by Louis IX
Check first chapter for disclaimer and global warnings. In addition, beware of alcohol, as it is dangerous for the health – for you, but also those around you.
Drunk Priesthood"No! Please! Oh god, why… No! Aaargh! NO! LET ME OUT!"
Those were the cries I was hearing. I knew the voice, and the name of the person screaming herself hoarse in her new accommodations… a locker filled with filth. I grimaced, as I realized that I was filth, too. After all, I never lifted the slightest finger against her bullying.
There was a reason for this. Three, in fact. Times three, too…
One was the promise of immediate violence. The first person who tried to get between Sophia Hess and Taylor Hebert saw that her interference didn't prevent or even slow Hess' punches and kicks. The girl ended up in the hospital with a broken jaw. And Hess stayed in school.
The second was the promise of delayed violence from the same. The second person to try to intervene in the game the Trio played with Hebert got herself hounded after school, and taped to a street lamp for the night. Only the fact that a random police patrol got there right as some thugs had started ripping her clothes allowed the girl to evade rape. She left school, too. Hess stayed.
The third was the promise of delayed problems not directly related to violence. Emma Barnes' father was a lawyer of some sort, and Madison Clements' was a policeman. If you did something against them, they only had to bat eyelashes to their daddies to bring the forces of Law and Order (and Justice) against the honest people. And the three bullies stayed in school.
At first, the rest of the students were surprised, and then aghast, and then, after a few occurrences had happened, we tried to appeal to authority. By then, though, the Trio had ensconced themselves as saints in the eyes of the administration. Anyone reporting them was punished for lying. Anyone reporting them outside got redirected to the school administration. And anyone reporting them to the police was pushed away.
Some say that our school is a recruitment ground for gangs, and a place where drugs change hands every day. The truth is otherwise. Hess didn't stay merely because she had the ear of the Principal. She was also the leading candidate behind accidents happening to white blondes with cropped hair and blue eyes (even if they had nothing to do with the Empire), as well as all kinds of Asians with shifty attitudes (in her eyes, that could mean anything). Not all of them got a boot in the booty, of course, or the school would be empty. But enough that those flaunting gang affiliations soon joined Hebert as a punching bag for Hess… and left.
I don't know why Hebert hadn't opted out, by now. She must have a will of steel, to come back here every day – as long as she wasn't in the hospital, that is. And she seldom did full days either, often returning home with destroyed or sullied stuff, whether clothes, school materials, or both.
I was disgusted. With the situation, the Trio, and the school. With the way the bullies colluded and those bullied suffered. But, most of all, I was disgusted with myself. What good will I be, later, if I can't help a fellow human being? What example, for my kids? What disappointment, for my ancestors?
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OutingMy name is Jack Chang. If Hess wasn't regularly kicking Asians displaying ABB tags, I might have been recruited, due to my Chinese ancestry. But I wouldn't thank her for this. I couldn't thank her for doing something that the school itself should be doing… and at the same time bullying those she saw as beneath her – everybody else.
But even if I had been recruited, I wouldn't have done much. True, I had a black belt in Aikido, but I got it mostly through my knowledge of the moves. I was feeble, on the mat, and froze when actual violence erupted around me. My only perk, for my peers, was that my father owned a brewery on the Boardwalk. It made me the person to invite to events, because I would bring the booze. As a point of fact, I had some Baijiu in my backpack (individually wrapped in old clothes, so that the bottles wouldn't clink or break).
Hearing Hebert's screams turning higher yet, in pitch and volume, while her bullies had to yell to be heard taunting her, I squeezed my eyes shut to hide tears and fled to the nearest bathroom.
"You're despicable." I told the person I saw there… in the mirror. My fists clenched on the counter.
"You're useless." I hit the counter with a fist.
"You have no future." I hit with both fists. My left hand slid sideways in a sink, and I strained my wrist. I winced.
"You'd better die." I hit the mirror with the strongest right cross I could dare. I expected it to break, like in the movies. And if it sliced me and made be bleed to death, all the better.
Except, no. I realized afterwards that, in a school like ours, mirrors in the bathrooms ought to be stuck flush to the walls, not put on nice handles that left the thing hollow and fragile. I strained my other wrist, worst than the first, and slid to the ground, in tears. If I couldn't even punch a stationary target, what use was I?
As I touched the ground, my back to the wall next to the sinks, I felt my backpack digging in my back and moved it to the front. Doing so, I felt the budges my bottles did. And I decided that if I had nothing to live for, I could as well use that.
