Orderly (Worm Semi-SI)

[Obscura]

A "Patron" has decided the Wormverse is rather depressing, and took steps to remedy the situation, by sending in a champion to fix everything. Pity they didn't think to ask for consent, or check to see that their unwilling champion had so much as heard of the Wormverse, but that's what you get when you have infinitely more power than sense. That might explain the oddities with the letter now that I think about it. Or maybe not. That letter is really weird.

Read and enjoy the mandatory reports of poor, unfortunate "Jacqueline Colere", as well as certain observations on the status of various individuals affected by her actions. Or don't. It's your life, and you can do what you want with it. Be free! Do as thou wilt! Do something awesome!

Warning: May contain seriousness

More serious warning: Orderly contains a lot of the same things canon Worm does, including entomophobia-inducing scenes (not nearly as many or as graphic as canon, but still), gangs and a degree of gang violence, a neo-nazi hate group as an antagonistic faction, mentions of drug abuse, and mentions of Endbringers, their attacks, and the aftermaths thereof.

Orderly is significantly happier than Worm, and involves considerably better decision making, but it's still set in the same world, which means there is a lot of bad stuff. There are only a few chapters with really bad stuff, and I think I've got all of those marked off with specific warnings. Even those don't remotely approach canon in terms of disturbing stuff, but there's some. Nothing I think moves past a teen rating (and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong), and nothing beyond a lot of the Worm fic on this site, but this probably isn't a G. If you're looking at Worm fanfiction in the first place, you're probably fine with that, but better safe than sorry.

Orderly has a TvTropes Page

---

Changing universes, gaining a superpower, and merging mind and soul (if that's even what happened) with a homeless orphan was honestly way less dramatic than I was expecting. Or at least the "changing universes, gaining a superpower, and merging mind and soul with a homeless orphan" part was. The rest of the story, not so much.

---

I should probably explain. Let me start at the beginning.

So there I was, minding my own business, when "the Patron" contacted me. Let me tell you, getting an arrow right between the eyes hurts, even if the arrow has no head and a letter wrapped around it. Never did find out how that inconsiderate jerk managed to pull that little stunt off. I wasn't even outside at the time, and none of the windows in that room can open. I think I'd have noticed if the glass broke, the temperature differential was pretty darn big. My best guess is literally "powers are nonsensical". I mean, really, who sends a letter by arrow? Canada Post does a perfectly fine service. Great contributions all round, propping up the order of society and all that. But I digress. The letter is what's important to the story. That ridiculous letter. It apparently followed me here, in multiple copies even (although I can only find one right now), so I'll just copy it over. I doubt anything less would convey the experience.


To: Resident

Greetings!

I am the Patron, and thou hast been chosen!

A certain buggish superheroic story has drawn my attention, and I have concluded that it is rather depressing! Well I, for one, do not intend to stand idly by. In an effort to solve this problem, I have elected to send a representative (you), to make things better. To that end, in three hours time, at precisely twelve noon, I shall grant thee threefold boons. Firstly, thou shalt be joined with a certain individual, an unmentioned figure, one who was destined to perish during the course of events. Secondly, thou shalt receiveth great powers, that thou might stand tall amidst the game of parahumanity, as well as the instinctive knowledge as of how to use it. Thirdly, thou shalt be shielded from certain threats, which might otherwise prevent thine mission. Thine future shalt be occluded to those with the eyes to see, thine mind and soul utterly shielded against outside intrusion, thy aspect immune to unnatural means of information gathering, and thine power sacrosanct.

All of these things will I give you, that thou might, in turn, give unto others. What is required of thou is merely this, that thou aideth as thou seest fit, and that thou sendeth regular reports unto me so that others might know of mine generosity and be inspiredeth. Thus is our agreement, and our AGREEMENT.

Congratulations, and thou art most welcome!

The Patron!


They didn't even bother to pretend to ask for my consent for that "agreement/AGREEMENT". What, exactly, is the difference between a lowercase agreement and an all uppercase AGREEMENT anyways? And, while I am most certainly not a contract lawyer, I am fairly certain that for whatever was going on to be either sort of agreement would require me to actually agree at some point or other. I might not even have said no. I'd have made them do it a lot differently, but the ability I gained is rather impressive, this body does suit me, and I can do a lot of good with both. Inconsiderate little jerk didn't even bother to ask though. Naughty, naughty, whatever-it-is-you-are.

I mean the writing was pretty "off" too, but I'm not about to hold archaism against somebody, even if it is inaccurate. Given certain things in my past that shall not be elaborated upon, that would be the veritable height of hypocrisy. I remain upset about the "not even asking" thing though. And "resident"? I didn't even live in that building.

Seriously, ask first, mysterious arrow-letter sending being. Really glad that binding or whatever it is that you put on me only requires me to write out and send these reports, not blindly dismiss your every misdeed. Meanie. If we ever meet, you just might be getting an inkpot to the face. (Stuck out tongue.)


Three hours full of panic and semi-effective techniques for dealing with panic later, I was sitting relatively calmly on a rather comfortable chair I had acquired from a yard sale some years earlier, when the promised event occurred. I really miss that chair. It was soft, and a pretty colour, and it was shaped just right. It would have been a real bargain at ten times the price the old owner demanded. It was perfect. Then I closed my eyes for a few seconds, and when I was done the eyes I opened again were not the same ones I had closed. And while the new me was sitting, a run-down and poorly constructed high school bathroom's toilet is nowhere near as nice as that chair. Trust me on this.

At least my new body's leggings and skirt were pulled up. And it was wearing leggings and a skirt, which probably meant female-identifying, which certainly beat the main alternative. Gender dysphoria is no joke. I should know. If you are experiencing gender dysphoria, I strongly encourage you to consult a counselor, psychiatrist or LGBTQ+ organization, but luckily I didn't have to this time. Not about that particular issue anyway. Trust me, talking about your issues and actually dealing with them in a responsible manner really helps. Dysphoria or otherwise.


My new body's memories were fuzzy for a minute or so, but I eventually managed to clear them up. Mostly. My new name was Jacqueline Colere, homeless orphan, Newfoundland refugee (Leviathan, an "endbringer", one of the giant horrifying monsters that attacked cities every 3-4 months, had sunk it. The entire landmass. Kaiju movies really don't compare), half african-canadian and trans in Brockton Bay, a city wherein the largest and most powerful parahuman organization were literal Nazis (and wasn't that just wonderful to learn), and somehow a straight-A student. I wondered how even someone as intelligent as both mes (how many people can say that with a straight face?) could possibly pull that off given homelessness, discrimination, trauma and all that wonderful awfulness.

Besides hard work and lots of talent, a large part of the answer to that was that this joint, Winslow High School, wasn't exactly ivy-league junior. If you were halfway intelligent and put in a decent amount of effort, a description that applied to a depressingly small portion of the student body, getting good grades was hardly unattainable.

Literally living in the school made it a lot easier for a homeless kid too. Living inside a high school was really much better than the streets, or one of the many abandoned warehouses Brockton Bay had acquired since it's economy was dealt a deathly series of unhealable wounds decades ago. There was shelter, food (from the cafeteria and/or the vending machines), running water, computers, and a library, not that any of those were of great quality. Winslow really wasn't putting in the effort, and it showed. How does somebody live in a school for months without anyone intervening?


I mean, I/Jacqueline technically had permission, but looking at it with fresh eyes her/my little written permission slip almost certainly wasn't meant for that. It was probably for the occasional late day studying, or the few extracurriculars Winslow offered, even if the wording was loose enough that everything Jacqueline had been doing was technically legal and allowed. Still, someone really should have noticed by now. Yeah, this joint wasn't exactly ivy-league junior.


My consideration of that artful little bit of understatement (if I do say so myself) was interrupted by the sound of tapping, as if of someone gently rapping, rapping at a bathroom stall's door. Probably because someone was, in point of fact, rapping on the door two stalls down. No ravens involved, thank the ways.

The hesitance and fear in the voice that answered surprised me, although given everything it probably shouldn't have.


"Occupied?"


