Taylor grunted, lifting a twisted amalgam of rusted metal and concrete, before slamming it back into the ground.
When it'd become abundantly clear that no regular gym equipment was enough to keep up with her strength, Taylor had sought out… alternative solutions.
Which was why she'd found herself in the junkyard, twisting together rusted husks that used to be cars and whatever else she could find into a precarious monstrosity of a makeshift training weight.
Yet, even with what felt like all the weight she could physically balance on her arms, Taylor felt that she could still lift more.
Training her flight was easier, just floating around as fast as she could for as long as she could was more than enough to tire her out. It had gotten to a point that she had started to worry about the sonic booms she was leaving in her wake.
Then, there was the other training. Throwing pebbles and rubble as hard as she could, and watching them punch through rusted metal. Fighting manoeuvres that took advantage of her newfound strength and flight. Learning to fight using objects far larger than herself, or with handicaps.
Sometimes, back on Bet, Taylor had wished for a different set of powers. Something like Alexandria's. And reality really didn't disappoint.
The thought had crossed her mind to go out and fight crime as soon as she'd received her costume, but past experience told her that going out with less than perfect preparation wasn't a good idea.
The local cape scene was ever-changing, and Taylor wasn't about to go in without the fullest confidence in her abilities. Or control over her abilities.
Lung's disastrous capture came to mind. Taylor was a tank in a human body right now; the thought of hurting, or worse, killing someone with her neglect sent a shiver through her spine.
And besides, if there were any major threats, the Guardians of the Globe were far more qualified to deal with them.
And that's when her phone rang.
"Mom?"
"Taylor, come home. Your father's been hurt."
"Nolan's receiving the absolute pinnacle of care." The elevator slid open, and they stepped out. "As the Global Defence Agency, we have access to medical technology far beyond any normal hospital."
The bespectacled man lead them past a line of windows, peeking over a hangar of some sort. Sleek, futuristic aircraft lined the space, some taking off or landing back down onto the concrete floor.
Taylor watched as troopers in what looked like exoskeleton suits lined up to board one of them. "Dad never mentioned you guys."
The man—Donald, as mom had called him—stepped past yet another soldier clad in armour, and holding a massive rifle in their hands. "That's the idea. We work with superheroes like your father to keep the world safe. Who knows, maybe someday, we'll even work with Scion."
Taylor had been so busy doubting his words that she'd forgotten her own chosen hero name. And the mention had sent her briefly reeling with surprise and fear and half a dozen other emotions before she got herself back under control.
"…you alright?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. Just a lot to take in."
Donald hummed. "I know the feeling."
A hero agency. Taylor found herself immediately distrusting it. The shadiness of the whole operation brought back memories of Cauldron. And that was far from promising.
Donald held his hand up to a scanner, and a door slid open, revealing a hospital room straight out of a sci-fi novel.
But that wasn't what captured their attention. It was the form laid out in the far end of the room.
Debbie gasped, rushing towards the man's supine form. "Nolan!"
"Dad!"
Taylor looked him over. He'd never looked so… injured before. Lying on that bed, Nolan Grayson looked more mortal than he'd ever been.
"Is he going to be ok?"
"We… hope so." Donald replied. "Our doctors are doing their best. But we don't get a lot of Viltrumites in here."
"…who did this?"
Donald opened his mouth to reply, but someone else interrupted. "We have no idea. Not yet anyway, but we'll find out. And when we do, they're gonna look a hell of a lot worse than your dad right over there."
A lean, middle aged man walked up to them. He sported shoulder length silver hair, though he was balding at the top. But most noticeably, a long scar stretched over his left jaw, like it'd been melted and replaced. Badly.
He stretched out a hand for her to shake.
"Cecil Stedman. Director of the GDA."
Taylor certainly didn't expect that. Looked like her dad was closer to the organisation's director than she'd thought.
She reached out and gave him a firm handshake. Better to play nice in the man's base of operations.
The man's confident demeanour almost instantly reminded Taylor of Alexandria. She hoped he wouldn't be nearly as terrible a person.
She'd hate to kill another director.
Cecil then turned to Debbie. "Deborah, I'm so sorry."
"Cecil, you've got a lot of nerve-"
"Someone murdered the Guardians of the Globe last night."
She gasped. Taylor's eyes widened.
"All of them. Tore 'em limb from limb. Now, we tried like hell to bring them back, but Nolan was the only survivor."
"How?" Taylor asked. There was no way the Guardians—powerful heroes, even by her last world's standards—could have gone down to anyone but the best of the best.
"We don't know yet. We also don't know why your dad was at Guardians HQ. Working theory is, whoever killed the Guardians lured him there, tried to wipe 'em all out at once."
"And they just… got away with it?"
"They left nothing behind, no fingerprints, no DNA, no recordings. And there isn't a supervillain alive that wouldn't want Omni-man and the Guardians six feet under, so the list of suspects is a mile long. We're keeping this all hush-hush for now, but news will break. I wanted you and Taylor to know first."
Debbie wiped at her eyes, voice hardening. "Cold towels and ice water. And have a cot brought in here for me."
