I sighed as I walked through the halls of my own personal hell, Winslow High. "It will make you tougher," he said; "it's good training. After all, holding back is often harder than striking back," he said; "It is important that you have proper humility," he said. Yes, that was true, but that DIDN'T MAKE IT ANY MORE PLEASANT!
I sigh. Again. In the end, it doesn't matter. Master ordered me to hold back until they crossed the line, or I was sixteen. After all, old enough to marry is old enough to… do something. Nonviolent something?
A spitball just landed in my hair.
Violent something.
No, mustn't do that. Master would cane me again.
I mean, come on! It was one time, and a NAZI! Why the hell can't I beat a Nazi to the hospital? He attacked me first. Okay, so I shattered his spine, so what? He was still a runty, thieving little Nazi what got what was coming to him! But, NOOOOO! Apparently, I needed lessons on appropriate levels of force!
Well, I did take it too far. But I said I was sorry! It is just so hard to hold back when my day-to-day is such a mess! I am a warrior, a literal Master of martial arts, and the youngest master alive! I am capable of going toe-to-toe with some of the fiercest parahumans in the world, but I am required to be degraded by a half-wit, weakling predator wanna-be and her half-rate pack of bitchy teen-age-girl thugs? Like HELL!
But… it was Master's last request before he died, leaving me the title of THE MASTER. *sigh*. I'll do it. For the Master.
At least the week leading up to Christmas was okay. After all, they ignored me! Which, naturally, sets my combat sense of LIKE CRAZY. I might be just the tiniest bit twitchy as I make my way to my locker. At least I can handle whatever they throw at me!
I am regretting testing Murphy like that.
Six hours, a complete school day, I have been locked in this locker. I have tried knocking every time someone walks past to get them to let me out, but, as of yet? No dice. Which sucks, because I have heard three teachers, a janitor, and the PRINCIPAL walk past, and none of them even gave me the time of day. Ugh.
Plus, it stinks in here. Like, really. I am almost impressed with this level of dedication. It can NOT have been easy to pull this mess together, and it must have been even harder to fill my locker with it. Kudos. If only it hadn't happened to me. Or anyone human, really.
I have always wondered what happened. Two years back, Emma Barnes had been my best friend. A sister, really. I put in so much time trying to take care of her, but, in the end, it did nothing. She had one bad day, and she just… abandoned me. Betrayed me. Sure, I wasn't there for her after a traumatic event, but she just threw away eight YEARS of friendship, for a bitch who will back-stab her at the first opportunity. Still, family is family. I might never be as close to her as I was, and I sure as hell won't be trusting her any time soon, but I will be there for her in the end. But maybe, at a distance.
Anyway, Emma Barnes, Sophia Hess, and Madison Clements had outdone themselves by a wide margin. They have been bullying me for years, but this is the first time it got this bad. Obviously, a joint project.
Emma was the insider, providing the group with the angles to attack me from by revealing the secrets and personality traits that I had shown/told her over the years. It was her, most likely, that suggested the tight, dark space of my locker, the icky biological waste, and the prolonged suffering without help, all issues I had in the past. Not as sensitive now, obviously, as Master would NOT have left me with such obvious weaknesses, but still hurtful and unpleasant. Ironically, they NAILED one of my current problems, staying still for long periods of time. Sue me, martial arts are VERY active, and so am I. Madison was the finisher, making sure that each piece was as bad as possible, throwing in the week of leaving me alone to make me nervous over Christmas break (not that I let it get to me AT ALL, I had a cage tournament, after all. Dad loved it.), seeing to it that the ick was FERMENTED used female products for maximum nasty, the insults as they walked away, the principal and the teachers walking past for maximum sense of abandonment and despair, etc., while Sophia was the source of the malice and the anger, the key to the desire for damage, and the physical actuator, being responsible for me being shoved into the locker. Not that I really resisted. It was as the Master wanted. Probably.
It was… uncomfortable, made much worse because I was so strong, I could literally WALK through the locker, but I endured. After all, they had yet to cross the line.
