There had once been a villain in Brockton Bay known as Marquis. He led his Marquisate gang through charisma and strength in equal measure and he possessed the Parahuman power to create armour and weapons out of bones. He was taken down by the then-Brockton Bay Brigade, who used his defeat and imprisonment inside the Birdcage to launch the New Wave Movement. But that's neither here nor there.

I am Taylor Hebert. Like Marquis, I possess the power to create things using bones. Unlike him, I can create and control skeleton soldiers equipped with those weapons.

Warehouse, Docks Area, Brockton Bay

I stared at the skeleton. The skeleton stared back at me, grinning in the way that only a skeleton could. It was a female skeleton, I knew. How I knew was beyond me, but it was just something I knew about my creations. I could make any kind of skeleton, from baseline human, to dogs, to birds, to fish. Anything that had an endoskeleton, I could make a skeleton soldier.

Not only that, though. The birds could still fly. The fish could still swim. I wasn't sure how it worked, but I just shrugged and assigned it to the folder of 'weird parahuman bullshit that my power did that I didn't know what to make of' as I had done with the fact that all of my human skeletons were female, regardless of what I tried. Was it because I was female, or because I wasn't trying hard enough?

Dismissing it from my mind, I flipped a switch in my mind and the skeleton crumbled into the ground, gone. Only dust remained, much less than all the bones in the body should have left by rights.

Taking in a deep breath, I tried again. I pictured the skeleton of a human in my mind and then tried to make it male. What I got back was something similar to the mental equivalent of an 'error' sound on a computer. OK, so assuming that my power was copying the baseline structure of the human skeleton from me, I probably couldn't alter it even although I had spent hours memorising the subtle differences between the male and female skeletal structures. Darn.

Slightly frustrated at being blocked from what I viewed as a minor alteration, I moved on to my next experiment. I pictured ten skeletons and then slammed my palm onto the ground. Flowing from my flat hand was a pale liquid that split into ten puddles. Emerging from it were the skulls, then neck vertebrae and then the rest of the bones of a skeleton. All as solid as real bones. No weak parts to the bones as far as I could tell.

There again, considering that this town had a fire breathing dragon, a guy who could make metal blades pop out over any flat surface and a guy who could create a layered shield that could bounce back the bullet of an Anti-Material Sniper Rifle. Even a thousand ordinary skeletons would be useless against that sort of power, especially if they were unarmed and unarmoured.

I sighed. Why was I bothering? No way could I become a hero in the Bay with a power so similar to Marquis' own. New Wave would come after me like a bunch of rabid hounds for a kick-off.

Still, even if I wasn't going to use my powers to fight crime, I could at least get a proper handle on how to use them. Still with my hand on the ground, I envisioned the skeletons being covered in armour and carrying a sword in one hand and a shield in the other. More bone fluid wept from my hand and flowed over to the skeletons, creeping up their bodies and solidifying in the shape she had envisioned.

When the process was finished, my skeleton warriors were covered in bone-white plate armour and carrying shields and swords, exactly as I imagined. Could I do the same for myself, I wonder? A bit of concentration and a minute later, I was covered in the same bone plating as my skeletons. It moved easily and the sword was sharp enough to cut through a steel pipe I got two of my skeletons to hold between them.

A bit of experimentation showed me that the only limit to what I could create with my power was my imagination…so long as it was skeletons, armour, shields or weapons. I couldn't make anything that wasn't any of those categories. A bit of testing showed that, at the minimum, my created bones and bone-made items, were twice as strong as a basic human bone, and I could make them as strong as steel with a bit of concentration when I created them.

What was somewhat irritating though was that while making bone armour and weapons for myself was fairly easy and quick, it took a handful of minutes to create any humanoid skeletons. Heck, even making the skeleton of a mouse took a minute.

Grimly, I practiced. And practiced. And practiced. And then, just for a change of pace, I practiced some more. Before I knew it, a month passed.

A Month Later

Rumours on PHO had it that a gang of teenage villains, the Undersiders, had almost been killed by Lung last night after they robbed his casino. They had managed to get away, although some sources had it that at least one of them had been seriously burned by the Dragon of Kyushu.

It didn't really affect me anyway. I wasn't a hero or a villain. The best descriptor of me was a Rogue, someone who didn't use their powers to either fight crime or commit crimes. Most, like Parian, used their powers to earn money. The few who didn't use their powers at all were not look upon well by most Capes, who felt that having powers meant that you had to use them for some purpose or another.

I will admit, I have been feeling some…niggling urge to do something for a while now. It's been steadily growing stronger and I'm honestly not sure what it is. PHO has absolutely nothing to say, and I am not creating a false account to ask 'do your powers push you into doing stuff?'

Mostly because it sounds ridiculous.

I was heading back from my regular practice session when I spotted the monster dog things. There were three of them, with two figures mounted on one of them and a single figure on the other two.

