September 14, 2009

05:45

Waking up this early in the morning is something out of the norm for me. I would wake up normally around noon or afternoon depending on what my body felt like but because I went to bed early, I guess my body decided to also wake up early too.

It's not like I haven't woken up early before. It's just that I would always sleep quite late so often that I rarely can wake up this early. Guess the habit of playing video games, watching videos, and reading fan fiction so late would do that to you I suppose.

Glancing at the window outside of my room, I noticed that the sky is starting to gain some blue color into them, indicating that sunrise will happen soon.

I contemplated in my bed whether or not I should get up and do some walking or jogging around the neighborhood since it would allow me to explore the area around my house. I can also test this body's endurance and can compare if this body is more healthy than my original one.

After a few more minutes of laying in bed, I decided the first thing to do is get some exercise.

Getting up from my bed, I made my way to my closet and pulled out some clothes that would be perfect for exercise. Since he doesn't look like he has any exercising outfit, I just got a sleeveless shirt and some shorts to compensate for it.

Exiting my room, I glanced over to my sisters Sarah's room and briefly thought about telling her that I would be going out for a jog but discarded that thought since it was way too early for her to be awake at this hour anyway so I went downstairs and made my way outside for the first time in this house.

I took my first deep breath outside of my house for the first time since hijacking this body. Judging by the fact that houses around me look expensive, are spaced apart evenly, and look very clean, it seems that I'm living in a very expensive and clean subdivision or village or whatever they call it here in Boston.

Now since I don't want to get lost when I walk around, I put a waypoint in my GPS to tell me where the house is so that I may find my way back. I put the phone back in my pocket and began my jog in the neighborhood.

It's been a few months since I had jogged back on Earth due to being a slob so it took me a bit to get my breathing under control without panting like a dog, but once I got my rhythm going, it was easy to maintain my breathing.

I didn't have a goal in mind on how many laps I had to do or a destination in mind either so I let my legs take me wherever they felt like. It was something I needed since I spent most of yesterday tinkering with code in my room so a bit of exercise is something I needed.

After sightseeing for a bit, I have found out in which subdivision we live in, or suburb as others call it. We are currently in Beacon Hill suburbs. Not gonna lie, I did not expect that Beacon Hill was the inspiration for Beacon Academy in RWBY.

Anime references aside, what I notice about this area is not only houses are here but apartments are also present, standing about three stories tall as well which is unusual for me to see suburbs in the Philippines don't have apartments like these, or at least from what I have seen before. So this is a new view for me.

Besides that, this place doesn't seem any different than the subdivision I was living in before so at least it's somewhat familiar territory. Or at least that's what I would like to say until I found myself staring at a large grass park where I can see some people relaxing there, walking their dogs, or even doing exercises.

Now I have seen my fair share of parks before in my country, but they are usually quite deep into the city, not this close to a suburb. I was tempted to check it out for myself and compare this park to the ones I've been to but I think I can do it later instead as I might lose track of time there.

After jogging for a bit longer, I found the exit of the suburb that would lead to the main road of Boston…I think. I could only make an educated guess judging by the number of cars passing through the road. It's hard for me to tell since there was no gate that would indicate that it was the exit or the entrance to Beacon Hill. Guess another difference between countries I gotta get used to.

I opened the map on my phone to reconfirm my hypothesis, but it turns out that I had indeed left Beacon Hill and was already en route to the area called Chinatown. It seemed that the park I saw earlier wasn't exactly a part of Beacon Hill, it is its own thing in Boston. Kinda makes me feel like an imbecile to not check the damn map first but hey, live and learn I guess.

It also seems that I have traveled way farther out than I initially thought. I didn't even feel that tired from that light jogging. This body seemed to be in good shape, which is surprising, considering the remarks from Sarah about Reginald being a shut-in.

The relationship between the two must have deteriorated so badly that she doesn't even know that he works out regularly. Either that or this body is just that well-conditioned, which is bullshit if you ask me.

In any case, I should probably head back to the house before something bad happens.

As I made my way back to Beacon Hills and briefly passed by the park, I heard someone sobbing nearby. I would have ignored it and moved on if I didn't sneak a glance at the person who was crying.

