Overture 1.2

One of the first things I learned about my power was that it relied — to some unknowable degree — on my own strength. In those early days, when I first learned I even had powers, I could only install a single Hero on any given day, and even then, I could only hold it for maybe five minutes before the strain got to me. It was like trying to stay on the back of a bucking bull in full rage; every second became harder and harder, until my fingers finally gave out and I had to let go.

After that first week, though, I started running in the mornings and every other afternoon, filled with a drive to improve myself and make up for my limitations, and that was when I found out that it seemed to make a difference. There was no way to know how much it helped — I'd been practicing every day, too, so when the strain started to lessen and I could add one more Install, then another, then another, as the weeks progressed, the improvement was way too exponential to match the more linear improvements in my physical fitness.

Maybe (and this one was my personal favorite theory) the more often I Installed and the longer I held it for, the more my body was taking on the characteristics of the Heroes I called upon. On the other hand, the more likely possibility was just that my body was getting more used to the strain, like working out some metaphysical muscle of some kind. It wasn't my power that was improving, it was how much of it I could safely handle before I did serious damage to something inside me.

Either way, as a result, I'd gotten to know the east side of the city fairly well, even though I steered clear of the bad parts of town my parents had always told me to stay away from when I was younger. Once I slipped into an Install, however, and used the Hero's innate skills to sneak out of the house just after midnight that Sunday night, I made an immediate beeline for the Boardwalk and crossed the line over into the Docks and the bad side of town.

I stuck to the rooftops as I made my way deeper in, enjoying the freedom that my new strength and speed allowed me. In my base Breaker state, like I'd dropped back into after I made it out of my neighborhood, I wasn't going to be setting any speed or strength records, but it was enough of a boost that I could do some serious free-running and make those jumps between buildings that normal people could never hope to. On the streets below me, there was a noticeable decline in the quality of everything, from the buildings to the asphalt to the traffic signs.

It was once the lights disappeared behind me that I had to stop and reorient myself. A lack of power, I decided, looking around. The buildings were so rundown that I doubted most of them had even the basic utilities, let alone the sort of amenities even I could take for granted. Running water? Maybe, if they were lucky, and it probably came through rusty pipes. Electricity, though? Apparently not.

Without any lights, though, I couldn't run quite as carelessly, because it was harder to see where I was going, and the lack of streetlamps meant I could no longer rely on my peripheral vision to catch anything worth stopping happening down below me. So, since I didn't want to waste an Install to try one of my more…exotic methods of finding crime, I strode over to the side of the roof and looked down.

For a long moment, there was really a whole lot of nothing. I couldn't see well enough to make out shapes very well, and anything more than ten feet away from me was indistinct enough that it could be a person or just my eyes playing tricks on me. The beginnings of frustration started to kindle inside me; how was I supposed to fight crime and be a superhero if I couldn't see what was happening?

I was ready to straighten up and try the next block over when a spark flickered to life on the dark street below, and a spot of glowing orange lit up a group of faces huddled around it — people that I had, at first, thought were nothing more than shadows. They were Asian, each and every one of them, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese — hell if I knew how to really tell the difference, especially in the dark like that — and though they wore different things, each was decked out in the same colors: red and green.

ABB, the Azn Bad Boys.

The street was unlit, so once they finished lighting their cigarettes, I could only rely on the moonlight to see them, but now that I knew they were there, it was easier to notice their movements. I glanced up and down the street — just being gangers wasn't enough reason for me to jump them on my first night out — and that was when I caught sight of more of them, pouring slowly and steadily out of another building. They were gathering in the street, like they were attending a rally of some kind.

I hesitated for all of a second, then I centered myself and pulled on my power.

"Set. Install."

In an instant, it was like I was being flooded with energy and strength, and I felt my clothing and even, to a lesser degree, my body shift form. I was cloaked now entirely in black, masked by a plate of white shaped like a jawless skull. I was the Hundred-Faced Hassan, one of the nineteen candidates for the position of head of a league of assassins.

