i was re-reading a chapter of Taylor Varga when this idea hit. No plans for a Chapter Two.
* Wed, March 3, 2010 *
She'd fallen, hit her head, and now she was elsewhere.
There was darkness and a feeling of pressure, and she was not alone.
"Hello?"
Something vast. Something inhuman. Something that was old and powerful but lacked anything like a human perspective to relate to.
"Uhm. I'm Taylor. What's your name?"
(Concept: Ancient/Power/Balance/King)
"For some reason I got dinosaur imagery out of that. So... where are we?"
(Image: Between Worlds/Universes/Timelines)
"Okay, that was a little more understandable."
(Feeling: Amusement)
"I'm pretty sure I'm hurt pretty bad. So if there's something you can do to help?"
(Feeling: Curiosity)
(Concept: Conduit)
(Image: Eyes glowing with gold streaks)
"Yeah, my world has a lot of conflict. Why?"
(Concept: Poke)
"Oh."
* Winslow High School, Brockton Bay, United States of America *
She picked herself up off the cement, shaking her head and hearing odd ripping noises as she moved.
"WHAT THE FUCK?!" yelled someone nearby.
There was a thwipping noise and Taylor found her hand moving and grabbing something before it could hit her.
Her eyes went to the hand holding a crossbow quarrel and then over to where Sophia Hess was staring down at her in shock.
Taylor blinked and her gaze returned to her hand. Her muscular hand. Her muscular hand that had a layer of scales over it.
"She turned into a monster!" screamed someone.
"So COOL! She turned into a mini-Godzilla!"
Taylor blinked and twisted around to try and look at herself. Yeah. That's what that scaly tail looked like. Huh.
She went up to where the Principal had just arrived and looked shocked.
"Principal Blackwell. I just got turned into a lizard. Can I go home?"
Huh, was that her voice? Sounded a lot different. More menacing.
Principal Blackwell nodded, at least three shades paler than usual, and that was enough of a cue for Taylor.
Taylor gathered her things, including the scraps of clothing, then stopped by the Principal on her way to hand off the quarrel. "Sophia shot this at me. Don't think she's supposed to have a crossbow, but that's your problem. I got a lot to deal with."
* * *
Elsewhere/Elsewhen:
Trade-offs and sharing were a thing. Deals went both ways.
Stomping along the New Mexico border, four hundred and forty-five feet of danger dinosaur turned to one of the helicopters that had been hounding him for the past one-hundred and twenty miles.
"FARK OFF."
Judging from the speed of their retreat, he guessed that was close enough.
Huh. Needed to practice this talking thing some. Looked like it could be handy.
* * *
Brockton Bay:
Figures that the bus wouldn't stop for a nine-foot-tall lizard woman. So she had to walk.
She heard the motorcycle coming from a long way away. It was certainly big enough. Oh it was two motorcycles. And a large van.
She glanced over as she was waiting for a walk signal. Yep. Armsmaster and Miss Militia and it was a PRT van.
Armsmaster leapt off his motorcycle and brandished his halberd. "Hero or villain?"
"Look. I've had a very very bad day. Sophia Hess just tried to kill me. Twice. The first time was close enough that I turned into this. So, can we put this off until I've had a chance to process?"
The walk signal clicked on and Taylor trudged across the street without waiting for a response from the two heroes.
Taylor had walked a good three-quarters of the next block before they pulled up beside her again.
"So..." said Miss Militia's voice. Taylor recognized it from the news so she didn't even have to look. "Someone assaulted you, you turned into this form, and then they assaulted you again?"
"She pushed me over the railing of a stairwell to land on the pavement," stated Taylor. "I was dying. Then I saw something weird then I woke up looking like this. Then she got a crossbow from somewhere and tried to shoot me! I really am having a bad day, okay?"
"If you're going home looking like that, it's going to be very hard to keep a secret identity."
Taylor stopped in mid-step and craned around to look down at the armored hero, she gestured down her form and cocked her head at him.
