Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It‘s considered a cliche for the first moments of a story or the last to be during a dark and stormy night. It is powerful and dramatic but truly inconvenient for those involved. Being dark wet and cold made it rather difficult to be anything other than miserable. Thus were the feelings of one lost little girl who had only wanted to follow her father when he had left the house.

Her mother was away at a conference in another city. She was presenting on the literary works of women throughout history and on historical children’s tales from around the world. The little girl knew those stories well, as instead of reading anything modern or traditional her mother had read her stories from bygone eras as a part of studying the stories themselves. Seeing how children reacted to them when not being from the culture they were from.

The girl didn’t know any of this. She only knew her mother was gone and her father was leaving her alone in the house and she didn’t want to be alone. So she followed him into the wet and cold of the rain.

The rain poured from the dark clouds circling above her like rivers, giving barely a moment between the impact of one drop before the next one struck. The sound was a constant hiss and growl from the impact of water on water. She couldn’t see more than just down the street to where her father was, her sight being cut off not just by the darkness of night and the low dark clouds but by the rain itself as hammering water acted like a thick falling fog.

As she walked after him, winding her way through the streets, the wind began picking up. Wending its way through the streets and blasting her in the face and in the back with waves of water as it gusted back and forth, pacing like a nervous dog. Those few moments where she could hear it above the rain she might have called it howling, but not like a beast hunting its prey. It howled the pained cry of a wounded fearful beast. Like a dog with a wound in its side waiting to be put out of its misery.

With one of the blasts of water right in her face the little girl was left sputtering. Blinded and in the dark she looked around to see her father had vanished into the night. She struggled to the end of the street where she had last seen him. Fighting the wind almost the whole way.

Then it was gone. The street opened up to a plaza which somehow sat perfectly at the eye of the storm. The wind was completely calm here and the rain fell straight down. It was too dark for her to see anyone in the plaza. Her father should be here though. Yet still she could not convince her feet to take the final steps into the plaza. Something held her back.

Looking up she tried to find what held her there. For she could not turn herself around either. Everything was dark shadows and indistinct shapes further blurred by the sheets of rain falling on the city. She might recognize a few of the buildings around here. If she was right then the plaza should be empty, but she could see two figures in it. Larger than life statues. Neither was clear.

They stood across from each other. The closer one was less distinct though it should have been clearer. The silhouette was muddled by something she couldn’t make out. It looked like a man but was wrapped in darkness and shadows. The single arm she could make out was wrapped around a long staff of some kind with what looked like a blade at one end. But it couldn’t be a blade, it was the same size as she was.

The further one was recognizably human, a black silhouette against the grey background of a building that she was pretty sure should be yellow. He — she decided based on the lack of shape and figure — stood shirtless with his legs apart and arms hanging at his side. His fingers were unusually long. The one thing that marked him as inhuman were the horns growing from his brow. Arrayed behind the figure was some kind of writhing mass of shadows.

With a flash of lightning the girl saw the two figures for a brief moment. The further one was the super villain Lung. The Dragon of Kyushu who fought Leviathan to a standstill. It took the whole Brockton Bay Brigade to hold him back the last time he went on a rampage. The horns were those of his iron mask. His fingers weren’t long; they were clawed as he had begun his transformation, scales slowly crawling up and around his body spreading out from his arms.

The mass of writhing shadows were his men. The Anz Bad Boys. A gang united by the strength of the dragon that led them and nothing more. Children, especially girls, were always told to avoid them more than the E88 or the Marche. The little girl didn’t know why though.

She should be scared, terrified even. The gang which was supposed to be more dangerous to her specifically was arrayed before her. Yet they could not hold her attention for but the briefest of moments.

The closer figure held her attention though.

It was her father.

The shadow that was wrapped around him was just his coat. But it seemed dryer than it should be in this weather. It wrapped around him and filled the space between his joints so he appeared to be a single blob without the depth provided by light. The long staff was a weapon. The haft at least as long as he was tall and the curved blade added half its length again. At the end of the staff a bunch of metal flared out like a fish’s tail to act as a weight at the far end of the haft from the blade. The blade itself was shaped like the claw of a great beast, curved like a sickle so the point was still in line with the haft.

On the back of the blade and winding down part of the handle was a black dragon. The head lay on the apex of the curve staring down to the end of the blade. One arm extended to almost the end of the length, the claws of the hand appearing to hold the blade itself as if pushing it toward it away from the dragon. The other arm gripped the top of the haft as if it needed to be anchored there instead of being a part of the weapon itself. The rest of the body wrapped around the haft, slowly fusing into the handle until it was only visible as a change in the colour of the wrappings. The lower legs were lost somewhere in the design. The flared metal at the end was the tip of its tail.

In the single moment of vision provided by a flash of lightning it seemed to meet her eyes and wink at her. Then the figures before her were once again naught but shadows against the backdrop of rain.

Despite the pouring rain, a stillness could be felt through the plaza. Even the ABB at the other end seemed frozen after the bolt of lightning.

Some unspoken agreement came when the two figures nodded.

CRACK

The sound was loud but the girl couldn’t tell if it was the thunder from the bolt of lightning or the sound of concrete breaking as the two figures leapt forward. One might expect a great battle as these giants among men fought for supremacy. In truth it was a single exchange.

Her father stood facing the ABB.

Lung lay at her feet. Clutching an arm that was no longer there and bleeding from a deep wound across his chest. His mask cracked and fell to the ground.

He opened his mouth to say something to her—

---

---

RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING

RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING

RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING

RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII—

The ringing ended with a click as Taylor’s heavy hand landed on the off button. Always the off button. Dad had had words with her the one time she tried to use the snooze button. How laziness was unbecoming of a young lady. How would people see her as a great leader if she could not even get herself up at a reasonable hour.

Dad had some weird ideas about how things should be run. Not bad ideas. Just unexpected ones given his choice of work and supposed upbringing.

Probably why he had gotten along so well with mom honestly. They both firmly believed that women should be running the world.

Heading downstairs she started working on breakfast. Dad was already making his own but that didn’t really matter. She worked around him grabbing what she needed and moving in beside him to use a different burning on the stove. He finished first, he would have anyway since his egg fried rice was faster to make than her poached eggs and toast, then sat down at the table opening the morning paper.

She didn’t know when exactly it started. This morning routine of making breakfast together but separately. They just naturally worked around each other one morning when she didn’t feel like having whatever he was making and from that point on he just never made her breakfast anymore. It was a surprise if only for the first morning.

She could ask why but she never did. It felt wrong to. The motions were too right and even if they were making completely different meals it felt like they were working together.

Tiring of the long silence as she watched her food cook, Taylor opened with, “I had that dream again last night. The one about the storm.”

“Hm,” page turn, “anything different or unusual?”

She had told her dad of the first of the dreams. The ones she could barely remember more than the storm itself. The pounding rain, the howling winds, the crashing waves. He had seemed happy that she shared it with him then. Almost nostalgic. Now he barely reacted.

“Nope. Just being lost in the storm,” her dad didn’t need to know he beat up Lung in the dream. The detail was unnecessary. She had told her he appeared in it, that she was following him, seeking him out in the darkness. That was enough. She never mentioned Lung challenging him. It felt as if it was obvious to them both he would win in her dream.

“Hm,” page turn, “have a good day at school.”

That was it. Conversation over, no new details to talk about so there was nothing else. Still the taciturn dismissal felt almost comforting.

Her dad knew she was having troubles at school. He had been there…

---

---

Taylor opened the door to her house gingerly. The door creaked as she winced holding her side. The bruises developing on her side pulsed with sharp pain as she extended a little too far. Her dad heard the sounds of the door creaking even if he didn’t hear her vocalize her pain. He called from the living room where he was sitting, “How was your day at your best friend’s house.”

“I don’t think I have one anymore,” Taylor replied, gasping slightly.

“A day?” Dad was a bit confused. English wasn’t his first language. Taylor could speak it but she never knew the name. Dad would always just say it was a language from very far away.

“No, a best friend.”

Dad came out of the living room frowning. It took him a single look to see she was injured, probably from her black eye. Before she could say anything else he dragged her into the kitchen and stuck an ice bag on the spot she was holding on her stomach before grabbing a first aid kit.

The alcohol stung as he dabbed the cuts around her eye. Carefully washing them before applying bandages to keep them clean. Her dad was always so careful about any injuries. Never wanted any to get infected.

“Perhaps not,” her father said out of nowhere as he looked over her wounds.

“Hm?”

“Perhaps you no longer have a best friend,” he clarified, not looking her in the eye.

“Yeah.”

“I will be here if you need me,” he said softly, almost whispering it, but it felt like a promise. Even if it wasn’t one she was supposed to hear or know about.

“Thanks,” she whispered back, closing her eyes and trying to relax as he continued his ministrations.

---

“Taylor,” her dad said in a flat tone, “the school just called claiming you sexually harassed a girl then broke her hand when she refused your advances.”

“That's an interesting accusation,” Taylor said, blinking. It sounded very unlike her. Then again Emma used to say she was rather oblivious.

“Do you know a Sophia Hess?” He asked, raising a single eyebrow.

“She’s Emma’s new Bestie,” she replied in a clipped tone, “she attacked me earlier this week.”

“Explain to me what happened.”

“Sophia tried to trip me, we both fell. I got up first, offered her a hand up, and she tried to pull me down. I was too well planted and she ended up hanging for a moment so I maneuvered her into a position where she could stand. Walked away. She started attacking me. I didn’t fight back. Dodged an attack that led to her punching a wall. She hurt her hand. I offered to take her to the nurses office, but she refused. I left.”

“The girl is telling stories of groping and beating,” he replied, “if they want to frame you they better have witnesses.”

“There was a hallway full of them but I’m not sure how many I’d trust to support me without… compensation,”there had been plenty of people but most of the ones watching the fight had been wearing bits of red and green or black and white cloth. The gang colours of the two ethnically aligned gangs in the city. The pan asian Anz Bad Boys and the neo nazi Empire 88.

“Empire? ABB?”

“Both, yeah.”

“Hmm, problematic,” he said rubbing his chin, “it is her word against yours then.”

“Her injuries should support my side of the story,” Taylor said after a moment, “she broke it punching a wall. That would be difficult to replicate by attacking her.”

“If it is broken at all,” her father frowned, “if it is not then it could have been you who hurt it but it shows that she is willing to lie. I will insist on it being examined and pay for the doctor's bill if it comes to that.”

“This isn’t the first time she has attacked me,” Taylor said looking at an old picture on the wall. She was in it, as was her mother and father, but in addition Emma and her parents. “She was the one who attacked me at Emma’s. The one who Emma said defended her.”

“The history makes it problematic. Her claims that you attacked Emma and your’s that she attacked you muddy the water,” her father said, stroking his chin, “especially if we try to rely on biased testimonies for your defense.”

