Day 2.1
-0-0-0-
Banshee
Soundproofing had never worked on her powers; her hearing seemed to simply ignore any and all obstructions in its range. It penetrated through the specialized tiles, allowing her to hear everything in the building. Idle gossip between coworkers, the bubbles rising from the water cooler, the skittering of the various bugs throughout the building; she heard every sound with the only limitation being her inability to concentrate on so many things at once.
Sounds including the echoing booms that had woken her up that morning and sent the building into a rushed but organized panic.
She would give the faux PRT Agents one thing, they were well trained. Despite how the building shook and the equipment clattered they followed procedure and kept themselves under control. They reported in to their superiors, some of which she recognized the names of, and went to their designated stations without delay.
The various Capes of the local Protectorate and Wards began to check in, including the familiar sound of Sophia's voice that told her that whoever was behind what was going on had old information... Or they knew Shadow Stalker was gone and wanted to trip her up. Pushing that thought away Taylor began to ignore the console and listen to the rest of the bustle around the building.
She could hear the security personnel did a check on their various prisoners and guests. Besides her she counted four other prisoners, three of them seemed to be slated for transportation. The last one seemed to be in a similar predicament to her own, being held for unknown charges and mumbling while scratching at a piece of paper with a pen.
Again she was both impressed and confused by her captors' dedication to their roles.
Why would they bother keeping it up in what was apparently a time of crisis? They had kept it up the night prior as well, they even had someone play Miss Militia and stay up the entire night. They did so many of the little things she'd come to expect from her superiors, fellow Wards, and the various PRT agents she knew that she hadn't followed through on her escape attempt the night prior.
It would have been easy to do: they weren't treating her with a heavy hand. It could have happened when she was escorted back to her cell by the PRT Agents; a quick sound to disorientate them, an even quicker burst of brute force, followed by hefty use of her Glaive to escape her restraints and open up the reinforced window. But she had stopped herself, not because she was worried she'd fail, but because of the names she had heard.
Chris and Dennis, said in very familiar voices. Voices that sound exactly like the other Wards.
Whoever they were, they knew her teammates names and that was enough to make her decide to stay and gather information. The longer she stayed the more she noticed the little and major things, things people couldn't copy for as long as they have been on such a level.
Which blew many of her theories our of the water, leaving her with a very strong suspicion that she was under some Master's dream effect or an illusion instead of an elaborate play put on by her captures. Then again it could have been both: put her in an illusion and have enough actors around to fill in the blanks. To fill in the blanks her hearing would pick up on.
She easily stopped herself from running into rampant paranoia, ignoring the sense of regret of not acting the night prior, and made herself listen. To hear the reports coming in, teams leaving and arriving. She had to listen to the reports, hear where they could've slipped up, where the illusion could be at its weakest. To see if maybe it was her true allies and friends come to save her.
But again the false personnel played their roles to a perfectly and gave nothing away than what wasn't PRT protocol. Though there was a large mention, more like idle gossip and guessing, about how Bakuda left too many bombs about for people to use.
Strangely they were more focussed on the ABB than the Boxheads.
She listened to the chatter, piecing together and puzzling over the various bits she heard. She had been able to cobble together a general idea of an attack on the Merchants by a bomb user that wasn't Bakuda or using said Tinkers bombs before another conversation caught her attention.
A discussion going on in the Director's office between the local top PRT brass with Armsmaster and Miss Militia, they were talking rather animatedly after a rough description of bomb user came in. A teenage girl with long curly brown hair, a slight build, and approaching 5'10" in height, the girl's costume seemed to be at the back of their mind as they sent over these facts.
"It could just be a coincidence, unrelated to yesterday's incident." The voice of Deputy Director Renick offered out. He seemed rather hopeful about that, but as usual Armsmaster's pragmatism had a way of taking that away from him.
"Unlikely." The head of the East-North-East Protectorate said, "She matches Skitter's build and my voice recognition software puts her at a ninety one percent match for our other 'guest'."
"But it's not a hundred percent."
