3.1 Dinah

I opened my eyes blearily and whimpered. This hadn't been a bad dream. I was scared and wanted to go home. Chance that Coil will let me go: 12.975%. I whimpered again, curling into a tighter ball. My head hurt, it hurt so much any time I asked a question and looked into the mosaic, but I had to check.

"Good morning, pet." I didn't respond. "I'm here to ask my questions."

"...It hurts," I whispered. I don't want to answer the questions. "Can I have candy?" The candy made it feel better. It hurt a lot more after the candy, though.

"After the questions," Coil assured me. "First question: what are the chances my plans fail if I continue in my current course of action?"

I couldn't help it. I needed the candy, so I had to get the numbers. "...One hundred percent chance your plans fail." I couldn't believe it. A small current of hope started running through my body.

Coil was silent for a long time. "I don't appreciate being lied to, pet," he hissed, and I shuddered. He was getting angry.

"Not lying!" I wailed. "It's the truth!"

He sighed. "Very well. Two more questions, and then the candy. Do you remember the other two I ask?"

I knew. "One hundred percent chance there's any problems in the next hour." I didn't even need to answer the second question, the chance of problems before lunch. "One hundred percent chance your power won't save you," I told him spitefully, sitting up on my cot and glaring at him. "One hundred percent chance you -"

He jerked suddenly before slapping me. "Answer only questions I ask you," he spat. I didn't care. The numbers told me he was going to die. My head hurt but I didn't care. "Take her and follow me." The two soldiers he always brought with him grabbed me and hauled me off of the cot. I didn't even try to fight them. My head was pounding and bright light was painful, and my legs felt weak. "How did she..." Coil muttered, ignoring everything else. We came to a split in the corridor and he paused before taking the left path.

A loud crash echoed through the facility, followed by a loud roar. The men carrying me looked at each other, but didn't say anything. There were a bunch of repetitive bursts, and each one made my head hurt more. I wanted my candy. The men glanced at each other again. "Gunshots?" one of them said to the other.

"Sounds a bit loud to be gunshots," the other mumbled. "Tinker-tech, you think?"

"Could be."

Coil looked over his shoulder. "Captains, leave the girl with me and go deal with the intruder. Don't hesitate for a second - the intruder is a parahuman."

"Sir!" the men saluted before unceremoniously shoving me toward Coil and running away. There was a loud roar followed by more bangs. The roar changed in pitch slightly before more bangs started up again.

Coil snorted something as he clamped his hand on my shoulder. It hurt. "Even she won't slow her down for long," he muttered. "I have to get out..."

"Hello, Coil."

It was that voice! The girl who'd saved me that last time. I looked back at her. She looked different now, like she was older than she should be. Coil froze and turned back slowly, keeping me in front of him. "If I dare ask, what happened to my men?"

The girl sighed and shook her head. "I was in a hurry. I only broke their necks."

"Small mercies, I suppose. And Echidna?"

"Dealt with. Permanently. The rest of the... Travelers, correct? The rest of the Travelers are in varying stages of injury. None fatal, I believe."

"I was helping her, you know," Coil said calmly. "And you just... killed her, I suppose. How brutal."

The girl shook her head. "I'm here for the girl. I told you what would happen if you approached her again. And then what did you do but ignore my warning and continue throwing your weight around? When did you take her?"

His hand ground down on my shoulder and I cried out slightly. "Right before Leviathan, actually," he said. "Once the sirens began, the panic and chaos helped hide the acquisition."

The girl nodded slowly. "You know what's about to happen to you, don't you?"

"Yes, I do," he said. He drew a gun and placed it against my head. I whimpered in fear. "I'm going to walk out of this building unharmed and with my pet. You're not going to do anything to stop me, because the second you do I'll kill her."

"You're willing to sacrifice her to save yourself? That's low, Coil."

He chuckled darkly. "I am a supervillain. Being a monster simply comes with the territory."

I checked the numbers. "One hundred percent chance you die today, Coil."

