"So the guy named Shitstain made a Sinister Six knockoff?" Verity asked, loudly enough to be heard as she began making her way away from the table.
"WOULD HAVE GONE WITH THAT, BUT UNLIKE DUMB AND DUMBER WE DO IN FACT FEAR THE HOUSE OF MOUSE!"
"You should fear the snake, too." Verity said as she continued her slow walk towards them, body language screaming that she was a threat. "One chance to back down before you go from Shitstain to Lawn Ornament."
"Yes, this little distraction has been amusing for a little bit, but no longer," Ragyo spoke in a chilling tone. "So leave."
"Pfft, as if, and as if we're going to fight you, we're not idiots," Skidmark said. "Crystal Meth, do your thing."
"Snake goes fly high!" One of the Skidy Six said, a woman (who looked just as trailer trash as Squealer) lifted up her hand that glowed a blueish-purple color and suddenly Verity found herself flying through the night sky.
"...That bitch's name is Crystal Meth?" Verity questioned as she continued upward in her arc, the move having only gotten her away from the fight, and she was too dumbfounded by the fact said bitch was apparently a chuckster.
Aaaand then she reached her apex and started falling, so she quickly began getting into a proper landing position, and tried using her hair to glide and control her fall-
And she landed on top of a roof, thankfully not crashing through it, thanking her time at her sister's gymnastic lessons for teaching her how to tuck and roll.
But it did crack a 'bit'.
She immediately shot to her feet and glared down at the building she'd just been launched out of, finding herself snarling at the sight.
Namely, the buildings between her and the gallery.
Doing some quick mental math before deciding to say fuck it and wing it, she reared back and prepared to leap-
Though before she could her armband rang.
Ri-
It hadn't even finished one ring when she answered.
"This is Medusa." She said, trying to keep the anger directed away from the caller.
"Hey Mama Snake," Came Tattletale's voice. "Just sending a warning Coil did something to set of the Merchants, so they are-"
"Attacking the Forsberg Gallery, just got thrown out by some bitch-" Here, she jumped across to the first building, deciding standing still and talking was for normal people. "Calling herself Crystal Meth. Appreciate the warning tho!" She said as she cursed her weight meaning she didn't have much training with parkour, so she had to wind up for the next jump lest she go flying over the edge of the building or fall flat on her face.
"...Really and dammit here I thought, I got that info early enough. Well I leave you to it, but I think Coil is starting whatever he has planned for the city with this." At that the call ended.
"...Shit." Verity snarled as she realized that meant this was probably just a distraction for something bigger, she'd already slotted this rip-off snake as being 'The Light' level of competent, but as she jumped she did a mental headcount and cursed as she realized that most of the Protectorate were here, so it was obviously a suicide move.
As she continued running, she quickly pressed the button that called Armsmaster.
"Medusa I assume that you're— well you don't see that everyday."
"Feel the wrath of SNOWFLAME!" Came a loud voice that breached whatever filter Collin that just isolated his voice.
"FUCK!" Verity screamed as the name made her trip and just barely avoid falling off the next building. "Dammit, I know him! He runs on cocaine, and can probably give people contact highs!"
"Yes the man announced as such and proceeded to do some," Armsmaster said.
"That's not good, but I'm calling because I realized something even worse, Armsmaster." Verity said as she pulled herself up onto the building she'd caught onto, the gallery now within sight.
"And that is?" Armsmaster asked and a second later Verity saw a massive hole being made in one of the walls as a much larger Gamagori came crashing through it looking rather pissed from her current perspective.
"This is a distraction, boss," Verity said even as she prepared to pass by the remaining building between her and the gallery entirely with one big jump. "Think about it, almost every hero in the city is here, and the drug addicts just so happen to decide to kill themselves like this? Doubtful."
"Shit…" Armsmaster responded as he realised what Verity was implying.
"Yeah!" Verity said as she took the leap and landed through the hole Gamagori had just vacated, this time doing the superhero landing and ignoring the pain in her knees for the intimidation factor as she looked up and snarled at the nearest Merchant and the scene before her.
And she saw a man decked out in what looked to be steampunk power armor, his face looking like a potato come to life. Or an uglier Sontaran, but that would be repetitive.
And he was in the middle of duking it out with New Wave and was rather impressively keeping up with the hero family.
His power gauntlet flew at Brandish who turned into a ball of light that just got bounced harmlessly into a wall.
The next closest battle was between the Elite Four and SNOWFLAME supported by the sixth member of the Skidy Six an African-American man dressed like… well the most stereotypical homeless man with only one of those 'bandit masks' concealing his identity who drunkenly managed to dodge Sanageyama's Men-Dou-Kote barrage (as he helpfully called out) before retaliating with an uppercut that he managed to dodge but was still somehow sent flying.
