Part 12:

I sighed as I pulled out the disposable cell phone that I had purchased and checked it again. Aisha and I had each gotten some when we decided we would be going out in costume together. Better to be able to communicate.

And, it hadn't taken much brain power to figure out that she was skipping out on school pretty regularly. Since she was liable to so that anyway (Even Grue had agreed) we decided to put her to work.

We had gotten the idea after our meeting with the Protectorate and New Wave. She had stuck behind to listen in on their thoughts. It had been risky, but it had worked.

We learned that I was considered dangerous. Too risky to start a fight with, but not exactly trusted.

That was partly Tattletale's fault. She had helped design my costume, had played into the references to the Faerie Queen's costume.

Though, I wasn't free of blame. I had gone along with it.

But, I supposed, it did have the desired effect. I could use their weariness, build a trust. Aisha and I...or Elysium and Lethe, rather, had been doing just that over the past couple of weeks. Busting up muggings, drug deals, any crime we happened upon. And always delivering the perps to the police.

And, we had avoided other Capes at all costs. Partly because I didn't want to be thrown into the spotlight. I didn't need more attention.

Aisha had learned that the Empire was, in fact, at least partly aware of me. I wasn't sure how villains interacted with each other, but I had to play it smart, and assume all of the gangs would know of me, on some level.

I wished we could know for sure, but the ABB generally didn't have any way for me to gather information from afar, and Coil seemed to be obsessively upping his security constantly. I was able to catch glimpses of some of his dealings, but operating on the outside was a major disadvantage when dealing with him. At least, according to Tattletale.

And I wasn't going to send Aisha to search into their dealings. If something happened to her... I wouldn't be able to forgive myself.

I had been relying on Grue and Alabaster, mostly, in the field. And keeping Tattletale active, of course. Shadow Stalker had been on regular rotation as well. I had also used Victor a handful of times. Thanks to his power, I was now proficient with small firearms, speaking Japanese, Cantonese, and German, and had even picked up some medical skills and some martial arts.

I hated that some of my most useful ghosts were Nazis.

And now, despite all of my powers, all that I had gained, I was sitting in the cafeteria at school, hoping for an update from Aisha in regard to her patrolling on an E88 warehouse. They were the gang most aware of me, so they needed to be the most prominent on my radar.

I shoved my phone back into my pocket and shook my head, trying to put my attention elsewhere. I glanced up to see someone approaching my table. I recognized her...

"Hey Taylor." the girl said.

"Charlotte." I responded. I knew I sounded suspicious, but I had a right to. This girl was...okay, not one of Emma's inner circle, but she had been a hanger on. Not participating directly in my torment, but not helping me.

I relied on Tattletale's power. Reading into her every slight move. She was clearly nervous, bordering on outright uncomfortable. She practically had shame pouring off of her, and she was struggling to say something...

"Oh hell." Tattletale said. "You really not getting this?"

I wanted to roll my eyes at her, but restrained myself. She knew I understood. "Did you want to sit, Charlotte?"

She relaxed a bit as she nodded and sat down.

"What can I do for you, Charlotte?"

"I...I just wanted to come over and..."

I could hear Grue chuckling. He couldn't even read into her body language like Tattletale and I could, but he could see where this was going. I imagined it was partly his fault that I was actually enjoying this so much.

Ever since my little display with Emma, there had been something of a...paradigm shift. People had been more hesitant to mess with me, even as early as the Monday following the scene. A few members of the inner circle of bitches had tried it, but after a few choice words, they had backed down as well.

Madison was still avoiding me like the plague, and I was thrilled to find that her little cutesy act had faded away a bit.

Emma...she had seemed more disturbed by the event than Madison. Which made sense. I had gone after a far more personal scar when I targeted her. Something that had impacted her deeply and caused her whole view on the world to change.

She had become despondent in class, almost flagrantly ignoring the teacher's in favor of her phone. Of course, she had gotten away with it.

But, for the last week, she hadn't shown up at all. I had dug into the school's emails, and saw that her parents were excusing her each day, so I hadn't pushed her to doing something too terrible. As much as I hated her now, I didn't want her death on my head.

So...combining the sudden vacuum in the school's power structure, and me using Tattletale's power to help me pick out some better clothes, and I was suddenly garnering a bit more attention than I had before. Nothing too intense. A tighter pair of jeans and I had lost the baggy sweatshirt. Brockton Bay was warm anyway, and the early May weather was already showing signs of a nice spring.

I had to be careful, though. I didn't want my sudden surge in confidence to coincide with the sudden appearance of a dangerous new cape. That would be a really stupid way to get outed.

But, well...it was nice not having to dread school every day.

"Look, Charlotte, I'm past all of the bullying stuff, okay? You never really did anything to me, so while you didn't really help me out, you didn't add too much."

I could see her flinch at my words, but she nodded. "Yeah, I...I know. I should have done something, but Emma and Sophia, they just..."

"I get it, Charlotte." I said. "I don't want to talk about this any more, alright. Consider your conscience clean."

"Oh...okay." Charlotte said. She took a bite of her food, clearly looking for something to say.

"You should send her away." Victor said. "She's clearly a Jew. You could make a better breed of friends. I mean, you're already hanging around with that n-"

I dismissed Victor, barely able to hide my grimace, and called Sophia back out. She could be a pain in the ass, but at least she wasn't racist.

I glanced back at Charlotte. She was actually trying, which was more than most of my fellow classmates had been doing. "So, what did you think of that math test the other day?"

She seemed pleased to actually be engaged in a conversation.