"What?" he snapped, his masked head shifting to look at me. "That's not -"

A loud bang rang out and I screamed. After a second, I realized I wasn't hurt, and stopped screaming. I still heard screaming and I realized it was Coil. I took a few steps away and turned to see that he was clutching at a stump where his arm had used to be. The mosaic was shifting so fast I couldn't keep paying attention to it and the real world, and I stumbled away.

"Dinah, come here," the girl said calmly, holding a massive black gun with one hand. "As soon as I deal with Coil, I can take you home."

Coil's screams changed to a shaky laugh. "You think you've won? You can't defeat me! I control my own des-" In the middle of his boasting, he froze. "No..." he whispered. "No! No!" Whatever he'd tried to use his power to do, it'd failed. The mosaic was slowing down now, and I relaxed slightly as I hid behind the girl. The closest pictures to me were all but frozen now. With a convulsive jerk, Coil tore his mask off. "Coil forced me to wear this!" he yelped. "My name is Thomas Calvert, I'm with the PRT! He -"

"I'm not interested," the girl told him, slipping her gun into her coat. The mosaic shifted again and I quickly hid my eyes; seeing it through there was bad enough. "Coil or not, you're the one I've been searching for. The one that took Dinah."

"Please, I'm telling you that I'm not him!"

There was a cold laugh. "We'll see. I just need a little taste..."

"Oh god no!" Mr. Calvert's shriek was cut off suddenly with a wet sound. I shuddered and squeezed my eyes shut and covered my ears - I didn't want to see or hear it myself, but I saw the pictures in my head. The girl had plunged her teeth into his neck.

After far too long, I felt a hand touch my shoulder. I looked up cautiously to see the girl standing there, her appearance the way she looked before. "Let's get you home, Dinah."

The next few days were a blur of pain and exhaustion. My uncle said he'd needed to call Panacea in to fix whatever the candy had done to me to make me want it so much, but I was happy. It still hurt my head to look at the mosaic, but now I felt normal most of the time. I sent Miss Panacea a thank-you card, because that's what you're supposed to do when someone does something nice for you.

The people in the news had been bothering me too, any time I went outside with my cousin. They kept asking what had happened, how I was returned, things like that, but Rory made them leave by asking nicely. He knew about the mosaic, too, but he never talked about it.

On June 1st, I got a visit from Mr. Armsmaster. He talked to me about joining the Wards and part of me really wanted to. When I looked at the mosaic, there was a 84.7% chance I'd be friends with the Wards! But my uncle said that it was too dangerous and that I'd already been taken captive once. He didn't want to lose me again. And, if I was going to be honest, I didn't want to leave home again. I felt safe at home, with Uncle to tuck me into bed at night. Living with the Wards sounded fun, but I knew I'd be homesick before three weeks had passed. I'd checked the numbers.

"Is something wrong, Dinah?" Rory asked me.

I blinked, then realized I'd been frowning. "No, just thinking," I told him. I put an effort into smiling and slipped my hand into his. "I'm glad you're home from work right now."

He smiled. "My favorite cousin gets rescued? Of course they're going to let me take a few days off."

"I'm your only cousin!"

His smile widened. "All the more reason you're my favorite, right?" I giggled. "Alright, Dinah, we should be heading home soon. I think the reporters have dispersed for the day."

"'Kay," I said, and walked by his side. Rory always made time for me when he had visited our house. Before I'd started seeing the mosaic.

We were halfway home when every bit of glass in the city shattered.

3.2 Jack Slash

The screams of the dying, the wails of those that had lost loved ones... They were glorious.

But, lovely as this orchestra I was conducting sounded, it wasn't my goal, merely a soothing side effect. No, I was here for one reason and one reason only.

Carnage.

"Uncle Jack," Bonesaw said, looking up at me. "When do I get to play?"

"Soon, soon," I assured her. "You wouldn't want to ruin the surprise, would you? The Siberian is searching for our guest of honor as we speak." I had my doubts about whether Manton would be able to find her, however. His range was rather limited, and a van with tinted glass would be somewhat noticeable in this town.

