Background: I showed Mist of Shadows and Godogma the one page CYOA 'You appear in a magic shop with only $15'. Naturally this led to a discussion on 'what the smartest thing to do would be' which we were mainly in agreement on with some minor difference in detail based on personalities and preferences. (Naturally my answers were the right ones and theirs were only mostly correct.)

This led to Mist writing: 'Myst and the Magic Shop' which he tossed on his (Place that Yahoo will not allow to be named).

Later while we were discussing the CYOA I used for 'Warranty Void if Soul is Broken' which is mainly the GForse1000's EYE CO, Rule 34 Economy CYOA version, we started spitballing on how his SI from the above named fic would respond to it and how to drop him in there.

Wanting as large an amount of points as possible he chose Summoning and Binding for method of drop in. That led to a discussion on who would be gullible enough to actually try and summon someone in Worm, what they would want, and most importantly… how he could slip the bindings so he could save the world and not be enslaved for a year and a day.

We decided the most gullible and easy manipulated person in Worm was Greg Veder aka Void Cowboy. I made a few jokes about how things would go and how ridiculous it was. We both laughed about it… then he called in a marker and said I had to write it. He said he'd write the Myst parts, so I'd only have to write half of it and I agreed.

Anywho, that's the backstory on how this little gem came to be and how Greg Veder became a powerful hero, got the girl, and saved Worm. Maybe… stories not done yet after all.

Contractual Obligations

Greg slumped in his chair, nothing had gone right recently, which this being Brockton Bay really came as no surprise, but it was worse than usual lately. Taylor had gotten seriously hurt in school, hurt enough that she'd been sent to the hospital and no one seemed to care.

Well care in a positive way anyway, Emma and Sophia seemed pretty pleased about it and Madison made jokes about it to the pair but didn't mention it when they weren't around.

He still wasn't sure what had happened, he'd heard it involved being locked in her locker and the horrid stench on the second floor which had everyone avoiding the area, but except for rumors about everything from The Merchants trying some new recruitment method to The Empire storing the body of a failed initiate into one of the lockers, he wasn't sure what to believe.

Maybe they were all true?

Maybe someone had stuffed Taylor into her locker which was near the locker with the body in it and no one had noticed because of The Merchant recruiter hanging around up there driving everyone off.

Yeah, that actually sounded likely. Merchants had to recruit from somewhere and The Empire did like to make examples of people who didn't fit what they thought of as people. Naturally with all that going on Taylor being stuffed in her locker by the three girls was overlooked by everyone until she'd nearly suffocated.

Feeling a bit better about the situation, now that he'd managed to figure out what had happened, Greg stretched and tried to figure out what he could do to help Taylor, it was her smile that made going to school just a bit more bearable… Well, not really her smile but the way she'd look at him and actually see him, rather than looking through him as a lot of other girls did.

Girls were harder to figure out than what was going on with Legend and whatever evil scheme he was hiding behind his fake heroic persona. Really, if he didn't want people to figure out he was evil he'd have been less wholesome, no one was that good. The man made normal heroes look like… someone you would meet in the line for a new video game over at the mall. There was such a thing as too perfect, though most of the public seemed to be fooled.

Greg pushed thoughts of what Legend was hiding and tried to focus on Taylor. Taylor needed help and he needed to find some way to provide that help since it didn't look like anyone else was doing it. He racked his brain and came up blank, there was nothing he knew at the moment that would help.

He chewed on his bottom lip and tried to figure out where he could get what he needed to know to figure out how to help her. If he could find out what he needed to know he'd be halfway there, right? Right!

Greg nodded decisively and turned to the one source of knowledge that had never let him down! Well, hardly ever. Really the advice he'd found online for figuring out girls was really hit or miss; it was like they were talking about completely different people or something. Still, it was his best bet for finding out what he needed to know so he could help Taylor.

