I'll bet y'all thought I forgot about the Travelers.
Guess again!
Chapter Seven: Hostilities
Taylor sighed as she locked her books in her locker and closed the door. The summer months had been great. She'd become a hero, she'd killed one of the Endbringers and the worst supervillain team ever, and she had some good friends now in the Wards. They weren't inseparably close, not even, but it just felt nice to have some positive human interaction outside of her father.
When school started it looked like it was gonna be another year of suck, but that changed on the second day of the first term.
Just before classes were to start, one of Emma's old flunkies, a brown haired football player, tried to make Taylor a target again, hoping to use her as an in to dating the model. He seemed to know about the spectacles she'd made of Sophia's previous attempts at bullying her, but either didn't care, or thought he was better than the girl.
Taylor was walking into the school when the boy stood in her path.
"Move," she said, frowning at him, "Please."
"Why don't you make me, freak?" he smirked at her.
The girl rolled her eyes, resisting the urge to sigh. She kept her Ki off as she made the demonstration of her new abilities. Taylor didn't even touch him, just kept glaring as she punched the locker to her side.
The sound of metal being forced out of it's usual shape filled the hall, loud enough to garner attention from everyone in the immediate vicinity.
Taylor pulled her fist out of the irreparably bent locker, her knuckles bleeding and torn, still glaring at the jock that was staring at the damage she had just done, "I said, 'please.' Don't make me ask impolitely."
The young man stepped aside, numbly.
By the end of the day, the tale had grown to idiotic proportions, with Taylor having apparently ripped the locker out of the wall and threatening to use it as a bat to hit the football player with. Taylor had detention for a week for the destruction of school property, but that was the worst of it. She just used the extra time to meditate.
From that point forward, it was too damn boring. She would never go so far as to wish a new villain would attack, but that didn't stop her from thinking about it.
She also decided that, if Mister Gladly was on fire and she had a glass of water, she'd drink it and walk away.
The man, unfortunately, was still one of her teachers. And this year, all three of the girls she liked the least were in her class instead of just one. The SOB had the nerve of putting them together, every time he started a group project. Which was every damn day.
"God damn it!" Taylor finally lost her patience, three weeks in.
"Is there a problem, Taylor?" Mister Gladly asked, trying to put on his best 'I'm the cool Teacher' smile.
"Yes! Several!" she almost yelled at him, "One, I never gave you permission to use my first name. I call you Mister Gladly, as propriety demands, I would appreciate it if you would do the same for me. You are not my friend, or my peer, or my equal. You are my teacher, nothing more, nothing less. Act like it!
"Two," she pointed accusingly at her three partners, "I! Do! Not! Like! Them! If I were to be honest, I hate those three! If they were to suddenly move to anywhere in the damn world that isn't where I'm living, I would host the biggest party on the docks and solicit the Merchants for recreational hallucinogens to celebrate! Please, for the love of all that is good in the world, stop pairing me with them!"
As she had come to expect over the last eight months, give or take, her actions had caused a resounding silence. Gladly was staring at her like she had kicked his crippled puppy. Emma, Sophia and Madison looked less than thrilled about her outburst. Not quite embarrassed, but not exactly enthused to be the center of all this attention.
As for the rest of the class, that's just what happens when a student yells at a teacher. Any teacher.
"But they're your-"
"Don't!" Taylor interrupted the man, glaring at him, "Don't you fucking dare to end that sentence with 'friends'!" she glared at him for another moment more before putting her books back into her backpack, slinging it over her shoulder, and walking out of the class.
"Where do you think you're going?" the man demanded, finally acting authoritative.
"To drop this class and find a real teacher!" the teen shouted back.
It didn't take a long meeting to get her schedule changed, and this time, when the secretary took the paperwork, she didn't try to file it in the paper shredder.
Deciding that the day had already been annoying enough, the girl headed home, thinking about how it would be impossible to take a vacation. Being a hero was a dream come true for her. Especially with what she had triggered with, but, sometimes, she felt like she needed a break from it, and she wasn't even a Ward for more than half a year.
"I suppose," she said, after a moment of thought, "that I could take just one day off to decompress," she began to grin, heading home with a spreading smile, "I wonder if dad would like to go to Hawaii for a day?" She took a turn into an alley, made sure that no one was there to see her, and teleported into her room, "After all, what can happen in one day?"
