Taylor Hebert Dungeon Girl Part 40 (Patreon)

Gothic frowned slightly as Vista walked out of the storeroom wearing a set of lightning and fire elemental leather armor they’d dyed green, Vista’s old helmet because they didn’t have the right parts to duplicate the communication gear and a dyed green ninja mask they’d made out of part of a shadow cloak. “She certainly looks badass but I think we’re missing something.”

“Weapons?” Vista asked as she walked over to where the girls were standing.

“Nah, you have your gloves,” Amy replied as she studied the younger hero. “I think you need a belt with a couple expanded pouches so you can hold extra ties and tools if you want.”

“That would be useful,” Taylor agreed as she switched tabs and looked over her rather small collection of belt designs. She added finding some magical belt patterns to her list of things to grab when she had a chance. She selected a leather belt with a silver buckle with wavy lines that sort of matched Vista’s theme then tossed in some fire leather and silver coins into the box and hit accept. 

“I wouldn’t mind having a full first aid kit with me,” Vista replied, thinking about the various times it would have come in useful. “I can expand the space in my pack with my power but it doesn’t really fix the weight issue.”

“That makes it a lot less useful,” Noelle agreed as the door opened and Player Two walked in wearing his power armor followed by a floating sphere and Sir Victory. 

Victoria smirked at Kevin. “I have an important question, how many explosives do you have?”

Kevin looked over at the Vista sized new girl. “None?” he asked not sure what the correct answer was.

Vista snorted. “Yeah, anyone else believe him?”

“What do you need explosives for?” Kevin asked, ignoring the girl’s question that might get him in legal trouble.

Victoria sighed. “We got jumped by a giant cat that could create a field of lightning around it.”

“So you’re going to toss explosives into a field of lightning?” Richard asked in disbelief, his mind conjuring images of the various explosives exploding early. 

Amy shook her head. “Yeah, new rule, Vicky doesn’t get explosives until she takes a safety course.”

Victoria stuck her tongue out at Amy. “I’m not going toss them into a lightning field but tossing them at the giant cats should work fine.”

“Considering how bulletproof the hide from the smaller cats is, I’m going to drop that in the bad idea box and cheerfully ignore it,” Kevin replied as he walked over to where the group was standing. Sure, he could build something that would probably do the trick but he sure as hell wasn’t walking into a lightning themed dungeon with explosives. There was mad scientist crazy, which he’d occasionally admit to, and then there was Darwin Award stupid, which he wasn’t.

Gothic shook her head. “The Amy would be upset if you blew yourself up.” 

“No shit,” Amy agreed. “I’d never hear the end of it, to say nothing of the emotional trauma that it would cause.”

“Fine,” Victoria snapped as she thought about the cat that had jumped them. “Do you have a better idea how to deal with the stuff leading up to the boss?”

“We can always come back later,” Taylor said absently as she worked on making a couple leather pouches of holding for Vista’s belt.

Kevin shrugged. “Yep, same way I deal with any of the end game content that I don’t have the gear for, ignore it and come back later.”

Noelle nodded. “Acknowledge that it’s there, ignore it and move on until you can find better gear or come back with an ace in the hole. Speaking of aces, we should probably farm enough mini boss leather for the rest of the team considering they’ll be here tomorrow.”

“How many capes do you have?” Vista asked, rather curious considering they already had enough capes to match the Protectorate.

“As we said before, more than a couple and less than too many,” Gothic teased.

‘Just like the number of explosives I have,’ Kevin thought to himself.

Vista glanced at the floating sphere. “What’s with the sphere?”

“It’s a camera drone,” Richard answered as he moved the sphere around with his glove. “I’m tired of wandering around like an idiot without any idea what we’re up against. It should also help on patrol.”

“It would be more useful if it had a cloak…” she trailed off as Richard pushed a button on his glove and the sphere vanished. “How the hell?”

Richard pointed at Kevin. “Player Two has really nice tech.”

“The name is Wizard,” Kevin cut in, a little tired of the Player Two jokes. If he couldn’t be Leet, he wanted something better than Player Two as a codename.

“Wizard?” Taylor asked, fairly sure he’d picked the name just so he could troll Myrddin.

“Great, now we’re going to have people thinking we can use magic,” Gothic teased, rather amused that in this particular case the crazies would be correct.

“I’m a wizard with tech, it’s legit,” Kevin replied with amusement.

“I probably need a decent cape name,” Noelle mused.

“It would certainly help,” Amy agreed, happy that she already had her cape name and didn’t have to figure out a new one.

“Is it prying to ask what your specialty is?” Vista asked curiously.

“Would you believe me if I said everything?” Kevin asked with amusement as that was more or less what his specialty amounted to considering he could just reverse engineer whatever his original power built to fix the flaws.

“Not a chance,” Vista replied with amusement.

Victoria laughed. “I don’t blame you.”

Taylor grinned as she attached the finished pouches to the belt then handed it to Vista. “That should help.”

“Thanks,” Vista replied excitedly as she put the belt on.

“On that note, let’s go kill some fire rats while,” Taylor jumped slightly as her phone rang in her pocket, “Vista works on her ranged weapon skill,” she finished explaining her idea as she pulled her phone out and looked at the caller ID. She hit the talk button. “Hey Manager.”

