Jill of All Trades

2.1

"All objects have a soul, no matter what they are, living or no. In time, this can allow objects to gain sentience. The countries in Asia, I believe, have legends about such things. It is through these souls that you'll find your arsenal."

I crouched under the brush, peering at my targets through the gaps in the foliage. Like a phantom, they had no shadow, and were surrounded by a faint aura; dark and wrong, each was a miasma of taint and negativity, a grave contrast to a Phantom's light blue. Ghosts. Three of them, in fact.

I've seen a lot of these in the past week; fought them, and killed them, for a lack of better word. Like most ghosts in the area, these were ghosts of animals. Puppies, from the looks of it, which only made me angrier. Their forms were a twisted reflection of what they once were, with parts of their skin looking torn and perpetually soggy, dripping with water that never reached the ground, and if it wasn't for their body proportions, I probably would have pegged them as being full grown dogs before they died; the damn things were the size of Siberian Huskies.

Consequently, that also meant that all three of them were quite powerful, at least compared to most ghosts I've fought so far.

It was a good thing I hadn't Confined yet.

"All beings who can use Mana can tap into the souls of objects; some better than others. You'll need to learn to do the same."

I breathed in as silently as I could to calm my nerves and positioned myself to strike. These three were dangerous, but I was upwind, and they were downhill, and I still had all the cards I could play ready. I probably wouldn't get a better chance against these three, even if I could find them again later.

"Raging Spirits, Rally to My Banner. Royal Chartreuse."

As I whispered the words, I felt power coursing through my body. It was as though every little sound became louder, every color, more vibrant, and the feel of the spirits I stored with my power all the more tangible.

"Ready?"

"Whenever you are, Little Owl."

"On your orders."

I let a smile cross my face. "Let's get started then." I threw my right hand back, making sure to keep it as hidden away as possible. Motes of light gathered in my palm, coalescing silently until I could feel a plastic cylinder in my grip. Astralisation, Mother Nature had called it. It could generously be called the opposite of Confinement; the act of taking an object and using my Chartreuse to compress the matter into its soul, allowing me to store it and reverse the process when needed.

The object in question was a spear. A simple one, designed primarily for fishing and bought from a hobby shop, but a spear all the same. I connected to its soul in short order, an achievement born from days of practice that I could honestly say I was quite proud of. I felt myself grow stronger with the connection, not enough to be superhuman, I was sure, but I could probably hit a lot harder than most people would expect me to now. It wasn't the only benefit of wielding it, but it was the most significant one.

The best part was that the ghosts hadn't even noticed me yet.

I burst out from under the bush and pushed myself as fast as I could, aided by the slope of the ground beneath me. Instinct guided my feet each step of the way and kept me from tripping on roots and rocks alike. Thirty meters. Twenty. Fifteen. At ten, I lunged at the closest one, the small pack only realizing then that I could actually see them, unlike others, so used to people being unable to interact with them. An advantage that I've abused more than once, and would probably continue to do so in the future.

"Lunge!" I shouted the name of the attack, just before the spearhead -strengthened by my connection, pierced my target's hide. It wasn't necessary, but the vocalization made tapping into the skills hidden in my weapon's soul all the easier. The beast's agonized howl was my reward, as was the weakened state of its miasma, but I couldn't celebrate yet.

My feet landed on it's back and I quickly shifted my grip on my spear to pull it out, spring-boarding off of the hound to get some distance before any of the three could react. I hit the ground with a roll that wasn't quite as perfect as I wanted, but was good enough to break my fall and let me transition into a ready stance. It proved useful almost immediately, letting me dodge one of the fresher ghost's pounce before countering with another thrust of the spear. I only managed to nick it, this time, but at least I drove it back, giving me more room to spare.

I took a moment to survey the battlefield as I calmed my breathing. The one that attacked me was still the closest, its teeth, threateningly bared, and its body coiled for another pounce. The second one seemed more wary, but also showed its teeth in an attempt at intimidation. Worryingly enough, it actually looked like it was producing flames in its mouth. Finally, the one I'd injured was at the very back. There was no visible sign of damage that wasn't already there before, but I knew from experience that that didn't mean much.

"Positioning's perfect, if you can get me behind them."

I nodded curtly in acknowledgement, even if it wasn't really necessary with the Phantoms I was storing.

With measured steps, I circled the three of them, hoping to get line up the closest and furthest ghosts. The middle one wasn't having any of it, and with a bark, it sent the fire in its mouth careening at me. I barely managed a panicked jump to the side, swinging my spear as I landed to ward off the closest ghost. The small explosion as the fireball hit the raised ground behind me still managed to burn me a little, but I was fine overall.

