Don't like trains?

I Like Trains

It was at times like this one that Taylor experienced a mild moral quandary. Or three. Slaanesh's powers were, well, really frigging useful. The only downside was that the entity in question came with them. She, or possibly he, had a nasty habit of constantly trying to push for them to do more. It planted visions in her head of massive worlds sheathed in shining white material-

-wraithbone-

-and gleaming buildings that rose to the heavens all around. These rather seductive images of an uplifted population, Slaanesh having apparently realized that their preferred approach wasn't very effective on a girl who still considered herself to be fifteen, always had just a little bit of grime. Some tiny little potentially objectionable thing they tried to push through their moral censors. Well, Taylor's moral censors.

She'd tried to explain the concept of a conscience to her passenger and felt the first hint of genuine amusement from it that she'd had to date. That had been fairly embarrassing. As had her first attempt at using a portal over a longer-distance. Slaanesh had 'neglected' to show her how to properly orient the exit. The result was coming out at the other end, in Houston, upside-down, and then faceplanting in the dirt to the amusement of her passenger.

It was made up for by the muffins. As well as the cupcakes. Oh, and the cake. In fact, every time Taylor felt hungry she needn't only to turn around and there was some form of confectionery. It was quite nice, having a secret and apparently super-powered admirer. She had wondered who it was...

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN WE'RE OUT OF CINNAMON? DOOR TO A SUPERMARKET, RIGHT NOW! AND SOMEONE GET ME SOME MORE GODDAMN COOKIE DOUGH!"

... but Slaanesh had only laughed and refused to help. Oh well. They were really quite tasty. Even if the people sitting on the other side of the conference room were looking at her a bit funny. Especially that fellow, whazisname, Glenn. He was hyperventilating a little, actually.

She didn't look that bad, did she? There was the mask, with the little horns that she thought was cute. Her hair had been lengthened, she'd asked Amy to help out with that, and then they'd braided each others. Although Taylor's had ended up a bit more like dreadlocks.

Come to think of it, Clockblocker had called them 'hairtacles'. Only the once, though. For some reason he hadn't appreciated her animating them and waving them around. In any case, it probably wasn't that. Her outfit was leather, sure, but it wasn't particularly kinky or anything... Plus she had, like, a cape. Capes were important.

Ooh, right, she should probably focus on the meeting. It was kinda important. Not every day you got to meet with the entire Triumvirate! Besides, she'd gotten Legend to show off pictures of his baby and she really ought to pay attention to that. Ooh, they were just so cute~ And he looked so handsome with his husband there. Good for him!

"D'aww, she's just so adorable! How old is she?" A muscle in Alexandria's face twitched, almost imperceptibly.

"Seven months. She's already crawling, and she's a cheeky little rascal~" Underneath his face-shrouding mask, Eidolon was doing his absolute best not to snicker.

"D'awwwww~" At that point, Taylor's squee was high pitched enough to make dogs bark. Alexandria twitched again, before stepping forward and smiling. Her hand rapped on the table to catch the interest of the duo, who turned to look at her with guilt written on their faces.

"Miis Hebe-" She was cut off quite suddenly.

"Slaanesh." Blank stares. "... cape name? Slaanesh? I did tell Miss Piggot that." Almost said 'Mrs' there, heh. No need to rush, Taylor, Robin still hadn't asked her out on a second date yet. Eee~ Oh, right, Alexandria was grumpy again.

"... right. Slaanesh. We're here because you've made an awfully large number of claims regarding the strength of your powers that we feel are important to verify." She nodded as one of the most famous heroes in the world looked at her papers with a frown. "It says here you claim to qualify for... I don't believe this... Tinker Ten, Thinker Ten, and Trump..."

There was a moment of silence as she stared at the paper. "... Trump 'Fuck You'. Who wrote this? Seriously." So grumpy. She should do something about that. Like fix her eye. And maybe fix her up! Not with Eidolon, though. That'd just be weird. And, hey, her last four attempts at matchmaking had gone great!

First there was Amy, Vicky and Dean. That was working out fine for them. Then there had been Colin and Dragon, so cute! Oh, Emily and Robin went weirdly well together. Plus, her Pièce de Résistance~

Danny sighed, wondering why exactly he was going through with this. Oh, right. Taylor had made a face and said... something and he'd caved in seconds. Damnit. He just knew, absolutely knew, this was going to end horribly. She meant well, certainly, but he just wasn't exactly sure on her ability to pick out romantic pa-

"Ah... Hello? Daniel Hebert?" A nervous looking woman with dark skin, and darker hair, was standing beside his table and looking at him. His breath caught in his chest.

