Since the main complaint/question of the last chapter is about Lisa's power level, I guess I can be lenient and give y'all an explanation.
It goes like this. The average human being, once they have access to Ki and Chi, gains power by fifteen percent per month. It takes one full month of training- practicing the katas, strength and flexibility training, and meditation to improve their Ki pool- to increase their power by fifteen percent. That means they don't do anything but train for that month. And before all that, they have to have years of experience in the martial arts before they can unlock their Ki.
With this kind of growth rate, if the humans in DBZ did nothing but train, every single day, for four years and four months, they could easily take down Frieza. And that's if absolutely nothing distracted them from the training and nothing went wrong.
Krillin, the only one who actually saw Frieza, had one year and one month to get to that level. He wasn't even on Gohan's level by the time it all went down. And for a month, he couldn't have trained without bumping into Bulma and Gohan or causing damage to their ship.
Saiyans actually have less static growth than a human, their only major improvement happening when they are nearly killed then brought back. Training in improved gravity works for them, for a time, because it literally destroys them, over and over, and they get healed back to top form with a sensu bean. After a time, the hyper gravity stops working, and they start to level off. Having a training partner of equal level, so they can beat one another to near death then revive one another is the best way for a saiyan to improve. That is why Vegeta isn't strong enough to defeat Goku, he won't accept help.
Through the use of her Parahuman ability, Taylor received the equivalent of years of Martial experience, and brute forced the activation of her Ki. From there, having only to focus on her meditation and physical training, she started growing by fifteen percent each week! She has four times the growth rate of a normal human.
Tattletale, Lisa, was able to intuit this as well. It even allows her to correctly guess shortcuts she can take to improve her Ki pool faster. Her ability is less on the physical side, giving her more Ki and Chi strength than Taylor, but less physical. However the overall growth rate is the same. After one year, fifty two weeks, inside the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, Tattletale would be overwhelmingly powerful, as seen in the previous chapter.
So, yes, Taylor and Lisa have grown far faster than a human from DBZ and for very specific reasons.
Also, the reason for giving characters two power levels at the end of a chapter is simple. For Lisa in the last chapter, it was what she was when she went into the chamber and her power level when she came out. For Sundancer, Genesis, and Scion, it is because their abilities make it shift. Sundancer isn't skilled in hand to hand, but she could kill Echidna with just one attack if she so chose. Genesis is stuck in a wheelchair, but her various forms can do nearly anything she can imagine, if given enough time. Scion is simple enough. His golden body is just that strong, one hundred fifty thousand. His real just can't be quantified.
Now, on with the chapter.
Chapter Ten: Training
Lisa held Taylor still, a few hours later. The taller girl had fallen asleep against her, and the villainess was feeling particularly clingy after getting the story of what had driven the girl to the brink.
Scion was a multi-dimensional, eldritch monster waiting to rip the powers out of every parahuman on the planet and wipe the earth from existence in all dimensions it was able to access. Taylor's insistence that it was God was somewhat worrying, but that would be taken care of the moment that they found a way to stop it. Preferably a solution that would simultaneously destroy the creature.
Too bad that the overwhelming power that she already had wouldn't be enough to kill Scion. At least, not his real body.
Taylor had easily admitted that she, Lisa, could stop his golden body with no effort whatsoever. It was the problem of fighting an opponent that was the size of a planet, with who knows what for abilities, that was the real problem.
Earlier that day, Lisa had planned on just beating Saiyan down, pointing her in the direction of a tinker that could create another Hyperbolic Chamber, then wait to see what happens. That game was no longer viable. Maybe when they had dealt with the current issue, she could go back to the plan of being youthful rivals with the other girl.
Right now, though, Taylor was sleeping the sleep of the truly exhausted. Her injuries were gone, thanks to Lisa's own hijacked techniques from DBZ, but her spirit was all but shattered.
"Taylor?" A voice sounded from a ways off. It was the voice of a man in his forties, filled with worry.
"She's in here!" the blonde called, knowing that even an explosion wouldn't wake the girl up right now.
The tall, skinny form of Danny Hebert rushed into the room, pausing only for a second before he rushed forward. In only a couple of seconds he had Taylor in his arms, holding her to him. Lisa gave up the girl without a fight, even if she really needed someone to hold right at that moment.
"What happened?" the man asked darkly after a few moments.
