Chapter Seven: Make This Right

Dammit... Why did this have to happen?

All my fault really. I should've known accepting Clinic's healing would lead to this, but I did it anyway allowing my powers to return. I could've lived with the embarrassment. Probably could've convinced Clinic to refund the donations but no. I just had to have my stupid arm back. Had to make sure my friends still liked me!

I'm such an idiot.

I had promised I would tell my Dad when my powers came back too, but I thought I could wait a little while on that. My range had stretched to three meters overnight but that didn't mean it would keep increasing. Maybe if I was lucky that's all it would reach. Maybe my passenger was handicapped by Cauldron?

Yeah. Not likely. At this rate, my range will be six blocks by next week.

The stupidest part about it all was that I was still trying to make myself feel bad about it. I knew it was going to cause problems, having my powers back. I knew for a fact I'd come to regret it. But I felt so damn good that I was still having trouble caring. That only made me feel guilty.

After the initial shock and fear of disappointing my dad wore off I found myself delighted. Not for the powers so much as for… other things.

Clinic's healing had come with unexpected side effects. My bed covers last night had felt like sleeping on a sea of marshmallows, or maybe clouds. Chinchilla fur maybe. So soft that I could hardly believe it. The aches and pains from injuries and long forgotten battles no longer plagued me and the result was a feeling so overwhelmingly good that my horror at my returning abilities was difficult to focus on. My toes sinking into the soft carpet. My back as I stepped into the shower this morning and felt real warmth for what felt like the first time in an eternity had been heavenly.

The feelings were a double edged sword though.

Conversely, stepping into the cold had been a nightmare. I didn't remember ever feeling the chill of wind so deeply in my life and it wasn't even mid-October yet!

It didn't take long for me to latch on to what had surely happened. I'd suspected Bakuda's bombs had lowered the sensitivity of my pain receptors. I'd updated that belief. I now assumed that they had lowered my ability to feel anything.

Clinic fixed all that. Suddenly, a world of grey hues had become vibrant and colorful again. Not in literal colors but in the feelings. The sudden influx of touch everywhere upon me was like a cacophony of sensation. Wool was suddenly itchy beyond reckoning while the warmth of my heater brought me goosebumps. I didn't know how to describe it. Even the bite of the cold reminded me that I was human. I was normal. It was as if I'd joined the world again, after so long feeling just numb.

I had decided to walk to school today. My initial panic had faded from the night before, particularly due to the feeling of simply lying in my bed without the pain I'd become so used to, that I'd forgotten it. I don't really know how long I'd been missing my sense of touch but I had a feeling It had played a large part in my success as a cape. I'd probably be much less effective now if I had to play the role of Skitter again.

I made it to the building my first class was in with fifteen minutes to spare that morning and felt like a million bucks.

The math building was a spartan place with high framed portraits of old deans or college presidents hanging on archaic wooden frames. No inspirational posters adorned these walls. Only fine tan paint in the most boring of colors to make it look regal. The floor was a marble masterpiece down each hallway, a pattern of some sort of fractal, marred heavily by the footsteps of ignorant and loud college students barging all over it, and each other.

I stepped inside and was immediately inundated with stares from students who knew me, but I had no knowledge of. Luckily, one particular face jumped out of the crowd of moving students rushing to classrooms almost immediately.

"I'm so happy for you Taylor!" Katie exclaimed, the same as she had yesterday when I'd shyly walked out of the clinic, 'armed' and ready for their gasps.

I greeted her warmly and she gave me a hug which I was able to return with both arms. Somehow that felt like a huge achievement.

Eyes all around widened at Katie's outburst causing students who had become used to me over a month to stop and take a second look. The sight of my bare arm shocked some, which perplexed others, until they too, realized that I was supposed to be the one-armed-girl. Then they beamed at me.