As for my targets, the brief exchange had somehow managed set me up close enough to the kind of position I wanted, a fact I wasted no time in using. With a short toss, I changed my grip on the spear from one meant to stab and into a thrower's grip.

I let it fly not much later, too high to really hit any of them, but just the fact that it was in their direction made the first and last ghost jump out of the way. All the same, hitting them was never my intention. Instead, I reached for the spear with my power, even as it flew, focusing on one of my Phantoms all the while. "Confine!" The yellow green orb blasted out of my outstretched right hand and into the spear, fast as a bullet.

In a flash of light, the weapon became a man who quickly rolled to a stop; tall, broad shouldered, dressed for combat, and holding a shotgun. The already injured ghost had no time to react before Mana pellets peppered its form, the ring of gunfire drawing the other two's attention. The shot beast fell, its aura gone completely. "Dismissed." Even from where I stood, I could see the cocky smirk on Morris's face as he pumped his weapon.

I rolled my eyes at his quip, but kept most of my focus on materializing another item. I felt my own vitality drain away as my left hand closed around a familiar skull by the ring between its horns, the azure fire within it burning bright in the night like a demented lantern. I raised it towards the still distracted beasts and shouted, "Skull Blaster!" The fire condensed into a bullet and flew, violently striking and going through the ghost closest to me before breaking apart into wisps. Each trail was quickly sucked back into the skull, and through it, into my body, healing the minor burns and scratches I received earlier.

At the same time, Morris had already aimed the barrel of dad's old shotgun at the last of the beasts. It proved smart enough to dodge most of the shot that followed, but from the way it cried and stumbled, I was willing to bet that a few had managed to hit. I shot a brief glance at the one that I had hit, taking note of its lack of miasma. "Two down then. Guess I won't need you for this one, mom." I thought, taking aim at the last of the ghosts. It looked angry, but also ready to flee. I wasn't about to let that happen.

With a big swing, I hurled the skull in my hand towards the beast's general direction, using the fading connection I had to its soul to activate another one of its inherent skills. "Wispy's Will!" It exploded in blue flames upon impact, shrouding the ghost as it yelped in surprise. At once, I felt revitalized; more so when the flames rushed towards me once more, allowing me to absorb the excess energy it drained from the target.

All three were down. A job well done, if I do say so myself.

"That was a bit disappointing." I turned to Morris as he spoke. The old soldier made his way towards me, his body completely relaxed with dad's shotgun resting on his shoulder, but his eyes scanned the battlefield the whole time, looking out for any signs of movement. "I was just getting started. Really expected more from those three."

"Better a short victory than a drawn out defeat," I shrugged, a wide grin on my face, "wasn't that what you said before?"

"Well... can't argue with that," Morris chuckled back. "How many does this make, anyway?"

I held out my hand as I tried to recall just how many ghosts I've killed already, calling Azrael's diary to my hand as I did. The shimmer of light in my peripherals told me that mom had probably left my soul storage. "seventy-six, I think," I answered uncertainly, "It's somewhere close to that, so I probably just need to take out twenty or so more to pay my debt. Pretty good for just a week's work."

An honest to god magic circle lit up and spun on the ground in front of me once I opened the book. Within seconds, a stocky, formally dressed monster appeared above it. It took one look at me, then towards the three downed ghosts before approaching them, a wicked looking scythe taking shape in its hands. It began cutting into them, causing their ethereal bodies to burst into lights that were quickly sucked up into the monster's skull face.

It disappeared just as fast as it came once the work was done, leaving nothing in its wake.

The sight of it all might have freaked me out, if I hadn't already seen the same thing dozens of times already. Not once did any of them bother acknowledging my existence with more than a passing glance. It was annoying at first, but I've since concluded that Azrael's agents were a bunch of rude assholes. Or maybe it was just this one. I honestly didn't know if I just got the same guy every time, or if they were all jerks who looked exactly the same.

Still, they did their job after I did mine, so I tolerated it. Besides, according to my patron, one of his top agents, Gig, was even worse, and could best be described in modern terms as an absolute dickbag.

"Well, I've still got plenty of time, and those were just the first three. I take it we're gonna be hunting for more?"

"The plan was to get at least ten every day, but we are ahead of schedule," mom pointed out, grabbing Azrael's diary as I astralised it again. She opened it up to one of the first few pages and began reading through its content. "We weren't given a strict due date, and I'm sure I've seen more than a few areas with lots of Ghosts in the Docks."

