Wolf Spider (Worm) (Complete)

[The Laurent]

Ruff 1.1

The worst part of having a friend had to be that, once you stopped being friends and they turned against you and spent all their time bullying you, they knew all of your secrets.

At least, I have to say that it was the worst, most aggravating part of my day. It was weird, because she mixed truth and lies, or at least things that could be true, might be true, with made up nonsense. Just a constant stream from Emma Barnes, my best friend, and all of her cronies and friends and people who just liked gossiping.

"I heard that Taylor blows guys for money," one of them whispered almost under their breath as I looked down at the math book and worked on copying out problems. This was a lie, of course, but they tried to make it real, or rather, make it seem real. Madison or one of them had written my name and phone number in several different guy's bathroom stalls. And one of those 'for a good time' things.

I'd had to change my number.

"Well I heard that the only reason she's not failing math is because she's kissing the teacher. You know what Emma said, after all--"

The teacher was Mrs. Yvette, a forty year old woman who, no, I was not in fact kissing or anything like that. I had confessed to Emma once that I'd had a crush on another girl once. I had no idea if that made me bisexual or not, but the Emma that I'd thought was my friend had been sympathetic and understanding and nice.

And then, this Emma, the one that had replaced her, had used it. Had used the confessed crushes on guys I'd had (far more numerous) to set me up, had done everything in her power to make the past few years miserable.

I wrote as hard as I could, gritting my teeth and telling myself I had ways out, that I had ways to get out of here.

Two of them, in fact, I thought miserably.

The first was obvious, because I got decent grades despite the bullying and harssment campaign that Emma, Sophia, and Madison were leading. If I went off to college, I could make my own way, figure out things on my own. I hoped I could, at least. My mom and Dad had both gone to college, and it was the Hebert way by now, even if it didn't always pay off.

Second, I had superpowers. I was a parahuman, in common parlance. Someone who had gone through an experience so traumatic I'd gotten superpowers. It sucked in some ways, that the only people who got powers were those who were victims, but I could be a hero. I could stop people like Emma, I could--

I dunno. I could do something. I hadn't ever gone out, I'd spent way too long planning and thinking and dreaming of it. I was doing that even now, when I wasn't thinking through quadratic equations. Math wasn't hard, it was something I could mostly just do off to the side. It didn't capture me like literature did--my Mom was an English Professor, after all--but I can't say I had any problems with it.

The problems I had were that it really didn't help, thinking long term. Thinking that someday, in the distant future, I would be happy didn't help when my hand hurt and I felt awkward and gawky and the girls behind me were making up worse and worse rumors. When my Dad was barely making ends meet paying for the house and the car and all sorts of other problems, when my school life was a living hell, I had no friends, and nothing to really distract me.

Sure, I could browse PHO or play one of the handheld games I'd gotten on the cheap as something, anything, to pass the time. I sometimes talked to this kid named Greg about it. He was alright, and considering that everyone else acted like I had the plague, I appreciated one person who occasionally talked to me. But that's all it was, really.

It felt like, even with the future stretched out, that I was treading in place. Waiting and waiting some more to get everything ready. I'd even finished my costume a little bit ago. I'd made it myself, and not in the way most independent heroes did.

You see, there were five or six flies in that room, and a few ants that I'd had follow me in. I had the power to control bugs, or at least, that's mostly what I could control. I'd been working on my range and all sorts of other details about fine control, trying to imagine ways I could use my power, but I'd never gotten into a fight.

One of the things I'd done was make a costume. It involved using spiders. I'd gathered them up, looking up which spiders were best for it (black widows) online, and then controlling them through the process of making the silk and then turning it all into a costume, which I'd finished not all that long ago. I'd even tried it on, realized that it needed some more color, and tried to put together a little bit of cloth or something. The idea I had was, like, the symbol of a spider, but somehow make it heroic? Apparently in Earth Aleph (another earth, with far fewer Parahumans) they had someone called Spider Man, so clearly I could do it.

So now I looked like a proper hero.

If I went out. I felt like I was circling the drain, holding off on acting when I should have. It was already right in the middle of April, and I wasn't sure if I'd make it to the end of the school year without tearing my hair out.

A spitball hit the back of my head. I growled, turning around, but I knew who it came from. That was just acting. It was always Madison who did these petty, stupid things like that.

I could have used my bugs to go Carrie, I knew that. But I wasn't going to do something like that. I was above it. Though I could sometimes feel my resolve slipping. The idea of giving Emma bedbugs was the sort of childish fantasy that sometimes helped me get through a really, really bad day.

But that's all it was. A fantasy.

Reality was much harder and more stressful than that.

*******

My home wasn't bad. Just run down.

It wasn't even a bad neighborhood. Just run down.

My Dad wasn't a bad Dad either. Danny Hebert worked hard, he loved me, he watched his temper and if he knew how hard things were for me, he would have sprung into action, as he had when I'd wound up getting powers, though he didn't know that I'd triggered yet. Just run down.

Ever since Mom died, I'd taken on my fair share of the cooking, which was to say I'd learned a lot and also probably not as much as you'd think. Dad was an uncomplicated eater, and I wasn't much better. We saw food, we ate it. So I made chicken and potatoes and some vegetables, and then waited for Dad to get home.

He stepped in, looking tired and rubbing at his eyes behind his glasses. Dad looked more than a little like me. He was tall, and skinny, his hair darker, and just like me he had to wear glasses. He always looked a little uncertain behind the glasses, they made his green eyes look just a little too large.

"Hey Dad, how was work?" I asked, trying to sound a little happier than I was.

"Fine." Dad shuffled over to the fridge and opened it up. Dad didn't drink that much, but I swear he drank more than he had before Mom died. He grabbed a beer and then headed for the kitchen table. "School?"

"Got the lit test back. Did alright at it," I said, even though someone had dunked my book in the toilet so I'd had to read an online version of the last two chapters.

"Good. How's Greg?" Dad asked, clearly fishing for a topic.

Not awkward at all.

"Uh, good. He started this new game, last time I talked to him. So he's talking about that," I said.

"Oh. Right." Dad wasn't so old he didn't have some experience with old video games, but he never really was the type. He was smart, but I got most of my geekery from my Mom. That and just my own personality, as far as it went. "So, what are you going to do this weekend?"

"I don't know. I suppose I'll see what comes up," I said, "unless there's anything you want to do?"

"I'm going to go down to the docks to see if there's anything we can do. There's rumors that this summer will be better--"

There were always rumors. There were rumors every season that the next seasons of working on the docks unloading ships that bothered to come to Brockton Bay would be better, except in the fall, because not even the desperate would believe that winter was going to be a great season for unloading ships. My Dad had devoted his life to the Dockworker's Union, and it wasn't really--

Well, it hadn't given him back nearly as much as he'd given it.

I hated that about the city. But even with my superpowers, even if I became a real hero, which is what I wanted more than anything. Even with all of that, there were some things I couldn't possibly fix.

I just had to endure them. And hope that I came out the other side alright.

******

As soon as my Dad was on the couch watching television and drinking and looking over some papers and files, I went up to my room to put on my costume. People online said it would stop bullets, but even if it didn't, I knew it'd make pretty decent armor, all things considering. I'd then hung or stitched this blue circle on the back of my costume and drawn, sort of roughly, a spider on the back. I had no idea how else to note down 'I am a hero', so I went with the crudest possible way to do that.

Blue made it look better, right?

My costume otherwise was pretty simple. A black and grey silken bodysuit, with some armor panels that I know didn't help my attempt to look non-villainous, and a mask that similarly made me look just a little too sinister. They at least meant I wouldn't have to fiddle with glasses, at least, because the lenses dealt with that. I'd left the back free, after thinking about it for a bit, because having my long, curly hair coming out the back at least made me look slightly less threatening.

It was an uphill battle, but I'd done as best as I could. Now all I had to do was actually go out on patrol.

I didn't have a fast way to move around, so I'd be hoofing it, which meant that where I could go was pretty limited.

So, I thought about it. And I thought about the E88. They were a neo-nazi gang that recruited a lot from the kids of dockworkers and other poor people (the white ones, at least), and so I knew they were right around this area, more or less.

They had a lot of territory, and a lot of capes, but I thought there were at least some of their capes I could deal with, and parahumans were too rare for them to be everywhere. With enough bugs, I was pretty sure I could overwhelm a few thugs. Hide out of the way and have flies crawl down their throat, or a swarm of bugs just swallow them up.

And I'd had this idea for creating clumps of bugs in the shapes of people to distract them from the real target, me. I just hadn't tried it. I'd had a lot of ideas in the last week, but without a chance to practice, they all remained ideas.

So I set off, to see what I could see.

All the while, as I walked the streets, having found the nearest alley to change into the costume, I'd gather bugs. You wouldn't believe how many bugs there are, once you actually start paying attention. They're just everywhere, and I could control them.

It'd felt a little creepy and weird at first, but the more I got used to them, the more normal it was. Bugs weren't always cute, many of them were gross, but--

Well, you either learn to tolerate and even like them or you just never use your power, and of the options, I'd chosen the only one I could.

And spiders? Spiders were cute as heck.

Then again, I was the girl who used Black Widow spiders to make my costume. So maybe I was just weird.

Or maybe it was the world that was weird!

I continued along, until I saw it. A trio of tattooed punks were going somewhere. Normally that'd not be a big deal, except one of the tattoos was of a swastika, and so I assumed that wherever they were going, it wasn't good news. So I backed up a little and used my bugs to follow them. My range was several blocks, give or take, and seemed to change based on factors I couldn't even quite understand.

But it meant I could follow them well, as long as they didn't look back. And they seemed to be heading towards an area filled with old warehouses.

This was the kind of area where the streets were bumpy because nobody lived there to complain, and few enough people worked there either. Where the lamps flickered and the buildings themselves seemed cast in shadows, even during the days.

They were headed towards a somewhat small, squat warehouse, with a fading logo on the sign outside.

One of them scratched at where I'd put the fly, but it just moved off and then went back to its task, and as I got closer, I could see that there were sounds coming from the warehouse, and out front was a large, bald man. He had tattoos covering almost his entire face. White, of course, with hands like ham hocks and a glare that even from a distance felt accusatory.

Nervously, I checked what bugs were in the area. And felt it.

A lot of fleas. Just so many fleas it wasn't even funny. And there were other squirming, strange things beyond. The fleas were moving a lot, or rather, whatever they were--

I frowned for a moment, concentrating on trying to figure out just what was going on here. It was all fuzzy, but I felt this vibration every so often from the fleas, as if…

I started trying to add up the pieces. A lot of fleas in a warehouse, and then maybe worms? And a bunch of Empire Eighty-Eight Neo-nazis were heading for a door and it was guarded.

I inched around. There were a number of run-down businesses nearby, which had once catered to, say, hungry working men, and standing in the shadows of one alley as I made my way as close as I could while I tried to think about what I'd do, I saw someone.

I couldn't actually make out a lot about him. He was not quite as tall as me, but at least not below average, with the sort of blocky frame I associated with pretty impressive athletes. At least, I think that's what he looked like, because he was wearing a dark brown jacket with a hood, and a fur collar around the hood that looked a little odd. As did their features behind the hood. Or lack thereof.

It looked like the side of an animal. No, a dog, I thought, as I had a few flies head his way. He was wearing a dog mask?

And near him was a german shepherd and a rottweiler, or something like that--oh! The mask, it had to be shaped like a rottweiler. So, some sort of hero or--

I tried to remember, I'd looked up a number of capes. There was one called Hellhound. I can't remember looking at the profile, or at least, I hadn't lingered over it, just had read the name.

Could this be him?

I also realized a few other things. First, that had to be a dog-fighting ring, or something like that. Either that or an Aryan Dog-and-pony show. And if a member of the Undersiders, this minor heist sort of group or something like that, was here, it probably wasn't for a good purpose. Or at least, not good for the E88.

Which wasn't the same thing as bad at all. I made my way a little closer to him. He was resting a hand on both of the dogs. A gloved hand. When I got closer, I began to have a better impression of his solidity, and yet I knew that one wrong glance and he'd see me.

My bugs began to crawl over him, and he shook a little, as if trying to dislodge them. A fly flew into his mask, and then down his collar, and he stopped to work with it as the fly sent vague impressions back. And then it was squished.

The dogs, though, when I got slightly closer, I could see that they were growing larger and, frankly, a little less dog like. They weren't growing fast, though. This wasn't attack of the fifty-foot dog, at least.

Okay, so, attack dogs? Some sort of attack dog power? Either way, if I attacked the E88, perhaps he'd join in and help out.

I began gathering bugs. The people were talking to the bouncer. I couldn't make out words, but I could get a vague impression of sound from the bugs, and it sounded frustrated and angry. He finally gestured and then looked right in my direction.

A fly through straight into his throat, and he let out a cough as the three punks turned around. Two of them were shaved bald, and the third had shaggy, thick hair on his head that went down almost to his neck, and all of them looked very, very mean.

But I'd been gathering insects. I wasn't very subtle with it, all things considered, but people don't really look beneath their feet, and this place was crawling with bugs. A tidal wave of chittering insects leapt from the corner of the warehouse, and one of the men screamed, reaching for his pocket as the bugs hit him.

They scratched and bite and gnawed, and I had a black widow somewhere there, crawling up his leg, trying to find flesh to bite. Black Widow bites weren't fatal all that often, but they weren't nice, either, and I half-charged forward, hoping that as they fought against the biting, kicking and scratching insects they wouldn't pay too much attention to me. I'd drawn out a secret weapon, pepper spray, and I was going to hit them even worse. They were already being bitten and stung (I had brought along bees) and that meant they were already in pain and confused, but I needed to take them down. So, I sprayed away, and the screams would draw people. By then, hopefully, more of my bugs would take out more of their men, and then--

Okay, maybe I hadn't planned ahead, but the first step was really impressive. Four men, including one that could have crushed me like a grape, were screaming. Two of them were down on the ground covering their eyes, as a bee stung them all over. I wouldn't have ordered it to go for the eyes, but they didn't know that, did they?

Then there was a sound. It was loud, like someone slamming down a hardback copy of Lord of the Rings as hard as they can. I blinked, stepping back, and realizing after a moment that there was a ragged, short-haired woman standing in front of me with a gun, having started by shooting at random before she even saw me.

My ears were ringing as I sent the bugs after her, but she fired again and almost hit me. If she had any training, I'd have been hit, but as it was, she went down.

Then I heard a loud bark, and a large dog hurtled past me to catch one of the goons coming up, tackling him down. It was larger than any dog I'd ever seen, though not as large as I'd feared, and I smiled. Good, he was--

"Get out of the way," a voice growled, and I turned to see him…

No, not him. This close, and hearing the voice. It was a gruff, somewhat masculine voice, but it was also a woman's voice. I think.

"This is a dog fighting ring," I said, "I'm going to break it up."

"I can do that myself," she grunted, shaking her head. "Out of the way."

"A little help never hurt. There are a bunch of dogs in there, and they all have fleas. Pretty badly cared for, I'd bet," I said.

I wasn't even thinking about the fight for a moment. I just directed my bugs to keep on attacking everything that wasn't the dogs, me, or Hellhound.

She shook her head, angrily. It was the way she walked. There was confidence and an odd sort of brutality to it. Tensed up and ready for an attack. I didn't know whether that was a yes or not, but I decided to wait until she was through the door to actually follow her in.

What I saw inside probably didn't do much for my faith in humanity. There was a pit of sorts, and cages everywhere, and the place stank of dog and blood and sweat and all sorts of other things, just a pungent scent that almost knocked me out as I stepped in, behind her. She seemed to be willing to tolerate me if I kept out of her way. Or maybe it was the way I kept behind her. I didn't know.

I couldn't make out much of her even this close up, which probably made it a decent costume, but she looked strong, and the way she kept on whistling and giving orders to her dogs as they mauled people was impressive.

If violent.

In the pit, a pair of dogs were circling, and from the way that people were spilled over, screaming as my bugs bit at them or as Hellhound's dogs did rather worse than what a few bugs could do. Or even all the bugs I could gather. There were probably a dozen dogs, if not more, most of them in crates or cages.

I didn't have to be a dog lover to stare at the ribs and the generally poor condition of the dogs, the torn off ears and the angry snarls, to guess that what had been done to them wasn't right.

"It isn't right," I muttered to myself.

The E88 tried to fight back, and if they'd had a cape, well, who knows. But as it was, few of them had guns on them, a polite society not being an armed one despite what everyone said, and those that did were very terrible shots.

Especially when flies kept on landing on their eyes before they could make a shot. Soon, they were fleeing in terror, and Hellhound's shoulders lost a little tension as she began called out, "Brutus" and one of the dogs came to her side, as she marched towards the two dogs that had been fighting, who were now eyeing each other warily, scared of what was going on.

I watched her as she moved, effortlessly separating the dogs and dodging when they bit at her with their sharp, honed teeth.

Then she took out a cell-phone, dialing a number rapidly.

"You… that was impressive, Hellhound."

"Bitch," she said.

"Excuse me?" I asked, trying not to sound as offended as I did.

"I'm called Bitch," she repeated, sounding annoyed and frustrated as she waited for someone to pick up the phone. "Got them. Get them. It's the deal. What? How did you--"

She tensed and shut off the phone. "How the fuck," she muttered.

"Alright, then, Bitch…" I said, stepping closer to her carefully. She was moving around, cleaning up the place and making sure all the dogs were in the cages. "What are you going to do here?"

I stepped past a groaning, bleeding member of the E88.

"Take these dogs. They deserve better than this shit," she said, her voice hard. Hard and firm. Now that she wasn't in the middle of a fight, she moved a little differently. Still closed up, but a little less ready to attack. The dogs close to her, her dogs that was, they looked like they could be very vicious, and I knew if I crossed her she'd attack me.

She was a villain, after all.

"You gonna care for them?" I asked, frowning. Saving dogs wasn't what I imagined doing tonight, but at least I was helping something.

"Yes."

"That's a lot of dogs to care for yourself. Do you need help?"

"I'm fine," she said, clearly distracted.

A part of me wanted to give up. After all, she was a villain anyways, while I was an aspiring hero, but I dunno. The first thing I'd seen her do is break up a dog-fighting ring, and I looked at the dogs and, I dunno.

Something about me had sympathy for beaten, ill-treated dogs. I wondered what.

"I'm… a new cape. Bug? I'm not sure what to call myself. This is my first night out," I said, hoping that talking to her would help to lower her guard. I wasn't sure whether there was any chance. "I just saw, well. I saw the Nazis and--"

Bitch nodded, "Fucking Nazis." She hesitated, and I saw her looking me up and down, probably wondering whether I'd be any help, on top of whether or not she trusted me. She was big for a girl, and just from what I could see, I bet she was pretty strong. She was able to lift the dog crates, with the dogs in them, one-handed without straining, and I had to imagine that looking at me, the skinny girl whose only real exercise was running, she didn't think great things.

We'd worked together, and I kind of liked that, even if it had been quiet. I'd helped her a few times, without even thinking about it, and I admit that wasn't much of a basis for trying to get to know her more, but considering that 'we both play video games' was enough to wind up talking a ton to Greg, there were worse reasons to want to help.

"So, I mean. I could give you a phone number, if you wanted help. I mean, if you don't, you could drive me off. I don't know what my bugs would do against your dogs, really," I admitted. "I'm not going to sell you out or anything, I just want to help."

Bitch hesitated for a moment. "Number."

I blinked and rattled off the number for a cell phone I'd just gotten for calling in crimes and the like. Except I'd forgotten to bring it along with me.

She nodded, and I asked, "Do you need any help now? Lifting all of these?"

"Sure. Got people coming, though."

"For what?"

"Help me load them," Bitch said. "Van."

"Oh… okay," I said, hesitantly, and tried to follow her lead, lifting up crates and putting them closer to the entrances. They were heavy, and I had to use both hands to carry some of the dogs, which snapped and bit at me, even when they couldn't reach me. I had no idea how she was going to train them.

The ones she was carrying seemed to be the ones who were cowering, at least, and when she set each crate down she'd lean in to talk to them. I couldn't hear what she was saying. I could have tried with my bugs, but it didn't feel right.

It was hard work, but soon all of the crates were by the door, and I moved towards it. "Bitch, I'm out of here."

She shrugged, and I left, arms aching, and smelling a little of dog.

Outside, a van had parked, and I passed them by, noting the wary way the men looked at me.

I headed off, not sure of whether I'd done good, or done bad, or just done something. But I'd faced people, and I hadn't panicked or freaked out. It wasn't the same as facing down capes, I knew, but it was something, right? I kept on warring with myself whether I'd made the right move or whether I was doing any good, and I'd gotten myself worked up by the time I slipped into the house, glad that Dad was already asleep.

Honestly, I expected she'd just decide not to call me and I'd never seen her again. She was weird, and her dogs were violent, and yet she'd just… saved dogs. Not the same as saving people, but it made me think.

What was her plan, her goal? I could obviously look up Bitch online if I got a chance, and now wasn't there a name that it felt horrible to say. Maybe I'd learn more about her. I knew that the Undersiders were pretty small-time, but that didn't mean anything. I was small time. Maybe I could, I dunno, figure out more about them?

I didn't have a specific plan, but maybe if I could…

No, I didn't have a plan. But I needed to make a mark as a hero somehow, and taking down a bunch of nazis was a start, right? And without Bitch, it would have been a lot harder for me. A lot harder, really, because there were a lot of people in there, but the combination of bugs and her dogs had been surprisingly powerful.

I was still thinking about that strange girl when I finally drifted off to sleep. I dreamt of mad dogs and cheap dog-masks.

******

A/N: So this is a slight AU, in ways, and I know there's not much to go on so far, but eh. Tell me what you think, all?

Thanks to @NemoMarx for looking through this.

 

[The Laurent]

Ruff 1.2

I woke up remembering that I hadn't had a shower at all before going to bed. I knew this because I had a working nose. You didn't need to be a dog to notice. I'd been walking this way and that, and then I'd been stressed during the fight, and I'd had a decent day at school (Emma hadn't come after me, or Sophia, and that was enough to make it decent) but even the best day was stressful… and then there were all the dog crates I lifted and helped move out of the way.

So in conclusion, I stank.

Emma made up rumors that I was some sort of cave troll, because I dressed in concealing clothes after all sorts of things including her comments, but I wasn't. So even though my plans included going for a run, I hurried into the bathroom for a quick shower. I turned it on, let out a surprised shout at the cold water, and then bathed as quickly as I could.

By the time the shower was steaming, I was deep in thought. Things had gone well with… Bitch, and in the light of the morning, I felt even better about it, even though I hadn't even seen her face. Then again, she hadn't seen mine. Neither of us had seen much of each other, and I couldn't actually have described her well enough for someone else to pick her up out of a lineup.

I was assuming the jacket was not so thick that it was throwing things off, which was probably a silly assumption. She'd certainly seen more of my appearance, of course. The hair, the general frame, thin and too tall, enough I supposed.

Okay, so, I thought, toweling myself off and hurrying into my room, I'd go to the library after I went for a run and look them all up. If she turned out to be sketchy, some kind of evil psycho-killer who just happened to like dogs, I'd just not respond to her calls. I didn't know why I was even thinking about it anyways. Was I that desperate? Yes. Yes I was. It frustrated me, sometimes, how needy I felt. Grateful for any talk, even if it was just Greg talking about video game levels when we occasionally chatted.

Even that sometimes made him the target for Emma's wrath, and that he hadn't shunned me like everyone else was enough to win a little bit of grace in my book, even if he was often sort of awkward. After all, so was I.

I'd gotten up earlier than usual, though I wasn't sure why, so I still had time to get dressed and quickly and clumsily brush my hair just enough for it to look a lot worse, and still have time to go out for a jog.

Ever since I'd gotten my powers, I'd taken up exercise because the time would come when it'd pay off. If I was out of shape it'd make getting around the city hard, and getting away from trouble harder.

So I'd pulled on a sweatshirt and jeans, and then went over to the calendar I'd set up on the wall of my room as an encouragement to keep with the program It was a calendar of female athletes, meant to inspire people to perspire, or the like, I assumed. This month wasn't all that appropriate for my own task, this female mixed martial artist who had won a ton of fights, but the one before had been a marathonist, which certainly felt more fitting. Either way, I checked the box for today's date, Saturday, April 16th, and then flipped through it for a moment.

Still most of the year to go. I glanced around my room one last time and then put on my sneakers and headed downstairs, apologizing to Dad for skipping out on breakfast first. I'd eat when I got back.

So I started out for a jog, just a little bit past six, the air still cool and the world still empty. Sometimes that felt like a bad thing, of course. I was lonely enough sometimes, but today I liked it. The crisp air, the routine. I didn't have an amount I ran, I just kept on ramping up, going faster and faster until I started to get tired, and then I'd slow down, allowing my body and my feet to take me where I wanted to go.

I wound up going along the Boardwalk part of the way, and then looping around. If I wanted to go get breakfast, I could have stopped at one of the fast food places on the way, I thought. I had my phone on me, and I stopped near a bus stop to call my Dad. I decided I could just call him, use the money I'd brought in my sweatshirt (I had a twenty and a five that I'd shoved there a few weeks ago, and then forgotten to use), and eat some sort of sausage and muffin sandwich or something. Of course, that'd cancel out some of the good I'd done with all this running, but I was really starting to get hungry.

Which was when the phone rang. I looked at the number, which I didn't recognize.

"Hey," a voice said. A very familiar one. "Come down. Need your help."

"Where?" I asked, frowning, annoyed. I wasn't in the mood to come, even if I had said I would, but--

I sighed. "Don't know where you are."

"Go on Thompson street, I'll meet you there."

"Fine, fine."

"You asked," Bitch said, her voice hard, as if she expected that of me.

"Sorry, just hadn't had breakfast yet. Was out for a run," I explained, as if she cared. "I'll just jog over there. See you then."

"Okay," Bitch said, not sounding interested.

*******

I'd like to think I made decent time, actually. I jogged most of the way, walking only when I got tired, and then finally I reached the street. I looked around, and that's when I spotted Bitch for the first time.

She was looking at me, her eyes dark and a little bit big for her face, which was square and blunt, with a strong jaw. Her lips were shut, not smiling or anything, and she had a nose that looked like it had seen its share of fights. The brows above her eyes were thick and dark, and red-brown hair cut very short, though with at least a little care.

