Endless, spiraling memories, expanding refractions were all Taylor could see, through the smallest of connections, like a blood vessel.
Or perhaps they were dreams?
It was impossible to tell. A vague notion that this had been going on for a while was the only concept she had of continuity.
Visions might be the best term as she considered.
For if they were memories, they were of events far more wondrous than she had experienced.
Emotions stronger than she had ever felt filled her, otherworldly, terrible and absolute in nature. Alien might be best to describe for they seemed beyond human comprehension, even if something, a dark niggling feeling, insisted they were not.
A hateful being. Love of all kinds. Descending into madness. Fighting terrible creatures, winning through guile and force only to forever be forced to repeat the madness. To die an ignoble death.
Each fact of that changed between each and every frame in smallest and largest of ways, yet. And yet. They were what stayed consistent. Details, all other details blurred as none were able to stick out in the deluge of sensations, each fleeting and inconsequential as a droplet in a monsoon.
It was a beautiful thing to be lost in.
Beep…
Beep…
Beep…
That was what greeted Taylor at the end of her daydream.
Eyes muddled open, each millimeter more revealed an uphill battle against what coursed through her veins. Each beat of her heart was laboured, a pitiful thing.
White and degrees of it were all that she could see.
It took an eternity to look away from the ceiling.
Days had passed since she had arrived in the psychiatric ward, if she was able to count correctly.
Something… crept on her periphery- a shadow that had weight to it, standing just out of her vision no matter where she looked.
A shadow that had tormented her throughout these past days.
Trying to call out to it had hurt more than she could describe, flexing an imaginary muscle that screamed in protest with each tug- two gears grinding each other, harsh divots being dug into the other as they tried to correctly slot.
Hitherto it felt like the muscle wouldn't squeal in agony now, if it was flexed. Just a small flex, the barest of a tensing of it. Curiosity impelled her to call out to it, to see the unseen.
Or mayhaps, it would be wiser to not sate her curiosity quite yet?
Taylor could freely admit she was not at the top of her game- the fact she had a IV keeping her sedated was a good indication of that.
The pain from when she had tried to reach out had made her wary. Caution from that alone was natural, was it not? No harm in doing nothing when juice tasted like clouds.
A part of her disagreed, viciously unhappy.
The shadow does not know what it was anymore.
It had once, perhaps, been something glorious and resplendent in the before times. Now, now...
Madness had been etched into the origin of it's soul.
Or rather, it was starting to. It had existed for so long, so very, very long as a mad warrior that the concept was like an infection, pervading into it, suffusing within it's story.
The shadow did know one thing, however.
It was more whole than it had been in an age.
This was wholly unlike how it had come into existence to aid her. That had been... lesser. A copy of a copy, imperfect and limited. A pale imitation of what it came from.
Undiminished enough, that it could do things it had not been able to since a time of myths...
For now it was content to observe it's new master. Well, content was a misnomer. Rather, it had not been called so it could do little else.
Days passed as the shadow observed the… girl, for it was a girl- it could tell even through the thick haze that filled every sense, lie in the bed. From what limited understanding it had of the era, she seemed to be unwell and in a place of healing. Even if it had been called, that was approaching the limit of what the shadow could have done.
People came in, asked questions, left. Disciples of Asclepius came in every few minutes to check on the girl. A haggard man came in and held her hand for hours, trying to talk with her before leaving. Day turned into night. Night turned into day. The day repeated itself.
Every iteration changed in some ways; the haggard man talked to the girl for longer. Or got angry- an emotion the shadow could understand with a clarity unbounded. After the fourth iteration, the others- those not being the haggard man nor the healers stopped appearing. Throughout them all, the girl showed that the efforts of the healers were working.
Curious, the shadow had no idea what the issue was. In the past, it might have, for it knew that behind the ever present weight polluting its thoughts, its intellect had been… prized.
It was not long after that she left the Asclepieion.
For the first time since its appearance, it saw outside of the room the girl had been in. Towers of steel and glass littered the land, masses of people teemed as abundant as fields of millet. Thousands of horseless steel carriages, one that the girl and the haggard man entered.
Oddly familiar in some ways, deeply nostalgic in others and confusing in the rest.
Curiosity peaked through the tiniest of cracks in the fog as it observed.
Taylor closed the door to her room and let out a sigh, her back resting against it.
Her dad knew about the bullying now.
It wasn't the worst thing in the world, but it wasn't ideal. He didn't know about Em-
Fingers dug into the palm of her hand hard enough to end the thought. The school had tried to cover it up, the depth of it, paying for the hospital bills and then some. She scoffed. Yeah, it wasn't much. Dad talked about suing the bullies but… they didn't have the money. She knew, dad knew it. It was a false choice.
Which meant she was going to be returning to Winslow after the weekend. Five days. That was all the respite that was afforded. Or…
There was the option of transferring.
It might not have been an option before… this, but it was enough of a casus belli to possibly transfer.
That, however, was a problem for future Taylor. Current Taylor had a very different fish to fry so to speak.
The shadow was still present.
What Taylor viewed as some drug addled psychosomatic delusion, brought on by trauma was still there. That only became increasingly concerning as she was weaned off of the sedatives. And that was the fear, deep within her, watered by her doubt. That what she was feeling was in fact not real, rather she was having a psychotic break.
The thought was… terrifying.
As crazy as it sounded, she was hoping that whatever mental muscle she had would… fix it. Somehow. It wasn't a good plan but it was the only one she had.
That or the trio had actually broken her.
A muscle that was unseen, unreal was flexed.
The shadow became material.
It was a man.
Those four words were accurate, in a technical sense. Like, saying that a paper airplane was an aircraft. Sure, the definition of the word aircraft did not disagree with it, but in actual reality, in the spirit of the word, it was grossly wrong.
What the shadow was, was shaped like a man. A man so tall, he was crouched with one knee down and even then, the back of his head brushed the ceiling. He was tanned to the point of the skin becoming a gunmetal grey, more akin to the colour of lead- blackened iron. Eyes that physically shone an eerie yellow looked down at her. Truthfully, while he was shaped like a man, it was a man that was borderline grotesque in musculature, with protrusions sticking out of his forearms like a parody of a bracer. Speaking of…
He didn't possess a stitch of clothes on his upper torso, just two iron bracelets and what looked to be an armoured skirt of some kind. No footwear of any variety. In a detached manner, Taylor couldn't help but wonder what her dad would do if he walked into the room right now and saw the shirtless thing with her.