"Um... y-yes. That's me. Call me Danny." He parroted the last bit on reflex. She smiled, and he thought his heart might stop. It was like he was back in high school.

"I think I shall, Danny. My name is Hannah. Taylor's told me a lot about you."

Heh. Nailed it. And so had her father, ooh-rah. Hrrgh. Damnit, Slaanesh, stop that!

never

Fine, whatever. Point being; get Alexandria a boyfriend, pronto. Or girlfriend, either was fine. Oh, right! Talking. She was mean to do that.

"And Mover... Eight. That should be on there too. Instantaneous portal making across the entire planet. I can vary from about a one to a minimum of six in basically every other field, depending on how I apply my trump abilities. Can only sustain three extra powers at once, though." At least the ones that required a constant flow of psychic power to work, that is.

In reality, she could work with quite a lot more than that. But no need to worry them just yet. Alexandria looked predictably sceptical, however.

"Alright then. In which case, I'd like you to open a portal for us. Say, to the Sahara?" Taylor nodded and snapped her fingers. The black flames surged into existence to their side, bright light flooding into the room along with wind and a bit of sand. Eidolon didn't look surprised at all, but he didn't have a face.

Alexandria, though, had one mean poker face. Note to self, do not play poker with Triumvirate. She could only beat Legend, and that was just mean. He was nice. Still, the three most powerful capes stepped through. After some deliberation, she followed. The odd fat fellow, whasisname, that guy, tried to follow but was barred by Eidolon.

"See? Now we're thinking with Portals!" Her new supercomputer, with the help of Dragon, had pirated the majority of Aleph and Bet's video games and similar media over the last week. The woman had been so grateful for Taylor's help that she'd been willing to do anything. All she'd done was build her a meatspace body with an electronic brain that could interface with any of her tech over extremely long distances with no latency. It hadn't been that hard.

Rewriting the code was the more difficult bit, even if Slaanesh claimed that someone called Tzeentch literally farted more complex algorithms than that.

he does

The first thing Dragon had done, once Colin finally let go of her, and vice versa, was track down Saint and the Dragonslayers, pop the hood of her suit and flip him off. She'd taken pictures of his face, too. Framed them, even. Taylor had a few copies. Classic stuff.

"Alright. I'll start us off, then." Alexandria cracked her knuckles and rose into the air as Taylor stared at her. Uh.. wait, what? Legend flashed back about a hundred meters in a bolt of light, and Eidolon followed him. He was using some telekinetic type power to control a bunch of cameras for the fat fellow.

"Wait, what? You want to fight me? Preeeetty sure I didn't agree to this." The hero in front of her shook her head as she began to circle.

"You've basically claimed to be the most powerful Parahuman on the planet. Time to prove it, 'Slaanesh'." And then it started.

Alexandria was not sure what had actually happened in those first few moments until she went back and reviewed the footage of the sparring sessions in depth. What she saw dumbfounded and aggravated her. The girl, Taylor, had faced her initial rush quite calmly; only to move forward at the last second. In doing so she put her hand on Alexandria's shoulder and chest, avoiding the punch that had been levelled at her.

Then she'd turned all of the hero's momentum into a throw that slung her into the sand with enough force to dig a fifty foot long tunnel as well as bury her completely. She'd burst free just in time to hear Taylor say something about precognition. Fuck.

Rushes wouldn't work, then. Argh. Alexandria was not used to fighting things that could do that. Her two areas of expertise were effortlessly curbstomping villains, and going fist-to-fist with Endbringers. Hm. And then the girl had pulled some bone-white armour into existence around herself. Well then.

This time, Alexandria approached slowly and methodically. The girl didn't seem to be able to fly, so she had the manoeuvrability advantage. Just stay close in, no large movements. When she hit the ground it caused an explosion of sand and a ripple to pass out along the ground to the other two Triumvirate members.

The infight began then. It was like watching a boxing match between a Heavyweight Champion and a Featherweight Champion. The former was swinging hard enough to actually cause explosions behind her opponent from the moved air pressure, while the latter was sliding around every strike without making any attacks.

From the actual perspective of the Heavyweight half, however, it was more like trying to punch a leaf underwater. Her every movement caused Taylor to just shift away in a fashion which she couldn't follow. It was aggravating! Infuriating! And then... suddenly darkness.

A few moments later, she blinked back to focus. There was a splitting pain across her face, and Taylor, Eidolon and Legend were all standing over her. She was... staring at the sky? What the... what happened?

