2

Chapter 2: Drop 1-2

Beta'd by becauzitswrong.

"Damn you Sophia!" - Speech

'Why Emma?' - Thought

Drop 1.2

+++Taylor+++

When I woke up the next morning and went about my normal routine, I had come to several conclusions about my powers. Firstly, they were both limited and versatile. Limited in that I could only work with what I had around me, versatile in that I could likely do quite a bit with it.

I could control water, as in lift it and manipulate it, but I couldn't draw it out of the air. That sucked, but it wasn't an insurmountable obstacle.

Secondly, I needed to practice using them. There was only one area that had enough water to possibly be of use and be free from prying eyes… the Boat Graveyard.

Thirdly, water was not everywhere. I would have to find a way to carry it around with me…not with water pistols however, as they were too limited in their volume. Maybe a bottle or two of water in my civilian identity, but if I ended up making a costume, I'd need something a bit more involved with higher capacity.

My mind screeched to a halt in the middle of brushing my teeth as it focused on the problem and I suddenly had a blueprint in my mind of…something. Exactly what, I didn't know, but it was something to do with my problem.

This… was this Tinkertech? Was I a Tinker as well as a Blaster?

Shaking my head, I forced myself to continue, shoving the blueprint to the back of my mind for the moment. I could concentrate on that later.

"So what's on the schedule for today?" Dad asked as he tucked into his cold breakfast of Wheaties and milk.

"I'm thinking about taking up jogging. I mean, I'd probably end up walking more than running at first, but eventually, I want to be able to, well... err... run," I offered as I took a bite of my own Captain Crunch. Dad didn't need to know the deeper reasons behind why I was doing this. In that that same vein, I continued, "I need to get my body back up to normal and… I dunno, maybe I'll enjoy it."

″Your mom hated exercise," Dad reminisced. "She still did it, though, when she ran with Lustrum back in the day."

The knowledge that my Mom had hung around a supervillain when she had been in college was weird. I could kinda see why she did it, but I was also glad that she had gotten out before Lustrum's followers had turned violent.

"What about you?" I asked. "Anything interesting happening today?"

"Unfortunately, no," Dad said with a sigh, his expression pensive. "Just more boring paperwork."

I made Dad a bagged lunch of bologna and cheese with a banana, and sent him off with a smile before going for a jog. I didn't get too far before I had to take a rest, my lungs heaving and sweat streaming down my face, but I was hopeful that it would get easier once I started to do it every day.

When I got back home, I took a shower, then rested for a while. When my legs started feeling less like jelly and more like legs, I started with my experiments again. I started off with the viscosity experiment again, but this time tried to make it as thick and sticky as I could get it. The end result was that it was like putting my hand into liquid cement. This would be useful against regular gang bangers and thugs, but probably not against someone like Glory Girl, who was a Brute with strength far above a human's.

Curious, I tried to do the reverse to some oil, lowering the viscosity as far as it would go. Much to my surprise, it worked. Then I realized that I had only really affected the oil a small amount, thinning it so it ran down a piece of paper just a little faster than the original sample. My knowledge of machinery was too limited to know if just a small change in viscosity would be enough to actually affect its operation. Maybe so. On the other hand, it might just make the thing work better. I'd have to figure out a way to test it at a later date.

I also considered just who this would be useful against and one name immediately came to mind. Squealer, a member of the Merchants. She was a Tinker who specialized in building vehicles, seeming to always be in the news with yet another mechanical monstrosity accredited to her name. If I could get one of her trucks to break down, that would be something. Although with my luck, it would probably have some crazy Tinker power supply and not even use a real engine. Still, I considered what I'd learned to be useful.

I was a strong Hydrokinetic, with weak control over other liquids. Useful.

The next thing I tried was Water Purification. That is the ability to remove impurities within water. Not useful in combat, it would still be good to see if I had that kind of fine control. I filled a basin with water, then took it into the garage and added some dirt, grass, and other stuff I had gathered in the yard. In hindsight, I hoped I hadn't inadvertently added dog poop or something, as I was going to taste the result to see if it was drinkable.

