Heroic Vessel

Summary: Being a vessel for the spirits of heroes of old was awesome. Well, except for the part where a lot of them wore very little clothing.

27

There are a lot of things that Taylor was willing to give up in order to experience the awesome and exhilarating feeling of being a Hero, of running around in the darkness of Brockton Bay's underbelly, righting wrongs and defeating evildoers.

She had not thought that she would ever find herself adding "modesty" to the list, but after she had gotten a taste of the feeling of overwhelming power that came with her ability, well, she couldn't give it up just to be comfortable.

Didn't stop her from complaining though.

"Goddammit," she muttered, frowning. Sure, she -couldn't- feel cold when she was transformed into any of her heroic personnae, but goddammit, that didn't mean she liked walking around showing every little part of herself for the world to see! And she did mean -little-. The transformations came with a bit of effect on her body. For the most part, she was usually simply transformed into an actually fit human being. Some transformations had given her bigger muscles, and one memorable time she'd gotten a decent pair of breasts out of it, but this time, the transformation seemingly left her thin and without visible muscle.

That was not the problem.

The problem was that she was also dressed in what she could only describe as a parody of clothes. For starters, she had only the legs of what should've been a pair of pants - her red panties were fully exposed. Nothing covered her from waist to breasts, leaving her flat tummy (at least she wasn't showing off her paunch, she mused) exposed, and the only thing covering her very modest breasts was a pair of straps that hung from her collar. She had armor on her pant legs, on her shoulders and she had black silken sleeves as well.

It really seemed like reverse clothes - like somebody had seen a pair of shorts and a tank top and desided to design clothes that covered the body parts that they didn't, but then forgot to give her the shorts and tank top.

Some would say she was practically inviting wandering gazes, and more scummy individuals would say she was inviting wandering hands and other bodyparts. Fortunately, Taylor had also been given a sword - some sort of Katana, she guessed - with a raccoon-tail-like sheath. It was kinda cute. Sure, that by itself wouldn't be enough, but she also had the ability to use it.

And how!

Admittedly, she had so far come across no transformation that didn't give her the ability to defend herself from, and utterly trounce, baseline humans.

One of the advantages her current form had over most others she had used, though?

She could move.

Had she looked at herself when in movement, she would have described herself as a chipmunk on cocaine, or some sort of very quick rodent on performance enhancing drugs.

She knew that heroes who couldn't fly often tended to use rooftops or the like. Well, she was leaping two or three roofs at a time, and she was doing so with extreme ease, knowing she could push farther if she wanted. Every time she did, she knew she could plot a course at least eight steps ahead, but something always stopped her. She needed a target. She knew what she could do - eight leaps would power a final one, and on the ninth she'd attack.

This was a very useful thing. Sure, she needed to have build up for what she knew to be her most powerful attack in this form, but it was also basically a guaranteed kill shot. A guaranteed decapitation, though she was sure, or at least she hoped, that she could change the target to something less lethal. Hopefully she was right and hitting with the flat side of her one-edge katana would just knock people out instead of decapitating them.

She heard lots of crashing sound, and there was an explosion of fire.

Pausing her roof hopping, Taylor moved until she was looking down, from a three story building. She could see that about a block away, a fifteen foot tall humanoid, barely, dragon was fighting three beasts of bone and exposed muscle, and it was winning. There were clouds of darkness about, and fleeing people.

Knowing instantly who it was, Taylor frowned. There really was no other thing to do. If she let him continue, his rampage would continue, and the damage he would deal to the city would be unbelievable. Brockton Bay's economy was already in the shitter. It couldn't also deal with that.

This was Lung. No time to fuck around. Taking a deep breath, Taylor steadied herself.

"Dan-No-Ura," Taylor muttered to herself, performing the first leap.

One became two, then three, four, five- there were ten houses beween her and her target, but she skipped one, and the sixth leap was for two houses, the seventh was for one, the eight was for one, and then she was ready.

"Hassou Tobi!"

Lung had a moment to react. His severed head vomited fire as it fell to the ground, and his body crashed.

"Fucking hell!"

Taylor's slipper-clad feet touched the ground, and her breath was no longer steady.

