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A Ruinous Gift by Noodlehammer

Warhammer & Worm Xover Rated: M, English, Crime, Words: 298k+, Favs: 3k+, Follows: 4k+, Published: Sep 20, 2023 Updated: Jan 28

2,397Chapter 12: Old and New Relationships

Credit to Alvor for helping polish the chapter up.

XXXXX

Danny parked the car and just sat in it for a minute. Another day done, another day without a call from his daughter. It had been almost two weeks now. He at least knew she was still alive thanks to her posts on PHO, but the fact that she was picking fights with Lung filled him with terror.

That was why he stayed at work so late these days. Not only in case Taylor called, but also to distract himself. Although there were times when he really didn't have anything left to do and just sat at his desk.

Better than sitting in an empty house.

With a heavy sigh, he got out of the car and fished out his keys. Stepping over the broken first step that Armsmaster smashed through and that he still hadn't gotten around to replacing, even though the Protectorate hero had given him money for both it and the door, Danny stuck the key inside and turned it.

Instead of the click of the lock, the door swung open. It had already been unlocked.

Danny was instantly on guard. There was a chance he'd forgotten to lock the door, but he doubted it. Walking cautiously towards the living room, he was about to flick the light switch when an achingly familiar voice came from the dark.

"You shouldn't be working so late, Dad."

"Taylor?" Danny asked hopefully and flicked the switch.

There she was, his daughter, sprawled in his favorite armchair.

"It's me." She confirmed and stood up.

She looked so different from how he remembered that he could do nothing except stand there in shock. Neither the chatterbox she'd been or the unhappy shadow she'd become after Annette died resembled the young woman in front of him.

She was fit and confident. Strong and beautiful. Wearing clothes that showed her off instead of hid her. She was even wearing a bit of light makeup, which he'd never seen her do before.

She reminded him so much of what Annette had been like in college, except stronger. Annette never had that kind of muscle, or such a hard look in her eyes. She'd been a fighter in her own way, but not a woman of physical violence. Not like Taylor, who now reminded him of some of the more rough around the edges dockworkers.

"Well, aren't you going to come hug me?" She asked, holding out her arms.

That was different, too. He'd never have expected her to be so self-assured before. But he didn't really care to analyze it. Danny rushed forward to hold his daughter, squeezing her tightly. The strength of the return hug told him that those muscles weren't just for show.

He wanted to just keep holding her and never let go, but she pulled away all too quickly.

"Come on, let's sit down and talk." Taylor said, and it wasn't a suggestion. Danny had already noted how her tone had been changing during their sporadic phone calls, but it seemed that the transformation was complete. She expected to be obeyed and wasn't even entertaining the idea of refusal.

That gave him all sorts of conflicting feelings, but it made one thing clear. "You're not coming back, are you?"

"No." She confirmed without elaborating.

Danny had known that it was a fool's hope to think that things could go back to how they used to be, but her answer dashed even that.

That was the problem, wasn't it? He was always looking backwards. He should have been a father instead of a grieving widower, something that he realized only when it was too late. Now his daughter was a supervillain and didn't need or want a father anymore.

They sat at the dining table and Taylor just stared at him expectantly for a few seconds, but Danny couldn't find any words to say. What do you say to your estranged villain daughter?

Eventually, she sighed and began talking. "I'll be starting my takeover of the ABB's territory in a few days and moving into the area."

It was an obvious connection to his question and a prompt to get him talking.

"You think Lung is going to just walk away?" Danny asked. "I've been keeping up with your escapades as much as I could, and it looked like you always just run away from him."

"I have plans for Lung." Taylor said dismissively, as if the objectively most powerful parahuman in the city was nothing.

"What about the Empire, or the Protectorate?" He pressed.

"I have plans for everyone and everything." She smirked, a cocky expression that was so alien on her face it struck him speechless. "Brockton Bay will be mine."

Unnerved, Danny tried to go for humor. "Not much of a prize."

"It will be once it has someone competent running it." Obviously meaning herself. "You could help me."

He wondered if this was the part where she asked the DWU to start working for the interests of her gang. "How?"

"The city is going to need a new mayor eventually, an honest one." Taylor hinted blatantly.

"Me, the mayor?!" Danny sputtered.

"Why not? You could finally get the ferry fixed and approve a plan to get rid of the Boat Graveyard. There's this vehicle Tinker called Gearshift that might be able to make something to carve up that big container ship. That would be one hell of a campaign promise."

She really did have plans, Danny realized. Big plans, long-reaching plans, ambitious plans.

If he became mayor he could really help the boys at the DWU out, send work their way. But he also realized why his daughter was suggesting something like this – she wanted control over the local politics. Instead of bribery or blackmail, she thought to put her old man in the seat so that he would work towards her interests.

The casual assumption that he would comply with her wishes said more about the lack of respect she had for his parental authority than words ever could.

"Nobody would vote for a guy with a supervillain daughter, and that would get out." He shook his head.

"You say that as if voting has anything to do with it." Taylor replied evenly. "By the time you run for office, the results of the election will be whatever I say they are."

"You said Brockton Bay would need an honest mayor, that's not very honest." He pointed out.

"An honest mayor and an honest election are two very different things. Corruption is a tool of politics, not a failure of it."

"That's the most cynical thing I've ever heard." Danny snorted.

Taylor also cracked a smile. "It's true, though, especially in the age of parahumans. We're being more restrained and civilized about it because we all want to preserve the valuable infrastructure, but behind the silly costumes and posturing, we're all warlords fighting to control as much of the pie as we can get our hands on."

"Even the heroes?"

"Especially the heroes, although most of them probably don't realize it."

The excitable little girl who dressed up like Alexandria for Halloween was well and truly gone.

"Taylor, what you're doing… it'll get you killed." Danny said thickly. He just couldn't see a good ending to this.

She shrugged. Shrugged! "Being a 'hero' could get me killed. Doing nothing could get me killed. Hiding in my room could get me killed. It's that kind of world out there. At least this way I'm doing what I want and what I believe is right."

He wanted nothing more than to order her to stop, to ground her, and tell her to never use her powers again. To give up this nonsense, go back to school, and live a normal life.

