Time and Time Again Chapter 2 (original chapter Chapter 8)

"Fucking Bakuda!" Paradox growled as she spotted the conscripted civilians walking down the street below them with guns in hand.

"Calmly does it, Paradox." Grue said soothingly, "Tats, what can you tell us?"

"L33t's information was spot on." The purple and black clad Cape said as she peered through binoculars, "Those people have bombs implanted in them, at the back of their heads most likely. She can likely detonate them remotely somehow, although I have no idea what the mechanism is."

Paradox growled again. After getting back from the bank job, Bitch had taken her dogs for a walk and the rest of the Undersiders had gone out to celebrate. When they returned, they discovered that their money, stolen from the Brockton Bay Central Bank, had been stolen.

Bitch had been the first suspect, but it was quickly revealed to actually be Bakuda, the newest Cape of the ABB, who had orchestrated it, with the help of Über and L33t. Beating the Gamer Capes hadn't taken long, but Bakuda had been throwing bombs all over the place like no one's business and it had taken a lot of effort to make the insane woman retreat.

Now there were bombs going off left and right across Brockton Bay, including one that had rocked the Undersiders' HQ, the team of villains had headed out to fight the rampaging ABB. Über and L33t had thanked them for stopping Bakuda from blowing them up by supplying information about the conscripts in the ABB, including the method Bakuda was using to control them.

"What about the rest of L33t's info?" Paradox pressed.

Tattletale scowled. "Although I can glimpse the bombs, I can't get any solid information about them from this distance. I can't tell if he was telling the truth."

The last piece of information L33t had given them was that Bakuda had implanted some form of reading the status of the people her bombs are implanted within, something like a heart monitor. Apparently the heartbeat of someone who is unconscious is very different of someone who is conscious. If he wasn't talking out of his ass, this left the Undersiders very few options, as if they attacked a group of conscripts, it would let the Bomb Tinker surround them with ABB goons before they knew it.

"Shit." Tattletale cursed, "Some of those people are wearing ABB colours. Actual members of the ABB have bombs implanted too. Is Bakuda insane? Is she trying to get a kill order? When Lung hears about this, he's going to kill her."

"Ah, yeah. I think doing all this is pretty conclusive evidence that Bakuda is bat-shit insane." Regent jeered, "So what's the plan, fearless leader?"

Grue grunted in frustration. "There's nothing we can do without the crazy bitch on our asses."

"I could take down a squad and lure her out." Paradox offered.

"No way." The leader of the Undersiders said instantly before he looked at a pensive Tattletale, "Tats, I don't like the look on your face there…"

"Paradox is the only one of us who could take down a squad alone and possibly survive the counterattack." The Thinker said with a sigh, "Not even Bitch and her dogs could hold off the number of ABB that are running around out there. You would be a close second with your darkness, Grue, but Paradox is our best bet for this plan."

Bitch growled at the perceived slight to her position in the pack, but subsided.

"Is this seriously the best plan we have?" Grue complained, "No offense, Paradox, but you have only been an official Cape for a week or so."

"None taken." The time user replied with a shrug, "I'm still the best bet to take care of this problem. I have plenty of time on my side."

"Enough with the time jokes already!" Regent groaned. He had suffered under them every time he used his power to try and make her spill her drinks, only to find time slowed down around the spill so she could scoop it up 'in plenty of time' as she said.

"It's only been a while since you fully recovered your energy." Grue said to Paradox, "Are you sure you can handle it?"

"I think so." The girl replied, "If it's just against ordinary people, then I should be able to win without using a lot of power."

This was the main demerit for Paradox's time manipulation abilities; the energy requirements. Small scale time manipulation was easy, but on a large scale, it was quite demanding. The fight against the Wards and Glory Girl had been a moderate expenditure of her abilities and had left her breathless for about five minutes afterwards. Some powers were like muscles; exercising them increased their power and endurance. Paradox's power was one such example. When she first Triggered, she could barely slow things down without feeling tired. Now she had fought off Glory Girl, one of the strongest Brutes in Brockton Bay without much trouble.

"OK then…if you're certain…" Grue said uneasily, "We'll keep an eye out for Bakuda while you fight. Be careful though."

"Roger-dodger." Paradox mock-saluted him.

"You've been hanging out with Regent too much." the leader of the Undersiders sighed.

Tattletale just nodded reassuringly. She could see that Paradox was deliberately acting irrelevant to reassure Grue. Regent, thanks to his bastard of a father, had all the empathy skills of a soggy teabag, so wasn't worried. Bitch, thanks to her canine mind-set, was equally as indifferent. As for Tattletale herself, her Thinker power made such strong fronts useless.

