Yay, here's the next chapter! I even got my first ever Anonymous Nonsensical Flamer Review for the last one! That has to be some kind of right of passage!

I deleted said review of course, but he did make one good point: my author's notes have been way too long. As such, you will have to head on over to Spacebattles(link on my profile page) to find most of the more in-depth knowledge than I post in-chapter from now on. I like the forum format, and just about everything else there, better anyway. I will tell you now though that some of the major plotholes, like he one I ranted about last chapter, are now things that I am going to pretend were purposeful. Why? because after I figured some things out about where I was taking this story I realized that they would actually make perfect sense. And now, On to the Chapter.

1.3

Taylor's POV:

Yesterday they announced that there would be an event today in the school gym for us to meet the newest member of the Brockton Bay Protectorate. First he would introduce himself, then there was a question and answer session for the whole school. After that there was supposed to be something special, but they hadn't told us what it was.

As it starts I sit as far away from the Trio as I can. His costume looks like a dark grey military field jacket and BDU pants, but modified a bit to fit a slightly more 'angelic' theme. It goes surprisingly well with the cream colored mask, which is stylized to look like the tip of a pair of Angelic wings covering his upper face. He doesn't seem terribly enthused about talking to the whole school, but he manages to stumble through introducing himself, if a bit haltingly.

"Hello, I'm Seraphim. I'm…new as a cape, but I'm moving here to Brockton Bay for to join the Protectorate here. I guess I'm what you would call a Tinker, so that's a cape that makes technology way beyond anything other people can do." At this point he seemed to be livening up a little bit. "I specifically can make things to upgrade myself and basically give myself other powers. I haven't been around very long yet, so I don't have a lot to show you, but as an example:" He motioned off to the side towards a few targets that had been set up with a thick backdrop. "I would like to demonstrate something I did recently."

He raised his arm in the general direction of the targets. Several balls of glowing green energy grew rapidly out of nothingness shifting around it, and as each one reached an arbitrary size it elongated just slightly towards the targets before lancing out, decimating one of the targets and searing into the backdrop. All this happened in barely a second, and when the barrage finished there was little more than pieces left of the targets. An "Ooh!" and several other exclamations came from the crowd, myself included. I had to admit, that had looked really cool.

He turned back towards us with a smile. "Well, I suppose I should ask if there are any questions now, so if you have one please raise your hand and I will call on you." He pointed at a guy who had raised his immediately. "You there first. What would you like to know?"

"Why did you pick Seraphim for your name?"

"Well, I always had this feeling that I wanted to fly. I especially always thought how awesome it would be to have angel wings, and go flying around on them. I can't do that quite yet, but I have some plans that'll make it possible soon. The Seraphim in the Bible are among the greatest of the angels. 'Above him stood the Seraphim; each had six wings; with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.' That's also why my mask and boots look the way they do." He was a lot more comfortable with this than he was before when he was just giving a speech. He pointed to the next raised hand.

"Why did you move to Brockton Bay?"

"My home is really quiet, so they didn't really need another Protectorate cape there, and they could afford to send me here to learn from Armsmaster."

And on it went for some time. After a while he stated that it was time for the next part of the event and stepped down from the stage. Principle Blackwell came up and thanked him before announcing that they would be taking a drawing of all the student's names. The four winners would have the chance to talk with Seraphim one-on-one for fifteen minutes during lunch hour.

Imagine my surprise when I was the third name drawn. Perhaps an actual hero would be able to help me with the bullying? It was worth a try. I resolved to ask as I was ushered into the office, passing by the boy before me on the way. Seraphim looked a lot more comfortable sitting behind a desk than he did standing behind a podium.

"So, you have any questions that you didn't want to ask in front of everybody? I'm kind of new to the whole 'public figure' thing here myself."

"I, um, er… Do you think you can help me with my bullies?!" Way to go Taylor, just let it all come out at once without even introducing yourself. "Uh, I'm Taylor by the way."

"Um, nice to meet you, I'm Seraphim. Do you… think you could clarify a bit?"

So I told him. I told him about how the Trio had harassed me since the school year started, a tiny bit about Emma's betrayal, and about how the school just didn't seem to care. It didn't take as long as I had thought it would, summarizing it as I did. He just listened to me until I was finished before giving me an answer.

"Well, I don't think I can do anything directly, since they aren't mugging you or anything, since they aren't technically breaking the law or anything as far as I know, and since I'm so new here and everything." I felt my hopes wilt. Of course he couldn't. "BUT! Even if I can't do anything directly, I can try and give you advice and stuff. I was homeschooled all my life, so I don't know how good my advice will be, but maybe I can give you someone to vent at in the future if you need it." That… would certainly be better than nothing.

He continued; "I learned not to hold on to things for very long. A big part of that comes from my faith in God, but I don't think you're looking for that kind of answer. I think you need a distraction. Maybe you should try just being a nerd? It's loads of fun just collecting knowledge of phantasy and sci-fi stuff, especially a lot of the stuff from Earth Aleph. Heck, I could lend you some of the stuff I have from there. Once you get into it, it's really fun and you can never stop thinking about your own ideas. As soon as you start something new you start thinking about all the ways it might be different if this or that change was made to the storyline, or if a character from one series was brought into another."

I raised an eyebrow. "So in other words, 'Come to the Nerd side, we have pi?'"

He laughed. "Hahahahaha! Yeah, I suppose so! The fact that you know that joke tells me you shouldn't have too much trouble becoming a member of the great Nerd Clan." He checked his watch and I absently noted that he wore it on the inside of his wrist instead of the outside. Huh. "Anyway," he continued, "I think we're out of time, but I want to continue this conversation. Hmm…" He stroked his chin for a second before he seemed to decide on something. "I hope I don't seem like some kind of creeper, but here." He scribbled out a phone number on a notepad and handed it to me. "If you want to talk about this some more or just get some recommendations for good shows and stuff you can reach me here, or at least leave a message. It'll ring low-priority so you don't need to worry about causing problems for me in the middle of a patrol or a fight or anything. Who knows, maybe I'll even be able to put some sort of case together for you eventually. At any rate it was nice talking with you."

"Yeah, it was nice meeting you too," I reply. "And thanks." As I walk out I think on his advice. Maybe Seraphim was right. A distraction might be good for me. Just taking it sure didn't seem to be working out for me very well. And maybe, just maybe, finding some friends outside of school would help too, even if they weren't all the same age as me.

-End chapter-

A/N: The poor grammar in Jacob's (Seraphim's) introduction speech is intentional, since I can easily see myself talking that way, and he is representative of me. He really isn't used to making speeches yet, is he? That will have changed after a couple of months of being a public figure. Next up is the first Interlude, which should explain some things.