Taylor is approached by something greater. He predicts that she has a difficult path ahead of her, one that if she faces as is will lead her both to greatness and ruin. Maybe with a choice she can change her fate and destiny.
An Angel's Path (Worm/In Nomine)
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Ascension - 1
Taylor had been dreading returning to school after the holidays. The bitches three had backed off and mostly left her alone the last week before school let out for Christmas. On the surface this was great, but in reality it meant they were planning something, some escalation.
She trod through the halls, regularly being shoulder checked or pushed in one direction or the other. The bullying wasn't limited to the ringleaders, but was a student body wide endeavour at this point. Sure there were a few students who didn't partake, but even the upper years and lower years would get in on it when they could. Some of it was buying favor from the trio, and some of it was that she was so far down the totem poll that it was just easy.
She finally made it to her locker when something rancid hit her. She started to struggle with her gag reflex. Her eyes watering. She put in her locker combination, each spin being interrupted by a near reflexive vomit. It took several attempts to get the code in. When the door open the gagging overtook her and she let lose into the pile of rotten filth and debris that filled the bottom third of her locker.
She felt someone grabbing her hair into a pony tail she tried to turn to confront the individual when her head slammed forward into the metal inner wall leaving her stunned. Then the rest of her body followed into the locker after a firm push to her back.
Once she recovered from the momentary incapacitation she started yelling and screaming. The voices of the crowds could be heard slowly moving away from her. Laughter and joking about the stench could just be made out.
As she banged on the door and yelled the hallway settled into silence and she was trapped.
Seconds blurred into minutes and into hours. She heard occasional waves of students, she thinks at least. It was hard to tell what she was actually experiencing and what she was hallucinating.
In between the vomiting, retching, and screaming she saw many things. A fiery hellscape, rows and rows of people strung up and crucified. She saw a desert that stretched as far as the eye could see desperately wishing for a few drops of water. She saw the ocean raging in a storm. She saw hundreds of different sites.
Then in one moment she was no longer trapped in place. She still reeked, and was covered in the refuse from her locker. She stood in a park, one that reminded her of Central Park as shown in various TV shows and movies. Birds chirped as they flew overhead and right in front of her sat an old man. He looked fairly normal, decently dressed with a wind breaker over a collared shirt with a pair of slacks. Looking neither rich, nor poor, neither strong, nor weak. He was at a chess table sitting on a rickety old chair. The pieces were arrayed on the table looking as if he had recently finished a game. Meanwhile he sat facing sideways breaking off bits of bread and throwing it out into a flock of pigeons.
"Where am I?" she questioned.
"That's a hard question to answer," the old man spoke in dulcet tones.
"But I was in my locker, and now, now I'm here." she half got out somewhere between a mutter, a whimper, and utter disbelief. "What is… what is here?" She finally managed to get out.
"Here is a meeting place. It is both my domain, the shores of dreams, and at the same time your locker. It was a place I created so that you and I could talk. Come sit down Taylor Annette Hebert." He said as he waved towards the seat opposite him at the chess table. The way he said her name felt like she was struck by lightning. Like something was cutting to her very core.
Taylor took the seat and reflexively started copying him and setting the pieces on their spots on the table. The pieces felt real, the cool touch of stone beneath her fingers. The chair she sat on wobbled as she moved. This all was so real, more so than any of the other hallucinations she had had.
"Come lets play, you can have white."
Moving the pieces helped. It grounded her into the moment, let the smell of her clothes wash away into the background of the situation. It removed her from that stark mental fear of the locker.
"Why am I here?" She finally asked after several moves.
"I wished to see you in person. To speak with you, and get a measure of you."
"Why, I'm a nobody. Just bullybait. Someone to abuse and be picked on by everyone else. Hell I'm sitting here covered in vile trash and rubbish."
"Ahh, but that isn't what I see." He said as he moved a rook. Completely at peace with the situation.
"What do you see?" she retorted. Frustration and surliness seeping into her words.
"I see someone who can change the world. Someone who has the capability to do great and yet terrible things. I see someone who is on a path that if unchanged will lead them to be one of the greatest heros of the world, yet at the same time one of the most reviled villains."
"Me? I'm no great hero, I'm no Alexandria, Legend, or Eidolon. Hell, I'm not even an Armsmaster or a Triumph. I'm just a girl who gets picked on and tortured every day."
"You are just a girl who has one of the greatest destinies and one of the greatest fates of her generation. One who if left unchanged will certainly accomplish both, or neither. I fear not which is worse."
"Destiny, fate?"
"The greatest pinnacle of good, or evil, respectively that you can accomplish. Not to place too great of a burden on your shoulders but the fate of the world rests on yours so to speak."
"I… what does one even begin to say to that. This is all bullshit, some hallucination brought on by the panic attack I'm having. Next thing you are going to tell me that I'm going to beat Alexandria."
"You could, if you remain on the path before you unchanged defeat Alexandria in combat."
"Why, why are you telling me all of this?"
"Because as I said if you remain on your path unchanged you will accomplish both great and terrible things. Luckily I've traded a few favors with my counterpart and have reached an… arrangement."
"What kind of arrangement?"
"Well first and foremost he has agreed to let me bring you here to have this discussion. Second he has agreed to let me offer you a choice."
"What kind of choice?"
"Do you wish to do more. To have a chance to rise above your fate, to accomplish just great things, to not become one of the greatest terrors of the world."
"I mean, that is a bit of a leading question. How could I say no to that. Of course I wish to accomplish great things, of course I wish to not become a terror on the world."
"You are uniquely situated that I can make this offer to you. You see several generations back your great great grandmother wasn't human. She was part divine. That has left a trace of that in your blood."
"I'm sorry, she was what?"
"A nephillim, the child of a mortal and an angel."
"So my great something grandmother was a nephelhelm?"
"Nephallim, my child, nephallim. That gives me the ability to offer you something. Do you wish to ascend, to become an angel, the servant of the divine on earth."
"An angel? You are offering to make me into an angel."
"It is something that is possible, rare though, only having happened on a handful of other occasions in history."
"What would be expected of me?"
"To fulfil your destiny, to care for your charges, to be an agent of the symphony."
"I'll have to give up my Dad, to give up my school?"
"I don't know. I can't tell you what you should and shouldn't do. For freewill still exists. Your mortal life will be a good role, a good cover for your divine actions. I merely suggest you keep the two aspects of your life separate where you can. So that agents of hell don't strike out at your family in retaliation for your actions in service to the divine."
"So I should be a cape," she said with a bit of a chuckle. "I have a crazy old man telling me that I can become an angel and go out and be a cape. That I'll save the world."
"No, I said you have the destiny, the capability of saving the world. Something that wont change if you take me up on this offer or not. That will always be your destiny."
"And my Fate?"
"To become one of the most reviled beings in history."
"Yet if I take you up on this, I can avoid that?"
"It will open doors to allow you to avoid it, but nothing is guaranteed. For even the most brilliant of angels still can fall."
Taylor continued the chess game for several moves while thinking this over.
"How long do I have to decide?"
The old man looked down at his watch. He hmmed and hawed for a moment before looking back. "Oh about five minutes, and then it will be too late. The parasite will have taken hold and I could not make this offer to anyone beholden to such a creature."
"The parasite?"
"The powers, being a parahuman, the shard, the agent, it has many names."
"I'll become a parahuman if I say no?"
"Almost certainly, for you could neither accomplish your destiny nor your fate without some amount of power. Either what I'm offering or what the entity will force upon you."
"Fine, I'll do it. I'll take your offer."
The man simply smiled. Moved his queen and said "Checkmate."
"Wait, you never did tell me your name."
"You can call me Yves."
And everything went black.
She trod through the halls, regularly being shoulder checked or pushed in one direction or the other. The bullying wasn't limited to the ringleaders, but was a student body wide endeavour at this point. Sure there were a few students who didn't partake, but even the upper years and lower years would get in on it when they could. Some of it was buying favor from the trio, and some of it was that she was so far down the totem poll that it was just easy.
She finally made it to her locker when something rancid hit her. She started to struggle with her gag reflex. Her eyes watering. She put in her locker combination, each spin being interrupted by a near reflexive vomit. It took several attempts to get the code in. When the door open the gagging overtook her and she let lose into the pile of rotten filth and debris that filled the bottom third of her locker.
She felt someone grabbing her hair into a pony tail she tried to turn to confront the individual when her head slammed forward into the metal inner wall leaving her stunned. Then the rest of her body followed into the locker after a firm push to her back.
Once she recovered from the momentary incapacitation she started yelling and screaming. The voices of the crowds could be heard slowly moving away from her. Laughter and joking about the stench could just be made out.
As she banged on the door and yelled the hallway settled into silence and she was trapped.
Seconds blurred into minutes and into hours. She heard occasional waves of students, she thinks at least. It was hard to tell what she was actually experiencing and what she was hallucinating.
In between the vomiting, retching, and screaming she saw many things. A fiery hellscape, rows and rows of people strung up and crucified. She saw a desert that stretched as far as the eye could see desperately wishing for a few drops of water. She saw the ocean raging in a storm. She saw hundreds of different sites.
Then in one moment she was no longer trapped in place. She still reeked, and was covered in the refuse from her locker. She stood in a park, one that reminded her of Central Park as shown in various TV shows and movies. Birds chirped as they flew overhead and right in front of her sat an old man. He looked fairly normal, decently dressed with a wind breaker over a collared shirt with a pair of slacks. Looking neither rich, nor poor, neither strong, nor weak. He was at a chess table sitting on a rickety old chair. The pieces were arrayed on the table looking as if he had recently finished a game. Meanwhile he sat facing sideways breaking off bits of bread and throwing it out into a flock of pigeons.
"Where am I?" she questioned.
"That's a hard question to answer," the old man spoke in dulcet tones.
"But I was in my locker, and now, now I'm here." she half got out somewhere between a mutter, a whimper, and utter disbelief. "What is… what is here?" She finally managed to get out.
"Here is a meeting place. It is both my domain, the shores of dreams, and at the same time your locker. It was a place I created so that you and I could talk. Come sit down Taylor Annette Hebert." He said as he waved towards the seat opposite him at the chess table. The way he said her name felt like she was struck by lightning. Like something was cutting to her very core.
Taylor took the seat and reflexively started copying him and setting the pieces on their spots on the table. The pieces felt real, the cool touch of stone beneath her fingers. The chair she sat on wobbled as she moved. This all was so real, more so than any of the other hallucinations she had had.
"Come lets play, you can have white."
Moving the pieces helped. It grounded her into the moment, let the smell of her clothes wash away into the background of the situation. It removed her from that stark mental fear of the locker.
"Why am I here?" She finally asked after several moves.
"I wished to see you in person. To speak with you, and get a measure of you."
"Why, I'm a nobody. Just bullybait. Someone to abuse and be picked on by everyone else. Hell I'm sitting here covered in vile trash and rubbish."
"Ahh, but that isn't what I see." He said as he moved a rook. Completely at peace with the situation.
"What do you see?" she retorted. Frustration and surliness seeping into her words.
"I see someone who can change the world. Someone who has the capability to do great and yet terrible things. I see someone who is on a path that if unchanged will lead them to be one of the greatest heros of the world, yet at the same time one of the most reviled villains."
"Me? I'm no great hero, I'm no Alexandria, Legend, or Eidolon. Hell, I'm not even an Armsmaster or a Triumph. I'm just a girl who gets picked on and tortured every day."
"You are just a girl who has one of the greatest destinies and one of the greatest fates of her generation. One who if left unchanged will certainly accomplish both, or neither. I fear not which is worse."
"Destiny, fate?"
"The greatest pinnacle of good, or evil, respectively that you can accomplish. Not to place too great of a burden on your shoulders but the fate of the world rests on yours so to speak."
"I… what does one even begin to say to that. This is all bullshit, some hallucination brought on by the panic attack I'm having. Next thing you are going to tell me that I'm going to beat Alexandria."
"You could, if you remain on the path before you unchanged defeat Alexandria in combat."
"Why, why are you telling me all of this?"
"Because as I said if you remain on your path unchanged you will accomplish both great and terrible things. Luckily I've traded a few favors with my counterpart and have reached an… arrangement."
"What kind of arrangement?"
"Well first and foremost he has agreed to let me bring you here to have this discussion. Second he has agreed to let me offer you a choice."
"What kind of choice?"
"Do you wish to do more. To have a chance to rise above your fate, to accomplish just great things, to not become one of the greatest terrors of the world."
"I mean, that is a bit of a leading question. How could I say no to that. Of course I wish to accomplish great things, of course I wish to not become a terror on the world."
"You are uniquely situated that I can make this offer to you. You see several generations back your great great grandmother wasn't human. She was part divine. That has left a trace of that in your blood."
"I'm sorry, she was what?"
"A nephillim, the child of a mortal and an angel."
"So my great something grandmother was a nephelhelm?"
"Nephallim, my child, nephallim. That gives me the ability to offer you something. Do you wish to ascend, to become an angel, the servant of the divine on earth."
"An angel? You are offering to make me into an angel."
"It is something that is possible, rare though, only having happened on a handful of other occasions in history."
"What would be expected of me?"
"To fulfil your destiny, to care for your charges, to be an agent of the symphony."
"I'll have to give up my Dad, to give up my school?"
"I don't know. I can't tell you what you should and shouldn't do. For freewill still exists. Your mortal life will be a good role, a good cover for your divine actions. I merely suggest you keep the two aspects of your life separate where you can. So that agents of hell don't strike out at your family in retaliation for your actions in service to the divine."
"So I should be a cape," she said with a bit of a chuckle. "I have a crazy old man telling me that I can become an angel and go out and be a cape. That I'll save the world."
"No, I said you have the destiny, the capability of saving the world. Something that wont change if you take me up on this offer or not. That will always be your destiny."
"And my Fate?"
"To become one of the most reviled beings in history."
"Yet if I take you up on this, I can avoid that?"
"It will open doors to allow you to avoid it, but nothing is guaranteed. For even the most brilliant of angels still can fall."
Taylor continued the chess game for several moves while thinking this over.
"How long do I have to decide?"
The old man looked down at his watch. He hmmed and hawed for a moment before looking back. "Oh about five minutes, and then it will be too late. The parasite will have taken hold and I could not make this offer to anyone beholden to such a creature."
"The parasite?"
"The powers, being a parahuman, the shard, the agent, it has many names."
"I'll become a parahuman if I say no?"
"Almost certainly, for you could neither accomplish your destiny nor your fate without some amount of power. Either what I'm offering or what the entity will force upon you."
"Fine, I'll do it. I'll take your offer."
The man simply smiled. Moved his queen and said "Checkmate."
"Wait, you never did tell me your name."
"You can call me Yves."
And everything went black.
Ascension - 2
"Yves," Taylor mumbled as she started to wake up. Her eyes slowly flickered open and closed. The light of the room too strong after such a long time in darkness. Her mouth felt like cotton, all gummy, sore and dry as can be.
"Did you say eve?" someone spoke from beside her.
She went to speak and the state of her mouth caught her. She pantomimed drinking water and was soon sitting with a cup in her hands. She slowly sipped the sweet sweet water through the straw. It's cool refreshing touch slowly brining life back to her mouth.
"What?" she finally managed to rasp out.
"You said something when you were waking up. Sounded like eve?" her dad said.
"don't know." she said the rasp slowly leaving her voice. How was she supposed to know what she was muttering in her sleep.
"But it could be important, a clue as to how you ended up in here."
Taylor could only answer in a shrug. She honestly had no clue what she had been thinking about or why she would have said 'eve'. Not long after she was pulled into a big hug by her dad. The tubes and cords that tied her to the beeping infrastructure around her were pulled painfully in different directions by the action.
"Oww," she eeked while wincing.
"Oh! Sorry. Let me go get the nurse." He profusely apologized as he stepped out of the room.
Taylor took stock of her surroundings. She was sitting in a hospital. That much was obvious from the beeping machines, the sterile appearance, and the IV attached to the back of her hand.
So that was where she was, the next question was why she was here. Slowly memories of the locker sunk back in. The blinding all encompassing fear, the fetid stench, the feeling of the things crawling all over her. The memories made her gag and retch, luckily she caught hold of herself before she ended up vomiting all over the hospital floor.
She remembered hallucinations, strange vistas, and something about a chess game. The specifics though had faded. Probably for the best.
The odd thing was the music. If she wasn't paying attention then it as just there in the background. But upon focusing it was all encompassing. The deepest richest music she had ever heard. Thousands of different melodies and notes going off, but somehow it all weaved together to create the most beautiful harmony she had ever heard.
As she paid attention to it it almost felt like it was a reflection of the world around her. Somewhere between a movie's background music, and an abstract expression of the actions people were taking. She couldn't decipher how the two related, simply that they were. Notes seem to ascend and descend at random, but in harmony with each other. Occasional bursts of sad trombones, or joyous trumpets sounded through the hospital. Those were a little easier to interpret, but most of the notes were as mysterious as a foreign language to her. Despite all the different melodies, instruments, and notes it wasn't a cacophony but a masterpiece. Each part seeming to tie into the ones around it as if there was a grand conductor who had plotted it all out.
Was this another hallucination or was it something more?
After a few minutes her dad came back with a nurse. The nurse ran through a battery of tests. Checking her levels, her blood pressure, asking what she remembered, the date, who was president. Eventually the nurse removed some of the tubes and connections. Including the EKG attached to her chest, but left the IV providing her body liquids, antibiotics, and apparently some minor pain medications.
"What happened Taylor? How did you end up in that locker?" Her dad finally asked. Taylor tried to observe her dad in the Symphony. The action of looking seemed to cause a resonance, one that almost came off as an out of tune, and out of practice trombone. Like someone who was trying but often failed to preform at the levels they expected of themselves. She knew, not believed, but knew of his failings and his successes. How he had had to let several people go at the docks, how dejected he felt about her being in the hospital, and how pained he felt by their growing distance. She also knew how proud he was for when he had managed to stop an employee from falling in with the Empire, how sure he was that here in the hospital was where he needed to be, and finally how he had stood up to several Merchant scumbags who were trying to encroach on the his section of the docks.
She pushed this sudden knowledge out of her head and focused on her dad before her. At first she simply shrugged to her father's question. Unable to bring the words into reality. To admit how badly she had been bullied, how badly the school had failed her, how badly she had failed herself, and if she was to be honest with herself how badly he had failed her. To put words to it would mean admitting it, both to herself and to him.
"Please Taylor. I know I've not been there as much as I should since… recently, but I want to help you. I need to help you. Please tell me something." He begged.
"There are bullies," she finally whispered.
"Bullies? This wasn't some prank like the school told me?" He pushed.
"No, it isn't a prank. Its been too consistent. This was just an escalation."
Danny seemed stricken by this. He had known something was going on. Taylor had been becoming more and more withdrawn. Something was obviously going on, but the few times he had tried to bring it up she had artfully dodged the question, and often him. At some point he had decided it was better to simply be there for her, as little as he was managing that, then to chase her away by pushing for answers. Obviously that had been the wrong answer, and he wasn't going to let it stand now.
"Taylor who is doing this," he pleaded.
"Can't say. They retaliate. School won't do anything." She muttered.
"God dammit. Taylor tell me who did this?" He demanded slamming a fist into the bed.
"What will change?" For what could change. The school would either look at this happening and investigate, or much more likely they would continue to hide from the reality that there was a problem, as they had done time and time again. Hell she wasn't surprised that they blamed the incident on her. That she pranked herself or something.
"I don't know, but I'll figure something out. We'll transfer schools, or I'll talk to your principal. I don't know." Danny said trying to bargain with reality.
"Tried that. My grades are too bad for Arcadia, and we are too far out of the catchment area for any of the other schools. Blackwell won't do anything says its hearsay."
"We will try again, go to the media or the police. This went too far this time to just be ignored!"
Taylor just shrugged, pulled her legs up to her chest and huddled in on herself and went silent.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It had been two days since she had woken up in the hospital. They were keeping her for observation while keeping her on a drip of antibiotics to clear up the various minor infections she had gotten from the biowaste.
A knock knock came from the door. "Come in" she called rather confused at who would be coming by to visit. Dad knocked, but he had just left an hour ago and wasn't going to be back until this evening. Then you had the hospital staff like the doctors and nurses who tended to not knock before coming in.
Taylor was not expecting who entered.
The girl was short, but then that probably came with her age at around twelve if Taylor's memory served correct. She was a few years younger than most of the other wards. It was rare for someone to trigger and gain parahuman powers as preteens or children. When it does happen they tended to be more powerful than otherwise. Vista was a clear example of this principle both being young now and having had her powers for several years already, and for that youth she was easily the most powerful of the Wards. She carried herself with more confidence than the average twelve year old as well. She wore a dress that faded from white to green as it went. Boots in green, and a visor to match.
Taylor dipped into the Symphony and observed Vista within it. Knowledge of Vista saving a woman from being raped came to her mind, along with several other moderate crimes that the young heroine had prevented. Along with the positive came several negative bits of knowledge. Vista's scorn at someone in her life, someone that she knew didn't deserve it. More importantly was Vista's disdain for her home life, her frustration with how her parents were acting, and how they always tugged her between them.
"Vista," Taylor acknowledged. Giving Vista a bit of a head bob and a small wave. Which tugged on my IV and quickly reminded her to keep my hands fairly immobile.
"Miss Hebert?" she asked. Taylor gave a nod in confirmation. "Are you familiar with crisis points?" Taylor simply gave a shake. "It's a volunteer outreach program. Where we reach out to individuals who are at risk. Where things are going badly in their lives. We try and reach out, as I said, and give them a bit of support and hope. Try and give them a contact with with a hero and maybe influence them when they are reaching a point where they are presented with a choice."
"You think I might have triggered?"
Vista nodded, "With what you went through it is a definite possibility."
"And you want to make sure that I don't become a villain." Something felt wrong in the music, the Symphony, as Taylor said the words. Like the very thought of going full villain upset the music, almost introducing notes of discordance.
"Insightful aren't ya," Vista retorted.
"So how does this work. You give me the wards recruitment pitch?"
"Well I mean first I guess the question is if you want to confess if you are a parahuman or not?"
Taylor knew that she was, for what other explanation as there for the music she was hearing. The few people she had tried to feel out couldn't hear it, and it definitely wasn't coming from the hospital speakers. Some kind of thinker power? If she understood the PRT ratings correctly. That said she wasn't going to confess it, even to Vista. Not here, not now, definitely not before she had a chance to take stock of her situation and evaluate her options.
"I can't confirm or deny that at this time." Taylor said with a laugh and a smile, trying to practice her ability to talk around things without lying.
"Figured as much. Well, what can I tell you about the Wards, about life, being a parahuman, or anything else?"
"I don't know, I guess whats it like being a ward?" Taylor said, looking for anything to carry the conversation on with.
"It's fun, I get to make a difference. Sure the PR stuff gets a bit old at times," Vista realised what she had said and glanced away with a slight look of embarrassment. "But… on the whole its good to go out there with a team you can trust."
Taylor just hmmed at that. "You trust all of your team?"
"Well to be honest, there is one or two I'd be hesitant to trust if I was out and about in a social situation, but I've yet to see anything from them that would make me think they wouldn't have my back in a combat situation." Vista paused for a moment. "Plus there are the benefits. We help new capes with power testing, pay, costume, branding, etc etc."
Taylor just absently hummed at that. She didn't really want to be sitting here talking to Vista. She had a lot of reservations about working as a ward. From the social drama, now confirmed by Vista's dancing around the whole trusting your team mates. Then there were fears about what they would do with her in terms of branding and costume. There were some scary examples of that out there like how cutesy they dressed Vista up.
They chatted for a while longer, Taylor doing her best to keep the smalltalk going. Vista didn't lay the sales pitch on too hard, and was all things considered pretty up front about the entire thing.
"Did you say eve?" someone spoke from beside her.
She went to speak and the state of her mouth caught her. She pantomimed drinking water and was soon sitting with a cup in her hands. She slowly sipped the sweet sweet water through the straw. It's cool refreshing touch slowly brining life back to her mouth.
"What?" she finally managed to rasp out.
"You said something when you were waking up. Sounded like eve?" her dad said.
"don't know." she said the rasp slowly leaving her voice. How was she supposed to know what she was muttering in her sleep.
"But it could be important, a clue as to how you ended up in here."
Taylor could only answer in a shrug. She honestly had no clue what she had been thinking about or why she would have said 'eve'. Not long after she was pulled into a big hug by her dad. The tubes and cords that tied her to the beeping infrastructure around her were pulled painfully in different directions by the action.
"Oww," she eeked while wincing.
"Oh! Sorry. Let me go get the nurse." He profusely apologized as he stepped out of the room.
Taylor took stock of her surroundings. She was sitting in a hospital. That much was obvious from the beeping machines, the sterile appearance, and the IV attached to the back of her hand.
So that was where she was, the next question was why she was here. Slowly memories of the locker sunk back in. The blinding all encompassing fear, the fetid stench, the feeling of the things crawling all over her. The memories made her gag and retch, luckily she caught hold of herself before she ended up vomiting all over the hospital floor.
