People were staring at Taylor and whispering as she passed, but this time she knew the reason why and didn't mind. Let them wonder about her, Scion's Chosen. Not that anyone knew for sure what she could do, herself included. But having a metaphorical aura of mystery and uncertain possibilities surrounding her could only improve matters.
And speaking of improving matters, there was the Trio, conveniently loitering near Taylor's first period class. Certainly not waiting to ambush her, no, that would be bullying and girls of such caliber as they would never do that. A flicker of the old Taylor tried to get her to flinch, to hunch over, to take up as little space as possible and you know what? Fuck that.
A wide smile on her face, Taylor walked up to the Trio.
"Hi, girls! How nice of you to wait for me! How're you doing after yesterday's little unpleasantness?"
All three immediately looked taken aback and disconcerted, albeit in different ways. Sophia looked at her warily, eyes flicking up and down as she gauged Taylor's body language and seemingly reassessed her, all in an instant. Madison retreated slightly behind the other two, breaking the wall they had been forming, concern and disquiet written all across her face. And Emma? Emma looked scared. No, not scared. Terrified and trying to hide it. Sophia may have collapsed when Scion did whatever he did to Taylor, but she had seen the entire thing and knew that her old friend had been fundamentally changed in ways that made the lizard part of her brain want to run away screaming.
Emma tried to rally her usual cutting barbs. "Oh, Taylor, we're so glad you're safe. You're so clumsy that when you fell into your locker no-one must've noticed. And you were so weak you needed rescuing, too. You really ought to take better care of yourself, you looked a fright."
The grin never left Taylor's face throughout and was she even blinking? Yes, she was, just slow enough that Emma's eyes watered in sympathy. Instead of cringing as she would've done yesterday, Taylor suddenly hugged both Emma, who froze in surprise, and Sophia, who tried to break the hold and failed. Madison looked at the tableau with wide eyes, then glanced around the hall, seeing everyone looking at them, seeing Taylor not be scared, seeing Madison and her friends losing somehow. She decided retreat was the better part of valor and very definitely didn't run away to her own first class.
As Madison fled, Taylor said, in a low but cheerful voice that carried no further than the ears of her be-hugged tormentors, "Be careful girls. You never know who's watching."
Sophia shoved hard, breaking the hug, and stumbled back a step. "What the fuck, Hebert? Since when did you grow a spine? It doesn't suit you."
Before releasing Emma, Taylor leaned further in and in that same cheerful voice whispered directly into her ear, "We're not friends anymore, are we, Emma? Good."
That done, Taylor released her ex-friend and turned slightly to face the increasingly angry track star.
"I would love to stay and chat, Sophia, but I actually have some learning to do. Not all of us can be the golden children of the school, now can we? Ta!"
Without waiting for a response, Taylor walked past the stunned duo into her first period classroom. The hallway behind her was dead still, everyone watching the scene that had just transpired. Then the warning bell rang and the spell was broken. Everyone hurried off to their own classes. More than one video was uploading to WeTube, though.
The Trio and their hangers-on avoided Taylor for the rest of the day, wary of the changes in her, which suited the black-haired girl just fine. Fewer distractions. She participated more in class, people deferring to her as if afraid to interrupt. Even the teachers seemed... not deferential, but wary of Taylor. She was different now and everyone could tell. It was nice.
After school, she went by the bank, withdrew her meager savings, and went shopping. Sporting goods store for a hunting knife, jogging bra, and balaclava; fabric store for a few yards of dark blue cotton and matching thread; hardware store to get some thick doweling (cut to a length of 6 feet and boy wasn't that fun maneuvering around on the bus). Time to gear up as best she could. Knife, quarterstaff, fabric that she could turn into a simple cloak, and mask. Hmm. Glasses and a mask didn't go well together. Maybe she could...
Taylor went into the bathroom, took off her glasses, and squinted at herself in the mirror. Contacts would help a lot. Not wearing glasses totally changed the shape of her face, showing that she actually had cheekbones for one. She swept her gaze to the side idly while pondering whether she could get colored lenses to even further disguise things and watched a couple of squirrels chase each other on the tree branch outside her window across the hall. One must've pissed off the other over something. Taylor didn't think it was mating season-
She could see without her glasses.
She tentatively put the glasses back on. There was a moment of readjustment where things were warped and blurry in her vision, then she could see fine. Take them off, that same moment and then perfect vision. Fuck. Yeah.
A minute of fist-pumping celebration later, she bounded downstairs, where her dad was watching the news.
"Dad! Dad, look!"
He looked away from the TV, nervousness writ on his face, and paused.
"What am I looking at, honey?"
"No glasses! Whatever Scion did to me, I don't need glasses any more! I can still wear them and my eyes adjust, but I don't need them if I don't want to wear them!"
Danny blinked in surprise a couple of times, then smiled. "That's great, honey! Another side effect of your powers, do you think?"
Taylor paused in momentary self-inventory. "No, I think this is separate from them. A baseline all-around improvement. I feel a little stronger, somewhat smarter and a lot more confident than I did before he did whatever he did. Like he upgraded? No, optimized my body and mind before I could withstand the powers."
An unnatural stillness settled upon her, absent even the micro-twitches of the body rebalancing itself. She was perfectly settled in place without excess motion needed. Danny shivered a little. But maybe that was just the overhead fan being a little too strong.
"Dad, where's Mom's old sewing machine?"
He blinked a bit at the question. "Down in the basement, I think. Don't know if it even works any more, though."
Taylor smiled lazily. "Oh, I don't think that'll be a problem. I feel like I can figure it out."
The next morning, Taylor awoke from her precisely eight hours of sleep, fully refreshed, to find her mother's old sewing machine freshly cleaned and oiled and waiting on her desk, ready for use. As much as she itched to get to work on her costume, she did have to go to school. Dammit. At least the thing she'd made? Summoned? Whatever. It had done what she'd told it to do. She wasn't sure of the exact extent of its capabilities and whether it could fix up the machine, but apparently it worked.
That weird sense of emptiness, no, being spent that she'd felt when she brought it into being was gone, too. She got the feeling that she'd only be able to use one of those more complex applications of her powers before she had to rest. For now, anyway.
Tonight she'd finish making her adventuring gear (and where did that phrase come from?).
Tomorrow she'd go hunting.