He opened a browser, brought up a search engine, and stared for a minute. Would asking on the open web actually be safe? The government tracked everything you did and anything that was useful would probably be hidden and not easily found. Nodding to himself he changed the search engine to one from France and turned on the browser's automatic translation feature. He was pretty sure France's government wouldn't care if he found out things, because he lived so far away and wasn't likely to tell anyone there.

Just to be sure he opened a drawer and pulled on a ski mask. The government could watch you through your monitor, it was even in the name for god's sake, so masking your features was always a good idea as they had software that tracked people by their facial features. Thankfully ski masks were easy to come by and after sewing some padding on the inside to make his face look fat… and misshapen, he was impossible to identify as Greg Veder aka Void Cowboy, the one lone soul who was willing to tell the truth about threats like Legend!

He forced that thought away and focused on his task once more. "Needs Helps for Fiend, instructions, helps against powers," he said in what he thought was a French accent as he typed.

The search engine quickly came up with the results and he skipped to the ninth page as everyone knew the first three pages were adds and government misinformation while the next five pages were used by normies and so were filled with weird comments that just made things even more confusing as they often had nothing to do with what you were looking for at all. Really the ninth page was the first page with actual usable information… if you knew how to decode it.

He carefully went over the translated results until he found one listing calling for help and the rituals needed. It looked like some hero, an actual one not a fake like Legend, had given people a way to call them when needed. It was fairly complex, but powers could be strange like that, and really making a circle of salt and repeating a few words so they could target you with their mover powers wasn't rocket science. Not that rocket science was really rocket science as he'd looked over some of the sites dedicated to space travel before the Smiurgh had taken over the skies and they were actually really simple.

He rubbed his temples and mentally ran over some random phrases from a book he'd read in Korean, which he didn't speak so it would further confuse the endbringer if she happened to be listening to his thoughts at that moment because he'd thought her name.

After a few seconds he tried to feel around with his mind, but it seemed as clear as ever, so his endbringer defense had worked and he could go back to helping Taylor.

The salt was easy enough to get, though it was going to be annoying to vacuum out of the carpet later, and he couldn't help but wonder why they didn't use pepper, it was lighter and you could probably carry loads of it compared to salt which had some weight to it.

He drew the symbols in salt with a mathematical precision that would surprise anyone who knew him, but actually came naturally to him as it was just copying what he saw and moving his body a certain way. He was completely unaware of this as when he'd taken art class they'd kicked him out for photocopying artwork, not realizing he'd simply drawn what he'd seen so accurately that it'd appeared to be photos of the items themselves.

He looked from the screen to the circle of salt and back again, making sure it was correct before reading the words on screen aloud, still maintaining his fake french accent which mostly consisted of dropping the Rs and adding unnecessary Ss.

The circle of salt lit up and a muscular broad shouldered blonde man appeared in the center of it.

"That was a lot easier than I thought," Greg said with a bright smile.

0o0o0

Myst glanced between the tablet that Kara had given him that was supposed to translate the alien language on the computer into English. "Read?" He scanned down to the next word he needed to translate. "Me…" Google would be faster than this. Maybe we can hand them the alien language. "First. I should have guessed that one."

He opened the file and smiled when the alien language on the page quickly translated itself into English. "If you've found my ship, you've inherited my responsibilities… by reading this you accept my responsibilities and power…" he trailed off as he saw the extensive collection of listed powers before his veins ignited and he was driven to his knees.

After a few seconds or minutes of agony he recovered enough of his mental facilities that he could grab the uncomfortable alien chair that he hadn't gotten around to replacing and pull himself back to his feet. "What the fuck was that?!"

He scowled as he scanned the rest of the document. "Find the Whey, Purity of Body, Purity of Mind, Magical Brilliance and Technological Brilliance, Telekine, telekinetic limbs and multitasking? Healing Hands, Fate Breaker, Near and Far, Adjustments, Telepathic Connections, Heavenly, Optimization, Sorcery, Perk Sharing? How many fucking powers did he have?! Is this a CYOA?! Jesus this is bad, very, very, very bad! This much power is going to come with a heavy price tag!"