The first mouthful burned my mouth before I could think of swallowing it. It ended up on the front of my tee-shirt.
The second burned my throat something fierce, making me cough it almost entirely out and on my clothing again. It was some high-alcohol drink that someone paid me for, but I didn't care anymore.
The third swig burned my oesophagus, as well. I almost threw up, only spitting a bit of bile that had come up.
The fourth burned my stomach. By then, when the liquid flowed on the parts already burned, they tingled pleasantly, and I suddenly understood why people could drink this. I resolved to finish the bottle. I had nothing else to do, and I could perhaps pretend not to be able to hear Hebert still screaming in her locker.
In fact, for a moment, I heard nothing. I saw nothing. I felt nothing. I would only have recollection of what happened in my dreams… later.
And then the door opened with a crash, and in front of me stood Mike (not his real name, since he's Korean, but close enough), the guy who gave me money for the bottle I had just drained dry. Oops.
"What are you doing!" he exclaimed, rushing towards me.
I tried to avoid the kick, except I was slightly (read: completely) inebriated, by then, and had still more alcohol to process. I was not able to coordinate my limbs properly enough for standing, let alone fighting. Besides, even at my best… I already told you about my fighting prowess, yes?
Anyways. Seeing that I had dropped under the sinks, Mike growled and picked me so that I could stand. I smiled and thanked him, nodding right as he threw a punch to my head. It made me spin so fast that I made a complete turn, and my arms followed a bit later, the centrifugal forces pushing them outwards.
And my right hand impacted Mike's head too.
He hadn't seen that one coming and was quite surprised. On my side, I was quite happy, because the hit was right against the bones that had sprained before, and they are now returned to their proper alignment.
I smiled at him, quite widely, and he took a step back. I saw him pinch his nose, too, but that couldn't be from my smell, right? I sniffed my armpits, just to be sure. In the process, I found myself with my wet tee-shirt back in my awareness, and I nodded. "Jhat'ch what shtinkch." I blurted, pinching the fabric. And, true, a drop of alcohol started to drip from it. And I brought it to my mouth, of course. Waste not, want not, after all.
Heh. I could make puns about being wasted, right? Since I was? Wasted, I mean. Intoxicated. Drunk.
"Come on, he's drunk." Mike said, then started to leave, his friends in tow. Oh, he brought friends? I hadn't noticed. Perhaps that's why he needed two bottles? Speaking of which…
"I havve jhe chegond bot… hips! Bottleleb. Heheheh." I blurted, barely standing, and barely coherent too. "Right… here!"
As I said this, I pulled the bottle from the back, spun the cap, and started drinking again.
"Hey, that's mine!" he exclaimed. "Stop that! Stop him!" he told his friends. Or goons. Or minions. I didn't really care. In fact, stumbling around because of the drunkenness, I was never where their punch landed.
Several punched the counter with the sinks, and I winced upon hearing some bones snap. "Jhat looks like it hurtch." I commented, still weaving through the mob. And, stepping backwards to try to keep them in my field of vision, my hands trying to make fists (while still holding a bottle and a bag), I kind of forgot Mike, still at the door.
He thought he was ready, but I ended up slamming my heel on his foot, and the surprise I felt at stepping on something made me straighten up… which made me head-butt his nose with the back of my head. And let me tell you from past experience (with Mike, yes), having one's nose hit is quite painful.
As such, he tried to step back, only he couldn't because I was still standing on his foot. He almost fell on his rear, then, but straightened up… only to take a punch to the nose (again) from one of his mooks when I cowered suddenly.
That made him crash through the bathroom door, and I followed the movement outside. I could still hear Hebert, in her locker, and wondered if the Trio was still there – if they weren't, I might be able to open it for her, right?
Aw, shucks. They were there. Not only that: they noticed me. And as I tried to escape from Mike and his hanger-ons, still pulling the bottle out of their hands – I sometimes gave it to one, only to see his surprised expression when I kicked his butt. And then they dropped it, so I was forced to some acrobatics just so that it wouldn't break on the floor. And as I twirled around, with my bag in my other hand, the weight gave my stumbling around some power as I turned and sent it several times in someone's face. Given that it came from unexpected angles each time, I often tagged the same person several times.
"Hey! Losers! Get away from here!" Hess yelled. I suspected that our impromptu fight disturbed her shaden… schat… freunden… or something. Her little bullying party of three (against one).
