A Tale of Transmigration Chapter 10: Normalization, a worm fanfic

-/ Chapter 10: Normalization \-

I all but instinctively threw my hand into the inside of my attacker's elbow arresting the stab. With a twist of the wrist I grasped his bicep and pulled him towards me and off balance. My knee rose up to meet him, forcing him to expel his breath and drop the plastic knife. I threw in another knee for good measure before shifting my weight and sending him sprawling into the mat and in the path of another of my opponents.

The movement of fleas on one of my attackers indicated he was charging with his Styrofoam bat raised over his head. I had already taken two hits from him and wasn't about to take another. I danced out of his way, throwing a jab into his armpit as he passed. The armpits are one of those soft spots on the human body no one really thinks about but are none the less effective targets. He stumbled and nearly fumbled his weapon, leaving him in no condition to avoid the flurry of blows I delivered from behind.

I turned back in the direction I'd thrown the knife wielder just in time to see a duct-taped length of rope come my way. I ducked, feeling the stand in for a metal chain whipping my hair up in its wake. I charged, slamming my shoulder into my attacker's ribs. I didn't move him more than half a step back, not surprising given he out massed me easily. However his height and higher center of balance worked against him as I caught his leg as he tried to disengage. A moment later he hit the mat and I delivered a quick series of strikes to his groin, center of his chest, throat, and nose to disable him. Actually, I put the blows off target for his sake, hitting the front of his hip instead of his groin for example.

Sam was my last opponent. She came at me from behind, doing a fair imitation of a gangbanger with a pistol. She didn't know it but she was pointing the rubber coated air soft gun at what would have been the most vulnerable point if I had been in costume. I spun about, grasping the gun by its barrel and directing it away from my body as I wrenched it from her grasp and I drove my hand into her wrist. The attack was calculated in the force I delivered, enough to make her reflexively loosen her grip but not enough to actually injure her. The follow up elbow to her collar bone stood in for a blow to her wind pipe, again measured to not hurt her as bad as I could have. Then as she staggered back from the second attack I clubbed her with the pistol now in my hand and swept the gun across all of my attackers to make sure they were staying down.

"Oww," Sam muttered as she rubbed the point on her forehead the pistol's magazine had impacted. I noted belatedly the expressions on everyone's faces. Some were obviously annoyed, others, mostly those who had been eliminated first were wide eyed.

I didn't like that. That meant I had performed too well. I should have been here when everyone else had taken this test to gauge what was acceptable for me to do. I knew that sounded like I was far more skilled than my peers here, but I wasn't. The problem was I did have a significant edge over them thanks to the ambient bugs in the martial arts studio, enough of one that I could react quicker to threats than a normal human should. I had been careful in how good I did because I didn't want to send up red flags. I didn't need anyone thinking that little Taylor Hebert could be some sort of cape.

"Very good job Taylor," Mark congratulated me as he walked forward clapping. I mentally winced. Yep, I did too well. I should have been here for the rest last Thursday, instead I had sat on a rooftop observing the Merchants' territory. How to salvage this?

"Not really," I started finishing around for a lifeline to pull myself up with, "I took too many hits. The knife to my kidneys alone would have been lethal. If not that the two shots Joshua got on me with his baseball bat would have been able to take the fight out of me. I only succeeded because the weapons didn't hurt."

It was true. The practice weapons used in Sam's were all 'safetied;' a heavily duct taped rope stood in for a length of chain, soft rubber knives, and Styrofoam baseball bats for their more effective cousins. Air soft guns whose trigger guards had been removed and been coated in a fairly thick layer of rubber completed the set. Of course, had I been in costume the damage would have been about the same the knife would have been turned away by spider silk and chitin, impacts dulled. Skitter could have easily taken these blows, but a normal unarmored teen? No.

"Don't sell yourself short," Mark said, "You ended up with all seven of your opponents incapacitated to varying degrees and a pistol to cover yourself with until you could get help. That sounds like a win in my book."

The tests of Sam's involved everyone ganging up on the testee, the exact means they did so depended on the material being tested. The disarming test I just completed saw everyone grabbing the previously mentioned safe weapons and attacking me. It was supposed to simulate an actual gang attack. However it seemed Mark didn't fully comprehend the events, "A punctured kidney would invalidate all of that. I'd have been better off avoiding the group or running at my earliest chance. The only person I really needed to disarm here was Sam since her weapon had the reach to prevent an escape. From there I should have just sprinted until I was free and clear."

"You're right. Well, you'd be right if you were alone, but what if you were with one of your friends who couldn't run as quickly or fight as well? There are times we must stand and fight in the defense of others. We can't always count on capes to come swooping out the sky to save our hides," Mark said. He liked to draw attention to how capes couldn't be everywhere and we'd be better off if we could defend ourselves and others. I had no problem with that mind set. The problem was he had a tendency to draw on it even when it didn't work.

"Well, if we're going by that logic I should have tested with another person here that I had to defend. If my performance here was any indication we'd have both ended up dead as I over-extended myself. The scenario here involved me alone combating seven armed assailants, a situation best avoided," I countered. This was in part me pushing the version of Taylor I used here to the forefront. Her core tenant was just because you can doesn't mean you should. I hoped that by displaying that here it would dissuade thoughts of my being a cape. After all few capes actively avoided conflict, we all seemed to rush straight into it.

Mark sighed and I knew I had won this round. Even though Sam's Self Defense was in the docks, it was close enough to the outskirts of the area that it didn't really see all that much gang activity. What little they did was easily avoided or even dealt with. There was just a small time gang of mostly wannabes in the area. Between that and how Mark looked like the type of guy you didn't want to get into a fight with, it was easy to understand where his misconception came from. The world was far more dangerous than he gave it credit and went you got down to it he was living a dream.

Class ended shortly after I had decided that I wasn't coming back. I noticed the looks I was getting. I was performing too well too consistently and too many people were starting to thinking I was too good to be normal. It didn't help that I was the youngest in the class. And yes, I'd be dropping the classes at Sam's, but that didn't mean I was not going to practice Krav Maga anymore. I'd add the endurance training and a few other exercises to my own exercise regime and definitely try to find someone else to continue practicing counters, breaks, and disarms with. That would probably involve a talk with Nakamura.

I had learned what I set out to here. I had wanted to learn the various grapple breaks, disarms, and escapes that were included in Krav Maga's repertoire. That was a big part of self defense, especially if it happened that you were dealing with opponents that you couldn't directly fight. Thankfully it had also been a chief component of the classes. We practiced those moves almost every class so it was one of the things I knew the best from my time at Sam's.

My mind was already coming up with ways to occupy the otherwise free time I'd have on Tuesdays and Thursdays now. I was leaning towards additional classes at Peerless; there was so much I wanted to learn. In a way I was glad that I had ended up in fifteen-year-old me instead of another eighteen-year-old self as I've got the extra two years to work with.

It was on that positive note I sighed into the night air. As odd as it was, and despite the fact that I should be exhausted after class, I felt, I don't know, invigorated. The intense training regime here wasn't draining me as much as it had been when I first started a mere month ago but that didn't even come close to accounting for the great deal of excited, restless energy stirring within compelling me to do something.

I had noticed that since reincarnating I had been more impulsive. My working theory on that was that my new power was influencing my mind in a similar manner as my original passenger did, or rather was. Alternatively it could be that I was simply impatient since I had already gone through these days in my previous life. Whatever the case may be, this energy wasn't due to my newfound impatience; if I had to name the feeling it would be similar to the giddiness I felt when I originally went out in costume. An idea came to mind to burn off the energy so I'd be able to get some sleep when I got home.

I reached out with my power finding Atlas lounging about on a rooftop three blocks distant. Over the last week I had taken to having Atlas and a fair amount of bugs stashed away in out of the way places so that if I ever needed them they'd be on hand and ready. In my last life I had been caught too many times without enough bugs on hand and I wasn't about to repeat my mistakes again. Always be prepared.

A few minutes later I was garbed in Skitter's costume and moving. It had been a little under a week since I started attending Arcadia and while I was focusing on the PR side of things a bit more than I really wanted to it wasn't to say I wasn't doing anything else cape related. I was spending most evenings after martial arts classes making slow progress with my bio-tinkering projects and the remodeling of my lair. I was, however, considering the way that some of my projects might be perceived more than I had been before and had even scrapped a few ideas I had come up with because when I looked at them from an outsider's perspective they had seemed gross, freakish, or too monstrous.

While in Sam's I had pushed a lot of the swarm to the back of my mind, but now that I was out and about in costume I let myself pay the swarm more attention. I had already set up a complex chain of relay bugs to stretch my power to cover an absurdly large area with additional swarms hidden throughout. My power extended well into ABB territory and I started running tendrils of bugs through the air careful to stagger the time my tendrils were out in the open as a way of suggesting a relatively short control range and a traveling controller.

It was interesting to see how people reacted to those tendrils. Given that I still hadn't come up with a solid idea of how to improve public opinion of me, the civilian reaction ran a rather rich gamut that made it difficult to predict how any one person might react. The criminal element was more easily predicted; street level thugs tried to look inconspicuous or clustered together in anticipation of fights that didn't come while the more valuable hangouts where either reinforced with nearby thugs or buttoned up to look like a civilian joint.

With Atlas I could easily patrol from the sky at a height that would generally be undetectable. I could do so while avoiding one of the major draw backs of such a choice. I knew from my research that flying capes actually tended to overlook a lot of small crime and grow increasingly disconnected from events on the ground. From what I read it actually seemed like the further from the ground you moved the more likely you were to miss crime occurring nearby, the offset of course was that you also tended to be able to patrol a larger area if you weren't limited to following streets.