“What do we do then?”

“We’ll have to rely on the doctor’s examination for physical evidence,” he said while staring off into the distance, “we’ll also see if we can get testimony from the teachers on both of your temperaments.”

The drive to the school was quiet. Her father wasn’t the most talkative at the best of times but he didn’t even listen to music in the car. Something about focus and new strange technology. He was from out in the boonies when they didn’t have many modern comforts before he got his refugee status.

There was a surprise at the office though. Instead of Sophia and her parents Emma’s dad Alan had shown up.

“Ah Alan, I didn’t realize legal counsel was required for this meeting,” her father said with a hard look in his eye.

“It isn’t I’m acting as a character witness for both girls,” he said with a smile that felt very fake to Taylor.

“Are you? It seems odd considering you believe Taylor to have attacked Emma and Sophia defended her,” her father’s eyebrow was raised but his voice was completely calm, “Some might consider that bias.”

“Considering she has attacked someone again it is not undue bias,” the smile became more natural. As if he had just won something over on her father.

“We shall see,” Taylor wasn’t watching her father as he said this, she was still looking at Alan. His words seemed to cause the lawyer's smile to lose its lustre.

The school office was a strange place, seemingly built out of a classroom then having a ton of filing cabinets and more teachers desks added later. At the back of the room was a set of doors that lead to the principal and vice principal’s offices. I.e. an actual office and a janitor’s closet that had been converted into an office.

In the larger of the two offices, the only one that could accommodate so many people, sat Principal Blackwell. She was short and stout but not in a way that made her look fat. Instead she looked like an athlete, one of the real ones rather than the actors that played them and the stereotypes that had caused. The story was she used to be a gym teacher that got administrative training instead of retiring.

“Ah Mr. Hebert, miss Hebert, miss Hess, and who are you?”

“Alan Barnes, Sophia is a friend of the family so I offered to stand in for her mother,” the fake smile plastered over his face only seemed to fool Blackwell.

“Of cour-“

“Do you have that in writing?”

Her father cut off the principal’s voice. A simple statement completely derailed the whole meeting. This was supposed to be about the fight that Taylor was being blamed for but very suddenly the Principal was more focused on the other side of the divide.

“What?”

“Do you have it in writing that you are able to act in loco parentis?” Her father clarified. Alan may or may not have thrown him off by being here, he certainly expected that to be the effect, but Danny’s opening move neatly removed him from the board. “As a lawyer you should know the importance of a paper trail.”

“And you don’t appear to be on the list of miss Hess’s emergency contacts,” the principal added. She may not have caught it immediately but she in no way wanted to be caught up in the legal trouble that Alan could bring by being here.

“Ms. Hess couldn’t make it because of work-”

“I am quite happy to reschedule to a time that fits her schedule,” Danny replied.

After that there was nothing Alan or Emma could do. Taylor smiled as both she and Sophia received detention for fighting. No one could determine who started the fight since everyone agreed that the gang filled on lookers could not be trusted for such matters. Danny had paid for Sophia to go to a doctor, which in the end did prove that Taylor didn’t break her hand.

Emma was so used to using her father to bully her way out of trouble she never realized that Taylor’s father not only had the same power but was better at it than hers was. Whatever was going on was going to have to stay between them.

---

“Hey dad Emma and Sophia kinda stole and destroyed my phone,” Taylor said at the dinner table. It had been dad’s turn to cook and he chose to make a spicy fish stew that he had encountered somewhere on his travels, “don’t worry they are in detention for it.”

Her father frowned, looking disappointed at not having the chance to bring down the school with its own bureaucracy. Ever since the fight at the start of the school year he had been less and less impressed with the facility. The only reason she was still there was he couldn’t get her out until the summer, “Do you need me to get you a new one? We can easily afford it.”

“No, for once I think they were right,” she replied. Though Danny was better than Alan at the political game Emma was much better at the popularity game than Taylor, “I don’t have anyone to call and they’d just break it again.”

“Perhaps you have no friends and don’t need one for social use,” he replied, staring at her, “but I still want you to have one. I want you to be able to call me in an emergency. Even if you have no one else.”

---

---

… for the aftermath.

Always for the aftermath. If anyone took things too far they’d be knocked down several pegs. But for most of it just like cooking, as soon as she showed she was able to take care of it herself, his support vanished.

Sometimes she wondered about asking for help. She stopped herself every time. It felt too much like a loss. He could help but then she would have shown she couldn’t actually be trusted to handle things on her own.

“Have a good day at work.”

She cooked the toast too long, it had burned around the edges when she flipped it off the frying pan and onto her plate. The eggs were good though, the yolk still that little bit runny. Maybe they could use a bit more seasoning.

Her father was good at cooking, maybe she could ask for some lessons on how to do it better.

 

Chapter Text

Walking out the front door she habitually jumped over the second step. This was silly since it was the safest of the steps to use. The old step had started rotting and broken last year and it had taken about a month for her dad to get around to replacing it. A month was all it took for the habit of not stepping on it to form though.

The neighbourhood wasn’t the best. Many nearby houses were dealing with similar damage, though less had repairs. There were also a lot of bullet holes and other signs of violence.

Though the area managed to be out of any gang’s territory it was a contested border between the ABB and the E88. Both of whom insisted that the neighbourhood would be better off if the territory was in their hands. Though only the ABB tended to actually follow through with community projects.

Given the danger of the area, bus routes were relegated to the edges. Meaning Taylor had a good 20 minute walk before she even got to her stop. This was supposedly for safety, despite the fact that it made teens like her walk through said dangerous part of town to get to the bus stop. Putting them in more danger.

She saw a few of the other Winslow students on her way to the stop. Those few who acknowledged her only did so by hurrying faster. As if they wouldn’t all be trapped at the bus stop when they got there. No one wanted to associate with the social outcast. Well some of the gang bangers tried recruitment but that stopped pretty fast.

Standing on the edge of the crowd at the bus stop, she could see maybe half a dozen obvious gang members. Three ABB and two Empire, but there was a person wearing Marche colours.

The first two were expected, the neighbourhood was on the border of their territories. But having a member of the Marche all the way out here was odd. As far as Taylor knew, there weren’t that many actual members of the Marche, relying heavily on having powerful parahumans to protect their territory. Thinking back she couldn’t even think of what they did for business. E88 was known for drugs and dog fighting rings while the ABB had cornered the market on brothels and did some drug dealing on the side. The Marche however specifically disdained all of those; banning drugs and the harming of innocents within their territories was the thing the gang was known for.

They might be involved with gun running or smuggling, but that wouldn’t happen on her dad’s watch. Nothing made it through the docks without his explicit permission.

Perhaps Heiress offered healing and surgery at exorbitant prices to fund the entire gang. Having a full biokinetic who can fix or change anything about you with a single touch would be in high demand. But Marquis had been in business for years before his daughter was ever born, let alone when she gained powers and was able to join the family business.

She was eyeing the Marche member for so long she almost missed the approaching bus. She saw the other people reacting instead of the bus itself.

They weren’t even the last stop of the bus for picking up students for Winslow and there was already only standing room. Avoiding the social pariahs did not extend to the cramped spaces of the bus. Taylor was crowded in on all sides. Being the ‘ugliest girl in class’ also didn’t stop someone from grasping at her.

“Aaaah-”

“Shut it groper,” she growled even as she could feel the bones in his wrist grinding together from her tight grip. Carefully turning around so she didn’t let go she got a look at the small boy. If she wasn’t a girl and thus couldn’t buy clothes with pockets she would have expected him to be a pickpocket rather than a groper. Rising to her full height she was almost two heads taller than the boy, “be glad I’m not actually breaking your wrist. You’re not going to do anything like this to anyone else are you?”

The boy didn’t seem to be able to articulate words so he just shook his head vigorously.

Letting him go sent him shimmying off through the crowd. There wasn’t much room but he wanted to be as far from her as possible. The spectacle of it all sent off a horse whispers though.

“That’s Hebert? She’s taller than I expected.”

“She should be happy for the compliment, not like anyone would date her willingly.”

“I kinda get why people say she’s scary now.”

“She used to be Emma’s friend, right? Maybe she was just replaced as an attack dog.”

“The whore probably just wanted money.”

It looked like there was going to be a dozen new rumours about her when she got to school. None of them accurate. Emma would no doubt twist them somehow, encouraging the worse ones while killing off any of the positive ones.

Even when she arrived at the school she could see the rumours spreading as groups of students spiderwebbed across the crowds. They met friends and caught up on things, that much was normal. The immediate stares and looks she got was not. Most people tended to ignore her.

Taylor sighed heavily just imagining what Emma would be saying to her when she eventually found out. There was no way she could escape today with such a juicy incident for her to dig into. She couldn’t wait for classes to begin. At least she would be relatively safe then.

---

Math was her first and safest class this term. None of her main bullies, Emma, Sophia, and Maddison were in this class. Mrs. Rose also wasn’t one to allow shenanigans in her class.

That didn’t mean that she was totally safe though. Julia and a few others were in this class. Looking at the chair and desk before sitting down she didn’t find any malfeasance. No tacks or loose screws.

It looked like she arrived before any of the bullies. Glancing around the room she saw some of Emma’s hangers on but no one who’d start things on their own. She wasn’t sure what to think about people like that. They were uncaring bystanders at best and active participants at worst but they didn’t seem to take the same joy in it that many others did.

Sitting in her assigned seat she watched as Julia and some of the other bullies came in together. Julia scowled at her. She’d probably been planning something that required arriving before Taylor. Though it turned into a smile seconds later as she went to take her seat.

Mrs. Rose entered the classroom with her trademark smile and long dress matching the colour of her name. Though she was one of the most cheerful teachers at the school she was also one of the strictest. Assigning people weeks of detention with a smile on her face and taking absolutely no disturbances in her class.

“Alright class it’s Thursday and you know what that means,” the teacher said with a smile. They didn’t, technically, but Mrs. Rose only ever said ‘you know what that means’ for one thing.

“Pop Quiz,” the class replied unenthusiastically.

The papers handed out around the room were met with equal joy. They were working on trigonometry which was not the most fun even for those who liked the class. She was one of the few people doing well in this section. Her dad of all people had helped her figure out how things worked, though all of his examples involved sailing or other forms of navigation. She could build a working sundial now though.

Taylor mostly ignored the rest of the classroom to focus on her quiz. They were unlikely to pull something during a test like this.

She found out she was wrong when a paper ball beaned her in the side of the head. Immediately turning to where it came from was a second mistake.

“Mrs. Rose Taylor’s trying to cheat off of Raquel,” Julia called immediately.

“Well that would be a problem Miss Hearts,” the teacher started, “if I believed you. Miss Hebert is one of the best students in this section while Miss De Arlon is having trouble with it.”