My impression of her was right. She was big and thick, though not at all fat. Strong arms ended in short, blunt looking fingers, and she was dressed in a shapeless sort of T-shirt and a torn pair of jeans, as well as some well-used looking boots. She looked like someone who could get into a fight with one of the punks from the other day and win, her form blocky and solid.

She started forward, holding something in her hands. I'd been using my bugs the whole time, to make sure that this wasn't a trap with a dozen people around ready to leap on me, and as far as my bugs could tell, everything was normal. Then she thrust out her hand.

It was a protein bar.

"Eat. It'll be hard work."

"Oh," I said, startled as I looked at her closer, surprised at her kindness. "Thanks."

She grunted, annoyed as I smiled at her. Oddly, she seemed to tense up for whatever reason until my smile dimmed. "Whatever," she said. "Dogs need to eat. Gonna work with the ones I rescued, they need baths, and we need to clean out the cages."

She turned and began to walk, and I followed her, close behind. It seemed like it made sense. Those dogs were in no good condition, so of course she'd pay the most attention to them. I didn't know how many other dogs she had, though. That was certainly something to consider. Speaking of considering, "I have control of bugs, B… can I call you something else? I'm Taylor."

She walked for a little while, as if she hadn't heard me.

"Anyways," I said, pressing on, "I can control bugs. That means I could get rid of fleas on the dogs without any powder or anything, and… you know, I wonder, if they had worms, would that count as a type of bug?"

Bitch slowed down a little bit. She didn't really have a runner's build, but she was pretty steady all the same. "Rachel. Call me Rachel." And then she sped up a lot, as if she were trying to leave me in the dust.

I hurried to catch up when my phone started ringing again just as she started to round a corner. "One sec," I called out, checking the number. Another one I didn't know. I frowned, and decided not to take it at the moment. If Rachel had as much to do as I thought, she wouldn't like to wait, and so I sped up, and left it to go to voice message.

Which it did. I'd listen to it later, I supposed. I opened the protein bar and took a bite. Horrible, absolutely horrible. But I kept on eating, and while I walked, I thought. It was odd, the way she'd gotten more tense when I smiled. Did she not like friendliness, or not trust it? Or did she not like smiles. But why would she--

I frowned to myself, not sure what kind of read to get on her.

Or the building she was coming towards. At the moment it was quiet, but as she got closer dogs started to bark. Some poor sap had started to build in this area, and had apparently realized just how horrible an idea it was. There was a small crane, and the building had literally been left half-finished.

Rachel walked up to the door, opening it and gesturing for me to get inside before quickly locking it and striding forward through a run-down looking hallway towards a second door. And when she opened it up, a handful of dogs almost knocked me over when they overshot Bitch. Licking, barking, most of them obviously happy.

And then, angry and far less certain, were the Fighting Dogs, still kept in their cages, which were pushed in a corner of the strangest room I'd ever seen. It was half build, cement up to one point, and then grass and dirt in the other half, mixed with a bunch of stone, as if someone had been preparing for cement. Three of the walls were finished, leaving a fourth completely open, bizarrely. Someone, or a dog in general, could just walk outside at any time.

There might have been a second floor, except it'd never been built, but what had been built was enough of it to create a decent overhang, so that despite the lack of roof, it probably kept off the rain decently enough.

Man it was odd, though. There were pallets lying everywhere, toys here and there, and most of the dogs seemed to only have eyes for her, though one ugly looking mutt rolled over and demanded attention from me. I rubbed his belly for a moment, looking over at Rachel as she walked over towards a pallet with several different kinds of dog food. She frowned and then picked up one of the larger bags.

Some of the dogs, especially the new ones, had fleas, I noted, as I read the bag. It was a very general issue sort of dog food, since these dogs came in all shapes and sizes. I didn't know exactly how her power worked. She'd been giving commands to them, and they'd been obeying, but was that because she trained them or because she was the dog whisperer?

Or both, I supposed.

She gestured over to me and tossed me a pocket knife that she'd apparently just carried around. In a firm voice, she said, "Pour half of it out. The fighter dogs will eat after the others."

I clumsily cut a hole in the bag and began to pour it out while she watched for a moment and then, once she'd decided I wouldn't somehow kill the dogs by incompetence, she walked off. As soon as the food hit the trough, the dogs swarmed on it, eating as fast as they could.

Wolfing it down wasn't even the start of it, and I watched it, a little amused.

The dogs in the cages were whining, and I looked at them. Most were larger, and rather rough looking in one way or another. Scrappy. Survivors, which was another way to say that they were hurt and yet had gotten very good at hurting. One of them seemed a little less imposing, a white dog with brown patches here and there, and a shoulder that even from here looked off.

He or she had been used hard. All of them had. Rachel returned a little bit later with a large carton of water that she poured into several very large bowls. And even then, it wasn't enough, because once they'd drank all the water, she had to put out more.

She whistled, and the german shepherd she'd trained before came up, walking with her as she began opening the cages for the other dogs. They leapt out of them, and one of them looked like it was going to run before the shepherd growled at it. "There, Judas. Keep the other dogs off of them." She whistled, and then walked over to me. "Pour the food," she said, impatiently, and I did.

A few of the dogs that had already eaten moved forward to get more of their fill, only for Judas to get in their way and growl. I'd have gotten out of the way. And the Rottweiler was there as well, doing his job as well, without even being told. Whenever a dog snapped at the other, Rachel would growl and Judas or the Rottweiler would come forward to deal with it. After a while, the dogs had eaten and drank their fill, and Rachel nodded at me and said, "Any of them got worms?"

"That dog," I said, pointing to a black lab that hadn't been part of the fighting dogs, "has… heartworms?"

It felt really, really weird. But yeah. "And, that one," I said, pointing to a pit bull, "has a worm in its stomach."

"His. his stomach," Rachel corrected.

"Didn't know," I said, shrugging. "The others are fine, thankfully. I bet that they didn't want any of their dogs to be too sick, or else they couldn't fight and suffer for their amusement."

Rachel looked at me. "That so?"

"People are like that." I once thought that Emma liked me, and even now, I think she'd be grieved if I died. Grieved that I'd robbed her of her fun and her chance to prove whatever sick, horrible point she was trying to make by bullying me relentlessly.

"Yeah," Rachel said, and she nodded, in a way I couldn't quite place. "I can bulk Sirius up, it might hurt the worm. It's worked before."

"Maybe, but when they die, I think they release toxins?"

"Heard that too," Rachel said, "somewhere. Could you stop the worm from doing it?"

"Not sure," I admitted, "um, how does bulking up the dogs work?"

"Why?" Rachel asked, suspiciously.

"I'm just trying to think," I admitted.

"They bulk up when I touch them and concentrate. Once they get large enough, they're actually in a… meat shell."

"A meat shell?" I asked, baffled. "Like a dog piloting a Gundam?"

"What's a Gundam?" Rachel said. Her suspicion seemed to redouble, and I realized, or thought I realized, that she thought I was mocking her.

"Giant robot that people get into, shaped like a person."

"Oh," Rachel said, sounding a little incredulous. "Yes, I guess."

"Cool. So if the shell is different, I could have the worm sort of crawl into it? If it doesn't work," I added. It might, after all.

"Sure."

*******

It wasn't that easy, though. As Rachel explained it, tersely, when they first got empowered, the dogs were startled and angry. So she couldn't control them. So she had to bulk up the three dogs she knew how to 'use' and have them at the ready before she even touched the dog, who she called Sirius. The stomach worm I'd dealt with on my own, it was actually pretty easy, all things considered. It committed what, for a stomach worm, was suicide. And now it should just pass through, ultimately.

Sirius, though, that involved gripping him tight, and I was there as well and the dogs were there if he did anything.

I was watching to see if it worked. I had no idea how her power worked, and I wasn't sure if she knew all of the specifics either.

As she touched him, he began to change. The power flushed through him, and it felt like the worm was dissolving. And that should have meant that the simple thing released highly dangerous toxins that seriously hurt the dog. As bad as the heartworms had felt, that was the result that should have happened.

Instead, other than struggling and trying to bite at Bitch in surprised anger, he was fine.

"Oh," I said, faintly impressed. "It seems like it's dead. But… no poison."

"Huh," Rachel said, with a shrug. "Next, we need to look over the animals. You'll need to help hold them," she said, and I could just picture the checklist in her head.

I nodded, trying not to smile just to see how that went.

*******

Rachel was strong, and she knew what she was doing. She'd hold the dog and quickly check over him or her. Teeth, muzzle, ribs, moving them all over, and whispering them the whole time. I held their head, or their body when she was looking at the mouth, and when one of them tried to bolt, one of the fighting dogs who had taken into a panic, she easily kept it from moving. Her arms were a little tanned at places, and it was clear she spent a lot of time outside.

From the way this place was set up, there was probably a lot of outside time.

"What are you going to do with the cages?" I asked, in the middle of the sixth examination.

"Save 'em. Just in case," Rachel said.

"The dogs don't sleep in them?"

"No. I have plenty of floor," she said, as if it were a stupid question, "and blankets."

I blinked, looking around, "Where do you sleep?"

She tensed a little at the question. Her whole body seemed built for tensing up before an attack, the way it was made of strong lines. This close she smelled strongly of dog, and this only added to the faint sense of discomfort I felt. It was hard to place, just this feeling like I was on thin ice, that every word I was saying mattered and that I didn't want to say anything wrong.

I was afraid of her and couldn't even quite feel it right, I decided.

"I have a room. Don't wanna talk about that."

Oh, the Undersiders. Some sort of hidden villain lair.

"Sometimes just sleep here," Rachel said, "nicer here."

"Do you have blankets?"

"Blankets and pillows. I just find a spot on the floor," Rachel said. Just like the dogs.

I imagined that some of them would have cuddled up to her, or tried to bother her, but I don't think that would have troubled her. It was such an oddly peaceful thing to imagine, her sprawled out on the ground in a mound of pillows and blankets, the dogs next to her or even on top of her. I had to keep from smiling, my face almost demanding to turn upward.

"What," she asked, her voice harsh.

"Nothing. Just thinking," I said. "I can get all of their fleas and all of the ticks and the like out of here, if you want."

"Sure. They don't like them none," Rachel said, as she kept up the work, not slowing down just because I was gabbing at them. "They'd appreciate it."

The cynic in me wondered if that was a difference between dogs and people. Appreciating when someone did something nice for you. But I knew that was just another dark, angry thought, the kind of thing that didn't help, but felt good to think.

*******

It took a long time to look through all the dogs and make sure we knew what was wrong with them, and even longer for me to do a Pied Piper and escort all of the fleas to the nearest storm drain.

By the time all of that was done, and looking over the other dogs, and cleaning up when one of the new dogs had peed on the concrete floor, it was well past eight o'clock, and felt like it'd been way longer.

It was a lot of work, really, but it did feel oddly purposeful. I didn't have a maternal bone in my body, not that I could tell, but there was a certain feeling like when the efforts were directed towards another living being, it made them feel better? Maybe that was the other side of the coin from the cynicism. Either way, I could see why she enjoyed doing this, and the thing was, when I watched her move from dog to dog, rubbing them, throwing sticks for them, going outside barefoot to watch as they went around the large, fenced in yard, she was good at it.

If I had to hire a dog sitter and she was charging anything short of "Dog Sitter for the Stars" rates, she'd be the one I chose, I thought to myself as I mostly just hung around and got curious sniffs from dog after dog. I patted them, rubbed a few bellies, and once the main work was done mostly I did things that weren't work so much as relaxation.

And when she wasn't playing with them, she was watching them. She eventually made her way over to the pallet I'd been sitting on, and sat down next to me. She smelled of sweat and dog, but she felt more friendly than she had earlier. As if I'd passed some kind of test.

"They're circling. They think they should fight because that's what they were told to do," Rachel said, pointing to two dogs.

I frowned, thinking back, "Are those the two dogs that were fighting?" They looked in pretty rough shape, really, and yet evenly matched in an odd way. Both big dogs with tears and rips in them. A missing ear on one of them, a somewhat wobbly shoulder with another. They moved slowly, this way and that.

"Yeah. Trained to hate," Rachel said, and she said it in this way like she'd said it before, like she'd memorized it.

"Hurt," I muttered, "like anyone who triggers."

She started, as if she hadn't quite thought about it like that. "Dogs can't trigger. If they could, maybe people would think twice--"

I began to nod, and then thought about it. No. No they wouldn't. "I wish they would, but I'm not sure. The possibility that I might trigger if pushed too far didn't help me any."

"You could sting them with your bugs or whatever," Rachel said, as if that was the logical thing to do. Just hurt people.

"I could. But I want to be a hero. I… fuck," I said, shaking my head, "I don't want to talk about this."

"Sure," Rachel said, as if she had had no investment at all in the answer. "The yard needs work."

"Huh?" I asked.

"Shit everywhere. Could you shovel it."

"If you join in," I said, sharply, then added, "two sets of hands are better than one."

She was looking at me, now, standing there stocky and sure, and then finally she gave a shrug and gestured over towards a corner where there were a few shovels.

So we shoveled shit for a while. It wasn't enjoyable, not in the last, and yet at least it was a decent day. I had to step carefully, and I wished I'd brought boots or something like she had, but there were worse jobs. I could be working retail, after all. Of course, I wasn't getting paid for this.

Rachel had rolled up her sleeves as far as they could go and then immediately set to work, her dark hair eventually glistening with sweat from the heat, doing twice as much work as I was doing.

"Well," I muttered to myself, "there is worse exercise."

"What?" Rachel asked, narrowing her eyes.

"Oh, I said that there was worse exercise. I've been working out some ever since I got my powers. Running, I mean," I added.

"Sure."

"Do you do any exercise, or is it all looking after these dogs?" I asked.

"There's weights somewhere," she said, a little vaguely, "but I don't need them."

Her arms had real definition, on top of being rather tanned. "I can see that," I said, flushing a little at how silly my question was.

Rachel looked at me for a moment and said, "Good job." She said it grudgingly.

I couldn't help but react, "At shoveling the shit? Yeah. I have to say that I was born for this work."

Rachel almost growled, "That's not what I meant."

"Oh," I said, a little weakly. "But it's no problem. I mean, I'm sure that you sometimes get help, your teammates."

"No," she said, and that was a very final sort of word. "Not more than once."

"Well, I liked the work. Sort of," I said, "dogs are nice." Which was a nice noncommittal statement that she couldn't disagree with. "And if I had brought a book or a game, I could do that if there was any spare time, and still watch the dogs."

"A game?"

"Yeah, I play video games a little. My mom was a literature professor, so I kinda picked up a love of books," I said, wondering if I was sharing too much. There was something about the seeming apathy and yet attention that just made me keep on wanting to talk, though.

I don't know how well I'd have reacted to pity, and even sympathy seemed like it might be too much, if it came on too fast. But she was just listening. Maybe she was judging, but who knew? "So, if you wanted me to come around, say, tomorrow or after school later in the week, I could. If I haven't gotten in the way too much."

I don't know why I was talking so fast, but it felt like I had to get it out, the same way you tried to slam your foot into a door before it closed.

"Sure. Why not," Rachel said, as she walked towards the inside.

I followed her close behind and saw she was moving around a little, aiming for a closed door. "So, are we done?"

"We've done enough," Rachel said, which went to show that she could get sick of shoveling like anyone else.

She opened the door, and beyond was a room. Blankets, chew toys, an actual cabinet just screwed onto the thin wooden wall. It was an entire room, and I guessed at once that she used it as a back room. I looked around, but there was nothing especially personal to it all. Or rather, nothing hidden. She didn't secretly have a romance novel lying around, she didn't hide the bodies of the last four people who had helped out her dogs here, it was just a place to store stuff like blankets and extra food and the pillows.

I stepped towards the cabinet, as she moved towards a door in the far wall. I quickly opened the cabinet. Protein bars, granola bars, pop tarts, a box of cereal, it seemed I'd found the food cabinet. There was also a lot of jerky just piled up here and there, some of it in packages, and some of it clearly bought and just tossed in, which couldn't be hygienic. I assumed she ate out a lot, because there was no room for anything cold, and there weren't any fruits or vegetables, either.

She opened the door and gestured for me to get in. I stepped in to see tiles, a toilet, and a sink. It was a bathroom, which meant that this was probably meant to be some sort of small business. The bathroom had the look of one of those 'all genders' ones, for places too small to have two separate facilities.

She went over to the water and turned the faucets, splashing her face and even drinking some of it. This must be where she got the water for the dogs, I thought, waiting my turn. As I drank a little of the water and looked at myself in the mirror, wondering just what I was doing, Rachel stood behind me, still watching, obviously still thinking.

"Hey, go pick up lunch," Rachel said.

"Pardon?" I asked, distractedly, having taken a moment to just look at myself in the mirror, and seeing as many things wrong as I usually did.

"There's a greek cart around here, I can give directions. You'll smell it before you see it. Pick something up with a lot of meat. I have money--"

"N-no," I said, "I can pay for it. I mean, you have let me in on a lot, and it doesn't hurt anything."

Rachel just stared for a moment, as if she was trying to get me to back down. Which was weird. "Fine. Hurry, I'm hungry."

"And I'm starving," I added.

"No. You aren't," Rachel said, her voice hard, in a tone that felt almost foreign. It was how she'd talked to me last night, and I'd apparently already gotten used to how she was talking now, even at her most disinterested or even mildly hostile.

"No, no I'm not," I said, reminded for a brief moment of The Giver. "Anyways, I'll go and grab it, then we can eat lunch and I guess I'll… go from there?"

"Works," she said.

********

Once I was out of her lair, I took stock of things. Things were going well. I'd keep on interacting with her and… I dunno. Maybe I'd learn about the Undersiders? Maybe I could.bring her around to the light side? I didn't have a plan, I was just doing it because, because.

I didn't know why I was doing this. I checked the phone message on the way to the cart.

"Hey, I know you don't know me, but this is Tattletale. Bitch's teammate," a girl said, in a voice that sounded vaguely posh. Slightly upper-class. "I was just going to give you some advice about talking to her, because there are a few things that might trip you up. She can be very hostile, and she'll probably force you to shovel dog poop, and if you're not ready for it, she might attack you just to see how you reacted."

There was a pause, "She's very prickly, and don't talk to her as if she's stupid or she'll react badly, and she sometimes thinks people are making fun of her if they talk about education. I have other advice, but I'm not sure how much would really fit on the message, and so please call me back, ASAP."

Well, that was weird advice. She hadn't attacked me, and she hadn't made me shovel poop until after we'd done everything else together. I didn't know what sort of Rachel she was talking about, but it wasn't quite the same girl I'd met. I could imagine her doing all of that but wasn't Tattletale a teammate?

If anything, I should have gotten the worse treatment. It was sort of weird, and I put it out of my mind for a moment, and then decided to just text her.

'Weird advice. I'm doing fine. Whoever you are.'

There, sent.

******

I had a gyro and a little bowl of lentil soup, and ate slowly and carefully. It was delicious, so much so I had to keep from pigging out.

Rachel, on the other hand, ate like a dog. Or, I corrected myself, like someone who was afraid that her food was going to be taken away from her. Combined with her earlier statement, it created a certain impression. I watched her eat for a moment, and then got back to eating myself.

The dogs crowded around, begging for food, and with Rachel's permission I'd gotten another Gyro, just about running out of money to do so, and I occasionally threw bits of greenery or the lamb itself to the dogs, who of course kept on coming back for more. Rachel even shared a little of hers occasionally, sitting there on a pallet, just being there.

I didn't know what to talk about, and if Tattletale's advice was right, if I talked too much about science fiction, she might think I was laughing at her if she didn't know about it. So I just let the silence work for me. It sort of did. By the time we were finished, it was somewhat past noon.

"I should get going, Rachel," I said. "But I'll be back tomorrow. How about seven?"

Rachel frowned, and then shrugged. "Okay. Or earlier. Just knock on the door. The dogs will bark."

"I could try for six, though I normally don't wake up that early," I admitted.

Rachel nodded, and there was that focus in her eyes, as if she was noting something down. Her eyes were dark, and very intense looking when she was frowning like she was. "Got it."

I left to the barking of dogs who seemed sad to see me go. I didn't know all of their names, but maybe if I had enough time, I'd learn them.

******

Rachel Lindt's name was known to the world, oddly enough. Her trigger or perhaps her attitude, I thought as I read what there was online, had let to her unmasking pretty early on. The Protectorate called her Hellhound, she called herself Bitch. She'd done a lot of petty crime. Smashing and grabbing, living on the streets, and then suddenly she'd shown up in Brockton Bay, part of a team that did a lot of the same sorts of things. Heists, attacks on gang-bangers to steal their money, all of it pretty simple. They were a minor team, consisting of a Thinker with unknown powers (Tattletale), someone who could summon darkness, Grue, and Regent, who had… the ability to make people trip? Something with the nervous system, people on PHO speculated. That and Bitch, who was the muscle of the group.

It was not a description made to inspire confidence. They seemed small time, which was better than them being a big street gang beating up minorities in the street, but did make me wonder. They'd mixed things up, stealing things from Lung's Casino, and then immediately turning on the E88.

That was the latest news, that they'd been hitting the E88 hard at several places, and the Dog fighting ring was actually in the online news, sort of. The insect bites were causing speculation, but I thought about the attack.

It seemed too personal. It seemed like something Bitch was doing for herself. But if it happened to hit the E88, maybe that was the point? Either way, I wasn't sure if I could trust the Undersiders, and if I'd learned all of this before my morning with Rachel, then I might have stayed away.

As it was, nothing was new enough or threatening enough to make it seem like a bad idea.

Speaking of bad ideas, I should go out on patrol again, so that everyone knew I was a hero, rather than some sort of new Undersider, as a few people speculated considering how many people had eventually been found with insect bites when the police had rolled in… huh.

That was impressive timing, I thought, distractedly. Someone must have tipped off the police.

It wasn't my problem now. So I tried to put Rachel out of my mind as I began to plan for my second excursion out into the night of Brockton Bay.

Hopefully it'd go just as well as last night had.

*******

A/N: Thanks to @NemoMarx .

 

[The Laurent]

Ruff 1.3

Dad was waiting for me when I got home. He'd probably been busy, but he had to have noticed when I hadn't shown up. He wasn't crossing his arms or looking like I was about to be in big trouble, but he was sitting on the couch, going through some papers, and as soon as I opened the door, he stood up. "Taylor, where were you?"

"Well, things happened," I began, carefully. "I decided I'd just go to a fast food place, and I met someone there. Another girl, my age." I didn't actually know how old she was, but she did look roughly my age. "We started talking, and then we wound up hanging out."

"Oh?" Dad said, and I heard the interest. Obviously, I'd managed to hide what was happening at school from him partially, until the… incident, and even then he'd raged but not known that it was Emma that had done it. He was distracted, but that didn't mean he didn't care. It just meant it was hard to pull everything together. He still worried.

"Well, yeah. Her name is Rachel. She was actually dog-sitting for someone," I lied, trying to throw together something fast. "So I wound up hanging around dogs. Which is why I smell like I do."

I stank, even worse than I did when I woke up. If I was going to spend a lot of time around Rachel, I'd need to take a lot of showers.

"Ah," Dad said, "she nice?"

"Well… yeah," I said, after a moment of thinking. "She's really strong. Sort of blunt, straightforward. Doesn't go to my school," I added, to cut off the question. I didn't know if she went to any school at all, actually. Maybe I'd ask her sometime. I thought about her a little more, trying to figure out what else I could say, "Striking. Likes dogs a lot."

"Striking?"

"I meant," I said, "you'd known her when you saw her. It's like Lacey."

Lacey was one of my Dad's coworkers, married to Kurt. She was built pretty strongly, sorta similar to Rachel, actually. She and Kurt were close to Dad, and I knew that when he'd lost Mom he'd needed people like them to help him. I hadn't been much help, that was for sure.

"Ah," Dad said, nodding. "Did you have lunch?"

"Yeah, I did," I said, "if you wanted to hang out for a little while, I could." I couldn't go out on patrol now, not with him at home, and not if he was going to be watching, and so I thought I'd just wait and wait some more. After I got cleaned up. Actually, now that I was thinking about it, maybe I should get some boots or clothes I was willing to get a little dirty? So that I didn't ruin anything good.

"Sure, Taylor. Anything you wanna do?"

"Well, it's been a little while since I've been shopping, and I thought, if I was going to hang out around her and the dogs she's sitting, I might need to get some clothes that are a little more…"

"Disposable?" Dad asked, smiling. Of course he believed that Rachel was just some girl. Who'd believe otherwise, all things considered? It was what made most sense, and really, I'd mostly interacted with her as if we were just two teens. Me the tall, skinny one, her the blunt one with impressive biceps.

...okay, not as seen on TV, but whatever. "Yeah, that's what I meant."

*******

Shirts. Jeans. A pair of boots. It wasn't really thrilling, but then again, I hadn't really done thrilling in fashion since Emma had been my friend, and of course those days were over, never to return again, so I almost felt more comfortable shying away from that, even if I didn't also know that my body was something to hide or not talk about or else Emma would gossip about me even more than she already did.

It was fast and easy, and I hoped that Rachel would appreciate the effort I was going through. I almost wished I had her number, so I could call her. Or text her. Not that I approved of texting, but anything would be better than nothing. I didn't know if she had a phone. I wondered if I could just buy her a cheapo one if she didn't. Though everyone had a phone, didn't they?

I found myself wondering what she was doing right about now. Probably not anything nefarious. I could almost picture her, lifting another thing of dog food effortlessly, barely straining herself, and cutting it open to pour it out for dinner. Dogs were hungry things. They needed care and attention and love.

I guess they weren't all that different from people, then.

Either way, I made dinner again, meatloaf this time, and wondered if I could look up some books on dogs. Or go to the library and get some. I could always just give her some. Oddly, I hadn't seen a single book in her whole room, so maybe she wasn't much of a reader?

Still, in the optimistic mood I was in, I thought it was maybe worth a try. Or at least, I could see if she liked anything I brought and go from there?

Then there was the patrolling. I didn't really want to run into anything too rough, so maybe I'd go a little north? I knew that there were some areas where the drug dealers mostly worked. Scare a few drug dealers, make them regret annoying someone who could control bees, and then go home.

