She's Dead Jim Part 14
DISCLAIMER: Worm belongs to Wildbow. Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling, Wizarding World, and Warner Brothers. I don't own them. Speaking of Harry Potter, we haven't seen much of wizards, wands. and hocus-pocus since Chapter 7, have we? And we won't.
This story is written for my personal amusement, not for profit.
ADVISORY: Foul language. Most of the characters in this chapter are Brockton Bay teenagers.
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We took an elevator with Triumph down to a sub-basement. Triumph had to take a retinal scan to get on the car.
I surprised myself by remaining quiet on the ride down to the Wards' headquarters. There was a time, a time that seemed a lifetime away, when I would have not only been completely thrilled to be in the same space as a PRT Ward but babbling with questions. A year and a half of being constantly bullied had cured me of that. I was a lot more selective about the people I made small-talk with.
The elevator stopped and the doors opened.
"Here it is," said Triumph. "Welcome to the Wards headquarters."
"Thank you," I said. Being polite cost me nothing. I noticed that my Dad had said nothing. I wondered what that meant. I'd have to ask him when we got home.
"Let's stop by the lounge first," said Triumph.
"This is the lounge," said Triumph. "This is where we can hang out and socialize when we're not training or studying." The lounge was occupied by a petite young girl in a green and white costume and a guy with a costume with a stylized clock on it: Vista and Clockbuster.
It looked nice. I'd seen images of the lounge, or at least the version the PRT allowed to be seen on the Web, and the real thing looked even better.
"Can I ask a question?" said Triumph.
"That depends," I replied.
"Were you a parahuman fan before, you know?" he said.
Before I triggered, he meant.
"Yeah," I said shortly.
"Look, we are really sorry…" he said.
"Yeah, you said it already," I replied.
Triumph fell silent. The others said nothing. They must have known about Sophia and me, I thought.
Triumph tried to revive the conversation.
"Anyway, this is Vista," he said.
"Hi!" she said. "I'm Vista."
"Hi," I said. "I'm Taylor."
"And this is Clockbuster," he said.
"This is Clockbuster," he said.
"Hi, Beanpole!" he said.
I gave him a glare. I had a bug or two on me. I barely restrained myself from letting fly with them.
My Dad coughed and gave him The Look. To my surprise, the teen hero looked abashed.
"Miss Beanpole?" he said.
My dad continued to glower at him.
"Sorry," he said.
I glanced around the lounge and saw that there were not only comfortable chairs and couches, but also game consoles and a very fancy video monitor.
"As you can see, we have a great space but we also have all the latest tech," said Triumph, which they did.
My eye was drawn to a table over in the corner with a couple of candles and a formed black and white photograph of Sophia dressed as Shadow Stalker. Triumph saw me glowering at it and said "Moving right along, I can also show the Wards' training area and computer stations. We also have a work shop if you're a Tinker or even if you're very good with tools."
I glanced back at Clockbuster and Missy. I wondered what sort of relationship they'd had with Sophia. Probably not a good one, since they didn't look that down in the dumps.
"Do you miss Sophia?" I asked.
"Well, um, she was a team mate and we're supposed to work as a team," Triumph began. I shifted my focus away from Triumph and looked at my Dad. He gave the look he used to give when he overheard boilerplate speeches.
I smiled. But you don't miss her that much, do you, I thought.
We didn't stop with the lounge. We moved on and I got a peek at one of the rooms the Wards used as living areas when they were on base, some of their training equipment, and some exercise mats they must use when doing unpowered take-downs and self-defense. I met a couple of other wards: Browbeat and Gallant.
Gallant smiled at me. I liked the way he did it: no guy had smiled at me like that since middle school. I liked it so much that I smiled back and almost giggled.
""So you have powers?" he said.
"I think I might," I said, doing my best to sound doubtful.
"We have testing facilities here if you want to find out what they are," he said.
My Dad coughed.
"It's a thought," I said.
"So Mr. Hebert," said Gallant. "Would you be interested in finding out what sort of powers your daughter might have."
I looked at my dad. He knew I'd triggered.
