June 7th 2006

"What you interfere with now is bigger than you can imagine."

March 30th

My feet pounded across the pavement, my path only being guided by the mountains in the distance. Old buildings rushed past, some decayed, with others showing some signs of life within.

I didn't really know where I was, only that it was in the Docks and that it didn't seem to be in the middle of Merchant territory.

And that I needed to get away.

F-WOOMM

Everything blurred as I shot forward in a rush of white-blue light, crossing the distance of nearly a building length in an instant.

I was getting better at that, the teleporting/bolting/Dashing thing. I was getting better at the landings as well, no longer tripping up at finding my stride being uninterrupted, despite feeling like I was out of step.

It helped that I figured out that I needed to look at the spot where I wanted to be rather than where I waited to go, it stopped me from appearing a foot off the ground and stumbling.

Even after several minutes of running I failed to feel any burn within my lungs and legs. Just how much did my power allow me to push myself?

Better question: why hadn't Alexandria caught up to me yet? Or Assault, for that matter? Both of them were fast enough to keep up with me easily.

It didn't make sense, none of it had.

The PRT pushing for the testing session, Dragon giving me warnings about it, Armsmaster giving me several opportunities to get out of it, Alexandria being there, the whole situation added up to the point that I would be a fool to think it was all normal.

And my Double, if there was any doubt that it knew things that I didn't, it was gone. The way it addressed Assault… was his name really Ethan? If it was, I had no way of knowing that, so…

Was the Double a cape then, or… something else?

There had been a rise of religion when capes and powers had first started showing up, with some even going as far as to call Scion the Second Coming.

There were some that still believed that, as well as places and locations that preached it to others, but the death of Vikare, the formation of the PRT and other cape agencies, the lack of Scion doing anything religious-like (aside from the whole saving people thing), and the Endbringers showing up really put a nail in what was considered 'normal' religions over the last few decades, leading to something of a slow decline in popularity.

And the sinking of Rome and the cults that popped up around powers (and later, the Endbringers) didn't help things either.

Dispute all of that, churches, mosques, and temples were still around, so the idea of higher beings like angels or devils wasn't something that I hadn't heard of, but to encounter something that could fit the bill…

No, that was crazy… wasn't it?

Panting, I slow my run, not because I felt any exhaustion, but because I had been running for long enough that I felt safe, or as safe as I could be when you were being possibly chased by someone like Alexandria.

But given that I had been running non-stop for several minutes now without seeing her, either I had lost her, or Armsmaster had stopped her from chasing after me.

Or she was about to fly in and get me in the next second, but that was being pessimistic.

I can to a stop at a gap between two buildings, a trash-filled alley that looked like it hadn't seen any cleaning aside from rain since before I was born.

Luckily, the streets were still bare of any people, and the sky remained clear, though the latter was normal for the time of day; it was rare to see anyone in the heart of the Docks, they were likely busy keeping their heads down to avoid getting into trouble.

…. I was an idiot.

I just up and ran away from members of the Protectorate (albeit after a very strange situation that I wanted no part in). They probably had PRT trucks hunting me down right now.

It was just…

I covered my face with my hands and let myself fall into a nearby wall and then let gravity take me, sliding down it until I was sitting.

"Why can't things just go right?"

Little tastes of hope and happiness, that was all I got before I would get kicked in the teeth. Most people would be over the moon to have met Alexandria in the flesh, to get the personal attention of Dragon, to speak one-on-one with Armsmaster and Assault.

For me, however, all of it ended up becoming tainted.

Many kids dreamed of being heroes, of fighting the 'bad guys,' of standing tall and protecting your city. Me? My dream was to get up in the morning, talk to my dad without wondering what to say, then go to school, do well, and then hang out with friends whose company I enjoyed and enjoyed my company.

Was it all really too much to ask for me to be a normal girl?

Instead, I was sitting near some rundown buildings in the Docks, feeling sorry for myself, just after nearly getting my chest caved in by Alexandria.