She remembered hallucinations, strange vistas, and something about a chess game. The specifics though had faded. Probably for the best.
The odd thing was the music. If she wasn't paying attention then it as just there in the background. But upon focusing it was all encompassing. The deepest richest music she had ever heard. Thousands of different melodies and notes going off, but somehow it all weaved together to create the most beautiful harmony she had ever heard.
As she paid attention to it it almost felt like it was a reflection of the world around her. Somewhere between a movie's background music, and an abstract expression of the actions people were taking. She couldn't decipher how the two related, simply that they were. Notes seem to ascend and descend at random, but in harmony with each other. Occasional bursts of sad trombones, or joyous trumpets sounded through the hospital. Those were a little easier to interpret, but most of the notes were as mysterious as a foreign language to her. Despite all the different melodies, instruments, and notes it wasn't a cacophony but a masterpiece. Each part seeming to tie into the ones around it as if there was a grand conductor who had plotted it all out.
Was this another hallucination or was it something more?
After a few minutes her dad came back with a nurse. The nurse ran through a battery of tests. Checking her levels, her blood pressure, asking what she remembered, the date, who was president. Eventually the nurse removed some of the tubes and connections. Including the EKG attached to her chest, but left the IV providing her body liquids, antibiotics, and apparently some minor pain medications.
"What happened Taylor? How did you end up in that locker?" Her dad finally asked. Taylor tried to observe her dad in the Symphony. The action of looking seemed to cause a resonance, one that almost came off as an out of tune, and out of practice trombone. Like someone who was trying but often failed to preform at the levels they expected of themselves. She knew, not believed, but knew of his failings and his successes. How he had had to let several people go at the docks, how dejected he felt about her being in the hospital, and how pained he felt by their growing distance. She also knew how proud he was for when he had managed to stop an employee from falling in with the Empire, how sure he was that here in the hospital was where he needed to be, and finally how he had stood up to several Merchant scumbags who were trying to encroach on the his section of the docks.
She pushed this sudden knowledge out of her head and focused on her dad before her. At first she simply shrugged to her father's question. Unable to bring the words into reality. To admit how badly she had been bullied, how badly the school had failed her, how badly she had failed herself, and if she was to be honest with herself how badly he had failed her. To put words to it would mean admitting it, both to herself and to him.
"Please Taylor. I know I've not been there as much as I should since… recently, but I want to help you. I need to help you. Please tell me something." He begged.
"There are bullies," she finally whispered.
"Bullies? This wasn't some prank like the school told me?" He pushed.
"No, it isn't a prank. Its been too consistent. This was just an escalation."
Danny seemed stricken by this. He had known something was going on. Taylor had been becoming more and more withdrawn. Something was obviously going on, but the few times he had tried to bring it up she had artfully dodged the question, and often him. At some point he had decided it was better to simply be there for her, as little as he was managing that, then to chase her away by pushing for answers. Obviously that had been the wrong answer, and he wasn't going to let it stand now.
"Taylor who is doing this," he pleaded.
"Can't say. They retaliate. School won't do anything." She muttered.
"God dammit. Taylor tell me who did this?" He demanded slamming a fist into the bed.
"What will change?" For what could change. The school would either look at this happening and investigate, or much more likely they would continue to hide from the reality that there was a problem, as they had done time and time again. Hell she wasn't surprised that they blamed the incident on her. That she pranked herself or something.
"I don't know, but I'll figure something out. We'll transfer schools, or I'll talk to your principal. I don't know." Danny said trying to bargain with reality.
"Tried that. My grades are too bad for Arcadia, and we are too far out of the catchment area for any of the other schools. Blackwell won't do anything says its hearsay."
"We will try again, go to the media or the police. This went too far this time to just be ignored!"
Taylor just shrugged, pulled her legs up to her chest and huddled in on herself and went silent.
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It had been two days since she had woken up in the hospital. They were keeping her for observation while keeping her on a drip of antibiotics to clear up the various minor infections she had gotten from the biowaste.
A knock knock came from the door. "Come in" she called rather confused at who would be coming by to visit. Dad knocked, but he had just left an hour ago and wasn't going to be back until this evening. Then you had the hospital staff like the doctors and nurses who tended to not knock before coming in.
Taylor was not expecting who entered.
The girl was short, but then that probably came with her age at around twelve if Taylor's memory served correct. She was a few years younger than most of the other wards. It was rare for someone to trigger and gain parahuman powers as preteens or children. When it does happen they tended to be more powerful than otherwise. Vista was a clear example of this principle both being young now and having had her powers for several years already, and for that youth she was easily the most powerful of the Wards. She carried herself with more confidence than the average twelve year old as well. She wore a dress that faded from white to green as it went. Boots in green, and a visor to match.
Taylor dipped into the Symphony and observed Vista within it. Knowledge of Vista saving a woman from being raped came to her mind, along with several other moderate crimes that the young heroine had prevented. Along with the positive came several negative bits of knowledge. Vista's scorn at someone in her life, someone that she knew didn't deserve it. More importantly was Vista's disdain for her home life, her frustration with how her parents were acting, and how they always tugged her between them.
"Vista," Taylor acknowledged. Giving Vista a bit of a head bob and a small wave. Which tugged on my IV and quickly reminded her to keep my hands fairly immobile.
"Miss Hebert?" she asked. Taylor gave a nod in confirmation. "Are you familiar with crisis points?" Taylor simply gave a shake. "It's a volunteer outreach program. Where we reach out to individuals who are at risk. Where things are going badly in their lives. We try and reach out, as I said, and give them a bit of support and hope. Try and give them a contact with with a hero and maybe influence them when they are reaching a point where they are presented with a choice."
"You think I might have triggered?"
Vista nodded, "With what you went through it is a definite possibility."
"And you want to make sure that I don't become a villain." Something felt wrong in the music, the Symphony, as Taylor said the words. Like the very thought of going full villain upset the music, almost introducing notes of discordance.
"Insightful aren't ya," Vista retorted.
"So how does this work. You give me the wards recruitment pitch?"
"Well I mean first I guess the question is if you want to confess if you are a parahuman or not?"
Taylor knew that she was, for what other explanation as there for the music she was hearing. The few people she had tried to feel out couldn't hear it, and it definitely wasn't coming from the hospital speakers. Some kind of thinker power? If she understood the PRT ratings correctly. That said she wasn't going to confess it, even to Vista. Not here, not now, definitely not before she had a chance to take stock of her situation and evaluate her options.
"I can't confirm or deny that at this time." Taylor said with a laugh and a smile, trying to practice her ability to talk around things without lying.
"Figured as much. Well, what can I tell you about the Wards, about life, being a parahuman, or anything else?"
"I don't know, I guess whats it like being a ward?" Taylor said, looking for anything to carry the conversation on with.
"It's fun, I get to make a difference. Sure the PR stuff gets a bit old at times," Vista realised what she had said and glanced away with a slight look of embarrassment. "But… on the whole its good to go out there with a team you can trust."
Taylor just hmmed at that. "You trust all of your team?"
"Well to be honest, there is one or two I'd be hesitant to trust if I was out and about in a social situation, but I've yet to see anything from them that would make me think they wouldn't have my back in a combat situation." Vista paused for a moment. "Plus there are the benefits. We help new capes with power testing, pay, costume, branding, etc etc."
Taylor just absently hummed at that. She didn't really want to be sitting here talking to Vista. She had a lot of reservations about working as a ward. From the social drama, now confirmed by Vista's dancing around the whole trusting your team mates. Then there were fears about what they would do with her in terms of branding and costume. There were some scary examples of that out there like how cutesy they dressed Vista up.
They chatted for a while longer, Taylor doing her best to keep the smalltalk going. Vista didn't lay the sales pitch on too hard, and was all things considered pretty up front about the entire thing.
Ascension - 3
It had only taken five days but Taylor had finally gotten out of the hospital. Luckily she was still signed off school for another week and she had plans to capitalise on that time off.
Most of the weekend had been spent trying desperately in vain to figure out how her power worked. The few accounts she could find on PHO seemed to indicate that people's powers worked fairly intuitively and she should just know how to use it. There were a few mentions of PRT power testing, but her impressions from the posts seemed to be that power testing was more for figuring out the specifics of how it interacted with things, its limitations, and so on. Not how to use it at all.
Monday morning found her awake when she would normally be getting ready for school. So she got on with her normal schedule and went downstairs to figure something out for breakfast. When she entered the kitchen she found her dad had beat her to the punch and was already making some eggs and toast. A common if slightly irregular occurrence.
"Any plans for the day?" her Dad said in greeting.
"Might go to the Boardwalk, almost certainly the library."
"Be safe, you just got out of the hospital." Her father's worry was evident on his face.
"Don't worry so much Dad. I'm feeling fine, but I won't push it." She acquiesced.
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The walk to the Boardwalk had been spent poking and prodding her power, trying to figure something out about it. So far all she had was that she could hear some kind of background music to reality. What it meant was still largely a mystery and she hadn't been able to figure any way of affecting it either.
She did know that she got some kind of response if she focused on someone in the music, but even that she wasn't always sure how to interpret. Although the side knowledge of their successes and failures that came with it was often easier to understand. Some people came back with strong proud chords, others sad and pathetic. There wasn't any rhyme or reason as to who would resonant in one way or another. A businessman in a well fit suit had come out sickly and gross, he had recently embezzled a large amount of money. Meanwhile a sickly homeless man had sounded beautiful, rich, and energetic. The homeless man had chased off a merchant who was pushing drugs on some kids.
At one point about halfway to the boardwalk she was startled by a shout from right behind her. Taylor twisted around and saw some idiot grabbing a woman's purse and trying to rip it from her arms. The asshole was in pretty bad condition, covered in grime and wearing tattered clothes.
She surged towards the idiot and cocked her fist, and prepared to throw a punch by tucking her thumb in. Just as she was about to land the throw the purse slipped from the lady's grip and she fell backwards into Taylor. The idiot seeing he had his prize bolted as fast as he could in the opposite direction.
It burned knowing she had some kind of power and she had failed to help protect someone who was right in front of her, who had literally fallen in her lap.
She helped the lady stand up, made sure she hadn't been grazed or wounded in the scuffle and then continued on towards the Boardwalk.
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She slumped into the bench against the wall. A fresh cup of tea sat in front of her on the table. The coffee shop was bustling with most of the tables full of people typing away on their computers, or chatting with friends. The shop's stereos played some top forties pop song or another the same one that would be found playing on any of the major radio stations.
She raised the tea cup and took a deep breath, letting the steam seep into her. And with the steam touch she felt some of the frustration melt out of her. Her impotence earlier with the mugger was really leaving her dejected. She had failed to protect the woman, and failed to figure out her power. Not that using her power then would have been a good idea, it would have almost certainly outed her.
Taylor sat and let her thoughts spiral in the miasma of her failure when suddenly a woman stood across from her.
"Is this seat taken?" The woman stated in a thick middle eastern accent while indicating the far side of Taylor's table. The woman was in her late thirties. She had deep lines on her face, like she regularly had the weight of the world on her shoulders, or just really rambunctious children. She had olive skin and henna marks across her hands. Around her hair was wrapped a silk scarf, a hijab if Taylor remembered correctly.
A quick look around the café confirmed that the place was packed and there were few other seats available. "No, go right ahead."
"What brings you to Brockton Bay?" Taylor asked the woman. Guessing that it was probably either cape or medical tourism, the cities primary two attractions.
"I've adopted a new child and I wanted to check in on them." The woman replied before taking a sip from her mug.
"Adopted, but they don't live with you?"
"No no, they are old enough to care for themselves, but I've taken them under my wing so to speak. Declared them my charge, someone to provide guidance and advice to." The woman stated looking directly into Taylor's eyes. She took another sip of her drink before looking at Taylor in a way that no one had since her own mother had passed away two years prior. "Now then child, what has you looking so despondent?"
Taylor relayed the story of the mugger, and how she had felt so ineffective. Of course she left out the bits about her powers.
"First, remember that you did the most important thing. Looking after the victim. Their possessions can be replaced, their corporeal vessel, not so easily. Secondly, you are young still my child. Give yourself time to learn and train. You will teach yourself skills to better handle these kinds of situations. Train yourself to increase your stamina, and your ability to protect yourself and others."
"Train? You mean like running?"
"That would be a good start, maybe also learn to throw a punch." The woman said with a wink and a small laugh.
That stung. It also left Taylor questioning the woman's advice. The woman wasn't what she seemed on the surface. Here there was a motherly figure whose primary advice came down to learning to throw a punch.
"You have a heavy burden on your shoulders my child. Don't let it wear you down before you get a chance to deal with what is to come."
They sat in silence for a few minutes taking sips of their respective drinks. The woman finished her drink and looked like she was preparing to leave. She stopped and turned to Taylor.
"Let me teach you a song." She said with dead seriousness.
Taylor just looked at her perplexed by the sudden change in subject and how out of context the statement was, but eventually nodded her assent.
The woman gently sung a few notes. Her singing voice was beautiful like something heavenly, but what truly shook Taylor was something far more profound. The Symphony was responding to the notes. It was like the woman was a conductor and just ordered a section of instruments to change their beat. This woman with no effort had just done the thing that had been leaving Taylor utterly lost for the last three days.
The woman then stood up. Set her mug and a business card down on the table and walked out of the café.
It took a moment for Taylor to recover from the absolute shock she had felt. She gently picked up the business card and found it reading "H.A.R.P. - Brockton Bay Chapter". It then listed an email address and phone number, although it had no address.
Taylor collected her stuff and slipped out of the café. She ducked into an ally, and quickly looked around to double check that no one was around. She didn't really want to attract attention if this worked, and didn't really want to embarrass herself if it didn't. She then made a few hand gestures imitating the woman and sang the notes.
It was as easy as saying her name. Like she had always known these notes. But nothing happened. It felt like something was missing. Some fuel to power the works.
Somehow she knew what to do. It felt like she was taking a small piece of her soul, some fundamental part of her, and fed it into the song as she tried again. That essence, that soul, seemed to do the trick. The song reverberated through the Symphony. A gust of wind came down and wrapped around her before quickly fading.
She had done it, she had changed the Symphony, now to just figure out what it was doing.
Most of the weekend had been spent trying desperately in vain to figure out how her power worked. The few accounts she could find on PHO seemed to indicate that people's powers worked fairly intuitively and she should just know how to use it. There were a few mentions of PRT power testing, but her impressions from the posts seemed to be that power testing was more for figuring out the specifics of how it interacted with things, its limitations, and so on. Not how to use it at all.
Monday morning found her awake when she would normally be getting ready for school. So she got on with her normal schedule and went downstairs to figure something out for breakfast. When she entered the kitchen she found her dad had beat her to the punch and was already making some eggs and toast. A common if slightly irregular occurrence.
"Any plans for the day?" her Dad said in greeting.
"Might go to the Boardwalk, almost certainly the library."
"Be safe, you just got out of the hospital." Her father's worry was evident on his face.
"Don't worry so much Dad. I'm feeling fine, but I won't push it." She acquiesced.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The walk to the Boardwalk had been spent poking and prodding her power, trying to figure something out about it. So far all she had was that she could hear some kind of background music to reality. What it meant was still largely a mystery and she hadn't been able to figure any way of affecting it either.
She did know that she got some kind of response if she focused on someone in the music, but even that she wasn't always sure how to interpret. Although the side knowledge of their successes and failures that came with it was often easier to understand. Some people came back with strong proud chords, others sad and pathetic. There wasn't any rhyme or reason as to who would resonant in one way or another. A businessman in a well fit suit had come out sickly and gross, he had recently embezzled a large amount of money. Meanwhile a sickly homeless man had sounded beautiful, rich, and energetic. The homeless man had chased off a merchant who was pushing drugs on some kids.
At one point about halfway to the boardwalk she was startled by a shout from right behind her. Taylor twisted around and saw some idiot grabbing a woman's purse and trying to rip it from her arms. The asshole was in pretty bad condition, covered in grime and wearing tattered clothes.
She surged towards the idiot and cocked her fist, and prepared to throw a punch by tucking her thumb in. Just as she was about to land the throw the purse slipped from the lady's grip and she fell backwards into Taylor. The idiot seeing he had his prize bolted as fast as he could in the opposite direction.
It burned knowing she had some kind of power and she had failed to help protect someone who was right in front of her, who had literally fallen in her lap.
She helped the lady stand up, made sure she hadn't been grazed or wounded in the scuffle and then continued on towards the Boardwalk.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
She slumped into the bench against the wall. A fresh cup of tea sat in front of her on the table. The coffee shop was bustling with most of the tables full of people typing away on their computers, or chatting with friends. The shop's stereos played some top forties pop song or another the same one that would be found playing on any of the major radio stations.
She raised the tea cup and took a deep breath, letting the steam seep into her. And with the steam touch she felt some of the frustration melt out of her. Her impotence earlier with the mugger was really leaving her dejected. She had failed to protect the woman, and failed to figure out her power. Not that using her power then would have been a good idea, it would have almost certainly outed her.
Taylor sat and let her thoughts spiral in the miasma of her failure when suddenly a woman stood across from her.
"Is this seat taken?" The woman stated in a thick middle eastern accent while indicating the far side of Taylor's table. The woman was in her late thirties. She had deep lines on her face, like she regularly had the weight of the world on her shoulders, or just really rambunctious children. She had olive skin and henna marks across her hands. Around her hair was wrapped a silk scarf, a hijab if Taylor remembered correctly.
A quick look around the café confirmed that the place was packed and there were few other seats available. "No, go right ahead."
"What brings you to Brockton Bay?" Taylor asked the woman. Guessing that it was probably either cape or medical tourism, the cities primary two attractions.
"I've adopted a new child and I wanted to check in on them." The woman replied before taking a sip from her mug.
"Adopted, but they don't live with you?"
"No no, they are old enough to care for themselves, but I've taken them under my wing so to speak. Declared them my charge, someone to provide guidance and advice to." The woman stated looking directly into Taylor's eyes. She took another sip of her drink before looking at Taylor in a way that no one had since her own mother had passed away two years prior. "Now then child, what has you looking so despondent?"
Taylor relayed the story of the mugger, and how she had felt so ineffective. Of course she left out the bits about her powers.
"First, remember that you did the most important thing. Looking after the victim. Their possessions can be replaced, their corporeal vessel, not so easily. Secondly, you are young still my child. Give yourself time to learn and train. You will teach yourself skills to better handle these kinds of situations. Train yourself to increase your stamina, and your ability to protect yourself and others."
"Train? You mean like running?"
"That would be a good start, maybe also learn to throw a punch." The woman said with a wink and a small laugh.
That stung. It also left Taylor questioning the woman's advice. The woman wasn't what she seemed on the surface. Here there was a motherly figure whose primary advice came down to learning to throw a punch.
"You have a heavy burden on your shoulders my child. Don't let it wear you down before you get a chance to deal with what is to come."
They sat in silence for a few minutes taking sips of their respective drinks. The woman finished her drink and looked like she was preparing to leave. She stopped and turned to Taylor.
"Let me teach you a song." She said with dead seriousness.
Taylor just looked at her perplexed by the sudden change in subject and how out of context the statement was, but eventually nodded her assent.
The woman gently sung a few notes. Her singing voice was beautiful like something heavenly, but what truly shook Taylor was something far more profound. The Symphony was responding to the notes. It was like the woman was a conductor and just ordered a section of instruments to change their beat. This woman with no effort had just done the thing that had been leaving Taylor utterly lost for the last three days.
The woman then stood up. Set her mug and a business card down on the table and walked out of the café.
It took a moment for Taylor to recover from the absolute shock she had felt. She gently picked up the business card and found it reading "H.A.R.P. - Brockton Bay Chapter". It then listed an email address and phone number, although it had no address.
Taylor collected her stuff and slipped out of the café. She ducked into an ally, and quickly looked around to double check that no one was around. She didn't really want to attract attention if this worked, and didn't really want to embarrass herself if it didn't. She then made a few hand gestures imitating the woman and sang the notes.
It was as easy as saying her name. Like she had always known these notes. But nothing happened. It felt like something was missing. Some fuel to power the works.
Somehow she knew what to do. It felt like she was taking a small piece of her soul, some fundamental part of her, and fed it into the song as she tried again. That essence, that soul, seemed to do the trick. The song reverberated through the Symphony. A gust of wind came down and wrapped around her before quickly fading.
She had done it, she had changed the Symphony, now to just figure out what it was doing.
Ascension - 4
Taylor's experimentation with the song the lady at the café had taught her hadn't been going very well.
She had gone down into the basement for her experimentation. So far she knew it didn't cause a big explosion so it should be safe to do her early testing down there.
She setup some soda cans along a ledge. Then incanted her song. With the miniature tornado around her she focused on the cans. She tried to focus the gust outwards. To try and knock the cans over. And nothing happened. She kept trying different methods to see if she could channel it in different ways.
"Fuck!" she exclaimed in frustration as the gust faded. She took stock of her essence. Some of it had been consumed just like in the alley behind the café. She noticed that she felt full this morning, so she did recover it with time, but the specifics of it were still unknown.
Taylor walked over to the her primary 'hero' notebook and wrote down the results of her experiment. Additionally she crossed off 'wind attack' from her brainstormed list of potential ideas.
Next she had a number of smaller tests. First she lit a candle, to see if it would be extinguished. Then she put down several balls of increasing weight. A golf ball, a tennis ball, a soccer ball, and a bowling ball.
Now to run the two tests within the minute that the gust would last. She again sung her song. The gust of wind picked up around her, she could feel it ghosting along her the skin of her arms and hands. She moved her fingers near the tip of the candle expecting the wick to extinguish. Yet nothing happened. What was this wind?
It wasn't extinguishing the flame so it is unlikely her next test was going to work, but she only had a little more time left until the gust went away. So she proceeded with the test anyways. First moving the gust near the golf ball, and again it had no effect.
"Okay", she told herself, "next test". She tried punching at the ball without actually hitting, maybe that would focus the wind into a punch of sorts. Once again nothing happened. "Fucking, fuck fuck!" she yelled as she kicked the cabinet the balls were resting on. The smaller balls all rebounded off the wall and bounced off scattering around the room. The bowling ball though just fell straight off the cabinet onto the ground. Right where her foot was. It slammed into her foot and… nothing. She just sat there and stared at the ball rolling to the side on the floor.
"Holy shit! It's a shield." She exclaimed with a gasp.
She quickly went over to her notes, crossed out the rest of her brainstormed list of experiments and ideas. Then she recorded her findings.
Now to do some proper testing.
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She awoke the next morning and took stock of herself. A few minor bruises from times the tests the previous day had gone wrong. The worst of them was when she threw a tennis ball into a wall quite hard. It rebounded against her chest just as the shield faded. It ended up leaving quite the welt along her collar bone.
Next up was how she felt in term of essence. She had pushed and pushed the previous night to see how far she could go in terms of using the pool of energy. Additionally because she was hoping that by using it to its limits she could expand the pool, like exercise building a muscle.
To her horror and disappointment the pool remained almost bone dry. Sure it had recovered somewhat since the previous night, but it was a small fraction of what she had expended. This was going to put a serious cramp into her hero plans if it took her one to two weeks to recover from every patrol.
She would have to figure that out later, maybe with constant use it will recover faster? At least that is what she hoped and prayed for.
For now she had more immediate concerns. Like tonight, which was going to be her first self defense course. It had taken a lot of wheedling with her father to get him to consent to it. Eventually he had given in to her, as it was for her self defense after all. It helped that this particular course had been recommended by one of his coworkers as the one she had taken.
She went upstairs to eat something before the class. Half way through cooking up the spaghetti her father came home.
"Good evening!" he said as he entered the room.
"Welcome home dad!" she replied with a smile.
He set his bag down at the table then looked over at what she was doing. He then stared at her for a few seconds before sighing. "You aren't going dressed like that are you?"
"Sure, why?" She didn't know what was wrong with what she was wearing. She did a quick check and It was what she always wore. A pair of jeans and a t-shirt, plus a pair of sneakers.
"You are going to be working out for the next hour. Falling down, working up a sweat. You should really put on some gym clothes. If you don't have anything that fits you…" he trailed off for a moment. "Your mother probably had a few things that while a bit big, will work."
She hmmed at that. Wearing her mothers clothes seemed wrong. Seemed like it was disturbing the dead. That said there was truth in what he said that she should probably wear something meant for exercise.
"Alright," she admitted. "I'll go get changed into some exercise clothes. I think I have some from running upstairs."
She bolted up the stairs into her room and looked through what was in her cupboard. Sweat pants were easy she had a pair that weren't too lose. She had a sports bra, as little as she needed it. What she didn't have a lot of was tank tops. She had one clean one, a purple top that was a bit small on her. Well that was unfair it fit her perfectly it just showed off her midriff, which she was self conscious about. Thanks Emma! Oh well, it would have to do.
She had started morning runs a few days prior. The first day she had been exhausted when she got back, but she could already feel a definite increase in her stamina. Taylor had a inkling of a suspicion that this wasn't entirely normal levels of increase, but she wasn't going to complain. Her running times were another thing she was keeping meticulous records of in her hero notebook.
