AN: And this is the end of Arc 1. Unfortunately FF doesn't let you post pictures. There's supposed to be a map of the Bay in here. If you want to see it just look at the Ao3 or Spacebattles versions.

Another day at school, another day of Herculean effort put into not annihilating Winslow High in its entirety. Well, I say Herculean, but really as little as I care, almost any effort at this point would count as a lot. It wasn't like they could actually Birdcage me if they tried. Hell, maybe I'd catch a ride on the next transport there just to see what it was like. I could probably get some good minions out of there too. If I could spring Marquis and have him work for us that would already put us in a far better place. Maybe I could grab Lustrum too if she could chill on the anti-men shtick. Who else was even in there that I could convince to join me? The Fairy Queen? As if. She might be strong, but I wouldn't know what to do with her and her weirdness. Pot meet kettle, yeah, whatever.

Anyway, I decided to start the day with a smoke. Sat outside one of the back doors and used my powers to light up. I didn't do the whole snap and wave thing I usually did in case anyone was watching. Just a spark of blue at the end of my smoke so quick you'd think it was your eyes playing tricks on you. I had decided on grabbing my box of Sakura's since I had three or four of them saved up at this point. They weren't quite as rare as Black Devil, but rare enough that I didn't smoke them regularly.

It was only a few seconds after I lit up that Madison came around the corner. She stopped when she saw me, tensing slightly, but relaxing just as quickly and walking towards me, stopping at a respectable distance of around seven feet. She fumbled with her box, brand new with the plastic still on it, before she managed to get one out. Apparently she'd been practicing lighting up with her Cero because the blast was small, quick, and dissipated by the time it was high enough to reach the roof of the school. We stood in silence for a few minutes, neither of us saying anything. I was happy to continue that way until class started, but she must have felt awkward.

"I got in trouble." She said. When I didn't say anything after a few seconds she continued, "I told my mom about what I did. To you. She was real mad. But I don't regret it. I don't feel less guilty, but I guess it's nice to know she cares enough to try to help me be better."

"Lucky you." I droned blandly, blowing smoke out my nose.

"Problems at home?"

"Nothing out of the ordinary."

She either didn't get what I was saying or took the hint that I didn't want to talk about it and simply nodded.

"I'm pretty grounded. No TV or anything like that for a while. But, she said if I'm doing anything with you, I can go, no problem." She tensed again, taking a long drag of her cigarette before speaking again. "She wanted me to invite you to dinner some time soon. Whenever works for you just let me know and I'll tell her."

"If I take you up on this, should I bring my dad?"

"Probably."

"I'll think about it."

"I'm glad." There's no emotion in her voice.

—

"There you are, Hebert." Sophia sneers, my name spat like it tasted sour in her mouth.

I curse whatever God saw fit to place this bitch and her friends on the path to today's vanishing point. I highly doubted they planned this considering we were only a few feet from the office, but I knew I wanted to get out of here as fast as possible. I start to turn the corner to make a slight detour to my destination, but Emma steps in front of me, apparently having been waiting there. Of course she was.

"Trying to run away again." Sophia snorts. "Not surprising. You're even quitting school. That's all a spineless coward like you knows how to do, isn't it? Run away."

I stare at her blankly for few seconds trying to figure out how she could have possibly known that. It seemed I'd have to go harder on Madison today.

"Don't have anything to say, Taylor?" Emma asked. "You were always the talkative type. What happened?"

I don't bother even looking at Emma and instead speak to Sophia.

"Well, there's no point staying in school when it would be a breeze to test out early. You think you're the only reason I wanna get out of this shit hole school? You're a minor inconvenience at best." I said blandly. That seemed to make her upset.

"A minor inconvenience, huh? That why you went crying to Blackwell so often? Why you skip so many classes? If you're gonna be a pussy at least own up to it."

"Please, like a weak little worm like her could ever have any pride in herself. Look at how the trollop dresses." Emma mocked. "Baggy pants and oversized sweaters? Muted colors? Slouched posture? She's just trying to hide herself away and hope we don't notice her. And now she's running away because she can't take it anymore."

I didn't say anything to the fact that "trollops" didn't dress in baggy clothes, nor did I bother pointing out that I wore blacks and pastels. I'd realized my clothing habits early on after getting my powers and had started rectifying that, but I still liked big, baggy sweatshirts. They were comfortable.

"Do you even know what trollop means?"

