The memories came back in a jumbled mess.

Even so, with every new memory, with every new vision of the past, with every feeling, the jumbled mess became more coherent, more complete.

She wandered in the Domain of the Lost for an unknown time, but with every new event she viewed and was reminded of an action that she had taken, she was surprised. As if she shouldn't have had taken those actions, or maybe she wouldn't have had taken them?

It was all very confusing watching apparently her life from the outside, in this dark, shadowy domain where only the cries and moaning of the dead, and some guy name Joko's crazy ranting could be heard.

To her, it seemed she was an outsider, but at the same time, she saw she was there, taking those actions: defeating small and big monsters, even dragons, talking with important and not so important people, learning magic and creating wonders, yet she felt the truth in them. She knew they happened; she knew she did all those things. It was all so confusing…

She drifted from vision to vision, from memory to memory, slowly putting together her life, her memories, until finally, she reached a particularly intense one.

She saw endless sand, with a smattering of green and blue…

She saw a great enemy…

She saw a fight…

She saw fire, suffering, and pain…

And then darkness.

And with the last scene over in the vision, Taylor Hebert remembered. Remembered her name, her purpose, her past and present, and knew what she was trying to do and was going to do.

Taylor looked around with newfound interest, as before she fully regained her memories, her interest in anything around her was blunted by something. Everything was gray with a tinge of green, with the occasional spirit fire or artifact giving off its white light.

She smiled a little at remembering her conversation with Palawa Joko, making a note to tell the others about it after she somehow found a way out of this domain.

"It seems you've regained what you've lost, my friend."

Taylor whirled around and she beheld the serene face of Nenah.

"Nenah?"

"Yes?

"I… no." Taylor shook her head, trying to fight off her confusion. "What now?"

"You've remembered your name and purpose?" came the peaceful reply from the other spirit.

"Yes, my name is Taylor, and I was attempting to defeat Balthazar."

Nenah nodded calmly as if she met people every day who were trying to commit deicide.

"I'm glad, my friend. But before you return to the Judge, there is one challenge left."

Taylor raised an eyebrow and gripped her ethereal weapon harder.

"Very well. Lead me there, Nenah."

Her guide in the Domain of the Lost just gave her a tranquil smile.

"For this challenge, you won't need any weapons."

With that, she turned around and began sedately walking away from Taylor. Taylor meanwhile sheathed her weapon and began following the spirit with a frown on her face.

They didn't have to walk far, as soon they reached a part of the domain that seemed to be shrouded with every moving mist. It took Taylor only a few seconds to realize that it was the actual Mist, not some regular water vapor.

Stepping carefully, as Taylor knew from her experience with the wildlife of Tyria, that most of the time, interacting wasn't best for your health.

Finally, they reached an area oddly devoid of Mist, yet Taylor could see that they were almost enveloped by the Mist, the odd material acting as some kind of mountain wall, casting an almost imperceptible shadow over their target destination, making her feel that the entire thing was rather hush-hush.

But when Taylor saw what, or rather who was there, every other thought fled from her head. She didn't even notice when Nenah stepped back, letting her approach the familiar spirit. The spirit was wearing odd clothing that stood around her height, with long, wavy hair, and her eyes shining with tears.

"Mom?"


…Knowing what kind of adventures Taylor had over the years, not much can surprise. Regular messages like: 'I just rode a giant mutated Dolyak!' or 'I just destroyed a greater Fire Elemental!' just make me nod, and go on with my day. After all, that's just Taylor being Taylor.

But when I saw her body lying lifeless after her fight with Balthazar, I was devastated. Why?

She survives everything.

She survived Asuran inventions throwing her into the Fractured Mist Fractals, giant reanimated Dragons; she fought one-on-one with The Shatterer. How could she lose? How?

(I will not even deny that I began hiccupping like never before!)

So, I was rather relieved when she woke up, even after every magic and device confirmed her dead, with a flippant 'I got better!' (apparently, it was some kind of joke, but I didn't get it) and immediately wanted to go back fighting Balthazar.

