Mist of Shadows
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Taylor Hebert Dungeon Girl Part 19
🕑 Added 2018-07-14 01:14:33 +0000 UTCTaylor closed the portal then headed toward the mouth of the alley. “We’ll get some parts then we’ll grab some ice cream…” she trailed off as she saw the pavement a few feet away shatter under Stormtiger’s wind blade, just missing Mush who shed twenty pounds of trash to conceal his movements as he dodged. Cricket let out a sonic chirp which made Skidmark waver on his feet, blood dripping from his nose.
“Call the PRT,” Panacea snapped out like a drill sergeant, scanning for injured bystanders.
“Die bitches!” Skidmark shouted as he kicked a bench into a glowing purple field which accelerated it into a series of glowing blue fields he’d laid down, accelerating it to frankly ludicrous speeds in the space of a heartbeat.
Panacea flinched back as the bench ripped through the top of a car and nearly took Stormtiger’s head off and more importantly almost hit several civilians who happened to be behind the Empire cape. “Fuck, this won’t end well.”
“Hey! There are innocent bystanders here!” Gothic shouted, shocked at their callous behavior.
Skidmark turned and caught a glimpse of a shadowy cloaked figure and shouted, “Fucking Shadow Stalker, kill the buck toothed bitch!”
Stormtiger felt ice flood his veins as he realized who was next to the girl in the shadowy cloak. As everyone in the fight turned to attack the new capes he yelled, “Shit! Don’t attack!” He really didn’t want New Wave to have a burning reason to hunt him down and kill him, or risk a kill order, which was rumored to be the fate of anyone who dared harm a dedicated healing cape.
Taylor raised her hands and unhesitantly unleashed a dual blast of lightning at Cricket as the cape rushed her.
Everyone stopped for a second and stared as Cricket soundlessly screamed in agony and crumpled to the ground, rolling limply to a stop at Taylor’s feet, her kamas clattering across the sidewalk, the wood charred and smoking. Stormtiger gestured and sent a gust of wind at the two capes with Panacea, hoping to disrupt things long enough that he could grab Cricket and flee.
Gothic charged through the wind completely unhindered, gestured toward Skidmark with her left hand and Mush with her right, unleashing a stream of lightning at each of them as she shouted incongruously, ”Join the darkside, we have cookies!”
“Shit!” Stormtiger turned and ran using his aerokinesis to boost his speed as he really didn’t want to fight multiple lightning wielding capes that were completely immune to his powers or at least heavily resistant, especially while they were escorting Panacea.
Panacea glanced between the three unconscious and lighty smoking villains. “Call the PRT, I’ll check the civilians.”
Taylor pulled her burner phone out of her pocket and called the PRT as Gothic ran over to the villains to make sure they stayed unconscious… and breathing.
Sherrel blinked as she walked out of the secondhand store carrying a large box filled with electronics and noticed Skidmark on the ground near a pile of trash. She glanced between the two identical capes that looked like Panacea or would have if they weren’t wearing some type of strange leather armor with boots that bled shadows.
‘What the fuck? I’m sober, I shouldn’t be seeing double.’ She turned to look at Cricket who was sprawled on the ground unconscious, or dead considering the smoke rising from her, and at the unknown cape on the phone and decided that she’d need her tank before she even tried to deal with the people responsible for this shit. ‘Seriously, can’t a girl get her Tinker supplies in peace these days?’
Taylor glanced at the nervous looking dirty blond haired woman in her twenties that was carrying a large cardboard box.
Sherrel turned and walked as calmly as she could for her car, trying to look a touch nervous, which wasn’t hard because she had no idea what the hell had happened and was shaking like she’d missed her last fix. She’d left Skid outside because they didn’t let people smoke in the shop.
It should have been easy, smoke a cig, wait ten minutes for her to finish grabbing some parts, load them into the car then leave but no, the idiot had to get into a three way fight with the fucking Empire and whoever these maniacs were. ‘Teeth maybe?’
A voice over Taylor’s phone said, “You’ve reached the PRT, what do you need to report?”
Taylor glanced around the area as she calmly replied to the voice on the line, “This is Neverland, independent hero. We have three unconscious villains we need picked up in front of the second hand electronics store on 5th.”
“A squad is being dispatched, expect them in five minutes. Which villains?” he requested.
“Cricket, Skidmark, and Mush,” Taylor replied.
“Any sign of Squealer?” Dispatch asked, knowing Skidmark was rarely seen without her company.
“Not at present,” Taylor replied as she glanced around.
“Can you deal with her if she shows up?” the agent asked with a touch of concern, knowing the destruction the vehicle tinker could cause from behind the wheel of any of her creations.
Taylor wasn’t sure if her gloves would actually damage one of Squealer’s vehicles though she was leaning towards not. “Depends on what she’s driving, probably not at present.”