"Okay," she muttered, idly kicking at a pool of blood lying in the street. I glanced down the alleyway to see a pair of corpses lying there; my guess is that they had been wearing glasses when Shatterbird sang our arrival, and the resulting injuries had killed them. There was a surprising amount of blood in the streets, and Bonesaw was always splashing in puddles like the child of our little family.

Bonesaw started to cross the street when I reached out and firmly grabbed her arm. "Bonesaw, you know better than that," I scolded her. "We only cross at crosswalks, when the sign says it's safe to do so."

Her lower lip wobbled adorably. "I'm sorry," she said. "But I checked both ways, and no cars are coming!"

"That is no reason to violate traffic safety," I said. A low roar started up, and I nodded. "See? A car is coming." Snckt. I gestured idly with my favorite straight razor. "Now, what do you think would have happened if you'd started crossing, only for the driver to come out of nowhere?"

"But Uncle Jack," Bonesaw said, "even if he hit me, I'd be fine! I reinforced my spine with the sheath, and all of my bones have self-repair nano-bots!"

I nodded. "I understand, Bonesaw, but..." The car crested the hill, its windshield missing like so many others, and I waved the knife idly in its direction. A spray of arterial blood, misting a beautiful crimson in the air, accompanied a sudden shriek, and the car swerved wildly before rolling to a stop somewhere down the hill. "See? There could have been an accident, and that would have been unfortunate."

"Do you think he's still alive? I've been meaning to work on the combination of two clinically dead bodies. I think that if their organs aren't physically dead I should be able to use an enhanced pacemaker to send signals to their brain and simulate brain function..." As Bonesaw chattered merrily along, I took the time to glance at the sky, noting the new plumes of smoke rising up. Burnscar was certainly enjoying herself, although I'm glad she was doing so far away from me. Smoke inhalation did terrible things to one's lungs, after all.

A loud roar filled the air, and I smiled. "It seems Crawler has found our guest first. How wonderful! Soon you'll have a big sister to play with, Bonesaw."

"I hope she wants to be our friend!" the blonde chirped.

"I'm sure she'll come around sooner or later." I might need to make several examples to convince her, of course, but I had a feeling she'd understand. "Now run along. Didn't you have a present to make for her?"

Bonesaw beamed a huge smile at me and scampered off, making sure to cross the road at a crosswalk. Excellent. Now... How do I convince our dear Carnage to become part of our family? I would have preferred to have Hatchet Face nullify her powers and allow me to talk to her, but unfortunately Cherish had to ruin him... My face twisted into a snarl for an instant before I forced myself to relax and go back to the easy-going smile. To sooth myself, I listened to the sounds of the screams and sighed as a particularly loud, high note was struck. I see that Burnscar is still enjoying herself - no, that was Cherish, using her power. The girl had failed in her attempt to manipulate us all - and that was what damned her to becoming one of Bonesaw's playmates, the failure. It was a shame; Hatchet Face was so useful in his own way, and then Cherie Vasil had to come along and ruin him.

Another roar sounded, this one almost in pain, followed by booming laughter. My, but Crawler Crawler seems to be enjoying himself.

With a small pop of displaced air the Siberian appeared next to me and I glanced at the black and white striped woman. "Crawler has greeted Carnage, in his own unique fashion," I told her. "If you could gather the rest of our wayward family, I'd appreciate having everyone present to say hello." The Siberian nodded and took off, jumping through the air without a care in the world for physics. Well, she was a projection, after all, and projections had no need for such things.

I glanced at the ground and frowned. Had I seen movement? ...No, of course not. I hadn't been taken by surprise by any cape yet, hero or villain, and I wouldn't be taken by surprise now.

Before long, the Slaughterhouse Nine had gathered by my side; most had been enjoying themselves. Siberian waited silently, spotless as usual, and the others were covered in varying degrees of blood and gore. Alan was the most damaged, the segment of his shell that contained his right arm gone from the elbow down. "Aww," Bonesaw tittered, "did someone fight back?" In response, Alan pointed his right arm at her and extended a ceramic blade pointed at her eye before tilting his head inquisitively.

