Taylor and Marvel Madness Part 2 (Patreon)

"How do I look?" Taylor asked as she walked back into the living room wearing the mask that she'd created using a couple of beer cans, a strap from her mother's sewing kit and an old plastic juice container to line the inside of the mask so her glasses wouldn't get scratched.

"I'm sure you look fine…" Danny trailed off as he glanced up from tinkering with his mask and saw the blood red metallic theater mask that Taylor was wearing. "Are you trying to look like a villain?"

"If I was trying to look like a villain, I wouldn't be smiling," Taylor argued, well aware that her mask looked a bit disturbing.

Danny focused on the dark void where Taylor's mouth should be. "How did you get your mouth to look that dark?"

"I copied the color changing power I gave you and turned a ripped pair of nylons into a black void, it worked better than I was expecting," Taylor explained cheerfully, rather happy with her mask.

"How well can you breathe?" Danny asked, wanting to make sure she wasn't going to collapse from lack of oxygen.

"Fine, I left air channels around the outside of the mouth and I can breathe through my nose," Taylor assured him. "Are you ready to go?"

Danny put his mask on over his glasses and used his Molding ability to adjust everything for a better fit. "As I'm going to be," he admitted as he put his bright yellow hardhat on.

Taylor glanced at her father's overalls. "You have no room to talk about questionable costumes, you're wearing overalls and a hardhat."

Danny pulled his gloves on then used his color changing power to turn them black. "They cover everything and it's just a temporary costume in case our invisibility fails or Armsmaster has a tinkertech camera watching the bay that can detect us."

"Give me a minute to swap my power." Taylor focused on her Duplication power and swapped to her Flight ability. "Can you turn us invisible?"

Danny focused for a couple of seconds and turned Taylor and himself invisible, relieved that he could see an outline around her which let him keep track of where she was. "That should do it."

Taylor finished swapping her power then glanced around, trying and failing to spot her father despite the fact that she hadn't heard him move. "Can you see me because I can't see you?"

"Yeah, probably because it's my power," Danny replied as he headed for the back door. "Just walk outside, I'll close and lock the door then we can fly to the docks."

"Works for me," Taylor replied as she headed outside, excited about her first outing as a hero.

Danny followed Taylor out then locked the door and flew up into the air, hovering five feet off the ground. "Let's go."

Taylor smiled as she lifted off the ground and flew towards the docks, quickly gaining altitude until she was flying a couple of hundred feet above the ground. 'I'm going to need goggles, I doubt the plastic lenses would survive a bug hitting them, at least I have my glasses,' she thought as she flew towards the docks, enjoying the view and the feeling of freedom she felt, even if the cold was starting to get to her despite her jacket.

'Annette would have loved this,' Danny thought as he followed Taylor, doing his best not to think about the fact that they were a couple of hundred feet above the ground. He pulled his attention back to flying when Taylor slowed to a stop when they reached the bay. "How are you doing?"

"I'm a bit cold," Taylor admitted as she rubbed at her arms, wishing she'd grabbed a better jacket.

"You should have grabbed a heavier jacket," Danny replied with a smile as he studied the warning lights on the cargo ship he could see in the distance.

"It's normally fine, I was just going a bit too fast," Taylor replied as she studied the rig in the distance, making a mental note to look into adding some type of windbreaker to her costume when she got a chance. "I might have a better idea than trying to cut the ship apart by teleporting it."

"What's that?" Danny asked, curious what she'd come up with.

"The Molding power should let us turn the ship into giant spheres which would let us avoid leaving bits and pieces of the ship in the bay," Taylor suggested, resisting the urge to fly closer to the rig for a better look at the Protectorate base.

"That's probably better than teleporting everything to a random lot," Danny admitted. "We'll have to anchor the spheres so they won't cause a problem and we'll probably have to turn them bright orange or something to keep people from running into them."

"Or hot pink," Taylor suggested, fairly sure someone would have to be legally blind to miss a bunch of boat sized hot pink spheres.

Danny glanced at the lights on the rig then looked back at the cargo ship lights. "Swing around to the back of the cargo ship, I'll conjure a floating platform and we can get started. I want to finish before the shops close so we can pick up the ritual supplies."

