggers, burglars, and the like. She never expected to be running down Elm Street with an undead villain attempting to eat out her brains or something. She happened to like the brains she had right where they were, thank you very much!
Evelyn gave up on any innocent passersby calling 911 and cursed her bad luck once again. She pulled on that little heat she felt under her tongue, causing one of her little spritelings to form. She concentrated deeply, closed her eyes, and pushed the heat into her hands. When she opened them again, the flame creature bounced on her palm, an orange spectre of a vampire standing about 12 inches tall.
"Please, help. It won't stop following me." Evelyn tried to push her thoughts at it, just like had worked when she practiced in the common room.
It briefly bowed to her, baring its pointed teeth and winking as it rose. The flaming vampire jumped off her palm and instantly began to sprint off, running much faster than any creature with that short of legs had a right to. She turned to watch it's progress, taking cover beside a car. Down the street, she got her first glimpse of Grotesque. The lamps lit up an 8 foot tall rotten corpse, made up of different creatures. She caught a glimpse of a bear's leg here, and a human arm there. The tiny vampire was running down the street straight at it, appearing as a glowing orange streak.
"What is this? You are going to trip me up?" Grotesque had the audacity to laugh at her little creation. It may be small, but it had spirit! She was going to prove him wrong. The vampire jumped around a car and up onto a curb, as Grotesque attempted to spray it from some kind of venom sack.
She summoned another sprite, concentrating and breathing deeper. This one was one of the more rebellious spirits... She breathed out, and the heat flared in her hand. A small woman stood there, with wings like a wasp. She fluttered them and stared up at Evelyn.
"The stories say that you are meant to be a trickster, and I know that you think this is funny. But you're also supposed to defend the innocent! I just can't-" Grotesque smashed a car aside to get at her vampire, which ran up the rotting corpse's arm. The arm began to smoke and Grotesque simply dropped it off with the vampire still on it. "-I need it gone. Please. Help me Briar-Rose."
Evelyn mentally pushed with all her might, and the fiery woman swayed. She tapped her lip and then began to float off, in the direction of Grotesque. The vampire was using its speed to run in circles around the tall man. Briar-Rose began to blink forwards, teleporting 10 feet every time. The little fire woman was only 10 feet away, Evelyn's heart in her throat, when she reappeared way up above Grotesque.
"No, no, no!" chanted Evelyn as she watched her loose plan fall apart, her rebellious sprite leaving the battlefield. A dog had begun barking in the backyard of a neighboring house, the car alarms on the street were going off like crazy. Grotesque was beginning to lose interest in the little vampire and was turning to march towards the house with the pet. She tried to desperately think of any sprite she could summon, any at all, but the noise was messing with her concentration. She couldn't pull out any ideas.
"Hey!" shouted Evelyn, her voice cracking slightly.
Somehow, she'd found herself in the center of the street. She felt like she was in one of those western movies her dad had liked to watch. Her chest began to swell with a familiar ache. Now was not the time, however. She was armed with a switchblade, an orange hoodie, black cargo pants, and a thin red bandana around her mouth. Her opponent was 8 feet tall, made of dead animals, and terrifying. The good thing was that she was currently winning, as Grotesque's right arm lay burning several feet behind him. The bad thing, she was about to pay for it.
"Thought you could get away with busting my boys?" Grotesque's voice matched the rest of him, rotten and a mix of creatures. As he spoke, it was a combination of a snake hiss, a cat yowling, and an old man's dry rasp. He walked towards Evelyn, slowly. "Some small time cape, Spark Girl, taking me down? I spit at the very idea of it."
True to his word, his spit came arching out at her and landed at her feet. The droplets burnt through the concrete with a hiss and Evelyn gulped. She struck a strong pose, like Legend would.
"I am Campfire, and you shall not pass!" She hoped her voice hadn't cracked, that would ruin the effect entirely. Her vampire sprite had retreated back to her feet to prepare to charge.
Briar-Rose still floated above Grotesque, waving her arms around in strange patterns. Evelyn drew her switchblade as if it would do something, and readied to fight.
As Grotesque entered his shuffling run, several things happened at once. Briar-Rose threw her arms down and smoke billowed up from the road. The little vampire drew a small fire sword and dashed forward to throw itself head first into the obscured villain.
Evelyn looked around for a real weapon, brandishing the knife at the smoke still. One of the downsides of having a Master power was the fact that she herself wasn't really made to tussle with villains. She wasn't entirely sure what Briar-Rose was doing but it seemed to be having an effect, as Grotesque was standing in the center of the effect still. The little vampire was nothing but an orange glow setting fire to the Villain, jumping from limb to limb.