The girl was sitting down by one of

the benches provided by the park. I couldn't see her face since I was directly behind her, but I could see her bright yellow hair with oddly what looked like feathers sprouting out of it. She was wearing a white t-shirt and dark blue jeans with red sneakers on.

I didn't expect to meet what people would call Case-51 in broad daylight since I know that hair is not normal but that's not the point right now.

I stared at the weeping person in front of me for a moment, contemplating whether or not I should confront her. Should I go try to ask what was wrong? Cheer her up? Just sit down beside her and comfort her silently? I don't want to be branded as a creep by other people or even the crying girl herself and be arrested for "stalking" someone. But the girl's cries just made it difficult to ignore her plea for…what exactly? Help? Relief? I'm not sure why I'm drawn to those cries but I know I won't be able to forgive myself if I just walked away now.

I know I'm about to regret this but fuck it. If I'm gonna try and get along with Sarah, I gotta start practicing talking with people again. And it starts…with a crying person.

Oh I just know this will blow up in my face one way or another.

I made my way to her slowly, making sure not to startle the girl. My hesitation only grew as I got closer and closer to her. Once I was only a few feet away from her, my mind wanted me to just simply run away and not talk to her at all but I stamped down that part of myself and grabbed the courage to…sit down on the bench.

…

…

…yeah, that's it. That's all I'm doing. Just sitting down on a bench with my face down, beside a weeping girl…

Why am I so socially inept? So much for comforting her, I'm probably weirding her out because of my presence.

When I took a glance towards her, it seemed like she didn't even notice my existence as she was focused on crying while staring at her phone. At least now I know the cause for her crying but not the reason behind it though.

Like that'll help any.

I was wringing my hands together, trying to get my mouth to…fucking say something. I think I might crack a tooth or two at this point on how hard I'm gritting them.

So with a deep but silent breath, I fully turned to the weeping girl and made my presence known to her.

"Miss, are you alright?"

She flinched and turned her head to the source of the voice, her eyes widening at my company and stammered.

"O-oh I'm so-sorry for bothering yo-you with my crying. I'll ju-just leave now."

She wipes her tears as she stands up and tries to leave before I call out to her.

"You don't need to leave mam. I just wanna know if you're alright and want to talk?" That's a good start to a conversation…right? Then again, this girl is crying so maybe not really? Damn this is harder than I thought.

The girl looked hesitant to answer the question so I just gave her an out. "If you don't want to talk about it then you can leave." I gave her a nervous smile. "But…if you want…I can lend an ear to your problems?"

Oh God why do I sound like a bitch right now? Women don't trust guys who aren't confident damnit! Now she will say no and simply leave and-!

The girl sat back down on the bench as she wiped her tears with the sleeves on her shirt as she tried her best to compose herself and look straight into my eyes. "Are you sure you wanna hear my story..? It's not pretty…"

My only response to her is a thumbs up as I look away from her gaze. And keeping the thoughts of how pretty her eyes look to myself. Don't want her to see me blushing and ruining the trust she placed on me.

I can hear her take a deep breath as she begins to speak. "I just found out that my boyfriend has been cheating on me for 4 years."

Well shit…this is a cheating story…god why the hell did it have to be a cheating story of all things!?

The entire story was…well something I have heard many times before, usually online through either Reddit or Youtube videos talking about it so it's not like I'm surprised or anything. I guess the feeling would be complete apathy and disappointment.

Don't get me wrong, I can understand and somewhat relate being betrayed like that. A partner of four years…that's quite the commitment there. So to have that completely ruined is just…sad but at the same time…the values and cultures ingrained by my grandparents and my mother would probably scorn at the girl for fooling around like that instead of focusing on studies and getting a job.

Me? I could care less as I have never fallen in love before. I had my crushes in school before sure but they never went anywhere. Not to mention that after some…falling out between my parents and grandparents…i had to stop schooling entirely and kept moving around the city and…i didn't really have the time to think about romance or school or any of that stuff in general so I couldn't relate too much to her. I could only just recount all the advice I have heard of what to do if your partner is cheating on you and how to move on from it.

