Like Metal Putty In Her Hands

Summary: Taylor saw herself as more of a General than a Queen. With a perchant for white and a knack for invention, she might just have what it takes to make it in the world of capes.

Taylor smiled a warm and pleasant smile as she slowly and methodically engaged in mechanical labor, adjusting nuts and bolts and pushing metallic sheets into place. Opposite her, seated on the table and looking somewhat amused, her father observed as she used her right index finger's nail as a screwdriver. They hadn't even been long enough to do that yesterday.

Danny was also sure she had never actually painted them, but they were still a pearly white, looking impeccable despite the fact that Taylor was doing things that should result in her fingernails breaking all over the place. Then again, he mused as he saw her bend a two centimeters thick sheet of steel like it were paper, her nails were the least bullshit part of her, all things considered.

The thing she was making was roughly the shape and size of, of all things, a small dog. A small dog with stubby, short legs. And also a face comprised mostly of a pair of big metallic jaws. She was almost done, and had been working on it most of the morning. She should be in school, he mused, but what use is school when compared to what a Tinker can do just from their power alone?

He didn't know, but he wanted to find out what she was making, and she had also ignored him utterly when he tried to tell her to go to school. Fortunately, he himself had the day off as a result of the building his office was in being fumigated, so he could stay and watch over her as she worked. Soon enough, the dog-like machine was complete.

Taylor's smile was dazzling as she leaned back. "There we go," she said, looking at where its tail was and giving it what appeared to be an experimental tug. The bright white star at the center of the machine's face, just above its jaws, came to life and it began to move, giving out a low, metallic hum as its pieces were put to the test.

Danny wondered how two watches, four double A batteries and a potato of all things were powering this thing, but her wasn't going to check. He also didn't know why she gave it a mouth, he knew she hadn't put in any speakers for noisemaking.

"What is this, Taylor?" Danny asked.

"This is called an Eater," she said. "Well, it's a... prototype, based on what I had on hand. Also sorry I killed the Toaster. And the Control Remote. And your toothbrush. And-"

"I took stock of all the stuff you used," Danny said, raising her hand, "That's not important. We can get new stuff. What does it do? It eats stuff?"

"Yes, though that's not its real purpose," Taylor said. "It eats basically anything and poops it out," she said, gesturing to its back end, "as a metallic slime that can be shaped. It should be, if the steel I experimented with earlier is any indication, way tougher and easier to use than stripping old equipment for its parts. Also sorry about the boiler, too."

"It was old, it was due a replacement anyway," Danny said. "But Taylor, if I'm getting this right, you basically built this so it could make that metal slime thing, right?"

"Pretty much, yeah. I can shape that into basically anything I need. Starting with more Eaters, of course."

"Huh. Well, I don't think it's a good idea to start feeding everything in the house to these guys," Danny stated.

"Don't be ridiculous, dad. They can eat garbage and scrap," Taylor said, shrugging. "I'll just go on a dumpster cleaning spree. Maybe I'll clean out a junkyard or two."

"I would recommend against that one. I've hired out workers to the PRT and Protectorate - apparently Tinkers are always finding valuable crap in junkyards," he stated. "They always need someone to actually move the crap, and I'm just happy I can find work for at least a few guys."

"Sounds annoying," Taylor said. "Dumpsters it is, then. I think first I'll make a new eater, then scrap this one. It's very inefficient and there's too much loss of energy and matter, but once I've got a proper one, I'll replace most of the stuff I used from here."

"Sounds good," Danny said. "Do you need a truck to help carry the stuff?"

Some would ask Danny how he was being so calm about his daughter being a Tinker, arguably the most endangered classification of Superhero, and how he was actually offering to help her. Well, he'd had enough time. Taylor was in the hospital recovering for a week, and she had told him straight up on the very first day that she had powers, and she could build stuff.

She was also becoming slightly stronger every day, and that wasn't just her recovery speaking - By the time they left the hospital, Taylor had been strong enough to lift the bed she'd been in. That wasn't counting the outward appearance changes. She had gone from a normal teenaged girl's skin, with all the acne, tiny scars and the odd spot of discoloration, to a completely flawless and healthy skin that Danny was sure was unnaturally perfect. Women wore tons of makeup to achieve a similar effect, and for her, it was just how she looked now.

