were
Nice update. I hope taylor figures things out fully I would love to see her drain more people see what kind of bad ass she could become
Claim The Spoils (Victor!Taylor)
- Thread starter Lokimotion
- Start date
- Superhero
-
- Tags
- worm altpower!taylor
Nice update. I hope taylor figures things out fully I would love to see her drain more people see what kind of bad ass she could become
RazorSmile
ROB Used To Be A Knife Missile
Relax, she'll get there. She just has to work her way through the guilt and back to the practicality first.
Besides, earlier in the thread, we already suggested Alzheimer's and coma patients (which to be fair, may or may not work. Degenerative neurological conditions could very well have literally destroyed those skills/memories)
- Location
- New Zealand
Don't worry, everybody. I do plan for Taylor to get a bit more involved in things sooner rather than later, and without wallowing in angst. I appreciate all the typo corrections and responses.
How Taylor's power works
- Location
- New Zealand
Since it comes up on one thread or another after every chapter, I'm threadmarking it here.
I'm basing it on these quotes from canon:
And these statements from Wildbow:
The cast list describes Victor thusly:
Taylor can drain multiple skills at once, but each skill is drained much slower than if she was only taking one skill at a time, depending on how many skills are being stolen at once. The more similar the skills are, the faster they can be drained at once, as they can fall under the umbrella of a single, broader skill. For example, controlling your posture, expression and body language to convey the impression you want to give people is one skill, controlling the pitch of your voice and emphasis of certain words to convey emotion and change the meaning of what you say is another skill, while knowing what to say to someone to convince them to do what you want or think a certain way is a third. All together, these three skills can be taken individually, but are similar enough to each other to be considered parts of the greater skill of acting/manipulation, and so taking all three at once wouldn't take much longer than only draining a single skill would. Computer hacking, archery and stunt driving are all sufficiently different that taking all three at once would take just as long as taking all three one after another.
The points of transfer that Taylor's power uses are proximity, line of sight, eye contact, conversation, physical contact, active use of a skill, interaction with a skill and direct conflict/competition using a skill, in order of increasing effectiveness. Sitting a moderate distance away from someone without looking at them would let Taylor completely drain their ability to speak a language over several hours. Holding a rap battle with them in that language, while also having a staring match and thumb war with them at the same time would let Taylor drain them dry in only a few minutes.
Taylor takes that person's knowledge, so if they have poor technique in martial arts or have learned incorrect knowledge, then that poor technique and incorrect knowledge are imparted to Taylor along with the correct and accurate stuff the other person has learned. Manpower, Glory Girl and Aegis would all learn martial arts and/or combat skills that rely on being notably stronger than their opponents, so if Taylor took from them then she would know how to fight using strength she absolutely does not possess.
Taylor's victims do recover their lost skills, taking longer to do so the more she took from them. Taylor's skills fading and her victim's recovering are actually completely independent of each other, but tend to occur at the same rate. Taylor practicing a skill allows her to learn it as 'her' skill, rather than her power's skill, just using the advanced knowledge and baseline her power gives her. This means that Taylor can effectively learn a skill for herself after she has stolen it from someone else by practicing it enough (and only practicing the correct, 'final' stage of the skill), thereby counteracting any degradation in her own skill, without affecting the regeneration of that skill in the person she stole it from in any way.
EDIT: It was mentioned earlier in the thread, but Taylor cannot steal skills that she already possesses, so she can't steal the ability to speak English from someone unless they have a larger vocabulary than she does, and in that case she can only steal the understanding of the words she didn't previously know.
EDIT: Taylor cannot steal Uber's skills, since they are provided directly by his shard and aren't something he has learned himself. In the same way, Taylor can't steal a Tinker's ability to build things, since it is the shard doing the actual work and not them.
I'm basing it on these quotes from canon:
Colony 15.2 said:
(This is where I'm basing the idea that Taylor can use this power to figure out what skills people have in order to decide what to steal.)Colony 15.3 said:
And these statements from Wildbow:
SourceWildbow said:
SourceWildbow said:
The cast list describes Victor thusly:
So we know that while the stolen skills can fade, they can also be kept indefinitely. Since the victims regenerate their skills unless it's drained completely, I'm deciding to apply this to Taylor's retention rate as well, with complete retention of the skill in question coming after a complete drain of it from somebody else. Making this directly proportional is entirely my own decision, but one I think makes sense. If Taylor drains 100% of a skill, she will permanently retain 100% of what she stole. If she steals 50% of a skill, she will permanently retain 50% of that, or 25% of the total skill. Only taking 10% of a skill means that she will only get to keep 1% of it long-term. Though the short-term still means weeks or even months, depending on how much is taken.Cast (in depth) said:
Taylor can drain multiple skills at once, but each skill is drained much slower than if she was only taking one skill at a time, depending on how many skills are being stolen at once. The more similar the skills are, the faster they can be drained at once, as they can fall under the umbrella of a single, broader skill. For example, controlling your posture, expression and body language to convey the impression you want to give people is one skill, controlling the pitch of your voice and emphasis of certain words to convey emotion and change the meaning of what you say is another skill, while knowing what to say to someone to convince them to do what you want or think a certain way is a third. All together, these three skills can be taken individually, but are similar enough to each other to be considered parts of the greater skill of acting/manipulation, and so taking all three at once wouldn't take much longer than only draining a single skill would. Computer hacking, archery and stunt driving are all sufficiently different that taking all three at once would take just as long as taking all three one after another.
The points of transfer that Taylor's power uses are proximity, line of sight, eye contact, conversation, physical contact, active use of a skill, interaction with a skill and direct conflict/competition using a skill, in order of increasing effectiveness. Sitting a moderate distance away from someone without looking at them would let Taylor completely drain their ability to speak a language over several hours. Holding a rap battle with them in that language, while also having a staring match and thumb war with them at the same time would let Taylor drain them dry in only a few minutes.
Taylor takes that person's knowledge, so if they have poor technique in martial arts or have learned incorrect knowledge, then that poor technique and incorrect knowledge are imparted to Taylor along with the correct and accurate stuff the other person has learned. Manpower, Glory Girl and Aegis would all learn martial arts and/or combat skills that rely on being notably stronger than their opponents, so if Taylor took from them then she would know how to fight using strength she absolutely does not possess.
Taylor's victims do recover their lost skills, taking longer to do so the more she took from them. Taylor's skills fading and her victim's recovering are actually completely independent of each other, but tend to occur at the same rate. Taylor practicing a skill allows her to learn it as 'her' skill, rather than her power's skill, just using the advanced knowledge and baseline her power gives her. This means that Taylor can effectively learn a skill for herself after she has stolen it from someone else by practicing it enough (and only practicing the correct, 'final' stage of the skill), thereby counteracting any degradation in her own skill, without affecting the regeneration of that skill in the person she stole it from in any way.
EDIT: It was mentioned earlier in the thread, but Taylor cannot steal skills that she already possesses, so she can't steal the ability to speak English from someone unless they have a larger vocabulary than she does, and in that case she can only steal the understanding of the words she didn't previously know.
EDIT: Taylor cannot steal Uber's skills, since they are provided directly by his shard and aren't something he has learned himself. In the same way, Taylor can't steal a Tinker's ability to build things, since it is the shard doing the actual work and not them.
Last edited:
- Location
- Argentina
I hope Taylor figures out details of her power soon-ish.
Binged this. Thanks for sharing and updating. It's great!
Binged this. Thanks for sharing and updating. It's great!
Chapter 8
- Location
- New Zealand
Friday dawned cold, clear and bright.
The last of the puddles from Wednesday's rain had evaporated, and the night hadn't been cold enough for a frost, so despite the bite in the air when I got off the bus I took a few seconds to appreciate the feeble warmth of the newly risen sun.
Today was my last chance to determine if my victims could recover, or if I had permanently crippled them. I was hopeful, given Emma's apparent recovery yesterday, but that could simply be further practice or someone else applying it for her. It wasn't, I was fairly certain of that, but I needed to be sure.
Pulling my old brown sweatshirt tighter around me, I took another minute to appreciate the sunlight on my face.
Just one more day, I told myself.
I can get through today, see that everyone is getting better, and decide where to go from there.
I felt better after that, as if the act of making a choice made things simpler. I wasn't calm, not by a long shot, but this was my final chance to prove things one way or another, and I needed to take it. Waiting until the start of next term simply wasn't an option for me.
For entirely different reasons than usual, I kept track of the students around me, trying to spot the few I had targeted with my power. As it happened, these were the students who tended to harass me, so on the surface my actions were the same as always, but rather than looking for ways to escape or avoid them, I was actively seeking them out.
Julia was the first girl I spotted, chatting with Madison outside the front doors. As I approach, I make a show of putting my bag down and rifling through it, as if I'd forgotten something important.
While crouched down near the girls, I took the opportunity to reach out to them, seeing what skills they had and matching them to what I had taken. In their case, it had been more cosmetics, and while their available pools didn't seem very impressive at all, they also didn't seem to be unusually low compared to other girls. I was aware that this didn't mean much, considering how much they obsessed over their appearance, but it was somewhat reassuring, nonetheless.
Standing back up, I looked over at them, briefly making eye contact and examining their appearance for any notable flaws or mistakes.
Nothing obvious, but then it wouldn't have to be. They were never my primary targets.
Emma was.
Walking past the two of them, I pretended not to notice them just as they pretended not to notice me. Unexpectedly, this was all there was. Nobody tried to trip me or call out insults or 'comments' with a paper-thin pretence of not being about me.
Now wasn't the time for this.
I would wait for my first class with Emma to see if anything had changed. Finding some excuse to hang around them in between or before classes would just look suspicious, and probably wouldn't give me enough time anyway.
Computer class was first, and for once I was irritated that none of my bullies shared the class with me. Racing through the assigned exercises filled less than half the class, and the rest was spent impatiently browsing the internet for distractions while the minutes on the clock slowly crawled by.
English was second, and though Sophia, Madison and Julia all shared this class with me, Emma didn't, and I had to bite back my frustration at this inconvenience. I needed to know, once and for all, so of course this had to be the day where I went the longest without seeing Emma in my class.
If I was being entirely honest, in practical terms it made little difference to my everyday life. Without Emma there, the three of them were just as likely to try something, whether it was sending spit balls at me or tripping me as I walked past them, or just 'accidentally' stumbling into me and dropping pencil shavings in my hair.
Today though, they just ignored me, acting as if I wasn't there. While unexpected, a reprieve before the holidays was welcome, and it left me more time to focus on what my powers were telling me about my classmates.
In truth, it was difficult to map out any significant changes in my classmates. One reason for this was that I had never tried to build mental images of their skills from before to act as a baseline to compare their currents selves against, while another was the dawning realisation that as far beyond me as they had previously seemed in their abilities to steer conversations and attentions and apply make-up to bolster their appearance, they didn't actually know all that much.
Comparing the girls I had drained to those I knew I hadn't touched, and there really wasn't much difference to speak of. Trying to see what damage I had done only led me to wonder how much of it actually mattered.
I hadn't taken from any of those girls even half of what I'd taken from Emma, but seeing how little that less-than-half was left me breathing a little easier, a burden lifted from my shoulders. Only partially lifted, perhaps, but at that moment I would take any relief I could get.
When the first break of the day came along, I made the risky decision to spend it in the school cafeteria. Taking a couple of pieces of fruit out of my lunch box, I sat at a table and waited, eating slowly. Normally it would only be a minute or two at most before Emma appeared, but now she was absent. Was she deliberately avoiding me?
Did she know?
The thought sent a shiver down my spine and soured the taste of my apple. If Emma knew I was a parahuman and had used my powers on her, then she could be avoiding me so that I couldn't take anything else from her. But how did she find out?
She didn't.
I swallowed the bite of apple and took a deep breath. Emma misapplying some make-up wasn't a reason to suspect parahuman involvement, especially not from me. I had no valid reason to believe that Emma suspected anything. If she did, then I would probably already be in handcuffs
I was just being paranoid.
Emma not looking her best was all the reasons he needed to try and avoid me until she was. She liked me to know that she was superior to me, and part of that was flaunting her looks in front of me and everyone else.
I resumed eating, going slower than before. I probably wouldn't see Emma on this break, and she wasn't in my next class, but she was in the class after that, History, and there was no way that she could get out of that without faking an illness, which there was little point in doing halfway through the final day.
I would simply have to be patient for another hour and a half.
The door to the History classroom was situated at the front of the room, so that was where I sat. With Emma sat near the back of the room, I had no opportunity to watch her, and I couldn't afford to do anything suspicious like change seating to be closer to her.
Shunting my frustration aside, I took a deep breath, held it, and slowly let it out. I didn't need to see her to get a feel for her skill set. I could deal with this.
Reaching out with my power behind me was an odd sensation, like groping through the darkness with insubstantial fingers to find something that wasn't truly there, yet my mind kept insisting was.
I ended up forming a moderately weak connection with the boy sat directly behind me, and then moving past him to the girl behind him, and then feeling the boy sat behind her. Each time I moved targets the connection between us got fainter, but that was okay, because all I needed to do was take a measurement.
Reaching Julia at the back of the room, I shifted across to Madison and then finally reached Emma.
Showtime.
The connection between us was faint, nebulous and irritatingly weak. Ignoring the urge to turn and look at her or move closer, I started to sift through her skills, searching out the two I had drawn from.
Emma's ability to apply make-up was greater than that of the other girls, and when I compared it to how it had been yesterday, it was practically identical. Was it all coming back to her or not?
Was one day enough to tell? Taking another slow breath in and out, I flattened my hands on my exercise book and focused on the memory of her skill set from the day before. I should have been doing this from Tuesday, but I was here now so I would just have to deal with it.
A brief glimpse at her ability to socialise and interact with people and I relaxed further. She was still better at it than I was, and a couple more quick comparisons with the other girls around her was enough to confirm that she was still better at it than they were.
How much of my ability fading was tied to her ability returning? It was too soon to tell, and it wasn't something that I could test very easily, but I already had something to focus on, so I returned to that and prepared to sit through the rest of the class.
I remembered to look up at Mrs Jeffries often enough to appear to be paying attention, and sometimes I wrote down something if she seemed to be more enthusiastic about it than usual, but mostly I simply sat and waited, feeling the faint connection to Emma and the skill that was slowly, ever so slowly, returning to her.
It took most of the class to confirm it to my satisfaction, but just as I could feel my own skills slowly fade, disappearing faster the less I had taken from someone, I could also feel Emma's gradually blooming. Tiny, incremental growth happening minute by minute. There was barely any difference between how she was at the start of class and at the end, but the difference was there, and I could feel it.
By the time the bell rang, jolting me out of my fugue, I was smiling broadly. Cramming everything with me into my bag, I retained enough presence of mind to hurry out of the class to stay ahead of the other girls, grinning the entire time.
All was not lost.
Everything was going to be okay.
School was finished, and now I had over two weeks to myself before I had to go back to Winslow. Over two weeks where I could just relax and decide what to do with my powers, and where to go from here.
Two weeks without having to deal with anyone else.
Well, aside from Dad, I remembered with a flicker of guilt. He would want to spend time with me over the Christmas break and it was a bit over a week until Christmas and I hadn't gotten him anything.
I swore out loud, repeatedly and viciously, earning me a few startled and dirty looks from others.
I had been so wrapped up my new powers and what I could do that I had completely forgotten about getting Dad anything for Christmas.
Hefting my bag over my shoulder, I took off at a jog for the next bus stop. I needed to find him something that I could come back tomorrow for, as I didn't have enough money on me now for anything decent, but given how overcrowded everything would be the closer it got to Christmas the sooner I could find him something the better.
At the very least I would know where to look tomorrow morning.
Settling down into the bus seat, I quickly ran through my options.
Something to eat?
Chocolate made good filler presents, but you needed something that would last longer than Christmas morning unless they were a distant relative, and I didn't know any of my relatives more distant than Gram, who I really doubted was going to suddenly visit. Besides, I could always cook something for Christmas dinner afterwards, and honestly, doing that with Dad would probably be better than anything I could buy him.
A now familiar surge of queasiness made itself known at the thought of cooking, but I forced it back down. I was safe now. Those cooks would start remembering everything, so it was okay to use their borrowed talents for Christmas.
Could I get him something to read?
The problem with that was that mom and I had always been the readers of the family, and if Dad was interesting in any particular genre or author, I was mildly ashamed to realise that I had no idea what it could be.
Some clothing?
A warm jacket would be nice, and I didn't need to worry about getting the size wrong. Had any of Dad's clothes seemed especially worn out of late? Again, I didn't know, and my own fashion sense was more theoretical than anything. Unless I quickly became okay with stealing someone's fashion sense right before Christmas, that was a no-go.
Clenching my fists and kneading my forehead, I sighed.
I'd been so wrapped up in my new abilities that I'd neglected everything else. Yes, I was going to cook something nice for him, but applying make-up and sketching weren't things that I could put under the tree.
I briefly entertained the idea of making some artwork as a present, maybe a sketch of the docks, but quickly cast it aside. Even if my art skills were good enough that I could make something someone would be happy to receive, the whole idea seemed vaguely narcissistic to me, and I don't think I could handle the embarrassment of Dad pretending to think it was better than it was.
Hopping off the bus, I cast around for inspiration.
I was in one of the nicer parts of Downtown, one I wasn't really familiar with. While I wouldn't normally start window shopping in an area this upmarket, it was a lot better than the tourist trap shops on the Boardwalk, and I didn't really feel like visiting the Market.
I probably should have gone to a different area, one more within my admittedly feeble budget. There weren't even that many stores around here, the surrounding builds looking to be businesses and offices. Was I even going in the right direction?
Looking around, I tried to get my bearings, turning back at the flash of light streaking-
The wall in front of me exploded, showering the area with debris and concrete dust.
I staggered, feeling the explosion as a physical impact in my chest and momentarily stunning me.
Dragging in a breath, I ended up inhaling some concrete dust and started choking, raising my sleeve to my mouth to try and filter the air.
Taking a step to one side I almost fell over. My ears were ringing, the shrill non-noise following the explosion driving almost everything from my head.
Still coughing, I looked around, blinking tears from my eyes as I tried to peer through the thinning cloud of dust, seeing some figures approaching.