… speaking of which, where was I?

There were three major parts of the Docks: the first was the actual docks, which took up the smallest part of the area, given it was lines and rows of the loading/unloading bays for ships. The second was the stretches of old warehouses, storage centers, and factories that were once the backbone of Brockton Bay's import/export business. The last bit of the Docks contained assorted apartments and businesses (many of which were run down), as well as some of the city's utility buildings.

Most of what I knew of the Docks was in a rough circle around my house, but with the faint, hazy of the Protectorate HQ shield to one direction, and the edges of the mountain range in the other, I was able to orient myself towards downtown.

I was in the old 'commercial district,' were some combined offices and industrial shops once set up to either support the docks, or to take advantage of the nearby import/exporting going on. It was a mix of small delis, hole in the wall food joints, random assorted shops and businesses, a number of hardware stores, and even a pair of car lots.

All of which had boarded up their door's years ago, leaving everything to fall apart.

Generally speaking, it wasn't safe to be here at night.

During the day everything would seem quiet, you would see a handful of people passing through, maybe catch a glimpse of a homeless person, but because of most of it being commercial, everything had ended up being abandoned and/or stripped bare over the years, leaving just the assorted questionable apartments to have any livable spaces in them.

It might be a bit dangerous, given I was alone, but I could easily find my way home from here, and having a power that allowed me to cross entire city blocks would make the actual travel time trivial.

Part of me wanted to go back to the warehouse, to smooth things over.

Another part just wanted to go home, go to bed, and hope it was all a dream.

… but as I lifted my arms and let my power flow, I realized that was never going to happen, not now.

There were going to be consequences for my actions, I would have to deal with it.

… later, right now I needed to get home, or at least towards home before I get picked up by the PRT.

I picked myself off the ground and started walking, drained emotionally more than physically.

With everything that had happened… I didn't know how the PRT would respond, I might end up getting arrested for running out of a testing session, or for hurting Alexand-

Oh god, I hurt Alexandria.

I felt sick and stumbled for a few steps just thinking about it. Alexandria was more than a hero, she was a pillar of the cape world. Everyone had freaked when she had first gotten hurt by the Siberian, what would happen with me? A squishy human? There were limits to my power, I couldn't hide away forever to avoid things, power or no.

… although, if I had hurt Alexandria, then there was a chance that I could hurt the Siberian. Not that I thought I had a chance fighting her, nor ever wanted to, but it was something that I could bring up as a bit of a silver lining.

What had been up with Alexandria anyway? The way she spoke and acted didn't fit with everything that I expected from her, though given what she said about my power…

The Clans. I had never heard of them, but I knew little about capes and their greater organizations. I knew of a number of big-name groups world-wide (the Elite, the Zolotyye Lineyki, the King's Men, the Suits, Gesellschaft, Volsunga, the remnants of the Sentai, just to name a few), some of the corporate cape groups, several of the religious groups, and most of the local groups. I just didn't know much about them.

Which made sense considering how big the world was, there were probably dozens of cape teams in a place like New York.

Still… Alexandria was well respected and earned her reputation for a reason… if she really had seen my power before, had fought people that used it… what did that mean for me?

Powers had little rhyme or reason for what they manifested. While what little information I'd found had suggested that there were rather clear connections between the situations that formed powers, and what type of powers that one received from them, there was no such relation to how powers existed, functioned, or any commonality in how they formed.

So while there were dozens (if not hundreds and thousands) of people with powers that healed them, made them bulletproof, allowed them to teleport, to shoot beams from their hands, to be able to read a room, to build things, to shapeshift, etc., each one was somehow unique, with similarities only being surface deep between them all.

What that meant for me was that it was unlikely that there were hundreds of people running around that could shoot beams of blue-white light from their hands, capable of hunting Alexandria.

But that didn't mean that there weren't a few out there.

… Dad was going to be tough to talk to, I wasn't going be able to keep this from him.

