Chapter Text
Setting up a meeting to join the Wards had been a lot simpler than Taylor had expected. She'd kind of thought there would be a bunch of conversations back and forth, and then she'd need to demonstrate her power, and she'd have to wait for them to run a comprehensive background check, and then they'd do an MRI scan on her brain or something to make sure she had an active corona. Well, maybe not all of that, but she hadn't been expecting it to be as simple as making a single phone call to the PRT and setting up a meeting for the next Tuesday, after school.
It made sense, though, after she gave it some thought. The whole point of the Protectorate was to try and get as many capes working as heroes as possible, and that went doubly so for the Wards. Taylor herself had some feelings about the way they went about it—at least five of the Butchers would likely have ended up as rogues rather than villains if NEPEA-5 hadn't made it almost impossible to earn an income with your power—but right now, it meant that the barriers to joining the wards were practically non-existent. That was good, because Taylor was very much counting on that for her plan to work.
Most of the collective didn't like her plan very much, but Taylor had their memories of living with the Teeth and frankly it reminded her of a fraternity mixed with a Upton Sinclair-era slaughterhouse, with all the cleanliness that would imply. It seemed pretty fucking awful, honestly, and for some reason she didn't find herself swayed by arguments about the opportunity to 'do pounds of blow off a hooker's tits,' as Frenzy had so politely put it. Some of the collective were on board, though—mainly the ones who had an actual sense of humor. There was an uproar of protests at that thought, but she just banished most of them to small and disgusting insects in her swarm, and that worked pretty well for keeping them quiet.
By the time Tuesday rolled around, Taylor was practically jittery with nerves, although not so much for fear of being injured—she had about a half dozen brute packages, and as long as she could avoid asphyxiating like Quarrel she'd probably be fine. Rather, Taylor was jittery with excitement, like she used to get when she and Emma were about to pull off a new prank.
When school was out–she'd spent most of the time between classes avoiding the Trio, a task made substantially easier by a combination of bug senses, bloodsight, and danger sense–Taylor practically skipped out of Winslow and began jogging toward the PRT headquarters. She ducked into an alleyway—again, it was a lot easier to make sure she was unseen with all of those senses–and then she quickly changed into the temporary outfit she'd assembled. First went on a leather jacket, which she'd embossed with fifteen symbols using Knapper's power, one for each of the Butchers. The first Butcher got a pig's head, Devein got a syringe, Cordyceps a mushroom, Quarrel a bow, and so on. Right over her heart, she'd embossed a little spider for herself. Her jeans she kept as is, and she'd molded the blade from an actual Butcher knife into a suitable mask, which would probably be horrifically uncomfortable for somebody that could feel pain or wasn't a brute many times over.
The PRT troopers in the lobby turned to look at her as she approached, hands going to the triggers of confoam sprayers. Taylor did her best to project an aura of nervousness as she walked over to the receptionist at the front desk, who was watching her with wary suspicion.
"Er, hello," Taylor said. "I'm here to join the Wards? I've got an appointment for 4:30."
The receptionist just nodded, clicking a few times on her computer. "Do you know who you talked with before?" she asked.
Taylor thought back. "I think she said her name was Jessica Song?"
I think her name was Agent Bitch– was about as far as Devein got before he was punted into a fruit fly in a neighboring office building. He knew better than to try and tick her off like that, of course, he just delighted in being a pest.
The woman just nodded. "Alright, I see your appointment. Trooper Hernandez will escort you to the meeting room."
One of the PRT Troopers, looking pretty much identical to the rest of them in oversized body armor, walked over toward us. Taylor could read the little nametag that said Hernandez, at least. "If you'll follow me," he said, his voice thick with a Brockton accent.
"Sure thing," Taylor replied. She'd noticed that her own voice had started to shift in its accent a little bit, a consequence of constantly hearing and having memories of a mix of Brockton, Boston, New York accents from the voices in her head, plus a Brazilian accent (from Sepsis) and a Japanese accent (from Quarrel). The end result was still mostly Brockton, but it clocked as a little foreign. Not that there was much she could do about it, though—humans are kinda wired to pick up the accents of people around them, and Taylor was always around the other Butchers.
Hernandez led her toward an unmarked door off the end of the lobby, which opened with a few taps to a keypad. It was a little disappointing: for all that this was the PRT, their interior decorating was pretty similar to any number of other offices her predecessors had seen. They ended up going up two stories in an elevator, and then Hernandez led her down a hallway for a few steps before opening up a meeting room. There was a long table with about ten chairs, and sitting on the other side while looking over some papers was the unmistakable forms of Battery and Miss Militia, in a circuit-lined bodysuit and a camo jacket, respectively.