Taking a few lurching steps forward, I wheezed out a few strangled words, halfway between a greeting and a question.
The one in front was by far the smaller of the two, and as the dust started to settle I could make out the bright red of his outfit.
Velocity?
I took another few steps forward before the rest of the details made themselves known to me, such as the blue overalls underneath the shirt, a large and obviously false moustache underneath the red cap.
That and the fact that his companion, walking a few feet behind him, was some sort of saurian-turtle hybrid. Yellow scales predominated, while his back was covered by a large, dome-shaped shell. As he turned to one side, looking at something I couldn't see, an array of white spikes swung into view, wickedly sharp and dotting the shell at even intervals.
He laughed, the sound carrying across the street, and even through the lingering ringing sound in my ears I could tell that it sounded off. As well as it carried, it wasn't the deep, rumbling sound I would expect from such a monstrosity.
When I saw that the monster's mouth wasn't moving in time with the laughter I finally managed to piece it together.
It was a costume, both of them were in costumes and the only way they could be at the scene so quickly was if they were waiting for it to start.
These weren't heroes, they were villains, and I had stumbled onto the crime as it started.
My breath hitched, sending my lungs into spasms as I tried to expel dust and inhale at the same time. Staggering backwards from the pair of villains, I could feel the panic rising up inside me, my heart hammering against my ribs.
The small man in red and blue looked back the way they had come from, raising over-sized white hands and snapping his fingers, igniting a ball of fire in the palm of his hand.
Hurling it across the street with a faint whistle, I saw the fireball strike a car and explode, shattering the windows. The car was soon engulfed in flame, faster than I would have thought possible.
Glancing at his companion, the man in red and blue shouted at him to hurry up, and the monster ran forwards, jumping through the hole in the wall carrying what I now realised was some sort of weapon, judging by the way one end was starting to glow.
The man outside snapped his fingers again, hurling the fireball at a tree, heedless of the shouting and screaming from the few people still nearby.
The fireball missed by several feet, splashing the side of the building behind it and creating a spider's web of cracks that smoked and hissed with heat.
Snarling, the man snapped his fingers and threw again, this time missing from the other side and striking the same building. The second hit, though weaker than the one they had used on the building next to me, struck close enough to the damaged wall that it punched right through, bricks spraying across the interior and shattering several windows in the process.
I could see people inside, some dragging others to safety, and as my hearing returned it brought the full effect of their screams to me.
"Piece of shit!" The man swore, furiously working at one hand with the other. Several seconds later he looked back up, snapped his fingers and threw another fireball. This one streaked lower, the colour a deeper orangey-red than the earlier bright yellows, and when it struck the ground several feet away from the base of the tree it lacked the concussive impact of the earlier blasts, instead mushrooming up in a pillar of fire and spreading outwards.
The few leaves still left on the hapless tree ignited, along with most of the branches, several snapping off and causing a brief rain of cinders.
The man cackled, and I staggered further backwards.
Whatever the hell was happening here, I was not prepared to deal with it.
I dropped low and started moving backwards, hoping against hope that I wouldn't draw the villain's attention. Trying not to wheeze too loudly, I turned around and scurried off, aiming to put the car I could see further down the road in between us.
Yellow light zipped past me and struck the car, and even twenty feet away I could feel the whump of the explosion in my rib cage and feel the heat wash across my face.
Staggering backwards, I fell to my rear to the sound of shrill cackling.
"There's a-nowhere to run, bitch!" The villain, Leet, called out, while above him the bright golden orb of his Snitch flitted about. Right now I knew that it would be focused on me, so I kept still, desperately hoping that Leet would find something else to distract himself with and give me the opportunity to escape.
The yellow turtle monster from before leapt out of the hole in the wall, a small duffle bag clutched in each hand. Running to a van on the far side of Leet, Uber yanked the door open and threw the bags inside, before pulling a couple of empty ones out and returning to the building at high speed.
The building they had attacked was a mint, I finally realized. The two of them had used Leet's fireballs to somehow blow a hole in reinforced concrete and now Uber was taking the opportunity the ensuing chaos provided to rob the place.
Shouting was emerging from inside, and as the panicked screaming faded away the angry tone of the voices became clear.
"Whoops," Leet muttered, turning back to the building and casually throwing another fireball inside.
It detonated, and a plume of dust and smoke billowed out into the street. More screaming sounded, and the angry, authoritative shouts gave way to pained cries and swearing.
Laughing, Leet turned back to the street as a car started approaching.
He snapped his fingers, another fireball appearing inside the overly large white glove, and as the car frantically screeched to a halt, he started to run at it. The car started reversing, engine revving and wisps of smoke appearing from the tyres, while behind the windscreen I could see the alarmed faces of the driver and her passengers.
There were children in the backseat.
As it picked up speed, Leet jumped in the air, somehow reaching over ten feet in height, and threw the fireball. It may have been my imagination, but I thought I could hear the cries of the passengers, the woman yanking the steering wheel to one side.
The car swerved, its rear end smashing into a lamppost at a fortunately low speed, shifting just enough to dodge the projectile as it hit the road and detonated, first rising into a pillar before sinking down and spreading out in a circular wave of heat and light.
In a scream of tyres the car spun around, surging through the flames and driving back the way it had come, the paint blistered all along the side.
Raising his left hand, Leet glanced at a wristwatch, or at least something that looked like a wristwatch. Frowning, he trotted over to the hole in the wall and looked inside.
"Hey, Uber! We-a gotta scram! The white hats are-a coming!"
The reply to Leet's horribly mangled Italian accent was too muffled by distance and walls for me to make out, but it seemed to satisfy Leet, at least for the moment.
Tentatively, I took another few steps backwards, as slowly as I could. My heart felt like it was trying to beat its way out of my ribcage, and it was an effort not to gulp down air in huge, heaving breaths.
The heat of the car behind me, still blazing, was hot and harsh on the back of my head as I approached it. A quick glance behind me revealed no pools of burning oil on the sidewalk, and I risked a quick scuttle to try and get on the other side of it.
The movement drew Leet's attention and his head snapped round to fix me in place after only a few steps. We held eye contact for a few seconds, me riveted in fear and him looking at me in a contemplative way.
Against my will, my eyes were drawn to the white gloves, idly drumming themselves against his overalls. Not much of his face could be seen behind the massive false moustache under a domino mask, but I could tell that he was smirking.
Uber leapt through the hole in the wall and I flinched backwards in surprise.
Leet snorted to himself and turned away.
"Lets-a go!" He called out, his voice slightly nasal, "Hey, where's the other bag?"
"Too heavy for both," Uber grunted in response, heaving the duffel bag over to the van and hurling it in after the first pair. "I got a good load this time. There were a lotta' dollars in there."
The wailing of police sirens, which I suddenly realized had been steadily rising in volume over the last thirty seconds, rose sharply in pitch as the first pair of police vehicles screeched around the corner.
"Shit. No time now. Let's go."
"How the fuck did they get here so fast?" Leet complained as they started running.
"Must have been in the area," Uber responded.
Jumping into the back of the van, the doors slammed shut and a few seconds later the idling engine screamed into life, the van performing a rapid U-turn and vanishing down the road, the police in hot pursuit.
It took several seconds for me to realize that everything was over. There was only the fading sound of sirens and the babble voices coming from inside.
Slowly, I breathed in, held it for a few seconds and then let it out all at once. My body shook as I gasped for air, lungs heaving as my throat felt constricted, incapable of drawing in enough air to keep me upright.
I sank down to the ground, legs shaking with the effort of not collapsing. My knees hit with the ground and I slumped over, my hands pressing down into the sidewalk with white knuckles as I tried to grip the flat surface, now speckled with rubble.
Gradually, I became more aware of the cries that still emerged from the mint.
Looking up, I saw someone, a security guard judging by their brick-dust covered uniform, cautiously emerge from the hole and look around.
There were still people inside, and some of them could be injured.
I struggled to my feet and took a wobbling step forwards, then another and another.
The faster I walked, the easier it became, so by the time I reached the hole and peered inside I was moving quickly.
It took me a few moments to adjust the comparative gloom inside the mint. The fireball Leet had thrown through the hole, or perhaps the initial one used to make the hole in the first place, had blown out most of the lights, and the few that remained flickered and stuttered.
People were stirring, some walking out towards me and others gathering together, reaching with fumbling hands and clutching with dust-stained fingers.
I saw several security guards clustered against the far wall, two of them crouching down on either side of a third, whose charred uniform and red, blistered skin showed him to have been caught too close to the fireball Leet had casually thrown inside.
Movement caught my eye, and I saw a small figure, a child a few years younger than me scrabbling at the rubble. He was biting back sobs, frantically trying to push back the fragments of the wall and pull himself along at the same time, one leg kicking out and the other held rigid.
I saw the dark stain on his trouser legs where the dust stuck tight and the way the leg bent about twenty degrees the wrong way.
I hurried over to him, stumbling a couple of times, and sank down next to him, raising my hands to calm the boy as he jerked round, eyes wide and breathing harsh and jagged.
"Hey, hey, hey, it's okay," I said softly, afraid of where to put my hands in case he was injured more badly than I could see. "I'm not going to hurt you. It's okay, I'm here to help."
The tears were running down his cheeks, streaking through the concrete dust.
"Is it just your leg? Are you hurt anywhere else?" I pressed, hoping he didn't have any broken ribs or internal injuries. I had no idea what to do if that was the case. Luck finally seemed to be acting in my favour, and he managed to say something that sounded like "Jus' my leg."
Clearing some of the rubble aside, I helped the boy to his feet, and though his sobs were getting louder, he gamely limped alongside me as I took as much as his weight as I could.
Once we made it outside I led him away from the burning car and set him down on the pavement. Another police car had pulled up and one of the cops rushed over, checking us for injuries. I brushed her off and told her that I was fine and it was just the young boy that needed help.
She told me that ambulances were on the way, and before I could sink down in exhaustion next to the boy I turned around and headed back into the building.
My breathing was ragged and my limbs felt like they were weighed down with lead, but I needed to keep moving so that I could get through it all.
"Ma'am," a voice called out.
I looked around the ruined room, searching for more injured.
"Ma'am," the voice called out again.
I didn't look like any of the injured needed immediate attention, except possible the burned security guard, and he already had several people with him.
A hand clamped down on my shoulder, and I whirled around, knocking the contact off and taking a quick half-step backwards, fists raised and feet sliding into position as I crouched down slightly, lowering my centre of gravity.
The second policeman raised his hands, a look of surprise on his face.
"Easy ma'am," he said, his voice low as he spoke to me. "You're safe now, but you really shouldn't come back inside. The villains may be gone, but we need to help the injured out and wait for the ambulances to arrive."
I looked at him for a second, and then nodded jerkily.
"Yes," I said suddenly, sounding more assertive than I felt. "I'll help get the injured out," and I started looking around again.
"That's okay, we have people for that," the policeman said, lowering his arms. "You should get outside and wait for the medics to check you over."
"But-" I started to protest, but he raised one hand and cut me off.
"You're in shock ma'am, and you could be hurt without realizing it. You need to wait outside for now. You can provide a witness statement later."
Yes.
Yes, that sounded like a good idea. I nodded wearily, and the policeman relaxed as I turned to the exit. My heart was hammering painfully hard in my chest and my breaths almost had to be forced down my throat, but the exhaustion setting in was too much to ignore.
I could hear the ambulances approaching at speed as I stumbled outside and took a deep breath, the comparatively cleaner air brushing a few of the cobwebs from my mind.
It was funny, I would have expected the sirens on the ambulance to be louder.
I turned around as the van screeched to a halt and a yellow and green figure leapt out, dashing towards me.
My eyes widened as I stared in shock.
Wait, no, you left-
Uber, still in his ridiculous Bowser costume shoved me to one side and I fell to the ground, landing hard.
I could hear shouting from inside, and looking over I could see some murky figures moving around as Uber disappeared into a back room.
Then there was a now horribly familiar whistling noise, like a whispered shriek, and I saw another streak of fire shoot into the already-ruined building. Smaller than the others, it nevertheless served to knock people off their feet and was bright enough that I could see a muted pulse of light through eyelids clenched tight shut.
This can't be happening. There is no way my luck is this bad.
Desperation leant me strength and I struggled to my feet.
Inside the mint the people who didn't shut their eyes in time were fumbling around or rubbing at their eyes, the policeman included.
I saw a small figure cowering outside the building, and before I could think about what I was doing I started moving over to him in a struggling, stumbling run, falling down beside him and holding tight.
"Hey!" Leet screamed out, raising a large white hand with another fireball burning above his palm. "Everybody keeps a-quiet unless you want another one!"
Movement from inside, and Uber ran out, lugging a heavy black duffel bag. He held it up and laughed; a loud, snarling noise that was more spoken than anything.
"I told you we had time to go back for this," he called out, his voice an exaggerated growl that carried far as he ran towards the van.
I can't let them do this.
Before I had time to think about how stupid what I was attempting was, I stood up as he got near to me, and Uber veered over towards me, the duffel bag jumping to his left hand while his right lashed out in a rapid jab.
I jerked to one side, shoulders twisting to avoid the blow and my own right hand curling into a fist and shooting out without conscious thought on my part.
Uber recoils in surprise as my fist flicks past and struck him in the mouth.
Struck his costume in the mouth, doing absolutely no harm to Uber at all, and probably wouldn't have even if I had managed to get him right in his unprotected face, given the feeble strength of my skinny, under-muscled arms.
There was a pause, and then Uber laughed again, harsh and mocking.
"Are you looking to get kidnapped, princess?" he jeered, and then he was taking a few quick steps toward me, his fist shooting out in more rapid jabs, forcing me to frantically twist and duck to evade.
"You ain't gotta no mushrooms, bitch!" Leet's reedy voice called out, and I felt the fury condense in me, aggravated by the sight of the scrawny villain's ridiculous moustache as he guffaws.
"Fucking stand still and let me hit you," Uber snarled the words under his breath, finally dropping the duffel bag to the ground as he leapt forwards, both fists swinging as he attacked me.
I ducked the first blow, side-stepped the second and then stepped past the third, my foot lashing out and catching Uber behind the knee. He stumbled a bit, but before I could capitalize on this moment he turned around and attacked me with a vengeance, and as quickly as I jumped back his fist still managed to catch me in the stomach.
I reeled, straining to draw in a rasping breath, but Uber was too fast for me.
I saw the yellow, clawed fist coming out of the corner of my eye and brought my arms up to cushion my face from the blow.
If it made any difference, I couldn't tell, as my face felt like it had been struck with a freight train. I hit the ground hard, my vision blurring and the harsh, coppery taste of blood coating my tongue.
Dimly, I was aware of Leet laughing shrilly.
You assholes.
You fucking assholes.
I would like to say that I spat out the blood in my mouth and got gamely to my feet, but in truth I more let it dribble out and struggled upright, several times coming close to falling over.
I heard them say something, but I wasn't paying attention to that, focusing almost entirely on remaining upright. I glanced over at where the villain had been standing, only to see a yellow blur twist around.
Uber's costumed foot smashed into my face, the spinning kick taking me completely off my feet and sending me crashing to the ground.
Someone was speaking to me.
The world was spinning around me as they spoke, and I could distantly feel hands holding me upright.
Then there was something bright shining in my face, and I blearily tried to block it out, only to realize that the hands holding me upright prevented that.
Squinting, I tried to look in another direction, the action sending a bolt of pain shooting through my skull.
Gradually, the pain subsided, and eventually my vision cleared enough to make out the white uniforms of the medics.
I was sitting in the back of an ambulance, a sterile blue blanket draped over my shoulders.
One of the medics was in front of me, lowering the pencil flashlight.
"Can you hear me, ma'am?"
His voice sounds like it's coming from underwater, but I managed to blearily nod and mumble something in response.
"Do you have a phone on you?"
I shook my head at that. Neither Dad nor I had cell phones, not since mom died.
"Is there anyone you would like us to contact? Like a parent or a friend?"
"'m Dad," I mumbled, finding it difficult to speak.
"Do you have a number we can reach him on?"
I nodded, and when the medic produces a pen and paper I managed to get out Dad's phone number at the Dockworkers Association offices, and then our home number.
"Okay, we'll call your father," the medic said, reassuringly. "Now just sit back and relax. You have a nasty concussion, so we're going to take you and the other injured people to the hospital. The police will be along later to take a statement from you, after your father arrives, but until then just lie back in the stretcher and relax."
He pressed something to the side of my face, and I felt the cooling numbness of an ice-pack.
Yes, lying back and relaxing sounded very good right then.
I awkwardly leaned backwards until I was horizontal, feeling the welcome cold on my cheek.
Yes, I would just wait… until the cops and Dad arrived… we could deal with things… when that happened…
The last of the puddles from Wednesday's rain had evaporated, and the night hadn't been cold enough for a frost, so despite the bite in the air when I got off the bus I took a few seconds to appreciate the feeble warmth of the newly risen sun.
Today was my last chance to determine if my victims could recover, or if I had permanently crippled them. I was hopeful, given Emma's apparent recovery yesterday, but that could simply be further practice or someone else applying it for her. It wasn't, I was fairly certain of that, but I needed to be sure.
Pulling my old brown sweatshirt tighter around me, I took another minute to appreciate the sunlight on my face.
Just one more day, I told myself.
I can get through today, see that everyone is getting better, and decide where to go from there.
I felt better after that, as if the act of making a choice made things simpler. I wasn't calm, not by a long shot, but this was my final chance to prove things one way or another, and I needed to take it. Waiting until the start of next term simply wasn't an option for me.
For entirely different reasons than usual, I kept track of the students around me, trying to spot the few I had targeted with my power. As it happened, these were the students who tended to harass me, so on the surface my actions were the same as always, but rather than looking for ways to escape or avoid them, I was actively seeking them out.
Julia was the first girl I spotted, chatting with Madison outside the front doors. As I approach, I make a show of putting my bag down and rifling through it, as if I'd forgotten something important.
While crouched down near the girls, I took the opportunity to reach out to them, seeing what skills they had and matching them to what I had taken. In their case, it had been more cosmetics, and while their available pools didn't seem very impressive at all, they also didn't seem to be unusually low compared to other girls. I was aware that this didn't mean much, considering how much they obsessed over their appearance, but it was somewhat reassuring, nonetheless.
