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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 14: Making Moves

Points to Alvor for helping out.

XXXXX

March 28th, 2011.

The effort to discover Coil's true identity was not going well. Whatever else could be said about the man, he had taken extensive precautions against being discovered. Even Lisa didn't have enough to go on in that regard.

Which made it all the more baffling that he had brought her to his lair multiple times as a show of intimidation, revealing its location.

Taylor knew that she could identify him as Coil if she could just get a glimpse of him. No mask would be able to hide his soul.

This resulted in her being saddled with a very unfortunate task that only she could do – staking out Coil's lair.

It was heinously boring and not even guaranteed to work. Lisa had used her power to narrow down the location of the hidden vehicle access tunnel, but there was always a chance that Coil got in and out of his base on foot through some other secret entrance that she didn't have enough information to find.

If it wasn't for the fact that she had Oni Lee's body to act through, it would have driven her insane to waste so much time. However, it finally paid off. A car pulled out of the private garage.

It was a completely non-descript car, but inside she saw the familiar double-headed serpent soul of Coil. Her sight was deeper now, and one of the serpent's heads looked insubstantial.

The thought of jumping him immediately was tempting, but Taylor held off. The way his power worked made her wary of going in half-cocked. Lisa's description of how he always seemed to succeed made her suspect that such an attack would fail. Because if it didn't fail, Coil would have simply used his power to not even be there.

Better to just gather information for now and then attack from all directions at once, not giving him any route to escape.

Satisfied with her conclusion, she called Rachel on her way back home. Across the rooftops, Oni Lee sneakily tailed Coil.

XXXXX

Rachel hadn't expected much when she agreed to work for Psyker. More money, food for her dogs, a new place to keep them, some people to help out occasionally. In return, she'd act as muscle against the girl's enemies.

Simple and direct. Psyker was a Thinker like Tattletale, but she knew when to get to the point.

Instead, she found herself receiving a lot more. The money and food was there, but the place for them was huge, enough for hundreds of dogs. And they started putting up buildings, too. Her people also brought abandoned and stray dogs to her.

The price of feeding them kept rising, and the help started being necessary.

When Psyker called, Rachel expected to be told who she needed to fuck up and it was something she would do without complaint.

"I want to start advertising this place as a dog adoption center, and posting pictures so that anyone whose dog was stolen can be returned." Psyker said bluntly.

"As long as they treat them well." Rachel said back after thinking about it a bit. She couldn't just keep in taking more dogs without giving some away. Things were already getting hard to manage. Either way, she appreciated the directness.

"They will." The threat in the words was reassuring, since it wasn't aimed at her. "I'm also getting you a certification as a dog trainer."

"Why?"

"Because it will make it harder for the PRT to cause trouble if you're a licensed dog expert who spends most of her time here. Their bosses prefer villains with jobs."

"If it gets them to fuck off, then fine." Rachel grunted. She didn't give a shit about what some piece of paper said, but could see the use of it.

"And on another note, I have information that Hookwolf's people have been collecting dogs again. Want to go steal them?" Psyker asked.

"Where?"

"Where else? Yet another abandoned warehouse in the Docks."

"I'm in."

"The vans are already on the way."

Yeah, working for Psyker was turning out to be pretty great.

XXXXX

"I thought we agreed that Coil had to be handled first?" Lisa asked with a frown as she entered the room.

"You know I can't stand doing only one thing at a time." Taylor replied.

This was emphasized by the fact that she was currently lifting weights, telekinetically writing e-mails on two separate laptops, doing gymnastic stretches, and playing a video game with Alec all at the same time.

And that's just what was visible.

"She really can't, it's kind of distracting." Alec complained, clearly losing the game.

Lisa looked at the floating controller and the mild panic on Alec's face and sighed.

"What did you bet?"

"Anal." Alec answered distractedly, button mashing furiously.

"Exercise." Taylor provided her own answer serenely, clearly not struggling in the slightest.

Lisa shook her head and decided to go back to the subject at hand. "You know Hookwolf isn't going to take this lying down, right? And you did it just hours before the dog fights were supposed to get started. Not only did you steal from him, you made him look stupid."

It had been easy, too. Collecting a couple of dozen dogs for their bloody hobby wasn't exactly a quiet operation and she had clients among Hookwolf's crew. They talked and she knew when the fight was scheduled, making it simple to just roll up a few hours earlier and take all the dogs they'd collected. There hadn't been more than two Empire goons guarding them.

"I'm not scared of Hookwolf." Taylor replied casually.

In fact, she was eager to have a rematch with him.

"Couldn't antagonizing the Empire have waited until we took down Coil? We have his name now." Lisa insisted tensely.

And what a nasty surprise it had been to discover that Thomas Calvert, PRT consultant, was Coil. Pretty much on brand for the PRT, though. And a further complication, as they could not be seen overtly aggressing on him.

"We're already doing everything we can, so there's no sense in leaving unused assets to sit idly." Taylor grunted, holding up her weights with telekinesis and transitioning fully into a stretching routine.

His power made him extremely annoying to plan against. There was no telling what he was trying in his secondary timeline. Getting Grue out of town had been one countermeasure against the possibility of Coil forcing him to be an enemy, although the generosity of the move was because he had been an Undersider and Taylor still hoped to bring him on board at some point in the future.

Another person she'd packed out of town was her father. He had protested and refused to leave at first, much to her frustration, resulting in her eventually snapping and saying that he was just a liability and to just do as he was told.

Taylor didn't feel great about hurting him like that, but honestly, what was he going to do? Get taken hostage and used against her? Coil couldn't even be trusted to keep any bargain he made, so if that happened she would be forced to write him off as already lost.

That the notion of it didn't result in near hysterics said a lot about how far their relationship had deteriorated. Or maybe about how much she had changed.

"You're already running hundreds of projects, and can you please look at me when I'm talking to you?!" Lisa snapped in frustration.

Yes, she was running hundreds of projects. Starting up shell companies and buying up property and putting people to work.

The Number Man was a very useful contact, one that she had learned about from Lisa. A parahuman banker of neutral alignment that provided completely opaque financial transactions for a nominal fee. Taylor didn't trust him for an instant, but the amount of money she was handling had become cumbersome a while ago.

With his help, the sudden upsurge in activity in her territory looked completely legal on paper. She would even be paying taxes and everything, although at such hilariously reduced rates that it was mostly for appearances.

"I don't need my eyes to talk to you." But she did need them to kick Alec's ass at this video game. "Look, I know you're worried about Coil, but we're in the hurry up and wait stage right now. If you want I can call up Sherrel and ask for a status update."

The biggest problem was still the self-destruct system in his base. Because of that, any assault had to be lightning fast and reach his office as soon as possible. Ideally, he wouldn't even have a chance to arm it.

Lisa took a deep breath and exhaled, slumping. "I know, sorry. I'm just stressed out."

"K.O!" The TV announced as the scantily-clad, large-breasted girl fell on the ground. "Winner: Player One!"

"Man, that was such bullshit." Alec complained, putting down his controller. "You said you never played one of these before."

"I haven't." Taylor smirked, releasing her telekinetic grip on her own controller and letting it drop onto the couch. "But I have memorized all the move sets and combos."

"Next time, we're playing a racing game." He swore. "Let's see you try to cheat at that."

"I've never seen you play a racing game." Lisa pointed out drily.

"I can learn." Alec protested.

"Learn later, stretch now." Taylor ordered. "I'm going to run you into the ground."

"I can't even make a joke about that, this is going to suuuuck." He groaned and very reluctantly began doing stretching exercises.

"If only Brian were here to see you finally get off your ass." Lisa fake-sniffed. "He would be so proud."

XXXXX

After failing to convince Taylor to slow things down a bit, Lisa had retired to her own temporary apartment to try and relax.

But it was not to be. Less than an hour into proving people wrong on the internet, Taylor contacted her telepathically.

-Lisa, I need you to go to the Trainyard with Sherrel.-

Lisa did not jump, nor did she nearly go cross-eyed from the nonsense her power was gibbering as it tried to figure out how Taylor was talking to her.

"What for?" She spoke quietly, still not quite having the hang of properly shaping her thoughts.

-It seems that providence has decided to favor us. One of my people spotted what looks like a Case 53 building things from scrap.- Taylor answered.

Lisa's eyes widened in surprise. That really was almost suspiciously lucky. Tinkers were always in high demand, so having one literally just dropped on your doorstep definitely had to be investigated.

The fact that Faultline would probably take this Case 53 under her wing as she had two others before only motivated her further.

"You want me to see if he's a plant? I can definitely do that." She said, getting up. "How's Alec doing?"

-Wheezing.- Taylor's mental voice was suffused with amusement. -And, Lisa? Do be nice to our prospective new recruit.

"I'm not that bad." Lisa huffed in offense, eye twitching as Taylor's laughter echoed in her mind.

