Read aloud to me alt Taylor

by Kahlil Johnson

Dnd

44. Ff3

Co-authored by Gideon!

Preying Mantis

The bus stop had been a bit disappointing. I'd been hoping to see Noriko there again, even if I knew in my head that it was incredibly unlikely and probably for the better I didn't. I'd most likely end up poking at her old wounds again. Noriko was interesting, in that mysterious kind of way. I felt like she had a couple dozen stories to tell and I wouldn't believe even half of them, but I wanted to hear them anyway.

If she'd tell me.

I stared out the window of the bus, watching the people and the cars. The lunchbox was under my bed, the handkerchief tucked away in my closet and Bao's scarf nestled at the bottom of my bookbag. I felt like I was hiding three things too many.

I should have left the scarf at home, I had thought. I knew all too well that if Sophia got a hand on my bag and found it, it was a Bad End, but I couldn't bring myself to leave it. I was sure it was the sappiest thing I'd thought in years, but Bao gave me this scarf, damn it. I wasn't going to be starring in an evening soap anytime soon, but hiding it away felt wrong. He'd be expecting me to have it.

As I got off the bus, a pair of old notebooks in one hand, I just tried to not think about it. If I looked like I was protecting something in my bag, that just made them go after it. I did have something in my bag I wanted to protect, a late art project, but that was beside the point. I didn't really care if everyone knew I was a 'dock rat.'

Everyone but my dad.

Things were peaceful at the start of the school day. I had walked in to see the usual morning tension between the Empire and ABB members milling about in the halls but I felt a momentary surge of confidence when I recognised some of them. I didn't know names, barely knew faces but they were not hostile. I did something I would have never done normally.

I waved at them. It wasn't some kind of confident, happy action, more of an awkward 'hi' that I hoped wouldn't result in them just passing me by and making me look like an idiot. I noticed that some of the other students, both gang-members and normal civilians, looking at me as I waved.

'Please, please, please, just give me a nod or something.' It was a miracle or my own stubbornness that my face was outwardly calm with perhaps a nervous smile. I couldn't take back my action, so all I could do was pray.

"Oh. Hey Taylor!" I wasn't exactly sure which one of the ABB students I recognised I had actually waved at, but one of them, a girl whose name I think was Min-something, smiled and waved back as she spoke to me with an accent that was born and bred Brockton Bay, "How are you?"

I honestly wasn't expecting that kind of response. And I don't think anyone else was either as I kept my smile on, "Um, fine. Great actually."

Min, I decided to just keep referring to her as Min for now, smiled and it was like a dam had broken, "That's great! And hey, you're out of that sling too!" I tried to think of how she could have known before it clicked, Min was another group leader, and I think she was friends with Bao or at least ran in the same circle. She had to have seen me with my broken hand.

She drew closer, wearing a dragon pin but her scarf marked with an image of a multi-armed woman. She had to be under Kali's command then as she spoke to me, "Bao's group, right?"

I gave a very slight nod.

Min's expression turned a bit rueful as her eyes flickered around the onlookers but didn't comment on my less than enthusiastic reaction. "Could you tell him to drop by and pick up his homework?" She pushed on. "It's seriously starting to pile up and my Mom's threatening to use it as kindling and to degrease the oven."

I momentarily considered making a remark that Bao would be more likely to smoke his homework than actually fill it out, but stayed quiet and nodded again, prompting a grin from Min, "Take care Taylor, maybe I'll see you on another date with Bao," she teased.

She left me feeling like my face had been set on fire by Lung as she rejoined her friends and I fled to my locker and classes. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw most of the other students already starting to gossip, and I knew Emma would find out in minutes.

It still didn't stop the tiny smile pulling at my lips, nor the momentary fantasy of actually being attractive enough to date Bao. I had computer with Mrs. Knott first anyhow, and I wouldn't have to deal with anyone for a blessed ninety minutes.

Mrs. Knott arrived at the classroom around the same time I did, and unlocked the room to let us file in. As one of the last of fortyish students to arrive, I'd wound up at the back of the crowd. While I waited for enough space to open up at the door, I saw Sophia talking to three of the girls from the class. I swallowed and ducked my head, but I knew I still stuck out like a sore thumb.

Sophia was dark skinned with black hair normally long enough to reach the small of her back, but she currently had it in a ponytail and was still wearing her gym clothes and sneakers looking like she'd just come from track practice. It was hard not to resent the fact that even when sweaty, dusty and a raging bitch, she was still more attractive than me.

She said something, and the girls snickered. Even though I knew that Sophia had a school full of acceptable targets and I wasn't at the top of her list of things to talk about, my heart sank. I didn't think she could have heard already. I hoped not.

I tried to edge up closer to the moving crowd of students, trying to break line of sight. My efforts didn't go unnoticed.

"Hebert."

I jumped.

A few students, I knew their names and faces and 'leader' of the group had spiked hair that was dyed blonde and a dragon tattoo showing from underneath his shirt collar. "Sit with us? You're good at computers, right?"

I stole a glance back at Sophia and instantly wished I hadn't. She was watching me with an intense expression on her face, shifting from me to the other students.

"Sure," I said.

I escaped into the classroom and the door shut behind me like a death knell.

It was strange, that computer class. But...I would be lying if I said I didn't enjoy it. As one of the students on the Advanced Stream of Mrs. Knott's class, I was supposed to be able to help other students with programming and other parts they had difficulty with and if there was one skill I was somewhat proud of it was my skill with computers.

"Okay, so you see this part here? Just put in this line here, get rid of this and…" I smiled as the program began to run and the guy I was helping nodded with a wide smile.

"Hell yeah! Geeze Hebert, do you hack in your free time or something?"

I rolled my eyes while the program continued running, "If I could, I wouldn't be here." It felt like just yesterday I was keeping my head down and hoping that Emma, Madison and Sophia would find new targets.

Now, it almost felt like things were like they were before Emma turned on me, before I got my powers. Almost. Days like that I could never have back, not any more.

"Uh, Taylor?" I blinked out of my musings and turned to one of the others, a girl, who was looking nervously at her screen, "I think I did something wrong here. All my stuff is gone!"

I walked over, "Lemme take a look." And with that my peaceful, somewhat happy morning continued.

Things however, took a turn for the worse after Mrs. Knott's class and I had to face the rest of the school day. As it turns out, the teachers do in fact keep an ear on the student grape-vine, and word that I was being friendly with ABB students had in fact spread like a wild fire.

Mrs. Knott came to me after class, "I'm sorry I couldn't do more to help you Taylor." Her expression was sad, but there was something there as well. Understanding. "I know you probably don't feel the same way, but I won't be treating you differently just because of who you associate with."

I felt like I had to probe a little deeper, "And if I show up one day…"

She nodded, "If you show up one day wearing a scarf with a dragon or a snake or whatever else on it," she suddenly smiled impishly at me, "Well, you'll forgive me if I continue to be impartial in my grades. Just don't turn out like Bao."

I couldn't help but laugh at that. Le Cong Bao, the most notorious ABB member in Winslow High...because he didn't do his homework. "Thanks Mrs. Knott, and don't worry. I'd have to actually work at it to be like Bao, and that just defeats the purpose of slacking off."

Mrs. Knott smiled at me, "It's good to hear you laugh Taylor. But please, take care of yourself."

She was my favorite teacher for a reason but as it turned out, Mrs. Knott was the only one who felt that way. If it wasn't Mr.Gladly in World Studies skipping over my group, it was Ms. Kimber in History being obtuse with answering our questions or Mr. Cambridge in Math being abrupt with explanations.

Every one of them had shifted in their attitudes to me, like I had betrayed them somehow. It rankled; they had swept me under the rug when I practically went swimming in garbage, but now that I was being friendly with other students I was being discriminated because of their accessories.

Maybe some of them deserved it, law abiding citizens were not synonymous with gang members, I know. But if it was some kind of subtle passive aggressive attempt to dissuade me from making friends, they had another thing coming.

"Get the fuck out of my way Heeb." I grabbed the wall to steady myself as a girl with a very distinctive set of stylised lightning-bolt earrings shoved me, hard, on the way to lunch.

And there was the kicker, the E88 students showing their opinion to my new choice in associations. It didn't help that I saw Greg Veder, the only person as low on the ladder as I was, witness what happened. And turn away.

Fuck you, Greg.

The only reason I didn't say that out loud was that I couldn't bring myself to blame him fully. If you weren't in the gangs, you kept your head down. I could see how it looked to him anyway; Taylor Hebert, school pariah, selling out.

I recovered and was about to vanish to where I usually ate lunch, the third-floor girl's toilets, when Min appeared at my side, "Taylor! You okay?"

I waved it off with a smile I didn't feel, "I'm fine. Just going to go eat lunch." Okay, I was grateful for the friendly face, but was she following me? I had seen her nearby on nearly three occasions some student with E88 markings had shoved, tripped and otherwise covertly attacked me and each time an ABB student had helped me out.

I was happy that someone was helping me, but that grim, paranoid part of me whispered nastily that she was just protecting a new member. She didn't really care about Taylor, just the new recruit.

Honestly, it could very well be both as I made to go to my usual hiding spot, the turn was near the lunchroom doors, and said, "I'll see you later Min."

A hand grabbing my wrist made me pause as Min looked at me with a hopeful smile, "Maybe you could sit with us?" She continued before I could reply, "I know it's got to be hard, what with the E88 bothering you and the others being a bunch of assholes."

"It's not that bad," I protested weakly.

Min looked me in the eye, "Right," she drawled. "So what do you say? Sit with us?"

If I refused, I was going to alienate her. If I accepted, there was no way I could deny not being friendly with, affiliated, or even a member of the ABB. Not that I really wanted to, because it was the truth. That truth was just a very inconvenient thing right now.

I should have thought this through.

"Sure. Lead the way."

Min's smile as she lead me to the lunchroom was warm, but it didn't get rid of the icy feeling in my spine that told me this was a bad idea.

The few times I had eaten lunch in Winslow's lunchroom were before things got bad enough that I hid in the toilets and brought packed lunches. But entering now, there was no change since then.

High-school had social layers. Mom and Dad had both told me that eventually a social order would show up, in that kind of feel-good, don't worry you're special kind of way. Attractiveness. Money. And in Winslow's case, gang affiliation. The summer before, I hadn't bothered to worry about it. I had Emma then.

You could tell who belonged to who because there was clear segregation in the lunchroom. E88 members always sat away from the entrance, while ABB sat near the lunch line. And in the middle, the 'civilian' students sat, with some sitting closer to one gang on the other because they were friendly with a member, or were being isolated from one the cliques nearer the center.

A thin line of deliberately empty tables however, formed a distinct demarcation between all three groups. Only the true outcasts sat on those tables, even Greg didn't sit at them.

I expected to be on the sidelines near 'neutral' ground, but Min kept me glued to her side.

"I have my own lunch." I protested weakly as she grabbed two trays. She spared one look at the sandwiches I had brought, and gave me a pitying glance.

"It's pizza." She said, as if that explained everything. I looked at my peanut butter and jelly. Maybe it did explain everything.

I stared at her as we took our places in line and she started piling items onto my tray. "Why are you doing this?" I said under my breath.

"I agree with Bao. You belong with us," she said. She paid for the both of us. "You'll see what I mean, I think."

She lead me right into the thick of the ABB tables, trading greetings before sitting me at what was clearly her group's table, judging by the fact that nearly all of them had Kali's symbol one way or another. Most were Indian but a couple were clearly Middle-Eastern. Min was the only Asian there, "Taylor, the gang," she remarked impishly.

"Kameswari," an older girl introduced herself. Her hair was streaked through with red and she had a gold nose piercing. Her symbol was a patch on her hoodie. "But call me Kam, please."

She was seated next to one of the football linebacker's, I'd recognize him anywhere with his dirty blond hair, hazel eyes and freckles dusting his nose and cheeks. I was not unique.

"Peter." He smirked, "Jersey number 17." He puffed out his chest until Kam elbowed him.

"Behave."

He didn't have a patch, or a scarf or a pin, but what he did wear was a jade colored snake bracelet. He saw me looking, and nodded.

That was kind of insidious, I thought. Covert. Random, innocuous jewelry or designs on a T-shirt could be a declaration of allegiance, but you were never really sure until they chose to make it obvious.

Maybe that was just how Snake's group distinguished themselves. "Are you or Aren't You" kind of trolling.

"In this case the "Dark Side," a Middle-Eastern guy flashed the back of his hand as Peter chuckled. "Does indeed have cookies. They're in the basket, I made them." He nodded at me, "Just call me Hamid, the full name is probably one you won't pronounce right anyway."

"Thanks," I replied, "Sorry if I'm intruding."

"Nah," one of the other guys spoke up, "We're probably intruding on Bao's guys here. I think Shinta wanted you to sit with them, since he talks to Bao a lot." He waved his hand at another table and I glanced over to see the boy in question, and he waved at me. I quickly remembered that he was the guy from before, in Computer class.

I then felt embarrassed that I had forgotten his name as I waved back. Thankfully I hadn't needed to call his name during the class, just help him out and make sure he understood the material. It felt good to help out like that, rather than just hope no-one noticed me surfing the PHO message-boards and doing cape research for my own powers.

"How do you all know Bao so well?" I asked as I bit into my pizza.

"His scarf has a dragon on it for a reason," Min shrugged. "I'll let him explain how the rankings work."

I idly played with a spider in one of the ventilation shafts, making it spin patterns that no-one would see but I could sense, anything to try and dispel the cold feeling on my spine that was steadily getting worse. Every instinct was telling me that this wouldn't last as I smiled at a joke and ate lunch.

It didn't.

"I thought something smelled like garbage over here." Emma's voice cut through the conversation. The bottom dropped out from my stomach. "But no, it's just Taylor Hebert stinking up the place with ABB."

Emma Barnes, former best friend, had the figure of a teenage model and it showed, with a curvy figure and striking red hair and delicate features. She was popular and she actually did a lot of part-time modelling for various stores.

She was also the last person I wanted to see.

"Wow," Madison giggled. "From garbage to criminals, you're really moving up in the world, Taylor!"

"You really going to start with us, Clements?" one of the boys said as I reluctantly stood up and turned around.

Madison winced and backed up. Emma gave her a look, freezing the girl in place. "I don't have a high tolerance for cowards," she said lightly.

That was a catch 22 and I could tell by the reddening look on Madison's face that she knew it too. Stay because Emma intimidated her, or leave because she was scared by ABB and either way, the 'coward' shoe fit. Madison had never come across as 'BFFs' with Emma or Sophia but it wasn't until I looked at her, standing there unsure that I had an idea of why.

Madison was cute, innocent looking with dark hair and dimpled grin that made the teachers believe every word that came out of her mouth. She also kind of reminded me of Yuka with a wide, heart shaped face and dark eyes. I didn't make the connection before, Madison Clements, but at least two ABB members were glaring at her in particular.

Madison stayed put.

"Maybe you should leave." My heart leapt into my throat when I heard Bao's voice. Half of the table had stood up when I wasn't looking, and Bao in his camo jacket and red scarf calmly walked over. The gold dragon on it seemed to snarl as he frowned. He looked me over, lingering on what used to be my broken hand, before facing Emma.

A small group of what was clearly E88 walked up, some of their heads shaved and others with tattoos and pendants, eyes locked on the ABB teens that gathered by me. "We can -"

Sophia blocked him, and I could see the rest of the skinheads tense. "Oh back the fuck up, Eric. Not talking to you."

"Listen you fucking nig-"

Sophia's stance changed in a flash, screaming with barely restrained violence. "Finish that word. I fucking dare you." They stared each other down, but Eric didn't open his mouth again. Sophia snorted. "Thought so." She waved her hand in dismissal. "Run along now."

Emma barely paid attention to the byplay, as if the E88 was beneath her notice. You could never really tell with her, but maybe it was. "You really don't know your new friends. How they kidnap girls to enslave them? You poor, stupid thing. Actually, looking at you?" She swept her eyes over me and I felt my face flush. "You're safe."

Shinta stepped forward from behind Bao with a snarl. The harsh angles on his face, sharp cheekbones and spiked hair made him look like a wild animal staring down a threat. His dragon tat slid over his taut neck muscles. "We don't."

Bao held him back with a hand as Emma laughed, sharp. "Anymore, you mean? Could have fooled me," she hissed lowly. She regained her composure quickly, sweeping her eyes over us before meeting my gaze. "You're all a bunch of rabid dogs that should be put down."

A muscle in Bao's jaw jumped. "You are trying my patience, Barnes."

"You really are a slow learner. You don't know them like I do," Emma said and held out her hand towards me, a bit of a vulnerable expression on her face. "This is for your own good."

I slapped her hand away, angry. At her acting like she hadn't just ripped into me like she'd been doing for months, and angry at myself for almost daring to hope. It was another trick.

"You know what they haven't done, Emma?" My mouth opened on its own accord as I felt something hot and desperate welling up. "Stolen my mother's flute, locked me in a fucking dumpster and made my life hell for over a year!"

My shout drew everyone's attention.

Emma smiled, pretty and false. "I didn't have anything to do with -"

"Bullshit." I cut her off. "As far as I'm concerned, you're worse."

Emma's eyes went wide and I saw her lips move, one word, but no sound came out. I had just enough time to feel confident, hopeful that I had gotten through to her before Sophia growled and Emma's clenched fist rocketed into my face.

Again.

My nose crunched and the lunch room erupted in shouting as people came to their feet and some panicked and ran, but I stayed standing as I glared at Emma with hate in my eyes.

High on adrenaline and pain, I swung back.

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Sep 15, 2014

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Sep 17, 2014

#715

Preying Mantis

My punch found it's mark on Emma's left eye, but as it impacted, I saw her shift back, rolling with the blow, before I focused and smashed my other fist into her cheek. Something popped, either her cheekbone or my knuckles.

Emma turned with it and came screaming back with an uppercut that rocked my head back as stars exploded in my vision before she screamed and tackled me, slamming us both into the table as she slammed her fist into my side, pounding my ribs and shrieking obscenities at me.

She's not supposed to know how to fight, I found myself thinking. It actually seemed a bit unfair.

