AN: I hope you have enjoyed the rapid posting rate. I will do my best to update frequently, but I don't want to commit to a schedule because I'm going to be moving twice in the next three months. I can promise you all that reviews won't hurt the posting rate! You guys can thank Bobboky for getting this chapter 24 hours earlier than I originally intended.

Chapter Three: Welcome to the Jungle

February 21, 2011

Winslow High School was a nightmare. All three gangs were present in a way that made Triumph's point apparent. The Wards in Brockton Bay did more because there was more work to do. And that basic fact was apparent everywhere. Lockers were decorated red and green gang tags. It seemed like at least twenty percent of the senior guys had shaved or buzz cut heads. Four girls came into his first period class completely stoned. It was a wakeup call.

But it was also encouraging. Three gangs were subtly existing on top of each other, but there were no eruptions of violence. Some sort of truce had been established so that the gangs could recruit, posture, and verbally rib each other without a fist fight in every passing period. It was surreal, to see how entrenched the gangs were. But it was also nice to know that he wouldn't be forced to use powers and expose himself to keep someone from being killed.

During second period he met up with Fi in a 3rd floor classroom where the principle was waiting for them. Blackwell was a slim woman, not horrible looking, but sort of androgynous. Her suit was rumpled and she looked a bit haggard given the early hour of the day.

He'd barely taken a seat when Blackwell snapped at them. "I can't spare the personnel to watch you, so you two are going to have to keep your heads down and keep quite. Officially, you're both in online studies to keep up in classes offered at your previous schools but not offered here. We're treating this as a pilot's program, and in two weeks we'll include more students - anyone willing to bring their own laptop with the grades to qualify. When that happens we'll split to two classrooms and you'll both need to switch back and forth so that if you're ever missing from class, each set of students will assume you're in the other room. As part of our deal with the PRT, you are to be on-call for any on-campus incidents. That means that you wear this pager while on campus and keep your costumes accessible. If we have another fight like this morning, we'll call you in and the band will vibrate. Put it on your ankle. You have 10 minutes to respond to a call. If you're not in a study class, ask to be excused from your regular class. All teachers have been instructed not to ask questions. If you abuse this privilege, you will face in-school suspension. Do you have any questions?"

"Not at this time." Fi said, very coolly. "If anything comes up, I'll email you so that you can respond in your own time. I can see that you are very busy."

Despite the crisp delivery, this actually seemed to appease Blackwell. "Very good." She glanced at Jason, but seemed to consider the matter closed. Quickly, he forced himself to speak up before she left.

"What happened earlier this morning?"

"ABB and Empire got into it in the parking lot. No ambulances necessary, thank god, but we had to suspend eleven kids and seven of those left bleeding. I hate Mondays."

With that she left, as though it wasn't at all noteworthy. Jason found his mouth hanging open and glanced at Fi. She didn't seem fazed in the least. "She said that the PRT is lending laptops for us to use as part of the cover. They're in the top right drawer of the teacher's desk, and we're to lock them in there each day when we're done. And not tell anyone that's where they're being kept, of course, and not let anyone see us put them there."

"Did you know about the fight?"

"Sure. I got here as it was breaking up. Nothing worse than bruises and a couple cuts. Four or five knives were drawn, I understood, but it started as a fist fight and they broke it up before the knives really got involved so no major bloodshed. Everyone was walking, at least."

"That's… that's crazy. I walked through the school this morning and didn't see anything that hinted at bloodshed. A little posturing, a little tension, but knife fights? In a school? How is that normal?"

"Brockton Bay isn't great economically. About 30% of all adults between the ages of 20 and 50 are involved in one gang or another, or else working for villains. That hits the teenagers too. And there's not enough budget to stop it outright, so the best they can hope for is to stop the fights before someone gets sent home in a body bag."

"You knew about this?"

"You didn't? Just over a month ago, early January, a girl got sent to the hospital. She spent a week in the psych ward, and no one has caught the people who put her there yet. Any school where bullying beyond a psychotic breaking point is not worth investigating is a school with big issues. Assuming the staff isn't completely evil, there has to be some reason that she's being ignored."

