Claim The Spoils (Victor!Taylor)

[Lokimotion]

Taylor has Victor's power of skill theft. So I've posted a few snippets, and now that I've got a few chapters written, I've decided to make my own thread. I got sick of the over-powered Taylor stomp-fics, where she is massively powerful and never faces a real challenge, and I wanted to try and have a go writing a fic where Taylor has a versatile but low-level power and has to rely on her creativity and intelligence to do well. In the end, it came down to either Victor or Skidmark, and Victor won out. Crossposted from Spacebattles.

Claim The Spoils
​

I slipped through the halls of Winslow, head down, avoiding eye contact.

Stepping between a couple of skinheads and a trio of Asian students having a not-so-subtle staring match, I hurried onwards, avoiding the attention of either side.

First class of the day was English, and if I could get there fast enough then I could hopefully have a relatively safe morning. If I sat at the back then there was little that Emma or Sophia could do, provided they hadn't done anything to my chair first.

"I don't know why you're rushing to class. It's not like anyone wants you there."

Shit.

Emma stepped out from behind another student, her smaller form hidden by his bulk, a faint pout on her face.

I automatically shifted to the side, the ingrained habit forcing me to try and avoid what's coming even as I tried to strangle the urge, resulting in an ungainly stumble. Emma's pout widened into a smile, ruby red lips stretching back as she watched me, eyes glittering.

Eye contact.

The connection blossomed and the faint glimmers of potential I felt suddenly bloomed into talents. Emma was a model, and her posture subtly reflected that, from the position of her shoulders to the arch of her neck as she looked down her nose at me. Emma had a whole host of smaller talents making up this modelling ability, each one unconsciously underlining everything she does.

Her make-up was expertly applied to bring a faint flush to her cheeks even as it gently emphasised them, while contrasting with the faint shadows under her eyes to leave a subtly sultry look.

Her shoulders were drawn back and her torso is slightly twisted, stretching her shirt and allowing her to lean back just enough to look down at me despite lacking several inches of height. Everything was calibrated to draw attention without making it obvious that this is what she was doing, and Emma was clearly exulting in this fact.

"Even the teacher wishes you'd drop out already."

Conversation.

The connections grew still further, and I could see more of what she was capable of, the various building blocks that make up Emma.

I could see the different skills that her talent at applying make-up is made from, from the lipstick to the rouge to the eye-shadow. I saw more of her fashion abilities, how colours are applied and contrasted and just how much posture and movement affect how good a specific outfit can look. It was interesting to note how the faint idea of hairstyles seemed to straddle some gap between these two schools of knowledge.

Behind those talents, in some abstract distance I still struggle to grasp, I got a vague idea of mathematics and English, of music and history. But those were pale shadows compared to the ones I saw on display before me, and I ignored them. I would always have time for those later.

"Or are you trying to pretend that she actually likes to have you around?"

Active use.

Ah.

There we are.

One talent briefly flared up, the connection shining in my mind as Emma spoke. This was the lead up to something, given that Emma is focusing on her words now, deliberately choosing which ones to use. Although I could have guessed that from the cruel satisfaction that was slowly building behind her eyes.

It was a nebulous concept, shining bright, felt as much as seen and difficult to put into words yet no less clear for that. It was Emma's way with words. Her ability to twist people around her finger as she speaks, leaving them off-balance and unable to speak back. Her way of dominating conversations, of always knowing exactly what to say and which tone to say it in. It was her ability to speak to people and effortlessly glide through conversations where I would stumble and falter.

She tilted her head to the side, eyes widening and smile slowly fading to match the brightening of her modelling talent. Her appearance of innocence grew to contrast the words she was about to speak.

"Or are you that desperate to find an adult that cares about you you'll pretend another English teacher can fill in the gap?"

I was pulling on that connection, the abstract feeling of how to twist words and sway others slowly starting to fill me up, so that it took a few seconds for Emma's actual words to register.

When they did it was like a leaden weight slowly settling in my stomach, pulling everything down with it. I could only gape at Emma, shocked despite everything that she would actually say such a thing, and her smile reappeared, the vicious glee that she had carefully hidden before springing forth.

"I mean, it's not like your dad actually cared enough to feed you when your mother died. You had to rely on my family for that."

The connections flared brighter, and I started to latch onto them, desperately pulling in the hope that I could find some way to make her stop.

"Are you hoping she'll take pity on you? Maybe one day give you a hug?"

I pulled harder, starting to see ideas on how to escape coalesce into being.

"As if anyone would. You're gross, Taylor. You stink, and you're greasy and nobody wants to touch you, let alone come near you."

Her taunts seemed to be losing their effectiveness. They do that, every time I copy them, and by the time Emma's usually finished with me they've stopped hurting so much. I think that Emma has noticed this, because she seems to have been getting more vicious lately, and by her look of triumph I think that she's been planning this one for a while.

"For someone who doesn't want me here, you seem to spend an awful lot of time trying to speak to me. It's funny. I'd almost think you cared about me."

Interaction.

The connection flared brighter still, as my talent reached out to her and met her talent reaching for me.

Emma stalled for a moment, seemingly startled by my response, before her eyes narrowed and her lip curled.

"You bother me, Taylor. You're depressing, and lame, and every time I see you it reminds me of how much time I wasted being your friend. Years of my life I'll never get back. Years I could have spent doing something worthwhile instead of hanging around with you."

The shock I felt at Emma's words had turned into anger now, and I felt buoyed up by righteous fury at her attempt to sully my mother's memory.

"And yet almost every day you go out of your way to remind yourself. If it really bothered you so much I would have thought you'd just leave me alone instead of following me around everywhere."

Emma seemed momentarily speechless, and I had a few seconds to luxuriate in my rare victory. It's foolish, but for now I could savour that look of shock, of confusion on her face, even as it was banished by spite.

"With you walking around like a drowned puppy? Only with rabies. And covered in shit. How can I avoid you when you insist on coming to a school where nobody wants you? Everyone hates you. You're like a slut only nobody wants you."

The insults were coming fast, but most surprising is their lack of coherency. It's like Emma was throwing whatever comes to mind at me and seeing what stuck. I felt a momentary flicker of contempt then, which surprised me as much as my defiance must have surprised Emma.

"Yet you insist on coming up to me and speaking to me almost every day. It's like you're afraid to cut ties or something. What's the matter Emma? Does your life revolve around me so much that even when we stopped being friends you couldn't bear to stay away? Careful, this level of fixation isn't healthy."

The look of pure, unadulterated shock on her face as she spluttered out some response was something I would treasure for a long time to come. I knew I'd pay for it later on, when Emma came back with something suitably twisted as punishment for speaking back, but in that moment I couldn't bring myself to care.

I didn't stop to hear what she had to say next, instead walking right past her with a sniff. In the periphery of my vision I could see a few students looking at us and muttering, but in that moment I couldn't bring myself to care what they had to say. The fury in me was still smouldering as I made my way to English class, slipping through the doorway just as the bell rang, and I slam my books down on the table, garnering a stern look from Mrs Jeffries, which I ignored.

..........​

It took a while to centre myself enough to pay attention to the class, and I did this by slowly reaching out to my other classmates, focusing on one at a time and slowly building up a murky picture of their talents.

Some of the results surprised me.

Who knew that Edward the skinhead would be reasonably decent at playing the violin? Well, probably his friends and other people in his class, but I certainly didn't know that. Granted, I had always tried to avoid anyone displaying gang allegiances, so I guess if I paid more attention to him then I would probably have already known. But that would involve paying attention to an Empire kid, which I really didn't want to do in case they start paying attention back.

The connection was weak, mere proximity not enough to allow for any meaningful attempt to copy the skill, and after a couple of minutes I drop it. There's not much point when such a small amount of talent would fade in a couple of days anyway, and I didn't even own or play a violin.

I looked back to the teacher, but she was still droning on at the front of the class, not even looking up from her papers. Perhaps I was being uncharitable, but Emma's words had nettled me, and I felt a momentary flicker of spite towards Mrs Jeffries, simply for being in a position where Emma can use her job against me. It was silly, I knew, and yet I couldn't stop the feeling.
I tuned her out, gaze slowly drifting from one student to the next, seeing who knew things that I didn't and what those things were.

I paused as I got the momentary image of a snake with its head raised, tongue flicking out and tasting the air, deciding where to strike. I wondered where the image comes from, slightly disquieted by the thought. It's not a particularly apt comparison, but there was no denying that there was a certain predatory air to me 'tasting' my potential targets.

I looked over at Jeremy, eyes lingering long enough to get an idea of his capabilities before I dismissed him and move on. Nothing of note.

Alicia was more promising, showing some talent with art and a better grasp of calculus than I possessed. I mentally flagged her for future selection, remembering that I had math class second thing tomorrow, and kept looking.

Matthew seemed interesting, as it looked like he had some ability in kayaking and white water rafting. I spent a few minutes wondering where he learned those skills, and just how good he was at them. Maybe his dad would take him out in the summer on camping trips? Maybe he was part of a group of friends that would do adventurous things in the school holidays. Did they try something new every time, or do the same thing because they enjoyed it so much?

I felt a pang of envy at the thought, and I didn't know if it was the thought of having friends to do such a thing with or a dad being so involved in my life that such trips were possible. The idea of being able to afford to go on such trips often enough to get good at them is there, but it was an old and feeble twitch in comparison.

It took Mrs Jeffries changing the tone of her voice to make me realise that I had been staring into space in the general direction of Matthew for several minutes now and I quickly looked down at my book, a faint flush working its way up my cheeks. The last thing I needed right now was to be seen staring at someone.

No need to give anybody any more ammunition, after all.

I skimmed over the work sheets in front of me and calmed down, seeing that I wasn't too far behind. I briefly considered copying some language skills from Mrs Jeffries, but since there weren't any tests before the Christmas holidays for this class there didn't seem much point.

No, far better to keep looking into other people and see if they had anything I can use or try out in the next few days.

I glanced over at Wu and Kyo sitting in the other corner, but then decided against it. I guess I just didn't really want to know what skills they might have given that they were wearing red and green. Part of me knew it was ridiculous, that a pair of not-particularly-fit fifteen year olds would have some sort of dangerous skill or would have even done anything to begin with, but I still didn't want to know.

One quick mental chuckle at my reticence and I moved on to the next student. I turned it into a game, seeing if they had unusual or unexpected talents and trying to construct a story around them to explain why.

It was silly and not very productive, but I surprised myself with how much I enjoyed it, and as I slid my books into my bag and rose to leave I realised I was actually smiling to myself.

..........​

The bell rang for lunch, and the slight glow of happiness I held inside me faded away, vanishing like an ember in an empty fireplace.

An hour is too long for lunch.

There would be a lot of students in the cafeteria, and I was suddenly seized by curiosity as to what they might be able to do.

That meant a lot of people to potentially copy talents from. But it also meant far more people who might be watching me, with no teacher to take up their attention, and I couldn't afford to have anybody notice me spacing out like I did in English class.

No. The risk was too high, and I walked off to find somewhere out of the chill December wind without other students around. For now, I would simply take it as a break from the rest of school.

It was not the first time I had made that decision.

Some of the classrooms on the third floor would be open, some place quiet where I could eat in peace and read until the bell went. That sounded... better.

Decision made, I turned and started walking, moving slowly against the flow of students, mostly sticking to the wall opposite the lockers and taking a few steps when there was a lull in the crowds. Eventually the herd of students thinned out and I could relax, my pace slowing to something more sedate as I made my way up the stairs.

Thud.

Something slammed into me at the top of the stairs, sending me flying, and it was only the lucky flailing of one arm that prevented me from tumbling back down the stairs, although one wrist smacked into the rails as I grab them, sending shivers of pain lancing up my arm.

"Watch it, Hebert."

Just my luck. I glanced up at Sophia, seeing her scorn and matching it with a facade of impassivity. We stared at each other for a few seconds, and that was long enough for my temper to flare, reaching out and latching onto an aspect of Sophia.

It was her running ability, naturally, and though it was dull and unfocused now it was easy enough to find, and I got to work. For an all-too-brief moment I delighted in the thought of Sophia left panting in my wake, unable to catch me as I escaped, and I hungrily pulled on her running form.

Then reality intruded, and I realise that all I was doing was cheering myself on at the thought of running away. As if I could. Even if I copied her running form completely, Sophia would still be much fitter and faster than I am. All I would achieve would be to prolong the chase and leave Sophia more frustrated with me in the end.

I blinked and looked away, awkwardly clambering to my feet, wrist twinging as I pulled my bag back up over my shoulder. Then her foot lashed out as I pass her, and I'm back into full body contact with the ground, only a few seconds after rising.

My breath huffed out of me, leaving me slightly stunned.

"That's where you belong. Now stay there."

Sophia stared down at me to make sure I've gotten the message.

Perhaps it was my earlier response to Emma that made me so bold, but after managing that only to find myself still having to deal with the same shit when I thought I'd gotten away and I was suddenly furious with Sophia.

It was such an unexpected emotion that it caught me by surprise, and for a brief moment I was unguarded with my expression, my eyes narrowing and jaw clenching with the sheer loathing I felt right then.

Sophia was caught wrong-footed, confusion flickering across her face before it shut down and a hard expression appeared. As I went to rise once more her posture shifted, one foot sliding backwards slightly and shoulders lifting.

I wouldn't have noticed but for the new thread in Sophia that brightened with use, sparking off a dozen smaller connections as her combat training slid into place.

My gaze never left Sophia's as I stood, but I made sure to keep my face blank while I tentatively started to copy the combat training. Where did she get it from? I knew Sophia was a fairly violent person, but usually this was limited to kicks, trips and shoves. She'd never karate-chopped me or roundhouse kicked me in the face.

At least, not unless she'd done it hard enough to make me forget it ever happened.

Sophia never broke eye contact, which I was grateful for, and my stance slowly started to match hers. The amusement faded from her eyes and the thread flared brighter.

"You really want to start something, Hebert?" She whispered, and for a second I was tempted.

Could I actually do it? Keep the conversation, confrontation, going long enough to copy enough to make a difference? I doubted it, but it could last me a week, maybe more if I did. I'd never copied enough of someone's talent to test it before but now, almost drunk on suicidal defiance,
it seemed like a marvellously compelling idea.

I was aware that even if I gained all of Sophia's skill at fighting, she'd have the same and be much stronger and fitter too. But still...

"Come on, I'm hungry. Why the hell are you talking to Taylor, anyway?"

We both turned at the sound of Julia's voice coming from the bottom of the stairs, her tone a mixture of impatience and confusion.

Sophia grunted and headed after Julia, shooting me one last suspicious look as she went.

Once she did the tension drained out of me like pus from a boil, leaving me feeling exhausted and irritable. Why did I think provoking her was a good idea?

It made me wonder though.

If I could endure enough of those encounters to copy enough to deal with them, could I eventually convince them to just leave me alone? The talents I borrowed are only temporary, but the more they tried to harass me, the more opportunity I'd have to borrow what I needed to deal with it. And if it then reached the point where these borrowed talents faded, it meant that I might have had a whole week without being harassed.

There was a certain beauty to the idea.

..........​

I was almost meditative by the time history rolls around.

I ignored the other students and instead focused on the teacher, feeling the collective I identified as 'history' burgeoning as he started to speak.

I could see Emma and Madison whispering together in my peripheral vision, occasionally shooting me filthy looks or murmuring to another student, but I tried to tune them out.

It was interesting to note which connections grow brighter or dimmer as Mr Thomson changed topic or used different examples, comparing different points in history. I started drawing from that, reasoning that if I' was going to focus on someone in class, it might as well be the teacher.

I still couldn't shake the thought of just standing there and letting them harass me, or actively fighting back against them. Just the idea of it was making me anxious, and my fingers started twitching, fiddling with my pen and curling up the edges of the paper.

No. That's not necessary. If they caught me then I could copy what I needed then, but there was no need to actively seek out confrontations with them or just stand there and wait to be caught. Decision made, I relaxed somewhat, turning back to the whiteboard in time to catch an annoyed look from Mr Thomson.

"Taylor, since you clearly find this lesson so engrossing, I'm sure you will be able to tell us all when the birth of Genghis Khan was."

I froze as I felt the weight of everybody's attention; Emma, Julia and Madison clearly enjoying my impending embarrassment.

Damn it, when the hell did the lesson cover this? Or was it one of yesterday's topics?

I could almost feel the answer tickling the edge of my memories, and I started focusing on whatever it is I was getting from Mr Thomson while he stared at me, until the silence had gone on for too long and I could only shrug helplessly.

"I don't know, Mr Thomson." I said, looking him in the eye and managing to keep my voice level, just as something else clicked into place.

"Perhaps if you had been paying more attention, you would have realised-"

"But that's because nobody does. His date of birth was never recorded, only estimated at some time around eleven sixty two, with years of leeway either side. A few years, anyway. His death was on August eighteenth, twelve twenty seven, aged..." I stopped and thought for a few seconds, "approximately sixty five years of age. Give or take."

