It has come to my attention that Raditz actually could not move faster than the speed of light. Infact, none of the characters could, at any point in the story.
Don't care. Anime magic says they could, did and will. This is the same anime magic, by the way, that turned five minutes into several thirty minute episodes.
Power levels of the Triumvirate will be uploaded as they gain relevance.
Chapter Three: Bomber VS Ki User
Taylor sat in a rather posh office at the PRT. She had been called in that morning to talk about her costume with the local PR agent. She had a guess what this was about, especially since Dennis dropped a hint about them wanting Heroes to show parts of their faces, giving them a more human identifiability.
Taylor Hebert, Saiyan, couldn't give a fuck. The answer would be no.
"Good morning, Miss Hebert," a somewhate pudgy Asian man came in, "My name is Glenn Chambers, on lone from New York City. I am a Public Relations consultant. You have some idea what that means, yes?"
"Yes," Taylor said, "Your job is to make us friendly to the general populace. You make it worth it for them to fund us. Picture signings, appearances, public statements. You create the face of the Protectorate and the Wards that garners public support."
"Indeed. There is a bit more to it, but you have essentially hit the nail on the head," Glenn smiled at her, "So, Let's talk about your costume and title choice."
"I understand if Toei wants me to change my name, it was kind of spur of the moment," the Thinker told him.
"Actually, they want you to keep using it. The moment they heard that a cape registered with the Protectorate was calling themselves Saiyan, they started falling all over themselves to get you to keep it. From what I understand, they will be sending a representative to talk to you about a scholarship of some sort. They will probably want you to do a couple of commercials for their anime to bring back its popularity."
"Really," the girl blinked in shock, "That's… actually, that's pretty awesome," she grinned, "I Wonder if they can use some kind of special effect to make it look like I've gone super."
"Yes, well," the man said, trying to bring it back to topic, "To get back to the point, do you mind if I ask you why you chose this as your costume?" He held up a picture of her, in her usual outfit while on duty.
"Well, the hoodie is straight homage to where my strength comes from," she said, rather vaguely, "Do you know the extent of my abilities?"
"I've been given a brief," he told her, "Brute Five, Mover Three, Blaster Six."
The girl nodded, "Yeah, there's also a small amount of Thinker added to that. I think the official Ranking was Thinker Three. I get most of my techniques from DBZ. My Thinker ability lets me break it down and learn from it. The main character is always wearing a bright orange shirt with the symbol of his former master on the back. I chose the orange to match it, and put a butterfly in the place of Goku's sigil to represent a metamorphosis into something better."
Glenn seemed surprised, "That's very well thought out."
Taylor blushed a little. Even after all these months, she really wasn't used to positive reinforcement.
"The mask, however," he showed a closeup shot of her face, "We have issues with." The shot was from her power placement testing. The black material had a red hue from the Ruby Balle she had been charging up to fire at one of the targets they had set up. THat plus the sinister glow coming from behind the polarized lenses of her orange goggles made for quite the intimidating sight.
"I think I know what you're going to say," she told him, "That it doesn't present an identifiable visage. That hiding one's face makes it harder to garner the support of the public."
"Yes, I was thinking something along those lines," he grinned again, thinking that the smart girl was being agreeable to the changes he wanted to implement.
"I don't care. They'll get used to it."
"What?"
Taylor crossed her arms, a sign of stubborn obstinance, "I don't curse. I don't go around in something leaves little to the imagination. I also follow every order I'm given even though I can, clearly, go out and handle the gangs of this city myself. I'm not arrogant to think I could win without breaking a sweat, or major civilian casualties, but I could win. If you really want to lose me over a mask, go ahead and tell them to drop me."
"The real question is, are you willing to give up a chance to work with us, all over a mask?" Glenn tried to turn it around on her.
"Yes," she answered immediately.
Stunned, the man took a few moments to gather his wits and think about why she was so completely against showing her face.
"Look," she said, after a few moments, "When they told me that this was going to happen, I started thinking about it myself. Why do I hate the idea of showing my face so much?" she dropped her eyes to her lap for a moment before looking back at him and frowning, "I won't give you the gory details, but my trigger, as usual, was not a great time. It was preceded by a year and a half campaign, lead by my former best friend, of bullying where the point of it all seemed to be to convince me to commit suicide. Or do something else similarly caustic to my continued survival.