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Danny pulled the truck up to the gym. It was a smaller community rec center that focused more on basketball courts, swimming pool, and weights than anything. Taylor walked into the reception area and saw someone was working behind the desk, if one counted playing solitaire as working.
"Hi, I'm here for the self defense course." Taylor said.
"In the back, stick to the left and go through the last door." The lady said without looking up from her game.
Taylor followed the direction until she found the door. It opened into a multipurpose room about twenty by twenty feet. Spread across the floor were impact mats.
Standing near the mirrors to one side was a stern middle-aged woman. She was wearing a shirt with 'BBPD - Precinct 15' emblazoned around the department seal. Probably an off duty officer then.
Taylor found a place in the loose line of individuals facing the officer.
A few minutes later after the last of attendants had trickled in. "Alright class that marks time. Lets get going. I'm Officer Williams, but I also answer to Sarah. I'll be teaching you ladies some basics of self defense."
The class started with the very basics. First and foremost was a emphasis on removing yourself from the situation, or not getting into the situation in the first place. Then they moved onto the more practical side of the class, mostly how to fall. Taylor was taking to it like a fish to water. Very quickly each technique seemed to click with her. Rarely on the first attempt, but often on the second or third. Much faster than some of the students who were still struggling after the fifth or tenth attempts.
"You, sorry what was your name?" Officer Williams said, for Taylor couldn't think of the stern woman as Sarah.
"Taylor ma'am," she crisply replied.
"If you are done with your exercises please assist the pair next to you. So far your form is excellent, lets see how your teaching skills are."
After an hour Taylor was feeling more exhausted and sore than she could remember, including her recent morning runs. She had fallen to the ground more times than she cared to count. There was something different though. That well of something, that essence that she didn't understand but powered her abilities, it seemed to have recharged a bit.
This was amazing. There was some behaviour that she didn't understand that recharged her power. She hadn't heard of anything like this on PHO. Everyone else seemed to expend their ability and recover them as they rested. Maybe their were others out there like her, but if so it wasn't talked about. The only way she could think to find out more was to go and sign up with the PRT, but she wasn't really feeling up to that.
Now to just figure out what it was that caused it to recharge. It could have been something as nebulous as the clothes she was wearing, or more concrete like repeatedly taking a fall. She would have to experiment with it some more. She made a mental note to record everything she could recall about this class when she got home in her notebook. That way she could compare as she went and possibly narrow down the culprit.
As the rest of the class started meandering to the exit she went up to the teacher. "Excuse me, Officer Williams?"
"Taylor, I believe you said, right?" The gruff middle-aged woman said.
"Yes, I was wondering if we would be going over punches during this course? Apparently I'm doing it incorrectly." Taylor said with a bit of a hopeful lilt.
"Unlikely, they tend to be offensive, while here we focus on getting away from the situation as that tends to be safer." Officer Williams said having put a large amount of verbal stress on part about getting away. The woman then paused and thought for a moment. "That said, I can find a few minutes now and we can go over the basics."
The police officer helped her get into a good stance and then went over the basics of throwing a punch.
"And remember never put your thumb inside your fist. Or you are going to break it." Taylor had to blush at this. That was how she had always made fists, not that she had ever landed anything more than a superficial punch on the shoulder. It made her think about how much trouble she would have been in if she had actually managed to land one on the mugger.
Some small part of her mind went back to the lady at the café's admonishment about learning to throw a punch. Almost like she had known how Taylor had screwed up. But that was silly, she wasn't there and couldn't have known.
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Taylor pushed herself into the house, drained from her morning run. She collapsed onto the couch and started doing a mental inventory of her pains and aches. She seemed to be able to rule out the gym clothes as being the catalyst for whatever it was that restored her essence. As she had made sure to wear the same outfit as she had worn to the self defense class the night before.
She had school tomorrow, which she really wasn't looking forward to. Sure she could throw a halfway decent punch now. She needed to get a punching bag and practice before she could really go any further. Additionally class had taught her some basics of getting out of grips, grabs, and so on. Although most of the class had been about how to fall, in preparation for when they took turns escaping each other.
Would these basic skills be enough for school? They might help with some of Sophia's bullying. She tended to be far more physical. While Emma tended to be more emotional and verbal, and Madison tended to use props and her environment.
It was a start. Taylor was learning to defend herself and that was a start. She had to keep telling herself that, and she had to believe it. Plus she was a superhero now. At least she was working on becoming a superhero.
Speaking of which she needed to work on her costume. She didn't really have much of a theme to go off of yet. She could hear music, and if she sung the right notes she could effect the Symphony. So Music Girl and put a bunch of notes all over her costume. She laughed at herself, and at the fact that is probably what would happen if she signed up for the Wards. It just took one mental of image of Clockblocker and his ridiculous outfit to be sure of it.
She gathered her meager savings and set off for the Boardwalk. She might as well use her last day of freedom before school to do some shopping and start building her hero costume.
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First she went to a clothing shop. After looking around for a few minutes she was pretty sure it was a waste of time. After picking up a few of the tops and feeling how thin the material was she knew it was. These things were going to tear apart at first contact.
Next she tried the camping shop. Maybe there would be something better there. The quality was better, the stitching looked like it could at least handle a fall or two. That said everything was ridiculously expensive, much more than her meager savings could afford. Plus while she got the impression that the clothing would hold up to a fall or two, it would just be a fall or two before they needed to be replaced, something her meager savings and allowance definitely wouldn't allow.
Finally she went into the thrift store. She really wasn't expecting to find anything here that would be of better quality than the first clothing shop, but might as well try. At least it would be cheap so she could always upgrade later.
She asked the clerk if they had any heavy duty outdoor clothing. He pointed her towards a rack in the back. When she got there she found what she needed. It was full of work clothes. Heavy duty jeans, jackets, and so on. Now to just pray that it would fit her.
It was a black and blue motorcycle jacket. Heavy leather, top notch stitching. From the design it looked like it was some store brand of jacket instead of something fancy that a gang member or motorcycle enthusiast would wear. Still a motorcycle jacket would work night and day above everything else she had found so far.
She pulled the jacket on and zipped it up. It was a little big on her, but not enough to cause problems or look out of place. She threw a few punches to check to the fit, and actually it being a bit too big was probably good. The elbows on it were quite stiff, but the extra room helped the punches flow.
Now to fillout the rest of her costume. She ended up settling on a black facemask that looped behind her head. Additionally she found a beanie that she could bundle her hair up into in order to hide her most distinctive feature.
On the whole the outfit was far from perfect but it would have to do for now. Come the summer months she would be sweating to death from how heavy the layers were, but she had time before that was a concern. Looking at the price tag on the motorcycle jacket she was pretty tapped out. She'd look like a noob but maybe that would buy her some leeway from the cops and PRT? They would expect her to make mistakes and be more forgiving. At least she could pray. Most importantly it would successfully hide her identity while she was out.
Now to just get a set of goggles and fit them with her prescription lenses. It would be silly to be outed by such a simple thing as her glasses.
She had gone down into the basement for her experimentation. So far she knew it didn't cause a big explosion so it should be safe to do her early testing down there.
She setup some soda cans along a ledge. Then incanted her song. With the miniature tornado around her she focused on the cans. She tried to focus the gust outwards. To try and knock the cans over. And nothing happened. She kept trying different methods to see if she could channel it in different ways.
"Fuck!" she exclaimed in frustration as the gust faded. She took stock of her essence. Some of it had been consumed just like in the alley behind the café. She noticed that she felt full this morning, so she did recover it with time, but the specifics of it were still unknown.
Taylor walked over to the her primary 'hero' notebook and wrote down the results of her experiment. Additionally she crossed off 'wind attack' from her brainstormed list of potential ideas.
Next she had a number of smaller tests. First she lit a candle, to see if it would be extinguished. Then she put down several balls of increasing weight. A golf ball, a tennis ball, a soccer ball, and a bowling ball.
Now to run the two tests within the minute that the gust would last. She again sung her song. The gust of wind picked up around her, she could feel it ghosting along her the skin of her arms and hands. She moved her fingers near the tip of the candle expecting the wick to extinguish. Yet nothing happened. What was this wind?
It wasn't extinguishing the flame so it is unlikely her next test was going to work, but she only had a little more time left until the gust went away. So she proceeded with the test anyways. First moving the gust near the golf ball, and again it had no effect.
"Okay", she told herself, "next test". She tried punching at the ball without actually hitting, maybe that would focus the wind into a punch of sorts. Once again nothing happened. "Fucking, fuck fuck!" she yelled as she kicked the cabinet the balls were resting on. The smaller balls all rebounded off the wall and bounced off scattering around the room. The bowling ball though just fell straight off the cabinet onto the ground. Right where her foot was. It slammed into her foot and… nothing. She just sat there and stared at the ball rolling to the side on the floor.
"Holy shit! It's a shield." She exclaimed with a gasp.
She quickly went over to her notes, crossed out the rest of her brainstormed list of experiments and ideas. Then she recorded her findings.
Now to do some proper testing.
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She awoke the next morning and took stock of herself. A few minor bruises from times the tests the previous day had gone wrong. The worst of them was when she threw a tennis ball into a wall quite hard. It rebounded against her chest just as the shield faded. It ended up leaving quite the welt along her collar bone.
Next up was how she felt in term of essence. She had pushed and pushed the previous night to see how far she could go in terms of using the pool of energy. Additionally because she was hoping that by using it to its limits she could expand the pool, like exercise building a muscle.
To her horror and disappointment the pool remained almost bone dry. Sure it had recovered somewhat since the previous night, but it was a small fraction of what she had expended. This was going to put a serious cramp into her hero plans if it took her one to two weeks to recover from every patrol.
She would have to figure that out later, maybe with constant use it will recover faster? At least that is what she hoped and prayed for.
For now she had more immediate concerns. Like tonight, which was going to be her first self defense course. It had taken a lot of wheedling with her father to get him to consent to it. Eventually he had given in to her, as it was for her self defense after all. It helped that this particular course had been recommended by one of his coworkers as the one she had taken.
She went upstairs to eat something before the class. Half way through cooking up the spaghetti her father came home.
"Good evening!" he said as he entered the room.
"Welcome home dad!" she replied with a smile.
He set his bag down at the table then looked over at what she was doing. He then stared at her for a few seconds before sighing. "You aren't going dressed like that are you?"
"Sure, why?" She didn't know what was wrong with what she was wearing. She did a quick check and It was what she always wore. A pair of jeans and a t-shirt, plus a pair of sneakers.
"You are going to be working out for the next hour. Falling down, working up a sweat. You should really put on some gym clothes. If you don't have anything that fits you…" he trailed off for a moment. "Your mother probably had a few things that while a bit big, will work."
She hmmed at that. Wearing her mothers clothes seemed wrong. Seemed like it was disturbing the dead. That said there was truth in what he said that she should probably wear something meant for exercise.
"Alright," she admitted. "I'll go get changed into some exercise clothes. I think I have some from running upstairs."
She bolted up the stairs into her room and looked through what was in her cupboard. Sweat pants were easy she had a pair that weren't too lose. She had a sports bra, as little as she needed it. What she didn't have a lot of was tank tops. She had one clean one, a purple top that was a bit small on her. Well that was unfair it fit her perfectly it just showed off her midriff, which she was self conscious about. Thanks Emma! Oh well, it would have to do.
She had started morning runs a few days prior. The first day she had been exhausted when she got back, but she could already feel a definite increase in her stamina. Taylor had a inkling of a suspicion that this wasn't entirely normal levels of increase, but she wasn't going to complain. Her running times were another thing she was keeping meticulous records of in her hero notebook.
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Danny pulled the truck up to the gym. It was a smaller community rec center that focused more on basketball courts, swimming pool, and weights than anything. Taylor walked into the reception area and saw someone was working behind the desk, if one counted playing solitaire as working.
"Hi, I'm here for the self defense course." Taylor said.
"In the back, stick to the left and go through the last door." The lady said without looking up from her game.
Taylor followed the direction until she found the door. It opened into a multipurpose room about twenty by twenty feet. Spread across the floor were impact mats.
Standing near the mirrors to one side was a stern middle-aged woman. She was wearing a shirt with 'BBPD - Precinct 15' emblazoned around the department seal. Probably an off duty officer then.
Taylor found a place in the loose line of individuals facing the officer.
A few minutes later after the last of attendants had trickled in. "Alright class that marks time. Lets get going. I'm Officer Williams, but I also answer to Sarah. I'll be teaching you ladies some basics of self defense."
The class started with the very basics. First and foremost was a emphasis on removing yourself from the situation, or not getting into the situation in the first place. Then they moved onto the more practical side of the class, mostly how to fall. Taylor was taking to it like a fish to water. Very quickly each technique seemed to click with her. Rarely on the first attempt, but often on the second or third. Much faster than some of the students who were still struggling after the fifth or tenth attempts.
"You, sorry what was your name?" Officer Williams said, for Taylor couldn't think of the stern woman as Sarah.
"Taylor ma'am," she crisply replied.
"If you are done with your exercises please assist the pair next to you. So far your form is excellent, lets see how your teaching skills are."
After an hour Taylor was feeling more exhausted and sore than she could remember, including her recent morning runs. She had fallen to the ground more times than she cared to count. There was something different though. That well of something, that essence that she didn't understand but powered her abilities, it seemed to have recharged a bit.
This was amazing. There was some behaviour that she didn't understand that recharged her power. She hadn't heard of anything like this on PHO. Everyone else seemed to expend their ability and recover them as they rested. Maybe their were others out there like her, but if so it wasn't talked about. The only way she could think to find out more was to go and sign up with the PRT, but she wasn't really feeling up to that.
Now to just figure out what it was that caused it to recharge. It could have been something as nebulous as the clothes she was wearing, or more concrete like repeatedly taking a fall. She would have to experiment with it some more. She made a mental note to record everything she could recall about this class when she got home in her notebook. That way she could compare as she went and possibly narrow down the culprit.
As the rest of the class started meandering to the exit she went up to the teacher. "Excuse me, Officer Williams?"
"Taylor, I believe you said, right?" The gruff middle-aged woman said.
"Yes, I was wondering if we would be going over punches during this course? Apparently I'm doing it incorrectly." Taylor said with a bit of a hopeful lilt.
"Unlikely, they tend to be offensive, while here we focus on getting away from the situation as that tends to be safer." Officer Williams said having put a large amount of verbal stress on part about getting away. The woman then paused and thought for a moment. "That said, I can find a few minutes now and we can go over the basics."
The police officer helped her get into a good stance and then went over the basics of throwing a punch.
"And remember never put your thumb inside your fist. Or you are going to break it." Taylor had to blush at this. That was how she had always made fists, not that she had ever landed anything more than a superficial punch on the shoulder. It made her think about how much trouble she would have been in if she had actually managed to land one on the mugger.
Some small part of her mind went back to the lady at the café's admonishment about learning to throw a punch. Almost like she had known how Taylor had screwed up. But that was silly, she wasn't there and couldn't have known.
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Taylor pushed herself into the house, drained from her morning run. She collapsed onto the couch and started doing a mental inventory of her pains and aches. She seemed to be able to rule out the gym clothes as being the catalyst for whatever it was that restored her essence. As she had made sure to wear the same outfit as she had worn to the self defense class the night before.
She had school tomorrow, which she really wasn't looking forward to. Sure she could throw a halfway decent punch now. She needed to get a punching bag and practice before she could really go any further. Additionally class had taught her some basics of getting out of grips, grabs, and so on. Although most of the class had been about how to fall, in preparation for when they took turns escaping each other.
Would these basic skills be enough for school? They might help with some of Sophia's bullying. She tended to be far more physical. While Emma tended to be more emotional and verbal, and Madison tended to use props and her environment.
It was a start. Taylor was learning to defend herself and that was a start. She had to keep telling herself that, and she had to believe it. Plus she was a superhero now. At least she was working on becoming a superhero.
Speaking of which she needed to work on her costume. She didn't really have much of a theme to go off of yet. She could hear music, and if she sung the right notes she could effect the Symphony. So Music Girl and put a bunch of notes all over her costume. She laughed at herself, and at the fact that is probably what would happen if she signed up for the Wards. It just took one mental of image of Clockblocker and his ridiculous outfit to be sure of it.
She gathered her meager savings and set off for the Boardwalk. She might as well use her last day of freedom before school to do some shopping and start building her hero costume.
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First she went to a clothing shop. After looking around for a few minutes she was pretty sure it was a waste of time. After picking up a few of the tops and feeling how thin the material was she knew it was. These things were going to tear apart at first contact.
Next she tried the camping shop. Maybe there would be something better there. The quality was better, the stitching looked like it could at least handle a fall or two. That said everything was ridiculously expensive, much more than her meager savings could afford. Plus while she got the impression that the clothing would hold up to a fall or two, it would just be a fall or two before they needed to be replaced, something her meager savings and allowance definitely wouldn't allow.
Finally she went into the thrift store. She really wasn't expecting to find anything here that would be of better quality than the first clothing shop, but might as well try. At least it would be cheap so she could always upgrade later.
She asked the clerk if they had any heavy duty outdoor clothing. He pointed her towards a rack in the back. When she got there she found what she needed. It was full of work clothes. Heavy duty jeans, jackets, and so on. Now to just pray that it would fit her.
It was a black and blue motorcycle jacket. Heavy leather, top notch stitching. From the design it looked like it was some store brand of jacket instead of something fancy that a gang member or motorcycle enthusiast would wear. Still a motorcycle jacket would work night and day above everything else she had found so far.
She pulled the jacket on and zipped it up. It was a little big on her, but not enough to cause problems or look out of place. She threw a few punches to check to the fit, and actually it being a bit too big was probably good. The elbows on it were quite stiff, but the extra room helped the punches flow.
Now to fillout the rest of her costume. She ended up settling on a black facemask that looped behind her head. Additionally she found a beanie that she could bundle her hair up into in order to hide her most distinctive feature.
On the whole the outfit was far from perfect but it would have to do for now. Come the summer months she would be sweating to death from how heavy the layers were, but she had time before that was a concern. Looking at the price tag on the motorcycle jacket she was pretty tapped out. She'd look like a noob but maybe that would buy her some leeway from the cops and PRT? They would expect her to make mistakes and be more forgiving. At least she could pray. Most importantly it would successfully hide her identity while she was out.
Now to just get a set of goggles and fit them with her prescription lenses. It would be silly to be outed by such a simple thing as her glasses.
Ascension - 5
The first day back at school had been tempestuous for Taylor. Nothing major happend, a few snide remarks from the bitches three. She was just so on edge, and had a feeling that right now they were just testing the water. See what they could get away with.
The answer was a lot. The first time they insulted her Mr. Gladly was standing less than five feet away. He even looked over in her direction made eye contact and then rapidly looked away in shame.
Her eyes narrowed at the sight of his shame. She dipped into the Symphony bringing it to its full glory instead of the constant background she normally experienced it as. She focused on him and tried see what she could decipher. Shame, utter shame at his cowardly acts, the desperation to be accepted, to not make waves, not upset Blackwell, mixed with knowing he was cruelly sacrificing one student for the 'good' of others.
Bile and resentment rose in Taylor. She turned her back to Mr. Gladly, disgusted by what she had now knew. Still the mystery of what was going on at Winslow eluded her, even if she had one more piece of the puzzle.
Throughout the rest of the day the insults picked up, the small jabs, and shoulder checks started to resume. At this rate things would be back to their normal levels of harassment within two days.
On the bright side, she was finally done with school for the day, and she was about to go out on her first patrol. If she was fortuitous she would stumble upon a mugging and be able to stop it. Most likely she would just spend a few hours walking around the bad parts of town.
She changed into a pair of jeans and boots she was dedicating towards her costume. That way they wouldn't accidentally out her by wearing pants with blood on them or something. She grabbed her new jacket, beanie, face mask and goggles and put them into a small bag. Next she checked to see if her dad was around before sneaking out the side door. She had spent some time when she got home yesterday wearing her motorcycle jacket, trying to break in the stiff leather so she wasn't entirely impeded in her movements. Practicing throwing punches seemed to have helped a lot.
She headed north deeper into the docks neighborhood. Definitely one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the city. Her father and her were quite blessed with how safe the few blocks around where their house was, but with the amount of gang problems Winslow had it was impossible that all of the nearby areas could be so safe.
Several hours later she was about to give up. She hadn't found anyone or anything going on. On the bright side she was feeling more charged, something about patrolling seemed to generate essence, which was helpful. She found this extremely relieving. The fear, that she would only be able to sustain herself going out on patrols once a week, with how slow she recovered, hadn't left her alone.
Just as she was about to give up for the night she stumbled onto something. She heard a loud commotion a block or two over. Lots of yelling and screaming. So Taylor did what any hero would do: She decided to investigate.
When she arrived on the scene there stood a tall beefy man standing over a whimpering woman. The woman's mascara had run all over her face, her blouse was ripped, and it looked like she had a giant bruise or two on her visible chest.
"You fuckin' whore how dare you!" he screamed bearing down on the woman.
Taylor's couldn't deny that some infinitesimally small part of her's first reaction was to stay away. This man was easily twice her size and looked like he could bench a truck. Her second and primary thought was that the woman needed her help, and it was her duty. That she would fulfill her duty regardless of the cost to herself. Plus she was a super heroine. She might not be Alexandria but this wasn't an Endbringer, this was the least she could do.
These thought steeled her. She quickly sang her song. She still didn't fully know the full extent of what it could protect her from, if it could be ended early from too much damage, or any number of other specifics about it.
She then charged forward as the man raised his fist and prepared to slam it down onto the woman. She pushed the woman aside and took the fist straight in the side of her head.
She mentally braced herself for the oncoming pain, but there was nothing. Just like with the bowling ball. His punch hit the wind shield around her and stopped.
"Pick on someone your own size!" she yelled mentally laughing when she considered the sheer difference in their mass.
The man prepared to throw another punch and Taylor dodged to the side. She wasn't entirely sure how much of a beating her shield could take. Her ability to test it was limited without getting someone else involved.
"Get out of the way you fuckin' whorin bitch," the man yelled at Taylor. Having lost all interest in the crying woman.
"What can't take a teenage girl in a fight!" Taylor hollered back.
He was quite a bit slower than Taylor, although she was pretty sure if he did land a single punch without her shield up then she would be out for the count. She once again said a small prayer of thanks to the woman in the hijab.
She dodged a few hits, trying to stay bouncy on the balls of her feet as she had been instructed. She tried to get small jabs in between his much bigger slower punches. Taylor only had a few minutes worth of training, but even then he seemed to have little to none as well. Instead he was relying on his large size and brute strength to succeed. Her first couple of jabs missed. Being too late to make it through his defenses. He threw another large wind up punch which allowed her to easily dodge it.
She tried again to land a jab and this one hit him square in the abs. Sadly his abs must have been made of steel and her punch did little to nothing. She was running out of options here, she just wasn't strong enough at the moment to hurt him and she didn't have a weapon to multiply her efforts with.
Then she saw an opening she could use. Now for one of the few techniques they had already covered in class. A rugby tackle. She prayed that this would work because she didn't have a lot of ideas at the moment. She felt some of her essence pour out of her and into the Symphony. Luckily this was not a complicated maneuver, so it wasn't hard for her to pull off.
The man fell to the ground screaming out in pain as his head slammed against the concrete. Probably the best possible outcome of her tackle, as it would likely remove him from the combat. Still Taylor didn't want to rest on her laurels and let him get back up to continue the fight. So she threw a few more punches until he was well and down before she got up breathing in and out heavily, trying to catch her breath. Upon catching it she proceed to try and heave him over. Sadly he was too heavy for her. So she would have to settle for him being on his back when she restrained him.
As she pulled the zip cuffs out of her pocket she reminded herself to say thanks to whoever it was on PHO that had recommended them as a must have for new capes. She slipped it over his wrists and got him zipped up as tight as the instructions had indicated, careful to not push it too far and cut off his circulation.
Then she realised that the next step was to contact the emergency services… and realised her mistake. Blushing under her facemask she turned around to the woman who she had just saved and awkwardly asked, "uhh do you happen to have a cell phone?"
The woman slowly reached with her left arm across her body and pulled a phone out of her right pocket. Taylor seeing the awkward movement realised it looked like the victim might have a broken arm. Sadly there wasn't much that Taylor could do about that.
She quickly put in three digits to summon emergency services and pressed call. A crisp practiced voice came across the line, "911 whats your emergency?"
"Just came across a domestic abuse situation. Uhh, interrupted the dude about to hit a woman. Got in the way, then subdued him."
"Ma'am is everyone at the scene alright?"
Taylor lifted a hand to the back of her head and gave it a bit of a scratch. "Uhh… maybe? He hit his head when he fell over. The woman has some pretty bad bruises and what looks like a broken arm."
They went through the process of exchanging location information, and then she was informed that police and ambulances were being dispatched. With the critical bits handled an unexpected question came.
"Ma'am are you a cape?" The voice recited with absolute routine.
