Chapter Text
Colin
The scene was not as bad as it he'd predicted it would be, but was not outside of expected parameters. The PRT had been alerted to a likely parahuman conflict occurring in an a dilapidated area of the docks, as the closest available hero at the time he'd been ordered to investigate. Not that he needed the order, the sound of distant explosions and the detection of exotic particles through his bikes onboard monitoring systems, had already been enough to prompt him to investigate.
No matter the city, it was popular for new parahumans to experiment with their powers in abandoned buildings, warehouses, and (if available) scrap yards. For Brockton Bay, the docks were effectively the ideal and most obvious place for a new parahuman to start experimenting. Unfortunately, gangs are well aware of this.
Whatever battle occurred here was already over. He couldn't see any corpses, but from the swastika tattoo on a severed and badly burned arm, he could assume that this was likely an empire "recruitment operation".
A warehouse had been mostly destroyed, with the surrounding warehouses having suffered heavy damage. Hovering slightly in the centre of the warehouse ruins was a young pink haired woman wearing a black militaristic uniform with gold accents. Dyed hair, or perhaps a whig? Power manifestation or a case-53 also can't be ruled out. Notably, she wasn't wearing a face covering mask. Instead she was wearing a strange golden, almost crown like, spiked headpiece.
Of more interest than her hair or costume were the purple funnel-like objects hovering at various points in the air around the recent battlefield. Likely either master projections or tinker creations. She looked wards aged and her recent battle should increase likelihood of successful recruitment, so a tinker would be preferable.
She was looking at him, his facial expression analysation algorithm identified high levels of anxiety with 65% certainty. It appeared she waa trying to conceal her anxiety under a mask of confidence. Neither of them had said anything yet. He didn't need his social algorithm to inform him that the silence was becoming a bit awkward.
"I'm Armsmaster, a hero of the Brockton Bay Protectorate" He yelled over to her. The parahuman may be from out of town or, much less likely, a case 53. "Can we talk about what happened here?"
"..." The parahuman hesitated, but gave something approximating a nod.
Colin, was cautious as he approached the unknown parahuman. close enough to where he could talk to her without yelling, but not close enough to induce a potential fight or flight response. (Extensive study on parahuman first interactions had lead to him devising an optimal discussion distance for every stage of the interaction.
Taylor
this went about as poorly as it possibly could have
This thought and those like it ran through my head as I stood among the ruins of my power testing "lab", with nothing but the hair and eye colour changes provided by my power to hide my identity and one of my childhood heroes slowly navigating over rubble towards me.
Taylor - a little while ago
I had found my power testing lab (An abandoned warehouse with a missing window, and an otherwise chained shut door. The window was too high up to get to from the ground, but I could fly!) a few days after first experimenting with my powers in the woods and almost starting a forest fire.
Unlike the only other parahuman I reluctantly personally knew, my powers were varied and seemed to follow some sort of theme I couldn't work out, so spending some time to work out what exactly I could do was important.
It was my fourth session at the lab. Something had felt wrong from the start, I hadn't picked it as my "danger sense" until it was too late. There was a snipping noise and the sound of something heavy and metallic hitting the floor outside before the door creaked open. A pale, practically chalk coloured, man strolled in like he owned the place. I didn't recognise him, but the two skinheads flanking him told me enough.
"You know, if you were trying to keep hidden you were doing a shitty job at it." He began, not really reacting to my funnels simultaneously turning to face him or my posture that at that moment probably most closely resembled a cornered animal. "You're lucky it was us who found you and not those fucking asians."
The two guys with him were affected by my display and had not too subtly made sure I could see they were both armed with what looked like submachine-guns.
"How did you find me!" I was really tempted to just open fire (they were Nazis and I could probably claim self defence given the situation), but I also really wanted to know how I'd fucked up. Then I could open fire.
The chalky guy gave me a look, like I was stupid. "You've been giving the local street trash a free light-show with whatever you've been doing in here."
oh
"Anyway" he continued "I'm not feeling a lot of friendliness here, so this is mostly a formality at this point." An unconvincing facsimile of a charming smile crawled onto his face. "Are you willing to step up and defend the supremacy and purity of-"
I opened fire.
My funnels launched a simultaneous volley of beams at the trio of nazis. One of them must've reacted to some change in my posture, because he reacted slightly before I fired. Unfortunately for him that only made the beam I'd intended to hit his submachine-gun instead scorched off his arm. The other skinhead, whose gun I did hit, had his gun explode knocking him to the floor.
I was momentarily stunned by the mild carnage. I hadn't aimed to kill or maim, which was challenging considering my arsenal. They may be nazis, but I still didn't want to kill anyone. Heroes aren't meant to hurt people.
*newtype_sound_effect.wav*
My danger sense broke me out of my stupor in time to react to the chalky guy launching himself at me, brandishing a previously concealed knife. My warning shots at his feet clearly not having dissuaded him.
