"Sorry about that."

The man speaking was older, hair both starting to recede and mostly grey on the sides. He had laugh lines and a nice smile, other than that he was utterly normal. Long-sleeved white button-up shirt, khaki pants, and a simple watch; he looked the part of a suit-wearing office worker that was on break. There wasn't even anything marking him as belonging to the PRT, other than the folder he carried which had the logo.

As he entered he glanced around the room, letting the door shut behind him.

"Has your father not arrived yet?" he asked. "Or are you going this alone? It's fine if you are, this is all mostly just a formality."

"He's on his way," I replied. "But he's coming from the Docks, so, traffic."

"Ah," the man said, moving to the seat across from me. "Just so you know, if he fails to show in the next," he paused to look at his watch. "Thirty minutes, we'll have to reschedule. But for now, there are some questions that I need to ask. Oh, so sorry," he extended his hand for me to shake. "I haven't introduced myself. Agent Todd, I'm the one assigned to your case at this juncture."

I took his hand in mine reflexivity, and replied with an, "It's ok, I'm Taylor," before stopping to think.

"Hold on, shouldn't my father be here for this? Or should I have brought a lawyer?"

"Not unless you want him to be or think you'll need one," Todd replied, opening his folder up. "Most of these questions I have for you right now are just confirmation questions, we can have him go back over them after if you want, but its mostly things like making sure we got your name spelled right. We'll cover everything else after he arrives, as you're underage and need a guardian for legal reasons."

There were several moments were Agent Todd shuffled papers, taking them out of the folder and setting them into piles, some he even stacked onto each other, setting them on ninety-degree angles from the ones underneath.

"Ah, here we go, please check this and make sure all the information on it is correct."

The paper Agent Todd slid to me was basically one of those forms that schools or governments would have. It listed my name, my address, who I was related to, my date of birth, and whatnot. I was actually somewhat disturbed that the PRT had all this info on me, I know that they knew who I was because of Winslow, but seeing it was something else.

I past the paper back to Agent Todd. "It's all right."

He nodded. "Good, now there are several questions I need to ask, then you can sign a form saying all the paperwork is in order, as well as covering my questions, your father will need to sign it as well. I can provide a copy to you both if needed. Any questions?"

At my continued silence, Agent Todd glanced down at his piles of paperwork and fished a pen of out his pocket.

"So, at any time stop me if you have a question or something to correct, if not you can simply sit there and nod if you wish. We'll do the actual 'for the record,' thing when your father gets here."

"You have reviewed the info provided and have declared it is accurate, do you have anything else to declare at this time?" Agent Todd asked.

"What would that be?"

"Mostly if something new happened, if you had decided to move away from Brockton Bay for example; if you had decided to take any legal actions that would affect the PRT or those associated with the organization, if you have committed any crimes recently, that sort of thing."

"No."

"Good, is they anything you wish to discuss without a parent or guardian present?"

"No."

"Good, now, final question and this one needs honesty. How are you?"

That took me off guard, and the agent smiled kindly.

"I find it's not a question asked often enough after these events, plus most people don't actually answer with the truth, simply saying they're fine."

… considering that my reflex response was going to be 'fine,' I could understand. But as to how I felt

I really didn't know.

And it was the truth. Just a few months ago my biggest worry was what the Trio was going to do next, now I didn't have school, and my dad was taking more time out of his day to talk to me. But I was conscious of the cost.

Winslow was gone, at least in terms of it being a school; getting unmelting ice embedded into places tends to make it difficult to keep things functioning. Dozens of people were displaced from what had happened, as their homes were now in the quarantine zone around the school.

"… Dealing, I'm dealing. Going day by day."

"Yes, that's the least we can do at our worst." The smile Todd sported spoke of understanding. "But it is the knowledge that things can…"

Todd was cut off as the door opened again, this time admitting a young stern-faced woman with her black hair in a ponytail.

"Michaels, I trust you haven't done anything illegal?"

"No Jess," said Todd. "Just going over the preliminaries."

Jess gave Todd a glance, before turning to me. She, unlike her counterpart, was dressed in full business attire, a complete suit and tie with a professional skirt, not black, more of a blueish hue.

