Prove Your Honour To Me! Chapter 2 (original chapter Chapter 58)
[Activating Combat Mode!]
Glory Girl, Panacea and the Travellers looked around in confusion as the synthesised female voice spoke.
"What the…whoa!" Glory Girl spoke up and then yelped as a dome of almost transparent energy erupted around the unknown Parahuman and then expanded, enveloping the Travellers before they could react. The Dallon Sisters, no the other hand, were pushed back gently but firmly by the dome.
"Huh? What the hell?!" Glory Girl exclaimed.
"I told you that your job is to get Panacea out of here." The blue-dressed Parahuman barked as she brought her sword around to point at the group of villains, "I'll buy you as much time as I can! Bring reinforcements, because this is my first outing as a hero."
'A rookie? Aw hell!' Victoria whined. She didn't want to leave a greenhorn hero against a group of experienced villains like the Travellers, but she had to admit that the…girl? Yes, she was a girl…that the girl was right. Getting her sister away from the hospital and to the rest of New Wave was the top priority here.
"Don't be reckless!" she warned the girl, which made Amy look at her in slight disbelief, a 'you have no right to say that to other people' expression in her eyes.
"Shush." The blond Alexandria-type muttered embarrassedly as she scooped her sister up and flew towards the nearest window.
With Taylor
"What the fuck is this?!" Top Hat snarled, "Why can't I switch with you?! Or anything outside the freaky dome you made?!"
"Once the barrier goes up, everything inside it stays in here." I answered with a lazy shrug, "As for me…well, I have no idea, Top Hat."
"The name's Trickster!" he snarled, "Genesis, beat down this bitch!"
The spider-gorilla nodded and started forwards. I could tell, somehow, that it was a projection of some kind rather than a human who had transformed. This meant…
"Disable Feat [Back of the Blade]." I muttered.
[Feat Disabled]
…that I could go all out on it.
Before the monster could react, I grasped my [SOLDIER Sword] in both hands and charged in, striking a massive diagonal cut down its chest, making it roar with pain. I cut and cut, dodging attacks from its gorilla limbs and spider legs as I did. I made sure to keep close to the monster trickster referred to as 'Genesis' just in case he thought to take a potshot with his revolver. Projection or no, there was no way that a teammate would forgive him for hitting his/her projection as if the person piloting it didn't matter.
Sadly, there was only so much that untrained instincts and reflexed could do for me and I soon saw a giant gorilla fist heading straight for my solar plexus. I barely managed to block it with my sword, but the sheer strength behind the blow sent me flying. I somehow flipped in mid-air and landed on the balls of my feet. Before I could launch myself at Genesis again, the world seemed to turn grey and the Travellers all froze, a blue window opened up before me.
[Limit Break]
When you have been driven into a corner, when your anger and other emotions reach a peak, you are able to use a Limit Break technique. As you level up, grow stronger and advance to the next class of SOLDIER, you will unlock more Limit Breaks. At the moment however, you only have one; [Chain Slash], an attack that allows you to attack multiple times with your sword inside of a single instant, with your opponents unable to stop or interfere with you.
In order to activate it, simply choose your opponent and speak the name of the Limit Break.
HUD (Heads Up Display) added to vision.
[Limit Break Gauge] added to HUD.
If I wasn't in a combat situation, I'd have several questions to ask. But, as the grey faded from the world and time seemed to start moving forwards again, I decided to leave the questions for later and just roll with it.
"[Chain Slash]!" I snarled and, much to my surprise, and orange series of waves emanated in a circle around where I stood before settling down. Then I found myself almost teleporting forwards, slashing my [SOLDIER Sword] down several times, with the last cut decapitating the monster projection of Genesis.
Villain Cape Projection 'Genesis: Spider-Monkey' defeated! You earn 2500 EXP!
You have levelled up! LV1-LV2!
You have Levelled up! LV2-LV3!
You have gained [Enemy Skill] Materia!
You have gained $60.00!
You have been awarded 3 Feat Points!
"Genesis!" the girl to Trickster's left cried in horror. She wore a black and red uniform decorated with suns.
"Sundancer, get her!" Trickster shouted.
"I can't without killing her!" Sundancer retorted, "No way am I doing that! And especially not indoors and in a god-damned hospital!"
That reminded me…
"Reactivate Feat [Back of the Blade]." I muttered.
[Feat reactivated]
"Ballistic?" Trickster turned to the guy wearing black, angular armour covered with protective pads and he had pockets all over them.
"This ain't cool, Trick." Ballistic said doubtfully.
"Can we please leave the arguing until after we deal with the damn hero?" the top hat-wearing villain ground out.
