Mist of Shadows
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Taylor Hebert Dungeon Girl Part 34
🕑 Added 2018-11-02 19:29:56 +0000 UTCVictoria scowled as she saw former commander Calvert’s face. “Huh, he always was a slimy bastard.”
“Certainly explains how he managed to avoid the PRT,” Richard grumbled.
Kevin took a couple pictures of Coil then put his phone back in his pocket. “Are we still handing him over?”
“As opposed to what?” Victoria asked.
“A long walk off a short pier?” Kevin asked jokingly.
Victoria shook her head, reasonably sure he was joking. “We’re not just killing him though it would be nice to be able to track him down if he escapes.”
“That’s not a bad idea. Can we lojack him?” Richard asked, thinking about the PRT ‘catch and release’ program that passed for incarceration.
Kevin grinned as he realized they had a decent solution. “I made a device that makes tracking devices, we can probably talk Gothic into implanting the device under his skin or in a bone.”
“Works for me, considering we still don’t know what his power is,” Richard replied as he put Coil’s mask back on.
“Why are you putting his mask back on?” Victoria asked.
Kevin shrugged. “Just because we broke the rules, doesn’t mean we need to announce it.”
“Probably for the best,” Victoria agreed. “In that case, we need to grab a tracking device and borrow Gothic.”
“Not Amy?” Richard asked as he stood up, having put the man’s mask back on.
“Nah, Gothic is much less likely to argue about the morality of tagging villains.”
“Good point,” Richard agreed as he looked at Kevin. “So, what’s the plan?”
Kevin said, “You and Victoria can loot the armory and entertainment center for blueprints while I get the tracking device. That should be more than enough time for the girls to fix Noelle.”
“Works for me,” Victoria agreed. “I’m going to call Mom and get her to organize the paperwork for claiming a villain’s property so we can grab the base.”
“Be great for laser tag and paintball,” Richard said with a grin.
Kevin smirked as he pictured the horrified faces of the PRT’s accounting department as they realized they’d have to pay 10% of a converted Endbringer shelter’s value or give them the base, at least legally. He wasn’t actually expecting to get that much, but he figured they’d get a decent reward for capturing Coil. “I doubt they’ll actually give us the base but we can probably get some type of compensation.”
“Free money,” Victoria said gleefully as she pulled out her phone to call her mother.
Richard grinned at Victoria. “Good, you can stop mooching off Dean.”
“You obviously don’t understand the boyfriend/girlfriend dynamic,” Victoria pointed out smuggly.
Kevin pulled out his phone as Richard looked at him for support of his argument. “Don’t look at me, hookers are cheaper.”
“Are you admitting to a crime?” Victoria teased.
“Nope, just comparing costs and benefits,” Kevin replied as he sent a text message to Tattletale telling her that Coil was captured and that he needed her help with the computers.
Victoria snickered as she selected her mother’s number on her contact list and hit the talk button. It wasn’t like Dean couldn’t afford it and didn’t enjoy seeing her in the stuff he bought.
0o0o0
Noelle stared at the mirror that was showing a face that only vaguely resembled the face that she remembered the last time she’d seen a mirror. While she could pick out elements and the basic structure hadn’t changed, it looked like a professional art studio had airbrushed her face and given her a flawless boob job. She felt a bit self conscious wearing what basically amounted to a thin bikini made out of ever changing crimson shadows as the rest of her costume was translucent enough it didn’t count as far as she was concerned. “Can I change my costume yet?”
“Nope, I’m still tweaking things,” Gothic said as she reached out and touched Noelle’s neck with her gloved finger. She removed her last couple scars then adjusted her hair follicles so her hair would be more wavy and full. “That should do it.”
“What did you do?” Noelle asked, not seeing any changes.
“I made sure your hair would be naturally wavy and full of bounce,” Gothic replied cheerfully, rather happy with her modifications.
“Why?” Noelle asked, unsure why they were bothering with how she looked when they were just going to lock her appearance with a tinkertech device.
“Everyone likes to look their best,” Gothic replied as she stepped back to look over her artwork. “It didn’t take much, a couple tweaks and you could be a runway model.”