I stayed quiet; unlike my Dad who's temper exploded, mine was cold and bitter. I grabbed her arm by pure luck and twisted it, hard, and took a painful breath. Press the advantage. My elbow slammed back into her nose. It instantly erupted in a small fountain of blood and Emma snorted reflexively. I grabbed a handful of red hair and with a heave I smashed her face into the table.

That felt way too good.

Her arm swept out and sent the wicker weave basket skittering away and onto the floor.

Hamid howled like someone murdered his dog. "My cookies!"

'I wanted to try one of those,' my brain decided to remind me. My shoulders shook as I just tried to breathe and kept Emma's head pressed against the hard surface as she bucked and struggled. The cafeteria was quiet.

Did I win?

I looked up, skittering across Bao's grim little smile, and was yanked off the table.

Sophia. "You are such a little -"

Plop!

She froze as blue jello slowly slid down the side of her face. We both turned. Kam's face was dead serious for someone still holding the evidence of a spoon catapult. I giggled helplessly.

"Know your place, Sophia."

Fire flared in Sophia's eyes. She locked onto the patch on Kam's hoodie, the multi armed woman and snarled. It seemed like in the space of a blink she vanished from in front of me, and was slamming a fist into Kam's face.

Peter leapt to his feet and the next thing I knew, his lunch tray was flying.

"Food fight!"

There was a flash of red to my right, Eric grabbing onto Bao's scarf. I was fairly sure he regretted it when Min's sneaker swiftly caught him balls.

Several of the E88 students used the opportunity to launch their own attack and everyone that I had been sitting with was now involved along with a few others. I saw Min take a haymaker punch before Emma decided to let me know she was not out of the fight yet, by tackling me clear across the aisle onto another table.

I was only able to slam my fist into a bruise on her neck before she threw me off to land forehead-first against a chair. More stars, followed by grey spots blinking in my vision. I bit my lip until I tasted blood and tried to get my feet under me. Emma's sneaker buried itself in my stomach, knocking the air out of my lungs.

She was saying something, I didn't hear what, there was a ringing noise in my ears, drowning out just about every sound. Slowly, unsteadily, I rose to my feet. I had to end this, and I had to end it now, before this turned into a full-scale riot as I saw Peter take a sloppy tackle and bring down his fists in an overhead swing on one E88 punk's head.

My eyes momentarily flashed to the ceiling, Emma was right below a ventilation grate. I had to work quickly, before I lost my chance. Ignoring the agony in my head and the feeling of blood trickling down my face, I flailed blindly.

I found the spider I had been playing with earlier in the ventilation shaft above us. I moved into it, a brief nausea filled moment of feeling like I was balancing on eight legs and upside down, before I dropped it on a silken thread onto Emma's back. I directed it to the flesh of her neck as something slimy dripped down the back of my shirt.

I didn't even check what kind of spider it was. Sophia barreled into me like a freight train. I frantically reached out as I fell, I don't know to what, and thought, 'Bite.'

It's jaws clamped down, my teeth clamped down.

My head collided with the cafeteria flo-

--

We sat in a cleared classroom in a rough semicircle, facing the large wooden desk Principal Blackwell sat behind. I held an ice pack to my head and was dressed in one of the school's sport shirts with the Winslow hawk proudly plastered on it; my actual shirt was stuffed in the plastic bag at my feet covered in Jello and chocolate milk.

Madison had to get rid of her blouse too and looked pathetically small talking softly to her father that stood by her, tall and brown haired with a weak jaw.

Most of us had one parent or another with us. Some were talking with their kids, others like my dad, were quiet. Danny Hebert had come in like a volcano, threatening to blow before the vice principal talked to him. He'd taken one look at my side of the room, the scarfs and hoodies, patches and the fight just blew out of him. He crumpled and sat in the back, with his head buried in his hands.

That had hurt more than any of the injuries I had gotten.

Peter was closest to the chalkboard, cradling the broken pieces of his bracelet in his hands. His parents were average middle class and didn't seem to know what to do, as if trying to touch him would make him fall apart. Kam was nearby with a busted lip and alone, giving him concerned glances. Bao sat next to me, also without a guardian.

"You okay?" He leaned over to whisper.

I nodded and felt my gut clench as I tried to avoid looking back at my father. Emma gave me a vicious little smirk from beside her dad, the slightly heavy set Alan Barnes who was dressed in a nice suit and scowling. I looked over the tissue stuck in her right nostril, bandage lumped around her neck with ice with the traces of a massive bruise peeking out, purpling eye swollen shut, and smiled back.

I could owe Amy another lunch. Little Miss Model was going to have to live with that for a few days. I couldn't help feeling I should have hit her harder and broken something.

Bao followed my eyes and grinned. Even with his cheek swelling up and a cut on his eyebrow, his smile lit up his face. "Epic right hook, by the way."

I ducked my head, smothering the giggle with a cough.

The door to the classroom opened to admit Eric and his mother returning. He had an ugly frown on his face, made even uglier by the ripped piercing in his lip and looking like the quintessential bad boy. His mother was a leggy brunette dressed for a warmer spring than what we were having and eyes like chips of green ice.

I couldn't help thinking Eric was probably grounded for life. So was I, probably.

"We apologize for the delay." She had a faint accent I couldn't place.

Principal Blackwell took the apology uncomfortably, looking around the room with a lost expression on her face. It was quickly buried underneath indignation.

"What were you all thinking?" No one answered her. "A fight in school grounds, the cafeteria is trashed. Do you have any idea -"

Sophia snorted.

Blackwell's face darkened. "Do you have something to say, Ms. Hess?"

The woman I assumed was her mother cut the girl a look that would melt through steel. She was in a suit, like many of the other parents. Sophia hunched a bit in her chair. "No, ma'am."

"We have zero tolerance for violence at Winslow," Blackwell said. "All of you are suspended for the rest of the week and will have an additional week of detentions after school starting Monday."

Zero tolerance for violence, I thought bitterly. So there was a non zero tolerance for bullying then.

"You don't want to know who started it?" Peter's mother said in surprise. She was a frumpy housewife with an auburn bun with a few streaks of premature grey in her hair. She reached out to pat her son on the shoulder.

"Does it matter who started it?" Alan said. "Everyone is being punished. Fair as fair can be."

"Instigators should be punished more than those who retaliate," Min's mother said softly from behind her daughter's chair, an affectionate hand on Min's dark hair. She had on a long deep purple tunic with gold patterns on the square hems and black pants. Her hair was also streaked with grey, solid lines of silver that fell to her chin.

"Zero tolerance," Blackwell reminded.

"Which means discouraging repeat performances," she countered just as mildly.

Alan chuckled but his smile didn't reach his eyes. "This isn't the courtroom, Remya."

"Alan," she acknowledged. "It's a school, which means the investigative work should take only a few minutes. And I still need to decide if Minati is losing her cell phone for the week." The girl winced.

"Emma started it," I said clearly.

"Of course you would try to pin it on me," Emma scoffed thickly, just as I knew she would.

I kept my eyes locked on Principal Blackwell. "She came over to our table and starting insulting me. She threw the first punch."

"Taylor's telling the truth," Min backed me up. It was a weird feeling.

"Thirded," Peter muttered.

The E88 teens didn't say anything.

"Yes, yes, an astounding display of solidarity," Mr. Barnes sneered. "Do we have any impartial witnesses?"

"Peter isn't a liar," his father said sharply, drawing himself up and sucking in his gut. "If he says that girl started it, then she started it."

"All I am saying is that it was a lunch room brawl," Alan soothed with a winning smile. "Tempers are running high, it's a confusing mess, who did what in hindsight isn't guaranteed to be accurate."

Understanding flashed over Peter's father's face. "Ah, I see. It's alright if it's not your kid being called a liar, isn't it?"

Blackwell intervened as Alan's face shifted into something nasty. "We can run an investigation of our own - "

"Emma started it," Madison said. Her father had wrapped her in a one armed hug. My mouth fell open in surprise.

Sophia bristled as Emma deflated.

"Fuck you, Madison."

Madison sighed. "Don't care anymore, Sophia. I really don't."

"I-I see," Blackwell stammered out, sharing a look with Sophia's guardian. "The three of you will be staying behind please. The rest of you have your punishments, I expect to see you all in detention next week."

Remya nodded. "Alan." He didn't respond, jaw clenched. "Minati, we are done here." She looked over Kam, who leaned closer to Peter to whisper and Bao, who nodded. "I will be by the car, you three."

"My phone?" Min asked anxiously as she stood up.

"You can keep it."

She pumped a fist, bandaged knuckles and all into the air and flounced over to me. "See you Monday?"

A grin stole across my face as Bao slung an arm over my shoulder in a little hug. "See you Monday." I looked back at Emma, still smiling. "You lose."

Something in her expression collapsed.

Worth it.

--

Not worth it.

The drive home was slow and quiet. I looked stubbornly out the window and Dad kept his eyes on the road, occasionally drifting over to me before he pinched his lips together hard enough to squeeze the blood out of them. I waited for him to start as we filtered through the kitchen door.

"Why?" His voice was weak and tired.

"They're just friends."

"I'm not stupid, Taylor," Dad said blankly, like he couldn't put any energy into it. He wasn't angry, or disappointed, he wasn't anything. It was like he was in shock. The sad thing was, I wanted him to get angry. To yell, shout, scream at me. Anything was better than reminding me of how he looked when Mom died, on the verge of falling apart.

"Did you want me to be alone and bullied for the rest of high school?" I asked sharply.

"No, I - " He looked up at me, tears in his eyes. "I can't do this right now. Go to your room please."

I went.

Dinner was right back to the way it had been, before things started to get better. We didn't say a word to each other and I went back to my room feeling like I was drowning. I paced, read books, tried to work on homework but this terrible feeling of dread was sapping all of my concentration.

Dad didn't understand. He didn't want to.

That night I snuck out in costume, and headed for the Docks.

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Shujin

Sep 17, 2014

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Threadmarks Preying Mantis 5.4

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Shujin

M. NightShujinlan

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She/Her

Sep 19, 2014

#831

Preying Mantis

I wasn't in costume because I was planning on stopping crime, strange as that may sound. Not on the Docks anyway. The last time I had come here suited up, intent on finding the trouble my Dad insisted was there like some kind of bogeyman bedtime story, I walked into a villain vs villain conflict. Ironically, perhaps the best thing that's ever happened to me.

It seemed like forever ago.

Mostly, I just wanted to avoid being recognized, even by myself. Just another teenage cape, out on a stroll. Well, not really, putting on the costume had been a spur of the moment kind of thing but it was comforting. I made this, every strand of silk and every piece of chitin and beetle shell, mine. The saying, 'being comfortable in your own skin' applied.

Down by the water was one of the most soothing spots in the city that I knew of, the top of Captain's Hill came close but it was more of a hike. Not the Boardwalk, at night it just looked dead with all the shops boarded up, the lights off and a stark empty walkway with pieces of trash skittering across it in the wind. It was a place that was supposed to be occupied with people, it didn't seem right otherwise, like the classic horror movie scene of the abandoned street.

I suppose it said something about me that I found the closed piers of the Docks better.

To the very far north of the Bay, on the edge of the crescent sweep of the shoreline was the Boat Graveyard. It was a trash heap, with several hundred thousand ton pieces of 'trash.' When the import/export economy of the city crashed, there wasn't enough ports for all of the ships registered here to be moored and not enough people willing to pay for them to be moved elsewhere. So the extras? They were left out there, forming an artificial reef with a few beached ships driven onto the sand by waves.

You could see them making a dark outline on the horizon from the short stretch of sand that wasn't commandeered by the Boardwalk. Shadows of the cranes and cold smokestacks among the elevated platforms of the piers. I wondered if I could spot Pier 4 from where I was standing, but in the darkness it was impossible, even with the light of a rising full moon starting to illuminate the area.

I briefly wondered if Snake was there, crushing the dreams of another hopeful with a smile on her face.

I reached down and scooped up a smooth pebble from the sand. I flung it at the water. One skip, then a loud kerplunk! I sighed dejectedly and hunted around for another one. Mosquitos were out along with sleepy sand flies and I could feel a few crabs burrowed underneath the tide line.

I grabbed onto the flies, mostly to keep them away from me, and spread them out. I'd been here before, practising. The rusting bench, the garbage can with the ash tray at the top, the Swim At Your Own Discretion sign, I knew these like the back of my hand by now.

I threw another rock. It didn't even skip this time, just hit the water and vanished with a splash.

I was trying not to think, keep my mind clear and refocus. I wanted to settle the butterflies in my stomach and maybe the acid taste at the back of my throat would go with them.

I didn't do anything wrong.

I threw another stone, harder. One, two, three, four, five, and then it vanished underwater.

What did he want me to do? Just keep suffering in silence? Did he think he could just fix everything for me, somehow? Arcadia's waiting list was at least a year long, we couldn't afford the other schools and they were too far away. I picked up another stone and cocked my arm.

And telling him about the bullying helped so much last time.

I threw it. It flopped into the water and sunk. Do Not Pass Go. I glared at the ripples spreading out across the dark surface of the water. Emma started the fight, he was there to hear it. It wasn't like he was bailing me from jail, or finding weapons in my closet or drugs or anything. He was basically punishing me for having friends.

Another stone, blocky and rough. I didn't have high hopes for it. I chucked it half-heartedly and felt both of my eyebrows shoot to my hairline when it bounced once.

It didn't matter if they wore dragons or snakes or goddesses or dogs. They were people, kids like me. And if he couldn't see that…

I stared at the 'rock' in my hand that had crumbled and revealed itself to be a seashell playing pretend. Emma had been trying to rile everyone up. If she had been telling the truth - I tossed the seashell into the water - she probably wasn't. I put it out of my mind, feeling uneasy.

If it was true, I'd deal with it. Somehow.

A breeze kicked up, sweeping down from the north and filled with the smell of rust and brine. I breathed in deep, until I felt like I was about to choke and then let it out. I spread myself across my bugs, slowly, with my eyes closed. They didn't smell things like we did, and I don't mean by not having a nose either.

It was all tastes in the air, but it felt more like I was touching textures with my fingertips. Water droplets filled with salt, tang of oil, gasoline, plants, people, animals, the roughage of dust and other particles, I sorted through it all, moving from one scent to the next. I came across one I wasn't expecting. The flies weren't interested, maybe even repulsed, but I opened my eyes.

Smoke. And where there is smoke…

I followed the faint scent trail north. Towards the ships on the horizon.

The Boat Graveyard was an apt description. The boats themselves were large, lonely shadows in the bay. Some of them rubbed up against each other as the waves rolled in, creating eerie screeching noises that carried. Others had capsized a few years ago with the storms and the beached ones were like whales, doomed. With cracks in their hull, rivets rusting into fragments and far more trouble than they were worth.

There were no streetlights here. All of the warehouses and apartment buildings were long abandoned as the economy took it's toll. The only light I had was the moon which was why the spot of bright orange ahead made my breath catch as I hugged the side of the building.

The orange was the light of Lung's flame.

Kali was there as well, which is why I didn't simply walk up, wearing her two faced mask: grief on one side, murderous rage on the other. The metal stitched into her costume glinted cruelly as she gestured and I crept forward. Another person was with them wearing what kind of looked like they threw a bed sheet over their head. It had cloud patterns on it, and they were also wearing sneakers without socks making me think it actually was a bed sheet.

The hell was going on here?

I inched around the building and breathed quietly in relief when I spotted a fire escape on my side of a building closer to them. The feet of my costume had soft soles, so I squinted at each step all the way up to make sure I didn't step on an exposed nail or something.

The roof was covered in gravel and cigarette butts so I bit my lip and edged along the raised lip of the roof until I could just make out the words. I didn't dare go any further, not with Lung there.

Lung was speaking, "...with Rune and see where the upper limits are then."

I did a double take at the low budget Halloween ghost impression. That was Rune? As in E88 Rune? What the -

My God. She did it to villains too.

"Are you honestly expecting me to work with a Nazi now," Kali said flatly. She had her arms folded like a sulking child and a manhole cover circling Rune, waiting for the slightest excuse.

Lung was dressed less opulently tonight, but not by much. Pants this time, with a blue silk shirt that had gold button ties running down the center. Still barefoot. She shrugged her shoulders. "I don't see a Nazi here. I see a young girl from Beijing."

Rune twitched from underneath her bed cover. "Wait, back the fuck up."

"You don't like the CUI?" Lung asked, her voice dripping with malice as her flame flared.

Rune froze.

"Neither do I!" Lung continued cheerfully. I just about swallowed my tongue. "Tokyo then."

"I -"

"Tokyo is a very nice place. You should be proud," she shushed the girl. "You were saying, Kali?"

Kali stared for a long moment. I could see the moment she decided to stop giving any fucks, shrugging with forced nonchalance. "You're the boss."

"Yes," Lung replied, deadly serious. "I am."

"What happens if it doesn't work that way?" Rune asked cautiously. "If it just, I don't know, fights too much?"

"I expect you to at least try to cooperate with each other," Lung said with a wave of her hand, as if it was a given. "If it doesn't work, I will be disappointed. That is all."

"And then I can leave?" Rune pressed. She shuffled around on her feet, sheet clamped to herself. I couldn't exactly see her expression but I got the feeling she was anxious and scared, playing tough.

"You have my word."

Rune studied Lung, I thought. Her covered head stared in Lung's direction for a good two minutes before a tiny nod. "Pick up a boat then. Pick up a fucking ship when the heaviest you've done is a fucking truck, no fucking pressure."

"That's what I'm here for, runt," Kali grunted.

Rune's left hand snaked out from under the sheet, middle finger extended, to show what she thought of that.

Lung chuckled.

The nearest ship to us was a docked barge. It was an ugly thing, taking up all of the space it was allowed with its flat top, filled with empty, creaking containers. The mauve paint was stripping off of it, revealing the brackish red-brown metal underneath. I crept along the roof after them, one slow step at a time.

Rune leaned over the side of the peer, planting a palm on the side of the boat. "Okay," she murmured. "Okay."

"Lots of parts," Kali said, distracted.

"Focus on the hull," Lung instructed her, walking over to the edge of the dock. "The ship can hold itself together."