Walking around to where Taylor was sitting she found the paper ball, “this however is interfering with another student. That’s academic dishonesty Miss Hearts. You’ll have detention through lunch.”

The other girl growled but Taylor just got back to working on her quiz. They never had much time for these quizzes and Julia’s stunt had taken up enough time.

---

Physical education had become gender separated for Winslow close to half a decade ago according to the older students. Not for any of the expected reasons of misogyny or an attempt at fair play. Or even a practical one about using it to check for team sports. No, the reason they were gender segregated was there was only one set of working showers, the ones in the other room were all smashed to bits. They still hadn’t fixed them after all these years.

So all of the freshman girls had a single phys ed block that went through the whole year. Making it the one place where all of her tormentors got to be together.

Getting all those girls into a cramped space of the changing rooms was normally where Emma tried to get the most shaming done. Only she wouldn’t do it herself. Other girls would do it for her, on her prompting of course. They’d bring up the fact that Taylor had no curves. Call her gangly, ugly, say her mouth is too wide, insult her appearance in any way that might get under her skin. If she so much as glanced at another girl in a state of undress she’d be called a perverted lesbian.

That was just what happened everyday in the locker room.

This was different. She had nearly broken a guy's wrist that morning. There was no way that Emma wouldn’t take advantage of it.

As the thought was passing through her head the crowd parted like the red sea revealing Emma in all her glory. She was beautiful. There was no other word for it. Her curly red hair had grown out to the point where it bounced down to her shoulders since she had cut it for some reason during last summer. She had already changed into her gym gear before Taylor had even started — the modelling she did gave her training on how to change quickly — but that did nothing to hide her figure. Even under a sports bra she had the largest chest in the room and the shirt clung just enough to show the hourglass figure she was developing. She had opted for the shortest shorts allowable to show off her well toned legs.

Her piercing green eyes looked Taylor up and down before she started speaking. Taylor was unable to look away drawn into her eyes since it was the only safe place to look. If her eyes lingered anywhere else she would be accused of all the various thoughts that ran through boys’ heads when looking at the statuesque teen before her.

“You’re expecting me to insult you Taylor? You should know better than that,” she said with a smile that showed no signs of happiness, “really? For breaking poor Artie’s wrist? Why would I insult you for that?”

“I only threatened to break it,” Taylor mumbled in reply, prompting Emma to take a step forward into her personal space. Much to close. She was almost pressing against the taller girl.

“What was that Taylor? I couldn’t hear you,” the smile Emma was wearing was sharp enough to cut you if you weren’t careful, “or did you want to share secrets with me again?”

“I said I only threatened to break his wrist. I didn’t want to get in trouble.”

With a sigh Emma turned around to the rest of class, “Well that’s too bad. He deserved a harsher lesson.”

“What?”

“Artie’s a creep and he got what was coming to him,” Emma replied to the general confusion. Emma turned slightly, her smile much warmer and gentler. A glint in her eyes appeared as soon as Taylor let a sliver of the hope she was feeling show on her face, “I’m still surprised he’d try to cop a feel on your flat ass but hey if he’s desperate enough why not.”

There it was. Even when she was complimenting Taylor she couldn’t help but attack her as well. Still it felt nice to have Emma almost back to being a friend.

What happened last summer? Why had she cut her hair so short? Those were questions Taylor might never get an answer to. But at least she could see little glimmers of the best friend she once had beneath the new exterior.

People left as they finished changing and milled about the gymnasium as they waited for the others and the teacher. Coach Hammond wouldn’t wait for everyone, just the bell. If you didn’t finish changing and he had already started the activity he would just have you run laps for the whole hour.

This meant that even the slowest changers were milling among the crowds when the small man entered the gym. Seeing the coach have to get on a step stool to be at all taller than the crowd was funny at the start of the year. Taylor was used to being taller than people her age, she was as tall as the average woman and still growing. This made her taller than almost all the girls and most of the boys that hadn’t hit their growth spurts yet. The rest of the girls were nowhere near as tall, yet most of them still stood taller than the teacher.

He was just the head teacher though. There were another three teachers. None of which had any qualifications for actually teaching phys ed though. Mr. May was the music teacher. Mr. Clarkson was one of the History teachers. Mr. Stagson… Taylor hadn’t actually seen him in a class outside of phys ed.

“Alright ladies group up!”

Unless it was a test day Mr. Hammond always tried to get them into rough quarters before starting any of the activities. He didn’t want people to just pick what they wanted to do.

“Alright you lot, outside for soccer with Stagson,” he started on the far left. The furthest section from where Taylor was standing so she’d be in the last group, “You follow them out for track and field with May. You’re with me, we'll be setting up the volleyball nets. And the last group you’re here with Clarkson for some basketball.”

“You heard him ladies,” Clarkson said with a smile, “we’ve got two courts to work with and 30ish people so teams of 7 or 8. Five on court. Amanda, Julie, Erica, Brittany you’re captains, line up and get picking.”

Slowly the girls were picked for the teams. Taylor was left almost to the end. The only other girl still standing unpicked was Maddison, Emma’s main flunky after Sophia. It was easy to see why she was left to the end, Maddison was tiny. The shortest girl in class by at least half a foot. With her cute button nose and bouncy brown pigtails she looked like she was meant to be in a class a few years below. People would probably mistake her for a freshman until she graduated. She used it to her advantage to stay out of trouble. No one expected the cute little girl to be one of the pettiest pranksters in the whole school.

Though maybe that said something about her maturity.

“I’ll take Taylor.”

That was wrong, she was meant to be left to the end wasn’t she?

Walking over to Erica she caught snippets of a hushed conversation happening around her team captain. She was probably chosen for actually being on the girls basketball team making her almost as tall as Taylor. Though given the racial stereotypes about asian people she might not get much taller. Her ruler straight black hair was in a short pixie cut.

“-gonna kill you,” a girl who Taylor didn’t know hissed at Erica.

“I don’t care what they think, you really think I’m taking the shortest girl in class over the tallest?” Was the simple reply.

“You’re on the team you should know that there is more to playing the game than that!” Another girl argued.

“Yes and the rest is athleticism and natural aptitude,” Erica said calmly despite all of the heightened emotions in the other voices, “Maddison isn’t an athlete. She’s not going to be a better player than Taylor on a first try like this.”

“She’s a social pariah-“

“Not as much today as other days at least. And! She’s tall,” Erica cut her off before turning and shoving a blue pinny into Taylor’s waiting arms, “Hey Hebert can you shoot?”

“A gun?” Was that a term in basketball? Taylor had never really paid attention to sports. Her mom didn’t watch them while alive and her dad came from a whole different culture, “My dad’s taken me to the range a couple times…”

“Basketball, can you throw a ball into the hoop?” She said, holding the rather large orange ball and pointing at the hoop.

“I mean maybe,” Taylor had seen some people throw the balls in before but never really tried herself and they didn’t have a court in middle school, ”normally people conspire to keep me off the court.”

“Look we’ll toss you the ball a few times just try to get it in the hoop,” the asian girl stormed towards the court with that final statement. Clearly frustrated with the entire conversation.

“Alright lassies, reds, yellows you’re over there on the first court, greens, blues you get the other one,” Mr. Clarkson yelled over the hubbub that came about from the teams forming, “you’ve got 20 minutes then we’ll swap. Winners vs winners.”

Erica stood at the centre of the court with Amanda the other captain as Mr. Clarkson tossed the ball in the air. He ran out of the way as the two girls jumped to grab the ball. Erica had the clear advantage in reach and jump height but Amanda was faster and grabbed the ball first.

She ignored Taylor as she tried to run by. She was bouncing it with one hand using her body to shield the rest of the court from it. But she was going by Taylor. The ball was right there next to her so Taylor just reached out and grabbed it.

Erica immediately waved for the ball so Taylor chucked it at her. The ball went straight for Erica’s head. She didn’t seem to mind grabbing it out of the air and charging towards their opponent’s hoop and tossing it in before the rest of the students could react.

Instead of starting the ball back at the centre of the court the girls on the other team grabbed it and immediately ran to the other hoop.

Taylor moved back with the rest of the team to… coordinate defence? She didn’t know what was going on. Stopping them from getting the ball into the hoop seemed the point.

“Hebert, block the shot!” Erica yelled.

The one with the ball was right in front of her. How does one block a shot? Apparently not with her stance, the girl easily tossed the ball at the hoop. But it was in the air and the point was to stop it getting in the hoop. So Taylor didn’t have to stop her, just the ball.

With a single jump Taylor grabbed the ball out of the air. The rest of her team was blocked by the other team so she ran down the court bouncing the ball a few times like she had seen Erica and Amanda doing. It did not work out well. Instead of bouncing back to her hand the ball went off course and Taylor had to run to keep up with the new direction. But no one had kept up with her. She was alone at her opponent's hoop.

The hoop was right there, it should be easy to get it in right?

Throwing the ball it bounced off the hoop and the wood behind it. By now the rest of the girls were on this side of the court. Watching the ball fall slowly and struggling to be the first to catch it. It was one of the other girls on the blue team who got the ball, immediately throwing it at the hoop again.

It bounced off the board then the hoop.

But Taylor was right there.

So she jumped and pushed it back in the other direction. Which only resulted in it bouncing off the rim a second time.

One of the girls on the green team caught it and started to rush back to the other side.

Taylor ran back with the rest of the team to try and stop her. It was harder to just take the ball this time since people were actually paying attention to her.

The girl passed the ball before the other girl threw it at the hoop. Taylor was right under, ready to catch it again. But this time the ball actually went in.

With the ball Taylor noticed that none of the girls on the other team were just letting her by this time. They were all looking at her.

Taking a deep breath Taylor remembered her father’s lessons in martial arts. You can’t lose a fight if you don’t get hit. That applied here as well, so maybe the footwork and techniques would as well.

Running forward she spun using her body to stop the first girl from getting to the ball, reorienting her path to the other side of the court to account for her new position. She had seen Erica hold the ball during a spin around a person so that must be allowed right? It was the only way she was keeping the ball with her and making it past the girl, she couldn’t predict the bounce well enough otherwise. The next was easier to just run past bouncing the ball away from her. Another quick spin saw her almost losing the ball but she was right next to Erica who could actually score a point so she just handed the ball off as she continued to the other side of the court.

People kept following her, only to spend a second watching the ball sail over their head as Erica made a fairly long throw. It went in without even touching the wood plank.

As the rest of the girls went back to the other side of the court Erica walked up to her, “how are you not on the team.”

“Never played before today,” Taylor said, shrugging.

“You’re a natural,” the girl said excitedly.

“I can barely keep the ball when I run,” Taylor deflected. She really was having trouble both moving and keeping the ball with her. It seemed to want to bounce in all directions except where she was going.

“You’re doing better than you have any right to for a first try” Erica said dismissing the issues completely, “How did you know how to drive like that?”

“Drive? What?” Taylor blinked dumbly for a few moments, “We’re not in cars.”

