War hammer 5

Taylor braced herself against her bedroom door, feeling nausea creeping up her throat, and for once it wasn't memories of the locker that had triggered it. She staggered to the bathroom, worried that she had caught something, as if being stuffed in a small confined space hadn't been bad enough, she was now feeling sick on the last Friday before she was supposed to return to school! If she didn't make it in on Monday, Emma would only be worse. What would it be this time? She'd heard plenty of rumours already from her former best friend, that she was high on the Merchants' products, that she'd been inducted into the Empire and then been thrown out for being pathetic, and even that the ABB didn't want her for their Whore Houses. Strangely enough, Taylor had noticed that last rumour had made Emma... uncomfortable? Perhaps there was still a shred of decency left in her former friend, enough that the thought of the Asian gang 'playing' with her body didn't bring her any comfort.

Feeling another surge of sickness climbing up her throat, Taylor rushed for the bathroom. She put her head over the toilet and started gagging, even the smell of a clean toilet wasn't exactly pleasant after all.

Then something strange began to happen.

She felt something odd in her throat, a sort of tickling sensation. A... hard lump? She began to choke and retch without breath as she tried to get whatever it was in there out. She smacked herself in the chest with a clenched fist to try and help force it out of her mouth. She was probably blue in the face by this point, and her vision began to swim with tears as her brain began to pound.

A choke and something fell into the toilet bowl with an audible clatter.

It took her several moments to get her breath back, and she was forced to wipe her tears away from her eyes with a sleeve. Looking up again, she froze.

Climbing out of the toilet bowl was some metallic thing. A bug or beetle with a gunmetal grey body. It had three short stubby legs on either side and where she would expect to see a head was a solitary green glowing light. It seemed to be... chirping at her?

What does Taylor do?

[X] Coo over the adorable little robo-bug.

[X] Greet it, maybe it will respond to her words?

Reaching out her hand, Taylor hesitated for a moment. It had been somewhat instinctive, as the little bug bot was… rather cute if she did say so herself. Okay, the ominous green glow and overall look of it was a little creepy, but creepy can be cute, right?

"Um, can you understand me?" She asked, feeling somewhat foolish. Granted, it looked like tinkertech, or at least what she imagined it would look like in her inexpert opinion. Still, while it looked kinda cool, it was a simple shape, so could it really unde-

It chirped at her.

That didn't help much, that could just be a random noise it made.

"C-Can you follow my finger with your eye… optics?" She pointed at the robo-bug before moving her finger up down, left, right, described a square in the air, and then a circle. The green light on the front of the bug followed it obediently.

"Can you nod your head?" She asked, and the thing did exactly that, and a handful of other simple tasks when she asked. It moved where she pointed when asked, knew how to stay, even roll over.

Was this what it was like to have a pet? She'd never had a dog, but she had once wanted on, but her mother had been allergic, and since she'd passed away…

Feeling a little depressed at the memory, she jumped a bit when she felt something against her hand. Looking down she saw the little robot nuzzling against her hand in a way she'd associate with a cat or dog trying to cheer up their owner.

It gripped her arm and climbed up it until it ended up sat on her shoulder, its green 'eye' looking right at her, and Taylor couldn't help but smile a little at it, getting another chirp out of the little bug thing.

Not feeling sick any longer, Taylor glanced into the toilet to see nothing. She flushed it anyway, out of habit if nothing else, and went back to her room. It was only as she sat on her bed that it struck her, this little robot thing had come out of her mouth!

Putting her hand up to her shoulder, she picked it up and sat it on her lap, examining it. The bug was about the size of two of her hands side by side, and just how she hadn't choked on that she didn't know, it had the previously mentioned three stubby legs on each side, and the green optic on the head. Taking a closer look, it resembled a… scarab perhaps? That was the first thing that came to mind when she thought of a large beetle, and it seemed appropriate somehow.

