Taylor:
I'm not gonna lie. I was...pretty disappointed by the fact that Assault didn't think I should join the Wards. It was a little bit better when we all got home, and Dad explained what Assault had told him, but it was still a pretty bitter blow. I mean, I can't blame him for warning me off, not if he thought it would put me in danger. But it was still pretty bad.
On the other hand, it did give me the chance to do something that I hadn't thought to do: make my own costume, and come up with my own cape name.
Cape names are very important. More so than the vast majority of heroes realize. It's not just because that's the brand you'll operate under for a large chunk of your cape career. It's also because, according to Ms. Liberty, your cape name contains elements of your True Name. And that's really important, because anybody who has your True Name, can command you to do...well, whatever they like. There's no way to resist it if they decide to Master you (at least, not if they use magic), no way to defend against them when they attack you (with magic), no way to even stop them from teleporting into your house, and raiding your refrigerator. At least, not as long as they do it with magic. And not as long as you're just trying to defend with magic. But if you decide to defend via a sophisticated system of, say, landmines, well, some poor wizard or Creature of the Night (TM) that's thinking having your True Name will protect them from anything you can cook up to discourage them is going to have a nasty surprise. Hypothetically speaking, anyway-apparently, nobody's been crazy enough to try to protect themselves in quite that manner before.
Ms. Liberty got a real thoughtful expression on her face, when I asked about that, and I get the feeling that somebody's going to be upgrading some defenses, soon. And apparently, a True Name doesn't do spit to defend against Parahuman powers, either...and so long as the person you're talking to doesn't know you're a cape, they don't know that they don't have your complete True Name. So they don't know that they can't use your Name to make you do stuff. Which is cool. Of course, how much defense that provides varies from person to person, depending on how heavily they lean into their cape identity, and there's more complications involved when something like, say, rebranding gets involved. But that's another set of issues, most of which don't have clear answers. Or, at least, not ones that are useful to me at this time, anyway. Whatever that means.
Normally, your True Name is the name your parents gave you, with certain caveats. For somebody to get your True Name, they have to get it from you. Otherwise, it won't have all the little twists and intonations and connotations that make it a mystical representation of you. And humans' True Names tend to change over time, meaning that if they got it when you were really young, then by the time you turn twenty, it might not be of any use any more. Mind you, there's some exceptions—your parents always know your True Name, for example, because they gave it to you. And there's some spirits that are so powerful that they know your True Name, just because they want to. But overall, keeping your full name a secret? That's a pretty important thing, magically speaking.
Thing is? If you're a cape? Your cape name is also part of your True Name. So if I were to call myself Skitter, because I can command rats, my True Name would be Taylor Anne Skitter Hebert. Or something like that.
Hey, don't laugh. Skitter is an awesome name, okay? There are other names that would be so much worse. Like Rat Queen. Or Queen of Rats. Or...well, you get the idea. I could work with Queen of Mice—it's from a fantasy series about Roman-style legions with dragons in support that I read when I was a kid—and it would even be kind of on-target with my magic, but Dad vetoed that idea. Said it would give away too much about me. Like the fact that I'd read anything and everything fantasy-related when I was a kid. Back then, I wasn't picky. If it had a beautiful princess, or unicorns, dragons, or knights in it, I'd read it.
And I had to admit, I really kind of liked the Queen of Mice. She was cool. Cool, and badass.
Anyway, like I said, Dad vetoed it. He said he had a better name. Said I should call myself Inverse, after Lina Inverse. And when I told him I didn't know who he was talking about, he showed me. And I don't know if I liked the name—although it was good—but I had to admit, I liked the character. And I definitely liked the costume. Full-body, covered everything, and it even featured a character with small breasts. Which all the sorceress costumes I'd seen so far...well, they didn't have small breasts. Most of them looked like they could stand to be milked a couple times a day.
