A/N: It's very nourishing to me to see all the feedback from readers, so I want to thank everyone who gave a react or posted a comment. I feel particularly honored that Pendragoon is reading this story---Inheritance has very much been my comfort read for the past couple years, and I've read it at least 5 times over by now. That's not even getting into how much I loved Section Nine and Time Flies. I imagine most people on here have read those stories at this point, but if you haven't I highly recommend her entire catalogue. Okay, that's all from me. See you next chapter (which may or may not feature a special guest that some folks have already guessed)!
~*~
When Eliza Woodsworth had decided to major in Parahuman Studies back in undergrad, she'd had dreams of discovering something fundamental and groundbreaking about cape powers, of being the next William Manton or Ezra Sheindel. Other times, she'd fantasized about using her research to take a heroic cape with a seemingly useless power and figure out some clever way that would unlock their full potential, giving the world a new member of the Triumvirate or something of that nature.
The grind of academia had crushed many of those dreams, in part because even with parahuman studies as a field only really being around for twenty years, it had attracted enough bright minds that any of the obvious or easily proven claims were already taken. Manton Limits, Sheindel Aggression Theory, the Trauma Response Heuristic, Nakamura's Variance Hypothesis—they had all been described and studied in depth by the time she started her doctorate program. She'd ended up doing her thesis on the tradeoff between range and force for telekinetic based inorganic shaker effects, which had been interesting enough although she'd been hard-pressed to come to any definite conclusions given that powers, by their nature, were mercurial and seemed to almost resist attempts to make any conclusive statements.
After she'd gotten her doctorate from Brockton U, she'd briefly considered academia before quickly finding herself snapped up by the local PRT. Sure, she wasn't making as much as she might in industry, but a lot of those jobs had people working uncomfortably close to organizations like the Elite. Eliza had been more than happy to take a safer position with the local government—and it wasn't like the pay was bad, to be fair. Good power analysts were always in demand, after all. At least she knew for sure that her work wouldn't be helping villains, this way.
And then she'd received an email from Director Piggot about power testing for a new Ward candidate. Not an uncommon request—it had been a few months since they'd brought Shadow Stalker on board, and the testing and subsequent analysis had taken Eliza a full two weeks. That was on top of her personal research, as well as the constant requests for villain and rogue power analysis, and the regular power testing that Dauntless' evolving abilities required. So yeah, Eliza had been expecting a new ward to be showing up any day now, and she was more than happy to take some time to get her hands on a new power. Despite the ennui that academia had instilled in her, tarnishing some of her younger dreams, it didn't change the fact that Eliza truly loved studying and trying to explain the unexplainable.
And then she had read further in the document, getting to the standard list of known previous aliases, and she stopped breathing.
Current name: Bumble
Previous known aliases: Fifteen, Swarm (Temporary designation given by Boston PRT, see case file #40731(c)), Butcher
Eliza's eyes were locked on that last name. "Butcher," she said, in a horrified whisper.
"What's that?" Jake said, from his desk a few feet over. The Parahuman Ability Analysis Department (PAAD for short) used an open floor plan, the better to facilitate discussion and conversation between the researchers that worked there.
"Holy shit the new Ward is the fucking Butcher," Eliza replied in a high squeak. She scrolled down to the 'known or suspected abilities,' and sure enough there was a list of fifteen known or suspected powers.
"No way," Jake replied, standing up and coming over. He leaned over her shoulder to look at the screen, which ordinarily she would have found a little irritating, but right now she didn't have the mental bandwidth to deal with that. "Oh my god. And she's sane?"
That was really the first question Eliza should have asked, she realized, but she'd forgive herself for being a little surprised first. Scrolling down to the psych eval, Eliza felt her eyebrows leap up on her forehead. "Apparently. Signs of minor depression, anxiety, and technically schizophrenia by the DSM-V but given that she actually does have voices in her head I'm not sure if that really qualifies for 'delusions' or 'hallucinations'. No sign of disordered speech, thought, or memory, which previous Butchers universally suffered from, at least from Butcher III on."
"Damn," Jake replied. "Okay. Okay, that's actually incredible."
Eliza turned to look at him. "Are you insane? What part of having to do power testing with the Butcher sounds incredible to you?"
He stared back at her, as if it was obvious. "I mean, memories of a bloodthirsty murderhobo, that's some scary shit, sure. But can you honestly tell me that you don't want to do research on one of the only known capes that's an exception to the Rule of Three? Not to mention, one of the only capes outside of Eidolon or the Glaistig Uaine that can actually use more than one discreet parahuman power at a time?"
She blinked a few times, considering that. She'd been so caught up in the danger of having the Butcher in her labs that she hadn't even considered the academic ramifications. "Holy shit," she said, quietly. "This… this could be revolutionary. We could learn so much about interactions between different power categories, about synergistic power effects and Brute layering."
"Now you're getting it," Jake said, with a sly grin. "I'm sure that the Director's gonna get a hernia over the whole situation, but this could give us data enough for the ten year's worth of research papers."
"Provided that the Butcher doesn't snap and kill us all," Eliza said, because it was still the Butcher.
"Provided that, yes," Jake replied, far more somberly, but his enthusiasm was nonetheless infectious.
~*~
Taylor sat in the passenger seat of the PRT van. The radio was set to an 80s music station, and she was more than a little amused at the arguments going on in her head on whether the invention of the synthesizer was a positive or negative for the decade's music. Butcher, Sepsis, Basilisk, and Mimic all had very strong opinions on the matter, while Wendigo and Absinthe seemed to delight in being the devil's advocate at every turn. It was easy enough to see how having that kind of cacophony in her head could have easily driven her mad, if she hadn't spent over a week in a psychiatric ward as her brain adjusted to processing the senses and position of hundreds of thousands of insects all around her. It was obvious that whatever else her power had done, it had drastically increased her multitasking ability, to the point that she only had to spend a fraction of her attention on the argument going on in her mind.
Take On Me came on and she started to sing along. The trooper that was driving her—Hernandez, the same guy from when she'd first joined up—gave her a quick glance, but it wasn't long before he was singing along as well. He'd taken the helmet off when he got in the car, revealing a Hispanic man in his early thirties with a rather nice goatee. He had a nice voice, if a little scratchy. It was nice to know that he wasn't just a soulless government agent, because it would take a special kind of monster not to sing along to Take On Me. Even the Butchers were singing along, for the most part, because honestly you couldn't not jam to a bop like that.
The song was just about finishing up when they got to the power testing facility. It was a few miles outside of Brockton Bay's city limits, on what clearly used to be a farm before the PRT had swept in and bought it up for their use. The sign at the gates read "ENE Testing Range" on it, with a sign below it that read, "Extreme Danger, Keep Out." Or maybe it said "Extreme Keep Danger Out"—it was a little unclear, how you were supposed to read it. Either way, Hernandez ignored that, driving right in through the gates and toward the squat brick building in the center of the plot. Behind it, Taylor could see what looked like an archery range, with a set of round targets that each had a variety of cables trailing away from them. There were a few cars already parked out front, with three people standing there holding laptops and notebooks, alongside a cape she recognized as Velocity.
When the truck came to a stop, Taylor was quick to hop out. She was wearing her new costume, complete with a striped bodysuit and sinfully soft and fuzzy arm and leg warmers. It made her look pretty ridiculous, in truth, and she absolutely loved it (the fact that most of the Butchers despised the costume was completely unrelated, promise). Hernandez stepped out a moment later, sliding the helmet back over his head. "Alright, Bumble. We're running a couple minutes late, so let's not waste any time."
Taylor let herself fall into character—Glenn had suggested it would be best if she got used to being in character whenever she was publicly wearing the suit, so she wouldn't get caught out on patrol, and she could see the sense in it. "Okie-dokie!" she replied, and started to skip forward only to immediately trip over her feet and faceplant into the ground with a dull 'thud' and a plume of dust.
She let out a little shriek of alarm, then teleported with a minimal burst of flame, landing in a standing position a few feet away. "I'm okay!" she squeaked out. "You didn't see anything, right?"
Not this weakling bullshit act, Devein spat out.
It's fucking hilarious, Cordyceps replied. You're just upset because you died with a stick up your ass and nobody managed to remove it.
