AN: One day late due to RL, but here it is.
After class was over, I made my way over to the hallway that contained Emma's locker, where she was already waiting and chatting with Madison.
I'd agreed with Emma that I'd start using my own locker again next week – I had to get over it at some point – but in order to give me a bit more space, Emma would put my possessions in her locker for the moment, while I could hang back and let her grab what I needed without having to get close to one of the blasted things.
"Here you are, Taylor," she said as soon as she spotted me, handing over my bag and coat. Emma's perception had definitely improved as a side effect of her power – it picked up on anyone within her eyesight, including in her peripheral vision, and on top of that it even picked up on their stance towards people who weren't themselves in Emma's eyesight, allowing her to deduce that someone had to have entered the room – or, in this case, hallway – through seeing someone else.
I found it pretty impressive that Emma could handle all that information at the same time, but it seemed to be a fundamental part of the power she'd received.
"We'll meet up tomorrow at my place, okay?" Emma said to Madison. "I hope you understand I've got a lot to talk about with Taylor, in every way you can imagine."
Madison nodded. "Yeah, I do understand. Just, well, I can't deny that I'm a bit worried about how you're holding up. I've picked up more than enough regarding how bad it feels to go through that, and you're my friend, Emma."
"I know, and thank you, Mads. But spending time with Taylor is probably the best way for me to deal with it. Considering my specific situation, and everything."
Madison nodded again. "Yeah, I get that. I'll see you tomorrow at school then, and after as well. Um, I guess I'll see you around too, Taylor."
"Bye," I said a bit half-heartedly as she slipped off.
"Well, let's go, or we'll miss the bus," Emma said.
"It still feels a bit weird how different she treats me now," I said as we made our way towards the bus stop.
"I'm surprised, too," Emma agreed. She looked around, her power no doubt helping her ensure no one was eavesdropping. "I knew she was a cape geek – heck, I saw the borderline worship when Sophia revealed her secret to her – but I hadn't thought she'd do such a complete turnaround. I'm happy about it though, I'd rather not have to get between her and you. Dealing with Sophia is already complicated enough."
"Thanks," I said. "For, you know, keeping people away from me." I'd barely had to deal with anything over the past few days, after Emma had spread the word that I was to be left alone. Although those weren't quite the words in which she'd put it – after all, she'd had to justify not just leaving me alone, but also that she was now treating me as a close friend.
"Anything for you, Taylor. You don't deserve anything less from me."
"How are people reacting, actually?" I asked as we arrived at the stop. The bus was already approaching in the distance.
"My own skills definitely make it easier," Emma said, avoiding the word 'powers' in case someone was listening in. "But I doubt I'll be back to being the most popular girl in the year any time soon. If I even want to get back there."
"You don't?" I asked, as the bus arrived. We got in and took seats next to each other.
"It's hard to become popular without pushing your competition down. No, I'm not saying that right. You can become popular just by being nice. But you can't become the most popular without pulling down your competitors. Because they're going to be doing the same thing to you, so your own popularity is going to suffer."
I frowned despite myself. "Is anyone screwing with you like that?"
"No," Emma said, and I felt relieved. "There's a bunch who want to, but between everyone knowing that my dad is a lawyer, that the school administration likes me, and that Sophia is one of my friends – even if there's a bit of tension between us right now – they're just leaving me be, because right now I'm spending too much time with you to be a threat to them anyway."
"That sounds like a perfectly reasonable place to be," I said.
"It is," Emma agreed. "I can easily tell if someone is considering trying to screw with me, so I can head it off if I really need to, but if there's one takeaway from the last year and a half that's not related to you, it's that being popular isn't really worth all that much."
I smirked. "Is this really the same Emma that I remember?"
She smiled. "Just a little more grown-up."
"So grown up that you consider popularity in school to be something stupid that self-centered teenagers pursue," I teased.
She snorted. "Don't be silly. I still like the challenges of social status, you know."
"There we go, that's the Emma I remember."
"I'm just a little less selfish about it, I guess," Emma said as she turned contemplative. "It's not a goal anymore, it's a means I can use to pursue actual goals. Things that matter."
I laid my head on her shoulder. "I never thought I'd hear something that mature coming out of your mouth, Ems."
"Shut it, you," she said, having the audacity to poke me in my ribs. "Just because you've always been the reasonable one that doesn't mean I can't work at it myself. Change the dynamic between us a little."
"What? No!" I said in mock offense. "Soon you'll be expecting me to actually work with people now!"
Rather than tease me, Emma frowned, turning more serious. "Isn't that kind of what you've been doing this past week?" With my powers, was the unspoken part of that sentence.
"I… guess so," I said as I thought about that. "But I don't know how I'd manage everything without you backing me up. Like, I'm supposed to get Sophia and Tammi to get along with each other?"