"Point," he admitted. "Can't change back?"
"Any idea how?" asked Taylor.
"Not yet," said Armsmaster.
"Then I'm going home and try to cope with this," grumped Taylor.
Miss Militia was next to speak. "I'd offer you a ride, but I don't think you'd fit in the van."
Looking over herself, and the van in question, Taylor had to agree.
"I have an idea," said Armsmaster.
"Cargo hauler?" asked Miss Militia.
"Flatbed tow truck," answered Armsmaster.
(CRASH!)
Looking at where someone had been so busy rubber-necking at her and the heroes that he wasn't paying attention to the cars ahead of him, Taylor had to admit that Armsmaster had a point as well.
"WHY DON'T YOU WATCH WHERE YOU"RE GOING YOU DAGGUM LIZARD!" yelled the guy as he came out of his car and started towards Taylor.
A line had just been reached and passed.
"ME?! WHY DON'T YOU WATCH WHERE YOU'RE DRIVING! I'M STANDING ON THE JAGGOFF SIDEWALK!"
"'Daggum'?" asked Armsmaster.
"'Jaggoff'?" asked Miss Militia.
"I'm calling for TWO tow trucks," said Armsmaster.
"Three," suggested Miss Militia as the owner of the car that had been hit was now getting out and ready to add her own measure of input into the scene.
The maybe-5'10" obese guy yelled up at the clearly larger in every dimension lizard girl about the damage to his car.
The maybe 4'9" slightly obese woman yelled at the obese guy.
The at-least 9' tall lizard woman growled something at the obese guy.
"Oh hell," said Armsmaster as the situation began deteriorating even faster as people stopped to get selfies, others used their phones to record the argument, and the lizard-girl showed remarkable restraint in not grabbing the guy and chucking him over the closest roof.
"Well, at least she has more self-restraint than Glory Girl," pointed out Miss Militia. "If someone had called Glory Girl THAT to her face, I'd expect violence."
Nodding, Armsmaster motioned to the troopers to get on with it before it got any more complicated.
(BANG!) (SPANG!)
Everyone looked over to where someone with gang tattoos was holding a revolver and was pointing it at the large lizard girl.
Then a muscular-looking masked guy who seemed to have as many scars as tattoos shouldered the revolver guy aside as blades and hooks extended from his skin. "You know. I was spoiling for a good fight. You. You might be tough enough to take it."
"I'm having a really bad day," replied Taylor. "You really shouldn't."
"Oh, I think I should," said the bladed man.
"Hookwolf, stand down," stated Armsmaster.
Amazingly enough, both the drivers of the car accident decided to stop their argument at the first gunshot and now were running away.
Hookwolf charged, blades and hooks and what looked like a can opener extending from his flesh.
Taylor had apparently just reached her limit. With a familiar-sounding roar, she squatted down before charging forward herself.
"Troopers form a perimeter," demanded Armsmaster. "Keep the crowds away. Miss Militia..."
(WHAM!)
Armsmaster turned his attention back to the fight, seeing where Mini-G had just grabbed ahold of the transformed Hookwolf and broken off a number of blades in the process, picked him bodily up off the ground, then slammed back into the pavement with considerable force. "Huh."
Miss Militia held a power-provided heavy assault rifle and kept one eye on Hookwolf's backup.
(WHAM! WHAM! WHAMMITY WHAM!)
Having slammed Hookwolf repeatedly into the road until his blades pinned him to the asphalt, Taylor brought both clawed hands together and stretched her arms up over her head. "I." (WHAM!) Piledriver smash shattering and bending blades at the point of impact. "HAVE." (WHAM!) Repeat, with Hookwolf's blades on the other side of his body from the impact now driven quite deep into the street. "HAD." (WHAM!) Repeat again with similar results. "ENOUGH!" (WHAM!) Again. "ENOUGH!" (WHAM!) Sounds of metal tearing apart. "ENOUGH!"
(WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! CREAK! BREAK! TINKLE!)
Panting with either emotion or effort, the lizard girl turned from the de-transforming Hookwolf to his subordinates.
"I surrender?" said the one with the revolver, putting it carefully down on the ground and stepping away.
Miss Militia waited a few moments before addressing an issue she'd noticed. "Miss? Did you notice that during the fight you enlarged and are currently around twelve feet tall?"
"Well," said the girl-lizard, checking her surroundings. "Crap."
* Two hours and a tow truck ride later *
Director Piggot watched them coming into her office and decided to just cut to the meat of the matter. "I saw the videos. She handled Hookwolf like an annoyance. High level Brute. What else?"
"Emotional state, particularly combat, allows her to ramp up in a similar manner to Lung," stated Armsmaster. "While on the flatbed of the tow truck, she went to dozing and returned to an appearance more typical of human. When returning to consciousness she grew excited on seeing that and immediately thereafter began to lizard-up again. I suggested training in emotional control in order to retain a human appearance for convenience sake."
"She did seem to consider it," added Miss Militia.
"Upper end of her transformation is not known, but if it is similar to Lung's 'ramp up' power it could be considerable," stated Armsmaster.
"She looks like a mini-Godzilla. From that Aleph movie. Uncannily so," noted Director Piggot. "No 'Atomic Breath'?"
"Not demonstrated, but if she does have one, it could be that she just didn't need it," stated Armsmaster.
"Not against Hookwolf, certainly," admitted Director Piggot. "Hookwolf's status?"
"Currently sleeping off the tranquilizers he was dosed with during transport in his cell," said Armsmaster.
"He tried to slice her apart," noted Director Piggot. "It just made her angry."
"Hookwolf WAS able to draw blood in two cases using reinforced spear-blade projections. We have blood samples as a result," pointed out Armsmaster. "The wounds healed rapidly while she was asleep."
"We have her house under surveillance?" asked Director Piggot.
"Since her identity is up on several websites, yes," admitted Armsmaster. "I expect the Empire to attack."
"Good, maybe we can intervene before she kills someone," said Director Piggot.
"Not worried about her?" asked Miss Militia.
"She treated Hookwolf as an irritant," pointed out Director Piggot. "I'm more worried about her neighborhood."
"Sophia Hess was named repeatedly in our interview as responsible for her trigger event. If we put G-Girl and Shadow Stalker in close proximity, we may end up with large segments of our building no longer being there," pointed out Armsmaster.
"Until the investigation into the allegation of Shadow Stalker's conduct is complete, we can't do more than limiting her to console duty," stated Director Piggot. "On the other hand, if the allegations have substance to them? That a cape under my jurisdiction was using her powers to harass and harm civilians? The only problem I foresee is finding a suitably heavy book to throw at her."
* 9:55 pm *
The long line of cars and trucks came to a stop, then doors opened and the passengers disembarked.
Guns, pipes, and molotov cocktails were readied.
"You sure this is the right place?" asked one of the ones with a gun.
"It's time to teach this bitch not to mess with the Empire!" yelled another gun-wielder.
"What do you suppose is under that tarp?" asked one of the rank-and-file.
A molotov was lit and tossed at it. The bottle thwapped onto a section of tarp and failed to break.
"Leeroy, you're an idiot."
The tarp began to move, lifting up higher and higher. It slid off as the figure under it straightened out.
"Well, it's the right house," offered the rank-and-file who'd spoken earlier.
"Are... her eyes glowing gold and looking pissed as all hell?" asked one of the gunmen.
"Yeah," answered one of the others.
"Is she... taller than she was just a minute ago?" asked one of the other gunmen.
"So what?!" (BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!)
The lizard looked down at her chest, then began acting like she was brushing dust off of it.
A woman came running forward, her face in some metal framework, a scream distorting the air around her as she raised two kama in her rush.
"You know," said Underling #47, "I been wondering."
