AN: I have ideas. Sometimes they're good. Sometimes they're more like this.

ooOoo

Brockton Bay's hospital system was as run down and neglected as the rest of the city. The equipment available was usually out of date and most of the rooms could use a new coat of paint. Still, thanks to the periodic efforts of local hero Panacea, at least the long term care wards weren't overcrowded. It was this fact more than the quality of her father's medical insurance that allowed Taylor Hebert the use of a private room as she recuperated from her latest ordeal.

She had been in a coma for over a week, and still tended to drift in and out of consciousness irregularly. The gown that had been issued to her was thin, doing little to conceal a figure that was as flat as the bed she occupied.

"Hey!" Taylor complained, speaking to nobody in particular while glaring up at the ceiling.

Taylor had a lot of anger to deal with in light of recent events. She had been shoved into her school locker and left to stew in a melange of used tampons and other assorted biological waste. She had cut herself rather badly trying to get out, which would have led to a serious infection if she hadn't developed superpowers. The good news was that her super strength had allowed her to break out of the locker and her healing factor had taken care of the infection. The bad news was that her new super-healing had super-charged her previously dormant face cancer.

"Face cancer isn't even a thing," Taylor muttered sullenly, drawing on the no doubt impressive medical knowledge possessed by a high school sophomore who had barely managed passing marks in biology. "Whatever."

Anyways, the result was an endless cycle: the cancer ravaged her face, before her healing factor fixed the damage, then the cancer struck back, and so on. As a result she'd be wearing a mask whether her not she decided to pursue a career as a costumed vigilante. Also, the constant pain had driven her just a little bit insane. She had even adopted the habit of speaking in response to her imaginary friend, the narrator.

"I'd rather hang out with the little yellow boxes, but I make do."

Poor girl doesn't even know what she's saying. As if her life would turn into a comic book just because she had resolved to put on a costume and fight crime. Honestly, a quick glance down at the unobstructed view of her toes would rule out the work of any of the major illustrators.

"That's just uncalled for," Taylor said, startling the nurse who had just stepped into the room. "Can we skip to the good part already?"

ooO The Adventures of Taylor Hebert, the Maid with the Mouth Ooo

Three months later, Taylor was walking along the streets of Brockton Bay late at night. She was wearing the finest costume $34.75 could buy, which was... pretty nice, actually. Brockton Bay's thrift stores stocked a surprisingly wide variety of lightly used cape outfits. Taylor had picked out her current duds in large part because the soothing red color hid any stains left behind by its previous owner. The pullover full face mask was a nice touch, and spandex was pretty much one size fits all. She'd been able to fix the rips and tears herself, which saved enough money that she was able to splurge on a barely used katana that had been tucked away with a bunch of old golf clubs.

She was currently swinging the katana in front of herself, engaging imaginary foes with skillful display of swordsmanship that was only slightly undercut by her insistence on producing lightsaber sound effects with every strike.

There actually wasn't enough street crime at Brockton Bay that you could reliably walk around and run into some. Taylor had managed to keep her behavior somewhat normal for the first half hour of her patrol, then only slightly eccentric for the next half hour, and then... more so. Of course, nobody liked to call capes crazy to their face, so she could probably still get away with describing herself as eccentric.

Still, all the lightsaber sound effects in the world couldn't change the fact that this was pretty boring.

"Hey, it beats going to school," Taylor said, addressing the empty street. A man who had been filming her with his cell phone looked over to confirm there was nobody there before shutting down his phone and hurrying away.

She was right, though. Going to school with a disfiguring injury while maintaining her secret identity and resisting the urge to send anybody to the hospital was a matter of tedium and convenient coincidences that didn't really bear thinking about. Best not to dwell on it at all, really.

It was a little disappointing for her first attempt at superheroing to come up empty. If only she had known of the momentous event that was transpiring a mere three blocks north and one block west of her current location...

"Thanks!" Taylor called out, sheathing her katana and breaking into a jog headed south. She stopped and spun around. "I knew that!"

Taylor hurried on, guided by the unerring instincts of a true hero. When she rounded the corner she saw a large group of men dressed in the colors of the Azn Bad Boys, one of the major local gangs. They were drawn up in a half circle around the towering form of a man who had to be their leader. He was wearing a metal mask to hide his identity, and seemed to be finishing up a speech of some kind.

"...the children, just shoot. Doesn't matter your aim, just shoot. You see one lying on the ground? Shoot the little bitch twice more to be sure. We give them no chances to be clever or lucky, understand?"

There was a murmur of assent as Taylor strode into earshot.

"Or you could try not shooting anybody. I think that's a better plan," she called out. The gang swiveled around as one while their leader's eyes rose to meet Taylor's. Acting on an unspoken signal, the gang member nearest her pulled out a pistol and shot at her, putting four rounds center mass. Taylor didn't break stride as she kept moving forward and in one smooth move drew her katana and swung it up, diagonally bisecting the man who had shot at her. The gang stopped to stare as his top half slid down to plop on the ground next to his bottom half.

