chapter 5: Slime & Wolf

* PRT ENE HQ *

* January 5 2011, 0500 *

"A CLONE?" asked Armsmaster, a bit aghast at the idea.

"Biopsy results indicate the tissue from the area where Sophia Hess used to have a Gemma is younger than would be indicated otherwise. Telomere length for one thing. Initial indications is that there is cloned tissue present. So... she may be a clone now," said the physician just before Armsmaster hit a button.

* Wards area *

"What's that alarm?" asked Gallant.

Troopers swept in, went straight to Shadow Stalker's room, grabbed the girl in question, and hustled her out with much cursing and swearing. Most of which was from Sophia herself but a fair few comments from one of the troopers whom she'd managed to kick in the balls while she was being restrained.

Gallant watched things commence, scratched his head, and wondered what the heck was going on. Not for the first time.

* Taylor *

Slimes apparently didn't need to sleep. She COULD sleep, if she wanted to, and it let her recover energy faster than if she were awake.

Also - if she did fall asleep she went back to being a blue blob.

[Further analysis of acquired skills and combining them has given new options.]

"Oh? Anything interesting, Great Sage?"

[Venom data cross-referenced with biological data from 'Emma Barnes' 'Madison Clements' and 'Sophia Hess' now allows for multiple effects.]

"Oh, specific to those three only?"

[Bio-data draws on commonalities. Further sampling will allow for more precision for safety measures for non-fatal venoms.]

Taylor considered that as she went down the stairs. "More options is a good thing."

[Currently have 'Paralysis', 'Knockout', 'Anti-Aggression', 'Frenzy', and 'Deadly' at 100% formulated.]

"Okay. Can you add 'Epi-Pen' to it?" asked Taylor as she went to her computer and pulled up the data on a webpage. "Being able to assist EMT at the scene or keep people alive would be a big step in the whole 'hero' career track."

[Adding to queue.]

"Great," said Taylor. "Huh. If we had general healing abilities that would be a plus. Not sure how Panacea's power works though. How does french toast sound?"

[Additional data always welcome.]

"Well, I like to eat. Maybe I don't need to anymore, but there's still something to be said for a sense of taste," said Taylor. "Huh. I've become a lot more philosophical since I died. I wonder if that's common."

* Brad Meadows *

"All right you lot... what's with the hats?" asked Brad Meadows, aka Hookwolf.

"We're your minions, ain't we?" asked Leroy. "Found someone who could make things like this, got these knit caps with the wolf design on them. They're nice and warm and all too - and it's 27 degrees out there right now."

Brad considered that, the importance of showing their tattoos and allegiance towards the Empire vs the whole pack affinity thing. Sticking his head out the door decided him. It might be 27 degrees out there, but that wind chill took a good ten degrees off that. "Fine. Any of you know the mission?"

"New cape spotted," said Leroy, the long flappy legs of his wolf-cap jiggling as he started counting off points on his fingers. "Figger out if the cape is Empire-material or not. Recruit or put 'em down. What if they're not Empire-material but still useful?"

Brad considered that. Not everyone in the Empire was 100% behind their agenda. Couldn't admit that aloud of course. "Orders are orders."

Leroy nodded, then gestured towards one of his colleagues.

"Okay," said Eric Klauss, putting a map up on the corkboard. "This is the Docks area. I'll run in first. If we see Dockworkers I'll shout and try to intimidate them so they run off and we don't face a swarm of them."

Brad nodded. Dockworkers had a bunch of ex-military. No capes, but replacing minions was a right pain and they could be sniped.

"When that's going, I'll need Anthony Schmidt to come in and start shooting as well to keep them scattered." Eric pointed to several areas. "Then Bass comes in and does the same thing - the idea is to keep them running and out of the way. Plus the noise might draw the cape to us."

Brad nodded. He wasn't great at planning, which was another reason to have minions.

"Use the grenades sparingly, you guys," Eric indicated two of the guys in the back. "Area of effect is great, but we don't want to kill a bunch of Dockworkers or they'll set up sniper positions and be out for blood. Target is the non-Empire cape, not the Dockworkers. Even worse if some of OUR people are in the AoE - you got that CARL?"

Carl nodded, turning a bit pale as Brad stared at him.

"We do this and we can maybe avoid some of the problems from last run. Anyone running a number crunch, we got enough ammo and such?" asked Eric.

"Ah, give me a moment," said Euron, adjusting his glasses and staring down at a calculator. "Yeah, so far I've got 32.33 - repeating of course - percentage of success."

"That's a lot better than we usually do," admitted Eric. "Okay then. Let's do this."

"We'll meet again at 3 in the afternoon, that's when that cape was seen yesterday," announced Brad. "Go do your usual assignments until then."

* Taylor *

* 0700 hours *

"Why couldn't it be a weekend?" complained Taylor as she got ready for another day of torture and despair and idiocy. In other words, school.

"Because it's Wednesday," said her father. "I'm filing paperwork to get you out, but there'll be tests you have to do really well on."

"I could just eat the school," offered Taylor. "Drop by in the middle of the night and then everyone comes in the next morning to find an empty lot."

"We'll mark that down as Plan C," countered Danny Hebert.

"I could be learning so much OUT of school," complained Taylor.

"We need to do everything legally and by the book," Danny told her. "That means going to school and not eating your classmates no matter how annoying they are."