"Yes. Uhh yes, I'm… uhh I don't have a name yet." Taylor stumbled through her reply. Frustrated at not having resolved such a simple matter yet. It was hard to come up with a good cape name. All the good ones were taken, and then to make it worse her power was currently so nebulous. If it was something more concrete like pausing someone in time then it would be a lot easier to come up with a definitive name.
"Alright, I'm dispatching PRT support. They will need to take your statement." The operator said ignoring the rambling of her response.
It took five minutes for the police to arrive, another two for the ambulance. Finally another ten for the PRT.
The police did some basic first aid. Just making sure the guy wasn't bleeding. The ambulance tech took over as soon as they arrived, checking for basic signs of a concussion. Once it was clear that he wasn't suffering from any major injury, other than a few bruises where she'd punched him, they loaded him into the police car and took him down to the station. Taylor realised as they were checking him over how lucky she had gotten. Somehow she had knocked him over and he had hit his head with just enough force to knock himself out, but not enough to show signs of a concussion or cause bleeding.
The police had been questioning the woman and taking her basic details until the EMT took over. They braced her arm and loaded her up in the ambulance to go directly to the hospital.
The agents from the PRT only had eyes for Taylor. They were in what she could only call half-tactical gear. Looking like something between a cop and a riot police. Helmet with clear face covering, heavy duty pants, utility belt, semi-armored jacket.
"Ma'am, you're the one to call this in?" the lead agent asked.
"Uhh, yea. I used the woman's phone." Taylor got out. She wasn't sure what to expect here. As much as the police, EMT, and dispatcher were all treating this like it was standard operating procedure she hadn't seen anything about this on PHO.
"Alright, just got to get some basic details and a copy of your statement. Else the judges and defense attorneys get pissy about undocumented parahuman involvement."
That made sense she thought. The only problem was what she would do when they got around to pushing for details she didn't have like a name or contact information.
"Dispatcher said something bout you not having a cape name?" the PRT agent said in his thick drawl.
"Uhhh yeah, umm I'm still working on that detail. My powers are a bit all over the place, makes it hard to theme." Taylor demurely informed.
"Alright, we will assign you a temporary codename for now. You can contact the PRT to get an official one recognised." He then proceeded to give her an incident number she could reference.
Taking of her statement was pretty straight forward, she was a little light on details around how she made herself resistant, invulnerable(?), to damage. Just saying that it was 'a temporary shield effect'.
As his closing remarks he tried to sell her on PRT affiliation. "You can register at the PRT as an affiliate and they will give you a PRT compatible phone which can be used to contact you in an emergency and additionally you can use to contact them in situations like this. We tend to prefer to go through the console rather than general dispatch."
Finally she was done with the formalities of the arrest. She looked over the scene, blood having splattered across the pavement from the victim. She had done good she knew, she should be proud of that. Yet her heart still cried out wishing she could have done more. She had a lot of luck today, next time she might not be so lucky. She needed to learn and improve.
The answer was a lot. The first time they insulted her Mr. Gladly was standing less than five feet away. He even looked over in her direction made eye contact and then rapidly looked away in shame.
Her eyes narrowed at the sight of his shame. She dipped into the Symphony bringing it to its full glory instead of the constant background she normally experienced it as. She focused on him and tried see what she could decipher. Shame, utter shame at his cowardly acts, the desperation to be accepted, to not make waves, not upset Blackwell, mixed with knowing he was cruelly sacrificing one student for the 'good' of others.
Bile and resentment rose in Taylor. She turned her back to Mr. Gladly, disgusted by what she had now knew. Still the mystery of what was going on at Winslow eluded her, even if she had one more piece of the puzzle.
Throughout the rest of the day the insults picked up, the small jabs, and shoulder checks started to resume. At this rate things would be back to their normal levels of harassment within two days.
On the bright side, she was finally done with school for the day, and she was about to go out on her first patrol. If she was fortuitous she would stumble upon a mugging and be able to stop it. Most likely she would just spend a few hours walking around the bad parts of town.
She changed into a pair of jeans and boots she was dedicating towards her costume. That way they wouldn't accidentally out her by wearing pants with blood on them or something. She grabbed her new jacket, beanie, face mask and goggles and put them into a small bag. Next she checked to see if her dad was around before sneaking out the side door. She had spent some time when she got home yesterday wearing her motorcycle jacket, trying to break in the stiff leather so she wasn't entirely impeded in her movements. Practicing throwing punches seemed to have helped a lot.
She headed north deeper into the docks neighborhood. Definitely one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the city. Her father and her were quite blessed with how safe the few blocks around where their house was, but with the amount of gang problems Winslow had it was impossible that all of the nearby areas could be so safe.
Several hours later she was about to give up. She hadn't found anyone or anything going on. On the bright side she was feeling more charged, something about patrolling seemed to generate essence, which was helpful. She found this extremely relieving. The fear, that she would only be able to sustain herself going out on patrols once a week, with how slow she recovered, hadn't left her alone.
Just as she was about to give up for the night she stumbled onto something. She heard a loud commotion a block or two over. Lots of yelling and screaming. So Taylor did what any hero would do: She decided to investigate.
When she arrived on the scene there stood a tall beefy man standing over a whimpering woman. The woman's mascara had run all over her face, her blouse was ripped, and it looked like she had a giant bruise or two on her visible chest.
"You fuckin' whore how dare you!" he screamed bearing down on the woman.
Taylor's couldn't deny that some infinitesimally small part of her's first reaction was to stay away. This man was easily twice her size and looked like he could bench a truck. Her second and primary thought was that the woman needed her help, and it was her duty. That she would fulfill her duty regardless of the cost to herself. Plus she was a super heroine. She might not be Alexandria but this wasn't an Endbringer, this was the least she could do.
These thought steeled her. She quickly sang her song. She still didn't fully know the full extent of what it could protect her from, if it could be ended early from too much damage, or any number of other specifics about it.
She then charged forward as the man raised his fist and prepared to slam it down onto the woman. She pushed the woman aside and took the fist straight in the side of her head.
She mentally braced herself for the oncoming pain, but there was nothing. Just like with the bowling ball. His punch hit the wind shield around her and stopped.
"Pick on someone your own size!" she yelled mentally laughing when she considered the sheer difference in their mass.
The man prepared to throw another punch and Taylor dodged to the side. She wasn't entirely sure how much of a beating her shield could take. Her ability to test it was limited without getting someone else involved.
"Get out of the way you fuckin' whorin bitch," the man yelled at Taylor. Having lost all interest in the crying woman.
"What can't take a teenage girl in a fight!" Taylor hollered back.
He was quite a bit slower than Taylor, although she was pretty sure if he did land a single punch without her shield up then she would be out for the count. She once again said a small prayer of thanks to the woman in the hijab.
She dodged a few hits, trying to stay bouncy on the balls of her feet as she had been instructed. She tried to get small jabs in between his much bigger slower punches. Taylor only had a few minutes worth of training, but even then he seemed to have little to none as well. Instead he was relying on his large size and brute strength to succeed. Her first couple of jabs missed. Being too late to make it through his defenses. He threw another large wind up punch which allowed her to easily dodge it.
She tried again to land a jab and this one hit him square in the abs. Sadly his abs must have been made of steel and her punch did little to nothing. She was running out of options here, she just wasn't strong enough at the moment to hurt him and she didn't have a weapon to multiply her efforts with.
Then she saw an opening she could use. Now for one of the few techniques they had already covered in class. A rugby tackle. She prayed that this would work because she didn't have a lot of ideas at the moment. She felt some of her essence pour out of her and into the Symphony. Luckily this was not a complicated maneuver, so it wasn't hard for her to pull off.
The man fell to the ground screaming out in pain as his head slammed against the concrete. Probably the best possible outcome of her tackle, as it would likely remove him from the combat. Still Taylor didn't want to rest on her laurels and let him get back up to continue the fight. So she threw a few more punches until he was well and down before she got up breathing in and out heavily, trying to catch her breath. Upon catching it she proceed to try and heave him over. Sadly he was too heavy for her. So she would have to settle for him being on his back when she restrained him.
As she pulled the zip cuffs out of her pocket she reminded herself to say thanks to whoever it was on PHO that had recommended them as a must have for new capes. She slipped it over his wrists and got him zipped up as tight as the instructions had indicated, careful to not push it too far and cut off his circulation.
Then she realised that the next step was to contact the emergency services… and realised her mistake. Blushing under her facemask she turned around to the woman who she had just saved and awkwardly asked, "uhh do you happen to have a cell phone?"
The woman slowly reached with her left arm across her body and pulled a phone out of her right pocket. Taylor seeing the awkward movement realised it looked like the victim might have a broken arm. Sadly there wasn't much that Taylor could do about that.
She quickly put in three digits to summon emergency services and pressed call. A crisp practiced voice came across the line, "911 whats your emergency?"
"Just came across a domestic abuse situation. Uhh, interrupted the dude about to hit a woman. Got in the way, then subdued him."
"Ma'am is everyone at the scene alright?"
Taylor lifted a hand to the back of her head and gave it a bit of a scratch. "Uhh… maybe? He hit his head when he fell over. The woman has some pretty bad bruises and what looks like a broken arm."
They went through the process of exchanging location information, and then she was informed that police and ambulances were being dispatched. With the critical bits handled an unexpected question came.
"Ma'am are you a cape?" The voice recited with absolute routine.
"Yes. Uhh yes, I'm… uhh I don't have a name yet." Taylor stumbled through her reply. Frustrated at not having resolved such a simple matter yet. It was hard to come up with a good cape name. All the good ones were taken, and then to make it worse her power was currently so nebulous. If it was something more concrete like pausing someone in time then it would be a lot easier to come up with a definitive name.
"Alright, I'm dispatching PRT support. They will need to take your statement." The operator said ignoring the rambling of her response.
It took five minutes for the police to arrive, another two for the ambulance. Finally another ten for the PRT.
The police did some basic first aid. Just making sure the guy wasn't bleeding. The ambulance tech took over as soon as they arrived, checking for basic signs of a concussion. Once it was clear that he wasn't suffering from any major injury, other than a few bruises where she'd punched him, they loaded him into the police car and took him down to the station. Taylor realised as they were checking him over how lucky she had gotten. Somehow she had knocked him over and he had hit his head with just enough force to knock himself out, but not enough to show signs of a concussion or cause bleeding.
The police had been questioning the woman and taking her basic details until the EMT took over. They braced her arm and loaded her up in the ambulance to go directly to the hospital.
The agents from the PRT only had eyes for Taylor. They were in what she could only call half-tactical gear. Looking like something between a cop and a riot police. Helmet with clear face covering, heavy duty pants, utility belt, semi-armored jacket.
"Ma'am, you're the one to call this in?" the lead agent asked.
"Uhh, yea. I used the woman's phone." Taylor got out. She wasn't sure what to expect here. As much as the police, EMT, and dispatcher were all treating this like it was standard operating procedure she hadn't seen anything about this on PHO.
"Alright, just got to get some basic details and a copy of your statement. Else the judges and defense attorneys get pissy about undocumented parahuman involvement."
That made sense she thought. The only problem was what she would do when they got around to pushing for details she didn't have like a name or contact information.
"Dispatcher said something bout you not having a cape name?" the PRT agent said in his thick drawl.
"Uhhh yeah, umm I'm still working on that detail. My powers are a bit all over the place, makes it hard to theme." Taylor demurely informed.
"Alright, we will assign you a temporary codename for now. You can contact the PRT to get an official one recognised." He then proceeded to give her an incident number she could reference.
Taking of her statement was pretty straight forward, she was a little light on details around how she made herself resistant, invulnerable(?), to damage. Just saying that it was 'a temporary shield effect'.
As his closing remarks he tried to sell her on PRT affiliation. "You can register at the PRT as an affiliate and they will give you a PRT compatible phone which can be used to contact you in an emergency and additionally you can use to contact them in situations like this. We tend to prefer to go through the console rather than general dispatch."
Finally she was done with the formalities of the arrest. She looked over the scene, blood having splattered across the pavement from the victim. She had done good she knew, she should be proud of that. Yet her heart still cried out wishing she could have done more. She had a lot of luck today, next time she might not be so lucky. She needed to learn and improve.
Ascension - 6
Taylor was almost skipping into the school from the success of the prior night. Her first night out had overall been an outstanding success. It had started a bit rough, she struggled to find anything for a while, but in the end she had helped someone. Which was what truly mattered. Plus she hadn't even gotten hurt, thank you shield.
Then there was the fact that she seemed to have a few more clues about what was refilling her essence. Patrolling in general seemed to help, at least that was her best guess of what happened. Then she realised after helping the woman she had felt another big refill. It could have been from her cooperating with the authorities, but she liked to believe that it was about helping people. That seemed to be the common thread of what was causing it to refill, minus the small amount that she regained every morning.
This was good information, but so far it was all guess work. She had made sure to include as many details as she could in her primary 'hero' notebook about the incidents. That way she could go back and cross compare them later if she was wrong. She didn't dare bring that to school with her, too much chance of someone snooping or destroying it. Instead she had a second disposable notebook she could make shorthand notes in to transfer into the primary one when she got home.
Now to just get through this day, and not let the trio bring her spirits down too much. Luckily the first few classes she only shared with their hanger ons, or Madison. Sure she had to deal with juice on her seat, pencil shavings in her hair, or an assignment getting snatched before it got handed in. Those were all things she could get through.
The big class of note was Computers. Today they were going over some spreadsheet feature or another. Something she could easily zone out until it was time to do the in class assignment. So she used that time to browse PHO and brainstorm names.
Taylor didn't really want to know the inner lives of all of her class mates so she tended to be a bit conservative in examining them within the Symphony. It didn't help that either they were typical students who's successes and failures amounted to cheating on tests, sneaking out of home, and helping old folks cross the street. Alternatively, they were gang members and Taylor really didn't want to know what they got up to. Not when she had to stomach sitting next to them all day every day.
While that was true for the students she was slowly working her way through the teachers. Never examining more than one every few days. That way she had a chance to digest what she learned. She dived into the Symphony and looked for Mrs Knott. Taylor's homeroom and computers teacher was a mess. A resigned half-hearted violin. In the sound Taylor found knowledge of Mrs Knott's failures to protect her students, Taylor included. In terms of the successes she found how Mrs Knott's made her classroom as much of a safe haven as she could for Taylor, along with a few other bullied students. From this Taylor conjectured that it was likely that Mrs Knott was trying but was being held back by something, likely Blackwell.
Taylor released a sigh of frustration. She might as well make use of the free time she was given, this limited safe space she had.
So time to focus. She quickly went over her mental priority list and the answer was pretty obvious. A name was really the big hangup she had at the moment. She was slowly making progress on her abilities, although so far her attempts at discovering new songs had been bust. Her costume was… sad, but it would do until she somehow earned some more money. She believed she had made progress on the refilling of her essence, and had a few ideas to try this weekend. Just a name remained.
She really wasn't a fan of anything music related. The last thing she wanted was to be called Symphony, or Discord. Although, Discord did sound pretty cool, but it was much more negative than the image she wanted to project.
Maybe something defensive, to go with her song? Like Bulwark, Bastion, or Targe? Although she felt that Targe sounded kinda gross, even if the word was innocuous in and of itself. So she crossed that one off the list. She would need to check if any of the others were taken at the very least, Bastion sounded somewhat familiar. She then added a few more down such as Partisan, Stalwart, Champion and Paladin. She liked the sound of Paladin, although she'd have to be careful and make sure Haven, a Christian fanatical team, wouldn't have a fit about it.
Having wrapped up her brainstorming session she decided to check in and see if there were any reports on her adventure from the previous night. A quick check of PHO didn't have much to say. Just Bagrat reporting something about a new cape in Brockton Bay under the general city thread.
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During lunch Taylor dodged her bullies and headed for the Music room. She had a few questions for the teacher. Her powers were somewhat at least music centric, it would probably do her some good to learn the basics.
"Mr. Dewhurst" she greeted as she entered the room. It looked like he was just putting some things away from the previous class.
"Oh, Miss Hawthorne, or was it Halifax?" he said in return.
"Neither sir, it's Hebert."
"Oh my apologies, I've seen you around but you know how it is," he replied with a bit of a shrug.
"I had a couple of questions. I've got this song stuck in my head, uhh, not some pop thing from the radio, but something I recall hearing as a child. I was hoping you could help me transcribe it? That way I could check in some music books and see if I could find it?"
"Its always a pleasure to see students taking an interest in the arts."
Luckily it seemed she could sing the song without actually infusing it with essence, it didn't carry the same, but it should hopefully be enough to find references to it.
"Did you have any recommendations on resources to learn the basics of singing from?" She asked as they were wrapping up the transcription.
He had a few recommendations for books on learning to read notes, along with some videos online for the more audible parts of learning.
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As soon as school ended she bolted out of the classroom and headed straight for the exit. No reason to tempt fate with the Bitches Three. She hopped onto the bus leading to the Boardwalk and not too long later arrived at her destination.
The area was bustling with foot traffic. There was a particularly large crowd in one spot. She got a bit closer to see what was going on and it was just a couple of Wards patrolling the area. They had been stopped and asked for autographs. Uggh, it sometimes felt like Wards were more about PR than doing good.
She took the opportunity to inspect the two wards in the Symphony. The first was Kid Win. His sound was energetic, although a bit sporadic like it was occasionally missing a cue, she thought they might be hand bells but she wasn't entirely familiar with the source of the music. His successes were things to be truly proud of the big one was flying on his hoverboard into a burning building to rescue someone. His failures was about lying and hiding things to his mentor so he didn't disappoint him.
Next there was Shadow Stalker. An out of tune saxophone, interesting. The knowledge that came though was disturbing. Her successes involved shooting some gang member with a crossbow bolt, of him almost dying. Meanwhile her failure was of getting caught by the PRT, of being forced into being a weak Ward. All in all it painted a bleak picture of the kind of person that Shadow Stalker was. Not someone that Taylor ideally wanted to be involved with, or have as an ally.
Also interesting was how Shadow Stalker's successes and failures weren't things that Taylor would consider a success or a failure. She would have to make sure that she recorded this, as it implied that what she learned was relative to the individual's code of ethics, and not her own.
Having gotten the information she moved away from the large crowd and searched for the music shop she recalled being in the area. Upon finding it she headed in and went straight for the books.
After a few minutes of looking through the piles of books of sheet music she was interrupted. "Hello Miss, can I help you find anything?" The earlies twenties sales assistant said. He had a strong hipster/'in a band' vibe. Long hair, slightly ratty beard, band shirt and skinny jeans.
"Yea, I've got this song from my childhood stuck in my head. My teacher at school helped me transcribe it and so I was looking through your music books to see if I could find anything that resembled it." She explained.
The sales assistant took the scrap of paper and looked at it. "Do you recall the instrument."
"Sung mostly," she said before performing her best rendition sans essence.
The musician hmmed before picking up an electric guitar and playing the chord.
"Yup, that definitely fit. Any ideas?" Taylor said quite pleased with the impromptu guitar rendition.
"Sorry, not a clue" he said with a shrug. He then sat down next to her and started looking through music books until another customer came in and he had to leave to do his job.
After an hour of looking through books Taylor gave up in frustration.
Having no definitive plans she next went to the café in a vain hope that she might run into the older woman again. Sadly after nursing a cup of tea for an hour she gave up on this tack as well. Maybe she should contact this HARP organisation, maybe they could provide her contact details?
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That night Taylor sneaked out to do another batch of patrolling. She wouldn't deny that the extra essence would be useful for her experimentation and documentation, but ultimately she was doing it because she wanted to help people and it was the right thing to do. The least that she could do considering that she had been blessed with powers. If only everyone else looked upon their gifts as responsibilities instead of tools for greed.
The night was proving pretty boring. The most she had encountered was some drunk tourists who had taken a wrong turn and ended up in the bad part of town. Luckily she was able to direct them back where they wanted to go pretty quickly. Whether or not it stuck with them for longer than thirty seconds was another story. Maybe she should have escorted them? There was always the chance that they would get jumped being that drunk in this neighborhood. Particularly because their clothes, attitude, and accents all just screamed tourist.
Oh well, it was a bit late to dwell on that now.
Just as she was getting ready to head home she saw someone flying up above. Taylor backed up and placed a wall to her back. No reason giving a potential aerial opponent any advantage. Not when she was limited to fighting with physical contact.
She waited a few minutes to see if the aerial individual would make a second appearance when they appeared back overhead and swooped down not far in front of her.
It was a young man, wearing red armour with a grey shield emblem in the center. Which would make this Aegis. If Taylor's PHO and Parahuman Wiki research were accurate he was the set to take over as team lead for the Brockton Bay Wards once Triumph graduated next month. He was some kind of brute. Super strength and ability to shrug off greater than normal human damage.
"'lo, you must be the new hero on the streets, think the briefing said they were calling you Vanguard." Aegis said as he floated several feet in the air in front of her.
Taylor shuffled nervously for a moment before taking a deep breath and putting on her best face.
"Vanguard huh, better than I'd have expected, but I figure I'll have a proper name sometime in the next few days," she declared with more confidence than she felt.
"So what brings you out to these parts?" Aegis said as he swept his arm indicating the rundown area of the docks they were in.
"Oh you know, just finishing a patrol of the area, about to head in for the night."
"This is a dangerous area to be alone. You sure you aren't interested in joining up. Have a bit of backup in case things go south."
So it was going to be the good old 'join the wards pitch'. Taylor had to wonder if they got a recruitment bonus or something.
"I don't know if the wards are the right place for me." She declared honestly.
Aegis raised an eyebrow in curiosity. It was barely visible through his eye slot. "Oh?"
"I've got my reasons." Taylor said, not feeling like enunciating. Shadow Stalker alone seemed to be enough to make her nervous about joining. Add in teenage drama, answering to bureaucracy, and finally wanting to figure out her powers first. Plus she really wanted to talk to the café woman again before she made too permanent of a decision.
If her reading of his heavily armored body language was accurate that seemed to frustrate Aegis. "Well if you are sure there is nothing I can say."
"No, at least not yet. I still have things I'm working through and figuring out." Taylor said, figuring that bought her time, and there was more than a bit of truth in it.
While she had him around Taylor decided to check him in the Symphony. To see what he came back as. A strong clear sound came back, like trumpets proclaiming a new day. Which probably meant he could be trusted, although that was just her best guess. This time instead of seeing of knowledge of his successes and failures she instead got the knowledge that he truly believed in Aegis, in the role he played, in the character he dressed as. That he was a hero and doing good. Additionally she got the knowledge of the time he accidentally screwed over a friend, emotionally hurting them badly. Probably not something to concern herself with. One more piece of data to record in her notebooks once she got home. For now she made a quick note of 'Aegis => strong sound' in her pocket sized notebook.
They chatted for a few more minutes before they parted ways. Taylor double backed a few times while checking for any aerial observers before she ducked into an ally and doffed her costume. Then walked the last few blocks to her home.
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Author's Note:This marks the end of the first arc. An interlude will go up tomorrow, and then we will start the second arc. Provisionally called Duty. The story is still ramping up, but the pace definitely takes off a fair bit in the next arc. As Sufficent Velocity is still behind where I have this posted on other sites updates will likely continue rapidly here, until caught up. Then continue at the daily pace that I'm doing for new chapters.
Then there was the fact that she seemed to have a few more clues about what was refilling her essence. Patrolling in general seemed to help, at least that was her best guess of what happened. Then she realised after helping the woman she had felt another big refill. It could have been from her cooperating with the authorities, but she liked to believe that it was about helping people. That seemed to be the common thread of what was causing it to refill, minus the small amount that she regained every morning.
This was good information, but so far it was all guess work. She had made sure to include as many details as she could in her primary 'hero' notebook about the incidents. That way she could go back and cross compare them later if she was wrong. She didn't dare bring that to school with her, too much chance of someone snooping or destroying it. Instead she had a second disposable notebook she could make shorthand notes in to transfer into the primary one when she got home.
Now to just get through this day, and not let the trio bring her spirits down too much. Luckily the first few classes she only shared with their hanger ons, or Madison. Sure she had to deal with juice on her seat, pencil shavings in her hair, or an assignment getting snatched before it got handed in. Those were all things she could get through.
The big class of note was Computers. Today they were going over some spreadsheet feature or another. Something she could easily zone out until it was time to do the in class assignment. So she used that time to browse PHO and brainstorm names.
Taylor didn't really want to know the inner lives of all of her class mates so she tended to be a bit conservative in examining them within the Symphony. It didn't help that either they were typical students who's successes and failures amounted to cheating on tests, sneaking out of home, and helping old folks cross the street. Alternatively, they were gang members and Taylor really didn't want to know what they got up to. Not when she had to stomach sitting next to them all day every day.
While that was true for the students she was slowly working her way through the teachers. Never examining more than one every few days. That way she had a chance to digest what she learned. She dived into the Symphony and looked for Mrs Knott. Taylor's homeroom and computers teacher was a mess. A resigned half-hearted violin. In the sound Taylor found knowledge of Mrs Knott's failures to protect her students, Taylor included. In terms of the successes she found how Mrs Knott's made her classroom as much of a safe haven as she could for Taylor, along with a few other bullied students. From this Taylor conjectured that it was likely that Mrs Knott was trying but was being held back by something, likely Blackwell.
