Kneeling atop a building in the Docks area, Taylor Hebert frowned down at the fight going on below her. The ABB and the Empire 88 were having another clash between them, although thankfully it hadn't escalated to having any of their Capes exchanging blows yet, but unless someone stepped in, it might just escalate to that level.

Fortunately, Taylor had no intentions of allowing things to get that far.

She was dressed in a yellow and black outfit that looked as if it had been taken from a motorbike catalogue. Similar fingerless gloves covered her hands and a white mask with blue lightning bolts dancing across it concealed her face. Flexible leather boots sheathed her feet, completing the costume. The only other thing she had was the small courier pack slung over her shoulder. It was this that carried zip-ties, handcuffs and other implements she might need.

"Time to go." She muttered and clutched her fist, a spark of electricity arcing up her arm as she did so.

Leaping from the top of the building, she called upon her power, a storm of electricity erupting around her with a crackle and snap that was drowned out by the sounds of battle emanating from beneath her. With a shout, she plummeted to the ground, slamming down to the asphalt and letting loose the electricity she had gathered in a 360 degree arc around her, sending gangbangers and skinheads flying.

In the silence after Taylor landed, a single voice yelled and broke it.

"CAPE!"

Then all hell broke loose.

Taylor flung out both arms towards the Empire 88, sending a large shockwave of electricity out and sending them flying once again. When they touched down this time, however, they found themselves adhered to the ground via shackles of electricity around their arms and legs. No matter how they struggled, they were trapped.

"Ice the bastard!" one of the ABB roared. The distinctive clicking of guns could be heard as those that had them drew and prepared to fire them.

The masked girl swung around and raised one hand, creating a shield of electricity in mid-air before her just as the ABB let loose a fusillade of bullets at her. Some of them missed completely, but the rest struck the shield and were caught by it.

In her other hand, Taylor created a ball of lightning and lobbed it at the gangbangers. It struck one on the chest and stuck there. The man shrieked like a girl, swiped at his chest and screamed, "Get it off me! Get it off me!"

'Three…two…one…Zero.' Taylor counted in her head.

When her mental count reached zero, the ball glowed before exploding like a hand grenade, eliminating not only the man it was attached to but several gangbangers who were nearby, all of whom were armed with pistols of some kind.

"Let's get outta here!" one man yelled from the back of the ABB lines. Several others joined him, but that still left ten ready to fight. Taylor grinned, dropped the shield and started blasting them with weak lightning bolts that rendered them immobile after a couple of hits.

"And that's a wrap." Taylor muttered. She focussed for a moment and used her electrolocation ability to see if any of the Empire or ABB goons that had run or been lost from her sight were waiting for her to drop her guard.

Electrolocation was what she called the ability to sense the natural bio-electricity that humans possessed in their nervous system, as well as any artificial electricity sources in the area. Additionally, an unconscious person's bio-electricity 'felt' different from the bio-electricity of someone who was conscious, so playing possum was useless against Taylor.

Satisfied that the only conscious people were either secured with the electro-restraints, too badly wounded to move or unconscious, the new Parahuman set about restraining the ABB and Empire thugs whilst stripping them of money, weapons and drugs. The drugs and any guns were left on top of the owners, while Taylor took any knives and cash they had on them.

$1050 and seven knives later, the Cape sauntered off, quite pleased with her night's work.

On the way back to her home, Taylor thought about everything that had happened over the last three months. Getting locked in the locker had been hell, plain and simple. Taylor had wished, as she drove herself mad inside the locker, that Sophia Hess and the other two would be struck by a lightning bolt or were electrocuted some other way. She didn't know why she had fixated on that particular punishment, but she had been reading a fantasy novel the previous day involving a god that was trigger-happy with smiting unbelievers with lightning bolts, so that might have something to do with it.

Waking up in the hospital a day later, she had been kept in for observation for half a day and given a week off school. Her dad had promptly told Principal Blackwell to go have sex with farm animals and withdrawn her from Winslow. Self-Study was the way to go, but she had discovered that unless she was really, really careful, she would short out electronic devices just by touching them, so computers were dicey for her.

Training her powers for three months had yielded results. Electrokinesis, the ability to create and control electricity. She was functionally immune to being electrocuted, absorbing it like a sponge would with water. Doing so actually healed her of tiredness and exhaustion, as well as any minor wounds such as cuts, lesser burns and the like. She hadn't tested it on major wounds because she hadn't been wounded to that degree and had no desire to get that badly wounded.

