Earning Her Stripes
Part Seven: Making Progress
[A/N 1: This chapter commissioned by @Fizzfaldt and beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]
[A/N 2: This fic is deliberately based on short, sharp chapters. I will be writing more of the same type.]
The Barnes Household
Emma's Bedroom
Thursday, September 2, 2010
"So, are we gonna be ready by the first day of school?" asked Emma. She leaned against the headboard of her bed, while Madison lounged at the far end with a pad across her knees, and Sophia relaxed in the computer chair.
"I'm gonna need to pull a few all-nighters, but we should be okay," Madison said, looking up from her pad. From where she was, Emma could see a half-completed drawing of some Tinker-tech gear. "I just need to upgrade to the Mark 2 and get my big gun built before we go fully public."
Sophia rolled her eyes so extravagantly, Emma half-expected her to end up looking out her own earholes. "Oh, for
fuck's sake, you two! You don't even sound like you
care about the plan anymore!"
"What's the hurry?" asked Madison. "Taylor'll still be there when I get the Mark 2 into action, even if we're a couple of days late. I've got a whole series of improvements I want to make from the Mark 1."
"I still care about the plan," Emma said. "But like Madison said, why the rush? The news crews love us, the PRT officially approves of us, and the public thinks we're amazing. Besides, we did what no other team in town has done."
"What, take down a bunch of druggies?" Sophia's voice was heavy with scorn. "Yeah,
that was hard."
"Nope." This time, Madison didn't look up from the page. "We took a gang all the way off the streets. They might've been only the Merchants, but we did it ourselves. The Real Thing is big news, right now."
"And we need to keep up the pressure, before we're
yesterday's news!" Sophia jumped to her feet. "We need to be
on the spot when Brockton Bay's newest villain emerges, so we can take her down!"
"This 'newest villain' being Taylor. The person we're going to
make into a villain." Emma tried not to sound cynical, but it wasn't easy. Sophia was pushing really hard on this, and Emma didn't know why. It wasn't like she had to prove she was strong anymore; she was
absolutely a kickass superhero.
"Actually, I've been thinking about that." Madison put the pad down for a moment. "What if we did things a little differently, changed up the plan?"
"What? No!" Sophia looked like someone had just taken away her favourite plushie: pissed, and ready to kill someone. "We're not changing up the plan. It's perfect as it is."
"Well,
I'm listening," Emma said, sitting up. "What's on your mind, Mads?"
Madison glanced at Sophia, then back to Emma. "Well, I was thinking, instead of forcing her to drink the vial, what if we just …
gave it to her? Told her exactly what it was, and if she wants to get in good with us, all she has to do is drink it. She gets powers, The Real Thing gets another member, and we're more kickass than ever."
Emma considered it. It wasn't a
bad plan, and it certainly had a lot fewer points of failure than Sophia's version—
"No!" snapped Sophia. "Not gonna fuckin' happen!"
"What?" Despite the earlier conversation, Emma was still surprised by her friend's vehemence. "Why not? It could work."
Sophia stared at her as though she'd started quoting Sun Tzu in the original Chinese. "The fuck is wrong with you, Emma? If she joined the team, she'd be seen as the same as us,
equal to us. Taylor Hebert does not get to be equal to us. Not now, not ever. She gets to stay down in the dirt, where she belongs."
This was now doubly surprising to Emma. "But you always said that once we toughened her up—"
This time, Sophia rolled her eyes again. "Seriously? Emma, I told you what you needed to hear, so you could move on from her. She's
never been your equal. She'll
never be as good as you and me. She sure as fuck doesn't deserve to be your friend, or a member of this team. All she'll do is be her usual nothing self and drag us down."
"But—" Emma was pretty sure there was a flaw in her friend's logic there, if only she had a second to figure it out.
"But
nothing, goddamn it!" Sophia clenched her fists. "Who's the experienced superhero here? Me, that's who. Who got those vials? Me. Whose plan was this? Mine. And it's been turning out perfectly so far, right? Right?"
Emma didn't want to piss Sophia off any more than she already was, and she
did kind of have a few good points. Also, Sophia had the last vial, so it wasn't like they could really change the plan right now without her agreement. Still, she'd said something that wasn't quite correct. "Uh, I'm pretty sure Madison came up with the plan—"
"The
basic idea of the plan," Sophia interrupted. "I'm the one who's making it work. Jeez!"
It still wasn't clear to Emma how that was the case, but she didn't want to argue. "Right. We'll stick with the plan. You okay with that, Mads?"
