1.3

My feet pounded against the pavement as I ran. The city was dark, and the streets were all but deserted. Rarely, I'd pass a car or run by someone walking, but for the most part, Brockton Bay was a ghost town.

I left the Docks and its 'nightlife' behind and headed into the Boat Graveyard. In a few short blocks the city went from poor to an outright wasteland of abandoned warehouses and partially sunken ships. Out in the Graveyard, my only company was likely to be the homeless, and maybe criminals.

It was a long way to travel, and I only made it as far as I did because I could just run through anything in my way. Sand rustled underfoot as I wove through the maze of rusting ships that covered most of the shore.

Finally, I slumped against the side of a tanker, unable to run any farther. My legs were shaking like rubber, and I thought my lungs would burst. And I was still pissed off that I could get tired. I got all the bullshit powers of a ghost, but I still got tired.

I shook my head angrily, I didn't even get ghost powers. I got screwed over by the world's shittiest superpower. "Power to Die But Not Really." Real nice. Dad was probably devastated. Actually, scratch that. I knew he was devastated, and I couldn't do anything about it.

And it wasn't just that. I got the wonderful group package power of controlling… dead people? Nazi supervillains? I wasn't sure exactly what it did. It still made me mad. I'd dreamed of being a superhero for so long, and when it actually happened, my life got irreparably fucked up, and I got… necromancy.

It had damn well better be necromancy. I was going to blow a fuse if my power was "controls Nazis." Speaking of which-

I shoved at the crystal resting in my power. It parted from me and Allfather appeared. He had his arms crossed. The moonlight glinted off his armor. None of the blood from earlier was still on him.

"Well?" I said.

"I should ask you the same thing, Taylor." Allfather sounded almost disappointed. "Why did you interfere?"

"What is wrong with you? You don't get to murder people in street just because they're Asian!"

"How else do you expect me to clean up my city? They're a significant part of the problem." He replied.

"So is your fucking Empire!" I shouted. "They're worse than the ABB ever were! Half the capes in the city are Nazi thugs."

"All the more proof that my son is a failure as head of the Empire."

"Is that all you think about?"

"Yes!" He shouted back. He stopped, and when he spoke again, his voice was calmer. "Look Taylor, the Empire was the culmination of my life's work. All my hopes and dreams were tied up in it."

"Dreams about killing the lesser races." I sneered.

Allfather sighed, and then tugged his helmet off. He placed it under one shoulder and I saw his face for the first time.

He was younger than I'd expected. Younger than Dad, I thought. He had the same lines of strain under his eyes that Dad did though. His blonde hair was cut short, probably to help his helmet fit. His left eye was closed, the lid flat over the empty socket. He fumbled in a pocket and pulled out an eyepatch, strapping it on over his missing eye.

He walked over and sat down next to me against the ship. I scooted away from him.

"Wait." He held up a gauntleted hand. "Look at all this." He waved at the decaying ships around us. "All of this was here when I was still alive. Can you believe that?"

"The city never has the money to fix it."

He pointed to the Bay. Moonlight played across the water in huge glittering arcs, and the sky was almost clear enough to see the stars. It was surprisingly beautiful. Not the kind of thing I expected to see in Brockton.

"I love this city." He said. "I'd like nothing more than to fix this and build something better."

I stayed quiet. Taunting him was getting old. He was too set in his beliefs for it to bother him anyway.

"We're all the heroes in our own stories. How would you be a hero, Taylor?"

I opened my mouth, paused, and then closed it again. I didn't know how to answer that. Clean up the city? Solve crime? Defeat supervillains? So much of my life had been wrapped up in what had gone on at Winslow that I honestly hadn't given it any thought.

And now, sitting here in the night air, nothing to my name, and no one to talk to but a Nazi supervillain, all of that seemed so small. How had a trio of teenage girls ruined my life so thoroughly? They hadn't just smashed my self-esteem or fucked up my grades- they'd killed me. It didn't matter that I'd scored superpowers and was still alive- for all intents and purposes, they had killed Taylor Hebert. They'd murdered me.

"Revenge." I whispered. "What I want is-" I hesitated. No- That wasn't right. I wanted revenge, but I wanted something else more. What I wanted above all else was-

"I want to see my Dad again, and tell him that I'm okay and that I love him."

As I spoke the words, they settled on me with an almost palpable weight.

Allfather smiled at me. "That's a good goal, but you didn't answer my question."

"I… I need some time to think about it. I'm still trying to get a handle on this whole situation. My powers, and the fact that I have powers, and…" I trailed off with a groan.

He stood, his armor giving off sparks as it scraped against the ship's hull.