"Alan," I said meaningfully, deliberately using his name, "you know what will happen if you start a fight." The man-turned-mannequin seemed to consider the pros and cons of forcing me to use force of my own before the blade folded back into his self-contained systems seamlessly. "Excellent. Well, Crawler seems to have located the young Carnage for us and is currently playing with her."

Shatterbird smirked. "Hope he leaves some for us. Shame we can't do the tests this time, though."

"We grow and evolve by being tested," I told her, "but some people are tested merely by living. Judging from the reports found online and in the PRT offices, Carnage is one of those people. After all, the girl is cannibalizing her victims. Now, shall we proceed?" I strode down the streets, careless of putting them at my back. I was invincible; nothing could harm me. The thought of harming me was all but impossible; I glanced over at Siberian, the most dangerous of our little family, and watched as she cautiously wiped a smear of blood from Bonesaw's cheek. Bonesaw giggled and smiled up at her appointed 'mother'.

As I walked toward Crawler's location, I found another survivor and calmly opened my straight razor before slicing out; my power extended the cutting edge and split open his stomach. The rancid man grabbed at his spilling internal organs and screamed loudly as the slippery intestines slipped through his fingers. His blood spilled and pooled by the side of the road, mingling with the blood of countless others, and I smiled. Watching people undergo their own tests would never cease to amuse me whether they succeeded or failed. Bonesaw was humming a little tune as she skipped along, heedless of the dead and dying all around her. Crawler had been busy; he'd left us a path straight to him. When we finally came upon the sight of the battleground, Crawler and the girl were standing, facing each other. The girl was holding matching guns that seemed larger than her arms, but she was holding them effortlessly. A Brute after all. "Jack!" Crawler rumbled, his voice deep. "I like this one. She can hurt me!" As I watched, missing chunks of flesh grew back almost instantly, harder and thicker than before, though some pieces seemed to be regenerating slower than the others. The guns, perhaps.

"Excellent, Crawler. I'm very pleased that you've found someone that you feel can make you grow." I personally believed him to be wrong, that his powers weren't his only means of self-improvement, but that was an argument for another time. "So, we meet at last, Carnage. Or would you prefer Taylor Hebert?"

The girl glared at me. "Jack Slash. You..." Anger seemed to leave her at a loss for words for a moment, and I twisted my knife this way and that, letting it glint in the light. "Carnage will do just fine for now. Until I kill you."

I laughed. "A wonderful goal, one no doubt shared by many heroes and villains across the globe. What is our bounty at now?" I asked Cherish idly.

"Several million each," she said.

"Amazing. Simply amazing. You see? Just by living and entertaining myself, the world wishes to see me hang at the end of a rope."

"You kill people for fun," Carnage snapped at me.

I nodded. "I do. Do you not do the same?" The words came to me, as they always did. "Rampaging the streets like some monster, trying to feed on your prey... Hardly heroic behavior."

She twitched violently. "Shut up! Shut up shut up shut up! You're a bully, you and all your... and the rest of Slaughterhouse Nine, just common bullies and thugs!" Well, that was hardly polite. With a frown, I lightly flicked my knife and opened a slash along her cheek. She didn't even wince, staring at me as it healed. "And I hate bullies," she said finally.

"A shame," I said dubiously. "I'd intended to do this politely, invite you to join us after we'd had a nice chat. But if you insist on being rude... the hard way it is. Crawler!"

Crawler roared happily and thundered toward her, his hundred eyes rotating. Carnage immediately turned to him and opened fire, bullets raining toward the massive beast. The bullets exploded against him, carving off chunks of his armor and flesh, and he screamed in pain and delight. "More, girlie!" he shouted, his second mouth speaking as his first was destroyed. "Make it HURT!"

"Die already!" she screamed, firing as she ran. She was fast, able to dodge and run rings around the far-more-cumbersome Crawler. Still, she didn't expect the prehensile appendage that swung out from his side and sent her flying across the clearing into a nearby building. From the crumbled bricks and shadows she launched herself, snarling as her gun carved another massive hole in Crawler's side and destroying the offending tentacle.

"Jack, let us in on the action," Shatterbird called. "I want some fun too!"

