Current Energy: 8
Currently 5/10 - Swordsmanship (Cost 5 to Teach) *Everyone can thank Narasan for this boost.*
Monday, January 10th, 2011
Hebert Household, Brockton Bay
It's four-thirty in the morning, and you are standing over your Master with your Zanpakuto drawn and ready. You don't want to do this. It's easily one of the dumbest things you have ever done. But your Master hasn't given you a choice.
Yesterday evening, she refreshed your core memories on exactly what School would entail. You were 'born' with her memories of the place, but only really the ones that related to her Trigger Event after all. When you hear the word school, the only thing you can think of us the Soul Reaper Academy - an upstanding place where people are taught the fine art of murdering monsters with a sword. Among other things. You wouldn't know - your Emulation never went.
Your Master, quite unfortunately, bulldozed those dreams of yours. You were thinking it would be fine to let her off without any training today, since she would be spending all day at school, and then going with her father to the PRT building afterwards.
You were so, very, very, wrong.
School doesn't teach sword fighting. It doesn't even teach 'fighting' fighting. It's all just useless stuff like Math! You didn't ask for this! Your Master doesn't need it!
It was a thought you figured your Master would thoroughly agree with. After all, nothing good has ever happened to her there. But as you are increasingly finding, your Master has a certain amount of attachment to a whole lot of things that 'aren't fighting or training'. You seriously don't understand why.
So you, now backed into a corner, made a decision. You are going to wake your Master up early.
To that end, with a slow gesture very uncharacteristic of your normal swordplay, you lift your blade - and bring it down on your Master. You do it slow, so slow that that you couldn't possibly hurt her even if you actually touched her with the blade. But regardless, to your Master, it still registers as an 'attack'. Something she is no longer really capable of ignoring.
That's why, before you are even halfway through the half-assed movement, your Master's eyes spring open, and she withdraws her own blade from somewhere on the bed next to her, plunging it mindless towards your throat. A killing blow as it were.
You dodge of course, pushing off lightly with one foot and landing on the opposite side of the room in a rush of air, but your Master freezes with her dagger still held aloft, eyes wide with panic that doesn't go away even after she fully awakens, and takes in the situation.
"Oh my god! Emmy are you okay?!" She yelps, scrambling out of her bed and over to you, dropping her Zanpakuto without a second thought.
"Eh, been worse. You know one time this guy with the dumbest hair basically eviscerated me? It was-" You pause, then blink and shake your head once then continue. "Eviscerated this guy?" You finish.
Taylor looks at you with obvious worry, and, ignoring your statements that she didn't even actually hit you, marches up to grab you by the jaw, lifting your head up so she can peer at your unblemished neck. Once that's done, she steps back from you with a scowl.
"What the hell! It's not even five yet! I can't even control this stupid Thinker power so why are you making me worry at this hour!?" She bellows at you, her aura doing that ominous spider thing as it flares behind her. You're kind of afraid of telling her it's there. You know for a fact she isn't aware of it, and you positive she won't take it well. She'd call it things like 'villainous' or 'evil looking' or something you're sure.
"Well, when else are we gonna train, huh?!" You explode back at her, waving your sword in the air in frustration.
"...I'm going back to sleep." Your Master says, frigidly, turning away from you to march back to her bed.
"Come on! You have to go to 'school' all week! This sucks!" You complain. Complaining is actually all you can really do if you're being honest. If your Master gives you the absolute order to let her sleep, you kind of have to. You could punish her for it by wrecking the house like a neglected dog or something, but that just feels wrong to you.
Taylor pauses mid step, then turns to peer at you over baggy eyes.
"Emmy are you jealous or something?" She asks you dubiously, obviously not certain of her assessment.
Which she should be! Because you aren't! It's not like you think hanging around invisibly doing literally nothing while a bunch of stupid kids gawk at your Master and then getting to do nothing with her all day is shitty or anything!
Something on your face, apparently, tells your Master the opposite - something you have mixed feelings on. On the one hand, she's absolutely wrong. You're a power. Powers don't get jealous. That'd be stupid. On the other hand, she grabs her Zanpakuto off the floor and stumbles out of her bedroom and down the stairs in her nightclothes, blearily grabbing her glasses as she goes past them.
Then she pauses in the doorway to glare at you.
"Well?" She says, before mumbling something under her breath about pet ownership and going on walks.
You choose to ignore the statement in favour of following her out to the backyard to train.
Monday, January 10th, 2011
Winslow High School, Brockton Bay
The pair of you are driven to school by Danny. Well, Taylor is driven. You dart about the area invisibly checking for ambushes as the car crawls it's way forward. Taylor, for her part, sleeps most of the way there.