“I look airbrushed,” Noelle said as she reached up and ran her fingers over her face, half convinced it wasn’t real.
“Nothing wrong with a touch of airbrushing,” Gothic pointed out as she glanced over her work to see if there was anything else she had to tweak.
“It’s going to draw attention,” Noelle complained softly.
“Not all attention is bad, PR is king - just look at Vicky; she’s Collateral Damage Barbie and everyone loves her anyway because she’s gorgeous and bubbly and gives free autographs,” Gothic replied with a smile.
Noelle sighed as she looked down at the translucent red silk like material that covered her skin. “So, I can change my costume now?”
“Bah, it’s a decent look for a superhero,” Gothic pouted.
“I think you mean indecent,” Amy said from the doorway.
“All the important bits are covered,” Gothic defended her suggestion for Noelle’s costume.
“Barely,” Noelle muttered.
Amy stepped into the bathroom. “Actually, it only needs a couple tweaks to make it serviceable.”
“Oh?” Noelle asked, wondering how they could ‘save’ what amounted to a silk body stocking.
“You’re going to have armored bracers and boots which means we can probably darken the pants so it looks like you’re wearing shorts that fade into translucent leggings rather than a swimsuit.”
“That still leaves the bikini top,” Noelle grumbled.
Amy gestured as she explained her idea, “A couple more inches and it’s a crop top rather than a bikini and you still have full skin coverage which is the important bit. Your cape persona is supposed to look different and draw attention.”
“Besides, if you’ve got it, flaunt it and you certainly have it,” Gothic assured her as she looked over her work.
Kevin’s voice came over their headsets, “Can we borrow Gothic for a bit?”
Amy tapped her headset to activate it then gave Gothic a gentle shove toward the door as she replied, “Yep, perfect timing.”
Gothic snickered as she left with a spring in her step, stepping to the side so that Taylor could slip past her back into the room.
Taylor looked Noelle over, trying not to stare at the girl’s breasts or athletic looking legs. “I let Tattletale know that Coil was dealt with. We should probably finish up and leave before the PRT gets here.”
“Sounds good,” Amy agreed. “We’re thinking about darkening the mist around her waist so it looks like she’s wearing shorts and tweaking her top a bit so that it looks like a crop top that fades into transparency.”
Taylor opened her new transformation ring’s menu and adjusted her look to match Noelle, which was thankfully easy as there was basically a screen capture feature in the full version of the transformation item. She tweaked the top on her floating mannequin, making it look more like a dark crimson cut off shirt made out of mist then tweaked the image’s bikini bottoms so they looked like shorts. She tweaked ‘her’ hair to a dark shade of red then activated the ring’s transformation.
Noelle blinked as Neverland went from her armored and masked form to a mirror image of her with dark red hair. “Red?”
“No point in having the same color as your costumed form.”
“Shouldn’t I have a different face?” Noelle asked.
Amy shrugged. “You’d probably be okay with a mask that changes the lines of your face and the color of your eyes but if you want to change your face, we can probably figure something out.”
Noelle shifted uncomfortably as she thought about all of the changes she’d dealt with the past few months. “No that’s okay, I’m not sure how often I’ll be running around in costume anyways.”
“What do you think about the clothes?” Taylor asked as she slowly spun around.
Noelle looked at the shorts that were a bit tighter looking than she’d like. “I’d rather not be that exposed but I can live with it.”
Taylor tweaked the clothes to be a touch baggier. “Is that better?”
“Thanks,” Noelle agreed, feeling a lot more comfortable when they wouldn’t be able to see the exact shape of her butt even if it was a nice ass thanks to Gothic..
Amy glanced at Noelle’s chest, she knew that there were a number of threads on the PHO that compared breast size between heroes and villains and that changing the numbers would skew things if someone tried to connect her civilian identity with her costumed persona. “You should probably increase or decrease her breast size a cup while she’s in costume. There’s a fairly dedicated and annoying group on PHO who work at comparing body sizes of heroes and villains.”
“Considering the upgrade and the fact it’s my super disguise, I think down is better,” Noelle said firmly, unwilling to even consider fighting with anything bigger than what she’d established.