"Are you my power?" Taylor murmured. Did she have powers? She hadn't felt any different, but if vomiting up metal bugs was normal… well, that wasn't normal! She almost tripped over herself getting to the computer in the corner of her room, booting it up immediately.

She waited impatiently as the ancient thing slowly went through the process of turning itself on and loading the operating system. The old thing was only really useful as a word processor that she did homework on, and for checking e-mails. She did have minesweeper and solitaire on there, but that was standard stuff that had been on the computer since it was new.

Nevertheless, it was still connected to the internet, and as soon as it loaded up, she went to a search engine and searched for capes that produced bugs from their bodies. Clicking the first link, the smile that had creeped up on her fell from her face.

Breed, of the Slaughterhouse Nine.

She hadn't heard of him before, but then again it wasn't like History class would focus much on the founding members of the S9. Reading through the rather extensive entry on him, she soon came to the descriptions of how his power had worked.

She almost threw up.

The man apparently had had the ability to spawn small parasites from his 'orifices', that would then use ambush tactics to force themselves inside someone, and then call their friends to eat them, alive or dead didn't matter.

After doing this a few times, they would grow bigger and more developed until they reached their final form. At this point, they could have things like flesh-melting acid spit, barbed spine launchers, serrated claws, poison, and more.

"You don't want to eat people… do you?" She asked her scarab cautiously, feeling relief when it shook its head and chirped at her.

Taylor carefully closed that window and searched for others with powers like hers, but to little avail. It seemed that most capes who could create minions tended towards villainy over heroics. Nilbog, the 'king' of Ellisburg, Valefor of the Fallen, and so many more.

There were heroic capes with master powers, they weren't all villains, but the ones she found had much less terrifying powers. There was one that could animate statues they touched, and another that had complete control of all marine animals, but they were definitely in the minority there.

At least she didn't control people, like Heartbreaker did. Even she knew of him, and he was one of the reasons Masters were so feared. Of course, all parahumans were feared for one reason or another, but a few categories of them were feared more than others. Masters that could control people, strangers that could slip by almost any security, and bio-Tinkers that could mould the flesh of the living however they pleased, those types of powers really set people on edge.

She smiled at her little scarab. Thankfully, all she could do was vomit up this quite little guy, and he was cute. She fussed with him a little and he seemed to enjoy it, but while she was doing so she was giving him a look over.

His body was cold and hard, almost definitely a metal of some type. Aside from when his joints moved, he made no sounds, she couldn't hear an engine of any sort, not even a futuristic humming plasma generator or something. She also couldn't see any sort of orifice on him, no mouth or… back end. No charge port or battery hatch to keep him powered up. He was a completely sealed unit.

Did the little guy need to eat at all? He didn't have any mandibles or other mouth parts as far as she could tell, did he absorb energy like a plant or something? She'd have to experiment, it wouldn't do to have the little guy starve after all.

And what if she vomited up more of the little guys? If she was going to, well, birth them only to have them die on her she would feel terrible. This scarab had come from her own body, and while it wasn't a conventional child, it was still her responsibility!

She glanced at the clock in the corner of her screen and froze for a moment. Her dad should be home soon, and the first thing he would, the same he'd done everyday since she'd gotten out of the hospital, was check on her.

She didn't want her dad to see her scarab, he would probably freak out, and she was barely dealing with things as they were. She needed to know more about her power, much more, before she even thought about telling her dad about it. She needed to be able to tell him just what she could do, what her power could do, simply so he didn't flip his lid.

She hurried out of her room and down the stairs, before pausing at the door to the basement.

No one went in there, not her or her dad. It was where they stored the Christmas decorations, and so much old stuff, but no one had been down there since the Christmas before her mother had died, more than two years now.

"You don't mind the dark, do you?" She asked her scarab, getting a chirp that was just as cheery as all the others she'd gotten from it so far. "Can you stay down here for now? And… if my dad comes in, please don't attack him or anything, stay hidden, okay?"

