Force Your Way Chapter 4 (Original chapter Chapter 74)

The Next Night

Tattletale's Room, Undersiders Base

The blond Thinker double-checked the bag that she had packed. Yup, everything was there. It was time to leave.

Ever since Rachel Lindt had acted with so little concern for her teammates during the Hookwolf Incident, things had been very tense among the Undersiders. Of course, Rachel saw it as pointless tension; they had survived, hadn't they? No harm, no foul.

Further proof that she was damaged beyond repair, in Lisa's opinion.

The tension was bad inside the team, but the tension between Lisa and Coil, the bastard, it was nigh unbearable. He wasn't even trying to pretend that he wasn't aiming to kill her off soon. And she had a pretty good idea about the reason why.

Smirking to herself, Lisa cupped a hand and made the red fire, the Flame of Ares, sprout in one hand. Were it not for the fact that her Thinker power made any kind of physical intimacy a no-go for her, the blond girl would have kissed Bia the next time she saw the heroine. The fire was...intoxicating in how powerful it was, and it seemed to grow just from Lisa expanding her knowledge and seeking the truth of things!

She hadn't had much in the way of practice, but what little she had managed showed how versatile an elemental control power was. No wonder those with this sort of power were in the top percentile of all Parahumans.

But on the downside, Lisa was of the opinion it was this power that had made Coil consider her a wild card that needed to be removed ASAP. By her estimations of the man, she had about three days before he was ready to move against her fully, and she was far from ready to accept a 9mm lobotomy.

Grabbing her bad, she strode towards the door. Rachel was out checking on one of her dog pounds, Brain was out investigating where his bratty sister Aisha had run off to (again) and Alec was busy shooting people in Call of Duty. If there was ever a time to make a break for it, now was it.

"Hey." Alec called out unconcernedly as she emerged from her room. "You out for a booty call or something?"

Rolling her eyes at her soon-to-be-ex-teammate's flippant disregard for the fact that she couldn't do that kind of thing without wanting to hurl, the blond replied, "Nope. Taking some stuff back to my apartment, 'cause I'm tired of wearing the same things. A girl needs the finer things in life."

"Cool." the Canadian replied, eyes fixed on the TV screen.

Doesn't care, but making conversation to make an effort because he feels he should. Emotionally damaged from his father's manipulations and torture.

"Later then." Lisa said, heading towards the door.

"Later." the Master said distractedly.

Out on the streets, Lisa restrained herself from doing anything stupid like running. That would be too much of a giveaway. Instead, she walked along in a sedate, unconcerned way that broadcast every sign of casualness to any observer...unless they were a Thinker specializing in cold reading like her.

Her previous experiences at trying to shake Coil's men were very useful here. Lisa had made no plans in advance, had decided nothing about where she was going to go; she was very literally winging it by the seat of her pants. When she had made plans in advance, to either get away from Coil or to usurp control of his organization, he had somehow found out about them, almost as if he were a precog. He wasn't, she had come so close to succeeding, too close on occasion for it to be that, but Lisa had narrowed his power down to being probability manipulation or something to do with timelines.

The point was, if even she didn't know what she was going to so until she had to make a choice, Lisa was moderately certain that it would throw off Coil's attempts to find her. And if she was going to make a choice, it would be the most random one she could make. Not the most or least likeliest she could make, but something even she wouldn't normally expect herself to choose.

Elsewhere, Coil cursed as his men reported no signs of his rogue pet Thinker in two different simulations; one set at her apartment and one set at the Undersiders' base. He'd decided to remove her now as opposed to later soon after he had last spoken to the irritating Thinker who had become too much of a liability to let be.

Dropping the simulated timeline to do with her apartment, it was the least likely place for her to be anyway, Coil split the timeline again and started issuing orders to his team, sending each simulation of them to a location that was perfect for Tattletale to slink into to cower in for the night. She was predictable if nothing else.

Several hours and over a dozen timeline simulations later and Coil was forced to eat his words. His men had combed all of the most obvious locations where the Thinker could have disappeared into, from low-rent motels and flophouses to high-class hotels and bed and breakfasts, all with no success. He'd even had the home of Grue raided in one simulation to see if she was hiding out there.

'How has she done this?!' he scowled. 'Has she discovered the truth of my power? Impossible, she would have crowed at me when we last spoke; she loves to gloat. Hmm...she may have a somewhat decent grasp of it, given the hints I've had to use on her to prove that my ability to help the Undersiders isn't a bluff. That ten coin flip guess must have been a key part of it...'

That was the danger of having a Thinker in your organization that didn't have a positive disposition towards you, but Lisa Wilbourn/Sarah Livsey's power had been far too useful to leave to the wayside and all of his attempts at recruiting her without an 'offer she couldn't refuse' had failed. She had been too set on being independent, so he had needed more forceful measures.