"Sounds good," Taylor replied as they flew towards the cargo ship, making a mental note to find a cape with the ability to see in the dark so she could copy their power. 'I should make a list of the local capes, we have a couple of tinkers and having decent armor would help. I'll just check the boards when we get home and compare that to my Power Detection ability.'

Danny flew down on the far side of the cargo ship from the rig and hovered above the water. He used his temporary Floating Disc power to create a floating platform with safety rails then quickly used his invisibility power on the glowing red platform, causing it to vanish. "Did you see it?"

"Yeah," Taylor replied as she landed on the invisible platform. She grabbed the railing, wanting to make sure she didn't fall into the ocean. "Give a minute to swap my powers and we'll get started."

"Sure," Danny replied as he flew down and landed on the platform so that he wouldn't have to concentrate on flying. "This is going to change everything."

"Hopefully," Taylor muttered as she focused on swapping the power she was emulating to Molding so she could help rip the ship apart. She relaxed after eighteen seconds when she felt the power slide into place. "I'm going to use the hull to target the bottom of the ship, do you want to start at the front or the back?"

"I think I'll just watch, I need to concentrate on the platform and the invisibility," Danny admitted, wanting to avoid getting distracted and dropping them into the bay or letting their invisibility lapse.

"Sure," Taylor replied as she focused on the bottom of the cargo ship, using the fact that the hull was mostly one solid piece to target the bottom of the ship. She used her Molding power to start making vacuum filled spheres that were chained to the rest of the frame, wishing there was an easier way to float the ship. "This would be a lot easier if I could use all of my powers at the same time."

"Now you're just being greedy," Danny replied with amusement as he took his jacket off and draped it over Taylor's shoulders, knowing he'd be fine thanks to his brute rating.

"Probably," Taylor admitted, making a note to look into making a better costume if she was going to run around in winter.

0o0o0

Battery pulled her attention away from the lights of the city when she noticed that Assault had stopped making jokes and was looking at something with his binoculars. "What are you looking at?"

"That depends. How much paperwork would reporting the cargo ship blocking the bay vanishing cause?" Assault asked thoughtfully as he watched the remains of the cargo ship lurch and an entire section twist and turn into a giant metal sphere.

"A lot," Battery replied as she glanced in the direction that Assault was looking, catching a strange reflection in the fog. "Why?"

"No reason," Assault lied, curious if someone had hired the cape or if he'd shown up because of the salvage.

Battery reached over and stole the night vision binoculars from her husband. "Right," she muttered as she used the binoculars to look where he'd been looking. "What the hell?"

"Is something the matter?" Assault asked innocently.

"We're going to have to report this," Battery told him, ignoring his half-hearted attempt to act innocent.

"We're on break," Assault argued. "Do you really want to spend the next three hours out on the water in the cold?"

Battery gave Ethan an exasperated look. "Do you really want to listen to Armsmaster bitch for the next couple of weeks if something's actually wrong?"

"Fine," Assault grumbled as he grabbed his radio off his belt and pushed the button. "Armsmaster, you're going to want to look at the cargo ship, someone is turning it into giant metal balls."

"Can you repeat that?" Armsmaster asked after a couple of seconds.

"I was on break with Battery watching the ocean, I noticed that something was turning the cargo ship into giant metal balls, I figured you'd want to know."

"This better not be a joke," Armsmaster complained as he headed for the observation deck.

Battery placed her hand over Ethan's and pushed the button. "It's not, I checked."

"Understood," Armsmaster replied as he quickened his pace, wanting to make sure it wasn't some type of attack. "Did you see the parahuman responsible?"

"No but it's foggy and the spheres might be blocking the view," Assault replied, not particularly worried about the giant spheres of metal since it looked like they were chained to the remains of the cargo ship. "Keep an eye on it until I get there."

"Sure," Assault replied, not seeing a point about arguing that he still had another two minutes of break.