Mr Thomson blinked, about as surprised by my sudden display of knowledge as I and everyone else were.

"Absolutely correct, Taylor. However, we weren't discussing the birth, age or death of Genghis Khan, we were discussing the Korean War and how it compared to other wars, using the Mongol invasions of the thirteenth century as a brief comparison."

I flushed, and the other students tittered.

"Do actually pay attention in class, please. I'm impressed you actually know that, but it doesn't matter what you know if it isn't what you're being asked about in an exam."

I nodded and looked back to my books, trying to hold my pen steady. I dutifully took notes until the lesson ended, and as I made my way over to the buses to go home I was left wondering when exactly I learned that information.

 

[Lokimotion]

There were already several people waiting when I reached the PRT headquarters downtown.

It was a large building, only five stories high compared to the skyscrapers in the nearby blocks, but wide with it, keeping a fair amount of space between it and the nearby buildings. For some sort of security reasons, I assumed. Its exterior was all windows, which would have given it a more open, inviting air if it weren't for the fact that every one of them was barred.

The guards standing outside the door turned their heads to watch me, and though they made no move to shoulder their assault rifles I felt suddenly nervous as I went in. There were two people who may have been a couple and what looked like parents with three kids, each one of them yammering excitedly. None of them looked older than eight, and each greeted me with a brief look of curiosity followed by immediately forgetting I existed as they returned to their conversations.

I smiled at the adults and voiced tentative helloes which they returned politely, however none of them seemed inclined to strike up a conversation and I was soon left on my own.

To fill in time rather than stand around awkwardly, I started examining the interior of the room. The most notable feature was certainly the portraits of the Wards, large photos framed and lined up on the walls. Unlike most photos of the Wards, which tended to emphasise their friendliness and youth, or at least fail to hide it, these pictures gave them a slightly more solemn and dignified approach.

Or perhaps that was just because the Wards were standing still in these pictures, which were emphasising the costumes rather than the people inside them.

Only two of the portraits showed any expression, and those were Kid Win and Vista. The others were only masks, Aegis only showing his eyes and the others not even that. My eye was drawn to the picture of Shadow Stalker; the new Ward was announced just the other month, and the stern woman's face on her mask looked down at us.

In contrast to this, Kid Win's photo showed an easy smile, his red and gold costume warm and welcoming next to Shadow Stalker's drab black and grey.

Vista was more serious, her unsmiling visage lacking the subtly threatening appearance of her older female teammate, but also the height and age to carry it off. Her seriousness somehow conspired to leave her looking younger rather than older or more mature.

Off to my right was the gift shop, the glass wall separating it from the lobby letting everybody get a good eyeful of the wares on display, from action figures of all the local heroes to items of clothing with their likenesses on them. I saw a shelf of little plastic laser pistols in Kid Win's colours, and felt an irrational urge to buy one.

Then, recalling why I was here, I turned back to the other visitors, only to remember that they were each concerned with their own business.

The silence felt slightly uncomfortable to me, as much as I knew that it was just my imagination. A few more people joined us as the minutes crawled by, though nothing in particular about them stood out to me. The idea of trying to speak to some of the troopers standing on guard was dismissed the moment it appeared in my mind.

Maybe I just needed more. More of a connection, or more interaction, maybe.

An impact struck the back of my legs and I stumbled, turning around in surprise to see two of the children squabbling over something one of them was holding. The other was glaring at them with the intense focus only achieved by small children focusing on candy or cheaply produced toys, gripping their fists and trying unsuccessfully to pry them open.

The children's parents quickly stepped forward to separate them, with the father shooting me an apologetic look.

"I'm really sorry about that," he said, over the increasingly antagonistic cries of the child as it saw its prize moving out of reach. "Look away for a moment and..." he trailed off, looking embarrassed.

"It's okay," I reassure him. "They're probably just excited to meet some heroes." I offer him a faint smile, and he returns it, probably glad I wasn't making an issue or getting upset.

When he returns his focus to the struggling child in his arms I feel the connections fade slightly, and realise that I've been given an excuse to interact with strangers. After all, it's not awkward to talk to a stranger if he spoke to me first, right?

"Did the kids drag you out to take the tour with them?" I ask, taking the plunge and continuing a conversation for a change, "or are you treating them for something?"

"A bit of both, really," he chuckles. "We promised them the opportunity to meet some heroes if they got their grades up, and they insisted that we all had to come or it didn't count. So Alice took the day off and we of course had to take the first morning tour instead of the afternoon ones."

"Not saving it as a treat for the end of the day?" I asked, slightly surprised. I almost raised one eyebrow, but I wasn't confident I had the ability to make that work.

The father gave an exaggerated grimace.

"I wish. It would be much easier if we were allowed to do that," he said, looking down pointedly at the boy whose wrists he was holding. The boy promptly blew a raspberry at him, and I had to fight to keep a straight face. "But no, we had to go as early as possible to make sure we wouldn't try to back out of our deal."

"Uh-huh," the boy said, looking at me and nodding emphatically.

"Well, that sound fair to me," I said teasingly, and the father shoots me a mock betrayed expression as his son smirks triumphantly.

Proximity. Eye contact. Interaction.

I was so thrilled at being able to hold a conversation with a stranger that I almost forgot to activate my power. A nudge in my mind and the landscape of this man's abilities bloomed in my perception.

Let's see, a slight ability to deal with people, in the front of power's eye because we were speaking, but less than Emma's and already something I was using.

The ability to drive a vehicle? That would actually be useful, and I start drawing upon it while examining what else this man contains.

Spreadsheet skills? Pass. Some nebulous ideas about organisation and filing systems? Pass. If I had to guess, this man worked as a secretary or some kind of desk jockey at a business or company, either a small one or simply not having a high-up position.

He also had the ability to cook to a greater extent than I did, and I considered drawing on that instead, but ultimately decided against it. Yes, it might be more useful to me as things are, but I was already drawing upon his ability to drive, and right now I just felt like continuing that.

A few seconds had passed while I worked my way through this man's talents, and I realised that the conversation had stalled. Grabbing the first topic that sprang to mind, I turned to the child in question and asked, "What hero do you want to meet today?"

Too late, I saw his father wince, as the child's smile broadened and he proudly yelled out "Cockblocker!" before breaking down in giggles, shortly followed by what I assumed to be his brother.

The children's mother, busy trying to calm down the other boy, flushed as she looked over at the noise, her smile turning quite forced while she whispered forcefully to her own child. The receptionist behind the lobby may have rolled his eyes, but when I glanced over the thin man was resolutely looking at the screen in front of him, giving every appearance of not having heard.

I shut my eyes for a moment, fervently wishing that I had chosen to remain silent.

"Mine does the same."

The boy's father and I look over to one of the other adults waiting alongside us.

"He recently found out what it means and looks for every opportunity to shout it out," she continued, looking sympathetic. "Of course it's the funniest thing in the world, especially when we have guests over."


She shuddered slightly.

"Every day I thank God that mine grew out of that a few months ago," another adult chips in, smiling in delight at the scene. "Now I just get to watch other parents dealing with it."

He sighed happily, while the first father narrowed his eyes and the woman laughed.

"Best part of them growing up is not having to deal with these problems. Second best part is watching those that do."

"Yeah, yeah, yuck it up," the father grumbled, while the other adults chuckled.

The rest of the wait passed in a pleasant mix of jokes and casual conversation, and I was delighted at how easily it came to me now. I was far from a master of the conversational arts, and I stumbled and hesitated more than I should, but compared to this time last week? I was like a socialite, smooth as silk.

When the tour guide finally arrived I was almost sad. How long had it been since I'd had a conversation with other go this well? A year? More? Maybe it was the fact that none of the people involved were my age, or maybe it was because I had never met any of them before and they had never met me, but something daunting and intimidating was now simple, even pleasant.

I had missed this.

Nobody looking down at me. No jokes at my expense, or barbed comments, or having to watch out for feet attempting to trip me. Just people talking and enjoying each other's company.

When the others gathered around the tour guide I kept near to the back, out of sight. This was serious, now. I was inside the base of a team of super heroes. I had to focus on that, not on... not on how good it felt to be treated like a normal human being.

I had powers, and I was visiting a team of heroes, and I would be using my powers without telling them.

My heart rate spiked at the thought, adrenaline slithering through my veins and my breath catching. Could I be charged with that? Would the heroes have some way of knowing if I was using my powers on them? Surely not. I would just be some teenager visiting the local heroes and asking questions. There was nothing wrong with that. Besides, even if they somehow found out that I had powers, it wasn't illegal for a parahuman to go on tours through the Rig. I wasn't a villain, after all. I hadn't committed any crimes.

I force myself to take a deep breath and bury the nervousness. I'm going to be meeting, maybe even speaking with some genuine heroes, and I can't freak out or act weird. It's difficult. I've never had the effortless way of speaking with people that Emma did, even as a child and I certainly never had the poise to make whatever I said or wore come across as natural. It irritates me that even now all I can think about is how Emma would be able to do this much more easily than I could.

I almost slam my head into the wall after thinking that. Yes, Emma can speak to people easily, but for the next few days at least I can too. It's a peculiar mixture of galling shame and weird pride that I end up using Emma' ability to speak to people while trying to get away from Winslow, but focusing on how she speaks to people she's trying to win over now makes this whole enterprise seem that bit less daunting.

I walk over with the rest of the small crowd when the tour guide beckons us.

"Hello everybody, my name is Jeremy and welcome to the first tour of the day of the PRT headquarters, East-North-East department."

The tour guide wasn't what I would call a young man, but wasn't really old enough to be considered middle aged either. Rather than the black body armour and chainmail of the regular PRT troopers, with its accompanying face-covering visor, he was dressed smartly in black slacks and a black dress shirt. The symbol of the PRT was displayed prominently on his right breast pocket. Clean shaven and with a strong jaw line, he was well built, with the muscles still defined through his shirt clearly gained through rigorous exercise and hard work, rather than for show, like body builders.

"We'll start the tour by moving through the various facilities accessible to the Wards of the East-North-East department, and we'll finish up in the Wards common room, where I believe a couple of the Wards are currently residing."

This prompted a gaggle of whispers and excited muttering from the children, but I barely heard that, reaching out to the tour guide and seeing what he had to offer.

A little bit of accounting and a bit more of tennis, some basic chess skills, substantially better driving skills than the father I had been speaking to before and aha, this is what I'm after.

Combat training.

Turns out that Jeremy the tour guide was also exceptionally well trained with all number of weapons. I could see assault rifles prominent among them, with a few subtle variations that lead to me to suspect that they were different models of gun, like the idea of shooting had an afterimage or two inside Jeremy's mind. Handgun training was close behind. A few more variations in the handguns than in assault rifles seemed to support my earlier hypothesis of them being gun models. It made sense, since there were more models of handgun than assault rifle around.

Beyond handguns there were knife fighting techniques from several different schools, both lethal and non-lethal, and closely connected to those were numerous unarmed fighting techniques. Let's see, there was a fair bit of judo, a fair bit more of kick-boxing, quite a decent amount of what I suspected was Krav Maga. Whatever it was, it seemed to be aggressive, and going for the throat and groin appeared to feature prominently.

Wow, Jeremy the tour guide didn't appear to do things by halves. There were also subtler talents hidden away in between the ones geared towards violence. Next to each type of weapon skill, if 'next' was a word applicable to the strange, interconnected matrix of knowledge that I felt as much as saw when I looked into someone, was the knowledge of how to maintain it. There was situational awareness, threat assessment and some form of... counter-espionage?

No, that wasn't it. It was about looking for tails and knowing how to throw them off. I peered a bit deeper into this somewhat nebulous idea. Counter-surveillance, maybe?

"So," Jeremy said, smiling around them and interrupting my reverie, "who's ready to begin the tour?"

The children yammered excitedly, and the adults made some general noises of agreement, which I belatedly joined in on. Jeremy the tour guide turned to the large double doors at the back of the room and stepped up to a smooth, shiny black box mounted on the wall next to them. He held a button down, and after a couple of seconds there was a soft beep noise and the doors noiselessly opened.

"Retinal scanners are some of the primary security measures here at PRT headquarters," he explained as he led us downstairs. "Each area only has a limited number of people capable of accessing it, and only at specified times. So don't think about trying to kidnap me to get a surprise tour," he added, throwing a smile over his shoulder at us, to a few chuckles.

"Um, if only a few people can get into each area," I began, too focused on what I might get from Jeremy to realise that I was speaking in front of a group until a few seconds too late, when he, along with other members of the group, turned to look at me. Stalling slightly at the expectant faces, I forced myself to keep speaking. "And you're one of them, how come you aren't, you know, wearing body armour or anything." I trailed off a bit at the end, acutely aware that now even the children had started paying attention to me.

"I mean," I said, rallying slightly, "everybody upstairs has kevlar and chainmail and stuff, and they're carrying assault rifles and, and you don't have any of that stuff."

God, this was embarrassing. I should have just kept my mouth shut and gone through the tour without attracting any attention to myself.

"Well, they don't give me the full suit of armour because my job is to interact with the public, and it's a bit hard to do that when they can't see my face and I'm carrying weapons the entire time."

Jeremy smiled encouragingly at me, and I felt my tension ease slightly.

"But wearing armour would be way cooler!" One of the children called out enthusiastically, and several of the others nodded.

"I'm glad you think so," Jeremy laughed, "but you don't have to worry about me. I'm wearing a stab vest. As for weapons, I don't have any in case people try to infiltrate the headquarters through the tour and try to take them off me. We don't want a fire fight in an enclosed space with civilians, and in case anyone does try we have the containment foam to deal with that."

Here he raised a hand and pointed to the ceiling, where I noticed a series of nozzles emerging.

"Anyone who starts something will be immobilised in seconds, without risk to any innocent people in the area, unlike a gun fight. Besides, I have plenty of training in hand to hand combat against both armed and unarmed opponents. It's one of the requirements of this particular job."

That catches my attention, and as we reach the bottom of the stairs and arrive at a corridor leading to the Ward facilities I decide on what I need to copy. Walking slightly faster, I slip to the front of the group and start reaching for his ability to fight people.

The nexus inside him seems to rearrange in response to my needs, the idea of defending myself while unarmed reaching out and finding what matches in Jeremy the tour guides pool of talents. The connection between us strengthens as I get closer to him, and I decide to keep him talking.

"So what kind of training do PRT agents get? I figure it would be a fair amount, since you deploy alongside heroes and deal with villains."

"A lot of us were drawn from the military, so we'll have training from that, along with our own unique training to deal with parahuman threats. For obvious reasons, I won't be telling you about that. A lot of it is similar to the training that all law enforcement officers receive, only a lot more intensive. A number of us used to be cops, too. Think of us as being like SWAT teams, only specialising in responses to parahuman incidents rather than regular ones. We also get additional training in non-lethal takedowns."

I'm drawing upon the judo and what I now realise is aikido as he speaks, nodding absently. I considered Krav Maga, but the brutality of the techniques turns me off the idea. Defending myself is one thing, but I don't want to cripple anyone.

The tour continues like this for some time, with Jeremy taking us around the different facilities the PRT use, as well as the extra ones the Wards have access to, such as a small classroom where they can take parahuman study courses, or the rather well equipped gym. Jeremy explains that the PRT troopers use the larger one upstairs, although instructors with the Wards can use the smaller one too.

"Now then," Jeremy says briskly, clapping his hands together to make sure he has our attention. "We're about to enter the Wards common room and meet a couple of them. Before we do though, I have a few questions."

He looks around at everyone in the group.

"First of all, is anybody here a villain?"

There was a pause as we digested this, followed by some shaking of heads and eye-rolling.

"No-one? Damn," he sighed. "One day I'll catch someone with that."

He continues down the featureless grey corridor, speaking as he goes. "Secondly, who here can tell me when the PRT was founded?"

He looks first to the small children, and when they can't answer he turns to me, presumably working his way up by age.

"Nineteen ninety three," I respond, and he smiles.

"Correct. Can you tell me the date in nineteen ninety three?"

I pause, wracking my memories of history class and trying to recall if it had ever come up. I'd definitely heard it somewhere, though the where was eluding me right now.


"It was in January," I said slowly, and Jeremy nodded and smiled encouragingly. "January the... eighth?"

He winced theatrically, and sucked in his breath through his teeth.

"Close, but not quite. The PRT was officially founded on January the eighteenth, though most people remember it for the nation-wide broadcast of the swearing in of the founders rather than the PRT itself."

He stopped as we reached the end of the corridor, and again he looked closely at a retinal scanner next to the door. However, once it beeped the door remained closed, a red light appearing above.

"An alarm just went off on the other side, to let the Wards know that guests are here and give them time to put their masks on, if they aren't already," he explained.