Taylor released a sigh of frustration. She might as well make use of the free time she was given, this limited safe space she had.
So time to focus. She quickly went over her mental priority list and the answer was pretty obvious. A name was really the big hangup she had at the moment. She was slowly making progress on her abilities, although so far her attempts at discovering new songs had been bust. Her costume was… sad, but it would do until she somehow earned some more money. She believed she had made progress on the refilling of her essence, and had a few ideas to try this weekend. Just a name remained.
She really wasn't a fan of anything music related. The last thing she wanted was to be called Symphony, or Discord. Although, Discord did sound pretty cool, but it was much more negative than the image she wanted to project.
Maybe something defensive, to go with her song? Like Bulwark, Bastion, or Targe? Although she felt that Targe sounded kinda gross, even if the word was innocuous in and of itself. So she crossed that one off the list. She would need to check if any of the others were taken at the very least, Bastion sounded somewhat familiar. She then added a few more down such as Partisan, Stalwart, Champion and Paladin. She liked the sound of Paladin, although she'd have to be careful and make sure Haven, a Christian fanatical team, wouldn't have a fit about it.
Having wrapped up her brainstorming session she decided to check in and see if there were any reports on her adventure from the previous night. A quick check of PHO didn't have much to say. Just Bagrat reporting something about a new cape in Brockton Bay under the general city thread.
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During lunch Taylor dodged her bullies and headed for the Music room. She had a few questions for the teacher. Her powers were somewhat at least music centric, it would probably do her some good to learn the basics.
"Mr. Dewhurst" she greeted as she entered the room. It looked like he was just putting some things away from the previous class.
"Oh, Miss Hawthorne, or was it Halifax?" he said in return.
"Neither sir, it's Hebert."
"Oh my apologies, I've seen you around but you know how it is," he replied with a bit of a shrug.
"I had a couple of questions. I've got this song stuck in my head, uhh, not some pop thing from the radio, but something I recall hearing as a child. I was hoping you could help me transcribe it? That way I could check in some music books and see if I could find it?"
"Its always a pleasure to see students taking an interest in the arts."
Luckily it seemed she could sing the song without actually infusing it with essence, it didn't carry the same, but it should hopefully be enough to find references to it.
"Did you have any recommendations on resources to learn the basics of singing from?" She asked as they were wrapping up the transcription.
He had a few recommendations for books on learning to read notes, along with some videos online for the more audible parts of learning.
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As soon as school ended she bolted out of the classroom and headed straight for the exit. No reason to tempt fate with the Bitches Three. She hopped onto the bus leading to the Boardwalk and not too long later arrived at her destination.
The area was bustling with foot traffic. There was a particularly large crowd in one spot. She got a bit closer to see what was going on and it was just a couple of Wards patrolling the area. They had been stopped and asked for autographs. Uggh, it sometimes felt like Wards were more about PR than doing good.
She took the opportunity to inspect the two wards in the Symphony. The first was Kid Win. His sound was energetic, although a bit sporadic like it was occasionally missing a cue, she thought they might be hand bells but she wasn't entirely familiar with the source of the music. His successes were things to be truly proud of the big one was flying on his hoverboard into a burning building to rescue someone. His failures was about lying and hiding things to his mentor so he didn't disappoint him.
Next there was Shadow Stalker. An out of tune saxophone, interesting. The knowledge that came though was disturbing. Her successes involved shooting some gang member with a crossbow bolt, of him almost dying. Meanwhile her failure was of getting caught by the PRT, of being forced into being a weak Ward. All in all it painted a bleak picture of the kind of person that Shadow Stalker was. Not someone that Taylor ideally wanted to be involved with, or have as an ally.
Also interesting was how Shadow Stalker's successes and failures weren't things that Taylor would consider a success or a failure. She would have to make sure that she recorded this, as it implied that what she learned was relative to the individual's code of ethics, and not her own.
Having gotten the information she moved away from the large crowd and searched for the music shop she recalled being in the area. Upon finding it she headed in and went straight for the books.
After a few minutes of looking through the piles of books of sheet music she was interrupted. "Hello Miss, can I help you find anything?" The earlies twenties sales assistant said. He had a strong hipster/'in a band' vibe. Long hair, slightly ratty beard, band shirt and skinny jeans.
"Yea, I've got this song from my childhood stuck in my head. My teacher at school helped me transcribe it and so I was looking through your music books to see if I could find anything that resembled it." She explained.
The sales assistant took the scrap of paper and looked at it. "Do you recall the instrument."
"Sung mostly," she said before performing her best rendition sans essence.
The musician hmmed before picking up an electric guitar and playing the chord.
"Yup, that definitely fit. Any ideas?" Taylor said quite pleased with the impromptu guitar rendition.
"Sorry, not a clue" he said with a shrug. He then sat down next to her and started looking through music books until another customer came in and he had to leave to do his job.
After an hour of looking through books Taylor gave up in frustration.
Having no definitive plans she next went to the café in a vain hope that she might run into the older woman again. Sadly after nursing a cup of tea for an hour she gave up on this tack as well. Maybe she should contact this HARP organisation, maybe they could provide her contact details?
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That night Taylor sneaked out to do another batch of patrolling. She wouldn't deny that the extra essence would be useful for her experimentation and documentation, but ultimately she was doing it because she wanted to help people and it was the right thing to do. The least that she could do considering that she had been blessed with powers. If only everyone else looked upon their gifts as responsibilities instead of tools for greed.
The night was proving pretty boring. The most she had encountered was some drunk tourists who had taken a wrong turn and ended up in the bad part of town. Luckily she was able to direct them back where they wanted to go pretty quickly. Whether or not it stuck with them for longer than thirty seconds was another story. Maybe she should have escorted them? There was always the chance that they would get jumped being that drunk in this neighborhood. Particularly because their clothes, attitude, and accents all just screamed tourist.
Oh well, it was a bit late to dwell on that now.
Just as she was getting ready to head home she saw someone flying up above. Taylor backed up and placed a wall to her back. No reason giving a potential aerial opponent any advantage. Not when she was limited to fighting with physical contact.
She waited a few minutes to see if the aerial individual would make a second appearance when they appeared back overhead and swooped down not far in front of her.
It was a young man, wearing red armour with a grey shield emblem in the center. Which would make this Aegis. If Taylor's PHO and Parahuman Wiki research were accurate he was the set to take over as team lead for the Brockton Bay Wards once Triumph graduated next month. He was some kind of brute. Super strength and ability to shrug off greater than normal human damage.
"'lo, you must be the new hero on the streets, think the briefing said they were calling you Vanguard." Aegis said as he floated several feet in the air in front of her.
Taylor shuffled nervously for a moment before taking a deep breath and putting on her best face.
"Vanguard huh, better than I'd have expected, but I figure I'll have a proper name sometime in the next few days," she declared with more confidence than she felt.
"So what brings you out to these parts?" Aegis said as he swept his arm indicating the rundown area of the docks they were in.
"Oh you know, just finishing a patrol of the area, about to head in for the night."
"This is a dangerous area to be alone. You sure you aren't interested in joining up. Have a bit of backup in case things go south."
So it was going to be the good old 'join the wards pitch'. Taylor had to wonder if they got a recruitment bonus or something.
"I don't know if the wards are the right place for me." She declared honestly.
Aegis raised an eyebrow in curiosity. It was barely visible through his eye slot. "Oh?"
"I've got my reasons." Taylor said, not feeling like enunciating. Shadow Stalker alone seemed to be enough to make her nervous about joining. Add in teenage drama, answering to bureaucracy, and finally wanting to figure out her powers first. Plus she really wanted to talk to the café woman again before she made too permanent of a decision.
If her reading of his heavily armored body language was accurate that seemed to frustrate Aegis. "Well if you are sure there is nothing I can say."
"No, at least not yet. I still have things I'm working through and figuring out." Taylor said, figuring that bought her time, and there was more than a bit of truth in it.
While she had him around Taylor decided to check him in the Symphony. To see what he came back as. A strong clear sound came back, like trumpets proclaiming a new day. Which probably meant he could be trusted, although that was just her best guess. This time instead of seeing of knowledge of his successes and failures she instead got the knowledge that he truly believed in Aegis, in the role he played, in the character he dressed as. That he was a hero and doing good. Additionally she got the knowledge of the time he accidentally screwed over a friend, emotionally hurting them badly. Probably not something to concern herself with. One more piece of data to record in her notebooks once she got home. For now she made a quick note of 'Aegis => strong sound' in her pocket sized notebook.
They chatted for a few more minutes before they parted ways. Taylor double backed a few times while checking for any aerial observers before she ducked into an ally and doffed her costume. Then walked the last few blocks to her home.
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Author's Note:
Last edited:
Ascension - Interlude: Aliyah
Aliyah was used to being left to her own devices. No superior would leave their servitors unattended for too long without check ins, that was just asking for fallen or killed servitors. Still Aliyah's superior tended to leave her servitors to do their job without heavy monitoring. Unlike Dominic who micromanaged his, jumping at every shadow as proof they were about to fall and become demons. Her siblings and herself were spread too thin, with too much work to do to get much done if they were constantly reporting in.
Which made this summons all the more surprising.
Brockton Bay was not the most traveled city as far as the forces of heaven were concerned. Many an Archangel had written the city off as a lost cause. Of course her superior would never do that. Not while there remained human souls that needed their service. To be fair, it wasn't like the city had that much in the way of demonic traffic. The city was dying with or without supernatural help.
Maybe she was actually being reassigned to a different city. Still she couldn't see her superior doing that, but it was always a possibility.
She dropped her mortal form. It dissipated in a golden fire until all that remained was a bear who radiated golden light and had massive pure white feathered wings folded along her sides. Upon assuming her celestial form she stepped from one realm into another. It wasn't hard to traverse a tether, a gateway between two realms. She had done it dozens if not hundreds of times before. She was its keeper, its guardian, its maintainer, its janitor. She was its Seneschal.
She reappeared in something that resembled a medieval castle. With hints of ancient middle eastern decoration. It was on the outskirts of heaven and was one of the bastions that protected the most holy of places from the barren wastelands of hell. It was the walls that the hordes of demons would break upon when the final trumpets call began the war.
The particular keep she was in was called the gatehouse. A massive building filled with rooms each containing several arches. Each arch was a tether to a different place. This particular room represented the New England area.
Her superior wasn't the most powerful of Archangels nor did she have the most numerous of servitors. As such her collection of tethers tended to be much smaller. Luckily most if not all Superiors were more than happy to lend their tethers to each other. Which did make for quick travel if you knew roughly where you were going and what tethers were nearby.
She traversed the halls of the keep and exited. She was now in the outermost ward of the castle. She travelled, on foot, through the various gateways, under the portcullises, to get through the increasingly more secure wards of the castle.
As she traversed the gates and portcullises of the castle she observed the walls. Upon them she could see hundreds of angels standing sentinel ready for when the war next broke out.
She could see the many eyed serpents that were Seraphim; the winged beasts of the Cherubim; the floating wheels of celestial fire of the Ofanim; the alien smooth humanesque appearance of the Elohim; the shadowy, black feathered beings of the Malakim; the multi-colored pulsing cloud of limbs, mouths, and eyes of the Kyriotates; and finally the winged humans forms of the Mercurians. She could see examples of each choir upon the wall doing their duty, although some choirs favored more heavily in number.
No matter how much they were needed on Earth, they still fulfilled this, frankly boring duty, with their full attention. It might have been thousands of years since the last skirmish at these walls. Well before her superior had been elevated to archangel, well before her superior had even been created. Yet despite the eons that had passed, at any moment armageddon could come and the war could break out again in full.
Finally she had reached the central ward, where the most secure and important parts of the castle rested. To one side was a building that led to a staircase. Descending that staircase deep into the ground would lead to the area known as the Trauma Ward. Where Ministering Angels worked to care for the trauma and wounds that battle on the corporeal realm could cause. This Trauma Ward was renowned throughout Heaven, and cared for the servitors of almost every Archangel.
In the central keep there were numerous rooms, many of which contained angels meeting and discussing plans. Organising for the eternal war they fought.
The most core chamber of this building was The Living Room as oddly named as it was. It was a place of comfort and gathering. It would change size and shape to accommodate as many angels as needed. No matter how big it got it always felt a smidge too small, just enough to keep it cosy instead of feeling too large.
Not far from The Living Room was The Heartroom. It was massive and filled with thousands of small stone wrought cubbies crafted into internal shelves, like a library. In each was a glowing orb, the very heart of an angel. One who served Aliyah's superior. Each was a guardian angel to humankind. Upon the death of an angel's corporeal vessel they would reappear here at their heart. Where they would either be taken to the Trauma Ward or given a new corporeal vessel and sent out to serve again.
Next to the heart room was her destination. Her Superior's chambers and office. She knocked on the door and waited for her summons. After a minute she heard the muffled "Come in" and entered. Her superior sat at a desk putting away some paperwork. Her superior was in one of her more common forms. The appearance was that of a middle aged woman wearing a hijab. She waited patiently for her superior to finish.
"Ma'am, you summoned me," she said with a bow.
"Yes my Seneschal, come sit." her superior said as she beckoned her to take a seat. "I have a new fledgling, a new child, in Brockton Bay. She has had a rather unorthodox creation."
"Ma'am?" she questioned.
"Yves has gotten involved; made a bit of a headache." Her superior said with a bit of a sad smile. Yves getting involved was always a bit of a nightmare. Making waves and disrupting everyone's games and schemes. Luckily he was one of the more conservative Archangels, so his interference was rare. More lucky was that these messes almost never came and effected her or her siblings.
"What do you mean?" Aliyah asked her superior.
Her superior sat and thought for a few minutes. "There is a method to transmute a mortal soul, to send it through apotheosis. It is rare and not lightly done. Knowledge of it is highly restricted." Her superior said. "The Seraphim Council is going to have a fit. Dominic and his enforcers are not going to be pleased."
Aliyah raised an eyebrow. Still not sure how this was their problem.
"It isn't strictly against the rules as set forth by God before…" before he disappeared she knew her superior meant. "But it is something that the Seraphim council does not allow. Demons of course have their own despicable method of accomplishing this, but their method creates half-creatures at best and pale imitations at worst."
Her superior closed her eyes and took a deep breath. The solemn face of her superior faded and instead a loving smile took its place.
"But that is not our problem. Dominic will have it out with Yves, not us and not our fledgling."
"How? How did she become my sister if Yves did this?" Aliyah asked, confusion still evident upon her face.
"The process by which the apotheosis occurred, it lets the soul grow and take shape based upon its existing character, rather than carving it like a statue. It isn't instant, it takes time. But which Choir and which Word it serves becomes evident quickly. Our fledgling's soul had already aligned heavily with my word, and its growth brought it into our fold and thus responsibility."
"What do you wish of me ma'am?" She respectfully queried.
"Oh I do wish you wouldn't call me that, my Seneschal." her superior softly chided.
"I can't help it ma'am." She responded with a teasing grin. That earned her a light bit of laughter. It was a game they had been playing for hundreds of years, and with any luck would play for hundreds more.
"I need you to take her under your wing. To train her and teach her the ways of her people and her new life. To give her room to grow and learn. For now consider her your apprentice."
"I can do that ma'am."
"Take it slow with her, she has a lot to come to grasp with and apparently a mighty destiny before her."
"Yes ma'am."
"Now tell me how Brockton Bay is fairing, and how you are holding up? I know how light handed you are there. I so wish I could convince my siblings to offer you more support."
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Author's Note: I know this chapter is going to come as a shock to many of you. I was nervous posting this as I hope it doesn't scare you away from the story. I had never intended Yves to be her superior, that was simply a conclusion everyone jumped to. I had only ever intended Yves to be… adjusting the course of Taylor's life so to speak.
Which made this summons all the more surprising.
Brockton Bay was not the most traveled city as far as the forces of heaven were concerned. Many an Archangel had written the city off as a lost cause. Of course her superior would never do that. Not while there remained human souls that needed their service. To be fair, it wasn't like the city had that much in the way of demonic traffic. The city was dying with or without supernatural help.
Maybe she was actually being reassigned to a different city. Still she couldn't see her superior doing that, but it was always a possibility.
She dropped her mortal form. It dissipated in a golden fire until all that remained was a bear who radiated golden light and had massive pure white feathered wings folded along her sides. Upon assuming her celestial form she stepped from one realm into another. It wasn't hard to traverse a tether, a gateway between two realms. She had done it dozens if not hundreds of times before. She was its keeper, its guardian, its maintainer, its janitor. She was its Seneschal.
She reappeared in something that resembled a medieval castle. With hints of ancient middle eastern decoration. It was on the outskirts of heaven and was one of the bastions that protected the most holy of places from the barren wastelands of hell. It was the walls that the hordes of demons would break upon when the final trumpets call began the war.
The particular keep she was in was called the gatehouse. A massive building filled with rooms each containing several arches. Each arch was a tether to a different place. This particular room represented the New England area.
Her superior wasn't the most powerful of Archangels nor did she have the most numerous of servitors. As such her collection of tethers tended to be much smaller. Luckily most if not all Superiors were more than happy to lend their tethers to each other. Which did make for quick travel if you knew roughly where you were going and what tethers were nearby.
She traversed the halls of the keep and exited. She was now in the outermost ward of the castle. She travelled, on foot, through the various gateways, under the portcullises, to get through the increasingly more secure wards of the castle.
As she traversed the gates and portcullises of the castle she observed the walls. Upon them she could see hundreds of angels standing sentinel ready for when the war next broke out.
She could see the many eyed serpents that were Seraphim; the winged beasts of the Cherubim; the floating wheels of celestial fire of the Ofanim; the alien smooth humanesque appearance of the Elohim; the shadowy, black feathered beings of the Malakim; the multi-colored pulsing cloud of limbs, mouths, and eyes of the Kyriotates; and finally the winged humans forms of the Mercurians. She could see examples of each choir upon the wall doing their duty, although some choirs favored more heavily in number.
No matter how much they were needed on Earth, they still fulfilled this, frankly boring duty, with their full attention. It might have been thousands of years since the last skirmish at these walls. Well before her superior had been elevated to archangel, well before her superior had even been created. Yet despite the eons that had passed, at any moment armageddon could come and the war could break out again in full.
Finally she had reached the central ward, where the most secure and important parts of the castle rested. To one side was a building that led to a staircase. Descending that staircase deep into the ground would lead to the area known as the Trauma Ward. Where Ministering Angels worked to care for the trauma and wounds that battle on the corporeal realm could cause. This Trauma Ward was renowned throughout Heaven, and cared for the servitors of almost every Archangel.
In the central keep there were numerous rooms, many of which contained angels meeting and discussing plans. Organising for the eternal war they fought.
The most core chamber of this building was The Living Room as oddly named as it was. It was a place of comfort and gathering. It would change size and shape to accommodate as many angels as needed. No matter how big it got it always felt a smidge too small, just enough to keep it cosy instead of feeling too large.
Not far from The Living Room was The Heartroom. It was massive and filled with thousands of small stone wrought cubbies crafted into internal shelves, like a library. In each was a glowing orb, the very heart of an angel. One who served Aliyah's superior. Each was a guardian angel to humankind. Upon the death of an angel's corporeal vessel they would reappear here at their heart. Where they would either be taken to the Trauma Ward or given a new corporeal vessel and sent out to serve again.
Next to the heart room was her destination. Her Superior's chambers and office. She knocked on the door and waited for her summons. After a minute she heard the muffled "Come in" and entered. Her superior sat at a desk putting away some paperwork. Her superior was in one of her more common forms. The appearance was that of a middle aged woman wearing a hijab. She waited patiently for her superior to finish.
"Ma'am, you summoned me," she said with a bow.
"Yes my Seneschal, come sit." her superior said as she beckoned her to take a seat. "I have a new fledgling, a new child, in Brockton Bay. She has had a rather unorthodox creation."
"Ma'am?" she questioned.
"Yves has gotten involved; made a bit of a headache." Her superior said with a bit of a sad smile. Yves getting involved was always a bit of a nightmare. Making waves and disrupting everyone's games and schemes. Luckily he was one of the more conservative Archangels, so his interference was rare. More lucky was that these messes almost never came and effected her or her siblings.
"What do you mean?" Aliyah asked her superior.
Her superior sat and thought for a few minutes. "There is a method to transmute a mortal soul, to send it through apotheosis. It is rare and not lightly done. Knowledge of it is highly restricted." Her superior said. "The Seraphim Council is going to have a fit. Dominic and his enforcers are not going to be pleased."
Aliyah raised an eyebrow. Still not sure how this was their problem.
"It isn't strictly against the rules as set forth by God before…" before he disappeared she knew her superior meant. "But it is something that the Seraphim council does not allow. Demons of course have their own despicable method of accomplishing this, but their method creates half-creatures at best and pale imitations at worst."
Her superior closed her eyes and took a deep breath. The solemn face of her superior faded and instead a loving smile took its place.
"But that is not our problem. Dominic will have it out with Yves, not us and not our fledgling."
"How? How did she become my sister if Yves did this?" Aliyah asked, confusion still evident upon her face.
"The process by which the apotheosis occurred, it lets the soul grow and take shape based upon its existing character, rather than carving it like a statue. It isn't instant, it takes time. But which Choir and which Word it serves becomes evident quickly. Our fledgling's soul had already aligned heavily with my word, and its growth brought it into our fold and thus responsibility."
"What do you wish of me ma'am?" She respectfully queried.
"Oh I do wish you wouldn't call me that, my Seneschal." her superior softly chided.
"I can't help it ma'am." She responded with a teasing grin. That earned her a light bit of laughter. It was a game they had been playing for hundreds of years, and with any luck would play for hundreds more.
"I need you to take her under your wing. To train her and teach her the ways of her people and her new life. To give her room to grow and learn. For now consider her your apprentice."
"I can do that ma'am."
"Take it slow with her, she has a lot to come to grasp with and apparently a mighty destiny before her."
"Yes ma'am."
"Now tell me how Brockton Bay is fairing, and how you are holding up? I know how light handed you are there. I so wish I could convince my siblings to offer you more support."
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Author's Note: I know this chapter is going to come as a shock to many of you. I was nervous posting this as I hope it doesn't scare you away from the story. I had never intended Yves to be her superior, that was simply a conclusion everyone jumped to. I had only ever intended Yves to be… adjusting the course of Taylor's life so to speak.
Duty - 1
"Hello, you've reached the Brockton Bay branch of HARP - Home Away from Rape and Persecution. How can I help you?" The voice said from across the line. The voice sounded resigned, like this was just another part of their job and they had things they would rather be doing.
"Hi, a woman left me a card with your number on it. I was hoping to talk to her." Taylor informed.
"Do you have a description? I can check." The girl on the other side of the line stated, obviously annoyed that she was being asked to do something.
"She was mid-to-late 30s, middle eastern or there about. Wore a hijab and had henna tattoos on her hands and face." Taylor described.
"Hmm, sorry that doesn't sound familiar. I don't think we currently have any volunteers or employees who wear a hijab."
Taylor released a deep sigh of frustration. Why had the lady left her a card to this organisation. Did she think that Taylor was being abused or something and needed to escape? Finally an idea hit her.
"How do I sign up as a volunteer?" she asked. Hoping that if she went and volunteered she might find some clue to the mysterious woman's identity.
Taylor was given a time and place to meet with someone for the shelter. Apparently for security reasons they would be meeting at a Starbucks in the downtown area. She'd have to fill out some details so they could run a background check.
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"Hey Dad!" Taylor said as her dad came down for breakfast. Luckily she had just finished the fryup.
"Taylor!" He exclaimed as he pulled her in for a hug. Then start pulling some plates and silverware out to set the table. "Any plans for the weekend?"
"Yea I have an interview today." She informed him.
"For a job?" He asked confused by the sudden news.
"Sorta, its a volunteer gig at HARP if you have heard of them?"
Danny grunted an acknowledgement at that. "What brought this on?"
"Wanted to get out of the house, meet some people not from school, and you know it might look good on my college application." All of which were technically true, although none were the primary reason she was applying. She hoped that volunteering would bring her closer to the mysterious woman from the café.
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Taylor arrived a few minutes early to Starbucks. She ordered a large mug of tea and found a quiet corner to sit in. While she waited she took the measure of the various people in the café.
Nothing surprising came from her inspection. People who felt bad about emotionally cheating, or who were proud of their work ethic. Nothing that stood out, just normal every day problems of people who were trying to get through life. The worst of the lot was someone who secretly took cocaine. Still she took consummate notes while leaving out any personally identifying details. If she collected enough details than maybe she could figure out what all of this meant.
Then a woman entered the café. She was late-20s and looked like she spent a lot of time at the gym, her muscles had muscles. The woman was wearing a pair of slacks, a blouse with the sleeves rolled up, and a nice pair of black brogues. Taylor's piddling gaydar was going off a bit. She opened herself up to the Symphony and picked the newcomer's sound out. It was gorgeous. Like Taylor was floored, she had never heard anyone who had such a clear and beautiful sound. This was a woman who spent day in and day out serving her fellow man. Who carried the burden of those she had failed deep in her soul while always striving to do more. This was a good person, one of the best, not perfect, but one to aspire to.