"Here I go!" Paradox headed down the fire escape on one side of the building, staff in hand. She was nervous as hell, but she would stop this lunatic from destroying her home. She was just relieved that no bombs had gone off in the area that the Dockworker's Association had its main offices and compound as of yet.

With the ABB Conscripts

Martha Lu uncomfortably hefted the gun in her arms. She was terrified of the bomb she had in the back of her head, but frequently sent prayers to any deity that could hear her for that bitch Bakuda to get blown up by her own bombs, even if Martha was killed by the bitch's Deadman's Switch.

"Look!" a member of the ABB pointed at the approaching figure that had appeared out of nowhere.

'Silver and blue costume…staff in hand…split clock face insignia…' Martha realised, "Crap! It's Paradox of the Undersiders!"

"Kill her!" the ABB goon in front roared and, reluctantly, Martha pointed the handgun she held at the Cape and pulled the trigger. The rest of the squad followed suit, but then Paradox just blurred and the bullets were abruptly sent flying into the walls of the buildings and the tarmac of the street. The next instant, she was in front of the gaping ABB lead man and slamming her staff into his gut, doubling him over.

"How the fuck?!"

"Stop her!"

It was all pointless though. No matter what they tried, Paradox just moved in a blur her staff lashing out and knocking people unconscious left and right. It was a completely one-sided fight from start to finish.

As Martha was also knocked out, she silently hoped that she wouldn't be killed by that damn bomb in the back of her head.

With Paradox

The time manipulating Cape gazed at her staff with a frown. Once again, it was shattered and splintered. Really, she was going to have to make a new one from metal once this was over.

Concentrating, she wound the time back on it, restoring the staff to pristine condition for what had to be the third time during the fight. Spinning it around like a cheerleading baton, Paradox looked around and spotted a few more groups of ABB advancing towards her. Most of them were the ABB's conscripts, but a few were actually ABB themselves.

'Although, given how she's implanted her own men with bombs, I think you can safely say that the ABB are all conscripts by this point.' Paradox thought privately. How Bakuda had managed to do this in the week since Lung had been captured was a puzzle. And why had Oni Lee, Lung's second in command, not done anything to stop her? Then again, Oni Lee was infamous as a sociopath of very little intelligence, so maybe he didn't care about the ABB without Lung telling him to?

Spinning her staff again, Paradox accelerated her own time once again, which meant that the world around her slowed to a crawl. For whatever reason, there was no strain for her body whenever she did this. Not that she was complaining.

Speeding towards the closest group of ABB, she smacked each one three times with her staff; once in the solar plexus to knock the breath from them, once on the back of the knees to make them fall to the ground and once on the jaw to knock them out. This worked most of the time. She didn't dare hit them on the back of their necks because of the bombs, so the jaw, with all its nerve clusters, was the next best thing. At the very least, they would be insensate for a while, which was all Paradox really needed.

With the Undersiders

"Whew! She is really kicking ass!" Regent whistled. He was watching through the binoculars as Paradox went through the conscripted ABB like a scythe through wheat.

"I am so glad we were able to convince her to join up with us." Grue muttered.

Tattletale, busy scanning the approaches to the street where Paradox was fighting, just grunted in affirmation. She knew that Paradox, Taylor Hebert, had been uncaring of her life when she fought Lung. Someone, she didn't know who, had driven her into practically suicidal tendencies. Fighting against Lung to save children she had never met? Leaving aside the misunderstanding (he had been talking about the Undersiders), fighting against the Dragon of Kyushu alone was practically begging for death, time powers or no.

She had lost her brother to suicidal tendencies. She was not going to let someone else kill themselves if she could help it now that she had powers.

"There's Bakuda!" she hissed as she spotted the ABB Tinker. Wearing a gasmask and wearing bandoliers full of grenades over casual clothes, the Tinker was armed for war, especially with the drum-mag grenade launcher she was toting in one hand.

"Whoa! Where the hell'd she get that grenade launcher?" Regent asked as he trained the binoculars on her.

"Don't know, don't care." Grue said, "Bitch, get your dogs ready. We have a bomber bitch to take care of."

The canine controller nodded and made the three dogs she had with her grow to their usual rhino size. Mounting up, the Undersiders headed to face Bakuda.

Paradox

As the last group of grunts fell, the time controller was panting with the effort. Manipulating her own internal time was a relatively easy thing to do, but repeating it multiple times consecutively was still tiring.

"Well, well, well." A familiar voice drawled, "Looks like the new Undersider is better than I thought."

"Bakuda." Paradox spat as she turned to face the Tinker, "Why have you done all this?"