'Stupid brat shouldn't have refused.' he thought mulishly. Anyway, that was the past. Right now, he had to coordinate the search for Tattletale, get the Undersiders to look for her as well AND gird himself to put up with those irritating and smug people at Cauldron so he could acquire a Thinker vial to make a Parahuman to replace Tattletale.

It was almost as bad as having to deal with with Trickster of the Travelers.

Later

Streets and Rooftops of Brockton Bay

I smirked as I finished tying up the last of the gangbangers from the ABB. They had been trying to break into a jewelry shop, for whatever reason, until I landed in amongst them to bash some heads.

It's kinda funny...I didn't even need to use the Venger Blades to deal with these chumps; each had gone down in a single punch. I'd even had to pull my punches to make sure I didn't break any bones, although I kinda think they had some fractures here and there.

Leaping back up to the rooftops, I looked around and started leaping over gaps in the buildings to continue my patrol. All of the idiots back there were out like a light, and they were all tied together in a circle, so they wouldn't be going anywhere fast even if they woke up.

Grrn...

Groaning as my stomach gurgled yet again, I reached into a pouch I'd fashioned at my waist, pulled out some jerky I'd bought for just such an emergency and scarfed it down. It was getting embarrassing, how much I was eating. Three square meals weren't cutting it anymore, I needed to eat more often. Clearly my body needed it, because it was starting to look awesome. I was developing a six-pack, my arms and legs were developing defined muscles and my breasts were growing!

Sure, I wasn't going to win any awards for musculature any time soon, but hey, I looked better than at any other time in my life. If this was my power's doing, then thank you so much!

As I chewed and swallowed the tough dried meat, I considered things. I was kicking ass against the ordinary gang scumbags, and I'd kicked the ever-loving crap out of Hookwolf when we'd fought, but aside from that one time, I hadn't fought any Parahumans.

Hookwolf had been 'rescued' from the little display I'd left him in by some of his flunkies, and ever since then, the Empire had been laying low, likely plotting revenge on me.

I smirked. Let them.

As I landed on another rooftop, a demon-masked figure wearing a black bodysuit appeared near to me and ripped the pin from a grenade on his bandolier. Oni Lee!

Leaping away from what was obviously a suicide clone, the explosion sent me flying across to another rooftop, where I rolled across the ground, drew my Venger Blades and stood up, all in one smooth motion. The next time Oni Lee appeared, I instantly swiped at him with a Venger Blade as a chain-whip, bisecting the man before he could pull a pin, although the two halves collapsed into ashes seconds later.

He was good. He'd teleported in, seen the attack coming and teleported out inside of what had to have been less than three seconds. I looked around as I automatically retracted and caught my errant blade.

"Oni Lee, I have little patience for hide and seek." I called out. "I stopped a little robbery by members of the ABB; that is little reason for us to fight."

"You defy the orders of the Dragon." the flat, unemotional voice of Oni Lee replied from behind me. "That is reason enough."

Allowing both Venger Blades to have plenty of chain free, I spun around 180 degrees and allowed them to fly out like a saw, beheading several Oni Lee Clones...with pins out of their grenades.

Fuck.

Another leap back and I was in mid-air. Lovely. I quickly snapped my blades back to me and threw one out immediately, slamming it into the roof of a nearby building and pulling myself towards it. Not too soon either, as Oni Lee appeared right where I had been and blew up. This guy was seriously trying to kill me!

He strikes from safety using golems of ash. He is a mere assassin, worthy of only death.

Yup, and there's the voice in my head, saying creepy shit as usual. Whoever (or whatever) he is, he rarely speaks, only doing so when I face enemies that actually challenge me. And usually, what he says is fairly disparaging of whoever it is I'm fighting.

I use the momentum of my pull to flip over and land on the rooftop, activating the Ice of Poseidon as I did so. Let's see what Mr tele-duplicator had to say once I froze him, huh?

Movement.

"Poseidon Tremble!" I roared , spinning in that direction and slammed the Venger Blades down, unleashing a massive wave of ice. Yes, I didn't need to say the attack's name out loud, but it felt damned satisfying. I was rewarded with the ice blowing up seconds later as the suicide clone exploded. Over on a nearby rooftop, however, the real Oni Lee had his left leg and arm frozen, where he'd gotten caught by my attack.

"We shall finish this another time." the ABB Lieutenant hissed before dissolving into ash.

Huffing in exasperation at the waste of five minutes of my patrol time, I returned the Venger Blades to their place on my back. Oni Lee was one of the few Capes in The Bay who were going to be problematic for me to deal with. He was an experienced fighter, with an annoyingly useful and versatile power and he wasn't afraid to go for the kill.