"Eh, whatevs." The tone of Madison's voice could've meant anything from '
wasn't listening' to '
don't care'. She was already sketching again. "But if we're gonna be sticking with the plan as given, I need to have the Mark 2 up and running."
"Fine." Sophia clearly wasn't fine with it, but they'd both already learned to not try to push Madison when it came to her Tinker work. After a certain point, she dug her heels in and was harder to budge than her power armour.
"Okay, then." Emma turned and consulted the calendar over her desk. "It's Friday tomorrow, and school opens on … Wednesday, the eighth. That enough time?"
Madison nodded without looking up. "Yeah, that should do. I still need to design the jump-jets, but I should be able to forge the components over the weekend, and assemble the Mark 2 over Monday and Tuesday, barring any complications."
"Will it be ready by Tuesday night?" pressed Sophia.
"It'll be ready when it's ready." And that was all there was to it.
<><>
Taylor
Monday Afternoon
As she rode the bus home from the library, Taylor couldn't help the feeling of dread that was building up in her stomach. She'd been able to occupy herself over the school break, but with the start of the new school year, she'd be seeing Emma and Sophia and Madison again.
By now, she'd almost lost hope that this was a passing thing. Every school break was a chance for them to find something else to do, but each time it let back in, there they were. It had been a couple of months by now, but she was sure she'd seen Emma and Madison while she was out and about, just …
looking at her. They hadn't done anything, but she'd still been unsettled by it.
Her only option, she'd learned, was to endure and ignore. Be a stone wall, let all the teasing and sniping and meanness bounce off her. If she didn't show how much it hurt, they wouldn't double down.
Except that they did. Over and over again, even when she'd thought there was no outward sign of her pain, they'd hit her where it hurt (both figuratively and physically). Emma knew her secrets, and it seemed her erstwhile best friend had no compunction in spreading them far and wide.
She didn't have anyone she could turn to, which was the worst part. Her dad was still hurting from losing her mom, burying himself in his work to hide his pain. Even if he believed her when she told him Emma had turned on her in such a way, she was scared that he'd lose his temper and do something rash.
Better not to say anything at all.
As for the teachers at school, there was no respite to be had there, either. Even though her school email inbox got filled up with insults and horrific suggestions mere days after she opened a new one (someone in administration had to be passing it out to anyone who asked, she was sure), not one of the teachers paid any attention to this. Any verbal complaints were ignored, and written complaints resulted in her being called to the office and lectured about trying to cause trouble for other students.
So, there was little she could do except wait it out. Withdraw even further into herself, surround herself with an impenetrable shield of '
I don't give a shit', and hold out until the last day of her senior year.
Then she could give them all, including the school, one giant middle finger, then go and do
anything else with her life.
Until then … it would be one day after the other.
As usual.
<><>
Winslow High
Very Early Wednesday Morning
Emma
It was dark—half the security lights around the school were malfunctioning, which was totally par for the course—but that didn't matter. Emma could see better in the dark since getting powers than she ever had before, Sophia had been running around on rooftops for months before Emma had gotten her powers, and she was pretty sure Madison had built night vision into her new power armour. It was definitely bulky enough.
"For fuck's sake,
quiet!" Sophia hissed yet again, as Madison stepped on a chunk of loose concrete and crushed it flat with a gentle
crunch.
"I am being quiet." Madison had her volume turned all the way down, but the armour's speakers still had a lot of bass in them.
"Stealth mode only means so much when you weigh four tons, you know."
"What, you couldn't make smaller armour?" Sophia seemed to be stuck on this point. "What's wrong with making shit that's
light?"
"That's not how my power works, and you know it." Madison seemed more than a little grumpy.
"Light means breakable, and I don't do 'breakable'. It's not my thing."
Emma had to give her that one. The throwing discs of 'good steel' had yet to pick up even a scratch on their pristine surfaces, even after she'd bounced them off concrete, steel I-beams and other unyielding surfaces. She also had protective plating on her costume, covering her toes, heels, knees and elbows, as well as a helmet. None of these were marred either, even after a solid workout that bounced every single one of these things off a concrete pillar. If anything, the pillar was the thing that was decidedly the worse for wear.
"No shit." Sophia still seemed to be annoyed. It was her default state, these days. "You can't even make knuckledusters small enough for me to carry."
That had actually been amusing. Sophia had requested a set of brass knuckles, and Madison had refused to make them out of anything other than good steel. The weapon she produced was more akin to a cestus, but it would definitely add a great deal of authority to Sophia's punch. Except that when Sophia tried to go to shadow while holding it … it didn't. To everyone's surprise, it slipped from her grasp and fell to the ground, leaving Sophia standing over it in shadow form.