0o0o0

Taylor tried to ignore the guilty feeling in the pit of her stomach as she walked by Glory Girl's table in the food court and used her Duplication power to start copying the girl's power. 'Relax, you can always give her another power to make up for it,' she told herself as she glanced around for an empty seat, trying to buy enough time for her power to finish copying the flying brick's power without looking weird.

She relaxed slightly when Vicky's power finished copying. She froze in surprise when she realized that she could grab an Empathic power that would also let her toss Emotionally charged blasts of force and Panacea's power. 'Sorry,' she thought as she used her power to start copying Panacea's power. "Is this seat taken?" she asked a little old lady about one of the three empty chairs at her table.

"Yes," the woman replied snidely without even looking up from her book.

"Whatever," Taylor muttered as she glanced around, looking for an empty table in the crowded room. She sighed in relief when a copy of Panacea's power settled into one of her open slots and a pair of old men got up from a table only two tables away. She quickly made her way over to the table with the old men. "Can I sit here?"

"Help yourself," one of the old men said with a smile as he turned and left, happy to find a teenager that actually had manners.

Taylor took a seat and started eating her french fries, trying not to stare in Glory Girl and Panacea's general direction so they'd forget about her. 'I can't be the only person with Power Detection, how the hell do people keep secret identities? It's probably not all that common and the villains would probably kill them if they knew.' She swapped her Power Detection ability for her Power Creation ability. 'I'm going to have to do some research and figure out if there's a tinkertech solution or if the Resist Power Manipulation ability stops it.'

She munched on another french fry while she waited for her power. 'This would be a lot easier if it didn't take eighteen seconds to swap my powers.' She focused on her Power Creation ability when it slotted into place and gave Panacea Body Resistance. She frowned slightly when she felt the power barely work. 'Let's try that again,' she mused as she tried again and felt the Body Resistance power sink in. 'That might be permanent, I'll have to check.'

She tried and failed to give Panacea a copy of her Energy Absorption: Slugfest power that would provide an additional amount of protection from physical damage. She tried again and felt the power sink in. 'That should make it a lot harder for someone to kill her. Can I give her anything else without her noticing?' she mused as she mentally reviewed the powers she could give people.

'Resist Emotion and Regeneration? She'll probably notice the regeneration ability eventually but I doubt she'll connect things and there's no point in taking chances with the best healer in the world,' she thought as she gave Panacea Regeneration and Resist Emotion, figuring an anti-master ability would help.

'Those felt solid but not quite permanent, I'll have to keep trying,' Taylor mused as she tried and failed to give Glory Girl Body Resistance. She tried again and felt it sink in. 'I wish they'd given me exact percentages on the card. At least it seems like it stuck, that should help if something gets through her force field.'

Taylor went back to working on her fries while waiting for her dad to finish his shopping. Her attention was pulled away from her food when she heard a whispered conversation in a language she didn't recognize coming from the next table. She frowned when she noticed the two Asian teenagers that were having a whispered conversation at the next table and the fact that they were looking at Glory Girl's table. 'That doesn't sound like Chinese or Japanese.'

She smiled when she noticed an eight or nine year old blonde girl sitting at the table next to the pair of Asians listening to their conversation. 'That's probably more interesting than listening to your mother talk about clothes,' she mused as she gave the girl a Linguistic ability. 'Even if you don't keep it, that should make it easier to learn languages.'

She focused on the girl and copied her Linguistic ability, curious what they were saying. She'd just barely finished copying the ability when Greg Veder walked over and sat down at their table and started talking in the same language. 'Okay, that's why it didn't sound Asian,' she complained, recognizing the language as something from a science fiction show now that someone was speaking it and not whispering. 'So much for worrying about the ABB.'

'At least he didn't notice me,' Taylor thought, wishing he'd learn some tact. 'Fuck, at least he tries and it's not his fault he doesn't get the social side of things. Would Hyper Intelligence fix that?' she mused, curious if making him smarter for a couple of days would permanently improve his social intelligence enough to make him a better person. 'I doubt it would make things worse and I'm never going back to Winslow, so fuck it.'

