Chapter 8-3

"Are you sure about this?" Sam asked, nervously adjusting her makeshift mask. On second thought, mask was probably the wrong word. It was just a scarf we took from the attic. Combine that with a cheap and outright hideous tiger-print t-shirt and you had a perfectly feasible disguise, if only because the real Sam wouldn't be caught dead wearing something like that under normal circumstances.

"We need to test the limits of your powers. If nothing else, you'll find out whether or not yours are lethal."

"Well, I get that, I just think there's a smarter way of doing it."

"Yeah, go to the PRT and have them help you test it, but since you don't want to, we'll just have to get creative. Now, would you kindly slam me into the wall?"

Sam's powers were weird. Her power created a wind tunnel of sorts. Basically, she picked an area of space within her line of sight and a direction. All objects in that area of space now experience a force in the chosen direction. The force itself wasn't very strong, but it was strong enough to move a person or stop a speeding bullet with ease.

The girl took a deep breath and my feet left the ground. The world around me changed, looking like I was suspended in oil. Then, a nearby wall rushed towards me. The impact knocked the wind out of me and caused my shields to flare. Thank god I was wearing my armor.

"Okay." I said with a slight wheeze. "That was unpleasant."

"No kidding." Sam deadpanned.

"I'm being serious here. I have a brute rating and that actually hurt me. You do that to a normal person, they'd have to go to the hospital." I winced. I was being a little too strict again. It didn't hurt that much. "Anyway, now that you know that, you'll be careful, right?"

She nodded, but didn't say anything. It was a pity that she was being so timid and submissive. It made me wonder if the happy, outgoing person that I saw in school was all just an act. It also made me wonder if she was mentally ready for the rigors of cape life. Sure, she said she didn't want to be a cape, but knowing Brockton Bay, she probably wouldn't have a choice in the matter. I needed to prepare her, especially because she had an incredibly useful power and would be recruited by someone, Jewish or not.

She could push incoming projectiles like bullets to a standstill with just a thought. She could lift people and move them out of harm's way or bash them against things like a toy monkey. She could even fly (albeit slowly) by casting the field on herself. Her only limits where the size of her field, the relatively small amount of force she could exert, and the fact that she needed to maintain her concentration or the field dissipates.

I needed her on the team before someone else got to her.

"Okay, yeah, be careful. I get it." She said, panting a little. "So, what now, Master T-Banshee?"

I smirked. At least she remembered my little talk about using cape names in costume, even if she didn't plan on being one herself. Then again, I'd be very disappointed if she hadn't. All it took for someone's identity to become public knowledge is a single slip of the tongue on camera, after all. "I think this has been enough for one night, young grasshopper. We should get back before your parents do. It's already after dark and I don't want them to think we've been kidnapped again."

She winced a little, but recovered quickly. I was only joking, after all. "Oh, that won't be a problem. They probably won't be back till long past midnight."

"Still, it's better to be back before the gangs come crawling out of the woodwork. I'd hate for our first outing to end in a fight." The last thing we needed is run into another heavy hitter like Lung.

"Yeah, probably." Sam smiled behind her scarf and held out her hand. "Shall we?"

I grabbed her hand felt her power wash over me. A moment later, we flew.

As much as she hated the cape life, Sam clearly loved flying. She wasn't very good at it yet, but that didn't change that the girl just came alive the moment her feet left the ground. Now, she pretty much wanted to fly everywhere and I really couldn't bring myself to stop her. A pity because I really didn't like it. I mean, her power was totally dependent on her concentration. If she lost concentration mid-flight, even for a second, we'd both plummet to the ground or into a building. Now, I'd probably survive that, but Sam? Unless her reflexes were a lot better than I thought, she wouldn't be able to recast her field fast enough to save herself.

Of course, try telling that to a girl who's enjoying herself this much.

Well, I suppose that if there's a silver lining, it's that Sam's adjusting to her powers much faster than I did. That's a plus, right? Time will tell.

I was shook out of my thoughts by a scream. Young, female, vaguely familiar. It came from the ground not far from here. "Rookie, can you fly over to the next block? Thought I heard something."

She looked at me curiously but didn't reply. When we turned the corner, I spotted the source of the scream: A trio of men beating up a girl. Sam looked at me expectantly and asked: "Well, aren't we gonna help her?"