"It would help, I suppose, if we get far more than I intended to originally. It would lower the amount of trips I would have to make," Taylor conceded.

Danny smiled. Just because he had made his peace with his daughter being a Tinker and thus in danger, and being far too independant to even consider joining the Wards, didn't mean he was okay with her putting herself in danger. Sure, he'd have to reveal her status to a few guys in order to haul loads of the stuff she was going to make, and likely call in a favor or two... but he had people he could trust, he had favors up the wazoo and he had a daughter to protect.

He would do the absolute best he could to help and protect her, even if all he could do was this, he'd do his damn best to protect his little girl.

"Do not mess this up."

Coil hung up and Lisa fell back on her comfortable computer chair. She was no gamer, not even close, but she certainly enjoyed the luxury of the 'gamer' chair. She still thought it looked like it should be on a car, but she couldn't deny that it was incredibly comfortable for long periods of computer work.

She laid her cellphone on her cluttered desk and looked at the leftmost screen. She had only set up three, as it was all she would need for the time being and while her computer was powerful, she was not going to go to the pointless excess of having more than three screens. She had only had nine once, and that was when she was setting up a constant surveillance network for a specific job.

No changes, she mused. Her target was a young girl once more. The last one had been Spitfire, and their failure to recruit the pyrokinetic wound up with her falling in Faultline's clutches. All because Bitch was, well, a bitch about recruitment. Didn't help that Alec didn't care either way and wound up making the situation worse. A damned shame - Lisa could see the many ways in which they could've used Spitfire's power in some of their more showy break in jobs. Hell, with Brian's power masking her, she could actually do stealth missions even if she had to set every door on her way on fire.

This one was a bit of a different beast from Spitfire, though. Ultimately, Spitfire had been a lost girl looking for a place to belong, or rather, a lone cape trying not to be caught alone by the less savory 'recruiters', and who had a pretty bad opinion of the PRT, Protectorate and the justice system in general. A relatively easy recruit, if Bitch hadn't been a member of the team.

This one, though... A Tinker would put the Undersiders on the map, politically speaking. Tinkers were known to be amongst the most bullshit of capes for a very good reason. True, Tattletale's Thinker 7 rating made the Undersiders a spooky opponent for most smart people, but they were not known as heavy hitters, they were known as escape artists, as infiltration experts and as thieves. Sure, Bitch's dogs, when fully grown, were pretty dangerous, but it had only taken one fight with Armsmaster to show that for all their strength, they did not compare to the real heavy hitters of Brockton Bay.

However, it was well known that given enough time, Tinkers could become very, very big threats, and Coil had the resources to feed a Tinker anything they might need.

Lisa sighed. It would be problematic. The girl had a living parent, her father, and it seemed they had a pretty sweet relationship, all things considered. Said father was a spokesperson and head of hiring for the Dockworkers' Union, and he was very well respected and liked by the workers due to his tireless hard work. Lisa ignored her power feeding her the reasons why the man had thrown himself into his work.

Sure, it was good to know that the two were likely recently patching up their relationship after their mutual grief over the passing of the girl's mother nearly destroyed it, but it wasn't what she needed, and she didn't exactly want to destroy the girl's relationship with her father. Sure, she'd stick out like a sore thumb if she was the only one to have at least one parent that isn't awful, but she was probably way more stable than the rest of her team because of that.

Lisa watched as the girl crouched down next to what appeared to be metallic puppies - they were even sort of cute, like how a pug should be ugly as sin from description but somehow winds up being kinda cute in person - and gave them some orders that Lisa couldn't understand very well, though her power informed her that it wasn't the camera, it was likely gibberish that only she and her machines understood.

Clever - if you give your machines voice commands, best to make it a language only you know so others can't imitate your voice to give commands.

The metal pugs all stood straight at attention while she spoke, then they seemingly launched into the air and dove into an open dumpster. Lisa saw them, saw what they were doing, and laughed. Sure, it was how they gathered materials, but she liked the idea of a cape who went around basically recycling people's garbage for them.

