Warhammer

AN: Well, here it is! I start work tomorrow, so don't expect me to keep this pace up, though I will try. Also, check the Informational page for the image of Taylor's Power Armour, it's in a spoiler tag on the Equipment list.

Taylor knew, logically, she was already on track to strike a blow against one of the criminal elements of Brockton Bay, she knew that Coil was a larger threat than anyone else seemed to realise, that he had access to resources beyond those that were expected of him, yet she didn't feel at all satisfied with just that. You could look at the local news channels and see the PRT patrolling in the streets, or see a member of New Wave flying overhead, and the reporters would all talk about 'reduced' crime in the area, or arrests that were made.

A part of Taylor was well aware that at least part of this was PR, public relations, being visible to people. Sure, knowing that an honest to goodness parahuman hero could walk around the corner or drive down the street did have an effect on visible crime, especially things such as theft and muggings or assaults in an area they were known to patrol, and it was also true that they could probably be more effective if they struck the heart of gang territory, or used their abilities to maximum effect…

Given how Brockton Bay was overrun with criminals, Taylor had wondered just why things were as bad as they were. Looking up the statistics for places like LA and New York online revealed just how bad things were in her home city, and while they did have Armsmaster, considered one of the best Tinkers there was, and Dauntless, who was touted as being someone who could one day stand shoulder to shoulder with the Triumvirate, the rest were… rather lacking in all honestly.

Miss Militia being able to manifest any weapon and be instantly proficient in it did sound, at first, to be rather powerful, especially when you considered some of the weapons she could manifest – there were debates on PHO about how big a rocket launcher she could make and how fast she could fire it – but as she never used lethal weaponry usually, she was little better than just another PRT trooper, albeit a very good one.

Assault at least had a reputation for innovative uses for his power of transferring kinetic energy, allowing him to do things such as bounce bullets off of himself, hit brutes with their own punches, and even build momentum to be a sort of knock-off speedster, all of which was impressive, but once again PHO theorised that he had some sort of maximum limit to what he could store and use, rendering him far from perfect.

Battery, who often worked with Assault, was a brute that required a charge up time, which didn't sound so bad until you found out it took multiple seconds for her to charge up to effective levels. Given her own recent attempts at exercise in they gym her scarabs and spyders had made for her, and sparring against warriors, immortals, and worst of all wraiths… seconds was a long time in a fight, especially in a melee.

Velocity was a speedster, but his classification online had him listed as a 'breaker' rather than 'mover', this was because the faster he went the less he could actually do. He was a great scout, able to rush about the city and breakneck pace, but while his speed was incredible, his powers probably did something to his mass as his punches at that speed apparently did almost nothing to the ones hit.

Triumph was perhaps the best 'rounded' member of the Protectorate. He didn't rely on technology like Armsmaster, he didn't have a gradual ramp-up power like Dauntless, and he was effective both in melee and at range. He was listed as a brute, though how tough and strong he was wasn't listed, and he was a blaster too, using sound waves to attack, and there was so much that could be done with sound. Aside from concussive blasts to 'hit' people with, sound could be used to mess with someone's balance, make them dizzy, give them headaches, and all sorts of other debilitating problems.

While she might have some Armsmaster underwear – as embarrassing as that was – actually researching the local heroes more in-depth had given her a greater degree of respect for Triumph now, and okay, she did still like Armsmaster, he was a Tinker and so was she… she thought, and super-tech was super-cool, but for baseline powers Triumphs looked pretty cool.

Anyway, Brockton Bay's mediocre showing of capes aside – especially given how many and how powerful the villains were – she knew there was much more to be done when not marching about in the public eye, but it was still a critical part of hero-ing, she needed to be seen and establish herself as a hero rather than a villain knocking out the competition, which given the aesthetics her power insisted on, was going to be difficult enough already.

She checked in with her spyders before heading out first, finding them attempting to make sense of the information her other spyder had copied from the wires in and around Coil's base. Using the Operating Systems she'd bought from the shop earlier, they'd found that Coil likely used some sort of Windows OS – it was popular on both Aleph and Bet after all – but the information was still somehow encrypted, and they were working on unravelling it. So far they could get barely one word in thirty legible, and they didn't know whether they were cracking the encryption or whether that was coincidence yet.