"You hope," Rune snarked.

"No big loss if it doesn't," was the easy answer. "On three."

"Straight up!" Kali barked. Rune bounced on her toes like an Olympic sprinter getting ready for the hundred yard dash.

On Lung's count of three, Rune and Kali stilled. The ship began to move.

At first the barge swayed, the containers on it scraping across as it tilted but it soon evened out. There were moaning sounds of shifting metal and the water under the dock sloshed around. The surface rose to meet the pier and then surpassed it. A loud crack sounded.

"What was that?" Lung asked sharply.

"Uhhh," Kali said eloquently. "Something."

"I got it," Rune gritted through her teeth. I could barely hear her. The boat continued to lift until it cleared the water. A large piece of metal fell off the back judging from the loud splash.

"That was part of the engine," Kali said.

"Put it back down." A second later, Lung amended, "Slowly."

Too late.

The ship went back down a lot quicker than it went up. Water splashed over the sides, drenching Lung completely right after she got the last word out. Her clothes went from classy to drowned rat, clinging to her. Her flame sputtered indignantly, then flared white hot. I could see water dripping from her dragon mask.

The very beginning of a snorting giggle escaped my mouth before I smothered it with the palm of my hand.

For a moment, no one said anything. Rune inched away.

"She did it," she and Kali said simultaneously.

"You know what?" Lung said with a small laugh. She pointed down to where she was standing, close to the edge. "I deserved that." She started to walk off, sloshing. Kali followed. "Thank you for your time, Rune."

The girl started and jogged to catch up with Lung. "My parents," she hedged, trying not to sound scared.

"Are off limits," Lung assured her. "I don't involve civilians."

"How'd you figure out where I live?" It was a different kind of fear in her voice this time, dread. "Did you seriously just like, ask a member to get me or some shit like that? I mean, how the fuck?"

"I did actually," Lung said pleasantly. "There was a brown haired woman, top heavy, green eyes with a white costume…"

"That was Diamond," Rune said, with the tone of someone in the midst of horrified realization. "She actually gave me up."

"She was very reasonable."

Rune stopped dead in her tracks. "That's fucked up," she breathed.

"I will be honest," Lung patted Rune on the head as she left her behind like she found a confused puppy and was sad she couldn't take it home with her. "I thought a gentle reminder was best."

"Of what?" Rune didn't sound like she really wanted to know. I found myself morbidly curious and strained my ears to hear the answer.

When Lung spoke, it was still pleasantly with a lilting voice, "Of dragons."

"Knights kill dragons!" Rune shouted after her.

Lung kept walking with a light shrug. "He is free to crawl out of his castle and try. He knows where I am."

I didn't think Kaiser could take Lung one on one. Purity, perhaps, maybe Hookwolf before she escalated past him but not Kaiser. The ability to make metal spikes appear was kind of lackluster compared to scaled skin that shrugged off energy blasts from Behemoth. Maybe that was just me being biased.

I crept back across the roof in the opposite direction from Rune, who headed back towards the pier. Lung and Kali weren't walking very quickly, so by the time I shimmied back down the fire escape and around the wall of the building, I was able to catch the tail end of their conversation.

"I think it would be better if you stop questioning my lead, or I will start questioning why I am tolerating you, hmm?"

Kali stammered, but seemed to think better of actually protesting. I felt validated, remembering Parian. "S-sorry."

"You can go."

I waited until she did leave, watching her shadow float over on the manhole cover and vanish against the backdrop of the night sky. Lung didn't resume walking and I held my breath.

"You can come out now, Hachi."

Damn it.

At first, I was tempted to just stay where I was and hope she was making a blind guess but I also knew that she had no reason to call me out specifically, not with the dozens of others teens around, unless she was sure. I abandoned my hiding spot with my head hanging.

"What gave me away?"

Lung gestured at her wet clothes. I tried not to pay attention to how much it clung to her or get jealous. I didn't succeed. It helped that she wasn't cold. "You laughed."

I felt the embarrassed, nervous smile on my face because it pulled at some of my injuries. "Sorry about that."

She snorted but didn't seem offended. Her flame was still the brilliant white, brightening up our spot on the street. It also gave off a steady heat and I realized she was drying herself out. "Walk with me."

That was fine with me. I fell into step beside her.

We walked back south, past the warehouses and large metal containers stacked up like children's toys, past the cranes and dead ships until the road began to smooth out with more recent maintenance and the sand of the beach began. Lung's stride was even, unhurried. She had all the time in the world, almost lazy.

Mine was awkward in comparison, not that it surprised me. My legs, like my arms, were too long and I was just happy my footsteps didn't sound like an elephant's with my large shoe size.

"What was with the boat?" I asked. That display didn't really seem like it fit into any criminal plan. At least, I didn't think it did. It would be kind of weird if it was, considering bed sheet Rune.

"A test." She wrung out the bottom of her shirt. "To see if the boats could be cheaply moved."

"You're going to clear out the Graveyard?" It was perhaps the most visible sign of the city's decay and the reason for it. No one wanted to spend the time, effort and money to clear it up, not even the Mayor who vetoed Dad's ferry project for years before he gave up. For Lung to do it would be a slap in the face for every politician.

She had my vote.

"I didn't say that," she sighed. "It was a thought."

"Can I ask what brought that thought on?" I questioned lightly.

"I received a petition," she began uncomfortably. She glanced at me, then turned her head to look out over the water. "A personal request if I would consider it. Either the docks or," she nodded her head in the direction we were walking in. "Something like the ferry."

So that's where we were going. For a minute there I was almost afraid she was escorting me home.

"My Dad made plans to restore the ferry," I blurted out. I wasn't sure why. Maybe it was some sort of screwed up apology on my part, putting his life's work out there for the one person I actually believed could carry it out. "To expand it so it's actually worth it, a new route from the tip and swing by the PHQ."

"Another tourist trap?" Lung scoffed.

"No! I mean, it can be, but even if it's just a straight line it's quicker than driving the roads into town for everyone. He has it planned out and it won't cost much, he spent a lot of time on it." I was honest enough to admit I was a little desperate.

The plan had been a yearly thing. Dad would get out his best suit, shine his shoes and pack his folders and papers into his briefcase and ask me to wish him luck. He spent weekends on it, late nights with papers scattered all over the kitchen table, calling contractors for updated quotes every year.

And every year it would get tossed back in his face. He needed this. I needed this.

"I can even show it to you," I ended.

"This is not just about the ferry, is it?" Lung said gently.

I didn't even care about the fucking ferry. It could stay docked at the stupid booth with it's lying signs forever, but it was how Dad had dragged himself out of depression. If he was frowning over the budgets, timetables and quotes, if he was spitting mad at the Mayor, if he had to take a walk to cool off it didn't matter because he was there and not how I saw him today, empty.

I'd destroyed everything.

"Of course it's about the ferry," I said thickly and tasted salt on my lips.

She hummed. Her fire expanded then, spreading out in some places wide and thinly stretching in others. I blinked the tears out of my eyes and tried to ignore the feel of droplets sliding down my cheek behind my mask.

"It's a butterfly." I said flatly. As if to demonstrate, the fire butterfly flapped its wings, shedding sparks. "I'm not five."

"You are stopping a mugging," Lung said matter-of-factly. "You only have butterflies. How?"

I stared and then surprised myself by laughing. "I'll bite, how many?"

I could hear the smile in Lung's voice. "Let's say fifteen and a few," the flames compressed into the picture of a bumblebee. "Of these."

Now we were talking.

I buried my fears and sadness and threw myself into the distraction, grateful for it. It wasn't until Lung had to set some ground rules, "Stop with the eyes! You are supposed to be a hero," that I realized I was having fun. Intellectually, I knew Lung was probably a terrible person. A murderer and more besides but I couldn't help it.

I liked her.

"Now you're just giving me shitty ones. Ladybugs, really?"

"Give up?"

"Hell no."

I almost wished...I laughed at myself, shaking my head.

Never mind.

Chapter End

220

Shujin

Sep 19, 2014

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Threadmarks Interlude, Emma Barnes

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Shujin

Shujin

M. NightShujinlan

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She/Her

Sep 22, 2014

#872

Interlude, Emma Barnes

"It's been a week. You can't-You can't be happy like this."

I'm not, Emma thought dully. The wall had a thin spidering crack running up it, jagged and so thin she almost thought she was imagining it. If she stared at it too long, it started to move until she blinked and her eyes focused once more on reality. It had been hidden under her posters, the ones she stripped from the wall. She didn't want anyone looking at her. She clutched the fabric of her pyjamas.

"We won't bother you," her mother whispered. "Warm yourself up some food, treat yourself to a nice bath, maybe, watch some television? Get things a step back to normal?"

Normal. Emma could think of normal, like Taylor, laughing and blabbing over the phone as she put one foot in front of the other like nothing was wrong. The very thought of getting out of bed was exhausting. Reaching tomorrow seemed impossible.

It had been a week.

"Bye, honey."

She laid there on the bed, staring at the wall with the torn corners of posters still stuck to it and that crack in the paint, knees tucked to her chest. Her head was on her right hand, and it had gone numb. She listened to her mother's footsteps head back down the stairs, murmurs of conversation coming up through the floor as they got organized, shuffled people around in car groups, what everyone wanted for lunch. She heard when they were interrupted by the doorbell ringing and all conversation stopped.

Her father answered the door, most things after that were a low buzz she couldn't quite make out as everyone started talking at once. Emma shifted in place and her hand began to prickle as the blood rushed back into it. Once the other voices, her sisters and mother fell quiet, she could hear more, imperfectly.

"...out of media attention. We don't want to provoke a response." The woman's voice was vaguely familiar.

"...what you're worried about?" Her father demanded hotly. "You saw what they did to - " his voice dipped and she knew they were talking about her.

"...sign of anything unusual? She's been through a lot…"

"Nothing. I'm...glad for that, I think. She's just Emma."

"...will again...why I wanted to talk to you, if you would help identify…"

"...Emma saw more of, but I can't ask her to…"

She closed her eyes and stopped listening.

Soon, they came up the stairs next and reopened her door. She didn't look.

Unfamiliar footsteps rounded her bed. She caught sight of a knee covered in camo patterns and her heart leapt.

"Miss Militia," Emma muttered.

The woman sat by her, causing the bed to sink. "Emma." She didn't apologize for something that wasn't her fault, or ask her stupid questions like if she was feeling okay, didn't tiptoe around her and for that one fierce second, she loved the hero more than her own parents. "There is a favor I would like to ask of you."

"What?"

"We would like to identify the bodies of ABB members."

She flinched but then opened her eyes and tilted her head to look at the woman. Concerned brown eyes met hers. "They're dead?"

The heroine didn't insult her intelligence. "We suspect." She was quiet for two, three heartbeats. "I am sorry I couldn't get there sooner." And there it was.

"Said that before," she muttered.

Miss Militia adopted a bit of a rueful expression from what she could see of her brows and eyes. "Heard me? You were a bit unresponsive then..."

Very diplomatic of her.

"Emma, you don't have to do anything if you don't want to," her father said quickly from somewhere behind her.

"I'll go," Emma said, because she knew if she didn't commit now, she wouldn't be able to get out of bed today.

She was given time to get ready, take a shower and put clothes on. She didn't touch the bag of expensive soaps and shampoos, instead using her father's regular shampoo. She also didn't look in the mirror to see the thin smiling line scabbing over on her throat. She turned the water up hot enough to turn her skin red and scrubbed until she hissed with pain.

Once she was dressed, hair still damp, she ventured out into the foyer where Miss Militia was waiting patiently.

"We actually had plans for the day," her mother simpered.

"They're still on," her father rushed to assure her. "But this is important and shouldn't take long. We'll be late, but that's better than not going at all." He sighed. "Go without me, I'll catch up."

Her mother sprung into action, bustling around. Keys for the door, then a keychain to put them on, money for lunch and extra, then the purse to store it in, the smothering hug she backed out of, trembling.

"Everything will be alright," her mother said. She didn't respond.

Outside sat a plain, unassuming white van with no markings and a standard license plate. The woman in the driver's seat was in plain clothes but still had a gun holstered and PRT name tag attached to the pocket on her shirt. She smiled at Emma, slightly, before turning away. She too, didn't ask questions.

Her father took the passenger side front seat. Emma settled in next to Miss Militia in the back seat and gripped her knees with her hands.

The PRT headquarters were downtown, looking just like any other building on the street if it weren't for the royal blue shield logo dominating the lower front window pane. The lobby was clean and brightly lit.

There were dead people here, Emma thought.

She wasn't sure how to feel when that turned out not the be the case. Perhaps a little disappointed, a morbid eagerness she didn't know she had fading.

The room was large and dominated by a rectangle gun metal gray table that was evenly covered with glossy pictures that reflected the light, bleaching the centers and the faces. A heavy set woman with brown hair in a bland, short hairstyle stood stiffly on one side as they entered. Emma knew her from the press releases and articles as Director Emily Piggot.

"...come down with the full force of the PRT and Protectorate," she was saying. Her voice was clipped and hard. Her watery blue eyes narrowed underneath her eyebrows.

On the other side, peering over the pictures with a disdainful curl to her lip was an asian woman in jeans and long shirt wearing a charm bracelet. It was a silly thing to focus on, that bracelet with a dragon charm. She'd been considering getting Taylor one for her birthday.

She froze in the doorway when the woman looked over, disinterested.

"She survived."

That word resonated with her, no matter how callously stated.

Survived. It fit perfectly, didn't it? After everything was said and done, she was here standing on her own two feet. She should be angry, she felt. Annoyed, irritated, offended but instead she was just numb.

The woman's hair was very long, not like hers, crudely chopped off with a pair of scissors and the bathroom mirror. Older than the Asian girl with the eye shadow, not the same, but not safe. That wasn't paranoia talking, the contempt was still on her face. She couldn't shake the feeling that the woman could read her mind and knew just how deep the fear ran.

The director purpled slightly. "I can assure you, if she hadn't we would be having a very different conversation, with Lung herself. At muzzle velocity."

The woman looked amused at the threat. She pronounced her words carefully, bleaching her accent, "Like the ones your officers use?"

"No," Miss Militia said from over her head, stepping up behind her. "Like the one I would use. All it takes is one shot," there was a blur of movement from the hero's hand. "With the right gun."

"You would be allowed?" She asked, seemingly genuinely curious.

She must have seen something in Miss Militia, because her smile soon faded. Piggot interjected, "Lung is useful." She made a sharp, cutting motion with the blade of her hand. "Not that useful."

The woman's lips thinned. "Understood."

Piggot eyed her suspiciously, managing to turn to Emma without taking her eyes off the asian woman completely. "Miss Barnes." And then to Miss Militia, "I take it her father is waiting outside?"

"Yes, ma'am."

That got a short nod. "Then let's get this over with. Miss Barnes, if you would identify your attackers from this line up?"

She stepped up to the table. The shadow she cast revealed the faces and her tongue felt thick and uncooperative in her mouth. She settled for pointing, top right, center left and right underneath. The fourth was missing. Her stomach dipped.

The director seemed to preempt her questioning look. "Minus the one we can attribute to Shadow Stalker at the scene," she said with no small amount of distaste. "Then we have them all accounted for." Quieter, under her breath the woman grunted, "What is Lung playing at?"

They were all dead then. Her shoulders sagged. "Good. The others?"

"There has been a rash of murders lately," Piggot said briskly. "Most unexplained."

"Easily seen. No point and makes people angry. Lung can tolerate many things," the woman with the bracelet said. "Stupidity is not one of them."

Piggot jumped on that statement. "Is she taking responsibility for all these deaths then?" The woman shrugged, as if to say 'sure, why not.' "Trouble in paradise?" Emily Piggot continued snidely. "Unable to control her own people?"

Bracelet woman smiled thinly. "The gangs were here before Lung was. They were uncontrolled then, you are complaining she isn't doing your job for you?"

The purple in the director's face darkened. "Fifth and sixth degree burns, this one," she jabbed a meaty finger at a photograph. "Through his spine? This one was drowned," the woman smiled as if she thought of something funny and Piggot growled. "I don't find sadism amusing."

Miss Militia stepped in, quietly tugging on her sleeve as the conversation began to get more heated, Piggot blustering and the asian woman sniping back. Outside of the room, her father came over quickly and refrained from touching her.

"Done then?"

"Yes, thank you both for your time." Militia's hand on her shoulder squeezed gently. "Hang in there."

She was already doing that, a survivor and she had no intention of stopping, of breaking. She clung to that thought as she nodded and pulled away, back into the van. Her father sat with her in the back seat for the return trip. Several times he tried to start a conversation, but they died only a few words in. She stared out the window.

They were all dead. That was good.

Her father left her at home, standing on the front step with the keys in the lock and her hand on the doorknob. She didn't move to open it as she heard his car speed away. Instead she locked the door again, shoved her hands in her pockets and started walking. Survivor, she survived. She couldn't hide away again.

That didn't stop her jaw hurting from grinding teeth by the time she reached the end of the street. The ache from the mottled bruise on the inside of her thighs came back with a vengeance as her breath hitched and she ducked her head. Too close.

They were all dead.

The stares were the worst of all. As much as she tried to tell herself that she wasn't in the middle of a giant spotlight, that people didn't care, didn't know, she couldn't shake the idea that they were watching her. It had to be in the way she walked, she thought and lengthened her step. Or it was in how she held herself, crumpled inwards as if to ward off the world. She tried to fix it. It didn't last.

Were they seeing her as a victim, someone so full of fear and anxiety that her every movement screamed 'easy target'?

That terrified her more than anything. That she could be singled out, that she was inviting it every time she failed to look someone in the eye or glanced over her shoulder, that she was simply asking for it to happen again and this time no one would save her.

She found herself back at the mouth of the narrow one-way road. The dumpster had been moved, the van was nowhere in sight. The chalk outline marked the exact location even now. Her mind jumped ahead without permission, mentally filling in the people, the car, her father bleeding on the road until she shut her eyes and simply breathed.

The world was an ugly place, filled with ugly scenes, and unlike before, it was more than academic. It was visceral, thinking about it punched in her chest with the realization that similar things were happening everywhere. She could have been in the news, raped and mutilated, before the channel was switched and the watcher got up to make a sandwich. Statistic. Another survivor.