I frowned, watching the fight. "No, let Crawler play. He's been searching for someone like her to play with." Still... his slowed regeneration was making me wonder. Could she be a Trump as well, canceling out his regeneration? But it wasn't power nullification, as Shatterbird still had her wings of glass and I had been able to stretch the cutting edge of my razor. "If it seems like he is in danger, you have my permission to step in."

Crawler roared and spat a glob of acid at Carnage, who jumped into the air and fired at several of his eyes. The extraneous organs burst with small pops and bled, the blood pooling on the ground almost indistinguishable as his aside from the hissing sound as the acidic blood ate at whatever it found to react with. Carnage landed lightly in the middle of the clearing and paused, exhaling slowly. "Do you really believe I'm a monster, Jack? More of one than you?"

I smirked, trusting my words. "My dear, I kill because I'm searching for improvement, for people that can grow. You massacre because you're hungry. Tell me, which of us is doing more for humanity?"

Her red eyes gleamed and she exhaled again. "I see." She put away her guns, and I immediately called for Crawler to stop. "Release..." she intoned. "Release restriction level 0..." Her eyes closed. "I am... the Bird of Hermes. Eating my own wing..."

My stomach plummeted. "Kill her!" I snapped. Something inside me was shouting that whatever was happening was wrong and needed to be eliminated. The member of Slaughterhouse Nine didn't hesitate; they struck with lethal intent, Burnscar making the flames dance as they played over the girl's body and Shatterbird sending her shards of glass straight at the body. Crawler reared back and slammed down onto her form over and over again.

But it was no use; her body had already changed to some sort of undulating plasma that ignored our attacks as though they were nothing. "...To keep myself tame," Taylor's voice echoed. Some sort of self-hypnotism to lock away her full powers, released by that strange chant? I shook my head. Regardless of her Changer powers, she would need to turn back at some point, and any human died if its lifeblood wouldn't reach its brain. She might be a regenerator, but I can cut faster than she can recover.

Suddenly, two strips of colored light appeared, leading from the quickly spreading cloud of plasma to Shatterbird and Burnscar. Before any of us could do anything, two metal spikes shot out of the darkness, impaling both women through the forehead. Cherish shrieked as they crumpled. "Bonesaw, shouldn't they have survived that?" I asked almost idly, staring as I tried to peer through the smoke and fires that Burnscar had started.

"The mesh protecting their skull and brain should have held through anything unless the projectile was approaching the speed of sound," the girl answered, staring as she nibbled at her fingernail. "But that shouldn't be -"

The smoke and fire cleared for an instant, allowing me to see the form of the darkness; it was filled with eyes and mouths, staring at us evilly as it spread and covered the ground. "I was trapped in a box by someone who wanted me to suffer," Taylor intoned. There were two figures protruding from the darkness; both men, but very different. One was tall, with broad shoulders and blonde hair, and the other was ratty and diseased, his teeth looking like cracked walnut shells. I recognized them, of course - Kaiser and Skidmark, two gangleaders from this town. She could use their powers? Had she consumed them? "Instead, I made the darkness my own. Became a part of it as it became a part of me." An insect crawled across my shoe and I stepped back, away from the rising pool of darkness. "I consumed the insects that crawled across my body and I needed more. They said I was anemic, gave me a bag of blood, and I felt almost human again. That's when I realized I needed to drink blood - it was the only thing that satisfied that craving deep inside me." Ah, excellent. She's insane, and not in a way I can use. "I ate and I ate and I ate but it still wasn't enough. But my father... he was always beside me, always there to tell me things would get better. He's with me now, and I know what I'm doing is wrong but I have to stop you. I need more."

I looked down again, feeling something else move, and I saw the blood on the ground start streaming towards her. "This..." I murmured, smiling broadly. "This is exactly what I've been looking for! Someone who has transcended humanity, who has passed all of her tests and grown as a result. You, Carnage! Taylor! You are what we need as our future!"