We waited, and soon the light above the door turned green and Jeremy pushed them open. A hiss of air reached me and I felt my ears pop slightly.

"And here we have the Wards, and I'll let them introduce themselves." Jeremy stepped back to one side, giving us an unobstructed view of the common room and its occupants.

It was a surprisingly large room, tall and brightly lit. The edges of the room looked like prefabricated walls, and I suspected that they must have been added in after the construction was finished. There were a few desks and chairs positioned on one side, several with some boxes stacked on top of them, while on the other were several sofas arranged around a television.

Leaning on one of the sofas was a lean figure in a white bodysuit, armour panels decorated with clocks covering him, and a smooth, featureless white helmet. Standing next to him was a figure in polished chrome armour, larger and bulkier. Clockblocker and Gallant.

"Hello, and welcome to the Wards headquarters."

Gallant was the one who had spoken, his voice warm and friendly, in contrast to the rather sterile appearance of his armour, for all that it invoked images of knighthood and chivalry. He started walking over to us, the heavy clump, clump of his footsteps on the floor punctuating the soft whir of his power armour.

"I am Gallant," here he turned to his companion, and the other Ward smoothly took over.

"And I'm Clockblocker."

There was an outburst of giggling from the children, and I heard a hissed "Don't you dare" from one of the parents, but I couldn't pinpoint who.

"It's nice to see you all got up bright and early for the first tour," Clockblocker said in a tone of false innocence, and I could hear the smile in his voice as he looked over the laughing children.

I hung back for a bit while the Wards answered questions. Those form the children tended to be along the lines of "How many villains have you fought?" or why Clockblocker picked his name, which he adroitly answered with "Because I stop time from getting to people, of course. Why else?" In turn, Gallant spoke of how he wished to live up to the ideals and examples of the heroes that had come before them, and eventually provide a good example for the heroes who would come after them.

I took the time to get a feel for what each Ward had to offer.

Gallant showed no little talent when it came to managing people, and I was tempted to sample that if I hadn't already got much the same from Emma a few days ago. What was interesting was that while I could see the ability to manoeuvre around in his armour, the ability to build it was completely absent.

This baffled me, and I spent another couple of minutes trying to feel out the different abilities that Gallant possessed. Some sports, some math and history at a level above my own, the ability to drive and some basic fighting techniques, but overall nothing about his talents stood out beyond other people and there was absolutely no trace of his tinkering abilities.

Of course there wouldn't be I realised, resisting the urge to smack myself in the face. It's his power, and while I can copy skills from people I can hardly copy their powers.

I looked over at Clockblocker, who was answering some of the parent's questions on schooling and education while with the Wards. He was answering confidently and positively, assuring them that the Wards received sufficient education, with the Youth Guard making sure none of them were lacking in education or the time and opportunity to socialise with their peers outside of their job. I noticed that while he was projecting a lot of confidence, he also neglected to give out any details as to how these details were ensured, just assuring that they were. Made sense, I suppose. They certainly wouldn't want to accidentally out a Ward by telling a concerned parent too many details about school.

His answers seemed remarkably polished for a boy who publicly introduced himself as Clockblocker, and a small, cynical part of me wondered just how much PR training he had received in answer to his little stunt.

Well, there's one way to find out.

Beyond a similar ability to drive and some basic sports and games talents, there was actually not too much to see. Oh, he certainly received some self-defence training, more than Gallant in fact, but when I thought about it I was quite certain that Sophia had more training in self-defence than either of the Wards. Mind you, she probably just liked hurting people.

Jeremy the tour guide had more training than the three of them combined, several times over, in fact.

"Well, I suppose we can move onto the power demonstrations, unless anyone has any more questions?"

Clockblocker looked around at the group, hands spread wide and inviting.

"I have a question," I say, raising my hand slightly and making an awkward semi-waving motion. "What kind of training do the Wards get, and do the PRT train you, or do you have special instructors for it?"

"Wards receive fairly broad training in a few areas," Gallant said, taking over, "such as self-defence, public speaking and the finer details regarding parahuman law. As for the who, it's a bit of both. A number of the PRT agents are trained as instructors, and we receive our training from them just like the regular PRT troopers do. Sometimes we train alongside the troopers, other times just as Wards or occasionally one-on-one with the instructors. Some instructors work here in the city, others come over from New York or Boston, depending on the situation, to teach more advanced courses, like hostage negotiation or more intensive combat techniques, although that stuff is pretty much always just for the Protectorate heroes."

I nodded, digesting this. It explained why the Wards were a lot less trained than the standard PRT trooper, as disappointing as it was.

I stepped back, letting the junior heroes get on with the power display, as Clockblocker froze objects in midair and then let people try to move them, warning them that the objects would be unfrozen at any moment. I couldn't help but smile when I watched a couple of children hanging off a cardboard tube, gradually getting red in the face with the effort.

Gallant would shoot lasers out of his armoured gauntlets, though as much as I tried, I couldn't see quite where they originated from. The lasers from his fingers knocked some of the boxes over, with Gallant explaining that their biggest affect was to change the moods of those they struck, something which he adamantly refused to use on the children, despite their invitations, or the parents, despite even louder and more enthusiastic invitations, also from the children.

At one point he cupped his hand and conjured up a ball of glowing light, throwing it in an over-arm toss that hit a pile of boxes and scattered them across the room.

I nodded and smiled my way through the rest of the tour, but inside I was trying to bite back my frustration. Despite all my hopes, it seemed like the Wards wouldn't be of any help. No, the people with the most impressive skills were the PRT, or maybe the Protectorate heroes, although I had yet to meet any of them, and it wasn't like a teenage girl could walk up to a PRT agent or hero and get chatty with them.

I suppose I could take the tour again, but I was pretty sure the tours were monitored, given the rather serious security they had on display, and someone repeatedly taking the same tour would attract attention.

Jeremy makes sure to draw attention to the gift shop when we return to the lobby, but my mind is already far away on what I can do next. It seems clear that the Wards are not the place to go for the skills I can use, and as nice as the self defence training is, it's not like I can fight back against people like Sophia without causing further problems. Besides, even if I wanted to, I would probably have to take the tour every couple of weeks just to stay in readiness, yet I still wouldn't have the fitness to actually use the training.

That gives me pause.

Maybe I don't have the fitness right now, but that can change. I'm sure I've heard somewhere that there are different workout techniques you can use, and some are better than others. I can always start with something simple, like running, to get my basic fitness up. Though the first person that springs to mind when I think about running is Sophia. Maybe I can borrow her running technique.

Really, there's not too much I can take from school. I can borrow some stuff, like knowing how to do whatever sport we're made to try in Phys Ed, or maybe computer programming? I'll have to check with Mrs Knott next week. Maybe I can also get knowledge of calculus or trigonometry from Mr Quinlan.

I guess I can borrow some skills from the teacher before a test or exam, which would certainly be more reliable than those of the students, but how much of that would be useful in my day to day life? What I needed was a selection of skills to choose from, so I can pick something that would be useful.

I step outside, and the sudden gusting of the brisk morning wind shakes me out of my thoughts. I take a deep breath, hold it for a moment, and then slowly release it. Lots of skills requires lots of people, and I'm not too keen on that. Still, there are a couple of places where I can find lots of people without being hassled: the Boardwalk and the Lord's Street Market. I spend a few moments considering, weighing up the two of them, eventually settling on the Market. There's more stuff there that seems home-made, so at least I'm guaranteed to find something, even if I can't use it.

I smile, looking up and down the street.

I didn't get arrested for touring-with-powers, and I have a plan for somewhere to go. I don't know what I'll get from it, or how I'll use whatever I end up finding later on, but right now my weekend is looking promising, and I can't stop myself from imagining all sorts of different skills to pick up. I know the reality won't be able to live up to the daydreams, but at this moment I really don't care.

 

[Lokimotion]

I couldn't help but smile.

They sky was overcast and almost as grey as the street below, and every now and again an especially cool gust would leave me hunching over slightly into my ratty old hoody, but Brockton Bay tended to have mild winters and it was nothing I couldn't deal with.

There was an excitement inside me, and I couldn't help but twitch my fingers, occasionally clenching them into fists just to burn off some nervous energy. Whatever happened, I had spoken to some heroes and now I was going out to use my power. I was going to become better.

I almost felt guilty about it, that I could do in a few minutes what others practiced days or weeks for, but that was quickly shoved aside. I was going to pick up a skill, I decided, and I was going to practice it this next week. I don't know what that skill would be, whether it would be art, or math, or juggling or anything else, but I was going to copy the ability to do that, and then I was going to practice it myself, until it became my skill, and I could do it all by myself, without copying from others.

I was going to see what people were capable of, and then I would take whatever was on display.

I paused by the bus stop and considered walking the whole way, hoping that maybe it would calm me down by the time I arrived, but impatience thrust that idea out the way and I settled down to wait.

The whole bus trip I fiddled with my hands, and when we got to my stop I practically threw myself out the door, a wide grin breaking out across my face.

And here we go.

The riot of colours that assaulted my eyes was familiar to me; for all that it had been a while since my last visit. A few months before the accident, in fact, and I blink at the sudden wave of nostalgia, harsh and stinging my eyes. I was here for my powers, and I focused on that, clutching at the purpose the thought gave me. Regardless of the past, the future was before me, and I had to seize it.

The slightly hammy thought brought back my smile, and I set forth.

The awnings were bright and colourful, red clashing with green clashing with blue, each competing to make themselves noticed to the crowd. The stalls underneath weren't quite as colourful, but made up for the difference with pictures and names of their wares, and behind them stood the stall-keepers.

Honestly, most of the stall-keepers were a lot less interesting than the stalls, with large numbers of them doing little more than smiling at potential customers and fiddling with their phones.

The wares on display were an eclectic mix of old and new. One stall selling cheap phones and electronics sat next to a stall selling hand-knitted clothing, mostly scarves and hats, while on the other side was a display of fudge and chocolates.

That last one made me pause. I can't see myself ever knitting clothing, but surely cooking would be useful, even if it was only making treats. I gave the chocolate a speculative look, which the hopeful stall-tender mistook for interest, and moved on. I want to find something useful, not jump at the first thing to catch my eye.

That was a lie.

I wanted to jump at everything that caught my eye, but I would always have time to return here later, so the sensible option would be to spend a little time finding the best skills to copy first.

The other stalls I saw held little promise, most of them displaying only cheap crap or the contents of storage boxes that people want to get rid of but hope to make a buck from first.
People don't tend to have garage sales in Brockton Bay. We just gather up all of our old junk and rent a stall at the Market. It was about a hundred and fifty dollars for a stall space during the week, and two or three hundred at the weekend. Honestly, I think most of the time people didn't even make any profit from that, but there were always plenty of stalls with something interesting, even if I didn't want to buy it.

Besides, it wasn't the wares that I was interested in today.

I passed by various racks and stacks of clothing, like tee-shirts with the local heroes on them, some of which were still on display at the PRT gift store, or old winter jackets people were getting rid of.

Some art displays caught my eye, and I slowed down to have a look.

There were several different types being shown, and I mentally catalogued what they were and which ones would be the most useful.

Some of the water-colours looked almost beautiful, but that's not something that we were going to learn in art class, and water-colours are expensive, so I decided against that. The basic paintings were nice, and wouldn't cost as much, but they were also not something I can really practice too much in my spare time.

I moved onto the simpler drawings, seeing a couple of charcoal sketches of faces that deftly draw out the shadows and created a dramatic sense of intensity in the expressions of the subjects. The eyes staring out at me, as if daring me to try and match the skill with which they were drawn, were startlingly vivid and evocative.

"Like them?" the young woman behind the counter asked, smiling warmly at me. She looked to be in her early twenties, with dark brown hair tied back in a pony tail with a purple rubber band. She had a European cast to her features and a small mole on the side of her mouth.

"Yeah," I admitted, reaching out into her pool of talents, "I really like the shading around the eyes."

I didn't delve particularly deeply, as her artistic talents were already rising to the surface as she focused on her work. I registered and moved past a few different types of painting ability, the charcoal sketching brighter than the others, and it took a couple of seconds to find pencil sketching. I didn't know if it was because they were both in black and white, or both dry artwork, but it seemed to be closer to charcoal sketching in some manner than the other art skills.

"I don't really know much about art," I admitted to the girl behind the colourful counter, "but I thought about taking up sketching, just as a hobby."

"It's a good hobby," the girl said enthusiastically, nodding her head rapidly. "I really enjoy it. It's the main reason why I draw and paint. The main reason I sell my work is to buy more art supplies. Well, that and it lets me see which stuff sells better, so I know what to focus on when I finish college. It's also really therapeutic, so if I'm having a bad day I can spend a few minutes, maybe an hour so sketching or painting, and by the end of it I can barely remember what had me in a bad mood."

I felt a pang at that, and any doubt that artistic skills would be a good choice to practice myself vanished.

I nodded in understanding, looking back at the art in question. Maintaining eye contact helps my power, but right now I would rather focus on something else as her words echoed around in my head.

I thought I can pick up a faint trace of an accent as she spoke, thought I was not sure where from.

The connection faded a bit more, and I realised the lull in conversation had gone on for a little while now.

"What would you recommend for starting out?" I asked, and the connection strengthened slightly. "I was thinking of starting with just some pencil sketches for a few weeks. I don't want to waste art supplies by using something I have no idea how to use."

"That's a good idea," she nodded again. "Pencil sketching is something you can do at any time, so you can get practice in whenever you want to. If you're just starting out, I would say to get one of the intro books with the different figure poses. You know the really simplified ones where everything is made out of circles? Or you can just print off a few pictures of them. That's probably easier. That and sketching objects you see are the best ways to practice, but I recommend the basic figure poses first, as it's a really good way to train yourself to see things in perspective and get the scale right."

Unbidden, a smile slowly started to spread across my face as the girl rambled on, her enthusiasm infectious and my connection glimmering with every word and sparkling with every new topic she shifted to.

When the conversation started to wind down I asked her where I could get some good sketching pencils, and she pointed off to my left, giving me some vague instructions about another art stall that sold supplies rather than finished products.

I turned to go, but hesitated. It didn't seem right to take so much from this woman without repaying her in some way, and then my eye drifted once more to the charcoal sketch that I first noticed, with the vivid stare. I asked her how much it is, and though it ended up costing more than I really wanted to pay for it, I just smiled and make the purchase.

She was helping me with my art career, though not in the way she thought, so it was only fair for me to return the favour.

..........
​

With a new sketchpad and box of shading pencils in hand, I picked my way through the throngs of people. I felt a faint buzz in the back of my mind whenever I focused on someone, but most people around me were moving too quickly to make focusing on them worth it. Instead I looked to the stalls and from there to the people behind them.

Those with more interesting items on display garnered a longer second look, and those with items that seemed to require skill to create left me lingering, slowly picking through the pools of the stall minders.

Looking at the items on display was a surreal experience.

Nothing about them has changed, but I could feel that the way I was looking them had. Where before they were simply objects, now I noticed the way a shadow from one fell across another, or how two colours next to each other contrasted.

I started noticing the layout of the stalls more as well, seeing how different objects were placed in relation to each other to made them more eye catching or visually appealing. It was the aesthetics of it, I realised. The eye for detail from the artist girl that kept pointing things out to me, especially when it decided that two objects were improperly placed for maximum effect. For a while I got so interested in this new perspective that I completely forgot to scan for talent.

A small jewellery stand caught my attention, and I spent a couple of minutes admiring the little pieces of silver and gemstone. I didn't bother taking anything from the slightly effeminate looking man wearing several of them, as I wouldn't get any opportunity to practice creating jewellery, and even if I did I would never be able to wear any of them to school. But still, I could appreciate the beauty of the simple, and not so simple, designs.

It was actually the food displays that I ended up stopping at the most. Water colour painting, jewellery crafting, violin playing and miniature painting were all very nice, in their own ways, but they were hardly skills that I would use in everyday life. Cooking on the other hand, was something that I could put to use on a daily basis.

I stopped at various different cake displays, seeing the muffins and cupcakes and dismissing them as too simple. I wanted to see something a little more challenging to create. A few more minutes got me a bit closer to my admittedly nebulous goal.

One of the larger food stalls is selling Asian food. Judging by the number of circles in the writing, I was pretty sure it's Korean, but beyond that I had no idea. The point was that I had never cooked oriental food before, and this would serve as a good litmus test as to how practical my powers will be for me.

I stood behind the couple currently getting some food from the stall and focused on the man cooking the food.

Proximity.

I started sifting through the pool of talents, seeing one of them rapidly rise up as the man started to pull out ingredients.

Active use.

Examining the skill in question, I got a sense of the different meals he can prepare, and start drawing upon it. He was fast, and within a couple of minutes the couple had collected their meal and walked off, and he turned to me.

Eye contact.