Yeah, it sounded kinda pathetic, but it was a start, and once people started knowing who I was, then maybe I could figure out what else to do. I knew that plenty of independent heroes spent most of their time going up against goons. Shadow Stalker, at least from what I'd read online, had mostly kept away from cape fights since she was on her own. That changed once she joined the Protectorate, but it did make a model of sorts.

Stay out of the way of trouble unless I was strong enough to be trouble myself.

Dad always drank a little more on a Saturday night, and so I was able to slip away before too long, and change in an alley. It was a skill I didn't have yet, to be able to do it comfortably. It always felt exposed and vulnerable and weird, like I was just about to get attacked by someone in the middle of it.

But that didn't happen, not this time at least. Plus, I knew it was paranoia, because I already had my bugs spread out here, there, and everywhere in order to check for that sort of thing. So I walked along, thinking that I really did need a way to carry them, or at least, worrying about whether people would notice all of the bugs I was controlling, moving as I walked along.

People moved out of my way when they saw me, and I allowed flies to go on ahead as far as I could. Strangely, my range seemed down tonight, and I didn't know why. I continued on my way, until I saw it. A cluster of people in an alley. I couldn't make out specifics, my bugs were still as they ever were, hard to read sensory information from.

But I guessed it was nothing good, because this part of town wasn't really a place where people gathered together at night for any good purpose.

I moved cautiously, and as slowly as I could, drawing insects to me, and allowing them to crawl up all around me. I needed as many of them on me as I could.

"What's the take?" someone asked.

"Not enough," a guy said. "Damn, Kaiser's going to be pissed, sweetie."

"He'll have to learn to deal, or not," a woman's voice said. "Now all of you. We should get out of here. We've done what we came here for, and--"

I inched around the corner, allowing myself to get a peek at what it was.

So, six Nazis, and two capes.

This was known as the exact sort of odds that I ran away against because I wasn't a moron. I actually recognized the capes, because I'd done a lot more research ahead of time on the E88 than I did on a far more minor team that hadn't done that much that was notable.

So that was Victor and Othala. Victor was a blond man wearing a black breastplate and a blood red shirt, and a black domino mask that hid surprisingly little of his face. A handsome face, relatively speaking, though the red and black didn't work all that well.

Still, everyone knew what it meant: red, black and white. Germany, or some versions of Germany. His power was only partially known, but seemed to involve stealing abilities from other people.

Othala was similarly dressed in red and black. She had on a skintight red bodysuit that hugged every impressive curve the nazi jerk had. In the center of her chest was what looked like a diamond with two small v-shaped legs. It probably had a name, and probably meant something important. A rune, maybe? But either way, her power was more interesting. She gave powers to other people. She could heal them, could make them stronger, could make them invincible. And that meant that she was the first target I should go after.

If I did this. I shouldn't, because it was stupid.

If I got hurt my Dad would notice, and then--

A dozen bees went straight for her before I could even think, right towards her head.

She screamed in shock, as one of the men pointed at me. Victor drew and fired, and I barely managed to get around the edge of the alley in time. He was a quick draw, and if he'd hit, well then that was it.

As it was, I gathered bugs, aiming mostly for her. I had a spider of mine leap off of my body, as others swarmed on and around my costume, and then begin to crawl towards the men.

One of them who had been about to run around the corner to go after me gave a surprisingly high pitched scream and backed up. Victor, though, ran right to Othala, batting at the bugs.

Ah, that was something I could use, I thought, as the bees stung her again and again. She couldn't heal herself, so in theory anything I did to her that messed her up would stick, and that'd be a good thing.

In reality, though, I really needed to get out of here. The tide of insects would only hold them so long, and I didn't really have a finishing move. Bugs, and then more bugs, and then when I ran out of those, bugs. If Rachel was here, then I could have cleared both of them out, I thought, but then again, I might as well ask for a Protectorate team to show up right now.

Instead, I backed up again, going for a corner, as I let the bugs swarm out. They bit at and flew in the mouth and eyes of as many people as they could, and then they started dying. Fire. Victor was using fire.

That's when I knew it was definitely time to retreat. I could feel him stalking around the corner, ready to go after me. He was angry, I could tell from the swearing, and I thought for a moment. I had a lot of flying, buzzing insects around, on top of the spiders and the few bees I had. Nothing that could stop him, but perhaps I could distract him.

I continued to flee, while focusing on the cloud of insects, trying to get them to vaguely resemble my head, and as he got closer I had it pop out at head height. He threw himself back, ready for an attack, and then I felt my insects dying as he threw fireball after fireball into them.

They died like bugs. But in the meantime, I was running as fast as I could, ducking around an alley and then continued onward through the other alley, glad that I'd been exercising as much as I had. I'd done nothing more than inconvenience them, and I could have died.

I ran like a dog with her tail between her legs.

********

I tried to think about what I wanted to do to fix it. Now the E88 probably knew someone was out there attacking them, though I bet they'd hear it from some of their guys that sprung bail. I didn't know what they'd think I was, but the retreat definitely wouldn't scream 'dangerous threat' to them. If I had a bunch of beehives, maybe I could have done more. A swarm of hundreds of bees could have changed things. As it was, I'd just…

Bugged them.

I could join the Wards, but I didn't want to have to deal with teen drama. Rachel was the farthest thing from teen drama I could imagine, so she didn't count. Maybe once I built up more of a reputation, I could join the Wards on my own terms, or something? I know that Shadow Stalker had wound up joining them eventually, so who knew.

I drifted off to sleep, and woke up early. Five o'clock early. I groaned, and got a quick shower in, before going downstairs and writing a note for Dad.

'Out running. Might visit that friend of mine after that. Will be back for dinner. Love, Taylor.'

Well, that wouldn't stop him from worrying, but I didn't care that much about that. I rifled around upstairs for a moment, being as quiet as I could.

So, what to bring along? I grabbed the Microsoft Game Machine, four different books, and made sure to put the boots and heavier clothes in the backpack. I was going to run with sneakers, but I was going to work in boots.

There was an alternate reality, where there were few Parahumans that we called Earth Aleph, and apparently they found the idea that the foremost maker of handheld games was Microsoft to be bizarre. Also, they thought our graphics were dated. But the Game Machine was an old workhorse, nine years old now, and still getting games released on it. It was part of some weird strategy, and I knew that they were phasing in a new system, but in the meantime, I enjoyed my used, cruddy, blue and secondhand Game Machine.

I also enjoyed my jog, as I passed by with some money I'd saved up and bought a few things.

A lot of meat, huh?

********

I jogged up with several bags in my hand. The dogs were barking even before I'd reached the door and knocked, and Rachel opened it, looking at me for a moment.

She clearly hadn't been expecting me as early as I'd gotten there, because she was in a pair of jeans that were in fact unzipped. Which made me imagine her springing out from wherever she was and throwing them on. Her shirt looked rumpled too, and I wondered if I'd almost caught her in bed.

"What's that?" she asked.

"Food. For you and me. I figured you might like some more breakfast," I said, "my treat." I didn't think I could keep on buying that much every day, though the fact that it was from the dollar menu certainly helped. Bacon, sausage patties, chicken nuggets, just simple, pretty unhealthy stuff honestly.

"Got anything good?" Rachel asked.

"I'd think so. I'll go change in the bathroom," I said, "I brought some boots and some sturdier clothes."

"Sure. What can I eat?" she asked.

"As much as you want, just save some for me," I said, casually. She definitely ate a lot more than me, though looking at her she used all of those calories up. She nodded, and I couldn't tell what the look in her eyes meant.

When we opened the door, the dogs all but sprang on me, and this time I did have a little to give them. Just a bit of meat, pulling it out of the bag and tossing it here and there. In the corner, I could see a pile of pillows and blankets, and I realized that Rachel must have decided to sleep here this time. Did she sleep in her clothes, or had she thrown them off and then thrown them on later?

I made my way to the bathroom, this time noting a new addition. She had a toothbrush here, which she hadn't before. Again, another minor mystery about her. She had good teeth, so it was clear she brushed them, or maybe she just didn't eat anything that'd give her bad teeth? Not that I'd seen them that often, since even when she was happy she didn't smile.

I both did and didn't want to see her teeth. It was easy to change, and I hurried out to see that she had already fed the dogs, all of them in fact. The new arrivals already seemed to be getting used to the new status quo, or at least coping well enough to be able to eat without fighting, though one or two snapped at each other.

Rachel was eating a sausage burrito when I came in, wearing new boots that were just a little uncomfortable.

"Hey, I hope I didn't wake you up or anything," I said, making sure not to show my teeth as I made my way over to her. "I just woke up earlier than expected." I was sweating a little, because I had gone on a full jog and run before getting the food. I'd walked the rest of the way, but my legs definitely were tired.

So, I probably smelled pretty bad. Then again, there were all of those dogs, and Rachel had just woken up. Though I was already starting to get used to the smells, really.

"It's fine," she said, which was more tactful than I expected. "We should work after this."

"Sure," I said. "I have the whole day free. I told Dad I was going to be out, but that I'd be back for dinner."

"Makes sense," she said with a shrug, taking a bite into that cheesy, egg and sausage goodness. The bane of every diet was that the good foods had a lot of calories, though I'd managed decently, all things considered.

"Are things going well with you? If you don't mind asking."

A pause. Rachel shrugged. I waited, carefully, watching her for a moment, her dark eyes meeting mine. "Sure."

"Do you get along with your teammates?" I asked.

"No," she said, without even hesitating.

I pulled out an egg sandwich and took a bite of it, pausing to let it all soak in. "So, what are they like? If you don't mind me asking?"

"Tattletale. She's blonde. Pretty," Rachel said, as if this were the greatest insult imaginable, "annoying. Bares her teeth all the time, thinks she's so smart, the bitch."

"I got a message from her, actually," I said.

"You did?" Rachel asked, suspiciously.

"She was going to try to give me advice on how to talk to you. Though, I suppose it's good that she didn't?" I didn't smile, though now I thought about it. Bares her teeth all the time? Also known as grinning.

"Yeah," Rachel said.

"Then there's Regent and Grue?"

Rachel finished her wrap, and stood up, stretching a little as she did.

"Ah," I said. "So why are you with them?"

Rachel just gestured around, a little brusquely, and I realized. The money and the support for the men with the van. It came from the heists and other actions she did. She definitely wasn't living the high life with whatever she got. It was going straight back into dog food and other such things. And they were cheap.

"Got it. I get that, I really do," I said. "So, thanks for letting me back here."

"It's nothing. You helped," Rachel admitted, again as if she didn't care. But there was something about the way she said it.

Once we were done eating, I threw myself into the tasks she set. She wanted to give each of the dogs at least a bit of a washing today, because she hadn't done that yesterday. In this case it meant mostly pouring water and scrubbing, which meant I had to deal with the joys of a lot of wet, frustrated, angry dogs. I hadn't really prepared for that, and my T-shirt was soaked to the bone.

It reminded me of this one time the trio had dumped water on my head, when I was in the bathroom. And then when I came out to confront them, they'd made fun of how they could see the outline of my bra.

Rachel, though, didn't say anything, just kept on working, and once they were washed, it was socialization time. I knew that she had to train the dogs, and I almost wanted to see that. It'd be impressive to watch, at least.

But mostly, I just played with the dogs, and watched Rachel. Trying to get to understand her, without being able to really ask her questions. I couldn't trust that she'd answer more than a minimum.

Though I could talk to her about dogs. Or something.

Once the work died down, I moved over towards a pallet and sat down, patting at a dog and pulling out my game system.

To my surprise, Rachel went right for me. "What's that?"

"A Game Machine," I said, "have you ever played?"

She shook her head, her face hard. "It fun?"

"Yeah. I mean, it requires quick reflexes, some of the games, so I guess I like the RPG sort of things more, y'know? But I'm good at a lot of games." I saw that she was looking at me blankly. "I also like how it feels like I have control?"

I blinked, those words having slipped out. She stopped staring and sat down next to me, leaning in. My shirt was still damp, but she didn't seem to care, and I could feel the warmth of her body as she looked down at the tiny screen. Practically hugging me to see it.

"I mean, it's, like. In my life, there's a lot of things I can't control and they go to hell, but then there's a game, and even if there's RNG, it's easier, you know?"

Rachel paused, and I could see her thinking, see the way she'd somehow actually cared about what I said, and I was startled. "Sort of. What game is this?"

"Ah, well, Stolen Hearts, it's an RPG, but if you wanted to try out one of the games, you could? I mean--"

"Not an RPG," Rachel said, after a moment. She was squinting a little as she looked at the text. One of the characters was telling another off, and it was one of those interactive cutscenes they did. It was a weird game, a sort of Japanese-American RPG hybrid. Really, really hard to describe.

"Well, I have a Bullet hell, but that'd just make you hate me," I joked, "since it's hard even for people who have tons of experience. I also have books--"

"Don't read," Rachel said, and then she glared at me as if waiting for me to laugh at her. I knew that feeling.

"That's fine," I said, with a shrug. "I could also read to you if you wanted, sometime." The glare didn't go away, and I held up a hand, "Okay, it was just a suggestion."

"Maybe," Rachel said, in the way people say 'no'.

"Anyways, so no on games? That's fine. Didn't mean to waste your time," I said, voice a little too chipper.

"You don't," Rachel said. "Yet."

I played the game to the next save point, and then began to read part of a book for school, before Rachel dragged me away to help with cleaning up something. One of the dogs had peed on the concrete part of the floor, and then we had to break up two dogs growling each other like it was going to wind up a fight.

I wound up getting my shirt dirty, and when I went to wash it, I saw that she'd moved more stuff into this place. I had passed through the back storage room without looking, but I could now see some hand-weights, and what looked like a tackle box. I guess she was liking the whole 'spend time with the dogs' thing. I paused to playfully lift one of them up. They got pretty heavy, actually.

When I looked up, Rachel was staring at me. No, more like glaring.

"What?" I asked, a little confused.

She didn't say anything, walking over to them. "That's my stuff," she said.

"Sorry, I was just looking, that's all. It's cool that you can lift all of that. I remember, my father's friend Lacey once showed off. Apparently she'd been an athlete in college," I babbled, nervously, feeling an odd desperation not to get on her bad side, "so she had a bunch of weights and stuff."

"Your Dad's friend?" Rachel asked.

"Yeah. She's married to his friend, Kurt. Both of them are Dockworkers. It's hard work," I said, sorta rattling about, "Dad's a dockworker too. Though it's not a profession you'd send your kids into." I paused, and she seemed to be relenting slightly. Or maybe just losing interest.

"I mean," I said, "I know you don't care, so I don't know why I'm telling you all of this. But it's cool," I added.

"Cool," Rachel said, with dry skepticism.

"Y-yeah. I mean, it is," I insisted. "I mean, we only just sorta met, but if I didn't want to hang out with you, I wouldn't. And being an athlete isn't exactly unpopular if you cared about that…"

Rachel just snorted, but after a moment she shrugged.

"I wouldn't be able to work up to some of these," I said, holding out my own scrawny, somewhat pale despite the sun I'd gotten, arm. "I'm more of a runner, and that's just because I forced myself. I'm no kind of athlete."

"You look fine," Rachel grunted. "You have bugs, anyways."

"Yeah, I do admit that it seems like my power isn't one that requires me to go up close and personal. Though I do sorta want to be able to? Because people are going to get to me. The other night, I was almost shot--"

Rachel all but burst forward, her eyes intent, and I was shocked by the hard look on her face, "Who?"

"E88. I interrupted Victor and Othala, and stung her with a bunch of bees…"

I almost smiled, because it was a habit when trying to pretend things were better than they were, like now.

"And…"

"And Victor shot at me several times. And threw fireballs," I said. "But I got away. I wish I didn't have to run away." I had thought I'd be braver than that, that I'd be more willing to… but it was the smart thing to do, right?

"Then don't run," Rachel said, after a moment. "Fight."

"Not strong enough. Not yet." I looked down at the weights. "And those aren't going to help. I need more practice with my bugs. Or I need to find a partner, but I don't want to join the Wards?"

"Why?"

"All the drama, I'd hate it. I mean, I get enough of it at school from the trio."

Rachel looked at me, and then nodded. "I get it. Can't be your partner," she said, her voice hard, as if I were about to try to convince her.

"I know you can't. It's fine. I wasn't asking that. You have the Undersiders. I was just frustrated that I can't do enough. That's the only thing I have going for…"

I stopped, and shook my head, "Well, there's you. I mean, a new friend's nothing to complain about."

Rachel grunted. "Thanks."

"No problem at all," I said, "I'm just telling the truth. Wow, though," I said, looking at a forty pound dumbbell. I lifted it up, struggling a little bit. Forty pounds was a lot, and I knew that I couldn't do even one proper curl with something that heavy. Noodle arms and all of that.

Rachel took it from me, and then did one rep, the muscles in her arm moving along with the moderate effort, as she then did another, and then another. I stared at her arm.

...Geeze, she was strong, I thought, after a moment, shaking my head.

"Impressive," I said, stumbling a little on my words.

"Thanks," Rachel said, seeming a little baffled about the whole thing. Or maybe she wasn't. I only just knew her, and I was still trying to get a read on her.

"So, what I was thinking is that I could show up for an hour, maybe two, after dinner on the weekdays. If you have a cellphone, I could call you on that if I can't make it," I said. "I can help with anything you need, or if you want to just… hang out."

I didn't want to sound too eager. I think I failed.
'
But she nodded, "Yeah, that'd be nice."

I smiled for a moment, and then stopped myself, as fast as I could. I didn't know whether a toothless smile would be any better, but I was still trying not to make any mistakes.

"Good, good. Do you have flashlights or anything?" I asked.

"A few," she said, "mostly when it gets dark I just do less."

I nodded, thinking about that. Without electricity, she'd go to bed earlier, probably, and I bet she woke up earlier, too. No burning the midnight oil for her. "Sure," I said, already getting an idea of what to do, though first I had another patrol to try, and maybe the third time would be the charm.

******

It was the charm, really. It was not a big thing, but I'd met some Merchants dealing drugs near the end of the night, and they'd fallen to a swarm of bugs. Then I'd called it in. "Hello? This is… a new cape. A hero. I've caught some Merchants, and I think they have drugs on them, could you--"

"Where are you currently, ma'am," the operator asked, "how many of them?"

"Well, four," I said.

"And what is your name?"

"I… don't know."

I hadn't actually thought of a good name, even with an extra week. "I'm working on that," I said, to cover up the brief moment of silence.

"Alright, ma'am, we'll send someone down to check."

Close enough. It wasn't much, but it was something.

*******

Then came the school week.

*******

Monday, usually the worst day of a week. And it was true I was pretty tired.

******

"Morning, Taylor," Greg said. "You finish Hero Commander?"

"No," I said, "didn't have time, sorry. I'll give it back to you as soon as I finish."

"You seem in a good mood, though. Oh, did you figure out that combo thing I was talking about for, with Orasmus and Helios?"

"No," I said, "I did get to play a little, but I wound up distracted." I yawned a little, covering my mouth.

"Oh. Well, uh, I hope you check it out soon, it's pretty cool and I think you'll like it and there's this secret entranceway to a bonus boss!"

"I will," I said. Greg always sounded as if he had been told he had five seconds to speak and was using the most of it. He was blond, with a bowl cut, and was dressed in a thrown-together way, at least today.

He was nice enough, though also pretty obvious about some things, and oblivious about others?

"Okay, good. I really gotta hurry, though, my class is on the other side of school!" Yes. He'd gone out of his way to talk to me, which made one person at school.

******

Our school has a library, and even library computers, despite them being ancient, and if it wasn't for the fact that they close an hour after school finishes, I probably would just use that rather than going to the local library as much.

It wasn't really a safe haven, because I'd been ambushed in here before by the trio, but I did like it, and it had a pretty good selection. I wasn't at my limit, and I didn't owe any money I hadn't paid off, so I got a few books. A book of dog breeds and pictures, one on caring for dogs, and then three different books that had dogs in it. Including one that was about a dog and Christmas, so I was sure it'd be alright, though it seemed a little basic. More a middle-school or even grade school book, just from flipping through it.

Eh, why not give it a try? I could ask her what kinds of stories she'd like later. The idea was simple: maybe she wanted to hear a story? Or something. I wasn't sure, but it seemed like a good idea.

********

In the late afternoon light, Rachel glared at me as I held out the book.

"I just thought, maybe you'd like to listen? I mean, I love to listen to books on CD," I said, trying to be firm and not back down. Her toned arms were crossed, her whole strong expression now turned to one of startling hostility as she glanced down at the book and then up at me, and then back down at the book again.

I didn't smile. I wasn't very happy, anyways. Instead I was frustrated. I'd come, and it'd started normally. By now I knew the name of all of the dogs, and they knew my smell or whatever, because they were very excited to see me, and the food I'd brought. Then we'd snacked, and I'd tested out her taste in food by offering her a candy bar. She accepted, and I made a note to ask her what she thought about it later.

So far, so good.

Then out came the book.

"If I wanted to read--" Rachel began, "I'd read."

"Rachel, I mean. I thought it'd be fun to give it a try in a very… like. This book is probably really wrong about what dogs are like, and so I'd read and you'd point out how silly it was and we'd both sm… chat about it or whatnot? I mean, if you don't want to, that's fine."

I have to admit, I sounded hurt.

Rachel finally stopped glaring, but she didn't say yes. Instead, she just sat down next to me, close and yet distant, her body radiating warmth.

Even though she already felt familiar, she wasn't. I couldn't expect to know her already, and I hoped I hadn't ruined everything.

*******

Tuesday is officially the worst day of the week. Maybe month.

*******

The trio kept it up, and I tried not to care. I had homework I'd fallen behind on, and so I tried to throw myself into it on the bus, and in between class, but I kept on thinking about it. What was I supposed to do? If she didn't want to read, then that was that. But what if she did and she was just too stubborn? I knew stubbornness, it ran in the family, in different ways.

Maybe I'd try the games? Either way, I checked out another book, and tried to endure. I was planning on going out on patrol on Tuesday night, if all went well.

******

Rachel seemed surprised to see me, but still no less annoyed than she had been, and when I followed her in, after I'd said hello to all of the dogs, she gestured to the shovel.

"The shit's been building up. Get it out of the short grass."

"I'll say what I said before," I said, "and that is that if you want to go out there with me, two hands make lighter work. If not, then no. I'll do plenty of things if you want, tonight."

She looked at me, her eyes hard, and then she said, "Yes."

"Yes?" I asked, confused.

"Read the book out loud if you want. I'll listen I guess."

"So, there's a book about a homeless dog during Christmas--"

"Does it die?" Rachel asked.

"No. Though I get why you'd think that," I said, drily. "People are pretty obvious with that sort of thing."

"I saw a movie once," Rachel said, "about some dog that died. It sucked."

"Oh? Well. The dog doesn't die. The other one I have, The Call of the Wild, has a dog that lives too. Though I'm not sure how realistic it is. And then I have a short story about an idiot who dies because he doesn't know anything, and his dog survives."

"Christmas dog, I guess."

And so I began reading it, wishing that I'd looked over the book earlier in more detail to figure out how to read it. But I decided to just wing it.

She sat opposite of me, on another pallet entirely, and didn't really seem to be paying attention. I read anyways.

********

Wednesday was a day I never liked. The trio tended to have patterns if you watched them long enough. I was tired from a patrol, this one having turned up nothing, and they were often bored, having gotten back into the swing of the week, but not yet looking forward to a weekend that didn't involve tormenting me.

They seemed to be holding back, as if they were waiting to pounce, and I instinctively kept an eye out, just trying to get through the day.

*******

On PHO, it was clear that Lung was after the Undersiders. There was a locked thread filled with threats from some random ABB fan, who said that the Undersiders were going to get it. Some other user who got infracted egged him on, making fun of him as he spiraled out into rather obscene ranting. It would have almost been funny, except that my chest hurt when I thought of someone after Rachel.

I couldn't even tell her about it, because surely she knew already.

********

This time, she sat next to me. Not that close, really, on the other side of the pallet, but even though it was not an adult book, she seemed to be listening. Not closely, and eventually she declared that she was done and went to play with the dogs and check up on what they were doing, but it felt like a sort of progress.

Her face seemed softer too. There was a harshness about it, even at the best of times, but that didn't mean anything.

Not really.

*******

Thursday. This time, she was right up next to me, looking over my shoulder, pressed up right against me, like a dog trying for a treat. I flushed at the closeness, but I didn't want to tell her to stop because it was reassuring, the intent way she was clearly listening as I tried to read.

I wanted to finish the book tonight, however long it took. We were getting towards the end. The dog had accidentally saved the day a half-dozen times, warning people of a fire, all while running away and not realizing he was a hero, and now he was at death's door, exhausted and lonely and probably the unluckiest dog alive, and on Christmas day, too!

If I were younger, I probably would have been really moved by it, honestly, and it wasn't that badly written for a children's book.

Rachel sprang up when I said, "It's a little too dark to keep reading."

She brought me a flashlight, and I continued reading the last few chapters, the light barely illuminating both of our faces, as she pressed closer. Until at last the book was done.

"Huh," Rachel said.

"If you want, you can keep it, for a while, if you wanted to read it any more," I offered, "there are sequels, actually, though I have no idea where I'll find them. But yeah, there are other adventures. And of course, there are the other books… if you wanna continue this."

"Yes," Rachel said, and her voice was full of a strong, sturdy sort of enthusiasm. She wasn't jumping up and down like Greg did whenever he beat a video game. It was more meaningful than that. She was happy, and she was eager, and I could see it in the way she leaned in, pressing herself against me.

She was so warm, and there was a moment where I didn't know what I was doing. Where I just sat there, not even thinking, and not sure why I wasn't thinking.

Then I handed the book to her and stood up, checking my watch.

"Holy shit!" I said, "I'm really late. I gotta get home. Sorry for taking up all of your time, Rachel, it's probably bedtime for you. And me too."

I hurried home, and endured Dad's questions without giving real answers, and didn't even feel I had the time and energy to go out on patrol, let alone do my homework.

I'd do it on the bus.

I didn't really care about it. I was just thinking about the book, and what I'd read to her next.

********
Friday:

"Ew, she smells like dogs."

"Well, what do you expect?" one of the girls asks, "she's homeless, isn't she? Cause her Dad's some lazy good-for-nothing, and so she has to sleep with a bunch of dogs for warmth."