"Shoffia!" I exclaimed, walking towards her. "Youre-"
I stopped talking, all of a sudden, courtesy of her fist in my face. Except that, while it hurt and was strong enough to make me crumble… I did so in a sort-of ball, rolling through Mike's mob and making them stumble and fall. Very much like a bowling ball. In fact, as I finished rolling in a standing position, I looked around and made a little joyful dance.
"Schtrike!" I pronounced, given that all the members of Mike's retinue were on the ground. And given that I still had a bottle of spirits in my hand, I took quite a mouthful… only to expel it forcefully when I was tackled by Hess.
She yelled, suddenly, and scraped back and away from me. The alcohol I spat in the air had coated her face, including her eyes. I didn't see why she was yelling, as that was quite a good wine. Oh, the eyes! She was yelling incoherently, but mentioned them a time or ten.
"Shush, you don wanna rub it in." I said helpfully, approaching her. In her blind state, she still was coherent enough to notice my proximity (or she simply smelled the alcohol on my clothes) and grab my rum-soaked tee-shirt. I was already quite unstable, and the pull made me fall on her. And, in my state, I couldn't think quickly enough to orient my body somewhere safe.
The hand holding the bottle ended up against a mound of flesh that, had I been sober, I would have taken some pleasure in describing in flowery poetry. But I wasn't, so I just pressed on it like a child's toy. Besides, she didn't even complain!
I take that back, as she did complain, but afterwards. At that moment, I also had kneed her in the stomach, and she had lost her breath. And, lastly, my backpack, still held in my other hand, had slammed her on the head.
I fell further down, all of a sudden, and realized that I fell through Hess. It looked like that parahuman power, from the ex-vigilante, whose name escaped my recollection, at that time. Shadow-something. And, truly, I had fallen through a shadow with Hess' shape. Did she… just out herself? I looked around me, waiting for someone to jump from hiding, yelling "surprise".
Yeah, it wasn't candid camera. And as I realized this, I also realized that my new position put the bottle further down, and that some alcohol was flowing out of the still-open spigot. Strangely, it didn't spill on the ground… but only because it seemed to be absorbed by the shadow.
I smiled. "Glad you likit! Have schome more!"
I stopped after some time, because the bottle was emptying and I wanted some more sips for myself. It was that good. As I brought the drink to my lips, the shadow moved away, and reformed into Hess. She had some difficulty standing, and did so only by holding the wall. In fact, given how she was keeping it at her hand, her other hand held before her, she was completely blind.
"Sophia?" Barnes asked, coming nearby. She took her friend's hand and helped her towards the infirmary, throwing me dark glances all the way. Clements was still rooted at her spot, watching Hess with wide eyes. And she wasn't the only one.
Meh. I had something to do, now. As I had promised to myself, sometimes during my journey of inebriated self-discovery, I had a damsel in distress to save. However, upon arriving at the locker, I noticed that the Trio had locked the door and latched the lock. Given that I couldn't pull it open, they had scrambled the code too. I'm not sure I could parse through the thousands of possible combinations, especially in my state. But Mike gave us a hand – thanks, Mike!
I mean, it was involuntary, from him: so enraged that he literally wanted to kill me, he had pulled an axe out of some fireman closet, and swung at my head. I had just slipped down, at that moment, having just realized my lack of effectiveness and just wanting to reassure the distraught girl. It may also have been because the alcohol from the badly held bottle was spilling on the ground.
Mike's attack struck the lock, exploding the relatively fragile contraption. And he slipped too. And in his fall, he let go of the axe, which made a nice twirling movement in the air before falling straight towards his face.
Thankfully for him, I caught it right before Mike became ex-Mike. I almost dropped it, too, when I noticed the comical look on his face, the axe blade almost touching his nose. I couldn't do anything for his pants, though, which had become ex-unsoiled in the process. He scrambled away, on all fours and backwards, like some sort of crab, while I held a heroic pose for a second, the axe on my shoulder, with the strap of my faithful bag, and the bottle in my hand. I even lifted it for a last swig.
That's when Hebert pushed out of her locker, and I took the door in the back, propelling me to the ground. Given that she rolled on the ground too, trying to get rid of the bloody trash the Trio had filled her locker with, she ended up rolling in the spilled alcohol.
"AAAAAAAH!"
Yep, put alcohol on open wounds, and it hurts. At least, it cleaned said wounds and killed the various bugs escaping the metal coffin with her.
"Here." I said, handing her the bottle. "You khan finnich it."
She didn't question the bottle's aspect and drank deeply from it. Three whole mouthfuls, before the taste registered and she spat whatever remained. I was quite sad, as it made her the third person today not appreciating the rice alcohol my father made. But I was mistaken, as she hiccupped and turned to me without anger. "Thanks." she muttered. And then she fell unconscious.