It was a tempting idea, just leaving it be for the day, and I did spend some time thinking about it. Mother Nature's advice about enjoying life, in particular, came to mind.

No. I can't. Not now. There'll be plenty of time for that when we go back home.

I looked at mom, just standing there and waiting for my decision. It was something that had been happening a lot as of late and... I'm not really sure how to take it. It didn't feel like I was controlling her, and Mother Nature had assured me that I couldn't really do that to Phantoms, but it didn't change the fact that I was uneasy about my mom taking orders from me. I've wanted to talk about it for a while now, but there was never really much time.

My shoulders sagged as I sighed, before steeling myself. "We came here so I could get better at using my powers. We'll only have three more days from tomorrow before we have to go back home," our home, at least, although I guess it would be Morris's home now too, "I want to take advantage of it as much as I can, if that's alright with you, mom?" She had a gentle smile on her face as she just looked at me for a moment, before sounding her assent. I nodded back with a hesitant smile of my own and turned towards Morris.

"You're the boss," he said, shrugging.

I really shouldn't have expected much more than that. Morris, as I quickly came to learn, was a soldier long before everything else. I had the aching muscles every day as proof of that. Thank Gaea for Wispy's Will's self healing power. Sure, I felt a little bad about using it to kill so many fish, but at least we never had to worry about food. If only using Wispy's Will didn't somehow make most of them taste blander though. It wasn't bad, but they never tasted as good as the ones that dad actually caught normally.

"Then let's go."

-X-

The smell of fish being cooked over a fire had become a welcoming sensation for me in the past week. It always meant coming back to our little camp site, where dad spent most of his time on the nights of our trip. And didn't that idea come as a surprise.

Dad had been a lot easier to convince after seeing mom again. When they came back the day after our reunion, the very first thing I did was form a proper contract with mom, which also let her use me as an anchor. I shared with them everything I learned in my sleep that day, from what I had to do to the things that Mother Nature taught me about my powers. They'd been less than pleased, and dad had wanted to forbid me at first but... well, I managed to convince him. Mom helped, surprisingly enough, given how she didn't look any more willing to let me go into danger than dad.

After that, it was like he'd made a complete 180. He began to think up of ways to help me get better at doing what I did. The first thing he pointed out was that none of us really knew much about fighting. He'd gotten into some rough situations in the past and could be pretty difficult with something like a tire iron or crowbar in his hands, but he wanted me to actually learn to defend myself too. That was where Morris came in. He took twice as much Mana as mom to form a contract with, and pretty much drained me completely, but it was worth it. The experience and expertise of an old soldier had quickly proven itself more than useful.

Then there was everything else that followed.

I don't know if having mom around again just gave him a cooler head to work with, but dad had been able to put huge pressure on Winslow for a case of negligence. They paid more than enough money to cover for my hospital bills if I had stayed there for as long as originally projected, and gave them no way to back out of it, even after finding out that Panacea had healed early into my medical internment. Compensation for trauma, apparently. That left us with a lot of cash to burn, and a big part of it had been spent to book a ten day camping trip to the Brockton Hills Recreational Park, a hunting ground and camp site all the way at edge of the city proper, deep into Captain's Hill.

The fact that it was off season for both camping or hunting probably helped cheapen the price, but no one questioned it. As far as everyone was concerned, dad had just pooled all of his accumulated days off to bond with his recently hospitalized daughter so she could get better faster.

It helped that it was completely true, too. Just not in the way most people thought it was.

Just like every other night since we first got here, dad was waiting for us to come back to our chosen camp site, standing by an improvised grill where he cooked the day's catch. And like every day, his face was a rictus of worry while he waited. I felt some guilt about making him worry about me like that, but if it was the price to pay for my family to be together, then it was well worth it.

"Dad, we're back!" The change was instantaneous; he'd jumped a little in surprise before relief took over his countenance as he finally took notice of my approach. I'm happy to say that there wasn't a scratch on me for him to worry about. Not feeling any pain when he hugged me was nice. "How was your night?" I asked him once he let me go.

He chuckled. "My night?" dad parroted incredulously, "Nothing exciting's happened to me since we got here Taylor. I should be the one asking about yours." He guided me back to the middle of camp, past the grill and to our small portable table and chairs, grabbing some fish and potatoes along the way. "How did things go tonight, anyway? Did you find out what the other two powers you got are? Are you injured anywhere? Should I grab the first aid box?"

