Monster

by Ghoul King

Not every problem can be solved by stabbing it repeatedly. In which Taylor has a different power, because she is a different person, and the consequences therein.

3. Deal

3.1

I'd spent a week-and-half combing the city and shaking down E88 and ABB thugs to try to get information about their bosses out of them. This was... tricky, given that if I could ask questions I wasn't in a position to seriously threaten them, but I was able to manage it. The worst incident was kind of ironic -guy panicked, ended up running into a dead-end alley, and then turned around and wouldn't take his eyes off me. Cornered, he pulled a knife and started talking about how he'd defend himself if I got any closer. I ended up untying my blanket and throwing it on him so I became the monster at which point I beat him silly -carefully avoiding hitting with the sharp parts of my limbs- and once he was a twitching, moaning mess pulled it back off, got his attention so I reverted to the girl again, and pulled it back on and tied it off. Then I proceeded with the interrogation.

Not that he had anything useful to say, and I worry that particular incident is going to get the PRT on my case. Nothing so far, but I still worry.

Still, I'd managed well enough and I'd even avoided getting my costume damaged in these interrogations. Mostly. Most useful thing I'd learned was that Hookwolf ran dog fighting pits and periodically visited them in person. I wasn't sure whether I wanted to try to go after him or not. If he didn't count as human, I had a suspicion it would still be a tricky fight. If he did count as human, he'd probably kill me, or maybe just maim me as a lesson. I mean, if he didn't kill me I'd bounce back just fine, costume aside, but I wasn't really confident he wouldn't kill me and wasn't comfortable finding out manually.

The ABB thugs hadn't really known much of anything useful so far. Or maybe they were better at pretending to be clueless. Hard to say.

Tonight, though, Sunday night, I actually ran across a real crime-in-progress -an attempted rape, E88 guy forcing a black woman into an alleyway and making it pretty clear what he intended to do. I waited until they were far enough into the alley that I could be as certain as possible no one else would interrupt -there was something ironic there, I think- before I dropped down behind them and promptly banged the thug on the back of the head fairly hard, careful to not hit him with a blade. He dropped bonelessly to the ground, the woman shrieking before apparently realizing he wasn't doing anything untoward. I was busy trying to check if he had a pulse, which I'd been pleasantly surprised to discover I could do as the monster during an earlier interrogation, because I still hadn't gotten a handle on my strength and he was bleeding from the back of his head. By the time the woman had turned around, causing me to become the girl, crouched over the thug, I'd determined that he was... okay enough. Probably concussed? He'd probably be fine, especially since one piece of information I'd gotten out of interrogating E88 thugs was that Othala was often tapped to rapidly heal minor injuries acquired 'on-duty.

The woman eeped at seeing me. I'll admit my 'new' costume was still kind of intimidating -I'd replaced the busted motorcycle helmet with a black bicycle helmet (I'd been surprised to find an older helmet of mine just needed the strap lengthened to fit) along with a red scarf that I'd basically doodled to look like the outer edges of my face were jagged white teeth and everything else was still red like the inside of a mouth or something. (It covered my entire face, eyeholes cut into it so I could see when I wasn't the monster) In conjunction with the blanket, I was basically an amorphous blob of black with a bloody jaw. I'd looked in a mirror and it was surprisingly easy to overlook the eyeholes/my eyes. Still, she said, "Thank you, um."

"Monster," I prompted, and she startled again, giving me a once-over. Okaaaay?

More carefully she said, "As one woman to another, thank you. Really."

I shrugged. It was nice to have finally done something pretty clearly good, it was nice to be thanked for it, but... I dunno. I'd thought it would feel better than this. I also wasn't sure how to handle gratitude anyway.

Fucking Emma.

I struggled for words for a second, and finally settled on, "You'll need to stick around so the police can take your statement." It was... curt. I'd wanted to be friendlier, but... ugh. It was hard.

---

She hesitated, glanced at the thug, and then nodded in understanding. I added, "The police should be along shortly, and I have places to be. Good night." Then I went to find a pay phone -one with a sufficiently reflective box I could avoid turning into the monster and actually use it. (Did you know you can call emergency services, including the PRT, for free from any pay phone? I didn't until I read it on PHO two days after I first became the monster)

I'd just put the pay phone back on its hook, having told the police where the attempted rapist and their intended victim were waiting when-

"Heya killer."

Shit!

I leap to the nearest cover I can see -a parked car- and peer under the vehicle. All I can see is someone's lower legs -not wearing pants, so shorts or a skirt- and girly shoes, to go with the girly voice. Fashionable shoes. Not high heels, but the sort of thing Emma wears, purple with a shiny finish and showing off the feet more than protecting them, with plastic flowers sitting where they can cut the ever-living-shit out of your foot if you don't walk just so. I... I'd assumed a cape, but... capes run more practical. Don't they? Well, Nilbog and Heartbreaker didn't really run practical... and my experience with 'normal' capes is essentially nothing... shit, I've never paid attention to shoes on capes. This is going to bug me until I check online, isn't it?

"Jeez girl-" girl? "-I'm not here to kill you. I'm here to thank you." Exasperation clear in her voice. But seriously, nobody should know I'm a girl. (Except the Protectorate) Nobody should think I'm a girl. (Except the Protectorate...) I'm an amorphous blob with a head essentially entirely concealed (... except for what hair is sticking out from under the helmet, I guess) and I avoid talking even when I can speak. Was she listening in, unnoticed? I was quiet, she shouldn't have heard me speaking anyway. Her words should make me more tense.

But... I calm down a little. Something in her tone? Sincerity? It's not like I'm used to sincerity from anyone except Dad, maybe that's it. Still. Thank me? For what? Nobody knows about my biggest deed, I'm pretty sure -well, nobody knows that Monster killed Nilbog, anyway, the monster that attacked Nilbog shouldn't have been connected to the parahuman named Monster that the PRT interrogated, and anyway the monster has never been acknowledged by the Protectorate- and putting away an attempted rapist isn't worth... what, hunting down a new, little-known, creepy cape just to thank her? This is just weird. She mutters something, sounds like invective, probably wouldn't have heard it at all if I'd been the girl when she spoke. I'm still trying to get a different view, without entering her line of sight, when she calls out, "This is about Heartbreaker!"

That gives me pause. There's only two categories of people who should know that, I'm pretty sure. Protectorate capes... and Heartbreaker's, erm, 'associates'.

I find myself doubting she's a Protectorate cape. I'm pretty sure this would be more... formal, if she were. (I don't think any of the locals is the right gender+age range anyway) Which leaves one of Heartbreaker's women or kids, here to thank me, or pretending to be here to thank me so she can kill me. She doesn't sound like either of the girls that were with Heartbreaker when I killed him, either. Odd. They shouldn't even have a name for me, even if they blabbed to everyone I changed my costume recently and I'm in another city and this is just wrong. I tense, ready for a fight.

More muttering, then she raises her voice. "Will you stop that! I can tell you're thinking this is a trick or a trap or whatever, but it's not!" Oh great, she's some kind of mindreader. "Not a fucking mindreader," she says. In response to me thinking she's a mindreader. "It's emotion reading, stop that, stop being so suspicious, I was trapped, I tried leaving the family, but he'd just send some of my brothers after me and I'd be back in Toronto or Bumfuck Nowhere, Canada, wherever he was at the time, barely two weeks later, no matter how far I went or where I went or how well I covered my tracks, and it fucking sucked. I'm happy he's dead."

Muttering to herself again. This sounds slightly more plausible, though really, I have no reaso- "I'm here to join your team! God."

Team?

"You don't have a team. I... fine, whatever, I still want in. Call it gratitude-" nobody comes this far over gratitude, certainly not to their father's murderer "-okay don't call it gratitude you paranoid psycho, call it I like being around interesting people. I can help you with stuff like tracking threats-" Finding Heartbreaker had been hell. "-Yes more of that please, seriously. I can track, I can scout, I can forewarn you of oncoming threats, I can do the social infiltration stuff, which honestly I'm pretty sure you're shit at-" yeah basically "-yep, called it- and I can do all kinds of other stuff too."

(The way she says other, it sounds odd, I can't quite place it)

That does sound cool... other than the part where I've got one of Heartbreaker's kids trying to convince me she's not here to kill me and I should totally metaphorically bare my throat to her.

"Oh for the love of- Okay. Fine. I'm going to leave now. I'm leaving a burner phone." I see her bend down and do exactly that, catching a glimpse of manicured nails and long, blonde hair. Some of it looks red? "It has my cell number on it, it's-" probably got a tracking device "-fuck. Why are you making this so fucking hard?" Emma "Oh. Lovely. No, I'm not whatever whorebag I remind you of. Okay? I'm not..." Hm? "... disloyal? No, traitorous. I'm not going to cozy up to you and then kill you, or manipulate you into getting yourself killed, or abandon you. I'm not going to be your best friend-" Emma "-Jesus, really? Best Friend equals brooding anger? Huh. I guess that explains something. Look. I'm clearly not going to be able to convince you to trust me, but if you don't try, you're never going to get that-" that? real acceptance? "-back. That's not how it works, I can tell you know that's not how it works, and I realize trusting a supervillain's daughter when you killed her father sounds, on the face of it, stupid, but trust me when I say I would've killed the bastard myself if that's what it took, if I'd thought for even a moment I could pull it off."

Sounds sincere.

"Because it is, god!"

A long pause. She sighs.

"... all right, I'm leaving the phone here. If you think it has a fucking... I dunno, bomb inside of it or whatever exactly you're thinking, you can just break it, or leave it, or whatever. I'd appreciate it if you actually took it and called me. We can have a conversation without you feeling like danger is looming, you can ask questions, and maybe then you'll believe me, trust me enough to give this a shot." Another pause. Probably trying to read my reaction. Honestly, I'm not sure what my reaction is. This is just surreal.

"... Okay. Okay." Deep breath. "I'm leaving now. At least consider it, don't dismiss it out of hand, or you'll always be alone." I don't flinch... because the monster can't flinch. "Seriously." Not-flinching again.

She turns and leaves, feet crunching through the light snow. I watch her carefully before she turns a corner, and yeah, part of her hair is red, a stripe down the middle. The rest of her outfit is in line with the shoes: a modestly sized bright red purse, a colorful one-piece dress that is too light for the temperature, with lacing around the collar and wrists, it just looks all-around nice, fits her figure -which is way curvier than mine- and the whole thing pulls together as a "look", like she knows fashion, where a lot of girls just read a magazine and copy something wholesale even though it was made for a twenty-something supermodel to show off in a magazine, not for a teen with a more typical body shape to wear to school or a club or whatever other teens do for fun.

Still reminds me too much of Emma.

"Fuck!"

Against what I feel is my better judgment, I make my way around the car, carefully approaching the cellphone. I stare at the phone for probably a full minute before I actually reach for it, at which point it's like a spell breaks, as suddenly I'm the girl again and people are walking the street normally, right up until they see me. Then it's people recoiling and staring and one person actually calling the PRT while I make a run for an alley, turning into the monster once I pass into it thankfully, and go leaping up to the roofs and from there bounding across rooftops toward the northeastern edge of the city.

Maybe I should work on my reputation.

---

Somewhat to my surprise, I make it to my destination without any capes intercepting me. It's a lake Dad has fished at with friends a few times before, out in an undeveloped area not very far from the city, but not all that convenient by car. (You have to hike about a mile through woods from the nearest road, realistically speaking) In the cooler parts of the year, mostly nobody comes here at all. The lake never actually freezes over, but a nearly frozen lake is even less appealing than an actually frozen lake, since you can't skate on it or go ice-fishing or anything really interesting. It's just a lake, but cold, with fish flopping into the boat and splashing water all over you, say hello to hypothermia. (I got over it... eventually)

Which means it's basically perfect for me. I can stare into the water to stay the girl without having to worry about anybody stumbling upon a girl wearing a blanket like a shawl and a black bicycle helmet and red, toothy scarf obscuring her face, while staring into a lake. I'm certainly not taking this phone home.

Opening the phone and scrolling through its options is a bit of a pain. It's been forever since I've even handled a phone, it's chilly out here, and I'm having to hold myself in an awkward position so I've always got my reflection sufficiently in my view while at the same time trying to look at the cell phone, all while I'm concerned I'll drop the phone in the water and ruin it. The phone has more space dedicated to games than it does to being a phone, too, and I'm distracted twice by what looks like a legitimate function but turns out to be a weirdly named game. ("Connect with friends," is a game? What?) Eventually I navigate to the contacts list, where there's just the one number, labeled Cherie... which I initially read as a badly botched attempt to spell Cherry, before it occurs to me that it's probably French. French-Canadian, I guess, since she's Heartbreaker's kid. Kind of a relief. I had an awkward moment where I was thinking Cherry must be her cape name, and I was briefly imagining being Monster and Cherry, which just sounds awful.

It takes me three tries before I call the number successfully. The thing is such an awkwardly designed piece of shit I find myself sort of glad I haven't had a cell phone in ages. Shouldn't cell phones be better nowadays? (Then I feel bad for feeling glad about something caused by Mom's death)

Waiting for her to pick up.

Still waiting.

Yeah, sti-

"Hello... Whatever you call yourself." There's an expectant pause, which I deliberately ignore. "... sorry to keep you waiting, I was in the middle of something, but I'm good for however long you need. Ask whatever you like."

First things first. "Why on earth would you come all the way to Brockton Bay out of 'gratitude'?"

Her response is easy, calm. "My dad is dead and most of my family is locked up or 'reforming' by now." I can hear the air quotes around 'reforming'. She's being sarcastic. "I don't have anywhere specific to be, and I didn't want to be a part of their crap anyway. Why not?" It bothers me a little, how she's so casual about her father's death. "And you're here, so I'm here." I'm not sure what to say to that. There's a pause that turns into something awkward as I try to think of what to say.

"Look, if you're not going to buy a noble motive, can I give a different, no less true angle?" I make a noncommittal noise in my throat, which she apparently takes as an affirmative. "I stuck with my dad for as long as I did partly because the asshole would send family to recapture me, but partly because I thought the man had ambition. Get a cult-slash-family going, produce parahumans he can shape over their entire life for loyalty to him and his goals, conquer, I dunno, Alaska or something. Crown himself king, with the family as his superhuman enforcers." This sounds like a disturbingly plausible scenario, though I don't see where she's going with it. "Thing is, he didn't pay any attention to me or any of my siblings, beyond punishing us if we annoyed him, and trying to trigger us. Before you came along, I was starting to suspect he was exactly what he appeared to be: a man granted an incredible power but with no vision." A pause. Gathering her thoughts?

Trigger them? I frown. As in... trigger warnings?

What... what was he doing to his kids?

I suddenly have an inkling of why she's feeling so grateful. I shiver, and it's not due to the cold. I am so fucking glad I ended the sonofabitch.

I open my mouth, frown harder. Decide I don't really want to know what he did, and don't want to hurt her like that. I'm killing people like him to end the suffering. I don't need to go poking open wounds just to satisfy my curiosity.

Oh, she's talking again.

"If he was planning something big, world-changing? Something that would get him and his a bigger piece of the pie that is life? I wanted in on that." Oh. Lovely. "You? You have vision, I'm thinking." I... what? "You killed Heartbreaker, and... I'm thinking it was you that hit Ellisburg." Shit. "Hit a major villain nobody wants to take on in a suicide mission, decapitating strike. Twice, both in the northeastern North American continent. It's not a string of three, not yet, but it looks like the beginning of a pattern to me." Shit shit shit. "I'm not going to lie to you and pretend I share your presumably altruistic motives. Wouldn't have told you about what I thought my dad's plan was, how I wanted to be part of it, if I was going to fake that, you know?"

Oh, so I have a supervillain wanting to team up with me. That makes everything better. "So I'm thinking you're trying to take down the worst of the worst out there, make the world a better place or something, and I'm not going to tell you that I particularly care about the world being a better place." I'm torn between appreciating her honesty and suspecting this is some kind of bizarre mind-screw that's dishonest on an entirely different level. "No, I'm interested because you're going places. Kill the biggest, baddest monsters out there, guys who shape the world by existing? By yourself, no Protectorate backing, no government backing, nothing but you, your power, maybe some friends? That's insane, that's awesome, you'll go down in history as a legend." Uuuuh. Hm. Never thought of what I'm doing from that angle. I... guess she has a point, if I don't die first. "And if I'm there, hey, they'll remember Cherish too."

"Cherish?" I blurt out, confused.

"Oh. Right. 's what I'm calling myself, now that my dad's dead."

"Oh."

"Though I was actually thinking if you let me aboard I'd probably call myself Beauty or something, try to play off whatever your name is." Really? I'm not calling myself 'beast', that doesn't work... fuck. I'm not considering this. No way.

There's a long pause.

"If you don't believe that either, which, honestly, I'm not sure I'd buy it if it were me on the line, true as it is... last thing I've got to say on the topic. You keep this up, I'm a part of it? There's going to be rewards. Even if officially we're condemned, there'll be money, power, guys and girls throwing themselves at us-" wait is she bisexual does she think I'm bisexual what is this "-all that good stuff. It's great." I wonder if she realizes how much that resembles the behavior she was just lamenting in Heartbreaker. I wonder if I should point it out to her. Maybe it would drive her off. Maybe it would just piss her off and lead to a cape of unknown ability trying to kill me who has already proven she can track me down and sneak up on me without me noticing. "That make sense?"

I say, "Sure, I guess," sounding as ambivalent as I'm feeling. Still not sure whether this is some kind of trap or if she's genuinely earnest and genuinely creepy.

Something's bugging me though. I say, "You sound like you've put a lot of thought into this," trying to keep my tone level, my concerns out of my voice.

There's a pause before she responds, just long enough to make me think she didn't have a response already prepared, not so long she seems off-put by me saying it. "No, really? And here I thought we met through blind chance and I acted on impulse." Okay. Sarcasm. She has a point. Still... not entirely comfortable with this. Does she have no family loyalty at all? I have a really hard time believing that she's not bothered by the death of her father, or the fact that I attacked her family at all.

"Point. But most people-"

"Really?" She sounds exasperated, a touch angry. I'm annoyed she interrupted me. "I'm not 'most people'. My family was a power-enforced harem. My father punished us with superpowers. I was just talking about how I was legit expecting my dad to carve out Alaska as his own kingdom, using an army of brainwashed cape children. It would be a miracle if I was 'most people'."

Wait, 'punished us with superpowers'?

Does this have to do with her talking about being triggered?

No, no. Stay on task. "I meant that family is important." Clear, direct, true, dodges her... tic about normality? I get the impression she hates being called normal. Wonder why.