"Of course I do." She huffed, but didn't offer a meaning. I knew Emma wasn't stupid, but going into high school her options were Winslow or Immaculata. So while she wasn't dumb, she wasn't the smartest either. I could only assume she had a contextual meaning of the word from movies or something and wasn't sure enough to say it out loud.

"Uh huh. Well, I shouldn't be surprised at that level of vanity coming from you, but I am. Who knew little miss sits-on-daddy's-lap-because-she-likes-the-bump would could still surprise me." Emma went red at that and a few of the girls looked at her oddly. "I mean, you're the same girl that not only did that until she was twelve, but was more than adamant about giving me her first kiss when she saw her sister making out with her boyfriend. Or maybe I should bring up the time you Frenched your dad because you saw your mom do it? Oh, I know, how about that diary you used to keep about how hot you thought your daddy was when we were eleven? You really thought you could marry him."

She was sputtering now, trying to get words out but everything came out at once as alphabet soup. Her friends were on the edge of laughing at her while Sophia was glaring.

"I told you to keep that a secret!" Emma finally got out.

"Rules for thee but not for me. Funny how that works out, huh? When you break trust first that means it's fair game, bitch. Though I have to say, Sophia, I didn't think you were so vane to think everything I do is because of you. You honestly think I'm going to be in sitting at home in my thirties thinking 'Damn that Sophia! She ruined my life!'? Nah, you're not worth it. You're tiny. A small little blip on the map in the grand scheme of things. I'll get out of this dumpster fire of a school and move on with my life because you just don't matter."

She growled and stepped forward, fists clenched. It didn't surprise me that someone like her would take offense to something like that. Emma stopped her and gave me a serious look.

"At least I didn't kill my mom."

I took a step back at that, eyes widened slightly, mouth dropped open in horror. For the faintest of seconds I felt it all slip away and I started to raise my hand to slice the entire school in half. It was only a twitch in the end, but it was close. I recomposed myself and started to talk, but Sophia was emboldened by my reaction.

"You say I'm small, but what about you? You take a hit and fold like a house of cards. You're never going to go anywhere in life. You're too weak. If you can't even take a little ribbing in school there's no way you'd survive the real world. You would be lucky to score a minimum wage job at some gas station and hope you don't get killed during a robbery. I'd never let myself be in your position."

"You two really are sociopaths. You think you could deal with what you put me through? You'd have gotten yourself expelled several times over you violent sack of shit. You put me in a no win situation. No one cares. The other students don't care, the teachers don't care, the administration doesn't care, fuck, at some point I stopped caring. Mrs. Knott is the only one who ever tried to help me. Quinlan is either blind or apathetic, Gladly cares more about being popular than he does his students, and Blackwell is just here to cut a check. So where does that leave me? Out for myself where it's impossible to win. So I fight back and then what? I catch a case for your dumb ass? No. Not happening. I tried, I failed, and eventually I saw the truth: You're not worth it."

Sophia got wound up again and started to stomp towards me. Emma tried to stop her, but she walked forward with purpose, fists clenched tight.

"Hey!"

We stopped to see Blackwell standing in the doorway of the office. The narrowly build blonde usually had a scowl on her face, but now she just looked like we'd kicked her puppy.

"All of you, come here." She said. One of the flunkies was the first to move, trying to get her side of the story out first. Blackwell cut her off. "I heard enough of what happened. In my office." She growled. We all started towards her, Emma and Sophia shooting me looks as we made our way over. "You," She pointed to me, "Wait out here."

"Kay." I said, sliding into one of the waiting room chairs.

The door nearly slammed behind her as the four girls went into the office. I pulled out my cigarettes and lit one up.

"You can't smoke in here." The receptionist said. She had a name plaque on her desk, I just never bothered to learn what it was. I don't think I'd called her anything other than 'Receptionist' in over a year.

"Watch me." I scoffed. She gave me a hard look, but my 'withered eyes of apathy' beat her out and she left me be. I was halfway done with my cigarette when the other girls came out. They didn't seem annoyed or anything, so my best guess was they got off the hook. Though Sophia still sneered at me as they passed by. I was finished by the time Black well called me into her office.

"Come here, Ms. Hebert." She said. I stood, tossing my cigarette but in the trash, and walked towards her. She looked confused, then upset. "Not only are you too young to be smoking, but doing so in such a blatant manner on school grounds…" She trailed off. "Sit down."

She closed the door and walked around to her desk while I casually took my seat.

"Now, they say you started it."