"And no one cared. The faculty never believed me. They actively worked against me at several points. I did the necessary paperwork for a transfer to Arcadia and the principal's secretary put it directly into the shredder," her frown was particularly focused at that admission, "When I triggered, when I found out what I could do, I came to this simple conclusion. The world didn't want me as Taylor Hebert. Fine. It doesn't get Taylor Hebert. It can have Saiyan, instead. That's all the general populace will ever get."
Glenn looked at the stony face of the girl. Before, she had been rather expressive, open. Now, she was closed off. Her emotions were buried so deep that he was sure it would take a Thinker to tell him what she was thinking.
"Right," he finally said, "The mask stays. Understood," he turned a page in his folder, "Do you have an equally significant attachment to the blue jeans?"
"No," she almost smiled, thinking about that, "What's wrong with it, though?"
"Nothing's wrong with denim, per se," Chambers told her, "It's just that it give you a working class feel. Surveys show that, while they want to know that you are indeed human, they don't want to feel like they are on the as a Parahuman. They want you to be above them, better than them. They need to feel that you are infallible and certain forms of dress can give you that image. How do you feel about something like this?" He put down a drawing of several different types of pants. From something like what she would see in the anime her name came from, to what looked like power armor. Colors differed greatly between each of the choices.
"Well, for one," she said, "Don't bother making any of this. My powers can give me a copy of it. It won't be Ticker tech, but it will be easily replaceable," she browsed the pictures until she came to one that she liked more than the others, "I could do this." It was a pair of pants that were only slightly baggy, combined with what looked like a half skirt, covering her left leg down to the knee. The image wasn't colored, but the diagonal lines on the half skirt seemed to hint at it being different from the pants.
"A good choice. Thoughts on color?"
"Probably more orange," she shrugged, "Blue, or black, for this part," she tapped the hanging cloth.
"Normally I'd suggest blue, but the black would give it a more serious tone. Considering what you've said so far, I think you should go with black," he penciled in some design details, "Now, the next order of business is your first public appearance…"
The conversation then evolved into a series of mock questions she might be asked on TV. She was supposed to have a spot on a popular talk show in nearby Boston. Glenn gave her a list of questions they might ask, a list they weren't supposed to but could ask, and a list of questions that would get them pulled off the air if they asked. It wasn't likely that they would use any of the last ones, but they didn't Taylor to be ambushed by it, just in case they did.
The meeting, after dealing with her complete refusal to change her mask, was actually going well.
Until the world started shaking and thunder started booming.
Klaxons all around the PRT building started going off and a voice came over the loud speakers.
"All Protectorate and Wards members report to the main lobby for briefing and orders. All nonessential personnel fall back to safe rooms on sub basement level three. PRT officers suit up. This is not a drill."
"Gotta go," Taylor said, pulling on her mask and pointing her hand down at her legs, "Clothes Beam!" She then put her fore and middle fingers against her forehead and teleported away with a metallic twang.
She reappeared instantly in the lobby, the other capes pouring in.
"What's going on?" Aegis asked,
"I don't know," Saiyan shrugged, turning to the monitor, "I'm betting Director Piggot will tell us in a moment." Indeed, after all of the capes were in the lobby, the giant screen turned on, and the obese form of Director Emily Piggot was displayed, sitting in one of the safe rooms.
"The ABB Tinker, Bakuda, has start blowing up my city," the woman said with a glare, "There isn't any rhyme or reason to it. She's going after anything that catches her fancy. She's apparently equipped Oni Lee with some of her grenades, he's using them to harass law enforcement. So far, neither one of them have targeted our headquarters, but it is only a matter of time. I want them put down. Hard."
Everyone in the room nodded to her.
"Director?"
"Yes, Saiyan?" the woman asked curtly, "What is it?"
"I would place a fair bet that this is a gambit to get Lung out. Distract us, send our best out and about to chase down Oni Lee, or her bombs, while they send a team here to break him out. He hasn't been transferred to the Birdcage, yet, right?"