"I beat her up," the blonde said unashamedly, "Then she tried to use me to kill herself."
"What?" Danny's face was slowly twisting into a snarl of anger and hate that would not be good for his health, so the girl rushed to explain.
"When Taylor first brought me in, I figured out how to unlock my own Ki from watching her," the villainess said, "It was intoxicating, all that power, with more on the horizon if I just put in a little effort. You don't realize how huge this is, really, but we'll come back to that. I knew we'd hit a ceiling for how strong we could get if we didn't have someone to test ourselves against. By the time I was even halfway powerful enough to be stronger than most Brutes and faster than any Mover that didn't teleport your daughter was already ten times that. So, I commissioned Leet to build me a pocket dimension with accelerated time. One day in there is one year, and I spent every day training to get as strong as I could. Result? I'm the strongest thing to have ever walked the planet, currently.
"But not it gets complicated," the girl sighed and started explaining what happened with Scion and what happened to Taylor. How she had broken so badly.
"Right now, only two things are going to help her," Lisa said, "One, training until she is even stronger than me. Two, you."
Danny, still holding his daughter, though now he was sitting down on a couch with her, sat silently, waiting for more. Obviously the girl had a plan, now he just needed to hear what it was, before he agreed to it, or blew it off entirely.
"That is my time chamber," she pointed at the ugly door sitting on one side of the room, "You and your daughter are going to go in there and you are going to bond. You'll bond with her, she'll train, maybe you will too, and when she comes out, she'll be a year older, way stronger, and far better adjusted," Lisa stood then, "While you're doing that, I'm going to go about looking up ways to kill a multi-dimensional dick that wants to kill us all."
"How do you know this will work?" Danny asked, "What makes you so sure that she will get any better, just by training and spending time with me?"
"I consulted a precog. Payed her eighty thousand dollars to find the right combination of things necessary to get your daughter back on her A-game. This is it," she gestured to the door, "Are you in? Or are you going to watch your daughter kill herself slowly?"
When put like that, the man had only one choice. Well, only one good choice.
Ten minutes later, Lisa was going through her finances, wondering how much more she could afford to waste on finding a way to kill Scion and still have a decent amount of resources left over to continue the business. Danny had taken Taylor into the chamber, promising retribution if the blonde was wrong, and the girl had actually believed him.
"Where have you been for the last day or so?" Grue asked as he came into their usual hideout to find her on her computer, "And what kind of steroids are you taking to get that kind of turnout?"
"I hired Uber and Leet to build a door that leads to a pocket dimension that accelerates time three hundred sixty five to one, used it yesterday to train non-stop for a year to be the second coming of Frieza, only to find out that I'm still kickin' around in the kiddie pool," she looked up briefly, "How would you kill an eldritch abomination that was living on several levels of existence simultaneously?"
"What?" the black boy asked, "Okay, start over. What the hell is going on?"
Yet again, Lisa explained.
"Honestly, I'm gonna get some cards printed up, hand them out," she shrugged, "It would make it easier on me."
"Yeah," he nodded a little slowly, "Okay, so what is the plan? How are you going to do it?"
From the way he said it, the teen was obviously hinting that he wanted no part of what was to come. He already had custody of Aisha, 'Coil' having come through with that, and with pulling the occasional job on the side, they were far better off than they had ever been before. He didn't want to jump, feet first, into a suicidal battle if he didn't have to.
"I dunno," Lisa shrugged again, "That's why I asked you. I mean, I have a general plan, but who knows how that will turn out."
"And what is that plan?"
"Get stronger and stronger, alongside Saiyan, until we just completely overpower Scion with little effort," she sighed leaning back on the couch, "But that could take months, and that with the time chamber. Saiyan really wasn't too far off, calling it a god, all told."
"Right, because the two of your aren't strong enough yet," the slow way he enunciated every word showed his outright disbelief. How Saiyan, whose accolades were not limited to the extermination of the Slaughterhouse Nine, could be considered weak was a mystery to him.
"Nope," the blonde nodded cheerfully, then shook her head, "Listen, I'm not fully in my right mind at the moment. I'm going to go let off some steam and get my thoughts together. I'll be back before tomorrow, hopefully with some idea on how to stop Scion from killing us all."
The blonde put her fingers to her forehead and teleported away.
