Turns out that the PRT's suggestion worked-- they all indeed did finally leave Taylor and Danny alone and they could finally return to their house in peace once Taylor had given that interview.
She had to answer a few awkward questions from Danny afterward about what she had claimed happened between herself and Emma. But, once he understood what Taylor had tried to do on that TV show he found it funny.
He seemed to think that it'd eventually backfire on Taylor, but Taylor couldn't see how it could. Unlike some other people, she wasn't afraid of being seen as gay because there was nothing wrong with being gay. Sure, the Nazis might attack her but she didn't care what the Nazis thought of her. They could all go die for all she cared.
Emma, on the other hand, Taylor happened to know that Emma placed importance on how others saw her. Emma constantly went out of her way to look good in front of others as much as possible. And thus would've been pissed off as hell at Taylor's suggestion that she was nothing but a crazy, bitter ex-girlfriend who couldn't move on when Taylor did. It would drive her up the wall because it'd be hard to disprove. Mainly because Taylor had used most of the truth than she had lied there. Emma couldn't very well say "actually only that part was true while the rest was lies." And if she denied that any of it was true, but others out there proved some parts to be true then people would believe Taylor over Emma.
And hey, it was the next best thing to giving Emma a cunt-punt and punching her in the face as she had occasionally fantasized about. This was probably far more civilized than actually committing violent acts.
Hence why this kind of revenge seemed logical and clever. Again, how could this backfire on her??
At any rate, it was nice to be home again. And, she was starting at Arcadia very soon after acing most of their tests and quizzes. There were a few subjects she had failed horribly at, but that wasn't too surprising in hindsight considering that the terrible trio had been so busy tormenting her in those classes that she hadn't had time to pay attention. Not to mention that certain teachers, such as Mr.Gladys, were just plain terrible at their jobs.
Amazingly enough, the person in charge of testing her seemed very understanding of this fact when they asked her what about those subjects she didn't understand, and Taylor had to explain why she had problems with those subjects.
Of course, everyone in Brockton Bay seemed to know all about her bullying situation by now, so of course, they would find this answer acceptable.
Taylor would need a lot of catch-up tutoring after school each week to finally catch up with other students, but otherwise, she was accepted into the school! Woot.
And, turns out that there was also a side tutoring program designed for middle-schoolers that Vista was part of, so it wasn't too far-fetched for Shaun to get into Arcadia himself when Nora asked about that.
It was part of Arcadia's efforts to mainstream younger students who wanted to graduate from middle school into junior high sooner. The cynics said this was probably also a way to cover up for any young ward who were too young to reach high school giving them a plausible excuse for why they could be going to Arcadia without getting outed since the program meant that dozens of exceptional middle schoolers could get to skip grades this way.
Like Taylor, Shaun had to take several tests to ensure that he had the aptitude for the program. He managed to pass almost everything with flying colors save for the segment on history, but that was more forgiven by the fact that he was from an alternate Earth.
The teachers were amazed by the fact that Shaun seemed to have a college-level understanding of engineering, science, and mathematics even if his knowledge of world history, art, and a few other things were abysmally low. Even a third-grader knew more about world history than Shaun did.
Afterward, Shaun had confessed to Taylor that history and other things like art had been the only thing he hadn't been taught at all when he "grew up" in the Institute unless it related to the Institute in some way. It had been one of the many things that the Institute had deemed unimportant for children to know. He couldn't help but wonder if history and art were that important?
From what Taylor had learned of the Institute thus far, it wasn't surprising at all.
They certainly didn't seem the type to teach things like entrepreneurship, art or poetry, etc. Why teach kids how to run a business and other things that required them to use their brain creatively when they weren't ever going to leave their underground home? They were going to be slotted into the jobs they were required for, and not given the freedom to choose the jobs they loved. For anything else they needed, they had robots or synths to do the task.
Not to mention that too much creative thinking could lead people to question the natural order of things, and the Institute couldn't have that now could they? It was effectively an underground cult that used science to bend everyone else to their wills.
At any rate, the two of them were going to school now while the adults did their own thing.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
---Nora---
She had been in what seemed like endless meetings and discussions for weeks now. Half of the discussion had been questions as to what equated value in terms of currency, etc. They needed this question answered because of reasons.
They had even brought in a specialist who went by Kurt, just like Danny's friend, who had done the math. He had even created
an online calculator that would convert dollars into bottle caps and vice versa in terms of value, just because he could. That, and he kept on getting tired of all the questions and decided that everyone else should get to calculate that on their own.