I won't even remark on her comment about Palawa Joko being annoying on the other side…

- Excerpt from correspondence between Lady Kasmeer Meade and her lover, Marjory Delaqua, 1330 AE


Ethan watched the scene before them in an equal amount of fascination and horror. But for some reason, he couldn't even find it in himself to feel afraid. The horror was instead directed at the carnage he was expecting to witness. Quickly glancing at the Wards, he was unsurprised to see that Kid Win was sporting a worried frown, while Vista seemed to exhibit a worrying amount of bloodthirst.

Returning his attention to the Mexican stand-off that developed, he took a proper look at the villains.

Oni Lee was, as always, inscrutable behind his crimson-colored Oni mask, still staying motionlessly on the trashed car, though Ethan could spot the man tightening over the handle of his sword. Hookwolf in his half-transformed state was almost as hard to read as Lung's assassin, but even so, he could see the sheer anger radiating off the man aimed at Weaver. Alabaster was the easiest. The unnaturally white man was sporting a giant perverted smile, and before he could blink was already laughing and yelling at Weaver.

"Really, you fuckin' asshole?" while he cursed Weaver out, he raised his guns and aimed at her. Ethan tensed, ready for action, but when he took a surreptitious look around he noticed how weirdly everyone's attention from the villains to the mooks standing at the back of their respective groups was directed at Weaver. He politely ignored Vista muttering: 'Fight! Fight! Fight!'. "You think you just walk in and we do as you say because you shook your ass for the masses? He?" Ethan watched as Weaver calmly listened to the Nazi rant at her, while Hookwolf seemed to grow bigger. "You know what, you little cunt? I think it's time we showed the fucking PRT their places! Right, men?" The people behind him, and hidden in the ruined shops, all yelled out in agreement, while Alabaster still aiming his giant guns at Weaver, looking at her with pride and confidence.

Ethan couldn't see Weaver's face, but he still could see her sigh in disappointment, her entire body emoting the feeling as Alabaster finished her rant.

"So, you won't surrender?"

Alabaster's grin widened, and Hookwolf began to growl, and most worryingly Vista's chant began to intensify.

"Surrender this!" yelled out the white-washed supervillain, and then a lot of things happened in a short amount of time.

As Alabaster pulled the trigger on his guns, Weaver moved extremely quickly, bringing her giant weird illuminated sword between her and the guns. The shots pinged off the sword, and while the supervillain looked at her with surprise, the others also began to move.

The next one to take a shot at the heroine (still somehow ignoring Ethan and the two Wards standing behind Weaver, not that he would complain, though he made sure that his body camera was recording, no need to lose out on high-quality entertainment) was Oni Lee, who appeared suddenly over Weaver, his sword raised high, cutting downward as soon as he appeared.

Seemingly in reflex, Weaver whirled around, deflecting the blow of the Oni's sword with hers, continuing the movement, she struck back, but the only thing she slashed through was a human-shaped ash pile that quickly fell to the ground as Oni Lee moved away after his first unsuccessful strike.

Just in time for Alabaster to regain his wits, and start firing at her with abandon, while Ethan saw Hookwolf fully transforming and seemingly waiting for the perfect opportunity to rush in. The mooks, still behind burning and trashed cars, or in storefronts, however, were still content to sit and stand there watching the fight. Ethan had a hunch that Weaver used some kind of subtle Master power to prevent them from escaping or attacking.

As each shot went off, Weaver positioned the flat of her blade blindingly fast to protect herself from them, while also dodging occasional strikes from the still silent Oni Lee.

It took Alabaster only a few seconds to run out of bullets. The moment his guns fell silent, he roared out.

"What are you fuckers waiting for? Invitation to the ball from a whore? Fire, you bastards!"