“The van should be there shortly. Are there any injuries to deal with?” Dispatch said, fingers rattling away on his keyboard, requesting resources and re-routing patrols.
“Panacea is onsite.” Taylor turned to watch Panacea direct the civilians to make a line so that she could quickly check them over for injuries.
“Good to know,” the agent admitted with a relieved sigh as he canceled the trauma team order. “What else can you tell me about the fight?”
“We witnessed a battle between Skidmark, Mush, Stormtiger and Cricket, when we walked out of a nearby alley. Skidmark spotted us and shouted something about killing Shadow Stalker then all hell broke loose, so we resolved the situation as quickly as possible to reduce casualties and limit collateral damage,” Taylor finished with as much emotion as she used when ordering pizza.
Gothic frowned slightly as she fixed Cricket’s numerous scars and removed all her tattoos, knowing that she considered them badges of honor and marks of allegiance. Under her skillful hands corded muscles melted into generous curves, changing her fighter’s physique into the figure of a trophy wife. A simple adjustment to Cricket’s chemistry put her into a sleep so deep that she wasn’t likely to wake up until she was in the middle of her trial, weeks hence.
Sure, it was a bit mean, but she was a Neo Nazi, so her opinion didn’t really matter as far as Gothic was concerned. Deciding to go just that extra step to… make a point, she removed Cricket’s artificial voice box and fixed her throat, tweaking things so that her voice would sound like sex on two legs, just to twist the knife that much more, for trying to harm Taylor.
She walked over to Skidmark, reached down and touched his forehead with a single finger, burning the drugs out of his system, while increasing his resistance to them, excepting a tinkertech soporific that was already present and would keep him nice and docile until someone realized he’d need an antidote if he ever expected to get an erection again or do anything more than sit around and stare at the walls for the next six months.
Gothic started to pull her hand back then paused before deciding to be nice and fix his teeth, because damn that was nasty! It was like a plague factory in his mouth.
Panacea was rather relieved to find that no one had any serious injuries or at least none of the civilians. She’d barely finished healing everyone of the various minor scrapes when the PRT van showed up. She headed over to where Taylor and Gothic were waiting with the villains.
The lead PRT agent glanced between the two Panaceas, neither of them were dressed in her familiar costume. “Which is the real Panacea?”
Gothic pointed at Panacea. “She’s the real one, give her the paperwork.”
Panacea blinked as her doppleganger tossed her under the bus. “Hey!”
The agent gestured for the rest of his squad to come forward, six heavily armored soldiers scanning the area for danger. “Toss them in the back and foam them.” He turned his attention back to Panacea and Neverland, as his men followed his commands never dropping their guard. “What happened?”
“We walked out of the alley, they shouted something about Shadow Stalker then attacked,” Panacea reported, keeping it brief and to the point.
‘Can’t fault them for that,’ the agent thought, recalling his various encounters with the ward and the stories he’d heard from others. “Then what happened?”
Gothic said, “Then we hit them with electricity and called the PRT to recover them while we saw to the injured.”
“What happened with Stormtiger?” he requested, recalculating the time they had to get the villains into containment before reinforcements from the Empire arrived, based on the current position of known safehouses in their territory.
“He shouted something about not attacking and withdrew. Not much else to tell, we provided medical aid to the injured then waited for you,” Taylor replied with a careless shrug.
“That should be everything, if we need something, we’ll call,” he said with a respectful nod before departing.
“Thank you,” Taylor replied.
Gothic waited until the agent had walked off, “So, tech?”
“Pretty sure we’re done here so yeah, let’s pick up some parts.” Taylor headed for the second hand store to see what type of computers they had.
“We probably don’t have all that long before reinforcements show up,” Panacea pointed out as she followed Taylor.
“Worst case, Neverland has a portal,” Gothic pointed out in a whisper as she followed her friends.
“I’d rather not broadcast that though,” Taylor whispered as she grabbed the door handle.
“Point, we’ll just have to hurry,” Panacea admitted as she followed Taylor into the store.
0o0o0
Randal frowned as his song ended and a voice on the radio said, “Breaking news, a PRT van was hit in transit by Hookwolf and Crusader on 7th and Vine. We don’t have a lot of details but Cricket, Mush and Skidmark were being transported to the PRT after being captured by a group of independent heroes. We’ll have more details later but keep your head down for a bit and rock on.” He shook his head as a heavy metal song that he didn’t recognize started playing. “Business as usual I guess.”
He glanced at the clock then pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed Taylor’s cell as he walked over to the radio. He turned the radio off then put his cell to his ear as he walked over to flip the closed sign on his shop.
“What’s up?” Taylor asked.
“Just locking up the shop, are you up for running a dungeon?” Randal asked, hoping that she’d be up for running something.