With the rest of the Merchants dealing with the Protectorate, Squealer's tank firing rounds failing to hit anybody, all the while Ragyo and her daughters just looked on passively at the chaos.
As the guests had been successfully evacuated.
This observation took about one second, registering she couldn't see Parian, and her vision turned red as she set her sights on the potato and lunged!
"Wargh!" Came the squeal of shock from potato head as Verity tackled him to the ground. "You, how did you get back here!"
Verity response was to blast him directly in the face with her left eye beam, having tackled him to make sure she hit his face and not the suit, and after confirming he was now stone, stood up and turned her glare on the next nearest, eyes catching on white hair and deciding Snowflame doing cocaine was the perfect target as she blasted towards him with her right eye beam.
"COCAINE PO-" Were his final words as he turned to stone in a second.
"Hey you shouldn't be back here already, that should have sent you to the bay!" Came the shout from Crystal Meth as that blueish-purple energy gathered in her hand again.
Only to fade a second later as she turned to stone.
"Hax I call hax, Hobo Lord, beat her up," Skidmark shouted in anger from atop the tank.
"Shut. Up." Verity snarled as she blasted him, too.
Though a second later the air was knocked out of Verity's lungs as she crumbled over in pain, that hit much harder than anything else had previously.
She turned her (sunspot covered) vision on the so-called Hobo Lord, the pain turning to anger as her hair lashed out at him their fangs ready to hold him in place and-
He dodged.
He had dodged them.
"...Oh no, are you one of those Parahumans who actually knows how to fight?" Verity asked in dismay.
"Hah! I just move the way the world tells me to man," He said in a stereotypical hippie stoner-dude voice. "There is nothing else to it." He said as he threw a punch and Verity moved her face out of the way.
But she still felt it hit her and for a second she thought with how it moved her neck it had just broken, stunning her for a second from the fucking pain.
"Huh, I guess you're not as tough as they say you are." Hobo Lord said as he enjoyed his apparent 'victory.'
Which was her cue to fall back on older instincts and drop low, sweeping his legs out from under him with her own.
And it worked.
"Huh?" He shouted in surprise as he fell on the ground, to caught up in his own 'greatness' (or whatever drugs he was on, likely both) to catch himself.
"Black belt, dumbass." Verity said as she pinned his wrists to the ground, and like she expected he felt a lot bigger than his lithe form suggested.
"How does that let you win, man?" He asked.
"I was more in tune with the flow of the universe than you." Verity said. "Here, lemme help!" She said as she headbutted his head, bouncing it against the floor and knocking him out cold. Not her best one liner, messed up the delivery, but serviceable.
She grunted and caught her breath as she got to her feet, taking in the situation as she did.
And she saw that thankfully, the rest had been dealt with in the meantime.
"Damn that was smooth Big V," Came Victoria's voice as the teen floated over to Verity. "So what was his power?"
"Either he's bigger than that and is projecting the image of himself looking smaller, or more likely, he had some kind of aura or armor thing going on that was unseen but made him better in every way, including a bigger reach." Verity said, having figured out his shit from the first hit, rubbing her jaw where she'd been punched the second time. "Packs a mean punch, too…I think I swallowed a tooth…"
"TArgh margh abro agh," Came the butchered voice of Sanageyama whose jaw looked smashed.
"Oh Judas Priest, someone get that kid a medic!" Verity said in shock. The punch had hurt her, she couldn't imagine how that felt to a normal (...less tough, more like) person… though the fact his head was still a head spoke volumes to his durability.
"Nargh ar kard," He replied.
"I am here," Came Amy's voice as she walked over to the swordsman.
"Alright, is anyone else injured? And are all the Merchants detained?" Verity asked as her eyes swept across the room, looking for anything else they had to deal with.
"Minor scratches, the Brutes handled the Brutes as they should, and they are," Armsmaster said as he walked over to Verity.
"And do we have anyone checking to see if that tank is rigged to blow?"
"Squealer's stuff usually isn't, but it's Squealer," Armsmaster said as he turned back around, the man apparently having just come over to check on her.
"Okay, okay, all that's handled…" Verity said as she started to bring herself down from the COCAI-pain, pain-fueled adrenaline high, as it registered that if Snowflame, fucking Snowflame of all people was here, this very well may be DC, but one of the worse ones, like Wildstorm, or heavens forbid, something like The Boys, but she was shot out of her spiraling thoughts as she did another headcount and realized someone, multiple important someones in fact, were missing, but she could only ask about one, and turned to the nearest person, Victoria. "GG, do you know where Parian is?"
"Yeah, she evacuated with others, helped out T and her dad," She answered. "Probably somewhere outside right now with all the other guests."