But looking at her challenging eyes and the strong set of her shoulders, he knew it wouldn't accomplish anything except to widen the rift between them.

"You'll have to hurt a lot of people if you're set on this?" He asked instead. "Can you do that? Can you live with that?"

"I've already killed four since I started." Taylor replied coldly. "Frankly, I'm upset that you killed Sophia. I wanted to do it myself."

Danny reeled back with wide eyes, genuinely shocked. "What?"

"I'm a killer, Dad." She said patiently. "A murderer. They were all bad people and had it coming, but it was still murder."

It was so much worse than he'd thought. In his head, Taylor was just barely treading water as a criminal. Even with their talks over the phone, her confidence, and her plans, he'd still been picturing his little girl floundering and half-panicking as she tried to manage the role she'd fallen into.

Now the blinders were ripped away from his eyes. Taylor wasn't floundering at all, she was thriving. The muscle, the confidence, the bolder clothes and even the makeup emphasizing her looks. She was happier now, as a criminal, villain, and murderer, than she had been as his daughter.

"Something happens to you when you make the conscious decision to kill someone for the first time and go through with it." She spoke while Danny was still reeling in shock. "Your shadow feels darker, and you know that those who've never taken a life can't understand you anymore, not really. Sophia let it go to her head, thought herself a predator in a world full of prey. I prefer to think of it as stepping into a different world, one that should stay veiled from innocent eyes."

Taylor leaned forward intently. "But one thing we agree on. There is no going back."

Danny swallowed. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that it's time to clearly state what we want and what we're willing to accept if we're going to have any kind of relationship with each other." She said, with a firmness that no fifteen-year-old should have.

Danny wanted to go back in time to before his wife died and everything fell apart, but saying that would not only be pointless, it would also be spitting on the maturity Taylor was showing. He was already feeling ashamed of himself, so there was no need to dig that hole any deeper.

It had to be her powers allowing her to be so collected, but what did that matter?

"Alright, what do you want and what are you willing to accept?" He asked to buy himself time to think.

Judging by the look she gave him, Taylor definitely saw through it, but she didn't call him out on it. "I will continue to be a villain. I will get into fights with other capes, I will claim territory and defend it, I will sell drugs, run prostitution rings, and do other crimes. I will kill people if I think it's necessary. If you can accept that, if you can treat me like an adult that can make her own decisions, then we can still have a relationship. If not, if all you can think of is how to get me to stop, then it would be for the best if we maintain minimal contact."

"Not much of a compromise." Danny mumbled, already feeling defeated. How was he supposed to accept something like that? Taylor might be acting awfully mature, but she was still only fifteen. How could any man accept that his teenage daughter wasn't screwing her life up by becoming a career criminal?

"There's no choice." She shrugged again. "My powers are only fit for a villain."

Danny was familiar with people trying to railroad a negotiation by making it seem like there was only one course to take. This talk was giving him that same impression. The problem was that he didn't have anything to fight back with. Taylor didn't need him for anything. Because he had been too busy wallowing in his depression to notice when she had needed him, she had learned to rely on herself. Now he was being offered scraps out of what lingering sentimentality she had for him.

And he was going to take them, because his daughter was all he had left, even if she was dead set on being a supervillain.

"Alright, if I can't talk you out of this, then tell me how I can help." Danny sucked in a deep breath to brace himself. All these years of keeping the DWU above board and now it was his daughter pulling him in. Fitting really, that his personal failure cause his professional failure.

At least it got Taylor to smile. It was the cunning half-grin of a schemer, but it was something.

XXXXX

March 22nd, 2011. Extremely early in the morning.

Sleeping had become another degree stranger since consuming what was left of Oni Lee. Her possession of him was the only thing keeping his body going. If she pulled out of it, it would simply stop breathing, and it was far too valuable to allow that.

Keeping Oni Lee's body moving while she rested had allowed for the creation of a sort of meditative trance where most of her consciousness drifted just below the threshold of wakefulness. This did result in an extremely light sleep that was easily disturbed by the slightest noise.

The ringing of the cell phone, in the ringtone denoting emergency, was more than sufficient.

Eyes flying open, Taylor grabbed the phone with her telekinesis and brought it to her ear.

"What is it?" She demanded calmly, already snaking her way across the many tethers connecting her to her people to check on them.

"Boss, we've got Empire moving in on ABB territory with Purity at the head."

Ah, so the Nazis were finally moving. Taylor had known they wouldn't be content to sit out of it forever. Purity in particular had been making a nuisance of herself to the ABB for the past year.

Just a nuisance, however. The flying Blaster was powerful beyond question and Lung couldn't do shit to her unless he was ramped up enough to grow wings, but her ability to gather intelligence was sub-par. She'd shaken down some thugs, broken a few limbs, terrified the occasional pimp, and ruined a few deals, but achieved little more than to annoy Lung.

Gao Ning had even participated in planning an ambush that resulted in injuring her badly enough that she wasn't seen again for two months.

Which was strange. Othala should have had her back on her feet much faster than that.

In any case, she couldn't let them move in and claim territory. Allowing the Empire to act unchallenged would weaken her claim, just as humiliating Lung had weakened his claim.

"I'm sending Oni Lee. Keep an eye on the situation." She said and hung up.

Despite the many refugees resulting from the destruction of Kyushu, the Asian population of Brockton Bay still wasn't anywhere near big enough to fully occupy the big chunk of the city that Lung claimed as his territory. Many whites, blacks, arabs, Hispanics, and so on lived there, driven out of the more southern end of town over the past twenty years by the Empire 88. ABB 'territory' was more of a spiderweb than a cohesive whole. There were even numerous smaller gangs inside it, most of which controlled only a single street or even just a few teenage punks loitering on a couple of floors of an apartment building. That made it easy to slip spies everywhere. Nobody thought much of just one more down-on-his-look looking man or woman that could pay to live in a shitty apartment in the bad part of town. Initially they were meant to contact her via phone if they saw anything, but now she could just tap into their sight directly.

And she could use that sight for Oni Lee's clone jumps. Distance in the Empyrean was more philosophical than real, so as long as she had eyes on the new body she could possess it.

