A/N: This chapter did not want to be written. I'm not even sure I can call it written.
Looking back on the situation, it might have been better if her teacher had not saved her from the locker.
If she hadn't been saved, it would have been harder for the school administration to effectively sweep the situation under the rug. Hell, it would have been an improvement had her teacher remained longer instead of disappearing the moment her father came in.
Her father allowed her to take a break from school, but she had to return all too soon. Had she gotten sick from being stuffed into the locker by them, she would at least have been able to stay away from that hellhole for a week.
But rules were rules. And with her father not having enough money to send her to Immaculate, and her grades no longer being high enough to skip ahead a year (much less being good enough to test into Acadia) thanks to Emma's and Madison's sabotage of her homework, and the other schools in Brockton Bay being too far away...
She was stuck returning to the vipers' pit known as Winslow High School.
'Seriously, what were they thinking with that name?'
Not to mention that, Hess aside, the bullying resumed immediately.
You knew that your school life was shit when seeing a rat scurrying around was the highlight.
'Not as many that had been popping up around home since the locker, though.'
And then there was Greg.
"Apparently, the night before the first day of school, a new hero appeared in Brockton Bay; some sort of Tinker that used laser pistols and Tinkertech armor! And on the first day of the job, he did what nobody else had managed, knocking out the cannibalistic parahuman known as Rumia for longer than 15 minutes."
"Apparently this new hero was injured in the fight and had to be rescued by New-Wave and the Wards!"
Such was the gossip she was hearing from the female versions of Veder. Word vomit from a bunch of idiotic teenagers.
It totally must have been a coincidence that Greg Veder was absent on the first week of school. It also must have had nothing to do with the fact that upon returning to school, Greg strutted in like he owned the goddamned place.
'Or that he expected me to have a brought him his homework assignments due to his absence... and get angry with me when I didn't.'
He was best friends with Sparky, so why was he bothering her and not Sparky?
...
Little did Taylor know that the situation was going to become far worse before it became better when she got home that fateful day;
The female Youkai that looked like she was French or something but spoke Japanese until Taylor taught her English, stood there in her house a speaking with her father.
Margatroid then went and revealed to her father an aspect of her power that she herself did not even know about.
Which lead to her father finding out about her having powers before her teacher left.
...
Taylor really did not want this conversation.
'She should have known not to tell my father, damn it!'
Her father, acting protective of her once when she brought a boy home? He didn't have the right to start acting like a parent now, but it made sense at the time.
Only for him to stop again and go back to being a horrible wreck of a man.
She was not going to talk this over with her father.
"Please sit down, Taylor," he ordered in a surprisingly calm manner.
She wanted to yell at him, to scream at him for being so emotionally distant for the last 2 years. To rage at him for being disconnected.
"Do I have to?" She asked, also in a surprisingly calm manner.
"Fine, just to let me say this..."
'Oh, this is going to be rich!' she thought sarcastically.
"I failed you, Little Owl," her father said.
...
Actually had it sounded like he sputtered that, trying to keep something else from being said.
"I was supposed to be there for you, and I failed," he continued before his breath hitched.
...When was he looking at the floor?
Her father straightened up and looked at her.
"When I found out that you were a Parahuman-" her father paused mid-sentence, looking away for a moment as if to think about something before looking back at her. "My first thought I was getting you into the Wards Program-"
'Oh no!'
Taylor was dealing with bullshit from Highschool; she didn't need to be hanging out with more teenagers who she loathed. Her father couldn't make such a decision for her-
"But if I have learned anything these past two weeks; it's that there is too much I don't know. Like the differences between normal parahumans and Magicians."
Taylor's building rage suddenly halted.
'What?'
"And Margatroid has given me an offer that is mutually exclusive of having you become a Ward."
'What?'
...
And then, at Winslow again, not 5 days left before the end of the month...
"Hey Taylor!" called out an annoyingly familiar voice. Taylor Hebert turned around and saw the familiar form of her fellow Magic Apprentice, Greg Vader.
"What do you want, Greg?" she asked. She didn't need to pretend to dislike him to keep people from giving them grief at Emma's command.
"I need your help with-" he paused for a moment, "-Teacher."
'That's a surprising amount of caution from you.'
"What is it?"
"She broke the law and needs to compensate me and my parents. But then she went and threatened to go to jail if I tried to get anything out of her!"
Taylor paused at the ludicrous statement.
"...What?"
Taylor tried listening to Veder's explanation but she couldn't make sense of it. Why would Veder's family want to sue Margatroid for money for giving him powers without his parents' consent?
It was distressing that for all his faults, her father was still better than others.
"Can't you just forget about trying to sue her and apologize?" Taylor asked.
"When I saw the Shanghai Doll at the usual place, I asked it to tell her that I was sorry," Greg claimed. "Only for the doll to tell me to go fuck myself!"
Taylor's eyes widened. She couldn't remember the Shanghai Doll ever speaking, and she never heard their teacher use foul language...
...Ever.
Regardless of whether or not Greg was making shit up, Margatroid was pissed at him.
'I would be too if I was stabbed in the back for helping people.'
If he wanted forgiveness, he probably needed to be there when Margatroid was so that he could talk it out with her.
'Not that it would do much.'
Hopefully it wasn't later that day when Taylor was planning on meeting Margatroid to discuss the offer she made with her dad earlier...
...
As luck would have it, Taylor visited the Boat Graveyard at the same time Greg did. Margatroid was there, but...
"Ms. Margatroid," the bowlcut boy started. "I have wronged you and wish to resume training under you as per our original agreement."
Taylor could have sworn that their teacher stared at him for full minute before responding.
"And how do I know you're not going to just sue me after I've taught you anything?" the youkai magician asked. Taylor couldn't blame her, she would be wary if one of them approached her with an apology, especially after what happened.