Taylor smiled as she gave Greg Hyper Intelligence, short circuiting his current conversation as his mind expanded, pushing him from a teenager with poor social awareness to a genius that had a decent chance of reverse engineering tinkertech. She tilted her head away from Greg while he was distracted and looked down at her food, wanting to make sure he didn't notice her and start connecting the dots. She spent the next eighteen seconds copying his Hyper Intelligence power while she finished off her fries.

"Are you okay?" one of the other teens asked Greg.

"I'm good," Greg replied, not sure why everything seemed crystal clear for the first time that he could remember. "I was just thinking about ways to build a ship."

"Even if we could build a starship, the Simurgh would destroy it," the other teen argued.

Taylor gave Greg Hyper Invention to go with Hyper Intelligence and then immediately started copying it. 'He's probably going to have a mental break when he loses the power, at least that should keep him from causing too much trouble and if he turns out to be a decent hero or rogue, I can give him another boost. Is this how Teacher started? Pretty sure the bastard was always warped and my power doesn't have a master rating.'

Greg pulled a notebook out of his bag and started hurriedly scribbling notes on the ship he wanted to build, his face lighting up with glee.

Taylor waited for the invention power to settle into a slot then gave Greg a Stealth power and started copying it, fairly sure he wouldn't notice until later as it just boosted his ability to sneak and decreased people's ability to track him and he was completely focused on sketching the plans for his starship.

Taylor waited until the Stealth ability settled into a slot then turned and looked at Panacea and gave her a copy of the Stealth ability. 'Maybe everyone has a different modifier that changes the percentage or maybe she's just lucky,' she mused as she stood up and left the food court, dropping her empty fry container in a trashcan on the way.

'I'm going to need a couple of loyal minions,' she thought as she worked on swapping her power to Power Detection so she could find her father. She waited until her power slotted into place then reached out with her power and looked for her father. 'Okay, that should make it easier to find him,' she thought as she started walking in his general direction.

Taylor reached out and checked on the powers she'd handed out, not surprised that everything lined up with what she'd felt but wanting to make sure since she hadn’t used it before. 'Okay, a couple of permanent powers, that should square things with Panacea saving my life or at least my health. Now I just need to finish the ritual and find some loyal minions, best of luck.'

0o0o0

"We're good," Danny called out from the garage.

"Fantastic, this better work," Taylor muttered as she got up from the computer chair and walked into the garage, trying to ignore the butterflies in her stomach as she saw the rune covered pentagram that was drawn on the white tarp with what looked like a black permanent marker. "Did you use a permanent marker?"

"It was easier than painting it with blood," Danny replied as he finished triple checking the design.

"That's an option?" Taylor asked warily, wishing she had a better idea how this particular power actually worked.

"Apparently, it's also a good way to attract demons that are willing to boost the ritual in exchange for services, I'm not sure if the creatures summoned are actual demons or creatures from a different dimension but they're dangerous, so I figured it was best to avoid the entire mess," Danny explained, trying not to think about the possible consequences of screwing the ritual up.

"I'm not interested in going evil or insane, we have enough insane villains running around," Taylor complained, thinking about the Slaughterhouse Nine and the Teeth. "How does this work?"

"You basically step inside the pentagram then I light the candles, sprinkle some herbs around the circle then feed energy into the design while chanting in a couple of forgotten languages. Just keep your hands inside the pentagram at all times and we should be fine," Danny assured her.

"Famous last words," Taylor replied as she studied the collection of unlit candles placed on the points of the pentagram. "Do you have enough supplies to finish the ritual twice?"

"Sure, why?" Danny asked.

"You seem a bit nervous and I can give people a Self Duplication ability, do you want to use a temporary clone for a test subject?" Taylor asked, figuring he could stand to practice before he used the possibly dangerous ritual on her.

"That sounds like a better idea," Danny admitted, relieved that he'd have a chance to practice first.

Taylor gave her father a copy of her Self Duplication ability. "That should let you make duplicates…" she trailed off as her father used his new ability, creating a naked copy of himself. "I didn't need to see that," she complained as she worked on copying his duplication ability, glad that her father's duplicate had been facing away from her.