Sophia had been livid; Madison hadn't helped with a comment about how good steel didn't like being made weaker. Eventually, Emma had calmed Sophia down, and they'd let Madison get back to her construction process. Sophia had finally decided that she didn't need knuckledusters, and all was okay. Until she brought it up again, anyway.
"Are we back on that again?" asked Madison.
"It's not my fault your shadow state isn't strong enough to handle good steel."
"Oh, you did
not just say that," hissed Sophia. She looked like she wanted to jump at the eight-foot set of power armour and kick its ass, but wasn't sure how.
"
Guys!" Emma didn't want to shout, so she packed all the emphasis she could into the whisper. "Madison, concentrate on being quiet. Sophia, just ... drop it, okay?"
"The
fuck, Emma?" Sophia redirected her ire, but at least she kept her voice down. "You're not the boss of me.
You don't give me orders. Who's team leader here, you or me?"
"Actually," said Madison into the awkward silence that followed,
"I thought it was Emma."
"
What?" It was the quietest squawk Emma had ever heard. She could've almost sworn she saw steam shooting from Sophia's ears. "No, that's not true!
I'm team leader! I've got the experience! You guys would be
nothing without me!"
Another awkward silence fell, during which Emma recalled a quote she'd read in a short story anthology somewhere: '
Any man who must say, "I am the king" is no true king.'
"You're totally team leader, Sophia," she said placatingly. She caught the side glance from Madison's power armour and shook her head fractionally. This wasn't the time or place for that kind of argument.
It worked; at least, for the moment. Sophia fell into a sullen silence, while Madison picked her way carefully across the littered ground. Eventually, they reached their destination, a dilapidated shed out behind the main building. There was a tractor parked alongside the shed, with a dirty-looking tarpaulin draped over it.
"
Knew I'd seen that shit back here," Sophia declared with some satisfaction, the earlier argument apparently forgotten. "You needed a tarp, right?"
"It makes things a lot easier, yeah." Madison stepped the Blockade Mark 2 armour up next to the tractor, then paused for a moment. Then the armour started folding down into its most compact form, pausing only to allow Madison to climb out through a front hatch.
They watched it complete its transformation to a blank metal crate, then set to work hauling the tarpaulin off the tractor and draping it over the 'crate'. This wasn't to weatherproof it—according to Madison, it would be capable of walking across the bottom of the Bay unscathed—but to camouflage it from the casual observer. Emma noted that Madison did her fair share of the grunt work, the petite brunette having packed on some muscle over the past few weeks.
"Whoo!" exulted Sophia as they left the scene. "Hebert is
not gonna know what hit her!"
"Yeah," Emma said, more to keep Sophia happy than in actual agreement.
Madison said nothing at all.
<><>
Winslow High
Slightly Later in the Morning
Taylor
I am a fortress. I am impenetrable. Nothing they do can touch me.
As she stepped off the bus, Taylor repeated the words over and over to herself. She wished she could believe them, but Emma had proven to her over and over that all the reserve in the world could be pierced by the right words, cruelly wielded. Still, she set her gaze firmly ahead and forced herself to work through the mantra yet again.
I am a fortress. I am impenetrable. Nothing they do can touch me.
She'd thought of skipping the first day of school altogether, but being marked down as absent would bring her dad into it at some point, and it would goad the three into heightened efforts once she did show up. Her dawdling had caused her to miss the bus she normally took, so she caught the next one. It would give her minimal time before she could get to class, but that was actually fine with her. The less time she spent wandering the halls was less time Emma could think of something to do to her.
There was nobody in the parking lot as she crossed it. All the last-minute smokers were either inside already or up on the roof. Climbing the steps, she pushed the doors open and entered. There was muffled noise, distant voices and echoing footsteps, but the corridor she could see was clear of people.
Shit. I must've cut it too close. Everyone's in home room already.
Fortunately, she'd looked up her timetable already; her home room was Mrs. Knott's classroom, which was nice. She liked Mrs. Knott, as much as she could like any of her teachers. With luck, nobody Emma knew would be sharing that class with her.
Hurrying her pace, she dashed through the school until she found her locker. The backpack full of books was weighing heavily on her shoulder by the time she got there, and she was panting for breath. Closing her eyes, she grabbed the lock and tried to recall what the combination was. She'd gotten a letter from Winslow informing her of what it was, just last week.
4-5-4-2. Right. Got it.