And… that was the final bell. Another day accused of hooky. At least I was ACTUALLY not is class this time. Last time, each class had a girl that was part of the posse that tormented me tell the teacher that I was skipping while I WAS RIGHT THERE, and they wrote me off as absent 'as a prank'. Seriously, fuck this school. The LITERAL NAZIS, Asian gangers, druggies were the BETTER parts of Winslow High. Like, legit: the Nazis liked things clean and apparently un-illegal, so they gathered trash and minded their manners, the Asians were VERY respectful (practice for serving Lung, the Dragon of Kyushu, strongest parahuman in the city and a GREAT fight buddy) and they knew me (Asian communities were close-knit, and martial artist were rather well known) so they made no trouble, and the druggies were the best high-school pushers they could be! Honey traps, friendly drug-using pals, and the 'well-adjusted drug users' who 'just like to have a little fun on the weekends' that specialized in getting people in by making it look like you could be clean, fun, have a future, and still do drugs. Gotta hand it to the Merchants; they me be the scum of the scum, but they knew how to SELL! Forced doping to get people addicted was pretty rare, actually, due to the fact that a little honey works FAR better.
After all, my mole Mr. Clean sure knew how to convince people. Pity he had to kill Skidmark. I wanted to do that.
ANYWAY, I could here the various people walking by outside. The Asians were all politely bowing to my locker with 'Herbert-Sama'-s in abundance, the druggies were making friendly jokes at my expense ("Man, you seem to be in a bit of a tight spot! Wish I had the time to help!") and the Nazis went NOWHERE NEAR my locker (good for their health, ya know. Nazis tend to trip onto my fist, repeatably), and, as the river became a trickle, I heard 'them' coming.
"Look at this: Pathetic Hebert can't even get out of a little locker. I thought you were supposed to be tough. After all, everyone here seems to think you are a big deal! Guess they are all just pathetic, like you. Prey like you should stay down."
I sighed, and let my head bang off the wall to the locker, but I didn't respond. After all, what was the point? Sophia (the talker on the other side of the metal, and a cast iron bitch with a mountain of crazy) would just be encouraged. Ironically, she was one of the small percentage of parahumans I was wary of. After all, it is a little hard to defend against someone who can phase an attack THROUGH your defense. Actual fight skills? Nah, she didn't really have any.
"I knew it. You really are pathetic, aren't you, Taylor. It was a good thing I dumped you when I did. After all, you would just drag me down."
Another sigh. God, what had happened to my sister. I mean, I knew that she had some problems, but she was such a BITCH! It was… saddening. More-so than if she had just died. Death, I could avenge; but she WANTED this. God, it was going to hurt her when this farse collapsed in on her. But I would be there. She was family, after all.
"Yeah, you were right. What a waste of space." I honestly had NO idea what Maddison's problem was. Nor did I care. She was a toady. Make sure they can't shank you in the back (like I would EVER turn my back on a bitch like that) or poison your tea (again, if she touched it, I wasn't gonna), then just call them Toady and ignore the rest. That's what they were. So, fuck her name; from now on, she will be Toady Bitch in my head. And god, could that insult be any more derivative? As such, head, meet locker! Several times!
"You should just stay there, Hebert. Nobody wants you." Bitch.
"Yeah, the only person that ever took time for you was an old pervert. Not worth it to anyone not a pedophile, are you?" Oh, no you did NOT go there. Oooooh, sister; you are going to PAY for insulting the Master!
"What a pathetic person. What kind of garbage would waste time on Hebert?" Yup… the line, she has been-a crossed.
"His name… was Master Wu, and he was the supreme martial artist and most deadly cape alive. Apologize, now, for insulting his memory."
The bitches three froze for a moment (that WAS the first time I had ever talked back to them) then burst out laughing. Finally, the toady spoke.
"As if Master Wu would waste his time on you! What, did he teach you how to handle his sacred staff? Are you scarred by your training? And what are you gonna do? You couldn't even stop use from stuffing you in there, and there ain't no way you are getting out!"
I sighed. "Emma, you have always been like a sister to me, but letting anyone insult the Master… that is an insult to him, and insult to our Art, and an insult to me. That CANNOT be ignored. Sorry. And as for couldn't stop you? More like: didn't stop you. By HIS orders. Until I turn sixteen, or you cross the line, I cannot fight back. HOWEVER, insulting the Master? That… was the line."
The started laughing again. I joined them, then punched the door off and across the hall with one medium-light punch. It would have been light-light, but the leverage was AWFUL. Silence reigned as I stepped out, my eyes glowing with a smidge of ki (it was to be able to see in the locker, and it helped prevent me from squinting as I came out, but I bet it looked BADASS!). I popped my knuckles loudly.
"So, ladies. I have a fight with Hookwolf in three hours, and I plan on killing him. As such, I would appreciate it if you DIDN'T run. It will only make you tired and in pain, and me more pissed than I want to be when I go to this fight; after all, I want it to LAST. Now, who do I beat first?"
