No author's note this time.

Sorry for the delay, haven't had inspiration.

Still need a Beta Reader.

Intangibility is surprisingly fun to write if used creatively.

Now read the story, this is a threat.

"Y'know Dad, every time I feel like anything exciting is going to happen to me, it always seems to start with doing something to food," Taylor said to Danny as she ate her fried eggs. Which she was also cooking. On her hand.

One of the things Taylor had never considered 3 or so months in the past, was how or even if the parahuman population used their powers in a casual setting. Of course, whilst she was exempt from the term 'parahuman' meeting neither the 'para' or 'human' aspects of the classification anymore, it was still somewhat comical to see herself using pyrokinesis to perform something so mundane as cook eggs. Or summon utensils to eat said egg. Or choose to fall through the floor and into the kitchen from upstairs because thanks to Crusader that was something she could do now.

"[Speaking of which…]" Taylor thought, beginning to reminisce about her new intangibility power. Each time Taylor wished to activate it, her skin and clothes transformed to appear as if they were made of still smouldering ash, and then the rest would be simple. Things passed through her, and she could pass through things. This would result in a puff of ash from her body where the thing was passing through her, but not much more than that.

Her father almost had a heart attack when she had begun to take to walking through walls instead of using the doorways. This was because she had walked right through the fridge whilst he was using it.

Whoops.

But she honestly couldn't give up the convenience of being able to go in a straight line to wherever she pleased. The only drawback is that Taylor needed to use conscious effort to perform her new intangibility. Not only that, but she could go through anything, intentionally or not. She soon learnt that when she fell through the floor when only trying to go through a wall. She was lucky she only used it on her upper body in her fight against Crusader, otherwise, it may have become embarrassing if Taylor had gotten herself half-stuck inside the street.

But back to the present, Danny had turned his attention away from the newspaper he held and towards his superpowered and incredibly immortal daughter. "And what makes you think that something exciting is going to happen today, Taylor?"

"Other than it's happened almost every day I go outside since becoming a cape, mainly just a gut feeling," Taylor explained. "Valka always said I should listen to those. Something about 'being connected to the very fabric of time and space' or something I wasn't listening to her."

A knock at the door immediately led to Taylor standing up to get it, neither Hebert yet breaking away from their conversation.

Danny chuckled. "That woman. I still haven't fully decided on whether they are the best or worst thing to happen to this family." He shook his head with a smile.

"What do you mean 'worst'?" Taylor asked with mock offence. She knew that her father didn't mean anything malicious by it.

"Well, you never used to be this… troublesome." Danny offered for his answer.

"And what do you mean 'troublesome'?!" Taylor shouted down the hall. She had finally reached the door. Fully expecting it to be Valka, Taylor wasn't at all surprised to see the sole person who seemed to visit them other than the Youth Guard that one time. What Taylor was surprised by was the young girl with dark brown hair and age of no more than about twelve years, cowering behind Valka's long leg. "Uhhhh…" Taylor eloquently began.

Valka smugly chuckled as she always did when Taylor found herself speechless. "Hello Taylor, this is Dinah. May we come inside?"

"Um. Sure? Okay, look Valka I have to ask; why do you have a child with you?"

"Taylor, she's hardly a child. She's only a few years younger than you are." Valka answered wryly, expertly dodging the question.

Taylor was having none of it. She had spent three months being trained by this woman, if she hadn't picked up on her goading in that much time, Taylor would have considered herself a very poor student.

"Valka…" Taylor pressed stubbornly, "Where did you get her? Did you kidnap her?"

Valka let out a raucous laugh, head thrown back in emphasis. "Ohohoh! No, no. Quite the opposite in fact. I'll tell you the whole story, in fact. But first, I'd like to come in and hear about how you were involved in a bank heist."

"I was involved in stopping a bank heist, thank you very much." Taylor pompously defended herself. She was already standing aside to let Valka and Dinah, apparently, pass her into the hallway.

"And also getting your skull hammered in by… what was that amusing nickname that they gave them again…?" Valka tapped her chin in thought. "Ah yes, that was it. Getting punched by 'Collateral-Damage Barbie' after sending her sister into a short-lived seizure attack."

"And you warned me about my biology being super extremely crazy… when exactly?" Taylor snarked. "How was I supposed to know that Panacea would have that reaction just by touching me?! She's supposed to be a healer!"

Danny entered the view of the girls, catching sight of Valka and her shy, silent tag-along.

