Read aloud to me alt Taylor

by Kahlil Johnson

Dnd

38. Freeze

"Stay where you belong, in the trash!"

The ringing words of Emma was the last thing Taylor heard as Sophia pushed her into the abomination of sanitation called her locker, the hand on the back of her head forcing her forward and cracking her forehead against the uncaring steel. While she reeled from the impact a quick series of shoves forced the rest of her body in as well, the foul contents giving way before her.

The mocking laugh of Emma ringing out in time to the pulsing stars in her view, Taylor tried to recoil from the stench but her scrambling limbs found no purchase. The sounds from outside the box were muffled by her frantic attempts to get some form of leverage, to brace herself to kick or claw the door open but to no avail. While the buzz of conversation and activity outside continued Taylor lurched around and fought to free herself, but with a sickening crack her forehead struck a segment of locker that was protruding from the back slightly. Darkness swiftly overcame her.

Consciousness was unpleasant. It felt like a slow rousing from poor sleep, eyes gritty and head bleary with strain. As Taylor blinked her way to consciousness she felt a sticky resistance to her attempts to clear her eyes, a thin film that rebuffed her attempts. Focusing on this strange sensation over anything else, Taylor laboriously raised a hand to her face, the effort taking a toll on her. As she wiped the gunk from her eyes she could feel that it was semi-solid, a partially frozen state of unidentifiable liquids that clung to her skin even as she pried it away. The effort to do so drained her and she returned to darkness.

Eyes rapidly opened, blinking in confusion and fear. No light reached into the inside of the locker, the metal coffin subsumed in darkness. Taylor tried to stretch her limbs, feeling that the slurry the Trio had placed her in having partially solidified in the freezing cold of winter, the metal of her locker serving as a freezer. As she brushed against congealed lumps there was a spark of motion that came from something else, a faint feeling of pressure against her thighs and stomach. Slowly reaching her shivering hand down to her legs, Taylor felt along her flesh and touched an open sore that had somehow come about during her internment. With stiff fingers she prodded at the wound, feeling nothing from it. A lack of sensation that rang out as a warning before her fingers touched something more concerning. A source of warmth. A wriggling form that burrowed into the open wound, seeking warmth within the flesh of Taylor. Her scream was high and sharp, tearing forth from freezing vocal cords and splitting the night. A plea for help that no one heard.

Waking up felt comfortable. A cool refreshing breeze that soothed the body and mind. Taylor felt that she hadn't felt so comfortable for a long time, not since Emma and her had stopped having slumber parties, enjoying sitting in the backyard and watching stars before heading inside for coca. A lazy stretch created a loud shattering noise, metal pinging off the walls and hallway as the locker door exploded outwards. Freezing in place and rapidly blinking to adjust to the increase in light Taylor saw that her foot was extended through the locker. The leg attached to the foot was red, a vivid and unhealthy red. Staying in place with her leg extended was simple, as the contents of the locker had frozen in place, creating a brace for Taylor to rest her weight against as she focused on her extended limb.

Slow motions revealed that there was no pain, no stiffness that hampered her despite the fact she had just put her foot through a steel locker. The absurdity of the situation began to strike her, half in and half out of her locker, one leg extended and doing small circles as she stared. A hysterical giggle began to break free from her lips, a burbling that Taylor couldn't find the will to suppress. The giggles continued as she tore her arms and torso free from the frozen grasp of the locker, tumbling to the ground in a tangle of limbs and hair.

Standing up with stumbling steps Taylor looked around the abandoned halls of Winslow. The moon shone through the window of a nearby class, telling her that the entire day had passed and no one had bothered to even let her out of the locker. No one had checked on her, no staff, no student, no janitor. No one. No one cared enough about her, no one had dared to cross the Trio. Fragmented sobs began to break free from her still form, a deep wracking noise of grief and rage. Taylor slammed a forearm against another students locker, to vent her rage.

The locker shattered. The metal clattering around inside as Taylor stared at her arm in confusion. Taking a small step backwards and examining the lockers revealed a startling condition. They were all frozen. Ice spread along the corridor, and into the classes around her. The metal turned brittle and weak in the face of extreme cold. The floor also bore signs of the arctic cold that had swept through Winslow, the linoleum peeling and flaking under the lightest prompting from her foot.

"What?"

Slowly working her way along the corridor Taylor let her fingers trail over the frozen steel, the temperature seeming pleasant to her fingers. As she continued to make her way towards the front exit her hand changed from simply trailing along into a fist. Trembling with rage. Shaking with hate. The front doors shattered rather than opened at a light push but Taylor couldn't find it in her to care, surely Blackwell finally earn her salary as principal by fixing it. A snort left her at the thought of Blackwell actually doing something constructive. Stepping out into the strangely warm Brockton night Taylor started to make her way towards her house.

Her path lead her along an empty road, the busses that normally ran the route absent due to the late hour but the homeless and vagrant population of Brockton was still at large. Small clusters of people walking together, lone figures gazing out from broken windows, and hard eyed stares at the unknown figure of Taylor. Focusing her gaze forward Taylor tried to ignore the stares, but the weight of curious eyes bore down on her, her ears heating as she hurried homewards. A man curled up on a worn porch shivered as he made eye contact, quickly breaking his gaze and hustling inside the dark dwelling.

Confused but relieved Taylor continued her swift pace home, noting idly that she hadn't felt tired yet despite the walk and her condition. Stopping in the middle of the street Taylor quickly dropped a hand down to her thigh, towards the open wound she had felt and the wriggling forms within. Her hand ghosted over a smooth and cool patch of skin that felt different to the surrounding area. Confusion sparked in her as she ran her hand over her torn jeans, feeling the strange sensation that the new flesh gave. Confusion gave way to fear and Taylor felt hot, her skin flushed and her mind raced.

What was going on? What had happened in that locker? Lengthening her strides Taylor raced towards her house, fear giving her a seemingly endless endurance as her feet pounded the pavement in a steady lope. The night felt cloying and overwhelming, her skin burning against the breeze, hair bouncing as a singular congealed lump against her back.

The light from the living room spilled out onto the front step, the door propped open, sounds of shuffling inside alerting Taylor to the fact her father was still awake. Slowing to a walk and taking a moment to breathe deeply, her skin cooling, before hopping over the front step and calling out into the house.

"Dad. I'm home."

A clattering noise of ceramic on metal came from the kitchen as Danny dropped the mug he was cleaning and bolted towards the door, stalling as he saw the condition Taylor was in. Jeans torn, hoodie stained and covered with strange liquids, and her hair! Her beautiful hair dripping with some strange chunky paste, staining the floorboards of the living room.

"Taylor!" Danny started up again and wrapped his daughter in a sweeping hug, the scent of whatever clung to her sickly and feeling her stiffen in his arms. A moment passed before Taylor started to tremble and then the tears that she had been repressing the entire walk back began to fall, her shoulders heaving as she cried into Danny's chest. Broken sentences murmured into his chest failed to reach his ears as Danny slowly led her towards the couch, sitting the two of them down as Taylor continued to cry. His hand slowly patted her back, one threaded into her hair as he tried to stroke it, as Annette used to do when Taylor was upset. His hand came back a ruddy crimson, with darker chunks that clung to his fingers.

"It's okay now Little Owl, you are home."

Taylor heard the confused and helpless tone in her fathers voice and it made her cry harder. After all the effort to keep her suffering separate from home, to not let her Dad know of her pains because he had enough to deal with, and now she was crying in the living room at some ungodly hour. Sniffing and pulling back slightly to breathe clearer she saw the clock on the wall saying that it had just reached 4am, meaning that her father had been up for over 20 hours now. Just for her. Scared that she hadn't come home. Taylor broke down into further tears.

As she wailed out her suffering, the time passed and inevitably Taylor had no more tears to give. Her head felt empty, her chest heavy. Looking up with exhausted eyes Taylor saw that her father was shivering, his skin starting to look red as he held her. Red like her leg was.

"Taylor, what happened? I was so worried when you weren't home and there was no message."

"Dad, I…. I don't want to….. Something bad happened at school and no one helped!" Taylor's broken words matched her hoarse and scratchy tone. "I don't know how I got out but…. I think that I want to go to bed."

Danny looked down at his little girl, her red ringed eyes and how she felt so incredibly cold. He decided that asking for more details could wait till after she slept, and he needed to as well.

"All right Taylor, you have a shower first though. I don't know what is going on but I know you'll feel better after you get whatever that is off you." The watery smile that his words struck him powerfully, it had been far too long since she had last smiled. In-fact Danny could not remember the last time that he saw that expression, months at least.

"Okay Dad." Taylor slowly got up from the warm embrace of her father and stumbled upstairs, a dripping trail of detritus following her. Once in the bathroom she wearily stripped, throwing her clothes into an empty basket vowing to burn them later. Stepping into the shower and twisting the handle for the shower, she waited for the warm water to wash over her. The initial flow was warm and quickly increased to burning, sharp knives of agony against her skin. Slamming the handle as far to the cold as she could Taylor leapt backwards, suddenly violently awake. Cursing at the faulty plumbing she condemned herself to a cold shower that turned out to be pleasantly warm, the water running off her in rusty lines.

It took half an hour for Taylor to finally feel clean, the majority of that spent on ensuring her hair, her best feature, was properly cleaned of the foul contents of the locker. During this time she also looked at her wounded thigh, the flesh seeming to have knitted back together but strangely. It looked off, pale blue and glittering in the light provided by the single recessed light-bulb. The water that touched it seemed to stick for a moment as the colour deepened over the course of her shower, changing to a richer icy blue that melded into her skin, small veins of the colour spreading along her leg as the shower continued. Wrapping herself in a threadbare towel Taylor slowly wiped herself down, deciding that she could deal with whatever was happening tomorrow.

Last edited: May 5, 2023

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Silent_Sepharim

Aug 3, 2022

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Silent_Sepharim

Aug 3, 2022

#17

All encompassing and ever-present, the cold of frozen steel and congealed blood. Pressing against her. Wriggling points digging into her skin, diving deeper into the flesh beneath and gorging on the warmth and life within. A coffin in an empty hall, inside an abandoned school within a dying city. The pressure smothering.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" A high pitched scream tore forth from Taylor's mouth as she shot upright, her blanket flying off from the violence of the motion. Her hair swung forward and matted against her sweat soaked face, clinging to her and blocking her vision. Swinging a hand wildly against the encroaching darkness Taylor felt her hand mould around a cylindrical object that seemed to coalesce, a faint comforting chill as it rested in her hand. Still swinging she pulled the hair away from her face to spot the confused and concerned face of Danny staring at her from the doorway. His eyes seemed locked to her hand and Taylor followed his gaze. A large and sharp icicle was held in her hand, the form of which seemed to match a kitchen knife. The edge looked dangerously sharp and a faint fog of cold poured off the ice, chilling the air.

"Taylor. Can you put down the knife? The Ice? The ice knife. Can you please put that down for me?" The stunned tone from her father matched how Taylor was feeling. Her hand flew open and the knife fell onto the bed where it landed point first, easily sinking into the mattress before the hilt caught. The pair stared at the knife for a wordless minute before Danny cleared his throat. "I think we might need to have our talk a little earlier than we planned. I'm going to go to the kitchen and make myself coffee and you some tea, get dressed and meet me down there. Can you bring the knife and we will put it in the sink for now."

Taylor nodded, her cheeks burning in shame as she realized how close she came to maiming herself accidentally, a few inches to the right and that blade would have sunk straight into her already injured thigh! Dropping her head as her dad pushed against the wall and made his way downstairs, Taylor watched the knife. The faint fog still rolling off it, the memory of how comfortable it felt in her hand vivid. Reaching out and pulling the blade free of the mattress it showed that the tip had started to drip ever so slightly, but the weight felt the same and it conveyed a sense of danger.

Carefully standing up and placing it on her desk, Taylor quickly changed out of her Miss Militia pajamas and into a simple pair of denim shorts and tee-shirt. Carrying the knife downstairs Taylor felt a vague thrill, to be so brazenly brandishing a deadly weapon even if it was just in her house. The sound of the old kettle beginning to whistle on the gas stove caught her attention as did her dad. Danny was looking at the old picture of Annette that rested on the fridge. Taylor felt a frisson of anger as she was ignored once again but quickly tried to smother it.