"Hi. Uh, could I get some..." I glanced down to the menu on display, "Bulgogi, please?"

The connection dipped as I look away and brightened when I spoke to him.

"Would you like beef, chicken or pork?" he asked politely.

"Uh, beef, please."

Active use.

I started drawing again, and as the meal quickly took shape I could feel it starting to make more sense. It was a fairly subtle difference, but the ingredients used seemed to make more sense somehow, as if I'd already watched him prepare the meal before, and when the man stopped to check which ingredient to add I feel like I could have identified it myself given a few more seconds.

There was a strange sense of completeness when he finished the meal, and I was smiling as I paid for it and walked away. I could almost swear I could identify every ingredient used as I took my first bite.

What do I want next?

I savoured my meal as I pondered the question. It was surprisingly difficult to answer, and after a moment I realised that that was because I hadn't given much thought to what I wanted overall.

What do I want to do with my powers?

Become a hero.

That was the obvious thought, but not an immediately useful one. How do I become a hero with my powers? They weren't particularly useful in regards to fighting villains, however useful they were for everyday life. If I joined the Wards I wouldn't really be able to contribute anything beyond the ability to get trained very quickly, which was rather depressing. Maybe something would come up or occur to me later on that would make that a more viable option, but right now?

I wanted to be left alone.

The beef bulgogi became strangely difficult to swallow.

In the end, getting powers hadn't changed what I wanted, and what I wanted was to not have to deal with Emma and be allowed to go to school without getting called names, tripped in the corridors and having my work stolen. I wanted to be left in peace.

I could deal with Emma now; I knew that, simply by taking her ability to deal with the shit she throws at me. That at least made it manageable. Taking Sophia's ability to fight people wouldn't help much when she'll be just as good at fighting and can hit me three times harder. Apathetic staff? Not much my powers could do about that, unless looking innocent was a talent I could borrow from Madison. Stolen work and assignments? Nothing sprang to mind.

So.

My powers couldn't help that much with school beyond making it a bit more bearable. Then I reconsidered, remembering how I'd managed to answer Mr Thomson's history question. Perhaps my power could help in exams, if I could borrow knowledge from other people too.

I had the mental image of myself sat in an exam and plucking the answers to every question from the pools of the students around me. They couldn't steal my exam results, after all, and those were the ones that mattered.

My powers could fast-track pretty much any career I wanted. I thought of Edward the skinhead and considered a career as a musician, or the girl at the art stall whose name I never learned, and her remarkably evocative drawings.

I needed more concrete goals, both short-term and long-term. I wanted to be left in peace. I wanted to find a way for my powers to help me become a hero. I wanted to find something and have my powers let me be absolutely amazing at it.

My eye was caught by a splash of colour, and I turned to the look at the cosmetics display to my left. There were two young women behind the display, cheerfully telling people about the different foundations and lipsticks and gloss. I took a moment to look at them, appreciating the eye shadow one had carefully applied and the blush the other used to highlight her cheekbones.

Perhaps it was the borrowed art skills, but for once I caught a glimpse of why the other girls at school spent so long on make-up, seeing the way the different applications are pulled together.

I drifted closer, eating my bulgogi with renewed enjoyment and reaching out to the women.

Right now?

Right now I wanted to feel pretty.

..........
​

By mid-afternoon I had made my way through the Lord Street Market several times over, end to end and my cheeks were hurting from smiling so much. I'd say there was a spring in my step but the truth was I was practically bouncing along, humming happily to myself.

I'd been whistling for a while, but after several people turn to look at me I soon stopped, embarrassed. It was funny, because I'd never actually learned how to whistle before. It had always been something that I'd planned to do some day, but after mom died I'd never bothered. Maybe I would have learned with Emma if everything hadn't happened afterwards.
It was the work of a whim, seeing a man whistling to himself, and I reached out, walking behind him for a small handful of seconds, blowing through my lips until a noise started emerging and from there, a tune.

It was strange how much this cheered me up. More than the art skills, the cooking and the make-up knowledge, this little concrete proof of what my power could do delighted me.
I'd managed to restrain myself to few enough skills copied that I would be able to appreciate them before they faded, but that didn't stop me from reaching out to many different people. When I saw a stall selling delicious looking food I would wait until someone or a group of people ordered something and then watch the food being prepared, reaching out to the cook as they did so and then leaving with the other people, drifting from meal to meal. When I saw people with artwork or work that seemed homemade I reached out to them and saw what they had to offer, and if I felt any sketching or artistic skills then I started drawing upon them. If I saw a girl with particularly striking make-up I would simply spend a minute or two wandering along behind them or until I saw someone more interesting.

I was almost giddy, but it had been hours now and my feet were aching. I decided to take a break and looked for a cafe, finding one that was relatively clear.

I chose a seat near a Japanese family, settling down with my tea and sausage roll which, I had to admit, wasn't particularly nice. I glanced over at the family as I sipped my tea, feeling the faint, barely-there itch as I did so.

Proximity.

The mother gestured animatedly as she spoke to the others, and I decided to focus on her. The cooking skills were becoming familiar, swimming into focus automatically by this point, and I drew upon them while browsing what else she had learned.

She had never studied or practiced art, at least as far as I could tell, but there was something rhythmic in one of her talents. Still drawing upon her cooking knowledge, it took me a few seconds to realise that it was poetry. That seemed odd, but I suppose that poetry in a different language might seem a little strange to someone who doesn't speak it. Curious now, I started pulling on that talent, and like syrup it began to flow into me.

It was such a strange feeling, different to every other time I'd drawn upon a person's pool that I stopped for a moment in surprise. The knowledge felt slow, lethargic, as if it was reluctant to transfer over to me. I frowned, covering the motion with another sip of tea, and then started drawing upon it again, and again felt that resistance.

My tea paused halfway to my lips.

I was still drawing upon her cooking knowledge, and had been the entire time. I lowered the cup back down to the saucer, my hands shaking slightly. I could draw upon more than one skill at the same time.

This... had major implications.

It meant that prioritising skills from people wasn't as important as I thought it was. It would take the same length of time to absorb multiple different skills, but if I couldn't decide then I could just draw on anything that appealed to me at the time.

I reached out to the Japanese woman once more and started feeling out what else she contained. I found the ability to drive and pulled on it, and when it flowed into me, even slower than the poetry had been I noticed that both cooking and poetry slowed down to match it. This confirmed my first thought, that I had some limit to how much I could copy from someone at any moment.

I reached out once more, seeking anything else I might possibly want.

Dancing?

I drew upon that as well, feeling it crawl over to me, almost ponderously slow.

Some faded knowledge of high school calculus?

Why not? I drew upon it.

In the end I stopped searching for talents and just reached out to the pool itself, feeling this strange accumulation of everything this woman had learned and I started pulling upon it all.

It didn't feel slow, doing it this way. Rather, it felt steady, giving me a feeling more akin to patience than lethargy. I guessed that without untapped talents to compare it to there was no reason to think about how much faster I could go.

"Well, look what the cat dragged in."

It took a few seconds for the voice to get through to me, and I turned to see Julia, Cindy and Lucy standing a few feet away.

'Coughed up, more like," Cindy smirked, throwing a deliberate look at my somewhat ratty hoody.

The smile slid from my face and my grip on the tea cup tightened.

'Definitely a hairball," Lucy added. "No idea what got stuck to the front of it, though."

I reached out to the Japanese woman, trying to pull harder on her pool of knowledge and skills, but the pool refused to be drawn from any faster.

"From the smell of it, probably something from the other end," Julia laughed, and they giggled with her.

I stopped trying to pull on the entire pool, and instead starting slipping through the individual skills again, barely paying attention to what I'm feeling before jumping to something else.

"I think you're being a bit generous there," Lucy said, and I found a skill that seemed more prominent than the others and latched onto it. I wasn't even paying attention to what it was, my face clamping down on any expressions as I drank my tea in silence.

The three of them ordered drinks when the waitress came over, barely pausing in their remarks throughout the minutes it takes for the drinks to be made. I'm ugly. I smell. I sleep around. Nobody wants me. I'm whoring myself out and looking for marks. I'm trying to find drugs, to buy or to sell. The litany didn't end until their coffees arrived, and with a few last snide comments they walked out the cafe, finally leaving me in peace.

I take a deep, slow breath and hold it for a few seconds. Carefully setting my tea down in front of me I let the air hiss out between my teeth. The remains of my sausage roll are forgotten as I tried to regain the feeling of contentedness that I had had just a few minutes before.

When I heard the Japanese woman remarking on how rude and offensive the three of them had been in somewhat stumbling words I felt such a surge of gratitude towards her that tears threaten to break out in my eyes.

It's only then that I realised that could have started drawing upon Julia from the moment I knew she was there. I didn't know what I might have gotten from her that would be worth it, or whether she had anything that I might want, but it would have felt more satisfying that way.

Karmic, in a way, that they couldn't take anything from me without also giving me something in return. Strangely, that was the thought that helped most of all. Like it didn't matter what happened if the end result was neutral. Their words couldn't do anything other than ruin my mood, which was temporary anyway, and while they do so I was getting something that would help my life in some way, in a way that is also temporary.

I took a long draught of the tea, the still hot liquid almost but not quite burning my throat as it goes down, and when I put the mostly empty cup back on the saucer I managed to summon up a weak smile.

Weak, but definitely there.

I looked down at the sausage roll and deemed it a lost cause. I wasn't particularly hungry to begin with, and after the delicious meal I had earlier finishing it seemed like more trouble than it was worth. Besides, any appetite I might have had was now gone.

I heard one of the children at the table next to me joke about their mother stumbling over her words and felt a rush of irritation at that, but the mother seemed a bit puzzled by it too.

It was only as I was finishing my cup of tea that I realised the Japanese family wasn't speaking English, they were still speaking Japanese.

Any thought of Julia and her friends faded away.

I was missing a number of the words, and a few of their sentences were pieced together more by context than actual understanding of what they were saying, but the fact remains that I could understand them.

Somehow, thanks to my power, I had partially learned a new language since I walked into this cafe.

 

[Lokimotion]

"I get off bus," I muttered to myself as I stepped down into the thankfully empty bus stop. "I walk to home. I walk on road. Next to road. I walk next to road. I walk to home next to road. I walk next to road to home."

It was still surreal to me almost an hour later that I was somehow speaking Japanese, albeit a crude and somewhat mangled version of the language. Regardless of my poor grasp of sentence structure and more hypothetical than real understanding of Japanese grammar, I was actually speaking a second language.

Mumbling it, anyway.

I would probably have been thought mentally handicapped by anybody who spoke Japanese had they actually heard me, but fortunately I encountered very few people on my way home, and I doubt any of them were interested in paying attention to the scrawny teenager muttering to herself as she went.

By the time I got home I managed to calm myself slightly, making it a game to name as many objects as I could. This served both to distract me and to establish just how much Japanese I had learned.

As it turned out, it was not too much.

It quickly became apparent that my vocabulary was painfully limited, and I was barely able to name a quarter of what I saw, but the things I could name delighted me. Actions seemed to be the difficult part, and I repeatedly had trouble describing what someone was doing in Japanese, while describing what someone was wearing or what the trees and bushes looked like was pleasantly easy.

It was almost a surprise to me when I turned into our driveway and saw my home; I'd been so engrossed in my new language.

A quick look around and call-out confirmed what I already knew, and I placed the new sketchpad and pencils carefully, almost reverently on the table. I was back home to practice what I've picked up and see if I can either keep it or track how long it lasts for.

I glanced out the window, seeing the neighbour's car parked on the side of the street.

Good enough.

One of the pencils seemed to be the better choice for this, for reasons I couldn't understand, but I mentally shrugged and selected it. All part of the test. Taking a deep breath, I held it for a few seconds before releasing it, trying to quell my excitement.

Then I put pencil to paper and started to draw.

The shape of the car quickly came into being, and from there the surrounding objects started materialising. Detail was added, refined, built upon and, after a few (admittedly unreasonably) frantic minutes searching for an eraser after realising that I had forgotten to buy one, removed and reapplied.

The doors and windows appeared, then the fence to either side. From that point I had to step back a bit and add in the house behind the car, because I wanted to get in as much as the scene as I could fit on the sheet of paper.

The ivy crawling up the neighbour's walls was frustratingly difficult, and at several points I almost swore at the paper as if it had personally offended me. It seemed that my borrowed art skills were better at shading and contrast than fine details.

But still the picture grew, and though some of the background details faded and blurred rather than coming out clearly I couldn't stop smiling at what I had created. Sure, some of the lines could be wonky, and my shading was uneven and there was no way that this could actually compare to the artwork of the girl I borrowed this from, but I was proud of it. Before, my artistic talents had been limited to stick figures and nothing else, so any improvement at all was noticeable.

The gurgling of my stomach shook me from my reverie.

The orange light outside the window cast long shadows across the lawn, stretching and distorting the originally crisp delineations of light and shade, while above them the scattered clouds had faded to a bruised purple colour.

Dad wasn't back yet, but he would be soon, and I hadn't even started on dinner.

I started rummaging through the cupboards and fridge, laying out the different ingredients. It was time to test another new skill.

We didn't have any beef, but Dad had gotten some chicken breasts the other day and hadn't used them yet. We had some garlic and cracked pepper, so they went on the counter next to the chicken. We had some sesame oil, and I managed to scrounge up a bit of ginger. We still had half an onion left, though for the life of me I couldn't remember when we'd used the other half, but it seemed fresh so I shrugged and added it to the collection.

Some slightly wrinkled capsicums and admittedly soft mushrooms got some suspicious scrutiny. But eventually I deemed them to be acceptable, not least because I was already pressed for time and couldn't really afford to be choosy right now.

I ran a sceptical eye over the collection. It seemed to be everything I needed, if not wanted, but I couldn't help but feel that I was forgetting something. Then I rolled my eyes and resisted the urge to smack myself in the face as I brought out a small bag of rice.

Setting a pot of water to boil and a pan to heat, I started slicing the chicken. We didn't have any soy sauce, which I would have to rectify soon, but other than that I was confident that I could manage to recreate the recipe from memory, or knowledge.

When Dad's battered old truck finally pulled into the driveway, I was almost ready to start dishing, and it was with a surge of pride that I introduced him to the idea of chicken bulgogi. He greeted me with a tired smile at first, his expression brightening slightly when he saw the meal being prepared, and he helped me set the table.

"This is really nice, Taylor," Dad complimented me, looking more animated than I had seen him in weeks. It wasn't a high bar, but it made me wonder what it was about the meal that cheered him up so much.

"Thanks," I say quietly, "I just picked up a few recipes and wanted to try it out."

"It's certainly a lot better than anything I can make," Dad says ruefully, "I don't think I've had this before. Where did you learn it from?"

"I was just taking a walk through the Market," I say vaguely, shrugging slightly and feeling a bit uncomfortable at the question. Discussing my powers wasn't something I was ready to do yet, and speaking to Dad hadn't come easily to me in a long while.

"I saw one of the food stalls cooking it and stopped to watch. I had plenty of time because the guy cooking was making food for a bunch of people and I paid attention to what he was doing. It looked really nice so I ordered it and I watched what he was doing. That was beef, though, so it's not exactly the same."

All of that was technically true; I just neglected to mention the exact method of learning the recipe.

"I think I'll go back next weekend too, see if I can't pick up something else," I added, a smile stretching out across my face at the idea. "If I can actually get all of the right ingredients before I start cooking it might be a bit easier too."

There was a lull in the conversation as we both ate, neither of us really certain how to fill it in.

"So how is school going?" Dad asked, slightly awkwardly, and I felt my good mood evaporate.

"It's okay, I guess," I muttered, "No big changes, anyway. Just the same stuff as always."

A few questions about school were met with further evasions, and Dad evidently picked up on my lack of enthusiasm because he soon dropped the subject, his smile fading.

I quashed the flicker of guilt I felt at that, and returned to the subject of the cooking. We spoke a bit more, but the moment was gone, and the conversation became more stilted pauses than actual words spoken. It was nice though, to hear Dad compliment the food and know that he had enjoyed eating it. A reminder that even though my power can't really help me with the big things that I want or need, it can do a lot to make the little ones better.

..........​

For the first time in months, I was actually excited to go to school. Now that I knew how broad the range of talents I could acquire was, or at least how much broader than how I used to think it was, the appeal of learning things returned.

Nothing they would be teaching me in class, but still, I would learn it.

I was actually early enough to get to class uninterrupted, and I waited impatiently for the other students to arrive, taking particular note of the two Japanese boys in the class, Naoki and Chihiro. I'd never really spoken to them before, and that wasn't likely to change, but they were who I needed to focus on.

Unfortunately, they had a tendency to sit on the opposite side of the classroom to me.

Would it be beyond my power's reach? A casual glance over at the two boys and a tentative probe revealed that no, it wasn't. A few seconds spent getting a feel for their respective pools soon located the ability to understand and speak Japanese. Chihiro was a couple of feet closer to me than Naoki, so it was him I began drawing from.

