-DAY-BREAKER-

Excerpt from 'A Skittering Heart' Chapter 14

{However, there was nothing. No crime in progress, no screams in the distance, no drugs deals being made in a door frame, no gang member's playing with switch knifes in the dark, nothing.

Taylor felt like this was extremely at odds of her idea of Brockton at night, despite her experience with the Wards. There was always first page coverage on Dad's paper of major crimes or fights that happened when she was fast asleep in her bed, safe at night.

Now, here she was, looking like an idiot in a really cool coat. Taylor sighed and felt the wind pick up, making a little chill without the sun to warm her, it was only just the beginning of spring after all. Maybe tomorrow night, she hoped.

Taylor paused and thought.

Tomorrow was a school night. 'Great', she thought sourly.

With a second, heavier sigh she started to head back home.}

After a disappointing night of patrol, Taylor landed on the roof opposite of her and Sabah's workplace, The Doll House. She still felt restless, the energy inside her, that others had told her was supposedly magic, felt like it was itching to be released against the villainy of Brockton Bay. Taylor took another deep breath as she leaned against an air conditioning unit, she stared blankly for a moment at the hole in the roof she had accidently made a few nights ago at the end of the patrol with Vista and Clockblocker.

"Wool gathering again, kupo?" Came a familiar voice from above Taylor.

"Gah!" Taylor exclaimed, trying to turn around before her feet got caught on the keyblade sending her head over heels across the roof top. Taylor was slightly dazed as she looked up from her prone position, to see Mog sitting on top of the air conditioner. He in turn peered down at her in what could pass as concern, before he grinned in amusement at her sprawled out form.

"Mog," Taylor groaned. "What are you doing out here? No, never mind. I don't want to know."

"Kupo," Mog huffed, "I figured since you seem to have some extra energy in you tonight, we could continue some more lessons in chanted magic. You may have the knack for magic, kupo, but a little bit more knowledge doesn't hurt." Mog had crossed his arms and taking a seat, before looking at Taylor with a raised eyebrow.

"But, I… huh? What? … Fine." Taylor agreed, while wondering when Mog had gotten those fuzzy eyebrows. "So maister, what do we start with?"

Mog rubbed his now bearded chin, "Have you come up with any chants of your own yet?"

Taylor rubbed the back of her head, embarrassed. "Eh, I've been kind'a busy…"

"Taylor," Mog sighed, "Alright! No time like the present. Chanting a magic spell is adding a little more oomph to it. If you personalize it, it's that much stronger. Here," he handed Taylor some paper while keeping a few for himself. "I'll stay here and write down a few for you. You go to the other side of the roof and try a few yourself. Then we'll compare."

Now here Taylor was, pacing the edge of roof trying to think of a magic rhyme so she could cast a bigger spell. She tried several times but for some reason kept getting stuck trying to rhyme orange. Nothing rhymed with orange!

She let out another sigh, looking up at the moon hanging in the sky, her mind turning back to the good times of her childhood. In particular an old cartoon she had watched with Emma before her mother had died. She remembered her mother actually sitting down to watch it with them, even chanting along with the main character in silly poses. The memory made Taylor smile briefly at the hilarity of it, then for a lark she decided to try to remember that silly chant. After a minute to properly commit the words to mind, she took a deep breath and began to chant and...

The world changed.

The pen in Mog's paw scribbled quickly across the paper in front of him. Briefly he was lost in his memories of times long past, when he was but a youngling trying to learn to harness his own inner magic and not doing that great a job of it. He laughed now at the memory, but it still hurt in his heart that he never really got that part of his heritage.

Mog's thoughts turned to his young pupil, such talent she had. If she could harness her magic she would become quite powerful indeed. He chuckled slightly at the thought of Taylor slinging around her magic while demanding for something completely ridiculous, when he was shaken by a sensation of complete dread.

Mog abandoned his writings as he turned to find Taylor, to make sure she was safe. What he saw terrified him. There was Taylor, standing on the corner of the roof, her hood blown back exposing her one eyed gaze to the world, a massive amount of primal magic swirled around her in a scarlet miasma slowly condensing into her hands. The bottom of her jacket was slowly turning from its normal pure white into streaks of red and black flame. Then she opened her lips and began to chant in a voice so deep, Mog almost believed it was someone else for a second.

"Darkness beyond twilight."

The Dragon of Kyushu was buffeted by the wind as he leisurely hunted down the children who dared to defy him. His wings held him aloft as he harried the teen villains calling themselves the 'Undersiders' throughout the docks, his territory. There was no great challenge in this hunt, he just felt like taking on his dragonesque form, to remind his enemies that he was dangerous and that they lived at his sufferance.

He blew another bout of flame, herding the teens away from the safety they searched for. For a moment he chuckled in humor, then he felt a great shiver down his spine, a fell voice seemed to echo in the air. An uncle of his, back in Japan would have called it the willies, a sign of great danger to come. If this was true, then he could have a bigger challenge than what he was doing now. His maw turned into a cruel grin. Let them come, he was the Lung, he was the dragon.

"Crimson beyond blood that flows."

Dennis sat beside his father's sick-bed, thinking about the latest cape in the city. Portunes as she was called, had a rare healing ability. For a moment he debated whether he should risk asking her to heal his father of the cancer that plagued him, but quickly dismissed it. Piggy would have his head on a platter if he revealed his identity so easily. The light from outside was growing bright enough to disturb his father's rest, so with a heavy sigh, Dennis got up and hurriedly shut the curtains.