"The no shooting plan is looking better now, right?"

The rest of the gang disagreed, choosing instead to start firing at her en masse. Taylor sighed and went to work. She was strong enough now that the kinetic impact from the bullets didn't even slow her down. The damage they did in penetrating her body wasn't enough to impede her functionality even before her healing factor kicked in, and the pain was nothing compared to the cancer constantly eating away at her. As a result she waded through the gang members more or less unimpeded, removing whichever limbs were most convenient at the time. When she finished she was newly grateful for the red coloring of her uniform. As the last gang member fell to the ground, she turned to look at their leader and blinked in surprise.

He had been big before. Now he was at least a foot taller than he had been and covered in silvery scales. His proportions were more beast than man, and he howled wordlessly in rage while an aura of fire built up around him.

"What? They shot at me first," Taylor said, a little defensive. "I was very clear about being an advocate of not shooting anybody."

Taylor wondered idly what the man's name was and if this was the extent of his power. She hadn't done much research before heading out. As far as she could tell she was indestructible, and part of her would welcome the sweet relief of death. Accordingly, her plan was to find bad guys who needed swording, and then apply sword to said bad guys until the problem was solved. The particulars of her opponent's power didn't really affect her plan much, but she was a little curious.

Whoever he was, he was not placated by her logic and charged forward, arms outstretched as though he was offering her a hug. Taylor crouched down, grinning slightly as she held her katana low by her side. Just before mister big, scaly, and flamey was able to grab on to her, she took a quick step forward inside his reach. The heat was painful but not debilitating as she brought her sword up in a two handed strike. It hit just above his hip and the blade snapped off with a ping.

Taylor stared at the stub of a weapon in shock, holding it at eye level in her left hand. The gang leader's claws took her hand off at the wrist and sent her stumbling backwards, but Taylor hardly reacted to the strike.

"How is that possible," she whispered. "My katana... it was folded over 1000 times..."

Her opponent had lost his mask at some point. His face was covered with scales as the rest of him was, and had shifted away from anything human. It was still clear enough that he was grinning at her.

"'eeabo," he growled out, struggling to form words.

"What?" Taylor asked, unable to look away from his eyes. In response a hand the size of a dinner plate smashed into her chest, sending her flying to smash into the brick wall of a boarded up shop.

He turned and walked over to a pile of rubble, fishing through it as Taylor sat where she had fallen, propped up against the wall. Her healing factor would have her on her feet in a couple of minutes, but she doubted she would have that much time. She watched as he fished her hand out of the pile, prying loose its grip on the hilt of what remained of her sword. With the fight won he was shrinking back down to his original appearance.

"I said, I can't believe my men were killed by a fucking weeaboo," he growled, striding towards her. "A katana is just a sharpened piece of metal, not some kind of magic light saber."

Taylor looked up, glaring at the man now standing only a couple of feet away from her. "Doesn't it dishonor your ancestors to talk like that?"

His response was to bring the remaining half of the sword around to neatly decapitate her. Taylor experienced an odd shift in perspective as her head separated from her body, bouncing a few times before settling in with a view of her opponent. She continued glaring at him, wishing that her superpowers had included the ability to kill with a look.

At that moment, some kind of giant demon creature crashed into him. The two of them tumbled out of her field of view. Taylor blinked. She blinked again, then wished that her superpowers included the ability to summon eye candy from the sky.

Another of the demonic creatures landed in her field of view. This one was carrying two people. As they dismounted, Taylor could see that they were both capes. The leader seemed to be the big guy in black motorcycle leathers, while the blonde girl in lavender spandex seemed like more of a support type. The two of them took a moment to survey the charnel house the alley had been turned into.

"This guy really did a number on the ABB," the big guy said. "Too bad we didn't get here in time to help him out."

"I wouldn't be so sure of that," the blonde replied.

A moment later Taylor saw what she had been looking at, as her body staggered into view. It was reaching out with its hands, patting gingerly at the surface of the road. As she watched it reached a rock that was roughly head sized, picking it up and placing it on its neck. When nothing happened it threw the rock away in frustration, leading it to bounce off the wall and roll back near its feet. When her body started forward again, it stopped when it reached the rock.

Taylor would have sighed, if she had lungs.

The blonde girl took a few steps forward and picked her head up by the hair. It didn't really hurt, but the swinging sensation was disorienting. It was a tremendous relief when she felt herself placed once more atop her shoulders. It didn't take long for her body to heal up the cut. Taylor tested it out with a cautious roll of her neck, then turned to face her saviors.

"Thanks," she said.

At some point a second demon thing had landed and dislodged another two capes before leaping off to dogpile on the gang leader. One of them, a boy in a white mask and a Renaissance fair outfit, called out to her.

"Always happy to lend a hand," he said, waving Taylor's missing appendage in the air.

Taylor nodded gratefully and held up her other hand to receive his toss. "I'll try to keep my head next time."

The boy in white seemed to appreciate her sense of humor. The rest of the Undersiders seemed unamused.

"The Undersiders, huh?"