Standing back up, I looked over at them, briefly making eye contact and examining their appearance for any notable flaws or mistakes.
Nothing obvious, but then it wouldn't have to be. They were never my primary targets.
Emma was.
Walking past the two of them, I pretended not to notice them just as they pretended not to notice me. Unexpectedly, this was all there was. Nobody tried to trip me or call out insults or 'comments' with a paper-thin pretence of not being about me.
Now wasn't the time for this.
I would wait for my first class with Emma to see if anything had changed. Finding some excuse to hang around them in between or before classes would just look suspicious, and probably wouldn't give me enough time anyway.
Computer class was first, and for once I was irritated that none of my bullies shared the class with me. Racing through the assigned exercises filled less than half the class, and the rest was spent impatiently browsing the internet for distractions while the minutes on the clock slowly crawled by.
English was second, and though Sophia, Madison and Julia all shared this class with me, Emma didn't, and I had to bite back my frustration at this inconvenience. I needed to know, once and for all, so of course this had to be the day where I went the longest without seeing Emma in my class.
If I was being entirely honest, in practical terms it made little difference to my everyday life. Without Emma there, the three of them were just as likely to try something, whether it was sending spit balls at me or tripping me as I walked past them, or just 'accidentally' stumbling into me and dropping pencil shavings in my hair.
Today though, they just ignored me, acting as if I wasn't there. While unexpected, a reprieve before the holidays was welcome, and it left me more time to focus on what my powers were telling me about my classmates.
In truth, it was difficult to map out any significant changes in my classmates. One reason for this was that I had never tried to build mental images of their skills from before to act as a baseline to compare their currents selves against, while another was the dawning realisation that as far beyond me as they had previously seemed in their abilities to steer conversations and attentions and apply make-up to bolster their appearance, they didn't actually know all that much.
Comparing the girls I had drained to those I knew I hadn't touched, and there really wasn't much difference to speak of. Trying to see what damage I had done only led me to wonder how much of it actually mattered.
I hadn't taken from any of those girls even half of what I'd taken from Emma, but seeing how little that less-than-half was left me breathing a little easier, a burden lifted from my shoulders. Only partially lifted, perhaps, but at that moment I would take any relief I could get.
When the first break of the day came along, I made the risky decision to spend it in the school cafeteria. Taking a couple of pieces of fruit out of my lunch box, I sat at a table and waited, eating slowly. Normally it would only be a minute or two at most before Emma appeared, but now she was absent. Was she deliberately avoiding me?
Did she know?
The thought sent a shiver down my spine and soured the taste of my apple. If Emma knew I was a parahuman and had used my powers on her, then she could be avoiding me so that I couldn't take anything else from her. But how did she find out?
She didn't.
I swallowed the bite of apple and took a deep breath. Emma misapplying some make-up wasn't a reason to suspect parahuman involvement, especially not from me. I had no valid reason to believe that Emma suspected anything. If she did, then I would probably already be in handcuffs
I was just being paranoid.
Emma not looking her best was all the reasons he needed to try and avoid me until she was. She liked me to know that she was superior to me, and part of that was flaunting her looks in front of me and everyone else.
I resumed eating, going slower than before. I probably wouldn't see Emma on this break, and she wasn't in my next class, but she was in the class after that, History, and there was no way that she could get out of that without faking an illness, which there was little point in doing halfway through the final day.
I would simply have to be patient for another hour and a half.
..........
The door to the History classroom was situated at the front of the room, so that was where I sat. With Emma sat near the back of the room, I had no opportunity to watch her, and I couldn't afford to do anything suspicious like change seating to be closer to her.
Shunting my frustration aside, I took a deep breath, held it, and slowly let it out. I didn't need to see her to get a feel for her skill set. I could deal with this.
Reaching out with my power behind me was an odd sensation, like groping through the darkness with insubstantial fingers to find something that wasn't truly there, yet my mind kept insisting was.
I ended up forming a moderately weak connection with the boy sat directly behind me, and then moving past him to the girl behind him, and then feeling the boy sat behind her. Each time I moved targets the connection between us got fainter, but that was okay, because all I needed to do was take a measurement.
Reaching Julia at the back of the room, I shifted across to Madison and then finally reached Emma.
Showtime.
The connection between us was faint, nebulous and irritatingly weak. Ignoring the urge to turn and look at her or move closer, I started to sift through her skills, searching out the two I had drawn from.
Emma's ability to apply make-up was greater than that of the other girls, and when I compared it to how it had been yesterday, it was practically identical. Was it all coming back to her or not?
Was one day enough to tell? Taking another slow breath in and out, I flattened my hands on my exercise book and focused on the memory of her skill set from the day before. I should have been doing this from Tuesday, but I was here now so I would just have to deal with it.
A brief glimpse at her ability to socialise and interact with people and I relaxed further. She was still better at it than I was, and a couple more quick comparisons with the other girls around her was enough to confirm that she was still better at it than they were.
How much of my ability fading was tied to her ability returning? It was too soon to tell, and it wasn't something that I could test very easily, but I already had something to focus on, so I returned to that and prepared to sit through the rest of the class.
I remembered to look up at Mrs Jeffries often enough to appear to be paying attention, and sometimes I wrote down something if she seemed to be more enthusiastic about it than usual, but mostly I simply sat and waited, feeling the faint connection to Emma and the skill that was slowly, ever so slowly, returning to her.
It took most of the class to confirm it to my satisfaction, but just as I could feel my own skills slowly fade, disappearing faster the less I had taken from someone, I could also feel Emma's gradually blooming. Tiny, incremental growth happening minute by minute. There was barely any difference between how she was at the start of class and at the end, but the difference was there, and I could feel it.
By the time the bell rang, jolting me out of my fugue, I was smiling broadly. Cramming everything with me into my bag, I retained enough presence of mind to hurry out of the class to stay ahead of the other girls, grinning the entire time.
All was not lost.
Everything was going to be okay.
..........
Too restless to take the bus home, I kept walking, heading deeper into the city.
School was finished, and now I had over two weeks to myself before I had to go back to Winslow. Over two weeks where I could just relax and decide what to do with my powers, and where to go from here.
Two weeks without having to deal with anyone else.
Well, aside from Dad, I remembered with a flicker of guilt. He would want to spend time with me over the Christmas break and it was a bit over a week until Christmas and I hadn't gotten him anything.
I swore out loud, repeatedly and viciously, earning me a few startled and dirty looks from others.
I had been so wrapped up my new powers and what I could do that I had completely forgotten about getting Dad anything for Christmas.
Hefting my bag over my shoulder, I took off at a jog for the next bus stop. I needed to find him something that I could come back tomorrow for, as I didn't have enough money on me now for anything decent, but given how overcrowded everything would be the closer it got to Christmas the sooner I could find him something the better.
At the very least I would know where to look tomorrow morning.
Settling down into the bus seat, I quickly ran through my options.
Something to eat?
Chocolate made good filler presents, but you needed something that would last longer than Christmas morning unless they were a distant relative, and I didn't know any of my relatives more distant than Gram, who I really doubted was going to suddenly visit. Besides, I could always cook something for Christmas dinner afterwards, and honestly, doing that with Dad would probably be better than anything I could buy him.
A now familiar surge of queasiness made itself known at the thought of cooking, but I forced it back down. I was safe now. Those cooks would start remembering everything, so it was okay to use their borrowed talents for Christmas.
Could I get him something to read?
The problem with that was that mom and I had always been the readers of the family, and if Dad was interesting in any particular genre or author, I was mildly ashamed to realise that I had no idea what it could be.
Some clothing?
A warm jacket would be nice, and I didn't need to worry about getting the size wrong. Had any of Dad's clothes seemed especially worn out of late? Again, I didn't know, and my own fashion sense was more theoretical than anything. Unless I quickly became okay with stealing someone's fashion sense right before Christmas, that was a no-go.
Clenching my fists and kneading my forehead, I sighed.
I'd been so wrapped up in my new abilities that I'd neglected everything else. Yes, I was going to cook something nice for him, but applying make-up and sketching weren't things that I could put under the tree.
I briefly entertained the idea of making some artwork as a present, maybe a sketch of the docks, but quickly cast it aside. Even if my art skills were good enough that I could make something someone would be happy to receive, the whole idea seemed vaguely narcissistic to me, and I don't think I could handle the embarrassment of Dad pretending to think it was better than it was.
Hopping off the bus, I cast around for inspiration.
I was in one of the nicer parts of Downtown, one I wasn't really familiar with. While I wouldn't normally start window shopping in an area this upmarket, it was a lot better than the tourist trap shops on the Boardwalk, and I didn't really feel like visiting the Market.
I probably should have gone to a different area, one more within my admittedly feeble budget. There weren't even that many stores around here, the surrounding builds looking to be businesses and offices. Was I even going in the right direction?
Looking around, I tried to get my bearings, turning back at the flash of light streaking-
The wall in front of me exploded, showering the area with debris and concrete dust.
I staggered, feeling the explosion as a physical impact in my chest and momentarily stunning me.
Dragging in a breath, I ended up inhaling some concrete dust and started choking, raising my sleeve to my mouth to try and filter the air.
Taking a step to one side I almost fell over. My ears were ringing, the shrill non-noise following the explosion driving almost everything from my head.
Still coughing, I looked around, blinking tears from my eyes as I tried to peer through the thinning cloud of dust, seeing some figures approaching.
Taking a few lurching steps forward, I wheezed out a few strangled words, halfway between a greeting and a question.
The one in front was by far the smaller of the two, and as the dust started to settle I could make out the bright red of his outfit.
Velocity?
I took another few steps forward before the rest of the details made themselves known to me, such as the blue overalls underneath the shirt, a large and obviously false moustache underneath the red cap.
That and the fact that his companion, walking a few feet behind him, was some sort of saurian-turtle hybrid. Yellow scales predominated, while his back was covered by a large, dome-shaped shell. As he turned to one side, looking at something I couldn't see, an array of white spikes swung into view, wickedly sharp and dotting the shell at even intervals.
He laughed, the sound carrying across the street, and even through the lingering ringing sound in my ears I could tell that it sounded off. As well as it carried, it wasn't the deep, rumbling sound I would expect from such a monstrosity.
When I saw that the monster's mouth wasn't moving in time with the laughter I finally managed to piece it together.
It was a costume, both of them were in costumes and the only way they could be at the scene so quickly was if they were waiting for it to start.
These weren't heroes, they were villains, and I had stumbled onto the crime as it started.
My breath hitched, sending my lungs into spasms as I tried to expel dust and inhale at the same time. Staggering backwards from the pair of villains, I could feel the panic rising up inside me, my heart hammering against my ribs.
The small man in red and blue looked back the way they had come from, raising over-sized white hands and snapping his fingers, igniting a ball of fire in the palm of his hand.
Hurling it across the street with a faint whistle, I saw the fireball strike a car and explode, shattering the windows. The car was soon engulfed in flame, faster than I would have thought possible.
Glancing at his companion, the man in red and blue shouted at him to hurry up, and the monster ran forwards, jumping through the hole in the wall carrying what I now realised was some sort of weapon, judging by the way one end was starting to glow.
The man outside snapped his fingers again, hurling the fireball at a tree, heedless of the shouting and screaming from the few people still nearby.
The fireball missed by several feet, splashing the side of the building behind it and creating a spider's web of cracks that smoked and hissed with heat.
Snarling, the man snapped his fingers and threw again, this time missing from the other side and striking the same building. The second hit, though weaker than the one they had used on the building next to me, struck close enough to the damaged wall that it punched right through, bricks spraying across the interior and shattering several windows in the process.
I could see people inside, some dragging others to safety, and as my hearing returned it brought the full effect of their screams to me.
"Piece of shit!" The man swore, furiously working at one hand with the other. Several seconds later he looked back up, snapped his fingers and threw another fireball. This one streaked lower, the colour a deeper orangey-red than the earlier bright yellows, and when it struck the ground several feet away from the base of the tree it lacked the concussive impact of the earlier blasts, instead mushrooming up in a pillar of fire and spreading outwards.
The few leaves still left on the hapless tree ignited, along with most of the branches, several snapping off and causing a brief rain of cinders.
The man cackled, and I staggered further backwards.
Whatever the hell was happening here, I was not prepared to deal with it.
I dropped low and started moving backwards, hoping against hope that I wouldn't draw the villain's attention. Trying not to wheeze too loudly, I turned around and scurried off, aiming to put the car I could see further down the road in between us.
Yellow light zipped past me and struck the car, and even twenty feet away I could feel the whump of the explosion in my rib cage and feel the heat wash across my face.
Staggering backwards, I fell to my rear to the sound of shrill cackling.
"There's a-nowhere to run, bitch!" The villain, Leet, called out, while above him the bright golden orb of his Snitch flitted about. Right now I knew that it would be focused on me, so I kept still, desperately hoping that Leet would find something else to distract himself with and give me the opportunity to escape.
The yellow turtle monster from before leapt out of the hole in the wall, a small duffle bag clutched in each hand. Running to a van on the far side of Leet, Uber yanked the door open and threw the bags inside, before pulling a couple of empty ones out and returning to the building at high speed.
The building they had attacked was a mint, I finally realized. The two of them had used Leet's fireballs to somehow blow a hole in reinforced concrete and now Uber was taking the opportunity the ensuing chaos provided to rob the place.
Shouting was emerging from inside, and as the panicked screaming faded away the angry tone of the voices became clear.
"Whoops," Leet muttered, turning back to the building and casually throwing another fireball inside.
It detonated, and a plume of dust and smoke billowed out into the street. More screaming sounded, and the angry, authoritative shouts gave way to pained cries and swearing.
Laughing, Leet turned back to the street as a car started approaching.
He snapped his fingers, another fireball appearing inside the overly large white glove, and as the car frantically screeched to a halt, he started to run at it. The car started reversing, engine revving and wisps of smoke appearing from the tyres, while behind the windscreen I could see the alarmed faces of the driver and her passengers.
There were children in the backseat.
As it picked up speed, Leet jumped in the air, somehow reaching over ten feet in height, and threw the fireball. It may have been my imagination, but I thought I could hear the cries of the passengers, the woman yanking the steering wheel to one side.
The car swerved, its rear end smashing into a lamppost at a fortunately low speed, shifting just enough to dodge the projectile as it hit the road and detonated, first rising into a pillar before sinking down and spreading out in a circular wave of heat and light.
In a scream of tyres the car spun around, surging through the flames and driving back the way it had come, the paint blistered all along the side.
Raising his left hand, Leet glanced at a wristwatch, or at least something that looked like a wristwatch. Frowning, he trotted over to the hole in the wall and looked inside.
"Hey, Uber! We-a gotta scram! The white hats are-a coming!"
The reply to Leet's horribly mangled Italian accent was too muffled by distance and walls for me to make out, but it seemed to satisfy Leet, at least for the moment.
Tentatively, I took another few steps backwards, as slowly as I could. My heart felt like it was trying to beat its way out of my ribcage, and it was an effort not to gulp down air in huge, heaving breaths.
The heat of the car behind me, still blazing, was hot and harsh on the back of my head as I approached it. A quick glance behind me revealed no pools of burning oil on the sidewalk, and I risked a quick scuttle to try and get on the other side of it.
The movement drew Leet's attention and his head snapped round to fix me in place after only a few steps. We held eye contact for a few seconds, me riveted in fear and him looking at me in a contemplative way.
Against my will, my eyes were drawn to the white gloves, idly drumming themselves against his overalls. Not much of his face could be seen behind the massive false moustache under a domino mask, but I could tell that he was smirking.
Uber leapt through the hole in the wall and I flinched backwards in surprise.
Leet snorted to himself and turned away.
"Lets-a go!" He called out, his voice slightly nasal, "Hey, where's the other bag?"
"Too heavy for both," Uber grunted in response, heaving the duffel bag over to the van and hurling it in after the first pair. "I got a good load this time. There were a lotta' dollars in there."
The wailing of police sirens, which I suddenly realized had been steadily rising in volume over the last thirty seconds, rose sharply in pitch as the first pair of police vehicles screeched around the corner.
"Shit. No time now. Let's go."
"How the fuck did they get here so fast?" Leet complained as they started running.
"Must have been in the area," Uber responded.
Jumping into the back of the van, the doors slammed shut and a few seconds later the idling engine screamed into life, the van performing a rapid U-turn and vanishing down the road, the police in hot pursuit.
It took several seconds for me to realize that everything was over. There was only the fading sound of sirens and the babble voices coming from inside.
Slowly, I breathed in, held it for a few seconds and then let it out all at once. My body shook as I gasped for air, lungs heaving as my throat felt constricted, incapable of drawing in enough air to keep me upright.
I sank down to the ground, legs shaking with the effort of not collapsing. My knees hit with the ground and I slumped over, my hands pressing down into the sidewalk with white knuckles as I tried to grip the flat surface, now speckled with rubble.
Gradually, I became more aware of the cries that still emerged from the mint.
Looking up, I saw someone, a security guard judging by their brick-dust covered uniform, cautiously emerge from the hole and look around.
There were still people inside, and some of them could be injured.
I struggled to my feet and took a wobbling step forwards, then another and another.
The faster I walked, the easier it became, so by the time I reached the hole and peered inside I was moving quickly.
It took me a few moments to adjust the comparative gloom inside the mint. The fireball Leet had thrown through the hole, or perhaps the initial one used to make the hole in the first place, had blown out most of the lights, and the few that remained flickered and stuttered.
People were stirring, some walking out towards me and others gathering together, reaching with fumbling hands and clutching with dust-stained fingers.
I saw several security guards clustered against the far wall, two of them crouching down on either side of a third, whose charred uniform and red, blistered skin showed him to have been caught too close to the fireball Leet had casually thrown inside.
Movement caught my eye, and I saw a small figure, a child a few years younger than me scrabbling at the rubble. He was biting back sobs, frantically trying to push back the fragments of the wall and pull himself along at the same time, one leg kicking out and the other held rigid.
I saw the dark stain on his trouser legs where the dust stuck tight and the way the leg bent about twenty degrees the wrong way.
I hurried over to him, stumbling a couple of times, and sank down next to him, raising my hands to calm the boy as he jerked round, eyes wide and breathing harsh and jagged.
