Cosmic Producer

Summary: A tale of explosions, friendship and magical girl yuribait. Or: Girls Pretend To Be Straight

Taylor Hebert was, for lack of a better term, Director Piggot's favorite cape ever.

She also had a second title. Glenn Chambers' favorite cape ever.

She was a Tinker and Thinker, but she was a bit of an odd duck. Unlike Armsmaster and Kid Win, she had never made a single object for her own personal use, and her stuff never broke down or had to be replaced. She could not claim to be able to make anywhere near as much stuff as either of them could, and her flashes of inspiration were short lived, unable to carry her through the creation of her objects.

Her output was slower than either of theirs.

Even worse, the materials she needed tended to be on the extremely expensive side, as she needed gemstones of all sorts. She also couldn't really collaborate with either of them, as neither could figure out how to use the esoteric energy that she harnessed to make her creations.

A shaker effect, they said, that she was only able to utilize when Tinkering, which didn't merit her a Shaker rating above 0.

You might be asking, why she was such a well liked cape by her superiors, especially by one who disliked capes in general.

Well, for Piggot, the answer was easy. Taylor had taken over Aegis' duties as Leader of the Wards, despite being amongst the younger half of the group, and for a good reason - she had a head for organization and administration that some bemoaned would never be utilized properly, as she could not work for the PRT due to her status as a parahuman. In her cover job as Director Piggot's assistant, she had already sorted out the grand majortiy of the woman's outstanding paperwork, organized her schedule, and even worked out patrol schedules for the PRT and Protectorate that had reduced stress and increased productivity.

Needless to say, people were rooting for her after she had proven just how good she was at it.

And as for Glenn... well, it came down to one simple fact.

Taylor might arguably be the single most amazing win that the PR department of the Protectorate, and especially ENE, had ever made.

Because Taylor's power was all completely focused on the production, management and care of magical girl warriors.

Magical Vista was, well, sometimes deeply embarrased by the frilly outfit, the silly diamond tipped wand or the unabashed adoration of young girls she received. As in, younger than her.

However, as she sat on a pile of Undersiders, she reckoned, maybe it was completely worth it to put up with Prisma Cosmos' bullshit if it meant she could have this power boost for longer. It was a prototype unit, but as her partner Aegis caught up with her, Vista knew she would never give it up. Even PR was delighted with her ability to fight by shooting green lasers of friendship and absolute devastation, in Taylor's own words.

Sophia Hess had once been Shadow Stalker. She was now Shadow Caster. More importantly, she had once been in denial, and yet now she was holding hands with Emma, as they went into the cinema.

The health care and hygiene department of the PRT had discovered that getting blown up by a Magical Girl's spells had positive effect on people's sanity, and tended towards helping damaged minds recover. They discovered this when Shadow Stalker recovered from her various mental traumas and began to become disgusted by how much of a bitch she was after Vista finally lost her patience with the surly cape and just blew her the fuck up.

After many more explosions, she broke down, cried and hugged Taylor thanking her for the clarity that being hit by Vista's Friendship Blaster of Doom had brought her, then went to Emma's house, convinced her to get Magical Girl Therapy, and now things were solved in an overly convenient fashion. Not that anybody was complaining, let alone the two lovebirds that still insisted they were totally straight even as they made out in a dark movie theater.

Vista laughed as Lung turned tail and ran.

He alone had been smart enough to do so, as all his people tried to shoot her, only for the bullets to bounce off her magical protection vest.

Even the one that hit her in the eye just... bounced off, like it'd hit a metal wall. Prisma Cosmos' stuff was seriously overpowered, but unfortunately didn't work too far from her location, a couple dozen kilometers around her at most.

Good enough to take out the violent hoodlums of Brockton Bay though.

As her skirt fluttered in the wind, Vista just wished it didn't involve so many pantyshots though. Magical Girls were hecking perverts, she mused.

Taylor smiled and gave her newest recruit a thumbs up.

Magical Girl Eidolon-tan twirled her wand and struck an incredibly silly pose. "I am Magical Girl Eidolon-tan, In the name of the Protectorate, I will bring you to justice!" she shouted, changing her pose to a cross between cute and silly, and as soon as she finished, the wall behind her changed to a backdrop of the Protectorate's logo shining in a starlit night sky.

"This disturbs me deeply," Alexandria said.

"The fact that he was so desperate to regain his power that he let himself get turned into a girl to achieve it?" Legend asked.

"No, it's that he's so good at it!"