Not that I'm bitter that my big-breasted best friend turned into a raging bitch. Oh, no. It's just...moo, dangit. Real people don't need udders, okay? No matter what guys try to say. Boys do not have to run and move with those things, so their opinion doesn't count.
Anyway, it's been about a month since my power testing. I'm still going to Winslow. Technically. There's something of a fight brewing over that, and so far, Dad has mostly kept me at home at least three days out of the week, on one pretext or another. They haven't fired any teachers, or expelled the Trio (although they did expel several others, and at least changed my class schedule so that I'm not sharing classes with the rest), because apparently the School Board is raising a big fuss about expelling "exemplary students". And it turns out that not even the principal can fire teachers easily. Or so Principal Blackwell swears, anyway. I'm not sure I believe her, and I'm pretty sure Dad definitely doesn't, but that's what she swears. Despite this, two of my former teachers aren't teaching anymore, including Mr. Gladly, which I am pretty happy about, since he was the most likely to let Madison get away with bullying me, and the others are actually paying attention, and doing something about it. And Sophia showed up the Thursday after the Rat Incident, to formally apologize. She swore she didn't know who had put the rat in my backpack, which was only fair, since she didn't have any way to know that I was the one who'd done it. She also swore she'd make sure I stayed safe at school. I don't know if I believe that, considering her past behavior, but so far, the bullying has pretty much stopped. I haven't seen Emma since then, either. Not really. So far, the few times I've seen her, have been in passing, as she rushes from one thing to another-either from one class to another, or from class to...something else. I'm...actually sort of worried about that. I don't know why. After everything she did, I'd thought that I'd be over her. But apparently, I'm not. I don't know why.
The best part about it is that, now that I don't have to do my projects and my homework twice, my grades are going up. Well, not my computer class—my grades there were pretty good. But in everything else, they're going way up. It's almost like I was doing pretty well in those classes, and it was just bullying and stuff like other people stealing my homework and ruining the projects I was assigned to do that was hurting me. It's as if, if the teachers had ever bothered to do their jobs, I might have been able to get good grades the whole time.
Huh.
Who would have thought?
Not that I'm bitter, of course. Not me. I'm just...contemplative. And, well, okay, maybe I'm a little bit bitter. But Mr. Gladly is gone, and he's the only one I was really hoping would die in a fire, so I'm kind of a lot less bitter now than I was.
Mostly, when I'm not doing homework, I've been working with Ms. Liberty. That, and practicing.
Lots of practicing.
That, and watching anime.
I never took Dad for an anime fan. Okay, I'll be honest. I never thought that there was such a thing as anime. I always thought that cartoons were just...cartoons. You know. Mickey Mouse. Bugs Bunny. Stuff like that. Stuff for kids.
Some of the stuff he watches? It's not for kids.
He says that Mom introduced it to him. Apparently, she'd picked it up from somebody else, before they met, and had a handful of shows that she'd really liked, and had copies of on video. They were, he said, sort of the big names. The shows that really stood out, enough so to get overseas to America. I believe it. The stuff he had was...really, it was pretty good.
It's still fun to watch, though. Like, it's fun in ways that a lot of modern American TV really sort of...isn't. I don't know how to describe it, really. I guess...it's sort of like, American TV seems built to appeal to the lowest common denominator. The stuff Dad watches? You got to be smart to figure some of that out.
It's kind of fun, really. Plus, it's something that Dad and I can do together.
But mostly, I've been practicing. Practicing, and getting a whole bunch of stuff ready for when I do finally go out. Because I've been...itching, sort of. Like I can't not go out.
So, like I said, I've been practicing.
Hopefully, it's been enough. Because, enough or not enough, tonight I'm going out.
Evening comes. It always does, whether you're ready, or not. It comes, it goes, and then it's all over with, and you're wondering what just happened.
Either way, it's time. After hearing Dad go to his room, and shut the door, I get back up, sneak over to my closet, and open the door. Reaching into the far back, past all the clothes, I carefully retrieve the costume I've put together.