I had hoped that I would walk away from the testing with confidence about my power, that I would go home to dad and talk about me joining the Wards, someplace where I could get support with my power and do some good with it.

Instead, I might have ended up as a fugitive, something that I'm sure will go over really well with my father.

-and what was with that singing?

I glanced around, as it had just been getting louder in the last minute or so, trying to see if anyone was nearby. Nothing. Perhaps it was coming from a building? Just because they looked empty didn't mean they were, the BBPD once found nearly two hundred homeless living in a warehouse because the walls were well insulated, and it was free from rats and water because it had been stripped bare.

So maybe it was a bunch of gangers listing to music while they were holed up for the day? That was something I remembered someone talking about back in Winslow, how they hated going home because their Merchant neighbors would always be blasting music until the sunset and they left for the night.

But this humming was different, it wasn't rap or heavy metal, it wasn't even country, all things I would expect would be blasting out in some places of the Docks. And that just made it even more confusing, because who would be listening to an electric angelic choir out here?

I glanced around once more, trying to see if there was an open window or door, but didn't see any.

And now the sound… was getting closer?

Ok, enough standing around and taking a look to try and avoid thinking about what happened, even if Alexandria was far scarier than some greasy unwashed Merchant, that didn't mean that they couldn't do some damag-

Movement in the alley made me spin in place.

Bits of trash fluttered in the soft breeze, sending some of it twisting into the air. A plastic shopping bag fluttered, partly weighed down by its contents. Pieces of paper swirled across the ground.

The sound had stopped.

"Hello?"

The breeze faded and the trash settled, nothing else moved. A quick look to try and see if it had been a cat or some other kind of animal revealed nothing, and I wasn't going to satisfy my curiosity by taking a closer look.

I mean, there were needles next to a pair of diapers, an overturned dumpster (which had mushrooms growing out of its side, ew), a small mountain of beer cans, and someone had placed a trash can right in the middle of the alley.

Me going in there was "How To Get Shanked 101", I could probably end up getting a disease just by breathing in the air here.

The sounds of a car just hastened my movement, the fear of being caught in a confined space causing me to flinch away from the alley.

But when I looked down the street, I found I recognized the car- or jeep as it were.

Armsmaster's jeep all but raced down the street towards me, and swiftly swung into my side of the street to pull up next to me with a squeal of its tires.

"Taylor, are you alright?" Armsmaster asked as soon as then the passenger door opened.

I glanced around, no Alexandria.

"… It's fine, we had a discussion about her actions and she'd… She's left the area already, heading back to Los Angeles." Armsmaster informed me. "And I will be opening an investigation into her actions with both PRT and the Protectorate as well."

Well, that was nice to hear, even if was a bit… late.

It was then that I noticed the hand-shaped dent in his chest piece.

"Did she attack you?!"

Had it happened because he had stepped in to protect me from her? Though to be honest I wasn't quite able to see him winning a fight against Alexandria, so what had happened?

"We had a disagreement," Armsmaster said after a moment. "… actually, in retrospect, I said something I shouldn't have, and she didn't take it well. But I was able to get through to her because of it, so it was a net gain."

Well, that meant that I didn't have to worry about her suddenly swooping in and slamming me to the ground again.

"Taylor, please get in the vehicle, this area isn't known for its safety. I can take us back to the warehouse if you wish to continue the actual testing season."

As much as going back to that place to get poked at and blast holes in still targets with a barely controlled power appealed to me…

"… can I go home? Because I really don't think that I'll be doing any more testing today."

Armsmaster sighed. "…perhaps that will be for the best… I'll drive you."

As I climbed into the jeep, I reflected that nothing had gone right today. What should have been a simple event of finding out more about my power turned into an over-the-top TV action/drama, where I was the person that found themselves accused of being part of a conspiracy and ended up on the run.

Only this wasn't a movie, and somehow, I wasn't dead despite having Alexandria chase after me.