"Deborah, we've got the best trained-"
She strode up to him, "I've patched Nolan up for twenty years, Cecil. I am not leaving."
"Of-of course, Debbie." Replied Donald.
If there was anyone Taylor would trust in the whole GDA, Donald would be it. There was something… honest about him. Not in the easy way of good liars, but in a way that told her he was a terrible one.
As Debbie moved to her husband's side, Donald moved his hand up to his ear.
"Sir, there's some kind of attack happening downtown, it seems. Numerous contacts. Heavy weaponry. Multiple casualties-"
"Now?" Cecil's voice raised in annoyance. "We're a little understaffed in the hero department."
Taylor—or Scion, now that she was in costume—floated above the city, trying to pinpoint the source of the gunshots and the screams.
It wasn't hard.
The street below her was gone—all but obliterated. And at its end, was a portal. A hole carved deep into reality, its edges glowing orange with energy. Reality seemed to bend around it like it was sick, the air warped and humming with raw power. Every few seconds, something else came through.
They marched in rows: aliens. They were almost human-like, clad in blue and white armour. They were green, with antennae rising up from their brows, and where a nose would have been, was instead an empty expanse of flesh.
They carried thick, brutal looking rifles, each one belching out bolts of bright red energy with every trigger pull.
Civilians screamed as the invaders opened fire without hesitation, vaporising cars and sending storefronts exploding into balls of fire and glass. One blast disintegrated a bus, turning it into a pile of slag and scorched bones. A child cried out from beneath an overturned vehicle, crimson fluid leaking out from beneath him.
Another ran, only to be felled by a bolt to the back, his ribcage exploding in a shower of gore that made her sick to the stomach.
Armoured tanks, unlike anything Taylor had ever seen rolled through the street. One turned its turret, aiming at a police cruiser, and fired.
The explosion lit up the block like a miniature sun.
The street was a scene of destruction that Taylor had seen so many times before. Bakuda. Leviathan. The Slaughterhouse.Cars had been flipped, street lights melted and broken. Civilians, running and dying with every second that passed.
Taylor's fist clenched, anger welling up within her-
-And she hesitated. Was she really ready to fight and kill again? She knew she didn't have the freedom of mercy, here.
Another blast of plasma answered her question, charring an office worker into an unrecognisable lump of charcoal
And before she could second guess herself, Taylor dropped like a missile, body tensed and eyes locked onto a nearby group of aliens. They raised their cannons, tracking a group of running civilians.
Taylor hit them like a comet.
The force of her dive cracked the pavement, and pasted the alien unfortunate enough to be in the way. His blood—red, like a human's—splattered his companions, who were too dazed from the impact to react.
Every alien nearby turned their weapons towards her. One of them barked, something guttural and deep, like a twisted imitation of human speech.
The rifles lit up.
But Taylor was already moving.
She was gone in a blur of movement, the pavement cracking beneath her feet. She appeared behind them, floating in midair, grabbing one soldier by the back of the neck and squeezing.
His head popped off with a squelch, the motion as easy as crushing an empty soda can.
Taylor ducked a blast, spun under another, and caught another alien with a brutal uppercut that showered the street with his brains.
But there were too many, and she was killing them too slowly.
Bolts of energy clipped her. One grazed her arm and burned, though it didn't make it through her armour.
Another caught her in the side, staggering her and scorching her costume.
She gritted her teeth, eyes burning with rage.
Another tank rolled up, its barrel pivoting towards her.
She flew straight at it.
A storm of laser fire peppered the air around her, but Taylor just kept moving.
She blasted forward, shattering what few windows remained with the shockwave that followed in her wake. Her fist collided with the tank's front plating, and the entire machine crumpled.
The metal shrieked and groaned as Taylor gripped its front end and lifted.
It was heavy—yet not nearly as heavy as her junkyard weights.
With a guttural roar, Taylor hurled the tank into a nearby group of soldiers like a twisted game of bowling. It crashed into them, crushing bodies and cracking the ground with the impact.
She didn't stop.
Before the dust had even settled, she was streaking after it, using the mangled wreckage as a makeshift bludgeon. She swung it wide, catching an entire firing line of aliens mid-volley, their bodies reduced to thick red paste under the improvised weapon.
Something inside the tank popped—maybe a power core, or maybe just the suspension on the wheels giving out—but it didn't matter. She kept swinging, smashing it into the invaders again and again, until it was barely more than a twisted, smoking hunk of metal and gore.
So she dropped it.
Breathing hard, costume scorched in half a dozen places, Taylor snapped forward again. She didn't bother with dodging anymore. Every second she wasted dodging was a second the aliens were spending slaughtering civilians.
She rammed through a column of soldiers like a wrecking ball free of its tethers, snapping bones and pulverising armour. One reached for her—she crushed its arm and threw it into a group of its comrades, killing them all in a burst of red mist.
Another tried to flee, or maybe to run back to a nearby tank. She appeared in front of him, grabbed his head, and drove it into the pavement hard enough to crack the concrete, popping it like a rotten grape.