The school day itself started out fairly bland, as far as things go. Taylor takes two steps into the building, and then, spotting a gaggle of girls happily chatting away further up the hallway, hunches her shoulders and grimaces, before carefully going blank-faced and doing her best to speed walk past the group.
'I could-' You start but she immediately foresees what your offer will be and cuts you off.
'No killing. Just stay invisible all day unless Hookwolf attacks the school or something. Please.' She answers you in a huff.
This is exactly why you didn't want to come here. It's boring and your Master has to pretend as though you don't exist, because apparently an invisible adult roaming about a highschool makes some people uncomfortable.
Given a complete lack of anything better to do, you decide to spend the majority of your mindless following behind your Master. It's not like you couldn't be doing something, but you just don't care. However, as the day goes on, you begin to notice something. In your minds eye, your purloined memories see these kids as mirthless shadows in the distance. Malignant figures just out of eyesight, speaking down at your Master with an almost cutting whit.
Right now all you're seeing is the three-foot radius around your Master through which literal not a single person is willing to pass. And the fear. Literally so much fear. It might be that your Master is so accustomed to keeping her head down that she doesn't realize it... but the people here are terrified of her. A terror that manifests in half a dozen empty seats in nearly every class your Master attends.
It isn't until her last class for the day, that someone has the balls to actually tip your Master off to this fact.
"Hey, Taylor! I just wanted to say um, thanks for getting rid of them." A blond haired boy says as he drops into a seat next to her. Your Master appears to startle at his sudden presence, but you are positioned just right to notice her slowly easing the tension in muscles that were set to punch this kid in the sternum.
"Hi Greg." Your Master says with a pained tone in her voice, as if silently lamenting this development.
"And you know, I know a ton about Cape stuff! Like, like, you know powers are totally just aliens messing with us you know? O-or that Miss Militia is actually like, always holding back! She could totally make a Spartan Laser if she wanted to but she can't go lethal because the higher ups want her as a secret weapon for when-" The blonde kid begins to blurt excitedly. Suddenly you understand why she had a face as if encountering a great trial.
"Greg- Greg stop. What are you doing, what is this?" Taylor asks him when he pauses to catch a breath. Very diplomatic of you honestly. You were figuring she would just gut punch him and jump out a window.
"I mean, I heard you were a Cape now and I wanted to you know, help you out?" He offers lamely.
"With... Greg, you don't even have powers. We're not even friends!" Taylor hisses at him angrily, causing the boy to wince.
"I mean, I just thought since we were both kind of picked on-" Greg mumbles dumbly, as if not having seen this development coming.
"Greg, I was trapped in my locker for hours. Your locker is like one hallway away from mine." Taylor responds angrily.
Greg looks like he wants to respond to that - he really does - but he deflates when the teacher walks in and begins the lesson, something your Master turns to focus on with an almost ardent intent.
"I- I just thought - I mean -" He bumbles for a bit before turning his eyes away from your Master, with obvious tears gathering in their corners.
"I just thought I'd help." He mumbles under his breath.
God what a whiny little bastard. You feel... actually you feel kind of sorry for him.
'Hey, Master, he said you got rid of some people?' You ask curiously, noting something the kid said at the beginning of the conversation.
'Probably Sophia, Emma, and Maddison. The school would have to expel them for something like this.' Your Master says confidently.
'Yeah but... he said it kinda like he figured you killed them...' You point out, causing Taylor to freeze, then glance towards Greg, who is apparently still doing his best not to cry, a proposition he obviously isn't succeeding at given he sort of trapped himself inside of your Master's bubble of personal space before the class started.
Still, she adamantly refuses to turn back towards him and passes the rest of her schoolday largely unmolested.
Monday, January 10th, 2011
PRT Headquarters, Brockton Bay
Ah the PRT building. It's only your second time here and you already hate it. Today you have chosen to show up invisibly, in order to allow Danny to participate. Your absence was noted by Armsmaster, who for some reason has continued to be your liaison with the PRT despite him being a punk and a goon, but well...
"He's currently occupied," Danny says brusquely, putting a comforting hand on Taylor's shoulder. She isn't wearing her costume. There isn't much point to it when you're just going home after this.
Also, the thing is full of holes from its rough treatment at Oni Lee's hands. Absolutely none of those tears were a result of overzealous sparring. Nope. You were definitely going to be forced to help your Master replace the damn thing, weren't you?
"I see. If you will then." Armsmaster says, maintaining his usual calm tone.
"Can I ask how long this will be? She has school tomorrow." Danny fires off the second Armsmaster has turned away to begin walking.
"...about that. If she were to join the Wards we would be more than willing to-" Armsmaster begins only for Danny to speak over him.
"A time, Armsmaster. I asked for a time. Punctuality is important." He says blithely, probably referencing the abysmal response time of he and his team to your confrontation with Lung.
