Mist of Shadows
patreon
Taylor and Marvel Madness Part 9
🕑 Added 2023-08-15 02:19:27 +0000 UTC'Shit!' Taylor cursed in her head as she tossed herself sideways so she'd avoid clipping the edge of the skyscraper as she chased the other duplicate, going fast enough to make race car drivers twitch. 'You're insane!' she complained via telepathy.
'Blame Taylor,' Taylor replied via Telepathy as she used her Flight power to swing around a building and rocket towards the next building on her way towards the area she could feel Victor and Othala thanks to her Power Detection ability.
'We're both Taylor,' she replied as she followed the other duplicate, nearly slamming into the building when she had to twist at the last second to dodge a flying rat that came out of nowhere. 'You're doing this intentionally,' she complained.
'It's good practice,' Taylor replied as she slowed down once she reached the block where her target lived. 'Do you want to sneak in through a window like a ninja or do you want me to teleport you?'
"Give me a second," Taylor replied as she came to a stop next to the other Taylor. She used her Clairvoyance to check the various second story windows on the house they were hovering above. "All of the windows are wired to an alarm system, give me a second to check their bedroom and make sure they don't have a tinkertech security system."
"Last I checked the Empire doesn't have a tinker," Taylor argued.
"Pretty sure they have the connections and money to buy tinkertech," she replied as she used her Clairvoyance to check on the capes she could feel. "It looks like they're asleep." She twisted the 'camera' angle so that she could check the room for cameras or some type of security system that would detect her teleporting someone into the room. "I'm not seeing any sign of a security system."
"That's why we have mind probes," Taylor replied as she used her Telepathy and a mind probe to look through Victor's mind, looking for information on his security system. "It's fine, they just have a basic security system that includes the windows."
Taylor used her Power Detection to target the invisible duplicate and teleported her into the couple's bedroom. 'Let me know when you need a lift.'
'That's the plan,' Taylor replied via telepathy as she glanced at the pair of teenagers sprawled on the bed, fairly sure they were only a couple of years older than she was. She focused on Victor and used her Residual Absorption, absorbing the 'residue' left over from the various times that he used his power and picking up a temporary copy of his ability. She used her Power Detection ability to check her new power, wanting to make sure the copy was good before she dropped Victor somewhere problematic.
'So much for modifying the power to just copy skills,' she mused, annoyed that the power was almost as dangerous to the user as the target. 'We have regeneration and a perfect health ring, using it once on a duplicate should be fine.'
Taylor reached out and started scanning through Victor and Othala's memories, trying to figure out if they had any redeeming qualities and where they kept their loot.
She wasn't particularly surprised to learn that Victor was a borderline sociopath considering what the forums said about him and his tendency to run around stealing people's skills, though it was possible that the damage his power did to him had something to do with it. 'I'd let you kill the ABB if I thought you could tell the difference between random Asian shopkeepers and members of the gang but you're a skill thief and magic might count as a skill.'
Taylor spent a minute weighing the benefits of dropping Victor in a New York holding cell versus the benefits of dropping him in another dimension where she'd never have to deal with him again. 'Screw it, dropping him on an island is cheaper and safer.'
'What's the holdup?' the other Taylor asked via telepathy.
'I was trying to figure out what to do with Victor,' she replied telepathically. 'If I give him to the PRT, there's a decent chance that he'll be back on the streets in a couple of months, either because someone breaks him out or because the DA can't find enough evidence. On the other hand, kidnapping people and dropping them on deserted islands is illegal.'
'Only if you get caught,' Taylor replied as she flew down so that she could look through the bedroom window and give the other duplicate a copy of the Gateway power.
'Pretty sure it doesn't work that way,' she argued.
'If the justice system actually worked, we wouldn't have a bunch of gangs running around,' Taylor pointed out as she gave the other Taylor a copy of the Gateway ability, using her Power Detection ability to target her since she was still invisible. 'That should give you the ability to drop Victor somewhere interesting.'