“How you run-“ Erica’s voice tinged with frustration before she was interrupted.

“GIRLS! If we could have our two best players back!”

The other team had taken their distraction as a chance to score.

“After class,” the second tallest girl on the court growled before running over to the ball.

From there, both games were mostly repeats of the same sequence. Taylor got the ball and took it as far down the court as she could before throwing it at someone. Or she blocked someone from throwing it at something. She even tried to score a few times, without success.

When the hour was almost over, a whistle blew from the other side of the gym. Mr Hammond stood up on his stool and cupped his hands together for more sound before yelling, “all right everyone time's up, gather up the gear and hit the showers.”

There was less basketball gear so Taylor thought she’d probably make it to the showers fairly early. When handing in her pinny however Erica and two other girls also on the basketball team blocked her path, stopping her from getting to the changing rooms.

“We’re having a talk, Hebert,” Erica said with a smile. The two girls flanking her tried to loom intimidatingly. It didn’t work, it might on almost any of the other girls in the class. Erica was the tallest of the three and was still about three inches shorter than Taylor.

“About what?”

“Your inexplicable skill at basketball,” Erica said taking a forceful step forward, “you’ve never played before today yet you were amazing today.”

“I haven’t,” Taylor said scratching the back of her head, “we didn’t have a court at my middle school. I’ve played soccer?”

“So that’s how you knew how to get around people,” Erica mumbled to herself.

“Sure.”

Taylor did not want to bring up the martial arts training she had gotten from her dad. People got weird about it.

“You’re joining the basketball team,” Erica stated flatly. Like it was an accepted fact and no one had a choice in the matter.

“Tryouts were months ago,” Taylor countered with a frown, “it’s almost June. We’ve only got like a month of school left.”

“So join it next year,” one of the girls behind Erica said.

“If you think you’ve had it bad this year imagine what it will be like when the whole sports side of the school starts pressuring,” Erica smiled cruelly, “imagine on top of whatever Emma and little Maddison do to you you get beaten every week.”

Taylor’s eyes narrowed, “you’ve forgotten Hess. She is actually the most active member of the three of them.”

“But she never does anything to you…”

“Oh but she tries,” Taylor said, straightening to her full height and looming over the girls, “she hasn’t landed a hit on me yet but oh does she try.”

“You’d… you wouldn’t be able to pull that off, not with the whole team-”

“If there were more of them I just might have to start fighting back,” Taylor was not smiling but her wide mouth showed off an impressive number of teeth. She wasn’t quite sure what style her father had taught her but she did know that it leaned towards brutal takedowns, “I wouldn’t have a choice but to take them out of the fight completely. Would they really want to lose so many people to be out of games due to injury.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“No, only saying I will rise to your escalation Erica,” with that she walked around the rather stunned girls and headed to the changing room.

---

Winslow didn’t offer an AP English course. Or any AP courses for that matter. Taylor would have preferred to be in one. Or at least one with Emma who could provide a reasonable debate behind all the cattiness she had shown towards her since the summer.

Before her death, Annette Hebert had been a literature and sociology professor. Focusing on the culturally important stories of the people around the world she of course taught her daughter Shakespeare. With a bit of a twist in that they talked about how the stories treated the various people in it. Her mom had loved using stories to teach her things like feminism and how to spot racism.

Mr. Polson had had them working through Romeo and Juliet. It wasn’t going well for him. Or for Taylor. No one else had been introduced to the actual story before. They had been having trouble reconciling the pop culture version of the story with the reality.

Maddison was one of the worst offenders. Having a lot of trouble with the idea that her favourite story could be considered a tragedy. Until of course bad things started happening.

She tended to take this out on Taylor whenever she could. With the delay leaving gym class she’d had plenty of time to set something up. Taylor entered the room carefully. The door was an unlikely location but one that had been used before. Maddison didn’t care to only target Taylor, she would go after others as well.

The door was safe but her desk, which was the only one left available, was not. Taylor was surprised the chair was still standing. Someone had taken a knife to it and carved it to the point where every surface was sharp. For once this wasn’t something Taylor could blame Maddison for, she wouldn’t do something this blatant. She was just unlucky enough to be last.

She could only stand there looking at the chair. Her bag held tight to her side. She had double checked the contents after she left the gym. She didn’t want Maddison and her cronies to try and grab her homework then and there. She was lucky they didn’t take the opportunity while Taylor was on the court. She could normally keep a better eye on it.

She had to keep her bag on her at all times. Otherwise she wouldn’t be able to get her work in. No one ever claimed her homework as theirs, she started using ILA letterhead after it was stolen the first time. That didn’t stop whoever it was from breaking into her locker and taking the work to dump it somewhere though.

Mr. Polson walked in and without any preamble or even looking up from his papers he asked, “how many of you did the required reading.”

Taylor raised her hand. Even if he wasn’t looking and she was standing. It was just a habit at this point. The reading they just had covered the finale of the play. They were probably going to be discussing the deaths of Romeo and Juliet today.

“Miss Hebert please sit down-”

“I’d rather not sir, the chair has been mutilated.”

“Hmm?” He walked over to where she was standing, “so it has. Well, lean against the wall so you don’t block everyone’s view.”

Making her way over to the side she leaned against the wall like she was asked. It made her a bit less vulnerable since there was no one behind her. But there was the issue that anyone could direct things at her now.

The discussion went about how she expected. Maddison was devastated that true love meant both of the characters died instead of conquering all and letting them live. Julie and Julia were both annoyed at their parents for naming them after a girl who killed herself. Mr. Polson had to explain several times that ‘yes, really, that is how the story goes.’

Then he called on Taylor, “your thoughts miss Hebert?”

“Well it’s not really a love story is it?”

“What makes you say that?”

“They barely knew each other,” she replied, rolling her eyes, “Romeo was smitten with another girl until he saw her, they only have a handful of conversations, I would challenge anyone in this room to say what Romeo likes about Juliet beyond her being pretty. And they’re thirteen, or Juliet is at least. We’re barely older than that and we consider their actions ridiculous and extreme.”

“Oh and what do you think the story is about if not love.”

“If it were written in modern day I’d say it was a story about Heartbreaker messing with people for fun.”

Several people gasped and looked around. As if just by saying his name I could call forth one of the most feared masters on the entire continent. I had less to worry about from him. He only went after pretty women.

“So in your opinion Romeo and Juliet is closer to A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream than Merchant of Venice? A more supernatural tale rather than a wholly mundane one?” Mr. Polson asked thoughtfully.

“Even the poison that Juliet takes to appear dead seems a bit supernatural,” Taylor said, nodding.

“Interesting thoughts,” Mr. Polson said smiling, “I’d like everyone to consider all of the thoughts shared today when you write your essays for Romeo and Juliet over the weekend.”

His proclamation was met with several groans as people remembered they had to write essays.

“Don’t be like that,” he laughed at the students, “we’ve been doing these since January, one Essay per play, one play per month. It’s not that bad. I’ll expect them on my desk by Thursday next week.”

Taylor raised her hand, it took only moments for Mr. Polson to call on her. Possibly because she was standing, “Sir, for those who want to read ahead, which play are we reading next month?”

“Good question and good news,” he said, clapping his hands together to get as much attention as possible, “next month is May, the last full month that we have for school and the last play we’ll be going over. Isn’t that exciting? We were talking about how some plays take on more explicit supernatural elements before. Well we’ll be reading one of them. Next month we will be reading The Tempest.”

---

An hour felt like too long for lunch to Taylor. There was no way that it made sense for it to be that long. It was essentially an extra class. One where there was unrestricted access to the entire school population. A population that Emma was slowly working on wrapping around her finger.

Which meant that at any time she could be spotted and her position could be reported to Emma, Sophia, or Maddison. Whereupon they would descend on her with some new attack.

She had learned earlier that term that she needed to bring lunch with her. The cafeteria was a trap. It looked big and open but if she was forced to go there then they only had to watch two entrances. Avoiding it was her best course of action. She’d noticed some other bullied kids doing the same. It wasn’t a safe place so they’d bypass it. Passing the door with one of them they gave each other discreet nods before continuing down the hall.

The other bullied kid, she didn’t know his name, pulled out a sandwich and started eating on the go. Taylor hesitated. She was still working out whether it was better to eat in a static hidden location or stay on the move. They both had benefits, staying in one hidden location meant she was harder to find but was screwed if anyone spotted her without her noticing. On the other hand moving made her easier to spot but harder for the trio to target if she was spotted.

The decision was made for her when Sophia appeared at the end of the hall. Her dark skin and clothes meaning she blended into the shadows caused by the broken lights littered around the school. Stepping forward her hip length ruler straight black hair swayed like the grass on a savannah revealing the danger that was Sophia. Her face was thunderous with rage and her coal black eyes were filled with hate.

Glancing to the side Taylor noted her companion had taken the smart option and fled. The single moment of distraction was enough for Sophia to halve the distance between them.

Taylor was already backing away when the first wild swing came at her. It was a hook coming at her face. Taylor took advantage of the athletic girl’s momentum and pushed it faster so it passed by where her face was. Sophia’s lips drew back in a snarl at the miss. The next three punches not even requiring intervention didn’t improve her already rage filled attitude.

Taylor felt the small bump of the wall against her back. She was backed into a corner.

Sophia smirked as she threw her next punch. A straight.

It seemed that Sophia had forgotten their first encounter at the beginning of the school year.

Taylor easily slid out of the way as Sophia’s fist blurred towards the wall.

Then was surprised as Sophia’s other hand shot out to grab her shirt.

This was further than Sophia had ever gotten in a fight. But no further attack came. Instead she was pulled closer to Sophia.

“You think you’re real tough don’t you,” Sophia hissed into Taylor’s ear, “a real big shot now that you’ve sent Artie packing. But you’re still prey, no matter what Emma says. You. Are. Weak.”

With that Sophia tried to take another punch. With Taylor held in place it probably should have hit. Her fist didn’t make it very far however. Instead Taylor’s arm wrapped around it, halting its momentum. Then she dropped her bag so she could put Sophia’s wrist in a similar hold as Artie’s was in this morning.

With the grip on her shirt gone Taylor rose to her full height. She was more than half a head taller than the athletic girl. She let go of the first arm to put her hand on the shorter girl’s shoulder and pushed her away.

Looking the black girl right in the eyes she quoted the one line of philosophy she knew from her father, “‘To win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the peak of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the peak of skill.’”

Chapter Text

Sophia was oddly quiet entering world issues. Not that she was the most active in the class. She didn’t seem to care much about the area beyond Brockton Bay. Though perhaps with the topic they were going over today maybe it was just politics and culture she didn’t care to learn about.

Emma just smiled at Taylor on her way in. Not smirked, smiled. Something was different. She wasn’t planning on something for once. She was on the other side of the room next to the oddly quiet Sophia.