Taylor quickly got dressed in her costume and went down to her car while the possessed body started lurking on the roofs. It was barely past midnight, hours yet from when she had intended to start today's trouble, but one didn't get to control their enemies and she wasn't going to let the Empire make a mess of her territory before she even got to claim it.

The relatively early hour meant more potential opposition. Even most capes tended to be fast asleep at three in the morning. The odds of New Wave in particular showing up at that kind of hour had been nearly nil. At midnight, the odds were much higher. And they'd probably be cranky, too.

Historically, it took Lady Photon, Laserdream, and Shielder to drive Purity off, the Empire's Blaster being just that much more powerful. Glory Girl could also do it, but only by rushing right at her at all the time, as they were about equal in speed, but couldn't hurt each other. Purity had the range advantage, but couldn't bust through Glory Girl's invulnerability.

Of the Protectorate, only Dauntless could keep up with her in the air, but Miss Militia could very easily take her out if she was so inclined, Purity still being just as squishy as a normal human. Armsmaster, of course, was also potentially dangerous to her with his large bag of tricks. Assault, Battery, and Velocity were completely useless in that match up.

Oni Lee happened to be a particular hard counter to her, as his use of guns and mobility was the bane of her existence. He was the reason for her injury and two month absence.

Taylor psychically woke up Sherrel and Larry on her way down to the garage. She might need them.

As her car was pulling out of the garage, she called up the Undersiders, using telekinesis to hold the phone to her ear.

"Suuup?" Came Alec's laconic tones when he eventually picked up. He didn't sound like he'd just woken up and she could hear quiet video game shooting. Trust him to be the type to stay up late playing video games.

"Regent, the Empire made a move, so we'll be taking advantage of the distraction and moving up the schedule. Wake up the others." Taylor ordered.

"I'm kind of in the middle of something here. There's this squeaky twelve-year-old talking shit to me online and I need to bully him." Alec explained.

"Regent..." She put all the menace and she could muster into the word.

"Hnngh, don't use the Mistress voice, it makes my PP hard." He vocalized, but he did at least get off the couch. "Hey guys, wake up! The new boss is making us do work!"

There was a brief commotion before Brian took the phone from Alec.

"Psyker, what's going on?" There was still a remnant of sleep in his tone.

"The Empire made a move. I'm going to intercept, but I could use some backup from Regent and Bitch while you and Tattletale take the objective." She quickly summarized.

"Whoa, that wasn't part of the deal. The Undersiders work as a group." He protested.

"If you work for me then you work in whatever configuration I tell you to work in." Taylor kept the irritation out of her voice at the disobedience. "All three of your teammates have accepted full-time employment from me."

"She's right, Grue." Lisa pointed out. "And the job will be easy. I'll tell you if we're good and you do the legwork while Regent and Bitch go back her up against the Empire."

"Is it Hookwolf?" Rachel asked.

"No sign of him yet, but odds are that he's nearby." Taylor replied honestly. Hookwolf was the Empire's main enforcer, so it would be strange for him to not be present when there was fighting to be done.

"I'm in." Rachel piped up, sounding bloodthirsty.

"How are we supposed to reach the 'objective' without Bitch's dogs?" Brian tried a different approach.

"A car and van are already heading your way." As if she hadn't been sending out orders this whole time.

"Wait, you know where our lair is?!" Brian sounded alarmed.

"The hobos in the area reported sightings of us to her and then she just did a mix of triangulation and guesswork." Lisa spoke up, not sounding as upset as Brian.

"Don't worry so much. You can come over to my lair later if it makes you feel better." Taylor offered

"She means the lair she'll be moving into soon, not the one she has now." Lisa supplied.

"Yes, now get ready. Your rides should be there in five to ten minutes."

"You don't want Bitch and Regent getting there too early." Lisa said. "You don't just want to run the Empire off, you want to make a statement."

"Reputation is a precious thing." Taylor commented. "I need to set the right kind of tone for my first interaction with the Empire."

Brian made a resigned noise of approval. "Alright, fine. We'll do it your way. Just don't get us killed."

"I take care of my people." Betrayal was something she took a dim view of, given her history. Nobody who looked to her for leadership would ever be dismissed as expendable or unimportant.

"Good to hear." Lisa's forceful tone made her think that Alec had been about to say something crass again. "Go kick some ass, Boss. Talk to you later."

The call dropped and Taylor smiled, enjoying the way things were coming together. With the Undersiders on board, three of them at least, the Black Hand would have seven capes. Or six and a half, given Oni Lee's situation. That should be enough to at least stalemate the Empire. A stalemate that worked in her favor.

While she'd been on the phone, Oni Lee had been observing Purity from a shadowed alcove on a roof. The Empire's Blaster was well ahead and above the groups of unpowered goons on the ground. And she was zipping this way and that as if searching for something.

Lung perhaps? None of her people had caught sight of the rage dragon yet, which was odd. Was he wary of another humiliation?

They weren't doing any harm yet, but it would be best to engage Purity so that she couldn't start anything. The Protectorate certainly wasn't going to respond to a sighting of her – the powerful Blaster's power turned her into a glowing beacon in the dark, if they responded to every sighting they'd never get anything done.

There was no need for the engagement to be immediately violent however. Taylor continued driving hard, but in the meanwhile she called the phone that Oni Lee was carrying. In the dark and quiet, the ringtone might as well have been a foghorn and Purity visibly jerked in surprise at the sound.

Looking around, the Blaster finally sighted Oni Lee standing on a rooftop, holding out the cell phone towards her.

The flying glowy woman was obviously on edge, but there was a certain etiquette to cape confrontations, shaky as it may be. While surprise attacks were fine, sucker punches were generally considered to be bad form. With that in mind, it only took Purity a few seconds to decide that this was not some kind of trick and float down to take the offered phone.

"Hello?" Taylor heard both through the phone and through Oni Lee.

"Purity, this is Psyker speaking." She said. "Might I ask what, exactly, you are doing in my territory?"

"Your territory?" The older cape echoed. "It was Lung's territory last I checked."