Probably nothing good.
All of that could be excused- people came in all shapes and sizes after all, but there was the fact that looking at him, was like looking at barely contained violence given form. In the back of Taylor's brain, the animal part of it screamed that what faced her was not human, it merely was masquerading as one. That it was violence given form.
Worryingly, that was not the part of her mind that was winning.
There was a… sense of relief. Of safety with it in the room.
Something she hadn't felt since the locker… since Emma… maybe even since…
"Are you real?"
The words slipped out of her before she could realize it.
What had been dread became hope in the past few moments. Because there was another very easy explanation for this. Something that she never thought would happen to her.
She flexed the mental muscle again, causing it to disappear and then again to reappear. She tried to move the being but nothing happened. Yellow eyes just bored into her unflinchingly.
Well that was mildly concerning. If she couldn't move him with her mind, then...
"Are you my power?"
She didn't have many other options she could think about. Asking it seemed to be the easiest way.
The giant merely stared at her.
"Or am I hallucinating?"
No response.
Taylor sighed.
Screech
She jumped at the noise before realizing where it was coming from. Namely the giant pushing her bed away from the wall.
Taylor didn't get long to ponder it as she could hear her dad coming up the stairs.
A mental flex and the giant was gone… and the realization that she was starting to have a migraine sneak up on her dissipated along with him.
"Everything alright?" The door opened and her dad's head peaked through.
"Yeah, I, uh, just dropped something behind the bed."
He glanced at it and nodded, "let me know if you need help moving it back."
Taylor nodded, as her heartbeat pounded like a drum in her ears.
She was a parahuman.
This changed everything.
Four days until returning to classes.
How is Taylor going to experiment with her power?
[] Try to command the giant.
[] Try to communicate.
[] Write-in
[] ???
Author's Note: Hey all! First time doing a quest, so pretty excited. Just a couple of things; the ??? option is not a mistake, it's its own thing. Going forward, write-ins are a thing I can and will disregard if its out of character. I'm leery enough of them that I will try and keep them to a minimal.
Anywho, I'm hyped to go on this terrible journey with everyone! The votes were 11 to 2 on the Wait v Summon now, if I'm doing the math correctly.
What defined the next few days for Taylor Hebert, quite naturally, was experimenting with her power.
She did run into a problem rather immediately. Two, in fact.
The first being that it was hard to do anything with the giant projection(?) she made from within her home. She couldn't easily measure his height but he was tall enough he couldn't stand up in her bedroom.
The second curtailed the first, namely that after a few minutes of the giant being present, she had a terrible headache and she had to stop, causing him to once more become an ever-present shadow to her.
Several tylenols later—all of which did nothing to alleviate the building pressure – and half a day later she was able to figure out that time did help the pressure- some kind of limit to her power, perhaps?
It was around this time that she started to keep notes on her ability; no reason to half-ass it. Plus it seemed prudent given that her power came with zero instructions, just a faint sense of a non-real muscle. Maybe this is what it had been like for other heroes? Maybe even Alexandria?
She could be hopeful.
The next day found her sitting at the computer, idly wiggling a pencil as she waited for the family desktop to load a webpage.
Her results for the day had been… middling.
Not in power experimentation, rather in where to do it.
As she saw it, there were basically three places she could think of to summon the giant and see what he could do; the boat graveyard, an abandoned building (there wasn't a lack of derelict ones within the city) or outside the city.
The boat graveyard was unique and interesting and… also highly visible. It might have been paranoia, but the idea that going out there seemed an easy way to get found out before she had even started her cape career wouldn't go away. Finding an abandoned building was dangerous, on the other hand. While no one lived in the boat graveyard, all sorts of druggies squatted in abandoned buildings. The kinds of people who do stupid things. Living in Brockton Bay for fifteen years had given Taylor a healthy respect for staying away from the truly desperate.
That left outside the city and her conundrum. She was trying to find a place that was hidden but accessible enough she would not need to go hiking. Especially in the middle of January. It was cold out there.
Hence why she was looking up nearby parks. Or the closest forest.
She wasn't picky.
Taylor looked at her notes she'd collected.
For the most part they were recordings of how long the giant could manifest. He hadn't moved when he materialized- whether that was due to her saying as such or for some other reason, she didn't know.
At present she was able to get a few minutes before she really started to get a headache. Hopefully she could get used to it… or the giant was going to have to be really useful else she got stiffed in the power lottery.
...she really hoped it wasn't that.
It was now Friday, three days left till she had to return to school.
That was far from the forefront of her mind, however. Rather she was thinking about how she was freezing her butt off in the middle of a forest. She should have brought a thermos. Tea would have been nice. Thoughts for next time.
After spending an inordinate amount of time checking to make sure nothing was around, that no one was following her, she tensed that muscle.
Blue-yellow motes fluttered down revealing the giant, his yellow eyes focused on her.
"You're my power, right? Do you listen to me or do I control you…" The words slowly trailed off.
Well there was one way to test this.
Bluntly.
She pointed to a tree near the giant. "Hit that tree… please." Even if he only resembled a man, it felt weird to be ordering around something that looked human-ish on a surface level.
WHAM
It was so quick, she missed the motion, only catching the sound of wood shredding under a greater force, as the top half of the tree went sailing several yards from where he had backhanded the middle of the tree out of existence.
The snow crunched under the wood's weight, as birds cawed in protest at the sudden violence and flew out of nearby branches.
Green eyes blinked as she stared at it.
It took an embarrassingly long amount of time for Taylor's mind to reboot and go 'oh right, he's a literal superpower. He's supposed to be able to do that.'
Well, super strength was one of her power's… powers.
Though just to be sure…
It was dumb. Taylor could admit it was dumb. It still didn't change the fact that she went over to make sure the tree wasn't rotten or made of balsa wood.
