In Which Taylor Might be Kidnapped

"Is this a kidnapping?" Taylor asked.

She was sitting on a rather plump, if well-worn couch, both hands tied on her lap by a pair of cheap zip-ties while the man in the top hat looked down at her. Mr. Top Hat was sitting across from her, one leg crossed over the other as he lounged back in his own sofa and smoked a cigarette as if there was nothing to worry about.

"Yeah," he said. "We need your help."

"Um, no?" Taylor tried.

She saw one eyebrow rise above the domino mask and Mr. Top Hat smothered his cigarette against the arm of his sofa. "Look, it's nothing big. We're part of a wandering group of capes called the Travellers. One of our members was hurt some time ago and I think you might be one of our last hopes to heal her."

Taylor blinked. She looked around the rather plain room but didn't see anyone else to include in Mr. Top Hat's 'our.' "I do Endbringers. They're like, the opposite of healing. Also, I need to be home before five or my dad will get worried."

"Her name's Noelle," he continued, as if Taylor hadn't said anything. "And her powers are killing her."

"Maybe try a hospital? Oh, oh, or the PRT. They're really big on the whole heroic helping people thing."

Mr. Top Hat slammed a fist into the arm of his seat and stood straighter. "Dammit, the woman I love is dying and you're the only one that can do anything about it. I don't give a shit about your fucking Endbringer pets, I just want you to make her better!"

Taylor shrank back a little, then tilted her head to one side. "I-I'm sorry? You shouldn't swear, but I guess you're really mad about what happened to... Noelle, was it?"

"Of course I'm mad. It's all that white bitch's fault, the Simugh made Noelle the way she is."

[Indignant! Lies... Mostly.]

"I see," Taylor said. She shifted on the couch a bit, then took in the way Mr. Top Hat was breathing hard and trying to hold back his emotions. She felt bad for him, she really did, but kidnapping her and swearing a lot were both terribly rude and she wanted to distance herself from him. "Well, I'm really sorry, but one of my best friends brought a cake, and as much as my other friends are cool, I don't think they'll save me a slice if I don't get back soon."

"You think I'll just let you go?" Top Hat asked.

"I think you don't have a choice," Taylor replied gently.

"Fuck that. You're not leaving until you get that whore to fix Noelle."

Taylor's smile dipped a little. "I'd rather you didn't insult my friends, Mr. Top Hat."

He sneered at her and flicked the crushed remains of his cigarette away. "Look. Just help her, and I'll let you be on your merry little way to eat your cake and party with your friends in that ice castle of yours."

"It's called the Great Administratorius," Taylor said. "And it's awesome. Actually, you should have just gone over there and asked. We do have a doorbell you know. We could have had a nice cup of tea and talked like civilised people."

Mr. Top Hat got to his feet, reached around his back, and pulled out a handgun. "Get up, we're going to see Noelle, then you're going to order that thing to fix her."

Taylor yawned. "Alright, alright. You're a real sourpuss, you know." Standing up, Taylor stretched a little, then fiddled with the zip ties around her wrists. "Can you take these off?"

"No, now start moving."

Taylor sat back down. "Not until you take these off," she said, wiggling her wrists at him as she did.

Mr. Top Hat shook, his face going an ugly shade of red as though she'd just embarrassed him somehow. "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"Hey, I'm an impressionable young princess. You shouldn't swear around me. I might pick up bad habits."

Top Hat made a growly noise at the back of his throat and pointed the gun at Taylor's head. "Move."

"Nope."

Top Hat pointed the gun right into Taylor's face and she went cross-eyed trying to focus on the hole in the middle of the barret. "Move," he said.

Taylor sighed. "Levi, knock him out, would you?" she asked.

Top Hat had time to blink once before his whole body spasmed and his eyes rolled back into his skull. He landed with a thump, the gun clattering on the floor next to him.

Standing, Taylor looked around the room for something to cut the zip-ties off. It was a really, really plain area, with only the two couches, a few other chairs, and a big screen TV off on another wall. There were no tables or other furniture and only cement-grey walls except for a heavy door off to one side.

