I've changed my mind. The main drawback to my power isn't the pain. It's the lack of flying.

I have to shrink down a little so that Justitia doesn't have problems holding me in a Nelson, and it's awkward as hell asking if I can use bone to bind my legs to hers so I don't have to suffer a princess carry or try an awkward piggyback at several hundred feet in the air.

Worth it ten times over.

The air is cold and clean, the potential discomfort pushed away by the warm-as-blood bones hugging my skin. The sky is nearly starless this close to the city but a glance downward shows a sea of glowing color. From this high up the graffiti, trash, drug dealers, pimps, and gangbangers are inconsequential, meaninglessly small specks.

Instead there's just a city of light.

"Pretty, isn't it?" Justitia says, a note of awe in her tone. "I mean, I forget about it since I'm usually only a few feet above the rooftops, but it's nice to get up here every once in a while and just..." she trails off.

"Observe?" I offer back quietly, barely paying attention.

"Yeah," she says. We stay up there for a few minutes, drifting with the breeze. It's a combination of quiet and peaceful I haven't felt since I came back from summer camp two years ago.

And just like that the moment is lost.

I tap Justitia's wrist. She arrests our movement in the sky and clears her throat.

"So..." she begins, and I fell a note of fear shoot through me, one that doesn't make any sense. I snap a toe bone and remind myself about her aura. It must be a pain always wondering whether people like you for you or if they like you because it's a side effect of your powers. "Where should I drop you off?" she asks, slowly descending. "Like, any neighborhood or cross street?"

I give her an address about a ten minutes away from my house, which means less than five by bone-sprint. She drops down, there's an awkward minute of me trying to untangle my growths without breaking them, and then we're just a pair of capes in the middle of a lower-middle class neighborhood.

There's a brief silence as we size one another up. On one side, a green-robed cheerleader with a classic powerset. On the other, a figure straight out of Don Quixote's nightmares with an ability that can be most kindly described as unusual.

"Well, good night," she eventually says, drifting back into the air. I nod before turning towards home. I wonder if she'll be waiting at the hospital to take Amy back home after work? Then I start moving again, focusing on my power.

The trip home is uneventful. There's a close call with a cat but the bombing seems to have scared most people into seclusion. The back door groans a little as I ease it open, and I hold my breath in anticipation. After a few moments of silence, I let it out and walk in. The armor pulls back under my skin and I quickly shrug my clothes back on. The signed papers are still in the bag and I take a moment to mentally relax at that. My signature is on enough of these that anybody else picking up one probably kills my secret identity.

Right. The bag. Or is it a box now? Either way, suddenly getting a knapsack made of bone isn't exactly something that can be hand waved away if Dad spots it. A little time spent focusing on the shell and it separates from the backpack, waiting for disposal. I place it beneath a workbench in the basement and leave it to go unnoticed. Hopefully. The papers go into a manilla envelope, and I resolve to get a biologist's signature tomorrow. After that I head to bed and realize just how long the day has been when sleep takes me seconds after I've pulled myself beneath the sheets.


When I wake up, it's to the sounds of frying bacon and my alarm. I slap the snooze button and try to retreat back under the covers but Morpheus's veil has been well and truly pierced. After luxuriating in the warm blankets for a few more minutes I drag myself out of bed and shut off the alarm properly. I guess yesterday must have taken more out of me than I thought.

Yesterday.

I go through my morning routine, trying to figure out where to go from here. Opening a shop when the city is exploding is probably not a good plan. I can't even get the rest of the paperwork done because the college will be closed due to the bombing.

As I finish brushing my teeth I create a list of things that are possible for me to do. Have to stay positive. I can try selling my flowers on the boardwalk for cash. It's technically allowed but there's a cap at fifty bucks, which might make people mad if I up the price once I have a brick and mortar store. Still, money is money. Alternatively, I can go to the hospital and help out Isidis. Volunteer work isn't the worst use of a week off. If all else fails I can just spend the day catching up on my reading list at the library.

Content with my options, I pull on some workout clothes and go downstairs to begin my run. At which point I remember the smell of bacon. Which implies a cook.

Dad turns away from the pan in the kitchen and smiles at me. It's one filled with some happiness but also a little tiredness. That, and worry.

"Hey Taylor. Do you have a minute before you go out running?" he asks. I consider saying no and explaining that I need to set good habits for myself, that taking even a day off could ruin my routine.