"That's right, and we don't have the time to move him," Piggot said.
"I don't know about getting him to the Birdcage, but if you can show me where the dropoff is, and message ahead that I'm bringing him, I can get him there," Saiyan said.
For a moment, silence.
"Are you certain?"
"Absolutely, one hundred percent."
"Very well," the woman looked to Armsmaster, "Alert Dragon of Lung's impending arrival. Miss Militia, show Saiyan the location. Everyone else, go out there and stop these criminals. If necessary, lethal force has been authorized." The screen went dark and the Protectorate and Wards broke off to get to work. Armsmaster made a brief call to Dragon through his helmet and Miss Millitia pulled Saiyan into a side room and showed her a map to the Birdcage's door, so to speak. It wasn't there, but Dragon used it as a teleporter to send them there. Rumor was that not even the prolific Tinker knew exactly where it was.
"Are you sure you can do this?" the older cape asked, genuine concern showing for the young woman.
"Yeah, it's a total cakewalk. I take him to Dragon. Come back and help beat down the ABB. Nothing could be easier," Saiyan nodded, memorizing the location she was seeing.
She was then led down to sub-basement two, where they kept their prisoners, and right to Lungs cell. The man that would be a dragon was encased in the foam that Dragon had invented to contain even superpowered individuals. Very few were the capes that could break out of it. Lung was not one of them. He flared intently at her when she came in.
"Here to release me, little girl?"
"Ha! No," Saiyan took a step forward, "I'm here to get you to the Birdcage," she placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Fool," He grinned at her quite menacingly, "You think my compatriots will let you. They are working now to release me. You will not make it two blocks before I am free," his smirk showed more teeth than was usually possible, "And then I will kill you."
"Yeah, you're right," she said, "You'd get free in no time out there. Good thing we aren't even going street level," she placed her fingers against her forehead again, "You might feel a slight pinch." Lung heard a familiar twang, and then the scenery shifted radically.
What had once been the drab metallic walls of his containment cell, had become open sky and black and yellow painted lines on various surfaces. looking down, he saw that he was on what looked to be a landing pad of some kind and right nearby was one of the mechanical manifestation of the Tinker, Dragon.
"Saiyan," came the digitized voice, "You were expected. I did not know you would be hear this quickly however. Your Mover rating is not quite accurate. I will take Lung from here." Saiyan just nodded and ported back to the city, as soon as she saw that Dragon had the criminal well in hand.
She appeared in the sky above her city, still seeing many explosions going off. Men and women wearing the purple of the ABB were running about causing havoc, left and right. She could see most of the Wards and PRotectorate trying to evacuate the civilians while at the same time trying to fight off the gangsters that were causing the problem.
She kept scanning the from her place in the sky, looking for the bomb Tinker that had started this mess. After nearly two minutes, she spotted the bitch, riding around on the back of a jeep, firing at random targets with a grenade launcher.
For Bakuda, the day was going great. She was raining havoc down on all of Brockton Bay while Oni Lee went off and collected their leader. She had even set up some real doozies to go off should one of the heroes get it in their thick skulls that it would be okay to kill her. She took special joy in blowing up Empire Eighty Eight bases.
Then the world tilted. What had once been up became down and she landed roughly on the blacktop. Scrambling back to her feet, she made a grab for her grenade launcher. She got within inches of it before an orange covered leg stomped down on it, completely destroying the barrel without touching the volatile ammo cartridges.
"Who the fuck-?" she snarled, only to be hoisted up into the air by the front of her shirt.
"Bakuda, you are under arrest," Saiyan growled at her, her eyes glowing behind the goggles again.
"I don't think so, bitch!" the mad bomber bit down on Saiyan's hand. It had no effect and her teeth didn't even break the skin.
"Yeah, that's not gonna work. Want to try again?" Saiyan definitely sounded smug.
Bakuda just smirked, "Fine," she pulled a device from one of her pockets, and flipped open a panel to show a switch that she immediately put her thumb against, "You let me go, or I blow this city to hell and back. This switch activated every bomb I've got. And don't even think of killing me," she smirked wider, "I've got those same bombs set up with a dead man switch. My heart stops beating and they receive a signal to explo-Aaaaaaahh!"