The snag in my plan became apparent when Mr Gladly walked to the front of the classroom, calling out greetings to a few of the students and forcing me to face the front. Even if he didn't pay any attention to me normally, he could hardly miss me spending the entire class craning my head around and staring at another student.

Not that the rest of the room would miss it either.

Proximity.

It wasn't much, but simply being the same room as the two boys was enough to let my power find a foothold in them.

It was surprising how much of a difference being able to see the people I was drawing from made.

While 'Mr G' continued the previous lesson's rather dull summary of how the Chinese Union Imperial's isolationist policy had affected global trade, I opened up my textbook to the relevant pages and made a half-hearted attempt to look like I was taking notes. Given how Mr Gladly rarely punished people for openly using their phones in class, I don't think it really made a difference, but better some caution than none at all.

I kept an ear out for conversations, but most of them were simply idle gossip or students talking about what they did in the weekend. If the two boys were speaking to each other then it was too quiet for me to hear.

The feeble trickle I was taking in from Chihiro was a curious mixture of frustrating and satisfying. Frustrating in that it was positively anaemic compared to what I had managed to draw from people before, and satisfying because I was in school and my power was actually making things better.

My heartbeat was elevated, and even in the relatively cool classroom I could feel a couple of beads of sweat prickling out on my skin.

Adrenaline.

I was using my powers in the middle of class and not one person suspected a thing.

I shifted uncomfortably on my chair, suddenly wishing that I was able to move around, maybe get up and walk. To know that I was learning by doing nothing more than sitting here quietly was thrilling, and if that wasn't a bitterly ironic thought about school then I didn't know what was, but it also made me want to slam my book closed and swear.

I forced myself to swallow, my fingers clenching and unclenching around my pencil as I adjusted my grip on it for the fifth time in the last minute. Mere proximity was frustrating to me after knowing how quickly I could pick up new knowledge with more points of connection, and right now all I wanted to do was rush over to the other side of the classroom, shouting in Japanese, grab Chihiro and stare into his eyes-

I shut that line of thinking down hard, my pencil freezing for almost ten seconds as I forced myself to relax. That was not where I was going with this.

I turned half a mind back to Mr Gladly as he droned on and actually managed to write down a few notes over the next five minutes. However much I was learning, I didn't think I would remember a single thing he said today.

Unfortunately, Naoki and Chihiro inconsiderately refused to move to the front of the class and have a loud conversation in Japanese.

About half way through the class, Chihiro left to go to the toilet, and faced with the option of waiting for him to return or switching to the slightly more distant Naoki, I opted for the latter. His pool of Japanese was actually somewhat larger than Chihiro's had been, and I looked down at my exercise book, frowning slightly. Did Naoki simply have a larger vocabulary than Chihiro? Did he read more Japanese literature, or was he just a more eloquent speaker?

My pencil returned to tapping out on the mostly blank pages, until I stopped it once more.

Was Naoki a bit older than Chihiro, and therefore had learned more Japanese? Unlikely, since they were both in the same class.

I glanced out the window, and saw a crow strutting about on the grass outside, occasionally tilting its head to listen and stabbing its beak into the grass. I looked back to the front, where Mr Gladly was still droning on about something I had stopped paying attention to shortly after the lesson began, and flipped my pencil round, turning back to the crow.

It was difficult to get a steady view with the way it kept turning and changing direction, but I kept at it, finding the challenge more engrossing than the World Issues class. It was a fairly simple drawing, but I was proud of it, and soon after finishing it I started another, larger drawing, this time with the crow in mid step, one leg raised high and beak open, as if it were proudly declaring something.

I had a sudden image of the crow goose-stepping around, one wing sticking straight up, and had to suppress a smile. Though I guess it would be crow-stepping, really.

Chihiro returned while I was still outlining the second crow. I spared him a brief look but nothing else, still finishing my crow as I reached out to him, Naoki fading away from my awareness. I looked at his Japanese, then back to Naoki's, finding the difference between them smaller than I expected. Was I just misreading them? I could have sworn that Naoki knew more Japanese than Chihiro.

I decided to keep an eye on them, metaphorically speaking, drawing the curve of the talons on the upraised foot and the wrinkles running up the leg.

The wings turned out rather crooked and disproportionate, as the crow decided to fly off twenty minutes before the class ended, and however much I'd improved over the weekend, I remained deeply unsatisfied with it. I guess I should stick to sketching instead of free drawing for now.

The bell rang, interrupting my critiquing and signalling the end of class, while Mr Gladly proudly declared that he was letting us off from homework today.

I hurriedly shoved my books back into my bag, looking over at the two boys while they did the same rather more slowly. Letting Naoki fade away, I looked into Chihiro and saw his pool of Japanese was... almost the same.

Slowly getting out of my seat, I switched between them a couple more times, confirming that the pools of Japanese available of me to draw upon were now even once more. Since Naoki had been noticeably bigger before I drew upon him, this was clearly related. Were the pools simply a representation of what I was able to copy?

It made more sense the longer I thought about it.

No two people would have identical vocabularies, after all. Reading different books, watching different shows and movies, speaking to different people; all of it could result in one person learning certain words and someone else learning different ones.

So it wasn't that Naoki knew more Japanese, it was that by copying the language from Chihiro, I'd learned at least some of the words unique to him while Naoki's unique vocabulary remained untouched, leaving his pool of knowledge comparatively larger.

A foot snaked out and hooked around my ankle, tripping my over and sending me tumbling into another couple of students.

'Sorry," I muttered, flushing while they shoved me back and irritably told me to watch where I was going in future.

I ignored the giggling coming from Madison and Julia behind me.

I kept my head down as I left class, more to keep an eye out for any other attempts to trip me than to keep a low profile, and I heard the giggling increase in volume. Right now I just wanted to leave and find out how much my Japanese had improved.

"Ugh, I don't know why she even bothers to come to school."

Great.

"Nobody wants her here. Not even the teachers."

"Did you see her fall over, before? She can't even walk right."

Emma and Sophia are waiting for Julia and Madison in the corridor, along with a few other girls. They stand in the middle of the corridor, forcing everybody else to go around them, and I knew from experience that if I tried to do the same they would just so happen to shift to the side to block me.

I sighed and waited, resigning myself to another few minutes of petty insults before they got bored and left. It was easier this way.

Emma wasn't even looking at me when she spoke to Sophia, the two of them pretending I simply didn't exist, while their hangers-on kept shooting me looks and smirking.

"Or maybe she was trying to grope him. It's not like she could get a guy to touch her any other way."

Sophia's smile widened.

"Maybe he should sue her for sexual harassment."

"Like he'd be able to get anything from her," Emma scoffed, sniffing in disdain for extra effect. "Her family has nothing of worth. Absolutely nothing that anybody would want. Her included," she finally looked over at me as she spoke those last words.

My face remained impassive, long practice allowing me to keep any reaction from showing. Inwardly, I was angry.

No, not angry. At least, not just angry.

Impatient.

Couldn't she just get this over with? I'd taken enough skill at socialising to recognise how much effort Emma put into little displays like this. The feigned disinterest, the tone of voice and the posture she adopted. All of it done to remind me of how little worth I had. It was the same little display she'd been putting on again and again throughout high school, and now I had to just stand here and wait for it to play out all over again.

The others barely even cared. They pretended to be ignoring me, while every few seconds one of them would snigger and glance my way. Sophia just followed Emma's lead.

I was just so sick of it! The pettiness, the pointless malice for no reason other than to ruin my day. I don't think most of them even cared who they were picking on. I just happened to be the easiest target.

I was the girl with no friends and nobody to back her up or stop this sort of thing from happening. I was a consequence-free target, at the bottom of the totem pole.

Emma seemed to be picking up on this, or she was just annoyed at my lack of reaction. Her face twitched slightly, losing a bit of her cool and letting a bit of frustration show through.

I reached forward, seeing this as an indication that I must be on the right track. Looking at her pool of socialising talents, the skill at speaking to people and presenting an image to them, I compared it to my memory of how it was last week, and it may have been my imagination, but it did seem smaller than before. I started pulling at it again.

Proximity.

Conversation.

Eye contact.

Active use.

It wouldn't make this go any faster, but it might make it a bit more bearable.

"Or maybe she was trying to rob him? Actually afford some decent food for a change, so she wouldn't look like a twelve year old boy."

Is there a point to any of this? Does she do this just to fill in time or is there a reason for it?

"How is she so fat and so scrawny at the same time?" Julia asked, looking eagerly between me and Emma, gauging our reactions.

"Maybe it's a beer gut," Madison laughed, and a feeling of dread rose in me at the sight of Emma's eyes lighting up, a sickly sweet smile slowly spreading across her face, like an oil slick across the surface of a pond.

"Her dad doesn't feed her, you see," she confided in the others, her eyes never leaving mine. "They just sit down and drink their problems away together. Unfortunately, she's still here, so he keeps drinking."

Despite everything, despite the laughter echoing around me, I kept my face from showing how I felt at those words.

"It's a habit he picked up a while ago, and like his other problem it just won't go away."

Not a muscle twitched in my face as she kept speaking.

I looked back at Emma, and now I saw something else in her expression. I guess her skills at socialising helped me get a feel for other people, or Emma's ability to adopt whatever facial expression she needed allowed me to recognise them more easily, because right then I saw frustration.

Twice now, in less than a week, Emma had managed to pull off something more cruel than usual, and twice now I hadn't given her the reaction she wanted.

"It's why she tries to whore herself out, to buy food, but she can't because nobody wants her."

More laughter that I ignore and a slight narrowing of the eyes from Emma.

"And why she dresses like a homeless person," Madison adds, grinning like it was the funniest thing in the world.

"Nah, she finds homeless people and fucks them for clothes," Julia adds, sniggering.

"She tries to, but they don't want to," Emma throws out, an extra tone of spite in her words.

More laughter that I ignore.

For another minute or so, as the corridor clears out around us, they throw more insults my way. I'm too fat. I'm too skinny. I'm ugly. I'm a whore. Nobody wants me. I have venereal diseases. Nobody will touch me.

It's the same tirade I've heard a dozen times before, the only difference being that Emma joins in more than usual. Every contradictory insult has some match from Emma, her smile fading as I don't react, and a sneer starting to take its place.

Seeing how much effort she put into this had a strange effect on me. I knew she wouldn't stop because treating me like shit somehow mattered to Emma. For the others, it was actually worse to know that they genuinely didn't care about me. They did this because it was popular to do and because it amused them, but beyond that they had no attachment to me one way or another.

Emma, though?

Emma needed this, for reasons I simply didn't understand. But as I listened to her go through the different insults, it felt like routine more than anything. It was the same petty shit I'd listened to so many times before, and even though the words changed, nothing else did.

For the first time since I started high school, I found myself wondering, is this it?

Emma was saying the same childish things the rest of them were, she was just better at phrasing and timing than they were, and knowing how to socialise showed me that even this might not be true. She could hurt me because she knew me, and that was all.

I frowned, and it wasn't just in anger, but in puzzlement.

Was I so out of practice at speaking to people that catching up on that is all I needed to deal with Emma? No. I was not so naive as to think that, but it certainly helped.

As the others wound down and started looking at the nearly empty corridor, drifting off to their next classes, Sophia shoved me out the way so she and Emma could join Julia and Madison.

As they left, Emma glanced back to me, and in the brief instance in which I saw her face, it was filled with confusion.

 

[Lokimotion]

I frowned at the mirror, carefully putting on a layer of foundation. It wasn't quite a match for my pale skin tone, but it was the closest I could find at the market stall. I was going for cheap rather than quality, and until I actually got good enough at this to be confident in it, that wasn't going to change.

When I finished I put my glasses back on, carefully, and examined my handiwork.

Not... terrible.

Actually, not even bad.

I could see patches where it was slightly uneven, and there were a few lumps where it covered some pimples, but overall it wasn't too bad. It certainly wasn't great; it couldn't hide my too-wide mouth and it would probably be a while before I dared to wear any make-up to school, but it was miles ahead of what I could do on my own.

I took my glasses off again, and started to apply some eye shadow.

"I am applying some eye shadow," I whispered, leaning in close to the mirror. "I will go to school after this. I will keep practicing until I can do this perfectly."

The edges of my lips curled up and I smiled at my slightly blurry reflection. I was almost completely fluent in Japanese. A few days since the cafe, days spent slowly drawing from my different Japanese classmates, bit at a time, and I was fluent in a new language. Half a week from incomprehension to fluency. I probably wasn't perfect on the pronunciation, but I couldn't stop myself from smiling even wider.

It felt good to have something to smile about again.

I considered the various ethnicities at Winslow. I could learn Chinese. Wait, that wasn't a language. It was Cantonese and Mandarin and... a few others; I wasn't sure how many. I could probably learn both of those. I'm pretty certain I knew at least one Vietnamese student. Remembering the Bulgogi that had led to the start of my culinary expansion, I added Korean to the list, mentally going through the different students from Korea.

There were plenty of Hispanic students in Winslow, and European ones too.

It made me wonder, brush hovering just off the surface of my skin, how many languages were being spoken around me each day without my noticing. Five? Ten? More?

I still had so much to learn.

I raised my glasses and looked back to my reflection, and the shadow of make-up it wore. It was a little heavy. Not Goth-heavy, but definitely not something I would be comfortable walking around with.

Turning to the third item in my new collection, I lifted out another brush and begin to carefully apply a dusting of blush to my cheeks.

I felt faintly ridiculous, the unfamiliar sensation of the make-up reminding me of the time Emma and I had been face painting when we were twelve. If I'm honest with myself, just the wearing of make-up was making me feel slightly uncomfortable. It was clear that I had a lot more to learn about applying cosmetics if I ever wanted to be confident enough to use them in public.

I carefully wiped off the results of the test, making sure that there were no lingering traces or smears. Now I had a benchmark for that skill, and I would try again this evening and see what was different.

And I knew just who I was going to learn from between then and now.

"Good morning, Taylor," Dad said sleepily, yawning into his cup of coffee as I came down for breakfast.

'Morning," I mumbled back, hoping he hasn't noticed how long I spent in the bathroom. Luckily he wasn't quite awake enough for that yet.

I decided that I had time to get some more art practice in before school, so after I finished my cereal I brought out my pad and pencils, casting around for inspiration. A bird, sitting on a sparse and spindly bush branch, jumped out at me. It cocked its head as if recognising my thoughts, or at least noticing my scrutiny, and then with a flutter of movement it was gone, leaving only the swaying branch.

I selected the bush; it's close enough that I don't have to squint and has enough detail to require effort. Putting lead to paper I started to sketch, starting at the base of the bush and working my way up and outwards, following the branches with lighter lines to establish size, growing the picture as the bush did, slowly but surely.

I don't want to rush this, because if practice will let me keep my borrowed talent I want to make sure I'm keeping good habits. Instead, my eyes flicking between pad and garden, I carefully teased out the image before me. The soft scritch-scritch of the pencil is soothing, and before long almost all of the branches were reaching out of the paper and I was almost ready to start work on the leaves.

Blinking a few times, I glanced to the side and spoted my cup of tea, still sitting where I left it when I made my breakfast. Putting the pencil down, I took a sip and grimaced slightly. It's just a bit too cool to be properly enjoyable.

"Art homework?" Dad asked, bringing my attention back to the present. I realised that he had been sitting there for the last ten minutes or so, silently watching me work away at the drawing.

Startled slightly by the scrutiny, I took another sip rather than answer.

"Oh, um, no, not really," I muttered eventually. "I just took up drawing a while ago, and I, uh, wanted to get some practice in."

A silence re-emerged between us.

"So, how long have you been drawing?" Dad asked, smiling slightly. "Because you look to be pretty good at it, judging by that picture."

I pause. "A while? I don't know; I've just gotten into it of late."

The evasion sounded horribly obvious to me, and I cringed slightly, and then again when I see Dad's smile shrink a bit.

"Okay. I just thought that you must have been doing it for a fair time, only I've never noticed you practicing it." Dad's voice was quieter by the end.

Damn it.

"Oh, it's just something that I do in my lunch times," I said, taking another sip for my suddenly dry throat, trying to drown out the bitter taste of the lie. "I didn't used to be any good, but someone recently showed me how to do it a lot better, get the shading and the scale right."

You didn't fail to notice, I just can't tell you that I took this ability from someone else.

"Oh?" Dad perks up at the half-truth. "A friend at school?"

"...no," I admitted, looking into my tea rather than Dad's face. "Just someone I met at the Market. I saw their work and we got to talking. She told me where I could get some good art supplies. Just some basic stuff to use."

More false-truths.

More lies.

..........​

The Market was so much quieter on a week day.