"Which is a lie, but you don't care about that so what's my punishment going to be?"

"You're going to be suspended for three days." She said before picked up on what I'd said. "Hold on, you're not going to tell me your side of the story?"

"You've made up your mind. Nothing I say matters." I shrug. "For curiosity sake, why am I suspended for three days and how much of that conversation did you hear?"

"Why does it matter how much I heard?" She glared.

I shrug. "Like I said, for curiosity sake."

"I heard the tail end. What Sophia said and the part about how you think I'm 'only here to cut a check'."

"So you completely missed the part where Emma called me a trollop and accused me of being responsible for my mothers death. Cool. So why the suspension."

She sat there, eyes widened slightly at what I said.

"For inciting a fight."

"Okay. Can I go now?"

"I really would like to help you, but I need more evidence than what you tell me."

"I don't believe that for a second. I'd appreciate you not lie to my face like that again."

Her face hardened. "Would you like to make that a week?"

"Sure."

"Then how about two?"

"Don't threaten me with a good time."

Her scowl tightened.

"One weeks suspension. Get out of my office and don't let me catch you like that again."

I scoff. "Whatever." I stand up and walk out before she can say anything else.

—

The thing about people like Emma is that they get arrogant when they've won. They don't consider the long term. They don't consider reprisal is an option. They don't see individual battles spread across an overarching war. They take what's in front of them and whatever comes they'll deal with when it comes.

Which is why I was now having lunch with the money I stole from her purse.

It wasn't difficult. The dumb bitch kept her purse in her locker for some reason, probably because she didn't consider that anyone would actually try to steal from her, and left her wallet in there too. So now I was two hundred bucks richer and eating some of the greasiest food available in the Bay. I was probably gonna go buy a new hoodie with her money too. I did find a nice white one at the mall last Saturday. Maybe I'd see if they still had it in stock.

I left the local grease trap with a shake in hand and started down the boardwalk, looking for something to do or buy. I was more than a little surprised to run into Lisa and Alec along with someone else. Where Alec was thin and pretty, this guy was… Hunky. Tall, built, very masculine looking features… yeah, everything I liked.

"Hey, Taylor!" Lisa called, waving me down. She was dressed in a blue skirt and white blouse. It looked nice, but seemed a little old fashioned on her.

"Sup." Alec nodded. He was in a pair of black jeans and a loose fitting shirt.

"Hello." I sipped my shake. "I don't think I know you." I nodded to their third member.

"I'm Brian. I didn't know these two had made a new friend." He said, looking over at Lisa and Alec.

"We met last week." Lisa said. "Just kinda ran into her."

"Well, nice to meet you." He smiled and put his hand out. I took it with a smile of my own.

"Oh, the pleasure is all mine." I said.

"Down girl." Lisa tapped me on the head.

"Unnecessary." I said, rubbing the spot.

"What are you even doing here? Don't you have school?" Alec asked.

"Got suspended." I shrugged.

Alec's eyes widened a bit, like he didn't expect that of me. Brian just hummed. Lisa… was staring.

"You got into a fight. An argument." She started. "The girls who… You got suspended but they didn't. You got revenge by stealing from one of them." She paused then her face went white. "Please don't hurt her too bad." She said.

"Hurt who?" Brian asked.

"I'm not making any promises." I said.

"Well, how about you join us? It'll be a good way to blow of steam. I dragged these two with me shopping." She smirked.

"I don't have a lot. I was looking to buy a new hoodie though."

"Don't you have enough hoodie's?"

"I don't have one in bright white."

"How about this, I'll buy you some clothes and a bright white one as long as it's not a baggy monstrosity like you have on."

"Deal."

"Great! Hope you like skirts!"

I almost choked on my shake.

"Hey, wait, no!"

"Too late." She smirked, dragging me off towards a shop. "You've got long legs and you're going to show them off."

Ten minutes later we were in a store and Lisa was doing her best to bury me under a mountain of clothes.

I hated shopping for clothes. Not just because I was a bean pole, I'd reconciled that I'd never have curves after seeing what mom looked like at my age and realizing I took after dad in build, though my powers had helped by fixing some of the things I disliked, but because I just didn't enjoy it. Well, I didn't enjoy having to try on outfit after outfit after outfit. It kind of felt like a waste of time, and with Lisa constantly bringing me more and more outfits to try on, she was starting to try my patience.

