Read aloud to me alt Taylor

by Kahlil Johnson

Dnd

23. Camra shy

I never would have thought that nearly all of my problems could have been solved by suddenly going blind, but here we are.

Having his only daughter become disabled seemed to snap Dad out of the funk he had been in since Mom died, and he stepped up in a big way, throwing himself into taking care of me. I was much too old for him to help bathe me despite honestly needing that assistance in the very early days of my blindness, but Dad had basically done everything else; it was like I was four again. Now – two months later – I was far, far more independent, but he still felt the need to be involved. I wasn't complaining; it had been too long since he had paid much attention to me.

My inability to see had also necessitated we clean up the place; between his moping and my withdrawal due to the bullying, the house had slowly become a bit of a dump. Now, however, everything from shampoo to spices were neatly organized and sported little braille labels, there were no stray objects lying around (to make my navigation safer and easier), and Dad had even taken the time to fix that broken step on the porch lest I get tripped up by it. Combined with Dad's reinvigoration, the place seemed… brighter. Ironic, I know, given my condition.

Meanwhile at school, I had obviously needed some changes to be made in light of my disability. Turns out Winslow is such a shithole that they didn't even have any existing accommodations for blind students, which incidentally was quite illegal: Public schools were supposed to offer equal education and all that, they can't just ship inconvenient students off to specialized schools all the time.

Dad and I had considered transferring me to a school for the blind and visually impaired (there were two in the Brockton Bay city limits, though neither were a comfortable distance from our house), but after some counseling (done pro bono; the Dockworker's Union had some people that dealt with this kind of thing) we had decided to keep me 'mainstreamed', which meant attending a 'normal' school.

I may or may not have gotten some vindictive satisfaction 'seeing' Winslow's scramble to rectify their state of affairs, bringing in a single TBVI (Teacher for the Blind and Visually Impaired) just for me.

Between some hush money from the threat of exposing their previously-inadequate accommodations and the – meager, but sufficient for our short-term needs – settlement resulting from the… situation… that blinded me in the first place (no, I don't want to talk about it), Dad and I were at least no worse off financially than we were before this, which was saying something given all the extra expenses.

Braille label-makers, talking thermostats and microwaves, and text-to-speech software were all… well they weren't cheap, I'll tell you that. I would have been forced make do without the talking appliances if we hadn't received financial assistance, and even foregoing those luxuries a quality screen reader with a compatible device would have still put a dent in Dad's wallet by itself.

Anyway, I had an 'instructional assistant' following me around during school hours now. Mrs. Banks, the TBVI, was very hands-off; always sitting in the back corner and only ever doing anything when I needed the help, such as interlining my braille typewriter work with print, transcribing materials from print to braille for me, preparing tactile materials, that kind of thing.

From what research I had done on my own (via a computer an text-to-speech screen reading software, of course), blind students my age are not usually as directly aided by a TBVI. However, because I became blind only about two months ago and it happened so suddenly, I was basically being treated like a blind third-grader in terms of assistance.

Speaking of text-to-speech, that was the only thing I really missed about being able to see: Reading. Screen readers with electronic books weren't the same, and braille books weren't normal-sized, not to mention that many books weren't even available in braille. I was also slower to read the tactile writing than I had been when sighted, though Mrs. Banks had said I was advancing remarkably quickly.

Regardless of the obvious downsides… between Dad seeming alive again, the house feeling upkept and lived-in, and having my own personal TBVI following me around at school, I'm definitely going to say 'worth it' on this whole 'blind' thing.

You 'see', I was fine with having an instructional assistant helping me at all times despite the minor humiliation, since it meant an adult was always actually paying some amount of attention to me, which in turn meant the three bitches had to lay the fuck off.

They couldn't get away with anything overt with Mrs. Banks always near, and she apparently hadn't yet gotten whatever memo all the other teachers at Winslow had received ('Ignore all pleas from one Taylor Anne Hebert, any accusations are completely unfounded, signed Blackwell' , or something) because the matronly older woman had gradually become more and more incensed with every covert act of bullying she caught.

I liked Mrs. Banks, though I thought her a bit naïve despite her age, which I guessed to be early seventies. Even before she spoke with that posh accent of hers, you could tell she came from a more affluent part of town by how appalled she was at whatever new disappointment Winslow showed her from day to day.

For example, today a gaggle of girls had stopped me outside of Gladly's class, only for Mrs. Banks to come out behind me, see what was happening, and order everyone to Blackwell's office. Of course, Blackwell had dismissed Banks' concerns of bullying ("There's no proof of malicious intent, the girls were just standing in the hallway") to the surprise of no-one but poor Mrs. Banks herself.

… which was why I found myself sitting in Blackwell's office for the umpteenth time over the last month as Banks fussed at Blackwell and Blackwell badly pretended she cared.

Despite her permanently-permed short grey hair, adorably (in that 'nice old lady' way) large glasses, and colorful blouse covering a plump, grandmotherly figure, you could tell Winslow's atmosphere of apathy was wearing on Mrs. Banks. I hated to see the kindly older woman slowly get beaten down by this cesspit like everyone else, even more than I hated Blackwell's clearly-impatient expression obviously waiting for when the TBVI would give up, shut up, and leave.

Now, you might be wondering, 'But Taylor, how do you know what Blackwell's expression looks like without being able to see?'

Perhaps this is a good time to explain that I wasn't… exactly… strictly-speaking… blind all the time.

In fact, I hadn't received any injury that would render me blind at all: My blindness is a consequence of my stupid power.

Yeah, I'm a cape. The kind PHO calls a 'grab-bag', as best I could determine. Though when it comes to grab-bags, I apparently grabbed the shittiest bag of them all.

I couldn't see with my eyes. Spotted, glassy, fogged over, and a paler green than before, they were actually quite beautiful now (Dad would say 'more beautiful now', at which I would roll said eyes), but they were useless all the same. However, one of my three parahuman abilities was the most 'meh' Thinker power ever: Whenever someone was looking at me – no, whenever someone could see me, the difference was subtle but quite important – I saw through their eyes.

For example, right now I was getting Blackwell's view of Mrs. Banks and me sitting in front of her desk, as well as the bookshelf and door behind us. Blackwell wasn't looking at me, per se, but I was in her field of vision; hence the earlier distinction.

My hair had fallen in front of my face again at some point. This was a recurring problem that happened while I couldn't see myself, but I didn't move to fix it. If I responded to everything I saw with my power, people might start to suspect I was somehow faking my blindness, or worse, guess the truth.

Instead I stared slightly to Blackwell's right with my hands in my lap, fogged eyes unseeing.

My eyes didn't look quite like those of any normal blind person – Dad had compared them to light-green galaxies, earning another eye-roll – but they weren't outlandish enough for people to suspect that their appearance was a mutation caused by a parahuman ability. I just had really pretty cataracts, is all. Thanks, power.

Pretending to be totally blind even when I could 'see' my surroundings through someone else wasn't nearly as hard as you might think. The third-person view of myself still made my movements awkward, my responses slower than a sighted person, with my visual reflexes being basically nonexistent. If Blackwell inexplicably picked up the stress-ball on her desk and lightly tossed it at my face, I probably wouldn't even reflexively blink until it hit me, much less dodge or catch the thing. The outside perspective of myself was too disassociating.

Mrs. Banks turned slightly towards me to gesture in my direction while she spoke, and in so doing my knee entered her field of view. This was enough to give me her perspective, too.

The sensation was a little like going cross-eyed, but without any of the discomfort or confusion. I still saw Blackwell's point of view, but now I could see the front of the room and Blackwell herself through Mrs. Banks' eyes as well.

I watched Blackwell interlace her fingers on her desk through two different perspectives: First, Banks seeing Blackwell, the window, and the diplomas on the wall behind the principal while barely catching my leg in her peripheral vision; Second, Blackwell catching the motion of her interlocking fingers at the edge of what she could see as she focused on Mrs. Banks, with me sitting beside the TBVI.

I knew it should have been disorienting seeing through multiple sets of eyes at once, so I guess my mighty Thinker power (again, as best I could determine from PHO's power classification discussions, at least) came with the perk of not giving myself a migraine from the different perspectives the oh-so-powerful vision effect granted.

Fucking 'woo'. Sign me up for the Triumvirate.

I shifted my leg to get it out of Mrs. Banks' vision; I didn't want to see Blackwell's stupid face right now. As soon as Banks lost sight of me, I lost my sight through her eyes, only Blackwell's point of view remaining.

A few times over the course of the 'meeting' – which was taking up my lunch, so I was eating a sandwich – Blackwell looked away or rubbed her eyes (which made me lose her vision, leaving me actually blind) or Banks looked directly at me to make a point or ask me a question, which forced me to see through her eyes again.

Several pointless minutes later we finally left, Mrs. Banks letting me lead the way out the door with my cane. In addition to being a TBVI, she was also my mobility trainer.

Unlike learning braille, in this I was a terrible student, my progress with the cane exceptionally slow due to me not actually being blind half the time.

For example, right now it was hard to remember the steps (Hold the cane with my hand centered in front of me, move it with only my wrist in an arc that is about an inch wider than my body, move the cane in rhythm with my feet with it opposite my forward foot, um… there's another one I think...) and respond to any obstructions as I was expected to when, due to both Blackwell and Banks watching me wave the cane across the floor and make my way out the door, I could see myself, which made the whole thing feel silly.

Like, I knew that box was there, but I still had to hit it with the cane and pretend I just now realized that fact.

Also, it was weird watching myself move the cane towards said box and hit it from two different third-person perspectives, only to feel the cane hit the box in, obviously, first-person.

As I walked out into the lobby around the secretary's desk, Mrs. Banks stayed to have a few more words with Blackwell.

That meant no one was looking at me, rendering me truly blind. Counterintuitively, that made my cane discipline easier, since it felt necessary now. I navigated over to where I knew a waiting bench was located, feeling my way across the floor with my cane.

I was bizarrely disappointed when Blackwell's secretary stepped out from some back room to take up her post at the front desk again, since it gave me vision of myself – slouched on the bench staring forward, with my cane folded up across my lap – when she glanced my way.

However, as usual she didn't give me a second glance, focusing on her computer screen and thus losing vision of me. This, of course, made me lose her point of view in turn.

Darkness again.

I got sight back when Banks came out of Blackwell's office not even a minute later, speaking softly to me. "All right Taylor, let us go. You lead."

I rose and started up my cane-waving once more. Mrs. Banks insisted I make my own way most of the time; she stressed independence, putting heavy emphasis on learning to rely on others as little as possible.

As Banks watched me locate the door and make my way out, the secretary looked up again, giving me a secondary viewpoint and thus allowing me to see how flushed Mrs. Banks had become following the fruitless meeting.

I also saw, in the secretary's peripheral vision, that she had unsaved work on her computer.

In a fit of spite – a weakness I'd been more prone to since I got my powers – I directed a full-strength blast of my second ability at the device.

The insanely strong (Do I even need to clarify my sarcasm?) effect made the screen… blip briefly, showing static noise like a TV without a signal for half a second.

Terrifying.

That tiny moment of power loss still caused a reboot that wiped whatever progress she had made over the last few minutes, so mission accomplished, weak power or no.

Basically I had some kind of extremely minor techno-kinesis aura or something. I could make lights flicker, devices lose power for fractions of seconds, that kind of thing.

All of its effects were very small and almost always temporary; I had discovered that I could blow out a lightbulb if I pushed really, really hard for a couple seconds, but that was the most I was capable of doing. Normally lights came back on or devices returned to full functionality as soon as I stopped focusing on them, and the exertion was disproportionately tiring for its meager and, shall we say, less-than-versatile effect. If I didn't strain myself fully, the only thing that happened was a creepy flickering.

I lost the secretary's vision as she looked back at her screen, but I still heard the muffled cursing and a shuffle as she bent below the desk to check the power cord.

Anyway, the important thing was that Mrs. Banks' face was flushed.

She still didn't get it: Nothing was going to change at Winslow. I had told her in the past that her presence already made things vastly better than before, but the old woman was still always so… distressed, when the other girls got away with some inane thing or another.

Knowing it wouldn't do any good, I tried to console her anyway. I spoke without turning around; it was easy to forget things like that when I was looking through another's sight.

"Mrs. Banks, it's fine, really, I -"

The old woman drew in a sharp breath. "No, dear, it really isn't, and don't you think for a second that it is. What's happening here is quite frankly ridiculous; never in my life -"

She halted her increasingly heated tirade, shifting, and I finally turned towards her, orienting myself using her perspective.

The disconnection between 'watching myself' and 'moving my body based on what I saw' made me a little off: I 'missed', staring over her left shoulder since I was a full head taller than her. Since I was supposed to be blind anyway, it didn't matter.

I could no longer see Mrs. Banks herself, but I heard the smile in her voice when she next spoke, softer this time. It was probably a fake, sad smile, but she tried.

"Well now, that's my problem, not yours. So help me, it will not be your problem, I do declare. Also," she reached out and gently tucked the strands of dark hair obscuring a decent portion of my face behind my ears instead; a few locks on one side, then a few on the other, "what did I tell you about maintaining appearances, hm? Just because you can't see through them doesn't mean you should let hair fall in front of your eyes, dear."

I saw her hand coming from her view, but still flinched slightly and blinked when I felt her touch; again, the third-person perspective made me not react to things as if the skinny dark-haired girl I was seeing was me.

"Yes Mrs. Banks."

It had always struck me as a little odd how freely Mrs. Banks made comments like that; I'd have imagined blindness being a more sensitive subject, but my TBVI made casual remarks referencing it often, like this one. I guess it was supposed to help normalize my condition.

On the topic of my appearance, I had given up protesting long ago, instead just going along with Mrs. Banks, Dad, and Lacey's (a close Union friend of Dad's, somewhat of a distant 'aunt' figure to me, that he had brought over a few times in the last couple months to help me with girl stuff) insistence that I look 'my best'. I had never bothered with prettying myself much before becoming blind and it hadn't been an issue then, but now that I couldn't see myself, apparently how I looked was everyone else's problem. Lacey, Banks, and I had spent one long afternoon early on making matching outfits and labeling them accordingly with my label-maker so that later I could locate the component articles of clothing and know, despite not being able to see, that I didn't look ridiculous in miss-matched clothes.

I still ended up feeling ridiculous in this skirt and blouse instead of my comfortable, obscuring jeans and hoodie.

A low tone played over the school's intercom, and my vision went black again as Mrs. Banks looked away from me down the hallway. The between-class shuffle started up as students left for their fourth and final class of the day.

"That's the bell." She sighed. "Let's get a -"

"Actually, um." My vision – well, Mrs. Banks' vision, which I got to use – returned as she looked back in my direction. I used the view of myself to help appear tentative and earnest, not that I had to fake much. "Could I… make my own way? I need to use the bathroom, but you can go on ahead."

I had phrased it like that so she'd agree; anything I showed independence in was something she encouraged.

Besides, the only reason she was accompanying me anyway was because we were already together and headed to the same place; I had gotten quite good at navigating on my own even while truly blind, my cane skills notwithstanding. I didn't need a full-time guide.

I thought she frowned, but couldn't be sure since her vision obviously didn't include her own face, and there were no other points of view in the lobby for me borrow. None looking at me, anyway.

"Are you sure, dear? What if those girls -"

"I'll be fine." I assured her, feeling my way to the girls' bathroom with my cane. I tilted my head over my shoulder as I walked in. "See you in class!"

Mrs. Banks continued gazing at me until I vanished behind the bathroom door; she might have kept staring after me even then, but since she couldn't see me I lost her perspective.

Now everything was dark again. Most legally 'blind' people actually have some vision, ranging from just extreme nearsightedness to only having vague impressions of colors and nothing else. Me? Totally, truly blind. Well, when not in anyone's sight, of course.

The light tapping of my cane sounded louder in the quiet, echoey lavatory. In fact, it was the only noise aside from an intermittent dripping; presumably coming from one of the faucets, but you never knew with Winslow.

I made my way towards the middle of the room before calling out.

"Hello? Anyone in here?"

I waited a few seconds; no response came out of the blackness.

Of course, someone might actually be right beside me and I wouldn't know it if they were quiet: Contrary to what movies might tell you, blind people don't get super-hearing or smell or whatever.

Though, to remain hidden the person would have to completely avoid looking at me, for obvious reasons.

Anyway, even if there was someone in here, if I couldn't see through their eyes that meant they wouldn't see what was about to happen.

I activated my one somewhat-decent ability.

Suddenly I could see, and this time it was from my perspective. You know, normal vision. My 'ghost world', as I had taken to calling it, was nice like that.

Well, almost normal vision.

Everything looked… flat, not quite monochrome but close to it, and weirdly bright. It had initially taken me a while to figure out what was happening, but I had eventually realized this appearance was because everything was artificially illuminated to have perfectly-even lighting no matter what the lighting in my surroundings were in the 'real' world.

No shadows; the sinks and toilet paper rolls almost looked two-dimensional due to that lack. No shading, no different lighting to give things nuances to their colors; I could still see color, but it all seemed muted, fake somehow. Finally, with everything perfectly lit the whole place seemed too bright, and I could see straight down the sink pipes if I leaned over: Even places dark in the 'real world' were bright in my 'ghost world'.

Speaking of the sinks, apparently it was the second one from the far left that had been dripping: A droplet of water was 'paused', frozen midair where it had been when I had 'went ghost'.

Time was stopped in my 'ghost world'. That, combined with how weird everything looked, made the overall effect unsettling in an uncanny valley kind of way. At least it actually gave better visibility than normal sight; like super night-vision.

There was a 'catch' to the vision I had in my ghost-world, but we'll get to that shortly. For now, I floated out of the bathroom through the wall.

Yes, 'floated' and 'through the wall'. My ghost-world self had given me a real fright when I had first transformed and looked down to not see a body anymore.

At this point it should be apparent why I had named my ghost-world what I did. Sure it's a bit derivative, but no one has to know what I'm calling my own personal alternate dimension in the privacy of my head so it doesn't matter.

Actually, I wasn't entirely sure what my third ability would be classified as: Was I an absurd Shaker, actually pausing everything around me? A Thinker/Mover hybrid that just perceived everything as paused? A dimension-hopping Breaker?

PHO wasn't very helpful, especially when I had to listen to at least the beginning of every comment in each thread through the screen reader's synthetic voice. I eventually figured out that I could safely skip to the next comment without missing anything of substance whenever I heard the screen reader say the sequence 'X-X-VOID-COWBOY-X-X' as the username.

Regardless of how it worked, just like my Thinker power my ghost-world was a double-edged sword.

On the downside, I was completely incorporeal, unable to interact with my twilight-zone-looking surroundings while 'ghost', not to mention see what my arms or legs were doing. Also, like I mentioned earlier, my vision in my ghost world has a severe 'catch', but I digress.

On the upside, I could float, move through things, and when I transitioned between worlds I could take objects with me – within reason. Clothes, backpack, cane? All OK. A car? Nah. Living things other than myself? Manton Limit says 'fuck your dreams'.

Oh, and I guess 'unable to interact with the world' wasn't an entirely accurate description of my ghost form: When I pass through things, I sort of… 'smear' them, in my ghost world.

That's really the best way to describe it. Say I wave my invisible hand through a time-stopped red cup in my ghost world. The cup will look mostly the same, but there will be a red blur in the direction I waved my hand through it, trailing into the air behind it like someone smudged a drawing.

'Smearing' something doesn't change anything about it, it just gets 'pushed' in the direction of the smear when time unfreezes; in other words, when I go back to the real world.

I emerged through the wall into the corridor, brick 'smearing' behind me, the blurred off-white of the dirty wall reaching out in little streaks like runoff from a watercolor painting. That wasn't a concern, though, because the smear's 'push' wasn't remotely strong enough to do anything to solid concrete.

If I had passed through one of the bathroom stalls, for example, then that would be a slightly bigger problem, since the smear's push would make the rickety old things rattle a bit when I dropped out of my ghost world and thus unfroze time.

When I was first trying out my power, I had accidentally passed through a stack of newspapers Dad had left on the kitchen table, 'smearing' them without knowing what the 'smear' did. The resulting push was enough to knock them off onto the floor when I went 'normal' and time resumed. It was a light nudge; doors that were already cracked open a little anyway slowly opened wider if I passed through them, that kind of thing. Dad had noticed when I had went ghost in my bedroom, floated downstairs to where he was standing in the living room, passed through and 'smeared' his unmoving form with just a hand, and went back upstairs; he complained of a strong breeze, and told me to tell him if I felt it too so he could find the draft.

So, in other words, the 'smear' thing basically only existed to let enemies know of my presence.

Again, thanks power.

I looked down the hallway and was finally confronted with the 'catch' to my ghost-world vision that I've been talking about.

I could see Mrs. Banks frozen mid-stride, apparently only just now turning away from the bathroom door and starting down the hallway. The walls, her clothes, the flyers hanging off a bulletin board, almost everything had that eerie flat monochrome look of the perfectly-evenly-lit.

However, in front of Mrs. Banks was a wide cone of darkness, the small end starting at her face and rapidly enlarging until it encompassed the whole hallway in front of her.

My overall power's theme was 'observation', apparently, because similar to how my Thinker ability depended on me being observed or not, my ghost vision depended on my surroundings being observed or not.

If an area wasn't observed? It looked perfectly illuminated to me in my ghost world even if it was shrouded in pitch darkness for the real world.

If an area was under observation by anyone? I couldn't see anything; just darkness, even if it was lit for normal people.

That 'cone' of black in front of Mrs. Banks? Her field of vision.

I could still move through the darkness, I just couldn't see. Which, while extremely inconvenient, was pretty much par for the course with my power.

Oh, and finally the clincher: If I was being observed in the real world, I couldn't enter my ghost world, I was stuck as just plain old ugly Taylor Hebert. If I was in the darkness of someone's field of view while in my ghost world, I couldn't go back to normal, I was stuck as an incorporeal ghost until I found somewhere illuminated – and thus not under observation – to change back.

Effectively, no one could ever see me travel to or from my ghost world, which given the time-stop effect would just look like teleportation to an outside observer anyway.

This was something I knew instinctively, but had also tested in secret using Dad: I couldn't jump into my ghost world in front of him, nor could I appear in front of him from my ghost world, so he remained unaware that I had experimented with my power on him.

I had used Dad as the unwitting guinea pig because, while I didn't want anyone to know about my powers, he is the one I would be the most 'OK' with knowing if it turned out I could go to or from my ghost world while in someone's sight. Maybe Mrs. Banks as a distant second, and even saying that showed a much greater degree of trust than I had been capable of a few months ago.

Anyway. In summary, I had a really shitty form of teleportation.

Not needing line-of-sight was pretty nifty, and the ability to scout my surroundings was useful, but to 'balance out' those unusual advantages over most other instantaneous Movers, my brand of teleportation came with the itsy-bitsy drawback of not working anywhere anyone was looking, both on leaving and arrival.

That's just a minor detail, I'm sure in the most common situation I'd want to use the ability to appear somewhere else – oh, I don't know, someone about to attack me, maybe? – they'll kindly look the other way if I asked them.

… Okay, maybe I was being a bit melodramatic or overly cynical, since even blinking was enough to let me 'go ghost' and reposition. The instant I wasn't observed, I could activate my other form. It was still a hell of a weakness, and I was already a bit salty about how weak my other two abilities were.

I mean, Circus has a hammerspace, don't try to tell me all grab-bag capes only get a lot of weak powers.

I floated through the ceiling and up to the roof of the building, intending to take a breather before the real 'jump'. Like my Shaker ability, my ghost state made me tired.

Unlike my electronics aura, that fatigue vanished as soon as I went back to normal, and my ghost-world stamina recovered very quickly while I stayed in the normal world. Why my ghost power was so much stronger than my other powers I didn't know, but I'll take what I can get.

Effectively, the fatigue was just a time limit on how long I could snoop around in the ghost world, which in turn was a range limit on my 'teleportation'.

I don't know what would happen if, succumbing to the tiredness, I fell asleep or something while in my ghost world. I hadn't risked trying it yet. I wasn't going to.

Everything was nice and visible on the school roof itself, though huge swaths of the surrounding area were covered in darkness, presumably from bored students looking out windows. Additionally, most of the sky was completely dark. Generally at least two or three people in the entire city will be looking up at any given time, and it only takes a couple people to cover the whole sky with that pesky 'observation'.

The vast inky blackness all around me in the distance, combined with the strange flat, too-lit appearance of everything I could see, made for a surreal experience. Especially since in a world where time was stopped, complete silence reigned.

I exited my ghost world to appear standing on the roof, my book-bag on my back and my cane in hand. The fatigue from my ghost form immediately vanished, and I could hear the occasional bird chirp or car honk as the light February breeze tickled my hair.

I waited up there a little over two minutes to make sure Mrs. Banks would arrive in class before me. Alone in the darkness of my normal body's nonexistent vision, I had time to mull over the risks of what I was doing, and whether it was worth it.

It really wasn't. I was just here to avoid the pitying glances in the hallways; they were almost as bad as the current bullying, though not nearly as bad as the bullying of before.

I had seen myself through dozens and dozens of viewpoints; cane tapping my way to my next class, glassy eyes facing straight ahead. Through those many perspectives, I had been able to see everyone's expressions despite each set of eyes not showing their own face.

Pity. Also shock, uneasiness, dismissal, or even guilt, but mostly pity. Pity everywhere. Even from most of Emma's cronies. Even a little from Madison, in the beginning.

Emma and Sophia seemed to have talked those with a little bit of a conscience back around to their way of thinking, because they went right back at it within a few days of my return to school. However, between Mrs. Banks and that near-universal damned pity, it just wasn't 'cool' anymore to pick on me, the blind girl. I'd have thought my disability would have opened me up to more bullying, not less, but I guess there is such a thing as punching too low after all.

If only they had shown even that low level of concern and fucking human decency before I was left duct-taped to a pole in mud and shit and –

Deep breaths. In. Out.

Point is, if I could start using my one 'OK' power to teleport instead of tap tap tapping down the hallways, that would be amazing.

But… if I got caught…

I won't get caught. I literally had a power that told me if I was being watched, and I can't even use my ghost mode if someone can see me. How could I get caught? Yeah.

… It's been long enough. Time to go.

I went ghost again, and got blessed vision back.

Floating over the school, I moved through the air, not wanting to dip into the hallways until I was closer to my destination. Visibility would probably be limited due to stragglers observing.

When I was almost directly above my fourth-and-final-period classroom, I sunk through the ceiling and into the corridor.

Fortunately this particular stretch of hallway was deserted, so I could see almost everything. 'Beams' of darkness lanced out from a few of the little rectangular windows built into the classroom doors, but those were the only places being 'observed' in this corridor.

However, someone was apparently coming around the corner of the T-intersection in the hallway, several feet down from my current hovering position, since that area was completely blacked out. They must have been really late for class. At least I had a disability hall pass.

Still, the fact that I could see my surroundings meant no one was observing my current location.

Oh well, they won't see me appear, and for all they know I could have just taken a different route.

