All I could think about ten minutes before the bell rang was, an hour is too short for lunch.

I was busily trying to finish an English paper I had been procrastinating on the whole week before winter break started. It is due today and it was supposed to be about our latest assigned reading but I had kind of skimmed it. Even console duty was more interesting than whatever "The Scarlet Letter" was about.

To my left was my bestest friend in the world, Missy Biron. It would have been nice to have her help but apparently her class was behind, so I couldn't crib from her notes. She and I help each out in many ways but unfortunately English class couldn't be one of them.

"I don't understand how you still haven't finished that. I thought you liked reading books." she said.

"Because Nathanial Hawthorne sucks at writing. I'm a girl of high standards. If the book sucks I'm not reading it any more than I have to." I replied.

"Does it really suck that bad?"

"In my opinion if you spend half the book describing stuff that doesn't affect the plot at all, you wrote a bad book. I don't care if that's how they did it in the 1800's. That just means they sucked at writing then."

"Not every book has to be an action movie, Sam."

"You sound like my sister. She likes giving me grief about how I like movies more than books."

"Why didn't you ask her for help?"

"Because I'm already in the red for favors right now. I need to do like a month's worth of dish-washing to just break even again. Ever since Thanksgiving break I've been falling behind on chores."

"And who's fault is that?

"I didn't realize we were being sassy today."

I finished the last sentence of my assignment as the bell rang. It was a first draft with no editing whatsoever. I was looking at a C+ at best. But I couldn't be bothered to care. I had other things to worry about.

"Anyways we can talk later. I have to hand in my essay before we head out."

Missy nodded, knowing where we were "headed out" to. Had to be careful about how we spoke about the Wards at school. Even if some people already figured it out from how often we left school a period early for our extracurricular activities, there wasn't any reason to make things easier.

So we embarked on our last period of dull classes for the day. When I handed in my essay to the English teacher on the way out of class, she made a face. Apparently she had some opinions on my penmanship. I studiously avoided making eye contact with her because I knew I would only find disapproving judgment if I did.

We then made our way to the principal's office to meet up with our handler for the day. Our cover was that we were reserve players on our school softball team. The details of how it worked were a bit convoluted but it was convenient enough. I did wish I could play softball again, I had to leave my last team after the accident put me in a cast for several months. Then when I joined the Wards I couldn't find the time. It was a mystery how Sophia found the time for track. Thankfully my favorite handler, Tina, was there and ready to go when we arrived.

"There's my two favorite students. Are you ready to head over to the athletic center?" Tina greeted with a big grin.

"Ready as ever Ms. Everett. Are we just doing conditioning today or do we have a scrimmage planned?"

"Just conditioning."

That was me asking if I would be patrolling today, which I already knew the answer to since it's scheduled ahead of time. But there's sometimes last minute stuff that causes the patrol schedule to get shuffled around. That meant I would be stuck doing training yet again. Once I had that confirmation we went to the unmarked van that would take us to PRT HQ. When I entered the van I had to ask Tina something.

"It's almost the end of the month, are they seriously putting off my one patrol a month again?"

"Sorry I don't make the schedule. Don't worry though, I think they're about to come around soon."

"That's what you said last month."

"And the reason I said it is still true. You're a good hero. They'll understand that they need you eventually."

"Oh really, I didn't realize they needed an extra ghost cape with Shadow Stalker around."

"You know what I mean. You understand much better about what a hero is supposed to be than Stalker does. Even if your powers aren't ideal."

"If only it were that simple."

The problem for me was that of all the parahuman powers I could get, I got a master power. Specifically I had the power to separate my consciousness into a ghost projection that left my body. My ghost form appeared as me in a white tone, while also semi-transparent. Now that doesn't seem like a master power at first, but when my ghost body makes contact with another person I can possess them for up to several hours. It was usually enough time that I could get my unfortunate "victim" arrested by whichever hero I was working with.

With this description alone you would think it would be great for non-violent takedowns, and that they would want me on every patrol possible right? Wrong. Go directly to Jail. Do not pass GO, do not collect $200. That is how wrong you would be.