"You could ignore Sophia," Emma pointed out.
"I could," I admitted. She wasn't exactly a priority as far as my power was concerned, but on the other hand, no matter what I thought of her she was still Emma's friend, as well as an easy contact with the Wards – and through them the Protectorate. And then there was the other thing.
"Her violent streak bothers me," I said, knowing Emma would get what I meant. "It just… doesn't seem right."
She nodded. "If you're right that it's not, and can figure out how to do something about it, I'd like that. I think I was a bit blind to her issues in the past, and I still want to like her, but she definitely needs to mellow out."
"I can't promise I can do something about it," I pointed out. "But it's definitely something I want to look into, even if it's not in my skillset. It might be more in yours, actually."
Emma considered that as we got up to leave the bus, having arrived at our stop.
"I don't think it really is," she said, now able to talk freely again. "My power gives me information, it doesn't help me influence people. But I can try to be a positive influence on her in more mundane ways."
"With some luck, recruiting her might also help," I said.
"Perhaps," Emma agreed. "I'll keep talking to her to see if she'll tell me when she's planning a solo patrol. The PRT doesn't like it when she does that, but so long as she doesn't use excessive violence they can't really do anything to stop her."
"It'd be nice to have a costume by then," I said as we entered Emma's home and put away our winter clothing. "We really need to think about that."
"We should," Emma agreed, leading me to the living room. We both called out a greeting to her mom, who was busy in the kitchen as far as I could tell.
"I actually have no clue how other parahumans get their costumes," I admitted.
"Neither do I," Emma said. "I mean, for the Protectorate and the Wards it's obvious, they'll have costume designers."
"It's a big deal," I said. "You pretty much have to link your civilian and cape identities for someone, unless you make it yourself. And I don't think I could do that, if I don't want to end up with some stupid mess of patched-together clothes."
Emma smirked. "Are my ears deceiving me? Do you have a sense of style, Taylor?"
I huffed. "I don't want to look like a homeless person instead of a hero, that's all."
"It would be nice to have an expert…" Emma said, half to herself. Then, she snapped her fingers. "I've got it! We can go to one of my modeling contacts! We just need to figure out who is the most trustworthy. And then maybe get Dad to write up a contract or something for extra protection for our identities."
"That's… a really good idea," I said. "I was already thinking we should ask a cape or something, but there's no way that'd work out when you think about it. You're right, much better to go through someone you already know."
"You're not staying all the way until dinner, are you?"
"No," I said.
"I'll talk to Dad at dinner, and then I'll tell you tomorrow, okay?"
"Sounds good," I said, giving Emma a smile.
The next weekend, on Saturday evening, I was out on my own for the first time – as a cape, that was. Earlier, we'd met up with one of Emma's contacts to have our measurements taken and everything, which was just as boring as I'd always imagined it to be, so I didn't have a costume yet, but luckily I didn't need one so long as I remained in my Breaker form.
It felt a little uncomfortable to do so, in a way I couldn't place very well, but there were no genuine limits on how long I could remain in this form. Also, while I did give off a very faint glow, it wasn't enough to reveal me from miles away. It was hard to compare because I was practically monochrome, with the color being a pale yellow-white, but I didn't think I was even giving off as much light as my regular appearance would during the day purely from the light it would be reflecting.
Still, it also wasn't exactly stealthy. Unlike my target for the night. Shadow Stalker would be dressed in all black, and the small parts of her skin that were exposed were of course not much lighter. If Emma hadn't told me what her patrol route would be, there was no way I'd be able to find her.
Even while looking for her, I still needed my power's help to locate her – I didn't get to know any nearby parahuman's location for free, but the moment I paid attention to what I thought was movement, my power activated.
She'd already spotted me, but when I started moving towards her with a lazy beat of my wings – more for show than to keep myself airborne – she froze and kept one of her crossbows at the ready.
"Who are you?" she demanded as I approached hearing range.
"Queen," I responded. "New independent hero."
Shadow Stalker relaxed slightly, but kept her crossbow at the ready. "You're patrolling?" she asked.
"I am," I said. "First time out."
"Yeah, I figured that much, there's no way any cape in the city wouldn't know about you if you'd been out before."
"How come?" I asked.
"Stealth doesn't exactly seem to be your strong point," Shadow Stalker said derisively.
"Fair enough," I agreed. "I don't have to be in my Breaker form though – only for combat. I'm just keeping it active because my costume isn't finished yet."
"Couldn't resist the call of the hunt?" Shadow Stalker asked.
"In a way." Not the hunt she was thinking of, but a hunt nonetheless.
"Well, make sure to fuck the scum up." She turned to leave.
"How about we patrol together?" I suggested.