"Dad, I don't really know what to say. I think I became a cape tonight." With her words Taylor gestured to the knife she held and then placed it in the sink. Her shoulders tightened as her hand left it, and she kept her gaze low. Quietly pulling out a chair she wrapped her arms around herself. Danny hummed in consideration as he carefully poured the kettle into two mugs, one passed to Taylor and the other kept in his hands. He remained standing as he looked around the kitchen.

"Kiddo, I think you might be right there. But don't capes have to go through something horrible for that to happen?" His voice began to crack as he spoke and the words were thick with emotion. "Something bad happened tonight didn't it?"

Taylor stayed quite as she carefully rotated her mug, the ceramic unpleasantly hot to the touch. Her mouth opened and closed several times. "Yes Dad. I didn't want to say anything but I have been bullied at school. It has gotten pretty bad. Today was the worst it's ever been and no-one did anything. They all watched as…." Trailing off as she reached the worst part Taylor took a deep breath and then a mouthful of far too hot tea. It scalded her mouth and burnt the entire way into her stomach, the pain easy to handle in comparison to the stress of talking to her father. "They watched as they pushed me in. Into my locker I mean. They locked it and refused to help as I screamed and tried to break out. I think I hit my head on the way in, I lost consciousness fairly early."

Danny's face was aghast as Taylor spoke, the suffering his daughter having gone through was too much for him to handle. What made it worse was the monotonous way that she described it, like listing off a series of unpleasant tasks. The only sign that it was causing her anguish was the new knife that had formed in her hand, and the muscles that drew tight as she clenched it with all her might.

"Then I woke up. It must have been late in the afternoon because I couldn't hear anyone. But I could feel, I could feel something else in the locker with me. I think there were some bugs, and they were trying to get warm. They crawled over me."

Danny watched as Taylor broke down, her voice breaking and her head resting against the table. He stood there, coffee in hand, uncertain of what to do. Did he hug her? It had been so long since causal contact between them was commonplace that he hesitated. Taylor seemed to be safe at least, at home and not in danger so he didn't step forward. He waited awkwardly until Taylor's breathing calmed.

"And then I passed out again. I woke up feeling warm and good. I stretched and the door broke, I think I froze the metal enough to make it brittle. It didn't really hurt me either. No scratches from the broken door. I made my way back here."

Taylor's voice was slightly more emotive than it had been, a faint trace of relief shining through as she mentioned home. Her tea was now much cooler and soothed her throat. Lowering the mug she looked at Danny, seeing how he was gazing at his mug.

"Who pushed you in?"

Taylor tried not to snort at the question but she couldn't quite keep it in. After telling him this, after sharing the horrific day she had been through he still couldn't even focus on her? Danny looked hurt by the noise and a dark sense of satisfaction grew in Taylor. Maybe he deserved to be upset? Maybe he should feel hurt after all, didn't he care about her? Why did he focus on the fucking Trio instead of her! It was always about them! What they want and what they do! Never her!

"Why do you care? You can't do anything anyway."

The biting remark cut Danny deeply. The vicious words hitting his fears about his ability to parent. His helplessness when he came home and Taylor wasn't there.

"Taylor! You can't speak to me like that."

His response snapped out and Taylor's eyes grew wide.

"I am trying to help and you are hiding things from me! I can't do anything unless I know who to focus on!"

The words rang in Taylor's head. Who to focus on? Focus on me she pleaded internally. Her knuckles went white with tension as her grip on her new knife strengthened. Her eyes locked onto the blade and her mind went slack. It would be easy. So easy. No more Winslow, no more Trio. All she had to do was take the knife and use it. Then no-one could hurt her anymore. Her mind began to stir, the thoughts streaming back in. It would be loosing to the Trio, to Emma. Mum wouldn't want her to do this. It was loosing to Emma. Her hand slackened its grip, and her shoulders lowered.

A deep and steamy breath escaped her. No. No she wouldn't. It wouldn't be right. Rather she would take control of herself and go to the Protectorate, to the Wards. They must be able to help her, after-all the Wards were all meant to go to Arcadia. Maybe she could transfer there, get away from the Bitches Three. Away from them, where she could be safe. Where no-one would be able to make her feel fear or have Emma enrage her with taunts about her mother. Where she could just be Taylor.

A thud drew her attention, her gaze listlessly turning to see Danny fall to the ground. His body shivering violently, lips turning blue. The kitchen was coated in ice. The panicked gestures from him seemed to be little more than confused flailing, and Taylor watched with mild confusion. How had he gotten so cold? What happened to the kitchen?

It wasn't that cold after all, she felt nice and cool. Like jumping into a pool after a hot day. The shivering was a bit much, she raised the tea to her lips and was confused when it knocked her nose. A solid cylinder of ice, lightly scented like jasmine. Wondering how that happened she stared, and felt the panicked clutch of her fathers hand on her ankle. He was red in the face, his hand vivid and small boils seemed to be forming on the back of his hand.

"Taylor! Please! Stop this!"

The sharp words struck Taylor as odd. She wasn't doing anything after all. She had just decided to stop being overwhelmed by his betrayals. He was really taking her cold shoulder far to literally.

"Taylor! You are killing me!"

Killing him? This struck a note with Taylor. She didn't want Danny to die. It would make living at home much harder, who would pay the bills? That thought came across to Taylor as weird. Why did she care about who was paying the bills? Her Father was dying.

Her father was dying!

Leaping to her feet Taylor started babbling as she grabbed Danny by the shoulder, trying to haul him to his feet. His weight was too much for the panicking young woman and she couldn't lift him. Her skin burnt with exertion as she tried again, once again failing to do more than prop him against the wall. Danny gasped as he pointed towards the phone on the wall, Taylor sprinting the few steps towards it and quickly dialing for an ambulance. The phone however crackled once and then the plastic broke under her frantic grip, shards of plastic digging into her palm.

A frantic curse followed her as she ran towards the front door, throwing it open and trying to make it across the road to a neighbours house. She stopped as soon as her feet cleared the broken step. The street was a frozen tableau, with a couple collapsed on the icy ground shivering. Their small dog was motionless at their feet, and the telephone poles were encrusted with ice that climbed their entire height. The ice spanned roughly 100ft and covered the neighbours houses. As she stood there in shock a red blur made itself known to her. Velocity. The local Protectorate speedster.

"Maam, you should go back inside. There is an unknown parahuman active here. I don't want you to get hurt."

His tone was sharp but concerned, his head turned away from her before it snapped back towards Taylor unnaturally fast.

"Maam. Are you responsible for this ice?"

Velocity's accusation hit Taylor hard, and she could only nod quietly, overwhelmed by guilt and fear.

"My Dad, please. He needs help. I think I hurt him."

Last edited: Mar 21, 2023

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Silent_Sepharim

Aug 4, 2022

#33

The inside of the PRT interrogation room was quite sparse. They had called it an interview room but Taylor knew what it was. The long table in the middle of the room, two chairs, and a single overhead light with nothing else in the room. The grey walls didn't do the image any favours, calling forward impressions of the locker. Taylor shuddered as she looked at the wall before returning to her furious pacing. Her hand clutched her elbows closely, the loose hoodie that she had thrown over her tee-shirt before getting into the van that the PRT had sent not doing anything to help regulate her temperature. A brief twitch let her know that her power was active again, a rod of ice forming in her hand. Letting it grow to a foot in length before it stopped Taylor weighed the newly fashioned club. A little on the heavy side for a skinny girl like herself but presumably not too bad for someone that had trained for it.

Slowing her pacing she placed the club on the table, it joined the assortment of weaponry that was slowly cluttering the table. A trio of knives, a half dozen clubs, and some contraption that looked like a form of knuckle duster married with a gauntlet. The table felt pleasantly cool to the touch and Taylor lingered for a moment as she traced her fingers against the steel, the cool sensation soothing to her frayed nerves.

The door eased open as Miss Militia entered the room, carrying a tray loaded with papers and two steaming cups. Taylor flinched slightly at the sight of the steaming cups but focused on the Hero before her. The heroine was clad in her iconic fatigues, closely tailored to complement her figure, with an American flag scarf covering the lower half of her face. However the thing that stood out the most was the olive skin around her bottle green eyes, so expressive with nothing more than a twitch. These expressive eyes fixed on the array of weapons on the table before her elegant brow raised at Taylor, who blushed and stuttered out an embarrassed apology for taking up space on the table.

"None of that, we all have our little quirks and it is part of the Protectorate to work with them. I know that there has been a few people that were put off by my particular tendency to change the form of my power when I am stressed, so I can hardly blame you for the same thing." Her voice was tinged with amusement and her eyes seemed to be lit with humour so Taylor tried to take the comment with grace, despite the awkwardness she felt.

The heroine hooked a foot behind the open door and closed it with a light tug before setting down the tray on the table, brushing aside the strange punching contraption. Sitting down she offered one of the cups to Taylor, indicating that it was black coffee with a sugar packet on the side.

"No thanks. I tried to drink some tea when I was talking with Dad." Taylor hiccuped as she spoke. "It hurt. A lot. I don't think hot drinks and I agree anymore."

Miss Militia nodded along and retracted the drink, putting it back on the tray, before removing the papers and pushing the tray to the end of the table. She quickly looked over the papers before indicating for Taylor to sit. "Please, there are a few things to go over and I wouldn't want you to get tired standing while we do."

At the request Taylor flushed and promptly pulled her chair out and sat down swiftly. Her knees bumped the bottom of the table and she drew comfort from the cold touch. Accepting the papers offered to her she read over the titles, most referred to the PRT callout to her house or to membership with the Wards. Pausing for a moment she looked up into Miss Militia's eyes.

"Is my Dad okay? I didn't hurt him badly did I?" The plaintive tone from Taylor caused Miss Militia's eyes to soften, the creases around her eyes lessening as she responded with a warm tone.

"Your father will be just fine. The doctors have managed to catch the damage early on and with some extended treatments there will be no long term damage."

"Long term? Does that mean there is short term damage? Please, I need to know what happened to him!"

Miss Militia sighed and looked at the ceiling for a moment.

"He has severe frostbite to over 80% of his body, there is the potential for minor nerve damage in his extremities but the doctors are confident that they have managed to avert that. So yes, he is in a bad shape now, but the doctors at Brockton General are exceptional at treating burns, even ones from the cold. Your dad will be fine Taylor. There is nothing to worry about."

Taylor slumped forward as Miss Militia mentioned the nerve damage before sniffling as the heroine continued to reassure her. The amusing thought that the only reason Brockton General was so good at treating burns was because the PRT was so bad at stopping the gangs crossed her mind before a shot of mortification surged through her. She looked up at the heroine and saw in her open expression there was no judgement for her small breakdown, just sympathy.

"Okay. Okay. Thank you for telling me, it's really good news that he isn't badly hurt. I was scared that I had really done something horrible when he fell over."

Taylor's observation of Miss Militia showed that she had winced slightly at the mention of something horrible.

"Ah. Well while your father will make a full recovery there is a slight problem. There was a couple out walking their dog when your power manifested and unfortunately their advanced age meant they were a bit more susceptible than your father." Taylor's face fell as Miss Militia seemed to wince before continuing. "They will survive thankfully. However they have suffered some long term issues, one of them has required an amputation of their foot to prevent gangrene from frostbite spreading."

Taylor started to hyperventilate in shock, breathing rapidly as she tried to comprehend that her actions had lead to the crippling of an innocent person. Someone who would never walk again because she couldn't keep herself under control. "And unfortunately their pet dog passed away from the thermal shock."

Taylor let loose a broken laugh. Of course she managed to kill a dog on her first night of being a cape. Not even an active cape, just her first night of having powers. God she was a screw up, just like Emma said.

"Taylor! Please look at me."

The strident tone of Miss Militia wrenched Taylor out of her depressive spiral before she could get going. Miss Militia had reached a hand over the table and taken one of Taylor's, her hand was boiling against Taylor's. The heroine locked her eyes with Taylor.

"Taylor, we don't blame you. There is a thing called trigger events, were capes get their powers from horrible circumstances and we know that they can be very difficult to control. From what we can tell, you just had your trigger event and haven't had time to adjust to what is going on. So please believe me when I say this. No one blames you. Please don't let this bring you down."