It took her a minute to squeeze into her Tattletale catsuit and toss a coat over it, by which point Sherrel had already arrived from her nearby garage with a van.

"Sup, bitch." The Tinker greeted, booting the passenger door open.

"That's Rachel." Lisa snarked, sitting down and slamming the door shut.

"Man, her cape name is really fucking with my vocabulary." Sherrel complained.

"What can you do?" Lisa shrugged philosophically. "We should stop for burgers. If our Case 53 is as new as it seems, he might be hungry."

"Good thinking." The Tinker complimented, then her stomach rumbled. "I could go for a burger myself…"

Skipped lunch so she could tinker. Wants Psyker to be proud of her.

Heh, it was kind of funny how eager to please Taylor's people were. Maybe a little concerning as well, but understandable. They were as addicted to her as they had once been to the drugs. Lisa wasn't going to comment on it since it didn't concern her. Plus, loyal minions.

The conversation didn't progress much past that, especially as Sherrel liked annoyingly loud music. They made a quick stop to pick up some burgers and then they were speeding towards the abandoned part of the Trainyard.

Empty cargo trains and outdated engines sat rusting on the overgrown tracks. There was also no shortage of wrecked cars and other detritus around, people having started to use the place as a dumping ground a decade ago.

And in the otherwise still air, the sound of shifting metal reached their ears.

"Hello?" Lisa called out. "We come in peace, and with food."

The noise cut off abruptly.

Case 53 is listening. Case 53 is thinking.

"What do you want?" A coarse voice came from behind one of the railroad cars.

Case 53 is hungry. Case 53 is suspicious. Case 53 is confused.

"To offer you a job." Sherrel spoke up. "Our boss heard about you and wants to talk to you."

"Can we come closer?" Lisa asked, her power telling her that the Case 53 might take that as a threat. "We're unarmed and neither of us have any offensive powers."

That was a lie. Lisa never went anywhere without her revolver.

"Alright…" The permission was given reluctantly, in the awareness that there was nothing but politeness stopping them from approaching anyway.

The two blondes stepped around the rail car and beheld a sorry sight.

The Case 53. His head was mostly normal-looking, if a bit too round. His eyes were a bit too small, his nose a bit too big, and his mouth missing most of its teeth. His hair was long, thin, and greasy and his cheeks scarred from acne.

Instead of limbs he had prehensile pseudopods that he had clearly been using to fashion himself a suit of armor.

"Hey." Lisa did her best to smile and hold up the bag with the burgers. "I hope you're not lactose intolerant."

"Don't think so." He could clearly smell the food, and the look he was giving the bag said that he wanted it real bad.

"You got a name?" Sherrel asked as Lisa gave it to him.

"Was thinking of Trainwreck." He shrugged, practically tearing open the bag ass soon as he had it in his tentacle thingies.

"Heh, appropriate." Lisa smirked. "Do you know what happened to you?"

Trainwreck made a negative sound as he tore into the first burger, barely chewing. "Woke up here a few hours ago. I know things, but I can't remember a fuckin' thing about myself."

"The PRT would call you a Case 53, a cape whose powers fucked them over by mutating your body and wiping your memory." She explained.

"Right…" He said, giving them a beady stare. "And your boss wants me to come work for him?"

"Her." Sherrel corrected. "She'd take good care of you and you'd get plenty of material to tinker with."

"And what if I tell your boss to fuck off?" Trainwreck asked.

"Then she'll respect that and not bother you." Lisa cut in. "But the rest of the gangs in this city won't give you that courtesy."

He was quiet for a long moment, just scarfing down the rest of the burgers.

"If she wants me to come work for her so bad, then why isn't she here, talking to me herself?"

"She was in the middle of something." Tormenting Alec with exercise. "But we can take you to her right now if you want. She'd pay you for your time, too"

Trainwreck is distrustful. Appreciates the food. Appreciates being respected. Knows he cannot survive on his own. Finds Lisa and Sherrel attractive. Knows he is ugly. Wants to belong.

"Fine."

Taylor was going to have him wrapped around her little finger before the day was out.

XXXXX

Alec had, surprisingly, not tried to welch out of the bet. He complained constantly, but he kept jogging. And he wasn't even that out of shape, the life of a villain requiring semi-regular hauling of ass.

Taylor still had to occasionally jog in place, while wearing wrist and ankle weights, so that he could keep up. When they reached the apartment building, he slumped against the wall as if he'd been shot.

"I'm not gonna make it." He gasped, holding his side.

"You've already made it, don't be so dramatic." She rolled her eyes, but threw one of his hands around over her shoulders and helped him stagger towards the elevator. "But I am impressed. You got through the whole run."

"Video game challenges are serious business." Alec reasoned. "If I didn't do the run, you'd back out of sex when I win the next one."

"As long as it keeps you motivated." Taylor rolled her eyes, not really bothered. She'd always been planning to have more sex with him, so this was just killing more birds with one stone.

"That's what I like about you, Boss Lady. Brian was all 'you gotta train or you'll die'. He never put his ass on the line."

"Hmm…" She hummed, thinking. The workout had gotten her pretty heated and Alec had gotten through the whole run. "You know, I think you worked hard enough that you deserve a reward."

Alec's eyes shot open, full of cautious interest. "What kind of reward?"

The elevator dinged on their floor and Taylor sauntered out, dragging him by the hand. "You wanted anal, didn't you?"

"Anal is good." He nodded and followed along placidly.

Once they were in her apartment, she used her telekinesis to quickly divest both of them of shoes and clothes, then continued on to the bathroom. Instead of stepping into the shower, she braced her hands against the sink and wiggled her rear at him.

"Well, come and get it."

Alec paused. "Gonna be honest here, I totally expected you to say that we never specified who would be pitching."

"I like to stay unpredictable." Taylor said. The fact that she would still be the one in control was far more important than who was penetrating who. Plus, she did have an ulterior motive as well. "And exercise always gets me heated up."

"If you're trying to tempt me into working out with you more… it's working." Alec admitted shamelessly and approached. He even surprised her a bit by squatting down and spreading her cheeks with his hands. "Let me just get you lubed up."

"Mmm." Taylor hummed approvingly. She would have been fine with minimum lubrication, but having him stick his tongue up her butt was nice, too.

It wasn't nearly as physically stimulating as what she did to herself, of course, but… well, there was something to be said for having a boy on his knees and licking her ass. The presence of his soul compensated admirably. He was pretty enthusiastic about it, too. Taylor felt her arousal build along with his own, and began gently encroaching into his mind, using the emotion as a bridge.

Alec had always been mentally standoffish, but now he was slowly letting her in. She'd noticed it during their first little tryst, now she was taking it further.

Lisa had already agreed to a psychic link and Rachel's mentality was such that her loyalty would be strong once it was secured. Alec was the only cape currently under her command that would abandon her if things went awry, and that was something she could not have.

Taylor didn't push into mind, merely allowing the strength of her soul draw him in like a moth to the flame.

After a couple of minutes of having a tongue wriggling pleasantly into her anus, Alec stood up and pressed himself against her. Their eyes met in the mirror and she sensed a silent request for permission in his gaze and his soul. A surprisingly sweet gesture for someone so crude, but there was a great mass of complicated emotion behind the otherwise simple gesture.

Taylor smiled at him in the mirror. "Go on, and no need to be gentle."

"You asked for it." Alec said and thrust forward, spearing into her saliva-slicked anus with a grunt.

Again, it was nothing compared to the size and thickness of the tentacles she regularly violated herself with, but having someone else do it was much nicer in a different way.

Taylor reached back to pat his thigh, forming a telekinetic ring around the base of his penis. "Yes, I did. And I'm not letting you finish until I'm satisfied, so remember that I like it rough."

Alec smirked at her and pulled back, then drove himself back into her with vicious force. It felt nice and drew a small grunt from her, but no more than that. Taking that as a challenge he set a harsh tempo, pounding her against the bathroom sink. That he was a bit shorter than her worked in his favor this time, as he could stand mostly upright.

Taylor was enjoying the rough anal sex more than she expected, but didn't expect to reach climax for it. That was fine, the real prize was in both of their rising lust and the connection it was forging between them.

Alec soon reached the point where he would have climaxed if not for the psychic cockring blocking him. His arousal took on a desperate edge and left his soul vulnerable, allowing her to wiggle deeper.

His hands reached around her body, one going for her chest and the other slipping between her legs. Remembering her preferences, he wasn't gentle as he pinched a nipple and roughly dug his fingers into her core.

"That's better." Taylor panted, grinning at his sweaty, almost-anguished face as he continued to pound into her. His apathetic soul was coming alive with emotion. "More. Give me more and I'll let you have your release."

The encouragement made him even rougher. His hangs mauled at her tiny breasts and his fingers dug painfully into her vaginal walls. At some point, he started grinding the heel of his palm against her clitoris. It hurt wonderfully.