As the two of them began to snap at each other, Taylor tuned them out in time to catch Hernandez snickering a little. "Uh, no. Didn't see anything, Bumble."
"Phew," Taylor said, wiping of imaginary sweat from her brow. "And you don't think they saw anything either? I don't want to make a poor impression."
He looked over at the researchers, who were staring directly at Taylor with a look of bemusement. "...No, I doubt they saw anything either."
"Oh, man, that's a relief." She skipped forward again, heading toward the PRT's researchers.
It's a good use of my power, Howitzer said, quietly. Gets everyone used to you teleporting frequently without seeing it as the power multiplier that a warp mover brings to the table.
Thanks, Howitzer, Taylor replied mentally.
"Hey there!" she said, as cheerfully as she could manage. "I'm Bumble! I heard that you're here to pest my towers? Er, I mean, to power my tests? No wait, that's not right either." She scrunched her brows in a look of mock concentration. Spoonerisms were an easy bit of wordplay, but that didn't make them any less effective.
The researchers gave each other a quick confused glance. Their heartbeats had picked up rapidly on seeing her, so she knew that they were aware of the source of her power, but it was equally clear that her behavior had left them baffled. As far as Taylor was concerned, that was about as good a confirmation that her plan was working as any.
"We're here to test your powers, yes," the woman said, after a moment. She was a few inches shorter than Taylor, her reddish-brown hair reminding Taylor a bit of Emma, before she pushed those thoughts away. "I'm Eliza Woodsworth, that's Jake Hemmings, and finally we have Luke Rochester."
"Hey there," Jake said. He was about what she'd expected when she heard the words 'parahuman researcher,' a reedy white guy wearing a t-shirt for some cartoon she didn't recognize. He was practically bouncing on his feet with excitement.
"Pleasure to make your acquaintance," Luke, a tall bald Black man who reminded her a little bit of Samuel L. Jackson, raised one hand.
"The pleasure is all yours. Er, all mine. Wait, that sounds selfish. Um, maybe it's both of ours? Oh drat, I'm messing this all up. It's nice to meet you, is what I mean," she said. Once upon a time, she'd been an absolute chatterbox, spilling words out in a rapid jumble, before Emma had crushed that into the dirt. There was a certain catharsis in letting herself slip back into that mentality, at least a little bit.
Jesus fuck, you sound so stupid, Mason complained.
She does, doesn't she? Hazard said, delight clear in his voice. He'd been Butcher III, the only one who had been a current hero when he'd inherited, and he delighted in anything that pissed off the rest of the collective—much like Taylor herself. Nobody will give her even a crumb of respect, not until she's taken them down and they wake up behind bars.
From what she could tell, Hazard was right. Using her bloodsight, she could tell that the researchers had grown far calmer since she'd started her routine.
There was a blur, and then Velocity was standing there. She hadn't met him yet, but she recognized him easily, both from growing up in the Bay and from a few of the past Butcher's memories. "Alright, you can dial it back a bit, Bumble. I'm sure Glenn will be proud of the effort, but it'll be easier to get through the testing without the act."
Taylor felt like sticking her tongue out at him, so she did. She resisted the urge to blow a raspberry, though. "Spoilsport," she said, turning back to the researchers. "Alright, I've only been to one of these before, and that was about ten years ago in New York, so I'm going to be relying on you guys to run this, alright?"
"Sounds good," Eliza replied. Her heart had kicked up a bit when Taylor had referenced having other memories, but it seemed like the little act had at least convinced her that she wasn't about to get mercilessly slaughtered by one of the East Coast's worst boogeymen. "Now, we've got you for the next eight hours, so I'm hoping we can get the most out of this session."
Suddenly, Taylor felt an impending sense of doom that had nothing to do with Hazard's danger sense ability.
~*~
"Why did I ever think this was a good idea," Taylor whined to Hernandez, as they drove back into the city.
He shot her a look out of the corner of his eyes, but kept most of his attention on the road, which she appreciated. Even if she would be able to walk away from a car accident unharmed, he had no such protection—and that wasn't even getting into what happened with her mom. "I couldn't tell you, Bumble," he said.
"I just thought it would be more interesting than that," she said, slumping against the window. "I mean, I didn't think it would be fun, but spamming Howitzer's teleport for thirty minutes absolutely sucked. I didn't even know I could still get motion sick. And that's not even getting into all the power interactions they wanted to test. I didn't think about how fourteen non-tinker powers would mean one hundred and eighty two possible interactions."
"Yeah, well, maybe you should have thought of that before you killed the last Butcher," the man snarked back, then froze as if he suddenly realized what exactly he'd said.
Taylor froze as well, then she burst into laughter, echoed by a dozen voices in her head as well. "Fuck, that's a good point," she said. "Kinda brought that on myself, really."
He snorted, and for a few minutes they just listened to the radio. After a moment, Hernandez said, "Look, I know it's not really my place, but I'm just curious." He paused, unsure if he should go on.
"Shoot," Taylor said, shrugging.
"Why did you join the wards? I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm glad you aren't out there doing the whole murder-pillage Teeth stuff, but… I remember what it was like, being a teenager in the Bay. I'm not sure if I had that kind of power, I would have been able to go and join the heroes."
Taylor considered the question for a while. It wasn't like he was the first to ask her, but maybe it was just that he was the first person in a while to see her as a person first and the Butcher second, so she wanted to give him a more honest answer. "I'm not going to lie, I considered it. Thought about going to the Teeth and taking them over, using all that power as a force for good if possible. I was also thinking about doing the whole independent hero thing, hiding my powers."
"But?" His voice held no judgement, which she really appreciated.
Taylor sighed. "But I don't want to join a bunch of Mad Max wannabes, and I don't want to spend my whole life hiding. I just want to be Taylor, you know? And the only place I could think of where I'd ever get that was the wards. Not that there's any guarantee there, but… it's my best shot, I guess."
Hernandez hummed contemplatively, and then he said, "I can't say I exactly understand, but I think I can relate." Taylor smiled to herself, even as several voices screamed at each other in her head. Then the man continued. "Also, I'm definitely not cleared to know your civilian name."
"Eh," Taylor said, shrugging even though she knew he couldn't see. One of her hands went up and pressed against the glass of the window, and she moved it around as though it was surfing along the powerlines. "Secret identities are for squares."
He was silent for a long moment after that, long enough that Taylor thought he wasn't going to reply. Then he said, "You can call me Gabe, if you want."
"Nice to meet you, Gabe," she said, her eyes closed and her cheek pressed against the cool window.
"Nice to meet you, Taylor."
"Morning, dad," Taylor said, slouching downstairs with a yawn. She was technically a noctis cape, since her various brute and regenerative powers effective gave her the ability to go indefinitely without sleep, but she still got emotionally exhausted. Not to mention she just liked sleeping. It was quiet in her head, when she was sleeping, even if the other Butcher's memories often bled into her dreams. She couldn't remember much about her dream last night, but she knew that it had featured Basilisk's mother and one of Wendigo's childhood friends.
"Good morning, Taylor," he said, looking up from his bowl of cereal. "Did power testing go well?"
She shrugged, stumbling over to the kitchen and pulling two carton of eggs from the fridge and a mixing bowl from a cabinet. One downside to having so many brute packages was that her body required about ten times the caloric intake as she had before. "Power testing was fine. Tedious, for the most part, but they figured out a few things that we hadn't thought of before. Turns out that Sepsis and Mason's powers interact in some strange ways, and I might be able to use them to craft monomolecular edges with enough practice. Not surprised the Butchers didn't discover it before, it requires a ridiculous amount of focus."
I'm pissed I never thought of it, though, Mason said. I could get things plenty sharp, but by the time I inherited I just saw Sepsis' power as a way to rot living flesh, since it was weaker than just reshaping things with my power.
That's kind of my fault too. It's just way more fun to rot people than wood or whatever, so I mostly used my power for that, Sepsis replied, with a mental shrug. With an effort of will, Taylor ignored the memories of all the people that Sepsis had used her power on.
I just wonder how one of those edges would interact with my own power, Mimic said, bemusedly. Think about the possibilities for razor spiders, Taylor!
Taylor snorted a little at that. I'm not going to mention that any time soon, unless everyone wants to spend the next whole week in power testing. There was a series of denials from the voices in her head, as she'd expected.