More tanks rolled in, flanked by yet more soldiers. They advanced, though much slower than before, as if hesitant to face her.
Good. They were right to fear.
Taylor turned, bloodied and burning with fury, ready to charge again—
A tank turret flashed.
But before she could dodge, a pink pane of translucent energy snapped into existence between her and the incoming blast, cracking even as it deflected the shot into a nearby office building.
Taylor blinked.
Then turned.
Floating to the ground, a woman in a pink bodysuit and a cape descended on burning reams of pink energy. She also happened to be maskless.
Taylor recognised her from school. Samantha Eve Wilkins.
Atom Eve.
She was honestly surprised the woman hadn't been outed yet. She didn't exactly try to hide her identity any. And that ginger hair was glaringly easy to recognise.
She reminded Taylor of Emma, but only really in the way that she was a pretty girl that happened to also be ginger. From what she'd seen, Eve had been a fairly normal teen. How Taylor hadn't ever linked her civilian identity with her hero one was a mystery for the ages.
The woman landed, sending an unamused glance at the approaching aliens,
"I don't know who you are, but it's time to go."
As if on cue, a figure flew by, dropping off of something Taylor recognised as vaguely bike-shaped.
Whatever it was, the resulting explosion took out a hefty chunk of the remaining aliens.
Following after, three figures dropped down into the battlefield.
A man in a vibrant orange and yellow suit, little tubes of something attached to his hips.
Rexplode.
A lithe woman, wearing a purple-lavender bodysuit, a neat little "1" emblazoned on her chest.
Duplikate.
A rust-orange robot, eyes glowing green.
Robot.
In moments, they were fighting, cleaning up the rest of the aliens and saving the few civilians that remained. Yet the aliens continued to advance, more and more of them filtering through the portal.
But Taylor wasn't done yet either.
She launched herself straight back into the fray, her fury reignited by the presence of the reinforcements.
If nothing else, she needed to make a good impression on the new arrivals, and make sure her debut wasn't the disaster of her last life.
She wasn't going to let herself look incompetent, not now.
Another soldier raised his rifle toward Duplikate, who was already down to her last pair of bodies.
He never got the chance to fire.
Taylor caught him by the shoulder, ripped the weapon from his hands, and drove it through the alien's chest like a spear. She pivoted, using the soldier's limp body as a battering ram to flatten two others.
Duplikate blinked. "Thanks."
And then she was off, duplicating again to take out another alien.
A streak of orange zipped past as Rexplode threw a hand full of glowing yellow pellets into the crowd. They detonated mid-air, peppering the aliens with explosive force.
Robot dispatched several more himself, arm cannon severing limbs, supplemented by the occasional devastating kick or punch.
Atom Eve was doing a convincing impression of being everywhere at once, her constructs shielding civilians and blasting aliens with bursts of light.
Where they lacked in teamwork, they made up for in raw power. Even if they were far less effective for it.
They were doing well.
But Taylor was a storm.
She ripped limbs off, crushed skulls with her bare hands, shattered armour with meteoric punches that caved in chests.
She didn't stop.
Not until the last tank fired its final round and was promptly exploded by Atom Eve's blast.
The final soldier—seeing the tide turned, the field a slaughterhouse for his own kind—reached toward the portal.
Taylor caught him just as his arm reached through, driving her fist through his back, then yanked him back onto the asphalt.
The body went still, before Taylor regained the presence of mind to try and destroy the portal before it could spit out more.
She hurled the body through as hard as she was able.
The portal shuddered, pulsing.
Once. Twice.
Then it collapsed inward without a sound, the rift snapping shut like a curtain drawn against reality.
Silence followed in its wake.
Taylor stood, smoke trailing from the burns on her bodysuit. The armour had done its job, and blood—mostly alien—slicked her hands and soaked her costume. Her breathing slowed, though her gaze stayed sharp, searching.
Only when she was sure there weren't any enemies waiting around did she exhale and look back.
The others were staring.
Rexplode was the first to speak. "Dude! That was fucking insane!"
Robot followed up. "Indeed. Your combat capabilities are quite exceptional."
Atom Eve stepped closer, eyeing Taylor with cautious curiosity. "You're new to the scene, right? You got a name?"
Taylor hesitated, just for a moment. After this, there was no going back.
She straightened, wiping a streak of blood from her costume's lenses. It was a far easier affair to get those done, what with her not needing glasses anymore.
"Call me Scion."
Atom Eve arched a brow. "Scion, huh?"
Rexplode interrupted. "The help was appreciated and all, but are you sure you're not a villain?"
Duplikate thumped him on the back of the head. "Shut up, Rex!"
That didn't seem to deter him. "No no, seriously. The scary black getup doesn't exactly scream 'hero' to me. And being covered in blood and guts really doesn't help."
Ever so slowly, Taylor turned her head to face him.
She didn't say anything. Just stared at him.
It wasn't an angry stare, no. It was the kind of stare one usually reserved for someone when they were deciding exactly how they were going to tear that person in half, and exactly how long it would take.
Taylor didn't move, didn't so much as blink. She was just staring, her entire body deadly still in the air, save for the blood slowly drip drip dripping from her gloves onto the shattered pavement.