"Hello again, Valka. Did you want a coffee?" Danny's eyes flickered to Dinah still cowering behind Valka. "And anything for…"

"Oh, my apologies. This is Dinah. I picked her up yesterday right before having the most entertaining chat with a new acquaintance." The Cheshire smile did not leave Valka's face for even a moment. "But we'll be able to get to all of that in just a little bit. But did you mind if Dinah was able to borrow a bed? It's been a long two days for her, and I think she should get some sleep."

"Of course." Danny smiled. But the two girls could see the hidden glint of fury behind the man's eyes for whoever put Dinah in this situation. "Follow me, Dinah. I'll leave you ladies to hear Taylor's bank escapade, she's already told me."

"It wasn't an escapade!" Taylor cried much like a regular teen would if their parent teased them about having a crush.

"Yes, yes, it wasn't an escapade honey…" Valka purred with a sly smirk, keeping an eye on Dinah until she was led out of the room by Danny.

Taylor shook her head. She wasn't afraid to admit that Valka had become something of a mother figure to her. A deranged, arguably homicidal, mother figure, but one Taylor respected all the same. So, it came equally as patronizing as her father taunting her when Valka did it too. Eager to move forward in the conversation and away from the possibility of getting teased, Taylor launched into her story of the Bank Heist she got involved in.

"Well, you already know why I was at the bank."
Valka nodded. "Setting up an account for the money I gave you."

"Yep. So, I guess the whole 'bank heist' thing started when I ducked into the toilets…"

- - - - - Lazarus - - - - -

Taylor was in one of the toilet stalls in the bank a day earlier, struggling to take off her costume from under her regular clothes.

"Ugh, why did I think this was a good idea?" She spoke aloud. "Vast cosmic powers and immortality, but yet wearing two sets of clothes is still stuffy and uncomfortable, apparently."

Having had enough trouble just getting her costume shirt off without removing her regular one, Taylor decided to just completely take her regular pants off and put them back on once she'd finished putting away her costume.

"Maybe I should invest in some sort of instant-costume device. I wonder if Valka knows anyone like that…"

With her impromptu wardrobe correction, Taylor exited the stall to give her hands a quick wash (immunity to disease was no excuse for poor hygiene) and leave back into the bank proper. Walking down the hallway that led to the bathrooms, Taylor began to get the sense that something was wrong. Usually, banks were a relatively quiet affair, with only the moderated sound of formal chatter happening between customers and staff. But now, there was next to no sound coming down the hallway, which was ever clearer thanks to the minor improvements of Taylor's senses. It just didn't seem right.

Oh, and the wall of physical darkness didn't help the case of 'everything is okay', either.

"O-kay. Maybe I should have left the costume on then…" Taylor lamented, knowing that she was going to have to clean this up. Dropping the bag, Taylor crouched down and jumped towards the ceiling. Immediately before contacting it, her body turned to ash, allowing Taylor to clamber up to the floor above like someone had cut a hole between the two floors. As Taylor began to stalk down the hallway, tracking her movements to know where she should drop down, she began strategizing.

'So, wall of darkness, only two people I can think of to make something like that. But Fog's… fog, isn't as pitch as that black, so it must be Grue, and that means Undersiders. They usually do hit-and-runs, which means they're here for the money. But why so openly? They've never done anything this high-profile before.' Taylor suddenly stopped herself, blinking a few times in realization. 'Wow. Those strategy lessons really paid off. Huh, better thank Valka for that later.'

"Thanks, by the way," Taylor said to Valka, across the kitchen table.

"Yes, yes. It's very surprising that knowing thine enemy is important. Now do continue, sounds like you're just about to get to the good bit." Valka waved off the gratitude.

Taylor came to a stop when she got to where she thought the Vault was below her.

"Alright, game face." Tayler quipped. As she did so, the flesh of her face began to peel away to make room for the ever-burning manifestation of Malaise that was conjured into being. And, as always only the top part of her skull remained, no jaw to speak of.

Taylor absently looked around her, letting out a sigh.

'Man, I really need a sidekick I waste all the good jokes, otherwise.'

Her Malaise fire and skull taking on an ashy hue, Taylor stuck the facial part of her skull through the ground, so as to quickly spy on the floor below her. As it turned out, Taylor had almost gotten to where she wanted to be, which was right in front of the vault. Instead, she had overshot by a couple of steps and made it to right over the vault. Taylor was about to pull her head back out and retrace a few strides but stopped when it became apparent that the vault was already open. Two people were stuffing banknotes by the bundles into heavy-duty duffle bags, and then tossing them out of sight. One person had a large brown jacket with a thick fur collar, and a cheap plastic bulldog mask adorning their face. The other wore completely black biker leathers, complete with a black biker mask with a visor shaped like a skull.