"Oh my god, it's Taylor! Yeah, do it!" sounded a different voice, this one full of perverse glee, followed by the sounds of splashing and spluttering.

That did not sound good, and, no matter how irritated I was with the individual who put me here, I could hardly stand idly by (or sit idly by, as the case may be). Standing up, I made ready to burst out and interrupt whatever scene of petty cruelty was occurring.


...


Tripping over my own feet probably undermined my dramatic entrance a bit, but in my defense I had literally never used those feet before.

 

[Obscura]

If you've never tripped onto the floor of an ill-maintained school bathroom with three schoolyard bullies looking at you like you were the one doing something wrong (lucky you), then I should inform you that the main thing you notice, besides the pain, is the awkwardness. The Talkwardness-Elevator scale would ordinarily rate this situation as a 2.5, maybe a 2.6 if the bullies were particularly good at scathing looks, but the added complications of my particular case (being suddenly in a different body, universe, etc., etc.) and the fact that two of them were standing on toilet seats pouring various drinks on someone I couldn't see would be enough to raise that rating to an impressive 4.2. There are various other minor factors, but those numbers are sufficient for most non-academic purposes.

What, exactly, was I going to say again?


"Stop! In the name of Love!"

That's probably not right. I do say weird things occasionally, so I can't be entirely sure, but even if it was what I was going to say, I probably shouldn't go through with it.


"You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence."

This wasn't the UK, unless the US had rejoined the British Empire in this universe without me noticing, and I hadn't placed them under arrest. I probably couldn't place them under arrest, but I wasn't an expert on citizen's arrest laws even before I wound up in another universe, which presumably had slightly different laws. Or very different laws. One of the two. I wasn't sure if I was a citizen, which didn't help. Old-Jacqueline hadn't been born here, but I couldn't remember if she'd taken the test at some point. Did American citizenship even work that way for minors?


"IA, IA, CTHULHU FHTAGN!"

No.


"Tell me what you want what you really really want"

Even if I could pull off that voice, it didn't actually imply they should stop. It would kind of egg them on, really. No.


"Iiiiii want to know, have you ever seen the rain?"

That doesn't even make sense!


"One cannot help but be curious as to what, exactly, you think you're doing."

Better, but I don't think that was it.


"SANITY IS FOR THE WEAK!!!"

You know what, let's just go with "One cannot help but be curious as to what, exactly, you think you're doing."


I carefully rose to my feet (mentally asserting, unconvincingly, that they were mine), and looked at the girl holding the door shut (for some reason that was possible, unlike in every other public restroom, where the stall doors could open inward. Or maybe she was just stupid and doing something entirely pointless. 50-50, really). She was a conventionally attractive redhead, well dressed and with obvious care devoted to her appearance. My first impression was of a big fish in a small pond, socially speaking, with a deal of popularity and power that had nothing to do with the majority of students liking her as a person and a lot to do with being better-looking and richer than most of them, possibly with a bit of force of personality or social insight thrown in.

That was a better assessment than I could normally come up with, so I made a mental note to check just how much of Jacqueline's skill in various areas carried over.


Our eyes met, and I spoke "One cannot help but be curious as to what, exactly, you think you're doing".

The surprise on her face was worth its weight in gold.

It didn't last forever, unfortunately.

"Blah blah blah weakling, blah blah blah predators and prey, blah blah blah putting into her place, blah blah blah I is strong, blah blah blah" the three bullies explained, malice in their voices.

Okay, that's not really what they said, but I feel it covers the gist of it pretty well.


I also may not have been paying attention.

I had a good reason, I swear! I was trying to see if the girl they had been tormenting was okay! I didn't see any obvious injuries, so maybe? I'm not a doctor or anything. I don't even play one on TV.

The three bullies (I hadn't learned their names) didn't like that, so they surrounded me and tried to loom menacingly. I was wearing lifts for some reason, big ones, and they weren't especially tall, so that didn't work so well. They were saying something about them being predators and "Taylor" being prey, which really didn't make sense even as an analogy. If I recall correctly, English here was taught with the same level of quality as everything else in Winslow High "School", so that might explain it.

I decided to try and dissuade them. Try being the operative word, as it turned out. With firmness of mind and solemnity of manner, I spoke thusly: "That really doesn't make sense. You're not following the laws of nature at all. You aren't harming her because you must if you desire to live, you are tormenting a girl who doesn't seem to have done anything to you to no real purpose. You are undermining the essential trust that forms the very basis..."

That was as far as I got before the athletic looking dark-skinned one punched me in the face. Then she swept my legs, knocking me to the ground before she put a booted foot on my chest.

She was as good at violence as I was bad at dissuasion. Not that "confused and adapting to an entirely different world" is the best emotional state for discussing things. Neither is "knife at your throat", actually, which is where I found myself next, as the redhead slammed the stall door shut in front of the victim. I was sure it was shut before, so I guess she got distracted or something. It did confirm that the door only opened outward for some reason. Normally I'm in favor of doors that open outward, but you weren't likely to get a panicked crowd pressing so hard against a bathroom stall door that opening outward was an important safety feature.


"Stay in your funtime (not actually funtime) place, weakling." Ms. Violence (not her real name(probably)) snarled. While she blustered, I kicked her in the no-no-touch-touch square. No such thing as a fair fight after all. Except when there is, like in boxing or fencing or martial arts or something like that. That wasn't the case here, unless I was missing something big. From the way she didn't move to retaliate as I bounced up, she wasn't expecting me to fight back. Or to be wearing steel-toed boots. I wasn't expecting me to be wearing steel-toed boots, but there they were, all heavy and metallic and rather well taken care of and just recently slammed into a rather violent girl's sensitive parts at surprisingly high speeds. Jacqueline-me was apparently in better shape than me-me.

Violencey McViolenceface (Almost definitely not her real name, but I don't care) shook off her surprise surprisingly quickly, but not quite quickly enough to prevent me shoving her towards the sinks, nor from slipping my steel-shod foot behind her legs. She tripped and fell backwards, slapping me upside the head on the way down, her head smashing into a cracked, yellowing sink. Well, that's what I expected, anyway.


The way that smirking face got all shadowy and went through the sink reminded me that "the Patron" had supposedly sent me here to fix a superhero genre story, which naturally meant superpowers were real here. I also remembered that I supposedly had one, but if I did I had no idea what it was, or how to use it. At least she didn't seem to notice me noticing her ability. Probably thought that slap had my eyes facing the wrong way, and it's not like I showed any reaction on the outside. The whole situation was so out-there that this didn't really change anything for me. Aside from the fact that I was definitely going to lose this little fracas now. I hadn't had much of a chance before, but if she had powers I definitely was gonna get beaten. Probably in more than one way.

---

I don't really want to detail the rest of that "fight". I received a few more punches, got shoved to the ground again, got stomped on a few times and got kicked in the head more than once. It was, to say the least, not the most comfortable experience of my life. More than one way indeed.

They said something before they left, but I honestly can't tell you what it was. This time I was paying attention, but massive pain and head injuries do not for clear understanding make. That's not something you're going to learn in school, unless you are so unfortunate as to attend a Winslow type institute of "learning". Probably best to just take my word for it.

"Are… Are you okay?"

 

[Obscura]

"Are… Are you okay?"

I failed to respond, mostly because I didn't realize she was talking to me. In hindsight it was pretty obvious, but at the time I was not exactly at the top of my game. I blame evolution, for failing to make me invincible. No, wait! I blame Violence-McViolenceface. That's a much better place to put the blame, don't you think?

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, you tried to help me and now you're hurt and it's my fault and you're bleeding and you tried to help and oh god its my fault".


Irrational guilt. I'd never really understood it, despite not being entirely immune to it myself. It always irritated me, though taking that out on her would be most unjust. I needed to alleviate it somehow. Running a quick check seemed the best way to prove I was fine so I sounded one out:

"The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. One, Two, Three, Four, One, Two, Three. Basic Self-Assessment check Alpha-5 complete. All systems nominal. Hi! I'm Jacqueline Colere, what's your name?"