The metallic poop was gathered and put in a large barrel. It was half filled by an entire dumpster's worth of garbage. The blue plastic barrel was sealed and then hoisted onto the back of a truck by a pair of large men - dockworkers, if Lisa had to guess. When they were having trouble, the girl laughed and approached them. The two moved aside and let her help with the last push to put it fully in place, next to four more barrels that Lisa suspected were empty.

There were several more videos like this one, showing the rest of their trip for material gathering. Coil's men had caught all of it. She wound up with five barrels of the liquid metal stuff that the metal pugs pooped out.

Lisa wondered how she was going to pull this one off. At least she didn't have to worry about Bitch threatening her - some of the videos showed that the girl was a brute, and given how easily she had lifted that dumpster, still full at the time, she was a strong enough one that she had nothing to worry about from Bitch's dogs. Bitch might be aggressive and dumb, but she wasn't insane enough to risk getting into a fistfight with Glory Girl or enemies like her.

Maybe she'd get the hint this time.

Brian did not know what to make of their recruitment target.

He had half expected her to be racist. She dressed mostly in white, with black accents. Her monochrome clothes and the fact that their meeting was over tea were just the tip of the iceberg of weirdness.

For starters, she introduced herself freely. When told about how giving her name was bad, she had merely smiled and told them she didn't care. When they had said that her father would be in danger, she laughed and told them that anyone who would attack him would be in danger instead. Fair enough, she was a Tinker and likely able to set up defenses to protect her father.

As for concerns of her life being irrevocably changed by revealing her super powers, she didn't even understand the idea, it looked like. That, or she cared so little about her 'civilian' life that she didn't even give it the slightest consideration. Brian didn't know whether to be impressed or shocked that she didn't care to hide her identity in the least.

The tea was pretty nice, he had to admit.

Still, they made the offer, gave her the two thousand dollars that their benefactor had given them as a sort of peace offering, and talked about the benefits. Brian wondered what the point was - only heroes ever revealed their identities, villains had to deal with Law Enforcement after all. When he decided to just tell her this concern, she waved it off.

Ultimately, she declined their offer and returned the money.

She had simply said that she needed not teammates, but servants, and she was working on that last one.

A bit spooky, Brian thought, but he was honestly glad that their business with her was over. There was something that was just unsettling about her, her smile and her disposition. She was pretty, unnaturally so. Lisa had even mentioned that she was wearing no form of makeup that her or her power could detect. She wasn't wearing 'sexy' clothing, just a white dress and a small half-jacket with black stripes that ran from cuff to collar. The only 'symbol' she had on her was a black star on her jacket's left breast.

Not exactly a costume, but enough to be a trademark look.

He was sure to remember her, because he knew he'd be seeing her again, but he wished he didn't have to. She creeped him out a little.

Throughout all the conversation, he swore that she was evaluating them, and for some reason, he had the feeling that he, Alec and Lisa all came out lacking.

Taylor sat on the shoulder of a ten foot tall bipedal monstrosity with what appeared to be a six foot long canon in place of a face. Its arms were tipped by massive wall-like stubs, and it had a relatively thin body with a tail for the purpose of balance. It was covered in red armored plates, including its spinning mouth, that only left small parts of its body, black as night, beneath.

Its 'mouth' was spinning.

"What do you think, Dad? This is a purely combat model!" she said, giving her father a smile. "It's a bit bulky," she admitted, "and slow, but it's meant to tank hits anyway. Not as much as a proper wall, naturally, but it's pretty durable."

"It certainly looks impressive," her father said. "Does it shoot something?"

"It does," Taylor said, pointing with her hand at a tree. "Obliterate," she ordered.

The large robot took aim and after seemingly a moment's charge, it fired off a purple beam. It annihilated the tree.

"It can also do this," she said, moving around her arm and pointing at a cat that was running away from the area following the noise. "Stun!" she shouted.

It only took an instant this time, and the large robot's mouth recoiled as it fired an invisible projectile. The cat then seized in place, tipping over.

Danny had a few moments for which he only blinked. "Is... is it okay?"