It's based off the Lina Inverse outfit, with a few changes. For one thing, there's no sword, although I kept the pauldrons, because they look cool. For another, I've added some kevlar padding underneath. Not a lot, because getting kevlar on the sly is really hard, but hopefully enough to make it at least a little bit bullet resistant. Which is important, and not just because I could get punched by something that makes bullets look kind of wimpy. More importantly, however, a lot of parahumans start their career doing something kind of heroic, and then they get shot. Which I'd rather not do. And if I have to get shot, I want to make sure that I'll survive the experience. Hence the armor.
Ms. Liberty doesn't bother with armor, mind you. Apparently, most wizards don't. But most wizards can form some kind of shield that protects them from minor little things like bullets, and flamethrowers, and rocket launchers, and they also have lots of other ways to make sure people don't shoot them until they die. I don't. First, because I'm an apprentice, and not a very long-standing one, so I don't really know what I'm doing, and I don't have a lot of power to throw around to pretend I know what I'm doing. And secondly, because I have problems creating shields. My specialty is apparently lightning magic, after all, which is cool as hell, and kind of rare, but it doesn't really lend itself well to making sure I don't get hit by anything dangerous. I can sort of block energy-based attacks, sometimes, if they're not too powerful...but physical ones are still a problem. Ms. Liberty says that I'll probably need to make some kind of focus eventually, but first I have to get the darned thing to work in the first place. Right now, all I can do is slow the bullets down a bit.
So I'm going to have to be careful.
Apart from the kevlar backing, which still isn't thick enough, I've got some pouches with zip ties, pepper spray, a first-aid kit, chalk dust, and a collapsible baton, because I might end up getting punched by somebody stupid. I've also got a short copper rod that I've been engraving with runes and crap—I know, it's an advanced technical term, but I couldn't think of anything else to call it—to help attune it to my power, so I can channel lightning spells. I'm not entirely sure how much of a help it is, or if it's just something that lets me aim better, but I'll take what I can get.
Quickly, I don my costume, and quietly crack the door. I look around to make sure nobody's looking, and then go back, grab my rod, and then make my way out of the house. I'm in luck—Dad didn't decide he needed to leave the bedroom to grab something, and I get out scot-free, carefully locking the door behind me, and sliding the key into one of the hidden pockets I've put into this costume. Because if there's one thing about controlling rats and mice that is really useful, it's that you can sew a lot of things at once, even if it did take a bit to get used to the technique. Carefully, I don the dark red domino mask, and start making my way down the street.
We don't live in an especially nice neighborhood, I'll be the first to admit to that. But it's not a bad neighborhood, either. We might be poor, but we keep the gangs out, sometimes by calling the cops, and sometimes by beating the snot out of people who don't get the hint. Most of the cops around here are pretty nice, by the way. I really like them. And aside from Tiny, who's about six-eight, and weighs about three hundred and fifty pounds (and it's all muscle, too), the whole place is generally pretty quiet. And Tiny's a nice guy, as long as you don't make the mistake of wearing gang colors around him. Mind you, if you do make that mistake...well, I saw him punch a guy across the street, once. Like, he punched the guy so hard, the guy flew across half the street, and didn't stop rolling until he hit the curb on the other side. Okay, so I didn't actually see him do it, but I've heard stories, and Smiley swore he'd been there, and he'd seen it. Not that you could always trust what Smiley said, even if he was sober, but it was still a good story, and, looking at Tiny, I could believe it.
Anyway, like I said, our neighborhood is pretty calm. And there's enough police nearby, that it stays that way. But about five streets over, once you get past Tiny and Smiley's houses, it starts to go downhill. This is the Docks. Not the Dockyards, where Dad works, but the Docks, which is right in front of what the locals call the Boat Graveyard, where half a hundred rusted ships have been waiting alongside the handful of empty docks in the area (assuming they haven't run aground through some means or another, deliberate or not) for the last ten years or more. Most of the ships are empty, even if there's rumors that some of them still have cargo inside that nobody's been able to get to in the last decade or so. I dunno about you, but I'll believe that when I see it. Until then, I'm assuming the ships are empty.