I reached out and held my hand above the disgusting mess, concentrating on the idea of pulling just the water up and out of the basin. The water rippled, swirled and then rose obediently into the air. I steeled myself, then proceeded to the next part.

I directed a streamer of the water to cross in front of me, then leaned forward and took a sip. It was both chillingly cold and perfectly clean. After a moment's reflection, I decided that it was actually a lot cleaner than even the stuff that came out of the tap. I took another slip, deciding then and there to use this ability each and every time I poured myself a glass of water.

Okay, that had worked, but I had to practice getting it under better control so that I could use the same container for both the pure and impure water. Maybe I could pull the pure water upward, while trapping the impurities beneath using a form of the water jelly I'd discovered the day before?

Deciding there was no time like the present to start, I focused exclusively upon this for the next two hours. By the end of that time, I'd figured out a couple of things. I could pull the pure water away from the polluted stuff. I could also separate the two with a barrier of water jelly.

But by far the best thing I'd figured out was that I could keep squeezing the water out of the impure region until it was composed almost solely of impurities. I could then eject it from the pure water by trapping it within water jelly, floating it to wherever I wanted.

My eyes narrowed as I considered the implications. Not only could I now purify water, although the sheer amount remained to be seen, but I could also coat things in water jelly, retaining my ability to move the now much more viscous liquid. This boded well for the likelihood of me being able to use someday fly.

After having lunch and taking a walk around the block, I turn my hand to manipulating water into shapes that I could use to attack and defend with. Choosing the bathroom for its easy clean up potential, I levitated some water out of the bath once it was filled and then shaped it to look like a bird.

At least I tried to change it to look like a bird. The thing ended up looking like the bastard child of Crawler of the Slaughterhouse Nine and one of Nilbog's monstrosities. I tried a couple more times before concluding that I at least needed to have a solid picture in my head of what I wanted it to look like in order to make it look good.

Of course, it might just be that I lacked the artistic ability to shape it into something particularly lifelike. If so, it wouldn't be that big of a deal. There were plenty of simple shapes that would do just as well. After all, even I could shape a cube and hover it so that someone's head was contained within.

I shifted my focus to pulling water over my hand and shaping it into a larger appendage equipped with claws. As this was much easier to visualize than a bird, it worked. I discovered that it mimicked the movement of my actual hand and I could make the claws look razor sharp if I wanted to. Of course, they couldn't actually cut anything as they were just water, but they sure looked cool.

Curiously, I tried to actually harden the water, making the claws as sharp as they looked. Something happened a moment later and I tentatively touched the point of one claw with the index finger of my other hand, promptly cutting myself.

″Substanciakinesis,″ I breathed in awe as I sucked on the blood. I'd managed to accomplish Water Solidification, the ability to turn water from its usual state to any other consistence from jelly-like to as solid as steel. It was also know as Substanciakinesis, something I'd researched at the library. Reaching out, I tried to move the fingers, but they remained utterly unmovable despite my efforts.

After a further bit of experimentation, I found that I could apply it to selective areas of the construct as I wished, giving me a hand tipped with hard-as-steel claws that was almost as dexterous as my own. Hand to hand combat just became a very different proposition than it had been before.

Returning the water to the tub, I tried one more thing. I slipped my socks off and stood in the two inches of water in the bathtub, feeling silly, and tried to see if I gained power from immersing myself. The answer was it didn't work any better than it had when I'd showered that morning, although I didn't know if that was an actual limitation or because of the small amount of water that I had available to work with. Something else to test in the Boat Graveyard, though I'd be leery of the pollution there. Maybe I could purify some water first, then use it.

I went for another walk around the block and made better time than my earlier one. I then started on dinner, making spaghetti carbonara. I had been doing pretty much all of the cooking since mom died, as Dad could barely boil water without burning it. Besides, I liked to cook. I found it relaxing.

Dad looked a lot more cheerful when he came in. He wasted no time in telling me why. "Big win today, Taylor. I managed to get a contract from the city council to refurbish and rebuild an old warehouse. It's been abandoned pretty much since that first ship sank. But it gets better."

Grinning, I took the bait. "Yeah? How's that?"