Bottlecaps didn't have much value here, so 217 bottle caps equaled one dollar here. Considering that the most expensive weapons could cost up to 20,000 bottle caps, that was… interesting? So, 50 to 100 dollars per weapon, and 1000 dollars per power armor, if they had planned to exchange goods using bottle caps. Which they hadn't at all but it still helped set up the foundation for what both parties would see as a fair trade.
This meant that they would have to trade 50 to 100 dollars worth of seeds or any animals worth that much over to Nora before she'd send them the stuff. Honestly, that sounded okay to Nora so she had agreed with that. Any lower than that and she might've felt ripped off maybe.
Although she did feel a little bit like a stereotypical middle-eastern man living in Africa right now. "I demand seven goats and 1 camel for this and that if I am to give them up to you." Heh.
The other part of the discussions had been discussing where Nora could build her teleporter, as the higher-ups in charge of Earth Bet's America hadn't wanted her teleporter anywhere close to civilian areas, or near other vitally important areas.
Nora could respect that, and she pretty much approved of them thinking so far ahead in case the relationship between Earth Bet and Earth Gimel became sour. This showed her that she wasn't dealing with idiots, etc.
But, she had to admit that the discussions regarding that had been a pain in the ass. Just when she thought they finally got approval for a building site, they'd find something wrong with it and then change their minds. Then the debate would renew itself, as they tried to figure out where the teleporter would be best located.
They even argued about which city would be best to put it in, before finally agreeing that maybe Brockton Bay would be the best city for it, after all, considering that's where the historic first contact was made. But they had the caveat that the new teleporter was going to be miles outside the city, but not so far away that it would be a long drive or walk between the teleporter site and Brockton Bay.
This way should a war break out between the two worlds, the first teleporter site would be easily contained and secured. They would talk about building other teleporter sites elsewhere in the future if this exchange turned out successfully and the relationship between the two Earths was stable long enough.
They finally agreed on having it be built at an abandoned air force base miles away outside of Brockton Bay, which had pretty much become useless because it could only house the smaller military airplanes that they used to have in the '40s to '50s instead of the massive airplanes the military all used nowadays. It was now an airplane graveyard with dozens of abandoned airplanes that Nora could use for building scrap.
Taylor had been surprised to discover that Brockton Bay not only had a ship graveyard but an airplane one too although the ancient airport wasn't close enough to Brockton Bay to qualify as being part of the city the same way the ship graveyard was.
During this time Nora had also unlocked more different building styles by browsing sites on a much larger tablet, which made it easier for her to look through blueprints and house plans.
As a result, she was able to unlock everything from log cabin homes to bungalow-style homes like the one Taylor Hebert lived in. Well, Taylor's home seemed to be a mixture of
Bungalow style and
Cape-cod style houses like every other house in her neighborhood, although hers leaned towards more Bungalow style than Cape cod. As were typical of half the northeast coast homes in the New England states in this world.
She also unlocked more styles that were typically found in larger buildings like skyscrapers, although Nora had to admit that she wasn't a big fan of some of the more bizarre designs that the postmodernism architecture-styled ones had. The idea of
sustainable architecture was new to her though and interested her greatly. Unfortunately, there wasn't much in the way of workable blueprints and ground plans for that as it was still an idea in progress in this world, as it were. A pity at that. She did manage to snag a few buildings in that category, though.
She found out something weird about her power at this point though… namely, that if she ended up unlocking so many styles then her power would kind of blend some of the styles together if they were similar enough and put them all in the same category to keep everything streamlined.
For example, Classical Rome/Greek buildings and Neoclassical buildings got lumped together into the same category, because they were similar visually even though they used different construction methods. Likewise, Brutalist, Modern, and post-modern buildings got lumped together under concrete buildings mainly because they tended to be boxy buildings that used, you guessed it, concrete in both their building material and as their facade.
Which kind of made sense, she supposed, and it did keep her mental "building menu" neat and tidy to have everything categorized and blended like that. Some of the style blends came up with weird results, though, like when her power blended together some of the vault styles with art deco. It felt like her sense of aesthetics which had been influenced by living in pre-war 2077 was now shaping what
the Art Deco style looked like.