It was unfortunate that she couldn't see into the Empyrean through any eyes other than her own. The additional insight would have been useful.

"If he wants to contest my claim, then he is free to do so." Taylor retorted. "Now answer the question. The Empire 88 is not welcome in these parts."

"I left the Empire a year ago. I'm a hero!" Purity objected, frustration lacing her tone.

Purity did step up her attacks against the ABB about a year ago, as previously noted, always acting alone and without support. But did the silly woman think that would be enough to make people think of her as a hero? Did she truly have no concept of what her actions looked like without a public renouncement of the Empire 88?

Taylor could understand not fighting them – they undoubtedly all knew each other's civilian identities, which would make things horrifically messy if it came to violence – but how did Purity think that just doing what she'd already been doing before, except even harder, would make her a hero in anyone's eyes?

"A hero to whom?" Taylor questioned, thousands of mental iterations spinning out to ponder the ludicrous statement. "And if you left the Empire, then why are there dozens of unpowered goons led by Alabaster following in your wake?"

"They're just there so that we can make a clean sweep. You said on PHO that you intend to grind the ABB into dust, didn't you? We can help you do it."

This was Taylor's first encounter with someone inserting their unwanted 'help' into her business. She found that she didn't care for it. Also, she may not be able to see Purity's soul right now, but that statement implied a considerable amount of racism.

Fair enough, Purity may be thinking that the enemy of her enemy was a friend, but Taylor was not willing to taint her reputation.

"And stain myself by associating with Nazis?" She snorted. "Does Kaiser think I'm some kind of idiot?"

A scenario took form in her head, built together from a mosaic of thousands of thoughts collating and processing information.

There was Kaiser and his most powerful offensive cape, as well as one of his lieutenants, just told him that she was quitting and going hero. Taylor didn't know enough about either of them to form a complete picture, but she had the facts.

Purity had 'left' the Empire a year ago and gone hero, yet nobody seemed to know it. Everyone still thought she was part of the Empire, and she was apparently still willing to cooperate with them.

Why? Stubbornness? Sentimentality? She had to see the problem of putting on a white hat in Brockton Bay. A fresh start would be easier literally anywhere else if she wasn't willing to join the Protectorate, who would also have probably transferred her out of town.

Or was something keeping her here? Something that Kaiser was surely aware of.

So he doesn't rage or have her killed for abandoning him. Instead, he just shrugs and quietly sabotages her efforts to create distance, knowing that she can never truly get away. He lets her attack the ABB, knowing what it would look like from the outside, and denies her any support until the frustration leads her to turn to the only place that a known Nazi cape can turn to – Kaiser and the Empire 88. Whether her resolve was weak or his hold on her too strong, he knows she would return to him.

"This has nothing to do with him!" Purity snapped. "It's about getting this scum out of our city. I know the Empire are criminals too, but at least they're more civilized about it."

Debatable. Taylor wouldn't dispute that a lot of the stuff the ABB engaged in was absolutely unfit to be part of any decent civilization – hence why she was so willing and eager to devour the souls of the perpetrators. That by itself didn't mean the Empire 88 was better, however. Circumstantial evidence implied that Kaiser had bigger ambitions than the lazy Lung, but that only meant that he had to be more clever and organized.

"And by scum, I suppose you mean anyone not white, rather than simply the ABB leadership?" She asked, unimpressed.

"The ABB wouldn't be what it was without all these Asians supporting it!"

Taylor could have tried explaining how Lung had pretty much forced Brockton Bay's Asian population to serve his gang, and how the Empire had made it worse by effectively hemming them all into the northern part of the city. But what would be the point? Purity had clearly already made up her mind and she didn't seem like the sharpest tool in the shed.

"They are not your problem anymore." She countered. "If you really want to be a hero, I suggest you leave the city and start over somewhere else. Otherwise, just give up the pretense and rejoin the Empire."

There was a long silence. Through Oni Lee's eyes, she saw the glowing Blaster slump in defeat before speaking. "I can't do that."

"Ah, so Kaiser does have some kind of hold over you. Thank you for confirming that."

Purity jolted like she'd been poked with a cattle prod. "I… what?!"

"Why else would a 'hero' stay so close to her villainous roots, changing neither her name nor her methods." Taylor pointed out. "Go away, Purity, unwilling servant of the Empire 88. I'll not have my reputation tainted by association with you."

That might stir up some chaos in the enemy's ranks.

Purity yelled in frustration and threw the phone against the ground, then flew off. Taylor put her own phone away with an irritated exhale. Now she'd have to get Oni Lee another one.

She had bigger problems to deal with, however. Some Empire 88 goons had taken note of Purity's lack of movement and clearly called it in. A car rumbled in one street over, disgorging Hookwolf and his crew.

Taylor had also arrived and parked her car somewhere out of sight, deciding to meet them head on.

XXXXX

Coil had somewhat calmed down over the past day. He was still furious about losing his pet oracle, but he could function.

He had always hated losing, ever since he was a child. Getting his power had been perfect, the ability to simply undo any failures and losses. To have that fail on him as well, because of circumstances out of his control had broken his self-control.

There was nothing he could do about it. Dinah Alcott was dead and he would have to move forward without her.

Creep's little operation against the Laborns had been planned to go off in tandem with Dinah's abduction, so canceling one had also canceled the other. Unlike with Dinah, he could still do this, meager consolation prize that it was.

Creep had been on stand-by near the Laborn house and received the go-ahead as soon as Coil got confirmation that the Empire 88 was engaged.

XXXXX

"Well, well, if it isn't the Bay's newest contender." Hookwolf said mockingly as he swaggered forward.

He was a big, tall, hairy man, wearing nothing but a pair of jeans, not even shoes. Covering his face was a tin mask shaped vaguely like a wolf and he had greasy blond hair hanging down to his shoulders. On his right arm was a tattoo of a snarling wolf head superimposed over a swastika, and on the left was an E88.

Despite the Nazi imagery, Taylor was not getting the feeling that the three Empire capes were racist. Violence was dear to their souls, almost holy, but there was no particular hate there. Equal opportunity assholes, in other words.

