"I'm not sure why you would do this," Dad said. "She's fourteen years old and this seems like a lot of work."

We were having dinner at home for multiple reasons; partially because we were discussing things that weren't safe to be overheard and partially so I didn't embarrass Dad or Garrett with how much I ate.

I still hadn't told either of them what had happened at the restaurant, and I wasn't certain that I was going to. After all, while Garrett was sometimes cruel in terms of the things he put me through, I had a sense that he had a basic feeling about my safety. If he thought I was already out in public doing Cape things he might refuse to teach me anything else.

"She reminds me a little of myself at that age," Garrett said. "Less video games and tabletop roleplaying, of course, but still with a drive to be someone better."

"Still... it means you have to spend a lot of time with an underage girl."

I fought the urge to kick Dad under the table. The implication was horrible and embarassing, as though the only reason that anyone would associate with me was because they were a pervert.

Garrett scowled at me. "She runs around telling people that I'd her Dad. I'm twenty three years old... did I have her when I was eight?"

"It's the height," Dad said, glancing at me. "It makes you look older."

"The point is, she thinks of me like I'm old enough to be, well, you. Even if I was interested in girls that age, which I'm not thankfully, she's getting stronger every day. How long will it be before she's strong enough to throw a car at me?"

"Depends," Dad said slowly. "It strikes me that the danger isn't that you'd force her physically. Girls of that age are impressionable, and they are attracted to older guys. You're exactly the kind of person a teenage girl would think is amazing, which would make it easy to turn her head."

"I wish it had been that way when I was younger," Garrett said, chuckling ruefully. "I couldn't get a date to save my life."

"Still... " Dad said.

"I think you're underestimating your daughter," Garrett said. "She's got a pretty good head on her shoulders most of the time, and she knows what she wants. That's definitely not me."

"And if she decides after working with you that it is you?"

"I'm not into little girls," Garrett said bluntly. "Right now I'm not even that interested in dating anyone."

My face felt hot, and I stared at the table. I felt humiliated even though I really hadn't seen Garrett like that. At this moment I wasn't interested in anyone, which had been one of the things Emma had taunted me about, at least when she wasn't calling me a slut.

"Oh?" Dad asked.

"I've tried dating girls who didn't share my interests, and it never worked out well. Girls who do share my interests tend to be competitive and there's hurt feelings. At this point in my life it's just easier to stay out of the drama."

Dad nodded slowly as I started on my second plate.

"Still, it's a big commitment, teaching somebody a martial art. Why bother?"

"It's the same reason I didn't walk away when I saw her being beaten in that alleyway. She's a cape," Garrett said "They're drawn to conflict. That means that she's probably going to end up fighting no matter what I do... and if she dies because I didn't teach her something that could save her life, then that's my fault."

"That's reasonable."

"Also, when she gets strong enough I plan on having her help me move," Garrett said, grinning.

Dad and I both stared at him.

"It's like being the guy with the pickup truck," Garrett said. "If you've got super strength everybody who knows you is going to ask you to help them move."

He turned to me and said, "Better watch that secret identity by the way."

"Are you planning to move soon?" Dad asked neutrally.

Garrett shook his head. "Just keeping it in mind for when the time comes."

They were silent for a bit, eating. The silence was starting to feel awkward enough that I was considering saying something when Dad finally spoke again.

"What are you planning on teaching her?"

"A mixture of martial arts," Garrett said. "Most martial arts are focused on sports aspects, which isn't a problem if you are taking your kid to competitions. Your daughter is planning to learn how to really fight, though, so I'll be taking several different disciplines and mixing them together."

My Dad looked at him with a questioning expression.

"Krav Maga, boxing, Jeet Kun Do, Muay Thai," Garrett said. "Maybe a little Chinese Kung Fu."

"You seem young to have learned all of that," Dad said.

Garrett shrugged. "I started young, really thought it would be cool to fight like the guys in the martial arts flicks. You'd be surprised what you can do if you aren't dating girls much."

"Are you planning to turn my daughter into a cape?" Dad asked.

"She's already a Cape," Garrett said.

"What do you mean?" Dad asked, his voice turning dangerous.

"You haven't heard?" Garrett asked. He pulled his phone out of his pocket, tapped a few things, and a moment later he handed it to dad.

I peered over his shoulder and saw a news article.

"They're calling her the bulemic defender?" Dad asked.

I winced as they both turned to look at me. "It wasn't my fault?" I said slowly.

