A/N (you know where): 'Gradual'? I'll eat my foot if that's gradual.

Snip #21

We reached Capitol Hill Park.

Or rather, I reached Capitol Hill Park.

I turned around and looked back. The road I had followed here ran straight for quite a distance, and combined with my higher vantage point, I could look surprisingly far into Brockton Bay unobstructed. It was a beautiful vista of urban progress, both sides lined by squat apartments of all sorts. The cleanliness of the streets and the unmarked, if slightly dirty, buildings silently declared this place as one of the better neighborhoods of Brockton Bay.

I could just about make out a teenager halfway up that straight road, huffing and puffing her way up the slight incline, her posture changing between the forward slouch of the exhausted to backwards leaning arc of the struggling.

I had to give her points for trying. After all, she did not… No, no, no. That was not right. It should be: I had to admire her for keeping up with me this far, to remain within sight of me even after this distance. Keeping up with me for all of two kilometers at the pace I had set had to be hard enough… maybe.

I sighed. This was taking some getting used to.

I started doing my sit-ups, letting my body work on auto-pilot as I pondered.

It was not often a person got a wakeup call which would shake his life, awakening him to new thoughts and perspectives. It was an opportunity one would be stupid not to seize, a chance to reexamine all that person was, and what he could be.

And that event happened to me only just two days ago. As revelations went, mine was very simple, yet so very profound.

I had gotten strong.

I had gotten very strong.

I had gotten really, amazingly strong.

I had gotten ridiculously strong without even noticing.

I was reminded of a somewhat cruel biology experiment. If you put a frog into a pan of water and slowly heated it up, the frog would not notice at all right until it was cooked to death.

And it was the same with my strength; I had trained and trained and trained, and I had gotten stronger. But because it had been a gradual change, I had not noticed.

But now I knew.

I smiled. I could not help it, and did not stop it from spreading across my face. Why should I?

I was strong. Two years of effort had not been in vain.

I was Strong!

If I did not have to keep my cape life a secret, I would be shouting this to the world from the tallest rooftops, laughing all the way.

I, Simon Tama, was STRONG!

Except now that I knew I had attained strength, there was this one little problem.

I completed my hundredth sit-up, and switched to doing squats.

While I was obviously happy I had finally reached my goal of being strong, the recent fight showcased a lot of problems with my newfound powers and perspective. Namely, what I considered 'normal' for me was not. Not for the other people around me.

It was… how do I explain this? It was… it was… It was just like a guy being able to open jammed jam jar lids with ease, and being puzzled why his mum was unable to open the same container just moments ago.

… That was that the best analogy I could come up with? Bah. Anyways, I digress.

So, I knew what I could do. But I did not know what 'normal' meant for other people anymore. Take Tailor for example. Was she a 'normal' runner? Or was she below average, her lack of fitness the cause of all those staggering steps wherein others would have completed with no trouble?

Could a 'normal' person have lifted that crate she could not lift, the same crate I had easily manhandled while moving between houses?

And did she have the same durability I had? If I punched her casually, she could probably take it; I knew this only because I had punched out other people time and again, so I not only had a pile of evidence I could punch people non-lethally, I had lots of practice doing so too.

It was not my fault those uncooperative, unhelpful street teens decided to turn violent on me despite having no reason to do so, attacking me on sight time and time again during my runs and forcing me to react in self-defense. But I digress

But if I punched seriously…

The car disintegrated. The sidewalk turned into dust. The skies parted…

Nope, not happening soon. I promised myself I would not be doing that to anyone anytime soon. Not unless something came up that really, really needed it.

This was especially true when I did not know the upper limit of my strength; I had put some force behind my fist when punching that monster dog, but to tell the truth I was not trying really hard with that jawbreaker. But even that, at that strength, had caused all that destruction.

I was a hero. I did not want to leave behind a trail of bodies, accidental or otherwise. Even if I was against people with powers, such as the diamond-patterned Muscle Brute two days ago; if I had punched seriously, he would probably be dead, and I would be a murderer.

I sighed at the memory of the lost potential. Poor kid already on the wrong side of the law that young. But then again, he chose his life, and he had chosen poorly. I just hope he would wake up soon and join the good guys, or something. But again, I digress.

There was also another reason I would not be punching seriously anytime soon, a selfish reason: it would quickly become expensive. Breaking every single window within sight of me at the very minimum, just with the wind of my fist?

That would make me an unpopular hero very quickly.

I already had to sneak away from that bank robbery fight as fast as I could when I had overheard the two PRT agents talking about public damages, angry owners and repair bills. While the collateral damage was in the name of good, law and justice, I doubt it would matter in the long run. And when the PRT caught up to me, I could just picture that Pig-of-a-Director loudly laughing-sniggering-oinking away as she sucked my bank account dry just to rub it in.

I must find out about this 'hero insurance' thing they were talking about, and fast.

Squats finished, I positioned myself to do a hundred pushups.

So, things I had to do.

I had to relearn what 'normal' meant. Tailor could probably help with that; outside her powers, she was a normal high school teen, and so she could probably gauge what 'normal' was better than me?

I had to look into this 'hero insurance' too. I could ask Tailor, but seeing as she was a teen, she probably only had a vague idea of adult finances. I would have to visit the library soon, use the computers there to get online and start searching about that.