"My dad was a supervillain. My siblings were my competition." Well. Siblings as competition isn't anything new. "My dad tried to trigger us." A pause. "Yeah, he was an asshole." Another, shorter pause. "On the topic of powers-" Here it comes, she's going to ask me about my power, try to find weaknesses. "-I'm surprised you haven't asked about mine yet." uuuuh wait. Um, straight honesty I guess. I don't think it can give away anything important to talk about what I was expecting. Assuming?

"I was sort of assuming it was basically Heartbreaker's, I guess. Weaker or less diverse, or something? I've heard so little about his kids I honestly forgot they existed while I was planning." Which in retrospect I am so goddamn lucky that didn't screw me over. If I had found him at home, with all his parahuman children presumably right there, that would've gone bad places. "I would've heard about you if you were literally Heartbreaker all over again, or something like that? I didn't think about it, really." I wonder for a moment if I sound apologetic. I don't feel apologetic. I'm talking to a supervillain's daughter who's probably here to kill me.

"Well, yes and no." She sounds amused. Why does she sound amused? "I've got a power that's similar to dear old dad's, in the same way an ostrich is similar to an eagle."

... what?

"His power let him directly dictate the way a given person felt emotionally on an arbitrarily selected topic. You already know the main way he used it, and in all honesty the only other vaguely clever thing he ever did with it that I saw was 'blasting' people with intense feelings. Subtlety of a sledgehammer, dear old dad." I can't tell if that's wryness in her voice, sarcasm, or genuine affection. I don't think it's just because we're talking over a phone. "I sense emotions. Same general idea, different details. I can make people feel pretty much whatever I want them to feel, but it's just a random feeling from 'nowhere'. Heartbreaker could look at someone and make them love him. I can look at someone, pay attention to when they look at me, and have them feel a random surge of affection that they interpret as being caused by looking at me. Do it often enough, and it becomes real." holy shit she brainwashes people.

Holy shit she's telling me this. Why is she telling me this?

"Not nearly as precise as dear old dad, but then he didn't track people at the outer edge of a city from inside a nice, comfy hotel room. Good trade, I say."

...

She's implying she knows exactly where I am right now. Is she impl-

"No, I can't manipulate you at this distance. I need line of sight, or something like that, to work that part." not sure I believe her "Even the sensing part of my power gets relatively weak this far out." I'm starting to think she's going for full disclosure because she can mind control me and so it doesn't matter what she tells me because she'll just mind-control me.

Fuck. I need to throw the phone away and... shit, I can't just leave town, and if I stay with my dad she can still sense me anywhere. Fu-

"Whoa, slow down there girl! Yeah, I'm sharing everything, but it's not whatever you're thinking. Thing is, your power messes with mine. I don't know what your power is, so I can't speculate why, but a lot of the time your emotions are very stable, very dim. I was actually trying to calm you down when you were hiding behind the car, get you to listen to me and, I'll freely admit, maybe get you to associate me with calmness so you'd want to hang, but it wasn't really working. I frankly have no idea why, but you're protected from me somehow. And I could tell, even before you had this little freakout, that you're a nice little goody-two-shoes that can't stand the thought of mind control. So, better to let you know before we partner up, rather than having you realize I'm borderline mind control and instantly murder me because you're mostly immune and not so moral you won't kill Bad Guys." I can hear her capitalizing Bad Guys. I think I'm being mocked. I'm not sure how to feel about her thinking I'd murder her if I found out her power, either. "'s part of why I'm interested in you. Not used to that particular combination of morals." Aaaand now I'm creeped out.

"Oh come on, it's... look. I can't do it to you. I'm totally cool with you being head honcho on this. You want me for my tracking ability and stunning and totally natural good looks? Sure, I'll do that. Honest, swear on... I dunno, pretend I'm Christian and swearing on a bible applies. I won't touch that part without prior approval, and I can't cheat and make you give approval." Not really selling me on this. "Plus, it's not really that different from what everybody does everyday." Uh. No, it's very different. "No really. You're trying to be, like a real-life Batman-" ? "-oh wow. Um. Never mind, point is, you're trying to make people afraid of doing something so terrible you come after them. I can totes help with that, it's not really any different from scaring the shit out of them by being a spooky-ass vigilante." I... don't really agree, but I can see her point. Kinda.

... is that long-distance emotional manipulation she's engaging in?

Wait, what's that noise? Is there someone here?

No, no, it's coming from the phone. It's... oh. She's screaming. Did I just hear glass break? I think I just heard glass break. Can't quite make out what she's screaming though. I'm pretty sure most of it's swearing, though.

Now I'm kind of concerned she's insane and violent or something.

Oh. I think she's done. Yeah, that sounds like her picking up the phone. Did she have it under a pillow or something? Oh, she's talking. It doesn't sound like she's mad... "Seriously. I can't get to you at this range. I can't do anything to you at all sometimes. A lot of the time, really, and anything I do doesn't stick." Wait, has she been testing this on me? Without my -is she screaming again?- without my knowledge? I've been moody since I killed Heartbreaker: is it her fault? Would I even notice if she was doing it? Oh there she is again. "I think you have an actual problem." What, because I don't want to trust my creepy stalker who's the daughter of the man I murdered in cold blood, scarring her for life? "I'm becoming concerned you don't know how to trust people." I totally trust people. My dad is awesome. I trusted Emma. I mean, look where it got me, but I trusted her.

...

Um. There's also my mom. I trusted her.

...

I trusted... trust, I trust... um... Alexandria? Armsmaster was my hero as a kid. They're both good people, they deserve my trust. And the rest of the Protectorate. Um. The PRT. The police. Charities. Yeah, the people of the world making the world a better place? I trusted them.

... trust. I meant trust.

...

shit

"Oh thank god."

shitshitshit

"Look before you go into some spiral of self-loathing or whatever, can we just agree to this team-up thing and figure out the next big bastard to kill?"

fuuuuuuuck

"You know what? Never mind, just call me again when you're not having a complete breakdown." click

no

3.2

I wish I could say I wake up in the morning, covered in snow, freezing to death, and briefly pretend that it was all a dream, before spotting the phone and realizing it was all real.

I can't say that because that's not what happened. I can't fall asleep without someone watching me or staring at myself via reflection, both of which have problems. What I actually did was fall backward, away from the lake, thus becoming the monster standing upside-down, and remain completely motionless for... some long period of time. I dunno. It wasn't dawn yet, anyway. Still in the middle of the night.

Later, I thought it was kind of cool that a deer came into the clearing, glanced briefly at my immobile body, and then ignored me while it drank from the lake. At the time I only half-registered it. I don't even remember whether it had antlers or not.

But eventually I felt restless. Realizing I haven't extended real trust to anyone since sometime during the bullying campaign? Not even to people who have done nothing to destroy my trust, like the Protectorate? (The ambush doesn't count, it was a misunderstanding, they weren't after me...) I didn't really want to confront it, would've loved to have just slept it off, or just sat there until the end of time, ignoring the world. But the restlessness came anyway, a bone-deep hunger for action.

I put 'Cherish' out of my mind. I'll go... capture Victor or something. Maybe Uber and Leet. Ignore this thing with Cherish, vent some steam. And then I'll murder some other sonofabitch monster nobody will miss.

Because fuck no I didn't trust the girl. She had a point, horrible as it was to admit it, but that didn't mean I was wrong to mistrust her. This was probably still some kind of bizarre plot to get close to me and kill me. I mean, sure, if she wanted to she could've brought a gun and shot me when she first found me. I'd have died instantly if she shot me in the head I'm pretty sure. Easy assassination, given I didn't know she was there until she spoke.

...

no no shut up it's a plot she's like the simurgh she manipulates your thoughts don't let her get close to you or it'll be a fate worse than death

Yeah. Yeah, she left me alive so she could do worse later. That's something the Slaughterhouse Nine do, that's something the Simurgh does. There's worse things than dying. Better revenges. I'm right to not trust her.

Let's go hunting for Uber and Leet.

---

The thing I'd like to do is go wandering the city, sniff out their hideout, break in, and take them down before finding a pay phone to call the PRT. (... could I text the PRT with Cherish's burner phone? Is that something you can do with emergency services?) That would require I already know where their hideout is, though. Or have powers that make it easier to track people.

Like sensing them emotionally from a distance.

no shut up

Obviously I don't know where their hideout is. If I did, it'd be because everyone knew, and it wouldn't be a hideout for long. But I know they have a hideout, because they've alluded to a hideout a few times in their show. They could be faking, of course, but it felt casual, like a slipup. I don't think they were trying to plant false leads. I also never tried that hard to figure out where they might have a hideout at. It was entertainment, a bit of catharsis, more recently punishment. The Zelda caper wasn't even criminal, unless you consider attacking a known villain to be a crime, and I don't think anyone is too broken up over Malice being humiliated before he went to jail. And he did look like Gannondorf, big black guy with a hook nose, frames his powers as magic, he was practically asking for it by moving into Brockton Bay...

Anyway.

So the first thing I actually do is get home, sneak in through my window and stash my costume in my closet. Then I quietly make my way to our computer, and boot it up. Then I plug in a pair of headphones, wait impatiently for the browser to boot up, and make my way to Uber and Leet's site. (Wonder briefly how the site avoids getting taken down -some kind of Leet tinkertech?) Click into the video section, wait impatiently again for the video links to boot up... I take the time to mull over how far back I should be looking. They might've changed their hideout at some point, in which case really early videos would be a waste of time. But they also got better, more circumspect over time. In early videos they were streaming with a 30 second delay, which they extended to a 5 minute delay when Armsmaster used their stream to find out where their Doom-themed teleporter was and get to it before they did. Disabled it, ambushed them when they showed up, and then took it home with him.

(I still think he let them get away.)

So in more recent videos they might have stopped accidentally dropping hints to where they keep their stuff. I'm basically screwed if they have both stopped giving clues and proceeded to move their lair, but... I have my doubts that's happened. I wish I'd been paying attention to this when I was watching their videos as punishment. I don't even remember which videos they refer to their lair in.

Eventually I settle on starting from six months ago. They make a video every one or two weeks, most of their videos are about half an hour long, but I'm focusing on the quiet parts -the chunks they didn't cut out, at least- and on the most intense parts, where there's the greatest chance that something will slip out, from boredom (Quiet sections) or panic (Intense sections), so it actually only takes me something like 5-10 minutes to get through most videos. It takes longer once I get the idea to consult Google Maps and see if their episodes are focused around any one part of the city, but not too much longer. In the end, it's nearly two hours later -just before 5 in the morning, I finally notice- when I lean back in my chair stretching, done.

Unfortunately, there really isn't that much, and the worst thing is two different videos suggest they've changed their location -twice. The first one is from five months ago. The second is from two months ago. It sounds like in each case a gang found the place and trashed it -Leet spent literally an entire video moaning about Squealer jacking something, I don't know how I forgot- while they were away, forcing them to start over from scratch in a new location, aside from whatever they had on them when it happened. It also sounds like they've been focusing on extralegal options, like abandoned warehouses, which doesn't really surprise me. It does basically eliminate the nicer parts of town, which is something.

The problem is, that's about it, and the not-nice parts of Brockton Bay... well, they probably aren't more of the city than the nicer parts, but the area is pretty large. Knowing that one of the Archer's Bridge Merchants stole something of Leet's does help in one way: it confirms that, regardless of how often they've taken their 'show' to other cities, they aren't simply pretending to be based in Brockton Bay. They are based in Brockton Bay.

Even with how fast I move, I don't have enough time to search the entirety of the Docks, the Boat Graveyard... not before dawn arrives and I have to head home and then go to school. I could probably do some searching, but if I did luck into them, and it was late enough or took long enough I'd have problematic questions to be answering.

So, in spite of how badly I want to just find someone who should be removed from polite society and make it happen, I shut down the computer, put the headphones away, make my way to my room essentially silently, and slip under the covers in case Dad comes in before I 'wake up' to go make breakfast.

I spend the next hour stewing over my encounter with Cherie.

---

When Dad comes into the kitchen with a, "Hey kiddo," I make sure to turn away from the pancakes, smile at him, and say, "Morning, Dad."

He stops in place, halfway to the fridge, and looks at me. I can't place his expression. He asks, "Taylor, are you OK?" and I finally realize his expression is one of concern.

I'm baffled, and apparently it shows on my face because he waves it off with, "Never mind, never mind," and goes back to pouring himself a glass of milk.

Seriously, what?

There's an awkward minute where I'm sure he's going to pry, or something, but nothing comes of it. He reads his newspaper, thanks me when I put his plate in front of him, makes a passing comment on how I'm clearly enjoying the pancakes and especially the syrup -I poured a lot- and we do dishes afterward together, and things just seem... normal. It takes me a minute to realize we haven't done normal in a while.

It takes me even longer to realize that was because of me.

It's not until I'm entering Winslow's grounds that a half-thought crystallizes and I shout, "Fuck!" right in the middle of a crowd of students.

The trip to the principal's office barely registers on me. Blah blah blah bullshit about how she realizes things have been rough since my mother's death etc etc she's been giving me space but if behavior like this continues yadda yadda suspension or expulsion. Whatever. I nod and make noises of agreement or apology in the right places and in the end promise to never do it again, which is probably actually true though not out of respect for her authority, and am sent on my way with detention. There'd be whispering of nasty girls behind my back, except they're all in class. The whispers will still happen, just later, of course.

I spend the rest of the school day brooding. I'd dignify it with a word like ruminating, but it isn't. It's me sitting in class, largely ignoring the teachers who largely ignore me, and largely ignoring the standard array of bullshit from students that want to be a part of the 'in' crowd. Still, I note three separate incidents where Sophia oops bumps into me, steps on my foot, and in the third case puts her foot out as I'm turning a corner, and far more than that in the way of ugly words said about me but not at me yet deliberately in my vicinity as if they didn't realize I was there. But mostly I brood.

I do use computer science class to look into the aftermath of Heartbreaker's death, see if I can find a cape called Cherish -nope- or a Heartbreaker kid or girlfriend called Cherie -yes, supposedly, though the aftermath is a chaotic mess and Cherie could be one of the girlfriends, a kid, or there could be one of each... or more than one of either or both. The PHO wiki is also updating with new information on the kids that escaped, but not on a 'Cherie'. In fact, the escaped ones listed on the wiki are a trio of boys working together, an extremely young girl whose power is unclear but apparently disturbing to see in action, and a lone teenage boy who supposedly senses and induces pain, the latter within his line of sight, probably. No teenage girl.

I spend a minute imagining Cherie could be this boy crossdressing and with a more diverse power set than either one supposedly has, until a shaky cell phone photo uploaded literally while I'm reading shows that the boy has a shaggy shock of black hair that still looks like someone from Hollywood had done it up fifteen minutes ago. And he's built like someone hoping to be a bodybuilder someday, not slender enough to fit what I saw of Cherie. Nice abs. Not that it was ever a serious thought, but that theory's busted.

It's a relief when school ends. Less relief than I'm used to, because now I have to make myself follow through on the thought that led to Blackwell's office in the first place.

Now I have to call Cherish and say yes.

---

The half-thought-turned-full-thought was complicated. I can't say I'll ever fully lay it out, it had too many pieces. The crux of it, though, was that I'd damaged -hopefully not destroyed yet- but damaged my relationship with my Dad.

Not the bullies. Me.

I'd been hiding the details of the situation from him to avoid hurting him, but in the process I'd been hiding the details of everything from him. First I'd just kept quiet on the bad days. At some point I'd realized he could tell that not talking about my day was basically the same thing as admitting it had been a bad day, so I'd stopped talking about school at all, except in the vaguest terms possible, so he couldn't tell whether a given day had been bad or not.

Somehow I'd thought this would worry him less.

The half-thought had pulled together when I'd realized it was the opposite. With no information to go on, and me doing what I'd previously done only on the worst days...

He probably thought I'd stopping talking about school because every day was one of the bad days. One of the worst days. Ever since the locker? He might be assuming they were all that bad.

They weren't, but he had no way of knowing that, and it wasn't because the bullies were hiding it or would hurt me if I talked to my own father or any kind of good excuse. Not that the better days were good days, but they were really like... if I was a physically awkward student, who tripped frequently? Dropped her stuff? Was a bit bad at schoolwork, and socially awkward? Most of the days would be like that. The bullying campaign was never a good thing, but most of the time it wasn't necessarily worse than just being a bad fit for school. It was maybe two, three times a month that it stepped over from constant low-grade harassment into vile, horrible things. Which was two or three times a month too many, but was like literally a tenth as much suffering as my Dad might be thinking was going on. If he thought it was all the locker, all the time, it was one millionth the misery he imagined.

In the process of painting this horrifying picture to my Dad, I'd also, entirely incidentally, sent... a lot of messages. But the key one, the reason I'd had the thought, was 'I don't trust my own father to understand and care'.

Unfortunately, it was... not too late exactly, but an old habit, a groove. If I suddenly changed pattern for no reason, assuming I could even make myself stick to it, it might just upset him more. Reinforce that he knows nothing about what's going on in my life, and what a happy thought that is, that my own father knows nothing about me. I haven't even told him I'm a cape.

I'm not sure I want to tell him that, ever, but it's still the latest thing he doesn't know about me. I'm not even sure he knows how well I do in track -did that crop up before I transitioned to 'just don't talk about it'? I need to fight this, undo it, get the relationship back. Or make a new, good, one. It might not be possible to salvage the old one. I'm no longer a little girl, even leaving aside the bullying and its consequences.

There's layers here I was still trying to wrap my head around, but it boiled down to: I'd fucked up, it came back to trust, and right now the only people I could extend trust to were my dad, the PRT/Protectorate... or Cherie.

I was starting with Cherie. I'd work my way up to the others later.

Worst case scenario?

She I can kill with no one the wiser.

---

I spend twenty minutes rummaging through my room before I remember where the cell phone actually is. Back at the lake. Not even buried, which had been my original plan when I was done with it if I didn't simply destroy it, to be absolutely sure nobody found it, but simply laying out on the dirt where anyone could find it, because I'd honestly forgotten about it entirely.

That gives me pause. It's between 4 and 5 in the afternoon at this point, and even in winter that's not quite dark. Making my way out and back before Dad got home would be a tight schedule (Unless he's really late today, which admittedly is fairly common nowadays) if I went full speed as the monster, no detours or distractions. Doing so in daylight is slower, riskier.

It's frustrating. Now that I have this thought I just want to make it happen, right now. I don't want to wait, let myself lie by omission to my Dad when I could be working on fixing this.

The doorbell rings. My initial impulse is to ignore it. Then I think that's strange and make my way to the door, racking my brain for who might be at the door. Peek through the peephole -not entirely sure I understand the mechanics of pulling that off- and that's Cherie, smile on her face, waving.

What.

