This is a cross posting from my QuestionableQuesting account.
Chapter 4
It was amazing how just one experience or a bit of knowledge could change somebody's perspective. For Taylor this couldn't be shown better when she returned to school the following couple of days. Suddenly, the entire school's attitude towards her had changed and Taylor didn't know if she really liked it.
Even the bitch Blackwell had her tune change when she went back to school. Assuring her that the school takes bullying seriously and the teachers keep a close eye on the many rampant problems that occur in the halls and their classroom. Taylor had nearly leaped over the table to try and strangle the Principal when she tried to sell that bullshit to her. A year of bullying with nothing being done about it can't be fixed with empty words.
"She just fears Ed is all…" Taylor silently grumbled in her head.
"Hey Taylor!" One student greeted her in the hall. She didn't know the guy, but he waved at her like they were old friends. Taylor just shyly nodded at him, not saying anything.
"Taylor!"
"Yo, Taylor!"
"We should hang out sometime!"
The school day had just started and Taylor was already close to deciding that she should just leave, it was a Friday so she could just deal with whatever consequences come on Monday. All she wanted to do was be invisible to everyone in this crappy school but now she was the center of attention. Objectively Taylor knew that the way the school acted now was better than the sheer apathy they treated her before but it wasn't because of her that they had changed. It was the shadow of Ed right behind her that forced compliance.
It did more than her father ever could.
Taylor could handle the random students and teachers that try to get on her good side, eventually they'll get bored when they realize that she wasn't going to introduce them to a cape. It was Emma and her cronies that worried her.
Taylor shivered at the thought of how the trio was going to be even worse than before once the initial shock had worn off.
Taylor felt eyes staring at the back of her head. She turned away from her locker while closing the cheap metal door. Across the hall Emma was glaring at her, Madison mirroring her but when she saw her looking she stuck her tongue out, trying to play more into her cutesy image.
Oddly, Sophia wasn't glaring at her. At least, not more than she usually does to everyone else. She was instead giving Taylor a very intense stare down, like she was trying to figure out a difficult puzzle. The warning bell rang, signaling that they only had about a minute left to get to their next class. Taylor put the thought of the trio watching her aside and hurried to her classroom.
They hadn't even done anything to her since Ed had taken her through that portal and it was a breath of fresh air for once. For a single moment in her high school life the bullying from the trio had stopped. After being in a laser firefight with a bunch of aliens and seeing them disintegrate while fighting next to her weird roommate, whatever they had done to her in the past was pretty tame in comparison.
Once the rest of the school goes back to ignoring her and the trio stay off her back she might even be able to grab some small enjoyment here.
Actually, now that Taylor had thought about it, "Should I even be worried about them? Compared to the aliens and the entire galaxy, a bunch of high school bullies is pretty low on the existence scale."
The final bell rang, letting the children finally taste freedom. Taylor wasted no more time than necessary in the school, already inside a bus on her way back home. She was giddy for once, Ed had told her that morning that the spaceship was almost ready.
A blonde haired girl sat in the seat next to her across the bus's walkway. Taylor gave her a small glance, she was pretty with green eyes and had freckles on her face. Taylor felt a bit jealous but quickly squashed that line of thought before it continued.
"I am good looking, thanks," the girl grinned.
"Uh, I-," Taylor stuttered.
"No need to be shy, I know I have that effect on people," she continued. The girl stuck her hand out, "Name's Lisa Wilbourn, what's yours?"
Taylor was about to reply but something strange happened. There was a beeping from her waist, she and the girl named Lisa looked down at her belt when the weird and kinda boxy front of it burst open and a tiny turret revealed itself and pointed it's barrel at Lisa. A tiny speaker on a foldable metal arm poked out a side hatch.
"What," Taylor mouthed. She had been wearing this belt for a while when her old one suddenly broke and Ed had given her one of his old ones. Looking back on it now Taylor couldn't help but be a bit suspicious at her belt randomly breaking but she did think it was a better trade now. It was kinda cool after all, but Taylor needed to ask what exactly it protected her from when she had a moment.
"Smug Detected. Activating special defense directive: There's a snake in my boot! All persons not Taylor should retreat within ten seconds and wait for future visitation from God or be obliterated. This meeting has been recorded and God has been notified. Also, you're an idiot. Ten. Nine. Eight."
"Uh, I'm gonna go sit somewhere else…" Lisa muttered.
"Seven."
Lisa quickly got up from her seat and moved all the way to an open spot at the front. Taylor just stared at the belt that was now a turret until it eventually tucked itself back away. Taylor sat in the bus in silence, doing her best to ignore the occasional passenger looking her way.
"Tadah!" Ed cheered, waving his hand at the ship taking up room in the garage.
"It looks like a flying saucer with wheels," Taylor commented.