The cracking sound of a lot of air announced the arrival of Protectorate hero Whipshot. Evelyn stepped back in surprise, the hooded Hero already drawing his bow to fire a shot into the knee of Grotesque.
"We'll take it from here, Spark Girl!" announced the Robin Hood lookalike, as another cape dropped out of the skies on her metallic wings. Windcutter used her tinkertech bracers to fire compressed air at the flaming corpse villain, and the creature began to fall backwards.
Evelyn stood still in shock, as the Protectorate Heroes systematically took apart Grotesque, Windcutter's bracers negating the villain's acid and Whipshot filling him with arrows. Her little vampire was doing the best it could to burn the walking corpse, but with the amount of air being blasted at him, he was having a tough time staying up. Briar-Rose finally spun her hands together and with a great flourish… set the entire head on fire.
"Put it out, you little monster! Stop!" Evelyn was immediately terrified, she wasn't wanting to kill someone. She wasn't ready, she never thought she'd be a murderer. She was wracked with indecisiveness, prepared to bolt. The Protectorate Capes had withdrawn to watch Grotesque fall to his knees, blindly swinging his arms around still.
"Why aren't you helping him?" Evelyn cried out, pointing at the dying man. She ran forward to pat out the flames, only to be stopped by Whipshot.
"It's a tinkered minion, being controlled from somewhere else. Just returning the body to the earth, now. Those pieces aren't meant to stick together, it's why we haven't been able to shut him down. We don't know where the Tinker is." He explained, eyes locked on the corpse, staring through his green whirlpool mask. His mouth and lower face was uncovered, and set in a grim line. Windcutter stood idly by and waited for the sparking to stop, as a mechanical circuit board was shown by the melting head.
Evelyn stumbled back and threw up into a bush, the sight too much for her young eyes.
"Hey now, it's okay," came a voice from behind her, as a strong hand patted her on the back. "It was a rough night but it's over now."
Heat rushed into her, the telltale sign of her sprites disappearing, and she coughed once, wiping her mouth. She straightened up to see Whipshot himself comforting her. He seemed to be trying to smile.
"You're the hero, right? Independent?" he said.
Evelyn wordlessly nodded, only speaking through the sick taste in her mouth to correct a previous error, "My name is Campfire, not Spark Girl."
"My apologies, Campfire. The unfortunate thing about not being affiliated with the Protectorate is that we can't help control what the public calls you. Have you thought about joining up? You seem to be in need of training, a team, and resources." He looked pointedly at her colorful homemade costume.
"I would think about it but… I'm not going to be around here much longer, sir. Don't you need parents' permission to join the Wards?" Evelyn genuinely regretted not joining up, but she didn't see how she could make it work.
"Parent or Guardian, yes. If you join up wherever you're going, tell them Whipshot will vouch for you. We've been watching your progress around the city, Campfire. We here appreciate you helping the small time stuff, getting more Heroes is what we always like." Whipshot held out a hand to shake, as Windcutter began to flap her wings and move up into the night sky, calling in to the PRT.
Evelyn shook it, silently promising to herself that this would be going into her journal as soon as she got back home. She avoided looking at the smoldering Grotesque, muttering her thanks to Whipshot.
"Good luck, sir. I, uh… better go." Evelyn prepared to jog off.
"And to you, Campfire. See you around, kid." Whipshot aimed his bow without stringing any ammunition, and when he released it, teleported several hundred feet onto a rooftop down the street. He looked back to her and raised his bow in salute, then teleported away again.
Evelyn turned to begin the long jog home, as the PRT sirens got closer and closer. Once around the corner, she ducked into an alley and changed out of her Campfire costume, taking off the jacket and leaving a plain grey T-shirt on. She jogged out along the empty streets to the dull grey building that had been her home for the last 2 years, the Adlain Children's Home. She climbed up the old oak tree that neighbored her window, and sat on the sill, knocking.
"I won't even ask," said her roommate Susanna, popping open the window and then lying back down to sleep. Evelyn threw her costume into the trunk under the bed, took off her spare clothes and then dove under the covers, shaking with the last of the adrenaline. She'd met Whipshot and had even shook his hand. She'd helped take down a villain- well, a tinkered minion, but who's counting- and hadn't even gotten hurt.
She tried to sleep, knowing that come tomorrow, she'd be meeting the man who'd come to adopt her. Her books were packed up already, Vampire Butler still out for her to read before bed. Her clothes were almost there, minus the costume. She was ready physically... just not emotionally. As she drifted off, Evelyn thought to herself "Brockton Bay will be better than here. Anywhere would be better…"