One slightly bruised set of toes later from an ill-advised kick, and Taylor was one hundred percent sure that it wasn't fake.
Well, when in Rome...
She gestured to a much older tree.
"Can you pick it up?" The giant stared at her. "Please?"
No response.
She blinked long before it did.
"Pick it up, please?" A different wording perhaps?
It wasn't fast this time, the giant's hands gripped the tree, ignoring the pine needles, before it's bark gave way to ten indents from his fingers digging in with a loud crunch. A crunch that reverberated down it, the ground shifting as the tree was pulled out, roots and all, a mass of dirt coming up with the old roots.
Part of the research Taylor had done the previous day was to find something to give a vague estimate on how to benchmark the giant's abilities. Doing some quick and dirty math, it was at least a few tons. Possibly more with the dirt the roots had pulled up. At least more now that she thought about it, since pulling it up with the roots entrenched as deep as they had been required more effort than if the tree was just lying on the ground like lumber.
Excitement started to build in her. At the minimum it was looking like her power had some super-strength to it. That was good. Something to make notes on after she dismissed it because she sure wasn't going to do that with the limited time she hit the boundary of her power.
In truth it was something of a worry- that the power she got was only good for making her have an imaginary friend that was strong enough to move a bed. Fear never had to be rational.
"You can put it down now."
The tree did not go back into the hole as well as it came out, but that was the price of testing it seems. The tree would be fine. Probably.
With that taken care of, time for the next phase.
"Can you talk?"
It had been bugging her.
For some reason she got the vague idea that it was sentient. There wasn't much in the way she could do to check if others with a similar power felt the same way. Heck, she didn't know of any heroes or villains that had a similar power.
Sadly, nothing greeted her audibly, merely amber eyes.
Never was that easy, was it?
"You can hear me, right?"
She knew it could, else how else would it have been able to commit arboreal-based violence.
No response.
Taylor reviewed her options in her head; the giant listened to direct commands and ignored rhetorical responses. It was very possible it was… unintelligent. Which was on one hand somewhat relieving- she didn't want to be commanding a possible sentient life form. On the other hand… she would have no insight into how its thought processes worked. Like a blackbox.
She hemmed and hawed for a few more moments. What if it lacked the capacity to verbalize?
"Are you able to- please respond in writing to me."
Nothing. Which made sense since she didn't give him anything to respond to.
"Write…" she tried to think of something easy to spell, "...'Bob' in the snow using your finger."
The moment the words left her mouth, the unreal muscle started to strain- similar to how someone would add a ton of weights in the gym to the unlucky person mid-rep.
Taylor felt her eyes start to close unconsciously as she gritted through the rapidly ballooning headache. When she opened them again, the giant was drawing something into the snow. Excitement burst through the pain as she walked up beside him to read it.
...those weren't letters. They were just… squiggles. Similar to letters but letters they were not. Nor did the word 'Bob' contain ten additional letters last time she checked. Another dud. Maybe he was just mimicking human writing? One would think that if the power could understand English it could write in it- maybe it only understood commands as long as she verbalized them?
Take a step forwards please.
After a few minutes of thinking that and nothing happening, that ruled out that out. Which was going to make any heroics the giant was part of require that she was present. Maybe there was a workaround?
Her left eye twitched.
The action made her realize that the headache that had come from the muscle was still building from when she had asked him to write- even if its rate of increase had slowed after he finished with the scribble.
The muscle relaxed.
Blue-gold motes of light covered the giant as he disappeared from view, leaving Taylor with a headache and several notes to make.
Saturday had not been conducive to any further power experimentation.
On the one hand, she had been able to identify that the giant listened to her commands and had some manner of super-strength. That meant the only further testing she could think of was to find his limits for strength or presumably durability, unless he had a more esoteric ability that she had yet to find.
Sadly this could not be done at home as her dad had made sure he was around for a discussion that had been put off for a few days.
Past Taylor had offloaded the decision on transferring to future Taylor. The proverbial future Taylor from a few days ago was now preset Taylor.
Past Taylor was a bitch.
There were a couple of options her dad had presented.
Arcadia High would be her dream pick, the school the Wards supposedly go to, but there was a reason they went there. It was the best school within several counties, a school choice for many. Which was the problem; Taylor's grades weren't… great. Before high school, she could have swung it. Easily. Even before the end of the first semester last year. But now…
She couldn't even be hopeful, truthfully.
At most they might accept her as a pity case.
Clarendon High was the next best option. Physically it was far, far away. Just to get there, she would have to take a bus, or more likely a ride from her dad, past Arcadia. She… didn't know a great deal about it. It was in the nicer neighbourhoods of the southern downtown area, though.
Immaculata was… the most likely to take her. The problem was it was a private Christian school and a school for rich kids, which on some level made Taylor more nervous about it than Winslow. It would also eat through whatever leftover money they had and then some. Her dad would have to get… creative. In his own words.
He didn't seem particularly receptive about this option when they talked about it.
Transferring would end one set of problems, admittedly a horrid set of problems, but cause a new set to emerge. Taylor just knew it as well as knowing that gravity pulled down.
Perhaps the devil you know was better than being thrust into the unknown?
Should Taylor try to get a school transfer?
[] Yes – Into the Unknown
[] No – the Devil you know
Author's Note: To pull back the curtain a bit, what this vote signifies is how much do we want to mess around with canon and win stupid prizes. If the yes option wins, I'll do a roll to see where she goes. Within the roll, it is possible for her to fail and no one accepts her and/or the inertia of her situation causes it to fail.
There will be fallout if the roll fails.
Outside of that, I've loved the response from everyone- I was scared I wouldn't even get five votes and I'm at many times that. Worst part is holding myself back from the discussion so I do not spoil something.
By the end of the weekend, they had come to an agreement.
It felt like giving up and spitting on the past year of stubbornness, but Taylor had agreed with her dad to try and transfer, damn Winslow and their assurances this wouldn't happen again. Her mouth tasted of ash when it came to this, it felt like giving up and letting the trio win…
...but their last prank had put her in the hospital. A clean break, as much as one could get, seemed to be the best idea. A new beginning to go along with becoming a parahuman. A nice bookend, even.
