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Nobody had come.
In many ways... that was the thing that hurt the most. No matter how much she had screamed and shouted, plead and begged, there had been no-one to come and save her.
Perhaps for the longest time, she had silently hoped against hope that eventually somebody would take notice of her plight and save her from it. She had kept quiet, kept low in the hope that things would get better, that they would all get bored and move on to somebody else.
Alas, no.
In the end, something had noticed her, rather than someone.
Despite the school having hundreds of students, despite plenty of people knowing what was going on, including her former best friend... nobody came. By the time the locker was eventually opened it was much too late, the damage was done, the final lesson of this all had been hammered in.
In the end, it had been the Mother of Truth who had taken pity on her, something far beyond normal that had reached out to the pathetic, insignificant creature that she was.
When all the world rejected, forgot and mistreated her, it was something utterly inhuman that had decided to take pity. Wasn't that tragic? Something so utterly sublime, so divine, had come to Taylor's aid long before any of her fellow man, what a testament to their cruelty.
She had eventually been pulled from the locker, covered in disgusting substances and remains, barely sensate.
Taylor could only put it down to the strange peace and rapture that come over her since the Mother had reached out to her.
She had sat in her hospital bed as people around her talked and spoke about her, but rarely to her. Her opinion was unimportant in this all, her fellow human beings saw her as a patient, a number, something to be treated and processed and moved along.
Beyond her father, of course.
Physically, she was barely injured, there were only so many ways one could injure oneself inside a narrow, confining coffin, after all.
The risk of infection had come up, but she was fine, she had no open wounds and after some observation she could be let go, with a recommendation that she take some time to recover from her ordeal. The school would be paying the hospital bills, such as they were, as part of a settlement, something her father had been organising.
The entire time she sat, listening to the buzz and activity around her, disaffected by it all.
The doctors, the concerned members of the school board, even the person from the PRT. It was only now that something had happened to her that they gathered, they were like flies attending the corpse of somebody who had obviously been dead for a long time.
“Miss Hebert, given that you have had a traumatising experience, there is a possibility that you have developed Parahuman powers---”
Parahuman?
No.
She was no Parahuman.
Taylor could feel the vastness of the Mother, formless and immense and everywhere around her, constantly. It was a soothing, omnipresent balm, one that settled her emotions, one that was a constant reminder that something was there for her, regardless of where she was.
So she stared at the person from the PRT long and hard.
There was a lot she wanted to say.
'You only care now you think I have powers.'
'I hate you all.'
'Rot in hell.'
All petulant, small-minded things, so she said nothing, she just watched. In lieu of passion for her fellow man and its actions, apathy was just as strong. The man before her did not deserve her emotional investment, as cathartic as it would be, this serenity she felt from the Mother's presence was more than enough.
There was a nice, fancy term used to describe her condition, a variant of shock that the doctors banded about.
The PRT man left, having evidently decided that she did not have powers or that there was no reason to stay longer. Job done, and just like everyone else, the man disappeared from her life once he had processed her and moved on.
There was a certain beauty in blood.
It was something Taylor had gotten used to.
All women did on some level, of course, but ever since the locker, Taylor had found a new appreciation for the substance.
Not in the form of what she had been exposed too of course.
That was gross.
Rancid. Disgusting. Putrid.
But normal blood had a purity, and impurity, all of its own.
When spilled on ceramic tiles it was a pain to wipe up, there were always little smears behind and it got so annoying. It clotted in such an ugly, dark way as well, forming raised scabs that you just wanted to pick and remove. The average body held so much of it, but if you lost too much, then you could die oh so quickly.
The Mother craved wounds.
Taylor stabbed upwards with the knife, and it pierced some unseen firmament, causing a vicious spray of blood that rained down upon Taylor.
Stood in the bath-shower as she was, it looked like something out of a horror film.
She felt nothing at what should be a gross scene, beyond a strange rapture.
It was like being held and cradled by her mother again, the embrace of the Mother of Truth could only be delivered in this way. Taylor was its dear herald, the one it had chosen. Nobody else.
After years of being utterly alone and abandoned by the world, she had something.
She alone was the enlightened one.
... Heh, she really must be sick in the head to be thinking all this.
It was not that she was beyond reason, it was that it was just so very difficult to care about such things now. What did it matter if she was finding delight in having gallons of blood poured upon her form, a giant wound she had inflicted on the very air? What did it matter, when there was nobody else who cared about her at all in this world?
Her dad tried, but it just wasn't enough, after so long alone she just needed this feeling of being essential, of being enveloped in the all encompassing embrace.