Rex's grin faltered.
"I mean—hey, okay," he stammered, holding up his hands in surrender. "No offence, alright? Just y'know… the blood and everything. Really cool. But— uh, yeah. Thanks for the assist. You were awesome. Real scar-awesome."
Taylor continued not saying anything.
Rex cleared his throat and took a very careful step backward, glancing nervously at his unsympathetic teammates like he was hoping for them to bail him out of his social nosedive.
Eve sighed and stepped up in front of Taylor, subtly pushing Rex away. "Ignore him," she said, turning back to Taylor with an apologetic look. "He's got a talent for sticking his foot in his mouth and still finding the room to keep talking."
"I noticed," Taylor said coolly, finally breaking eye contact. Her gaze slid to Eve, appraising. "Thanks for the help."
Eve nodded. "You looked like you had it handled, but I didn't want to take chances." She extended a hand. "Atom Eve, at your service."
Taylor shook her hand. "Scion."
"Yeah, we got that part. You made a hell of a first impression." Eve glanced around the battlefield, her brow furrowing as she took in the damage. "You… trained for this?"
Taylor gave a small shrug. "You could say that."
"Right. Well—" Eve turned to gesture to the others. "This is the Teen Team."
Robot stepped forward, his voice as calm and robotic as ever. "I am Robot, the team's strategic coordinator and technician. I do all the "nerd stuff" as Rex puts it."
Duplikate was the next to step up, a small smile on her face. "You're kind of terrifying, in a good way. Kate—Duplikate."
Taylor gave her a nod.
Then Rex, who looked like he'd gone through the wringer already, hesitated before offering a tentative wave. "Uh… Rex. Rexplode. And I really am sorry about earlier. You saved Kate's ass. Mine too, probably."
"Right. Nice to meet you all."
"Why don't you come visit our HQ tomorrow?" Eve offered. "It'd be nice to talk to another hero."
"Sure. Let's get to cleanup then."
Rex groaned, and was promptly ignored by everyone else.
The cleanup was perfunctory. Efficient. The Teen Team had protocols, strategies for it. It reminded her of the PRT, in a way. Eve coordinated local responders. Robot dragged the wreckage of the last alien tank out of the street. Rexplode tried to charm a shaken civilian and got slapped for it. Duplikate and her copies worked in eerie synchrony to pull survivors from rubble.
Taylor mostly stood still.
Eventually, someone handed her a damp towel. She blinked at it like she wasn't sure what it was, then wordlessly began wiping the blood off her hands.
Alien. Human. It all came off the same.
She stood there, polishing her gloves until the material almost shone, not because she cared about the appearance, but because the motions kept her fingers from twitching. Because if she stopped moving, her mind might catch up with her body. And that wasn't a place she wanted to be.
Not yet.
It wasn't until later, perched on the roof of a half-demolished office building, that the silence really set in.
The others had gone. Promises were made—meet at the HQ tomorrow to discuss more, a call from Cecil, who she knew shouldn't have known about her so early. She'd nodded, kept her voice cool and steady, like this was just another job. Another battlefield. Another win.
And now, here she was. Alone.
The city stretched below her, the stars glimmered faintly above through the haze of scorched smoke and sodium lights.
And she was shaking.
She didn't notice at first. It was almost nothing—just a tremble in her fingertips. Barely there. But then her breath hitched, and she realised her chest was tight, her throat clamped shut like a vice. Her lungs didn't want to work. Her fingers curled like claws into her own arms.
Her mind was a world away.
Leviathan, water and blood and screaming-
Alexandria, feeling the bugs choking the air from her lungs-
Bonesaw, laughing as Grue writhed-
The baby, and the gun Taylor had aimed at her-
Her hands dug into her sides. She didn't have her bugs anymore. No swarm to hide behind— to offload her emotions in. Just her. Her fists. Her strength. Her mind.
But it had all felt so familiar.
Ripping that soldier in half. Shattering skulls underfoot. Dismembering them. Tearing through them like they were nothing. Like they weren't even alive.
Like bugs.
And that was what got to her.
Because it hadn't felt wrong.
She squeezed her eyes shut, a whisper slipping past her lips, barely audible even to herself.
"…fuck."
A long breath dragged from her lungs, shaky and sharp. Then another. Her pulse slowed, but her mind didn't. It kept racing, replaying every movement. Every kill. Every scream.
They were invaders. Soldiers. Not civilians. Not people caught in the crossfire. This wasn't Brockton Bay, wasn't nearly as hard a choice as the ones she made there.
They were just a threat. Like any other. And she stopped them.
She saved lives.
I saved people.
The thought came a little firmer, a little louder. She didn't kill for revenge. She didn't kill because she was a monster. She did it because someone had to.
They came through the portal in a population centre and decided to start firing. And she had stopped it.
She exhaled again. Slower this time.
It wasn't guilt, exactly. She didn't regret what she'd done.
It was just… the memory of it. The brutality she'd dealt as easily and as thoughtlessly as a farmer reaping wheat
Killing came too easily now.