“Sure, it would save me from taking a hammer to my computer,” Taylor complained as she glared at the computer she’d cobbled together out of spare parts.
“What did the poor computer do to you?” Randal asked, trying not to laugh as he set the alarm system, flipped off the lights, left the shop and locked the door.
Taylor cursed as her ‘new’ computer started beeping then blue screened, “Fuck. It just crashed again. I think it’s a driver problem or maybe I have a corrupted file or something. You can stop laughing Gothic.”
“I’m not laughing at you, I’m laughing with you,” Gothic called out as she continued working on setting up her ‘new’ computer.
Amy called out from where she was cleaning the bathroom, “Bullshit!” The bathroom may have been ‘clean’, but it wasn’t clean enough, not when she could sense bacteria and viruses.
“Should I grab my diagnostic kit when I swing by and pick up Kevin?” Randal asked, trying not to laugh as he flashed back to a couple of Kevin’s rants about his various inventions and trying to fix them.
“That sounds helpful,” Taylor admitted as she pushed the reset button.
“Are you at the shop?” Randal asked.
“Yeah, we’re in the manager’s office trying to set up some computers.”
“Sounds, good see you in fifteen, should we grab some tacos on the way?”
“We could eat, yeah,” Taylor admitted.
“Sounds good, try not to kill the computer before we get there,” Randal replied as he walked over to his truck.
“No promises,” Taylor muttered darkly as she glared at her misbehaving machine.
Randal grinned as he unlocked his truck and stepped inside. “On that note, I’m at my truck so I’ll see you when we get there.”
“Thanks,” Taylor replied then ended the call.
Randal laughed as he closed the door and started the truck. He selected Kevin’s number then pushed the speakerphone button and set his cell in the compartment between the seats. He glanced in the mirrors then pulled out and headed down the street toward Kevin’s game shop.
Kevin kept half his attention on the various kids and teens in the shop as he answered his cell, “What’s up?”
“I’m done with work and Taylor’s up for running something, you game?” Randal asked knowing the answer was most likely yes.
“Hell yeah, James should be back from his break in five.”
“Cool, I’ll be there in three minutes,” Randal said as he made a right onto the cross street.
“Any idea what we’re running?” Kevin asked figuring anyone that overheard him would just assume he was talking about a computer game or a roleplaying game.
“No idea, we might have to help her fix her computer first.”
“Oh? What’s wrong with it?”
Randal chuckled. “It’s crashing enough that she was considering taking a hammer to it.”
“That seems pretty reasonable,” Kevin replied with amusement, thinking about some of his previous projects.
“Do me a favor, grab the kit from the back room, I’m going to call the taco place and place an order so we can just swing by and grab it.”
“Good call, grab some extra sodas while you’re at it.” He smiled at the cute teenage girl walking toward the counter with a video game. “Gotta go, customer.”
Randal chuckled as Kevin hung up on him, knowing that said customer had to be a cute girl or he’d have stayed on the line. “Call Taco Bell.”
0o0o0
Randal stepped back a touch as the door of the manager’s office was opened before he could tap it with his foot or say something. “Thanks.”
Gothic opened the door and stepped out of the way so they could come in. “No worries, you brought food.”
“We did,” Randal replied as he walked into the office and glanced at the large flat screen monitors on the desk next to three mostly put together desktop computers. He glanced at the various boxes of electronics that Taylor was looking through. “Any luck?”
Taylor sighed as she tossed a broken controller into her salvage box and hit accept. “I’m fairly sure the problem is with the software because all of the components checked out, at least according to my tooltip.” She sorted the pieces she got back into the parts boxes based on quality.
Kevin grinned as he shut the door behind him with his foot then walked over and set the bag of tacos down in a clear space on the desk. “Nice monitors, how much were they?”
“Cheap enough they might as well have been free, they had cracked screens.”
“Yeah, your repair song is hax.” He glanced at her computer. “So what’s wrong with your computer?”
“No idea, it’s randomly crashing and being weird. The other two computers work,” Taylor complained.
“For a given definition of work,” Gothic said as she walked over and grabbed a taco. “We weren’t working with top of the line parts.”
Amy shrugged. “They’re just a little slow.”
Randal set the 2 liter of root beer on the table next to the tacos then set his laptop on the desk in a clear spot away from the foot. “There might be a loose connection or a faulty chip or a corrupted file, what does your tooltip say when you pick up the desktop?”
Taylor said, “It just says glitchy computer when I touch it, not exactly helpful.”
“That’s it?” Kevin asked as he grabbed a taco.
“It lists the system specs but everything else looks reasonably legit.”
“Reasonably?”
Taylor wiped her hands on her pants then walked over and grabbed a taco. “I don’t recognize some of the brand names but nothing says broken or faulty if that’s what you’re asking.”