The bottom of the bath was filling up with blood oh so rapidly, up to her ankles.
It would take ages to wash away all the blood that had been shed here, much longer than her shower would normally take. But at this moment, for the first time in so long, she felt some small bit of joy and contentment---
Something pressed against her foot.
Something solid.
She reached down, her slender, blood-slicked fingers took up the heavy object with a strange ease, and pulled it free.
It was a trident, hewn of warped. Spiralling black metal was decorated with gold in places, its three long spikes were straight, rough and hideously edged. It looked far more like a piece of vaguely hammered and shaped industrial slag than a weapon that had been gifted to Taylor by the Mother, and yet, she found herself cradling it close.
It was a gift, and with it---
Taylor was going to make a difference, she was going to improve this world and spread the Mother's influence far and wide.
In a decaying city, there is no shortage of people who are lost.
For the longest time, Taylor had thought that she was uniquely positioned in this world to suffer, that the cosmic forces of the universe had in some way singled her out to suffer the worst of any human in the world. Such histrionics came purely from the narrow and limited perspective inherent to being a human being.
But so many people suffered. Beyond the glitzy, pretty and upmarket areas of Brockton Bay, plenty of paces were mired in squalor and decay.
Beyond the privileged few and the comfortable but not well off middle, plenty suffered. It was the driver of gang violence, it was what pushed people to their limits.
Reasonable people take unreasonable action in unreasonable circumstances, you understand?
Drugs and disease.
Symptoms of a festering problem.
With the Mother's blessings came gifts, the power to quicken or still blood, to cast it forth and set it alight and even to move between it. Wherever there was spilled blood, she could be, she had a constant awareness of where it was, the volume, the quality.
Unsurprisingly, such knowledge and abilities led her to the very lowliest of sorts.
A trio of homeless people... junkies as well, she could feel the insidious, crawling nastiness of the pollutants within their bodies.
The most pathetic and pitiable of people in the world. Struggling to get by and visibly sick, yet doomed to endless seek the next high, dragged back, exploited. Or perhaps she was just letting her own distaste for drug dealers to get to her.
The first to notice her was a man, wrapped up warm and staring out with suspicious, jaded eyes.
With a gesture, he pointed out her existence to his fellows, and all at once all three of them all focused on her.
Well, it was close to ten at night in January, perhaps it was unusual that she would still be up at this time, and coming into their presence like this, trident in hand.
“You three,” she gestured. “You've all used drugs, right?”
It was not, by any means, the best introduction that she could have made, considering. The tensing on the shoulders, the glowers, the muttering among themselves.
“Fuck off, kid, got nothing to share with you.”
Her smile fixed slightly.
“Do you want to get better?” she offered, making her voice soft. “I can clean up your blood, remove your illnesses, the drugs as well, if you like,” she offered, extending a hand towards them even as the other remained gripping her trident.
“... What'are you, a cape?”
“Something like that... I specialise in blood.”
And now they were shifting awkwardly because when it came down to it... it was three sickly people that society would not miss against a Parahuman. The balance of power had changed, but of course, Taylor had never had much interest in causing trouble, just helping out these poor, poor souls.
“Unless you got something for HIV, then I'm good,” one, the second man of the trio, said with no small hint of bitterness in his voice.
Perhaps it had been said with just a little hope, but the expectation that nothing could be done.
How tragic it was to think that in the city that had Panacea, named for the universal remedy, that some people would still be facing down such horrible illnesses...
“Oh, of course, that would be simple enough,” she said, benevolently. That got the attention from the speaker, his eyes sharpened past the drug induced haze, and all at once she was the centre of his attention.
“What's it gonna' cost? You with one of the gangs?”
“No cost.”
“First one's free, eh?” there were bitter chuckles all around to that, but nobody was moving or running away now.
“No.” She said it with far more vehemence than she perhaps planned. “I hate drugs, I hate drug dealers. I wish they would all disappear. Scum of the earth.”
Such a slippery and repulsive road, even before the Mother had come into her life, Taylor had been wary about the notion, but now it was all the worse.
Diluting and dissuading the mind from seeing the truth of the world.
The man was hesitant to accept her offer, perhaps it was because it was too good to be true.. But it didn't matter, when she did her work, then he would see the truth behind her promises and power.
The power of the Mother.
“It will hurt, just a little bit... might be a bit bloody as well, but after that, you'll be all cleaned up,” and so saying, she began to heal him when he gave his acquiescence.
“There you go...” she said, softly, even as the man shook, and his fellows panicked. “How do you feel?” she pressed.