She got the breaking up part easily enough since she seems the type of girl to value monogamous relationships and one who doesn't deal with BS but moving from it seems to be the difficult part for her. She still feels attached to the guy she dated with, judging by the yearning tone of her voice when she talks about him.

"And I can't forget the kindest gesture he did for me on our first date…" Oh wait…she is not done yet!? And she is talking about the nice things he has done for her?! I must have zone out in the middle of it.

"There was an accident that killed two of my best friends in high school in a car crash by someone who was drinking and driving. My phone was blowing up in the middle of the date and so when I opened it…I couldn't help but break down immediately right there and then! I was just with those two the night before. I told him what was going on, and that I had to go home. I even apologized for cutting the date short. He understood, and tried to console me as I was basically weeping in the middle of the bar after meeting him only a few hours prior." The girl looked happy as she recounted those memories in her head.

I could only nod in agreement with her as she went about how he helped her recover from that incident and how they started to hang out more and more until they eventually became officially a couple. And then she started to talk about her life together with him when she lived together with him and all those nice memories of him being a gentleman and being a nice guy overall.

I was tempted to interrupt her but when I saw the look of happiness on her face…I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I'll probably be calling myself a wuss in the future for this but seeing her so animated like this…well it's something that is so desperately lacking in my life. Both here and back in my world. So I let her just…talk.

It took a while for her to finally air everything out. About 30 minutes before she finally stopped and looked to see if her conversational partner was still alive and didn't turn into a corpse midway through. Luckily for me, I have mastered the art of simply listening to people talk and just zone out to pass the time.

I doubt that she will ever need to bring up this breakup again so hopefully, I don't need to remember it…I think?

"I'm sorry for talking so long. You probably have something to do and I'm taking up your time and-!"

"Don't worry about it." I cut in with a smile. I should have her leave this conversation happy and not guilty of just simply venting out her frustration. "You looked like you needed it. Besides, I was just jogging and happened to pass by you so no harm no foul."

"Oh, I see." Her guilty expression eased a bit from my reassurance. "Well thank you anyway for listening to my troubles then, even if you don't need to. So is there something I can pay you back for this?"

Weird. Why would she need to pay me back for simply listening to her problems? That's…weird. I shook my head to deny her offer. "No need mam. It's not like I did much, to begin with. Just lending my ear is all."

The girl narrowed her eyes toward me in suspicion. "Surely you were expecting to be rewarded by me when you helped me, no? I don't want to be indebted to my fans so tell me what it is you want and I shall grant it within reason."

I raised my eyebrow at her statement. Fans? Is she someone famous here in Boston? I would have to admit that my Worm knowledge is very lacking but I'm pretty sure there are no famous people or heroes here as far as fanfiction goes. Maybe she was mentioned in the story and simply forgotten by the readers or maybe she is an underutilized character in the story. In which case that is pretty bad.

But it's not like it should make any huge difference since she probably isn't an important character in the story and since we aren't in Brockton Bay, her presence in the story should be pretty minor…right?

Oh fuck why do I have a feeling that I'm forgetting something huge about this?

"I'm…sorry but I'm afraid I have no idea who you are?"

She didn't seem to believe me as she got irritated by the response. "Oh don't give me that! You must have heard of me at some point! I am only one of the few rogues who use their power for entertainment. If you really wanna play dumb then how about this." She pulls out something from her phone as she typed in something for a few moments before showing it to me. "This should jog your memory."

I looked at the phone, noticing a playlist of songs that I don't recognize. It's no surprise really, this is a different version of Earth with different taste in music and artist so Iwouldn't be able to recognize any of these songs at all unless I listened to them firsthand.

"Sorry Miss…I don't know any of these songs."

My sincerity must have taken the wails out of the girl as she slumps down in defeat. "You really haven't heard of me or any of my songs?"

I shook my head. "Sorry, I just listen to music that is recommended to me through the algorithm. I don't go looking for good music out there."