"Be silent!" she roared, and the darkness formed into her body, a tattered red cloak covering her, even as it spread across the ground in waves. The blood on the ground was consumed by her instantly as it was drawn toward her, the rivers of blood unceasing as she drank in the blood of the corpses we had created. "It's not enough yet, but it will be," she said, aiming the gun at me. "More than enough to kill you." From the darkness, shapes rose, and I stepped back with a wide smile. Humans, animals, insects... These had to be everything that she'd consumed. "My Familiars are feeding now," she said. "With every person and animal that they eat, my powers grow."

Crawler roared and charged her; without looking, Carnage pulled the trigger on her massive black gun and blasted his head in two. The brain started healing slowly, far slower than I remember it healing before, and she fired again and again and again. Before long, it stopped regenerating entirely and I watched as a swarm of darkness enveloped Crawler's body. "A Tinker-made gun, I assume. Designed somehow to interfere with regeneration," I observed.

"I have their memories - all shouting, all whispering in my ear at the same time," Carnage said. "You called me a monster, Jack? You were right."

Cherish screamed and ran for it, giving up all hopes of making up for her failure; with a sigh, I turned and sliced out. My knife cut into the tendons of her legs and she fell, sprawling on the ground. Sobbing, she tried dragging herself away, only to scream as a swarm of insects and humans crashed on her and swallowed her up. Well, that was one annoyance removed.

"I'm a monster. And I'm your worst nightmare."

3.X Taylor

Cherish, Shatterbird, and Burnscar had been easy for her to handle.

Crawler, for all his vaunted regeneration, died like any other human once her Jackal had blown his brain to bits. The bullets are extremely powerful in their own right, and the mercury charge is designed to slow and/or eliminate regeneration entirely, Rune's voice whispered in her mind. Please note that this gun is extremely heavy and as such should only be used by Brutes. She knew all of that, of course; Rune's knowledge and memories were hers the moment she consumed the girl. Everything about the Neo-Nazi's life, from growing to being in juvie and triggering to fighting her; even the last moments of stark terror and pain as the cape died and became part of her.

Jack Slash was standing calmly, his small smirk never moving. "Bonesaw," he said, not taking his eyes off of Taylor, "is your present ready?"

"Yep! I remembered what you said about epidemics and everything," she said, crossing her heart with a little x shape. "Only five or six cycles, tops."

"That's very well done. Now, don't you think it's time to give Carnage her gift?"

"Okay!" the bio-tinker chirped before fishing a remote out of her blood-stained apron and pressing a button. Taylor's eyes narrowed as she wondered what exactly the bio-tinker had cooked up.

An explosion rocked through her sense and she nearly buckled as a wave of weakness washed over her. What had... Her Familiars. They had been poisoned somehow, destroying themselves and other Familiars. She couldn't even do anything but hope that the weakness wasn't life-threatening. "Tell me, Carnage, are you enjoying our gift? It was designed against Crawler, truth be told, in the event that he ever considered himself strong enough. According to Bonesaw, it's supposed to turn the body's own systems against it until it eats itself from the inside out and bursts, propogating itself in any blood it touches. And since your lovely Familiars are formed from blood..." He spread his arms and chuckled. "You can see how effective it is."

Taylor screamed as the feedback from her Familiars assaulted her senses. She hadn't felt I couldn't do anything but stand there shuddering as she stood up, absently stepping on Nick's motionless body as she this pain in so long. The last time she felt this pain was before the The timeline split as he exerted his power, the other him going to the right while he turned left. He looked over his shoulder locker incident, before she'd been part of the dark. Then the pain stopped and she looked up, smiling widely with all of her mouths as she silenced the screaming horde in her mind. "It's over, Jack," she shouted. "Your plague failed."

"Tsk." He seemed irritated, the first real emotion she'd seen on his face. "Trust a monster to recover from something like that."

"It won't work, Jack, not any more," Taylor snarled. She'd accepted what she was. "Are you human enough to kill me? I doubt it!"