I could see a few students around, some of whom had come straight from school just as I did, or who went to a school much closer to Lord Street than Winslow. But there were much fewer people my age than there were on Sunday.

Fewer stalls as well; with less people attending on a weekday, there aren't as many people prepared to pay the fees to set up a stall.

I repeated my previous tactic, wandering from stall to stall, getting close enough to get a good read on the talents on display without having to stand there looking at people.

I was less choosy this time.

Maybe they would fade away before I ever get to use them, but if I saw something I like, I took it. It was rare that I would draw from any one person for more than a minute. I couldn't justify the time spent on anything more, not with so few people around to provide cover.

This young man, thin with pale skin and fair hair, seemed to know a lot of mathematics. Perhaps he was a statistician, or taking some courses at Brockton University. I didn't know enough to tell. Remembering the math test I had next week, I started to draw from him, matching his pace as he walked through the stalls.

I chickened out when we got to a clear patch, and rather than keep following him I turned to the nearest food stall, spending a while choosing an overly sugary treat I already knew I'll find too sweet.

I picked at it as I looked for another target.

Wandering back the way I came I started thinking about heading home. Perhaps coming here during the week wasn't really worth it. Most of the food stalls are just snacks and drinks, with none of the various ethnic foods that take long enough to prepare for me to start on a new language.

Movement caught my eye, and I saw an older gentleman tossing some snack bags up, juggling them in front of some young children. His grandchildren, presumably.

I slowed down, considering the act.

It was a simple trick, really. It shouldn't take very long at all, and it's also something that I could test almost immediately.

I casually wandered over to the man, reaching out and feeling for the skill.

Active use.

Proximity.

I started drawing from him as he spoke to the children. They were laughing at his antics, and he joked with them, pretending that he was keeping the snacks to himself and making them laugh harder. It's not quite conversation, but hearing him speak did help.

There were a few rocks scattered on the ground, and when the elderly man finally relents and offers up the treats I discard the coloured sugar on a stick and picked them up, tossing them from hand to hand and then one over another. It was disturbingly familiar, the way my hands moved in a pattern they had never learned or practiced, the rocks jumping and bouncing back and forth as I threw them without fail.

I could still feel the draw from ahead of me, so I stooped down and gathered some more. Four rocks flew through the air, and I was smiling as I juggled, not even struggling. So I opened up another couple of fingers, and a fifth rock joined the group.

The connection was fading, and this time it wasn't distance that caused it but the simple fact that I no longer had anything to learn from the old man.

More fingers opened, and the sixth and final rock took flight. I had to stop then, struggling to concentrate on walking and moving my arms swiftly enough at the same time. Snatching the rocks out of the air, feeling them thump into my palms, they were rough and uneven and I loved them for it. I grinned widely, breath huffing out in a quiet but jubilant exhalation.

There was some quiet applause to one side, and when I looked over I saw a few of the stall holders watching me while one of them, a young man not much older than I am, probably helping out a family member, was clapping and smiling.

I flushed, quickly looking away.

I hadn't meant to catch anybody's attention by doing this. I just stupidly acted out on a new talent without thinking it through and now I was the focus of everybody's attention.

Idiot.

Just show everybody that I can suddenly juggle, why don't I? I hurried on my way, avoiding eye contact. Damn it, I needed to be more careful. I couldn't just suddenly display skill I've never had before in public. Not if I wanted to keep the fact that I'm a cape hidden for any length of time.

I breathed in deeply through my nose, held it and then slowly released.

It could be a lot worse, I reassured myself. At least this time it was only juggling, and none of these people knew me. They had no reason to know that I had never juggled before in my life. It would have been much worse if I'd suddenly started shouting in Japanese, or acted like that in front of my classmates.

I stumbled, shuddering at the thought of what would happen if my classmates discovered that I was a cape, and quickened my pace.

The faintly chemical taste of sugar in my mouth was all of a sudden thick and cloying, and I swallowed convulsively, trying to clear it out.

I sped up, looking round at the various displays and seeing nothing.

I didn't peer into the people around me long enough to find anything of worth and none of them looked interesting enough for me to stop and try. Just ordinary people selling junk food and tawdry gewgaws.

Calm down.

I forced myself to repeat the thought, running it through my mind again and again until it started to set in.

It didn't expose myself to anybody. All I did was demonstrate a little trick that anybody can learn with a little time and patience. There is absolutely nothing amazing or parahuman about juggling.

I nodded to myself, slowing.

The worst thing I did was be a little eye-catching, and not in the way I wanted. If I wanted people to stare at me after I use my powers, it would be because I used them to do something heroic, like save somebody or stop a villain. Just a bunch of people I didn't know looking at me for doing something silly?

That was not a situation I was comfortable with.

I took a deep breath, and then smiled at the aroma of baked goods. It looked like there was at least one stall still putting the effort into their food during the week. Following my nose, I eventually spotted the culprit: a display of sweet and savoury pastries from the Netherlands, cheerfully tended by an extremely large man.

He stood over a head taller than me, and was both broad-shouldered and somewhat fat. His bald head was still haloed by a ring of silvery-grey hair, steadily retreated from his pate. Catching me looking, he called out a greeting, his voice deep and words slightly distorted by a thick Dutch accent.

Pulling a smile onto my face, I walked over, reaching out to the man.

Proximity.

Eye contact.

Conversation.

It was getting easier to find languages the more I reached for them. Maybe skills were organised in a similar way through many different nexuses, or maybe I was just reaching for what felt familiar. I lingered for a second over the idea of learning Dutch, but when the man gestured to the assorted foodstuffs I realised that I wanted that more.

Besides, I was already learning Korean, albeit slowly, so Dutch could wait. And it wasn't a very commonly spoken language in Brockton Bay, unlike the different Asian languages of the ABB.

That settled, I reached out for this man's cooking skills, feeling it flare up as he explained the different meals he had prepared.

I learned about the different types of rye bread and how to make a kind of almond slice pastry called a banket, the Dutch man's oddly melodious voice loud and cheerful as he explained everything. I ended up choosing a simple sausage and slightly crunchy onion-in-sauce meal. It's an odd flavour, but a welcome change.

I'll give it a few more days before returning here, I decided. It was too easy to draw attention to myself, even without realising it, and I would be a lot more comfortable finding targets with a crowd to lose myself in.

There would be more talents on display, as well, and I think that Dad would be a bit happier with me going out more on weekends rather than staying home reading.

Whatever happens, I was making progress.

With the help of my power, I was becoming better.

..........​

Dad had helped me prepare the ingredients, but after that he stood back and watched.

I felt self-conscious, but there was no denying that it was fun. Mixing the ingredients to create the pastry without referencing a cookbook made me feel confident in a way I never normally did. For a brief quarter of an hour I acted like a trained chef, and could almost pretend that I was one.

With the pastries in the oven I set to cleaning up, and Dad filled the sink while I wiped down the surfaces. The brief pause after we both finished threatened to grow into an awkward silence, but fortunately Dad just smiled and picked up a tea towel, gesturing to the sink full of tonight's dinner dishes.

The silence after that was more companionable, a gentle clatter of dishes and swishing of water filling the gap between words not spoken. He would dry the dishes as I finished washing them, but when there was nothing more to clean and put away I found myself at a loss of what to do.

The kitchen was quiet save the hum of the oven.

Still ten minutes left on the counter, and the silence was starting to press on me.

"What got you in the mood for baking all of a sudden?"

"I just... kind of wanted to make something nice?"

I hated how my voice turned even that into a question.

"I didn't ask before, but what is it that you're making?"

I blinked.

"Oh, they're called bankets. It's a Dutch thing. They're kind of a Christmassy thing, so when I saw some being sold at the Market I thought I'd try my hand at it. I haven't tried it before, but it seemed simple enough. I'll just need to add a dusting of icing sugar when they finish baking. Maybe add some cinnamon to it, though that isn't usually done. I just think that it would be a nice addition."

"Bankets?" Dad remarked. "Never tried them before. It's like an almond log pastry, right?"

"Uhh, kinda? They aren't always like this. Sometimes marzipan is used, and I think it would work better with some proper puff pastry. Sometimes they're also rolled into letters, so they get called 'Dutch letters' often, but usually the only letter used is 's'. I think that's because people are just lazy, because those are just bendy logs."

I frowned at that. I could make a bunch of thinner bankets and spell something out with them, but I couldn't think of anything to spell out that wouldn't be corny or embarrassing.

Dad was smiling at me, looking faintly bemused.

"What?" I asked, suddenly feeling self-conscious.

I'd almost been babbling by the end, the new knowledge rushing forth.

"Nothing," Dad said, shaking his head slightly, and then relenting with another smile. "It's just good to see you acting so enthusiastic about something. You've been so quiet of late. You barely talk about school, and you stopped going round to Emma's house on the weekends."

He trailed off, and I looked away, blinking slightly.

"Maybe we should bake something nice more often?" he tried, a note of uncertainty stealing into his voice. "It's nice seeing you like this again."

His last words are soft and sad, and I made a point of checking the oven's timer so as to avoid looking him in the eyes.

It's nice to see me acting like I used to before Mom died.

The words went unsaid, but they echoed around the room loudly.

"That," I whispered, clearing my throat as it briefly choked up, "that would be nice."

I quickly wiped at my eyes and spread a smile across my face when I turned and looked at Dad. He pretended not to notice.

"I think I could probably pick up a few more recipes. We can try some of them out, see what works best and then make those for Christmas."

"I could probably bring up a few of Annette's old cookbooks."

There was a moment of silence after that suggestion.

It's rare that either of us directly refers to Mom or mentions her name. It used to be because it was still painful to do so, and then it just became easier to keep on not saying it.

"We didn't really make anything special for Christmas last year," Dad said, still quiet, "and I was thinking that maybe we could make up for it this year."

Mom used to do all of the Christmas baking. We'd have cakes and muffins in the run-up to Christmas and a large roast on the day. I'd always help her, mostly by chopping the vegetables or just fetching the ingredients when she needed them, and afterwards I would proudly announce how we had cooked it all together. Mom and Dad would smile and congratulate me on making such a good meal.

The first Christmas after she died had been awful. Dad and I had gotten each other a couple of presents each, lying around a small plastic tree with those from the Barnes family and Mom's colleagues. Dinner had been simple, eaten in silence and followed with a store-bought Christmas cake.

We'd both cried a lot that day.

Last Christmas hadn't been as bad, but was still too full of unhappy memories to truly enjoy it. It was lacking Mom's gentleness and warmth. Her silent, quiet disapproval when Dad or I tried to sneak too much chocolate before dinner. The wide smile that lit up her face whenever I got excited by a present.

"Yeah," I whispered, "I'd like that."

The timer on the oven went off and the moment was broken.

Pulling out the bankets and setting them down on a cooling tray, I soon had a couple of slices removed and served.

Blowing on them to cool them, Dad and I started nibbling.

"These are really nice, Taylor," Dad said sincerely, and even at my most critical I have to agree.

My smile came more naturally now, and I felt proud of myself for managing this. Maybe I'm not an Alexandria package, but right now I wouldn't change powers for the world.

When we finished our slices I cut a couple more, and we enjoyed those too. We didn't speak to each other much, but the silence was easier. It was a gentle, agreeable silence as we recalled happier times.

Eventually Dad headed off to bed and I put the bankets in the fridge, before heading into the bathroom. Pulling out the make-up kit, I opened it up and got to work. It wasn't just Emma I learned from today, although I did learn the most from her. Julia, Ashleigh and even Sophia knew more about make-up and how to apply it than I did.

Just a slow draw from each of them, sitting as far from them as the classroom would allow and ignoring everything they did. Just a trickle of talent, steadily coming in from each class and slowly but surely teaching me more.
It took me over a quarter of an hour, but when I was finished I could scarcely recognise my own handiwork. Far from the pale, scrawny child I had been before, I almost glowed with health.

The zits and spotty skin were covered up, looking smooth and ever so slightly tanned. My cheeks were gently flushed, the bone structure subtly enhanced to accentuate the rest of my face. The light layer of eye shadow brought out my pale green eyes instead of (hah) overshadowing them. The simple lipstick disguised the thinness of my lips and I couldn't help but smile at my reflection and the remarkable change that a few minutes work and some simple cosmetics had made.

I'm definitely going to practice with this, I decided. Morning and evening, I'll compare how much my skill changes, and for once I could honestly claim that there's something to learn in every class.

..........​

The movements were quicker, my hands more confident. Just over ten minutes the next morning, and I was back to looking like I actually belonged with the other girls at Winslow. Whispering my still-broken Korean at my reflection, I carefully washed my face of the last traces of cosmetics and made my way down to the kitchen.

"Morning, Taylor," Dad yawned at me.

"Good morning, Dad," I said, smiling warmly at him as I prepared my breakfast, for once excited about going to school.

 

[Lokimotion]

By the dread powers of necromancy, I command this thread to rise!

..........​

​

The knock at the door was hesitant.

"Taylor, sweetie, are you okay?" Dad's voice came through the door of the bathroom, muffled and tinged with concern.

"...y-" I coughed and tried again, swallowing a few times to remove the lump in my throat.

"Yeah, I'm okay. Okayish, anyway. I think I just ate something bad."

I forced out the lies through the sick feeling inside, feeling as if I'd eaten lead weights, cold water trickling down my face and slowly dripping into the sink.

"I've got something for upset stomachs. If you want I could go get it?"

My reflection was pale, like I had had the blood drained out of me and leaving only a wan cadaver walking around in my place. If it wasn't for the lack of bloodshot eyes or dilated pupils I would have forgiven someone for thinking that I was coming down off a drug trip.

"That'd be great, Dad. Thanks." I managed to say, proud of my voice for not cracking.

"I'm not sure how good it will work for food poisoning, though," and the concern was back.

"I don't think it's food poisoning," I called out, the first time I had answered him truthfully so far. "Just a normal upset stomach." And I was back to the lies.

"If you're sure..." came the doubtful response.

"I am," I said, injecting a bit of confidence into my tone. "Though I don't think I'll be up to cooking anything tonight, I'm afraid."

"That won't be a problem," Dad reassured me. "I can cook something, or order takeout if you'd prefer that.

I shook my head vigorously, forgetting that he couldn't see me.

"No takeout, just something mild will do. Maybe with rice or pasta. Something that goes down easy."

"Okay, honey. I'll find you a panadol or something."

Dad walked away, the sounds of his footsteps receding as he left me alone to face my reflection.

..........​

The day was bright and clear, and I was following a family.

It was cold, but Brockton Bay was known for its mild winters, and sheltered from the wind my baggy hoody and jeans were adequate to the task.

The cacophony of jumbled voices from the bustling crowds washed over me, interwoven with the tangled scents of food, various wares and people themselves. I was just one person amongst many, and I was comfortable with this anonymity.

I was back at the Market, it having quickly become a favourite hunting ground of mine, and the weekend crowds were making my job so much easier.

There was a Hispanic family in front of me, a mother, father and four children, out shopping for some Christmas presents, I assumed. The parents were looking harried by the excited jabber of the smaller children, and they seemed to be relying on their eldest to keep his younger siblings contained, corralling them back to the group if one strayed too far.

He was talking about... visiting a chocolate stall later?

I was reasonably confident in my understanding of Spanish now, at least to the point of getting the gist of what a person was saying. The boy, whose name I was pretty certain was Miguel, was laughing as he chivied his young sister back to their parents.

His shoulders were broad, and I could see enough to recognise the musculature underneath his shirt and open jacket. The carefully tousled hair topped a strong face, with strong cheekbones and jaw, the effect slightly ruined by a moustache that maybe should have waited a year or more before making an appearance.

As he rejoined the group I switched my attention to his mother, finding her language skills again and starting the draw anew. It hadn't shrunk as much as I'd expected, even with a small draw from Miguel, but it was still different in a subtle way. There was a kind of vibrancy to the knowledge of Spanish that seemed to be diminishing the more I learned.

How this differed from the size of the knowledge pool they each possessed I didn't know, but I kept it in the back of my mind when I switched to the father.

The pool of knowledge had barely shrunk at all, but it was dimmer. This was consistent throughout the dozen or so times I had switched between members of the family, not spending more than ten or twenty seconds on each person.

I had intended to master a single language at a time, but seeing the whole family out together had been more temptation than I could resist. I needed a new skill to observe the differences in their pools, and a language shared by six different people was perfect for what I wanted.

Besides, Spanish was more commonly spoken than Korean, so it would be more useful for me.

Reaching my self-imposed limit, I switched to the father of the family.

His pool was similarly dimmed, but only slightly shrunken. Was the pool representative of how much it was possible for me to take from each person, and the vibrancy how much I had taken?

Another child, the youngest boy, broke away from the group and rushed over to a toy stall, proudly displaying the brightly coloured plastic of items manufactured cheaply overseas that were guaranteed to break within a few days of being bought.