The passion from Miss Militia shook Taylor, her mind tumbling over the words again and again. She wasn't being blamed for what she did? She wasn't responsible for the poor dog dying? It just didn't seem right, an authority figure being reasonable but if anyone was going to be better it made sense for it to be a hero. It must be her trying to get her to stay calm, but if so why was she so earnest?

Taylor's free hand clenched tight around the club that formed, her fingers twitching as she did so. Miss Militia noticed the formation of the weapon, it wasn't fast. It took several seconds for the club to form and during that time Miss Militia didn't pull away. Didn't retreat and start castigating Taylor.

"It's okay Taylor. This is what the Wards are here for. To help young parahumans like yourself, to give you a place to learn what you can do in safety. We have the best facilities and your potential teammates are all quite capable. Please let us help you."

Taylor dropped the club and let her hand fall loosely against the her side.

"I….. I don't want to talk about how I got to my trigger. Trigger you said?" The nod from Miss Militia braced Taylor to continue. "It's still so fresh, cant really talk about it. But I just want to go home right now. I just want to sleep and talk to my Dad."

Miss Militia winced as Taylor talked, her eyes turning flinty at the mention of home.

"That might be a little tricky I'm afraid. Your power isn't exactly subtle, and it did take a while for our vans to reach your house. So I'm afraid that while we have had your neighbours sign NDA's about your powers we can't guarantee that we have caught everyone that saw what happened. And even if we had, the physical effects of the ice were quite noticeable for anyone that had an elevated view of the area."

"What do you mean? What do you mean that you can't guarantee that everyone will let me go home?"

"Well, the risk of cape activity in Brockton is that there is an above average amount of gang scrutiny. And word of your ice has started to spread, and while we are taking efforts to suppress any mention of your identity the gangs are quite capable of looking up a property registry and tying your family to the address."

Taylor's stomach dropped out from beneath her, her legs getting weak. The idea of monsters like Oni Lee or Hookwolf knowing where her dad slept was horrifying. Even worse was that Miss Militia made sense, the gangs didn't need to know who she was, only that her house was the one that was at the center of the ice based damage and look up the house. It made all too much sense!

"Is there something that you can do?"

Taylor's panicked words burst forth, tumbling over each other in order to be heard.

"Yes, there are a few things we can do. With you signed up for the Wards we will have more options but for now we can keep ensuring that your address stays off the mainstream and social medias. We can't do much about the property, but we can ensure that you and your father have a line to the PRT emergency hot-line for if anything happens. I would really recommend joining the Wards though, the gangs know better than to try anything against one of us."

Miss Militia's words sat heavily in Taylor's mind, the idea of joining the Wards to keep her dad safe wasn't what she wanted to do. She didn't want to feel like she was running away from a confrontation with bullies. She hadn't done it with the Bitches Three, and the gangs were just a bigger collection of bullies. For the most part, there was the vivid exception of what had happened to Fleur from New Wave. The killing of an unmasked cape was normally something that didn't happen, normally they didn't ever get unmasked! But the Empire was proven to not care about that, to not care if they where seen as the bad guys in order to get a leg up. It would make perfect sense for them to snag a young white girl, Taylor's last name might be Jewish but with a mask and cape name no-one would be able to tell.

"I…. I think I should join the Wards. I want my Dad safe and away from the gangs. Please. That is all I want."

"Don't worry Taylor. We can make that happen. I'm sorry it is under these circumstances, but welcome to the Wards."

Last edited: Mar 21, 2023

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Aug 4, 2022

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Silent_Sepharim

Aug 4, 2022

#62

After being welcomed to the Wards by Miss Militia, Taylor had expected that there would be some form of swearing in process. Maybe a visit to see the Wards. Despite everything Taylor had been curious about meeting Vista and Shadow Stalker, with Clockblocker and Aegis also catching her interest. However it appeared that Miss Militia had different ideas and was escorting her towards the roof of the Rig, the floating oil rig that the Protectorate used as a base. Asking what was going on had Miss Militia begin to expound on her actions slightly, focusing on an immediate issue that the PRT and Protectorate had.

"Before we can do a full induction, and even before we can get you to meet the other Wards, we need to do some preliminary power testing. I don't think that you are a danger to the Wards, but seeing as you have proven to have limited control so far we need to figure out if any extra precautions need to be taken." Miss Militia's voice was contrite as she lead Taylor through the warren of corridors.

The floors were covered with different coloured lines leading in odd directions and there was no helpful map anywhere to be seen. "It's just a precaution and gives us something to do while we call in some more help. As I mentioned, now that you have agreed to join the Wards we can do a bit more for you. My colleagues have made a call to New Wave, and Panacea has agreed to go by Brockton General in the morning to heal your father. Which means in less than three hours he will be good as new."

Taylor's pace faltered at the mention of Panacea. The greatest healer in Brockton Bay, and potentially the entire United States, going to heal her dad specifically? It felt overwhelming, that the Protectorate would go so far for her. She was just Taylor after all, awkward and unwanted. Getting back up to pace at Miss Militia's inquiring noise, Taylor kept wondering why they would care so much about a single parahuman.

Her power wasn't even anything good! All she did was make the air cold, summon ice weapons, and hurt people. It wasn't heroic like Armsmaster, or Dauntless. It wasn't versatile like Kid Win or Miss Militia, and it didn't have the lock-down potential like Clockblocker either! Folding in on herself as she climbed the last few steps towards the helipad, Taylor missed seeing the exchange between Miss Militia, Assault, and Battery.

A hand clapping down on her shoulder was matched with a boisterous greeting as Assault bounded over to her. "Hello! I hear you are the newest flavour of parahuman around. Always nice to see a new comrade, we need more of us to help dislodge the stick located in Armsmaster!"

The sound of flesh hitting plastic was clear as Battery slapped the back of Assault's head, with Miss Militia sighing in exasperation. "Please ignore him. He doesn't know when to shut up." The softer voice of Battery was hard to hear over the playful whining of Assault. Taylor was very confused as she was escorted into the helicopter. The overly friendly greeting sending off warning bells all throughout her.

"It's fine."

Battery shrugged as Taylor lent back in her seat, the safety harness swallowing her. Miss Militia sat next to her as Assault sat opposite her, the exposed lower half of his face fixed in a smug grin. The flight was awkward for Taylor as the heroes alternated explaining what she was going to be doing. The flight was taking her to an offsite facility that was designed for testing blaster or shaker powers, as testing those powers was considered ill-advised inside the confines of the Rig.

Arriving at the testing facility, Taylor was taken aback by the scale of it. Long outdoor stretches of bare earth that lead to reinforced ramparts of earth and cement were matched with replica warehouses. There was a small contingent of PRT individuals who were waiting at the helipad for them to land. Two seemed to be scientists, by the lab coats, and the remaining four were officers.

The helicopter landed and Assault and Battery were the first ones out, Battery lingering to offer Taylor a hand down from the helicopter. Taking it gratefully Taylor took the small fall fairly easily, her feet hitting the concrete ground with a solid thump before she skittered away from the helicopter and towards the PRT group waiting for them. Miss Militia was close behind and once they cleared the immediate vicinity of the helicopter it took off again.

The two lab coat wearing PRT individuals had broad grins as they saw Taylor, one of them waving hello as she approached.

"Greetings! It's good to see you again Miss Militia, Battery. Assault." The tone the elder of the two scientists took upon mentioning Assault was scathing, a school teacher dealing with a disliked pupil. "And most importantly welcome to you, young miss. Now there are a few things that we need to cover before we get started."

A short cough from Miss Militia derailed the enthusiastic elderly man. He looked at her in askance for a moment before realisation dawned over his expression.

"Ahh, of course. My Apologies. This is just a preliminary test of potentially hazardous power effects, not a full examination. I was a bit caught up in the moment."

Taylor restrained a slight giggle at the chastised look on the man, his wrinkles contrasting the energy he was displaying.

"My name is Dr. Kazanaki and my young colleague is Dr. Thornton, we are a part of the PRT's research division. I specialise in the prediction of power interactions and Dr. Thornton focuses on the manipulation of known physics. Not quite what we have been told of your powerset, however we were available at short notice and had access to this facility."

Dr. Thornton nodded along as Dr. Kazanaki spoke, her features warm and expressive. She flicked her fingers a few times towards Kazanaki who paused for a moment before resuming his speech.

"My compatriot has just pointed out that I am once again starting to pontificate, so we shall wrap up the introductions and get the tests underway! If that is alright with you, young miss?"

Taylor smiled at the enthusiasm that the doctor displayed, it reminded her of some of her mothers old university colleagues. The ones who stayed teaching despite their age because they loved the field and their job that much. It was a soothing memory, bittersweet as most things with her mother were, but it made her feel more comfortable. Dealing with enthusiastic members of higher academics was something that she could do, no teenage drama involved there.

"Okay. What do I need to do? I can explain what I've noticed so far?" The enthusiastic nods from the two doctors gave Taylor the prompt to start talking, noticing that there was a small table nearby she indicated that she wanted to go there. The group started making their way over. "Well, I can make some objects out of ice. It's mostly been knives or clubs so far."

The doctors examined the items and started asking a rapid flurry of questions. What were the other items? Did they have a size limit? Was there a common theme? Did they dissipate after time or after uses? The questioning lasted fifteen minutes around that one element of Taylor's power. During this time Assault was lounging with his feet over a chair that had been brought over, Battery stood next to him, and Miss Militia stayed near Taylor.

Occasionally Miss Militia would direct the doctors to focus on one aspect or another as she noticed Taylor get uncomfortable with certain lines of questioning. Some experimentation revealed so long as the object could be classified as a weapon it could be made of ice. A small crowbar was joined by a razor edged frisbee, and a goblet with a heavily weighted base were all placed on the table.

"Now Taylor, I want you to know that you can stop at any-point if you feel uncomfortable with this next series of tests. We want you to see if you can generate your ice field again." Dr Kazanaki said as the table was carried away by some of the PRT officers. Taylor slowly nodded. "What we are trying to find out is if there is a clear radius for your power, what temperature it lowers the environment to and if there are any exotic effects. Does that make sense?"

"Yes. I can do that. But I don't want anyone close to me when I try it, I don't want to hurt anyone." Taylor spoke with a wavering tone that became steadier towards the end. "I can tell you already it covers the length of my house and across the street. I think Miss Militia might know more specifically what that was."

"100ft. Enough to make Tarantino blush!"

The laughing interjection from Assault prompted another sigh from Miss Militia as she nodded her assent. Dr Thornton had a hand over her mouth but it was clear that she was smiling. Dr Kazanaki looked confused and turned to face his younger colleague, a series of gestures lead to Dr Kazanaki blushing explosively.

"Ah. Well. None of that here thank you!"

Taylor was also blushing, but her shoulders had lowered from when she was talking as the crude joke made her laugh. Miss Militia rolled her eyes at the embarrassed doctor and started to lead Taylor over towards the center of an empty field adjacent to the main building. Taylor could see that there was a few devices set up, some seemed to be quite small and others wouldn't have looked out of place in a white-goods showroom.

"Okay Taylor, remember you can call this off at any-point if you start to feel unsafe or uncertain. Myself and Battery will be ready to act if things go badly, and I suppose Assault is here as well." Nodding absently along to Miss Militia, Taylor took deep breaths as she walked towards the center of the field. Miss Militia helped her to put on several sensor nodes that attached to her arms, head, and neck. "Just call out if you need help. Okay?"

"Okay Miss Militia. I can do this, it shouldn't be too hard. All parahumans are meant to have some kind of understanding of how their powers work, so it should be pretty instinctive. Right?"

"That's right Taylor. You'll do great. I'm going to clear off and leave you to it."

Nodding as Miss Militia headed back towards the main group, five hundred feet away, Taylor took a moment to try and stretch. Her neck felt hot, the sticky pads that the sensors needed feeling unpleasantly cloying, far to close to the memory of what had been in the locker. But she wouldn't be weak here. Not in front of Miss Militia! Taylor could hardly believe how compassionate the woman had been towards her, she had noticed that the doctors were deflected away whenever she started getting panicked or flustered.

