Current Energy: 24

Currently 5/10 - Spiritual Power Usage (Cost 5 to Teach)

Tuesday, January 4th 2011.

Hebert Residence

You nod once at your Master. Not to give permission - your Master never needs permission from you to do things - but more to signify that you don't foresee any immediate danger to her health if she does explain. This Glory Girl might be stronger than the average human - you assume anyway, given you're using your Master as the standard there - but she is far, far, beneath the weight class she would need to be fighting in to actually threaten your current Emulation.

"Um. Actually about that..." Taylor says after a moment, not actually closing the door to the house behind the other teen as she stepped inside after her. She continues to shuffle awkwardly from foot to foot, eyeing the other girl with some slight trepidation obvious in her facial expression.

Glory Girl - Is that actually her name? Sounds stupid. - takes immediate note of the change in demeanour and tenses slightly. You wouldn't have noticed it if it weren't for how stupidly hyper-fixated on fighting your current Emulation is. For almost anyone else, the mild change in posture would have been easily overlooked, and if it had been noticed it could have been written off as the minute shifting all humans do when not actively being held still.

Right now, you know that this is not the case. To you, as you are now, the girl might as well have gotten into a stance with her fists raised and ready to brawl.

"Is everything all right?" She asks politely, though the strain and suspicious she is now clearly feeling comes through loud and clear, eliciting a wince from you Master.

"Yes! No! Sorry, I just... I wanted to apologize." Your Master begins, making sure that the other girl has a clear way out of the building should she so choose it. It saddens you to say it, but to you, it almost seems like she expects to be rejected as a matter of course. You know why of course. The core of your personality is largely made up of half-remembered moments in time largely involving the escalating torture of your Master. But it is sad all the same.

"For what? I didn't even actually save you - just stalled till the Protectorate arrived." Glory Girl responds, frowning and relaxing her posture slightly. There is definitely a hint of bitterness in her voice too.

"That's... sort of what I wanted to apologize to you for. I, um. Before- before you found me I was... I was locked in my locker at school. I'd been there for hours and... and I just desperately wanted someone to help me. I had to listen for hours as people went past ignoring me, no matter how much I yelled or screamed or begged. I'm pretty sure I got powers but... I blacked out and couldn't really... direct him..." Taylor mumbles quietly, only audible because of the lack of any other noise to distract from what she is saying.

For her part, it takes Glory Girl nearly a full minute to actually understand what your Master is trying to say.

"What kind of power would- him? Him!" She says, her voice rising slightly in pitch as her head whips around to canvas the hallway and street visible through the open doorway.

With an abruptness that you know can't be natural, your Master switches from slightly awed and distressed to blindingly afraid in the blink of an eye. She rocks backward from the blond teen with such force that she ends up pressed into one wall of the hallway, flattened against it as though held in place by a giant.

You take great issue with this and are about to deal with the most probable source of the unnatural terror when a hasty mental command from your Master compels you to stop.

'W-wait.' She sends to you, her distress so great that it's even begun to seep into her mental communications.

"P-please-" She manages to force out through clenched teeth, drawing Glory Girl's attention.

"I- I'm s-s-s-sorry." Your Master forces out through ragged breaths, then abruptly goes limp as whatever force was compelling her fades away to leave her at relative equilibrium. Or... as close to equilibrium as one can be while piloting a body full of endorphins and adrenaline.

For a moment the two girls merely stand awkwardly in the hallway together, the Glory Girl either not willing to, or not able to apologize and your Master panting haggardly as the adrenaline drains from her body.

Then they both speak at once.

"Sorry" "Are you okay?"

They both stop to stare at each other again.

"That's actually not as bad as what I was doing to train earlier." Taylor finally admits lamely, standing fully and stretching slightly.

"Seriously?" Glory Girl asks incredulously.

"Yeah, Emmy does this thing- you know the soul-crushing thing?" Taylor continues on, idly finding the time to close the door to the house finally.

"Yeah, that was... Amy said that it looked like every cell in my body had been put in a compress. She wasn't sure what the side effects could be so she fixed it but... wait Emmy? Training?"

"My, um... Projection? I don't think he'd care if I just called him a Projection but he has free will kind of so..." Taylor says with a shrug.

"But you... can control it right?" Glory Girl asks, maybe a bit too quickly.

"He has to do what I say or think at him yeah." Taylor answers, although her voice grows slightly clipped when she chooses to emphasize the word 'him'.

"Huh. So the reason he was carrying you was-" Glory Girl queries as Taylor leads her further into the house.

"I just wanted someone to save me," Taylor says in a small voice.

Glory Girl frowns slightly at that, probably recalling Taylor's description of events, and then smiles widely at your Master, whirling on her mid-air with one hand raised.

"Name's Victoria Dallon, and if you can keep a secret - saving people is kind of what my family does." She quips.

Your Master stares at the outstretched hand for a second, obviously slightly blindsided by the sudden gesture, then hesitantly returns the handshake.

"Taylor. I don't really know what I'm going to do with my powers but... I really want to be a hero." She responds finally.

Your smile at the heartwarming little exchange lasts exactly as long as it takes for your Master to order you to find something else to do for a little while. You can tell she's just taking the excuse to stop training - but you can't bring yourself to argue the point with her at the moment.

You also suspect that suddenly appearing in front of someone you recently brutalized might not go over well, but that's more of a problem for your victim than for you.