Muttering something in exasperation, Miguel followed after him, steering him back over protests and looking around in case there were any similar enticements nearby, catching my eye in the process.

There are a couple of seconds where we just look at each other then, with his hands still on his younger brother's shoulders, Miguel pushes him along and tells him to hurry up, breaking eye contact with me and seeming to speed up slightly.

Did he notice me following them?

I can't say for sure, but his suspicious response was putting me on edge. There will be other families I tell myself, turning and slipping through the gap in between two stalls, ignoring the friendly greetings from the people manning them.

I put some distance between us, but before too long I'm on the lookout for more targets. There's a hunger to the act, a need to feel the world making a bit more sense, becoming a bit more manageable every time I learn something new.

That pale man?

He seems to be just another office worker, maybe an accountant. He has nothing I want, so I move on to the next.

This elderly woman?

She can play a pipe organ. Does she work in a church? No little skill with oil painting as well, but unfortunately that's a hobby that's too expensive for me to try out right now. Driving? I know what they say about old people driving but she can certainly manage a vehicle a lot better than I can.

Tempting as it is, I decide against it. I don't have a car and won't be able to afford one for a few years yet, so there really is no point in that.

I keep looking.

This large man?

Something about the way he moved set me off, sounding a few alarms in my head and causing me to take a more careful look.

He was tall, standing almost head and shoulders above me and broad with it. Chocolate skinned, with a strong jaw and close-cropped hair, the first thing I think to myself is 'ex-military'. I put his age at around forty, though a strong, healthy forty year old who made sure to keep in shape. Reaching out, I was not surprised to see boxing as a prominent skill

My target decided, I moved closer.

Proximity.

It was different to the hand to hand combat skills I got from Jeremy the tour guide. While there was some grappling involved, his skills mostly revolved around boxing, and he lacked the broad array of styles that Jeremy had. Ignoring the ability to drive, I reached further, seeing some basic knowledge of how to handle a pistol but no other guns.

Perhaps he wasn't military after all.

Drifting over towards him, I stifled the urge to throw some shadow punches, the motions in my mind become steadily more familiar the more I draw.

I made a note to start exercising more. If I was ever to actually use these skills in self defence, I would need more than the muscles of a thirteen year old boy to actually pull them off.

Catching sight of another Hispanic-looking family, I remembered my original purpose.

I was going to learn an entirely new language today. I wasn't going to eke the knowledge out over a week, like I had done with Japanese and was doing with Korean, but rather find enough targets that following them wouldn't be suspicious.

With some measure of reluctance I pulled away from the boxer and reached out to one of the family members, the familiar tingle of language blossoming in my mind.

I'm not sure how well I succeeded at appearing casual, but nobody raised an alarm or looked at me suspiciously by the time I got close enough to confirm that the family did speak Spanish.

Proximity.

Unfortunately they were talking to each other in English, which slowed the process down, but it couldn't stop the smile from spreading across my face as understanding seeped into me. Maybe it wasn't as satisfying as listening to spoken Spanish becoming clearer in real time, but I knew my knowledge was growing.

It wouldn't be long now.

..........​

With another gentle knock on the door, Dad opened it and walked in, a glass of water in one hand and some tablets in the other.

"Are you feeling better, Taylor?" He asked, gently placing them down next to the sink.

I nodded, a little shakily, letting the cold flannel slip down from my forehead.

"Yeah," I lied, the nausea roiling in my gut, twisting like an oily serpent and threatening to bring up whatever was left in my stomach.

"I think it's best if I call the school in the morning, let them know you won't be coming in."

I opened my mouth in protest, but the words choked themselves in my throat, lodging themselves in place and making it difficult to breathe.

I couldn't go to Winslow. Not like this; not now.

My mouth worked soundlessly for a few seconds before I gave up and mutely nodded, looking away from Dad.

I think of all the different people in school, and the students and teachers I'd be near every day. What if they knew? I thought of Emma, and couldn't stop a shudder from going through me. Despite reason and common sense telling me she couldn't possibly know, some part of me, deep down, was convinced that she would take one look at me and figure out everything.

A bout of nausea gripped me again and my hands clenched onto the sink, knuckles white as I tried to stop my arms from trembling.

"Are you sure you're feeling better?" Dad asked, an element of alarm entering his voice.

I force my arms to relax.

"Yeah," I croaked out, "just felt a little dizzy all of a sudden. It's passed, though. Really, I'll be fine."

Dad looked a little sceptical, but I gave him a smile and eventually he seemed to accept it.

"Okay. I'll put on some rice and some vegetables. It might be a little bland, but it's probably easier for you to digest right now."

"Thanks, Dad," I managed in response. "Not sure how much of an appetite I'll have, but I doubt I'll bring it back up again."

With one last concerned look at me, he left for the kitchen, and I soon heard the clatter of pans and cutlery being pulled out of drawers.

Running the tap again, I splashed some cold water over my face.

One thing at a time.

Winslow was a situation for later on. Right now I had to go downstairs and convince Dad that I was okay. That everything hadn't gone horribly, horribly wrong.

..........​

"Prepare... beef... sauce and spices."

I was getting perhaps one word in three, maybe a little more, though a lot of my understanding was drawn from context and a familiarity with the subject matter, but it still sent a little thrill through me as, piece by piece, a new language unfolded within my mind.

I'd managed to find the same Korean food stall from my first trip to the Market last week, when I'd first gone out exploring my powers. The cook was as friendly as ever, and he was helped by a young man who I assumed was his son.

They spoke to each other, and his language skill brightened for a few seconds, then faded again as he returned to speaking English to the customer.

He finished with that customer and turned to me as I approached, smiling in welcome.

"Hello," I said, careful in my pronunciation.

"Hello yourself," he replied, his smile widening.

"I would like... one meal of... Samgyeopsal," I struggled with the word, but the cook only nodded and gestured to an example meal.

"Pork stomach... grill with garlic... onion?"

I managed to string enough words together to recognise what he was saying and smiled in return, nodding enthusiastically and handing over payment.

I stood to one side as he started cooking and let the son take the order of the person behind me, and soon the mouth-watering aroma of grilling meat filled the air.

I wasn't going to touch his cooking skills, too temped by the idea of learning two languages in the space of a single day to want to focus on anything else, but seeing the meal be prepared before my eyes had me seriously reconsidering.

Maybe I can stand around here eating the meal if I need more time?

I reached out to the cook once more, seeing the deftness of his hands and the unconscious timing of each movement, and I start to draw upon it.

It slowed me down a fair bit, drawing upon both skills, but I had time, and I considered the minor delay to be worth it.

Already the banter between the father and son was becoming easier to understand, though when the son makes a joke I couldn't quite understand the punch line. A cold gust of wind managed to work its way down the neck of my jacket and I scrunched up my shoulders and shuffled a bit closer to the grill, basking in the warm air spilling out into the open air.

For a minute I get lost in my thoughts, so it was a surprise when the cook waved to catch my attention and proffered up the finished meal. I inhaled the scent of freshly cooked pork, a smile of genuine pleasure spreading across my face as I look back at the man.

"Thank you," I said cheerfully, still marveling at the new fluidity of my languages. "This smells very good. I will try to cook it myself some day."

He laughed.

"Please do, and let me know if you..." He frowned and waved his hand around for a second, "need any tips. You are," he paused again, "come back for time you need more inspiration."

At least, I though the final word was 'inspiration'. As far as I can tell, there isn't a direct translation, but it seems fairly close.

"Are you okay there, old man?" the younger cook asked bemusedly. "You aren't going senile already?"

The elderly cook growled in mock severity at the man I was now certain was his son, who just laughed.

I took a bite of the samgyeopsal as I watched them talk, the father stuttering and getting increasingly frustrated. Automatically, my mind goes back to the woman in the cafe I copied Japanese from and the way she had stuttered and stammered too.

I never really thought about how people speaking other languages would struggle for words the same way we do, and I felt rather stupid for not doing so. It was like seeing Emma socialise and work people to get what she wanted; once you knew how it was done it was so much less impressive and less effective.

I took another bite when they started work on another order. The younger man seemed much more coherent and confidant when he spoke and I entertained the idea that I'd drawn from the wrong person.

Come to think of it, the Japanese woman I'd drawn from had had the same issue. Did I just happen to choose the people who weren't completely fluent in...

...their own languages.

The food became ash in my mouth.

The people who weren't struggling to speak were those I hadn't drawn from.

No.

No, that couldn't be right. None of the Spanish speaking families had struggled at all, and I'd followed each for at least twenty minutes. None of the dozen or more people had struggled, after I'd only drawn a small amount from each. And with the other Spanish speakers I'd met in between and afterwards? Maybe fifteen or sixteen people to draw from and not one of them had seemed to struggle at all.

I took a step backwards, blood rushing through my ears, hands shaking enough to scatter bits of food on the ground.

I tried to swallow, but my throat wouldn't work.

I had taken his ability to speak Korean from him.

Not all of it, as I had almost spoken enough to get through a slow conversation before I approached him, but I had taken enough that he struggled to communicate with his own son.

I thought of the Japanese woman, surrounded by her family as she stumbled over her words.

I thought back to the college student I had drawn-stolen the ability to draw from, selling her artwork to help raise funds and build a career.

I thought of all the other people I'd drawn from in between then and now, helping to fill out my gaps in knowledge until I was fluent in three different languages in the space of a week.

All of them were people who had lost some part of the ability to speak, or to draw, or put make-up on, or drive. I thought back to my visit to the PRT headquarters, and the father who had driven his son to visit.

No, I refused to think like that. I had barely taken anything from him before switching to someone else.

But who is to say it needed more than that to cause an accident? People get in accidents all the time, even without someone draining their ability to drive.

Struggling to breathe, I choked down the mouthful lodged in my throat and heaved in a lung-full of air.

I'd stolen from heroes. I'd walked into their headquarters and taken away their ability to fight villains and criminals.

"Miss?" The young cook was looking at me in concern. "Are you okay? You really don't look well."

I looked between him and his flustered looking father, and thought about how I'd taken away this man's ability to speak to his son.

The meal dropped from my nerveless fingers as I staggered backwards, and like that my will broke. I turned and ran, sprinting away from the stall and the evidence of my crimes.

Spoiler: Taylor's Skills

Highly skilled:

• Japanese

Skilled:

• Spanish
• Korean
• Cosmetics
• Self-defense

Moderately skilled:

• Socialising and public speaking
• Art and sketching
• Cooking
• Juggling

Slightly skilled:

• Driving

Spoiler: Author's Notes

So, this took far longer than I expected, and I got distracted by some IRL stuff. I've spent the last couple of weeks trying to force myself to finish the second half of the chapter. Fortunately, I stumbled across BeaconHill's fantastic new story Nemesis, and seeing all of the omake's the enthusiastic readers submitted, I had to offer one of my own. This was enough to break through my writer's block and motivate me to finish this chapter. Also, yes, the plot of Claim The Spoils has finally taken a ponderous step forwards. I hope you enjoy and, as ever, I welcome all typo corrections and suggestions for improvement.

 

[Lokimotion]

Dad called me in sick on Monday.

I wanted to go to school, to find some way of proving to myself that I had been wrong about my power, but when the time came I just couldn't do it. I ended up just sitting at the kitchen table, unable even to eat breakfast and just clutching at the slowly cooling mug of tea in my hands as if it were somehow the key to finding my way out of this mess.

Occasionally, I took a sip.

I was perversely glad when Dad took one look at me and told me to stay at home. As much as I wanted this to be over, hating the inevitability of what I had to face, I was still dreading going back to Winslow.

My relief was short-lived, however.

The moment Dad left for work the silence in the house became almost oppressive. I started pacing back and forth, twisting my hands and looking for something, anything that might distract me.

I forced down a bowl of cereal, more for the need to occupy myself with something than out of any real hunger I might have, but once that was finished I still had nothing to do. Rifling through my schoolbag I found some homework that I had finished late Friday night and started to go over it.

I didn't think that I would change much, but right now it was something to focus on.

Something that wasn't an old man struggling to speak to his son.

I forced my thoughts away from the image, trying to fill my mind with trigonometry and algebra, and when that didn't work I turned to an English essay I had rushed through. I would take it slower and do it better today.

That thought then spiralled into another and another until I remembered that none of my stolen skills related to literature or essay writing.

It was okay.

This piece of homework was safe for me to redo.

The words swam in front of my eyes and every time I made myself focus on the questions being asked my mind twisted back on itself until everything I tried to write was somehow a crime against somebody else.

It's okay, I tried to tell myself, with little success. You only ever took minor skills from them. Stuff like knowing how to juggle, or sketch.

I took the ability to draw away from an artist.

I flinched at the thought, my pen skating across the page and leaving a messy blue streak across three lines.

I hissed in frustration as I looked at the mess. It meant I would have to redo the entire page.

She painted and used charcoal as well. Sketching was a small part of what she did as an artist. Really it was just the beginner stages that she had moved past.

The feeble excuse withered away even as I thought it.

I took fighting skills from a PRT agent. If he goes up against a villain and is killed, then it's on me.

My pen froze and I shuddered at the thought.

Surely they would send the heroes in against the villains. The PRT are just there as back up. Besides, they have their guns to use. They don't fight with their fists. And that trooper-

Jeremy, my treacherous thoughts stabbed at me.

-wouldn't fight alone. He would have a whole squad as back-up. And he knew loads of martial arts. I didn't take all of it.

The slew of panicked thoughts seemed even more hollow and desperate the longer I thought about them.

The cook who could no longer cook.

The artist who could no longer draw.

The trooper who could no longer fight.

Their faces swam in my mind and my pen creaked in my hand, knuckles white and bloodless around the handle.

It wasn't as bad as that.

I knew it wasn't as bad as that. I had taken bits of them, important bits, I wouldn't deny that, but I had never taken everything from them. I didn't think I had taken most of a given skill from a single person, with the sole exception of the PRT trooper, and in that case I knew for a fact that I hadn't taken most of what he had. I had simply been too busy trying to see what skills everybody else had on offer.

The lady I took Japanese from and the Korean father at the food stall were the only ones I had taken anything significant from, and even then I didn't think I had taken more than half of what they had.

At least, I hoped I hadn't.

Had I?

I turned and threw my pen at the wall, breath coming in short gasps.

I couldn't practice those languages any more. Doing so would just feel wrong, knowing that they were words stolen from someone else. I couldn't practice them, and they would fade away, like everything else I've taken from people, leaving me no better off than before and everyone else worse. They would fade away like they have never been stolen to begin with and everything would have been for nothing.

Crossing the room and stooping to pick up the pen, I paused.

The skills I stole faded away.

They weren't permanent. I knew they weren't permanent because I could feel them getting fainter, ever so slowly, hour by hour in the back of my mind. Just as I knew what skills other people had by reaching out to them, a part of me knew what I had myself.

And if the skills I took weren't permanent for myself, was the theft not permanent for others either? Was it possible that just as the skills left me, they returned to the people I had taken them from?

Inches from the pen, my hand trembled slightly.

Blinking, I collected the pen and returned to the table, carefully laying it down and sitting, my homework disregarded.

I didn't know.

I drummed my fingers on the page in front of me and thought about the people I had reached out to and how I had felt their skills diminishing. Could I also feel their skills returning?

I didn't know.

I hurried to the kitchen, putting the kettle on the boil and rifling through the cupboards for some teabags, my fingers still shaking. I slowly poured the boiling water, trying to force my hands to be steady, and carefully took the cup of black tea back to the table, finding some small measure of comfort in the old ritual.

Sitting down, I leaned over the cup and inhaled, taking a long, deep breath of aromatic steam and holding it for a few seconds, feeling it tickle the back of my throat before I slowly released it.

It hadn't been an issue recently, given how much I was draining from people, but it had bothered me at first that anything I copied (or thought I was copying) faded away after a few days. After the initial elation of having powers, I had been disappointed at how minor they turned out to be. Just knowing what somebody else could do wasn't the kind of ability that would ever have people look up or admire me.

But then I saw how Emma could twist people around her words, convince them to leave a topic alone or focus on something she wanted, and I wished that I could do that as well. Feeling that connection flowing into me had been a revelation, and when what Emma was doing started to make more sense to me, becoming less some unknown social art and more just a matter of presentation, I realised that I could do this stuff as well.

Not very well, and not very easily, but better than I could before.

Of course, actually finding someone prepared to speak to me hadn't been very easy, and the other girls had pounced the moment they saw me trying. The next time Mr Gladly set us a group project, however, keeping the other members of the group on track and working seemed a lot easier than the last time.

As the days went by, I drew on other things, such as calligraphy once I had seen another student practicing their curving, looping script. Watching my own hand-writing change over the course of several sentences had been remarkable, and I couldn't help but giggle to myself, which resulting in me being told off by the teacher and several rounds of stage whispers about how I must be high in class.

Then these gifts started to fade, another disappointment of my powers.

