Prelude 0.3

Brockton Bay, Winslow High School, January 2011

Sophia Hess was a girl with a lot of hate in her. She hated her mother for trying to coddle her. She hated her older brother for constantly getting in her way and on her nerves. She hated her school for being a sack of festering crap that she was stuck attending. She hated being forced into the Wards and having to play by their silly little rules, like she was a puppet on a string. She hated Aegis for thinking he could tell her what to do, Gallant for always being so boring, Clockblocker for being a moron, Vista for all of the above and she hated all of them for trying to be her "friend". She hated Armsmaster, Miss Militia, Assault, Battery, Triumph, all of them for looking down on her. She hated not being able to do what she wanted. She hated not being able to hunt.

That's not to say Sophia was just made of hate and nothing else. She had her hobbies, like track and field or vigilantism. She really did enjoy exercising. There was something so satisfying about getting sweaty and out of breath while her muscles burned. She had friends too. The other girls on the track team were sort of fun to hang out with, now that they knew their place at least. Plus there was Grue. Sure, his power made it hurt to use her own but that just made hunting him more of a challenge, and thus more fun. Also, he had the most hilarious reactions when she flirted with him.

But over all Sophia hated more than she loved and the one person she hated above all was Taylor Hebert. Taylor was a pathetic little freak and the lowest of the low on the food chain. And worst of all, she had stolen Emma from Sophia. The young vigilante had first seen Emma when she fought back against the ABB mugging her and had gotten curious. When she met Emma for real she had seen the potential in her. Emma was a fellow survivor, one that with some training and guiding would make the perfect hunting partner. Maybe she'd even trigger if she were pushed hard enough.

And then Hebert had shown up and ruined everything. At first she hadn't seemed like a problem, a pathetic remnant of Emma's past life that just needed to be run off. But then things changed. Starting a few days after their little confrontation Emma had changed, at first simply avoiding Sophia and eventually outright rejecting her. Soon afterwards Sophia had gotten caught roughing up a worthless drug peddler high on his own product and was forced to join the Wards program if she wanted to avoid juvie, something that wouldn't have happened if she had had a partner like Emma watching her back. Bit by bit the joy was sucked out of her life, ruined in a long chain of events. And it all led back to Taylor fucking Hebert.

And so Sophia made it her life's goal to ruin Taylor's. Sure, as a Ward she could have easily transferred to the much better school Arcadia, but she stuck around at Winslow so she could mess with Hebert. Over the next year she did what she could to make Hebert miserable: stealing her homework, pushing her down stairs, pranks, insults, it all worked. She got away with it in part due to her PRT handler convincing the principle that it was in the school's best interest let her off lightly. She still couldn't push too hard without getting in trouble, but she had some room to work with. Also Hebert's weird looks reminded people of the Simurgh, which meant that few people were eager to rush to her aid. Sophia scoffed at ridiculousness of it, there was no way someone as pathetic as Hebert could be compared to a monster as terrifying as the Simurgh, but that didn't stop her from taking advantage of it. There were some, however, that did try and help the pale girl for some reason or other which meant that Sophia had to be careful and could never go as far as she liked. It wouldn't do for a video of her activities recorded by some do-gooder to end up online or with the police.

Because of this Sophia's frustrations mounted. No matter what she did to Hebert, the girl just took it and moved on. While it had been nice for a while that Hebert never fought back, it soon grew clear that she just wasn't getting the message Sophia was sending. Nothing she did seemed to affect Hebert for more than a day at most. But that would change today, Sophia was sure of it.

It was possibly the worst thing she had ever come up with. It was definitely the most disgusting. On the last day of school before Christmas vacation she had filled Hebert's locker with the corpses of various squirrels, birds and other small animals she had hunted down and left them to rot over the next two weeks. Now it was the first day back to school and Sophia was going to lock Hebert in the locker and leave her to rot, just like all the other vermin two weeks earlier. Sophia didn't even care if she got caught at this point, she just wanted Hebert broken and on her knees.

The plan had gone off without a hitch. Sophia had made sure that her followers were the only ones in the hallway at the time. She had followed Hebert stealthily until Hebert opened up her locker and started to puke her guts out at the mess. Then Sophia had pushed her in and locked the door behind her.

Taylor's reaction had been immediate. "Oh god, oh god, oh god! Let me out! Hey! Can you hear me!" Sophia laughed at her panicked screaming, which of course made Taylor scream all the more. "Sophia? Let me out right now! This isn't funny! Oh god, oh god!"

Sophia stopped laughing when there was a massive bang as something slammed against the inside of the locker door. A huge dent formed, which Sophia stared at in disbelief. Her brain temporarily shut down at the sight of it. Where had it come from? Why was it there? Surely it couldn't have been caused by skinny little Hebert, right? If she had that kind of power there was no way she would have let Sophia walk all over her. No, she must have brought a hammer to school or something. Could she have triggered right now? No, that was impossible. Power were for the strong, for the survivors of the world, something Hebert definitely was not. Maybe-

Then Taylor Screamed and it didn't matter.


As a reward for beating, Cailin receives Shadow Stalkers crossbows. Sophia certainly won't be needing them for a while.