Alongside the waterfront, there are whole streets full of empty, abandoned warehouses, run down homes, even more run down businesses, and still more run down industrial complexes, with the occasional still-functioning residential neighborhood-like ours-thrown in just to keep the city council from just bulldozing the whole place and being done with it. As far as I know, the last company in the area was Sanford and Sons Salvaging Company, and they shut down over five years ago. These days, their factory building is as empty as everything else around here. All in all, it's an excellent location for criminals.
Not so much for crime, though, it seems. At least, not that I can see, because I'm getting a whole lot of nothing. Not even the rats and the mice are seeing anything. I guess when folks say that there's no reason for anybody to come here, they aren't kidding. I'm not even finding any drugged out junkies.
Seriously. I mean, I know most of the Docks are pretty distressed...but the Boardwalk is in the Docks too. And while it's hard to be sure in the dark, I'm pretty sure I'm not that far from the Boardwalk.
Am I?
Any question that I might have as to whether I'm in the right place dies abruptly, though, when one of the mice I'm controlling sees a small orange light the next street over in a shadowed alley. It's not big—just big enough to maybe be a lighter or something like that—but it's the first sign of people I've seen in the last two hours, so I find a fire escape, climb to the roof of a nearby warehouse, and make my way over to take a look, because while mice and rats have better vision than, say, bugs, it's still not very good at seeing things at a distance. Not clearly, anyway. I mean, my eyes are shot, and they have been ever since third grade, so much so that I have to wear coke-bottle lenses to see, and I can still see better than most mice and rats.
Although my vision has been getting better, these last few months. I'm not sure why.
Anyway, the point is, even as bad as my eyes are, I'll be able to see better than the mice.
Assuming, of course, I can get up there.
The fire-escape doesn't come all the way down, but there are a few pallets nearby that are just big enough that if I pile two or three of them together, I should be able to jump up and grab the latter, and maybe pull it down. It's not much, but it's the best I've got, and it turns out that I'm lucky, and the whole thing comes down with a screech that sounds a lot louder than my rats tell me it actually is.
I mean, seriously, it sounds pretty darned loud. Like, I'm pretty sure if the guy I'm trying to get a look at is doing anything illegal, he has to have heard me. But, no, the mice I've got moving closer to him can't hear it.
Weird.
Anyway, it isn't until I jump up into the air to grab the ladder that I realize something very important: it's hard to grab the ladder, when you're holding a two-foot long copper rod in one hand.
Note to self: make sure I've got a sling or a holster to carry the wand-thing I've made next time I go out. I'll have to see if I can't get the rats to sew it up for me while I do my homework tomorrow, because otherwise, I'm not going to be able to carry it on most of these patrols. Or not easily, at least. And I'm pretty sure I don't want to have to put it down to secure somebody, or something. Because that just seems to be asking for trouble.
Despite my lack of preparation, though, I manage to get up the ladder, with my wand (although I almost drop it a few times) without incident. And, just for good measure, while I do so, I make contact with every mouse, rat, squirrel, chipmunk, and hamster in the area—there's not that many hamsters, but there are a couple-and have them start making their way to the alley, because I figure it doesn't matter how tough or mean you are, if a squirrel runs up your pants leg, and bites you in the nuts, you're going to stop shooting, and start feeling really sorry for yourself, really quickly. Sorry enough for me to subdue you with my fifteen year old muscles? Eh...maybe, maybe not. But it'll be enough to make a good start.
Note to self: make sure I've got something like a baton on me, the next time I do this. Or maybe some brass knuckles, or something. I'd like to be able to hit people, and have them feel it.
When I get to a position where I can look down, though, all these thoughts disappear.
Why?