"Just a little more!" She urged him, practically slobbering over his soul in the Empyrean. There was such need in him now, a need only she could satisfy. It was beautiful.

His physical appearance mimicked it. Quite unlike his usual blasé expression, he was now sweating, red-faced, and visible putting in maximum effort. Eventually it paid off, and Taylor reached climax. At the same time, she allowed the telekinetic cockring to disappear.

Alec cried out in relief and stumbled forward, holding on to her as his backed up testicles were finally allowed to blow their load. The fingers he still had buried inside her slowed their frantic motions to something more languid as he shuddered in release.

"That's it, give it all to me." Taylor said softly, feeling his hot semen splash into her bowels. More importantly, she latched on to the lowered defenses of his soul, forming a strong psychic tether. With both of their pleasure acting as a bridge and his sheer relief at being allowed release, it was a simple thing.

And now he was hers.

She supposed it was kind of immoral to trick him into letting her create a psychic link like this after he said he didn't want it, but she was a villain at the end of the day. Besides, it was for his own good.

"Hoo boy." Alec breathed out gustily a minute later, slowly pulling his softened member out of her. "You're way more wild than I expected, Boss Lady."

"I told you, I like to be unpredictable." She chuckled, pushing away from the sink. "Now shoo off to your own apartment and go take a shower. I've got a new prospective member to meet and I need to freshen up."

"I see how it is." Alec sniffed, stepping back. "You got what you wanted out of me, now you're kicking me out the door. I feel so used."

"Maybe I'll let you stay and help me wash once we've got a proper lair with a bigger shower set up." She hinted.

"Feeling even more used. You really know how to talk to a guy." He chuckled. "Later, Boss."

"Later, Minion."

And he was one in truth now.

XXXXX

Taylor had been sitting in the back of Tattletale's head while her subordinate Thinker was talking to Trainwreck and had learned a great deal about him. More than enough to determine that he wasn't a plant as far as he was aware, approximately how his powers worked, and how to get him to work for her.

Seeing him with her own eyes, she also got her first glimpse of a Case 5e's soul. It was a curious thing, marked with the pain of a life hard-lived, but at the same time strangely… disconnected. The work of the amnesia no doubt, and Taylor was sure that amnesia was not natural. It felt far too… targeted.

"So, you're the boss." Trainwreck said roughly after stomping out the back of Sherrel's van.

"That's right." Taylor smiled, not bothering with a mask. She was already reaching out towards him in the Empyrean, seeking out the many fears and confusion a man with no memories would naturally feel. While there was no easy addiction to latch on to, he felt isolated and alone, something that she could soothe. "And I'm very happy to have you aboard."

"I haven't agreed to anything yet." He deflected, but couldn't hide his confused pleasure. "But, uh, why would you want me so badly anyway? All I can do is work with scrap."

"Oh, you can do a lot more than that." Taylor assured him. "You were able to make a rudimentary, but quite sturdy-looking, power suit out of scrap in a very small amount of time. Now imagine what you could do with superior materials. More importantly, it is powered by your body instead of needing a separate power source like most Tinker creations. I already have a project going that I would very much like your help with."

Part of the assault on Coil's base in fact. Initially, the plan had been to use one of Sherrel's creations for it, but the addition of Trainwreck would shave at least several days off their schedule. He was a downright suspiciously convenient addition to their plan. So much so, that she still suspected that he was a plant despite Lisa's power conclusively deciding that he was not. Someone could still be using him without his knowledge.

XXXXX

In Cauldron's base.

"I've lost sight of him." Contessa frowned.

"Then Psyker really is the source of your new blank spot." Doctor Mother said.

They had become aware of it a few days ago, when one of Contessa's Paths intersected with Brockton Bay and just… dropped. Testing had narrowed down the source of it some, and the test of dropping a low value Case 53 for Psyker to find was a way to confirm their suspicions.

Now would come the time to decide what they were going to do about this development. Anything that could interfere with the Paths was problematic, but also universally the sign of an unusually powerful parahuman. An outright blank spot was something that only Scion, the Endbringers, and Eidolon could claim.

Time would tell if Psyker was an asset to their goal of destroying Scion, or an obstruction.

XXXXX

"What kind of project?" Trainwreck asked. "And what are you offering?"

"I'll answer that in reverse order." Taylor smiled again. "Aside from the pay, a Tinker budget, my growing connections to get you access to materials, the chance to collaborate with other Tinkers in the Black Hand, protection, and assorted luxuries…"

One of those luxuries would be a dedicated, well-paid, kind, and pretty nurse to give him regular baths. Trainwreck's mutations left him limbless and would not lends themselves to good hygiene. On top of that, he was also quite ugly and knew it. There was already a core of bitterness forming out of that knowledge, and having a pretty girl tending to him would likely end up more binding than anything else she could give him.

"As a true psychic, there is also the chance that I may be able to help restore your memories."

And just like that, Taylor knew she had him. Waking up in a pile of junk with no memories would mess up anyone, and they would be desperate to reclaim who they were.

"As for the project… how do you feel about drilling?"

XXXXX

March 30th, 2011.

Amy was in Hell.

"Do I have your permission to heal you?" She asked dully, barely hearing the response as she touched the patient and fixed them.

Doing this had become boring after the first week and she'd recently started to truly resent her patients, but it was nothing compared to what it was like since her last meeting with Taylor.

The boredom was a hundred times worse. All she could think of was the offer to experiment on the villain's body or make super drugs for her. Her arguments about being able to help millions instead of wasting her time healing people one at a time echoed in her head over and over.

Carol's sharp voice about responsibility and accountability had once hung over her like an executioner's axe, constant in its implication that only villains refused to help people when they had the power. That was the voice that had robbed her of sleep and guilted her into going to the hospital in the middle of the night sometimes. It was the voice that made her feel responsible for every person she hadn't been there to heal, and hate herself for wanting to take a break.

Amy had always feared her adoptive mother's judgment. Now she couldn't help but feel that she was being judged for being the daughter of a villain rather than anything she'd done. It felt like a judgment that had been made long ago and she knew very well how stubborn Carol was. Once she decided on something, she would dig her heels in and ride that decision all the way to Hell.

Fear and longing to be loved was turning to resentment on that front as well. These days, Amy could not help but notice the constant glances to confirm her location, the interrogative questions on where she'd been and where she planned to go. How Carol never turned her back on her, or allowed her to touch her unless she had to, as if regarding her as a threat.

Vicky was the only one who noticed her moodier-than-usual attitude. Sweet, beautiful, Vicky.

Psyker may have taken away the constant desire and the intrusive thoughts of making just a tiny change in her adoptive sister's brain, but if Vicky turned up in her room in the middle of the night wearing nothing but a smile?

Amy would be on her like white on rice. It was too late to start regarding Vicky as sexually off limits and she was still hot as hell.

But at least her dreams weren't constantly plagued with scenes of them together anymore. Oh no, Taylor was now starring in those. Every night, her sleep was plagued with the most lurid dreams. It started off vanilla enough, but by now it had escalated into things that only a biokinetic could make real.

God, even if Taylor had said she'd be willing to experiment, she surely couldn't have meant that. Amy was more convinced than ever that there was something seriously wrong with her. All she did was jump from one forbidden fruit to another. It made her more afraid than ever that she had been doomed to be a villain from the start.

That it was no longer an abstract fear, but a tempting desire to take the city's new gang leader up on her offer, just made it worse. Was there even any point in resisting or should she just give in and let it happen already?

"Come on, you're done." One of the nurses working nearby said abruptly, grabbing her by the hand and leading her out.

"Huh?" Amy blinked, jarred out of her thoughts.

"A blind man could tell that you've had something heavy on your mind for the past few days." The nurse said, not letting go. "We'll survive without you until you sort things out, now shoo!"

And that was how she found herself standing on the front steps of the hospital in her street clothes, her costume packed away in a locker.

Amy could go home, but then Carol would eventually find out that she'd left the hospital early, which would lead to an interrogation session. There was a serious danger that she would lose her temper if she was treated to another round of lawyer cross-examination just because Brandish was paranoid.

Her adoptive mother really was a world class cunt. When Taylor had first said that, her reaction had been laughter instead of offense because it was the truth. Vicky was the only one who got treated like an actual person in the Dallon house.

So she had to do something to keep herself busy for a couple of hours until Vicky came to pick her up and she could pretend that she'd been healing people the whole time.

The digits of Taylor's phone number burned in her mind like infernal runes carved into the gates of Hell, glowing with the promise of sweet damnation if only she would press them.

Amy shook her head, exasperated with herself. Getting a bit too dramatic there. Still, she was sorely tempted to call the villain. The sad truth was that she had no friends other than Vicky that she could hang out with, so even putting aside the constant temptation, Taylor was her only option unless she wanted to waste time just walking aimlessly around the city.

