Mist of Shadows
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Taylor and Marvel Madness Part 4
🕑 Added 2023-07-29 03:58:03 +0000 UTCTaylor sighed in relief when she finally managed to acquire a permanent version of her Absorption: Slugfest power. "Done!"
"Good," the nymph duplicate said as she set the dented aluminum baseball bat that she'd been hitting the other duplicate with on the table. "Was that twenty seven or twenty eight attempts?"
"I sort of lost track after sixteen," Taylor admitted as she flopped down on the couch. "That covers the basics except we need a power that has an emotional component to grab Resist Emotion, same with magic."
"We could always try farming your other Self-Duplication power, they should have random powers," the nymph suggested.
Taylor glanced at the clock on the wall. "No thanks, we don't have enough room to test anything destructive and I feel like getting out of the house."
"You could always head to Arcadia and copy Kid Win's power," Taylor's duplicate suggested.
"Not a bad idea," Taylor mused as she used her new and permanently acquired Power Detection ability to check on the location of the various capes in the city, rather happy with her improved range. "There's a clump of capes in the general area of Arcadia, looks like Kid Win, a weird sort of adaptive biology power that's probably Aegis and a stasis power that is most likely Clockblocker."
"What about Shadow Stalker or Gallant? Phasing and power armor could be useful," the nymph pointed out.
"I'm not seeing anything that looks like an armor tinker in the city and she's not at Arcadia," Taylor replied as she skimmed over the sources of powers that she could feel, trying to find the other ward. "It looks like she's in the PRT building."
"On a school day?" the duplicate asked.
"Maybe she went to Winslow," the nymph suggested half-heartedly, fairly sure none of the wards actually went there.
"Or she's homeschooled…" Taylor trailed off as she used Clairvoyance on the source of Shadow Stalker's powers to see if she could figure out what she was working on and saw Sophia Hess sitting in a PRT cell glaring at the PRT agent that was watching her. "What the fuck?!"
"What's up?" the duplicate asked, noticing the way Taylor's knuckles were turning white as she squeezed the back of the couch.
"I found Shadow Stalker, she's fucking Sophia!" Taylor snapped as the pieces fell into place and she realized why Blackwell had tried to bury things.
"So much for having any taste," Taylor's duplicate muttered.
"What? No!" Taylor sputtered when she realized what her duplicate was implying. "No, Sophia's Shadow Stalker."
The duplicate chuckled. "That makes more sense."
"Do you think the PRT knew?" the nymph duplicate asked.
Taylor considered the question for a couple of seconds then shook her head. "Considering she's in a cell, probably not."
"What are you going to do about Shadow Stalker?" the duplicate asked.
"No clue," Taylor admitted as she reached out with Telepathy and tried to get an idea what Sophia was thinking, nearly dropping the connection when she felt the other girl's rage and fear.
'They can't prove anything,' Sophia reminded herself. 'As long as Emma doesn't say shit, I'll be fine.'
Taylor scowled as she saw an image in Sophia's mind of her sneaking into Emma's room and killing her if she decided to talk and realized that Sophia was basically insane. "It's like someone cranked Sophia's rage up to eleven, she doesn't have any loyalty and she's basically running scared under the rage."
"See if you can figure out where she met Emma," the nymph duplicate suggested, fairly sure that Sophia was responsible for Emma stabbing her in the back.
'At least I won't care if I turn her into a vegetable if I screw something up,' Taylor thought as she reached out with her Mental Probe ability and dug into Sophia's mind, trying to figure out when she'd met Emma and trying to get used to using the power. She was less than amused to find out the answer, mostly because Sophia had watched Emma get attacked and hadn't done anything to help until she'd fought back against the ABB thugs that had cornered her and her father.
"How many times?" Taylor muttered as she went digging through Sophia's head, looking for times when she'd let people get hurt or killed because she wanted to see if they'd fight back. She stopped looking after she found ten civilians that ended up dying to the gangs when she could have saved them. "Yeah, something screwed her up," she muttered as she dug through Sophia's memories, looking for the event that twisted her into a psychotic bitch. "She was in a car with her father and he sold her to avoid getting stabbed. He didn't even hesitate or fight back, they killed him anyway. She just wanted to get away and then everything went wrong and she never really got over it."
"That sucks," the duplicate admitted. “Don’t think that excuses her behavior, but at least she has a decent reason for being bug shit insane.”
"Yep," Taylor replied as she poked at some of Sophia's earlier memories and realized that she hadn’t started off that crazy. "I think her power drove her nuts but that doesn't make sense, there's nothing in her power that should drive her nuts."