The Empire gang members shook themselves as if waking from a dream, and took up (rather amateurish) stances, and aimed at Weaver, who in the interweaving seconds exchanged a few strikes with Oni Lee. While she always struck true, it seemed she was always just a second late to hit the real parahuman. Hearing so many guns aimed at her, Oni Lee didn't reappear, probably not wanting to bathe in a bullet shower.

Ethan, transfixed by the fight, didn't have time to yell out any warning before the Empire mooks let loose and a literal bullet hell descended on his newest teammate (though the ABB mooks seemed to be as or even more transfixed as he was, as they didn't duck from the oncoming hail of bullets).

However, to everyone's surprise (or at least to those who he could see their faces) the bullets barely flew a few meters before they were stopped by an invisible wall.

For a long second everyone, from the Wards to the Empire, stared at the mass of bullets hung in the air, before Weaver calmly raised her hand, and snapped her finger, breaking the silence, and somehow causing the bullets to fall to the floor.

Then Oni Lee appeared over her in the air, and Ethan heard a few soft clinks of grenades being armed. Within the same second, the bomber vanished, leaving ashes and grenades raining down on Weaver.

She didn't even look up, just simply weaved her hand that was up and each grenade was enveloped in an opaque whitish-gray bubble. Then the grenades went off, causing the bubbles to darken, and Ethan and the others could only hear some muffled thumps from the explosions.

The crossing once again descended into silence as the present people tried to process what happened, with only the crackling fires and some sirens in the distance disturbing it.

"Now that we established what big boys you are, how about you surrender?" spoke up Weaver, with the giant sword returned to her shoulder. Ethan didn't have to see her face that to know she was sporting a grin, as he could hear it from her voice.

Alabaster's reply came immediately, but Ethan was happy to note that it wasn't as confident as before.

"What, just because you can ignore a few bullets, you think we will just kneel down and lick your ass? Hookwolf, show her who rules this city!"

"Don't order me around you, fucker!" came the growl from the metallic wolf next to him. But at the same time, Hookwolf didn't waste a second and launched himself at Weaver.

Ethan didn't really see what happened, but one-second Hookwolf was flying towards the serenely standing Weaver, then the next second, he vanished and there was a giant crash at an unoccupied store across from Weaver.

Everybody looked towards it, waiting for the giant dust cloud to die down to see what happened. Weaver, seemingly not wanting to wait, waved once again her hand, and the dust cloud vanished as if sucked into a black hole. At the same time deflecting several attacks from Oni Lee, who seemed to be trying to use Hookwolf's attacks as an opportunity to strike at her.

"Yes! So awesome!"

He looked down at the pint-sized spatial horror at his side. He couldn't help but let out a chuckle as he beheld Vista watching the 'fight' with rapt attention.

Redirecting his attention to Hookwolf to see what happened to him, he couldn't help but be surprised to see another wolf, no jackal, standing over the half-buried body of the Nazi supervillain.

Even though it was shaped like a jackal (thank you nature documentaries on boring on-call nights) it was nothing like a real one. Instead of brown skin and fur, it was light gray, glowing with an inner light always in motion as if sand was flowing on a dune guided by a gentle wind. It swirled around, then pooled under the jackal, then simply dispersed into nothingness only for it to repeat ad nauseam. Oh, and it was at least seven feet tall and twice as long.

"This is Sandra, or Sandy for short," spoke up Weaver, while the weird glowing jackal snorted and elegantly dipped her head for a fraction of a second, then she returned her staring at Hookwolf who just began digging himself out of the rubble. "Sandy, go play with the Nazi. He needs to let off some stress!"

The jackal let out a mix between bark and sand flowing in a river bed under moonlight (how he could hear that Ethan didn't know) and then jumped at Hookwolf with blinding speed and the two of them vanished in a puff of glowing gray sand, oddly reminiscent of Oni Lee's ash clones.

The next second, he could hear a crash from a street over, then a roar from Hookwolf.