Having only recently read the PHO explosion about them, I easily recognised the Undersiders; Grue, Regent, Tattletale and Bitch/Hellhound. Regent, the renfaire reject, was listing slightly on his monster dog, while Grue was keeping Tattletale steady with one arm.

I walked past them, ignoring the growls of the dogs. I was about a metre away when shouting in Japanese reached my ears from the side. Turning my head, I saw members of the ABB charging out of buildings, waving swords and guns.

I broke into a run and darted into an alley. The ABB ignored me; their target was the Undersiders. Given how exhausted and wounded they were, it seemed likely that they would be overwhelmed by the gangers.

…

Damn it.

Checking around to see if anyone was there or if any security cameras running, I covered myself in bone armour, including a shield and spear. Then I called forth thirty armed and armoured skeleton warriors, with a dozen skeletal hounds to act as hit-and-run support.

I held my breath for a moment before exhaling. Time to see what my soldiers could do.

With the Undersiders

"Fuck." Tattletale said conversationally as she pulled her pistol out of its holster and pointed it at the approaching ABB. "Bitch? Can we move please?"

"They're tired!" the Canine Master barked angrily, "They haven't slept since last night."

"They'll get put to sleep by these guys if we don't move it!" Grue growled, creating a bank of black fog that would temporarily disorient and confuse the approaching gangers.

Regent waved his hand spasmodically at the cloud and Grue, who could see through his own fog, could see that he had made several of the ABB hit each other. Those whom he had manipulated that way were lashing out at random, causing a chain reaction of random fighting inside the cloud of darkness.

It wouldn't last, he knew. There were too many ABB grunts and Regent was barely conscious from the pain of his burns. He wouldn't be able to do that again.

Then something happened. White-armoured soldiers spilled out of an alley, armed with swords and shields, and crashed unrelentingly into the ABB, who were taken off guard completely. Grue dispersed his fog and retreated to the rest of his team, who gaped in astonishment at the unexpected help.

Tattletale's power worked overtime as she observed the frantic attempts of the ABB to fend off the soldiers. 'Projections. Armour and weapons made of bone. Bone as strong as steel. Encasing…skeletons? Cape who created them is Master/Shaker.'

The Thinker's eyes were drawn to one figure in particular at the back, who was the only one armed with a spear. That one seemed to be directing the soldiers. She wasn't the only one who noticed, as five ABB thugs tried to get to the figure. With loud barks, five dog skeletons leapt on them, signalling the arrival of seven more skeletal hounds that harassed and took down stranded members of the ABB.

'Doesn't want to be here. Doesn't want to expose her power.' Tattletale's Thinker fed her as she stared at the probable creator of the skeletal army. 'Is moving for our sake. Doesn't want us to die. Terrified of being hunted down by New Wave for having similar power to Marquis. Dislikes the idea of being branded a villain because of what her power does. Has avoided using her power for anything but training for over a month.'

That last part blew her mind. Powers almost demanded to be used; no one she knew could avoid using them for more than a week, and even training could only curb the urge slightly, extending that to perhaps two weeks. Whoever this was had to have a tremendous amount of willpower in order to suppress her power's urges to be used for twice the length of time most Capes could manage. Tinkers had it bad, in that department. They could barely go an entire day without Tinkering.

Eventually, the ABB had had enough. Dropping their weapons and abandoning their downed comrades, they fled back the way they had come.

The figure raised their hand and clicked their fingers once, causing the skeletal army to dissolve into a cloud of dust, dogs included. When the cloud dispersed, the figure was gone.

"Let's go." Grue said, "Whoever that was, we have to get Regent to the Boss' doctor. Those are some bad burns."

Tattletale nodded distractedly as Brutus raced forwards. She had the funny feeling that they'd meet the controller of those skeletons sooner rather than later. Especially if the Boss, that bastard Coil, had anything to say about it.

So this came from me wondering how a bone-creator would look like if they had a similar power to Rudbornn Chelute's Zanpakutō, Arbol's power from Bleach, or at least a reasonable facsimile. The backstory here, as to why Taylor is so terrified of New Wave, is that Brandish hyper-reacts to anyone or anything similar to Marquis, and thus the man who made her and her sister Trigger. She has hunted down and intimidated any Osteokinetic who has graced Brockton Bay since Marquis, whether they be Hero, Villain or Rogue, and either arrested them or 'persuaded' them into leaving. What? Where was it you thought Vicky got it from? Not Flashbang, I'll tell you that much.

Oh and regarding the last chapter? The power review for that will be in the second chapter of that ficlet.

Shaker/Master: 7 (Is able to create and control bones. Can create entire skeletons, whether they be fish, fowl or mammalian. Anything with an endoskeleton, basically. Can increase the strength, density and other characteristics of the bones up to the strength of steel. Can also create weapons and armour from bone, although that is limited to just those categories.)

Thinker: 2 (is able to sense the condition of any and all bones within her line of sight, regardless of whether they are in or out of bodies, as well as any bones she creates herself within a two block radius.)