"It's good enough." Armsmaster said almost dismissively, "Not only do they have a near identical voice timber and range, as well as another half a dozen identifiers, they use a similar vocabulary, phonemes, and speech patterns. This coupled with a similar physical description leaves little room for doubt. Differences can be placed on a change in power set or environment they had since their Triggers."
"So we're sure about Dragon's theory now?" Director Piggot said, sounding irritated more than anything else.
"It fits." Taylor could hear artificial metal and a dozen mechanisms shift, the sound of Armsmaster shrugging. "It was the Professor's machine after all, experimental as it was. So it is possible that the machine activated due to Dauntless's lightning."
"And did something the Professor himself claimed was impossible." The Director nitpicked.
"Not unthinkable or unlikely when it comes to Tinker tech." Armsmaster said almost glibly through his usual controlled voice. "A number of Tinkers find things they didn't realize they could do before; I don't see why Professor Haywire should be any different."
Haywire, that name rang bells for Taylor. Everyone on two planets knew who Professor Haywire was after he had connected two Earths together, despite the impossibility, and changed the lives of billions in the process.
And it was his device that the Undersiders activated in their attempted theft?
Taylor reached back into her memories of the night prior, of the information she gathered from various gossiping words and verbal reports. She remembered talks about six capes appeared out of nowhere after the machine malfunctioned, two of which they had said were taken back to base.
And she was one of the two "guests", or at least the ones with the more preferable treatment.
The dots connected themselves and she could scarcely believe it. If she did...if she followedthe evidence...then that would mean she wasn't on her Earth. It meant that there were other versions of her running around, with at least two of which seeming to be villains.
The evidence fit, the details both small and great sliding together with ease in her mind, but at the same time it just seemed ridiculous. So implausible despite her line of work she couldn't believe it.
But, again, the evidence fit. How similar things were and yet weren't. How she didn't exist, even in Dragon's files. Why no one seemed to know who she was. And it even explained why the voice coming from the other "guest's" voice sounded so familiar as she mumbled for herself to stay calm.
It was because it was her own.
She heard enough every day and through after mission recordings to recognize it.
There was still the chance she was under some very elaborate Master's power but she had doubted the waking dream and illusion theories for various reasons, like the lucid details of reality that couldn't be ignored or the lack of ill placed sounds, like, say, the ocean inside the building, that would come with an illusion.
As her mind processed that thought, accepting the improbable theory as the most likely reality, something was said in the Director's office that grabbed her attention.
"… All the more reason to bring the co-operative ones we have in custody in on this. If nothing else, they can give us a clue on how their counter parts will act." Miss Militia's voice said sounding as if it wasn't the first time she suggested such a thing.
And from what she could remember it wasn't. The second in command of the ENE Protectorate had been the one who very firmly suggested that she get the Independent Over Night room and other leniencies. Within reason, of course.
She originally thought it was part of a 'good cop, bad cop' routine, but now it was obvious that it was just Miss Militia being Miss Militia. As awkward as it was to be around her at times, thanks to her taste in men, Miss Militia had always been kind.
"I'm still not sure if it's a good idea." Director Piggot said bluntly, "If this theory is to be believed than these are alternates to Skitter we are talking about. A villain who has castrated Lung, with bugs. We do not want anybody with a similar mind set running around our base."
Taylor blinked at that, unsure how to take that bit of information. In her own fight with Lung she took the man's arm, by accident, but to do something similar to a more treasured body part with just bugs was an impressive and surprisingly effective use of such a limited power. She would admit that it was a bit disturbing but her first two impressions stuck harder and truer.
"And for at least four of them I would agree." Armsmaster's voice weighed in its opinion. "But the two we currently have in the building have been… mildly co-operative. One of them even claims to be Ward, going so far as to give her Ward ID number and go through proper procedures."
"… And the other one?"
"Still hasn't said much since we've denied her a lawyer."
Miss Militia mumbled "Can you really blame her?" just under her breath. Something the rest of the room obviously still heard as Piggot an answer in a flat tone, "While not the ideal situation these girls fall into a gray zone in the law, Officer Williams was in his full right to use that method to get as much information as he could."
"Her rant was pretty enlightening." The familiar voice of Sargent Massani said scratchily as he apparently mused over her counterpart's rant over not having a lawyer. Taylor half wished she hadn't tuned out the speech over civil liberties when it happened.