On the flip side, she was now getting ideas for new apartment buildings back home in her homeworld. Maybe she'd build one in Goodneighbor just because she had noticed that while they had a hotel there also wasn't much in the way of permanent homes for the citizens there unless you counted the warehouses and some of the metal shanty houses that didn't even have proper walls on all sides. she'd name the apartment building
Neon Flats because it was going to have a lot of neon lighting.
She might've built that closer to Diamond City, but somehow she felt that the Neon Flats apartment building would fit Good Neighbor's aesthetic far better. Besides, Diamond City shouldn't get all the good stuff and she was sure that Hancock would agree with her. She got the feeling that he hadn't completely forgiven Diamond City yet for what they did to the ghouls who hadn't wanted to leave, even if the mayor at the time was a synth. They all had gone with what the Mayor wanted without protest, and "I was only following orders" made for a weak excuse.
She stopped her plans for all the buildings she was going to make once she noticed that the van transporting her was slowing down, and seemed to be pulling into the said abandoned airplane lot.
Looks like it was time for her to build a teleporter-slash-building on Earth Bet now.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
--Taylor--
Going to Arcadia was kind of surreal. After spending time in both Winslow AND the nuclear wasteland on Nora's homeworld, the school felt…TOO CLEAN, for lack of a better descriptor.
There wasn't even any graffiti, for Pete's sake! There were no signs of age or damage like with her own home or Winslow high school, which to her showed that something was lived-in and in the case of her own home, well-loved. There were times when the place just didn't…. Feel real?
It put Shaun on edge at first too, as the building apparently reminded him too much of the Institute where he had lived all his life until Nora got him out of there. Normally Shaun wouldn't have minded too much as he did think of the institute as home until recently. But, it seemed that he was now remembering all sorts of things about the Institute that now seemed dysfunctional in hindsight the more the boy thought about them, and so now Shaun's fond memories of the Institute were tainted.
Taylor couldn't blame the boy though. It was hard to go from having fond memories of an underground home to realizing that the people there constantly tampered with your memories all the time and thus weren't the kindly uncles and aunts you thought they were. It left you second-guessing everything and made you realize that you had probably been abused by them in some fashion and just didn't remember it. Or maybe not, considering that they did seem to value Shaun judging by what Nora had told her, but it was that kind of uncertainty that got to you.
But anyways, It seemed that the people working at Arcadia were nothing like the people who lived and worked in the Institute, so Shaun was able to slowly relax and start to enjoy himself over the week that both Taylor and Shaun went there. He was even starting to enjoy learning in a few of the classes as they hadn't been taught to him before at the Institute. But part of this was due to the fact that he was kept largely isolated from the high school students and instead worked one-on-one with teachers or with the rest of the middle schoolers in the same program as he was. Shaun even made friends with a few of the girls and one boy.
The same couldn't be said for Taylor though because unlike Shaun she kept on getting stares directed at her as well as quiet whispers behind her back the entire time in both classes and out in the hallways. Most of the time, people kept their distance.
What was with that?? Ugh. It wasn't exactly the typical bullying she had gotten in the past, but it unnerved her. Was it because she had been on TV recently or what? That was probably it, right? But her paranoia and anxiety couldn't help but pop their ugly heads out, so to speak.
She couldn't take another week of this! Wasn't her 15 minutes of fame supposed to be over by now already? But at least this alienation was way better than the constant bullying she had endured.
It was lunchtime now, so she went to meet up with Shaun at the usual table they had eaten at the past few days.
As they met up together after lining up at the cafeteria buffet, Taylor was somewhat startled when some blonde girl started waving them over with a big friendly smile on her face. It took Taylor a few seconds to recognize her as Glory Girl since she was out of uniform.
Well, she supposed this meant she had to think of the girl as Victoria Dallon rather than Glory Girl.
But, what did the girl want with her? Maybe she had recognized Taylor from the time she brought Panacea over to check on Nora's group.
Warily, she went over to Victoria's table to see what she wanted, Shaun following closely behind with a curious expression on his face.
"Hi?" Taylor greeted the blonde as they got closer, and the two of them suddenly felt an overwhelming feeling of adoration and awe as they gazed upon Victoria.
It cut off just as suddenly when Amy poked Victoria in the arm and whispered loudly, "Your Aura!"
"Oops, sorry." Victoria looked contrite and then smiled up at Taylor again. "Want to sit with us? I noticed that you've been keeping the kid from Gimel company all week, so he's welcome to sit with us as well!"
Taylor couldn't help but still feel wary about the whole thing, but maybe it'd be good for her social life if she was seen sitting with a bunch of heroes. Maybe the stares would die down then.