Her dad had taken the whole revelation about her having powers (and being the new Butcher) far better than she'd expected. It probably helped that he had found out about it when she had used her bug control to save his life. Of course, that didn't mean he'd been happy about it—he'd been furious that she'd hid her powers, and terrified that he'd lose her to the Butcher's collective. But they'd spent a week together in a hotel room in Boston as Taylor adjusted to her new power set and to having fourteen voices in her head, and in that time the two of them had several important conversations that had been long delayed. In the end, he'd done his best to adjust to her new status without freaking out too much (he still did, he just kept it to his bedroom where he didn't think Taylor could see—a futile hope, between bloodsight and her bugs, but an appreciated sentiment). In return, Taylor had agreed to join the Wards, so long as the local PRT allowed her to.
Setting the cartons down on the table, Taylor flipped them open and then ran a finger along each of the eggs. Rather than crack the eggs herself, she used Mason's power to bisect each of the eggs along the center. Then, one by one, she tossed the eggs into the air. Quarrel's power took over, causing the egg shells to fall apart and land in the trash can while the yolks and whites fell into the bowl. A whisper of Mimic's power, and a whisk animated by itself, growing spindly legs that gripped on the edge of the bowl and began to furiously stir the mixture together.
"Do you have to pull the whole Sorcerer's Apprentice act with every single chore?" her dad asked, but she could hear the amusement lacing his voice.
Absolutely, Cordyceps said. She was always game for any kind of power shenanigans, the more mundane the better. Some of the other Butchers were pissed that she was using their abilities to do anything other than murder and slaughter, but Taylor was pretty sure they were just upset they'd never figured out how to use Sepsis' disintegration power to clean stubborn stains from their cookware.
"I do, yes," Taylor replied out loud. Then she teleported into the chair across from him, making sure that there were almost no flames on her arrival. "What's the point in having superhuman abilities if you still have to cook eggs yourself?" Howitzer's power worked by taking time to charge up the explosion of her teleport, up to a maximum value—it actually reminded her quite a bit of Battery's ability, honestly—and the former Butcher had worked hard to figure out how to maximize the damage she could output with her explosive jumps. Taylor had been working hard at figuring out how to minimize the explosion instead, and had found that short jumps with almost no charge were weak enough that they would only cause a dull thudding noise and barely even singe the area around her.
Even as she sat down, behind her one of the frying pans grew a set of stubby metal legs and ambled over onto the stove, turning it on with a little proboscis. She'd been quite surprised the first time that they'd realized her power gave her perfect control over Mimic's creations, so long as they were suitably insectoid in nature. That had taken quite a bit of trial and error, but she'd gotten to the point where most of the time she could guide his power into animating objects with an insectoid shape, which allowed her far more versatility than either Mimic or she had originally had—the other cape's master effect on his creations had been weak at best, and that control hadn't survived the transference of the mantle.
"You're starting at Arcadia next week, right?" Danny asked, doing his level best to ignore the chaos going on in the kitchen. "Do you need me to drive you there?"
Taylor blinked a few times. "I'm fine taking the bus, Dad. It's only like thirty minutes, and I could probably teleport across the city in half that time if I needed to."
"Wouldn't that be… bad for your secret identity?" he asked, scrunching his eyebrows together.
She shrugged. "I mean, it wouldn't be ideal, but everyone knows the Wards attend Arcadia, and I would change into my costume beforehand. So long as I didn't start to close to home, I'd be fine. I'm debuting this Friday anyway."
He nodded. "Right, your debut. How are you feeling about that?"
She shrugged. Behind her, Taylor had some discreet insects monitoring the state of her breakfast. The pan jiggled a little on its stubby legs, keeping the eggs from forming too large of curds. "Honestly, I'm kind of excited. It's… fun to be Bumble. Way more fun than I expected. That being said, I've got lessons on how to be a humor cape this afternoon."
"Do you know who they're bringing in for that?" he asked, head tilting to the side.
She shrugged. "Maybe the PRT has a comedian on staff?"
Danny actually chuckled at that. "That would be a wild job description. 'Oh yes, I'm the official comedian for the Parahuman Response Team, here to make sure banter is appropriately witty.'"
She smirked. "You're joking, but after meeting Glenn Chambers I wouldn't put it past them. Still, it's more likely they're just bringing somebody in as a contractor."
"Maybe they're going to bring in Mouse Protector," her dad joked.
That caused Taylor to let out a full-on belly laugh. "Oh yeah, that'll be the day. God, can you even imagine?"
The eggs had finished cooking, and she had the skillet dump them over onto a plate before it hopped into the sink, ready to be cleaned. Taylor teleported back in front of the plate, grabbing a small bottle of hot sauce in a black bottle labeled with fifteen 'X's and a large warning sign of a skull, and then teleported back to the table. Each teleport seemed to be discharging a little less sound and flame, as she concentrated carefully on limiting the explosion.
Her dad gave her an unimpressed look. "Am I going to have to institute a no-teleporting rule in the house?"
You're the fucking Butcher, he can't stop you— and then the voice went quiet, punted into the void.
"No," she replied, a little sheepishly. "Just trying to get as much practice in as I can. It's too useful to not use as a hero, but I need to make sure I can use it without people immediately connecting me to Howitzer or the Butchers in general." She dabbed several generous dollops of hot sauce onto her massive heap of scrambled eggs.
Her dad's eyebrows rose. "Whew, I can feel the heat from here. What is that?"
Taylor gave him a lopsided grin. "Well, you know how I've got passive pain negation from Novocain? Well, with Basilisk's help we figured out a way to make something that gets around that problem."
That's absolute bullshit, Novocain said, still peeved that his power was being negated at all.
Tinkers are bullshit, came the discordant chorus, led by Basilisk with far too much glee in his voice.
Danny blinked a few times. "Basilisk is the poison tinker, right? Are you putting poison on your food?"
She made a little 'so-so' gesture. "To a normal person, yeah, this stuff would mess you up—hence the label. But 'poison' is kind of a broad term, you know? Broad enough for capsaicin to count." She took a bite of the eggs and enjoyed the burn against her tongue. "Oh yeah, that's got a kick to it."
At that, her dad shook his head, a bemused smile on his face. "Butcher XV, everyone," he said. "Menacing the innocent populace with her tinkertech hot sauce."
She beaned him on the head with a scrunched up napkin, Quarrel's power guiding its flight.
~*~
Taylor stared in shock at the woman standing in the dour meeting room at the PRT. She didn't know how to respond to this, and her head was mercifully quiet as most of the voices were shocked silent as well. Then they erupted into a mass of jeers, complaints, cheers, and guffaws. It wasn't that Taylor didn't recognize the person in front of her—it was just that she hadn't seriously expected this at all. Between the sheathed sword, the mouse-eared helmet, the shield with the iconic 'M' logo on it, and the flowing cape that flared out behind her, the hero was easily recognizable.
No fucking way, Devein said, scorn and horror clear in his tone.
No fucking way, Cordyceps said, in an awed tone. This is the best day of my afterlife.
I can't believe you actually called it, Taylor, Frenzy said, clearly amused.
"I was joking," Taylor said in a plaintive voice, almost whining.
"Were you? That's a great start!" Mouse Protector said, smiling at her with a wide grin—her mask only covered the top half of her face, leaving her mouth exposed. "Glenny-boy said that you came up with the idea of being a Jokester."
"Jokester?" Taylor asked, because Mouse Protector put clear emphasis on the phrase.
"Old term for a humor hero or villain," Mouse said, waving her hand dismissively. "There wasn't as much of a divide between the two, back in the day—it was before heroes were all snapped up into the government. There were more people who realized how silly it was to fly around in spandex throwing beams of light around, and more of us who just wanted to have a laugh. Then Behemoth showed up, everything kinda went all 'phbbt', and capes got all serious and didn't want to laugh at themselves anymore." She had made the onomatopoeia by blowing a raspberry.
Taylor thought back to Butcher and Hazard's memories, since they'd both been teenagers during that time. Hazard had gotten his powers shortly after Behemoth's first appearance in 1992, and by the time he'd entered the cape scene it had already sombered significantly, but both of them had vague memories of the lighter attitudes that had surrounded many of the first capes. "You didn't, though," she said.