She remembered the first time she killed a person, back on Bet. How relieving it had been, yet how cold she had felt, even if she had been ridding the world of another monster.
Maybe that was the start of her descent.
Now it was muscle memory. And that was the part that scared her.
She looked down at her hands, now clean of the blood and gore that had slicked it.
They were still trembling.
But a little less than before.
"…Scion," she murmured to herself. The name still tasted strange. A mockery. An insult. A memorial.
Her voice hardened.
"I'm not him."
She stood.
And if her hands still shook, no one else would ever know.
"Principal Winslow's making me churn out more slop promoting the sports clubs again."
William snerk'ed. "Woe is you. No more teachers to write hit pieces on."
Taylor elbowed him. "That was necessary. This is just boring."
"Of course. That's what it is."
She glared at him-
"Oof!"
A body impacted her, and promptly bounced off.
"Damn, what're you made of?"
"Muscle, mostly." Taylor reached down to help the girl up, freezing up momentarily when she noticed who it was. "S-sorry about that. I'm Taylor."
The girl—Eve—took the proffered hand, rising to her feet. "Samantha."
Seeing her out of costume really put things into perspective—that is, made Taylor question reality. There genuinely was no difference between her appearance in costume compared to without; her face was just as recognisable as ever. Did heroes not care about having their identities exposed?
And why wasn't she outed?
She was broken out of her thoughts by Eve standing up straight. And Taylor could've sworn her grasp lingered just a little too long to be normal.
"No damage done," Eve continued, brushing herself off and giving Taylor a lopsided smile. "Remind me to never run into you like that again. Or at least wear padding next time."
Taylor laughed—nervous, awkward and feeling more than a little sharp around the edges. "Yeah, sorry again. Didn't see you coming."
Eve tilted her head slightly, eyes running over Taylor's body in a way that didn't quite feel right. But that was just paranoia, right?
She turned toward the direction she'd been heading, but didn't move just yet. "You've got one of those faces," she said suddenly, glancing back at Taylor. "Like I've seen you somewhere before."
Taylor's heart skipped for a beat—not enough to show on her face, but enough that she felt it.
"Maybe just a familiar vibe," Eve added, moving closer to study Taylor before smiling again. "You've got that… I-don't-take-shit kind of energy."
Taylor's response was a noncommittal sound. It wasn't that she didn't want to talk. Her tongue just suddenly felt like lead in her mouth. The closeness really didn't help.
For a moment, there was just the two of them, standing a little too close for two strangers, with a silence that wasn't awkward so much as… suspended. Charged. But only in one direction.
Eve took a breath, glanced over at William, who'd been watching with a dawning sense of realisation, and turned back to Taylor.
"You gonna be around?" she asked, casually enough that someone listening in wouldn't have thought twice, but her eyes lingered a breath too long.
Taylor hesitated.
"I think I will, yeah."
"Good," Eve said, too quickly. She caught herself, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, and stepped back. "Well—here's my number. Don't be a stranger, Taylor."
She gave a parting wave and walked off, leaving Taylor standing there, frowning slightly, watching her go.
"Dude, what was that?"
She turned around. "What're you talking about, William?"
William gaped at her. "You- You really don't know."
"What don't I know?"
He shook his head. "You know what? I'm not gonna help you with this."
"With what, William?"
Taylor's increasingly confused queries were met with silence as William shook his head, muttering something about "just fell into her lap" and "no justice in the world".
Taylor zoomed above the city—in costume—eyes roaming the horizon for her destination.
There.
She dived, stopping just atop a bridge support, the paved tiles above suspiciously well maintained.
The reason why became immediately obvious when the floor opened up beneath her, dropping her into a well equipped facility.
Duplikate was standing off to one side, playing ping pong with one of her duplicates.
Rex was spectating by the side, Eve standing nearby.
Robot however, was stood within a circle of monitors, apart from the others. "Welcome, Scion."
The other heroes stopped what they were doing and looked over as well, giving her greetings of their own.
Kate, with a simultaneous "Hi."
Rex, with a reluctant wave.
Eve was last. "Hey Scion. Glad you came!"
Taylor felt a profound sense of awkwardness, speaking to her. "Yeah. Um. Hi."
Her momentary awkwardness went unnoticed as Eve called out to Robot. "Hey Robot! You got anything yet?"
The orange construct nodded. "Yes. The Flaxans come from a dimension with a faster temporal rate. As a result, the tachyons they emit spin more rapidly than our own."
He stepped past them, pointing to a small, blocky machine. "I've created this detector to warn us if they return."
Rex interrupted. "Ah! Because the explosions and the screaming wasn't enough!"
Robot turned to him. "This should give us a few minutes of early warning."
He focused back on Taylor. "Cecil and the GDA have also requested to call on us for any possible emergencies. Since the Guardians are currently… indisposed. Scion, may we count on you in the future?"
She didn't hesitate when she replied. "Of course. Just contact me and I'll be there."
Taylor wrote down her number, passing it to Robot. "Here's my number."
He nodded. "Thank you."
As she began to move to exit, Taylor paused, looking back to Robot.