That did not get her out of going to Winslow on Monday- they had no idea if they would be able to find a school to transfer her to after all.
100-95, Arcadia
94-70, Clarendon
69-40, Immaculata
39-25, Winslow Neutral
24-1, Winslow Bad
Sunday the sixteenth of January loomed over her as her last day before Winslow.
It was also another day that she couldn't go out for power experimentation as her dad was staying home, stuck filling out forms. Taylor had the vague notion that he would most likely not have approved of her going out to a wood lot by herself in the dead of winter.
That just left her to look over the notes she had made in her notebook.
'Power: Projection? Create the same giant minion(?). Follows verbal commands.'
She was still trying to work out what exactly her power was. It seemed to be creating a singular minion that she could give orders to. At least she was hoping that was the case- the only other apparent alternative was that she was somehow summoning another parahuman. That gave her some distinctly bad feelings.
Taylor strongly ignored that possibility. She was good at ignoring things. No moral quandaries for her, no siree!
'Can't speak. Possibly sentient- unlikely. Mimicry of human actions.'
She had not been able to get it to speak, and it seemed more to be emulating a human's actions than actually being one.
'Able to lift ten tons(?), minimal.'
She would have to find something heavier for it to lift, though that was going to be a search all on its own. It was very important to know what her power could do, what it's limits were.
'Durability?'
Taylor had no idea how durable to giant was or even if it would take damage. It could even be that whatever damage it took, she did. She just had no idea and it was next on the docket for power experimentation alongside seeing the limits of its strength.
* = When asked to write, the time limit barrier/capacity(?) started to lower.'
At the very least the amount of time the giant could be materialized was increasing. If it had been only the handful of minutes it started with when Taylor started to record, it would have been… less than copacetic.
'Unknown if forced past pain threshold.'
That was definitely something Taylor was not looking forward to testing.
She glanced at the wall mounted clock, suppressing a groan.
Time marched on.
The shadow's master readied for war.
That was the best approximation it could give, either that or a man being led to his own execution.
The girl's motions were stiff, slow and resigned. She was not happy about what she was doing. The longer her morning ablutions went on, the more the shadow's core reasoning was settling on it being akin to going to one's death. It had seen ones who were sentenced to die walk towards their hemlock act the most similar. After they had accepted that their end was near. And stopped trying to escape.
Regardless, the shadow was ready for whatever challenge came. It was mighty, indomitable. There was little chance it would let any harm come to the girl.
The ragged man held a similar look to him, though, if the shadow was any judge of character, it would say that while the girl was resigned to her fate, he had some fire to him. He was talkative. Through the haze that filled it's mind, it could see that it was perhaps surprising to the girl that he was talking in the first place.
Thoughts filed away for later.
It was with that in mind, that the shadow observed the situation around the girl as she once more entered the metal box- larger than the previous metal box (a car its mind supplied). For a relatively tall girl, she was doing a remarkable job of trying to stay non-visible as she stared out of the glass window.
The sun had yet to fully peek out from the waterline when the girl had arrived at her destination.
The shadow observed as her and many similar aged teenagers entered the building, following her. If it had to guess, it would say that this was some form of education- wholly unlike it's own. Through fuzzy memories, it could recall it had only ever had personal tutors, not been part of mass education such as the girl was going through.
Tension threaded through the girl as others avoided her, giving her a significant distance compared to others. Some pointed at her. No, that was inaccurate; many did.
None attacked.
At one point, the girl had stiffened, and it had prepared, only for her to walk in a radically different direction, practically backtracking.
No hostilities were forthcoming.
The shadow watched as the girl turned on a rectangle and started to poke at another rectangle, causing the first one to light up in different patterns. She seemed to relax as its lights changed, becoming more contemplative. It started to assume the threat was over. That was rudely interrupted by a loud noise- something that caused the girl's shoulders to slouch inwards once more as she and the hundreds of teenagers that inhabited the building went to completely different rooms.
In a way, it was mesmerizing that it was done so quickly and orderly. It only saw two beatings before everyone had gotten to their seats. This time, the tutor, a young man spoke for a similar time block. A similar noise rang out before the shuffle began again.
It was here, that the threat made itself known.
Partially.
Rather, it saw a number of teenagers eyeing the girl.
Two of note stood out.
One whose hair resembled dimming embers had a look in her eyes that twigged memories in the being, that of another girl, smaller and more helpless, whose only family viewed her with dead black eyes and condemnation for the sins of her father. The same who cut her open day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. Who created life and threw it away more carelessly than one handled a stalk of wheat.
It was the look of someone wondering how to break another.
The shadow did not like it.
The other reminded it of the beast of Iraklion. A predator that hunted with impunity, all bowed to it, the despot of its corner of the world.
And it was eyeing the girl as prey.
The shadow knew a threat when it saw one.
Taylor had an epiphany in math class.
The giant had been following alongside her, no one the wiser to it, even when people clearly walked through the space it occupied…
...when it started to focus on something else. For the first time she felt something that was not originating from her. A kind of intuition about what was going to happen in the next few seconds.
The giant was going to kill someone.
How?
Taylor had no idea. It was a sure feeling in her bones much like the sky is blue, grass is green.
Who?
That she had a pretty good idea, given that the giant was moving in a singular direction. Sophia Hess.
Why?
If she had to take a guess, perhaps it responded to hostility? If that was the case, this was going in her notebook. Also if she ever materialized him in the school, he'd go full Carrie. Not ideal.
She felt paralyzed, as if waiting in slow motion for one of her bullies to cease existing in lieu of anything else.
...except nothing happened.
It took an embarrassing amount of time for Taylor to realize why.
She had yet to materialize it.
This did little to assuage her nerves, realizing that someone is microseconds from death. That their life was held in her hands.
This was going to be a long day.
It had been two long days.
In that time, every moment that either Sophia, Emma or occasionally Madison were near her, the weight of their lives fell into her proverbial hands. It would be so easy to materialize her power and just never have to deal with them ever again. So very easy.
And in those last two days, they had done nothing more than give her satisfied looks.
Their inaction was perhaps more stressful.
Maybe they finally had to stop after the locker?