"Hey, hey, hey, it's okay," I said softly, afraid of where to put my hands in case he was injured more badly than I could see. "I'm not going to hurt you. It's okay, I'm here to help."
The tears were running down his cheeks, streaking through the concrete dust.
"Is it just your leg? Are you hurt anywhere else?" I pressed, hoping he didn't have any broken ribs or internal injuries. I had no idea what to do if that was the case. Luck finally seemed to be acting in my favour, and he managed to say something that sounded like "Jus' my leg."
Clearing some of the rubble aside, I helped the boy to his feet, and though his sobs were getting louder, he gamely limped alongside me as I took as much as his weight as I could.
Once we made it outside I led him away from the burning car and set him down on the pavement. Another police car had pulled up and one of the cops rushed over, checking us for injuries. I brushed her off and told her that I was fine and it was just the young boy that needed help.
She told me that ambulances were on the way, and before I could sink down in exhaustion next to the boy I turned around and headed back into the building.
My breathing was ragged and my limbs felt like they were weighed down with lead, but I needed to keep moving so that I could get through it all.
"Ma'am," a voice called out.
I looked around the ruined room, searching for more injured.
"Ma'am," the voice called out again.
I didn't look like any of the injured needed immediate attention, except possible the burned security guard, and he already had several people with him.
A hand clamped down on my shoulder, and I whirled around, knocking the contact off and taking a quick half-step backwards, fists raised and feet sliding into position as I crouched down slightly, lowering my centre of gravity.
The second policeman raised his hands, a look of surprise on his face.
"Easy ma'am," he said, his voice low as he spoke to me. "You're safe now, but you really shouldn't come back inside. The villains may be gone, but we need to help the injured out and wait for the ambulances to arrive."
I looked at him for a second, and then nodded jerkily.
"Yes," I said suddenly, sounding more assertive than I felt. "I'll help get the injured out," and I started looking around again.
"That's okay, we have people for that," the policeman said, lowering his arms. "You should get outside and wait for the medics to check you over."
"But-" I started to protest, but he raised one hand and cut me off.
"You're in shock ma'am, and you could be hurt without realizing it. You need to wait outside for now. You can provide a witness statement later."
Yes.
Yes, that sounded like a good idea. I nodded wearily, and the policeman relaxed as I turned to the exit. My heart was hammering painfully hard in my chest and my breaths almost had to be forced down my throat, but the exhaustion setting in was too much to ignore.
I could hear the ambulances approaching at speed as I stumbled outside and took a deep breath, the comparatively cleaner air brushing a few of the cobwebs from my mind.
It was funny, I would have expected the sirens on the ambulance to be louder.
I turned around as the van screeched to a halt and a yellow and green figure leapt out, dashing towards me.
My eyes widened as I stared in shock.
Wait, no, you left-
Uber, still in his ridiculous Bowser costume shoved me to one side and I fell to the ground, landing hard.
I could hear shouting from inside, and looking over I could see some murky figures moving around as Uber disappeared into a back room.
Then there was a now horribly familiar whistling noise, like a whispered shriek, and I saw another streak of fire shoot into the already-ruined building. Smaller than the others, it nevertheless served to knock people off their feet and was bright enough that I could see a muted pulse of light through eyelids clenched tight shut.
This can't be happening. There is no way my luck is this bad.
Desperation leant me strength and I struggled to my feet.
Inside the mint the people who didn't shut their eyes in time were fumbling around or rubbing at their eyes, the policeman included.
I saw a small figure cowering outside the building, and before I could think about what I was doing I started moving over to him in a struggling, stumbling run, falling down beside him and holding tight.
"Hey!" Leet screamed out, raising a large white hand with another fireball burning above his palm. "Everybody keeps a-quiet unless you want another one!"
Movement from inside, and Uber ran out, lugging a heavy black duffel bag. He held it up and laughed; a loud, snarling noise that was more spoken than anything.
"I told you we had time to go back for this," he called out, his voice an exaggerated growl that carried far as he ran towards the van.
I can't let them do this.
Before I had time to think about how stupid what I was attempting was, I stood up as he got near to me, and Uber veered over towards me, the duffel bag jumping to his left hand while his right lashed out in a rapid jab.
I jerked to one side, shoulders twisting to avoid the blow and my own right hand curling into a fist and shooting out without conscious thought on my part.
Uber recoils in surprise as my fist flicks past and struck him in the mouth.
Struck his costume in the mouth, doing absolutely no harm to Uber at all, and probably wouldn't have even if I had managed to get him right in his unprotected face, given the feeble strength of my skinny, under-muscled arms.
There was a pause, and then Uber laughed again, harsh and mocking.
"Are you looking to get kidnapped, princess?" he jeered, and then he was taking a few quick steps toward me, his fist shooting out in more rapid jabs, forcing me to frantically twist and duck to evade.
"You ain't gotta no mushrooms, bitch!" Leet's reedy voice called out, and I felt the fury condense in me, aggravated by the sight of the scrawny villain's ridiculous moustache as he guffaws.
"Fucking stand still and let me hit you," Uber snarled the words under his breath, finally dropping the duffel bag to the ground as he leapt forwards, both fists swinging as he attacked me.
I ducked the first blow, side-stepped the second and then stepped past the third, my foot lashing out and catching Uber behind the knee. He stumbled a bit, but before I could capitalize on this moment he turned around and attacked me with a vengeance, and as quickly as I jumped back his fist still managed to catch me in the stomach.
I reeled, straining to draw in a rasping breath, but Uber was too fast for me.
I saw the yellow, clawed fist coming out of the corner of my eye and brought my arms up to cushion my face from the blow.
If it made any difference, I couldn't tell, as my face felt like it had been struck with a freight train. I hit the ground hard, my vision blurring and the harsh, coppery taste of blood coating my tongue.
Dimly, I was aware of Leet laughing shrilly.
You assholes.
You fucking assholes.
I would like to say that I spat out the blood in my mouth and got gamely to my feet, but in truth I more let it dribble out and struggled upright, several times coming close to falling over.
I heard them say something, but I wasn't paying attention to that, focusing almost entirely on remaining upright. I glanced over at where the villain had been standing, only to see a yellow blur twist around.
Uber's costumed foot smashed into my face, the spinning kick taking me completely off my feet and sending me crashing to the ground.
……….
Someone was speaking to me.
The world was spinning around me as they spoke, and I could distantly feel hands holding me upright.
Then there was something bright shining in my face, and I blearily tried to block it out, only to realize that the hands holding me upright prevented that.
Squinting, I tried to look in another direction, the action sending a bolt of pain shooting through my skull.
Gradually, the pain subsided, and eventually my vision cleared enough to make out the white uniforms of the medics.
I was sitting in the back of an ambulance, a sterile blue blanket draped over my shoulders.
One of the medics was in front of me, lowering the pencil flashlight.
"Can you hear me, ma'am?"
His voice sounds like it's coming from underwater, but I managed to blearily nod and mumble something in response.
"Do you have a phone on you?"
I shook my head at that. Neither Dad nor I had cell phones, not since mom died.
"Is there anyone you would like us to contact? Like a parent or a friend?"
"'m Dad," I mumbled, finding it difficult to speak.
"Do you have a number we can reach him on?"
I nodded, and when the medic produces a pen and paper I managed to get out Dad's phone number at the Dockworkers Association offices, and then our home number.
"Okay, we'll call your father," the medic said, reassuringly. "Now just sit back and relax. You have a nasty concussion, so we're going to take you and the other injured people to the hospital. The police will be along later to take a statement from you, after your father arrives, but until then just lie back in the stretcher and relax."
He pressed something to the side of my face, and I felt the cooling numbness of an ice-pack.
Yes, lying back and relaxing sounded very good right then.
I awkwardly leaned backwards until I was horizontal, feeling the welcome cold on my cheek.
Yes, I would just wait… until the cops and Dad arrived… we could deal with things… when that happened…
Highly skilled
- Japanese
- Spanish
- Korean
- Cosmetics
- Self-defence
- Juggling
- Socialising and public speaking
- Art and sketching
- Cooking
- Driving
- Statistics
Last edited:
- Location
- Colorado
Hark!
A tailor-made excuse to have skill related powers and join the Wards!
A tailor-made excuse to have skill related powers and join the Wards!
- Location
- New Zealand
Victor's powers are super useful for everyday life, but not that great in a direct fight against a powered opponent. The costume's weren't power armour, just thick enough to absorb some impacts, plus the fact that Taylor is a skinny fifteen year old girl with the training of people who can hit a lot harder than she can.
So, Taylor now knows it's okay to steal skills because it's temporary. If only she had a source for important skills that people would miss and be hurt by the lack.
What's this? Taylor's going to a hospital? A place with coma victims who no longer need their skills?
On top of this, U&L have shown her that even 'joke' villains are assholes who hurt innocent people and laugh about it. That even the most 'harmless' of criminals are deserving targets for her power.
Excellent chapter Loki, looking forward to more!
What's this? Taylor's going to a hospital? A place with coma victims who no longer need their skills?
On top of this, U&L have shown her that even 'joke' villains are assholes who hurt innocent people and laugh about it. That even the most 'harmless' of criminals are deserving targets for her power.
Excellent chapter Loki, looking forward to more!
Evil M. Lurker
What Lurks at Midnight
- Location
- The City, USA
Never mind coma victims, Über was right there. If it's known that he can just make himself skilled at anything, well, there's a convenient source who at this point has zero moral grounds to be allowed to keep the ability to do much of anything more than is needed to stay alive in a prison cell. 
Alternatively, she could just take a tiny bit of everything from everyone she passes throughout the city. If she spends a lot of time in public, economy of scale will soon see her quite skilled indeed in many common skills and moderately so in others. Perhaps using coma patients and criminals to pad out her skillset.
As for using Uber for skill farming, whether or not this would even work depends entirely on @Lokimotion's interpretation of power interactions. I'd say yes, with limitations and caveats, but I guess we'll see if he even shows up again in story.
As for using Uber for skill farming, whether or not this would even work depends entirely on @Lokimotion's interpretation of power interactions. I'd say yes, with limitations and caveats, but I guess we'll see if he even shows up again in story.
- Location
- USA
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Hmm. Given that Taylor was likely concussed and at the very least took several hits to the head wouldn't a MRI/CATSCAN be standard? And if so, well the fact she is parahuman is going to get out pretty quick. Given that she was seen helping civvies and fighting the villainous duo I imagine that she might be getting a visit and invitation in the Hospital soon. Which honestly might be the best thing for her now.
RazorSmile
ROB Used To Be A Knife Missile
Forgive the necro but these might be relevant to the OP's interests. Significant amounts of extra nuance about Victor's power, all from Ward, Radiation 18.2:
- Location
- wethersfield,ct
All of these are interesting, but there is something about this story that has bugged me for a while.
Taylor should know much more about her power than she seems to. She is a natural trigger, so she should have a cliffnotes version of her powers tech manual in her head already.
She should have an instinctive understanding of either the first 2 or last 2 examples you gave, either knowing the effects of her power, how it will be permanent for both parties if she takes enough/too much, and how it will fade from her without practice and be restored from her 'donor' with time and practice on their end.
Or she should be aware of how broad the range is, taking skills people wouldn't normally consider a skill.
Interlude: Danny
- Location
- New Zealand
They say, just before I update.
Mostly it was because I wrote the first chapter over a year ago and didn't know the full extent of Victor's powers then, and also because I wanted to do an arc of Taylor learning that she was stealing skills, so I wrote it as her knowing that she gains skills from others, but has to learn the little particulars by herself.
..........
Danny rushed through the hospital at a speed just below a run, side-stepping some orderlies, his eyes frantically seeking out Taylor's room number.
There.
"Taylor?" he called out before the door was even half open, stopping part way into the room.
She was lying on top of the hospital bed, still fully clothed, her eyes opening at the sound of his voice.
"Hey Dad," she called out, grimacing slightly and raising her hand in a limp wave. Bruises bloomed across the side of her face, vivid red and already turning purple. Danny could see the way the entire right side of her jaw was swollen up.
Danny looked in shock at Taylor's face, and she must have recognised what was going through his mind, for she raised a placating hand.
"It's okay. It's not as bad as it looks," she mumbled, her words undermined by the way her injuries affected her speech.
"Not as bad…?"
Words failed Danny, and he felt a black fury welling up, eclipsing reason and sense as he saw what someone had done to his daughter.
"Taylor, you look like you were beaten half to death!" he cried out, his voice rising and turning harsh.
"All the police told me is that you were caught up in a villain attack and got in a fight with them-"
Taylor flinched back, and Danny bit off the words he was about to speak, struggling to swallow them back down. He had sworn a long time ago that he would never lose his temper in front of his family, and though he had broken that oath once before, he couldn't do so now.
At his side, his fists clenched, knuckles white with the pressure.
After several seconds of slow breathing, he tried again.
"Taylor," he said, more gently this time, "I was told that you got into a fight with a villain and ended up in the hospital. What the hell happened?"
Taylor paused, looking suddenly uncomfortable.
"Um, do you mind if we wait for the police to get here so I can make my statement to them as well? I think it would be easier if we did it all at once. They're just down the corridor."
Danny clenched and unclenched his hands several times, before sighing and nodding.
Couldn't she just tell him what had happened?
Why did she have to leave him feeling so helpless?
But instead of lashing out at her he simply waited for the policewoman to arrive for Taylor's statement, sitting down in the chair next to her bed, his fingers gripping the arms of the chair so hard they turned white and trembled.
"Mr. Hebert, Miss Hebert," the policewoman said in greeting, glancing at Danny before turning to Taylor and offering her a reassuring smile. "I'm Sergeant Jensen, and I'd like to take your statement regarding the villain attack. Is it okay if I take a seat?"
Looking uncertain, Taylor nodded, and the sergeant carried a chair over and set it at the foot of the bed. Once she sat down, the sergeant took out her notebook and looked to Taylor.
"If you could explain to me, in your own words, Miss Hebert, the events of earlier today when the villains Uber and Leet attacked the mint, we'll be able to get through this in no time. Please, don't leave anything out, even if it doesn't seem very important." Her tone was gentle and, after a moment, Taylor nodded and began to speak.
Despite his worry for Taylor and the volcanic fury bubbling underneath his skin at the idea that someone would hurt her, Danny managed to hold his tongue.
Instead, he just sat there, silently listening as Taylor slowly, hesitantly laid out her journey into town and how she was caught up in the villain's latest stunt.
When Taylor got to the part where Uber attacked her, he almost leapt out of his chair, jaw working soundlessly as he sought to restrain his anger.
Taylor paused, looking nervously up at him before her eyes shied away.
"Mr. Hebert," the policewoman said sternly, "I know this is hard for you to hear, but I'm going to have to ask you to calm down. It's better for your daughter if she can get through this, and the sooner she does the sooner we can get a complete picture of what happened today. As it is, your daughter is likely suffering from a concussion and needs rest, so the quicker we get through this, the better for her as well."
Her voice was soft, but unyielding, and as much as Danny's insides twisted at the word 'concussion', he couldn't fault the sergeant's words. After another few moments of struggling with himself, he sank back into his chair, his breathing slowing down slightly and his hands somewhat relaxing their death grip on the armrests.
After a few moments more, Taylor continued on, telling them how she tried to avoid his attacks until he caught her on the side of her face, and then how he kicked her to the ground once she stood up again.
"…and then the ambulances got there, and, well, that's it."
"Thank you, Miss Hebert," the policewoman said gently. "This should help quite a lot."
"I don't see how," Taylor mumbled. "They got away, and I didn't do anything. Not anything that helped or mattered."
"You got the best look at events of everyone there, and you helped that boy after his leg was broken. I'd say that helped, and it definitely mattered to him."
Taylor paused, and Danny saw a slight smile spread across her face.
He didn't know whether to wrap his daughter up in a hug or punch the policewoman for praising Taylor after she got into a fight with a villain. He knew he was being unfair, and it wasn't a situation Taylor had sought out, but the idea of it still twisted his insides up.
Waiting until he was certain that he had himself under control, Danny hesitantly asked, "Taylor, what were you even doing next to the mint to begin with? That's nowhere near school!"
Taylor shrank back slightly, her eyes darting down to the side, and Danny mentally cursed himself for letting his voice get so loud. The policewoman gave him a sharp look, but Danny didn't care.
"I think in this instance we can overlook a little truancy," the sergeant said dryly, "but please don't make a habit of it."
"…I was Christmas shopping," Taylor muttered, not looking at him, and the answer threw Danny for a loop.
"What?"
"It's only a week until Christmas and I realized I hadn't gotten you anything, so I went Christmas shopping."
"But…" Danny struggled for words, "why were you in the financial district?"
As pale as she was, Taylor's flush was readily apparent.
"I got on the wrong bus," she muttered, and the policewoman snorted, barely making a token effort to hide her smile. "I didn't want you to know I'd forgotten to get you anything, so I was in a rush and I jumped on the wrong bus by mistake."
Taylor was resolutely not looking at anyone as she mumbled the words.
Sighing, Danny reached over and took her hand.
"We can go Christmas shopping tomorrow. I'll drive you to the stores and wait for you to pick something. We can make a day of it."
Stroking the back of her hand with his thumb, Danny was happy to see Taylor look up at him and smile, and a part of him he hadn't realized was just as tense as all the other parts of him finally relaxed.
……….
The kitchen was warm, comfortably so, and Danny was happy as he kneaded the lump of dough.
Across from him, Taylor was setting out the next set of ingredients, humming quietly to herself.
The bruises that had bloomed across the side of her face had settled into a dark purple mess along her jaw, with a yellow tinge spreading out from there, but they were fading. It hurt him slightly every time he saw the bruises, but Taylor had repeatedly assured him that they looked worse than they felt.
He didn't believe her, but the way she said it was enough for him to back off and give her the space she needed. She was playing it down, he knew, just like he knew she didn't want him to worry and fuss over her. But she was up front about it, not trying to hide the bruises or look in the other direction, and on the occasions when he brought it up she admitted that it still ached through the painkillers, though she still tried to act like it was no big deal.
A couple of times she had admitted to thinking about the small boy she had pulled out of the building, smiling as she did so. Despite everything that had happened, Taylor sometimes seemed weirdly happy with the outcome, as much as she soured if the two villains responsible were mentioned on the news.