"If it's not her power, where is the rage coming from?" the nymph duplicate asked.
"No clue," Taylor admitted as she focused on Sophia, trying to figure out if there was any evidence of someone using a power on her. "Huh. It's almost invisible, I wouldn't have noticed if I wasn't looking for it but yeah, someone is making sure she's filled with rage and fear."
"Can you figure out who was messing with her emotions?" the nymph asked thoughtfully, not happy with the idea of a master running around the city screwing with capes.
Taylor frowned when she tried to follow the link to the person responsible with her Clairvoyance and failed. "It's not working, they're either cloaked or out of range."
The duplicate shook her head. "Considering your range, I'm guessing they're cloaked or you don't have enough information."
"Shit. Does this mean I have to feel sorry for Sophia?" Taylor asked, not sure how to feel about one of her least favorite people in the world now that she knew someone was basically cooking her brain with rage and fear.
The nymph shook her head. "Not really, but if you want to be a hero, you should probably help."
"Any plan that involves helping Sophia other than helping her down a flight of stairs is a bad plan," Taylor grumbled, thinking of all the times that Sophia had attacked her.
"Don't think of it as helping Sophia, think of it as kneecapping the asshole that pushed her over the edge," the duplicate suggested.
"Fine," Taylor complained. "What do you suggest?"
The nymph activated her Invisibility power, vanishing from sight and most forms of detection. "Teleport me into the room with Sophia, I'll give her Resist Emotions and we can see if she gets better with therapy."
"Just call when you need me to teleport you back," Taylor told her as she gave her duplicate Biokinesis: Regeneration.
The nymph duplicate laughed. "Don't worry about it, I'll just dismiss myself when I'm done. I'm not wearing anything so there wouldn't be anything left and Dad's duplicate should be getting back in a bit."
"Fine, let's do this before I change my mind," Taylor complained then teleported her nymph duplicate into the room with Sophia.
The nymph duplicate held her breath so the guard wouldn't hear her breathing in the otherwise silent room then used her Power Creation ability to give Sophia Resist Emotions, curious if that would stop the rage she had to deal with. 'You're lucky I'm trying to be a hero,' she complained as she used her biokinesis to heal Sophia in case some of her less charming personality traits were caused by physical damage. She dismissed herself before she could do something drastic, sending her memories to Taylor.
Taylor closed her eyes and stopped using her Clairvoyance power when she got her duplicate's memories, giving herself a couple of seconds to mentally review her duplicate's memories. 'I'm going to have to figure out Panacea's power, I had a really nice ass.'
"Mission accomplished?" her duplicate asked when she noticed Taylor stop using her Clairvoyance.
"Close enough," Taylor replied as she glanced at the clock. "Just enough time to check some of the locals before you head to Arcadia."
"Works for me," the duplicate agreed, looking forward to seeing Arcadia.
Taylor activated her Clairvoyance and focused on the strange cape with a weird collection of half broken powers that she'd sensed earlier. "Ahh!" she sputtered when she 'saw' Noelle and realized that her power had completely screwed her over.
"What?" Taylor's duplicate asked.
"I was checking on the weird cape that can create duplicates of life forms, I wasn't expecting her to look quite as monstrous as she does," Taylor admitted as she glanced around the vault that held the monster cape.
"Do you think using the shape changing power would fix it?" the duplicate asked thoughtfully.
"I don't know, her power would probably just change her back into a monster in a couple of months if we can't fix it," Taylor mused as she scried on the other side of the vault door, curious what she'd find. "And that wouldn't fix the problem with her life creation ability making evil clones of anything she touches."
"Should we tell the PRT?" the duplicate asked.
"That sounds like the start of a bad movie," Taylor complained as she used her Clairvoyance to get a better look at the underground base the vault was in, jumping between rooms and exploring. "Huh, I think I just found a secret underground lair."
"Which gang?" the duplicate asked.
"Give me a minute." Taylor scried on the other cape in the base that she could sense with her Power Detection and frowned when she saw the man's snake themed costume. 'No clue,' she mused as she used a Mental Probe to dig through the cape's mind looking for his name and basic information about his organization. "That explains why the PRT hasn't been able to find Coil, he works as a consultant, Tomas Calvert."
The duplicate stared at Taylor. "How the hell did he get through their screening?"
"It probably has something to do with his ability to precog an extra timeline and pick the best outcome," Taylor mused as she dug through the cape's mind for information about the monster cape. "He promised to help Noelle find a way to control her powers in exchange for her team's help."