He scanned over the section on Engines of Ascension that filled him with unease, fairly sure no one should have been able to afford seven of the damned things because the short description implied an extremely heavy debt. "Okay, I just need to accept summons on behalf of the Company until my debt is paid. It wasn't my debt…" he trailed off as he got a creeping feeling down the back of his neck, like cold wet bugs crawling down it, their spiky little legs digging into his flesh.

Myst blinked as he got pulled out of his ship and dropped into a teenage boy's bedroom with a poster of a blonde bombshell in a white and gold costume wearing a tiara that was ringing all sorts of alarm bells in the back of his mind for reasons he couldn't immediately identify at least until he read the hero's name on the bottom of the poster. 'Glory Girl… at least it's not 40k.' He turned his attention to the teenage boy with a misshapen face hidden under a black ski mask. "You, rang?'

"Yes," the teen said brightly. "I've got a friend, Taylor, and she's in the hospital. I need some way to help her so I called you. How can I help her?"

Myst studied the kid for a couple of seconds. "Healing, combat, or body disposal?"

"Healing! At least I think she needs healing, she's in the hospital and has been for a few days and I'd like her out and healthy, though Winslow really isn't the type of place to help her stay healthy. What do you suggest?" he rattled off in a single breath.

Myst opened his mouth to ask if he wanted to be a hero then noticed some disturbingly familiar genie like bracelets on his wrists that shouldn't be there. 'Oh fucking hell, I hate intelligent assholes, then again, he skipped out on his contract, he's probably expecting his replacement to do the same.' He focused on the teenager with the ski mask, trying to figure out how he was going to solve his problems. He grinned when he realized one of his new powers would help him solve several of his problems and escape attention from Scion. "Tell you what, I have a contract, you need a makeover."

"I don't wear makeup," Greg said, confused. "Not that I couldn't, but I've never really felt the need to. Mom says I'm beautiful the way I am."

"Sorry, wrong word. I have a trump ability, you sign the contract, I'll give you the power you need to help Taylor."

"Deal," Greg replied instantly, pleased that the internet had come through for him once more.

'You poor summer child,' Myst thought as he focused on his contract ability and conjured a roll of parchment, surprised and a bit impressed despite himself that he hadn't even hesitated. "Sign this, you get powers, you help Taylor."

Greg grabbed the parchment then dashed over to the desk and signed his name at the bottom of the page. "Here."

Myst grinned as the contract vanished and a floating list appeared in the air with the collection of powers he could give to the kid. He glanced at the top of the page, 'Greg Veder, should have guessed on that one, but the misshapen head threw me. Optimization should fix any health issues and possibly his brain, cosmic powers only go so far.' He applied the power then added Healing Hands and Heavenly because they synergized well. He glanced at the Mr. World-wide power. 'Helps you adapt to other cultures or at least figure out what they expect and how to act.'

'It's Greg and Brockton Bay, he needs a way to avoid getting stabbed,' he mused as he looked through the list, unwilling to turn the kid into a Kryptonian. 'Find the Whey, that's basically a Captain America package.' He added the power then added Purity of Mind and Body to keep his mind safe and so he could avoid some of the esoteric powers that altered the body. 'Damn, I've basically set him up as Taylor's boytoy, she's going to be on him like white on rice and he'll just go along with anything she wants. Okay, let's lean into this, Lover Boy and Chef. If he's going to be a boytoy he might as well be the best boytoy in the world.'

He added the skill packages then frowned when he realized that the powers might not be enough, since it was Worm. He gave Greg technological Brilliance as it was somewhat similar to tinker, just loads more useful in the long run. He gave him an armory so he'd be able to store his weapons and armor. He glanced over the section that listed the Engines he could grant access to. 'Unity Engine, perk sharing via sex? Not sure he'd actually get any use out of this, not sure he wouldn't with the upgrades. Eternity? Time? Too powerful…' he trailed off as he looked through the rest of them. 'Metal Engine? That would give him resistance to damage and access to metals that would be hard to get without it, not to mention allow him to easily survive Hookwolf and Kaiser.'

