Celestial Worm Part 2 (Patreon)

"How long would it take to rig the door so that she could be shot while escaping?" Assault asked thoughtfully, glaring at the teenage girl that had killed a girl by stuffing her in a locker filled with toxic waste even if the girl had recovered, possibly by triggering as the doctor and nurses had noted some physical changes.

"Don't answer that," Director Piggot told Armsmaster, not taking her eyes off of Sophia. "Despite my better judgment, I allowed you to join the wards because I thought you were salvageable and that at worst, you'd kill some gang members because of excessive force. I'm curious what the hell you were thinking and why you used your power to fill a locker with biological sludge."

"Lawyer," Sophia replied, not seeing a point in saying anything when she didn't know how much the director knew.

Piggot turned to look at one of her agents. "Call the legal department, they can explain the case against Hess and help her find a suitable public attorney that is willing to take her case, just remind them that her trust fund has been confiscated and that her previous lawyer is facing an inquiry by the bar association."

"What?!" Sophia demanded as she glared at the overweight director through the bars on her cell, pissed that they were stealing her money.

"You should have read the documents that you signed for your probation. In the event that you commit any criminal acts, your trust fund can be used to pay any and all damages or reparations at the discretion of the Director, that would be me," Piggot explained, taking a bit of vindictive pleasure in wiping the smirk off the bitch's face.

"I want a lawyer," Sophia stated, barely resisting the urge to call the bitch on her bullshit.

"If she tries to escape, hit her with a taser," Piggot told the guard then turned and walked out of the room.

"Understood," the agent replied, more than happy to drop the bitch unconscious considering the amount of shit she'd caused since they'd been stuck with her.

Armsmaster sighed in frustration and followed the director, curious how much Hess's caseworker had been covering up.

"If you'll excuse me, I need to grab some ice cream for the wards, we're having a party because the bitch is gone," Assault told the agent then left, humming the Mission Impossible theme song on his way out.

Sophia glared at Assault, furious that Hebert had gotten her in trouble because she'd been weak enough to die in her locker over a prank.

0o0o0

"Damn," Dave muttered when he walked around the corner and saw a pair of girls in power armor talking to a third girl with short and spiky blue hair that was wearing a hooded leather outfit that looked like something you might see a rogue or an assassin wear in a video game.

"I don't recognize the armor, cosplayers or heroes?" Frank asked thoughtfully.

"They could be villains," Dave suggested, wishing that he hadn't already burned out most types of power armor from his available options as their suits looked sleek and professional in a way that would impress Armsmaster or even Dragon.

"When is the last time you ever heard of a villain wearing neon pink armor?" Frank asked

"It could be some type of reflective coating," Dave suggested half-heartedly as they walked over, not even trying to pretend that they weren't talking about them. "Heroes or villains?"

"Heroes!" Vicky replied dramatically as she turned to look at the people that had asked the question.

Amy barely resisted the urge to shake her head when she recognized Uber and Leet, mostly thanks to the fact that she'd healed him several times because of his tech exploding at an unfortunate time and he hadn't been in costume while getting healed.

Dave glanced at the girl with spiky blue hair that was wearing a black cloth mask that covered the lower half of her face. "Where did you get your costume?"

"I made it," Taylor replied, not seeing a reason to mention the fact that she'd literally made the costume with her new illusion power twenty seconds before they'd walked around the corner.

"Respect," Frank replied, rather impressed by the quality.

"What about the power armor?" Dave asked excitedly, curious where they'd picked up the armor that looked like someone had pulled it straight out of a high budget movie.

"It fell off the back of a truck," Amy replied sarcastically.

"She's a tinker," Vicky offered, rather amused that she wasn't even lying since Taylor had given Amy a copy of her Hyper-Invention power.

"Cool," Dave replied. "I've made a couple of suits of armor for cons before."

Frank shook his head. "Disclaimer, they don't actually function as armor."

"They worked against the tennis ball you hit me with, so they counted," Dave replied with a smug look.

"Technically," Frank admitted as he rolled his eyes at his friend's antics.