"T-Taylor Hebert"

"Hello Taylor, it's nice to meet you."

I was very careful with my vocabulary and tone with her. It takes not only genuine concern, but also caution and care to get someone to talk about what's wrong. Hesitance, if you can get it right, is actually quite reassuring, and it looked like all my practice was going to pay off.

Things proceeded naturally from there (word to the wise, staying quiet and letting the other person talk is useful in all sorts of situations), and, eventually, I had the whole sordid tale of betrayal, callousness, cruelty, and misuse of feminine hygiene products. That may sound like a "arson, murder, and jaywalking" type of humourous construct, but that last was actually the worst of the bunch. Stiff competition, that.

Rotting, used tampons and pads left to fester in Taylor's locker wasn't actually the worst part, that would be the part where they shoved Taylor in the locker, rotting horrors still present, and left her there. And that was only one of the many indignities and torments put upon the unfortunate girl by Mademoiselles Hess, Clements and Barnes, the last of whom had been Taylor's closest friend until she betrayed her for no apparent reason.

Between that, the quarterly giant monster attacks that had left Jacqueline-me an impoverished refugee with a dead father, literal nazis being the largest super organization around, Jacqueline-me's mother dying as "cape" fight collateral damage, and sundry other horrors I now knew and remembered, I was starting to see why Meanie-McPatronpants described whatever horrible story I had been sent into as "rather depressing".


If this was a story at all, since I only have word-of-patron on that and literally hopping into a story and having it be a whole world was strange even by the high standards of "Earth Bet'" (which apparently is what the natives called it). And Earth Bet had some really high standards for weirdness. And awfulness.


This world was broken, in a way I'd hoped to never see. I'd have to fix that. Pulling it off probably wasn't impossible, or I wouldn't have been sent. Or I'd have been sent with more than what I had, to the point where it was possible. I could fix things! I could make things better! I could, piece by piece, mend the basic fabric of society! And I'd do it, or die trying! Probably the latter, to be honest, but I'd try anyway. I was going on in that vein for quite some time, but eventually something flashed and caught my eye.


That's when I noticed that I was surrounded by ghostly gears, forming a clockwork halo around my upper body. Taylor was just looking at me, so I decided to use a mirror. The mirror was in surprisingly good condition, but that wasn't what caught my attention. My skin shone like polished brass, and my eyes had neither pupil nor iris, only elaborate clock faces, hands, nub, and roman numerals included. A clock could be heard loudly ticking, coming from nowhere and everywhere. And then I noticed that the mirror was not the only thing in surprisingly good condition. The floor was clean, to a degree I suspected it had never been before, and getting cleaner before my eyes. The tiles actually gleamed. The ill-maintained sink Sophia Hess had gone through now looked, if not pristine, at least well-taken-care-of, and the other sinks were mending and unyellowing slowly but with surety. The mirrors shone like they were newly polished. A torn pocket on my skirt mended itself, one copy of a certain letter still inside, though I wouldn't notice that until later. The paint on the walls of the room and the stalls alike was unpeeling and reapplying itself. I wasn't bleeding, or maybe I was just bleeding a lot less than I should have been, and the pain was lessening by the second.

Then the effect faded. My eyes regained pupil and iris, my skin returned to what Jacqueline's memories told me was at least close to its normal shade, the gears vanished into the ether and the ticking got quieter and quieter until it could be heard no more.

Well, that happened. It was a thing. I should probably say something, shouldn't I? I went into stream of consciousness speaking.


"Well, that happened. It was a thing. Not sure what, but it was a thing. Alright, alright. So, Jacqueline girl, you transformed into a clock-human hybrid thing and the world started to turn orderly around you. You are a walking, talking, source of order and restoration in a world almost lost to chaos and rot. Wait, how do you know that? Because you are supposed to know and the order field activating pulled up the instinctive knowledge all parahumans are supposed to get about how their powers work. It may have been meddled with that a bit, your power doesn't normally do mind stuff. At least they're providing some kind of consideration.

"Your power brings order, repairs damage and undoes the effects of wear and tear, rot, and poor maintenance, as well as deliberate destruction. It works on everything within your radius, which grows larger the more you focus on bringing order, and smaller when you lose focus. The larger it is the more obvious the effects become,the more you start developing things like brass skin, clock-eyes, spectral cogwheels and phantom ticking and the more and the faster it can affect your environment.

"At the moment your field barely extends past your skin and the only visible sign that it exists is that your skin looks a barely noticeable touch more brass-like. And there is someone staring at you, slightly unnerved by how you are talking to yourself, so maybe you should address her."

Silence reigned.


In the end, it fell upon me to break it.

"Well, we have a new parahuman, an extensive campaign of torment carried out by a different parahuman, an attack on said new parahuman by the criminal parahuman, and a lot of confusion. We should probably contact the authorities. The Parahuman Response Team would seem to have jurisdiction. Does that sound good to you, Taylor?"

" _________________"


I suppose shock was a reasonable reaction to the situation, but it wasn't very helpful.

Lets see, according to my very limited training, the best thing to do for it would be to take her to her home and give her time. That would require me to know where she lived though. I'd go to the office, but if an eighth of what Taylor told me was true(and I had little doubt that at least most of it was) that would not end well. She'd probably be expelled for beating me up or something. Oh well, plenty of empty classrooms around. I took Taylor by the shoulders and left the restroom for the first time. Into the breach, my friends, into the breach.

 

[Obscura]

I managed to guide Taylor to an empty classroom without incident. The halls were lifeless, lunch having ended sometime during all the ruckus. All the other students were in class. Or, knowing Winslow, were skipping entirely. Either way, they weren't going to interfere. Probably wouldn't even if I started slapping Taylor silly in the middle of the cafeteria at the height of lunch hour, now that I thought about it. Like I said earlier, Winslow isn't exactly ivy-league junior.

I just sat her down and let her process things. And drew a maze on the chalkboard. An actual chalkboard, I should note, not a whiteboard or some sort of screen. Winslow. I'm surprised the room actually had chalk and furniture, and that's not nearly as much of an exaggeration as it should be. It certainly didn't have enough to actually teach anything to a full class. Except PE, I guess, but there really wasn't enough space for that. Not any of the fun options, anyway. Shutting down that unproductive line of thought, I moved on to considering my broader situation.

What, exactly did "the patron" want? For that matter, what did I want?


For the first, if I took my interdimensional kidnapper at their word, they wanted this world to get better, and regular reports from me so they could show off. I could feel the compulsion for the latter pounding at my brain, so they obviously wanted the reports, but I felt no urge to help beyond what could be explained by being shoved into a bad situation with the ability to help. Which was probably enough. My generous soul would do the rest.

I couldn't exactly blame the people of this world for the Patron's actions, and even if I could, leaving them to the current conditions of Earth Bet would be wildly disproportionate. If the Patron had ulterior motives or nefarious plans, I had no reasonable way to figure them out. How exactly does one investigate someone who one has never met, and who probably exists in an entirely different world?

For my part, I wanted to get the proper authorities onto Taylor's case, make the world better, and that was about it. I really needed some more goals. Maybe make a move for publicity and try for a reputation for integrity?


Hitting the gangs wouldn't help, especially not with my powerset. Violence is sometimes necessary, but it doesn't really fix things. Except for the occasional purely violence-driven psycho (of whom there were a lot more here than at home, but still not all that many), most criminals had reasons for their actions and violence wouldn't make them go away. Killing the "Slaughterhouse 9" who wandered around the country committing atrocities (and who exemplified the "purely violence-driven psycho" type I mentioned earlier) would help slow down the decay, but it wouldn't fix anything, and I had no way to do that anyway.

Hitting the local nazis would be satisfying, but risky, and wouldn't really reduce crime or bigotry, just spread it around. Hitting the other two big gangs, the "Asian Bad Boys" and "The Merchants" would, at best, splinter them. And I had no direct way of hurting anybody that a normal untrained teenage girl didn't. In short, violence wasn't the answer and I wasn't any good at it anyway. Some might argue with me about the first part, but I was confident in the second. So that left fixing things in the most direct manner possible, by fixing things. Medicine and repair to mend the world, one piece at a time.