Before Taylor could focus on figuring out what Emma was planning or not planning, the teacher, Mrs. Tenaway came in.

Mrs. Tenaway was retiring this year. She had been working in the school district longer than Winslow had been a school and had been working at Winslow for the past decade. Rumour was that it was a way to try to force her to retire. That it took so long was a testament to the small hispanic woman’s tenacity.

“So the three significant criminal gangs in the city are the Anz Bad Boys, the Empire Eighty Eight, and the Marche,” Mrs. Tenaway said cheerfully while writing their names up on the board and drawing big dividing lines between them. She added a fourth section which said "independents, “we’ll go through them alphabetically. Can anyone name a cape from the ABB?”

Several people called out “Lung.”

“Yes Lung,” she said as she wrote out the name on the board, “can anyone tell me anything about him?”

Raising her hand Taylor waited a moment for permission before saying, “He’s big into community projects.”

“Yes he does work on his image but I was actually thinking about his powers,” the teacher replied, putting the note up anyway.

“He turns into a big rage dragon,” a boy wearing a black and white bandana said.

“Yes, that is his main power,” the teacher said, just putting the words ‘changer: dragon’ on the board. Taylor wondered for a moment why they didn’t include the fact he turned into a western dragon. That was odd for a man who was half Japanese and half Chinese would turn into a European dragon. Then she remembered that it was likely considered the default in most households in America; the western form was considered the standard, “anything else.”

“He controls fire,” a different boy said hesitantly.

“Does he?” A girl started before Mrs. Tenaway could put the detail on the board, “He only ever seems to create it.”

“Let’s just put fire down,” the old teacher said before it devolved into yelling and arguments.

“Even in his human form he’s tough,” one of the asian students in the classroom said. He wasn’t wearing green and red but was sitting near a few who were, “and strong.”

“Yes good, anything else,” the teacher waited a moment. No one responded until Taylor raised her hand again, “yes miss Hebert?”

“I don’t know if it is relevant but he’s missing an arm,” she said. Several of the asian students in the room hissed at her nonchalance. Even the ones avoiding the gang members. People generally didn’t mention the missing arm.

“He is, isn’t he? Everyone who knows how he lost it is sworn to secrecy. Unless someone in this room was around the docks seven years ago and saw something,” the teacher fished, everyone here lived near the docks. Her question went unanswered though, “nothing? Too bad, soon the students will be too young to have remembered something. Alright let’s move onto the other cape in the ABB. Who can name them?”

“Oni Lee,” a boy said, rubbing a scar on his arm. Possibly a wound from the very cape he mentioned. He was lucky to have survived if true. The cape’s reputation as an assassin was ill earned because his violence was rarely so discreet or so targeted.

“Yes and what do we know about him?” the teacher said, adding his name to the board.

“He’s a really slow teleporter?” Someone asked more than stated. Which was accurate.

“How so?”

“He can teleport but the body doesn’t leave the start point until he’s already arrived at the other location,” the same voice replied. Not an inaccurate description. Though Taylor felt the internet theory of it being duplication as well as teleportation was more plausible, considering both versions of him could act independently. That and the grenades still existed.

“Good, good,” Mrs. Tenaway said as she wrote teleportation up on the board, “we don’t care about how that works in this class. We’ll leave that to senior year when parahuman sciences is offered… if you can get into a better school.”

“Do his knives count?” One of the more eager students said to get away from the depressing tangent.

“Absolutely his weapons count.” Mrs. Tenaway bounced back, “this is about how he is a threat to you. How else is he a threat?”

“The grenades,” Taylor added.

“Correct,” she said, adding it to the board before turning around and eyeing the students wearing red and green, “are there any other capes in the ABB?”

“Not that we know of ma’am,” came the nervous reply after a moment.

“Hmmmmm, we’ll move on then,” she said walking over to the E88 section, “there are enough capes here so we’ll only list them off.”

“Kaiser.” The leader of the neo-nazi group. His power allowed him to make metal and specifically blades out of nothing. Though they did have to be attached to a surface.

“The head of the snake is a good start,” she said, only adding ‘blades’ beneath the name.

“Hookwolf.” Another metal based villain within the E88. He could produce swords and blades from his body. He made enough that he turned into something more animal than man.

He ran fighting rings all around the city. All kinds of fighting rings. Dog fighting. Cock fighting. Illegal MMA pit fighting. There were even rumours that he had a secret gladiator style fighting arena where he pitted his fighters — or prisoners depending on the rumour — against animals like attack dogs and whatever he can bring in from further inland.

He was known to have gained his powers in one of those fighting arenas. Then he took over every fighting ring in the city, running his own gang. No one quite knows why he joined the E88 but the most popular theory was that he only joined because All Father, Kaiser’s predecessor, beat him in a fight in his own arena. That wasn’t to say that he wasn’t a neo-nazi, even if he wasn’t before he was one now.

“Unsurprising that he's the next one,” she said, adding ‘changer=metal wolf,’ “keep them coming.”

“Purity?” A strange case of a nazi claiming to be a hero. One of the fastest fliers in the bay area and the second most powerful blaster on the East coast. Considering the top of that mountain was Legend, the most powerful blaster in the world.

“Good, she says she’s left but still does basically the same stuff,” her name added to the board but instead of adding it to the ‘Empire’ section she added it to the ‘Independents’ section. Mrs. Tenaway was right about Purity’s aspirations as a hero. She spent most of the time attacking non-white people who ‘looked suspicious.’ Including at one point Taylor and her dad because ‘he looked too Asian to have her as a daughter.’

“Fenja and Menja.” The twin bodyguards of Kaiser. Possibly more if their posture around him was anything to go by. They had identical powers, which was supposedly impossible. They could both turn into giant versions of themselves. Taylor wondered about they’re mental state, purposely naming themselves after a pair of giants that were enslaved twice.

“The giant twins, why am I unsurprised that all the supermodels came up early,” Mrs. Tenaway said laughing a little and more after the boys in the class started blushing.

“Victor.” The person who was largely considered the most devastating villain to face by normal people. Other capes just killed you. Victor stole your abilities. Whatever you were best at was lost to you and gained by him. He spoke dozens of languages, was one of the most effective sharpshooters in the world, and the best martial artist in the city. The longer a fight with him went on the more of yourself you would lose.

“The most mundane villain” she said, writing his name at the bottom of the list with room above it for the others, “Yet one of the most dangerous.”

“Stormtiger.” He was one of the few surviving lieutenants from Hookwolf’s old gang, he had a lot of martial arts design left over in his costume from that time. Unlike Hookwolf he didn’t transform into an animal. He just made claws and blades out of air. Apparently ‘Asian culture is only cool when we do it.’ Taylor and the other asian students had another name for him, stormweasel, which was the most common wind blade making creature in Asian myths.

“Cricket.” The other of Hookwolf’s surviving lieutenants. She had even more martial arts accoutrements. Going beyond just wearing an asian looking outfit she also used a pair of kama. They didn’t even really synergize with her power in Taylor’s mind. Not that many things synergized with super jumping.

“Fog.” Taylor’s eyebrows rose at the name, she hadn’t heard of that particular cape. She was surprised that anyone would take such a generic name.

“Sorry he’s dead,” Mrs. Tenaway said, “good on you for having heard of him. It was years ago. Another incident at the docks.”

“Rune.” Taylor remembered hearing something about her. The school was being searched for a freshman girl because of a new cape. The only thing on the board for her was ‘telekinetic’ so she didn’t even have a good grasp of the cape’s power. At least the others were more descriptive.

“Crusader.” It took Taylor a moment to remember but once Mrs. Tenaway put ‘ghost summoner’ on the board it clicked. This was the guy who wore knight like armour and made ethereal duplicates of himself.

“Krieg.” Taylor was even more out of the loop for this one. The power was listed as telekinetic again so maybe he was related to Rune. He was also listed as second in command, which was odd. You’d think the second in command would have more presence than that.

“Alabaster.” They were really scraping the bottom of the barrel now. Taylor hadn’t heard of two in a row. Apparently he was a regenerator.

“Othala.” That was a name she had heard before. Another young cape, perhaps a year or two older than the students in the class. She was a high priority target because she was one of the villainous healers. Though nowhere near as good as Heiress. She apparently had more power though since she was listed as a ‘power granter.’

“Yes I think that is all of them,” she said looking at the list of capes, “Did I miss anyone? No? Good, there are more than enough nazis in town. The Marche has few enough capes that we can go over powers again.”

“Marquis,” a girl near the back of the room said. Bringing up another cape known for community projects. There were a surprising number of villains rather invested in making Brockton Bay a better place to live.

“Yes, the leader of the Marche, what do we know about him?” Mrs. Tenaway said adding his name to the board directly under the name of the gang.

“He can produce bones from his body,” one of the kids showing E88 colours said.

“A bit poorly described but yes he can grow his bones out of his body,” the teacher said creating a bullet point for it, “anything else?”

“The bones are stronger and more durable than normal bones and he is creating more than his body mass in bones,” Emma said, her voice and poise drawing every eye in the room to her.

“Surprisingly insightful Miss Barnes,” she said, “good to note that even if they grow out of him they aren’t his bones. Or aren’t just his bones. Does anyone have something more?”

“He heals,” another girl added, before clarifying, “not like heiress can heal others but he has regeneration.”

“Oh! That's not something that comes up much anymore, good work. Any new leads on his powers showing up in the news?” Mrs. Tenaway asked looking over the room, “No? Okay, who else is in the gang?”

“Chauffeur,” a boy said to the snickers of his neighbours.

“Why is it that boys can recite all of the ‘attractive’ female capes off the top of their head,” Mrs. Tenaway said adding the name, “why I bet the only reason that it took so long to get to Rune and Othala was how I embarrassed you with the supermodel comment. What can you tell me about Chauffeur, other than the size of her chest, boys.”

“She’s a tinker,” one of the now red faced boys said.

“Correct,” the teacher added the word of the board adding bullet points below it, “and what does she make?”

“Big vehicles,” another boy said more nervously.

“Anything else?” She asked, looking around the silent classroom tapping on the board with her chalk, “No? No mention of how she makes upgrades like cloaking devices, net launchers, etc or how she works on regular cars? Well if that’s it we’ll move on, who is the last villain in this gang?”

“Heiress,” the name was said barely above a whisper. Her name sending shivers down people’s spines. For all the reasonable facade the Marche put forward and even the friendly face that Heiress presented, the gang still had the scariest capes in the city.

“That’s right,” the teacher added the name to the board as cheerfully as the rest of them, “Does anyone remember her power.”

“She’s a healer,” a girl who Taylor knew had been missing half her face and the use of an arm before Christmas break said reverently, “She’s the strongest healer in the states, maybe the world.”

“Exactly correct,” the teacher said, putting ‘heals with a touch on the board,’ “What else?”