The fourth plate of food was slowly turning sour in my mouth. I had a feeling that this meeting wasn't going to go the way that I'd planned.

So that's why he hadn't bothered to get me the weighted clothes he'd promised.


"That went well?"

I really wasn't sure; Dad was keeping his feelings close to his chest. He'd threatened to keep me from training for a month if I did anything crazy like that again. Garrett had also been uncharacteristically harsh.

Still, he hadn't grounded me after I'd explained what had happened, which was a good sign.

"Well enough," Dad said. "I don't think he's planning to molest you or turn you into a supervillain or anything. I'm not sure I approve of his life choices; being a You Tube star seems kind of shiftless."

"You always say not to judge," I said. "He wants something better than a dead end water carrying job, so isn't that a good thing?"

He sighed.

"I agreed to teach you about Ki," he said.

I nodded eagerly, leaning forward. Strength training was all well and good, but learning how to shoot energy from my hands and fly was like the dreams I'd always had of being like Alexandria.

"You should have told me about the restaurant though," he said. He stared at me for a long moment. "I can't protect you if I don't know what's happening."

He hadn't been able to protect me from anything; the bullys, the ABB, the feelings of guilt when Mom died. While it was true that I hadn't told him about any of it, it was because I knew that Mom's death had broken him.

I had a feeling that she was why he had given up on training, on getting stronger, and now that she was gone he had given up on everything else.

"Can I trust you with this?" He asked. "It won't be dangerous at first, but eventually it'll be more dangerous than shooting a gun."

"I'm already strong enough to pick up a rock and smash someone's head if I really wanted to," I said dryly. I was probably strong enough to crush a skull already.

"Missile weapons are different. If you miss somebody, it doesn't stop. It keeps going. There was a gang shooting last week where a four year old girl was killed by stray bullets meant for members of the Merchants."

I dorced myself not to roll my eyes. "I'll be careful."

He was acting like I was going to be some kid playing with a gun and accidentally shooting my best friend. Didn't he know I was more stable than that?

He grabbed my hands. "Taylor, if you really work hard at this, eventually you'll be strong enough to blow up that little girl's whole house."

"Parahumans don't make those kinds of mistakes."

"We aren't parahumans," Dad said. "Not the regular kind. They know how to use their powers from the moment they get them. We don't. If I can't trust you to even tell me when someone tries to kill you, how can I trust you with the power to destroy an entire family accidentally?"

"That wasn't my fault," I said. "If I was a normal peron, I might be dead right now."

"Or they might have driven you out of the restaurant and you'd have been in less danger," Dad said. "We can't know because we don't know what their plans were. My bet is that if you were an ordinary person you'd have left the restaurant instead of continuing eating."

"You don't know what it's like," I complained sulkily. "Being hungry all the time."

"So stop training," Dad said. "If you stop training now your appetite will go beck to normal in a few weeks and you won't have to bother with that gnawing hunger."

I stared at him, shaking my head a little.

"Don't think I haven't experienced it before. I trained in college; the guys in the dorm thought I must have a huge marijuana habit to eat as much as I was. It's part of the cost of what you're doing, and you have to be willing to hide how much you eat and risk people thinking you're bulemic if you want to continue."

I sighed and nodded. I hadn't eaten as much as I would have liked at dinner because of the embarassment and was already planning on going back for leftovers.

"Other Capes don't have to deal with this kind of crap," I said.

"They don't have our potential either," Dad said. "With enough work, you could be as strong as Alexandria. I doubt it will happen though."

"Why?" I asked, stung.

"You'd have to work out for years, decades to get to that level, and you're smart enough that you'll have other things you can do with your life. Why do you think so many professional athletes get so good at what they do but come from underprivileged backgrounds?"

"Why?"

"Because they have to practice for tens of thousands of hours, doing the same thing over and over. It's boring and repetitive and the reason they do it is because they don't have any other way out. A millionaire's kid won't have that same kind of drive."

"I'm not a millionaire's kid," I said.

"But you're a kid with a future. You're smart enough to go to college, to get a career, to move out of this place and go somewhere you can have a good life."

He talked like that was all just around the corner. It was going to be three and a half years befoe I got out of high school, and that was an eternity. Getting strong really was my only way out.

It wasn't like we were going to have the money to go to college, not unless Dad had stashed some money from an old bank robbery of Mom's away.

We lived in Brockton Bay, the city where hope went to die. I didn't have any brighter future than anyone else, and the way things were going with the Endbringer, it was possible that the world itself might not exist by the time I was Dad's age.