“I'm...” a long pause as the man swayed. “I feel great? Better than great, actually!” With each passing moment he looked more sure in his statement, as he felt the Mother's embrace for the first time, and with the benefit of proof, soon the other two were asking for help as well, caught up in their companion's rapture.
The first believers.
It is a lot easier to get people on your side, to amass followers, when you can help them with the problems they face in their lives. Everybody starts sceptical on some level, but the proof is insurmountable, especially when it is so easy and convenient as simply being in another person's presence and listening to them speak.
Those with nowhere else to go are especially easy to bring around.
Taylor couldn't provide food and drink, but she could safety clean the poisons and diseases within a person's blood and an inexhaustible supply of bloodflame to provide warmth.
But most importantly, she could provide the boundless acceptance and comforting embrace of the Mother, that wonderful feeling of affection and rightness in the world.
People relapsed, but that just gave her an excuse to visit them all again, to keep an eye over her little flock of poor, unfortunate souls.
Without school, with plenty of time during this period of 'recovery' she had plenty of time to make use of.
Plenty of time to speak to people.
“How'd you get your powers, then?”
“The Formless Mother gave them to me, she is everywhere around me,” Taylor had explained, and she saw the moment that doubt settled. But she was used to people seeing her like that, it didn't hurt much. “You could use them as well, or a variant of my powers, at least.”
Amazing, isn't it?
You offer a powerless person power and suddenly, they take you more seriously, they look at what you can do they and they want the same. Warily, a number of the groups she had taken under her proverbial wing all paused at that, and it was clear what was on their mind.
The herd all thought the same, in the end.
“Have faith, and you can be like me.”
“Faith? Pfft, what's the point of something like that.”
She offered out a hand, just as she had before to them.
“You might not have faith in things that don't have results... but what about things that do? You have nothing in this world to lose, and if its true, everything to gain?”
She was fully aware that she was off the deep end, that she was lost to the Mother, but that constant presence, this drive, was all that Taylor really had in the world.
Once you were in, you may as well commit, right?
They tried it, that little group.
They took her teachings, they learned, they heard the word. They called her mad, right until one of them managed to do the same as she did.
That was the thing about faith; it propagates itself.
One person manages to perform a miracle, which pushes others to believe, and once somebody achieved an act of faith, one increasingly believed that it would work the next time. It was a conga-line, a series of dominoes that, from a solitary piece falling, led to movements across a much bigger space.
Others began to feel the Mother's presence, she took them all into her warm embrace, and from there... things blossomed.
The homeless, destitute and desperate that flocked to her didn't need to know the specifics of how things worked, only that it did.
In this world, talk is cheap and actions speak louder than words.
Some were less capable than others, but that did not matter, faith was something that could be brute forced, all you needed to do was believe, to understand the arcane secrets and delve ever deeper.
“Draw from the blood the weapon,” she commanded from atop the box that acted as her parapet.
The warehouse in which she spoke was cold, dark, and empty, lit only with the red light created by the bloodflame that she had conjured. The two dozen faithful that had amassed to hear her word was just the beginning, just a seed.
The man at the front, one of the first, reached into the pool of blood that she had shed from the Mother, and from it, he drew a knife.
Jagged, curved.
“This knife is proof of your dedication, its name is Reduvia. The Mother wishes you to protect yourself well, Henry. She is pleased,” Taylor called, smiling benevolently.
From a doubter to faithful, his blood cleaned of drugs and turning his life around. It was so lovely to see one turn from darkness and into the sanctuary that was the Mother's embrace.
“You all can be the same, if you give your all to the Mother of Truth, then no more will you be slaves to what has held you back. The gangs who used you, the people that turned their backs on you because the world didn't care for you, but the Mother cares for you, and so do I.”
She was, undeniably, a cult leader.
But that was fine if you were giving people safety, security, health and most of all, a higher goal and purpose in this world.
Helpless people delivered into something more, something greater.
The Mother was making so many gifts for them now.
Knives, long spiralling rapiers, flowing black robes for the most faithful, for those who believed.
Taylor herself had her own garments of black, red and gold, grand and imperial.
It was all the beginning of something new, something wonderful.
The first hint that there was something strange going on in Brockton Bay (well, beyond the normal strange things) was perfectly innocuous.
A sudden increase in the number of deaths among the cities drug dealers and peddlers. Such a thing came in ebbs and flows; people selling their wares on to their customers grew in number, often sponsored by the gangs, until things hit a tipping point and then violence would erupt or boarder skirmishes would take a number out.
The rest would lie low for a while, during which time a new generation would fill the gaps.