Why? Officially my power has some big downsides. First when I leave my body it falls unconscious and thus vulnerable. That means any partner I have basically has to do double duty both guarding my body and arresting the criminal I caught.
Why not protect my body by just doing the whole patrol as a ghost? Turns out my projection has a range of about 100 yards. If I tried going further away I would end up going slower and slower until I couldn't make any progress. So ditching my body at HQ to go patrolling was a bit impractical.

However the longer I possess someone the longer I have to wait to start another possession. For example if I spend 30 minutes possessing someone it means I need to wait 30 minutes to do it to someone else. Any longer than an hour and my "cooldown time" starts going up almost exponentially. For example two hours of possession turns into a 12 hour wait. Three hours is a whole 24 hours.

I can also take advantage of other parahuman's powers when I possess them, though there are several big caveats. Turns out the more inhuman a parahuman is, the harder it is for me to control. A bit like the difference between wearing normal clothes and a big bulky Godzilla costume. Also I don't have the same 'instincts' many parahumans have with their powers. So I need at least a little adjustment time to wield them effectively.

On top of that all my senses except for sight were gone as a ghost. Not feeling, tasting, or smelling anything was usually okay, but being deaf until I could inhabit a body made coordination a big problem sometimes. I can't write or talk as a ghost so I had to learn some sign language. It's useless most of the time though since nobody else wants to learn sign language, so I'm stuck with pointing and charades. However my possession gives me access to my victims body, so as long as I had access to someone's body I could use their senses.

Then there were the unofficial reasons the higher ups didn't like me patrolling. The public had a bad perception of masters. Gallant and Glory Girl could paper over the master aspects of their powers but at the end of the day I couldn't. It had taken several weeks to find enough volunteers willing to be possessed by me to complete my power testing (Armsmaster was one of the parahumans, he wanted to test the anti-master system on his suit. The nerd).

My debut had played off my power as a simple projection. My heroic name was even "Manes" ("For the last time it's pronounced Ma-Nes"), which was a Roman name for benevolent spirits. Since a lot of the possible ghost names that weren't villainous sounding were already taken it worked out. The reason I had played along was that I thought my possession could be my secret weapon. I was supposed to mainly do reconnaissance until I got older and I could rebrand. That lasted for a grand total of six months. It all went off the rails a week or two after Missy had joined the wards on a very ill fated patrol.

What had happened was that I had run into a really bad mugging that I couldn't wait to report in. Apparently the victim had tried to fight the mugger and was getting beaten within an inch of their life for their trouble. The guy had way more of his blood on the outside than was medically recommended. So trusting I was doing the right thing I took control of the mugger. After that the authorities arrived and the day was saved, except not exactly.

On one hand I did save the victims life, on the other hand it blew my secret ability wide open because apparently the victim was a member of the Empire 88. I feel like it was an honest mistake because he wasn't wearing any of the gang colors. But it turned out he was actually a money courier for the gang. The reason he was putting up a fight was because losing $20,000 of the Empire's money is how you end up losing your thumbs.

I was initially given a light slap on the wrist for disobeying my instructions (Thanks to some advocacy by my handler Tina, an all around great lady) by the PRT. But the real punishment was from the public. Apparently the Empire 88 has no shame (they're nazis so no surprise there) because when they got word of my master ability it was on PHO within the week. They might have also been sore about the lost money.

The PRT had tried to discredit the post about it, but a leak from an empire spy had confirmed my powers included possessing people. Turns out the public do not like being tricked into thinking a ward wasn't a master and it turned into a solid scandal for a while. It was definitely not how I wanted to get on the national news for the first time as a hero.

Of course the PRT knew about my power already so I didn't get into real trouble. Director Piggot had unquestionable credentials on masters (see Ellisberg), so they could get away with just firing the deputy director who handled the wards. The deception was something he pushed so I guess it wasn't completely unwarranted. The main punishment I suffered was being forced to keep such a low profile I was laying flat on the ground. One patrol a month, no appearances at school events, no merchandise made of me, no PR tours at all.

I am still as close to being an unperson as a ward could be. There was even a rumor going around on PHO that I had died, and the Protectorate was covering it up. That may or may not have originated with some anonymous accounts I had set up, but who's to say for sure?