"Hey, calm down." She said as she came back with yet another outfit. I was already on outfit number twenty nine and at least the twelfth set of skirts. "I'm trying to cheer you up. How can you not be enjoying this? I know you wish you had more curves, but you're attractive."

I gave her a long blank look.

"You are!" She said. "And you'll only get better with age. I swear, if you went out in one of these outfits, maybe stopped looking like you were ready to die, you'd have guys after you!"

I stepped out of the changing rooms and called across the store to the guys.

"Brian, Alec, I look good in this? Honest opinion!" I was dressed in a skirt that showed off a lot more thigh than I was really comfortable with a short sleeved crop top that showed off my, admittedly impressive, abs. I wasn't overly muscular, still being rather thin, but I had very little stomach fat and my muscles were visible.

Alec, who wasn't far, looked over at me and nodded. "I'd fuck you."

"Jesus Christ, Alec!" Lisa nearly shouted.

Brian walked over and took a long look at me. I felt my face heat up a bit under his attention.

"Yeah, you look good." He nodded.

"See?!" Lisa said. "Despite Alec's crass answer, I told you, you could draw a crowd." She turned a beaming, smug smile towards me.

"Fine, fine, you're right." I sigh. "Can we speed this up."

"You're no fun. You boys go back to what you were doing. Taylor still has a few more outfits to try on."

I groan, but follow her back into the changing rooms anyway.

"Oh yeah, we're doing a training session tonight." I say as I pull on a different shirt and skirt pair.

"I'll see if I can be there. Maybe I can drag Alec's lazy ass off the couch for long enough."

"Alright."

"So you're really interested in Brian, huh?" She smirked.

"I mean…" I trailed off, not really sure how to explain it.

"You don't think you can trust someone enough for a relationship."

"Exactly. I mean, I guess sex would be fine. But trusting someone with my emotions and secrets the way an actual relationship requires… I don't think I'm ready for that. I don't think I will be for a long time."

I got a sardonic snort from the other side of the door.

"It's funny that I'm the exact opposite. I can trust people enough that a romantic relationship could be on the table, but I can always tell someone's true intentions and it turns me off so much that I can't be intimate with people in that way."

I snort. "God, why does everything have to be so fucked up?"

Lisa snorted too, laughter bubbling through. "I really wish I knew."

We finished shopping half an hour later and I walked out the store dressed in a new black skirt and a thin, tight fitting, white hoodie. I new she said it couldn't be baggy, but the thing might as well have been skin tight by comparison.

"You know you spent too much on me, right?" I asked.

"Oh hush. I offered to buy." Lisa said.

"Yeah, but I didn't think you'd buy me a whole new wardrobe."

"It's only six outfits."

"It cost you more money than I've spent in the last month."

"Oh shit, you're not joking." She looked at me.

"No, I'm not."

"Well just shut up and be appreciative. You want to grab food with us?"

"I already ate, but I could eat some more."

"Are you a bottomless pit or something?" Alec asked.

"When it comes to food, I might as well be."

"I hate people who can eat whatever they want and not get fat. It's so unfair." Lisa joked. Or half joked. I couldn't tell.

"I'd rather have tits."

Alec burst into laughter while Lisa just sighed, though there was a small smile on her face. I didn't hear Brian make a sound, but looking back I saw a pensive smile on his face, like he was trying not to laugh.

"Shut up. Let's go get food." Lisa bumped into me as we walked.

—

Dad got home later than usual and didn't go straight for the fridge. Instead, he walked over to the side of the couch and looked at me.

"Yes?" I asked.

"You got suspended." He said, his face twisted between concern and a bit of anger. "How did that happen?"

"The girls who usually mess with me tried it today. I was having none of it and told them to fuck off. We went back and forth and I basically told them to collectively deep throat a cactus and the principal heard only what I said so I got suspended for a week."

"She told me three days." He said, looking off to the side. "How'd you get it bumped up to a week?"

"For disrespecting her. Basically called her a liar to her face because she claimed to want to help but has never actually tried to help. She also heard me say I thought she was only there to cut a check."

That got a laugh out of him.

"Well, there are certainly worse things to be suspended for. Did you cook?"

"Chicken." I nodded.

"Alright." He yawned. "I'm gonna eat then head to bed. You gonna be alright by yourself for the night?"

"I'll be fine."

"Alright." He started toward the kitchen, but lingered for a second. When I started to look up at him he kept walking.

I shook my head and sighed.

—

I was actually pretty calm by the time I was supposed to head to training. Didn't mean there wouldn't be reprisal but I wasn't out for blood so I probably wouldn't kill her.

