The footage looped again on the central screen.
Taylor Grayson—Scion—stood in the middle of what used to be downtown, painted in blood and fire. She barely seemed to register the civilians cheering for her, as if the screams of the dying still echoed louder in her ears.
The footage was blurry, shot by an amateur's drone, but it was more than enough for them.
The conference room was dead silent.
Then, a sigh broke it.
Cecil Stedman tapped a pen against the table once, then gestured to Donald.
"Give me the footage again. The whole thing. No edits."
Donald nodded, pressing a few keys on his tablet. The footage played again, at first, the aliens' brutality, then Scion's.
"She fought like Omni-Man when he first came to Earth," Donald murmured. "Same raw power. Same lack of restraint."
Cecil didn't look away from the image of Scion ripping a tank in half with her bare hands.
"No," he said flatly. "Nolan enjoyed it. She endured it."
A few chairs down, a team of GDA analysts busied themselves with charts and equations. One of the scientists from the power classification division—a skinny woman in a blue coat—cleared her throat.
"We've run the numbers. Initial estimates place Scion's power output in same league as our projections for a baseline Viltrumite, maybe higher. She doesn't match him for raw speed, not quite—but the power she showed to deflect those laser attacks is something completely unique from Omni-Man's established powerset."
Cecil nodded. "And psychologically?"
Another man leaned forward. Doctor Malik. He was the Agency's lead on superhuman behaviour. He adjusted his glasses, bringing up a freeze-frame of Taylor as she crushed a Flaxan with her bare hands.
"We analysed her body language and micro-tensions, but it's hard with that helmet of hers in the way. Her affect remains flat—but reactive. She doesn't enjoy the violence. She uses it like a tool. And she's very angry."
"So she's angry," Cecil said. "At the aliens?"
"Yes," Malik answered. "There's no evidence in her file about any previous encounters with similar levels of brutality—except the previous incursion. It could be that the sudden shock of so much violence, so fast has caused her to react… explosively. The chance of her being a high functioning sociopath is also not out of the question."
The next analyst tapped a screen. A slow-motion clip showed the moment she stood still, taking in the cheers of the survivors. Taylor was floating, stock still, dripping, staring. Still breathing hard.
"She doesn't acknowledge them. Doesn't draw energy from their approval that we can tell. She's detached. Could be the beginnings of PTSD, but again, not easy to narrow down."
Cecil pinched the bridge of his nose.
"What about the speech to the Flaxans? Any thoughts on that?"
Another analyst stood up, scrolling through a dossier. "We believe she may have been trying to… inspire fear within the invaders. She intentionally positioned herself between them and the portal. Made herself an obstacle, then proceeded to show them what would happen if they tried to pass. Her message wasn't just verbal—it was visceral. Her violence was performative. Not for us. Not even for her allies. Again, some tells for sociopathy."
Cecil nodded again, slowly.
"She wanted to be remembered."
The conference room was quiet again.
On the main screen, the loop began once more. Taylor pulling a soldier's arms off. Taylor issuing a threat to an entire civilization. Taylor crushing a tank like cardboard.
The scientists and analysts shifted uncomfortably in their seats.
Cecil didn't.
He'd seen worse. He had worse. Nolan had shown him what real danger looked like—and it wore the face of a man who had thought himself above Earth.
Taylor?
"She's not Omni-Man yet," he said at last. "But she could be."
Donald swallowed. "What's the plan?"
Cecil looked at the screen again. At Taylor. At Scion.
She had fought to protect. But she had enjoyed none of it. That much, even Cecil could tell.
Cecil set the pen down.
"Keep her close. Monitor everything. If she shows signs of slipping—if she crosses a line—I want to know before she does it."
Donald frowned. "And if she already did?"
Cecil stared at the image of Taylor, standing amid corpses, basking in silent cheers.
"She's the second most powerful being on this planet," he said, voice cold. "If she ever decides we're the problem…"
He didn't finish.
He didn't have to.
Cleanup for the incident was near to impossible. The footage had racked up thousands of views before it'd been taken down, and people were already sharing screenshots online. By the time they'd gotten a lockdown on it, the few still-frames still out there had already garnered international attention.
The GDA could sue the daylights out of the guy who shot the footage, or make him disappear, but it was far, far too late for it to make a difference.
Cecil just thanked whatever fucked up god was out there that the majority of the attention wasn't negative—that the GDA had a lockdown on the story.
There were still the ones criticising her brutality, just as they had for Nolan, but now, those voices were mixed with the ones that saw this not as a slaughter, but as retribution for the deaths that the aliens had caused. Cecil reminded himself to congratulate the PR team on that miracle.
And of course, there were the journalists. They were already baying for blood and Cecil didn't know how long he'd be able to hold them back before they started turning to rumours and hearsay. The GDA was managing, mainly by drip-feeding details on the aliens—emphasising the amount of personal sacrifice on the part of Scion. It wouldn't hold up for long, though.