Roll Result: d100 = 71
The shadow watched the girl stare at a piece of paper.
She had been doing that well into the night, the sun having dipped the world into darkness.
The girl seemed… relieved? She kept staring at the writing, and occasionally pinching herself. Letting out the occasional shuddering breath.
She looked up at him. Surprise written across her face.
"I'm going to Clarendon."
What is Taylor going to do over the next week when she has free time?
[] Patrol Even QA thinks this would be ill-advised.
[] Research the cape scene in Brockton Bay
[] Power experimentation
[] Costume/Name/Presentation Preparations
Author's Note: Aaaaand canon is further punted away.
From what I've planned, time blocks will occur roughly in week intervals except when things are happening, like if a full gang war erupted, it might go down to day(s) though Taylor could do far less within each time block. For now she is going to be decently occupied with school and what not so her time block won't be quite as chunky as it should be in the future.
Been loving all the votes and the discussion that's popped up, keep it up!
Friday found Taylor sitting on a knocked over tree.
Same tree remains from the one that the giant had punched in half last time.
The past three days had been… something out of, well, dream might not have been the right word. To be more accurate, it was like Taylor's body was operating on autopilot, as she took the placement tests over the past two days. Monday was her first day at Clarendon.
Three days ago was the last time she would have to step foot in Winslow.
The thought was still novel to her.
This was also the first day in a whole week she had been able to come back to testing her power's, er, power. At home all she had been able to do was measure the times he was made material. Said times had continued to increase, though with no discernible pattern she could find – still, it was going up.
It was also nice to have him materialized. It was as close as Taylor could feel to having human contact without worrying about her safety (the bullies), or how she was being viewed (classmates) or worrying someone (her dad).
...on some level she could acknowledge that sounded sad, but on another she shoved those concerns into a shoe-box and then off a cliff.
Golden motes fluttered down revealing the giant.
Taylor pointed to the earth next to the giant. "Stay here, please."
The giant did not say anything, but his eyes tracked Taylor as she jogged away, glancing back every so often. After five, seven, ten minutes, she had gotten close to half a mile away, and could see that he was still where she had ordered him to stay. That was good. He had some object permanence.
Cupping her hands around her mouth, she shouted; "come here!"
A thump rang out as he disappeared from view. She had barely blinked before she recognized the approaching airborne shape, as over a quarter ton of muscle and sinew landed two dozen feet from her, on both feet- a feat that should have shattered his legs from covering such a distance in a handful of seconds.
He's fast.
Well, it was time for the next part of the testing.
She was not looking forward to this. Not at all.
Durability.
The thing was, it was really hard to test; she felt… ill at ease at the thought of trying to harm the giant. Somewhere inside of her, she knew she wouldn't be judged for it. That made it worse.
She had brought a kitchen knife.
Taylor looked up at his yellow eyes which looked back at her impassively.
"I-I'm sorry. I need to test. If you have any objections, please say them now?" The sound of trees creaking in the air was all she got. "I'm sorry. Hopefully this doesn't hurt. I guess." Her grip tightened on the knife. "Hold out an arm."
His right arm came to a stop in front of her.
A second hand joined the first one on the blade to steady it.
"I'm sorry."
She didn't know what else to say, as she poked his bicep gently.
It was like trying to stab granite. The blade started to skitter away from his skin before making an actual cut.
Okay, so he has toughened skin.
Still, she want- needed to know.
The knife bent after she tried, before falling away from the giant, clanging lightly as it hit a tree root and clattered onto the forest floor.
Yet that's not what occupied her thoughts.
It felt like she was trying to stab a guard dog.
The lack of judgment hurt the most- it was a victimless crime, no one had even been hurt. But… still…
She dismissed him as she wanted to be as alone as she could right now.
Taylor never saw the hand coming up to pat her on the shoulder before he was gone.
Monday began with an early wake up.
Clarendon was not close by. In the future, Taylor was going to have to take the bus to get back and forth but today she was going to get a ride from her dad – he needed to finish with paperwork at the school.
She only had to wake up at six instead of five, thankfully.
Both her and dad were quiet in the car. Taylor knew she could be talking, that it would probably be easier than the silence between them. Easier on her nerves, too, distractions were like that. Knowing that did not make it any easier to start speaking.
It seemed a lot easier to go to something different, something new when it was merely a daydream to escape Winslow. The reality of it was both far grander and mundane than anything.
She was given a map for where her classes were when they had finished the paperwork and told to get to classes that started in half an hour.
Turns out that high schools that aren't a hub for gang activity are kind of boring. Unique for Taylor, with the lack of graffiti and vandalized or open gang affiliations…
...or people trying to trip her. Among other things.
Besides the odd curious look or question she even got through classes mostly without issue, well, besides a large volume of makeup work that she was given. It was going to be eating through her free time, that was for sure.
At least none of the teachers had called on her. Small mercies.
Third period Chemistry class ended when the bell rang, and she was presented with the first opportunity for something she had long been denied at Winslow; a cheap school-made lunch. With the actual chance to sit down in the lunchroom!
This was how she ended up with a styrofoam container full of warm spaghetti and only slightly questionable meatballs. Truly the pinnacle of culinary experiences. At least as far as she was concerned. Now that just left her to find a place to sit.
The problem with that, was she knew literally no one here, no idea about any of the social cliques, absolutely nothing. She maybe knew five peoples' names and that was from hearing them get called on in class of which she saw none of them.
Though, she did know one person, even if she didn't know her name.
There was a girl wearing shorts and a hoodie covered in smiley faces not even sitting at a table, rather against a wall, on the floor, with a notepad in front of her, sketching the room, eyes darting around, her tongue sticking out slightly.
No one walked within ten feet of her, and distinctly looked around her, as if she wasn't there.
It was very much like what she expected looking at herself at Winslow had been like, socially speaking. Another outcast. One who was getting mentioned as a creep, weirdo or quiet freak in quiet murmurs.
Alternatively, if Taylor didn't want to commit social suicide on the very first day, she could find someone who was sitting alone and try and socialize with them- trying to insert herself into a group seemed like a terrible idea. Problematically there weren't many that fit the bill. Or any that she felt comfortable approaching.