The scarab dropped from her shoulder to the floor with a clatter, and turned to give her one last look. It nodded at her before scurrying down the steps into the basement, the green glow her only indication of where it was, and that too soon disappeared behind a pile of boxes.

Going to the kitchen, Taylor washed her hands before getting started on supper for her and her father, but her mind wasn't focused on the task, instead she was thinking about her little robo-bug and what she should do with him over the weekend.

Dinner with her dad was the same usual affair. He was so tired when he got home from work that he barely paid any attention to what he was putting into his mouth, and while he did say hello and ask how her day had been, there simply wasn't any energy in it.

She didn't blame him, how could she? She knew that things were bad down at the Docks, especially with that tanker blocking the way into the bay. With that there, only really small boats could actually get in to the docks, and half the berths were blocked by yet more sunken vessels. Moving or even salvaging the wrecks was just too expensive and required too much equipment for the Dock workers to manage by themselves, and a lot of the Bay's money was funnelled into the police and PRT in an attempt to do something about the gang problem the city had.

With little to no sea traffic, the Dock Workers Association turned to the city itself for work, and they did get a fair chunk of it as they did have a number of skilled workers. Carpenters, Electricians, Plumbers, Welders, the DWA had it all. Though there was never enough work for everyone, and her dad really did his best to get as much as he could, the truth was that the city was dying.

The gangs had a stranglehold on the city and they were choking the life out of it, giving nothing back. The Merchants were the premier drug pushers in Brockton Bay, and there wasn't anything other than tinkertech drugs that they didn't have or couldn't acquire for the right price. The ABB were known for their sex trafficking, taking girls of all ages and breaking them into submissive toys. The Empire had powerful out-of-city backers, on top of having a large number of parahumans, and so they always had the best guns in the bay.

Taylor barely noticed herself when her father thanked her for the meal and went upstairs with a folder, probably more stuff for him to look over to try and get work for the Dock workers, he never really stopped.

However, perhaps she could do something herself now. What she'd seen so far might not have been particularly impressive, but if she kept creating scarabs, and she made enough of them, she might be able to bury gangers in little metal bodies and clean up the streets a bit.

First though, see what her little guy (or girl, the robo-bug looked fairly gender neutral) needed to eat, if he indeed ate at all. Stabbing a bit of meat on a fork, she got up from the table and made her way down to the basement.

She was glad to see that there was no greenish glow visible, her little bug really had hidden himself like he'd been told to, and she crept down the stairs quietly. She didn't want her dad hearing her trip and fall and come running, that would be rather embarrassing.

"Bug? Scarab?" Taylor called out quietly. "Are you there?"

A few moments later, a soft scrabbling and the tap of metal on concrete was heard and she turned towards it, smiling at the little guy that was hurrying towards her. She knelt down before him and proffered the meat for him to eat.

"Do you eat meat?" She asked, though she didn't get a response from the metal scarab, who seemed to be investigating the meat carefully. "Do you consume things? Ingest? Feed? Derive energy from?"

At the word energy, the bug perked up and focused on the meat in front of it. A small green beam, like from a penlight, came from its eye and hit the meat. Holding it steady, she saw a greenish glow creep over the entire thing slowly, before without warning, it vanished.

As did about half of the fork.

In her surprise, she dropped what was left of it on the floor, and the scarab eagerly surged forward and repeated the process on the bit of metal. Once done, it looked expectantly at Taylor, who took a few moments to reboot.

"You 'ate' the meat, but you also ate the metal..." She said to herself, before looking around. Spying a glass jar full of buttons, she did the same thing as before, and when she mentioned energy, the bug rapidly 'consumed' the buttons, jar and all.

Energy, that's what set the scarab off. Was that little green beam deconstructing the stuff it was shone on? That made about as much sense as anything else, as picking up the scarab she could tell it hadn't gained any weight.

Trying to find out the limits of what the scarab could eat, she collected little bits and bobs from around the basement. Tinsel, wooden planks, nails, a hammer, it didn't matter what it was, the bug vanished it all.