"...This shouldn't take long Mr.Hebert. As promised we have asked Panacea to look you over, so please be patient." Armsmaster answers, practically gritting his teeth. You chortle at the sight, something only you can see because of your position relative to anyone else. It seems like Danny does have one arena he's capable in at least.
"Thank you." He answers pertly, nodding once to Taylor who is now looking at him like she just met him.
Several twists and turns later, you find yourself situated in another one of those definitely-not-an-interrogation-rooms from the last time you were here, with Danny and Taylor politely situated on one side of the table, and a morbidly obese blonde woman who looks like she might be part rottweiler on the other.
"Mr and Miss Hebert, I will be blunt. Your situation is terrible." She says to open the conversation.
"Oh? Care to explain?" Danny says confidently, glancing at your Master reassuringly. So far he has done nearly all the talking.
"Mr.Hebert, your daughter is clearly powerful. Extremely so. So you have to understand that finding what amounts to a child with a heavy weapon at the site of over a half dozen deaths is an unpleasant and disturbing trend." The woman says, turning slightly to face Danny head-on.
"First of all, We gave a verbal report of why that was to Armsmaster when he first arrived - I assume you've heard it by now or you wouldn't even know what you were talking about - and second, I am a working man. Not a stupid man. Please don't insinuate that my daughter murdered those men without any proof to back it up." Danny growls lowly, narrowing his eyes at the woman who gave her name is Piggot when she arrived. The woman takes Danny's verbal assault stoically, obviously considering something.
"And what about you Mr.Hebert? We tried to look into it, but the fact that the Empire managed to both find and hold onto you with such perfect timing seems somewhat suspicious as well." The woman says, adding on; "We have no report as to what your circumstances were at the time you see."
"That is why we're here today after all Director. The failings of your organization aren't any fault of my own." Danny counters.
They continue to fire verbal barbs off at one another, neither one giving ground or even really making a point as far as you can tell. Taylor glances back and forth between them as though deeply distressed by the occurrence, and so you decide that you might as well be useful. Not bothering to go around them, you walk through the table and its occupants to stand behind Piggot, and begin to read what few notes she has left for herself off the memo she has carefully angled to only be visible to her.
'Let's see... blah blah prospective Ward recently hospitalized, nearly drowned, blah blah, budget, blah blah- ah here we go. 'Offer the Heberts the Carrot instead of the Stick'?' You transmit to your Master as you read, then snort as the ongoing argument between the Director and Danny reaches a standstill, leaving the two of them silently glaring at each other.
You get the feeling this isn't going the way it was supposed to.
"Mr.Hebert - You must understand how dangerous it is for your Daughter to simply be left to her own devices! The Empire has already stated an interest in her! Even if you don't care what will happen to the Bay should they get their grubby little hands on her, think about the hell that she would go through once they ship her off to Europe to be 're-educated'!" Piggot growls angrily.
"Which is exactly why-" Danny starts up again, but pauses when Taylor makes it clear she wants to speak.
"Which is exactly why we are taking steps to protect each other. Dad?" She says with barely restrained annoyance. Her father, taking her meaning, rolls his eyes at her, but does as she says, his previous angry demeanour fading away like it was never there. With quick, practiced ease, he withdraws a thick bundle of papers, then deposits them on the table in front of them.
"And what's this?" Piggot asks.
"Ah, that would be... hm. My statement, done to police standards, that's six pages, Taylor's statement, that's a bit longer at eight pages, a written complaint referencing the lack of apparent action on my daughters assault a week ago, a copy of the letter I recently sent to the Mayor on the topic, and an application for status as the leader of a new Independent Hero team." He rattles off easily, with a devious smile on his face.
"If you had this the whole time then why might I ask, did you decide to quibble with me over it?" Piggot asks through gritted teeth.
"Well, it's not like we weren't going to give the PRT a chance you know. But the second I got you made you started in on the threats. You didn't mention last week's incident even once. I can't trust my daughter to people like that." Danny states flatly.
"My wife had strong opinions on you guys. I'm starting to see why." He adds after a moment, almost wistfully.
"Are you aware that Non-Parahuman's cannot apply for Independent Status, let alone for leadership of a Team?" Piggot asks shrewdly.
"Oh, it's not my team. It's hers." Danny says cheerfully, seemingly perfectly happy with the slight twitch of the jaw that was Piggot's only response to the statement at first.
"And on that topic. I believe Lung had a bounty?" He asks pleasantly, all traces of any anger or annoyance gone.
'Dad is kind of scary when he's negotiating huh?' Says to you privately.
'Just a bit.' You concede.
When you leave the building that evening, you get the distinct impression that it won't be long before you come back again. Hopefully, not so Panacea can regrow another finger though.