“Fair enough,” Taylor agreed as she tweaked her current appearance a touch. “How’s that?”
“How about a solid B or low C?” Noelle asked.
Taylor tweaked her appearance a touch more. “Like that?”
“That works,” Noelle agreed.
Taylor opened her crafting menu and tossed in a gold ring, a crystal and one of the tracking devices Kevin had handed her then selected her limited transformation enchant. She smiled as a window opened that allowed her to customize the ring’s transformation. ‘I think this is my new favorite enchant,’ she thought to herself as she set the ring to acquire the user’s base form the first time someone used it then tweaked it so that clothing didn’t change. “Give me a second to set this up.”
“Is it worse than using your ring’s GUI?” Noelle asked, curious about Neverland’s powers and tech.
“I’m basically setting up what you can tweak. It should be a lot easier to use than my ring,” Taylor explained as she added a secondary form that was based off the first form then selected the second form and added the ability to change her eye color. She added the ability to tweak her lipstick color then decreased the second form’s breast size by the same amount she’d dropped her current appearance as a modifier on the initial appearance. “What type of mask do you think?”
“What are my options?” Noelle asked as she watched Neverland’s hands move as she grabbed empty air and tossed it next to her or at least that was what it looked like she was doing.
Taylor finished copying the misty clothing to the new ring enchant. “We could go with a half mask or an actual mask. Actually, let me check something.” She grinned as she realized she could add a couple options for masks and let her pick which one she wanted. She changed her own mask into a ninja mask. “How’s that?”
“It would help cover my face, between that and a cloak, I doubt I’ll accidently touch anyone. Can I pull it down to eat?”
Tayler reached up and pulled her ninja mask down. “Looks like it.”
“You should look at getting a half mask for the top half of her face,” Amy pointed out.
“Let’s see what we can find,” Taylor said as she started trying on different half masks to see if Noelle liked any of them.
Noelle raised her eyes as Neverland put on an opera mask that looked like it was made out of glitter. “Try something else.”
Amy snickered as Taylor went through a bunch of half masks before she found a black opera mask that covered the top half of her face and fit together with the ninja mask. “I like it.”
“It has my vote,” Noelle agreed.
Taylor added the two designs to Noelle’s ring and flipped the toggle so she could swap it for nothing or to let whatever she was wearing show through. “That should take care of the masks. Between that and the fact that you can change your second form’s eye color and lipstick, you should be good.”
“I don’t usually wear makeup,” Noelle admitted.
“Which should help further separate your identities,” Amy pointed out.
“Anything else you want to change before I set things in stone?” Taylor asked as she fiddled with the ring’s activation method to require the user to touch the stone with a finger on her opposing hand.
Noelle studied her reflection in the mirror. “Actually, if we’re going for tiny differences that would make a big change, you could probably add a light tan to my cape persona?”
“I can do that,” Taylor agreed as she tweaked her current form to have a light tan. “How do I look?”
“Enough different that my mother wouldn’t recognize you,” Noelle replied, feeling surprisingly relaxed about her appearance for the first time in years.
Taylor tweaked the second image a touch on Noelle’s ring then set up the bind-on-equip property and hit accept and blurred through the creation process.
Noelle blinked as a gold ring with a ruby appeared in Neverland’s hands. “Is that it?”
“That’s it,” Taylor replied as she handed Noelle the ring. “Put it on, touch the gem with one of your other fingers and check your second form.”
Noelle put the ring on then touched the gem and blinked as she transformed before her eyes with a shower of sparkles. “I don’t feel any different.”
“You shouldn’t, I set it up to acquire its base form the first time someone wore it. You should swap to your alternate form so we can make sure it works.”
Amy smirked as Noelle’s clothes and hair changed to match Taylor’s current hair and clothes. “We’re going to have to get you some armor and maybe a cloak to finish off the look but that should be good enough for now.”
Noelle pulled her attention off her reflection and handed the original ring back to Neverland. “Thank you again for all the help.”
“Don’t worry about it, you’ll be an awesome hero,” Amy assured her.
