7.1 (NoSolution)

"This session will now come to order." Accord banged his gavel on the table. It was a fairly nondescript room. White walls, white ceiling and a white floor. There were no windows in the room, nor were there any doors. The wooden table was rectangular, surrounded by plush chairs one would expect of a meeting. All in all, the room was what one would expect to see in a hospital, or more like the meeting room of a secret society due to the lack of entrances and exits. The meeting place was indeed the hub for a secret society. Occupying multiple seats around the table were costumed individuals at the head of one side of the table was Accord, I was facing him, on the other head of the table.

"Roll call will now begin, if you do not reply you will be noted as absent and will subsequently be cut from any operations during this Loop. Accord? Present. Citrine?"

"Present."

"Doctor Mother?"

"Present."

"Contessa?"

"Present."

"Doormaker? ... Absent. Clairvoyant? … Absent."

"Tattletale?"

"Conspicuously absent" was the reply.

"Very well, Tattletale is absent and will not be voting. Grue?"

"Here."

"Bitch?"

"Yeah."

"Regent?"

"Sup?"

"Imp?"

"Yo."

"Lung?"

"Yes."

"Dragon?"

"Present."

"Armsmaster? Miss Militia? Battery? Assault? Clockblocker? Vista? Kid Win? Triumph? Aegis? All absent. Skitter?"

"Here."

"Very well, we have 11 loopers attending, as such for any operations to begin we require 6 loopers to approve. Now, to review our operations in the last 5 loops, we unleashed an Evil!Dragon and fought her, we created a musical, "The World and its Capes", revived Eden, had a visit from a group named ARCON and made Shadow Stalker become the World's Most Wanted. Notable divergences of this loop are Saint does not exist as well as Imp is now awake. Welcome Imp. Now are there any suggestions for loop QA5?"

"How about we look at the checklist of fun stuff to do?" Imp proposed.

"How about we review the challenges we have previously suggested?" Tattletale said.

"Very well, challenges suggested but not completed are as follows, create a world war of US vs them, make a Slaughterhouse 9000 consisting of 9000 different individuals, find a peaceful wildlife in Australia, convince everyone shards are really magic, create a time-travel device and persuade Accord it's Imp's first time looping... Who's Imp?"


7.2 (ecs05norway)

I'll admit right now that I wasn't really sure I wanted to go through with this. I'd Awoken this loop a few days after the Locker Incident, at home on a break the doctors had insisted on before going back to school. It was a crazy idea. Everyone was going to think I'd gone crazy. But then, I'd been looping for... how many centuries, at this point? I wasn't quite sure. Lisa might know.

It would take some work. And some careful preparation. A visit to a music shop a few dozen loops ago had provided me a duplicate of my mother's flute, that I'd spent three loops learning to play. It was tucked away in my subspace pocket, now, safe enough until I was ready to put it to use. Either I was going to drive Sophia completely and utterly insane, or I'd... well, it didn't really matter. It might make this loop slightly more interesting, however.

Monday dawned clear and warm, a beautiful sunny day that promised a gorgeous afternoon. Perfect for my plans. I slung my backpack over one shoulder, and jogged off to school with a song in my heart.

Okay, so it was the Masochism Tango. When it comes to sheer sociopathy, nothing beats Tom Lehrer.

Besides, it was entirely appropriate for what I was about to do.

The Terrible Trio were gathered near the entrance to the school, of course, awaiting my arrival. I'd sent some bugs ahead to verify this, just to get my timing exactly perfect. They didn't waste time spotting me, and as I got closer I could already hear them.

"There she is, back from the looney bin," taunted Madison.

"Stupid bitch should've stayed there," Sophia added.

"Hey, hey! It's great to see you guys! I missed you so much!" That one was me, throwing my arms around Emma for a nice big best-friends hug. She spluttered, confused, and tried to push me away, but I didn't let go until I was good and ready to.

Then I turned to Madison, giving her the same treatment. "Mads! You're looking good this week. Had a nice weekend?"

"..." She stared at me, mouth working for a moment, then snarled out "What is your -damage-, Hebert?"

I grinned and turned to Sophia, starting to slide my arms around her in turn, but she ducked away with a graceful little martial-arts dodge. Probably the result of all her training with the Wards. It was ok, I had had some of the same training. Hundreds of times over. I just stepped into it and caught her before she could duck away, pulling her close with a grin. "Oh, it's simple, Maddie," I answered. Then I turned and looked Sophia in the eyes. "I've decided I'm not going to put up with this anymore. Emma -is- my best friend, she has been since we were little, and I'm not going to let you two come between us. So if you're her friends, you're my friends too."