Well, as they were standing around talking and ignoring me, I wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. I sheathed my sword and the bubble dome around us popped, at which point I turned and ran, leaping through the window that Glory Girl and Panacea had used to leave the building, ignoring the shouts from within the ward as the Travellers realised I had done a bunk.
[Conflict Resolved!]
Landing atop a smaller building offshoot of the hospital, I leapt again, taking me down to street level, at which point I beat feet out of there. I could fight these people, but I honestly didn't like fighting villains with three-to-one odds against me, especially since that Sundancer girl seemed convinced that her power was too dangerous to use indoors and against a person.
Fortunately, I was quite quick on my feet and got a couple of blocks away in next to no time. I ducked into an alley and reverted to my civilian persona, walking out another way that I knew most people didn't know was connected to the two regular entrances.
'Ok, so that was a bit terrifying.' I mused, slightly surprised by how sanguine I was with facing down a group of powerful villains who seemed to not give a hoot about the Unwritten Rules, the Endbringer Truce or the Marquis Rules.
What I now needed to do was to learn more about my very quirky powers, because today had been full of luck, in that I apparently had a tutorial built into my powers, informing me of things, either consciously or subconsciously. Like how I have known, somehow, that certain Feats could be activated or deactivated at will. And that little time-stop regarding Limit breaks and how to use them.
Once I got a better hand on my powers, I'd go on patrol again. Knowledge of my own powers was vital, and you couldn't have dreams and honour without being alive, right?
Later
Travellers' Temporary Hideout
"What the fuck happened today?" Francis Krouse demanded bluntly.
He was sat on a couch and nursing a beer as his mood plummeted. The rest of the Travellers
"I ain't got no fuckin' clue." Jess, AKA Genesis, admitted. The wheelchair-bound girl wasn't happy. "All I know is that that girl with the sword cut my projection into shreds while you lot stood around like a buncha nitwits."
"Wait, wait. Didn't she teleport?" Luke Britto, Ballistic, asked in confusion, "Because that's what it was like for us. One minute you sent her flying and she landed on her feet like a cat, the next minute she's standing over the headless corpse of your projection. Next to no time in between the two."
"Bullshit." Jess snorted, "She shouted something and then charged at me and cut me five times inside of ten seconds. Then I'm waking up here."
"Could it be some sort of Shaker field?" Marissa, Sundancer, mused.
"One that freezes every target except the one that she's going for?" Krouse scoffed.
"It wasn't freezing, I think." Luke mused, "What she did was something like suspend our subjective experience of the passage of time for the duration of that attack."
"Say wha?" Marissa hitched an eyebrow.
"She froze your ability to register the passing of time." Jess simplified it for her teammate, "From all of your perspectives, time didn't pass while she made her attack run on me. I think it was to prevent you all from getting in her way while she took me out. She took down a field over her sword before she charged me, I think."
"How good were the eyes on that spider monkey thing?" Krouse asked.
"Better than yours." Jess shot back, "Anyway, what the fuck do we do now? Panacea is going to be guarded even more by New Wave from here on out, and there's no telling what the backlash of us breaking the Endbringer Truce and Marquis Rules is gonna be."
"Fuck the stupid rules!" the leader of the Aleph-born group hissed, "We need to get Noelle fixed soon, or there's gonna be nothing left of her mind! Especially after that fuckwit Perdition made her go half mad in Boston!"
His refusal to say their former teammate's real name was ignored by the rest; Cody had earned his punishment by his own stupid actions.
"I'll check in with Cody and see how Noelle's doing." Luke sighed, "We'll sleep on the matter and make a fresh try later, after more planning than 'She's there at x-day. Let's go get her!' this time."
Krouse glared at him, but then took another swig of his beer and ignored him.
The Next Day
Taylor Hebert's House/Abandoned Warehouse
So, after the hubbub yesterday, it was of no surprise that it was mentioned on the news, with fuzzy security imaging of the Travellers and of me being shown. I was mentioned as a 'brand new Independent Parahuman Heroine intervening and saving the World's Greatest Healer from possible kidnap' which was nice.
What was less nice was Armsmaster stating that 'although this new Parahuman seemed to be a hero, she was officially being classed as a Rogue until further evidence could be turned up.'
In a completely unrelated series of events, all of my Armsmaster panties got thrown in the bin. How odd.
Anyway, I was relatively free, as Winslow was still closed. Plus, Dad had put his time off to good use, unbeknownst to me until this morning, as he had filled out all of the paperwork to withdraw me from Winslow and start being home schooled.
Needless to say, I was a very happy camper. He had, rather generously, told me that I didn't have to start studying or whatever until Winslow officially reopened, which was nice. I'd still do some revision though.