Unfortunately, when she asked them if the internet had any suggestions for new heroes, about a quarter of them had come back with some version of 'join the Protectorate/Wards' which she currently had no intention of doing. Half of the advice given had been common sense, such as escape if things get too tough, have a phone on you to call in arrests or issues, and a few suggested courses such as first aid. The last quarter had been rather useless, and had mostly been about aesthetics, besides she really didn't want advice on what poses looked the most 'heroic', that just sounded silly to her.

She decided to take five wraiths and eight immortals with her. She knew that such numbers might make her look more like a gang leader than a hero, as everyone 'knew' that heroes patrolled in ones or twos usually, but while her power armour made her strong and tough, she was not any sort of combatant and it would take a long time before she was at all competent at martial arts or anything that she could use to protect herself with.

Of course, she wasn't 'just' going on patrol today, she was also preparing a strike on another segment of Coil's base. He would no doubt withdraw from it just as he had the original one, but the more assets she denied him now, the easier the final confrontation would be.

The scarabs had hollowed out a few relatively small caverns around a segment of Coil's base, and she had teleported in her units into the empty spaces using her Veil of Darkness. In total, there were six separate caverns filled with units. Four of them contained ten warriors and two immortals apiece, the latter to direct the former, as while their devotion to her was a more than a little weird, they also had more initiative and intelligence then the – she hesitated to say this for the pun - 'robotic' nature of the obedient warriors.

The other two caverns contained five wraiths and one destroyer apiece. She loved her new destroyers, the way they floated about on their hovering bodies and the massive cannons that replaced one of their arms… The sheer speed and power they had available was almost intoxicating. These two sets of six units were the 'strikers', and not in terms of parahuman designation, no, these guys would strike fast and strike hard, knocking the mercenaries off guard enough for the slower foot soldiers to mop them up afterwards.

Hey, she could be tactical when she needed to be!

She had also instructed one more wraith to follow Coil on a permanent basis. Next time he appeared at his base, he would have a permanent follower from that moment onwards. Who knows, maybe she would find out who he really was, and perhaps an explanation for why he had as great a number of resources to draw upon that he did. There weren't many people in Brockton Bay with the influence and/or power his set-up would require.

That was all in the near future though, as she was still waiting on her scarabs to get in position. They needed to find every single one of the power cables connected to Coil's base first, and every possible exit to prevent anyone getting away. She may have stumbled onto the base initially, but she fully intended to prevent sinking his roots any further into her city and ousting him before he could become as big a problem as the ABB and E88 were.

xxxxx

"Console to Kid Win, how's things going?"

"Things are fine, Clockblocker, we've seen nothing yet." Kid Win replied.

"Keep your eyes peeled, Kid, this is Brockton Bay after all." Dennis responded, and Chris rolled his eyes.

He knew it was Brockton Bay, and if they didn't stop at least one mugging before the night's end, he'd eat his laser pistols. He knew that Wards in other cities didn't deal with what he did here, but it wasn't like they could afford for the Wards to not do what they could to help reduce crime, no matter what the Youth Guard wanted. They were just lucky to have an understanding rep in the ENE branch who give as much flexibility as she could manage within the edicts handed down by her superiors.

"Hey, Kid, can you pick up anything over that way?" Gallant interrupted his introspection.

Looking the way he was pointing, Kid Win checked the sensors on his visor, frowning slightly at what he could see. "There's a rather higher amount of metal than I would expect, but isn't Squealer usually rather louder than this?" He asked. His sensors were nowhere near Armsmaster's level, but he had taken some inspiration from the man, and a lot of metal usually meant a big vehicle in his experience.

"Kid Win to Console, we're checking out something up ahead. There's a lot metal and not a lot of noise, plus Gallant seems to have picked up on something." Chris said.

"It feels weird." Gallant added. "Like there should be something there, but there isn't."

Chris repeated what Dean just told him.

"You're clear to approach, but bug out if things look dangerous." Dennis told him. "Velocity will be with you in three minutes, so no need to worry."

"Confirmed, Console." Chris said, before relaying their instructions to Gallant.

Riding his hoverboard just above and behind Gallant in his power armour, they went two streets ahead and three to the side. What they found was… well, it looked like a squad of metal skeletons wielding tinkertech guns that were glowing blue for some reason.