Taylor used her Power Detection ability to try to figure out how her new ability worked. 'Interesting, I can sort of feel where the portals go if I'm focusing on the power.'
'Nice. What did you get?' Taylor asked.
Taylor quickly counted the number of locations she could open a portal to. 'Thirty different points in time, space, or dimensions.'
'Time? Can we save Mom?!' she asked without hesitation.
'Not unless we want to spend a couple of hundred years chilling around without stepping on butterflies,' Taylor replied, a touch annoyed that her last location in the past was the Wild West.
'Even if we could survive that long, I doubt we could avoid changing something important,' she admitted, thinking about one of the Earth Aleph movies about time travel where Marty had almost erased himself from existence because of butterflies.
Taylor pulled her attention back to the capes sleeping peacefully on the bed. 'If I give you the ability, can you work on making a portal to somewhere you don't mind dropping Victor? I don't want to wake them up before they're somewhere else.'
'Sure,' she replied, curious if she'd end up with different locations.
Taylor looked out of the window, focused on the feeling of her duplicate she got from her detection ability and gave her the Gateway ability. 'See if you can make a portal.'
'Might as well,' Taylor replied as she mentally reviewed the places she could reach with her new power. 'A couple of deserted islands that look like interesting vacation spots, a couple versions of Disneyland in different dimensions, a water park in Florida, a deserted campground that gives me the creeps, a weird castle in an alternate version of Scotland, a version of Salem in 1692, ancient Rome on another world, an amusement park in a weird city that seems to move, a saloon in the Wild West, a spaceport with aliens or monster capes, a monster filled world with a broken moon and a saloon in an alien Wild West like world.'
'Do you have an alternate version of the Statue of Liberty that is mostly covered by sand?' the other Taylor asked, curious if their lists were the same.
'I also have a couple of abandoned hotels in various worlds, airports in various dimensions and a weird metal room with incense and silk,' Taylor replied as she tried and failed to open a portal to the alternate world's Wild West a couple of times. 'Yeah, reaching alternate worlds is annoyingly hard, we might need more power.'
'Can't hurt,' Taylor replied as she dug through Victor's mind, looking for the security code for the alarm system and trying not to think about what would happen if they ripped open a permanent portal to another world or accidentally unleashed a plague.
Taylor opened a portal to one of the deserted islands in the Caribbean then closed it and used her Residual Absorption power on the 'residue', picking up a copy of the power at the level of her absorption power and giving her access to hundreds more worlds and dimensions. 'Give me a minute and I'll see what I can do.' She focused on her list of alternate worlds and opened a portal to a deserted amusement park on an island, finding it a lot easier to reach other dimensions now that her Gateway ability was more powerful. 'Okay, I've got a portal open.'
Taylor looked out the window at the doorway to a brightly lit tropical island. 'Give me a second to heal Othala, it might help with her mental trauma,' she said as she used her Biokinesis Regeneration to heal Othala's various injuries.
'Might help,' Taylor replied as she watched the portal, wanting to make sure nothing dangerous came through. 'You might want to give him a gun.'
Taylor finished healing Othala then teleported their bed with them on it through the gateway, adding their dresser and shoes a moment later. She used her Clairvoyance to check on Victor's weapon rack and teleported everything through the gate along with the boxes of ammo, not seeing a reason to leave it for the Kaiser when he sent someone to check on them. 'Wake them up and close it.'
Taylor slapped Victor and Othala with telekinesis then closed the gateway when they started to wake up. 'Now what?'
'Now we loot the safe, turn the alarm off and head back to base and give Taylor a modified copy of Victor's power, she should be able to use it once or twice without melting her brain or losing random skills,' Taylor replied as she headed for the living room to turn off the alarm system so people would think they simply left.
'Works for me,' Taylor agreed then dismissed herself to give Taylor the information.