"Well the design did have a lot of influence from flying saucers," Ed nodded. "But enough about that! Let's take this baby for a spin! Aren't you dying to go into space?!"
Taylor was. Space exploration has been mostly dead since parahumans and Endbringer became a normal part of life in the world. Ed opened the driver's door and Taylor quickly ran over to the other side, entering only a couple seconds after. She ran her hands over the glass that will be separating them from the vacuum of space.
"Will this glass really be effective in space?" Taylor asked.
Ed buckled his seatbelt, prompting Taylor to copy him, "It's fine. I'd tell you but honestly you should just take my word for it. If I explained everything about this thing we'd be here all weekend."
As Ed did some final fiddling with the dashboard Taylor asked him another important question, "Ok, but what about people seeing a spaceship fly from my house? Isn't that going to announce that you live with us?"
"I've thought about that too!" Wave a wave of his finger Ed pushed a button, "Ship, activate invisibility mode."
With a whirring noise and a beep the outside of the ship briefly shimmered in front of Taylor. Nothing seemed to change on their end so she opened the door for a moment to poke her head out. The ship was indeed invisible, if she didn't already know it was there Taylor would think that the garage was empty.
"Huh," she eventually said as she sat back down.
"Yup," Ed nodded. "The ship will even disrupt most attempts to scan it once I finish everything."
The ship turned on and Taylor couldn't help but think that it acted more like a car than she expected. "It's still not done?" She asked.
Ed shrugged as the garage door opened, "Eh, it flies and has all the critical systems plus some extras I had time to make. But some of the fun stuff is either not done yet or I don't have the materials to make them. I wouldn't worry, it's not much of a problem."
Taylor didn't say anything as Ed backed out of the garage and onto the driveway. The garage door closed and Taylor found her stomach doing a small flip when the ship suddenly took off into the air. She sucked in a breath and peeked out the window as they climbed higher into the sky.
Ed reached over and pushed a few buttons, seemingly satisfied he nodded and spoke, "Alright, before we head off I need to make just one stop."
"...Ok?"
Ed turned the steering wheel and the ship picked up speed as they reached a bit further into the atmosphere. Taylor could see almost all of America under them when the ship turned and faced the planet.
"Ship, activate targeting goggles," Ed told the ship. A pair of what looked like night vision goggles sprang from the back of the driver's seat and set itself over his eyes. His mouth set in a line as he concentrated for a minute, when it was seemingly over the goggles beeped and retracted back behind his seat.
Taylor didn't know what the hell he was trying to do.
"Alright," Ed said, pressing a few buttons and pulling a lever. Taylor heard a small hiss and several thumps come from somewhere under the ship before Ed tilted his steering wheel and the two of them shot up into space at a far greater speed than before.
"What the hell was that?" Taylor demanded.
"Just took care of a couple of annoyances before they made shit worse," Ed answered.
"You are not doing that kind of cryptic bull with me," Taylor replied.
Ed groaned as space passed them by, "Fine. If you want to know so badly I sent a couple of presents to where the Slaughterhouse Nine are currently being muderhobos."
"And what are these presents?"
Ed reached into the back of the ship to look for something while using his foot to steer it, "High intensity plasma bombs with concentrated neutrino waves directed at all living beings in the area and a tiny very miniscule amount of antimatter for two of them just in case. It'll probably kill all of them except maybe Crawler but he isn't much of a real threat in the grand scheme of things. Didn't bother to take them time to see if he'd die from that but hey if he lives he lives if he dies then good riddance."
"But, the Siberian is invincible," Taylor mentioned.
"Nothing is really invincible, Taylor," Ed said, using finger quotes when he said invincible. "Anyway, the Siberian is a projection so I shot at the guy projecting her. She should've popped out of existence first before the others if I timed everything right."
"Why… did you kill them? I thought you hated heroics. The Nine are some of the most hated Parahumans in the country, people would love you!"
Ed pulled out the suitcase Taylor had taken from the junk planet and set it on her lap, "I do. Didn't do it to be a hero, I already told you I hated that whole fucking mess. I did it because at some point if I don't get rid of them now I'll have to deal with them later in a much more annoying way! That asshole Jack had to go anyway, Taylor. With him gone it should buy us about fifteen more years, that's more than enough time."
"Fifteen years for what? What the hell is gonna happen?!"
"Gotta kill that golden boy Scion, Taylor," Ed replied. "He's an asshole alien that wants to kill all life on Earth. He's the source of all Parahuman powers in the world. Don't you think it's strange that as soon as he appears people start getting superpowers? This whole heroes and villains thing is a lie, Taylor! It's something crafted by idiotic people and supported by interdimensional parasites to figure out new ways to use their abilities because they're too brain dead to do it themselves! It's why I gotta kill him, it might not get rid of the powers instantly but the planet won't be destroyed!"
