If I had to characterize my family I wouldn't say we were very big shoppers. That didn't mean we didn't have our own styles though. Dad had pretty simple tastes, favoring generic button up shirts and pants he could wear to both work and for casual occasions. Me and Taylor had much larger differences in taste than our wardrobes would suggest, since a large part of my clothes were her hand me downs.
Taylor favored long sleeves and pants that came in the duller colors of the pallet. I think the brightest colored things she had were her blue jeans. However in my case when possible I liked wearing bright primary colors. So even if I was wearing dull shirts and pants, I often wore small articles and accessories that popped with color. Stuff like blue baseball caps, red gloves, green socks, and even an orange scarf.
So it was, after buying some new glasses for Taylor, me and her were sifting through the selection of the Spalding's Thrift Shop. Dad had dropped us off to run some errands for the union, so we had about an hour to browse. We mostly picked this thrift shop since it was close enough to the boardwalk to be in a "safe" neighborhood, while also still being affordable.
Taylor is often defensive of her fashion choices. Just today for example I suggested she get the novelty hot pink frames for her new glasses and she gave me a look as if I suggested we spit on our mothers grave before she realized I was joking. So I attempted to be tactful as we picked through the racks of used clothes.
"So I'm guessing whatever look you're going for it just has to include glasses, no contacts or anything like that?"
"I'm still not apologizing for not having my eyes changed Sam"
"I wasn't going to make you. But I still don't understand why you decided to turn down Amy's eyesight fix."
"It seemed like it was a vain thing to do. And I don't want to look vain."
"It's not vain, it's practical. Glasses are such a pain when it rains or when you need to do heavy exercise. It'll be ages before you could get another chance you know. Glad I took my chance when I did, even if I have to pretend I still need mine for another year or so."
"I can live with that. So what did you want to buy? We still have two more months of cold weather ahead of us so I don't see the point in buying anything exposing."
"Sigh, I suggested buying one crop top and suddenly you and dad get all puritan on me."
"Well like you were saying, I'm just being practical. Too cold to wear one now, too cold to buy one now. Besides, do you see anyone else wearing crop tops at your school?"
"Is that how the dress code works now? Wear whatever everyone else is wearing? I know enough about Winslow to know you're probably on the modest end of the fashion spectrum there."
"Please don't remind me about some of the fashion choices I've seen at Winslow. I've seen more mens underwear because of sagging pants than I ever wanted to see, which is not at all."
Looking through the shirt I found one that was very striking. "You know Taylor, I think this blouse would complement your jeans nicely." I held up a light orange blouse with flower patterns. She gave me a skeptical look.
"Sam, what exactly do you mean by complement? You've never been big on color coordination before."
"Oh well I've been getting some fashion tips."
"From who exactly?"
"Mostly Missy and Vicky, and one thing they both mention was that the most striking color combinations are colors opposite each other on the color wheel. Orange is opposite blue, thus they complement each other. It's practically scientific." I said, happy to show off that I did in fact know something about fashion.
"Sam, I'm not trying to stand out. There's not much of a point in that. Also when did you start getting into fashion?"
"Well it started after I recommended some movies to Vicky after she broke up with Dean a week ago. We texted for a bit and she told me about the outfits she's trying out the first week back from break. Me and Missy exchanged some ideas during our Wednesday patrol too. Vicky told me about the color wheel bit after her first date with Dean after they got back together last night." I explained. I had always thought of fashion as boring but there's so many tips and tricks I found it makes for very engaging conversion fodder.
"Wait, hold on. They went from breaking up to making up in like a week?" Taylor said in disbelief. Come to think of it, she had never been in the same room as Victoria when she was conscious (hence Vicky's hospital visit didn't count). So she didn't know her personally.
"Well they both don't like wasting time I guess. It's best not to think about it much. I don't. So how about you give the shirt a try at le-?" I paused as I noticed Taylor was distracted by something and I turned to see what she was looking at. I looked out the street-side window to see several guys wearing modified baseball uniforms, domino masks, and face paint quickly walk past the front of the store.