"And give away our position to everyone? Are you stupid?"
"Don't be so dismissive," I said with some amusement. "We can use my appearance to our advantage if we play it right."
I couldn't see her face, of course, but I got the impression she was very doubtful of that claim.
After a few seconds, she snorted. "Sure, I'll humor you. You got a patrol route?"
"Not really," I admitted. "I'm okay with following yours; I can get back without much trouble wherever in the city we go."
Shadow Stalker gave a short description of the route she planned on taking, and we set off. She used her powers to move from roof to roof, while I simply flew where needed. Of course, she wasn't stupid enough to blindly trust a new self-proclaimed hero, and kept an eye on me at all times.
Despite that, she was much more experienced at spotting trouble than me, and was therefore the first to notice a mugging about to occur a little down the road.
"So, what's your plan?" she snarked. "Get close and watch them run before you can get to them?"
"No," I said. "You approach them while remaining out of vision, and lie in wait. Once they spot me, you use the distraction to engage them."
She gave me what appeared to be a calculating look before nodding and slipping off through the shadows.
Meanwhile, I waited for about half a minute, right up until the moment the muggers left their hiding spots to ambush a pair of unwitting victims. Then, I took off from my roof and quickly made my way to the alley the muggers had chosen for their ambush.
As I flew over the alley, both the muggers and the victim took note of me – helped by the rush of wind generated by a flap of my wings. Of the five muggers, three immediately aimed their guns at me – all of them had a gun on them – while the last two continued to point them at their victims.
I landed opposite of where I'd come from, facing the group.
"Back off," one of the muggers said. Based on the shaved heads and tattoos, they seemed to be E88 – unsurprising, as Shadow Stalker's patrol route mostly covered E88 territory. "Or we'll shoot them." He indicated their victims.
"If you shoot them, I have no reason not to respond with lethal force," I countered. "Let's talk about this, shall we?" I kept my arms spread as if to show I was unarmed, but we both knew the gesture was meaningless – plenty of capes didn't need to carry regular weapons; and indeed, I was one of them.
On the other side, Shadow Stalker was moving into a better position unnoticed, both her crossbows ready to fire. The leader of the muggers – or at least, I assumed that was why he was doing the talking – just opened his mouth to respond to me when Shadow Stalker leapt out of her hiding spot and down onto the street.
Immediately, I jumped up and used my flight abilities to dash forward faster than I'd have been able to if I'd genuinely had to rely on my wings. At that same time, Shadow Stalker aimed and released her bolts. One of them hit a hostage taker in the arm in which he'd held his gun, forcing him to drop it, while the other zipped straight through the hostages before materializing inside the other mugger's shoulder, making him drop his gun too.
Meanwhile, I formed a sword of light in my hands as I approached. All three muggers on my side shot at me, and though one of the bullets went through my hip, it registered to me more akin to being touched than to being hurt – although I was still able to tell the difference. I did not stop to look, but I knew it seemed as if wisps of light were escaping my body through the 'holes' made by the bullet. It did not impede my movements and I knew it would take only a minute or so to heal completely, so I didn't acknowledge it.
Another shot whizzed just past my ear right when I arrived at the trio, and I swung my blade. My powers did not make me a master with it – I distantly figured I should probably see if I could receive training in various forms of weaponry – but did provide the basics required to not look like an idiot.
Thankfully, despite the superficial similarities between the two light-emitting blades, my weapon did not cut through the muggers as a lightsaber would have, instead only causing a deep cut in the arm of my first opponent.
The feeling was very different from what I'd expect a normal hit to be like, however; rather than getting caught in threads of clothing or sliding through soft material before getting stuck on something tougher, I lost speed more gradually, as if the blade were simply sinking into the arm.
It felt more like a way to avoid being overly lethal than it felt like an actual inability to cut through something.
Still, in the battle I did not pause to think about this – I'd all known it instinctively thanks to my Thinker abilities – and simply immediately moved to the second mugger. He'd drawn a knife, clearly not confident in his ability to use his gun in such close quarters, but it did not matter as I pierced his shoulder. The third one did get another shot off and almost hit his friend – and did manage to pierce my chest, although it didn't inconvenience me much more than the earlier hit – but then took a bolt from Shadow Stalker, who had finished reloading.
"I see what you meant," she said as she fumbled in her pockets for some tie-wraps. "That would've been difficult alone, and none of them had the faintest idea I was there until I got the two that weren't focusing on you. You going to be okay?"
I glanced down, where some wisps of light were still leaking out, roughly in the spot where my heart normally was.
"This should heal in a minute or two," I said while pulling out my burner phone – Emma had ensured I had one on me, one of the many tricks she'd learned from Sophia. "I call the police while you tie them up?"