The solution, then, would have to be getting the kid to agree to do something herself. Anything; an interview, a statement, hell, even a blog post. So long as she didn't fuck things up royally, the wizards in the PR department would be able to work their magic. And that was only slightly exaggerated.
And frankly, if things went well, this could be the key to shifting public perception on all heroes. It would silence the voices of doubt and ignorance by the simple truth of the brutality required to protect the planet.
Most only saw the destruction left behind in the heroes' wakes, the lives ruined and the villains brutalised. Few understood the sacrifices made to keep the rest of them safe.
And the videos and pictures of Scion's feat was a bold statement to the world that claimed that this was why cities had been torn apart in the aftermath of heroism.
That would be the narrative, anyways. The GDA didn't have a chokehold on media, but it came damn close.
Taylor seemed like a logical person, sociopathy or not. Cecil considered the idea of recruitment. With that kind of power at his disposal, he would be able to eradicate a good chunk of his more stubborn problems, and save a few billion dollars doing it. Stepping on Nolan's toes a little, sure, but if he succeeded, that price was something he was more than willing to pay.
He just hoped no more problems cropped up before then.
"Hey. C'mere. Look at this."
The Mauler Twin hunched over a console lined with fried capacitors and flickering screens looked over, his huge blue fingers still dancing across cracked keys.
The mountain of blue muscle squinted over at the other, eyes gravitating towards the screen.
The other twin reclined lazily on a stacked generator, arms crossed, watching the shaky footage on a salvaged monitor. No filters. No censors. Just raw footage beamed from some idiot's drone cam that had managed to survive long enough to catch the carnage.
"Turn it up."
"I have turned it up, you deaf moron. The signal's garbage because you rerouted the antenna feed to power the welder again."
They quieted down as the camera moved.
The plaza was painted in blood and ash.
Scion stood in the middle of it, body still glowing from residual heat. They could see the smoking flesh of her hand where she'd caught the last tank's cannon blast.
"Well," the reclining twin muttered, "that's one way to do crowd control."
The first grunted. "She's a rookie. Barely been around a week. Doesn't look like crowd control to me. It's got the makings of a message."
"Uh-huh. And the message is what, exactly? 'Don't fuck with Scion or you'll end up liquefied or hurled into a dimensional blender'?"
The screen crackled. A slow pan of the aftermath. Flaxan bodies—or chunks of them—littered the street. Some were still twitching. Most weren't. The camera caught a civilian crawling out from under a burnt-out bus, relief the only expression on his face as Scion turned her head toward him.
The footage was silent, lending an even more eerie feel to the scene.
"She's like Omni-Man," the first murmured.
"No." The other's brow furrowed. "She's slower, and he does things cleaner."
"This one is more brutal about it." The first's voice was low now, thoughtful. "A real firecracker."
There was a long silence.
Then the other asked: "So, if we run into her?"
"Oh, we will." The first reached over to swap out a fried fuse with one labeled DO NOT USE. "She's a newbie. And newbies just can't wait to have a piece of the Mauler Twins. It's only a matter of time before we meet."
The other leaned forward, arms on his knees, eyes never leaving the screen. Scion was floating now, rising like smoke above the ruins, the light catching the red-streaked black of her hair. She looked like something that crawled out of someone's nightmare.
"Well," he said with a crooked grin, "maybe we take a shot at her. See what she's made of up close. I bet we could—"
"Run, idiot," the first cut in flatly. "That's why you're the clone, to be suggesting something so stupid."
The other snorted. "Yeah, right. We gotta get an idea of how strong she is so we know what to do when she shows up to stop us. We're not cowards."
He tapped his temple. "Foresight. As if a clone could ever do anything as complex as that."
"Oh shut up, clone. You think that is going to pull her punches against us?" The first one gestured back at the screen. "She's soaked in blood."
The screen blinked again—one final shot of Scion, surrounded by fire, blood, and crumpled steel.
They watched in silence as the feed died, returning the room to the dull hum of machinery and the clink of tools.
"Need a new plan," the first said finally. "A big one."
"Or," the other muttered, "we fake our deaths and move to Canada."
"Only one of those is a real plan."
"Yeah. The smart one."
Nolan sat within the room the GDA had put him in, propped up slightly by sterile white pillows. The chemical scent of antiseptic clung to everything. His chest still ached with each breath—a reminder that even a Viltrumite wasn't invincible when caught off-guard.
His wife, Debbie, sat in the visitor chair, her hand in his, warm and grounding. The news was on, volume low but not low enough to stop the words from drilling into his mind.
"—hero Scion, engaged the alien forces with assistance from members of the Teen Team. Witnesses describe the incursion as 'catastrophic,' but say their lives might've been saved only thanks to Scion's intervention."