I could circumvent that, at least to a degree, with my swarm. With them I effectively extended my senses to encompass several blocks at any given time. That wasn't my only advantage when it came to dealing with crime either. Because I could act effectively through the swarm I could generally react quicker to crimes in progress and I wasn't even limited to intervening in one location at a time. Of course I preferred to personally get involved when possible so as to heighten the impact my take downs would have on the criminal elements of the city.

When I thought about it, Skitter was actually a great street level hero. Not many others could even lay claim to the effect I could have on local crime. Most heroes tried to be a crime deterrent by making semi-frequent patrols in a given area. They'd either intervene in any crimes they came across, monitor police bands so they'd be informed of crimes occurring in the vicinity, or a combination thereof. But generally speaking, their level of force projection was rather low in the grand scheme of things. When they started throwing their weight around, crime in an area plummeted for a few hours as other criminals would keep their heads down to avoid the hero. But that was nothing compared to what I could do. I could quite suddenly pursue large numbers of thugs across my power's radius with the same intensity that other heroes pursued singular targets. They could batten down the hatches all they wanted; it wouldn't prevent me from finding them. As such, I could put huge dents in the criminal activity of an area.

If I chose to.

The problem was I hadn't actually done anything like that yet. I was mimicking other heroes by appearing and attacking a particular site, stopping a particular crime; those sorts of things. I was purposely being less effective than I could be because I was watching the gangs. I was learning their reactions to cape presence, trailing targets back to strong points, and generally learning the infrastructure of my foes' organizations. Every night I went out and after every morning run more data points were recorded and I wouldn't be surprised if I had a more complete view of gang activity in the docks than the PRT or BBPD's Gang Task Force did.

The gangs were, of course, not taking my prodding or store house raiding lying down, I had avoided more than one trap meant for me. Empire 88 and the ABB were also deploying rapid response groups anytime I or another hero was spotted. It said something of what I was stirring up, the other independents were hitting the gangs harder and more often than they had before my appearance. They didn't know what I was actually up to, but they could see the results of my activities. I think for the first time in years the majority of gang violence was in the pursuit of removing us heroes from their territories.

Their reaction however meant the police had to react differently to the calls of heroes that captured gang members. They couldn't come rushing to the site of a takedown without running into these kill squads. No, more often if the police thought they might run into said hit squads they'd lay low until said group cleared out before trying to collect my victims. To make sure they had the opportunity, I had to bind the thugs more thoroughly to prevent the reinforcements from extricating my victims.

All that said, flying around on Atlas all the time wasn't really that good of an idea. With the amount of hate I was generating among the gangs and how stable of a flying platform he was, I was eventually going to catch a bullet or suffer similar attacks. Further, I couldn't let myself become reliant on my mount for mobility. There were going to be times when calling Atlas in would be unfeasible or I'd otherwise have to go without him for whatever reason. When that happened it would come down to my own personal mobility to keep the game afoot. By that line of thought it made a certain amount of sense to use patrols like this one as an opportunity to practice navigating and traversing the city on foot.

Said personal mobility included the use of my costume's electrostatic clinging ability that provided me with some notable navigation options compared to, well, almost everyone. When I originally added the mechanism to my costume, it had been with the intent of utilizing it to wall crawl like Spider-man and the actual bugs that inspired the ability. I found out quickly that crawling up walls the way it was demonstrated in media required a level of flexibility, particularly in my hips, that I just didn't possess. I could crawl in other 'styles' but most of them ended up looking very, very silly. I was slowly becoming more flexible thanks to stretches and exercises I was partaking in as part of my training regime and had even added additional tasks to it specificity to improve my capabilities in that particular parameter.

Trying to model my movements on the comic book character also pointed out several things to me. As much as I might wish it, I wasn't any more graceful than a normal human nor had I developed a means of preventing my blood from rushing to my head when upside down. As such, on a realistic level I wasn't going to be moving like the most well known wall crawler even excluding the whole I can't shoot webs problem. I couldn't stay inverted for prolonged periods of time and lacked the dexterity for much in the way of acrobatic movements. But crawling up walls and perching on the sheer face of a building's facade wasn't the only thing I could do with the clinging capability.

A few weeks back I started researching how other capes and even normal people got around in unusual ways. That was how I found out about the discipline of parkour and the practice of buildering, that is, scaling the exterior of various buildings. I had known about the latter due to the various individuals that had been given the title 'human fly' for managing to scale massive building facades without any safety gear or powers to protect them.

My online searches found me stumbling onto a rather large following of 'buildering' and parkour practitioners both within and outside the cape community. I knew that there were people who actually did the human fly act and a lot of otherwise ground bound capes used rooftops to navigate through the urban jungle to varying degree of success but I had no idea there was so many people participating in the activities. Parkour, or its cousin free running, had been steadily gaining popularity as it was featured in video games, movies, and other media. The fact that more than a few capes dabbled in the art to expand their options in rooftop traversal didn't hurt matters, especially as others, like Vigilant, were well known practitioners.

Parkour and to a lesser extent buildering promoted looking at the world in a different way, to see possibilities for traversal where others did not. It was actually something I found myself able to do easily, no doubt due to the amount of time I had spent sensing the world through my swarm. But seeing the world like that was one thing, being able to actually perform the actions…well, ask any ten year when they're playing make-believe. It wasn't easy. I really needed to work on my agility and dexterity, I couldn't even perform half of the maneuvers I saw or ones I came up with in relation to integrating my unique capabilities into the mix.

Still it's not like I was going into this with the mind set of 'learn parkour' I was more focused than that. I saw the discipline as another tool in my arsenal that would combo together with my clinging ability rather well. I didn't even need the entire tool set either, similar to how I didn't need to learn the entirety of a martial art to get something useful out of it. The online community had dozens of videos and manuals about how to perform actions, while it was not as effective as having an actual trainer it made it easy for me to pick and choose which tools in the box I wanted. There were also a large abundance of exercises one could perform to practice the 'moves' or better prepare myself for said actions.

Worst case, if I had an idea of a way to move that I couldn't find a video of I could ask the community. There were, undoubtedly, more than a few curious people wondering what 'Venomous Grin' was coming up with since I hadn't actually shared anything about what I was actually doing with the knowledge and skill I was acquiring.

Generally speaking I trained with particular movements within my lair, the large center room offering ample surface area to practice in away from the public eye. The reason was pretty obvious, I looked like a fool when I started trying a new maneuver often slamming bodily into a wall, falling, or just looked ridiculous as I screwed things up. Of course, training in a closed environment for urban movement can only go so far, at some point you had to take it to the streets to learn when and where to use particular movements and really push yourself further. That's what I was doing right now with my physical body.

I leapt off a rooftop into an alleyway landing on the opposite building's wall on all fours. I didn't stay in that position very long, having already shifted my weight to conserve moment from the jump as I began running along the wall. Yeah, wall running. My particular brand involved abusing the fact the cling pads on my boosts extended far enough up the sides of the foot to easily make contact with the wall and thus help find purchase. It worked rather well as I more often ran out of wall before gravity got its say in things. Of course if I wasn't so good at multitasking, the timing required to only be adhering to the wall when I needed to would have likely been impossible.

Reaching the end of the building, I leapt. I twisted myself about as I cleared the intersection of alleyways and landed on all fours on an opposite building's wall before scrambling up it. I knew from practice that catching myself with just a single arm or even both arms was dangerous, as momentum could cause the joints to hyper extend or worse. I had nearly pulled my shoulder out of socket the first time I practiced catching myself like this.

My scramble up the wall was, like everything else, assisted by my clinging ability. While it didn't look much better than my wall crawl, it was faster and thus something I could do when I needed to quickly gain height. At the end I actually jumped, almost like a leaping frog, and landed in a somewhat awkward roll upon the roof itself. I definitely needed to work on the last part more.

This sort of practice was tiring in a way running no longer was. I suppose it was the fact that running focused on the muscles of my legs and cardio. This, like martial arts, exercised the entire body. That was why I had chosen it to help burn off that almost nervous energy that boiled within. I wanted to be able to actually sleep tonight and not be kept up by bad dreams and an overactive mind.

The last few nights I had been having more odd dreams featuring me becoming some monstrous version of Skitter. The dreams preyed on the stray thoughts of the day, mixed with a unhealthy does of nightmare fuel supplied by my previous life. Last night's had been so vivid and oddly sensual that-

I was distracted from my thoughts by the sound of a gun roaring in the night a block and a half away.

I was reacting almost instantaneously, while I may be limiting myself to better collect data I was not about to turn a blind eye to whatever was occurring. My swarm was already investigating the source of the noise, a twenty four hour convenience store. Tapping into the swarm sight of select clusters of bugs in the area gave me a sense of movement and light in the street in front the store and heading away. That meshed with what I was hearing, that first shot had been loud as it broke the relative silence of the night. But it wasn't alone now. Other weapons joined in as I raced towards the site of the initial shooting. Oddly the gunfire was actually moving away and one of the two sides engaging in the fire fight seemed to be firing quieter weapons. Not silencer-on-your-gun quiet either, the sounds of the weapons' mechanisms were even subdued.