Still, it helped me deal with school when things seemed to be getting too bad. When they verbally harassed me, I just got that much better at dealing with words. When they targeted me too much in Phys Ed I just got better at dodging thrown objects or suspicious fouls. It wasn't much, but the ability to learn how to deal with anything bothering me, as it bothered me? That was very welcome indeed. If that was all my power was, then I could accept that happily.

I took another deep breath, and raised the cup to my lips.

The gifts and knowledge I took from others faded. But when it left me, where did it go to? Did it just vanish, leaving both of us bereft? That would be too cruel, and I didn't think I could bear that. But since it left me, there was a chance, and a good one in my mind, that it returned to the other person. That all I needed to do was wait and everything would be back to normal, with nobody the worse off.

Maybe it wasn't stealing at all, just borrowing.

If that was true, then I hadn't ruined anybody after all; I had just... temporarily inconvenienced them.

All was not lost.

The situation was salvageable.

I breathed in again and took another sip of tea, feeling my heartbeat calm as I lowered the cup to the table.

The surface of the drink was rippling, like a puddle in rain.

My hands were shaking, I realised.

I took them away from the cup and laid them flat on the table to either side, pressing them down to keep them still.

Perhaps I was wrong to call in sick today, but I needed to come to terms with this. If they regained their skills as I lost them, then I couldn't practice anything. I needed to let the skills return on their own. Maybe it would make no difference, but until I knew more, I simply couldn't risk it.

Whatever the situation truly was, I had to return to school tomorrow.

With this decision made, the situation didn't seem so bad. My breathing seemed to come a little easier, and tomorrow didn't seem to be so daunting.

My breathing steadied, and I picked up my tea, watching the tremors spreading across the surface.

Maybe it was just my imagination, but my hands seemed to be a little steadier as well.

..........​

I felt like I was walking towards the hangman's noose.

I hadn't slept well and my thoughts were sluggish and clumsy, for all that my hands were jittering and my eyes skating across the halls, looking for someone I could remember drawing from.

I wanted this to be over and I didn't want to do this. Little flickers of hope that everything would be okay were swamped by the fear that nothing would be, all of it mixing in my stomach into a noxious cocktail of dread.

I'd never been pretty, and I hadn't managed to summon the courage to wear make-up to school in the single week I'd had the ability to do so, but now I knew I had to look almost unhealthy. Dad had been concerned this morning, checking several times to make sure I was ready to go to school and it had taken repeated assurances that I wouldn't collapse or throw up in class for him to stop.

Not that I blamed him.

My reflection had been pale to the point of looking bloodless, and the shadows under my eyes made me look like I hadn't slept in weeks. I hadn't bothered with my new ritual of applying make-up and washing it off before breakfast. The idea that not practising the stolen talents might help my victims recover faster, if they could recover at all, was a tenuous one, and in truth it was more a desire to avoid my own reflection, but either way I couldn't bring myself to try. The very idea felt like buying something with drug money, only worse.

Julia walked in front of me, sparing me a quick, dismissive glance, and I felt a flutter of panic.

Had I taken anything from her?

I didn't think so, but she hung around with Emma often enough that I might have. I knew I hadn't taken any languages or cooking ability from her, and as far as I was aware, Julia wasn't in my art class, so I couldn't have taken that ability from her. Had I drained her ability to apply make-up?

It was possible. Emma was certainly not the only person I had done that to, and anyone standing around her would have been available to drain when she left the room.

My gut clenched at the realisation that I couldn't even remember everyone I had targeted with my power.

Too late, I remembered to check to see if she was wearing make-up, and by the time I tried to catch a good look at her face she was walking in the other direction. I looked around for others, hoping to spot Cindy or Alice or even Emma. Somebody I knew I had taken from.

I hurried through to the intersection of two of the main corridors.

It was a spot that Emma and her friends liked to hang out at, some place where they could keep an eye on the comings and goings of other students. It was also a spot I frequently had to travel through, or one I had to go a considerable length out of my way to avoid, which may have been one reason why it was a favourite of hers to begin with.

My steps slowed as I approached and caught sight of the group of girls ahead. Part of it was the fear of what I was about to learn; seeing just how badly I had hurt people. Another part was just a fear of the group themselves, a gnawing apprehension that I couldn't shake off.

One of the girls on the far side of the group from me was the first to notice me. I could see the sudden change in focus, the way her head tilted to one side as she mentioned it to the others, and then, like a ripple spreading out the others around her looked over. They didn't move their heads much, just enough to catch a glimpse of me, but I could see the way the dynamic of the group subtly changed, and they knew I was aware that I had been spotted.

I hesitated for a second, stumbling slightly as I tried to keep walking while not wanting to get any closer. But no, I had to do this. I had to get this over with, one way or another.

Was it just my imagination, or did the whispers seem more focused today? Their eyes more accusing? I mentally shook myself. Several of them hadn't even bothered to look, and by the way Alice was irritably jabbing at her phone, she might not have even been aware of me at all.

Just paranoia, Taylor. You still need to do this.

There's a flash of red in the centre of the group, and before I can brace myself Emma comes into view, a frustrated scowl marring her otherwise attractive face. She looks at me, and though I can't hear the words she speaks to Madison, I can see by the curl of her lips that it's something nasty. This is normal, however, and I ignore it, instead focusing on the unusual thing in this situation.

Namely, Emma's make-up.

Instead of looking so natural that beyond the lipstick you can barely tell that she's wearing any, it seemed almost blotchy and was visibly uneven. The blush on her left cheek was more heavily applied than that on her right, and not quite matching it in position. The eye shadow didn't contrast the colour of her eyes so much as make them look heavy, as if Emma hadn't slept well in days.

I think that even the me from a few weeks ago would have noticed, when the only thing I knew about make-up was that other girls used it, and right now, with the stolen skills of a dozen different girls in my head?

It was almost painfully obvious.

I stopped, the shock at the normally flawless model's appearance doing what apprehension had failed to achieve. Emma sees me stop and her face twists in response, snapping something to Madison and walking off with her chin raised. The moment is ruined somewhat when she turns back and shoots me one last venomous look.

Did she know?

My heart is thundering almost painfully fast in my chest, and I think something is brushing against my jeans until I look down and see my hands shaking. Struggling to breathe, pulse pounding in my ears and the edges of the corridor fading away, I try not to collapse.

She knows.

She has to know, looking at me like that.

Then someone pushes me out the way as they go past, an irritated comment about blocking the corridor thrown over their shoulder, not even noticing when my feet tangle together and I hit the wall hard.

The burst of laughter from ahead lets my thoughts coalesce, as Emma's departing friends enjoy a brief bout of my humiliation.

The bell rang, and I jumped, clutching my bag and trying to slow my breathing. My knuckles were white around the bag straps, and I turned back the way I had come, ducking into the bathroom.

Splashing cold water on my face, I listened to the muffled footsteps of the student body fade away while I studied my reflection.

Did I look any paler than I had before?

I honestly didn't know, and I wasn't sure if I would be able to tell if I was. I had officially used my parahuman powers on students, children, and negatively affected their lives. Did that make me a villain?

I didn't know. I hadn't known that I was harming them, but I wasn't sure if that made a difference. I knew that if I used my powers on them again then I was definitely a villain. Running the tap, I splashed the water on my face several times, letting the shock of the cold water break me out of my thoughts and bring me back to the present. Whatever happened, I couldn't decide just yet.

It all depended on whether or not they recovered as my abilities faded. If they did, then that was a weight off my shoulders. If that was the case, then... honestly, I didn't know what I would do next. I would just have to wait and see.

If they didn't recover... if I had permanently stolen something from their lives that they might never get back... well, I would just have to wait and see in that case as well. If they could relearn what I had taken from them, then perhaps not everything was fucked.

And if they couldn't?

I shuddered, rubbing the cold water more thoroughly into my face.

I didn't even want to think about what I would do if that was the case.

Regardless, right now I had to get to class before anything else happened. Being late would only cause more problems. I nodded to myself, drying my face with a paper towel and giving my reflection a firm nod. Breathing deeply, I straightened up, pushed back my shoulders slightly and strode out the door. As long as I was still moving, then I was making progress.

I didn't quite believe that, but it helped me keep walking.

..........
​

Mercifully, computer science class was first, and it provided a welcome reprieve from the rest of the student body. Mrs Knott frowned a bit at my tardiness, but she was aware that I had been officially 'sick' the day before, and one look at my pallor was enough for her to quieten down and simply wave me to my seat.

I struggled to focus throughout the class, barely managing to finish my work before the bell rang and I had to leave.

The next hour was even worse, with Madison and Julia both in my English class. It was hard to catch a glimpse of them, since they both sat on the opposite side of the classroom when they could, in the back row, the same as me.

Proximity.

I shuddered at the sensation of my power reaching out to them, feeling almost eager to reconnect with the girls, and my pen skittered across the page. I gripped the pen tighter, the tip juddering slightly and digging into the page in my efforts to keep it still, a jagged blue line dividing the words above it.

A quick glance over revealed nothing that I could detect. The two girls typically wore only light layers of cosmetics and my increased aptitude wasn't enough to tell if they had struggled or misapplied anything.

While saying something to Julia, Madison's eyes flickered in my direction and caught me looking.

Eye contact.

The connection grew, and I flinched away, quickly looking back down at my work. I heard Madison mutter something to Julia, and they both giggled, but I didn't hear what it was.

I didn't dare look at them after that, and after class was over I hurried out as fast as I could, though they didn't bother to follow me, and almost seemed to ignore me for the rest of the day.

..........
​

Wednesday was cold and miserable, with a biting wind that drove the sleet in between any gap in my old waterproof, the rain hissing and seething along the rooftops and choking the gutters with detritus.

With gym class kept inside, I resigned myself to another hour of being tripped and shoved every time the coach looked the other way, but surprisingly he decided on just a few games of badminton with small teams. I was still last to be picked each time, but I could deal with that.

I stumbled quite a lot and missed some easy shots, struggling to hold back my power as it instinctively reached out to everyone around me, feeling their coordination and practice as they outperformed me, a network of minor skills lighting up behind my eyes.

There were a few not so quiet comments about my performance, but those were easy to ignore. What was harder to ignore was how much brighter the skills of the people playing badminton were than I had expected.

Proximity.

Eye contact.

Conversation.

Physical contact.

All of these contributed to the connection between myself and the person I was drawing from, but none so much as the other person actively using the skill I was acquiring.

Now, however, I found something even stronger.

Competition.

Using those same skills I was drawing from lit up the connections between myself and the mental networks of the other students like a beacon, making it almost impossible to ignore. None of us were particularly skilled at badminton, or exceptional in any of the host of minor skills and talents that were used, but feeling that surge from competing against them and I knew that I would be able to drain any one of them dry in a couple of minutes at most. I could outstrip the entire class and leave both my own team and the one I was competing against completely incompetent in a quarter hour, if that.

The idea terrified me and excited me in equal measure.

"God damn it, Taylor," Jason swore, and I blinked, realising that I'd missed the shuttlecock as it flew right past me.

"Stop spacing out!"

"Sorry, sorry," I muttered, hurrying over to where it had landed, but all I was met with was a bunch of irritable grumbling and some dirty looks.

"She's probably high or something," Cindy sniffed, readjusting her grip on the racquet.

I sighed and tried to follow suit, forcing my awareness of my power to the back of my mind and attempting to block out the alluring mental web of talents that sprung up around me as the game resumed.

..........
​

Thursday was cold, but fortunately dry, and beyond a few lingering puddles there was no risk of getting splashed by 'accident' before I made it to class.

World Issues was first, with Mr Gladly. Predictably, he had no desire to be seen as the kind of teacher to give out homework or difficult assignments in the last class of the term, so instead he had us gather into groups and discuss the various topics we had covered over the last few months.

While the nearest students made a half-hearted attempt to regurgitate what they'd learned about CUI trade policies while pulling out their phones or discussing their plans for the holidays, I pulled out my notebooks and, admittedly, made a half-hearted attempt to look like I was reviewing previous notes while I sat and thought about what I was going to do.

Madison and Julia were sat on the other side of the class today and didn't bother me, so I was free to do something I'd spent the last couple of days worrying over, and use my power.

Carefully, hesitantly and almost expecting something to go wrong, I reached out to the other students.

The nexus came to light inside my mind, softly illuminated in a way I struggled to describe, even to myself, showing me the different skills that Greg had picked up throughout his life. The ones that I didn't know were in the forefront, mostly gaming skills, while writing and English were almost unnoticeable, despite being what he was currently engaged in.

It was interesting, watching someone use a skill that I had already mastered, even one as basic as writing in English. If I had to pick a word to convey my impression of his ability to write, or at least my power's interpretation of it, it would be 'translucent'.

I could see it, it was there, but unless I specifically looked for it, it just seemed to fade away, overshadowed by the much more vibrant talent pools to either side. Just behind it, if one skill could be considered 'behind' another, was a small amount of Spanish. I wasn't sure when Greg had learned Spanish, but it was faint, probably barely more than conversational, if that, if I had my guess right.

Nothing I hadn't already learned, stolen, from others.

Frowning, I switched to Sparky at a different table, and noticed much the same thing, only in his case the ability to play computer games was much lesser, and the ability to play drums was at the forefront. Beyond that, there weren't any other skills to attract my attention.

It wasn't that the ability to write or speak English didn't show up or register to my power, it just seemed so much duller or less interesting than the other stuff. I could only assume that it was because I already knew English myself.

Still, as interesting as that was, it wasn't what I was here for today.

Naoki and Chihiro sat together, phones out and tapping away. It wouldn't matter if they were texting or just playing games, they wouldn't get in trouble for it, especially not today.

Sending a thought in their direction got me an awareness of their capabilities, and switching between the two of them let me map out a few differences. Once again, Chihiro had a smaller pool of Japanese to draw from, but now I thought I knew the reasoning behind that. Having spent almost half a class slowly siphoning his Japanese away from him, Naoki simply had more ability left to him.

Ignoring the twisting in my stomach at the thought, I focused on how the talent pools felt in relation to one another. Naoki's seemed not just larger but also slightly more vibrant. With me spending less time drawing from him, I assumed that he still had a more 'unique' vocabulary, with a greater reservoir of words that I didn't know.

Were these pools of knowledge greater than they were when I drew from them last week?

As uncomfortable as it made me to realise it, I simply couldn't remember. I'd been too focused on Emma and worrying over whether or not she'd find out what I had done to remember the two boys I'd spent a bored class leeching from.

My mind made up, I settled back to wait, impatiently glaring up at the clock and its stubborn refusal to speed up.

By the time class ended I hadn't even bothered to write anything down, although I was hardly alone in that regard, and I didn't even pretend to pay attention to Mr Gladly's attempts to remind the class to study over the holidays.

Following Julia and Madison was not something I normally did, and despite myself I couldn't smother the flutter of anxiety that it lit inside me, but I needed to know.

When they got to Sophia, she sent a sneer my way but otherwise ignored me, and when Emma joined them a few moments later, a disdainful, almost angry look was all I got. No insults, no attempts to trip me or take my bag away. Just expressions that made it very clear how wanted my presence was.

But that was all I needed.

Emma's make-up seemed... better. It still wasn't up to her usual standards, not applied as evenly or symmetrically as usual, and her lipstick and eye shadow seemed fairly heavy, a bit too much for her skin tone, but I was reasonably certain that it was better than what she'd been wearing Tuesday morning.

Was it proof that my stolen talents returned to their owners?

No, but it was enough to settle my heart rate and almost led to me smiling in front of the other girls, which was never a good move.

Without bothering to come up with a good excuse or reason for an abrupt departure, I spent a couple of seconds looking at Emma, enough to get a feel for her skill at judging and applying cosmetics, then turned around and left.

Spoiler: Taylor's skills

Highly skilled:

• Japanese

Skilled:

• Korean
• Spanish
• Self-defence
• Cosmetics
• Juggling

Moderately skilled:

• Socialising and public speaking
• Art and sketching
• Cooking

Slightly skilled:

• Driving
• Statistics

 

[Lokimotion]

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.

..........
​

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…

Spoiler: Taylor's Skills

Highly skilled

• Japanese

Skilled

• Spanish
• Korean
• Cosmetics
• Self-defence
• Juggling

Moderately skilled

• Socialising and public speaking
• Art and sketching
• Cooking

Slightly skilled

• Driving
• Statistics

 

[Lokimotion]

Forgive the necro

Click to shrink...

They say, just before I update.

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.

Click to shrink...

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."

 

[Lokimotion]

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.

Spoiler: Taylor's Skills

Highly skilled

• Japanese
• Kick-boxing

Skilled

• Spanish
• Korean
• Cosmetics
• Judo
• Computer programming
• Lock-picking

Moderately skilled

• Socialising and public speaking
• Art and sketching
• Cooking
• Mandarin Chinese
• Juggling
• Geography