I'd rolled up the sleeve because I felt like a child showing off a new toy, but now I demurely slid the my green sweater's itchy wool down my arm. Despite getting far too much attention, I was giddy in a way I hadn't felt since… I don't know. Grue I suppose.

I could get used to it.

I gave another shy smile, a pain in my cheek developing from the unusual position. I didn't... smile much, and felt so much more now. Part of me was trying to ward off all this attention, while the other basked in it. These people were all wishing me well and happy for me. It felt so strange. Not heartwrenching or mind-boggling like it had been when I'd realized how much Chloe and Sophia had done for me at the Clinic, but it was overwhelming nonetheless.

"Wow they raised enough so quickly!? Congratulations Taylor!" Came a cry from a sophomore named Denise Crint who was retaking College Algebra as she had failed it last semester.

"Thank you!" I called, trying to keep my usual stoic voice and she waved in return. Katie and I stepped off to the side to allow the flow of students to pass through, more than a few stopping to congratulate me.

"So glad to see that it all worked out Taylor!" exclaimed the slimy boy who'd invited me to that party after my speech. I didn't know what to say to him. "I got my dad to donate over two hundred dollars. After your speech I couldn't really do anything less."

"Yeah… Uhh."

"Hey, listen you want to-!"

I moved and Katie fell into step beside me abruptly cutting into whatever he was about to say as I turned away from him. I was annoyed with this boy, and I didn't care how much he donated to my charity fund. A curious mix of popular and Greg levels of annoying, tied to way too much slyness to possibly be innocent.

Weirdly, I thought that I still had his number on that scrap of paper, buried somewhere in my billfold.

"H-Hey!" he exclaimed and Katie giggled as I moved further away at a bit of a pace. Unfortunately, in my not-quite-desperate attempt to get away, I bumped right into Sarah Culbert, the girl who'd outed my name on the Youtube video.

"Oww!" She hissed as I stepped on her foot, jerking away from me. "Hey wa-! Oh Taylor! You- Your Arm! Oh wow already!? Is it real!?" She exclaimed jerking rapidly from one realization to the next.

I nodded to the girl. She was an ornament, but nothing more to me really. I was surprised by how angry I'd been at her right after my speech. In retrospect, I might've been a little irrational at the time.

"I donated fifty bucks you know," my bugs in the floorboards of one of the classrooms where the floor actually became wood, were able to catch Daniel Shepherd say to another girl whose name I didn't know as I passed out of normal earshot. Okay, using my fundraiser as a pickup line was a little… aw fuck it. Go for it Daniel.

I'd never been in such a good mood.

I'd always been such a stoic person, before regaining myself. I still was in many ways. On Earth Bet I don't think I'd ever smiled at all, but after a year in this world. A year in peace and finally having recovered my right arm, I well and truly felt happy.

"Congra-tu-lat-shuns!" Came Anton's broken English as I stepped into the classroom with Katie beside me.

"Thank you, Anton!"

Him I could answer with no embarrassment whatsoever. I was very familiar with what it was like to learn a language and slip. I shuddered a little remembering the bad months early on when vowels and consonants had held no meaning, and words, little more. Alone and unable to express anything that I thought or said or felt. Only me and my eternally patient father coaching me back to my humanity…

It also helped that I liked the boy a bit. Uhm…That way.

I was a little conflicted about that. I liked both Reid and Anton in about equal amounts. Both being a little. Honestly, I thought both of them appealed to me because they were so different from Grue, who had been the only boy I'd ever even thought of romantically.

I flushed a beet red as he hugged me without a care in the world, awkwardly returning the gesture. He didn't even seem to notice my ineptitude or my nervousness.

By the time I'd made it to my seat a whole group of students had surrounded me. None of them were angry or showed any real signs of jealousy. They were just either happy for me, or amazed that Clinic's reproduction could be so real.