And now I was stepping into the vehicle of one of the members of the same organization that she was in charge of.

For a moment, I stopped, glancing up to look at Armsmaster. Was this a ploy? Was he just going to take me back to the warehouse instead of my home?

… no, Armsmaster had known something was up and… well, he hadn't told me what going on, but he had tried to imply that something was up. In the end, he was still bound by rules and regulations which governed his actions, so if he had been pressured into getting me into testing my power as quickly as he could, there was little he could have done to stop it.

Especially if he didn't know that something was actually wrong and just thought that I was being pushed into testing.

In a way, he reminded me of Mrs. Knott, she made some attempts to help me with the bullying, but ultimately wasn't able to do anything.

There were other factors involved, like how I was just one student of many in her class(es), but that just meant I didn't hate her like the I did rest of the teachers for what happened.

Armsmaster fought Alexandria- even if fought was too strong of a word- but he stepped in-between us, going up against not only one of the strongest capes in the world, but also the person that was pretty much his boss.

And for that, I trusted him, so I climbed in and settled myself into the seat.

A sharp breeze rushed by, drawing my attention back outside as I closed the door. And at that moment, just as the door swung shut, I could have sworn that I heard that humming again.

But again, I saw nothing.

"Seatbelt," Armsmaster reminded me, and I dutifully complied.

As Armsmaster shifted the jeep back into drive, I found my gaze being drawn to the alley, full of trash as it was.

The dumpsters, the piles of trash, the carelessness of people just tossing things to get rid of it, the abandonment of the area: all of it represented Brockton Bay as a whole, and it all played a part in my situation.

If the Bay had been in a better state, then Winslow wouldn't have been such a shithole, my best friend wouldn't have betrayed me, and I wouldn't have Triggered. Dad would still have a good-paying job, I would still have my best friend, and Mom might have even been still alive.

But that wasn't my hometown. Brockton Bay was dying, no matter how much people wanted to disagree.

It lasted a while longer because of Medhall and the small surge of industrial brought forth by Tāwhirimātea, but Brockton had been a shipping town first and foremost. When the Docks had fallen apart it only became a matter of time before the city did the same.

Too many people that could leave, did, meaning that business closed up as the cost of operating overcame what they earned, and from there it just snowballed.

Downtown was in better condition, but they were still reliant on the lower-class workers living out near the Docks area for the bottom-of-the-ladder jobs. Maybe the city wouldn't become a ghost town before I had kids, but by the time that I was Dad's age I didn't foresee anyone still living here, something not that uncommon nowadays given capes and the Endbringers running around.

With the loss of the Docks, of something so vital for a city built upon shipping, the city pooled its resources elsewhere. The people that were left high and dry as things shut down and were left to decay, forced become uncaring to anything beyond survival.

In my neighborhood, places like that alley were at least taken care of every now and again by the city. Here? I was sure that it was looked over at some point during the year, if only to stop it from becoming a mini-dumping ground that spilled out into the street.

It was funny really, when I was younger, I never really noticed these kinds of things. Now, it was all too easy to pick them out. Which only made sense really, what was happening to the city directed resulted in me sitting in the here and now, heading home in a hero's Tinker vehicle after nearly getting my head taken off by someone that was regarded across the world as a hero.

Even as the thought of, 'how does one just go about their day after that?' rang through my head, I realized that I didn't need to worry too much about that, it wasn't like I had experience after all. Everyone in the Bay had that, it was the only reason the city was still going after all.

Just like them, there were other things I could do to keep me going, like homework, talking to my dad, and even doing a bit of testing of my power in my basement if I felt so inclined.

Sure, meeting Alexandria had… well, calling it a disappointment would be a massive understatement, and I couldn't exactly say I saw any of it coming, but…

At least now I better understood my powers, even if that had come at a cost. Perhaps a cost too big? Even if Armsmaster smoothed things over here, I would still have to deal with the fallout later on.

… Maybe I should have just kept my head down and melted back in with the background kids.