Battery had been a solid figure of comfort, during the flight she had kept Assault from bouncing his leg around and even helped her off the helicopter. She didn't talk much but seemed nice. Assault was too much. Too much volume, too much movement. Just too much, but in a good way. He didn't seem like Emma who tried to overwhelm her with her words and actions, instead it seemed like he was just wired to be active. Taylor supposed that it could even be considered cute, if you squinted.

Hearing Dr Kazanaki call out via loudspeaker that they were ready, Taylor started to think about her powers closer. How she managed to make the ice appear. Miss Militia kept saying that if she felt panicked she could stop, but her powers didn't make her panic. At least not directly. The end results caused her to panic, the harm she did to Danny was the most poignant example, but manifesting weaponry was still scary. But the powers.

The powers felt as simple as focusing on a single thing, blacking out the world. The Trio had given her plenty of experience with this, so she quickly fell into the mindset of single focus. Her neck cooled, and her pulse slowed as the stress and panic of the last twenty four hours started to subside. The cool feeling was soothing, so easy to focus on.

Miss Militia was the first to feel something wrong. Her hand fell to her belt, power flickering between knifes and guns, as she started to worry. Taylor was a nice girl but the entire time her face was lined with stress and worry, not unusual for new triggers. However the young woman in the center of the field had none of that stress on her face, her back straightened and her posture righted. From a distance it was hard to see, but swiftly a change of colour swam over Taylor, her skin turning into a bright red before going around to a pale blue. It deepened into an iceberg blue that seemed to sparkle in the morning sun, reflecting the light.

As the girl exhaled a wave of fog ballooned outwards, a thick bank that clouded vision. It kept spreading, the herald of a wave of ice that followed along on the ground at rapid speed. But even so the first thing that reached the PRT group was the bone freezing cold. The cold that sapped not just heat but energy, life, movement. The cold that made it impossible to even think. Miss Militia saw that a bottle of water on the table in-front of her had snap frozen even as her vision darkened.

Battery felt the cold hit, the fog swallowing her. A sharp gasp as the air was driven out of her lungs burned. It was so cold that inhaling felt like inviting a wave of razors to tear her throat and lungs. A sharp twist to the side allowed her to fall towards Assault, even as her boots were encased in a thin layer of ice. A powered punch sending him him out from the chair he was reclining in and towards the young cape. As Battery fell to the ground, she felt the ice grow over her, encasing her in a crystalline prison.

Assault saw Miss Militia fall, and could see her encased in ice. As he started to move he felt the kinetic impulse of an empowered punch from Battery slam into his shoulder, taking the momentum he redirected it towards a leap. He sailed through the air towards the center of the arctic explosion. The air was filled with shards of ice that bounced off his costume, further allowing him to counteract the billowing fog as he landed with a violent crash next to Taylor. She looked at him with empty eyes, seemingly uncaring that shards of ice had bounced off her. Which made sense, she seemed to be made of ice.

Assault tried to speak but his jaw had frozen shut as his lips had fused together under the intense cold. Instead he took his shuddering hand and placed it on Taylor's shoulder. He felt the ice crawl up his legs and down his arm from contact with the young cape, but he locked eyes with her. The girl seemed puzzled, then concerned, then upset and the temperature suddenly rose as Taylor fell to her knees, the blue receding from her skin and returning to its original pale tone. As Assault shattered the ice that had stopped spreading on him, he quickly cuffed himself in the mouth, shattering the ice build up and allowing him to speak.

"Woah there. No need for anything crazy. Can you keep things under lock for a while?"

"I did it again. I did it again. I did it again."

The young woman sounded despondent and unresponsive.

Last edited: Mar 21, 2023

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Silent_Sepharim

Aug 4, 2022

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Threadmarks Isolation 1.5

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Silent_Sepharim

Aug 5, 2022

#88

The testing facility sat empty, with faint wisps of fog rising from the ice that still encrusted the empty field around it. Taylor sat before a device that had been delivered a pair of visibly armed PRT troopers, it looked like a crossbreed between a laptop and a brick. With a thick casing that had rubber seals around the edges and a robust internal fan that was currently emitting an annoying whir.

Once she opened it up at the prompting of the troopers they quickly withdrew beyond the ring of ice that had been formed by Taylor's testing, a full thousand foot radius of ice that resisted the bright sunlight. The screen swiftly adjusted to the outside illumination and the image of a man clad in power armour was clear, a combination of midnight blue with silver highlights. Armsmaster. One of the most famous heroes throughout the west coast, possibly even all of North America, and the leader of the Protectorate East-North-East division.

"Miss Hebert."

The gruff voice of the most famous hero in Brockton Bay was surprising, it didn't quite match the dashing image that his armour and famous beard made, jarring in a small way. It wasn't unpleasant, but off-putting. Armsmaster was seated before a large window that showed the entirety of the Bay behind him, the walls visible at the edge of the camera were a governmental beige that screamed of carefully work-shopped consideration.

"Armsmaster! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt anyone." Taylor's strained voice didn't convey much beyond a deep level of tension but the words made her feel slightly better. Being able to tell someone that she hadn't meant to, to tell a hero that would be able to make the situation better.

"Yet you did. Fortunately Panacea was willing to interrupt her education and be rushed to PRT headquarters in order to heal the nine individuals who were exposed to your thermal field." Each word struck Taylor like an anvil. "Miss Militia, Assault, and Battery will all make full recoveries, although Panacea has said that they are to expect phantom sensations for sometime. Doctors Kazanaki and Thornton are both recovered, however one of the escorts, a Sargent Jeffory Deacons, has passed away due to a cardiac arrest brought on by severe thermal shock."

Taylor's eyes burnt as Armsmaster continued on with implacable relentlessness, words falling in a steady rhythm that further broke her spirit. She was a killer. Taylor had killed someone who's only fault was to be near her. That an officer of the law would never be returning home, a broken family.

"However fault does not lie with you."

"What." The stunned word slipped out unconsciously. Not at fault. He died because of her, because she froze him to death.

"Our initial examinations of the situation have uncovered evidence that Dr Kazanaki disregarded safety protocols after reading the initial report of your first incident." Dr Kazanaki? The friendly but slighty prudish older man was being blamed?

"But I am the one who hurt everyone! Why is he being blamed?"

Armsmaster's mouth twitched lightly as his head turned slightly off from the camera, watching something off screen before turning back to face Taylor.

"Because he flaunted security protocol, failed to ensure a safe testing environment, and at no point stopped to actually ask if you knew how your powers worked. If he had done the due diligence the nature of your powers would not have been such a disastrous surprise. Miss Militia would not have been trying to keep you calm, Assault would have been charged with trying to entertain you, and Battery would have been on hand to startle or comfort as needed. However because he felt that the initial report covered the entire breadth of your power-set a valuable man is dead, and the survivors are likely to be dealing with the trauma for a long time. So no Miss Hebert. You are not at fault, but you are responsible."

Taylor could not keep up with the emotional whiplash that Armsmaster was giving her. First the guilt of killing, then the embarrassed relief of not being blamed, and now she was being told she was responsible but not guilty? It just didn't make sense!

"What are you saying Armsmaster? I don't know what to think or how to feel right now, please just tell me what is going on!" Taylor's eyes were feeling gritty and heavy, her face flushed as she yelled at the hero. "I am sitting in what I now know to be a murder weapon, and you are confusing me and I just don't know what to do!"

"Taylor." Armsmaster's expression had shifted slightly, a faint downturn of his lips. "You are feeling very overwhelmed. This is good. It means you understand the severity of what has happened. It also means that you are not trying to brush aside your part in this and that is a good thing. It means that the Protectorate is still willing to help you."

"Thinker analysis has indicated that your powers are emotionally dependent, and you have confirmed this. I have a solution prepared to aid you in controlling your powers, and your father has agreed to this. In my tinkering I have developed a serum that increases the emotional responses of whoever it is administered to, it was a dead end in my attempts to develop a counter agent to Lung however it is eminently applicable to your particular situation."

"If you are willing to have this serum administered then the Protectorate and the PRT feel that you will not be a threat to the safety of your fellow Wards and the city."

"My Dad said I should take this? Are you sure, can I talk to him?"

"Not currently Miss Hebert, as your are a current threat and we are unsure of how you will react to seeing your father we will be keeping you separate until such a time as safety is assured. However, I can arrange for a recording to be made."

"But why can't I talk to him if he can send a message? I just want to see that he is okay and make sure that he wants me to be taking this tinker serum. I won't hurt anyone, I just want to talk to my Dad."

Armsmaster looked off to the side, once again seeming to be taking some instruction or feedback from someone off-screen. His jaw tightened at whatever he was told before he focused back on the camera. "Not at the current time. Once we can be assured of the safety of everyone involved you may speak to him."

Taylor surged to her feet and started rapidly pacing, her thoughts raging. They wouldn't let her see her dad! What was going on that they would refuse? It's not as though she could do anything from where she was, it just stunk of manipulation. Like Blackwell. Keeping her from getting support. It didn't look like Armsmaster was pleased with the direction of the conversation either, someone was telling him what to say and he didn't like it. Maybe the PRT director? No one else local would have the kind of influence to tell him what to do otherwise, unless there was something going on behind the scenes. But she couldn't be sure. Kept at distance, with no way of communicating outside of the laptop given by the PRT. Slamming her hand down against the table the laptop jostled lightly. Taylor let out a scream of frustration, rage, and guilt. A primal noise that she was surprised she could make.

Slowly letting her hand fall from the table and back to her sides, she dropped the knife that had manifested. Her hand bumped the cool flesh of her thigh, a stark contrast to the heat that seemed to be burning the rest of her, the rage that caused her to feel alight. The cool sensation helped to center her. Making her way back to the front of the camera, Taylor straightened her hair and slowly began to speak.

"Fine. I'll take the damn serum. But I want my Dad to be there when I do. If he isn't I am going to start walking towards the city and I will find him."

Armsmaster looked back at her for a long moment, before he nodded.

"The serum will be prepared, and ready to be delivered to by your father in eighty seven minutes. In the interim, we would like to compile a list of topics that you are emotionally invested in so that we may be able to provide an enriching environment for you and to avoid further incidents."

Taylor snorted. "Why, so you can all torment me with my worst memories? That's what the topics will cover."

"No. Our analysis indicates that any emotional response will suffice not just negative. However if you are capable of sharing the negative topics we can work to avoid or mitigate them."

Taylor took in a deep breath and let it out with a shudder. Speaking of the negative topics. Something that she had avoided doing with her dad because it might break him, something that she had tried to do with Winslow but had been rejected and scorned for. But at least now she had a semi-captive audience, and the power to make things happen.

It seemed that the Protectorate really wanted her, enough to overlook the damage and the death. The death. Another shuddering breath. In comparison to what had already happened sharing some details of her torment wouldn't hurt. Maybe one form of pain could distract her from the other?

"Okay. So the main thing that you need to know is that there are these three girls..."

Last edited: Mar 21, 2023

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Silent_Sepharim

Aug 5, 2022

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Threadmarks Interlude- PRT

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Silent_Sepharim

Aug 7, 2022

#111

PRT Interlude

"Get Shadow Stalker into custody right now."

The clipped tones of Director Emily Piggot momentarily stilled the flurry of activity that filled the conference room that was serving as the impromptu communication hub with the newly triggered cape. Seated next to her was Deputy Director Renick who quickly protested her decision, along with an angry outburst from two of the three heroes in the room. Dauntless and Triumph making an angry squawk at the brusque decision.

"Director! You can't be serious, this girl is a complete unknown and to arrest a member of the Wards on such a flimsy basis sets a dangerous precedent!" Triumph agreed with the quick words of the Deputy Director, however it appeared that Director Piggot was not in the mood to be questioned. She leveled a glare at Renick so withering that it would strip paint from the walls.

"Stalker is a known problematic individual and her personality and attitude would very much enable the alleged behavior. So get her in a secured cell immediately and then we can ensure that the allegations are real or not."

Triumph tried to vocalize his own protests but as the glare was directed at him he gulped, suddenly not feeling confident enough to complain with the Director in the mood she was in.

"Dauntless, Velocity. Go preform a sweep of her quarters at the PRT base, if she is as blatantly criminal as this girl alleged, she will likely have some form of contraband or incriminating evidence in her room. Triumph, you are to go with a PRT squad to the Hebert house with Mr Hebert and gain custody of the evidence that the girl is talking about. I want it on my desk immediately."