"Sure," I respond instead, leaning against the wall. Dad nods and turns back to the pan, poking at the bacon. There's a silence, short and heavy, before he releases a breath.

"You say you're sick, but then you muster up the energy to go on runs and into town," he says, and I feel my gut clench. "I'm not going to make a big deal out of it," he adds, still not looking at me. The clenched feeling doesn't go away. "I do need you to stay at home though."

"What?" It leaks out, pure surprise. Stay at home?

"Taylor, there's a cape running around blowing up city blocks." The last bit comes out hard and angry as he spins around to look at me. There's passion in his eyes, the kind that comes out once in a blue moon when he has to defend jobs and worker benefits from being cut by large corporations. "Two of the guys were working on an apartment complex next to a building that got hit. Do you know what they saw?" he asks, the anger fading. Now all that's left is grief.

I shake my head, memories of a onesie springing unbidden into my mind. I feel myself go pale.

"A black hole, Taylor," he says quietly. "I don't want my only daughter walking around the city when a cape who can create black holes at will is on the loose. Please," he says, and the pain in his face cuts me. "Please be safe."

I reach forward and give him an awkward hug. We're both too gangly, all elbows and limbs, but we try.

"I won't do anything stupid," I promise. It's a factual statement. No amount of regular gangbangers can hurt me and I can always run away from cape fights.

"Are you going out today, Taylor?" he asks, looking me in the eye.

I grind my ribs together. "No," I lie. Isidis could use the help at the hospital, and I still need to fill out the rest of the forms and contact my lawyer to see how the bombings change things.

Dad would do the same in my shoes.

"Thank you Taylor," he says, smiling with relief, and we sit down for breakfast.

There's a bad feeling in my gut, and I can't finish much. Dad blames it on my "sickness" and I agree with him.

I head out for my morning run. The knot doesn't go away.


That's the routine for the next few days. Wake up, tell creative truths to Dad about my plans for the day, go to the hospital to volunteer. This time though, I'm being paid fifty dollars an hour. Turns out there's a clause for paying Rogue capes to work for you during hazard situations. It's a little more than your average ER nurse but this is only until the bombings die down. Then I'm back to volunteering.

I'm too shocked at suddenly making five hundred dollars a day to complain much. I get that this is unusual and a more long-term thing would be arranged under different pricing plans but it's nice to suddenly have money.

I even managed to get the rest of the paperwork done. I asked Isidis if she could sign it. Instead, she passed the request on to Crystal, who took a sample of my bone and the appropriate paperwork to one of her professors at his home. He signed off with the caveat that I provide a bouquet for his wedding. I sent him back a dozen roses and the deal was done.

Why do people complain about paperwork all the time?

During a calm hour I log into my email and check my inbox. John Doe has sent a reply declaring that he would be available for a meeting in Brockton Bay next week on Thursday afternoon between four and eight. When I send back an email informing him that Brockton Bay is currently in the process of being destroyed by a self-replicating suicide bomber, he sends back a two-page reply that can be summed up as 'literally not even the fifth most dangerous place I have worked on a deal.' We make plans for an early dinner at a hotel downtown but move them back a week to the twenty eighth in the interest of potentially averting disaster.

I memorize the date and address before being dragged into a room with a trio of vehicular assault victims and getting to work.


I knew that cape fights were bad, but it takes seeing a man turned half to glass to understand exactly what that means.

"Pull out the pool!" Isidis yells, her voice hard and commanding. I follow behind her as Triumph is wheeled in on a stretcher. Everything below about mid stomach is glass, transparent and fragile. His costume is long gone, only a domino mask preserving anything close to modesty.

"The pool?" I ask, breaking a toe bone with every step. In. Out. Focus.

We enter an operating theatre and the smell of copper fills the air.

"Oh." I say.

A pool, maybe six feet wide in every direction, is in the middle of the room. Inside of it is a soup of dark red flesh and blood.

"Normally, I have time to slowly apply the flesh and rebuild people from the inside out," Isidis says, kneeling by the edge of the tub. A pair of nurses pull out a too-clean surgical saw and press it to the boundary of glass and flesh. "Normally, I'm not doing full body reconstruction," she continues. "Cover your ears."