I gripped my pencil tighter, frowning. I wanted to turn my head, to tell them that they could go and shut up about me. But it was also because it seemed like it was almost about Rachel, and I didn't like that. But I knew what fighting back would get. 'I wasn't saying anything, sir, she just started insulting me.' They'd done it before.

I let out a long, angry breath, and resisted the urge to smell my shirt. . I'd woken up later than I expected, having forgotten to set an alarm, and so I'd had to just roll out of bed and throw on new clothes.

A little later, I hurried to a bathroom stall and gave a sniff. Yes. I smelled like dogs, though it didn't seem as strong as it should? I mean, I guess I was just getting used to what Rachel and her 'house' smelled like. If it'd smelled as totally overpowering as it had six days ago, I'd have just been late for the bus and tried to jog to school or something, rather than not take a shower.

Well, I knew what I'd do when I got home, but before I went out to see Rachel again.

*******

When I got to her shelter, the dogs didn't bark. That made me suspicious, and I knocked on the door carefully, letting my bugs slip in through the back. There were other people there, people besides Rachel. Actually, Rachel wasn't there, though maybe she was… oh, there she was.

My bugs knew Rachel by now, and she was walking with someone else. I got the impression of blonde hair just before the door opened.

I hadn't even knocked.

"Ah, Taylor, so good to finally meet you," the pretty blonde said, "I'm Tattletale. No, this isn't an ambush or anything, but we all have been missing Rachel, and so we thought we'd pay her a visit."

Rachel was glaring, her arms crossed. She was wearing a short-sleeved shirt, and shorts, her hair looking like she'd mussed around with it. Or like she'd been busy with something else.

"A… visit? Missing?"

"She's only visited our evil lair once in the last week. All but living here," Tattletale said, with a wide, hostile looking grin.

Wait. No. Not hostile. Just really confident. But it felt like too many teeth.

"Really?" I asked, stepping forward, "well, I wouldn't want to interrupt your get-together. Rachel, are we still on for hanging out on Saturday if you want?" I still kept on waiting for her to get bored of me, as she surely had to be doing.

Or turn on me, like most of my other friends had.

"Nonsense!" Tattletale said, still grinning in that unnerving, weird way. "Rachel's mentioned you. It'd be interesting for you to meet everyone, and we aren't going to bite. I'm not, at least," she said, though her smile almost seemed to be saying otherwise.

She tugged onto my arm and, my stomach felt like it was dropping down to my knees.

But it was too late. I was swept up by her, and she closed the door behind her.

********

A/N: And so we move forward! Tattetale has arrived! Thanks to @NemoMarx for looking over it, I'm always nervous/wanting to make sure to characterize Rachel correctly.

 

[The Laurent]

Ruff 1.4

Tattletale was a striking girl. She looked older than me, but wasn't any taller, and had dark blonde hair that was kept in a bun at the moment. Freckles dotted her face, and her green eyes looked back at me. She was dressed pretty plainly, in a somewhat long skirt and a blouse, a look that seemed to be striving not to be noticed, but not in a noticeable way.

It wasn't like how I wore heavier clothes to hide my body, this was more that she wanted to come off as just a normal girl. Which I supposed was part of the point.

I fidgeted, and her smile dimmed for a moment as the door closed. "You can call me Lisa," she said, holding out a hand.

I shook her hand, glancing over at Rachel, who already seemed to be bristling, retreating into herself. But it felt different, actually, and I wasn't quite sure why. I'd only known her a week, and so I tried to give a mental shrug and even smiled back for a second, before stopping myself.

Now there was a problem. I'd mentally readied myself for Rachel, but now I was getting someone else, with different social rules and norms. It made me nervous and afraid I'd make a mistake, or that she'd judge me harshly. The fact that she was so attractive almost reminded me of Emma, but I knew that wasn't fair, and so I tried to tamp down on any judgements.

After all, if I'd gone by my first impression of Rachel, that'd have been a disaster.

"Nice to meet you, Lisa," I said.

"Rachel's been hanging around here all the time, and my teammates were worried. They also caught wind of your existence, and aren't quite sure about that," Lisa said, earnestly, "but I'm sure we can work through any confusion there. It's good that Rachel has someone to talk to, really."

She said it all breezily, chattering away, but then there was that look in her eyes. Curious, as if she were taking me in.

"It's good to talk to her," I said, hefting my backpack a little. "I didn't expect this at all. They won't attack me, right?"

"No, they won't," Lisa said, stepping back slightly and turning. "You shouldn't have to worry… what can I call you?"

I frowned. "How much do you already know?"

"My power lets me figure things out, make guesses and inferences. It can annoy people sometimes," Lisa said, with another of those grins, "but I do think I've guessed your name. But if you want to hide it…"

"I don't have a cape name yet. I've been thinking about that. So why not just… Bug?" It wasn't a real name, and I didn't like it, but it'd work for now.

Lisa nodded, her face friendly, though the grin still made it hard for me to cope. Because my natural reaction was to start smiling more, to match her actions, I thought. Monkey see, monkey do. But Rachel was there, and she was the one I really wanted to talk to, now: I'd brought books and everything.

From the way she was looking at us, she didn't like this, didn't like it at all. I wondered what she was thinking, what her problem was with all of this. She didn't like her team, maybe they didn't like her back? Lisa seemed awfully earnest, and yet could she really be so clueless as to not realize that she was acting in the wrong way to get close to Rachel?

I wasn't sure what was going on here, and I have to admit, that made me feel nervous. That feeling I had before one of the trio tried a prank, before something went wrong. My hands sweaty, my body twinging, alerting me to every little ache and pain just in case they were relevant. I licked my lips, which suddenly felt dry.

Lisa moved towards the door, and I said, "One second, Lisa."

"That's fine, we're not in that much of a hurry," Lisa said, and she sounded like she meant it. It was easy to like someone who was trying their hardest to be friendly, and yet, Rachel's own tension was almost rubbing off on me, leaving me a little conflicted.

I stepped towards Rachel and gestured a little farther from the door, and asked, "Rachel, are you okay?"

A long pause. "Yeah."

"Listen, you're not usually one to mince words, right?" I asked, "I want you to be blunt here."

"No, I'm not fucking okay." she said, turning to glare over at Lisa. "They're just here to make fun of me and get me back there. Caged in that stupid apartment where they can keep me at heel." She crossed her arms, looking as if she wanted to move somewhere.

It made me nervous, actually, because I'd seen that kind of fidgety energy before, the way a body just wanted to act but couldn't. But I'd seen it on someone I didn't like, and I liked Rachel. Either way, it was the kind of thing I just realized was liable to explode in an instant into… something. Something that'd wind up with the room rearranged.

"You like it better here?" I asked, trying to keep a calm, even voice. Trying to work through the words. "And, they're not so sure about that?"

She nodded, turning to glare at Lisa.

"And so now they're coming to check up on you, and you think they're trying to pressure you? Then just tell them no. They can't force you to do anything, right?"

Rachel's eyes hardened a little more, as if she were gathering herself up for an attack, and she nodded again.

"So, I'll just go in there, I'll meet and talk to them, you'll brush off their attempts, and then they'll leave and we can just do other stuff." I shrugged, trying to sound as casual as possible, since I knew I was talking her through something in a way that might annoy her.

"I hate talking to them. They're all assholes," Rachel admitted. She looked like she tried for a shrug, but there was none of that retreat I'd seen before. When she was angry with me, she retreated a little, and bottled it up. This was a sort of… offensive holding it in. Like someone carrying a knife in plain view. From the way she was tensing, she'd had bad memories of talking to them.

That could be her fault, I knew, because she could be hard to get along with, but that didn't make it any less troubling.

So I just didn't say anything either way. Sometimes that was smarter than talking in a panic.

Lisa walked over to the door, the dogs already barking, and opened it up. On the other side was one boy, who I'd already gotten a general impression of from the bugs, but seeing him in person was a little different. He was a tall pretty-boy, with dark hair that curled up over his fine features, and pale skin, wearing a white shirt and black pants.

He looked like he could be a model, or a vampire. Or a vampire model, for that matter, and he even had the look of disdained boredom I associated with them. Rachel was behind me, Lisa ahead, and it was Rachel he first addressed in a lazy, faintly accented drawl, "So, this is your little friend, Rach. My, my, mighty fine to finally see you." He looked me up and down, a sly smile on his face that still managed to show teeth.

"Nice to meet you," I said, stepping forward as the dogs swarmed me. I crouched down to pet the dogs, getting a little distracted. "Ah, Brutus, not so… yes, yes, I'm happy to see you too, boy, but--" I looked up at them, distracted already. "What can I call you?"

"Regent. I see that you're taking to the dogs already. It's always charming to see," he said, in the kind of way I'd feared Lisa would talk like, "a bond between man and beast." The way he said it made it sound almost obscene, and he sat up a little more fully as I got closer to Rachel.

"Where's Grue?" Rachel asked, her voice harsh, "is he fucking around with my stuff?"

"He's in the bathroom," I said, "unless there's someone else." I had a bug on him at this very moment. From what I could tell, he was talking on a phone? Or at least, a bug had briefly flown across something that seemed like it was a cellphone. "Talking to someone?"

Regent whistled, "Huh. Is that your power telling you that?"

"Yes. She has control over insects," Lisa said, "which is a pretty useful power, really."

"Could use it to spy on people," Regent suggested, off-hand.

"I wasn't spying," I said, defensively, "just checking to see what was going on."

The dogs were still swarming me, though a few of them had backed off, hang-dog, when it turned out I didn't have any food for them at the moment.

In one of Regent's hands was a ball, and there was a single dog that was repeatedly licking that hand, while he completely ignored her to talk to me.

"Well, yeah, he's messing around in the bathroom. Unless you keep anything in there, he's not doing anything." Regent shook his head. "So, Bug, Grue's a hypocrite or whatever, thinks that Rachel should stay in the apartment because it's safer, yada yada, Tattletale agrees because she's the planner and junk, and so now we're here to check up on you. Make friends or whatever."

"Well, I'm pleased to meet you," I said, rather unenthusiastically, as I leaned down a little and finally fished out something from my backpack. I did have a few treats for them, or at least some luncheon meat, and now that they saw I did have something for them, all of them went for me, at least the ones that weren't checking out Lisa or saying hello to Rachel.

Rachel made her way over to a corner, arms crossed. As if she wanted to watch the whole room for an ambush. Because that was the feeling, like this was a fight, and nobody else had realized it yet.

The hair on the back of my head was standing up just looking at her, and I wondered whether Regent knew it. Or whether he cared, for that matter.

I was torn. Part of me wanted to go over to Lisa, try to draw her attention to it. I had new people to talk to, and having another friend wouldn't hurt. But, I also just wanted to go by Rachel, figure out what her problem was.

"I'm sure," Regent said.

"So, yes, Rachel, I am a little worried about you being out on your own. Ever since the raid on the dog-fighting ring, you've been distant. I hope you understand," Lisa said, her words soft and a little too coaxing. Like she was talking down. "We just need to make sure you're alright and that there's nothing you don't need. We can always talk to people, if that's what--"

"I'm fucking fine. I can do whatever I want," Rachel said, each word spat out.

"See? There's the Bitch we know," Regent said, "face it, Tats, you're not going to Thinker your way into being her friend."

"What are your concerns?" I asked, turning to Lisa. Maybe the best way to do this was to talk to her. That'd be the smart thing.

"She's isolated, and an easy target for attacks. We've survived so far by hiding. Lung doesn't know where our lair is, so he can't attack us. But if one of us is on our own, then that's someone that can be kidnapped or killed to attack us," Lisa said.

And really, that did make sense.

"But at the same time, this is a little out of the way, even if it's a very distinctive building in other ways," I said, "and I don't know what your policies are. But is she showing up for teamfights?" I flushed. God, Greg was starting to get to me.

"Team fights?" Regent asked, raising one of those thin eyebrows of his.

"You know, or heists, or whatever," I said. "The point is, if she's doing everything she's supposed to, then you can't just tell her she has to do something or else. Hasn't she slept here before?"

"Yes. Once or twice," Lisa said, "the concern is when it's every night. It feels like pulling away, and it makes it hard for us to get in contact with her."

"Well," I began, ideas starting to bubble up, "you could..."

"Did I miss anything?" a male voice asked. A little deep. I turned, and saw…

Well, I saw.

He was a tall, well-muscled young man, with rich brown skin, and musculature that wasn't too overbearing. Practical muscles, for a practical looking young man with a strong jaw and deep brown eyes.

I was staring. Yes, I was, my face flushed. I mean, trying to be blunt and open about this, he was just pressing a lot of my buttons.

"Not much, Bug here was just going to tell us what she thought," Lisa said.

"I think you should all just leave," Rachel said, her voice a growl. I blinked, turning away, my blush slowly dying as she strode forward. "I've said no. I'll play your stupid little games, but I don't need you to watch me every second--"

"If you get hurt, we won't be there. If you hurt this team," Grue said, stepping forward, until he was right up against Rachel, who had reached him as fast as she could, "then that's good for none of us, understand? Think about this logically. Just think." He loomed over her, tall and powerful, clearly trying to stare her down.

And it almost seemed to be working for a moment. I saw her shrink down a little. Like a dog shying away from a challenge, and trying to appear non-threatening.

I think he saw it too, because he relaxed.

But she was a person, and a person can draw back to leap out, and so I opened my mouth, "Don't!"

Just at the same time that she lashed out, shoving him back so hard he stumbled, more out of shock than pain, and almost fell over.

He was fast, rising up almost at a leap, going right at her and then grabbing her arm when she tried to punch him and just holding it as she struggled.

"Rachel. Don't. We can work this out," I said, "if you keep a cell-phone, you could just call them if anything happens. Grue, don't touch her."

He wasn't being gentle. His grip was leaving her skin white around where he was grabbing, and her teeth were bared in something between anger and pain.

Now I saw why she didn't trust smiles, because there was no way to mistake it for a smile, at least for her.

"She's her own person," I said. "And so I don't think--"

"Please stay out of this," Grue said, quietly, but firmly. It was a controlling sort of voice, the voice of someone who was used to being listened to.

"No. No I don't think I will. You could have confronted her some other time, when I wasn't coming around--"

"You're always here," Regent said, "like you wanna move in with her, be her roomie."

My face was hot with embarrassment, but I just tried to step forward, reaching Grue along with a cloud of buzzing flies.

The dogs backed up, dismayed and afraid, as I began gathering bugs into the area.

And then I made them buzz. Rub their bodies together. Make all of the noise they could.

Grue looked up, and he realized, I think, that I had an army of insects right about to fall down on both of them if they didn't stop.

He let go of her arm, and nodded, "Maybe. And if that doesn't work?"

"She makes her own choice, she deals with her own consequences," I said. "Of course, if she does get… kidnapped, was it, call me. I'd show up for that."

"Why?" Rachel blurted out.

"Why?" I replied, confused. I shook my head. "Anyways, does that seem like it'd work? If it doesn't, you can always talk about it later. I'm Bug, by the way. Or you can call me that now while I try to think of a name."

I wasn't sure if I liked him, attractive or no, but he did nod in an almost friendly way. "Sorry about that, I was trying to get my point across."

I frowned. "You did. Anyways, I hope we don't wind up crossing paths." That was a thought that had begun to worm its way into my head, the fact that as an independent hero, I might have to go up against Rachel. Maybe I could avoid that, or try to convince her not to take part in anything I needed to stop? We'd only known each other for a week, though, so I knew that was far too much to ask, and not likely to go down well. "Professionally, I mean," I added, feeling a little flustered.

Rachel let out what seemed like a growl, but shook him off and stormed off.

"I hope not, either. It sounds like an impressive power, used right, from what Tattletale has told me."

Here I was, surrounded by villains, and I was more worried about Rachel's feelings. It was bizarre, and probably not a good mindset to have.

"Thank you. It's not much, and it doesn't really help with finishing enemies off," I said, "but--"

"That's what you have a team for," Regent said, "or something." He shrugged, as if he'd read this once on the back of a cereal box and wasn't sure if it were true.

"Maybe," I said.

"Bug," Lisa said, "could you walk with me for a moment?"

I frowned, and then nodded, watching the way Regent was sidling towards the door to the back section. I followed her out into the yard. It was still sunny, and the yard needed the poop scooped up. Some of the dogs followed me, and I stopped as Kuro and Bullet came up to say hello. Kuro was a black mutt with a little bit of everything, and Bullet was the white and spotted girl that had been injured serving as bait for dog-fighting.

I looked around for a stick. She needed to run a lot, but she was injured so it wasn't as much of an option, but she still did like chasing after things. It was in her blood, it was who she was, and that wasn't going to change.

Lisa stopped when I did, and then said, "Thank you for what you're doing with Rachel. She does seem happier. I'm… not always the best with her. My power can tell me a lot, but the way I learn to interact with other people doesn't work on her."

"Your advice wasn't needed, but thank you for giving it." Did I like her? Sort of, so far. But I could see things about her that would get on anyone's nerves, and I knew exactly why Rachel didn't like her.

"She's had a hard life. Her parents--"

"Lisa," I said, "I know that what you're going to tell me is important, but I almost want to learn it on my own. I want to learn it when she's willing to talk about it, not from someone else." I tried to sound firm, even though I was curious. "Everyone who got superpowers went through a lot, and I can guess that she didn't have it easy."

"Ah," Lisa said, quietly. It was a knowing sound, and she nodded as I threw the stick for Bullet to go after.

Kuro just looked at me like he was asking 'Hey, where's mine'? Dumb mutt, I thought, fondly.

"Ah?"

"You're already a close friend of hers. I'm surprised. She doesn't take to people very quickly."

"Maybe you were just doing it wrong," I said, and then paused. "Sorry, that was probably a bit rude."

"It's fine, Bug. Just watch out for her, alright?"

"She's not dangerous," I said, and this time I did feel angry.

"For her. As in, to help her. She could use a friend, and I've tried to get close to her, but…"

Lisa gave a shrug, "It hasn't really worked. But you? She likes you a lot. You can just tell it, even without powers. And with powers, it's practically being screamed at the top of her lungs."

"Maybe, but she's only known me for a week. I…"

Huh, was that it?

"What is it, Taylor?" Tattletale asked.

Bullet came back, I took the stick from her and stroked beneath her mouth gently. I knew she always liked that. Or at least, she'd liked it this week. "Who's a good girl, you are, you are," I said, in a cutesy, silly baby-talk voice that I didn't use in case Rachel heard me, usually.

I didn't want to seem lame to her or anything. It mattered, even if I wasn't sure why it was so important. It wasn't like I'd cared about seeming lame with… Emma. So maybe that was it? If I seemed lame, she'd ditch me, or something. Find someone else to hang out with that wasn't mourning her mother's death. Or who wasn't making silly jokes or doing any of the things I'd done before life had just worn me down and made me wonder what the point of that kind of shit was.

Now I'd managed to think myself into a bad mood, I thought, frustrated.

"I was just thinking, and I think that some of it might be that Rachel feels the same way I do. That--"

I heard her growl, and the dogs started barking. I leapt up, at a run, and Lisa was close behind me as we stormed into the main area, only to see Regent backing away slowly from the dogs, who were being held back by the fact that Rachel was at the front of them, and those of them that she'd trained were waiting to follow her lead. Grue was standing off to the side, hands gripped into fists.

Regent had the book in his hands, the Christmas Dog book. "It's nice to see that you're enculturating yourself, Rachel. I'm impressed that you--"

"Let it go!" Rachel said.

"Or what? You'll take it from me? I just wanted to see what it was you'd hidden away."

"Stop it, Alec," Grue said, and that had to be his name then. "This is not helping anything."

"Oh. What-ever," Alec said. "So you're not going to take it back?"

"No," Rachel said.

"Why? You afraid it might tear? Is it a gift from your Bug?" Alec asked, then he rolled his eyes and, just as quickly, tossed the book back at Rachel. I blinked, surprised, even as I was moving forward, fists gripped together, in a cloud of insects. He was just some fucking asshole who toyed with people and didn't even have the dedication to mean it. He'd wound her up, he'd made her evening worse, and then he'd just backed down, and not even in a way that could seem like victory to her. In a way that made it clear that he'd do it again if he wanted to, that he was not going to be told to play nice.

A fly went straight in each of his eyes. "Agh!" he yelled, and I felt my knees buckle out from under me, landing me flat on my face.

I bumped my elbow against the ground, and rolled, frustrated and angry. I could hear Rachel yelling out an order to her dogs, and I knew this was going to be a fight. How dare he. How dare he do something like that to Rachel!

"Stop!" Grue yelled, and then I couldn't see anything. Could barely hear anything too. Just inky darkness.

I struggled to stand, and then when I did, a bunch of dogs crowded around me, confused in the darkness, licking at me. I could smell that one of them was afraid, via the most obvious way possible. Finally, I managed to stumble out of the darkness, and when I did, there was no fight at all.

Grue was standing in front of Regent and Lisa, and Rachel was in one corner, hand on Brutus and Angelica's collar, in the perfect position to start bulking them up if it came time for a fight.

"Are you--" Lisa began, her voice sounding nervous.

"Get out. Everyone. Get out. This is my place, and… and… " Rachel said it quietly, but I could see that she was fuming, that she was holding onto the leash of her own fury with all of her might, and that if I stayed, that if anyone stayed, she'd just blow up at someone. I didn't even get why she hadn't done so already, since she hadn't seemed to hesitate before.

"Rachel," I said, quietly, "I'll see you tomorrow."

She didn't respond.

I didn't get much sleep that night.
*******

I woke early, stressed and annoyed, my elbow still aching, and my chest hurting a little, in an odd way.

I'd had a nightmare, and I wasn't sure which one it was, but it was probably the same sort of one I had all the time. Of Emma abandoning me, turning her back on me. Of me not being good enough, or, or--

While I was awake, I didn't blame myself, I don't think. But at night, I suppose something was brought out? Something illogical and sick and probably unhealthy. My Mom died, my best friend became my worst enemy, and neither of them was my fault, but it felt like I should have been able to do something. Or like I'd done something and not known it.

And now Rachel had, what if she--

I didn't shower, I didn't mark off my calendar, I just hastily scrawled a three-AM note and stuck it on the table.

'Going out. Will be gone for a while. Don't worry. Couldn't sleep last night, had a few nightmares. I'll give you a call a little later..'

He would worry, of course he would worry. He loved me, and that meant worrying about people, sometimes. Plus, I knew I was being sketchy.

I jogged a while, not wanting to go see Bitch when she wasn't going to want to be seen. And since she was probably asleep, that was a good idea. Eventually, the jogging broke into a run, and even though I kept to the area around the house, I knew it was odd.

Three o'clock gave way to four, and by then I was soaked in sweat, and didn't really care. Then I started walking towards Bitch's, thinking I'd stop at a fast food place on the way to get some breakfast. I'd brought some money in a wallet, I could afford it.

If only there was some kind of food she really liked that I could get at this hour, then I'd be able to bribe her or something. As it was, I wound up spending a while in the bathroom, waiting for it to be closer to time, and pacing around outside the fast food place, which smelled of grease and sadness at this hour of the day.

Then I continued onward, hefting my backpack filled with food and hoping that she'd be awake at five-thirty.

The dogs were barking, at least.

When she came to the front door, she was dressed even more hastily than usual, and looking almost as sleep-deprived as I was.

"Taylor?" she asked, sounding like she'd just woken up from a dream.

"Sorry if I'm early, I just thought...if you want me to go I could go and I mean, I know that--"

"Come in," Rachel said, yawning.

********

There was something to say about routine. We fed the dogs, we cleaned up any of the obvious messes on the gravel and concrete, we got them water, and then I waited while Rachel brushed her teeth and ran her hand through her short hair with water, in what I assumed was meant to be preparation for the morning.

There wasn't a shower here, and so she smelled a little. Actually, I wondered at that, but that wasn't something to ask.

Once the routine was done, then there was just the awkward silence.

"You asked why," I finally said, after far too long of us staring at each other. "Why what?"

"Why are you friends with me?" Rachel asked, slowly, as if wanting to make sure I understood it.

"Because I like you?"

"The others, I don't like them, but I know they're more normal." She said it as if 'normal' didn't mean anything to her at all. "Lisa's pretty and popular, and you were staring at Brian like he was a side of beef."

I flushed, "I mean, yes. I sorta think that Lisa's alright, but there are things about her that annoy me, and none of that… I mean, do you really think I'd just stop being your friend to be either of theirs?"

I did want to get to know Lisa a little more, or rather, it seemed like she might be alright to hang out with. She had parts of her that were really, really annoying, but then, so did Greg sometimes. I didn't hate her like Rachel did, but that didn't mean that she was super amazing and I was going to leave her behind.

"Especially… Brian's? Is that Grue?"

"Yeah."

"I mean, he was…" I flushed, "but he also seemed kind of rude to you? And too serious."

"He was what?" Rachel asked, and I wondered if she was enjoying dragging me over the coals, or whether she was just trying to force me to say it.

"Attractive, okay? So's Lisa and even Regent if you like creepy pretty-boys, but why would any of that matter? I'm your friend because I like you and I like hanging out with you, and I like reading to you. We haven't known each other long, but I want to know more about you. What you like, what you dislike? I have food in my backpack though it's probably gotten cold, but your favorite color, what you eat… just. Stuff would be nice. And I'll tell you stuff back as well, because it'd be stupid and unfair otherwise. I mean, I came in here afraid that you were going to dump me. Leave me alone, I mean. It's happened before, friends just turning their back on me."

"Oh," Rachel said, her voice quiet as she looked at me, brow furrowed. Her eyebrows were thick, but they gave her face a certain intense look to it, really, as if she were focusing her gaze in on whatever she was looking at. "Grey or brown," she said.

"Ah, good. And… Greek food, I'd guess?"

"Meat in general," she said, sounding a little dazed, as if this hadn't been how she expected this to go, "Lamb is great."

"Ah, so gyros it is," I said, trying not to smile. "My favorite color is green. I like it a lot, especially dark green. It reminds me of camping, actually, but I also just…"

Green's totally your color, Tay.

"Like how it looks," I said, stumbling over the words, "and I guess I really like chocolate? And pancakes? The two of them together would be great. And burgers. I'm not really that picky, though I've gotten a bit more ever since I started cooking."

"You cook?" Rachel asked, frowning.