To do that, I'd need allies. A team who, if someone struck at me, would strike back. Or, rather, while I didn't need them to start fixing things, I would absolutely need them to not get killed or press-ganged if I was seen doing so. Probably the latter, parahumans who could heal were valuable. The PRT-sponsored teams were out, the PRT was strictly law enforcement, not repair or medical work. And the Wards needed parental permission, which would be problematic. Canada's own team, The Guild, dealt with all sorts of issues, but they were invitation-only and didn't accept minors anyway.

The gangs were right out, I wasn't about to work with groups ideologically based around hate and racism, which left only the Merchants, who were awful in just about every non-racist way, including all sorts of non-racial bigotry. And they had an unpleasant amount of racism too, it just wasn't their main focus like with the other two.

New Wave, on the other hand, had its appeal. They were a hero group, aligned with but separate from the PRT and its Protectorate and Wards. They didn't believe in secret identities, preferring a message of accountability and a human face, something I tended to agree with. That had gotten one of them killed, which had in turn caused the movement to stagnate. Perhaps I could reverse that. Maybe not, but even if I couldn't, they had one of the two other parahumans in the city who could heal, and the only one putting it to good use. They already had the framework I needed to be allowed to tend to people.

Overall, New Wave seemed like the best choice for me, though I'd have to check further to be sure. Especially since I had no relatives or friends in this world who could be used to hurt me if my identity was known. And I was really bad at keeping secrets. Hiding that I was from another world and in someone else's body would be bad enough. Making nice with the PRT and its teams wouldn't hurt at all though. I'd need all the help I could get.


Alright then. So the plan for the moment was to wait for Taylor to recover, take her to her home and grab whatever records she has of the bullies' actions (but mostly Sophia's, since she was the parahuman), see if she wants to go to the PRT with me or wait at home, go to the PRT, report the bullying campaign and my abilities, ask to meet New Wave, then find something to eat and somewhere to sleep, being as nice and friendly as I can manage along the way. Worst comes to worst, I'd eat and sleep in the school. It'd only sort of be the first time.

I opened my eyes, ready to wait, only to get a Taylor to the face. Should have expected that, to be honest, but she recovered faster than I anticipated. Good on her. I should probably listen to what she's saying though.

"Sophia's a parahuman?! You're a parahuman?!"


"Yes, I saw, and yes, apparently. It's a surprise to me too." Not quite in the way I implied, but true enough. I was certainly surprised, but it had a lot more to do with the fact that parahumans existed than who, specifically, was one. I was used to a world with a lot fewer blatant violations of all the laws of physics and biology. Seriously, how does turning into a shadow and back with no consequences make sense?


"Alright then" she said, in a deceptively calm tone. Probably furious on the inside. She certainly had good reason to be. Best get that pointing in the right direction. I had no desire to get beaten to a pulp for the second time today.

She probably wouldn't do that, but I wouldn't have guessed Sophia would viciously assault me for trying to talk her out of her bullying, and I definitely wouldn't have guessed I'd be sent to another world out of the blue. This was not a day for taking unnecessary chances.


I outlined a bit of my plan. "Okay, Taylor, this is probably a touch overwhelming right now, but we need to think things through and act with deliberation. If you are okay with it, here is what I think we should do. First, we get any records and evidence of their harassment that we can get our hands on without drawing attention from the staff or other students. Then we head to the PRT. We report everything, and neither lie nor exaggerate, so that our statements can't be torn apart. I talk to the nice officers about my options, you get all the details you can to them, then you head home, talk to your father if you're comfortable with that, and get some peace. Does that sound good to you?"

Nailed it. Right delivery and everything. All that training had to pay off sometime. She listened, too.

She nodded uncertainly, then once more, more firmly. Determination shone from her eyes. Or maybe it was hatred. Or something entirely different, like the desire to go ice-skating. Facial reading is not my forte. I'm gonna assume it was determination. Nice spine on the girl. Takes a licking and keeps on ticking, though I was the one who resembled a Rolex.

I smiled, though it didn't quite reach my eyes, and spoke with as much confidence as I could muster: "Lead on, my friend."

 

[Obscura]

Taylor:

Taylor wasn't sure what to think about Jacqueline Colere. She'd known the girl was there, of course. Girl went into a stall, didn't come out, doesn't exactly take a genius to realize she's still in there. Even without controlling and knowing the location of every bug within two city blocks, it wasn't hard. She hadn't had any bugs in the room, since it was a bathroom and that was gross and an invasion of privacy, but she'd known Jacqueline Colere was present, if not her name or anything else about her. Except that she dressed a little nicer than Winslow really merited. The skirt, leggings, and top were all old, but they had a formality and sense of class to them that few Winslow students could boast. The boots were the odd element there, but they actually went with the rest of the outfit surprisingly well.

Taylor hadn't forgotten everything Emma had taught her, though not for lack of trying.


Now, several bizarre incidents later, she knew less about Jacqueline than when she had never heard of the girl. Jacqueline had repeatedly done things that simply didn't make sense. First she'd burst out of her nice safe stall to stand up to Emma and her minions, despite never having spoken to Taylor before. She had to have known about the bullying before, right? It wasn't like the trio had tried to keep it secret. The whole school knew. Right? Tripping and falling on her feet walking less than five feet was a bit odd, but haste could easily explain that.

What wasn't so easily explained was that Jacqueline, who had never met Taylor and had no reason to like or help her, had been going out of her way to do exactly that. Not even the vicious beating Sophia had given Jacqueline had stopped the girl from being gentle and kind to Taylor, and she knew that wasn't just her personality because she couldn't quite hide the effort it took her. Maybe the girl was naturally nice, but the sheer level of care and consideration she was showing had to be deliberate.

And the girl didn't seem to have any sort of motive, as far as Taylor could tell. She'd just leapt in to help, and kept doing so even after getting beaten rather severely for it. Did she have some sinister ulterior motive, or was Taylor just having a hard time trusting people after Emma? Taylor just didn't know.


Then there was the elephant in the room. Powers. Jacqueline had them, apparently didn't know about them beforehand, and had just taken them in stride. Sure there was a little bit of panic and confusion, but one bizarre monologue was far less than turning into a clockgirl with a powerful Shaker ability really merited, even if it wasn't right in front of a witness (Taylor). Sure she didn't know Taylor had powers too, but shouldn't she be at least a bit worried? She hadn't so much as asked Taylor not to tell anybody.

And now the girl, who had somehow led her to an empty classroom without her noticing, was drawing on the chalkboard. Not anything important, as far as she could tell, but who draws a maze at a time like this? Let alone such a spectacularly complicated one. Taylor wasn't sure if she'd ever seen better, not that she had paid a lot of (or any) attention to mazes in the past. And were her eyes closed? Surely that would interfere with maze drawing. Actually it was, the quality of Miss Colere's work had dropped dramatically. The cut off between the really nice area and the only sort-of nice area was obvious. And Taylor was going off on a tangent.


Taylor started stepping forward, mostly unconsciously, trying for a closer look in hopes that things would start making sense. Then the girl's eyes snapped open, and before she knew it Taylor was shouting.


"Wait! What?! Sophia's a parahuman?! You're a parahuman?!


And, of course, Jacqueline Colere didn't so much as blink. In a quiet, calm, and kind voice, she answered: "Yes, I saw, and yes, apparently. It's a surprise to me too."

Not that she looked even the slightest bit surprised.


Taylor's confusion and anger reached the level of utmost furious serenity, such was the strangeness that was Jacqueline Colere. "Alright then." Taylor idly noted that she (Taylor) almost sounded calm. Also that she was totally dry and not at all sticky, but that was not what was important right at that moment.

The girl, of course, kept talking, so very reasonable. Like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. Heck, with her powers, maybe it wouldn't. It was still impressive and unnerving though. Taylor was unpleasantly reminded of Madison for a moment, with her oh-so-innocent act, but dismissed that uncharitable thought.