"Oh thank god…" Verity sighed in relief, before her tension ratcheted up three notches again. "In that case, I need to go talk with my team, because even the stoniest stoners wouldn't commit super suicide like this without damn good reason…" She said as she headed towards the detained drug addicts (she felt for them, really, especially since they had to be on some strong stuff to have thought this was a good idea, or were that desperate for a fix).
A quick glance told her that the blond, Squealer assumedly, was the best bet as she looked the most sober… and beyond that, pissed off.
Verity felt her own heckles raise in response as she channeled the anger she was feeling from earlier as she approached the shackled Tinker, who was being watched by Assault with the others.
And for a second Verity saw fear in her eyes as they landed on her, but it was quickly drowned out by moody anger.
"Hey, you're Squealer, right? The Merchant Tinker who's surprisingly good at making cars?" Verity started with a touch of civility.
"Take your good cop shit in your ass, you stoned my hubie I ain't got shit to say to a fetish girl like you," Squealer immediately retorted.
"Okay one, I'm just genuinely always impressed by tinkers, two, I don't care which one of these it was, you can do better than that, and three…" Verity couldn't help the sheer incredulousness that entered her voice. "Fetish girl!?"
"You're a fucking furry ass scalie, one step away from just being beastiality," She fired off.
"And you're one step away from your husband never getting unstoned." Verity said, looking at her flatly.
"I can fix that myself," She just replied.
"Which one's your husband?" Verity asked idly.
"Skidmark, you damn bimbo," She replied.
"Mhm. Question: Can you fix it if someone's head is removed from their body?" Verity asked, nonchalantly checking her nails.
"You can't do that!"
"Is that something you're really willing to chance?" Verity asked, looking at Squealer like she was completely insignificant. "If you'll recall, the last time someone attacked me and mine in a peaceful setting, I didn't have a way of destoning people." She explained, before her gaze hardened towards Squealer, who flinched. "Do you really want to find out what happens when I'm angry, Squealer? I don't think you'd like me when I'm angry."
Verity heard a low snort from Assault at that, but she didn't react to it.
Squealer's face paled at that. "What-what do you want from me?"
"I want to know why you attacked here and now." Verity said, before cutting off the indignant response. "And don't try to sell me the shit Skidmark was pushing, I don't buy that for a second, I know you're all addicts -and my heart goes out to you for that- but you can't possibly be that stupid to think you could take on the Protectorate and New Wave and the Elite Four at the same time."
"...They took my kid."
Immediately, Verity's expression softened and her heart dropped, while Assault triple took.
"Wait what, when, how?" The kinetic manipulator asked in sheer incredulousness.
"Last year," She answered.
"And suddenly I can't possibly blame you for what you guys were doing tonight." Verity said, carefully placing a comforting hand on Squealer's arm.
"Shit, that's why you guys didn't do shit the entire summer last year," Assault stated.
"Yes," She responded. "Surprised myself, thought that I had ruined that area of my body." And the woman began to cry.
"Hey hey hey, it's okay, it's okay, we're gonna get your baby back, okay?" Verity said. "I know this may seem hopeless, but I will do everything in my power to get you and your family reunited, alright?"
"Don't, I fucking knew the moment I had, we couldn't take care of him so I gave him to my sister, and now she's fucking…" She cried.
"Holy shit," Assault cursed. "How would they?"
"I don't know how they knew, but the fucking Travellers showed up with a video of them having him and the fucking snake told us to do this or he would kill him," She said.
And that was the confirmation Verity needed. "Do you have any as to where any of them may be?"
"No, they came to us with those damned power bottles," Squealer said.
"Power…bottles?" Verity asked, confusion filling her as… something tickled in the back of her mind.
"Yeah how do you thingargh," Squealer coughed and Verity saw blood from her mouth.
"Oh shit, Panacea, we might have an overdose here!" Verity said, deciding to shout something less 'have your lungs removed while you sleep' level of incriminating, just in case.
"I am coming!" The healer shouted as and a second later Amy arrived and pressed a hand against the blood coughing woman. "What the…" the girl said as the coughing stopped and Squealer slumped over into unconsciousness.
"So did you fix it?" Assault asked.
"Yeah but… I don't think she is going to wake up again," Amy said with a shaky voice. "Somebody poisoned her with what looks to be a neurotoxin, several areas of her brain just… died."
The world fell out of focus as that word echoed through her head.
She had never seen a person die before. Not really.
A foreign feeling burbled up inside of her, along with bile and rage, as she felt she was going to throw up and scream at the same time.
But that foriegn feeling clicked her mind into focus.
Verity swept the room for any sort of surveillance device, seeing one intact camera up in the corner of the room pointing directly at them, which she stared directly back into and snarled at the man she knew was watching.
And blasted it, much to the surprise of everyone else in the room.
