Wow. What a shock. I'm not dead.
Le Gasp.
I most humbly apologize for a) how long this took, I mean I was writing an original story but I didn't expect to spend so much time on it, b) the quality of this chapter, and c) the frigging time-skip. I'll leave something at the end for those who really need to know the details about what went on after Emma went psycho in the bathroom.
Enjoy, friends. And haters. I guess.
Restart 2.1
"I'm not selling you this for seventy-five."
"Well, I'm not frigging paying you eighty-five."
"You... you skipped all the way down to seventy-five! You're not meant to do that! You're meant to go slower!" I raised an eyebrow. This guy had little to no experience at all in this business, did he? Then again, I was currently attempting to get his broken, useless TV for a price which probably wasn't even an eighth of what he'd originally paid, so that might explain the weirdness of this entire situation.
I shifted my weight from my right foot to my left, scrutinising the TV for several seconds.
Observe.
Broken TV
HP: 13/200
A shitty TV. Got smashed in during a drunken fistfight.
Ouch.
I'd already Observed it several times, but the HP bar made me want to wince every time.
"Yeah. Sorry buddy. Can I offer you an extremely generous seventy-five fifty?" I asked, knowing that the answer was probably going to be a flat no.
"Is this a joke?!" He was trying to sound intimidating, but he honestly just seemed ridiculously terrified.
"No. I'm being completely serious. Oh, you know what? Seventy-six. I'll be nice."
"I told you that the lowest I'd go-"
"You said the lowest you'd go is eight-five. I don't see why another nine dollars makes that much of a difference."
Bargaining is LV. 2!
Jesus, this conversation had been going on so long that my newly acquired ability had already levelled up.
"Oh, fuck it." I shrugged at him. "Seventy-six, or I'm leaving." The man gaped at me like a fish, before sighing and extending his hand with the palm facing upwards.
"Goddamit."
Yes. Goddammit indeed. I just wasted ten minutes trying to get a discount on a worthless piece of junk.
Well, it wouldn't be worthless for me – my Crafting ability was on LV. 3, and I was sure that I could do something useful with this. But for now, I handed the man seventy-six dollars (God, I missed my money already) and grabbed the TV. The motion was effortless, yet another reminder that I needed to tone down my abilities in public, now. They were starting to become noticeable now.
"Pleasure doing business with you!" I called back cheerfully as the man swore at me. I rolled my eyes, turning the corner. I quickly ducked into an alley, and after finding no prying eyes (although there was an unhealthy number of needles) I set down the TV.
Inventory.
A blue box appeared in front of me, filled by a ten-by-ten grid of squares. The first three were occupied by two handguns and the combined number of bullets they shared. My gaze hovered over them, before picking up the TV and throwing it at the box. It sunk into it with a flash of light, and then the TV was there in the fourth space of the grid, in all its broken, unusable glory.
I felt the vibrations of the phone in my pocket, and grimaced. Only one person in the world had my number, and that was Emma.
What's happened this time?
I pressed the answer button.
"Hey, Emma."
"Taylor." The reply was still somewhat curt; we weren't exactly best friends again, but we were making progress. I liked to think so, anyway. "Are you free?" I glanced at my Inventory, then closed it.
"Yeah. Don't think I have anything on." Weekends were like that, I guessed. Dad was at work, and I should have been doing homework. Except I'd finished it in about ten minutes. "What's up?"
"Can I meet you at my place? I... I think this is something I should say to you in person." I frowned. Emma and I hadn't met for more than a week. We'd texted, sure, but never more than that.
"Should I be worried?"
"Worried? No, no." If anything, Emma was the one sounding worried right now. "I just can't really say it over the phone."
"Okay. Should I bring anything."
"Um. No. Just yourself," Emma said. "Safe travels, I guess."
"Yeah. You too." Wait. That was dumb, she was already there. "Bye."
"Bye," Emma replied in a low monotone before hanging up.
Smooth.
New Quest: Can't Tell You Over the Phone (Obviously)
Get to Emma's house and listen to her so she can tell you something important.
Success: + 500 XP, Juicy Information
Failure: Well, I guess you miss the good gossip.
I shook my head at my power's horrible sense of humour. Right now, I had to get over to Emma's.
Menu.
Status
Inventory
Abilities
Quests
Options
Friends
Messages
Party
Bestiary
Options.