Simple: because there's not just one guy there. There's probably something like ten or fifteen all hidden in the shadows. If it hadn't been for one of them wanting a smoke, I don't think even my rats would have noticed them. And just as I get there, a door opens, and there's more coming out.
Huh.
And they're all guys, I think. At least, they look like it from up here. Mind you, I'm a couple stories up, and they're in shadow...but I'm pretty sure they're all male. And somehow, from the way they're standing, I'm pretty sure they're all in a gang. I can't see which one—not yet—but in this part of town, it's got to be either ABB, or Merchants, and they're too light-skinned to be Merchants. Probably ABB, then, but it's still too dark to make out their colors. And, from the way they're standing, I'm pretty sure they're armed. I couldn't tell you what makes me come to this conclusion, but there's something about the way they're standing. They're not...they're not standing here, like they're waiting to meet somebody, or maybe just keeping an eye out on their turf, or something. They're standing together like they're expecting to have to go out, and make trouble.
Just as I'm getting ready to do something about it, another door opens in the alley, and a light shines through to illuminate one of them. Sure enough, he's wearing ABB colors of red and green. Several new people, also in red and green, step through the door, ending with a big—and I mean big—man who closes the door behind him. Judging by how everybody acts around him, he has to be the leader. Plus, he's the only one who's not wearing a shirt.
Seriously. Who doesn't wear a shirt this time of year? I mean, granted, technically it's been spring for about a month, but this is still Brockton Bay. Warm or not, at this time of year, the nights are awfully cold for not wearing a shirt.
Either way, just as the door shuts, a flash of light goes over his face, illuminating an iron mask, and I can feel my heart seize up, and I just...freeze.
It's Lung.
There's only one person in the entire city who goes shirtless and wears an iron mask over his face, and that's Lung. And Lung...well, he's a dragon. A rage dragon, to be precise. That's his power, anyway. The angrier he gets, the more dragon-like he gets. It starts out with him getting bigger, and stronger, and regenerating, and throwing fire around. Then he gets even bigger, and starts growing scales, shredding his clothes, and eventually he gets so big he grows wings, and can fly. Rumor has it that there's no upper limit to how big and strong he can get. According to the PHO boards, he fought Leviathan to a standstill before the Endbringer managed to sink Kyushu out from under him. I know that, just after arriving in Brockton Bay, he got into a fight with the entire Protectorate team, and beat them all.
This guy is kind of a big deal, is what I'm getting at. Certainly, he's beyond my reach. Maybe some day, when I'm a full wizard. But for right now, I know one attack spell, and I can sort of use a shield that might stop his fireballs, because it's better at disrupting energy than it is at deflecting metal. Key word there being 'might'. As in, it might not. And I'd really rather not find out.
Crap, this is bad. I'd hoped to find some kind of low-level thug, take him down, tie him up, and...and...shit.
Note to self—get a cell phone for these kinds of patrols, so I can call the police in to pick these folks up.
Just as I'm getting over my panic, and deciding that this whole thing was a really bad idea, and that I need at least another few nights of preparation, a surprisingly loud voice echoes across the alley, and up and over the roof.
For somebody who's been here for so long, Lung's got a pretty thick accent.
"Doesn't matter if they just children, you shoot," he said, and I could feel my blood freeze all over again. "Doesn't matter your aim, just shoot. You see one lying on the ground? You shoot little bitch twice, just to make sure. We give them no chances to be clever, or get lucky. Understand?"
Shit.
He was going to kill kids.
Kids.
Before I could properly process what I was doing, I was back on my feet, glaring down over the edge of the roof at him. Distantly, I realized I had my rod...wand...whatever, in my hand, pointing down at him. Then, I closed my eyes, and concentrated.