"It did tell us she is part of a Rogue group." Armsmaster mused, missing Massani's sarcasm completely. "One focused around art, and knows enough about law to argue their rights of free expression."
"Meaning she isn't a threat. It also means that maybe we can convince her to help us if we explain the situation." Miss Militia said, imploring the Director to listen to her.
"We could learn much from her, Director." Armsmaster added, leaving Piggot in silence for a long moment.
"They will be under guard at all times, either by a Protectorate member or no less than three PRT agents." She said with finality, "Take them to Conference room 3 and fill them in. If they are co-operative see what they know and how we can use them. I want this mattered contained and settled fast, the higher ups are already looking to come down on us and take over the situation. I don't want to give them an excuse to do so."
The room filled with various sounds of affirmation and the meeting continued for a few quick minutes filled with where they needed to send teams. Meanwhile Taylor sat just a bit straighter on her offered bed as she waited to be picked up.
-0-0-0-
The Composer
Her pencil was worn down to a nub and the legal pad she was given was near filled with drawings of various kinds. Most of them were angrily twisted things that reflected her mood perfectly.
Not allowed to have a lawyer?
Not allowed to make a phone call?
What type of shit was that?
She didn't understand why she couldn't even leave the room, or why they were treating her like she was some sort of criminal… well like a criminal bigger than a tagger. As far as they were concerned she should just be some low level Reaper, a group they kept on saying they didn't know about, so she just couldn't understand why they were even keeping her.
She wasn't the Composer to them, hell, she wasn't even a parahumans as far as they knew but still they kept her locked down like she was.
The entire night she had been tempted to just unleash some Noise and rip her way out of her gilded cage, but that would ruin so much of the good will she had been trying to get for her Reapers. As much as she was reluctant to take the role she was the leader of the Reapers and seeing said leader tearing a hole through the PRT base was not the right message to show to either side of the conflict that would cause.
So there she sat, making her frustration known via her art, waiting for the next day to pass. If she remembered her lessons from Grudge right then she could only be held for another day without them placing a charge on her. She could leave without conflict the next day; she just had to be patient.
That didn't mean she had to like it.
As she drew the miasmic lightning that poured out of the bulbous creature on her page the door to her room opened with three PRT troopers standing at its entrance, which was two more than usual. Being the polite person that she was she removed one earbud to listen to them.
"Acoustic," The one out in front with an extra stripe on his sleeve said formally, "Please come with us for a debriefing."
Debriefing? Wasn't that just another word for being interrogated? She had to go through that ill performed display all over again?
With a sigh she started to pack her small amount of belongings and followed them out into the hall. The trip, much like the day prior, had been a maze of bland and boring walls that left her vaguely confused of where she exactly was in the building. It took a while but soon enough they came to a pair of oak doors, doors that contrasted greatly with the dull silvers of the hallway's walls.
Meaning those doors were either there to impress or intimidate with a very strong likelyhood of doing both. At least they had a sense of design when it came to that sort of thing.
The room inside was carpeted with a heavy wooden table taking up most of the space. It looked like something one would expect in a fancy office building, where all the higher up staff would meet. It even had a large screen in lieu of a window.
"Please wait here, someone will be with you shortly." The lead guard said politely, though he didn't leave the room as his two fellows closed the doors behind them.
She did her best to ignore him as she took a seat and set herself up at the table. She barely had the time to finish the framework of her new sketch when the door opened again, revealing another small team of PRT agents escorting a Cape she was unfamiliar with.
The woman, as the curves of her costume hinted at, was tall and wore a suit of silver and blue armor that looked fairly advanced. She also wore a faceless mask that gave her an unsettling feel to her.
It took a special kind of person to wear a faceless mask and still seem heroic and personal. The woman who took a seat across from her wasn't one of those people. The fact that Taylor was fairly sure the woman had been staring at her since the door opened didn't help her unsettling appearance.
"Soooo," Taylor started, feeling uncomfortable with the silence and her scrutiny. "I'm guessing you're not here to interview me." It was an obvious statement, considering how the woman was given the exact same treatment as Taylor as she was directed into the room. Right down to the guard standing behind her.