"Weird," the duplicate Danny said as he walked over and grabbed a jacket from the coat rack.

"How long will the duplicate last?" Danny asked as he studied his duplicate.

"Until you let him vanish, then you'll get his memories or at least you should," Taylor offered, glad that her Power Creation ability came with information about the abilities she could hand out.

"Don't worry about it," the duplicate said as he stepped into the pentagram so Danny could start the ritual. "We're just fragments and you'll get our memories when we die so we never actually die… in any real sense."

"Whatever works," Danny replied as he pulled a lighter out of his pocket and walked around lighting the candles and incense so he could get started, happy that he wasn't risking an untested ritual on his daughter before trying it on someone else.

Taylor focused on the ritual once the Self Duplication power settled into a slot, wanting a copy of the enhancement ability so she could boost her team. 'I should have swapped to the Linguistic ability,' she mused when Danny started chanting in a language she didn't know that sounded a bit like Latin as spoken by someone gargling. She flipped the mental switch on her Duplication ability and started copying the Enhancement power when it activated, ignoring the changes that were happening to her father's duplicate so that she could copy the ability without getting distracted.

Danny stared as his duplicate's legs went from their normal size to something that would impress a gymnast and he gained a certain weight that he hadn't had before he'd finished the ritual. "Do you feel any difference?"

"I feel stronger and the ritual gave me a spell, I can turn into a cat," the duplicate said smugly, pleased with the changes. “As side effects go, it’s a pleasant one.”

"Nice," Taylor replied as the enhancement ritual slotted into place. She focused on the ability and smiled when she realized that she wouldn't have to use a ritual to permanently upgrade people as long as the person she was enhancing wanted to be enhanced. "Can you make another clone? I want to run some tests using Panacea's ability."

"You copied Panacea's power?" Danny asked surprised. "When did you even run into her?"

"She was in the mall and her ability has an active component that keeps her safe from pathogens so it was really easy to copy, I just had to walk past her."

Danny sighed. "We're going to have to be careful about that, some people can be a little unreasonable about capes with similar abilities, much less identical ones."

"I'll keep that in mind. I managed to permanently give her the ability to shrug off bullets and I'll give her a couple more abilities when I can do it without worrying about getting caught to further confuse things," Taylor assured him.

"What are you planning on testing?" he asked.

"You have a duplicate that looks a lot stronger, I'm curious if I can improve your muscles before I use the enhancement power on you. That way you'd be a lot stronger if the ritual boosts your strength," Taylor explained her idea as she started swapping her emulated power to Panacea's power.

"Sounds good," the duplicate said cheerfully, not seeing a problem with letting Taylor run some tests since they were disposable and basically the perfect test subjects.

"Let me grab a robe for the other clone," Danny said as he walked into the living room.

"Did you manage to copy Glory Girl's power?" the duplicate asked, figuring that would be a decent power to emulate.

"It's not as nice as I was hoping," Taylor admitted. "Her durability’s because of a force field that breaks with one decent hit. I managed to give her Body Resistance to make her safer, but that doesn't change the power I can emulate from copying her."

“Since you can only have one active power at a time you could use Physical Resistance as an active ability while wielding Tinkertech that you make using a copied Tinker ability,” he suggested, thinking about Armsmaster and his impressive armor.

"One of the powers I can give out basically lets me stick a power in a magic item, I just have to find someone with the power I want to imbue. If I can get a good copy of a brute like Aegis, it should give me enough durability to avoid getting splattered if I fall off a platform," Taylor explained as Panacea's power finished 'loading'. She reached out and poked the duplicate's hand and quickly yanked her hand back as a metric ton of data appeared in her mind about her dad's biology and health. "Jesus, I now know more about your health than you do. I'm really surprised that Panacea doesn't wear gloves all the time."

"She's probably used to it," the duplicate pointed out.

"I guess," Taylor muttered as she cautiously prodded the duplicate’s hand, trying to get used to the stream of information so that she could make some improvements. "This could take a while."

"I've got nothing better to do," the duplicate replied with amusement.

"Same," Taylor replied, happy that she wasn't going back to school in the morning for a whole new reason.