"The Wards." The figure at the front said, and Chris felt a shiver run down his spine at the obviously synthesised voice. It had a hint of femininity to it, but it was dominated by a fairly flat mechanical tone that hid the voice of the speaker. They were the only one who didn't have a conventional gun in their hands, instead holding a staff with studded ends, though Chris thought that the top of the staff had an aperture that was like his own blasters, but much bigger.

"Greetings." The figure said, bowing its head slightly. A robotic bug on the shoulder chittered cheerfully at them as well. Chris took this moment to examine them, noting that while quite tall, they weren't the seven feet of metal that ones holding big guns behind them were, and they were shrouded in a green cloak or something like it, with a veil falling in front of their metal mask.

"Hey there, I'm Gallant and this is Kid Win." Dean introduced the two of them, though something was off with his tone of voice. "Can I have the pleasure of knowing who you and your friends are?"

"I am… Khepri, and these are my Necrontyr, or a small fragment of them at least." The figure in… Chris was going to say power armour… responded, gesturing to the metal monstrosities with a fluidity that was not usually seen in power armour. "I thought to patrol this area with them, to perhaps assist in reducing crime in this area. However, we have yet to encounter any criminals so far."

"So, Hero then?" Gallant asked.

Khepri nodded. "I am, I intend to put an end to law-breaking in my city." There was a hard note to her voice that didn't leave Chris in any doubt that they were quite firm in their beliefs, but just what those beliefs were he did not quite know yet, though… those guns looked quite intriguing…

"What sort of weapons are those?" He couldn't help but ask, interrupting Gallant before he could speak again. "They look dangerous."

"Do not worry, they are quite non-lethal, I assure you." Khepri told him. "As for what they are and how they function… forgive me for not explaining how my tech works to a fellow Tinker. You understand my reluctance, I hope?"

Chris nodded to himself. While it felt really great that he had access to the blueprints of all the Tinkers that were part of the Protectorate – or he would when he was of an age to be a full member rather than a Ward – he also understood the desire to keep things to himself, and just as he was sure that he wasn't making his Alternator Cannon designs available – especially as it wasn't even properly designed yet, much less constructed – he was also sure that every Tinker had kept something to themselves too.

A flash of red and Velocity arrived, startling the 'Necrontyr' behind Khepri, who had all of their weapons pointed at the newly appeared hero. Velocity himself raised his hands in the generally accepted pose of 'calming someone down' though given the appearance of parahuman blasters… that gesture wasn't quite as peaceable as it had been before the eighties.

"Woah there!" Velocity called out. "I'm just here to make sure the kids don't get in over their head, don't worry."

"My apologies, your appearance startled my immortals and wraiths, such a rapid approach doesn't exactly make you appear as friendly as I'm sure you are." Khepri said, gesturing to her 'Necrontyr' to lower their guns, which they did, albeit it was apparently done reluctantly.

Chris had to wonder what she had meant by 'immortals' and 'wraiths', hadn't she just called them 'Necrontyr' or were these further designations that they hadn't yet been told about? He came back to the conversation just in time to hear Velocity make the Protectorate speech and ask whether Khepri would be willing to join, and also a curious request about what she was capable of doing?

How should Taylor respond?

[ ][Capabilities] Full disclosure, tell him everything.

[ ][Capabilities] Partial disclosure, you're a tinker with a speciality in autonomous robotics.

[ ][Capabilities] Lie, tell him it's all power armour and that you can also make effective weaponry to arm people with.

[ ][Capabilities] Refuse to tell him anything, it's your power and none of his business.

[ ][Capabilities] Reasonable write in, I will take these with a pinch of salt and may ignore them if they get too ridiculous.

Taylor silently considered how she should reply to Velocity's questions for a short while. She knew, intellectually, that the internet would eventually work out what she could do eventually – it wasn't like villains usually explained the intricacies of their abilities and yet she still found them online – but it still didn't feel like a good idea to tell someone just what you could do, not even the Protectorate, as there was always the risk of someone noticing a chink in your armour, some method of defeating you they otherwise might not have been able to see if they hadn't known what you were capable of.

"I beg your pardon, but I don't think it wise to spread about just what I can do to everyone." She said, adopting a somewhat formal way of speaking, just a little extra thing to try and separate her identity from 'Taylor Herbert' that the internet had suggested for capes to do. "As you can see, I am capable of manufacturing weaponry and powered armour for myself and others, but more than that… you will just have to wait and see now, won't you?"