Director Piggot stood up and told Renick to have the Legal and Image departments send their representatives to her office post-haste. She trundled her way to the door, pausing momentarily as the PRT officer opened it, the security functions built into the secure conference room taking a brief moment to disarm.

As she left the room relaxed slightly, before Renick began dialing several internal numbers. Dauntless and Velocity got up and made their way out along with Triumph before splitting up, the lion headed hero quickly jogging towards the infirmary that Danny Hebert was being held. The two remaining heroes quickly made the journey from the Rig to the PRT base, the Wards being based there for the current time as the Rig's facilities were being refurbished after a disaster including several pizzas, three liters of soda, and chronological manipulation.

Before they arrived at the PRT base they received an email from Armsmaster, indicating that they were to keep the other Wards from knowing about the accusations made by Hebert, who had been assigned the temporary code-name "Fimbulwinter". Velocity was shaken at the name, normally apocalyptic events were not really given as identities and especially not Norse mythological ones in Brockton Bay. It appears that the name had been suggested offhand by a consultant that was in the conference, one Thomas Calvert.

As he and Dauntless quickly discussed the implications of the name, they entered the PRT base and made quick progress towards the Wards common room. The door opened after a retinal scan and the two walked in. Gallant looked up from where he was playing a board game with Clockblocker, his easy grin fixing slightly as the emotional state of the two adults came across. Clockblocker meanwhile took Gallant's distraction to swap two small tokens around, and then he waved a hand at the pair. Vista looked bored at the console, although her expression became mischievous as she switched back the tokens that Clockblocker has changed.

"Hi Dauntless, Velocity. Wasn't expecting a visit from you guys today? Another one of Armsmaster's surprise training courses?" Gallant joked as he started to rise from the couch, stopping after Velocity waved him down.

"Not today at least, although I would expect one in the next couple of days. Just a hunch." Dauntless replied with a wan smile. "Actually we are here for something else so don't let us distract you from your game." He started walking forward when Vista's voice stopped him.

"Has it got something to do with all the calls about a ice explosion across the bay? Because there have been a lot of people calling the PRT hotline about it."

Dauntless stiffened before he gestured for Velocity to go towards Shadow Stalkers room, the turned and faced the far too observant young girl.

"I can't say what is going on, and in fact you should probably stay quiet about that for now. No talking outside of this room okay?" Vista tilted her head slightly as she processed his words, Gallant now getting up properly to see what Velocity was doing.

"How come Velocity is going into Sophia's room? I thought part of the Wards contract was that our rooms were free from oversight outside scheduled inspections?"

Dauntless started to talk but Clockblocker cut over him.

"If you guys are doing random inspections, can you give me about twenty minutes to clear some stuff out from beneath the mattress? I don't think Miss Piggy would survive knowing what is going on in a teenage boys mind."

The pained groans of Vista and Gallant didn't affect the smug air of Clockblocker.

"First of all, never mention that to me again. If I don't know I can't be made to tell. Secondly this is an unusual situation. Just bear with us for a while and I'll let you know what I can, when I can alright?"

The three Wards nodding to Dauntless' words, while the hero watched as Velocity left Sophia's room. He carried four clear plastic bags. Three phones and a badly damaged silver flute that had been almost broken in two. The upset twist of his mouth indicating that he was very unhappy with what his search had come up with. Dauntless and Velocity quickly said their farewells to the Wards and headed out into the wider base, quickly getting to an unused meeting room.

"The Director was right. I only saw a recent text that had popped up on one of the phones, but someone was asking her if she was going to go hunting any more Nazis and to make sure to "Fuck them up good."" Dauntless sagged.

"Shit. I was really hoping you know? That she had turned things around. Fuck."

"Yeah."

Last edited: Aug 29, 2022

489

Silent_Sepharim

Aug 7, 2022

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Threadmarks Glaciation 2.1

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Silent_Sepharim

Aug 20, 2022

#151

In the three days since Taylor had spoken to Armsmaster there had been a steady thrum of activity around her, the damaged testing facility being repurposed as temporary housing for her. PRT agents had once again travelled out towards her, this time with a small moving truck loaded up with the essential furniture for her comfort. The facility had shower and bathroom facilities, and the smalls staff kitchen had been quickly filled with more substantial food than the assorted tea and snacks located in the cupboards. A gas camping stove brought in to allow Taylor to cook meals if she didn't request them from the PRT agent that was assigned to monitor the computer that Armsmaster had provided. The PRT agents had slowly started to relax around Taylor once they realised that she wasn't going to freeze them for no reason, and one had even jokingly refereed to the testing facility as "The Ice Box", a name that had stuck.

It was during this time that Miss Militia had come to visit. Taylor was initially extremely awkward but after Miss Militia had assured her that she was in good health and wasn't blaming Taylor for her powers that things started to relax. It didn't last long as Taylor was informed that her father had signed her into the Wards, citing that he wasn't able to provide the conditions necessary for her to live comfortably. Taylor had thought that it was rather typical that Danny had once again decided to not be involved, however this time he was ignoring her.

That accusation fell apart after she had a series of long video chats with Danny, during which he revealed that while Panacea had managed to heal him physically there were some brain injuries that had arisen as a result. He assured her that the Brockton Bay General Hospital would monitoring his condition but they wanted him to stay as an inpatient for a few weeks while they monitored him, apparently it was a very unusual form of injury and that no-one was sure what would happen.

During the time Taylor had followed the instructions of Armsmaster and had taken copious notes about her powers, when she started to feel them coming on and what effects they had. With her self-study and thinker analysis they had ascertained what emotions had the largest effect on keeping her powers in check. Happiness surprisingly wasn't the stabiliser that was hoped, its tendency to fall off into weaker emotions and a state of acceptance revealed it to be insufficient in managing Taylor. Curiosity was one of the two most successful emotions in engaging Taylor in the moment.

Since her trigger Taylor had apparently gained a very large interest in puzzles and problem solving. Some tests revealed that during the time her attention was focused on figuring out the puzzle or problem her powers were at their minimum. Conversely anger also served to anchor Taylor. The angrier she was the less power she had access to, although if it went to far into the realm of all consuming hate she would quickly delve into her powers. Once this was known the PRT requested Taylor start keeping a digital diary that would only be available to her, Armsmaster, and Director Piggot.

Taylor was initially against the idea of anyone reading her thoughts but once Assault pointed out that she had a direct line to complain about mundane shit to the highest authorities in Brockton she turned around on the idea. Furthermore Armsmaster had been working on the serum that was supposed to enhance her emotional reactions, and had just finished it.

The acidic tang of the vial that Armsmaster provided was strong, a sour note that had Taylor screwing up her face in distaste.

"I will attempt to further refine the Neurological Engagement Reinforcement Formula into either an injectable form or a pill." Armsmaster's brusque voice dragged Taylor back to the present. "However at this time there are other demands of me, and I must focus on them."

It made sense, Armsmaster was a very important person. He would likely have lots of projects that demanded his time and Taylor couldn't really ask him to put those aside just because she didn't like the taste of the medicine that he had custom made for her. Shrugging her shoulders in acceptance she looked at the rest of the objects that Armsmaster had brought on his visit to The Ice Box. A small briefcase that was opened revealed that there was a set of domino masks, some papers, and a plastic card attached to a lanyard.

"Um. I know that you have been doing a lot for me and I don't want to sound ungrateful, but why are you here?" The tone made Taylor wince at herself. It sounded whiny and immature. A great way to speak to a hero.

"I'm here to see if you are willing to continue with the on-boarding process of the Wards. Your discussions with your father indicate that you are willing, however I would like to hear your own words on the matter."

"Yes. I mean, if you guys still want me. I know Dad wants me to join but I thought that with everything you might not want me around."

"Untrue. While you have caused a great deal of work and personal changes the potential that you represent is immense and any Protectorate branch would be happy to have you. In addition any injuries or property damage have been covered under the auspice of a fresh trigger or in a training mishap. Legally you are an ideal candidate for the Wards."

The rather blunt manner of Armsmaster's speech continued to throw Taylor, for someone who was such a public figure he was very straightforward. Still his words did help to soothe the lingering knot of anxiety that had been building over the previous days. The PRT agents had either refused to answer her questions, or told her that they didn't have any information about the situation.

Considering Armsmaster's words, Taylor decided that she would go ahead with them for now. So far the heroes had treated her well, been very understanding, and payed attention to her. Something that she had been missing for over a year, and something that she hadn't noticed burning a large hole in her.

"Okay. I'd like to continue with the Wards. What do we do next?"

The Wards were being based in the PRT East-North-East base, located on Lords street and in the heart of the downtown area. The base itself was an imposing edifice of steel, bulletproof glass, and concrete, designed to weather a siege and come out the other side. Inside were the offices of many of the PRT data analysts and administrative staff, with armouries and garages for the martial wing. It was here that the Wards spent their time when not patrolling. Taylor tried to keep her breathing steady as she accompanied Dauntless to the wing where the Wards rooms resided. The tall man next to her drawing attention from the workers, who glanced over at her before turning back to their tasks.

"How many of the Wards are in right now?" Taylor's voice was quiet and a caught in her throat. Dauntless indicated that he hadn't head and so she repeated herself, with cheeks flushing in embarrassment.

"I think that the majority of them will be in currently. I know that Vista is on console duty, and Clockblocker is keeping her company much to her dismay. I think Kid Win is tinkering so if we can drag him away from his projects you can meet him. Gallant and Aegis should have returned from a patrol a little while ago, so they may be either in debriefings or have headed home. But they might stick around and be social, Gallant has a tendency to try and police Clock, which is a loosing battle but someone has to do it."

The relaxed tone of Dauntless' deep voice helped to both calm and irritate Taylor. The words helped her know that she wasn't disturbing the Wards, they had their own days and she wasn't infringing on them. But the casual way he spoke seemed at odds with the anxiety that she felt, the contrast bringing more awareness to the fact she didn't fit. With a small domino mask concealing her identity, and PRT issued gym clothes to wear Taylor really didn't feel like a potential Ward. It was like going to gym class in ratty clothes while everyone else was in new designer gear, it just stood out and felt bad.

The door to the Wards room had an ocular scanner, a fingerprint scanner, and a keypad. Dauntless told her that she only needed to pass one form of the security in order to enter, although they did different things. The keypad would alert those inside that there was someone wanting to enter, and the door would unlock after 60 seconds. The fingerprint scanner would bypass the wait time to people on the approved list but would log their entrance, and the ocular scan was the fastest and most convenient. Although that last bit was contested by the Wards, as helmets and visors got in the way. So they often just used the fingerprint scanner to enter.

The door quietly opened after Dauntless had entered the code and explained the procedure, and the Wards room was revealed. Immediately Taylor noticed the five Wards waiting for her, but the room as well demanded attention. A few board games were left out on the central table along with bottles of water, there was a large TV that showed a paused action movie. The entire area seemed to be well lived in but not shabby, an air of comfortable use that was at odds with the Wards currently standing together, almost in a parade stance.

"Knock it off. I'm not Arms, I don't need the formality."

With Dauntless' words the Wards all seemed to relax, with a variety of chuckles they broke apart with Vista heading towards a large bank of screens and computers, waving at Dauntless and Taylor as she did.

"So Big D, who is the new girl?"

Clockblocker radiated amusement despite the immediate long range smack from Vista and the sighs from his colleagues.

"If you must use a nickname, use anything but that. And this is your new team-mate, her name is currently undergoing some work-shopping so for now call her Ice." Dauntless turned to Taylor. "Now, if you are alright with it, I have to go and see a few people. Are you good here?"

The light tone turned more serious at the end of Dauntless' words, and Taylor manged an embarrassed nod. Gallant looked at Dauntless as he said his goodbyes and left the room. Taylor then realised that she was at the center of attention and started to shrink in on herself.

"Hi, I'm Gallant. It's a pleasure to have you joining us. We are always happy to see new heroes!" The sincerity with which Gallant spoke was a little off-putting to Taylor, he really seemed to believe that she was a hero without any other evidence. Just being introduced was enough to be on his good side.