She even caught a small spider to try and feed her scarab, and that's where she found a limit. Her scarab's green beam, it seemed, couldn't dissolve the spider while it was alive, but as soon as it stepped on it, squashing it, there wasn't a problem.

That was pretty neat actually, as it seemed her little tinkertech bug could eat just about anything. If needed, it could vanish their garbage for energy. Happy with this information, Taylor then asked the bug if it could do anything else with the green beam, and after cycling through a few words, she landed on 'construct'.

This time, the beam flashed out into empty air, but as she watched a wireframe model of a scarab appeared hovering there. Slowly, oh so excruciatingly slowly, the model began to get filled in. After twenty minutes of waiting though, it was done, and Taylor was now looking at two scarabs happily chittering away in front of her.

She asked them how many more they could make of themselves, and the first one began to assemble a third scarab, yet the second one did nothing. It took a small game of charades to work it out, but she managed to get that there simply wasn't enough spare energy to make a fourth yet.

Now Taylor had three adorable little insect bots, and she was slowly learning what they could and couldn't do. They could turn mass into energy, or at least she thought they could, and then store it for later. They could then use that energy to make more of themselves, and these creations were just as obedient to her as the original was. They couldn't harm anything living, but as soon as it was dead then they could harvest the corpse for more energy, which sounded a little creepy, but okay.

Now, just how intelligent were these scarabs? They could follow simple instructions, she could communicate basic concepts like hide and move to them with ease, yet that wasn't a true test of intelligence by itself.

Rooting through the basement, Taylor found something that she'd never thought she'd ever need again. Her mother, when she was younger, had been interested in all sorts of crazy things, and one of those things she'd shared with Taylor had been this Ouija board. They'd never actually gotten a response from it, but it was covered in letters, numbers, and simple words like hello, goodbye, yes, and no.

Placing the board gently in front of the scarabs that crowded around it, Taylor pointed to the letters of her name and spelled them out, before putting a hand to her chest and repeating herself. She did this several times, until one of the bugs did the same thing. It touched the letters of Taylor's name, and then wandered over to prod her with a leg.

Once all three scarabs had done the same, she began to spell out several nouns and show them the objects. Table, chair, shelf, book, etcetera, etcetera. Soon enough, the scarabs were getting the idea and it only took them one or two attempts to learn something's name.

Now, for the real test.

"Do you understand me?" She asked them aloud.

Two of the scarabs nodded their little heads, but the third, the original, tapped the yes word on the board in front of it. The other two noticed what it had done and chittered amongst themselves, almost sounding ashamed.

"Do you know what you are?" She then asked.

There was some confusion here as the scarabs tapped both yes and no. Then one of them tapped out Taylor's name again, before prodding her with a leg. It took her a moment to work out that they were saying they were her… or maybe that they belonged to her?

Anyway, several more questions were asked in the same vein, some getting positive answers, while others were just confusing. As far as she could tell, the scarabs were aware that they came from her, that they considered themselves an extension of herself, but they didn't have any knowledge prior to their creation. They also understood a few concepts and actions, such as move, attack, defend, guard, claim, and construct.

Unfortunately, they weren't quite sure what they could construct. She at least got that they couldn't make a supercomputer, or even upgrade her own. Nor could they make anything that would usually be considered tinkertech, no hover-boards or power armour. As for what they could make, she got a vague idea about something like them but bigger, more capable. They had some sort of instinctive understanding that whatever it was, it would be able to help her more than these three could by herself, and even encouraged her to let them make it for her.

The problem was, when they said bigger, they didn't know how much bigger it would be. Something the size of a dog? Yeah, she could keep one or two of them hidden if they were that size, but if it was bigger, like person sized, or even horse sized, that wasn't something she could hide easily.

What should she do?

- [ ] Keep a low profile for now. A few more scarabs might be a good idea, but nothing big yet.