"I can see your point." Velocity nodded. "I take it that means you're not joining up any time soon?"

Taylor shook her head. "While I do see the advantages of the resources you have at your disposal, you are also under a number of restrictions that I am currently not beholden to. I understand that a number of these rules and regulations are in place for a reason, primarily for the safety and security of all, but I would chafe under them nonetheless, simply knowing that someone else had control over what I could and couldn't do."

That was a partial truth. The PRT was advertised as an organisation that watched over parahumans and ensured the safety of the public, but something that stood out was that not one member of the organisation was a parahuman, and yet they essentially controlled parahumans. That sounded a little too much like discrimination to her, and while it might just be her seeing things that didn't exist – she already had a fairly negative view of authority – she just felt uneasy with the thought of anyone having any sort of control over herself.

Her dad didn't really count as things stood, he was out of the house all day, and while recently there was some small signs of life in him, he'd metaphorically died when his wife, her mother, had been killed in that car crash. The only other real authority she was under was the school administration, and that was something she would gladly discard if she could given how it seemed to favour everyone but her.

"That's a shame." Velocity said. "I mean, I kinda understand what you're talking about, I know Armsmaster isn't too happy with all of the paperwork he has to do, but then again who actually likes paperwork?" His joke got a small smile from Taylor under her mask. "You're also right in that all tinkertech has to be approved before it can be used, but that is reasonable considering just what it can do, you know? I mean, even regular medicine and things like it needs to go through testing before it's released to the public, this is no different."

"I understand what you are trying to say, Velocity." Taylor responded. "At some point, I may even share some of my technology with you and the PRT, I do have some ideas for weapons and armour for Law Enforcement that could be used by regular individuals to great effect. Right now, though, I shall do all I can with the resources I have available to me."

"Speaking of 'resources', those bug things that ate the ship graveyard… you mind explaining them to me?" Velocity switched topic slightly. "I mean, they had a lot of people freaked out, and any sort of explanation is better than wild guesswork."

"My scarabs." Taylor nodded. "They exist to perform small scale, menial tasks that they are assigned. In large numbers, however, they are capable of quickly and efficiently accomplishing what one alone cannot. My technology can be constructed from any raw material at all, solids, liquids, or even gases. The scarabs are quick and easy to create and can disassemble matter at the atomic level for my use in other production." That should satisfy them, and it was what would be obvious if someone saw a video of them working. "Do not worry, while they can disassemble organic matter, it would have to be completely still to be assimilated, and even shallow breathing would disrupt their ability to absorb flesh and bone."

"So you could take a dead body but not a living one?" Kid Win piped up, but then turned a little bashful when everyone turned their attention to him.

"Yes, like that." Taylor agreed. "Even an unconscious body is in no danger from my scarabs."

"Um, this might sound rude, but… are you even alive in that thing?" Gallant chimed in, and everyone now looked at him. Kid Win looked like he wanted to hit him over the head, and Velocity looked like he wanted to bury his face in his palm. "I mean, I can't really sense you in there, is it a remote controlled robot? Are you a case 53?"

What. The. Hell?

With a name like Gallant, and especially with the knight armour design, you'd expect him to be… well, more sensitive than that. Even knowing that he probably hadn't meant anything bad, she still felt a little hurt, but his question did raise a few questions in her mind. Gallant was known for firing off emotional blasts of energy from his hands, though wasn't he supposed to be a tinker or something?

Taking another look at the armour he was wearing… yeah, that definitely looked like tinkertech to her. Then again, as her eyes slid to Kid Win and considered her own capabilities, just because someone wore tinker gear didn't mean they were Tinkers themselves. He'd just mentioned 'sensing' her, and she couldn't think of reading about anyone online that had a Tinker rating and another one as well, at least not one that wasn't granted by the technology they made.

"Yes, I am alive, and no, this is not a remote-controlled unit." Taylor told him, not elaborating on anything, yet thoughts whirled around in her head. Did the odd material the suit was made from have properties she didn't know about? Did it block Thinker abilities, because sensing her emotions sounded like a thinker-like thing to her, or did it put up some sort of barrier between herself and the outside world, potentially giving her a resistance to human Masters messing with her?