Against her better judgment, she then mumbled, "Um. okay. I don't see why not."
Victoria grinned. "Great!"
To the other people at the table, she told them to make room for Taylor so that Taylor could sit across from Victoria and Amy, while Shaun sat down beside her.
They barely sat down before Victoria started up. "I have to say, Taylor, that I'm hearing all sorts of interesting things about you! There's like, all those crazy rumors about you and I'm very curious to hear whenever any one of them is true!"
Taylor couldn't help but feel some degree of panic at this, but outwards she kept her face passive. "Oh? I've been wondering why people kept on staring at me in class and in the hallways."
Shaun nodded slightly. "I've been hearing some weird stuff too."
Taylor turned to face the young boy. "And you didn't tell me? What'd you hear?"
Shaun shrugged. "It just seemed silly and weird, so I didn't think you'd be interested. For example, the one where you supposedly stared down the Empire's gang members in Winslow to save some girls from being attacked. Which is kinda cool I guess but I dunno why people make such a big deal over that.``
Taylor blinked. "What."
Victoria smirked. "I've heard that one too. And this was before you came back to this Earth. see, after the 'Winslow Incident' parents kept on pulling their kids out of that school and the issues Winslow had with their utilities just helped speed up things along. So some of the kids came here, you see, right as it came out that it was thought that you were murdered since you had been missing for so long. That's when some of the Winslow kids started remembering you in their own way and started telling stories about what you were really like, and not what Emma painted you as."
So… the rumors started long before she came back? What the hell?
"Yeah, but that doesn't explain why there's this story about how I stared down a gang member and saved a girl. I.. honestly don't remember doing such a thing?" Taylor wondered out loud.
Amy snorted. "That story came from a chubby Asian girl in my classroom. She said she sat behind you in Mr.Quinlan's math class. And the way she told it, some Empire punk cornered her in a bathroom once and was about to do something awful to her but then you came in and glared at him until he left. But naturally, once that story went around it took a life of its own. Before I knew it, the story morphed into you saving a bunch of girls from being assaulted by a dozen Empire kids just by staring them down."
Taylor could vaguely remember somebody like that, and that's when a memory came to her just then. She then blinked, as she replied, "Actually, now that you mention it, I do remember her. Something did happen with her, but I have to confess I remember the story way differently."
"Oh? Do tell." Victoria then leaned toward her, resting her chin on her hands.
Taylor had gone to hide out in one of the random bathrooms one day and then skidded to a halt when she realized that there were two people in the bathroom. The chubby Asian girl was pushed up against the wall by a white boy and he was standing so close that you couldn't help but assume that they had been about to do something very naughty. The girl hadn't been crying or anything, she just stood there very still with a red flushed face.
Taylor froze then, standing there staring at them like a deer in the headlights. She knew she should've just replied "oh sorry" and walked back out, but honestly, she had been too worried that the girl might go out and tattle to Emma where Taylor was hiding out that day, and she had gone in expecting for this girls' bathroom to be empty, not to find a BOY in here! And on top of it, he was about to do the dirty deed with a girl HERE??
The boy acted deeply annoyed then, letting out a loud snarl but he quickly rushed out of there before Taylor could even say anything. The girl didn't quite meet Taylor's eyes and left too as quickly with her head down. Taylor had assumed that she had been deeply embarrassed at being caught like this, and then went to find a different hiding place.
Taylor gave an edited version of the real story there, omitting the part where she had been looking for a place to hide but instead playing it off as she had just been going to the bathroom when she came across what she thought was a pair of lovebirds about to snog each other.
"I froze up then, because I didn't expect to come across that at all, and then the boy ran out. I didn't exactly have time to be staring him down or anything like that? The girl left shortly afterward too. Um, I had no idea that the boy had been threatening her, much less trying to do things to her against her will… from where I was standing it kinda looked like they were a couple about to have a private tryst." Taylor replied, looking somewhat embarrassed.
Victoria looked thoughtful. "Interesting. So it was a case of accidental heroism, then. Kinda disturbing that you couldn't tell that the situation wasn't consensual, though? I mean, if that girl was telling the truth."
Taylor then replied, "In my defense, it's not like I was trained to spot things like that going on. I mean… everyone thinks they know what a rape in progress looks like, and that's with the girl screaming and crying. I remember her, and she was just… standing there quietly, stiff as a board. In hindsight, she might've frozen up as I did but how was I supposed to know that?"