"Fine, fine, I'm going fishing after school though," griped Taylor, showing all signs of going into a magnificent sulk later.

"And no storing them in your stomach to regurgitate them later in embarassing poses or places," added Danny.

"I have no idea where you would get such an idea," said Taylor.

"I saw that look," added Danny. "We'll talk more tonight. I want to plan you registering with the PRT - it might just avoid the whole problem of the introductory fight scene."

"Like that sort of thing happens in real life," scoffed Taylor.

[Analysis complete.]

"Oh, Great Sage - you've got something else?" asked Taylor.

[Analysis of human healing process and cellular regeneration 83% complete. By temporarily swallowing individuals, healing process can be significantly advanced. Stabilization of wounds would be instantaneous. Continuing analysis but more individuals with a variety of ailments will be necessary for data gathering purposes.]

Taylor smiled and relayed this to her father. This was certainly going to help her establish a heroic career!

* After School *

"Taylor!" called out Danny. "We're under attack!"

"Eh?" said Zephron, the large man glancing up only to see a blue blob land in front of Danny and transform into a young girl.

"You've met my daughter Taylor," said Danny to the assembled men. "This is her second day as a cape, so keep it quiet will you?"

There was a chorus of assents and muttered comments about how fast kids grew up nowadays.

"What's going on?" asked Taylor, feeling a bit of stage fright at being the center of attention.

"Hookwolf is leading a bunch of gangers through the Docks area," explained Zephron, jerking a thumb behind him and to the left. "They keep shooting at random things, got a couple of people who weren't fast enough vacating the area. No fatalities yet, but it's a matter of time."

"Okay, show me where the wounded are, I can help them. Meanwhile we need to set up defenses," answered Taylor.

"I've got some people up as spotters," said Danny. "Zephron, could you?"

"Yeah, we've got a med station this way," said Zephron, taking off with only a glance behind to make sure Danny's kid was following.

* Danny *

Snipers with partial concealment they could duck behind.

Spotters with walkie-talkies to call in locations.

Medic station prepped with some of his people who knew First Aid, but if Taylor could do as she thought she could - that would be even better. That it was the safest place for her was...

There she went in blob-girl form, running past and shifting to giant spider form and throwing webs up on the inside of the fenced area?

What was she doing? Those thin little threads weren't going to stop anyone - those gangers were likely hopped up on drugs and certainly weren't going to let obstacles like that get in their way. You couldn't even see them except where the light was hitting them just right.

The spider flexed and became the little blue blob again, which bounced around and spat out posts?

What was she doing?

* Taylor *

"Okay, sticky threads above, monofilament below," said Taylor. "The main problem is going to be the guns and Hookwolf."

[Insufficient data on target: Hookwolf.]

"Yeah, I suppose I ought to research the local cape scene more," agreed Taylor. "Didn't expect I'd be facing a major supervillain this quick though."

[Guns = firearms. Uses an ignited chemical reaction to propel small bits of metal at high speeds. Insufficient to damage Taylor Hebert.]

"And I really need to come up with a cape name fast," said Taylor. "To keep my private life and public life separate."

[Naming conventions based on limited sample have little to no meaning.]

"Well, to some extent that's true," admitted Taylor. "I'm not a tailor. But cape names usually have a meaning. Miss Militia can summon up all sorts of guns. Armsmaster carries a halberd and wears armor, like some guy who is supposed to guard a castle. Mouse Protector... okay, I'm not too sure about her other than it's her motif. Velocity though - he can run really fast."

[Slimegirl.]

"No," responded Taylor.

[Reincarnated Girl.]

"Absolutely not," responded Taylor.

[Awesome Girl.]

"Hell no," said Taylor. "That would lead to SO many comments."

[Flexi-girl.]

"That's not too horrible, but that still might be considered an 18+ kind of name," complained Taylor.

[Reference not understood.]

"How about... Rime, as in ice? I could probably pull energy out of things to freeze 'em," reasoned Taylor.

[Research for ability added to queue. Name not indicative of other abilities.]

Spinning another layer of monofilament down and making sure the posts were in place to both anchor them and to provide a safe escape route where gaps could be marked, Taylor considered things. "How about 'Weaver' since I do these threads?"

[Limiting.]

"Hey, it's better than 'Slimegirl'," complained Taylor.

[Opinion.]

"Hmph," said Taylor. It had been so long since she'd had a friend. Pity that she'd had to die to get one, but at least that had been a temporary situation. "How about... slime: goo, ooze, gunk. No, nothing there. Mythology maybe? Jelly? Gel? Gel!"

[Isn't that the brand of your toothpaste?]

"Okay, maybe not Gel. I can shift around like plastic... Plasti-girl!"

[Plastic + Girl = Plasti-Girl. Possibility name is taken?]

"I'll check later," said Taylor. "Let's go with that for now. Hey, I'm blobby now but I can shift around to form other shapes, right? Like my jelly-girl shape?"

[Affirmative. Analysis of materials obtained from scrapyard allows for limited appearance/density change.]

"That's promising," said Taylor. "I was just thinking of looking like a blue tarp stretched over some boxes, but if I can do colors and textures that adds a lot. Same mass restrictions, right?"

[Affirmative. Simple shapes are possible to be maintained for short periods.]

"Oh yeah. I see... possibilities," confessed Plasti-Girl.