This was just another repetition of the same cycle, the time when a few drug dealers would die, and then it would calm down...
5 DRUG DEALERS FOUND DEAD IN SCENE OF HORROR
'GRATUITOUS MURDER' OF MAN ATTRIBUTED TO DRUG WAR
SURVIVOR DESCRIBES 'PHANTOMS' OF KING'S STREET BLOODBATH
... Except that things were different this time.
The deaths were so fantastically violent and bloody. Sometimes people were killed to 'send a message' as it were, and such things were horrible, but the sheer amount of bloodshed involved in the recent murders was, frankly, obscene.
It was perhaps a testament to the amount of the red liquid contained inside the average human being, but the four locations Dauntless had personally seen looked more like an abattoir than anything else.
There had been a survivor of the last one, if only because they hid in a cupboard as the murder occurred, not that it had made the man's explanation any less confusing.
It appeared that Brockton Bay had a very active new vigilante.
As he read over the transcript earlier, it had raised more than a few eyebrows, and attracted the attention of the PRT. By the description it could only be a cape, one who was either a serial killer or a vigilante with a particular distaste for drug dealers.
“He just appeared from the ground, man, there was blood everywhere, he had a sword!”
“He teleported?”
“No like, there was a pool of blood on the ground, just appeared, and then he came out of it and he stabbed him, I mean, Terry, he stabbed Terry, just like that!”
Somebody who could move between pools of blood and carried a sword.
As it was, it was a simple Mover power by the sounds of it, the killer ambushed targets and took them by surprise, disappearing presumably by the same method. It did not explain the sheer amount of blood involved, but people like this did not always have to act in such a simple manner.
The real concern was the response of the gangs.
Drugs made up a lot of the income for various groups, and things that affected the bottom line of organised crime had a habit of disappearing, or leading to an escalation in response.
Currently, that response was the Empire and ABB increasingly at the others throats as one thought the other was responsible...
Reviewing a map of the city and where the murders had occurred, there was only one thing that immediately came to mind.
“... What do you think? There's some sort of pattern, but it's mostly concentrated in the middle and north.”
“The most deprived areas, so more drugs. Not surprising.”
Collin was, as ever, brusque.
He had little idea quite what it was about him in particular that tended to make the head of the Protectorate for Brockton Bay respond in short sentences, but right now, it was pissing him off.
“No real pattern beyond that.”
“There's clusters, but it's all started up so quickly, whoever's behind this must be acting near constantly.”
“Any reports from the coroners on time of death?”
“Hard to pin down exactly, some of them are so close that either they immediately went from one to another, or they had some way to be in two places at once.”
A grim thought indeed.
As it was, until the killer messed up, or they got lucky, there was only so much the PRT and Protectorate could do against the source of these murders.
Until the time came, they could only bide their time.
There is a certain classification of Master that has an unusually high rate of incarceration in the Birdcage, and which has disproportionate impacts on local scenes.
Master's that enhance others and grant them powers.
Teacher. Galavante and their ilk.
Going up against one superpowered maniac is a hazard, but when one Parahuman could create an army of superhuman fighters, then said cape was a threat to an entire local scene.
Taylor was not a Parahuman, but her abilities were cut from the same cloth, and as a result, she did her best to keep a low profile. What need was there for her to rush to the frontlines, when she could give out her gifts to the worthy and give them orders in the Mother's stead?
The following had only been growing by the day, the first among the desperate had gone forth and brought in others, spreading word amongst the lowly.
The sick.
The dispossessed.
The disenfranchised.
When they had nowhere else to go or no other options, they could all sink into the boundless crimson embrace of the Mother of Truth.
It had been three weeks since she emerged from the locker, and that time practically felt like a lifetime ago. She should worry about school and her return to it, but she had a greater purpose now, grander thoughts and visions to enact and achieve.
“---trio near the boardwalk, they had a lab making meth.”
“And you dealt with them?” she asked.
“Of course.”
“The lab?”
“Have some people watching it for when somebody comes to check it out.”
James was just one of the many, but he had always been most proactive in the eradication of the filth that was the drugs trade in the city, to the point that she rather suspected there was something deeply personal to it. That or that he took a personal satisfaction in it.
But his proactive nature had seen him granted additional gifts from the mother, namely a great, spiralling rapier just below her trident in terms of status.
A noble of the sanguine blood.
“... How many have you in your team now?”
“Six, my Lady. All of them carry the Reduvia.”
How long would it be before they could truly act more openly...
“Good. I am hopeful that with time, we can bring out that lizard from its hiding place,” she said, reaching up to cup her chin, her other hand gripping her trident.