Getting strong was the only way I could actually put my mark on the world, make it better than how I'd found it.

"Is all of this a way of trying to weasel out of teaching me?" I asked.

He sighed and shook his head. "You were right about one thing. We really do live in a dangerous city, and it's possible you could be attacked again."

I nodded, leaning forward.

"Which is why I'm teaching you," he said. "This might save your life someday, but if you get overconfident, turn into some kind of Rambo or something it's going to get you killed."

"If you teach me how to fly then I'll be able to get away from Hookwolf a whole lot easier," I said craftily. "There's not that many villains in town that can fly."

There was Purity, Rune and Crusader in the Empire and Lung when he was really ramped up. That was pretty much all I could think of. Most of the flyers in town were heroes; several members of New Wave, Aegis, Kid Win, a few others. Being able to fly would be the best way to ensure that I could get away.

"I can barely float," Dad said. "So it's not going to be very useful unless you get a lot stronger, and use it a lot more."

"You've got to start somewhere," I said. "Why not teach me something?"

He sighed, and said, "Take a seat."

I sat down and he pulled a chair facing me until our knees almost touched.

"What do you think Ki is?" he asked.

"Some kind of life energy?" I asked. "Some people have more of it and some people have less of it, and I'm not really sure why."

"There's ki in every living thing," he said. "In the trees, people, even in the Earth itself because of all the plant like and crawling anumals."

"Why is it stonger in some than others?"

That was a question that had been weighing on me. I'd noticed that some people had stronger ki than others, but there were patterns. The more violent they were the stronger their Ki seemed to be.

"I'm not sure," Dad admitted. "The more someone fights the better they tend to get at it, but why that is I've never been able to figure out."

"The gang kids at school are stronger than the other students," I admitted. I'd noticed that it was true of police officers who walked with a certain kind of swagger too, the ones that liked to throw their weight around.

Sophia had the strongest aura at the school. Did that mean that she was pit fighting or something? She certainly fit the mold as being the most violent person in school, but she wasn't that much more violent than some of the gangbangers.

"Parahumans tend to fight more than most," Dad said, "They start out brighter, depending on how strong their powers are, and they only get brighter the more they fight."

"Can you use it to see how powerful someone is?"

"Within limits," Dad said. "It won't tell you if a guy has a gun for example."

"Right."

Greg Vedar with a gun would be dangerous, but he'd still be Greg Vedar to my Ki sense. That was something I'd have to remember.

Fighting skill wasn't everything. Someone who was smart and had the right weapons could beat almost anyone, even if they had to be carrying a nuclear weapon.

"You watched the Star Wars movies, didn't you?" Dad asked.

"The first ones,' I said. "Not the Earth Aleph ones with the giant frog man or whatever he was."

"Right. Well, Ki is a little like the Force, except it's not religeous and it doesn't have any kind of mind of its own."

"As long as I get a light saber I'm totally cool with that," I said.

Dad looked a me for a moment, his head cocked. "I wonder if you could use Ki that way... "

"I'm just kidding," I said hurridly. "Just teach me what I can do."

"Close your eyes," he said.

I nodded and closed them.

"You've already shown that you're particularly gifted in this; a lot of the family can't even sense Ki without a lot of training and you picked it up right away."

I tried to suppress my grin. It felt nice to get a compliment from Dad. He'd done it all the time when I was younger, but they'd dried up since Mom died.

"Try to feel my Ki."

I focused and then I frowned. "Have you been training?"

"Maybe a little," he said. "Just getting in back in shape."

Was he feeling a little competative with me? He'd said that kind of fighting spirit had been part of what had whittled our family down.

"Now focus on your own Ki," he said.

I tried to sense my own Ki, and for a moment if felt like trying to focus on your heartbeat. I couldn't hear it, but once I felt it I couldn't sense anything else.

He took my hand and said, "Feel what I'm doing and try to make your own Ki do the same thing."

It was hard. I felt myself starting to sweat as I tried to force my Ki to do something that it didn't want to do. It felt unnatural.

"Now say Lumnos," Dad said.

"Isn't that from Harry Potter?"

"You don;t have to say it," Dad said. "But it would be kind of cool."

I sighed. "Lumnos."

Opening my eyes I started as I realized that hovering over my hand was a tiny ball of flickering white light. I could feel that it was made of my own life energy, and it was far smaller than Dad's had been.

Still, it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.