After the woman grabbed her drink from the barista she turned and then met eyes with Taylor. The woman stared for a moment and then walked straight towards her. "Taylor?" she questioned, fairly confident that this was who she was here to meet.
"Uhh, yea. Uhh I'm Taylor." Taylor said tripping over her own tongue.
"I'm Layla, seneschal for the Brockton Bay chapter of HARP," the woman said as she took the seat opposite of Taylor. She reached across the table and took Taylor's hand firmly shaking it.
"So how does this work?" Taylor asked, barely managing to get it out as a coherent sentence, still overwhelmed by what she had experienced, what she had knew and heard of the woman sitting across from her.
Layla kindly smiled at her nervousness. "Oh it isn't too bad. There is a form you have to fill out, but that is mostly a formality in this case." she said with a wink.
What that meant was completely lost on Taylor. But she was too intimidated by the older woman to inquire.
After they filled out the forms Layla took them and placed them in a folder before putting them into her bag.
"Alright, lets go and I'll show you the ropes."
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"This is our local headquarters," Layla said as she opened the door to the non-descript townhouse.
The place was much bigger on the inside than the outside. Through the glass walls of the reception area she could see what looked like three or four adjacent townhouses had had walls knocked down and turned into one building on the inside, while leaving the outsides as a facade. There was a receptionist desk and then a doorway that led deeper into the building.
Taylor followed Layla through the doorway and found herself in a fairly typical office space. There were numerous people working through paperwork, and on phones. Layla spotted one empty desk in particular tsked and collected it up and put it into its folder. "Guess I'm having a discussion with Susan about leaving private details out… again." Layla muttered to herself.
"So this is the main office for the Brockton Bay branch of HARP. We have a number of suites on site upstairs, storage and a gym downstairs. But most of our clients are arrayed through the city at a number of safe houses." Layla explained. Pointing at the various stairwells through the explanation.
Taylor was baffled by what was going on. She know she had called to volunteer, but she barely even knew what they did. "We never really discussed what I'll be doing here?"
A predatory smile crossed Layla's face. "Oh we didn't? Don't worry it's just a bit of this and a bit of that. Think of it as being my apprentice."
"But, I mean, you just met me. Why would you trust me with that?" Taylor babbled.
"A little angel on my shoulder told me you would be good at the job." Layla said like the cat that got the canary.
Layla took a good long look at Taylor, glancing up and down. Taylor wasn't sure if this was some kind of come on, or just an honest inspection.
"What is HARP?" Taylor asked, trying to dig answers out of the well dressed woman.
"HARP is the Home Away from Rape and Persecution. We are an organisation that helps mostly women and children escape from domestic abuse, homelessness, and religious intolerance. We also have specific services for women who have recently suffered through sexual assault. That said we do run more general homeless shelters for families, and we have some that are dedicated to men."
Taylor just nodded along overwhelmed by all the information. That sounded like an organisation that did a lot of good in the world. Why had the woman left the business card for this organisation?
"Before anything else we need to work on your self defense skills. We don't often run into problems, but there are more than a few abusive assholes who cause us problems. It helps to feel safe if they confront you." Layla informed.
Layla led her down into the basement of the building. They passed several rooms of storage. Each one was briefly explained to her. Archives of paperwork, a walk in fridge for supplies, another that contained a shop's worth of soap, toothpaste, tampons, toilet paper, and other sundries.
Finally they got to the last room. Layla entered a pincode into a hightech mechanism on the door and it swung open. Inside a number of punching bags hung from the ceiling, a couple of weight sets sat to one side, and in the center a large area with impact mats laid out. Along one wall a series of reinforced cabinets lined the wall, each having a lock similar to the one on the door to the gym.
"Now before we get started lets run through where you are first." Layla ordered.
An hour later Taylor had worked up an absolute sweat. A good ten minutes on the punching bags, going through the weight bench to see how much she could press. Finally they ended up on the crash mats running through what she had been learning in her self defense course.
"Good good. You aren't doing too bad for a fledgling." Layla informed. Then they proceeded to run through several advanced maneuvers.
Taylor had noticed that Layla hadn't worked up a sweat at all throughout all of their practice. It was so unfair!
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Taylor sat on a couch in the office longue nursing a bottle of cold water. "So, you were a bit vague earlier, what kind of duties should I expect?"
The longue was much more 'homely' than she expected. If she didn't know better she would think it was juts a family living room. There were various pictures on the walls of what she assumed were volunteers, and various families that had come through the system.
"To begin with a fair amount of training with me. Running errands. Delivering things to our various hidden shelters. Escorting new services users to shelters. Things like that. Oh and lots of paperwork, can't forget the paperwork. It's what makes the world go round." Layla said with a laugh.
"I've been meaning to ask." Taylor began, with a nervous look on her face. "A woman gave me the card for this place. She wore a hijab talked to me briefly and then disappeared. Do you know who she is?"
Layla looked considerate for a moment before she spoke. "She is… an unofficial patron of the HARP organisation. I can't really tell you more, except I'm sure she would like to meet you again someday."
"Oh," Taylor said unsure how to take the information. Finally she settled on focusing on the practicalities of it. "What hours do you want me here?"
"To begin with what you can. Preferably a few hours every day after school. Training you up is going to take consistency. I've never trained such a green fledgling before."
Taylor groaned at that. "I can't be the worst volunteer you have encountered."
"Of course not kid, by their standards you are an expert." Layla said with a knowing grin. "You my dear are destined for more than they are."
Taylor just looked at Layla confused. "What?"
"You my dear are to be my apprentice!" Layla exclaimed, as if that answered everything.
"Hi, a woman left me a card with your number on it. I was hoping to talk to her." Taylor informed.
"Do you have a description? I can check." The girl on the other side of the line stated, obviously annoyed that she was being asked to do something.
"She was mid-to-late 30s, middle eastern or there about. Wore a hijab and had henna tattoos on her hands and face." Taylor described.
"Hmm, sorry that doesn't sound familiar. I don't think we currently have any volunteers or employees who wear a hijab."
Taylor released a deep sigh of frustration. Why had the lady left her a card to this organisation. Did she think that Taylor was being abused or something and needed to escape? Finally an idea hit her.
"How do I sign up as a volunteer?" she asked. Hoping that if she went and volunteered she might find some clue to the mysterious woman's identity.
Taylor was given a time and place to meet with someone for the shelter. Apparently for security reasons they would be meeting at a Starbucks in the downtown area. She'd have to fill out some details so they could run a background check.
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"Hey Dad!" Taylor said as her dad came down for breakfast. Luckily she had just finished the fryup.
"Taylor!" He exclaimed as he pulled her in for a hug. Then start pulling some plates and silverware out to set the table. "Any plans for the weekend?"
"Yea I have an interview today." She informed him.
"For a job?" He asked confused by the sudden news.
"Sorta, its a volunteer gig at HARP if you have heard of them?"
Danny grunted an acknowledgement at that. "What brought this on?"
"Wanted to get out of the house, meet some people not from school, and you know it might look good on my college application." All of which were technically true, although none were the primary reason she was applying. She hoped that volunteering would bring her closer to the mysterious woman from the café.
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Taylor arrived a few minutes early to Starbucks. She ordered a large mug of tea and found a quiet corner to sit in. While she waited she took the measure of the various people in the café.
Nothing surprising came from her inspection. People who felt bad about emotionally cheating, or who were proud of their work ethic. Nothing that stood out, just normal every day problems of people who were trying to get through life. The worst of the lot was someone who secretly took cocaine. Still she took consummate notes while leaving out any personally identifying details. If she collected enough details than maybe she could figure out what all of this meant.
Then a woman entered the café. She was late-20s and looked like she spent a lot of time at the gym, her muscles had muscles. The woman was wearing a pair of slacks, a blouse with the sleeves rolled up, and a nice pair of black brogues. Taylor's piddling gaydar was going off a bit. She opened herself up to the Symphony and picked the newcomer's sound out. It was gorgeous. Like Taylor was floored, she had never heard anyone who had such a clear and beautiful sound. This was a woman who spent day in and day out serving her fellow man. Who carried the burden of those she had failed deep in her soul while always striving to do more. This was a good person, one of the best, not perfect, but one to aspire to.
After the woman grabbed her drink from the barista she turned and then met eyes with Taylor. The woman stared for a moment and then walked straight towards her. "Taylor?" she questioned, fairly confident that this was who she was here to meet.
"Uhh, yea. Uhh I'm Taylor." Taylor said tripping over her own tongue.
"I'm Layla, seneschal for the Brockton Bay chapter of HARP," the woman said as she took the seat opposite of Taylor. She reached across the table and took Taylor's hand firmly shaking it.
"So how does this work?" Taylor asked, barely managing to get it out as a coherent sentence, still overwhelmed by what she had experienced, what she had knew and heard of the woman sitting across from her.
Layla kindly smiled at her nervousness. "Oh it isn't too bad. There is a form you have to fill out, but that is mostly a formality in this case." she said with a wink.
What that meant was completely lost on Taylor. But she was too intimidated by the older woman to inquire.
After they filled out the forms Layla took them and placed them in a folder before putting them into her bag.
"Alright, lets go and I'll show you the ropes."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"This is our local headquarters," Layla said as she opened the door to the non-descript townhouse.
The place was much bigger on the inside than the outside. Through the glass walls of the reception area she could see what looked like three or four adjacent townhouses had had walls knocked down and turned into one building on the inside, while leaving the outsides as a facade. There was a receptionist desk and then a doorway that led deeper into the building.
Taylor followed Layla through the doorway and found herself in a fairly typical office space. There were numerous people working through paperwork, and on phones. Layla spotted one empty desk in particular tsked and collected it up and put it into its folder. "Guess I'm having a discussion with Susan about leaving private details out… again." Layla muttered to herself.
"So this is the main office for the Brockton Bay branch of HARP. We have a number of suites on site upstairs, storage and a gym downstairs. But most of our clients are arrayed through the city at a number of safe houses." Layla explained. Pointing at the various stairwells through the explanation.
Taylor was baffled by what was going on. She know she had called to volunteer, but she barely even knew what they did. "We never really discussed what I'll be doing here?"
A predatory smile crossed Layla's face. "Oh we didn't? Don't worry it's just a bit of this and a bit of that. Think of it as being my apprentice."
"But, I mean, you just met me. Why would you trust me with that?" Taylor babbled.
"A little angel on my shoulder told me you would be good at the job." Layla said like the cat that got the canary.
Layla took a good long look at Taylor, glancing up and down. Taylor wasn't sure if this was some kind of come on, or just an honest inspection.
"What is HARP?" Taylor asked, trying to dig answers out of the well dressed woman.
"HARP is the Home Away from Rape and Persecution. We are an organisation that helps mostly women and children escape from domestic abuse, homelessness, and religious intolerance. We also have specific services for women who have recently suffered through sexual assault. That said we do run more general homeless shelters for families, and we have some that are dedicated to men."
Taylor just nodded along overwhelmed by all the information. That sounded like an organisation that did a lot of good in the world. Why had the woman left the business card for this organisation?
"Before anything else we need to work on your self defense skills. We don't often run into problems, but there are more than a few abusive assholes who cause us problems. It helps to feel safe if they confront you." Layla informed.
Layla led her down into the basement of the building. They passed several rooms of storage. Each one was briefly explained to her. Archives of paperwork, a walk in fridge for supplies, another that contained a shop's worth of soap, toothpaste, tampons, toilet paper, and other sundries.
Finally they got to the last room. Layla entered a pincode into a hightech mechanism on the door and it swung open. Inside a number of punching bags hung from the ceiling, a couple of weight sets sat to one side, and in the center a large area with impact mats laid out. Along one wall a series of reinforced cabinets lined the wall, each having a lock similar to the one on the door to the gym.
"Now before we get started lets run through where you are first." Layla ordered.
An hour later Taylor had worked up an absolute sweat. A good ten minutes on the punching bags, going through the weight bench to see how much she could press. Finally they ended up on the crash mats running through what she had been learning in her self defense course.
"Good good. You aren't doing too bad for a fledgling." Layla informed. Then they proceeded to run through several advanced maneuvers.
Taylor had noticed that Layla hadn't worked up a sweat at all throughout all of their practice. It was so unfair!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Taylor sat on a couch in the office longue nursing a bottle of cold water. "So, you were a bit vague earlier, what kind of duties should I expect?"
The longue was much more 'homely' than she expected. If she didn't know better she would think it was juts a family living room. There were various pictures on the walls of what she assumed were volunteers, and various families that had come through the system.
"To begin with a fair amount of training with me. Running errands. Delivering things to our various hidden shelters. Escorting new services users to shelters. Things like that. Oh and lots of paperwork, can't forget the paperwork. It's what makes the world go round." Layla said with a laugh.
"I've been meaning to ask." Taylor began, with a nervous look on her face. "A woman gave me the card for this place. She wore a hijab talked to me briefly and then disappeared. Do you know who she is?"
Layla looked considerate for a moment before she spoke. "She is… an unofficial patron of the HARP organisation. I can't really tell you more, except I'm sure she would like to meet you again someday."
"Oh," Taylor said unsure how to take the information. Finally she settled on focusing on the practicalities of it. "What hours do you want me here?"
"To begin with what you can. Preferably a few hours every day after school. Training you up is going to take consistency. I've never trained such a green fledgling before."
Taylor groaned at that. "I can't be the worst volunteer you have encountered."
"Of course not kid, by their standards you are an expert." Layla said with a knowing grin. "You my dear are destined for more than they are."
Taylor just looked at Layla confused. "What?"
"You my dear are to be my apprentice!" Layla exclaimed, as if that answered everything.
Duty - 2
It had been a week since Taylor had started going to the HARP house and it was paying dividends. The weightlifting had significantly increased her strength. The punching bag was had helped her learn to truly land a punch, and the sparing Layla had her doing was doing wonders for her combat skills. Or so she believed.
At the very least it was significantly more complicated and faster paced then what she was learning in her self defense class. Still she continued to go to the self defense course, if nothing else the time spent seemed to recharge her essence. That alone justified the time spent.
She had been so busy that she hadn't had time to go patrolling this week. Hopefully she would get a chance to go out soon and test out her improved skills.
First though she had an errand she wanted to run. The shop she wanted to visit wasn't downtown, and wasn't near the boardwalk. Instead it was out in the middle of the South Docks. It honestly wasn't even that far from her home. Far enough she needed a bus, but still not far.
It galled her that she was going to this shop. The very thought of it made her feel like creepy crawlies going up her back.
She got off the bus and walked the block to her destination. There in front of her in the middle of the strip mall was Aura's Attic a new age magic shop.
Her other attempts to track down the song and see if she could discover more were not going well and as much as she wanted to deny it, there were… similarities between her song and the superstition of 'magic'. So with no other leads she was coming here.
The thought of comparing her songs to something as wrong as magic caused shudders to run through her. But she persevered and entered the shop.
"Welcome to Aura's Attic" the woman at the counter called. She was wearing stereotypical rose tinted half moon glasses. Along with dress that looked like it fresh from Woodstock.
Taylor just smiled at her and then got to looking through the stocks of the shop. She beelined for the books hoping that there would be something there.
There were a few music books. Books looking into the symbolism of music, and how that relates to the universe. Taylor read through the books hoping to find something that explained the Symphony. Sadly while she had found things that almost hinted towards how she experienced of the Symphony it was also wrong at the same time. Like twisted parodies, or corrupted understandings. About forcing one's sense of will onto the universe. Frustrating and revolting, that is what it was. She slammed the book shut, and put it back on the shelves.
"Excuse me Miss, is there anything I can help you with?" the sales assistant said.
"Possibly. I've a song that is stuck in my head. I'm trying to identify it. Sadly I've had no luck with the music shops I've checked, so I thought I'd try something a bit more… adventurous." Taylor said trying to keep her words and tone even and non-insulting.
"Oh, not sure if we can help with identifying the song. We don't really have much in the way of sheet music. On the other hand if you are interested in the spiritualism of music I'd highly recommend this book." The sales assistant said as she picked up the book that Taylor had just slammed shut.
"Thanks." she replied with a wooden smile.
After the sales assistant left she moved on to seeing if she could find the chord she had transcribed in any of the other books. After a half hour of searching she couldn't find anything similar. There were hints of music as a method of spell casting scattered through a few of the books. Nothing concrete, but suggestions of it.
She left the book section and proceeded to look around the shop. Tarot cards, 'healing' crystals, and other paraphernalia littered the shelves. Nothing of real interest to her.
She did pickup some tea, as their selection of loose leaf teas wasn't half bad, and considering the nature of the shop the prices weren't half bad either.
As she was preparing to leave the shop she saw one of those bulletin boards filled with flyers from local services. Dog walkers, mediums, and music lessons. What drew her eyes was a pinned business card that said "Home Away from Rape and **P*ersecution" then beneath it it had the same phone number and email that she recognised from the card in her pocket.
Beneath the pinned business card there sat a flyer for an estate sale. One that was going on for another few days. Taylor pulled a tab from the bottom of the flyer with the address and put it in her pocket.
Upon leaving the shop she reflected upon what she knew. She wasn't alone. Unlike most parahuman powers she wasn't the sole one who could see and manipulate the Symphony, there was obviously something more to it. If she could just figure out how to contact others like herself.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Taylor made her way across town to the estate sale. It required two buses she hadn't taken before. It was rare she was traveling to a new part of the city. In her fifteen years of growing up here she had experienced most of what it had to offer.
She climbed off the bus and trudged up the hill. The house where the sale was going on seemed to be near the top.
The house was large, McMansion in size, but older and Victorian in design. Whoever owned it must have been affluent, but not millionaire rich. There was a sign on the door welcoming viewers, and informing them to come right in.
She stepped into the entry way to find that whoever had owned this place was definitely a collector as well as an eclectic one. There were paintings of old military men, sword canes, clocks, and all sorts of other miscellaneous items spread across the walls.
She stepped into the next room to find sewing manikins dressed in military outfits from both sides of the civil war, from various world war I and II armies. Even one that she if she recognised it correctly was a french policeman's.
She walked through much of the house slowly taking in the sights. The coins, the pewter tankards, the rings, sets of armour, and so much more.
As she was wrapping up and preparing to leave the attendant stopped her. "Didn't find anything you liked dearie?" the older lady said.
"I found plenty of interesting things, but nothing I have need for right now. I loved the collection though, it was almost like a museum."
"Did you take a look out back, in the sheds that Mr. Montgomery built? They are full of his collections as well."
She didn't have any place else to be at the moment. So Taylor turned around and headed back into the backyard.
The backyard was beautiful with stone paths, a miniature pond, river and waterfall. But what really took up the space of the backyard was the collection of sheds. Three of them covering the backyard from side to side in an L shape.
Taylor entered the first and found that it was filled with items similar to the interior of the house. More sets of plate armor though. Plus guns, lots of guns lining the walls. Taylor was sure to keep her hands away form those, as she didn't want to have any kind of mishap.
Loosing interest she moved to the next shed. This one had lots of plates, butter dishes, jugs and more. Some ceramic, some made of silver, others glass. Definitely nothing of interest to her.
Finally she entered the last shed. This one seemed to house the majority of Mr. Montgomery's more martial weapon collection. There were swords, axes, spears, and everything else that one could imagine coating the walls and tables. One table seemed to be set aside with tools for working on and repairing the weapons. A sharpening stone, vices, and similar.
Taylor couldn't deny that something primal about the room attracted her. Something that caught her off guard, because she had never been attracted to weapons before. Maybe this was some aspect of her power. Drawing her to the blades and hammers.
She took her time looking through the items. Many of which she deduced to be costume or display weapons and not meant for battle. Again how she knew this she wasn't sure, but some instinct seemed to tell her that these items were not worth her time.
She was pulling drawers out a cabinet when something caught her attention. At first sight she knew that it was more than it seemed. A hilt with no blade. Probably had broken at some point. It looked like it was made of bronze.
She stared at it for a moment before she touched it and could feel it. It was full of essence. She picked up the hilt in both hands and pointed it away from everything else. She touched the essence in the hilt and grasped it firmly. She song her song pulling on the essence and channeling it instead of her own.
The gust of wind she knew as her shield burst to life around her. Her own pool of essence untouched. "Holy shit!" she whispered, "It's some kind of essence battery?"
Next she took a bit more of essence from the hilt, it didn't have much left she could feel. She then channeled it through the hilt and a miracle happend before her eyes. Igniting like a lightsaber was a rod of pure flames. Flickering and twisting out.
She was going to have to experiment with this she knew figure out its limits and constraints. She reached out again with that sixth sense she used to manipulate essence and willed the sword to extinguish and it did.
She sat there staring at the hilt boggled at what a treasure she had stumbled upon. This… this was going to greatly change her capabilities.
She took the hilt and carried it back inside and found the attendant.
"Excuse me ma'am. I found this and was wondering how much you wanted for it?" she asked holding the hilt up gently. Praying it would be something she could afford.
"Oh that old piece of garbage, I'm sure you can have that for free dearie. I don't even know what you could do with it. I guess get a new blade fitted?"
Taylor almost did a jig on the spot, but restrained herself. But for all that that pleased her she didn't want to take complete advantage of someone who didn't know what a treasure they had.
"How about I give you a twenty? Would that be sufficient, then I don't feel like I'm taking advantage of you."
"Oh bless you dearie, of course that is fine." The old lady said. "Mr. Montgomery would have liked you. Would have loved to tell you all the stories of his treasures, which he got at yard sales, which he found with a metal detector, which he found at auctions. He would have liked you." The old woman reminisced.
Taylor handed the twenty dollars over and got a receipt. Now to head home with her treasure.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Taylor returned home and collected her costume for crime fighting. She changed into the jeans and boots, and put on a shirt that would be innocuous before slipping out the side door.
Once she was a few blocks away she found a hidden alleyway where she could finish getting into her costume. She donned the jacket, put her hair up into her hat, and put her facemask and goggles on. Then she slid the brass hilt into the pocket of her jacket. It wouldn't be the easiest to draw from there, but she doubted she would need such a weapon against the average criminal. Not to mention the amount of damage she would do to people if she wielded it without caution.
Now to go and fight crime. She was close enough to home that the Docks were her best bet on area to patrol. Which meant she would largely be in ABB or Merchant's territory.
It was hard to be sure when it came to rumors, but the rumors about the ABB was that they were up to all sorts of nefarious deeds. Like human trafficking levels of nefarious.
She would of course be fine as long she didn't encounter either of the two heavy hitters, their capes. Alternatively she could focus on Merchant's territory. They had three big capes at the moment. She wasn't sure if she could take them on or not, but at the least she felt she was in the same league as them, unlike Lung, head of the ABB.
She set out beelining for Merchant's territory. The safer of her options as a noob hero who was still sorting out her powers.
The first hour of patrolling was pretty boring. Taylor did stumble across some kids out playing with a soccer ball, which was probably not the best of ideas this late at night in this neighborhood. She gave them a questioning look and they all scattered, hopefully to home, but more likely to cause mischief elsewhere.
She continued to prowl the streets in search of people to help, or criminals to bust.
She turned down a street and saw a collection of three giant mutant dog like creatures charging in her direction. Each as big as a small hatchback. Upon their backs were riders in costume. Heros? Villains? Most likely villains from the dark colors and mutant dogs. Their appearances vaguely touched a memory from her research of local capes, but she couldn't quite recall it.
She simply stood to the side of the road and watched them racing towards her. Without drawing her new flaming sword she didn't have much that she could use against the mutant dogs and she didn't want to use that unless it was an emergency. Not until she had tested its limits. It would be unfortunate if it did act like a lightsaber and she ended up accidentally dismembering whoever she fought or even herself.
The dogs skidded to a stop fifteen feet or so away from her. The riders all staring at her.
"You here to fight us?" The person in a blacked out motorcycle helmet said. His voice was muffled by the helmet, but definitely masculine.
"I don't have the capability to stop you at the moment. So for today I'll have to let you leave, but fear not another day we may cross blades." She called back.
"Holy shit! She is being serious about the blades bit." The girl in the black and purple catsuit.
"So what! I got a new sword I want to try out." Taylor said confused about how the girl knew.
She dipped into the Symphony and observed the people before her.
The man in the motorcycle helmet was proud of how he protected his sister, how he was striving to do more for her. Meanwhile he was ashamed of the times he has failed her, let her be hurt by the realities of upbringing.
Next there was the girl in the catsuit. She bristled at being forced to commit crimes, not inherently because she was committing them, but because she was being forced to by someone with a gun to her head.
Taylor turned her attention to the girl in a leather jacket with a dog mask. Her nobility centered around her dogs, who she expertly cared for. Yet her heart cried at the pain they suffered when their missions went wrong.
Finally Taylor looked at the boy in the frilly shirt. God he was a mess, his sound twisted and terrible. Like someone had been eating away at his soul. The specifics she couldn't quite decipher, and what she could was that of a man who was broken and hated it. She knew that he had gone one more day, one more week having escaped his abuser and torturer and he viewed that as his greatest success in life.