“She can kill with a touch,” one boy said, shivering as Mrs. Tenaway added ‘striker 10’ to the board directly below the first bullet point.

“Anything else?”

“She can do more than heal but no one knows how much,” Emma added. The disinterest belied by the accuracy of her information. Taylor could tell that she had looked into Heiress at some point, she didn’t know when or why but she had. It must have been since she had gone to summer camp. Even after almost a year of torment Emma couldn’t hide things from her.

“Good, good,” the teacher said, putting the words ‘beyond healing’ and adding bullet points below it, “What can she do more than healing.”

“She offers elective surgeries.”

“Good. What kind.”

Taylor tuned out slightly as the other students started chattering about the type of surgeries that were offered by the Marche. She was more focused on Emma. Why had she looked into Heiress? She was too proud of her body to ask for any of the alterations that people were talking about. Did Emma somehow owe a debt to the Marche and was looking into them to find a way out of it? Had she been hurt and wanted their help in some way? Taylor would have noticed if her best friend had had a life threatening experience wouldn’t she?

“I think that’s a good list,” Mrs. Tenaway said, drawing Taylor’s attention back, “she even gets around the NEPA-5 by charging people through the roof as if they were getting a regular surgery. We’ll be going over precisely how the NEPA-5 act affects parahuman business later next month. Now, any final uses of her powers before we move on?”

“She makes super soldiers, and not just temporary ones” Emma said, completely derailing all of the theories that Taylor had thought of up ’til then, “She can turn a regular person into a brute.”

“And that’s under the rating system not making them impolite,” Mrs. Tenaway joked adding ‘makes people brute 2’ to the board. This started another flurry of discussion as people started calling out the various powers they had seen manifested among Marche members.

When the discussion started winding down Mrs. Tenaway drew the attention back to the board. Tapping on the last section, “do we have any more ‘independent’ villains.”

“Shadow Stalker,” a guy with a black and white ascot called out. Causing large distressed reactions from both Emma and Sophia for some reason.

“I’ll put her up for her violence but she does present herself as a Vigilante,” she said adding the name under Purity, “She is also much better about targeting criminals.”

Taylor hadn’t heard much about the dark vigilante. No one even had a decent picture of them. There was some insistence among those who had seen them that the cape was a girl but Taylor had yet to see a picture that was clear enough to determine the hero's body type. Let alone gender.

Why would Emma and Sophia, and only Emma and Sophia, have such a strong reaction to the vigilante coming up. They had a reputation for brutality even as they saved people. Were they attacked by the mysterious vigilante? Or saved by them?

“Faultline? Actually aren’t the Palanquin an entire villain group,” one of the boys, Freddy, asked. He was known for going to parties so it made sense that he brought up the club which existed on the edge of town.

The Palanquin was a club run by mostly open capes. Admittedly most of them didn’t have a choice but to be open. Newter and Gregor the Snail were ‘monster capes,’ more politely called Case 53s based on the case number under the PRT Anomalous Cape Identification system. Faultline herself was a regular human who led the group, though she might just be the face who interacted with clients. The final member was an unnamed sentient cloud of darkness that acted as a bouncer.

Newter was a lizard person with technicolour scales. He was mainly orange but had shades of green and purple as well. He had a long tail and not quite human shoulders or hips. All of his clothes had to be customized for him to wear them. The most she had seen of powers other than that was him sticking to walls the one time she had seen him.

Gregor the Snail was a giant of a man who resembled more of a slug than a snail. He had translucent skin. Or he did in theory. Taylor hadn’t seen his skin beneath the vast amounts of mucus he produced. The snail part came from the hardened layer on the outer edges. He could produce different types of mucus, Taylor didn’t know much more than slippery or sticky but he could possibly make acids or something.

Taylor had met him once. Her dad brought her to the Palanquin because he had a business meeting and thought that meeting some Case 53s would be good for her development. Making sure that she didn’t start viewing them as monsters. Gregor was seen as the safer person to meet rather than Newter despite him being closer in age.

Faultline as the ‘normal’ member was the face of the group. She wore a mask but finding out her real name was Melanie Fitts took a look into who owned the Palanquin. It was a matter of public record.

“That is a good point but we are looking at local threats,” Mrs. Tenaway said, “and Faultline refuses to take jobs that happen in the Bay. She’s even threatened to move away from Brockton if anyone forces her hand into dealing with the town.”

“So she’s not a villain?”

“No she is a villain, just not one who is a local threat even if she is local. Other independent villains I can add to the board?”

“Isn’t there that big guy? The pile?” One person asked more than said, “it hangs around some areas and attacks? People?”

“Oh, I haven’t come across him before,” Mrs. Tenaway added the name, including the question mark. “Does anyone have more information on this new villain?”

“Not much, he’s just a pile of garbage that attacks people for money.”

“Hmm. Alright, any other villains?”

“Uh, according to the news Hellhound is migrating in this direction,” a girl said.

“Who is Hellhound?”

“Some young villain that has dog powers,” the same girl, said, “she killed her mom or something.”

“Does not sound like a happy household,” Mrs. Tenaway said, adding the name ‘Hellhound’ to the list with ‘dog powers?’ beneath it.

“Circus is still around right?”

“Yes as far as I know Circus is still out and about,” the teacher said, “what do we know about her.”

“She has fire powers, not like Lung but she does make fire.”

“She can store things in a dimensional pocket or something.”

“Good good, she has a number of powers. Those are the most we have confirmed. Are there any other independent villains we don’t have up here?”

With the silence in response Mrs. Tenaway made a dotted lower line across the bottom of all of the gang sections. Though there wasn’t much room beneath the sheer number of E88 capes.

“So we’ve gone over all the super villains of the area and even a few would be heroes,” the teacher said drawing more lines on the board separating the capes from a blank space where she wrote members, “Now we’re going to look at what the mundane criminals look like as well. Does anyone know what the ABB look like beyond Lung and Oni Lee?”

“Any c**** you see.” One voice came.

“OI!” Both Taylor and Erica yelled in indignation, then Erica continued with, “By that metric we could say any white boy is a member of the E88.”

Mrs. Tenaway sighed dejectedly at the boy before saying, “you are correct Mr. Tomson, the gang is heavily racial and associated with the East Asian peoples. Any better signifiers?”

“The actual way to tell an active member apart from the crowd is their penchant for wearing red and green,” Taylor growled at the laughing neo-nazi gang bangers, “Much like the Empire 88, a criminal white supremacist group, wearing black and white bandanas.”

“Good good, thank you Taylor,” Mrs. Tenaway said, adding the ‘colours’ Taylor mentioned to both groups as well as purple and gold to the Marche, “anything else?”

“Both of those gangs use tattoos,” one boy brought up, “the ABB has a bunch of hold overs from the Yakuza refugees who originally formed them and the E88 have co-opted norse symbology and the swastika.”

“Right again, good ways to tell.” Mrs. Tenaway said, “not perfect in general but if you know the types of tattoos they wear it is a good way to know who to avoid.”

“What about the Marche? They don’t have ‘cultural’ tattoos.”

“Heiress does cater to a certain clientele,” a boy said with a small amount of nervousness, “one who wants a rather different body than they were born with. If they can’t pay, those people often join the gang for a time to pay off the debt.”

“To be clear you’re talking about the people with animal parts and other augmentations, not trans people right?” A girl asked before Mrs. Tenaway could add anything to the board.

“Let’s just put it down as super soldiers,” the elderly teacher said diplomatically before changing the topic, “Now that is most of what we have time for today. There is about ten minutes left in class so this is a good time to remind you to get your permission slips in for the field trip tomorrow.”

“You never told us where we were going, Mrs. Tenaway.”

“Quite right though most of you could find out by asking the older students,” she said as people filtered up to her and handed in one or two papers at a time, “we’ll be taking you out to the Rig.”

The Rig was the old oil Rig out in the bay that had been converted into a headquarters for the local Protectorate. Technically the Protectorate East North East, to go with the Parahuman Response Team East North East. Brockton Bay had always had a massive population of capes meaning it had one of the offices that were assigned names by area of the country they were in charge of rather than just numbers. The heroes here, or at least the leadership, technically had superiority over the heroes in the towns nearby.

The Rig was a nigh unassailable fortress to most villains. It was in the middle of the water so you had to either take a boat out or get them to activate the forcefield bridge that let cars drive to it. Even if you could somehow get over there by boat or flying there were weapons on the outside designed to harry and capture such targets. If they actually saw you as a threat they’d just turn on the forcefield around the Rig itself to stop the attack.

With the slapping of a ruler on her desk Mrs. Tenaway managed to draw everyone’s attention back to her, “thank you. I always go over villains first so we can go over to the Rig for a tour and meet some of the local heroes before we go over them from a political perspective. This is obviously too dangerous to do with villains. We won’t actually be covering the heroes next week but they don’t run their tour schedules by how I want to run my course. Now line up in an orderly fashion to hand in your permission slip.”

---

Science was not a safe class. Emma and Maddison were both in this class. Though Emma had been weirdly nice today Maddison was clearly frustrated at not pranking me. Not that trying to force me onto a damaged chair was much of a prank.

When Taylor entered the room they were both already there. Maddison was whispering with a bunch of her hangers on. Julia and the others there had smirks and they all turned to watch Taylor as she entered. Suddenly and obviously quiet.

Emma sat on the side of the group. Smiling serenely. From the way she was sitting it didn’t seem like she had added much to the conversation. Though Emma didn’t often have to add much. She often just egged them on. Pushed them to go with the worst of the ideas they came up with.

Before Taylor could even sit down Mr. Park arrived and gave her and a few other students an annoyed look for having the audacity to still be standing. He was one of the science teachers at the school, all of whom sacrificed their last block of classes so that the freshmen could be split up as much as possible for the general sciences course.

Yet somehow Emma and Maddison were both in the class with Taylor.

“We’ve been working our way to the more dangerous things we are allowed to do in the classroom all year,” Mr. Park started as soon as everyone was in their seats. Not even waiting for people to pull out notebooks, “now during the last month and a half we will be working on Chemistry. The most dangerous of the areas we cover. Yes, more dangerous than biology where we hand out small knives in a school full of gang kids.”

He waved his hand dismissively at the few hands that started to rise at this statement.

“It is the most dangerous because a mistake here could lead to creating a poisonous gas or explosion,” he said, “yet despite the safety concerns and the fact that some of you might do that on purpose we are required by the school board to teach chemistry here. Those of you thinking about pursuing the science further should look for extra circulars because we do not offer it at any higher year. Any questions.”

Several hands were raised. Which he promptly ignored.

“No? Good,” he started pulling out beakers from beneath the large desk at the front of the room. Arranging them by type while he spoke, “if I were teaching this at a school where we could trust the students I would start you with the math and science behind equations, then we would do some minor experiments based on those. Instead we are going through a week of safety. Anyone who fails will be kicked out before we even touch a chemical more dangerous than water. Any questions.”