"Yeah. Ever since my Mom…" I trailed off for a second, and then pressed forward. It felt like shoving a pin into my heart. "She died in a car crash a few years ago. I've had to help out around the house ever since. I still miss her all the time, and then Emma, my former best friend, suddenly turned against me the fall after she died, and then started giving me shit. Harassing me, making fun of me, starting rumors, and her friend Sophia kept on attacking me, pushing me. Just on and on until… until I triggered."

I didn't want to talk about what had happened there, and I hope she understood.

"But you have bugs?" Rachel asked.

"If I do that, I can't try to be a hero, I'll…" I just stopped speaking for a moment, letting out a breath, "I'll lose the only chance I have to, I dunno. I just don't want to get revenge."

"I'd do it. Never knew my fucking mother," she admitted, leaning into me, "wouldn't have wanted to know her."

She didn't say more. She didn't give her story, or even the outlines of her story, like I had. But I had a color, and I had a favorite type of meat, and I thought that she was listening to what I said, that she cared about what I liked.

Or rather, cared that I liked them, since I knew she wasn't me.

I didn't even mind her warmth pressing against me, or the smell, or the way the dogs occasionally came over to sniff us. I just sat like that, and then eventually I closed my eyes.

I felt almost like I should be crying, because something felt like it'd come unstuck. Like the pin being pulled out of my heart.

"So, I don't know, now I'm trying, and… and we'll see if it works. I just can't keep on not doing anything," I admitted.

Then I was silent for quite a while longer. Rachel didn't get up, she just pressed herself closer, and after a little while, I did feel her brush a hand against my hair, once, almost curiously, and then stop.

Probably trying to figure out how to comfort me.

Finally, she asked, "Do you have that… story or whatever?"

"Yeah, I do. The food's gone cold."

"It's fine," Rachel said.

"None of it is good, but--"

"It's. Fine."

"Oh, okay," I said, getting up and grabbing the book and then returning to where I sat. It was a book of short stories, and I opened it to the right one.

"To Build A Fire, By Jack London," I said. I paused, taking in a breath, and scanned the first paragraph just to be sure I knew how to read it right without stumbling.

"Day had dawned cold and grey when the man turned aside from the Yukon Trail--"

"Yukon?"

"It's in Canada," I explained.

"Oh."

"He climbed the high dearth-bank where a little-traveled trail led east through the pine forest. It was a high bank, and he paused to catch his breath…"

*******

A/N: So.

Also, "To Build a Fire" is public domain. You can totally read it, or even listen to an audiobook recording of it, here:

LibriVox

Thanks to @NemoMarx .

 

[The Laurent]

Ruff 1.5

"Later, the dog howled loudly. And still later it moved close to the man and caught the smell of death. This made the animal back away. A little longer it delayed, howling under the stars that leaped and danced and shone brightly in the cold sky. Then it turned and ran along the trail toward the camp it knew, where there were the other food providers and fire providers," I finished. It was nice to have an appreciative audience, and that was one thing Rachel definitely was. She hadn't interrupted me at all during the story, except a few times to ask questions, and those polite and quiet, as if she were afraid of breaking the spell.

"What a dumbass," she said, as soon as she could tell I was done.

"That's the idea," I said, "and the dog actually knows what's going on, and is smarter than the person, so he goes off and survives."

"I liked it," Rachel admitted, as if this were some sort of guilty secret that I now needed to guard with my life, rather than just an opinion on a work of fiction.

"I thought you would. The dog lives and everything," I said, "it's not really a happy ending, but at the same time, he clearly wasn't cut out for what he was doing."

He'd gone in against the advice of men wiser and older than him, he'd repeatedly failed to show sense or survival instincts, and finally he'd died and his dog had done the smart thing and gotten the hell out of dodge before he died too.

Which was a sort of moral to the story, albeit not the one people usually peddled about dogs.

"Yeah," Rachel said, reaching a hand down to pat Brutus, and then Milk, a pale white dog that always acted pretty calmly, and finally, sniffing up last, Stick, who was probably the thinnest dog she had, to the point that he was definitely going to outgrow that name if he kept on eating as much as he was. "I liked it," she admitted. Then, a pause, "Sorry about your book--"

"It didn't seem too roughed up, the library book," I said.

"It wasn't," Rachel said with a shrug, her cheeks darkening a little. She was scowling a little, and I guessed it had to do something with the reading thing.

"Are you enjoying reading it?" I asked.

Rachel hesitated, and looked at me closely, still pressed up against me, as if she were looking for a hint of mockery. "It's rough."

Rough to read it, I thought. Who the fuck had…

I took a breath, startled by the sudden anger welling up. But someone had let her down, someone had failed her. A lot of someones, starting with schools and ending with parents, but not including herself, not really? "You could practice," I said, gingerly.

"Maybe," she said, with a shrug. Which was about all I was going to get out of her on this.

"So, you're living here all the time, now?"

"They talked to me. Called me," Rachel said, "got a cellphone now. I'll come back at least once every day to check in, get a shower, that sort of shit."

"Oh?"

"Yeah," she said, stretching a little, and then, after a moment, standing up. "I hope they'll stop bothering me."

"Regent was an asshole," I said, with feeling.

"Yep. He's an annoying runt who likes fucking with people," Rachel said in a matter-of-fact way.

The impression I got was almost more frustrating than something more consistent. As if he'd bully someone for a while just because he was bored, get bored of it, and then pick it up later because he was bored. As if, in other words, none of this mattered at all.

"I got that much," I said, shaking my head. "So, Rachel, I do want to leave a little after lunch, because Dad's worried. But I'll be coming back tomorrow, I promise. I just want to make sure he doesn't freak out."

"Yeah, I get that. What happens if he freaks out?"

"I don't know. I mean, what do I do if he forbids me from going out all day on the weekend? I don't think he's like that, but I know that it's been hard for him." Sometimes, a show of force was not a sign of strength, but weakness: an inability to do anything else. If he did immediately jump to that sort of thing, it'd just hurt both of us. It had only been a little more than a week, but I think I was really benefitting from knowing Rachel. Or at least, it felt like I was, and that's what mattered.

We'd have to see.

I let out a sigh, and Rachel said, "Stand up to him."

"I can try, but he's my Dad, I mean… maybe I should just tell him enough of the truth to count?" I thought about that, biting my lip a little bit.

"Like what?"

"I'll figure that out. Not too much," I said, and then stood up myself, "but let's not think too much about this right now. There's still a few hours until I have to get out of there, and Ginger has some fleas, I don't know where she picked them up, because…"

Rachel nodded, apparently grateful for the distraction, and thus encouraged, I started talking about the dogs and their health and mood, parroting things I'd picked up from her, and things I'd noticed myself.

Seeking approval and confirmation that I was on the right track, that I was learning all of this stuff down pat. I didn't talk to her about my Dad, not any more than I had, and I avoided the topic of capes entirely, though I did, towards the end, talk a little about school in a vague, general way. About classes I had and lessons I'd learned. We even exchanged numbers, in case we wanted to talk on the phone at some later point.

She seemed to be paying attention, at least, but reserving her judgment, holding it back in a way I appreciated.

Maybe I'd eventually be able to tell her more without holding it back, without censoring myself out of some fear of looking as if I were doing something wrong.

Eventually.

*******

Dad was waiting for me, again. His shoulders were tense when I stepped in. The television was on, but he immediately turned it off. "Taylor, I got your note." He said it slowly, and then nothing more. Encouraging me to fill the silence with words or an explanation.

"Sorry, I… okay. So, I had a fight with Rachel, that friend of mine, last night. And I was so worried about it that I wanted to make it up with her. I… had nightmares," I said. "So I got up and went jogging, and then visited her about when I normally do."

"You woke up at three in the morning with nightmares, so you went running?" Dad repeated, like he was making sure I didn't want to change my story into something a little more plausible.

"I didn't know what else to do, and… I don't know. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I was afraid and worried and wanted to patch things up, not let them fester and fall apart like they did with Emma."

Dad blinked, surprised. He had to have guessed that I wasn't as close to Emma as I used to be, since she never came by anymore, and I hadn't slept over at her house in forever, but from the look on his face, he hadn't known that we hadn't simply been drifting apart with time. "You're not friends with Emma anymore?"

"Not since the fall after Mom died. I… I don't know why. She just dropped me," I said, the words bitter, the real truth clawing at my throat. It almost hurt not to tell him that she was the one bullying me, that she was behind the incident, but what would that help? "And I was afraid of that happening again with a new friend. I wasn't thinking."

I really wasn't. I'd been feeling, feeling that pain in my heart and that ache of half-remembered nightmares clustering around me, trying to drag me down.

"Taylor…" Dad said, his voice a sigh, "I wish you'd told me that earlier."

"So, Rachel's my first friend, other than this kid named Greg that I talk about video games with, that I've had in a while. I mean, does what happened to me in January scream 'tons of friends' to you?" My voice came out too hard at the end, because ultimately he'd done all he could, had pushed the school to do something about it, and he'd failed.

I didn't want to say he'd failed me, because I loved him and he'd done all he could. It was just that all he could hadn't been enough, and so now here we were, dealing with impossibilities.

"No. No it doesn't. But you've made a friend, now?"

"I think. I haven't known her for long, but she's nice," I said, "or at least, she's being nice to me. She has some friends she doesn't really like, but has to work with anyways, and she got into an argument with them while I was there. I sorta got caught in the crossfire. But, it's fine." I tried a wide smile and added, "Or at least, we managed to patch things up. We'll see where it goes from there, you know? Take things one day at a time." I took a deep breath and said, "Though, right now I really need to get a shower. I probably smell of dog."

"Probably?"

"I definitely do," I said, seeing the look on his face, and the way Dad's nose wrinkled as he waved his hand back and forth dramatically, the universal sign for 'pee-yew.' "She's really a dog person, and it's kind of nice. Caring for dogs is interesting, but it isn't the sort of thing that can be done without taking plenty of showers."

"That's what you do?" Dad asked, "care for dogs? You said she was dog-sitting…"

"Some of them. And some of them are dogs she already has," I said, my lie not very smooth at all, I realized. "It's just a lot of dogs to deal with. But there's no such thing as a crazy dog lady, and so it's okay."

Dad smiled at my weak joke and said, "So, Taylor, have you had lunch yet?"

"No, actually, I haven't."

"Want to go out for something? Burgers, maybe?"

He was smiling so hopefully that I couldn't say no, not to that look. Dad wanted to make up for the fact that he'd missed something about his daughter's life, and… well. I liked my Dad, not just loved him. It was a distinction with a difference. "Sure, that sounds good."

*******

Saturday night's alright for patrolling.

I went out, ready for a fight. My range, which had temporarily gotten better, had gone back down all the way almost to a low. It was hard to tell why that was, but I needed to keep on going out and keep on patrolling. I'd done a few good things, and now, in the dark of the night, I almost wanted a fight. I'd managed to gather a few more wasps and other bugs, and once summer hit I knew I'd be able to really draw them together.

And if I found a way to keep all of the bugs warm and safe? Perhaps some sort of carrier or whatnot? It was easy for me to keep a beehive, if I actually found one in the first place. I could make sure they didn't sting me when I dealt with it, and it wouldn't be hard to get them the food they needed to keep it up.

It was all about space and money, I thought, pulling on my costume and running a hand through my hair to make sure it was hanging just right. I had an idea, or at least I'd thought about one, for my cape name.

I just needed a chance to show it off. I was a hero, and I was a girl who had a friend, and a loving father. I needed to stop worrying, stop feeling so trapped. It wasn't easy, and when I mentally sat down and tried to hype myself up, it all felt almost hollow.

But I went out anyways, walking as fast as I could. I didn't need to go slow to scan the area, because I made sure I had bugs on everyone. I was starting to realize that I needed to be more proactive, and that meant knowing where everyone was and what everyone was doing so that I could judge the situation ahead of time.

Going up against Victor and Othala had been a mistake, I should have waited to see if there was a chance to ambush them. And I should have been more vicious. Bugs should have flown straight in both of their eyes, maybe down their throats too. I knew that it was vicious, but it was what could help me win a fight without a team.

So I tried to steel myself to do that, when I next got a chance. It might not be tonight, though.

There were a bunch of people gathered in the alley, and… huh.

Someone flying in the sky. A cape? I slowed down. I was in a pretty bad part of town. How bad? I'd passed two payday loan places in the last block. There was a liquor store just down the corner, its bright red neon sign declaring it was open '24/7' and advertising a sale of some kind.

The street stank of cigarette butts and body odor, and I could smell something else I couldn't quite place. The people in the alley were moving all around, going towards what looked like a box, and then back.

And then nearby, there was a pair of people moving. The one on foot was following the flying one I'd noticed earlier, and the only thing that made sense was that it was some kind of patrol. I couldn't quite tell who, but my bugs tried to keep on them. One of my flies buzzed off of the cape on the ground, only to suddenly disappear.

What? I blinked, moving forward as the two groups grew closer, though from the pattern it seemed as if they'd merely pass by, one of them all crowded in a dingy, dark alley, the other looking for trouble.

I hurried forward to try to meet both of them, in case this turned into a fight, and rounded the corner to see who it was. The one flying I recognized for sure. I'd looked up all of the Wards, again and again, not sure if I should try to join them or not. But I'd seen what a system could do, and I'd known what kids could do to other kids. I didn't trust the squeaky-clean online bios that made each and every one of them look like angels sent to earth to help people.

Kid Win was someone hard to miss. His armor was red and gold, and looked a little non-functional, like plates on a bodysuit more than chainmail or plate mail or anything like that, or even anything out of a video game. It looked like the kind of thing a starter player in some science-fiction MMO would wear until they got power armor, but I knew that it was the real deal. So was the visor he had on, which rumor said online was potent tinker-tech.

Of course, rumor online said that everything was potent tinker-tech. It was just like Thinker powers, something where everyone and their grandma could make up whatever they wanted.

He was pale, and riding on a hoverboard, which looked like someone had added glowing red jet bottoms to a regular skateboard, and he had a pair of laser pistols, one in each hand. You could tell they weren't guns by the silver and gold coloration of them, and they reminded me, briefly, of toy guns.

Down below him was Clockblocker, a member of the Wards whose power was to freeze people in time. Like that insect he'd touched, actually. I couldn't see his face to know if he was hostile or friendly, because he wore white armor, complete with plates, and a blank face-mask that looked rather unnerving. The armor was segmented and looked more realistic than Kid Win's, but the clocks that were drawn on at places made it look off, as did the way the larger plates seemed to almost shine in the streetlights. He had both hands up and out, a little cautiously, as if he felt like something was up.

I was nervous, but I stepped towards them, and they saw me and moved forward.

Right into the path of the crowd of people in the alley. Who saw them.

"Hey! Fuck-faces!" a deep male voice yelled, "Fucking wonder kids! I got magic too!"

Kid Win had to dodge out of the way of a thrown bottle, juking right. That didn't seem like a parahuman power at all (or magic for that matter).

Then I heard a bellow, and a huge, pasty-skinned man leapt out of the alley. He had an overabundance of muscle and fat, a thick beard, and he was dressed in rags. The man's eyes, though, were wide and dull, and yet were glowing faintly, unnaturally, red.

A swarm of bugs tore out of the alley to intercept him, and he turned, temporarily distracted, to swipe at the bugs, who died in agony when his fingers brushed up against them.

Which… shouldn't have happened. More bugs slipped past his guard and started stinging him. He didn't even seem to notice as he bellowed and turned back towards Clockblocker and Kid Win.

Meanwhile, the rest of the people in the alley were spilling out behind him, their own eyes glowing different colors, and this was… shit. Red, blue, yellow, green, and then one person in the back whose eyes were glowing white. All in all, there were sixteen people in that one little alley, all cramped together, all glowing oddly.

It looked like some sort of powers thing, but this many people couldn't have powers, could they? There were men and women both, all of them dressed raggedly, though a few looked like it was more along the lines of drug dealer wear than homeless bum wear. All of that combined made me think of the Merchants at once. I started throwing swarms of bugs, drawn from everywhere, right at them.

A few ignored it, especially those with red eyes, but most of them screamed and twisted, moaning and making strange sounds as my bugs threw themselves in suicidal charges at their mouths, in stings towards their eyes that I knew would do some real damage.

The leading man was knocked aside just before he went at Clockblocker by a bright bolt of energy, and yet he stood up a moment later, seemingly completely unharmed.

One of the ones with glowing blue eyes spat out what looked like blackish mist, looking surprised, and other colors seemed to be moving odd, or…

The colors represented powers, perhaps?

I just kept on stinging them, having spiders crawl up their body and bite, and even some of the red-eyed ones began to go down, bellowing. It was sort of a domino effect. Each one that went down seemed to lead to another distraction, another person who didn't know what to do and was afraid enough that some of them were already turning and running, or trying to use super powers that they clearly didn't understand.

I watched someone's arm (red eyes) swell up into something grotesque and ending in claws, only for them to go down screaming. I watched someone summon what looked like a glowing green knife (white), only to start choking on a fly. I watched again and again as this or that power fizzled out in the face of no time to practice or understand them.

In the meantime, while I was halfway distracted taking out most of the others, the leading man had charged at Clockblocker, who just stood there as he got closer and closer. And then Clockblocker dodged to the side, faster than expected, and tagged the man.

And just like that, the few of them still standing were running, and the fight was over. I was surprised how quickly the violence broke out, and I was just as surprised at how quickly it had ended.

"What was that?" I asked, muttering to myself.

"More importantly," Kid Win said, "who are you? What are you doing here?"

"I'm a new hero, I'm patrolling around here, and I saw them ahead of time. Part of my power, really, controlling bugs."

"Right," Clockblocker said, "but what can we call you? Bug Controlling Girl? We'll have to fill out a bunch of reports, and having a name, well. It'll stop my writing hand from cramping." He waved his right hand back and forth.

It'd have come off as playful without the costume. As it was, it just came off as weird. I took a breath, and thought about all of the other names I'd thought about. I wasn't going to find a name I really, really liked, so I might as well go with something at least a little classical.

"You can call me Arachne."

*******

A/N: Thanks to @NemoMarx, and @Great Greedy Guts, my fight-scene choreographer/advisor/etc.

 

[The Laurent]

Ruff 1.6

The mystery of just what was going on with all of those people who had suddenly gotten powers, briefly, was going to remain just that, a mystery. Because on that dark night, I wasn't a member of the Wards, which meant that when the PRT vans showed up, and spilled out with troopers, I wasn't going to be one of the people in the loop.

The perils of being an independent hero, really.

I should have been offended or annoyed, but I was really just glad that I'd survived and that nothing had gone wrong, and that now they'd know my name, and that I was a hero. Or at least, that I claimed to be one, and I was going to prove that my claims were right. I was going to make sure to patrol even more from now on, I resolved when I slipped back home and went to take a shower.

I didn't know whether things were looking up or not, but it did feel as if I were at least going somewhere, for better or worse. I needed to figure out new ways to use my powers if I was going to keep it up, but I'd at least made it easier for the two Wards to catch as many of them as possible, and that was something, even if they'd never been in that much danger.

That night, staring up at the ceiling, I began to feel as if I just needed a plan and things would start to all come together.

*******

Routine could be good or it could be bad. The routine of having to go to school every day, knowing that the Trio might have something planned? That made my stomach wrap itself into horrible, painful knots. It had led to a few sick days, actually, and I hated how I sometimes knew when a trap was coming, but couldn't stop it.

I had known Emma better than any other human being I'd ever known, or I thought I had, and that's part of what made it so painful. The gaps in my knowledge through which she'd driven a knife, and the fact that I knew her well enough to see the glee in her eyes, to see the way her stance shifted right before she made some comment that she'd thought about for way too long.

She practiced what she said in the mirror, whether it was a good thing or not, and I'd been there watching her practice for some sort of speech in a school play, and I'd seen that same cock of her hips, that same shifting of her weight, as if it was her job to ram it all into reality, to say it was best she could.

Whether it was a cute speech in a silly play when we were each eleven, or a barbed insult driven with Ahab-like fury straight into me.

I'd tried to build up resistance, had tried to be able to ignore it or not care about it, but I'd failed entirely. I'd retreated within myself, and it hadn't even solved anything. I knew that, but knowing wasn't the same as knowing how to fix it.

And that routine? It just kept on going on. But it seemed almost bearable now, with another pair of routines in its place.

I visited Rachel on Sunday, and then every evening for the rest of the week. She was quiet, and we mostly just hung out, or read. It was clear that she wasn't going to tell all about her trigger and neither was I, but there was still something worthwhile about just hanging out. I shared a few of my games with her, and tried not to laugh at the adorable look of concentration on her face when she tried to play them.

It was a look that seemed so intent on that one thing that I could imagine her trying the same game again and again and again until she succeeded or the battery ran down. She was stubborn, that much was obvious as I tried one game after the other.

She liked a few of them, mostly the ones that didn't involve reading, because while she wasn't illiterate, I could tell, now that I was watching, that her reading speed was rather slow for any sort of RPG filled with context based words. How was she supposed to know what Aereos did, or understand what the Ascension Project even meant? I mean, in the case of the game I was thinking about, the creators clearly had no idea what they were talking about, so why should she?

But she had decent reflexes, and she was no worse at pattern memorization than anyone else, really.

"Damn it," she muttered, sitting on the ground surrounded by dogs, as she took out a game and handed it to me. The first time she'd completely failed, she'd gotten so angry she'd almost thrown it, but she quickly learned that I didn't like that.

It was a Wednesday, and I should have been reading more "The Call Of The Wild" but she'd decided she wanted to play a video game. And so that was that. "Well, let me try," I said, trying not to smile.

"Sure," Rachel said, but despite the gruffness of her voice, she leaned over my shoulder, close to me, as she watched me play. And it felt like having someone there who actually cared about what I was doing changed everything.

Made it harder to win, but easier to have fun.

Sometimes Rachel made it hard not to smile.

*********

The days passed quickly, really, when I was trying with all my might to just press on through to the other side. On the other side of a day at school was an hour or two with Rachel, and then after that, a night out patrolling.

So when Sophia accidentally bumped into me at lunch, spilling some of my mashed potatoes all over my top, I just smiled at her and went to the far bathroom to get it washed off, not trusting the nearby one to not be the scene of another bullying attempt.

A part of me wanted to confront them, to get right up to them and growl and scare them away, but I didn't think that'd work, and I was afraid to try. Afraid of things getting worse. It was easier to just continue on in silence, knowing that school would be done with before that long.

And so the days ground on, and I kept up with my homework, but no more than that. I didn't have time for the attempts to get ahead of the curve in order to get grades that would let me transfer schools (one of my ideas that hadn't panned out), and I didn't put in more effort than I needed to.

The only educational thing I really focused on was looking up more books about dogs, and trying to figure out whether I actually knew how to teach someone to be more literate. I knew there were programs for that kind of thing, but I also knew what would happen if I suggested them to her. And that wasn't counting the practical fact that as a known villain without a secret identity, she couldn't exactly apply to a class.

But perhaps the same food that she would have rejected from a foreign hand, she'd accept if I was holding it out? If I knew the right way to help her understand how to read and spell a little better. It wasn't a big thing, and I knew that it wouldn't change her life or anything, but maybe she'd wanted to read more books about dogs. Maybe she'd find a series she'd like and that'd be another thing for her to do, to stave off boredom some rainy day.

Some rainy day? I started to worry about things like that. What if it rained? I mean, then she'd be wet and cold unless she hid in the backroom and there'd be a lot of wet dog smell to follow her around. Or what if someone attacked her while I wasn't there? It was the same worry that had driven the little fight, but now it had seemed to infect me.

But I tried to ignore it, tried to focus on the good feelings that all of this had engendered, and on my patrols, on the work I was doing to try to be a hero.

Because I picked up the pace there, too.

********

Every night I could, which was every single night, I went out that week. I tried to patrol as much ground as possible, even though that meant I didn't get a chance to fight, because I was gathering bugs. I was finding bugs that were liable to stay in the area if I put them in the right place near my home, and yet would be useful.

Not all bugs were created equal. The average beetle, as cool as it was, wasn't really doing much for me. I needed poisonous spiders, flying insects to make their way into people's mouths or fly in their eyes, or just to 'bug' then so I could keep track of them, and stinging insects. Masses of insects were useful, and I could probably eventually use them to throw people off, but it was still important to get more bugs.

And then, once I got them, find a way to keep them. I wish I had money, because if I did, I could create boxes for the bugs, or habitats. As it was, I just felt the expanding range of options and used them a few times.

Most drug dealers weren't Merchants, which was to say that when they saw a cape that they didn't know, they either surrendered or ran. They weren't there for a fight to the death, or to murder a teenage girl only to learn she was a valued Ward or something like that. At least, that's my assumption. The Merchants postured more, and a few tried to attack me, only to go down in a swarm of bugs and give up after some inventive lessons in english invective. Even they mostly just scattered.

It wasn't very useful, but it felt useful, and that meant something. I wasn't sure if I was ready for another fight, not really, and when I thought about it too much, it felt like the months of planning and delay I'd fallen into. It felt like I was afraid, and I hated that feeling.

I wanted to talk to Rachel about it, but I wasn't sure what I could say, and I wasn't sure what she would say. I could guess, though, and I doubted it'd be helpful.

At the same time, it was an odd sort of fear, because I'd felt fearless during the fight with the Merchants. It'd been so fast, and so brutal and yet decisive, that I hadn't had time to worry, I'd just acted and it had worked out.

Maybe I should do that more often? Or at least, try not to think about things, and just push all of my focus into my bugs and what they were doing.

I wasn't sure, and that wasn't a good thing.

And I felt the same uncertainty with Rachel, though I wasn't sure why. Dad at least wasn't asking anymore, but I could feel that he suspected something, that he was just biding his time and not trying to push too hard. There was only so much I could say without making my worried, and all of my experience with not telling Dad the truth hadn't actually taught me how to lie to him.

But the situation, such as it was, was stable. Online, there were rumors about something big coming, and Lung's cronies were still spouting insults and threats at the Undersiders, but when things changed, it was pure luck.

Friday night I'd decided to patrol a little more south. I was still suspicious about all of those Merchants who had suddenly and briefly had powers. It felt like it could be something new, and so I made my way down there.

Several times I had to shift out of the way, there seemed to be a lot of traffic jams, and so I wasn't actually entirely sure what was going on at first. I didn't want to get to close to the cars in the jam, in case it was an ambush. Squealer was known as a tinker who did her super-tech on vehicles, so it was plausible, if I was being paranoid.