"Fuck! She is pulling a me on us." The girl in the catsuit exclaimed.
"What, acting like she knows everything?" Frilly shirt said.
"No, she is cold reading us, learning things about us." Catsuit replied.
"I consider it more of taking the measure of a person." Taylor replied.
"Don't care, what did you learn and who are you sharing it with?" Catsuit questioned. Then she answered her own question. "Not sharing it with anyone… but keeps a record… a notebook with some of the details of what she determines."
"I learned many things. Some of them are private to each of you, and I would not reveal it to the others. But no identities." Taylor really hoped this wouldn't devolve into a fight. Four on one, seven if you counted the dogs, didn't seem like good odds.
"Fuck!" Motorcycle Helmet exclaimed. "You better keep it to yourself if you know what the fuck is good for you. Come on lets get out of here." He urged his dog onwards and started charging away. Catsuit copied suite, taking her passenger of Filly shirt with her.
The dog faced girl growled, and seemed to go through an internal debate of if she should attack Taylor before she followed the lead of the other two retreating dogs.
Taylor watched them leave. She just knew that they were going to be headache for her one of these days.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Author's Note: The home from the estate sale, the many sheds full of collections of antiques and collectibles is all based on my uncle. It truly is a sight to behold and might as well be a museum. It helps that his hobby/job for many years was making Armour sets and replacement pieces for Armour sets for castles and people around England.
At the very least it was significantly more complicated and faster paced then what she was learning in her self defense class. Still she continued to go to the self defense course, if nothing else the time spent seemed to recharge her essence. That alone justified the time spent.
She had been so busy that she hadn't had time to go patrolling this week. Hopefully she would get a chance to go out soon and test out her improved skills.
First though she had an errand she wanted to run. The shop she wanted to visit wasn't downtown, and wasn't near the boardwalk. Instead it was out in the middle of the South Docks. It honestly wasn't even that far from her home. Far enough she needed a bus, but still not far.
It galled her that she was going to this shop. The very thought of it made her feel like creepy crawlies going up her back.
She got off the bus and walked the block to her destination. There in front of her in the middle of the strip mall was Aura's Attic a new age magic shop.
Her other attempts to track down the song and see if she could discover more were not going well and as much as she wanted to deny it, there were… similarities between her song and the superstition of 'magic'. So with no other leads she was coming here.
The thought of comparing her songs to something as wrong as magic caused shudders to run through her. But she persevered and entered the shop.
"Welcome to Aura's Attic" the woman at the counter called. She was wearing stereotypical rose tinted half moon glasses. Along with dress that looked like it fresh from Woodstock.
Taylor just smiled at her and then got to looking through the stocks of the shop. She beelined for the books hoping that there would be something there.
There were a few music books. Books looking into the symbolism of music, and how that relates to the universe. Taylor read through the books hoping to find something that explained the Symphony. Sadly while she had found things that almost hinted towards how she experienced of the Symphony it was also wrong at the same time. Like twisted parodies, or corrupted understandings. About forcing one's sense of will onto the universe. Frustrating and revolting, that is what it was. She slammed the book shut, and put it back on the shelves.
"Excuse me Miss, is there anything I can help you with?" the sales assistant said.
"Possibly. I've a song that is stuck in my head. I'm trying to identify it. Sadly I've had no luck with the music shops I've checked, so I thought I'd try something a bit more… adventurous." Taylor said trying to keep her words and tone even and non-insulting.
"Oh, not sure if we can help with identifying the song. We don't really have much in the way of sheet music. On the other hand if you are interested in the spiritualism of music I'd highly recommend this book." The sales assistant said as she picked up the book that Taylor had just slammed shut.
"Thanks." she replied with a wooden smile.
After the sales assistant left she moved on to seeing if she could find the chord she had transcribed in any of the other books. After a half hour of searching she couldn't find anything similar. There were hints of music as a method of spell casting scattered through a few of the books. Nothing concrete, but suggestions of it.
She left the book section and proceeded to look around the shop. Tarot cards, 'healing' crystals, and other paraphernalia littered the shelves. Nothing of real interest to her.
She did pickup some tea, as their selection of loose leaf teas wasn't half bad, and considering the nature of the shop the prices weren't half bad either.
As she was preparing to leave the shop she saw one of those bulletin boards filled with flyers from local services. Dog walkers, mediums, and music lessons. What drew her eyes was a pinned business card that said "Home Away from Rape and **P*ersecution" then beneath it it had the same phone number and email that she recognised from the card in her pocket.
Beneath the pinned business card there sat a flyer for an estate sale. One that was going on for another few days. Taylor pulled a tab from the bottom of the flyer with the address and put it in her pocket.
Upon leaving the shop she reflected upon what she knew. She wasn't alone. Unlike most parahuman powers she wasn't the sole one who could see and manipulate the Symphony, there was obviously something more to it. If she could just figure out how to contact others like herself.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Taylor made her way across town to the estate sale. It required two buses she hadn't taken before. It was rare she was traveling to a new part of the city. In her fifteen years of growing up here she had experienced most of what it had to offer.
She climbed off the bus and trudged up the hill. The house where the sale was going on seemed to be near the top.
The house was large, McMansion in size, but older and Victorian in design. Whoever owned it must have been affluent, but not millionaire rich. There was a sign on the door welcoming viewers, and informing them to come right in.
She stepped into the entry way to find that whoever had owned this place was definitely a collector as well as an eclectic one. There were paintings of old military men, sword canes, clocks, and all sorts of other miscellaneous items spread across the walls.
She stepped into the next room to find sewing manikins dressed in military outfits from both sides of the civil war, from various world war I and II armies. Even one that she if she recognised it correctly was a french policeman's.
She walked through much of the house slowly taking in the sights. The coins, the pewter tankards, the rings, sets of armour, and so much more.
As she was wrapping up and preparing to leave the attendant stopped her. "Didn't find anything you liked dearie?" the older lady said.
"I found plenty of interesting things, but nothing I have need for right now. I loved the collection though, it was almost like a museum."
"Did you take a look out back, in the sheds that Mr. Montgomery built? They are full of his collections as well."
She didn't have any place else to be at the moment. So Taylor turned around and headed back into the backyard.
The backyard was beautiful with stone paths, a miniature pond, river and waterfall. But what really took up the space of the backyard was the collection of sheds. Three of them covering the backyard from side to side in an L shape.
Taylor entered the first and found that it was filled with items similar to the interior of the house. More sets of plate armor though. Plus guns, lots of guns lining the walls. Taylor was sure to keep her hands away form those, as she didn't want to have any kind of mishap.
Loosing interest she moved to the next shed. This one had lots of plates, butter dishes, jugs and more. Some ceramic, some made of silver, others glass. Definitely nothing of interest to her.
Finally she entered the last shed. This one seemed to house the majority of Mr. Montgomery's more martial weapon collection. There were swords, axes, spears, and everything else that one could imagine coating the walls and tables. One table seemed to be set aside with tools for working on and repairing the weapons. A sharpening stone, vices, and similar.
Taylor couldn't deny that something primal about the room attracted her. Something that caught her off guard, because she had never been attracted to weapons before. Maybe this was some aspect of her power. Drawing her to the blades and hammers.
She took her time looking through the items. Many of which she deduced to be costume or display weapons and not meant for battle. Again how she knew this she wasn't sure, but some instinct seemed to tell her that these items were not worth her time.
She was pulling drawers out a cabinet when something caught her attention. At first sight she knew that it was more than it seemed. A hilt with no blade. Probably had broken at some point. It looked like it was made of bronze.
She stared at it for a moment before she touched it and could feel it. It was full of essence. She picked up the hilt in both hands and pointed it away from everything else. She touched the essence in the hilt and grasped it firmly. She song her song pulling on the essence and channeling it instead of her own.
The gust of wind she knew as her shield burst to life around her. Her own pool of essence untouched. "Holy shit!" she whispered, "It's some kind of essence battery?"
Next she took a bit more of essence from the hilt, it didn't have much left she could feel. She then channeled it through the hilt and a miracle happend before her eyes. Igniting like a lightsaber was a rod of pure flames. Flickering and twisting out.
She was going to have to experiment with this she knew figure out its limits and constraints. She reached out again with that sixth sense she used to manipulate essence and willed the sword to extinguish and it did.
She sat there staring at the hilt boggled at what a treasure she had stumbled upon. This… this was going to greatly change her capabilities.
She took the hilt and carried it back inside and found the attendant.
"Excuse me ma'am. I found this and was wondering how much you wanted for it?" she asked holding the hilt up gently. Praying it would be something she could afford.
"Oh that old piece of garbage, I'm sure you can have that for free dearie. I don't even know what you could do with it. I guess get a new blade fitted?"
Taylor almost did a jig on the spot, but restrained herself. But for all that that pleased her she didn't want to take complete advantage of someone who didn't know what a treasure they had.
"How about I give you a twenty? Would that be sufficient, then I don't feel like I'm taking advantage of you."
"Oh bless you dearie, of course that is fine." The old lady said. "Mr. Montgomery would have liked you. Would have loved to tell you all the stories of his treasures, which he got at yard sales, which he found with a metal detector, which he found at auctions. He would have liked you." The old woman reminisced.
Taylor handed the twenty dollars over and got a receipt. Now to head home with her treasure.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Taylor returned home and collected her costume for crime fighting. She changed into the jeans and boots, and put on a shirt that would be innocuous before slipping out the side door.
Once she was a few blocks away she found a hidden alleyway where she could finish getting into her costume. She donned the jacket, put her hair up into her hat, and put her facemask and goggles on. Then she slid the brass hilt into the pocket of her jacket. It wouldn't be the easiest to draw from there, but she doubted she would need such a weapon against the average criminal. Not to mention the amount of damage she would do to people if she wielded it without caution.
Now to go and fight crime. She was close enough to home that the Docks were her best bet on area to patrol. Which meant she would largely be in ABB or Merchant's territory.
It was hard to be sure when it came to rumors, but the rumors about the ABB was that they were up to all sorts of nefarious deeds. Like human trafficking levels of nefarious.
She would of course be fine as long she didn't encounter either of the two heavy hitters, their capes. Alternatively she could focus on Merchant's territory. They had three big capes at the moment. She wasn't sure if she could take them on or not, but at the least she felt she was in the same league as them, unlike Lung, head of the ABB.
She set out beelining for Merchant's territory. The safer of her options as a noob hero who was still sorting out her powers.
The first hour of patrolling was pretty boring. Taylor did stumble across some kids out playing with a soccer ball, which was probably not the best of ideas this late at night in this neighborhood. She gave them a questioning look and they all scattered, hopefully to home, but more likely to cause mischief elsewhere.
She continued to prowl the streets in search of people to help, or criminals to bust.
She turned down a street and saw a collection of three giant mutant dog like creatures charging in her direction. Each as big as a small hatchback. Upon their backs were riders in costume. Heros? Villains? Most likely villains from the dark colors and mutant dogs. Their appearances vaguely touched a memory from her research of local capes, but she couldn't quite recall it.
She simply stood to the side of the road and watched them racing towards her. Without drawing her new flaming sword she didn't have much that she could use against the mutant dogs and she didn't want to use that unless it was an emergency. Not until she had tested its limits. It would be unfortunate if it did act like a lightsaber and she ended up accidentally dismembering whoever she fought or even herself.
The dogs skidded to a stop fifteen feet or so away from her. The riders all staring at her.
"You here to fight us?" The person in a blacked out motorcycle helmet said. His voice was muffled by the helmet, but definitely masculine.
"I don't have the capability to stop you at the moment. So for today I'll have to let you leave, but fear not another day we may cross blades." She called back.
"Holy shit! She is being serious about the blades bit." The girl in the black and purple catsuit.
"So what! I got a new sword I want to try out." Taylor said confused about how the girl knew.
She dipped into the Symphony and observed the people before her.
The man in the motorcycle helmet was proud of how he protected his sister, how he was striving to do more for her. Meanwhile he was ashamed of the times he has failed her, let her be hurt by the realities of upbringing.
Next there was the girl in the catsuit. She bristled at being forced to commit crimes, not inherently because she was committing them, but because she was being forced to by someone with a gun to her head.
Taylor turned her attention to the girl in a leather jacket with a dog mask. Her nobility centered around her dogs, who she expertly cared for. Yet her heart cried at the pain they suffered when their missions went wrong.
Finally Taylor looked at the boy in the frilly shirt. God he was a mess, his sound twisted and terrible. Like someone had been eating away at his soul. The specifics she couldn't quite decipher, and what she could was that of a man who was broken and hated it. She knew that he had gone one more day, one more week having escaped his abuser and torturer and he viewed that as his greatest success in life.
"Fuck! She is pulling a me on us." The girl in the catsuit exclaimed.
"What, acting like she knows everything?" Frilly shirt said.
"No, she is cold reading us, learning things about us." Catsuit replied.
"I consider it more of taking the measure of a person." Taylor replied.
"Don't care, what did you learn and who are you sharing it with?" Catsuit questioned. Then she answered her own question. "Not sharing it with anyone… but keeps a record… a notebook with some of the details of what she determines."
"I learned many things. Some of them are private to each of you, and I would not reveal it to the others. But no identities." Taylor really hoped this wouldn't devolve into a fight. Four on one, seven if you counted the dogs, didn't seem like good odds.
"Fuck!" Motorcycle Helmet exclaimed. "You better keep it to yourself if you know what the fuck is good for you. Come on lets get out of here." He urged his dog onwards and started charging away. Catsuit copied suite, taking her passenger of Filly shirt with her.
The dog faced girl growled, and seemed to go through an internal debate of if she should attack Taylor before she followed the lead of the other two retreating dogs.
Taylor watched them leave. She just knew that they were going to be headache for her one of these days.
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Author's Note: The home from the estate sale, the many sheds full of collections of antiques and collectibles is all based on my uncle. It truly is a sight to behold and might as well be a museum. It helps that his hobby/job for many years was making Armour sets and replacement pieces for Armour sets for castles and people around England.
Duty - 3
Winslow was hell again. Granted it was always hell, for what else could it be. It had started off with Madison putting glue down on her seat in first period. Luckily she had noticed and was able to clean it up with some tissue before it got onto her pants.
Still in a fit of petty retaliation she observed Madison. The girl's sound was that of a piccolo, like a higher pitched flute. Her sound carried hints of cuteness, but cruelty. Sharp sudden pips of noise that reminded Taylor of a shark circling. Within the sounds she could pick out the knowledge of girl having pushed Taylor into the locker, and other misdeeds of torture that she put Taylor through. On the positive side there was knowledge of her reaching out to strangers online who seemed to be struggling, of going out of her way to help her family. On the whole the positives didn't make up for what was done to Taylor, but it was good to know there were element of good in the girl, no matter how little it was.
She headed down the stairs towards her second period of the day. When she felt someone's hands land on her back and then pushing her down. She started to fall, but all of the training she had been doing with Layla and Officer Williams seemed to be paying off. She mostly caught herself a step or two down and managed to redirect her free fall down the stairs into a controlled fall on the next landing. All those practices falls truly were worth it.
She rolled over and kipped up. Once she was on her feet she twisted around to see who had pushed her. Standing in front of her was Sophia acting like she had no clue what just happend.
"Wow, what a klutz Hebert," she said with a snide laugh.
"Keep your hands to yourself in the future Hess." Taylor retorted.
She then opened her senses to the Symphony and focused on Sophia. That same out of tune saxophone. That same knowledge of almost killing a man with a crossbow bolt, that same knowledge of being forced by the PRT into their service. Sophia Hess was fucking Shadow Stalker. God this pissed her off.
She was so furious she picked up her bag and stormed out of the school slamming the door behind her. The implications of this could be massive. Was the PRT tying the school's hands. Was that why the administration refused to punish the Bitches Three?
Taylor would need to dig more. To investigate this before she jumped to any conclusions, but right now she couldn't take it any more. The utter hypocrisy. The false claim of being a hero.
At the very least Hess was unwillingly conscripted into the Wards. How much that displeased Hess was somewhat comforting. Still it added all the more reason for Taylor to continue being independent no matter how unsafe being independent was.
Taylor marched from the school to the bus stop and headed straight to the HARP house.
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She had cooled off a bit by the time she got to her destination, but still was looking forward to some quality time with the punching bag. She walked inside to find Mary was doing some administrative work.
"Mary! I didn't expect to find you here. Aren't you supposed to be in school?" Taylor asked surprised by the other girl's presence. As far as she knew Mary was about the same age as her.
"I go to Arcadia, this is my work release." Mary replied.
"Wait how does that work?" Taylor questioned.
"Its mostly a cover for the wards, at least that's my theory. We get two or three half days a week depending upon our schedule. Then the other half of the day is spent working at a local business or charity." Mary explained.
A surge of jealousy that she was unable to attend Arcadia went through Taylor. Maybe she could see if Layla could help vouch for her attending next year? It would help give her a bit more time in her week. It was already pretty full between the genuine volunteering she did, the practice she does with Layla, going out patrolling, self defense class, and trying to spend at least a token amount of time with her dad.
She stamped the jealousy down. It wasn't Mary's fault.
"Unfair," she said trying to make sure her voice carried a tone of teasing. She thought based upon the grin on Mary's face that she succeeded, but her social skills were pretty rusty at this point.
"Anyways I've had a pretty rough day, I'm going to head downstairs and get some punching bag therapy."
"Have fun! I'll let Layla know where you are when she gets back." Mary replied before going back to her paperwork.
Taylor didn't even stop by her locker or get changed into her exercise clothes. She just went straight down to the basement. She did grab a pair of kickboxing gloves and strapped them on tight.
The wham, wham, wham of the punching bag filled her ears like music. She still couldn't believe Sophia.
A half hour later she was just starting to wind down. Her stamina seemed to have been increasing exponentially because she was barely feeling the exertion. The worst of the anger finally wearing out her system. She was still furious, but the hot burning rage had abated. She started stripping the gloves from her hands.
She then heard a clap clap clap coming from behind her. She spun around and saw Layla standing there watching.
"You have improved significantly since you started my young padawan." Her mentor said.
"How long have you been watching." Taylor accused. Embarrassed by the thought of having a spectator to her temper tantrum.
"Oh not long kid, just ten minutes or there abouts," Layla teased. "So want to tell me whats got your panties in a knot?"
"Found something out about one of my bullies, nothing I can't share, just what a fucking Hypocrite she is." Taylor said before she whipped back around and slammed the punching bag with a bare knuckled punch.
"Come on lets go grab a tea." Layla said heading up the stairs towards the longue.
Taylor called after her, "Still not going to tell you what it was." Then started following.
She collapsed onto the couch and draped herself across it like a Freudian therapy patient. She even draped the back of her hand across her forehead.
"Oh woe is me!" She exclaimed in mock drama.
"So want to tell me whats wrong?" Layla said. Ignoring the theatrics.
"Girl who has been bullying me. Discovered something about her. Reasons she might have influence over the administration in school." Taylor explained. She leaned over to peek at Layla's reaction. The older woman had a look of mild concern on her face.
"Reasons that she might be getting away with it?" Layla asked, bringing Taylor's hidden fear into the world.
"Exactly." Taylor groaned.
"Well what are you going to do about it?" Layla asked.
Taylor really wasn't sure. She wasn't sure what she could do. Most of her options would inevitably out Sophia, or involve blackmailing the administration. She could go to the PRT, see if they would do anything, maybe file an anonymous complaint? They did at least in part seem to want her, maybe they would accept her in trade for Shadow Stalker. That felt wrong though. Like she was trading herself into indentured servitude for justice. Justice shouldn't have a cost like that, it should be universal.
"I don't know," she cried out as she tossed her arms up into the air.
Layla walked over and bent down and pulled Taylor up into a hug. "Its okay Taylor, it will be okay." She started patting Taylor on the back.
The action of being pulled into a hug had frozen Taylor. She hadn't been hugged like this since… since her mother died. Her father had given her hugs, with just as much emotion, but there was something different to those. Like he was grasping on for support as much as he was giving it. This was different. This was someone just unconditionally being there for her. She burst into tears.
"Oh god, what an idiot I am," Taylor got out between sobs. She started trying to wipe her eyes clean, tried to get herself under control.
"Its okay kid, there is nothing to be ashamed of. It's a natural human reaction. You can come cry on big sister Layla when ever you want." The smile Layla said it with told Taylor that she wasn't joking or lying. That Layla meant it when she said she could cry on her whenever. "Hey Kid, let me look into a few things. Call in a few favors. Maybe there is something I can do."
Taylor released Layla and just laid there thinking about how different her life was from a month ago. She just stayed there like that thinking over everything, over what to do about Sophia, thinking about her changing life, about Layla, about her Dad. So many things were fucked up or rapidly changing in her life. All of them screaming at her. She just laid there staring at the ceiling trying to process it all.
Layla seeing her apprentice's improved, albeit still messy state got up and gave her space. Leaving the room and closing the door behind herself.
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It took her a bit but she finished her moping and headed home. Once home she changed into her partial costume, grabbed her hero notebook, and headed out. Once she was a good five or six blocks away from her home she found an alley and got changed into the rest of her costume.
Once changed she set course for the boat graveyard. She wasn't patrolling tonight. That wasn't her plan.
When she got to the boat graveyard she looked for something that was easy enough to reach from shore without going swimming. Luckily there was a mid size tanker half sunken just adjacent to shore. She hopped the three feet from the dock onto it.
Next up she drew the brass hilt. And gave it a good luck. Her brief research seemed to indicate it was some kind of British bastard sword. Although they wouldn't have used bronze for for such a hilt. No one had used bronze in… just about forever. As she held it in her hands she took a deep breath. She could feel that it had partially recharged. A similar amount to what she gained everyday. Huh, that was useful. Essentially doubling her baseline daily regeneration.
Before she proceeded she checked the time and wrote it down.
She then took that piece of essence and funneled into the blade. The fire ignited. It crackled and hissed as it extended out from the hilt. The flames settling into the appearance of a bastard sword with the yellow, orange and red flames licking and flickering out from that base shape.
She wondered if Layla knew how to sword fight? That would be helpful.
She took the sword and gave it a few practice swings. While being very careful to not drop the sword or accidentally decapitate herself.
The sword had a certain balance to it. She wasn't sure how that worked when the majority of it was an essentially weightless plasma.
Once she got the hand of swinging it she took a swipe at a wall of the tanker. It cut into the metal. Not like a hot knife through butter, but with definitive ease compared to what she expected of a traditional metal blade.
Next experiment was to see if burned things like normal. She pulled out a wooden spoon she had stolen from the kitchen. She tossed it onto the ground and then held the sword out pointing it at the spoon. It took a minute to light, more than she expected but then she had never been camping or built a fire before.
So the fire worked like a normal fire. That was also good to know. She checked her watch to see how much time had passed. Only a minute. She shrugged and went back to swinging it for practice. After five minutes she started to wonder if it would extinguish on its own, and then it suddenly extinguished. The flame just dissipating into the ether.
She recorded the timing in her notebook, and then repeated the experiment. This time it lasted two minutes. The next and final experiment of the night it lasted four.
"Hmm," she said as she recorded her final experiment in her notebook. "That is frustrating, but good to know."
She collected her gear, slipped her notebook back into her motorcycle jacket's pocket, and then put the hilt in with it. She then took a deep breath and did a running leap back to the shore.
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Taylor's walk back to her house had been a quiet affair, full of self reflection and pondering the various problems that currently plagued her. That was until she noticed some sounds up ahead, something was going on.
She started running in the direction she heard the noises hoping she would get there in time to make a difference.
Bursting into an intersection she saw a lifted truck with a large mounted minigun in the bed shooting erratically into the air. Manning the gun was the trashiest person that Taylor had ever seen. A shredded tank top covered in grease stains, booty shorts, and a pair of thigh high boots. Taylor looked for a moment trying to figure out what was driving this insanity. Sadly she couldn't clearly make anything out.
Quickly she sung her song of shields, infusing it with the necessary essence. The shield whirled around her. Then she drew her hilt and ignited it. This was going to be her first use of it in real combat, and a scary combat this was going to be. So far her shield had stood up to all abuse that was thrown at it, but she hadn't tested it on anything near the calibre of a minigun firing hundreds of rounds a minute.
She started charging forward, relying upon the noise of the minigun to hide her feet pounding against the street. Only parked cars lined the edge of the streets, with no drivers in sight. No bystanders to get pulled into this madness. Well as long as the gunner kept aiming into the air.
When she was a few feet away the gunner finally noticed her and let off the trigger and pivoted the gun towards her. Then the gun increased its spinning again. thwack thwack thwack the bullets pelted her shield and fell to the ground. She finished her charge, jumping onto the rim of the bed, and then into the bed with an overhead swing slicing into the barrel of the gun and cutting through the rods. The spinning motion helping to saw the barrels in twain.
"Cocksucking bitch! I was using that." The gunner swore as she pulled a handgun from a holster. Taylor swung the blade but stopped just shy of the woman's arm. She wasn't going to mutilate the woman. Not when she had options. She dropped the flaming sword and went in for a punch.