"Okay, Taylor, this is probably a touch overwhelming right now, but we need to think things through and act with deliberation. If you are okay with it, here is what I think we should do. First, we get any records and evidence of their harassment we can get our hands on without drawing attention from the staff or other students. Then we head to the PRT. We report everything, and neither lie nor exaggerate, so that our statements can't be torn apart. I talk to the nice officers about my options, you get all the details you can to them, then you head home, talk to your father if you're comfortable with that, and get some peace. Does that sound good to you?"

There was only one possible response to that. Taylor nodded. Then she considered the possibility of actually getting justice without going Carrie on the school, and nodded once more, more firmly.


"Lead on, my friend"

And Taylor, blushing a little at that last word, did.

 

[Obscura]

For such a generally terrible city, Brockton Bay had a surprisingly good public transit system. No LRT or trams, more's the pity, but they had an excellent bus service. Even if I resented the bus companies for the death of streetcars, the modern bus system was adequate. And a lot less racist than it used to be. It was also a mostly respected safe place, so you didn't have to worry about being harassed or robbed on your trip. Or at least you didn't have to worry as much as you did pretty much everywhere else. This was Brockton Bay, after all. Still, our trip to Taylor's house wasn't held up by anything more complicated than me not having money for a ticket, something which Taylor handled without comment. The bus was even mostly clean. A lot cleaner than Winslow, anyway, except for that bathroom my order-field had had its way with. (Note to self, come up with a catchier name for that.) Wow, that would really be handy for chores and cleaning my room.

If I had chores or a room. It's not the most original insight that has ever graced my brain, but being a homeless orphan sucks.

Taylor's house didn't look like anything special. Standard size and colour for its lower-middle class neighbourhood, a little neglected, with a dangerous front step I narrowly missed discovering the hard way. Fortunately, Taylor warned me before I put any weight on it.

I was prepared to wait outside while Taylor went in to grab her notes, but she insisted that I come in. That was nice of her. Unless she was just luring me in so she could murder me. It wasn't very likely, but there was so much awfulness lurking in Earth Bet that I wouldn't be entirely surprised. Very disappointed, yes, and deeply horrified, but not entirely surprised.

Cynical? Who, me?


I begged out of entering Taylor's room, saying "I wouldn't feel right invading your private space, especially when you're dealing with all this thisness". It was even true, although I mostly just wanted to avoid the temptation of a bed. Today was far from done and it had already dragged on for far too long. I may have decided to fix as much as I could, but that didn't mean I didn't get tired. Especially when I had what was probably a concussion.

Still, no rest for the wicked, especially if I had a concussion. Sleep might mean I would never wake up again, and that was a possibility that I'd rather avoid. Never sleep with a concussion until a medical professional clears you, kids. I tried lounging on the couch instead. Tried being the operative word, I was apparently too stiff. Sitting sort-of normally would have to do. Lounging properly is harder than it looks.

Not that it mattered all that much, since Taylor was back within 5 minutes, carrying a set of rather nice notebooks. Not all that expensive looking, but pleasant in a classy, understated, sort of way. I suspected the contents were not nearly so pretty, but you had to take beauty where you found it. Especially on Earth Bet. Especially especially in Brockton Bay. I idly noted from the covers that Taylor's middle name was Anne, and that her handwriting was a lot better than mine. Like, a lot. She could have done it professionally, as far as I could tell, while mine was just awful, and probably even worse now that I was in a different body, one with a head injury at that. Yes, I was a little bit envious, thanks for noticing.

Okay, fine. I was and still am a little bit envious. Happy?


I deliberately waited for Taylor to take the lead on our trip to the PRT. It would be quite a bit better for her if she was the one taking the initiative. Build up confidence and all that. She did not disappoint. This time, I didn't encounter the slightest difficulty in reading her emotions. Rage and confusion had transmuted to grim determination, and it was a sight to see. This was her moment, this was her cause, and it was her will that would bring down the Trio. Which, incidentally, was what she called the three horrible excuses for teenage girls who had decided to ruin her life for no apparent reason. I had merely enabled Taylor to seek justice, and I was glad for it. Justice is always sweeter when the victim overcomes the indignities heaped upon them to get it.

The same applies to vengeance, even more so actually, but that stuff rots your teeth right proper. And your soul, more to the point. Still, I wasn't entirely immune to the sweetness of the Justice/Vengeance spectrum.

I may have decided to avoid violence myself, and I knew full well cracking down rarely solved anything, but justice was still immensely satisfying. Especially when it meant the victim could rise anew. Taylor never saw it, but a smirk was firmly planted on my face as I followed her out the door.


Journeying, traveling, bus taking, etc. etc. etc. You don't really need me to describe it. Taylor had the exact same look of absolute determination on her face the whole way, which drew a little attention, but that didn't matter. I was just glad she wasn't faltering.

Standing before the imposing might of the PRT building (a perfectly ordinary office building from the looks of it, except with a PRT sign), I found myself wondering whether I was dressed appropriately for the occasion. I probably should have been worrying about what was going to happen, but I just couldn't. Blame the Patron throwing me into this, or Sophia Hess and her violence, or my head injuries, or even just me being weird, but I couldn't put any emotional weight on the possibility of this going wrong. Sue me.

So my clothes. I guess they were decent enough. I did take the lifts out, though. The accursed things were really uncomfortable to walk on, and I wanted to look small and pitiable, not tall and intimidating. Not that I was at all intimidating even with the lifts. Cute, yes, adorable even, but not intimidating. I looked like every teacher's favourite bright young spark of an adorably dedicated student.

As for my actual clothes, black skirt, black and white top, thick black glasses that were oddly cute, black leggings, and the only non-black piece, a nifty steel locket did a decent enough job, though it'd look a lot better with a flashy scarf. That last was a relic of Jacqueline's mother and of her old home. It had a piece of Newfoundland's soil in a little vial in the locket-space, and the locket itself had been made by my Jacqueline's father. It may not have been the slightest bit flashy, but it had a lot of metaphorical weight. Hadn't noticed it before, but it was perfectly clear now. I found I could lean on it, emotionally speaking, and that concerned me. It seemed Jacqueline was not entirely gone. I didn't know if that was comforting or disturbing. Both, I guess. I really didn't want to think too much about Jacqueline as a person. Was she gone? Was she part of me? Had she gone into this willingly, or had that thrice-accursed Patron done what they had done to me, only worse? I just didn't know, and that hurt.

I couldn't really describe it. It was a hole in my heart reaching into my brain. It was a gnawing rat feasting upon my sense of self. It was a series of really bad metaphors that did nothing to actually explain what I felt.


I couldn't think about it anymore. What was past would have to be past. I forced myself to step into the PRT building, and into the future.

 

[Obscura]

So it turns out that walking into the PRT as a new parahuman who wants to report an assault by a different parahuman gets you seen to impressively fast. Putting out just enough aura that my eyes went clock-face might have helped. Not that I did it on purpose, it just turns out that wanting justice and talking to the authorities is enough to push my radius out a bit. I guess it is "bringing order" of sorts. I suppose the control mechanism for my power is a smidge more organic than I thought it was.

Taylor, due to being the one who'd actually approached the desk, thunder in her expression, got just as much attention as I did. That kind of official attention was always hard, especially for somebody whose main experience with authority was the Winslow administration, but she could handle it. I hoped. I really don't have all that much evidence to support that hope, but sometimes you have to have faith. She'd recovered from the Juice Incident pretty quickly, but she seemed to see the PRT, since they represented authority, as a bit of an antagonist, something she'd have to force to do their job. Hard not to, in her position, but I hoped she'd be able to recover from that in time. It probably wasn't good for her.


The room I was ushered into was nicer than I'd been expecting. Nothing over the top, just a bog-standard conference room, but it had decorations and softish chairs and a whiteboard, and there were refreshments on the table. Helping myself to a glass of water, I was looking away from the door when someone came in. A cough seized my attention with slightly embarrassing alacrity.