He unlocked access to the two engines then gave him Fate Breaker to screw with the Simurgh and Coil. "Congratulations, you're a cape…" he trailed off as he applied everything and the kid collapsed into a whimpering ball. "Woops," he muttered, then cast invisibility and headed for the window and the fire escape, as he was getting the strange feeling that he had to deal with a dragon and he'd done all he could for Greg at this point, so best to let the kid recover in peace.

Greg sighed in relief as golden light surrounded him and the pain faded away. The hero he'd summoned was gone, but as he'd completed his mission maybe that was just the way his powers worked. Standing up, he stretched, his clothes feeling strangely tight and golden wings exploded from his back knocking him onto his face on the carpet. "I have to vacuum this up," he realized as he got a face full of salt. "I wonder if they don't use pepper because of all the sneezing when you get knocked into it."

It took him a minute to get the hang of his brightly glowing golden wings and thankfully they'd vanished a few seconds later, reducing the light in his room back to normal. He sat at his desk and erased his browser history before closing it and removing his mask, realizing that both the mask and using foreign search engines was unlikely to have any effect on someone tracking him and unsure why he'd thought it would as while he could follow the logic that led him to that idea, in hindsight it was completely ludicrous.

He winced as he stood up from his desk and had to undo his pants as they were crushing parts of him that didn't like being compressed. It took him a minute to dig through his closet for the clothes his mother had told him he would grow into. He was pretty sure all mothers said that, but in this case she had been right. A fresh pair of jeans and a flannel shirt, since none of his T-shirts would fit him anymore and he was feeling much better.

He quickly cleaned his room. His parents may spend most of their time working, but even they would notice half a container of salt poured on his bedroom floor and he didn't need them asking questions. He found himself taking apart his computer rig and cleaning and reassembling it, to reduce the chances of an overloaded power strip catching fire and to make it easier to adjust in the future.

"Was I turned into a tinker?" he asked himself, before realizing how silly that was as he wasn't thinking about how to take apart the toaster to make a warp bomb, he'd simply made some reasonable adjustments to existing equipment. "I'm not even sure what a warp bomb is and I'm pretty sure I'd need more than a ten-year-old toaster to make one," he remarked to himself before he put on fresh socks and headed to the bathroom to clean up before going out. Normally he wouldn't bother, but he was going into a sterile environment and being clean was just common sense.

He wasn't sure how he was supposed to help Taylor, but the powers he was given seemed to be instinctive so far, so logically they'd react to his desires when he was in the right situation. If they didn't, he could always call the hero again for more instructions, but for now it was best to trust his instincts.

He checked to make sure he had his house keys and bus pass, before grabbing his phone and leaving for the hospital.

0o0o0o0o0o0

"You no find anything but death Empire scum," the Asian man in his early twenties sneered at Myst as he pulled a switchblade out of his pocket.

A teenager wearing enough red and green that he could have passed for a Christmas elf laughed. "Maybe we cut you up then dump your body in Empire territory?"

Myst glanced around at the people that were just looking at the thugs and not saying shit one way or another. 'If I broke their fingers, I bet they'd drop the horrible 80's Asian accent,' he mused as he turned and continued walking towards the casino.

"You can't just ignore me!" the man snarled as he swung the knife in front of Myst, trying to scare him.

Myst reached out and stole the knife then bent down and drove the knife through his boot into the pavement before the man could react, still not quite sure how he could stab something into pavement without breaking it now and then, but figured it was a function of his telekinesis. He ignored the man's screaming as he continued walking, his thoughts drifting to Emma and her encounter with Lung's gang that had broken her mind.

"Cape!" the man with the knife through his foot screamed.