I entered the real world from my ghost one; I could appear mid-air and fall if I wished, but why would I want to do that when I could always materialize on my feet instead?

The low buzz of pre-class chatter from the nearby rooms came to my ears as time resumed, but I was, of course, blind once again.

Tapping my cane up to the door, I felt the braille on the plaque for the classroom number; this was the correct room. Doing that was mostly for show, though, since I had obviously seen that I was at the right place while in my ghost world.

Whoever had been coming turned the corner, and I suddenly saw myself standing in an empty hallway, cane held to the side, hand raised to feel the plaque. My hair had fallen in front of my face again, dammit.

The person called out and hurried their pace, revealing themselves to be a male student from what I could tell from their voice. I couldn't see them to guess if they were a skinhead or ABB member.

"Oh! Let me get that."

I blinked, turning in his general direction. I 'missed' again, 'looking' a bit lower than his face would have been. The boy reached over and opened the door for me.

His arm – which was the only part of him in his field of view right now – was quite muscled, but not excessively so; more 'lean' than 'shredded'. I felt a little heat rise to my cheeks, despite not knowing what the rest of him looked like.

The once-over he gave me didn't help.

It had been eye-opening (so to speak), not to mention a huge confidence boost, to see how many boys still 'checked me out' despite my lack of feminine features; I guess it was just hard-wired for them, no matter the particular girl in question. I saw through their eyes: butt, chest, then face, every single time they could get away with it (and some of the times they couldn't). Since I had neither of the first two assets the glances there were short, but they still happened.

He kept eye contact after that initial sweep though, his gaze unnecessarily meeting my milky, unseeing one.

"… Thanks." I mumbled as I fixed my hair and gave him a hesitant smile. Would it be rude to tell him being blind doesn't prevent me from opening doors for myself?

He – and therefore I – couldn't see his mouth, but I thought he smiled from the way the shape of his vision changed, narrowing slightly. "No problem! Anytime."

He watched me enter the classroom, tapping away, before turning around and continuing down the hallway. I lost his vision, but by then the whole class inside the room was watching the door shut behind me, so I wasn't lacking in viewpoints.

Mrs. Banks was in the back left corner as always; I'd recognize looking through her eyes by those thick glasses alone, even if she switched spots.

Each perspective winked out, row by row, as I moved towards the back of the room and students lost sight of me, returning their attention to the front when I went behind them. Some turned to stare, thinking I wouldn't see, so their points of view were available to me a bit longer.

I chose the second-to-last row like usual so I could have a few people seeing the back of my head; less vision loss every time the teacher blinked or turned around to write on the board.

I still had to wait for Mrs. Banks to type up most of the written material, of course, otherwise people would wonder how the blind girl was reading what the teacher was writing. I spent most of that time mulling over my final preparations for tonight.

A little over two months had passed since I got my powers, a week of which had been winter break. 'What is she waiting on', you might ask. Fair question. Sure my power was complicated, but power testing still shouldn't have taken two whole months.

The honest answer is, most of that time had been spent just learning to live as a blind woman, actually; I hadn't had much room for cape stuff.

However, I did manage to scrape together a costume and gather some supplies over the course of several weeks after I had finished exploring my abilities to my satisfaction. Which, to be fair, still took a long while given how many different things were going on with my power.

Now it was about to be the weekend.

I was ready. Tonight, I was going to be a hero.

And though I was doing this to make a name for myself… if no one actually saw me that would be a good thing.

Supposedly the main reason for that was because of how my power works: It doesn't play well with observation.

A small part of me admitted, however, that I was secretly more concerned about the fact that I hadn't thought of a name yet.

--

A/N:

Taylor's eyes look like symmetrical, elaborate, pale-green, but still within the realm of 'could pass for particularly stunning but natural' cortical cataracts; basically like Danny's description in the above chapter, 'pale-green galaxies'. This doesn't matter much, just a flavor thing, though it could be used to add mystique to Taylor later.

Be sure to check out the blurb in the informational threadmark directly following this chapter; you don't need to read the 'Taylor's Powers' part (all of that was covered here), but I do discuss what you should expect from this fic.

Last edited: Nov 2, 2022

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TheGreatGimmick

Sep 28, 2018

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TheGreatGimmick

TheGreatGimmick

Underestimates the time writing takes

Sep 28, 2018

#4

This was the part where I would be admiring my costumed self in the mirror, psyching myself up to go out for my first mission as a hero.

If I could see.

As it was, I had to make do with my 'ghost sight', laying out my equipment and costume on the bed to examine them as best I could in frozen time.

I couldn't use mirrors to see my reflection in ghost form since said reflection vanished as soon as I went ghost; go figure, because if you thought about it, that did not make sense if I really was 'freezing time'. As for other options… although a camera might have allowed my ghost self to see pictures of my 'normal' self, I hadn't asked Dad for one, fearing the awkward questions that might arise from a blind girl wanting any kind of visual medium.

Dad should be fast asleep at 2:00 a.m., but I had locked the door just in case. I knew it was two in the morning not because I had my talking clock speak the hour in its synthetic voice, but instead because I had checked the time in my ghost-world. I was taking no chances when it came to waking Dad up, even though he had assured me that he couldn't hear my clock or screen reader from his room ("You go ahead and enjoy your late-night reading, Taylor, don't worry about bothering me."). I had also left the lights off, since real-world illumination didn't matter to me in either my baseline or ghost forms.

Rotating my incorporeal form back to face my bed, I would have sighed if I had lungs in that moment.

My costume was probably going to look pretty awful. What can I say? I'm not a seamstress, and I definitely didn't have the money to get one professionally done. Judging by how it appeared right now, laid out on my bed… it wasn't pretty, it wasn't cool, and though it could maybe pass for intimidating, that effect would probably vanish as soon as I, scrawny frog-like Taylor Hebert, put it on.

All of that didn't matter, because I had made it with practicality and function in mind, not aesthetics.

The getup was basically a multi-layered poncho made from a ton of black cloth that I had found in a dumpster and cleaned up; I think the fabric used to be curtains. I had cut around the edges so that the outermost of the four layers hung around me mostly in strips for easier mobility, and so I could throw that layer off of myself in a pinch. The layer below that was similar. Below that the layer was closer in design to your average cloak, and finally the innermost layer was more like a dress or tunic that reached all the way to the ground and then some. The layers weren't connected in any way; just worn one over the other.

The hoods (yes, plural) were the hardest part to get right, since they all needed to fit inside one another. The final result was a thick, four-tiered cowl, as each of the four separate layers contributed their part of the head covering.

The only portion of my face you could ever see was my hair, if the mannequin I had used was any indication. Choosing between 'blindness' or 'time is stopped and you can't see yourself' is infuriating when trying to preview how a costume will look.

I had still made a full-face covering out of some leftover black cloth, just in case.

In fact, I already had that part on, just mummifying my face – not my hair, I liked my hair – completely to preserve my identity.

No eye-holes. Duh.

Outside observers usually couldn't see any of the lower layers of the large cloak until I had removed the layer above it, though my experiments trying to simulate how it would look jumping or spinning (by throwing the whole cloak up into the air and entering ghost-world to get vision and examining the time-frozen costume) had shown me that the outermost layer often revealed the second layer below its billowing strips of cloth.

Why go for such an ugly, bulky design? Well, for one I already said I suck at sewing, and a poncho-like cut is simple. For two, while my Thinker power counted anything I was wearing for its rules of 'observation', my ghost power's only limitation was that I couldn't take anything observed with me into my ghost world.

If I walked around in a full suit of armor or something, showing zero skin, my Thinker power would still count looking at that suit of armor as looking at me, causing me to see through the observer's eyes. As for my ghost power, I couldn't take the suit with me when I go ghost because it is being observed, but I could go ghost from inside the armor, leaving it behind, because the observer couldn't actually see me.

How do I know this? It may have involved terrifying a few homeless people when a mysterious white-bedsheet-ghost (still with no eye-holes) walked by them, only for the sheet to eventually crumple, no one inside.

I'm sure they just chalked it up to drugs or booze, no harm done.

Point is, I had layers to my costume – which showed no skin whatsoever, and covered my bandaged face and hair in a layered cowl – so I could, in a pinch, leave the current top layer behind in an emergency teleport. Like a lizard whose tail pops off. And has three tails.

It was also why I had made the sleeves of the outfit so long, the robe/dress go all the way to the ground, and the cowl so large: If anyone could see my hands, feet, or hair, I was just as stuck as the outer layer would be, since they could see me. I was wearing some elbow-length 'opera' gloves or whatever they're called, but that was just one layer that I'd have to leave behind and thus couldn't use more than once.

I had a solution to that eventuality too, though: As I mentioned, I tailored the outer two layers to be easily thrown off, such that they could act as a cape I could brandish in front of myself like a bull fighter.

A big piece of cloth between me and the enemy = no vision = vacation to ghost world, here I come.

Like I said, practicality and function over aesthetics.

Sure, the thick multi-layered cloak might trip me up if I was going to be doing anything acrobatic, but between my blindness and my awkward hand-eye coordination when looking at myself in third person, that was less of a concern for me than it would be for most capes. I was already not going to be turning any back-flips. I ran on the treadmill at the local gym every chance I could, but as a blind person I couldn't just go out for daily runs by myself. Besides, I was never very athletic.

In little pockets within my cloak (because I am not calling it a 'poncho', however accurate the descriptor may be), I had some zip ties, a can of pepper spray, a small first aid kit, a change purse filled with cotton swabs to mask the sound of the spare change within, a collapsible baton that I had no idea how to use, a lighter, and a few July 4th party smoke bombs and firecrackers to play 'ninja' with. I'd have to light up several of the colorful smoke ones at once to get any real cover, but they should work.

Last but far from least, lying on the bed beside my costume was a huge black umbrella. When unfurled, I barely had to crouch to hide behind it; sixty inches in diameter, it was excellent for obscuring myself without sacrificing a layer of my costume.

No, I didn't steal it: I told Dad I didn't know what to ask for at Christmas, and just had him give me some spending money for when I did figure it out. I didn't like lying to him, but I also didn't feel like explaining to him why I wanted a golf umbrella.

From tip to handle it was nearly four feet long, so when the umbrella wasn't open it doubled as a cane for me if needed. That was still way too short for a guide cane properly matched to my height (I was a tall girl), but it was workable, and I had long arms anyway.

Satisfied that I had everything arranged and that my costume looked as good as it was going to get, I exited my ghost world and started putting everything on in the dark.

The darkness of my blindness, I mean, though yes my room was also dark.

When I was done, I experimentally fluffed the thick robe-like garment around myself a few times, testing my mobility. I held off on unfurling the umbrella to make sure it worked properly; Dad might hear. I'd do that a little distance from home instead.

Since I couldn't see myself in either world, I couldn't tell what my whole getup looked like. Hopefully it didn't seem as thrown-together as I feared.

Oh well, when have I ever cared about appearances?

Not for the first time tonight, I thought of that boy that had held the door open for me before fourth block earlier today. Maybe appearances did matter a little bit…

Focus, Taylor.

I went ghost again, floating off into the night for my first hero outing.

Was I going to save someone? Stop a crime in progress? Take down a supervillain? Maybe. I'd definitely intervene if I found someone in danger.

But none of those were the reason I was going out tonight.

No, tonight was a supply run.

See, cute little celebration smoke 'bombs' that take several seconds to start up, cover maybe a cubic foot in enough smoke to actually obscure vision, and disperse in a minute or so weren't the best for keeping me out of sight. And while my costume and umbrella were pretty good at that, I didn't like relying on what amounted to flimsy fabric and my own reflexes.

So, I was going to stalk an Empire goon, find a stash house or base, and relieve them of some of their flashbangs and/or real smoke grenades. Maybe a thousand dollars or so, too, so I could buy a bright strobe light and a quality taser.

Then I'd really be in business.

The ABB might have that kind of equipment, but as far as I knew only Oni Lee really used grenades like that, while the Empire outfitted their troops more generously. The Merchants would probably just try to smoke a smoke grenade if they got their hands on one. I had no idea how to even begin finding wherever Coil's mercenaries mysteriously emerged from and disappeared to. So, the Empire it was.

Now I just needed to find a resident racist to haunt.

I glided along as fast as I could go, at a respectable 25ish miles per hour. I had to count the seconds myself in my time-stopped world since a stopwatch obviously wouldn't work, then do some conversions while blind, so you'll have to forgive me if my estimation was a little rough.

Anyway, that was Olympic-sprinting fast, though way slower than most flying capes. Fortunately this mediocre speed was only perceived by me alone; to everyone else, I disappeared and reappeared in an instant.

The streets, houses, trees, everything below me was mostly lit up in that eerie bright, flat monochrome of my ghost world, since at night there were less people out and about to observe things. Streetlight illumination didn't affect my vision at all, it was entirely based on 'observed' and 'unobserved'.

Of course, there were plenty of blacked-out areas wreathed in darkness as someone looked out of their bedroom window or walked down the street, and those perspectives did wipe out a good chunk of what I could see. It wasn't as bad as it sounds, though, since the darkness that represented 'observation' in my ghost world didn't work like, say, smoke or something.

For example, take 'guy-on-sidewalk-at-two-in-the-morning' here. He's mid-stride, frozen in time, as he goes about his business completely unaware that he's removing most of what I can see of the street, including the road for as far as his eye can see until the hill much further ahead breaks his line of sight. If the resulting darkness was like smoke, you'd think I wouldn't be able to see past it into the alleyway to his right, nor could I see the stray cat walking across the street from him, or the tree planted next to the sidewalk a bit further down.

You'd be wrong.

See, the stay cat and the tree were blocking his vision of the area immediately behind them. This results in a sort of 'inverse shadow' happening, where the area behind any given obstruction lights up in my ghost world's characteristic 'unobserved' flat brightness. I could see those areas, even surrounded by the darkness of 'observation'.

Similarly, the alleyway to his right was clearly visible to me past the shade of his sight, and though I was currently in front of him, inside that darkness, I could see the lit-up area behind him outside of his field of view.

So, not like smoke at all, though it was still very unsettling to see a patch of visible space in a sea of pitch black.

Oh, and speaking of smoke: Particulates that obscure most people's vision are handled very well by my ghost world's brightness. I can't see 'bright' (unobserved) areas through solid objects like walls, but murky water, smoke, heavy rain, or, like, a dust devil or something wouldn't affect my ghost vision at all; unobserved things would still be lit up clear as day.

Anyway, I flew for a minute or two. When I started to become too tired to carry on, I began looking for a place to land, turn back into my baseline form, and recuperate.

I started feeling fatigue after only, say, ten seconds in ghost form, but I could hold out for a little over three minutes before I absolutely needed turn back due to the exhaustion.

Well, that was assuming I didn't 'smear' anything. Passing through stuff takes more out of me than just floating around.

In any case, I could cover nearly eight blocks in a single ghost session if I didn't pass through anything to tire me more than necessary, which was just another tally on the 'thank you for not sucking as much as the other two powers' board for my ghost ability. Step it up, self-crippling-Go-Pro-viewer and electronics-aura-of-mild-inconvenience.

I considered just floating down into the 'bright' alleyway to rest, but there was a decent chance someone might turn the corner, or worse, already be there sleeping or something that I had missed. Animals weren't a concern, they didn't 'count' for either my Thinker or ghost powers, but there were still too many variables for my liking if I just waited in random back alleys.

Counterintuitively, it seemed safer – more isolated and controlled – to sink down into someone's house and find a nice closet or basement to wait out my ghost form's brief recovery time. No-one to see me in there.

That was why I only traveled about half my maximum distance at a time, in preparation for this last stretch where I pass through stuff to get into the best nearby hidey-hole.

Feeling more drained by the second, I did so, entering what appeared to be a young boy's room from above.

A portion of the room was obscured by the cone of his vision – strangely-shaped and smaller than usual due what was probably a Gameboy in front of his face, though it could have been a phone since I didn't look too closely in an effort to minimize my invasion of people's privacy – but what I could see was enough for me to find his closet and float into it.

After orienting myself so my incorporeal body wasn't overlapping with anything, I reentered the normal world in what felt like the nick of time to wait out the fatigue; passing through the ceiling and closet door had taken a bit more out of me than expected. I needed to be more careful.

Fortunately, the 'smear' caused by going through the door only nudged it a tiny bit, since it was shut. The boy didn't notice. Obviously something as solid as the ceiling wasn't affected at all.

I recovered in normal form at about ten times the speed I got tired in ghost form, as far as I could tell. So I only had to be here, surrounded by hanging clothing, for about twenty seconds after 'maxing out' my ghost-world exertion.

In the meantime, I listened to the muffled sounds of lasers coming from the boy's handheld gaming device of some kind. He can't be older than ten, do his parents know he stays up playing so late?

I stifled a smile at the thought, envisioning myself years from now as an established hero. Eat your veggies, and get a good night's sleep!

How would I have reacted if I had found Armsmaster in my closet at this boy's age?

…

… might have to give up this whole 'recuperate in people's houses' thing when I finally make enough of a name for myself to feel comfortable joining up with the Protectorate.

I cracked my neck, preparing to leave, and in so doing jostled a few of the clothes hung up on racks in the closet.

I heard the game pause.

Time to go.

I entered my ghost world and flew straight up and out of the house in only a tiny bit of panic, grimacing – well, I had the sensation of grimacing, though whether this incorporeal form could make facial expressions was debatable – when I realized that passing through the clothing racks would 'smear' them enough to jostle them again when time unfroze. Oops.

I continued my patrol at a pace of two or three blocks per jump, covering ground pretty damn fast when measured in real (un-paused) time. Going from dark corner to dark corner like diving and coming up for breath, I searched around what I knew to be Empire territory with my bird's-eye view, looking for suspicious characters.

The Cloak was on the hunt!

… no, that sounded dumb.

Blink was on the hunt!

… wait, no, I already thought of that and it was taken. Another teleporter down in Texas.

I'll think of something.

Last edited: Feb 4, 2023

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TheGreatGimmick

Sep 28, 2018

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TheGreatGimmick

TheGreatGimmick

Underestimates the time writing takes

Sep 28, 2018

#5

Two o'clock in the morning was not the 'happening' time to commit a crime, apparently.

Also, two uneventful real-time hours was about 12 hours' worth of subjective-time boredom, so despite my activity in my ghost world apparently not counting towards my need to sleep, I was getting ready to give up for the night.

Around 4:00, I finally floated over a group stereotypical-Neo-Nazi-looking men all headed in the same direction. That, or some of them were really good at moonwalking; in a time-stopped world you could never be sure.

Landing, I exited my ghost world in a nearby alley to see if I could hear anything of note.

… nope, just a few racial slurs and very explicit bragging about sexual conquests as they walked away from me, voices fading. Lovely.

I still decided to follow them, mostly because I really didn't want my first night out to be a complete wash. I'm sure I could have found a crime or two in the more run-down parts of the city, but of course my 'mission' right now had to be in Empire territory, the 'safest' gang territory in Brockton Bay (if you were white). Dammit.

Oh well, nothing for it. The next few ghost-world jumps were spent tailing those four men.

I was glad I did, because the conversation took a more interesting turn a few minutes later. I perked up behind the dumpster I was hiding behind, listening.

"So, whadja think of the new bitch, eh? Slavia or whatever."

"Sowilo," another one corrected, saying it like 'so-vee-low'.

"Yeah her." The first snorted dismissively. "Think she's gonna be another Cricket, or more of an Othala?" He and two others – all of them but the one that had corrected the first on the newest Empire cape's name – guffawed.

One of the ones laughing spoke up before the chuckles had fully died down. "Eh, scary as fuck power, cowering schoolgirl wielding it, as usual."

He spat on the sidewalk; well, I assume it was him, since he paused while it happened, but I only had my ears to rely upon. "Hardly ever the ones who deserving it getting lightnin' fingers an' shit."

"Anyone looks small and scared standing next to Hook," the only seemingly-halfway-intelligent member of the group spoke up again.

The first guy with the loud mouth started talking again, but their voices were fading as they continued walking, so I had to reposition.

"Sure man, but this was 'er fuckin day-butt or wha -"

I went ghost, flew up, came back down in the next alleyway they were headed past, picked a spot behind another dumpster, and went normal again.

"- tever, you gotta have more pride in the Cause than that, man. She kin fry 'ol Halbeard's souped-up hog like that -" he snapped his fingers "- and she looked as scared as tha' monkey whore we taught a lessin' to yester-morn'n."

"I believe it's pronounced 'debut'," offered smart-guy.

"Fuk you man," returned big-mouth.

I'd heard enough. I was already a little pissed due to the mention of Sowilo, but now they had openly admitted to assaulting someone.

It always made my blood boil every time I heard anything about the Empire's new cape.

When I had first realized I had become a parahuman, I had been elated, finally being empowered to do something good. I could help make the city a better place; one more hero against the villains. Not a single goddamn week later, the Empire reveals Sowilo, a powerful electro-kinetic that apparently cut right through whatever EMP shielding Armsmaster uses for his equipment.

It just seemed so unfair, that as soon as the city gets another defender of justice, another evildoer springs up as if in response. On a more selfish level, Sowilo's emergence made more work for me before I even got started, and her Striker/Blaster electromagnetic pulses left me comparing them to my own electronics Shaker aura like I usually compared other girls' busts to my own chest – with very similar results.

In other words, every villain in the city was my enemy, but with Sowilo it somehow felt personal, despite the fact that I'd never met the bitch.

Meanwhile, these assholes were talking about Empire business and hate crimes; they were definitely part of the Nazi gang. But, it looked like they weren't going anywhere in particular tonight. At least, if they had a mission or assignment, they were taking their sweet time about it.

So, I could just let them walk around and probably get nothing out of it. Or, I could get some justified stress relief by scaring them, and hopefully scare them towards an Empire safehouse when they sought sanctuary, allowing me to also 'relieve' the Nazis of some flashbangs, smoke grenades, and cash.

I liked the latter option.

I went ghost and floated out into the street.

The four Empire thugs were casually walking together, two in front and two behind. I could see the ones in the back just fine since no-one was looking at them, while I only knew where the ones in the front were positioned because of their 'inverse-shadows': The bright areas within the dark surroundings where the ones in the back had their vision obscured by the bodies of the ones in the front.

I circled around ahead of them to see the fronts – where the ones in the back couldn't see – of the two in the lead.

Taking stock of my appointments, it looked like smart-guy (lanky, long blond hair, skeevy-looking; his appearance almost more at home in the Merchants than the Empire from what little I could see) and big-mouth (huge everything, including forehead, except for his hairdo which was a military buzz-cut) were up front, while the spitter (bald, ripped-off sleeves with tattoos showing, not as big as big-mouth but still probably five of me) and the fourth guy (another skinhead, this one with tattoos on his arms and head) brought up the rear.

I could be completely wrong about who was who, though, since I had only heard their voices.

The tattoo-head was looking away from where the others' fields of view were pointing, so he was the one I was going to pick on first.

There were several cars parked along the street, and with the way the he was walking his field of view would soon include a currently-unobserved area behind one of the vehicles. I flew over to the edge of that illuminated area, came back into the real world, and waited.

Only a second or two later, I saw myself, head lowered such that only my hood and cloak were visible, standing beside the minivan in the distance. Tattoo-head had seen me.

I began 'straining' for my ghost transformation. I can't enter my ghost world while in someone else's vision, but I can push for it, trying to access my ghost form. This 'straining' basically 'queues up' the transformation: The very moment no one can see me, I go ghost.

"Yo, guys, ch -"

Tattoo-head turned to face his companions, losing sight of me. I went ghost and floated over to the back of a different car, closer to the four, where no one had vision.

"- eck this out. Might… wha?"

"What you on about Bret?" big-mouth inquired.

"I saw some freak in a big black cloak 'an hood, just-a stand'n right over there. Gone now."

"Yeah so?"

"… nothing."

They continued walking, and after about thirty seconds I went ghost again.

I floated back over the group, noting that tattoo-head – 'Bret', I guess – was still looking in a different general direction than the rest. Since people can't usually see their own mouth, I had vision of his: He was frowning, in stark contrast to his easygoing sneer from earlier.

I had a feeling that the first time he was looking away from the group was a coincidence, but this time he was looking for that 'freak'.

I flew ahead of them and lighted down into a small side-alley. Exiting my ghost world, I stood there. Hopefully menacingly.

Again, a few seconds later I got Bret's view of me standing in the dark alley. This time I was looking straight ahead, but the black bandages covering my face gave the impression that you couldn't see beneath the hood from this distance.

Bret blinked in surprise upon seeing me, which of course lost him his vision of me. I went ghost and re-positioned out of sight near the group again before returning to normal.

From Bret's point of view I had been there before his blink and vanished after.

"G-guys, somethin's fucky goin' on here."

"What the fuck you on about Bret?" big-mouth repeated, almost exactly the same way he had said it earlier except with an expletive added.

"Saw the creepy cloak guy again, but I blinked an' he was gone!"

"You tweak'n?"

"No! No, I'm clean."

"Sure dude." Spit-guy offered his input.

"…fuck you guys. Let's hurry up, alright?"

"I dunno, sounds like you don't need no more booze, ya frontloader." Spit-guy chuckled at big-mouth's comment, but smart-guy and Bret remained quiet.

I entered my ghost world again almost a minute later, using the time to think. It sounded like they were headed to a bar, so it was good that I had started this whole 'scare' thing; simply following them unseen would have been a waste of time. However, it looked like I needed to escalate things if I was going to get them to flee to their superiors.

As I floated out into the street again, I saw that both Bret and smart-guy were now looking around, while big-mouth and spit-guy were still facing where they were walking.

I came up directly behind Bret, memorized his position while I could see, and went 'normal', tapping his shoulder. He whirled around and caught sight of my hooded figure right in his face before reeling away, losing his vision of me and thus denying me said vision.

I entered my ghost world and saw that he had reflexively started to strike out; I had been about a quarter-second away from getting decked in the cowl, but Bret had closed his eyes before the punch had landed.

I repositioned to an 'illuminated' – unobserved – area behind another dumpster and went 'normal' again.

"FUCKIN' HELL."

I heard all four of them stop walking.

"What's it this ti -" big-mouth was interrupted by Bret speaking loudly, clearly terrified.

"He was right here. He tapped ma shoulder. Fuckin' shit let's get out of here."

"This is getting ridiculous man." Spit-guy didn't bother hiding his disdain.

Smart-guy was still keeping silent, I noticed.

"Guys, fuckin' seriously, there's like a… a ghost or somethin' out here an -"

"There's no such thing as ghosts." Smart-guy interjected reasonably. "Capes exist, though."

There was a brief pause, then big-mouth spoke slowly. "Ya think Bret's been see'n a cape?"

"It's possible." Smart-guy didn't seem all that worried.

"Fuckin' thank you." Bret sounded immeasurably relieved that they were taking him seriously now.

There was another pause.

"So… what?" big-mouth demanded, "We go to the boss?"

Yes, yes please.

Smart-guy crushed my hopes with sarcasm. "Yes, let's lead the mysterious and likely hostile cape right to our front door."