Arriving on site I was able to use my own eyes to take in the bizarre scene. Just in front the convenience store a middle aged, slightly overweight man who all but screamed his role as the store's clerk and the victim of the initial shooting was slumped against the glass door leading into the store. A pump action shotgun was resting against his shoulder despite the three oddly dressed people around him. They wore costumes that were obviously inspired by the latest Tron movie comprised of tight fitting body suits and full helmets adorned with glowing lines. Two were men, adorned with white lights, armed with some sort of assault rifle prop; I say prop because the weapons had obvious orange marking on the barrel and a high voltage warning stickers on the receiver. The female of the group was crouched over the clerk and her more ornate costume glowed with green lights. While she waved a similarly glowing baton across the clerks injury, she was also obviously armed with a some sort of tinker tech weapon that looked like it had been made in two very distinct parts one a relatively smooth shaped receiver that had been mounted on a very basic, skeletal rifle frame.

I recognized her immediately and it served to give context to what was happening down the street. This was Haxxor of Multiplayer; the third cape of Uber and Leet's group. The two men with her were a security detail of their henchmen. From my research on this world's capes I knew that Uber and Leet, while having started out much like they had in my previous life, were now turned towards a much gentler path thanks to this woman's membership in their group. Nowadays they appeared in a heroic capacity about as often as they were villainous and what side of that divide they fell on largely depended on the characters they were portraying. They were also well known for their frequent donations to game related charities and support of the emerging art form.

The rest of Multiplayer were a block and a half down the street dressed in military garb with balaclavas obscuring their identities. Uber and Leet were recognizable among the group due to their more detailed costumes and Leet's ski mask featuring a skull pattern and ballistic shades while Uber looked like he was going bare faced. They were loading an ABB gangbanger into a U-Haul van that had been dressed up to look like part of a building's facade, inside I spotted what looked like some sort of ad hoc torture device revolving around jumper cables and a car battery.

As three other gang members were bound with zip ties by the other henchmen, Uber pulled himself into the van. A henchmen inside the false room tapped the jumper cables together causing sparks to fly as Uber pulled the door halfway down and then, toward Leet and the floating camera drone, said, "This is going to take some time. Go with Meat and Royce and check the favela for any sign of Rojas - that's where this guy was headed."

He pushed the door closed and I timed my drop onto the top of the U-Hal to coincide with the closing of the door. Absently I noted many of the henchmen were now paying attention to the swarm that buzzed over their heads. Recently added sensory organs in my gloves allowed me to 'hear' what was going on inside the U-Haul by translating the minute vibrations caused by their speech. Still it took a few seconds to decode what I was hearing, "-gunna do?"

"Nothing. But, you got lucky. If Hax called in telling us the old man wasn't going to make it, well, Bob here would be the least of your worries." Whatever the gangbanger said next didn't make sense to me until I heard Uber respond, "Yeah, I might be a cosplaying bastard but I'm not the one strapped to a chair am I?"

Satisfied the gangbanger wasn't actually going to get tortured I turned my attention to Leet who was now talking to the audience through the camera drone, "And remember folks, torture, no matter what Jack Bauer tells you, is not a reliable means of extracting information from suspects. After a point, victims will admit to anything to make the pain stop. More than that no one walks away from torture unchanged. Not the subject, not the torturer himself."

The bright light on the camera dimmed and the drone went zipping away. Leet let out a sigh that seemed to completely at odds with how he usually talked. He turned back to the van and looked straight up to me; I guess I hadn't been as good on my landing as I thought.

"Skitter, right? Thanks for waiting and not interrupting the shoot," he greeted me. Without a camera rolling, Leet seemed to drop the majority of the pretense of his cape persona, slouching forward slightly and if anything sounding world weary. Given who this was I could easily imagine him being or having been bullied in a similar manner as I had been.

"In case you're wondering," Leet said almost casually, "We're just going to bind the guy up and drop him and his friends off in front the precinct. We've been driving around for the last two hours looking for someone to chase down for that scene."

I motioned towards Haxxor and recognizing my unvoiced question Uber answered, "She's patching the clerk up with one of my healing devices. I don't remember what game that was from...no wait...that used to be my wand of cure moderate wounds. We're not going to have a problem are we?"

"I suppose not," I replied as I dropped onto the street in front of him. Not being able to help myself I tiled my head in a show of curiosity and asked, "Aren't modern military shooters too easy for you guys to pull off?"

Leet snorted in response before giving voice to his thoughts, "Yes they are. It's for filler between our more obvious cosplaying escapades."

Uber emerged from the U-Haul a moment later and this close I could tell he was in fact masked. He was wearing a synthetic mask that gave him the face of whatever character he was portraying. During the short time I wondered how the mask was made Haxxor joined us. I noted with her arrival the various henchmen seemed to visibly relax. She herself had been entirely focused on me as she approached. A long moment passed before she spoke, "She has two."

"Two?"

"Powers; like Kid Win," Haxxor clarified her voice sounding as if the mic insider her helmet was of particularly low quality. I blinked at her words; I knew I had two powers, but I hadn't known that Chris did. I wondered what she'd say if she looked at the members of the Triumvirate, most of them obviously had more than a single power. Hell, Aegis seemed to have two unrelated powers.

I almost absently noted that all the tinker camera drones were flying into the trunks of a few cars as the vast majority of the henchmen started climbing into said vehicles. I also noted how focused on me Uber and Leet were. Thankfully Leet spoke before a silence that might be uncomfortable could fall, "Would you be willing to help us out? We can offer unique compensation for six hours of your time."

"Six hours?"

It was Haxxor that replied, "My power allows me to trade powers between capes for a fixed amount of time. People who gain Leet's power can build things that he's already made as if it was the first time they were being built."

"My power keeps a record of who built what, so people I trade with often, like Uber, start to build up a list of things they can't make again," the tinker in the skull mask elaborated.

I nodded, "So you'd what have me build something from schematics you've already made or something? And I get?"

"We can offer six hours of Uber's powers as compensation. That's six skills at mastery level that you'd retain afterwards," Leet explained. That, that really sounded like a good trade if they weren't doing anything untoward with my powers. That said my powers weren't something I'd want others to have even for a relatively short time.

"Did you pitch this at Kid Win?" I asked. I could see the tinker not going for it on the grounds that they were sometimes on the wrong side of the law. I wondered what his second power even was; maybe super balance to stay on his hoverboard?

"He shot at us before we could," I couldn't help but grin at Leet's words.

"In his defense, you tried to make the pitch in the middle of Mario Karting through the mall."

"You're only defending him because you think he's cute," Uber interrupted. Even though Haxxor's costume covered her entire body just the way she emoted made it clear that Uber's words had been true.

"One last thing, are you a case 53 or do your powers come with any extreme drawbacks you wouldn't want to have suddenly drop on you out the blue?"

"He asks because we traded his power with Newter one time and he ended up mutating into Newter's form," Haxxor elaborated.

"I don't think you'd want my bug control then, I automatically connect to the senses of every bug within my radius," I explained. I might be telling them something they didn't know but I'm pretty sure that my sensory capabilities were already public knowledge. Public...huh.

"Well maybe we can work around that if you've got the time, Hax could swap our powers. Then after they revert swap yours and Uber's," Leet said. Before I could reply he turned toward Haxxor and asked, "What does her power look like?"

"Identical to Panacea's" the trump replied.

"You've traded her power?" I asked more than a little surprised. I'd imagine Amy would be very protective of her power if for no other reason than to prevent others from learning the full scope of what she could do.

"Yeah. Between her and Glory Girl at the latter's request. It was after the last Endbringer attack, a lot of the healers were burning themselves out fixing everyone up. Panacea more so than others. So I swap their powers and GG just sort of reaches and with a touch puts her sister to sleep. Then went on a healing spree like Panacea had been doing."

"So it also transfers the little extras like Amy's understanding of biology?"

"Yeah. Apparently imparted knowledge that's intrinsic to powers takes a while to fade. I got to talk with them a few weeks later and Glory Girl said that she still knew more about human anatomy than she ever wanted to."

I tried hard not to laugh. I didn't succeed.

I woke up the next morning with the wisps of another dream-memory of the bullying campaign lingering about me. Thankfully this one hadn't included the rather disturbing imagery of my changing into some grotesque mockery of Skitter and going on a rampage. Those dreams had started tapering off and would hopefully fade into nothing. They were more than a little distressing.

After trading phone numbers and parting ways with Multiplayer last night, I had spent another hour roaming the streets and alleyways before heading home. Overall it had been uneventful, though I stopped a couple of crimes here and there over course of the night. It said something that I considered stopping muggings and convenience store robberies 'uneventful.' It didn't surprise me, I was after all chiefly working on removing the gangs from the street. Even if the crimes were perpetrated by gang members, it was all small potatoes in the grand scheme of things.

I pushed those thoughts aside. Today was Friday and the end of my first week at Arcadia. It had been an eventful week, not so much as Skitter, but as Taylor. I had met a number of new people, been the center of attention far more than I was comfortable with, and been made aware of just how little of a life I had outside of cape activities. In fact, almost everything I did as Taylor had some bearing on my life as Skitter. I claimed martial arts as a hobby, but in reality I had taken it up to provide skills I'd need as a cape. My exercising and staying fit were similarly more about being prepared for life as Skitter, than having anything to do with Taylor.

This stemmed from the fact that in my last life there hadn't really been much separation between my identities. My identity was public knowledge within three months of my debut and before that I only had to really hide my identity from my dad and people at school for a month. Even excluding everything to do with Skitter I hadn't had much of a social life or inclination towards hobbies thanks largely to the bullying campaign spearheaded by my former best friend.

Morning habituals done I headed downstairs for breakfast. Over the week Dad and I had adjusted our patterns slightly. My morning runs now came after my breakfast. I wasn't running my usual route though the docks anymore, instead I simply ran towards school until I felt a sufficient burn in my legs and took the nearest bus the rest of the way.