There was, however, a girl in a wheelchair, sitting at the end of one of the long lunch tables, rather sullenly stabbing at a steak burger.
...on second thought, maybe Taylor wasn't quite ready for talking with an age peer, but given how the girl was staring violent bloody murder at the table, Taylor was pretty sure sitting in the vague vicinity of her would keep anyone from talking to her.
Alternatively she could cram the food into her mouth as fast as possible and make for the library- no one would talk to her there, right? That's still an improvement over Winslow! No more hiding in the bathrooms to eat a dry pita wrap!
...even if Taylor was tempted to hide in one for lunch. Just for the first day.
No need to rush it, right?
Where does Taylor eat her lunch?
[] Commit social suicide; approach the outcast.
[] Near angry wheelchair girl; her rage will keep everyone else away, right?
[] Consume food as quickly as possible and check out the library.
[] Alone, with her invisible friend because she is a loser. It may or may not be in the bathroom.
Author's Note: Hello, good day, have a new post. Go vote!
I got nothing else to really add. The vote got really close, which was neat. 15 for experiment, 11 for research, and 1 for prep. Honestly wasn't expecting it to get as close as it was.
Keep up the voting and discussion, its really helping to keep me motivated!
In fact, one could even say that she had more experience in that particular high school social role than any other. They would also, depressingly, be right.
Maybe because this school didn't quite reek of gang violence or maybe because Taylor had been away from Winslow for almost a full week but she… wanted to make someone's life positive. Be the person she had always wanted. The one that would sometimes appear before being forced out by peer pressure.
Even if every instinct in her was screaming at her to not commit probable ostracism on her first day. She knew that those who had interacted with her at Winslow, for however brief it was, didn't tend to be viewed well. Even if it was a few short conversations was all that they had shared.
With all that in mind, she walked towards the rather tall girl.
She seemed rather engrossed in her drawing, viewing the entire cafeteria with darting gray eyes. Said darting gray eyes focused on her as she approached as Taylor came to a realization; how the hell did one start up a conversation based on pity?
Conversations went through her head, one after another as she tried to figure out what would sound the least patronizing when she was in Winslow.
Maybe socializing had not been the best idea?
Abort, abort, abort!
It was too late, eye contact had been established.
Option 1, break eye contact and keep walking.
Optio-
"Hello."
Curse you ingrained social etiquette, curse you! If this had been Winslow, she wouldn't have said anything. This school was making her let down her guard.
The girl set the art-pad down, practically leaping to her feet in one smooth motion. "Hi! Hello!" she smiled, teeth straight and white as snow, "I'm Nikki! Who are you?!"
"I'm Taylor."
While her face may have been mostly blank, mentally she was cringing. She could do better than that, right? Right?
"That's a cool name!" Nikki replied, her lips not dipping from the smile, "do you want to be friends?!"
Taylor blinked.
...what?
Is this normal? This doesn't seem normal. Taylor hadn't had any friends in a long time and she barely remembered a time before she was friends with Emma, let alone actually befriending her, but she was pretty sure this wasn't how friendship usually went in high school.
"Sure."
The girl grabbed the art-pad that she had set down, "Awesome! Cool!" We can do lots of friend stuff together. Here, let me draw you!" Without letting Taylor say a word, she flipped through a bunch of pages in the art-pad before grabbing her pencil and started to sketch in rapid motions.
Green eyes widened in panic as Taylor looked at the paper.
Is this girl making fun of her?
That seemed to be the natural conclusion given in the span of about fifteen seconds she had decided they were friends and started to sketch her. Was it some subtle form of bullying? That would make sense if the school was stricter on cracking down on it then Winslow.
The giant shifted his stance, giving her a reminder of her new and very powerful safety net. One whose usage would not go well. Still. What could it hurt?
Her eyes glanced at her styrofoam container, a motion that Nikki tracked, looking back up at Taylor's face unerringly while drawing, "do you want to sit somewhere for lunch?" 'Other than on the dirty floor' went unsaid.
Nikki nodded, the motion jerky. "Okay! Let's go eat outside! I don't have lunch, someone took mine." Taylor's estimation of her authenticity went up. "But that's okay, they must have needed it!" She turned on her heels in a fluid motion and pointed to the large panes of glass decorating one wall of the cafeteria. "Let's eat outside! It's nice weather today!"
Taylor looked at the windows. It was nice weather outside, as long as one agreed that nice weather involved grey skies, and the snow flurry from mid-January weather. She looked back at Nikki, "Uh, the tables are covered in snow out there." That was being generous, more like half a foot of snow. Also she didn't have a winter jacket with her. Or gloves. Or particularly wanted to eat outside. Or away from others with a stranger. "How about something inside?"
The girl laughed as she returned to sketching, "You Americans are so scared by a bit of cold! Okay friend! Let's sit down at one of the tables! Lead on!"
With some of the faster eaters in the lunchroom now gone, there were free tables, or rather, sections of the long tables. As Taylor took a seat at the nearest one, she finally opened her food and stared at it for a moment, before being pulled out of the view by Nikki sitting down, still sketching apparently.
She didn't seem foreign.
Her skin was pale, and had a dirty blonde hair colour. None of her clothes had any non-English writing on it- admittedly it was mostly smiley faces.
Would it be rude to ask where she's from? No, she gave that as an obvious question, right? Right. "You aren't American?" Taylor asked as she opened the plastic wrap on her silverware.
"Da! I am from Russia!" Oh, European. Neato. "Though, recently things were not so good there. So my parents sent me and my Babuska here ahead of them." She paused for a moment.
The permanently affixed smile on her face slowly fell. Her face became placid, almost sad. "Though. Since my Mother died, my Father has not been the same. I fear he will not be joining us." Instead of her excited, fast pace of talking. Her words were slower with the weight of the subject.
Taylor barely kept herself from choking on her spaghetti at the information. She wouldn't tell anyone that her mom died just after meeting them. What do you even say to that? Give condolences? That would sound absolutely fake. A mere nicety.
"But!" Nikki started, flipping emotions like one would a switch. "I live in America now, where the Parahumans wear costumes and fight like Hollywood! And I have made a friend!" She put her pencil down and turned the art pad around to show a 1:1 sketch of Taylor's head, a near perfect rendition, except for the small top hat resting perfectly atop her head.