"Dangerous thing in our profession," said Underling #46.
"Why does someone in a White Supremacist group use Japanese sickles?"
Someone smacked #47 because you just don't ask questions like that.
The lizard completely ignored Cricket until she had reached arm's length at which point it backhanded Cricket hard enough that the crunch of bones echoed off all the houses.
"LIGHT EM UP! BURN THE HOUSE DOWN!"
(VUM.)
The lizard moved so that it was between the house and the street, ignoring all the pistols and revolvers shooting at her.
(VUM. VUMMM. VUM VUM VUM VUM VUM VUM VUM!)
G-Girl spat a rod of blinding white energy that touched one car after another in the line.
The cars and trucks touched by that didn't just burn. They melted into slag while burning. They ceased to be cars and became pitifully burning things that didn't resemble cars much at all.
"MY TRUCK!"
"MY CAR!"
"Oh shit. Is... that thing BIGGER?"
Taylor had just started chasing them when two women enlarged themselves and attempted to use their spear and sword against her. That didn't last very long as she quickly matched them in size.
And she was stronger, more massive, and her only real disadvantage was trying to avoid stepping on anything that couldn't take multiple tons of lizard.
She decided though, very quickly, that she was going to have to learn how to fight better. Maybe her dad could set the TV up and she could watch that pro-wrestling channel.
In the meantime, those PRT guys were swarming around and arresting freaking everyone. Huh. Better response time than she'd expected.
Now she just had to calm down and maybe she could get some sleep.
* PRT ENE HQ *
"It looks like when she was fighting Fenja and Menja that she stepped on Kaiser. We're having to pry him out of the asphalt."
"His armor protected him from having hundreds of tons of atomic dinosaur smooshing him like jelly?"
"Yes, Director. Not completely but he survived the encounter."
"Can we put this as a Darwin Award? He broke the Unwritten Rules going after her in her home, then got the Consequences."
Armsmaster visibly considered that before addressing Assault's question. "Technically this wouldn't be a Darwin Award because they didn't actually know that Gee-Girl could grow to that extent, and because everyone survived. I request we send a notice to Gee-Girl because she was very careful in her power use."
Director Piggot looked over the assembled capes who were not still busy with overseeing the prisoner transportation. "As soon as we can get Shadow Stalker the hell out of my city, I want a formal request that Gee-Girl joins the Wards because we want her to get that training in remaining calm. Preferably I'd also like Gee-Girl out of my city because I do not want to see a city block flattened because she tried to stop a convenience store robbery."
"She must never fight Lung. He scales up to fight aggressively. She scales up to meet threats." Armsmaster shook his head at the thought of what would happen to any neighborhood those two fought in.
"I repeat the desire to get her out of this city. Maybe someplace less likely to explode."
* Cauldron *
"Our current theory, based on video taken and initial findings, is that Lung's Escalation Shard must have been in the vicinity when she Triggered. That would account for the pseudo-reptillian appearance and escalation factor." The Number Man put down his tablet and looked over those members currently in attendance.
"She has a considerably faster ramp-up than Lung," noted Doctor Mother.
"Why does she look like a mini-Godzilla?" asked Alexandria. "Including the whole Atomic Breath thing?"
"That we don't know," admitted Number Man. "Though I find it fascinating that the plasma jet temperature was estimated at 300 million degrees Celsius but only for the duration of contact and with a surprising drop-off outside the beam itself."
"Three hundred... million?" asked Doctor Mother. "That's similar to a nuclear detonation fireball."
"Yes, but five feet away from the beam it is only 3000 degrees Celsius and at ten feet there's only an ambient temperature spike of one-hundred fifty degrees." Number Man looked over the analysis of what was left of the cars. "Rapid cooling afterwards too. Though that might have been the short duration of the attack. Quite intriguing."