Delusional Illusion

"Zabaniya."

A moment later, and more of myself appeared, each one slightly different from the others and all crouched in the dark atop the roofs around me. There was one each for each ganger, to facilitate a quick and easy takedown. Each of my brothers and sisters would strike simultaneously, unseen and unheard until the moment of attack, and render each ganger unconscious with a single blow.

Zabaniya: Delusional Illusion, the power of the Hundred-Faced Hassan. In the original hero, the power might have manifested itself such that each individual body had an individual personality, but that was because the Hundred-Faced Hassan had fractured his own mind so that he could fulfill whatever role was required of him for whatever task. In me, however, I couldn't split my mind that way, so each of the copies was just another me and would vanish once the Install was let go.

It was kind of lame and pretty tame for a parahuman to do on her first night out, taking out a rally, but gangers rarely gathered in numbers like this just to give each other pep talks. They were probably about to go and shoot up some rival or some business that had decided not to pay them protection money, and I wasn't about to let them go and do that.

It was at that moment, however, just as all of myself was tensing to strike, that the gangers pulled away from the building, and out stepped one final man. Naked from the torso up, with Eastern dragons etched across his chest and arms and a draconic metal mask hiding his face, he could only be the ABB's boss: Lung.

I paused, and all of me backed down. I knew very little about Lung; there were stories about him fighting entire Protectorate teams and winning, and his powers were described as allowing him to transform more and more over the course of a fight, but I didn't know how accurate the information was, and I had no idea if he kept an ace up his sleeve for emergencies.

I really didn't want to fight him unless I absolutely had to; there were so many unknowns, and a guy who could hold his own against full hero teams was probably so far out of my league that it wasn't even funny.

I did know he had one other parahuman in his gang, a scary guy named Oni Lee, but of the gangers gathered, only Lung himself was wearing a mask. Oni Lee probably wasn't among them.

Down below, Lung started talking, but I couldn't quite make out what he was saying. I felt my lips pull into a frown, then I glanced over the rooftops to one of the other mes that was perched closer by and concentrated, stretching out my awareness. In an instant, her senses were mine, and Lung's words came through clearly.

"…the children," Lung was saying. I could hear the snarl in his voice, "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?"

I recoiled, even as the mooks down below murmured their assent, and around me, the others of myself recoiled, too.

They were going to kill kids?

For a moment, I was still. I think I had trouble processing the idea that someone could sink so low as to kill children, but aside from that, I was completely calm. I probably should have been freaked out, maybe I should have been panicking and wishing I'd had a cellphone or a nearby payphone so I could call in the Protectorate or something to deal with it all, but I wasn't. I was cool, calculating, and rational.

I didn't need to worry about calling anyone. I didn't need to bring in the cavalry to save the day and slay the big, bad dragon. There was no need for backup or reinforcements or other heroes to charge in on white steeds. I was enough. And I wasn't about to let Lung and his goons kill anyone, let alone children.

Ten more of myself slid into existence like shadows given substance. The total number was thirty-five, but I could have done more. If I pushed it all the way, there would be eighty Taylors waiting in the wings, crouched on rooftops in a gray so dull, so deep, and so close to black that only the white skulls would stand out. I was knives in the dark.

I was an army.

I could have struck then, as Lung grabbed one of his mooks and checked the time, but I didn't. I waited, all of myself on edge, all of myself wanting to jump down and end it now, as something like an instinct told me to wait, and in the meantime, a car pulled up and discharged three more gangers, all in ABB's red and green. Still, I waited, because it wasn't the right moment, it wasn't the right angle.

Not much longer after that, the group started moving northward, walking — towards where, I didn't know. I only knew what awaited them at their destination, what they intended to do once they got there. I only knew that I couldn't let them go.

And as they passed under me, all of me, I struck.

All of me descended like a wave of black, and as the power concealing my presence was torn apart like a veil of tissue paper, the gangers could suddenly see me, hear me, feel my cold, righteous anger fall upon them like the hammer of God.