At the last second, Bakuda's monologue was interrupted by a red beam of light vaporizing her arm from the elbow down. The detonator wasn't even ash. The attack even cauterized the wound so she wouldn't bleed out.
Didn't negate the pain, though.
Bakuda was still screaming when Saiyan took her to Armsmaster.
"She had a remote trigger for all the bombs. There's another one that will blow them all if she dies, so you should probably do something about that, too," the teen said before going back out there and getting back to work, stopping the violence and mitigating the damage.
-9001-
Back at the PRT HQ, the building shook with an explosion. The Undersiders looked up, three of the four wondering what was happening. Tattletale had a good guess.
After seeing Saiyan walk by, and then not come out of the cell where they were holding Lung, her power informed her that someone was going to make an attempt to free him. Bets were on Oni Lee, since he could make a quick escape if things went south.
The building shook again, and lights flickered for a moment before going out completely. They were replaced by orange emergency lights a few moments later. Just in time for the teleporting assassin to blow up the main entrance to the containment level. He glanced at the Undersiders, but moved towards the cell he knew his leader to be in with single minded purpose.
He didn't walk, he teleported. It was faster. He placed a charge against the door and started pressing the buttons for the time, when the voice of Tattletale interrupted him.
"That won't be necessary," she said, sitting on her bed calmly, "They've already moved him. I'd be surprised if he wasn't already in solitary at the Birdcage."
"You lie," the man said.
"Nope, and I can prove it," she grinned.
"How?" the man demanded.
"Get me out of this cell first. And my friends," she added, "Do that, and I can help you get Lung back."
"Tattletale, what the hell are you thinking?!" Grue growled at her, "He tried to kill us just over a week ago!"
"So," Tattletale shrugged, "Doesn't mean we can't help one another, now. Does it?" she directed that question at Oni Lee.
The man was just staring at her, his odd mask hiding his expression, but the Thinker knew that he just needed one more push and he would do it.
"Look, get me out, and to a computer," she said, trying to make it sound a little more desperate, "With this place on the emergency power, their firewalls barely have enough power to run. I can break in like that," she snapped her fingers, "Find out exactly where he is, and maybe even see about slackening the security there."
"Fine."
He pulled out smaller charges, placing them on the locking mechanisms of the cells. He stood back and let them explode. Grue, Bitch, and Tattletale walked out of their cells of their own volition, but Regent was still unconscious, so Grue grabbed him.
"Now-" Oni Lee didn't get to finish his statement, what with Tattletale's fist buried in his gut up to her wrist. There was no doubt going to be organ bruising and internal bleeding, but he should survive.
"Right, let's get the hell out of here before the heroes get back."
Bitch and Grue just nodded, going along with it for now. Questions could wait for later.
-9001-
Hours later, after finally capturing the last of the ABB that was actively causing trouble, all the branches of the Protectorate, East North East were coming back to base to get some rack. Saiyan was somewhat annoyed when she heard the Undersiders had escaped. She should have taken them with Lung.
"Don't worry about it," Miss Militia told her, "Lung was the important one. And we've got Oni Lee and Bakuda, too, now. We couldn't have done that without you. The Undersiders escaping is minor compared to all of that," she smiled then, "Besides, they're criminals. I can guarantee that they will give you another chance to catch them."
"Yeah," the teen sighed, "I suppose you're right," she stood a little straighter, then let her shoulders slumped as she yawned, "I'm gonna go home and get some sleep. When is the debriefing?"
"Tomorrow, noon. Don't be late. Piggot will not go easy on you if you are. Just ask Clockblocker," the woman seemed to be smiling at some remembered hilarity, but the scarf made it hard to tell.
"Right, I'll be early. Later," the teen teleported away.
Back in the office that she had met with the PR representative, Glenn Champers was going over the footage of the battle that had gone on that day, and Saiyan's role in it.
"I have to agree," he said under his breath, "People will learn to look at that face and know it means good things. Especially if she keeps it up with this kind of work."