I kept on going through one alley and another, my bugs clearing the way ahead of me, until I felt someone on the roof above me.

Two people, in fact, moving across the roof. I looked up above me, carefully, and saw that there was not much of a gap between one building and the next, and as I was looking up, two figures leapt across.

One was so recognizable that I immediately realized what was going on, or at least who was going on.

Pale skin, the kind of pale that didn't occur in nature. Alabaster. And the other one? I looked closely, and I was guessing it was Victor, though they were quickly out of sight, if not the range of my bugs.

Then I managed to hear something, as my bugs continued going to the limit of my range, which had started to expand during the week, though I wasn't sure why. Mush barreled through an alley on the other side of the road, and I stepped forward, still keeping to the shadows and watching.

He was grappling with a tall woman in weird armor. It had wings on it, and it was steel and grey, with a closed helm, but it also had boob plate and yet the sword she had and the shield seemed entirely and completely real.

Mush was one of the Merchants, a disgusting cape whose power was to gather garbage and debris to himself to become a strong golem with a squishy human at the center. Or something like that. In the right area, like here, he could be really impressive.

Dark and barely human shaped, he pounded at what was either Fenja or Menja. They were twins, who could each grow in size and strength, and yet Mush was matching her blow for blow, though I saw, behind her, a muscular, shirtless man I knew to be Hookwolf step up.

Ready to attack at the first sign of weakness. I spread the bugs out, and, farther from that, I could see with my bugs, in an alleyway off and behind Hookwolf, a dozen or so figures all clustered together.

I drew out my bugs as far as I could go, and began to notice clusters. From the way they were moving, fights.

The E88 was pushing into the Merchant's territory, and the Merchants were pushing back. But then, why were Victor and Alabaster on the roof, unless there was someone nearby?

Bugs crawled into houses through windows and doors, searching apartments as fast as they could, my mind spread out in a dozen different directions at the same time. I was barely paying attention to my body, marking everyone with flies while trying to figure out what to do.

Victor, why would he be up there? He was a good shot, could it be an attempt to just straight up murder someone? But if so, who?

In the basement of an apartment building to the right, a crumbling brownstone, there was at least a dozen people, each of them standing stock still, and one person pacing in front of them. I didn't know what that was, and I knew I needed to find out.

This was something big, that was for sure, and I was glad nobody had noticed me. It was a warzone out here, and I was tagging as many people with bugs as I could, but I was honestly running low on flies, just spreading them all out, especially since people kept on moving.

Flies had incredible senses when you thought about it. Think of how hard it was to actually squish a fly. You reached down, and the fly saw it immediately, felt it in a dozen ways, and was already moving. So flies were actually pretty good for sensing movement, and I focused, moving them up and round each of the figures, trying to find details.

For instance, two of the figures besides the ones I'd seen in the fight involving Mush, seemed to be wearing armor of some sort, though I couldn't make out more. It was more a guess that it was armor in the first place, and my supposition was that this was Fenja/Menja and… maybe Kaiser, the leader of the E88? He was said to create his own armor during each fight using his metal-controlling powers.

The other of the twins seemed to be fighting a figure who was making a lot of sounds, and a bunch of other people who weren't. The movements on Fenja/Menja seemed like she was slipping and sliding around, which meant… the other figure was Skidmark?

I focused, though, on the other impressions, such as sound. I was pretty sure that it'd be hard, if not impossible, for bugs to pick up speech. Or at least, it seemed absurd. But they could notice vibrations in the air and interpret them. That meant, in theory, I could tell if someone was talking.

And down below, in the basement, the pacing figure was definitely talking. From the strange impression of force, I felt like they were perhaps yelling.

So, add it all together, and what did you get? Some sort of huge fight between two gangs, and here I was in the middle of it. I gathered as many insects as I could, having them cling, fly, or climb up to where Victor and Alabaster were in general, assuming they hadn't moved too much. I'd need to hit them hard and fast if I was going to stop whatever their plan was.

And then, at the edge of my range, I saw it. Figures moving across the rooftop on the same side as Mush and most of the rest of the fighting. And I also sensed movement coming along the street to my right, approaching closer to where Victor and Alabaster were set up.

I was almost out of bugs, this was too much to monitor. But at the same time, there was this odd, detached feeling to be able to see an entire battle going on. It felt like I was just a spectator, as if this were a game, rather than people living and dying. I didn't know if I liked it or not, but I knew that I had to act. I still couldn't figure out a lot of details.

Insects had an interesting sense of smell, too, but it wasn't tuned to tell humans apart, obviously, it had more important uses, the same with a lot of their senses. Plus everything was on a smaller scale, when you thought about it.

I felt like I recognized the dogs, at least, that were moving along the rooftops. It was this vague sense of visual impression, of a muzzle here, a spot of fur there, all of it confusing and hard to interpret. It made my head ache, but if the Undersiders were here, then what?

Were they going to ambush both parties?

I tensed, trying to figure out my next move, taking way too long to do so, and that was when the choice was taken from me.

There was a scream of rubber, and then Squealer came into view, riding on what looked like a pink, purple and yellow monster car, with a machine-gun strapped to the front. There was no glass on the windows, and it stood higher than I expected, elevating the grubby white girl, covered in grease and filth, far above everyone else.

One hand was on the steering wheel, the other on the gun as she aimed it straight at Menja or Fenja. Of course, being elevated like that meant she was also a target. And unlike the valkyrie, Squealer wasn't invincible. Victor was going to murder her.

My bugs pounced, stingers stabbing into Victor's skin. He screamed, as I began to try to bring up spiders, which were a lot harder to get up there, though I'd had them crawl through the building to the roof access.

I could feel Alabaster moving to help his comrade, as Squealer screamed out insults and fired on the valkyrie, who roared in pain and fury. As the giant turned to try to confront the Merchants more fully, she was slammed into a wall by Mush, who seemed only larger and more grotesque.

Hookwolf moved in to stop him, and I made sure to cover Victor in bugs and sting as hard as I could at Alabaster. Bugs flew right into his eye, tearing it out, because Alabaster reset every so many seconds. Short of killing him, nothing I did would actually hurt him for good.

I expected screaming when the black widows bit and the hornets blinded him, but instead he was quiet, almost deadly quiet, backing up and waving his hands, grunting almost too softly for me to hear.

Victor more than made up for it, as Mush was driven back by Fenja and Hookwolf combined.

Hookwolf was in his wolf form, a horrific beast to say the least. I was lucky that nobody had seen me yet, since I was pretty sure it'd take mere moments for Hookwolf's spinning barrage of metal to get through my spider silk armor.

So I hung back, wondering when and if anyone would notice me.

Someone was entering the room where the one… man, I think, and the dozen other people were. They reached a hand out and squashed the bug I had on them. But I had bugs on everyone else, so I could tell that the speaker was… maybe female? It was hard to tell, but the voice seemed a little different to my bug's senses, though it was hard to draw even that out.

I needed to practice whatever this was, perhaps put bugs on everyone in school and see if I could multi-task? Or something.

The fight was continuing, and now that Squealer was driving back and forth and firing, it was a lot more even.

But then there was Rachel and her dogs, which were growing larger and larger, biting at the bugs I sent for them, and others on the roof.

Waiting. Waiting…

As Mush finally drove the twin back for a moment, darkness fell on the area, and then these… things leapt down from the roof. Rachel was riding one of them, and I had to assume that Grue and Regent were riding the other two.

If I hadn't known that they were dogs, I might not have guessed at all. They were huge beasts covered in spines and armored plates, their color all evened so I couldn't even quite tell them apart by the usual methods. Each of the dogs was hugely muscled and vicious looking, and I knew that inside each of them was the 'real' dog, beneath this huge mass of flesh. I'd never seen her go full out, and with the darkness hiding things, I couldn't make out much of what was going on, even with bugs.

I stepped forward, a part of my focus still on harassing Alabaster, and Victor, who wasn't moving at all. Down in the basement, the talking stopped. One figure left, the others began to follow her, and then she branched off, running up the building, seemingly trying for the roof.

I focused my swarm, preparing it to go after whoever that was, too, only for the darkness to clear.

My focus dropped the moment I saw what had happened.

The valkyrie was down, and small again, unconscious and being pulled up onto the back of one of the dogs by Regent, who was dressed like some parody version of an Italian merchant-prince, complete with a scepter or something.

But that's not what drew my attention and made all of my bugs begin to collapse on that location, not even bothering to monitor anything else.

Rachel was on fire, and rolling around on the ground to try to get rid of it even as Hookwolf shot more fire at her. Mush was moving to intercept Hookwolf, who must have been using Othala's powers, but what if she was hurt?!

What if she was--

"Arachne!" a voice called from up above. It was Tattletale, I thought, dimly, even as a swarm of bugs harmlessly threw themselves at Hookwolf, trying desperately to slow him down.

"Sting Alabaster! Bitch'll be fine! I'm trying to get him down and locked up!"

The remaining bugs on the roof swarmed at Alabaster, and he went down, still silent, but unable to really hurt them, not with just a few weapons.

There was a bang like someone slamming a huge dictionary down on a table, and then Alabaster's movements slowed. Another bang, and then I felt Tattletale approaching, even as I was striding forward, trying to draw Hookwolf's attention.

Rachel, her costume burnt through at places, had gotten back on one of her dogs. Now they were headed my way, retreating with their… hostage? Or something like that. The dogs must have been strong to take out the valkyrie so fast, and I was trying to figure out what to do when a body fell from up above.

Alabaster, an albino man, in handcuffs. He hit the ground, and there was a cracking sound as bones broke that would, no doubt, heal themselves as soon as he got another reset. There was no sign of the bullet wounds that he must have sustained, but had cycled through. It was just like going for the eyes when you know they have Othala.

There's no need to actually be nice, or to even hold back at all. As long as Alabaster was still alive at the end of his reset time, then it didn't matter either way.

"Get on the dog when it shows up!" Tattletale yelled, "we need to get out of here. You can capture the enemy capes, if you stay they'll--"

Then I felt her turn, my bugs tracking her as she moved right up to the edge of the building and began to work her way down at the side.

I wouldn't have leapt myself, but the moment when Grue's giant dog was above her, she dropped down. She landed clumsily getting a grip at the last moment, Victor coming down with her, unconscious.

She almost rolled off, and I saw that Rachel, burnt as she was, smelling of cooked flesh, was reaching a hand out to pull me up. And Regent? He was stopping to go and get Alabaster.

It was an ambush! Grab a few enemy capes, give them to their hero 'buddy' and then know that I'll help lock them up.

...but how did they know I'd be here? If I wasn't, what would they have done?

I took Rachel's arm anyways, and even burned, even with one arm, she lifted me up effortlessly, pulling me tight against her as Hookwolf ran after us, and Regent remounted just in time.

And then off we went.

********

My heart was still racing, I was still clinging to Rachel as we raced through the dark of the night, which wasn't very dark at all. Streetlights lit our way, and when I finally got the sense, I called the Protectorate. "Hello? I have… Alabaster, Fenja or Menja, and Victor. I've captured them."

"Yes? Who is this?"

"Arachne," I muttered, "I'm Arachne. Please send someone before the rest of the E88 catch up to me to try to rescue them."

Rachel turned, clearly in pain, once I'd finished the conversation, and we journeyed into the lee of a dark building, halfway across time.

I finally got a good look at Grue, who was dressed like the biker from literal hell, as he stepped off the dog and said, "Tattletale, we need to go."

"It's true," Tattletale said. "We have them knocked out or handcuffed, but we should stay close by for at least a little bit, until we're sure that the Protectorate is on the scene."

"Okay…" I said, "can someone tell me what the heck is going on here?"

"We decided to teach the E88 a little lesson," Regent said, waving his arm as if it were nothing, "and then you showed up."

"Rachel, are you okay?"

"Fine," Rachel spat out between grit teeth. "Just fine."

Tattletale got off of the dog, climbing down slowly, and walking over to me, as Bitch whistled and the dogs moved back. Grue was leaving too, trying to get far enough away not to be immediately attacked, but close enough to watch if someone tried anything. Alabaster was still in handcuffs, though it looked like he was trying to work on breaking his own wrists to get out. It hadn't worked yet.

And then we had two unconscious capes, one of them rather badly mauled, and another covered in insect bites.

"Hey, Arachne," Tattletale said, quietly, when she saw that everyone else was far away enough. "You should visit Rachel tonight. She's hurt, and she'll need someone to be there, but it can't be any of us."

"Why are you telling me this? I think you have some sort of scheme going on here," I admitted. "This feels like… something. Manipulation."

"It's not."

"How did you know I'd show up? Were you planning on taking on Hookwolf on your own, or just grabbing one cape?"

"Not quite. I'm not sure how much I can tell you, but we expected someone to show up and help, but weren't completely sure who it was. Now, I need to go before--"

And in the distance, there was the roar of Armsmaster's motorcycle.

********

He was a hero worth looking up to, and also a very, very curt man wielding a giant halberd. "Good work on capturing them," he said, somewhat perfunctorily, as Velocity, who had come with him, kept watch over the enemy capes. "How did you do it?"

"I interrupted a fight between the Merchants, the E88, and then later the Undersiders." What do I say? I took a breath, and decided on a short of truth, "We decided to work together, because they wanted to hurt the E88, and so they helped transport some of the capes I'd taken down here, and then left."

"And you trusted them?"

"I trusted that there was no way they could hold the villains," I said, trying to sound earnest, but I felt my palms sweating. I wanted to get out of here and help Rachel. She was hurt, I had to do something, even if it was just being there for her. "And it seems to have paid off."

"Is that the only reason you helped them?" he asked.

"Yes, of course," I said.

"Very well," Armsmaster said, with a curt, almost dismissive nod. There was something about his frown that seemed different. "Anything I should know about any of the prisoners?"

"A lot of spider bites, including black widows, on Victor. He's an adult, so it should be fine. Black widows are rarely fatal," I said. For whatever reason, Velocity started at that. But it was a pretty obvious fact, wasn't it? Despite their name, they weren't impossibly dangerous, though they were still useful enough. "Alabaster is fine with everything, as you'd think," I said, "and I think that Bitch--"

"Who?" Velocity asked.

"H-hellhound. She doesn't like being called that, though. I'm not sure why," I said with a shrug, as if it didn't matter, "That she had her dogs attack this person. Fenja or Menja, I'm not sure which one she is. But that should heal, over time. She's not bleeding anymore, at least."

I knew that wasn't exactly the best sounding defense ever, but what was I supposed to say? It was a cape fight, of course it was a little brutal.

"Understood," Armsmaster said. "We can take it from here."

And just like that, I was dismissed. In other circumstances I'd be fuming all the way home, annoyed at the way I had been brushed aside, and afraid of being suspected to be a villain or something because of being associated with the Undersiders.

Instead, I just relaxed as soon as I was out of sight and went to an alley to change back from Arachne to Taylor. I had a friend to visit.

*********

I'd never been to Rachel's place so late at night. It meant that there were very few lights, and when I went up to the door, only one or two dogs barked at first, though a few more joined in, roused from sleep, before Rachel finally opened the door, glaring out.

She didn't have a shirt on, and in one hand she was holding what looked like a burn salve.

I flushed, out of surprise more than anything, and said, "Rachel."

"What?" she asked, angry.

"I just wanted to check up on you," I said, my words tripping over themselves, "if now's not a great time then I could just…"

"Come in," Rachel said, after a moment.

She turned, and I followed her in, closing the door behind me. It was dark, and I could barely see her, but it was still. I don't know. It felt too private? She opened the door to the main area, and then walked over to a pallet, picking up what looked to be some sort of lamp.

It was like something you'd use out in the wilderness, with no chord. Probably battery powered? I supposed that was one thing to buy with your money, as she switched it on, revealing her torso.

She had a burn just beneath her breasts, which were covered by a blue sports bra, and then just right at her collarbone. She was sweating, clearly in pain, her flat stomach, which I could probably have bounced quarters off, sometimes retracting slightly in little spasms of pain as she tried to apply the salve to herself.

"I could…" I trailed off. Could I? I looked away.

"You could?" Rachel asked, speaking between grit teeth.

"If you need me to help apply it, or do anything, or hold your hand while you do it," I said, "I'm your girl."

"Okay," Rachel said, looking at me intently, the light casting strange shadows on her body, on her face. She looked different in the dark, in a way I couldn't quite place. My stomach was a ball of stress, and it seemed to be getting worse as she handed me the salve, opening it up.

I pushed on the tube, and getting one finger, I began to spread the salve over her collar-bone. "Shh, shh, it's okay. Don't hoot so much, you'll wake up the wolves," I muttered, remembering that my Mom had said that once, when I was really sick and she was trying to apply a salve for a rash that had broken out.

"Wolves?" she asked.

I didn't know what I was talking about, my finger trailing past the bra to rub underneath. I couldn't quite figure out why I wasn't breathing.

Then it was done, and she stopped wincing. "There, is that better?"

"Yes."

"I… if you want to talk, I'm here. I'll be in tomorrow," I said, standing up. I didn't know why, but I wanted to leave right now. I, something was…

"Wait."

I stopped, halfway towards the exit already, ready to retreat. I turned. "Yes, Rachel? I didn't mean to leave, but I can't really sleep over, Dad would flip…"

Rachel looked conflicted, which startled me. She seemed like someone who had very little self-doubt. She stood up, striding towards me, until she was face to face with me, looking up slightly because I was taller than her. She was staring at me as if memorizing every single feature of mine.

And then she spoke, casually, matter-of-fact even.

"Wanna fuck?"

What.

********

A/N: And thus ends Ruff Arc.

This was kinda the focal point/idea that led to this fic starting, the last exchange, in a way.

Thanks to @NemoMarx and @Great Greedy Guts .

 

[The Laurent]

Ruff 1-A

It didn't matter that Jeff couldn't hear the Eurobeats, because that didn't mean they weren't there. If Amanda kept on listening to that trash when she was supposed to be helping him do important analysis, he was going to throw a fit. Or file a complaint. Either way, it wasn't fair that he was stuck doing all of the real work, and whatever she said about how it helped get her in the 'zone' was all a bunch of nonsense.

He looked around the small, cramped room, and then back at his computer, where he was writing a report.

Two new capes that needed analyzing, and then updating of that analysis, and they were both overdue. They'd really dropped the ball so far, but the PRT Analysis Team would get it done before the weekend, that was for sure.

He wiped his brow, wishing they'd turned down the temperature a little. Would it kill them to use the A/C? Sure, it'd cut down on their shiny-shit budget, but--

He took a breath, trying to rein in the annoyance and the fury. He knew he was like this, he knew that sometimes he could just spiral out into criticism and anger that didn't really matter, that didn't help him with his job.

First cape: Arachne. She seemed straightforward at first, but Jeff had followed a hunch or two, and now the picture he was getting was very different than he first expected. She'd helped out with this Merchant attack, and in doing so she'd impressed Kid Win and Clockblocker (he hated that name with a passion, hated every time he was forced to write it in a report) at least a little bit, enough so that their analysis hadn't exactly been unbiased.

But there was the attack on the E88 earlier, wasn't there? With Hellhound, a member of a minor, petty criminal gang. That seemed like someone who was playing both sides of it, and that's what his report was going to say, and if she would just talk to him, what Amanda's was as well. You always made sure there were at least a few reports for every issue, even if capes tended to trust their own foolish 'gut instincts' over the professional analysis that guided the PRT.

PRT officers weren't going to have powers and arrogance to back them up, they needed to know what the situation really was. And it was bad. If she really was part of the Undersiders, then that meant that there were two new villains in town.

And while her power didn't seem that impressive at first glance, Amanda had at least emailed him a few notes on the kinds of things that bugs could do, and the report by Kid Win, despite being a little given to tangents, had basically summed up how useful her power had been.

Arachne wasn't a cape who could singlehandedly change the face of Brockton Bay, she wasn't going to be toppling Lung or becoming anything too dangerous, in Jeff's professional opinion, but that didn't matter. A single small weight at the right part.

He pushed himself up, standing to his full height of six feet. He was tall, and if he exercised more, he might have even been imposing, but as it stood, he knew that it wasn't his good looks that had put him so high up in the analysts pool.

Amanda was a short, brown-skinned woman who moved as if she had an itch, jittering one way and the next, her rolling chair moving with her as she typed.

He loomed over her until she tabbed to what looked like a video channel and muted the music. "Yes?"

"Have you finished your analysis of Arachne?" Jeff asked.

"Yes. Half an hour ago. I think that her working with the Undersiders is clearly pragmatism. She sees an opportunity, she takes it. She's an indie hero, you know the statistics with those."

"Ah, and maybe you would have been right an hour ago," Jeff said, "but we just got in more data."

The key was to always change the analysis with the data, rather than sticking to an outdated theory.

"What?"

"She worked with the Undersiders in some kind of fight. Three E88 capes captured, and she apparently claims it was just as you said. Just pure pragmatism. But when he asked: 'Is that the only reason you helped him?' that new Tinker-tech of his registered her answer of yes as a lie," Jeff said. "Or at least, a likely deception. What does that say to you?"

"I'm… not sure. Are you saying she's an Undersider?"

"I'm saying that you shouldn't discount that in our analysis, and that if you don't want to look second-rate, you should pay attention to these sorts of things. Agreement is important when we have to push something through, and we need the PRT to understand that she might be hostile."

"Are you sure?" Amanda asked.

"Of course not. We work in probability, but that's what I'm going to put in my report."

"What if she's had positive interactions with them? Reports from the gang members are that during the dog-fighting they worked together well. Which could be a hint of collusion, but it could have led to positive feelings. And collusion itself isn't enough to get her labeled a villain. Not if she's acting outside the law."

"Ah, you're right," Jeff said, wiping his forehead. "But I still think that you're missing the forest for the trees. We need to make sure that it's clear what we want to do."

"And what do we want to do?" Amanda asked.

"Force her to make a choice. Confront her with her links to the Undersiders. I've looked it up, and they have murderers in their midst. Force her to choose between the Protectorate and the Undersiders, or rather the Wards and the Undersiders, and that'd be a feather in Piggot's cap, and you know that she's reasonable to those who help her."

Amanda sighed, whirling around in her chair to look at him more closely. "Yes, but she also wants accurate analysis. Yes, this hardball sort of thing is the Director's specialty, and it's how she got Shadow Stalker--"

Jeff's latest triumph, actually. He'd been the one to suggest confronting her with Miss Militia, that it'd give a chance to see just what she did. And it'd paid off, more or less. His analysis had even been correct that the two of them would share enough that it wouldn't come down to a fight.

"It is. And it's how she'll get Arachne. You yourself said it, her power can be very useful. Imagine if she could track entire gang movements? We can't attack a cape's identity, but if we find out where their men are hanging out…"

"Ah, that makes sense," Amanda said, relaxing a little bit. "I'll make sure to note that in my report. What about the Chemical Tinker?"

"We need to figure out their capabilities, and fast. If we don't, we're going to keep on getting surprise, we're going to keep on running into tricks. Being able to temporarily grant powers is dangerous, especially if they actually knew how to use the powers. We have only one sample, thanks to Cl… the Ward's ability to freeze someone in time, the rest of them had no signs that they'd taken a drug at all.

"Clockblocker?" Amanda said, with a faint smile at Jeff's wince.

"Yes, exactly. Him. The Merchants are now more dangerous than ever, and I think that we should back off the E88, especially if the Undersiders and their newest member are focusing so hard on them."

Amanda was frowning now, though he couldn't quite tell why.

"After all, the E88 is too big to get any quick, easy victories out of. Once we have the Merchants out of the way, the E88 will go too far, do a few too many hate crimes, and they'll be ripe for the picking." Jeff smiled, proud of his idea. This could be a real victory for the PRT, and a feather in his cap as well.

"Is that so wise? If we don't know what the tinker does. You know that Director Piggot likes to keep the pressure up on E88."

"Yes… yes, that is a problem, but I'm sure that we can figure something out, together, to convince her."

"Yes… I suppose we can," Amanda said, and she seemed to be acting a little odd. Distant, in a way he couldn't quite put his finger on.

"Well, I'm going to get back to work. You know what to write, I'm sure, and if you need any help with analyzing the reports, feel free to shoot me an email and I can point to the really important parts that decisively prove what I'm talking about."

"Of course," Amanda said, nodding.

********

Summary of Suggested Course of Action (Jeffery Wiles): "By applying strong and decisive pressure regarding the actions of the Undersiders, Arachne can be recruited as a useful asset. Once the Merchants are out of the way, she can be used to bring the E88's own numbers against them, in a plan outlined above. If Arachne does resist, then it is certain that she's a member of the Undersiders under a classic independent hero guise, and should be treated as such.

The new chemical Tinker is highly troubling, and more study is needed as soon as possible, and should be the primary priority of the PRT forces for the moment."

Summary of Suggested Course of Action (Amanda Wallen): "Keep in positive contact with Arachne, but make sure she understands that alliance with the Undersiders has its downsides. Do release information involving Undersiders re: murder at time most convenient, and continue focusing on the Empire Eighty Eight for the moment, while trying to watch for signs of the Merchant's plans.

Based on an analysis of Skidmark's psychology, he's going to want to push out with his stronger forces, boss. He'll make a mistake sooner, rather than later, and we can catch him out without putting extra effort into it."

********

A/N: Short, but it doesn't need to be long to give the main point, which is that the PRT analysts are thinking/disagreeing on her and her actions, as well as setting up alternate strategies on how to move forward from here.

 

[The Laurent]

Bark 2.1

The thought became a word: "What?"

"I've seen you looking," Rachel said, as if this was just a thing people did, "and I know you want to do something."

I blinked, trying to work my way through that logic. So she apparently saw that I was attracted--and boy was that news to me!--and so she offered to have sex? Instead of anything else, up to and including a date?

Actually, maybe that part made sense, I thought, looking away from her. My face was so red and hot that I could imagine steam coming out of my ears. If I'd felt awkward and uncertain before, it was only worse now. But Rachel did seem like a blunt kind of person, I just hadn't ever imagined it'd extend to something like this, because I was silly.

"I… do?"

"I saw it," Rachel said firmly. "And I'm attracted to you. So do you want to have sex?" She explained it slowly, patiently. As if I just had to see the logic and then there you go.

"Whoa, whoa. Uh, you're hurt. And I'm not attracted to you! I mean, not that… I mean."

