Requiesce in pace Chapter 2 (Original chapter Chapter 9)
Winslow High School
Taylor sighed as she left her hellhole of a school after another day of put-downs and all-but torture by the kids inside it. It really shouldn't surprise her that people could be so cruel, but it did. Emma, Madison and Sophia were the ringleaders, but everyone was a party to her suffering, whether by action or inaction.
Any lesser person would, after receiving Parahuman powers as a result of said torment, lash out and go Carrie on the school. Taylor, however, was a stronger person than that. Not physically, but mentally. High School, even without being alone against the entire teaching staff and student body, was hell, or purgatory to be exact. Meaning it had an end.
What happened in highschool, exams and tests to one side, was completely irrelevant. Your social ranking in highschool didn't mean jack shit in the real world, which was something Madison, and the other three didn't seem to get. Well, maybe Sophia did. It would explain why she went after Taylor so much; she knew that Taylor's intelligence would get her a good job, better than any she could get, and was acting out of anger and jealousy.
At least, that's what made sense to Taylor. She had no clue as to what the hell the track star was thinking in that head of hers, and wasn't sure she wanted to know.
Her journey back to her home was quiet and undisturbed, thankfully. Even the Bitch Trio didn't dare pull crap in actual public locations. Getting off the bus and heading to her house was…sad. Her Dad wasn't home, as always. He had thrown himself into his work since her Mom died. If he was home one day out of seven, it was a miracle.
Today too was much the same. The house had an air of neglect about it and Taylor had to sigh sadly at how her Dad had been so broken by the death of her mother. He had loved her to pieces and look what happened when she had died. It was making her leery of ever falling in love with someone herself.
Thankfully, there was an upside to her Dad being a ghost in the house; she could go out and Tinker to her heart's content. It had been a surprise, when she realised that she was a Tinker. She had a high amount of physical ability, plus the weird sight mode that sprung up every now and again that greyed the world out and highlighted most people in white. To have Tinker abilities on top of that was too much of a cheat. Still, she really wished that she hadn't had to go through The Locker in order to get them though.
Finishing her homework as fast as possible, Taylor changed into nondescript clothes and headed out to her base. It was an abandoned building that had formerly been a block of apartments. There had been a series of murders there done by a Parahuman who had gone insane, after which the place was abandoned once the Parahuman, Blood Tear, had been caught and sent to the Birdcage. Now it was Taylor's base.
Surprisingly, the people who had moved out had pretty much abandoned all of their electronics and furniture, which had been a big help when she had needed raw materials. It had taken a while to get her workshop set up, but now the place was so heavily defended, you would need power armour to get to it if you weren't authorised to be there.
Entering through the crumbling hole in the wall that had been blown in the building during one of Über and L33t's screw ups, Taylor went to a part of the wall that had a lot of graffiti sprayed on it and pressed several parts of it in order. With a small click, a doorway opened up for her.
Sliding inside and closing it behind her, Taylor took in her workshop. The fabric extruder was there on one side that let her cut the special Tinkertech cloth into her outfits. It was slightly more bullet and knife resistant than Kevlar, was both fireproof and electric proof and dispersed any physical impacts across its entire surface. As it was cloth, it weighed far less than any metal armour and didn't impede her movements. All in all, it kicked ass.
"Time to move." She muttered as she took in the dressmaker's dummy that had her costume atop it. It still amazed her that Lung hadn't so much as scratched her the previous day. Was he overrated or something?
Stripping completely naked, Taylor pulled on the skin-tight black bodysuit that acted as a final layer of armour and underwear at once. Next were the trousers and shirt. For some reason, they were taken right out of the renaissance period, but whatever. The belt was attached next, with three pouches full of bullets, grenades and smoke bombs, hand-ties and some weak Tinkertech medicine.
The medicine hadn't exactly been intentional; she had made it when trying to figure out how to make the medicine that had rendered Lung helpless before her. It acted as an analgesic and increased the power of her regeneration factor by a small amount, but was useless for anyone else.
Next to be worn was her large bandolier of throwing knives. She had fourteen on her and she always retrieved the blades if she used them. On her left shoulder, she placed some armour, which also had a small half-cape that concealed her left arm.
On her feet, she pulled on some thick leather boots with metal sewn in at key locations. Flexible and tough, they were perfect for her fast and flexible fighting style.
The sword she hooked onto her belt was next, then the parrying blade at her lower back, then the crossbow over her shoulder and then the short sword at the small of her back. Each was placed with a confidence born of many hours of repetition.