Sound
Map
Recording
Map.
Active Map [OFF]-[ON]
Markers [OFF]-[ON]
Route [OFF]-[ON]
A map appeared in the top right corner of my vision, a perfect replication of the streets of Brockton Bay. It had only appeared in the menu after I'd broken LV. 8, but after that I had barely used it. It made me uncomfortable, somewhat, with the way that it could just track people who I'd marked as Friends. Sort of like an invasion of privacy. Sure, that list only included Emma (with whom I was still on shaky ground) and my dad (who literally only ever went to work), but it just felt... wrong, even leaving out the fact that tagging someone as a "Friend" didn't require their consent. But it was useful for navigation and would probably be useful for me later. I eyed the map, confirming that Emma was at her house before breaking into a quick jog. These kinds of things were trivial at this point; I had surpassed the point where I had to be concerned when it came to my Stamina. No, this was easy.
It didn't take long to get to Emma's house. Traffic was tame, people were tame... nothing to really worry about on the way over. When I got there, she was waiting on the front step, staring blankly at the road in front of her. She didn't even seem to hear my footsteps as I walked towards her.
"Hey, Emma." She snapped out of her dazed state, giving me a small smile.
"Hi, Taylor. Want to head inside?"
"Let's." Emma stood up, opening the door for me. The house was... not the same. Things had been moved; the chairs, the picture frames, one of the cupboards. But it still held that same pristine look which it had always possessed. Everything was polished, cleaned and arranged with a level of perfection which honestly stunned me. It always had, every time I'd come here, no matter how faded that feeling was. Of course, the mood was different, the reasons too. There was a tension which I couldn't really describe underlaying the entire meeting, the short walk from the front of the house to the stairs, and then the climb Emma's room.
We didn't speak a word to each other as we walked, Emma in front and me only a few steps behind. There was no need to, no real pressing desire to communicate. The privilege of enjoying friendly banter was something lost, no longer possible. A bridge we had yet to cross. There was no sound but the soft landing and release of our feet as we walked along polished floorboards to our goal; complete and utter privacy.
Emma twisted the doorknob, before beckoning me inside her room. I looked behind me – no one there – before walking in, Emma closing it behind me.
"So?" I turned to face her, after noting that her room looked like a herd of animals had come in and knocked everything around. "What did you want to talk to me about?"
"Oh, that." Emma looked down at her feet, shaking a little. Her breathing was sporadic, in and out, in and out, but the pattern was never the same. "Oh, God. I would have thought this would be easier, you know?"
"No," I said bluntly. "I'm honestly just really confused." She stared at me for a few seconds before sighing.
"Oh, Jesus. You remember when you... when you saved me a few weeks ago?"
"Yeah. Of course." I frowned. "Why?"
"I went home that night, and... and I almost killed myself. You remember when I told you that?" I did. We'd been standing on the roof of Winslow, Sophia Hess eavesdropping without either of us being aware of it.
I don't even go there anymore.
I nodded in reply, motioning for Emma to continue. I felt like a jerk for mostly ignoring her telling me that she'd almost killed herself, both times that she'd said it, but I wanted to get to the point. I needed to work on having more restraint.
"I told you that the reason why I didn't go through with it was because I didn't want to betray you again." She closed her eyes, pausing briefly before continuing. "That was a lie."
I wasn't as surprised as I would have expected. It made sense, really, and at the same time, it didn't.
"Then why?"
"I tried," she said. "Oh, gosh, I tried. But I must have fainted, and then when I tried again... I just couldn't."
"Couldn't what?"
"I couldn't cut into my skin," she said, staring at me expectantly. "I tried with glass. I tried with a knife. It wouldn't work."
Oh.
Oh, god.
"You..."
"Yeah. But probably not in the way you were thinking." She eyed something behind me; I turned and saw nothing out of the ordinary. "I went to sleep that night feeling like shit. I... I woke up and tried to do something, anything which could affect me. And it worked the first time. I grabbed a pen, and I poked myself. I could feel it. But when we'd gotten rid of Sophia? I was in the stall, and I... I saw something. And I tried again." I frowned. She'd seen something...?
What did you see?