"Jesus fucking christ, he's still fucking moving!"

Taylor's eyes widened. It seemed the night wasn't over yet.

She grasped her sword's handle tightly and her eyes narrowed. Plans and tactics were already forming in her head. Sometimes, even though she hated their outfits, she really appreciated the abilities of her alternate personnae.

136

"... Pay up," Tattletale said. "I think. Even I'm confused."

"... Are you the streaker?" Regent asked.

Taylor blushed furiously. "That was just my power!" she protested, her face red. Hell, her face had been red for hours, because her outfit was, while admittedly technically decent, still not something she liked to wear.

"And what's with dressing like a fetishist's idea of a catholic schoolgirl?" Regent asked. "With that and the height, sheesh."

"Shut up," Tattletale said, "I really, REALLY don't want to get exploded today."

Still blushing, Taylor gripped her stupid pink staff's handle tighter than she knew, her knuckles turning white. One of the things she hated about her power? She could, and did indeed, lose height sometimes. Still, this was the most height she'd ever lost, nearly a foot if not that outright. She looked not unlike a little girl. She wore a black pleated skirt and a white blouse, white kneesocks and simple brown leather shoes. She also had a silly white hat on her head.

"Admittedly, it's a great disguise," Grue said, pointedly not looking at her. "I'm so glad we scheduled this meeting in an abandoned warehouse instead of a popular restaurant like someone wanted."

"I'm so glad I got overruled, too," Tattletale said. "Explaining why we're pitching a position in our team to a little girl would've been so freaking awkward."

Taylor blinked. "Hoe?" she was confused, "you're doing what now?"

"Oh yeah. Wanna be a supervillain? We need a heavy hitter, and honestly, you're the heaviest hitter I've seen in a while..." Tattletale began.

She explained how it'd work.

Taylor frowned and thought back to her meeting with Armsmaster.

The man was such a colossal douche!

Just thinking about it sent Taylor into a rage that almost had her using her power on everything around her. With her face red, she remembered that stupid, stupid stupid stupid man, talking down to her, trying to convince her to give up on the credit for Lung's defeat. For her sake, he said! Bah! Just because he had a history of excellent work, was the leader of the protectorate, and was also stupidly handsome, that- that- Uuugh!

How dare he! It's not like she desperately wanted him to tell her she was doing a good job and give her a headpat or anything!

"The less you dwell on your lewd fantasies," Tattletale said, "the better for everyone involved."

"I'm not thinking anything lewd!" Taylor shouted, blushing brightly.

Grue was whistling.

Regent was smiling.

It went pretty much downhill from there.

106

There was something important that Taylor had told the Undersiders about her power.

It affected her personality when she used it. When she assumed the powers and identity of one of her alternate Personnae, there was some change beyond the physical. Tattletale had quickly surmised and theorized that the reason Taylor had been so willing to chop off Lung's head... five times... during their fight that felt like a million years ago was because the mindset she had adopted was one that favored the instantaneous destruction of threats, and gave her a tactical and strategic mind that recognized just how huge Lung's threat was, allowing her to reason out that the morals she had been taught since she was a child were adverse to her survival and the achieving of her objective.

Similarly, Taylor had admitted that she would have probably been more rational about joining the Undersiders if she hadn't drawn the particular card that she did that one time, but she was up to dealing with the consequences of reckless misuse of her power for disguise purposes.

When the Undersiders were to rob a bank, however... Taylor happened to draw a particularly nasty card.

A very nasty card that gave her a very potent and varied set of powers.

For starters, her hair had gone mostly white, and she was now wearing armor dark as night, a cloak that seemed to be positively soaked in blood and a headpiece that she was unsure served any purpose as armor, and certainly didn't as a mask.

On her right hand was a flagpole, with a bundled up flag that she knew had a Dragon Insignia. She could use it to trigger one of her more powerful abilities by calling out its name. It was the crystallized form of her own resentment. Just merely thinking of Emma got Taylor's blood boiling. The lingering feelings of betrayal spiked, and the angrier and more hateful she became, the more power she knew she would draw from the black rain that she could call down upon her foes.

