Chapter 5

"Seraa!"

No response

"SSSSSSEEEEEEERRRRRRAAAAAA!"

"What!?" I heard returned from somewhere else in the house.

"WHY DO I HAVE SCALE-THINGS ON MY ARMS?!" I yelled frantically from my place in the middle of the bathroom, my night-shirt forgotten on the floor.

"WHAT?"

Oh my god.

"JUST COME HERE!"

There were a few seconds, where I was still staring both incredulously and fearfully at my skin, before the bathroom door opened, revealing the girl I'd just called.

"Sera," I said evenly, looking up at her from my arm. "…Why do I suddenly have tattoos of scales all over me?"

"Uh…" was her eloquent response.

"Because I'm like… 99% sure I didn't have them when I went to sleep last night."

They were these delicate, barely-there things, really only outlines, and the lines were so thin that they were practically imperceptible, probably only an eighth of a millimeter, if that. Maybe even a sixteenth. I'd only noticed them when my arm was less than six inches away from my face.

And they were red, which only made them harder to see against my pale pinkish skin.

"Well, um. I told you Shaper was making you like me…" she said warily.

"Yeah, but you didn't say anything about weird tattoos suddenly showing up everywhere!" I countered.

"I mean, what did you expect?" she asked hesitantly, shifting her weight around in obvious nervousness.

As much as I hated to admit it, she had a point. If she had wing-markings everywhere, and I was being made like her, then it followed logically that I would also have marks everywhere, if not in the shape of wings.

"I don't know! But not, not this!"

I mean scales! Scales.

…Though, they were kinda cool. Little plate-like things that followed the contours of the skin on my arm, changing size and shape realistically.

But still!

Sera shrugged, seeming uncomfortable, like she hadn't expected me to react like this at all and had no idea how to handle it. "You can't really see them?" she offered.

I sighed.

"Fine. Just, just fine. Let me take my shower."

She nodded, backing out of the bathroom and closing the door behind her.

I looked over at my face in the mirror, my eyes meeting my double's as though commiserating with each other.

Shaking my head, I resumed getting ready for my shower, hoping that the warm water would help alleviate some of the tension I could already start to feel creeping up on me.

Wednesday, well… Wednesday had been as normal as a day can be, if you can consider studying with your Endbringer sister to be normal.

…So the exact opposite of normal, really. But I had been able to at least pretend it was normal, as unexciting as it was. Sooooo progress?

Breakfast, study, lunch, study, work, home, dinner, homework, sleep.

All the while Sera had flitted between reading my old textbooks, scrolling through PHO threads and laughing every so often, and asking me random questions about stuff she came across in the books.

I wasn't sure to feel about Sera's obvious schadenfreude surrounding this entire situation, especially the way she seemed to be intentionally messing with people on the forum. On the one hand, she wasn't exactly helping, more making things worse. On the other, I had to admit it was pretty hilarious what everybody was saying. All the crazy conspiracy theories and general freaking out.

The hours had passed quickly (too quickly), and before I'd known it was today.

The Day.

Yes. It deserves those capitals, thank you. It was 'just' a Thursday, but was still The Day. And of course, like any Day that you already know is going to be so crazy that it can't possibly get weirder, it goes ahead and proves you wrong just because.

Goddamn Murphy.

I mean, scales. If Sera had wings because she was the Simurgh, what the fuck did that mean for me?

I had no idea, but while I'd been in the shower I'd verified my suspicion that the markings were all over the place, though some areas were significantly different than others —like my abdomen— the shapes larger and different.

It was just plain weird, and I still had no idea as to what any of it meant. And of course, I had the uncomfortable suspicion that it wouldn't make itself terribly obvious anytime soon.

After I'd gotten out and dried off, I found that that there were clothes laid out on my bed, just waiting for me.

The new clothes that I'd bought two days ago and washed the day before.

I eyed them warily, but eventually just gave in and put them on. Sera was probably a better judge of this sort of thing than I was, so better to just trust that she knew what she was doing as long as it didn't get out of hand.

Still, I couldn't help but feel awkward in them. Exposed.

But the beaming smile Sera had given me when I'd gone downstairs, leaving me fidgeting awkwardly in the doorway under her gaze and hesitantly returning it with a smile of my own, was entirely worth it.

And then… And then all too quickly, it was happening.

Leave, lock the house, get on the bus, wait a while (muscles tight, fingers tapping, anxiety rising), get off the bus, walk the remaining block. Stare at imposing brick building and realize that yes, this was really fucking happening, yes I was bringing this girl who was an Endbringer in human form with me to school.

The trepidation and anxiety I'd had when she'd first announced her intentions to do this returned, stronger than ever.

"Are you sure you want to do this? I mean, you totally could stay at home, now that I think about it, I'd be entirely okay with that, it's not like you need to do this right? Why don't we just go ho—"

"Taylor," Sera interrupted. "Calm down." My mouth clicked shut. "Everything is going to be alright, okay?" I nodded wordlessly. "It won't even be hard."