Weaver parried a few more strikes from Oni Lee. One from above, then the supervillain immediately reappeared behind her, striking at her, which was contemptuously deflected by her palm, only for Oni Lee to reappear above, rain down grenades that were disposed of the same way as the first ones, then vanish and try to strike at another angle.

If Ethan was honest, it was rather funny-looking. With the crashes coming from the fight between the giant Jackal-thing and Hookwolf, Alabaster staring with his mouth open, the mooks standing around conked out of their minds, and Weaver standing in the middle, not a hair out of place in her perfect hairdo while Oni Lee spammed around him with increasing speed as he tried and failed to strike at her.

He attributed the fact that the ABB parahuman didn't even try to disengage to the Master power Weaver used. Though why she wanted to keep them around if she didn't make an effort to capture them (and he knew she could do it, as she saw what she was capable of when they trained)? That made no sense to him.

After a few more seconds of Oni Lee's futile attempts, Weaver finally moved differently.

To everyone's surprise, she caught the sword in her hand, and instead of vanishing, Oni Lee visibly tried to wrench the sword away. It only took a few attempts for Oni Lee to realize that it was useless, so he let it go and vanished, only to reappear on the top of the same car where Ethan first saw him.

Only this time, he was standing, his hand clenched into fists, and was radiating anger and frustration.

Then Weaver once again surprised him.

She began talking in Japanese, directed at Oni Lee.

There was no reaction from Oni Lee, but as soon as Weaver finished, the supervillain vanished and didn't reappear.

He was about to call out a question to Weaver when they were interrupted by Alabaster yelling incoherently, and charging at Weaver with a piece of metal held aloft and his face filled with anger. It seemed while Weaver was dealing with Hookwolf (huh, another building gone) and Oni Lee, he slunk off to get something else to attack with after the guns were proved to be useless against Weaver.

Ethan, with the Wards, watched as Alabaster came into close-combat range and swung his metal pipe at Weaver's face. The sword held in Weaver's hand vanished as she sidestepped the swing and used one of her hands to casually strike at Alabaster's face. The man recoiled, but a second later, with blood flowing from his nose, a demented grin on his face, he resumed his attack. With one hand he swung the pipe, while his other hand reached behind his back, and while Weaver was sidestepping the strike, he unleashed the knife he hid there at her.

Unfazed, Weaver simply reached out slapped the knife out of his causing him to cry out of pain, and while he was distracted by that, and incidentally being reset to pristine condition, Weaver stepped forward inside his guard, using a hand motion to disarm him from his improvised weapon, then punching him hard, in his stomach.

Alabaster folded in half, wheezing from the pain, and Weaver, not waiting for the reset, simply reached down with her right hand, grasped the Nazi's throat, and with a smooth move raised him in the air in a move reminiscent of what she did with Velocity at their first spar.

And as Alabaster dangled in the air, they were once again surprised.

He didn't reset.

His wheezing from the pain of the punch didn't stop, or the pain from being held aloft by his crushed throat visibly didn't vanish. And Alabaster noticed too, as the familiar feeling of relief didn't appear.

"What the fuck did you do, bitch?" he wheezed out through his narrowed throat.

"I wonder?" came the impish reply from Weaver. "How about you go to sleep, and everything will be explained after you wake up?"

The moment she spoke the word sleep, Alabaster's eyelids lowered, and as soon as she finished her sentence, he was snoring.

Weaver let the supervillain go, and he dropped like a sack of potatoes on the ground, still snoring.

Staring at the spectacle in front of him, Ethan was shocked out of his surprise by bigger than the usual explosion from the direction of the weird jackal thing versus Hookwolf fight.

Weaver just spoke up casually.

"Sandy, that's enough."

As soon as the words left her lips, the jackal reappeared next to her in a shower of gray glowing sand and began to rub its face at her raised hand. Weaver let out a small chuckle and used her other hand (Ethan ignored Vista's squee) to pet the giant beast that looked no worse for wear after her fight with Hookwolf.

"Good job, girl! You were great!"