"Snake in the fucking grass…" Verity growled as she stood up, the foreign feeling only growing stronger as she did, joined by primal fury.
"I assume somebody was not supposed to be watching, was watching?" Ragyo asked from the position she had not moved from the entire time, and now as she looked Verity could see that there were several tank shells laying on the ground around her.
"Yes." Verity said tersely. "Someone who's been running around unchecked for far. Too. Long."
"I see… happy hunting then," The woman replied. "Now excuse me, great heroes of the Protectorate, I have guests to address." At that, she began to walk towards the front of the Gallery, the Elite Four following right behind her and her daughters.
"...That woman unnerves me," Came the comment from Battery as she came up beside Assault.
"Same, but I'm starting to like it." Verity said distractedly as she headed straight for Armsmaster, who had just finished checking over the tank. "Armsmaster. We need to talk."
"Yes, I believe we do, about many things… Tonight has revealed a lot of things," The Tinker said as he held up in such a way that only Verity could see, a small canister that was marked with a very familiar 'C.'
Verity felt her already deteriorating mindset do seventy three consecutive downward loop-de-loops. "...Mhm. To-to-to-to confirm," She said, digging her claws into her palms to keep herself focused. "We've got nothing from HQ about anything going on right now?"
"Nothing big that we are aware of," He replied.
"Any break-ins or robberies of any kind? Small too, if you even get alerts about those."
"None have been reported, Dragon has been keeping an eye out the second our call ended and nothing," He answered in probably the most serious tone she had ever heard the man. "So come in tomorrow before your usual time for the talk, you have familial obligations first, do you not?"
Verity felt about 95% of the anger she was feeling turn to worry, as that… foreign feeling faded, and were replaced with worry. "Right, you're right, I…" She felt the energy drain with the anger as well. "..." She was going to say more, to talk about what just happened, but she could tell by the set of his shoulders he was including it in the 'tomorrow', so she simply gave him a respectful nod and went off to find her family.
—
"Well this was an exciting evening," Taylor said as she and Danny entered Verity and Sabah's house. The two of them had changed at their place, and were now over to properly talk and have some tea.
"Really wishing it wasn't…" Verity mumbled as she let them in, now dressed in an eye-searingly orange shirt and matching shorts comparable to her costume. "Anyway, how're you guys feeling right now? Didya stay away from the action?"
"We're alright Verity, the second you got thrown out Taylor picked me up and rushed out, though I had to convince her not go back in," Danny said.
"Hehehe," The teen laughed in embarrassment.
"Good job then, Tay." Verity said with a smile. "For keeping yourselves safe and for listening to the reasonable adult, we had most of the good guys in the city in one spot, we definitely didn't need your help in there."
"I know, but I got really concerned when you were thrown out by gravity bitch," Taylor said.
"Language!" Verity and Danny said simultaneously, though Verity was more jokingly than Danny as she continued. "She was the 'Crystal Meth Bitch' not the 'Gravity Bitch'."
Danny shot her a betrayed look at that, while both Taylor and Sabah giggled.
"Though are you okay? You got yeeted hard through the roof," Sabah asked for the third time, though with a new line to describe what had occured. And with one of Verity's own words, too.
"Yes, I'm fine." Verity assured her once more. "The yeetage didn't really hurt, it was Hobo Lord who actually packed a punch." She said, rubbing her jaw. "Still aches, but Amy gave me a clean bill of health."
"That is good to hear," Sabah replied.
"Hobo Lord?" Danny asked in an incredulous tone not believing what he had just heard.
"And what is a yeet?" Taylor asked.
"In order, Danny, I don't, I don't know man, his name was stupid but hoo-wee that guy can throw a punch." Verity said. "And Taylor, a 'yeet' is an exclamation when throwing something, typically for distance, while 'Kobe' is for accuracy."
"'Kobe?' like the basketball player?" Danny asked.
"Yeah, exactly." Verity said with a nod. "To pre-empt the next question, yeet is not a person, it is a Vine."
"What is a Vine?" Danny asked, sounding like the most tech-illiterate grandparent at the moment.
"Video sharing social media consisting of 6 second or less videos that won't exist for a few years, if ever." Verity explained. "Oh, that reminds me! I need to tell you guys something important I found out recently about my whole…" She gestured to herself. "Situation."
"And that is?" Taylor asked.
"I was born in 1999." Verity dropped the bomb, and then waited patiently for the chaos.
"I don't know why you need to tell… wait…" Danny said as his mind caught up to what she had just said.
"Wait, that would make you twelve-years-old," Taylor said in shock.
"Am I robbing the cradle?" Sabah asked in sheer disbelief.
All the while Danny's eyes were going all over the place.