Well, that was a nice change in topics.
"Tada! it is you, with a hat!" Nikki said, a beaming smile pasted on her face.
"Have you been drawing a long time?" That actually sounded like what a normal person might say! Success!
"...yes! But no." Nikki admitted. "Had to do a lot of still life, but never got to explore stuff. See?! You don't have a hat but I drew you with one!" She tapped the art before setting the pad down. She seemed quite proud of it, inordinately so in Taylor's eyes. "What do you like to do?!" Nikki suddenly asked.
Taylor finished another bite as she ruminated on what she even did for fun, including one with a meatball, which was surprisingly not plasticky - Clarendon was surprisingly good about their food. "I like reading." She chewed on a breadstick. "I just finished Roadside Picnic." Was that stereotyping to bring it up because Nikki was Russian?
Nikki nodded. "Yes, I have not read that one. I like art, and parahumans here. They are fun, not like ones back in the Motherland." Taylor wouldn't consider the gang problem to be fun. "They do not run the government here. Which makes them less scary, and the colorful costumes!"
"What are they like in Russia?"
"They are like the gangs here, but only one of them, and they run everything. You do what they tell you, or else." Nikki stated, voice serious along with her expression. "No costumes. No fun action fighting. They are military, that is that."
"Is a rage dragon that runs a gang that preferable?"
"Would you prefer him to be the mayor?" Nikki asked as she flipped to another page and began to draw again.
"No."
"I will take the city here over a city there. Plus, no Sleeper!" She hummed softly, sketching.
She turned the sketchpad around, it showed a masked Lung with a big head in a suit in front of a podium with a finger raised lazily in the air. "Good?"
Taylor gave a thumbs up as she ate, only for Nikki to start working on something new, chatting about how to shade with different pencils.
At least Taylor wasn't going to be eating lunch alone and had made a maybe friend.
Maybe this won't be so bad?
Taylor was staring at the school with some level of misery haze clouding her mind. Also known as lack of sleep. She had to wake up early to get to the bus and her new school on time.
At least she had a good half an hour to read before classes st-
A shadow covered her, jolting her thoughts.
"Hello Taylor! It's me, Nikki!"
It took Taylor an embarrassing amount of time to realize the girl was inches away from her, with an unwavering smile, staring into her eyes.
Taylor jerked, falling backwards in fright.
A lazy thought floated through her head as Nikki helped her up, apologies rolling off her tongue.
I have regrets.
What is Taylor going to do over the next week when she has free time?
It took quite a few days before Taylor got a chance to look into the local cape scene, namely by going to the library. One closer to her new school.
She had always had a passing interest in it, though it seemed more relevant now than ever before.
There were a couple of reasons she wasn't doing it at home.
The first and most prudent was the fact that she did not have good enough internet at home, or maybe it was because the family computer was slow? Seemed to be a toss up between the two. Secondly, it seemed to be an easy way for something to be traced back to her…
...not that using a library computer would probably add a great deal of distance between her identity and anonymity.
Still, it was something.
PHO booted up as she started to skim through the recent news.
The most dominating news in Brockton Bay was that a member of the government sponsored-heroes, the Protectorate, had died. Embarrassingly, it was by accident to Skidmark. A pigeon had gotten looped into one of his speed zones and bore right through Azure Ink's chest, killing him nearly instantly- no chance for Panacea to save him.
Skidmark had somehow used it to recruit two more capes, bringing the Merchants up to four. At least according to someone that no one could verify.
That had happened last week.
Lung's second-in-command had more recently fought Armsmaster to a draw.
Kage, who had barely been part of the gang for a few months, was already finding herself able to measure up to the premier Protectorate tinker. That was… alarming to a lot of people, and intriguing to the rest. The tinker was now entering the greater Versus thread with her recent fame. After all, a new tinker doing that well against a well-established one… especially given that Kage's theme was hard to pin down. The common suggestion was ninja, which sounded dumb to Taylor. Paired with some shaky camera footage of her saving civilians on occasion, had gotten surprisingly good press online. Taylor thought it was particularly strange, given that the gang she was part of was known for enslaving girls.
She kept clicking through to the top threads to what was less viewed.
Another cape was trying to establish themselves as a Rogue in Brockton Bay, a doll-themed cape named Parian. Taylor wasn't particularly sure how long she would last, though the most well known rogue in the city was still active after a year… maybe there was hope for her?
New Wave was currently undergoing a minor scandal; Glory Girl had drunkenly flown into a bakery shop, breaking the front window's display. Yes, she had been drunk. The officers on the scene had applied a breathalyser. Relatively minor. There was a picture of Brandish escorting her daughter home. The official New Wave account had even put out a statement.
The Empire had crucified a no-name vigilante.
Taylor suppressed a shudder- that could be her fate in the future.
She switched to a new tab and started the actual reason she had come here; to research.
Broadly speaking, there were three or four main gangs in the city.
Empire Eight Eight, Asian Bad Boyz, Coil's gang and the Merchants.
Coil's gang held territory in the west, the ABB in the northwest and southeast, the Empire in centre and southwest. The Merchants moved around too much to have a permanent base, but the far north near the Trainyard is where they are rumoured to be more often than not.
The Empire was the biggest of the gangs, having more capes to them than New Wave and the Protectorate combined, even having the ephemeral parahuman healer. They also had a large following of non-powered people. A tough nut to crack. Coil's gang held territory, but Taylor couldn't find much about what they did besides the occasional skirmish. It involved laser weaponry. Whatever it was, it allowed them to hold their own against the big players. The Merchants… were something of a joke but surprisingly hard to pin down where they held territory, and had the desperation that only the truly desperate had.
That left the Asian Bad Boyz.
The ABB was ascendant since the beginning of the year; for a number of years it had been Lung and Oni Lee with the occasional third or fourth cape that was grounded into a bloody paste. With the addition of Kage, it was like adding wings to a tiger, as the saying went. They were expanding for the first time in many years. In the past, Lung had been content to sit on his territories as they were chipped at by others.