More hands were raised, they were as ignored as last time he asked.

“None? Such a smart class you are,” he said pulling a sheaf of paper out of his bag and handing them to the nearest student, “pass these around and when you’ve finished reading it come up here and get the set of instruments in the instructions. Fill them with the amount of water required but no more and I will give you food dye to mix in if you are correct.”

The papers didn’t take long to get around the room. Though somehow managed to get to Taylor last despite her being in the middle of the room. She looked over hers carefully. Though every beaker and test tube on the desk was shown in the description only a few were actually used in the ‘experiment.’ Calling it that was a little grandiose, it was just moving different amounts of coloured liquid around to show they could measure with the tools provided.

Taylor read the instructions carefully one last time before approaching the table. Writing down the actual required glassware at the top of her page before taking it up with her so she could confirm at the actual table.

Going through the instructions carefully Taylor was focused enough on her work that she didn’t notice one of Maddison’s goons approaching her from behind. At least until she tumbled forward dousing everything Taylor had out with water and smashing glass across both the desk and Taylor herself.

Mr. Park was there immediately, “What is going on here!”

“Taylor tripped me and I spilled everything all over her desk,” the flunkey — Ashley? — said from the floor.

“That’s bull Ashley, it is Ashley right,” at the girl’s nod Taylor continued, “tripped from behind me. I didn’t even know anyone was there.”

“Well considering it is a ‘he said, she said’ situation I have to blame you both,” Mr. Park said, “get out the both of you. You’ll have to redo the entire safe mixing experiment at the start of next class,” then louder to the rest of class, “that is Monday afternoon, next class is Monday. No class tomorrow because of the field trip.”

After a few moments of inaction he turned back to the pair.

“Well what are you doing? Off to the nurses office both of you,” he shouted at them, “and be glad it was water instead of anything more dangerous or both of you could have been disfigured.”

---

Being kicked out of class was actually something of a boon for Taylor. Once the Nurse had made sure she didn’t have any cuts it was easy to head out to where she could catch the bus without interference. This also let her catch an earlier one so she didn’t have to face any of the trio’s lackeys on the ride home.

Chapter Text

Dark and stormy nights were the norm for Taylor’s dreams. She was used to the raging storm of the night her father fought Lung. The beating of the rain on her skin felt more real than the waking world.

This was different however. She wasn’t a little girl. So she must be awake. Why was she out here? She didn’t remember walking out to the docks. Her dad’s work was nearby, so she was probably going to visit him.

Walking to his office, she instead found herself on the pier. That was fine. Even at night in the pouring rain, the pier provided a beautiful view of the bay. The waves broke beneath her as the storm got worse, the wind growing stronger. She was soaked to the bone, but was content to stand there, leaning against the railing.

Looking up, she saw that the clouds were blue. Roiling and thunderous lightning streaked between them, but somehow in the darkness of the night, the clouds were a deep, clear blue. Not even a navy blue where you couldn’t tell the colour from black, but something like sky blue, but dark.

The waters below, however, were black. Impenetrably so. Even the foam of the cresting waves was black. An unending darkness contrasted by the lighter background of the storm.

As she contemplated the beauty of the darkness of the waves, she heard a song out on the water. A woman on the rocks was singing. Taylor couldn’t make out the words over the howling of the wind, but the melody was beautiful.

Reaching the end of the pier, the woman turned to her. She had beautiful red hair that whipped around her head in the wind. Her face was never covered by the flowing locks, giving Taylor a perfect view of her emerald green eyes and full red lips. She was smiling. Even from this distance, Taylor could see that the woman’s white sundress was soaked through and transparent, somehow both clinging to her and blowing wildly in the wind.

The woman raised a hand and beckoned at someone on the shore. Looking back towards the land, she found it odd. The beach was pure white despite the storm. But no one stood anywhere nearby on the shore. Looking back, the woman was smiling wider still, beckoning. Beckoning to her.

Unable to resist the call, Taylor walked forward. One step. Then a second. But there would be no third. The pier ended, and there was nothing but air between her foot and the water below. Yet still she walked even as she fell. The shock of the water freed her from the beckoning call, and the sensation ended immediately. Then there was nothing.

The loss of sensation didn’t fade, no sound, no cold, no scent or taste. Taylor was surrounded by darkness. Nothing but blackness in every direction. The one sensation she had was touch; she could feel a strange pressure on her skin. The world was trying to crush her as she sank deeper into the darkness.

Was this water? It didn’t feel wet. She could breathe, though it became more and more difficult the further she sank. But only from an increase in pressure, no water met her lungs. A constant increase in pressure as she sank, something was crushing her.

Looking up, she saw shapes. Two eyes defined more by the absence of darkness than any actual shape. A mouth, too wide, too large, all encompassing and full of teeth. But still familiar. Was it her face? Or a caricature of the laughing masses that watched on as Emma and Maddison tried to bully her? Whatever it was, she could not bear to look at it. Turning to face the depths, she saw only darkness.

Still further, she sank.

Beneath her, she could see something. A coil of wires? No, it was bigger than that. A hose? No, much bigger than that. Something coiled around itself like ropes tossed upon the ground. If there were ropes as large around as Taylor was tall.

It was obvious once Taylor was next to it.

A serpent so large it could swallow her whole. The scales looked larger than her hands. Its eyes were closed. There was no movement of the water surrounding them for its breath. But somehow Taylor didn’t think it was dead.

Reaching out to touch it, Taylor found herself somewhere else. The living room. She could see the same snake, though it was much smaller and less coiled. It was the polearm that she had seen her father use during the storm. Her grasping hand wrapped around the handle.

A shock was sent up her arm. PAIN. Like liquid fire flowing through her hand into her arm. Trying to let go she found the coils of the dragon had wrapped around her hand. The eyes still closed as they were when a single one was larger than her.

Clawing at the coils fruitlessly with her spare hand seemed to wake the serpent. Slowly, almost lazily, the one eye that Taylor could see opened. In the process, growing larger and larger until it was once again as large as Taylor was tall. Then the dragon opened its mouth, releasing her arm, which had been in its mouth. It was a mangled, bloody mess of teeth marks and melted flesh.

YOU ARE NO DRAGON

---

---

Taylor sat bolt upright, grasping her arm to make sure it was still there and not devoured as it was in the dream. There wasn’t a mark on it. Well, nothing new, just old scars from when she was a kid. So faded that she didn’t even remember what had caused them.

Her alarm wasn’t going to ring for another half hour, but she may as well get up now. Not like the extra half hour of sleep would help, and it would make it harder for her to get up later.

Heading down for the day much earlier than normal, she noticed that she was up before her father. Looking over at the kitchen, it felt daunting and closed off. No one was there to greet her, even if her father’s glances weren’t much of a greeting.

Entering the kitchen, she pulled out yesterday's rice. They always made extra. It had been cooked in a beef and citrus stock that they had found a recipe for a few years back. She had watched her dad make fried rice often enough that it shouldn’t be too hard. Start by chopping the ingredients: two types of onions, a few chillies, some garlic and ginger. She cracked the eggs — two chicken and two quail, her dad liked trying a wider variety of ingredients than most people — into a bowl and mixed them with chopsticks. She could remember her dad lamenting to her mom about her using a whisk.

With the prep done, she started with some oil in the pan; they didn’t have a proper wok because they didn’t have the right type of stove for it. Once it was nice and hot, she added the dry ingredients, barring the rice. It was hard to tell when it was done enough to add the egg; there was supposed to be some measure but she couldn’t recall, so she added them when it looked ready. Once everything was fully mixed, she poured in the rice, hoping there was enough for the both of them.

Mixing it more, she heard the clink of bottles on the counter. Looking over, she saw her father standing there with a slight smile, “you’re going to want to add some of that before you finish.”

Nodding in thanks, she added the sauces, soy sauce and a sesame oil to the mixture before loading them onto plates. Putting them both on the already set table, she sat down across from her father. He hadn’t pulled out the newspaper yet, so he knew something was different about today as well.

“So this probably isn’t as good as your fried rice but, it felt right to make it,” she started, her father listening intently, “I’ve noticed that my cooking is getting bland and repetitive but, I don’t know enough to experiment or try new recipes. Can you teach me how to cook?”

“If you wish to learn, I see no reason to not teach you,” he said slowly, “but you could learn from books or the internet.”

“I, uh, also wanted to spend more time with you,” Taylor tried to be confident and demanding. Instead, her voice came out as barely a whisper.

“Ah, yes. We never hired a nanny to take care of your social development,” he said as if something obvious just occurred to him, “that burden was on me. Something to remedy. Any other updates?”

“I had a new dream last night,” she replied, watching her father’s face. He had always taken an interest in her dreams since the one about the storm started.

“Oh?” Taylor saw a twinkle in his eyes that she hadn’t seen since her mom passed away, “Perhaps spending time with a boy?”

“DAD!” Taylor shouted, absolutely scandalized, ”I’m not having dreams about any boys!”

“Alright, a girl then,” he countered, “I’m not one of those idiots who discriminates.”

“NO!” Taylor’s voice cracked a bit as her face flushed even more, ”I wouldn’t tell you about those kinds of dreams, you weirdo.”

“Then how will I know who to give the ‘shovel talk’ to?”

“Daaaad,” she whined in response, regretting it as soon as the twinkle of mischief slowly faded from his features back to the expressionless facade he normally maintained.

“What was your dream about?” His tone bringing them both back to business. Taylor didn’t know what his interest in her dreams was precisely. Just that new dreams were of interest ever since the dreams about the storm started. Perhaps it was habit; from the fact that they all seemed like they should be nightmares.

“I was me, but it was weird,” she said, reaching for the details. They were further from her mind than the regular ones about the storm since she hadn’t had it before. A storm, why did she always dream of storms? A woman, best not to tell her father about that part given their previous conversation. The ocean? Or her interactions with the large snake that did something. Did it eat her? Speak to her? It did something that woke her up. “I think there was a storm at the beginning but… nothing clear. Different than the normal storm, I was by the docks. The end is more clear. Kind of. There was this big snake at the bottom of the ocean, or maybe inside me. It’s vague. I couldn’t touch it, though.”

Her father’s face was completely impassive, but his eyes widened. He opened his mouth to say something. Paused a moment. Then he shook his head, “it was probably nothing.”

“Okay.” What had he stopped himself from saying? She would have interrogated him, but she knew from experience that he wasn’t saying anything. When he decided to keep something from her, it was like clawing through a brick wall with her bare hands. Possible, but not productive.

“Be safe on the field trip,” he said as she gathered up her bag for school. She might be able to catch an earlier bus today.

“Do you want me to go back to school with the rest of them or come by the office?” She asked, his well wishes drawing the trip to the forefront of her mind.