He felt the bullet hit his back then turned around and walked back over as he shot him twice more. He grabbed the gun, crushed it, and dropped it to the ground then simply turned and started walking.

"Fucking piece of shit!" the man shouted at Myst's back.

Myst stopped then turned around. "Okay, that's a fucking Darwin award." He stepped forward and grabbed the silver chain on his wallet, pulled the wallet out of his pocket and opened it as the guy swung at him. "Is there a reason you're trying to deck me when your bullets didn't work? Are you high are stupid?"

"Both?!" one of the Asians watching blurted out, trying to save his friend who was dancing around holding his likely broken hand.

Myst took three hundreds from the wallet then dropped it. "One hundred per bullet. Try to avoid shooting people, it's rude and eventually you're going to get yourself killed." He turned and walked off, knowing he should have dragged the man to the police, but it wasn't like he had any actual evidence and he didn't want to deal with the paperwork.

Myst ignored the stares as he walked down the street, getting less stares as he made his way towards the casino as they were more than happy with people spending their money. Thankfully, actually showing the guard a few hundred dollars was enough that they didn't even react to the fact that he had blonde hair and blue eyes, especially since the guards for the casino weren't drunk enough to confuse neatly trimmed hair with a buzz cut or whatever the Empire goons were sporting.

He glanced around then walked towards the heavy steel door that was guarded by two large Asians with Uzis where he could feel the pull. He walked over and stopped in front of the thugs.

"What do you want?" one of the men asked.

"To challenge Lung," Myst replied, hoping he wasn't making a mistake and that he wasn't in a crazy version of Worm where Lung could stand up to a Kryptonian.

The man stared at Myst for a couple of seconds then rapped his knuckles on the door. "Your funeral."

"What?" Lung called out.

The man opened the door. "Crazy white guy wants to challenge you."

"Do we need to take this outside or the graveyard?" Lung asked as he sized up the blond-haired man.

"Boat graveyard works, I'm a high-level brute," Myst replied.

"If this is a waste of my time, you'll sleep in the bay," Lung replied as he stood up. "Give me five minutes to grab my people and arrange the betting."

"More than fair," Myst agreed, feeling the pull of the contract encouraging him to destroy the man and refusing to let it force his hand.

0o0o0

Greg had asked what room Taylor was in at the front desk, but as he wasn't family, they couldn't release such information. He tapped away on his cell phone using the Hospital's Wi-Fi to gain access to their server and patients' records. He'd thought that actually hacking into somewhere would be more complicated, but really once you understood packet data protocols it was stupidly simple.

He stepped into the elevator and hit the button for the third floor, leaning back against the wall and trying to look a little depressed, as most people did not come to see sick or injured people with a smile on their face and it would make him stick out. Several people came and went as he rode up, including Panacea, but he remained quiet and got off on the right floor without interacting with her.

Normally he would have been asking her about her powers and what she thought of Legend, but he could tell from the way she stood and the look on her face that she was tired and not in the mood to deal with a fan. He'd been momentarily startled that he could actually understand someone from just taking in their body language, much less a girl, but he'd managed to hide his shock and from the way Panacea had tensed and then relaxed he could tell she'd thought he'd just been surprised to see her and she was relieved that he hadn't tried to speak to her.

The fact that he could now understand girls was possibly one of the greatest powers he'd been given he decided as he walked down the hall, reading off the room numbers until he reached room 316. Stepping into the room he saw Taylor lying in bed, pale and thin, like she hadn't eaten in weeks much less the three days since she had been admitted, which probably meant the problems in school had affected her home life as well.

There was an older man sleeping in a chair next to her bed, holding her hand, that Greg guessed was her father. He couldn't recall if he'd seen him at school dropping her off and picking her up or not, but the odds were good. He looked like he hadn't been eating well either and the stress marks on his face and general slump of his shoulders spoke of more than just recent events weighing him down. Taylor's mom had died, which definitely would have contributed to things, but that had been a couple of years ago and surely he would have recovered at least partially by now, but Greg wasn't sure as he took in the man's sleeping face and the bags under his eyes.