While I was fine not doing PR, getting benched was grating. Everyone else on the Wards could get out there and use their powers to actually make a difference in Brockton Bay. It wasn't a big difference but it was more than I could do. I couldn't even complain to the Youth Guard since my schedule was actually much closer to what wards in most other cities did.

So if I did complain I'd be more likely to get most of the other wards benched like me. No bueno. That meant for the foreseeable future my schedule was a cycle of console, training, and the golden one patrol a month I got. It usually wasn't even that great, just me patrolling the same remote corner of the city with my partner of the night.

Even more unthinkable was leaving the wards. In some ways it was the only bit of stability I had the year after mom died. After I got my power from the accident, my body was hurt badly. I was in no state to be keeping secrets from my dad or my sister, so they learned about my powers almost immediately.

After I had recovered enough, with me and Taylor accidentally discovering my possession powers the hard way, I was allowed to join the Wards. I don't think dad was entirely comfortable with me wanting to join after losing mom, but I needed to do something to get out of the house more.

Our insurance did cover my hospital stay but losing mom was crippling to our family. Dad could barely function for a long time and Taylor was a wreck too. I was in the hospital for three weeks before I got discharged, so I wasn't at home for the worst of it. But when I did come home it was hard to see. Dad and Taylor had apparently tried to clean up before I came home but they couldn't completely hide how much depressed neglect had happened. The refrigerator was almost empty, the front step had somehow broken, and there was a faint smell that I couldn't identify.

As bad as it was I couldn't blame them for it though. I could put on a brave face for Dad and Taylor but I was hurting a lot then as well. I needed a distraction from the gnawing feeling of how useless I was during the accident. Spending almost three weeks in a hospital bed and not being allowed to use my powers left me a lot of time to stew.

When I finally joined it was actually nice to have some people who knew what it was like. The Wards look very heroic from the outside but really we were all coping from the terrible things that gave us our powers. I think the reason we like fighting crime so much is that it's the closest thing we have to therapy. The perks were nice as well. Even if it was near minimum wage the money I earned helped a lot with our family budget. Plus the only way I was going to Arcadia and college was on a Wards scholarship given how tight money was.

Even after I got benched I did make productive use of my time, mostly on something I've come to call "Operation: Whitemail". You see, once upon a time Taylor had a friend named Emma Barnes. They were best friends, even more so the first year I was a ward since I was spending so much time apart from Taylor.

However the week after Taylor got back from summer camp Emma broke off the friendship suddenly. I never got the whole story but I do know Emma decided to ditch Taylor for some new friends. Which was how Taylor ended up in what I call "The Semester from Hell". There was bullying, harassment, insults, petty lies, malicious gossip, and even some physical abuse involved.

At first Taylor played it down as not that bad. Then she came home with bruises and ruined school supplies. I managed to get Taylor to involve dad but that had a limited effect. I even started making suggestions but Taylor shot them down ("No Sam, I am not faking my death and going back as a different person.").

You see, Taylor made the horrible decision to attend Winslow High School, a mistake we are still trying to remedy with a transfer (sucks but open spots at Arcadia and Immacula are scarce). They happen to have the worst gang problem a school could possibly have and still function. So Taylor's bullying was always a low priority to them. So once official solutions had been exhausted by the end of Taylor's first semester I decided to take things into my own hands.

I decided to start with the ringleader Emma Barnes. Since she was a former friend of Taylor's, I could invite myself over to her house on the pretext that I had lost a book and was wondering if I had left it in Emma's room. Since her parents weren't aware of the bullying I could be alone with Emma without any suspicion. I even remember how I had played my trump card when I confronted her:

"I know you're behind the bullying my sister is getting Emma, don't try to deny it."

"Oh, did Taylor come crying to you Sam? That's so funny. She really must have hit a new low to ask her stupid little sister for help."

"... Taylor doesn't know I'm here actually. I decided she wouldn't like what I have to say to you."

" Are you going to threaten me? A weak dumb little girl like you thinks you can threaten me? If you're trying to trick me into beating you up so that I'll get in trouble with my parents it won't work."

"Don't jump to conclusions yet Emma, I haven't actually told you what I came here to say."

"Alright go ahead. Better not be a waste of time."