I have a sudden, intense urge to see if I can simply stab her to death through the door. She knows where I live. She's willing to threaten my civilian identity, implicitly, and my Dad in the process. This is unacceptable. I stall for a half-second while I try to think how I could possibly explain a strange teenage girl, dead on my doorstep, filled with punctures that match the holes in the door ("I'm not suspicious or a cape or guilty of murder, it's a wild coincidence, officer." That's going to end well), and hesitate for a further fraction of a second, uncertain whether I would remain the monster if I tried.

What saves Cherie's life is the way her smile slides right off her face, presumably in response to my thoughts. Or feelings, I guess. This is not the face of a girl intending to murder me or threaten me, certain she has the upper hand. This is the face of a girl who walked up to a lion, intending to pet it, and only just realized it intends to eat her and she can't do anything to stop it.

I watch her through the peephole, clear I'm not going to kill her right this instant but thinking furiously otherwise. Invite her in, scare her off, stalk her and kill her later... I can't decide.

Maybe thirty seconds pass. She's shivering, and it's not from the cold. Then she swallows, takes a deep breathe she lets out slowly, and stares directly at the peephole, gaze steady, saying nothing.

I let her in.

---

She's still dressed stylishly, though a bit less so than last time. She's wearing sneakers this time, as well as pants -they actually complement the skirt- and a heavier coat than before, this one with a hood. She had it down outside, but it still has a hood, which I don't think her outfit last night had. She even has gloves, though she still makes them look good, somehow. This seems odd, since it had to have been colder last night than it is right now. The sun still hasn't set, while last night's meeting was around midnight. Why dress more warmly now?

I make myself tea. I haven't actually had tea in ages, now that I think about it. No need to make it when I'm alone, haven't had it with my Dad.

I don't offer Cherie anything, and she doesn't ask for anything. She just watches me from her seat on the couch looking haunted while I sit down in a chair. She swallows convulsively, tries to talk, fails. Turns to one side to cough, swallows again, and looks me in the eyes before she says, in a low tone, "I didn't mean it that way. I was clear you were going to call me, I got... I got a little excited, okay?" Another nervous swallow. "I just thought this would be more convenient." Her eyes go toward the floor. "I already told you about the tracking. I thought you knew that I knew where you lived. What school you go to. All that." Which I had, intellectually, but I hadn't thought she'd come here directly, regardless. You don't do that. (My mind drifts to the Endbringer Truce, Uber and Leet, things I've been thinking while I've been stalking the streets. There are rules)

I sip my tea, watching her, and am struck by a thought. I spend a moment wondering if I should be circumspect or blunt. I decide on blunt. "Is this actual guilt?"

She shakes her head very slowly. I raise an eyebrow. She swallows nervously, and says, "Mortal terror." Mortal ter- oh. I... think I see.

She licks her lips and asks me, "Could you have killed me?"

I answer, in complete honesty, "I don't know." I don't think it reassures her.

After a moment I ask, "So. No guilt." She nods. Slowly.

I spend a minute sipping my tea, looking at Cherie, not really seeing her. Mind elsewhere. I'd planned on saying yes. I still kind of want to say yes. But I also still kind of want to string her up by her guts -she flinches- and leave the PRT to find her corpse -smaller flinch- after this shit. There are rules. You don't violate them unless you're dealing with the real monsters, unless you want to be one of the real monsters. Does Cherie not get that?

There's not really a lightbulb moment. Not exactly. I'm rolling that thought around. Thinking about Cherie talking, last night, where she interrupted me when I talked about 'normal' people. Not a lightbulb moment, a slow dawning. The final thought...

... she probably doesn't.

I push aside my feelings for a moment -another flinch, which surprises me- and speak, in as mild a tone as I can manage. "Cherie, have you ever heard of capes having a... gentleman's agreement, something like that?" I don't even need a response. She's looking at me like I'm speaking Martian. I sigh, just a little, most of my anger draining away. It's hard to be mad at the ignorant. It's like being mad at a baby. Now Cherie looks wary, maybe a little hopeful. I ignore it, set my tea down, and lean forward in a casual, earnest way, hands clasped in front of me, no particular expression on my face.

Then I abruptly put both hands on the side of her head, jerk it to right in front of my face, maybe an inch of space between us, and say, very mildly, "There are rules." Now she looks terrified. Again. It occurs to me, abstractly, that I haven't told her my power, that she probably knows generally what I can do, but doesn't know what I can't do. For all she knows I can shove my fingers right into her skull and pull out her pulped brain on Brute strength. I push the thought aside, try to ignore how she's holding very still and is sweating so much I can't tell whether she's crying or not -her mascara is running, anyway-, and just focus on the words. "You do not unmask capes, unless they are monsters, the kind that get kill orders put out, that not only will no one cry if they die but you will be paid money for their death. If you connect their cape life to their civilian life, even accidentally, you don't touch that. You don't touch the civilians in their lives. You don't do anything that looks like you might ever intend to do any of these. If you are unsure whether a given course of action is appropriate, assume it isn't unless they have a kill order on them." A bead of sweat forms on her forehead. I ignore a sudden bizarre urge to lick it off.

Focus on the words. "If you know where a cape lives and sleeps, and it's not an actual lair? If it's a home with family inside it? You don't touch it, you don't go there, you pretend you don't realize it exists." Cherish's eyes widen, just a little. I press on. I need to make the point, the one I suspect she needs to hear. "You don't violate these rules, not because I'm telling you to, but because if you don't the entire cape world will decide you don't get any protection." No response. She's not getting it. "If you respect these rules, you can get healing, you can go to jail, you can have any number of things happen and people won't unmask you. If they recognize you in your public life, when you're out for ice cream, they won't pull a gun and kill you, even if you're a notorious supervillain or a hero they personally hate and want dead." More of a response. She might be getting it. "But if you do violate these rules, teams will form to kill you." I pause, gauging her reaction. Her lack of reaction, really. She's starting to drool from not swallowing this whole time. "When I say 'teams' I mean that Lung will happily fight shoulder to shoulder with Armsmaster to ensure you die." That gets a response. "And then when you're dead, whether you unmasked a hero or a villain, they will shake hands, congratulate each other on a job well done, and go back to life as usual."

She's starting to shake again.

Abruptly, I let her go, lean back into my chair. She barely catches herself before she would fall onto the table. I pick up my cup of tea and continue sipping from it, expressionless. She levers herself back onto the couch, works her jaw, swallows a few times. She doesn't take her eyes off me. She opens her mouth and starts to say something when-

-the front door clicks, Dad calls out, "Hey kiddo I-" and stops abruptly, having entered the living room to find me with a strange girl who looks like she's been crying.

I say, "Hi Dad. This is Cherie-" there's a response there from him, but I can't place it "-and she was just telling me about her break-up with her boyfriend." I turn my gaze on her. "Right, Cherie?"

Her voice is a bit hollow when she says, "I regret it completely." It takes me a moment, but I realize she's actually... not apologizing to me, but acknowledging her fuckup. She got the memo. Good.

Dad is clearly lost, looking back and forth. He starts to say, "When-" and I interrupt with, "I met her last night, invited her over if she couldn't find a place to stay that was safe from her boyfriend, excuse me, ex-boyfriend. Sorry I forgot to mention it, Dad." Cherie nods vaguely, while Dad actually... brightens a little? Hm. He seems relieved. Odd.

He makes a magnanimous gesture and says, "I'd have preferred a heads-up Taylor-" I wince a little at that. "-but we can put her up for two or three days while she gets her head on straight, if she needs it." He looks at Cherie. She glances at me and then immediately away before saying, with false cheer, "That's okay mister-" she pauses and glances at me. I just stare blankly back at her. It's my dad who gets it, a couple of seconds after it's turned awkward. "Hebert. Danny Hebert." Oh. Right. Did she even know my name was Taylor before Dad showed up and called my name? I'd assumed... with the creepy stalker behavior...

... and now she's glancing at me again, not sure why...

"It's okay mister Hebert. I just needed a shoulder to cry on, I actually have other arrangements, but they don't know the full story and I'm not comfortable sharing it with them. Taylor was actually there for the important bit." It suddenly occurs to me: Cherie has done this before. I went to outright lying to Dad. She's actually mostly telling the truth, just in a misleading way. Fuck. I really need to work on this honesty thing. Why is Cherie better at not lying to my dad than I am? Fuck.

My dad looks relieved, very briefly. It occurs to me Cherie probably read his apprehension directly, earlier. I didn't even notice he didn't want to actually take her in. He says, "Good. That's good. That you're already situated, I mean." A pause. He looks at me. He looks like he's going to ask me something, but then he shakes his head slightly and says, "I'll be in the kitchen if you need anything."

Cherie and I are silent as he makes his way there. I sip some more of my tea. Hm. Starting to get cold. Once he's out of sight Cherie leans toward me, flinches and stops halfway through the motion, but continues until she's in whispering distance and says to me, under her breath, "Ex-boyfriend? Really?" I shrug. I don't really care about her opinion. There's a moment where she's just watching me, I think waiting for more of a response, but then she just asks, still whispering, "Are we still on for this or what?"

I spend a moment not responding, sipping my tea. I think, really, just to be petty. I'm not entirely sure. If so, it doesn't work: she clearly picks up something in what I'm feeling, because a smile slowly makes its way across her face. The cat that ate the canary. I mull that over for a moment, suddenly wondering if she really got the memo earlier if she's already being smug and provocative when she seemed genuinely afraid I would kill her just minutes ago. Then I push it aside. I really do need to do this for my own reasons.

I can always kill her if she goes over the line.

Cherie's face goes completely white. Her left hand starts twitching, until she covers it with her right hand. She swallows reflexively, while I watch her impassively. She glances toward the kitchen, but I just shake my head back and forth. She cringes, tries to say something, fails, and finally chokes out, "When are we doing it?"

I...

Hm.

"Tonight. Uber and Leet."

Her entire face screws up in an expression halfway between disgust and puzzlement. "Those losers? You're going to kill them?"

I... suppose I shouldn't be surprised that's where her mind goes, given how this entire visit has gone. I'm vaguely affronted anyway, and it creeps into my voice. "No. They're not monsters. I'm capturing them. I'd intended to do it last night, but I don't know where their hideout is."

That fucking smile again. "So you need my help to track them?"

I give her a withering look at the emphasis on 'need'. "You can stop that. We're a team-" She brightens suddenly, I think involuntarily, because she immediately clamps down on it and puts an artificial, smug expression on her face. I find myself wondering if she reacted to me reacting to her reaction, or if she is just sufficiently self-aware to catch her own reaction. "-until you do something to piss me off. Like needling me." I do my best to make the last bit particularly pointed, even looking at her instead of my teacup while I say it.

I'm not sure how well it works. Cherie is looking serene now, not contrite or anything. Though... I'm not sure I'd believe 'contrite' from her at this point...

Cherie asks me when. I say midnight. There's more whispered discussion establishing details, but it's basically trivialities. And snark. Lots of snark, particularly when my costume comes up in the conversation. I'm more annoyed at her refusing to move past it for five minutes than I am at the snark itself. The costume isn't meant to look nice. It's just meant to hide my identity when I'm not the monster. The details of my power never do crop up in the conversation. The closest it comes is when I have a sudden thought and suggest Cherie bring a blindfold, or something that can be used as one. Cherie seems to assume I intend it for one of the boys, only remarking that she'll do one better and bring two. That's fine.

Eventually Cherie leaves for... wherever it is she goes... I don't know, and right now I don't care. I blow off Dad's attempts to talk to me by calling attention to my homework, barely touched. I'm not up for actually implementing this trust my own dad thing, nor the don't lie unnecessarily to my own dad thing, and I really don't want to answer his questions about Cherie right now. I'd rather get with her on the cover story end of thing first, and I also just don't want to lie to him again. Bad enough that I'm doing it reflexively at this point.

I spend the rest of the evening in my room, doing my homework with the assistance of a (Recently purchased, second-hand) hand mirror carefully placed so I remain Taylor, without looking suspicious. I 'go to bed' just before ten.

At eleven-thirty, I quietly pull on my costume, climb out my window and go to meet Cherie.

3.3

Meeting Cherie is simple. She can still track my 'emotional signature', whatever that means, and even if she couldn't, she knows that anytime I'm travelling quickly I'm 'muted', which is apparently unique in Brockton Bay. She seems to think I have a mover power that somehow interferes with her power, which is not precisely wrong.

Anyway, that means she can find me wherever I go. Which is still creepy stalker behavior, but it's convenient enough right now. I gave her vague directions to meet me at a specific, reasonably large park, counting on her ability to sense my exact location through her power to handle the rest. It doesn't take more than a few minutes for her to show up after I've climbed into a tree in the park. I half-wonder, as she approaches, how precise her detection is, and get something of an answer when I notice she's looking up at the tree branches, more or less exactly where I'm clinging.

I suddenly find myself wondering if she only detects humans or if animals are fair game.

I shake off the thought and drop down before she's close enough to actually see me and revert me to the girl mid-fall. I note a slight widening of her eyes. She also slows down just a little in approaching me, at least until she's close enough that I'm suddenly the girl. I wonder if she's relieved to see a human rather than whatever she thinks she saw drop out of the tree. I wish, not for the first time, that my night vision as the girl were as good as my night vision as the monster. Or that my vision as the girl was something other than complete shit, period. I'm not willing to risk wearing glasses in costume anymore, and I don't have contacts. By the time I can see her, she's composed and confident. Or faking confidence. I'm suspecting the latter. I notice she's tied her hair up into a tight bun, the red streak almost invisible. Huh. Otherwise she's wearing more or less what she wore when she came to my house.

With a wave, she calls out, "Heya boss."

I ignore her flippancy, hold out one hand, and ask, "Did you bring it?" She grins and removes a scarf I'd completely overlooked from around her neck, black and expensive-looking, puts it in my hand, a gold-bronze scarf revealed underneath where the black one was. I raise an eyebrow, realize she probably can't see it, then realize Cherie can probably sense my skepticism directly, and mentally throw my hands in the air. Physically, I take it, stress-test it a couple of times -no tearing- and then say, firmly, "Turn around." Cherie's smile flickers, and her eyes dart around. She hesitates for a long stretch, and then finally turns around without saying anything, though the smile turned into a rictus. I try to not think too hard about what she might be imagining, that she's so concerned, and instead -oh good the scarf did stay, instead of vanishing with everything else- I wrap it over Cherie's eyes. She jumps slightly, but doesn't move. She jumps again when a bit of fluid drips off a limb onto her shoulder, and shudders weirdly when it slides almost frictionlessly -I notice it doesn't darken the material on her blouse any- down her arm, dropping to the ground from her elbow. I'm mildly impressed -she suddenly stands a little straighter- at her lack of response though. It takes me so long to fumble with trying to tie off the scarf that Cherie finally reaches back and does it herself.

Cherie speaks, with just the tiniest bit of a tremor in her voice. "So boss, done. Not what I was expecting when you asked for a blindfold, buAAAAAAA!"

The scream was, of course, because I insinuated myself under her (Careful to avoid her touching my blades) and suddenly took off at a run, having waited just long enough for her to reflexively grab onto what feels like my neck with her arms and wrap her legs tight around my main body. To her credit, the scream only lasts maybe three seconds. She was surprised, more than frightened, I infer. She screams again when I'm suddenly going vertical, climbing right up the side of a building, though again, only for a moment. She starts whimpering, until I go horizontal again on the rooftop.

When she moves to climb off, I arrange to keep my blades away from her body. She pulls off the scarf, throws it off to one side, and proceeds to run to the edge of the roof and vomit over the side. Profusely. I wait patiently. We have all night.

Eventually she moves to dry heaving, then to hiccups. Finally she turns around and makes her way toward me.

It takes me a second to realize the expression on her face is not fear. It's... anticipation? "What was that?" The tone of voice isn't what I expected, either. I was expecting outrage. I half-expected her to want to jump ship, give up on this 'Team Monster' thing. She sounds more like someone who thinks they saw Jesus, or the Buddha. Reverent, that's the word I'm looking for.

...

...

... she enjoyed it.

...

...

Moving on.

I say, "Fast travel. Can you track Uber and Leet?"

She's still... glowing... but she answers dutifully. "I can guess, but I can't guarantee anything without having confirmed that a given emotional signature is a given person. I could find you again because I already knew your signature. I've never met them." Oh. Great. "However, I can make an educated guess based on their general personality, and see if I can find a pair that fits."

I nod sharply and ask ,"Would this work better with a stable position, or if we were traveling?" I've barely finished my sentence when she says, "Traveling," in a breathy tone I can't place.

I pause for a moment, staring at her.

Then I shake it off and tell her, "Blindfold on." She nods with a small grin, glances around, spots it faster than I'd have expected her to -it's a black scarf on a black rooftop at night- and gets it on by herself, hands shaking just a little. Then we mount up, and I jump to the next rooftop.

Cherie whoops.

---

The following hour goes something like this.

"So I was thinking -left, go left- I'd maybe be Beauty." A pause, while I wince mentally. "Yeah OK it's a bit weak, but it's also not taken." Another pause. "Well, if you -okay just a little more left no no not that far left yeah straight ahead from here- if you insist. Any particular reason for the mute act, anyway?" Silence. "Well, you're not breathing hard..." A pause. "Are you breathing at- yes! That was great!- at all? And what is that noise?" My claws, when I'm not running completely silent.

A peek into an abandoned warehouse. Whispered instructions from Cherie. It turns out to be a pair of bums, one asleep, the other singing drunkenly to himself under his breath. Cherie picks up my disappointment or something, I dunno, and starts giving me directions to her next idea.

"So anyway maybe Stalker?" There's already Shadow Stalker. "No?... oh wait, there's a Ward named, um, Darkstalker or something, isn't there. Yeah, good point. A little bit to your right. Too edgy for my tastes anyway. I'm thinking contrast, Beast and Beauty, Fafnir and Damsel, Terror and Cherish, not Scary Cape and Other Scary Cape. They're up, you'll need to climb." A three-story building in disrepair. I climb as quietly as I can. She whispers here when I'm on the third floor, and I peek, very carefully, through a grimy window. It's a man and a woman, teens or twenty-somethings, talking, a few bottles of alcohol sitting on the floor around them. Definitely not Uber and Leet.

They start kissing.

Yeah, not Uber and Leet. I jump to the next rooftop -Cherie whoops again- and she rattles on. Names she suggests for herself include Dame, Skirt, Velvet, Princess, Adieu, Precious, Genteel, Harpy, Banshee, Lady, Countess, Mall (She talks about mobsters, but I don't get it), Temperance, Pride, Cat, Shine, Radiance, Siren, Bewitch, Centerpiece, Diamond, Priceless, Affection ("Like the feeling, but also like pretending"), Waver, Cosset...

