When one thinks of a Blaster or a Shaker, they look at Legend, Purity, Lady Photon and even Gallant for the former, with a plethora of examples for the latter. Just in Brockton Bay, you have Vista, who can bend space pretty much however she wants, and Labyrinth (OK, technically she's a merc, but she lives in the Bay) who can alter the terrain around her just by being there.

Me? I was both, but my powers…yeah; 'unimpressive' was one word to think of to describe them. The ability to fire blasts of bubbles from my hands, as well as create bubbles from the area around me. Whoop-de-fucking-do.

Hebert Home

It's been a month since I got out of hospital and I was still keeping my powers a secret from Dad. What good would it do to tell him about them? They were weak as hell and couldn't even bruise a person. Sure, getting bubbles into your eyes could be irritating and sore, but against someone who had a proper mask, including a visor, or even just a pair of goggles like Squealer of the Merchants wore, neutralised even that small advantage.

As to the wide-area variant of my powers, I had experimented and discovered that the amount of bubbles generated greatly depended on the amount of moisture that was available, both in the air and on the ground. After or during a rainstorm, I could make enough to fill the warehouse I was testing my powers out in. During a day where it was blazing sunshine and it hadn't rained in a while, I was lucky to her more than a handful.

Yes, I could use my Blaster power to raise the amount of moisture available, as it seemed I created bubbles from nothing, but the process would be somewhat time-consuming as I would have to cover every area I wanted to use my Shaker power on thoroughly and then what? Big wow, I have a large area full of bubbles. What the hell is that going to do to Kaiser? Make him rust?

I was sitting in my room and staring up at the handful of bubbles that I'd generated. I'd discovered that I could make as many or as few as I wanted and if there was no-one around to attack, they just floated there. I idly wondered if I could get a job as a soap advertisement poster girl as it seemed that was just about all I was good for.

Whimsically, I willed one bubble to pop. It was, fortunately for me, one of the larger ones drifting near the ceiling. With a crack none too dissimilar to a car backfiring, the bubble exploded, leaving a dent in the ceiling. I sat up abruptly and gaped at the dent in stupefaction.

"Holy shit…!" I breathed. Looks like I didn't do enough tests on my power after all.

A smile broke over my face as I pondered on this new development. I stood up and headed for the door. I had more tests to do now.

Two Months Later, Mid-Evening

Docks Area

So here I was now. After discovering I could make bubbles the size of tennis balls explode like downsized grenades, I had gone back to the abandoned warehouse where I had practiced my power originally and left it a lot more ruined than when I'd first found it, on the inside anyway.

The smallest bubbles I could make with either my Blaster or Shaker powers were about the size of a pea, while the largest I could make was about the size of a Volkswagen Beetle. The explosions they generated were…spectacular, in the case of the large bubbles. The smaller ones were manageable. I'd guess that the concussive force of the average bubble was about comparable to a rubber bullet, while the explosions scaled up with the size of the bubbles. The Volkswagen size ones exploded like a bunker buster bomb.

My bubbles were also useful as transportation, funnily enough. I could control the surface tension of my bubbles, so they didn't distort or warp when I moved them, as well as allow myself to enter one that was large enough. Downside was that they were not bulletproof, or even knife-proof, so travelling around in or on one in the middle of a fight was a no-go. Still, it beat hoofing it all over the place.

The last thing I discovered was that I could fill the bubbles with a liquid that sprayed the area when they exploded. It could be almost any liquid whatsoever, aside from blood or milk, thank god. That meant I was still bound by the Manton Limit. The more I knew about the liquids I used, the more effective they were. This lead to seeing the bizarre sight of exploding artificial orange juice bubbles when I tried it out for the first time.

Thus far, I had researched acids, alkalis, containment foam, nitro-glycerine, water and a few other types of liquids that might come in handy. The weakest link was the containment foam one, as I only had the vaguest idea about what it was and did. I knew that it was the PRT's go-to ammo type to deal with Capes, I knew that it was a liquid-like foam that hardened around them and restricted their movement and I knew that Dragon, the world's foremost Tinker, was the only source of it in the world. That was the sum of my, and most people's, knowledge on the subject.