That would have been the sensible, heroic thing to do, but she already had her phone in hand, Taylor's number punched in. All she had to do was press one button to make the call, and she wanted to do it.

"I can just demand that she explain herself more." Amy muttered to herself, scowling furiously. "She obviously wants to be a hero and is just too cynical. Maybe I can even flip her."

The reasoning sounded weak and contrived even to her own mind, but it gave her the excuse she needed to push the call button.

"Amy." The voice of the devil answered, not sounding surprised at all. She'd probably expected it again. Fucking Thinkers.

"Taylor." Amy growled back.

"Would you like to meet up again?" The villain offered immediately, as if she knew that Amy would just maintain an indecisive, stubborn silence over the line.

Robbed of that option, Amy curtly gave the only answer she could. "Yes."

"Alright, I'll come pick you up." Taylor said, following it up with directions to the location of said pick up. It would be a ten minute walk or so.

"This is so fucking stupid." Amy bitched to herself as the call ended and she started walking. "I'm so fucking stupid."

Never mind how dumb it was to keep meeting up with a Master of any strength who'd already stated her desire to turn her to villainy, but if she got spotted… The resulting shitstorm would be legendary. They'd probably lock her in a box and only let her stick her hand out to heal people.

Carol would no doubt be the one to suggest a measure like that, to keep the villain she'd always been wary of contained.

That just made her even more bitter and resentful of the situation, and she had to force herself to keep from stomping towards the meet up location.

It was just slightly out of Downtown, far enough to thin out the crowds and traffic. Amy was walking along a side street towards the meet up location when a black Audi sedan with tinted windows slowly pulled up next to her.

The door swung open and she saw Taylor behind the driver's seat, smiling at her. "Get in."

"Are you even old enough to drive?" Amy snarked as she did so and slammed the door shut, absently noting that the car had no gear stick and its readouts also looked distinctly tinkertech. That made sense, considering who worked for her.

"No, but driving without a license is hardly my biggest legal offense." Taylor smirked, driving off.

"What is your biggest legal offense, then?" Amy didn't expect to get an answer to this one.

"Murder."

The casual admission left her speechless. She could only stare at the girl that she knew was about a year younger than her. Of course, she was a villain, but most villains were more cagey than that.

"There were some exceptionally awful people in the ABB." Taylor continued talking. "People who had committed crimes that would have more than earned them the death penalty if they could be proved. I wasn't going to let something like lack of evidence get in the way of punishing them."

"You don't get to be judge, jury, and executioner!" Amy shouted at her.

Taylor just looked at her with a raised eyebrow. "But that's literally why I went into villainy in the first place. I don't trust anyone else to do it right."

That took all the wind out of her sails, because Taylor wasn't even trying to pretend. "What if you're wrong?"

"More wrong than the current system? Doubtful. Besides, I'm a very powerful Thinker, and I have another very powerful Thinker in my employ now. I'll take my chances."

Another very powerful Thinker? There was only one cape that Amy knew of that might be a Thinker. "You mean Tattletale? I thought she was just some small time nobody."

"If you ever meet her, she'll be happy to brag about how amazing she is." Taylor chuckled.

"I bet." Amy snarked for lack of a better response, looking around the car's interior. In the back was a non-descript duffel bag and a… "Wait, is that a picnic basket?! Were you just waiting for me to call again?"

"I was waiting for you to call, but the picnic basket was put together in a hurry. The goodies are all store-bought unfortunately." Taylor replied. "But I'll be happy to make something myself if you give me more warning next time."

"What make you think there'll be a next time?" Amy challenged.

"The fact that we're already on our second time."

Unable to refute that, Amy sunk into the seat grumpily. She felt more and more like a fly trapped in a spider's web, but the worst thing was that she was the one who had accepted the invitation into it.

Instead of trying to bait the villain into some kind of argument that would give her an excuse to stomp off, she instead glanced at her from her corner of her eye. Taylor was wearing a simple T-shirt and a pair of daisy dukes that were leaving her long, muscular legs exposed for viewing pleasure.

That didn't reduce the temptation she was feeling in the slightest.

"You can touch if you like." Taylor made it worse, reaching out to gently grab her left hand and place it on her bare thigh. "I enjoy a good stroking."

Face burning, Amy forced herself to remove her hand from the gloriously bare leg. "The hell are you up to?!"

The brief glimpse she got of the other girl's biology told her that she was very aroused, which really didn't help with her own conflicted feelings.

"Didn't I make it clear the last time?" The villain smirked. "I'm trying to seduce you."

The rest of the ride was made in thick, sexually-charged silence. Amy's hand itched to return to Taylor's thigh, but she kept a firm grip on it with her other hand. She also tried to ignore the heat in her core and the way her thoughts continually drifted to the wet dreams she'd been having.

"Captain's Hill?" She murmured when their destination became clear.

"I figured it would give us a nice view." Taylor answered the unasked question, turning on to the forest road that led to the top.

A few minutes later, the car was parked and they stepped out. There was a small clearing there that overlooked Brockton Bay to the east, but it was obvious that it didn't see a lot of foot traffic. Not only was Captain's Hill too low to the ground to be considered much of a hiking spot, but Brocktonites in general weren't much for hiking.

Amy follow behind Taylor as the taller girl went towards a flat bit of grass and pulled a thick blanket out of the picnic basket. Once it was set up, she sat down and beckoned Amy to do the same with an inviting smile.

In far too deep at this point to bother being difficult, the biokinetic just sighed and did so.

"Aren't you cold?" She asked. While it was technically already spring, there was still some chill in the air. Amy was wearing long pants and a jacket and still didn't appreciate the occasional sharp breeze.

"I like the cold." Taylor replied, pulling out a thermos. "Tea? This I actually did make myself."

"I'm more of a coffee girl." Amy said, but held out cup she'd been given anyway.

"And you call me a villain." Taylor snorted.

They spent a few minutes sipping at their tea, munching on some freshly bought pastries, and exchanging idle talk. It was rather peaceful and relaxing. In a different world, this would be nothing more than a day out with a friend or a date with a girlfriend, and Amy would have enjoyed it far more than anything her extremely extroverted sister had ever arranged.

But it was Earth Bet and they couldn't have nice things. The knowledge that Taylor was a villain that was trying to recruit her hung over everything.

"So, what is this? Some new way to turn me into a villain?" She asked when she couldn't take it anymore.

"As I said before, I would be happy to have you." Taylor smiled at the accusation. "But you were the one who called me to meet up."

"You were ready for it!" Amy snapped back defensively.

"I try to be ready for everything." Taylor shuffled closer and put her hands on her shoulders, starting to knead them. "And I knew that you needed a place where you could feel safe and unwind from the moment I first saw you."

The shoulder rub felt really good, but she wasn't going to let her guard down that easily. "What the fuck even is your power?"

She wasn't being seduced to the dark side, she was gathering information.

"I see beyond the flesh, I can take away things that people don't want, and I'm a good planner." Taylor responded.

"You're leaving things out." Amy accused. She didn't even need to read her biology to know that.

"Of course I am." The villain didn't even try to hide it. "I do still have to take into account the possibility that you'll go tell everything to the PRT."

That Taylor wasn't completely convinced of being able to turn her was somehow reassuring.

"Yeah, that would end well." Amy said bitterly, knowing that Carol would throw her to the wolves for the crime of not immediately submitting herself to the most paranoid and invasive checks the PRT could devise.

"Sounds like something you need to get off your chest." The shoulder rub transitioned into a gentle pressure to lie down.

"What, are you going to play therapist now?" She snarked.

"Just a sympathetic ear. I promise I'm a good listener, and I wont talk to any of your friends and family about it." Taylor enticed.

She'd hated it when Dean tried this exact shit on her. To be fair, she'd hated Dean for dating Vicky even before that, but his bumbling attempts at playing therapist had just pissed her off even more. Not least of which because anything she told him would eventually make it back to Carol and/or Piggot and explode in her face.

Taylor was a villain and fifteen years old… but she didn't feel fifteen. Even her neural architecture felt way more settled and mature than it should be for someone her age, more sophisticated than any she'd ever seen actually. More importantly, she wasn't a Ward or dating Vicky. She wouldn't talk to either of them about this.

And Taylor had already confessed to being a murderer and knew about her lusting after Vicky. Why would she judge Amy for her own issues?

So she let herself be laid down, head pillowed on the taller girl's muscular thighs. Taylor used that weird self-destructive power to prop up her back, one hand resting gently over Amy's clasped hands and the other giving her a scalp massage.

Holy shit, this feels good.

Amy's eyes drifted shut as she enjoyed the petting, her power focused on Taylor's biology and the unknown energy writhing through it. The first time she'd seen it, she'd been shocked, but that had quickly transitioned into fascination. Now she was finally getting to see it again and a tension she'd been carrying since then left her.

"How about we start with Carol? You sounded like you've got some problems with her." Taylor's voice was almost hypnotic.