"You said you did all the… tinkering, on the team?"
Robot inclined his head, mechanical voice unwavering. "Correct. I am the team's technological support, from weapons and defensive equipment to sensors and support infrastructure. All self-designed and manufactured."
Taylor's gaze lingered on him for a moment. "And no powers backing that up."
"Not in the traditional sense. I was born with a significantly heightened intellect, which I have refined through rigorous study and experimentation. But I do not receive information from any external source. If that is what you're implying."
Taylor hummed. "That's impressive."
Robot tilted his head slightly, as if surprised. "Most find it easier to attribute my work to an inherent advantage. The novelty of self-driven innovation is often overlooked."
Taylor nodded at that. "People do tend to rely too much on their powers. A little ingenuity goes a long way."
Robot's lenses adjusted minutely, refocusing on her. "Those are my thought exactly, Scion. I have found that similar mindsets are… distressingly prevalent in human society. Many logical choices tend to be overlooked in favour of the simpler path."
Taylor nodded slowly, folding her arms as she studied him. "People are more comfortable believing genius is magic than effort. Means they don't have to feel bad for not matching it."
Robot paused, his glowing eyes narrowing ever so slightly. "Yes. Precisely."
A quiet stretched between them. The rest of the team had already grown bored, moving away from the conversation and back to what they had been doing before.
"During the fight," Robot began. "Your combat methodology was… ruthless."
Taylor didn't respond at first. Her silence was heavy with implication. "And?"
"I approve."
A slight twitch touched the corner of her mouth. "I didn't ask for approval."
"I gave it anyway," Robot said. "Because I feel that you have more than earned it."
She let out an amused breath. "You're surprisingly direct."
"I've learned that clarity is often more efficient than diplomacy." Robot hesitated for a fraction of a second. "Though I am still refining that balance."
Taylor turned, looking at the schematics lit up on the nearby monitor. Some kind of generator, it looked like."You designed all of this, then? You're not just a fighter, are you? You're building things beyond just for conflict."
"Yes. That is the goal," Robot said, stepping closer. "Combat is necessary, but temporary. It solves a problem in the moment. My true aim is long-term improvement. A better world. One where threats can be predicted, controlled, and eventually, prevented."
Taylor tilted her head, eyes narrowing slightly. "You think that's actually possible?"
"I wouldn't dedicate my existence to it otherwise."
It was earnest. Flat, as with all his words—but with conviction that didn't need tone to carry it.
Taylor exhaled slowly. "You remind me of someone."
"A friend?"
"…No."
A pause.
"But you've proven to be better— a far better… person than him already."
Robot didn't acknowledge the compliment, at least not verbally. But something about his posture shifted—slightly less rigid, marginally less formal.
"I believe we are…similar," Robot said, the admission slow. "You do not revel in the violence. But you do not flinch from it either."
"I didn't have the luxury," Taylor said, eyes distant.
"No," Robot agreed. "Nor do I."
"There's no wonder no-one has a chance with Eve. They didn't know she was into girls."
"She- what? Are you implying that she was-"
"Uh, yeah. Why else would she stick around for so long after you ran into her?" William took a bite of his spaghetti, as if to punctuate his point.
"I don't know. I thought she was just being friendly."
William jabbed his fork in her direction. "I swear, Taylor, you're denser than a neutron star sometimes."
"I-" Taylor was interrupted by a buzz in her pocket. She glanced down, before abruptly standing up. "I gotta go."
William watched in confusion as she left, face clearing as he saw Eve following behind.
"I knew it!"
Taylor yelped, swerving around to see Atom Eve flying up from behind her. "Wh-What, uh. What are you talking about?"
"Don't play dumb, Taylor. I saw you walk out of there when we got the message. Plus, you gave us the same number. I suspected it before, but you've confirmed it for me."
Taylor thought for a moment. "…fuck."
Eve giggled. "Come on. Let's get going."
A short flight later, they found themselves overlooking yet another portal, the Flaxans once again pouring out from within. The others were already there, beginning their assault.
She and Eve hovered just long enough to take it in.
The Flaxans weren't pulling their punches this time.
Their troops spilled out from the dimensional portal in a flood, clad in upgraded armor—sleeker, more reinforced. Plasma rifles fired in coordinated bursts, the bolts searing through cars, concrete, and the occasional fleeing civilian too slow to escape.
They had arrived just in time to see the last of the aliens exit, wreaking havoc with every step.
What had once been a bustling downtown plaza was almost instantly transformed into a smoking warzone.
Futuristic tanks rolled over mangled streetlamps, their treads chewing through asphalt like paper. One turret tracked a fleeing mother with a child in her arms—
Taylor shot forward, the sonic crack of her flight echoing across the battlefield. The laser bolt fired too late, scorching the spot where the pair had just been before she scooped them both up and dove behind cover.
The child screamed. The mother sobbed her thanks. Taylor didn't wait.
The Teen Team was already in the thick of it.
Robot was there first, flying in on his bike, his back plating rising with a hiss of hydraulics as he deployed a swarm of small missiles. He aimed his arm cannon—
Then, crack!