"I tried to cut myself. I smashed myself against the stalls. Over and over, again and again, but it wouldn't work." She looked behind me again. "And then I saw them." I turned, and once again I saw nothing. But then I noticed the distortions. Humanoid outlines, transparent and see through, but blurred at the edges. Each was identical, the same figure, Emma's figure.
"They're you," I muttered.
"Yeah," she said. "They look like me, don't they? But they aren't. Not really." She smiled at me. "Whenever they're out, I can't get hurt as easily as normal. If it's something big, like stabbing myself, it'll break through, just a little bit. But a simple cut?" She shrugged. "Nothing. Not even a scratch."
"Holy shit." That was... an incredible power. The sheer potential...
A window popped up, probably the quest completion, but I swiped it away. This was huge.
"Yeah." She grimaced. "But, uh, they're not exactly durable. If you were to hit them, they would... shatter. I'm not sure if they can get stronger, but for now, they're weak."
"How fast can you..."
"How fast can I bring them back after they're destroyed?" After a nod of affirmation, Emma frowned. "Haven't checked. Uh, would you do the honours?" I turned back to the... phantoms. One stepped forward, eventually stopping once it was in front of me. I stood up, pulling back my arm.
"Does it hurt?" I asked.
"When they break? ...No, no. It's fine. Just... punch it. It won't hurt you." I stared at the expressionless face, before swinging my fist at its fragile form. It happened exactly the way she said it would; the phantom shattered like glass, and even though I could barely see it's the rippling distortion in the space it had occupied became more defined, more visible, as the figure fractured into a cloud of fading shards. There was nothing left in its place.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Si-
I heard a sound behind me – I twisted around to see another phantom stepping away from Emma as if it had literally been one with her.
"Almost six seconds."
"Yeah. Thanks for that."
"No... no problem."
And this is where it gets awkward.
I had yet to tell Emma that I had powers. I was certain that she was suspicious on some level but wasn't entirely sure about whether she was right. And she wasn't willing to put our newly formed "friendship" on the line by asking a question which she didn't know the answer to.
I'd considered telling her – I really had. But I didn't her trust her the way I used to, not yet. Even with the help of Observe to easily confirm that she held no ill intentions towards me, it was still something which set off my paranoia. Emma had slipped once. I had no doubt that she could slip again.
But she'd just revealed to me that she was a parahuman. That was probably the biggest secret she had. Well, ever since she'd told me her other big secret, but that was irrelevant right now (I mean, as irrelevant as a freaking future court session can be). She was... giving me this information as a sign of trust. That was what this was, that was what she'd been wanting to do when she'd called me just now.
Oh, god.
Tell her or don't. Not a decision I'd imagined myself making until after we went to court (and hopefully got Sophia Birdcaged) and resolved all that stuff. That wasn't happening for another two weeks, though. Emma had accidentally caused me to consider telling her I had powers weeks before I was planning to.
She could slip; that was true. Slips of the tongue happened every now and then. But if she revealed it intentionally? Well, I knew that she was a parahuman now. Neither of us were going to be telling anyone else without being subjected to the same fate.
I'm going to regret this.
And I can't bring myself to care.
"Emma?"
"Yeah?"
"I... I need to tell you something too."
Oh god.
"You... you aren't the only one who got powers, that night." I watched as her expression shifted gradually from confusion to shock, to understanding, and then horror.
"The locker?" she asked, looking sick.
"Yeah," I replied. "That."
"That's how you recovered so quickly. After you came out. How you... how you got shot but you kept running."
"Yes."
"Oh," she muttered. "Oh, Taylor..."
"Don't apologize. It's... it's actually helped me. I wouldn't have been able to help you all escape without them."
"I know," Emma said. "God, I know. But I've... I've read about powers. About what they do to your head. I... have you noticed anything?"
Yes. With my Dad.
"I can't feel the same way. Emotionally, I mean. My power restricts that, so that when I'm in danger, I can be nervous, but I can't freeze up. I can't be sad when it really matters. That's... that's why I seem so calm all the time. I can't be anything else."
"That's horrible," Emma said, genuine concern and disgust in her words. Whether the disgust was aimed at me or herself, I wasn't sure. What difference did it make? I'd told her. She knew now.
"Do you mind if I ask what you can do?" she asked.
"Right," I muttered, "yeah. Um, my power makes me a video game character." Emma stared at me. "I'm serious. It gives me quests for XP that make me stronger and everything. Like, everything has a level. Everything."