"So, is this Kaiser's way of getting the measure of me? A genuine grab for territory? Or maybe just a way to undermine Purity's attempts to get away from him?" Taylor asked, having been formulating theories since the moment she was awoken.

"Who gives a shit?" Hookwolf shrugged, dodging the question. "Where's your gang, girl? Or are you gonna fight us all by yourself?"

One of her men was peeking out the window and recording this confrontation, as he had the one with Purity. That was the reason she'd stopped here.

"This little interruption of yours was poorly timed, so you'll have to be satisfied with just me for now." Taylor lied. Like hell was she going to reveal all her trump cards right away, not with Lung still nowhere to be seen.

"Word is you're a Thinker." Hookwolf was audibly grinning. "Let's see what you've got."

He waved Cricket forward and she advanced, brandishing her twin kama. Those were decidedly oriental weapons – tools repurposed into weapons, really – which was a lot less odd now that she knew the woman wasn't racist.

Taylor didn't yet sense any killing intent from her, no matter how brutal and deadly she looked with her many scars and cage mask.

Still, even with what she had absorbed from Oni Lee, Nishimura Ito and Gao Ning, she didn't delude herself into thinking that she could win a physical confrontation. The full mechanics of Cricket's power were unknown, but what was known was that she had superhuman reflexes and agility. Even if Taylor was equally well armed, the odds would be firmly against her.

So she didn't try to fight.

As soon as Cricket lunged for her, kama swinging with the intent of giving her a cut on the arm, Taylor's hand snapped out in a claw grip, telekinetically holding the woman in place.

It was hard, harder than holding much heavier objects. Cricket's mind was fighting against her psychic grip, her will to move pressing against Taylor's will to hold her in place. Beneath her hood, her brown eyes blazed blue with eldritch energies drawn from the Empyrean.

Cricket groaned in effort as she strained against the force holding her back, her electronic voice box making it sound tortured. Then Taylor felt a sudden sense of vertigo and stumbled in place. Thanks to her multitasking it didn't distract her, but she still quickly flung the other villain away before it could get any worse.

Most people would have rolled awkwardly and painfully on the tarmac, but Cricket tucked gracefully into a roll to disperse the momentum and came back up on her feet with no trouble. The vertigo disappeared immediately.

Taylor had been analyzing the feeling since the moment it happened, keeping in mind Cricket's known powers and even her cape name. It didn't take long to correlate all of that with the sudden loss of balance. Balance, after all, was a function of the inner ear.

"Sound." She stated confidently. "You're like a bat, using echolocation to keep track of objects in your area." And using higher/lower frequencies to disrupt the inner ear.

"And you're quick on the uptake." Cricket shot back, her electronic voice bland but her eyes gleaming eagerly.

"Not just a Thinker, then." Hookwolf said, audibly grinning. "I was expecting some kind of trick like what you pulled on Lung, but this might actually be fun."

"How did the likes of you three end up falling in with the Empire?" Taylor asked, both to delay and gather information. And maybe sow a bit of discord.

"The likes of us?" Hookwolf repeated, an edge of danger to his tone. His mind was calmer and stronger than most people she'd met so far, not at all what you'd expect from someone with a reputation as a mad dog.

"Warriors. You could have done better than Kaiser and the Empire 88."

There was a moment of pregnant silence before Hookwolf responded, his voice a mix of amusement and incredulity. "Are you trying to poach us from the Empire, girl?"

"I would take Stormtiger and Cricket, but you are more trouble than you would be worth." Taylor replied honestly. The aforementioned capes were known for plenty of assaults, but no murders. They also didn't have any Nazi tattoos or what amounted to a blood feud with Bitch. And they were clearly more followers than their immediate boss. "I'm just curious."

"None of your fucking business." The murder blender shot down that line of inquiry bluntly and waved forward Stormtiger.

The aerokinetic was also shirtless and wore a pair of pants festooned with chains. He was actually more muscular than Hookwolf, though nobody in town would make the mistake of thinking him stronger.

Stormtiger launched a probing attack, a hard gust of wind that would send most people staggering back. She countered it with a telekinetic push that plowed through the air and sent him stumbling back, although he used his powers to cushion himself and push himself back onto his feet.

"That's not air she's moving." Stormtiger said. "She's a telekinetic."

"Alright, my turn." Hookwolf growled eagerly, stalking closer.

He clearly didn't think she was much of a threat and didn't even bother putting up his guard. Taylor knew from her research that he would have a coating of steel just beneath his skin, so his confidence wouldn't normally be displaced.

Normally.

Dodging out of the way of his probing jab, she drove a palm strike into his sternum. Powered by simple muscle, that wouldn't have achieved much against a man so much bigger than her even without his power in play, but it was powered by her mind as well.

Taylor hadn't had much time to practice her telekinesis since discovering it, but a few things she had tried out.

A shockwave of telekinetic force blasted out from her palm and into him. Hookwolf gagged in surprise and stumbled back. Before he could recover, she struck again, this time with both palms and even more force, sending the Empire's enforcer flying backwards.

Instead of being upset, however, he laughed. "Fuck, you hit pretty hard for a little girl. We were going to let you off with a few cuts and bruises, but it looks like you want to play in the big leagues."

"Big leagues?" Taylor scoffed. "Don't flatter yourself, we're still only playing on the local level."

Hookwolf paused for a second and then nodded. "Fair enough. Still gonna fuck you up, though."

All three of them came at once this time, Hookwolf in the middle and the other two flanking.

Taylor took a deep breath and drew heavily on the Empyrean, making her eyes glow brightly. Her blood began to boil with exhilaration of the coming fight. Her first real cape fight.

Backup was coming, she had Oni Lee on a nearby rooftop just in case, but she wanted to fight, wanted to beat these enemies of hers down and force them to run.

Because she sure as hell wasn't going to be the one running away. Never again.

She drew the knife she'd taken from Sophia, glad for the chance to finally use it. Running a hand over it, she coated it in a ghostly layer of telekinetic force. Her mind whirled with plans and predictions, her eyes kept track of every movement.

A flare of hostility from Cricket betrayed the first move and she stepped back before the kama even began to swung. Another such flare from Stormtiger heralded a blast of wind that was matched by a telekinetic push. Cricket recovered her failed swing with a forward step, aiming to cause a shallow cut.