I smiled under my mask. I wasn't even trying to manipulate her. "What happened to 'I don't want to be a hero'?"

"Oh, fuck you." Sam hurled us forward and then dropped me right on top of them. The men took one look at me and bolted. Smart, I suppose. They weren't wearing gang colors so they probably wouldn't have back-up. Even if they were, this was well outside of gang territory. I had chosen this neighborhood because of it. Ignoring the crooks, I focused on their victim. She tried pulling herself from the ground, but collapsed again. I reached in to help her and got a good look at her face.

Emma Barnes.

How? Why? No. Fuck no. This…this couldn't be happening. It just… No. I wasn't going to deal with this shit. I was going to turn around and walk away. If I didn't, I'd probably attack her. If…

"Hey, Banshee!" Sam called down from above. "Is she alright? Did the bad guys get away?"

Fuck.

I looked up to the heavens and cursed my lot in life. There's no way in hell this was just a coincidence. There is just no way that I could unwittingly rescue Emma Barnes in the one place where I couldn't just leave her to rot in an alley like the piece of shit she is without looking like a total hypocrite. This had to be divine intervention. There was no other explanation. God was real and he hated my fucking guts.

Well, fuck you right back, God. I sighed. This was the moment where I both started to believe in him and decided he really, really needed to die.

Yes, I, little Taylor Hebert, was going to kill God. Fuck being immortal, that just means no one's tried hard enough to murder him yet. I'm going to spend the rest of my life training to be the deadliest fighter I can be. Then, when I died, I would claw my way up to heaven, beat him like a fucking piñata before strangling him with his own intestines.

My name is Taylor Hebert, and I'm the world's most determined atheist.

"Yeah, bad guys got away. Don't worry about them. Victims are more important." Emma winced at my statement. Odd. At least the bitch didn't seem to recognize me.

"Oh, yeah, okay." She said, almost disappointed.

I took a deep breath and pulled myself together. Banshee didn't know Emma Barnes. Therefore Banshee couldn't beat her head inside out with a rusty pipe. I needed to be calm and professional, because my cape persona was. Therefore, there was only one thing I could do in this situation: I was going to sit down and apply all those nice PR lessons the PRT made me sit through.

Seriously, fuck my life.

"What's your name, girl?" There, nice and professional.

"E-E-Emma… Emma Barnes." She said, pulling her scarf back a little. I've never seen her this vulnerable before. Bitch or no bitch, the one thing she never lacked was confidence. Seeing Emma like this was jarring.

Guess almost getting the shit kicked out of you puts things in perspective.

"Emma Barnes, are you a cape?"

"N-N-No?"

"You're not a cape…" She slowly nodded as I said the words. "And you're running around Brockton Bay, at night, in a costume, doing what exactly?"

Emma held up a baseball bat. On her belt, I also saw something that looked like a crowbar and…darts, or something? "I-I'm strong. I'm a p-predator, not prey. Not weak. Not again."

Even with my perfect hearing, I was convinced I didn't hear that right. "You want to beat up criminals with a baseball bat. No gun, no backup, no powers." I rubbed by brow. Has Emma just gone off the deep end while I was gone? "Emma Barnes, that is, without hyperbole, the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

"Uhh, boss, are you sure that's how it goes?" Sam quickly interjected. "I mean, yeah, it's kinda dumb but…"

"I'm not going to sugarcoat things, Rookie. Turning into a dark alley at night is dumb. Fighting Lung on your first outing as a cape is really dumb. This…Emma, there is no word in the English language that can fully describe the sheer stupidity of your action. If it weren't for the two of us being here to save your sorry ass, you'd be dead right now, or worse. Do you understand that?" Yes, I was ranting a little, but, God, that girl just pissed me off. She did not have the right to talk to the nice me. If I could handle years of torment, she could handle a dressing-down. "What the fuck were you thinking?"

"I-I-I can take care of myself!" Emma whimpered very unconvincingly. "Shadow Stalker could, and she taught me everything I know and I…I just need powers and I'll be strong and the teachers won't treat me like shit anymore and…"

I held my hand over her mouth. Any more of this drivel and I'd probably hurt her. "Emma, if Shadow Stalker taught you anything about powers, you'd know that A. you can't force a trigger event, and B. you shouldn't fucking want to, you nutcase. Why the hell are you taking cues from Shadow Stalker anyway?"

"She's strong!" Emma snarled back.