The pictures displayed of the villains was enough to send Danny into a fury, but he tried to keep it under control, lest it risk spilling out and starting an argument with Taylor, driving her away and back to her solitude.
They'd gone shopping the next day, the two of them looking for gifts for each other, and over several hours and a lunch break, they'd started talking.
Danny had realised that he didn't know what to say to his daughter shortly before he realised how much he had missed speaking with her. Not some complaints about work and the lack of jobs, or hearing vague platitudes about school, with each of them being evasive and soon fading into silence, but an actual conversation.
The bright, cheerful chatterbox of a child that he and Annette had raised had grown into a quiet, morose girl. As much as it cheered him up to see some glimmers of that child returning, it broke Danny's heart to realise how much he had missed the signs of her withdrawing from him.
As he looked at his daughter, happily preparing their meal, he was assaulted by memories of a kitchen alive with sound and movement. It was so very different from the stifling silence and mechanical routine of the last few years. God, at what point had Taylor being happy to get involved in preparing meals become such a novelty?
"Hey, Dad?" Taylor's voice, still slightly mumbled, broke him from his reverie.
"Yes, sweetie?"
"I've been thinking," she began, glancing over at him from the pile of vegetables she was cutting, "about the attack on the mint. I know there isn't much I could have done," she hurriedly added, seeing him tense up, "but I still think I could have done things a bit better. Reacted faster, maybe, or just done things differently."
She paused for a moment, her knife stilling as she looked into the middle distance, a decidedly odd expression on her face.
It faded before Danny could ask about it.
"Anyway, I was thinking about maybe looking into getting some self-defence lessons?"
She looked over at him, her gaze sharpening.
"Brockton Bay is kind of a rough city, and as much as you might not like it, stuff like that could happen again. There are bound to be a few places where I could take classes, and I think that knowing how to defend myself is a pretty useful skill to have."
Danny found himself pinned by the unusually intense look in her eyes.
"…I guess you're right," he said slowly, turning the idea over in his head. "You're right that I don't like the idea, but I would rather you be able to take care of yourself than get hurt again. Did you have any place in mind?"
"I was thinking maybe we could shop around?" There was a forced casualness to her voice that pricked at the forefront of Danny's mind, but for the life of him he couldn't work out why. "There'll be a few places we could look at, speak to the teachers and a few students. Just enough to get a feel for the place. See if we like it."
Again, there was that niggling feeling. The way that Taylor had shifted from being so focused on this idea to acting like it was nothing more than a whim was faintly concerning, and for a second he considered refusing. But above all, Danny didn't wish to risk this fragile new connection with his daughter and see her pull away from him again, while he stood helpless and unable to reconnect with her.
"I guess it's worth taking a look," he said slowly, and watched a smile spread across her face, and with it, his concerns disappeared. "There's certainly no harm in visiting a few places. Did you have anywhere in mind?"
Taylor shook her head, returning to her food preparation.
"No, I was thinking we could look some up later on, see where's closest."
"That sounds like a plan to me," Danny said, smiling to himself as he renewed his kneading, "though maybe we could wait until tomorrow before starting our research. Let's just enjoy Christmas day for now, and maybe you can explain a bit more about this new meal we're making."
He smiled to himself, his worries fading away as Taylor launched into a description of the Korean meal, along with the Dutch dessert pastry to follow. Maybe he was just uncultured, but he could have sworn he hadn't even heard of them before–even with Taylor's newfound interest in cooking–and he had already forgotten their names.
He glanced over to the living room, seeing his new coat and scarf neatly folded on the sofa. In truth he hadn't really needed either, but they were warm and comfortable and the fact that they had come from Taylor meant more to him than anything else.
Next to them, in between the traditional chocolates, were a couple of boxes of art supplies. Some sketch pads, shading and colouring pencils and a few books on design and art styles. He had been a little uncertain about them at first, and that feeling magnified when Taylor's smile had faded when she first unwrapped them, but after a few moments it returned, brighter than ever, or at least warmer, and Danny felt a contentedness he hadn't felt in a long time.
……….
"Well, we can certainly help, but it'll take a while before we can move on to serious training."
Danny and Taylor were in a downtown dojo several miles from their home. One of the instructors had come over to speak to them about potential lessons.
"While part of this is that you need to heal a bit from that," the instructor gestured towards the purple and yellow bruises lividly displayed on Taylor's jaw, "it's mostly that you need to build up your base fitness. I strongly recommend starting a workout routine for a while before you do any serious self-defence training. Core exercises to start with, like crunches, with some cardio, running, cycling, swimming and the like. Then move on to light weights, maybe pull-ups."
Danny nodded slowly.
It was the same advice the people at the previous two gyms had given, but Taylor had insisted on visiting more, to 'see more options' as she called it.
"We do have some introductory classes for kick-boxing coming up, but they don't start for another month," the instructor continued, "and for the first couple of weeks of those classes, at least half the lesson is mostly exercises to build up the level of fitness for the whole class to the point where everyone is physically capable of doing the training. We also tend to lose a lot of people in the first few weeks."
"How long do the classes run for?" Taylor interjected, still looking at the instructor rather intently.
"Ten weeks," the man replied promptly, giving the same answer as the last two instructors had, and likewise following with "and you can take up to two classes a week, if you like."
"Is it just kick-boxing classes, or are there other martial arts or self-defence lesson as well?"
"Just kick-boxing planned at the moment, but we might be able to start a judo course later on, if enough people are interested enough to sign up. You might find that easier to learn, given the increased focus on leverage and balance and less on strength."
"Which I am seriously lacking in," Taylor frowned, looking rather disgruntled with herself.
"Maybe focus on one self-defence class to start with," Danny added, hoping to dispel her unhappiness, "It will probably go better if you aren't trying to learn several different styles at once."
Taylor's frown deepened, but after a moment the little moue shifted into something better described as an expression of denial.
"I'd rather keep my options as open as I can. Try as many different things as I have time for."
She glanced over at him, and a second later her expression brightened.
"That way I'll be able to find out if something really isn't my style pretty quickly, and if I'm good at several styles, I'll be able to work them together into my own fighting style. Or at least be better able to defend myself if I get attacked again," she hurriedly added, seeing his expression as she talked about fighting.
"You also don't want to risk pushing yourself too hard too fast and hurting yourself," the instructor pointed out, "But as long as you get a decent level of fitness beforehand, that shouldn't be too much of a risk."
Taylor nodded, her gaze sliding from the instructor to the other inhabitants of the gym, lingering on two men sparring with boxing gloves.
"Is it just formal classes you teach here, or are there more casual sparring sessions?"
The instructor, and Danny realised that he really should have put more effort into remembering the man's name, looked slightly uneasy.
"Just formal lessons, arranged beforehand. I don't recommend picking some rando and asking them to teach you, since you'll have no idea if what they're teaching you is accurate or good, or what training they have. In the classes, we cycle between three instructors, two in every session, and each one is properly trained in kick-boxing and registered as an instructor."
"How much is a course? The whole ten week thing?" Danny asked, glancing down at his daughter.
As the instructor kept talking, Danny wondered about the changes he had witnessed in his daughter over the last few weeks, but was also far from oblivious about who in the gym she was paying attention to.
A villain attack while she was shopping was bad enough, but at least he had some sort of idea of how to respond to that.
Interrupted by the grumbling of his stomach, Danny thanked the instructor for his time and managed to extricate the two of them, only just noticing that it was already early afternoon.
"Anywhere in particular you feel like going for lunch?"
Taylor got halfway through a shrug before pausing.
"Somewhere… ethnic, I guess? If that's the word? Something from another culture, anyway. Just for variety," she added.
"Mexican?" Danny suggested, but Taylor shook her head.
"Something I haven't tried before. Or not recently, anyway. Maybe… Chinese? Someplace authentic, not a cheap, tourist-trap knock-off."
"You've certainly diversified recently," Danny remarked, climbing into the truck. "All this art and cooking, and now self-defence. Any particular reason for it?"
"Not really," Taylor muttered, resolutely avoiding his gaze as she put her seat belt in. Even if Danny hadn't known his little girl for fifteen years, he would have been able to tell that she was lying.
He was tempted to press the issue, to try and get answers for what was behind her sudden change in behaviour. But more than that, he didn't want to risk what these changes had brought. For whatever reason, this was one of the better days he had spent with his daughter in several years.
Not really sure how to continue the conversation, Danny let the subject drop.
……….
Danny watched Taylor as she browsed the menu, spending as much time looking up at the people around them as she did deciding on a meal.
"Is there a reason you decided on this place?" Danny tried, after a few minutes of silence.
Taylor started slightly, and looked back at him.
"I felt like Chinese?" the response came out as a question.
"We passed several Chinese places you didn't like the look of. Hell, we probably could have already eaten by now." He was exaggerating, but he was genuinely curious at the seemingly laser-like yet mercurial focus his daughter was displaying.
"I like the ambience, I guess," Taylor shrugged, looking back down to the menu, and Danny could feel the walls between them beginning to emerge again. "I just prefer busier places. Empty restaurants feel weird."
"That's fair," Danny agreed; a vague statement in response to something he didn't know how to address.
Making their choices, the wait for the meal passed in another awkward silence.
"You really seem determined to get into this martial arts business," he ventured after the first few mouthfuls.
Taylor paused, lowering her fork and frowning again.
"I suppose so. I just keep looking back at what happened and thinking about all the different things I could have done better. If I was faster after the first explosion I could have gotten more people out, or gotten them further away before those assholes returned."
Her expression turned surprisingly venomous.
"I could have handled things better, or done something more," she sighed. "If I'd been better trained in self-defence I probably wouldn't have gotten hurt, but that's honestly not the issue for me."
Danny mechanically ate another few mouthfuls, watching her carefully.
"I don't really know what the issue is." Taylor admitted, twirling her noodles around her fork sullenly, "I just think I could have done stuff better."
"Well, that's what the defence courses will be for, right?" he tried to brighten her up, only marginally succeeding. "We've got a month to pick a class for you, and I doubt you'll manage to find another villain attack in that time."
It was a feeble joke, but he could see the corners of her lips twitch upwards, and he counted that as a victory.
Annette had always been the one Taylor had confided in, usually leaving him out of the loop when they made plans, and he was glad that they could spend this time together. A flicker of shame went through him when he realised that he'd forgotten how much these little moments had used to mean to him.
"Yeah, I've got a few weeks to get into shape first," Taylor agreed, looking up at him. "Most of the exercises they talked about is stuff I can do at home, and I can always go running in the evening."
"I'm not sure I'm comfortable with you going out running at night," Danny raised an eyebrow.
"Or in the morning, then," Taylor amended. "I can do it before breakfast."
"I suppose I can't really argue with that," Danny smiled as Taylor perked up. "But only as long as you keep to the nicer neighbourhoods. And maybe I should get you some pepper spray too."
They smiled and chatted some more as they ate, and though they'd already spent a bit more than Danny was normally comfortable with, he was considering splashing out for dessert when he noticed Taylor's expression change, her eyes staring off into the distance.
"Sweetie?"
She blinked a couple of times.
"Keep to the nicer neighbourhoods," Taylor said slowly.
Danny wasn't really sure how to respond to that.
"That would be preferable, yes," he said slowly.
"So which neighbourhoods should I avoid?" Taylor asked, her expression intense.
"Well, anywhere rundown, really. Places where junkies and car thieves like to hang out."
There was another few seconds of pause, before Taylor relaxed.
"Yeah, I guess that was kind of a silly question," she laughed, and in that moment Danny could see the little girl she had used to be, carefree and eager to smile for everyone. It was an expression he had rarely seen in the time after Annette died, and never in the last couple of years. It was a beautiful, painful reminder of how far things had decayed between them, and Danny was determined not to let that happen again.
"I was just wondering which areas tended to have villains and gang members congregate in them," Taylor said sheepishly, still smiling at him. "Just so I know where to stay away from."
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Chapter 9
- Location
- New Zealand
I could hear the music from down the street, an intrusive, thumping bass that began to pound in my ears like my own heartbeat as I got closer, loud and drowning out almost everything else.
I could see several men walking towards the old warehouse in front of me, their shaved heads and pale skin standing in stark contrast to the black leather jackets they wore. The contrast was further highlighted whenever they walked underneath one of the working streetlights.
Whatever they were saying was a barely distinguishable murmur underneath the music, but their confidence, bordering on arrogance, was written plain to see in their body language. They weren't particularly large or strong-looking, and probably weren't even twenty, but the three young men carried themselves like they were men grown and part of a group ten times the size.
Don't show weakness. Don't show doubt.
I remembered the way Emma walked through Winslow after something went well for her. People got out of her way just because she expected them to, and she knew it. She didn't look at the ground or watch where she put her feet, and if she didn't like someone then she wouldn't even acknowledge their existence.
You fit in and nobody will doubt that.
I straightened my posture, pulling my shoulders back slightly and raising my chin. Like all the skills I had acquired and used only infrequently, it left a vague feeling of dissonance in me, the actions both instinctive and utterly unfamiliar.
I kept my hood pulled up, mostly out of a generalized fear of appearing too feminine in this part of the city. It wasn't normally a concern of mine, but I wanted to attract as little attention as possible while walking on my own late at night.
There were two men standing outside the warehouse doors, leaning against the wall and smoking. Older than the young men, or possible boys that had been walking in front of me, they were more muscled and gave every impression of being ready to fight should they ever feel the need. In their forties, or maybe even fifties, they had graying hair and a number of tattoos on their necks and cheeks, with the swastika and number '88' being the most prominent for each of them.
Swallowing nervously, I approached them, forcing myself not to clench my fists or turn tail and flee. I had made it this far. The still unfamiliar feel of foundation on my cheeks helped surprisingly well with this endeavour. It had almost felt like putting on a mask as I applied it, like I was preparing myself as a cape and not just a normal person. But instead of putting it on to look eye-catching and dramatic, I was trying to look a few years older.
Some lipstick had followed, and then some eye-shadow, until I was looking at a different person in the mirror. Nothing that would stop anybody from recognizing me if they saw me, of course, but maybe enough to stop them from looking twice if their first glance showed somebody who looked like they belonged.
The man on the right looked me over, his eyes traveling up and down my body once before his head made some vague gesture of approval or acceptance, his eyes turning back to the street. The man on the left didn't even bother with that, simply glancing at my face and then turning away.
Struggling to breathe normally, I walked right past the two of them and into the warehouse, illuminated by the harsh, staccato glare of strobe lights, flashing through a dozen colours from a few laser light machines.
While the music seemed to jump in volume even further, almost offensive in its assault on my eardrums, it was the smell that struck me most. Old sweat and beer were the most prominent aromas, along with something mustier that I didn't recognise and didn't want to. Together they managed to hit the back of my throat and leave me struggling to breathe.
Turning away from the thick press of bodies at the centre of the room, I started walking towards the first reasonably open space I could see before the fear and stupidity of what I was doing crashed down on me.
Skirting the edges of the room, I reminded myself why I was here.
This was it.
This was me going out and using my powers to oppose criminals.
This was my first outing as a hero.
I wouldn't be fighting any villains, or at least not physically and as long as everything went according to plan, and I certainly wasn't wearing a costume, but I had made the decision to use my powers against criminals and that was what I was here to do.
Focusing on that made it easier, calmed me down somewhat and helped me get centred.
Slowing down slightly, I looked around at the gathered people, seeing who congregated at a white supremacist rally.
Most of them were young, more than half were carrying alcohol and almost none of them looked particularly well off. There were far more men than women, and I could see scuffles breaking out between several people until their friends pulled them apart.
Nothing serious, but the underlying tones of aggression in the air were palpable. More than a party or get-together, this was a gathering of people looking for someone else to blame for their problems. Right now they were directionless, angry and bitter.
Easy to steer.
I could almost taste the words that would stir them into a frenzy, give them a target to take out all of their frustrations on. Something to make them feel better about the fact that nothing was being done to actually improve anything.
One man was standing nearby, his back to me and unable to notice me staring at him as I gradually shifted closer, the greater proximity giving me greater access to his nexus.
Nothing.
Oh, there were some skills to be sure, but nothing he had was of note or interest to me. He could drive, but I didn't have a car or access to one and that was not something I wanted to take away from anybody, not even the people here. Perhaps if he were a murderous villain, I might feel differently.
He could fight, but it was a dull, paltry talent compared to trained professionals. Brawling, wild and instinctive and utterly without refinement.
Adopting a bored expression, I let my eyes slide across him to the next person.
He had some skill at calculus, and a few other school subjects that I hadn't taken. He could drive, and that included knowing how to operate a forklift.
Not exactly something a hero could use to fight crime.
I switched my gaze to the girl next to him, shuffling closer in a way I hoped didn't draw attention to myself until I could hear her speak.
Taller than me and almost statuesque in her posture, the young woman just oozed confidence and assurance in a way that made me feel certain that I would be discovered at any moment when people realised how different I was to her. Her platinum blonde hair was cut relatively short, barely reaching her shoulders, and I had seen enough of the fine structure of her face and cheekbones as I approached to feel a flicker of resentment towards her simply for being where she was.
Like everybody else there, she had to raise her voice just to be heard, though the din of the music ensured that I could make out less than one word in three. She seemed to be asking her friend what he'd been doing since the last time she saw him, or maybe what he planned to do afterwards. It was difficult to get more than that given she was facing away from me.
Reaching out to her, I slipped from connection to connection, close enough that I could see her with turning my head away from the other end of the warehouse, where the music was blasting from.
She didn't know how to fight or shoot a gun, or hack a computer or any other skills that might help me in the future. I couldn't find any talent at art or working with her hands either, so I started looking further afield at less conventional talents.
Either she had been a mediocre student or her knowledge of most subjects had atrophied since she'd left high school, but the only thing that might benefit me was a good basis in geography. Not really knowing what else to do with her, I started draining it.
Did the connection dim slightly when she stopped talking and listened to her friend's response? I thought that it might have, but the difference, if there, was so negligible as to be irrelevant.
Keeping the drain on in the back of my mind, I gave the warehouse another slow sweep, trying to find people who stood out. Those who gathered others to them, who might be leaders or simply have enough talent to be useful to the Empire, and therefore to me.