The two steel bracers were the next to be placed on her. The left one merely had a second hidden blade and a poison blade concealed within it, whereas the right bracer had a hidden blade, a gun, a concealed grapple line, a hooked blade and even a one-shot dart gun concealed inside of it. Most of these hadn't been useful against Lung the previous day, but he was a special case.
The last thing to be placed on Taylor was the black aquiline mask that concealed her identity. Although it looked plain, it had a rebreather, several eye filters, such as infrared and ultraviolet, built into the lenses and it was even bulletproof.
The final touch was tying her hair into a ponytail and tucking it into the hood that she pulled up; casting a shadow over her face and making it look more menacing. Although she could understand why the Protectorate advocated for its members to show at least part of their face to the public, she could care less about it. The world didn't want Taylor Hebert, so they wouldn't get any part of her as Altaïr.
Before leaving her hideout, she whispered the words that had come to her the instant she had conceived of this costume.
"Everything is permitted; nothing is forbidden."
Conference Room, PRT Building
"So, just to be clear, Armsmaster…" Emily Piggot said slowly, "Despite this…Altaïr deliberately warning you not to inject Lung with further drugs, you ignored her and now Lung is in need of Panacea's help in purging aforementioned drug from his system because it is killing him. Do I have it right?"
"Yes." The Protectorate leader replied gruffly.
No shame, no sign of being in the least bit apologetic for his actions coloured his voice.
"…as of right now, Armsmaster, you are forbidden from Tinkering for a week." Piggot said flatly, "Take this time to ruminate on the common sense of not injecting drugs into someone containing an unknown cocktail of drugs present inside them already."
"…yes ma'am." The Tinker replied after a moment.
"Now, this Altaïr character…details." Piggot said intently.
"I suspect she is a Tinker." Armsmaster replied confidently, "She carried numerous weapons on her person, not limited to a sword, a crossbow and several throwing knives. In addition, she used a hidden grapple line in one of her gauntlets to leave the scene."
"And this explains how she defeated Lung…how?" the Director asked.
"She also stated that she came up with the suppressant drug used on Lung herself, further adding support to my theory." The Tinker replied, "She used the crossbow to fire these into him."
He pulled a bag full of arrowheads out of his armour and laid them on the table.
"These arrowheads were designed as a delivery system for whatever drug Lung was injected with. Panacea might be able to tell us more about it when she comes in, but I would assume it will be some sort of regeneration inhibitor, with additional effects if the reaction to the Counter-Lung Inhibitor Drug is any indication."
"So…Tinker 3, would you say?" Piggot mused.
"It depends on what her specialty is, but I'd say so." Armsmaster agreed, "She's likely a combat Tinker."
"As in a Tinker who also has sub-powers that are useful in combat or as in a Tinker who can modify their equipment mid-combat?" Piggot asked.
"The former."
"OK then. Any other notes about this Cape?"
"She is uncaring about credit and is dismissive of the Protectorate and the PRT." Armsmaster stated, "I would estimate her age to be somewhere in mid to late teens based on her mannerisms and apparent height. She is likely to be resistant to the idea of joining the Wards based on all available data."
"Irrelevant. By attacking Lung, she's gone over the legal limit of what a vigilante is permitted to do." Piggot said briskly, "Any other Parahuman would have died from the wounds she inflicted on him. The Protectorate is instructed to locate and detain Altaïr until we can persuade her to join the Wards."
"Understood, Director." Armsmaster said as he stood up and headed out of the meeting.
"…Capes." Piggot sneered in disgust. She hated Parahumans, had done since the Ellisburg debacle. Were they necessary? When the enemies were the Endbringers, yes. But she couldn't wait for the day that the Endbringers were removed from the equation. THEN she'd gladly do away with the ridiculous Unwritten Rules that were set up and have them all arrested if they committed crimes, whether they were in costume or not!
Wincing in pain, she recalled that she had to go on dialysis in a few minutes. Damn Armsmaster and his incompetent social indifference/inability.
Heaving herself back to her feet, she hobbled out of the conference room and towards her office.
Not my best work, but some background on the happenings of this AU. Rather than becoming depressed, or rather because of it, Danny becomes a workaholic and basically ignores Taylor as she is a reminder of Annette and is thus too painful to see for him. Piggot, in most of my fics, is a racist towards Capes. Let's face it, she is. Not without good reason, true, but racist is racist.