It had been one of those defining moments, she knew, the scene that made you or broke you, but what was getting her right here, right now, was that she didn't know which it was. In a moment of desperation, she had fought.

And what did she have to show for it? Survived, like hundreds of others in a faceless crowd.

What was she doing here?

"Takes guts."

She jumped and hated herself for it. The girl was dark-skinned, slender, with long, straight hair. Like the woman with the bracelet, owning the space she stood in. Her stare was hard, penetrating.

"Guts?" Emma couldn't imagine a word less appropriate.

"Coming back. The only reason you'd do it is because you were looking for revenge, or you were looking for me. Or both, depending on how cracked you are."

"They're dead," she heard herself say. The realization came after. This was the girl with the black cloak, announcing herself. "I'm not here for you."

The girl raised an eyebrow in disbelief but Emma didn't care. She was here, maybe for an answer. Why? Why did it happen, why to her?

She walked over to the chalk outline and stared down at it. The girl followed.

"So why are you here?"

"Why'd you wait?" Emma asked instead.

"Because I wanted to see who you were."

It wasn't born from conscious thought. Her body moved on its own, taking that step forward as she belted the girl across the face. Her knuckles screamed.

The girl laughed, loud, fingers gingerly touching her lip. "Exactly!"

Emma had her answer.

She watched Taylor approach the gate, tan, still wearing that shirt from camp in the bright primary blue with the logo, shorts and sandals. Broomstick arms and legs, gawky, with a wide, naive smile. Her glasses made her eyes look too wide and long dark curls were tied behind her head in a loose set of twin braids, one bearing a series of colorful 'friendship bracelet' style ties at the end. Only her height gave her away, that she was thirteen and not nine.

"Who the fuck is that?" Sophia murmured.

Emma didn't reply, stepping forward. Taylor walked up the path to the stairs where she and Sophia stood.

"Emma!"

"Who the fuck are you?" Sophia asked.

Taylor's smile faltered, she cringed away and a brief look of confusion flickered over her face. Emma could see it, the sudden uncertainty, nervousness, the hint of a little fear. It reminded her of herself, three weeks ago, knowing that she was just asking for it.

She hated herself then.

"We're friends," Taylor said. "Emma and I have been friends for a long time."

Sophia smirked. "Really."

It was something like that one song, released shortly after Scion arrived, laying out a binary world, a world that made sense. Sophia had found it funny, to have the world view neatly wrapped up in an oldies tune. She found it comforting, it wasn't a new concept. Use or get used. Abuse or get abused. It would never happen to her ever again.

Emma smiled too then, pretty and false. It would be like ripping off a bandaid, getting rid of one last reminder. Perhaps she should have known then, that it wouldn't be that easy.

"Expulsion?" Emma shrieked. Her fingernails dug into the bottom of the plastic chair as she fought the urge to get up and do something, anything. Her father's hand was heavy on her shoulder and tight.

"I said I am considering it," Blackwell said tightly. "Need I remind you that you were suspended earlier this year?" And then as an aside, as if Emma didn't matter at all, "You are free to go Madison, Mr. Clements. Tell me if there is any trouble."

Her teeth were grinding.

She didn't bother with the useless denials, that Blackwell couldn't do this to her because it was obvious that she very well could and that she wanted to.

Soon after the door closed behind them, the principal bit out, "Couldn't wait until the end of the school year, could you?"

"I didn't -" Sophia started and Emma felt a pang of betrayal.

"Miss Hess, I assure you, I was not born yesterday. Are you trying to tell me that when I look at the videos, I will find you completely blameless?" Her voice dipped, condescending. "Did someone hit you first?"

Jello didn't count. They both knew that. Sophia looked down at the ugly, plaid gray carpet mulishly.

"The both of you have been a thorn in my side since you started your little crusade against possible gang members -"

Emma snorted around the tissue still stuck in her nose. Taylor's elbow was just as bony as ever. At least the genetic charity case actually made it work for her this time. "Possible, my ass."

Blackwell glared at her. "Believe what you will, but it so happens that I like this school. I want it to stay intact. And if that means getting rid of you two so that I don't have gang wars in my cafeteria, that is exactly what I will do."

"Going a bit far saying that my daughter will be the cause of that," her father spoke up, finally. "We both know there are a lot of E88 and ABB in this school, they'll tear into each other anyway."

"They behave themselves," Blackwell said blandly. "Mostly. Which is more than I could say for your daughter, Mr. Barnes. I thought the warning you received the first time would be sufficient, but then that dumpster incident -"

The lie spilled easily from her lips. "I had nothing to do with that!"

"So you've said," the woman drawled. "I am also not blind. The dumpster could only be locked from the outside, and she has accused you of bullying her extensively before."

"Circumstantial evidence," her father sneered.

"This is not a courtroom, Mr. Barnes. This is my school."

"We could take it to a courtroom," he blustered. Emma resisted the urge to close her eyes in embarrassment. Blackwell wasn't Mr. Hebert, Dad.

"By all means," Ms. Caldera spoke up for the first time beside Sophia's chair. The PRT handler buffed her nails on the collar of her suit jacket. "Just know that I will not be assisting you this time. Sophia is done."

"Done?" The girl yelped as her father backed down with a scowl. "What the fuck -"

"I will be submitting a transfer application to Arcadia for you as soon as possible. It seems Winslow is not a good fit for you, no offense, Mrs. Blackwell."

Sophia sagged with relief.

"None taken," the principal said. "I agree wholeheartedly."

"It will be great," the handler continued with faux cheerfulness and white teeth that stood out starkly against her mocha skin tone. "More monitoring, less gang presence and you'll get to be with all your new friends."

Something about the way she said that, new friends, made Emma's stomach shrivel.

"As I said," Blackwell steepled her hands on the desk in front of her and stared in a way that made Emma feel small. She refused to cower, raising her head defiantly. "Expelling you is on the table. I won't play that card yet, but as of this moment, I don't want you touching Taylor Hebert. You don't speak to her, you don't sit by her, don't even sneeze in her direction, or you are out. Am I clear?"

Emma seethed, hissing through her clenched teeth and feeling one wiggle under the pressure. "Crystal, ma'am."

"That goes for Madison Clements and keep whatever issues you have with ABB under wraps. I will be informing the teachers to keep an eye on you. I expect you in detention Monday. That is all."

Outside on the crumbling part of the curb that separated the parking lot from the sidewalk, painted in a pale, chipping yellow, Ms. Caldera ripped Emma's support right out from under her.

"I decided it would be better, for both of you I think, if Sophia didn't associate with you anymore."

Emma's mouth opened, and then closed without a sound.

No….no...nononononono….

Caldera gave her father an apologetic glance, but her voice was even and practical. "Her behavior hasn't been making the kind of progress we hoped for and now I think I know why."

"Emma isn't- ," her father started but then he stopped, and sighed heavily. She wanted to scream at him, a hot desperation welling up. Make it better, Daddy! He didn't say anything else.

"I will let you two say your goodbyes," Caldera fished out a pair of sunglasses and placed them on her forehead as she walked towards her dark blue sedan.

Her father similarly abandoned them, kissing her carefully on the forehead. "I'll be in the car."

In the quiet minute after, the two girls just stared at each other. Sophia recovered first, naturally, shrugging her shoulders and casually kicking a piece of broken concrete, sending it skittering across the pavement. "It'll be fine."

No, it won't, she didn't say. "I just have to make nice this year. Besides they really can't, what, put you on house arrest without any charges?"

"They've got a lot of shit on me. Can't stop me," Sophia said grimly. "Bit different than them not knowing." She looked away, back towards the blue car. "This is so fucked up. They don't want trouble with wannabe punks, seriously? Since when did anyone care about them?"

Emma had no words to say, because every variation was sounding more and more like, please don't leave me and I need you kind of pathetic drivel she didn't use anymore and less like who she was supposed to be. She'd get her equilibrium back, she was sure of it. Fake it till you make it.

"Whatever. The rest of the year is probably going to suck, but…"

Sophia cracked a grin. "You'll live."

"A few months." It already felt like forever. "Once 'progress,' " she did the air quotes, "is made, it'll be back to normal."

"Maybe." Sophia shrugged again, unconcerned. Emma felt like a piece of her had just died. "See you around." And she walked away.

Emma climbed into her father's car numb all over.

There was the feeling she got as she lounged on the couch, trying not to think too hard. The jittery, restless energy that kept her eyes roving around the room and her fingers tapping some nameless tune on the cushioned armrest. She should be in school right now, but she's not, suspended, remember? The nervous energy was building as she tried to keep herself from dwelling on things, didn't work. She had even picked up her phone, navigating the contact list by pure muscle memory, not even having to look, only to get the dial tone of an unavailable number, no Sophia either.

She wanted to do something, anything but at the same time, it was just like it had been over a year ago. She looked around and everything seemed dull, nothing she wanted to do, nobody she wanted to talk to.

Almost nobody.

She got up and put on her shoes and a light jacket before she could think it through. "Going for a walk!" she yelled out before slamming the front door behind her.

The city was empty, it felt. Too late for the morning rush of people getting breakfast or going to work, too early for the lunch time influx of business men and woman on the sidewalks, following their noses. The stretch after stretch of nothing worth anything and no one important almost made the city feel comfortable, cozy.

The right side of her face still ached, she had an honest-to-God shiner dominating her left eye, her nose looked terrible and she already had a dentist's appointment next week for loose teeth.

She'd been asking Taylor to fight back, to not be so goddamn worthless months ago and what does she do? Nothing. Not until she was backed up by her new 'friends' like a flock of squawking pigeons facing down a cat. Almost commendable, in that sad, pitying kind of way, if it wasn't that Taylor obviously had no fucking clue what the hell she was getting into.

Emma caught the bus on Sycamore and sat in the back, behind some deadbeat sketching in a notebook and a young mother with a sleeping toddler. The ride was a nauseating mix of nostalgia and dread. She had to grab onto the light pole at the stop when she got off, swallowing down bile.

A hand touched her gently. "Are you alright?"

She restrained from lashing out, inordinately proud that her first reflex was to fight. "I'm fine." She brushed them off, whoever they were and kept going.

Taylor's house was just like the others on its side of the street, old. It was a struggling middle class poster child, a house some forty years old and showing its age in the fading paint and dents in the sidings. The other side was newer, more expensive and faced the decaying remains of the old neighborhood with disapproving large windows. The elderly houses had the last laugh, 'For Sale' signs were propped up in the carefully mowed lawns and two car garages leaving only a few actually lived in.

The abandoned, condemned home behind Taylor's loomed like a shadow.

It took far too long to work up the courage to ring the doorbell. She snatched her hand back as soon as the sound rang out and stuffed it into a pocket. Her teeth began to chatter and it wasn't even cold out.

Fake it till you make it.

She forced them to stop by sheer force of will. She could hear voices approach the door, muffled.

"...I got it! He -" Mr. Hebert's face froze. "Emma."

She didn't even try to pretend everything was alright. "I need to talk to Taylor."

Why? She wasn't sure, just that it was necessary like Emma had finally thought up the rebuttal to an argument that had stumped her, and she couldn't move on until she got it out.

Because she couldn't fucking lose, she latched on to that thought. Not to them.

His face reddened. "What makes you think I'd let you even near -"

"Ask Taylor. She is there right?" the familiar derisive tone crept into her voice. "And not, you know, out tagging buildings with dragon symbols or anything like that?"

Danny's hand tightened on the door frame until his knuckles turned white. "No," he said stiffly. He was kind of like a porcupine that way, his temper all quills but vulnerable underneath. Make them uncomfortable and they instinctively curl up and hope the problem goes away.

"Great. Good for her." She almost meant it. "Now can I talk to her, please."

It was the please that did it and, she suspected, he was probably still trying to reconcile them not being friends.

Danny disappeared back inside and the muffled voices returned. She waited impatiently, rocking back and forth on her heels, attempting to bleed off what almost felt like cabin fever, except it was hot and desperate. Her palms felt clammy.

Taylor came to the door, taller than ever with her shoulders squared. She came outside, brushing past Emma and her face set in a blank expression. She stopped at the end of the walkway and tilted her head in a beckoning gesture.

Emma smiled weakly and fell into step.

"Talk," Taylor ordered.

She spilled the beans. That's what it felt like, literally, half baked words tumbling out of her mouth in a rushed stream and she couldn't take any of them back. It was what she wanted Taylor to know, what her stupid one-time friend needed to know because if she didn't hear it first hand she was just going to dismiss it, she was stubborn like that because god damn it!

She's seeing the beginning of another ugly scene in the world, and Emma's taking her rescue and paying it forward. She's not like that woman looking over the pictures, uncaring. It isn't until she stops, gasping for breath and trembling that she sees the existential fear for what it was. She's better than this. She got over it.

She wasn't. She didn't.

The realization makes her cold.

For a short period, Taylor's face is absolutely stricken but it gradually smooths out until it's just her nose that's wrinkling, like she smelled something disgusting.

This is where you realize how close to a bad end you came to, Emma pleaded inside her head. This was when the hand squeezing her heart could fall away and things could go back to the way they used to be. Good deed done.

"I'll ask," Taylor said.

What.

"No," she laughed a bit hysterically. "No, this is not something you ask someone abo- what the fuck is wrong with you? Seriously?"

"You tortured me for over a year," Taylor said flatly. "You are the reason I went to them in the first place and you say I have something wrong with me?"

Emma scoffed, feeling her stomach quiver. "Please. What you went through was nothing -"

"Let's lock you in a dumpster for three hours, Emma," Taylor said sweetly. "And we'll see how you like it. Even better, how about I take every secret you ever told me, including this one and rub it in your face for a year beforehand. I could tell the whole school."

The blood drained from her face. "You wouldn't."

Taylor held the stare for over a minute, but eventually her face softened. "No. I'm not you. I'm sorry about what you went through, but everything after? It was pathetic." Tayor could have struck her then, she wouldn't have even felt it. Taylor turned on her heel and started walking back. "We're done. Go home, Emma."

This wasn't...no. "Don't you walk away from me!" Her breath came quick, and light. She was the reason, and Taylor wouldn't…

In her moments of desperation, Emma had always fought, as if fighting itself defined her, set her apart.

There was nothing to fight here.

"I told you before," Taylor called back over her shoulder. "You lo-

-st."

Taylor stumbled and Emma blinked in confusion. A foreign feeling sprung up, hotly.

Emma ran.

Last edited: Sep 22, 2014

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Sep 22, 2014

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Sep 24, 2014

#953

Tarantula

That bright and early Saturday morning was a bit marred by spontaneous, temperamental spring showers falling from wispy gray clouds overhead. A small puddle had formed at the end of the driveway in the cracked, missing chunk of pavement and when the sun hit the grass just right, the entire lawn looked like a rainbow on a green backdrop. The rain had actually stopped falling before I had slipped on my sneakers, but the minute I had gone out to get the newspaper, I got dumped on.

Naturally.

I was really hoping that wasn't going to set the tone for the rest of the afternoon.

Dad thanked me quietly for the newspaper, instantly flipping to the business and economics pages. Things hadn't really gotten any better on that front but it hadn't gotten worse. I was grounded until my detention sentence was served, but it was more of an early curfew without TV. I'd live. The biggest change is that after yesterday, I think he was starting to listen.

Emma came over yesterday. To do...something, not entirely sure what. Apologize? It had ended on a weird note, but at least now I think I know what's up with her. I don't understand at all but I can say that I would spit on her if she was on fire.

It'd take me a while, but I'd do it.

The confrontation at the door had shocked something in my father; it was less my fault and now more his. So instead of him being disappointed and angry at me, he was blaming himself for not noticing and making me feel guilty because he was tearing himself up over what I hadn't told him.

Like I said, not any better.

The real problem was Emma wasn't lying. I was going to have to confront that and maybe I was a bit of a coward, but not to Lung. I wasn't afraid of her hurting me; I was afraid she wouldn't care. Yuka would be safer, or Bao, Noriko perhaps, depends on who I saw first.

Just thinking that as I headed to my room to put on my hoodie made me feel better about the whole thing. Obviously some would do, did do terrible things like what had happened to Emma. But Min wouldn't, Shinta had been pissed at the implication and I couldn't even imagine it of Bao. It really had nothing to do with anyone I knew at all.

I fished Bao's scarf, mine now I suppose, from the bottom of my backpack and wrapped it around my neck. I hid the gold dragon in the hood, leaving just the end with the Chinese characters hanging down.

When I came back down, I knew I barely passed inspection when Dad smiled weakly. He probably suspected what was on the other end of the scarf.

"Panacea?"

"I owe her lunch for healing me," I explained. I had money saved up from odd jobs over the summer, and I do mean odd like ferrying drinks back and forth among the work crews that built the community centers in the neighborhood. Most were dock workers down on their luck, not actually ABB which was the only reason Dad allowed it. "Hang out a little."

He stopped me, pulling out his wallet and handing me a twenty. I took it gingerly. "Treat yourself a bit," he said and tried to smile again. "Have fun."

"You don't need…?" Next month was collection month.

Dad's face hardened and he looked away. "No, it'll be alright." He cleared his throat. "Get going or you'll be late."

I was early, but I took the excuse. "See you later, Dad."

"Bye, kiddo."

Weekends at the Boardwalk were really unlike the weekdays. The throng of tourists was thick with rubberneckers and their cameras, families with small children buying toys, couples feeding seagulls and a bunch of us locals enjoying the atmosphere. The wooden platform was packed to the railing with the lines of moving people and I realized I probably should have anticipated the lunch time rush hour.

I grabbed a few mosquitos and directed them up above in order to use their eyes. While it wasn't a terrible idea, it didn't work as well as I'd hoped. Mosquitos do have rudimentary vision, but when it came to picking out one girl in a crowd, it was lacking. The devil was in the details.

I headed for someone I thought might be her and hoped for the best. She was standing by two blonds, a handsome sandy blond guy in a T-shirt and designer jeans and a bright blonde girl in a blue sundress. It wasn't until blonde number 2 turned so I could see her face that I realized who she was.