"Um... I'm sorry for breaking your nose. I didn't realize that would be so... effective." Her... nose? She'd taken a punch to the fast from Leviathan and not even gotten a scratch! What the fuck...

"Ish fine. Can you ficsh it?" The girl nodded, gently resting her hand on the hero's face. After a few moments the pain faded, and there was a loud crack. Then a sharp stab of pain again, in her eye socket. Alexandria blinked. Then blinked again. She closed one eye. Then the other.

"You... fixed my eye." She sat up, putting a hand over the new eye. Then moving it. Then putting it back. Then moving it. "I... never thought I'd have my full vision range again..." Suddenly her focus returned. "Okay. What happened just then? Last thing I knew I was swinging a left jab and then I was waking up on the floor."

Taylor turned bright, bright red and shifted her feet in the sand a bit.

"Um... I countered back. Set my feet and slammed you right in the face. While enhancing my strength. A lot." She turned her head to the others. Eidolon, she could tell, was grinning.

"You left a trench in the desert over a mile long and a hundred feet wide. They'll think Ash Beast came through here, or something." Oh. That... was pretty hard. The girl still looked embarrassed.

"The powers I use increase my strength... I thought it was additive, but apparently it's multiplicative. That and, um, I'm a lot stronger and tougher than I look because I can modify my body. Not as strong as you, or tough, but... probably a bit over peak human, despite my shape." That soaked in for a bit, before Eidolon stepped up and clapped the girl on the shoulder.

"Well! Guess that makes it my turn."

Everyone was a little surprised when, this time, Taylor started flying. She'd had to put on a suit of bone-white armour first, and had gone on to explain it wasn't so much flying as telekinetically lifting her equipment. Apparently she couldn't move organic matter. He chalked that up to one of her, very few, Manton limitations.

So he'd accepted a less manoeuvrable form of flight, a forcefield generating power and a ranged energy strike ability. His right hand was held firmly ahead of him where it projected a shield of distorted air. It was one he wished he could have kept for much later; freezing the particles of air it touched in time to create an impenetrable barrier.

Curving projectiles of force were fired from his left hand, weaving their way around his defence and heading towards her. The flight time was too slow, however, and she easily dodged them; initially. They didn't dissipate, however, moving to orbit him like planets as he increased the speed of their trajectories.

She didn't falter, moving ever forward between the blows. It reminded him of the Simurgh, in an eerie way, how she always just managed to be where an attack wasn't. Only even moreso, because the Endbringer would sometimes just go through if it suited her purposes. Taylor just let them weave around her.

He cast aside the offensive ability, feeling his fingertips start to crackle with power. Then, after a thought, he released the forcefield as well. His body hardened, becoming like marble under his costume, while a surge of electricity came forward from his fingertips. No good. She blocked it with a portal, let it crackle out behind him and strike him in the back.

He tossed the electrical ability, and moved in. Another one came. Terrakinesis. Briefly he considered trying again, but then he looked down. With an exaggerated motion he hauled several tons of sand out of the ground and swung it upwards in a widening wave of silicate.

She smashed through it, charging him. Something dropped into her hand and she slammed it right into his face. There wasn't any pain, just blindness as he pulled it off and wiped his mask clean. Apparently, it was a cream pie.

Approximately thirty seconds earlier, Contessa had desperately dropped into a supermarket, swiped an entire bottle of whipped cream along with some aluminium pie tins, tossed a handful of money at the cashier, and then suddenly vanished. She had no idea why the Path to Victory involved this, but so far her efforts had been working.

Eidolon shook his head, staring at the girl floating twenty feet in front of him.

"... could you please take this seriously, Taylor?" She grinned, and floated a little bit closer.

"Suuuuuure I could~ But hey, first I wanna tell ya a secret." There was a flicker, and she was gone. A voice whispered into his ear from behind.

"I like trains."

On the ground, Legend and Alexandria watched as Taylor vanished with a surge of black fire. Then, a moment later, another portal opened. There was an almighty sound of rushing air and screeching metal. At which point a bullet train surged out of the portal, hit Eidolon, and continued downwards towards the surface. The girl in question was standing on top of it the whole way down, squealing with delight.

"... Alexandria?"

"Yes, Legend?"

"Do... do you think she might be a supervillain?"

"I have no idea."

Buried under many, many tons of empty bullet train and sand, Eidolon cast aside all his powers. He reached for more, found them, and then cast them aside again. There had to be something left for him to use, somewhere. Again, he discarded them. That was nine more gone. Part of him tried to call for caution.