I finished preparing a breakfast centered around loaded omelets just as Dad made his way downstairs. He was dressed a tad sharper than normal to accommodate the fact that he'd not have time after work to freshen up for our meeting with the PRT. He really didn't need to get dressed up, we were just going to sign a nondisclosure agreement pertaining to the Wards identities. Then again if I was reading between the lines correctly, perhaps he was hoping Miss Militia would show up for the brief meeting. The flag wearing cape had taken a personal interest in dealing with the fallout of the bullying campaign and my dad, I believe, had taken a personal interest in her. To be honest, I approved. I actually had a great deal of respect for the woman.

As I boarded the bus to get to school I let my mind slip back to events earlier in the week, Tuesday to be exact. It had been my second day at Arcadia and I noticed almost immediately that Chris was absent. I had been curious, or maybe concerned, enough that I checked the PHO boards to see if he had been hurt the day before. There wasn't any news about such an event and later I'd learn he just ended up tinkering away the day. Soon enough though, my attention was turned to other matters.

I had gone to school with the assumption that Chris' interactions with me the day before had been enough to cement me into the nerd cliques of the school. It might have been somewhat true too, but without Chris around to serve as something as a buffer, I was bombarded by members of various cliques trying to feel out where I would fit in the school's social hierarchy. By lunch I had been harassed by varying degrees by the track team, the popular girls, the goths, and a few others. It wasn't anything really worthy of the term but it was an odd juxtaposition from what I was used to as Taylor.

By the time I had walked into the cafeteria I made the decision I was going to sit with the cape geeks where I wouldn't have to worry about the constant pelting of questions. That wasn't to be. As I left the lunch line with a tray partially loaded with food I was yanked over towards one of the popular kids' tables by none other than Amy Dallon. Part of me positively freaked out and I had to remind myself that she had no reason to assume I was Skitter even if she now had a very good picture of my biology. No, she had never touched Skitter and thus had nothing to compare it to. On the other hand she must have known I was a cape now since a quick peek would be all it took to notice my Gemma or the amount of activity that the constantly active state of my powers caused.

"Sit with us," she practically ordered.

"Fine. Can you let go?" I replied, motioning with the arm she held me by. She complied, spouting off a quick apology as she almost visibly shrunk upon realizing her brashness. As I took my seat I asked, "So why am I here?"

"Because you're new," Victoria said from where she sat at the table as she pushed a few bits of her food about her plate in an obviously bored manner, "and we can't eat lunch with some of the people we want to."

"Which pe- oh the Wards."

"Yes, the Wards," Victoria said rolling her eyes, "Here we have the rest of our friends, the ones that are like you, civilians, who don't know jack about capes."

"Hey, we know a bit about capes," a black girl retorted. She was beautiful in a way that suggested that she had been gifted with the most eye pleasing qualities of both her parents and had taken to refining that natural beauty.

"Oh? What do you know Jackie?" Victoria asked challengingly.

"Well…" the girl faltered. It seemed more likely 'Jackie' didn't want to actually rise to the challenge than that she had nothing to offer. I couldn't really blame her; Victoria was a bit scary because of how little restraint she had.

"Let me introduce everyone," Panacea said. She motioned towards each person at the table, "You no doubt recognize my sister Victoria. Then there's Luke, David, Claire, and Jacklyn."

Each of the students had made some sort of motion. Luke I realized was the artist that sat next to me in homeroom, that explained how they knew I existed. I also realized only he would know my name so I introduced myself, "I'm Taylor Hebert. Should I let you guys ask the questions or just supply the answers?"

They chuckled in response. Claire, a redhead that whose locks where such a vibrant color I suspected them to be dyed, answered, "What school did you go to before coming here?"

Huh, my respect for this group just jumped, not many bothered asking that question. Still I didn't want to think about that school and everything that had occurred there so I went with a blunt and direct response, "Winslow. It was crappy there. If you know anyone who goes there feel sorry for them."

"That bad?" Luke asked.

"That bad," I said echoing him, "I'd rather not talk about it if I can help it."

"Message received," he said as the others nodded in agreement.

"What kind of stuff are you into?"

"A lot of people ask me that and really it's hard to answer. I like to read. I'll read pretty much anything I can get my hands on. Unfortunately, that means I've got a good idea what books really shouldn't be made into movies." There was a snort of laughter from Victoria from that so I decided to add, "I've read some Aleph books and I can tell you our version of Twilight is way better and still shouldn't be made into a movie."

Everyone chuckled at that. David, apparently not knowing much about it asked, "Why?"

"Well to put it simply, what works as a book format doesn't always translate over too well. Action and adventure pieces do. Mysteries and thrillers tend to if handled with care. Romances, especially slowly built romances that extend over the course of a school year before coming to a head are more difficult. The movie format forces a compression of events, and in doing so often makes characters seem to have sudden changes of heart or make the interplay rushed. Things like that. "

"So anything else?" Amy asked, "If you don't mind me saying, your body's fitness speaks more of a love for physical exercise than curling up on the couch with a good book."

If I hadn't guessed that she'd gotten a good look under the proverbial hood, that would have been a solid indication. Still while it bothered me that I'd now have to be even more careful around her as Skitter, I couldn't fault her for something her powers did automatically. After all I knew just from our brief contact the girl was still not eating enough. I answered her, "I like to run in the morning and I practice martial arts."

"Martial arts, huh?" Victoria asked baiting, "Think you can hack it in a fight?"

"That depends entirely on circumstance. I'm decent, maybe even good, so I'd probably win in a bout against anyone at this table except you and your sister. But if one was to bring a weapon, especially a gun? No, I'd be avoiding that like the plague. But for me it's more about the other benefits of martial arts. I like being fit, I enjoy knowing that if some punk tries to waylay me on one of my runs I've got an actual fighting chance."

"Nice. A damsel that's not in distress," David said. "Do you go to one of the martial arts schools or just try to mimic things you see on TV?"

His words elicited a exasperated sigh. Seriously, who the hell would try to learn martial arts from TV? Most of what was seen on the big or small screen was faked or exaggerated in one manner or another. I decided that with Amy and Victoria around I was relatively safe divulging a little more than normal I said, "I train at Peerless. It's the Iron Claw's dojo, same one Gallant and Aegis attend. I've actually got classes with them."

"Really?"

"What's your view on them then?" Victoria asked and I was acutely aware the passive effects of her aura had increased.

"They're nice guys. I've been able to spar with both and they both hold back way more than they need to with me. I, uh, kinda kicked Gallant's ass a few times."

Victoria and the others laughed at that and I couldn't help noticing that Amy seemed pleased at the prospect. I honestly wondered about that, my memory of Panacea from my previous life was fractured at best leaving me with a vague idea that she needed more good in her life or she risked going somewhere dark that would leave a mark on things for a long time.

I pushed the thoughts to the side with a fake smile and decided to go mining for information myself, " Speaking of capes."

"Yeah?" Victoria asked.

"My dad works in administration for the Dockworker's Union so I've heard all about how much collateral damage gets left behind when capes clash. How does anyone not end up thinking of capes as 'those horrible destructive guys always fighting'? I mean, I know some capes have powers that are less destructive, thinkers for example, but every member of New Wave is capable of wrecking the block," I noticed the looks on everyone's faces, I had obviously just broached a topic one doesn't broach around Glory Girl. And then Victoria laughed.

"Really, sometimes I have no idea," I cocked an eyebrow and she continued, "Most of the time the damage isn't too bad, the crime is stopped, criminals apprehended, and we pay for the damages to get things repaired. But other times? I've seen some pretty bad stuff, like White Knight's rampage just recently, and I honestly don't know how people put up with us at times."

Amy took up the slack as Victoria trailed off her mind occupied by the question, "I suppose it helps that you know so much about New Wave. You know we at least don't intend to cause major property damage. Victoria's the worst of us when it comes to collateral and when you get down to it she's not even that bad. You said we were pretty destructive, but none of us have much of an area effect. A missed shot from Laserdream isn't going to blow a gaping hole in anything and Victoria's limited to the range of her fist, so it tends to be rather contained. Lung on the other hand. "

There were chuckles following Amy's words. She smiled, the expression lighting up her mousy features. She looked far different than the girl I hazily recalled from my previous life. I wanted to think that some of that was my spending time with her as Skitter and thus giving her a means to explore her power in a relatively safe manner. We were overdue for our next meeting, as such I made a mental note to try to set one up later in the week.

"It's not like we are tying to cause damage," Victoria said, "At least I don't. I mean, sure my 'dramatic and dynamic' entries do a bit of damage and on occasion I'll use debris as a thrown weapon...But it's not like I go into an encounter with 'I want to absolutely break this building' running through my mind," she said before she flashed a dazzling smile that I was sure the media absolutely ate up, "on the other hand I've gone into some thinking, 'Yes! I get to smash something!' "

"Victoria Smash!" Luke intoned in a horrible impression of the Incredible Hulk as we laughed. His comment only made things worse and I found myself chuckling as well. They soon evolved into full blown laughter as Glory Girl herself joined in.

That wasn't the only time I brought up PR in either of my identities. I asked Gallant about it during Wednesday's cape class as Skitter. That had been about as useful as I expected. The sci-fi knight made a habit of interacting with the population. He had the personality to succeed in social circles and made full use of it in his cape persona. I didn't have his charisma nor the interpersonal skills to make such an approach work.

While it seemed like everyone had their own people for PR and handled it a little differently it all seemed to boil down to the same general message; 'Show the public you are good people.' The problem with that was most of the ideas boiled down to making myself less frightening and more approachable, both of which was at odds with the 'Terror of the Swarm' persona and reputation I'd been working to firmly establish in the minds of the city's criminal element.