Taylor glanced at the description floating over Dave's head, curious why his powers were trying to kill him. 'Tinker: Prototyping: Aberrant Expression: This power provides alien schematics and a degree of understanding, unfortunately his power provides faulty and or dangerous schematics if the project contains any tinkertech that he's already used. That explains why a lot of his gear fails in spectacular and dangerous ways.'

"Which villain group are you going to fight first?" Dave asked.

"I was thinking Uber and Leet, their Grand Theft Auto video sucked ass," Amy replied, glad that her helmet hid her smile and changed her voice enough that she wasn't recognizable.

"It was a great game but yeah, it wasn't their best showing," Frank agreed, making a mental note to avoid the group while in costume.

"To be fair, I'm pretty sure they were high as kites when they filmed that," Dave offered, trying not to think about how close they'd come to getting barbequed by Lung over that mess because one of his inventions had been leaking a hallucinogenic gas and they hadn't noticed until they'd woken up with hangovers from hell sprawled on a park bench in their underwear. Watching the copy of the steam hadn't been fun, especially not when he'd seen how many subscribers they'd lost over it.

'Huh, they must be fans,' Vicky mused when she realized they felt guilty about watching the video. "I wouldn't mind punching Nazis."

"Always a favorite," Dave agreed, trying to change the subject.

Taylor used her modified Focus ability to boost her Residual Absorption ability enough to match Leet's power then copied it, eating most of the residual energy that was covering the tinker and picking up a temporary copy of his power. She checked the description of the copied power. 'Tinker: Prototype: Duration: 4.6 minutes. This power provides alien schematics for nearly any project. At least I don't have to worry about it trying to kill me, probably.'

"We should probably let you get back to patrolling," Frank admitted.

"Probably," Amy admitted, surprised at how civil the pair were out of costume and when they weren't in a great deal of pain from one of Leet's inventions exploding.

'I probably shouldn't be empowering villains but his power is a public safety issue,' Taylor told herself as she used her Power Creation ability to give Leet a copy of her mental resistance power, hoping that it would help with his power trying to feed him dangerously touchy schematics and him not realizing it because of shenanigans. It only took two tries before she felt the click that meant it was permanent.

"Up, up and away!" Vicky said dramatically then flew into the air.

"Stay out of trouble," Amy told Uber and Leet then flew up into the air, trying to get used to using her armor's flight systems rather than her own flight.

"I should probably get her to build a flight harness or something," Taylor mused as she used her Illusion Casting to create the illusion of a purple and black shadowy portal. She stepped through the portal, turned herself invisible and let the portal vanish, curious what they'd say once the 'heroes' vanished.

"That's a pretty damned good exit, do you think we can steal it?" Frank asked thoughtfully as the two girls in power armor flew over the roof and vanished from sight.

"Do you want to end up with half of your atoms in China?" Dave asked, knowing that he'd already burned out most of his options when it came to portals and wanted to keep the rest in reserve in case they had to jump to a different Earth.

"Not really," Frank admitted. "Do you think the shadow portals are the girl's only power?"

"I wouldn't bet on it," Dave replied as they continued walking down the street, figuring there was probably a combat aspect to her power.

Taylor flew up into the air and over to where Amy and Vicky were hovering over the building.

"Where do you think she Teleported?" Vicky asked.

Amy glanced around, trying to spot Taylor. "She probably used an illusion."

"It's useful," Taylor offered, turning visible as she floated over.

"What else can you do with your illusion power?" Vicky asked, wondering if it was worth picking up a copy of the ability since she already had a lot of new powers to learn to use effectively.

Taylor used her Clairvoyance power to look at her face as she reached up and grabbed her cheek. "Masks," she replied cheerfully as she moved her hand like she was pulling off a mask, using her illusion power to make it look like she'd just pulled her face off and revealed another face underneath.

"The fuck!" Vicky blurted out as she flew back a couple of feet before she realized that the twisted demonic face burning eyes was just an illusion.

Amy laughed at the shocked look on Vicky and Taylor's faces.

"That's freaky," Vicky admitted she studied the eerily realistic illusion. "If the hero gig doesn't work out, you could make a mint in Hollywood creating special effects."

"I was just going to create another face, the demon was Amy's fault," Taylor assured her, glad that Vicky wasn't taking it personally.