0o0o0
Vicky paused as she walked back into the conference room after grabbing a couple of hours of sleep and she saw half a dozen duplicates of her sister in various outfits, most of which surprised her as they were more adult themed than she would have expected her to wear. "What's with the outfits?"
Amy glanced up from the notes she was writing down about her version of the armor spell and looked at her sister. "Our resident magic user was testing things with the enhancement spell and we ended up with six different versions of the armor spell."
"Seven," Vicky's duplicate pointed out cheerfully.
Amy turned and glared at Vicky's duplicate. "That abomination doesn't count."
Vicky glanced at her duplicate that was wearing a toga that didn't cover her left breast and a glowing halo that was floating over her head. "Why not?"
"It basically turned her into a fox girl," Vicky's duplicate replied with a smirk.
"What's wrong with that?" Vicky asked her sister.
"Lots of leg hair and the tail was a butplug," Amy complained.
Vicky's duplicate laughed. "Don't worry Taylor got a copy before she dismissed the duplicate."
Taylor pulled her attention away from one of her duplicates that was practicing with a spell that created a crimson mist around her feet and looked at Vicky. "It had the highest armor value. With any luck we can reverse engineer the entire collection and get something we don't mind wearing in public."
"I don't see you showing off your bunny girl armor," Amy argued.
Taylor rolled her eyes then cast the armor spell that she'd copied, causing black mist to swirl around her clothes and change them into a sheer black bunny girl outfit, leaving her mask in place. "The heels suck."
"You can fly, cheat," Vicky suggested as she checked out Taylor's costume, rather amused by the floppy rabbit ears attached to her headband.
"Doesn't really help," Taylor complained as she pulled at the uncomfortable shoes, more than a little annoyed that they wouldn't come off and that they managed to pinch her feet despite her Invulnerability.
Vicky glanced at the version of Amy that was wearing something that looked like a Princess Leia's slave girl outfit if you skipped the metal on her loincloth and went with black silk. "Not bad."
"Could be worse," Amy's duplicate agreed, thinking about the fox girl outfit that the other duplicate had ended up with.
Vicky glanced between the duplicate of Amy that was wearing a shimmering crimson dress that had a devil's tail coming out of the bottom of the dress and two horns coming out of her head and the duplicate that was wearing a black witch's hat and a sheer black minidress. "We should hit a club at some point."
Amy yawned. "Carol would freak."
"Only if she finds out," Vicky replied as she walked. "Did you get any sleep?"
"About thirty minutes when my duplicate was boosting my physical abilities, I'll sleep when I'm done with my notes," Amy promised.
"You have duplicates, use them and get some sleep," Vicky suggested.
"Fine," Amy replied as she created another duplicate that promptly cast her armor spell, creating a fluffy cat outfit.
Vicky turned to look at Taylor. "Have you figured out a name yet?"
Taylor shrugged. "I was thinking of going with Demona or Morgana because of my power, but I don't really want people thinking I'm a villain."
"You could always go with Puck," Vicky suggested.
"I'm trying to avoid connections to the Faerie Queen," Taylor admitted.
"What about Genie?" Amy asked thoughtfully. "You don't have unlimited cosmic power but you're probably the closest we've seen other than Scion and Eidolon and I don't think the name is taken."
Taylor considered the name and her desire to avoid getting stuck in a gilded cage, something that was becoming less likely the more powers she picked up. "Huh, that sort of works as a theme if I use the slave girl outfit and the enhancing mist spell, especially if I enchant a pair of bracers to change my appearance."
"Enhancing mist?" Vicky asked as another version of Taylor appeared in the room.
Taylor glanced at her duplicate that had a cloud of purple mist surrounding her feet. "The spell creates a mist that enhances the caster's willpower and mental defenses which should help with using magic."
"How many spells did you figure out while I was sleeping?" Vicky asked.