-9001-
Chapter end:
So, we get a brief look into Taylor's mind. Obviously she's not just miraculously better after all that time under the authority of Winslow and the tender care of her bullies. She's in a better place, but she didn't trigger for no reason.
Now, power levels.
Bakuda- 8
Oni Lee- 70
Armsmaster- 120/200
Miss Militia- 65
Dragon- 200/500
Tattletale-100
Taylor/Saiyan-600
Bonus Content!
Coil was sitting at his desk in his secret base. Thomas Calvert was sipping coffee in his kitchen. Coil prepared to go question his new pet about a few things. Thomas was preparing to go to work and make note of any of the major threats to the city.
Coil walked into the cell where he was keeping Dinah Alcott. The kidnapping had been a success, even if the Undersiders had been captured. They had escaped a few days ago, anyway.
Thomas moved to his bedroom to retrieve his necessary gear. His sidearm, his badge, a briefcase full of relevant paperwork. Most of it dealing with Saiyan.
"Hello, Pet," Coil greeted with false cheer, "I have some questions for you today."
"Candy," the little girl demanded.
"After the questions," Coil told her.
Thomas received a call on his cell before he even left his bedroom, "Yes?... Of course…. I'll be there shortly, Director."
"What are the chances that my men will rebel today?" Coil asked.
"Two point zero three percent."
"Good," he nodded, "What are the chances of being found out by the PRT?"
"Zero point zero two percent. Candy, please," Dinah looked up at him with large, bloodshot, begging eyes.
"Just a few more questions, pet," he pushed a lock of her hair behind her ear, almost lovingly.
Thomas made another call, on a burner phone. He had a new job for the Undersiders.
Coil asked another question now, "What are the chances that I will be attacked today?"
"One hundred percent."
"What."
"What." Thomas/Coil was in shock. The answer was delivered without any hint of hesitation and the girl was so stoned, he doubted she could muster up the idea of lying to him about it. He needed more information.
"Who is it?" Coil knew that wasn't a question the numbers could answer, so he made a guess, "Chances that it's the E-Eighty Eight?"
"Zero Percent."
He frowned.
"What are the chances of it being Tattletale?"
"One hundred Percent," Dina started to whimper, "It hurts. Candy, please."
"Just one more question, pet, then you can have your candy," he frowned then, "What are the chances that I can escape?"
"I'd say about zero percent there, boss man," Tattle tale said, appearing before him with her usual fox like smile. Only, this time, it took on a bloodthirsty edge that he really didn't like.
"How did you get past my security?" he demanded, glaring at her from behind his mask.
"Eh, you know," she shrugged, "I have my ways," she lost all traces of humor then, pointed a glowing finger at his face, "Burn in hell, you sick motherfucker." A purple beam lanced through his head before he could think to dodge.
That timeline collapsed and Thomas Calvert was nearly knocked off his feet from the shock of it. Before he could create another one, Tattletale was in his home, grinning just like in the other timeline.
"Nice try, boss man," she adopted the same look as in the other timeline, just before she killed him and repeated her message, "Burn in hell, you sick motherfucker." The purple light, then darkness.
Tattletale looked down at the carcass that had once been the man that held her life in his hands. She had just visited his main base, and hadn't found him there, so, after hacking his files, she found out where he resided in his day to day, and teleported to his home.
She grinned again, "I'm really going to have to thank Saiyan, next time I see her," she looked at her still glowing finger, "This is just so useful."
She used the instant transmission then, going back to his base, and entering the room that he kept Dinah Alcott.
"Who are you?" the little girl asked blearily, "Will you give me candy?"
"No," Tattletale said, taking off her mask, sympathy in her eyes, "You're never getting candy again. The man that took you is gone."
"Can I go back home?" she asked with a sniffle.
"I'm afraid not," the blonde told the little girl, "Your parents… well, they're gone, too. But I promise. You'll be taken care of." After all, even if she wasn't going to have the girl drugged up, she was still far too useful to let go of so easily. In her mind, Tattletale smirked to herself as she imagined what it was going to be like, being the shadow ruler of the underworld.