… No, I would not end up falling back into my slump like before, wallowing in misery and hoping someone would step in and help me, even after I had stopped trying to help myself. The world didn't work that way, and I didn't want to become one of those people once more.

Brockton Bay may have been my home, but I wasn't going to end up like it. I had something that I could leverage now, something that was valuable to people. If I played my cards right, I could still walk away from all of this without getting sent to prison. It all just depended on how the PRT reacted to Alexandria's freak-out and if they tried to screw me ov-

-where did that lone trash can go?

Before I could get a good look, Armsmaster had already pulled away from the curb and was driving off, the alley swiftly fading into the distance.

The drive passed in silence, with not even the radio on to break it.

It was tough, I couldn't guess what Armsmaster was thinking, utterly focused on the drive as he was- even if he hadn't been wearing his helmet, I had a feeling he would still be inscrutable.

That didn't mean that I was the same. I had so many questions I wanted answers to, like, why the hell was Alexandria so ready to kill me? She hadn't held back once when she was chasing me, and it was only up to the fact that I could go intangible that I hadn't been killed (or at least ended up with a bunch of broken bones).

Yet, despite her reaction to my power, she had stopped chasing me, and I was left wondering what Armsmaster had done to get her to stop.

Doing so and walking away with just a dent on his armor knocked my respect for him up a few notches.

It wasn't until I recognized that we were only a few blocks from my neighborhood that I spoke.

"Alexandria, she…"

Armsmaster spared me the tiniest of glances, but otherwise let me gather my thoughts.

A minute passed in silence before I started again.

"… why was she like that?" I asked. "I mean… it wasn't just me, was it?"

The hero was quiet for a moment before he sighed.

"I have been wondering that myself," he admitted. "Her reaction to your power was… extreme, and I will be having words with Piggot about it. Hopefully, she will pass my report up the chain of command quickly and the Chief Director will hear about what happened here."

Armsmaster removed one hand from the wheel and drew it across his damaged chest piece, tracing the hand-shaped dent in it out.

"… that was not the action of a proper Protectorate member, especially for the leader of the organization."

I had to look away at that; most of what I'd experienced with the PRT or Protectorate wasn't what I'd expected either.

"… what happens now?"

Armsmaster grunted. "You go home and go to school, act as nothing has happened; I'll ask Dragon to contact you if anything new comes up, as well as with a basic report from the testing, for what little we got, at least. I, meanwhile, will push for an investigation into Alexandria."

"… it was almost like she had seen my power before," I noted absently.

"Impossible, you are not the Butcher, nor have I heard of a power similar to the ones that you'd used in case you were a powers thief."

I didn't know what to say to that, I didn't know much about powers either after all.

"… will you… will you get in trouble for what you did?" I managed to ask.

Armsmaster didn't respond.

The jeep pulled to a stop in front of my house. It was still early in the day, so I had a few hours to figure out what I was going to tell Dad.

I wasn't going to keep this from him, not after what had happened.

"… I'll do what I can on my side of things," Armsmaster informed me. "If something happens and I'm unable to inform you about it, I'll send Miss Militia in my stead."

That sounded ominous, but he was talking about speaking out against Alexandria.

"… What about my- the Double?"

Armsmaster sighed and leaned back in his seat.

"Truth be told Taylor, Master and Stranger powers are considered the worst not because of they can do, but because of how they make people act."

"Someone loses their job to someone else? They must have Mastered the boss, they must have a Stranger power. The PRT fields calls like that all day, every day. Many turn out to be fake, even the ones that seem real, but the potential is there that there really was a cape Mastering his boss for a pay raise, so we need to check."

"For your power… unless you are capable of beating both PRT surveillance and my own lie-detecting software, I doubt you are the consciously the cause for the Double. Furthermore, throwing you into a cell might not stop it from manifesting, and it might take months, if not years for you to fully understand and control the depths of your power. What good would locking you away do for anyone, other than to do it 'just in case?'"