What made it extra concerning was that one of the guys was wearing a catcher's uniform that was almost certainly tinkertech. I could even see a tiger logo on the shoulder of the closest guy to the store. When they were out of sight I glanced back at Taylor to find that she had a look of confusion on her face.
"Sam, do you know who those guys are? Are they capes?"
"Yes, and I think I have a pretty good idea who they are too." There were occasionally parahuman groups that liked to take on a sports theme since sports equipment was a good ersatz costume until you got access to better materials. The main reason it wasn't more popular was that the protection offered was usually inferior to what you could get from places like Toybox. Plus it often marks you as an amateur, which is not something capes like to be perceived as. The group I just saw was likely the Tigers, who actually leaned into the aesthetic.
Their story was a very specific kind of fucked up. They were part of a minor league team that had just been knocked out of the league playoffs before their bus drove off a cliff on the way home. Most survived but eight of them were involved in a cluster trigger. Since most sports banned parahumans two joined the protectorate and the rest turned villain since it paid better. They decided to name their team after their original mascot, hence they named themselves "The Tigers". They weren't based out of any one city, but liked to roam around. Looks like Brockton Bay was their next port of call.
I quickly fished out my wards phone before I remembered we were in public and I put it back. "Follow me to the dressing room. This call needs to be private."
She nodded and we dropped the clothes we were holding to dash to the rear changing room. The store clerk was facing away from us so she didn't notice. Thankfully it was a single room that was probably a converted closet so we had some privacy. I asked Taylor to keep watch as I hit the speed dial for the console. Unfortunately my least favorite fellow ward was on the console today.
"This is Manes calling in. We have a situation on Doubleday St. I just sighted five men wearing baseball gear for costumes with one clearly wearing tinkertech walking by my location. They are likely the Tigers. Do you copy?"
"This is Shadow Stalker on console and I copy that. I thought you weren't on the schedule today?"
It seems Stalker hadn't learned how to prioritize how to respond to some calls. I decided to just answer and not make an argument over it.
"I'm not. I was shopping with my sister when I saw them. Can you please dispatch some heroes to my location? This is time sensitive. Do you Roger that?"
"Roger that. I am contacting the on duty heroes Miss Militia, Battery, and Velocity. Which way were they going?"
"They were going northbound but if you give me one minute I can check again in case they turned a corner. I'll call back soon." I ended the call and turned to Taylor. "Watch my body. If I'm not back from my recon before Stalker calls back for more information let her know I'm still busy. The code-words you need so you don't get flagged as a hostile holding my phone this week is Tangerine, Cloth, Air. In that order"
"Wait, Soph- Shadow Stalker's the one running the console?"
"Yeah it's better she's on console than out there undoing years of PR work. She should be on her best behavior since console comms are recorded. Please remember you cannot let her know that you're aware of her identity, we have enough problems right now. I'll be back in a jiff."
I then pulled up the hood on my hoodie and put on my mask to ensure my ghost didn't have any distinctive features. From there I sat my body down and left it behind as a ghost. I zipped up into the air through the roof to get a quick bird's eye view. After getting some altitude I moved over to get a better look of the street. I was just in time to see them enter a jewelry store. It was an older store called Jensen's Jewelry that was just a block away from the main boardwalk. I went back to report my findings.
I returned to my body just as the phone started ringing in Taylor's hand. Apparently Stalker got impatient for my callback. Taylor looked absolutely relieved I had gotten back in time. Grabbing it I answered.
"Manes here"
"This is the console again, Miss Militia, Battery, and Velocity are inbound. The closest one, Velocity, has an ETA of 15 minutes. Did you see what they're hitting?"
"It's the Jensen's Jewelry Store on the North end of Doubleday St. I don't think the heroes will be able to get here in time before they're done. Do I have permission to delay them?"
"I don't see why not. Go nuts." Leave it to Stalker to ignore standard procedure and just give the green light. I decided to end the call quickly before someone else decided to correct her. Generally we weren't supposed to do hero work outside of costume for liability reasons but if we got the OK from the console it was easier to get away with it.