"Fuk you man."

I got the impression that was a common interaction between smart-guy and big-mouth, always ending the same way.

I shared big-mouth's sentiments regarding smart-guy right about now.

"So… what?" big-mouth repeated.

"We keep doing what we were doing," smart-guy started walking again as he talked, "and I'll call in somebody to deal with the cape if he shows up again."

The 'if this cape is even real' was implied.

I seethed as the group started moving again. This was looking like it had been a complete waste of time.

Since they had openly admitted to committing a hate-crime earlier and were clearly part of the Empire 88, that was surely enough for me to apprehend them, right? Because seriously, fuck these guys.

I took out and extended my baton in my dominant hand, transferring my umbrella to the other, before going ghost and floating out of the alley into the street.

A good portion of the area around the group was dark, with the exception of a 140ish degree angle directly behind them. I could also see one side of each of them where, even with one of their companions looking in their direction, they still cast one of those 'inverse shadows'.

I positioned myself directly to the back of the rear-most Nazi (spit-guy), taking careful note of his bald head's position and raising my currently-incorporeal baton hand.

I left ghost mode and swung blindly as hard as I could. Feeling my baton connect with something and hearing a pained grunt, I immediately reentered my ghost world before any of them turned around and caught sight of me.

I had much better visibility now. For one, the guy I had brained was stumbling forward, eyes closed, cutting off one person's field of view. For two, Bret had flinched and blinked at the noise, accomplishing much the same thing.

Feeling a sudden inspiration, I floated through the one stumbling, 'smearing' him forward. Maybe the light push, combined with his balance already being thrown off, would be enough to fully topple him when time unpaused.

The big-mouth and smart-guy were frozen mid-turn, so I positioned myself in front of Bret and prepared to take out my pepper spray as soon as I emerged from my ghost world.

I went normal again and swung the baton at where I knew Bret's face would be, while simultaneously reaching for my pepper spray in my cloak pocket. Blinks don't last very long, so I caught a brief glimpse of myself and the two thugs behind me when Bret opened his eyes right before getting whacked.

Then I saw myself from two different perspectives as the pair in front finished turning around. I was facing to their right, showing them a profile view of my costume, while the first guy I had attacked hit the floor and the second staggered to the side, also falling over.

In one hand was the baton. The other arm had the umbrella tucked beneath the armpit while, unbeknownst to them, I pawed for the pepper spray in the folds of my costume. My heavy cowl completely covered my face, not a single strand of hair falling free, while the cloak obscured my real shape well. You actually couldn't tell I was just skin and bones in this costume!

Overall I was pleasantly surprised with how it had turned out; I had been worried it would look much better on the mannequin than it did on me.

I raised my left arm in a sweeping motion without bothering to turn and face them, using their own vision to aim the spray nozzle at their faces instead. With two different points of view it was easier to 'triangulate' where I was and thus needed to aim. Besides, there was no point in turning, since my own eyes did nothing.

Big-mouth was first in the arc my arm took, receiving a nice face-full of capsaicin, but smart-guy turned his head and covered his face in the crook of his arm before the cloud of pepper spray could reach him. As I lost both sources of vision, I heard smart-guy yelling "Cape!" at the top of his lungs.

With both of them having their vision incapacitated in different ways, I took the opportunity to go ghost and escape.

All the recent usages of my ghost world had been brief, but the small fatigue from each still added up when I didn't rest between ghost transformations. I had some energy left, though, so I passed through big-mouth on my way to the alley, hopefully making him at least stumble as he reeled backwards, away from my attack.

With every one of the gangsters having their eyes closed, my entire immediate surroundings were bright and visible. This let me notice three interesting things:

One, I felt a chill as I realized smart-guy had a gun, and had likely been about to point it at me.

Two, smart-guy also had a phone out in his other hand, now cradled against his neck as he covered his face.

Three, the spit-guy was apparently tossed forward a lot further than I had been expecting from the 'smear'. Something to look into.

I went normal, my back to the alley wall, and listened as I waited a few seconds to make sure my ghost state was at full capacity again.

There was a pause as smart-guy's yell echoed in the street, big-mouth cursed, and who I thought was Bret groaned. Then smart-guy called out to the city at large, correctly assuming I was still in earshot.

"Look, I don't know who you are, but you're making a b-big mistake. This is Empire territory! You're biting off way more than you can chew, we ha -"

I went ghost again, preparing to shut the prick up, but stopped short when I saw that nearly all of the street was shrouded in darkness; more area than just the one Nazi that still had vision should have been able to cover.

Looking for the source, I saw that the massive cone of black originated from a nearby fifth-floor window of an apartment building. Presumably someone had heard the scuffle and smart-guy's shout, and was now peeking out to investigate.

Presumptions weren't good enough when one of the Empire capes was a known sniper, though, so I wanted to be sure.

Glancing back at smart-guy's inverse-shadow (which was about the only thing I could see of him due to the window spectator's high angle), I confirmed that I had some time before they got away: Smart-guy was paused in the middle of helping big-mouth move towards one of the other alleyways, leaving behind the two I had downed in the street.

… who were already getting up. Apparently a 15-year-old-girl doesn't hit very hard; that or head injuries with batons aren't as good as I had thought for knocking people out in one hit.

I'll come back to them. Instead, I floated up to the window spectator to see if they were anything I would need to worry about.

As I passed through the exterior of the building, I found myself in a quaint apartment living room that would have been sparsely furnished if not for the frankly excessive number of decorative cushions. The only light source seemed to be a TV that was frozen on a jumbled frame from a black-and-white rerun of some old Western, but in my ghost world everything was evenly-lit so that didn't matter. I could see clearly.

Over at the window was an at least 70-year-old woman in a nightgown, landline phone pressed to her ear.

I went normal again in the middle of the room, a few feet behind her. The TV immediately assaulted my ears with the sound of a bar fight, but fortunately it drowned out neither the woman nor who she had called. The old lady probably had hearing loss, since the phone was on speaker and set to the maximum volume.

"Yes, like I said, some raucous young men started yelling outside about a cape, and they're away running now with two on the ground!"

"Thank you ma'am, please stay in your home. We are sending someone right away."

The PRT, I realized. She called the cape hotline.

Excellent, less work for me. Just knock them out and have the authorities pick them up. Now I won't be needing those flash cards I had written to keep me from stuttering in case I had to interact with the police.

Speaking of calling the authorities… I really should get a cellphone. I didn't want to, but I should.

Satisfied on this count, I reached over and pawed blindly at the TV before I found the power button. Turning it off, I immediately went ghost. Hopefully that would make her look away from the street for a bit.

I floated through a few floors of the apartment building until I reached the top, doing my best not to see anything private. Once I reached the roof I went normal again and counted to five, both to recover and to give the lady time to turn around. I then re-entered my ghost world once more.

Success! The street was almost fully visible again.

I descended down to the two picking themselves up off the ground, presumably still stunned from my initial strikes. They received pepper spray, a few more beatings, and zip ties connecting their hands and ankles, in that order. After the pepper spray was applied to both of their faces, subduing the pair was easy: With no one to see me I could 'teleport' freely, running circles around them.

Imagine what I could do with flashbangs! Or just Flashbang himself, for that matter. Mental note: Ask about a New Wave team-up.

Anyway, two down, two to go. I went ghost and flew off in search of big-mouth and smart-guy.

Ten subjective minutes later I found them; probably closer to just three minutes in real time, and that was counting both my side-quest with window lady and finishing off half of their racist little group.

The pair had fled into the next alleyway over, nearly making it to the opposite street. Big-mouth was still rubbing his eyes while smart-guy allowed the temporarily-blinded man to hold his arm just above the elbow, leading the one that couldn't see; a technique I had become intimately familiar with over the past two months. Smart-guy had a phone to his ear and his mouth was open, presumably calling in that backup he had mentioned. The gun dangled in his other hand.

Between the window lady and the Nazi, I think the universe was trying to tell me something about my current communication preparedness.

There was a large van parked on the next street that created a highly convenient blind spot. I touched down behind it, went normal, and listened as the Nazis came into the avenue, sound returning as soon as time resumed.

Big-mouth was still cursing; I wasn't sure if he had ever stopped. Meanwhile, smart-guy talked in quick, clipped tones. I only heard his side of the conversation.

"Yessir, big black frock, used baton and pepper spray."

"It's… it's like a robe, sir."

"Yessir, definitely a cape, some kind of teleporter."

"Nosir, not the chink. We'd be dead."

"Yessir, I'm trying to make my way there now."

"Haven't seen him in a while, might have lost him. Doubt it."

When his voice sounded like he was nearing the middle of the street, I went ghost again.

Big-mouth had apparently wiped/blinked/cried enough pepper spray out of his eyes to passably see again, looking behind the pair while smart-guy looked ahead. This only left two slices of the street visible: One patch of illumination on either side, where neither of their fields of view covered.

Attacking this time would be trickier: They were expecting me, and were facing opposite directions covering nearly the full circle around them. They almost certainly didn't know that my 'teleportation' was vision-based, but covering the full 360 degrees was just basic precaution against any teleporter. Smart guy's seemingly loose grip on his weapon wasn't going to fool me: I assumed he was actually ready to whip around and fire the moment he or big-mouth caught sight of me.

However, they did have one massive blind spot: Up.

I went ghost, flew about fifteen feet above them and a little to their left, went normal, dropped my umbrella, and before I even started falling I went ghost again, flying back behind the van. I ended up pretty much where I started. My ghost transformation was instant, to the point where I could appear in the real world and go back to my ghost world, leaving something behind, before essentially any time had passed.

Waiting about a second after hearing the clatter of my umbrella and an embarrassingly shrill "The fuck?!" from big-mouth, I entered ghost-world again to move in for the attack.

For the second time, success! Both of them had turned around and were staring at what I presumed to be my umbrella on the pavement, the black cones of their vision almost totally overlapping and pointed downwards. I had nearly the whole street to myself, and smart-guy's gun was trained on the umbrella.

I flew up behind smart-guy's unmoving form, wanting to get him first to prevent him from taking a shot. Time unfroze and I swung my baton were I had last seen his gun hand while simultaneously spraying more peppery goodness in big-mouth's direction.

Smart-guy grunted and doubled over as what I hoped was the gun clattered to the ground, and big-mouth screamed in what sounded more like fury and fear than pain. I went ghost again before smart-guy could rally and catch sight of me, moving towards the gun when I saw it through my ghost sight.

I quickly dipped out of, and then back into, my ghost world to grab the weapon – unexpectedly heavy for its relatively small size – before floating behind big-mouth, emerging back into the real world to brain him too. And then again for good measure. Stay down, fucker.

Smart-guy got vision of me; I saw myself standing over big-mouth with my baton raised. Even facing me this closely, my huge hood didn't reveal anything beneath it with my head tilted downwards like it was, and my oversized sleeves obscured my actual hands, only showing the baton itself poking out. My other hand held the gun, but the weapon was also obscured by the flowing fabric.

Then smart-guy made the mistake of blinking, letting me go ghost. I had been 'straining'.

I moved behind smart-guy this time, since big-mouth looked down for the count. I only had to contend with smart-guy's vision. Besides, big-mouth had received an obscene amount of pepper-spray in the last few minutes, so I doubted his vision would be in working order even if he were conscious.

I hit the Nazi on the head. Again. I was really pining for a taser right about now.

Regardless, a few minutes later both goons were zip-tied, relieved of their wallets (pretty sure that's covered by the Vigilante Act, right?), and I had stomped on smart-guy's phone.

Picking up and dusting off my umbrella, I mused about my progress so far.

Four Empire thugs down on my first night. That's… OK? I mean, it wasn't like I had taken down some major villain, but what were the chances of encountering someone like Kaiser or Hookwolf right out the gate?

I spoke – thought? – too soon, since I suddenly saw myself standing motionless over the two bound Nazis in the middle of the street. I didn't turn to face my observer, or even acknowledge his presence at all; such reflexes were negated by the alien nature of a third-person perspective.

I did react when I realized exactly what the only part of him I could see, his raised palm pointed in my direction as he strode forward, meant.

I frantically opened my umbrella in his direction and ducked behind it, losing the vision of the man I had a sinking feeling was the Empire's male Blaster, Stormtiger.

It seems smart-guy's phone call had paid off.

Last edited: Oct 31, 2022

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TheGreatGimmick

Sep 28, 2018

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TheGreatGimmick

TheGreatGimmick

Underestimates the time writing takes

Sep 28, 2018

#6

I jumped into my ghost world the very moment I could, having to leave the umbrella behind since it, being my cover, was in his vision.

I took a few metaphorical deep breaths (my ghost form didn't actually breathe, but going through the motions was calming) to steady myself before deciding to go back into the blind spot offered by that black van once again. There were other cars parked on the street, of course, but this one was the largest.

As I flew back to my chosen cover, I could see most of the shirtless man standing further down the street, as well as the illuminated safe haven the umbrella had offered, but the majority of the rest of the road was in his field of vision. He wore chains around his arms and ankles, as well as a mask, putting another point towards the 'Stormtiger' theory.

I heard a blast of wind – definitely Stormtiger, then – almost as soon as time resumed.

My umbrella! I thought miserably, while stashing the gun into one of my cloak's many pockets.

I went ghost again and floated directly behind Stormtiger like I had the other goons, preparing to swing my baton and avenge my favorite rainy-day accessory.

I exited my ghost world and struck out blindly, but hit resistance that threw my arm back.

I reflexively reentered ghost form out of shock.

Examining the 'paused' scene before me wasn't very enlightening, but it did at least show me that I was probably out of my depth here.

Stormtiger had started to turn around, presumably reacting to my presence. Somehow. Despite the fact that, from his perspective, I had simply appeared in his blind spot, so there should be no way he knew I was there yet. His rotating field of view had almost clipped me if the darkness directly to my right was any indication.

Also, whatever I had hit, whatever had knocked my arm away… it wasn't his head, or any part of his body. I could tell that my swing hadn't come close enough for that to fit, now that I had vision again.

The fuck?! I thought Stormtiger just had, like, air claws that he could shoot or something. What's going on?

I retreated into a side alley this time. It seemed like a bad idea to repeatedly use the same cover – in this case the van – again and again; too predictable.

Time resumed, and I waited a few seconds while I got my heartbeat under control. Oh, and to rest my ghost form too, I guess.

Like smart-guy had before him, Stormtiger called out, though his tone was more jeering than the unpowered Nazi's had been.

"Ya fuck with the Empire, bitch, ya get what's coming to ya. Hide'n 's not gonna change that now. Come out, come out! Hahaha, who am I kiddin', faggot's probably runnin' back to the hole 'e came from with 'is tail between 'is legs. Pa -"

I reentered my ghost world and was dismayed to find that the commotion had caused nearly the whole street to be flooded with darkness as four or five people were woken and looked out of their windows.

Most of the cones of vision lancing out from the buildings flanking the street were focused on what I assumed was Stormtiger's location, but since multiple people were viewing multiple angles he wasn't casting much of an 'inverse shadow' so I couldn't be sure.

Now what?

It's hard to fight what you can't see, and I couldn't teleport anywhere near the obscured Stormtiger anyway until people started looking elsewhere. Or all blinked at the same time. Because that was going to happen.

Even more worrying was the fact that Stormtiger could apparently sense me the moment I appeared behind him, and could block my attack with something without even looking.

I floated back around to the trusty van's blind spot again to get closer; maybe I could arrange for a distraction of some kind. Perhaps light and throw a smoke bomb to get the spectators and Stormtiger alike looking at something besides Stormtiger himself?

I left my ghost world once safely situated in the illuminated area behind the van.

"- thetic. Yo, Fischer, ya good?" The Empire cape didn't get a response. " 'parently not."

I listened as Stormtiger walked up to smart-guy (Fischer, probably?) and big-mouth, not bothering to lower his voice or lighten his footsteps. He apparently wasn't concerned about me at all.

"Damn, eyes swollen shut like a gook's. That's gotta suck."

I pawed the folds of my robe for my lighter and party smoke bombs, hoping to make a distraction, but froze when I suddenly got vision of the whole street from a high vantage point.

Someone on the roof of a nearby building had me in their field of view, but they were currently focused on Stormtiger, who was bending over the two downed E88 members.

I saw my poor umbrella further down the street, little more than a wire frame after getting hit by Stormtiger's aerokinetic blast. Meanwhile my upright form was standing out of Stormtiger's sight behind the black van, facing away from the rooftop viewer and holding completely still as I concentrated on what I was seeing.

As I watched, they blinked – I didn't take the opportunity to go ghost yet, since I was appreciating their uninhibited vision over the street for now – and materialized a long rifle of some kind from a haze of green energy in front of them.

Miss Militia! Well, the PRT had told that old woman they were sending someone.

Any fangirling was cut short as she brought the rifle's scope to her eye and leveled it on me, my shitty homemade costume filling the telescopic view. At least this gave me a clear picture of how I looked to a viewer behind me, from the tip of my hood to the bottom of my cloak flared out across the ground.

Like when I had first gained Stormtiger's vision, I didn't show any visible reaction; third-person view was not at all conducive to survival instincts. I just remained still, the light February breeze barely ruffling my heavy cloak and cowl, while Miss Militia put me in her sights.

She won't actually shoot me, right? She's just using the scope of the rifle like binoculars to get a better view of a new, unknown hero on the scene, right?

Yeah, the crosshairs of the scope weren't directly on me, they were a bit off to the side.

I still started 'straining' to go ghost the moment she lost vision; if she did shoot, hopefully the recoil would make her blink or something, and my ghost transformation is instantaneous. I should make it before the bullet hit. I didn't want to lose the outer layer of my costume quite yet.

Okay. How to non-threateningly greet her? When someone is pointing a gun at you, what do you do? No sudden movements, hands in the air, right? But in a world where Blasters exist, raising my hands might be taken as an attack, so I thought I'd better keep them to my sides. Just 'no sudden movements', then.

I slowly… slooooowly turned around, cowl obscuring my head and robe obscuring my shuffling feet as I appeared to rotate in place to face the heroine's direction. I noticed that Stormtiger's defensive blast earlier had knocked some of my hair loose, and it hung down out of the thick hood.

I then slowly raised my head, black bandage-like 'mask' and dark hair covering my face as I looked directly into Miss Militia's scope.

Nailed it. I didn't even 'miss' this time, I'm looking right where I want to be for once! Now, how to establish contact?

I could tell that Miss Militia's eyes widened from how her field of view marginally increased, and she lowered her scope. In the instant between looking into the lens and putting it down, the scope's rim passed over her vision, letting me go ghost.

Well, that's convenient.

I started floating up to her location to tell her about the situation. Glancing in Stormtiger's direction on the way, to my annoyance I noted that he still had an audience of a few people looking out of their apartment windows. At least, I assumed that was where they were all looking, but it was hard to tell what was within the darkness.

When I'm a well-known hero, maybe the Protectorate can tell people to not watch fights I'm involved in. Well, that would be a big hint as to how my power works, so maybe not.

I made it up to Miss Militia's position on the roof of the building. She was kneeling near the ledge, frozen in the middle of lowering her scope. Since the rim of said scope was obscuring her vision, I could see everything up here. The heroine's iconic scarf and custom military fatigues would have made my breath catch if I wasn't currently incorporeal.

Of course, I was now presented with a dilemma: 'Appear' in front of her and risk getting shot reflexively, or 'appear' behind her and risk having it be taken as a backstabbing attack?

I eventually decided to appear in front of her, but close enough that the dangerous end of the long rifle was behind me, over my shoulder. It put me a little in her personal space, but the distance was still over two feet and it seemed to be the best compromise between two bad options.

Taking a moment to collect my thoughts and prepare what I was going to say, I left my ghost world.

I caught a brief glimpse of myself through her eyes; I needed to tie my hair back better, it looked so unkept just hanging out of my hood like this, not to mention that having it visible negated my 'leave the top layer of the costume behind' emergency escape plan.

However, before I could say anything Miss Militia recoiled violently, practically backflipping away from me and uttering a rapid string of what were clearly curses in a language I didn't recognize.

Immediately afterwards my words died in my throat as I got a face-full of containment foam. I lost the heroine's vision as my form disappeared behind a mound of the sticky substance.

… eight containment rounds seemed a little excessive, and the last three had been fired after I was already completely encased in the foam. Then again, I had apparently accidentally spooked her.

Naturally I was mortified, and before I realized it I had gone ghost and floated out of the foam mound in an instinctive attempt to get away from the situation.

Miss Militia's time-stopped form was crouched further back, a grenade launcher that I assumed had been used to shoot the containment foam rounds still pointed at my previous location, and she appeared to be speaking into a radio.

With a jolt, I realized that I didn't know if being doused in containment foam technically counted as being placed under arrest or not. If it did, teleporting out of the foam probably counted as resisting arrest.

Damn.

But… I wasn't ready to join up yet! If I get brought in and 'pressured' to join the Wards – Do they do that? Can I risk it? – I'd be in the same situation as at Winslow: A no-name nobody beholden to administrators and surrounded by more teenagers, whose powers probably exacerbated, not helped, everything I hated about school.

No, I wanted to be independent until I could join the Protectorate itself as an adult, but make a name for myself in the meantime.

Glancing back down to Stormtiger, a couple of the spectators from the nearby buildings had either looked away or blinked: I could see the villain's distinct inverse-shadow standing out, bright against the blackness of only two cones of vision not counting his own. He had smart-guy slung over his shoulder and was walking away, leaving big-mouth behind.

I hovered higher, gazing over the low buildings to the street in which that this whole thing had originally begun. To my relief, there was a PRT van there loading up the first two Empire goons I had downed. Another van was driving around to the other side of the street that Miss Militia was currently overlooking; it seemed like they were in the process of setting up a pincer maneuver of some kind.

So, I just have to prevent Stormtiger from getting away long enough for Miss Militia and company to apprehend him.

Time was of the essence, but with my power, time should usually be on my side.

Now, how to quickly communicate my intentions to the heroine without her wasting more foam ordnance on me – or shooting me with something a little more unpleasant?

In other words, I needed to tell her to focus her efforts on Stormtiger (not me), and I needed to do it fast enough that she didn't have time to catch sight of me and prevent me from accessing my ghost world.

I floated over behind her and went normal, shouting "Stormtiger!" before immediately re-entering my ghost form again.

Miss Militia had jumped, beginning to spin mid-air to look behind her. Like earlier with the Nazi villain, her field of view had almost clipped me before I had escaped into my ghost world.

Need to be faster, that might get me killed later.

I floated down to the alleyway Stormtiger was headed towards, crouching behind a dumpster and waiting. Despite passing through the containment foam and enduring two short ghost jumps back-to-back, I only needed to rest, like, four or five seconds. While I did so, I took out some of my party smoke bombs and firecrackers, as well as the lighter, holding the incendiary trinkets such that all of their fuses lined up.

When I heard Stormtiger walking into the alley, I lit each of them (smoke bombs first; the firecrackers had a shorter fuse) and went ghost to check his vision.

Nope, he could see the alleyway.

I went normal and then went ghost again not even a half-second later.

Nope, the alleyway was still coated in the darkness of Stormtiger's vision, try again.

Normal, quarter-second wait, ghost world.

Still dark.

Normal, quarter-second wait, ghost world.

Darkness.

Normal, quarter-second wait, ghost world.

Light! He blinked! That was what I had been waiting for. And since I had spent so little time in each ghost-world usage, I was barely even winded, metaphorically speaking.

I floated a few yards front of Stormtiger, who was mid-stride with a disgusting sneer frozen on his face, eyes shut mid-blink. I went normal just long enough to leave the handful of July 4th smoke bombs and firecrackers behind before re-entering my ghost world without them. The delay between exiting and reentering my ghost world had been almost nonexistent; shorter than the villain's blink, in any case.

I then flew up, all the way to the top of the left building flanking the back alley, and leaned over the edge such that Stormtiger could see me if he looked up.

I was testing something.

I went normal again, time resuming.

There was a muted pattering as the smoke bombs and firecrackers hit the pavement from where I had dropped them midair, but before they could even go off, Stormtiger whirled around and looked up, right at me. I saw myself duck back over the ledge from his point of view.

Well, that sucks. I still was counting this as a success, since my experiment had yielded valuable results, just not the ones I would have liked: Stormtiger definitely had a way of sensing my 'teleports'. Air currents? Probably. Do I 'smear' air?

Another time, Taylor. So, how do I delay him?

I heard some loud popping as the firecrackers went off, then an even louder blast of wind, presumably from the villain clearing the weak smoke cover offered by the celebration smoke bombs. Hopefully the racket got the PRT's attention, revealing Stormtiger's location.

"Fuk'n discount Lee." The villain's jeer carried up, echoing between the buildings, followed by laughter at his own joke.

I grit my teeth, trying to ignore him as I wracked my brain for a way to stop him long enough for the PRT to get here.

… they were trying to get here, right?

I went ghost and flew straight into the sky, looking for Miss Militia and the two PRT vans. To my relief, though the first van seemed to have left with their cargo of two Empire gangsters, the other PRT van was pulling into a street ahead of both Stormtiger and me. Moreover, Miss Militia was almost finished making her way down a fire escape, still speaking into a radio.

Alright. So, delay tactics that also point out Stormtiger's location to the authorities: Options?

The baton was a 'no'; Stormtiger had, like, an air shield or something. Which was bullshit. The pepper spray was worse, for the same reason. I wasn't going to accomplish much with my remaining firecrackers and smoke bombs. I couldn't just shoot him. My umbrella – I felt a pang at the loss, but then felt slightly ridiculous – was already a casualty.

Live bait it was, then.

I came down into the middle of the street Stormtiger was headed towards. This confrontation had spanned three different streets so far, with smart-guy and big-mouth running away from the original one and Stormtiger casually walking away from the one they had fled into. I just hadn't really noticed the spread because, well… 'teleportation'.

Reentering the real world, I stood and waited in plain view.

Stormtiger would see me, stop to blast air at me, and I would leave the outer layer of my costume behind as I teleported away. With any luck he would waste time investigating the discarded cloak, but even if not, that would delay him for a few seconds.

The villain came around the corner and caught sight of me.

I saw my robed form standing, head bowed and hair hanging out of the cowl, right in the center of the deserted street flanked on both sides by shitty old streetlights. On a whim, I reached out with my electronics aura and gave them a push, making them all flicker eerily around me. Even that parlor trick took more energy out of me than I would have liked.

"Heh. Heh. Spooky fucker, ain't ya." Despite him still talking big, Stormtiger sounded a lot less confident than he had a second ago.

I didn't respond; ideally I would have bantered to keep him talking, delaying him further, but I didn't know what to say.

Fortunately, my silent treatment seemed to unnerve him a bit, and he did the talking for me. "Well? Ya gonna just stand there? Or are we gonna fight? Thought ya would'a left, to be honest."

He doesn't know the PRT is here. Excellent. Maybe I will bring down an actual supervillain tonight. Well, help.

Stormtiger was done waiting for an answer.