"If everything works according to the council's plan, they'll turn around and sell it to once we've fixed it up. Which could mean even more jobs for the Union. And the city slowly gets cleaned up as well."

Stunned, I barely managed to say, "Dad, that's fantastic. I'm so proud of you."

We shared as smile as we sat at the kitchen table.

"I've been out to take a look at the site and boy, is there a tone of junk inside," he chuckled before tucking in to his meal.

"What kind of stuff?" I asked, not really that interested as my mind tried to work out all of the complications his news had brought.

"Oh, you know… a roomful of crates full of finished goods, a bunch of old power tools, and a whole lot of rust," he replied. "Some of the stuff there is still in pretty good condition. I might be able to buy some of the tools from the city for my guys. The Union can always use some cheap spares. We can't really afford new stuff, as you well know."

Apparently, the warehouse was near the edge of the Boat Graveyard, nominally the territory of the ABB, but Lung pretty much ignored that area because of there not being anything of real value left in the boats or warehouses.

"I'm surprised that the gangs haven't picked it over," I commented.

Dad's face momentarily soured at the thought of the gangs. "The rooms which the abandoned crates and power tools were in was almost airtight," he explained, "The crates contain mostly computer parts; motherboards, chips, and fans. That kind of thing. The rooms were concealed near the rear of the warehouse thanks to a cape fight between Oni Lee and Skidmark a few years ago that caved part of the roof in. No one knew any of this was there."

"Cool," I said nonchalantly. Inside, however, my thoughts were racing. This could be what I was looking for. "When does the job start? Will you need a bigger lunch than usual that day because you'll be working late?"

"Thanks to the infernal nuisance that is bureaucracy, the work won't start until next month," Dad said, a sour expression on his face. "Still, I will be needing lunch and dinner that first day. I'll be supervising on site, just to make sure nothing goes awry. Thanks for offering, kiddo."

"No problem," I replied, feeling slightly guilty from my ulterior motives. Still, I did want Dad to eat well that day. If I had more than one reason for asking, well, that was just good sense. So we justify our actions to ourselves.

I had most of a month to get in, grab some tools and set up a workshop for myself. I should feel bad about taking stuff that I hadn't paid for, but officially, abandoned stuff in the Docks area belonged to whoever found it first. Thus it was ruled by the court several years ago, when the legal morass of exactly who owned what dragged on interminably after the sinking of that first ship had created the Boat Graveyard. Too many people had just walked away from their property, while the banks that had tried to foreclose found that there was less than zero value to the property involved as possession of it required the payment of substantial amounts of back taxes. Finally, all parties involved had just stepped aside, leaving the area in a state of limbo.

Dad, being someone who lived by the rules, was far too honest to follow the accepted practice, so he would likely do as he said and hand the stuff over to the city. I made a note to contact Kurt and get him to try and talk my Dad out of it. The Dockworker's Union needed the money too badly to be so generous. Even working for someone else, they were entitled to the items as legitimate salvage. Getting up to clear table, my thoughts were already turning toward what I would say to him.

Later that night, I wracked my memory of the times I had trawled PHO and made a tentative profile of the more villainous capes within Brockton Bay. I'd flesh it out more later, but wanted to get a feel of who I might have to deal with in the near future.

First, there was Lung, the leader of the ABB, sometimes referred to as the Dragon of Kyushu. He possessed Pyrokinesis, a strong regeneration factor, and the ability to become bigger and stronger the longer the fight went on. He'd fought entire teams of Parahumans in the past and beaten them all. He was probably best known for battling Leviathan one-on-one when the Endbringer had attacked Kyushu, eventually driving him off. Of course, that was only after the island itself was already lost, making it a Pyrrhic victory at best.

His lieutenant, Oni Lee, was pretty much a nut job. He was a teleporter who left clones of himself behind each time he teleported that lasted several seconds. It made him particularly fond of suicide attacks using grenades and other explosives.

On the flip side of the coin was Kaiser, the leader of Empire 88, our local white supremacist gang, who could summon basic metal objects from any flat surface. He was fond of using his power to impale his foes with summoned metal blades of varying length. Not someone to fight one-one-one.