"'In order to free Lung'…is what I told that simpleton Oni Lee." Bakuda replied, a gloating tone in her voice, "I'll kill them both and take the ABB for my own! I'll destroy the Merchants and the Empire and even the Protectorate! This city will be MINE!"

"Delusional much?" Paradox scoffed.

"Say what?!"

"Hate to tell you this, but you aren't special or unique. You aren't someone who stands out." She told the angry bomb Tinker, "Even if you do somehow miraculously manage to kill Lung and Oni Lee, which is so unlikely that no bookie would give you odds on it, your little bombs wouldn't be able to do jack shit to the Empire. The Merchants…meh. Who cares about them?"

"I'm going to make you regret being born, you little bitch!" Bakuda howled and raised her grenade launcher. She fired four bombs at Paradox who used the trump card she rarely used.

Wide area time stop.

Everything and everyone inside of twenty metres froze in time. The grenades were stuck in mid-air, Bakuda still had the grenade launcher pointed at Paradox and even the sound of the wind had stopped.

Walking forward, Paradox casually touched each of the grenades and activated her aging power. Once the time freeze was undone, they would be reduced to piles of rust. She grabbed the main part of the grenade launcher as well before ending the time freeze.

Bakuda blinked behind her mask as the grenades she launched fell apart in a shower of rust. Then she noticed that the Cape she had been firing at was right next to her and grabbing her weapon. Swearing in Korean, broken Mandarin and Cantonese, she ripped her grenade launcher from Paradox's grip and retreated a couple of steps before pulling the trigger.

Click-click.

"What the…?!" she looked down at her weapon only to gape as it rapidly turned rusted and useless.

"You…you did this!" Bakuda screamed as she threw her now useless weapon to one side.

"Correct. Do tell, Bakuda…how many time manipulators have there been?" Paradox asked rhetorically, "I can only think of two; Clockblocker and Grey Boy. Well, now there's a third; me."

At that, Bakuda was smart enough to see what Paradox was implying; that she was special, that she was unique in the Cape world, compared to Bakuda, a mere Tinker.

Screaming her fury, she grabbed for her bandoliers, aiming to pull out a grenade and blow the impudent Cape to bit or freeze her in ice or transmogrify her into glass or something! Bakuda wasn't really picky about what happened to Paradox as long as it was death inducing.

What she found instead was a whole slew of rusty fragments and dust. Every single one of her grenades had been rusted into scrap. Not caring about this was impossible for Bakuda, so her rage peaked and she started forward with the intent to tear Paradox apart with her bare hands.

WHAM! WHACK!

The Tinker almost threw up as a powerful blow struck her in the solar plexus, with a second following up in her gut moments later.

"What? Is that all the mighty Bakuda has?" Paradox taunted.

"Y-You…!" Bakuda seethed. By this point, any thought of using weapons had abandoned her mind. She staggered to her feet once again and leapt at Paradox, arms outstretched and hands clawing at her.

WHACK!

A single strike to the back of the head sends the Tinker crashing to the ground, landing headfirst and breaking her nose. Rolling around, clutching her face and screaming in pain, Bakuda made for a very pitiful sight.

"Jeez, I didn't expect you to deal with her yourself." A female voice called in amusement. Tattletale came riding in on Judas, with Bitch and Grue atop Angelica and Regent on Brutus.

"S-Sorry for spoiling your f-fun." Paradox wheezed. Using her powers so much was exhausting. If she took a break between each use of her power, it wasn't so bad, but quick consecutive use was very draining.

The Thinker of the Undersiders slid off the monstrosity of a dog and scanned Bakuda for a moment. "She has an unusual bulge on her left foot. Toe rings as a detonation device? Sneaky, but overly elaborate. Regent, screw with her eyes. The goggles she has in her mask allow her to select which bombs to detonate using eye movement."

As Regent stared at Bakuda and Grue removed the toe rings, Tattletale was able to catch Paradox before she fell down.

"Reckless girl…" the Thinker muttered, "Learn to care for yourself more!"

"S-Sorry…Tats." The time user said in a slightly slurred voice. She had really overdone it this time.

"What are we going to do with you?" Tattletale sighed before looking over at Bakuda, who was being bound and the lower part of her mask ripped off so she could be gagged.

"So…who says we should drop this bitch off at the PRT Building?" she asked with a grin.

So yeah. This is a powerful power set that Taylor has. The drawback, as stated above, is that it is very energy draining. At least the large-scale uses are, as are the quick and consecutive uses. This can be mitigated as she gets used to it, but extensive uses of her power will always be draining.