"… and if you were ordered to?" I ask.

Armsmaster huffed.

"I would not do it like Alexandria just tried, that's for sure. The fact is that while you are the best candidate for the source of the Double, the evidence is flimsy given the global nature of its appearances, and if the only good that locking you away would be us feeling like we have some control, then what would be the point? Look what has happened to Canary and her trial, protests are happening outside PRT HQs all across the country over it. While you might not be famous, as it stands even a mediocre lawyer could sell the same angle to a judge."

So I likely wasn't going to get tossed in prison because the PRT was more concerned about what it would look like it if I did, good to know.

That didn't mean that something was going happen to me, and I voiced such to Armsmaster.

"… Piggot will do what she can, but her views and ideas on capes will push her in a different direction. I believe that she will side with yo- us, on the principle of the matter, but if orders came down that you were to become a probationary Ward in another District, then she'd shrug and move on. Even with my recordings, she'll be more focused on the PRT/Protectorate as a whole, rather than you."

Ah, one of those bureaucrat types that dad would sometimes talk about. Given the state of the Bay, I could understand her having a lot on her plate... even with Conscript being a hard counter to most of the Empires capes, there were only so many places one person could be.

Plus, no-one really wanted a repeat of San Diego; even if the gang basically were just modern-day Nazis, the Bay didn't need their blood running through the streets, we had enough problems as it was.

'Though word was that Kaiser was smart enough to avoid the Saint of San Diego and always disciplined his followers whenever they got into fights with them.

The jeep pulled up to my house, and both of us sat for a minute, awkwardly. I wasn't quite ready to go and face my dad, and Armsmaster wasn't forcing me to leave so…

"… I feel that I should apologize to you for my actions," Armsmaster said suddenly. "This whole situation… even though the protocols involving new capes are more like guidelines, in your situation, you should have been treated better. None of this should have happened."

"… I, I don't think that there was really much you could do," I said. "Unless you could order around Alexandria and haven't told anyone."

Armsmaster sighed and reached up to grasp at his helmet. there was a click and then he removed it.

"No, you are wrong about that, there was something I could do."

I put Armsmaster in his late thirties, with dark-brown hair that matched his beard. Good jawline, sharp eyes, well kept. He wasn't ruggedly handsome, but I easily would still call him attractive.

(It was amazing what could go through your mind at times)

He glazed over at me, watching for a moment, before extending a hand to me.

"Colin."

"… Taylor," I said after taking his hand in shock.

And immediately closed my eyes in embarrassment.

Colin huffed in amusement. "I am aware."

I didn't know how to feel about this, there were laws in place about this kind of thing, rules, both written and Unwritten.

Colin, however, must have not shared my concerns, before he continued speaking as if everything was perfectly normal.

"While I was limited in how to deal with Alexandria, I was referring to you."

Colin ran an armored thumb over the glass of his helmet, his eyes forced on something beyond what he held in his hands.

"… I wasn't insincere when I told you and your father that you Triggering was my fault, due to my position. As the leader of the Protectorate here in the Bay, it falls upon me to manage both its members and the Wards, something that I have come to realize that I've… somewhat failed in. No matter what the events or situation, I should have seen, should have known, what Hess was up to, what she was doing. The fact that I didn't…"

I let the man collect his thoughts, because despite the swirling confusion, the justifiable anger and rage at the man for something that was within his power to stop, because I had been picked on and beat down for two years and nearly died because he hadn't been doing his job…

What would me getting angry at him achieve? It had all already happened, Sophia was gone, the school was closed and slated for demolition, and I had something like friends now

At this point, I was just… tired, of my past hovering over me. I just wanted to move one.

"… my drive made me a good hero, but I believe that along the way… there are things that I probably should have done better, rather than pushing them aside in pursuit of my own goals. The fact that it took you Triggering and all that became of it to make me see this…"

Armsmaster trailed off, leaving us in silence.