The look in Sophia's eyes might have been something approaching interest. Or maybe murderous rage. I was having too much fun to try to figure out the difference right a that moment.

"Anyway," I said, ignoring her attempts to say something, "It's great to see you guys again, but I've got some paperwork to take care of before classes start, so I'll see you there, okay? Maybe we can do lunch up on the roof or something, just us."

That -definitely- got Sophia's interest. Heh. She was expecting an opportunity... well, she was going to get one.

It was an uneventful morning. The Trio either had had nothing planned, waiting to see what condition I'd return in before acting... or had been thrown off by my ebullient greeting and were still trying to figure out what had gone wrong. I turned in the homework I'd completed while on enforced rest, collected new assignments, and enjoyed watching the anticipation build.

Lunch hour found me seated on the roof, a pillow set beneath me to protect my body (and my jeans) from the asphalt and gravel of the roofing material. Matching pillows were set out nearby, in colors that seemed (to my own twisted mind, at least) to match those of my tormentors - black for Sophia, red for Emma, and gold for Madison.

I was working my way through a hauntingly lively tarantella on the flute when they finally arrived.

"What the -fuck-, Hebert?" Ahh, Sophia, such eloquence. I shall have to teach you the value of rhetoric, someday.

I drew the verse to a close, lowering the gleaming silver flute, and took the time to clean it briefly before tucking it back in its case. "And hello to you as well, Sophia." I took a moment to let the bugs I'd brought with me get into position. "Please, be seated. We really do need to talk."

Madison, at least, seemed inclined to humor me for the moment, settling into position on the gold cushion with ease. "What did you want to talk about, Taylor?" she asked.

"I hope it isn't going to be more whining about how you just want us to leave you alone," Emma said, taking her own seat.

"No, no. I got a better idea," Sophia said. "You want us to leave you alone, be your friend, all that crap? You want something from me, you gotta -take- it." She didn't sit. She just gave me a 'come and get it' with one hand, her feet sliding into position in a familiar stance.

I came and got it.

Let it not be said that I am unfamiliar with the ways of hand to hand combat. I -prefer- my swarm, but I'm not bound to it. Not anymore. If nothing else, I've had enough runs through Nerima loops that I learned for sheer survival's sake.

If I'd wanted to show my full skill, I could've had Sophia on her knees begging for mercy in seconds. If that was what I wanted. I thought about it, for a moment, watching her there. But I'd had my chances at revenge. I'd had loops where I'd gone 'Carrie' on her, where I'd thrown my swarm in her face and -dared- her to come after me again. It got boring a long, long time ago.

The short version is, I threw the fight.

The not quite so short version is, I tried to make doing so look good, for both of us. Which I may have overestimated her skill level a bit. My fault, I'd last fought her in a Nerima loop where she'd been training with the Amazons, and I expected her to know a few of their tricks. So I ended up having to give her a lucky break, rolling my foot on a bit of gravel and letting her get in a leg-sweep to put me on my back.

I opened my eyes to see her smiling down at me, white teeth gleaming in her bronzed face.

"So, bug-girl's got some spirit, huh?"

No, I don't know how her hand got inside my shirt. Or why she seemed so pleased about it. It would explain a -lot- about her and Emma, though.


7.3 (aquinas)

A week ago, the Simurgh mentions that she thinks the carpet in the Undersider's hideout is lovely.

Two days ago, she smiles at a little boy, he trips on a loose brick and skins his knee.

Alec drinks the last of the milk.

A walnut falls in the middle of the sidewalk five minutes early.

Taylor opens the fridge.

Kenta trips, dropping a handful of change.

"Sam, can I trust you to get us some milk."

The grocery store is shoddy and smells like mildew and rotten dishwater. It is an interesting smell. On the back wall, is a case of dairy products. She walks to it slowly past the dog food, her heart speeds up.

He is there, they reach for the door and their fingers touch.

"Excuse me."

Grabs a gallon of skim from under his arm and saunters - she believes she saunters - away, through baked goods.

When time comes to pay, she is in line behind him ready with a missing dime.

The next Tuesday Kenta is already eight feet tall - eyes smoldering red - in an uncomfortably small booth. There is a fight here, somehow, building inside of him, but he cannot find it staring over his fries at a hundred pound girl.