Seeing nothing that could help her, Taylor walked over to the door and opened it with some awkward twisting of her body to undo the catch, then she rolled her eyes at her own silliness. "Simmy, the zip ties, please?" she asked.

The ties made a snapping sound as they fell apart.

Now free to explore, Taylor allowed a grin to grow on her face and stepped out into a corridor of grey walls and steel-grated floors. It ran to her left and right, dotted along the way with closed doors just like the one she'd walked out of.

"Ennie, meanie, miny, moe," Taylor sang. Her second 'moe' finished with her pointing off to her right.

She skipped along. Eventually the corridor led to what she at first thought was a dead-end. Then she noticed the wheel in the middle of the wall and realised that it was a door, a huge vault door like what she'd seen in bank-heist movies.

If this was some sort of bunker or hidden base, then the most likely way out of here was probably through there. With a grunt of effort, Taylor pushed against the wheel and felt it give with a sudden lurch.

The wheel spun and something within the great door clunked. Suddenly, the door felt much lighter, though it was still a thick slab of steel.

"Don't!" someone called from behind her.

Taylor paused and slowly turned to take in a blonde girl with bright baby blue eyes who was staring right back at her. "Hi?" Taylor said.

"Queen Administrator?" the girl asked. Her hands were near her chest, as if she hadn't decided if she wanted to squeeze them together or get ready for a fight yet.

"That's me. Pleased to meet you... um, are you one of my kidnappers?"

"What?"

"I'll take that as a maybe," Taylor said. "So, why shouldn't I just leave?" She pointed to the vault door.

"That's not the exit, that's Noelle's room," the girl said. "Uh, how did you get in here?"

"I told you, I was kidnapped. Right before I got to eat cake too."

"Kidnapped by whom?" the girl looked like someone who knew the answer to a question but didn't want to hear it.

Taylor shrugged. "Some grumpy guy with a top hat. Leviathan knocked him out and I left him somewhere that way." She waved in the rough direction from which she'd come.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

It was as if a great weight had landed on the girl's shoulders. "Oh, Krouse," she said under her breath. She looked up again, something like pity mixed with fear in her eyes. "I'm so sorry. That's... it's very much like him to do something like that, actually. I just wish he'd told us so that we could convince him not to."

Taylor nodded. "Yeah. I was just hanging out with my friends when he grabbed me. It was rather rude." She frowned, then turned back to the vault door that was noticeably unlocked. "So, Noelle is in there?" she asked.

"I- I wouldn't go in," the girl advised. "Noelle is... hurt. And she can be kind of mean when she's not feeling well." She held her hands together over her chest, eyes wide as they twitched from Taylor to the vault door.

"What happened to her, really?"

The girl hesitated. "I guess you of all people might understand," she finally said. "We were in Madison, when the Simurgh hit."

[Not Bombs, just Surprises.]

Taylor nodded. "Simmy says that you're not one of her bombs, just a surprise."

The girl froze, her breath catching. "Oh. She... can hear us?"

"She can hear pretty much anyone anywhere," Taylor said. "Anyway, Noelle."

"R-right. Noelle changed, her powers made her grow bigger, into, into a monster. She's still her, but the monster is always there and it's always hungry. We've been looking for a way to bring her back, Kr-Trickster, that is, the guy who kidnapped you, most of all. They were close. A couple, before she changed. They still love each other, but it hurts him to see her the way she is." The girl hugged herself. "I shouldn't have told you all of that, I'm sorry. The exit is just over there, I can show you it."

"No," Taylor said. "I want to meet Noelle first." There was something about the girl turned monster that had her curious; the way this other girl spoke of her made her sound like a nice person who had gotten the short end of the stick. And they were still looking for a way to help. That spoke of the kind of friendship that appealed to Taylor on a base level.

"It, it might be dangerous," the girl said.

Taylor grinned. "I can be sorta dangerous too!"

"I guess," the girl said. "My name's Mars, by the way. Or Sundancer, I guess."

Taylor's smile softened a little. "And I'm Queen Administrator, but you already knew that. My friends call me Taylor."