"Victoria Dallon?" I squeaked. Glory Girl. A really popular member of the now defunct New Wave team known as Alexandria Junior because of her power set, super strength, invulnerability, flight.

Way better than bug control.

She turned fully and her eyes narrowed. A sharp spike of fear rippled through me as she marched over, grabbed the front of my hoodie and hauled me off my feet.

"You hurt her, and you will regret it," she promised darkly.

I couldn't even open my mouth to speak, just nodded very quickly.

"Victoria!" Amy said sharply. I was set down but couldn't feel any relief. We had a small crowd of observers, making me feel like I was in the center of a giant spotlight in front of a judge and about to be found guilty.

Victoria looked me over and sniffed dismissively. The fear faded. "Just making sure…"

"I love you and all," Amy said gently. "But I can take care of myself."

"Amy -"

"No buts," the healer cut her off. "I'll prove it if I have to."

The boy stepped forward with a winning smile, holding out his hand for me to shake. "I apologize for her, she's protective. Dean. No harm done?"

Dean was very good looking, which just made me feel self conscious in my jeans, hoodie and bruised face. I shook his hand firmly to make up for any staring on my part, there was nothing I could do about feeling ugly. "Taylor."

"This is a 'thank you' lunch," Amy told her sister.

"Right," I jumped in, eager to get back on Glory Girl's good side. I had no idea how I'd gotten on her bad one. I double checked my scarf, no problems there. "For healing me," I realized I didn't look healed. "Before."

Amy gave me an amused, exasperated look with raised eyebrows. She raised a hand and pointed on her face where I knew an angry bruise decorated mine.

"School," I sighed.

This time, Victoria's eyebrows jumped. "The hell do you go to?"

"Winslow."

All three of them nodded, as if that made perfect sense and explained everything. Winslow High was notorious it seemed, perhaps even the bogeyman of high schools. Don't behave, you might get sent to Winslow. I hear they have gang members wandering the halls during free period.

"Is it really bad?" Amy asked hesitantly.

I shrugged. "It's getting better."

That mollified her somewhat. "Can we have lunch now, Vicky or are you tagging along?"

Victoria looked like she wanted to do just that in order to keep a hostile eye on me, but when she met her sister's stare the golden girl deflated. "You used to love having me around," she pouted childishly, bottom lip sticking out and quivering. Dean flicked that lip and she scowled at him.

"I still do," Amy rushed to assure her. "But…"

"But you got a shit ton of new friends now, I get it." She gave me the stink eye as if I was personally to blame. "We'll be at the movies, just call me if you need anything. Anything, okay?"

"Like always," Amy smiled back. Then she hooked her arm into mine and started dragging me away. "Vicky means well," she said lowly. "Alright if I chose the place?"

The proverbial piggy bank winced.

"Sure."

Amy chose a decent cafe that was on the shoreline. The wooden platform swelled to a roundabout with a small lily garden in the middle and benches around the outside. It was built on a concrete lip hanging over the water on the far side and a chalkboard stuck onto the wall by the door boasted the lunch specials. It wasn't as popular as Fugly Bob's further down, mostly because it wasn't as cheap, but it wasn't bad.

"Done," she said as I held the door open for her and she pulled away. "Your face will feel a bit weird, I had to clear out your bruises, but good as new."

I smiled experimentally. "Thank you. I mean that, you're awesome."

Amy preened.

The Union cafe was one of the oldest structures on the Boardwalk and it showcased it with pictures of dockworkers and boats like it was a history exhibit dating back to after the second World War. The tables were polished dark wood with sand and seashells in the center under glass and the chairs were metal clams with pearl colored cushions. The small menus were prefaced with an old school advertisement for the ferry which made me smile a bit.

With any luck, that'd be up and running again.

Amy ordered a cod meal for herself and after a bit of mental math, I got the same.

"How's your mother doing?" I asked hesitantly. I regretted it when Amy's face went carefully blank as she unfolded a napkin.

"No change."

"Sorry to hear that." I was also sorry for asking.

Amy seemed to know what I was thinking, smiling. "Everyone asks eventually, it's okay, really. We're getting through it."

"Your sister seems...nice," I scrambled for something else to say.

Amy scoffed. "She's vain, self centered and a big cry baby." Her face softened. "She's also extremely protective of me, loves helping people out and too optimistic for her own good." She leaned over the table on her arms. "Do you have any siblings?"

"Only child," I told her. I honestly can't remember ever wishing I had a brother or a sister. Mom and Dad had been enough for me. Then, you know, who I thought was my best friend. It was beyond strange to think about now, with the large heaping of pity and abstract interest.

"Aggravating a lot of the time," she rolled her eyes. "But I wouldn't give Vicky up for the world."

We talked about things, relaxing and taking our time. The food was good. I wasn't much of a fish person but it didn't smell or taste fishy which already made it a million times better than any other fish I've eaten. Amy was easygoing, letting the conversation lapse when I couldn't think of anything to say right that moment, picking it up again without hesitation when I did. She was a great listener and just seemed comfortable in a way I was a bit envious of.

We covered school, family and super-heroing which led to a bit of an experiment.

"Got it?"

She clamped her hands around the fly and nodded. I let go of it and Amy gasped. "Wait, take control of it again." I glanced around for onlookers and did so. Her brows furrowed. "I thought you were piggybacking on their nervous system, and you kind of are…"

"But?"

She looked up at me. "But it's a part of the nervous system I'm pretty sure doesn't actually exist. Normally." I raised my eyebrows. "I need to get my hands on a bug you haven't touched at all I think, but if I'm right you aren't just controlling them. You're changing them. Look, if I do this…"

Pain instantly exploded in my head. I couldn't back out of the fly fast enough.

"Okay," I gritted out. "That hurt."

Amy had a guilty expression on her face. "I'm so sorry! I should have- bio-feedback, I wasn't thinking. Really wasn't thinking, I -"

"I thought I'd find you two here," Lisa's voice approached the table. I blinked the tears out of my eyes as she pulled out a chair and sat in it like she owned the table. "Don't mind me, dropping by."

She held out her hand and Amy let go of the fly. She hesitated, but then I saw the recognition as she remembered who would be 'dropping by.' "Um…"

On the other side of the table, I was in the perfect position to see the blood drain from Amy's cheeks the moment their hands touched.

"Lisa." She pumped the healer's hand once and had a wan smile on her face. "And yeah, that's about what I thought."

Last edited: Sep 24, 2014

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Sep 24, 2014

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Sep 25, 2014

#981

Tarantula

"Do you want the good news or the bad news?" Amy asked faintly. Her hand was locked onto Lisa's in a death grip, as if she was afraid of what might happen if she let go. I stomped down on my urge to answer for her, the bad, because I had the really sinking feeling that there was going to be a lot more of it.

"Good news," Lisa replied.

"Minor bad news first: detoxing is going to suck."

Lisa smirked. "Knew that."

Amy took a deep, fortifying breath. "But," she drew out. "I can be with you every step of the way to help with the withdrawal symptoms: It would just take a few minutes to clear out most of your nervous system and if you give me…" she paused, getting a far off look in her eye. "An hour? I can make something that will help with the neurotransmitters and receptors in your brain. The cravings will be intense."

"I thought you couldn't do brains?" I could have hit myself for asking the moment the last word left my mouth. If, for whatever reason, Amy could get over that limitation in a bid to help someone, the last thing I wanted to do was argue against it.

"Lifestyle choice," Lisa answered for her and then her eyebrows rose as she looked at Amy. "Temporary lifestyle choice."

"Heroin is an opiate." I shouldn't have, but I winced at hearing what exactly Lisa was hooked on. "It's all chemical. I'm not touching her brain," Amy said resolutely, jutting her chin out a little. "It's just…"

"Proxies." Lisa finished for her. And then with a bit of a morbid flair, "Like a nail gun. Can't trust yourself to punch it in straight, use a tool to do it for you."

Amy went quiet and then cocked her head. "Thinker?"

Lisa wiggled the fingers of her free hand mystically. "Psychic."

Her lips thinned to white lines. "How did this happen then?"

Lisa was aggravatingly nonchalant as she started folding a napkin one handed. "At gunpoint. Don't recommend it." She shrugged, tucking a wisp of blonde hair back underneath the beanie cap she was wearing. She was dressed for a day out, like Amy was, and hopefully it just looked like three teenage girls catching up. "Hit me."

"You have devices at even intervals along your spine," Amy said in monotone, detached. "The lowest one is above the hip, the uppermost is imbedded on the inside of your skull. There are filaments attaching them to each other, five in all."

Lisa chewed her lip thoughtfully. "If I had to guess, they all have to come out at once. Break a line, I go boom."

"Do you think it has sensors to tell if it's being removed?" I asked anxiously, feeling my fish lunch roil in my stomach.

"Oh yeah, he's kind of a paranoid bastard," Lisa waved it off. "Not movement, or else he'd risk losing me to yoga class but environmental? How big we talking here?"

"It's on the inner right side of the vertebrae." Amy drew a small square on her napkin. "An inch at most?"

"Not a lot of room there," Lisa murmured. "But then again, fucking tinkers."

"A tinker did this to you?" I cut in. I couldn't think of any Brockton Bay tinkers. Leet was gone and I really doubted Kid Win or Armsmaster was responsible.

"Some crazy bitch he picked up, not important." She drummed her fingers on the table before waving away the waitress," Just a coffee cake, thanks," and tapping the toe of her sneaker against the table leg. "Can it be removed?"

"Yes," Amy said without hesitation. "Safely is something else entirely."

"So I need to figure out what the trigger condition is. And maybe what kind of bomb, because I'm actually kind of curious."

"Really?" I asked dryly.

Lisa flashed me a smile. "Aren't you?"

"I know how we can find out," Amy spoke up and carefully, slowly let go of Lisa's hand.

"Setting it off on purpose doesn't count," she responded and subtly flexed her fingers underneath the table. "I mean, it's a bit counter-productive? And I would object. Strenuously."

Amy was undeterred. "We can just only intend to set it off."

I was completely lost by this point but Lisa sat up straight. She leaned forward and dropped her voice to just barely audible. "ABB has a precog?"

"They do?" I said, bewildered.

Amy gave us both a weird look, as if we had just asked her if the sky was blue. Then her face sunk as she realized what exactly she had given away on accident. "...yes."

"That explains so much," Lisa whispered hoarsely. "And Reggie's power doesn't…" A grin I could only describe as satanic stole across her face. She threw back her head and outright cackled like a villainous hyena from the Lion King. Amy and I exchanged looks. "Sorry," she sniggered. "But you just gave me something good."

"You're welcome?" Amy tried and then she continued, pleasantly, "If I find out that you used this against her, you won't have to worry about the bomb."

Lisa held up her hands in surrender. "I won't. So, do I get to meet her or what?" She snapped her fingers. "It's Snake, isn't it?"

Amy sighed. "Yeah, let me text my sister so she doesn't tear up the Boardwalk looking for me."

From my impression of Glory Girl, that was probably meant literally.

Lisa got her coffee cake and insisted on eating it there as if she wasn't pressed for time, and in a display of generosity paid the bill for the lunch. It wasn't until after I saw her set down the twenty dollar bill that I realized I had completely forgotten about the lunch box hidden under the bed. On one hand, the legality of it was questionable. On the other, money.

The real question was, what do I spend money liberated from a parahuman criminal mastermind on?

Lunch, movies and fifteen dollar coffee was my guess.

We exited the cafe carrying our beverages, iced coffee for me, Amy had sweetened tea and Lisa a soda as well as another coffee cake.

"You know soda dehydrates you?" Amy said lightly, amused. She headed north, which was straight to the ferry station and further up, the Docks. "That's the last thing you need right now."

"I'll make it up later." She took a big gulp from her blue straw.

"No, you won't."

"Yeah, I won't." She agreed, exposing the lie for what it was. "I'm allowed to make terrible health decisions."

Amy sobered. "Were the drugs one of them?"

Lisa didn't take offense. "Didn't have a choice with that either. It's 'candy' to Reggie, too young to know any better. Went cold turkey once," she looked down at the ground and took another obnoxious slurp of her drink. "For reasons. Couldn't keep it up. So!" She chucked the cup, half full into the nearest garbage can. "Where you taking us?"

Amy's eyes drifted back to her cell phone and her thumb scooted along the little keyboard. "The ferry station. Asking a friend to give us a ride."

"Friend?" Lisa tucked her coffee cake bag underneath an arm. "Boyfriend." Amy frowned at her and she corrected herself, "Not boyfriend, but dating. Trying to date but you're both hopeless."

Amy hit the send button dejectedly. "Does she do this to you too?" she asked me.

"Yup." I popped the 'p' and grinned. "Part of her charm."

"Don't you know it!" Lisa barked out a laugh. She draped an arm over my shoulder a bit awkwardly, seeing as I was taller. "For you I'm seeing someone tall, dark and Asian." She tugged at my scarf. "Maybe wearing one of these?" I flushed and that smug grin spread over her face. "Bingo."

'And Bao was his nameo,' my brain rhymed. I palmed my face and futilely tried to purge the jingle. If it was making me think stupid things, then I really had it bad. Talk about a hopeless case.

"You're very carefree," Amy observed.

"Live with doom over your head for a few months and you either get used to it or go crazy. And by the way," she waited until we passed a giggling couple before saying anything. "Proper introductions. Tattletale."

Amy's mouth made a small 'o'. "Just Amy."

"Oh," Lisa began knowingly. "I don't think you're just anything." She mimed zipping up her lips and throwing away the key. "I can keep secrets. Sometimes."

"Do I want to know?" I asked.

Amy hunched her shoulders. "You really don't."

I let it drop. "Gotcha."

The look the healer gave me was brimming with relief and so much gratitude for not pushing that I honestly felt terrible for being curious in the first place. Amy didn't owe me anything and even if Lisa had ferreted something out with her bullshit power, the former New Wave healer was entitled to a few secrets.

As we kept walking the number of people on the Boardwalk thinned. It swelled again once we got near Fugly Bob's but further down the beach was dead in comparison. By the time we reached the ferry station, there was no one else in sight.

Amy's phone buzzed shortly after we got there and she checked it. "He'll be here in a minute."

I looked up and down the sandy stretch for a car. Lisa eyed her cake bag, visibly mulling through the pros and cons of eating it now versus saving it until later. Amy bounced on her toes, full of nervous energy.

Behind us, there was a sudden ripping sound like someone had gotten a hold of a plastic bag and pulled.

"Mask!" Amy shrieked. "I said bring a mask!"

"Forgot," a male voice said timidly.

Her head hit the side of the ferry booth with a dull thump and a disgusted groan.

Amy's not-boyfriend was ridiculously pretty. If it wasn't for the long sleeve shirt with a symbol that looked like a gate on it that didn't hide his Adam's apple or pectoral muscles, it would be easy to mistake him for a pretty girl instead. His hair was black and straight, tied up in a high ponytail and spiked gauge earrings. Pretty boys didn't do it for me but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't just the tiniest bit incredulous at meeting a guy who could outdo me on the feminine scale.

"...everyone knows already," he was saying.

Amy thumped her head again. "No, not everyone knows but if you keep doing stuff like this, then everyone will know."

"Bad thing?" he ventured.

Amy held up a finger and paused. I could see where some of the dissonance was coming from, a publically known unmasked hero lecturing someone else on keeping their identity hidden. "You are so goddamn lucky everyone here has powers," she said instead. "Be more careful next time." She waved a hand at us. "Taylor and Lisa." Then swept her hand back and growled out, "Shinta."

"New trigger?" Lisa asked sympathetically.

"Trigger?" I repeated.

"Bad day. Get powers." The blonde explained tersely. So there was a name for the kind of shit I went through. I didn't know whether to be relieved that it was a known thing or horrified. Did that mean that all of them here went through something just as bad? Or worse?

"Been a few months," Shinta shuffled on his feet. "You guys needed to go somewhere?"

"You're Amy's chauffeur?" Lisa smirked.

"Glory Girl Express Airlines only has room for one passenger," he quipped. "I don't mind, good practice."

The sister of the aforementioned Glory Girl fluttered a hand in the air. "You mean you can't say no when people ask you for trivial stuff."

"Right," he agreed easily. "Like fetching your purse."

Amy whirled on him. "That was different and you know it!"

"And what about the time you called me at Min's sleepover because you forgot that you left Mister Stu-"

I was treated to the sight of Amy Dallon moving so fast I thought she had a Mover rating as she slapped her hand over his mouth and quickly said, "Nope! You lose your talking privileges."

Lisa looked like she wanted to squeeze Amy's cheeks and thoroughly embarrass her. "Teddy rabbit?"

Shinta looked at her in surprise and pried the hand off his mouth. "How'd you know?"

"Psychic." I was getting the feeling she liked delivering that line a little too much.

Amy threw her hands up and stalked off towards the water. "Let's get going before I hurt somebody."

We all followed her at a more sedate pace. The clouds were finally beginning to clear up leaving a wide expanse of blue. It was low tide, just starting to shift, the water creeping up further and further up the sand bank with each wave that rolled in. I tried very hard to keep my power's sticky fingers out of the crabs I could sense.

Lisa glanced at Shinta out the corner of her eye. "She give you the 'it's not you, it's me' speech yet?"

He nodded. "Twice."

"Giving up?"

"Never." Shinta frowned thoughtfully, gazing at Amy's stomping figure. "She saved my mom."

The blonde smiled softly at that. "Atta boy."

Amy slowed down, letting us catch up. She puffed a bit, her cheeks red and sand all over her sneakers. "Forgot to say," she sucked in a breath. "Snake's. For where we were going."

Shinta shrugged. "Cool."

With a tearing sound, the world warped. The beach spun and swirled like it was being sucked down a tube and in it's place, a suburban neighborhood was spat back out. In the space of a single step, I went from wet sand and pebbles to asphalt. My foot hit the suddenly unyielding ground hard.

Some girls want guys with cars. Amy had a teleporter.

"Should have warned you," Shinta said apologetically as I got up from a near stumble.

"It's fine." The ball of my foot tingled. At least I hadn't stubbed a toe. Amy, out of the blue, poked me in the cheek and the tingling vanished. I rolled my eyes and she stuck her tongue out at me.