"I'm confused," Emma said, "your power lets you... level yourself up."
"Well, yes. Yes, they do."
"Just you? You said that everything has a level."
"Yeah. Yeah, you, Sophia, people I pass on the street."
"What..." Emma bit her bottom lip, "what level am I?"
It only took a few seconds. I glanced at the profile Observe provided me and frowned. Her Max HP had been 100 the first time I'd used Observe on her. Now it was 130. She'd levelled up three times since I'd last observed her.
"Four," I said, "if the pattern is the same as mine. It doesn't tell me peoples' levels – not yet, anyways."
"What doesn't?"
"Sorry?"
"What doesn't tell you peoples' levels?"
"Oh. Observe; it's an ability. It lets me gather information from people and... things."
"Things?"
"Objects."
"Oh. I see. What else does your power let you do?"
"I... I have an interface – I guess that's what you'd call it. It tells me how powerful I am, gives me the option to improve my strength in certain things, and all the usual stuff video games do."
"I don't play video games," Emma stated bluntly. "I honestly have no clue what the "usual stuff" is."
"Um. I have... a full menu. Let me just read it off... Status, Inventory, Abilities, Options, Quests, Friends, Messages, Party, Bestiary." Emma frowned.
"You have a Friend List?" she asked.
"Yeah, I do. Well, it's less a Friend List and more a People I Want to Track List."
"Who's on that?"
"The list?"
"Yes."
"Um, just you and my dad."
"You need to track me?" I stopped. "Really Taylor?"
"Not really," I said. "I didn't even realise that it would start tracking you after I added you to the list. I just... assumed that it wouldn't do anything too bad."
"I didn't get a request," Emma said in confusion.
"Yeah, that confused me too," I admitted. "I assumed it would, but it just... put you there."
"Interesting," Emma muttered. "You said that you could send messages?"
"Yeah." I opened Messages.
Chats:
-Empty-
Create New Chat? (Y/N)
"Want me to send you a message?" I asked her. Emma shrugged in response – that was good enough for me.
Create New Chat:
Add Chat Members
-Daniel Hebert
-Emma Barnes
…
Emma Barnes added to "New Chat".
Emma blinked as an enormous blue panel popped up in front of her. I couldn't read it from where I was, but I assumed that it was a notification letting her know that she was in the chat.
"What the fuck?" she said. "What the fucking fuck?" She looked at me. "This is insane."
"...I know," I said as I inspected the chat for myself.
New Chat
Taylor: Hi.
"Wow," Emma said. "This looks, like, really useful. Do you think there's a range on this thing?"
"I doubt it," I said. "Wouldn't really be a point to it if the range was shit."
"True." Emma reached towards the panel. "Do you mind if..."
"Go ahead." I watched as a reply popped up on my panel.
New Chat
Emma: Hi.
"Yeah, this is awesome," Emma grinned. "Anything else we could use this for?"
"Um..." I checked my Menu. "There's an option called Party."
"Try it."
Create New Party:
Name Party: [Party Name]
"What should I name the Party?"
"Hm?"
"The Party. I have to give it a name."
"Oh. Hm. Can you name it something else later?"
"Probably."
"Just leave it blank then."
"Sure thing."
New Party
Add Party Members:
-Daniel Hebert
-Emma Barnes
…
Emma Barnes has been invited to join "New Party".
Another panel popped up in front of Emma, presumably the invitation. She tapped another button without hesitation.
Emma Barnes has joined "New Party".
At first, nothing seemed to happen, apart from the appearance of Emma's HP, Stamina, and MP below my own. And then Emma started shrieking.
"Why the fuck is my Charisma only 3?!"
I promised an explanation. Well, here goes.
Taylor refuses to implicate Emma in anything. Emma is, however, backing up Taylor on her claims that Madison and Sophia were bullying her. Sophia's awaiting trial; Taylor and Emma are 999% sure that no matter what happens, Sophia will go to prison/juvie, and even more likely, she'll get railroaded and sent to the Birdcage. Taylor couldn't give two fucks if she tried, and Emma feels very little regret. As for Madison? Well, same for her, except she won't be going to the Birdcage.
Hope this explains things.
Like, I don't know how the legal stuff in America works, because I live in Melbourne, but frick if I actually care. This is a fanfic guys, chill. :)