As I slid my pen into my right hand and prepared to take notes I might actually be able to read later, I decided that I was going to make the best of this. Cape or not, this was a second chance. All this time I'd been treating Earth Dalet like a temporary haven. A reprieve before I'd have to jump back into the den of wolves. I had to learn that this wasn't the warzone my home had been. The Endbringers were gone. Scion long defeated, and there were only human monsters left fo fight, which I felt confident I could handle. This was a good thing!

I'd never believed I'd truly find the peace I'd always sought and even a year into it I still felt on edge. As if the break that would tear it all away was just around the corner. Another part of me that couldn't let go I supposed.

I was slowly forgetting, though. Slowly becoming normal, with their help.

My friends…

I smiled broadly at Katie even as the professor spoke. She cocked an eyebrow at me with an awkward expression. She probably thought I was coming on to her or something but I didn't care.

I was finally becoming okay. Copacetic even.

I wished that my days could always be like this.

When class started, all the words stopped. The congratulations, the attention that made me so uncomfortably comfortable finally ceased, and were replaced by the teacher's words. Quadratics and… Ugh.

My mind was left to wander, and as it always did, it returned right back into the hole my friends had done such a good job pushing me out of. The place where I kept all my fears and doubts and sureties.

There's no way this will last.

How long till I found another Dinah? Till I would be given no choice? Till doing the right thing overwhelmed me once more? How long until it was all taken from me, piece by piece? This beautiful daydream of a life, so vastly unimportant compared to what I'd done before, yet so infinitely much more… safe? Warm?

Yes. Safe and warm. So much so that it had to be merely that. A dream. How long could such a lie possibly last?

I shuddered. I hoped.

It will last for the rest of my life. Please. Let it last forever.

Mr. Crowbes assigned nearly forty questions that would take me no less than two hours to complete, due back by thursday. I simultaneously wanted to murder and hug him. He hadn't paid me the slightest lick of attention. The math would distract me for a little while this evening.

I received a few more congratulations and 'wows' as I entered Professor Butler's class in the next building over. He was already there when I arrived, but unlike normal, he was visibly nervous. Honestly if he wore it any more openly he'd be visibly biting his teeth. At the sight of me though, with my second arm in place he visibly relaxed. A little.

"Oh Taylor, good to see you, very good," he breathed. "I was ecstatic when I heard you had gone to Clinic and she'd remade your arm for you. I know you don't like… uhm…" his voice lowered considerably so none of the other students filing into the class could hear. "...Bribery. So I wanted to assure you this wasn't that. I honestly do feel you deserve every donated penny. Spreading the fundraiser to the other professors wasn't a bribe. Please don't take it so."

No no no, teach. That's not how you bribe. You could use some lessons from Tattletale. Or Coil. Hell I could do better than that.

Despite my thoughts, I couldn't bring myself to be terribly angry with him. It wasn't every day someone admitted to a conspiracy charity fund after all. That said, I didn't like him. More and more by the day.

"Sir. I'll speak at your hearing today. I know what you were trying to do. You were angry, and I assume Mr. Coals was your friend. You were wrong but nobody's perfect. If they still take your job then I did what I could," I told him. Loudly.

He winced. Had I been too blunt?

"Thank you for helping the charity. It was kind of you," I said. That had been meant to calm him but it came across possibly even more bluntly. I turned away from him and found my seat.

As a professor, Butler was pretty good. As a person, I'd grown to think of him as little better than the late Director Tagg. At least he'd had a noble goal. Professor Butler seemed solely concerned with his own welfare to me. His words rang hollow and false, his smile and generosity even more so. Hopefully he didn't end up in the same boat Tagg had.

Thankfully, he ended his class after a merciful fifteen minutes. He and everyone else knew he was in no condition to teach, which left me in the unusual position of being out of class way too early to catch the bus without a long wait. I didn't have any other classes for the day so I got to happily enjoy a walk home.