I notice a few themes here. Even if I could talk as the monster I'd have restrained myself from commenting, but I make notes in the back of my head. Cherie thinks of herself a particular way, or wants to be thought of in a particular way, or both. I'm not convinced she explicitly realizes her set of choices tell me something about how she thinks of herself.

In any event, she -we?- eventually settles on Pride, apparently based on my emotional response. I'll admit there's something to it, and something to 'Monster and Pride'. I didn't like very many of the other names she suggested, and several are in use anyway. I suppose we'll have to double-check later. We also drop in on something like forty different pairs of people, a good portion of them bums, a few of them obviously gang members. We also dodge around capes on three separate occasions, or so Cherie claims, leaving me wondering how she's so certain they're capes. (No explanation is forthcoming in her chatter) I notice somewhere around the twentieth pair of potential targets that they mostly seem to be people down on their luck in some way or another. I find myself wondering if Cherie -Pride?- is failing to find Uber and Leet because she's looking for people who think of themselves as losers, if maybe Uber and Leet have a higher opinion of themselves than that. They are kind of oblivious in their show.

Then we finally stumble upon Uber and Leet, in costume no less, inside a two-story commercial building that's in surprisingly decent condition. Well, Leet's costume is on and complete anyway, they seem to be in the middle of putting a costume on Uber, but the point is they're not civilians that might be Uber and Leet. I think I even know what series their costumes are based on, and no one else in Brockton Bay would willingly dress like a video game character. I wonder, for a moment, why they're awake at this hour -I'm pretty sure most capes sleep like normal people- but brush it off, focus on the here and now. Before I can work out a plan of action -the room is reasonably well lit and I'm expecting some kind of security- Cherie has already whispered gleefully, "Oooh, watch this!" though she doesn't actually do anything I can see.

Suddenly Uber shrieks and hits the ground, flailing. Leet, however, straightens up and starts looking around, shouting, "Master security!" and tapping just behind the cannon on his right arm with his left hand. A weird hodge-podge of robots burst out of an adjacent room, one sweeping with an obvious laser sight, while Uber pulls himself into some kind of zen pose, already looking less freaked out. The front doors of the room close with a very final clang, the main ceiling light has turned blue for some reason...

I'm pissed, and Cherie apparently knows it, because I can feel her cringing.

I leap off the side of the building and flee.

---

We're on a rooftop, somewhere over ten stories in the air, Cherie no longer blindfolded, watching me pace from her seat on... I dunno, part of the roof, whatever. I'm literally inarticulate with fury, trying to think of how to say what I want to say, not even sure what it is I want to say beyond I'm pissed! which just seems like a waste of time given Cherie can clearly tell how angry I am -I note, absently, that she's not reacting like she's afraid I'm about to kill her- and I'm pissed at her because she shouldn't have done... whatever it is she did.

... that thought brings me up short. What did she do? I turn and ask her, "What did you do, exactly?" Then I remember something and tack on, "Pride?" I need to practice that.

I'm half-expecting her to cringe again, but she just answers the question. "I hit them with fear. I was thinking it would take the fight out of them, leave them helpless." A pause. Then she admits, "And I maybe thought it would be funny if they pissed themselves in terror."

I move to massage my forehead, annoyed, stop when I remember I have the bicycle helmet on, let out a huff instead. "This was scouting. I wanted a plan, before they had any idea anything was coming. Now they'll be on their guard for who knows how long." I sigh and continue. "There might never be as good an opportunity again, if they ramp up their security in response to this."

Then I scowl at her, ignoring the scarf in the way. She can probably sense it anyway. Cherie -Pride- says, "Oh." I resume pacing, restless.

"... so we weren't going to hit them tonight?"

I don't stop pacing, still frustrated. "No, we were going to hit them tonight, but I wanted to investigate, see if they had any minions on-site, see if I could find some of their security, maybe listen in. Then I would've gone to a nearby rooftop and we would've hashed out a plan. Then we would've hit them, assuming we didn't decide hitting them was a bad idea. Instead, all we've learned is that Leet is immune to you for some reason, and that they have special preparations for capes like you, while they now know someone is gunning for them. They're going to up their security, maybe move to a different location outright, forcing us to start over from the beginning, or worse yet lay a trap for us." I pause to let that sink in. "Bad things happen when you go in without a plan." I flash to being shot by Dragon's suit or drone or whatever it was, back in Ellisburg, and I can't quite fight down a burst of anger. Cher- Pride. Pride flinches a little.

Not her fault not her fault not her fault...

I take a moment, just... breathing. Ellisburg was my mistake, not Cherie's, and the stakes are different anyway. Uber and Leet are criminal, yes, but they're not a threat to the entire world. They're barely a threat to civilians. The scale is completely different. I don't think Uber and Leet have ever killed even in self-defense, where Nilbog killed an entire town without provocation.

Need to salvage this. I ask, "Can you still track them?" Pride gets a look on her face -we really should get her an actual mask- like... I dunno. A cat?

Her response is a very confident, vaguely gloating, "Absolutely boss, anywhere in the city, for the rest of their lives."

I pause and take that in.

Pride continues on, "Right now they're making a sweep of the perimeter and trying to convince themselves they didn't see something scary, that they were spooked by their own stuff. Uber would rather believe there was somebody watching them, he doesn't want to blame Leet. Leet is ashamed. He thinks it's his fault." The corners of her mouth turn up a bit more. "They're arguing, it's an old argument. Uber isn't willing to listen, I'm getting loyalty here, probably Leet is trying to convince him to split, saying it's for his own good or something." I raise an eyebrow. I'm not sure myself whether I'm impressed or skeptical. Maybe both. Pride's smile has teeth now, as she continues on. "They've stopped with the perimeter sweep, they're caught up in the argument, Leet is being really pushy and it's starting to piss off Uber. Ya know boss, if we hit them now I think we'd get them with their pants down, they're on the bottom floor."

I spend a second thinking on it. Cherie -Pride- whoops and pulls the scarf back over her eyes before I can vocalize my agreement.

I'm bemused, but shrug it off. Business. I clamber under Cherie as the monster once more, her whooping and shrieking like a loon as I scramble down the side of the building. She keeps it up, ignoring how the few people outside at this hour are glancing around, confused. When my annoyance spikes -we're getting close to Uber and Leet's location- she abruptly cuts herself off. I note she doesn't apologize. I think she's snuggling. I find myself wondering what she thinks is going on. Surely she's noticed the layer of fluid covering my body, my nonhuman proportions?

I put it out of my mind, following Pride's whispered instructions until we're in front of the building Uber and Leet were in. I hear them before I see them. They are, indeed, arguing. Leet is sufficiently blubbery and shrill I can't really make it out, but it sounds like he is, yes, trying to convince Uber that Leet is just holding him back. Uber's movie-trailer-voice is a lot easier to make out, and he's clearly frustrated. I skulk toward the entrance and peek around as best I can without being seen. Thankfully, the two of them are alone: no robots or goons. (Some flaw with the robots preventing them from following?) They're also angled so they both have the front door in the corner of their eyes. Coincidence? Hard-earned experience? They don't notice me, not yet.

Nonetheless, I notice that there's a window not in their view, and it's clear the glass is largely gone. I half-jump-half-clamber over the front entry area, pushing aside the stabbing concern when Pride makes a noise of surprise, and loop around toward where I saw the window. Once there, I peek carefully. Uber is facing away from this window. Leet is invisible to me, Uber blocking my view. Perfect.

I start to move to shrug Pride off, but she gracefully hops off by herself (I have to shift aside a limb to avoid her cutting herself on it) and I can see her grinning, presumably in anticipation, out of the corner of my eye.

I lunge through the window and run at Uber as fast as I can. This is quite fast. Uber and Leet abruptly cut off their argument, both clearly reacting to something, but before either of them can do anything I've already slapped Uber all over the back of his head and neck with non-cutting parts of my limbs, going for something softer than when I hit the attempted rapist. He drops like a puppet with its strings cut. Hm. Maybe practicing on thugs wasn't very good practice after all. Regardless, now I'm the girl, facing Leet, who has paled and backed away a step. I call out, "Surrender," in my best or else voice.

I've actually practiced it with a mirror. Might as well, given I don't sleep anyway.

Annoyingly, that apparently firms his resolve, because he shouts, "Never!" and takes a shot at me with the arm that ends in a roughly cylindrical green gun-thing. I step to one side and let the slow-moving yellow ball of light go right past me. He shoots again, and this time I don't even move, it's that off-target. Then a bigger ball of light starts growing at the end of his gun-arm. I start circling around him, and he tracks me. I keep circling anyway. He smirks behind the green faceplate. For someone who thinks he's holding back Uber, he sure has a lot of self-confidence in a fight. He raises his other hand dramatically and opens his mouth to say something...

... which is when Pride climbing in through the window (Still blindfolded) knocks over a piece of glass.

Leet's head jerks around toward the window, but his arm stays locked on me. That's fine. I'm the monster, and I rush him. The gun fires, but the ball's bang! doesn't do anything to me that I notice. Leet is actually, to my surprise, turning the rest of his body to face Pride. What, does he think I'm already down? If so, I bust that thought by slamming into him full bore, knocking him to the ground, and cutting at his helmet and gun arm. He curls into a ball.

It takes me a second to realize that's literal.

What the hell.

I stab at the orange ball trying to roll away from me and ignore the little blue, flickering lights it leaves behind. They burst and make noise, but I don't feel anything, so I continue to ignore them. Initially I'm just knocking the ball around and leaving abbreviated scratch marks on it, but finally I manage to pin it in place and jam a limb right through the center of the thing.

Wait, I what a what?

Blood pours out.

Fuck.

3.4

Pride asks, "What happened?" I ignore her in favor of pulling my limb out and peeking inside the ball. I can't make sense of what I'm seeing, beyond that it's leaking blood. It doesn't look like Leet is actually inside the thing -he couldn't possibly fit, but tinkertech- but the wires and metals and glass are soaked in blood, and I think I see bits and pieces of torn flesh laying on machine parts. I notice, abruptly, that the ball is no longer emitting green light. I didn't notice it was producing green light, not until it stopped.

I watch the thing for nearly a full minute, ignoring Pride's pestering and subsequent pouting.

It doesn't move.

Fuck.

Yeah, I've killed Leet. Probably.

I sit there for a minute, waiting to feel bad, to feel crushing guilt that I've murdered someone who didn't deserve it.

It doesn't happen.

I'm disturbed by that, though a contrary part of me notes that I didn't feel any kind of joy at the act either, so I'm not a serial killer in the making. I'm... annoyed. I'd intended to bring Uber and Leet in so that justice could be handled by the law, an independent cape doing their civic duty. Make people less scared of me, do something more substantial than turning in the occasional unpowered thug, but less worldshaking and bloody than murdering the likes of Nilbog. Killing either of them wasn't what I'd intended. That's what annoys me.

Uber moans, and I experience a flash of annoyance at him, too. I don't even know why.

I jerk away Pride's scarf and ask if she has a cell phone, one not affiliated with her civilian identity. She lights up until I append the bit about her civilian identity, at which point she wilts. Fine, whatever. I tell her to go call the PRT on a public phone to let them know that Monster ("You're calling yourself Monster?" she says incredulously, but I ignore her) and Pride have captured one cape, and another cape is likely dead, unfortunately. She pouts, then hesitates. Somewhat irritably I tell her to just dial 911, you don't even need to pay, etc. She heads off with no further delays.

I get behind Uber so that I can put him back down as the monster if he gets up.

Then I wait.

Uber moans twice before the PRT truck arrives, but is otherwise quiescent.

---

Pride stands behind and to my right, scarf over her eyes again, while I answer the questions of a PRT officer. To my vague irritation, the woman is dismissive of Leet's death, and doesn't ask me any further questions when I explain how I killed him by accident, not understanding how his tinkertech works and not expecting him to die. (I leave out the part where I just... got caught up in the fight. I'm not even sure how to address that can of worms) She just grunts, says, "Risks of parahuman combat," and writes a note down on her tablet.

Not that I want to be grilled or jailed over an accidental death, but it grates on me.

Homicide, dead teen, not really a bad kid, but this officer doesn't care. At all.

I push it to the back of my mind and focus on the interview. Debriefing? I make sure the officer knows about the robots on one of the higher floors, since they may still be an active danger. The officer grunts in acknowledgment and passes it on by radio. Pride chimes in on occasion, taking credit for finding the two parahumans and making sure to refer to me as boss a few times. I note that the officer's eyes (Just barely visible behind her faceplate) glide back and forth between the two of us each time Pride calls me 'boss'. I'm not sure what it means.

The officer asks which Pride in 'the database' she is, and Pride smoothly responds that she's, "New to the scene." This leads to the officer asking for Pride to fill out a form. Pride is perfectly fine with that, and the officer continues the interview with me while Pride does some paperwork. Pride steps forward to take it, and looking over her shoulder it looks to me to be the same "What is your power/what is your cape name/what was your experience with the PRT/are you a rogue, hero, or non-cape/etc" paperwork I filled out, or something very similar at least. Pride pulls the scarf up just enough to see before she starts writing. I note with a little annoyance that when it comes to 'Team or other affiliation' she writes 'Monster's'. That's it. No further clarification. It crosses my mind that it could be read as 'part of Monster's team' or as 'I am Monster's' as in I am Monster's property, and I feel a stab of irritation that Cherie would accidentally leave that interpretation available to create problematic misunderstandings, but I don't want to say anything in front of the PRT.

Eventually the interview (And Pride's paperwork: she pulls the scarf back down over her eyes) is over, and we're shooed out. I notice that the PRT has cordoned the area off with caution tape -tinkertech risk caution tape, not crime scene caution tape. Because of the robots, or because of the tinkertech in general? Pride and I head into an alley without conversation, where I slip under her and we return to roof-based travel. She whoops joyfully. I want to say it's different, more intense, than earlier in the night. I'm not sure what to make of her.

A minute later we're on the roof of the ten-story building where I berated her earlier. I slip out from under her and shove the scarf up, open my mouth to say something... nothing comes out. I'm agitated, I want to vent, but I don't even know where to start. I'm not sure Pride is the person to be talking to, either, she doesn't seem bothered, but who can I talk to about cape stuff if not Pride? It's not like I'm going to talk to my dad about... all this. Yeah, great way to open up to him: "Hey Dad, I'm a parahuman, and a murderer-by-accident, and I have all these big feelings I need to talk out with you and please don't be alarmed!"

No.

Not happening.

I pace for a minute, Pride's eyes tracking me, though she's silent aside from swinging her legs, like a girl on a swing. Eventually I grit my teeth -literally, not just metaphorically- and just take the plunge. "Che-" cape names cape names! "Pride." Having stumbled over my own tongue, I take a moment to collect myself, angry with myself, before I continue. "How do you..." word, what word? "... uh, feel, about... tonight?"

Her response is glib, cheerful. "Fantastic, Boss." Great. That's... just great. Her smile dims a little, but doesn't go away entirely. To my surprise she asks, "You tired? I'm exhausted, and you've been doing most of the work."

The answer is no, of course. I'm not tired, not physically. The monster doesn't tire, and I don't stay tired so long as I cease being the girl periodically. I don't say that, partly because I'm not ready to just spill all my secrets to her (There's learning to trust again, and then there's idiocy) but mostly because... no, I'm not ready to sleep, I'm never ready to sleep, but... I could use a break. Go home, rest, focus on other things. I don't want to go out and patrol some more, or hunt down some other cape, not like this, not the same night I killed someone I was trying to capture. Not the right headspace for it. Emotionally tired? Is that even a thing? (Did Pride simply 'see' that with her power?)

So instead I say, "Yes. Yes, I think I am." My first impulse is to simply leave, but then I remember we're quite high up and Pride doesn't have any kind of mobility power. So, somewhat awkwardly, I ask, "Do I need to drop you off somewhere?"

She smiles widely and names an intersection not far from here. Somewhat curtly, I tell her to pull on the blindfold -and to be quiet while we're traveling. Her grin dims a little, but she nods compliance and pulls the scarf over her eyes. To my surprise she even does keep quiet, limiting herself to grunts when I make a jarring landing. When we part ways she gives me a jaunty little wave and wanders off, uncaring. I find myself wondering how she's going to handle changing her 'costume', and then mentally shrug. If she screws up, that costs her. Not really my problem. I didn't want a partner in the first place.

On that note, I pull back into the shadows of the alleyway and from there make my way home.

---

I hole up in the closet again, trying to relax. It works, but not as well as I'd like.

First night I try to bring in a parahuman rather than kill them, and I kill a parahuman. I know the monster is almost literally a killing machine, I'm not bothered by thoughts like, "I'm made to kill people," but I'm trying to make the world a better place. Kill the worst monsters, the ones no one else will, capture the misguided. I can't just devote my life to killing people and nothing more. I might as well sign up for the Slaughterhouse Nine at that point.

At the same time there's a temptation to just... put off capturing villains. Hunt down someone who deserves to die and make it happen. I can do that without fucking it up. I've done it twice (Thrice, counting Leet, but that was a fuckup) now. It's been easy, so much easier than not killing them. I never did follow up on the thing about Dragon being friends with Nilbog, too disturbed by my tinfoil hat conspiracy theory bullshit that seems all too plausible... I didn't want to think about it, so I didn't.

On the other hand, she's done so much good for the world I'm not sure killing her is the right answer. On the third limb, how would I even make capturing her work? She's a known hero, much-beloved in spite of her reclusiveness. If I knock her unconscious and drag her to the nearest Protectorate office, the most likely response is them locking me up.

I decide I'm just spinning my wheels at this point. Thinking on it isn't going to reach a decision, not like this. I need more information.

I head downstairs to our computer, careful to be quiet about opening my door, making my way down, et al. It takes another age to boot up, which I spend puttering around in the kitchen, grabbing some snacks, quiet snacks. I'm glad I did manage to replace the hand mirror, anyway. Using whatever reflective surfaces I can find is horrible. I find myself contemplating the thought of stealing one of Emma's hand mirrors if this one gets broken too. I suspect I could do it, sneak in as the monster, grab it as the girl, leave as the monster. It probably wouldn't even be traced back to me, and she's cost me so much more than a hand mirror. It feels like a slippery slope, though, like if I do it once I'll do it more than once and before long Emma will be calling the PRT and they'll track it back to me and ugh.

Besides. I'm trying to be a hero.

When the computer finally boots up and the browser is ready to go, I type in 'Dragon criminal past'. Maybe she's got some sordid history I've never heard of, something the tinfoil hats have dug up and get ignored on because they're tinfoil hats. I'm pointed straight to a mercenary group called the Dragonslayers, instead.