"So the tops of those vehicles were literally stripped down to vapor, according to the video she used that attack for less than five seconds." Doctor Mother pulled up the photographs and studied them. "Cool off from glowing remnants to something that could be handled safely took three hours with firefighting foam possibly shortening the time. There are a number of problems Miss Hebert might be able to assist with."
"On the other hand, if she tried to stop a bank robbery - there might not be a bank at the end of it," noted Alexandria.
"ThinkTank just came out with an analysis that boiled down to three words," said Number Man, swallowing and looking a bit less intrigued.
"What three words?" asked Alexandria.
"'Not full size'," said Number Man.
* ABB Territory, 304 E Tannhauser Street *
* Thursday, Mar 4, 2010 *
Lung clicked play again.
The scene played out as it had before, taken from footage that had been from someone's cellphone. Hookwolf bashed repeatedly into the street by someone in a Gojira-costume. Except it wasn't a costume.
He went to the other clip. The monster facing Kaiser's twin amazons and matching them for height and exceeding them in mass and power.
Jin, one of his minions, fidgeted nervously before Lung spoke again.
"You have done well in bringing this to my attention," said Lung. "The girl's identity is known?"
"Yes, it was a public Trigger," Jin stated. "Your orders, great Lung?"
"Recruitment. She belongs on our side or taken off the board entirely," said Lung.
"She is not Asian, my lord," Jin informed Lung. They were, after all, not known for hiring outside that narrow demographic. Except for prostitutes and Jin doubted there were that many that'd fancy some time with a dinosaur.
"She turns into Gojira, if she was not Japanese before - she is now," rumbled Lung.
Jin nodded, then backed away as Lung was getting out of his chair.
"In fact," said Lung as he grabbed his mask and fitted it into place. "I shall handle this recruitment personally."
Jin carefully did not say any form or language of "oh shit" but he thought it very very loudly.
* PRT ENE HQ *
"Oh shit."
"What happened?"
"Gee Observation reports a group of ABB including Lung and Oni Lee approaching Gee's home."
"Oh shit. Tell observation to focus on getting everyone out of that neighborhood."
"Roger."
"Trooper Console to All. Lung is approaching Gee Girl's home with a crowd of ABB. Observation, how many ABB are you eyeballing?"
"Twenty four. Mostly handguns. Oh hell, she's already responding and growing. Lung is charging!"
* Taylor PoV *
Having to sleep outside, in the driveway under a tarp, was annoying as hell.
Alternatives being sleep in my room and if I had a nightmare or flashback to Winslow - there would be no second floor anymore.
Other alternative being find somewhere not home to sleep. Dad nixed that one.
That the Empire had shown up last night, and the ABB before noon today, seemed to be saying I should have chosen Option Three despite Dad's objections.
Lung. Lung was coming. Lung was coming for me.
Damn it, I was going to have to do this cliche wasn't I?
I lifted myself up off the pavement, tossing the tarp aside, and felt my annoyance grow. There was an active threat and I felt my power building up as a result. Not only that steady thrum from within my lizardy chest, but the way the neighborhood started to shrink.
Three steps down the road and I was tall enough I could see some loose shingles on the roof of my house and had an idle thought about seeing if those PRT guys could get a roofer out here.
Lung was growing himself, responding to the threat that was me. Lovely. Both of us responding to the threat represented by the other. He was slower though.
I let out that distinctive roar that was, just as my form was, a damn close match to what Godzilla produced.
I pointed towards the shoreline, hoping we could do this somewhere that wasn't so fragile as a civilian neighborhood.
Lung charged.
Apparently the answer to that was 'No' - because of course we couldn't settle this like adults with clear boundaries and rules of engagement. No, it was to be all 'grar, smash' and -
Lung reached me and his fire shot all around me.
I grabbed his head with both hands and brought it down into a rising knee joint.
Huh, that had worked better than expected from watching some of those fight videos. Which made me wonder if any of those other corny-looking WWE and MMA cagefight moves I remembered watching a couple years ago actually worked.
* Assault *
"Tell me you're getting this," said Assault as the helicopter circled at a distance.