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OutingTo make a long story short, I ended up suspended from school for bringing and imbibing alcohol on school grounds, and violence on my school mates. Because, of course, the teachers saw everything… but followed the inertial movement of blaming Hess' opponents. Same went for Taylor: she was suspected of having filled her own locker with the discarded tampons before locking herself in it to grab attention.
My father was quite resourceful, and knew many interesting people. And that included someone who had worked in a place where shipments of his alcohol was sent abroad, by ship. That was before the Bay became a graveyard for boats, and before Leviathan, too. "Hebert, you say?" he asked me, and I nodded. "Good man, good man. I'll call him, see what he says."
I was still grounded, and my spending money confiscated for a while – enough to pay the two bottles, plus the others I admitted to. "If you have to use gifts to make friends, they are not friends." he also told me.
Still, he welcomed Daniel Hebert home with a glass of beer. His excuse was that even if gifts didn't make friends, they could help further friendly acquaintances towards that goal. Hebert, I mean Taylor, got a smaller one. I got a glass of water, to make due for my earlier indiscretion. I was red behind the ears, I'm sure.
"As I see it, it's you I have to thank for helping my daughter out of that… predicament." he ground the last word.
"And more." Taylor added, watching me intently. "He fought a group of thugs to get there, I heard, and Sophia too. In fact, the news is over PHO that she outed herself. And since her attitude in school is so anti-heroic, people have been pushing for the PRT to Birdcage her."
"Birdcage?" I asked.
"That's the prison for capes. She was already on probation, and violated it so far and wide that it isn't funny. I…" she paused.
"You suffered for it, I understand." my dad said, always the philosopher. "If anything, you understated it: "not funny"? Try malicious, psychopathic, or plain murderous."
"A blind murderer, now. Someone let slip that she had a bad reaction to an "unknown substance" that disabled her vision."
She looked at me, saying this. I knew she was speaking about alcohol – it wasn't the first time we had discussed this, as internet in general and PHO in particular are place where people like us could meet and chat. In answer, I looked towards her legs. Her short stay in the hospital wasn't a secret for me, including the fact that rolling in the spilled spirits had helped stem potential infections before they could take hold.
"To friendship." Dad said, clinking his glass against Daniel's. And then he gave me some so that I could toast with our guests too, because my glass was already empty. I was parched. And, since the events in school, water wasn't helping soothe that feeling.
School? Without Hess, it might even be a pleasant experience, for a change. At least for Taylor. Me, I'd have to contend with Mike and the other losers. And the gangs, too, who will probably try to put a foot in the door, now.
That night, I dreamed. I dreamed that Brockton Bay was still a savage land walked upon by Native Americans. I dreamed that Asian people were in Asia, that Chinese people were in China, and that my ancestors were there. And that my ancestors were poets.
"A cup of wine, under the flowering trees; I drink alone, for no friend is near." one said, before indulging in said cup, a deep one, held in his unsteady hand.
"Only enjoy myself, drinking my unstrained wine." another said, doing the same. "I do not know about a thousand years, rather let me make this morning last forever."
A third was found writing about himself, much like those painters who do self-portraits. "Insouciantly, he goes about, with his carafe and wine bowl dangling, no matter in motion or stillness, completely awash with wine, completely free from all the ebbs and flows."
The language I know, but I also don't know. I can understand it, but as I hear it, in my mind, I realize that it's an even older version of my ancestors' language. And, as the dreams continued, it became more and more difficult to understand.
In those dreams, I got to meet the ghosts of Yidi, the first winemaker, and Du Kang, the inventor of alcoholic beverages. Both gave me their benediction to continue the family trade. And if, in the long line of ancestors, one or ten were studying Kung Fu in the Buddhist temples of Shaolin and elsewhere, so much the better, as it allowed me to refine my "fighting style".
Subverting the chaos of battle around me by adding some, precisely positioned while seeming completely out of touch with reality, I was able to reposition enemies while confusing them, striking with all my might while they were flat-footed, and generally increase the mayhem.
It worked better with alcohol, though. Thankfully, I found myself able to "find" a bottle in my hand, when needed.
Such as when Mike found me out of school. I was in a park, delighting in the shade, while he had spent most of the day sweating in school – both in PE, running around for no reason, and then inside, in the classroom right under the roof and behind the windows, making it a practical oven. My nose should have been unable to smell anything, due to my new drinking preferences, but I was still able to sense him trying to sneak up on me – he reeked.
