Orthosilicic 2.4
(Taylor Hebert)
March 5, 2011, evening
Taylor watched Crystal burst through the ceiling with a faint sense of amusement. Sure, he was her new partner and she shouldn't laugh at his pain, but seeing his kicking feet hang out of the ceiling as the floorboards tried to push him up was hilarious. Taylor looked back down at Rune, who was smirking up at Crystal's feet from across the room, and tensed as she remembered where exactly she was.
In the middle of a house owned by the Empire.
As Crystal squirmed above her, Taylor slowly began to leak water out from under her feet, popping the plastic seal keeping the soles of her shoes intact.
Rune looked down the second the plastic snapped, and frowned at her.
"Look, Fish… If that's your name. I think we got off on the wrong foot. Sure, you snuck into my uncle's house through the back door and blasted two of the people I was beating in poker through a wall, but can we just not fight? Tonight's my night off."
Monologuing. Good. Dad had always told her that if someone spent time monologuing at her, use it wisely. Taylor tilted the soles of her feet backwards away from Rune the teenage Nazi, and proceeded to stall.
"Day off? I didn't realize that Nazis received vacation days."
Crystal was finally shunted all the way up, floor boards smashing flat against the ceiling, leaving muffled curses from the room above her.
"Everyone under eighteen gets Saturdays off. And the pay is really good. You can still join us, if you want to. You know, after you pay for the table and walls."
"No thanks, I'm not racist."
"So? Doesn't mean you can't join." Rune paused as Taylor remained unmoved "You still want to fight, huh?"
At Taylor's nod, Rune sighed. "Guess I won't be spending the rest of my day relaxing after all." And with a flick of her wrist, the broken table flew. Taylor leaped backwards with a burst of water, dodging above the table while diving towards the open door behind her. The tumbling table lifted as she flew over it, nearly smacking her legs as she passed through the door frame. With a loud 'smack' the table crashed into the frame behind her, and she twisted to land on her feet, just beyond Rune's reach.
Taylor made sure to wave at Rune before darting to the stairs to check on Crystal.
A quiet "Really?" came up behind her, and Taylor snickered as she flew up the staircase. Glancing around at the top, she looked left and saw Crystal stumbling out of the bedroom he paid an unannounced visit to.
"You okay Crystal?"
"Not hurt, but I am annoyed." She sighed in relief "I forgot I could teleport for a bit there. Did you take her down already?"
Taylor almost answered before she watched Crystal peer over her shoulder and comment "Nope" before vanishing.
Taylor barely had time to fly into the room Crystal had left before an end table smashed into the end of the hallway.
"Stop running! I thought you wanted a fight!"
"I didn't want a fight, I want to take you in!"
"What's the difference?" Rune questioned from the hallway as Taylor slipped under the bed.
Priming her hands towards the entrance of the room, Taylor waited for a pair of feet to pass into view. It wasn't very comfortable hiding under the bed while covered in dust, but she wasn't there for comfort. White boots skidded into her sight, and Taylor let the primed water loose.
"Really? Under the be-AAAHH SHIT!" Rune screamed out as her feet blew out from under her, stopping her fall by grabbing the sheets on the bed.
A second's pause occurred as Rune stared Taylor in the eye, hanging inches above the ground, before a 'thwack' sounded out. The bed, which had started to rise after Rune attempted to use her power on it, fell back down with a crash.
Taylor sighed as nothing hit her, and cringed a little at the sight in front of her.
It was Rune, lying on her side, holding her head, and yelling "FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK", as Crystal stood above her with his hands held up.
"Sorry! Er, not really, you're a villain, but my hands shouldn't be that hard?" Why did that sound so much like a question?
"Crystal, your hands are made of rock. What did you expect?"
"Well I expected her to be unconscious, but she's still screaming in pain!"
"Where did you hit her? No, wait, here!" Taylor fished out the zip ties from her pockets "Use them, quick! We can't let her recover."
"Right, can you get the legs?" Crystal asked her as he held Rune's hands together. Rune was still shuddering in pain, but had thankfully stopped screaming. No one that young should have been screaming like that. It wasn't right, listening to a teenage girl scream that way, even if she was a villain. And had probably killed people. Why was she upset again?
Taylor crawled out from under the bed awhile grabbing another zip tie, stopping once she had Runes legs tied together. Once Rune's limbs were bound, Taylor slipped her hands to Rune's neck and began checking for a pulse.
"She's alive, and I can't find any blood, but I'm not taking off the mask to check," There was a very large sigh from Crystal at her words, and the relief that flowed through Taylor was substantial as well.
Starting off her first cape fight with a murder would not go well when she called the PRT, even if she wasn't the one to do it.
Rune was still whimpering on the floor as Taylor stood, pulling out the prepaid phone she stole from the drug dealer the previous night and dialing the PRT.
"You're calling an ambulance, right?" Crystal asked "I like not being a murderer."
"PRT first. If they send an ambulance, they'll send an ambulance. They could just call for Panacea, but she'll be fine either way."
Crystal nodded in relief then turned to leave the room, "You call the PRT, I loot the house?"
Pausing her dialing, Taylor poised a questioning glance at Crystal. "Are you sure this house will have anything of worth? It doesn't look like a safe house or drug lab. All Rune said was that it was her uncle's house and all the only loot that would be here was poker winnings. And I may have… um, soaked those."