For as far as Taylor could tell, Grue and Hellhound were already unloading the bank…

'Hey wait a second!' Taylor yelled in her mind, 'They're the ones who almost ran me over that night! And they actually did lead Lung to me!' She scratched the bottommost of her skull. 'Actually, in saying that I'm now unsure whether to thank them or hate them…' She then shrugged. 'Oh well, problems for later.'

Turning the rest of her body intangible, Taylor dropped into the vault after she had made sure that both of the small-time villains were looking away. Still, the light *Thump!* she made when landing on the floor caused enough sound for Grue and Hellhound to notice and whip around.

Taylor, in response, raised a finger gun and said, as suavely as she could…

"Hey."

The response was almost instantaneous. Inky dark… darkness, began to come pouring out of Grue like a flood, all of it seeming to head straight for Taylor. At the same time, Hellhound's fingers reached under her mask, and whilst Taylor couldn't see what was being done, she certainly could hear it when the shrill whistle rang out from behind the cheap plastic.

Wasting no time herself, Taylor used the finger gun she had already made to aim a small fireball at Grue. She would rather take on Hellhound's mutant dogs as opposed to fighting in the leather-wearer's darkness. Being torn apart by giant creatures she could deal with, fighting in the dark would just be a pain in the ass. And so, the seemingly undersized fireball dashed across the air between Taylor and Grue, contacting with the latter's darkness but continuing its trajectory.

Whilst nobody could see the collision, they could definitely hear it, and feel it. A gush of hot air immediately extended out from the crushing darkness at the same time a deafening 'POP!' echoed about the relatively small vault room. Hellhound braced herself from the wave of heat, seeing just as Taylor did that the darkness was evaporating like steam cooling in the air and revealing a very unconscious Grue.

And that was when two… 'dogs', came to the vault door. That was if you could even call them that. Actually, if you looked at them from a certain angle, they sort of appeared like some sort of quadrupedal land shark without the fins.

"Okay, hope I've got this 'calling' thing down…" Taylor murmured. In her training, she had begun to attempt to use a property of the axe Valka had gifted her. According to the much older woman, the material called heartstone that ran through the core of the weapon would allow itself to be 'called' to its owner, allowing them to summon the weapon from wherever they are. Taylor had… made progress, in her weapon calling. She certainly could call it to her, but whether or not the axe actually listened was a different story entirely.

This was not one of the listening times. And so Taylor's open hand remained empty.

"…Well okay then. Fuck you too, Axe."

And then a mutant dog pounced on her.

"Fuck!"

- - - - - Lazarus - - - - -

"Yeah, so I think I should practice that a bit more before I try any improvised fights in the future." Taylor scratched the back of her head.

Valka nodded, sipping at a drink she didn't have three seconds before. "It will come easier the more you practice. As I said, it's heartstone. The longer you use it, the closer the bond will become. Once you have reached a high enough level of companionship with it, you should be able to conduct its movements at a distance."

"Well, that's something to look forward to I guess," Taylor grumbled. "Still doesn't change the fact that it left me high and dry to be mauled by those dog-beast-things."

"And speaking of…"

"Okay, okay. So, after I got most of my chest torn out and, reasonably, died from my wounds, things started to get confused…"

"Oh? Everything so far sounded normal to me,"

"Yeah, it was right up until I found Panacea with the hostages…"

- - - - - Lazarus - - - - -

Upon returning from the proverbial grave, the first thing Taylor did was grab a dog-thing around the midsection and heft it in a half-baked suplex. She let go about halfway through, whipping away the 'dog' and letting it collide fully with its master as it was mutated large enough to catch the female villain's entire body.

The pile of bodies and limbs writhed around in an attempt to get out of the mess, before a second mutant dog was thrown at them, propelling the whole mess out of the bank vault and into the main lobby.

Tattletale could be seen in the main behind the counter in the main lobby, looking utterly baffled as to why her only female teammate had just skidded up next to her in a tangle of her own dogs. This momentarily caused Taylor to stop her assault. There was little known information on Tattletale, the best out there said that she was, [a] with the Undersiders (no duh,) and [b] has been heard proclaiming herself as 'psychic'. So why was this so-called psychic caught off guard?

Taylor stopped the internal questioning she was performing. This wasn't the time, she could deal with that later… if at all. Do a set of flashy, if unneeded, backwards cartwheels, Taylor Ended right next to the only boy left who wasn't currently on the ground. He was dressed in what looked to be some renaissance-era clothing, with leggings and a loose-fitting shirt.