One thing I did catch that sounded useful was his comment about how all the Wards used social media like Facebook, Twitter, and the Parahumans Online forums to interact with their fans. It was something that I had been reminded of when I encountered Uber and Le-Multiplayer.

The group was known for streaming videos of their antics. While I wasn't going to stream my own or try to make money off of it, I did have a back log of eye camera videos I could clean up and upload to let people see things from my perspective. I wasn't really going to be 'stealing their shtick' either; many other capes did the same thing. Locally, we had Vista, who often uploaded videos of her and the other Wards being themselves.

In my last life, I had been outfitted with a camera in my mask in order to keep track of my activities to ensure I wasn't breaking my probation. It also ended up serving as a way for the public to see I wasn't a monster and let them witness the death of an Endbringer. I used it myself to remember what was lost, to remember the fallen, and to try to find a better way to do things next time. It was for those reasons I included cameras in my mask this time, but I had already turned over copies of my videos to the police in lieu of giving statements and I saw no reason to not use the videos to try to sway public opinion of Skitter. Well, no reason other than I might manage to screw it up somehow.

Classes went by as slowly and uneventfully as one would expect all things considered. I may have been getting a little more attention than I'd expect to normally, but I chalked that up to still being one of the new girls. At lunch I sat with Chris and the cape geeks. No offense to the New Wave kids and their friends, but I found myself more comfortable around the geeks, nerds, and dweebs of the school. I guess it was because they were generally the social outcasts and the people most likely to have been in similar positions to the one I had recently escaped. Maybe it was the fact that here I found people as socially awkward as Dad and I were, so it felt familiar?

Speaking of Dad, he was going to meet me after school at the PRT headquarters so that I as Taylor could sign the non-disclosure agreement that would protect the Wards' identities and be done with it. I had told him about it Tuesday at breakfast and had considered trying to promote the idea that the NDA was just something everyone at Arcadia had to sign. I decided against doing so for a few reasons, the first of course being it would be yet another lie driving a wedge between my father and I. Beyond that too many people would have to be willing to play along with it to be successful.

When the final bell announcing the end of classes came I headed to my locker and found Chris waiting for me. He gave me a small wave as we spotted one another, "So ready?"

"Yeah," I replied as I stuffed my books in my locker. As irrational as it was, I'd been hesitant to use the school provided lockers and had only really done so when Ms Campbell told me that it was against school policy for students to carry their book bags to each class, "Something was bugging me though."

Chris made an interested noise and motion so I admitted, "I know you're not old enough to drive, neither am I. Are we taking the buses?"

The tinker tittered at that and I couldn't help agree with him it'd be a bit ridiculous for Wards to use buses to get to and from PRT headquarters because it'd be easy for someone to track them. He shook his head before stating, "Dean's taking us."

I nodded. I knew Dean was Gallant even if no one had outright stated it. Thursday, he stopped by the geek table to hand a notebook to Chris and spent enough time talking with everyone that I had no trouble matching up his voice to the Ward I sparred with the day before. I couldn't help but think that the Ward's identities were probably known to the student body and they just pretended not to know. I mean how hard could it be for someone that wasn't me to figure them out?

When we got out into the parking lot I noticed Dean leaning against a gunmetal gray Mustang, but he wasn't by any means alone all four of New Wave's kids were present. I felt myself tense up as Chris led me into the middle of the parahumans. Victoria's aura was in overdrive and as much as I wanted to shunt my emotions into the swarm that was hidden on school grounds Dean would likely notice it.

"Ready Taylor?" Dean asked.

I nodded before Victoria stepped in front of me and while crossing her arms asked, "So you know?"

I glanced about to make sure no one else was remotely within earshot. Satisfied, I gave Glory Girl a small, sad smirk as I responded, "That everyone within ten feet of me is a cape? Yeah."

"I also know that it's your aura that's messing with my head and making me want to punch you. That if I let myself be led by it your sister will likely have to spend some time knitting me back together," I continued. Obviously, they hadn't considered that possibility since the laugh Crystal, Laserdream, gave was full of nervous energy. Victoria looked embarrassed as Chris snickered from his place behind me and Amy paled. The oddest reaction was the huge grin I invoked in Dean.

Victoria was about to say something when I cut her off with a motion of my hand and continued talking, "Relax, I'm not going to be outing any one, I owe the Wards somewhat for their help in getting me out of a certain cesspit of scum and villainy. I am, after all, supposed to be meeting with suits to sign a piece of paper that legally binds me to that course anyway."

That seemed to satisfy Victoria and she and the other members of New Wave made themselves scarce, piling into a very average-looking nondescript white car. It was kind of nice to see them use such a vehicle; to my knowledge only Amy couldn't fly, and it seemed like she had no problem being carried by another member of New Wave. Still, they didn't flaunt their powers and the fact that the car was so average looking meant that they could likely go unnoticed in it.

By comparison, Dean's Mustang screamed for attention. I didn't know what year it was or anything but it was the classic American muscle car and with the well kept state it was in, was obviously well looked after. The thing that struck me the most as we piled in however was the color and I found myself immediately saying," You know you're really horrible."

"What?" the empath asked obviously confused by my seemingly random comment.

"Your car matches your costume, Gallant."

Dean couldn't help but to laugh at that as he pulled out of Arcadia's parking lot. It was Chris who added something more to the comment, "More than you know, Taylor. I've added some tinker tech to the car."

I snickered, "So how is it that no one connects the gunmetal gray tinker tech-enhanced car to Gallant?"

"Probably the same way no one connects my apartment with Kid Win. Out of sight out of mind," Chris offered easily though the tone of his voice I was beginning to recognize as the one he used when his mind was more focused on a problem than the conversation. I had heard it enough in Math over the course of the week.

"If we didn't tell you there was tinker tech inside my car would you know?" Dean asked bringing up the obvious question.

He had a point; I hadn't noticed any tinker tech in the vehicle, still didn't even being told it was there. Maybe if I sent my bugs scurrying about its mechanical components I'd have more luck but a normal human didn't have that option nor would I have considered it otherwise. The only thing that looked even remotely out of place in the vintage vehicle was the modern amenities within the cab, "Not really. But then again I don't know much about cars, if I did I might be able to."

"I doubt it," Chris countered, "Dean's one rule was that I had to keep the tech largely invisible. If someone popped the hood or stuck their head under the car, then yeah they'd know right away."

"Fair enough," I said conceding the point, "But still the color of your armor and car matches. That can't be conductive to keeping your secret identity, well, secret."

"I'll have to give you that one Taylor. Truth be told when they asked me what color to paint my armor I just pointed at my car," Dean said a smile gracing his attractive features as he no doubt called the memory to mind, "Call me odd but I think this is my favorite color."

"Why would I call that odd? I recently realized I never gave the whole favorite color thing much thought. So I can't say I have a definite favorite or anything of the sort."

The two boys chuckled at that and I couldn't help but smile. It was nice to be able to interact with the Wards like this. I had never really got to know any of them in my past life, something that I'm partially glad for. I don't think I'd have been able to fight them as well as I had before if I knew the teens under the masks.

As it turned out instead of driving right up to PRT HQ, Dean maneuvered his truck into an underground parking garage that serviced a business of some sort down the street from our target. When we went down to the bottommost floor we stopped at a security booth long enough for the bemused guard to take my picture and slap it on the temporary visitor's badge I was given. We parked next to a rust colored truck that I recalled seeing on school grounds before. I was beginning to think the Wards needed to get a collective slap to the head to jostle a few brain cells around.

From there Chris lead us through a door labeled 'maintenance' and down a long corridor before we reached a point where he had to submit himself to an eye and palm scan. From there we passed through an array of twists and turns before arriving at an elevator. During the ride I felt somewhat out of place as both Wards subconsciously pulled out their phones, "Did I miss something?"

"Checking the duty rosters," Chris said, "I've got an early patrol."

"Mine's not till five, so I'll be able to keep you company Taylor."

"Thanks, I suppose," I said with a shrug. I guess however long it would take for Dad to arrive could be spent getting to know another of my future teammates. I was still wondering how well they'd take the news that I was Skitter when I finally did join them or if they'd feel betrayed.

Did I mention I hate lying?

Dad arrived a little after three and he couldn't help smiling when he noticed both Dean and Miss Militia in the room with me. Dean had taken the time since we arrived to get us better acquainted. Questions I'd been asked a dozen times over the week came up and I asked them in return. I also made an effort of asking about what being a Ward was like, after all I shouldn't have any real idea on the subject.

Miss Militia had come in with a PRT suit just a minute or so before Dad showed up and had asked me how I was liking Arcadia. She seemed genuinely happy that I was taking to the school.

"Daniel," Miss Militia greeted him and I noticed Dean raise a brow out the corner of my eye. So I wasn't the only one who saw something developing between them.

"Miss Militia, Good to see you as always," Dad returned the greeting before exchanging greetings with the PRT suit, Mr. Hadwick. When he got to Dean however he paused, "And you are?"

"Dean Stransfield, Gallant," the teen replied introducing himself and offering his hand, "It's nice to meet you Mr. Hebert."

Dad's face morphed into one of both surprise and understanding and he shook the Ward's hand, "Seems my little girl is just intent on meeting all city's capes."

Luckily, no one asked Dad exactly what he meant, likely thinking he was referring to my attending Peerless or my association with Skitter. Dad took his seat next to my own and I could visibly see the shift in his posture as he adopted the role he took while working with the Dockworkers Association.

An arrow shattered the window, followed shortly by a second. The Merchants made the mistake of turning towards the noise and were rewarded by a blast of sound and light as the flash-bang integrated into the second projectile detonated. Blind and deaf, they had no idea that the first arrow had a cable attached to it, a cable that Quiver rode down into their midst.