The Dragonslayers get their name from the fact that they've successfully stolen from Dragon -multiple times. As far as I can tell, the question of whether any of them is a parahuman or not provokes raging flame wars in every forum it gets brought up in, but in any case they're able to use her gear for their own benefit. Aside from their relationship to Dragon -hard to say whether that's a vendetta or just a product of Dragon being the best tinker in the world and so the best to steal from- they package themselves primarily as a parahuman mercenary group, with pay being more important to them than ethics. They're most often hired by villains and the occasional wealthy rogue, sometimes for simple smash-and-grabs of a tinker, sometimes to straight-up murder a rival or whatever, but they also sell their services outside of the US, and have participated in what amounts to military actions for local warlords in places like Africa.

I dislike everything I read about them.

I dig around to see if I can find out why they've not been brought in yet. I can't get anything official, but an off-the-cuff remark caught on video from a hero in Chicago is suggestive -she doesn't consider it worth her effort to run down people who are mostly hired to kill villains anyway. "Less work for me," are her exact words. They also fly under the radar when they're not acting on a client's behalf, to the point that nobody has any idea where they base themselves out of beyond the incredibly vague, "Somewhere in the continental US." (I wonder to myself how they get hired if they're that hard to find, and then shrug it off as one of those criminal underworld things I don't understand) There is an active bounty on them, but it's not very high, and I check -only Dragon has contributed funding to it. Apparently most of the world considers them a tolerable evil, maybe even a net good.

I frown at that thought. While they're not as monstrous as Nilbog or Heartbreaker, the idea is uncomfortably similar to me. Tolerated because people don't think they're worth the effort or risk of running down, left to run free and perpetuate additional horrors. I dislike it.

I check the time (4:23), thinking of the phone Cherie gave me, probably still sitting by that lake. If I'm going to do this team-up thing, I really ought to make sure I can get in contact with her, and she already gave me that phone... though I'll have to hide it from Dad. Not that I'd want to bring it to school, either, as that would just be one more thing for Emma and her 'friends' to destroy or use to hurt me, so... hmm. Where would I even keep it? If I can't keep it on hand, then Cherie can't use it to contact me, and I'm not sure how useful being able to phone her up would be. She's already met up with me by reading my emotions from... wherever it is she's hanging out. Hm.

I put off the phone issue and go back to reading up on the Dragonslayers.

The suits they've stolen are sealed and encompass their entire body. Some digging indicates PHO is pretty confident they're looking out through cameras -that would help me a lot- and their arsenal seems to primarily be assorted energy weapons. There's a lot of speculation that the suits have rockets and some more conventional guns mounted somewhere on them, as that's pretty common for Dragon's suits and they are stolen Dragon suits, but the Dragonslayers haven't been caught using most of what would be expected for them to use. The general consensus is that they can't reproduce the ammo themselves, and are either entirely out of the ammo for those weapons or are being very careful to conserve whatever they do have, focusing on the energy weapons because those are easier to recharge, something like that. It's been shown that the suits have fairly significant ECM, good enough that even tinkers have a hard time breaking through it, which among other things makes it difficult to achieve a missile lock or 'hack' the suits. Not exactly relevant to me, but it's kind of scary how much is packed into the suits. They're not particularly bulkier than an astronaut's suit, and are a lot less awkward to walk around in. I'm somewhat surprised to realize I can't find any evidence of Dragon releasing the specs on the stolen suits or anything of the sort. Does she really care that much about keeping secrets? But- she's the Tinker who releases tech to the PRT.

Perplexing.

I've just had the idea to go digging for pictures of the suits when I hear the creak of movement from upstairs. A glance at the clock shows that it's taken me two hours to gather what information I've found on the suits, in spite of how little it is. It's time for me to prepare for school again.

Fuck everything.

---

Throughout the school week since the Friday that I ditched school (With Dad's permission) and explored how the monster did underwater, the torment has slackened. I've been doing my best to ignore it -they want to savor my anticipation, my paranoid worries about what's coming and I won't give them the satisfaction- but each day has been a little harder than the last, the chunk of dread in my gut that extra bit heavier. The worst part is the meta-dread, knowing that when they backed off entirely for a few weeks it was the lead-up to something unimaginably horrific, though I temper it by focusing on the fact that they haven't backed off entirely. Less torment, not no torment.

Even so, it's a substantial effort to make myself go to school, made worse by the weekend giving me two days away from it. The weekend always makes it worse, shows me how my days could be if I weren't on Sophia and Emma's shitlist, makes the lows feel even lower by comparison. "Look Taylor!" the weekend says. "It's a cold, lonely existence, no friends, nothing that could be called a hobby outside of caping, but at least you're not being actively fucked with!" The weekend points out, "It's not as if you're learning anything at school, really, not anything you couldn't learn by scouring Wikipedia. It's not as if you're going to graduate with good enough grades to get an appropriate job."

It'd be so tempting to quit, throw myself full-time into my life as the monster -as Monster, I guess- if it weren't for how it would crush Dad's soul for me to abandon any semblance of success at being normal, when his life is depressing enough as-is... and if it weren't for the fact that a truant officer would come after me eventually.

And if it weren't for the fact that it would mean the bitches had won.

No.

So when I come in, I'm expecting something nasty. Not like the Locker, nothing will ever be as bad as the Locker, nothing will ever be worse, but worse than the low-grade everyday constant torment they normally subject me to. Something like the time they arranged for me to be shoved into the boy's locker room (When they were in the middle of changing, of course), and got the teachers to give me detention for 'inappropriate behavior', as if I was peeping. Shit like this is why so many people think I'm the problem -if you don't know me personally, I'm the creepy perverted weirdo who keeps doing messed-up things and is always dressed poorly and who is frequently in trouble with staff. So, clearly I'm a troublemaker, a weirdo troublemaker. Keep away, I might be contagious.

It's why I can't even make friends with people who share no classes with me.

The first half of the day goes by with me brooding and anxious and doing my best to hide it, pretending I'm oblivious and unaffected. I think Sophia buys it, hard to say, her smirk makes me think she's just anticipating whatever they're going to do but it might be a smirk of, "I see right through you." Emma definitely doesn't buy it, but that's okay, she wouldn't buy it even if it were true. Too invested in believing I'm miserable. Still don't know why. In any event, I'm pretty sure the cronies buy it -I can see out of the corner of my eye that some of them are disappointed. They wanted me stewing in my own (justified) paranoia. Degenerate leeches.

I hate them the most.

Lunch goes by smoothly, same as it always does. I simply hide on the rooftop, climbing there as the monster with careful timing and keeping to shadows. Everybody knows you can get there if you really want to, gang kids used to do it all the time as some kind of rite of initiation or something I dunno, but that stopped when somebody botched the climb, hit the ground, never got back up. So if they find me up here? Doesn't out me as a parahuman. It would take this refuge away, but that's all. Occasionally I even get a moment's amusement out of seeing the Duo -it looks to me like they've tried to find me at lunch repeatedly since the Locker, and it's a tiny bit of satisfaction to see their frustration at failing. Or maybe I just want to believe that it's about me. Dunno.

By 2 in the afternoon I'm so tense my palms are sweaty and my gut is roiling and I can't hide that they're getting to me. It doesn't help that I'm starting to think that today won't be the day, that they're going to draw it out and do something yet worse than I've been thinking, and both possibilities make me want to vomit or kill someone. Or both.

2:30 I break a pencil.

3:00 the bell rings, and relief floods me.

"One moment Taylor."

I turn to stare blankly at the teacher. I know, somehow, someway, that this is the Duo's fault. Whatever it is, it's their fault.

"This was found in your desk this morning..." she pulls out a Ziploc bag. My eyes track uncomprehendingly. Dust? Bangles? I don't understand. "... and I was hoping you'd be able to explain yourself?" She gives me a pointed look. I stare back at her, not even sure what's happening. She sighs. "Taylor, you would be far from the first student at this school to... join such a group. Act out." She pauses again, before saying with significance. "Try to dull the pain."

Realization hits: a gang. She thinks I joined a gang.

She thinks I joined the fucking Merchants.

She thinks I'm stupid enough to bring proof to school that I joined the fucking Merchants.

I explode, incoherently screaming something about bitches, I don't even know what all, and I have to fight the urge to get behind the teacher and tear her open. Not her fault not her fault not her fault.

She apparently thinks I mean her when I scream bitch, because she gets affronted and in no time flat I find myself in the principal's office.

There I am told I'm suspended for a week.

My jaw works but no response comes out. Did they even check for fingerprints or anything? I want to ask, but-

What comes out of my mouth is, "Fuck you." I'm less surprised with myself than I'd like to be. I'm less disappointed with myself than I'd like to be, for that matter.

Her response is an utterly unaffected, "Two weeks, Miss Hebert. Be glad I'm not calling the police on you." A pause. "Or simply expelling you. Nobody would bat an eyelash."

I leave. It's either that or kill her and... no. No. She's responsible yes, but not responsible-responsible. She contributes, she doesn't fucking care enou- no wrong stop that. Not responsible. Talk self down. She's part of the problem, but she'd be... distant, is all, if Winslow wasn't a shithole for other reasons. Not a terrible, heinous person. Just... distant. Distant can be good. Plotting her death is wrong. (I think I even believe myself)

I try to tell myself it would be wrong to plot the bitches' deaths, but I can't convince myself.

I head home, thinking I'll cool down with... internet research of some kind. Maybe I'll dig into the Slaughterhouse Nine. They deserve to die.

Let's do that.

3.5

Partway home I change my mind, divert off to the lake, the cell phone still waiting there. I need to kill something. Vent. Something deserving. Not like Leet. Somebody malicious.

Pride answers the phone before the first dial tone even finishes. I can tell she's trying to mask some fear as she asks in a forced-cheery tone, "You need me, boss?"

I say, "I need to kill someone." I think I hear her choke slightly, ignore it. "Someone who actually deserves it."

There's a pause. Her voice is shaking a little with relief as she responds. "Need me for my tracking services, gotcha. Anybody in mind?"

I pause, having not really thought about it before now. Not Lung. I have no confidence in my ability to deal with him, not without more experience. Skidmark? Arguably a bit unfair that he comes to mind first primarily because of what prompted this, but while I'd rate him as a lower priority than Kaiser, he's still a scumbag getting kids hooked on serious drugs and though I haven't done a lot of research into the Merchants I know they've done...

I frown for a moment. Something about the bangles. Merchants, bangles.

I give up on the thought. It's not important. Point is, they've done a lot of terrible things, and it's not even... I mean. They live in squalor. They're not making themselves better at the expense of others. They're just dragging everyone down. It's just... awful. I sort of get the ABB and the Empire and some of the indie villains. Drag someone else down as you raise yourself up. Mean, selfish, sensible if you don't care about other people. There's sense there. The Merchants... aren't like that, and frankly I'm pretty sure they're only still around because nobody takes them seriously enough to put real effort into coming after them. If they were competent -if they were like a local mini-Slaughterhouse Nine or something- they'd probably be wiped out instantly by everyone. But no, they survive like... cockroaches? No, no... cockroaches are actually hard to kill. Pigeons? Pigeons are gross and pushy and all-around horrible little birds but not quite revolting enough -or easily killed enough- for the city to really push for their collective death.

Yeah. Parahuman pigeons.

"... boss? You there?"

I jerk slightly, careful to keep my reflection in view. Forgot. Got distracted.

Yeah. I think I do. "Skidmark."

"... who?"

Oh. Right. Not... really any reason for her to already know who Skidmark is. Some locals don't know who he is. People know about the Merchants, but not necessarily individual Merchants. Squealer's the most attention-grabbing one, and the Merchants are small-time anyway. It's not like I've got the Toronto villains memorized. Why would Pride know the list of Merchants off the top of her head?

So I clarify. "You familiar with the Archer's Bridge Merchants?"

There's a pause before she responds. "Druggy gang or something, right?"

"Right, yes. Well, Skidmark is their leader. Lays down zones that push things a particular direction, not much else to him as a cape. He's a scumbag, and he has no..." I pause, searching for the word. "... no honor, I guess. Doesn't even participate in Endbringer defenses-" Pride makes a noise of confusion, but I ignore it. "-or otherwise make him worth tolerating. This is a dude who gets children hooked on-"

Pride interrupts me. "Boss, I don't actually care. He's small-fry, but sort of important. That what you're saying?" I grunt in the affirmative, annoyed. Ranting about him was cathartic. "Got any idea what kind of personality he has?"

I open my mouth to respond, and- nothing comes out.

... he's a scumbag, but that's... not very helpful. Brockton Bay isn't exactly a bastion of civilization. I don't really know what he's like. Lazy? Ambitious? Angry? Happy? I... don't actually know.

I switch tracks. "Well, the gang includes a lot of homeless. Just looking for concentrations of homeless would be workable. Can you do that?"

"... yyeeesss? Gross, but yes." She doesn't sound thrilled, but I don't care.

"Where's most convenient for you to meet me at?"

"Wait, are we doing this in daylight?" She sounds surprised, not concerned. I firmly say yes (I can't wait, I can't), and then ask, again, where to meet her.

She names a pair of streets. I say, "See you there," wait for her response, turn off the phone and... stare at the phone for a minute. What to do with this? Where can I keep it?

I decide to take it with me for the moment, slip it into a pocket. Maybe Pride will have an idea.

I head out to meet her.

---

On the way over I finally remember why the bangles thing was bothering me -I've seen Merchants wearing colored bangles, both in person and in the news, such as when they've been arrested. Not sure what the bangles are about. I noticed it, didn't think about it. Rank? Whatever the case, that's why there was a bangle in with the drug the assholes planted in my desk, and that's why the teacher thought I'd joined the Merchants, rather than just thinking I was doing drugs on my own.

If I weren't the monster, I'd frown. I don't know how the Merchants handle their bangles. Was the one planted in my desk just... a bangle that could've been bought at any number of stores, or was it somehow a genuine Merchant bangle, and was there any way to tell the difference? The thought gnawed at me. If Emma or one of her goons had simply bought a bangle, or maybe just pulled one from out of a drawer in their rooms, and planted that to sell the idea, that was... depressing, but held no deeper significance.

If Merchant bangles were actually hard to come by and they'd gotten one anyway, that was rather more disturbing. I couldn't quite see either of Emma or Sophia in the Merchants, nor could I see them tolerating any teen dumb enough to be in the Merchants while trying to curry favor with the Popular Girls. The whole story they spun was that they had standards and were superior and Merchant scum would definitely not be treated favorably or else their narrative would lose its strength. But then how would they have gotten a Genuine Merchant Bangle, if that is indeed a thing?

I make a mental note to pay attention tonight, see if anything I see or overhear indicates either way.

---

Turns out Pride had named a small park I've never personally been to, deep in the concrete jungle. It's not even a full block. Just this little area with some trees, water fountains, trash cans, and grass everywhere. The plant life isn't holding up that well, either, and there are way too many cigarette butts lying around. This is particularly depressing as the only sign for this tiny little park has several rules in ginormous text, one of which is no smoking. There's also several patches of dog poop lying around, unattended, even though there's a dog poop-bag dispenser and trash can in the area. This is not a quality park. At least it's bounded in by bushes well enough that when I leap from a nearby rooftop down to the park it's with confidence that I'll be the monster when I hit the ground. Which... admittedly is probably part of why it's such a trashed-out park. Seems unoccupied, anyway, so I guess maybe it gets more traffic at ni-

"Heya boss."

I startle, try to hide it, then frown when I remember she can sense my emotions directly so there's no point. How does she keep surprising me like that?

Then I realize I didn't actually frown because I'm not the girl, I'm still the monster. I turn to where I heard her voice, and she's sitting on a bench, blindfold/scarf already over her eyes. I pause for a moment, surprised. I try to parse the thought, mostly fail. I manage to pull out my tangled mess that I'm weirded out by her either feeling comfortable enough to wait for me in a public place while blindfolded or by her pulling on the blindfold as I was approaching with time to spare such that it looks to me like she was simply waiting for me, already blindfolded. She's smiling faintly. I shake my head slightly, and it turns to a small frown.

I get up next to her, pull her blindfold up so I'm the girl again, and say, low in tone, "We're just going to be two friends on a walk. Not costumed." Which reminds me that she really ought to get a proper costume herself, but I'm not sure how we'd get her a costume that works without turning to theft. I've been very carefully not thinking too hard about how, exactly, she's been keeping a roof over her head and feeding herself when she's a teenage girl with, as far as I'm aware, no income and no cash, but... I dunno. Keeping out of her business, suspecting it's not precisely kosher, feels a bit different from pushing her to do something that I'm fairly certain will require illegal activity. More like I'm responsible. I don't like the idea.

It's also not relevant right now, so I can put all this off for another night. Gonna need to find a less questionable way of handling her situation, but... not now.

Now, I need someone to kill.

Cherie pouts a little, but then shrugs, pulls on a pair of sunglasses from some pocket, lets her hair loose, flips her black jacket inside-out so it's now a red jacket, a very similar shade as the streak in her hair, actually, and spends a good thirty seconds pulling her skirt up and doing something to get it to stay in place, having gone from stretching past her knees to being a rather short skirt. I blink, startled at how pronounced the effect is -she's gone from looking like a somewhat severe businesswoman in her thirties who knows how to dress well to looking like she's a fashionable late teens/early twenties woman who knows she looks good and flaunts it. I suddenly feel somewhat self-conscious, realizing I'm still dressed in my usual school clothing, the kind that is not at all flattering to my appearance, and wonder for a moment if it's maybe a bad plan to pretend we're friends out on the town. She grins, presumably pleased by my reaction to her change in appearance, and then bounces to her feet and asks, "So, any more specific ideas of what to be looking for?"

I frown and stare vaguely at a cloud. I catch a glimpse of someone from New Wave flying overhead, waving at people below, and get distracted for a moment wondering if it would make Monster more approachable to have her seen patrolling in daylight hours and whether/how I could fit that into my schedule. I shake my head, glance at Cherie's-

Actually, hold that thought.

I ask her, "What are we calling you?" in a low tone, resisting the urge to glance around like a suspicious person. I don't know whether her real name is widely known, but I don't want us just throwing it around and end up with the PRT finding out somehow and coming after us, even if her name is as little-known to the public as it seems to me.

Cherie's grin broadens and she smoothly says, "I am Carlia Smithson, new friend to one Taylor Hebert. My boyfriend, now ex, was a jerk, and now we're out on the town to cheer me up, maybe you too given the day you've had-" I clench my teeth and look away, feeling... exposed. I say nothing. "-even if our eyes are bigger than our wallets and we know it. We'll probably wander the town for a few hours, look at cool stuff, talk about whatever with each other, and then part ways once we feel better."

I turn to stare at her once I've calmed down, not quite able to comprehend how easily this came to her. Did she just... think of this before she came to meet me, or did she really come up with this off the cuff? She's definitely way better at keeping track of her lies than I am, anyway. It's a good story, too, a good excuse for us to be wandering the town together, doing nothing in particular.