The speed Taylor moved and the rate at that she subsequently decelerated was… quite staggering, to be putting it mildly. Air whipped around her as it failed to slow down at the same race, creating a gust that slammed the front doors open. Strangely, none of the hostages made an attempt to escape.

"Hey." Taylor greeted Regent, her boot resting on the edge of the counter behind the boy and an arm resting on the relevant leg.

"…Are you coming on to m-" Regent didn't finish the sentence before Taylor grabbed him by the head, used her elevated foot as a pivot, and tossed him into the ground over the counter. The tiles did crack where Taylor used her other leg to propel the attack, but that was only because she had to put that much force into the one-legged jump to carry both herself and another person.

It was after Taylor straightened herself that she was punched in the skull.

Doing a flip in the air as she was flung away, Taylor came to rest in a fresh vertical crater that was made by her impacting the wall. Tensing for a feeble attempt to dull the pain of being both punched and buried in a few inches of concrete, Taylor dared a glance at her new assailant.

It was a girl, mature but not that old, wearing a heavy bomber jacket with a light-up collar that was permanently popped up. The rest of her clothing was nondescript, a t-shirt with a logo, roughed-up denim jeans, and red sneakers. Although, the only other standout from the frankly underwhelming 'costume', was the mask. It was a modified gas mask that had a pair of reflective, red-tinted goggles attached to it. Despite that, there was nothing from concealing the dyed half-cut hairstyle that must've stood out in day-to-day life. But none of their clothes stood out as much as her revealed forearms thanks to the jacket sleeves being pushed up.

They were lined with visible, shining, matte black metal, and parts of them were folding out like flaps on a jet plane. A hiss of air emerged from the hands and forearms, hot air expelling from the limbs to cool the inner workings. Now this person was certainly a surprise.

They were a sufficiently known American Tinker Mercenary who went by the moniker 'Steelskin', and they specialized in body mods. This fact was sufficiently proven by the mechanically enhanced hands she used to punch Taylor. That, once again, reminded Taylor about monitoring her controlled super-durability more closely; dogs could spill her guts out just fine, but a punch from a strength-enhancing robo-fist and makeshift concrete burial would leave her with but a headache. And that dog-based death wasn't even worth it! All she got was some tear resistance, a total rip-off in Taylor's opinion.

Ash phasing out of the crater and onto the ground, Taylor did what she had been taught to, and stalled until an opportunity presented itself.

"So, robbing banks with the Undersiders, hey? Didn't think that was your playbook. Or theirs for that matter." Taylor said to Steelskin, not entirely sure if what she was saying was true. Stalling was meant to be tactically efficient, not factually correct.

"I'm not one to turn down quick cash." Steelskin shrugged. As she spoke, one of her arms mechanically transitioned from something regular to what could be described as nothing less that an arm-mounted gatling gun. "Nor getting messy."

Taylor blinked (if she could). "Oh."

Steelskin's eyes narrowed as her cheekbones indicated a vindictive smile. "Oh is right."

"No, 'oh'." Taylor tried to clarify. " I mean 'oh', as in 'wow you need to keep better informed'."

And then Taylor teleported Steelskin's gun arm to her. Only, the arm. Because apparently, it registered as 'weapon' to Taylor's second newest power. But now, she had to deliberate on whether or not she should make the obvious, hand-related joke about – whoop. Nope, that was a fist.

Taylor ducked as Steelskin threw a powerful haymaker, taking out more of the concrete wall when it missed its intended target.

"You fucking bitch! Do you even know how long that took me to make?!" Steelskin screeched.

"Uh… longer than it'll take me to break?" Taylor answered. The one-liner was her attempt to compensate for missing the hand joke just before. The only further response Taylor received was a primal scream as a kick lashed out, which was more than likely to also have been replaced by a far stronger robotic limb. Such a point was proven correct when the move left a trench of wall missing. Seeing an opening, Taylor made for her own attack, an uppercut that jabbed into Steelskin's stomach.

Taylor, to her credit, didn't know exactly how much Steelskin had modified herself and what level of durability the mercenary had, so she decided to lean a little more on the lighter side of applied force. Such care was not rewarded, however, when Steelskin barely flinched.

"Okay. Good to know." Taylor quietly remarked to herself. Meanwhile, Steelskin reached down with their remaining arm and grabbed Taylor's wrist. Not wasting any time, the half-cybernetic girl spun and threw Taylor across the room and into the other wall this time. "Twice? Really?" Taylor muttered. Getting back up to launch into the fray once again, Taylor stopped cold when she saw what Steelskin had done in the time between the attack and collision with the wall.