"Suit yourself. Piss off, ghostie." He raised his hand lazily in my direction, clearly not really expecting to actually hit me, instead assuming I would teleport away again.

Only then did I realize that I still hadn't fixed my hair from when it had fallen out of my hood earlier.

I couldn't go ghost, leaving behind the outer layer of my costume, until he couldn't see my hair.

I frantically raised both hands, obscured by my long robe-like sleeves, to my face in a 'weeping' pose to try to block his sight of my dangling tresses.

I was successful… after the 'gust' – which felt like a sack of bricks – hit my right shoulder and arm with a concerning tearing sensation that I was peripherally aware of, but didn't (yet) really register. I finally accessed my other form in the process of being knocked backwards.

Since my ghost state didn't feel bodily pain, I needed to find a safe place to turn back and assess the damage.

I floated away towards someone's attic, facing the opposite direction I was flying as I looked over the scene.

The outer layer of my costume was unmoving in the time-stopped world, still shaped like a person was inside it because no time had passed since I had vacated that space. The fabric was creased and angled such that I could almost see the ripples of wind that were causing it to appear that way, despite the cloak's frozen state. When time resumed, it would crumple to the ground, empty. I could only see the back part of it that was outside of Stormtiger's vision, of course.

Similarly, only Stormtiger's left-hand side and his inverse-shadow were visible, since Miss Militia had rounded the corner behind him and had the villain in her sights. The green haze of energy around her shoulder indicated that I had gone ghost right as she was switching weapons, presumably to one that could do something about Stormtiger's aura of air.

I floated through brick and mortar up into the attic of a nearby building, returning to normal form and leaning against a support beam.

Immediately, my right shoulder seared in pain. I stifled a cry; who knew how lightly the occupants of this house slept?

Hearing an explosion outside, I made the mistake of shifting my body; both my shoulder and ribcage spiked in agony, and a weird tingling sensation, like when you sleep on something wrong, started to spread down my right arm. Something might be broken.

I knew I was squishy, but I was a little disappointed to find out just how squishy.

I'd only gotten hit once this whole time, but that one hit had immediately all but knocked me out of the fight.

No.

I went ghost again and flew out to see what was going on.

Stormtiger was staggering back away from an explosion that Miss Militia had caused, but he was still on his feet. It looked like the villain had managed to deflect the projectile, but the heroine had anticipated this and used something that would detonate mid-air instead of relying on contact.

Meanwhile, the remaining PRT van was rounding the corner on the other side of the street, turning so fast one of the back wheels was slightly off the ground.

The flash and smoke from the explosion had temporarily blinded Stormtiger and obscured everyone else's vision of the area around him, but I could see clearly. My ghost-world vision handles obstructions to normal vision exceedingly well.

I flew towards Stormtiger. He looked off-balance, but not yet downed. Judging by my earlier, similar experience with the staggering thug I had attacked first, my ghost 'smear' should be enough to knock him all the way to the ground and allow Miss Militia to finish him.

I flew around to his front, ignoring the time-frozen explosion I passed through to do so. Floating through him once didn't seem thorough enough, so I passed through him twice more, circling around for each 'smear' to keep them all going in the same direction: Backwards and down, towards the ground. Each time I went through him, the 'smear' effect became more pronounced and I grew more tired.

Satisfied that I had at 'smeared' him as much as I could while preserving enough strength to do the other thing I wanted to accomplish, I floated towards my outer cloak layer, which had fallen onto the street a bit further down in a pool of black cloth.

I reached out, went normal, took a fistful of the clothing while the boom of that explosion echoed around the nearby buildings, and re-entered my ghost world to complete silence again, taking my discarded outer covering with me.

My full costume thus recovered, albeit quite tattered, I considered retreating back into that attic. However, I was about as exhausted as I had ever been in my ghost form, so I might not have made it. I instead hid in the same alleyway Miss Militia had come from and became normal again.

I heard a thump – Stormtiger hitting the ground? – closely followed by another explosion. I thought I heard Miss Militia mutter something about the villain being 'off balance', but that might have just been wishful thinking.

There were a few seconds of silence before the squealing of tires broke it. Doors were slammed open, boots hit the ground, some muffled orders were barked. Then I heard the click of a radio and Miss Militia speaking, this time loud and clear.

"Stormtiger and an unpowered subdued; in total that's five Empire perps and one unknown. Find any -"

The squawk of a radio interrupted her. "Negative ma'am, unsub escaped the foam."

Miss Militia's voice became sharper. "Repeat?"

"There's no-one here, ma'am. You said the unsub had a teleportation ability, must not be L-O-S."

There was a pause as Miss Militia thought. When she next spoke, it was slow; pensive.

"Or a Stranger illusion. Over the course of this entire engagement did anyone else aside from me see a figure cloaked in black rags -" gee thanks, my costume's not that bad, I made those cuts for mobility "- about five-foot-seven, possibly female with long black hair?"

A series of negatives came over the radio.

"But we had a perimeter set up looking for signs of a teleporter?"

A series of affirmatives answered this time.

"And the civilian caller didn't see the unsub either?"

Another parade of affirmatives.

Miss Milita didn't sound pleased as she reached a conclusion. "Unlikely 'she' could perfectly avoid all other lines of sight, appearing only to me specifically. More likely, 'she' is something only I could see in the first place. Looks like I have a reservation in an M/S cell tonight. Either way, that explains why 'she' didn't resp- "

My shoulder flared up again and I grunted, almost more from alarm – initially thinking the excruciating feeling was a new attack, not an injury I had already received – than pain.

Instantly going ghost without bothering to check if they had heard me or not, I started flying off; I was getting some seriously mixed signals about this.

On one hand, they had called the Nazis 'perps' but me an 'unknown' or 'unsub', which was good, right? On the other, it sounded like they were discussing me as if I were a threat, and Miss Militia seemed put out by the fact that I had left the foam.

Had that been a mistake? Were they going to charge me with resisting arrest or something?

Right now they were considering the possibility that I was just some kind of illusion or projection, all because my ghost-world vision made me so good at not being seen unless I wanted to be seen. It was easy to avoid line-of-sight if you could literally see said lines.

Maybe... maybe I shouldn't do anything to change that impression until I had something more under my belt than 'attacked some Empire thugs and escaped lawful arrest by Miss Militia'. Once I helped out one or two more times I could introduce myself on better footing, clarifying that no, I was not a Stranger illusion, I was quite real.

Not to mentioned my shoulder and side. Stormtiger had got me good; I definitely needed medical attention. Not urgent medical attention, I wasn't bleeding (at least not externally), but something was broken or dislocated for sure.

So, if I stayed and tried to explain the situation to them, at best I delay getting to the hospital until after the conversation, at worst they insist I accompany them back to their infirmary and start pressuring me into the Wards. And that's even if they didn't want to detain me for questioning, which they probably did.

No. I'd make it up to Miss Militia later, for now I needed to get home as quickly as possible, hide all my cape stuff…

… and make up an excuse to get Dad to take me to the hospital with a civilian explanation for my injuries.

--

A/N:

Spoiler: Not a spoiler, a visualization aid for the Miss Militia scene

Last edited: Oct 31, 2022

1211

TheGreatGimmick

Sep 28, 2018

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TheGreatGimmick

TheGreatGimmick

Underestimates the time writing takes

Sep 28, 2018

#7

From the perspective of anyone else, I materialized in my room with a gasp.

The pins-and-needles feeling had spread throughout my entire right arm during the minute or two spent in the real world on my way back home, and though the constant pain had dulled, it still flared up whenever I even tried to move it.

Fortunately I could just 'step out' of my costume by slipping into my ghost world without taking the clothing with me, instead letting it fall to the floor when I reemerged back into the real world. It was still an ordeal to get all of my accessories – including that 'Fischer' guy's gun – properly hidden in case Dad snooped around my room for some reason.

Once everything was situated, I painstakingly slid on my pajamas – stifling a moan as I struggled to get the top on without jostling my shoulder too much – and carefully laid down on my bed.

I tried to ignore the pain for a few minutes; the longer I could delay between 'unknown cloaked cape disappears' and 'Taylor Hebert shows up at a hospital', the better.

I didn't hold out very long before giving in, sitting up, and beginning to plot my excuse to Dad: The pain in my side only flared up occasionally now, but the dull throbbing in my shoulder was as strong as ever.

I'm so buying body armor to go under my costume once I get enough money. Well, after the taser.

My 'haul' tonight – not counting the gun, which I hoped I wouldn't ever need to use – was a disappointing but appreciable 246 dollars. More than half of that had been carried by 'Fischer' in rubber-band wads, while the rest came from the combined wallets of the other three thugs.

Since I was blind in my normal form and paper money all felt the same whether they were Washingtons or Benjamins, I had counted the money by going back and forth between my ghost world while hiding it.

For the same reason, I usually fold my money in very specific ways based on their value so I can recognize them by touch when needed; something Mrs. Banks taught me to help keep things straight in my wallet.

However, that technique would have to wait until I had two arms again. For now the cash was just shoved into the same place as my smoke bombs, firecrackers, and pepper spray. My costume, baton, and new gun were hidden extra-carefully somewhere separate; I'd rather explain what appeared to be party accessories than the things that clearly pointed to me being a cape.

In any case, I had made enough tonight to replace my precious umbrella and have enough left over to make decent progress towards my taser purchase: Most of the good ones were around 400 dollars. Another night like this and I would almost have it; besides, hopefully this evening was on the low end of how these things were going to go. Especially if I found a stash house…

Carefully sliding out of bed, I began filling up my backpack with all the books that could fit inside, using only my good arm.

Once full, I ghosted over to get my cane, taking the now-quite-heavy bookbag with me. Whatever rules regulated what I can and can't take with me into my ghost world didn't really care about weight, it was more of a size thing, though I did have to be able to lift the object for at least the instant before I transformed.

Going ghost again now carrying both my backpack and cane, I floated out of my room and down the hallway to poke my incorporeal head into Dad's bedroom, checking if he was asleep.

He was, though only for about another hour; he always set his alarm for 6:00, and it was 4:49 now. Why he got up at the same time even on weekends I don't know, but I guess he liked a schedule; regularity, normalcy.

Seeing the time also reminded me that I had basically only patrolled for two hours tonight, no matter how long it had felt in my ghost world. The great Taylor Hebert, epitome of heroic perseverance.

I floated back out into the hallway, becoming 'normal' again at the edge of the staircase, which was right outside Dad's door. Taking a few seconds to recover, I leaned my cane against the wall before executing my plan.

I didn't give myself time to feel guilty enough about the stress this was going to cause Dad to back out.

Going ghost and taking the heavy bookbag with me, I floated above the lower end of the staircase as high as I could without overlapping with the first-floor ceiling. Reentering the normal world midair, I let go of the bookbag and re-entered my ghost world before hardly any time had passed, pausing the bag's fall before it really even began.

I then floated back up to the second-floor hallway, popped into the real world just long enough to grab my cane and hear the very loud thump bump thump of the bookbag hitting near the bottom of the staircase before rolling the rest of the way down, and went ghost again to float back down to where the bookbag lay.

Going normal again, I dropped the cane near where the bookbag had landed. Shuffling came from Dad's room; good, he heard.

I grabbed the bookbag, levitating it all the way up the stairs and to my room via ghost form before leaving it there (going normal just long enough to drop it on the bed) and floating back down to join my cane at the bottom of the staircase.

I then gingerly laid down on the floor and started moaning – mostly fake, though the pain in my shoulder made the acting all too easy – just as Dad's bedroom door flew open.

I gained his vision of me sprawled out at the bottom of the staircase, cane lying beside me.

"Oh god, Taylor! What happened?!"

I just whimpered, then a real yelp found its way into the charade as I made the mistake of putting the tiniest amount of pressure on my shoulder.

I felt like utter garbage for tricking Dad like this, but at least the only deception here was how my injury had happened, not that I was injured, right?

Besides, my cover story was going to be fucking humiliating, and would probably set me back several weeks in Mrs. Banks' eyes as far as my ability to be independent was concerned, so I was getting my just punishment for the white lie anyway.

I spoke between gasps as Dad stomped down the staircase in his hurry, cradling my neck and head in his hands when he reached the bottom. "Woke up early… just want – wanted a snack… missed the stairs…"

"Oh, Taylor." This time the 'oh' wasn't an exclamation, more of a lament. His tone conveyed a very complex set of emotions, but the one I latched onto was that damnable pity again.

Dad started looking me over and touched my shoulder, eliciting a hiss from me. He immediately drew his hand away like it had been burned. "Broken?"

"Feels… like it." I confirmed, a pained grunt breaking the sentence into two.

Judging from the way his vision bobbed, Dad nodded to himself in determination; or maybe he just forgot I wouldn't be able to see the gesture, and did it out of habit. "We're going to the hospital, right now."

Despite my weak protests about my state of dress, Dad loaded me into the car and started driving me to the hospital still in my flimsy blue flannel pajamas, insisting that trying to change could exacerbate whatever injury I had incurred. He was probably right, and I couldn't mention that I had already changed once already.

--

We got checked in, the Brockton Bay General security cameras giving me an aerial view of my own hunched form as Dad marshaled me into the lobby, leading me by the elbow as I blindly shuffled a half-step behind him.

Dad then waited in the hallway while a nice female doctor asked me some questions (which I did my best to answer in a way consistent with my story), gave me a physical, and had me carted off to get some X-rays done.

I could see my every wince and flinch through Dr. Pearson's vision; between those, being in my pajamas, and the whole 'staring straight ahead with unseeing eyes' thing, I looked downright pathetic. The fact that my story was 'blind girl wants to go down stairs to get morning snack, falls' didn't help.

What's worse, I wasn't even sure if I had sold her on my version of the events anyway, since her field of view seemed to narrow in suspicion as I described what had happened. Perhaps it was instead just concern, though.

After the X-rays, the diagnosis was in: "Subluxation". I hadn't even fully dislocated my shoulder, this was just sort of a halfway thing. The doctor's assurances that it was still a serious injury didn't assuage the feeling that I was being a wimp. Superheroes were supposed to be tough, dammit!

I went through the briefly-painful process of 'closed reduction', which was basically just setting my shoulder back in place. To my relief, even the background throbbing that had been plaguing me all morning subsided almost completely once they were done.

Next, my injured arm was put into a sling and they ran me through another round of X-rays before giving me a cot to sit on. The other beds in my room were empty, judging by Dr. Pearson's point of view.

When I asked if any other patients were in here with me – just to confirm – she explained that the least-busy times for a hospital are usually 3-9 am, as well as the fact that – counterintuitively, in my opinion – weekdays, especially Monday, were worse than weekends. In other words, I'd essentially arrived at the best possible time. Small miracles.

She then focused me back on track.

"So you'll have a sling for a couple of weeks, full-time the first week. Try not to strain or exert it too much for a long while even after you can get rid of the sling, though." Dr. Pearson finished explaining my condition to me, setting her clipboard down on the flimsy hightable next to my cot.

Taking on a more chipper tone, like an elementary school teacher about to offer her field trip group ice cream, she continued, "That being said, Panacea should be coming in this afternoon for her normal shift, so if you want hang out here until then I think we could get you moved up her list! We wouldn't normally bother her with something mundane medicine can solve like a dislocation, but a cure for blindness isn't possible yet without parahuman intervention, so I think we can kill two birds with one stone. How's that sound?"

Fuck. Fuuuuuuck. How do I turn this down without seeming like a complete ungrateful bitch?

When I had first gotten my powers, the doctors were flummoxed as to why I even was blind: I hadn't received any injury that would result in blindness from just wallowing in –

I clamped down on the memory, shoving it away. Um, where was I? Right, I hadn't received any injury that should have rendered me blind; the doctors had eventually settled on 'infection', which was reasonable enough given the… state… I was found in. They thought it must have been some kind of nerve-eating amoeba or bacteria or something that conveniently vanished without a trace before I made it to a proper hospital. Sure.

I knew the truth, though: There was nothing wrong with my eyes, my dumbass power just wanted me to see through others' eyes instead.

So, if Panacea tried to heal my eyes… she'd fail, and know that I was a parahuman.

But how do you say 'no' to freaking Panacea offering to make the blind see?! 'Miracle worker' doesn't get any more literal than that.

Dr. Pearson must have perceived some of my panic despite my best efforts to keep a straight face: She crouched next to the bed, bringing herself closer to my level, her perspective now looking slightly up at me instead. I continued 'looking' where I was 'looking' before, straight ahead.

"Taylor, you know you're safe here, right? If there's something you want to tell us…"

She knows! How does she know?!

"W-what do you mean?"

She clasped my left hand within both of hers. "Your injuries, Taylor… it doesn't really match with… falling down stairs. Sure you can dislocate your shoulder from a fall, but the rest of it… you got hit. Hard. That much is clear. Now, I know it can be scary, but -"

Of course. Of course that's how she knew, she was a doctor, I was stupid – stupid – to think I could slip this by them. Dad, sure, but trained medical professionals? Hah.

I had seen the way Dr. Pearson's eyes had narrowed slightly when I was giving my story, but now I had confirmation that she knew it was all bullshit. Fuck.

Well, at least if she already knows I'm a cape, I can tell her why I don't want Panacea to see m –

"- if your father is hurting you, you can tell us, alright? You're safe here."

What.

No, what?!

My hand jerked out from her embrace almost involuntarily, though Dr. Pearson didn't move.

"No! He's not – no! Dad wouldn't – isn't – 'hurting me'!"

"Alright, alright. If you're sure." Dr. Pearson seemed dubious, though she was still going for a soothing tone. "So what did happen?"

"I…"

What was I going to say? 'Nuh-uh, I totally did fall down the stairs' ?

That would just set off more alarm bells. She might even call the cops on Dad then and there. I had no idea how much of her suspicion was guesswork and how much was plain as day from my injuries; if she was just operating on a hunch a firm denial would be enough to deter her, but if what I was claiming was in direct contradiction to physical evidence she'd probably press the issue.

And then there was the other problem: How to turn down the offer of Panacea's healing.

It was definitely possible for me to just say 'no', damn the consequences, but I felt like doing so would be highly suspicious. If I tried to offer excuses like religious reasons any basic background check would debunk that immediately, and unless I gave her a solid reason for denying Panacea's help Dr. Pearson was liable to bring Dad into the loop to get me to acquiesce. Hell, she might even tell him about my apparent eligibility for healing anyway unless I shut this down.

So, I had three options:

Firstly, I could agree to be healed by Panacea, and if it goes through likely out myself to one of Brockton Bay's preeminent heroes. Would she insist I register as an independent hero? Would she tell the Protectorate of my existence and identity? Would she tell the rest of New Wave, and if so would any of them do either of the above?

I wasn't ready to really make my debut; I wanted to actually do something right first, as opposed to what effectively amounted to mugging four skinheads minding their own business and escaping Miss Militia's apparent attempt to restrain me.

If Dr. Pearson was wrong and it turned out Panacea actually didn't have time for me today, this would be the best option, since nothing would come of it, but I didn't want to take that risk.

The second choice was to just deny the healing without explaining to her why, which would in all likelihood ultimately result in me having to convince Dad as well. I wasn't ready to tell Dad about my power, and moreover he might even force me to sign up with the Wards immediately if he knew.

… yeah, that definitely seemed like something he might do. Dad's attention to me did a complete about-face when I was rendered blind: Before, he barely seemed to notice my existence, but now he was a hovering helicopter parent. I put up with the over-protectiveness since it was better than the alternative, but I'd honestly rather take my chances with Panacea than outing myself to Dad. For now, at least.

As for the third option…

"Do… do we have, um… doctor-patient… confidence, or whatever?"

"Doctor-patient confidentiality, yes. I'm legally obligated not to tell anyone anything you don't want me to… unless there is a clear and present danger to yourself or someone else."

Dr. Pearson put emphasis on that last part, though she seemed reluctant to say it. The implication was clear: She'd have to report it if I was being abused, and she was worried that telling me as much would prevent me from opening up.

"What about… actually legal stuff that's still a danger to me, like… skateboarding, or parkour?"

Dr. Pearson's vision blinked, presumably in confusion. "No? I wouldn't have to report that. Taylor, what's this about?"

"Are we alone?"

"Ye- "

I cut her off. "Like, really really alone, no one in earshot for sure?"

Dr. Pearson got up; the last thing I saw was her point of view rising and turning away. I heard her walk over to the door leading into the hallway, then said door shutting, muting the sounds beyond.

I regained vision as she came back to resume kneeling in front of me, next to my cot.

"I'm sure. We're alone. What is it you wanted to tell me?" I couldn't help but feel a bit annoyed – patronized, really – at her coaxing, handling-a-baby-bird demeanor.

I took a deep breath. "I'm a cape."

There was a few seconds of silence before I broke it myself, speaking again, a bit quicker than before. "You can't tell anyone, okay? But, um, the thing is, my blindness has to do with my power for some reason, so I'm sure – like, unreasonably sure, I can't explain it – I'm sure that Panacea can't fix it."

"Oh."

"Yeah. So um, I'd appreciate it if you'd not mention the whole Panacea thing to Dad, okay?"

"You haven't told your father?"

I couldn't see Dr. Pearson's expression, but if I had to guess based on her initial speechlessness, I'd bet on 'gobsmacked'. However, her most recent comment was tinged with concern.

I shook my head. "No, and I'd like to keep it that way for now, please?"

I heard her take a long, shuddering breath, and lost vision for a few seconds as she rubbed her eyes with her hands. I waited patiently for the doctor to collect herself.

"Okay. Okay, Taylor. I'll keep quiet about this if you want me to – and yes, Massachusetts does include cape identities under doctor-patient confidentiality. I'll even go along with your avoidance of Panacea. But I'm urging you to reconsider telling your father, and judging by your state this morning, I'd strongly recommend joining the Wards. You received a serious injury, but something tells me you could have come off a lot worse. Not to mention that you still shouldn't strain your shoulder for several weeks. Seriously: put the hero stuff on hold until you recover, understand?"

I nodded, feeling extremely guilty about the fact I had no intention of doing so, nor of joining the Wards. I couldn't tell if this shame was alleviated or exacerbated by the happy, warm, fuzzy feeling I got when she just assumed I was an independent hero when the alternative was far more likely in Brockton Bay.

Dr. Pearson sighed, and I lost vision as she briefly turned away from me. I was mildly annoyed for a moment before remembering that I hadn't told her how my power works, or that I could see at all.

"Alright. Alright." She muttered to herself. When she turned back to me, I could just hear the wry smile on her lips. "Is that all? All you wanted to tell me, I mean?"

I allowed myself a smile of my own. "That wasn't enough?"

She laughed, but it was a tense bark more than anything really genuine. "No, I suppose it was. How…"

She hesitated, then continued, "How does someone with your condition, er, go about the whole 'cape' thing, anyway? I'm just worried about you, Taylor."

I shrugged. In for a penny…

"Whenever someone's looking at me, I can see through their eyes. Here, put up your hand behind my head and hold up a random number of fingers."

Dr. Pearson's field of view widened in surprise, but she complied, holding up four fingers behind my head where I shouldn't have been able to see them even if I weren't blind.

"Four."

She immediately changed the number to three.

"Three. No cheating." I admonished somewhat playfully. As much as I didn't want either Dad or the PRT to know of my cape-hood yet (for very different reasons), it was actually a huge weight off my shoulders – not to mention kind of fun – to be able to show and discuss my ability with someone.

"Well. That does make me feel a bit better." Matching her statement, Dr. Pearson sounded relieved. I'd grown used to picking out people's emotions from their voices, since I couldn't usually see their expressions.

However, after pause she continued sternly, "But you clearly need to be more careful. Even after you give your shoulder several weeks of rest, I mean. No strenuous activity, young lady."

I tried to grin reassuringly in her direction, using her vision to watch and orient myself, but my smile looked weak even to me. I knew she was just doing her job, but it still felt good to have someone other than Dad and Mrs. Banks show me some concern and decency. Actually, I was up to four now, if you count that boy that held the door.

"I will."

The way Dr. Pearson's gaze lingered on me, I suspected she saw right through the feeble lie.

She didn't call me out on it, though, instead just sighing again before going to get Dad to have me checked out.

--

During the drive home, I was brainstorming. Even though I had no intention of hanging up the mantle – 'poncho', a traitorous part of my mind corrected – for the 'several weeks' it would take my shoulder to heal back to normal capacity, I did need to compensate for it.

The first thing I decided was that trying to follow gang members themselves was probably an inefficient use of my power.

Sure, for most people things like stakeouts, tracking, and other surveillance was necessary so they didn't have to comb through every individual building in the city to find what they are looking for. Me? I can go incorporeal, pop my head into two or three buildings per ghost session, wait about twenty seconds in normal form, and repeat.

For most structures I could probably tell within a second of looking around whether it was a place where a happy family lived, or a stash house candidate. If I suspected something fishy, I could bypass floors and other barriers to access hidden basements or rooms, checking around at will. Most places would only take a few seconds to dismiss, and the promising ones would only take at most a minute of floating around to scope out.

I could probably cover a decent swath of Empire Eighty-Eight territory in only a few real-time hours that way, especially if I targeted sketchy-looking places first. The best part? I could still be on the lookout for shady characters as I went from building to building, so I wasn't even changing my original strategy much, just adding to it.

Yes, I was seriously considering looking for Empire stash houses by checking every single building in Empire territory one by one. Yes, I knew it sounded dumb. Yes, I believed my power made this not as stupid a tactic as it initially appeared. At 2.5 buildings scouted per ghost session, 20 real-time seconds between ghost sessions, and an 8-hour night, I would clear, what? Over 3,000 buildings? That's a lot, right?

Next on the docket was how I was going to fight with only one good arm.

The obvious solution: Don't. My power seems custom-made for moving around unseen and/or escaping once seen, provided I didn't screw up with my hair again.

However, I felt like I needed some offensive option in a pinch. What if I came across someone being mugged? I couldn't just leave them to their fate, but would pepper spray cut it? I didn't want to use the gun I had taken off of that thug unless I absolutely had to, but melee weapons like the baton and spray put me in too much danger now that I had an injury to nurse.

I needed a good, safe, preferably ranged option that I could accomplish with just one hand.

After some musing, my thoughts turned to when I had floated above the two skinheads and materialized just long enough to drop my umbrella down next to them before teleporting away. I then recalled how my power is much, much more concerned with size than weight, like how I had been able to take a bag full of heavy books into the ghost world with ease and drop it from a decent height down the stairs.

"Dad?"

I gained a somewhat smudged view of myself in the imperfect rear-view mirror, sitting in the back seat of our car as Dad drove us home. He hadn't cleaned the mirror in a while, apparently. The glimpse lasted only a moment before he returned his attention to the road; safe driving was a big deal to both of us.

"Yes, kiddo?"

"Do you still have that bowling ball from when you won at that Union anniversary thing?"

"Yeah, it's in the basement, why?"

"Just wondering."

Last edited: Nov 2, 2022

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TheGreatGimmick

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TheGreatGimmick

TheGreatGimmick

Underestimates the time writing takes

Oct 11, 2018

#372

How the hell do the other heroes do it?!