It had taken me a bit to get the idea of focusing on my magic, instead of on my mice, but I'd gotten it. It had taken me even longer to get to the point where I could reach out to the power around me, and draw it in, reliably, in any kind of useful quantity without the mice there to support me. But I'd gotten that, too. Turning that power into useful spells was still something I was working on, but I'd gotten one spell down pretty good, I thought, even if it made Ms. Liberty throw her hands up, and roll her eyes.
"Oh power soaring through storm and sky," I whispered, as I focused everything I had or could gather down though the end of my...my wand. "Lend me thy aid to strike down the foes of justice and peace in this world. By the wings of mighty Jupiter, let my voice be heard! Thunder shot!"
I opened my eyes, not letting my concentration lapse, and shouted those last two words. Immediately, a complex design flashed into the air around the tip of my wand, and then an arm-thick bar of lightning leaped from the tip of my wand, and slammed into the figure that had to be Lung, spinning him around, and knocking him to the ground. The next second, my furry swarm came surging over the ground, rapidly scaling the legs of anybody who had made the mistake of standing still, and provoking a tidal wave of panic and screaming as people felt foreign objects in places where no foreign objects should be. At least three guns fired, maybe at me—I was still both deaf and blind from the thunder-crack of the lighting bolt, so I couldn't count them very clearly—and somebody started screaming in pain after one of his friends shot him, and he collapsed. The rest started flailing around, trying to get the rats and mice off of them, and maybe drive the squirrels away long enough to make their escape.
I lifted my arm to take aim at the next thug, but found myself sagging to the side as my anger left me, and I realized with a start that I'd put a lot more of my energy into that shot than I'd meant to as I staggered sideways, and ended up leaning against the roof parapet to keep myself upright. Below me, I could see the gang members still flailing, except for a couple at the edges, who took one look at the rats and the mice coming for them, and turned tail and ran. Wimps. I mean, it doesn't get any more embarrassing than that, right? Having to admit that you turned and ran because you were scared of a couple of mice?
Okay, so maybe it was more than just a couple. It still wasn't that bad. I mean, if I can survive in a locker full of rats for six hours, letting one or two hundred mice near you wasn't going to kill you. Probably.
They were, however, doing a pretty excellent job of distracting the gang members down below me. Each and every one of those gang members was totally freaking out down there, and not a single one that I could see was paying any attention to the world around them. I could feel myself getting vaguely frustrated—I was quite sure I could keep them like this for a while, but while I could distract them, and freak them out, I wasn't going to be able to keep it up forever, and right now, I had no means of taking down this many men by myself. I had no doubt that a lot of young heroes would have tried it anyway, but I wasn't that stupid, and wasn't going to put myself in that kind of position.
Actually, strike that. I wasn't going to be able to keep this up for very much longer at all, really. Down below, one of the gang members must have looked up, and seen me, because he straightened up, somewhat, and leveled what looked to be a pistol in my direction. I could feel my eyes going wide, and I slashed my wand through the air, creating the best shield I could, even as I ducked down again. The sound of a shot echoed through the alley, and I could have sworn I could feel the bullet brush through my hair, but then I staggered back up, poking just my head and arm above the parapet, and pointed my wand in his direction.
"Thunder Shot!" I yelled, and another, much weaker bolt of lightning arced from my wand towards the thug in question. Unlike his boss, he didn't go down immediately. Instead, he sort of stiffened, and almost quivered in place for a few seconds, before he slowly tilted over, and planted himself face-first on the ground. I quickly moved the rats and the mice that were still on the ground out of his way, diverting the rest of the swarm towards the others, but I knew it wasn't going to last. Sooner or later, somebody else would look up, and the truth was that I was spent. Those two shots had taken pretty much everything I had, and then some, and by now, I was barely holding up my wand, and standing upright.
Which meant, I figured, that this was just about time for me to go, while I could still stagger down the fire escape and get out of here.
Like this work? Check out my Pa treon page at /wlindsay to get Queen of Rats chapters several weeks early, as well as the rewrite/expansion I am working on to turn it into an original story without many of the issues plaguing Worm and its offshoots.