Why do they ALWAYS scream?
Fourteen hours later
Office of the Director, PRT
Director Emily Piggot dropped into her chair and sighed, then rubbed her temples. Days like this were the worst. She sighed again, then looked up at the person sitting across from her.
"Thank you for coming in, Mr. Hebert. As you can understand, we are a little concerned about the attack you perpetrated at Winslow High, the fact that you are now an open cape, the threat that this poses to your father, and the fact that you do not seem to be even the slightest bit concerned about any of this. Add to that the fact that we have a vested interest in this because you managed to unmask one of our Wards and then beat her so badly she wouldn't be able to get up for a few days unless we pull in a favor with Panacea, and you leave us in a bit of a bad spot. I have people who are pushing for you to get Birdcaged over this! Please, give us something! Hell, if you join the Wards yourself, we could just sweep this away!"
Sitting across from her, rather severely chained down, was one of the most dangerous capes she had ever seen! Not only was he a Brute and a Striker of truly concerning skill (he had punched through Hookwolf's defense with one hit, and had taken him down totally in less than five minutes without breaking a sweat or bleeding a drop anywhere than from his nose after he ran into a wall on a missed pass.) and unknown power, he was also obviously a combat Thinker, he could heal himself and others, and on top of that he had an IMPRESSIVE capability to walk on the AIR and he was hella fast at the same time, so that is a Mover rating, and he could make it so that a person that was looking at him couldn't see him, or see him move, at will, which meant Stranger! Then there was the fact that he could force his will on others, either by causing faintness, dizziness, and a desire to surrender, or by hypnotizing them after a shot of concentrated will (as he said), which meant, horror of horrors, a Master rating, and the same momentum could cause AOE damage at will, meant he was a Shaker, and he the ability to supercharge himself with energy to produce a state that made him impossible to harm naturally, able to move at a much faster speed, and several other skills meant he was a Breaker as well! Rounding it out with the ability to interact with people in breaker states while in his breaker state (which made him go pitch black with a glowing aura) and the ability to mess a person's powers up with his Master ability or by hitting them precisely, as well as the skill to hit in such a way that armor doesn't stop the damage and the ability to halt regeneration, negate invulnerability, and prevent healing for Trump, the ability to make and maintain supernatural fighting equipment (though no military-grade explosives, thank god) and maintain it for Tinker, and the ability to rearrange his biology at will for Changer, and, well, he had them all. And HE WAS HOLDING BACK, as far as they could tell!
As such, letting him go was… not an option. Letting him go villain was also not an option. That meant either bribery, or intimidation. Thankfully, Shadow Stalker had indicated he was a pushover as a general rule. Then again, that was before she had been beaten into the ground (literally) while interrupting a fight between him and the WHOLE E-88! Like, all the capes, and three HUNDRED foot soldiers. Even worse, she was beaten TO THE SIDE, out of the way, and he proceeded to TRASH the WHOLE EMPIRE for not respecting his fight with Hookwolf. At least Rune was willing to flip and join the Wards. She had tried to get a meeting with the Director before she was supposed to meet Taylor 'The Terror' Hebert, but this one took precedence.
However… she might have made the wrong choice. Mr. Hebert (who's dad had said "If he can beat a gang of Nazis, he doesn't need my help to negotiate with you." and dropped the call before going, according to his observer from the PRT, to work.) looked… completely uncowed, and more than a little smug. But he wasn't talking. At all.
After almost ten minutes of her staring at him and trying to get a reaction, he moved. Slowly, with the containment foam sprayers of the two troopers present trained on him and the brute-grade restraints slowing him down, he reached across the desk and grabbed a pen, a piece of paper, and a clipboard, and drew them back to him, finally talking as he began to write.
"First, I did NOT start an altercation at Winslow. Rather, after eighteen MONTHS of bullying on behalf of Miss Hess, Miss Barnes, and Miss Clements? Whatever, the Bitch, my traitor of an adopted sister, and the Toady of the year, they crossed the line. What line? Was it the locker full of biological, FERMENTED biological waste that they locked me in for SIX HOURS? No. The insults and derision towards me? No again. The mocking of my mourning the PASSING OF MY MOTHER? Still no. It was when they insulted me, my art, and my RECENTLY DEAD MASTER (Martial Arts, not parahuman, though he was a cape, too. Ever hear of Master Wu?) that I reacted. After all, I must defend my dojo. Given that my master was MASTER WU, as I mentioned… Well, he killed the Siberian, and soloed an Endbringer to a tie WITHOUT destroying a city. That were dumb of them.