Randal pulled a small notebook out of his laptop bag and gently tossed it next to the computer that was currently off. “Write down the names of the components and details… we should be able to copy everything over and get it running.”
Kevin said, “Either that or we just take it apart, swap out the hard drive and try assembling it again.”
Taylor finished unwrapping her taco enough that she could start eating it. “If I had any extra hard drives, I’d try it.”
Gothic pointed at the other two computers. “We used the salvaged hard drives on the other computers.”
“How many computers did you salvage?” Randal asked.
“Six, I hit them with a repair song then salvaged them, got a bunch of random components, sadly I only got two hard drives out of the deal. I had to physically take the drive out of the backup computer which might be half the problem or it might be unrelated.” Taylor took a bite of her taco.
Kevin shrugged, he was used to his projects trying to kill him if he got too close to something he’d already made, this was nothing. “We’ll figure it out or we’ll head back to the electronics shop, grab more computers and salvage them for parts.”
“Assuming we can get the computer fixed in a reasonable amount of time, what dungeon are we going to hit?” Randal asked as he started working on making a boot disk for Taylor’s computer so he could copy the drivers that might not exist anywhere else.
Amy spoke up, “I wouldn’t mind running the lower level goblin dungeon, I want a copy of Taylor’s safe fall ring if we’re going to be getting into any more cape fights.”
“More?” Kevin asked.
“Wasn’t our fault,” Taylor complained then worked on finishing her taco.
Gothic snickered. “We took a portal to the alley by the junk store and walked out into a cape battle between Stormtiger, Cricket, Skidmark and Mush. We would have just snuck back into the alley and called the PRT but Skidmark saw us and shouted something about Shadow Stalker and killing her.”
Amy said, “I’m pretty sure Stormtiger recognized me because he only made a token attack at Taylor then ran when he figured out he wasn’t going to be able to rescue Cricket.”
“What happened to Cricket?” Kevin asked curious how Taylor’s first cape fight had gone.
“Dodging lightning is a bitch,” Gothic pointed out smugly.
“Ouch, is she okay?”
“I healed her,” Gothic said with an evil smirk.
Taylor finished her last bite then reached for the soda and a cup. “More or less, I probably shouldn’t have hit her with both gloves,” Taylor admitted, thinking about how fast the Empire cape had dropped.
“Probably. We might need to work on some ways to test our gear so we have a baseline so we don’t kill anyone,” Kevin admitted.
Gothic said, “She probably would have survived without medical attention but yeah, you should probably avoid hitting non brutes with both gloves at the same time.”
“At least they’re off the streets,” Taylor pointed out while she poured herself a cup of root beer.
Randal frowned slightly as he worked on editing the startup file on the thumb drive. “Not so much, Hookwolf and Crusader managed to rescue Cricket before they even got to the PRT.”
“Skidmark and Mush?” Gothic asked, expecting the worst.
“No word yet, but they probably escaped. Welcome to Brockton Bay.”
“That’s annoy-” Amy jumped slightly as her phone ran, with Carol’s ringtone, “-ing. Shit, I need to take this.”
Gothic frowned slightly as she watched Amy grab another taco and head for the door. “We should probably send Kevin into Arcadia to model while Randal fixes the computer and Amy sorts things out with Carol.”
“Model? We’re splitting the party?” Kevin asked uneasy about the evil look in Gothic’s eyes.
“You could take Randal with you, but I doubt you’d enjoy the experience.”
“Why?” Randal asked absently as he finished typing setting up the boot ‘disk’.
Gothic snickered. “The art class uses nude models, fifty school bucks for twenty minutes which is enough to let you buy a programming or art book.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen enough of his skinny white ass to last a lifetime,” Randal complained as he thought about the various times he had to pull splinters of metal or wood out of Kevin’s backside thanks to various failed inventions.
“Not like getting a bunch of shrapnel pulled out of my ass was my idea of fun, either.” Kevin was just glad those days were over, if nothing else they had Gothic and Panacea to deal with that sort of crap. “I’d love a computer programming book, let’s go.”
“Seriously?” Taylor asked in surprise.
Kevin shrugged. “You’ve seen my channel, I doubt this is even in the top fifty weirdest things I’ve done for money or shits and giggles.”
Randal piped up, “Or because of sheer boredom.”
Kevin absently flipped Randal off with a grin.
Gothic grinned. “In that case, we can check out the girl’s locker room while you’re modeling.”
Randal sighed dramatically. “I see how it is, lure me over here with the promise of killing monsters then put me to work without even a thank you.”
“To be fair I said thank you on the phone,” Taylor pointed out, glad he didn’t look too upset about staying to work on her computer. “Don’t worry, I’m just going to show him where the art room is then make a hasty retreat.”
“Works for me,” Kevin agreed.