"I trust that Michaels has been treating you properly Miss Hebert?" she asked, to which I nodded.

"Good, I'm Jessica Lawson, while Mr. Michaels here handles you, I handle the legal paperwork and all that that entails."

Jessica's steps were swift and precise as she made her way to an open chair next to Todd. "I was told by David that your father just arrived, he should be bringing him up as we speak."

"I hope that he warns him of what he's walking into," I say without thinking. "I almost thought I'd been arrested."

Todd's bark of laughter startled me, as well relieved me from my word vomit.

"They didn't really think things through when they built these rooms, did they? Ah yes, of course David would just walk you in here all serious. He does like to keep things light, remarkable considering he lost both legs from the knee down to Hookwolf six weeks ago. Panacea hasn't gotten around to healing him yet; she has a long list."

Great, now I felt bad for thinking him a jerk.

And then the silence was back, only broken by Jessica leafing through several sheets of paper, at least until the door opened once more, by the PRT trooper, David, unless someone else had taken over. Behind him was my father.

Dad looked the part of an accountant, rather than the hiring manager of burly dock workers; beanpole thin, weak chin and big eyes magnified by his glasses. I had gotten several things from him in terms of appearance, the eyes, the figure. Unlike him though, my glasses didn't make me look bewildered, but that could have been just the situation.

"Taylor?" he asked warily.

"It's alright Mr. Hebert, it's just a low-cost room," Jessica said as she stood back up. "David, I trust that you didn't pull another one of your jokes?"

"No Ma'am," came the quick reply.

"Good, back to your job then with you." David gave a crisp salute and about-faced, leaving the room.

"My apologies for the PRT officer Mr. Hebert, I'm Jessica Lawson," Jessica said as she offered her hand to my father. "I'll be covering the legal paperwork aspects of things."

What followed was a quick set of introductions, with several cases of, 'Please, call me [insert first name here].' When it was all said and done however, we settled down and began to hash out the reason that we were all here.

Me.

"Here is a list and a copy of all the paperwork that we'll be going over at this time," Jessica began, handing several stacks to my father. "This one is just a form saying that this one here is all accurate, Taylor has already viewed it and confirmed it as accurate, but it needs both of your signatures to be finalized."

My father viewed each in turn, looking at them as only a veteran of the legal process of paperwork could.

"Next involves the discussion of the actual event caused by Taylor's power, for the record, and I need to start recording per PRT policies," Todd said, pulling a small recorder out of his pocket. "If you wish to skip this part, let me know now, and I'll add it in later."

At this, I stiffened. Not so much at the talk of my Trigger event, but at the fact that I would finally get the details of what happened at Winslow after the fact.

While I had been told what had occurred to the school itself, and what had happened to make me Trigger in the hospital after I'd woken up, no one told me what happened to the students in the building.

My voice was thick when I next spoke. "I'll like to hear it."

Dad took my hand into his on the table.

"Taylor, the people that wrote these rules based them upon criminal protocols, adjusted to the minimum to allow wiggle room for cape identities and the strangeness of powers," Jessica pointed out. "You under no obligation to listen to…"

"I want to know."

The group of adults in the room all looked at each other, something like concern dancing in their eyes.

They didn't know, they didn't understand, I had no real memories of what happened, only glimpses and half-formed ideas from what I was told after the fact.

They wouldn't even let me go and see the school.

Agent Todd took a breath, and I was suspicious that maybe his casual nature had been an attempt to keep me calm, and then he began to speak, reading off a file, first reading off who was in the room and what we were doing. I didn't really listen, focusing on my dads' hand in mine as I waited.

Until he got to the part I wanted to hear.

"On Wednesday the 2nd, 2011, you, Taylor Hebert, were shut into your locker, which had been filed with what has been reported as Human-biowaste, specifically, old used tampons and pads. After you'd…"

The door opened, and Armsmaster slipped in to stand against the wall, as only an man wearing blue power-armor with silver highlights could do.

We all stared. The hero on the other hand simply nodded his head and said, "Apologies, ignore me. Continue."