"Sorry, but I haven't seen her jump like that in years," Amy replied with a grin as she let the illusion vanish, revealing the average face that Taylor had created.

"This means war," Vicky teased, glad that Amy was having fun, even if she'd scared the hell out of her. "But seriously, it would be a good way to make money."

Taylor shook her head. "I'd rather just spend a weekend in Hollywood charging a bunch of aging millionaires a couple of hundred thousand a pop to restore their youth."

"You can do that?" Vicky asked in surprise.

"In theory," Taylor replied as she gestured and used her Illusion Casting to restore her previous appearance. "Biophysical Control: Aging, allows you to quickly age people or make people younger with a lot of concentration and luck. I can probably tweak the power and add some safeguards then copy the modified power."

"You'd be better off handing the power to a doctor or a nurse in Hollywood or DC and charging them a percentage of the profit, that way you don't have to do the legwork," Amy suggested, having looked into the legality of charging to make people younger when she'd first started healing people.

"Is that even legal?" Vicky asked.

"Technically, it's not something that medical science can do which means you're free to offer the service but the red tape would require an entire organization to deal with if you wanted to do things completely above board," Amy explained.

"That's certainly something to look into," Taylor mused, not seeing a problem with using her power to make an 'honest' living, especially since it would help disguise the cash she was planning on stealing from the gangs.

"Do you think you could tweak your Biophysical Control power to fix someone's mental issues or addictions?" Vicky asked thoughtfully, thinking about her father's depression.

"There's a chance but I'd have to run some tests. Speaking of tests, do you want a Tinker power before I lose it?" Taylor asked.

"Before you lose it?" Vicky asked, wondering what she was talking about.

"I copied Leet's power but I wasn't able to grab it permanently," Taylor admitted.

Vicky sighed as she connected the dots. "That was Leet and Uber, wasn't it?"

"Yes," Amy replied with amusement. "I recognized Leet because I've healed him a couple of times when he wasn't in costume."

"And you didn't say anything?" Vicky asked in annoyance.

Amy shook her head. "One of the main reasons the villains leave me alone is because they might need my help, that vanishes if they know I'll rat them out. I wouldn't have said anything but Warlock already outed him."

Taylor shrugged. "I wouldn't have said anything but I only have a couple of minutes left before I lose access to Leet's power and the version I copied is actually pretty solid."

"Seriously? He's a joke," Vicky replied, surprised that his power was any good.

"That's because his power is trying to kill him, it gives him flawed schematics if he's already used a tinkertech component in a previous project," Taylor explained.

"And your version doesn't?" Amy asked, wanting to make sure.

"No, it just gives me alien schematics for nearly any project," Taylor replied.

"Aliens?" Vicky asked.

"It makes as much sense as magic," Taylor replied with a shrug, not seeing a point in mentioning that her detection power called several of the powers she could hand out magic.

"Go ahead and give me a temporary copy," Amy told her, figuring that would give her a month or a bit more than a year to test the power and see if she liked it.

Taylor used her Power Creation ability to give Amy a temporary copy of Leet's ability, giving her a month and a half to build up enough residue to copy it permanently. "That should do it."

"Thanks," Amy replied as her phone made a rather loud beeping noise, letting her know that there was an emergency at the hospital. She checked the message. "So much for having fun, one of the Merchants pulled a gun and started shooting people on a bus. How do I get out of the armor?"

"No clue, I just used my power to create it," Taylor replied, wishing her abilities came with something that let her scan technology.

"Try looking for a menu," Vicky suggested.

Amy blinked as her helmet unlocked, letting her take it off. "Did you make a mind reading suit?"

"Maybe?" Taylor replied with a shrug, looking forward to seeing how the armor worked when she had a chance to study it. "You should probably head to the hospital."

"Are you going to be okay?" Amy asked as she used her Illusion Casting to make it look like she was wearing her normal costume, figuring that would work until she picked up her extra costume at the hospital.

"I'll be fine," Taylor assured her.

Vicky picked Amy up and started flying toward the hospital, not seeing any reason to give the game away by letting her fly on her own.

Taylor frowned when she felt a spike of fear coming from a couple of blocks away. 'Up, up and away,' she thought as she flew toward the source of terror, not sure what she'd find.

