[] Tell the truth – Circus? Hell no. You are Calamity Witch.
Civil War 8.8
…Circus?
Your previous worry about your identity being figured out…
again… disappears as you stare at her in befuddlement. "Circus. Really? All the capes you could pick from, and you think I'm
Circus?"
"Well, yeah. All the pieces fit, and… you aren't Circus, are you?" she asks with a mild frown.
You shake your head wordlessly.
"Oh."
A long moment passes before she speaks again, and when she does, it is the rapid babble of someone who can't figure out whether to push forward or backpedal. "No, no, no, that's the only explanation that makes
sense, don't you see? At first I thought maybe you had other friends that I didn't know about, but that didn't fit at all"—Hey!—"because you never tried to introduce them to me or Marcia or anyone. Then I thought about how you didn't talk to Charlie even after I told you he likes you and how you're always tired in the mornings and maybe what was really going on was that you had a secret lover or a sugar daddy or something and that was why you didn't tell anyone, but
that didn't sound like you either. Then I thought, wait a second what if she's a
cape and that's why she can never go out and have fun with the rest of us and suddenly everything clicked and—" Kayleigh blinks. "Hold up. You aren't Circus, but you never said you weren't a cape at all. Are you really a cape?"
There are two ways you can answer this, you realize, each with their own risks. On the one hand, you could lie. It would even be easy. Say you aren't a cape, and as long as Kayleigh never finds out the truth – which she wouldn't be looking for – everything gets wrapped up nice and neat. It just means you build this friendship from here on out on top of a lie. And if she did find out? Yikes.
On the other hand, you could tell her the truth. A bigger risk to you personally, but you do like Kayleigh. It's nice having a friend again.
Licking your lips, you ask a deceptively simple question. "Can you keep a secret?" She nods, and you lift one hand and conjure a single Flare Shooter bullet.
"That looks familiar… Wait.
No." She stares at you with wide eyes and a smile that grows even wider, and she whispers excitedly, "You're
Calamity Witch?"
"Yep," you reply, crushing the little fireball.
"Oh my gosh that's so
cooooool!" She hops in place and lets out a tiny squeal. "That's why you were at the party! Like, not Taylor-you, but Calamity Witch-you! I thought you came in with Chevalier and flew ahead of them or something, but you were there the whole time!"
"It wasn't just me," you tell her, turning away from her sparkly eyes. Hero worship from your friend isn't what you wanted or was looking for. "Cailleach was there, too. She helped out a lot."
"There were
two capes at the party?!" Kayleigh squeaks. "Ooh, ooh, do you know who she is?"
You try and fail to hold back the laugh that bubbles up. "It isn't like we all have each others' numbers and hang out after work. I'm a hero. Cailleach's a villain. We aren't exactly friends."
"Oh. Yeah, I get that. But if you
could meet up and hang out," she continues anyway, "would you want to?"
"Sure. Why not." You do owe her a thank you for helping out at the party, and for checking if you were okay after to head-butted a rocket and yourself out of the sky. It would be more than a little crass to thank her while putting cuffs on her, though, which is what you'd do under most circumstances should the two of you meet. Perhaps if you met her during a fight with MS-13, you could do just that without it getting too awkward? Something to keep in mind.
"Two capes, both going to school here. Yeah, you two have to get together," says your friend with a nod.
"You work on that," you tell her with a roll of your eyes. "Anyway, I don't need to tell you not to spread this all around, right? Secret identities are pretty big deals, and if anyone figured it out…"
You don't want to go into detail about what could happen if the truth leaked out. You and Samantha are Brutes, but in your case it's only when you have your Barrier Jacket out. Your dad does not have even that much protection.
"Don't worry, Taylor. I know how important secret identities are. I won't tell anyone unless they really, really,
really need to know." She draws an 'X' with her finger on her chest. "Cross my heart."
A resigned sigh, and you clap your hands around Kayleigh's wrist. "Glad we had this talk. Now let's get out of here before we're the last people in school."
The hallways are already empty, so you feel safe enough to ask a question that is niggling at you. "Why did you want to talk to Circus, anyway? It's a little odd for people to want to chat with villains, at least not unless you're involved in crime and villainy yourself. You wouldn't do that, now would you?" you tease with a smile.
"Ack, my fiendish secret has been found out," she giggles. "No, it's not that. I heard a rumor that with MS-13 so out of control, all the villains were going to have this big sit-down about what to do about it. I wanted to know if that was true. Plus, I could ask if it was true that heroes and villains were working together to take them down." The last bit she throws in with a pointed glance at you.
"If heroes were working with villains, it would only be a temporary thing. They are kind of obligated to arrest the gangs, you know. Besides, I'm not sure how well the villains would be able to put aside their differences in order to work together in the first place." Even the Truce in place seemed all-too-delicate sometimes.
"Villains are people, too," Kayleigh says. "Even if they don't know each other, even if they don't like each other, I think they could still work together when they needed to. Maybe it's just that they need a little bit more of a push to get over themselves."
A little more idealistic than you believe, but that doesn't mean she's completely off-base. Purity, after all, was a villain for years before she tried to turn her life around for her daughter's sake, and look at her now! A Protectorate-hero-in-training, someone who was already making waves in the New Orleans PHO threads in a good way. All it took was for someone to believe in her.
"Who knows," you murmur. "In a crazy world like ours, I suppose anything is possible."
Civil War 8.9 should be up in three weeks. Not because I plan for there to be a delay (plan for being the operative phrase 
) but because there are a couple of interludes waiting in the wings. Only then will you understand why I posted the video of Rumplestiltskin laughing.