"But what if they start asking questions that we can't answer an—"

"Taylor. Don't worry." She flashed me a confident grin. "I've got this." Sera grabbed my hand. "Now come on! This is supposed to be fun!"

Fun? In what world could this be considered fun!?

Sera pulled me along towards the front doors where students were lingering around or going through to get inside, laughing as she did.

The happy sound did wonders for my nerves.

We climbed up the stairs to go in, Sera pulling the door open like she couldn't just rip it off its hinges if she wanted.

She looked at me and smirked.

…Mindreaders.

Sera didn't let go of my hand for the entire trip to the administrative offices, though I'd sped up to match her pace.

She dropped it once we got inside the office, gripping the counter in front of the secretary with both hands.

"Hi!" she chirped.

The woman looked up from whatever she was doing to the notebook-thing in front of her. "Yes?'" she asked flatly.

"I'm here to transfer in," Sera told her.

For a moment the secretary just stared at her, looked over at me for a moment, and then back to Sera. "Alright. Please have a seat over there and Principal Blackwell will be with you as soon as she can."

Sera nodded and headed over to the chairs on the other side of the room that the woman had pointed to, me following and sitting next to her.

Her leg bounced up and down, betraying her anticipation—because I knew it wasn't nervousness or fear. Her excitement was practically palpable.

But seriously, what did she have to be excited about? School sucked. Between the utterly boring content of the sub-par education Winslow offered and the bullying Emma, Sophia, and Madison did, it wasn't a place I enjoyed in any capacity.

The principal's door opened and Blackwell looked at us. "Come in."

Sera and I got up, walking into the office and sitting down, Blackwell closing the door behind us and going around to sit behind her desk.

"I'll be quite honest, I didn't expect to see you in my office again so soon, Miss Hebert," she said, looking between Sera and I.

Believe me, if I didn't have to be here, I wouldn't be.

"Lara said something about a transfer?" Blackwell asked.

I coughed awkwardly into my hand. "Yeah, that's right. Um. This is Sera." Sera waved happily at Blackwell, her enthusiasm not deflated in the slightest by the short nod of an acknowledgment she got back. "…My sister."

I said it. I actually said it.

There was no turning back now.

Blackwell was looking between us rather incredulously, and I didn't blame her at all. Sera and I didn't look even remotely related.

"Adopted," I offered, glancing over at Sera, hoping that the story she'd concocted was believable enough for this to work.

"Mr. and Mrs. Hebert were my godparents. I didn't have a dad, Mom said he didn't want anything to do with us. Mom…" Sera's antics subsided into solemness, and I had to admire her acting skills. "Mom died from complications after a collision in October. I was supposed to be coming here after winter break, but then…"

After a moment, Sera reached down and unzipped her backpack, an older one I'd had, and grabbed a folder with a bunch of papers that she pulled out and put in front of Blackwell. "Here's my records. I kept up with everything after the accident when I went to the Hebert's house."

The principal glanced down at the sheets on the desk and then looked back up. "I know of your emancipation, but she's still staying with you? Is your social worker aware of this?" she asked, looking at me.

Ice rushed through my veins, freezing me in place, and Blackwell seemed to catch it, her eyes narrowing. "Does she even know about he—"

"Taylor." Sera's voice was steel, cutting the principal off like a guillotine. "Would you mind letting me talk to Ms. Blackwell by myself for a minute?"

She gave me a wide smile, but in the back of my mind there was a bubble of cold rage that I knew wasn't mine.

I simply nodded and left the room as quickly as possible, not sure whether I should feel pity for Blackwell or not.

The front desk lady looked at me curiously after I closed the door and went back over to the other seats. "She wanted to talk to her alone."

The lady nodded and, curiosity apparently satisfied, went back to whatever it was she was doing.

I swung my legs, finding it difficult to not focus on the foreign emotions in my mind now that I'd noticed them. They shifted so rapidly and fluidly, rage fueling vindictive excitement, mixing with dark amusement, and then finally snapping to satisfaction and smugness.

'You can come back now, Taylor'

I looked at the clock on the wall. Almost exactly five minutes. It hadn't felt that long at all, but I guess it was easy to lose your sense of time lost in a mental link to your Endbringer sister's emotions.

The secretary didn't say anything as I went back to the office and stepped inside.

Sera was smiling, a sharp expression that was practically predatory. Blackwell, on the other hand, was pale, and I could see her fingers trembling faintly before stilling as she seemed to try and gather her composure.

"Welcome back Miss Hebert. As I was just telling your… sister," she started, eyes moving to Sera and then back to me, "Winslow High School would be happy to have her. I-if that's everything you can talk to Lara about getting your schedule and filing your records."

Sera stood up and I followed her lead. "Thank you for your time, Ms. Blackwell. We appreciate it."

The woman made a sound like she was trying to agree but it came out half-strangled in her throat, handing the papers on her desk back to Sera.

Still grinning, Sera and I left the office, my sister migrating to the front desk. "The principal said I should give these to you, and that you'd help me with my schedule?" she said, holding out her falsified records.