I hadn't been expecting a cape, particularly one I didn't recognize. Not that I recognized all that many heroes, Jacqueline's knowledge of the cape scene was mostly focused on who to avoid, and my grasp on her knowledge wasn't as good as hers had been, her memories weren't quite as real to me as I remembered them being to her. If that makes sense.

Actually, even if it doesn't make sense, it's still true. Deal with it. Though they were getting a little clearer. I hadn't even heard of Brockton Bay before all this, and by now it was like I'd lived here for at least a couple months. Old Jacqueline had been here for years though, so clearly it wasn't all the way. At least not yet.

This was presumably a hero, since the PRT had sent him to talk to me. Bright red everything and that cocky grin on his face indicated the "subtlety, what's that?" school of thought that pretty much required either great stupidity or serious backing. At least that was true back home, not sure how accurate that is here. Superpowers might let you get away with that kind of thing. Probably did actually. I know I'd find it a lot harder to stand up to someone who could splat me with a flick of their wrist. Sassing Patron-baka aside. They've earned it.

"Hey, kid, are you alright? You've been staring off into space for the last minute" he said, entirely correctly, much to my chagrin. I shook myself and nodded. He smiled even more, and introduced himself. "I'm Assault, with the local Protectorate. I hear you've had an interesting day?"

Okay, be friendly, be polite, you need all the help you can get. Also, be cute. Be freaking adorable.

Seriousness is one of the more basic acts to learn, but making it look like an act is trickier. At least making it look like an act on purpose is trickier, anyway. Practice is your watchword there. In this case, I was deliberately letting through just a bit of my (genuine, but deliberately poorly concealed) nervousness and childishness.

"A bit of an understatement, I am most afraid, Mr. Assault. Since the lunch bell rang, I've stumbled across a vicious campaign of torment and harassment waged by three school-age girls against another school-age girl, been brutally assaulted when I tried to talk them out of it, discovered that the school-age girl who assaulted me was a parahuman, discovered I was a parahuman, helped the target of the aforementioned campaign through shock, or at least tried, and gone across the city twice trying to sort things out."

I was leaving out the part about mergers, patrons, and alternate universes. I didn't want to seem any crazier than I actually was. (I wasn't silly enough to assume I was perfectly sane. No one is, in my experience.)

"Like I said, interesting. And you don't need to call me Mr." spaketh the wiseguy.

"I should probably explain. Let me start at the beginning." I told him, ignoring the second part of his statement. My "probably" was laced with just the right hint of nervousness. I was rather surprised how well I pulled it off, actually. Just a bit of frantic essence sold the image perfectly.

Yes, I used exactly the same phrasing at the start of these reports. I find myself making cryptic statements I need to elaborate on a lot, so expect to hear it again. Full disclosure, I cribbed quite a bit of what you've read here from the explanation I proceeded to give Assault. "Patron" may be able to force me to make these reports, but that doesn't mean I can't be a little lazy about repeating myself, especially if it's the first time for you lot anyway. If Patron doesn't like that, or the way I'm dropping the "the" from their self-appointed title, they can tell me themselves. Or just suck it up, it's not like I really owe them anything. Jerk. I'm not going to try putting the adorableness into text though, except in quotes and stuff. These reports are annoying enough already.

I started with how I'd overheard the ongoing incident, proceeded through falling on my face and my unsuccessful attempt at diplomacy, went on to getting punched in the face, carried that through to my counterattack and seeing Miss Hess go through the sink, covered the vicious beating I received afterwards in more detail than I like to think about, the clockwork aura (and there's that catchier name) and my revelations about it, a brief sweep of what I'd learned from Taylor, deciding to go to the PRT, picking up Taylor's journals and actually going to the PRT. "And then I got seen to really quickly and ushered into this room and I was thirsty and then you walked up behind me and coughed and then you know what happened"

Assault looked uncommonly serious. Or maybe he was usually serious and his prior behaviour was what was uncommon. I tended to doubt that theory though, he did not give off that impression. I think it was his eyes, they glimmered with amusement far too much. I'd never actually seen eyes glimmer before, but they did. Maybe Jacqueline had a better eye for that sort of thing than I did, or maybe it was a power thing. I know she had better eyes in general. She had to wear glasses, yes, but her prescription wasn't anywhere near as strong.

"And you are completely certain of all of this?" he said.

"As certain as I can be. There are head injuries and parahuman powers involved, after all." I conceded.

"Bleepedy Bleeping Bleep."


He actually said something else, but I'd rather not repeat it. I hope you don't mind. I wondered why this case made him so angry. I mean, it was awful, yes, but awful things happened in Brockton Bay all the time. Seriously, there hadn't been a day without a violent incident of some sort in decades. I guess most of them were less protracted? Or maybe he was just getting fed up. He seemed like he'd been a cape for a pretty long time.

A small amount of time later (I was the only clock in the room, and I didn't have a second hand) (and I couldn't see my own face without a mirror, which I didn't have) (and my aura wasn't turned up enough to go full clock-hands for eyes) (and I didn't know if my eyes in clock-face mode corresponded to the actual time anyway), he said something less profane, remarkably politely for how angry he had been, and probably still was: "Would you mind staying a little longer, I'm afraid my superiors will have further questions? Also, do you have a preferred cape name?"

"Not at all, Mr. Assault, and I rather like La Mademoiselle de Ma'at. It's a little on the nose, but I feel it carries the right impression", I demurred.

"Isn't that a bit of a mouthful?" Mr. Assault questioned

"Mayhaps, but it will serve for the moment" I replied

"Indubitably" spaketh the Mr. Assault

"Indubitably" La Mademoiselle de Ma'at verbalized

That's when we both broke down giggling.

---

After that, things returned to normalcy, such as it was. People came in, asked questions, received answers, and left. Some of them made sense, like the one who tried to help me recall the fight blow-by-blow. Others less so, like the one who asked me my opinions of each of their Wards one by one. I had no reaction to most of them, not having heard of them before, but one, a "Clockblocker" stood out. I was, after all, sort of a clock, and clocks that don't work get thrown out. If this individual could block me, that was all sorts of terrifying.

Maybe that doesn't actually follow, but it had been a long day with several shocks to my system and multiple blows to the head. Fears don't have to be rational to be scary, especially when you're already off-balance.

After a while, some of the people were less "asking a few questions" and more "explaining a few things", but that was alright. Some of it I already knew, like why picking superpowered fights by yourself wasn't a good idea, and some of it was clearly a "subtle" attempt at pushing me into the Wards, but a lot of it was new and useful information, though it was all clearly oriented towards the parahuman as warrior/parahuman as champion of justice mentality. I guess that's what they see the most. Parahumans apparently almost all just jump into conflict like it was catnip or something. They certainly seemed more than a touch surprised that the idea didn't appeal to me in the slightest.

The unwritten rules were interesting. A sort of moderating force on the raw chaos that was the constant parahuman struggle for dominance. No going after or revealing civilian identities, no rape, keep combat non-lethal (though accidents did happen, as was inevitable with even "non-lethal" violence when you had enough of it). Such were the strictures that kept the forces of order from dealing with some of the worst, but also kept villains from making a complete mess of society. Moderating that sort of conflict was a good thing, in my book. Parahumans posed almost all the problems of terrorism and/or irregular warfare back home, but worse. Keeping that from bringing society crashing down was a constant necessity, and the unwritten rules were a big part of that.

The no revealing civilian identities rule was sort of like the rules about disclosure in the trans community, but if these rules got broken it wasn't just the unfortunate disclosee who could get murdered. Though there were a lot fewer open capes here than there were open trans people back home. New Wave did it, and did it well, but they were just about the only ones. Aside from the capes who simply couldn't pretend to not be capes, but almost all of them had to take a lot of extra precautions.

The director poked her head in briefly, I think just to get the measure of the new parahuman in town. I made sure to be extra respectful to her, that's got to be a really tough job, especially here. If I was in her position, the city would be on fire within the week. Quite possibly literally. There were multiple villainous pyrokinetics in Brockton Bay, after all, and hundreds of gang members with access to lighters and gasoline. Most of whom hated each other and the forces of law and order. Despite her unimpressive appearance, I was in more than a little bit of awe at the woman who'd held this city together for nearly a decade.