After ten seconds, however, the cat got up and fled, as if pursued by a million dogs.

Danny sighed in relief. "How do you call it?"

"Big Mouth," Taylor said, matter-of-factly. "I was between that and Mega Mouth," she admitted. "But I think I've got a better design in mind for an upgraded version, I'll call that one Mega Mouth," she said. "Anyway, I really think I should get started on a Generator..."

Danny frowned. "Are you making an army? What for?"

"I dunno. Maybe I'll take over the world. I'm sure I can do better than whoever's the current shadowy organization secretly pulling the strings," Taylor said. "Oh, and if you're listening, shadowy organization running the world? I'm coming for you. I can be plied with Ice Cream though."

Danny considered the whole thing hilarious until someone delivered three buckets of Ice Cream, all flavors Taylor liked, with a note that read "please don't kill us all", which kinda creeped him out, but she thought it was funny. Maybe it was a prank from Taylor herself. Danny certainly hoped it was.

"What is this."

It wasn't a question, it was an order. A weirdly worded order, but an order nonetheless.

"I don't know," Dragon said, evenly. "But I can make a guess."

"Then do it," Piggot said.

"Based on observation, I believe it's a production facility of some sort. It seems that the smaller, dog-like robots devour the junk and trash around the, we'll call it a 'factory', produce some sort of material from it and then they dump it back on the factory, which then uses the material to produce more robots," Dragon said.

"Oh, wonderful, I have mechanical Nilbog in my city," Piggot said. "We're going to have to nip this in the bud before we step hip-deep in shit," she said.

Armsmaster frowned, then looked at Piggot. "I assume I will not be allowed to investigate and analyze the technology before it's destroyed?"

"Naturally," Piggot said. "Shit this dangerous is not something I want on anyone's hands, even yours," she said.

Armsmaster and Miss Militia had been chosen to confront the unknown Tinker who had settled on the Boat Graveyard the day before, and try to resolve the situation as peacefully as possible.

The initial talks could be summed up as "stop what you're doing" "i don't want to"

So we'll just do that and move on.

"We will be forced to utilize force and bring you in," Armsmaster said.

Miss Militia nodded. "I really would rather not," she added.

"You're welcome to try," the Tinker, seated on what appeared to be a garden chair made of crystalline white material, said, sipping tea from a porcelain cup. She also had a small porcelain plate on her left hand, and in front of her was a garden table with the kettle and chocolate chip cookies. There were also crumbs aplenty. It was a weird thing to arrive on a Tinker's 'lab' just as she was having an afternoon snack.

Armsmaster walked up to her. "Are you not going to resist?"

The Tinker gave him a beatific smile. "Would you sit down for tea with me?" she asked.

"I am here to arrest you," he said.

"Very well, I believe your company would be droll and boring anyway," she said. "Big Mouth, stun," she said.

Armsmaster had a moment's panic after her command to try to move and stop her, but just as he started to move, he was hit by something, he wasn't sure what, and then he fell to the ground, still like something frozen by Clockblocker.

Miss Militia instantly drew a weapon and pointed it at the Tinker. "Surrender, or I'll shoot!"

It was a small caliber handgun. Nine milimeters. More than enough to kill.

"Fire away," the Tinker said. "It won't do anything, she said, sipping a little more tea. "I trust your aim is good enough to hit me and not my clothes, or my tea set? The last thing I'd want is to have to fix them," she said.

Miss Militia frowned. However, she didn't back down.

Armsmaster got back on his feet after seven seconds, and quickly withdrew, not willing to risk approaching again. They still didn't know where the shot'd come from, since by the time he felt the hit, he was already paralyzed and couldn't tell. Plus, it hit his armor, and it had dampened the blow enough that he hadn't even realized it was some sort of projectile until he recovered and saw there was a small hole in his chest plate.

It allowed him to theorize that the shot had come from behind the Tinker, but not much more than that.

"Are you not going to fire?" the Tinker said, tilting her head to the side. "Maybe we should not make threats we are not willing to follow through with," she said. "Now, I will have to ask you to leave. Generator, Death Jacket, times four" she said.

