Marvelous World of Taylor Hebert

Earth 10131

This wasn't what she wanted.

There was fire everywhere, the room was black with cloying smoke that scraped at her lungs. The palanquin was in ruins. Bottles were shattered on the floor, slices carved in the walls and ceilings. Newter was dead, lying sliced open on the floor, gutted like a fish, a snail-like man lay behind him slowly struggling to breathe.

Taylor ran through the building desperately searching for someone who was still alive. Her eyes were nearly blinded by the heat radiating from the fires and the smoke, but she kept looking.

She ran up the stairs. There had to be someone still alive!

This was all her fault! She should have died, she should have let her powers consume her from the inside out as the energy bubbled out of her until she burst. She should have done anything other than make a deal with that woman!

If she had known! This wasn't part of the deal. Gather the capes on the list, give them the envelopes, bring them to the Palanquin... She had never mentioned this!

The door barring her way exploded. It took more effort now than before, but Taylor gladly spent it.

The room was collapsing, and worse, it was empty as well. Just a card table with a half played poker game, a broken floor, collapsed ceiling beams, a locked metal liquor chest and fire all around her. Useless. She felt useless!

Just as Taylor turned to leave she heard it. Something banging from within the locked chest.

There was someone inside! Taylor tried to get to the box, but the floor in front of it was gone. Collapsed into a burning hole. She could see the way the box was padlocked shut, but she couldn't get to it!

Taylor searched through her pockets for something to throw at it. Nothing. Not even her keys!

She looked around the room, desperate for a solution.

There! On the table! The cards! She knew how to throw those. She'd spent a month learning how, competing every day with her best friend Emma. The relationship may have broken down, but she still had the skills...

Taylor grabbed a card and charged it. The jack of hearts...

It was harder than before. The doctor had delivered on her promise, whatever her suited friend had done to Taylor's head she definitely didn't have to fear losing control any more. Before her power hit like tsunami, threatening to tear Taylor apart in its wake. Now? It felt like a river, deceptively quick, and deep, difficult to control, but she could manage the flow now. The card hit the saturation point and Taylor threw it, watching as it hit the lock and detonated taking the lock, and the entire locking mechanism, with it.

A girl pushed the box open.

She was small, fragile. Her eyes looked like there might have been innocence in them once. Now? Hatred.

"We have to get out of here!" Taylor called out. "The place is coming down!"

The other girl looked around. "How?"

It was a good question. The floor between the chest and the door was gone. Below it? A fiery abyss full of jagged burning wood and bits of metal.

Taylor saw the pipe. It was hanging down over the gaping hole, the heat making it practically glow in her sight. A long, straight length of pipe as long as Taylor was tall.

Taylor grabbed it, breaking it off with a quick twist and extending it towards the girl. Something was wrong, the room was changing. "Grab hold! I'll pull you to safety! "

The wooden floors were heating up. Changing. No, not wood... Metal?

The fires flared as the girl grabbed hold and the world around them changed.

Taylor couldn't pay attention to what was happening. It wasn't important. All that mattered right then was saving this girl; making up for her mistake.

Taylor pulled on the pole with all her might, wedging her end beneath the mass of her entire body. "Climb over." Taylor called out. The pole was tilted upwards, all the girl needed to do was slide across.

She watched, her heart beating frantically as the girl grabbed onto the pole with her arms and legs and began to shimmy across. One foot. Two feet. Three feet. Four feet. Almost there. Finally! Taylor grabbed the girl's hands and pulled her into a hug as she lifted her off the pole and into her arms.

"You're alive!" Taylor marveled to herself. "Oh god, you're alive!"

The room was still shifting, and the fire still raging, but Taylor didn't care. If she could just save this one girl...

"Who-?" The girl started to ask, pulling away from Taylor.

"There's no time!" Taylor replied, grabbing the pole, no, the staff that had helped her save the girl. "The place is burning, the room is changing, and the others are still looking for survivors. We have to get you out of here!"

The girl looked at her strangely, but otherwise didn't respond.

They didn't have time for this! Maybe she didn't understand? Simple then. She could do simple. She looked at the girl.

"There are men hunting you. Come with me if you want to live."

The girl took her hand.

A/N: Earth 10131 - Gambit