Hookwolf was also experienced, and a killer, but he was predictable in how he used his power and easy enough to beat in a fight once you realized that, if you had my kind of advantages anyway.

Oni Lee's boss, Lung, was an issue. He'd faced down Leviathan one-on-one at Kyushu, and had defeated the entire Protectorate ENE single-handedly when he'd first arrived in The Bay. He was powerful, ruthless and experienced at dealing with either single opponents or teams of opponents.

Aside from the ABB Capes, I wasn't completely certain about the others in The Bay. The Archer's Bridge Merchants were pond scum at best, barely scrabbling to peddle their poison without the ABB and the Empire squashing them flat, while the Empire had the largest number of Capes in the city, even out-muscling the Protectorate and Wards combined. Some of them, like Hookwolf, were very much capable of killing in cold blood, and they had a Cape who could heal, Othala.

Shaking my head at the number of scumbags that were throttling my city to death, I decided that enough was enough for one night and turned for home.

The Next Day, After School

Broadwalk and Streets of Brockton Bay

With school out for the day, Dad hard at work at the Dockworker's Association and all of the household chores taken care of, I headed out to do some shopping and stretch my legs a bit. I was eating more nowadays, which would ordinarily have put a strain on our finances, but I've been supplementing our income with the money kindly 'donated' by the idiots I've been dealing with every night.

I'd also bought a mini fridge and hidden it in my room so I could keep some of the food there, as well as buying a lot of frozen food and putting it in the freezer. What Dad didn't know wouldn't hurt him, after all.

I had just entered a shop to look at bras (my old ones were definitely not up to the task now; I was a modest B-cup now, while my bras were AA-cups at best) when I ran into someone who was keeping their head down and trying to blend in. The girl fell back with a yelp of surprise, but I caught her with one arm.

"You OK?" I asked.

"Y-yeah...thanks." she replied and my eyes widened as I knew that voice, but it was vague and half-remembered at this point. The girl's dirty-blond hair cinched it for me though.

"Tattletale..." I breathed.

The out-of-costume Cape froze and looked up at my face before looking at my scarred wrists with wide eyes.

"Bia..." she whispered with a gulp.

We gaped at one another for a moment before the blond grimaced. "We need to get out of here and talk."

"I'll say." I said grimly. A certified villain, a Thinker to boot, had connected the dots and knew my identity, my face at least. Steps needed to be taken.

We left the shop and I followed the girl out of the Broadwalk and through a winding series of side streets to a small, discrete hotel that you would miss if you didn't know it was there.

"Don't be screwin' each other without payin' the surcharge!" the old man manning the front desk (more like front cubbyhole) grumbled as we passed him. I flushed bright red and so did Tattletale.

"You have to pay a surcharge to bring someone in to have sex?" I asked her in disbelief.

"Pretty much, though that isn't something I ever need to worry about." the blond replied softly.

Tattletale's room was on the top floor, the only one there in fact, and was actually fairly nice for a hotel room. She plopped down on the bed with a tired sigh while I leaned against the wall and looked at her firmly.

"So, my name's Lisa. Lisa Wilbourn." the Thinker said after a moment of silence. "I know you're freaking out because I know your other identity, but there's something more important to discuss."

"Such as?" I asked flatly.

"My ex-boss, the man who brought together the Undersiders and pays them, wants me dead." she said equally flatly. "It has to do with this very nifty power that you gave me; it has him worried that I'm outside of his control, so he's been trying to kill me for a little over thirty hours or so. I'm guessing he used the time between me getting the power and him deciding to kill me to try and manage me his usual way, whatever that is, but it didn't work."

"To be accurate," I said with a frown, "My power acted all on its own and gave you a part of itself. I had no say in it happening. I am confused though...didn't you agree to work for him?"

"Ah-ha, yeah, no." Lisa laughed hollowly. "When the other choice is to have your brains blown out via the gun pressed to your forehead, there is no choice if you want to live. I tried to take him out, tried to run, tried to hide...it all failed. I'm a Thinker 7 by the PRT Threat Rating System and I can't fucking get away from one man and fifty mercs! He is almost certainly a Thinker as well, by the way."

I had no knowledge of the PRT's Threat Rating System, but it didn't take a genius to figure out that the higher the number, the greater the threat to the PRT the Parahuman power was. That Lisa had such a strong power and had been utterly stymied before now was telling on how powerful (or adept at using his power) her former boss was.

"Who is he?" I asked.