"As for my father, the only two groups in this city dumb enough to go against me are the E-88… no longer a problem; and Coil. He will die if he tries. Not a threat, just what is going to happen. If an Endbringer shows up, life gets bad. If someone touches my father, they DIE. Fifty-fifty on who kills him first, me or Da and the DWU. The Ward unmasked herself by using her powers in public, she should have just taken her punishment. You can hardly blame me for her poor impulse control. After all, she was the one who kept attacking me until I had to shut her down HARD! I tried, again and again, to get her to stop it, but she refused. Now, she pays. She was the aggressor, not me.
"Next, the cape question. Heh. I have a Polenta, not a Gemma. I am not a parahuman, and thus, am not subject to your laws."
With that, he slid the sheet he was writing on back across the table. With that done, he stood up, snapped the restraints with a single (unhurried and unviolent) motion, and walked out whistling, the troopers not even looking at him as he did so, while the Director of the PRT tried her very best not to have a heart attack as she watched him walk out, then tried harder as she followed the up with reading off the paper he gave her.
Mover: 12+; Can walk or run on anything regardless of gravity direction, can run at Mach 250 (279,100 feet per second [279 times faster than a hypersonic sniper bullet], or 190,295.45 MPH, a little less than 1/8 the speed of light), can fly, can teleport self and others within 2.4 AU (2.4 Universes worth of distance), other.
Shaker: 8+; Can destroy things in an aura around self, can control all elements within 100 yards of self, can cause localized gravity distortions, other.
Brute: 10+; Can make body as hard as iron, can make body multiplicatively tougher and stronger via more than one method, can heal self (and others) rapidly, can regenerate, has self-regenerating forcefield that multiplies physical attributes, other.
Breaker: 6+; Can turn body dark during toughness multiplier, has several 'powered-up' states that massively boost damage, damage reduction, ability to perceive weaknesses and thought speed, and/or weakens opponents, other.
Master: 12+; Can inflict feeling of fear or subservience on anyone of weaker will, can lock anyone of weaker will into an illusion of any type at will, can force truthful answers through intimidation aura, can puppet others, can temporarily alter emotions wildly, can create controllable clones of self at 75% or lower power and skill at will, can create controllable constructs with almost no limitation at will, can create ghostly projections or 'aura/ki/chi/chakra manifestations' at will other.
Tinker: 5+; Can create any single-person weapons, including mythological weaponry (low rating is due to limitation to melee weapons/unique low-tech projectile weapons/single-person weapons and gear), can imbue effects on created items, can create weapons that shift into another form, has knowledge of VASTLY futuristic tech (non-Tinker-Tech), other.
Blaster: 10+; Can produce any amount of any element at will, can control presentation of elements created, can create beams of pure destructive energy, other.
Thinker: 9+; Capable of near-perfect combat prediction, capable of learning new things just by watching them happen, capable of tracking anyone within a six-mile circle around self, capable of seeing through anything, massively boosted senses, capable of sensing emotions, powers and relative strength levels, completely capable of controlling strength and speed with no issues, other.
Striker: 15+; Anything that can be touched can be destroyed (up to, and including, planets), other.
Changer: 10+; Can completely change body structure into any form that is within mass range (1/100, or X50), can fully manipulate bones, can fully manipulate hair, other.
Trump: 7+; Can no-sell all master, most thinker, most changer, most brute, most striker, most breaker, and all stranger abilities at will (masters and strangers automatically blocked from effecting self), can often disable other peoples' powers (dependent on person/power), other.
Stanger: 10+; Can utterly disguise self, can utterly eliminate presences, other.
[A.N. This is a combo of DB ki, One Piece Haki and Six powers (plus Life Returns and Six-King gun), Chakra from Naruto, Nen from Hunter X Hunter, Bending from Avatar, various martial arts skills from Ranma, Aura from RWBY (his Semblance is Skill Steal, by which he got multiple Bloodline Limits from Naruto world, amongst other things), and other miscellaneous martial arts skills. The truth effect is just him scaring them so much they can't think of a lie and automatically respond with the truth. Also, he is a once in a thousand years adept who has been trained since a young age by his master, managed to slay several legendary beasts, fought against armies in other dimensions, and other such Ki, Chi, Nen, Chakra, and Haki-boosting techniques. He did this under Master Wu, who could create/access testing realms and other worlds, which he used to build his art over three hundred years (personal time) and then pass it on to Taylor.