A shot from one of the tanks reverberated through the air, a small spherical object breaking apart before sticking onto Robot, sending the machine tumbling to the ground, unresponsive.
"Robot!" Duplikate shouted.
Too late.
Four spherical objects zipped through the portal, flying straight towards Eve. She intercepted them with blasts of energy, but the last slipped through.
The orb opened up, and latched onto her face with a sickening thump!
The glowing pink energy flickered, then died, as Eve began clawing at the drone with a strangled sound, stumbling back.
Duplikate screamed her name and charged forward—
Only for the Flaxans to deploy their next toy.
A large blue box, hauled to the front by a pair of Flaxans, plating unfolding like a blooming flower.
Inside?
A massive laser cannon. It hummed, brighter, hotter—then fired.
A single beam of eye-watering light swept through two of Duplikate's clones mid-sprint, bisecting them and leaving them to fall to the ground in a pile of bloody gore.
The real Duplikate barely dove aside in time, one of her duplicates catching the shot in her place, and crumpling with a gurgling scream.
Rex threw a trio of glowing pellets at the machine.
It pulsed, once. The bombs froze midair.
Then reversed.
The cluster of glowing explosives hurled backward, zipping straight for Rex—
"Oh SHI—"
Taylor dove.
She threw two back, and swatted the third, letting the thing explode against her hand.
Eve was still suffocating.
Robot was still down.
Taylor landed hard, crushing the orb, before ripping it from Eve's face.
Eve gasped in a ragged breath, coughing violently.
"Stay down for a while," Taylor snapped, then blurred forward.
A squad of Flaxans with strange backpacks and hose-like weapons turned to her, opening fire with a barrage of liquid.
Taylor dodged out of the way, but the edge of the spray still caught her arm. The stuff stuck to her like glue, knocking her to the ground and sticking her there.
She made to rise, and was met with hefty resistance. The aliens turned their glue-guns towards her, ready to unleash another barrage.
Taylor growled, and ripped her arm free. She didn't know how the aliens had countermeasures ready, even though she'd slaughtered them to the last, but she knew one thing:
She was done waiting.
She blasted through the squad of Flaxans, bodies breaking apart as she passed. Her fists tore through armour like tinfoil, though it felt noticeably more resilient than she thought it'd be. One soldier raised his rifle—she caught it, bent it, and drove the stock through his throat.
A trio of tanks rotated towards her.
She grabbed the barrel of one, bending it, before tossing the thing right back at another, the two going up in a fiery conflagration on impact.
The third hit, the beam of plasma knocking her back slightly, but she dove to the side, letting the beam carve through another group of Flaxans holding strange rifles with tanks on their backs.
She grasped the tank by its front, tossing it into the laser cannon that was still mowing down Kate's duplicates like wheat.
The resulting explosion threw the nearby soldiers into the air like ragdolls.
From where he was laid out, Robot spoke. "The Flaxans have had decades to prepare for this. It seems they spent their time well."
Taylor didn't respond.
A sound like a thunderclap cracked through the plaza as she went supersonic again, what few windows remaining in the nearby buildings shattering. She wasn't dodging anymore.
She wasn't even fighting.
She was hunting.
She was on the next tank in a blink, smashing her foot through the armour and grabbing the Flaxan inside. He squealed something in his language. Maybe he was cursing her out, or begging for mercy.
He wouldn't find it here.
She yanked him out and threw him into another soldier mid-sprint, the two of them tumbling to the ground in a broken mass.
Taylor crushed the tank beneath her like Styrofoam underfoot, the whole thing compressing under the force of her downward flight.
Screams and yells of panic erupted around her.
Then she turned to Robot.
The thing that'd latched to him was still pulsing, sending waves of electricity through his form, locking him down.
With a flex of her arm, she ripped it free, strands of seared metal stretching like nerves. Sparks danced across her palms as the device screeched like a dying animal.
She crushed it into slag.
Robot twitched—systems rebooting. "Scion," he rasped. "Your assistance is appreciated."
"No problem." she muttered, already rising again.
Another group of Flaxans opened fire in formation, plasma bolts lighting up the ruined street like strobe-lights. Taylor blurred through the barrage.
Bolts began raining down on her, the heat transferring through her suit, burning her skin.
She hit the first soldier and kept going. The first Flaxan's chest caved as her fist drove through armour and bone alike, ribs snapping in succession before she dragged him with her, his body flailing and screaming as it was broken against his comrades.
She slammed him sideways into two more, and all three went down in a spray of blood.
She spun, hurling the ruined body like a projectile. It collided with another squad across the plaza and detonated in a spray of bloody mist and shards of bone.
Some screamed. Some ran.
She caught up to them anyway.
One raised his rifle; she caught his wrist and twisted, almost ripping the appendage off as the weapon clattered to the ground. She drove her forehead into his face hard enough to cave his skull.
He collapsed, twitching.
Taylor took two steps, launched skyward, and dove, both fists forward.
She didn't just punch through the tank.
She flattened it.