Mannequin silently slunk forward, his blades licking out and stabbing one of her Familiars in the head before the tide washed over him as well. Taylor frowned; he wasn't being assimilated. The tide receded and the featureless man tilted his head, as if asking 'Was that it?' and stabbing another of her Familiars. She growled and pulled out the Casull and fired several times, each shot accurately shattering one of his spheroid compartments. For the first time Mannequin seemed startled and Taylor didn't waste her chance, directing her flood to swallow him up without a sound. His mind merged with the rest of her swarm and she smiled as his memories became hers, wincing as she listened to the Simurgh's song again. It was hauntingly familiar, though she'd only heard it once before when she consumed Echidna - beautiful and horrifying. He'd been a great Tinker, once, before the Simurgh had warped his mind and driven him insane.

"There's only three left, Jack," she shouted, walking forward implacably. "Three of you are all the remain of the Slaughterhouse Nine." The Siberian jumped toward her and Taylor let her strike her through the chest, spearing her heart. She knew that her regeneration would save her; she'd come back from worse. While the Siberian impaled her, she brought her Jackal up and fired; the bullet burst, shrapnel shredding Taylor's face, and the Siberian winked out of existence. A few steps away, she appeared again, unharmed, and Taylor's eye - the one that wasn't regenerating and staring wildly in the eye socket - narrowed. "A projection?" she mused, reading from the memories of Cherish. "I see." She concentrated and ordered her Familiars to spread out and engulf the city. People screamed as they were absorbed only to surge from the darkness and blood, killing loved ones that just seconds before they had been protecting. Taylor smiled suddenly, pointed teeth gleaming, and a very special set of memories became hers as simultaneously the Siberian disappeared. "Manton. He was a cape - projecting an image of his daughter. She died, didn't she? Experimenting with man-made powers. How strange."

Jack wasn't so smug anymore. "I'm better than you," he shouted, knife slashing left and right. Familiars fell only to be replaced by another; Taylor knew she was burning through them quickly, but she had the entire population of Brockton Bay as well as several nigh-immortal capes as Familiars. She would survive. "All you can do is feed, like a mindless, raving animal! No goals, no plans, nothing!"

"I had goals and plans," she told him, sweeping forward like the queen she could have been with her coat flapping behind her. "They were taken from me! By people that had power and abused it. By bullies."

Bonesaw tossed something into the air that froze her Familiars in a radius. "Uncle Jack's not a bully!" she shouted, and Taylor barely flinched as she pulled the trigger and blew Bonesaw's head apart with a single bullet from the Jackal. The Familiars swarmed her and the congealed mass of the other Familiars and Taylor tensed. The little hellspawn had giggled as I injected a new virus into his system, then skipped away and watched as his veins bulged, turning a dark set up hundreds of plagues, set to go off if she didn't keep in contact with them every so often. For the meantime, Taylor had her new Familiar send the 'all clear' code and disappear back into the darkness.

"You're all alone, Jack," Taylor whispered. "And the darkness will swallow you up."

Jack Slash smiled, then, a large broad smile. "And when you do that, I will have won," he said. "The monster will have consumed me, but in doing so will have given up its humanity forever."

"I've already done that," she told him, and with a lightning-fast dash plunged her teeth into his artery.

As the sun set, she sat back and gathered her Familiars back to her, hiding the darkness as she renewed the restrictions on her power and locked herself to just her regeneration, enhanced physical abilities, and minor appearance shifting. Once that was finished, she just slumped to the ground and sat on a chunk of rubble, the world ignored. The next thing that disturbed her was the sound of a large engine roaring, and she slowly looked up to see that it was daylight and that a large mechanical creation was approaching her. She recognized one of Dragon's jets - one of the PRT agents she had consumed from the flooded shelter whispered in her mind that Dragon operated the suits remotely. "Taylor Hebert?" the speaker called out.

"Dragon."

The suit landed. "Hello, Taylor," the kindly voice said, just a hint of a Canadian accent bleeding through. "I'm sorry we couldn't meet under better conditions."

Taylor smiled and stood up, approaching the ship. "Are you here to take me to the Birdcage?" The inescapable prison for parahuman supervillains, it was where the worst of the worst went to be locked away forever. "Or to kill me?"

"I don't want to kill you."

"But there is a kill order out, of course. I've killed and consumed this entire town, not to mention the Slaughterhouse Nine." Could she be killed? She'd consumed so many Brutes - Aegis, Crawler, Alabaster... Their whispers of power trickled through her mind as she let their tortured minds touch hers - that she wasn't sure she could die no matter how much she wanted to.