0o0o0

"I'm going to fucking stab you!" the skinny punk with a knife taunted as he stalked toward the little shit that had tossed his book bag at his head and bolted when he'd 'politely' told him to give him his fucking money.

Greg Veder didn't bother replying as he scrambled onto the dumpster so that he could reach the fire escape so that he could jump over the chain link fence that was blocking the end of the alley and was his only real chance at avoiding getting stabbed to death since there were three guys blocking the entrance to the alley.

Taylor scowled when she reached the source of the terror and realized that the asshole with a knife was planning on killing one of the only people that had talked to her in school. She smiled when Greg managed an almost perfect though quite accidental shot with his left foot when the gang member grabbed his right ankle, hitting the asshole square in the nose and causing him to stagger back with an angry shout as Greg scrambled onto the fire escape.

"You're fucking dead!" the Merchant thug shouted as he pulled a gun out of his pocket.

Taylor used her Illusion Casting to create an image of her cloaked hero persona standing behind the thug then used her Telekinesis to poke him in the back, causing him to spin around and frantically unload his pistol at her illusion, causing two of his three friends to drop as he put holes in them.

"Drop it," Taylor told him in as deep a voice as she could manage, hoping he was too distracted to realize that her voice was coming from the wrong direction. She winced as the remaining gang member pulled out his own gun and put several bullets into his 'friend' in an attempt to kill the cape that had appeared in the alley.

Taylor had the Illusionary persona move her hands so that it lined up with the weak kinetic bolt she tossed at the remaining gang member, using her illusion as the origin point. She winced slightly as the gang member cracked his head on the brick wall and dropped like a sack of potatoes.

"Thank you!" Greg blurted out, relieved that he wasn't going to get shot.

"You're welcome," Taylor replied, not sure what she was supposed to do now that she'd stopped the 'villains' or at least provided a distraction so that they stopped themselves. 'Doesn't seem like anyone else is hurt in the area and Greg went from being terrified to being really excited. He's like a puppy, I guess that explains some of his behavior.'

"Are you going to call the PRT?" Greg asked, wondering if he'd get to meet more heroes if he stuck around.

"I wasn't planning on it," Taylor replied absently as she focused on the gang member sprawled on the ground that hadn't pulled his gun out. She sighed when she realized that he was stoned out of his mind and hadn't even realized what was going on. 'Screw it,' she thought as she used her Power Creation ability to give the stoner a temporary and 'weak' form of Regeneration, causing the bullet to fall out of his chest and the wound to close up over the next couple of seconds.

"Why not?" Greg asked, not sure why the girl wouldn't want the thugs locked up.

"I wasn't planning on patrolling and I don't have a cape phone yet," Taylor admitted as she glanced between the dying thugs that were focused on revenge and their pain rather than any sort of self reflection about their lives. 'Fuck it, I didn't kill them and they're not going to change. I don't have to save everyone and healing them so they can be locked up won't make the world a better place.'

"I'll take care of it," Greg replied as he quickly pulled his old flip phone out of his pocket. "What's your cape name?"

"Pixie," Taylor replied after a couple of seconds of thought, deciding to save Warlock for the persona that was handing out powers in case she wanted to use a couple of different heroic personas.

"Cool," Greg replied as he called the PRT number that he'd memorized for emergencies.

Taylor used her Penetration/X-ray Vision to look through their pockets for cell phones and frowned when she realized that the asshole that had tried to grab Greg had several hundred dollars in fifties and twenties in his wallet and a new or relatively new cellphone. 'So much for them being broke and desperate for their next fix,' she thought as she tweaked her Teleportation Self ability so that she could teleport objects.

"You've reached the PRT emergency line, what is the problem?" a calm and female voice asked over the phone.

"I was mugged by four members of the Merchants and a new cape showed up to save me, the gang members shot each other in the confusion, I think the thugs are bleeding out," Greg explained as he climbed down the fire escape ladder.

"Do you know CPR?" the woman asked as she pushed a button on her console and marked the location of the young man's cell phone, figuring it wasn't a prank since Velocity had reported gunfire in the same general area twenty seconds ago.