The entire chassis buckled, compressed into a jagged pancake as metal screamed in protest. Armor plates tore loose, fuel lines ruptured, and a gout of fire burst skyward as something inside exploded.
The crew inside didn't scream. There was no time.
Flames curled around her as she stood in the wreckage, framed in fire and smoke.
Across the plaza, the Flaxans grouped up, weapons raised in formation once more.
She didn't speak their language, but she didn't need to.
She saw the desperation in their eyes. Saw them hunker down like they were ready.
They weren't.
She hit them like a missile.
The impact shattered their front line, rifles falling from numb fingers, arms snapping beneath the force. Taylor exploded into their ranks, fist blurring so fast that each strike resulted in a shower of gore.
One of them ran at her, holding something in his hand. She caught him by the throat, crushing his windpipe before whipping his body back into his comrades, his something cracking as the corpse left her hand. They exploded into a fiery ball of heat, ash and scorched bone.
She jerked the rifle away from a Flaxan aiming for a fleeing civilian, jamming it straight through his gut, and twisted. His insides poured out over her arm, effluvial liquid marring the ground. She pulled the trigger as another soldier approached—straight through the skewered corpse and into his fellow's face, blowing him right back into the pavement.
The rifle sparked—and she snapped it in half. She jammed the exposed circuitry within into another Flaxan's neck.
He burst into flames, flailing and shrieking, trying to pull off his armour as his skin began to bubble.
She let him burn.
The air was thick with the copper tang of blood and the stench of charred meat. Screams echoed, some distant, some cut short.
She didn't care.
A unit tried to flank her. Five of them.
She heard them. Turned.
And clapped her hands together around the lead soldier's head.
The shockwave from the impact ripped the others off their feet, blood gushing from their ears, noses, eyes.
She was on them before they could recover.
Taylor dropped onto one, both fists already driving into his chest. His ribcage shattered, blood gushed from his mouth as he convulsed then laid still.
She landed in a fountain of gore, her boots skidding through viscera, mask smeared with crimson.
All around her, the Flaxans broke, the brutality visited upon their comrades too much for them to continue.
They ran, screaming.
She didn't listen.
One tried to shoot her over his shoulder. In a single moment of instinct guided movement, she caught the bolt, fingers already sizzling—and threw it back, a burning red dart that punched through his spine and burst through his chest.
He dropped, convulsing on the pavement, smoke curling from the hole in his torso.
Another tried to scramble over to a melted bus, the passengers inside little more than soot streaked skeletons.
She grabbed him and slammed him into the ground, spine first. Once. Crack! Twice. Crunch! A third time. Squelch.
Taylor dropped him.
Only a few more remained, scattered and desperate.
During the fight, in her scramble to stop them from fleeing, Taylor had placed herself between the portal and the Flaxans.
If they wanted to leave. They would have to go through her.
She floated after the survivors.
Slowly. Inevitably. She drew closer.
The monster in the dark had found its shape, and Scion was that shape.
She punched through the first one's chest. Her fist burst from the other side, slick with warm, flowing blood, and bits of bone. His heart fluttered briefly against her knuckles before she tore it free and let his body fall into a heap.
Blood soaked her body. Something in her fingers had cracked, a wet, burning heat blooming under her skin. The effects of the blaster burns still lingered, blistering pain nipping at her mind—but that didn't matter.
One last tank remained.
It fired.
She raised her arms and once more caught the beam. It howled in her grasp, flaying her costume, then her skin, layer by burning layer.
Light surged around her in a corona of red and burning white—and she pushed.
The beam carved a hole in the sky, scattering the clouds like dry leaves in the breeze.
She blurred forward, tearing the tank open with her bare hands and reaching inside.
The gunner screamed as she dragged him out.
"You should've stayed in your dimension." she said, voice low and angry.
With that, she held him by his arms and pulled.
They came off with fountains of blood as the Flaxan screamed.
She grabbed him by the neck, leaning in close.
"I know there's someone on the other side, listening. I have a message for you."
She raised him up. There was only one way to make sure they thought twice about invading again.
"If any of you come back here again… I won't just kill the invading force."
She tightened her grip. The Flaxan gagged, legs kicking feebly in the air.
"I'll burn your cities. I'll rip your world open and feed it to itself. I will hunt your people. Your leaders. Your gods."
She held him high, so the fleeing Flaxans could see. The last, broken few still able enough to move stared at her. At the gore soaked demon in human skin.
"I will tear you apart. Slowly."
She threw him.
His body sailed like a broken doll, trailing arcs of blood, as it tumbled through the air and caught the portal's edge—half in, half out. The thing warped around him, convulsing with a high pitched whine then—
Snap!
The portal scrunched closed, the lower half of the Flaxan crushed between dimensions. The air rippled, then went still.
Silence.
Taylor stood in the centre of a disaster zone. Surrounded by flame, blood, and ruin.
Her suit smoked, what few areas free from blood were scorched black by heat.
And behind her, the city watched. What few survivors remained after the Teen Team's efforts, crawling out from behind rubble. From under cars. Looking out of shattered windows.
They watched their saviour stand among a mountain of corpses, caked in gore.
And they cheered.