He quietly closed the door behind himself and stepped over to the bed. He examined Taylor closely, seeing her eyes moving under her eyelids at a pace that was definitely more than REM sleep should account for. He glanced over at the health monitors and noted the elevated heart rate and low oxygen saturation, making him wonder if she was having the mother of all nightmares without somehow speeding up her heart rate.

He waited, but his powers didn't tell him what he needed to do. He frowned in thought. He was here to heal Taylor, though physically she appeared to be fine and he wasn't sure if he could help her mentally as he was realizing mentally he might not have been all there himself until just recently.

Really just going over his memories of the past two weeks made him wonder if dying of cringe was actually a thing, if he'd bothered cringing in the first place of course. Really it seemed stupid to feel bad about being stupid in the past as the fact that you can see you were stupid in the past meant you were no longer that stupid and growth was always a good thing.

Still, he was sure he'd feel better when he could no longer look back at the previous week and think someone should have medicated him or fitted him with a muzzle.

He gently reached out and placed his hand over their joined hands, giving them a slight squeeze, trying to think about what he should do, when a soft golden glow began to spread at his touch and he saw some of the strain on their faces fade away. He concentrated on that feeling, pushing it towards them as much as he could, unaware that his wings had erupted from his back as he began to hum a lullaby he vaguely remembered being sang to him as a child, and the glow became bright enough to light up the room even more than his golden wings alone.

Taylor's eyes opened and she saw the winged figure standing over her bed, head down with eyes closed as if in prayer, singing something softly to her. He looked familiar and unfamiliar at the same time, like maybe she'd met his brother at some point, of course if she'd had her glasses on she could probably figure out who he was, but she didn't know where they were.

A loud snore broke the silence.

Eyes opened and the light faded as the two teens turned to stare at Taylor's father who was snoring loudly, many of the wrinkles faded from his face and his hair darker and more plentiful than it had been mere minutes before.

"Taylor," he greeted her with a smile, his wings vanishing.

"Greg?" she asked in disbelief, realizing who the blurry figure was. "What happened to you?"

"I wanted to help you and I couldn't figure out how…" his voice trailed off as the magic of the contract forced him to fall silent, unable to talk about the contract or what he'd done.

Taylor's mind raced, and raced, and raced, as she tried to comprehend what had happened to him, running dozens and then hundreds of trains of thoughts simultaneously to figure out the answer, an equal portion of her mind also running over her own situation before arriving at a conclusion. "I triggered in the locker, I'm a thinker!" she blurted out, wondering what the little sparks of light and strange sensations she was getting had to do with her thinker ability, but pushing it aside as she realized that Greg… annoying, cowardly, useless Greg, had triggered as well… to help her. She felt a wave of shock, followed by joy that someone cared for her, and then crushing guilt in what it had done to him.

"Are you okay now?" he asked, seeing half a dozen expressions flit across her face far too quickly for him to read them.

"Yeah, I seem to be fine now that you… healed me?" she questioned, unsure of her own observations.

Greg smiled brightly. "Then it was worth it," he said, pleased that things had worked out the way he wanted.

"You're happy?" she asked in disbelief, the trauma of her own trigger event only being held off by the fact that she was in a large well lit room and in no way trapped somewhere dark and cramped. She'd been in and out of consciousness for the last several days so she knew where she was, but the memory kept leaping out at her at odd times like a serial killer in a horror movie trying to drag her back into the dark.

"Pretty happy," he replied cheerfully. "I wanted to help you and now I have. True, looking back at things… it's kinda hard to figure out what I was thinking or even if I was thinking to be honest, still at least I'm not that way now, which counts for a lot."

Taylor guessed that if mental and emotional strain had caused his trigger, that fixing the problem that had caused the strain would indeed come as quite a relief. "Do you see my glasses anywhere?" she asked hopefully, not wanting to think about it anymore, as the guilt was hard to deal with.