Mouse Protector shrugged, a sheepish grin on her face. "I figured, when the world gets all sad and depressing, that's when we need a sense of humor most of all. Not to get too blue, but… my gramma was a Jewish girl in Germany back in the forties, and I'm sure you can connect those dots. She had a hell of a dark sense of humor, but she was always cracking jokes. Said it was the only way she could stay sane. I like to think of myself as carrying on her legacy."
Taylor didn't know what to say to that, and the voices in her head weren't exactly offering good suggestions. "Damn," she said, for lack of anything better. "That's a more serious reason than I would have expected."
The other cape shrugged. "Sorry, not trying to bring the mood down. Just thought you especially might appreciate the idea of using laughter to spite the darkness."
Taylor winced, despite herself. "I take it Chambers told you about my, um, condition?"
"You mean, being fifteen pounds of crazy bologna in a one pound bag?" Mouse Protector nodded. "Yeah, I got the gist. Shit luck, but that's life, you know? Seems like you're making the best of it."
"I'm trying, at least," Taylor replied. "Sorry, I just… you don't seem very scared of me."
The other cape blinked a few times, head cocked to the side. "Do you want me to be?"
You should be, you bit— Quarrel got as far as saying before she was pushed away.
"No! No, of course not," Taylor replied. "I guess I just got used to everyone looking at me like I'm some unstable monster that's going to snap and start slaughtering people at any minute." She shrank into herself a little as she spoke, because as much as she tried to hide it, the reactions still hurt.
"And you're wondering why I don't? A few reasons. For one thing, I'm a teleporter, and not to toot my own horn but—toot ta toot!" She mimed blowing a little trumpet. "I've got a way better range and cooldown than the Butcher. Plus Glenn seems to like you, and he's a smart cookie when it comes to people. And lastly, I've got a pretty good sniffer, and you don't smell untrustworthy to me." She tapped the mouse nose on her helmet.
Taylor felt a genuine smile start to stretch across her lips. She'd grown up watching the Mouse Protector cartoon, and it was clear that they'd done a pretty faithful job in capturing the woman's personality. "Thanks," she said, after a moment. "That means a lot."
"No problemo! Now—" she interrupted herself by vanishing abruptly. Ten seconds later, the woman reappeared, this time with a pair of scholarly-looking glasses afixed on top of her helmet and a hat on her head, the black kind with a little tassel worn by graduates and fancy professors. "We have a lot of ground to cover, and only a week before your debut, so let's make like a mouse and scurry on with it!"
She whirled on Taylor, holding a finger out almost accusingly. "What separates a humor cape from any other parahuman?"
She blinked a few times. "The… the humor?"
"Exactly!" she shouted, bouncing on her feet. "No matter what is happening, a humor cape must be funny. They can be useless or effective, approachable or sexy or a little scary, but when you watch them you want to laugh—and you can't laugh when you're scared for your life. For a villain, that might mean they look incompetent, or they might have a perfect record of civilian safety, but either way they aren't the kind of villain that makes you want to flee the scene. For a hero, that might mean quipping with villains and civilians, or it might be turning a deadly fight into a slapstick farce. Either way, it means that a jokester has to work ten times harder than a normal cape."
Taylor nodded, thinking through the implications. "Because you need to have total control of the battlefield, right? You need to account for any dangers, and mitigate them before people even realize they're happening?"
Huh, Mimic said, mulling it over. This could be more interesting than I thought.
It's a goddamn travesty is what it— Butcher said before he was quickly booted into the swarm. Taylor was hoping he'd learn better eventually, but she wasn't optimistic.
"You got it! It's hard work, and needs a reasonably strong power set, but I don't imagine you'll have much of a problem with that."
No we do not, Mimic said, smugly.
Wait, but not every cape with a comedy schtick fits that description, Howitzer said. There are those two schmucks here, yeah?
Taylor nodded in response to Howitzer's question. "And that's why people don't really like Uber and L33t, isn't it?" she said out loud, puzzling it over in real time. "Because they have a track record of injuring people when things go wrong. Even if it wasn't for how callous some of their stunts are, the fact that his tech can explode randomly means you could never be reassured by their presence."
"Dang, you're a smart cookie, aren'tcha?" Mouse said, nodding.
"It helps when you have fourteen extra minds in your brain," she said dryly.
She laughed, open and loudly, and it was just as free as I'd always thought it would be. "I'm sure it does," she said, once she'd controlled herself. "Uber and L33t…right, those are the video game guys, right? Yeah, that's exactly their problem. Well, that and the fact they're actual villains. A good comedy villain is stealing as part of the bit—they expect to be foiled, and if they don't, they make sure that they aren't stealing from people who can't handle the loss." She clapped her hands together. "We're getting sidetracked. We've got a whole syllabus to get through, and less time than I'd like."
Taylor's brow wrinkled. "Do you have an actual syllabus?"
Mouse Protector shrugged. "Yeah, somewhere. Had to make it to get this class approved by the PRT. No idea where it is now, though. I don't do great with formal structure."
"I'd never have guessed," Taylor replied, dryly.
"Shush, you," the woman said, though there was no heat in her voice. "Right then! Let's start by figuring out which powers you can use, and which ones are completely off the table."Last edited: 4/4/2025 Award ReplyReport984ThaviaVex4/4/2025NewAdd bookmarkView discussionThreadmarks Chapter Six - Butchering an Introduction (Again) New View contentThaviaVexShe/Her10/4/2025Add bookmark#100Taylor collapsed into the couch. The Wards quarters was more or less empty at the moment, although she was pretty sure that Shadow Stalker was somewhere on base. Well, no, she knew that Shadow Stalker was on base—in the gym right now, on one of the treadmills if her motion was any indication. Her insects gave her practically localized omniscience, but she was trying to give the heroes at least the illusion of privacy.
She was wiped. Mouse Protector really knew her stuff, but she was also a never-ending font of energy and a rather demanding taskmaster. Her education had been eclectic, a combination of studying popular comedians, black-and-white slapstick movies, other comedy capes, and Mouse Protector's own recorded fights, mixed with practicing her powers, theorycrafting about power synergies and interactions, sparring with Mouse Protector, and intense rounds of battlefield analysis and prediction. It was incredibly interesting and intellectually stimulating, but it still left Taylor feeling absolutely wiped at the end of each 8-hour training session. Fortunately, she only had one more session that intense before her debut tomorrow evening, but Mouse Protector was apparently going to be sticking around in Brockton Bay for a while—something about an issue with Ravager and an interest in seeing the start of Taylor's own career.
They'd refined the set of powers she could use freely, which she could use sparingly or in limited ways, and which were entirely off the table. There were fewer of the last than she'd expected: Butcher's pain blast, using Sepsis' decay on any kind of flesh, publicly consuming blood for Devein's healing factor, and Novocain's pain amplification were all barred, but everything else was fine in moderation. Absinthe's fear-based hallucination aura could be an effective distraction if not held for more than a few seconds, Basilisk could easily create effective and safe tranquilizers, and Frenzy's rage powers could be used in reverse to calm combatants or panicked civilians.
She had all of the Butchers pushed away right now—not to the edges of her swarm, like she used as a punishment, but automatically filtered out of her perception, the way she dealt with all the bug senses she didn't want to acknowledge. It was a bit of a trick, and she couldn't do it indefinitely—eventually it caused a feeling of strain and would fail, with what she was pretty sure would be a crippling headache if she didn't have her pain negation powers—but it was effective in the short term. The only reason she didn't keep it on more often was that the Butchers got more obnoxious afterwards, even the ones she kind of liked. Well, that, and because for all that they were mass murderers, Taylor kind of enjoyed the conversations. After the past two years of isolation at Winslow, it was almost a nice change. That being said, well, after the day she'd just had, some quiet was more than appreciated.
Her bugs caught a figure approaching, gnats automatically latching onto the head and critical joints. A moment of concentration gave her the dimensions of the figure, from which she concluded that either a random child had gotten loose in the PRT facility or Vista was coming in early. A few seconds later, the 'masks on' warning blared out, and Taylor responded by slapping on her new goggles from where they were lying nearby. She was wearing her new costume, complete with incredibly fuzzy arm and leg warmers—seriously, they were way softer than they had any right to be—and a tight yellow bodysuit with an internal hexagonal protective mesh that gave it the vague appearance of a beehive. Not that she particularly needed armor, with her cocktail of Brute powers that left her skin stronger than any non-tinkertech material could manage, but Youth Guard regulations didn't exactly take that into account, and it wasn't like she minded it. The antenna attached to her goggle mask bounced wildly whenever she turned her head, which was far more enjoyable than it had any right to be.