When I walked through the portal Theo and Madison were already there. Apparently they decided to get there early and talk. When Madison saw me she stood up.

"Taylor! I—." She didn't get a chance to finish as I hit her in the face. The sound was like thunder. She bounced off the floor and then hit the wall hard enough to bounce off of that.

"Taylor! What the hell?!" Theo shouted. He moved to block my path but I walked through him. Madison was on her knees, hunched over with one hand on the ground and the other on her face. She noticed me too late and kicked her in the stomach, folding her over my foot like a lawn chair. She made a sound between a wet gasp, a dry heave, and a gag before she was sent flying. The room didn't have a roof, but it did have gravity, so it wasn't like she'd be up there forever, no matter how hard I kicked her. When she finally came back down I hit her in the back, sending her across the room and bouncing off another wall. She didn't try to get up this time, which was fine with me.

I stomped on her hand and she hissed. I brought my other foot to the side of her head and pressed down.

"You know I'm kind of glad I hadn't started putting any real stock in you. It's been less than a week and you're already telling them things? How did I ever—."

"Amber." She choked out. I lessened the pressure on her head.

"What?"

"It was Amber. She overheard us talking on Wednesday."

I slowly took my foot off her head, but kept the one on her hand.

"And why should I trust you on that?"

"I… I really do want to be your friend, Taylor. I know it won't come over night, or even in a few weeks. I'm not expecting you to warm up to me for months, at least, but I would never do anything to jeopardize what little faith you have in me that I won't fuck this all up. You have to believe me on that. Even if you never trust me enough to be friends, I'm not going to go back to the way I treated you before. Never. I don't want to be that monster anymore."

I didn't let her hand go for several seconds, trying to decide if she was pulling one over on me.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't get a chance. They dragged me off the second class ended. I was hoping I'd get a chance to tell you before you ran into Sophia or Emma."

I took a deep breath and sighed as I let go of her hand. She started rubbing it, but stopped when I snapped my fingers. She looked surprised and confused that she wasn't in pain anymore.

"I negated the effect of the beat down I just gave you. As far as your body is concerned nothing happened."

"Holy shit." Theo whispered from nearby.

"Take a minute to calm down and we'll start. Hopefully Lisa and Alec will show up at some point.

Lisa did. Alec apparently couldn't be bothered to figure out what he could do. We trained for a few hours, rather, I trained them for a few hours. Lisa got a feel of her illusions and even learned she could just randomly cause other people to feel pain. Madison figured out some sort of "Null Energy" as Lisa called it. She couldn't really see what it was, but she got enough of an idea to know it wasn't really natural. As for Theo, we learned he could cause explosions and disintegrate things. My own training was mostly working with my spatial distortion. I could do a lot of things with it, but out side of stretching space like Vista I couldn't control it the way I wanted. Some of it was easy, like floor tilting, but slicing space apart at long ranges was a pain. Unless I was phasing through things to cut them I had no control. I could potentially slice half of Brockton in half on a dimensional level if I ever did it during a fight.

Eventually, we did wind down and finish our training. We were sitting down, relaxing around the table when I spoke up.

"Alright, kiddies—,"

"I'm a year older than you." Lisa said.

"Alright kiddies," I said again, "I've got some homework for you."

"Aw, man." Lisa groaned like child.

"You need to come up with a name for when we go out and do stuff." I finished.

"A cape name?" Madison asked.

"Yes, you need a cape name. We're meeting up again on Sunday to talk about our plans for where we want things to go, so try to have one by then."

"That's a lot of pressure." She said.

"No it's not. You don't have to worry about how it sounds to other people, it just has to sound good and not be too long."

"Yeah, the people on PHO will shorten it for you if it's too long. Someone made a fake villain named "Genocide Scythe the Eye Raper" in one of the original character threads a while back and everyone was harping on him for the name being too long."

"Oh yeah, I remember that!" Madison snapped up. "He got super pissy when someone shortened it to "Genoscythe" and the name stuck because it made him so upset. So now it's a massive meme in a lot of cape fic."

The room was silent as everyone stared at Madison.

"… You read cape fic?" Theo asked slowly.

"Uh… Sometimes." She turned red and slouched into her seat.

"You big liar." Lisa smirked. "You're a huge cape groupie! You spend all your time on PHO doing nothing but reading cape fic and talking about getting plowed by capes!"

Madison turned even redder sunk down lower.

