If Taylor attack Sophia right now, she loses. All she will end up doing is getting herself thrown into prison, just like she feared if she ever sicced her insects on the trio.
Is that what she was afraid of? I thought she was afraid that being a parahuman using her powers as a parahuman against (what she thought were) three non-parahumans,
she'd be acting like a bully (rather than being a hero like she wants to be). Especially since she wasn't 100% she would be able to restrain herself once she got started.
You mean like she told the teachers and faculty of Winslow?
Well... she
did. In particular, once she'd debuted as a cape and had the corresponding confidence boost. Before that, it was largely a "if you're pretending you
don't know then you're (a) lying (b) oblivious (c) not someone who teaches me and the Trio simultaneously" situation.
Letting Shadow Stalker 'prove' that she's not a hero?
Shadow Stalker hasn't claimed that she's not. Nor is being a member of the Wards the only way to be a hero.
That doesn't even have her try to talk to Tony or her father to try and figure out a differen solution.
She's kinda in the middle of an emotional moment
right now. Even if she weren't... Taylor is not particularly characterized as someone who, if she can't come up with a solution herself, goes to people she respects to try to get solutions from. She doesn't want to tell her dad about the bullying because it would only upset him... then, after he finds out because of the locker incident, she doesn't want to tell him that the bullying is
continuing because it would only upset him.... She's rather written off adult authority figures as being able to provide solutions if
she can't think of anything for them to do.
There's a level where Piggot believes her, but isn't able to do much due to no proof other than she said/she said.
The locker incident is a known thing. Taylor has her journal and records, which are much less easily dismissed by someone who
isn't a trained attorney defending his daughter in an informal conference. And Principal Blackwell knows perfectly well what all she's been covering up; a competent investigator (or one armed with a lie detector helmet...) could get perfectly good corroboration there.
Piggot might not be able to do much because, at the end of the day, kicking someone out of the Wards is difficult by design, but if you told her she couldn't do much to deal with a cape under her authority using her status as cape and even her powers to systematically persecute a civilian, because her authority as director isn't good enough justification for her to deal with the situation as she sees fit...
Or where Piggot doesn't believe her much, but tries to put the screws down on both of them as a potential blow up issue.
That would end well... that is a pretty Worm result though.
Like other noted, the Wards starting to refuse to work with Sophia.
Don't the other Wards
already think Shadow Stalker is an unstable, bullying, sociopathic jerk that they want as little to do with as possible?
And this doesn't even get into what Taylor and Sophia are going to do when not directly under the eyes of the director and all of the local protectorate.
Sophia's going to keep pulling her bullying bullshit on Taylor and on Chrysalis, although probably more sneakily because she can't count on the other Wards not stepping in if they see it, Taylor's going to fail to bring it up to the adults because she assumes they already knew this would happen so they're obviously not invested in stopping it if she can't stop it herself, anything Taylor does short of outright battery is going to be dismissed by Sophia as acting like a victim and failing to stand up for herself, and then when or if Taylor finally snaps (I say "if" because if she didn't do it in that scene right there she's not the Taylor
I know) it'll be in front of other people or at least undeniable as Chrysalis's handiwork and thus Sophia will use it to get Taylor in trouble?
Probably at the worst time possible, so I'm figuring Shadow Stalker will escalate her nastiness in the leadup to an Endbringer battle so that Taylor can officially break the Endbringer truce.