"What do you mean, ignored?"

"Her face was on the news, briefly. I saw her on the way to class, today. A group of girls had her backed into a corner."

"You didn't do anything?"

"I was already walking away when I realized who she was. I was about to turn around when Sophia came down the stairs. I continued to class so that she could handle it. Less suspicious that way, if someone who's been part of the school steps in."

"Sophia?"

"Sophia Hess, civilian identity of Shadow Stalker." Shock made Jason look over his shoulder reflexively.

"You can't say that. You can't tell me that. Exposing a Ward, even to another Ward, is illegal."

"Relax. She's on probation. I was supposed to brief you because Triumph forgot on Friday. She was a vigilante. At least one kill that they can confirm. She was forced to join up or join juvie. Part of her terms of probation are that she's not allowed a secret identity among her teammates. It's supposed to help her connect and keep her accountable."

"She killed someone?"

Fi laughed, very bitterly. "Welcome to the Protectorate."

"In Brockton Bay, maybe." It felt like he'd dropped into an entirely new world. Gang fights, teenage murderers, murderer teammates… Jason felt a little sick. Fi didn't seem surprised, or even upset, just cynical. Like she'd accepted this was the way the world worked a long time ago, which was not encouraging. Jason wanted to like Fi, and in fact did like her, but he kept discovering sides to her personality that he didn't know how to reconcile. She was open and friendly one minute, then secretive, bitter, and jaded.

She set one of the two pagers on his desk and went to fetch the laptops. Numbly, he clipped it around his ankle under his pants. He'd never been on call during school before. In the past, the Wards were something he did after school, during set hours, and on two weekends a month. It had seemed normal to be issued a phone, if a little bigger-budget than he was used to. Over the weekend he'd received two messages that both read "Incident in progress. Standby Alert L3." He'd assumed it was mostly courtesy, but maybe he'd been closer to being called up than he thought. It was uncomfortable to feel like he could be whistled for.

February 23, 2011

"I'm going to lunch." Jason jerked his head up in surprise, hands hovering over the keyboard.

"We just got back from the fight." He was probably blinking dumbly at her, but for the life of him he couldn't figure out why Fi needed to leave again. They hadn't done much, just showing up in costume had been enough to scare off the un-powered teenagers before anyone got hurt, but between changing clothes and reporting to Blackwell so she could mark the files of the students involved, it had been most of an hour. They had lecture videos from Parahuman Studies to watch.

"I want to find Taylor."

"Who?"

"Hospital Girl. I told you about her."

"I thought Sophia had her eyes on that?" Fi had asked Shadow Stalker about a 'Taylor Hebert' yesterday at the Ward base while Shadow Stalker was resting between sparing bouts with Aegis. (Contract passive aggressively refused to participate in any sparring. To his knowledge, she hadn't shown her powers since she'd erased Behemoth and re-touched 40 square miles of New York City, and no one could really force her to do otherwise without outright attacking her.)

"She was dismissive yesterday when I asked her. Her heart rate went up like she was nervous or irritated. And today I saw Taylor between classes with all her books in her backpack. She was rushing to her next class, and a few girls all made the same hand motion as she passed. I couldn't tell what they were trying to get at, but after the first couple she was practically running to get away. Whatever Sophia is doing isn't enough."

"And what are you going to do?"

"Just go eat with her."

"Why?"

"Because I can." Fi grabbed a sandwich out of her bag, as well as a full bag of carrots, a roll of crackers, and an apple. Jason had noticed that Fi ate a lot. She snacked nearly constantly, and ate large meals at every opportunity. Given that she was thin enough to be a model and didn't work out daily that he was aware of, he had guessed that her power somehow included an increased metabolism. He hadn't reported it, even though Triumph had pulled him aside last night on his way home and asked him what he'd noticed about her. Instead he just told him about her nickname, which she had already grudgingly shared with Aegis and the rest of the team. Her exact words were "Might as well, I guess. Or you could just use Contract." It was hard, to see her holding herself apart from the team. On the other hand, it made him a little happier to know that she'd shared her name with him first, and willingly.