I burst out into laughter at that revelation, nearly falling out of my chair. It took a few minutes for me to calm down, but Madison was hiding her face by the time I looked up again.

"Oh fuck, I haven't laughed like that in ages. That felt good." I sighed. "We're done for the day. Names by Sunday. Later."

—

For the first time in a while I actually had something to look forward to on the weekend. I actually did find another white hoodie at the mall on Saturday, but was back home in less than an hour and didn't leave the house again. Dad was gone all day Saturday and was planning to go out with Kurt and Lacey on Sunday, so I just sat around reading.

I showed up in Las Noches a little after Midnight and found Madison already there. We just smoked in silence until Theo showed up. It was twelve thirty when we figured Lisa was either not coming or going to be late.

"Alright, so do you have names?" I asked.

"I do." Madison said.

"Alright, what is it?"

"I figured I should just go with my theme, so I picked Nihilism."

"… As a name?" I asked.

"Yeah."

"That's… a bit on the nose." Theo said.

"Oh…"

"How about something else."

"Ex Nihilo?" Theo asked.

"That's better, but not quite smooth enough. How about Nihilus? It gets the point across and rolls off the tongue smoothly."

"Ooh, I like that. Nihilus." She nodded.

"Okay, how about you?" I look at Theo.

"Uh… Well, it's partly because of my family situation, but I chose Samael."

"Is that Christian?"

"Jewish, actually. Samael is the archangel in Judaism that basically serves the same role as Satan in the Bible. Some of the things he's done even has people think he's a fallen angel, but he's not."

"Samael." I said slowly. "It's a good name. I like it." I wanted to question how picking a name with Jewish origins was related to his family situation, but I let that go. If he wanted to tell us, he would. "My turn. I picked the name Sacrosanct."

"Sacrosanct?" Madison raised an eyebrow.

"Well, it's not hard to say or anything. It's not too long, either. What does it mean?" Theo asked.

"It means most sacred or holy, or Inviolable, which is the main one I'm aiming for. My powers revolve around never taking damage, and Sacrosanct means essentially immune from violation, so it works."

"Now who's name is on the nose." Madison smirked.

"Yeah, but mine isn't a whole philosophy."

"Fine, fine." She relented. "So what are we talking about?"

"Our plans for the future. I think we should lay out a plan to work towards. What gangs to take out first, how we split up territory, that kind of thing." I laid out a map of the city.

"I want the Boardwalk." I said.

"Why?" Madison asked.

I looked down at the map, looking away from her. "My dad's a Dockworker and I want to be able to keep an eye on him."

"Aww!" Madison cooed, "That's so sweet."

"Shut up." I bit out.

She did, but she kept smirking.

"I want downtown." Theo said.

"Any particular reason?" Madison asked.

Theo swallowed and his eyes hollowed like he was remembering something unpleasant.

"It's family stuff."

"If you say so." I say.

"Okay, so my turn." Madison looked over the map. "I want the Trainyard."

"Really?"

"Yeah. There's not a lot over there and not a lot to manage. I actually kind of enjoy all that empty space."

"If you say so." Theo said.

"So that leaves three areas unattended and one person without their own area, unless you count the outskirts of town." I said as I marked the map. "The problem is we don't know enough about who runs what or where to start. I'm sure Lisa knows, which is why I wanted her here. We know the ABB runs the Docks and the Empire runs Downtown, but how much control do they have over each area? Does Lung only run the Docks proper, or does he run the South Docks too? Does Kaiser have control over the commerce district or parts of the Coast?"

"I… I can help a bit." Theo said.

"Huh? How?"

"You have to promise not to freak out and let me explain."

"… Alright…"

"My dad is Kaiser."

"OH FUCK!" Me and Madison both jumped up.

"That's a huge fucking deal, dude!"

"I know, just relax and let me explain!"

"This better be good."

"Kaiser's my dad, but I've never subscribed to his way of thinking. I hate him. It's why I chose a name with Jewish origins and why I want Downtown. Once we get rid of the gangs I want to try to reverse the damage they've done."

"It's fucked up that Kaiser's your dad, but if you really do hate him enough that you're willing to take down the Empire, then we're cool." I said.

"Thanks." He smiled.

A portal opened and Lisa stepped through with a guy dressed in a black biker outfit. She looked okay, her outfit a little messed up, but okay. The guy on the other hand, he looked like he'd just been roasted alive.

"We need help." She panted.

"What the hell happened?"

"Lung."