"He doesn't lose, Bia." Lisa shook her head. "He once flipped a coin ten times in front of me and called each guess correctly. Whatever his power is, it's at least as strong as mine, almost certainly stronger. This isn't like fighting a straightforward combat Cape like Hookwolf; he has fifty mercenaries, all highly rained and ex-army, all equipped with current-gen battle rifles with tinkertech laser attachments and all ready to kill on his orders. He has agreements with Accord from Boston and the rest of the Undersiders at his command. I think he has another team, but I'm not sure on that. The Empire may be the overtly most powerful in The Bay, but my ex-boss could make them bleed their colors white if he really wanted to. You sure you want in in this?"

Studying her closely, I could see that subtle hints of strain and lack of sleep on her, along with desperation and badly hidden hope in her eyes. I was no Thinker, but I could tell that she wanted me to help her and wasn't above using reverse psychology to get her way. And, as much as I hated to admit it, the thought of a genuine challenge did appeal to me after so many easily won and lackluster fights.

"I'll help you, but you have to keep my identity a secret. No living up to your Cape name." I said seriously.

"Woman, I'll join you as a White Hat if you get rid of Coil for me." Lisa said frankly.

"Deal." I nodded. "The name's Taylor Hebert. Nice to meet you properly, Lisa. By the way...if you were in hiding from Coil...why were you in a lingerie shop?"

The Thinker blushed. "I forgot to pack any bras." she confessed. "Plenty of panties, but the only bra I had was the one I was wearing when I left, and that one needs cleaning with all of the running around I've been doing."

I stifled a chuckle, which made the blond mock-glower at me. I think that this was going to be an...interesting partnership, to say the least.

That Night

Living Room, Hebert Residence

Danny Hebert sighed as he watched his daughter heading up the stairs to bed. Taylor had matured so much over the time that he'd been busy wallowing in his own grief that it was uncanny. She was also working out quite a bit; she thought she was being discreet, but he could see her arms getting more defined as time went on.

'She's gotten too muscular, too quickly. Is she a parahuman?' he wondered. It was a disturbing possibility that he didn't want to admit was a high likelihood of being correct. His wife, Annette, had run with Lustrum, the man-hating and pro-feminist Cape, back when they were in collage. While she and Lustrum had never met outside of meetings involving dozens of other women, there had been one or two other Capes that followed Lustrum that his wife had met and learned what caused a Parahuman to gain their powers.

"'The worst day in your life, when everything crumbles around you, when you feel as if your entire being is shattering and falling apart.'" he muttered sourly. If the Locker wasn't that for Taylor, then he didn't know what was.

Unfortunately, he was paralyzed with indecision about what to do with his suspicions. Confront Taylor about them? After leaving her all but orphaned for an entire year? That would just get her back up. Leave her alone? That would just be continuing the abandonment of his parental duties that had partially caused this whole mess in the first place.

He could simply offer moral support and let her know that he was available if she ever wanted to talk to him, but that smacked of cowardice to Danny. It left the ball entirely in Taylor's court and abrogated him of any responsibility to do more than be there.

As his tired mind ran over the options repeatedly, he decided to sleep on it and start afresh in the morning, as he had a day off that his boss (and Kurt) had basically forced him to take. Maybe things would look clearer in the morning.

Once Danny fell into bed and started sleeping though, things changed. A blue line of ice traced itself from Taylor's bedroom and into his, ultimately touching his hand, which was flopped over and dangling over the side of the bed.

In his dreams, a voice spoke to him, one akin to rocks and metal grinding against one another with every syllable.

"Take the Ice of Poseidon, and you shall find your path." the voice said. "Be a better father to your daughter than I was to mine, Daniel of the Heberts."

When he awoke the next day, he had no recollection of the dream and the ice had melted and evaporated overnight, so he was left with no clues. He did find it odd that the normal chill he associated with winter mornings was absent, but he shrugged it off and moved to do his morning ablutions.

So this is Chapter 4. more of a bridge in the Coil-hunting Lisa plot line than anything else. Have no fear, Taylor's descent into an all-out gore-fest will start as of the next chapter. Look forward to that.

Some people will, I already know, not like Danny getting power. I saw that with my Infinite Dendrogram/Worm crossover, and he only has the Zeroth Form Embryo yet! My reasoning for the powers acting independently of Taylor's will and 'budding', for lack of any other term, into new hosts is simple. Kratos, or at least a copy of Kratos' mind, is aiding Taylor, and realizes that she needs allies, because it will be quite some time before she is anywhere close to his level of power.

So then, the powers, most of which will come from God of War: Ascension, as I stated in chapter 74, will be given to hosts that will either compliment them (as Tattletale does with the Fire of Ares) or hosts that need the stability they provide (as with Danny and the Ice of Poseidon), all of whom also have to be beneficent towards or compatible with Taylor to some degree.

Look forward to the next chapter, and please review!