The first to catch my eye were several men perched on crates by the wall, drinking beers and laughing with each other. They had the same stylized eights and swastikas inked into their skin as the door guards had, and one of them had bloody knuckles.
Violent thugs, probably with concealed weapons.
Were they enforcers for the Empire proper, or just people who joined up for the opportunity to hurt minorities? Either way, not the kind of people I was looking for just yet.
Looking around the room, all I could see was chaos. Not violent, not yet, and not very fast chaos, but the complete lack of any order or organisation made finding anybody important an exercise in frustration.
I could feel the drain from the woman fade away, and when I glanced back at her I realised that whatever she knew about geography was now mine and she had nothing more to offer me.
I wasn't even taking geography.
Feeling slightly dirty, I shook my head and moved on. Whoever I had hoped to find, they wouldn't be near where I was. I would have to go deeper, to the other end, to find anyone who might have organized this.
Swallowing to moisten a suddenly dry throat, made worse by the bitter cigarette fumes and the reek of sweat, I weaved between the loose groups of people to reach the edge of the room, going in the opposite direction of the thugs I saw earlier.
Someone stepped backwards into me and I stumbled, righting myself and pushing onward before they could turn around and speak to me, picking up the pace until I could spot an area that seemed relatively clear. Somewhere where I could observe people without standing out myself.
The lights hanging from the ceiling were old and dim, flickering fitfully and struggling to light up what was beneath them. The organisers of the rally had set up a few halogen floodlights, balancing them on crates so the harsh glare illuminated the entire room, details standing out starkly.
There was a tall man standing on the edge of the space, and I took shelter next to him though he had nothing worth taking, hoping people wouldn't notice me lurking in his shadow.
Two men caught my eye, clinking bottles of beer together as they laughed.
Two friends, enjoying a night out together.
One of them was tall and broad shouldered, with a neatly trimmed black beard over a strong jaw line and an easy smile. As he raised his drink I could see the muscles of his arms shifting underneath his shirt, strength built from years of hard work rather than that of a body builder exercising purely for mass and size. Even in the odd lighting of the warehouse I could make out the piercing blue of his eyes.
A brawler and a charmer, his skill with a rifle and skinning game showed him to be a keen hunter.
His friend was less impressive, thin and rangy, over a half foot shorter and hatchet-faced to boot. Scraggly blond hair and an unimpressive beard completed the contrast.
Perhaps it was simply his more suspicious appearance, but when I searched through his assorted talents, pausing at the now familiar cluster of communication and language that whispered to me of how he knew fluent German, I saw something rather more interesting. Latching on to his knowledge of locks and lock-picking, I started to draw it from him, wandering closer in the process.
I could think of many scenarios where that would be useful to know, regardless of how likely any of them were, and this way he couldn't use that knowledge to rob other places or people. A part of me wished I could be there to watch him try to pick a lock and fail utterly.
Perhaps knowing German would be more likely to be useful long-term, but there were many languages more widely spoken in the Bay, and I already knew several of those. After all, Kaiser and his lieutenants were hardly likely to conduct all of their secret meetings or send important messages in German.
I would have other opportunities to learn it anyway.
My eyes danced from person to person, trying to read who was important from their body language or that of those around them.
Shifting to get a better look at the far end of the warehouse, a group of men caught my eye.
A rough pyramid shape had been formed out of various crates and wooden boxes, and the half dozen men were perched on top of them. It took me a second to piece together why they drew my attention, but my breath hitched when I did.
It wasn't the boxes themselves, as many others were using them as seats, but the positioning.
The man sitting highest in the group was positioned in the centre, and the others were spread out, descending down the crates to the sides, so that whoever was speaking to them was partially surrounded.
Looking at the young man talking to them, I didn't see a submissive posture but rather an excited cockiness. Then the man at the top made a gesture, shouting something and one of the men on the edges pulled a bottle of beer out of a cooler and tossed it to the visitor, who took it with a smile and walked away.
Soon enough another man was there to take his place.
It was like a king holding court.
A shabby, rundown court made of the disgruntled working class voicing their anger at others, but some semblance of a court nonetheless.
I'd heard rumours that Kaiser himself would do something similar, forming a throne out of jagged blades where he could look down at the members of his gang, but I didn't know if that was true. Maybe this man was mimicking Kaiser, or maybe he'd just heard the same rumours and liked the idea. Maybe it was just pure coincidence.
Whatever the reason, he was making it obvious to everyone here that he was a man with power, and that made him my new target.
Shuffling along between groups of people, occasionally having someone stumble into me and having to ward them away with a raised hand and mumbled gesture, I made my way down to the other end of the warehouse.
It would look more natural with a drink in my hand, but I didn't have one and was far too young to bring one myself. Looking at the other people who weren't part of a group, they were generally jumping up and down and thrashing, or raising their drinks and shouting along with the music, some harsh metal band.
I tried to mimic them, bobbing my head up and down and moving my shoulders in what I hoped was the beat of the music. The whole thing felt so uncomfortably awkward. I couldn't imagine myself ever actually going to a proper rave or party for myself, but if I ever came back to somewhere like this again, I would need to do better, and I made a mental note to acquire the ability to dance, or whatever the hell this was. Because as mad as it seemed, these people seemed to be doing something with a purpose and I had no idea what it was.
Presumably, in this situation, the dancer was selling drugs to children or something like that.
Flickers of other people hit my mind, bumping into me or making accidental eye contact or a voice suddenly hitting clarity during a momentary quiet patch. Just enough to establish a brief connection to them but never enough to get a clear look into what they had before the next one came up.
Finally, I reached the edge of the pyramid.
Glancing around casually, I made eye contact with the man at the top.
His expression was haughty, and though he was smiling it was a cold smile that only highlighted the cruel cast to his features. He was wearing a leather jacket over a white dress shirt and jeans, dressed fractionally smarter than those around him.
His gaze was assessing, and despite my earlier determination I found myself shrinking back, my shoulders drawing in and hoping that he would look away.
After another few seconds studying me, in which my fear grew, he looked away, dismissive.
I slumped, my rasping, shuddering gasp pulling air into my lungs and making me realise that I had been holding my breath. A brief moment of disorientation at the rush of oxygen, as if the eye contact had lasted minutes instead of seconds.
A couple of the other men were eyeing me, possibly wondering why I had approached, so I let my gaze drift off of them while I surreptitiously backed away. I needed to find a spot to observe them from slightly farther away.
There was a young man slouched against the wall a short distance away, far enough to avoid suspicion from the pyramid, I hoped, but close enough for my purposes. Forcing my nervousness to the back of my mind, I made myself approach him.
"Hey," I called out, raising my voice to be heard, and he looked up at me.
A few years older than me, scrawny in a way that stood out in comparison to the older men in this area, he looked slightly surprised that I was talking to him.
"…hey," he returned, slowly.
"Are you one of the guys who set this up?" I asked, tilting my head slightly and widening my eyes, a half smile forming on my face. God, I was so fucking nervous about the many different ways this could go horribly wrong.
The young man just looked puzzled.
"What?"
Did he mishear me? Or was he just here for the same reasons I was, to get close to those with authority?
"Were you one of the guys who set this whole party up?" I asked, gesturing in the direction of the main mob, leaning in closer to him. "I just thought, since you're over here, near these guys," and I nodded towards the pyramid for good measure, taking the opportunity to get a better feel for whatever the apparent leader had, "you must have been involved."
He stared at me for a few seconds, and I could feel my confidence waning rapidly.
"No," he shook his head, slightly sullen, and I inwardly cursed.
I finished scanning through the leader's skills and realised that whatever it was that made him important here, it wasn't a skill I could steal from him. Whether it was knowing someone higher up in the Empire or just having more money than everyone else, it was irrelevant to me.
At the same time, I came to the realization that I had just walked up to a guy I didn't know and started talking to him, and I had no idea what to do next now that he couldn't tell me what I wanted to know.
"But I know a few of the guys who did," he added quickly, straightening up slightly and turning to face me.
Or maybe he can.
I would have looked up at him if he wasn't slightly shorter than me, even after trying to stand taller, so I settled for widening my smile a bit and slightly increasing the sideways tilt of my head.
"You work with them?" I asked, gesturing to the important people and switching targets to someone else. This time it was the man sat on a lower crate, to the centre man's left, closer to me. If the guy who looked like the leader didn't have something useful, perhaps he surrounded himself with people who did.
"Yeah," the man next to me nodded assertively, "sometimes. I mean, Dan and Jake moving stuff around, and they need a bit of help with that? They call me. Me and a few of the guys."
He was growing more animated, waving his hand towards the older men.
He might not have been such a bad choice after all, and since the second man wasn't giving me anything productive I switched my focus to him.
"Do you work with them a lot?" I ask, looking him in the eyes.
He hesitated.
"Every now and then. It varies, depends what they need doing. So, sometimes nothing, sometimes a fair bit. Nothing tonight, though. That was just the guy with the sound system and them bringing a few crates of beers."
"You deliver alcohol for them, then?" I ask, my interest waning when I realise that this guy didn't have anything of use to me beyond some high school calculus that I hadn't got to yet. And to be honest, I didn't think that he was high enough in the Empire for me to justify taking that from him. Not when I had more important targets right in front of me.
"No," he said, defensively this time.
He seemed offended.
Was that too small for him?
"Something stronger, then?" I press, not feigning my interest this time. If this guy moved drugs for the Empire, then that was something I could tip the police off about.
Again, he hesitated.
"They want some boxes moved, then boxes get moved," he shrugged with forced nonchalance. "The boxes don't got labels or anything. The kind of thing you don't ask questions about."
He was looking at me as he said that, and I got the message. If he knew anything, he wasn't going to tell me.
Looking back to the pyramid, I selected the guy on the other side of the leader apparent. Leaning in towards the young man next to me, I asked "That guy on the top, that's Dan? Or Jake?"
"What?" he seemed surprised by the question. "You mean Leon?"
I looked back at him and saw that he was frowning.
Shit.
Had I just given myself away by revealing that I didn't know the guy?
"This your first time?" he eventually asked, leaning in closer, and I floundered, not knowing how to answer.
"My first time?" I echoed weakly.
"Yeah, your first time here. At one of these."
I was probably safe, so I nodded.
"Yeah, I heard about it, so I thought I'd show up. See what it's like."
Fuck, I hoped he was buying this.
"Fuckin' A," he said, smiling broadly. "So what do you think of it?"
I slowly looked around the warehouse, trying to think of a response. The music was pulsing in my ears, the strobe lights were flashing and the crowd of people were shifting, some seeming to move and gyrate with the music while others just stood and talked.
It was like another world to me.
"It's… different." I tried. "To what I was expecting."
"What were you expecting?" he asked, looking curious.
What was I expecting? A bunch of villains standing around calling for the extermination of the lesser races? Everyone talking about where their drug shipments and weapons caches were? Kaiser himself to make an appearance?
"…I don't know," I admitted.
"Did you think it was going to be a bunch of guys in white robes with flaming torches?" he seemed amused.
Yes.
"No," I lied.
I don't think he believed me.
I looked back at the pyramid. Were these guys the best that was on offer tonight? In irritation, I shifted to another man and started looking through his skills. Computer games, chess, computer programming? He had knowledge of a few programming languages and general computer skills. Perhaps he was a software engineer. I don't know how this might be used to help the Empire 88, but he was sitting there with people involved in setting up a party-rave-rally thing for them, so he was obviously supporting them in some manner.
Fuck it, I'd take it.
"Are any of the big guys going to show up?" I asked, pushing it to the back of my mind.
"Big guys?"
"You know, the…" I paused, reminding myself that an Empire hopeful probably wouldn't call them villains, "…capes."
He laughed.
"This is just a party on the edge of Empire territory. You won't get those guys turning up at one of these. Some of them might appear at the big events, the ones held downtown, but mostly just when there's a new cape they want to show off."
This evening was starting to look like a waste of time.
He must have caught the expression on my face, for he hesitated, looking indecisive.
"They change the locations each time, but there are a few areas where they tend to happen. Hookwolf's crew sticks to the dog fighting rings, but some of the capes under Krieg turn up. Othala's even showed up a couple of times to grant powers to people, like when someone got fucked up by a spic one day and she healed them."
I knew who Hookwolf was, but the other names were less familiar to me, and I made a point to research them in more detail later on.
I looked over at the man I was drawing from.
"What about those guys?" I asked, still keeping my eyes focused on the one man. "Do they know any of the capes? Are they involved in that kind of stuff, you know, downtown?"
"…maybe," the guy next to me admitted, grudgingly. "Dan and Jake don't know shit, but Leon's sometimes involved. Maybe he gets the word to set something up, or he just gets told to bring some booze. I wouldn't bother him, though. He just likes to sit there and talk shit with some other guys, acting tough. Most people approach him, he just tells them to fuck off."
I'd need a few more minutes before I had the rest of the computer programming, and it looked like speaking to the guy supposedly in charge wouldn't help. Not that I actually knew what to say to him anyway.
I kept talking to the young Empire member, trying to draw details out of him while keeping an eye on the programmer for a stronger connection. After a while, his evasiveness started to wear on me, and I began to lose hope that I would get anything useful from him at all.
When the last thread of connection with the programmer faded away, I gave a brief scan of the others, but nothing else they had stood out to me as worth sticking around for any longer than I had to.
"You should come to the next one of these," he was saying next to me, his words only half registering. "Hey, what's your number? I can let you know when the next party is and where to meet up."
My thoughts came crashing down, bringing him back into sharp focus.
He was looking at me expectantly, and I realised then that I still didn't know his name.
"Next party?" I asked, reaching out for a way to stall. "How often do these happen?"
"Oh, it varies," he shrugged, still looking at me. "Depends how people feel about it. Maybe they're keen, or maybe it's just been a while. No way to really say. I'll let you know, though."
I needed a way to deflect him, and 'I don't have one' wouldn't sound believable.
"Why?" I asked, more sharply than I intended, and he seemed surprised. "I mean, I found out about this one by myself, didn't I?"
Shit, I should have stuck with the aggressive tone. Maybe he would have backed off then.
"Well, yeah," he floundered, looking uncertain, "but I can let you know ahead of time, tell you if anything else is going on, any of our guys setting something up. Stuff like that."
I remembered Emma dealing with a guy who tried to ask her out once, shutting him down without saying a word just by acting like acknowledging his presence was beneath her, while the other girls stood around and laughed.
I looked around the room, making it obvious that I was paying attention to the other people there. I tilted my head back and to the side slightly for good measure, so that he would know that I would be looking down at him if I acknowledged him.
At least, looking down at him even more than I was before.
If he would back off I could leave without any problems or drama.
The silence stretched on, and I hoped he would get the message.
"…or maybe I could call you about other stuff," he suddenly blurted out.
Damn it.
"Maybe not the big parties like these, but the smaller ones with a few of the guys. Or if you just wanted to grab some drinks." His voice trailed off.
…fuck.
Despite myself I turned to look at him, at least remembering to keep my head back and look down my nose at him.
"Do I look old enough to drink?" I asked, grabbing on to the first excuse to reject the offer.
"No," he admitted, "but neither am I, and when the hell has that stopped anyone?"
I didn't really have an answer to that, and he took the opportunity to move closer to me. Looking back into the crowd, I tried to ignore his presence as I frantically tried to think of something else to say.
"You're assuming I want to go out for a drink," I tried, feeling rather proud of myself for keeping my voice level, almost devoid of emotion. Like this whole conversation was nothing to me, instead of filling me with anxiety.
A pause.
"We don't have to go out for a drink. We could stay in for a drink instead."
"Maybe I just don't want to get a drink at all."
Please, for the love of God, get the message.
Then his hand snaked around my waist, gently pulling me closer to him.
"I'm sure we can think of something else to do instead."
Shocked by the sudden contact, I looked at him, and he had a half-smile on his face, his eyes darting between my own as he looked at me.
The moment stretched out, and I was struck by the fact that I needed to get out of here as soon as possible, or this night was going to go very badly.
Pulling my hand out of my pocket, I placed it over his, and I could see his smile widen slightly, his back straighten a bit further, and then I peeled his fingers back, pulling his hand away from my waist and pushing it away before letting go.
His smile faltered, and I frowned slightly, pursing my lips and raising an eyebrow.
I'm not interested.
You aren't worth my time.
Go away.
This was so much easier for Emma than for me. I guess that when you're beautiful it's easier to convince people you were out of their league.
I kept the look for a few more seconds, to ensure that he had gotten the message, and then looked away once more, plotting my exit from the room, seeing which paths had opened up through the people on the periphery of the party.
"Maybe you should give me a try," he said defensively, his voice raising a bit as I looked away. "Come on, I can be fun."
Was there someone here with an ability to speak to people and convince them that I could steal? Though any attempt to find that would probably take too long and would mean more time spent here.
Fuck, time to go full Emma. Hit the ego and leave. Don't give him a chance to reply.
I glanced back him, tilting my head back and letting scorn seep into my voice.
"I doubt that."
Then I turned and walked away, striding purposefully towards the nearest open gap.
My heart racing, I kept my face locked and my pace level, and for a few precious seconds I was convinced that I had gotten away with it.
"Hey!" he was angry now, and despite myself I looked back seeing him striding faster than me to catch up, his face flushed and fists clenched.
I ignored him, looking back to the exit and hoping to lose him in the crowd. But just before I managed to duck past a busy couple I felt his hand grab hold of my wrist, yanking me around to face him.
"The hell do you think you're playing at?" he demanded furiously. "What kind of game are you playing?"
"I'm not," I said coolly, as my heart tried to break out of my rib cage, "I'm leaving. Goodbye."
I tried to pull my hand away, but his grip was stronger than I was and I couldn't escape.
"The fuck you are," he snapped. "You can't just show up, all chatty and flirting, then just fuck off like I'm nothing."
"I think you'll find I can," I snapped back, panicking, casting around frantically for someone who could help me. Several others were watching, grinning and laughing at the display, and I felt a surge of fury at the sight, pulsing through my veins, its intensity surprising even me.
There was a gap to my left, but it was my left wrist he caught hold of, and the only people to my right were the couple I saw earlier. The man certainly seemed large enough to take care of my problem, but he was rather busy sticking his tongue down his girlfriend's throat, his arms wrapped around her back.