Some of the liquids were, bluntly put, deadly. The NG especially, but the acids wouldn't be pretty if they landed on people's bare skin, and I couldn't alter the stuff to be less deadly. I'd just have to settle for some of the less deadly stuff unless I was up against Lung or something.

So, with that all in mind, I was sitting inside a bubble, cross legged and floating across the sky of Brockton Bay. I was high enough up that the entire vista of the Bay was spread out before me, including the Rig out in the middle of the Bay's bay, the Medhall building, the PRT building and the sprawling junkyard that was the Boat Graveyard. Immediately beneath me was the Dock area of the Bay. I'd come up here to ruminate on things.

In the past couple of hours, I'd stopped a jewel robbery, beaten down a couple of Merchants trying to peddle their wares on street corners, stopped a purse snatcher and then come to the Docks.

Not bad for a first night out.

A flash of light caught my eye as I looked down at the Docks and I nudged my bubble transport down closer to see what was going on before blanching. Down there was Lung. Fucking Lung, the Dragon of Kyushu. He was blasting fire all over the place and looked as if he was ramping up for a fight. He was ten feet tall, covered in scales and had vestigial wings sprouting from his back.

Fleeing from him on the backs of what looked like Wargs from Lord of the Rings were four costumed figures. Capes then. Heroes? Villains? Rogues? Which they were I didn't know, but I did know that if something wasn't done soon, they were all going to die.

Could I stand myself if I let them die without even trying? No.

Looking down at my outfit, which was an embarrassingly primitive ensemble; jeans, a black hoodie underneath a camo combat jacket, a masquerade mask that I had spray-painted blue and added white lines that looked like circles to resemble bubbles. Hardly the kind of thing to fight a Rage Dragon in. Fortunately, I'd picked up a bunch of cash from the various crooks I'd beaten into unconsciousness, just under a thousand dollars in total. That ought to pay for some raw materials for a proper costume, or at least the start of one.

'Focus, Taylor. Stop prevaricating.' I scolded myself. I had to get down there, now.

Speeding my descent, I safely exited the bubble, dropping to the roof of a brick warehouse in front of where the monster dog things were taking their riders. Commanding the bubble to float over to a few meters in front of the warehouse, I crouched to the ground and pulled my mask up. Game time.

With Regent

Jean-Paul Vasil, formerly known as Hijack and currently Regent, was having a shitty day. He, under his new pseudonym of Alec Marceau, had been hired on as a member of the Undersiders a few months back and it was an OK gig. He got money to play with and got to keep under the radar from his insane and psychotic family in Canada.

Until their boss, for whatever reason Regent couldn't imagine, had ordered them to rob a casino. It hadn't been just any casino, mind you. It had belonged to Lung and robbing it had crawled up the Rage Dragon's ass and he had come looking for them, Oni Lee in tow.

The blank slate of a tele-duplicator had been reasonably easy to take care of thanks to Tattletale's ability to read his intent on where he was going to teleport to next. Even with his suicide bomber tactics from the clones he left behind when he teleported, they had forced Oni Lee to retreat.

Then Lung had arrived and things had gone to hell. Grue had taken one look at the Dragon of Kyushu before deciding, sensibly, that discretion was the better part of valour and ordered their retreat. That had been ten minutes ago and Lung had yet to give up the chase, his anger that their flight ramping him up even further as he pursued them.

Things were, as he had alluded to earlier, pretty shitty, and he didn't think that things were getting any better when the giant bubble the size of a small car floated towards them out of nowhere.

"Head right at that turn!" Tattletale yelled.

"Under the Unknown Bubble of Who-Knows-What?!" Regent shouted back.

"It's not aimed at us! Lung's the target!"

OK. Regent could and would get behind that. Anyone who wanted to save his Canadian keister from being charbroiled was definitely someone under the 'friend-to-be' list that he had. At the moment, it had 'unknown Cape saving his rear' on it.