“Manager?” Danny asked with amusement.

“We just finished equipping Vista with some actual armor, what’s up?”

“Ah. I’m just about done with work and was thinking about swinging by the pizza place, how many pizzas do I need to grab?” Danny asked.

“At least seven or eight decent sized pizzas, we have The Amy to feed.” Taylor smiled at Amy, letting her know that she was joking.

Amy stuck her tongue out at Taylor.

“Feeding The Amy is important,” Victoria agreed as she pulled her phone out and started writing a text to her mother, letting her know that she didn’t have to worry about feeding her and Amy.

“How many extra people did you recruit?” Danny asked in a whisper.

“Several,” Taylor said, hoping that her father wouldn’t ask for an exact number as she didn’t want Vista telling the PRT about the Undersiders at least until they fixed Rachel’s issues.

“Okay, we can stick the leftovers in the fridge.”

“Assuming there are any,” Taylor agreed.

“Is there anything else I should know?” Danny asked warily.

“Nothing pressing, I’ll tell you when you get here.” Taylor didn’t want to get into everything in front of Vista until she knew she could trust her.

“That doesn’t fill me with confidence,” Danny muttered as he ended the call.

Taylor stuck her phone back in her pocket. “Okay, let’s go blast some fire rats while we’re waiting for the pizza.”

“Is there anything special that you want me to do when we’re fighting the rats?” Vista asked wanting to prove that she could be helpful.

“Can you keep them from getting to us?” Gothic asked.

Vista grinned. “I should be able to twist space and keep them guessing, assuming our powers don’t have weird interactions.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

“Speaking of plans, I should probably let Clockblocker know that I’ll be taking my dinner break.”

“Sounds good,” Taylor replied as she headed for the portal.

0o0o0

Armsmaster twitched as one of the speakers let out a mildly annoying beep followed by two more annoying beeps. He pulled his attention away from the simulation he was running on the darts he was planning on using against Lung and stepped over to the computer that was keeping track of the extra security for the Wards until he finished ironing out the bugs and handed the system to the PRT. “Possible stranger effect,” he muttered to himself as he brought up the error message. “Actual weight doesn’t match previously recorded weight for subject Vista.”

He reached up to dismiss the error as yet another calibration issue with the new system that one of the techs should be monitoring then noticed that her weight was off by nearly fifteen pounds which was rather significant considering the person in the elevator was only few pounds above what Vista would weigh if she wasn’t wearing her armor and the video was showing her in her armor. He pulled up the thermal scans in the elevator then pulled up the recording of the thermal cameras from earlier.

He had the computer run the comparison and frowned when the computer reported that they were within an acceptable margin of error. He tapped a button to activate the console in the Wards area. “We have a possible Stranger situation with Vista.”

“What’s going on?” Dennis asked warily, hoping she hadn’t gotten attacked on the way back from Neverland’s base.

“The pressure sensors in the elevator flagged a problem. Pull up the elevator camera and tell me what you see.”

Dennis pulled up the elevator camera on the monitor and looked at Vista, he was a bit disappointed that she wasn’t wearing her new armor, but he couldn’t really blame her as a decent number of the PRT employees weren’t cleared for her identity and were more than a little twitchy at the best of times. “Vista with her hoverboard, why?”

“She’s obviously in her armor but the sensors show that she’s fifteen pounds lighter than she was when she left.”

“Huh, cool. I guess that means Neverland was able to improve her armor.”

“What?” Armsmaster asked in surprise.

“Director Piggot gave her permission to swing by Neverland’s base and open a dialog if she got a chance. She sent a message indicating that she was taking her dinner break with them then another text an hour later that said she was on her way back with new armor.”

“And you didn't think to mention this?” Armsmaster asked.

Dennis rolled his eyes. “I wasn’t going to bother you until we had something to test.”

“Reasonable. Miss Militia should be in the PRT coordinating with the Director, keep Vista there until Miss Militia has a chance to talk to her.” Armsmaster pushed the button to end the ‘call then pulled his cell phone out and selected Miss Militia’s number.

“Right, sure,” Dennis muttered as he watched Vista leave the elevator on the monitor.

“What was that about?” Chris asked as he walked over.

“One of the sensors Armsmaster installed in the elevator noticed that Vista’s suit is lighter than it should be. I’m supposed to keep her here until Miss Militia gets here.”

“Best of luck with that,” Chris muttered as the alert that indicated that someone was at the door sounded.

Dennis put his mask on. “Yeah, I’m just going to tell her that Armsmaster is being paranoid and needs her to stick around until Miss Militia can talk to her.”

“Which would ruin the element of surprise,” Chris pointed out.

“I remember the week that Shadow Stalker kept running into things, I’m not pissing off Vista if I can help it.” He smiled as Vista walked into the lounge. “Hey.”

“Why are you wearing your masks?” Vista asked warily as she glanced back and forth between the guys.

“One of Armsmaster’s creepy sensors noticed that your armor was a lot lighter than it should be.”

“So, Master Stranger protocols?” Vista asked as she took her helmet off.