Hernandez gave them a short nod, then stepped out of the room. Miss Militia stood up, gesturing at the chair across from them. "Please, sit down. We just wanted to go over some preliminary details with you."
"Sure thing," Taylor replied, sliding into the chair. There was a black knife sheathed at Miss Militia's side, with a green inlay, and she felt like she was probably a little too obvious in looking at it.
The things we could do with that power… Absinthe said, a little wistfully.
I changed my mind. Taylor, you should rage blast her right now, Wendigo said, and got the mental equivalent of a flick on the head in response.
"Are you interested in my power?" Miss Militia said, not unkindly. It flickered into a burst of energy, green and black light, and then it appeared in her hands.
"Yeah," Taylor admitted. "It's really cool. Probably one of the best examples of the Sheindel Aggression Hypothesis, though."
"You're interested in Parahuman Studies?" the beflagged hero asked.
Taylor gave her a sheepish look. "I've got something of a vested interest, you could say," she said. "You're actually a big inspiration to me, though. You've got a power that's almost designed to be lethal, and yet you've managed to make a career out of being a hero with hardly any kills to your name."
"That's what the Wards program is for," the hero said. "Helping young parahumans with potentially dangerous powers learn how to use them safely."
Battery spoke up. "We should probably do at least somewhat formal introductions. I'm Battery, and you clearly know Miss Militia already. Do you have a name picked out yet? I can't guarantee that it'll be permanent, because occasionally Image has some concerns, but we do our best to respect people's choices."
"Er, yeah, I've got a name, although I imagine that they'll want to change it." Taylor took a deep breath, then said, "Hi. I'm Butcher." At least ten different voices began to laugh in her head, and she struggled to keep a smile from spreading onto her face.
The capes across from her froze, Battery's pleasant expression going rigid on her face. "That's… that name has quite a bit of baggage," she choked out.
Taylor chuckled, more amused than she probably should be. "You're telling me! I'm the one who has to deal with fourteen voices in my head."
Miss Militia's power was rapidly flickering between several different weapons—Taylor saw a shotgun, a saber, a revolver, and a blunderbluss, just to name a few, before it settled on a confoam sprayer, pointed directly at her. Battery's body was flickering with a ghostly blue light, which meant she was primed to release her charged energy.
Taylor just leaned back in her hands, holding up her arms. "I'm not here for a fight," she said.
Battery stared at her, and Taylor could see her noticing the embossing on the jacket and starting to draw the right connections. "Why are you here, then?"
At that, Taylor just stared at her. "To… to join the Wards? I thought that was obvious."
You're way too good at that, Frenzy said, a quiet amusement evident in his voice.
"Forgive me for saying this, but you seem a bit too sane to be the Butcher," Miss Militia said, her voice controlled. "If this is a joke, we'll need to have a long conversation about appropriate topics and times for that kind of thing."
"Not a joke, unfortunately," Taylor replied. "My original power let me control bugs within a radius, and that meant every bug in that radius. I was in the hospital for, like, a week as my brain had to adapt to dealing with that much information. The flip side of that is my power lets me multitask like crazy. I can already process the location and senses of like hundreds of thousands of bugs, including hearing a bunch of conversations going on, so having fourteen more voices isn't actually that bad." As she said that, she had a few spiders crawl out of her hair and down her body to the table, where they did a little jig.
Miss Militia took a deep breath when she saw the spiders. "Quarrel's autopsy suggested she died from asphyxiation after her airways filled with insects," she said, faintly.
At that, Taylor winced. "Okay, yeah, not my best moment. I was in Boston with my Dad when we got caught in the crossfire between the Teeth and one of Blasto's monsters. Quarrel went for my dad and, uh, I kind of panicked. I hadn't gone out yet though, or even tested my powers as much as I wanted to, so I didn't really realize what I'd done until suddenly there was a bunch of people screaming and I could remember what it felt like to drown on bugs."
Both of the capes across from her winced at that mental image, and Taylor realized that maybe admitting to killing somebody wasn't the best look—although Frenzy had been a lawyer before he triggered and joined the Teeth, and his memories made it pretty clear that her actions fell under the grounds of a justifiable homicide, given Quarrel's obvious lethal intent. She tried to change the subject anyways. "Oh, um, you guys wanted proof that I'm Butcher, right? I mean, obviously there are a bunch of powers I can't really show right now because they only work on people, but I can safely show you Mason, Howitzer, Sepsis, and Quarrel's powers," she said.