Opening her eyes, she dropped the pack on the floor and input the combination. The lock clicked open, she swung the door open, and—
—at that moment, a
bag dropped over her head. Shoved up against the locker next to hers, face pressed against the cold metal, a knee in the middle of her back, she felt her head being pulled backward with darkness in front of her eyes. There was no way to see what was going on, or even who had her.
An arm went around her neck, forcing her head all the way back and squeezing tightly. Her hands were grabbed and pulled back so she couldn't struggle. Someone lifted the bottom edge of the bag, exposing her mouth. She tried to scream for help but the arm tightened abruptly, choking off her cry before it even eventuated.
A thumb and forefinger dug into the sides of her mouth, forcing it open painfully. She had no idea what was going on, until a cold glass tube pressed against her lip, and a truly
foul substance poured into her mouth. With her lips still held open, she couldn't spit it out, so she coughed and choked and swallowed until it was all gone.
What the hell? Have I just been force-fed poison? Was that a laxative?
Her whirling thoughts got no further than that as she was shoved face-first into her open locker. Her head hit the back wall painfully, then her butt and legs were forced inside and the door slammed shut. She distinctly heard the lock
click closed again.
Several imperatives impressed themselves upon her, more or less all at the same time. She wanted to get out; that was a given. Screaming for help, now that she was no longer being choked, was also up there on the list. Finally, she didn't know what she'd been made to swallow, but the aftertaste was truly horrendous, and she desperately wanted to throw it all up again before it took its effect on her.
She got halfway through the first scream before the roiling feeling in her stomach expanded rapidly to encompass her entire being. After that, she was hallucinating too hard to utter even the simplest of words, though the visions she had vanished from her mind's eye and her memory at the same time. Even had she recalled what she saw, she would've made no sense of it, then or later.
The unsteady sensation passed, as did the roiling. She was surrounded by a warm darkness, no longer constrained by the metal cage surrounding her. Standing upright, she felt the slightest resistance before something unseen in the impenetrable blackness parted above her head. She spread her arms out to the sides; again, the faint sensation of spiderwebs parting before her, though she could see and hear nothing whatsoever.
She didn't know where she was, but she needed to find the light. Turning by instinct—as she recalled, she'd been facing the wall—she stepped forward and down a little, onto solid flooring, barely felt by the soles of her feet. Looking to the left and right, she saw nothing; not even a glimmer of light. It was getting uncomfortably warm, and she found herself panting for breath.
"Hello?" she called out. "Hello? Is anyone there? I need—I think—I—help?"
Her lungs were burning. She took one step, then another, then fell to her knees. Forcing herself to move on, her lungs straining to draw more air in and utterly failing, she crawled another few yards.
What's happening? she asked herself, just before she passed out.
<><>
Emma
They'd planned for everything, even down to having their friends answer with their names for attendance. On the first day, they'd figured, the teachers wouldn't know their faces yet.
Despite her reservations about the plan, getting the vial into Taylor was easier than she'd expected. With Sophia front and centre, Emma holding one arm and Madison the other, the stuff was poured down her throat and she swallowed the lot. Then Sophia shoved Taylor into the locker and snicked the lock shut.
"Go!" she hissed, too quietly to be heard from inside the metal box.
Emma was committed now; she snatched up her backpack and dashed toward the nearest girls' restrooms. Sophia was right alongside her, while Madison bolted toward the back of the school, where she'd left her power armour.
This was it. This was going to be their finest hour.
They were going to fight a supervillain
attacking a school.
She tried hard to fight down the scraps of compunction telling her that she was helping set up Taylor to get powers in the school, that it wasn't Taylor's fault.
Shut up, she told herself.
I wanted to make Taylor strong. This is making her strong.
Just as she was fitting her helmet onto her head, she heard the sound of tearing metal outside in the corridor. It was followed by the sound of crumbling concrete.
"Fuck
yes!" hissed Sophia, from the next stall over. "We got us a villain!"
Emma snapped the throwing discs onto her bracers, stashed her backpack behind a ceiling tile—the jump onto the counter was trivially easy for her now—and headed for the door. Sophia, as Shadow Stalker, was right behind her.
Out she came, throwing disc coming to hand, ready for anything.
Anything, it seemed, except what she found.
When Madison came tromping along the corridor, bending slightly to avoid bashing holes in the ceiling, they were still staring at a bunch of torn-open lockers, and one unconscious (and entirely unmarked) Taylor Hebert.
"What the fuck?" asked Sophia. Emma knew what she meant. Taylor was supposed to be rampaging through the school so they could stop her. Not lying on the floor, out like a light.
Emma shrugged. She didn't know either.
It appeared they'd planned for everything, except for what had actually happened.
Whatever
that was.
End of Part Seven