… how was I supposed to deal with this? How does anyone deal with someone baring their heart, to them?

I suddenly had a much better understanding of my dad, just days before it had been me in Colin's position, wondering about my life and my actions in it. Only I wasn't the one with years of life experience here, I didn't know how to address personal issues about adult lif-

Wait…

"… I don't think there was anything you could have done about Sophia," I told Colin. "She was… there was something wrong with her, with how she acted. It was her choice to do the things she did."

"And you've made mistakes, sure… and they might be rather big ones, that doesn't mean you can't learn from them, grow from them, change to be a better person than you were before."

Colin hummed after a moment. "That is… surprisingly wise words coming from you Taylor."

I hid my wince, and tried not to take his words personally, after all, "Thanks, I got them from my dad."

Colin hummed again. "… Speaking of which, I believe it is time for you to return home."

"Yeah, I uh, won't tell anyone about knowing how you are?" I half ask, given the whole Unwritten rules thing, but given what had just happened…

"That should be rather… yes, it would be for the best," Colin confirmed. "I'll be in touch when I have news, and I will arrange to have your stuff returned to you as well."

My bag. With everything that had happened I had forgotten it.

Ugh, so much for being prepared.

"Thanks."

"Though it will take a few days for replacements for your glasses, as you'll have to provide the information for those."

My glasses? What was he-

Touching my face, I found that I wasn't wearing my glasses, yet… my vision was fine.

When had…?

"Something wrong?"

I glanced over at Colin. "I, I hadn't noticed I was missing them."

"Really?" Colin asked, one eyebrow raised. "Based upon your medical file, your vision is rather bad."

Shaking my head, I said, "… not anymore."

When had I lost my glasses? I had put them on when I left the house and hadn't taken them off at any point, hadn't I?

… the warehouse, when I had used my power. I had been flung to the floor from the recoil, to say nothing of what had happened afterward.

"In what way? Improved vision, or averaged? Any blurriness or adjusting for distance? Are there any other changes you haven't noticed? Take a moment to check."

Just like that, it was Armsmaster in the jeep, not Colin.

"Uh…" I took a moment to cast my gaze around, trying to see if there was any difference in my vision as I looked.

"… not really? I mean, I've dealt with my bad eyesight for so long that I don't know how to compare it to this."

And really, going from struggling to see to suddenly being about to read street signs down the street, while also able to read Armsmaster's radio and dashboard with no difference or blur, was disorientating.

No, that was the wrong word. It more like disconcerting, because even with my glasses switching from far to near had taken me a second to adjust. To no longer have to do that…

"A healing factor perhaps? Or restoration?" Armsmaster slid his helmet back on and muttered for a moment, his gaze far away.

"… I don't suppose that I can convince you to come into the PRT HQ for a complete physical? There may be more biological changes going on that you are not aware of."

I must have made a face because Armsmaster next sighed and said, "I thought as much, still, if you happen to notice any other changes note them and inform the PRT if possible, particularly if those changes are drastic, even if they are minor. It would be… bad, if you found yourself altering physically throughout the day."

Yeah, it would be a thing if I suddenly grew scales or was able to leap on top of the school building from ground level.

People tend to notice stuff like that.

"Ok, I'll… just go back to my life, I guess."

Armsmaster simply nodded at me.

It was as I was getting out that the thought hit me.

And with one hand on the door, I faced Armsmaster, looking just as intimidating as ever, even with the dent in his chestpiece.

"… for what it's worth, I think you're a good man Armsmaster."

Then I shut the door.

A/N: Assault was left behind to watch over the equipment and warehouse, it gets brought up later in a future side chapter which also addresses just What The Fuck happened after Taylor left.

Why didn't Armsmaster mention it? Why would he? Why didn't Taylor mention it? She was a bit busy thinking about other things at the time.

This being said, there might be a delay on the next chapter, as I realized that the side story mentioned above would work so much better before the next chapter (which I've just finished), so I need to work on that as well.