A few moments later, the door opened with a pneumatic hiss, and there was the short form of Vista—out of costume, but for a black domino mask. She was wearing the uniform of Forsberg Middle, a private school for the rich known to be a feeder for Arcadia, and she had a bookbag slung loosely over her shoulder. She stepped confidently into the room, only to freeze abruptly when her eyes landed on Taylor.
"Oh, hey," Taylor said, from the couch.
Space briefly wobbled between them as the girl's instinctive panic warred with her professionalism, then it stabilized. "Hey," Vista replied, and now she seemed to be fully taking in Taylor's costume. "Who'd you piss off in Image?" she asked, then clapped a hand over her mouth.
Taylor just laughed. "Nobody. Actually, I think Chambers and I got on famously."
"I knew you were a villain," the girl said snarkily, then looked mortified again. "I'm so sorry, normally I've got a better filter, it's just that—"
"It's fine," Taylor said, waving her hand. "Don't feel bad for joking around. If I had a problem with that, then I doubt I would have made it through the last week of Mouse Protector's workshop."
"Wait, is that why she's been here? I saw she was in Brockton, but I had no idea it was related to, well…"
"To the Butcher's debut?" Taylor replied, sardonically. "I didn't expect it myself. I pitched my hero persona as a joke cape, and Chambers took that and ran with it. Apparently he pulled some strings to get Mousey herself on board as a contractor. Not that I think she minds much, since she showed me what the PRT is paying her and it is absolutely exorbitant. Plus she gets the chance to punch Nazis, so. Win-win, apparently."
Vista took a moment to process all of that. "Wait, you're going to be a joke cape? Like Clock?"
She shook her head. "Not exactly. As far as I can tell, Clockblocker is a hero who likes to make some quips, but that's not the same thing. Trust me, I spent several hours with Mouse studying the difference. For a comedy hero, the humor and heroics always go together. Don't worry, though—the persona we settled on is far more slapstick than puns. It's part of why I went with the name Bumble to begin with."
"Bumble, huh?" Vista said, giving the costume another glance. "I think I can see it. So you're going to act incompetent, and then win anyway? That kind of thing."
"Got it in one," Taylor replied, and then she felt a small smile steal across her lips. "Okay, well, there is one pun I'll be making, but it's kind of a secret. See, when you 'butcher' something, that can mean that you mess up badly, which makes it a synonym to 'bumble.'"
Vista stared at her in absolute shocked silence for several seconds. "Oh god, you're not as bad as Clock. You're worse."
"I'll take that as a compliment," Taylor replied.
The young girl bit her lip, then seemed to make a decision. In one smooth motion, she reached up to pull off her mask. Before she could, Taylor's hand came out and wrapped around the girl's wrist. It felt fragile under her touch, and Taylor was acutely aware that her Brute packages would let her snap it like so much spaghetti. "Hold on," she said. "I won't stop you if you want to unmask, but I need to be sure you know what that means. It's not just me—if I die, every Butcher after me would know your identity as well, and whoever they choose to tell."
Vista gently pulled Taylor's hand away, and she let her. "I know," the other girl said, "but that's a risk I'm willing to take. You've already been nicer to me than Shadow Stalker, you already unmasked to us, and frankly if I have to be mask on whenever you're in the room I'll go crazy. Plus, it's not like the Wards identities are as secret as everyone likes to pretend—between school administrators, the youth guard, my parents, the PRT drivers, well, it wouldn't be too hard for anyone dedicated to figure it out."
Taylor blinked a few times. "Huh," she said, because that was pretty well reasoned. "That's kind of alarming."
The girl just shrugged. "Anybody who acts on it and attacks a Ward out of costume is just asking for Alexandria's boot being driven so far up their butt they can taste the soles." With that, she pulled off her mask, revealing a young face with a light smattering of freckles. She held out her hand. "I'm Missy, Missy Byron."
Taylor smiled at her, a wide and sincere grin that had become rare in recent years, and took the girl's hand. Missy's grip was surprisingly firm, for a girl her age. "Taylor Hebert, as I said before. It's nice to meet you, Missy."
"It's nice to meet you too, Taylor," Missy replied, smiling back. "I look forward to working with you."
~*~
Alicia meandered down the halls of the Brockton Bay PRT office, whistling a little as she walked. The officer escorting her was giving her a nasty look out of the corner of her eye, but she couldn't be bothered. It probably didn't help that she was running about ten minutes late, and the officer kept trying to rush her, but Mouse Protector was not to be rushed. She was neither early nor late; she arrived precisely when she meant to. Or maybe that was wizards, she'd have to ask Myrddin the next time she saw him.
Okay, so maybe she really just wanted to tweak Director Piggot's nose a bit. Was that a crime? The woman just kind of rubbed her the wrong way—she was so serious all the time, it seemed exhausting. How could you spend your whole life working with people who put on masks and threw lasers at each other without appreciating how ridiculous the whole thing was? Frankly, Alicia felt it was her moral imperative to make the woman lighten up a little, or if that wasn't possible then maybe tick her off just a bit. It certainly didn't have anything to do with how the woman was just like all of the authority figures that Alicia had always fought with back when she was a Ward, no sirree.
"Director? You wanted to see me?" she said, opening the door and leaning casually against the doorframe. The woman looked stressed, but from Alicia's experience that was her constant state of affairs. Came with being the Director of the PRT in a town filled with Nazis and a rage dragon, she supposed.
"Mouse Protector," the woman said, with a tone of muted exasperation. "Please, come in."
Alicia waltzed in, grabbing the seat in front of the director's office and twirling it around, before sitting on it backwards. "So, what did you need me for? Because if it's about the nacho cheese incident on Tuesday, I was definitely no where near the cafeteria and have no idea what you're talking about."
"Bumble," the woman said, clearly experienced with ignoring non-sequiturs. It was probably that bastard Assault's fault, too, constantly cracking jokes and desensitizing the bureaucrats. "You had a week with the girl, at no small expense. I want to know if she's ready for her debut tomorrow."
At that, Alicia raised one eyebrow. "You doubt my methods?"
"I doubt that the Butcher can pull off a comedy cape routine, regardless of who is teaching her," the Director said. "If this whole campaign had come from anybody other than Glenn, I would have recommended immediate master/stranger protocols to see if they were actively trying to undermine the PRT."
"And yet, you still went along with it," Alicia replied.
The woman grimaced. "I've seen what happens when you make an enemy of Glenn Chambers, and it isn't pretty—especially when the Chief Director is backing him up. But just because I've been ordered to oversee a trainwreck doesn't mean I can't start damage control before it hits."
"No, Trainwreck is a different cape entirely," Alicia said, because she really couldn't help herself. "But I take your point. In any case, I'm sure you'll be happy to know that Bumble has my full Seal of Mousy Approval. That's not to say I don't want to stick around and help guide her moving forward, but in my experience she's been an attentive student, with an insightful and intuitive understanding of the demands for a jokester."
"You're kidding," the Director said, flatly.
"For once? No, I am not." She cocked her head to the side, looking at the director. "Sure, she's not going to have the same schtick as I've got, but that's a good thing. No toe-stepping, you know. We're going for more of a slapstick, bumbling buffoon angle–real Charlie Chaplin, you know?"
"And you think she can pull it off? That she won't go on a murderous rampage, in a few months time?" It almost felt like the Director was begging her for some sign that she could use to call off Bumble's debut. Alicia did her best to not take too much pleasure in denying her that.
In response, Alicia could only shrug. "Who am I to say? I'm sure you have psych evals that give you a better sense of that. What I can tell you, though, is that spite is a very strong motivator and that girl has a will of tungsten-carbide. And, well. There's that old saying, isn't there? " She smirked a little. "Comedy is just tragedy plus time, and Bumble has had far more than her fair share of both of those things."
Director Piggot gave her a dead eyed stare. "Thank you, Mouse Protector. You're dismissed."