Between her fingers, she held the neck of one of the hostages, perfectly ready to crush the windpipe between the artificially enhanced strength of Steelskin's fingers. The hostage in question, a girl with red hair and freckles, to her credit was handling it better than Taylor would have expected. Whilst more than obviously frightened of the situation was holding her expression as neutral as she could, trying to look more bored than she was scared.

Steelskin made a hard sigh in frustration before she began to address Taylor. "Look, fuckhole, I don't want to do this any more than you want me to. But! You're the one who ripped off my FUCKING ARM, so I think I'm at liberty to up the stakes a little. On the floor, hands on your head – skull – whatever the fuck, and I'll let Little Miss Pa-"

Steelskin didn't even finish her word before Taylor suddenly appeared before her, one hand on their shoulder and the other on their forearm after moving across the room at blinding speeds. With a mighty shove, Taylor flipped the script and this time put Steelskin into a wall this time, her other hand completely unmoving as it tore the remaining cybernetic arm straight out of the socket. Wires snapped and metal crunched as it came out in less than a second, with no time left to even react to it.

"And that," Taylor spat venomously, "is the line." Turning to the semi-collapsed hostage, Taylor offered a hand up. "You okay?" She asked.

The other girl weekly nodded, reaching for the offered help. "Yeah, thanks. Her whole skin was made of metal, I couldn't…" She trailed off when her hand collided with Taylor's. both stood there for a few seconds, rather awkwardly.

"Uhh… are you-"

Then the other girl began vomiting, primarily on Taylor who was right in front of her.

"Oh fuck!" Taylor swore as she danced away from the fresh human waste. Human waste. On her. Just like…

Just like…

…

…

…

crash

…

…

And then something was colliding with Taylor's head so hard that the bone shattered.

Darkness

Light

Movement

Darkness

Heat

Movement

Light

Warmth

Fire

FIRE

FIRE

F̴̞̪̉͋Ȉ̶̡̮R̸͚͂ͅE̵͖̅̉

Taylor came to in the typical surge of lightning. The first thing she realized was that she was laying flat on her back, the second thing Taylor realized was that she was hyperventilating. Doing whatever it was to close her currently absent eyes, Taylor slowed her breathing (somehow, (non-existent biology was extra weird when you still went through the actions)) and then pushed up to a standing position. Around her, almost all of the hostages had already fled through the front doors, the only ones left were the freckled redhead from earlier, now unconscious, and the blonde holding her.

"Wait a second…" Taylor groggily began to voice her thoughts. "Is that Glory Girl?"

Hearing the skull-headed heroine, Glory Girl's head snapped away from the redhead and locked onto Taylor.

"You." The local Alexandria package glared at Taylor.

"Me?" Taylor pointed at herself. It felt as if her mind was still trying to catch up, a feeling none of her other revivals had caused.

"Think I'll just let you get away with this, villain?"

That shook out the remaining mugginess from Taylor's mind. "Wait. What? Villain? Do what? Huh?" And immediately sent her down a completely different rabbit hole of confusion. Actually, better question, how did Glory Girl come to this conclusion? No, no, no! Best quest; what the actual HELL even happened?

'Let's see,' Taylor went over in her head. 'I incapacitated Steelskin. Went to help the hostage. They started spewing for some reason. And then… oh hey, a fist.'

Taylor then, for what felt like the umpteenth time that day, got punched in the face. Again. She really hoped that this didn't become the norm.

- - - - - Lazarus - - - - -

"And then me and Glory fought for a bit, I got flight and some sort of astral projection. I calmed her down after dying a few times, we traded numbers and are now going to hang out next weekend."

Valka gave a nod, an unreadable yet contemplative look masking her face.

"You certainly rapped that up quickly." Valka finally said.

"Yeah, well, it was getting a little bit tiresome telling the whole thing, and I kinda just wanted to finish the story, so I summarized. Now, are you going to finally tell me where you got a little girl from that isn't totally creepy."

Valka tapped her chin. "Hmm. I don't know, maybe I should… summarize?"

Taylor glared at her far elder Lazarinthian. "Don't you dare."

"Oh, I'm just teasing." Valka laughed light-heartedly. "Of course, I'll tell you how I met Dinah, although I will be leaving out some details. Spoilers and all that.

"So it all began… about the same time you were stopping that bank robbery…"