- [ ] Just do it, gather enough energy and see what the result is.

- [ ] Have the scarabs start claiming resources, but no building anything yet. Maybe the ship graveyard could be useful for a change?

Scrabbling for a map, which she fetched from a kitchen drawer, Taylor first asked them if they understood what a map was and if they could use it for directions. Getting a positive for both of these questions, she then asked them whether they were waterproof. A tap of yes made her smile, as she now had an idea about how to both get resources and help out the city at the same time.

Tapping one part of the map she began her explanation.

"This is where the docks are, but they aren't really used for ships any longer. There are a number of sunken ships that block access, and the city apparently can't afford to remove them. I want you to claim them, can you do it or are they too large?" She asked.

Scarab 1, her first, tapped out a few letters on the Ouija board. B-I-T-B-Y-B-I-T-YES.

So her scarabs could absorb part of something, like they took half the fork with the meat before. That made things easier, as she doubted an entire ship glowing green and vanishing would be at all subtle, even if it was underwater at the time.

"Right, I want two of you to go out there and start absorbing ships. Do the ones that are completely underwater only, and keep hidden. I don't want anyone seeing you at all, and if you are seen then I want you to run away and hide… can you send messages between each other?"

Scarab 1 once again tapped yes on the Ouija board. Then he tapped out energy and yes once more.

"So you can use energy that any of you have claimed, that's useful." She thought for a moment. "I want one of you to stay here though, I'd take you with me to school if I could, but that is probably a terrible idea, especially if someone discovered you there."

A tap on the board broke her off and she saw a scarab tap out why, was it asking why discovery was a bad idea?

"It's pretty rare for a cape to stay solo very long, they usually get recruited by either the Protectorate or one of the gangs. The latter is right out, I'd sooner kill myself than that, and the Protectorate… I'd have to join the Wards and I don't know if I want that yet. They're teenagers, and I don't know how different they'd be from every other teenager there is. I mean, Clockblocker… the name says it all, he sounds like the class clown. Shadow Stalker is the edgy, brooding one, and the others, I just don't know what they'd be like, and I'd be forced to work with them regardless of whether we got along or not, and-"

The scarabs huddled around her in some sort of strange miniature cuddle pile, cutting off her rising panic. She smiled at them and took several deep breaths to calm herself. These guys, they were trying to help her, even if they were barely the size of a small cat.

"Thank you." She said. "Now, like I said, I might end up in the wards, we'll see what happens. First though, I'd like to know more about what I can do, show that I can do something, not rely on them completely, you know?"

Scarab 1 left the cuddle and tapped yes, and then paused before tapping out F-A-C-T-O-R-Y afterwards. That gave Taylor pause, as she began to wonder about things. The scarabs could make more of themselves, and they could make something else. Was that something else another construction-type robot? If so, what could that make?

Regardless, if she ended up with more robots, she'd need somewhere to store them, somewhere for them to live? She knew that it was widely accepted that villains and sometimes new hero groups would claim an abandoned warehouse, or that might just be fiction, she wasn't sure, but she would need a lot of space one way or the other.

Tomorrow… tomorrow was Saturday, and this was her last weekend before going back to Winslow. It would be rather stupid to just wander about during the day in the sorts of areas you would find abandoned buildings, as the place that first jumped to mind was the docks, and that place was riddled with Merchants, not a group she wanted anything to do with.

She'd go out, maybe down to the Boardwalk, and keep her eyes open for anywhere that looked even vaguely appropriate, but she wouldn't 'claim' any of them for now. Three little scarabs didn't necessitate a lot of space, especially if two of them were going to spend all of their time

underwater in the bay.

"I don't know where we could put a factory." She told the scarabs. "It would need to be somewhere hidden at least, somewhere people aren't going to stumble across it, or even be able to tell that's where we've set up our base. We can go look around a little tomorrow, me and whoever stays here for now, but I don't know what we'll find."