This wasn't my first time meeting the hero, not even the second. But it followed the trend of him showing up randomly where I was.

Todd glanced at Jessica, who shrugged, then he cleared his throat.

"Addendum, Armsmaster has joined us, but seems to be in a viewing capacity. Continuing from before, after being locked into the locker, Taylor Hebert Triggered. Following this, Winslow High School has become completely inhabitable by what the PRT are calling, an 'ice-tree.' Summary of the tree effects are as follows."

"Despite being classified as ice, the material has a hardness greater than steel, likely due to the unknown energy that runs through the material. Close contact causes no ill effects to standard non-organic materials. However, more advanced objects experience sub-atomic 'breakage,' as recorded by Armsmaster's after-action report."

I glanced at the hero in the room. His armor had been damaged? Armsmaster's whole image and skills were built atop his armor. Depending on how bad it was, he might have repaired the whole thing, as Todd didn't say how bad the 'sub-atomic effects' were.

Which sounded bad just with the atomic part. Those were the basic building blocks of everything; if my power caused those things to break apart…

"Another aspect of the tree is its yet undecided Master/Stranger Striker/Changer effect. This effect causes those that come into prolonged close contact with the tree to experience high mental stress, inducing possible insanity and/or hallucinations of oneself which, according to the reports, forces self-reflection upon the victim while under the trees influence. Testing has been inconclusive in replicating this effect, however, as the only subjects that could have confirmed this effect were the students trapped in Winslow, of which most had not reported seeing anything or have been committed to the PRT clinic commissioned just outside the city limits for PTSD. None of the other members of the rescue teams had reported seeing anything, however, calling into question the validity of this effect."

"The other half of this aspect includes altering various random parts of their bodies in such a way that the Healer Panacea cannot interact with the victims to repair the damage done, which may be linked to the recorded sub-atomic breakage effects previously record, seemingly similar to radiation, yet none have been recorded at the site."

Agent Todd paused and licked his lips. "Now, given the Protectorate Response Teams complacency in the Triggering of one Taylor Hebert, the organization has…"

"Through actions done by one Sophia Hess, aka Shadow Stalker," Armsmaster chimed in. the PRT officials looked shocked at the heros words.

At our first meeting, Armsmaster launched into an apology, stating that he was at fault for what had happened to me, telling me that Sophia, bullying Sophia, turning my old friend against me Sophia, practically attacking and nearly killing me Sophia, was actually a Ward.

Shadow Stalker.

He did this all with my father present, who flipped out in seconds and actually caused the hero to run from the room in what I could only guess was fear.

My dad didn't look like much, but his anger, when it managed to boil over, was something that I was sure would scare even an Endbringer away.

The second time was to tell me about what was being done with Sophia and how the PRT was going to provide temporary housing for us, at least until they were sure that my name hadn't been leaked to the press about me being the one that Triggered.

I didn't know what to make of the hero back then, he came off as blunt and to the point, and now?

I had a feeling that I wasn't the only one very confused by his actions.

"Yes, well," Todd coughed. "That is accurate."

Armsmaster only nodded, seemingly impervious to the glare being sent his way by Jessica. Though with only the bottom half of his face showing, I had no idea what he was thinking.

"Continuing, the PRT has provided a safe home for Taylor Hebert and her father until enough time has passed as to attain if her identity had been made to the public. This meeting is occurring to go over the details of the event and what happens next involving Taylors family and life, any questions?"

"How many?" I asked.

"I'm sorry?" Agent Todd asked.

"How many were injured or died because of me?"

Agent Todd looked stricken, as did my dad and Jessica for that matter. Only Armsmaster looked unaffected, so it seemed fitting that he replied.

"Of all the students present, one hundred and thirty-seven died as a direct result of your power flowing through the school. Fifty-six died during the evacuation due to the rapidly closing spaces and panic. Another six died by PRT hands or other factors caused by the mental effects from exposure to your power, that brings the total to one-hundred and ninety-nine deaths."

It was like a punch to the gut, and my father tightened his grip on my hand.

One-hundred and ninety-nine deaths.

