Emily Piggot, Director of the Brockton Bay Parahuman Response Team, felt a headache coming on as she blearily half-glared at Armsmaster and Miss Militia. She hadn't slept in two days and was on the verge of collapse, but she'd be damned if she was going to do so in front of Parahumans!
"What, in the name of God, happened?" she asked evenly, "The Docks and Broadwalk are a mess, Fenja and Menja are in comas, the Empire 88 is on the warpath, with the ABB right on their heels…what the hell is going on here and how did you miss it?!"
"We aren't entirely certain." Miss Militia said with a tired sigh. Even though the woman could go for weeks without sleep, the mental fatigue of the last 48 hours had made her exhausted. "As far as we can tell, Lung tried, and failed, to recruit the Cornell University Bomber, Bakuda and she went on a bombing rampage in the city to prove a point."
Armsmaster spoke up then. "As far as we can tell, this series of explosions, with effects ranging from transmutation of flesh into glass, to standard explosions, to mild fallout reactions, caused several people to Trigger as a result of it. The one who counterattacked and killed Bakuda, as well as putting the Fenja/Menja sisters into a coma, was one of these Triggers, as evidenced by her costume consisting of only a black jacket and a balaclava. We have currently given her the codename 'Gaia.'"
"As in the ancient Greek Titan-Goddess of the Earth?" Piggot asked wearily.
"The same." The armoured hero confirmed, "She is a powerful Terrakinetic who has thus far shown the ability to control the earth around her with exacting control. She has been shown to know where people are as long as they are standing on the ground and has shown the ability to create earth out of nothing in limited amounts, about a boulder sized rock at a time."
"We believe that someone close to her was killed in Bakuda's bombing, which caused her to Trigger and that is why she went after her hell-bent on eliminating her." Miss Militia added, "Considering Bakuda had a kill-order on her head after the first hour of her bombing campaign, I think she did us all a favour."
"Putting the Fenja/Menja twins into a coma was over the line." Emily snarled back, her tired mind trying to work out how to turn this to the PRT's advantage, "Panacea can't work with brains, but she has determined that they are severely concussed and that when she healed them, they had almost every bone in their bodies broken. And the reports say that she engaged them in one-on-one combat, not with the earth."
"We suspect that Kaiser ordered the twins to 'recruit' her." Armsmaster grimaced, "They aren't known for their subtlety, so took 'recruit' to mean 'conscript' instead and attacked her."
"She was forced away from the earth and was on the brink of being defeated when, according to eyewitness accounts, she was surrounded in a dark-yellow energy field." Miss Militia continued, "This seems to grant her the equivalent of Brute 4 and Mover 2 abilities. She then grabbed some metal pipes and they turned brown. We have one of these weapons in custody now and Armsmaster here believes this is some sort of earth infusion technique, as the pipe is no longer just metal, but metal that has solid granite seamlessly mixed in to the structure of it."
"Christ." Piggot cursed, "So she counterattacked and beat them all to hell, because she was a new Trigger and thus had no idea about the Unwritten Rules. Is that what you're telling me? If so, how did she get around the twins' Breaker effect? Gaia's attacks should have been shrunk proportionately to their size, and during the fight, I notice that they were both two stories high before being defeated."
"Did I mention that the pipe I referred to before had to be brought in using several of Kid Win's antigravity boosters?" Miss Militia replied dryly, "Apparently she can freely alter the density of her earthen constructs as well as the composition and shape. This means that regardless of how large or small the attacks were, they would strike far harder than the twins would expect, causing the damage Panacea noted."
"And we have no idea where Gaia is or who she is?" Piggot asked wearily.
"Negative." Armsmaster confirmed, "She flew away on a floating platform of rock and hasn't been seen since."
"So…power ratings?" Piggot asked.
"Shaker 8 for Terrakinesis, the aura and the ability to create earth." Armsmaster listed, "Brute 4 and Mover 2 for the body enhancement effects while under the aura. Thinker 5 for that ability to sense vibrations in the ground. Striker 4 for the infusion ability and Mover 3 for the Geokinetic flight."
"Why is the Thinker rating so high?" Piggot asked, "For a single ability, that's a bit much, surely?"