"I'm Kid Win, I'm sorry to leave so soon but I have some family stuff that I have to go to tonight and need to run. I'm looking forward to getting to know you better." With his part said, Kid Win, dressed in jeans and a hoodie, waved goodbye as he made his way out of the room. Taylor was a little taken aback at the abrupt interaction, but decided that on the whole it was a good thing. One less person to focus on. Vista seemed to be focusing on the bank of computers, answering and re-directing calls and wasn't sparing any attention to her.

"So, if your name is getting work-shopped it must have been a real big deal for the PR department. What did you call yourself?" Clockblocker asked as he made his way to the couch, flopping down and sprawling on the cushions. Gallant lead Taylor towards him, directing her to sit in a well stuffed chair.

"Um, I don't actually know. Some consultant gave it to me and then there was some kind of mistake and he ended up getting into a fight with the Director."

Gallant and Clockblocker both started slightly, before Gallant sat down on the couch opposite Taylor.

"Oh yea, I heard about that. It was a guy by the name of Calvert, he was supposed to have given a name that was completely inappropriate for Brockton to a fresh trigger. I guess that must have been you?"

Clockblocker looked up from his phone, his body vibrating in place.

"Inappropriate is a bit of an understatement Gal, he gave Ice here a Germanic name. Which we really don't need with the Empire of idiots here. Fimbulwinter. Not sure what it means but it sounds like something that Kaiser would like. Calvert must have been smoking something to suggest that near Piggy."

Taylor chocked a little at the name given to the Director, it was quite unflattering. Gallant however looked perturbed by the name.

"Normally names are assigned with thought to the relative power of the individual if we don't know anything else about them. Why would you get that kind of name? The Norse Great Winter is a pretty large title to claim."

Taylor flushed, her face buried in her hands as she tried to hide it. "I don't know why they gave me that name! I would have been fine with something like Frost, or Glacier. I don't want to be associated with E88!"

"Ahh relax, looks like Calvert got himself the boot as a result of the name. And the fight he had with Piggy afterwards, seems like they got into a bit of screaming fight. Not a good look."

The nonchalance Clockblocker displayed helped to calm Taylor, it looked like she wasn't being judged for the name she was given. The trio started to talk about what to expect in the Wards, and how it was working with the PRT. Gallant tried to give detailed impressions about what they did whereas Clockblocker kept interjecting with amusing anecdotes about each tale Gallant was speaking of. After a half hour Gallant apologised as he got up, saying that he also had to head home. Clockblocker said that he would take care of getting Taylor an escort to the front door when she was ready. Shortly after Gallant had left Clockblocker turned towards Taylor and put his water down, the straw inside rolling around.

"So, how did you get rid of Shadow Stalker?"

Last edited: Mar 21, 2023

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Silent_Sepharim

Aug 20, 2022

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Silent_Sepharim

Aug 27, 2022

#185

"What?"

Taylor could hear her voice sound flat as the confused question made its way out. Her getting rid of Shadow Stalker? That was ludicrious, she had never even met the girl or said a bad word about her. Clockblocker must have been joking or assigning the blame for it to her, maybe it was a weird form of personality assessment. The PRT was found of oblique tests after all. It would make sense to test her composure by asking an off-putting question from an unexpected angle, so she just had to handle it with a bit of grace. Quickly shaking herself back on topic, Taylor quickly followed up on her confused question.

"I really don't know what you mean, I've never met Shadow Stalker or had any chance to talk about the Wards in general. I was looking forward to meeting her actually!" Clockblocker snorted at her words, Taylor started to feel lightly aggravated by the dismissive act. "What makes you think I have anything to do with whatever is going on there?"

Leaning further into the couch, Clockblocker took a moment to stretch his neck, the pop sounding clear in the quiet hum of electronics. The expressionless mask fixed it's gaze onto Taylor's face as the Ward gestured with a lazy wave.

"It's pretty simple really. There was some kind of drama that happened a few days ago that got a bunch of the old heroes called out, not that unusual in the case of Brockton but this one stands out because it made PHO. Some speculation about who did a reenactment of Winter Wonderland down near the docks, and it got a bit of attention when Velocity got on scene. From there Glory Girl was complaining to the Wards as a whole that she got her beauty nap disrupted with an emergency call for Panacea to go to BB General. Generally that means some extreme injury, or a parahuman injury." His languid gestures as he spoke emphasising his points, the boy himself still draped on the couch. Taylor felt her mouth get drier and drier as Clockblocker spoke.

"Then there was a bit of a surprise visit three days ago when Dauntless and Velocity came to visit us humble Wards in our little slice of bureaucratically designed heaven. They asked a couple of questions about Shadow, and went and had a poke around her stuff. Interestingly they left with a few phones in evidence bags which struck me as odd. If anyone was going to get arrested for the things on their phones I thought it would be Kid or me! But following that, we heard from Glory that Panacea had been rushed to the PRT HQ. Very interesting".

" Putting that all together the only real connecting figure in all of this is you. So, I thought that rather than sneaking around and trying to gather information from gossip I'd go right to the source. Suckle from the teat of knowledge if you will." Clockblocker finished his spiel with a wiggle of his fingers and tilting his head, making Taylor blush as the words processed.

It was a reasonable theory, she thought. There was a lot missing from it which she knew and it still didn't really connect anything to her but it did look solid from a glance. Taylor poured through her memories to see if she said anything about Shadow Stalker during the last few days and even racking her brain she couldn't think of a single moment were she explicitly mentioned her.Sure saying she was interested in meeting the Wards, and sure that she thought Shadow Stalker was kinda cool in a gritty, edgy kind of way but nothing that would lead to her belongings getting searched.

It was a bit strange that Clockblocker was taking the intrusion into his fellow Wards privacy with such ease, it would be an easy step for the PRT and Protectorate to extend that to the other Wards and he didn't seem to care.

"I guess. It sounds alright but I really didn't say anything about Shadow Stalker. And please tell Panacea that I am really sorry that I caused her extra work. I didn't want anyone to get hurt and things just seemed to go wrong."

"Pshh. Things happen, it's part of being a cape. That said I think Amy would appreciate the apology more if you did something to really show you were sorry. Maybe buy a meal or something. Better than just words right?"

Buying Panacea a meal? Buying another person a meal would mean being around them for a prolonged time, and generally mean being in public. That was not an option. And would Panacea really expect that? Was it the right thing to do? Surely she would get offers like that all the time, it wouldn't mean anything coming from her.

She couldn't offer to go anywhere nice because it would be too pricey and taking Brockton Bay's best healer to Fugly Bob's seemed a bit insensitive. It was likely responsible for a lot of the cardiac cases that went to the hospitals anyway. Maybe something a bit more personal, something handmade? She could try making a thank you card? God no, that sounded so childish. Instead something unique? Maybe she could make a unique present with her ice.

The sound of Clockblocker standing up drew Taylor from her thoughts.

"Well, It doesn't really matter. Eventually Armsy or M will tell us whats going on or I'll pester it out of Assault. So don't worry about it. Instead why don't we finish off the Wards tour and I will show you the real cool stuff that they don't want us to talk about outside the common room. Apparently they are worried that the lure of our extensive movie collection will lead to more teens claiming they have powers in order to check it out, which is fair. They have a ton of Aleph movies here!"

The emotional whiplash from starting to spiral about a present for Panacea to Aleph movies rendered Taylor still for a moment, her brain struggling to change from one topic to another. Once it caught up embarrassment was foremost in her mind, she had been looking blankly at Clockblocker for a few seconds.

"Oh sure. Do you get access to other Aleph imports?"

A half hour went by as Clockblocker showed Taylor around, before she mentioned that she was feeling a bit overwhelmed and wanted to head out so Clockblocker sent a message out. Triumph was shortly there, ready to escort Taylor out as he asked if she had a good visit. He did also say to ignore most of what Clockblocker said, he was a terrible troll and delighted in bad jokes to which Clockblocker bowed mockingly. Taylor responded that she had enjoyed the visit but hoped that next time she would be able to talk to Vista about what it was like being one of the only girls on the predominately male team. Triumph escorted her through the corridors as he answered her questions about heading home.

Apparently her home had no long term exotic damage from her powers, but the piping was frozen and had shattered in several parts and the wood frame was being considered for replacement due to the damage from snap freezing, it would take several weeks at the minimum before she would be able to return home but the PRT was willing to fit the bill for the repairs. In the meantime she would need to stay at the Ice Box for a week, to ensure that the serum from Armsmaster worked properly before she would be moved into the Wards area. Triumph waved her farewell as she got into a car with a pair of PRT agents, another squad getting into an armoured truck behind her.

The car pulled away from the PRT HQ, making its way out of the city with the light traffic. Slowly winding through the streets of Brockton, Taylor had a moment to think further about her visit. The Wards seemed friendly enough, even knowing that she was involved with an incident that required the personal attention of Panacea. It was odd, to be around people and not be constantly preparing for the next insult, the next offence. Taylor put part of it to the Wards being better people than the Trio, but suspected that being a cape might have something to do with it. They were on their best behaviour to try and recruit her, or to make it look like a good idea. Pointless, as she had been signed up already but it was nice to talk.

Although if they were trying to be extra welcoming Clockblocker had thrown a spanner in the works there, it wasn't directly offensive but just very odd. Her responsible for Shadow Stalker being removed? It was crazy, after all she had only spoken about Winslow and the Trio and everyone knew the Wards attended Arcadia. Although, Taylor mused as she tapped a finger against her lower lip, it would make sense to spread the Wards out throughout the other schools in the Bay. After all, if everyone knew that the Wards attended Arcadia they wouldn't look elsewhere. Maybe that is what he meant.

Maybe Shadow Stalker attended Winslow and the reason that her phones were taken is because she hadn't said anything about the rather extreme and public campaign of harassment? But again that didn't make sense, Shadow Stalker was known as an extremely driven cape that hunted the gangs with a fervour that was concerning at times, the rumours that she had been brought into the Wards after she had killed someone were still repeated on smaller PHO threads.

The screeching of brakes and the impact of her seat-belt slamming against her chest brought Taylor back to the immediate moment. The PRT agent in the front seat was cursing up a storm, worse than some of the dockworkers that she had heard when she visited her Dad at work. Peering over the front seat Taylor saw what had caused the agent to stop so suddenly.

Capes.

Multiple capes stood across the road, all traffic blocked off or screaming away from the area. The Empire was present. Krieg, Stormtiger, Cricket, and Alabaster stood facing her car. And they were indeed facing her, as Stormtiger gestured and a motorbike between him and Taylor was thrown aside by an invisible force but a howling wind was heard. The PRT radio squawked as the PRT truck behind her check in.

"They are behind us too! Fuck, It's an ambush. We are calling for back up. Do not engage. Try and escape!"

Taylor quickly spun in her seat and gulped. A massive woman stepped out from a side alley and was growing as she planted herself in the center of the road. At over 15ft tall, it could only be one of the Empire's Valkyrie twins. Either Fenja or Menja, Taylor could never remember which one, but this one had a sword and shield that were growing with her. Hovering by her shoulders was the small figure of Rune, standing on what appeared like solid slab of cement that was easily the size of medium car.

The PRT agent in the car turned to face Taylor, the panic in her expression being clamped down by a professional focus. "They are likely to be after us. It is incredibly important that you follow my instructions now, we will get out of this. Backup is on it's way, less than four minutes till they arrive. Just stay calm and lets hope that they are here for unrelated reasons."

Krieg walked forward from the throng of E88 capes, his S.S uniform and gas-mask striking an ominous figure in the pale sun of Brockton winter.

"Fraulein Fimblewinter, we seek to welcome you to your brethren among the arms of our glorious Empire!"

Last edited: Mar 21, 2023

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Silent_Sepharim

Aug 27, 2022

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Silent_Sepharim

Sep 4, 2022

#238

The Empire had sent capes for her. Not just one, but six. One shy of the entire Protectorate roster, to collect her. It was unbelievable, scary, and frankly Taylor didn't know how to react. The sharp lines of Krieg's SS officer styled outfit stood in vivid contrast to the weathered and worn Brockton street, his gas mask lending an even more sinister aesthetic as he strolled towards her stationary vehicle. A loud crash rang out from behind her, and the radio squawked as the PRT agents in the back up van reported that they couldn't evacuate the vehicle. Taylor snapped her head to the side to see Fenja's shield embedded in the asphalt behind the van and Rune having embedded a series of star pickets into the road by the front doors. The agents were trapped. There was no reinforcement available and by the cocky stance of Fenja, she knew it.