I rolled my eyes at his over-protectiveness, even if it did make me feel warm inside. "It was great, I still haven't, I'm not injured, and no, dad, you don't need to get it," I assured him, showing off all the tiny tips and tears in my clothes, and the unmarred skin beneath. Maybe it wasn't the best way to keep him from worrying too much, but at least he knew that nothing that happened stuck with me. He seemed satisfied about it, if nothing else. "And what do you mean nothing exciting's happened to you since we got here?" I teased, "you and mom weren't exactly being quiet the other night."

Before this moment, I thought that the whole gag where people fell off their chairs when sufficiently shocked was just from TV. Now I knew otherwise. And the blush on his face! Even with just a gas lamp and campfire as a light source, it was still visible. Mom wasn't doing much better in that department either, and it was at this point that I honestly wished I had a camera that could take photos of phantoms. It would've been perfect.

That would teach them to traumatize their daughter like that.

Alas, it would seem I had to content myself with just burning the image into my head instead. If only that superstition about cameras capturing the image of the soul was actually true.

"Ugh..." dad groaned, picking himself back up and dusting his clothes, "we were sort of convinced that you'd gone to sleep by then."

"We waited just for that too," mom added, not quite able to look me in the eyes. I didn't blame her. I wasn't able to do the same to her or dad for most of yesterday. Morris had at least lent a sympathetic hand by providing me with a distraction. I might have appreciated it more if said distraction didn't involve him dipping back into his days as a drill sergeant.

To be fair to them, I had fallen asleep. They just woke me up. But hey, I didn't need to tell them that.

"Mom, you can only stay solid for two hours at most, and I have to be awake for you to do that," I pointed out, deadpan, and with my arms crossed, both to get the unspoken words across and to maximize the embarrassment. Revenge was sweet. "Speaking of," I called dad's wedding ring into the palm my hand and concentrated, "Confine!" It lit up with a now familiar chartreuse light, jumping off of my hand and taking mom's form beside me, where she took the remaining chair on the table. I nodded to myself in satisfaction of my success. It always took a lot more concentration to confine someone when I haven't used my incantation for a while, but, as mom, dad and my new teacher pointed out, people wouldn't always give me the time to say it. Especially if they found out how much easier it made things for me.

Oh, and mom still couldn't look at me now. Or dad. Well, okay, no, she was doing that thing where she'd glance at dad for a bit, then turn away when he looked back at her. In fact, dad was doing the same thing. Weren't they supposed to be over that phase once they grew up? They've been married for eighteen years now! Sixteen if you counted the whole 'Til death do us part' vow, and even that didn't really hold up, since Death and his (asshole) agents left Phantoms alone until they dissipated, which led to mom hanging around dad and me pretty much ever since the car crash. But I digress. They were acting like teenagers now! Was that just how all couples acted when they were mutually embarrassed? Maybe her parents were just weird and she never noticed before?

I sighed in my best rendition of false exasperation. "You know, it's a good thing that Mother Nature told me yesterday night that Phantoms and the living can't reproduce," I said, shaking my head exaggeratedly, "not that I would mind a little brother or sister, but I don't really know how I'd handle one that was half dead. Or explain how I got one in the first place without outing myself." And wouldn't that just be the most embarrassing way to get outed. I could see the headlines now: Local Dock Admin Impregnates Dead Wife; Reveals that Daughter is a Parahuman. "Next time, could you two at least go somewhere further, please?"

"Can we stop talking about this if we said yes?" Dad offered in exchange. It was honestly a lousy trade, but he was all but pleading, mom looked like she wanted to do the same, and I already had my fun anyway, so I agreed. Both of them sagged with relief.

It didn't take them long to recover from the distracting topic, and we began eating our meal soon afterwards. Sure, mom didn't really need to eat, and when I brought her onto the field, she usually didn't get to, either, but I've tried my best not to do that since we got here, just so we could eat as a family again. It made me a little guilty about Morris, especially since he was quickly becoming something of an honorary uncle to me, but he'd assured me that he was fine with it. I at least managed to let him eat with all of us once. Usually though, he'd spend the time we ate by patrolling the parameter for anything potentially dangerous.

I was midway into my second fish before dad started up the conversation again.

"How many did you get tonight, anyway?" He asked over a bite of bass.

There wasn't any need to ask what he was referring to. We might have come here to let me practice using Confine, Astralization and tapping into the souls of objects, but the original plan had just been to do it in an empty clearing; maybe make some dummy targets for me to practice on. That had gone out the window on the first day when mom, Morris and I noticed the sheer abundance of ghosts in the area. That might have been strange enough, but when you considered what most of them were ghosts of...