Lung had been in the city since early 2008, and in just three years the Bay had suffered his flames and greed far too much; some may argue that his presence was the one thing holding back the Empire from expanding more fully and taking control of the city. Such people forgot that the Empire had enjoyed no less than eight years without the major opposition of an equal figure after Marquis was captured.
Not that she wasn't planning for the future...
Lung and the ABB were just the first step, after all.
The sleeping Dragon had been tickled.
And now part of the city was burning.
It was a necessary sacrifice, from the ashes something newer, better, would be built.
“Remember, everyone; fight from afar and slip away at the first sign of danger. The Mother cherishes us all, but there is no need for heedless sacrifice... the streets shall run red with the blood of the enemies of the mother, not our own!” she called out, opening her arms as if to embrace her crowd.
So many determined eyes, so many people she had saved, so many people she had brought into the embrace. All of them were masked and robed for the event in the proud red, black, and gold of the mother.
She felt the thrum in the air, the excitement, the need to make a difference.
And now... it was time to move.
Lung was clearly rampaging out of frustration, to send a message. Throwing his weight around and trying to intimidate them.
The clumsy bumbling anger of an oaf and a fool who was chasing at shadows, unable to grip them.
Such suited them.
Getting everyone into position took time, but when one could travel through blood, it was easier. A brave decoy brought him along to the mostly empty street, the giant silver beast scrambling forward, and from the empty, run down buildings either side of the street, the faithful struck.
Stood on a nearby roof, hidden, Taylor watched as the ambush was launched.
It was a bloodbath.
Literally.
Dozens of men and women began the ambush. Some plunged their hands into the air and casting forth great waves of blood, others clutching their bloodied Reduvia's close and then launching sprays of the same forward. Swarms of Bloodflies closed in, gnawing, burning, dying, but plenty of them getting in their painful and haemorrhaging bites.
Plenty of her faithful efforts were for naught, but for each that evaporated or burned away, some efforts got through. In a moment, Lung was being assailed on all sides, silver scales spattered and coated in blood.
With a howl, Lung spasmed as his skin and scales ruptured from within, the blood in his enlarged body quickened and bursting to be free.
He could launch fire as much as he wanted, the barrage was unceasing, the next rupture, the street slicked and coated with the man's own burning blood, creating a red lake beneath him.
Movement to the side, unnoticed by her flock. Lung had been rampaging alone, but others had been following, a clean-up crew of vultures that moved in his wake.
The masked teleporter, Oni Lee, directing normal, baseline humans who all had the gang colours, rapidly moving to encircle or ambush the faithful.
There was no need for other actors on this stage.
“Tres!---”
All who peddled this trade, ringed by a red band, leaving the believers untouched.
“Duo!---”
All who were not worthy, ringed by a second.
“Unus!”
All who stood in her way. A third band.
She gripped her trident, bringing its guard against her forehead. As the first gunshots rang out, she pushed it into the air and deep into the Mother's flesh, the air turning red ---
“Nihil!”
Blood rained down upon Taylor and the rooftop on which she stood. Down below, those ringed with light staggered as their bodies ruptured---
“NIHIL!”
A second time, most of them had already collapsed---
“NIHIL!”
And shock would take the rest. The body could not survive such blood loss, and neither could Lung. Far below he had collapsed, but just because he had fallen, that was by no means the end of things, the assault continued until was remained of the former gang leader was a ruptured, bloodied mess shrouded wreathed in Blood Flame.
The hellish red light, the way it cast upon the walls of the surrounding buildings, it was delightful, a vision of what would soon come for the Empire.
A buzzing sound behind her.
She glanced over her shoulder to see a drone.
A nice one as well; Tinker Tech. A camera in a golden ball.
Now who could that be? The PRT? Or perhaps, Uber and Leet, those two fools were known for using just such a device---
She found herself smiling, not that such an expression could be seen, as she opened her arms wide, jubilation and triumph at their success elevating her mood to giddy heights. With trident in hand and lit by the light of the blood flame bar below, she addressed the drone.
“Welcome, honoured guests... As you can see, Lung is dead, or soon to be... to the Empire, to any who would stand in our way, I say this; leave now, and we won't hunt you down. If you choose to stay, then we will bleed you out, just as we have here... this is the sole I shall grant you.”
And with that, just as her faithful had, she slipped away, disappearing into the pool of blood at her feet.
if the message got out, then good.
if not... then they would just take the Empire by surprise.
There was no space in this city for any group beyond herself and the faithful... and now that a message had been sent tonight, it was time for the true blood-letting to begin.