What she was currently doing was the coolest ability, shooting lightning bolts aside, that she had at her disposal; Electrokinetic Surfing. In other words, she was speeding along atop the power lines faster than the average person could run. It really made getting around Brockton Bay much easier than if she had to run everywhere, thanks to all the power lines that crisscrossed the city.

"Hey, you a villain?" a voice said from her side. Taylor leapt to the other side and levitated using Electrokinetic Flight…well; technically it was just Electrokinetic Hovering, as she could barely move a foot without falling, but as for being stationary, it was good enough.

A blond girl with a body like a model, wearing a bright white costume and a little tiara floated next to the power lines with a raised eyebrow at Taylor's actions.

"A little warning next time?!" Taylor spat at Glory Girl of New Wave, "I almost attacked you on instinct!"

"So villain, right?" Victoria Dallon asked with a smirk.

"NO! Damn it, I just beat the shit out of fifty ABB and Empire 88 thugs over at the Docks, so no, I'm not a villain!" Taylor snarked.

"Uh-huh." Glory Girl looked Taylor up and down sceptically, "The threads aren't exactly proving you right here."

"Not every family has enough money to splurge on detergent for all that white, princess." Taylor shot back, "I mean seriously, you should get sponsored by detergent companies for all the detergent you people must go through."

"Wha…?" Clearly, no one had ever taken this tack with the girl, so she was sincerely confused.

"Now that we've cleared up the fact I'm not a villain, see ya." Taylor floated back to the power line and started surfing it again.

"Hold it!" the blond shouted indignantly and flew after Taylor, "What part of that conversation made you not a villain?!"

"Me saying so." Taylor replied dryly, "You have no proof that I've committed any crimes, nor do you have any suspicions that I am other than the fact I'm not dressed to suit your discriminatory views about how heroes should dress. Fact is, you really should just fly off."

As the blond heroine spluttered indignantly again, Taylor grimaced. She had considered joining New Wave after automatically rejecting the idea of joining the Wards, but the uniforms and the fact that Brandish, Glory Girl's mother, worked in the same law firm as Alan Barnes put her off. Plus the whole 'reveal your identity' thing wasn't in the cards for her. Nope.

"Fine!" Glory Girl threw her arms up in exasperation, "Assuming that you're not a villain, what's your name?"

"Just call me InFamous, Glory Girl." Taylor said with a smirk under her mask. She didn't know why, but the name just seemed to fit her.

"Again, not exactly a heroic name there."

"The world isn't sunshine and butterflies, you know." Taylor shot back waspishly, "The PRT and the Protectorate have done jack all for Brockton Bay and they keep to nice, neutral or heroic names. Hell, even you New Wave people haven't done anything recently. I will do what I can to remove the cancer in this city; the Empire, the Merchants, the ABB. I don't want villains to look at me and relax, knowing I'm a White Hat; I want them to flinch, knowing that I'm someone who will put them down hard if they harm the people of this city."

'OK, where the hell did that come from?!' the Electrokinetic thought in shock at her own speech. It was, by and large, what she thought about the current situation in her hometown, but she didn't mean to mouth off to Glory Girl like that.

"…wow, you really have a chip on your shoulder." Glory Girl said after a moment, "You do know that solo heroes last about three months after the first ninety days?"

"I do trawl PHO occasionally, so yes." Taylor shrugged, "I don't really have much choice. The Wards are a waste of time with their stupid publicity patrols and the stupid Youth Guard, and after what happened to Fleur, no way am I joining New Wave."

Glory Girl's aura of aggression flared for a moment at the mention of her deceased aunt before it faded.

"That was the only time the Unwritten Rules have been broken." She said angrily, "After Kaiser crucified the one who did it, no one's stupid enough to try it again."

"Because you all live together in two large groups." Taylor pointed out as she leapt to another set of power lines, "Taking on a single Parahuman is all very well, but four at once? No way. Now if you don't mind, I'm heading home, so could you not follow me?"

"Oh. Sorry." Glory Girl hovered in place and watched InFamous speed off; her feet alight with arcs of electricity as the Cape slid over the power cables.

The blond girl was unusually thoughtful as she sped back to her family home after she picked up her sister, Panacea, from the hospital.

"Vicky-girl? What's up?" her father, Flashbang, asked in concern after she got in and settled.

"I met a new Parahuman today." Vicky said with a frown, "A Heroic Vigilante from what I could tell. Wears black and yellow biker clothes with a white and blue mask. Calls herself InFamous. She's…really bitter."

"Oh?" Carol Dallon, aka Brandish, asked with a raised eyebrow.