It would only be much later, when the joker of the Wards, would realize it was still the middle of the night and too early for the sun. But by then it would be too late.

"Buried in the stream of time."

A middle-aged man slept in his pile of refuse, blissed out on the newest narcotics that had arrived in port. Content in his dreams, he never realized this could be his last night amongst the living. He clutched an a ratty teddy bear to his chest and subconsciously pulled more dirt to wrap around him as the wind began to turn a little colder.

"Is where your power grows."

The woman who had taken the name of Faultline, sighed wearily as she slumped into her office chair above her night club. The welder's helmet that she used to conceal her identity sat on her desk, a testament to another night's failure to discover the origins of what people had come to call Case 53's. It was a frustration that was mounting for the mercenary, every time she came close to finding that one clue she and her people needed, it conveniently vanished into thin air, as if it had never been.

Pouring herself a measure of scotch, Faultline sat next to the window, which was slightly cracked open, to listen to the sounds of the night, while planning for tomorrow's operation. Maybe Canary could finally yield the answers she sought? Just as she raised her glass to her lips, the world seemed to fold in on itself as her instincts screamed at her that something of great horror was happening and it was too late to run.

"I pledge myself to conquer all the foes who stand."

Another slab of paperwork seemed too materialized on her desk adding to the already large amount that needed to be reviewed and notarized. It made Hanna sigh at the amount of bureaucracy that happened on the day to day basis of the PRT and the Protectorate. Another sigh followed upon discovering that her coffee had gone cold. Getting up to get a fresh cup, Hanna idly noticed that the new paperwork was an analyses on the new Rouge; Keynote, or Portunes as she wished to be called. The reports from Clockblocker and Vista had been both humorous and informative.

Hanna poured her coffee while noticing that a red sun was rising this early morning. This brought to mind an old maritime proverb that she had heard from a nice man in the Dock Workers Union once, 'Red skies at night, sailors delight. Red skies in the morning, sailors take warning.' It wasn't till she was back at her desk and just taking a gulp of her coffee that Hanna realized that her window faced West.

The spit take was glorious.

"Before the mighty gift, bestowed in my unworthy hand."

The young girl, known to many as the villain named Rune, the first cape Portunes had truly fought against, slept peacefully in her bed, dreaming of round two against the cute Keyblade wielder. The small smile on her face slowly disappeared as her dreams became more disquieting.

"Let the fools who stand before me be destroyed,"

Armsmaster's motorcycle tore down the midtown streets. He had just been talking to Dragon about the Taylor Hebert situation, and several contingencies they were working to put into place for the young girl, when he received an emergency alert. Lung has been sighted, and he was escalating quickly. Not wasting a second, Armsmaster cut off his conversation with Dragon and immediately turned his bike North, heading towards the Docks where Lung had been last sighted.

Armsmaster cursed to himself, it would take him a full 12.35 minutes to reach Lung's last known location. Before he could curse at the traffic he was being forced to weave through, his visor lit up with enough multiple high energy warnings that he almost lost control of his bike. As he tried to make sense of all the chaotic data he was receiving, another alert was made to his sound filter system. Squeezing his finger muscles in just the right order, he filtered the sound that his suit picked up to his ears. A voice that was familiar yet unfamiliar came to his ears, and with it an uncontrollable darkness seemed to cross his vision for a moment as the night seemed to become a little blacker and other sounds became non-existent.

"By the power you and I possess…"

Those who were awake that night and had survived what came, would always have the memory of the engine of destruction burned into their minds for all time. The words that haunted them would cause many sleepless nights as they wondered if the Red Death would be coming for them next. It was that night when Brockton Bay suffered its death blow.

"DRAGON SLAVE!"

Utter dread griped the city as a chaotic crimson beam of pure destruction twisted and writhed in upon itself as it scoured across the night sky. The energy beam first slammed through the Medhal building, sundering it from its perch, its remains collapsing across the downtown area heavily damaging the surrounding structures. As it left the secret stronghold of the Empire, the scarlet energy seemed to coalesce into focus as it rammed with all its deadly speed and power into the only 'dragon' on the east coast of America. Lung screamed in pain, as his silvery scaled hide was continuously burned and ripped away, as he was pushed along the path of the beam.

The Dragon Slave's final destination was the Boat Graveyard, where at this moment the Merchants were having a rave party. With Lung at the head of its impact, the dark spell of desolation reached its termination point where it detonated into a great mile wide crimson ball of hellfire. When the light and the heat finally died down enough for people to see once again, the face of Brockton Bay had changed. A crater a mile across, was all that was left to attest to the raw power of the horrific energy that had impacted here, it stretched from the former Boat graveyard, over the docks and into much of the industrial area. An online thread quickly gave it the name Second Impact, the first being the devastation to the downtown area.

Coil closed that timeline quickly, the sweat poured down his face at the terror that he had beheld. He knew as soon as possible, he was getting stone cold drunk, but first he had a call to make. It was difficult, but he managed to keep his breathing under control as the phone rang. Once he heard the female voice on the other end, he briskly ordered, "If you wish to avoid being killed by Lung this night Sarah, I suggest you deviate your flight to bring yourself and your team into Parin's territory."

With that, Coil hung up and collapsed into his chair, hoping for a better chance tomorrow. He also made a mental note to shoot the men he had watching the Hebert girl.