She was sipping a strawberry milkshake with a puzzled expression on her face.

"Kenta?"

"Yes... Sam."

"What do you do?"

She touched a finger to her chin, catching a drop of whipped cream on her finger tip. She watched it slide over her nail, then licked it off.

"I manage a warehouse near the docks."

He took a bite out of his cheeseburger.

"Is it dangerous."

"Very"

The Simurgh reached out, and pulled a fry off Kenta's plate. Kenta glowered.

She looked at it and dipped it in her milkshake.

She took a bite

"Hmm." she smiled.

The Undersider's had gathered around the TV when she got back.

"Hey Sam, how was your date?" Grue asked.

"Good, we are going out again Friday."

On the television, a fire was burning.


7.4 (Prim-the-Amazing)

"Alas, my dear Clockblocker, our love can never be, for I am a slave to my inner sinful desires, a villain, and you are a servant of justice, a hero. Star-crossed lovers, we are, ripped apart from each other's loving arms by fate, O that cruel bitch. My eternal and everlasting love which burns with the fireist of fires, the one called passion, Skitter." Dennis finally finished the four page long love sonnet sent by Brockton Bay's number one creepiest villain.

Silence.

"And… you're sure the letter was sent by her?" Dean asked.

"The damn thing was delivered by a swarm of butterflies, Dean." Dennis replied snappily, although his eyes looked vague and terribly confused. And a little bit terrified as well.

"Fireist isn't actually a word." Chris pointed out.

"Bit off topic, Kid Win." Browbeat said.

"Yes, because what is on topic is that the most terrifying villain in the world is apparently sending me love fucking sonnets!"

"Now, I wouldn't go so far as to say that she's the most terrifying villain in the world-"

"I don't care what the world thinks, she shoved bugs into my nose and ears and mouth, Chris!"

"At least she held back from penetrating any other holes on your person…?"

"That's… that's not helping, Chris."

"Whatever happened to just, Sincerely, Fill in name?" Dean desperately derailed the discussion.

"Whatever happened to sanity?" Dennis replied and sagged into his seat, dramatically throwing an arm over his eyes.

Taylor snickered at what her bugs were showing her. Dennis was her favorite person to prank. His reactions were always so funny!

Step one in my grand plan to make Clockblocker my unwilling star-crossed lover: check

Next step: serenade him

Later:

The nightmarish swarm of bugs shaped into the form of a woman that was somehow wearing a red ball gown vibrated its thousand wings just so so that it almost sounded as if it had just gasped in horror. He hadn't seen when it had arrived.

"Clockblocker, how could you!?"

Dennis looked next to him to Taylor, the girl he had just rescued from a car crash by freezing the car. She was clutching at his arm, glaring at Skitter's avatar. Dennis rubbed at the bright red lipstick marks on the cheek of his mask. He'd never saved such a grateful girl before.

"Oh, and who's this pathetic little bug?" Taylor said cattily with a raised eyebrow.

"I really don't think you should insult a Parahuman, miss-" Dennis tried.

"What did you just call me!?" Skitter interrupted with a simulated screech of rage.

"You heard me, bitch!" Taylor let go of his arm and took a step towards Skitter. Skitter took another step towards Taylor in turn, until the two of them almost touching noses.

"Oh my god, there's two of them." Dennis realized. Two stalkers.

"How dare you!? He is mine, you little cow!" Skitter hissed.

"Excuse me!?"

They were making a scene. People were beginning to stare. Never before had Clockblocker felt embarrassed to be in the spotlight. He reached out, perhaps to calm them, perhaps to freeze them, but then... but then Skitter pulled Taylor's hair. Somehow. Taylor shrieked and clawed at Skitter's fake eyes, at which Skitter acted like she was hurt for some reason. Skitter tackled Taylor to the ground and Taylor pulled at Skitters ball gown, which snapped at one of the straps. As she was made of bugs, it wasn't really sexy.

Step 212 in my Clockblocker star-crossed lover plan: create a love triangle between Skitter, Clockblocker, and my civilian identity for additional drama by way of cat fight. Check

Step 213: Introduce a long lost brother into the equation for MORE drama. ALL THE DRAMA!


7.5 (nocarename)

Generally, I ditched school as soon as I Awoke. Not worth the prodding and snipping.

Once in a while, Emma found something that hadn't grown scabs emotional to pick at and that ended poorly. Or explosively, but that just headed toward investigations and more Protectorate heroes.