When we had finally arrived back at our house after the trip to the hospital, I had been excited to try out my bowling ball idea later that night. However, between getting up at 6:00 Friday morning for school, staying up all day and night until 2:00 Saturday morning preparing my first patrol, coming back injured and exhausted a little under three hours later, being taken to the hospital, and only making it back to the house that afternoon, 3:00 on a lazy Saturday had hit me like a truck and I had just crashed.

Then after that, I was completely off-schedule, sleeping from around 4:00 Saturday afternoon to about 2:00 Sunday morning.

Despite being up at a time when Dad definitely wouldn't be awake, I had made the executive decision to not go on my second patrol right then. One of the reasons for that judgement call was a desire for my next night out to be much, much longer – and thus more productive – than the first, so beginning even later than last time wouldn't have been a great start.

Of course, the primary reason was that I instead needed to devote Sunday to catching up on my academic work and getting back on schedule so I wasn't a zombie at school Monday. It wouldn't do for someone to notice that the same weekend a new cape appears, Taylor Hebert comes into Winslow with one arm in a sling and looking like she had just stayed up a few nights in a row. There was nothing I could do about the sling, but I could at least not be dead on my feet, and Dr. Pearson had signed off on my version of how I had dislocated my shoulder.

So, I had made sure to go to bed at a normal time Sunday after finishing all of my weekend homework in one sitting, which made it possible to get back up again for school Monday morning like nothing had changed.

Aside from enduring a few condescending platitudes of clearly-mocking faux sympathy from some of Emma's cronies, the light bullying actually wasn't that bad; I had expected them to jump on the notion that I couldn't even get a morning snack without almost killing myself. Then again, both Emma and especially Sophia had seemed to mellow out since the… incident… so maybe that had something to do with the bullies' lack of vigor. A few of the other kids even occasionally stood up for me, though always with that passive sort of nonchalance that came with not wanting to fully commit.

Worse was Mrs. Banks' self-flagellation. She seemed to think the 'fall' was a personal failing of hers, somehow, but didn't know what she could do differently. Despite my assurances to the contrary, insisting that it was completely my fault, the old woman fussed about how she was my mobility trainer and knew I was struggling with the cane, but hadn't given the issue as much attention as it needed, or something. Nothing I said consoled her, and I felt even more like human garbage for misleading her than I had about Dad.

Oh, and as if Monday at school doesn't suck enough anyway, it was my right shoulder that had been dislocated and was now in a sling. You know, my writing hand.

In the 'good news' column (a relatively recent addition to the 'Taylor Hebert Times'), Stormtiger's capture was being talked about, though Miss Militia had been attributed all of the publicly-recognized credit. However, apparently one or two of the spectators looking out their windows had posted comments on PHO detailing what they had seen and heard of the fight, and there was speculation – based on how events had played out before the PRT's arrival and some of the things Stormtiger had yelled into the night – that a third party was involved.

I was a little miffed at both the PRT's failure to mention me and at PHO's back-and-forth arguments over whether this 'mysterious third party' was a hero, rival villain, or pure conspiracy theory, but I understood where both were coming from. I still hadn't done anything to dissuade the PRT from their 'Stranger illusion' theory, after all, though I would have expected the beatings I gave those unpowered Nazis to be taken as evidence against that hypothesis.

Still, that was one success under my belt, more or less. Another 'positive' I had going for me was how the bowling ball idea had worked out.

After the hospital, I had told Dad I wanted to be left alone for a while, then gleefully ghosted down to the basement from my room to find his old bowling ball at the first opportunity. I was forced to alternate back and forth between my two forms to either get vision of, or physically interact with, the dusty old boxes, but once I finally located that ball (under a box filled with some of Mom's old stuff, but even that didn't dampen my spirits too much), I was elated. The bowling ball was colored a simple black with no pattern; no defining features that could be traced back to Dad or even the Dockworker's Union. Perfect!

Although this ball was the heaviest 'legal' bowling balls can get, weighing in at 16 pounds, that was a good thing: I would never have to physically throw it, and during the twenty seconds at a time I would be forced to actually carry the thing, I could just dangle it in its sling (the bowling kind, not the arm kind). If I was in a fight but didn't want to use the ball I could just leave it somewhere with my teleportation. All in all, the heavier the better.

This evening I had performed drop tests on some wooden planks I found in a more run-down area near our house, comparing the indents from the dropped ball to the pockmarks I could make by swinging my baton as hard as I could. I also frequently flew the short distance back to our house to check if Dad had noticed the fact that I was missing, since at the time it was only 10:00 p.m.

I was surprised by how far I'd need to drop the bowling ball: Initially starting at only six inches, apparently the dead stop at which the ball began falling didn't result in all that much power behind the impact by the time it landed. I had to drop the ball from about two-and-a-half feet to make a similar indentation to my strongest baton swing, and judging by my struggle to make the four thugs stay down Saturday night, even that probably wasn't going to knock someone out cold. I didn't want to kill anyone, though, so I wasn't going to drop it from much higher; better safe than sorry.

My second new piece of equipment was the burner phone, which I had bought for only 40 of my newfound 246 dollars. The place selling them had been a bit sketchy; I got the impression I was paying as much for the 'no questions asked' part as I was for the phone itself.

I had teleported most of the way there despite being in civilian clothes, though my chosen landing spot was still a decent enough ways away from the shop so as to give plausible deniability regarding my transportation method.

The nominal reason for that somewhat frivolous power usage was to minimize the chance that Dad would notice I was gone a bit too long. If I was honest with myself, however, I had done it mostly because it was annoying to take the bus when I had to ask each vehicle arriving at the bus stop which number or route they were. Brockton Bay's decaying public transport in my area didn't have automatic speakers that announced such information when the doors opened like the ones downtown did, and the drivers weren't paid enough to take the initiative themselves without prompting.

As for the cellphone itself, I had been handling the cheap handheld device like it was a snake, and felt guilty about hiding it from Dad. Regardless, some form of communication was a necessary evil in this line of work, as my first night had demonstrated. Anyway, I checked that off the grocery list.

Also on said list was a new umbrella, which presented more of a challenge: I couldn't buy a second one as Taylor Hebert, since a massive black umbrella was a rather distinctive superhero accessory.

Instead, I had dressed up in my costume, appeared in the back-room warehouse area of a golf store right around closing time, and convinced the only employee there to let me buy a 60-inch plain black golf umbrella in cash. The place was so poorly lit it probably violated some safety codes, but you've come to expect that kind of thing from Brockton Bay's struggling companies.

I would have offered to pay more than the asking price on account of the unconventional manner through which I was trying to purchase the item, but the employee – a high-school-aged boy with a severe stutter – was very accommodating; perhaps starstruck that an up-and-coming hero was appearing to them in particular?

Whatever the reason, my new umbrella only ran me for 20 dollars; half what the burner phone cost. I had sewn a little strap onto the side of my costume from which I could hang the umbrella, since my right arm was in a medical sling and my left arm was holding the bowling ball's sling bag.

Speaking of my costume: Stormtiger had torn the top cloak nearly to shreds with the blast that had dislocated my shoulder; when I teleported out, the uppermost layer had been left behind. However, the outer cloak was still in one piece and thus wearable, and I did so despite its rips allowing the second layer of my costume to be seen, which rendered it useless for the clothing's main intended purpose. I could at least yank it off and wave it in someone's face to obscure their vision, if nothing else. The top layer would eventually need replacing, but for now I'd make do with one less backup cloak.

Now, Monday night, I was back in the game. Starting at midnight, for the last real-time hour I had been flitting from building to building, scoping out places at a rate of two, three, or four structures per ghost-world session, depending on how many walls and floors I needed to float through to 'clear' any given location.

My baton had been left behind because I had no intention of getting into melee combat with one arm in a sling, but the pepper spray was still brought along just in case, being more light and portable in addition to its arguably more useful effect. Combined with adding the gun and bowling ball to my repertoire, I was feeling pretty good about this patrol even with my handicap.

In spite of the differing methods, I had the same goal as my first night: Find an Empire Eighty-Eight stash house to get some vision-obscuring weapons and hopefully a lot of money to boot. Arrests and rescues took precedence, of course.

To cover as much ground as possible, I started in the fringe part of Empire territory; the area with low-rise buildings, most being only one story tall and almost none having over three stories. A more efficient plan than 'check every building one by one' was probably needed if I wanted to eventually start scoping out apartment complexes and skyscrapers for gang activity.

Of course, from my ghost-world perspective the 'one hour' of my patrol so far had been experienced as closer to five instead, but I wasn't nearly as bored as I had been the first night. I actually had something to do.

Sure I wasn't making arrests or getting into fights yet, but I was scouting an average of three buildings in my ghost world for every 20-seconds-ish in real time, and had been at it for a real-time hour. That's over 500 unknown locations explored already! Hardly anything was happening, but it was mildly interesting all the same.

A much bigger problem than any boredom was my severe underestimation regarding how much holding a 16-pound bowling ball – even just dangling it in the sling bag – gets tiring when my 'only 20 seconds at a time' was in reality 'a continuous hour' because my normal body's strength didn't recuperate in my ghost world. Not helping matters was the fact that I had to carry it with my left, non-dominant, arm, for obvious reasons.

The heaviness quickly forced me to start setting it down while waiting out my real-world delays instead. Doing so helped immensely, because then it was really more like I was lifting it off the ground by a millimeter (and immediately setting it back down) just once every 20 seconds or so. I did mess up a few times, lifting it further than I intended and dropping it a little hard when I stopped to rest in a closet or attic or basement, but overall it wasn't too much of an inconvenience. I might have accidentally woken a few people though.

Anyway, so far there hadn't been many incidents. In one house I found a woman with a severely bruised – and slightly bleeding – left eye crying in the kitchen, with a man passed out drunk on a couch in the next room wearing a stained white wife-beater shirt. I called the police, lying about hearing 'a loud argument followed by a scream from my next-door neighbors'. I hoped I had read the situation right.

In another house, I had called CPS when I found a child playing with what I strongly suspected to be heroin needles, the mother out smoking on the porch.

I had additionally intervened directly in the latter case, appearing behind the young boy – probably 3rd grade? – to take away the sharp implements. Though his screaming and crying in terror hadn't made me feel like a hero, the knowledge that the boy would likely be safe until CPS got there was worth it. I had left before the mother came to investigate, and she probably wouldn't take the boy seriously if he claimed to have seen a cloaked figure that there was no sign of now. No one ever believes the kid, after all.

Both diversions had only taken about a minute each of my real-world time, and the burner phone was already proving its worth.

Now caught up to the present, it had been a good fifty or sixty ghost-world sessions since anything noteworthy had happened, though I had turned someone's oven off. They were asleep; fire hazard.

Suddenly, as I was flying out of a trailer park and over what looked like it used to be a grocery store, I saw it.

The classic scene was frozen in my ghost world: A young woman, thirty at the absolute most, was being held at knife-point by a hunched, long-haired man in tattered clothing. The woman's terrified face appeared tiger-striped from the bands of 'observed' darkness and 'unobserved' illumination where the man's knotted hair obscured his vision, and her eyes were screwed shut such that I could see pretty much all of the scumbag himself.

A mugging! An actual honest-to-god mugging! Yes!!

Wait, no, that was the wrong reaction to a mugging. This was horrible. Totally horrible. Definitely.

Mentally shrugging, I swooped down and hovered above the mugger, positioning the incorporeal bowling ball about three feet above his mangy head. I wanted to make sure this first hit took him down; he was liable to lash out at the woman otherwise.

Flickering into the real world and back so quickly I'm not even certain any time actually passed, I took the bowling ball's sling back into my ghost world with me, but not the ball itself.

Instead the black sphere was paused midair, appearing to be floating directly above the mugger. I 'smeared' his knife hand away from the woman, repeatedly waving my own hand through the blade itself only; if he was shaky from drugs or whatnot, perhaps the light push might even fully disarm him.

I then flew away a short distance and lighted down behind a nearby tree; the point of using the bowling ball was so I wouldn't have to get in direct physical confrontations with my current handicap.

When time unfroze, for a brief moment I could hear the woman whimpering quietly and the man snarling "Hurry u-" before a surprisingly loud conk interrupted him.

I went ghost and floated over to investigate, but the woman had cracked an eye open and was looking at the mugger, obscuring a lot of what I could see.

He seemed to be starting to lean backwards, knees buckling and knife-arm still extended, but I could only view the side of him not darkened by the woman's vision. The bowling ball hadn't yet hit the ground, and to my surprise the knife itself was careening off a good fifteen feet away.

I endeavored to appear in a position as near to the woman's front as possible, trying different angles, but with how her line-of-sight worked I ended up having to exit my ghost-world to her side at best. Having learned from my experience with Miss Militia, I gave her plenty of space; more than ten feet, in fact. I was going to do things right this time.

When time unfroze again, I heard what was unmistakably the bowling ball finally impacting the sidewalk and starting to roll, the clatter of what I presumed was the knife hitting the ground some distance away, and finally what I thought was the mugger finishing his slump to the pavement, in that order, each following quickly after the other.

"O-oh god! What – Oh god." I guessed that the woman was shocked to see the state of the mugger, but I wasn't sure because I didn't have vision yet.

"Are you okay ma'am?"

She shrieked and started to spin towards me, but I had went ghost at her reaction, not wanting to get pepper sprayed or something if she had a weapon. A preliminary inspection revealed that she didn't, or at least hadn't taken one out yet, so I reentered the real world about where I had started, hearing her finish the second half of her scream.

When she faced me, I saw myself standing down street in my now-ragged costume, black bandaged face making what was below the heavy cowl appear completely dark. My tattered cloak was bulky enough that you couldn't tell one of my arms was held across my torso in a sling; both sleeves looked the same despite one being empty. I had also tied my hair back securely this time around, so it wasn't even close to being visible.

Behind me lied the rest of the street, decrepit buildings and boarded-up windows on both sides. I was barely standing in the light of the nearby lamppost, with only the bottom half of my body illuminated by the orangish-yellow glow.

She screamed again, turned away from me (losing me her vision), and apparently ran off, judging by the pattering of feet.

Not the reaction I was hoping for, but oh well. Hope she gets home safe.

I went ghost and flew over to retrieve my bowling ball, dipping into the real world just long enough to blindly shuffle it back into its sling with only my left hand. I confiscated the knife next, having no intention of keeping it: The gun that I had taken off of 'Fischer' might someday be useful if I had no other choice, but if I was going to carry a knife I was probably better off with some of the sharper ones in our kitchen than this rusty old thing.

I then ghosted over to the mugger, memorizing his position while I could still see, preparing to zip-tie him. His posture was odd, as he still had his former-knife-arm slightly raised into the air as he lay on his back.

However, I froze before exiting my ghost world, becoming as unmoving as my surroundings, when I saw the blood in his hair.

Fuck! Did I just kill him?!

I dropped into the real world and knelt to feel his pulse, stifling my revulsion at touching his scabbed-over neck. Detecting a heartbeat at about the same time he groaned and shifted, I was startled back into my ghost world, subsequently seeing that his arm had finally dropped.

Okay. Not dead then. Bullet dodged.

Still, with such a scare I was suddenly at lot less enthused about my new weapon. Maybe I could still drop it on, like, shoulders or something (misery loves company, after all), but head injuries now felt too dangerous, despite nothing having really changed.

I wonder how Bret, Fischer, and crew are holding up in their cells? I did hit them over the head repeatedly with a baton, after all…

Focusing back on the task at hand, I reentered the real world and set about zip-tying and applying what first aid I could to the mugger before calling the authorities. I dialed 911, requesting the normal police, since I wasn't sure this counted as a 'parahuman' thing just because I was the one that apprehended an unpowered criminal.

Telling them where to find him and that he probably needed more thorough medical attention for a head injury, I hung up before they could ask any personal questions, left the knife near the unconscious mugger as evidence, and flew off to continue my – already considerably more eventful – second patrol.

Combing through building after dilapidated building for another two real-time hours, or about ten hours in ghost-world time, I covered ground quickly. The need to sleep and maintain the appearance of a normal life may force me to only go out every third day or so, unlike Miss Militia and Armsmaster's seemingly-relentless nightly patrols, but when I did work I certainly put in overtime.

In fact, for the first time since triggering I was actually starting feel a little proud of my powers.

During my research into Brockton Bay's cape scene, I had felt somewhat inadequate when comparing my abilities to the other local independent heroes. A city this size had several, and that was not even counting New Wave.

Compared to independents like Showdown, Ringmaster, or the relatively new Browbeat (not a very heroic-sounding name, but at least he could think of one, unlike someone else I know), my lack of Brute power had seemed underwhelming. I needed gear to even come close to being a threat, and even then I was as squishy as a baseline teenage girl. Meanwhile, Ringmaster and Browbeat were comparatively invincible while also packing a hell of a punch, and what Showdown lacked in durability he made up for in raw speed in addition to his strength, at least on days his power was cooperating with him.

So, it had seemed like I was completely eclipsed in terms of both offense and defense.

Instead, I had thought that perhaps my niche could be found as a support unit, but when I had looked at my power's potential placed side-by-side with other utility capes it had still felt lacking. For example, in terms of sheer versatility I was never was going to top Nikommo, a Native-American-themed biomimicry Tinker that often rotated between Boston, Brockton Bay, and other cities near her presumed home: the Wampanoag reservation on Martha's Vineyard.

Scientists have long been taking inspiration from nature to design things, such as airplane wings from birds, water-repellent coating from hydrophobic plant leaves, or even solar panels from photosynthesis. Nikommo's power was that, but turned up to 11. Her Tinkertech goggles created by studying raptor eyes and her flight pack based on dragonfly wings had seemed enough to match any reconnaissance I could do just by themselves, and that was a small fraction of what the biomimicry Tinker could bring to bear; don't even get me started on her camouflage, sonar, or veritable arsenal of chemicals.

Nikommo wasn't even considered a 'major' independent hero like Mouse Protector or any one of New Wave, and I had still felt totally outclassed.

It was a small mercy that the independent vigilante whose power would have seemed most similar to mine had joined the Wards a few months ago, but even Shadow Stalker had defensive options, unlike little miss 'please look the other way for a second' over here. With the way I had been thinking myself into a downward spiral, I had convinced myself that even Parian had more combat options than me, and she never even fought.

There were a few other independents working in and around the city, of course, including whispers of a new invisibility-based cape that had become active only about a month ago. No pictures, for obvious reasons, just anecdotes. Regardless, it all boils down to this: I had thought I would be a C-list footnote at the absolute best; bottom of the barrel, like everything else in my life.

However, I was feeling a lot better about myself now that I was experiencing the frankly staggering information superiority and time efficiency my ghost-world could provide. The only Bay resident that could match me in this respect was probably Velocity due to his ludicrous speed outpacing even mine, but he couldn't fly or pass through walls. Maybe this was my niche: Abuse the hell out of my time-stoppage to work five times as hard as my more powerful competitors in the same number of hours, finding every ongoing crime there was to be found.

As I methodically searched every single building in this stretch of Empire territory one by one with my ghost-world's observation-based pseudo night vision, I was reminded of something corny I had read in one of Dad's old comics: In brightest day, in blackest night, no evil shall escape my sight.

Eventually I struck gold.

Well, more like copper or something. Still valuable.

Point is, I didn't find a stash house, but I did float into arguably the next-best thing:

A dogfighting ring.

Last edited: Nov 7, 2022

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TheGreatGimmick

Oct 11, 2018

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TheGreatGimmick

TheGreatGimmick

Underestimates the time writing takes

Oct 15, 2018

#471

When I first descended into the cleared three-car garage, I thought it was some kind of kennel.

Then I saw the blood on the floor and even walls, the rusted undersized cages stacked on top of one another supported by flimsy makeshift wooden storage racks, the heavy chains unnecessarily binding the already-caged animals, and most disturbing of all, the dogs themselves. Every single one was covered in scars, and most were missing tails, ears, or even eyes; they hurt to look at, and they weren't even moving or making sounds yet, since I was still in my ghost world.

This house either belonged to the world's worst vet… or an Empire dogfighting ring.

The undersized cages were stacked in a pair of unconnected rows, with each row being two cages high and two cages thick. Both rows were placed away from the garage walls such that one could walk around the whole layout in addition to between the rows. The wooden backs of the support racks holding the upper cages in place prevented one from seeing through the resulting 'lanes', which I had a feeling was going to be convenient for me later.

Two armed men seemed to be patrolling these three corridor-like spaces in the garage. Neither were literal skinheads, but the larger of the pair had the kind of arm, chest, and face tattoos you'd associate with prison, while the shorter, college-aged man was wearing a shirt with the Confederate flag on it despite living this far north. Draw your own conclusions.

The only illumination in this room was the blueish light of an electric campsite-style lamp placed in each 'corridor'; three in total. There were two windows along the back wall, but this early in the morning they didn't help much. Judging by the condition of the rest of the house, I wouldn't have been surprised if it didn't have power, which might explain why they were resorting to portable light sources.

After finishing my initial sweep of the garage, I floated through the ceiling to the second floor of the building.

The two-story, simplistic plantation-style house to which the garage was attached probably used to look quaint, but was now as run-down as every other building in this area. The upper level was particularly decrepit, with a massive hole in the roof covering most of the master bedroom and central hallway. Smaller holes littered the walls of what used to be two additional bedrooms, as well as what was perhaps a home gym once. All of the windows up here were also broken, though furniture such as beds and lampstands had been left more or less alone.

After determining there was no one on the second floor, I flew back down into the garage and continued scouting.

The garage connected directly to the first floor of the house via a short brick staircase with only three steps. The door at the top of these steps led to a short empty hallway, that hallway to a defunct kitchen, and finally a pair of sliding doors separated the kitchen from a very spacious living room that had been cleared of all obstructions.

Instead of furniture, plywood had been used to create a simple fenced-in area covering the center of the living room; well, it was more like a two-foot-tall wooden box without a lid or bottom than a fence, really. The enclosed area was smaller than I would have guessed, being a square with sides 'only' about eight feet in length.

Work lamps – the small, hand-portable kind that I had seen Dad's Union workers set up on late-night sites, with clamps on their sides and a wire grating in front of the light that got really hot – were placed in the corners of the former living room, pointing up. Their dull yellowish glow lit up what I assumed was the fighting ring itself, judging by the scratches and bloodstains.

Some looked fresh, at least from what little I could actually see.

A small crowd was gathered in the living room; something like fifteen people, all adult males ranging from early twenties to one that looked like he was pushing seventy. That many observers standing around, paused in the middle of engaging in an odd duality between carefree talking and eyeing each other warily, made my vision of the living room a patchwork of many small illuminated spots (where no one happened to be looking, or someone's body blocked the vision of everyone else) interspersed within a blanket of darkness.

As I scanned the room from above, careful not to 'smear' anyone, the only bright areas that looked large enough for me to appear within were along the walls, and even those would be a squeeze.

I was at least able to note, however, that all four of the work lights were connected to a single power strip that led through a broken window, presumably to a generator out back. My initial hunch appeared correct: The house itself didn't seem to have electricity. Could be useful later.

The power strip cord had to slink under a huge black tarp that covered the only living room wall possessing windows. The tarp was probably there to prevent anyone outside from seeing the lights and thus suspecting illicit activity. Those white sliding doors leading to the kitchen comprised another of the four living room sides, and a third side was simply blank mildew-ridden white paint. The final side of the living room was itself split into thirds, with one third being more tarp, the middle third being more plain white wall, and the final third leading to a foyer.

The entrance to the foyer had a smaller tarp covering an arch that marked the transition between the two rooms, but this tarp was cut into long strips such that people could walk through it. I went up to the second floor and back down into the foyer like a jumping dolphin to avoid smearing the strips of plastic serving as an entryway.

The foyer itself had an ornate – but just as decayed as the rest of the house – front door leading to a porch, as well as two staircases: One going up to the derelict second floor, the other descending to a basement.

Occupying the foyer were two… doormen, I guess. They were sitting on fold-out chairs next to yet another blueish electric lantern, drinking some kind of presumably-alcoholic beverage from glass bottles. One was quite old, grizzled, with a long grey beard and half of a large swastika tattoo peeking out from the neckline of his leather jacket, while the other was younger, tall and skinny with a high-strung fearful look; I wondered if he was high or something.

I assumed they were doormen because the two were facing the foyer's front door, their backs to the walk-through tarp entrance leading into the living room. These 'doormen' and the garage 'patrolmen' were also the only men I had seen carrying handguns; it seemed that only the staff were allowed to be armed here. Jumpy-guy's vision was blocking my sight of the wall next to him – perhaps he had seen a spider or something – while old-guy had his eyes shut as he took a swig from the bottle.

All the other rooms explored as best I could, I dived through the floor into the basement. I still had about half a minute of ghost-world stamina left.

Ironically, the cellar was in considerably better condition than the rest of the house. There was even a bathroom connected to the larger basement area, its relation to the underground room corresponding to the kitchen's location relative to the living room directly above.

Apparently these rooms were the only two in the whole facility to have electricity, judging by the presumably-working toilet and the definitely-working overhead light in the main basement.

Did the Nazis rig things up this way to help avoid detection? Or did the whole house actually have power, and they just used portable lights in the aboveground stories for the same reason: To keep a low profile? I guess it doesn't matter either way; that choice is going to backfire on them now.

A large wooden desk was dead center on the cleared concrete floor, behind which a middle-aged man that reminded me a little of Dad in both appearance and dress – though the tattoo sleeve on his right arm helped dispel that thought – sat talking to another, fatter man in front of him. I was lucky: The fat man had blinked and the tattoo-sleeve-guy was holding his head in his hands, so neither of their lines of sight were impeding my own vision.

The desk was nearly empty; just some file folders and paper scattered on top, as well as a metal cup full of markers and pens in the corner nearest to the tattoo-sleeve-guy's left hand. Fold-out tables lined the walls, mostly covered with more paper and documents, presumably for record-keeping.

However, stacked on one of those tables was what appeared to be an absolutely huge amount of money, arranged in a short, squat pyramid of wads each held together by rubber bands.

Jackpot.

I wasn't just in this for the cash, though. In fact, it wasn't even my top priority.

The thought that I could easily – easily – take the money by the handful with no-one the wiser and just leave was tempting, but my main focus needed to be on saving the dogs and bringing as many of these scumbags to justice as I could; getting away with those wads of cash would just be a bonus.

Either way, first I needed to recuperate. This was only the second building I had visited during my current ghost-world session, but with how much I had been floating around – through walls and floors and ceilings, sometimes repeatedly – I had burned up my ghost-world time pretty quick.

I drifted through the door into the basement bathroom, intending to make the best use of my otherwise-wasted time by listening in on any conversations I could; in this case, whatever these isolated two talking over that desk were saying. The man with the tattoo sleeve seemed like he could be the head honcho of this operation. He had that 'upper management' look if you ignored the tattoo sleeve, and his office definitely seemed like captain's quarters compared of the rest of the house, though I didn't know what the overweight man was doing here.