I put my fish back on the plate, my appetite suddenly diminished. "We got thirteen today," I reported sullenly, my thoughts going back to just how... wrong the situation here was. "There was one bear, but... the rest of them were all dogs again." The way the gears in dad's head was turning would be obvious to anyone who looked at him. He and mom stopped eating too, all three of our minds now preoccupied with the oddity of it all.

And it had been odd. You would think that a hunting range would mostly have spirits, whether phantoms or ghosts, of wild animals. Sure, I ran into a little over a dozen deer, half as many birds, seven fishes, five bears, two horses, and a very confused elephant (It was a phantom, unlike the rest. Dad suggested it might have been the one stolen from the Brockton Bay zoo by a now dead independent villain back when I was at summer camp a few years ago. Morris suggested that I bind it to a contract, but I don't really have anyway to reach an agreement with it, let alone command it), but those were still less than half of the over eighty ghosts that I, for a lack of better word, exorcised over the week. The rest were all canines in nature. Some might have been wolves, sure, but I didn't need to be an expert in dog breeds to know that not all of them definitely shouldn't have been out here when they died.

"I've heard some rumors from people at work about a few dog fighting rings around the city," Dad suggested hesitantly, humming to himself in contemplation, his eyes set on the food in front of him, even as he just picked testily at it. I looked up and waited for him to continue. "... All of those have been in or near the downtown though; Empire Territory. They say Hookwolf's in charge."

That got me thinking. Dogs being starved to near death before being forced to kill each other? And surrounded by neo-nazis, many of whom would probably be pretty angry if they lost their bets at that. It definitely sounded like a place that would make lots of ghosts.

"Do you think they might have one set up near here?"

"I doubt it. It wouldn't make sense for them to set something like that up this far from their territory when the whole point of it is to entertain the grunts and their muscle. Unless Kaiser became a lot stupider lately, he'd never let Hookwolf do that."

It was, to my surprise, mom, who'd answered the question, with all the thought and seriousness she'd use to analyze essays back when she was still a university professor at Brockton U. I didn't hide my surprise very well either. The silent laugh and amused eye roll made that pretty clear. "I was part of a gang when I was younger, Little Owl," she reminded, wagging her finger at me in that way that teachers in tv shows did when lecturing their students about a mistake they made. It was appropriate, I suppose. "I might have quit before the Dies Veneris turned violent, but even when we were in our Robin Hood phase, we still had to do a lot of the things that gangs are known to do. Keeping and managing territories, handling assets and taking care of logistics. I've learned a few things."

I could feel my jaw quickly reaching the dirt as mom continued to talk about her time as a villain's minion until most of it just up and stopped making sense to me. I tried to look to dad for help, but all he did was shrug helplessly, as if saying 'what can you do?' and just giving up. Thanks dad, you're a real help in these confusing times. Truly.

"-and don't even get me started on training all the new recruits about the things we always have to do. Those were the jobs I hated the most."

That's it, I've had enough. This has gone so far off of the original topic that I could just barely remember what we were talking about anymore.

"Wait, wait, mom, time out!" I shouted, arms waving side to side in a mad scramble to get her to stop before forming the universal 'T' symbol. She stumbled over her words for a bit, but listened, turning a confused look my way, asking for what was wrong without a single word. I felt it should have really been obvious, but voiced my thoughts all the same. "Mom, I knew you were a part of Dies Veneris, but I always thought you were just... you know... one of the protesters that always went with them. Now you're telling me you were... some kind of lieutenant?"

"What?" mom asked back in surprise, eyes wide and blinking. It held for a few seconds before she began giggling, which developed into a full blown laugh. If nothing else, it at least gave me some sense of relief. "Dear, don't be ridiculous. I wasn't a lieutenant," she took a drink from her plastic cup in an attempt to catch her breath, and all I could do was sigh in relief, "I was one of Lustrum's right hand women!"

And just like that, it's all gone.

What the hell were we even talking about again?

-X-

AN: Lot of things going down here: Taylor's first fight, the set up for the arc's main focus, Danny being revealed to be a necrophiliac, a show of Taylor coming into her power, and a little foreshadowing of things to come. I did make some clean ups concerning the short fight scene, but on the whole, nothing's changed. Just fixed some mistakes and had Taylor call out her third attack because she hasn't really practiced enough to do that without shouting out first.