There was a moment as Battery and Miss Militia's eyes met and they seemed to have a non-verbal conversation, and then Miss Militia said, "As long as you can do it safely, go ahead."
Taylor nodded, then pulled off her mask. Both of the heroes stared at her. She blinked back at them. "What? It's not like this would stop you from finding out, if you really wanted to, and I'm already trying to join the Wards. I'm pretty sure that revealing my identity is part of that. Anyways."
She called on Sepsis' power first, draggin her finger down the center of the mask in her hands. As she did so, the metal began to turn black and flake off, decaying where she touched it. She'd used a relatively light touch with the power, so the decay didn't last all that long, and then she snapped the mask in two. With Mason's power, she molded both of the pieces of metal at once, turning one of them into a flat disk with a small hole in the middle, and the other into a metal dart.
Then she tossed the disk into the air, teleported backwards (she'd barely charged it up, so the accompanying explosion was incredibly weak, not even enough to singe the carpet) and then tossed the dart into the air as well. Quarrel's power took over, the dart and disk meeting right as they hit the table, the dart sliding cleanly into the bullseye.
The two heroes stared, speechless. Taylor gave a little bow, because Cordyceps had suggested it and she thought it was actually pretty funny, and then she pulled the chair out and sat down in it again. "So, uh, pretty sure that's proof I am who I say I am," she finished, kind of lamely.
"I'd say so," Miss Militia said, staring at her in shock. It was pretty clear that neither of the capes had fully believe she was actually the Butcher before then, but her little demonstration had neatly put to rest any doubts. To pull off that kind of stunt, she'd either need to be the Butcher or an extremely powerful trump, and there was no reason for a trump with that kind of power to pretend to be someone like Butcher.
"So," Taylor said, and the two heroes flinched a little. "Joining the Wards?"
~*~
Director Emily Piggot was a hard woman. She'd always been stubborn and opinionated, but life and tragedy had forged that raw iron into brittle steel. Ellisburg had shown her that all men were cowards at their core, and capes were no exception.
She could tell at once that the girl across from her was cut from the same cloth. Taylor Hebert was strong long before she killed the previous Butcher and inherited that monster's powers and memories. She'd been broken, as well, but had come out all the stronger for it—although riddled with fault lines, like all things that have been repaired.
"Why do you want to join the Wards?" Emily asked. She didn't see much point in wasting time, not with someone like this.
"I don't want to die," Hebert responded. Her voice was level, almost casual. "And I always wanted to be a hero."
"It's hard for me to imagine you wouldn't be more trouble than you're worth," Emily said. This was a verbal spar, but she had long experience in this arena.
"I won't dispute that," Hebert replied, with a faint smile. "All the same, the Wards charter requires that you take me on."
"I could trade you to another branch," she tried, but she knew it was futile.
"Really? And who exactly would take on the Butcher? Especially when I'm so reluctant to move from my hometown."
"Probationary wards don't have control over their postings," Emily replied.
"And why would I be probationary, exactly? It isn't like you have me for any crimes."
"The murder of Butcher XIV doesn't count?"
"Do you really want to go that route? It's a hilariously easy case of self-defense, given Quarrel's reputation and prior actions. Even if you managed to stack the deck enough to see me charged, the precedence that would set would be… inadvisable. And I can't help but worry that pushing too hard might see me less reluctant to work for the PRT. Who knows—you might end up driving me into the hands of some nefarious organization. It's happened before, as I'm sure you're aware."
Emily gritted her teeth. This was not a problem she'd been expecting to have to deal with, but it was one she had anyways. The worst part was, the girl had her over a barrel, and they both knew it. The Wards charter did require that any parahumans below the age of eighteen without a criminal record be allowed to join, and that any transfers away from their home must be voluntary (except in the case of a probationary ward). Trying Taylor Hebert for the crimes of past Butchers would be impossible, and trying her for the death of Butcher XIV would take more political capital than she had at her disposal or, indeed, was willing to spend. And frankly, she could admit that she would much rather have the Butcher where she could see her, rather than with the Teeth.
Of course, the Youth Guard would probably have her head if they found out Emily let the goddamn Butcher be around the other Wards, but she couldn't do anything about that. All she could really do is delay Hebert for long enough for the girl to get any psychotic breaks out of her system—that is, if she was going to have them. The girl was clever and well-prepared, and that was very different from the insanity that Emily had known from previous Butchers.
"Welcome to the Wards, Miss Hebert," she said, because there was nothing else to say. "I hope you won't cause me to regret this."
The girl's grin was entirely predatory. "I'm sure I won't, Director Piggot."