As I left the school my thoughts wandered to how I would go about being a hero this time. I'd obviously have to do something heroic and fast before I found myself making friends with villains. Obelisk was already well on her way to becoming the villain-slash-friend Tattletale had been even though I hadn't spotted hide nor hair of her since her appearance in my cafeteria over a month ago. She'd taken my advice. She'd made her case, but she hadn't come forward, which I considered wise. Rapist or not, murder was murder. They would not forgive so easily as I did. She'd probably have to do more to reform in the eyes of the people, but that didn't matter to me. I'd take her either way, should she want a friend. She'd done right, in my eyes. Not smart. But right.

I turned my thoughts back to my own cape. More specifically, my costume. It would take longer to remake my costume and this time, depending on how low my range stayed. I thought I'd try to avoid the dark tone that had practically saturated Skitter's uniform. I'd dye it blue or something. Maybe I'd join the Protectora–err Wardens.

… Eh. Not likely. Though it would be nice to be friends with Clinic. Maybe Vigilant and I could open an independent section of the Wardens here in Centralia?

I began the fifteen minute walk through the breeze, enjoying the chilly feeling on my face. It wasn't a particularly cold day really, now that I'd gotten used to the wind and it had warmed up a little since this morning.

I passed people who waved at me, people who now saw me as a familiar figure, knowing me from my daily runs. A shopkeeper from a particularly awesome pizzeria waved from behind her glass window as I walked on by.

I was in the middle of waving back when a timid voice said my name, just barely loud enough to be heard over the wind.

I turned to find a girl there, staring at me. At least I thought she was staring, as it was somewhat difficult to tell through the strange goggles that adorned her face. She tugged on her braid that hung over her shoulder. It was a reddish-blonde color that bordered on orange but the girl had no freckles. I almost didn't recognize her for a moment. Just a moment.

My Hero. The girl I'd called Hero at the Seminar. I'd tried to find her once or twice but I assumed she might've skipped town. Every time I stopped by her roommates had told me she'd been missing. More recently they told me she'd hooked up with some boy, so I'd figured she was alright.

The way her lower lip was quivering as she met my eyes assured me that, no, she definitely was not.

"Taylor." She repeated my name, a little quaky but firm. Much more firm than she'd been when I'd taken her through my little play.

"Theresa." I thought to apologize, to say something, but the depth of the silence invoked by her solid stare made it seem almost offensive to interrupt the moment. She had come here to confront me.

She took a deep breath as if preparing for a deep plunge.

"Y-you're wrong! You know!?" she said choppily, her words coming out in harsh pauses as if she wasn't quite sure how to say what she wanted to.

I cocked an eyebrow.

"I-I just wanted you to know that your little hypothetical situation is never going to happen. You are wrong about me, and Vigilant too." She said more firmly, gaining confidence as she spoke.

Except for the fact that she was speaking nonsense. I blinked.

Huh?

"I'll never abandon people like you said I would. I'll save my team, and I'll save the people in the grass. I'll save the professors! I… I can save everyone!" She was yelling by the end, barking at me like a child whose toy I'd stolen.

I blinked even harder. Was she crazy? What… what do you say to that?

"Oh… Okay… Okay then." I told her. I was honestly confused out of my mind. What the hell was she talking about? That story I'd made up had just been a hypothetical situation, just like she'd said. She'd never have to save people! Hell why did she even think she cou–!

Oh.

Oh no.

My lower lip quivered as I realized what she was implying. A lump of guilt wedged deep in my throat and I gulped, hoping against hope that my suspicion was false. No, this couldn't be happening…

No vision came. I couldn't tell if she had powers but somehow in my heart I knew. The unexplained absences? God why hadn't I latched onto that? I was… was…!

I was her Emma. I was her Sophia, her Madison. Her suicidal brother Toby. I was her fucking trigger.

Suddenly I felt dirty, unworthy of this new arm I'd been showing off. Tears fell down my cheeks.

"I am… so… sorry."

She blinked in shock. Whatever she'd been expecting from me, this hadn't been it. "Wh-what? I… but you…?"