"Can you do that to anywhere?" Lisa asked.

"I've got a limit of about a mile but yeah, even if I haven't been there before. Need direction though."

Her expression turned shifty. "Useful that."

"I guess?" He eyed her warily. "What are you thinking…"

"You know," she smiled. "Stuff."

I was thinking about 'stuff' right there along with her. A teleporter was huge tactically, even for something simple like port in, grab Coil and port out into custody before he knew what was happening. Or if that wasn't possible, getting in a huge force multiplier in the right spot, like a certain dragon., or rescuing the other hostages he had, or...it probably wouldn't be that easy, not by a long shot, but it was a start.

The house Amy led us to matched the others on the street. Two story, white with a gorgeous cherry wood door with diamond patterned leadlight windows. The driveway was a curved U leading up to the front door and then back out onto the street. The few flowers it had blooming by the front steps had Amy's fingerprints written all over them with bright, odd colors and bizarre shapes. Not too odd, but a little out there. Nothing an excuse of 'exotic seeds' couldn't gloss over.

This looked like south Brockton Bay with the bigger and brighter homes for the better off, but seeing as how much of southside was Empire-claimed, I doubted it. There were pockets around the downtown neutral zone of upper class neighborhoods, so we must be in one of them.

"Doesn't live in Dragon City, huh?" Lisa inclined her neck to look over the house.

"She's lived here for years." Amy hunted around the potted plants. "Her husband passed away a few years ago, so it's just her now."

Shinta stepped up and rang the doorbell just as Amy came up with a spare key. The door opened almost immediately.

"Annnnd...not pizza."

"Peter?" I blurted out.

Sure enough, Winslow's jersey number 17 stood in the doorway with headphones hanging around his neck and a fistful of dollar bills. This time his bracelet was a red, yellow and black coral snake and it looked brand new. Amy sighed and dropped the key back into a plant.

"Everyone's here, aren't they?"

"Pretty much." Peter nodded. "Tony's wrecking Kam at Mario Kart so bad. It's pitiful."

"That's because he cheats like a motherfucker." Shinta said dryly.

"All skill, man. Taylor, hey." He smiled with a curiously uninjured face. "What's up?" He moved aside for us to brush past him and scanned the road before pouting. "I'm hungry, damn it."

"What are you doing here?"

"Hanging out," he said in a Captain Obvious tone. "Speaking of, did Miss Dallon break the rules?"

"Miss Dallon did not!" Amy called back in annoyance from further in the house. I could hear Lisa snickering as she followed behind her. Shinta faded from sight with that violent sound, and then I heard his voice even further in the house.

Peter's eyebrows jumped as he put the money onto a small table by the door. "Okay then, welcome to the club." He held out his hand but before I could shake it, his arm rippled. "Browbeat."

Open, was my first thought. Very open. His question of Amy was probably a code of some sort, telling them what kind of guests were coming through but once I got the 'all clear' I was in. No questions asked. It wasn't some kind of ploy to gain my trust, I already had theirs. The scarf seemed uncomfortably warm around my neck. I tugged it free and let the gold dragon glitter in the light.

I shook his hand firmly. "Hachi."

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Sep 25, 2014

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Sep 27, 2014

#1,012

Tarantula

It only hit me how bizarre it all was after. A high school jock was shaking hands with school pariah because we were both parahumans and affiliated with a gang. Bizarre didn't quite cover it. Surreal. "Kam is here too?"

"Yeah," he said casually. "I met her first. Independent hero-ing and all that." He settled back on a cushioned wooden bench by a mat for shoes and coat rack. Sneakers I thought were his sat on the floor by him, black and red Air Jordans. "Independents don't last long. Made sense to join up."

He said it completely matter-of-factly, giving me the impression that it actually was the entire story. He weighed pros and cons, maybe talked to a few people and then made his decision. Cut and dry. Done. "Why not join the Wards?"

"Thought about it," he admitted. "They were giving my parents some pitches. But," he wiggled his sock covered toes. "Losing team."

You don't become a hero to win, was my first thought but it rang hypocritical. Hadn't I done the same thing? If winning wasn't the point, I'd be rubbing shoulders with Gallant or Clockblocker right now.

"Makes sense," I said instead.

He smiled a little. "Thought so too. Main room is straight ahead, right? But if you're going to wander around, shoes have to come off."

"Oh!" I bent down and started untying my laces. "A cultural thing?"

"If beating your ass 'cause you tracked mud on the mats is cultural, sure."

"Speaking from experience?" I teased him, feeling a little unsure of myself poking fun at someone else.

Peter let his jaw slacken, putting on a comically haunted expression. "There was no winning that day." His stomach chose that moment to gurgle loudly. He clutched it and moaned, "I give up. There's a doorbell, they can use it. Raiding the fridge."

He left the money where it was and I had to blink. It was a bit of a brain bender thinking of precognition. Did Snake know she would be meeting me before I did? Did her disapproval stem from what she saw me do in the future? Did she already know she was going to say no, but made me show up on Pier 4 anyway?

Regardless, it was likely that no one was getting away with anything in her house so something like leaving twelve dollars on a table? Trivial. If anyone was going to take it, Snake would know before the theft even happened.

Just thinking that; we were here to find out what would happen if we set the bombs along Lisa's spine off without actually doing so made me feel strange.

"Where can I find Snake?" I asked before he left the foyer. Peter gave me a one-armed shrug.

"Through the main room to the right, out the sliding glass door. She's usually on the porch."

I swallowed some of my anxiety. Everything was going to be okay. "Thanks."

"No problem and hey," he turned back and slugged his cheek in slow-mo. "You got Emma good."

I laughed.

I had to admit, there was nothing on the outside that would have prepared me for what Snake's interior decorating looked like. The classic white of the outside siding had been shuffled away in exchange for walnut colored wallpaper that had borders of moss green with silver scrawling writing. Sanskrit?

Color was on everything from the mats that dominated the floor, to the oil paper banners hanging from the ceiling. The furniture was all polished wood with scrawling, carved designs and the chairs were square and utilitarian. Eclectic murals hung on the walls with images of what might have been Buddha and the main room had what looked like an honest to god tiger pelt throw rug.

"Is that real?" I said outloud. It even still had it's teeth showing through a gaping maw. The thing was huge, easily six feet across and the skinned legs with claws were splayed out at its sides. I nudged a foot with my toes. The claws alone must have been about four inches long.

Shit.

I was suddenly very glad it was just a rug.

"Getting it through customs must have been a bitch."

I jumped and whirled around, heart in my throat as if I had transplanted myself into the depths of an Indian jungle where tigers were alive and one was stalking me.

Kameswari stood behind me holding a blue plastic bowl, popcorn halfway to her mouth and eyebrows raised. She had on a similar tunic and pants combo that Min's mother had worn, except with a plunging V neck that could be tied closed. She left it open. Cue bust envy. Amusingly, she had little Taj Mahal earrings. "Jumpy," she observed.

I waved a hand at the rug. "Teeth and claws." I looked back at it, the eye sockets had a resin stand-in of pale yellow and slitted pupils underneath angry brows. That snarling mouth could probably swallow my head. "And teeth."

Kam smiled her little, subdued smile and finished popping the popcorn in her mouth. She didn't have Kali's symbol on, which made me wonder. Did she only declare herself when she went out?

"Why does she have a tiger rug?"

"It's neat?" Kam offered as an explanation. "Snake's from Tibet. Something rich people do over there, I guess. The snow leopard one is upstairs."

Nothing like the preserved corpse of a giant, vicious cat to get the conversation going.

"Amy invite you?" Kam asked.

"Yeah, we're friends." I think. I hope. I opened my mouth to ask what her cape name was, but thought better of it. If every parahuman had one of those 'triggers,' worst day of their lives in order to get powers it was probably better I don't go digging. Kam didn't seem nearly as upfront as Peter and I didn't want to push my luck. I had no way to be one hundred percent sure she even was a cape. Maybe she and Browbeat had a sidekick thing going on.

Still, like Peter, her face was free of any blemishes like the split lip I could have sworn she sported in the meeting with the principal. I was briefly jealous. Being able to heal myself would have been amazing.

"Thank you," I choked out.

"Hmm?" Crunch. Crunch. Went the popcorn.

"For what you did with Sophia," I explained. I didn't know what would have happened if it hadn't been for the blue jello, but I knew it couldn't have been anything good.

"She had it coming." Kam's smile took on a slant. "Don't mention it."

"Did Amy heal you?" That was subtle enough, I thought.

No dice.

Kam shook her head. "Heal fast."

I stared at her with a bit of irritation. She really wasn't making this easy for me. It wasn't that I felt entitled to knowing, but I was really hoping that she, what, trusted me? Liked me enough? I didn't know so I dropped it entirely.

An older guy walked into the room with reading glasses tucked into the U collar of his shirt and crew cut brown hair, snagged the popcorn bowl from Kam's unresisting hands and walked out. "Hey newbie," he called back, breaking the awkward non-conversation we were having.

"Who was…?"

"Tony." Kam smiled. "You get used to it."

I could remember Peter mentioning that name before. "Mario Kart?"

Kam looked a little frustrated as she brushed a hand through her long hair. "He's playing Shinta. I volunteered to get the popcorn so I could finally stop losing."

"It's Mario Kart," I said. I wasn't one to play video games but I could vaguely remember the television commercials of brightly colored go carts driven by cartoon characters. It really wasn't what came to mind when I thought of 'competitive' or 'challenging.'

"Yeah, well, it's Tony."

Behind me, quick footsteps rushed up and I turned in time to see Amy slide along the wooden floor in her socks past the glass covered cupboards and low table expertly. She did that a lot I see. "We're about to start, did you want to…?"

"Yes!" I nearly yelled. There was no way I was sitting on the sidelines now. I felt like I had invested too much into it to not see it through, like to do otherwise would be passing off the responsibility. I knew Lisa wouldn't appreciate me thinking like that, of her as something I was responsible for but I couldn't help it.

"Something going on?" Kam asked.

"Saving someone," Amy was very confident, head held high. "We might need Peter, can you get him?"

The Indian girl nodded. "Right."

"Last I heard, he was getting food." I volunteered, then to Amy, "What would he be doing?"

"Modeling. His body is fascinating and he has no problems showing it off," Amy said dryly. My jaw dropped.

"What?"

"Just like my sister; that was too easy," Amy grinned. "Come on!"

I followed her, cautiously hopeful.

Snake's porch was actually an outdoor extension of the house itself. The sliding glass doors opened onto a lopping walkway that was closed off from the outside was full length windows and the walkway itself was covered in the same wood flooring used inside. The upper fifths of the windows were separated with latches so air could be let in but they were currently shut. The entire thing showed off the spacious backyard garden and curled around an old oak in the center. Just walking through was calming.

Snake herself was at the outermost center point on the loop, by one of the windows that had a handle and door frame leading down black stone steps. Surprisingly, Nabiki was seated a little ways away at a low table with a cup of steaming tea. She looked, well, better was subjective; she still looked like she wouldn't mind if everyone in the world up and died tomorrow but she'd been cleaned up some.

Lisa was outside, pacing.

Snake looked me over, still with that bland smile on her face. "Got what you wanted, did you?"

I was highly tempted to just flip her the bird. "Happy now?"

"No."

Saw that coming.

"Are you helping at least?" I spat out. It was probably uncharitable of me, but one thing I could do very well was hold a grudge. Ironically considering his temper, Dad was a forgive and forget kind of guy. My tendency to stew came from Mom.

"Why would I not?" Snake asked rhetorically as she stepped outside and used her cane to get down the stairs. That dissonance jolted me out of my negativity.

"Why hasn't Amy healed you?"

"I did not wish her to," Snake said. "I earned this wound. I would remember it."

We all gathered by a weeping willow tree with bright yellow lilies blooming at it's base. Lisa was rubbing her hands together, outwardly looking calm. I fidgeted and prodded a fly into making a suicidal strafing run underneath some flowers where a starving spider was waiting in its web.

Peter trailed off the porch with his socks folded together and stuffed into a pant pocket leaving him barefoot. "What's up?"

"Bomb disposal," Amy said.

"And I was having such a nice day," he quipped. "Pizza finally arrived. They were late, didn't charge me a dime."

"Are you always so detached?" I blurted out.

Peter just gave me this patient look before shrugging the question off. "What am I doing?"

"It's basically a set of implanted bombs along her spine," Amy explained. Lisa waved. "There's one on the inside of her skull too and they are all connected. And, uh, you've been blown up before so…"

"Not my best moment," he cracked a grin. "Dense bone, dense as I could make it around the bombs. Guessing breaking the connections are a bad thing?"

"Very," Lisa said tersely.

"Right, so, here." He held out his arm and Amy laid a hand on it. "You want to shape the explosion out so spongy on the outside and all the rest like this." I couldn't see any visible changes in his arm but that was to be expected with bone deep changes. "Got it?"

"The main problem is we think it's monitoring her vitals, maybe the electricity going through the spine?" Amy chewed on her bottom lip. "So I need to build artificial nerves and power them."

"Go the whole shebang," Peter said. "Give it a pulse just in case."

"Heart, nerves, I like the hexagonal patterns in the hardened marrow there."

"Thanks."

"Focus," Lisa pleaded. "Don't keep a girl in suspense. Yay or nay?"

Amy smiled and reached out with her other hand. Lisa grasped it tightly. "I'm going to dull your pain receptors in that area, alright?"

"Right." Lisa blinked rapidly. "Okay."

Amy took a deep breath. "I'm going to do what we just talked about and make a set of secondary organs to trick the sensors. and encase it all. Then we can pull it all out at once."

"Or transfer it," Peter volunteered.

Lisa nodded and for a moment, I could have sworn there were tears in her eyes. "I'm ready."

Amy's face darkened. "If I ever get my hands on who did this to you…"

The next few minutes were nerve-wrackingly tense. Lisa's back bulged in a line of growths like something was hatching underneath the skin complete with audio of squelching and shifting flesh. I swallowed my lunch back down.

Snake looked on passively.

When that was done, a solid, fleshy column running down the length of Lisa's spine, Amy breathed," And now for the one in your head. Just going to move it."

A part of Lisa's scalp sunk and twisted slowly.

"Drink a lot of milk after this," Amy whispered.

"I'll do anything you want," Lisa replied.

Amy's smile was distracted. "Moving it ou-"

"Stop."

Every one of us froze.

Peter chuckled weakly. "We just died a horrible death there, didn't we?"

Snake frowned as she leaned heavily on her cane. "You'll need to make it resistant to burning. It's a chemical explosion of some sort, creating corrosive fire."

Amy nodded. "Doing."

"Fire?" Lisa said suddenly. She looked around as if seeing where she was, who she was with for the first time. "Oh fuck."

There was a blink of bright light barely seconds later, before the whump of an explosion slammed into my chest along with pain, and fire. I felt it strike my arms and shoulder, and then the burning started as my clothes ignited where it hit.

I felt fabric burn all the way through until it reached my skin and I felt it melt from the heat. I heard a loud, tortured scream as I landed on my back and rolled, trying to put the fire out, dimly wondering who was screaming. I managed to scrape off the worst of it as I frantically rolled, leaving smoking patches of glowing white that still hissed and burned as they melted small divots inside a ring of burnt grass. I only saw what looked like a metallic sheen to the burning substance.

I looked up and around, hoping, everything seemed to be burning. The leaves of the willow above us crumbling into ash. I could see Peter, the skin on his hands blackened. Amy and Snake. Lisa.

That person was still crying.

It wasn't until I took a strangled, horrified breath and it stopped that I realized the scream was coming from me.

Lisa didn't make a sound as she fell. A puppet with its strings cut.

Last edited: Sep 27, 2014

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Sep 27, 2014

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Sep 29, 2014

#1,161

Tarantula

I reeled for a few seconds; hundreds of me were dying, smothered in smoke and heat. I couldn't remember when I had grabbed them. I kept the survivors because they were survivors. The spider I had fed earlier was gone. Putting my feet under me was as much trial as it was error. Pain washed over me from my arm in waves. I refocused on Peter's back, his hands, and then he turned.

His shirt was cooked into his skin. He took the brunt of it, standing at Lisa's side and incidentally blocking me from the worst of it. I could see the red fibers sticking out of blackened patches and the skin on his hands were literally flaking off. He hissed, long and loud, moving gingerly and he blinked with reddened eyes.

"Not fire proof enough," he croaked. His lips cracked and blood dribbled down his chin. His skin rippled and pushed white hot metal fragments out. "Fuck."

Amy let out a short, pained cry, choking on it.

She'd been directly in front of Lisa and the explosion was directed away, but just from the proximity alone… Her skin was reddened, already puckering into angry red blisters in some places. There were patches the color of ash and sagging on her hands. Tears were coming thick and fast down her cheeks. Peter staggered over to her. His face bleached under the reddening of his skin and she latched onto him, swaying. Her eyelids fluttered and she looked on the verge of collapsing.

"Amy," he called.

"It hurts," she whimpered.

"Someone you need to save." He knelt carefully, and Amy went down with him unable to stay standing. He grabbed her wrists behind the burns and laid them on cooler patches of Lisa's skin.

She jolted. "Oh God…"

"Use me," he said. The urgency in his voice galvanized Amy into action. He pressed both hands, flaking, onto Lisa's back. The flesh under his fingers looked more like overdone hamburger meat than a person and I bent over double, dry heaving. When I managed to raise my head again, he was buried up to his forearms somehow, the rest of his arms simply didn't exist past that point, fused.

"Breathe for her too," Amy said thickly. Peter's chest expanded grotesquely like a balloon as he took in a deep breath.

"- the fuck happened?" Shinta faded into sight by the house, eyes wide.

Amy's head jerked up and she blinked tears away. She started giving him urgent directions, "Get the blue, no green! Cap vial from the shoebox under my bed. Dallon house, second floor, third door on the right."

He didn't ask questions and tore away.

"Lacerations, internal bleeding, collapsed lung and it's bleeding too, her bones held, that's...that's good," Amy rattled off faintly. "God, she's burned so bad...she's lost so much of everything."

"Pulse?" Snake asked softly. She'd been the furthest away and just looked like she got a bad sunburn. The hem of her pants was in the process of catching on fire. I stared at the flaring embers but couldn't work up the energy to say anything.