"Shit. Shit fuck. Okay, I've sent out the emergency distress signal but it will be a few minutes before any support can make it here." The PRT agent that had been driving Taylor started to talk, pulling open the passenger glove-box and drawing a pistol and two loaded magazines. "We just have to hunker down and avoid engaging. Talk if you have to, but be ready to run on my order okay? We will get out of this." The solid thud of the magazine slamming home into the pistol helped to focus Taylor.

"Oh, okay."

Krieg had been waiting idly only five meters from the front of the car and was apparently growing impatient with the delay from her, as he gestured towards Stormtiger to approach the vehicle. Stormtiger looked out of place next to Kreig, his loose jeans and exposed chest a complete antithesis to the sharp outfit of his commander. The chains on his belt jangled as the tiger masked man approached and with a sharp slash of his hand the roof of the car was ripped apart, the metal tearing as though an invisible can opener was going to work.

Taylor and the agent flinched away from the horrific noise, throwing themselves to the foot-wells as much as possible before the roof tore away and the snarling visage of Stormtiger leaned over the driver side window. The agent quickly sighted her gun on the cape, but his hand lashed over the window and locked onto her wrist. Metal shrieked as the barrel of the gun started to show cuts and abrasions, and Stormtiger secured a second hand on the agents arm and began to haul the woman bodily out of the vehicle while she tried to fire.

The gun went off but it shattered the window and the following three shots ran wide and into the buildings lining the street, Stormtiger got her torso out of the vehicle and used his leverage to slam the woman into the street, directly onto her gun arm. The sickening crack of bone snapping reached Taylor as the woman's pained scream was bitten off by a sharp jab to the back of her head. The agent was unconscious, Taylor was alone.

The sound was horrific, even worse than she had imagined it would sound like and the satisfied huff from Stormtiger made it worse. How could he be happy with the vicious maiming he just did? Taylor tried to shrink further into the foot-well, her blood racing through her veins as her heart finally caught up with the situation. Adrenaline flooded her brain, the serum that Armsmaster provided enhancing the uptake speed and causing a deep, throbbing pulse to start in her mind.

"I apologise for the roughness in which we have released you from the binds of the PRT, I do hope that you are unharmed?" Krieg had approached the side of the vehicle as Taylor's focus was on Stormtiger, he rested a hand against the inside of the passenger door and lowered the window so that he could more directly see Taylor. "Yes, excellent. It would not do to have an imperial flower so damaged by rough handling." The satisfied and ingratiating tone sent shiver down Taylor's spine, the idea of being considered a treasure by the Empire an abhorrent concept to her.

Her veins flooding with fire, Taylor struggled to formulate a response as her hand clutched into a fist inside her hoodies stomach pocket. Ice slowly, agonizingly slowly, began to form around her fist, starting to create a punch dagger that Miss Militia had shown her. It was Indian in origin, which seemed an appropriate weapon to hit a Nazi with, but most importantly it was simple to use. Just punch and let it work. No need for any knife fighting technique, which she didn't have in the first place. If only it would work! An overwhelming throb caused her to clutch the side of her head with her free hand, a pained grimace coming over her otherwise fear stricken face. Krieg saw this and immediately went to open the passenger door.

"Dear Fraulein, have you suffered harm at the hands of the PRT? I assure you that when we are far from their indelicate grasp you will be treated by the delightful Othala, restored to the peak of what humans are!" His previous satisfaction masked by the raw concern in his tone, his voice rebounding off the surrounding buildings as he played for the cameras. Taylor could see his eyes though, icy blue bright with glee at the potential for a PR hit to his rivals. Her skull pulsed again, as though her brain was trying to evacuate its residence, her veins roared with hellfire and a whimper escaped her lips. Trying to make something of the noise Taylor tried to lock eyes with the Empire cape.

"Why do you even care? I'm not a Nazi and I hate your ideology." Not her best retort, Taylor thought as her nose started to bleed. However Krieg took the rebuke with a practised grace.

"Ahhh, but even so the strength inherent in your good breeding is clear, despite the suffering that you have endured at the hands of the degenerate PRT your will is as iron. And once your are free of their degenerate poison you will be amognst your fellow kin!" Krieg flung the door open and went to place a hand on Taylor's shoulder her skin crawled at the touch, the leather of his gloves feeling disgusting even through the layers of clothes she was wearing. Her skull pulsed once more and the fire in her veins died away. Leaving a rush of cool, comforting ice that slowly circulated. Her face relaxed and her hand extended from her hoodie.

Rune was bored. Sure a raid on a PRT convoy to free a new recruit to the ideology sounded like a good time but reality really didn't live up to the hype. Once Fenja and herself had sealed the blatantly obvious back up inside their van there wasn't much to do other than let Kreig do his grandstanding. A few phones peeked out from the windows of an apartment building to her left and Rune sighed, there was always some idiot in Brockton Bay that would try and record anything to do with capes. Still, this was what Kaiser wanted, to have the Empire seen as freeing a wrongly persecuted white girl from the clutches of the PRT. She didn't know where he was getting his info but so far it seemed good, but it always did.

Watching as Krieg flung the door to the ruined car open Rune sighed, it looked like things were about to end. Krieg being flung through the air as a meter long lance of ice shot out from the scrawny little girl was not really what she expected to happen next, but it did. As Krieg bled off his momentum and started to land on his feet, Stormtiger went to strike the girl.

Rune watched in horror as the girls head turned from the impact but the roar of pain from Stormtiger showed something was wrong, his hand bouncing off the her skull, the skin rapidly turning a crystalline blue. Stormtiger tried to back away as he held his hand close to his chest, the wind howling as it propelled his leap, but at the apex he howled in pain as his legs seemed to lock in place and he tumbled gracelessly. His impact to the ground was horrific, both legs shattering on impact and ice rapidly swallowing his prone form. The girl started to pull herself to her feet, the ice flowing out along the ground and swallowing the nearby cars.

This got Rune to move, Alabaster and Cricket didn't have a means to avoid the ground for long. Her floating cement slab rapidly accelerating towards the land bound capes as more gunshots rang out. Krieg had pulled out the vintage Luger that he always carried, Rune thought it was a bit on the nose but right now she was glad to see it. Then her heart dropped further, the bullets had slammed home into the girl and just shattered. The girl didn't even have the decency to recoil from it!

Rushing forwards with a war-cry Fenja made massive bounding leaps, her near three story height allowing her to cover the distance with great speed and her mass preventing the ever expanding ice from anchoring her to the ground. Rune watched with her mouth dry as Fenja launched a titanic two handed overhead swipe directly onto the girl, a blow that had sent Lung onto his ass in the past.

The sword shattered as it made contact with the girls upraised palm. The metal shards flying into the air that now was starting to mist, light eddies of snowflakes filling the air disrupted by the high velocity fragments. Fenja went to pull back but her commitment to the strike had left her on the ground for too long and the ice was already racing up her calves.

"It was quite rude to try and kidnap me. I do not want anything to do with your organization or ideology. Now I will have to wait here for the Parahuman Response Team to secure the area, which is an imposition on my time. I am displeased."

Fuck, thought Rune, even her voice sounds like ice. No passion, no nothing. Just a bland statement. It sent a shiver down her spine, even as her skin started to redden from the exposure to the rapidly dropping temperature. Her slab reached Cricket and Alabaster as Fenja went to throw a punch at the girl. A sudden whirl of razor sharp icicles zipped through the air and shredded Fenja's exposed limbs, blood being instantly frozen into more sharp blades to further cut her.

The shriek of pain from Fenja cut off as the girl idly swung her hand, a massive pole forming as she did. The sound of the pole connecting with Fenja's head was clear even over the roaring wind and snapping retort of gunfire from Krieg and now Alabaster. Fenja went limp, her upper body falling backwards boneless while her lower body was supported by the ice that had reached her hips.

Rune swung up next to Cricket, who had embedded her kama in the side of a building and was hanging onto them to avoid the ice that had just reached her, Alabaster was not so lucky. His legs where getting covered, and even his resetting didn't free him. Cricket looked at the situation and quickly dropped from the wall and onto the roof of a car, slashing out with her kama and slicing off Alabaster's ankles, as he had a moment disconnected from the ice, Rune and Cricket hauled him onto the concrete slab. Cricket quickly leapt on afterwards, one of her shoes left behind as it froze to the cars roof.

Rune went to approach Krieg but the girl intervened, not moving from her standing position by the car a small gesture was all she needed to launch another ice spear. This one was easily a meter in width and a half dozen in length and moved far too fast for something that size. It screamed through the air, the grooves around it causing the air to shriek as it flew, and tore through Rune's slab. Dropping to the ground in shock and fear, it took Rune a few seconds to get herself together enough to reapply her power on the remaining slab, barely large enough for her, let alone Cricket and Alabaster.

The lack of size did allow her to take off with a loud crack as the ice already forming shattered, and she started to speed away from the area. Alabaster started yelling and Cricket's mechanical voicebox buzzed in anger as they demanded she return to gather the others. But as she looked over her shoulder at the girl, standing still with her eyes locked onto Rune's fleeing form, Rune could not summon the bravery or insanity needed to return. The last thing she saw before rising over an empty department store and blocking line of sight was Krieg attempting to get away. The ice flowing over him as his foot touched the ground, his extended hand towards her haunting her thoughts. Shivering from a combination of adrenaline and cold, Rune dreaded trying to explain this to Kaiser.

Last edited: Mar 21, 2023

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Sep 4, 2022

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Silent_Sepharim

Sep 12, 2022

#338

Carefully stepping past the fist sized chunks of frozen flesh from Stormtiger Taylor picked her way towards the front of the PRT car, the ripped roof flapping and wobbling in the snowstorm that engulfed the area. Placing her feet firmly on the ice, Taylor sat on the bonnet and looked around. The shattered form of Stormtiger was under a foot of ice, and even now the ice grew more compact and his form was being subsumed into the greater mass, the PRT agent that was escorting Taylor was excavated with a thought and her form was carried by a moving flow of ice towards Taylor's position.

Flat eyes examined the corpse. Her arm had been shattered by Stormtiger and bone was exposed through her shirt, and the flow of ice had crept inside from there and replaced the blood inside the body with a frozen crimson solution. Taylor reached forward and collected the necklace the woman was wearing, dog tags of stamped steel clinking in her palm as she read the details.

"Sarah Newman. My apologises for your departure, I will make sure that all hear of your bravery in the face of overwhelming adversity."

Taylor sat motionless for a long moment, her mind engraving the mixture of anger and pain on Sarah's face into her mind. With a slow and steady blink, her attention turned towards the large figure that stood limp next to her, Fenja. One of the Empire's hard hitters, a giantess clad in the armour of a Valkyrie, polluting the mythos of the Norse with the rhetoric of the feeble-minded and short-sighted. Her skin had turned a light blue from the cold, many shades lighter than Taylor's own deep blue crystalline form, and her helmet had steam puffing in sporadic spurts from the grill. Her sheer physical stature was impressive, Taylor had to admit, the atavistic fear of a greater being descending down on you was something to be conscious of, but while unconscious and with ice slowly creeping higher and higher she simply posed a larger statue than most.

The fact that she had been deployed to capture Taylor though, that was far more interesting than her physical form. A direct handmaiden of the Kaiser, a symbol of power that was dying in front of her. Taylor paused in her observation for a moment as a sharp crack was muffled by the howling storm, a bracket that held up a sign had snapped under the conditions and plummeted towards the ground, shattering on impact and sending shards of steel and ice flying. Ignoring the few that pinged off her skin Taylor returned to her musings. Should she stop the ice from consuming the woman? One train of logic would imply that she should try and save everyone she could, that life was sacred and to do everything to preserve it, another was that Fenja had tried to murder her.

Slinking over towards the remnants of the giantesses shattered sword, Taylor removed the ice that had encased it, hoisting the grossly enlarged weapon in one hand. The blade was gone, leaving only a two foot length near the handle, nothing compared to the near 12 foot length that it was when swung. A careful chop into the air revealed that while she could wield the weight, the size of the hilt was impractical and so Taylor dropped it. Turning to Fenja once more Taylor pondered.