Assault also had me make a quick stop at one of their medical areas. When a building is as likely to be attacked as a PRT headquarters was, it was apparently only common sense to have more than one. Especially given the number of very nasty villains who liked to attack medical personnel and the wounded. I didn't know the exact number, but the guy used the word villains, as in plural, so clearly it wasn't a one time thing. I didn't have a concussion as far as they could tell, although that might just have been my aura fixing things, and my other injuries were healing very nicely. As in, faster and cleaner than would be possible without parahuman powers or Tinkertech being involved, even if I had gone to a hospital, but not nearly as fast as most parahuman healers could do. Panacea apparently would have everything but the possible concussion done in less than a minute, and the concussion only wouldn't be fixed in that time because she couldn't affect brains.


There were a lot of other stops and questions, but they weren't as interesting. They did get me to do a little demonstration, putting a lot of little mechanical things and broken electronic devices around me for my aura to fix, which it did. Though I did have to pump it up a little. This wasn't official official power testing, but they wanted to have some idea of what I could do and scheduling the official lab had to be done in advance. We did that for half an hour, conversations continuing for most of that time once it became clear that talking and listening didn't stop my aura from working. Several people, including me, received or were sent things after that, though I didn't recognize most of the names.

I got a little baggie with a PRT-issue cell phone, a couple basic masks, a neat little miniature first aid kit ,and a little thingy of pepper spray. The cell phone had been one of the testing items, having been thrown into a television during something they wouldn't tell me about, but after half an hour in my aura it was better than new. Or maybe just like new, or possibly even a little worse than new. I didn't really have a good picture of how well it worked when it was new, but it was perfectly serviceable now, which was what was important. Not sure how it compared to the baker's dozen other cell phones they put in my aura.

Anyway, they said they were giving me all that for my safety. Apparently they didn't want me getting killed. I had suspected as much, but it was nice to have confirmation. Even if the agent who ruffled my hair when she said that didn't know how to ruffle hair properly. You have to be gentle and not rush things, Wolfe. They'd even been really nice when I told them why I didn't want to join their Wards. Apparently most young parahumans reach out and punch somebody and stir up trouble, and regulating that impulse was one of the major driving forces behind the Wards organization. Since I had zero intention of doing that, it wasn't as big an issue. They did say they'd look into alternatives and ways around the violencey requirement, which was also nice of them.


Eventually, I was released back into the lobby, where I found Taylor speaking with a strange man. Strange as in I didn't know him, not as in weird. It saddens me that I had to specify that, but after the day I'd had…

Welp, in for a penny, in for a pound. I went to speak with Taylor and the man who was presumably her father.

 

[Obscura]

How, exactly, does one join a conversation that is already in progress? That was one particular skill neither past-me had been good at. (Making myself believe things, including that I was Jacqueline Colere as well as the girl who'd received that annoying arrowgram, was another one, but I was learning quickly. It helped that there was some actual evidence.) I quickly reached for the cheat-sheet I make a point of keeping on my person when I go out, then realised that it, unlike that stupid letter, hadn't come with me. Or is it letters? I'm not sure how it works with multiple copies that are all identical. Instead, I pulled out my new phone and used the default search engine.

Okay, that's right, listen for openings, wait for them to notice you, and don't do anything to get attention until somebody tags you in. Sounds familiar.


"Why didn't you tell me, Taylor?" the man mourned, sounding utterly dejected.

Okay, nope. Not getting involved in that. There was absolutely no way me interfering wouldn't make things worse. Trust me on this. Even if I knew the entire context, which I absolutely did not, people tended to not appreciate outsiders butting in on family matters. Especially ones involving secrets, serious situations, lack of trust, or perceived failure of parenting. This involved at least three of those, probably all four. They'd tear me apart if I tried to step in, even if I knew how in the first place. Which I didn't. At all. Trust me on this.

Instead of leaping in and getting them mad at me and each other for no good reason, I elected to find myself someplace to loiter where they'd be sure to see me. My first choice was an oldie but a goodie: leaning against the wall. Walls are a classic for the "cool-kid" lean because it looks good from just about every angle.

Except for those that looked through the wall, which was totally possible because I had foolishly picked the building's transparent front. I want to say glass, but Shatterbird of the Slaughterhouse 9 could shatter every bit of glass for miles around with a scream, and glass was just really vulnerable to attack in general, so it probably was something tougher that just looked like glass. Either way, it was transparent, and I would look really silly from the other side, so no.

I decided to try somewhere else. Throughout the lobby there were some rather nice rounded pillars, so I decided to try one of those. I'm not quite sure whether they were Corinithian, Ionic, or some more modern variant, since I couldn't quite see the capitals, but they were nice whichever they were.

Thud.

So it turns out rounded pillars, at least ones that are polished enough, are really slippery. Like trying to lean on buttered steel, but without the inevitable staining. I picked myself up and resigned myself to just sitting down like the uncool non-rebel I totally was. Two failed "cool-kid" leans in a row proved it. I just wasn't cool.

That's when I noticed they had actual couches in their lobby, which was really neat. Okay "cool" was what I actually was thinking, but I've really been overusing that word in this report. Instead of sitting, like the uncool non-rebel I was, I would lie down like the tired individual that I also was. That actually worked, which was somewhat of a surprise to me by that point, and I was even still in a position where the presumed-Heberts would have to notice me on their way out. It's all in the angles.

Naturally, given everything, I fell asleep within seconds. I did not dream. As much of a cliche as it is to immediately fall into a meaningful dream, maybe a prophetic one, the instant you fall asleep in a strange place, one actually doesn't start dreaming until they've passed through the non-REM stage of sleep, which takes time. Not a consistent amount of time, but it does take time. Also wrong is the idea that if you're really, really, exhausted you pass into a dreamless sleep. It's a useful dramatic device, but in actuality you actually go into REM faster when you're really tired. I have no idea why but neither does anyone else, so you can't blame me. That applies to pretty much everything about sleep and dreams, really. We have some fairly okay theories (in the scientific sense) of what happens, but when it comes to why, we are basically at the level of toddlers arguing over who should get the last cookie. Less shouting and spurious statements though. Usually. The world of science isn't quite as professional, rational and rigorous as it would really like to be. Scientists are human beings, after all. They put their pants on one leg at a time. Except the ones who prefer other types of bottomwear. I like skirts myself, but I have to put the leggings, shorts, or sundry other types of skirt-accomplices on one leg at a time. I can put on the skirts two legs at a time, but that's not really all that remarkable. Hopefully the patron isn't going to pay that much attention to this obviously useless tangent. If you know anyone or anything that can help with this sort of awfulness, please contact them. Law enforcement would be best, or at least I hope law enforcement exists at that level, but whatever you can do is appreciated. Skirts are a lot like kilts in that way. Or those hospital clothes things that are designed to be put on easily even with disabilities. There are a fair number of bottomwears that are designed to be put on two legs at a time, really. Not pants though, which is probably why the idiom uses them instead of skirts. That and sexism.

Anyway, I fell asleep. I didn't have a concussion, so that was alright.

 

[Obscura]

As far as methods of waking up go, being quietly shaken on the shoulder is one of the better ones. It's not as good as being awoken by the smell of pure deliciousness cooking, but it sure beats having an air horn go off a couple centimetres from your ear. Don't ask how I know that.

Seriously, don't.

Anyway, I made my way to consciousness far too early, and found myself looking right into the face of the man I was assuming to be Taylor's dad.

I deny any and all claims that I let out a small shriek and banged my head against the couch padding in panic.

"Easy there, it's alright. I'm Danny, Taylor's dad. I'm told you helped my daughter out today." His voice was strangely soothing, filled with a vast calm and care that warmed my heart. Or maybe that was the head injury and all the trauma of the day talking. Either way, I was glad to hear it.

Which helps explain why I, in my just-waking-up state, went and hugged him, mumbling "Daddy, I missed you". Not that having an explanation, no matter how reasonable it was, made it less embarrassing when I realized what I had done.

