Most people, when considering powers, would think that the ability to control your hair would suck majorly. In that, you would be right ninety percent of the time. Hair isn't all that strong; it's easily cut, melts easily in even the flame of a candle and has very little in the way of reach.
In my case, however, it is a weapon, a powerful weapon. Maybe I'm getting a bit ahead of myself here.
My name is Taylor Hebert, and I was shoved into a locker full of what had been used feminine products, but had mutated into the most disgusting pile of filth you could imagine, covered in bugs and other disgusting stuff. I was locked in for an entire day, which put me into a coma for a couple of weeks.
I had woken up to see Panacea holding my hand, with her sister Glory Girl standing nearby. Apparently my Dad had begged New Wave for help, both in Panacea's case and in Brandish's case, in her capacity as a lawyer.
"-six different kinds of viruses!" Panacea had ranted at her sister as I woke up, "She's lucky to be alive!"
"Calm it Ames, she's awake." Glory Girl had hushed her sister before filling me in. The school had done its best to pull a fast one by offering to pay for my medical expenses in exchange for Dad not pressing charges, but Brandish had gone into what Glory Girl had described as 'kick-ass crusader mode' and gone for the metaphorical jugular, using my bully journal and Greg Veder's, of all people's, testimony to beat down any resistance.
As a result, Sophia Hess had vanished, at the same time as Shadow Stalker had been transferred elsewhere abruptly. Coincidence? I think not. Emma had been sent to juvy, as had Madison. The rest of those who made up my tormentors (the rest of the student body) had been given a severe warning and community service, not to mention grounded until the end of high school.
Alan Barnes, Emma's high-priced divorce lawyer of a father, had come in, looking broken after that and apologised to me for what his daughter had done. He had been let go (a polite way of being fired, apparently) by the law firm he had been with. The same one Brandish, Carol Dallon, worked for, ironically enough.
Panacea had healed me up, although she prescribed some large meals to make up for the biomass she had used while healing me, so I was released from the hospital that day. The word of the world's premier healer carried a lot of wait with doctors, obviously.
One of the many concessions Brandish had clubbed out of Winslow was a transfer to Arcadia. I was given a week off to settle into recovering from the mental aftereffects of being locked into a locker for a day. Time I had really needed, as just working up a sweat had made me feel the need to take a shower.
I discovered my power when I sat down to brush my hair before my first day of school at Arcadia. I examined myself in the mirror and decided to braid my hair when my hair moved itself and formed a neat braid!
I stared at it gormlessly for a moment before automatically tying it off with a scrunchie. I decided that I could freak out about this after school, so I got ready and left.
Arcadia, the school where it was an open secret that the Protectorate Wards attended, was very different to Winslow. No gang colours were allowed on school grounds for one thing. No graffiti on the walls, no broken cameras, no apathetic teachers…if anything, the only downside was being dragged around by a very enthusiastic Victoria Dallon (Glory Girl) and having Amy Dallon (Panacea) throw looks that were a mixture of commiseration and jealousy at me all day.
When I got home, I undid my hair and looked in the mirror, willing it to straighten. Hey presto, it did. Not a kink to be seen. Of course, I was a bit irritated. I had wanted to be an Alexandria-type Cape ever since I knew what the other meaning of Cape was and I got the power to have good hair?
Petulantly, I willed my hair to grow…and it did! I was frozen as it started to pool around my feet before coming to my senses and ordering it to return to its normal length, which it did, thank heavens, otherwise I'd have had to give myself a haircut!
Testing out my power over the next few days, I discovered that I could change the colour of my hair, making it white as snow or as black as night or any other colour I wanted without even trying. Cutting off some hair while it was extended and coloured, I was relieved to see that it remained the changed colour.
I also discovered that I could use the cut hair as thrown needles, making them long and as hard as steel. In the interest of preserving my identity, I experimented and discovered I could make my cut hair vanish into dust. I could also apply the hard as steel nature to my actual hair, making it highly useful as a weapon.
Practising every day with my hair got me to the point where I could use my hair to pick up an egg without cracking it, as well as punch a large dent in the steel hull of a rusted hulk of a ship in the Boat Graveyard. Several trips to the library had granted me several comics and ideas about what else to do with my hair.
Right now, for example, I was in my basement, trying to make my hair form a dragon's head at the end of it. I was getting about halfway through it before it fell apart and I was getting frustrated as hell.
"Avavago!" I snapped for some reason, my anger making up a word to express myself. That's when my hair did something bizarre. It extended all on its own, swirling into a maelstrom and then slamming into the floor, vanishing through it without piercing the concrete.
When it emerged from the ground, it was in the shape of a human-sized dragon head. To be clear here, it was not a head from a human-sized dragon; the entire head was the height of the average human and as wide as two average males standing lengthways side-by-side. It was made up entirely of my hair, so its skin was brown. Dark blue eyes glared at me and its mouth opened, revealing sharpened teeth.