"A couple…" Taylor trailed off as the other duplicate she'd sent on the mission dispelled herself and she got the memories. "Seven types of mystic armor, two different versions of a spell that breaks materials, the mist spell, a neat spell that protects your senses from things like stink bombs, flash grenades, and sonic booms."
"Can you teach me the spell for protected senses?" Vicky asked hopefully, knowing it would make fighting near her father a lot easier on the team.
"I'll give you a copy of the spell," Taylor replied with a smile, looking forward to seeing if Vicky could learn it from her notes.
"Thanks," Vicky replied, knowing the spell would change New Wave's tactics.
"On that note, I'm crashing," Amy said as she headed for the door to grab some sleep.
"Sleep well," Taylor told her, then focused on Vicky. "I also have a spell that lets the caster transform into living crystal, a spell that creates illusionary duplicates that you can control, a scrying spell, a spell that lets you speed up your metabolism and burn through drugs, Telekinesis, a spell to enhance your ability fight a specific opponent in combat, a spell to shrink things and a spell that lets you turn your nails into claws or give yourself fangs."
Vicky smiled as she thought about the fun she could have moving objects at range. "I'd love the spell for Telekinesis."
"I'll give you a copy when I finish writing it," Taylor replied as she turned to look at her duplicate that had teleported in. 'Can you twist Victor's power so that it only works on the user's duplicates and stick it in a ring? That seems a lot safer than handing out an unrestricted version of his powers.'
'Worth a try,' the duplicate replied as she pulled one of Othala's rings out of her pocket and got to work modifying Victor's ability.
"What can I help with?" Vicky asked.
Taylor handed Vicky a page of notes about the spells she'd picked up. "You can tell me if my descriptions make sense or if I have to try something else."
"Sure," Vicky replied as she started reading Taylor's notes.
0o0o0
"Where are the drugs!" Ralph shouted as he banged on the little shit's door, pissed that his usual supplier was gone.
"Go to hell!" Aisha Laborn shouted as she huddled up against the old dresser she'd pushed in front of the door to make sure the insane lunatic that had broken into the apartment couldn't grab her. 'Answer the fucking phone Brian!' she thought in a panic as she waited for her brother to pick up.
"What's up?" Brian asked after the third ring, wondering why Aisha was calling him at seven in the morning.
"I need help! Some lunatic is trying to break down the door to my room!" Aisha explained, wishing her father hadn't already left for work.
Lisa pulled her phone out and dialed her new boss's number.
"Open the fucking door before I beat you stupid!" Ralph shouted as he banged on the door.
"Shit!" Brian cursed. "I'll be there in five, block the door and use the fire escape if you have to."
"Hurry!" Aisha ordered as she heard the door frame crack as the lunatic hit the door with something solid.
One of Taylor's duplicates answered Taylor's phone, "What's up?"
"Can you find Grue's sister? Some lunatic is trying to attack her," Lisa asked, hoping she could help.
Brian stopped moving towards the door when he processed Lisa's question.
"Give me a second," Taylor replied as she thought about Aisha's picture from Coil's computer and used Clairvoyance to scry on her location. "Found her," she said as the dresser in her vision lurched and the door opened an inch. She teleported Aisha to the conference room where she'd been practicing her martial arts. "I've got her."
Aisha blinked when she went from running towards the window and the fire escape to standing in a room with half a dozen masked girls wearing BDUs. "What the fuck?!"
"What's going on?!" Brian demanded when the call disconnected.
"Hold that thought," Taylor told Aisha as she used Clairvoyance to scry on Brian. "Do you want me to teleport Brian to his sister's room?"
"Yes," Brian said at the same time Lisa said, "No!"
Lisa shook her head. "You don't need people investigating you for murder."
Taylor teleported Lisa and Brian to the conference room, figuring that was the easiest way to calm everyone down. She tossed one of the other duplicates a mental message explaining the situation then teleported her to Aisha's room to deal with the idiot.
Brian glanced around the room then focused on his sister. "What happened?"