"No you can't. You aren't leaving until I get your number."
"Don't have one. Don't have a cell phone." I retort, vainly trying to free my wrist.
"Bullshit," he sneered.
I'd hope the big guy would be different and help me out, in contrast to everyone else, but he was preoccupied.
"Believe what you want, but I'm leaving now. Or are you going to manhandle me right here, in front of everyone?"
He looked furiously around at the number of people watching, and I could see the nervousness flaring up, see the self-consciousness pushing him to go further in his display of dominance just as I felt his grip tighten further.
The exact opposite of the response I wanted.
"Doesn't look like anybody is stepping in to help you, does it?" he scoffed, and his smile started to return, twisted and ugly.
If nobody was going to choose to help me, I was going to have to force them.
I couldn't shout out for help, since plenty had already noticed and chosen to do nothing, and as the still-unnamed Empire flunky started to drag me back, even the big guy next to me looked like he would soon be out of reach.
He was still too focused on his girlfriend to have noticed what was happening next to him.
Well, then.
I took half a step forward as I was dragged, and the young man stumbled slightly at the brief lack of resistance. I stepped sideways and then backwards, twisting round and using the brief surge of momentum to pull him to my side.
"What the fuck, you crazy bitch!" he snapped, staggering to a halt still holding tight to my wrist, putting the two of us almost perpendicular to the other couple, with the woman almost in between us. "How hard is it to give someone a fucking phone number?"
Dropping my right hand from where it was futilely trying to undo his grip, I reached out and grabbed hold of the woman's ass, giving it a hard squeeze for good measure.
She jerked back, pulling away from her boyfriend and turning around angrily.
Her eyes settled on the two of us, looking first towards me, probably being able to feel the general direction the hand had come from.
I looked down at where her backside had been, before looking back towards the young man and letting an expression of outrage flash across my face.
"The fuck you trying to pull, asshole?" I demanded, looking and sounding as angry as I could, waving my hands in her general direction. "You trying to feel up every girl here, you fucking creep?"
He was still off balance, his anger giving way to confusion as the sudden reposition was followed by an equally sudden shift in how I was acting.
"What?" he was uncertain now, his brief surge of anger-induced confidence draining away as the new witness glared at him, with her considerably-larger-than-him boyfriend standing beside her.
"You think I didn't see that?" I demanded, gesturing again towards the vicinity of her backside.
"What's going on?' the big guy asked, almost as confused as the smaller guy, but already annoyed that his make-out session had been interrupted.
"This fuck-stain tried to feel me up!" the girlfriend practically shrieked, jabbing at him with her fingers and getting up in his face, which was rapidly shifting into an expression of frightened realization that he had no idea what to do.
"You trying to feel up every girl here, you fucking creep?!" I repeated, louder than before, making sure that everyone nearby could hear me, as the big guy hadn't seemed to register it the first time.
"Hey, asshole!" the big guy was almost as angry as his girlfriend now.
"What?!" the smaller guy said, face switching between panic and fury. "That bitch is lying. I didn't do nothin'!"
"The fuck you call her?"
Pushing his girlfriend sharply to the side, the big guy stepped forward and swung a punch, his fist connecting with the smaller guy's jaw with an impact I wanted to believe I could hear over the music.
He was practically thrown to the ground, his hand being torn free from my wrist, and as the shouts around us surged in volume, I felt like cheering along with them.
A ring swiftly formed in the crowd, and the shouting turned vicious and gleeful. Glancing to the side, I could see people approaching from the area I was trying to get out through. I had to move fast.
"Fuck him up!" I shouted, pointing at the still dazed young man on the ground, then I turned around and darted away, bumping into a couple of new spectators as I pushed my way out. Several people pushed me back, but within half a minute I had reached the exit, and the chill January air was like a slap to my face after the oppressive warmth from the crowd.
The two guys slouched outside gave me a curious look, but I ignored them, striding away as fast as I could without looking like I was fleeing.
I realised that at some point during the night, my hood had fallen back, exposing my hair, and I hurriedly pulled it back into place, my hands shaking as I did so, the adrenaline charging through my system.
Were they going to follow me?
My ears strained for the sound of footsteps, for someone to shout out after me. Had they realised that I had started the fight and ran away, or that I wasn't a real supporter of their cause? Had they realised that I was a cape and called for back-up?
My eyes flickered over every open alleyway and window on every building that I passed, waiting for someone to step out and challenge me, for Hookwolf to coming charging forth or Kaiser to step out and impale me. Would it be Purity, dropping out of the sky in a blaze of light to obliterate me?
As I glanced up a flash of white gliding through the air caught my eye and almost stopped my heart.
It was just an owl, alighting on a streetlight.
I couldn't help it. I laughed, the stress bubbling out of me in hysterical giggles as the owl's head swiveled to watch my progress. Of all the dangerous creatures in the city, an owl was probably the least likely to actually hurt me.
Smiling to myself, breathing in the cold night air, I broke into a jog.
Maybe it wasn't as good as I had hoped, but my first night out could be counted as a success. Now I just had to get home before Dad realised I was gone.
I could see several men walking towards the old warehouse in front of me, their shaved heads and pale skin standing in stark contrast to the black leather jackets they wore. The contrast was further highlighted whenever they walked underneath one of the working streetlights.
Whatever they were saying was a barely distinguishable murmur underneath the music, but their confidence, bordering on arrogance, was written plain to see in their body language. They weren't particularly large or strong-looking, and probably weren't even twenty, but the three young men carried themselves like they were men grown and part of a group ten times the size.
Don't show weakness. Don't show doubt.
I remembered the way Emma walked through Winslow after something went well for her. People got out of her way just because she expected them to, and she knew it. She didn't look at the ground or watch where she put her feet, and if she didn't like someone then she wouldn't even acknowledge their existence.
You fit in and nobody will doubt that.
I straightened my posture, pulling my shoulders back slightly and raising my chin. Like all the skills I had acquired and used only infrequently, it left a vague feeling of dissonance in me, the actions both instinctive and utterly unfamiliar.
I kept my hood pulled up, mostly out of a generalized fear of appearing too feminine in this part of the city. It wasn't normally a concern of mine, but I wanted to attract as little attention as possible while walking on my own late at night.
There were two men standing outside the warehouse doors, leaning against the wall and smoking. Older than the young men, or possible boys that had been walking in front of me, they were more muscled and gave every impression of being ready to fight should they ever feel the need. In their forties, or maybe even fifties, they had graying hair and a number of tattoos on their necks and cheeks, with the swastika and number '88' being the most prominent for each of them.
Swallowing nervously, I approached them, forcing myself not to clench my fists or turn tail and flee. I had made it this far. The still unfamiliar feel of foundation on my cheeks helped surprisingly well with this endeavour. It had almost felt like putting on a mask as I applied it, like I was preparing myself as a cape and not just a normal person. But instead of putting it on to look eye-catching and dramatic, I was trying to look a few years older.
Some lipstick had followed, and then some eye-shadow, until I was looking at a different person in the mirror. Nothing that would stop anybody from recognizing me if they saw me, of course, but maybe enough to stop them from looking twice if their first glance showed somebody who looked like they belonged.
The man on the right looked me over, his eyes traveling up and down my body once before his head made some vague gesture of approval or acceptance, his eyes turning back to the street. The man on the left didn't even bother with that, simply glancing at my face and then turning away.
Struggling to breathe normally, I walked right past the two of them and into the warehouse, illuminated by the harsh, staccato glare of strobe lights, flashing through a dozen colours from a few laser light machines.
While the music seemed to jump in volume even further, almost offensive in its assault on my eardrums, it was the smell that struck me most. Old sweat and beer were the most prominent aromas, along with something mustier that I didn't recognise and didn't want to. Together they managed to hit the back of my throat and leave me struggling to breathe.
Turning away from the thick press of bodies at the centre of the room, I started walking towards the first reasonably open space I could see before the fear and stupidity of what I was doing crashed down on me.
Skirting the edges of the room, I reminded myself why I was here.
This was it.
This was me going out and using my powers to oppose criminals.
This was my first outing as a hero.
I wouldn't be fighting any villains, or at least not physically and as long as everything went according to plan, and I certainly wasn't wearing a costume, but I had made the decision to use my powers against criminals and that was what I was here to do.
Focusing on that made it easier, calmed me down somewhat and helped me get centred.
Slowing down slightly, I looked around at the gathered people, seeing who congregated at a white supremacist rally.
Most of them were young, more than half were carrying alcohol and almost none of them looked particularly well off. There were far more men than women, and I could see scuffles breaking out between several people until their friends pulled them apart.
Nothing serious, but the underlying tones of aggression in the air were palpable. More than a party or get-together, this was a gathering of people looking for someone else to blame for their problems. Right now they were directionless, angry and bitter.
Easy to steer.
I could almost taste the words that would stir them into a frenzy, give them a target to take out all of their frustrations on. Something to make them feel better about the fact that nothing was being done to actually improve anything.
One man was standing nearby, his back to me and unable to notice me staring at him as I gradually shifted closer, the greater proximity giving me greater access to his nexus.
Nothing.
Oh, there were some skills to be sure, but nothing he had was of note or interest to me. He could drive, but I didn't have a car or access to one and that was not something I wanted to take away from anybody, not even the people here. Perhaps if he were a murderous villain, I might feel differently.
He could fight, but it was a dull, paltry talent compared to trained professionals. Brawling, wild and instinctive and utterly without refinement.
Adopting a bored expression, I let my eyes slide across him to the next person.
He had some skill at calculus, and a few other school subjects that I hadn't taken. He could drive, and that included knowing how to operate a forklift.
Not exactly something a hero could use to fight crime.
I switched my gaze to the girl next to him, shuffling closer in a way I hoped didn't draw attention to myself until I could hear her speak.
Taller than me and almost statuesque in her posture, the young woman just oozed confidence and assurance in a way that made me feel certain that I would be discovered at any moment when people realised how different I was to her. Her platinum blonde hair was cut relatively short, barely reaching her shoulders, and I had seen enough of the fine structure of her face and cheekbones as I approached to feel a flicker of resentment towards her simply for being where she was.
Like everybody else there, she had to raise her voice just to be heard, though the din of the music ensured that I could make out less than one word in three. She seemed to be asking her friend what he'd been doing since the last time she saw him, or maybe what he planned to do afterwards. It was difficult to get more than that given she was facing away from me.
Reaching out to her, I slipped from connection to connection, close enough that I could see her with turning my head away from the other end of the warehouse, where the music was blasting from.
She didn't know how to fight or shoot a gun, or hack a computer or any other skills that might help me in the future. I couldn't find any talent at art or working with her hands either, so I started looking further afield at less conventional talents.
Either she had been a mediocre student or her knowledge of most subjects had atrophied since she'd left high school, but the only thing that might benefit me was a good basis in geography. Not really knowing what else to do with her, I started draining it.
Did the connection dim slightly when she stopped talking and listened to her friend's response? I thought that it might have, but the difference, if there, was so negligible as to be irrelevant.
Keeping the drain on in the back of my mind, I gave the warehouse another slow sweep, trying to find people who stood out. Those who gathered others to them, who might be leaders or simply have enough talent to be useful to the Empire, and therefore to me.
The first to catch my eye were several men perched on crates by the wall, drinking beers and laughing with each other. They had the same stylized eights and swastikas inked into their skin as the door guards had, and one of them had bloody knuckles.
Violent thugs, probably with concealed weapons.
Were they enforcers for the Empire proper, or just people who joined up for the opportunity to hurt minorities? Either way, not the kind of people I was looking for just yet.
Looking around the room, all I could see was chaos. Not violent, not yet, and not very fast chaos, but the complete lack of any order or organisation made finding anybody important an exercise in frustration.
I could feel the drain from the woman fade away, and when I glanced back at her I realised that whatever she knew about geography was now mine and she had nothing more to offer me.
I wasn't even taking geography.
Feeling slightly dirty, I shook my head and moved on. Whoever I had hoped to find, they wouldn't be near where I was. I would have to go deeper, to the other end, to find anyone who might have organized this.
Swallowing to moisten a suddenly dry throat, made worse by the bitter cigarette fumes and the reek of sweat, I weaved between the loose groups of people to reach the edge of the room, going in the opposite direction of the thugs I saw earlier.
Someone stepped backwards into me and I stumbled, righting myself and pushing onward before they could turn around and speak to me, picking up the pace until I could spot an area that seemed relatively clear. Somewhere where I could observe people without standing out myself.
The lights hanging from the ceiling were old and dim, flickering fitfully and struggling to light up what was beneath them. The organisers of the rally had set up a few halogen floodlights, balancing them on crates so the harsh glare illuminated the entire room, details standing out starkly.
There was a tall man standing on the edge of the space, and I took shelter next to him though he had nothing worth taking, hoping people wouldn't notice me lurking in his shadow.
Two men caught my eye, clinking bottles of beer together as they laughed.
Two friends, enjoying a night out together.
One of them was tall and broad shouldered, with a neatly trimmed black beard over a strong jaw line and an easy smile. As he raised his drink I could see the muscles of his arms shifting underneath his shirt, strength built from years of hard work rather than that of a body builder exercising purely for mass and size. Even in the odd lighting of the warehouse I could make out the piercing blue of his eyes.
A brawler and a charmer, his skill with a rifle and skinning game showed him to be a keen hunter.
His friend was less impressive, thin and rangy, over a half foot shorter and hatchet-faced to boot. Scraggly blond hair and an unimpressive beard completed the contrast.
Perhaps it was simply his more suspicious appearance, but when I searched through his assorted talents, pausing at the now familiar cluster of communication and language that whispered to me of how he knew fluent German, I saw something rather more interesting. Latching on to his knowledge of locks and lock-picking, I started to draw it from him, wandering closer in the process.
I could think of many scenarios where that would be useful to know, regardless of how likely any of them were, and this way he couldn't use that knowledge to rob other places or people. A part of me wished I could be there to watch him try to pick a lock and fail utterly.
Perhaps knowing German would be more likely to be useful long-term, but there were many languages more widely spoken in the Bay, and I already knew several of those. After all, Kaiser and his lieutenants were hardly likely to conduct all of their secret meetings or send important messages in German.
I would have other opportunities to learn it anyway.
My eyes danced from person to person, trying to read who was important from their body language or that of those around them.
Shifting to get a better look at the far end of the warehouse, a group of men caught my eye.
A rough pyramid shape had been formed out of various crates and wooden boxes, and the half dozen men were perched on top of them. It took me a second to piece together why they drew my attention, but my breath hitched when I did.
It wasn't the boxes themselves, as many others were using them as seats, but the positioning.
The man sitting highest in the group was positioned in the centre, and the others were spread out, descending down the crates to the sides, so that whoever was speaking to them was partially surrounded.
Looking at the young man talking to them, I didn't see a submissive posture but rather an excited cockiness. Then the man at the top made a gesture, shouting something and one of the men on the edges pulled a bottle of beer out of a cooler and tossed it to the visitor, who took it with a smile and walked away.
Soon enough another man was there to take his place.
It was like a king holding court.
A shabby, rundown court made of the disgruntled working class voicing their anger at others, but some semblance of a court nonetheless.
I'd heard rumours that Kaiser himself would do something similar, forming a throne out of jagged blades where he could look down at the members of his gang, but I didn't know if that was true. Maybe this man was mimicking Kaiser, or maybe he'd just heard the same rumours and liked the idea. Maybe it was just pure coincidence.
Whatever the reason, he was making it obvious to everyone here that he was a man with power, and that made him my new target.
Shuffling along between groups of people, occasionally having someone stumble into me and having to ward them away with a raised hand and mumbled gesture, I made my way down to the other end of the warehouse.
It would look more natural with a drink in my hand, but I didn't have one and was far too young to bring one myself. Looking at the other people who weren't part of a group, they were generally jumping up and down and thrashing, or raising their drinks and shouting along with the music, some harsh metal band.
I tried to mimic them, bobbing my head up and down and moving my shoulders in what I hoped was the beat of the music. The whole thing felt so uncomfortably awkward. I couldn't imagine myself ever actually going to a proper rave or party for myself, but if I ever came back to somewhere like this again, I would need to do better, and I made a mental note to acquire the ability to dance, or whatever the hell this was. Because as mad as it seemed, these people seemed to be doing something with a purpose and I had no idea what it was.
Presumably, in this situation, the dancer was selling drugs to children or something like that.
Flickers of other people hit my mind, bumping into me or making accidental eye contact or a voice suddenly hitting clarity during a momentary quiet patch. Just enough to establish a brief connection to them but never enough to get a clear look into what they had before the next one came up.
Finally, I reached the edge of the pyramid.
Glancing around casually, I made eye contact with the man at the top.
His expression was haughty, and though he was smiling it was a cold smile that only highlighted the cruel cast to his features. He was wearing a leather jacket over a white dress shirt and jeans, dressed fractionally smarter than those around him.
His gaze was assessing, and despite my earlier determination I found myself shrinking back, my shoulders drawing in and hoping that he would look away.
After another few seconds studying me, in which my fear grew, he looked away, dismissive.
I slumped, my rasping, shuddering gasp pulling air into my lungs and making me realise that I had been holding my breath. A brief moment of disorientation at the rush of oxygen, as if the eye contact had lasted minutes instead of seconds.
A couple of the other men were eyeing me, possibly wondering why I had approached, so I let my gaze drift off of them while I surreptitiously backed away. I needed to find a spot to observe them from slightly farther away.
There was a young man slouched against the wall a short distance away, far enough to avoid suspicion from the pyramid, I hoped, but close enough for my purposes. Forcing my nervousness to the back of my mind, I made myself approach him.
"Hey," I called out, raising my voice to be heard, and he looked up at me.
A few years older than me, scrawny in a way that stood out in comparison to the older men in this area, he looked slightly surprised that I was talking to him.
"…hey," he returned, slowly.
"Are you one of the guys who set this up?" I asked, tilting my head slightly and widening my eyes, a half smile forming on my face. God, I was so fucking nervous about the many different ways this could go horribly wrong.
The young man just looked puzzled.
"What?"
Did he mishear me? Or was he just here for the same reasons I was, to get close to those with authority?