“Everyone needs some help now and then,” Taylor agreed as she ended the transformation and walked out of the bathroom, heading for the other room where they were keeping Coil and the Doctor he’d hired. “Let’s deal with Coil.”
“Sure,” Amy agreed as she followed Taylor out of the bathroom.
Noelle followed Amy, not sure what she was going to do now that she might actually be cured or at least have some method to prevent her from going nuts.
Gothic snickered as she used her power to sink the tiny transmitter that Taylor had enchanted to be bind-on-equip through Coil’s skull. “That should do it.”
“At least we’ll be able to find him if he manages to escape,” Kevin said, knowing the PRT didn’t have a stellar record when it came to villains escaping. “Hell, they might even offer a reward for his return next time.”
Gothic glanced up at Taylor’s group as she pulled Coil’s mask back down. “Mr. Victory is looking through the armory, Tattletale should be here shortly to loot Coil’s accounts. We’re mostly waiting for Carol to call about the paperwork.”
“At which we grab the van, swing by Carol’s office to pick up said paperwork then we drop them off at the PRT and wash our hands of this mess, and go back to doing something fun if not as profitable,” Kevin said with a touch of amusement at the whole project.
“Works for me,” Richard agreed.
“What do you consider fun?” Noelle asked, wanting to get to know Neverland’s team a bit more.
Gothic sighed dramatically. “Now, you’ve done it.”
“I’ll skip the sex, drugs and rock & roll joke,” Kevin joked, “considering I have no use for illegal drugs.”
“Are you claiming to have had sex?” Randal asked as he walked in with Tattletale. “Because if so, we need to discuss some suspicious charges on the work card.”
“Keep it up, I promise no one will find your body,” Kevin jokingly replied as he flipped his friend off, well aware that the ‘missing’ money had went into supplies for their various capers.
“That’s harsh,” Tattletale said as she glanced around the room, trying to get a read on the situation and distract herself from the unconscious villain in the middle of the group.
Kevin thought she’d gotten there suspiciously fast, but considering she was a Thinker she had probably twigged on to the attack being planned and simply waited nearby until they called her in.
“I promise, he’s used to it,” Randal assured her, knowing full well that Kevin had screwed one of the band geeks in the music room back in high school while he’d stood guard.
Kevin laughed. “Joking aside, playing video games and running dungeons are pretty high on the list.” He didn’t really see a point in lying about what they were up to considering they’d already equipped Noelle with some very non tinkertech gear and Tattletale was Tattletale. Besides, he’d cleared making the pitch with Taylor so he wasn’t worried about getting cut off.
“I used to play video games professionally,” Noelle replied with amusement.
“Dungeons?” Tattletale asked with amusement.
Taylor shrugged. “My power lets me open doors to video game like dungeons.”
Tattletale smiled as she connected the dots and realized where the strange clothes that Taylor had been selling had come from. “That explains it.”
“Basically, Shaker yes,” Amy piped up.
Noelle raised her eyebrows. “Is that where your strange gear comes from?”
Gothic spoke up, “Ask us no questions and we’ll tell you no lies.”
Tattletale’s power told her she was lying about that, but she decided not to comment.
Noelle glanced between the rest of the group, fairly sure they were actually telling the truth as strange as that sounded. “Is there a spot open?”
“If we weren’t LFG we wouldn’t have told you,” Kevin replied with a smirk.
“Is there more than one slot open?” Lisa asked, knowing the Undersiders needed new jobs.
“I’m sure we can work something out,” Taylor agreed, not sure how she felt about adopting stray villains, but thinking it was probably better than letting them wander around the city on their own.
“Before we get to that, are we sure that’s actually Coil?” Lisa asked warily.
Amy nodded. “I’m sure. He was in Coil’s outfit and office and he’s a parahuman.”
“Plus his fingerprint unlocked the computers,” Kevin piped up.
Lisa sighed in relief as she realized they’d caught the real Coil rather than one of his body doubles. “Good.”
“Let’s get to work on the computers,” Randal said as he headed toward Coil’s office, knowing there would be plenty of time for stories later.