-9001-
Two months ago, Taylor broke down into a sobbing mess, just because she got beaten by Tattletale. She was still angry over that overt display of unnecessary emotion. Taylor would never be a stone faced, unemotional robot like Alexandria, but crying in public, especially in front of someone who was supposed to be an enemy, was just bad business.
Finding out that the girl who had handed her her own ass so completely was actually willing to help her stop the end of the world was at least good. It even served to take off some of the sting of her semi-public breakdown.
Having a way to train up to a similar level, in just one day real time? More of the sting was soothed.
Having her dad there with her, understanding why she needed to do this, and more than that, participating in the training? Honestly, that was such a boost to her morale that what had started as seething anger directed at herself was little more than annoyance.
You never really knew how important it was to have a parent's approval until you got it.
With his support, she was able to get back on track for defeating the monster that was out there, waiting for them. Already she was way stronger than she had been.
"So," Danny began that subjective morning, "What will you have me doing today?" The poor man wasn't able to use Ki yet and Taylor had no way to know if flooding him with her own would unlock it, or make him explode, so she was starting from the ground up. So far she'd had him doing exercises to build strength and flexibility, only starting him on the forms halfway through the second month.
"Today's going to be about the same as the last two weeks," the girl said, going into a pose with her left foot and arm forward, her right hand pulled back to her waist, with her wrist facing the sky, "We'll go through the motions for now, then start speeding up as we go, then spar for a few rounds."
Danny took up a similar stance, with very few discrepancies. Together they moved through the individual stances. Taylor with the grace of a forty year practitioner and master of the art, Danny with the stiffness and jerky movements of a newbie.
After the first thirty minutes, they were moving at quite some rate, the loose training clothes they wore snapping with their momentum. Tempting as it was to just lose herself in the motion, the girl kept herself to a speed her father could keep up with.
"Right," she said after a full hour had passed, "Ten minute break, then we spar," she said with some pride. Truth be told, her father was a prodigy. It shouldn't be a surprise, really, that he could do something when he really put his mind to it. He'd been fighting for the Docks for years, and had never given up, slowly wearing the mayor down. This was something where he only had to deal with his own limitations. Limitations that he was quickly being taught were basically just mental.
After the break, they stepped into an unmarked area, although they had memorized the invisible lines they weren't allowed to cross.
"Today, I want you to lead the attack in each round," Taylor told her dad, "Stop," she interrupted him when he opened his mouth to object, "Stop thinking about how strong I am. Don't worry about that. It's unimportant right now. All that matters is that you have to hit me."
Danny took a breath and took up the standard stance again. He looked at Taylor and tried not to see his little girl, the last piece of his beloved wife he had. He tried not to see the girl that had wrapped her around his little finger when she was first born. He tried not to see his lips and Annette's hair on the whole separate person they had made together.
He inched forward, observing the way she shifted, her eyes narrowing at him. He switched his stance, making his right foot lead, and his opponent changed up her stance as well. He gulped, closed his eyes for a few moments, then opened his eyes again.
He moved forward quicker than he could ever have before the last two months of training, feinting a punch to her face, then lashing out with a whip kick towards her stomach.
The next thing he knew, the world turned to the left and he was being flipped over Taylor's shoulder.
"Ow," he groaned, pushing himself back to his feet.
"That was good," the girl told him with a genuine smile, "Let's go again, okay? And this time, don't start with your right foot forward. It would be a good way to throw a less experienced opponent off, but never assume that they aren't masters."
"Gotcha," the man nodded, getting back into position. He took the girl's advice, leading with his right foot. He repeated the breathing and focusing on his goal.
Danny streaked forward, faster this time, striking with a side-piercing kick then spinning it into a heel strike towards her face when she blocked that.
Taylor ducked, grabbing his leg and pushing him off balance. The man stumbled, but she stayed on guard. One of the things she learned about her father recently was that he was a boxer in college. He had lost most of it over the years, and he wasn't anywhere near top ranked, but he was devious.
Such as just now, had she gone in for the hit, his 'stumble' would have turned into a rabbit punch to the ribs in the blink of an eye. The moment he realized she wasn't falling for it, he pulled his stance in tight again.
The man wished he could just jump at the girl and kick her like in all the movies, but that was something she beat out of him quickly. He'd get to do the movie level, even the anime level, martial arts eventually. Two weeks of serious training was not the time for it.