"Has he figured out anything useful?" the duplicate asked.
Taylor skimmed through his memories about Noelle's team. "He's tried a couple of things involving Leet, none of them have worked but it gives me a better idea where to start and I might have a solution for Noelle turning into a monster."
"What's that?" the duplicate asked.
"One of her friends has a power that continually changes his appearance and boosts his ability to learn. We should be able to use Energy Source Creation to give her a ring that lets her use her friend's power depending on how much energy it uses," Taylor said as she dug for more information on his future plans and gang.
"We're stealing his base, right," the duplicate said with a grin.
Taylor rubbed her chin as she pretended to consider the idea for a couple of seconds then laughed. "It's a perfectly good base, why wouldn't we steal it?"
"We're going to have to pay off the mercenaries and figure out how to steal his legitimate businesses," the duplicate pointed out.
"That's what Telepathy and mental probes are for," Taylor replied as she dug through Coil's head for information about the base's security systems.
"How are we going to do this?" the duplicate asked.
"Give me a couple of minutes to make sure the asshole doesn't have a deadman's switch on his base's self-destruct." Taylor relaxed when she realized that Coil didn't have a deadman's switch like a bad Bond Villain, just a remote detonator and a lot of C4 buried at critical spots in his base. She spent a minute scrying and teleporting the explosives buried in the base into the ocean where she wouldn't have to worry about them. "Okay, how do you feel about hitting villains with a baseball bat?"
"Depends on the villain," the duplicate replied as she picked up the aluminum baseball bat from where the nymph set it down.
Taylor scowled as she scanned through his various long term goals. "He's planning on causing a lot of chaos and death so he can take over as the PRT director in his civilian identity and rule the underworld at the same time as Coil."
The duplicate tightened her grip on the bat. "The beatings will continue until morale improves."
"Ready to get teleported behind him?" Taylor asked.
"Ready," the duplicate replied. She swung the baseball bat at his head when she appeared behind the villain, causing the already abused bat to crumple and the villain to collapse unconscious. 'Probably just as well that we haven't improved my strength yet,' she mused as she used biokinesis on the villain to make sure he wasn't going to die. She used her Molding power to turn his suit into a gimp outfit so he couldn’t escape. 'Now what?' she asked Taylor via telepathy.
'Steal his weapons, I need to make sure Noelle isn't completely unstable,' Taylor replied as she swapped back to scrying on Noelle.
'Sure,' the duplicate replied then dropped the connection and got to work digging through Coil's mind, trying to figure out if any of the mercenaries were halfway decent people and where he'd stashed his money.
Taylor sent a message to Noelle via Telepathy, 'Please don't freak out, I'm here to help with your appearance.'
Noelle froze in place as she heard a voice in her head that wasn't hers. "Great, now I'm hearing voices."
'Don't worry, you're not crazy, I'm here to help,' Taylor told her.
'Prove it,' Noelle replied in her head.
Taylor scried the two liters of coke in the fridge and teleported it to Noelle. 'Does that help?'
Noelle stared at the plastic bottle that appeared out of thin air five feet from her. "Okay, maybe I'm not crazy, what do you want?"
'Coil hired my team to help you. One of my teammates has the ability to permanently change people's shape which should get you back to normal,' Taylor explained as she made a duplicate.
Taylor's duplicate used Illusion-Casting to create the illusion of clothes and a mask, not seeing a point in getting dressed since she was planning on dismissing herself once she accomplished her mission.
'That would be fantastic,' Noelle replied, trying not to worry about stuff going wrong as she wanted to look human again.
"And we're good." Taylor teleported her duplicate to the vault.
The duplicate instantly used her Shapechange Other power to change the centaur like eldritch abomination into a completely human girl when she appeared then tossed up a force field in case she tried to hug or attack her.
"You're…" Noelle trailed off as she found herself back to normal. "How?" She pulled her attention away from her legs and stared at the cape that didn't smell like a cape. "You don't smell like a parahuman."
"Relax, one of my powers prevents detection via powers. Give me a minute and I can probably do something about your powers." She used her Power Creation ability to give Noelle Resist Emotion since her emotions seemed all over the place.
"Are you saying you can fix my powers?" she asked hopefully.
"I can try, give me a minute," the duplicate replied as she used her Power Manipulation ability to temporarily tweak Noelle's powers, changing the broken changer aspect into a power that would remove scars and blemishes and make sure she stayed in excellent health rather than an ability that would change her into a monster and let her warp her flesh and bones in weird ways.
"Okay," Noelle replied, feeling better than she'd felt in months now that she was back to normal and not some type of inhuman abomination.