Beam sabre materialising in my hand, I leaped backwards as another volley of funnel beams converged on the chalky guy. Self preservation having taken priority over avoiding harming nazis who probably deserve it anyway.
I was left stunned again as I watched the chalky guy get blown to pieces, only to just blink back together and swiftly recover a knife (one of several that were scattered about from his now vanished former corpse). He's a cape. Of course he is.
I took flight. Just the end of a beam sabre's emitter materialised from my free hand as I mentally switched my now 2 sabres into gun mode, transforming them into beam guns. A twinge of danger sense let me dodge a stream of bullets from the two armed skinhead.
Fuck. Because I just dis-armed the other guy his gun is still fine.
As my funnels continued to rain down beams on the empire cape, I fired both beam guns wildly in the direction of the still armed skinhead. The warehouse wall behind him exploded. The amputated skinhead, who had been trying to sneakily leave the battle was thrown into the air. His severed arm that he'd been clutching slipped from his grasp and sailed merrily through the air to bounce off the side of another warehouse. The armed skinhead was thrown to the floor, gun scattering away.
"You-" "fucking whore-" "The em-" "pire is gioing-" "to destroy-" "You!" No matter how many times I showered him with beams from my funnels, exploded him with beams from my beam guns, or sliced him up with my sabres, he just kept coming back. The two skinheads had fled after she fired her beam guns at them, now it was just the cape.
They were at a bit of a deadlock. He couldn't do much more than throw bits of rubble and debris at her in the seconds between restoration and destruction. I couldn't find a way to permanently get rid of him. My former power testing lab had been reduced to a smouldering ruin. While my funnels are more precise, my beam guns couldn't be set lower than "shoot through target and destroy wall behind them".
I probably should've just flown off, but I was a bit worried about flying around while in a fight with an empire cape. I'd been procrastinating researching the local gangs in favour of testing my powers and daydreaming about testing my powers, but I knew the empire had Purity. I didn't know if I could beat her in a fight and didn't really want to test that right now.
Suddenly, a sound like a timer going off sounded from somewhere in the rubble and the empire cape stopped trying to avoid the beams for a second (resulting in immediate destruction). After he restored, he immediately bolted for the edge of the battlefield. I briefly considered giving chase, but was reminded of that saying about insanity and decided it better to just take a breather for now.
It was only a few minutes later when Armsmaster appeared.
Taylor, Present
"It's okay, you're not in trouble" Armsmaster began in a friendly, but somewhat rehearsed sounding tone. I mentally inserted a "yet" at the end of his statement. "We received some reports of parahuman activity. Were you attacked?"
"...yes." Feeling the need to elaborate, I continued and roughly described my previous encounter. I omitted any dismemberment, and that I may have technically shot first.
"I see" Armsmaster responded after she finished. "It's not uncommon for gangs to go after new parahumans, either for recruitment or as preemptive threat elimination."
"The cape you fought is Alabaster, he's a regenerator as you saw. He was likely meant to assess your intentions and abilities before reporting back to the empire." He continued. "You can assume that they will now be aware of any abilities you displayed in your fight."
"shit"
"Independent capes are priority targets for gang attacks and force recruitment. Have you heard of the wards program?"
"yes..." I saw where this conversation was going.
"I would strongly recommend you consider it." He gestures at the surrounding wreckage. "The wards program also includes legal and financial support for property damage incurred during parahuman activities." I winced at the ruins of my once only regularly dilapidated warehouse, now completely destroyed.
"I'll...think about it." There was one big Sophia shaped reason why I didn't want to do that, but I didn't exactly want to tell him that.
"Good." He pulled a card out from a specialty slot on his armour. "If you follow the link on this card you can find some more information about the Wards program. If you call the number you can reach our Wards recruitment team and ask them anything about the program."
He calmly walked a little closer and handed the card out for her. I descended slightly and took it with a quiet thanks.
"Just one more thing, do you have a name picked out already?"
"um..." I reached for a name, for anything, and something came to mind. I said it before I could really process what it was.
"Qubeley." At Armsmasters vaguely confused expression I restated myself, somewhat unsure myself where the name came from. "Yep. Qubeley, that's my name. Or... well, my cape name anyway." I kinda just awkwardly trailed off, becoming less and less sure in whatever this name was.
After awkwardly spelling out my "name" for Armsmaster I listened to a bit more of his recruitment pitches and cautions for safety before making some excuse and flying off. Keeping low until I got far enough away and somewhere isolated, I finally released my transformation.
My hair returned to black and fell out of the bob hairstyle my power forced it into. My strange militaristic costume was replaced by a baggy hoody. Parahuman and amputator of nazis, the newly named Qubeley was replaced with Taylor Hebert, friendless loser.