Jason worked in silence for 26 minutes, eating while he watched the video with headphones, until the door suddenly slammed opened and closed.

"That bitch!" Jason jerked, looked up at his enraged teammate, and found himself leaning back.

Contract had never really scared him before. He'd held her while she wiped an Endbringer out of existence, but that had been more surreal than terrifying. At the time, he'd thought of her as a teenager almost as much as he'd seen her as a cape.

That was gone, now. Contract's face was exposed, but her expression was set such that it promised violence more than it conveyed emotion. One hand was curled in a fist, the other was still gripping the door handle, like she was holding onto reality. Her body was tense in a way that seemed dangerous, and Jason found adrenaline pounding his heart. He stood up slowly while she kept ranting.

"That bitch thinks she can do anything! Get away with anything. She honestly believes she is superior. I could wipe the floor with her shiny little superior smirk without brushing even a single deal and she thinks she can't be touched!"

"Hey, hey." Jason said, approaching cautiously, hands out stretched. She looked at him and seemed to actually see him for the first time. She took a deep breath, shut her eyes, and let it out very, very slowly. She kept exhaling even after it seemed like she should have nothing left. Then she repeated the process. Her shoulders slowly sagged and Jason gently, gently, laid a hand on each one, holding her very lightly. She opened her eyes, and she looked as bitter as he had ever seen Fi look. "What happened?"

"It's Sophia. She's the one who put Taylor in the hospital."

It was like sticking his hand into an ice bucket to grab a soda, except that it ran down his spine. "You're sure?"

"Yeah. She didn't say anything that proves it conclusively, but it's her. It's the way she looks at Taylor, and Taylor looks at her. It's the popular influence she's got over the other girls. I couldn't make it line up. I'd seen how popular Sophia was, and how prominent the bullying was. I couldn't make A equal B. Except for the obvious: Sophia is one of the heavy hitters. The girl's probably a little sociopathic."

"What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to shadow Taylor every chance I can. I'm going to watch Sophia like a hawk, in costume and out of costume. I'm going to try to talk to the authorities." She laughed that bitter laugh that Jason was starting to hate as much as he hated rain.

"I'll help."

"No. Not overtly. You stay out of it. After they brush me off, I'll need someone to present hard, undeniable evidence. That's when you can help. You have to keep your record clean until then."

"Why wouldn't they just listen to you?"

"A week in the hospital wasn't enough to get anyone's attention. The word of an untrusted semi-hero won't change that."

"You're a Ward, and you're not on probation."

"But I am the one the PRT is trying to leash, even if it means they strangle me. Look, please, just stay out of it for now? If you're right, and going to the authorities works, no harm done. If it doesn't, we can re-evaluate."

"Okay. Sure."

On Thursday, Fi disappeared at lunch time to eat with Taylor. On Friday, Jason offered to go with her. She gave him a very long, measuring look, and then locked both their laptops in the top drawer. They met Taylor at the top of the north steps headed down to the second floor. From this position, you could see or hear everyone approaching from a ways off, and there were two other directions to escape to. Hard to box in.

They sat down on the steps, and Fi introduced Jason, then jumped immediately into a conversation he didn't completely follow. "So now do you believe that I am who I say I am?"

"Yes. I guess so." Taylor didn't seem particularly happy with the knowledge. Jason wondered what Fi could have told her, since she had basically no story that existed more than a month ago.

"And did you bring them?" Taylor pulled out a very thick sheaf of papers and handed it to Fi.

"I have print outs of all the emails too."

"Any of the accounts traceable?"

"Not exactly?"

"The emails would still be helpful. I'm a bit of a computer wiz, and I might be able to prove a connection not immediately apparent." Fi was either skimming the pages, or she was an incredibly fast reader. From where he was sitting, he couldn't see what they said. After three pages, she looked up.