The blonde girl did a double take, looking back at the empty air over the ren faire guy's shoulder and back at Taylor. Their leader had crossed his arms over his chest, made a little defensive by her tone.

"You have a problem with us?"

"What, no," Taylor protested. "It's just that after that cool entrance I thought your name would be a little more, well, cool."

"Everyone's a critic," he replied. Taylor couldn't see his face, but she had the feeling he was rolling his eyes. "What's your name, then?"

Taylor brought her newly reattached left hand up to scratch the back of her head. "I haven't thought of one yet, actually. I was thinking though, my power let me master the use of a bunch of different weapons really quickly, so I might go with Armsmaster."

The four Undersiders just stared at her for a moment. It was Tattletale who broke the silence.

"That name's taken."

"Seriously? Maybe I should go for something less fancy. With my healing factor I can charge straight at people, so I could call myself Assault."

"That's... also taken."

"Well, poo," Taylor said. "Lucky you that Tattletale was available."

Tattletale flinched, looking over her shoulder and then back at Taylor. She seemed like she wanted to say something, but caught herself and just shook her head.

"Look, we don't have a lot of time. Do you want a ride out of here?"

The question was deceptively simple. Leaving with the Undersiders would be tantamount to joining up with the group of villains. For all that they were basically decent people, driven to lives of crime by circumstances beyond their control, this was not a decision to make lightly. Taylor wanted to be a hero. Joining the Undersiders would start a game of cat and mouse with their mysterious employer. It would take all of her cunning to come out of it with her life-and her conscience-intact.

Taylor blinked. "You guys up for a redemption arc?"

"A what?" Tattletale asked.

"You know, we get to know each other, talk about our tragic backstories, come to the realization that crime doesn't pay?"

"We... we're really out of time. We'll talk to you later."

The other female member of the group, who until this point had remained silent, suddenly gave a short, sharp whistle. The demon things bounded over to form up in front of the Undersiders, who mounted with practiced ease. They bounded up on top of a nearby roof and were soon out of sight.

Taylor looked over at the injured gang leader. He looked somewhat chewed on, but his injuries were visibly healing up as she watched. She didn't really fancy her chances in a rematch.

Before Taylor could leg it, a motorcycle rounded the corner. It was obviously heavily modified to support the man riding it. He was clad in some serious looking power armor that only left enough of his face visible for Taylor to make out a sweet goatee.

He fired a pair of darts at the downed gang leader while Taylor was evaluating his facial hair. When they struck home the man fell backwards, out like a light. The motorcycle jostled slightly as it bounced over the ABB body parts littering the alley before coming to a stop next to Taylor.

"This your work?"

Somehow it hadn't occurred to Taylor that dismembering a dozen people might be frowned upon by the local law enforcement.

"It's not like my sword came with a stun setting," she grumbled.

"You know," he said, "if you joined the Wards we could provide you with non-lethal takedown options."

"Then I'd have to stop killing people?" Taylor asked. Non-lethal fighting seemed like it would be much less effective as stress relief.

"We'd really prefer that you stop killing people either way," he said, then sighed. "What's your name, anyway?"

"I'm still trying to figure that out," Taylor admitted. "All of the good ones seem to be taken. Although... my power does come with a strong healing factor that lets me keep fighting no matter what, so how about 'Dauntless'?"

Armsmaster gave her a flat look. "I'm afraid that name is taken."

"Gah!" Taylor said, throwing her arms up in disgust. "Everything's taken. You took my first choice!"

"How so?"

"I'm really good with weapons... a master even," Taylor explained. "And most of them involve using my arms. It's a perfect fit."

"Sorry," Armsmaster said. He didn't sound sorry. "We do have a good PR department that could help you come up with something if you join the Wards."

"I'm not really much of a joiner," Taylor said. "I want to make sure my name's on the cover. You win more fights that way, you know?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Besides, if I stay independent it'll be a big deal when we team up," Taylor said, giving him a thumbs up. "More reviews that way."

"The Wards receive performance reviews," Armsmaster said. He spoke slowly and a little warily, like he was talking to a crazy person. Taylor had long since stopped caring about things like that, having firmly developed the opinion that questions of sanity shouldn't be up for majority vote.

In this case she was probably right. There weren't too many things that could happen to a Ward that she would find interesting, and the question of how she would react when she discovered that Sophia Hess was Shadow Stalker would just hang over everything.

"Wait, what?" Taylor exclaimed.

"What?" Armsmaster asked.

"What?"

"If you say what again..."

"You'll what?" Taylor asked, genuinely curious.

Armsmaster pulled his halberd from where it was holstered alongside his motorcycle, and glared at her for a long moment. With a growl, he turned away and accelerated to where the gang leader was lying unconscious on the ground. He slid his halberd under the man and used it to flip him up to lie across the motorcycle seat, then wheeled around and hit the accelerator, leaving rubber tracks as he flew out of the alley.

Taylor looked after him as she stood alone in the alley, having driven both hero and villain away through simple exposure to her personality.

"It's a gift."

ooOoo