"She was very…critical of the Protectorate's lack of progress in dealing with the gangs." The blond girl shrugged uneasily, "Us as well. She said something about not wanting to join the Wards, so I'm guessing she's about Ames' age or so."

"You did tell her the life expectation of a lone hero, didn't you?" Carol asked.

"Yup, and she doesn't care."

"She what?!" Amy asked in disbelief.

"She said that she didn't have much choice because she didn't want to waste time with the Wards and…she didn't want to join New Wave because of what happened to Fleur." Vicky said softly.

The older heroes in the room stiffened at that.

"So…what was her power?" Amy asked at length in an attempt to break the silence.

Vicky smiled at her little sister. "Something to do with electricity. She was surfing on top of power lines with it and she could fly with it, but not well. Seemed to have good reflexes and leg strength too. Definitely at least Mover 3 or 4. She didn't show any other powers, but she had them. She was way too confident at being able to do me harm when I surprised her."

"You pulled a 'silent fly and hi' move, didn't you?" Amy groaned.

"Hey, she looked like a villain!" Vicky pouted.

"Victoria, never try that again with an unknown Cape." Carol ordered tersely, "She was well within her rights to consider you hostile at that point, so thank your lucky stars. Alexandria-types are mostly invulnerable, yes, but put emphasis on mostly. You never know if one Cape's powers are your Achilles Heel."

"Yes Mom." Vicky said sullenly.

"I'll inform Miss Militia about this 'InFamous' character tomorrow." The woman said with a sigh, "Electrokinetics are not common, so she'll be easy to spot. I just hope Armsmaster doesn't pull another stupid stunt like what he did with Shadow Stalker."

Vicky and Amy grimaced. Neither girl liked the vigilante-turned-Ward, but getting all but kidnapped by Armsmaster doubtlessly hadn't improved her opinion of heroes. Despite the fact she had an attempted manslaughter charge on her rap sheet.

"What did you think of her aside from her bitterness?" Mark Dallon asked.

"She…loves Brockton Bay." Vicky replied hesitantly, "The way she spoke about 'excising the cancer' in the Bay sounded like genuine anger and outrage. Whoever she is, she was born and raised in the Bay and was raised to love her home."

"Well that's something at least." Carol sighed.

"Oh! She also said something about beating up fifty members of the Empire and ABB down at the docks." The blond girl remembered.

Carol dragged out her phone and hit a speed dial. "Sarah? It's Carol…yes…Victoria ran into a new Cape, a Vigilante so it seems…yes…where's Crystal's patrol tonight? The Docks? Would there happen to be about fifty or so Empire and ABB thugs down for the count over there? As I thought…yes, it was the new Cape who took them down. I'll have a briefing put together for you tomorrow. Yes…Bye."

Brandish flipped her phone shut and looked at the rest of her family. "Well now…that was interesting."

So yeah. If the name hasn't given it away, this power set is Cole McGrath's from InFamous and Infamous 2. Just the Electrokinetic set though, with a few additions. On a sadder note, this chapter is dedicated to the memory of Becauzitswrong, who passed away last month of a heart attack. He was a good friend and Beta and will be missed.

Blaster: 7 (Able to fire blasts of electricity of varying intensities and strengths, ranging from that of a stun gun and Taser to that of a lightning bolt. Is able to pick up and throw objects with Electrokinetic telekinesis. Is able to create balls of lightning that stick to their target and blow up several seconds later.)

Shaker: 8 (Able to create forcefields of electricity to block incoming attacks. Is able to create unidirectional shockwaves of electrical force that send enemies flying and bind them if she wishes. Able to create an omnidirectional shockwave after landing from a jump. Able to create tornadoes of ionic energy to attack her enemies.)

Breaker: 5 (Able to neutralise and absorb and electricity or lightning directed at her. Able to create an aura of electrical energy around herself that gives her a Brute 2 rating. When absorbing electricity, any wounds she has will be healed.)

Thinker: 5 (Electrolocation: the ability to know where any source of electricity, biological or artificial, is located. Can distinguish between each type easily, as well as the consciousness of any biological source. Can be confused by powers, especially Case 53's.)

Mover: 6 (Able to surf on power lines and train tracks. Able to create tethers of electricity to swing from. Able to hover using electricity jets emitted from her hands or feet.)

Striker: 6 (Able to coat limbs in electricity to increase damage dealt. Able to solidify electricity into blades strong and sharp enough to cut plated steel. Able to use electricity to stimulate molecules, renewing damaged cells, reduce fatigue and even heal minor to moderate brain damage. Able to infuse weapons with electricity to up the damage they deal.)