Gaiatsu 2.3
Taylor sensed Emma by the earwig hidden behind her purse lining before she spotted her new hairdo under a cute jaunty beret in the distance while changing classes.
So far Emma had avoided Madison, apparently abandoning the girl to be grist for the rumor mill, so the bloom was off the rose there.
Taylor's early arrival at school to post half of the remaining defaced flyers before most of the student body arrived had paid off in starting Emma's school day off on the wrong foot. Bugs readjusted all of Emma's bras during her morning jog, so the left straps were all shorter than the ones on the right hand side, while the redhead was in the shower Taylor had also planted the seed for her ex-friends' discomfort later on.
Taylor had no opportunity to eavesdrop using swarms and undermine any of her former friend's plans before they even got started. However she already knew the shape the encounter with Emma was determined to take.
Emma gathered her regular social circle of hangers-on and proceeded to walk while they chatted in formation, they moved down the hall like a street sweeper constructed of popularity which forced other students to move out of their way.
Emma glanced in the direction of the restroom but saw Taylor up ahead and decided to use her internal tumult and redirect the sensations to fuel her vitriol towards her prey. "The poor thing's had the entire weekend off," she thought, "so better remind her of her proper place: at the bottom of the heap."
That's when Taylor did something unexpected. She took something out of her pocket and leaned into a classroom for a second, and leaned back out with it in her hands.
Emma smirked and said, "Oh Taylor, you look like you're about to..."
*FLASH*
She tried to blink away the green afterimage which dully strobed in the center of her sight. A few seconds later she looked around for Taylor who was nowhere to be seen.
"Going bald, Emma? You said you never wear hats, they look like crap."
Emma turned around angrily right into another *FLASH* from the disposable camera in Taylor's hands. Now two greenish blobs clouded her vision.
"What are you..."
"No time for talking out your ass, Emma, you look flushed. You're pushing your luck, is the pressure getting to you?"
Emma grasped her noisome belly, her knees locked as the eyedrops Taylor's bugs had liberally coated Emma's reusable water bottle with earlier that morning had finally loosened her bowels judging by the vibrations small bugs sensed on her abdomen.
Taylor turned and took a picture of a clock on the wall. "Better get your shit together before you let loose, Emma."
The clique of girls pulled away slightly in revulsion at Emma's ungainly sprint to the nearest bathroom, rudderless without their social alpha to lead them.
Taylor sensed the girls disperse. She knew that when Emma again experienced the red food coloring mixed with blood that had leaked from whatever mystery meat the cafeteria prepared after lunch, she'd head straight to the Nurse's office. It was why it was such an effective tool to use Emma's narcissism against her.
Taylor sent mosquitoes through the ducts to Emma's next class by way of the cafeteria kitchen to prepare. Emma would probably be concerned for her health and go home for the rest of the day. Good thing Taylor had already stashed bottles of eyedrops and red food coloring in the vents and on top of the lights in the cafeteria above her regular lunch table for any contingencies.
Taylor almost felt bad Emma hadn't pushed the issue further. She kind of looked forward to the confrontation in Blackwell's office where she backed up a bullying claim with pictures showing the nearest classroom with wall clock clearly visible, two more of her tag along tormentors in action, and another picture of the clock in the hallway bookending the events in place and time. Covering the Who, What, Where and When of Blackwell's W5+H criteria should go a long way to document the ongoing campaign of bullying against her.
Taylor tucked the disposable camera back into her sweatshirt pocket and walked to class. It went a little out of her way to take a photo of the calendar in the office every morning to 'level set' the time and place of subsequent photos, but the final goal would be worth it.
Meanwhile under the building Black Widows put the finishing touches on her new costume hood while on the third floor ants chewed partway through one shoelace right at the grommet on Sophia's left shoe as the athlete sat in in-school detention.
Taylor walked down the hall with a slight bounce in her step. Today was shaping up to be another good day.
That evening Taylor sneaked out of the house again and headed deeper into the city. No point to risk running into the Merchants again nearer the Docks.
So far she'd only managed to scare off one mugger with a timely swarm of bees and planned to go after a convenience store robbery she'd just noticed two blocks over when a familiar tick popped in and out of her senses and was headed this way.
Smaller bugs disappeared nearby Shadow Stalker, and she landed flies on the person she figured out was Kid Win by the pistols on the hips of his armor and the trademark hoverboard which sucked bugs into its vents.
Taylor didn't want her first meeting with the Wards to go as badly as her run-in with Oni Lee and the Merchants had, so she decided to hang back and just observe instead.
If Sophia hadn't been there she might have made the first move. However since Shadow Stalker was present, Taylor was reminded of the relevance of something her fathers' friend had said after his divorce: 'He wouldn't cross the street to piss on her even if she were laying there on fire.'