But I was engaged in Science at Winslow this time. The cameras I'd put in place over the weekend kept it from being screwing around - they recorded the effects of the exotic bomb I'd picked up from Bakuda's workshop a few loops back.

When most of the students were in the timer I'd set ran down. Once the bright light cleared, everything was different.

Madison was a dewy eyed kitten.

Emma had come out as a floppy eared puppy.

I was a duckling. (An ugly one. And not a swan either. The feather pattern was fairly distinctive.)

Everyone at Winslow was, in fact, now a baby animal. Even with time looping in knots Tinkers were totally bullshit.

"I am the night!"

Sophia had turned into a bat.

"I am vengeance!"

A small one. If there had been any humans left in Winslow she might have been as long as someone's thumb.

"You're adorable," said a small bird. I think it was one of the less popular boys - George, Greg, something like that.

She flew at him and started flapping at him harmlessly.

I started pecking at the controls for an older cellphone. That footage was going straight to YouTube.


7.6 (Zulaq)

Lady Photon looked at the teenaged girl on the other side of her desk, curiosity in her gaze. "Tell me Taylor, why do you want to join New Wave, when you can so easily go to the PRT and join the Wards?"

The tall, lanky girl nervously adjusted her glasses, "Well, it's kinda like this. When I first got my powers, I experimented with them a bit, you know, just to get an idea of what I can do. Well, I had the bright idea of using my powers to find out more about the three girls who caused me to trigger. And well… I found out one of them is a cape."

Lady Photon held up a hand to stop Taylor. "You used your power to find out the identity of another cape? I understand how localized omniscience can lead to discovering that sort of thing, but you must keep that information to yourself. There are certain, unspoken, rules to being a parahuman, and secret identities, for those who have them, are sacrosanct."

Taylor blushed. "I know that now, but at the time I just wanted to know what drove them to do what they did. I didn't want to learn Shadow Stalker's identity, it just happened." She sighed, "After I learned that, I decided that there was no way in hell I'd ever join the Wards while she was a member."

Lady Photon made to interrupt again, but Taylor held up a hand, indicating she wasn't done. "Getting back to your original question. I want to be a hero, and the only way I could do that with my power is by joining a team. But any team which lets somebody like Shadow Stalker join, and not hold her accountable for her behavior, is not one I'd want to join."

"So you came to me, and my team."

"Yes, I came to you. New Wave is the one hero organization in town which I know for sure aren't a bunch of hypocrites. You hold yourselves to a higher standard. There's no way you'd let some petty bully join you, and no way to hide it if you did." Taylor hesitated a moment, "I might be a bit leery of having my identity public, but the way I see it, it's a small price to pay in order to join a team which definitely doesn't have someone as crazy as Sophia."

Taylor had a smile on her face as she left Lady Photon 'call me Sarah's office. It wasn't the first time she'd joined New Wave, but it was the first time she'd tried doing so deliberately hiding the majority of her baseline powers. Pretending only to have extrasensory perception of the area around her was easy using her bugs, but remembering to not actively use the bugs was the hard part.

Knowing exactly what sort of story to feed Lady Photon helped as well. Sarah was really big on the whole superhero accountability after all, so telling her that she wanted to join just for that was pretty much guaranteed to get her in. And Taylor knew she won't have any trouble fitting in with their fighting style, after all, for all their raw power, New Wave really lacked somebody who could help direct them and provide situational control, which was what her pretend powers were perfect for.

Now she just had to wait as the other three parts of her plan moved into place.

Taylor sighed to herself. Loops where she went full in with New Wave always did have their ups and downs, and nowhere was that more apparent than when she was at school. Whispers had followed her from the moment she arrived. Other students would stop and stare as she walked down the corridors, almost disbelieving that their least popular classmate had publicly declared herself a hero, even if her powers left a bit to be desired.

It was a bit satisfying to have the people who stood by while she was being bullied suddenly have their preconceptions about her shattered. But, at the same time, Taylor knew that the only thing that made them think was the fact she had superpowers, and that depressed her. Suddenly having classmates come up and try to be friends, or want to discuss the latest cape news, or want to get an introduction to Glory Girl, all of it was so fucking superficial, she wanted to scream.

Taylor smiled softly; fortunately, she already had a plan in motion to make things interesting.

Taylor was waiting outside of Lady Photon's office when Amy and Victoria arrived to Victoria's surprise. "How'd you get here before us? We flew directly from school!"