'Name…give me a name…' a voice whispered in my head. I looked around with wide eyes and only the dragon head and I were in the basement.
"G-Gomorrah!" I said, blurting out the most random thing to come to mind.
Nodding, the dragon head lowered itself back into the ground, my hair returning to normal as it retracted from the ground. The only difference was that now I could turn my hair into a swarm of mini-dragon heads at will, with teeth strong enough to bite through solid steel if I wanted them to.
This left me to wander upstairs and make dinner as I pondered things. It was less like I had created the dragon head…Gomorrah…and more like I had pulled something from a pre-existing pattern. As I stirred the sauce I was making, I reached down inside my mind for any flicker of information about Gomorrah.
'Gomorrah, the Devourer of the Divine. A territorial demon, it is often found alone. It identifies all it sees as its prey other than its summoner and devours them whole.'
This was all I found out about it. From this scrap of information that my power provided, I determined that I couldn't create another hair construct while Gomorrah was out, that it needed to have its targets identified otherwise it would attack the closest being and that its little title meant that it was specially designed to eliminate powerful foes. By eating them, although I think that I can throttle it and make them spit the targets up.
I had somehow linked the word 'Avavago' to the creation and concept of Gomorrah, which meant that I had a tell for people to read when they fought me. Not good.
It was the next day that I discovered I had a power in addition to my hair control power. I tripped and fell down the stairs and waved my arms wildly in circles beforehand. This created a circle that I fell through and floated down the stairs. When I landed with barely a bump on my rear end at the bottom, I was stunned. Looking down at my body, I noticed that I was…transparent. See through, in other words, like glass.
I tried to use the banister as leverage to haul myself up and fell flat on my ass again as my hand passed through the wood as if it wasn't even there. I stared at it for a moment, my jaw hanging somewhere near my navel, metaphorically speaking.
OK, so I had a Stranger/Breaker power of some sort. When I walked outside, nobody could see me, aside from a cat, which legged it as soon as I looked at it. I figured out that by moving both hands in a circle, I could create a 'portal' of sorts that let me leave and enter my Breaker/Stranger state as I pleased.
A couple of experiments showed that I could open small portals at will to send my hair creations to attack through the 'boundary world' I had access to. I decided it wasn't really a Breaker/Stranger power, but access to a boundary world of sorts that granted its inhabitants Breaker/Stranger powers.
In fact, my hair probably used this world on its way to forming Gomorrah. I set that to once side for the moment and focussed on the two important questions that all Parahumans were best with at one time.
What should my costume be and what should my Cape name be?
My costume, once I worked on it for a while, turned out to be easier than I thought. I could transform my hair into a costume that was rather impressive; pure black and somewhat skin-tight, with a bit…OK, a lot of extra padding on my non-existent boobs and flat butt, as well as my hips. I even made boots and gloves out of it, hardening the boots until they could be used as improvised weapons in a pinch.
That still left my mask. I wasn't about to show anyone my face. Screw being public friendly. Again, I made it out of solidified hair, only making the mask as white as ivory. It looked like a regal, imperious woman smirking at whoever looked at it. Even I got pissed off at how damn superior it looked.
I also decided to colour my hair black, the same shade of black as my costume in fact, when I was in my Cape persona. Much easier than hair dye. I also decided to style it differently, putting it up in a ponytail for ease of use regarding my hair creations.
As for my Cape name, I decided that since I looked like a walking shadow when in costume, I'd have something like that as my Cape name. I wanted to avoid anything to do with Sophia/Shadow Stalker though, so I was left thinking.
Fortunately, my mother had been an English professor and had passed several habits down to me, reading being one of them. The result of being well read was a broad vocabulary so I used that to my advantage.
"Look out Brockton Bay," I whispered as I tugged my costume on and tied my hair up, "The Umbra Witch is here."
I placed my mask on by face and vanished into the shadows of the Bay.
This was the result of people begging for a Bayonetta chapter. It isn't much, more like a taster, but it's still something.
Master: 6 (Has Comakinesis; the power to control hair. She can only control her own head of hair, but she is able to perform several feats with it, including changing its colour, length, texture, base strength, sharpness and other aspects of Mastery. There is no real limit to how much hair she can control, but it usually has to be within her line of sight or general area to be adroitly controlled.)
Mover: 4 (Is able to shape her hair into wings, granting flight. Is also able to use hair as tentacles for increased jumping capability.)
Trump: 6 (Is able to grant her larger hair constructs power based on a concept. Gomorrah is based on the concept of ferocity, granting it Brute strength and durability, as well as the negative effect of being a berserker.)
Stranger/Breaker: 5 (Is able to enter into a pocket dimension only she can allow people into. While within this dimension, she is all but invulnerable, unable to be struck by non-reality warping powers or physical effects. She can walk through anything not protected by an energy field and can attack from within this dimension. She is also invisible unless she wishes people to see her.)
Brute: 3 (When wielding a tremendous amount of hair, her base strength and durability is magnified to superhuman levels.)