The bathroom was single-toilet, with the only other objects in the room being the uncovered light bulb, some toilet paper rolls set on the floor, a single-faucet sink with a cabinet beneath, and a circular mirror. Unlike the rest of the basement, which had a concrete floor, the restroom was tiled.

As soon as I entered the real world, the smell of mildew and beer assaulted my nose, as well as the muted, barely-audible chatter from the living room above. Also, let me say that a lack of air conditioning in a cramped indoor space while wearing a heavy cloak is just a joy to experience.

With the light off – just judging by how the filament had looked, because I couldn't see shading in my ghost world – and the door closed, I could hear their discussion without them knowing anything was amiss.

"I'm serious man, this is the million-dollar idea, I kin feel it this time! I just need a little help and we'll be rollin' in dough once it takes off."

A second voice sighed, and it sounded long-suffering. "Look, I'd like to help you, for old times' sake. But I'm a bit strapped for cash at the moment, see?"

There was a pause, then the first voice – who, being the one begging for money, I assumed was the overweight man across from the one that looked in charge – grunted in agreement.

"Yeah I kin see dat. Stack look'n a little wimpy there mate. Ya other place got hit?"

"Bitch."

"Woah man, not cool -"

"The crazy dog girl, tore the place up, took all the dogs." The ringleader clarified, sounding exasperated.

"Huh. Didn't those same fuckers – the 'Undies' or whatever – didn't they pick up a new kid recently too?"

"Yeah, some shit-tier Tinker; irrelevant, though, because bitch always comes to the rings alone, without the other brats. Dunno what's up with that, don't care right now. Bigger problem is Kaiser's telling everyone to stockpile up, so even if I had the cash I couldn't hand it out."

"Ah. That 'push' thing the higher-ups been talk'n 'bout? Just heard murmurings, not really in the loop here like I used ta be."

"Yeah. Don't know much details, just that they're gonna make a foray into both Coil and Lung's hoods. Boss wants all hands on deck, which means I'm supposed to have something to fork over. If not money then recruits; I'm not having much luck with either."

"Why now, again?" the one asking for money inquired somewhat petulantly.

The boss-guy snorted. "New girl. Proved herself against Armsy early on, but haven't seen her much in the weeks since; testing stuff, probably. Planning. Apparently she can, like, see electricity somehow, power lines and shit, so they probably want to take a crack at finding the juice pumping into Coil's secret fucking Bond lair, if he even has one. Fucker's sitting on prime real estate and doesn't even do anything with it."

"And the chink? Thought we avoided poking the dragon unless we couldn't help it, what changed?"

I heard the drumming of fingers, and when boss-guy next spoke his voice was quieter. I pressed myself against the door to listen.

"New girl again. Look, you didn't hear this from me, but there's something freaky about her lightning and how it hits capes, okay? You heard about what it did to Armsmaster's bike despite the dick's shielding or whatever other Tinker bullshit, right?"

"Oh yeah, crispy-fried -"

The ringleader talked over the other guy. "What I bet you haven't heard is that 'cording to Brad – yes, that Brad – new girl can still shock people made 'invincible' by Othala. Not much, it's a hell of a lot weaker than the shit she normally pulls, but she shouldn't be able to at all, is the point."

"Huh."

"Yup. They think she might be able to swing something with Lung's regen' and durability, tip the scales a bit."

"Heh. Lung, scales."

"Get out."

"No no no dude, seriously, when ya do come into some more moolah hit me up, there's a market for my idea!"

"A market."

"Yeah I asked around, this ain't like the last few times!"

I prepared to leave the bathroom; these two seemed to be wrapping back around to talk about the fat guy's 'big idea' some more. I needed to check on the rest of the building again to make sure they weren't about to begin another dog fight, not to mention get started on doing whatever I was going to do here.

Shoving the bowling ball into the cabinet under the sink by quietly pushing aside the plastic jugs of water already there, I also detached my umbrella from my hip strap, leaving it propped against the sink counter; it wouldn't fit underneath. The bathroom door was closed anyway, and I wanted maximum mobility for what came next in case someone caught sight of me. With this indoor location having so many corners to duck behind, sacrificing another umbrella would be unnecessary.

Working with the connecting strap using only one hand was annoying, but I managed. My excited trembling – yes, excited, we'll go with that – didn't help.

I then entered my ghost world and floated straight up, committing the useful parts of what I had heard to memory.

There had been a ton of valuable information from just five minutes of listening in on two people who thought they were sequestered away in a safe place; perhaps this eavesdropping thing was something I should do more often.

For one, there was a 'crazy dog girl' that the ringleader guy considered to be a 'bitch'; she was apparently on some kind of team but occasionally acted alone. If she could take on an entire dogfighting ring by herself, she was almost definitely a cape.

I thought I had done my research on the local cape scene pretty well for someone that had to work through a text-to-speech program; a blind girl couldn't use the library or school's computers without people asking awkward questions, and our home CRT screen was completely unreadable when paused in my ghost-world.

Apparently my research had been lacking, though, as I had no idea who this dog-themed cape was, much less what team she was on. I guess I had focused too much on Circus when researching independent villains, but to be fair, she was the one I found most interesting due to being a fellow grab-bag cape.

Anyway, the dog-girl's team – I assumed fat-guy was mistaken about them being named after underwear, because who would do that to themselves? Were they a Merchant offshoot? – had apparently been recruiting, picking up a low-ranking Tinker of some kind. Definitely something to look into.

More important was the information that apparently the Empire had been secretly gearing up for some kind of push into both Coil and the ABB's territories on the back of something they hoped motherfucking Sowilo could do for them. The bitch could apparently sense electricity and had Trump-empowered lightning?! What the fuck? How was that fair?!

Tearing my thoughts away from her for now, I emerged through the bathroom ceiling into the kitchen's floor, then floated through the closed sliding doors into the living room.

The place had been slowly filling with even more people; a little over twenty now, though with the saturation of intersecting lines of sight it was hard to know for sure, even with the numerous small patches of light afforded by their 'inverse shadows'. There were so many small, scattered spots of brightness in the black surroundings that the place looked like a disco dance floor from my ghost world.

With the gathering that was happening I was worried they would be starting the next dog fight soon, but I had one more thing I wanted to do before I called the police (or would it be the PRT?) and started helping myself to the boss-guy's money.

Drifting into the garage where the dogs were being kept, I began looking for the keys to the cages and chains; I didn't want them to 'salvage' some of their 'assets' when the cops arrived, and getting the keys might even stop the upcoming fight if they didn't have the next two dogs already out and being prepped. I had no idea how these things went.

After searching around for a minute to no avail, I was left with the assumption that one of the patrolmen's fields of view was blocking my sight of the keychain.

The younger one was in the corridor-like space between the two rows of cages, and his vision wasn't covering much area: He seemed to be berating one of the caged dogs, the shadows lacing out from his eyes only traveling four feet ahead of him before hitting the line of cages. Meanwhile, the older man was walking around the back row of cages, looking down the whole 'corridor' towards where the electric lamp in that lane illuminated the far wall to normal people's sight.

I had a feeling that said far wall, covered in the older guard's inky black cone of vision, was the one where they hung the keys.

Even if not, I had to rest. Picking a spot as far away from the two as possible, I landed and exited my ghost world.

I immediately heard canine whining accompanied by a lot of shuffling. While I was expecting the former and some of the latter, this was really more of a mass frantic scrabbling, so I dipped back into my ghost world to check what was going on.

All of the dogs facing where I had appeared were paused in staring at my location wide-eyed, ears flat, tail between their legs, pressing their backs as hard as they could against their metal prisons, straining against their chains.

Right. Animals don't 'count' for any of my abilities, so I can teleport freely in front of them. Makes sense that it would freak them out.

I guess cats had just raised my expectations too high with their comparatively calm reaction: Staring at the spot I had appeared at or disappeared from, unblinking, even long after I was gone.

Anyway, I still needed to rest, so the dogs would have to deal. I reentered the real world, and the whimpering resumed, slowly growing more intense with each passing second.

These damn dogs are going to get me caught before I even have a chance to do anything.

I started quietly murmuring soothing things to them, as low as my voice would go. "It's okay, shh, shhhhh, its okay, I'm here to help, its -"

Footsteps coming around the corner contradicted my statement, as that was most certainly not 'okay', and I was forced to reenter my ghost-world without fully recharging. Dammit.

The new situation wasn't much different: The older guard was walking near the end of his backmost 'corridor', still facing the wall I suspected the keychain to be hung upon, but the younger one was rounding the corner between the center 'corridor' and the one I had been standing within.

I landed next to a cage marking the corner between the lane older-guard was walking down and the middle lane, exiting my ghost world to finish recharging, as well as to give older-guard time to stop looking in that direction. Please.

"The fuck?"

"What's it?" The second voice was clearly older than the first, letting me identify the speakers.

"Dunno, the dogs 'r acting really weird and I could-a sworn I heard some creepy whispering."

Well fuck you too, I was never that good with animals but my whispered baby-talking to them isn't 'creepy'!

"You tryna scare me with that new ghost story shit goin' around boy?"

"Hey, no, I'm serious!"

"I'm serious about whoppin' your ass if you try to mess with me. I'm here to do a job."

"Okay, okay, sheesh. Dogs still actin' weird though."

The whimpering was indeed continuing, this time also radiating out from my current position. The canines' uneasiness was slowly spreading throughout the entire 'kennel'. Can't they tell I am clearly different from their jailers?!

"Let the mutts act how th-"

I went into my ghost world to check older-guard's vision, and he had indeed finally turned away towards the younger guard around the corner, revealing the contents of that back wall.

It was even better than I had been hoping for.

Oh, the keys were there, yeah. That was great and all. But they weren't the only objects hung up on that storage rack.

Several animal-control devices were organized by type, but I only had eyes for the throwing nets and cattle prods.

Now we're talking.

I surged towards the tool rack in my eagerness, positioning my left incorporeal hand near the keys and holding the right ready to grab a fistful of the nets as soon as I went 'normal', briefly forgetting that my real-world right arm was in a sling before retracting it in annoyance.

Oh well, I can just take double the trips.

I dipped into the real world ("-ey want, so lon-") and back, taking the large keychain with me. Shooting straight up to the second floor through the garage ceiling, I set down the keys in the dilapidated master bedroom before going back into my ghost world for another trip, then another, then another, saving the two cattle prods for last.

"-ight lik-"

"-osed to I -"

"- care."

Once everything useful was moved upstairs, I dialed the police – not the PRT – from the empty master bedroom; after all, I hadn't seen anyone that was obviously a parahuman.

"Good evening, you've reached the Brockton Bay Police Department, how can we help you tonight?"

… perhaps I should have called 911 instead of just their office, but since this wasn't, strictly-speaking, an emergency I hadn't dialed the emergency number. Too late now.

"I've located an Empire Eighty-Eight dog-fighting ring, it's at 48-40 53rd Street North Attleboro, there's at least twenty-five people here, lots of dogs too, don't know how many weapons -"

"I-I'm sorry, ma'am, did you say an Empire dog-fighting ring?"

"Yes ma'am, it's at -"

"I'm transferring you to the PRT, please hold."

Well that answers that question. Several seconds later the line came alive again.

"You've reached the cape hotline, what's your emergency?"

I sighed, then repeated myself. "I've found an Empire Eighty-Eight dog-fighting ring, it's at 48-40, 53rd Street, North Attleboro, there's at least twenty people here, probably that many dogs too, and I don't know how many weapons they have. Four guns minimum. No capes I could see though."

"… ma'am are you a parahuman?"

Right. Dammit. I knew I was forgetting something: I still hadn't decided on a name yet.

"Is that really important right now? Just send someone!"

"Ma'am, please answer the -"

"48-40 53rd Street North Attleboro, Empire dog-fighting ring." I hung up with a huff.

Unfortunately, when I tried to put away the phone into one of my cloak's pockets I was a little too passionate with the motion: My elbow hit a lamp or something. I didn't know exactly what the object was yet, just that it toppled to the ground with a thump.

I immediately entered my ghost-world to see that I had indeed knocked a lamp off of a side table. Smooth, Taylor. Real clandestine.

Of course, hopefully it didn't matter: I thought it highly unlikely anyone in the living room heard that sound over everyone talking, and neither the basement nor garage were close enough for such a disturbance to be audible. I hoped.

Thus the only two I had to worry about were…

I floated down to the bottom of the staircase that led to the second floor, waiting just around the corner so I could listen in on the pair of doormen guarding the foyer.

A voice that could only correspond to the jumpy-looking guy, not the old grizzled one, was in the middle of speaking.

"-at was that? That come from upstairs? There's not supposed to be anyone upstairs. You hear something?"

"I hear a lil bitch." The deeper, gravelly statement was followed by the sloshing of liquid as someone took a swig.

"Seriously Colt, ya know what's they say'n about that new ghost cape!"

The garage patrolman mentioned something about ghost stories too. How would any of these people know about what happened just over two days ago? All of the Nazis involved that night should still be in prison, right?

The old man sighed, then seemed to call out behind him, presumably through the tarp. "Yo, send somebody to check upstairs for any ghosts or goblins, Pat's pissin' 'emself."

Hearing the rustling of thick plastic, I went ghost and poked my incorporeal head around to corner to see that a skinhead was leaning his torso through the strips of tarp. I ducked back behind the staircase, went 'normal', and resumed listening.

"Yall talk'n 'bout da spook?"

The old man grunted dismissively. "Pat thinks 'e heard something. I don't believe no ghost stories."

"Ain't no 'story' that got Storm caught." The younger doorman, 'Pat', muttered defiantly.

Suddenly the sounds coming from the other room got a lot louder, some cheers starting up. With mounting dread, I entered my ghost world and floated into the living room by going through the ceiling to avoid the tarp again. The skinhead had reentered the larger room as well, apparently forgetting all about checking upstairs.

I still couldn't see anything, of course; only the outskirts of the crowd and the ceiling had any degree of visibility, and even those were a patchwork of darkness and light. However, I could tell that most were looking at the same place now; nearly every cone of darkness was pointed towards the center wooden enclosed space, so I could take my pick of illuminated spots along the walls.

Needing to know what was going on, I did so; as a worst-case scenario I'd just leave the top layer of my costume behind in an escape.

Time resumed, and while the noise of the crowd wasn't deafening, it was loud enough to be unpleasant. I caught a few glimpses through other people's eyes as their view briefly panned over the part of the gathering I stood behind, but no-one actually noticed me. The large living room was dark, especially with the wall-sized tarp covering the only windows, but the work lights provided a yellow glow that cast long shadows on the walls and ceiling.

Some kind of announcer was yelling over the cacophony, accompanied by the growling and yapping of what sounded like two feral dogs.

"Alrighty mates, we got ourselves a real match here tonight! In the one corner -"

Already, I'd heard enough. My confiscation of the keys had been too late: The dogs next in line to this sick blood sport's altar were already being prepped, I just hadn't been able to pick out their dog-shaped inverse-shadows between all of the interconnecting lines of sight in the crowded living room to notice.

Moreover, I had been seeing through the eyes of one person in particular for a little too long now. Where everyone else just seemed to happen to pan their view over me, this guy's gaze was lingering on where I stood at the back of the crowd, people milling about between us in their quest to get a better view.

When the next person passed in front of me, they broke the suspicious guy's line of sight, and I went ghost. With everything paused, I had time to think.

Now what?

Last edited: Nov 2, 2022

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TheGreatGimmick

Oct 15, 2018

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TheGreatGimmick

TheGreatGimmick

Underestimates the time writing takes

Oct 15, 2018

#472

Now what?

I couldn't let them start that fight. However, stopping the fight would, by definition, let the Nazis know that their location was compromised too early; the PRT wasn't here yet.

I also didn't like my chances against a room crammed full of grown men, teleportation powers or no, especially with my bad arm. Too many lines of sight to make melee combat viable, too few places for me to 'land', and the mass of bodies was intimidating even if I turned off the lights and could teleport freely. A single lucky punch could lay me out, and though guns didn't seem allowed for the common rabble here, I had caught glimpses of several knives.

My bowling ball wasn't fast enough on the 'reload', by which I mean picking it up off the ground for the next 'drop'; it was intended to be a single-target ambush weapon, not something I could repeatedly use in quick succession. I wasn't going to just open fire with a gun, mine or otherwise, even on Nazis. My new nets and cattle prods had the same problems as a baton against so many opponents; too close, too ineffective for the risk.

If I had some kind of stun grenade, or better yet containment foam, I could handle this crowd easily, just warp in and out leaving the device behind. As it was…

As it was, it looked like I had to prioritize: Did I want to arrest as many of these worthless assholes as possible, or did I want to save two dogs from fighting to the death?

… when put like that, the choice seemed obvious.

Still, despite the regrettable need to alert the Nazis that their operation was busted during the process of stopping the dog fight, I could capture the important ones, especially 'boss-guy'.

So. First things first: Secure the staff members. Maybe once I take boss-guy down I can force the fat one tell the others to delay the fight, possibly at gunpoint. I'd never use the gun unless someone innocent was in immediate mortal danger, but he didn't know that.

I had to be quick, though, since it looked like the fight was very near to starting.

Perhaps a distraction? I can brainstorm about how to more permanently clear a room filled to the brim with Nazis while I'm beating up the ringleader in the basement, or the guards in the garage.

Before I went upstairs to get some of my new tools, I found what I thought was the man hyping up the crowd: He was standing on the back corner of the plywood enclosure facing the rest of the assembly, so even with the majority of the other lines of sight focused on his position I could at least see his back clearly.

I passed through him twice from the rear, hopefully pushing him forward into the ring itself. Might buy me a few seconds.

I then retrieved two of the animal-control items from the second-floor master bedroom and descended into the garage. The patrolmen were the most isolated people here, so I might as well take out the low-hanging fruit before moving on; one less variable to deal with.

Attacking the older guard first, the irony was not lost on me when I jabbed the dogfighting Nazi with his own cattle prod and, after a bit of a struggle, subsequently covered him in the modified dog-catching net.

I had appeared behind him, giving him no opportunity to fire a shot from his handgun before teleporting away again to drop the prod and retrieve the weighted bindings, returning to entrap him. When I had two arms again this would be easier, but for now I had to split the attack into, at minimum, two separate ghost-world uses in order to swap out the cattle prod for the net in my one usable hand.

Also, have you ever tried to throw a net with one hand? Yeah, that's why it took me four ghost-world sessions instead of the required two. I eventually got him tangled in the oversized (for dogs, at least) net by just dropping it near him and 'smearing' the weighted corners around his body, but it took at least six real-world seconds, including the second round of cattle prod shocks; far longer than the near-instant strikes I could perform with less unwieldy weapons.

Adding further difficulty was the fact that older-guard was apparently half-rhino, since while the prod did cause him to double over and roll on the ground, he was by no means incapacitated; still moving, still reaching for his weapon as I repeatedly shocked him while teleporting sporadically.

Of course, rolling around in the net didn't do him any favors.

Even so, I needed to find a way to more permanently disable him before I could truly count him out, which meant I had accomplished the exact opposite of my 'eliminate variables one by one' game plan: The two in the garage were now an additional complication instead of being neutralized!

Needing a weapon that packed a stronger punch, I floated back to the basement intending to retrieve my bowling ball from the bathroom before younger-guard had even made it to older-guard's 'corridor'. I wasn't risking head injuries anymore, but it is hard to untangle a net if your fingers are broken.

Unfortunately, I descended into the cellar only to find yet another problem.

Boss-guy's line of sight wasn't hindering me; he was reading something on his desk, the darkness only covering the pages in front of him. However, fat-guy was facing the room at large, paused right after emerging from the bathroom, the door shut behind him but his hand still on the knob.

He was holding my umbrella.

I went into the bathroom and exited my ghost world to listen in, careful to not let the long cattle prod bump the walls where I appeared.

Stifling a gag when I smelled the recently-vacated restroom, I nonetheless caught what they were saying.

"Yo man, why ya got an umbrella in ya shitter?"

There was a long pause.

"What umbrella?"

Another pause, though shorter this time.

"Har-dee har har." Fat-guy faked laughter. "Even you in on dat ghost story shit now?"

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

There was a rustling, presumably from fat-guy waving my umbrella for effect.

"The 'evil spirit' or whatever dat 'got' Fischer, Mack, an' Storm, plus two nobodies ta boot. The pigs had ta let one-a the nobodies go, no history, noth'n ta charge 'em with -" what the fuck?! "- and he's been spreading dis ghost story bullshit around last two days. Got half the people real nervous, other half just likes ta tell scurry stories ta spook the rest. Shit's been spread'n like wildfire 'mong the rank-n-file. Supposedly the 'ghost' wore a black cloak and carried a black umbrella."

More rustling. "So, real funny man -"

"You found that in the bathroom?"

"Yeah, what were ya gonna do, spook one-a the new guys, practical-joke style?"

"I didn't put that there, and if I wanted to scare one of the fucking cowards upstairs I'd just have to shout 'cape' and they'd be running. First sign of a powered hostile and you can bet your fat ass they'd book it. Why do you think I'm not recruiting from that lot?"

If what he says is true, I think I know how to stop the dog fight now, at least.

"So -"

I went ghost and poked my head through the bathroom door to check their vision. I had the beginnings of a plan regarding what to do about the crowd upstairs, but I'd need one of the markers on boss-guy's desk.

Fat-guy was looking in the direction of boss-guy, a field of view that unfortunately included the cup of markers and pens, though I could make out its inverse-shadow. Meanwhile, boss-guy was staring at the bathroom door, disorienting in that this bathed my immediate surroundings in a dark cone.

I'd need to get them both facing this way to safely access boss-guy's cup of writing utensils.

Meanwhile, the two in the garage were currently a huge loose end, if they hadn't tripped some kind alarm already. Only a few seconds had passed, though, so I probably still had a few more.

My powers could do a lot in a few seconds.

Retreating fully into the bathroom again, I reentered the real world (holding my breath this time) and knelt to quietly retrieve my bowling ball from the cabinet, tucking the cattle prod under my good side's armpit. Reaching over and blindly fiddling with the switches on the wall, I then flicked the bathroom's light and fan 'on' at the same time.

Boss-guy abruptly went quiet, but I immediately went ghost before fat-guy could possibly have reacted: While I waited for fat-guy to look where boss-guy was presumably now staring, I was going to check back in with the garage pair.

As I floated back to the kennel from hell, I passed through the living room first to make sure that the fight hadn't started yet. It hadn't, though I didn't know how much time remained.

The younger garage guard had come to the older guard's side, but wasn't moving to help him out of the net. Instead he seemed to be fearfully looking around, currently facing the opposite direction of the electric lamp in their current 'corridor'. This particular lamp had been placed to light up the tool rack, so it left the opposite side of the 'corridor' dark. Younger-guard was holding his handgun with only one hand, extended out in front of him like a shield, in the direction of the shadows.

He must have viewed the illuminated corner as safe, and was watching the dark corner instead.

I'd feel sorry for him if he wasn't a literal puppy-killing Nazi.

I hovered next to the light source, held my incorporeal finger up to its power button, entered the real world, and turned it off before immediately entering my ghost-world again. Proceeding to do the same to the other two lamps in their respective 'corridors', I had all the lights in the garage turned off before younger-guard had fully spun around to face the first one.

Older-guard was still struggling with the net, so I decided to take out the only current threat: Flickering in and out of the real world like I had for the mugger earlier tonight, I dropped the bowling ball from about ten feet up, directly onto younger-guard's extended gun arm. I even added a downward smear for extra force.

No, I wasn't feeling very charitable; moreover, I didn't want him to panic and shoot a dog in the dark.

That task being at a good stopping point, I went back into the house and locked the garage-to-house door from the hallway, staying only long enough to hear the pained, muffled scream from the other side. Younger-guard could still manually lift one of the large car-admittance doors to escape, of course, but he was now blind in the dark with a broken arm, so I should be able to get back there before he rallied.

Letting the garage patrolmen stew for now, I checked back in with the basement, again passing through the living room on the way in an effort to estimate how much time I had until the fight started. Although trying to see the crowded area in my ghost-world was like looking at a 500-piece jigsaw puzzle only one-third of the way finished, the dogs seemed like they were being corralled into the enclosure.

I needed to hurry.

When I got back to the basement, both men were gazing at the bathroom door; or rather, at the light that was now coming out from under it, not to mention the sound of the fan. Boss-guy was standing a bit ahead of fat-guy, holding his tattooed arm out in front of the other man while he was frozen in taking a step forward. Surprisingly, neither of them had a gun; is boss-guy completely relying on the patrolmen and doormen for protection?

I floated around behind them and took stock of the cup of writing utensils, now completely unobserved and thus entirely illuminated. There were several pens in black, red, and blue, but I needed one of the thick sharpies, of which there were four: Two black, two red.

Noting where the black ones lied in the cup, I reached out and exited my ghost world.

I quickly thrust my hand into the metal cup and tried to grab one of the black sharpies, but fumbled, knocking over the whole thing and spilling its contents. Snatching up a marker at random anyway, I went ghost to see that the two had started to turn around.

I'm so bad at this 'stealth' thing.

In my defense, I was blind, so tasks requiring quick hand-eye coordination were going to be hard.

Whatever, I have an audience to disperse. Sharpie thus obtained, I floated back up into the living room.

Judging by the overlapping cones of darkness converging onto one location and the resulting almost-recognizable-as-human inverse-shadow, the announcer-guy was right back at it after his little tumble, assuming my smear push had even done anything at all.

I headed outside to where the power strip connected to an extension cord; all three work lamps fed into the power strip, and the extension cord was plugged into a generator. The latter had a double-headed attachment with three prongs each, so I probably wasn't budging that with my smear, but the power strip itself was just your average single-header cord.

With no-one out on the porch, I could see what I needed to do clearly.

Moving my hands apart repeatedly in a motion that, if it were visible, would have looked somewhere between doing the breaststroke and stretching dough, the result smeared the power strip's cord and the extension cord in opposite directions, starting at the union between the two. I could use my 'bad' hand in ghost-form this way since my incorporeal body didn't have any muscles to strain.

Once I had smeared the two cords as much as I possibly could with my current 'energy', I positioned myself close to the porch wall beside a shattered window before entering the real world to recover for a second or two. I didn't even have enough stamina left to pass into the house again.

Still, the energy expenditure on the smear was worth it to bypass the awkwardness and thus risk involved in physically bending down, fumbling with, and pulling apart the two cords with just one hand. I would have probably had to use a foot to make it work.

When time resumed I heard a brief dragging sound, a click, and there were immediate shouted complaints – laced with expletives – from inside the house. Waiting only few seconds before going ghost again, I passed into the living room through the wall.

Near-total blessed visibility at last.

With their only true light sources disabled and the windows covered in that wall-sized tarp, almost none of the Nazis in the room could see a thing, which made the whole place light up clear as day for my ghost-self. One guy had a flashlight that was ironically creating darkness where its beam fell – illuminating that area for all of the men to see – but that was the only part of the room that was 'observed' and thus hidden from me.