As Jeremy rose from the crouch he'd landed in, he wasted no time in letting loose another arrow. This one quickly found itself buried in the shoulder of an unfortunate gangbanger and the drywall immediately behind said ruffian. The drug addled man screamed in pain and fury as he grasped the shaft of the arrow. The noise had no effect on Quiver as he continued on by kicking the other Merchant in the face with enough force to snap his head back and send a trail of blood splattering across the nearby wall.

The archer collapsed his bow and stowed it in a single movement as he aimed his other weapon, a small self-cocking crossbow mounted on his right forearm, at the only door to this room. Just as the bow was settled into its position the door opened, and the men who had come to investigate the noise were met with a barrage of bolts. Jeremy allowed himself to blink as the three bodies crumpled to the ground and then moved inward.

The building was not very large, only a handful of rooms connected by a hall. The five drug addicts already accounted for the majority of the occupants; everyone except Quiver's target, to be precise. Said target was found passed out on the couch in the house's living room; white crud lining his nostrils indicating his particular method of indulgence.

Jeremy was actually disappointed; the unconscious man was one of the Merchants' few parahuman members. He had the peculiar ability of being able to spit objects at near supersonic speeds. His name, 'Moneyshot,' referred to his typical ammunition of coinage, but in a pinch he'd been known to literally use his own teeth. His teeth would eventually replace themselves thanks to the man's fairly decent healing factor. Quiver had chosen this particular target because he had wanted a fight that would let him get some of the pent up emotion out.

As he fired an explosive-tipped bolt into the man's cranium, he didn't feel the least bit satisfied. He knew he needed an outlet for his aggression before he did something he didn't want to, something illogical. With the explosive charge's timer counting down, he left the same way he'd come, using a mechanized ascender to ride the zip line to the roof of the two story building across the street.

Quiver let out a sigh that he started the roundabout route he'd planned to get back home and considered the source of his current troubles. Things were different at Winslow now. For the past couple of weeks the faculty seemed to be working extra hard to appear competent and able to control the student population. Where they had largely avoided conflict with the student body previously, they were now cracking down on bullying, gang activity, and substance abuse. But beneath all that Jeremy could see that they were shaken, and on more than one occasion he had to check to see if it was because of his power. Of course, logic indicated that the new anti-bullying stance had originated further up the chain and they hadn't escaped punishment for their complicity in previous events.

The power trio formed around Sophia was broken apart. Madison had taken off first and since Skitter had fought Shadow Stalker, Sophia hadn't come to class. That left Emma, who had suddenly went from looking like a glamour model to a scared child in way over her head, largely alone. In the midst of this all no one noticed that Hebert had stopped coming to class. It didn't take a genius to connect the dots, Hebert had finally found someone willing to listen that had the power to affect real changes. Jeremy was glad for her and wished her the best.

Skitter was another matter. He had seen the bug-themed cape that had prevented Sophia from escaping a few times. That primal part of him that had wanted to make Shadow Stalker his had wanted to lash out at her. When he had spotted her the night before he had stopped himself from loosing an arrow only after having selected, nocked, and drawn the projectile. He had to remind himself that Skitter was a fellow hero and he did not kill heroes. He didn't fight them if he could help it.

So here he was trying to find an outlet for his frustrations and finding no one that could...well, what do we have here?

A few minutes after Taylor and her father had left PRT headquarters, the opening of a pair of elevator doors provided Dean with admittance into the Wards' common room. Missy was watching some sort of cartoon about ponies on the oversized TV while Carlos sat at the monitor station. That, Dean realized, meant he'd end up with the duty as soon as Chris and Dennis came back from their patrol unless Carlos felt having him patrol with Missy to mess with the empath.

Both had their downsides, but truthfully neither really bothered him that much. He wasn't as useful on monitor duty as he was out on patrol because his emotion reading required line of sight and didn't work through surveillance systems. On the other hand, while he couldn't help but notice his younger teammate's infatuation with him, he wasn't, as the others might think, annoyed or disgusted by it. If anything, he felt bad about it. Missy was wasting her affection on him. In his mind, she was very much the little sister he never had, and as such he'd never respond the way she wanted him to. The worst part was that Dean didn't know how to let her down without crushing her heart in the process and considering how awful her home life was, he'd never knowingly hurt her feelings. The situation left him threading metaphorical water hoping she'd grow out of the crush and find someone who'd treat her well.

He forced the thoughts away and headed over to Carlos. The older teen was actually watching videos on a tablet of a design he recognized as being the sort that was used to store virtual copies of evidence. The empath could see the forced dispassionate facade he wore as his namesake to distance him and dissuade an emotional response from what he was watching.

As he approached, Dean could make out the laughter of girls from the tablet. Knowing that thier team leader usually took a moment to pry himself away from something that had his attention, he snapped his fingers. When the Puerto Rican looked up from the screen, Dean asked, "What are you looking at?"

"Some of the evidence that Taylor gathered for Skitter's investigation into Shadow Stalker," he said, lips drawn to prevent his anger and disappointment at the former Ward from leaking into his voice.

Before Dean could reply, vibrant pink filled his view as Missy leaned in trying to look at the tablet in Carlos' hands as she spoke, "Is it that bad?"

Carlos grimaced, hating how easily his teammates could pick up on his emotions without even turning to Gallant for confirmation of their observations. Instead of speaking, another indication of his emotional state, he turned the tablet towards them and hit play.

The camera bobbed in time with what had to be Taylor's gait as she moved down one of the aging halls of Winslow High. The view turned to the left and right, enough to log the location of a handful of students moving about the halls and at least one person who must have been a teacher standing at the door to one of the classes. Snippets of conversations were picked up. A girl snickered in Taylor's direction. Taylor seemed to ignore it as she headed into the stairwell at the end of the hall.

As she turned at the small landing between sets of stairs that made up the flight of stairs Sophia came into view. There was just enough time to register the expression of contempt on her face before they collided and the camera went mad.

It wasn't hard for the Wards to figure out what had just happened as Taylor came to a stop at the bottom of the stairs. The girl let out a gasp of pain as she started picking herself up only to suddenly jerk to the side. Sophia's voice cracked out the speakers, "You should stay out the way of your betters Hebert."

The view rotated to catch sight of Sophia's back disappearing into the throng of students out in the hall. Once again the girl picked herself up as another voice, laced with obviously false sympathy, was heard, "Oh Taylor, you shouldn't carry around so many books if it sends you tumbling over at the slightest bump."

"Geeze," Dean said.

"That's not even the extent of the sort of thing she was submitted to, and some of it was done blatantly in front of the faculty," Carlos said. "From the journals Taylor submitted, this sort of thing has been an ongoing occurrence since '09. Admittedly most of it was in the form of verbal lashing, but just in the month that was recorded, Taylor was subject to physical assault on an average of one and a half times a week, always by Sophia."

"So what made you watch this?" Vista asked. The expression on her face told everything that Dean needed to know about her, even without seeing the shift away from the bubbly pink aura he was used to seeing come from her. She was outraged.

"I'm trying to get a better sense of who Taylor is. I know we've got Taylor and Skitter in two different places at once or in the same place at the same moment, but I still think there's a real strong connection to them."

"Man, we've been over this. There's no way they are the same person; my empathy even paints them differently."

"I know Dean. But there are too many similarities and coincidences for me to ignore. She goes through an event like the locker and then not much later, Skitter is on the scene and conducting an 'investigation' using Taylor as an intermediary to gather evidence? Or the similarities in their fighting style? I know you must have noticed it by now."

Dean let out a long suffering sigh. "Fine, I'll humor you. What's your theory this time?"

"Skitter is a projection."

Missy outright laughed at her leader. Dean couldn't help but agree with the young heroine; the idea was ludicrous. He had seen projections before. They sometimes had subdued imprints of their master's emotions, but more often they were a completely blank emotional slate. Furthermore, Skitter displayed her own powers that didn't mesh with those commonly displayed by projections.

"Let me explain. Taylor triggers in the locker and, I don't know, while in the hospital conjures Skitter up as a hero that can save her from the bullying she's been subjected to, complete with her own powerset and everything. What's more, her power is mastery and shaping, which are actually Taylor's own just being relayed through the reflection that is Skitter."

"And what? Skitter is created as a fully formed individual? Remember, different emotions. Hell, her costume's changed over the short time she's been on the scene."

"Actually I'm thinking something like a clone of herself, maybe an idealized one considering the fact she's got a different body shape. She may or may not be sentient."

"One problem, Carlos," Vista said as she flitted with her headgear, "Skitter's power. No girl would choose that power for her own personal hero. I'd expect a power set like Alexandria or Lady Photon, both of which she could probably pull off easier with the power you're suggesting she really has."

"Missy has a point man. Anyway, I've got to get suited up before the next tour arrives."

It took me a hour after we were done with the PRT to be able to slip out of the house and over to the lair. During that time, Dad had been insufferable, teasing me about knowing so many capes. I eventually rose to his challenge by good-naturedly teasing him about his obvious infatuation with Miss Militia. If I was being honest with myself, I don't think I'd ever seen him as embarrassed or as happy as when I endorsed his choice by playfully asking if I should start calling her mom. It was a bittersweet comment because I don't think either of us was really thinking that far ahead or looking to cast the specter of my mom on the relationship that was taking root. I smiled even as I was getting frustrated with my current project. I was working my powers on a gauntlet I was beginning to think I'd need Panacea look over when we met over the weekend.