She tucked that thought away – she'd think about how to test it, but she didn't know any parahumans she'd trust enough to help her there – as she looked at the three of them before gesturing around herself. "I believe the night would be better spent if we were not quite so stationary, no? I'm sure you have a patrol route to complete, and I am not averse to accompanying you for a time."

The Wards looked towards Velocity, who answered for them.

"I hope you don't mind me hanging around then?" He asked. "The Youth Guard would kick my ass for leaving the kids with an unknown, no offence intended to you or anything. Like you said before, rules and regulations."

"I don't mind." She agreed. With a gesture, her Immortals fell into formation behind and beside her, looking more like an honour guard than anything else. This had the Ward Tinker asking a few questions.

"Are they robots or people in powered armour?" He started. "Their movements are so smooth that I want to say it's people, but their actions are so synchronised that it's got to be robotics. Are they intelligent? Did you use Azimov's laws when programming them? Are they identical, or do they react differently to the same stimulus?"

He babbled on and on until Taylor raised a hand to interrupt him.

"These are my Immortals, and yes they are machines." Her scarabs had already been seen, and her spyders, wraiths, and destroyers would never pass as just people in armour. "They have some intelligence, yes, and no, I didn't use the fictional laws of robotics to program them. Instead, there is a hierarchy of those they should obey, with myself at the top. If someone isn't available, they would take orders from the next one down on the list." She told him.

"Ah, sorry if I was blabbering there." Kid Win rubbed the back of his head nervously, obviously having noticed he had barely given her chance to speak. "It's just that the only other Tinkers in Brockton are Squealer and Armsmaster. Armsmaster almost never comes out of his lab, and Squealer… yeah, sorry about that, I was just excited to meet another Tinker is all."

"I understand the sentiment, but please, next time give me time to answer your questions." Taylor said to him.

Her attention wasn't fully on the conversation though, she was keeping one eye on her Immortals, another making sure that Nehkbet, her original scarab, was still situated on her shoulder, and she was also paying attention to what her Heads Up Display was displaying on the inside of her helmet.

There was a sort of text chat window open that had markers on the side indicating who was sending her messages. Most of them were from Scarab#323 who was asking for clarification about certain slang words and colloquialisms that several other scarabs were apparently looking up online and then explaining to him. Why did it even need something like that anyway? It wasn't like…

It seemed one of her Tomb Spyders had the same thought as her, Spyder#13 as the chat window called it. In response, another window opened on her HUD displaying PHO of all things, in particular two accounts that had been made there rather recently. One was for herself, and currently had the (Unverified Cape) tag next to it, though judging by the images that had been uploaded – made by her Necrontyr though they looked photo-realistic – that would probably change to verified pretty soon. The other one… well, her Scarabs had a sense of humour it seemed, as they now collectively had an account named Cuddlebugs (Unverified Robo-swarm). There was a pending tag awaiting approval there as well listed as (Necrontyr) for both herself and the scarabs' account.

She didn't know quite what to think of that. Granted, she was going to be a hero, and that meant a certain amount of openness, a certain degree of interaction with the public, but this? So far it looked like things were being well received, if PHO was anything to go by, possibly the sheer novelty of her scarabs happily chatting with people in the thread, and… okay, so now there was Head_Researcher_Spyder joining in to admonish the scarabs on their actions.

With a few blinks in the right place, after a few mistakes, she closed both windows. If her Necrons wanted to message her something then they could open up a new window, but she'd deal with that later. Right now, she chose to focus on the patrol route she was taking with two Wards and a Protectorate member. Overkill, in her opinion, even if you didn't include herself, her eight Immortals, or the five Wraiths beneath their feet.

Oh, and the scarabs scattered on a few street corners watching out for any crimes nearby too.

Kid Win was still nattering away, and she replied absently, only really paying enough attention to him to ensure she didn't let anything slip she didn't mean to. Velocity was walking along with them, keeping an alert eye out for trouble, and Gallant was… rather quiet actually, just watching her and her Immortals without comment.

She let her attention drift, feeling a little bored honestly. This would be better and easier if she patrolled with Destroyers or something, their ability to fly and their speed would allow her to cover much more ground far faster, and the scarabs were there to alert her if something was actually wrong.