The scarabs all chirped together, gathering around for one more cuddle before two of them headed for the steps up into the house. Carrying scarab 1 in her arms, Taylor followed them before opening the back door for them. She bent down and whispered to them, telling them to remain hidden

one last time, before closing the door behind them.

Going upstairs to her room, she pulled out a pile of sheets that Winslow had given her to complete before returning to school. Because of her 'abysmal' grades, she needed to complete it all to remain up to date with the rest of the class.

She'd already done most of it, all that was left was two sheets of Maths and one for Computer class. Maths had always been easy for her, and she remembered her dad teasing her mother about it, as her mom had been an English teacher.

The scarab just sat and watched her work, not making any noise, just following her pencil with its single eye. It was a little comforting really, like she imagined a pet would be. The scarab might not be a dog curled up at her feet, or a cat in her lap, but it felt just as good as she imagined they would.

While she did her homework, especially as she was working through the Computer class work, she tried to feel if she had any sort of increased ability with them. Tinkers were supposed to be really good with technology and stuff, so high school stuff should be super easy, right?

Well, she was already good with programming, for her age and class at least, but she couldn't suddenly imagine how to program an AI or anything, and given she had vomited up her first scarab, not made it out of half a microwave and a toaster, perhaps she wasn't a traditional tinker, or even a tinker at all maybe.

Still, a bit more than an hour after she started, her homework was finished. She set it aside with everything else she'd already done and glanced at the clock. It was still a little early for bed, so she went downstairs to clean the dishes and check on the laundry. Once that was done she grabbed a book off her shelves and laid down on her bed to read it.

The remaining scarab laid down on her chest on its back, and while heavy for its size, it didn't feel like it was suffocating her, and after checking that her door was closed, she began to read the story to her scarab in a soft voice.

What sort of story does she read the scarab?

- [ ] Fantasy

- [ ] Science Fiction

- [ ] Thriller

- [ ] Horror

- [ ] Mythology

- [ ] Romance

- [ ] Write in

The next day, after having slept with the scarab and using it as a sort of metal teddy bear, Taylor got up to make breakfast. As usual, she was up really early, probably due to her dad's habit of getting up early as well.

Deciding to do a little more than she usually did, she got out the flour and eggs to get started on some pancakes. She usually made cereal or porridge for breakfast, so this was a little unusual, and it seemed the smell wafting up the stairs had called her dad down as well.

"Someone's cheery today, did something happen yesterday?" Danny Hebert said, seeing his daughter humming to herself at the stove.

She turned around to wish him good morning, and instantly froze. A moment afterwards she forced herself to move, to not draw attention to the scarab that was barely hidden under the table. She focused on her dad and gave him the brightest smile she could manage.

"I went to the park yesterday, I needed to get some air." She lied. "I ended up with a stray cat sat next to me on the bench that let me stroke it for a little while."

"That's nice." Her dad said. "Did you have any plans for today?"

She blinked in surprise. "Not really, I was just going to wander down to the boardwalk and have a look around." She left out that she was going to see if she could spot any abandoned buildings near there that looked like they could hold a factory.

"If you're home early enough, I got a few movies that we might be able to watch together." Her dad told her. "It's been a while since we just sat down together and had some father-daughter time, but I understand if you're too bus-"

"What time do you want me home for?" She asked. Was dad trying to make up for not having noticed the bullying? Did he realise just how far apart they'd drifted and was trying to bridge the gap?

"Um, how about six? That should be early enough that we can watch at least two of them, and maybe we could order out for supper?" He suggested.

"Sure, I can be home for six, no problem." Taylor agreed readily, she wouldn't need to be out that long.

Her dad smiled and took a seat at the table, thankfully not looking under it. The scarab scrambled onto one of the untaken chairs, so that it wouldn't be seen if Danny just looked at his feet. Taylor quickly began to plate up the pancakes she was making, a stack each for her and her dad, before sitting at the table as well.