"Taylor, you're actually right, and Sabah is wrong." Verity said, slightly clearing things up but not fully. She needed to do some harmless trolling tonight to blow off steam or she ran the risk of doing something unwise.
"Huh?" Was general response from the three of them as the levels of confusion increased.
Verity suppressed the urge to grin too wide. "It's pretty easy to understand, really. I was born in 1999. I turned 12 in June of 2011. I am not currently 12." She opened her arms wide. "What am I?"
"Wait, but it's May, June hasn't happened yet," Danny said, who looked like his brain was about to break.
"You're from the future!" Taylor shouted after a few seconds of thinking, pointing a finger at Verity.
"Ding-ding-ding-ding-ding! And the winner is Taylor!" Verity said as if it were a gameshow. "The answer is: I'm from the future."
"I thought you were from another universe?" Sabah asked.
Verity snapped a finger gun at her and grinned. "Those statements are not mutually incompatible, you know. In my universe, which either has no Paras, very recent Paras, or no Paras period, the year before… whatever happened to bring me here, was 2021. Which is, in part, the reason I'm continually confused by a lot of things even now a month later." She paused. "That, and because I'm airhead with memory issues, but that was a thing before."
"It's really only been a month?" Taylor asked as did Sabah.
"Feels like nine months, but it's only been like 5 weeks." Verity said with a shrug, not mentioning the reason she said 'nine months' was because that was usually how long it took to get a kid.
"Definitely a lot has happened, both good and bad," Sabah said with Danny nodding in agreement.
"Oh for sure, this has been the craziest time of my life." Verity agreed immediately. "Though I've been thinking that the good might outweigh the bad."
"It definitely does," Sabah replied as she leaned into Verity a little bit more.
Verity smiled as she wrapped her arm around her girlfriend. "So, with that established: what do you guys wanna know about the future? Should I start with the jetpacks or the flying cars?"
"Back to the Future 2 stuff happened in your timeline?" Danny asked.
"Ehhh, some stuff, kinda, the flying cars thing was a joke, there's more of those here than there are in my timeline because Tinkers tell traditional physics to bite the pillow."
"Well from the little I have seen Kid Win do with his stuff, that is pretty accurate," Taylor replied.
"Yeah, so seriously, is there anything you wanna know about from the fuuuuuture?" Verity said, drawing out the with a strange inflection.
"Anything relevant to our situation?" Danny asked. "If not, I don't think there is any need."
"Uh, invest in Facebook, Apple, and Disney-Pepsi-Comcast, they'll be exploding in a few years going off of how the media here seems to reflect in my universe." Verity said thoughtfully, trying to remember anything that would be good like that, and cursing the fact she wasn't really paying attention around this point in time to world events because she'd been too busy with the perilous days of middle school.
She shuddered as she remembered.
Fuck that school, it made Shitslow seem nice by comparison.
"So the usual time travel advice, that being invest?" Danny asked.
"Yeah, I don't have an almanac, I don't know sports teams or lotteries, and those are more likely to be changed due to different variables at play anyway." Verity said. "Plus, I didn't really start paying attention to time travel potential stuff like this until I was closer to adulthood. Too busy with normal problems, like zits or bullies."
"Most teens don't pay attention to the world around them that much," Danny said with Taylor just looking at her with wide eyes.
"Tch, yeah, ain't that the truth." Verity agreed, old discontent with herself for not noticing certain signs of things when she was younger surfacing. "Anyway, yeah, I don't know that much useful information, so is there anything you guys wanna know about that's just fun? Like the kaiju?"
Panicked eyes landed on her.
"Movies, kaiju movies, sorry." Verity said, not having expected that kind of reaction.
"Why would anyone make movies about Endbringers?" Taylor asked.
"Cause in the movies, the monster can be defeated in 2 hours or less." Verity said. "...Usually by other Kaiju. Or giant robots. Or giant kaiju robots. And to be fair, my world doesn't have Endbringers, like Aleph, so kaiju series like Godzilla are still very much a thing."
"Godzilla? Haven't heard that name in years," Danny said with a bit of nostalgia.
"Yeah, he's still big in my world." Verity said. "And in a literal sense, he got a lot bigger as cities got bigger."
"And also probably switched out the costume for CG," Danny said.
"Some of them, yeah, but a few of the newer ones have been using practical effects on the level of the T-Rex from Jurassic Park." Verity explained.
"Yeah, that was the only good thing about that movie," Danny said.
"Respectfully, agree to disagree due to different worldlines." Verity said.
"So it seems like both Aleph and yours get the better movies," Taylor commented.
Verity shrugged. "Seemingly, though to be fair we did get the entire Twilight series, which caused middle aged women to lose their shit over a teenage boy not being built like a literal adonis."
The faces of disgust were appropriate from everyone involved.