He looked at the grainy photo again. It was always the same: shaky drone cam, debris-filled skyline, and her. Taylor. His daughter. Floating like a specter over the wreckage. Bloodstained and silent.
His daughter.
Debbie reached to mute the screen, but he raised a hand, stopping her.
He needed to see this.
Needed to know.
Because that wasn't the girl he remembered from the quiet evenings together. That wasn't the girl who still flinched when she crushed something by accident. That wasn't the girl who had looked at him like he was everything.
The girl on the screen wasn't flinching anymore.
She looked commanding.
Deadly, even.
She had that same look he'd had when he levelled cities in the name of conquest. When he demanded obedience from weaker species. But this wasn't conquest, or ideology. This was… anger.
He leaned back against the pillow, staring at the screen, not taking anything in as the newscaster moved on.
"She's stronger," Nolan murmured aloud, voice hoarse from his still-healing injuries.
Debbie glanced at him, brow furrowed. "Stronger than what?"
"Than she was supposed to be," he said. His voice was quiet. "Stronger than me… at her age. Maybe stronger now."
Debbie stiffened, her grip tightening around his hand. "Should I be worried?"
Nolan didn't reply.
He wasn't sure he believed it.
Maybe it was the blood in the blurry photo they showed. The fire. But, it was familiar. Viltrumite.
Nolan felt a flare of pride.
He spoke again, softly.
"They're going to try to control her."
Debbie didn't ask who they were. She already knew. They owned the hospital Nolan was staying in, after all.
"They'll coddle her. Then manipulate her. And if they think she's a threat…"
"Can't we do anything about it?" Debbie asked, voice quiet.
Nolan clenched his jaw. "He won't get his hooks in her if I have anything to do about it."
The statement was a simple one, but it wasn't just for Debbie's ears. Nolan's eyes found one of the numerous cameras within his room. Staring through it at the man he knew was listening in.
Cecil snorted. "Straight to the threats, huh?"
Taylor finally noticed that the Teen Team had stopped moving at some point. Instead, they stared at her, gape mouthed and silent.
Rex was the first to speak. "Way to go psycho there, Scion. You mashed them into paste."
She took a calming breath. "I guess I lost my cool there."
Rex continued. "Don't get me wrong, that was amazing. But also? The scariest thing I've ever seen. Just… don't ever point that at me, okay?"
Kate nodded in agreement. "That was… brutal, Scion. You tore them apart like they were cardboard. And that last bit?"
She shuddered. "I wouldn't want to invade if I were them."
They looked warier of her. As if they didn't know what to do with her, how to treat her.
Fortunately, before the companiable silence could breach the barrier into awkwardness, Taylor's phone rung, miraculously unharmed by the battle.
She put it up to her ear, hearing her mom's voice.
"Your father's awake, Taylor."
Taylor could feel the relief in her mom's inflection. And before she knew it, she was floating.
"I gotta go."
Then she was off, ignoring Rex's yelled insults.
She flew down the halls, sometimes literally, not even slowing as she opened the door to her dad's hospital room.
And there he was. Looking as if nothing had even happened to him.
"Hey, Taylor."
"Dad!"
She rushed up, and in an uncharacteristic display of affection, hugged Nolan.
"Ribs…"
"Careful!" Her mom warned. "You're gonna put him in a coma again."
Taylor broke the hug. "You're okay!"
"Not he's not," Her mom replied. "But he is okay enough to come home."
"Mom says you've been keeping the planet safe for me."
"Mom's exaggerating."
"Tell me everything."
"And you killed all of them?"
Taylor shook her head, abashed. "Not all of them. I didn't want them to come back again. So I had to send a message."
Nolan gave his daughter a curious look. "A message?"
"I left the most injured ones alive, and I dismembered the last one and threw him through the portal before it closed."
Debbie gasped in horror.
Nolan just smiled. "Good, very good. That was a hard thing you had to do, but you more than rose up to the challenge."
"Nolan!" Debbie began. "We can't be encouraging this type of behaviour!"
"What? She made the most of a bad situation, and from the sounds of things, protected hundreds of civilians from being killed doing it."
He continued, softer. "And besides, it's always the case with these types. Their cultures, their histories are built around killing and conquering other peoples. The only way to reason with them is through violence."
The trip home after that was quiet.
But the most surprising thing happened when Taylor's parents came by a video of her rampage.
Debbie had been quiet most of the morning.
She'd made breakfast—pancakes, even added blueberries the way Taylor used to like them—but barely touched her own plate. Her coffee had been drained, her eyes fixed on the screen.
The footage wasn't edited. Some idiot with a drone who wanted internet clout and ended up catching one of the most terrifying displays of violence on a level the world had seldom seen before.