One of his enforcers, Hookwolf, was a Changer/Brute who could transform himself into a mass of hooks, blades and the like, even assuming various different forms, though his favourite was quadrupedal and resembled a wolf, earning him his name.

Next to come to mind was Skidmark, the leader of the Merchants, who could create force fields that could draw things through itself or repel things away from it. Some people on PHO even speculated that he could even layer his ability, creating stronger fields with repetitive use.

Another of the Merchant's capes was Mush, who was a Shifter. He could gather a mass of debris to himself and form a larger body around his actual body, making him the heavy hitter of the villainous gang of druggies.

The last member of the Merchants was Squealer, the Tinker whose vehicles I'd wondered if I could affect.

There were a large number of villainous capes in Brockton Bay other than just them. Empire 88 boasted the biggest membership, their numbers alone matching the local Protectorate and Wards teams together. Besides Kaiser and Hookwolf, there were Fenja, Menja, Cricket, Stormtiger, Krieg, and Rune, to name just a few.

Besides the larger gangs, there were smaller ones, as well as over a dozen independents and duos. One villainous gang that had been making waves recently was the Undersiders.

The gang's membership consisted of Grue, Bitch, Regent and Tattletale, all of them capes. Information on them and their powers was sketchy at best. Grue could supposedly generate a cloud of darkness. Bitch was a Master who could grow dogs to monstrous sizes and was rumoured to be able to control them with her mind. She was also one of those capes without a secret identity. Her name was Rachel Lindt, or Hellhound as she was known as to the politically correct PRT, and she was wanted for murder according to PHO.

The other two were completely unknown, other than Tattletale being tentatively designated as a Thinker for some reason, probably because she'd never exhibited any overt power.

I had to make plans on how to deal with them, just in case I ever ran into any of them while out. With my desire to become a hero, it felt inevitable that we would someday cross paths.

+++Waterworks+++

The next couple of days followed the same routine. Make breakfast, watch Dad head off to work, experiment with my powers, jog... okay walk, more experimenting with my powers, walk again, and then spend quality family time with Dad.

However, today I had decided to ask Dad to drop me off at the library again, so I could do a bit more research on water-based powers. He demurred, wanting me to stay put until he could take me after work, but I convinced him it was alright and the walk home after would be good for my recovery. It wasn't exactly a lie, and I hoped to be done with my cane soon.

I quickly checked the site I had gone to before, but there wasn't any new information except a subject called Water Walking, which I had missed before, and a link to Cryokinesis, something I already knew I couldn't do. Sure, my experiments had shown me that I could alter the temperature of the water, making it freezing cold or boiling hot, but I couldn't actually change its state, neither freezing the damn stuff nor turning it into steam or mist.

Water Walking, or Hydro-Locomotion, was interesting though. I guessed that I could use Viscokinesis or Substanciakinesis to accomplish something similar, but it would take a lot of training to be able to do it without consciously thinking about it.

I was completely fine with that.

After checking everything on the site, I logged off and scoured the books for anything else to do with water. I decided on a book about water purification, so I could see what, if anything, I was doing wrong. I also checked out a couple of books of comics from Earth Aleph that starred two different heroes in them. One was called 'Aquaman' and the other 'Namor: The Sub-Mariner.'

Both heroes described within seemed to employ water-based powers of some kind, so they would make good research material. Seriously.

The last book I chose was about parkour, which would definitely be useful getting about town, although at first glance it seemed like it might take several months to get good enough to use it effectively. Ah, well, at least it would probably help with my physical therapy.

I did some window shopping on the way back for a temporary costume so I could do further testing of my powers in more realistic surroundings. The total for everything I wanted was $150, if I ignored a Kevlar vest, which more than quadrupled the total.

Dad had been making noises about getting me a can of pepper spray or Mace for self-defence anyway, which would be nice to have as a backup.

A balaclava, polarized goggles, dark pants, gloves, boots and a urban-camo jacket were not exactly cheap, especially when I also wanted a baton for close combat just in case.