"Thank you, Taylor," Mars said, trying out the name. "Do you still want to see Noelle?"

"Yeah, I think I'd like that. Oh, and maybe after we can all go for cake." Taylor's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Unless my other friends already ate it all."

Mars didn't seem to notice the venom in Taylor's voice. "Let me go in first. Noelle knows me, and I can take care of myself if the monster tries anything."

Mars waited for Taylor to back away from the vault, then, with a grace that Taylor couldn't hope to emulate, she slid past, got on the tip of her toes, and grabbed the door while swinging her body back to give it a firm yank.

With a dull hiss of well-oiled hinges, the vault opened up just wide enough for someone to step in. "Hello?" a voice rang out of the interior. It was a woman's voice, though soft and uncertain. "Francis?"

'Noelle, it's me," Mars said.

"Oh, hey," the voice, Noelle, replied.

"I, uh," Mars paused, then looked at Taylor. "I brought a friend. She wanted to meet you."

"I, I don't know," Noelle said. "Can she, can she help?"

"Maybe?"

"Oh." There was a note of hope in Noelle's voice now. "I'd like to see her too, then."

Taking the cue for what it was, Taylor walked past Mars and into the room beyond the vault doors. It was rather spacious, with soothing blue paint on the walls and some plush carpeting on the ground near the doorway. The furniture, little that there was, was nice and clean and looked rather expensive. Still, none of that hid the fact that they were in what was essentially a cell.

Taylor took it all in with a sweep of her gaze across the room, then she focused on the woman in its centre. She gasped and Noelle flinched. "You're so pretty!"

There was a moment of shocked awe as both Noelle and Mars stared at Taylor. She, on the other hand, was looking at the size of the girl before her. Noelle was huge, easily on par with Ned and she had delicate tentacles and dozens of fetchingly huge mouths all over, all of them drooling cutely on the floor.

Taylor started clapping. "Aww, you're so adorable! Hi Noelle, I'm Taylor!"

"You're Queen Administrator," Noelle said, almost as if she was hoping that it would be enough to restore some normalcy to the conversation.

"That's me!" Taylor said. She walked a bit closer to Noelle, a huge grin splitting your features. "Mr. Top Hat didn't say that you were so friendly. I might not have minded him kidnapping me so much if he had."

"What?"

"So, Mars said that there was something wrong with your powers?"

"I, um, yes," Noelle said. She gestured down at her bulk. "They turned me into, into this."

"Uh huh," Taylor said. "And what's the problem?"

Noelle blinked. Mars blinked. Taylor waited.

"The problem is that I'm like this now. I'm always hungry, my body isn't mine anymore. I... I hurt people." Noelle said.

Taylor shook her head. "But you're very pretty," she said. "I guess it might be annoying though." Taylor allowed a frown to crease her forehead. "Okay. I'll ask Levi if he can help, since he's good with organic stuff. And Simmy could maybe make a doohickey to help too."

[Unit-03 does not make 'Doohickies.' Unit-03 is an Artiste.]

"That would be wonderful," Noelle said. There were hopeful tears gathering at the edges of all of her eyes.

"Oh, and then you can come and visit my castle too! And we can have tea! It'll be a party." Taylor threw herself forwards, arms extended to hug Noelle.

Too late she heard the screams of both girls.

Taylor had time to press herself close to Noelle's side before the girl shoved her back. She stumbled a bit, but stayed on her feet with eyes wide and mouth agape. For a moment, the only thought in Taylor's mind was the pain of having her hug rejected. Then she heard a slurping noise that drew her attention away.

Noelle's face twisted in what might have been pain. She cried out, a wordless howl that rang across the room before something splattered out from her naked lower half.

Taylor had once seen a video of a cow giving birth. Her mind flashed back to that for a moment as a naked, skin-coloured thing flopped out from Noelle and splattered to the ground. Then the thing turned and Taylor was looking into a malformed version of her own face.

The mutant Taylor gasped, both arms--one of which was too short by a foot--reaching out as though to hug the air. "Haha!" it screamed. "Kill! Help me! Kill Everything!"

***