The rest of him didn't listen.

Then he found something. A different power. It was cold, and yet hot. Pleasant, and yet painful. It filled him up, buoyed him into the air, and brought strength with it. He flexed, reaching through this new conduit of strength and finding three things there that he could use. The ground above him surged and distorted, sand exploding into the air along with the train.

First power, he thought as he used it to lift himself up with a grin; gravity manipulation. She actually looked mildly worried, as he used it to compress sand into stone and fling it at her at high speed. For a while she dodged, but then quite suddenly she let one impact her and shatter into pebbles. Right.

Second power; temperature control. He held out his hands and the air exploded in a wave rolling towards Taylor. Pink fires boiled forth from her and impacted against his own flame, forming a coruscating inferno that surged upwards. It split off as their powers interacted, forming winding tendrils that, from a certain perspective, might look like a flower.

Half a mile away, Scion floated in the air. He looked at the giant pink-and-red flower that was blossoming in the desert. Then his gaze slowly and deliberately turned to the bouquet of yellow roses in his right hand. After a few moments he turned his head back to the tremendous flower explosion. Then once more to his bouquet. Clearly he would need to try a different approach.

Scion dropped the flowers and flashed off to find Kevin Norton.

Taylor burst through the flames in front of him, but Eidolon was ready with his third power. He let loose, time warping in front of him. But she seemed to see it coming, and had already counteracted it. In a moment she was upon him, letting loose a flash of purple energy that caused a splitting pain through his head. Then he was down.

The powers all left him, and she landed a moment later. Her armour was scorched black, and she had removed the helmet to look at him more closely.

"Do you know what you did?" He shook his head, and she frowned. "Good. I ought to tell you, though. Apparently you can tap into my... ability. Although you don't quite use it in the same way." His thoughts spun as he considered the implications. The power he'd had... it had been immense. She had access to that?

Alexandria and Legend had come over to see him. "He's fine, don't worry."

"That's not what I'm worried about!" Ah, his female compatriot was angry. That was kind of funny, right there. "Was that a bullet train? Where did you get a bullet train!" Taylor chuckled nervously.

"I, um, made it. Not sure 'bout the pie, though..." She stared at her feat as Alexandria slowly turned red, before visibly forcing herself to calm down.

"Okay. Alright. That's fine. But you can't do that sort of thing in a real fight. Messing around like that will get people hurt." Again, Taylor shifted in place and continued to stare at her feat.

"Um... well, actually, my power seems to work better when I'm doing silly stuff like that."

"... what."

After a brief, pseudo-real explanation, she had found herself hovering in the air and preparing to face Legend. This time she'd used fleshsculpting for some wings, never mind that they oughtn't be able to produce enough lift or anything, so she could use her focus on something else.

Alexandria had told her to go as silly as she liked on this one, just to see what she could do. So she was planning to. Just like she was planning to lose. She'd curbstomped the first member of the Triumvirate, and Eidolon had only started to give her a real fight when he'd started tapping into the Warp Energy she was pumping into the air. Slaanesh had been notably silent about that.

This, though? He had ideas. Many ideas. She'd chosen the goofiest one, to her, with the idea that she would give him a fight but still lose. Didn't want to threaten them too much. Yet. Still. Her hands flexed, and objects came into being. Still ostensibly Eldar-tech, since Slaanesh didn't have access to Imperial stuff as like he did with theirs, but it came close enough.

A pair of pauldrons with subwoofers in them. A backpack carried the superwoofers. More speakers adorned almost every inch of her, and she sprouted two extra arms to accomodate the V-neck guitar in her hand. Legend looked on, but said nothing as he prepared for the 'go' signal. Alexandria raised her hand.

"THIS QUIET OFFENDS SLAANESH! THINGS SHALL GET LOUD NOW"

As the hand fell, and Legend fired his pure bullshitonium laserbeams, she unleashed her wave of bullshitonium rock harmonics back at him. She was even playing actual music. Arguably. To some people. Not any of the other three there, but to some people.

The soundwaves caused the air to distort in impossible waves, causing Legend's beams to bend around her at the last second. They formed a cage of light for a moment before he had to dodge to one side to avoid the rippling soundwaves. She could feel their collective shock at the phenomenon before them.

He streaked low as a beam of light and she, futilely, fired after him. Just for demonstration purposes, really. The area distortion covered her within a good sixty foot radius, while the directed sound had a range of several hundred yards.