"When she temporarily teamed up with Vista and Aegis to rescue people trapped in the rubble of one of the bombsites, she indicated she could tell individual people apart by their vibrations and from quite some distance away. Additionally, she can read those vibrations to see if people are lying to her. One ability with many applications, Director." Miss Militia informed the obese woman.
"Mother of God. Right. Inform all Wards and Protectorate members to politely request Gaia's presence here should they run across her." The Director said firmly as she massaged her temples, "They are not to demand or otherwise antagonise her. And, regardless of whether she agrees to come or not, they are to give her a rundown of the Unwritten Rules so what happened with Fenja and Menja doesn't happen again. Christ knows that the Empire is going to be gunning for her blood after this. Make certain that she knows the life expectancy of independent heroes before she makes a choice."
"Director, you should go and sleep; I don't need to, but you do." Miss Militia said in concern.
Emily sighed. "As soon as I have updated Chief Director Costa-Brown, I'll be doing that. She is…displeased…that I let this happen unopposed."
The other woman winced. The Head of the PRT was known to be a brass-clad bitch at the best of times and this was not one of those times.
With Taylor
Sitting atop a building on the edge of the Boat Graveyard, Taylor Hebert didn't notice as the tears fell from her eyes. She had been crying almost nonstop since that bitch Bakuda had killed her father. Only the rage of combat had allowed her to stop.
'I have powers…who gives a fuck?' she thought bitterly. Powers couldn't bring her Dad back. Her poor Dad, turned into a glass statue by those fucking bombs as he left for work.
Seeing that happen had made her black out, then she had these powers when she woke up. It wasn't hard to work out what her powers were, considering her front yard had been churned up like it had been punched by a giant. Taylor had run inside, full of rage, and grabbed her Mom's old bike coat and her balaclava before heading out to find her Dad's murderer.
A villain, of all people, had given her the break she needed to track down the bomber bitch. Tattletale of the Undersiders, when Taylor had run into her, had informed her of several locations where Bakuda had been seen in the week since she arrived in Brockton Bay.
Killing Bakuda had been both cathartic and horrifying. Cathartic as she had avenged her Dad's killer, horrifying because she had killed a human being. She had still been reeling from that when she came across two of the Wards trying to save some people trapped under a building. She had helped them get the trapped people out before trying to get away so she could start to mourn.
Emphasis on 'try' here, as she had been attacked by two of the Empire 88's Capes, Fenja and Menja, before getting a block away. The two had tried to knock her out on the first attack, but Taylor had sensed their approach using the vibrations they gave off. The ability to sense the vibrations that people gave of as they walked or even just stood there was a big help, especially as she could tell if they were lying or not somehow.
Also, for some reason, Parahumans felt different to her vibration sense. If a normal human 'felt' like a low rumble, then Parahumans were a discordant shrieking crack. This made them exceptionally easy to find.
She had been in trouble when the two Nazi Capes had shot up to the size of two-story buildings and tried to squash her, so she had climbed a building. Then she had discovered that her ability to control the earth was weakened by not being in contact with it.
When all had seemed lost, Taylor had tried to pull the earth to her, only to discover herself shrouded in an aura of yellow energy that granted her speed and strength she shouldn't have, which then allowed her to dodge blows from Fenja's sword. She had grabbed a couple of pipes on a whim and directed the earthen aura into them, resulting in two very dense and powerful weapons that she had then proceeded to beat the two women into submission with. No matter what their power to shrink attacks would do to the size of the attacks, the higher density and impact of her pipe's attacks were unaffected.
Then she had fled, horrified with herself yet again. She had come close to killing them and had only just been able to stop. It wasn't until she woke from her self-recrimination that she realised she had flown up on a boulder of air that she had instinctively created. Hurriedly, she brought herself down to earth again atop this building, where she had stayed ever since.
'What's going to happen to me, now that Dad's gone?' Taylor wondered. She knew that her mother's family had essentially pretended that she didn't exist because Annette had married against the wishes of her family, and that Dad had been the last of his family, so she was alone.
"You don't have to be, you know." A familiar voice spoke up from behind her. Taylor leapt to her feet and spun around to see Tattletale holding a pizza box and giving her a fox-like grin.
"Hungry?" the villainess asked.
That's where it ends. I know a lot of people have been wondering why some elements of these one-shots have some plot-holes in them. The answer is that it's to give anyone who wants to adopt the stories plenty of leg room. Review please!