I didn't sightsee beyond taking a basic inventory of my surroundings, though, since I was on a clock: Every second in my ghost-world counted when I was skirting along its maximum duration like this.

I chose a spot near the middle of the blank white mildewed wall adjacent to the tarped one, entered the real world, uncapped the sharpie with my teeth, and started writing, moving my arm in long arcs to make the words big.

Boss-guy had said that these spectators would flee at the first sign of cape trouble, so all I needed was to get the message across: Something like 'Leave now, because a cape is here.'

However, I didn't have time to write out such a verbose threat. They would restore power soon, and besides, I had to deal with the pair of men in both the garage and the basement. I needed a simple, fast message I could scribble onto the walls and get out. Something very short, but nonetheless quite clear.

I listened to the noise around me as I quickly wrote out my chosen phrasing in huge letters, going over the same lines multiple times with the sharpie to make them even bigger and thus more visible. The dogs that had been about to fight were barking and snarling, but announcer-guy had restored order among the two-legged animals here.

"Hey, HEY! Everybody calm the fuck down! Jim, get the fuck out there and see whassa matter, will ya?"

"It's him! I'm tellin' ya it's the ghost-cape that Bret guy was talkin' 'bout!"

So Bret is the 'nobody' that got out already, is he? Maybe I need to pay him a second visit; make sure the message stuck.

The same guy was still yelling in a voice pitched a bit too high. "I told ya I saw him! He's here!"

Ah, so the hysteric one speaking now is also the 'suspicious-guy' that saw me in the crowd earlier.

Although, to be fair to suspicious-guy, he wasn't the only one that sounded nervous: There were already murmurings and shifting in the crowd, and they hadn't even been able to see my messages yet.

"Shut the f-"

I finished what I was scrawling on the blank wall and went ghost, both to check the Nazis' progress on restoring power, to reposition, and to see what my handiwork looked like.

Though I was pleased to see that someone had only just made it outside – having to go through the foyer and around the whole house from the front porch because the living room tarp also covered the back-porch door – to check on the power cord, I was sorely disappointed with how my first message had come out.

God, it looks awful. No one is going to take that seriously.

Between being blind, having to write with my non-dominant hand, and writing in such a huge font size for visibility, the two words were strewn across the dirty wall in handwriting that could have belonged to a toddler: jagged, erratic, with some streaks trailing off far too long. The multiple lines for each curve that I had drawn to try to thicken the letters, scribbled in loose tangles, only worsened the aesthetic.

Moreover, it seemed that when I had tipped that cup over back in boss-guy's office, I had accidentally grabbed one of the red sharpies, not a black one. Blind, remember?

All in all, the huge sloppy red 'GET OUT' that was now scrawled at an angle across most of the backmost living room wall was probably just as likely to elicit uproarious laughter as it was a fearful panic.

There was nothing I could do about it now, though, so I flew over to the smaller stretch of blank white wall adjacent to the foyer entrance.

I didn't have as much room here, so I needed an even simpler message. One word. I would have gone with 'leave', but that was nearly as many letters as 'get out'. Instead…

"-uck up man, enough with that pussy-ass campfire story shit; you actually believe it? It's just for fun, to take the piss outta pansies like you!"

"You think Storm-"

I finished scrawling 'RUN' across the second wall, moving to the sliding doors between the living room and kitchen after checking on the guy they had sent outside. He had nearly made it all the way around to the power cord, so I didn't have much time. I seemed to be saying that a lot lately.

"-tiger got got by a campfire story?!"

"I think he got got by the sand-nigger is what I think. Ya know, what the news said?"

"That's -"

Someone else interrupted the two arguing. "Guys, look at this…"

"What the fuck…"

I wrote 'OR' on one half of the sliding door and 'ELSE' on the other half, then immediately dived below the living room to check on boss-guy and fat-guy; I had left them alone too long already.

I found boss-guy in the middle of opening the basement door that led upstairs to the foyer, with fat-guy behind him still holding my umbrella. The bathroom's light was off again, door closed. They must have checked the bathroom and, when that yielded no further information, decided to warn those upstairs that a cape might be present.

I was almost tempted to let them; it might increase the panic in the crowd, and thus make them more likely to leave the dogs alone. However, I wanted these two captured, even if no-one else ended up behind bars. Fat-guy sounded like he had connections, or at least used to, while boss-guy was the ringleader here.

I was almost fully recharged from taking several real-world seconds to write something on each wall, so I circled around and passed through the door once, twice, and thrice with my full body, smearing it in the direction it would shut. I didn't have much confidence in the smear's ability to overpower boss-guy's grip on the doorknob, but the sudden push might startle him enough to let it go nonetheless.

I then returned to the foyer and noticed something I had overlooked earlier: The two doormen had left. I found them in the living room, pairing their electric lantern with that other guy's flashlight to illuminate as much of the room as they could, which still wasn't a lot.

The Nazis seemed to have noticed my messages, however, slowly reading them letter-by-oversized-letter within either the narrow beam of the flashlight or the squat, circular illumination from the lantern.

I exited my ghost world in the foyer to listen in on the fruits of my labors, as well as to recharge from smearing the basement door so heavily.

Almost instantly, several Nazis were startled, cursing, when a loud slam came from downstairs. I'll admit, I jumped too.

Was that the basement door? How hard did that smear push!?

"What the fuck was that?"

A shrill voice answered the first. "What was that?! I think you mean what are these?! This demon shit, right here! Fuck this shit man, fuck this sh- I'm fuckin' out -"

I went ghost to check, and yes, the basement door had been slammed violently shut, boss-guy and fat-guy paused while slowly backing away from it in response.

I really needed to figure out how my smear works. It keeps taking me by surprise, and seemed inconsistent so far.

That was an issue for another time, because from the looks of things – as I swooped through the house to the back porch to check on the Nazis' designated electrician's progress – the living room was about to get power again.

Before that happened, I wanted to touch base with the garage patrolmen.

When I floated back into the darkened – and thus bright to my ghost-sight – room, younger-guard was kneeling, clutching his clearly-broken arm, gazing around blindly with wide, tearful eyes. I couldn't find it in me to care: Dog-killing gangbanger Nazi, remember?

Meanwhile, older-guard still hadn't fully extracted himself from the weighted, thick, definitely-not-humane-or-regulation dog net in the dark.

I landed as far away from them as I could, despite the fact that younger-guard's gun had fallen out of reach and older-guard was still more or less tied up.

As soon as I entered the real world, the dogs began whimpering again.

I took a breath and called out, trying to sound as menacing as a teenage girl could, but it ended up coming out in more of a monotone. Younger-guard's crying and older-guard's cursing both stopped when my raised voice echoed off the garage walls.

"Do not try to leave, or you will be hurt much worse than that."

I wasn't sure how much I meant the threat, but something told me that when dealing with the kind of person that would use cattle prods to force dogs to fight to the death, violence was the only language they really understood.

Entering my ghost world, I then returned to the main part of the house to check what the crowd in the living room was doing.

This time I chose to reenter the real world in the empty kitchen, behind the closed sliding doors. Why I didn't think to just do that the first time… I'll chalk it up to nerves. I also belatedly realized that I could have left my bowling ball and umbrella in the empty second story of the house like I had the animal-control tools, as opposed to the bathroom. Again, it hadn't crossed my mind at the time.

"Gentlemen, gentlemen, please!" The announcer-guy's slimy voice carried over the crowd's unrest, affecting a calm, sophisticated air completely at odds with his earlier vernacular. "Clearly this is someone playing a practical joke – Ah."

Relieved muttering swept through the crowd, so I went to ghost to confirm: The work lights had indeed come back on. I exited my ghost-world to continue listening.

"Well, there we go! Now, let's just get back to -"

"Fuck no man, I ain't gett'n got by no haunt'n shit! Look at the fuckin' walls man! The goddamn walls!" someone in the crowd called out, and there was a smattering of muttered agreement.

The announcer-guy chuckled and started to say something, but I needed to check back in with the two in the basement. Drawing the cattle prod out from under my armpit (only having one hand made combat so much harder than it had to be, which is why I had been trying to avoid it), I descended into the lowest floor of the house once more.

Fat-guy was still facing the closed staircase door, a fearful expression on what I could see of his face, but boss-guy was frozen in the process of opening a flip phone.

Well, that won't do.

Both were standing in front of the desk, so I appeared behind that piece of furniture, raised the cattle prod to waist height, and activated the current flow for dramatic effect.

…

Movies lie, water is wet, news at eleven. There was no menacing crackling from an electrical arc lancing between the two prongs like I had been led to believe would happen, so I had to get their attention with my voice instead.

"Drop the phone on the desk and get on the ground."

A moment later I saw myself through two sets of eyes, my dangling cloak sleeve only obscuring about a quarter of the long cattle prod. Though my hair was tied back securely this time around, I kept my head bowed to cover the contents of the heavy cowl anyway, just in case. Couldn't be too careful.

Speaking of caution, I metaphorically had my finger on the trigger to go ghost, leaving behind the top layer of my costume, if I saw a movement that even had a chance of being either man reaching for a gun that I had somehow missed.

The metal cup that I had accidentally knocked over on boss-guy's desk had been righted (though not refilled with the spilled utensils), so I used their vision to casually tap the cattle prod against it. This time I got what I wanted: The extremely rapid 'pop-pop-pop-pop', accompanied by tiny blue sparks between the prongs and the metal surface, startled fat-guy into blinking and taking a step back, though boss-guy remained stoic; almost resigned.

I reached out with my aura and gave the overhead light – the only light source in the basement – a good flicker for intimidation, which was about the only thing that power seemed good for. I then repeated in a firm voice: "Drop the phone on the desk and get on the ground. Now."

To my mild surprise, boss-guy complied, almost casually tossing the communication device onto the wooden surface. I snatched up the phone and turned it off, then reached into a cloak pocket (tucking the cattle prod beneath my arm again) to draw out a pair of zip-ties while the men lowered themselves to the concrete floor.

Before I lost their vision, I threw both zip-ties to fat-guy. "Put these on him, hands and feet together. Do it right or I will literally drop a bowling ball on your head from a long way up." After I get it back from the garage, of course.

Fat-guy whimpered, but picked up the zip-ties and turned away from me, towards boss-guy. Both of their viewpoints thus lost to me, I went ghost and floated up into the kitchen to check on my progress with the crowd.

From the way the 'discussion' had seemed to be going earlier, I was hoping I could get the best of both worlds: Stop the dog fight, but have them stand there arguing until the PRT arrived and thus not lose any Nazis.

When I reentered the real world and heard what announcer-guy was finishing saying, that daydream was immediately quashed.

"- so let's all enjoy the show, eh? There's no 'ghost', once we find out which of you fuckers did this we'll either have a good laugh or beat the shit outta ya, haven't decided yet -" there was some nervous, skeptical, still-fearful, but nonetheless hopeful chuckles in the crowd at that comment, to my dismay "- and this'll all be -"

Suddenly furious, I went ghost and swept into the living room, found where announcer-guy was standing, and passed through him, smearing him towards the largest blank wall; the one where 'GET OUT' was written. He was only about five feet away from it, standing on the back corner of the plywood pit enclosure.

I then doubled back and did it three more times; four total smears. If three had shut the basement door as hard as it did, four should definitely at least knock a full-grown man over.

Next I went outside, found the generator, and positioned my incorporeal finger over the 'off' switch. I hadn't wanted to directly turn it off last time because just pulling the plug let the Nazis think it could have been an accident or animal, but that didn't matter now. This dog fight was stopping, one way or another.

As soon as I exited my ghost-world, I heard a sound I didn't recognize from inside the house.

The low note was reminiscent of a subwoofer turned up far too high, mixed with a whooshing of wind, the combined effect resulting in something like a more intense version of the background noise – almost a rumbling sound? – that you hear when you cover your ears very tightly. Lasting less than a second, it was closely followed by a crash.

I waited only a moment before switching off the generator and reentering my ghost world; I was exhausted, but I also needed to see what that was.

Flying indoors through the outer wall, I found all of the Nazis within the dark-again room in a total panic, expressions of terror on every face as they clawed towards the exit.

Scanning the paused crowd for what had happened to announcer-guy, I found… he was… huh.

Well, holy shit.

Announcer-guy had been bodily tossed several feet through the air and into the wall, punching straight through the mildewed wood to expose the supports, and was now covered in pieces of drywall as it crumbled over his slumped form.

…Okay then. If that was the last thing the other men in the room had seen before I killed the lights again, no wonder they are all fleeing now. Mission accomplished? The dogs aren't fighting at least.

Alright, so, same plan as before: Secure boss-guy's arrest, stuff my pockets full of money, and then fly out to net, cattle prod, and/or bowling ball as many of these fleeing Nazis as I could while they ran away in a disorganized rabble. I should probably prioritize the garage patrolmen, foyer doormen, and announcer; they were likely more complicit than a simple spectator.

First I had to rest, though, and the need was pretty damn immediate. I picked a corner in the living room far away from any exits – to minimize the chances that anyone would be coming in my direction – and entered the real world.

There was a lot of screaming, shuffling, banging, cursing, and general audial chaos as everyone made for the front door through the foyer. Once, someone's flashlight panned over me, briefly giving me their vision and making me tense. However, the holder screamed and dropped it, so that didn't end up being a problem.

After about fifteen seconds the sounds died down, only the struggles of a few stragglers and the snarling of the two tied dogs remaining. I entered my ghost world again feeling more refreshed than I had in a long while.

I then headed back towards the basement, but stopped short at what I saw coming up the staircase.

Fat-guy was all but crawling on all fours, climbing the stairs leading to the foyer, facing down and thus not looking ahead.

So, naturally, I appeared two steps above him.

Shortly thereafter I gained vision of the bottom hem of my robe; a point of view that proceeded to slowly – almost comically slowly, in fact – pan all the way up to my face, which could be seen under the cowl when I was leaning over him like this. Just black bandages and no other features.

Fat-guy squealed – actually squealed – and recoiled backwards, causing him to tumble down the stairs, hitting his head against the now-closed door.

Rolling my unseeing eyes, I went ghost and floated through said door to check on boss-guy.

Fat-guy had done his job, at least: Boss-guy was simply leaning against one of his desk's legs, hands zip-tied behind him and feet similarly bound together at the ankles. Suspicious, I checked behind him. However, he didn't have a knife or something to try and cut himself free. I guess the whole 'bad guys never surrender until they are unconscious' trope was yet another thing movies lied about.

I ignored him for now, drifting over to the stack of cash. Entering the real world, I started stuffing my pockets.

I half-expected boss-guy to start monologuing about how the Empire was going to come down hard on me or something, like 'Fischer' and Stormtiger had done, but he kept silent, just sitting against the desk with his eyes closed. Good.

After filling my largest cloak pouch – and a few of the peripheral ones – with as much of the cash as I could force inside, I ghosted over to where fat-guy was still slumped against the basement door. After binding his wrists and ankles in zip-ties, I only had six left; two had been used on that mugger earlier, then two each on the men in the basement here.

Retrieving my umbrella and bowling ball from their respective locations, I went upstairs to where the throwing nets and remaining cattle prod were stashed. A brief struggle made me quickly realize that I couldn't carry it all with only one good arm.

Why couldn't my garbage techno-aura-power be a hammerspace instead, like Circus? I groused while rearranging the way I was carrying the bowling ball and cattle prod to accommodate also grabbing a handful of the nets. I'd come back for the rest – including the second cattle prod – later. My good shoulder was already straining under the weight of the bowling ball sling strap after only a few seconds supporting it.

Entering my ghost world loaded up like a pack mule, I flew over to the next empty, dilapidated house on the street to throw down the nets, cattle prod, and bowling ball, intending to take another trip before I went to make sure the garage patrolmen had stayed put. If so, I would begin my hunt for the fleeing Nazis; they had less than a minute's head start on me in real-world-time, and I could teleport.

However, as I was unloading my cargo in a huff, I heard the faint sound of gunshots, squealing tires, and police sirens in the distance; much too far away for it to have anything to do with my dogfighting ring bust.

Great. What now?

Snatching up my bowling ball by the sling straps – the cattle prods and nets wouldn't be very useful in what sounded like a car chase – I went ghost and rose into the dark sky to investigate.

The source of the commotion was easy to find, though not because of any trail of destruction or overturned police cruisers in their wake like I may or may not have been expecting.

Instead, it was the massive cone of darkness – the largest I had ever seen – that homed me in on their location. Blacking out almost all of my vision over nearly an entire city block as it followed the car chase from its high aerial vantage point, the source seemed to be a tiny, spherical flying camera.

Not just any flying camera. The 'Snitch'. Uber and Leet.

Briefly torn between this new development and finishing what I had started here, my decision was made when my bird's-eye view caught a line of four PRT vans approaching from the distance, not moving in the direction of the Snitch's cone of vision but instead towards me; or rather, the address that I had called in.

Change of plans. It was a pity that the dogfighting audience and some of the staff were escaping, but at least I had captured the ringleader and told the authorities of the facility's location. This particular dogfighting cell was decapitated. The PRT could handle the boss, fat-guy, announcer-guy, the garage patrolmen if they had stayed put like they were told, and all of the record-keeping documents in boss-guy's basement when they arrived; hopefully that would lead to even more arrests down the line. The dogs were safe.

In the here and now, I had two supervillains to catch.

Last edited: Nov 7, 2022

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TheGreatGimmick

Oct 15, 2018

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TheGreatGimmick

TheGreatGimmick

Underestimates the time writing takes

Nov 11, 2018

#955

As I soared through the night sky towards the car chase, I was wracking my brain for ways to deal with Uber and Leet's infamous 'Snitch'.

Now that I thought about it, the damn thing was my worst nightmare: Autonomous, never-blinking, always-recording, mobile. Being Tinkertech, the nimble hovering camera was probably also armored in addition to being tiny and fast, so it wouldn't be easy to destroy with what few weapons I possessed; perhaps the gun could take it out, but I would need to be aiming point-blank to have any confidence that the bullet would hit its target. No matter how convenient it would be to eliminate the encumbrance as soon as possible, the risks involved made me wary of the attempt.

Instead, I decided to play things by ear for now, not directly engaging until I had a better feel for the situation. Using blind spots and inverse-shadows, I could navigate pretty well despite the Snitch's overhead view, and who knows? Perhaps my anti-tech aura worked on Tinkertech. If fucking Sowilo's electricity bypassed protections created by someone who was arguably the second-best Tinker in the world, it seemed only fair that my shitty power could at least take on Leet.

Then again, I'd come to not expect fairness in anything in my life; it's better to be pleasantly surprised than disappointed.

Buildings gradually rose to meet me as I neared the chase; this was a busier part of town compared to the borderline-suburban area I had been patrolling previously, and as such the structures were taller. These streets were a contested border between the Empire and ABB, if I recalled correctly, though the information online was probably out of date.

In addition to the taller buildings, I could tell this was a slightly more affluent area by the increased presence of CCTV and traffic cameras. The electronic eyes drenched large swaths of their surroundings in impenetrable darkness, but they weren't quite as annoying as one might think.

Sure, security cameras are placed to cover as many blind spots as possible. However, when someone normally thinks about 'covering blind spots', they are considering people with normal mobility. A patch of unseen space behind a shrub isn't usually considered a blind spot if it is surrounded by an open field of visible flat ground in all directions, since no one could possibly take advantage of that 'blind spot' without being seen. I could, though.

Of course, I still avoided areas under video surveillance as much as possible. In fact, so far I hadn't been forced to interact with any electronic eyes in my ghost form.

This Snitch, however, was on another level compared to mundane surveillance. I still had ample inverse-shadows with which to orient myself, but with how high Leet's infernal creation was currently flying it covered a truly ridiculous amount of ground in its sight. There would be no avoiding the damned thing.

I focused my thoughts as I approached the black edge of the Snitch's vision, passing over that threshold into the massive darkened area beyond.

A city had many obstructions, each of which made blind spots. With so many illuminated rectangles, triangles, circles, thin slivers, and all manner of other shapes glowing against a black backdrop, it looked like I was floating through some abstract artist's impression of outer space. That is, if the depths of space also had the ruined pieces of a city floating in the void, since the illuminated spots revealed portions of pavement, buildings, cars, AC units; whatever was causing or shown within any given inverse-shadow.

I followed those bright inverse-shadows to my destination like a ship using stars in the night to navigate.

The inverse-shadows from a line of police cars stood out from the rest due to their size and proximity to each other. Using those, I was able to triangulate the location of my quarry. Uber and Leet's vehicle had so many cones of vision pointing at them that it was difficult recognize as a vehicle at first. Now that I knew what I was looking at, however, I could see what might have been a conglomeration of inverse-shadows representing a car with someone leaning out of a window with a large shotgun or rifle.

I couldn't get a clear enough picture to guess at tonight's video-game 'theme' yet, not that I knew much about video games in the first place. A throwaway thought flitted across my mind – that this was one of the very few situations where Greg from school might actually have proven to be a valuable asset – and I would have snorted if I weren't currently incorporeal.

As I panned my view around, trying to piece together a better picture of my surroundings using the few illuminated areas, I realized that I was floating in one such area, but couldn't see what was causing the inverse-shadow. It was spherical, about six feet in every direction around me; I was floating in the center. Curious, I moved a little to the left to try and find the obstruction.

The illuminated spot followed me, darkening where I had been hovering before even while it lit up my new surroundings.

I moved back to the right, only to find myself still in the center of the circular patch of ghost-world light, my previous location dark.

Wait a second…

I shot up above the buildings, then picked a darkened rooftop – well, I assumed a rooftop was there instead of empty space, but being blacked-out I couldn't be sure – and started slowly drifting towards it. My time in this ghost-world session was growing short, so I would need to take a ghost-world breather soon anyway.

I jerked to an abrupt stop when the rooftop of a high-rise building suddenly poked into view; just a circle of gravel about four inches in diameter directly in front of me, the same inky blackness still obscuring everything else. I had been approaching at an angle without realizing it, not quite diving head-first but very near.

I righted myself and continued approaching the rooftop cautiously. More gravel came into view, illuminated by my own personal little ghost-world spotlight that was following me around.

Because I can do that, apparently.

What's going on? Is this related to the smear's better performance at the dogfighting ring? Or something entirely different?

If I could somehow generate my own ghost-world light, banishing the darkness of observation even in just a small area around me, that would be huge. I could appear in front of people! I could see things that they were looking at!

But, I'd never been able to do this before; at least, I was almost certain I hadn't, and at the moment I couldn't think of anything I had done earlier that might have triggered this ability. Everything in my ghost world had always been static; only I moved or changed. Ever. It was a little frightening for the light and darkness to start being dynamic now.

Regardless, time was running out on this ghost-world session. I could experiment with this new development later, for now I had a job to do.

Of course, I still took the opportunity to see if I could materialize in an observed space – the rooftop – using only my own newfound home-grown illumination.

To my shock and elation, I could. The sounds of sirens, squealing tires, and gunshots were much louder now than back at the dogfighting ring, accompanied by a chilly breeze at this altitude as I took physical form again, rooftop gravel crunching beneath my feet. I received the Snitch's vision, gliding over the city, but its field of view spanned far too large an area for me to pick out my location immediately.

Before I could smile, whoop, or otherwise celebrate, I reflexively gasped at the sudden fatigue that hit me like a hammer blow to the chest.

I doubled over, briefly confused and alarmed, but just as quickly recognized the source: My 'anti-tech' aura. Arguably the weakest of my powers, my Shaker ability made my real body tired when I used it, and it didn't recover nearly as quickly as my ghost-world body's fatigue.

This felt like I had just finished using it excessively for some reason. The exertion was akin to what I had experienced when I made those streetlights flicker for Stormtiger, except applied all at once instead of spaced out over several seconds.

But, I hadn't used my anti-tech-aura… had I?

I blinked in realization when it clicked.

My anti-tech aura must have automatically activated on the Snitch before I had even entered the real world, blocking its vision with enough static to allow my reappearance.

I was merely speculating, but the more I thought about it the more sense it made. That explained everything: The little patch of light following me around in the Snitch's darkness was just my ghost-world's representation of the fact that, if I used my Shaker power to blip the flying camera's sight, it wouldn't see me. The reason I'd never experienced this phenomenon before now was because my aura didn't work on living things like humans, only electronics.

While I was mulling things over and resting both my ghost and my aura powers, I finally pinpointed my body's location among the many buildings in the Snitch's sight. My tiny figure was just barely visible, standing on one of the taller structures overlooking the street that the car chase was just now leaving.

Uber and Leet were in some kind of souped-up yellow Porsche-like sports car that had a prominent spoiler in the back. A scrawny man in plainclothes (that had to be Leet, just judging by his build) was leaning out of a window and shooting behind them at the police while the expensive-looking vehicle skidded around a corner into the next street over. Without them wearing a clear costume I probably had no hope of identifying the game they were supposedly emulating; in fact, I briefly reconsidered whether the two even were Uber and Leet, but the Snitch's presence didn't make any sense if they weren't.

I impatiently waited until the Snitch had moved the angle of its vision – following Uber and Leet into another valley between the predominantly high-rise buildings – enough for me to be out of sight, then went ghost. There was no point in squandering my tech aura to make the Snitch see static when I could simply utilize blind spots instead.

Once ghost, the first thing I did was fly down to the inverse-shadows of the police cruisers, wanting to find a human's sight I could use to test my 'tech aura auto-activation' theory. With the Snitch moving away to follow Uber and Leet, a greater portion of this area was illuminated. That being said, street cameras, people looking out of windows to watch the commotion, and vision from the occupants of the police vehicles themselves still wiped out about two-thirds of my surroundings.

I drifted into the dark space in front of the lead police cruiser, then frowned – metaphorically, since I didn't technically have a mouth in this form – when a little less than half of a sphere around me lit up, the other half remaining dark. I had been expecting the whole thing to be dark in a human's sight, or the whole thing to be lit in a camera's sight.

I really didn't have the time or energy to figure out every picky detail and interaction between my neurotic powers right now, but when a misstep could get me killed, I supposed I had to make time. Damn Snitch.

Fortunately, the cause of this particular behavior was quickly deduced: The illuminated half of my personal photon hamster ball was lighting up the darkness belonging to a dashcam mounted on the cruiser, while the half that wasn't illuminated was at the edge of a policeman's vision. The officer riding shotgun was looking ahead, clipping my current position with his cone of darkness, while the diver was looking to the left as he turned, not contributing to the black shadows surrounding me at all.

My anti-tech aura wouldn't affect the human, only the camera. It couldn't light up the area covered by the cop's sight but it could and did illuminate the portion caused by the dashcam.

Stupid powers.

Whatever. I need to focus on Uber and Leet. I was already forced to devote too much brainpower towards deciphering what the inverse-shadows around me meant when translated into 'normal-vision'. I couldn't worry about trying to think up uses for this new discovery right now.

It was nice to know that I could teleport in front of cameras – not people, but at least cameras – if I really needed to, but with how taxing it was on my Shaker power I'd need to use that ability sparingly. Judging by how I had felt earlier, I estimated I only had two or three similar-strength static pulses left in me at the moment, though if I spaced things out enough I could recover from infrequent uses.