"Movin' right along," Verity half sang to move things forward. "Everyone's feeling okay after today?"
"Nothing a good night's sleep won't fix," Danny said as he held back a yawn.
"I am," Taylor replied.
With Sabah just nodding.
"Well that's good, but I need ice cream, anyone else want some ice cream?" Verity asked, desperately needing to engage in the College Recovery Method of ice cream and crying after… nope, not thinking about it.
Verity got a resounding yes from all three.
—
"So, wazzup Tay?" Verity asked as she settled back onto her spot, Sabah dealing with the dresses (she had been livid at how Verity's had gotten ripped), and Danny having gone back to the Hebert home to 'rest his weary bones' or something, trusting Taylor to be back at a reasonable time.
"It was about what you said earlier," Taylor said.
"You're gonna have to be more specific, I have the memory of a goldfish in a sieve, especially for things I say that aren't cringe-worthy." Verity said half-jokingly.
"About dealing with bullies," She answered.
And there went Verity's mood right out the door. "Ah. That." She said, a bitter taste in her mouth at the reminder. "What specifically did you wanna ask about? Is something giving you trouble again?"
"No, I just wanna know how you dealt with, even then I am having trouble believing somebody as strong as you got bullied," Taylor said.
"Ha!" Verity laughed, which sounded equal parts amused and dismayed. "Oh nonono, I was not like this before I came here, trust me, I only really learned how to actually talk to people in the last few years, I definitely wasn't strong back then."
"Really?" She asked in disbelief.
"Really." Verity confirmed with a nod. "I was… well, I was a so-called 'gifted child', which really just means that the school decided they didn't need to teach me important skills because I understood math and trivia and weapons really good. Which exacerbated the fact that I was an absolute monster back then… and the habitual lying… and the habitual kleptomania…" She trailed off as memories began to come to mind of her childhood, eyes unfocusing.
"Verity?" Taylor asked with a bit of worry.
"Yeah? Whazzup?" Verity asked, snapping out of it. "Sorry, I got off track there didn't I? We were talking about something, right?"
"Yeah, bullies, how did you handle them?" Taylor asked.
"Uhh…" Verity bit her lip as her mind got back on track. "I… didn't."
"Huh?"
"Or you could say I handled them very, very poorly." Verity elaborated. "Depends on your point of view."
"Can't be worse than what I did," Taylor said.
"Well… I was 'friends' with one of them." Verity admitted. Which caused Taylor to choke on her breath, making her cough. "Little bastard of an upperclassman convinced me he meant well. He played Yugioh and introduced me to a games shop I really liked before that mall shut down, and then proceeded to…" She bit her lip again as she trailed off.
"So not exactly like me and Emma," Taylor muttered.
"No, he became friends with me specifically to…" Verity growled as the memories resurfaced. "For one thing, he convinced me to give him a few hundred dollars worth of my stuff for 3/5ths of Exodia, when I didn't even have the other 2… which is like saying he convinced me trading my stuff for a fucking dollar store beanie baby or something like made sense."
"Oof," Taylor said, getting the comparison.
"And then there were the rumors, he was the only upperclassman I knew so he was the only one who knew about my other, actual friends, and… my world's more homophobic and he said we were gay together, which caused more problems, which I only found through the rumor mill third hand that it was an upperclassman who started it, so."
"Emma tried something similar but it didn't go anywhere considering Legend, and the few skinheads weren't stupid enough to try shit," Taylor said.
"And that was just one of them." Verity said, picking up steam as vitriol began to enter her voice. "There was this one guy who just, absolutely hated my guts because my best friend was his cousin, and that caused… a few fights." She said, deciding not to get into detail about that. "And then there were these fuckface whose names I don't even remember now who were just constantly hounding me, so I tried to fight back, accidentally kicked the wrong person in the face because I was running backwards, and ended up getting detention, but I didn't even know back then that any engagement with bullies would just cause them to act up more so I kept responding and reacting and…" She grit her teeth.
"At least you tried to fight back," Taylor said.
"No putting yourself down right now, this is my depression corner, dammit." Verity joked immediately.
Taylor did chuckle at that. "Yeah, but I don't think you should, I think this is bad for both of us."
"...Well, okay lemme skip past the teachers and move on to what I actually did about it so you can learn from my mistakes, that sound good?" Verity asked.
"Wait? Teachers?"
"Yeah, teachers." Verity said their faces flashing in her mind- and fuck everything, why could she remember their fucking faces but not her family's? "Two of the gym teachers and one of the english teachers. I wasn't… I wasn't exactly unathletic, but I wasn't very good at running or pushups and I was asthmatic. Every single gym class started with a 15 minute run. And I wasn't allowed to carry my inhaler, despite the fact I had an asthma attack every single time."
"...Asshole," Was all Taylor could say to that.