The convenience store being robbed was between a boarded up abandoned building and a used car dealership surrounded by an electric fence. Neon beer signs crowded for space in the front windows with locked ice freezers on the side opposite the car dealership. Power and phone lines crisscrossed above the multiple lighted signs on top of the roof.
Kid Win flew ahead into the sky above the car dealership for overwatch, Shadow Stalkers' ghost-assisted leaps almost carried her all the way there as they took in the situation. Unfortunately Taylor couldn't risk massing enough bugs to hear what they said clearly over the ambient sounds of the city, too much chance of being noticed.
One of the robbers, a tall burly bear of a man going by how far apart the flies Taylor had placed on his shoulders were, held a pistol on the cashier. Next to the door the second tall skinny man with long hair skulked behind a postcard display and peered out past the neon signs on the widow on the lookout for police. Too bad he didn't look up and see Kid Win on his hoverboard. The third robber, the smallest of the three, helped himself to something from a refrigerated case. Taylor sent a few flies into his jacket pocket and verified the stun gun inside.
Then Shadow Stalker sprinted in a wide arc and bypassed the car dealership entirely, flickered into her shadow form as she leapt high above the convenience store parking lot. She landed on the abandoned building on the far side from the direction she had originally come from with Kid Win to finally leap into the alley behind the convenience store.
Taylor was puzzled why Shadow Stalker would take such a circuitous route to ghost through the wall to the right of the rear security door. Especially with a robbery in progress. Maybe she didn't want to chance she might set off the security alarm and alert the robbers to her presence.
Shadow Stalker crept all the way up the convenience store aisle to the front of the store like a mountain lion hunting a deer. Kid Win dropped down about ten feet and the tall robber at the window shouted something.
Just as the big guy holding the pistol on the cashier turned his head, Shadow Stalker popped up and shot a tranquilizer dart into his neck, causing his shot at her to go wide. Behind Shadow Stalker, a glass refrigerator door shattered. The tall skinny robber on lookout panicked, ran away from her out the front and got gunned down by Kid Win, where he fell unconscious almost immediately.
The lumbering robber next to the cash register collapsed as the tranquilizers took effect, the final robber on his feet fumbled the stun gun out of his pocket just to end up with Shadow Stalkers foot embedded in his groin.
Kid Win landed and pulled out a bundle of zip ties from a long pocket on his belt. Shadow Stalker secured both robbers arms behind their backs. Taylor had finally caught up to the Wards and saw the crime scene through her own eyes and through her bugs senses when Shadow Stalker gave the robber curled painfully on the floor another kick for good measure when Kid Win's back was turned calling the Brockton Bay Police Department.
"No surprise Sophia's a bully even when she's in costume," Taylor thought.
Now that she actually saw the entire neighborhood in person from where she hid in the alley across the street, it brought up even more questions about Shadow Stalkers behavior. Why bother to go around three sides of the square building to enter through the back when the robbery was going on and the cashier could have been shot at any time? She took them down so effortlessly, Shadow Stalker could have gone right in the front through one of the neon signs hanging in the windows and maintained the same element of surprise instead of sneaking up on them from inside the convenience store.
Something didn't add up.
Taylor could understand Shadow Stalker not ghosting through the car dealerships' electrified chain link fence since there wasn't enough of a gap to turn solid again before reaching the building. Maybe Shadow Stalker didn't have the momentum to carry through? No, because she had ghost-leaped clear across the parking lot in order to circumnavigate the convenience store, so that wasn't it.
Taylor tried to assess the situation again. Let Sophia's actions speak louder than words. She'd gone through the wall next to the security door in back. Not through the door, but next to it. For that matter, why not ghost leap through the refrigerators on the side of the convenience store with the abandoned building?
Shadow Stalker hadn't dropped through the roof either. Taylor took another look at the crisscrossed phone lines and power lines above the plethora of lit signs on the roof of the convenience store. Why wouldn't Shadow Stalker want to ghost through them? She would have had to go in blind if she ghosted through the roof… but Shadow Stalker did that anyway when she ghosted through the wall next to the door in the back of the store.
Why didn't Shadow Stalker do any of those things? Was it that she didn't want to? Or was it that Shadow Stalker couldn't? Taylor pieced it together in her mind: Shadow Stalker avoided the electric fence, the neon signs, the refrigerator wall, the security door in back and the wires and lit signs on the roof. She also held a grudge against the robber with the stun gun, but not the one who had actually got a shot off at her. All had one commonality.
"A working theory, but how to test it?" Taylor pondered.
Taylor reached into her storage compartment and pulled out a wrinkled bill and debated whether or not to call the number scrawled on it.