The woman, 'Lara' according to Blackwell, nodded, taking them and placing them on her desk. "Alright then." She fussed with her computer for a moment. "You're a… freshman?" she asked, looking down at the papers.

Sera nodded. "Yep!"

"Okay, well, I'll try to match this up with your records as best as I can, but we don't have Italian as a foreign language. Do you have a different choice? You need to take at least two years of one… We have Spanish, French, Latin, and…" She visible grimaced. "Chinese."

"Hmm…" Sera tapped her chin. "Chinese!"

Lara eyed her. "Are you sure?"

My sister nodded. "Yep!"

The woman sighed. "Alright…" she replied, muttering something like "it's your neck" under her breath. She typed some stuff into the computer, and the sound of a printer running came from behind her desk. A second later, and another piece of paper was put in front of my sister.

"This is your schedule. This is your locker number," the woman said, pointing to the four-digit number at the bottom of the page. "You'll need to come by the office and get your ID after classes. The first digit of the classroom numbers is the building, the second is the floor, and the following two are the rooms themselves, odd on one side even on the other. Your locker is in the sciences building. Got it?"

Sera nodded.

"Well then, good luck," she said abruptly, turning back to her computer screen. "…you're going to need it," she muttered.

Sera had insisted on coming with me to my locker, which I did use, if only because I was forced to simply because I couldn't carry around all of the textbooks I needed all day.

I disliked the risk, because I'd found my books ruined even in my locker before, but there wasn't much I could do about it, when my math and science textbook together weighed like eight pounds combined. Which was only two of my eight classes.

Sera seemed at ease with the general hubbub and chattering of students loitering in the halls, more than I was at least.

My objective was to get from point A (the admin rooms) to point B (my locker) and move on to the next stop in as short as possible a time.

A learned habit.

Still, I could afford my sister some of my attention.

"So what's your first class?" I asked.

"Algebra I," she responded, her eyebrows scrunching together. "Ugh. Math in the morning. Not that it'll be difficult, but still. Ugh."

I couldn't help but laugh a little at her reaction.

An Endbringer complaining about early-morning algebra. The contrast was just too ridiculous.

"We have the same lunch period, right?"

I nodded. "Yeah, I've got second too."

She nodded decisively. "Good." And then she turned to look at me. "You'll eat with me, right?"

I winced. I hadn't eaten lunch in any of the 'normal' areas (cafeteria, outside, etc.) in almost four months. But if it was for her… if it was with her… I could do it. Right?

I hugged my arms to my chest. "Yeah… alright." I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried about what would happen, but maybe I should simply deal with that as it came. Sera was a whole new variable, and there was no way to predict how she might affect things.

My sister beamed, and I felt some of the apprehension and worry I had slip away.

No matter what, she'd stand with me.

"Let's meet up in the cafeteria, alright? …It'll make things easier that way. Finding each other, that is."

"Okay."

We were finally at my locker, and I wasted no time opening the combination lock and putting my backpack on the floor to draw out the things I needed to move around.

And then I froze.

I could suddenly feel something… off. Not like, hair on the back of your neck raising sort of off, like I got when I had the sense that Sophia and Emma were out hunting for me. Rather, it was something different. Not wrong per se, but unusual, like the tingle you got from an electric shock, running through me and making everything sharper.

Moving towards me there was this sense of [intangibility], of fuzzy [not-there/out-of-phase] that tasted like the color purple.

And even stranger, I could feel it affecting me, as though there was something in me that was slowly strengthening, growing like a gradually rising charge. It was like a barely there-thread that connected to me, thickening and growing stronger at an almost impossibly slow rate, accompanied by a reservoir that felt like the potential for more, filling just as slowly.

I looked over at Sera, standing up from where I was leaning down to mess with my locker, and she gave me a smirk, a feeling of amusement, anticipation, excitement echoing in my head.

The purple-source passed, a floor above us I realized. I also noticed that the glacial strengthening of this… this connection inside me, was ever so minutely growing faster the closer I was to the source. It was a live-wire, a tap, a feed to something else that I knew, I knew all I had to do was reach out to it and I'd be able to use it.

Was this my power?

What did it mean?

Rather, what was it?

I wanted to try it out now, to throw caution to the wind and do what I wanted, draw on what I could feel at the other end of the thread and let it loose. But I also knew that this was neither the time nor the place. Still, there was this thing coiled inside me that stretched languidly, awoken by the singular taste of power and freedom and wanting moremoremore.

… And all I knew was that I agreed with it entirely.

A/N: /cue cackling laughter

Bit of a cliffhanger but it was the best place to end it. I didn't want to get into the rest of the school day and have it feel rushed with it getting all crammed into one place. But! Hopefully the ending is made up for how much got shown/hinted/revealed this chapter. There's a lot of speculation fuel in there.

Also! This story (as well as AFHB and Transposition) now have TVTropes pages courtesy of Donquill over on SV! So that's kind of awesome.