Still, he wasn't alone. And when I found myself getting grabbed and then pummelled, I tried to defend myself using what I knew… and suddenly found a bottle of spirits in my hand. Given that it was opened, I used it to propel the burning liquid right at the thugs' face, making them howl in pain and step back, trying to paw at their eyes – bad idea, I know.
Mike saw me start to play at being a drunk monkey again – or not playing, as such, since I was drinking the thing. Hmm… honey! Yum! Seeing me with my head back to drink at the bottle, he grabbed at it, only to overextend when I leaned backwards. I went so far that I was then touching the ground with my hand and feet.
And Mike had fallen on me. He quickly stepped back, looking around and clearly unhappy at being seen lying on me. I could have been, too, had I not been in the process of finding that happy place again – the one the drunks know by heart.
And when Mike decided on attacking again, it was right as I finally decided that doing acrobatics was useless, especially with an empty bottle. Released from my grasp, that bottle rolled on the ground, only to be stepped on by Mike, who did a strange dance for several seconds before prat-falling… and taking the suddenly upwards bottle in the ass.
I heard the poor boy had to spend some time in the hospital, after that, and that he couldn't sit still for weeks, afterwards. I would have commiserated, if he hadn't been such a douchebag. In the meantime, said douchebag tried to badmouth me, saying that I must be a parahuman, to summon alcohol like that. His rant was so ridiculous that he was hounded out of PHO, and it wasn't even by myself – apparently, it was after some user called RachelL replied "pics or it didn't happen".
Douchebag or not, the boy had contacts in seedy places, and started using them, burning a lot of bridges to get what he wanted. And what he wanted was for me to receive some form of punishment.
In the meantime, I was exploring my newfound fighting prowess, and realized that it was closely linked to the amount of alcohol I imbibed. And that, when needed, I could make a bottle of spirits appear in my hand – sometimes, it was "borrowed" from a nearby stash; at other times, it seemed created out of nothingness. I ended up realizing that it was like a parahuman power, and that I had triggered, in that bathroom.
After learning to summon the bottle whenever I wanted, I was less parched than before, and much more mellow. It made me quite unaware when Mike finally found people to trail me after school.
Hence the mob facing me. Instead of incompetent high-schoolers, those were Asian gangsters with firearms. And, at the back, I could see the shape of their leader.
"Shoot him!" he demanded. "The night is young, and there are many other children to kill."
I could hear a sigh, then. And, apparently, Lung could perceive sound much better than me, as he immediately zeroed on the interloper walking out of a dark alleyway – probably judging that they were discovered, they had broken cover. Yes, they, as in plural, because they were three people there… plus two on the roof.
On the ground were a big guy wearing a biker's outfit with steel plates stitched in various places, and holding what looked like an enlarged baseball bat. Besides him stood a normal-sized teenage boy with what looked like two maces… with electricity dancing on the business end. And following them was a butch girl mounted and a giant dog. On the roof were two more girls, one holding a bow and another holding a large shield. And I was quite surprised to see that the second one was Taylor – even in disguise, I would recognize that stick figure and long hair anywhere.
"So… those children you want to shoot." the bow-wielder said innocently. "That's us, right?"
"Undersiders…" growled Lung. "That's your last night on this Earth."
Apparently, it was also the last night for his forces, as the biker charged directly to where the mob was the thickest, and then turned on himself, like a whirlwind, his bat held two-handed and horizontally. The numerous mobsters around him took a hit of his oversized weapon… and discovered how to fly – he ought to charge, for that, as it seemed quite impressive.
Not far behind, the taser-wielding teen rushed to get himself in close contact with several gangsters too, allowing him to strike them while they tried to step back in order to shoot properly. No such chance.
The dog-mounted cavalier charged too, her own weapon being a blunted knight's lance which slammed into several enemies on her way. And the dog trampled those who fell as a result.
I noticed a few outliers, who clearly didn't want to shoot into a melee. So, instead, they aimed at the girls. Thankfully, Taylor was quite proficient and positioned her shield correctly when it was needed to protect herself and her ally. Speaking of bullets, there were still a few heading towards the three on the ground. The dog mount tanked the blows, the tasers wielder dodged… and the big biker continued to play the dervish, his metal bat making a ding each time it intercepted a bullet.
When a stray bullet headed my way, I found myself surprised at my newfound ability to catch it – sure, it stung like hell, but I grabbed a bullet that had been fired at me! It also reminded that I had work to do: there was one more player in the baddies' side, and I couldn't let the girls focus on the mob when the boss was near. Using my drunk monkey routine, I jumped upon the outliers, my flying kick so powerful that the wall behind them gave them another hit.