Dad tried to get me into a hug, but I think I was crushing his hand, so he had to awkwardly lift his connected arm over my head so that I was hugging myself, while he wrapped his other arm around my front.

One-hundred and ninety-nine deaths.

Those deaths were on me, no matter what anyone said. It was my Power that overtook the school, mine. I may not have caused them to happen, but it was still by my hand that it happened. Or by my power, whatever.

"Easy Taylor," my dad said soothingly. "Easy." He may or may not have been rocking me.

I didn't know if it was only a few minutes or a few seconds, it was had to tell when I was dealing with the fact that was responsible for nearly two-hundred deaths.

Two-hundred lives gone and never coming back.

"… if you wish to take a break," Todd began after a time.

"No, I… I'm, not okay," I began, still holding on to my dad like a lifeline. "But… I can continue."

Agent Todd glanced at Jessica, who nodded back to him.

"Ok then. For the record, the PRT is also providing additional assistance to Taylor in terms of monetary compensation, medical assistance, as well as fast-tracking her to a new school. These are similar to other sets of assistance the PRT is giving to the victims of the Winslow event, at least those not under psychiatric care. The PRT will also assist in getting Taylor into school by arranging her placement tests."

"This, however, is not conditional on Taylor deciding to go to Arcadia," Armsmaster pointed out. "If you wish to go to another school, that can be arranged as well."

Both of the PRT personal looked at the hero in shock, and I had a feeling that what he had just said wasn't in the program.

"The Wards go to Arcadia," my dad pointed out sharply. "Did you plan on having them watch her?"

"While that would be a befit for the PRT because of the lack of knowledge about her powers," Armsmaster pointed out. "The main reason she would be sent to Arcadia would be for her grades before the bullying. They were high enough that, given the circumstances, her time at Winslow could be overlooked, provided that she does relatively well at her placement tests."

That made sense. The PRT had seen what I could do at my worst – two hundred- even if it wasn't consciously done, they likely didn't want a repeat, so fitting me in at the same school as the Wards worked for everyone, if you discounted the fact I would/could be watched.

Not that Arcadia was a bad school, compared to Winslow at least. Their policies meant that I won't have to worry about bullying, but it also meant a new school, new people to meet, including the people that might have gone to Winslow as well if they managed to get in.

As for them watching me, Armsmaster had mentioned power testing during our second meeting, and if the PRT didn't know what I could do…

"Speaking of the Wards," Todd cut in. "If you wish no…"

"No."

Agent Todd was taken aback by my forcefulness. "The Wards program…"

"No."

"With your powers untested, you may not know their full effects…"

"I won't use them."

That drew looks; enough so that I felt the need to explain myself.

"I've killed people with them," I pointed out, feeling sick. "Destroyed my school and made the city panic. All I want, is to move on from all of it. No more bullying, no more having to look over my shoulder for the next hit. I'll go to Acadia, I've heard it's a good school, but I don't want to be pressured into using something I never wanted. I've had enough misery and stress, now all I want is to just live a normal life."

[hr][/hr]

A/N: Ah Taylor, don't tell me you think it's going to be that easy?

Static

DID YOU REALLY BELIEVE (smacks) Get off this transmission Vay Hek, your voice is annoying.

But this, this is the reason why it's going to be until the end of Firewalker that we're not going to see Taylors power in any type of action.

This isn't the freshly Triggered Taylor, the one that uses her powers to escape what's happening in her life, this is a Taylor that got her powers and then was thrown into a fight like the one with Bakuda. She didn't have time to adjust, to adapt to what was happening, and now the opportunity is there for her to escape another way and she's taking it with both hands because hell no.

She doesn't have her bugs to back her up, she doesn't have the Undersiders to fall back on, and she has no plans forming because of those two facts. Like any normal human, something happened that's terrible to her and she wants out and away.

She wants normal.

That's not to say that all the other things that happened without Taylor even needing to be around to happen will not happen. They will, just differently.

Also, I'm cross-posting this over on SpaceBattles, it's under the same name. Nothing is different over there than what is happening here, but there is an bigger summary (of sorts)

Also also, this isn't exactly the best… 'interview,' but it kinda fits what is happening, and the PRT in general.