Still, he used what he did know to a pretty nice effect, sliding smoothly into her guard and lashing out with a right cross, followed immediately by a knee to the gut. When she tried to backpedal, he grabbed her head and pulled her back to him. He immediately started pounding her with his knees.
He only got in two good blows before she broke his grasp and slammed a kick like a sledgehammer into his stomach, sending him sliding across the ground.
He looked up to see his little girl cradling her obviously broken nose, blood pouring out of it.
"Oh, god, Taylor!" he started panicking, "I'm so-"
"God damn, Dad!" the girl snapped her nose back into proper alignment with a sickening crack then healed it up with the use of the technique that Tattletale had unwittingly showed her, "You are fucking vicious!" Her grin was wide and proud.
He stopped his full on dad panic mode, and looked at the girl he had just assaulted. Taylor was no worse for the wear, all said and done. Actually, she looked absolutely proud that her father had just done his damnedest to beat her face in.
"I, uh," he rubbed his hands together awkwardly, "I had a friend named Jimmy. he told me that, in a fight outside the ring, the only rule is to win at any cost."
"Jimmy was right," the girl nodded, "You spit, you scratch, you fart in their faces if the opportunity presents itself and it will give you an opening. If you really want to go pro, I can change up your training, but right now, I'm teaching you to put 'em down and out."
The man nodded, "So, another?"
"Hell yeah, time to kick it up, I think. You are really blooming, what with the one on one, here," Taylor said with a grin. Danny nodded again, ready to do more and be better.
"Speaking of," the girl lost her smile, "Do you want to be a cape?"
"What?"
The girl's eyes were glowing red as she looked at him, one of the tells that she was using her sensing ability, "You have a Passenger. I think one of the troopers called it a Corona Pollentia. It's what gives us power," she frowned for a moment, thinking about what she knew about powers now, where they came from, "I can't promise that it will be something good, or even ground breaking, but I can promise that to get it, you will have to go through the absolute worst day of your life to get it."
"Yeah," the man said, "Not exactly selling me on it, kiddo."
Taylor shrugged, "I wish I could give you a guarantee of something awesome, but I can't. You could end up being able to turn into a purple hamster, or you might be able to fold space around you as you so please. It's a crapshoot," the teen told him, "and the cost is high. I just wanted to give you the option of activating it here."
The man hummed at that.
Honestly, the prospect was scary. If losing Annette and nearly losing Taylor weren't enough to make him Trigger, what would it take? Would it even be worth it? What if he ended up with something he'd really have to munchkin, like bug control, or something?
He looked at his daughter, who was using a power that anyone could use, if given enough time, greatly enhanced by her parahuman ability. If his had half the utility of understanding the motion of anything he saw, he would be strong.
Maybe even strong enough to protect his daughter one day.
His decision was made.
-9001-
The next day, at three o'clock in the afternoon, the doors to the Hyperbolic Time Chamber slowly began to open.
Lisa was already there, suited up, waiting to see if Taylor had kept her own growth rate up. More than that, waiting to see if she was better mentally. Wouldn't do to have someone that was stronger than all the Endbringers combined, a thousand times over, with the stability of Jack Slash.
Steam hissed out of the doors, a gimmick that Leet had built in to make any exits from the chamber seem more dramatic.
It worked.
The first silhouette to come out of the steam was obviously Danny, even if he was several times more muscular. He was only wearing the business clothes he had had when he went into the chamber, but the way they were drawn taut over his muscles, combined with the calm confidence in his expression, made the man seem more dangerous than if he had come out of the chamber wearing black leather and an ammo belt.
Just behind him, and far changed, according to Lisa's senses, was Saiyan. Definitely not Taylor. The look on that woman's face was not that of an average, if tall, teenager. That was a warrior.
She was taller by no less than four inches and her curly, brunette hair cascaded around her like a waterfall.
Those were the physical changes. The metaphysical, her Ki and Chi, were off the freakin' charts.
"So," Lisa began, "How are you feeling?"
Taylor looked at her hands, gripping them tight then opening them to show bright red light that hummed with raw power, the girl grinned.
"Pretty awesome."
"Good, cause we've got some work to do," the blonde said, turning around and leading the two of them out of the building. It was time to start putting together a real plan to defeat an evil space whale.
-9001-
Power Levels!
Danny- 11/132
Lisa- 9,413,444
Taylor- 6826/11,251,662