Taylor sat next to Ed, stunned, as another planet quickly came into view. This time it was a dark purple when seen from space, a large sprawling futuristic city could be seen with several other ships coming and going from the planet. When they reached closer to the surface she could make out crowds of aliens milling around dirty streets. Taylor took her time taking it all in as Ed navigated the ship through the city, eventually coming to rest in some sort of alien parking garage.
"A parking garage…" Taylor thought. "With the dirty streets it's weirdly mundane and recognizable."
Ed flicked the suitcase open and revealed several packed tubes that were not there before. The storage devices were gone to make room to store more tubes of the strange liquid. Ed nodded to himself and closed the suitcase.
"Now, you wanna go make some monaaaaayyy?! Haha!" Ed yelled, grabbing the suitcase and two other separate bags before flinging the door of the ship open.
"Alright, before we go and conduct business I need you to wear this," Ed told Taylor, handing her one of the bags he took out of the ship and dragging them behind the ship for some privacy.
Taylor opened the bag and saw a white dress shirt, a black vest, a black tie, black dress pants, and a gray fedora with a slightly darker gray trim. She looked back up at Ed who was already rummaging through his own bag that looked like it contained a more formal suit and hat that matched her own clothes, "Alright, what's this?"
"The people we're meeting are Sicarlians," Ed replied, turning around while taking off his coat. "They have a certain dress code they wear and if we want this deal to go through we gotta play by their expectations. So quickly get dressed, we should still have time but we could be cutting it close."
"This is starting to sound a little shady…" Taylor said but began putting the clothes on and making sure Ed didn't peek.
"Alright, here take this laser pistol and hide it under your vest, there should be a place to put it," Ed told her as he handed her the weapon. Taylor gingerly took it and searched for what he was talking about, seeing a small hiding place to place the gun. "Now just hold onto the suitcase and present the contents when I say so."
"Yeah, really shady," Taylor grumbled but was too far into the deep end now.
Ed and Taylor walked through the dark parking garage, past several flying and ground based cars. Ed stopped next to a black alien limousine type car and tapped his knuckles against it in a pattern. The car door opened and Ed wasted no time getting in, Taylor hesitantly walking behind him.
When the two sat down in the car seat across from the person they were meeting they got a good look at him. He was short and yellow with green spots on his bald head, a huge nose and earlobes that dropped down to his shoulders past his wide face. Mildly fat he filled his expensive-looking dark blue suit while sitting down on the car seat and sipping some sort of purple liquid that had orange bubbles from a wine glass with his mouth that extended from his face for about half a foot.
"Mr. Scorpalorp," Ed greeted.
"Ah, Ed! If you're here then that means you have what I'm paying for?" He asked, handing his glass over to one of his bodyguards, two of them sat on either side of the alien and both were of the same race though buffer and taller. They wore similar attire that Taylor was wearing and said girl just realized that she was basically a henchwoman in this obvious mafia-like deal.
"I do, and do you have the payment?"
With a snap of his fingers, Scorpalorp gave an unspoken signal for the other bodyguard not holding the glass to reach under his seat and open a small hidden compartment. Said bodyguard pulled out two suitcases and with another snap of his boss's fingers revealed the contents.
Several glowing rocks and a few pink crystals took space in one case while stacks of high-value alien currency were strapped inside the other one. Ed took out a small pair of tongs from his suit and with a look at the boss alien silently asked if he could look the rocks and crystals over. Scorpalorp waved his hand and Ed went about looking over the materials.
With a nod he set everything back where he got it from, "Alright, everything looks good. Show them what's inside the suitcase."
Taylor fumbled with the locks for a moment and then opened it, showing the contents to the aliens. Scorpalorp hummed in appreciation, "And you say this liquid can instantly teach one of my men how to fight effectively?"
"And buffs them up," Ed said. "Use this stuff and you could take over the whole damn planet."
"And I suppose only you can provide this extraordinary liquid?"
Ed leaned back as they exchanged suitcases, "Naturally, I'm the only guy that knows how to make it. Can't lose that advantage, I'm sure you'd understand."
"Of course, but that does bring me concern that my enemies might also have this advantage…" Scorpalorp trailed off.
Ed chuckled, "Hey, I'm only one guy. Can't make enough to give every wannabe gangster some of this stuff. But I'll cut you a deal, I'm gonna make a shop here, get myself set up. I'd be more than willing to sell more of this stuff to you while I'm here. I should tell you it takes a lot to make that much of it, but the cost is worth it."
Scorpalorp took a few moments to think about it then he grinned, Taylor finding it a bit creepy seeing the mouth make that expression so far from his face. The alien reached over and stuck his hand out to Ed, "Alright then Mr. Williams, I think this will be a wonderful start to our business venture."
"To business!" Ed replied, taking his hand and shaking it.