True to my word, I didn't go actively searching for trouble for three months. I was too busy helping Taylor recover anyway. Taylor was out of the hospital a week after her awakening. About three weeks to get out of the hospital. School was normal as always, but the bullying stopped for a while, then came back in full force. The Trio was probably assessing the new Taylor. Yes, Taylor had grown more cheerful since the Locker, and yes, I had something to do with it. She was still reserved in public, but in private will secretly fangirl about her powers. I would sit there and take it all in like a good cousin, of course she had questions about my powers.
"Say, Alec, your time-warpy-thingy, how does that work?" she had asked when we were at home, lazing about while Uncle Danny was at work. Well, I was lazing about on the couch, Taylor was working on ideas and such for her costume. Well, I wasn't lazing about I was thinking extensively.
"I don't tend to think about that much. But, ah, explain it, like, what do you mean?" I asked, confused a bit. I tend to confuse myself sometimes.
"Like, say, if you were to go into the past, then change something, then go back to the present, would it be changed, or would it be the same?" she described, waving her pencil in the air.
I took a peek at her drawings, they were pretty good, "Well, I usually don't tend to think about that much, it gives me a massive headache. But, since you asked nicely, I'll answer. I'll start with an example though.
"Remember that day?" Tay nodded tersely, it was still a sore spot for all of us. "Well, when I went down that alleyway, I followed you for a time then decided to go look about, I teleported back in time and found some muggers. I knocked them around, and finally left. I faintly remember that there was something on the news about it, only that they couldn't get the blue bones I had erected down." I snorted, "They even brought in Clockblocker to see if anything frozen in time would pierce it. It failed. It was, of course, a few hours' time after the event that I heard of it, but I remember Uncle saying something about blue bones that morning."
"That didn't answer anything." Taylor deadpanned, laying her had on the couch looking up at my face.
I frowned, "True, but if I had known the details about it, knowing that I would have used blue bones for the thing, but not knowing how I would use them that would probably fail and shift the timeline a bit. Remember when I had a bad headache for a few days?"
"Err, what does that have to do with anything?" Tay asked.
"Well, that day I had tried to figure it out, but only succeeded in giving myself a massive headache. And I don't want to try it again." I finished, "Anyway, how are your costume designs coming along?"
"UUuuuhggggggghhh!" she groaned, rocking her head, "This doesn't make sense! You're lucky, you know. You don't even have to have a costume; you just transform into a skeleton! And your clothes transform too!" she was waving her arms about and poking me in the belly when she said this.
"Well, don't blame me just because- whatever it is- decided to give me a power that transforms me and my clothes. Anyway, lemme see your designs." I held my left arm out, making a grabbing motion towards her notes. She sighed and pushed off of the couch and grabbed the notebook, falling back onto the couch, she handed me them. I looked at the drawing- both of us were pretty okay artists- and the annotations and notes to the side.
I noticed she was missing something about the mask, "What about the eyes? You need something to see out of."
"Well, I was going to use some see-through material for it. Maybe something like Clockblocker's helmet."
"Well, we don't have a tinker with us, so we probably can't use that; if we tried to do that, you probably might not be able to see out of it. Hmm. How about goggles? We could let them pop out so that you could have more view around everything." I snorted, "Better than those masks the 'villains' wear."
Taylor tilted her head, considering it, then nodded, scribbling down the idea. I looked at the mask a bit closer, if I remembered correctly, she would make the jaw area represent an insect's mandible. "Say, Tay, what were you going to do with the mask?"
"Well, according to your suggestions, I was going to have the goggles, then around the jaw I was going to have it imitate mandibles, maybe use them for intimidation while protecting my jaw. The back of it is open to let my hair fly free. There's going to be a bit of armor in the face to protect me, so there's that."
"Alright, so about the hair, what were you going it have it as?" I asked.
"Well, I was going to have it open in the back, so it's just like a mask."
"Hmm, it'd be better if you just had a hole in the back of it so the back could be protected while your hair is still flying free." I suggested, having the back of the head open is a really bad design. I don't get why people just use masks instead of hoods or the like.
She poked her pencil to her lip, idly chewing it, then nodded and wrote it down. She flipped to another page, and started drawing the helmet, making annotations off to the side of it. I added some suggestions for it while she was doing that.
I frowned as a thought occurred to me, "Hey, Tay, how about we keep a second notebook at home? We could use one for ideas and the other for final ideas."
"Hmm." She pursed her lips, "Do you have an empty notebook?"
"In fact, I do." I got up off of the couch and quickly ran up the stairs and into my room. I searched through my desk drawers and pulled out one of the many spiral-bound notebooks that I have and ran back downstairs. As I jumped back down onto the couch, I said, "Lazy." While handing it over to her.
She snorted, "Says the guy whose power is based after the laziest guy in a game." She shook her head, "Anyway, let's get down to copying the information down." And set the new notebook on the table next to the other and started copying it down.