Skin crawling, I go back to trying to answer her original question. What would Skidmark be like? He's not exactly popular with the news, not attention-grabbing like Lung when he gets going or charismatic like Kaiser or anything. I know he's an angry man, quick and creative with the invective, so much so that when he does manage to get screentime half of everything he says gets censored. Actually... now that I think about it, he reads like he's putting up a tough front. Bluffing. Talk a lot of smack in hopes he doesn't have to follow through because you're too intimidated. It... kind of fits. The Merchants are very much the least relevant of the gangs and basically always have been the entire time they've existed, even the Teeth stayed more relevant when they were around but the Butcher wasn't. If he's more bark than bite... that kind of fits. So... angry, pretends to be more confident than he actually is? Maybe actually that confident when dealing with people who aren't parahumans?

I relay this basic description to Ch-Carlia.

... I'm never going to get good at this subterfuge thing, am I?

She throws her left arm around my right arm, I flinch, she gives me a look, but I don't pull away and after a moment I start walking, looking at the ground but not shrugging off her arm. I don't see her reaction, but after a moment she catches up and gently, much more gently than I was expecting, pulls me more toward the right.

After we've been walking for a block like this she starts chattering about nothing of any consequence, I'm not even sure how much of it is real, and I just... let it wash over me, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other and fighting the urge to rip myself from her grip. She's not Sophia. Or Emma. Or any of the others. This isn't like that. She's... well, she's not actually my friend, but she's an ally, not a bully.

I'm tempted, for a moment, to ask her if she can do something about this irrational terror, and then my brain catches up with itself and I shove that in the back of my head and then I get suspicious and glance at Che-Carlia but she's just looking at me like I'm the lunatic and I dunno maybe she's faking really well she's already proven she's a much better liar than I am but... urgh. I focus on logic: I have every reason to believe her power is... sufficiently straightforward that this kind of slow manipulation isn't necessary. Therefore, being suspicious that she seeded the thought in me is... improbable. Especially because she said she's a manipulator of emotions. She could be lying, of course-

-she sighs with frustration next to me but then goes back to her (cheerful) monologue-

-but.

Ugh.

I shove it all out of my head and just... focus on the here, the now.

After a bit I manage to make myself say something plausible in response to something she said. Supposed to be two girls out on the town, talking. Not one girl rambling at a sad, pathetic, useless excuse for a human being-

-she jerks on my arm, pointing casually at an abandoned apartment complex. She's saying something contextually appropriate that has nothing to do with her real point, and I suddenly feel a weird little spike of... triumph?

I look at her, because I'm pretty sure that was her using her power on me, but she shrugs it off, leading us into a shitty, trashed-out alleyway, so badly trashed out that she's able to casually pull us to one side, out of sight from both streets, trusting in the trash to obscure us. At that point she mutters to me, "Found him," and again jerks one arm at the abandoned apartment building, which we're standing next to. After a moment I realize she's actually pointing at a second-floor window, one of the only ones not boarded up, and then I notice a thin trail of smoke curling up out of the window.

Oh. She's found something.

I try to think about where we're at. I wasn't really paying attention, but I want to say this is the right general area for Merchant territory. I mean, I'd expect Skidmark to have a more dignified...

...

... oh, who am I kidding? It's Skidmark. He probably thinks a literal mountain of trash is an appropriate throne.

I tell her to close her eyes for a minute, she shrugs and complies, humming some tune to herself. Nothing I recognize. I hesitate for a moment, trying to figure out how to reach the window without risking being seen leaping through the air outside of my costume, and then decide to settle for pulling my hoodie on, tightening it, and then double-checking that my hair is all inside the hoodie. (It isn't, it takes some effort to get it all in) This requires me to tap Cherie- fuck, Carlia, on the shoulder so she opens her eyes (Raising an eyebrow in response) and I try to ignore the burning embarrassment. Now I'm just a suspicious-looking teen you're not going to see the face of. Then I decide it's... probably a bad idea for Carlia to stay in the area. So I tell her to wait for me at the park we met up at -I'm pretty sure I can find it again. She shrugs, and wanders off, not even glancing at me.

I find myself somewhat uneasy with how cooperative she is. She still hasn't asked about the blindfold or commented on any of the evidence that I turn into a monster, either. I find it difficult to believe she's oblivious, or that she doesn't care. It feels like there has to be an angle to it, but I can't see it. It reminds me uncomfortably of dealing with the bullies, where I'll know they're up to something, but can't figure out what, and end up just building dread.

Then I shove it out of my mind. An issue for later. Here and now, Carlia has turned the corner of the alleyway. I wait another thirty seconds or so, wish I could take a deep breath to smooth out my mental state, and then jump right at the window.

I'm relieved when I stay the monster the whole way up.

The first thing that grabs me about the room is the source of the smoke -a little fire in a metal bowl of some kind in turn kept off the (gutted) desk it's sitting on by metal legs. I'm not sure if it's meant to be a cooking fire or a light source or... something to do with drugs? I don't know enough about drugs to guess, don't want to know.

The second thing that grabs me really ought to have been the first -what a fucking disgusting mess it is. There's wrappers, discarded needles, rotting food (Mostly fast food, looks to me, but I'm trying to not pay close attention to it all), mounds and mounds of newspapers, I think I see a little pile of vomit in one corner, dozens of cockroaches all but partying around the worst messes and I have to fight a paranoid urge to think I've found Locust's nest they're just regular roaches and anyway she's never managed to hurt people with roaches. (Yet, some part of my brain chimes in but I shove that thought into a box too) It's abominable, and the worst part is it appears to be occupied, a mound of blankets in one corner rising and falling with someone's unpleasant-sounding breathing. I find myself incredibly glad the monster doesn't seem to have a sense of smell outside of water (Or whatever is going on there exactly -I really ought to figure that out at some point) because goddamn. I appear to be in what would be a living room if the apartment were in proper use.

I very carefully stalk around, avoiding stepping on anything particularly noisy (I can't avoid stepping on stuff, but stepping into unidentifiable sludge is less likely to wake the hobo than stepping on a candy wrapper), trying to see if I can find confirmation that this is Skidmark and not some random hobo matching the profile I told Cherie -wait, should I still be calling her Carlia? Agh, I dunno- to look for. The adjacent rooms are... there's a bathroom, but the only part in use seems to be the sink, and it's certainly not being used for water. I'm not sure what it's being used for, what I'm looking at means nothing to me. I file it under probably drugs and move on. A different room, probably the master bedroom, has a walky-talky, strangely isolated. As in, there's literally nothing else in the room. Just the little walky-talky sitting in the very middle, alone. The room isn't clean, not remotely, but it's restricted to mold, dust, and other detritus. I take it as confirmation that this is a Merchant, and not an unaffiliated hobo -I can't imagine a random hobo having a walky-talky and treating it with... reverence? There must be some reason. Keeping in contact with other Merchants makes sense to me.

Another room, what I assume would've been another bedroom, has a table and what looks like chemistry set stuff stacked all over it. The area is messy, more trashed-out than the walky-talky room, but less trashed-out than the room the (Man?) is sleeping in. Whoever this is, they have bizarre priorities. Messed-up might be a more appropriate description. I'm guessing the chemistry set is more drug stuff. So their drugs deserve a clean space to make in, but they are going to sleep in the most trashed-out room? Why? What is that?

I consider going out the front door, see if there's anyone else in the apartment complex, but while it's open a crack, it's only a crack. I'm hesitant to risk waking them in that way when I'm not certain there's anything to look for. On the other hand, I'm hesitant to risk waking them at all without knowing whether they're a random hobo or an important Merchant cape. On the third limb, I'm not sure how to figure that out without risking waking them up. It's not like I really know what Skidmark looks like under his costume. I think he was Hispanic?

I stalk around for a minute, trying to see if anything else leaps out at me. I notice the closets, but there's nothing terribly interesting about them -they just continue the trends of the rooms they're inside of. I also notice that only the one window isn't boarded up, which has me wondering why that one isn't boarded up when the others are. If any room was going to be given extra ventilation, I'd expect it to be the chemistry room, especially since they do have it relatively clean. I just can't wrap my head around this guy.

Finally I work up my nerve to very, very carefully open the front door.

At one point it creaks and they snort and roll over, but that's it.

The door opens up into an enormous, old-timey apartment stairwell, the kind where the center is a big hole from top to bottom and apartment doors ring the outside. The banisters are real wood, or at least look like real wood, it's hard to tell through the mold. I'm surprised -this was a nice building before it was... abandoned? Slated for demolition? What happened here? I wish I knew.

I stop gawking and start stalking through the apartment building... it's mostly just empty. Doors are boarded up, lightbulbs have been stolen (?), rot and mold is setting in everywhere. I find myself hoping this building is slated for demolition. I find only two other apartments that aren't boarded up, but there isn't actually anything in either of them. I'm puzzled. I'd been expecting this to be a Merchant enclave of some kind, especially once I saw how nice it once was. Their HQ, maybe? I was expecting a lot of people living in squalor. Not one person living in squalor but otherwise with an entire building to himself. I mean, if he doesn't want to bother with cleaning up his trash at all, he could put in a fairly minimal effort to start sleeping in a different apartment. There's already two that are easily opened, not boarded up at all. I just don't get it.

I also try to figure out how he's entering and leaving. I haven't seen anything like a rope ladder or, well, a rope at all, so I don't think he's entering and exiting by the window, especially since that wouldn't work so well for coming back in since he's by himself. If there were multiple people living here, I could assume they just have someone on site at all times to handle laying it out/pulling it up after people are done leaving, but it's just the one guy. Puzzling. Maybe it is Skidmark and his power is more flexible than I'd been led to believe? Like, I dunno, he lays the effect on the wall and uses that to climb up or to make it more practical to climb down, or something. It's supposed to be... localized gravity? I think? That might make sense.

In any event, I don't find any evidence of another entry/exit than the window. I tested the front door of the building and it's a no-go, I don't find any other usable windows, nothing about the basement really stands out...

Puzzling.

I make my way back to the room, and the door has been closed.

Shit.

I pause, lean up against the wall, try to see if I can hear what's going on inside the room. I hear muttering, but it's hard to make out clearly over the sound of trash crinkling, squishing, snapping, and just generally making a disgusting racket. I think they're pacing? Maybe walking in a circle? So they're agitated. I think I hear swear words, but it's not like Skidmark is the only man in the world who swears, and if they're agitated swearing would make perfect sense. They do seem to be trying to be quiet, sounding angry when they manage to... bang their shin on something, maybe? Something particularly loud, whatever it is. They're not succeeding particularly.

So, okay, they woke up while I was gone, I guess noticed the door was open more than a crack, knew that was wrong, and are... panicking now, I guess?

Ugh. I wish I was sure this was Skidmark. Then I could just try to stab them through the wall and be done with it. If this is an innocent hobo, I don't want to ruin their makeshift home, awful as it is, disgusting as they are.

So I turn to becoming a horror movie monster.

Yes, seriously.

---

It starts with me grabbing a piece of debris -a good-sized chunk of particle board that apparently broke off from one of the boards covering the doors, big enough and, I think, heavy enough that it will make a good clatter when dropped from...

... the highest part of the stairwell. Which is where I drop it from, aiming for the very bottom.

It hits the ground less noisily than I would've preferred, but it works. A few seconds of tense silence later, the man, whoever they are, has opened their door (Quietly, so quietly I almost missed it), closed it again (Still quietly), and walked out toward the railing where I can just barely see them, edging along it. I wouldn't be able to see them at all if I weren't the monster, I don't think, with all the windows boarded up and being inside a stairwell not much light is getting in here. I notice a strange sucking sound. Not sure what it is. Gross shoes?

squish

... really gross shoes?

From there I maneuver to directly above them -carefully, quickly, adjusting my course based on the bizarre, gross sounds I'm hearing- and then thump the floor with a limb. They audibly startle, biting back a curse by the sound of it. Then there's more squishing and sucking noises and other weirdness I can't even begin to describe, seeming to make their way back to their room. I wait, following along the staircase above them, trying to keep out of sight. There's a long pause when they're in front of their door, and I start getting impatient, wondering how long they're going to take to make a decision, before I hear the door creak. Then it creaks again, I'm guessing it's being closed. I'm tempted to swing down from my current position, but it crosses my mind this could be a trick -or they could simply have changed their mind. Either way, I don't want to go falling down the stairwell. So instead I circle around the stairs until I can see the door -it's closed, there's nobody there.

The ground in front of it is clean.

As in, it looks like someone came along and thoroughly wiped the area down within a few feet of the door. I notice it primarily because there's a sharp demarcation of dust -eight feet or so in every direction from the door is clean, and then there's abruptly a layer of grey dust over most everything. I notice there's the occasional droplet of my fluid, beaded atop the dust around me, and I find myself wondering what exactly this stuff is, what I can do with it. With my attention called to the dust, I also notice that chips of wood, bits of gravel, and pretty much every other form of loose griminess is gone in that area around the door.

Okay. I've found a parahuman. Definitely. I... don't think this fits Skidmark? I wish I'd done research on him at some point. I've been researching with more of an eye toward the big threats, and Skidmark is... not one of those.

Dammit. Skidmark I'm pretty sure deserves death, but... ugh. I don't know who I'm dealing with here. Do I-

-the door explodes open -as in literally shatters into splinters flying at me- and I'm suddenly Taylor, not the girl, Taylor, no costume, no protection, and there's splinters slamming into my skin and oh god my glasses where did they go I can't see it's too dark where is the enemy and I hurt and I'm bleeding but I ignore it and ignore the, "Got you," rumbling from somewhere just behind where the door used to be and I throw myself over the banister and ignore the sound of vague confusion that prompts and then

I'm the monster again.

I hit the ground floor and hurl myself to the side, need to avoid line of sight, why did he attack through the door? Some kind of perceptual ability? Heard me, or something? Blind chance? There's schlucking and a dim stomping sound repeating above and the wood creaks. I hear them calling, "I know you're there! You fucked up when you challenged Mush!"

Mush?

... I think that's a Merchant cape? (Male?)

Then there's no time to think because they've slammed through the ground ie through my ceiling and are dropping down and I'm Taylor again, no, goddammit no, I throw myself to the side but I'm still Taylor and I scrabble by feel up the stairs and I hear Mush going, "Really? One girl. Really?" and then something utterly disgusting is wrapping around my heel and I try to kick but it doesn't really accomplish anything, what is this, it's disgusting, did I just feel a roach crawl up my leg oh god, what the fuck is going on, I scrabble and scrabble and nothing is working and they pull and I'm sliding down and banging my head on stairs and it hurts and everything is wrong and then I'm dangling upside-down from my heel while Mush's godawful breath is washing over my face, how big is he, what is this, what is his power?

He starts saying something, but I spit at him where I think his face is and he sounds angry but suddenly I'm the monster and I can see him, covering his face with one hand while the other is gripping a limb -I slip out and drop to the ground and ignore his, "Eh?"- and he's huge and gross and made of trash or something what is this I start stabbing and stabbing and

I'm Taylor again. Fuck.

I barely see a dim shape just before I'm hit and sent flying, in tremendous pain. Before I impact anything, I'm the monster again, and I catch myself on the second floor banister and pull myself up and then I'm Taylor for a second, just a second, before momentum pulls me back out of Mush's sight and I'm the monster again and I cut through a door conveniently right in front of me and duck off to the side and look around to see if I can find anything to throw at him, but there's nothing. Nothing. I can hear him making his way up the stairs, it's loud, he's audibly angry, cursing me out, I think he's complaining about how he'll have to change locations but it's honestly hard to make out what he's saying, particularly when it's anything more than one syllable at a time.

Contrary to my expectation, he doesn't come in through the door, instead crashing through the wall next to the door. Other side from me, at least, and I stay the monster the whole time, get behind him, climb on, and start cutting. I notice that the splinters of wood and the dust flying everywhere and all the other relatively small objects are actually adhering to him and shifting to build up his form.

... he builds a body out of trash?

I file that thought away for later and keep cutting while he roars angrily, flails, and awkwardly tries to reach behind him and grab at me. His arms twist in ways no human arm actually could, but now I can see how the trash it's made of shifts, stretches, or otherwise alters its formation to produce the result he wants. I back away down his back, still cutting, wondering why a body made of trash is so tough, and then I realize the 'wounds' are sealing shut behind my slices. So I stop playing nice, and jam a limb right through his body.

He startles, but he doesn't sound hurt. I'm not sure whether I missed his real body or if there's just no distinction between his human flesh and the trash 'flesh'. The latter is a pretty horrifying possibility, both on a pure disgust level and on a more pragmatic level -I'm not sure I can beat him if there's no such distinction.

So I stab again several times, and this time I see him cough up blood in reaction, in addition to feeling something different with some limb stabs than others. It occurs to me abruptly that I haven't really made an actual decision about whether I want to kill Mush or not. I don't really know enough about him to make a good guess on whether he deserves it or not.

...

Fuck. I got caught up in the moment. Again. Just like with Leet.

I jump over Mush, landing in front of him as Taylor, stumbling for a moment, and turn and ask in a conversational tone, "I don't suppose you'd care to tell me what you do as part of the Merchants." There's just enough light coming in from the window that I'm pretty sure I'm looking at him.

I hear a, "Whuh-" before he rears up to his full (Well, no, not full, because he's too tall for the ceiling here, but he's only a little hunched over) height, turns to cough blood into one hand (I'm the monster again, watching holes still closing where I stabbed through him) and then in the most sneering tone I've heard outside of Emma and Sophia says, "What's it to you, little bitch?" Rude.

I waggle one finger at him and say, "No call for rudeness," bluffing a little. He doesn't know I turn into an inhuman monster able to meaningfully fight him only when he can't see me. Probably. I try to sound flippant, maybe channeling a little bit of Cherie, and say, "Call it professional curiosity."

"Oh, yer looking to horn in on my business are you? Well fuck you, the whores and dealers are mine!"

... okay, I was kind of hoping for something a bit more damning, but I think I can accept this as-

ow

I'm the monster again, off to one side, and then I'm Taylor again, scrambling to get up and then Mush starts coughing heavily again and I'm the monster again, watching him leaning down, clutching at his chest and I maneuver as fast as I reasonably can around to his back and go straight to striking at his head.

To my consternation it doesn't seem to hurt him, and he starts laughing, then breaks into a coughing fit, and then I go stabbing him in the main of his body again, and this time I feel and hear flesh tearing instead of this weird trash-flesh and I strike and strike and strike until he... stops moving, stops screaming.

I wait a moment. He slumps heavily against the ground. After a few seconds where I'm trying to decide whether I should roll him over and check his pulse, the trash-flesh abruptly... loses its cohesion. It oozes out in every direction. If I had a nose, I'd wrinkle it. As-is I reflexively back away. I notice roaches and flies wriggling out of the pile. Somewhat cautiously, I approach what appears to be his real body -a squat man who leaves me thinking very much of some kind of goblin. A goblin that's been perforated.