“Probably better to head back to the school,” he said after a moment, “we don’t want any administrative trouble.”

---

Somewhat expectedly, the earlier bus had fewer people. Even then, she had more room than she would normally garner to herself. The students around her had fled as far as they comfortably could. Now she wasn’t just a social pariah, but a violent one that might attack them.

This had happened before. It would take a week or so, then people would forget and calm down. Then something new would happen a few weeks later, and she would be given extra space again. It was cyclic in nature, really.

The bus was empty enough for her to get a seat. One near the back, but it was still a rare luxury on her rides over. Taking advantage of both the isolation and the seat, Taylor spent the ride looking out the window. The buildings were rough and dirty, marred by graffiti, gang signs, and pockmarked bullet holes. Even in this slightly nicer neighbourhood, trash littered the streets, mainly in overfull cans, and bags leaning against dumpsters. Other forms of trash walked around the street freely, namely E88 and ABB thugs who were carefully not fighting.

The Marche member she saw yesterday was a true rarity. For this area of the city, at least. They didn’t get in the way of the dispute between the two racially motivated gangs. It would probably be different if she lived in Marche territory, but living here in the disputed area between the two territories made them her favourite gang in the city. Actually, being half white half asian they’d still probably be her favourite. The only one that didn’t want to kill her.

Seeing the school from a distance wasn’t an option she got often, normally just seeing it from the bus stop. Approaching from further back, it looked almost well kept. Slowly dying as the bus approached. First, revealing different dings and dents in the walls. Then, the poor paint job as people had attempted to cover things up. Finally, the little remnants of graffiti that the janitors never managed to quite clean off.

Sighing deeply at the slowly clouding over sky, she walked to the school to wait for the first bell.

---

Getting to gym class was an unexpected relief. Julia had taken offence to actually getting in trouble yesterday. There was a constant pelting of little things in the back of her head. If she made any noise at all, it would have been her that was in trouble.

Even with Julia still in Gym class, it was much easier to avoid her. Taylor just shuffled to the other side of the group.

“Alright, group 3, you’re outside with Mr. Stagson playing baseball,” coach Hammond called out. Taylor let herself be pulled along by the crowd. It wasn’t like she was going to be a major part of the game this time.

“Hey, Hebert’s in this group,” one of the girls said, “she was good yesterday.”

‘No, no, no, no, do not start picking me for sports,’ Taylor thought, as the murmuring spread.

“Yeah, but look at her, of course she’s good at basketball,” one girl said, waving her hand from Taylor’s feet to her head.

Taylor mouthed ‘thank you’ at the girl who was probably trying to bully her.

The teams were left mostly for the girls to decide for themselves. Mr. Stagson was mute or something and never spoke. The most he did was blow whistles and step between people.

After half an hour of miserable gameplay that mainly involved too many people running after the ball, Mr. Stagson blew his whistle. Looking over, he pointed at the gym entrance, indicating they should go back inside.

“Why?”

In lieu of answering the girl, Mr. Stagson pointed at the sky. Clouds were rolling in pretty quickly, but it wasn’t like cloud cover was an issue. Taylor was happy to head in though, less chance for people to single her out. As the horde of girls entered the building, the first few drops of water began to land.

---

English was the last class before the field trip, and it showed. Half the class, the ones going on the field trip, was buzzing with excitement and asking the other half, who had gone last semester, what it would be like.

The words mainly washed over Taylor. Mr. Polson spent most of the class attempting to wrangle them into some semblance of order rather than talking about either of the plays they were reading. Taylor spent what time she was able taking notes on the few relevant points he was able to get out. But the visit to superheroes and local celebrities overshadowed most of the class.

The class ended unceremoniously as half the students rushed out the door with the bell. Completely ignoring the sentence that Mr. Polson was midway through.

Taylor left at a more sedate pace. Heading to the bus. The people rushing were hoping to get a good spot with their friends. Taylor didn’t have much to worry about there.

---

The district’s school buses, they had to borrow some from other schools to fit all the kids, waited for them at the entrance to the school. No assigned buses, no assigned seating, yet somehow everyone contrived a way to make sure that Taylor was on one specific bus. One bus where all the seats appeared to be taken except for one. Sitting there peacefully waiting – staring at Taylor with a hungry look in her eyes – was Emma. A small smile on her lips. She had planned this.

But why? Why did Emma want Taylor to sit next to her? She had spent most of this school year tormenting her, so why was she so eager to sit with her now? She even patted the seat to show it was open as Taylor approached.

Having no other choice, Taylor sat down beside her.

“I heard what you did to Sophia yesterday,” the model said in barely a whisper as the bus started to move. Keeping her voice low enough that no one else would hear it over the conversations they were having with their own partners.

“What, that I put her in an arm bar?”

“No. What you said to her about strength.” Emma stated as if that would make any sense. “You settled a long running debate we have been having. You’ve proven you are strong. She can’t complain about me hanging out with you anymore.”

“What? Was destroying our friendship some kind of sick game to you?” Taylor could feel the rage building deep within her, "just a way to prove you were right in a debate?”

“Not as such, no. Sophia found me at a vulnerable time. Imagine if I wasn’t there for you after your mom died and someone showed up with a philosophy that helped you cope with the loss but also convinced you that you had to cut me out of your life for it to work.” She replied, never losing that strangely serene smile. “after you continued to prove to be stronger than Sophia the philosophy started showing its cracks. I don’t expect that we will ever be friends again, nor that any apology will make up for it, but you broke Sophia completely. She doesn’t understand the concept of mercy. Just those who survive and those who don’t.”

“So what is this? Some attempt at rebuilding?”

“Perhaps later. For now, I am mainly doing what Sophia’s philosophy tells me I should do and buddying up to the strongest person in the area so that I can survive. I want to see how Sophia reacts to it. Knowing that she isn’t the strongest. Losing a friend. Before I try to make it up to you, I want to see how Sophia would react to what we put you through,” Emma told her, “though I imagine that I won’t be able to turn her into a pariah nor that you would approve of such an action. You always were so noble.”

The buses took a leisurely pace to the docks. Breaking past the buildings onto a waterfront road brought the Rig into view. It was a common sight in Brockton Bay, but the fact they were visiting it brought it to a new light. Taylor hadn’t been looking out the windows, but she glanced at them when the waterfront came into view. Her hand on the seat next to Emma.

Emma put her hand on Taylor's, sending warmth up her arm. Then pulled, yanking Taylor almost onto her back so that she would have a better view. Looking down, she saw that Emma had snuck her right hand behind her back and put it on Taylor’s. She was now trapped with the model leaning against her. It was better to look out the window than contemplate that, or the different parts of her body that were heating up from it.

Beyond the grey waters of the bay, and back dropped by the grey rainy skies, was The Rig. The once abandoned oil rig could now literally float above the bay. The mobile fortress had anti-grav engines where the pillars used to be. It would fly over the city on occasion, air dropping capes onto active gang fights or known safe houses that the Protectorate were raiding.

The fortress part was rather obvious. Every wall of the oil rig was reinforced with armour. The bottom, when it was visible, had additional armour beyond that. It was also lined with guns and confoam dispensers, along with everything from small turrets to what looked like naval artillery batteries.

Going beyond that was the defensive technology on display. There was a forcefield around the floating fortress. It was invisible most of the time. Only showing up when something impacted it. Taylor had seen it in the rain before. A translucent technicolour sphere around the fortress. Photos of it were definitely used as reference images for the official Protectorate East North East commemorative snowglobes, and all of the knock offs.

Getting to the Rig was also an experience. Even its landing platform had no bridge to get out to it. So a force field or solid light construct was projected from the landing platform to a specific spot in the docks. This spot changed every time they did it, so gangs couldn’t ambush people on their way in.

There was much ooing and ahing as the bus drove onto the bridge. Students crowded the windows so they could see straight down into the water. Taylor was more interested in how the bus driver was able to drive on the barrier, since it was almost entirely transparent, except for where the wheels were making contact. After a minute, she thought better of thinking about it; none of the answers made her feel safe about the trip.

The buses arrived at a loading bay. The Rig was more than just a Protectorate fortress. It was a mobile deployment platform with dozens of PRT vehicles alongside the Protectorate’s. Everything from armoured vehicles, to cruisers, to specialized holding vehicles to contain capes.

The students were met with a legion of PRT troopers to guide them out of the loading bay. All the armed guards seemed excessive, but they seemed to just be there to keep all of the kids from going into restricted areas. This was a superhero base, complete with specialized cape cells after all. The troopers were only armed with containment foam guns. Which, while a little extreme for children, were at least non-lethal.

“Hello, Winslow freshman students,” a peppy voice came from where Taylor could only assume their exit was, “I am Nikki, and I will be your tour guide today.”

The voice belonged to a black woman wearing a bright blue pants suit. She didn’t look like any of the heroes from the city, so she was probably a PRT officer of some kind. Or maybe Protectorate support staff. Taylor wasn’t sure if the Protectorate had non-parahuman support staff, but she wasn’t sure how it was possible if they didn’t. Unless they were so intrinsically tied to the PRT that they shared staff.

“First stop on our tour today is the cafeteria because I have it on good authority that you are all missing lunch for this field trip,” Nikki said with far too much pep. “Right this way, where you’ll get to see exactly what the Protectorate and PRT onsite support staff get to eat every day up close and personal.”

Well, that answered that question.

The cafeteria was weirdly well stocked, and with way more variety and probably better food than the bottom-of-the-barrel stuff that Winslow went for. They had bowtie pasta, two different kinds of beans, chilli, fish stew, mashed potatoes, rice, sloppy joe mix (but no buns), shredded mystery meat that actually looked appetizing, and a salad bar.

Emma, who had until this point stuck close to Taylor, broke off to make a salad while Taylor went for the main courses. She went to what was most familiar to her. Her dad made a lot of rice dishes because of his Chinese heritage, and the chilli would work as a makeshift curry. It was the only thing that wasn’t at the salad bar that seemed to have a lot of vegetables in it.

She also absentmindedly grabbed a second plate with pasta and covered it in the sloppy joe mix for a poor imitation of spaghetti with red sauce. The bow tie pasta was not spaghetti, and the sloppy joe mix was ground beef with ketchup instead of tomato sauce, but it worked.

Sitting down, she found Emma immediately next to her. Handing her a salad, “you never eat healthy unless someone forces you to. Make sure to eat the salad, I got your favourites, but eat all the lettuce, it’s good for you.”

Without missing a beat, Taylor put the plate of pasta and sloppy joe mix in front of Emma saying, “you’ve been starving yourself all year without me to keep you from bad habits. I know it isn’t pasta and tomato sauce, but it’s close enough to your favourite meal to work.”

Emma leaned into Taylor’s side, and for just a few minutes of peaceable silence, it was like nothing had changed. They were the same pair of best friends from a year ago. Looking out for each other in every way that mattered.