Her pulse hit the sand and compressed it, agitated it, then fused it. She'd turned the sand into glass. Alexandria had gone from frustrated to pensive as he looked at it, considering the tactical applications. Reading their minds had, perhaps, been a little intrusive...

She was glad she did, though.

Either way, Legend seemed to have figured out a strategy. He was surging rapidly from one side to another, taking advantage of the fact that he could move between locations at the speed of light and fire off a full barrage while she was still turning around. Of course, he was still missing.

Up until a laser took her in the back and caused her makeshift Noise Marine armour to explode.

Of course, Taylor had seen that coming. She still had her precognition running. Unbeknownst to them, she could have diverted the attack. He'd had a good idea, though; since she was bending the lasers away from her, he'd aimed around her in the hopes that it would divert them into her.

It might have worked for real, had she not had more precise control than they'd thought. Sound couldn't divert lasers. Psh. But invisible psychic shields could cause them to refract around her. She hit the ground and rolled, reinforcing her bones against the impact. He was beside her in a flash, both pointing a glowing hand at her head and offering one to help her up.

"Heh... guess you win. I thought I'd totally trumped you for a second there, but I couldn't get a single hit in with it. Can't really match the speed of light." That caused him to grin. The feeling of one-upping his fellow Triumvirate members was... somewhat important to him. She could feel it. It's why she'd let him be the one to beat her.

Of course, they'd been holding back. She knew that as well, and let it go. In fact, she knew a lot more than they thought. It hadn't taken much to convince Emily that she could only 'gift' memories, not take them. Which was quite untrue.

Cauldron... would have to be dealt with. But that could come later.

Further pleasantries were exchanged, and her official rating was set at Trump Ten, because she had a lot of variety but limited amounts of powers at once, along with Thinker Eight, for her extrasensory perception, Mover Eight, because unlike, say, Strider she was capable of only moving small groups of people, and finally Brute Five for her baseline physical durability.

The Tinker rating would be assessed at a later date. Her lack of desire to join the Wards, or Protectorate, was briefly a discussion that was dealt with when she explained that she intended to still join in with, say, Endbringer battles. Eventually she was dismissed, the footage was given to the fat fellow so he could plan a PR Campaign for the unofficial fourth member of the Triumvirate, and she could go home.

For their part, the two Cauldron members were left satisfied that, while dangerous, she was less of a threat than Scion. That thought of theirs rather amused her.

So. She had new goals.

none of these issues matter, they are no threat to you (me) (us)

Scion is, she thought. We're not nearly strong enough to deal with him, as much as you'd like to think so. He can move between realities, according to them. We can't.

once enough warp energy has flooded this world, we will be able to do anything

That, however, would take time. She wasn't willing to create an Eye of Terror here. Although... if she could manipulate Wraithbone to conduct Warp Energies... Hm. Alright. First order of business, the Webway. If she kept a link on herself, then Slaanesh's leaking power could flow into it and disperse anywhere there was a gate.

we highly support this endeavour

Cauldron was lower priority. Best to start small. Clean up the Bay. Then start working on some of the bigger global threats. China would have to be dealt with, eventually. See how she went in the next Endbringer fight. According to the schedule it ought to be Leviathan, and she was pretty sure that one of her powers could just trump anything he could do.

It was frustrating, really. She had this ridiculously overpowered ability that could block all physical damage effortlessly, but could be thwarted by any idiot with a lighter and a can of hairspray. She could fling trucks around with her mind, but couldn't fly without creating weird wings... speaking of which, best clean those up.

Plus, she had to deal with Slaanesh in her head, and the mental effects that he was having on her! First order of business, then, was to find something to ground her. And then, ooh banana-chocolate-chip-muffin, she'd move on to crime fighting.

In the meantime... she had an idea for how to control her passenger.

as if any blandishment or enticement you could offer to us would function foolish mortal we are-

Oh, shush. It was time to boot up the world wide interwebs and introduce the Prince of Pleasure to a little thing she liked to call... /b/.

Elsewhere, Kevin Norton found himself in Japan. This was an unexpected situation for him. The big golden lug had never actually taken him anywhere before. Worse still, he kept gesturing at the goddamn train!

"Listen, I don't know what the fuck you expect me to do about this! The florist was one thing, but I can't get them to give you an entire TRAIN! I don't even speak their language."

Scion said nothing, as usual, and pointed insistently while the residents of Tokyo took pictures on their cellphones and the station manager tried to find a member of staff that could communicate with the dirty smelly man who seemed to be talking to the mighty Kami.

Kevin Norton sighed. The shiny dumbass hadn't brought Duke with them, either.