Not exactly a resource I could lean on here, in any case.

As for Uber and Leet, simply dropping my bowling ball onto their windshield would be the simplest course of action, and frankly, it would probably work. I would just need to be careful that I didn't hit the villains at a time when losing control of the vehicle could get them or a bystander killed. They would need to be on a straight-away, preferably immediately after a turn so they'd be driving a bit more slowly, with no deep trenches or construction sites for them to fall into, nor any civilians on either the other lanes or the sidewalk.

A tall order, but for now things didn't seem absolutely urgent.

Pieces of human garbage Uber and Leet may be, they didn't kill, at least from what little I knew of them. I had only tuned in to their channel two or three times before, but the worst I had heard them being accused of on PHO was reckless endangerment after their episode involving a Breakout theme resulted in a few collapsed buildings; the second-worst was a few burns from errant fireballs in a Mario episode. Harming innocent bystanders like that just for 'likes' and 'views' was still heinous, of course, but the point was that I doubted they were using lethal ammunition against cops.

So, hopefully, I could wait for the right moment without putting anyone in grievous danger.

I flew up to another building and came down beside an air conditioning vent where the ever-annoying Snitch couldn't see, entering the real world to wait a bit longer. After three or four seconds the Snitch's angle changed enough to give me vision, but with the car chase still happening, the flying camera kept following, so it lost vision of me again a few seconds later. I hadn't even had time to find myself in its sight, only getting a good view of Brockton Bay's skyline against the night (or very early morning, I was never quite clear when exactly one became the other) sky.

Going ghost and repositioning again, the same thing happened a few more times while I waited for the right moment to strike; sometimes the Snitch never saw me, sometimes I would get a glimpse through the aerial view as it flew overhead.

Eventually, the driver (who I presumed to be Uber) made the mistake of swerving off the main road, bumping down a dirt hill, and careening in a sharp U-turn towards a short overpass tunnel. I'm sure the two supervillains would be elated that the Snitch caught that stunt, but the fact that the flying camera also relayed that information to me didn't do them any favors.

Dark tunnel (so no Snitch), a straight-away, they are going a bit slower after skidding onto this new course, and…

I flew down into the tunnel and quickly ascertained that yes, the villains would be the only people present. No other traffic or pedestrians. No potential casualties other than the two villains themselves.

Perfect.

Hovering in front of the villain's car, I also noted that my personal 'spotlight' was lighting up a very thin sliver of the darkness to my left. That meant I was within both a camera's view and a human's, and that the two perspectives were almost, but not quite, perfectly overlapping.

Uber and Leet must have backup cameras, perhaps even head-mounted ones.

I floated backward a bit, hovering just above the darkness emanating from the front of the car and holding my bowling ball at the ready. I barely had enough room between the ceiling of the tunnel and their lines of sight.

Flickering in and out of the real world, leaving the bowling ball behind in the air, I then floated out of the tunnel to look for a nearby blind spot to hide inside so that I could keep tabs on the result.

To my annoyance, there weren't any good locations; somehow, all nearby inverse-shadows except those within the tunnel were either too small to appear within or too far away for my purposes. Instead, I picked a location to the side of the tunnel – well out of the way in case Uber and Leet came careening off the road – and abused my 'spotlight' for the second time ever: The damn Snitch was the only entity that had vision here, so I should be able to appear, presumably blipping the thing's sight with static for a moment.

I entered the real world, grimacing and letting out a huff in response to the stamina hit. If I wasn't careful I wouldn't even be able to carry my bowling ball after one or two more uses of that 'auto-activate' thing. My aura power ran out of juice before my body did – by which I mean, even if I ran my aura dry, I could still move and remain conscious – but overusing it could still leave me panting on the ground nonetheless.

A moment later I heard the crunching of cracked glass, the squealing of skidding tires, and, as their vehicle blew by my location, some frantic cursing. The Snitch's vision let me see that they were fishtailing, but probably wouldn't crash for good; I'd need another drop, or perhaps a new plan.

Waiting until the pain in my ass had flew around to get a different angle, I went ghost to retrieve my bowling ball from the tunnel, dipping into the real world and back just in time to hear the screech of brakes during the brief moment it took me to slip the ball into its sling bag.

Floating back over to the pair of supervillains, I saw that they had pulled over onto the curb, presumably to assess the damage. I doubted they'd stay there for long, of course: Though their shortcut had bought them a few seconds, they weren't yet in the clear. The police were still giving chase.

Coming to a quick decision, I decided to rest my ghost-world body in the back seat of Uber and Leet's car. My experiences dealing with the Nazis had taught me the value of listening in on people who thought they couldn't be overheard, and if they did catch sight of me I could just leave behind the top layer of my costume.

Well, the second layer as well, since the first layer was tattered enough for it to show through, courtesy of Stormtiger.

Fortunately, the back of their car was both empty and unobserved; the lush leather seats were mine for the taking. I assumed a reclining pose while still in ghost-form, positioning my bowling ball and umbrella in the footrest, in an effort to avoid detection.

Entering the real world immediately thrust me into the middle of an argument that, if I lacked context, I would have assumed to be two college-aged men playing a video game.

"- taken way too much fucking damage, also we've aggroed enough cops anyway man, we gotta make for -"

"What Stars are we at?"

Stars? That sounded 'capitalized'.

The second speaker was definitely Uber, going by his perfect movie-trailer-narration voice, so that must mean the fairly normal-sounding first speaker was Leet.

"… only two, but -"

"Then we're good for another few spins, eh? You said it was at wanted-level four was when we'd have someone from the Protectorate on our ass."

"That's… Look, at three Stars it's just a helicopter, roadblocks and shit, but – FUCK MOVE!"

Sirens were coming nearer, and I heard a thump that I assumed to be Uber slamming the stick shift or something ( I never learned how to drive, and now would never need to, okay? ) before we were moving again, gravel flung behind us as the engine revved and the car sped off. I was pressed back into the seat by the acceleration.

I assumed Leet had seen police coming around the corner to cause such a panic, but had no vision at the moment to know anything for sure.

Uber turned a corner aggressively, sliding me across the black leather cushions until my head bumped the car door, but neither villain noticed the sound.

Leet resumed speaking, yelling over the engine and tires as Uber accelerated down what was apparently a straight-away, making me become one with the backrest of the seat again.

"Point is this thing doesn't update instantly dude, it could flip to four Stars at the same fucking time Armsmaster or somebody shows up!"

Uber took a sharp left, sliding me across the seat again, but the light bumping of my feet against the other car door still wasn't noticed. I kept a tight grip on my bowling ball to prevent it from making a louder sound.

"Probably not Armsmaster, his bike's still fucked last we heard." Uber laughed as we skidded around another curve (slide, bump).

"You know what I mean! We n -"

"Also, shame shame." Uber mock-tutted. "Doesn't update in real-time with our wanted level? So unauthentic."

"What? No, c'mon, it's based on trawling for police scanners and traffic cams and stuff like that, it wouldn't pick up immediately on -"

"Un. Aw. Thentic."

"Shut up dude, this and the Pay 'N Spray are actually some of the best work I've done in a while. Could be really useful even for other gigs." Leet whined.

My head slid back towards the right-side car door as we took another turn. I put a hand against the door to brace myself.

"Yeah yeah, just messing with ya man. Speaking of which, where did you put the Pay 'N Spray again? You're right, we do need to take the heat off, getting towards dawn anyway."

"Take a left!"

I slid and thumped again, feet bumping the other car door.

"You hear something?"

Shit.

"You mean the fucking sirens? Yeah I hear – oh fuck, three Stars."

" Def' need the Pay 'N Spray again then. Where where man, you're supposed to be the navigator!"

"Actually my job was shooter, but whatever. Almost there, just another left - HERE!"

Uber floored it and then took what felt like a ninety-degree turn, actually flinging me such that I ended up sitting upright in the back seat near the middle; I had been forced to plant my feet to avoid being slung against the left-side window. We then slowed down abruptly, tossing me forward, but I caught myself before I could face-plant onto the cup holders in front of me.

I heard the rattling and rumbling of a garage door closing behind us, as well was what sounded like aerosol paint being sprayed onto the outside of the vehicle, but didn't speculate on what that could mean yet; going from reclining to sitting up, as well as the sudden deceleration, had left me a little dazed.

I was so disoriented that I only focused back on the present when I suddenly found myself seeing a rear-view mirror, my costumed form sitting upright behind the viewer. In fact, I got two views. I assumed the second was a head-mounted camera, since the area it covered was almost identical to the first but it had the odd differences I associated with electronic eyes, like resolution and how it handled certain colors.

The perspective which I thought was human widened, presumably in surprise, and they spun around, both views losing sight of me the instant they turned away from the rear-view mirror. I went ghost before they completed their turn.

The driver was a muscled man wearing plainclothes, his physique letting me confirm that he was Uber. The lack of costume other than a domino mask still left me wondering what the hell was tonight's theme. Frozen halfway through his turn to look behind him, he cast a shadow across a portion of the back seat in my ghost-world while the skinny man riding shotgun – and also holding what looked like an actual shotgun – was still facing ahead.

Both supervillains had a head strap with a camera attached; presumably, they each had cameras mounted there to supplement the footage captured by their Snitch.

In the hand not gripping his gun, Leet was holding a foot-long, three-inch-wide black rectangular screen. The display, like some kind of Independence Day decoration, showed a line of six white glowing stars, the first three of which (going from left to right) were only outlines, while the latter three were filled in. I assumed that is what they meant when they had said they were "at three Stars", and from the sound of things it could trawl for data and report on their 'wanted level', represented by said Stars.

I didn't know enough video games to match that device to a title. Instead, I floated outside of the car to get an idea of where we were. Uber and Leet had been talking about making it to the "Pay 'N Spray", whatever that was; perhaps some kind of safe-house? It might even be code for their actual main base, for all I knew.

While it would be amazing if I really had tracked them back to their hideout, I couldn't let my guard down and assume this "Pay 'N Spray" wasn't another Tinker device. The villains clearly had Tinkertech involved despite their lack of proper costumes.

As I left the vehicle through its roof, I found myself in a small garage-like room about twice as large as a car; two vehicles couldn't fit. The only object inside seemed to be a black Porsche-like sports vehicle with a prominent spoiler in the back, though nozzles poked out from the walls of the room, presumably to spray the paint I had heard earlier. Uber and Leet had called this place "Pay 'N Spray", after all.

Wait, Uber and Leet! Where did they go?!

I didn't see their yellow sports car anywhere in the small room.

How had I missed their escape?!

Last edited: Nov 2, 2022

1006

TheGreatGimmick

Nov 11, 2018

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TheGreatGimmick

TheGreatGimmick

Underestimates the time writing takes

Nov 11, 2018

#956

Wait, Uber and Leet! Where did they go?!

With a stab of panic, I realized I didn't see their vehicle anywhere. There was a black car with a damaged windshield in here, but the one the villains had been driving was yellow! I did a sweep of the small room, but there wasn't anywhere to hide; somehow they must have slipped out!

I went through the wall into the street beyond, covered in the darkness of the Snitch's vision. Looking up, I could see the focal point of the massive cone of black overhead. Like the lens flare you get when trying to take a picture of the Sun at midday, the annoying flying camera loomed directly above my position, showering me in its observation. I glared up at it.

The damn Snitch is supposed to follow Uber and Leet, right? So where are they!?

I glanced up and down what I could see of the street, but there wasn't another vehicle in sight, much less one that could have belonged to the two villains.

On the verge of despair – losing my first solo supervillain arrest was not how I wanted to start my career – I took a few metaphorical deep breaths to try and calm down. I had a good two minutes left in this ghost-world session, I just needed to stop and think.

Okay. I had been sitting in their back seat. We had skidded around a corner, then pulled into some kind of garage.

I glanced at the inconspicuous garage I had just exited, then drifted back inside to look around again.

Nope, still no Uber or Leet, just that new black car in here.

Dammit, where did they go!? Okay. Okay. Focus. What next?

The garage door had closed behind us, I had heard some spray paint – I glanced at the black car again, but it clearly wasn't Uber and Leet's vehicle, so I kept going – and then Uber had seen me in the back seat through the rear-view mirror. I had gone ghost when he tried to turn around, went up through the roof of the car, and suddenly they were gone!

That… can't be right. I mentally ticked through the chain of events once again, but nothing stood out to me as fallacious. I did note, however, that I had entered my ghost world right after Uber had noticed me, so the two villains shouldn't have been able to have gone anywhere; time had been stopped this whole time.

…poor phrasing, but you get the point. They had to be somewhere in this garage.

I looked at the black sports car again. The vehicle definitely wasn't the one Uber and Leet had been driving, but there was someone inside; I could see the beams of darkness lancing out of the windows, especially the severely-cracked windshield. Maybe they were innocent bystanders that could tell me where the villains had gone, maybe they were henchmen for the villains that I could eavesdrop on, but either way, they were my only lead right now.

I descended into the car, and once I was fully inside something changed.

Like a switch had been flipped, I suddenly realized that I was a complete and utter moron.

This black car looked exactly the same as Uber and Leet's car except for the color, and I had just heard what sounded like paint being sprayed on the outside of Uber and Leet's vehicle. This was their car, just recolored! What the hell was wrong with me?!

Actually, yeah: What the hell was that, earlier? I had been absolutely certain the black sports car wasn't Uber and Leet's, and it hadn't even so much as crossed my mind that they could have just repainted it in the room they were calling "Pay 'N Spray". In hindsight it seemed painfully obvious, but at the time…

With a jolt, I realized that the paint didn't do anything about the fact that the windshield was severely damaged, spiderweb cracks running across the whole thing; I suspected Tinkertech involvement was the only reason it hadn't actually shattered.

I had seen the windshield, but the notion that this black car had the same damage I would have expected of Uber and Leet's vehicle – of the same build, no less – had not seemed relevant at the time.

That wasn't normal. That wasn't just me being dumb. That had to be power-related somehow.

I cautiously exited the vehicle through the roof again, this time repeating a mantra over and over in my head: This is Uber and Leet's car. This is Uber and Leet's car. This is…

As I hovered looking down on the black vehicle in the one-car garage, I couldn't for the life of me understand how I had missed this being Uber and Leet's car earlier.

I dipped back down into the vehicle again and came back up; I still had a little less than a minute in this ghost-world session. I looked at the black car again.

Yep, still Uber and Leet's car. Whatever spell they had me under earlier was released when I realized the trick, apparently.

Even so, that was some straight bullshit. A spray-on Stranger effect?! I knew Leet could supposedly make anything, but… Stranger. Spray. Paint. How does that even…

My time in this ghost-world session growing short, I refocused on the task at hand, drifting out of the garage and finding a nice spot in a side-alley that Big Brother couldn't see.

I knew it was silly, but I almost felt a bit nostalgic: With all this fancy camera and car-chase stuff going on, not to mention the dogfighting ring infiltration earlier, just hiding behind a dumpster bin in a dirty alleyway reminded me of my first night out instead. Simpler times. Three days ago.

I heard the sounds of sirens, which flew by, becoming louder and then quieter and accompanied by a Doppler effect. About halfway through the parade of police cruisers, I also heard the garage door opening again. I took a step to my left, knowing it would put me in the Snitch's sight; if it was going to continue being a thorn in my side, it might as well make itself useful.

As a result, I had an excellent overhead view as Uber and Leet casually drove onto the road behind the last patrolman, going the speed limit and otherwise obeying traffic laws. The policemen were presumably affected by whatever Stranger effect this "Pay 'N Spray" thing had initially hit me with, because they kept going, not deeming the black car entering the road behind them as something of note despite the state of its windshield probably being some kind of traffic violation.

The next few real-time minutes were spent dredging through the unglamorous task of tailing a perfectly law-abiding driver. I wasn't sure if it was safe to just ride-along yet; Uber might still be wary after catching a glimpse of me earlier. Instead I had to jump between blind spots, occasionally having the Snitch catch sight of me as we both followed the two supervillains once again.

Three times the villains passed by a contingent of police cruisers in their recolored sports car, and three times they were ignored.

I hoped they were returning to their main base, if they had one. I was practically salivating at the thought of being able to provide the authorities not only with two captured supervillains, but a secret base full of Tinkertech as well. Feather, meet cap. Frankly, Leet's lab and its contents was probably just as valuable as the villains themselves.

Unfortunately, they apparently hadn't quite done everything they wanted to do tonight: I cringed when I saw the Snitch's view descending on the two as they pulled over next to a line of three scantily-clad women standing on the side of the street. Presumably Leet had some measure of control over the flying camera, and had instructed it to come down for a better view for what they were presumably about to do.

The awkward dichotomy between my need to keep tabs on the villains and my wanting to be anywhere but here when… things… started to happen made me realize something about my plan to eavesdrop on people more often: If the spy genre was to be believed, one of the best times to gather information was during pillow talk. I shuddered at the thought of hiding under Lung's bed on the off-chance he let something important slip to one of his 'companions', so I supposed I would never be a world-class infiltrator.

Still, in this case I'd have to grin and bear it. I flew down to a nearby alley and listened as the black car pulled up to the curb and both men got out, doors shutting behind them. One the women approached and spoke in a sultry voice that made me want to gag; I supposed she smelled money due to the car's appearance, in spite of the windshield.

"Hey there handsome, you in for a -"

Leet interrupted her, speaking rapidly. "Wasted-N-P-C-says-'What?' "

"What?" the prostitute instinctively asked, clearly thrown off and confused.

"Haha" Leet laughed, then I heard an impact, a groan, and then some shrieks before I went ghost, needing to know what was going on.

To my horror, apparently the supervillains weren't interested in paying the hookers for their services, the sick fucks were content to just assault them instead.

The other two women had already started running; I presumed they were the ones that had shrieked. Uber was leaning on his driver's side of the car with what looked like a bored expression given what I could see of his face, while Leet had apparently decked the prostitute that had approached him. He was standing over the prone woman while the Snitch hovered about fifteen feet in the air behind the whole scene.

Perhaps the man-child just wanted one hit and would leave, but I wasn't going to take the chance that he would continue. Flying over to where Leet was standing on one leg – the other was drawn back in what may or may not have been a windup for a kick; again, he had lost the privilege of me giving him the benefit of the doubt – I smeared his ankle five times to be sure it would have some effect. My smear was inconsistent, but regardless of its performance at the moment five smears should be enough to throw off Leet's balance.

I then returned to my alleyway, preparing to come back with my bowling ball and break something if the villain didn't take the hint the first time.

When time resumed, the fleeing women's shrieks finished echoing off the nearby buildings and Leet made that short 'hup' sound some people utter when surprised. I was satisfied to hear what was surely a body hitting the ground right afterwards, but then Uber's "Oh fuck" made me concerned.

I went ghost again to see that by tripping Leet right on the side of the road, I had somehow managed to make him hit his head on the curb.

Even when I'm not trying for a head injury, I still inflict head injuries. Why even bother.

I let time resume, and heard Uber rush over to gather his partner in his arms.

"Leet! Leet! Speak to me buddy. Come on!"

I shifted uncomfortably; Uber sounded utterly devastated. Had I really hurt the Tinker villain that badly?

"No. No no NO! Don't do this to me man, we're a team! A TEAM! You can't go!"

Fuck, did I finally do it? Accidentally kill someone? After beating those Nazis over the head with a baton and dropping a bowling ball on that mugger I was trying to do better!

I went ghost to check what was happening: Uber was on his knees, holding a slumped Leet draped over both muscular arms, head tilted back, yelling up into the night. The Snitch hovered nearby, getting an overhead shot.

I reentered the real world to let the scene progress, stomach twisting uncomfortably with guilt.

"Leet! Leeeet! Noooo!"

It was an accident! I didn't mean to!

"Aaaand cut."

What.

"Haha just kidding folks, Leet's gonna be A-OK when we get back to the infirmary, dunce just gave himself a concussion. Looks like this episode is over for now, though. Tune in next time for -"

I went ghost to see that Uber had stood up, unceremoniously slung a still-unconscious Leet over his shoulder, and was currently giving the Snitch a thumb's up.

Fucking. Assholes.

I seethed while waiting for Uber to lay Leet down in the floorboard of the back seat and take his own seat behind the wheel. Throwing caution to the wind, I decided to just come along for the ride; if I crouched, Uber couldn't see me in the rear-view, and even if he did he might assume it was Leet awakening at first glance.

Going ghost and taking an incorporeal knee near Leet's head, I could see my surroundings in my 'spotlight'. The only vision back here right now was from Leet's head-mounted camera. I still tried to position myself such that almost none of my body or accessories was in the headcam's vision, but the latter half of my umbrella would still hang over him. Oh well.

I burned a bit more of my anti-tech aura to reenter the real world, gaining vision of the ceiling of the car from Leet's headcam, facing up. I myself was just out of frame, but the furled tip of my umbrella loomed over the camera's view. While he started up the car and began driving, Uber was continuing to speak, presumably to future viewers.

"- I have no clue how to control the flying camera thing -" was 'snitch' not its real name? The YouTube comments lied to me "- that's Leet's job, so it'll just be following us around on autopilot for now. Consider it an extended edition or something, but we'll probably cut most of this out, especially the route back to base haha. When he wakes up he'll sort everything out. For now, home sweet home."

As if to demonstrate what Uber was saying, I gained the Snitch's vision as it followed the sports car from a low side angle: My hooded silhouette could be seen through the window behind Uber's driving silhouette, both backlit by passing streetlights one after the other, with dark moments in-between. A bit of my cloak had also fallen in front of Leet's headcam's vision now too, but until the villains looked at the footage neither exposure would be a problem.

It was annoying that I would have to continue dealing with the damn Snitch until Leet woke up, but I had handled it well so far, so I could power through now that victory was in sight.

--

I spent the trip back to Uber and Leet's base trying to ignore both Uber's humming of the Super Mario Bros theme song as he drove and my cramping knees as I crouched behind his seat.

I could have simply teleported alongside the vehicle, following without having to contort myself, but there was a chance Uber would say something I could miss, or Leet could wake up; I'd want to know when the latter happens, at the very least.

After I had realized that my intentionally-inflicted head injuries were dangerous, I had done some research and found that being knocked out wasn't like how it was portrayed in movies: If someone was unconscious for more than a few minutes, that was a bad sign. We had been driving for nearly twenty. The fact that I had merely tripped Leet wasn't going to alleviate much guilt if he ended up dead by a freak accident.

Uber didn't seem concerned, but I didn't know if that was because he had a reason to feel confident in Leet's recovery or if he was just an idiot.

Trying to make the best of this time – as well as distract myself from my protesting knees – I started working on Uber's head-mounted camera with my tech aura. Although the power testing I had done during the past couple of months seemed more inadequate with every new discovery I made while in the field, it had yielded a few useful tidbits, like this one.

Completely destroying an electronic device, like blowing a bulb or frying circuitry, was well beyond my capabilities if I tried to do it in a single burst. However, if I instead slowly applied a tiny fraction of my aura over the course of several minutes, only exhausting me as much as an easygoing jog would if maintained over the same length of time, the device's resistance to my aura seemed to slowly become compromised. Once softened enough, I could eventually go for one final stab of Shaker power to actually destroy the device, though that still cost me too much stamina to be 'spammable'.

Light bulbs were the easiest due to their filaments' inherent fragility, but I had successfully blown out a calculator and a microwave oven (that we were getting rid of anyway) using this method as well.

So, I continually applied a slow trickle of my anti-tech aura to Uber's head-mounted camera in preparation for knocking out the device in the future. Although the Snitch would have been the more ideal target, I didn't have a good enough sense of where the flying camera was to apply my aura to the damn thing. I couldn't feel electronics, after all, I could only affect them if I already knew where they were.

Also, my Shaker power was the one I had utilized the least up until now; a negligence I was beginning to regret.

Uber finally pulled into a driveway, at least judging by the sounds of tires on gravel. When the car came to a full stop, I went ghost, pausing my progress on Uber's headcam for now.

For the third time tonight, I was in a garage, though unlike the last two this one looked completely normal. Floating out under the car-access door that hadn't yet fully descended behind the recently-parked vehicle, I turned around to find not an ominous secret base, but instead a completely unremarkable two-story apartment building meant for two occupants.

Uber and Leet's house was small, having only enough room on the bottom floor to accommodate a two-car garage, a front door, some kind of closet, and a staircase leading to the second story. Similarly inconspicuous, the upper floor housed the actual living space: Two bedrooms with a common kitchen and bathroom.

One of the bedrooms had a set of weights, so I felt comfortable assuming it was Uber's. The walls were heavily decorated with action posters depicting gory scenes from games like the original DOOM or the more recent Resident Evil (which I admit I only recognized because the titles were on the posters), with similar action figures on many shelves. His decor was surprisingly nice-looking, if you didn't mind the violence and blood, which I didn't; the colors matched, the theme was consistent. I wondered if interior decoration counted as a 'technique' for his power.

If the first room was Uber's, then that made Leet's the one with posters of scantily-clad female characters like Tomb Raider, or a woman in a skin-tight blue bodysuit with a long blonde ponytail that I didn't recognize. Frankly, I wasn't surprised after what I had seen Leet try to do to that prostitute, and it made Uber the more sympathetic of the pair to me so far. Not that I would spare either of them.

I floated around for several minutes, searching, even descending underground a few feet to see if they had a secret basement or similar, but I couldn't find a single thing indicating that this was the home of two supervillains.

Going underground was frightening, since I couldn't see anything and it was hard to orient myself without having a real body, so there was a real risk of getting 'turned around' if I lost track of which way was up. For the brief periods that I had to endure such sensory deprivation while going through walls or floors I could manage it; I just needed to keep floating in the same direction, and most barriers weren't completely solid anyway, giving me vision of their interior. Going deep underground was another beast entirely.

Point is, if Uber and Leet had a secret basement, I'd have to follow them into it instead of discovering it for myself, because it was apparently a good ways down and I wasn't going to take that dive.

Temporarily conceding defeat, I reentered the real world at the top of their staircase, ready to move if Uber started to come upstairs. He had to administer medical aid to Leet soon, so Uber had to reveal where they kept some of their cape-activity supplies at the very least. Besides, Leet must have a Tinkering lab somewhere.

I heard the front door open, Uber narrating to what I assumed was the Snitch on the off-chance that they would keep any of this footage, then the closet door opening, a hatch being raised, and a combination being punched into some kind of keypad.

I raised an eyebrow; a secret door in the closet? Really?

Going ghost and drifting down to where the muscular villain had his scrawny partner slung over his shoulder, the Snitch's vision didn't prevent me from seeing that he was typing into a hidden keypad on the wall. Not wanting to wait, I glared at the Snitch one last time before dipping my head below the closet floor.

Beneath was a narrow, completely vertical shaft made of what looked like concrete. I assumed the closet would slide down this chute like an elevator or something.

Metaphorically grinning with my currently-nonexistent face from ear to incorporeal ear, I flew down.

Last edited: Feb 25, 2023

1055

TheGreatGimmick

Nov 11, 2018

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