The jackal let out a soft, almost whine and, after one last pat, vanished in a big ethereal sand explosion. Weaver looked around for a few seconds, eyeing the mooks staring with blank eyes, and then turned towards them with a smile.

He was about to speak up when his communicator crackled to life, Overwatch's voice coming through clear and concise.

"Assault, the trackers in your group abruptly moved. What happened?"

He looked around at the gang members standing like zombies, the burning cars and debris, Alabaster laying on the ground, still snoring and Weaver, who was currently listening to Vista gush about the fight, while Kid Win stood around awkwardly, and sighed. He could already feel his hand hurt from the paperwork.

"Copy you, Overwatch. You better call the Director and Armsmaster…" He took another look around. "Also, probably send all the wagons…"

"What?"


"What the fuck were you thinking?"

Taylor looked back at the Director as she stood over her desk, hands-on it, gripping it while her face was beginning to turn into an interesting shade of red.

"I was thinking, that maybe as a part of this community and sworn to protect it as a superhero, it was my duty to stop those awful supervillains shooting at each other," she answered, by throwing a glance at Armsmaster who was standing slightly behind the Director, receiving an almost invisible shrug from the man.

"Don't play cute with me, Miss Hebert!" growled out the Director. "What you did might as well ignited the powder keg this fucking city is."

"That's why I only captured Alabaster. And the goons," rebutted Taylor gently. She was perfectly aware of how much trouble the city was. Before she came back to Earth Bet, she made hundreds of plans about what she would do, but once she finally investigated the situation in her home dimension, she quickly realized that the situation was much, much worse than she thought. It was amazing how much her teenage self missed, misunderstood, or simply didn't even notice.

She could have killed those parahumans five seconds flat, as they had no defenses against magic, but Taylor knew that if she were to capture them (not even mention killing them) it wouldn't be even five minutes before Lung and Kaiser would try to break down the doors at the PRT.

So she showed off a little, maybe scared them somewhat, and captured the weakest link. Even an idiotic Nazi would understand the message. "He requires the least amount of constraints to keep him in the holding cells. If you act quickly, he could be out of the city by tomorrow morning."

She didn't receive an answer. Instead, Piggot breathed deeply, reminding her of a dragon preparing to breathe fire, while her face was still red enough to conjure up images of lava for Taylor. It was Armsmaster who spoke up next.

"Director, I recommend you calm down. According to my sensors, your health is…"

For a moment, Taylor wondered if Piggot would really breathe fire before her nominal superior exclaimed.

"I don't fucking care, Armsmaster. With the way Hebert is playing around, the city would kill me before anything my body could."

"I could heal you…" offered Taylor, knowing full well thanks to her research that the Director would refuse, but she took healing seriously, and despite their difference in opinions and clashes over all sorts of things, she didn't like to see the woman in pain.

Piggot let out a final breath, then sagged back into her chair, closing her eyes.

"Might as well… If you want to make my day even worse…" mumbled out the woman, trying to regain her calm.

Taylor knew it was sarcastic, but she was recording. Earth Bet wasn't like Tyria, where everybody was eager to do her bidding. Here she had to protect herself from being sued. Plus, a lot of videos Taylor took were hilarious. She glanced at Armsmaster, who miraculously seemed to understand her non-verbal question, glanced at the director and nodded.

Taylor smiled impishly, raised her hand, and called out.

"Director?"

Piggot opened her eyes and glared at her.

"What?"

"As you wish!"

Then she snapped her finger and a gentle blue light washed over Piggot, who was frozen in her seat, eyes wide as she stared at her with a look of surprise and hatred.

For an entire minute, the gentle light enveloped the corpulent director, working its magic, none of them saying a word. Taylor because she was concentrating on healing the woman, Armsmaster because he probably knew that no matter what he said, it wouldn't help, and Piggot from what Taylor saw, because of anger.

Finally, the light died down, and Taylor let out a small breath.

"It's finished, Director."

"What did you do?" came the reply from Piggot in a hoarse whisper.