One of the other girls sitting with both Amy and Victoria nodded. They spoke up, "That's understandable. And very true though, that when people think rape they picture a stereotypical one. In a dark alleyway being harmed by a stranger. Honestly, I'd probably react the same way you did."
An awkward silence filled the air after that, and Taylor bit into the subway sandwiches the school had made today, which was very good.
She then asked, "So any other rumors you want me to clear up? Even the bad ones about me? I know they couldn't all be about me heroically saving the day by accident."
Another girl, who looked strangely VERY familiar to Taylor for some reason, flinched slightly, and then looked deeply ashamed. At Taylor's wondering look, She then sighed and spoke up.
"Um. I was from Winslow too… and I want to say I'm sorry. I, um, was one of the ones who spread nasty rumors about you at school and kept on spreading them here until I found out the truth. I swear I stopped once I found out the rumors weren't true!"
Taylor blinked, as she tried to place a name to her face, who she was pretty sure hung out with Emma sometimes.
"You're Elizabeth, right?" Taylor asked, just to make sure.
The girl nodded. "Yeah, but everyone calls me Beth."
Taylor remembered her now, and replied with a deeply unimpressed tone, "Yeah, I remember now. You were the one who went around telling people that I killed my mother."
Beth flinched again, but she nodded miserably. "Yeah. But in my defense, Emma was very convincing. She didn't tell me any details, just that you had done it, but she had me imagining that you slit your mother's throat while she slept in her bed. It honestly creeped me out to find out that there was a kid like that in our school and I agreed with her that you should be driven out. That everyone should know what kind of monster you were. It was after everything happened when I found out that your mother died in a car accident, and that everything Emma told me was a lie."
Victoria looked as if she was floored by how awful that was. "But why would Emma make up something like that?"
Taylor sighed, feeling very weary all of a sudden. "It was because I was talking with my mother on the phone when she had that accident. It traumatized me afterward and for a while there I couldn't help but wonder if I was at fault for my mother's death. Emma was still my best friend at the time, so I talked with her about that. So naturally, it was just yet another thing she could use to hurt me."
Both Victoria and Amy looked appalled, while Beth just closed her eyes with a miserable expression on her face and tilted her head downwards as if she wanted the earth to swallow her up.
Taylor just laughed bitterly at their expressions. "There's always two sides to a story, right?"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It was a pretty awkward conversation afterward, despite Victoria trying to cheer everyone else up by talking about the more silly and fluffy stuff that was going on in daily life.
But at least it was because of them that she had learned just exactly what kind of rumors there were about her, both the good and bad.
Taylor still had her detractors, but it seemed that after both Emma and Sopha stopped being at the top of the social ladder, and with Taylor's supposed death, it seemed that a lot of people did a 180. Clearly, they all must've felt responsible for their small parts in her supposed death, and so went out of their way to overcompensate for all the awful things they said about her and or did to her in an attempt to curry favor with Emma and Sophia. So instead of saying horrible things about her, they instead told the twisted truth as they saw it.
So depending on who you asked, Taylor was a pitiful figure who you felt sorry for but they still rather it was her, instead of them being picked on. (gee, thanks). Or Taylor was this deeply stoic badass who could easily beat up anybody she wanted but just quietly took the abuse heaped her way, but would go out of her way to save people from suffering the same fate as she did. (this part had Taylor blinking, because… huh? Where the fuck had THAT come from?)
But all of them agreed that Sophia and Emma hadn't been somebody they wanted to go up against. Especially not when it was so obvious that Blackwell was in their pockets for some reason. And most of them were in awe that she had been at ground zero of the Winslow Incident for hours before being teleported out by the Earth Gimel Capes and hadn't died from that.
That had put Taylor in such a bad mood for the rest of the school day that she honestly felt relieved when Nora showed up at the school gates to pick up both Shaun and Taylor and informed her that the mega-teleporter on Earth Bet was now done.
They just needed Taylor to bridge the connection, and trade between Earth Bet and Earth Gimmel would start up at long last.
=========================================
A/N: Oof, this was hard to write. But I had to find a way to show how people saw Taylor, and how different her reputation was at this point.
And yeah, there's going to be minor time skips after this because obviously, we can't go in-depth of the everyday minutia, that would get boring. Instead, we get to focus on all the exciting bits, such as Taylor trying to get into the cape life back on Earth Bet next chapter.