Taylor used another telekinetic push to make her stumble towards Hookwolf. The leader of the three Empire capes let himself be used as a brace for his compatriot to steady herself even as he moved forward with a set of one-two jabs.

Again, Taylor backpedaled, irritation growing at her lack of offense. She was in the minds of all three of her opponents, slowly oozing deeper and deeper as the thrill of battle synchronized them.

When he wasn't being a murder blender, Hookwolf fought primarily with his hands, keeping his feet firmly planted. Taylor found that she had little trouble dodging his fists. He was an experienced fighter, but not very imaginative and every blow was betrayed by his mind before it was thrown. Plus, all that yoga and the deliciously painful stretching exercises had left her quite limber. He was neither fast nor agile enough to keep up.

After dodging and analyzing a few blows, she thought she saw an opening and took it, swiping her knife across his forearm. Were the knife just steel it wouldn't have done anything, but the telekinetic coating was sharper and harder than mere metal and split open both Hookwolf's skin and the sreel beneath it.

"First blood goes to me." Taylor taunted as she backstepped, blood singing in her veins.

This was so much fun, and she was learning so much. All the little tidbits of combat knowledge she had absorbed from Oni Lee, Nishimura Ito, and Gao Ning were really starting to settle into place. She was getting a better and better handle on the minds of her enemies, giving her a sort of combat precognition.

He snarled, metal extruding from his skin and his soul sung with savage joy at the challenge. Stormtiger and Cricket also stepped up their game, the former manifesting air claws from his hands and the latter trying to bounce around behind her.

Taylor wasn't going to let that happen and suddenly went on the offensive. Cricket reacted quickly, swinging her kama so that they would intercept her. Taylor again used telekinesis to shove her hands upwards, at the same time propelling her knife right into the woman's leg.

All the reaction speed in the world won't help when you're off balance and being attacked by a telekinetically guided weapon. Cricket tried to use her echolocation to mess with her inner ear again, but Taylor had predicted that and blocked her ears with tiny psychic barriers. Cricket grunted in pain as the knife sank into her thigh, then choked as another telekinetically enhanced palm strike landed right on her diaphragm. To finish things off, Taylor also yanked the kama from the other woman's weakened grip, taking the weapons for herself. She wasn't proficient with them, but they would be a decent replacement for the knife.

Hookwolf and Stormtiger hadn't been idle during this, of course. The former was too far to do anything, but the later launched his air claws at her at an angle, careful so that they wouldn't hit his ally if she dodged.

Cricket was sent flying anyway, and Taylor had sensed his attack coming, but she still only barely managed to get out of the way. Unlike the earlier half-hearted gust of wind he'd thrown at her, these did not deform under her will so easily. In fact, there was more than just air to them, there was a mind maintaining their form and purpose, pushing back against her power.

Something to remember for next time. For now, her dodge and counter-push was enough to spare her any serious injury, but she still took four shallow slashes across her back. The cuts burned with pain, making this battle all the more enjoyable.

The bleeding could be a problem, though. While the gashes were not deep, they were long and could potentially result in losing dangerous amounts of blood. Thinking quickly, she psychically grabbed the edges of the sliced skin and pulled them closed, substituting for stitches. Under that, she sought out the severed ends of the numerous tiny veins and pinched them to prevent further bleeding.

Twirling her new weapons and coating their blades with telekinetic force, she grinned under her mask. "And then there were two."

"Alright then, guess playtime is over." Hookwold growled and finished his transformation, his flesh receding and metal taking its place. In a matter of moments, he took his iconic giant bladed wolf form.

He bounded forward, seemingly intent on trampling her, but she saw the truth in both his mind and his slightly off-center charge. Even if he hit her, she would just be knocked aside, wounded but alive.

All four of them knew that Taylor could have sent her knife into Cricket's heart or throat instead of her leg. The unspoken agreement of the Unwritten Rules to stay non-lethal was in play.

Taylor dodged aside, simultaneously using her telekinesis to shove Hookwolf in the other direction. He was heavy as hell and the metal making up his Changer form had a mind controlling it, but she was able to shift it enough to get out of the way. As he passed, she sank one of her stolen kama into his side, letting it rip through the metal as he passed.

It would have been a fatal injury if his true self wasn't compressed into the size of a football in the middle of the metal body. That was obviously not anatomically possible, but neither was Larry's spaghetti Changer form. Powers were weird.

Stormtiger hadn't been idle of course, and had sent another set of four air slashes at her while she was dodging, but this time she was ready. Instead of a simple counter-push to disrupt the air, she maintained a telekinetic shield around herself. The air slashes hit it and dispersed, briefly making it look like she was covered in a dome of lightning. As much as she might have enjoyed taking another wound, she knew it was a bad idea.

Taylor retaliated by bastardizing his own technique, swinging the kama in his direction and using it as a base to create a flying psychic blade. He tried to block it with shields of condensed air, but the psychic blade sliced through them. Scrambling, he pushed himself aside instead, but she adjusted for that as well and made sure to slice open his left bicep.

Again, they all knew that she could have just as easily opened up his throat, causing a momentary pause.

Taylor had initially been annoyed by the fact that she couldn't simply reach inside people and squeeze their organs or yank on their brains to take them out of a fight. If this fight had done anything, it had showed her that humans were terribly fragile and that she had no shortage of ways to take people down if she needed to.

"Fuck, Bitch and her dogs are coming." Stormtiger suddenly swore.

Huh? They shouldn't be in hearing range quite yet. Did he have enhanced senses? Ah, aerokinetic. He could probably 'pull' sounds and smells to himself. Good to know.

It was a shame that he probably wouldn't be willing to switch sides. She could have used someone like him far better than Kaiser or Hookwolf.

"Fuck!" Hookwolf snarled, his voice created by metal grinding against metal instead of vocal chords. "Grab Cricket and let's get out of here."

That was again more level-headed than she'd expected from someone like him. Cricket was crippled with a wound that could easily become fatal if not tended to. Hookwolf may not have been fighting anywhere near as hard as he could have, but he had clashed with Bitch's dogs in the past and gotten stalemated – both were too tough to do any real damage to the other.