She slowly removed her goggles and gazed into my eyes. She looked hard as if searching for something that she couldn't find. Her fear had evaporated, only to be replaced by utter confusion.

I didn't care. I knew what I had done. She knew it too, but she didn't know the details. That I had traumatized her enough to trigger? Oh god how could I have done this!? Every time something went right, something else had to just crush me.

She took a step back, hesitant as I approached. I couldn't help but notice the goggles held in her limp fingers at her side. There were some orange and purple lights flashing on the inside, exposed now. Couldn't be anything but Tinkertech.

My suspicions confirmed already. She'd triggered. No. I couldn't refer to it that way, as if it was something she'd simply chosen to do. She hadn't triggered. I'd made her trigger. I'd come full circle. Now I was the bully, and I hadn't even fucking noticed. Misery followed in my wake...

She flinched only a little as I wrapped my arms around her. Awkwardly. Almost stupidly. The fact that I had two of them seemed to register with her as she stared.

I didn't mean it… forgive me. I didn't fucking mean it!

"Wh-whatever you want. I'll do it. I swear I'll make it up to you." I said, squeezing her short frame into my own taller one.

"You mean you didn't even know!?" she hissed at me, flinging me away as she did, and I flinched. "I thought you'd brainwashed me, made me crazy. I was so… And you didn't even know what you'd done!?"

I hadn't even thought about it.

"I didn't... I'll–I'll make this right. I promise I will. Somehow." I whispered.

I didn't know what to do in this sort of situation. I was always so sure of myself, so sure I was right. A goal, a battlefield, a plan to fix things! But there was nothing. Only my glaring wrong staring my in the face. No way to fight this like I wanted to. Not even any avenue for retreat, as that would only lead to more guilt.

She was silent for a long moment.

"You're a cape aren't you? You were from Bet. I could see it; I think everyone could. You just… know things."

I nodded, even as I sniffed. God how I wanted to just scare her away. Get rid of her. Fear was my tool and I could use it to make this girl never confront me with this horrible guilt again! But no...

This couldn't have been my fault! I didn't even know her! How could I have known that just talking to her would make her trigger?!

"T-tell me. I want to know everything. Everything you know about being a cape. I want to know how to be "Hero." She said lowly, enunciating her final word as if it had special meaning. Even more damning, her next words crushed whatever resistance to the guilt I had been trying to build. "I want to know how to make sure I never become like you."

I might've been in shock. I felt sweaty, my heart raced and my cheeks were wet, a fact even more pronounced by the cold wind. I don't think I could've denied her anything. If she'd wanted my new arm as payment I'd have given it. How could I have inflicted on another person, the same trauma that Sophia, Emma, and Madison had put me through?

It might not have been as bad! Sh-she could've just been like Glory Girl a weak trigger!

The thought didn't help in the slightest. My passenger wasn't a Tinker but Theresa certainly seemed to be.

I had believed myself hardened to everything. I had handled sacrificing everything. My memory, my connections, my loved ones, but this…? This hurt. It hurt to realize my own failings, and I had failed spectacularly. What kind of Hero would I ever be? All I could do was wreak havoc. All I brought was suffering wherever I went. My emotions were firing in a frenzy. Could Bakuda's bombs have affected my ability to even feel emotions too?

Fuck. Chloe. Sophia, Katie. Reid… get the hell away from me. I don't deserve friends like you.

"Tell me!" Theresa demanded when I had remained silent for too long. A bit petulant, I thought, but I crushed that annoyance into mush. I was in the wrong here. Not her.

I gulped. "Alright. Wh-when…?" I asked, unsure. This situation was so wrong to me. I'd never felt so wrong before. I didn't know what to do, how to react. Before I had always been certain I was doing the right thing. Now?

Should've let Obelisk go. Shouldn't have gotten involved…

"Tonight. After the hearing." Theresa said with a stutter. Apparently she now felt guilty for the blubbering mess she'd turned me into in a matter of moments. Weirdly, I felt it was only just deserts.