Even worse, however, was her sword. She knew its name - La Pucelle - and she knew that it would wreathe her and her enemies in fire, fire that did not burn her, fire that burned as brightly as she could bring herself to hate. In this form, in particular, it was very easy to be overcome by her hatred of all things that reminded her of the weak and vulnerable little girl she used to be.

That wasn't even getting into her own abilities, as granted by the card she had drawn. The ability to inspire her teammates to greater heights, beyond belief - she noted that the effects of her empowerment would double on those who possessed draconic traits, though that list was limited to two people, far as Taylor knew, and she probably wouldn't ever cooperate with either - and the ability to modify herself to an incredible degree - to the point that she knew she could assume a completely different form.

In essence, Taylor had become a spirit of vengeance, and the shape she had taken was in line with that thought.

For the bank job, that card was unbelievably useful. She possessed all the skills they needed. While wearing it, she had easily usurped the role of leadership from Grue, and it was pathetically easy for her to storm into the bank, slam the butt of her flagpole on the ground and demand absolute obedience through the sheer terror that she produced in all that beheld her blackened form.

The job went very smoothly, however, they weren't there just for the money - they had gone there because they needed to cause as big a ruckus as possible. Boss orders. So they delayed, until the heroes would show up.

The entire roster of Wards showed up, contrary to Tattletale's predictions, accompanied by Glory Girl of New Wave. Unfortunately for them, they had thought they were dealing with the Undersiders of the past, whose heavy hitter was the dog cape Bitch, or Hellhound if you want to be PC.

Needless to say, they were not prepared to tangle with the Spirit of Vengeance-led Undersiders.

Tattletale easily saw through the costume switch between Aegis and Clockblocker, and the super durable brute wound up receiving terrible burns when he tried to take down the Undersiders' temporary leader. Turns out that grabbing someone who can at any time wreathe themselves in hellfire is a terrible idea.

Glory Girl tried to go into the bank, probably going to flank them or something, but she couldn't do shit in Grue's darkness, and before she knew it, she had created the Undersiders' exit path by breaking down a wall. Even her last ditch effort at revenge was useless for her. The only thing she got for her trouble was a slash that had gone through her force field like it wasn't even there, leaving her with a nasty, burning cut on her midsection.

It was no wonder that the Undersiders' reputation as small fry was quickly overcome by the incredibly spooky reputation of the monstrously powerful 'Black Maiden' that had accompanied them that one time for a bank heist.

That's all she wrote.

The idea behind this one is very simple. I used a RNG to have Taylor switch between different Heroic Spirits. The numbers correspond to their ID.

Taylor switches Heroic Spirit every day, but she can only transform once a day. The transformation lasts as long as she wants it to or until she runs out of power. How much power she has depends on the servant's abilities. For instance, Herakles would last very little because he's a gigantic mana hog, but she would be able to maintain her Illya form indefinitely because Illya has effectively limitless Prana.

For the record, in the bank heist, Taylor injured the Wards pretty severely, giving the Undersiders a VERY bad reputation with the PRT and Protectorate. Of course, since Taylor would become a Berserker the next day and then the one after that she'd have a literal goddess to throw at her problems (somewhat, manipulating Artemis would actually be pretty difficult, but not being a lecherous skirt chaser like Orion is probably helps a lot), the Undersiders are a much, MUCH bigger deal than they were with Skitter.

In order, it's Ushiwakamaru (and if you've played Persona, yes, that is indeed Yoshitsune), Prisma Illya (yes, she's actually a Caster Servant in Fate/Grand Order) and finally Jeanne Alter. And yes, those WERE rolled randomly. For the record, the next two rolls were 82, or Frankenstein, and 60, or Orion/Artemis. The RNG is REALLY generous to Taylor - that second one would've resulted in Artemis falling in love with her and likely sticking around, at which point the Undersiders would have a literal goddess hanging around with them.

The only roll that, if this ever gets that far, I will absolutely fix is her drawing vanilla Jeanne when Leviathan hits Brockton Bay. Mostly because the memories of the fucking Bull of Heaven are still fresh in my mind, and I totally wanna have Jeanne!Taylor solo Leviathan in a similar way, simply denying it the pleasure of actually doing damage by spamming Luminosite Eternelle. Kind of.