Amy shook her head roughly. "Have brain activity," she said full of hope. "I modified her skull the most. Restarting heart, I need to -"

"The burns first," Peter warned. He spit a glob of blood to the side. Amy touched him briefly and the worst of his burns lightened. "Triage. Link our circulatory too, I'll make clotting agents."

"Already done, she...she wasn't getting enough oxygen…Taylor," Amy croaked. Her hands were taking on a leathery texture and were dark red, some of the blisters weeping as she moved her fingers. I thought about the amount of pain she must be in and felt my respect for her sky rocket. "Get sugar or honey, milk, anything like that."

I nodded even though no one was looking at me. "Where -"

"Backtrack to foyer, right," Snake told me. The woman had a thousand yard stare as she watched Peter and Amy work, seeing something else.

I scrambled back inside. The windows closest to the blast had fine spidering cracks. Nabiki was still sitting at the table with her tea, staring blankly at the smoldering patches of grass and withering tree. I snorted in disgust and kept moving. I passed by Kam who only spared me a glance before singlemindedly marching towards the porch. Little bumps were shifting underneath her skin.

Ha, I thought numbly. Knew it.

Tony was already in the kitchen with what looked like a first aid kit in his hands. "Outside?" He asked me.

I nodded again and felt like the most useless person in the world when I opened the refrigerator door. Milk. I grabbed a branch of grapes as well, then started rooting around on the countertop. There were two shakers filled with white crystals but neither had labels. I tossed my head back and shook one on my tongue.

Salt. I grabbed the other, identical one and headed back outside.

The scene that greeted me was a bit more crowded than before. Kam had an arm fused into Lisa as well. It fluctuated in size, going from healthy to having the muscle and fat stripped from it leaving an emaciated, skeletal limb before it recovered only for the process to repeat. Each time Peter looked a little better, Lisa gained a bit more. Each time, Kam grimaced with pain.

Tony was running water over towels from an outside tap. A damp cloth was thrown over the burning, metallic pile that had been thrown clear from the force of the explosion, the fleshy remains of its encapsulation sizzled.

Everything smelled like burning. Burning meat, burning grass, burning wood and a nauseating oil and latex smell over top. Ash particles floated in the air.

Shinta got back clutching a plastic specimen cup with a green top and yellow smiley face sticker on it like it was gold. It looked like it was stuffed with a molding wet paper towels.

"Put one on her," Amy ordered. He fished out the towel and laid it flat on Lisa's back. It had a long, burned furrow in it with raw edges. "Tony, treat Taylor with this."

He grabbed it and used a slim pair of silver scissors to cut the burned sleeve of my hoodie off. The towel felt like ice. "Easy there," he whispered. "Burns are nasty." He soaked a cotton ball with milk and let it dribble over the towel. I thought the mold moved.

"Are you a doctor?" I blurted out. Thinking was hard. I kept seeing the moment of the explosion over and over again. Replay. I was probably in shock.

For a moment, Tony's face fell. "Used to play one on TV."

"What do you need me to do?" Shinta asked Amy a bit desperately. I knew the feeling. The milk carton was starting to dent underneath my fingers and I set it down. Tony swiped it.

"Nothing here," Amy said tersely.

"Help put out the fires," I chimed in. He rushed off not even taking the time to walk, blinking between the pile of towels and smoking fires.

I crept forward with my groceries, paper towel medical taped to my arm and when I got the go ahead, poured the sugar on Lisa's back. The mold rapidly spread. It was like watching the sped up time lapse footage of multiplying bacteria. I could see it devouring the sugar. Amy dug a finger into the mold and it surged over the fuzzy confines of the damp fibers onto Lisa's burns. Then it burrowed in and seeped out of sight. The dead, burned skin began to dissolve.

Amy let out a slow breath. "Good thinking with the grapes. Crush one and put it on every minute or so," she told me quietly. "Kam, I - I forgot to dull the pain, I'm so sorry, I -"

"You're the one burned," Kam retorted and gently used her other hand to poke Amy in the forehead, who hissed. "You can't heal yourself, right?"

"Technically," Amy murmured. She held up her finger. "Grabbed a little for myself, I'll be okay." And then, painfully, "There's brain damage. Bleeding."

"Overpressure is a bitch," Peter confirmed. "I don't know if I'm helping there."

"You are," Amy said. "I...I just…" She froze up. "I can't."

For a moment, Kam and Peter simply stared at her. Mutely, Amy detached Kam and didn't meet anyone's eyes.

"Bullshit," Peter snorted loudly. I looked back over. "Try the other one. Has bells on it."

"You won't," Kam observed, frowning heavily. "Why?"

Amy's eyes darted over to Snake frantically, as if pleading for help. "It's too easy to change things," she defended herself weakly. "What if I mess up who they are supposed to be?"

"Bleeding." Peter pointed out. "In the brain. At this point, you could probably make her gay and she wouldn't give a fuck."

Amy flinched.

"One step, Amy," Snake spoke suddenly, reminding us all that she was still there. "Remember? One step at a time."

"I didn't code the bacteria for neurons," Amy murmured. Her face went blank as she stared down at Lisa. She reached out, quick, and pulled back shuddering. She curled into herself and got up. "Now it is. Paramedics on their way?"

Tony nodded. "Called them as soon as I could."

"Good. Excuse me."

She didn't walk away fast enough to stop us from hearing her cry.

I looked down at Lisa's unmoving body. I couldn't tell if she was even breathing. I didn't feel much anger. The fear was dulled. It would come back later.

I crushed a grape.

The aftermath was a certain kind of anticlimactic. The kind that prefaced a sequel where you weren't sure whether to get your hopes up or not and you were left hanging in an emotional limbo. I didn't know enough to feel relief just yet. I was sure there were worse things on the horizon.

"My mistake," Snake had admitted, sitting on her front doorstep. "Mistaking the effect for the cause. Nothing we did, a manual detonation."

"Manual?" I repeated. "Manual."

Son of a bitch.

The flashing lights of the ambulances on the street blinded me.

There were normal black and white police cars with their red and blue flickering light bars on the tops and the officers themselves worked to cordon off the house. Lisa was still unconscious and there was no telling when she would wake up, if she woke up. Peter had collapsed shortly after he got his arms back, mid joke. The paramedics had panicked at first, he still looked like a human flambe, but he was stable. Amy herself was stuffed in a gurney for second and third degree flash burns with Shinta hovering over her.

I hoped 'keeps ticking after being horrifically injured' was too vague of a power to out Peter.

Stupid thing to be worrying about.

Last I saw, Kam and Tony were still putting out fires in the backyard along with some police officers. The stuff burned stubbornly and clung to materials. We all could have died, burning to death. I could have died.

My hands trembled. The fear didn't come. Just lots of bugs, in the ground, in the air filling up the empty space in my head.

The paramedic at my side peeled off the paper towel carefully, hesitating at the slightest resistance to make sure none of it was sticking to the burn. When it finally came off, it looked a lot better. There was a depression in my skin covered with pink, raw new skin.

"Hmph, Panacea's work?" The woman smiled almost wistfully. "That girl…" She covered it with fresh gauze and antiseptic. "Eat lots of protein and take vitamin supplements for a few days, alright?"

I made the mental note and nodded. "Is Amy going to be alright?"

I was too much of a coward to ask about Lisa.

The paramedic patted my knee. "From what I could see, yes. A bit of painkiller, lots of food and therapy for her hands and she'll be right as rain."

"And Peter?"

"He…" she paused and pursed her lips. "He's hardy," she finished. "Has he always been…?"

It took me a moment to catch on that she was wondering if this was his trigger. I went with that assumption and shrugged. "Don't think so."

"Well." She glanced down. "Perhaps the PRT?" She tried.

I looked down as well and caught a slightly singed gold dragon staring up at me.

Oh.

Bao's scarf was sooty and burned straight through in some places. Tattered like it had waded through the Vietnam War with bits of grass and dirt clinging to it. I brushed it off absently. "Maybe."

The ambulance sirens started up again in stereo, one and then the second. I slid off the back of the third and watched the doors close on the others.

"If the burn starts to revert in anyway, pain, discoloration or even if it just looks funny, I would highly recommend going to the emergency room." The medic said sternly. "Burns are highly susceptible to infection."

"I'll get a check up," I lied. I wasn't in the mood for second guessing Amy's work.

They started packing up as the other ambulances pulled away. I could hear one of the police have a one sided argument with Snake, shut down by simple, uncomplicated and ultimately unhelpful answers. For once her customary crypticness didn't bother me. There wasn't much ordinary law enforcement could do about Coil.

As I turned my head, I noticed a red streak approaching from the other end of the road, a fast-moving one. I watched, too tired to do more. The streak slowed down until Velocity, one of the Protectorate, arrived at a light jog. He took one look at the proceedings and began speaking into what I assumed was a radio.

A shadow passed over me and I tiredly looked up to see a figure descend from the sky, and while that could have meant anyone, the sight of the shield being held in one hand as he came into a perfect 'three-point' landing confirmed that I had been watching Dauntless arrive.

I grudgingly gave him points for the showy touch down.

'And here come the heroes to save the day. Way too fucking late.'

"Too late," Dauntless said, as if he read my mind. He had a few trademark pieces of gear. His 'Arclance,' a spear he held in one hand that looked like it was made of white lightning. His shield was more of a buckler the size of a dinner plate but I had read that it projected a forcefield much larger than itself and his boots crackled with the same white energy. His costume was white and gold, heroic. His helmet was in the Greek style complete with mohawk and nose band.

The heroes talked to each other briefly in low tones. Velocity zipped off to round the house. Dauntless looked around. I could see his frown from where I was. Most of his face was visible, but the helmet obscured the shape of it and the top half dominated by the golden metal.

He spotted me and walked over.

I expected him to pump me for information first, see if I knew anything. I honestly wasn't sure what I was going to tell him. Instead he took in my burned hoodie and bandaged arm thoughtfully.

"Are you alright?"

I mulled over the question. "I will be."

He accepted that with a nod. "What can you tell me? Our jurisdiction?"

The PRT were basically the handlers of the Protectorate, so it was safe to assume Dauntless and Velocity would be submitting reports on this. A paper trail. On the other hand, if Coil was trying to be subtle he failed miserably. I made a split second decision, "Amy was trying to get a bomb out of a girl."

I let tears come to my eyes and Dauntless winced.

"She make it?"

I looked right at him. "No."

"I'm sorry to hear that," he said gently. "Do you know why she had an explosive in her?"

"Not by choice," I said a tad sharply. "I know that much. Amy is my friend, I was just here to…" Moral support? I faltered in my story and skittered a spider underneath the wheel of the ambulance. "She almost got it. Amy was hurt too."

Dauntless' face was completely blank. "Let me get this straight, someone is putting bombs in people?"

"Yes."

He turned away abruptly. "Christ." He turned back around, composed. "Are there any other details you could give me?"

"Not much." I actually did regret having to say that. Dauntless seemed like a decent guy. "Sorry."

He didn't give me empty condolences or bland platitudes, which was to his credit I felt. Just a simple, "Our failure, then." He sighed heavily and cradled his chin with his empty hand. "Bombs…" He gave me a solemn nod. "Thank you for the help and I'm sorry."

Velocity blurred back into sight a few feet away and Dauntless nodded at me again, and headed over. Snake's police officer stomped over to them spitting nails. After a few tense moments talking with the heroes, he began to calm down.

More cars showed up eventually. PRT vans and squad vehicles. Firefighters in their trucks. Bomb specialists, I could tell from the logo on the side of the armored vans and the bulky clothing they wore. Slower, but in a cape city like Brockton Bay there was a fine line between 'fast response' and 'heading into a cape meat grinder.'

Behind me the ambulance pulled away.

I inhaled and counted to ten. My Dad used that method sometimes in order to avoid blowing his top. I was hoping it would help me brace myself. I held it until I started getting light headed and let it all out in rush. I breathed in again.

Then I let go of my bugs.

For a moment, nothing happened and I almost laughed. Then I shuddered. Once. Twice. A creeping dread slithered up my spine and I saw the moment of the explosion again. One moment is all it takes and then you're gone. It wasn't anything like being in the dumpster, wondering, pleading if anyone was out there and if there was anyone that was going to save me -

It was watching someone else go through it, compressed into a blink of an eye and realizing I failed them.

The fear turned to anger.

I stomped right up to Snake, still on her front door step. "Lung has to know." I said simply.

"I agree," Snake murmured placidly. She looked at me. "And then?"

I already knew the answer to that question.

"I'm going to find Coil."

And nothing was going to stop me.

227

Shujin

Sep 29, 2014

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Threadmarks Interlude, Coil

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M. NightShujinlan

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Oct 3, 2014

#1,280

Interlude, Coil

In the dubiously credited words of Sir Winston Churchill, "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity, an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."

Coil would readily admit to being an optimist. Hope for the best while making a few preparations for the less ideal outcomes, the glass was half-full and the quarter would land on heads. It was easy to be positive, when one can choose their current reality.

In one, he was safely tucked away in his underground base, costumed, with no less than twenty armed soldiers between himself and multiple sets of blast doors rated for massive concussive force. A stalling tactic. He had spent his night following the news and checking his stocks. By all accounts, Richter had outdone himself. His specialty helped in making exponential leaps in progress and he was intelligent enough to take advantage of it. He and Dragon would be busy for the upcoming months. Good.

His location was on a need-to-know basis with those who worked for him. A full psychological report, background check and a few assurances for each, with one special case.

In the other, he was enjoying a mild Saturday afternoon in a restaurant downtown that had adequately spaced private booths, a fine wine list, and he had developed a particular taste for their basil-lime grouper dish. He was dressed nicely in a button-up shirt and dark-gray dress suit with a checkered silk tie. He chose one of the cheaper, palatable red wines and splurged a little with his dessert order of New York cheesecake. It was a carefully crafted image of a gainfully employed salaried business man, quintessential white collar.

The seat across from him was already set up with a beverage menu, forks and knives and a covered hotplate of lemon-pepper shrimp scampi. The napkin was still artfully arranged in its pyramid of creases and he waited.

His guest was a man in his late twenties although the stress marks on his face tended to increase age estimates. He wore khakis and a short sleeved button-up shirt with a plain blue tie. He moved carefully, as if expecting the very air to push back against him.

He sat down with a bit of a nervous twitch, running a hand through prematurely thinning dark hair and casting his eyes about the room. He lifted the lid from the plate and stared at his shrimp.

"Have you already eaten?" Coil asked.

"No, sir." The lid was set aside on the fold out tray sitting beside their table for that purpose. The green napkin pyramid was shaken out and a fork picked up as if it was a knife. Pause. "Did you receive my report?"

"Yes. Excellent work, Daniels. Prospects for this month are looking up," Coil praised. He was never sparing with compliments when they were deserved. To do otherwise was to invite resentment. He delicately speared a piece of fish and roasted tomato. "I trust everything is going well with your new supervisor?"

"She's not used to command but she has potential." Daniels followed suit and began eating. "I'm looking into other channels, see if we can't get some more transfers."

A schism, as with anything, weakens. Coil wished he could take the credit but at the same time, it was most of his work done for him. Marital problems; the prelude to the fall of an empire.

The lunch conversation continued, a boss and his subordinate. As far as Daniels was concerned, that was all it was. The name 'Coil' was a background detail. The man he was meeting was another like him, someone who had been contacted for a job. Innocuous phrases were used but not too many. The obscurity was hardly necessary, in many ways, it was just business. Cutthroat competition in a different medium and he was intent on coming out on top. Everyone had their price. It was only a matter of deciding if it was worth paying.

Daniels had a past that needed cleaning, a fresh start. Regrets, stubborn addictions. Whether it was a conscious acknowledgement or not, Brockton Bay was a city that everyone knew was already written off. But a chance at putting it under new management, stable leadership and working to subvert a criminal gang from within? Getting the papers signed was as easy as handing the man a pen.

Everyone had a hook, a vice or something they needed on a primal, desperate level. At times, they were unaware of it until it was brought out and nurtured, so it could later be hand fed. Those people who were driven by such things, that craving lurking close to the surface, were among Coil's favorite people. They came a very close second to the people who were useful and those who were both?

To do anything less than stockpile them as valuable assets would be criminally incompetent.

Coil was not incompetent.

Daniels didn't have dessert. Coil ordered a large cinnamon bun for him anyway. He had looked at the paper bag and it's pine green bakery logo with a thoughtful grimace but held on to it. As Coil knew he would. Daniels didn't have a sweet tooth.

Kayden Russel did.

Setting up covert agents was more than telling people to do something and hope they don't get found out. It was identifying the result you want, the best person who can accomplish that and then finding a close facsimile. Shore up the rough spots, provide a bit of motivation and then let them loose.

The Trojans celebrated their victory by wheeling the giant wooden horse into the gates of the city.

An elegant solution for a complicated problem.

He observed the cape scene of Brockton Bay much like one would peer into a cage of howling monkeys at a zoo. Detached; with the gentle amusement that came from watching lesser creatures go about their day in ways that are easily understood, a pleasant surprise. At times they flung poo at each other, costing the city hundreds of thousands of dollars repairing the collateral damage. They had their little playground and most couldn't see the rust on their gilded cage for what it was.

Max Anders was a snake in the cage of primates. Dangerous, but that danger was in the ideological poison. The man either broke his followers, or he made true believers of them. Of no use to anyone else either way.

Waste.

Prowling the corners was Lung. Coil would liken her to a tiger in the little analogy of his. The PRT kept their eyes on her, the more immediate, flashy threat and wore little masks shaped to look like a face on the back of their heads when they had to deal with distractions, as if simply watching meant she would do nothing.

He couldn't fault Emily for that, if he were to be completely honest. A kill order on an S-rank cape willing to 'play ball' was a very hard sell to Costa-Brown and anything less had a high risk of failure.

He had no such restrictions.

Coil's cheesecake arrived soon after he paid the bill and polished off the last of his grouper meal. It was topped with a few fresh strawberries and a moist sugary crust with slivers of almond baked in. The fork slid in smoothly and he lifted it to his mouth.