Hesitantly, I roll him over and move to directly into his vision.

I remain the monster.

His eyes are glassy, and he's not breathing. Also, his gut is full of holes that would be bleeding more if they weren't packed with trash. The thought is repulsive, but I find myself wondering if he was deliberately stemming the bleeding with trash.

... in any event, he's dead.

I feel... vaguely accomplished? A little? Not a lot. He wasn't who I wanted dead, and I'm not entirely sure he actually deserved death.

That thought bothers me. If I were Ta-the girl, I'd frown. I feel... no guilt at all. None. I was more bothered when I killed Nilbog thou-

Did I feel guilty? I don't remember. Upset, definitely. I had a flash of thinking he was my dad and that messed with me and ugh, but... was there guilt?

I'm vaguely disturbed.

The sound of PRT sirens pulls me out of my introspection. For a moment I'm assuming it's unrelated, but then I remember that Mush was causing some fairly significant damage -loud damage.

It crosses my mind that maybe I don't want the PRT to find me at the site of another death. They glossed over Leet's death, but I find myself thinking of, "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me." They might decide it wasn't an accident at all if I'm caught having killed another person.

I leave for the park Cher- Carlia is waiting at.

---

Once I'm out in the wider world as Taylor again, I remember that I lost my glasses. My only pair, since I broke the first pair in my idiotic attempt to dissuade Dad from asking questions. Shit. They probably got broken in the fighting, even if I were to go back for them anyway. Ugh. I'm... ugh. Fantastic. I'd hoped to put off getting Dad to replace my glasses for a month, and now I'll have to explain how these ones got destroyed, too. Which means more lying. Why didn't I give Carlia my glasses? Why didn't I think?

When I get to the park, it's busier than it was earlier, which admittedly isn't hard. Frustrating.

Carlia picks up on my frustration, because of course she does, and comments that she, "Knows a place," with some privacy. Which seems... odd, given how she hasn't-

-she gives me a funny look as she takes me by the hand (I flinch, she pauses, then we continue) and leads me on-

-oh. Right. Her emotion sensing. She'd know where people aren't.

We walk for a bit before she pulls me aside into a warehouse. My initial impulse is to think it's abandoned, but then I'm hearing... dogs? I give Carlia a weird look, and she explains with a shrug, "Someone's keeping the dogs here. They're way on the other side of the city right now, feels like they're in a scrap actually, but the point is I know it's possible to get in here but also there's no one here right now."

Oh. Okay.

I take a deep breath, and then turn to look at Cherie and demand, "Hit me with guilt." After a second I add, "As hard as you can."

Cherie gives me a dubious look. Which, yeah, I'm being weird. I don't care. After a second, I impatiently say, "I know I'm be-"

"I just did it," she says.

...

"I don't believe you."

Cherie makes a noise of frustration and says, "Seriously, I did. I don't know why it didn't work, but I pushed it and it didn't work."

...

I grit my teeth and demand, "Hit me with sadness," and she throws her hands up in the air and then

I feel

something

...

... but not much. I'm having weird half-thoughts like, "I feel kind of bad for Mush," or, "I miss Mom," or, "I miss Emma," but it's all distant, more like what I can remember feeling when I got a bowl of cereal and it wasn't what I'd wanted and I knew Mom wasn't going to give me what I wanted because this was 'healthy' and what I wanted wasn't. It's far, far less than what I felt when she died, or what I felt when I lost Emma.

After a bit the moroseness lifts. I shake my head a little and ask, "Did you do anything else?" and Cherie shakes her head, still giving me a funny look.

"Happiness. Now."

And I barely have time to read her expression before I'm

SO

FUCKING

HAPPY

that I throw myself around Cherie in a hug and say, "You're my best friend, Cherie," and squeeze because, really, she is a good friend, likable and cool and I hope to one day have her self-confidence and she's trying so hard it's so sweet of her and it's nice to not be alone anymore and maybe she'll tutor me on how she manages to dress so nice and

then

it stops.

I realize Cherie is doing her best to lean away from me and is staring at me like I'm a crazy person.

I let go of her, blinking in surprise.

So.

I can be happy.

I'm just not happy.

I file that away for later, open my mouth to demand she hit me with anger, then decide that I proooobably don't need to test that. I've been mad before. Definitely been mad before. So I switch tracks and say, "Fear," and now she's looking at me like I'm a really crazy person but

ohshitsomeoneisheresomeonewantstokillmeveryonewantstokillmeit'sDragonofcourseit'sDragonIkilledherboyfriend

stops. I realize after a moment that I'm in a corner, hugging myself.

I pull myself up, pat down my pants to get some of the dust off of them, and turn around and walk back up to Cherie and nod in acknowledgment. Last test. "Jealousy."

And suddenly I'm hugging Cherie again, she's mine, Emma can't have her, the Protectorate can't have her, mine minemineminemine-

-and then I find myself faintly embarrassed and back away. Oh yeah. Embarrassment is an emotion too. Though... clearly not one that requires a test.

I nod to myself and go, "Okay. Okay."

Cherie is looking at me and for the first time I can remember she looks concerned. "Bo- Taylor. Um. You- well, this is where other people would ask if you're alright, but uh, no, you aren't."

... I'm not? I feel fine.

"You're kind of.. having a big breakdown. Um. Do, uh, should I just hit you with happiness again? I mean-"

Oh. I am crying. I don't think I was crying earlier.

I turn away and rub at my face with my disgusting horrible sleeves, I hate the bullies, I hate crying, I hatehatehate-

-this is actually a nice hoodie, I really liked it when I picked it out, it's served me so well for so long-

-no. "Stop that."

And then the world is a terrible horrible awful place wherein I'm not even allowed to feel guilt and can barely feel real sadness I'm not a real person I'm just a monster I don't deserve better and-

-Cherie is hugging me why is she hugging me why does she smell nice.

I feel better. It makes me mad. "Stop using your power it's wrong that's wrong-"

and then I'm the monster and Cherie says, "Not using my power."

and I realize it still feels nice to be hugged as the monster.

I feel weird. I'm... still not happy to have learned that I'm apparently incapable of feeling guilt, that's, that's wrong, that's horrible, but it's more intellectual. Less existential horror, more, "What can I do to fix this?"

I realize I can fix it. I don't need a conscience to have a conscience -I don't need emotions to tell me something is wrong and I shouldn't do it. I'd rather have the emotions, but I can work around it. I just need to stop assuming my emotions will prevent me from doing wrong, or... reframe it? I haven't tried to kill the bullies, I sort of assumed it was because I'm a moral person who would never kill people who don't really deserve it but in retrospect I wonder how much of it was the fear that it would be connected back to me -if Sophia Hess and Emma Barnes were to die, and only them die, that'd be pretty conspicuous, who else would have motive but one Taylor Hebert? Hell, even if I was willing to just kill everyone who's ever tormented me at the school -which would be a lot of people- it wouldn't change the point. Who else has motive? And in a world of parahumans, it's just... easy to guess I'm a parahuman and then move to prove it. So maybe my historical reason was that I'd rather put up with their bullshit until high school is done than kill them and end up Birdcaged. (... okay, not Birdcaged, you have to be a lot worse than a parahuman-who-commits-murder to go there, but a lesser jail is still jail)

That makes me feel better.

... in addition to the hug.

I pull away, vaguely embarrassed again, and then cease to be the monster as Cherie opens her eyes. She starts to say something but I cut her off. "I want to stay at your place tonight." She startles, and I add, "Can- can you call my dad and, um, tell him we're... having a slumber party or something? I- I just can't face him tonight. Tomorrow. Just... not tonight."

Cherie's jaw works up and down for a few seconds before she manages to put a smile on her face and say, "Sure, I can totally do that, but we might want to get moving first. Whoever has been taking care of the dogs here is heading this way, and they're mad."

I nod, and we're off.

3.x

Cherie Vasil

Managing Taylor's dad is easy. He's all too happy to support Taylor building a friendship with someone, even if he's a little concerned that she's going to end up hurt again. I don't read like a 'bad influence' to him, so he's willing to keep his concerns to himself for the moment, though I'm pretty sure he'll probably try to figure out what kind of person I am by interrogating her.

Phone call handled, I smile at Taylor, take her by the hand, give her a second to recover from the reflexive flinch (What is that about?), and then lead her to the hotel I'm staying at.

Naturally, she's all suspicious and asks how I'm staying here once we're inside my room. I roll my eyes at her -it's not actually a particularly nice/expensive hotel- and pull out a sheaf of money, should be 4500$~ at this point, and explain how Dad wasn't a big fan of actually paying for things himself, and so anytime he brought me along to scope out a target he just made me carry all the money for those rare times he couldn't get out of paying for something.

She does that fucking aggravating thing where she believes me but refuses to actually accept that she believes me because REASONS, but I let it slide. She let me on her team, we've done stuff, it's been fun and we haven't even hit a big target yet, I'm willing to give her space for now. She's not getting on my case about it, anyway -probably thinks I stole the money from somewhere, which yeah, I did, that somewhere being my dead father- so it's not a big deal.

Taylor takes a chair and looks around. I see her eyes catch on where I'm keeping other outfits, feel a longing from her, still haven't pinned down why she keeps doing that about clothing, but then she moves on, eyes wandering over the space. There's not a lot to see, and she's disappointed. My guess? She wanted to pick up clues about me, maybe find drugs so she could justify breaking up with me to herself.

Not that I haven't had fun, but it's been awhile and I kind of left home on short notice, so all I really had on me was the money and the clothes on my back, so that stuff got left behind with the fam. Not a lot of time available to go hunting down good quality, clean drugs while hurrying to find Dad's killer. There was that one guy who I was able to guilt into giving me a ride... but he was offering to share because it would impair my judgment and he thought that would give him a chance. Ew, no.

And now I'm going to stay clean, because this is the best high, and I don't want to lose out.

I wait a minute for Taylor to say something while I strip down to the T-shirt and skirt -don't need all the extra layers for warmth inside the hotel- and set them aside for later. It doesn't come, and a glance at her shows that she's still just looking around the room, bouncing one leg. She's anxious, a little bored, not as curious as I thought she'd be. She's not going to be the one to start a conversation.

That's fine. Gives me some control over the direction conversation goes. I'm still hoping for details on... a lot of things.

"So," I start off as casually as I can, pretending I don't notice Taylor's stab of panic, "Care to share what all the feels were about?"

She shakes her head mutely. There's... not as much anger as I was worrying, a little fear, some squeamish complexity going on I can't quite untangle before it flickers away, and a fair chunk of embarrassment. Eh. Tests were fun, anyway. Glad she didn't go for anger, though, she's been... pretty apocalyptic when she's been angry, and it comes on fast, so I'm not convinced I'd have been safe if she'd made me hit her with anger.

The jealousy test was very interesting, though. Still not sure if Taylor was jealous of me or jealously possessive of me. Either one is a hook, one I can nurture without even using my power. Just need to be careful to not punch her buttons until I've worked out which it is -hopefully it isn't both, I hate it when that happens, it's always such a pain to separate them out and prune them properly.

"Okay then," I start in a warm, accommodating tone I've needed to use way too much in appeasing Daddy. "We can talk about something else. You have any plans for the near future?"

She breaks eye contact, looking out the window, and mumbles, "The Dragonslayers." Hmm. Interesting choice. Her emotions were flat, a bit angry, and... I'm not able to pin down the last bit before it flickers away too. Irritating.

I nod along, say, "Okay, makes sense. Stop them from further impairing Dragon, yeah?" and her emotions spike, anger and a heck of a lot of fear and the concoction that I usually call paranoia, a kind of horrible anticipation that something bad is going to happen, the very second I'm saying Dragon. Wow, okay. What's that about?

Her visible reaction is nearly nil. A slight widening of the eyes I only notice because my power let me know about the underlying emotion first, as she turns to face me, not quite making eye contact, and says in a near-monotone, "Not... exactly," and then she clams up. Can't follow her exact thoughts, but it's moody brooding stuff, still with a dash of paranoia. She's got Issues with Dragon. Weird. Did she ever meet Dragon?

I cock my head and go with innocent curiosity. "Dragon bothers you? What, she too goody-two-shoes for you?" with the second half delivered in a joking tone. Come on Boss, you've gotta pick up on a joke at some point. I know you can find things funny, I've felt you experiencing humor. Just... not around me, for some reason. Dammit.

Nope, joke rolls right off her. Can't even tell if she doesn't realize it's humor or if she recognizes it but finds it utterly un-funny. Instead she shakes her head ever-so-slightly, anxiety spikes while she visibly hesitates to speak, and then finally she swallows nervously and says, "P-... promise not to laugh?"

I don't hesitate at all, saying, "Not unless you tell a joke, Boss," and giving a casual salute. Sincerity laced with humor. It doesn't get the reaction I want, failing to really set her at ease, and in fact she pulls her legs up and hunches over them, anxiety roiling off of her like I've never felt except when... she was at school. Oh, great. She's treating me like one of the assholes at her school? Crap, minus a million points. Step up your game Cherie, stop stepping in it.

Uuugh, how do normal people not go insane with frustration dealing with each other? This is so hard when I can't use my powers to manipulate her (safely) and I still get to directly sense her emotions!

So, in a vaguely fetal position and so tense any idiot could tell by looking at her that she's stressed, she says, in the most mumbly, least confident tone I've heard from her, "I think Dragon was Nilbog's girlfriend."

I blink, work my jaw, raise a finger in objection and then shift it to tap my jaw thoughtfully when I notice her tensing further at my rising hand, and then go with a non-committal, "Huh." Because... what? What is she talking about? But no, don't laugh (Not that it's funny, just confusing) and don't mock her and don't... just don't do anything to provoke her, this matters to her more than literally anything else she's said or done around me -well, maybe a close second to killing Daddy- so if I botch it the team is probably over. Walking the tightrope.

She's doing this thing where she's looking at me from between her legs, hair partially obscuring her eyes, like I won't know she's looking at me or something if she puts multiple partial barriers between us. Need to work on that. She was strong and confident and badass when she went after Daddy -well, until shortly after he died, still not sure what the freakout was about- and while we were on the hunt for the dumbass duo but it's like anytime she thinks of herself as plain old ordinary Taylor she just... loses it all. Really need to fix that.

After a few more seconds of me tapping my chin thoughtfully, trying to figure out how the hell I respond to this piece of weirdness her entire emotional profile turns real ugly and I have to fight the urge to just hit her with pure happiness because she'll notice that so I kind of... round off the edges. Slowly. She starts rambling and I do my best to simulate a cathartic release of confession without her noticing that normally she'd be in a depressive spiral, and it's tricky.

"She tried to stop me when I attacked Nilbog and I just can't imagine why she'd do that he's a villain and she's a hero and he killed an entire town shouldn't she have been helping me and they covered up that I was there and Dragon got the credit and it's a stupid tinfoil hat conspiracy theory but I believe it anyway and it's horrifying and dumb and I'm dumb for believing it-"

She stopped, of course, because I hugged her, ignoring how the body my arms go around is cool to the touch, slick with something, and naked. Whatever is happening there -really need to ask someday when I think she'll answer me- it stabilizes her mood without further intervention from me. She calms down, even compared to the muted state she's in, as I continue the hug and make wordless soothing noises largely stolen from Daddy's various girls. They worked on babies, why not? Not like pre-trigger television gave me any better ideas, and I've never needed to learn how to calm people down, aside from Daddy and... nothing worked on him that I ever found...

Anyway!

After a minute, when she stops reacting positively to the hug, I pull back and say, "Could be a Master effect," and say no more because holy fuck I have no idea how to address this.

She goes very still, staring right through me, and mouths something before shaking herself and Monster is back fuck yes.

"I want the Dragonslayers dead because nobody else is going to do the job. Heroes tolerate them because while they support military juntas in Africa and occasionally parts of the ex-Soviet region, most of their work on US and European soil is restricted to killing villains... you know, except for when they steal from Dragon." There's some bitterness there, a breach in the Monster, but she continues smoothly. "Also, I-" she pauses, picking her words, and there's a spike of anger but it's not aimed at me so I do my best to hide the shiver of fear. "-am free of school for two weeks anyway and I suspect hunting the Dragonslayers down will take considerably longer than most of my less mobile and/or less well-hidden targets. So I was thinking we could tell my dad that we're camping or something for fun, turn this negative into a positive."

I grin, say, "Cool, when do we start?" and pay closer attention to her emotions.

Still controlled, focused, and she promptly says, "Tomorrow. I need a... break."

I nod, say, "Fair enough," and then my smile widens and I say, "So are we going to... get to know each other better tonight?"

She looks at me blankly and gives a vague, "I guess," in response, and her emotions are if anything flatter than her expression. Huh.

So I say, "Now, obviously, you already know the basics of my life, but I don't really know much anything about yours. You first?" which is a bit of a lie, I know she's treated like shit at school and that a lot of it is malicious, and I've already worked out that her mother isn't around, probably dead given what I've picked up from her and her dad around their home, and I know -well, knew before she called me her best friend- that she has literally no friends unless you count me, which... I'd honestly thought she didn't count me, actually. Pleasant surprise to learn otherwise. Suggests she's more desperate than I'd thought. Not used to mis-estimating that.

She startles, and I can tell she's genuinely caught off-guard. Hmm. She stammers a little, saying, "Th-there's not really anything that interesting about my life."

I laugh a little behind one hand, because oh my god, really? She's on a murder spree and she thinks she's normal? So I say, "There's gotta be something, if you were completely boring you wouldn't have triggered-" and there's more of that confusion. I cock my head again, and continue with, "... and you don't even know what a trigger event is, do you?"

She hesitates, and there's waaaay too much reluctance there, like she thinks I'll hurt her if she admits ignorance or something, and finally she says, "I... sorta assumed... you were talking like, um. Trigger warnings?" Framing it as a question, nervous, doesn't want to admit she really has no clue. Wow, whatever is going on at school it's really messed with her head. Also, the heck is a trigger warning?

Whatever. I school my face into my best 'teacher' look -it's not really very good, I'm pretty sure, I'm better at sexy teacher than educator of children- and say, "A trigger event is when you get your powers. Bad shit happens to you, I mean seriously bad shit, shit like you've been buried alive and you're slowly suffocating while your siblings stand around taunting you and you beg and scream and your dad just slams you with more fear and-" shit. Redirect, redirect! "-and, um, yeah. Bad stuff. Worst day you've ever had by like a hundred times. You black out, and you wake up with powers." I pause, watching Taylor's wide-eyed stare, reading her emotions (Some shock, fair bit of horror, a spike of anger mixed with vicious satisfaction I'm going to assume is aimed at Dad) and then continue with, "So since you're a parahuman, you've got to have a story." As if tacking on an afterthought, I hurriedly say, "Not that I'm asking for you to relive your trigger event or anything! I just mean that you can't possibly be a Boring Ordinary Girl or else you wouldn't have a power, that's all."