"No." The woman, who sounded a lot younger than Taylor would have figured, said simply.
"Then what are you here for?" Taylor pressed trying desperately to fill the silence. Not only to get rid of the awkward atmosphere but for the hope that maybe, just maybe, someone would tell her what was going on.
The armored Cape was quiet for a moment before answering, "Same as you I guess. Got caught up in another Parahuman's fight and woke up here."
"Yeah, same." Taylor said with a sigh. What could the PRT want with them? Getting too close to a Cape fight didn't seem like it would be something to keep people detained over. Deciding to test her luck she asked her new companion this out loud.
"Depends on who was involved and what their powers do," Taylor was just starting to notice how eerily familiar the woman's voice sounded, "It could just be precaution to a Master's power."
"Ugh, but it seems so excessive." Taylor groaned mussing her hair a bit as she did so, just then realizing how much she needed to brush it. "They kept us, well at least me, locked up and without a phone call or lawyer. They just kept on questioning me like they didn't believe what I was saying."
"Which is usually how the Master/Stranger protocol works, guilty till proven innocent."
"And that is just wrong."
"It's a necessity, an ugly one but necessary all the same." Taylor could almost swear the woman was raising an eyebrow at her, "Would you rather someone take control of the local PRT or Protectorate?"
"Well, no." Taylor would admit the woman had a point there, "But I don't even really deal with the PRT or the Protectorate, or even the Wards. So I still don't get why they're doing this to me."
The woman shrugged, "It applies to everybody. It's the law." Taylor had nearly shaken her head at how by the book the woman and "with the company" she seemed to be. It was like dealing with a female Armsmaster, stick up the butt yet to be completely confirmed.
Then, before anymore conversation could happen, the doors to the room opened and Miss Militia walked through. "Banshee, Acoustic. Thank you for your patience, I hope I didn't keep you two waiting too long." Miss Militia greeted them as she entered and made her way to the head of the table to take a seat for herself. "First I want to apologize for how in the dark we've kept you but…. the circumstances are strange to say the least."
The armored woman, who was apparently named Banshee, just nodded her head as if she was accepting the apology for what it was. But not Taylor, no, she wanted answers. "While that's nice, I would really like to know why I was locked up without a phone call or allowed to talk to a lawyer."
Even though her mask was only a stylized scarf Miss Militia showed nothing but an honest apology, "Sorry, but again the circumstances we're dealing with are unique. We were operating on a mishmash of Master/Stranger Protocols and Case 53 Greetings to deal with the situation."
"You greet Case 53s like this?" Taylor asked with no small amounts of disgust and disbelief.
"Not at all." Miss Militia said with only a hint of abashment. "Like I said it was a mix of the 53 Greetings and the Master/Stranger protocols and, while I'll admit we leaned more towards the latter with how we treated you, I can honestly say it's not as bad as it could have been."
And as true as that might have been Taylor still didn't like how she was treated. There was no abuse, physical or verbal, but there was a severe lack of freedom. She felt jailed and trapped the entire time. No phone calls, no internet, her only conversations being with the PRT personnel who were either interrogating her or keeping it brief as they did their jobs.
She told Miss Militia as much.
"It doesn't have to make everyone happy if it makes people safer. We needed to err on the side of caution with this. And that's why we're bringing both of you in on this now, because you are safe and you could help us deal with what's going on." Miss Militia said, regarding her and then Banshee.
And as much as Taylor still wanted to protest, to demand to leave, she knew it was best to stay. Especially since it was Miss Militia, the one member people could trust to be straight up about a situation. If she said people were in danger then they were danger.
There was no way she could leave a situation like that when she could help.
"And how can I help?" She tried not to put too much irritation into the question.
"In order for me to explain that, I would also have to explain how we got into this situation." The Protectorate woman explained as she slid open a hidden compartment, hidden within the wood of the table, and pressed a few quick buttons to bring up a series of images onto the television screen.
Taylor instantly recognized a number of the Capes that were in the picture and felt a certain uneasy feeling as her eyes fell on Grue, Aisha's brother. Even if the reasons she was there wasn't related to the Reaper's rescue of Undersiders, and subsequent team up, it still meant some heat was going to come down on Brian. And that may hurt Aisha.