There were four flashes of pink light, and then four bee-like robots, roughly the size of a grown man's torso, were floating about.

"Maybe you would be more comfortable fighting these?" the Tinker asked. "Oh, they'll try to avoid killing you - it would end my fun much too early - but they'll still hurt, so... Entertain me."

The Death Jackets began to zoom about. Miss Militia and Armsmaster spread as the bee-like robots let loose a hail of red colored spheres, which left spherical craters in whatever they hit.

They moved fast and they flew, but they had to close in since their aim was awful, which allowed Armsmaster to cleave one of them as it tried to close in to use its stinger. Miss Militia pulled out a large rocket launcher, and used the Death Jacket's own stupidity against it, as it stopped to shoot her and she predicted where it would by hidding in an overturned boat and leaving it only one avenue of attack.

Armsmaster was forced to dodge as the other Death Jacket assigned to him began to utilize its stinger to launch purple beams that disintegrated large amounts of the junk and destroyed boats it hit. Fortunately, it was too busy doing that to notice the heroes were converging in one spot. Miss Militia was being chased by her own Death Jacket, since it realized that she couldn't take aim and hit it if it got all up in her face. Soon enough the heroes met in the middle and changed targets. The Death Jacket needed a couple of seconds to fire its beam, enough for Miss Militia to hit it with an anti-tank rifle that tore it apart. Meanwhile, the Death Jacket chasing Miss Militia tried to win a melee fight with Armsmaster's halberd, and all it got for its trouble was being cleaved in half and then set on fire, at which point it exploded.

"Bravo, bravo," the Tinker said, setting down her teacup on her table and giving them a few courtesy claps. "And it only took you three minutes," she said. "Very well, you might be more interesting than the rabble that came to bother me earlier," she said. "Now, round two. Generator, Chicken, times two, Shot Man," she said.

The flash of pinkish light lasted slightly longer this time, and it produced a gigantic hand on what appeared to be four tiny wheels and two robots that were mostly legs and ended in a waist with eyes. Also, both of the leg robots had a giant syringe behind their left leg.

The two leg robots were hopping about, delivering devastating kicks. The hand was shooting large pink spheres like the Death Jackets, and one of its sides was so thickly armored that Armsmaster had to resort to a plasma torch to cut through it, and even then, it was so slow going that it wasn't worth the effort or fuel expenditure. Mundane weaponry didn't even scratch it.

It took a lot of effort, and Armsmaster took a nasty spinning kick to the middle that had sent him flying and wound up with him leaving a dent on a nearby yacht's hull.

"Ah, you truly are better than the rabble," the Tinker said, as soon as they got back to her. She was clearly amused. "You can retreat now, I will not pursue you," she said. "Or you can choose to continue. The next round will be a bit more difficult."

"How long do you plan on doing this?!" Armsmaster said. "We've called reinforcements, your game will be over soon."

The Tinker laughed. "If more participants come, then I will increase the number of adversaries that they face," she said. "Who knows? Gather enough flies and I may swat them out of the air myself," she said, her tone light and amused. "Round three. Big Mouth, Evil Dice times two. Chop chop, Generator."

She was humming as they fought a large creature that looked like someone had mounted a cannon on a bear's face, then covered the whole thing with metallic plates in red, and two flying cubes. It was long. It was painful. Armsmaster nearly had one of his arms broken and Miss Militia had to resort to deploying a high calliber minigun, but they eventually emerged triumphant.

"Amazing," the Tinker said, clapping for them as she set half a chocolate chip cookie on the tray that held the rest. She then dusted herself off and stood up, patting down her dress to ensure there were no more crumbs. "I am impressed with your persistence. If you win this round, I shall do the honors of engaging you in combat myself. Generator, Eater, Times Four," she ordered.

Four of the 'gatherer' robots came out. They destroyed them easily. They were then replaced by four Death Jackets. As soon as those were done, they were replaced by two 'chicken' robots. Which were then replaced by two big hands. Finally, their last opponent was a Big Mouth accompanied by a pair of 'Evil Dice' that were replaced every time they were destroyed.

By the time they were done, they were exhausted.