"Do you need a lift down to the boardwalk?" Danny asked.

"As long as you're not in a rush." Taylor replied."

"I'm not, it's not a problem." Danny told her.

They finished their breakfast and Taylor went upstairs to grab a bag. She was immensely relieved when her scarab made an appearance without hearing her dad yelling in surprise. She plonked the messenger back down in front of her scarab and gestured for it to climb in, which it did.

She then made her way downstairs to see her dad just slipping his shoes on and did the same herself, before following him out the door and into his truck. It wasn't long before she was at the boardwalk and ready to look around. Checking how much money she had on her, she saw that while she wasn't rolling in cash, she did have some saved up as she never really bought anything unless necessary.

[X] Science Fiction

[X] Buy a phone, a cheap one will do.

The first thing that Taylor decided she needed was a mobile phone. She knew her dad wouldn't be happy about her owning one, but there really wasn't any getting around it. How would she call it in if she ever captured some gangers? If she got in over her head, how would she get help? There was just so much that could happen that going without a phone wasn't really an option.

Of course, just because she needed a phone didn't mean she was going to waste a huge amount of money getting one of those brand new ones with a million and one features that could do everything but go to the toilet for you. No, something simple that called numbers and answered other phones, that was all she needed.

It turned out something like that was really cheap as well, and while she did get a few odd looks when she purchased it, probably because of how basic it really was, she was quite pleased with her purchase all the same.

After that, she started to think of everything a beginner hero would need. Obviously a costume was one thing, but aside from that she also needed… zip ties? Yeah, to keep people tied up when she captured them. She'd get something to restrain brutes as well, but she didn't think that was something you could find in a normal shop.

What stuff could she use to protect herself though, a weapon? She knew that Shadow Stalker of the Wards used a crossbow, but Taylor didn't have access to tranquilliser bolts or whatever it was loaded with. Regular bolts were far too dangerous for Taylor to use, much too easy to accidentally maim or kill someone. A taser or pepper spray perhaps?

When she looked, she found tasers weren't as expensive as she thought they might be, and were just inside her remaining budget. She got a can of pepper spray as well, but after that she was down to pocket change.

She did check out the local sports store though, just to see what they had in stock. She greeted the cashier when she went in, and he barely looked up at her before going back to the magazine he had open next to the till.

Going over to the small apparel section, she found a number of different helmets, and even a few masks for hockey and the like. The football gear was written off straight away, far too bulky, but she did see something she quite liked.

A motocross jacket with armour panels on the front and back, as well as from shoulders to wrist too. She lifted up the flap of her bag slightly and let her scarab get a good look at everything there, as she had an idea that she wanted to try out later, but after looking around a bit longer she left, having found nothing else that matched her needs.

She didn't go straight home though, instead she went to the library. When she got there she made a beeline for the computers, and soon she had her back to the wall with a computer in the corner. Much quicker than her computer at home, she was soon browsing the internet looking at examples of medieval armour.

Gallant of the wards wore power armour that resembled a knight, and several members of the Empire 88 wore armour as well, Kaiser himself and Fenja and Menja immediately came to mind. She didn't really like the connection with the racists, but armour was a very practical thing to have, and if it saved her life then it was worth it.

Unfortunately, she didn't find anything like a 'Dummies guide to effective armour' or anything like that on the internet, but she did come across pages and pages of other stuff that would help. A picture of a chain-mail hauberk and a close up of the rings it was made of, some more close ups of the shoulders and knees of some plate armour and what the connections looked like, a description of a brigandine, and several different designs of helmet.

She printed them all off and paid for them with the meagre amount of money she had left. Putting them in the bag with her scarab, she headed off once again. She was halfway along the boardwalk when she paused.

There were two of the wards walking along, smiling and waving at the gathering crowd. Vista and Aegis, someone who warped space and a flying brute, neither of whom used weapons, though Taylor couldn't recall ever hearing about Vista seeing actual combat.