In response, Alicia shot her a sardonic salute, and then a moment later she tugged on the thread of one of her tagged items—her suitcase, back in her home—and with a faint 'pop' she disappeared.
~*~
Last chance to change your mind, Howitzer said, not unkindly. She didn't approve of the comedy plan, but she wasn't as virulently opposed to it as many of the others, and she'd made it clear that the decision was ultimately Taylor's own.
Fuck that, this is going to be hilarious. Even if the costume was designed by that rat bastard, Cordyceps responded.
Personally, I can't wait until other people start to put 'one and fourteen together', as you said, Wendigo said, a smirk clear in her voice. God, Kaiser's going to shit bricks when he realizes.
Hopefully that won't be for a while, Taylor replied mentally. They all ignored the seven muted voices that were only understandable as a very faint scream, pushed as far into the swarm as they'd been. Almost reflexively, Taylor pet at the fuzzy armwarmers—they were actually so soft, she kind of loved just wearing them.
"You doing alright?" Vista said, from where she was standing next to her. Aegis, Gallant, and Kid Win were in the little 'green room' as well, but they were giving Taylor a much wider berth, and looking at Vista with no little degree of shock.
"Sorry, just a little distracted," Taylor replied, shrugging one shoulder.
"By the…" Vista trailed off, tapping her head.
In reply, Taylor smiled faintly. "Yeah. I pissed off a fair few of them, doing this. I can ignore them fine, but it's a little distracting."
"God, that's so creepy," Kid Win said in a quiet whisper. He probably hadn't meant to be overheard, but more than a couple of her Brute powers had come with some level of sensory enhancement, and she was gradually learning how to parse her bug senses into speech as well. Not that she'd tell him that quite yet—she was waiting for a funnier moment to spring that on them.
A person in a suit was approaching the green room, she could see with her bloodsight through the wall, and Taylor turned to face the door a second before it opened, revealing a harried looking woman carrying a clipboard with an earpiece in. The woman's eyes quickly scanned the room, as though making sure everyone was present, before landing back on Taylor. "Bumble, you're on in fifteen. Makeup wants to see you for a last minute touch-up, so I need you to come with me. The rest of the Wards, head over to the stage and my colleague will tell you where to stand."
How dare some paper-pushing nobody command the— and there went Devein. She was starting to despair over either of the first two Butchers ever learning better.
Taylor stood up, enjoying the stretch in her back. "Lead the way," she said, cheerfully.
As she followed the woman out, the door swinging shut behind them, Taylor's enhanced senses heard Kid Win quietly say, "Holy shit. I don't know how you do it, Vista."
"Do what?" the smaller Ward asked.
"Just… have a casual chat with the Butcher," he said.
Vista snorted, her voice getting quieter as the room got further away. "She's just a teenage girl. She's got some extra baggage, sure, but what cape doesn't. Besides, she's way nicer than Stalker."
She'll a good teammate, Frenzy said, in his soft voice, surprising Taylor a little bit. The man rarely talked, but that just meant she usually listened when he did. She's loyal and strong.
Whatever Kid Win's reply might have been, it was lost as Taylor was brought to another room right next to the larger amphitheater where they would be doing the introduction. She'd seen the PRT do Ward introductions before, but she hadn't known that they borrowed one of the floors of the Brockton 7 News building for it until now. It made sense, though—the PRT building didn't exactly have ample room for the kind of space that would require, and it was easier to work with cameras and mics that were already set up.
The make-up artist turned out to be a rather nice woman in her late thirties named Janice with a surprisingly butch vibe for her profession, which meant that Taylor had to deal with a good third of the Butchers making lusty comments. Not that Taylor herself couldn't appreciate a nice figure, and she'd had some time to come to terms with the way her sexuality had been affected by her inheritance, but she didn't exactly intend to be jail-bait any time soon. Taylor just made polite conversation, doing her best to stay in character as Bumble, and given that they were just doing some final adjustments (she'd had to sit for a good thirty minutes earlier for the initial make-up application) it wasn't too long before Janice told her that she was good to go.
On the stage two rooms over, the gnats that she'd set up on pretty much everyone in her radius showed the Wards getting placed into suitably heroic spots in the background, along with three heroes—Battery, Assault, and Miss Militia. It was something of a show of force, almost certainly and unnecessary one, but it was more for PR reasons than anything else. Director Piggot arrived shortly afterwards, walking up to a podium, and then the cameras were rolling. The Director was making a speech—Taylor had read it beforehand, so she didn't bother straining to hear it now—and she was pretty sure that everything was going according to plan.
And then the woman with the clipboard was back. "Alright, Bumble. You've got your parts memorized?"
"Yup," Taylor said, stretching idly. She'd workshopped all of this with Mouse Protector (along with Cordyceps, Wendigo, and Hazard, her predecessors most inclined to helping with the plan) ahead of time, and she was a mixture of nervous and excited. The woman touched her ear piece, listening intently. Eventually, she apparently received the signal, because she turned to Taylor and raised her hand. Fingers counted down: Five, four, three, two, and—
With a crack, Taylor disappeared from the room and reappeared on the stage two hundred feet away. The Director was in the middle of her sentence, saying, "–Bay's newest ward, Bumble!"
Almost immediately, Bumble tripped and faceplanted right on the ground, falling into a spread-eagle pose, right where the cameras would get a perfect shot of her tumble. "Oof!" she exclaimed, and then she rapidly scrambled up to her feet. "I'm okay!" she cried out, patting herself down. She looked around, as if trying to figure out if anyone had seen her fall, and then her eyes met the camera and she froze like an innocent civilian before a rampaging member of the Teeth.
In an unamused tone, Director Piggot said, "Bumble, why don't you introduce yourself to the good people of the city?"
"Um, yeah! For sure, Miss Director ma'am!" Bumble replied. She made her way over toward the podium, stumbling once and teleporting a few feet forward in response before pretending she hadn't tripped up at all. Piggot stepped to the side, allowing her to stand behind it. "Hello Brockton Bay. My name is Tumble, and I'm here to bell you all about myself!" She paused, then frowned. "No wait, that's not it." Reaching into one of her suit's pockets, she pulled out a set of three-by-five index cards. Looking at the first one, she said, in a monotone 'reading' voice, "'My name is Bumble, and I'm here to tell you all about myself.' Right, yeah. That's it."
Bumble nodded, content in a job well done, until she heard the cough coming from beside her. "...And you're going to tell them about yourself?" Director Piggot said, with one arched eyebrow.
"Oh! Right, yeah. Let's see. Um, I like pistachio ice cream and reading and short walks on the beach. My favorite hero is… probably Mouse Protector, but I also really like Miss Militia. Oh, and one interesting fact about me is that I know how to weave baskets underwater." She turned to look at the Director. "Was that good?"
Piggot closed her eyes and reached a hand to her face, as if asking for patience. Taylor wasn't entirely sure it was part of the act, either. "That was… fine, Bumble, although I was hoping you might talk a bit about your powers."
"Right! My powers! Um, the power testing people said I was something called a crab-bag, I think, which is weird because only one of my powers has to do with crabs at all," she rambled.
"A grab-bag cape," Piggot interjected.
"A what now?" Bumble said, cocking her head to the side.
"A grab-bag cape. It means you have a collection of weaker powers."
"Ooooooh. That makes so much more sense," Bumble replied, nodding sagely. "Okay. So, I can go 'whoosh' for short distances, I'm really strong, and I can make stuff go all soft and squishy. Oh! And I can make bugs and spiders and crabs move around."
The Director took a deep breath. Turning to the camera, she said, "Bumble is a teleporting mover, a low-end Brute, an arthropod Master, and she has a Shaker ability to change the malleability of matter."
Bumble's head cocked to the side. "Isn't that what I said?" She looked down at the cue cards. "Um, was there anything else, ma'am?"
"No, Bumble, that should do it," the woman replied, and she seemed as if she very much wanted Bumble off the stage immediately.
"Okie-dokie! Oh, wait, there was one other thing." Looking down and pawing through the index cards, Bumble stage-whispered, "Okay, now what was it that Mouse Protector told me to say again?" She scrunched up her face into a 'thinking' expression, then it cleared. "Right!" She turned, facing directly toward the camera. "I'm here to kick criminals' butts and chew bubblegum, and I'm all out of butts! Wait, no, that's not it. I'm all out of bubblegum!" She made a kicking motion with one foot, along with an exaggerated 'hi-yah!' sound.