"Cool! Let's get gone then!"

As Brutus, Angelica and Judas obeyed Bitch's command to turn right, Regent looked up and saw a crouched figure wearing a hoodie and a heavy jacket atop the warehouse in front of them. Then they were around the corner and, at their Thinker's urging, turning into a small gap between one warehouse and the next.

Tattletale jumped off of Angelica, with Bitch right behind her. Grue followed suit from Brutus and Regent, who appreciated the irony, leapt off of Judas.

"We need to watch this." Tattletale was saying.

"We should be heading for home!" Grue hissed as he followed the purple-dressed Thinker up the stairs to the roof.

"You can go if you want, Grue." Tattletale said sweetly.

Regent almost let out a chortle at that. Only the threat of being ripped apart by a Rage Dragon stilled his voice.

The Undersiders made their way to the roof and paused when they heard a loud explosion that made the three dogs, now shrunken and normal-sized, whimper.

Tattletale led the way up and then stealthily snuck over to the side of the building, where they all saw something that made their jaws drop. Lung was knocked back on his ass, scales cracked and damaged from an explosion that had somehow splashed inches of water all over the damn place. What was more surprising was that hundreds, thousands, of bubbles were emerging from the water and floating around Lung like a cage.

With a snarl of fury, the Dragon of Kyushu leapt to his feet an d swung at the bubbles immediately in front of him.

[KABAM!]

With a crack, about three hundred or so of the bubbles exploded, sending Lung staggering back. That wasn't all that happened though; Lung was coated in something, a clear liquid of some sort…

"Holy shit! That's nitro-glycerine!" Tattletale hissed, recoiling slightly.

"Shit, you for real?" Grue hissed, "These bubbles are explosives that make nitro?!"

Regent knew the rumours about Lung, and if they were right…

Sure enough, Lung roared and flames blazed around his arms…before the nitro coating him reacted and exploded. The scene was not pretty; one of the man's arms had been blown off completely, with the other being almost flayed to the bone in places. His draconic face was scorched and burnt too.

"Holy shit." Regent breathed. That…now that was hardcore.

Still, Lung was nothing if not persistent and he staggered to his feet, the wounds he had already rapidly healing and another arm sprouting at an unreal rate from the burnt and bloody stump.

In a silent, synchronised rush, most of the bubbles charged towards Lung and then exploded. Only, it wasn't a loud one, a party popper compared to the previous explosions. This time, the ABB leader was covered in a kind of white foam that looked really, really familiar…

"Containment Foam?!" the blond Thinker hissed as the stuff hardened into solidity, trapping Lung where he stood.

"Tats, I think now would be a good time to leave!" Grue growled insistently and this time, Tattletale nodded.

As the Undersiders retreated for the night, Regent wondered about the Cape who had a deceptively powerful power. The Boss was always looking for more crew for the Undersiders, and if Bitch didn't scare her off like she had done to Spitfire, then they'd have another teammate.

He'd vote for her.

So, this is the new power. Kind of taking the Rokubi's power from Naruto and changing it up a bit. A bit of humour there…orange juice bombs…hah!

Seriously though, this is a pretty nice power, albeit not all that conductive to one-on-one, up-close fighting. Let me know what you think.

Blaster: 6 (Able to fire a stream of bubbles at her enemies. Is able to control how many bubbles she generates, as well as how big they are.)

Shaker: 7 (Able to generate bubbles from her surroundings. Only able to generate bubbles with moisture present around her. Bubbles, including those generated by her Blaster ability, can be telekinetically controlled and remotely detonated. Bubbles can be set to generate any liquid known by the user upon detonation, other than blood and other wholly organic compounds, such as milk. List of known liquids includes nitro-glycerine, a long list of acids and alkali, a host of household product cleaning liquids, containment foam and napalm. The more she knows about the liquid to be created, the more accurately her power will reproduce it.)

Mover: 3 (Able to enter sufficiently large bubbles and use them as transport. Moves pretty fast.)