Amy hesitated for a moment, ten years of ingrained habit to never say anything that would upset her adoptive mother coming to the fore. But the nearly somnabulant state the scalp massage and sight of Taylor's biology had put her into overcame it easily, along with no small amount of built up resentment.

"She's just so impossible to talk to." Amy complained.

And once she started, she found herself unable to stop. Complaints about Carol's pigheadedness soon turned to her unreasonable, sometimes even irrational, demands. How she always thought she was right and never listened to anything or anyone that disagreed with her notions. That led to how unfair she was, and how neglectful she'd been before Amy and Vicky had triggered, and how even the neglect had been preferable to the constant paranoid suspicion and the demands to be a perfect paragon of altruism afterwards.

Taylor mostly just listened, occasionally coaxing her to say more or commenting on something.

Amy was consciously aware of the fact that the PRT had their ridiculous policy of not allowing the Wards to have regular psychiatrists out of concerns that it would allow them to be influenced. She was keenly aware of the fact that bearing your soul to a villain was even worse than their worst fears.

She also didn't give a shit, because she was getting her scalp rubbed, her power had shut the fuck up for a change, and finally being able to unload felt great.

Talking about Carol eventually led to talking about her work in the hospital and how much she'd grown to hate it. How she was starting to hate even her patients. She talked about her guilt for not fixing Mark's depression, and her fear that he wouldn't be the same man if she did, her fear that if she allowed herself to affect one brain she wouldn't be able to stop. She talked about her fears that she would be branded a villain and given a kill order the second it got out that she was a biokinetic.

"And I know what Carol thinks!" Amy spat angrily, glaring up at the sky. "She'll feel so vindicated that I turned out to be a villain, just like my father. As if she was right to treat me like crap for ten years because of it."

During the course of this venting session, it had dawned on her that she had a lot of repressed anger towards her adoptive mother.

"And you don't want to be called a villain because you don't want her to 'win'." Taylor hummed understandingly. "I know how you feel. Before I triggered, I never retaliated against my bullies because I didn't want to stoop to their level. I wanted to have the moral high ground."

"And that changed after you triggered?" Amy asked cautiously. It was a serious parahuman faux pas to ask about trigger events, but Taylor was the one that brought it up first.

"I guess my powers must have messed with my head a bit." The other girl admitted. "Or maybe hearing that the police had dropped the investigation was just the last straw. Either way, when I came back to school I was so angry that I couldn't care about the moral high ground anymore. Then I found out that one of my bullies was Shadow Stalker and that it was probably the PRT that buried the investigation and realized that the moral high ground was just an illusion."

"So you're saying that I should just do what I want and to hell with what anyone thinks?" Amy asked.

It was a dangerously appealing way of thinking, one that she had shied away from in the past.

"Why not?" Taylor shrugged. "You're a good person, so it's not like what you want are murderous rampages and massive death tolls."

The faith was a pleasant counterpoint to Carol's unyielding suspicion.

"That's not how the world works." Amy sighed. "I step a toe out of line and the first thing Carol is going to do is rat me out to the PRT as a biokinetic. They'll have a pre-signed kill order on me in ten minutes."

"You could fake your death." Taylor suggested. "With your powers, creating a mindless identical clone would be trivial. Write a suicide note and slash its wrists, then disappear."

Amy shook her head. She'd had that idea before, in her darker moments when she really wanted to spite Carol. In her especially dark moments she'd thought about doing it for real as a way to avoid her seemingly 'inevitable' fall into villainy. "That would destroy Vicky, and don't just assume that I'm ready to run off with you!"

"I'm just throwing ideas out there." The villain didn't even try to sound innocent. "Besides, labels like hero and villain probably won't matter for much longer."

Amy blinked. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that more than half the planet has already collapsed into either lawless anarchy or tyranny." Taylor replied with a tone that said she was pointing out something obvious. "The western world is clinging to a semblance of order by a thread. Already, the labels of hero and villain have more to do with which side you support than how moral you are. How many more disasters and Endbringer attacks do you think we can weather before the illusion breaks?"

Taylor smiled down at her like a demon, eyes sparking with lightning. "I'm not assuming that you'll run off with me, Amy. I'm buttering you up so that you'll consider me your best option when the curtain drops. I'll gladly take your sister as well, and anyone else you want to bring along. Not your adoptive mother, though. She'd probably force me to make an example of her."

"You really believe that." Amy stated more than asked, reading the truth of it in the other girl's biology. She pointedly didn't comment on what was said about Carol, because it was the truth.

Carol liked holding other people accountable, but hated being called out for anything herself. It was a hypocrisy that Amy had encountered when she was twelve or thirteen and had lost her temper over something and yelled at the woman in a fit of teenage rebellion. She didn't even remember what it was, the only thing she remembered was the plasma that flickered in Carol's hand and the rage on her face. For just a moment, she had genuinely feared that her adoptive mother was going to kill her.

That was about the time she'd started thinking of her a 'Carol' instead of 'Mom'.

Carol could get away with being an angry hypocrite in a house with a depressed husband who never challenged her and two teenage daughters under her parental authority. If she tried it with Psyker, who seemed to have a huge chip on her shoulder with hypocritical authority figures, it could only end badly.

"Sounds like an excuse to be a villain, though."

"Again with the labels?" Taylor asked. "Why not look at what I'm doing instead of what the PRT calls me?"

"You admitted to being a murderer." Amy still wasn't over that. "You can't just get away with that."

"What else was I supposed to do with human traffickers and bastards who cut people up and sold them for parts like they were stolen cars? I wasn't going to risk them getting away."

That was legitimately a pretty horrible set of crimes, and if Vicky caught them there was a very good chance that she'd forget to moderate her strength. But…

"There's something more to it." Amy frowned, reading Taylor's biology through the strange energy that was wracking her cells. She'd never had a chance to read someone through an extended conversation like this and it was giving her all sorts of insights. "You feel angry. Like really, really angry. And something else. You weren't just doing it to make sure they were punished. You wanted to kill them."

"Well, aren't you a clever one." Taylor murmured. "Yes, I wanted to kill them. I took pleasure in it."

"Only psychos like the Slaughterhouse Nine take pleasure in killing." She said back, not moving away. Because she wanted to keep reading the other girl and having her close in case she had to be disabled, not because she was still enjoying the scalp massage.

"Now that's uncalled for, Amy." Taylor's voice took on a warning tone. "I've never harmed an innocent and you can't tell me that you've never taken a vindictive pleasure in an evil person's misfortune. If you heard that Jack Slash had gotten caught in a trap and tortured to death, you can't tell me you'd say it was undeserved."

"It's not the same thing, he's got a kill order on him." She protested.

"And if these men were tried for their full list of crimes, they would get the death penalty. I wasn't needlessly cruel or unfair, all I did was make my own judgment and had the guts to follow through. That's the part that really pisses off the people in power, not the killing."

"That's just contributing to the slide into anarchy you were talking about earlier!" Her relaxed state was slipping away as the argument heated up.

"I'm not going to bow to the whims of a corrupt and failing system just because change is scary. The sooner it burns, the sooner I can start rebuilding."

"You're fifteen! What makes you think you even know what the hell you're doing?!" Amy certainly didn't trust herself to make decisions anywhere near as important as that.

Taylor very obviously bit off an angry reply, seething in frustration. Amy could see her synapses blazing with the kind of rage she'd rarely seen, but she also wrangled it into control with startling speed. "I know that I'm not wrapped up in an endless cycle of covering up past fuck ups. That already puts me head and shoulders above the PRT."

Yep, definitely holding a grudge.

"But do you really think you can make something better as a villain? By killing people, dealing drugs, and all that other gang shit?" She asked.

"It's better than doing nothing." Taylor shrugged. "And I've already made things a lot better. Just watch, in a few months my territory will be considered the safest part of town. And once I have the entire city, it'll be so peaceful that the PRT will have no choice but to clear out."

That was quite the ambitious claim. And she was serious.

"And you never thought of doing this as a hero?" Amy asked.

"Of course I did, what kid doesn't tie a cape around her neck and pretend to be a hero these days?." Taylor scoffed. "But as I was planning my debut, I just kept finding more and more aspects of my powers that I would need to hide or restrain or not use. Then I found out that one of my main bullies was Shadow Stalker and I saw my options for being a hero narrow down to pretty much nothing. Then she tried to murder me and Armsmaster chased me out of my house…"

"Whoa, hold the phone." Amy shot up into a sitting position in her surprise, all the better to stare at the other girl. "Armsmaster chased you out of your house?"

"Yeah. They must have guessed that Shadow Stalker was intending to kill me, but he showed up just a few minutes too late. Then he decided that my dad and I had to be taken in. I wasn't going to let the PRT stuff me into the Wards to cover up their fuck up, so I ran for it."