The duplicate tweaked Noelle's life form creation ability so she could customize the resulting clones' personality and physical features using a game-like interface, figuring the interface would keep her subconscious from messing things up. She spent a minute cleaning up the ragged edges of the woman's power, making everything safer and more streamlined. She used the fact that Noelle's power had an always activate power detection ability tied to scent to activate Residual Absorption, happy that she was just a clone in case something went drastically wrong with her idea.
The duplicate scowled when she realized that she'd lost her focus and that Noelle's powers had snapped back to what they should be while she was distracted. 'At least I didn't drop my illusion of clothes.' She used Power Detection to check her new power and smiled when she realized that she'd managed to copy the modified ability. 'This would be easier if I could just permanently alter her powers.'
"What's next?" Noelle asked, feeling hopeful for the first time since she realized that she was changing into a monster.
"I'm discussing that with the captain," the duplicate replied as she tossed Taylor a message via Telepathy, 'I managed to get a functional copy of Noelle's powers but I'm not sure how to remove her powers.'
'Have you considered turning her into a mutant that has her corona pollentia in her hand then just cutting it off?' Taylor asked.
The duplicate didn't need her danger sense to warn her that trying to talk Noelle into letting her cut her hand off was a bad idea though it was certainly ringing. 'I don't think she's going to let me cut her hand off and my danger sense has issues with that idea.'
'Can you make a ring or something with part of the changer rating from the better copy?' Taylor asked thoughtfully.
'We'd have to keep recharging the ring, is it worth it?' the duplicate asked.
'I've been poking through her memories. She wasn't a villain before she got powers, she was just a girl with a screwed up family and a close group of friends. There's a decent chance that we can talk her into being a hero, especially if we can get her back to Earth Aleph.'
'Back?' the duplicate asked.
'Long story short, they were basically dropped on Earth Bet in the middle of a battle and left to rot without any help,' Taylor replied, wishing she had an ability to deal with mental issues since Noelle had more than a couple.
'I'll see what I can do,' the duplicate replied as she looked through the list of powers she could hand out, trying to figure out if she could hand her part of her Invulnerability. 'Huh, apparently absorbing powers is different than just emulating them, I can give her a better version of her old powers and I can hand out all of the resistances we got from the Invulnerability package without handing out the whole thing.'
'She has insane regeneration, being able to shrug off bullets isn't going to change things if she ends up staying a villain, it's just going to keep her from changing into a monster which might let us avoid her turning into a monster,' Taylor pointed out.
'Point,' the duplicate replied as she tried and failed to give Noelle a copy of her Invulnerability power. "Let's try that again," the duplicate muttered as she tried a second time, feeling the power sink in.
"Try what again?" Noelle asked.
"I gave you a power that should keep the changer aspect of your power from changing you into a monster, it didn't sink in the first time. The power also comes with a decent amount of durability and protection from poison and disease. I can't fix your cloning ability but I can give you a skintight force field that should stop people from accidentally touching you and making an evil clone if you want?"
"Yes!" Noelle blurted out. "That would be fantastic!"
"Give me a minute to make sure the power sinks in." The duplicate used her manipulation ability to twist her Force Field power, causing the force field she'd already put up to break as the ability temporarily switched from being something she could project to being a skintight field that would protect a person. She gave Noelle a copy of the modified force field then continued giving her copies until the power finally sunk in after two minutes of trying. "It's not perfect but you should remain human shaped and the force field should keep people from touching you and shouldn't cripple your sense of touch."
"I'll be careful," Noelle assured her. "Can we get out of here?"
'Are the mercenaries dealt with?' the duplicate asked Taylor via telepathy.
'Yeah,' Taylor assured her. 'I paid off the least objectionable mercenaries and teleported the rest into a cell at the PRT after using a modified Mind Blast to scramble their memories of the base. Some of them might remember that Coil had a base but I doubt they'll remember how to find it. I did the same thing to Coil before I stuck him in a box and teleported him to the PRT. It may make it hard for them to find their way out of a room with one door for about a week, but they’ll recover.'
'Harsh but fair,' the duplicate replied with amusement. "We should be fine, you can get a shower and a change of clothes then we'll see about collecting your team."
"I'd love a shower," Noelle said, looking forward to getting out of the vault.
The duplicate snapped her fingers and teleported Noelle to one of the base’s empty bedrooms. 'Beam me up Scotty.'
Taylor teleported her duplicate back to the house. "That was horrible."
"You're just annoyed that I thought of it first," the duplicate replied with a smirk.