"Oh it gets worse, because I would have to go to the nurses office to get my inhaler, because I was having an asthma attack, so it would take a while, and apparently half of the grades in that class were running in those fifteen minutes because they cited that when they gave me an F for the class."
"The fuck!"
"I know right? And I did well on the tests, and I did fantastically with the weightlifting and most of the other physical stuff, that's how I met one of my best friends, but the running was the one thing I was bad at… well and pushups, but that's not important, I sucked at running so they failed me. And this is just the tip of the iceberg with those imbeciles, since, extrapolating, you can guess running the mile always sucked for me, right?"
"Yeah, me t0o, but fuck…" Taylor not really beleiving what she was hearing.
"Yeah, well on the mile, you know you have to run around the track a bunch, well, I always sprinted at the start because I thought I was faster than I was, and then I'd be tired the entire rest of the time, and I'd end up walking some stretches of it and he'd end up shouting which like ok sure fine asshole I'm having asthma attack, but this one time… ooh, this one time… I was lagging behind by a full lap, and on the other side of the field, right, because I wasn't allowed to get my inhaler that day, and as a reminder I'm on the other side of the field from everyone and I still need to do a full more lap after that to finish right? And everyone else is already done… and he takes them all inside and closes and locks the fucking gym door, without doing anything to get my attention or whatever, just expecting me to keep going because he knew I was still running, and told my parents to their faces that I should have finished instead of cutting my losses and trying to get back into the building so I'd be able to, you know, get back in the school."
"Oh my god, and here I thought my teachers were bad," Taylor said.
"And that was just one of them, he apparently mellowed out severely after his wife died according to my brother, but that might have just been because he was a football player and that teacher was the coach, but the other bastard whose name I can't even remember, my entire gym locker got stolen, including the lock, and all he said was 'well you should have gotten a better lock'."
"Wow, your high school sucked," Taylor said.
"Pffthahaha!" Verity laughed darkly.
"What's funny?"
"Sweetie, that was all one year of middle school. It got worse."
Taylor did a double take at that. "Like your first year?"
"6th grade, brand new middle school that had just been constructed, the rules were much more lax which meant everyone was much, much nastier." Verity said bitterly. "And the staff were all idiots, they thought I joined a freaking cult at one point, and broke patient confidentiality about one of my friends to my mom."
Taylor's face went slack at that.
"And to mention all the times I got detention for 'asking too many questions' with that English teacher bitch." Verity said. "But to be a little fair to her, I was a bit more mad about not being able to use the yoga balls we had instead of chairs because I was… very hyperactive at the time, and a showoff, which was not a good combo for doing things productively on a yoga ball, but that's unrelated to what she would punish me for. Eugh." Verity slumped back into the sofa as the anger left her. "I fucking hated that school…"
"So… how was… that solved?" Taylor asked.
"It's simple, really." Verity said with a shrug. "I stopped going to school."
"That's it?" She asked.
"Eeeyup. Just… left." Verity sighed, and then elaborated. "Basically was homeschooled for a year, and then we found this cyberschool, don't know if that's a thing here yet, but basically it's online schooling, and I did that until I graduated, and I'm lucky I did considering how according to my friends it decidedly got worse there afterwards… people thought I died, which like honestly fair, but…" She put her face in her hands. "Oh god, what was even the point of telling you all this?"
"How to deal with bullies at school," Taylor answered. "Wanted to know how you did it, so should I have just stopped going to school as well instead of enduring all of that?"
"No no no, you should have told someone." Verity said. "I told people, but I was either disbelieved or powerless to do anything about it. The right thing to do in that kind of situation is to reach out for your support group, whoever that may be."
"BUT I DIDN'T HAVE ANY, I SAID THAT BEFORE!"
Which knocked Verity straight out of the past and into the present. "You had your dad, but know that I'm not blaming you or saying you were at fault or did something wrong, but the worst that can happen when you ask for help is someone saying no." Verity said as calmly as possible. "I'm sorry if the way I was saying that was… actually I'm just sorry for saying any of that at all, I'm probably not in the best headspace and to be entirely honest I'm not… good at advising people without just telling people my mistakes and not to do them."
"Yeah you suck at that," Taylor said as she removed a tear that had formed.
"Harsh but true." Verity agreed with a nod. "On that note, if I'm ever doing anything that makes you uncomfortable, or sad, or feeling bad about something, call me out on it immediately, I still have trouble with reading people's emotions and empathy and all that stuff."
"Really? You're like the most empathetic person I know," Taylor said.
"That's a learned thing honey." Verity said. "I genuinely didn't even realize other people were really people till I was your age. Which wasn't to say I went around stabbing people to see what color their insides were or something like that, so much as that I didn't understand the things I did had an impact on other people, and that mattered, because everyone matters."