-9001-
The Door to Lisa's office was there one minute, then gone the next. Shortly afterwards, the Travelers filed in, lead by Trickster, who looked particularly annoyed with her.
"Where's Coil?" he demanded of the blonde.
"He's exploring business opportunities in the south," she said with all the interest of a person doing paperwork while dealing with a bothersome customer, "How can I help you?"
"You can tell us where Coil is!" Trickster almost roared, "He promised to help Noelle, but we've got nothing to show for it."
"Yeah," Lisa said, leaning back in her chair, "He lied about that. He was never going to help her, or you. You were just easily manipulated pawns with some nice powers. He hasn't been looking for a cure for Noelle, he's been looking for a way to 'accidentally' kill her, that would keep you on his side."
The Travelers, as a one, had only two emotions on their faces, shock and anger.
Krouse, Francis, in particular was nearly shaking with rage, "We're leaving," he growled, "And we're taking Noelle with us."
"Are you sure that's a good idea?" she asked, folding her arms under her chest, "You know what happened the last time she was out and about," the blonde tsked, shaking her head, "Those poor people. Never even stood a chance.
"Truth is, Noelle is already dead. She died when she got her powers, you've just been too sentimental about the mound of flesh that has her face to let her go," Lisa shrugged, "The best thing you can do, in the memory of the woman she was, is destroy the monster she has become."
Less than a second later, she caught a stone that had been sent flying at her face at the speed of sound. She held it in her hand, glaring at it for a second, before turning that glare on the one responsible, Ballistic.
"That seemed unnecessary."
"Watch your mouth about Noelle," the man said, "It's not her fault she's…" he didn't even know what to say about what she had become, simply trailing off.
"No, it's not her fault," Lisa agreed, picking up the subtle hints with her powers, "It's his." Her pointed look at Trickster was enough to get the others to shift uncomfortably.
"How do you-?"
"You told me," the blonde villainess said quickly, "All of you did. Maybe not directly, but you obviously blame Trickster for what happened to her… Oh, wow, she was your leader, wasn't she? Smart, intuitive, kind. Then she triggered… no, she didn't trigger. Then how-?" her own eyes went wide.
The next thing the Traveler's knew Lisa was in the center of them, then darkness for two of them, Sundancer and Ballistic. Genesis' current form, something more humanoid for walking through the base, simply ceased to exist. Trickster saw her appear and teleported away, just in time to remain conscious.
"The fuck was that?" the man cursed, moving quickly to where Jess had been set up, "What happened?"
"I don't know, but she has Luke and Marissa," the girl said, closing her eyes, "Give me a minute to create something new to go get them."
"Fuck!" Trickster yelled again, "Since when can Tattletale do that? The fuck just happened?!"
"I don't know," the girl said.
"I mean, the bitch just caught a bullet, then teleported at us! The fuck?!"
"I don't know!" Jess yelled back, "Now, shut up and let me concentrate!"
Krouse grunted, pacing back and forth.
This was not how things were supposed to be, damn it! What in the hell was going on?! He needed to get out. Needed to get Noelle out, before that psycho girl did something to her.
He stopped pacing, then, his gaze drifting to the floor. He knew that the woman he loved was several floors below, with a computer in her room that let them speak from time to time.
And she was the key to her own escape. She'd just eat the bitch that had attacked his teammates, and then they'd get away while everyone was dealing with the clones of the girl.
It was a flawless plan.
Completely flawless.
…
That was his story and he was sticking to it.
The man grabbed the laptop and left the room, so Jess wouldn't see and try to stop him. He opened the computer, booting it up, quickly opening the communication program.
"Noelle," he said, "Noelle, baby, can you hear me?"
The view on the screen was dark for a moment, before something moved and he could see a partial view of Noelle. It was just the side of her face. Her eyes were squinting, her hair was matted and greasy, and it looked like she had just woken up.
"Krouse," she breathed.
"Noelle," Trickster spoke urgently, "Listen, things have gone bad here. Coil's gone, and some girl, Tattletale, has captured Luke and Marissa. I'm," he did his best to look distraught, "I'm not even sure they're alive anymore."
"What?" the face turned towards the camera, "No, they, they can't be-"
"I think she's going to come after me next, then you," he told her, "You have to escape, Noelle. You have to break out."
"Krouse, no," the woman on screen almost moaned, "No, I can't you know what will happen if I-"
"No!" the man shouted, looking to the side, "Stay away from me! Sta-" the feed went dead, turning to nothing but static.