"You're actually chatting with her?" Sophia asked. "She's a sheep, Hebert. A follower. Prey."

I tensed my muscles a bit and made a sign under the table. I could visualize Tattletale's face as she spoke. "Taylor would like you to maintain silence for the time being, Psycho Stalker."

"Fuck off, Tattletale, you don't get to boss me around."

"True, I suppose, though I can see that Taylor's considering bringing one of the Nazi's out over you, so..."

"Bull shit! No way I'm getting packed away for one of those skinheads again. Tell her, Hebert."

"Taylor? Are you okay?" Charlotte asked.

"Hmmm? Yeah, I'm fine."

"You...don't look fine. You look really angry, actually..."

I had to take stock of myself. I could feel the grimace on my face. Damn it.

"Sorry, Charlotte, just...thought of something unpleasant." A hurt look crossed her face, and I mentally sighed as I backpedaled. "Not because of you or anything you said, just...something I was thinking about before you came over here."

"Oh...is there anything I can do to help?"

"I don't think so. It's not a big deal, really. It's just..." I paused as I felt my phone vibrate. I pulled it out of my pocket and scanned the text that Aisha sent me.

It was coded, so that only the two of us could understand it. And it was not the greatest news.

I stood up and grabbed my tray. "Sorry, Charlotte. I need to go." I said.

"Oh...okay. Are...is everything okay?"

"Just a bit of an emergency." I replied. "But I'll be fine. I'll talk to you later, okay?"

I left the confused girl behind, dumping my tray on the way out of the cafeteria.

"So, what's the plan, spooky?"

"Do you need to call me that, Aisha?"

She cackled and flopped back onto my bed. "Um, duh. Of course I do. It bugs you. Anyway, we know now that the Empire of Douchebags are planning on making a move on you."

"Right. I wish we knew how they knew as much about us. I mean...they know about you, and both of our names."

"Those goons down at the warehouse didn't know where it came from. It's probably only with the higher ups. Now, if you wanted me to, I could track down Kaiser and..."

"No!" Grue and I shouted at the same time. "Too risky."

"So, what then? You gonna touch of death them?"

I shook my head. "Not going to do anything to draw extra attention. I have enough powers for now."

"Really? You can't think of anything that you could do with Kaiser's power?"

I could. Easily, actually. My mind practically whirred with ideas any time I thought of what would happen if I added another Cape to my collection. I could use Kaiser and Grue together for absolute control over a battlefield. Or if I combined his power with Sophia's, then...

I shook my head. "Not the point. I'd rather stay off the Protectorate's radar. I don't need Kaiser's power so badly that it's worth turning every hero against me."

"Could just go after Lung too."

I sighed. She knew that was the plan, eventually. "We will, but it's tough to go after him when we can't find where he's hiding. And that new Tinker of his is a problem."

Bakuda, the ABB's newest recruit, had decided to make herself known in a little show of force with New Wave. Apparently, she had developed grenades that emulated the concussive force of Flashbang's attacks.

The ABB had gotten a pretty decisive victory that day. Since then, she had been kept on the back burner, but...

"She could mix things up in a bad way."

"I could sneak in and steal some of her bombs."

"No way. Stealing a Tinker's work is too dangerous. Could have tracking devices..."

"I wouldn't be hanging onto them."

"And you wouldn't know what they do, necessarily."

"You're no fun."

"Yeah, well, we're not going after them until we're ready." I said. "No reason to attract the rage of a dragon if we don't need to."

"Don't need to piss him off if we sneak you in and you just touch him and..." she made a grabbing and pulling motion.

I shook my head, even as Tattletale laughed. "Not yet. The Empire is our first priority. And even then, I only want to engage them if we need to. No..." I imitated the yanking motion that Aisha had made.

"So lame." Aisha said. "You could become, like, the empress of the city."

"Not what I want, Aisha." As it was, I was already fairly content. I had fixed my problems at school, more or less. My grades were improving, I wasn't being bullied. I had made friends with Aisha, my dad didn't seem as down as he had been, probably as a result of me being more upbeat. I had quite a bit of money at my disposal.

And I was using my powers to help people. We hadn't done much, yet, but...we had saved a few people from bad days and potential injury.

I wasn't in any rush to do anything that could upset that balance.

"Are we clear? No starting anything with the Empire."

"Yeah, yeah. I get you, 'mom'."

"Good. Then let's get some sleep. Not every night that we'll be able to rest up."

I was shaken from my sleep by the sound of knocking on my bedroom door.

"Taylor, Aisha, you need to get up!"

My dad's voice was frantic. It took me a moment to actually register that. But once I did, I started taking in everything. The sound of rain pounding on my windows, the sound of the sirens in the distance, cars honking and people yelling outside.

I jumped out of bed and ran to my door. I saw Aisha had done the same.

"We need to get to a shelter. Come on, we need to get to the car." my dad said. "Grab some clothes, and let's go."

I looked to Aisha. Her eyes were wide, I could tell she was scared, but she nodded.

We each turned and entered our rooms. I grabbed my backpack shoved some clothes into it. I took a moment to listen, and could hear my dad rustling in his room. I used Sophia's power to move quickly and silently to the basement, and retrieved my costume. Aisha would already have hers.

I didn't want to do this...didn't want to worry my dad, or risk him doing something when he learned we were separated, but...

I couldn't ignore this. Couldn't just sit back and ignore it.

Leviathan, an Endbringer, was attacking. Heores and Villains would be out, risking their lives. And I would join them. I had to.

I was shaking, and as much as I told myself that it was just nerves, apprehension, I couldn't ignore what I felt.

A twinge of excitement.