In the other reality, the phone in his underground office rang urgently.

The Coil there answered it. "What?"

"Sir, we have a situation." The crisp, military tones sank both of their stomachs. The bite of cheesecake was turning to ash in his mouth.

"Report." His other self barked into the receiver.

"Boardwalk spotted Tattletale leaving with Amy Dallon and another unknown individual. We just lost sight of her."

For a long moment, Coil was simply confused. His Tattletale wasn't an idiot even if she tried his patience on multiple occasions. He'd commissioned her device specifically for dealing with Panacea, on several levels. She knew none of the failsafes, none of the trigger conditions and this was far too reckless of her. She was a schemer and unless she managed to slip one by him, possible but unlikely, then this was exactly what it looked like.

"Lost sight of her how?"

"Unknown teleporter, sir."

Now that was a good girl. She was revealing new, vital information about ABB without even trying."I want eyes on her, yesterday."

"Yes, sir."

And his Tattletale wasn't dumb so that meant this had a decent chance of actually working somehow. His personal cell-phone was stubbornly quiet as he sat in the restaurant, mechanically eating his dessert as he waited in the other reality for updates.

He had hated the moments when he felt the most vulnerable, when he'd just started a fresh use of his power and his selves were too close to one another. He'd strived to keep both lives as separate as possible, made Choice A and Choice B distinct. He could still only choose one or the other. And here he was, downtown and at least a half hour away from the base in the civilian persona, carefully fabricated, eating cheesecake.

Choice A was to continue with his Saturday afternoon and risk his Tattletale slipping out from underneath his fingertips, and with her every scrap of information about him and his operations that she had ferreted out.

Choice B was to move early and spring the trap he had been priming her for. Neither were ideal.

And it all came down to the girl's irritatingly unfortunate sense of timing.

Coil palmed his face, checked his phone for any messages and finished his cheesecake. He got up and headed back to the parking lot, nodding in farewell to the manager of the restaurant and made a beeline for his off-white four year old Prius.

The Coil in his base got up and felt a rush of sensation trickle back into his feet. He padded back and forth and then sat down again. He keyed an intercom and the accompanying screen of a boy's bedroom, complete with blue wallpaper, legos and books as well as Mr. Pitter on standby for a calculated dosage.

Pitter was small, unassuming and ordinary. A registered nurse with an eight year record as a nanny and caretaker to a pair of very ill children. Had an absolute mess of a divorce, the kind where his loving wife employed scorched-earth tactics using allegations of child molestation. The woman disappearing and his name cleared were all he wanted. Both useful and bought with something stronger than currency.

"Reggie, I have a few questions for you." Coil spoke into the microphone.

Reggie looked up from his Lincoln Logs. Trailing on the left side of his neck and the back of his hands were pockmarked burn scars.

"Again?"

"The usual first."

"Five people know Coil's civilian identity. Seventy Two people know the primary entrance to this building. One hundred and thirty four people know the secondary entrance to this building."

The answers were the same as they had been that morning.

"How many know you are here?" He asked.

Reggie blinked. "Nine people."

"How many in this city know how to physically find Coil?"

"Two hundred and seven."

He turned the questions towards his ambitions. "Are my spies in the PRT compromised?"

Reggie stared at the screen for a moment and squinted. "No," he said eventually.

"Does Kaiser know what I am planning?"

The boy concentrated and few, faint traces of backlash bled onto his young face. "No."

"Does Lung know what I am planning?"

He bodily winced this time. "An...idea? Sort of?" He looked down, away from the lights. "Can I have candy now?"

Good enough. Coil collapsed the world where he had went out for lunch. That reality swiftly faded, leaving only the world where he drank far too much coffee staying up all night, needed a new office chair and had an unruly subordinate to deal with. Only the memory of cheesecake and strawberries on his tongue remained.

He went back to the phone. "You found her." It wasn't a question. His men were at least competent with a pair of binoculars and behavior patterns of targets were well documented. Where would Amy Dallon go with a problem? "Primary target is Panacea. Is she in close proximity?"

"Yes, sir. Extraction is commencing."

"Detonate."

Then he divided the realities once more, less than a minute between the erasure of one existence and the creation of another.

In one reality, he headed out of his office into the exterior wings of the base and down the metal staircase to the lower level. The base was still in development but nearing completion. Empty crates and boxes were being stacked, bunk beds for soldiers on call, a fully equipped medical bay, stocks and facilities for the kitchens, weapons. He could easily recall the two-dimensional blueprints, having spent hundreds of collective hours pouring over it and to see it taking shape had been a treasure.

He owned the company that had built the underground shelters in Brockton Bay and neighboring cities. Hiding the details on his base in-construction was a matter of intercepting information, paying with his own money and controlling what was reported and to whom. The boy's power was invaluable in making sure no-one noticed the disparity. A few words, exchanged bills and he relieved the burden of parenthood from someone who didn't want it. His best investment.

The only drawback was its sensitivity to the phenomenon known as Thinker Interference. Knowledge gained via the use of parahuman abilities never seemed to register quite right. That was where his Tattletale had come in handy.

His other self remained in the office with another screen, another intercom. "Bakuda."

The half-asian woman bent over her table jerked and swore profusely as something sparked. Coil tensed and eyed the screen suspiciously, waiting for reality to start warping. This was the reason she was off-site, far off-site and under 24/7 surveillance.

He didn't fancy a black hole in his base.

"What, what, what?" She scowled at the video screen. Bakuda's unmasked face was distinctive in that it subverted expectations. Unconventional. A bit darker-skinned into an ambiguous tone and pale blue eyes.

"I am moving up the schedule for your special projects. We move soon."

The woman's face split into a wide, almost manic grin. "Finally."

A promising response. In the other world he made contact with the captains of his troops, informing them of the changed schedule and ordering the beginning of several contingencies. Check the PRT reports, the hospital records, confirm the result.

"How soon can I expect you to be done?" He asked over the intercom.

Bakuda waved back at her lab. "The big one is already done. The others," she chewed on her lip and looked upward, running the estimate in her head. She had attended Cornell for two years before her Trigger for Chemical Engineering, 'dumb' was not a word that could be easily used to describe her. Other words fit more readily. "A week tops for all of them."

Bombs were not delicate problem solvers but with his 'jury rigged' delivery system they were superb for provoking a response.

"I have a few targets in mind."

The E88 would be easy to handle, getting easier by the day. The growing chasm in the gang between members and their relative frailty. Given the chance to run the Empire into the ground like cats scurrying after mice, the PRT had no choice but to take it. Their reputation was already in tatters, public opinion shedding percentage points each passing year.

Nitta Noriko was simply annoying to try to work around. So he wouldn't.

He entertained a brief fantasy of being able to land a preemptive strike before the transformation and having the glass statue as a trophy. The only problem would be where to put her. It wouldn't match the decor.

He'd figure it out.

Next on his list of capes to contact were Trickster and Grue. He didn't like interacting with people, especially not subordinates as important as the Travelers or Undersiders, without the ability to create or banish the reality if the discussion didn't go his way. Here, he was safe. His other self was with the troops updating priority targets, individuals to watch out for.

It was a momentary setback, now that he thought about it. He was already close.

One step at a time.

Just a little optimism.

Last edited: Oct 5, 2014

182

Shujin

Oct 3, 2014

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Threadmarks Silkworm

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Shujin

Shujin

M. NightShujinlan

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Oct 6, 2014

#1,310

Silkworm

It was more than thirty minutes, less than an hour since the bomb went off.

I couldn't give a better estimate than that because time seemed to stretch immaterial into flash cards of events. I didn't think I would be able to remember all of it, not even most of it after the fact because it kept being overwritten by fire. I thought I hated Coil before. I was wrong.

A black reflective square was waved in front of my nose and I looked up. My chin bounced off the heel of my hand as Tony's car ricocheted off a pothole.

"Did you want to call your parents?" Kam didn't have her seat belt on as she held her phone out and that bothered me more than I cared to admit. The combination of that and the phone made my stomach rebel.

I took the phone from her quickly. She flashed me a smile and turned back around in the front seat. We turned at an intersection. I watched a few cars pass by. When we had left, the police cordon had still been up extending into the road itself and blocking through traffic. Snake didn't drive, but Tony had his car in the garage and we had all piled in. Except Shinta. He'd gotten directions and then faded from sight.

I had left my burned-through hoodie at the house, borrowing a sweater Kam said was Peter's. I kept my scarf on.

Tony had a King Cobra hoodie, another example of a less than obvious allegiance marker. Kam was wearing that like it was hers, 50/50 ownership, which had made me look at both of them suspiciously. Something going on there? Maybe.

I fumbled with the phone, reminding myself that I wasn't the one driving so it should be alright. The pit of my stomach was full of glowing embers as I tapped my home phone number in on the screen. It picked up on the second ring.

"Hebert speaking," Dad said.

"Hey, Dad," I croaked into the speaker.

"Taylor!" I heard a lot of shuffling and movement before his voice came through again, thick with worry. "What's going on, where are you? Everything alright?"

"Dad! Dad, I'm fine," I was not fine. "I just - Can you come to St. Johns Hospital?" I closed my eyes. "Please."

I heard his breath stop. "What happened?"

My hand clenched painfully on the phone. I didn't want to tell him but at the same time it was almost guaranteed to be on the news and he would be at the hospital anyway. "T -There was a bomb." I licked my lips. "It went off."

It had been inside someone and she almost hadn't made it.

"What?" Dad said weakly, like he couldn't believe it. "Taylor, I - I'll be there. Hang on."

"Okay." It came out small and I took a shuddering breath. He hung up first which was good, because if he had waited for me to do it, it would have taken a very long time. I sat in the back seat, listening to the beeping dial tone for the rest of the trip. I'm not sure why.

We parked in the car park next to the Emergency Room entrance, a little red Ford sandwiched between a rusting pickup truck and an SUV. I handed Kam back her phone.

"Thank you."

"Don't mention it."

The parking garage was large and shadowed. Several ambulance vehicles were on standby with drivers either sitting inside them or pacing outside. One had a coffee and lit cigarette. Tony took point with quick, impatient steps. Snake was also fast on her feet, in spite of her limp, more determined than anything. It gave me the impression that it simply didn't matter if there were doors or not, she was going. Kam followed, tucking her phone back into the hoodie pocket and I trailed behind.

I felt self-conscious, like just being here was going to invite bad luck or bad news and as I approached the automatic doors, the urge to turn around and walk away itched. I beat it down. The doors separated with a hiss and I stepped past them before I lost my nerve.

The receptionist in hospital scrubs at the L-shaped front desk looked at us with pity. Peter and Amy were in patient rooms, but Lisa was still in critical condition. No estimate on when that would change, for better or worse.

"I will see Amy," Snake declared at the same time Kam started with, "Peter should…"

Kam paused but Snake had already begun walking off. "Right...okay then. We're splitting up?" She looked at me quizzically. I hesitated but the truth was, I was more emotionally invested in Amy than Peter right now. He would likely be up and about soon but Amy's hands had been in pretty bad shape and she couldn't heal herself.

"Yeah," I tried to be casual about it. "See you two later."

Amy's patient room was on the third floor on the other side of a closed walkway bridge that connected two of the hospital's campus buildings together across the main road. St. Johns hospital was built to fit the vision of what Brockton Bay used to be, just as much form as it was function with neatly decorated walls and a lot of windows looking out over the city. It was meant to look like a flourishing city's hospital but like everything else, a bit of the strain was starting to set in.

The doctors and nurses that bustled past us looked harried and in some cases, exhausted. Understaffing was a major problem in both of our hospitals. Shortage of people with the education and training, shortage of people in general. Brockton Bay was the place to move out of, if you could.

I wasn't sure if it was this one, or the other, older hospital in another part of town that Amy volunteered at when she was still going by Panacea, but I was sure she was missed.

On the other side of the bridge and past the fire doors, I started taking note of the numbers on the rooms but soon enough I didn't need to. Amy's voice came from down the hall and to the right and it was angry.

"For the last time I am not ABB. I didn't join a gang and I never will. Why do you keep thinking I did!?"

The answer I tentatively pegged as coming from her sister, Victoria. "You're always sneaking around, we don't hang out anymore, you're always with them and never tell me where and," Here a hurt tone slipped in. "When you get hurt I'm the last one to know!"

"You, you, you, you," Amy pointed out acidly. "This isn't about you."

"I'm your sister!" I stopped walking and ducked against the corner. I didn't want to walk into this but I liked the thought of just leaving while Amy was under fire even less. "Since when couldn't you tell me anything? What did I do?"

"Not about you! God!"

"Bullshit," Victoria pressed. "Is it..it's about mom isn't it? I didn't, you know I didn't mean it."

Amy didn't respond immediately.

"Th-that's it. Look, I was wrong -"

"You were right," Amy said, tired. "You were right."

Go out, I told myself. Interrupt now! My feet refused to move.

"We're a family," a third voice spoke up to play peacemaker. "We can figure this out, we can fix this together, alright? Yelling at each other, really fixes nothing."

"You saw her hands!" Victoria cried out. With it I felt a foreign spike of bone deep apprehension and fear. I felt like I was about to choke on it. "Is this going to happen every time she hangs around you?" I heard an angry stomp as Victoria switched targets.

Amy's response was heated. "What the - Leave Shinta out of this Vicky!"

"Why should I?"

"Victoria!" I instinctively straightened at the very clear 'Mom' voice that came from further down the hall accompanied by furious stomping of shoes on tiles. Snake's telltale cane thud and walk followed more sedately. "Aura! Now!"

I hear what I think is Victoria leaving, with soft, guilty footsteps and the fear clawing at my throat fades before rather abruptly abandoning me. I sigh quietly and let the tension seep out.

"I'll follow her," the third girl volunteered. No footsteps this time but a slight passing of air. A flyer. Laserdream, maybe?

"Thanks, Aunt Sarah," Amy said meekly. "I was...getting pretty angry there, actually angry."

Sarah Pelham, Lady Photon but more commonly called 'Photon Mom' on PHO had been another member of New Wave with an identical powerset as her daughter, Laserdream. Flight, projected shield and light blasts. The late Manpower had been her husband.

It occurred to me then that everyone here except for Amy and Snake had an ability that let them get to places very quickly. They'd probably dropped everything just to check if Amy was okay once they got the news. It made me think of my own Dad, who was probably but hopefully not, breaking traffic laws to get here.

"I thought you were immune," Mrs. Pelham mused.

"Was," Amy said shortly. "Unintended side-effect of ...trying to fix something else. So not anymore."

"Should you be walking around?" Snake asked, sounding a bit concerned.

Amy brushed it off. "My hands, not my feet. I'm fine!"

"Mhmm," Snake hummed, not sounding like she agreed at all. "That is why you are on painkillers right now, of course."

Amy sputtered.

"I'm going to withhold judgement on you here, Shinta was it?-" Sarah Pelham started.

"Thanks," he drawled.

"But what were you getting from Amy's room?"

Amy outright groaned. "Vicky was there, wasn't she?"

"Yup," he said. "Wasn't thrilled. I might have screamed 'need for bomb'."

"No good deed goes unpunished, I swear." She huffed. I heard something creak, the sound squeaky wheels made but too tinny sounding to be a wheelchair."Healing bacteria."

"You have jars of bacteria under your bed," Mts. Pelham said slowly, as if trying to come to terms with it. "Under your bed?"

"Projects," Amy said quickly, trying to deflect. "I made the one for insulin, you know about that, and everything is sterilized and they are safe - "

"I thought you kept those at the hospital, in a lab," her aunt stressed. "All of them are to help heal?" Amy was far too slow responding this time. "Amy."

"No."

Mrs. Pelham didn't sound like she wanted to know the answer but was making herself ask anyway. "Any of them lethal?"

"Two," Snake gave Amy away without remorse. "However, I have those."

"Third, maybe." Amy coughed.

"Ah," Snake said, disapproving.

"And ones that are not lethal that you really shouldn't open anyway." The silence that followed was what awkward was made out of. "Am I grounded?" Amy asked.

It took Mrs. Pelham a moment, but she got it out.

"Definitely."

I shuffled my feet backwards, one slow step at a time and tried not to make any noise. I didn't want to be caught eavesdropping and honestly? I didn't think Amy needed me right now. I would just make things worse or at the very least, not help. And if she was walking around, possibly with a mobile IV bag on a stand, then she would be okay. I felt a little cowardly, like I was running away from a social situation out of my depth but my head won out.

I made my way back across the bridge hearing what sounded like Mrs. Pelham having an apoplectic fit and found the staircase. Peter was down a floor and there was no reason to wait for an elevator when I could take one flight of stairs.

Unlike Amy, Peter was actually in his room but he also had a superhero guest. I stopped in the doorway and felt incredibly conspicuous. White and gold costume, Spartan helmet and buckler strapped to his forearm. Dauntless. Again.

My first paranoid thought was that we were followed but then I remembered he was also a flyer and heading to the nearest hospital, especially with suspected teenage parahumans involved was a bit of a no brainer.

"Sorry for interrupting!" I blurted out and got ready to bolt.

Peter smiled. He looked much better, less charred than the last time I saw him. Patches of his skin were still reddened but it was a vast improvement over burned through and waxy. He had an IV jammed in at the side of his wrist and wrappers from two burgers with a half finished third on a food tray in front of him.

"Nah, we were just about done."

Dauntless smiled wryly. "That's a no, then."

"I got a team," Peter said and took a humongous bite of of his hamburger. He chewed hastily and swallowed what looked like a painful mass of food. "Support, resources, I have it already."

"Not getting involved with anything illegal?" Dauntless pointed out.

"Consider my tracks watched." The hero looked like he wanted to cuff the boy upside the head. "Seriously though, thanks but no thanks. You know what the best part of being an independent was? If I saw evil doing, I got to kick its ass. No ifs, ands, buts, ma'ams or sirs."

"I can see that," Dauntless said thoughtfully, wistfully. He leaned back in his chair. "You against the world?"

"Us." Peter said and grinned over at me, popping his head up. "Right, Taylor?"

I smiled back and felt my resolve harden that much more. "Right."

Last edited: Oct 6, 2014

196

Shujin

Oct 6, 2014

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