I wasn't going to win, was I? And Rachel wasn't buying it, though I was surprised that she wasn't blowing up or getting angry at the fact that I was rejecting her and trying to let her down easy. Except I was stumbling over everything I was saying, and then I'd think back and a part of me would wonder if I was missing something.

"Not that?" Rachel asked, in no mood to help me dig out of the hole I was so diligently digging all the way to China to join the Yangban.

"I mean, there's something about you that, I'm sure you could find someone. I didn't know you were attracted to girls, in the first place."

"Yup. Gay or whatever," she said, as if the label didn't really mean anything. "So, something about me?" She wasn't smiling, but she felt amused to me, in a way I couldn't quite place. She was gazing intently at me, not blinking, just watching my movements.

Wait, did she say she was attracted to me?! Why? How? That didn't seem right, really. "I mean, there's something striking about your features and I'm sure you can, I mean."

What, do better than me? Was I really going to insult myself? But at the same time, yes. She wasn't attractive, in a traditional sense, but she did look interesting, which sounded like an insult, but wasn't. Not really.

"Do better than you?" Rachel asked, finally helping out, though her voice was something of a bark. I could feel the frustration behind it, and I realized, did she think I was making excuses?

"Probably, yeah. I mean, I'm not much to look at. Beanpole Taylor, and--wait, why are we even talking about this. I'm not…"

I searched desperately for a way out, my heart racing, feeling like I was being backed in a corner. "I'm not attracted to you, I swear, and that's not meant as an insult to you. Besides, you just got your skin burned, surely you'd want to heal it anyways before you did something like that."

"True," Rachel said, glancing over at the dogs, who had perked up at the argument, and now Milk, Brutus, and Stumpy were all coming in to check out what the fighting was about. "Think about it."

Think about it? I stared at her, mouth so open I could have choked myself to death with flies, and at the moment that didn't seem like the worst possible option to get out of here. "I… will?" I promised, not sure what to say, terrified that this friendship would founder on some sort of mis-applied assumption about what was going on here. Yes, I could be attracted to girls, but that didn't mean I was attracted to her. I just liked her company a lot, and liked hanging out with her. She was an impressive person, in some ways, even if she was also damaged.

She was strong, she was decisive, she cared a lot more than she let on, at least about certain things.

"Good," she said, still standing there without a shirt, which was making it hard for me to talk to her.

I turned, pausing just long enough to rub Milk's head and show my other hand to Stumpy so he could get the message that I didn't actually have any food for him. No late night scooby snacks for him, I thought, with nervous comedy.

"Uh, have a good night, Rachel. I'm glad that you didn't get hurt worse than that, but you should be careful not to overexert yourself. I can do the heavy lifting tomorrow."

"Sure," she said, as if nothing had happened. I knew that this had to be some sort of… what? Trick? But Rachel was the last person to play tricks. She was straightforward, at least as far as I'd seen. If she disliked you, she'd shun you, give you shit jobs, or she'd just punch you if neither of those worked. Maybe she just wanted it out there? Get it off her chest.

I fled.

That was the word for it. I fled with my tail between my legs, and when I snuck back into my room, I just threw myself down on my bed for a minute.

And then two minutes, and yet I couldn't sleep.

I stood up, going over to the mirror and looking at myself for a long moment, trying to find something, anything, that was attracting her. My hair? Maybe she liked tall people who looked like they were part giraffe? I didn't actually know, and that just frustrated me more. It made me want to look at myself and see something that'd just… I dunno. Make it all make sense. But the more I stared in the mirror, the more I began to think and wonder.

When I finally got to sleep, I must have had some kind of dream, because I woke up more stressed and out of it than I'd gone to sleep. I also woke up a little later than usual. I rolled out of bed and then stared in the mirror again. Just exactly the same, only with messy hair.

Had it really happened? I'd helped capture several villains, and I'd worked with the Undersiders. And I'd been propositioned by someone who probably qualified as my best friend even though I'd only known her for two weeks.

"God, that Taylor. She's a creepo. She was always hitting on me, even when I asked her to stop."

I shuddered, angry and frustrated and defensive, and more than that, Dad was going to be up by the time I got down. Would she think I was skipping out on her?

I got dressed as best I could, deciding to skip the run again, and then I headed downstairs. Dad was cooking, and he looked surprised when he saw me, peering at me through his glasses as if across from a far longer room than this.

"Oh, Taylor, I expected you'd be gone," he said.

"No. I wound up staying up late, doing some reading," I said. "That sort of thing."

"You could have come down, watched some television with me," Dad said, frowning a little bit.

"I should have, but sorry. Just catching up on a few things. And thinking about stuff. I'm not sure how long I can stay for breakfast, but… are those pancakes? You know, uh."

Shit. Her arm. I didn't want to be the kind of friend who forgot all of her loyalty over the lure of pancakes. "Can you get me some to go?"

"Going to give any to this friend of yours?" Dad asked, too carefully for comfort. He clearly suspected something, but he kept on holding back on pushing.

"Sure. It's just…"

That she burned herself fighting a fellow supervillain and then hit on me and so now I both need to help her out with the dogs and make sure she doesn't think I'm going to abandon her just because she's gay.

"But tomorrow, I swear. I'll tell her I can't get in until later and that she'll have to handle the dog feeding on her own," I said. "Then we can have a breakfast together." It was a compromise, and more of one than he'd expected me to make.

I pulled out my phone as he began to 'box' up the food. In this case it meant finding a bunch of paper plates and trapping the pancakes between them, then taping the lid. We used a plastic grocery bag to carry them all in, and I called Rachel.

"Hello?" she asked.

"Hey, sorry I'm late. Woke up later than usual, should be around."

"Oh, good," she said, sounding rather tired herself. I wondered if she'd been worried or not. "Anything else?"

"No."

"Kay."

She hung up.

"So… that was Rachel?"

"Yes. I mean, I could put you on the line sometime if you really wanted. We just talk about pretty normal things, really." I shrugged, trying to appear as casual as I could.

"Normal things?"

"Well, we take care of her dogs," I said, "I've been letting her try some of my games, and I have this book I'm sharing with her." As I said it, I realized how little that seemed to be the basis of a friendship. But it was hard to quite put it into words, and even harder now that there was the… thing between both of us.

"Uh-huh. I'd like to meet her sometime," Dad said, "you could invite her over for dinner."

"Sure, why not?" I asked, the reasons just lining up the moment I said it. Starting with the fact that I wasn't sure how good of table manners she had, moving onto the fact that taking her to meet my Dad wasn't going to convince her that I wasn't interested, and ending in the fact that it'd be a total disaster in general.

"Very well. Ask her about it, of course," Dad said, firmly. He was trying to box me in, or at least trying to make me show Rachel off.

"Of course," I said. "So, I'll see you a little later, Dad." I gave him a nervous smile and departed with the food.

The walk through the city was a little different, now. I kept my bugs up, trying to split my focus as many ways as possible, just to see if I could. And then I tried to focus on telling whether people were talking, and if so who was saying what. It was really hard, and liable to give me a headache, and more than that, it was tough to do that while also walking.

But I kept up the practice, because when I was doing this, it felt calming in a way I couldn't describe. My focus was so broken up that I couldn't find the emotional closeness to panic. Everything felt distant, or at least, that's what I thought it might be. People were laughing and swatting at the flies, a woman was jogging, almost running, passing me by after I spent a block following her movements with my bugs. She hadn't even noticed me.

Soon enough, I was close to Rachel's home. I thought of it as Rachel's home, but another thing I was starting to wonder was how she'd gotten it? Somehow, the Undersiders had seemed to know a lot more than they should have, and that was definitely suspicious. They'd known where the ambush was going to be, and one of them had talked to someone and convinced them to flee.

All of that added up to something rotten in Denmark, I just didn't know what. Not yet. This speculation only briefly got my mind off of the larger Rachel problem, and when I knocked on the door and the dogs started barking, I kept on wondering what would happen.

She opened the door, dressed in a T-shirt and jeans. "Hey. Come in. I'm going to be putting the dogs through the paces, training them for my powers. They gotta know how to listen. Can you help?"

She tilted her head, her thin lips pursing a little. Her nose looked twice-broken, but even despite that, I still found myself thinking of what she'd asked. I flushed, not sure why I was so embarrassed.

"Of course I can, Rachel," I said, and then I followed her. When the door opened, we were both greeted by the dogs, enthusiastically. She talked to them, she really did, though not in the way most people talked to dogs.

I rubbed their ears and knelt down and said their names and talked a little cutesy, but Rachel talked to them in a more firm tone, but there was a warmth there that made it feel the same. I knew they had to notice it, or why would they react so strongly to her? Another thing I'd need to ask her about, sometime.

I watched the girl who had asked if I wanted to have sex with her scratch the dogs' ears and rub their bellies, getting right down on the ground and interacting with them.

I watched her stand up, and it felt like a sort of 'Carthage must be destroyed' of thoughts.

"Hey, this way," she said. She had asked me to have sex.

"Ah, alright, so you're going to get into training?"

"Already started," Rachel said.

Which surprised me. I'd heard her giving orders, but I'd thought that this was just… stuff.

She was stretching a little, looking at the dogs as they clustered around. I moved in next to her, close enough that I could almost feel the warmth coming off her skin. She had asked me to have sex with her.

It just kept on echoing in my mind, and it made everything awkward and everything oddly charged. The way she moved her arm, the way her broad, strong shoulders looked in the T-shirt, the look on her face when she turned to me. I wasn't attracted to her, I didn't think. Was I? It was just weird and making me think about it, that's all!

"Gotta check now, make sure they obey all the orders. You wanna try? Need a firm voice."

"Me?" I asked, a little baffled, my face red. I knew now that her power didn't involve any control over the dogs at all, which meant that teaching me how to command them was probably a sign of trust. If they'd listen to me, that could mean conflicted loyalty.

Trust wasn't supposed to hurt like this, not even as a good pain, but there I was. I stood there, trying not to smile, despite the painful happiness, while she waited. I took a breath, and composed myself, "So, I order them to sit?"

"Them? No. Pick one. One by one. They each need to know it. MIght take a while, but just watch."

"Milk," Rachel said, and Milk trotted forward. "Sit." The dog sat down, looking up at Rachel hopefully. "No begging," Rachel said, firmly, though she sounded more amused than angry. Rachel stepped through the dogs carefully, going over to stand by the wall. "Come."

Milk trotted over, and the other dogs looked like they wanted to do it too. I moved towards them, holding out my hand for them to sniff.

She moved down to a crouch, and Milk began to snuffle around her, licking her hand. "Off," Rachel said.

Milk backed up, and Rachel grabbed a stick she'd placed on the ground and threw it out into the yard. Milk watched it, not moving yet.

"Fetch."

And then off she was, like this was a race.

With the stick presented, Rachel said, "Good girl. Sit."

The dog sat down, and Rachel pulled out a treat from her jeans.

"Do you teach them to attack?" I asked.

"Yes. I got given this dummy. It's in the back room," she said, gesturing over to the door as she kept on rewarding Milk.

"Oh, huh," I said, "right. That makes sense. I have a few questions, actually." I'd been wondering about her powers, but it hadn't really seemed polite to ask, but now was the time. "How many dogs can you empower at once? I've seen you put more or less into them, but what's the limit?"

"It hurts, the more I do it, the faster," Rachel said. "Sorta, powers vibrating outwards, into them." She frowned, "Prefer to do it slow, it's a fucking hassle to hurry it up." She sounded put out about that, as if her teammates had tried to make her do that more than once. And I had to admit, I understood where that stress would come from to get her to bulk them up as fast as possible, if it came down to a fight.

But by being able to plan an ambush, she'd had the time she needed.

"Is there anything you want to know about my powers?" I asked.

"Nah." Rachel frowned, and then asked, contrary to her previous statement. "How far?"

"I… don't know. Sometimes it's a block or two, or thereabout, and sometimes it's a lot more. It's trended downward, lately, but I'm working on it. I'm also working on trying to hear through the bugs, but it's really confusing." I rubbed my eyes. "But right now, I'm aware of everything that could be coming here.

Or at least, I have bugs I could spread out, have touch on anyone who gets too close to here.

"Do it." Rachel crossed her arms and explained, bluntly, "Practice."

"But does that really work? I was looking online, and people were saying all sorts of different things. That your power was your power, or that you could train it up--"

Rachel shook her head. "I think train?" She shrugged. "Lisa's always talking about shit she's practicing with her power."

"That makes sense," I said. "So, what do I need to do with the dogs?"

"Give them an order, and make sure they obey it," Rachel said, as if it were the simplest thing in the world. She wasn't acting like she had asked if I wanted to have sex last night. She seemed no different from usual, really.

"Okay, I can try that…"

*******

"Bullet. Sit," I said, trying to sound firm. I could try that, but that doesn't mean I could always succeed. Or succeed at all. It had been a frustrating time with each of the dogs. After watching Rachel go through all of them effortlessly, it had seemed a lot easier than it actually was.

Bullet looked at my wagging finger, and then up at me.

"Sit." This time my voice was a sigh.

"Firmer," Rachel said, crossing her arms. "You need to be firm with dogs."

"And with people?" I asked.

"Yes," she said, with a nod of approval that warmed me.

"Sit," I said, and I gestured with my finger, downwards.

And this time the dog sat. Well, alright then, I thought, looking at Bullet suspiciously, as if this were some sort of trick. All that work, and finally, there we go. I didn't smile at Bullet, but I sorta wanted to, because that was… one dog that'd obey one command. Only a half-dozen commands, consistently, for each dog to go.

"You know, this gives me a new appreciation for what you do," I said. "I mean, it seems difficult--"

"It's easy."

"For you," I pointed out, "most people don't do so well."

"I know. Fuckers beating their dogs, starving them, thinking that hitting them teaches them anything except to be afraid," Rachel said, with a vehemence that might have startled someone else.

I just nodded. It was easy to take her point of view when you'd been around her and the way she treated dogs. She was firm, but not violent, at least not with the dogs. She'd manhandle them if they were struggling to get out of a B A T H, but that was just normal stuff. She paid a lot more attention than I would have, and it seemed like she was a little more open now.

"I get that," I said. "It still really impresses me. It's not something I could do."

"Don't' say that before you try," Rachel said. "Giving up like that's just stupid."

In my experience, sometimes you needed to know when to give up and flee. There was a reason it was fight-or-flight, not fight-or-fight. "I'll try," I admitted.

*******

It went a little better once I got the hang of it. I knew these dogs, and I was starting to get a feel for their personality, for the things they would do and wouldn't. They felt real to me in a way I wouldn't have thought before, and which I knew was some sort of echo of what Rachel felt. She was everyone, moving one way and the next, looking after the dogs while I messed around trying to train them. They seemed to be picking it up faster than expected, which I put down to the fact that Rachel had trained them to obey orders already, they just needed to know that I was included in this.

I kept on wanting to stop her, to ask her what her game was, but I knew that she wasn't the kind of person who played games. But I was watching her carefully, looking for what she thought she thought I saw.

She thought I was attracted to her. Which meant I kept on looking at her as if trying to decide whether or not it was true.

And that didn't make it any better, not really. After the dogs were trained up a little, and after I'd started to get bored of working with them, she'd started to explain things to me. Feeding dogs, caring for them, how she would watch their shit--something I should have noticed she'd been doing, but it hadn't even occurred to me--for signs of health problems.

She knew so much, and she cared about it so much, that I wished I had more to share with her. She didn't even read all of this out of a book, she knew it, in a way I can't say for sure I knew anything, even bugs. I'd spent a lot of time researching them online, after all, because I needed to know any special abilities they had.

"So, how'd you end up with the Undersiders?" I asked, when we'd just gotten settled in and about to either read or play video games, depending on how she felt.

She was leaning against me, only now it felt… well, it should have felt awkward, but it didn't. I didn't know what to think of that, so I tried not to think at all.

"Eh. Came here, got the offer, woulda just kept on annoying me until I joined."

"Huh," I said, surprised. That meant that her ties to them were very, very loose. What was holding her was not some deep pack loyalty or anything like that, despite the way it was totally possible to bond with her at least a little.

"So, circumstances made you into a so-called villain?"

"I needed food, I got food. I needed money to get food…" Rachel shrugged, her voice level as she said it all. And it made sense. She had her identity revealed to all, she'd clearly had a rough life, and so she went off and did her own thing, and stole and did all that she did to survive. It didn't make her Jean Valjean, because it wasn't just a loaf of bread, and if she was attacking people with empowered dogs, she was probably hurting them badly, but it made sense. I could see myself, or so many other people, doing just about the same in that position.

"I see. I… understand."

"Do you?" she asked.

"I think I do. I know what it's like to feel trapped with nowhere to go. I still do," I admitted, and it hurt some more, to say that. The kind of ache that wouldn't go away easily. "I think that's why I have to be a hero?"

"Huh?" Rachel asked, frowning a little, her thin lips pursing, as she stared at me with those intense eyes, which told me to say more. I couldn't resist, not when there was someone I could finally tell.

Yet when the words came out, they were stumbling, and more than that, uncertain. I didn't know why I was doing a lot of the things I was doing. There was only so much introspection you could do before it drove you mad.

"I got stuffed in a locker full of filth. Bugs and mud and needles I didn't know weren't used, and tampons. Used ones," I said.

Rachel winced, angrily, "Fuck that."

"It was a locker, so if I'd actually been thinking, maybe I could have kicked my way out a lot faster than I did. I wasn't even in there but for a few minutes, and most of that was spent freaking out, and then triggering and freaking out again." I took a breath, my hands clenching and unclenching, "But I was trapped, I felt trapped even when there was a way out, because they'd been doing stuff like this so many times before, and I knew there wasn't a way out. But you can know things that aren't true, that are bullshit. You can learn things like that. So I squirmed and struggled and… and I got powers."

"I'd have sent bugs after whoever the fuck did that," Rachel said, firmly, as if she didn't understand why I didn't.

"And… but that felt like what they wanted, even if they didn't know it. Go Carrie. They spread rumors about how I did drugs, about how I didn't bathe, about how I fucked teachers, male and female, for decent grades, how I was in the Merchants or the E88, though they did that quietly because gangs wouldn't take kindly to that--"

I was lucky that they didn't have such an imagination for misery as I had. Imagine if they'd made it look like I was spreading rumors that I was with the E88. They could have gotten a few of the Empire fans in school to beat me up to 'teach me a lesson' about pretending to be something I wasn't.

Rachel made a noise that I supposed meant she was still listening.

"And if I did that, I'd be showing them that I was trapped the same way they thought I was. I guess I…"

I hadn't thought through the logic to the end until now. "I want to think that next time I'm trapped in a locker I'll kick my way out?"

Rachel leaned closer, and against all expectations gave me a brief hug. "That… makes sense." She sounded odd though, her voice hard and heavy with emotions that I'd never heard from here before.

"I don't know if I'm even doing it," I admitted. "But I'm trying." I shrugged, and she leaned closer and gave my hand a squeeze.

My face only got more red, and I found that I liked the close contact. I couldn't, could I? Though even if I was attracted, that wouldn't necessarily mean anything. I was attracted to Grue as well, but that didn't mean I was going to date him. Plus, there was that word: date. Whereas she was talking about just having sex, and wasn't that supposed to be wrong? It was the same sort of thing that Emma had accused me of doing, one of the many things. Taylor the gang-banger, Taylor the smelly, Taylor the vicious, Taylor the slut. All sorts of Taylors that I needed to avoid being with all of my might.

I hate what they did, and I hated that here I was, saying that--

I let that thought cut off, it wasn't going anywhere except a downward spiral, and I didn't need that right now.

"Sorry I dragged down the mood."

"It's fine," Rachel said, crossing her arms.

"So, do you want to try this new game? Greg loaned it to me, and I thought you'd like it."

Rachel nodded, well aware that I was changing the subject, but then, I had told her a lot, so she should just let me back off. It wasn't as if she'd revealed much of her own past, anyways, and yet here I was, talking about things better left buried.

Sometimes, what mattered was relaxing and having fun, though even this, pressed against each other, seemed freighted with meaning. But I just tried to enjoy it as what it was, and not try to think about what else was going on.

That worked right until I got a text message, at a little past two.

'Hey-->TT. Can we meet @ mall? Gotta tlk, no trx.'

I blinked, looking over at Rachel who was distracted by the game, or rather by being frustrated at some part of the game that wasn't going quite as well for her as she'd hoped. "Hey, Rachel, I might leave an hour early, if that's okay? I should get back to talk to my Dad, make sure he's not… oh! I forgot."

"What?" Rachel asked, pausing the game and looking up, shoulders tensing.

"My Dad wants to talk to you sometime. Probably doesn't believe you exist, or thinks you're a bad influence. I just wanted to get that out, tell you. So we can figure out how to avoid it."

Rachel frowned, then shrugged, "Sure."

"Sure you'll work with me to get out of it, or sure you'll meet my Dad?"

"Either." She didn't seem like she cared all that much about my Dad either way, actually. Or maybe she was trying to be casual. She'd hidden more than I'd expected, I realized. If she'd been attracted to me, I hadn't really… noticed it. Which was probably a sign of how oblivious I was, but still.

"Well, I'll keep that in mind," I said. "I'll be here tomorrow, unless something comes up, alright?"

Rachel nodded, and I knew she had no reason to doubt I'd be there, though I was glad that doubts weren't springing up, especially after what had happened a little more than a week ago. It felt like forever, but it wasn't, wasn't even close to that long.

Subjective time was rough.

*******

The mall was a little run down, too. Technology marched forward, and despite the growing violence around the world, as well as poverty, online ordering was still a big thing, at least in America. It'd gone downhill in terms of being sure to ship a package from England to America, or rather the uncertainty of the Endbringers and the economic downturns that had followed all through the end of the 90s until today meant that it was a lot more expensive.

So the mall had survived, but it was still less of a big deal than it must have been back in the 80s or whatnot. Still, I'd spent a lot of time with Emma here, time that I'd considered very, very happy.

Now it all had a different feel. A feeling a little like my friendship had been. It was decayed now, darker than it used to be, and every closed store felt a little like a statement: time moved forward, my friend was gone, and in her place was someone I didn't like to spend time with, didn't want to have known at all.

It retroactively made everything worse, and combined with how much people at school hung out at the mall, it meant that I only went when I had to. I'd seen Emma here, sometimes, trying on clothes with Sophia, laughing and joking and happy, and once I'd even managed to do so without her spotting me, and she'd seemed like the same Emma as before, the Emma I'd liked. But harder, crueler, just little edges to the jokes she made, and the opinions she gave.

But close enough to her old self that at the time I'd seen it, almost a year ago, it'd wiped any traces of a comforting illusion that she'd really changed that much. Did that mean, if she hadn't turned against me, she might have been a horrible person to someone else, and I'd have stood alongside her and smiled as she did so and talked about how they deserved it for some arbitrary reason? Or was it that Sophia had brought out the worst in Emma? Either way, it was a depressing thought, the kind of thing that left me trapped and alone, without anywhere to turn.

The mall wasn't doing all that brisk business, today, and so there wasn't much of a crowd to try to fight through. It made it easy to note the architecture, to muse on the trees that they'd planted inside the mall to make it look a little more 'normal', and the fact that I didn't want to be here.

It also made it easy to notice Lisa, who was wearing a black pencil-skirt and a white blouse. Give her a pair of professional looking glasses, and you could imagine she was an intern at a business firm. It didn't help that her hair was held up in a bun. Her green eyes were shifting one way and the other, watching everyone as they passed.

It was her stance, too. It seemed ready and alert in a way that reminded me, in an odd way, of Rachel. Perhaps that was just people who had gone through certain things.

When she saw me, she gave a friendly wave, and I made my way over to her. She was standing next to a smoothie place, and I suddenly felt like that'd be a nice treat.

I walked over to her, and said, "Hello, Lisa, how's it going?"

My bugs had been spreading out, though I tried not to violate any health codes. The last thing I needed was to accidentally give people food poisoning or something, because my bugs had been in all sorts of places that shouldn't even be thought of in the same sentence as food. But from what I could tell, there was no ambush waiting, and so I was relaxed.

This would be a bad place for an ambush, anyways, because it was out in the open and it'd draw attention fast. People would be snapping photos and calling the police before a dozen seconds had passed, and why would they do so in the first place?

I hadn't made an enemy of the Undersiders.

"Fine, fine. I've been dealing with a few things. Would you like to get a smoothie before we talk?"

"Sure. I don't know how much money I brought, but…"

"No. No, I can pay. You provided us with a good deal of help at the right moment yesterday. Honestly, if you wouldn't reject it as blood money, I'd even be willing to give something to you as a thank you. I could even find some money that's been invested, not necessarily dirty. But I'm pretty sure I know your answer."

"Thanks, but no. But paying for a smoothie?" I asked. "I'm fine with that."

So I had a strawberry banana smoothie, and Lisa had some sort of weird smoothie with whey and protein and non-dairy creamer, and if she could have ordered it on the rocks with cream and not too much cream, and then give it a two page long name and double the price, I'm sure she'd ask for it.

"You drink that?"

"Not normally. But I thought I'd try it. It was recommended to me, albeit by someone who probably doesn't know what he's talking about," Lisa said with a sip. She wrinkled her nose as we walked in the mall. "No. Not doing it for me."

I sipped my own perfectly normal smoothie. It was really hard to mess up a strawberry-banana smoothie, and they used fresh fruit, so of course it tasted good. "Mmm, I can taste the lack of soy milk," I said, teasingly. "It tastes delicious."

"Show off. So, how have things been with Rachel?"

"Things?" I asked.

"What has she told you?"

I took a breath and said, quietly, in a rushed whisper, "She asked me to have sex."

"Ah. So she finally said it. By her standards, my understanding is that she waited quite a while. She's very… blunt about such things, and it's been obvious that she's been attracted to you for over a week," Lisa said, "and I assume you said no?"

"Of course."

"Despite being attracted to her?"

"I'm not attracted to her," I said firmly. "Why does everyone think that?"

"Well, Taylor, if you want me to be honest, it's the way you stare at her."

I blinked. "Oh." Then after a moment, I asked, "I stare at her?"

"Yes, you do. You did it during our meeting. You were watching her, taking in details, paying enough attention to her that it could be something else. Wouldn't have noticed it without my powers, but with them, it's pretty obvious."