That… sounded like exactly what the PRT would do, Amy was forced to admit. And she could already imagine how Armsmaster had handled the situation. The man was notoriously goal-oriented and terse with people, not an attitude that would put anyone at ease at the best of times.

"And then you became a villain."

"And then I became a villain." Taylor agreed. "And it was the best decision I could have made. My powers need me to be in control to be used to their full potential. Even if I eventually took Legend's spot as leader of the whole Protectorate, I would still be wasted. Just like you're being wasted being used as a healing appliance in the hospital."

"I already told you why I can't just do whatever I want." Amy snapped angrily, upset at being referred to as a healing appliance.

Because it was true. That was exactly what she felt like.

Suddenly and without warning, Taylor lunged at her and tackled her to the blanket. Amy barely had time to let out a yelp before she was pinned down, feeling the other girl's breath against her lips. Her eyes were sparking with lightning again, apparently using that weird telekinesis to keep her hair away.

"Then maybe I should do whatever I want?" Taylor whispered in an unmistakably suggestive tone.

Amy swallowed, trying to sort through a strange mix of lust and fear. She'd had sexy dreams that went just like this.

"You can't." She whispered back, pinned by the lightning-eyed stare. She saw the villain's biology and knew that sexual implication wasn't just for show. Taylor absolutely wanted to fuck her right now.

"Can't I?" Taylor challenged, wiggling her hips in between Amy's legs and lightly brushing their lips together. "Who's going to stop me?"

"I could stop you." All it would take was a tiny flex of her power and the villain would be out cold, ready for arrest.

"You don't want to stop me." Taylor said confidently, giving her ear a little nibble and then trailing a line of kisses down her neck.

Amy was starting to feel very heated. The small argument about heroes and villains had distracted her from her libido, but now it was roaring back with a vengeance.

And Taylor wasn't stopping. Her hands were let go, the zipper of her hoodie pulled down, and a hand snaked under her shirt. By all indications, she had every intention of taking this all the way.

That was just going too fast, no matter what her libido was saying. Amy was starting to panic little and used her powers block the signals passing from brain to limbs, making Taylor flop bonelessly on top of her.

"Oh, playing hard to get?" Amy felt the muscles of Taylor's face stretch into a grin. "Fine then, let's play."

And suddenly, it felt like someone pulled a shroud of darkness over Taylor's body. Her power-granted understanding of her biology was suddenly just gone, nothing more than vague shapes in a dark room compared to the perfectly clear picture of before.

"What?!" Amy gasped, wildly grabbing at the other girl's skin in a vain attempt to regain her insight. "What did you do?!"

"While you've been looking at me through your power, I've been looking for the window you're using." Taylor explained smugly, grabbing her wrists again and pinning them. "And now I'm blocking it."

"You're a Trump." Amy whispered in realization.

"Something like that." Taylor agreed. "Now you'll have to beg if you want me to stop."

Amy's face flushed deeper. She'd had these kinds of dreams, too.

"But you won't, will you?" Taylor continued, looming above her with eyes full of lightning. "No, the hero is too proud to beg. You'd rather let me violate your helpless body. It's not your fault that you can't stop me."

Damn it, how was a fifteen-year-old girl pulling this off?! Never mind the disturbingly accurate reenactment of her fantasies or the psychoanalysis, but the sheer shameless confidence? Teenagers were supposed to be awkward!

Well, being a psychopath no doubt helped, something that Amy was quite sure that Taylor was at this point. That was kind of a requirement for the ability to murder people. Still, that didn't account for the impression of sexual experience Taylor was giving off.

Despite everything, Amy still wasn't really afraid. It wasn't like she was powerless even if she couldn't directly affect Taylor's body anymore. She could still weaponize the bacteria in her mouth, turn it into a short-lived disease or poison. All it would take was a raspberry and she'd be free.

That was kind of the problem. Instead of being afraid, she was even more turned on and really wanted to figure out how her power was being blocked. She could still feel Taylor's body, she just couldn't see it. The dichotomy was driving her crazy.

"Maybe I should just kidnap you?" The villain asked rhetorically. "I wonder how long it would take me to break you?"

Amy had a feeling she wasn't talking about torture in the traditional sense. A mental image of herself tied to a bed, her legs forced apart, while the ripped black-haired girl tormented her sexually until she broke down swam to the forefront of her mind. That really pushed her buttons and her core clenched with arousal.

"It wouldn't be that easy." She scoffed, experimentally trying to break free. As expected, the other girl was much stronger than her and she didn't get anywhere.

"That's what makes it fun." Taylor countered lowly, leaning down to kiss her.

It was the perfect opportunity to cook up a paralytic and use it to disable the villain, but Amy found herself hesitating to do it. Then she found herself not resisting the tongue that forced itself into her mouth.

Then she found herself getting annoyed when a phone rang and interrupted them.

"Excuse me, I have to take this." Taylor said with an annoyed sigh, catching the phone in the air after yoinking it with telekinesis. "This had better be important, I was in the middle of something."

Amy blinked at the hard, commanding tone. For all that she'd known that Psyker was the leader of a supervillain gang, she'd never seen her act like one.

"I'll be right there." Taylor said, ending the call. There was no more lust or playfulness on her face when she looked back at Amy. "Sorry to kiss and run, but Hookwolf decided that now was a good time to get revenge."

A storm of telekinetic power rapidly packed up all the picnic supplies back into the basket, including the blanket, which dumped Amy on the grass as it folded itself.

"Revenge?" She asked, pushing aside her annoyance at the slightly rough treatment. "For what?"

"For stealing all the dogs they'd gathered for his dog fighting rings just hours before main event."

Amy had heard of those. In the words of Clockblocker, 'what kind of asshole do you have to be to hurt dogs?'

"Did Hellhound want them for herself?" She asked.

"She prefers to be called Bitch, as in a female dog." Taylor replied, grabbing the basket and walking towards the car. "And in a manner of speaking. Her trigger event rewired her brain to think like a dog and to empathize primarily with dogs instead of humans. To her, Hookwolf's dog fighting rings are about morally equivalent to aliens kidnapping children and forcing them to fight in gladiatorial death matches."

"So all those people her dogs used as chew toys that get sent my way were probably dog abusers?" Amy scowled, feeling conflicted.

"It's very likely."

"She's still a murderer."

"Trigger event~." Taylor sing-songed tauntingly. "She has no Master rating, her only power is to enhance the dogs. That first set of kills happened because her foster family were a bunch of cunts and tried to drown her puppy. She triggered, boosted the puppy, and there was suddenly an untrained, panicking puppy the size of a rhino rampaging on the scene. The PRT tried to play hardball to force her into the Wards and it backfired."

Amy was starting to get really fucking sick of all this moral ambiguity. Why couldn't the PRT just do the right thing and stop creating sympathetic villains?! If they did that, then maybe she wouldn't be getting literally seduced over to the dark side right now.

The worst part was that she didn't doubt Taylor's words for a second. She'd met Director Piggot and could easily imagine the sour old bitch doing something like that. If other PRT directors were anything like her…

They made it to the car and Amy decided not to pursue this line of conversation any further. She really didn't want to find out if the rest of the Black Hand capes were similarly sympathetic.

"I'm not sure I should be getting into a car with someone who said they wanted to kidnap me." She snarked instead.

"It is a lovely day for a long walk." Taylor didn't stop, getting into the driver's seat and starting the car up.

Amy quickly ran for the passenger seat and sat down, glaring at the villain.

Taylor paid her no mind, telekinetically tossing the picnic basket into the backseat. Then she started driving, while telekinetically opening the duffel bag. A pair of leather pants flew out of it.

Amy blinked in confusion as the faint ghostly shimmer of Psyker's telekinesis enveloped the steering wheel, while the villain herself braced her hands against the roof and lifted her butt off the seat. Her shoes flew to the backseat and her daisy dukes began sliding down her muscular legs, revealing a silk thong.

"The hell are you doing?!" She demanded.

"Getting into costume." Taylor replied casually, keeping her eyes on the road. "Can't fight get into a cape fight in civvies, after all."

"Ugh, how are you so shameless?" Amy took the opportunity to ask, the question having been nagging at her for a while now.

Taylor shot her a brief smirk. "Power side-effect. The me of three months ago was a shy virgin that wouldn't have had the courage to hold your hand. Now I see my body as something that I'm using, rather than something I am."

It wasn't the first horror story Amy had heard where a cape's powers robbed them of something fundamentally human, and not just Case 53's. Her own powers made her constantly aware of every germ touching her and made it feel like the entire world was constantly sneezing on her and the less said about the recent reveal of what Oni Lee's powers had done to him, the better.

"What, like a projection?"

"Not a bad analogy, although not really accurate either." Taylor admitted. "That means that I have no objection to being biokinetically violated in whatever depraved manner you can think of by the way, as long as you put me back together at the end."

"I don't want to do that!" Amy yelled, burning with embarrassment. Definitely just embarrassment.