"Around one in the afternoon yesterday an armored truck carrying a device made by the late Professor Haywire, a Tinker who specialized in Portals and Dimensional Breaches, was attacked by the Villain Gang the Undersiders." She pressed another series of buttons that showed pictures depicting said device in its three separate components, "The attempted robbery was interrupted by Velocity and Dauntless, who were on call at the time."
Again, the screen changed to show two separate video feeds, supposedly from cameras somewhere on the two heroes' costumes. Taylor had to admire the bit of flare Miss Militia was trying to add to the presentation, the way she was switching her slides and speaking through the change gave a smooth transition as well as entertaining the listener. This helped her not to interrupt the presentation, to demand that she get to the point and to give her only the necessary details.
Which, when she thought about it, may have come from dealing with the twins and Chicago on a regular basis for information.
The battle between the two groups seemed at first to be a brief affair, which was largely in part due to Velocity until Regent changed the entire flow of the fight by tripping the speedster so much that he couldn't even stand. And this brief pause allowed for an unfamiliar Cape to literally swarm Dauntless with countless bugs. Seeing all those tiny crawling, squirming, and skittering creatures roll and form from Velocity's point of view was disturbing but seeing it from Dauntless' angle was a nightmare waiting to happen.
Even with his force field in the way she could see them breaking through, coming in like a great tide that flowed through its obstacles. It was completely understandable for him to panic in her opinion.
Even as she saw Dauntless make desperate swipes with his lightning empowered spear she could hear Miss Militia continuing to speak. "What happened next no one could have predicted," the words seemed to be near perfectly timed as Dauntless fired a bolt of lightning out from the encompassing mass and struck out. A bolt of intense lightning burning and incinerating its way out of his nerve wrecking prison, striking out to free himself and take the Bug Master out of the fight.
But the bolt missed, striking instead at the asphalt not two feet away from the black clad girl. This was a bit of relief for Taylor, as for a split second she thought the footage was going to show Dauntless accidentally killing the young villain. But what she saw next… she honestly didn't know what to make of.
At first the only effect the miss aimed bolt of electricity seemed to have was to make the bug girl's hair stand on end, but then the two brief cases by her feet started to react. Tiny bolts of power started arching from the metal of the case at an increasing pace until they were streams of energy connecting across the small space of each other, engulfing all that was between them. Including the bug girl.
With a bit of horror she watched as what could only be called black light start to shine around where the bug girl stood, blue lights starting to stir and swirl within the mass of discolored light.
The show of off putting power and light dissipated just as quickly as it had come, clouds of dust and smoke rising from the small storm of power that had just occurred. The clouds did not last as two… things rushed out from the clouds. One creature with wings too black that clawed its way into the sky rather than fly, and the other one looked like a giant metal ball with teeth that dragged a girl in a red hoody away.
A girl in a red hoody that hadn't been there, like the two creatures that had ran away from the scene and the four girls lying on the ground around the bug girl. And one of those girls looked suspiciously like her and another that looked exactly like Banshee.
"Dauntless' bolt had accidentally set off The Professor's device and caused something we believed to be impossible." Miss Militia said as she shifted the screen again, this time showing a diagram. A diagram depicting each one of the girls from the previous screens, it seemed to be mostly of her and Banshee being compared to the bug girl. It had things as simple as their shared style of hair and height to things like voice and behavioral analysis. "It brought alternate versions of the same person, of the villain Skitter, to one world."
Taylor automatically made a sound of disbelief. The very idea of itself seemed ridiculous and out there, even for a world filled with wonder and horrors just as hers. But, then again, there was Earth Aleph. An Earth identical to her own, Earth Bet, up until Scion arrived and changed Bet forever.
But it was impossible to visit a world any closer than that. Everyone knew that, it was a basic thing they were taught in science class a child. It came right after the moon landing in the lesson plans.
Then again, it was a device made by the man who had made the rule, who better to break it?
No, no, it was still too unlikely. Still too out there.
"A, R, H." A voice she was now getting an inkling of why it sounded so familiar.