"Yeah, sure," Shadow Stalker grunted. "And an ambulance, they get snappy if you don't."
Well, duh, I thought to myself. The two I'd stabbed certainly required aid, and I figured the other three probably did as well. Even if none of them had any life-threatening injuries.
"Are you okay?" I asked as I walked up to the would-be victims. At the same time, my fingers moved over the keys of my phone to type in 911, and I put it to my ear.
I nodded in response to the stammered thanks from the pair, but before I had the chance to respond to them, the call was picked up.
"Nine-one-one, what's your emergency?"
"Hello, new independent hero Queen here. I've just stopped a mugging at…" I checked the street sign and conveyed the information. "The victims are uninjured, but all five muggers are wounded one way or another, although none life-threatening. Shadow Stalker is also here."
"Thank you," the operator said. "I'll send some police and an ambulance your way. Please remain at the scene until your statement has been taken, and please request the victims do the same."
"I'll do that," I responded, and a moment after that, the operator hung up – in a city like Brockton Bay, every second probably counted.
I put the phone back in my pocket and conveyed the information to the victims, who were clearly still shaken.
However, over the next few minutes I managed to coax out a bit of conversation – Shadow Stalker gave me a glance that I suspected meant to convey that she thought I was stupid for doing so – but hopefully I could put the duo at least slightly at ease.
It took less than ten minutes for the first police car to arrive, and they immediately took our statements. A few minutes later, Shadow Stalker and I were back on our way just when a van for prisoner transport turned the corner.
"Not bad for a rookie hero," Shadow Stalker said.
"One of my friends knows a heroic cape," I responded. "Got a lot of good advice that way."
"Skirting the unwritten rules, huh?" she questioned.
"Never said she shared the identity of the cape with me," I said. "And besides, she's a cape herself, although a new one, just like me. Administrator, is what she decided to call herself."
Shadow Stalker scoffed. "Seriously? Could that name be any more lame?"
"Don't underestimate her," I said. "She has quite a potent Thinker power. Although I will admit that her combat value is close to zero. But then, a good cape organization needs both."
"Not joining anyone already out there?" she asked.
"I don't do well under someone else's orders," I said. "It's inherent to my powers. I wish the Protectorate and Wards all the best, and I hope to be on good terms with all of you, but I won't be joining. Same with New Wave."
Shadow Stalker grunted. "I can respect that. Trust me, the freedom is worth it."
"You're a Ward," I pointed out.
"Because they threatened me over a few injured fucking skinheads," she spat. "Claimed I used excessive violence. As if that scum doesn't deserve excessive violence."
"No one deserves excessive violence," I parried, unwilling to let that one go. "We're a civilized society, we have prisons for those people. And people who want to be violent can go find themselves a gym with a punching bag."
She scoffed, but I talked over her before she could argue against me.
"I've been at the receiving end of a ton of undeserved excessive violence, Shadow Stalker. That's what caused my fucking trigger. If violence is needed, I'll use it, but praising violence is not a healthy behavior and you will harm innocent people if you do that."
"Whoa whoa, sorry, didn't mean to push your trigger, okay?" she responded defensively, although her heart didn't seem to be in the apology.
"It's fine," I said. This was, I felt, a bit of a crossroads in terms of my future recruitment efforts of the girl, and thankfully my power came to my aid. "Look, I want to get rid of the Empire and the ABB and all the others as much as you, okay? But if you just maim skinheads left and right it becomes piss easy for them to paint you like a bastard cop who's just in it to satisfy their own sadism. Even if that's not true. And then they get sympathy while you get hatred. So let's not give them the opportunity. Just capture them with minimal violence and lock them up, that way you look good and they look bad."
Shadow Stalker scoffed. "Yay, people like me. What does that get me?"
That was an open goal if I'd ever seen one. "People will be more willing to tattle on E88 activities. People will be less likely to join the E88. People will be less likely to protect the E88. People will be more likely to resist E88 schemes. And so on."
"I doubt that's gonna do anything."
"Okay, let's turn things around. What do you get from using excessive violence?"
Shadow Stalker remained silent.
"Nothing at all," I concluded. "So you might as well take your chances, right? Anyway, let's not allow our disagreement to make us forget that we did get some of the assholes off the street tonight. I'm not sure about you, but I'm happy with how the patrol went. At least, I'm thinking of going home now. I don't know if you are."
"Yeah, sure," she responded dismissively. "I'll just finish the last few blocks, doubt there'll be anything going on this late though."
"See you another time, then," I said before flying off towards Emma's home. She would want to know how things went, and I'd have to go through a few things that she might want to bring up with Sophia if she saw the opportunity to play off of what we'd talked about on the patrol.
AN: Join my discord server here: discord dot gg slash xKJKNjY