Dennis shrugged. “I explained that you were running a sanctioned mission for the Director. He told me to keep you here until Miss Militia gets here.”

“Best of luck with that Dennis,“ Vista replied with amusement as she walked over to the couch to wait for Miss Militia.

“Considering Gothic is running around, do you blame us for being careful?” Chris asked as he pulled his visor off.

“Not particularly,” Vista replied as she deactivated her ring, revealing her new armor. “What do you think?”

“Holy shit,” Chris exclaimed as he stared at Vista’s green leather catsuit and ninja mask. “Some type of tinkertech cloak?”

Vista smirked. “It basically makes anything I’m wearing look like my old armor which should keep the PR department from freaking about my new armor.”

“That’s probably a good thing,” Dennis muttered, knowing the Youth Guard would freak about her running around in what amounted to a leather catsuit. “Will it stop bullets?”

“Neverland said I should avoid getting hit with a sniper rifle unless I want a bruise but other than that, yeah. It’s also good protection against fire and electricity.”

“And they just gave you a suit?” Chris asked, a touch jealous.

“Yep, they’re awesome,” Vista said smugly thinking about her adventure fighting giant fire breathing rats.

“Where do I sign up?” Dennis asked, only half joking.

Vista pulled one of Neverland’s cards out of her expanded belt pouch and handed it to Dennis. “Here.”

“How much?” Chris asked.

“No idea, mine was free,” Vista replied as the door open and Miss Militia walked in without any warning. “Miss Militia.”

Miss Militia relaxed slightly as she scanned the room and realized that everyone was far too relaxed to be in the middle of a Master/Stranger situation even if Vista’s new armor was quite different. She glanced back at Dennis. “Armsmaster is overreacting again, isn’t he?”

Dennis shrugged. “Not really, one of his sensors tossed up an alert because of Vista’s new armor and he wanted to double check things. I’d be more concerned if he blew it off.”

“What can you tell me about your new armor?” Miss Militia asked as she looked at Vista.

Vista said, “It’s decently bullet, fire and lightning resistant, and moves like a dream.”

“What is it made out of?” Miss Militia asked, never having seen anything quite like it other than on Neverland’s team.

Vista glanced down at her arms. “If I had to guess, synthetic tinkertech leather.”

Chris winced. “The PR department is going to go ballistic.”

“Did she happen to give you extra material to test?” Miss Militia asked hoping that she had something they could test to destruction to satisfy the Youth Guard. If the material was even half as good as the stuff Neverland’s team used for their armor, she’d tell the PR department to fuck off if they complained.

Vista reached into her belt pouch and pulled out a second set of lightning leather leggings and an armored scarf that Neverland had dyed to look like Miss Militia’s American flag themed scarf then handed them to Miss Militia. “The scarf is a gift and decently armored but you can test the leggings to destruction.”

Miss Militia rubbed the ‘fabric’ between her fingers as she examined the scarf, curious how it would stand up to her current tinkertech scarf. “In that case, we should probably test the leggings before we talk to the PR department.”

Vista used her ring to switch back to her old look. “I wasn’t planning on telling them.”

Miss Militia blinked then studied Vista’s armor. “How are you doing that?”

“Neverland wanted to make sure I didn’t have to worry about the PR department, considering they’ve turned me down every time I asked about getting better armor.”

“That should help, we’re still going to have to test the material.” Miss Militia was hoping they could get enough for the rest of the wards.

Vista nodded. “I’m looking forward to seeing how bullet resistant it is.”

“Were you able to find out anything about the abilities of the other capes on Neverland’s team?” Miss Militia asked hoping Vista had learned something.

“Nothing substantial,” Vista replied, mentally going over the list of things she could tell them without pissing everyone off. “Wizard is a Tinker, no clue on his specialty other than I have a feeling it’s fairly broad. Sir Victory might also be a Tinker as he implied that he helped create a spherical drone. They also have a female brute going by the name of Titan.”

“How powerful of a brute do you have to be before you’re allowed to call yourself Titan without it being pretentious?” Dennis asked warily.

“At least 6 or 7,” Miss Militia replied absently as she compared the new information to what she knew about Neverland’s team.“

“Can I see the cloaking device?” Chris asked hopefully.

Vista shook her head. “It wouldn’t help, it’s a lot like my hoverboard.”

Miss Militia said, “Start from the top. What happened when you showed up at their base?”

Vista launched into her completely true and heavily edited version of events, mostly that she’d shown up at Neverland’s base, been invited inside to chat and got offered better armor because her armor was of questionable value then had pizza while discussing what the team was willing to share about their abilities, which was deliberately vague. 

She could have made some guesses or mentioned that they had some friends showing up tomorrow, but she didn’t see the point in alienating Neverland by mentioning things Neverland had asked her to keep quiet about. 

She knew she’d get in trouble if it came out that she’d found something out about Neverland’s powers but she’d technically been on break when she found out the most interesting stuff and keeping her happy would likely get the rest of the Wards outfitted in really nice armor and she was willing to do quite a lot more than anyone suspected to improve the chances of keeping her team alive and unharmed in Brockton Bay.

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