Most of my time would be spent on housework and training my powers, though.
I was pretty much the only one who had done housework anyway after Mom died, because Dad…well, he hadn't been clumsy, exactly, but he did have a bad habit of using the wrong cleaner for different things, even before she died. He once gone out and bought some cheap so-called 'environmentally friendly' cleaning agent and used it to clean the kitchen table…which had then become as sticky as if someone has slathered honey over it.
Mom hadn't been amused. Neither had I, for that matter.
I was walking down the street, subtly keeping an eye out for anyone trying to follow me, just in case. I was reasonably certain that no one had spotted me transforming back yesterday, but I was a bit paranoid after the last year and a half. Sue me.
No one was, though.
Making my way to the warehouse from yesterday, I transformed (that so made me sound like one of those god-awful Power Rangers) and inspected the status page that popped up when I did.
Name: Taylor Hebert
Rank: SOLDIER 3rd Class
Level: 3
To Next Level: 2000 EXP
HP: 500/500
MP: 500/500
ATK: 60 (+10)
DEF: 60 (+10)
MAG ATK: 50
MAG DEF: 50
Feat Points: 3
Weapon: SOLDIER Sword (LV1)
Armour: 3rd Class Armour (LV1)
Accessory: None
Materia: None Equipped.
Hmm. So the amount of EXP I needed for each level was raised by 500 every time I levelled up? And my stats were raised by five each time I levelled up too? Interesting…
[Materia]
You received Materia as a spoil of battle yesterday. Would you like to run through the Materia tutorial?
Y|N
Hitting, 'Y', I was a bit relived that I would finally find out what this Materia stuff was.
Materia is the condensed and crystallised energy of Mako, which in turn is the distilled essence of the Lifestream of the Planet. Materia appears as spheres approximately the same size as a golf ball and by inserting them into special slots in your weapons, armour and accessories, you can achieve various effects.
The colour of the Materia is indicative of what effects it possesses.
- Green Materia allows the most basic off effects, which some refer to as 'magic' which is patently ridiculous, as it is actually simply twisting nature to induce violations of the natural order of things. Examples include fireballs, bolts of lightning, healing energy and clouds of darkness.
- Yellow Materia is known as Command Materia and grants those who equip it knowledge of various actions in combat. Examples include [Slash-All], [Double-Slash] and [Enemy Skill].
- Blue Materia is known as Support Materia. These Materia, as the name suggests, enhance the effects of other Materia that it is equipped in conjunction with. Examples include [Counter], [Added Effect] and [MP Absorb]
- Purple Materia is known as Independent Materia. This type is rarer than the previously mentioned types and has highly useful, if not overtly obvious, applications. Independent Materia grants the user abilities and raise stats without being placed into conjunction as with Support Materia. Examples include [Speed Plus], [HP Plus] and [Enemy Lure].
- Crimson Materia is the rarest and most powerful of all Materia and is known as Summon Materia. It allows the power of evocation, spirit summoning in other words. Various elemental forces make up this world, and various Materia linked to these beings exists. Usually, in order to obtain a Summon Materia, you must do battle with an Avatar of the Summon itself. Examples include [Fenrir], [Shiva], [Leviathan] and [Bahamut].
My mind spun at the last one. Leviathan?! I could summon him?! I forced my rising panic down. No, I couldn't. Leviathan was an Endbringer and definitely not a spirit or anything.
The window closed and another one opened, showing the image of a yellow orb the size of a golf ball and a description of it.
[Enemy Skill]
A Command Materia that is both useless and useful at once. It is useless in that it has no intrinsic abilities on its own, and useful because it allows you to use the abilities of certain enemies that target and strike you. As most people don't like being targeted by their enemies, this is not a popular Materia initially, but the sheer variety of attack options that it grants you once you have enough of them can be highly useful.
I wasn't in any great hurry to be attacked either, but I could see the potential in the [Enemy Skill] Materia. With the number of Parahumans in the Bay, I knew that I would be hit by their powers at least some of the time and the chance to have a more varied powerset than I had now was an opportunity I couldn't afford to miss.
Browsing through the screens until I found the Materia Equip Screen. It turns out that each weapon and armour I had could only have a certain amount of Materia equipped at once. In the case of my current loadout, I only had two slots, one from my sword and one from my armour. I chose to slot [Enemy Skill] into my armour slot, as I didn't know if it was possible for me to be disarmed or not, considering my sword was a part of my power. Still, I wasn't above being cautious on the off chance I could be disarmed.
[KABOOM!]
Oh, what the hell now?!
You wanted Materia? Here's some Materia.