Taylor shrugged, "Winslow gets out half an hour earlier than Arcadia."

"Oh," Victoria sighed, wondering why Taylor kept insisting on studying at Winslow, Victoria's Aunt Sarah had already offered, several times, to expedite a transfer to Arcadia, but Taylor kept declining with a small smile on her face. It was that more than anything which creeped Victoria out the most about Taylor. No matter what she always had a small smile on her face, like she knew something that you didn't.

Amy just stood silently, playing with her hair.

"Any idea why Aunt Sarah wants to meet with us?" Victoria asked, not wanting to wait in silence.

"Dunno," Taylor shrugged again, her small smile still on her face, "I could make some guesses, or use my power, but what's the fun in that?"

Victoria didn't know how to respond to that. Taylor could easily find out what's going on, she always could, that was her power after all, but she didn't quite seem to get that everybody else couldn't. But what worried Victoria the most was how Taylor always seemed constantly bemused, as if she got something which everybody else didn't have clue about.

But before Victoria could ask again, the door to her aunt's office opened and her aunt asked them to enter.

Upon entering the office, they found that Lady Photon was standing with two masked robed figures, one about a head shorter than the other, but otherwise identical.

Before Victoria could ask, Lady Photon already started introductions. "Victoria, Amy, Taylor, I'd like you to meet Millipede and Centipede, the newest members of the Wards and Protectorate respectively. Milli, Centi, it's my pleasure to introduce my nieces Panacea and Glory Girl, along with Farseer."

The two robed figures bowed, "It is a pleasure to meet you." Something about her voice set Victoria on edge, it sounded off, like she was speaking through an echo chamber or something.

Victoria smiled, "It's always good to meet new heroes! I'm sure we'll get along great." Beside her, Amy nodded shyly, while Taylor still had her small smile, and was that a twinkle in her eye, but nodded as well.

"It is good to know that there are other heroines around my daughters age, I'm sure she will appreciate having someone she can talk to who won't be, surprised, by her appearance." The shorter of the two seemed to shrink a little at the taller's words.

Victoria smiled, "I'm sure we'll get along great." Then the daughter comment registered, "Oh you're a second generation cape too! That's great, there aren't that many outside of my family and it'll be great to have someone to share experiences with."

Millipede seemed to shrink back even more, before replying, almost too quietly for Victoria to hear, "Third generation,"

Victoria frowned, "Third generation? But aren't you kind of old for that?"

Centipede was the one to reply, "We don't actually know our exact ages, we're what the PRT calls Case 53s. One day we just woke up, my daughter, my father and I, not knowing anything other than our relationships to each other."

To Victoria's surprise, Amy was the one to respond, "Is that why you wear those cloaks?" What was she talking about? Why would that explain why they wore full cloaks. Victoria tried to recall what she knew about Case 53 capes. They were those capes who were found with no memory, a tattoo somewhere on their body and a generally some form of disfigurement. Oh.

Millipede seemed to back away even further, but her mother put a hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry Milli, these are heroes, I'm sure that they won't mind." She turned to Amy, "Yes, we wear these cloaks because our appearance tends to be a bit, discomforting, for most people. You see, our bodies are almost entirely made up of our namesakes."

Victoria tried picturing that in her head, and almost lost her lunch. Suddenly she was very thankful that the pair were wearing such concealing clothing.

Lady Photon, seemingly seeing where her niece's thoughts were going intervened, "I'm sure that the five of you will get plenty of chances to know each other. We're actually here to discuss another matter. You see-"

Centipede held up a hand, "Thank you Sarah, but I believe I should be the one to explain." She turned to face the three teens, and even though Victoria couldn't see it through her mask, she was certain that she was looking directly at them.

With eyes made of centipedes… Eww…

Victoria shook her head, and tried to erase that image, while Centipede was still speaking," –You see, my father, Decipede, unlike my daughter and myself, has not decided to become a hero, and is instead taking a more villainous roll in this city. If you encounter him, you must call for back up immediately, as he has the power to control all the insects in his area."

Victoria barely repressed a snort, no insects were going to get past her invulnerability.

Lady Photon frowned at Victoria, a we will talk later look on her face, but did not interrupt Centipede.

"While we are not currently sure where he is, he is a devious person, and totally without scruples. You must not underestimate him, as he has a habit of pulling out wins where he really shouldn't be able to."

Victoria rolled her eyes. "Yeah sure, we can take him."

Taylor slapped her.