I break my eardrums, but I still catch the starting squelch of flesh tearing open. Then the torso (Triumph, I remind myself. He's not dead yet) gets lowered into the pool and Isidis plunges her arms in after it, elbow deep. Her mouth starts moving and I quickly fix my eardrums.

"-keep putting bone meal into the pool, okay? This is going to take a lot of focus, so I'm not going to talk anymore," she finishes. I belatedly lift my arm and start doing my best wood chipper impression. And then I nearly black out from doing so.

It's a different kind of agony, the constant rippling and shattering, and I have to grit my teeth to keep from hissing in pain. It took a lot of fucking work to get used to breaking my bones (ablative armor isn't a lot of use if breaking it leaves you breathless) but this...

I keep forgetting how much my power hurts.

About halfway through reconstructing Triumph's thighs Isidis looks up at me. "You doing alright there?"

I nod back, not trusting my voice to remain stoic.

"He's out of the danger zone, so if you want to take a break, now's a good time." I promptly stop spitting bone meal into the soup and disguise my sag from exhaustion as a roll of the shoulders. "Speaking of time," she takes a glance at the clock, "Now's a pretty good hour for lunch. You have any preferences?" she asks, looking intently at me.

"How about Luciano's?" I answer without a tremble in my breath. Her stare turns to confusion. "The place we met for the first time," I explain. Now that I have a little cash I can probably get something nicer than spicy noodles.

"The first place we met was on the third floor at about three in the morning," Isidis comments drily, and I try to push down the rush of embarrassment. "Sounds good anyway," she says. "Mind if Vicky joins us?"

I shrug. I'm still not sure how much I like the emotion-manipulating Alexandria-lite but she's yet to do anything wrong. Maybe now's a good time to fix that bridge.

Once Triumph's got his legs back and we've both cleaned up it's off to lunch. The line is nonexistent (probably because of the the bombings) and we get the same seats as last time. Victoria drops out of the sky in casual wear, her smile going from pleasant to nervous as her gaze tracks from Amy to me. Still skittish then, but I'm not getting any sudden spikes of fear so at least her aura is under control.

"So, how were things today?" she asks, looking over the menu. I glance at Amy, mentally asking about how much to share. She picks up on it and motions subtly towards herself. Looks like she's taking the questions. Fine with me. I turn to the menu. Hmm, a Florentine steak? Yes please.

Amy gives Victoria a safe-for-work summary of the day while I flag down a waiter. Victoria decides on a Margarita pizza to split with her sister, and we all decide on water for drinks.

"How's the shop coming along?" Vicky asks out of the blue. I blink, stunned. Where did she hear about that? I look at Amy, who is pointedly staring into the street, away from the conversation.

Clever girl...

"It's coming along," I say. "Right now I need to talk to some city officials with a lawyer in order to confirm that I won't inadvertently destroy the local economy."

Vicky nods. "Seems reasonable. Have you thought up a name for your shop?" she continues.

"That has been... more difficult," I answer.

As the conversations goes on, I feel myself relaxing, sinking into an easy back and forth, with Amy interjecting with the occasional dry joke. I'm not sure how much of it is Vicky's social skills and how much is the fact that this is the first real social connection outside of a work setting I've had since...

Wow. I haven't had a friend for two years.

Seriously, fuck you Emma.

A little unnatural admiration flows through me, prompting a look up. "Hey, you okay?" Vicky asks, pure concern on her face. I snap a toe bone.

"Aura," I respond and she tamps it down, looking a little guilty, but the concern is still there. A more natural feeling of sadness springs up. "I'm fine," I clarify. "Just remembered something unpleasant."

Vicky looks like she wants to press it but the waiter arrives with three plates on his arm. "Your food," he says, placing the meals in front of us. A blessing upon your house Mr Watkins. I look up to thank him and notice the fear in his eyes. It's not directed at us. Over my shoulder. I turn.

A goblin crouches on the railing next to us. Black bodysuit, criss-crossed with black belts bearing blades, bombs and guns. The lone spot of color is a green mask with two red stripes standing out like bloodstains on a white sheet. A new-looking harness is hooked up over the gear, wires connecting blocks of what looks like C4 but is almost certainly something far more dangerous.

Oni Lee. Lung's lieutenant. Ex-lieutenant.

One of his hands reaches out and drops three things into my glass.

Grenade pins.