"Are the other days representative of these?"

Taylor immediately hunched over defensively. "It's a lot when you're living it."

"Oh, I know. I don't mean to belittle it. If this is all it was, I'd still be ready to go to bat for you. But Taylor, even only knowing you for three days, I'm pretty sure nothing on this scale would have kept you hospitalized for a week. You're strong. So I'm asking if there were any other incidents, besides the day-to-day issues and the locker you talked about yesterday. Give me the worst stuff. Arm me, so that I can fight for you."

Taylor was looking up, cautious but hopeful. Jason gave her a big smile, even though he wasn't sure what was going on. Fi passed him the top couple pages while Taylor answered.

"Well, there was my mom's flute."

September 8th the paper said. Six vicious emails, Sophia pushed me down the stairs when I was near the bottom, making me drop my books, tripped and shoved me no less than three times during gym, and threw my clothes at me while I was in the shower after gym class had ended, getting them wet. I had to wear my gym clothes for the rest of the morning. In biology,

"they got it out of my locker, held it hostage for a couple days, and then I found it in the trash out back. They'd ruined it. Smeared it with… it was ruined."

Madison used every excuse she could to use the pencil sharpener or talk to the teacher, and each time she passed my desk, she pushed everything I had on my desk to the floor. I was watching for it the third time, and covered my stuff when she approached, so on the fourth trip, she emptied the pencil sharpener into one of her hands and dumped the shavings onto my head and desk as she walked by.

"They've already ruined one backpack, last year, and they've made more than one attempt to repeat that. Usually Sophia, she's more physical."

All three of them cornered me after school had ended and took my backpack from me, throwing it in the garbage. September 9th. Other girls in my grade had been encouraged by those three to make fun of me. I was wearing the backpack they had been thrown in the trash, so every girl that was in on it was holding their nose or saying I smelled like garbage.

"Madison is just the number one hanger on. Emma… Emma attacks personally. She used to be… a friend. And she… she uses that."

It picked up steam, and by the end of the day, others had joined in on it. Received hateful emails and had to change address after the inbox filled up at 2:00 PM. Gym class…

Taylor stopped talking so Jason stopped reading, looking up. He wasn't sure what his face looked like, but it probably wasn't pleasant. Jason felt a tiny bit sick, and mostly overwhelmed. On one hand, the school had had two close saves with sending kids to the hospital after gang fights and it had only been a week. The staff was clearly overwhelmed. On the other, the gang members had all gotten themselves involved, to one extent or another. Taylor was an innocent victim.

An innocent victim who was being attacked by a Ward. A hero. A murderer.

"Taylor, I am going to help you, but I don't think it will be easy. I don't think it will happen immediately. What I can tell you is that today is the beginning of the end. I promise. May I take pictures of these pages? So I have a reference?"

"I've got scans of most of it. After I got out of the hospital, I went to the library and scanned everything. Just in case I could use it."

"Send those files to this address." Fi handed over her Ward's information card. Jason's heart stopped. Fi had told Taylor that she was Contract. Had she revealed Sophia? She could be given prison time for that, and him too if they thought he'd known about it.

"Why does the PRT care?" Taylor asked, clutching the card like a life-line but not looking up at them.

"I care. The PRT will have to deal with that." So she hadn't exposed Sophia. Still, revealing herself was dangerous on a lot of levels. It meant increased scrutiny to all of her friends. In fact, it compromised his identity, potentially. His only appearance so far was at Wednesday's almost-fight, but two new kids hanging out upstairs half the day and two new capes on campus was already pushing it. Winslow had traded several students to other schools the same Monday they joined, and no one in PR seemed worried, but Jason preferred when he had long stretches of high way between Intrepid and Jason.

"Thank you."

The lunch bell rang, and Taylor gathered her papers back, and then hurried to class.

"We're going to help her." He said, not really as upset about the identities as he should be. Taylor needed a friend.

"Yes, Jason, we are."