"She's psychotic." I calmly answered back. Thank soon-to-be-dead God for brain damage. "Believe me, I know. She was reassigned soon after I joined, but she left an impression."

"She understands how the world works." Emma replied. Her voice was starting to waver. "She's a predator."

"Which doesn't mean she's got the right to pull a prank on someone so bad they end up in the hospital." The bitch's eyes widened ever so slightly. "Yeah, I know about that. Rumor has it that she had accomplices too. So, mind telling me what that was all about?"

Emma snorted in response. "Bitch was weak. She had it coming. We pushed and pushed and pushed and she just took it. If she'd just been stronger, she wouldn't have been prey and we could have been friends again."

I took a deep breath. I counted to ten. Calm. Be calm. "So, what happened to your friend?"

"She ran. What do you expect? Fucking prey. Probably dying in some ditch somewhere." As opposed to dying in an alley if it weren't for two passing parahumans? Clearly, Emma has lost her appreciation for irony. "Didn't even have the decency to keep her mouth shut. Now Sophia is gone and all the teachers hate me. I mean, I'm just enforcing the natural order of things. You get that, right?" She looked at us, expectantly.

Sam turned to me and said: "Okay, I tried being open minded, but that's crazy. I think she needs a therapist…or ten."

"Agreed." I muttered back, gritting my teeth. "Emma, I know what's wrong with you."

"There's nothing…" The bitch started shaking. I think I might have broken her.

"Yes, there is. You are thoroughly fucked in the head and you know it. I don't know how, but in your delusional mind, the only way to fix things was to break your old friend. I not sure why you think that was best, and I'm not sure you know either, but quite frankly, it doesn't matter anymore. I'd tell you to apologize to her, but I don't think she can stand being around you long enough to do that." I sighed. "We're going to escort you back home. You're going to tell your family everything you've done and then you're going to get help."

She nodded and led on. Part of me wanted to talk, but I didn't think I could keep it civil. Just being in her presence made me want to snap her neck. For two years, I've been wondering why Emma turned on me. Now, having heard this and knowing who Sophia really was, I finally had my answer.

I wondered if I was better off not knowing.

Emma… I didn't know what to think. Part of me actually pitied her. She was clearly sick, but did that absolve her? God, if she'd come to me sooner, if she'd just talked to someone… I could have helped her. I don't know how, but I would have tried. We were like sisters before. She saved me when Mom died. I practically loved her. Whatever her issue was, she never needed to do this.

And yet, she did.

We got to Emma's place before long. It looked exactly the way I remembered it. Sam opted to stay behind and let me do the talking. Understandable, if unwelcome.

Mr. Barnes opened the door, saw Emma, and reached for her immediately. "Oh God, Emma, where have you been? We were worried sick about you!"

"It's okay, Dad, I'm fine. I'm a big girl, I can handle myself and Banshee was there too."

I rubbed my brow. I couldn't tell if she genuinely believed that or wanted to make sure her father wouldn't worry. Either way, it didn't matter. Alan needed to hear the truth. Even if I'd never get justice for myself, I might keep Emma from finding someone else to pick on. "Mr. Barnes, if I could have a word?" I said, as politely as I could. Hopefully, he wouldn't recognize me any more than Emma had.

Alan finally noticed the costumed Ward in front of him and muttered: "Oh, uh, sorry. Please come in. I can't thank you enough…"

"I will have to decline." I interrupted. I waited for Emma to disappear before continuing. "Mr. Barnes, I believe your daughter is mentally ill."

"I…what?" He stammered.

"My friend and I found her trying to fight off a trio of criminals, by herself. When I asked why, she claimed that she needed to be 'strong' and a 'predator'." I noticed a slight twitch in Alan's face. He'd heard those terms before, hadn't he? No matter. I needed to keep talking, of he'd break my momentum. "In addition, she all but admitted to tormenting a former friend in an attempt to make her 'strong' too." Before he had a chance to talk back, I held up my hand and said: "I won't press charges. The victim might, but that's between you and her. My point is that your daughter is deeply troubled and if you don't get her professional help immediately, she'll hurt herself or someone else and I don't think you want that to happen. Do you understand?"

"I…yes."

"Good." I nodded. "Have a pleasant evening."

I walked away, a little faster than I needed to. There, it's done. I'm out of there. Emma's gone and I didn't even kill her. Even if someone hears about this, no one will think worse of me and…

"So, what was that all about?"