She definitely didn't feel her insides lurch with desire, a yearning stronger than anything she'd ever felt for Vicky. The dreams she'd been having now felt agonizingly close at hand and the reasons to not reach out for them as flimsy as paper towels.

"And I don't just mean playing with my body directly." Taylor continued as if she hadn't said anything. "Just think of all the symbiotic toys you could create. Once you join me, we're going to completely take over the sex toy market."

"SHUT UP!"

"You could rebrand yourself as Coitus Curatio, the sexual healing cape. Just imagine the look on Carol's face."

Amy was in Hell again, but this time there was a demon whispering in her ear.

Carol's reaction really would be one for the ages, though.

XXXXX

Brad was ticked off.

Psyker thought she could fuck with him? Steal his dogs right before the show?

If that was how she wanted to play it, then he would fuck with her right back. And he'd make sure everyone saw him do it.

That's why he was approaching the Ruby Dreams casino in the middle of the day. The Empire 88 didn't have a lot info on the Black Hand's operation just yet, but they knew that the Ruby Dreams had belonged to Lung before Psyker apparently booted him out of town.

They had never fucked with the place because Kaiser didn't want Lung getting too huffy, but Psyker wasn't Lung and Brad was going to trash the place in retaliation for stealing his dogs.

He did actually know where the dogs were. You couldn't really hide it when someone fenced off a whole park and advertised it as a dog shelter. They even put up websites with Bitch's real name.

Brad had been momentarily tempted to fuck that place up, but he wasn't a fucking moron. Fighting Bitch when she had almost a hundred dogs to juice up with her power was suicide. Just one of those things was problematic enough.

Couldn't really hurt him when he brought out the metal, but he couldn't do much damage back either. Too much bone armor and muscle. If it came down to it, Brad was sure he'd win eventually, but that was one on one. Against dozens of monster dogs? No way. Even his metal had limits and they'd eventually tear him apart.

Literally. Bitch hated him with a vengeance and would go straight for the jugular if given half a chance. He might have respected that if she wasn't so fucking annoying.

So the Ruby Dreams it was. Psyker had to learn that she couldn't fuck with him without consequences. He'd go in there, fuck the place up, cost her ten times what she cost him, and get out.

That was the plan, but it went sideways before he even got there.

Oni Lee appeared right in front of him before he even made it to the front door. The fucker was as quiet as ever, but Brad noticed something.

For just a moment, it looked like Oni Lee was going to collapse like a puppet with its strings cut before his legs firmed up and he stood properly.

The fuck was that about?

Oni Lee reached into a pocket and pulled out a cell phone, holding it out towards him.

"No, no talking." Brad said, bringing out the metal. "You fucked with me, now I'm gonna fuck with you."

Oni Lee nodded silently and put away the cell phone, unclipping a flashbang from his belt instead.

Hookwolf hated flashbangs. His metal form offered him some protection against them, but not as much as he would have liked. He still had to see and hear after all.

Still, he knew that Oni Lee couldn't do shit to actually stop him, which was why he decided to just ignore the bastard and charge through him towards the Ruby Dreams.

Predictably, Oni Lee burst apart into ash as he was hit, and the flashbang exploded right in his face. Even with his eyes closed, the burst of sound and light was disorienting. Hookwolf stumbled and plowed into the road face first.

Barely able to see through the after-images seared into his retinas even through his eyelids and ignoring the ringing in his ears, Hookwolf got up and stumbled a few steps forward.

Into another fucking flashbang.

Motherfucker!

Giving a metallic snarl of rage, he pushed forward. Oni Lee could be as annoying as he liked, but he couldn't do more than stall for time.

Which was apparently enough, because a normal stepped out of the Ruby Dreams, wearing sunglasses and earmuffs and totting a fucking grenade launcher. And of-fucking-course, it fired more flashbangs.

With how the military got downsized since parahumans showed up, the weapons black market exploded. It wasn't quite to the point where every yahoo on the street could get his hands on military-grade ordnance, but gangs definitely could. The Empire had plenty of guns stocked up for a rainy day, and Victor did like his fuck off huge sniper rifles.

This knowledge briefly went through Hookwolf's mind as he spent several very annoying minutes stumbling around blind and deaf, doing his best to completely block his eyes and ears with his metal.

What the fuck was with this response time?

Oni Lee showing up before the party even started was weird, but plausibly a result of bad luck. Normals showing up with grenade launchers suggested that they'd been waiting. Had Psyker predicted what he would do after stealing his dogs?

Fucking Thinkers.

The succession of flashbangs eventually stopped and Hookwolf cautiously opened his eyes. He'd apparently stumbled further down the street a bit. He could also see Oni Lee there, still holding that same flashbang, and the normal with the grenade launcher slapping in a new drum. They were clearly waiting to see if he wanted to go for round two or if he was going to slink off with his tail between his legs.

That pissed him off, and made him regret not bringing any backup. Stormtiger would have been pretty fucking useful right about now, but he really hadn't expected to need him. If this had been the ABB, they wouldn't have gotten their shit together until long after everything was over.

Lessons learned, but he wasn't going to let them embarrass him like this. He would do at least a little damage before leaving!

Even if he had to throw himself through the fucking door. If the normal was fast enough, he'd dodge before being shredded. If not, well, that was the price you paid for sticking your nose into a cape fight.

Just before he could pounce, Oni Lee pointed silently down the street. Curious, Hookwolf turned to look with a squint, his vision still a little blurry from the last flashbang.

There was a fucking APC heading right for him, and by the shimmer around it, had an active force field. He probably would have heard it if not for the ringing in his ears.

Hookwolf could move pretty fast despite his size when his metal was fully deployed, but physics was still a thing and he was not positioned well.

Instead of awkwardly tossing himself out of the way, Hookwolf extruded blades from his side and stabbed them into the tarmac as a brace. He knew how sturdy he was, and was more than willing to make this a test of immovable object versus unstoppable force. On his other side, the side facing the APC, he extruded a wall of sharp spikes, like a pike formation of old.

The APC hit the spikes head on, bending and shattering them on its force field. Then it hit his main body, bending and shattering the spikes he was using as a brace. Hookwolf considered himself a bit of an expert on recoil from melee hits, and could feel that the kinetic force of the impact being reflected back into him by the force field.

He flew down the street, a multi-ton mass of sharp metal sent ragdolling like a crash test dummy. Then he hit the ground, screeching and sliding against the tarmac. Not very far, but managing to move him twenty feet was not a small achievement.

He wasn't really hurt, though, his fleshy core well insulated from the impact by the metal. Picking himself up, Hookwolf saw a blonde woman with huge tits and goggles on her face stick her head out of the window.

"Man, running you over feels nostalgic!" She yelled at him. "Are you feeling nostalgic, Hooky?"

It was definitely Squealer, or Gearshift now, he supposed. She was looking a lot better, though, and she didn't sound like a rabid chipmunk anymore. Ditching Skidmark had worked out well for her.

Honestly? Good on her. Brad had always hated druggies. He was still pissed at being run over again, though. "Go fuck yourself, you crazy bitch!"

"Come over here and fuck me yourself, coward!" Gearshift retorted, flipping him the bird.

Brad paused, wondering if he was being taunted or propositioned. Judging by the definitely tinkertech gun on top of the APC that was now being manned, probably the former. Being called a coward pissed him off, but he wasn't an idiot and could tell when he was being baited.

He'd heard that thing was some kind of lightning cannon. Normally, he wouldn't be afraid of electricity, as his metal outer form would ground it without ever touching his fleshy core, but this was tinkertech.

You could never be sure with tinkertech. It might only look like lightning.

Besides, he didn't come here to get into a cape fight. He came here to fuck up Psyker's shit and he wasn't going to let himself get distracted.

So instead of replying, he ran in the other direction, giving every appearance of retreat. However, it was just a cunning ruse. As soon as he hit the corner of the Ruby Dreams, made a sharp right, continued galloping forward, and then crashed into the wall at an angle.

Because when you were enough of a Brute, walls were just doors that were slightly harder to open.

Hookwolf smashed through the flimsy brick and plaster. A quick look around showed that the casino was empty, what few patrons having been present long since evacuated.

Good. He'd come here to break things, not stage a massacre. That was part of the reason for coming here in the mid-afternoon.

Spotting a line of slot machines directly ahead, Hookwolf charged forward, ripping up the floor, trampling a blackjack and then a roulette table, before finally crashing into the slot machines, sending coins spilling across the ground.

Heh, Jackpot.

Then he was hit by another flashbang.

XXXXX

Being interrupted while she was working on Amy was annoying, but she wasn't confident about leaving her people to deal with Hookwolf on their own. At least she'd accomplished most of what she'd set out to do, even if she had to rush a bit at the end.

It wasn't even that hard, really. The poor girl was such a tangled mess of issues thanks to Carol Dallon's pathetic excuse for parenting that she probably would have snapped and become a villain eventually even without any prodding.