"Gee-Girl using a Mongolian Piledriver on Lung? I'm just sorry this will go into some classified archive and never be seen again," said Sergeant Jones.
"Ooooh, Lung trying to get up only to face Gee-Girl doing a leaping double stomp on Lung before he could get back up. Regeneration or not that HAD to hurt," stated Assault.
"Oh hell yeah. Round the World!" exclaimed Sergeant Jones as Gee-Girl whirled the regenerating Lung around and then threw him bodily towards the waterfront. He only went a few thousand feet but it was still pretty impressive.
"Yeah, but that gave him time to recover and he's already got wings. That's the fastest I've ever seen or heard of him ramping up," noted Assault.
"Sir, should you be recording this on your personal phone?" asked Sergeant Jones.
"I'll send you a copy," said Assault.
"Well, call me Sergeant Schultz then 'cause I see nothing," answered Sergeant Jones.
(VUMMM!)
"We at sufficient distance?" asked the pilot. "Cause I don't want to be anywhere near anything with an 'Atomic' in the name."
(VUMMM-VUMMM-VUMMP-VUMMP-VRRT-VRRT-VRRT!)
A beam of white-tinged-green slammed into the flying Lung, cutting straight through his fire blast and taking one arm and a wing.
Lung fell.
By the time he was picking himself off the ground, Gee-Girl had grabbed him and was once again spinning him around her piroutte before releasing him again. This time he went almost two miles.
"She's ramping up faster. He's maybe twenty-five feet tall? She's got to be three times that now," noted Sergeant Jones.
"I wonder what her upper limit is?" pondered Assault.
"I'm pretty sure I'd rather not be anywhere near her when and if she reaches it," stated their pilot, breaking into the conversation. "Just the pressure waves from those wrestling moves are bad enough."
"Ooooh. She backed off for some reason. Lung's charging. That's the Stone Cold Steve Austin variation on the Thesz Press. Damn, good thing we evacuated this area as soon as the ABB were spotted."
Sergeant Jones cleared his throat. "Was that a Bolo Punch? It looked like a Bolo Punch."
"Lung is just used to overpowering his opponents or burning them. Gee-Girl is actually trying to use fighting techniques," summed up Assault. "There's something horrifying and fascinating about an eighty-foot tall lizard putting a ramped up Lung in a submission hold. Not very good at it though, she got it wrong and now Lung's broken free."
* Three Hours Later *
"Hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages and that was with her trying to limit the number of destroyed vehicles and houses and streets and..." Director Piggot took a deep breath and tried to calm herself.
"That is exactly why we're taking Gee-Girl out of your city," said Alexandria.
"Yes. Please," Director Piggot quickly put in. "She's Ward age but NOT suitable for the Wards unless she can learn to control her transformation."
"She was well over one hundred and thirty five feet in height when Lung finally was knocked out," said Armsmaster. "At which point Gee-Girl tip-toed her way to the beach and dove into the Bay to calm down."
"She also needs to find a different name as 'Gee-Girl' sounds too close to Glory Girl," added Director Piggot. "In the meantime, please. Take her far far away from my city. At one point Oni Lee tried to blow her up with grenades. She smacked him like he was a mosquito, taking three copies out and brushing the real one aside. He's currently in critical condition but is lucky not to have ended up a smear. Both the E88 and ABB have had a serious reduction in forces and she's only been active for two days. She has no setting for dealing with 'small problems' at all."
"Godzilla Threshold," put in Assault.
"Excuse me?" asked Alexandria.
"It's a trope. It's called the Godzilla Threshold. You only want Gee-Girl to deal with threats where collateral damage is no longer a consideration and there's no rational alternative," said Assault. "Alien invasion where our weapons don't do squat. End of world scenarios. Endbringer fights. When you need to erase a Containment Zone. That sort of thing."
"'Godzilla Threshold'," said Alexandria. "Well. That certainly fits, doesn't it?"