"Okay I'll start by telling you I haven't played softball in over a year."

"Wait, what does that have to do with anything?"

"Don't you remember Emma? I didn't hang around with you or Taylor much after the accident because I was practicing for softball. Except that was a lie. I joined a different extracurricular activity."

I followed up my statement by projecting my ghost out from my body. It was only for a couple of seconds but when I returned to where I body had been sitting, I could see that Emma had caught on to my meaning.

"You… YOU'RE MANES!?"

"Hey you pronounced it right, I was wondering when people would get that it's Ma-nes."

"You're a cape?!"

"Ever since the car accident. And if you have been keeping up cape news you'll know what one of my powers is."

Emma blanched, so it looks like she did in fact keep up with cape news. Which made the next part easier since I had to word things carefully.

"So then you know if I ever got really angry at someone I could mess them up pretty good. Make them shave off their hair and ruin their modeling career for example."

Emma then really started to lose her cool at this point.

"Please don't hurt me."

"Emma I didn't come here to hurt you, I just thought you would be interested to know that I've been very annoyed about how Taylor is being treated at school. So I came here to see what you could do to solve that problem."

"Okay, okay, okay I'll leave her alone, I'll make my friends back off and leave her alone. Is that what you want?"

"It's a start. I'll be checking in with Taylor to see how much of a problem the bullying still is. So if I think you might be able to stop it I'll be right back over."

"...What's to stop me from telling my parents you're threatening me?"

"Well for one outing a ward is a bit of a crime. Secondly I haven't done any threatening today Emma. I only came over to an old friend of my sisters to help solve her bullying problem. Which to everyone else makes sense because as far as they know you're not one of her bullies right? Third, you were a close friend of my sisters for a while so you could have learned about my powers at any point since the accident. My visit today couldn't possibly be tied to my powers in any court of law. So unless you want things to get ugly I'd shelve the idea of outing me. So do you want to help solve Taylor's bullying problem or not Emma?

Very quietly, knowing she was in no position to refuse she said "Yes"

I wasn't initially jazzed about coercing Emma like that. But I decided that as long as I was blackmailing her into being a decent human being, it evened out morally. I was even thinking about coining the term white-mailing, when you blackmail someone for a good cause.

It was a risky play but it paid off, Taylor's bullying dropped off. Unfortunately her reputation was still lousy and she was basically friendless, which I couldn't really solve easily. But I decided to just take the win, anything more risked tipping off Taylor that I was meddling in her life. I'm hoping it was better to ask forgiveness than permission there. But knowing my sister she wouldn't appreciate my help so it stayed under wraps.

After that the only one of her bullies left was a girl named Sophia Hess. I actually didn't know what to do about her but apparently one day the universe decided to do me a favor. Because one day the rogue hero Shadow Stalker was forcefully inducted onto the wards, and surprise surprise she also happened to be my sister's bully Sophia Hess.

Believe me when I say the look on her face was priceless when she realized, like the look of someone who found out their parents were becoming nudists. After that it was a simple conversation and suddenly she had a strong incentive not to bully my sister, because even if her handler didn't hear about it I would.

Finishing my musing, me and Missy now arrived at the PHQ in the van. After checking in we went to the wards quarters and started suiting up. My costume was modeled after Roman gladiatorial armor since PR and I had decided to compromise on a Roman theme like Triumph had. There were even rumors on PHO that he and I were related ("Hey bro how you doing?" "Manes for the last time please stop pretending we're siblings, its unprofessional.").

So my costume used a lot of the features Triumph had with the main difference being that instead of lions I had a latin motif with a roman legionary styled helmet (without the feather plume) over my head. It was also the only way I could feel dignified wearing a skirt since that was a strong preference PR had. Apparently they did not like young girls wearing skin tight costumes for obvious reasons. I would've just gone for armored pants but apparently that was a bit too heavy for me, so armored skirt and leggings it was.

Today was going to be a training day, so I entered the wards gym for my regular exercises. The routine was pretty regular: a couple minutes of warm up stretches, 20 laps around the room, some reps, some pushups, and whatever other exercise I could think of to add some variety. An hour later my physical conditioning was finished. I was a little sweaty but it was important to train in the costume you had. After that I changed back into casual clothes with only a mask to keep my identity concealed.