Taylor didn't try to stop them from retreating, as much as she would have liked to keep fighting – another bit of the Unwritten Rules was to allow capes to run so as to avoid any 'cornered rat' scenarios.

It was too early to be cornering the Empire.

The giant monster dogs thundered around the corner just as the Empire capes were running ducking out of sight.

"Wow, usually we're the ones running away." Regent commented from the back of his own dog mount.

"We should go after them!" Bitch snarled, radiating more bloodlust than the three Empire capes combined. She really, really hated Hookwolf.

Taylor gave telepathic orders to redirect Sherrel and Larry towards Alabaster and his squad of unpowered mooks and drive them off. It was overkill, but they were clearly not needed here anymore.

"Don't worry, Bitch, he'll get his. It just won't be today." She said verbally and climbed up on the riderless dog. "Take us out of here."

The dog cape felt momentarily rebellious, but she obeyed, giving a specific whistle that made the dogs surge into a run. Oni Lee, meanwhile, was puppeted to her car. She could have driven it herself and sent the two Undersiders away alone, but she'd go with them in the interest of building a relationship.

"Did I even have to come along?" Regent complained as they rode. "You had this handled without me. I sacrificed my kill-death ratio for nothing."

"The fresh air will do you some good." Taylor retorted unsympathetically. Sure, it turned out that calling in so much backup had been unnecessary, but it wasn't like she could have known that ahead of time.

Plus, Regent could have been of critical importance if Lung had shown up. That he hadn't was suspicious. It was very unlike him to not respond to incursions into his territory.

XXXXX

Lung growled as he passed the 'Welcome to New York' sign. It burned him to leave Brockton Bay when he was being challenged, but he wasn't a fool. Psyker could continue to do hit and run attacks with her stupid vehicles indefinitely as long as he didn't know where she operated from.

Leaving for a bit so that she got comfortable and he could go on the attack was only sensible. He would get to kill her and get his territory back, even if he had to leave it for a bit.

And he could take the time to recruit the Tinker he'd heard about, a half-Japanese girl who had held Cornell University hostage for a while. It was something he had meant to do anyway, but Psyker's attacks had distracted him.

He would claim the Tinker and then they would return to Brockton Bay to teach Psyker a lesson about insulting a dragon.

XXXXX

Coil sat at his desk, quietly fuming. Why did it seem like everything was going wrong lately?

He had opened two timelines as usual. In one, Creep was ordered to go have his fun with the Laborns and in the other he was ordered to stay put. A low risk operation that should have gone smoothly. After all, what were a former soldier, a recovering drug addict, and a little girl going to do against a professional mercenary?

Apparently enough. Brendan Laborn had woken up, seen the intruder, pulled a gun, and shot him without hesitation. Coil had been forced to close the timeline with nothing to show for it again.

XXXXX

In Shardspace

Coil's Shard had needed to fudge things a bit. It still couldn't account for the Anomaly's actions and the non-host [Celia Laborn] was connected to it by unknown means. To avoid wasting precious energy on those calculations, it had instead given its host a plausible scenario that would make him turn away from that course of action.

XXXXX

Brian would make for an excellent burglar.

His power didn't just block vision, it blocked everything. It was child's play for Lisa to confirm that their target was at home alone and disable the alarm. After that, Brian was able to use his own power to muffle any noise and allowed them to sneak up on the sleeping ABB lieutenant. He was trussed up and gagged in seconds, after which the two Undersiders had taken a moment to help themselves to the contents of his home safe for a little job bonus. Then it was just a matter of carrying him back to the car and stuffing him into the trunk.

"Where should I drop you off?" The Black Hand driver asked.

It was kind of nostalgic to have a chauffer again. Brian rattled off a street address from where they'd be able to switch back to civvies. Lisa, however, had different ideas.

"I'd like to escort our abductee to the boss." She said, very much wanting to see if she could finagle her way to seeing how Psyker handled interrogations.

Brian stared at her, clearly demanding to know what she was up to, but she ignored him, focusing on the driver instead.

He was quiet for a long moment. Not indecisive so much as… waiting for something?

"I'd have to call the boss and ask if that's okay." He finally said.

Wants to call for instructions because he did not receive any.

Lisa's stare would have bored a hole through the man's head from the sheer force of her curiosity. He had expected to receive instructions in response to her request, as soon as she issued it? The only way that would be possible is if Psyker had direct access to his senses and could communicate telepathically.

Psyker was amused by Lisa's claim of being psychic because Psyker is psychic.

All the pieces suddenly fell into place. The name, the easy takeover of the Merchants, the ability to connect to people and take things from them, the enhanced perception, the sheer variety of powers. It was all mindfuckery.

"You do that." Lisa said, oozing smugness from every pore because she had figured it out.

"What did you just figure out?" Brian whispered to her while the driver was on the phone with the boss.

"Something huge." Lisa whispered back, knowing that this was not something she could blabber out without talking to Taylor first. "I need to talk to Psyker about it before I can tell you anything."

Brian grunted, not pleased but understanding.

"Boss says you can come." The driver said and the rest of the drive passed by in silence. Brian was dropped off somewhere halfway and they continued on.

Lisa could barely contain her excitement, not even sure why she was was excited. Sure, a truly psychic parahuman was a big deal, but mostly it just spelled trouble. Still, she could hardly wait to talk to Taylor about it.

When they finally arrived at one of the many abandoned warehouses in the docks, Lisa all but jumped out of the car in her eagerness.

Taylor was already there, having shucked her coat, mask, and leather jacket, leaving nothing covering her top but a sports bra. A sports bra which had clearly taken some damage. Her eyes were gently sparking with power.

"Come on, let's get our guest inside." Taylor said as she helped the driver haul the abducted ABB lieutenant out of the trunk. That gave Lisa a good view of her back and the four diagonal slashes marring it.

Stormtiger's air blades. Wounds are being held shut by unknown form of telekinesis.

She was also a telekinetic?! It was all Lisa could do to keep her mouth shut. The seconds until the abductee was dumped inside the warehouse and the driver told to leave seemed to drag on for eternity.