"No," Greg replied, suddenly glad that he hadn't finished the paperwork for his CPR course so that he wasn't under a legal obligation to help.

"Is the cape still on the scene?" the woman asked.

"Yes, do you need to talk to her?" Greg asked.

Taylor ignored the twenty the stoner had in his wallet and teleported most of the cash the three idiots had on them to the box in her closet that she kept her old shoes in, not seeing a reason to let the PRT keep the cash since she doubted they'd even try to get it back to the people they stole it from. She teleported the phone's battery to her closet then the phone, wanting to make sure the phone couldn't be tracked before she made some modifications that would keep people from being able to track it.

"Can you tell me their cape name?" the woman asked as she tapped a couple of buttons on the console and redirected one of the teams that was on break and in the general area to the location of the young man's cell phone.

Greg stepped out of the way of the ladder then jumped down to the ground. "She said her name is Pixie. Do you need to talk to her?"

"Not yet," the woman replied, not wanting to distract the cape if there was a chance that someone would take advantage of her distraction. "How many gang members are injured or dead?"

"Three of them got shot and are dead or unconscious, one of them hit their head on the wall and isn't moving," Greg explained.

"One second," the agent said as she pushed the button on the console and muted herself for the call then hit the button to connect to Velocity's comlink. "Velocity, I got a report that the cape on site isn't hostile and that she's new."

"Understood," Velocity replied as he spotted the unconscious or dead gang members near the alley. "I see a couple of unconscious people near the alley, I'm checking."

Taylor made sure her illusion's hands were away from anything that could be considered a weapon as she felt a wary but determined presence closing on their position fast enough that it was probably Velocity since she couldn't hear the roaring of an engine.

Velocity relaxed a touch when he recognized one of the unconscious or dead Merchants as one of the idiots that he'd arrested a couple of months ago because he'd tried to spit in his face. He glanced between the young man holding a cell phone to his ear and the blue haired girl that was wearing a hooded leather outfit that looked professionally made. "I'm Velocy, you called in a mugging?"

"Yes," Greg replied, practically squealing that he got to meet one of his heroes. "I was walking by and they grabbed me then demanded my money. If I'd been thinking straight, I wouldn't have tossed my bag at them and run for the fire escape but one of my friends got sent to the hospital today and I wasn't paying attention."

"You're lucky they didn't kill you," Velocity told the teen.

'Friend?' Taylor wasn't sure how she felt about Greg getting attacked, mostly because while he was annoying at times, he tried. "I got there as he was climbing the ladder, he got a nice kick in on the thug's face before the asshole pulled out a gun and I decided to interrupt before they killed the young man as he didn't look like a gang member."

"Thanks," Greg replied, relieved that she'd saved him.

"I was just hoping I could distract the asshole, I wasn't expecting the three of them to pull out guns and shoot the shit out of everything," Taylor admitted.

"You're lucky you're not dead," Velocity told her. "Three?"

Taylor gestured at the scruffy looking stoner with dirty blond hair. "I'm pretty sure the guy in the green jacket was completely baked, he didn't pull out a gun and I'm not sure he even realized what his associates were doing."

Velocity pulled out a pair of latex gloves and quickly checked on the thugs now that he wasn't worried about the situation being some type of trap, he wasn't particularly surprised or upset that two of the idiots were dead. He frowned slightly when he saw the bullet resting on the stoner's chest and the blood covering his shirt. "Did you black out during the fight?"

"No, why?" Taylor asked.

"His shirt looks like he was bleeding but he doesn't seem injured," Velocity replied then jumped back as the man in question sat up.

"Woah, where am I?" the stoner asked as he looked around, trying to figure out why he'd ended up in an alley.

"In an alley, near 7th," Velocity told him. "What's the last thing you remember?"

"Grabbing snacks…" the stoner trailed off when he noticed a man on the ground lying in a rather large pool of blood. "Dude, I think he's dead."

"Yeah," Velocity agreed, a touch relieved when the agents arrived as that meant he could let them deal with the idiot. "Stick around, they'll walk you through the paperwork," he told the new cape, wanting to make sure everything was done by the book so the new cape wasn't blamed for the gang members shooting each other.

"Joy," Taylor replied dryly, making a mental note not to stick around next time.