"Thank you, Bumble, for that enlightening introduction," the Director said, a dry sarcasm in her tone.
"You're welcome, Miss Director Piggot Ma'am!" she chirped back, but she was already stepping away to join the rest of the Wards, who all moved a little to let her join their ranks, and everyone but Missy did their best to not make it seem like they were trying to put distance between themselves and her.
The director took to the podium again, and the rest of the press release was just the standard boilerplate about the Wards program which Taylor mostly tuned out, as she listened to the various reactions to her little performance from the voices in her head. Cordyceps and Hazard found it hilarious, Howitzer was quietly disapproving, Sepsis and Absinthe were (predictably) arguing over whether people would think she was genuine or see through the act, Mimic was sulking that she didn't end up using his power for the demonstration, and Quarrel, Butcher, Devein, and Novocain were all yelling their displeasure. Listening to their internal conversations, Taylor couldn't help but feel it was a little like people watching, in a strange way.
She was drawn out of her thoughts by a gloved hand on her own. Looking over, she saw Vista had tapped her to get her attention. When she met Missy's gaze, shielded though it was by the visor, the smaller Ward mouthed, "Good job," at her.
Taylor smiled and mouthed, "thank you," back, squeezing Missy's hand in a quick gesture of appreciation. Her debut had gone off about as well as she could have hoped for—now they just had to wait and see what the public response was.Last edited: 17/4/2025 Award ReplyReport1043ThaviaVex10/4/2025NewAdd bookmarkView discussionThreadmarks Interlude 1 - Bumbling Reactions New View contentThaviaVexShe/Her17/4/2025Add bookmark#158a/n: Ugh, I hate making fake PHO posts. Still, it's what the story requires, and so we persevere. Hope you enjoy seeing the reactions to Bumble's debut. I actually wrote the Kaiser section before I read the comment by Kirlia481, which made it particularly funny. Also, nazis say slurs that I'm not particularly comfortable writing, so I've censored them. I think it's fairly obvious what the words are in context, but frankly I don't want to write them out so I didn't.
PHO
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♦ Topic: A New Thread
In: Boards ► Places ► Brockton Bay ► Wards
Miss Mercury (Original Poster) (Protectorate Employee)
Posted On Feb 18th 2011:
On behalf of the ENE Protectorate, I'm proud to announce the debut of a new member of our Wards team. Everyone, please give a warm Brockton Bay welcome to Bumble. She's eager to get on the streets and help the fine people of our city, and we're excited to have her on the team.
You can watch her introduction here: www.prt.gov/wards/brockton%20bay/bumble_press_conference.mov
For more information, you can visit her page as well:
www.prt.gov/wards/brockton%20bay/bumble.html
(Showing page 1 of 13)
►Thatdude
Replied On Feb 18th 2011:
Ah hell yeah, new ward! It's been like six months since the last one, right?
►AbbyWasHere
Replied On Feb 18th 2011:
Ugh, and I just completed my Brockton Bay hero merch collection! Now I'm gonna have to buy even more stuff. My poor wallet…
Jk, I'm actually stoked that we're getting another Ward. She seems nice.
►Iblis
Replied On Feb 18th 2011:
Holy shit, is she for real? Brockton's gonna eat her alive, dude. Letting a girl like that run around in the same city as Hookwolf or Lung? What the hell are they smoking on the Rig, and where can I get some?
►Nondeceptive
Replied On Feb 18th 2011:
Me whenever I face the tiniest difficulty:
BumbleFaceplant.gif
►Lightbud
Replied On Feb 18th 2011:
>Iblis dude the hole point of the wards is that they don't get into fights with real villains she"ll be fine
►Feychick
Replied On Feb 18th 2011:
Wait are they actually planning on launching a humor hero in the Bay? The last one I can remember was, what, King Goose back in '04? And don't say Uber and L33t, everyone knows they don't count.
►Ekul
Replied On Feb 18th 2011:
I wonder if that's why Mouse Protector's been around. Maybe she's been training Bumble in the way of the bit?
►XxVoid_CowboyxX
Replied On Feb 18th 2011:
It's obvious that Bumble is MP's daughter! The teleport proves it! And the father's probably the Butcher, because they've got the matter manipulation power and their a brute too!
►Lolitup
Replied On Feb 18th 2011:
I'm just gonna ignore Void.
Look, I've got a degree in parahuman anthropology, so I just want to throw out my two cents. There's a reason why you don't see many humor capes—and it's pretty obvious that's what Bumble is, because nobody is naturally that scatterbrained at a press conference. Being a humor cape is really frickin hard, and most of the time means that the cape is either really weak or, more frequently, strong enough to sandbag and be fine. Now, I don't know about you guys, but Bumble's powerset doesn't sound weak to me.End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 11, 12, 13
(Showing page 2 of 13)
►Mr. Fabuu
Replied On Feb 18th 2011:
>lolitup 'I'm just gonna ignore Void.' Yeah, that's what we all do.
As for whether Bumble's a hidden dragon, I'm not convinced. It's pretty well known that grab bags have weaker individual powers than other capes. Bumble's abilities sound versatile, but I don't know if I'd put her as stronger than Aegis or Triumph.
►Mane Magenta
Replied On Feb 18th 2011:
Why isn't anybody talking about her costume??? It's so cuuuuuute!
►Bumble (Wards ENE) (Verified Cape)
Replied On Feb 18th 2011:
Hello PHO!
Vista told me that it's tradition for Wards to post in their own threads, so here I am! Thank you for all your support! Um, let me just reply to a few things...
>Mane Magenta I also love my costume---the arm bands are actually so fuzzy, you wouldn't believe it!
>Mr. Fabuu I'm not a dragon! At least, not that I know of. I think the scales and wings would give it away, though.
>Ekul Mouse actually came down from Boston to teach me! She said that was where she cut her teeth, which didn't make much sense to me because my teeth were already cut when I got them, but I forgot to ask her. Anyway, we've got kind of similar powers (but she's not my Mom, we're not related at all!!! Plus she's more like a cool aunt than anything.)
►SolvingSoftware
Replied On Feb 18th 2011:
I have decided. Bumble is a precious egg who must be protecc. Evidence:
BumbleFaceplant.gif
►Bumble (Wards ENE) (Verified Cape)
Replied On Feb 18th 2011:
>SolvingSoftware I don't know what that means but thank you? Also aughhh I can't believe I tripped like that, it's so embarrassing!!!
►Vista (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)
Replied On Feb 18th 2011:
Just gonna say, it was even funnier to watch it in person. It was really hard not to burst out laughing, especially since we were all trying to look super professional and stuff. Bumble's really nice though. I'm glad she's on the team.
►Bumble (Wards ENE) (Verified Cape)
Replied On Feb 18th 2011:
Vista you meany! Okay I don't mean that. Vista's actually super nice! I haven't spent much time with the rest of the Wards yet, cause I was super busy with training, but Vista and I hang out sometimes and she's said she's gonna show me the ropes! I didn't even know that the Wards had ropes, but I'm excited to see them!
►Sothoth
Replied On Feb 18th 2011:
>SolvingSoftware Okay, yeah, I'm convinced.
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Kaiser
Max Anders stood at the front of the table, a screen behind him. He always found it funny, how these meetings often paralleled those that he had with the Medhall board members. Right now, he was with five of the Empire capes in one of the gang's properties, an office building that had the 8th floor reserved for Empire matters. Hookwolf was on one side of the table with Cricket, while Krieg, Alabaster, and Victor were sitting on the opposite side.
"Krieg, I'll rely on you to arrange protection for our dealers between yourself, Crusader, and Stormtiger. If you need to move fast, feel free to call on Rune's services. Understood?"
Krieg nodded and said, in his moderate German accent, "Understood, Kaiser. It shall be done."
"Good." He nodded decisively, clicking forward to get the screen to transition to the next slide, this one containing a still from the Bumble video from the PRT's own website. "Then there's only one other matter to attend to. The Protectorate have acquired a new Ward, Bumble. I'll play the video now."