While that was going on, the archer was peppering Lung with arrows, and the only reason he hadn't climbed to their position was because she aimed at his feet, keeping him pinned to the ground repeatedly… and in a literal way.
That gave enough time for the melee fighters to finish their job. Soon, they converged towards the boss, and I noticed that they stowed their chosen weapons, taking longer ones. I guess that even in melee range, you'd want some reach to get a minimal distance between you and the pyromaniac. I looked at my fists and sighed – it was going to hurt. I wasn't going to leave them there, after all: they had helped me, and Taylor was there. She had even slid down the fire escape ladder and joined the ground forces, somehow pulling a second shield.
And we proceeded to beat the flaming snot out of the regenerating gang leader. You might think we had no chance at all, but it appeared that Lung was becoming quite sluggish, little by little. As for myself, after stupidly coating my hands with alcohol and punching the beast, I saw my fists take flame… but not burn me. Invulnerability to alcohol and its byproducts? Nice!
Once our joint effort got Lung properly stunned, the archer climbed down the same ladder Taylor had slid down, and I could see from nearer that she was blonde, smaller than me, and also a bit older. "Everyone alright, good." she said. It wasn't even a question, as her eyes scanned the whole group in one practised move. She stopped at me. "And a monk. Huh."
"Nishe to shee you khare." I told her, still wavering on my feet. Nearby, the teen boy smelled my bottle before recoiling, pinching his noise. "Not foe little boyz." I added, keeping my bottle and then pulling at it.
"Just making the rounds. We have Brian, our resident whirling dervish; Jean-Paul, the two-weapons specialist; Rachel, our cavalry; I noticed that you already know Taylor, our shield."
"Last but not least, Lisa, our archer and tactician." Jean-Paul said, before shaking his arms. "That one was hard. How long?"
"How long before what?" I wanted to ask. But I was polite, and in the process of guzzling my wine.
Still, someone replied with enough details to include me. "Either Kaiser or three of his lieutenants, as well as Skidmark or Squealer." Lisa said, pulling a phone. "Then we'll be able to be recognized as an independent team, like New Wave, and the PRT won't force us to become Wards."
"And, more importantly, my contract with Emma will expire. That was the last thing she asked of me." Taylor added forlornly.
"That too, yes." Lisa said, while Brian patted Taylor on the shoulder. "And thank you, Taylor, to remind me of those fuckers and their program… and the Case 53s and everything. You know I appreciate those headaches."
She shrugged but blushed and mumbled "Sorry."
"In any case, taking money from the villains does feel good." Jean-Paul commented, before turning towards me. "We got Lung's casino, earlier. Quite a pretty penny. I'm sure the Wards get less. Besides, they can't go out when they want, and are supervised all the time."
Her call finished, Lisa turned to us. "Armsmaster will be here in five minutes. I suggest we scram."
"Why?" I asked.
"Because while he was nice enough to give me some doses of the tranquilizer formula he had customized for Lung, for my arrows, there is still the charade that we are heroes acting as villains for a while."
I nodded at that, and tried to find a way to ask a particular question.
Apparently, the make-up showing the Eye of Ra around her own eye wasn't just for decoration, as she noticed immediately and answered anyway. "Of course you can come. We fighting types ought to close ranks."
"Fighting types?"
"Thanks to popular culture, there are so many teens who trigger into some kind of spellcasters that it isn't even funny. Do you know how many tried to take "Harry Potter" as a cape name?"
"Er… no."
"Three. This week. It's nice to see someone who doesn't hesitate to get their hands dirty." she said, before looking at my hands. "I mean…"
I laughed. It felt good. I followed them.
I would build my temple to the gods of alcohol later, as for the moment I had just found some friends to share the good stuff with – except Jean-Paul, who was a lightweight.
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To be continued… with sobriety, perhaps?Author's Notes: You might recognize the inspiration for Taylor's source of power as being "Nemesis", from BeaconHill. Besides that, the primary inspiration for this ficlet comes from "Vineyard Shrine", from Quolim, on SpaceBattles – quite a funny one, that is. However, it's not Taylor who becomes a drunk priestess of Dyonisos, here, but another, with another sponsor. And if the Chinese patron saint of drunks allows one to play the drunk monkey monk fighting style, so much the better. And then, for perhaps the last time, I got to shoot a plot bunny about RPG builds.