"I still need whatever's left, but you're probably right." He sighed and left the room "I'll take a look and see what I can find. Call if you need me."
As Crystal left her sight, Taylor hit the dial button on her phone.
Rune was finally quieting, something Taylor wasn't sure was good or bad, leaving the only sounds in the room to be harsh breathing and ringing.
The ringing cut off with a 'click', and a feminine voice spoke.
"PRT hotline, what is your emergency?"
"Hi, um, this is Fish, independent hero?" Why did she sound so unsure of herself? She was better than this! "I sent a letter with my registration last month if you need to find any of my information, but I, um, have Rune in my custody."
The pause that followed was only interrupted by the quickened breathing of Rune on the floor beneath her.
"Fish, let's see…" Some typing noises came over the phone "Suspected independent hero… Turned in two Empire drug dealers on the fourth of March… Can you confirm, you have Rune in custody? How do you have her contained? Where are you?"
Duh, she should have started with that. "I'm in an Empire house on Pine Street, 824, I think? It's the one with the open front door. But I have Rune zip tied upstairs in a bedroom. My partner should be tying up the gang members downstairs now, ma'am." She had given him extra zip ties, right? Hopefully he was taking care of that right now.
"Please remember to keep Rune's hands from reaching any large objects, her power is tactile telekinesis." She stopped, and Taylor took the time to spare a glance at Rune, who was reaching for the bed. Taylor coughed, and Rune looked up at her with a sheepish grin on her face.
"Couldn't hurt to try, right?"
"Don't make me take you outside. Keep your hands up, I don't want to hurt you any more than Crystal did."
Rune winced at the reminder.
"Miss, are you still there? We have a PRT squad and Protectorate member inbound, if you don't mind waiting."
"I'll be here, keeping Rune out of trouble."
"Do you have time to answer questions, miss? You mentioned a partner, but you registered as a solo hero? Is your partner a recent addition?"
Taylor did not want to fill out more paper work, so she responded as truthfully as she thought Crystal would want.
"Right, I met him last week after turning in those dealers. We decided to raid the house we're in now, because he saw a guy leaving with a large bag of money, but we found Rune playing poker instead."
"Poker? Miss, did you see Rune without a mask on?"
"No, she had it on during the game. Neither of us know her identity."
"Good, that simplifies things. Now, did you, or did you not, know for a fact that the house was Empire-owned before you entered it?"
"Yes we knew. Two drunk goons left the house and made it a clear fact to us before we went inside." Taylor kicked Rune's reaching hands again.
"Thank you. Your… partner… does he wish to remain anonymous or does he want to be registered as well?"
"I haven't asked him, but he goes by the name 'Crystal', if you have anything on him already."
Another pause filled with typing, and the woman on the line spoke up again "Crystalline man, colored purple, suspected changer or Case-53? Does this sound like him, miss?"
"Yes ma'am."
"He has several reports of accidental violence against criminals he's turned in, is Rune in critical condition?"
That surprised Taylor. He'd hurt criminals before? Was it really an accident, or does he just not understand how strong he is? Is he really…?
"….still there? Miss?"
"Sorry, sorry. Rune may have a slight concussion, but she's awake and trying to escape."
The sigh was audible from the other side of the phone, and Taylor wasn't sure if it was exasperated or relieved. "Does she appear to be concussed? Is she showing signs of confusion, dizziness, nausea, or fatigue?"
"No ma'am, she seems fine mentally. You know, other than the rampant Nazism." They both laughed as Rune scowled from the floor.
A truck sounded from outside the house, and Taylor heard Crystal from downstairs "Fish! PRT's here. You have Rune?"
"The PRT squad is here now ma'am, thank you for sending them here so quickly."
"My pleasure, Fish, have a good night."
Lifting up Rune by her armpits, Taylor began to drag the pouting girl down the hallway, using a bit of her water to make the load lighter, and stopped at the top of the stairs.
"Don't do it, you bitch." Rune grumbled from under her.
"I'm not going to shove you down the stairs, Rune, even if you're a Nazi. But I don't want to drop you, so hold on."
"Hold on to whaAAAT!" Rune screeched as Taylor flew down the stairs, purposely hitting Rune's legs on the banister at the bottom.
She smirked at Rune's groans, but let herself grin wider at the sight of Crystal with two backpacks on.
"Find anything good?"
"At least two thousand dollars, but I didn't exactly have enough time to count. Over four hundred are a little soggy though." At Taylor's sheepish look, the crystalline man quickly corrected himself "Not that there's anything wrongs with that! You did good!"
"You mean well?"
"Well, you did good too, didn't you?"
"That she did…" a voice rang out from the front door.
It was woman wearing blue armor, yellow plates covering the chest and shoulders, with a large blue bag on the back, faintly pulsing with a dark-blue glow.
He mouth was uncovered, showing off her pearly white teeth and pristine dark skin. Her eyes were covered by an obsidian-like visor, which was adorned by a yellow circle in the center.
It was the Brockton Bay Protectorate's second newest member after Triumph. A Tinker with an unannounced specialty that used to be a part of the PRT before she was suspected of going rogue (Which was eventually discarded).
And she was standing in front of them.
"You both did good."
She seemed really suspicious.