Taylor, hovering mid-air, dripping in gore. Before her, a civilian exploded into a shower of blood and bone, and she sawthe anger in her posture.
She didn't realise how she'd looked. She'd been too focused on getting the Flaxans gone.
Nolan had been standing behind Debbie. Watching. His expression was concerned at first, then it shifted to something almost proud.
"She's incredible." he said, a hint of approval in his voice. "She didn't freeze up. Didn't even hesitate."
Debbie looked at him sharply. "That's the problem."
Nolan looked down at her. "No. That's why she won. She made sure they wouldn't come back without seriously re-evaluating their approach."
"She tortured that soldier, Nolan. Dismembered him. Did you hear what she said at the end? She threatened genocide."
"She was bluffing."
"She wasn't." Debbie's voice cracked. "You think I don't know when the teenager I've raised all her life is lying? God, she's like you when you first came to Earth."
That silenced Nolan for a beat. But then he straightened.
"She's not me," he said. "She's better. She's stronger than either of us expected. Smarter. More decisive. That wasn't just senseless violence. That was a message, brutalising the soldiers they sent to murder civilians, just so they wouldn't come back and hurt even more people. That's not something a normal teenager does, Debbie."
He paused.
"It's something a hero does."
Debbie stared at him like she didn't know him anymore.
"You're proud of her."
He didn't answer.
"You're proud that she butchered those soldiers like animals. That she terrified her allies. That people cheered because they were too scared not to!"
Nolan's jaw clenched. "I'm proud that she survived. That she protected others. That she's finally realizing who she is."
"No," Debbie said softly. "That's not how a normal teenager acts."
She ran a hand through her hair. "She needs help. She needs therapy. She needs—"
"I'm fine, Mom."
Both parents turned.
Taylor moved into the doorway, arms crossed.
"I don't need therapy," she continued. Not any therapy they could give her, anyhow. Any problems she might've had were from before, from when she'd been Taylor Hebert. Skitter. Khepri.
Debbie got to her feet. "Taylor, sweetheart, you—what happened back there wasn't normal. You need to talk to someone about it, you can't just—"
"I said I'm fine." Taylor's voice hardened in response to mental trauma. "You don't understand what it was like, mom. They were massacring people. I watched a bus full of civilians go up in flames. I saw them try to gun down a mother and her child in front of me."
Quieter, she continued. "Maybe the aliens deserved it."
"But-"
Nolan put a steadying hand on his wife's shoulder.
"The kid's fine, Debbie. She was rightfully angry about an army of alien monsters trying to conquer our planet. A little brutality in getting rid of them was perfectly justified. She just needs some time to unwind."
He turned to Taylor. "Now, how about we head on down to Germany? We can get some pretzels to go with breakfast, and bring some of that bratwurst back for lunch."
She nodded hesitantly. "That would be nice."
"Some civilisations are so… fleeting. Like leaves in the wind. You blink, and they're gone." Nolan paused. "But hey, these pretzels are great, aren't they?"
"…what are you talking about?"
"The pretzels?"
Taylor shot him an unimpressed look.
Nolan's expression shifted, more serious now. "I guess now's a good time to tell you. Viltrumites… they age slower as they grow older, and you will be the same. By the time you hit five hundred, you won't look a day over thirty."
"So you're saying…"
"Everyone you know will be dust before you so much as grow a grey hair."
The shock of the revelation didn't stop Taylor from replying. "…but I'll still have you, right? And isn't there a Viltrum empire around somewhere?"
He seemed taken aback for a moment. "I- yes. Maybe one day I can introduce them to you."
There was silence for a moment. "There's something else I wanted to talk about."
Taylor looked over at him in askance, thankful that she was as tall as she was before.
"What is it?"
"When you were fighting the aliens. You… caught a plasma blast from the aliens, and from that tank. How?"
"What do you mean, how? I thought that was a Viltrumite thing."
Nolan shifted in his seat. "You really don't know? No Viltrumite I've seen, not even the hybrids, can do anything like that."
"I don't understand. Are you saying that I've got an entirely separate power?"
"That's what it sounds like, Taylor."
She sat back. "…what're we going to do about this then?"
"Nothing. Earth doesn't have the technology to figure our biology out. Not until the Viltrum empire comes by at least."
"I hope they come sooner rather than later. I don't like what this implies."
Nolan smiled at that. "I doubt it'll be long now. Especially with Earth's greatest defenders already dead."
The rest of the day was spent just… unwinding. Something entirely foreign to Taylor. Back home, after combat, something always popped up, whether it was another job, another issue, or an attack of some kind. Never a substantial break from the constant stress of being a villain in Brockton Bay.
They flew around the world, seeing sights, playing tourist, all the while her dad spouted out strange lines about the Viltrum empire and her eventual membership in it, without actually saying anything about it.
There was probably a reason for it. But for once in her life, she trusted that it was a good one.