"Krouse?" Noelle shook the computer a little, "Krouse?!" she began to wake up fully, parts moving and writhing and twisting. Bubbling up and spilling out, pulled into the main mass again and then it all repeated until the woman, the monster, stood up.
"KROUSE!"
The entire base felt it as more than one hungering mouth shouted that name.
The man that Noelle was worried about looked at the computer he had just broken and grinned. He began teleporting upwards through the building. It would be best not to be at ground zero when that bomb went off.
-9001-
"Oh, damn," Lisa said, feeling real fear for a moment, "Not good." She finished tying up the two Travelers she had managed to capture, then picked up the radio, "Jacobs!"
"Yes, ma'am?" his voice came back, a slight quiver in fear in it.
"Evacuate everyone from sub-basement level five and up. Get everyone out!" she ordered.
"What about-?"
"Anyone on the lower levels are either already dead or it's just going to get more people killed to try to go after them," she told him, quickly, "Now, move!"
"Understood!"
Only a few seconds later, the base rumbled as something started tearing through concrete like it was nothing. The thunder of it was almost as intimidating as the roars that sounded vaguely feminine, if incredibly distorted.
Tattletale placed her hands on the shoulders of the parahumans she had captured and teleported out of the base with them, to another one on the other side of the city.
That done, she ported back, pulling in as much Chi as she could, going down to the floor she knew the monstrous woman would breach next.
Like Saiyan had done to Leviathan, Lisa was planning to hit the deformed cape with as much energy as she possibly could. The purple ball of light, gathering at the end of her finger was growing by the second.
"Tattletale!" the monster screamed as it burst through the floor. It was massive, and monstrous in a way that made the girl think of the myth of Cthulu. And on it's back, pale as a sheet, was the upper torso of a woman, her arms hanging limply until they began merging with the main, pulsating mass. A single, baleful eye glared out of the hair at Tattletale. All over it, the monster began to grow mouths, complete with teeth. "Tattletale!" they all spoke as one before surging forward like a tidal wave of flesh and death.
"Burning Shot!" the villainess called out, firing the beam at the monster.
In just under a second, it had ripped through the bubbling mess of mutated flesh, turning it into so much ash. The blast only lasted two full second, but Lisa could feel the strain as her attack burned a hole under the city, hitting the aquifer underneath the city and sending a roaring rush of water back.
She bent over, resting her hands on her knees, panting a little from the strain when she noticed something horrifying.
Noelle was getting back up. She hadn't destroyed all of her, and she was regenerating. What was already a huge monster proved to be even more immense.
"Fuck me," the blonde breathed. She watched as mass shifted and bubbled. Burnt flesh was swallowed by more sweaty pink rolls. Mouths formed and opened, long tentacle tongues lashing about, looking for anything organic to eat.
Before she could see more, the water finally made it into her base and Tattletale had to teleport away.
"Fuck," she said again, looking down at the construction site that was her base. She watched as it rumbled for a moment as the defensive measures took place and it became little more than a crater in the ground. "That's not going to be enough… God damn it!" she yelled to the sky, "I have to call the fucking heroes!"
-9001-
On a beach chair, in naught but a bikini, Taylor Hebert lay there, sunglasses replacing her usual corrective lenses.
Nearby, watching some buxom twenty something play volleyball, was her dad. He had a drink with a little pink umbrella in it, the cup shaped like a coconut. He took a long sip, not even hiding his interest in the women, juggling as they were.
He had at first, but Taylor simply said, "Look. Not like it's a crime. Mom… mom wouldn't mind, as long as it was just looking."
The man had nodded at that. It took him a while, and a few more alcoholic beverages, but eventually the man had settled into watching them.
"Oh, wow," Danny grinned, watching one of the more top heavy girls running, "She's… Talented."
"Mmhmm," the tightly muscled teen superhero agreed, humming appreciatively.
The man set down his drink and turned to look at his daughter, who was blushing as red as a cherry.
"Taylor," he started, "are you…?"
"I-I," she took a breath and looked at her father, "Maybe? I, uh, might like… both?"
The man slowly nodded. The girl could practically hear the rusty hinges squealing when he did so.
"Right," he said, "Well then…" he turned around, his eyes watching the women play in their bikini's again, "Never speak about it until it's obtrusively, offensively apparent?"
"Indeed."
