Swing to the Beat

Summary: Because powers can be badass, powers can be lame and powers can be silly, as Taylor has learned. Or: That One Time I Tried To Make An Original Altpower

Taylor frowned.

How, exactly, could she use her newly gained Power to get revenge on Emma?

Well, as it turns out, pretty damned easily.

It only took a bit of time to find the right accompanyment...

Conscripting Sparky was pretty easy. Guy would do anything for a ricecake. She personally didn't know what he saw in them, she thought they were pretty disgusting.

Not the ricecakes per se, just the ones he liked. Low quality garbage.

He had a boombox, and he wasn't afraid to bring it to school. He also had the right cassette tape, apparently it was pretty old. Either way, Taylor was in such a great mood that she actually took a bottle of grape juice that was about to get dumped on her and instead drank the contents, thanking the surprised Bully along the way for the refreshing drink.

Too much sugar, though.

Finally, the right time came, when there'd be the most people. Lunch.

Where she'd have a free shot at Emma, along with her hangers and pets.

So she walked up to them, but not before shouting a command at Sparky to "hit it", as he had told her to do.

He did so.

"Well, what do we have here? I think she's getting kinky, coming for her everyday punishment," Emma joked.

Taylor took a deep breath.

"At first I was a fraid, I was petrified... Kept thinking I could never live without you by my side..."

She spoke to the beat of the song that Sparky was blasting from his boombox, getting more and more in tune by the word, until she was perfectly in tune with the original singer. This left the bullies quite distracted.

"But then I spent so many nights thinking how you did me wrong... I grew strong... And I learned how to get along."

She stepped on their table, taking care to use the bench as a footstool, then she pointed at Emma, narrowing her eyes and glaring almost balefully at her.

"And now you're back, from outer space. I just walked in to find you here with that sad look upon your face! I should've changed that stupid lock, I should've made you leave your key, if I had known for just one second you'd be back to bother me!"

There were comments, but they hardly distracted her, she turned around, walked off and sniffed, then pointed at the nearest exit.

"Go on now, walk out the door. Just turn around."

"Wha- why-" Emma tried, but she was cut off.

"'Cause you're not welcome here anymore!"

"What the fuck are you-"

Taylor smirked. "Weren't you the one who tried to break me with goodbye?"

Emma blinked.

"Did you think I'd crumble? Did you think I'd lay down and die?"

"Well you did," Sophia blurted out.

"Oh no, not I! I will survive! For as long as I know how to love I know I'll stay alive!"

Taylor took a few steps away from the table, then gestured at a few boys. They were part of the dance club. They probably knew how to move. They seemed to understand where she was going, and came up to join her.

"I've got all my life to live, I've got all my love to give! I'll survive, I WILL survive!"

"So you're a Master and Shaker," Miss Militia said. "And your power is... what, exactly? I don't think I got an accurate idea from the write up."

"Well, I can lead people into dance and song numbers?" Taylor tried. "I mean, it's a bit more complex than that, but the gist of it is that I basically make musical montages, except in real life, and apparently my power handles all the sound tuning and stuff so it sounds good even though physics say it really shouldn't."

Miss Militia rubbed her chin. "That is quite interesting," she said, and was actually being genuine. "Well- actually, do you do requests? I'm scheduled to train with the wards, and it'd be an excellent opportunity to test your powers more thoroughly, in a different environment than the laboratory."

Taylor nodded. While she was very sick of power testing by this point, especially because everyone was afraid of her ability to master living human beings, this sounded fun."

"Hearts on Fire! Strong desire!"

Who would've known she could even sound like a man, should she do a different kind of song?

Either way, she led the Wards, Assault, Battery, the recently graduated Triumph and Armsmaster through a series of exercises, including actual combat practice as well as a run through the city in lieu of patrols that day. As it turned out, training under the effects of her power was ludicrous . Even though she had put them through exercise that should've left them looking more like jello than humans, they were refreshed when it ended, and more importantly, they were showing noticeable, immediate progress.

Hell, Vista had somehow managed to learn to Kickbox in one single fucking afternoon, and that wasn't even getting into how Kid Win went from 'stereotypical skinny nerd physique' to 'actually has abs and muscles that a jock would be proud of' in a week.

Also the Protectorate got sued like three times over copyrighted music.

It was still totally worth it by the end, though. Also that one time the ABB went on a bombing spree proved why you absolutely never want to fight Montage and Grue when they're on the same team.

Fear of the Dark indeed.

(Incidentally, the Simurgh really, really likes Taylor. They did a Phantom of the Opera duet, and Taylor got chewed out for telling her "SING, MY ANGEL! SING FOR ME!", even if it resulted in the least damage of Endbringer attack history, since the Simurgh was way too busy singing that duet to do much of anything else, including mindfuckery)