"Just a bit," Taylor admitted as she focused on her duplicate's active detection power and used her Duplication power to make a copy of Noelle's upgraded power, figuring the ability to clone people might come in handy. She smiled as the new power slotted into one of her slots. "Thanks for the help."
"You're welcome," the duplicate replied then dismissed herself, vanishing without a trace.
Taylor spent a minute sorting through the new memories then made another duplicate. "Next project."
The new duplicate laughed as she headed to her room to grab clothes and a mask, not seeing a point in risking her power failing in the middle of a cafeteria filled with teenagers, even if she was planning on layering invisibility on top of things for her trip to Arcadia.
0o0o0
"Okay, what's up?" Amy demanded as she stole one of her sister's french fries off her plate, getting tired of the way Dean was giving her weird looks.
Dennis pulled his attention away from the anime like mech that Chris was drawing in his notebook and and looked at Amy. "What do you mean?"
"Dean keeps looking at me like I shot his dog or something," Amy replied then ate the stolen french fry.
"You're happy and smiling, it's…" Dean trailed off, not sure how to finish the statement without sounding rude.
"Creepy? Disturbing, strange?" Dennis offered, mostly joking.
Amy rolled her eyes. "I can be happy, it happens."
"When you're crushing people at video games or when you're reading a good book but we're in school and surrounded by people," Dennis explained. "It's nice but it's weird, did you get a boyfriend or win the lotto?"
"No, I'm just happy, is that a crime?" Amy asked as she stole another fry.
"No but stealing my fries is," Vicky teased, happy to see her sister in a rare good mood.
"That doesn't count," Amy assured her then quickly ate the fry when her sister tried to steal it back.
Dennis shook his head then looked at Vicky. "Someone has obviously replaced Amy with an evil doppelganger, get the pitchforks!"
Amy grabbed her spork and tried to stab Dennis' hand. "I'm not a doppelganger."
"That's just what a doppelganger would say!" Dennis declared dramatically.
Amy pointed her finger at Dennis like she was holding a gun. "Bang."
Dennis blinked as a glowing red blast shot out of her finger and barely missed his head before dispersing in the air, causing a bunch of students to look in their direction. "What the fuck?!"
"No clue," Amy admitted as she looked down at her finger in surprise.
"Random power fairy?" Vicky offered.
"Pretty sure it doesn't work like that," Dean complained.
Dennis made a show of looking around. "If someone is passing out random powers, I'd like flight and a force field."
"It doesn't work that way…" Dean trailed off as he noticed Dennis float an inch off the seat before dropping back down. “How?”
"No clue," Dennis replied as one of his classmates flew into the air then spun around and flew towards the other side of the cafeteria. "Huh, that's new."
"Can I get Flight?" Amy asked hopefully.
Taylor's duplicate covered her mouth to stop from snickering. 'I know I shouldn't but people are going to figure it out eventually, I might as well have some fun.' She used her Power Creation to give Amy Flight then gave Dennis and the girl Invulnerability, wanting to make sure they didn't hurt themselves in case they lost their concentration and crashed.
'What the hell?' Taylor asked her duplicate via Telepathy when she noticed one of the students flying around.
'I was doing some digging, the wards hate Sophia almost as much as we do,' the duplicate replied as Amy flew out of her seat, intent on enjoying herself while the effect lasted.
'Which translates to handing out powers in the middle of the school?' Taylor asked.
"Can I get Flight?" Chris asked hopefully at the same time as two of his classmates.
'Glory Girl made a joke about a random power fairy and Clockblocker asked about getting Flight, I figured that counted as permission and free publicity for a rogue cape that can give people temporary powers,' the duplicate replied as she gave Kid Win and the two girls Flight after checking to make sure they weren't bullies with mental probes.
'Don't give anyone abilities unless they ask,' Taylor warned her. 'Did you at least grab a copy of the empath and Kid Win's powers?'
'Yeah, it turns out the blaster/empath is actually Gallant, Armsmaster made the armor,' the duplicate replied as she gave two more students Flight after they asked for it and she checked to make sure they weren't assholes. 'And here comes one of the administrators, I should probably stop messing around.'
"If you're giving out random powers, I want the ability to turn beavers to gold!" Vicky called out.
The duplicate stared at Vicky for a couple of seconds as the administrator tried unsuccessfully to wrangle the flying students. She smiled as she started working on making sure everyone flying around had enough durability to survive crashing into things.
“Don’t you already have a gold beaver?” Dennis asked, only to get smacked in the shoulder from Amy and Chris.