Aisha pulled her attention off the various capes and focused on her brother. "Some lunatic showed up twitching and wanting a fix then started screaming about me stealing his drugs when I told him he had the wrong apartment. I slammed the door in his face when he broke the chain and tried to barge in. Then I ran to my room, pushed the dresser in front of it and called you."
Lisa pulled her attention off the duplicates and focused on the girl she'd been talking to. "Thanks for the assist."
"Shit, he's going to steal our stuff," Aisha complained.
Taylor glanced between Aisha and Lisa. "Don't worry about it, I sent someone to make sure he leaves and doesn't come back."
"Thank you," Brian told her, relieved that his sister was safe but wondering how much her help was going to cost.
"What's your cape name?" Aisha asked as she glanced around the room.
"Genie," Taylor replied as she put her cell phone in her pocket.
"Can you grant wishes?" Aisha asked, wondering why she'd picked a magic themed name considering the crap people gave the people that claimed their powers were magic.
Brian sighed. "She's not an actual genie."
Taylor glanced at Grue then focused on Aisha as she used her telepathy to read the girl's thoughts. "Depends on the wish, I'm a trump."
"Can you cure drug addiction?" Aisha asked hopefully, thinking of her mother.
"I can heal the physical damage drugs cause, including cravings but I can't remove a person's psychological issues," Taylor explained.
"Can you fix my head?" Aisha blurted out before her brother could stop her.
"I can try," Taylor offered.
"How much?" Brian asked, trying to avoid getting into a situation where he owed someone a debt he couldn't pay.
"One favor," Taylor replied as she used her Biokinesis Regeneration on Aisha, fairly sure the ability would treat the girl's mental issues as physical damage or a disease and remove them as they didn’t appear to be a genetic issue.
"Done," Lisa cut in before Brian could screw things up. "You should probably fix Alec's head, he'd be less annoying."
"Only sort of, I already did," Taylor admitted as she continued pushing healing energy into Aisha, figuring Brian would be more likely to sign up if Aisha was doing better and figuring it would help with the trauma of getting attacked.
0o0o0
"Where is the bitch?!" Ralph demanded when he managed to shove the door open enough to slip into the room and saw the strange white girl with a mask standing in the middle of the kid's room.
"I don't have any drugs…" Taylor trailed off as the man pulled a gun on her.
"Where is the bitch that tried to break my nose?!" the man demanded as he waved the gun at her.
"I'll give you one chance to put the gun down and turn yourself in," Taylor offered, knowing he wouldn't take it thanks to her Telepathy.
"What part of I have a fucking gun don't you understand bitch? Tell me where the little whore is and I might let you live if you get down on your knees and blow me."
Taylor used her Telekinesis to make sure the trigger on his gun wouldn't go anywhere then she lunged forward and kicked him in the nuts, her unnatural agility and strength making up for her lack of technique and dropping him to the ground with a tortured shriek.
"What part of ‘I'm a cape’ did you miss?" Taylor asked, almost wishing she'd asked before she kicked him in the nuts so that he could give her a coherent response as he wasn’t even able to think of anything but the pain he was in right now. She opened a portal to an old fashioned hotel in another dimension, not sure why she had a weird feeling about the place other than knowing it wouldn't be a place she'd want to stay. She lurched forward and kicked Ralph through the portal when she felt something clawing at her mind then slammed the portal shut as fast as she could.
Taylor took a deep breath and let it out slowly once she was sure nothing was trying to claw its way into her mind. "That world needs a disclaimer or maybe it's just the hotel," she muttered as she used her Molding power to fix the door frame. 'I took care of the idiot and I'm fixing the door that he broke.'
'Thanks,' the other Taylor replied telepathically.
Comments
Mist of Shadows
She basically dropped him into a cursed hotel, so not technically the shining but not remotely a nice place.
Franklin Martinez
Did she just send Ralph to the Overlook Hotel?