The video played out on the screen, from Piggot's bland speech to the girl's sudden arrival. Max watched it with interest; as the leader of the country's largest neonazi movement, he was always interested in seeing how the PRT ran their own propaganda.
Max cleared his throat. "What do we know about her? Powers, weaknesses, threat level."
Victor cleared his throat. "According to the director, she's a grab-bag with assorted weak powers: short teleport, weak brute, matter manipulation, and bug control. She's likely capable of being a nuisance, especially to our unpowered members, although I fail to see what she'd do against the twins, Krieg, or yourself."
"The girl's a r*****," was Alabaster's insightful contribution. "Seriously, why are we even worried? She can't even teleport without falling over."
"I find it unwise to underestimate our opponents, especially when they make it so easy," came Victor's dry reply.
"It's not underestimating if she's too dumb to get through a single sentence," Alabaster replied, with a sneer.
"She moves like a fighter." Heads turned to see who spoke, and Max felt somewhat shocked to see that it had actually been Brad.
"You? You're scared of a girl who named herself Bumble?" came Alabaster's incredulous reply.
Hookwolf snorted at that, shaking his head. "I never said I'm scared of her, asshole. But I know fighters, and she's got all the markers."
"She literally tripped over her feet," the pale man snapped back.
Hookwolf let out a growl like metal being crushed, lines of steel beginning to form beneath his skin. Max held up a hand, forestalling any further argument—if Brad wanted to tear Alabaster apart like a rottweiler with a chew-toy, he could do that somewhere that Max wouldn't have to foot the bill for the property damage. "Enough. Brad, what makes you think she's a fighter?"
The man visibly calmed himself, the roiling metal stilling slowly. He gestured to the screen, where the video had been paused. "Look at how she places her weight on her feet, how she keeps her balance. When she tripped, she broke her fall like a martial artist. That's instinct, the kind of thing you only get with practice."
"So she's a r***** who took took some ch*** fighting classes," Alabaster said, with a careless shrug. "She'd still go down to one guy with a gun."
Max pursed his lips, then turned to look at Cricket. In her modulated and flat voice, coming from the speaker in her neck, the woman said, "I agree with Brad. She is dangerous."
Alabaster snorted, shaking his head in disgust. "When did you guys turn into such fuckin' pussies?"
Max slapped the table, lightly, but it was enough to silence the bickering. "It doesn't matter right now. Fighter or not, the girl is a Ward. Killing her—even seriously injuring her—would bring down more heat than we need right now. If you run into her, handle her with caution, and don't expect her to be a pushover just because that's what she wants the world to think. Understood?"
He looked around the table, getting nods of agreement. When he got to Alabaster, the man sneered, but eventually nodded as well. "Fuck, fine. I still think… fine."
Kaiser nodded, pleased. "In the meantime, Victor, get some of our men to try and dig up more footage of her powers and her identity, if you can. Quietly, of course."
Victor nodded. "Understood."
Lung
Kenta was only distantly aware that there was a new member of the Wards. It did not matter much to him—they were not allowed to fight against him or Oni Lee, and it would not matter if they did. He was Lung. He was the Dragon. He had faced down the entire might of the Protectorate and had drawn them to a tie, forced them to retreat lest they face his wrath. Their acquisition of one more incompetent child would change nothing.
He watched the building in front of him burn down, the flames warm on his skin. It had once been a Vietnamese restaurant, and he could admit that they had made a damn good bowl of pho, but unfortunately they had also chosen not to pay him for protection. The owner of the building could only blame himself for what had happened next.
Coil
Thomas Calvert found himself more than a little irritated. He knew that there was something about the new Ward, Bumble, that had sent more than a few people into a panic, but he didn't know exactly what it was. He could access her basic PRT file, of course—he had the authorization for simple threat analyses and patrol details, things like that—but her full file was sealed behind level 7 authorization, which meant it could only be accessed by PRT Directors, Protectorate leaders, and anyone they give explicit permission to.
It was irritating, but not so much that he was really willing to spend more resources or timelines on trying to ferret out the secret. He was almost sure he knew what it was, anyway. It hadn't taken too much work to figure out that Bumble's civilian identity was Taylor Hebert, not after setting his Tattletale on it in a now defunct timeline. Coil had sources in all of the local schools, since most new parahumans triggered around high school, and it was often an easy way to find and acquire new resources, and so he knew that Sophia Hess—the civilian identity of Shadow Stalker—had been engaged in an extensive bullying campaign against one Taylor Hebert. It was the kind of scandal that could easily bring horrible PR to the PRT, and so he had tucked it away as a nice piece of potential ammunition for bringing down Piggot.
It was unfortunate to lose that threat before he got the chance to bring it to bear, but that was fine. He was a patient man, and he had access to far more dirty laundry that he could air when the time was right. For now, he put Bumble out of his mind and focused on bringing his other schemes to completion.
Tattletale
The cup of coffee fell from Lisa's limp hands, spilling over the table, but she didn't care. Her eyes were fixed on the phone in her hands—specifically, on the press conference that the PRT had just put out announcing a new Ward.
"Oh fuck me," she said, quietly. "Oh fuck, fuck, fuck."
Alec looked up from across the table, where he was curled up around a bowl of cereal like a particularly sluggish sloth. "Whas up?" he said, blinking the sleep from his eyes.
"Have you guys seen the new Ward?" she said, barely keeping the tremble from her voice. Automatically, she grabbed a paper towel from the roll they were using as napkins and began to wipe up the coffee. It helped, having something automatic to do.
"Yeah?" Alec said, his head cocked to the side. "Stumble or Bumble or something like that, right? Shit was hilarious."
From the kitchen, where he was currently making scrambled eggs, Brian looked over at her. "I haven't had the chance yet. Is she like Stalker?"
"Hardly," Alec replied. "Girl's being billed as a comedy cape. I doubt we have to deal with a second dark and broody running around with broadhead bolts."
At that, Lisa let out a little hysterical laugh. "Oh no, Bumble's far more dangerous than Stalker could ever dream of being. And I'm pretty sure she actually hates Shadow Stalker, but it's kind of hard to read her."
That got Brian's attention, his brow furrowing. "Wait, is she some kind of thinker as well? Or an anti-thinker trump?"
Lisa shook her head, staring at the video. Putting on a performance. Is enjoying the act. Hates the act. Hates Director Piggot. Friends with Vista. Wants to murder Vista and eat her flesh. Unconscious movements consistent with trained fighter. Slightly favors left leg despite no sign of injury; possibly psychosomatic. Movements consistent with at least two separate Brute powers, likely more. Trained in several styles of fighting.
Lisa winced a little, but she pushed her power further. Arthropod movement is irregular, confirms claim. Arthropod movement is incredibly precise. All seemingly clumsy arthropod movement is carefully choreographed. Using arthropods to displace physical sensations of anxiety. Currently monitoring the entire studio with arthropods. Currently monitoring the studio with parahuman sense, likely relating to cardiovascular or nervous system. Capable of killing everyone in the room before they could react. Could kill Lisa Wilbourn in at least twenty different ways before she could react.
"Fuck me," she said, as her power punished her attempts to lean hard on it with a sharper stab of pain. "And not exactly. Well, she's both a Thinker and a Trump, but that's not the problem."
Alec seemed to have reached the end of his patience, gesturing with his spoon and sending little splatters of cereal milk onto the table. "Christ Lisa, We get it. You're the smartest cookie in the room. Now stop with the run-around and just spit it out."
Lisa licked her lips. "You can't go blabbing this around. I'm serious, Alec, this is the kind of shit we can't go running our mouths with."
He raised an eyebrow. "This, coming from Tattletale?"
She glared at him. "Yes. And if I'm saying that you need to keep it quiet, what does that tell you?"
The boy just shrugged. "Fair point," he said.
Brian had plated his eggs by now, sitting down across next to Alec. "We won't say anything, but it sounds like this is info that'll affect the whole team."
Lisa's nose reflexively wrinkled in disgust when the man started to dump way too much hot sauce onto his plate, but that was an old argument and not one she wanted to relitigate right now. Instead, she decided to just lay all the cards on the table. "Bumble is Butcher Fifteen," she said.
Alec barely reacted, but that was usual for him. Brian's response was far more dramatic. He froze, fork half-way to his mouth, then slowly set it back down. "You're shitting me," he said.