-9001-
Despite her cry about needing to call for reinforcement from the Protectorate, Lisa was not going to have to do the calling herself.
After only a few minutes, Armsmaster, Miss Militia, Assault, Battery, and Velocity were on the scene of the collapsed building. Before even a single one of them could start investigating what happened, Tattletale teleported down in front of them.
"Okay," she said, watching as they all reacted by going into fighting stances, "I need some help here."
"Help?" Armsmaster almost snorted, "You're under arrest."
Tattletale frowned, crossing her arms, "This isn't the time, There is an S-class threat in that crater, and she's only been stalled by the building blowing up. If she get's out of the immediate vicinity, who knows how many people she will kill, consume, or clone," she looked over at Miss Militia, "The clones will have all of your powers, all your memories, and be like comic book evil twins. Twisted, sadistic, dedicated to killing everything you love, then you yourself."
"You're not joking," Assault said after a moment.
In answer to that, the ground burst outwards behind Tattletale exploded upwards, and the fleshy monster that had once been a gamer from a different dimension.
"Nope," she said needlessly, "Not joking," she turned around and fired a chi blast at the monster, ripping it asunder, "As you can see, I've gained some new, familiar, abilities," the monster's flesh began bubbling and churning, regrowing everything it had just lost, even the upper half of Noelle growing out of it's back, "And you can also see that I'm going to need some time to figure out where to send my next attack to really kill her. You guys get to be my distraction while I play energy blast darts with her. Do not call in the Triumvirate," she warned with a glare, "I don't know, and do not want to know what kind of secrets those three have, but their clones would spout all of them off, just to hurt the originals. Here she comes." Tattletale gave the monster one more blast to slow it down, then teleported skyward.
It took only a few seconds for the Protectorate to snap into gear.
"Assault, start hitting it with anything you can find. Keep your grouping tight, no need for unnecessary collateral damage. Miss Militia, do the same, everything you can think of that will help slow her down. Velocity, Battery, go evacuate everyone in the surrounding area. I've got to retrieve something that might help us out," he went back to his bike, storing his halberd. Seconds before he could start it up, just out of sight of the roaring and screaming monster, Tattletale appeared again.
"I forgot to mention," she said, "Her boyfriend, Trickster, is around. He didn't trigger. None of the Travelers did. They took something and got powers. You want insight into the Case Fifty Three's, you catch him." She was gone again, high in the air and firing bright lines of energy down. Each one was enough to make a small explosion, and easily cut through the ball of flesh, but none of them seemed to be more than an annoyance to the creature.
The man growled, then started his bike and zoomed off, speaking into his helmet, an order to Dragon to send in her UAV's to use against the monster.
In the sky, Lisa was cursing her luck. Of course she would be facing off against an enemy that could regenerate. Of course she wouldn't be able to gather enough to Chi to kill it in one shot. Of fucking course her power would go on and on about their being a core, but not be able to tell her where it was.
At this point, Lisa was beginning to lose her patience. It would be so much easier if she could just forget about her conscience telling her it would be a horrible thing to kill the monster, if it meant losing the whole city, too.
"I'm too fucking weak," she grumbled, but continued raining down purple bolts of death on the creature.
After nearly fifteen minutes of constant battle, the containment zone not being breached to to the efforts of Tattletale, Assault, and Miss Militia, Armsmaster returned, he hopped off his bike, picked up his halberd and pointed it at the roaring mass of anger and flesh.
With Dragon's spybot high in the air, he used the targeting data from that and his own suit to look for a good place to fire.
Ten seconds later, with a soft 'pflit!' sound, a dart the size of a man's finger hit the monster, that had been codenamed Echidna, and was quickly absorbed.
"Start hitting her with everything you've got," the Tinker yelled, "I've dosed it with a more potent version of the Tranquilizer I designed for Lung!" He pulled another halberd out of his bike, opening the blades on it, all of them starting to hum and glow.
Tattletale watched all of this with a critical eye. Normally, she would place more faith in the work of a Tinker, but her power told her that Echidna didn't even really have a circulatory system. Still, there would be no harm in firing more attacks down at the monster.
In fact, this would be perfect for a test of something she had been trying to work on.
Taking a few deep breaths, she gathered her Ki, enhancing all the muscles in her arm, and her eyes and brain to unbelievable levels. It took nearly a minute of concentration before she felt she was at the right level to try this.
When she opened her eyes again they were glowing purple, and the world was moving at a snail's pace. Even Velocity and Battery were moving only inches in a second instead of hundreds of feet.