"You're psychic! And telekinetic!" The words exploded out of her. "You can access the senses of people that you're connected to and talk to them telepathically. And you love feelings things, any things. Good food, pleasure, pain, anything."

"Feel better now?" Taylor asked, raising an unimpressed eyebrow.

Lisa coughed in embarrassment at her outburst, not sure what came over her. Worst part was, she still desperately wanted to know more. "Sorry, but you've been a huge mystery and I can't stand mysteries."

Taylor suddenly moved. An unseen forced pushed her back and pinned her to the wall of the warehouse, then the taller girl used her own body to trap her against it, staring down at her with intense eyes that blazed with power.

"Have I been teasing you, Lisa?" She asked huskily, gently peeling away her domino mask.

Is extremely aroused from the battle and the injury. Considers Lisa a threat to her plans. Does not want to hurt Lisa. Wants to have sex with Lisa. Wants Lisa as a subordinate. Wants Lisa as a lover. Wants to trust Lisa. Will take good care of Lisa.

Lisa swallowed thickly, heart pounding in her chest. She didn't think her life was in danger right now, but her virtue might be. There was already a headache pounding in her temples, along with the usual stream of nonsensical information she always got when she was this close to someone.

"A little bit." She stammered. "Not that I'm not flattered, but this is getting kinda close to violating the no girl on girl action clause we agreed to."

"You're the one who keeps sticking her nose into my business. I would have been fine taking it slow, but you just keep pushing and pushing." Taylor's tone somehow got even lower and more suggestive, and she punctuated her last word by thrusting her pelvis forward. "I'm willing to satisfy your wild curiosity, but you'll have to give me something in return."

Is offering a psychic link. Is offering to take away Lisa's Thinker headaches.

"I'd rather not be mastered, if it's all the same to you." Lisa's voice had developed a definite squeak. Her head pounded with pain, as if to remind her of what she could be rid of forever.

"You aren't some hopeless junkie or broken bird." Taylor said clearly referencing the former Merchants and her old friend Emma. "That's why I have to ask you to link with me. Unlike them, you don't need me to prop you up. Why not try it? If you don't like it, I promise to break the link right away."

Is telling the truth. Wants your trust. TAKE THE DEAL.

XXXXX

Over in Shardspace.

The Negotiator was doing the Shard equivalent of vibrating with eagerness. New [DATA]!

Its host was hesitating out of fear of being controlled, but that didn't matter at all to the Negotiator, so it kept pushing her. The hunches, insights, logic leaps, and realizations it gave her were not truly in words, although she sometimes perceived them as such.

Right now Negotiator was fudging things hard, glossing over potential warning signs and highlighting benefits. If Queen Administrator didn't want to share, then it was going to get the [DATA] from the host directly.

XXXXX

Lisa swallowed again, staring into the lightning storm blazing behind Taylor's eyes. She was really, really tempted to take the deal, and not just because her headache was getting steadily worse. She wanted to know more and her power was screaming at her that Taylor was being honest in her claim.

"Alright." She whispered.

Taylor smiled. "Care to seal it with a kiss?"

"Don't push it." Lisa snorted, amused.

"Fine, the boring way it is." The brunette agreed. "This may feel a little strange, but don't try to fight it. Let me in."

Lisa trembled from a combination of nervousness and excitement and nodded. She had no idea what she wasn't supposed to fight, so she just took a deep breath and tried to relax as she stared at the sparks of eldritch lightning in the taller girl's eyes.

A strange kind of pressure built in her hindbrain, very different from the Thinker headaches. It felt… hungry. Swallowing again, she thought of the aforementioned Thinker headaches, the regular torture sessions her power subjected her to, and tried to kind of push them towards the hungry feeling.

Something snapped into place. The pain vanished, so abruptly that she gasped in surprise and might have stumbled if she wasn't still being pinned to the wall.

-Hello there.- Taylor's voice echoed in her mind, accompanied by a smile and a myriad of impressions. The other girl felt so big, bigger than her physical body by far.

Lisa gasped again and shuddered as her power ran wild trying to analyze everything, sending an incomprehensible stream of information shooting through her consciousness. Normally, this kind of reaction would be immediately accompanied by a spike of pain driving into her skull from sheer overload, but there was nothing. It was almost like the pain was being siphoned away before it could reach her.

A glance at Taylor completed the puzzle. The brunette's pupils had dilated and there was a renewed flush on her cheeks.

Is experiencing Lisa's Thinker headache. Is enjoying it immensely. Is aroused.

"Is it as good for you as it is for me?" Lisa couldn't help but quip, grinning widely at her new, pain-free existence.

"Mhm." Taylor hummed, grinning back. "You'll have to ask very nicely if you ever want these lovely headaches back."

Does not intend to give Lisa any reason to want to break the psychic link.

"Keep being such a great boss and you can keep them forever." Lisa snorted, wiggling out of their rather suggestive position.

Internally, she abandoned all plans to usurp Coil's organization. It had been a nice little dream, but always something secondary to actually getting out from under his thumb and it couldn't beat the benefits of being a lieutenant for Psyker. Less money and street cred, maybe, but never having to feel like someone was driving a power drill into her skull? Never again having to shut herself in a dark room with a blindfold and earplugs just to give her poor brain a rest? Priceless. She wasn't going to risk that by setting herself up as a potential rival.

Plus, now that she could feel Taylor's mind brushed up against her own, she really didn't want to fight her. Maybe it was a false impression, but she felt dangerous on a level bigger than Coil could ever dream of.

"I always strive to be the best." Taylor promised, letting her go.

"Now, how about you show your new favorite, most loyal minion how a real psychic extracts information from a captive?" Lisa suggested, still wanting to know more. "Then I've got to tell you some things about a certain sneaky snakey snake that I think you've already had some dealings with."

"Are you sure you want to see it?" Taylor's voice was amused. "It might lead you to question everything you know about reality."

"I don't care how good you are at dirty talk, I'm still not having sex with you, now show me things that would have split my head open five minutes ago!"

XXXXX

Over in Shardspace.

[DAAAATAAAAAAA]!

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