Awww. I don't think she's going to reciprocate. Fuck. Meant to share that later, when she was liable to reciprocate. Instead, with a cautious note like I'm made of fucking glass goddammit don't do that I'm not fucking fragile, she says, "So it's... not like X-Men? No power puberty?"

Oh my god she knows about X-Men but not Batman? Why. Why.

I realize I said that aloud when she gets defensive and says, "They were my mom's. Said they were good comics for girls, or, well, she said they were good comics for girls before they noticed they were popular with girls and added in a bunch of sexed-up bimbos no teenage girl would actually relate to in a panicked attempt to appeal to said girls. I've never been a comics person, though. Seemed redundant with real capes running around?" Still saying things like they're questions, what is with that?

I just... okay, whatever. Whatever!

"No, no 'power puberty'. Worst day of your life, black out, wake up with powers. Okay? Trigger event. Done."

"Oh."

And then there's silence, Taylor closing up and focusing on her own thoughts. Ugh.

I flop onto the bed, grab the remote, and flip channels until I find something where I don't have to worry about the disconnect of people showing feelings on-screen while I'm reading nothing from them. Ends up being a nature documentary jabbering about ants. I know way the fuck more about bugs than I would've ever chosen to learn, let me tell you, most animals rat-size and up register to my power and ever since dear old Daddy made me trigger it just made it really hard to watch television with animals or people who are supposed to be emotional (ie all of them) while my power insists there's nobody feeling anything. Makes my skin crawl, like having a store mannequin turn and start talking to you, still obviously a mannequin.

So: bugs. Way the fuck too much info about bugs. I don't feel anything from them anyway, so it's all good.

Well, except when they start getting into wasps that turn caterpillars into zombies dedicated to protecting the eggs implanted inside them that hatch into wasp babies that deliberately eat them such that they stay 'alive' for as long as possible. I mean, it still makes my skin crawl and my stomach lurch less than watching television with people on it, but that is some And I Must Scream bullshit.

Right now it's just a program talking about ants that farm fungus. It's like they're tiny, six-legged people with their skeletons on the outside! Or something. I mean, I've seen this basic crap before, but it's better than being bored and Taylor is just over there brooding. Not sure the exact details, but my guess is that she's looking back on her trigger event and going, "Oh, so it wasn't coincidence that the worst day of my life gave me powers," and having all kinds of dumb drama about whether she should be grateful to her tormentors -I'm guessing it happened at school and was caused by people, it seems the obvious explanation- and I really really hope she's not having second thoughts about killing Big 'Uns just because, "Being a parahuman is suffering," and misplaced sympathy. Not that I've ever read sympathy from her, ever, but she apparently cares about caring, which, ugh. She waaaay overestimates the average person's moral integrity. I mean, seriously, you just hit them with a little terror or a little anger, not even that much, and they just throw all that stupid morality stuff out the window and then tell themselves that it wasn't really them or some dumb shit.

Yeah, that totally was you, dumbass. Just because I made you angry doesn't mean it wasn't you who decided to knife that person. Same fucking thing as if someone else pissed you off and you knifed someone because you were angry, and you take responsibility for that. (Except for the dumbasses who don't...)

Uuuugh. Commercials are the worst, too. At least people in commercials are so obviously fake I can just pretend to myself they actually are mannequins or something. Makes it less skin-crawling. A bit less. Enough that I can cope, anyway, it's not like muting it or looking away until the regular programming resumes helps since the dissonance is still there.

The afternoon continues in a similar vein: Taylor brooding, me watching what television doesn't screw with my head. I periodically try to engage her in conversation, but the closest thing to a success I get is when I finally decide to head out and get dinner and I ask Taylor if she wants anything. She hesitates, having all kinds of weird emotional drama that I'm pretty sure has to do with whoever it was that betrayed her for giggles, and finally asks for a soda and maybe some pizza.

I make it happen. She doesn't need to know that this doesn't involve spending money, nor does acquiring my own lunch. Just an attractive girl successfully flirting her way to free food. (Ha ha, I kid, I used my power)

When I come back with the food, she moves her chair so she's just off to the side of the television, in my view, and eats carefully. Hmm. There's been the thing with the blindfold, too. Other examples. She's always so uncomfortable, too. I don't think she's ashamed of the critter, she's not been big on shame so far, but she's got to have some reason why she won't let me see it. It can't be that seeing it would strike me dead. Still having trouble figuring that out. Hopefully she'll get over... whatever it is, at some point.

Maybe there's an involuntary component? Not like I can turn off my ability to read emotions. TV would actually be enjoyable if I could.

Hmmm.

Once the food is finished, Taylor surprises me by shoving her trash to one side, taking a deep, calming breath, and giving me her rambling story without being asked, facing out the window rather than toward me.

"I used to be friends with a girl called Emma." Incandescent rage, bitterness, longing, anger anger anger. Well, at least now I know why 'best friend' provokes a negative response from her. Spoken in a dead monotone.

"We were so close we were practically sisters. One day, for reasons I have never understood and never gotten an answer on, she decided she hated me and became friends with another girl, and the two of them cemented their newly formed friendship by bonding over tormenting me at school." Anxiety, regret, anger, fear, depression. Still the monotone.

"Their actions started small. They said mean things about me. They tripped me. They stole assignments from me. They broke things of mine. All under the teachers' collective nose, all ignored by staff, even as they began to build up a host of cronies that either enjoyed participating for their own reasons or simply hoped to become popular by pleasing the popular kids, all for the low, low price of their soul." Anger, tightly clipped. She wants to hurt them, refuses to let herself do it. Also still in a monotone.

"Initially I fought back, but they'd thought this through and made sure I always got the blame, or at least that no one got in trouble. I switched to trying to tear down their arguments, but it wasn't about logic, it was about meanness. I tried being mean back, but that just made them laugh. So eventually I moved to just... trying to get them caught." No emotion at all.

"Initially that didn't work at all. They were cannier than I was, more aware of where the teachers were, more aware of which teachers would do what thing in what situation. When it did work, it was only getting one of their hanger-ons in trouble. The terrible twosome disavowed all knowledge of her actions and left her to rot." I was expecting a spike of triumph or pleasure or something. There's nothing.

"This helped a little. The other hanger-ons were a little less eager to participate, made more of an effort to stay out of the way. Emma and her new friend stepped up their game in response, and did their best to turn it deeply personal." Jesus, where is the emotion?

Shifting from a dead tone to a casual, conversational tone, Taylor said, "Did you know my mother is dead?" Flat emotions.

I nod cautiously, half-wondering if this is some kind of trap. I had guessed as much.

Taylor nods to herself, still facing toward the window rather than me. She continues in the monotone. "It was a car wreck. It involved a cell phone. Emma told me it's my fault my mother is dead." A pause, while I take that in. Taylor nods so slightly I'm not sure she's aware she's doing it. "It's true. My mother is dead, and it's my fault." No guilt, but we already established that. Tiny bit of sadness. Tiny.

She finally turns to face me and smiles slightly. "I didn't let Emma see the hurt. The light died in her eyes as she saw me stare back impassively, unaffected by the worst thing she could think to do to make me suffer. I'd won." There is exactly zero positive emotion in her voice or her actual emotions. Little unsettling.

Then the smile fades and she goes back to facing out the window. "They left me alone for a bit. It proved I'd won. They couldn't hurt me anymore. Not by twisting the knife. So I was very surprised when I discovered that my locker had been violated, filled with tampons." A pause, and some anger actually reaches her voice for the next words. "Used tampons." Hurt, anger, hurt hurt, murderous fury. How the fuck has she not killed them if she feels this way about their actions?

Then it's back to the monotone. "That was disgusting, of course. I think I threw up. My memory isn't entirely clear. What I do remember is being shoved inside, the door closed behind me. Everybody went to class and ignored my pleas for help. The smell, the fucking taste, the claustrophobic space, I wanted out. I wanted out so badly." Tired.

"I hit my head somewhere in there. Convulsing, I think. I don't remember why. It was strange and terrible. I remember wondering what could possibly motivate Emma and her replacement friend to go through all this effort just to fuck with me. It didn't make sense." Confusion, a bit lost. Tiny bit of sadness.

"At some point in there I-" and here she pauses and looks at me again, and I can tell she's waffling on whether she should say something or not. After a moment, in a carefully neutral tone of voice, she asks, "Car-Cherie? What do you think my power is?" Difficult to pin down her emotions here. Nervousness, some kind of anticipation. Not sure what about.

I shrug and, as honestly as I can, say, "Well, you shrug off my emotional manipulation somehow. Erratically. I know you killed Nilbog-" and there's that twitch of emotion again, the proof. "-and Daddy-" flinches. Fear? It's a tangled knot and it vanishes so fast I'd miss it if I'd blinked, metaphorically speaking. "-so you're apparently pretty scary-dangerous." After a pause, where she's watching me, waiting for something more, I say, "Also you apparently turn into some kind of landsquid or something?"

Disappointingly, there's not a strong response. Awww. I was hoping to mess with her some. She just turns to face the window again, and then resumes talking as if this detour never happened.

"I became the monster for the first time there, in the locker. Shoved the locker door so hard it ripped out, freeing me, fled straight home, never did go back to school that day." A pause. I note that phrase: the monster. Telling. "I guess I triggered in the locker." Another pause, and then somewhat idly, picking at a piece of her shirt she continues. "I still wonder sometimes what Emma and her friend think happened. If they guessed I must be a parahuman, it didn't convince them to stop harassing me. Maybe they blamed it on adrenaline? I dunno. It's been ages since I understood Emma, and I never understood her replacement friend." Boredom, or something close. That's... really weird.

Then she turns to me and smiles a brittle, fake smile, so fake it would be obvious it was fake if I didn't get to see directly the complete lack of anything positive going on in there, bar maybe some catharsis, some relief. "So now you know my story, same as I know yours."

After a long, long pause where I'm trying to pick an appropriate response to this, her fake smile slides off her face, she curls back into a vaguely fetal position, and goddammit she's getting depressed again.

I bounce out of the bed and go to hug her again, but she twists away mumbling some idiocy about not deserving it or whatever and I slap her.

She turns to me with wide eyes, shocked and confused, holding one hand to the cheek I hit. I note a bruise forming. Hit her harder than I'd meant to. Pissed me off.

I glare and say, "Seriously. I've already told you I'm not like your whorebag ex-friend. Stop expecting me to be like her. It's really fucking offensive," and then I hug her and she's too befuddled to do anything. She turns into the squid thing again -'the monster'- and now I'm almost certain there's an involuntary component because she's too busy having a little blue screen of death going on to be deliberately inducing the state. Maybe she has to consciously maintain focus on staying human? No, that doesn't seem right. Oh, whatever.

After a minute of feeling her reach a somewhat better mental space, I pull back and-

Wait, when the hell did the bruise go away?

She notices me staring confusedly at where the bruise should be, turns away so that side of her face is away from me and I grab her by the face and turn her around and look and seriously, the bruise is already gone. I blink, and she slips out of my grip somehow and mumbles, "I heal," and yeah, obviously, but I didn't see any evidence of it happening.

She changes the subject. Blatantly. "When are you going to bed?"

It takes my brain a second to catch up, and I let the grin spread across my face and go for teasing. "When are you planning to join me?"

Only one bed in the room. It's a twin, but it's still just the one bed.

She stares blankly at me. My grin fades, and finally she says, firmly. "I don't sleep."

Aaaaand that kills my grin entirely.

Dammit, this 'sleepover' just got way less fun.

I try to think of some other fun thing to say and come up blank. Aaargh. I had a list! I was going to be teasing her for hours, maybe even days. See if I could get a strong reaction out of her that was totally natural and not murderous fury. But nooo, she doesn't need the bed. She's just going to-

...

"... Taylor, what were you planning on doing all night?"

She looks away again, and her emotions are all kinds of miserable. After a second she mumbles, "I'd thought you'd have a laptop I could do research on." After a pause she adds in an even lower mumble, "As is... probably just brood all night." Completely 100% honest.

Oh hell no. No no no no no.

No.

"Come on Taylor, into the bed with you," and I pull her out of the chair and toward the bed and ignore her starting to say something about how she'll turn into the monster or whatever the fuck and shove her into the bed (She'll heal if I'm overly aggressive with her, whatever) and declare, "We are doing cuddles. Cuddles make everything better. You are not leaving this bed until I leave this bed."

She keeps mumbling vague protestations about what a disgusting horrible monstrosity she is, but I note she doesn't actually leave the bed or shove me away or anything that would be happening if she really wasn't going to go along with this. I mean, come on, she's not some helpless damsel.

I tell her firmly, "Stay here," and head off to do my nightly ablutions, including changing into sleepwear.

When I come back, she's still laying exactly where I pushed her. I give her a strange look, tell her, "Come on, let's change you into something actually comfortable to sleep in," grab a passable outfit -there's nothing that will be good on her, she's got something stupid like half a foot on me- shove her into the bathroom with it, tap my foot impatiently just outside the door so she knows I'm waiting (Though really it's her feelings I'm paying attention to), start considering shoving my way in and dressing her myself, but then she gets it handled and comes out, looking ridiculously lost and helpless and oh my god girl.

I look her up and down real briefly, comment, "Good enough for now," and then shove her toward the bed, ignoring her vague mumbled protestations, turn out the light -she stops talking abruptly, I note that- and then slip under the covers and reach out to hug her.

For a moment I think she's trying to move away because of her stupid issues, and am about to say something scathing, but then I get a good grip on her and she only moves a little more. Hmm. Whatever.

"Good night," I say. There's no response from her, but I wasn't expecting one.

It takes a while, but eventually I drift off.

---

I wake up abruptly, sometime before dawn. At first I think Taylor has fled and that's what woke me, but then I realize she's still firmly in my grasp, still the squid.

Sitting up and looking around, ignoring Taylor shifting almost silently, I look around, see nothing off. Something woke me up. I check for if there's any conspicuous emotional signatures, such as one outside the window -we're on the fifth floor- or stopped in front of my room's door, but there's no such thing to explain why I'm unsettled enough to wake up way too early.

What grabs my attention is that the city-wide emotional spectrum is shifting toward anxious. Strange. The way it's growing is weird, too. It's not progressing in a wave, which is what I'd expect if something was happening like Lung on a rampage. Instead, a cluster of individuals will all get anxious at the same time, or one person will get anxious and those closest to them react after a minute. I swear this is familiar.

After a minute, I remember: Endbringer attacks. I've seen this basic pattern in Toronto when an Endbringer attack was on the news.

Okay. Pattern of reaction suggests it's not occurring here, and I think Endbringer sirens are a thing in the US? I'd expect it to be, it's the PRT's fault Canada started implementing them. No sirens are blaring.

Just in case, I pop out of bed, grab the remote, and start flipping channels, looking for news channels. Taylor steps abruptly into my vision, startling me -I didn't even hear her leave the bed- and asks, "What? What's going on?"

I wave one hand flippantly, intending to blow her off, but then the TV hits an international news channel and yep, it's an Endbringer attack. Simurgh, hitting... Canberra? Don't recognize the name. It's apparently in Australia?... the ticker at the bottom is repeatedly informing parahumans to report to their nearest PRT office if they intend to volunteer.

"We're going."

Oooooh fuck no. "Boss, I can't contribute anyth-"

"Search and rescue," and her voice is hard. Which would be awesome if she wasn't trying to rope me into facing a goddamn Endbringer.

Redirect, redirect. "What about you? I'm pretty sure you, what, can't maintain the squid state when people see you?" She doesn't flinch physically, but I can feel her emotional reaction. I've hit a nerve. "So how are you expecting to contribute in a great big fight with lots of people? Do you even have any powers other than turning into the squid?" and then I remember the bruise vanishing and amend it to, "And that regeneration, I guess."

She looks away and mumbles something about people and presences.

"So no, not really."

And now she's depressed oh goddammit.

I fight the temptation to just hit her with happiness again. I could maybe take the edge off her depression if I'm subtle, but last time I went for unsubtle she picked up on it just fine and was shifting over to murder mode before I kicked her back into an appropriately depressive mindset.

Instead I throw my hands up in the air and say, "Okay fucking fine, would throwing a sheet over you work?"

She looks at me, blinking confusedly. I can feel hope swelling in her. Great. After a moment she cautiously says, "I never thought of that possibility. I... I don't know?" and she says 'I don't know?' like she's happy to be saying it.

Fucking wonderful. Fan-frickin'-tastic. We're turning her into Casper The Friendly Ghostsquid.

I spend a minute working a sheet out from the bed, and then turn around and with my eyes closed say, "Hold still," and move until Taylor's signature (Muted) is right in front of me and then throw the blanket over her squiddy form. Then I say, "I'm opening my eyes now," and do so.

I am facing a sheet that is not actually large enough to completely cover the squid. I can see a number of (Arms?). Okay. Fuck. I was hoping that wouldn't work and I could finagle this into us having some ice cream. Or going murdering something actually plausible. With some effort -trying to ignore the stab of joy Taylor is experiencing- I put a frown on my face and say, "We're going to need a bigger sheet."

The sheet jerks up into the air and I just barely have an impression of a zillion long, blue legs (Arms? Legs? Ugh, I dunno) before it's abruptly Taylor again, with a small smile on her face, ducking off to one side to avoid the sheet as it falls back to the floor. Excitedly she says, "We can do that! You've got money, we can just buy a big sheet, is there a size bigger than King I forget-"

I cut her off and say, "Are you going to wear a costume?"

She pauses, says, "If I'm under the sheet it shouldn't be necessary?" and I don't think I want to know why she's saying it like it's a question.

"Were you able to see from under the sheet?"

She cringes a bit, but then brightens and goes, "I can cut eyeholes in it!" After a momentary pause she adds, "With my limbs. They have blades, you know." Which no, I did not know that, and it might explain some of what she's done as the squid.

Oh god. She really is going to be Casper the Friendly Squidghost. Fuck my life.

I heave a great big sigh and say, "Can we just... not do this?"

And her face is stone and it's fantastic but then she says, "We're helping," and I sigh again because ugh.

We proceed to get dressed, head out to find a store with as large a sheet as we can find, buy the damn thing, duck into an alleyway so I can tie my hair up and in general switch over to my costume while she cuts... sigh... eyeholes into the sheet. We confirm that having her eyes -which are green compound eyes?- sticking out through the eyeholes doesn't revert her to Taylor, and then we head to the PRT HQ.

To go to where the Simurgh is.

Seriously, fuck my life.