Taylor stared directly in the Director's eye, not even fazed by the fury directed at her. "Healed you, Director."

"Without my permission," answered Piggot, so furious that she couldn't even yell.

Taylor just shrugged. "You said I should heal you."

"It was sarcastic!" yelled Piggot, slamming her fist down on the desk, rattling everything on it.

"Then fire me…"

The two women stared at each other, one calm, the other furiously wishing they had laser eyes to destroy the infuriating parahuman in front of them.

"It's not like I have anywhere else to go…" continued Taylor sarcastically after a few seconds of tense silence.

Piggot took a deep breath through her nose, then spoke up softly.

"Get hell out of my office."


They were walking down a corridor after leaving the director's office when Armsmaster finally spoke up.

"That was a risky move, Weaver. She could cause trouble for you…"

Taylor just shrugged.

"I was recording, and she technically requested the healing." She glanced at Armsmaster and smiled impishly. "Plus, I got my healing certificate yesterday, so it's not like she could complain about my competence as she had to sign off that."

"Still…"

"Think of it this way, Armsy. She is no longer angry about the fight with the Empire and the ABB."

That brought up Armsmaster short, and he looked at her, and despite the helmet covering his eyes, Taylor knew he was looking at her with eyes that were trying to ask if she was crazy or not.

"If it weren't for your power, you wouldn't get away with it," he finally said, a touch bitterly.

Taylor reached up, as even with her height, the famous Tinker was still taller than her, and patted his shoulder.

"At least your Tinker projects are going well. How about we try to put together a new power source for your armor?"

Armsmaster just sighed.

"Weaver, I'm not six. You can't distract me with that."

"But you still want to put together that power source, right?"

He let out a heavy sigh before answering.

"Yes, please."


Sophia walked into the tea shop and wondered why Emma insisted that they always go to this shop. She didn't really get tea. She shook off her jacket and began looking for her friend's distinct red hair.

After Weaver went and captured Alabaster, and she was somewhat happy to see that her initial elevation of the woman was wrong and she wasn't just a pretty face for the Protectorate to parade around (even if she had to admit it to herself that she was a little intimidated about how effortlessly it came to Weaver to look good) but an actual badass, the PRT went into a mild ass-covering mode. Sadly, she still didn't know what her exact powers were…

So, as a result, the Wards were told in no uncertain terms that their patrols were suspended, and if anyone tried to cause trouble (Miss Militia delivering the message looked directly at her) they would soon find themselves in a place where they didn't want. If they survived the gang's retaliation.

Sophia considered herself a smart predator, so instead, using the tense silence that befell the city to scout out the locations, setting up a plan for strikes in the future, she hunkered down and made sure to collect information about the situation. But that could only last so long, so when Emma called her to meet up, she was happy to escape her room.

Spotting Emma in the back with her back to the wall, calmly and elegantly sipping tea, Sophia nodded to herself, glad her lessons to the other girl were being put to good use, then headed directly towards her friend.

"Emma!" she called out, raising a hand to wave at her.

The beautiful, red-haired girl put the teacup down elegantly and smiled at her.

"Sophia! Come, take a seat! I already ordered your usual."

Sophia nodded, then grimaced at the reminder of the place. Her usual was coffee, and even that reluctantly as it wasn't a coffee place and it wasn't even that good.

"Remind me again why we come to this place?" she asked with a grimace.

Emma chuckled a little.

"Because Taylor loves this place, but she can't afford to come here…"

"Oh, right…"

They sat in silence for a second as Sophia eyed Emma at the mention of Taylor. Ever since their prank failed and Taylor vanished, she noticed Emma was beginning to fray at the edges. It honestly scared her a little.

She watched as the waitress placed the cup of steaming coffee in front of her, mumbled a thank you, her attention still on Emma.

"Any news about her?"

"No. Not even dad knows anything…"

"It has been weeks…"

"Maybe she ran away?"

Emma shook her head.