I had solved the problem with my envenomed claws, the multivalved organ I used to determine which of the four toxins would be fed into my claws was the first piece of bio-tech I could claim solely as my own work. According to my research, Mother Nature hadn't seen fit to produce anything like it, so I ended up building it from scratch. Well, not entirely from scratch, as the organ was a mix between a multi-chambered heart and a stomach and the venom ducts leading to the stingers in the fingers were heavily based on intestinal tracts. The organ could break down and absorb anything within it at a moments' notice to prevent cross-contamination of the toxins. This meant that I could be sure that anytime I wanted to use a poison, it would only be that poison and never a mix of it and whatever toxins I'd used before. This was particularly important, as I was planning on carrying a wide array of toxins to allow me to trigger several different reactions with my stings.

I was glad that I had managed that without Amy's assistance and it would serve to offset the embarrassment of having to ask her to help with the second part. That was a dart launcher. The design basically revolved around a heavily modified respiratory system that would launch the 3.5x17.5mm spines at pretty high velocities in a manner not all that removed from spitting. In fact, the 'chamber' actually suspended the spine in a mucus medium that could be impregnated with a chosen poison from my claws. Which, thanks to the design of the spines, would deliver a similar amount of the toxin as a typical insect sting.

My problem, as hilarious was it was, was that the launcher was too powerful. When I tested it, the spines actually buried themselves two millimeters into the concrete backstop I was using and hadn't even been slowed down by the soda cans I had used as targets. While I did like the fact I'd probably be able to use it against the likes of Lung even after his scales set in, I wanted to be able to use the launcher to deliver knockout poisons to average humans. For that, I needed the ability to better scale the velocity of each shot, and so far I had failed to manage it well enough. I had tried everything I could think of, from substituting different types of actuating muscles to changing the size and composition of the lungs themselves.

This was made more infuriating by the fact that I had already made a much larger version of the device as proof of concept. That one was large enough that I had molded its exterior into a rifle shape. It launched a heavier 5x25mm spine, but worked as intended. When I tested it initially, it had completely penetrated my inch thick backstop and embedded itself into one of the odd tinker devices I'd yet to remove. Not wanting to risk damaging the lair, or hitting another device and causing god knows what, I had taken it out to the ship graveyard for further testing. The prototype, when fired at full power, had put a hole in the rusted hull of one of the derelicts. Granted, the spine itself disappeared, probably pulverized by the impact, but it put a hole in the metal. While that was amazing, the truly astonishing thing was that I could downscale the force and velocity to the point where the spine didn't even penetrate a hanging rag or the human analog I'd made out of bugs. I didn't breakdown the rifle because, well, if the Slaughterhouse Nine did decide to come to town this time around, I'd give them a proper Brockton Bay welcome.

The gauntlet wasn't even half of what I was working on. Proxy, in Skitter's form, sat at a laptop, one of three I had procured through the net. With her, I was pouring through the eye cam footage I had recorded every time I went out in costume. Nakamura had suggested I keep a log of all of it for legal reasons and since then, it had also come in handy for giving the police my statements. Video of a takedown worked far better than cape testimony. About a week before I finished Proxy, I had put 'camera bugs' into use as well. Those were essentially just strong flying bugs wrapped around a small video camera that recorded directly to a flash drive connected to the camera.

Reviewing the videos also helped me figure out where I needed to improve and, with the cam bug footage added to the mix, I could get better feedback from Sensei Nakamura. Speaking of Nakamura, it was almost time for me to head to Peerless.

Carlos sighed. Maybe they had a point; he wasn't even altogether sure why he was so fixated with the concept of Taylor being Skitter. Well, that wasn't entirely true.

Taylor did fit his 'type' to a degree. He'd rate her as a six or seven based on her appearance alone. Like everyone, however, there was more to her than just her body. He and Taylor had a shared experience in being bullied teens, and they were both fighters who had to restrain themselves. While his adrenaline based super strength was significantly easier to manage than the average brute's he still had to measure every action to prevent giving away the show. Fortunately, he had never had to do so while under the pressure of being bullied. Taylor, on the other hand, did. She had to keep herself from lashing out at her tormentors and even if she didn't have the powers that Skitter exhibited, her aptitude in martial arts meant she could still do some real damage. He couldn't help but grin at the thought; he knew the damage she could inflict firsthand. Finally, he saw a fierceness in her, not just a sheer determination to not buckle under the weight of her torment, but the fiery heart of a warrior. When they sparred, she saw him as a challenge to overcome and threw herself wholeheartedly into it.

Then you have Skitter. Skitter was a mystery. Despite the fact that only Sensei Nakamura and Felix were closer to Skitter than he was, he could barely say he knew her. She had made it clear that she would eventually join the Wards, so there was curiosity about his future teammate there. He could draw parallels to Shadow Stalker, given that she would already have settled into her own rhythm and made a reputation for herself before she'd join the Wards. A similar parallel was in the fact PR was going to be an issue with her, but at least she was surprisingly personable once you got past the chitin and her swarm. But that was pretty much where she diverged with the former Ward; her personality marked her as a much better fit for the Wards program. She was fiercely dedicated to her goals, whatever they were, and that just had not been there in Shadow Stalker.

The possibility that Taylor was under the chitin and spider silk was definitely appealing to him. He thought it was fairly obvious given all the things he noticed, but recent events were starting to strain the concept. Taylor and Skitter were slowly becoming more separate entities in his mind, and it wasn't just recently seeing both at Peerless at the same time. There were professional body doubles after all. The PRT utilized a few particularly good examples to help obfuscate the identity of its capes. Clockblocker, for example, had been portrayed by one during last winter's meet and greets as Dennis was laid up with the flu. But what was really doing it was his going over the evidence that Skitter had presented Piggot. Taylor's journals, the few he read, had a significantly different tone to them than the at times frighteningly detached one that Skitter used in her reports. More over, Skitter had even logged when and how she met Taylor.

Aegis frowned; he was supposed to be good at adapting. No, great at it; his entire life reflected that. He had been able to adapt when his father left him and his mother, and later when she had grown ill and died. He had been able to adapt to becoming a ward of the state, to being bounced from one foster home to another. He had adapted to being bullied and triggering. He had adapted to the leadership role and often his team's plan in combat. His power was even built around adapting. So why was it he was being so pigheadedly stubborn here?

Dean blinked as the HUD of his visor came online. As always the last thing he did was plug the SIM card of his PRT issued phone into the slot in the back of his helmet next to the thumb drive that recorded his actives as Gallant. His mind drifted to his current problems with Victoria. She had blown up on him the previous night. Not for the first time he wished he could get a read on her but their emotion based powers shorted out one another. He could no more see her emotions than she could affect him with her power. That had actually been the thing that drew them together.

Being able to tell what people were feeling just by sight with no way of turning it off had a way of coloring your reactions to people. He liked to help people with their problems, and he was at his happiest when others were happy as well. He always had the urge to help, even when he knew he shouldn't or didn't really want to. So someone like Victoria, whom he couldn't sense, was the only ones he could truly be himself around. It was a liberating feeling.

Similarly, Victoria was intelligent enough to know that any relationship that was built without the crutch of her powers was more 'real'. Those who knew her before her trigger and those that only met her afterward acted markedly different toward her. But generally, everyone idolized her because of the effects of her power. Dean's own power made him immune to her aura. This left him one of the very few she could turn to when she wanted an honest opinion, without her power getting in the way. He had a feeling he had been a little too straight about things the previous night. She didn't take being called out on things too well.

I bet Glory Girl must love that.

Dean snorted at the memory of his first bout with Skitter. He didn't get what had Dennis and Chris so freaked out when it came to the girl. Yeah, she was intense and pragmatic but it wasn't like she walked around with malicious intent boiling off her in waves like Shadow Stalker.

He switched mental gears as he headed back into the common room. Carlos had donned his mask as Aegis since there was not much time before either the next patrol or tour. It did remind him that he had something to ask, "By the way-"

Gallant's words and their associated train of thought were cut short by an expletive being shouted into the room as the elevator door opened. Clockblocker stormed out, or at least they were pretty sure it was him, even if his costume had been charred black.

Vista popped up from her spot on the couch, visor sitting on her forehead in anticipation of events to come. Her eyes went comically wide as she took in the state of Clockblocker's costume. Her voice was full of sincere concern as she asked, "What-" Another curse, this time recognizable as being aimed at someone's mother, cut off the question. She scowled at him as he disappeared down the hall towards the locker rooms.

"So, that Archer guy just got upgraded," Kid Win said as he entered, his board held behind his head in an almost casual manner, despite the three arrows sticking out of the chest of his armor. The looks he got were enough to make him talk. "Blunt arrows with some sort of adhesive tip, carrying a powerful EMP grenade."

"And Mr. Potty Mouth?" Vista asked. Chris' calm attitude was enough to assuage their concerns about whether either of them had been badly injured.

"Some sort of incendiary. It actually converted the air around Clock to plasma for a moment. Dennis managed to freeze his costume in time but, really, I don't think he was trying to kill us."

"What?" Dean asked the disbelief evident in his tone.

"Yeah, he already had that arrow nocked when Clock and I engaged him, and we did kinda get the drop on him. I'm pretty sure that arrow was meant for something else. Besides he actually shouted a warning about the arrow after it lodged in Dennis' costume. Then, after he nailed me and shorted out my gear, he could easily have finished us off but retreated instead," Chris said. It was times like this when Chris talked so casually about a near death experience that the others were reminded that the teen was notably more experienced than any of the other Wards besides Dennis.

"So tinker?" Carlos asked.