Basically, he trained his butt off for eight years (age four starting), and went through a series of 'lower worlds' (Grimm, High School of the Dead, Pirates of the Caribbean, Pacific Rim, LoTR, Kenichi the Mightiest Disciple, worlds like that. No real special abilities, but plenty of chances to grow), went to RWBY and got his aura and some experience vis a vis the Grimm at age twelve, hopped over to Ranma for training, then One Piece world for their skills, off to Avatar at thirteen (his master used spirit bending, his only skill from that world taught by the Mother of a Thousand Faces, to make Taylor capable of all four elements. Naturally, without his other skills, natural ability, and intense training, he'd have died in the process.), a quick stop in Hunter X Hunter to unlock his Nen and spend, like, fifty years training it up, visited Naruto world for a few hundred years ripping people's powers out with his newly-awakened semblance ('cause there is always another idiot who doesn't deserve his power), then on to DB for the real powerhouse, ki, with follow-up stops in MHA, Marvel, DC, and other 'super' worlds to get used to training against 'powered' humans, finishing out at age fifteen-and-a-half or so, natural, and, like, a millennium-plus, personal. Naturally, he needed a few weeks to a few months in between each world to naturalize each skill, train it and his body some more to accept it, and ease his mind so that it would be ready for the next trial.
A few other dynamics you need to know for my massively OP character and his unnecessarily convoluted background story: 1. Every human has the capability to access these skills, they just need them unlocked by exposer, meditation, or self-development (minus bending, which needs to be unlocked for you). 2. The time spent training occurs in the persons mind, and each return puts a massive amount of strain on the body, getting them to the required physical levels near-instantly, at risk to their health, mental and physical well-being, and just a 54% minimum chance of death… EACH TIME. The longer the trip, the greater the risk. 3. Taylor is not unkillable. Neither is Godzilla unkillable by a squirrel, it just ain't gonna happen. 4. Cultivation is a thing, sort of. The way it works is, each art you master (which Taylor has, for each of his), makes you that much harder to kill. Just like real life. That doesn't mean anything as far as ranking, or breakthroughs, or any of that other shit, it is just good old body-tempering though agony. The only difference is that I said so, and that each level increases the maximums you can reach. For example, Aura's regeneration ability alone, not to mention the physical support it provides, gives the ability to grow stronger, quicker, by helping you heal from your workouts/adventures. And yes, he is super-soldiered several different ways (EXTREMIS, Luke Cage treatment, SS serum, Heart-shaped herb, chakra fruit, Green Goblin Serum, Heart Palace (Marvel Magic), Mind Palace, League of Assassin training and Lazarus Pit water, and others).
Don't like it, write your own. An PM me when you do, I will want to read it.
Oh, and he trained for five hundred years under various version of Jackie Chan, including The Medallion (The Medallion) version, the Drunken Immortal version (The Forbidden Kingdom) and the Sun Wukong (Sun Wukong Returns, I think? It's a cartoon version of the Sun Wukong getting out from under the mountain story, Chinese original but English dubbed.) version. Cause… Jackie Chan. DUH!]
In the end, Panacea (or, as she was called these days, The Doctor) was called to heal her, regardless of her success at not dying of a coronary.
Taylor whistled to himself as he made his way down the street. Nazi Assholes? Check. Drug Dealers? Check. Asian sex trade? One won bet with Lung, and check. Gotta cash in on that. After all, the Nazis were gone. DWU up to snuff? I wrote them training manuals and unlocked/trained one person for each required skill, so Check! PRT told to off fuck? Check. Bitches bashed? Hehehe, Check. That leaves… the asshole, Coil, the Undersiders, a handful of independents, the Graveyard, and boosting the economy of the city.
Okay, have the Merchants split the territory with Lung and the DWU, introduce myself to Faultline and Parian as the keeper of the peace in this town, sleep with Bakuda again (crazy bitch insists I find a proper wife so she can be my 'actual sex slave'. Don't do one-night stands, people, especially with hot, but crazy, Asian chicks) to keep her from blowing up… everything but me. I am a busy guy. What to do first?
Meh, lunch sounds good.
A.N.: And that is where I am gonna end this one, for now. Basically, meet Taylor Doomsday. Hope you like it, and if this inspires you, please let me know so I can read the result. I may do more off of this later, But I think this should do for now. Peace.