"No, Taylor doesn't run away. She doesn't have the spine."

Sophia sighed but had to agree with Emma. Everything she had seen from the too-tall girl told Sophia she would never run away. She was too weak, too afraid. Hebert would never survive in the real world.

Then an idea came to her.

"You know where she lives?"

"Sure, why?" came the reply instantly from Emma.

Sophia smiled confidently and raised her cup to salute the other girl.

"Why don't we pay her a visit?"

Her answer was a wicked grin on the other girl's face.


He read over the reports, while in the background several dozens of newly acquired computers, some even Tinker-made chugged along, analyzing the video from Weaver's debut. The fact he didn't know how she did that thing galled him. But he knew if he figured it out, it would give him an unparalleled insight into the woman's very versatile power set.

And now this report about the fight.

He acquired the uncensored report, and everything he read told him that the woman was even more dangerous. The sheer ease with which she dismantled the three supervillains and casually mastered the gang members present scared him. Also impressed him, and made him want to have that kind of power on his side at all costs, but nothing he tried worked.

He tried to approach her through proxies, patsies, or even through his Tattletale in disposable timelines to gather information, but no matter who he sent, Weaver always knew that somebody else was behind them.

Thankfully, she didn't seem to know who exactly was behind them, but the sheer speed Weaver figured out about things made his job harder.

So, then he tried to go after her father.

That was another kettle of fish. The man was unbribable. And the moment his daughter's name came up, he became like a steel wall. Nothing worked.

And if he tried force, well… he was glad he tried things out in disposable timelines.

No matter what configuration he tried, no matter what angle he worked or who he sent (even if he worked through multiple proxies, or hired outside mercenaries) nothing seemed to stick.

At least through the failures, he acquired enough information to model Weaver's and Overwatch's behavior somewhat. Which was at least a minor win.

But now, this fight and Weaver's behavior dropped an opportunity into his lap.

If he couldn't get them on his side, or kill them, how about removing them?

After all, they broke protocol and endangered Wards. It would be easy to manipulate the Youth Guard to go after Weaver and then spin that into a relocation. Maybe to Los Angeles?

He was still working on the details, but he was confident it would work. Weaver may have the power to bulldoze through every obstacle, but he had years of experience with manipulating the people and the bureaucracies of the city.

She was in a surprise if she expected to win only through sheer firepower…

Chuckling to himself, he took a glance at the monitors to see if they came up with anything, and when he spotted nothing, he returned to his planning.


"The Director is angry, Taylor."

"Piggot is always angry, dad."

"Yes, but usually she is not yelling at me," answered Danny, as they sat in the kitchen eating their dinner.

Taylor smiled back at him as she elegantly ate her dinner, posture perfectly straight and everything implacable, even though they were eating Chinese from boxes. Sometimes, spotting these kinds of idiosyncrasies hammered home the time she spent in another dimension.

"Sorry about that, but it had to be done."

"Had to be?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

Taylor nodded seriously.

"Yes. Had to. The city was locked in a Mexican standoff between the ABB, the Empire, and the PRT. Something had to be done. So, I made sure it wouldn't blow up, but would still break the standoff."

"Really?"

"Yes. I did my research, dad," she explained between two bites, then began gesticulating with her chopsticks. "I beat the pants off from two of the heavy hitters of the two gangs while taking no damage, and I also captured one parahuman. Alabaster is not important enough for Kaiser to go into full rage, yet he is hard enough to capture that he would get the message…"

"I see…" said Danny slowly, as he tried to process what his daughter said. "And then what?"

Taylor hummed a little as she savored a spring roll before answering.

"We shall see. For now, we wait for their response. If they're smart, they won't do anything, but they're Nazis, so…"

Danny sighed.

"What about Lung?"

"He is not in the city."

"What?"

Taylor looked at him with laughter in her eyes.

"Hmm, the big bad Thinker doesn't know something? Oh, my…"

"Taylor…" Danny growled. "How did you know he is not in the city?"