She directly looked at me, trying to deduce if I'm lying to her or not. Seemingly satisfied with her observation she let out a defeated sigh. "Right, sorry about that. It's arrogant of me to think that everyone in Boston knows who I am since I just came here to perform…"

"You're doing a performance here?"

She nodded. "Yup, in a few days, I'll be performing live around Chinatown."

"Cool. You must be quite famous then."

She scratched her head embarrassingly. "Not really since I only started to sing a few months ago." Her answer was met with a deadpan stare of mine which quickly unnerved her. "Wh-what is it?"

"Did you seriously expect me to believe that I would have heard of you if you only debuted a few months ago!?" I couldn't help the exasperation coming out of voice as she tried to defend her argument. Keyword tried.

"I'm only one of the few rogues that is not affiliated with any of the capes and it was all over the news when I debuted, how can you miss it?!"

"I don't really watch the news that often…"

"Surely you have seen me debut in PHO at the least!?"

"Too busy with school to really go online." That was of course a fucking lie, considering that I have only been here for about two days but it should work as an excuse since I haven't been checking out the PHO other than when I first came into this world.

She opened her mouth to continue but I cut her off quickly. "Besides, even when I do check up in PHO, I'm usually just looking for updates about the Boston Blowback that is happening right now so your debut might have slipped past me." Also another lie though this is something I need to rectify ASAP since I got powers now so I kinda need to actually start gathering information about what's happening in Boston and this conflict lasts till fucking 2011 so it'll be a while if I'm gonna stay here while it happens.

"Oh yeah…I kinda forgot about it…my manager told me about it but as long as I keep my head down and don't engage in any cape activity, I should be fine."

Great, she simply jinxed herself into getting into conflict. She is going to participate, one way or another without meaning too.

"Did you choose to come here to Boston for your concert or your manager did?"

"I did." Her reply made me scream "WHY!" at her for being so stupid.

"I figured that since people will be brooding here thanks because of the Boston Blowback, maybe my singing can help them calm things down. It's also a nice way for me to get more publicity."

"Couldn't you just simply record yourself singing instead and send it to the internet? Or better yet, plan a concert somewhere where there isn't a war between the PRT and the Villains currently ongoing like right now?!"

She opened her mouth to contend against me but kept it shut as she forced herself to think on my words. Then after a few moments, her eyes widened in surprise as the risks coming here finally came crashing down on her as she groaned and decided to hide her shame with her legs up to her chest and her face down.

I knew at that moment, this girl doesn't have the best forethought into her actions. "You didn't think this through didn't you."

"...my ex suggested going here."

"Then you're the idiot who listened to him without checking what's happening here idiot."

She flinched at my words as she heard my scathing remarks and proceeded to curl in herself even further to get away from her own stupidity.

I rolled my eyes at her dumb actions and just decided to give her a bone or two. "Well whatever, we all make dumb decisions in the spur of the moment. There is nothing you can do about it except lay on your mistakes and deal with them. Speaking of making dumb decisions…" I let out my hand for a handshake. "Names Chris…uh I mean Reginald Livsey, just your average high school student soon-to-be college student, the bane of all educational systems."

She let out a snort as she looked up to see my extended hand. "Are you saying that associating with me is a dumb decision?"

I let out a grin. "Nah, I'm making a dumb decision to get to know a beautiful yet clumsy girl who needs guidance on foresight."

She rolled her eyes out but let out a small smile as she placed her feet down and shook my hand. "Flattery won't get you anywhere mister. Name's Paige Mcabee, stage name Bad Canary. Do remember this when you listen to my music."

My mind blanked out as the name fully registered into my mind. I just realized now how much in danger I am in right now.

Canary, a master who can implant suggestions into your minds through her voice if exposed long enough. The same Canary that told her ex to go 'Fuck Yourself'.

And now I'm being subjugated into the same treatment.

I'm so fucked.

So it's been a while since you have last seen this story.

Not dead, just kinda hanging around I suppose. Trying to figure out what to do with Boston since there isn't much here unless I turn it into a full-blown AU, throwing canon out the window. Share with me your ideas on what I can do with Boston if you have any.

Quick question, is Canary's power always on like Lisa's or is it voluntary?