Now it was time for the most boring part of training; manuals and case study videos. Apparently the PRT had built up a decent library of procedural and operation manuals. On top of that a lot of past incidents had write ups that summarized what had happened and lessons learned. Endbringer attacks, S-level villains, gangs, and even some unusual patrols got documented there. Even my ill-fated mugging intervention had ended up as one of the reports.

At first it had been interesting, but by the sixth month of studying during my unofficial probation I was bored to tears. There's a huge difference between reading about what the Heros are doing and doing it yourself. On top of that they were written in a dull police report style. It was simply a chore to read through this stuff until it was time for the weekly meeting at 5:30 pm. I also did my school homework then since it was better here than at home where I could actually entertain myself. After that I would be able to go home for the day.

So it was about 20 minutes before the meeting started that Missy approached me at my study table. I liked doodling when I had gotten my fill of reading for the day, so I was in the middle of sketching a very nice picture of Eidolon. Missy looked over my shoulder and made a comment.

"Is that supposed to be Eidolon?"

"Why yes it is"

"Why is he half the size of a skyscraper"

"He has every power. I'm sure he has a kaiju mode in his back pocket somewhere."

"I'm sure he does" Missy said, conceding to my impeccable logic. "Anyways the meeting is going to start soon, how about we grab our seats?"

"Sure, then I'll get to sit through that meeting and get told the same thing I've been told the last dozen meetings. 'Don't worry Manes, we're thinking of putting you back on full time. Just wait a little bit more'"

"This part time stuff is really bugging you isn't it?"

"Statement of the century right there. I get why I can't go on more patrols but they're not giving me anything real to do. It feels like purgatory. It almost feels like I should have actually gotten punished. Shadow Stalkers on probation and she gets on more patrols than I do. It's getting silly."

"I think you're right. This is getting ridiculous. You need to talk to someone."

"Like who? Piggot? She's been stonewalling me for months. I don't think she even reads my emails anymore."

"No, Armsmaster. He's technically the hero in charge of the wards program since he's head of the protectorate branch."

"Have you met Armsmaster? He's about as persuade-able as my dad when he gets going about restarting the ferry again."

"There's no harm in trying."

"I'll hold you to that. Hey, after the meetings over you want to head over to my place? I got some new Aleph flicks from the library and they look pretty sweet."

"Wish I could but apparently my mom needs me around for a business dinner she's having. I have to entertain the other people's kids while the grownups talk business."

"Wow, that sucks. Text me afterwards if you feel up for it." I checked the clock and there was ten minutes until the meeting started. "Well, let's see if your idea holds water. Hopefully the meeting is all sunshine and rainbows cause that's the only way I can see Armsy being in a good enough mood to agree."

And so we made our way to the meeting room, where I doubted anything good was waiting for us because there was almost an ironclad rule: good things don't happen to Brockton Bay.

A/N
I hope there wasn't too much exposition in this chapter either. Hoping that next chapter I can include some more verbal sparring as we explore Sam's relationships with the other Wards.

Here we have a full overview of her powers. I tried to balance it so that she does have a fairly powerful set of abilities but not overpowered. The possession part of her powers can be relatively versatile depending on who she can "get". While she can possess parahumans and get their powers it works better for some cape than others. Of course this is negated if she's fighting against a team, it rebalances things to her side's favor but it's not an automatic win.

On blackmailing Emma and Sophia I decided that Sam would know she can't push the envelope too hard. She's a master and knows stepping over certain lines can get you the birdcage. So she has to be very careful about what she actually does, and how that can be perceived. She has learned a few things since she became a ward after all.

As for her role in the wards she is technically the longest serving ward since she joined before Missy (Carlos/Aegis I assume joined shortly after Missy.). But since she's been benched for a large part of that she doesn't enjoy the same experience Missy has. Her mistake of letting the Protectorate hide her master power mostly comes down to being a ten year old who lets the adults talk her into making a bad decision. So Taylor isn't going to be the only one in this story who has authority issues.

BTW I hope you're not getting used to the quick update schedule cause I'm just releasing my backlog now.