There were, of course, minor players in the cape scene- the Bay held something like nearly a hundred known parahumans. Or people blaming normal crimes on parahumans, which was always popular and hard to disprove.
It was as Taylor started to look into the unaffiliated parahumans that she noticed the time and sighed. She had to leave now if she wanted to get on the bus to get back before ten.
"Where am I?"
She couldn't help but to ask quietly under her breath as she tried to find where the bus stop was.
The downside of the new school was that she knew nothing in the area and you did not want to be lost in Brockton Bay.
Even if one possessed an invisible giant.
Unfortunate then, that Taylor was very lost. Merely fortunate that no one knew she was lost. Well, no one was going to try and mug her. Which seemed apropos given she was undoubtedly the larger threat to the standard mugger.
She thought that the bus stop was just a block away from the library, but she had gotten so turned around, she had no idea where the library even was from where she was now.
If she didn't have power, Taylor would have stayed at the library, or at least would have tried to head back to it sooner. At least she was reasonably sure she was safe. Just lost. She was in some kind of strip mall - one that actually looked rather decent. If she knew where she was, she might actually go here again. Assuming she had any money. The parking lot didn't even have any used needles lying around!
Slightly more concerning, was that she hadn't recognized where she was and a mixture of anxiety and wariness kept her from asking directions. She had lived in Brockton Bay for fifteen years.
Paranoia was healthy.
Taylor liked living.
She would have liked to find he-
"Dah... -ay- ..loh... oo- ...tye!"
What was that?
She looked towards the sound, straining to hear it, but found nothing. It wasn't any person she could see- maybe an animal? Human instinct made her want to identify whatever it was.
She could hear gears moving, tortuously so, but moving.
Taylor started to fast-walk away.
"Hey! Kah-boo ay-ay u-nye!"
The noise came from beside her, causing her to twist around, get tangled on her own two feet, and fall on her butt, leaving her eye level with it.
Peeking out of a trash can, crimson fur mangy and matted, ears moving up and down with mechanical motion was…
"Is that a furby?"
The eyes pried themselves open, glassy soulless eyes staring at her, not past her or near her, but by everything that Taylor could swear by, at her.
"Hiiiiii!"
What the fuck?
[] Approach, it's just a furby.
[] NOPE! FLEE!
Author's Note: Rolls on the random encounter table are fun some times.
That is the thought in Taylor's head as she walks closer to the thing, half hidden under the lid.
"Kah ay-tay!"
The thing was, in Taylor's admittedly limited experience, furbies were just plain creepy. Even if they weren't found half rotted in a trashcan.
Half rotted was the best descriptor she could find for it; she could see the framework for its ear through a missing part of its fur. It had seen better days. A common sentiment.
Vaguely, Taylor could remember that she had gotten one at one point, though it had also ended up in the trash. Both of her parents were unenthused by it turning on in the middle of the night. Repeatedly.
If Taylor was being honest, the only reason she was approaching the damn thing was to make sure that she was seeing things and that it's eyes really weren't tracking her. Was it juvenile? Yes. 100%. That did not change the fact that she would rather know than having this feeling of being watched follow her back home.
"Ah-noo! Kah moh-moh boh-tee-tay!"
It was when she was right next to it, that she noticed something else. While the fur on it was crimson, deep enough to be almost purple and it's secondary colour was a dark grey, there was a two tone scheme going on with the red- an ugly dull brown spiralled up through it. Almost as if...
Time slowed.
That urge to jump from high buildings, the same one that exists for someone to do something stupid, like cut themselves… Taylor could feel it. The cognitive dissonance of the abnormal in a normal place.
The call of the void.
A sick sense of curiosity, the type that wants to see
She pulled the trash can's lid up.
A roving, pulsating melody of black scurried at the intrusion, flitting about, waiting for the intruder to leave them to their prize.
It wasn't desiccated, despite having been picked over scavengers for clearly a while- black beetles scurrying around in multitudes, crawling, scrambling over each other, tearing at their feast. Liquid of a very known nature seeped from two orifices, contrasting the rest of the reddish, yellow blend.
The furby sat in its other major orifice, jagged yellowed shards gripping it loosely in place as putrid crawling forms covered it's bottom half- newborn organisms feeding for the first time.
Taylor's hand let go of the lid.
It clattered on to the top of the head, dislodging the toy with a sulfuric pop.
The furby lightly bounced off her and onto the sidewalk.
Taylor screamed.
The past few days had been… stressful for Taylor.
Finding a decomposing body, getting maggots on her and puking before having to talk to the police after someone gave a call had not turned out to be the ideal end of day. More surprising was that someone even called the police- turns out a girl screaming in the nicer parts of town actually warranted a quick response… who knew?
Her dad had kept her from going to school the next day. He hadn't let her stay home either, taking her to his tiny office. At least she had been able to get some progress on the makeup schoolwork done. Ther-
"Taylor! Hi!" Two warm hands clamped down on Taylor's causing her to jolt slightly as a serious looking Nikki shook them lightly, "How are you?! You missed school yesterday, and you look pale!"
Green eyes blinked. Right, Nikki wouldn't know.
Taylor shrugged. "I'm fine." Which wasn't inaccurate, if one changed the definition of the phrase.
Nikki continued to stare for a long moment before nodding, face untensing for a given measure. Nikki always wore a smile on her face, without fail, the current one merely morphed from a worried smile into a more neutral one.
"Want to hang out after school? I'm free!"
Nikki's suggestions:
[] Accept: Become a Mallrat.
[] Accept: Acquire cheap food. Consume a hideous bob. From Fugly's.
[] Accept: Go to the boardwalk and window shop. Be a poor tourist.
[] Accept: Nikki hasn't been on a guided tour of PRT ENE HQ. Be a guided tourist!
Taylor's suggestions:
[] Accept: Write in
Decline:
[] Decline: Go spend more time getting ready for your debut (i.e. the cape related vote)
[] Decline: Nikki is great and all, but maybe some alone time is needed? Maybe another friend?
Author's note: Beep boop have an updoot.
...I will say that I sat down to write this chapter with the plan to eat right afterwards. The rice didn't look quite as appetizing after this.