"Were you one of the guys who set this whole party up?" I asked, gesturing in the direction of the main mob, leaning in closer to him. "I just thought, since you're over here, near these guys," and I nodded towards the pyramid for good measure, taking the opportunity to get a better feel for whatever the apparent leader had, "you must have been involved."
He stared at me for a few seconds, and I could feel my confidence waning rapidly.
"No," he shook his head, slightly sullen, and I inwardly cursed.
I finished scanning through the leader's skills and realised that whatever it was that made him important here, it wasn't a skill I could steal from him. Whether it was knowing someone higher up in the Empire or just having more money than everyone else, it was irrelevant to me.
At the same time, I came to the realization that I had just walked up to a guy I didn't know and started talking to him, and I had no idea what to do next now that he couldn't tell me what I wanted to know.
"But I know a few of the guys who did," he added quickly, straightening up slightly and turning to face me.
Or maybe he can.
I would have looked up at him if he wasn't slightly shorter than me, even after trying to stand taller, so I settled for widening my smile a bit and slightly increasing the sideways tilt of my head.
"You work with them?" I asked, gesturing to the important people and switching targets to someone else. This time it was the man sat on a lower crate, to the centre man's left, closer to me. If the guy who looked like the leader didn't have something useful, perhaps he surrounded himself with people who did.
"Yeah," the man next to me nodded assertively, "sometimes. I mean, Dan and Jake moving stuff around, and they need a bit of help with that? They call me. Me and a few of the guys."
He was growing more animated, waving his hand towards the older men.
He might not have been such a bad choice after all, and since the second man wasn't giving me anything productive I switched my focus to him.
"Do you work with them a lot?" I ask, looking him in the eyes.
He hesitated.
"Every now and then. It varies, depends what they need doing. So, sometimes nothing, sometimes a fair bit. Nothing tonight, though. That was just the guy with the sound system and them bringing a few crates of beers."
"You deliver alcohol for them, then?" I ask, my interest waning when I realise that this guy didn't have anything of use to me beyond some high school calculus that I hadn't got to yet. And to be honest, I didn't think that he was high enough in the Empire for me to justify taking that from him. Not when I had more important targets right in front of me.
"No," he said, defensively this time.
He seemed offended.
Was that too small for him?
"Something stronger, then?" I press, not feigning my interest this time. If this guy moved drugs for the Empire, then that was something I could tip the police off about.
Again, he hesitated.
"They want some boxes moved, then boxes get moved," he shrugged with forced nonchalance. "The boxes don't got labels or anything. The kind of thing you don't ask questions about."
He was looking at me as he said that, and I got the message. If he knew anything, he wasn't going to tell me.
Looking back to the pyramid, I selected the guy on the other side of the leader apparent. Leaning in towards the young man next to me, I asked "That guy on the top, that's Dan? Or Jake?"
"What?" he seemed surprised by the question. "You mean Leon?"
I looked back at him and saw that he was frowning.
Shit.
Had I just given myself away by revealing that I didn't know the guy?
"This your first time?" he eventually asked, leaning in closer, and I floundered, not knowing how to answer.
"My first time?" I echoed weakly.
"Yeah, your first time here. At one of these."
I was probably safe, so I nodded.
"Yeah, I heard about it, so I thought I'd show up. See what it's like."
Fuck, I hoped he was buying this.
"Fuckin' A," he said, smiling broadly. "So what do you think of it?"
I slowly looked around the warehouse, trying to think of a response. The music was pulsing in my ears, the strobe lights were flashing and the crowd of people were shifting, some seeming to move and gyrate with the music while others just stood and talked.
It was like another world to me.
"It's… different." I tried. "To what I was expecting."
"What were you expecting?" he asked, looking curious.
What was I expecting? A bunch of villains standing around calling for the extermination of the lesser races? Everyone talking about where their drug shipments and weapons caches were? Kaiser himself to make an appearance?
"…I don't know," I admitted.
"Did you think it was going to be a bunch of guys in white robes with flaming torches?" he seemed amused.
Yes.
"No," I lied.
I don't think he believed me.
I looked back at the pyramid. Were these guys the best that was on offer tonight? In irritation, I shifted to another man and started looking through his skills. Computer games, chess, computer programming? He had knowledge of a few programming languages and general computer skills. Perhaps he was a software engineer. I don't know how this might be used to help the Empire 88, but he was sitting there with people involved in setting up a party-rave-rally thing for them, so he was obviously supporting them in some manner.
Fuck it, I'd take it.
"Are any of the big guys going to show up?" I asked, pushing it to the back of my mind.
"Big guys?"
"You know, the…" I paused, reminding myself that an Empire hopeful probably wouldn't call them villains, "…capes."
He laughed.
"This is just a party on the edge of Empire territory. You won't get those guys turning up at one of these. Some of them might appear at the big events, the ones held downtown, but mostly just when there's a new cape they want to show off."
This evening was starting to look like a waste of time.
He must have caught the expression on my face, for he hesitated, looking indecisive.
"They change the locations each time, but there are a few areas where they tend to happen. Hookwolf's crew sticks to the dog fighting rings, but some of the capes under Krieg turn up. Othala's even showed up a couple of times to grant powers to people, like when someone got fucked up by a spic one day and she healed them."
I knew who Hookwolf was, but the other names were less familiar to me, and I made a point to research them in more detail later on.
I looked over at the man I was drawing from.
"What about those guys?" I asked, still keeping my eyes focused on the one man. "Do they know any of the capes? Are they involved in that kind of stuff, you know, downtown?"
"…maybe," the guy next to me admitted, grudgingly. "Dan and Jake don't know shit, but Leon's sometimes involved. Maybe he gets the word to set something up, or he just gets told to bring some booze. I wouldn't bother him, though. He just likes to sit there and talk shit with some other guys, acting tough. Most people approach him, he just tells them to fuck off."
I'd need a few more minutes before I had the rest of the computer programming, and it looked like speaking to the guy supposedly in charge wouldn't help. Not that I actually knew what to say to him anyway.
I kept talking to the young Empire member, trying to draw details out of him while keeping an eye on the programmer for a stronger connection. After a while, his evasiveness started to wear on me, and I began to lose hope that I would get anything useful from him at all.
When the last thread of connection with the programmer faded away, I gave a brief scan of the others, but nothing else they had stood out to me as worth sticking around for any longer than I had to.
"You should come to the next one of these," he was saying next to me, his words only half registering. "Hey, what's your number? I can let you know when the next party is and where to meet up."
My thoughts came crashing down, bringing him back into sharp focus.
He was looking at me expectantly, and I realised then that I still didn't know his name.
"Next party?" I asked, reaching out for a way to stall. "How often do these happen?"
"Oh, it varies," he shrugged, still looking at me. "Depends how people feel about it. Maybe they're keen, or maybe it's just been a while. No way to really say. I'll let you know, though."
I needed a way to deflect him, and 'I don't have one' wouldn't sound believable.
"Why?" I asked, more sharply than I intended, and he seemed surprised. "I mean, I found out about this one by myself, didn't I?"
Shit, I should have stuck with the aggressive tone. Maybe he would have backed off then.
"Well, yeah," he floundered, looking uncertain, "but I can let you know ahead of time, tell you if anything else is going on, any of our guys setting something up. Stuff like that."
I remembered Emma dealing with a guy who tried to ask her out once, shutting him down without saying a word just by acting like acknowledging his presence was beneath her, while the other girls stood around and laughed.
I looked around the room, making it obvious that I was paying attention to the other people there. I tilted my head back and to the side slightly for good measure, so that he would know that I would be looking down at him if I acknowledged him.
At least, looking down at him even more than I was before.
If he would back off I could leave without any problems or drama.
The silence stretched on, and I hoped he would get the message.
"…or maybe I could call you about other stuff," he suddenly blurted out.
Damn it.
"Maybe not the big parties like these, but the smaller ones with a few of the guys. Or if you just wanted to grab some drinks." His voice trailed off.
…fuck.
Despite myself I turned to look at him, at least remembering to keep my head back and look down my nose at him.
"Do I look old enough to drink?" I asked, grabbing on to the first excuse to reject the offer.
"No," he admitted, "but neither am I, and when the hell has that stopped anyone?"
I didn't really have an answer to that, and he took the opportunity to move closer to me. Looking back into the crowd, I tried to ignore his presence as I frantically tried to think of something else to say.
"You're assuming I want to go out for a drink," I tried, feeling rather proud of myself for keeping my voice level, almost devoid of emotion. Like this whole conversation was nothing to me, instead of filling me with anxiety.
A pause.
"We don't have to go out for a drink. We could stay in for a drink instead."
"Maybe I just don't want to get a drink at all."
Please, for the love of God, get the message.
Then his hand snaked around my waist, gently pulling me closer to him.
"I'm sure we can think of something else to do instead."
Shocked by the sudden contact, I looked at him, and he had a half-smile on his face, his eyes darting between my own as he looked at me.
The moment stretched out, and I was struck by the fact that I needed to get out of here as soon as possible, or this night was going to go very badly.
Pulling my hand out of my pocket, I placed it over his, and I could see his smile widen slightly, his back straighten a bit further, and then I peeled his fingers back, pulling his hand away from my waist and pushing it away before letting go.
His smile faltered, and I frowned slightly, pursing my lips and raising an eyebrow.
I'm not interested.
You aren't worth my time.
Go away.
This was so much easier for Emma than for me. I guess that when you're beautiful it's easier to convince people you were out of their league.
I kept the look for a few more seconds, to ensure that he had gotten the message, and then looked away once more, plotting my exit from the room, seeing which paths had opened up through the people on the periphery of the party.
"Maybe you should give me a try," he said defensively, his voice raising a bit as I looked away. "Come on, I can be fun."
Was there someone here with an ability to speak to people and convince them that I could steal? Though any attempt to find that would probably take too long and would mean more time spent here.
Fuck, time to go full Emma. Hit the ego and leave. Don't give him a chance to reply.
I glanced back him, tilting my head back and letting scorn seep into my voice.
"I doubt that."
Then I turned and walked away, striding purposefully towards the nearest open gap.
My heart racing, I kept my face locked and my pace level, and for a few precious seconds I was convinced that I had gotten away with it.
"Hey!" he was angry now, and despite myself I looked back seeing him striding faster than me to catch up, his face flushed and fists clenched.
I ignored him, looking back to the exit and hoping to lose him in the crowd. But just before I managed to duck past a busy couple I felt his hand grab hold of my wrist, yanking me around to face him.
"The hell do you think you're playing at?" he demanded furiously. "What kind of game are you playing?"
"I'm not," I said coolly, as my heart tried to break out of my rib cage, "I'm leaving. Goodbye."
I tried to pull my hand away, but his grip was stronger than I was and I couldn't escape.
"The fuck you are," he snapped. "You can't just show up, all chatty and flirting, then just fuck off like I'm nothing."
"I think you'll find I can," I snapped back, panicking, casting around frantically for someone who could help me. Several others were watching, grinning and laughing at the display, and I felt a surge of fury at the sight, pulsing through my veins, its intensity surprising even me.
There was a gap to my left, but it was my left wrist he caught hold of, and the only people to my right were the couple I saw earlier. The man certainly seemed large enough to take care of my problem, but he was rather busy sticking his tongue down his girlfriend's throat, his arms wrapped around her back.
"No you can't. You aren't leaving until I get your number."
"Don't have one. Don't have a cell phone." I retort, vainly trying to free my wrist.
"Bullshit," he sneered.
I'd hope the big guy would be different and help me out, in contrast to everyone else, but he was preoccupied.
"Believe what you want, but I'm leaving now. Or are you going to manhandle me right here, in front of everyone?"
He looked furiously around at the number of people watching, and I could see the nervousness flaring up, see the self-consciousness pushing him to go further in his display of dominance just as I felt his grip tighten further.
The exact opposite of the response I wanted.
"Doesn't look like anybody is stepping in to help you, does it?" he scoffed, and his smile started to return, twisted and ugly.
If nobody was going to choose to help me, I was going to have to force them.
I couldn't shout out for help, since plenty had already noticed and chosen to do nothing, and as the still-unnamed Empire flunky started to drag me back, even the big guy next to me looked like he would soon be out of reach.
He was still too focused on his girlfriend to have noticed what was happening next to him.
Well, then.
I took half a step forward as I was dragged, and the young man stumbled slightly at the brief lack of resistance. I stepped sideways and then backwards, twisting round and using the brief surge of momentum to pull him to my side.
"What the fuck, you crazy bitch!" he snapped, staggering to a halt still holding tight to my wrist, putting the two of us almost perpendicular to the other couple, with the woman almost in between us. "How hard is it to give someone a fucking phone number?"
Dropping my right hand from where it was futilely trying to undo his grip, I reached out and grabbed hold of the woman's ass, giving it a hard squeeze for good measure.
She jerked back, pulling away from her boyfriend and turning around angrily.
Her eyes settled on the two of us, looking first towards me, probably being able to feel the general direction the hand had come from.
I looked down at where her backside had been, before looking back towards the young man and letting an expression of outrage flash across my face.
"The fuck you trying to pull, asshole?" I demanded, looking and sounding as angry as I could, waving my hands in her general direction. "You trying to feel up every girl here, you fucking creep?"
He was still off balance, his anger giving way to confusion as the sudden reposition was followed by an equally sudden shift in how I was acting.
"What?" he was uncertain now, his brief surge of anger-induced confidence draining away as the new witness glared at him, with her considerably-larger-than-him boyfriend standing beside her.
"You think I didn't see that?" I demanded, gesturing again towards the vicinity of her backside.
"What's going on?' the big guy asked, almost as confused as the smaller guy, but already annoyed that his make-out session had been interrupted.
"This fuck-stain tried to feel me up!" the girlfriend practically shrieked, jabbing at him with her fingers and getting up in his face, which was rapidly shifting into an expression of frightened realization that he had no idea what to do.
"You trying to feel up every girl here, you fucking creep?!" I repeated, louder than before, making sure that everyone nearby could hear me, as the big guy hadn't seemed to register it the first time.
"Hey, asshole!" the big guy was almost as angry as his girlfriend now.
"What?!" the smaller guy said, face switching between panic and fury. "That bitch is lying. I didn't do nothin'!"
"The fuck you call her?"
Pushing his girlfriend sharply to the side, the big guy stepped forward and swung a punch, his fist connecting with the smaller guy's jaw with an impact I wanted to believe I could hear over the music.
He was practically thrown to the ground, his hand being torn free from my wrist, and as the shouts around us surged in volume, I felt like cheering along with them.
A ring swiftly formed in the crowd, and the shouting turned vicious and gleeful. Glancing to the side, I could see people approaching from the area I was trying to get out through. I had to move fast.
"Fuck him up!" I shouted, pointing at the still dazed young man on the ground, then I turned around and darted away, bumping into a couple of new spectators as I pushed my way out. Several people pushed me back, but within half a minute I had reached the exit, and the chill January air was like a slap to my face after the oppressive warmth from the crowd.
The two guys slouched outside gave me a curious look, but I ignored them, striding away as fast as I could without looking like I was fleeing.
I realised that at some point during the night, my hood had fallen back, exposing my hair, and I hurriedly pulled it back into place, my hands shaking as I did so, the adrenaline charging through my system.
Were they going to follow me?
My ears strained for the sound of footsteps, for someone to shout out after me. Had they realised that I had started the fight and ran away, or that I wasn't a real supporter of their cause? Had they realised that I was a cape and called for back-up?
My eyes flickered over every open alleyway and window on every building that I passed, waiting for someone to step out and challenge me, for Hookwolf to coming charging forth or Kaiser to step out and impale me. Would it be Purity, dropping out of the sky in a blaze of light to obliterate me?
As I glanced up a flash of white gliding through the air caught my eye and almost stopped my heart.
It was just an owl, alighting on a streetlight.
I couldn't help it. I laughed, the stress bubbling out of me in hysterical giggles as the owl's head swiveled to watch my progress. Of all the dangerous creatures in the city, an owl was probably the least likely to actually hurt me.
Smiling to myself, breathing in the cold night air, I broke into a jog.
Maybe it wasn't as good as I had hoped, but my first night out could be counted as a success. Now I just had to get home before Dad realised I was gone.
Highly skilled
- Japanese
- Kick-boxing
- Spanish
- Korean
- Cosmetics
- Judo
- Computer programming
- Lock-picking
- Socialising and public speaking
- Art and sketching
- Cooking
- Mandarin Chinese
- Juggling
- Geography
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- Location
- USA
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Taylor is really really stupid. Honestly just give the guy a fake number. All you have to do. If she runs into him again all she has to do is say he is going to have to work a bit harder to impress her get her number. Sigh. I really no respect for this Taylor. Definitely one of the dumbest (non-crack) ones I have seen in awhile.
- Location
- Oregon, USA
She has no experience with this kind of situation, remember. It's one thing to think of these things when you're calm and have had experience with this kind of thing, it's another to think of it in the moment, in potential hostile territory.
- Location
- between Venus and Mars
Kinda wondering why she hasn't visited the nursing home yet. The skills there that she could pick up would be a bit rusty, but the residents aren't likely to use them anymore and there is the built in excuse of them forgetting because they are old instead of cape powers. It's also not THAT unusual for someone to "volunteer" there just by sitting and visiting with the residents. And if she wanted to be more ethical about it, she could ask before taking from them. There would be quite a few people there that would happily give her their skills since she could still make use of it.
- Location
- New Zealand
To be honest, while the nursing home idea is viable, I don't think it's particularly ethical to do so without asking first, and asking first means revealing that she's a cape, not just once but multiple times to many people who she has never met before. That isn't something Taylor would do without a cape identity, and even with a cape ID Taylor's reluctant to let people know about the fact that she is stealing skills from people.
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- Location
- New Zealand
Okay, I've edited chapter 8 and the Danny interlude a little bit. In Shell 4.3 Taylor talks about things getting tamer in the two weeks of classes before Christmas break, so going by the US calendar for 2011, I'm making chapter 8 set on Friday the 16th. Things should make a bit more sense now, and if I've missed anything then let me know.
Foxy Boxes
[Verified Box]
- Location
- England
I'm afraid I literally can't read the first part due to the justified text; it makes me nauseous.
- Location
- New Zealand
Could you explain what you mean by that?