"You tried to kill me. Legally I have defended myself and anything from this point on is excessive force, but you tried to kill me while I was being shot at. I am not inclined towards allowing that behaviour to be tolerated. So while I should leave you to exposure and see if your constitution is sufficient to survive, I think I will ensure your passing. Farewell Fenja."

Taylor gazed with a focused attention on the Valkyrie's head and a haze appeared in the area, the steam that was puffing out from the helm stopped as it changed into tiny ice crystals as the area flash froze, even colder than the surrounding area. Taylor blinked as the head shattered under the pressure and a stray piece of discarded debris impacted the area. Shaking her hair free of the broken bone fragments Taylor returned to her position on the bonnet of the car. Her immediate environment was secure, certainly Krieg was out in the storm, but he would die of exposure.

Taylor decided that trying to locate him was a level of attention that the Nazi did not deserve, while they wanted her, she wanted nothing to do with them. Instead her thoughts turned towards the aftermath of the fight, and what the fallout with the PRT would be. No doubt they would be up in arms about the encounter, and while blame would fall to the Empire, Taylor was under no illusions that she would be held responsible for the damage her powers caused.

While she thought it unfair, the nature of her powers was not her choice and she was acting in self defence she was aware that the PRT often would take advantage of situations to push their goals further, and securing her through the threat of jail-time would be well within their playbook. With a tilt of her head, Taylor realised that she wouldn't be able to stay in Brockton Bay if she was with the Protectorate. Likely there was too much damage and she wouldn't be surprised if there was civilian deaths in the area around her.

As the thought came through her head she started to realise that she was in a really bad spot, the death of the Empire capes could be ruled as self defence but anyone caught in the area that just happened to die because of her? That was innocent deaths! Sure she couldn't help it because of how things worked but she didn't want to go to prison! They sent killers to the Birdcage! Sure there was a three strikes rule but would they judge by incident or by deaths? Would she be sent to live with the worst of humanity? For the love of all that is holy, the Fairy Queen lived there!

Taylor's thoughts spiralled and as they did the winds stopped doing so, initially a faint effect but rapidly decreasing in velocity as Taylor panicked over the no doubt impending incarceration that she was facing. As the storm died away the local area was revealed and Taylor's gut dropped further. There was a couple in a car not 100 feet from her that was frozen in the front seats, faces filled with fear. A motionless dog was tipped over against an alley wall, it's leg broken off and spread across the footpath. More and more details came to her attention as she witnessed the scale of devastation that she had wrought. Metal from the shattered sword had spun around and slashed up banners that hung overhead, the windows all over broken from the cold, and entire apartment blocks on either side swallowed in a thick cocoon of ice.

Taylor began to hyperventilate as she pulled on her powers, trying to retract the ice, to have it release the buildings but the faint pull only caused a light movement of the closest chunks. As she struggled to increase her pull, a high pitched wine that rapidly increased in volume forced her attention towards it, an electric drone flying down at high speed from the direction of the city proper. It rapidly descended towards her and she could quickly identify it as a PRT drone based on the large letters on the side, when it neared the volume and pitch of its engines lessened, and Armsmaster's voice came through.

"Temporary cape identity Fimbulwinter, provide a report of what has happened."

Brusque and with an undercurrent of anger, Taylor gulped at the drone.

"The Empire attacked us! They blocked off the street and sent capes to try and kidnap me, they knew my cape name and they knew the route. They killed Sarah! Stormtiger hauled her out of..."

"Stop. Is there an immediate threat to yourself or others?"

Deep breaths Taylor reminded herself, keep yourself composed. Don't get overwhelmed but don't sink into the ice. Focus on the now, and address what you can.

"Not that I can see. If there was…. Well I don't think that anything nearby survived. I think that I might have killed people."

"Possibly, but we can investigate that once the scene is secure. Your willingness to cooperate has been noted, thank you. I can assure you however, that there is a group of survivors nearby that require you aid. Protectorate resources are currently unavailable due to an outbreak of gang violence that is engulfing the boardwalk area, it falls to you to save these people. Can you do this?"

The question hung heavy in Taylor's mind. Could she do that? So far since getting her powers she had only managed to hurt more people, to make her problems become other peoples issue. Although that could change she realised, she hadn't really accepted the reality of her situation. That she had the means by which to change her position, that she could do good as long as she didn't get into that zen state where everything seemed so simple and easy. Easy was appealing, easy was a way to avoid the pain of living, of having to see Danny in the hospital because of her, of having to deal with Emma once she returned to Winslow.

But did she really have to do that? If she could do good, she could be a Ward, she could get transferred to Arcadia, or be home-schooled at the Rig! It may not be a good reason to do good, but it was an immediate goal to work towards, something that Taylor could visualise and value.

"Yeah, I think I can. What do I need to do?"

"Good, follow the drone and a PRT agent will provide further instructions. I am about to engage with the Merchants. Armsmaster out."

Taylor followed the drone, her steps a little more confidant than they had been. Her path was brought to the PRT van that had been sealed by Fenja and Rune, and the voice on the other end of the drone, a senior analyst Harold Seigman, told her that the relief squad was trapped inside and had been reporting on the communication network that they could not exit the vehicle. Taylor was dubious, the van was close to the epicentre of her outburst but the analyst was convinced.

She was instructed to remove the shield that blocked the back doors, and when that proved to be unfeasible due to the weight and size of it, to instead remove a the star pickets blocking the vehicle moving forward. It took a great deal of struggling but eventually she was able to remove them, creating an incredibly sharp blade from the surrounding ice and cutting the pickets at the base. Once that was done she was able to push the vehicle forward with a mass of ice, and the moment the doors were clear of the shield the PRT squad piled out. The soldiers fanned out quickly and formed a perimeter around Taylor, the drone informing her that a vehicle had been deployed to collect her and return her to the testing facility.

The trip to the Ice Box was uncomfortable, the PRT agents that escorted her visibly armed with proper guns and obviously jittery. They tended to look away from Taylor the moment she saw them looking and there was always at least one gun pointed in her general direction. The moment she could leave the cramped SUV Taylor clambered free of its confines and onto the open earth of the test site. A PRT agent told her that until the situation in the city had been restrained that she would need to wait to give a debriefing, but that writing down the events would be a very large help in identifying what had happened. Taylor took that advice and went inside to her small kitchen area and gathered her writing materials, intent on committing everything to the page before she forgot even a single detail.

By the time the PRT agent announced that some of the Protectorate were ready to see her, Taylor had written her report and checked it over a half dozen times, had a small nap, and eaten a very light dinner of a tuna sandwich. Groggily rubbing the last of the sleep gunk from her eyes she followed the trooper to a briefing room, when she entered she saw Miss Militia, Assault, and Battery all sitting at the table facing her. Miss Militia seemed exhausted, with a deep frown creasing her brow and dark bags under her eyes, Battery seemed to be a touch worn but otherwise alright, and despite the missing chest-piece on Assault's costume the man himself seemed full of vigour.

"Ahh the lady of the hour! I was just telling puppy here that we should start charging the PRT for travel time all the way out to your winter wonderland."

The irreverent exuberance of Assault brought a smile to Taylor's face, the endless well of energy that was the hero a welcome balm to her own strained reserves. Taylor took a seat opposite them and slid her report forward, noting as she did that there was another PRT squad in addition to the one that she had accompanied. Two full squads of PRT troops, with live weapons, and three heroes, two of whom specialise in close quarters engagements and the other who can create any weapon on the fly. If Taylor was a more suspicious individual she would say that they were prepared for a fight, but she was working with them so that couldn't be the case.

"I'm sorry to make you come all the way out here, I would have done the debriefing over the phone if it was easier for you all."

A faint smile from Battery showed she appreciated Taylor's response while Miss Militia picked up the report and started quickly scanning it, her brown eyes flickering back and forth rapidly.

"Miss Hebert, thank you for completing a written report, the director will appreciate this and it ties into what we are here to talk to you about. There have been some concerns raised about the safety of moving you around."

Taylor was nonplussed by Miss Militia's statement, did they think she was a threat? The only reason that today had happened is because she was attacked! A sinking feeling started to originate in Taylor's gut, and her initial paranoid thoughts started to seem more reasonable.

"Is this something we should talk about without my Dad around? If there is going to be any changes to the current plans he would need to know about them."

Assault and Battery seemed to clench their jaws as a faint noise came in from their earpieces, and after a moment they dispatched a trooper to collect a laptop from the helicopter that they had taken over. It was an awkward ten minutes waiting for the soldier to return, and a further five waiting for Danny to respond to the voice call, but once he did his appearance on the screen helped alleviate the stress building in Taylor. His expression was sharper, his voice clearer, evidently the medicine that he was on for the lingering effects of his freezing had been working and he brightened on seeing Taylor.

"Hello Little Owl, I wasn't expecting to hear from you today. Is everything alright?"

A brief unkind thought that it was unfair that he expected something to be wrong because she called passed by Taylor before she collected herself and informed her father that Miss Militia, Assault, and Battery were wanting to talk about some changes to the current situation. Danny looked confused for a moment before he asked for the laptop to be moved so that he could see everyone in the conversation, after a nod from Battery a trooper moved the laptop to the edge of the table and ensured that everyone was in sight.

"So what is all this about then? Nothing has reached me about the need for a change in plans."

With a slight grimace Battery began to speak.

"Mr Hebert, there have been some changes to the situation. The gangs have started off a major round of conflict and even sent several capes to try and capture your daughter." Danny looked shocked and off-kilter at the idea of capes attacking Taylor. "As a result of the attack there was another incident where Taylor's powers where unleashed, so far we haven't been able to confirm the final count of fatalities but it is in the double digits." Taylor felt an uncomfortable squeeze around her heart.

She had killed over ten people? The Empire capes where only three, and she had only seen two civilians in the cars, and that was only five. She had missed at least half of the deaths? "As a result of this there has been a lot of discussion about the best way to handle the situation and the current plan is to have a lock-down at the Testing Facility, to make sure that no other capes or bad actors can reach Taylor."

Lock-down. To be confined to the testing range. To be trapped in the Ice Box. Taylor's thoughts started to spiral.

"Absolutely not! I understand where you superiors are coming from but this is preemptive imprisonment and I will not support this. Restrictions on safe places to travel and at most a curfew is all I will consider. Taylor is not the one who caused this, she was attacked! Why are you trying to pin the actions of a criminal organisation on her?"

The angry tones of Danny rebuking the heroes was an unusual experience for Taylor. She knew her father had to be a good negotiator, his position in the DWA required it, but it had been so long since he had engaged with her. Since he had turned the passion that drove him into the DWA in the first place towards helping her, at least since her Mum had died. To see her Dad now was a snapshot of what she could remember of the good days before Annette died.

"Mr Hebert please. You must understand that these decisions have been made for the safety of your daughter, and not to punish her. We know she is a victim here, and she has been a model of cooperation thus far, we want to maintain our good relationship here. Please consider that the damage dealt by her far exceeds anything that the attackers had done and that lives have been lost as a result. We have a duty to the public as well, and we want to look after them as well. Taylor staying here is a small sacrifice to make sure that everyone else is safe."

The impassioned plea from Miss Militia toward Danny sent daggers of anger through Taylor, to be the sacrifice so that others are safe? To be the one who suffers so others don't? If she had chosen that Taylor wouldn't be so angry, but to have another authority figure declare that she wasn't important enough to care for was sickening. To be reminded that she was just plain old Taylor Hebert, a nothing and nobody that was there to be flung to the wolves whenever convenient was enraging. And the way they wanted to do it!

"Miss Militia. I hope that you are not trying to say that I should sacrifice myself so that others can be looked after. That you will turn a blind eye to my situation to avoid shaking the boat. I told you all what happened at Winslow. That I was the scapegoat there. That I was the convenient sacrifice to keep the peace there. I was stuffed into a locker filled with used pads and more because it kept the important people comfortable! And now you want to stuff me into the base and unable to leave because it will keep the important people in the city comfortable? No! I will not be trapped here!"

The ice dagger in Taylor's hand stabbed clean through the table, and the PRT troopers raised their guns.