"Pardon me if I don't trust that. Why would I…"

Lisa shrugged. "I'm not you. I'm not particularly interested in Rachel, or anyone else for that matter. Blame my power. Though I do think that you're good for her, as a friend or otherwise, and so I don't want to interfere too much."

"Well, then let's not talk about this. I'm not attracted to her, I'm not sure why everyone is saying it, and she's just a friend," I insisted, aware that that sort of thing never actually solved anything. Nobody said, 'oh, well okay' with a denial like that. But I had to make it, because I thought it was true, right?

"Well, then there's something else I'd like to talk about. Recently I had a little idea, actually. It's something I thought you could do that might help your career as an independent hero."

I cocked an eyebrow, watching her curiously, silently, trying to imitate the way that Rachel just made me keep on babbling as if I'd say the right thing that would make her happy.

Lisa, on the other hand, seemed totally immune to the technique. Finally, after a few more sips of smoothie, I bit, "What?"

"I was thinking about how many members there are of Empire Eighty Eight. Not just capes, but also civilians. There are actually unofficial rules that I should clue you into, but the basics are that you don't go after someone's civilian identity. A cape's, that is. But if you can track some of the E88 gang members, you can find out where their bases are. Hit them early enough at the right time and you'll catch a lot of E88 capes half-dressed or not yet ready for a fight."

"And then you arrest them?" I asked. "I assume you won't take part in any of this?"

"Not unless you need a little backup. Though you should be careful. After all, people might talk. But the basic idea is that with the Protectorate, you can finish them all off and hit them at multiple locations at once, and once the E88 is no longer on our tails, we benefit too. That's the idea, basically. And even if you don't go along with it, knowing that you can use bugs to track people's movements is important."

It sounded like a solid plan, actually, and that made me suspicious.

"I knew that," I said.

"But did you think about mapping it? Your phone could get a map app," Lisa said, "and then from there you could draw lines to track where each of your targets went. And then by combining all of them, I bet you could see patterns of movement, places where people congregated to stash drugs… all sorts of things."

I blinked. I hadn't even thought about using technology that way. She had ideas about my powers that even I didn't have, which was pretty impressive. "Well, I could try, though I have no idea how I'd do it. Are there really apps for that?"

"There are ones for planning movement, and they could be used to… well, maybe I'll email you a link, if you tell me an email I can use? There's a program I was looking at."

I was always looking for a way to use my powers better, and it made sense. My powers were somewhat useful on the offensive, but the long range and the way I could monitor everyone at once meant that I could do so much more in other roles, especially if I figured out how to listen in or tell other details.

"Oh, well go ahead, I--oh."

I felt them enter. Or rather, I felt someone enter the mall at one end, and I could just barely see them from here. It was the Trio, dressed up for a day at the mall. Rather better dressed than me, actually. They didn't see me yet.

"Oh?"

"We have to get out of here," I said, aware that I sounded panicked. "I mean, it'd probably be best for both of us."

"Who is it?" Lisa asked, and then frowned, probably using her power on me already. "Ah. Well, we can leave, if you want, though I'm sure they have no idea you're here."

I was running scared and they haven't even arrived. I was furious at myself, but I nodded. I didn't want to talk to them, didn't want to have to mess with them, not when I'd finally been on the upswing. Every day when they were around was another way things could keep on getting worse.

So I avoided them. Once again, I ran, and felt like a coward as I did so.

*******

I managed to get away, or rather, we exited out the other end of the mall, with them none the wiser, and when I arrived home for dinner, I felt like I was at the bottom of a well.

I'd let them control me, I'd let them tell me what to do and how to do it, and they hadn't even known it. It was a sick feeling in my stomach, but not one I could do anything about. I had to focus on what I could do.

After dinner, I went out dressed as casually as possible, and then I went to a few households. I made sure that I was as normal looking as possible, just a girl going out for a walk in her neighborhood. And I found a few kids from my school that I suspected were running with the E88, and then I followed them.

It wasn't hard, my range was decent, a few blocks, and that meant that unless they were driving in a car, and only then on a long open stretch, I could keep track of them. And the app? I'd pause every so often, and trace my finger in a line, trying to get a vague feel of what was where.

Five guys and two girls all seemed to be heading in two directions. I picked the one that had the most guys, and was rewarded with following it all the way to what seemed like a warehouse party of some kind.

The guy at the front, though, I recognized one of his tattoos. It was an eagle clutching what seemed to be some sort of twisting, strange germanic rune of some kind or another. It was on his shoulder, and I only saw it when he shifted a little bit.

The big guy was a bouncer, just like at the dog-fighting ring, and that meant, what?

Inside there were hundreds of people, and I could hear the music even from where I was hiding. It was horrible, really, the kind of stuff that people called noise. I thought it was probably Metal, which meant that these were skinhead tunes and the like.

At least, if that was who stepped out for a smoke break. Without the skin-tight red suit it was harder to tell who she was, but something about her seemed familiar. She was frowning, nervous, clearly worried despite coming out.

Everyone knew that Othala always stuck around Victor, too often for it to be anything other than some kind of relationship, platonic or otherwise. When two people hung out that much, it usually meant something.

She glanced one way and the next, but I was hidden in an alley. I'd picked up a half-finished cigarette, in case I needed an excuse for what I was doing.

I could even have gone in, maybe, if I framed it right and had been wearing the right clothes.

Instead, I hung back and smiled.

Gotcha.

********

A/N: Thanks to NemoMarx for looking over this.

Also, that's a very nice plan Lisa has that she thought of entirely on her own.

 

[NemoMarx]

Timeline of Arc 1 with weird commentary from Nemo because she needed a way to keep track of what was going on when:

Ruff 1.1 Takes place on April 15th. Taylor finally has the courage to go out heroing, and runs into Bitch during a dogfight bust.
Ruff 1.2 Is on April 16th.
Ruff 1.3 Still April 16th for the opening bit with Danny. (Saturday Night, because Danny drinks more and the 15th was the end of the school week.)
After meeting the Empire on patrol, Taylor wakes up the next day (17th) and goes to visit Rae again.
On Monday, the 18th, Taylor goes to school and talks with Greg a little, then after school brings a book to read to Rachel.
On Tuesday, the 19th, the Trio is awful to Taylor. Taylor mentions going out on a patrol that night (this doesn't get detailed? I hadn't noticed. She mentions tuesday being bad and wanting to patrol, scene with Rachel and christmas dog, and then on Wednesday morning she's tired from patrol.)
Wednesday morning, the 20th, Taylor is tired from Patrol, checks PHO a bit, and sits closer to Rachel, but not quite snuggling.
Thursday, the 21st, when Tay visits Rae they are pretty much actually snuggling.
Friday, the 22nd, Lisa shows up at the shelter with her band of misfits. Taylor is very uncomfortable with a smiling, pretty girl.
Ruff 1.4 continues from that Friday, with Taylor meeting the Undersiders and negotiating a bit.
The next day, Saturday the 23rd, Taylor wakes from a nightmare she's already forgotten, and goes over to talk with Rachel about what happened on fri. They read a story about a smart dog and a dumb human.
Ruff 1.5 continues from that Saturday, with Rachel and Taylor finishing the book. She comes home to Danny and explains about a fight with Rae, and then goes out on patrol and meets the wards.
Ruff 1.6 starts from that Saturday, but mostly for narration. We get an abbreviated timeskip. 'I visited Rachel on Sunday, and then every evening for the rest of the week. ' The next specific date mentioned is a Wednesday (27th), where Taylor and Rachel play video games.
There's a large fight between the Merchants and the E88 on a Friday (29th). Taylor helps out, captures peoples, and then goes home to Rachel. Rachel pops her question.

 

[The Laurent]

Bark 2.2

I probably should feel like a creep. After all, here I was, following person after person around and noting down where they went. It was a heck of a way to spend a Sunday afternoon and evening, after I'd gone and helped Rachel out earlier. I wasn't spending quite as much time with her lately as before, but I tried to explain what I was doing.

She'd just nodded, in the kind of way that told me that she understood the idea of busy, even if she didn't see the point of all of it. And to be fair, I wasn't really doing anything yet. It was going to take a while before I had the right places to attack. Because I didn't want just a warehouse where they listened to people screaming 'songs' about how the Aryans will slaughter the jews or whatever nonsense they got on about.

I didn't really care about the specifics, just that this was a gathering place where they relaxed and listened to music. But beyond that, where did I go next? I needed to follow them to their bases, to their houses, and that was a little harder.

At first. But I followed Othala back to an apartment, keeping a block and a half away at all times. She went up, she went in, and one of my flies came with her.

If only I could figure out exactly how to use my power. It was frustrating and stressful, trying to understand all of the inputs. To a bug, every sound was far different than it should be, every sight was bizarre and even a little unnerving, and there I was, trying to interpret it. The bugs were giving me 'good' data, it was just that what they considered good wasn't the same as what I considered good.

By now I thought I could almost tell when someone was talking, and I could also almost maybe tell voices apart in a very, very general sense. This seemed like progress, but it was the kind of progress that gave me headaches and made me wish I could just skip straight to the understanding, since it did feel as if it was something I could practice and improve. It was far easier to deal with that then figure out exactly what I was going to do about Rachel, or how exactly I was going to be more threatening in an actual fight. I had the bugs, and if I could get more of them, then that was more of them.

But anyone who couldn't be taken out by bugs was just going to laugh at it. That was a problem without an easy solution, and in fact I had thought about it a lot, over dinner or those blank moments when I was just relaxing by Rachel's side, enjoying life in general.

But of course, all good things came to an end, and that included the weekend.

******

I was walking to my locker when it started. I had been prepared for it, sort of, and so I half-dodged Madison's outstretched foot, merely stumbling a little, but that still led me to careen into another student, who turned and said, "Hey, watch it!" His voice was loud, his veins bulging, clearly not glad to be back at school.

"Sorry, sorry," I said, gritting my teeth and turning to smile at Emma. Well, not smile, but I'm pretty sure that's what she saw it as as she stepped up the stairs, keeping close behind me, which meant that Sophia was somewhere ahead, ready to harass me. And indeed, that's what my bugs told me as well.

"Having trouble walking straight?" Emma asked.

Part of me wanted to snap back. There were so many insults I could give out, but another part of me knew that it'd do no good, wouldn't it? But I wanted to get right up in her face, I wondered what she'd do if I really fought back, not just ignored it or tried to force her to quit it.

"Should be asking you that," I muttered, too afraid to come out and say it. I knew the kinds of things they did to get revenge whenever I actually tried to make things better. When I tried to tell a teacher once, or when I got too close to some kids who didn't give a shit about me either way, and thus were willing to talk to me as long as I didn't do anything.

They didn't like the idea that I'd fight back, they didn't like people who resisted them. But if that was all it was, then it'd be easy to get out of it. If I fought back enough, they'd go on and pick on an easier target. But instead, Sophia and Emma both seemed to take any hint that I still had any strength left in me, anything other than an instinct to lay down and die, as proof that they needed to redouble their efforts.

It frustrated me, and it made me wonder sometimes how they had a life when they spent so much of it on something like that. They weren't doing it because they were bored, and that only made it worse.

I opened my locker, wary of them getting up behind me and trying it again, though I doubted even they'd be fucked up enough to do it again. Not after all of the trouble it'd caused… at least for a while.

Inside, though, all of the locker was painted. Not even a horrible color, just wet grey paint layered all over the locker. If I set down any of my books in there, it'd make a mess. How had they gotten access to it, and why hadn't anyone noticed…

But those were questions for another time. I slammed the locker, wishing I had somewhere to put all of the books I'd had to haul around. My mood was turning sourer and sourer, but I tried to focus on the positives. My bugs were spreading out carefully, and I'd hopefully get some good practice in. When I started to think about my power less as "the bees! Oh no, not the bees!" and more as spying and the like on top of bees, then that meant I could practice it anywhere and everywhere. So I tried to just drift through classes.

It was Monday, so it wasn't as if I was alone in that. The teachers seemed like they'd rather be anywhere else, and so did the students. Everyone was a little too tired to give me that much crap, other than a few whispers here and there.

I wondered what Emma would say if she knew about Rachel. Except I didn't have to wonder at all. If she knew about Rachel and not Bitch, then it'd prove every dirty rumor true, and if she knew about Bitch? She'd report me to the police and watch as my life fell apart.

Luckily, she didn't know about Rachel and me. Not that there was a Rachel and I, of course, besides us being friends. At least I'd managed to do my homework on Sunday. Rachel had watched me do it, and she'd even worked up a few questions about what I was doing. I wasn't sure how much she got from my explanations, since it was clear that the school system had failed her, among other systems, but she at least seemed more willing to learn and try new things than I might have thought if you'd described her to me before.

She played video games now, as long as they weren't too complicated, and we could have conversations about books I'd read to her, and all in all, it was just fun being around her. We didn't share all that much in common, except where we did.

I didn't know how and why she triggered, but I did know that this was something we shared. And sometimes when I was thinking about what she did and how she was acting, it felt like there was an echo in how I could have acted, or what I should be doing. Or maybe what I shouldn't have done, and what I had done.

I mused a lot all the way through history and english, and luckily there was no gym today, because that was usually a humiliating process. I wasn't as out of shape as I might have once been, but people avoided me, and the locker rooms were annoying, and probably would have been even worse now, so I gratefully went off to lunch.

At least Greg was there and willing to sit with me as I poked at mashed potatoes that had clearly been kept in a box, and meat that was grey and looked like it'd been dead far, far too long. None of the food was terrible, it was just bland and distasteful. But it always gave me the feeling that I was slowly but surely getting closer to death with every passing second, and that if I was going to do so, it shouldn't be eating cafeteria food.

Greg, on the other hand, ate it up as fast as possible. And in between bites, he talked. "So Taylor, how's the gaming been going?" he said, in chunks of two or three words between a round of chewing and eating.

"Fine, and I've been dealing with other things." I paused, frowning a little. I didn't know whether or not he could keep a secret. On the one hand, who would he even tell? His blue eyes seemed earnest enough. "Well, I have a new friend, and so that's something."

"You do?" he asked, breathlessly, having just finished chocolate pudding in record time. I gestured slightly, and he flushed and wiped his mouth.

"Well, I met this girl, and we've been talking and hanging out for a while. It's not something I really want to talk about at school, because you know them."

"Oh! Right. We could always just text each other about this, or… whatever. I mean, I really wanna know now."

"Well, her name's Rae, and she's sorta gruff, but in a nice way? We've been hanging out the past week or two a lot. That's what I've been doing on the weekend," I said, "though things can sometimes get a little awkward."

"How?" Greg asked, almost eagerly.

"I dunno, just different expectations, that sort of thing?"

"What's she like? Besides gruff. I mean, imagine that you're trying to describe her for a video game poster or something."

I pictured her costume. Really, considering what she had to work with and the fact that she had been on the run for years, it was a pretty decent costume. I even had to admit that I liked it. "She's really strong."

"Strong?"

"Yeah. You know, physically strong? Strong arms, and solid muscle, and she knows how to use it. She's shorter than me, not that that's saying much, and she has dark, intense eyes," I said, thoughtfully, "kind of like they could just stare through you. Thin lips, and short, dark hair that she usually keeps pretty simple."

"Oh?" Greg asked, and I wasn't quite sure what I was hearing in his voice.

"She usually dresses pretty simply, jeans or shorts or the like, and a T-shirt. Simple, but it sort of fits what she's going for, I guess," I said, feeling almost like Emma when I said that, "and she has this way of standing. Sort of stand-offish, sorta confrontational, like she's in charge and taking the lead?"

"Uh."

"Let's see, she usually wears sneakers, she has rough hands, sort of callused. Experienced hands, I think you'd call them, and she keeps her nails short, of course--"

"Uh, Taylor," Greg said, and I looked up to see him red-faced for some reason, "I think I get the point?"

"Oh, sorry. But does that paint a picture for you?"

"More than a thousand words," Greg said, and then he looked at me for a moment, his lips pursing before he said, "so, uh, you like girls?"

"What," I said, for the second time in not all that long. "What?"

"I mean, uh… not that I'm judging or anything, I'm just curious or whatnot."

"Just. Curious. About what?"

"Well, the way you described her…"

"Yes?" I asked, and then tried to just consider it objectively. Okay, maybe it did seem a little detailed. "You can describe someone without it being a… thing. And it isn't a thing."

A… thing? My tongue was tripping on itself, and I really wanted to get out of this conversation before it was too late.

My face was red and I didn't want to think about what I'd said or what it could mean, especially since it shouldn't matter and didn't, right?

"Okay, fine," Greg said, "so, about that game, have you gotten past level 9?"

"Level nine? My game skipped from eight to ten," I said, frowning, "I was wondering if that was a glitch."

"No, it just means that you missed a secret," he said, "so you see, what you have to do…"

And there we go. He was distracted again, and he didn't bring up Rachel again, though I did mention her once, when talking about one of the games.

Oddly, talking about her cheered me up a little, though that didn't last. Inevitably, the trio kept up their rumors and their games, and by the end of the day I was glad to escape, and even more glad to be able to go to Rachel to unwind.

Of course, it was not a day I could tell Rachel all about, especially the part with Greg, but just being able to lean against her and talk about the Trio alone was enough, and that night I'd have plenty to do.

******

I went home at seven-thirty, to return to see Dad watching television. "Hey Dad, I'm back," I said, glancing over at the TV. It was showing a rerun of this movie about capes or something, I remember a lot of people protested at the time, back in the 80s, that it wasn't realistic. It turned out not to matter that much, since cape movies had started to fall out of fashion over a decade ago, but at the time back then, I think it had been a big deal?

You had things like that, where they mattered once but they didn't anymore, and you had causes that died stillbirths because time marched on. But then you had neo-nazis, I thought, still trucking along, and I should be out there stopping them.

"Hey, Taylor. How's it going? How'd it go with your friend?"

"I just talked about my day and we played video games," I said, defensively. I was gritting my teeth rather firmly as I ground out the words. I really wanted to not have to deal with this. I was out there fighting crime, and he thought… what? I wasn't sure what he thought, only that it seemed like everything raised it worse and worse.

I could see the way his jaw set when I mentioned Rachel, like he was grinding out the words.

"So, how was your day?" Dad asked.

"Fine."

"Must have been a short conversation, then," Dad said, standing up to his full height and walking over to the fridge. Probably for another beer.

I flushed. "Okay, it wasn't great, but wasn't horrible. Some people tried to bully me, and someone almost tripped me, and classes were boring, but I talked about a new game with Greg. I didn't have gym, luckily, and I did my math homework ahead of time, and wrote a little prep work for an English essay while I was at Rachel's, too." I had to admit I wasn't exactly sounding friendly, and I let out a sigh.

"Good," Dad said, rather firmly, as if he'd made some kind of point rather than just getting me up in arms. "So, do you have any more homework to do?"

"A little," I said, trying to sound casual, for he'd stumbled on another secret, and that was that I'd already done most of it, and I was going to save the rest for the bus tomorrow, because I had mapping to do.

And then tonight, I'd have a long night of geography homework, up close and personal. Too bad I didn't have any clothing that'd make it look like I was out for a night of partying. But I'd done other work that should make it possible to sneak out and get some good knowledge.

A lot of it involved not wearing a costume at all, and a lot more of it involved looking up maps online of what was where.

********

When you imagine someone staking out an area, you don't picture them at a fast food joint, nibbling on fries, do you? I was wearing a pair of jeans and a T-shirt that were both a bit ratty and old, and I was carefully not smelling how rank this particular hole-in-the-wall chain was. It was the kind of place where you hoped that the grease didn't kill you, and where, especially at nine at night, the people were dead-eyed and clearly didn't want you there.

But nearby there was a house that was used for E88 parties, and I'd be traveling from one greasy restaurant to the next. It'd be less plausible the later it got, but for the moment, my bugs were able to monitor a few things.

First, where everyone was. Second, I could sorta interpret the sound if I focused, as either a lot of people talking or a few, as either people who were probably-maybe male and those who were probably female. That wasn't exactly great data, but I'd already checked this area, and I knew that it was actually an abandoned old house, at least most of the time.

I checked the map on the phone, trying to imagine how I'd change it, given time. If I had a smart-phone, I'd be able to easily do it in real time, but even looking at the map, something became apparent.

The members of the E88 were young, all in all, and they liked their parties. They partied, they did drugs, they had dog fighting rings, though we'd broken up the biggest one, I think. They were not holed up in the middle of nowhere, guns trained at the entrances.

That meant that I could guess that the capes were the same, or at least, for all that Kaiser had to keep some distance, the capes mingled with the powerless.

I tried to keep my bugs out of the dark corners of such places, since the last thing I wanted to do was notice when people were having sex. Plus, having a fly buzz around a couple like that would be way too noticeable.

Visual data, as I was trying to think about it, clinically, was harder to get. Harder to understand too, for that matter. But I could get a decent feel for the scope of a room by sending bugs this way and that to land on walls, so what I really wanted to do was figure out how to listen in.

If I could do that, then I could just sit in a room and write down details and information while they spilled everything.

As it was, though, I was building up a map that I knew was going to get more concrete. It was concentrated in places, and I could imagine it as a series of webs. Spider webs were often imagined to be these beautiful things, but they could sometimes be clumps, or even balls. Spiders were weird and fascinating, and so was the map.

There were webs and nexuses, and I'm pretty sure if I spent enough time I could identify the stash houses, the dens of iniquity, and so on and so forth. But at the moment, I was really mostly just trying for the places they hung out, and their meeting grounds.

Because like some team before the big game, when they were going out, they stopped at one place, the better to communicate face to face. The Protectorate had lawyers, and they had capes who could build devices that easily tap any phone conversation without any of the hassle or complexity that regular technology had to go through. So, face to face was the best way to make sure nobody knew what was up, as long as they missed it.

So, if I identified the warehouses and houses that they were using most often, then I could enact the next stage of my plan.

Calling it a stage probably implied a lot more scheming than was actually involved, like I was a secret mastermind who was carefully orchestrating everything to my end, rather than a fifteen year old girl who wasn't sure what she was doing.

But the plan was simple enough that hopefully even I could pull it off, with some Protectorate help. There were two, maybe three, centers of activity that I had identified, all of them somewhat close to each other, and each of them important to the gang. There was an old house that they used as a base, there was a store that secretly sold drugs on the side and served as a way-station too, and there was a warehouse that had used to be used by a tech company that had gone belly up and been eaten by its competitors. And this warehouse had, from what I could tell, slipped through the cracks.

If I hit the drug depot, then they'd come swarming out after me like a hive of insects, and if the Protectorate was waiting outside their doors, well? Insects, meet flamethrower.

I was sure they'd agree if I laid it out right. I hadn't spied on anyone's privacy in a way that broke the rules, and they wanted to get at the E88. The three people they held would probably bust out eventually, and now was the time to strike if they really wanted to weaken one of the largest and most powerful gangs around.

The real weak link was the fact that I was going to be going against a bunch of gang-bangers protecting a drug stash all alone, but I'm sure I could manage it, and perhaps I'd get lucky and a few of the people would be less powerful capes that I could sting and harass.

It all relied on me being able to convince people, and I hoped that things would go well. I wasn't going to tell the Undersiders about the plan, and it'd need to be on a Friday night in order to get the most targets.

So I choked down some fries, and I planned on keeping that up until I knew what I needed.

********

The days passed with glacial slowness, and then Wednesday came, which didn't mean anything in particular, really. I was halfway through the week, but I didn't think that it'd be anything special.

Except halfway into just hanging out, Rachel dropped a question on me.

"What are you doing with Lisa's shit?"

"Her shit?" I asked, looking at Rachel. She was wearing a short-sleeve shirt, and the temperature out that evening certainly justified it, as well as the shorts she was wearing. Little detail I'd noticed #35: Rachel didn't shave her legs, to the surprise of absolutely no one. Not that it really mattered.

"Plan, whatever. She mentioned it," Rachel said.

"Well, I'm going to strike out on Friday," I said, "hopefully with the help of the Protectorate."

Rachel stepped closer to me her arms crossed, and I felt uncomfortably warm. It'd gotten harder and harder to just be around her, and it was like my heart was… but I couldn't, I mean. It'd just…

Okay, I thought, as I found my world filled with annoyed, maybe even pissed off Rachel…

Maybe I had a very, very small crush. Physically, that was. I was allowed to, I thought, without it being anything. I had crushes all the time. Wait, no I didn't. But I could have them all the time, and I was attracted to Brian but that didn't mean that I was going to start dating him. Plus, Rachel hadn't exactly asked about dating, had she? And I didn't want to be--

Look at that slut. Probably puts out before the first kiss. She once tried to molest me during a sleepover. That freak. Don't be friends with her, unless you're looking for an easy lay--

My stomach churned, and I felt almost sick. Sick and nervous and wanting to be anywhere but there. Rachel, added up objectively, wasn't that attractive. Yet somewhere and somehow, subjectivity had told me a different story. It talked about her closeness, it looked at her arms and the odd intensity to her, it added all of that up and came up with a different solution. Two plus two equals five, and I couldn't exactly tell myself I was wrong.

Actually, I could, and I was. I didn't want to be someone who got into crushes that easily. Not after what they'd said. It was a sick, disgusting feeling, worse than that sensation of my bugs the first time, that had led to a freakout and a stay in a psychiatric ward.

Crazy slut.

I wasn't.

"I'm going," Rachel said, reaching out and taking my hand firmly, as if to anchor me back in the world.

"What?" I asked. For the second time in less than a week, I was startled and confused. She had a real skill at surprising me.

"I'm going with you. Fuck it, I don't have anything else to do, and you need protection."

"You're going to… protect me? I don't need protection, I'm not some princess in a tower or something," I said.

"I know. People need backup sometimes. A pack at their back," she said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "And I can help out. You've done all sorts of shit for me so far, like helping with the dogs, so just call this repayment or whatever." She shrugged, as if it meant nothing.

But I knew Rachel too well. I knew that look on her face. Stubborn, but also oddly concerned. I realized that she would do this for me. She'd try to protect me and work with me, because she was my friend, and perhaps there were other reasons, but I wasn't sure.

Rachel seemed like someone who was loyal once she found a friend, but perhaps a little hard to befriend.

I was blushing so hard, and I thought about it for a moment and then said, "Alright, why not?"

Rachel nodded, and then hugged close to me for a moment, and then backed off just as quickly, leaving me confused and dazed in her wake.

******

A/N: So, now here we go.

Thanks to @NemoMarx.