Then there was Coil, she was feeling a little restless about that. She had a small army ready to invade his base and she was copying the raw data in the cables she had access to. All she needed now was one good opportunity to take him out, and she could either wait for that to turn up, or possibly make one happen herself…

How should Taylor proceed?

Taylor felt like an idiot, something that wasn't helped by her looking over the recordings from her night out. Her suit had recorded everything that she'd seen and heard, along with a multitude of different energy readings that made no sense at all to her at present. No, what had her feeling like a fool was how open she'd been about her power. She'd initially said she wouldn't tell them anything, and yet… not minutes later Velocity and Kid Win had her spilling her guts out about 'her' tech.

"I need friends." Taylor mumbled to herself. "Badly."

Intellectually, she knew that she wasn't in a healthy headspace – which was only confirmed by one of her Spyders that was currently researching parahuman psychology on the internet – but she hadn't thought herself that bad. Tonight had only proven her desperation though, her need to validate herself, to have others say 'good job, Taylor' or 'well done', or even 'thank you'. The trio – Emma especially – had torn her apart until there was almost nothing left, and even now she didn't know why.

The Spyder that was looking up psychology did tell her that Emma was displaying all of the classic signs of obsession and trauma, bringing up examples of abused children growing up to be abusive in later life and more, but that didn't tell her why she was doing what she did to her. She did have a timeframe to work with though, however simply knowing something probably happened while she was at Summer Camp years ago didn't really help… and she honestly wasn't sure whether she wanted to try and fix her relationship with Emma.

They had been close, yes, incredibly so, but that had only given the redhead ammunition to use against her. She didn't know if she truly wanted to be friends with someone who would use their mother's death as another tool to beat someone down with, to break them for… whatever reason she had for it. Amusement was unlikely, or at least she hoped there was more to it than that, she didn't know how she would react if Emma did it all simply to make herself feel better.

Nehkbet nudged her, making a chirping sound that Taylor somehow understood.

Taylor hesitated for barely a moment, before agreeing with the pushy scarab. She logged onto the internet and brought up PHO, signing in with her shiny new Verified Cape identity. The little guy was right, online friends were at least better than no friends at all, so she should give this thing a shot at least.

xxxxx

Around Coil's base more and more tunnels were being dug. The entire thing was starting to look more like a beehive or some other sort of insect nest, perhaps a termite mound? Anyway, there were numerous small passages that the scarabs were constantly crawling through, searching out more and more wires around Coil's base to dig up and tap into.

They still hadn't worked out what encryption the supervillain was using to protect his data, but they had stored all the data in their memory-banks. There were several spyders applying different cyphers to the data, treating it as a code, and eventually they would make a break through and understand what it was he was sending in his messages. Once they had that, they could then decode all of his data and subvert Coil's digital assets.

Materials weren't exactly a problem for the Necrontyr, especially as they now had infinite power generators up and running, but denying those resources to an enemy was – in some ways – even more important than claiming them for themselves.

Coil obviously had a lot of assets to call upon – simply hiring mercenaries and equipping them with tinkertech was already proof he had money to spare – and they wanted to know what he had to use against them, and what they could take from him as well.

Of course, this would be easier if they knew who Coil was. Carefully scouting the base out – barely more than poking an optic through a wall from the shadows when they dared risk it – had provided them with plenty to work with. They now knew exactly how many mercenaries were in the base, had matched up the tinkertech weaponry with what Toybox sold, and they were using facial recognition to try and track down just who those mercenaries were.

That had given them some mixed results. Occasionally, one of the mercs faces would show up in a search, but there was never much information about them available. It was almost like someone had gone through their backgrounds and scrubbed it clean – which was honestly not unlikely – though fortunately they were not perfect, whoever they were, and there were enough pieces for the Necrontyr to get an idea of who they were.

The mercenaries weren't a particularly famous group – not like half off the PMCs in Africa were – and they'd disappeared off the radar almost completely half a decade ago. They tried to find any significant events surrounding the disappearance, or at least that coincided with the timing.

They found nothing.

True, there were a number of things happening at the time, a still unresolved murder case for the US President – a man known for disagreeing with how the PRT handled parahumans. There was an Endbringer attack less than a week before their disappearance, but that was on the other side of the planet from where the mercenary company supposedly was at the time. The list went on and on, but there was never anything particularly substantial to link them to those events.