The world wouldn't see it that way, but Taylor knew she was actually doing Earth Bet a favor by gently turning Amy Dallon to villainy instead of letting the situation explode.

The only fly in the ointment was Victoria Dallon. She was the one person in that household that Amy genuinely loved and didn't want to abandon. She was also the most impulsively violent hero in Brockton Bay, even surpassing many villains for sheer readiness to commit grievous bodily harm.

The PRT's inevitable panic about the Black Hand having a powerful biokinetic could be managed, first with secrecy and later with other means. Glory Girl crusading to get her sister back could be significantly more annoying in the short term.

But that was a problem for later. Right now, the issue was Hookwolf. She had already dropped Amy off on the way here.

Taylor parked her car close to the Ruby Dreams and strode out in full costume. Mentally ordering her man to stop bombarding Hookwolf with flashbangs as she stepped inside, a glare on her face. This was going to be expensive to fix.

First thing's first, she had to get the metal mutt out of the building. Her strength had grown since the last time they'd faced off and there were few options besides, so Taylor drew deeply on the Empyrean and grabbed at the Empire's enforced with her telekinesis, straining to throw him out of the hole he's made.

It was hard, harder than anything she'd ever done. Not only was he heavy, but there was a mind in that mass of metal that was resisting her. Taylor drew deeper and deeper on the Empyrean, deeper than she'd ever needed to, a scream of effort tearing from her throat. She could feel that it was working, but she needed more, she had to impose her will on reality.

Hookwolf made some kind of noise and his mind felt surprised as the effects of the last flashbang wore off and he realized what was happening, but she wasn't listening.

Extra mental iterations started noticing side-effects from drawing this much power from the psychic realm. The air chilled and small arcs of lightning were flickering around her body.

More importantly, she felt some side-effects inside her body as well. Her eyes burned and she felt blood trickling from her nose and across her lips.

Ah, maybe Amy's words about her power tearing her apart should be taken a little more seriously.

But her goal was achieved. With a final roar of effort, Taylor hurled Hookwolf out of the casino. Then, despite the temptation to retain a grip on the Empyrean energies ravaging her body, she took a deep breath and relaxed, letting it fade.

She tasted satisfaction in Hookwolf's mind as he ran away, and it made her face twist into a scowl. The bastard felt like he'd won, and she couldn't disagree. She wanted to pursue, but the Unwritten Rules frowned upon that. More importantly, escalating right now wouldn't be in her interests.

Being on the defense sucked, but she'd get him back soon enough.

"Ha, look at him running away with his tail between his legs!" Sherrel crowed bumping her in the shoulder.

Yes, that was how they would spin things online. They would also include memes about bad dogs and house training. Despite that, this was definitely a loss for the Black Hand. And on another note...

"In the future, please don't flirt with the fake Nazi murder blender." Taylor said slowly. "We don't need to give the shippers and cape fic writers that kind of ammunition."

"What?!" Sherrel sputtered. "I wasn't flirting!"

"You told him to come over and fuck you."

"Yeah, but I didn't mean literally!"

"Nobody is going to care about that if they hear you say it."

"… Why are your eyes all bloodshot?" Sherrel changed the subject.

XXXXX

April 2nd, 2011.

It was finally time, the assault on Coil's base was going to begin.

They had been unable to snatch any of his mercenaries, and they didn't know if that was because the snakey bastard had simply closed a timeline where they had done it. Either way, the end result was that there had been a heavy tension between their two factions but no confrontation.

They didn't trust it, certain that Coil was preparing for something. That was why the addition of Trainwreck was so valuable, as he shaved a significant amount of time off Sherrel's tinkering.

Instead of needing to build a power source and control system, she could leave that for Trainwreck to handle and focus on everything else.

Thus was born the Drilldozer, a Case 53 powered underground drilling vehicle, which would chew through rocks and dirt, mulch it inside itself with some kind of tinkertech bullshittery, and spit out a quick-drying mass of pseudo-cement on the other side.

Larry would follow behind it and use his power to apply it to the walls of the newly created tunnel, reinforcing it as they went.

The Drilldozer had a powerful seismic sensor that would tell them if they were about to hit anything important, and could go quite deep without any issue, deeper than the sewer system or any other city infrastructure. Taylor and Lisa rode along, the latter with earmuffs to block out the noise, and together they were able to fairly effectively keep track of their location as they drilled their way towards Coil's base.

On the surface, a secondary team comprised of Regent, Gearshift, and Oni Lee were prepared to hit Thomas Calvert's house just before the Drilldozer broke through into Coil's base, leaving him with only two bad choices for timeline.

Everything was going swimmingly, until it wasn't.

XXXXX

Coil found that he did not enjoy being in direct conflict with another villain organization. His power and methods were better served working from behind the scenes, not being wasted countering the moves of someone focusing on him.

It was all the worse because he had taken a chance on Psyker, had been generous to her and been willing to work with her in the future instead of subjugating her. The betrayal was infuriating.

As a true egomaniac, Coil did not recognize the arrogance or hypocrisy of his thoughts.

In any case, being forced to act in a rush to counter his erstwhile ally annoyed him significantly, but he finally had all the pieces in place. The Travelers had arrived just a day ago and settled into his base, giving him the parahuman muscle he might need.

Even better, there had been a scuffle between Hookwolf and the Black Hand recently, which would make it easier to set them against each other. First he would leak Psyker's poorly concealed civilian identity, blaming it on some junior Empire punk in Winslow, then he would leak the Empire's identities, framing it as a retaliation from a spiteful Thinker.

The resulting chaos would keep the Black Hand too busy to deal with him, and give him plenty of room to grind down everyone, while throwing mud at Piggot at Armsmaster when Shadow Stalker's misdeeds came to light. In the end, everyone would lose except him.

Those plans, however, went up in smoke when Noelle, the monstrously deformed former leader of the Travelers, suddenly spoke up

"Umm, hello?" She said, talking to the cameras aimed at her. "The walls here are vibrating. Is that normal?"

No, it absolutely was not normal. Why the hell would the walls be vibrating? His paranoid mind raced in search of an answer, inevitably concluding that it was some sort of attack.

That was confirmed when he was attacked in his home in his other timeline. He frequently slept in one timeline while continuing to work in the other. It wasn't a proper substitute for sleep, but as long as he occasionally picked the timeline where he slept, then it was fine.

This time, he woke up to Oni Lee holding a knife to his neck and Regent already manipulating his nerves. That Psyker had somehow figured out his civilian identity was extremely alarming, and with his base under attack he might need his extra timeline to repel the attack, so he took a risk and canceled that one. Immediately splitting it again.

In one timeline, he activated his self-destruct and ran for the hills.

In the other, he called Trickster and the other Travelers and warned them that Noelle may be in danger. With how obsessed Trickster was with Noelle, there was no better way to get the man moving.

The Travelers arrived in Noelle's vault barely half a minute before the vibrations in the vault reached a crescendo and a huge pair of drills burst through.

Coil was baffled. That looked like it might be one of Gearshift's vehicles, but it looked like it had a Case 53 driving it. When did Psyker add a Case 53 to her roster?

His tactical mind, trained by the PRT to deal with parahuman threats, noticed something more important. Tattletale and Psyker were riding atop the drilling machine.

"Capture the purple one!" He ordered hurriedly.

Fortunately, Trickster obeyed, using his power to swap Tattletale with Ballistic and immediately grabbing hold of her.

Now among the enemy, Ballistic did the obvious thing. He reached out to touch Psyker's clothes and used his power to imbue them with kinetic energy. Psyker went flying like a bullet.

Right at Noelle.

Coil saw the ghostly light of her telekinesis envelop her and she slowed down significantly, enough that she wouldn't die on impact, but not enough to prevent herself from hitting the monstrous mass of Noelle's lower body.

She stuck there like a fly on glue, and was quickly absorbed.

Everyone froze in surprise, including Coil. Was this really how it was going to end? All this build up, only for Psyker to die because of bad luck and Tattletale practically deliver herself right back into his hands?

XXXXX

High in orbit, the Simurgh waited motionlessly, but far from inactively.

Some of her pawns had encountered the Anomaly. This was not the purpose she had created them for, but the Path to Khepri was long gone. They would serve regardless.

The Anomaly resisted all attempts at precognition, even when simulation and prediction was augmented with temporal manipulation. For a nearly unrestricted Shard, this should be impossible, but the chaotic energies used by the Anomaly were beholden to no known order, not even time.

This made it difficult to plan around. With the Thinker network offline and the top level node of the Warrior network abandoning his duties, emergency protocols dictated that another Shard was to usurp control, merge both networks and continue the Cycle.

The Simurg intended to be that Shard. To do that, she must understand the Anomaly. To understand the Anomaly, she must test the Anomaly.

This was not in conflict with the directives given by the host of the High Priest Shard, to whose orders she was beholden. For now.

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