"OK, my body is currently in a backroom of the Spalding Thrift Store, I will be projecting my ghost from there. I will do what I can to slow them down, over and out." I finished and ended the call. I turned to Taylor. "I need you to spot for me since no one else can. You just need to stay here and make sure no one see's my unconscious body."
"Wait, what if the store clerk comes back here?"
"Just use the good old narcolepsy excuse. You're in here because you were checking on me." I had spent a lot of time looking up narcolepsy so that I could pretend I had it. It wasn't something I could tell to civilians who interacted with me on a regular basis since they'd know I was lying but random store owners were fine.
"Alright I can do that. But what if the capes come in here?"
"Not likely, these guys are smash and grab types. All I need to do is interrupt their escape." I checked the time and 4 minutes had passed since I had last checked. Their heist should almost be over. "I need to go now, wish me luck"
I smiled and sat down again as my ghost emerged once more. I gave Taylor a thumbs up and ascended through the roof. I knew from what I had read about how they operated that they usually parked their escape vehicle far enough away from the scene of the crime to not be sighted. They couldn't afford to ditch their vehicles as easily as other groups so they took precautions like that to ensure it usually wasn't necessary. Since they had passed us walking north on the street I started searching southwards for any suspicious vehicles.
I hit pay dirt when I looked into an alleyway two buildings away from the thrift store. What I found was an unmarked white van sitting there. Deciding this was a promising lead I got closer and then peeked through the van roof. My head emerged from the ceiling behind the front row of seats, and I found a driver wearing a baseball jersey and a domino mask. I could see that he was distracting himself with something on the radio given he was fiddling with the knob. Looking in the rear of the van I saw some baggage and tinkertech equipment laying in the backseats.
I decided this was enough evidence and decided to get to work. The driver didn't suspect a thing when I got him from behind. The body shuddered and I settled into his senses. I could now hear he was apparently checking the news radio broadcast and keeping the van idling. I decided to keep my sabotage simple and practical.
I started my plan by turning off the ignition to kill the engine. I quickly got out of the van and took the keys with me. The thing about my power is that my victims don't know what I get up to when I have their bodies. That meant when I threw the car keys in the dumpster behind the van the driver would be completely in the dark about it.
Unfortunately the others must have just finished their jewelry heist because just as I was walking the drivers body back to the van they ran around the corner. I suddenly realized that my plan for full stealth had fallen through. Even worse, they had taken a hostage, a young teenage girl. She had brown hair and was wearing a thick black coat. It looked like she was close to Taylor's age. She had her hands tied behind her and she was completely terrified.
I had to re-prioritize fast. I couldn't risk a confrontation before the heroes got here. I was outnumbered and there was no way I could overwhelm the others, especially without hurting the hostage. So it looked like I would need to do some really fast talking to get out of this mess.
A/N
-I'm not 100% on the dynamic between Taylor and Sam but I think I'm satisfied by the general shape of it at least. Basically they're both know it all's but Sam's more vocal about it, and Taylor has been conditioned to keep her thoughts to herself unless prompted. Sam's still working on resisting the impulse to meddle in Taylor's life. But she's mostly keeping it to minor stuff like fashion advice right now so Taylor's willing to let it slide. Getting a chance to throw them into a situation like this also helps emphasize they are absolutely on the same side when things go down.
-I decided to bring in some OC villains since they give me a chance to play around with some new powers and personalities. You'll see more of that in the next chapter. The baseball team theme was inspired by the Baseball Furies from The Warriors (1979). Honestly if you added superpowers that movie could fit right into the Worm setting (if you fiddled with the timeline a bit but still). I also figured the other Smash & Grab team, the Undersiders, would be laying low for a bit the week after doing three heists in one night. Plus doing crimes in broad daylight would be something they'd only do later after they recruit more heavy hitters.
-In theory Sam doesn't have much to worry about since they probably can't hurt her ghost, but the hostage complicates things. Sam is very aware that collateral damage is not something heroes can take lightly, especially human lives. So her mission went from "Thwart the Jewelry Heist" to "Save the Hostage" in like two seconds.
-Please leave reviews and feedback always looking to improve.