"I think Emma was the same, and looking back at our friendship, she did do some of the same stuff to others she did to me, but… well less extreme," Taylor said.
"For the future, that's what we in the people business call a 'red flag'." Verity joked. "Which, to be fair, I still have trouble spotting red flags, but is a very useful skill to have."
"Yeah going to be more observant from now on, well all my millions of bugs are going to help with that," Taylor said with a smile.
"...That's terrifying, Skitterbug." Verity said flatly, before smiling. "Hone that, you can be the next Batman."
"...I don't know who that is." She admitted.
"Comic hero who was scary to bad guys but cool and/or comforting to kids, really good at handling them really." Verity said.
"So like you?" Taylor asked.
Verity's entire existence froze as she realized she was actually comparableto BATMAN.
…She really needed to stop forgetting she was a literal superhero.
"Well, I think I need to get back home, it was a nice talk and I think you needed it," Taylor said.
"Taylor, you never have to lie to me, I'm fully aware that talk was dogshit for you, and I, an adult, should not be relying on you, a teenager, for emotional support." Verity said. "You've got your own problems to deal with that I should be listening to to help with."
"Okay it was dogshit, but it was actually nice to hear, sometimes the things you do for me and others, make me forget that you're human too, a person not just a hero, my hero," Taylor said.
"Heh, you know, that's funny, you're my hero, Skitterbug." Verity said, thankfully suppressing the drop she felt in her chest at the 'forget that you're human' bit.
"No, I am not."
"Yeah, you are." Verity rebutted.
"Ehh," Taylor just said skeptically.
"Okay, I am being slightly facetious, but I am also being serious when I say that you are a very strong young woman with an incredible moral compass and… slightly worrying hero complex that I think literally every hero has, but I am so proud of you, Taylor, for who you are, and I know that I will continue to feel proud of you no matter what you do in life, so don't go internalizing this and thinking that to be good you need to throw yourself into harm's way repeatedly or anything like that." Verity said, pretty sure she already said this at some point but it bore repeating as she did not want Taylor to turn into a Deku. "Point is: I said you're my hero, but really you're my Skitterbug and that's the important bit for me." She said, holding her arms out for a hug, but not initiating without Taylor's approval.
She took the hug.
It lasted for a nice long moment before Verity moved to let go and smiled at Taylor as she looked at her. "Alright, now you were actually right it is getting kind of late, but if there's anything else you wanna talk about… preferably not about my past because I'll just ramble, just say so."
"Yeah it sucks, and I don't have any," Taylor responded.
"Okay, then… before you go, how's school been treating you lately?" Verity asked.
"The same as last time you asked, still a bit weird, but I am going to be happy to leave," She answered.
"That's good, that's good." Verity said with a nod. "If you ever need help with your homework or whatever and I'm off duty… oh right, I just remembered something, hang on a second." She said as she quickly rushed over to her bedroom to grab something, quickly rummaging to find it before with an "Aha!" she grabbed it and came back out.
"Wah?" Came the noise of confusion from Taylor.
"I forgot to give this to you earlier, but here." Verity said, opening her hand, revealing it to be a key, with the head shaped like a spider.
"A key?"
"Your key."
"My key?" Taylor asked as she took it.
"Your key."
"Key to what?"
"Mhm, I dunno, I wonder what the key I'd be handing you would be the key to…" Verity 'pondered' aloud.
"Is it to the house?" She asked.
"Mhm-hm." Verity confirmed.
"Thank you," Taylor said in a quiet tone.
"No prob, Tay." Verity said with a smile. "Now I think that's everything and it's getting close to midnight, and mama need her sleep, and you're a teenager, you definitely need some sleep."
"Y-yeah, I do," She said as went to leave.
"Oh, and, Taylor?"
"Yes?"
"Goodnight love you!" Verity said with a smile and the phrase her own mother always said to her, deciding this was a bullet that needed to be bit.
Taylor stumbled a bit before turning her head to look at Verity. "Love you too." She said as she quickly exited the house.
Which was good for Verity, as the second she said it back Verity realized what she had just done and collapsed bonelessly to the ground.
"...Everything okay up there?"
"Yeah, just… yeah." Verity called. "You comin' to bed soon?"
"Just a moment!" Sabah replied. "Make yourself comfortable in the meantime."
Verity continued laying on the ground for a moment before getting up on all fours and crawling to the bedroom then onto her bed. And yet despite how tired she was, she stayed awake waiting for Sabah.
…She didn't want to be alone tonight.
Xxx
A/N: If you like this or any other of my stories, you can donate to my Sub scribe Star . Adult (slash) StreamingViking and read commissioned stories and chapters before they are released here. Along with voting for which stories will be updated next via Polls.