The answer was stalled as the elevator door was opened, and Miss Militia and Testament walked in. Testament looked like a mummy, as he was lacking the suit of armor he usually wore over the coiled linen strips. Dean preempted the entire room, opening with a disarming greeting of, "Miss Militia, always a pleasure to see you."

"Charming as ever." She replied, a smile lighting up her eyes for a moment before she asked, "Where's Clockblocker?"

"He went into the locker room a minute ago," Chris answered, as Testament approached him obviously intent on locating any apparent injuries. "I'm okay. Might have a bruise at most."

He nodded and headed off toward the locker rooms. Knowing the question that was going to come up about her partner's silent treatment, Miss Militia spoke, "A few days ago, Hookwolf tried to decapitate him. His vocal cords haven't healed yet."

Vista's slacked jawed response was pretty indicative of the expressions etched upon the teen heroes. They got over the surprise quickly and Gallant poised the question, "So, not looking a gift horse in the mouth or anything, but why is he here?"

"Kid Win reported the use of a plasma based explosive. Even with his time-locked costume protecting him from direct exposure, the air between him and his suit likely got hot enough to burn him," Miss Militia explained before noting the expressions of disbelief on the Wards' faces, "It's common for incendiary devices to burn flesh beyond their obvious effect radius by rapidly increasing the ambient air temperature."

She hated the look of comprehension that dawned on their faces, everyone seemed to assume that her entire knowledge base was tied into her powers. That wasn't to say people thought she was stupid, she was well known for having a good head on her shoulders, but every time she displayed some esoteric bit of knowledge people automatically assumed it was somehow associated with her powers. In truth, she had studied a broad range of subjects over the years as others slept. It wasn't the Wards' fault though, they were kids and not even the worse offenders. Marshaling herself, she poised the question, "Now, what do we know about Quiver?"

-/ Interlude: Emma

Emma looked out across the bay; her house didn't have this good of a view. How many saw the city from this angle? It was beautiful. Her dad would be angry when she finally got back in, but she didn't care. He'd been angry since the PRT's lawyers had come knocking. Skitter had apparently tracked Sophia to school and been appalled enough at what they had been doing to Taylor that she intervened and got the PRT's attention. Or at least that was what the PRT told her.

Emma should have known. Taylor had stood straighter the last month despite the whole thing with the locker. God, that had gotten out of control. Sophia wasn't supposed to shove her in and lock the door. By some miracle she didn't break like they expected after they heard about the state she'd been in when the janitor pulled her out. She had become stronger for it. It seemed it was the same with everything they had done. She endured and proved the adage that whatever you survived indeed made you stronger. Emma had tried to convince Sophia that this was proof positive Taylor was a survivor like she was. But Sophia still saw her as prey. 'A resilient cockroach' were the words she had used to describe Taylor. She wouldn't be satisfied until Taylor actively fought back.

At least that's what she said and it was what Emma had desperately clung to. Then when Taylor did fight back, she used words and a well-crafted mask of indifference. But it was still retaliation. She told them just how many fucks she gave about them: none. Sophia had not taken it well. She'd been absolutely furious that Taylor hadn't 'learned her place'. The redhead had hoped that she'd have accepted Taylor into their group. Especially after Madison left.

Emma still wasn't sure why. Madison had just completely dropped out the group and refused to acknowledge either of them. She hadn't even realized until she heard that Madison had tried to make up to Taylor and been viciously shot down. She knew that Madison had taken a good portion of their hangers on with her and the looks she received from them gave her pause. But she hadn't had the time to think about it before Sophia was beaten by Skitter. She had watched the video. Emma didn't know all that much about fighting but even she could recognize an utter curb stomp when she saw it. She hadn't gotten to talk with Sophia but the Ward's -correction: former Ward's - mother had passed a message to her; a simple sentence that had chilled her to the bone.

"It is impossible to defend against the unknown."

The line was from Taylor's English midterm that Emma had copied and passed off as her own. The paper spoke of how capes reduced their effectiveness by wearing costumes and showing off for the cameras. She postulated that those who stuck to the shadows or blended with the crowd had the greatest capacity to change the status quo. Their targets wouldn't even know there was a threat to defend against until it was too late.

The report had been another thing Emma had tried to use to turn Sophia onto the idea that Taylor was already a survivor thinking in the predator and prey mindset Sophia advocated. But she'd hear nothing of it, as it clashed with Sophia's own beliefs on the subject. Sophia was keen on broadcasting her existence and intent, even if she used stealth tactics and a crossbow. She liked getting in the faces of her opponents and seeing their fear when they realized they were prey. In fact, thanks to her power making her essentially invulnerable, she was prone to showing off by letting attacks pass through her. It was that showmanship that Skitter had capitalized on when they fought.

It hadn't taken Emma long to put things together. She might look like she was all beauty and no brains but the truth was she wasn't dumb. She hadn't been able to get into Arcadia by academic merit, but she hadn't ever made lower than a C in any of her classes. But reconciling Taylor Hebert with Skitter, the plague that had befallen the criminals of Brockton Bay, had been a stretch. She still didn't quite believe it.

The two were so vastly different; they didn't even have the same build. If Taylor had Skitter's proportions, she would have been able to easily grab the attention of any guy she chose, and bullying her like they had would've been nearly impossible. But despite everything, despite the impossibility of it, she couldn't help but see them as the same person. After all, Emma did always say that Taylor was a fighter. Why would she not fight back? Because she had the ability to regularly defeat entire troops of gangbangers. She was stronger than all of them combined because she knew restraint. She lived and breathed it.

That was the only way she could resolve everything now. Taylor had abruptly stopped coming to school. When she called her house, Mr. Hebert had told her in no uncertain terms that if she attempted to contact Taylor he'd make sure her family was ruined. With her own dad already on the warpath, she didn't dare give reason for the two to interact. It was bad enough already.

Then, there were the therapy sessions she was being enrolled in. If her life hadn't gone to shit so thoroughly already, it would have scraped the bottom of the barrel with all the stuff she was realizing through her sessions with Ms. Carbuncle. Emma hated herself. She hated how she'd gone from queen bee of Winslow to persona non grata. It was worse than what they had inflicted on Taylor, and not just because of the height of the fall. No one had interacted with Taylor because they were afraid of retribution from her and Sophia. On the other hand, no one interacted with her because they didn't want to; they were all disgusted with her. It wasn't just that either, she'd never seen her father so furious with her, and she was almost positive that the only reason he hadn't disowned her was because the legal fallout was being dealt with quietly behind closed doors. Had this been made into a spectacle like it could have... she didn't want to imagine that. But what stung her most was realizing just how much she screwed up. She had always held onto the belief that one day she and Taylor would be able to be friends again, but she hadn't burned that bridge as much as she had incinerated it.

Her path in life had led her here. She had a shot at redemption, and she was going to take it. She slipped the hard mask down over her face and just like in the strange dreams that had been plaguing her the last few days, she jumped off the skyscraper. The night air whipped around her as she splayed out her arms and angled herself face first towards the rapidly approaching street. The ground rushed up to meet her, eager to take her in death's embrace, but she defied it and gravity as her power flared to life. The night sky lit up with her radiance and Emma ceased to be. In her place, the Phoenix soared.

-/ Author Notes:

So I didn't really put in that much thought about how possible it is for Skitter to use her gloves to listen into uber and the thug's conversation. I figured that if she was able to make out speech by vibrations in the air in canon than more specialized organs being added to the gloves would allow her to place her hand against thin materials (like the glass of a window) and listen in to conversations occurring on the other side about as well as say placing your ear to a wall or door would.

I lifted the line Uber tells Leet right out of Call of Duty (I looked it up), while most of Leet's PSA about torture is drawn from comments your crew members have about the subject in Mass Effect 2.

The entire scene with Multiplayer extended a lot longer than this when I first wrote it to the point I may consider posting the original version as an omake.

Okay, so another dig at Twilight appears in my fic. I guess I should explain this. I've actually read the Twilight Saga, hell, I've also read Host. My problem with the books is that they are aimed at teenaged girls (which is fine) and features a protagonist who constantly seeks unhealthy relationships (which is not). And I'm not just talking about oh shiny vampires, I'm talking about how these characters all but put them in situations where they can be mauled by their love interests without any real repercussions. Worse you get things like what occurs in the beginning of Twilight's Book 2 where Bella repeatedly puts herself in harm's way because it reminds her of her OTP. That's not even going into the actual age difference between the core couples of each book.

With this being the sort of shit being marketed for impressionable young ladies, I fear for our future. My problems with the movies are more self evident, I had Taylor lay them out for us in this chapter.

The whole matching colors thing is something I refer to as Ranger Syndrome. Yeah, as in Power Rangers. You'll likely see this come up more in the future. The idea is that the various characters drift toward certain colors, whether they be favorite color or not, that they make use of often.

The best example of this, ironically, is Taylor herself. She's constantly noting yellow/orange tops and such as part of her wardrobe. On Skitter the only real color is in the form of golden eye lenses. Coincidence? I think not.

Yes. Emma is a cape named the Phoenix. She's a pyrokinetic rated at around Striker 4 Mover 3. Her pyrokinesis only intendeds to about four feet from her body, so she doesn't operate as a blaster and her tactics actually have more in common with a flying brick despite not packing any sort of durability enhancement. She typically flies in and starts hitting opponents with close range fire blasts or just outright flaming punches.

I didn't directly state it but her trigger event was basically having her entire world view shattered by the fallout over the course of the last week. There's obviously a catch, as my betas pointed out, this was a rather mild trigger event and many would expect that her encounter with the ABB in canon would have been better qualified as her trigger event. To this I point toward the reference of odd dreams.