"Will you tell me your story, Taylor? I want to know how you became so… cold." She said, this time much softer than before.

I flinched and wiped at my eyes. They weren't dripping anymore, I'd recovered enough for that but the guilt wasn't going away. I wasn't sure it ever would.

"I'm not cold. Just… trying to be okay," I murmured. "Just trying to… be normal again."

She met my eyes pointedly. "You're not doing a very good job."

She shook her goggles to emphasize her point and I cringed. She didn't seem to like that very much. Our positions were reversed but not by anything she was saying. The girl couldn't intimidate a fly, not yet anyway. My guilt was doing all the work for her, in cowing me.

"Not that I mind. I… I love what I can do, but what you said? You were… terrifying. Even crying in front of me I can still feel that same dread like an aura around you… Like you crawled right out of a nightmare."

If possible, I thought the lump in my throat grew even larger.

"I did." I said. Crawled out of a nightmare. That's right. I was a monster. My image… I almost felt the moment when I found a way out. An escape. I had found a new goal. It had taken a few minutes for me to break through the guilt but my mind was finally recovering. A way to fix this. A way to make this right… or at least to make me not wrong. A plan, a strategy. I could manage this…

"Bet wasn't so kind in the final days..." I told her, spilling my first secret. "People who survived became hard. I'm... not a happy person, Theresa. My story isn't a good one."

What was done was done. No use crying over it. Feeling guilty didn't help but I couldn't get rid of those things at the moment. Instead, I would bury them in activity.

"B-Bet… Earth Bet… you're really–!" She breathed.

I'd prepare her as best I could. I'd tell her everything I knew about capes and how things had gone in my world. She'd be prepared for the pitfalls. The mistakes. That was the least I could do. I'd drug her into this mess screaming, but if I had my way, she'd be the best Hero this world had.

She turned noticing no one really watching us. My bugs, what little range I could feel of them at about five meters now, indicated that no one was paying us attention but I didn't trust them with so small a range.

"Okay." I told her, slowly recovering my senses. "I've decided how I can make up for this.

Assert control. Dominance. I was in command and I could make this right. I would protect her; I would arm her with knowledge.

"I promise. I'll tell you about Earth Bet. I'll tell you about the Protectorate, Cauldron. I'll tell you where capes come from and what they are. I'll teach you the classifications. Why capes get the powers they do. I'll tell you about the Endbringers and the Unwritten Rules of my world between heroes and villains. The Triumvirate and the hundreds, thousands of capes that filled my world. And… and the Golden Morning. I'll… I'll tell you everything."

Except for Khepri. No one will ever know about Khepri.

Her eyes were slowly widening with each word. Even as I spoke I think she knew. Something in my eyes maybe told her that I'd lived through it all. Earth Bet had become a sort of Legend in this world. Movies had been made about it, wild speculations and theories, no one every even coming close to what the world had actually been like.

A world already filled with capes to bursting? Who wouldn't wonder?

There was a sort of firmness in the girl that definitely hadn't been there when I'd pointed her out in the crowd. She was afraid but she was steady too. There was potential in that gaze really.

All this worlds questions and I was going to hand her the answers on a silver plate. Because they might be enough to keep her from getting herself killed. That would make up for this. That would make this right.

Won't it?

The lump in my throat didn't budge but at least my eyes had stopped watering.

"After the hearing, we'll go. I have a place that I want you to see. Maybe you can tell me what the hell I am doing?"

I nodded. "I... probably can help with that."

"Alright then."

With that she turned and began walking away. She was afraid of me, still. How had I not noticed it before? The shake in her stance, the quiver in her eyes. I'd only scared her more, but she'd grown a backbone since our last meeting.

Fuck why couldn't I do anything right? I'd never felt so guilty. I couldn't let it go with just that.

"Theresa…? I'm sorry."

She didn't even look back.

END CHAPTER