I got off the couch and kneeled on the floor next to her. Between the both of us, we decided what was useful and what was possible on her costume. In what seemed like a few minutes, which was actually an hour or two, we heard the door open, "I'm home!" Uncle Danny called.
"Heya Uncle Danny." I said, leaning back onto the couch.
"Dad!" Taylor exclaimed, quickly trying to hide the notebooks.
"Yes?" he asked.
"Hi!" she's super awkward when she's nervous. Also adorable.
"What'cha working on?" Uncle Danny asked, leaning over the couch.
"Ideas. Drawings. Random stuff." I said, waving my hand airily.
"Ideas and Drawing about what?" he asked, smirking lightly.
"Costumes." I replied, Taylor was smiling nervously, eyes darting between me and him.
He snorted and ruffled our hair, "Don't let me stop you, continue working."
"Oi!" I batted his hands away. Taylor breathed a sigh of relief.
As he was walking away towards the stairs, he yelled at us, "Don't forget to come up with a name!" and disappeared up the stairs.
"We won't!" I yelled back.
Taylor was dumbfounded, "Wait, he knows?"
I rolled my eyes, "Uncle Dan's not stupid, Tay, he knows we're up to something, even if he doesn't know much. And the way you freaked out about the notes just gives him another clue."
Taylor grinned sheepishly.
I sighed and rolled my eyes, "You keep working on that, I'll make some spaghetti and biscuits." I got up and walked into the kitchen, grabbing what I needed from around the kitchen. About thirty minutes later, the spaghetti was ready.
"Is that spaghetti I smell?" I heard Uncle Danny say as he came down the stairs.
"Yup, and biscuits too." I said as I pulled said food out of the oven, the spaghetti was already done and was now sitting on the stove. Taylor was already over at the counter, staring at the food. "Tay, get the plates and set them, Uncle could you get some mats and set it out, too?" both he and Taylor nodded, she grabbed three plates from the cupboard and walked over to the dining table and set them out, while Uncle Danny grabbed some mats from a drawer and put them between the plates.
With my still gloved left hand, I grabbed the other side of the pan that held the spaghetti and brought it over to the table, setting it on the mats. I walked over to the drawer that Uncle Dan opened earlier and pulled out another mat and grabbed the pan that held the biscuits and brought it over to the table, setting that on another mat. I opened the fridge up and pulled out a jar of applesauce and set it down next to the biscuits. I grabbed the spatula that I used earlier and set it leaning against the spaghetti pan's lid. I set the spoon I grabbed also next to the applesauce.
I looked around, seeing if anything was missing. Nothing was, "Well, what're you waiting for? Eat!" I said as I sat down, grabbing a biscuit and setting it on my plate.
We ate in silence for a bit, then Uncle Danny said between bites, "There's a rumor going around that there's a new cape."
"Oh?" I raised my eyebrow.
Uncle Dan swallowed, "Yeah, they say he goes by 'Sans' and that he's a skeleton."
Taylor looked between me and Uncle, "Hmm, what else do they say?" I asked, taking a bite of spaghetti.
"Well, they say that he took on a group of Empire goons and held them off when Stormtiger showed up. They said that Sans talked with Stomtiger and dodged all of his attacks, and then attacked him back, just barely missing him."
"What're Sans' power rating? Have they released it yet?" I asked, honestly curious as to what the PRT have rated me.
"I think they have, but I haven't had the chance to look yet." He said, taking another bite of spaghetti.
"Might look later today." I looked out the window, there was still daylight, "I might go by the library when I go for my walk."
"Oh! Can I come?" Taylor perked up.
"Sure, I can show you some neat places I found while wandering." I said, taking a bite of my applesauce-covered biscuit.
"Sweet!" she cheered and took another bite of spaghetti.
"Anyway, what other things have they said about Sans?" I asked.
"Not much, they're keeping information close to their chest as always." Uncle replied.
After that, we talked about small things and when we finished, I cleaned up the dishes and got ready to go for a walk.
I was going through mental exercises when Taylor finally came down. Heck. That sounds like some sort of bad anime romance. I snorted to myself.
"What?" Tay asked, walking over.
"Nothing, nothing. Ready to go?" I asked, getting up off of the couch.
"Yup!"
I grabbed my goggles and jacket when we were in the mudroom, putting them on. Taylor just grabbed her jacket. As we walked out the door, I checked my watch, it was 6:45 pm, the twenty-ninth of January. "We have a couple of hours before it goes dark, let's hit the library first."
Taylor grinned at me and showed me her clenched fist, "I'm ready."
I sighed and shook my head as we walked down the porch stairs and out into the street, "I've rubbed off too much onto you."
"Nah, you rubbed off just enough." She said and bumped against my shoulder.
Blep