"Now, I shall allow you one more chance to retreat. Generator, deploy medical facilities," she said.

A flash of pinkish light created a glowing blue pillar that sat on a tripod. It kinda looked like the inside of a nuclear reactor, somewhat.

"Touch it, and it will heal you," she said.

They stood still.

"If you do not, I shall fight you as you are. Even healthy, you will lose. If you do not heal yourselves, you would be boring me intentionally. I would not appreciate that," she said.

Grimacing, Miss Militia nodded. Her fingers were already starting to get stiff from an attack she'd blocked earlier, soon she would be useless. It was better to deal with it now. She seemed like she was enjoying the game too much to break character now.

She put her hand on the blue part of the pillar, and she soon felt a million times better. "I... you were telling the truth."

"Of course," the Tinker said. "I have no motives to lie. Armsmaster, heal yourself. Then we will make combat."

He did.

The next time he woke up, Armsmaster looked to Hannah, not far from him in the medical bay, seated on her own bed. "What happened?"

"We lost. Three point six seconds, from what Velocity could see. Oh, we got reinforcements, too," she said. "The entire protectorate wound up there."

"Did we capture her?" Armsmaster asked. "I assume from the fact that we're the only ones here that the others had a better time."

"Well..."

Miss Militia was hesitant.

"Oh, come on, it's just a cute girl Tinker, how dangerous could she be?" Assault asked.

Armsmaster's palm met his exposed chin. "How poorly did it go?" he asked, wishing he could facepalm properly through the mask.

Dauntless stabbed her through the chest. He'd thought she would dodge. They all thought she would. She had moved fast as shit, fast enough to dodge Velocity. She should've dodged!

"Tell me we didn't accidentally kill her," Armsmaster said.

Miss Militia grimaced. "No. We didn't. We learned something worse. Dauntless stabbed her clean through and it didn't produce a single drop of blood. The moment the arc lance was out, there was no wound whatsoever. She regenerates so fast that we literally couldn't hurt her even when we stopped holding back. I see now why she was unconcerned - I shot her with a .50 cal bullet, fired from an anti-tank rifle. It didn't even leave a mark."

"Fuck," Armsmaster stated. "We've got a seriously heavy hitter here. What about out of town reinforcements?"

"Requests have been sent. She's got an A on her for now, potential for S depending on how many robots she can control at once.

"The situation is just wonderful," Armsmaster stated. "So how did it end?"

"We retreated. Since we couldn't hurt her, we destroyed as many robots as we could and left. The Generator was basically impervious to just about everything we threw at it. I think I managed to scratch it, somewhat, with a HEAT round."

"... I was not aware you could transmute your power into something like that," Armsmaster stated, evenly.

"Neither was I. When I said that Anti-Tank wasn't doing anything, Assault asked if I could do a Tank gun instead. Turns out, I can. Doesn't mean I can lift it, but apparently my power recognizes a Tank's turret as a portable weapon. I need to experiment more with heavy weaponry like this. Might find a bit more use for Endbringer battles this way, at least I'll be able to deploy more kinds of exotic ammunition."

"I'll get to work on variants, then," Armsmaster said.

"We'll take her down next time," Miss Militia promised.

They would try at the end of the week, this time all deployed together, with as much equipment as they could carry.

They lasted two minutes. And the fight was one minute and a half of them showing her their new weaponry.

That's all she wrote.

Anyway, this is basically just a few snippets of a story that would have Taylor slowly becoming more and more like White Rock Shooter. If you don't know who she is... I wouldn't blame you. Black Rock Shooter is obscure to begin with, and the PSP game even more so than the anime or the character herself. I'm not gonna launch into an explanation, google it, but point is, this is Taylor slowly becoming WRS. Eventually she would lose her empathy and care for none but herself, but she's still a couple lifetimes away from becoming like that.

At this point she still wants to have fun in a safe and clean way. She's a bit mean, but since nobody cares about her but her father, why should she care about anyone but her father? Hence her not giving a fuck.

So she's OP as fuck but willing to play ball. Cauldron likes her a lot, because she wants to preserve humanity since they're fun to keep around.