Gah!

I calmed down and answered: "Nothing. I just don't like stupid cape wannabes. They have a way of getting themselves killed."

Sam shook her head. "Bullshit. You're Banshee. You walk away from giant explosions without looking back. You don't get freaked out by a girl with a shortage of brain cells. What's the deal?"

I briefly considered denying everything, but she'd been honest with me. She deserved to know. "Remember the weak girl she was talking about? That's me."

Her eyes widened. "Wait, what? You're shitting me."

"She was my best friend since, well…ever." I explained. "My only real friend, for most of my life. Then something happened, she met Shadow Stalker, and it's like she became a completely different person overnight. She and Shadow Stalker's civilian identity spent the next two years ripping me apart. Cherry on the cake was four months ago: she and Shadow Stalker left a bunch of crap in my locker and pushed me in. Left me there for hours. That was my trigger event, by the way."

Sam looked at me, horrified. Good. I didn't think I could have handled pity right now. "Jesus. The staff, they…"

"Didn't care. Emma and her friends covered their tracks and the school had bigger issues to deal with."

"But…the locker thing… That has to be a crime."

I snorted in response. "It was, but by the time that happened, Shadow Stalker had been recruited into the Wards, which made her a gang deterrent and a source of PRT funding. She was more valuable to the school than I was so Winslow did everything it could to bury it."

"And…the PRT?" Sam looked green by now.

"They didn't know. Outside of school, Shadow Stalker followed all the rules. Winslow was supposed to keep them updated of what happened during school hours but that never happened. Like I said: deterrent and money. Winslow was willing to put up with a psycho like Stalker so long as it got them that. PRT had no idea this was happening until I tried to join the Wards and recognized Shadow Stalker's voice. Needless to say, when Piggot's men did a little digging, they didn't like what they found."

"So that's why Shadow Stalker got sent away, huh." She said, chuckling darkly. "God, I heard the rumors, but I had no idea… Seriously though, why the fuck are you still a Ward? How can you still trust those people."

I laughed. Having said all of that, I guess that is a good question. "Because I had nowhere else to go? Because I had no friends and they were my only ticket out of Winslow? No, I think it's because Shadow Stalker really was a bad apple. The other Wards, they're good people. Friends, like you." I chuckled mirthlessly. "The first thing Vista did when I met her was give me a hug and thanking me for getting rid of Shadow Stalker. They care, Sam. I just…couldn't stay mad at them." More seriously, I added: "You can't tell anyone. PRT doesn't want people to know that their heroes are just human beings too. I don't want Armsmaster turning me into a shish-kebab because you tattled."

"Lips are sealed. However, that doesn't explain why you helped Emma now. Look, I don't know what kind of relationship you two had, but I'd have left that bitch to rot. At least we could have just told her to go home on her own. We didn't have to escort her back."

Why did I help her? Well, uber-rationalist me decided it was the best thing to do, I guess. "I wanted to be a good example for you and I couldn't leave her behind without looking like a hypocrite." I said, softly. Thinking back, though, I wasn't sure anymore. Now that my emotions were working normally again, now that I could feel hate again, the explanation felt hollow.

We walked back to Sam's place in silence. Sam was giving me space, I could tell. She wasn't even offering to fly us there. Eventually, I spoke up. "I'm broken, Sam. For months, I spent every hour of every day living from prank to prank, always afraid of what they're going to do to me next. When I got my power, I just… I snapped. There's something wrong in my head. I'm too rational. Too logical. Now, everything's a battle. Everyone's an enemy. I keep looking over my shoulder for an attack that never comes. She did that to me, Sam. I… the first thing I thought when we first met was 'what's her angle'. I was just convinced you were going to screw me over."

Sam blinked. Something clicked in her mind. "When I mentioned the 'guess the Ward' thing…"

"I thought you were using me. It's only after you started sputtering that I realized I was wrong." I lowered my head a little. It…wasn't one of my finest moments. "You have no idea how much effort it took to sit back down and pretend I was making a joke."

She grabbed me by the shoulder and said: "For what it's worth, I'm glad you did." After a short pause, she added: "And not just because you saved my ass. Or because you're letting me use you as a human crash test dummy. Or that you're self-flagellating, just to set a good example. That's nice too, though."

I almost rolled over laughing and hugged her for all she's worth.