Currently, I was simply too poor and not physically fit enough to do anything about it, so I restrained myself to buying just the balaclava and gloves. I would secret them in a box at the bottom of my closet, where Dad would never look for them. He had learned not to mess with my stuff after I started entering puberty, memories of his face the time he'd pulled a box of tampons out of one of my dresser drawers making me smile.

When I got home, I had lunch after putting away my new gear, then jogged... okay, walked around the block. I cursed that decision when I practically crawled into the house afterwards, but I knew it would eventually be worth it. Even if I could get about with my water, I would still need to beat feet the majority of the time in order to keep a low profile.

Once my legs stopped burning, I searched the house for tools, ending up with only a couple of screwdrivers, a hammer, a chisel and a really old electric drill that looked as if it would shock me if I tried to use it if it.

Oh well. No luck there.

I spent the next couple of hours trying and failing to stand on water before getting dinner ready, a hearty stew, although more potatoes than beef. I decided that I'd need to go grocery shopping soon as we were low on a lot of different things.

+++Waterworks+++

The next day was fairly boring, except I finally figured out how to walk on water. In the end, it wasn't as hard as I'd tried to make it. I just had to use something similar to Substanciakinesis to create a surface I could stand upon, then force it to stay in place using my water control.

I did have to really concentrate in order to stand still, but walking was actually a whole lot easier. Running wasn't something I could test in my bath, so that was moved to the growing list of things I had to try out at the Graveyard.

"OK, let's try this," I muttered as I set about attempting to use Hydrokinetic Flight…or, in this instance, Hydrokinetic Levitation. I had read some of the Aquaman and Namor comics last night before going to bed and they could use it by coating their bodies in water and lifting themselves with Hydrokinesis. Sadly, they were irritatingly vague when it came to how much water to use, so I'd have to experiment.

A thin coating almost worked, but only to lift me a millimetre or so. I ended up needing to place about half an inch over my torso, abdomen and legs in order to levitate, which meant my costume would have to either be waterproof or… I briefly wondered if I could just store the water beneath a layer of armour. Maybe it could even act as an additional layer of armour, allowing me to harden it at times using Substanciakinesis, then allow it to return back to its liquid state after.

Hmm… that last one had potential.

Resolving to buy a sketchpad so I could work out the details of my costume, I pulled all the excess liquid off my skin and out from my clothes, a useful fringe benefit of my powers, and went downstairs to make dinner.

Two hours later, I was involved in yet another serious discussion with my dad, the remains of the stir fry I'd made for dinner scattered around us.

"Taylor, you have to return to school in just two days." Dad said with a frown, "I am really not comfortable with the idea of you going back there. Will you please reconsider being home schooled?"

I hesitated for a moment. A tossup between enduring the Bitch Trio, Greg Veder, my wannabe stalker, and the collective apathy of the teachers and student body, versus being able to learn at my own pace and having a lot more time to research my powers and build my suit. Ordinarily, this would be a no-brainer, but…

"I don't want to let Emma and the other two win." I hated the whine in my voice as I confided in my dad.

"Kiddo, you can only fight these kind of odds for so long," Dad told me firmly. "The fact you recovered so quickly from the psychotic break after the locker incident is a testament to your willpower, even after a year and a half of bullying. Horrific bullying that never would have happened if the staff were actually doing their jobs properly. With the teachers and the students against you, you're up against almost insurmountable odds. There's no shame in withdrawing in the face of that."

Looking at it that way, I could see his point. I was still reluctant to do it, but I could finally understand that I was wrong to be so stubborn under the circumstances. At some point, stubbornness became stupidity, and I was pretty sure I was at or near that point.

I rubbed the back of my neck, trying to relieve the tension there. Finally, with a sigh of relief, I admitted defeat. "Okay, Dad, you win. Pull me out of that hellhole."

Inside, twin knots of tension and worry that I had been ignoring for a long time, eased and disappeared. Even my neck felt better. I really didn't have to go back to that place. I would no longer have to endure the taunts, the sneers, the constant knowledge that I was all alone against the entire school… none of it. I felt better than I had since long before the locker.

I felt like I was finally free.