Taylor leapt across the rooftops with a grin on her face, although it couldn't be seen due to the faceless black mask she wore over it. It was matched by the black bodysuit, gloves and boots that she wore.

Night-time Brockton Bay was a bit creepy, but for all that it also felt more than slightly liberating, at least in Taylor's opinion. Since she had gained her Parahuman powers two months ago, she had come out to practice them at night and had become quite used to the darkness. It did help that one of her lesser powers was night-vision. She could see at night as well as or better than during the day.

Her power, aside from night-vision and a slight Brute rating for increased strength and durability, was mainly shadow manipulation, of sorts. She couldn't control just any shadow that she wanted; she had to touch the person or object whose shadow she wanted to manipulate first. She could always manipulate her own shadow, which she used to create her costume.

Sure, she could use it to create a golem to fight for her; that was what the majority of her power was, after all, but then the question of what she would wear as her costume would come up. Taylor couldn't move more than a mile or so away from the object that the shadow was cast from, which limited her with regards to what she could do, along with the requirement that she had to have touched the object in question at some point in the past before she could manipulate its shadow.

Simple solution; go out every night and touch everything she could lay her hands on, just in case she might need to fight in that area. She'd already covered Winslow, the Docks, the Boat Graveyard, the Medhall building, Arcadia's outer wall, most of the hospitals, as well as most houses in the area of the Bay that she lived in. Her target tonight was the area claimed by the Merchants.

The Merchants were considered, by all the other gangs, to be pathetic. They were drug peddlers and addicts, united only for the sake of self-preservation and the force of will of their leader, Skidmark. He, along with Squealer and Mush, were the main reason why no-one had rolled up the gang of stoners in less than a week. Rumours on PHO said that they had two new members as well. A Case-53, one of the so-called 'monster capes, called Trainwreck and a female called Whirlywig, who was a telekinetic of some description.

Out of all the gangs, Taylor held the most contempt for the Merchants. The Empire 88 and ABB were each bad in their own way, but the Merchants were a cancer eating at the city, had been for years. The PRT and Protectorate , badly outnumbered and out-muscled by the combined might of the three big gangs, couldn't do anything about the Merchants without the rest of the gangs taking advantage. Plus, the two linked teams were focussed on Parahuman activity, so rarely did anything about drug activities unless they stumbled across them on patrol.

Taylor, or Shadowdancer as she called herself now, would take up the slack and deal with them in the Protectorate's stead. Once she had the city covered by her web of shadows, she could fight freely wherever she might find herself in Brockton Bay.

Shadowdancer landed atop the roof of a building and tapped it with her hand, which made it glow darkly in her vision, as all objects and people affected by her power did. On people or animals, it surrounded them like an aura, as well as filling their shadow like a reservoir, which was what allowed her to use them.

Activity down the street caught her attention and she watched as a figure sheathed in blazing light was hurtled from a building. The only person it could be was Purity, a member of the Empire 88 and the second most powerful Blasters in America. A colossal figure stomped out after her, made of trash. Mush.

Purity righted herself in mid-air and sent two blinding blasts of light into Mush's trash-golem body, piercing through it with no other visible effect. Mush responded by continuing his charge and lashing out with a long arm of rubbish that Purity flew higher to dodge.

The shadow-using Cape was torn here. This was a villain fight, pure and simple. She had no intention of drawing attention to herself before she was ready to strike at the Merchants, which would happen if she interfered here.

On the other hand, there had been rumours that Purity had broken away from the Empire 88 and struck out as a lone Hero. The rumours were merely that; rumours. Shadowdancer didn't believe that someone who had been with the Empire for as long as Purity had would really have turned over a new leaf; if nothing else, she was still likely a racist.

The shadow-user winced as Purity was clipped by another swipe from Mush and was sent careening into the side of a building. She sagged as she realised that she really couldn't just stand to one side as someone was in trouble. Damn her moral compass!

"Emerge from the shadows and fight, Colossus of Shadows!" she whispered, exerting her will over the shadow she had just claimed sovereignty over.

The shadow of the building she had just claimed blackened, warped and bulged up into a shapeless mass that caught the attention of both Mush and Purity. In moments, the mass formed the shape of a Greek Hoplite and started marching towards the looming form of Mush.

Moving closer whilst sticking to the shadows, Shadowdancer heard Mush shout, "Who the fuck're you?! You wanna mess with the Merchants too?!"