"It's her decision," he said. "No need to rush things. It's been quite a day. We'll go home and discuss it at home."
We drove home. We stopped at a Quik-Mart and Dad bought us a couple of sodas.
"We'll discuss this over these," he said.
We got home and went into the kitchen. Dad reached into a cabinet and brought down a couple of glasses. He then opened the freezer and filled them with ice cubes. After pouring our sodas into the glasses we sat down at the kitchen table.
"Well, Taylor, what do you think?" he said. We knew that he was talking about the tour and invitation to join the Wards.
"This was so—wow," I replied.
"I was impressed," said Dad. "If I was a teenager, I might have signed up myself."
"What do you think?"
"They were so nice," I thought.
"Recruiters often are," said Dad. Dad had served in the Navy before he went to college and met Mom. Dad had talked about his time in the Navy and I'd heard a couple of stories about his life aboard ship.
"You think they're trying to push me into signing up?" I said. I looked at his expression and I could see the answer.
"They might be a nice bunch of kids but being a Hero is dangerous," said Dad. "And regardless of whatever you may have heard or read, they did a shit job of supervising their Wards. If they'd been doing their job, that Hess girl would never have gotten away with all the crap she did to you."
"On the other hand, they do have training and backup," I said. "I would have liked to have had backup."
"Would it be enough?" said Dad.
"I'll make a coin-toss," I said with a grin. "If it lands on one side, I get power-tested at their headquarters and join the Wards. If it lands on the other side, I won't."
I pulled a Sacajewa coin out of my pocket and laid it on top of my thumb. I flicked it into the air. The coin went up, turning end over end, before falling into the open palm of my other hand. I covered it before I could look at it. I looked at my Dad and smiled. "Call it," I said.
"Heads," he said.
"So if it comes up heads, we'll go back to the PRT and I'll sign up," I said.
"Or we'll wait before we make a decision," said Dad.
I uncovered the coin.
-The End—
That's it. This story ends here. I know many readers will find this disappointing but I always intended to end this story with a "cliff-hanger."
I wrote this story as a break from my other fan-fiction. I tried to limit it to one person's point of view and only have it cover the first couple of weeks following Sophia/Shadow Stalker's death. I will not take this story any further not only because I have other things going on in real life but because canon Taylor Hebert's life was consequential and not only saved the lives of many of the inhabitants of Brockton Bay, but ultimately the lives of humanity across countless Earths in the multiverse (Not to mention the lives of other sentient critters we are slaughtering on this Earth). I'm not sure that a Taylor Hebert harnessed to the PRT as a Ward several months earlier would have been able to save so many people from either Leviathan or the Slaughterhouse Nine and I don't care to contemplate it. In fact, I'm doubtful.
I still make no apologies for having a Harry Potter wizard kill Sophia Hess. I personally believe that life's events not only occur when we're forced to deal with things we know of but weren't prepared for but also things we couldn't even conceive of, let alone plan for. A Harry Potter Death Eater is something Sophia could not have conceived of before her sudden demise.
This story not only owes much to Wildbow, the creator of the Parahuman series, and JK Rowling, the author of Harry Potter, but to a number of other fanfiction writers. TheVampireStrahd is but one of them: there are several other authors who influenced this work.
To all of you who stuck with me, thank you for reading my story.
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So what happened next?
While I'm unwilling to say what happens next to Taylor, I will say that the PRT supervisor monitoring Sophia Hess' conduct was prosecuted, tried, then sent to prison. So were the officials at Winslow High School who'd been embezzling funds meant to improve student safety at the troubled school. The teachers who'd ignored their students' safety were either fired or forced to retire.
Jennifer Hess broke up with her abusive partner and moved away from Brockton Bay.
Emma Barnes and Madison Clements, along with several other teens, were arrested, then charged by a grand jury. In light of the evidence on their internet accounts and cell phone messages, both girls plea bargained with the authorities. After serving several months in juvenile and on probation, Madison was released and her parents took her to another city while Emma served a longer term in Juvenile. Upon Emma's release, she was sent to a boarding school nicknamed "Our Lady of the Deep North Woods."
Julia is still missing.