The villainess then pointed her finger at Echidna and fired a lance of purple energy. It fell through the air, piercing the monster's flesh just as easily as those before it. Even in the slow motion vision she had, she could see it as the creature immediately began to regenerate from the damage. So, she fired again.
"Burning Rain!"
And again. And again. And again and again and again and again.
One after the other, each of her attacks fell upon the parahuman woman from another world, one after the other, until there was little left at all to regenerate.
To anyone else, it would look like the villainess fired a continuous stream of purple death down at the creature until only a few useless lumps of wriggling flesh were left.
Then, to everyone's horror, those lumps began to regenerate.
Then, much to everyone's great relief, they stopped moving. After only a few moments, they started to wither and die.
"No!" Tricker yelled, teleporting in and holding a greyed piece of meat to himself, "You killed her! You ki-"
"That's quite enough out of you," Tattletale said, appearing behind him and smacking him with her left hand, her right hanging limply at her side. Blood flowed from her nose and her eyes were incredibly bloodshot. It had not been a good day for her. She quickly teleported away, leaving Krouse behind, before any of the heroes got the bright idea to take her in, in her weakened state.
-9001-
Taylor gave a relieved sigh as she finally laid down in her own bed.
Her day had been great. She yelled at an idiot teacher, dropped his class, went to Hawaii, bonded with her dad over their preferences in women, failed at surfing, and went to a luau. She and Danny had even gotten a massage, just before heading home. It was a little awkward at first, but feeling the kinks in her muscles come loose was almost orgasmic.
"Too bad it's back to the grind, tomorrow," the girl sighed, her arms behind her head as she smiled peacefully. She'd have to take days off more often.
-9001-
So, that's done. And Jess died when the base imploded. Sorry. it just kind of happened.
Power Levels!
Trickster/Krouse- 45
Ballistic/Luke- 70
Sundancer/Marissa- 13/900
Genesis/Jess- 3/?
Echidna/Noelle- 670
Assault- 150
Battery- 180
Velocity- 8/130
Tattletale/Lisa- 351
Saiyan/Taylor- 2952
Bonus Content!
Uber and Leet were packing up and heading out. Their thrashing at the hands of Saiyan had been a wake up call.
Not to quit their life of villainy. Gods, no! That was just way too much fun.
Instead, it was their hint to get the hell out of Brockton Bay. There were plenty of other places. Places without out world cracking heros. Places like Las Vegas. Uber had heard good things about Vegas and the types of capes that got along there. The flashy pair of video game themed villains would fit right in, there.
There was a metallic twang, just like when Saiyan had teleported in front of them and Leet screamed like a little girl, diving behind Uber.
Uber just froze up and quinted his eyes shut, waiting for the pain to start.
"Cute," came a voice that was decidedly not Saiyan's, "So, you're leaving?"
Uber opened his eyes to see a blonde girl in a purple cat suit. She was looking around their lair, seemingly completely uninterested.
"Yeah, and you would be too, if you were smart," he grumbled going back to packing his most valuable possessions. He ignored the glare that the girl shot him.
"I have a commission for you," she said, deciding to let the subtle insult slide.
"Not interested," Let spoke this time, packing more stuff into one of the things that he never used on camera, for fear of it being appropriated by anyone else. Essentially, it was a Bag of Holding. It had nearly unlimited storage capacity and the weight never increased. The only problem was, unless he was willing to pour the whole thing out somewhere, he would only ever get random things from it.
"I'll pay you ten million, in cash," she said, dragging her finger along one of their older creations, then grimacing at the grime that stuck to her digit.
"What do you need?" Leet asked, now quite interested in what she needed.
The girl pulled a photo out of thin air, or so it seemed, and lay it down on the table, "If you can build this, I'll give you ten million. If you can do it in under two months, I'll double it to twenty."
"No freakin' way," Uber breathed, looking at the picture, while Leets eyes grew wide, followed by a face splitting grin.
"Deal!" the Tinker said, enthusiastically shaking her hand, "But I'll need two million of it now, for parts."
"Done, it will be delivered tomorrow," the girl said, then teleported away with another twang.
"No freakin' way," Uber repeated, still staring at the picture.
It was a picture of the Hyperbolic Time Chamber that was abused all to hell in DBZ during the Cell arc.
And Leet was going to build it.
"No freakin' way."