It was most fortunate that they seemed bemused by it, and not something worse, and nothing more will be said about the matter.

Nothing.


An unspecified amount of time later, I found myself being offered a ride home.

A home I didn't actually have.

Welp, better tell him. Maybe I'd even get somewhere to sleep out of it.

I should probably have felt guilty about thinking about how to get something out of him, but I was really out of it and frankly I felt what I wanted was entirely reasonable.

"So I, umm, I don't actually have one of those." Smooth, me.

Then again, being hesitant had helped me out with one Hebert already, though this time it wasn't on purpose. They didn't say anything, but they looked a little confused (and more than a little worried, though they were trying to hide that).

Guess I made one of those cryptic statements that needed further explanation again. I should try to cut down on those, but I probably won't. Promises to keep, miles to go before I sleep, and all that.

"I should probably explain. Let me start at the beginning."

I did warn you to expect to hear that again.

"So I was born in a little hospital in Corner Brook and life was really good for a while. I mean there was that incident with Speakeasy but the rest of the time life was good but then Leviathan happened and sank the city and my home along with the rest of Newfoundland and Mom and I made it out cause we were close to the shore and Dad owned a boat but Dad was visiting Mount Pearl and was too far from the coast and the boats to get out and then we were in Brockton Bay and we settled and adjusted even if Mom kept up our passports and tried and tried to find us a place back in Canada but a few months ago Lung got into a big fight with the empire and our house burned down and mom was in it and she didn't make it out and I've been staying at the school ever since cause they gave me a permission thingy for that but I'm pretty sure that's not what they actually meant it to be used for and..." That's the point where the warmth and pressure of the hugs they'd managed to put me in without me noticing got to me and I managed to stop my rambling, leaving only the sound of tears falling and the occasional quiet sob to fill up the silence.

The old Jacqueline Colere was definitely not gone. I wouldn't have been that strongly affected if I was purely the girl Patron had kidnapped from her home universe. Not by those memories in specifica anyway. So I wasn't entirely myself, whoever "myself" was, and that idea only made things worse in terms of my complicated emotional situation. Patron, wherever and whatever you might be, you have a lot to answer for. At some point, all the feelings overcame the physical world, and then...

I don't really feel like continuing this now. I'm sure that the nails in my brain will eventually drive me to report to you again, so I guess you'll hear from me then. Whoop-de-freakin da.

 

[Obscura]

Emily:

Director Emily Piggot of the Parahuman Response Team's East-North-East branch was a busy woman. The Empire had stepped up their harassment of minorities near their territory, and the PRT would have to be seen to do something. Oni Lee had hit one of their warehouses, which may or may not have been the reason for the Empire's stepping up, and he'd been seen staking out several more locations. Über and Leet had damaged the boardwalk and gotten away clean, which would be both embarrassing and expensive. Circus had struck again. The Merchants were being the Merchants. The Undersiders hadn't done anything in a while, but that probably just meant they were planning something. Lung hadn't been heard from for a while, but that was too good to last. And, because all that wasn't bad enough, there might be a bomb Tinker in the city. All that was on top of the usual paperwork and logistics of running a PRT department. The last thing she needed was a major PR crisis in the making.

Naturally, that's exactly what she had. Shadow Stalker had apparently been tormenting one of her classmates for over a year, and in a way that couldn't just be dismissed as high-school [bravado]. Attempted murder would be a better description, or criminal harassment, or [funtime] bioterrorism. And Emily had only been told about it now. Heads were going to roll for this. The psychotic rogue technically-a-Ward she'd never wanted in the first place would be going straight into Master/Stranger screening as soon as she arrived for her shift. Emily didn't think they'd find anything, but in a situation like this it was best to have all the bases covered. She could nail Shadow Stalker to the wall after her guilt was unquestionable. Possibly literally. Emily knew how to electrify things, and that knowledge could be applied to nails.

That fact that the situation could have been much worse did little to reduce her rage. Actually, it stoked the fires. If the girl who'd stumbled across the whole mess hadn't taken things straight to the PRT, any number of things could have happened, none of them good. She could have gone straight to the media, and dealt Brockton Bay's trust in the PRT a blow it might never recover from. She could have sold the information to the gangs, and then she'd have a dead Ward on her hands, something she'd have to go to great lengths to avenge no matter how little Shadow Stalker deserved it. She could have..

Emily tore her mind away from could-have-beens. The matter would be investigated fully, and those who'd hidden or neglected to discover that information would face the consequences. That wasn't her job right now. As the director of the Parahuman Response Taskforce East North East, she needed to look to the future.

Curiously, the brightest looking part of the future was the same girl who'd brought the Shadow Stalker mess to her attention in the first place. Jacqueline Colere. Emily found herself in the awkward position of actually liking a parahuman for the first time since Ellisburg.

Normally, parahumans pushed all the wrong buttons for Emily, and not just for reminding her of Nilbog or all the "heroes" who'd abandoned her squad to be eaten by his monsters. The vast majority of capes thought they knew better than her, or the structure of the PRT, and Emily knew they were wrong. Getting bizarre abilities didn't mean you knew better than the law. Thinkers were generally the worst, but all capes seemed to show it to differing degrees. Except Colere, who showed almost superstitious awe at Emily's accomplishments. Emily was honest enough with herself to admit that getting some actual recognition was nice.

The Hebert case was proof enough that the girl had the right instincts. She'd tried to talk the perpetrators down rather than use violence or threats, though her lack of training showed in the results. Then she'd discreetly gathered evidence and gone straight to the proper authorities. Most parahumans would have punched first and asked questions later, or at least arrogantly gone in and "fixed" the problem themselves. Sure her efforts weren't exactly inspired, but they showed a level of basic common sense that was sadly lacking in most capes.

The Hebert girl was hiding powers, Emily was fairly sure. The "locker incident" sounded like an archetypical trigger event, and she'd shown just a little more awareness than an ordinary human should have. Taylor hadn't told the PRT about them, but authority issues were only to be expected in a case like this. Handling the case with due diligence, treating her with respect, and making an example of Shadow Stalker and anyone who'd covered for her would probably help with those issues a lot. Getting Taylor Hebert into the Wards wouldn't be easy, but it should be entirely doable. Emily certainly needed every sane parahuman she could get, even if "sane" was very much a relative term when it came to capes.

Meanwhile, getting Jacqueline Colere into the Wards would be simple enough. Wards normally patrolled to justify the expense of outfitting, training and paying them, and Emily certainly wouldn't mind being a little less outnumbered, but Jacqueline Colere didn't want to enforce the law herself, and frankly with her powerset patrolling would be both risky and largely pointless. Honestly, her being more inclined (by both ability and personal preference) to supporting Emily's troops off the battlefield over frontline combat let Emily trust her a little more. Parahumans were unreliable in a fight, as Ellisburg had shown her, but that didn't necessarily apply to logistical or medical support capes. Who, after all, shouldn't be fighting in the first place. As a good soldier, Emily Piggot knew just how important it was to treat your medic and quartermaster nicely, and just how vital they were. As Director, Emily Piggot could simply approve Jacqueline Colere as a Ward without requiring patrols, probably using healing and/or repair duties to justify things to her superiors. It wouldn't be hard. Healers were immensely valuable. And if the other directors wanted access to Colere's abilities (and they almost certainly would), and Colere was her Ward, Emily could force them to actually give her enough resources to do her job properly.


The girl's desire to join New Wave instead of the Wards could be handled in a number of ways. Simply meeting Brandish might do the job, the woman's paranoia could easily muck up any such arrangement. Emily could show accountability by throwing the book at Shadow Stalker, which she was already inclined to do, and perhaps by letting the girl be an open cape if she wanted to. Providing the necessary security would be a pain, but it certainly would undermine the Empire in a way they couldn't retaliate to. Plus Emily suspected that New Wave had their own skeletons in their collective closet, and if she dug them up…

First though, she'd have to call them, and arrange a meeting.

She'd also have to get a better name for the girl. "La Mademoiselle de Ma'at" wasn't going to cut it.