Looking over at Banshee she let out a sound almost like a hiss while she made a demand, "What?"
"A, R, H." Her supposed other said again, sounding way too calm about the situation for her liking. "If you're really me and not some fake you should know what that means."
If she was really her? What type of question… Oh… Oh!
Annette Rose Hebert.
Rage started to bubble in her gut at that. How dare they!? How dare they look into her past like that! To break the Rules like that! To try and use her mother against her like that!
People died for that. And she was very tempted to add to the count.
"How dare you." She whispered as she was a hair's breath away from calling out her paint and creating some Noise, both literally and power wise.
But then Banshee nodded her head and said, "I'm convinced. What do you need me to do?"
That deflated Taylor a bit; it even made her drop the small amount of paint she was forming at her fingertips. Just like that they would give up a ruse? The advantage they had gotten from her inherited anger problems?
At least Miss Militia was just as confused about the situation as she was. "I was… expecting a harder time of convincing you two."
"Part of my power," She hedged, not giving away anything more than that as she steadily regarded Miss Militia. "Now what do you need?"
Clearing her throat to collect herself, the second in command re-entered her debriefing tone, "Earlier this morning one of the alternate versions of… you decided to make herself known in a very public way." A few clicks on the console again changed the screen, this time to a video clip off of YouVid. Which was something that said a lot about just how public the situation was, especially when one looked at the view count of the video.
The video was low quality and shaky, meaning it was probably from someone's phone, and the run time was apparently short. But it was long enough for Taylor to see what was going on.
Long enough for her to see the girl with the red hoody make a reappearance in front of a warehouse clubbing away at people with a bat. While making sound effects.
To be fair Taylor was fairly sure the people the girl was blatantly attacking were from the Merchants. At least she was pretty sure they were Merchants from the clothes they wore, more notably the bandanas, and the foul language they used in their worn out voices. But still, even if they were that scum, what she was seeing was nothing less than excessive.
"Boink!" The cell managed to pick up as the hooded girl slammed the bat with inhuman force against one man's stomach. "Bonk!" Another sound effect made for a man who tried to blind side her only to be cracked across the cheek. Even if those people were Merchants there was only one word that could describe what Taylor was seeing: excessive.
It had gotten so bad that Taylor had nearly felt a sense of relief for the gangsters when the monstrous form of Mush started to form and advance onto the scene. But then the girl made her most terrifying sound effect yet. At the sight of the other Cape the girl had reached into the satchel hanging from her shoulder and pulled something out. Something that she could only describe, due to the low quality camera, as small and black as it sailed through the air and landed in Mush's mass.
"Boom!" the recorded girl yelled almost childishly as Mush exploded back into heaps and bits of trash. Bits and heaps of trash that rained down into the stubbornly gathered crowd, causing the camera holder to let out a curse as he ran away and ended the recording.
As the video blacked out Miss Militia began to speak again, "What we would like from you is information. Any information you would be willing to give. What you think she would do, where you think she would go, who she would turn to." She regarded both Taylor and Banshee equally, "We're not asking you to give up her, your, name but we need help. And with more than just her. There are four other versions out there, at least one a known villain. We need to contain and handle the situation; the city is delicate enough as it is and this could tip it into a direction no one wants."
Even as Banshee, her supposed alternate continued, Taylor was still trying to come to terms that she wasn't the only Taylor Hebert in the room. It was impossible but the evidence that they had shown… it was compelling.
It was compelling but it also had implications that she didn't like.
"I'm willing to help. But, I have conditions." She interrupted and locked eyes with Miss Militia, who only nodded back at her.
"If they're reasonable I'll make sure that they happen."
She held up three fingers and knocked them down with every demand, "Okay, first I don't want to be treated like a prisoner anymore. I'm going to be a co-operative guest; I want to be treated as such. Second, I want to involved in this. I want to know what's going on and when it happened. Third," When Miss Militia nodded to both requests with little comment she pointed her remaining raised finger firmly at Banshee, "Me and her get to have a long talk once we're done here."
Banshee nodded her head to the last request, "I have no complaints about that."