The handgun fired fairing no better than the minigun before it, the bullet falling to the ground with a small ping that was overwhelmed by the sound of the gunfire.
"Surrender!" Taylor yelled at the woman. Just then a blonde woman descended from the sky like a bullet slamming into the hood of the truck. The vehicle rocking from the impact sent Taylor reeling backwards, tripping over the rim of the bed and falling flat onto the ground. She kipped up onto her feet and prepared to once again engage the mad gunner.
She once again lept up scrambling into the bed of the truck. Taking a punch to the face as she did. Once more her shield held strong. It likely only had a few seconds left at this point. She needed to stop relying upon it, as she didn't have much energy left after her experiments and initial charge.
Taylor went for a tackle trying to take the woman down, but the gunner dodged like a matador. It took a moment for Taylor to regain her balance in which time her shield finally lapsed. The woman taking advantage of Taylor being off kilter and slammed an elbow into her back forcing her to the floor of the bed of the truck.
"Stay down you fucking shit stain." The gunner cried.
The blonde bullet had taken several swings at the engine ensuring she had stopped any potential fleeing.
In between punches and elbows to the lower rib Taylor somehow managed to roll over onto her back. She tried to fend of the punches that were raining down onto her as best as she could, but only succeeded on a quarter. One of the punches landed firmly on her lowest rib and she could feel a rib snap. The shock of agony overtook her for a period, but she quickly steeled herself.
She pulled her legs up towards her chest, wrangled her feet against the gunner's stomach and then pushed with all her might. The gunner went flying back into side of the cab. The act of kicking like she did caused a spike of blinding white pain as the broken rib moved. Taylor slowly caught her breath and then slowly pulled herself to her. She stumbled forward step after step, ignoring the excruciating pain, focusing on her target.
"I said surrender you miserable waste of breath."
The blonde seemed to have finished crushing the vehicle's engine and floated over to above Taylor and the downed gunner.
"Need a hand there?" The blonde asked.
Taylor looked up at her and finally recognised the costume. The golden tiara should have been a hint, but she had been more focused on the minigun of doom that would have torn through the neighborhood like it was wet tissue.
"Glory Girl, sorry for crashing your party." Taylor slurred out.
"Oh, no worries there. I was having trouble getting close enough with that monstrosity going off." Glory Girl said. Her fists resting on her hips and posing like an action figure.
"Happy to help." Taylor responded. "Now lets get this bitch tied up." she said before dropping to her knees over the unconscious gunner.
She ignored the pain once more and flipped the woman over onto her front. Pulling her hands behind her back and then pulling a flexicuff out of a pocket.
"So I don't recognise you, and I know most of the faces, so to speak, of the local scene."
"Paladin, fairly new." Taylor said before gesturing at her poor excuse of a costume.
"Ahh, well welcome to the Brockton Bay hero scene. Always nice to have another person playing for the good guys."
Taylor just nodded her head in acknowledgement, spending more energy trying to focus on acting through the pain than paying attention to the conversation.
"Do you have a phone? You know call 911." Taylor said to the illustrious blonde.
"Oh. Yea, sorry." Glory Girl said with a slight blush on her cheeks. "Let me call Amy while I'm at it, get you checked out."
Taylor just nodded, the name Amy sounded familiar, but she just didn't have the brain space right now to put it together. With the gunner finally secured she dropped down onto the floor and leaned back against the wall of the bed. Her focus on taking slow breaths, trying to regulate the pain, and prevent any shifting of her rib.
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Glory Girl tried to carry on a conversation while they waited. Although that might have just been her rambling for the sake of rambling. Either way it was a fairly one sided conversation.
Instead of the BBPD showing up with a wagon to haul away the gunner it was a PRT wagon full of troopers that arrived.
They quickly secured the gunner into the wagon and foamed her up. Huh, apparently she wasn't just a mad gunner, but was a parahuman. So you learn.
"Who was that?" Taylor asked Glory Girl.
"Wait you beat her to unconsciousness and you don't know who she is." The blonde said with utter disbelief.
"Rings a bell, but can't focus right now." Taylor said, hoping the girl would take it as an acceptable excuse.
"That was Squealer, second in command of the Archer's Bridge Merchants."
"Fuck, they are going to be pissed about this aren't they." Taylor mused.
"Yup!" Glory Girl said popping the p.
They lapsed into silence which was luckily broken not long after by the PRT officer in charge coming over.
"Nice job girls."
"Paladin did most of the work, I just kept Squealer distracted." Glory Girl said while hooking a thumb in Taylor's direction.
"I don't even know how this kicked off. I just heard commotion and came running down. Then I saw the minigun going off and figured it could start hurting bystanders if any buildings ended up in the backdrop of the shots."
"So you charged head first at the problem" Glory Girl critiqued.
"I figured that would get me in close enough to do something about it. My abilities are all pretty short range." Taylor countered.
"Can I ask what you used to saw the mini gun in half?" The PRT agent interrupted before the two girls could continue.
"She was charging with a giant flaming sword!" Glory Girl exclaimed.
"I'm sorry a what?" The agent questioned.
"Flaming sword, you know like an avenging angel." Glory Girl piped in.
Great that was exactly the comparison Taylor needed. Being in the same breath as the Hopekiller.
"Could we see this flaming sword?" The agent asked.
Taylor thought about it for a moment before shaking her head. "I'm pretty beat and don't have a lot of gas left in the engine, so to speak."
The agent looked disappointed, but noted something down on his clipboard.
"The other question we had was about a number of flattened bullets we found on the tarmac. Do you know how they got there?"
Taylor briefly considered her response before settling on the truth. "I took a few minigun rounds to the chest, I imagine the impacted bullets are from where they hit my shield."
"An impressive set of abilities you have there Miss Grab Bag" Glory Girl teased.
Taylor really didn't have the energy right now to deal with teasing. It was hard enough at the best of times, but at the moment she was still trying to moderate her breathing to control the spikes of pain.
"Could I get a ride to the hospital. Probably need to get this looked at."
Glory Girl looked down at her phone before saying "Amy should be here any minute now. She can get you fixed up in a jiffy."
It finally clicked who Amy was. Amy Dallon was Panacea, greatest healer in New England, if not the world. It had to be a massive boon to have someone like her on speed dial.
Glory Girl was spot on as only a minute later Laser Dream landed on the ground carrying Panacea bridal style.
"I heard I was needed?" She said, clearly grumpy at being pulled away from her home at this hour.
"Yea, think I broke my rib," Taylor said from her position on the ground.
"Do I have your permission to heal you?" she asked with all the enthusiasm of a grocery store clerk.
"Yup. Yes you do." Taylor said in a strained voice.
Panacea bent down and reached out to touch Taylor's hand. Suddenly Taylor could feel her rib shifting as it reknit itself into position.
"There you go, all fixed." Panacea said.
Taylor stood up and stretched, checking for any residual pain. Thank god it was all gone. "I owe you one, thanks Panacea."
"You protected my idiot sister, so consider us even." She said before turning on the spot and heading back to Laser Dream.
"Hey! I'm not an idiot." Glory Girl yelled as she chased after.
"So we all set here?" Taylor asked the PRT Officer.
"Yes, have a good evening Paladin." He replied.
Still in a fit of petty retaliation she observed Madison. The girl's sound was that of a piccolo, like a higher pitched flute. Her sound carried hints of cuteness, but cruelty. Sharp sudden pips of noise that reminded Taylor of a shark circling. Within the sounds she could pick out the knowledge of girl having pushed Taylor into the locker, and other misdeeds of torture that she put Taylor through. On the positive side there was knowledge of her reaching out to strangers online who seemed to be struggling, of going out of her way to help her family. On the whole the positives didn't make up for what was done to Taylor, but it was good to know there were element of good in the girl, no matter how little it was.
She headed down the stairs towards her second period of the day. When she felt someone's hands land on her back and then pushing her down. She started to fall, but all of the training she had been doing with Layla and Officer Williams seemed to be paying off. She mostly caught herself a step or two down and managed to redirect her free fall down the stairs into a controlled fall on the next landing. All those practices falls truly were worth it.
She rolled over and kipped up. Once she was on her feet she twisted around to see who had pushed her. Standing in front of her was Sophia acting like she had no clue what just happend.
"Wow, what a klutz Hebert," she said with a snide laugh.
"Keep your hands to yourself in the future Hess." Taylor retorted.
She then opened her senses to the Symphony and focused on Sophia. That same out of tune saxophone. That same knowledge of almost killing a man with a crossbow bolt, that same knowledge of being forced by the PRT into their service. Sophia Hess was fucking Shadow Stalker. God this pissed her off.
She was so furious she picked up her bag and stormed out of the school slamming the door behind her. The implications of this could be massive. Was the PRT tying the school's hands. Was that why the administration refused to punish the Bitches Three?
Taylor would need to dig more. To investigate this before she jumped to any conclusions, but right now she couldn't take it any more. The utter hypocrisy. The false claim of being a hero.
At the very least Hess was unwillingly conscripted into the Wards. How much that displeased Hess was somewhat comforting. Still it added all the more reason for Taylor to continue being independent no matter how unsafe being independent was.
Taylor marched from the school to the bus stop and headed straight to the HARP house.
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She had cooled off a bit by the time she got to her destination, but still was looking forward to some quality time with the punching bag. She walked inside to find Mary was doing some administrative work.
"Mary! I didn't expect to find you here. Aren't you supposed to be in school?" Taylor asked surprised by the other girl's presence. As far as she knew Mary was about the same age as her.
"I go to Arcadia, this is my work release." Mary replied.
"Wait how does that work?" Taylor questioned.
"Its mostly a cover for the wards, at least that's my theory. We get two or three half days a week depending upon our schedule. Then the other half of the day is spent working at a local business or charity." Mary explained.
A surge of jealousy that she was unable to attend Arcadia went through Taylor. Maybe she could see if Layla could help vouch for her attending next year? It would help give her a bit more time in her week. It was already pretty full between the genuine volunteering she did, the practice she does with Layla, going out patrolling, self defense class, and trying to spend at least a token amount of time with her dad.
She stamped the jealousy down. It wasn't Mary's fault.
"Unfair," she said trying to make sure her voice carried a tone of teasing. She thought based upon the grin on Mary's face that she succeeded, but her social skills were pretty rusty at this point.
"Anyways I've had a pretty rough day, I'm going to head downstairs and get some punching bag therapy."
"Have fun! I'll let Layla know where you are when she gets back." Mary replied before going back to her paperwork.
Taylor didn't even stop by her locker or get changed into her exercise clothes. She just went straight down to the basement. She did grab a pair of kickboxing gloves and strapped them on tight.
The wham, wham, wham of the punching bag filled her ears like music. She still couldn't believe Sophia.
A half hour later she was just starting to wind down. Her stamina seemed to have been increasing exponentially because she was barely feeling the exertion. The worst of the anger finally wearing out her system. She was still furious, but the hot burning rage had abated. She started stripping the gloves from her hands.
She then heard a clap clap clap coming from behind her. She spun around and saw Layla standing there watching.
"You have improved significantly since you started my young padawan." Her mentor said.
"How long have you been watching." Taylor accused. Embarrassed by the thought of having a spectator to her temper tantrum.
"Oh not long kid, just ten minutes or there abouts," Layla teased. "So want to tell me whats got your panties in a knot?"
"Found something out about one of my bullies, nothing I can't share, just what a fucking Hypocrite she is." Taylor said before she whipped back around and slammed the punching bag with a bare knuckled punch.
"Come on lets go grab a tea." Layla said heading up the stairs towards the longue.
Taylor called after her, "Still not going to tell you what it was." Then started following.
She collapsed onto the couch and draped herself across it like a Freudian therapy patient. She even draped the back of her hand across her forehead.
"Oh woe is me!" She exclaimed in mock drama.
"So want to tell me whats wrong?" Layla said. Ignoring the theatrics.
"Girl who has been bullying me. Discovered something about her. Reasons she might have influence over the administration in school." Taylor explained. She leaned over to peek at Layla's reaction. The older woman had a look of mild concern on her face.
"Reasons that she might be getting away with it?" Layla asked, bringing Taylor's hidden fear into the world.
"Exactly." Taylor groaned.
"Well what are you going to do about it?" Layla asked.
Taylor really wasn't sure. She wasn't sure what she could do. Most of her options would inevitably out Sophia, or involve blackmailing the administration. She could go to the PRT, see if they would do anything, maybe file an anonymous complaint? They did at least in part seem to want her, maybe they would accept her in trade for Shadow Stalker. That felt wrong though. Like she was trading herself into indentured servitude for justice. Justice shouldn't have a cost like that, it should be universal.
"I don't know," she cried out as she tossed her arms up into the air.
Layla walked over and bent down and pulled Taylor up into a hug. "Its okay Taylor, it will be okay." She started patting Taylor on the back.
The action of being pulled into a hug had frozen Taylor. She hadn't been hugged like this since… since her mother died. Her father had given her hugs, with just as much emotion, but there was something different to those. Like he was grasping on for support as much as he was giving it. This was different. This was someone just unconditionally being there for her. She burst into tears.
"Oh god, what an idiot I am," Taylor got out between sobs. She started trying to wipe her eyes clean, tried to get herself under control.
"Its okay kid, there is nothing to be ashamed of. It's a natural human reaction. You can come cry on big sister Layla when ever you want." The smile Layla said it with told Taylor that she wasn't joking or lying. That Layla meant it when she said she could cry on her whenever. "Hey Kid, let me look into a few things. Call in a few favors. Maybe there is something I can do."
Taylor released Layla and just laid there thinking about how different her life was from a month ago. She just stayed there like that thinking over everything, over what to do about Sophia, thinking about her changing life, about Layla, about her Dad. So many things were fucked up or rapidly changing in her life. All of them screaming at her. She just laid there staring at the ceiling trying to process it all.
Layla seeing her apprentice's improved, albeit still messy state got up and gave her space. Leaving the room and closing the door behind herself.
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It took her a bit but she finished her moping and headed home. Once home she changed into her partial costume, grabbed her hero notebook, and headed out. Once she was a good five or six blocks away from her home she found an alley and got changed into the rest of her costume.
Once changed she set course for the boat graveyard. She wasn't patrolling tonight. That wasn't her plan.
When she got to the boat graveyard she looked for something that was easy enough to reach from shore without going swimming. Luckily there was a mid size tanker half sunken just adjacent to shore. She hopped the three feet from the dock onto it.
Next up she drew the brass hilt. And gave it a good luck. Her brief research seemed to indicate it was some kind of British bastard sword. Although they wouldn't have used bronze for for such a hilt. No one had used bronze in… just about forever. As she held it in her hands she took a deep breath. She could feel that it had partially recharged. A similar amount to what she gained everyday. Huh, that was useful. Essentially doubling her baseline daily regeneration.
Before she proceeded she checked the time and wrote it down.
She then took that piece of essence and funneled into the blade. The fire ignited. It crackled and hissed as it extended out from the hilt. The flames settling into the appearance of a bastard sword with the yellow, orange and red flames licking and flickering out from that base shape.
She wondered if Layla knew how to sword fight? That would be helpful.
She took the sword and gave it a few practice swings. While being very careful to not drop the sword or accidentally decapitate herself.
The sword had a certain balance to it. She wasn't sure how that worked when the majority of it was an essentially weightless plasma.
Once she got the hand of swinging it she took a swipe at a wall of the tanker. It cut into the metal. Not like a hot knife through butter, but with definitive ease compared to what she expected of a traditional metal blade.
Next experiment was to see if burned things like normal. She pulled out a wooden spoon she had stolen from the kitchen. She tossed it onto the ground and then held the sword out pointing it at the spoon. It took a minute to light, more than she expected but then she had never been camping or built a fire before.
So the fire worked like a normal fire. That was also good to know. She checked her watch to see how much time had passed. Only a minute. She shrugged and went back to swinging it for practice. After five minutes she started to wonder if it would extinguish on its own, and then it suddenly extinguished. The flame just dissipating into the ether.
She recorded the timing in her notebook, and then repeated the experiment. This time it lasted two minutes. The next and final experiment of the night it lasted four.
"Hmm," she said as she recorded her final experiment in her notebook. "That is frustrating, but good to know."
She collected her gear, slipped her notebook back into her motorcycle jacket's pocket, and then put the hilt in with it. She then took a deep breath and did a running leap back to the shore.
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Taylor's walk back to her house had been a quiet affair, full of self reflection and pondering the various problems that currently plagued her. That was until she noticed some sounds up ahead, something was going on.
She started running in the direction she heard the noises hoping she would get there in time to make a difference.
Bursting into an intersection she saw a lifted truck with a large mounted minigun in the bed shooting erratically into the air. Manning the gun was the trashiest person that Taylor had ever seen. A shredded tank top covered in grease stains, booty shorts, and a pair of thigh high boots. Taylor looked for a moment trying to figure out what was driving this insanity. Sadly she couldn't clearly make anything out.
Quickly she sung her song of shields, infusing it with the necessary essence. The shield whirled around her. Then she drew her hilt and ignited it. This was going to be her first use of it in real combat, and a scary combat this was going to be. So far her shield had stood up to all abuse that was thrown at it, but she hadn't tested it on anything near the calibre of a minigun firing hundreds of rounds a minute.
She started charging forward, relying upon the noise of the minigun to hide her feet pounding against the street. Only parked cars lined the edge of the streets, with no drivers in sight. No bystanders to get pulled into this madness. Well as long as the gunner kept aiming into the air.
When she was a few feet away the gunner finally noticed her and let off the trigger and pivoted the gun towards her. Then the gun increased its spinning again. thwack thwack thwack the bullets pelted her shield and fell to the ground. She finished her charge, jumping onto the rim of the bed, and then into the bed with an overhead swing slicing into the barrel of the gun and cutting through the rods. The spinning motion helping to saw the barrels in twain.
"Cocksucking bitch! I was using that." The gunner swore as she pulled a handgun from a holster. Taylor swung the blade but stopped just shy of the woman's arm. She wasn't going to mutilate the woman. Not when she had options. She dropped the flaming sword and went in for a punch.
The handgun fired fairing no better than the minigun before it, the bullet falling to the ground with a small ping that was overwhelmed by the sound of the gunfire.
"Surrender!" Taylor yelled at the woman. Just then a blonde woman descended from the sky like a bullet slamming into the hood of the truck. The vehicle rocking from the impact sent Taylor reeling backwards, tripping over the rim of the bed and falling flat onto the ground. She kipped up onto her feet and prepared to once again engage the mad gunner.
She once again lept up scrambling into the bed of the truck. Taking a punch to the face as she did. Once more her shield held strong. It likely only had a few seconds left at this point. She needed to stop relying upon it, as she didn't have much energy left after her experiments and initial charge.
Taylor went for a tackle trying to take the woman down, but the gunner dodged like a matador. It took a moment for Taylor to regain her balance in which time her shield finally lapsed. The woman taking advantage of Taylor being off kilter and slammed an elbow into her back forcing her to the floor of the bed of the truck.
"Stay down you fucking shit stain." The gunner cried.
The blonde bullet had taken several swings at the engine ensuring she had stopped any potential fleeing.
In between punches and elbows to the lower rib Taylor somehow managed to roll over onto her back. She tried to fend of the punches that were raining down onto her as best as she could, but only succeeded on a quarter. One of the punches landed firmly on her lowest rib and she could feel a rib snap. The shock of agony overtook her for a period, but she quickly steeled herself.
She pulled her legs up towards her chest, wrangled her feet against the gunner's stomach and then pushed with all her might. The gunner went flying back into side of the cab. The act of kicking like she did caused a spike of blinding white pain as the broken rib moved. Taylor slowly caught her breath and then slowly pulled herself to her. She stumbled forward step after step, ignoring the excruciating pain, focusing on her target.
"I said surrender you miserable waste of breath."
The blonde seemed to have finished crushing the vehicle's engine and floated over to above Taylor and the downed gunner.
"Need a hand there?" The blonde asked.
Taylor looked up at her and finally recognised the costume. The golden tiara should have been a hint, but she had been more focused on the minigun of doom that would have torn through the neighborhood like it was wet tissue.
"Glory Girl, sorry for crashing your party." Taylor slurred out.
"Oh, no worries there. I was having trouble getting close enough with that monstrosity going off." Glory Girl said. Her fists resting on her hips and posing like an action figure.
"Happy to help." Taylor responded. "Now lets get this bitch tied up." she said before dropping to her knees over the unconscious gunner.
She ignored the pain once more and flipped the woman over onto her front. Pulling her hands behind her back and then pulling a flexicuff out of a pocket.
"So I don't recognise you, and I know most of the faces, so to speak, of the local scene."
"Paladin, fairly new." Taylor said before gesturing at her poor excuse of a costume.
"Ahh, well welcome to the Brockton Bay hero scene. Always nice to have another person playing for the good guys."
Taylor just nodded her head in acknowledgement, spending more energy trying to focus on acting through the pain than paying attention to the conversation.
"Do you have a phone? You know call 911." Taylor said to the illustrious blonde.
"Oh. Yea, sorry." Glory Girl said with a slight blush on her cheeks. "Let me call Amy while I'm at it, get you checked out."
Taylor just nodded, the name Amy sounded familiar, but she just didn't have the brain space right now to put it together. With the gunner finally secured she dropped down onto the floor and leaned back against the wall of the bed. Her focus on taking slow breaths, trying to regulate the pain, and prevent any shifting of her rib.
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Glory Girl tried to carry on a conversation while they waited. Although that might have just been her rambling for the sake of rambling. Either way it was a fairly one sided conversation.
Instead of the BBPD showing up with a wagon to haul away the gunner it was a PRT wagon full of troopers that arrived.
They quickly secured the gunner into the wagon and foamed her up. Huh, apparently she wasn't just a mad gunner, but was a parahuman. So you learn.
"Who was that?" Taylor asked Glory Girl.
"Wait you beat her to unconsciousness and you don't know who she is." The blonde said with utter disbelief.
"Rings a bell, but can't focus right now." Taylor said, hoping the girl would take it as an acceptable excuse.
"That was Squealer, second in command of the Archer's Bridge Merchants."
"Fuck, they are going to be pissed about this aren't they." Taylor mused.
"Yup!" Glory Girl said popping the p.
They lapsed into silence which was luckily broken not long after by the PRT officer in charge coming over.
"Nice job girls."
"Paladin did most of the work, I just kept Squealer distracted." Glory Girl said while hooking a thumb in Taylor's direction.
"I don't even know how this kicked off. I just heard commotion and came running down. Then I saw the minigun going off and figured it could start hurting bystanders if any buildings ended up in the backdrop of the shots."
"So you charged head first at the problem" Glory Girl critiqued.
"I figured that would get me in close enough to do something about it. My abilities are all pretty short range." Taylor countered.
"Can I ask what you used to saw the mini gun in half?" The PRT agent interrupted before the two girls could continue.
"She was charging with a giant flaming sword!" Glory Girl exclaimed.
"I'm sorry a what?" The agent questioned.
"Flaming sword, you know like an avenging angel." Glory Girl piped in.
Great that was exactly the comparison Taylor needed. Being in the same breath as the Hopekiller.
"Could we see this flaming sword?" The agent asked.
Taylor thought about it for a moment before shaking her head. "I'm pretty beat and don't have a lot of gas left in the engine, so to speak."
The agent looked disappointed, but noted something down on his clipboard.
"The other question we had was about a number of flattened bullets we found on the tarmac. Do you know how they got there?"
Taylor briefly considered her response before settling on the truth. "I took a few minigun rounds to the chest, I imagine the impacted bullets are from where they hit my shield."
"An impressive set of abilities you have there Miss Grab Bag" Glory Girl teased.
Taylor really didn't have the energy right now to deal with teasing. It was hard enough at the best of times, but at the moment she was still trying to moderate her breathing to control the spikes of pain.
"Could I get a ride to the hospital. Probably need to get this looked at."
Glory Girl looked down at her phone before saying "Amy should be here any minute now. She can get you fixed up in a jiffy."
It finally clicked who Amy was. Amy Dallon was Panacea, greatest healer in New England, if not the world. It had to be a massive boon to have someone like her on speed dial.
Glory Girl was spot on as only a minute later Laser Dream landed on the ground carrying Panacea bridal style.
"I heard I was needed?" She said, clearly grumpy at being pulled away from her home at this hour.
"Yea, think I broke my rib," Taylor said from her position on the ground.
"Do I have your permission to heal you?" she asked with all the enthusiasm of a grocery store clerk.
"Yup. Yes you do." Taylor said in a strained voice.
Panacea bent down and reached out to touch Taylor's hand. Suddenly Taylor could feel her rib shifting as it reknit itself into position.
"There you go, all fixed." Panacea said.
Taylor stood up and stretched, checking for any residual pain. Thank god it was all gone. "I owe you one, thanks Panacea."
"You protected my idiot sister, so consider us even." She said before turning on the spot and heading back to Laser Dream.
"Hey! I'm not an idiot." Glory Girl yelled as she chased after.
"So we all set here?" Taylor asked the PRT Officer.
"Yes, have a good evening Paladin." He replied.