And I had to find out how powerful my serious punches were. I need to feel, with my fists and my body, how much damage I could do and take. I need to experiment on how much damage would occur when I put different levels of strength behind my fists…

… Right. How was I going to test that? Maybe I should find a wall and punch that? But was a wall good enough as a judge of my strength? What about…

A pair of boots came into view as I lifted myself off the ground the sixty seventh time. They were black leather boots, two symmetrical feet-shaped blocks polished to a mirror sheen, and they had stopped on the ground above my head, given how I was mid-pushup.

I stopped my pushups, bringing my legs under me into a squat. In my new posture, I was able to look up further, and so I did.

And I looked up further still, and to both side of the feet's owner.

And to the running civilians evacuating the park.

"So, you're Gray Runner. The boss wants to have a word with you."

Well, well. This was interesting.

Taylor

I staggered as my feet crossed onto a differently colored footpath. I didn't notice that it was slightly raised, so I tripped when the tip of my shoe kicked the raised edge of the park's entryway.

I barely managed to avoid the faceplant, taking three steps to right myself from the stumble.

I pushed onwards, barely able to see the path ahead of me as I advanced. My eyes had long since stopped focusing on anything, partly due to the amount of sweat which had gotten into them turning the world into blurry, indistinct patches of colors interwoven with bright flashing white spots. My ears suffered similarly, hearing only the loud pounding of the blood in my veins as my heart beat in my chest with the thunder of a biblical storm.

All I could think of was me, the path I was on, and my goal, a speck I felt in the distance, so close...

… and yet so far away.

My lungs were on fire. They sucked at the air uncontrollably, inadvertently burning in the chill of the park's morning air. But even that agony paled to the hellfire in my legs. They flopped more than they moved, painfully complaining with every step, barely able to hold me upright as they struggled under my brain's orders to push me onwards.

And speaking of my brain, there was an ongoing riot in there. Half of my thoughts were whispering defeatist ideas to myself, cooking up excuses of every shape and size. They were telling me to submit to the sweet bliss of rest, telling me to not forcing myself into more self-flagellant pain. Why? They asked. Why did I need to continue? Why run? Just walk. This exercise was overboard. Rome wasn't built in a day. I wasn't a Brute, like Simon was. I could slow down. I could stop. Could I please lie down and rest? Nobody would fault me for only completing most of the run.

Except I didn't want to; nobody would fault me, except me. My remaining shreds of willpower also countered with the fact that, all the torment, all the whispers of escapism paled in the light of what I had accomplished thus far.

I had reached Capitol Hill Park.

I am Taylor Hebert, and I had reached Capitol Hill Park on my own two feet! And almost following Simon's pace to boot! Take that, World!

And all I needed to complete this victory was to continue onwards. I felt as if I was just at the edge of collapse. I was sure I would do just that if someone bumped into me, and that no effort I could muster would be able to get me upright again.

No. I can do this. I will not fall.

I continued onwards, somehow not falling by force of will, ignoring my own thoughts, burying my pain with willpower, focus and bug powers.

The bugs I had brought with me had already spread out, covering the blank spots where the local insects weren't. They drew trees, lawns, fences and paths in my mind, found people to track and mapped out the direction I should take in one thin, slightly curved line.

In particular I focused on the location of one bug, the housefly I had planted on Simon deep inside his upraised cowl, hidden in a little gap behind his head caused by the folds and stitching of the fabric. My power told me it was only a few meters more ahead, in a clearing near the center of the park if I had remembered my last few visits here correctly.

Just… a few meters more…

And the tagging housefly stopped bobbing up and down. I took it to mean Simon had completed the stationary parts of his training menu. Which also meant he was about to start his… his…

Oh shit. I forgot all about his return trip. Another run, a copy of what I just completed, the same distance at the same pace.

Everything crashed as my willpower finally slipped away. I fell almost uncontrollably onto the path and lay down, unable to continue. I… This was insane! There was no way I could manage this anymore! I… I would tell him I'd be taking the bus back to his hideout for today, or something. Maybe next time, thank you very much.

Yeah, I guess I would go with that.

I closed my eyes as I continued to pant there, hearing the unceasing pounding of my heart in my ears. But however wrecked I was physically, it seemed my powers weren't affected at all. And so, as I continued to be blind and deaf to the world, I was able to see, feel, hear, touch… and taste with my extra senses, tagging everyone and acquiring a map of my surroundings.

I finally noticed the oddity soon after.

There was a mass exodus of people from the park, and more importantly Simon was with five people, surrounding him in a rough circle.

I started to take control of the local bugs just in case, and spread them out to map out the area in finer detail. I disregarded the people running out of the park, focused in favor of those who had stayed behind in the center.

Other than the five in front of Simon, my bugs had already found a few others. They were mostly scattered in ones or twos, with an exception of a large group of twelve people near where Simon was. Those twelve stood or squatted close together near the trees and bushes away from, and I'm guessing, hidden from Simon's spot in the park.

And they appeared to be clothed the same; they all had some sort of long sleeved shirt together with pants. They all wore some sort of webbing and heavy belts, festooned with pouches and other similar gear, from some sort of metallic bulbs to boxy shapes hanging from their belts. And all of them were also holding sticks of some kind in their hands. Large metallic sticks with smooth machined surfaces, metal and plastic by the feel and taste of it. The larger of those sticks were shaped with a boxy body, a pointed hollow end, a large forward hand grip, a trigger and…

I finally realized what those were. They were holding rifles and pistols. There were at least fifteen people holding guns of all shapes and sizes, and all of them were pointed at Simon.

And here I was, so exhausted I couldn't find it in me to even roll over to the side of the footpath.

Fuck.