Something struck her as odd about the sight of them, especially with Vista, and it took her a minute to work out what it was. The smile Vista had on her face looked… forced. She wouldn't have noticed if she hadn't stopped and looked, and even then she might not have noticed if she didn't put on fake smiles for her own father, but Vista didn't seem all that enthusiastic about being there.

Maybe something bad had happened? Taylor doubted she'd find out, but it made her thoughtful regardless. The Wards were advertised as a safe environment for young capes to learn about their powers, but they still patrolled around the place. The boardwalk might be relatively safe, but there was still the risk of gang violence. It was Brockton Bay, nowhere was completely safe.

With a thoughtful frown on her face, Taylor left, not noticing that she had caught the attention of Vista herself, as one of the very few people not to either crowd around her and Aegis or simply get on with their shopping.

xxxxx

That evening Taylor settled in to watch a few movies with her dad. There was quite a random collection available to watch, some Disney, a few superhero movies, a zombie film, and a few comedies.

They chose not to watch the superhero films, and instead ended up watching two of the Disney ones and the zombie film. The latter the two of them had some fun tearing to shreds. If the zombie virus spread by bites, then someone wearing full body armour – antique or modern – should be fine as the zombies didn't have super-strength, how did the zombies avoid rotting any further? Why were two of the survivors so useless, especially if they'd survived as long as they did? Also, zombie baby, ew.

Her dad was smiling more than she'd seen him smile in a long while, and he even ruffled her hair. He knew she hated that, her hair was something she took a lot of pride in, it was the only part of her that she took a lot of pride in.

Still, she did nothing but glare at him, quite happy to see him as happy as he was. She enjoyed his company through the film and through the pizza and chips they ordered, until her dad began looking at the clock.

At that point she got up and began tidying the living room up, tossing rubbish in the bin and putting the movies back on the shelf. Her dad gave her a small smile and joined her in tidying up, taking the glasses into the kitchen to wash them, and soon the room was looking tidy again.

When he went upstairs, Taylor darted down to the basement to retrieve the Ouija board she used to communicate with her scarabs and headed into her own bedroom. The solitary scarab that was still with her positioned itself in front of the board, ready to tap away at the letters and numbers.

"Right, I had an idea." Taylor started. "I know you can't make regular tinkertech apart from yourselves and whatever else it is that's 'like you but bigger', but can you still make other stuff, simple things?"

YES

"Okay, good to know, now can you copy any of these things?" She showed him the things she'd printed off at the library. The scarab looked at the different styles of armour, and even the other things she'd printed off, nets, bolas, tripwires, even handcuffs.

YES

"Good, good, now can you make it the right size to fit me?" Taylor asked, getting an instant positive response from her scarab. "Now, how much progress did the two scarabs at the boat graveyard make?"

4-2-5

"Four hundred and twenty five? No units?" Taylor murmured. "How much is needed to make one scarab?

3

"Just three, okay, and the thing you guys want to make?"

55

"Okay, I guess it must be a lot bigger than you guys if it takes almost twenty times as much material." Taylor began to think about what she should do with all of that.

What should she have the scarabs make?

-[ ] Tomb Spyders (55pts each)

-[ ] More scarabs to claim the boats in the graveyard (3pts per individual scarab)

-[ ] Scarabs to join her on her first patrol (3pts per individual scarab)

-[ ] Armour (10pts for full set)

-[ ] Equipment such as nets, bolas, anything relatively simple in form (2pts each)

-[ ] No making anything at all.

-[ ] Write in

"Thanks for listening to me." Taylor said to her scarab. "Now, shall I read to you again?"

The scarab rushed off immediately and retrieved the book she'd been reading to it before, Dune. She smiled at the scarab and climbed onto her bed, with it soon laying on her chest with the book out in front of them both.

Settling in, she wondered what school would be like on Monday, but quickly crushed those thoughts, and instead focused on her little bugs and the powers she now had access to.

When should Taylor do her first patrol?