"Alright. Let's get a handle on them." He made the same withdrawing motion he'd made earlier and pulled a sword from nowhere. It was a different sword from before.

"I create metal-bladed weapons. What do you do?"

"Ghost control." I said lamely.

"What ghosts?"

"Dunno."

"Define your limits. A warrior must know her limits." He rammed the sword into the sand and drew another. "How many, what kind, when, where, why?"

"I summoned you." I thought about it. If I could summon shades of anyone who'd ever died, I'd have millions of ghosts around me. What made Allfather different?

"I control parahuman ghosts."

Allfather drove his new sword into the ground and leaned against it, his elbow resting on the crossguard. "Good. Keep going."

We talked until the moon was touching the far horizon. Allfather finally put a stop to it when I started dozing off halfway through sentences. He carried me up a mountain of scrap metal and then jumped to the deck of an adjacent ship. The deck was dirty and weather beaten, but it seemed like no one had been up there.

The door to the cabin was rusted shut, but he jammed a sword into the gap and levered it. The door held for a long time, but finally, with a long stream of muffled cursing, he pried it open.

"I can walk through walls." I said quietly, trying not to laugh. Allfather stared at me for a moment and then burst out laughing. I tried not to, but I ended up joining him. Things seemed a lot funnier when I was this tired.

I staggered over to the musty bed in the cabin. It was pretty gross, but I didn't have to touch it, so I didn't care. Allfather sat down at the foot of the bed while I stretched out.

My eyelids drifted shut almost immediately, but I held on for just a little longer.

"You didn't tell me what you wanted." I said.

The sheets rustled as Allfather shifted on the bed. I was a little surprised the bedframe could even handle his armor-clad weight.

"I believe I said that I wanted to clean up the city." He said.

"No. That's your way of being a hero. What do you want more than anything?" It seemed important that I asked, but I couldn't say why.

He stayed silent for a moment, deliberating. When he spoke, he did so with deadly sureness.

"I want to avenge my daughter."

Our bond pulsed for just an instant, and I fell asleep with his words ringing in my ears.

(condition set)

Allfather sat quietly until Taylor fell asleep. She looked so young, her skinny frame dwarfed by her ill-fitting clothes. He had to keep reminding himself that she wasn't Caroline. She had the same gawky grace, and the same way of smiling. Even their tangle of black hair was the same. Some men would have been ashamed to have a daughter with kike's hair, but he thought it was beautiful.

The resemblance was almost eerie, and he wondered if it wasn't some form of fate that his second chance would come from such a girl. As Taylor's breathing deepened, he slid slowly off the bed, taking immense care to move quietly in his armor.

The door almost foiled him. Its hinges grated like rusted saws. He studied it, and then forced it open in one motion. The hinges squealed once, loudly, but it was over in an instant. He glanced back; Taylor hadn't stirred.

He put his helmet back on and leapt over the side of the ship. The drop was a good forty feet, and he made it easily. His feet sank a few inches into the sand, but he didn't even feel the impact. One of the benefits of being summoned by Taylor. He wasn't tired either. Brute 3 was nothing to sneer at, but even he got tired hauling around his armor.

He smirked beneath his helmet. Didn't need to sleep, apparently. At least there were some benefits to it. Being used as a glorified sword-for-hire galled him, even if it was for a girl as nice as Taylor.

With easy strides, he loped through the Boat Graveyard. Once he'd settled Kaiser, he'd have to see about getting Taylor on board with the Empire. Nothing too dramatic. Maybe as his personal secretary or assistant. Something to keep her involved, but nothing to drive her away. He'd made some progress on her tonight; her dislike had decreased the longer they talked. He'd have to keep more of his thoughts to himself from now on.

He had an Empire to run after all, and that wasn't going to happen without her around. That her powers kept going when she was asleep was certainly a boon. She wouldn't approve, but what she didn't know wouldn't hurt her.

For now, he was going to track down some of his old contacts and see what they knew. Maybe he'd run down some of those… what had she called them? Asian Bad Boys? It didn't matter. They all died like animals anyway.

Allfather was nearing the edge of the Docks when he felt his connection shift. It pulled, and then severed completely. There was blackness and-

He stood before Taylor, stooping slightly under the low ceiling in the cabin. She rubbed at her eyes sleepily.

"Where were you?"

"I was patrolling the Graveyard to keep you safe." He lied smoothly.

"Oh. I felt…" She hesitated, staring off into the distance for a moment. "I woke up because someone just died. A parahuman just died."

"Shall we?" He held out a hand.

Taylor smiled at him, and his heart leapt as he saw Caroline.

"Let's roll."