"Secret!" exclaimed Taylor in a singsong voice, with a giant grin on her face.

Danny eyed his daughter for a few seconds, then sighed again. He knew from experience that he wouldn't get more from her, so he put aside the topic, while also making a note to look into it at work, then returned to his food. Now that their income doubled, they could afford to order from the fantastic Chinese restaurant, and he didn't want to miss even a bite.

They ate in silence for a while, then Taylor put down her chopsticks and retrieved a newspaper, and showed it in his face.

"Look!"

He smiled at the nostalgia, reminded of the time when Taylor was small and created some kind of art and then showed them off proudly. Only this time there was a tinge of fear about what his oddly terrifying and powerful daughter did…

So, he calmly took the newspaper, already opened on a specific page, and began reading.

The company Dragon's Watch announced the establishment of a metal recycling plant in Brockton Bay…

He looked up from the article, beheld Taylor's grin, and he couldn't help but chuckle.


Missy walked into the meeting room, grumpy, after another weekend with her parents. How they hadn't divorced yet was a mystery to her. Especially because she had to bear the brunt of it every time they got into an argument.

But as she saw the rest of the Wards in the room, even Shadow Stalker sitting at the table, and then beheld the person standing in front of the whiteboard, her mood immediately did a hundred and eighty.

"Weaver!" she called out to her current favorite person. "What are you doing here?"

She ignored Sophia's scoff and focused all her attention on the elder hero. Weaver gave her a warm smile, then began talking.

"You all are here, to improve yourself, and I'm here because Piggot wants me to vanish from the public for a while." She gave them a cheesy thumbs-up. "So, I volunteered to give you guys some extra training!"

As Missy took her seat, she couldn't help but grin. Trained by one of the coolest persons ever? Yes, please!

She could even see Sophia perk up hearing that they would be trained by someone like Weaver, and the annoying girl was notoriously ornery with every trainer that taught them. Not that the Protectorate or the PRT spent too much money on training the Wards…

Weaver clapped her hands together, getting all their attention and causing all of them to sit up straighter. Missy took one of the notebooks and pens prepared on the table and waited to write down whatever cool thing Weaver wanted to teach them.

Missy hadn't known Weaver for a long time, but even in this short amount of time, she realized that even though this was a punishment for the elder parahuman; she wanted to be here. Missy had seen no one make Weaver do anything that she didn't want to.

"So, children, who here knows how to incapacitate a man with the least amount of moves and damage?"

Missy tried and failed to suppress her squeal.


Taylor sat in her room, looking at the moon high up in the sky, and pondering about the happenings of the last few weeks.

Her plans were going forward, though the information flow was a little slower than she wanted, but beggars couldn't be choosers and all that rot.

Maybe a few weeks and she would have enough data for a strike, but for now, she would have to lie low and play the game.

Taylor stilled for a second as she sensed magic activating around her, then she realized it was only one of her communicators.

Chuckling about her ingrained paranoia, she quickly raised her hand and prodded the device on it. Instantly, a holographic screen appeared in front of her. On it appeared a cute face of a female asura with a giant pink bow on her head and a giant fanged smile on her face.

"Taimi!"

"Taylor! How are you? How is your original dimension? Any interesting specimens or entities? Do you have your Elder Dragons? Maybe even elder Elder Dragons? What would you call it? Maybe Super Elder Dragon? Or Ancient Dragon…"

Taylor watched Taimi mumble fondly before interrupting.

"Taimi, there are no dragons here, only people calling themselves dragon. At least one of them is artificial intelligence."

Taimi's eyes immediately lit up with interest.

"Oh, an AI? How are they? Are they friendly? Do you need help with making contact? Or maybe to fight it? Rytlock just called me that he has several legions sitting on their haunches bored out of their minds…"

Taylor smiled and let Taimi's excited ramblings wash over her…


A/N: Sandra (Sandy) the very creatively named Jackal: Primeval Jackal