It didn't matter in the grand scheme of things, but the more information they could dig up, the happier they would be, and the more prepared Taylor would be for when she inevitably faced him. It was only a matter of time now, and the Necrontyr themselves were… almost looking forward to it. They didn't know whether it was some sort of bleed over effect from Taylor, or their own emotions, but they were almost eagerly anticipating the action that was to come.

They were keeping an eye out on Coil's personal rooms, or at least what they believed to be his office and private rooms. When he came back, they would seal off his base and he would learn of the might of the Necrontyr!

xxxxx

Taylor awoke the next morning feeling a little better than when she had gone to sleep. Yes, she'd been an idiot, but she could work on rectifying that, and chatting to people online had been… well, there were some unpleasant people, and a few crazies, but most of them had been okay. One of them had even asked if she played any online games, which had resulted in her spending a few hours on an RTS game that she'd found a little fun.

Combined with the pictures already circulating on PHO, the speculation about her powers and alignment, on top of her actually being present online, it looked like her public relations was going fairly well, if she said so herself. On top of that, the three research projects she had currently ongoing had been completed while she slept.

Her tablet now had an application that allowed her to see whatever one of her necrons were looking at, or even have multiple windows open for several different views, like security cameras. The portals were also ready to be built wherever she needed them, though they would require either her or one of her necrons to set the destination correctly – she didn't know what would happen if this wasn't done, but the terms like 'endless infinities' and 'void potentials' that her tablet was giving her weren't very comforting.

The best thing though was the almost hard light restraints that she could now make. She said 'almost' hard light, because it wasn't, but it looked close enough that that's what she decided to call it. She and her necrons could produce a transparent green substance that was flexible or rigid as required, and would dissipate either after a predetermined amount of time had passed, or when she wanted it gone.

Of course, that's not everything there was to her excitement. She'd finally decided to see what some of her more large scale creations could do, and she now had a complete Monolith ready for deployment. It was currently taking up space in one of her rooms deep below ground, but the thing was massive, easily covering the same amount of groundspace as her house did, and reaching taller than the top of the roof too.

Taylor had a teleporting, floating tank, one that was as large as Behemoth, the Endbringer! It was comparisons like that which made Taylor wonder just how powerful her gauss blasters and the like actually whether they'd actually be capable of damaging things as tough as Endbringers were supposed to be.

As far as she was aware, it wasn't often that heavy duty tinkertech was used against an Endbringer, it just wasn't practical for a teleporter to fetch a tinker and their tank. It would exhaust them, and only really Behemoth was slow enough to really get hit by it – and Behemoth was the dynakinetic.

Still, her tanks had energy weapons and could teleport, she should probably check out how to get informed about Endbringer attacks and how to join in. The PRT probably had a list of phone numbers that would be automatically called or texted when something went down, and there was undoubtedly some known gathering point for teleporters like Strider to collect those willing to get involved in an Endbringer fight.

There were the Endbringer sirens, but those were only ever any real good if it was her home that was being attacked, and personally she could do without an Endbringer turning up at Brockton Bay. What would an Endbringer even want with Brockton? Their sole claim to fame was having a lot of capes per capita, and even more villains per hero than anywhere else she could think of off the top of her head.

The last Endbringer had been Behemoth, so the next one would be either the Simurgh or Leviathan. With that in mind, she brought up the specs of her Monolith's weapons on her tablet. The damage rating and type made no sense to her, but looking at the range, she felt it came up a little… short. Perhaps she should have her Spyders research better large scale weaponry?

She added a note to look into the procedures for Endbringer callouts. Villains turned up for those things as well – that was one of the Empire's major selling points – so it shouldn't be too difficult to find out, and if she could connect the alert to her tablet then she could join in as well. She wouldn't even need to be picked up, her Veil allowed her to teleport around the city, but her Monolith could teleport around the world!

Taylor grinned madly to herself at that thought. She had a teleporting tank that was almost as good as, if not better, than the best known mass teleporter in America, if not the world. Once her monolith plonked itself down somewhere, she could march a literal army out of it wherever she pleased.

She still had that smile on her face as she went downstairs to breakfast, and she had a spring in her step as she headed off to school.

School… now there was a thought!