Smirking beneath her mask, the shadow user made the hoplite, whose image she had taken from an old history book her mother had owned, make the 'bring it' gesture before dropping into a combat stance.

Mush was the heavy hitter of the Archer's Street Merchants, being the only one who had a Brute-like power once he got himself tooled up with a bulky golem body like he was just now. That did not mean he was smart. With a roar, the Merchant Cape charged forwards the shadow construct, arms of trash lashing out at it.

Smoothly, the shadow construct deftly dodged the detritus and kicked the trash constructs legs out from under it, making it slam to the ground face first, which mustn't have been too pleasant for Mush, sticking out as he was at the trash golem's chest-area.

As expected though, the more experienced Cape was too wily to get KO'd like that. The golem staggered to its feet, with Mush emerging from the chest looking battered but relatively unharmed otherwise. Before he could move any further, Purity lashed out with her light beams again and cut off the golem's legs, sending it down again.

Shadowdancer saw Mush look between the silent shadow colossus and the menacing hovering figure of Purity and decide that the odds were not on his side. The golem knuckled its way away before regenerating its legs and fleeing from the scene.

The shadow-user immediately dissolved the shadow construct, returning it to its natural form and retreating back to the building. She could tell that Purity, despite the blinding nimbus of light around her that acted as her costume, was looking around, trying to see who was controlling the now-obvious golem.

Slipping away stealthily, Shadowdancer cursed her inability to stand aside when other people were in trouble. Now Mush and Purity knew that a shadow user was about town and it wouldn't be long before their respective groups knew about her as well, then the whole damn city after them thanks to damn PHO. That meant that the PRT and Protectorate would know about her and try to find her to give her a recruitment pitch, which she had no intentions of allowing.

'OK. From here on out, if you see a member of the Protectorate or the Wards while in costume, either ignore them or get the heck out of dodge.' Shadowdancer thought as she headed back to her home. She hated cutting her nightly patrols short, but this was bad news.

With Purity

Kayden Anders née Russel, otherwise known as Purity, gave up on trying finding the shadow user that had stepped in to save her. To the best of her knowledge, there were only two Capes in Brockton Bay. The first was Shadow Stalker, the Ward and former Vigilante, while the other was Grue, leader of the Undersiders. Both were black, which disturbed her.

She had fallen in with Kaiser and his Aryan master-race garbage as a freshly-Triggered teen and had spent the better part of her adult life believing it. Now that she was away from Max Anders, her husband and the villain Kaiser, she was a solo hero, yet she still had a hard time bucking the idea that anyone not white wasn't worth knowing. It certainly didn't help that part of her deal with Kaiser was that she couldn't hit Empire 88 territories or men.

Returning to the matter at hand, she knew that neither of the previously mentioned Capes could do what she had seen here tonight. Shadow Stalker could turn into a mostly insubstantial shadowy Breaker form, while Grue could create darkness that could interfere with said Breaker form. Therefore, this had to be either a new Cape in town or a fresh Trigger.

Quite why this new Cape had interfered in the battle between her and Mush was beyond her, but Purity was glad they had. She had one weakness as a Blaster and that was that it was very, very had for her to throttle her blasts of kinetic light. She would have had to risk seriously hurting Mush in order to put him down. Not that she cared about Mush, but the Protectorate and PRT would use it as an excuse to rescind the tentative truce she had with them and reactivate her arrest warrants.

Deciding that enough was enough for one night; she turned and sped off to her 'base', a fancy term for a room she dropped into in order to change into her civilian persona. She owed that newbie a favour for helping her and, even if they were black or Asian, she would repay that debt.

So, just something I thought of. This power set is similar to, yet different from, Taylor's in the story Equinox on Spacebattles. You'll see how different below.

Striker: 2 (Able to imbue the shadow of any object, animal or human with her shadow power, which is critical for her to be able to control any shadow other than her own. The size of the target is irrelevant.)

Shaker: 6 (Able to control the shadows imbued with her shadow power. Able to manipulate her own shadow freely. Able to form a costume granting her a Brute 1 resilience rating using her shadow. Able to form other shadows into anything she pleases and move them as she pleases, but they must remain within a square mile of the object the shadow was cast from.)

Brute: 2 (Stronger and more resilient than she looks)

Trump: 4 (Able to bestow powers on her shadow creations, from super strength to speed to Blaster abilities. They only last 30 minutes before Taylor must recharge them.)

Thinker: 2 (Possesses night vision. Is able to see the shadow aura that her Striker ability infuses within people and objects.)