The suit's ramp opened and she walked up it slowly, feeling weary. A screen inside showed a woman's face - Dragon herself. "The Slaughterhouse Nine had kill orders, and so your actions were justified there. Because of your... other actions, there was talk of a kill order." Dragon smiled. "I managed to convince them that you would enter the Birdcage instead. I think you're the kind of person that would do that."

Taylor sighed. "Just... take me somewhere I won't hurt people that don't deserve it." Her power messed with her mind; she knew that. When it was in control, she just killed and ate anything in her way - but it wasn't in control, and Taylor could make her own decisions. "Kill me, lock me away, I don't care anymore." The ramp closed and the suit's engines roared as she slumped on the seat nearby. "I'm just so tired..."

Taylor's eyes drifted shut and she slept, dreaming of a better time.

Happy Halloween, you jerks!

Alright, alright, settle down, settle down. I know none of you care about this, but hear me out.

First off - this was written in about two weeks with a week of planning beforehand and a week of editing after. It was more a challenge than anything else, a way of me saying 'Hey dipshit get off your ass and write the story already'. I need practice with writing a variety of characters, and that was part of what this was about. Another part was me REALLY wanting to write Taylor with Alucard's power.

Impressions time! I enjoyed writing this (most of it, anyways) but don't think I'll be writing for Worm again. Part of it being a) I'm just not as big a fan of writing Worm fics as I am reading them and b) ...fuck, that's a lot of characters to keep straight.

Segments that were the easiest/hardest to write: Easiest was probably Sophia, strangely enough. I'd like to think I got her character down fairly well, but knowing me I probably fucked it up ten ways from Sunday. Hardest was... Hm. Hardest was a tie between Dinah and Miss Militia, I think. Dinah because I don't really remember what it's like to be a kid (and because I wasn't sure exactly how mature Dinah was - in canon, she's been drugged heavily so I really can't use that for a base) and Miss Militia because holy shit it's really hard to write characters that are genuinely good people.

Segments that were the most fun/least fun to write: Most fun was a tie between all of Skidmark and the first half of Jack Slash. I just have a thing for unrepentant jackasses, y'know? It helps that Skidmark's character is basically 'every few words combine a curse word with an object commonly found in the kitchen'. Jack Slash... In Hellsing, the named villains are mostly genial and easy-going, ignoring the fact that half are blood-thirsty vampire Nazis, and I wanted to represent that somewhere. I also find the mental image of Jack and Bonesaw waiting patiently for the light to change before crossing the street funny. Least fun to write was probably PHO interludes; eh, don't know why. Probably all the formatting I had to do. (Recognize a few names up there? Hee hee hee. IscAAriot and TheCrimsonFckr are probably my favorite little joke. No, that second one isn't Taylor.)

Point of view: I did that on purpose. Everyone is in first person - except Taylor, who's in third. It's mainly to enforce the feeling of Taylor not quiet being human anymore. Did it work? Or was it just weird?

Anyway, that was my (probably rough and sloppy) three-shot. I probably won't be doing something like this again. It was dumb. Fun, but dumb. I'd originally planned to write a lot of this at work, since waiting for programs to compile takes forever, but then a large amount of time-sensitive stuff popped up and WHOOPS there goes my writing time when I'm trying to figure out how to rotate a three-dimensional shape while simultaneously stretching it. Blegh.

Also, because I've seen it mentioned a few times, this story is only here, not on SB, SV, QQ, or any other acronym... It's just not high-enough quality, I think; if I wanted to post it somewhere else, I'd probably take the time to fully flesh it out (more than just the week and half of planning I did). For a Halloween fic, written in a month? Eh, passable quality. Not exactly up to my standards, but meh, whatever, I wrote it more or less because I needed to. For a fic on those boards? Nowhere near good enough.

My initial reaction when I wrote this, by the way: "Oops, did I just accidentally a three-shot?" (why yes i do watch hellsing abridged)

Many thanks to everyone that favorited, followed, or reviewed.