"Good." Taylor said seriously. She wasn't sure if she completely believed what was going on but she could deal with it. She had to.
It may be her only way home.
-0-0-0-
ShyGirl
"Let go of me you cunt snuffling Bitch!" The well-endowed and strung out figure of Squealer shouted from her position, which was tied up in a wheelbarrow with a girl in a red hoody and hockey mask pushing her down the streets of Brockton Bay. Streets that were a bit more torn up than they had been an hour prior.
"This is for your own good!" The girl pushing her half shouted half scolded back as she tried to find the nearest rehab clinic, doing her best to ignore to incessant insults.
Taylor didn't know how she got there or even where she really was. She did know that wherever she was it was a lot like home, almost exactly like her Brockton Bay before things got bad. From the buildings to the people everything was near the same, only a little more damage in places than she recalled.
She had two theories on what had happened, built upon the stories she had heard from her fellow Challengers from the Brawl. Theory one was that she was getting a "Round 2!" like many of the other Brawlers had gotten, Mario abusing the privilege enough to become an abomination her Shy Guys hatefully call The Puppet.
Theory two was that she was in another world, like the Links of Brawl. There were three Links she had fought against in Brawl, each with their own world and history. One was a child who became the Hero of Time, another who fought in the Land of Twilight as a wolf, and the last with his almost cartoonish features traveled the Great Sea to bring peace to his land. This was the option both she and her Guys were hoping for since it meant that she wasn't going to become anything like Mario, and she would get to meet herself! The idea of that was both exciting and interesting to her, especially when she thought of how well the various Links got along with each other.
But whichever theory ended up being true Taylor was going to take advantage of it, fix things that could have gone better. Squealer being her first, and accidental, step to doing just that.
The series of events that had led to the woman being hogtied in a borrowed wheelbarrow could not all be blamed on Taylor. It was just a series of events that had run out of anybody's control. She wasn't going to say it was the first time that it had happened to her but she was fairly sure it wasn't going to be the last.
When she set out that morning all she had expected to do was scout the area out, to see where she was. She had started building her theories about where she was when had seen the Boat Graveyard and a candy store that used to make really good salt water taffy.
And then she remembered the stain that decided to set up shop in Brockton Bay. Well, it was more like said stain's members found her and tried to mug her. It didn't turn out well for them but it did help her solidify her resolve to help clean up this new Brockton Bay, and maybe collect a bounty or two.
Now if only Squealer would stop swearing at her, "My mother was a very nice lady!" because it was getting pretty hard not to hit her. And it wasn't helping that nearly everyone that she tried asking for directions from ran away from her before she could get a word in edge wise. Luckily there were a few who were nice enough to tell her about the woman's shelter off of Elm that doubled as a rehab center, even if they did pull out their phones a few seconds later.
That was something she could accept. If it meant helping a person that could be a friend out then she could suffer a few pictures of her on the internet, as long as the creepers didn't do weird things to them again.
As she made a turn down Fulton street, and as she began to think she had been given faulty directions, she heard something. At first she just couldn't hear because of Squealers insistent yelling, she was impressed that the woman had kept it up for so long. Then when she heard it she didn't think the sound, the voice was meant or directed at her.
It honestly wasn't until a large dog carrying three passengers landed near her that she even truly acknowledged the yelling.
"Hey! We've been looking for you!" A now familiar looking girl yelled from atop the monstrous mount even as she slid down.
It was only when she took in the blonde hair and the familiar purple jester costume that she relaxed her grip on her acquired bat and loosened her shoulders. It was only Tattletale, which meant the other two on the monster dog were other members of the Undersiders. It was Regent and Bitch, and she briefly wondered where Grue was before pushing the thought aside to focus on the present.
As abrupt as their arrival was it was actually a good thing the Undersiders had showed up, it was going to make Taylor's plans go a lot easier if she had them early on. Round 2 or alternate world it would be nice to have back up when she couldn't call on her Guys.
Tattletale opened her mouth to say something but Taylor figured it would be better if she talked first, "Federal Bails Bonds Agent, Cape name: Shy Girl." She introduced herself shortly, confidently and professionally while displaying her badge just as Mr. Howitzer had taught her to, "I was going to find you guys after I dropped Squealer off, but this works too."