"Sure," he replied, easily spotting her glasses on the table next to her and handing them to her.

"Thanks," Taylor said, slipping them on and then freezing in shock as she got a look at Greg.

Greg watched the shock on her face, change to attraction, and then guilt, and then attraction, and then back to shock. Really, it was kind of entertaining and certainly flattering that she found him attractive though he wasn't sure why she was feeling guilty about it. "I know, I've changed a bit," he told her trying to help, "but I'm still me, though hopefully less… awkward? Yeah, let's go with awkward, because I don't think the words needed to describe how I was are at all polite."

"You weren't that bad," Taylor tried to tell him, but he chuckled, genuinely amused by her attempt.

"I was me, I know exactly how bad I was," he assured her. "Thankfully, I am at least a little better now and hopefully I'll be even better in the future."

"I can't believe you… to help me," she said softly, looking down. "I'm not worth it."

"I'm going to have to disagree with you there," he told her, "thinker ability or not, we're never really the best judges of our own worth. I think it's a common blind spot just from being human."

"I don't know what to say to that," Taylor admitted.

"If you tell me I'm right, you'll be the first person to say it and mean it in the whole of human history," he told her, making her giggle. "Of course I haven't been around for the whole of human history so it's not as impressive as it sounds."

"Taylor?" Danny asked as he slowly woke up. "You're awake?" he asked in shock.

"Yeah," Taylor said, giving her father's hand a squeeze, "Greg's singing woke me up."

Danny turned to look at the young man who he hadn't even realized was present.

"It was more humming," Greg told him, "and it was a lullaby, so I successfully failed at trying to make her sleep easier, by waking her."

"I have no idea what that means," Danny said, before leaning over to give his daughter a hug, unconcerned. "I was so worried about you!"

"I'm okay," she assured him, "I'm awake and healthy and everything."

"I guess Panacea must have stopped by," he said as he looked her over and saw that she did look much healthier than she had when he'd arrived.

"I passed her in the elevator on the way up," Greg told him.

"She does good work," Danny said, releasing his daughter to wipe at his eyes. "I was worried you'd never wake up."

"Thankfully, that didn't happen," Taylor said, mouthing 'Thank you' to Greg behind her father's back.

Greg guessed she must want to keep his part in things quiet and that probably extended to her being a parahuman, though it was really unwise to keep that hidden, but found himself simply smiling and nodding in agreement.

"Can you tell me what happened?" he asked. "I mean what led to you being…"

Taylor shivered and shrank in on herself.

"Could you tell me?" he asked Greg.

"It'd just be guesswork on my part," the teen replied, "I started asking questions after Taylor didn't return to school and most of what I got was probably lies."

"Someone must know what happened," Danny said, rubbing his daughter's back.

"Yeah, but it's all by people who were either guilty of the crime or assisting," Greg said with a frown. "None of them will come forward because it doesn't serve their interests. The staff of the school is certainly going to do their best to squash it, as they do everything else that happens at the school. I have no idea how they get away with it, but they do. It never made sense to me and it still doesn't."

"They can't get away with this," Danny said fiercely.

"They can," Greg disagreed, "all they have to do is stay silent and silence anyone who speaks up about it. I don't think it's going to be safe for her to return there… I don't think it's safe for me to return there either." He considered his change in looks and how the gangs would take it. He'd probably be 'recruited' by the end of the week, whether he wanted to be or not.

"Are you close to my little girl?" Danny asked, making his daughter groan and bury her face in his chest as he was still holding her.

Greg considered that. "Close enough that they'd threaten her to make me obey," he realized with a frown, causing both Heberts' eyes to widen, though for different reasons.

"Oh," Danny said quietly. "So, if they threatened her…"

"Yeah, I'd pretty much obey anything they told me to do," Greg said not knowing why that was true, but instinctively knowing that it was.

Writing and Editing by: dogbertcarroll & Mist of Shadows