"Crap." Regent said simply, "We just had to run into the crazy bounty hunter version of her."
Taylor's head snap towards him before he even finished his sentence. Taylor didn't like that word, "crazy". She knew what she was but it didn't mean she liked to be called it so crassly.
Something Tattletale must have picked up on as she quickly hissed at Regent to watch himself. Taylor kept her glare on him for a bit longer just so she was sure the message had sunk in. "Anyway, like I was saying, I was going to look for you guys after I dropped Squealer off."
Saying the drugged up Tinker's name seemed to shock her out of whatever stupor she fell into when the dogs landed, "You little fucking shits! You're behind this! Just wait till my man gets here! He's going shove a trashcan so far up your choot's you're going to be coughing out used condoms!"
"Let him try. He's on the list anyway. Now be quiet, you're no fun while you're like this." Taylor sniffed with disdain. To make sure the druggie did as she was told Taylor took the woman's bandana and shoved it in the screaming woman's mouth. "Now, as I was saying. I was going to look for you guys when I was done with her. I'm going to clean up this city and you're going to help."
"… You're taking this a lot better than the others." Tattletale commented as she eyed Taylor warily.
"So I really am on another world? Cool, the Guys should be happy about that." The later part was mumbled but it was still heard by her fellow Capes. Bitch stomped forward, apparently tired of all the useless talking.
"Where's my dog?"
"Huh?"
"Where's my dog." Bitch repeated as she glared at the taller girl, "Tattletale said you're the one that has him."
"I don't ha-" And then, as it clicked in her mind, Taylor clapped her hands together. "Oooooh, I know what you're thinking. Sorry, Nippy's not a dog. Don't worry, you've made this mistake before…. Or the other you did."
"Are you calling me stupid?"
"No? Just saying it's happened before." Taylor said with a shrug, "Nippy's not a dog, he just sounds like one… and acts like one, but he's not a dog."
"Sounds like a dog, acts like a dog, how is it not a dog?" Regent asked airily.
"Cause he's a Chomp." Taylor said glaring at Regent again, "Are you going to listen to my offer or do I get to collect your bounties too?"
"Let's just all calm down." Tattletale made a soothing gesture, "Look, you want to talk right? Good, 'cause the other yous are on their way. I could call them and get them meet us somewhere else, somewhere less public."
Taylor felt herself perk up at the mention of the other hers, enough so that she felt herself bouncing a bit. "Okay, just let me drop her off, like I said, and we can go."
"Um, we might not be able to do that." Tattletale said, still being oddly polite to Taylor. "We kinda had to crash a PRT car to make sure we got here first. Sooo, reinforcements are going to be here soon. A lot of reinforcements."
There was a beat of silence.
"Gah!" Taylor yelled as she threw her arms up in the air and then pointed her bat. "Why do you always have to be so stupid?!"
Regent let out a snort even as Tattletale protested, "Hey, I'm not stupid!"
"Then stop doing stupid things!" Taylor yelled back, "I'm docking other you's pay when I get back!
The sound of sirens started to echo onto the street, getting louder and louder by the second. Something that seemed to set Tattletale on edge, "Look, can we just go? Please? We can worry about a meet up once we don't have people hunting us."
"Alright," Taylor agreed, reaching into the wheelbarrow and easily tossing a protesting Squaler over her shoulder.
"Whoa, whoa, what do you think you're doing?"
Taylor tilted her head to the side, "Going with you?"
"Yeah, you are. Not her." Tattletale said, "We're going to have enough trouble as it is, we really don't need to add a unwilling hostage to the mess. Much less a strung out Tinker."
"I'm taking her with me."
Tattletale let out an irate sigh, "We can't ri-"
"We are not leaving her." Taylor growled out anger beginning to boil in the pit of her belly. She wasn't just going to leave behind a friend to the wolves. Well, a potential friend, anyways.
Before anyone could say a word further to try to convince the girl otherwise three PRT vans rode up to the scene. Watching as they rushed towards them, and mounted foam sprayers swerved towards them, Regent hummed as he summed up their situation. "Man, we really should have brought Grue."