Sophia was standing in her path.

Months ago, at the beginning of the school year, Taylor might have tried to go around her, or to push past. She knew better now. The other girl was bigger than her, stronger, faster. Not taller anymore, but better muscled, more practiced at violence. Trying to avoid the confrontation would just mean she got forced down harder, turning a likelihood of pain into a certainty. She stood still, keeping her eyes trained on the floor.

At least Emma wasn't here too. Those encounters hurt worse. Sophia tripped her, pushed her, left bruises, but at least there was a simplicity to that. There weren't memories lurking behind every word, something happy smashed beyond all repair. Sophia didn't make her wonder if this was all somehow her fault.

Taylor gritted her teeth as her eyes prickled, fighting back the surge of emotion. The two of them had stolen from her before, ruined her assignments, destroyed her things. But she'd never really believed… she hadn't thought that even Emma could—

"You want your flute back."

She looked up at Sophia, forgetting not to make eye contact in her surprise. The silence dragged on, and the other girl showed no sign of breaking it. "…Yes?" Taylor said eventually, stating the obvious.

"Come with me and I'll show you where it is."

Taylor's mouth opened and shut a few times. When she found her voice, it was tight with anger. Did they really think she was that gullible, that stupid? "Why should I believe you?"

Sophia gave a one-shouldered half shrug, as if to say she really couldn't care either way. "Don't. Ignore me, go home. Spend the rest of your life not knowing if there was a way to find your mommy's flute."

Taylor's mind worked, fitting this into an established pattern. "You're not saying you'll give it back. You're saying you'll show me what you did to it."

Sophia smirked. "Smart. Are you coming or not?"

Taylor's fists clenched. This is a trap. I know it's a trap. But… "Show me," she said softly, hating herself for it.

She'd half expected to be tripped as she left the building, sent tumbling down the front steps of Winslow high. But nothing happened. Sophia just walked, not looking back at her, fast enough Taylor had to work to keep up. She tugged her hoodie closer against the early-spring chill, the first pale leaves just starting to appear on trees.

Their path took them around the back of Winslow, then out into the city along narrow streets. It didn't take long to leave behind blocks Taylor knew. This wasn't the sort of neighborhood where you wandered, explored. It was the kind of place where you hurried directly to where you were going, not looking around and trying not to draw attention.

No one seemed to have told Sophia that, though. She moved exactly the same way she did in the halls of Winslow, head held high, challenging. As if she truly believed that there was nothing out there that could be scarier than she was. Taylor harbored a brief guilty fantasy of Sophia getting cornered by some gang members, before realizing that she'd be stuck in the same situation.

She almost thought it was about to come true when Sophia turned down a dark, narrow alley. Taylor stopped, hesitating at the edge of the sidewalk. Sophia didn't.

There was a chain link fence at the end of the alley. She didn't even pause, transitioning from walking to climbing in one smooth movement. Sophia landed on the other side, turning to stare back at Taylor. "You coming?"

Taylor swallowed, heart pounding under her thin hoodie. This is stupid. Follow the girl who had spent the entire school tripping and pushing her into a dark alley with no witnesses, on the far side of a fence that made it almost impossible to run? That was the kind of decision that got you on the evening news, behind a line of yellow police tape.

Her foot came down, across the line into the alley. The other followed it, one step at a time. Left, right, left, right. Taylor knew she was making a colossal mistake, but she couldn't manage to care. Bringing the flute to school had already been idiotic, but she needed it. Having it had been like having a tiny piece of Mom with her. Without that crutch, that tiny source of comfort… she couldn't do this. Couldn't keep enduring it. Couldn't keep going. Losing it would be like losing her all over again.

The chain link fence was ice-cold under her hands, a shock. The wires dug painfully into her fingers as she awkwardly lifted herself, scrambling to find a foothold with the toe of her shoe. There was a moment of uncertainty at the top, tipping, and when she landed something in her ankle screamed. Taylor hissed between her teeth as she clutched at her foot.

Sophia gave a snort of derision. "God, you're pathetic. Hurry up, I'm not waiting any longer."

Taylor pushed herself up and hobbled after her, ignoring the shooting pains as she put her weight on that leg. They were in a gravel courtyard, sandwiched behind the back of buildings. It looked industrial, scattered with pallets of unidentifiable materials and equipment.

Sophia was headed for a low structure built from cinder blocks, thick pipes and vents snaking from the top. Even from this far away, Taylor could feel the heat radiating off it.

"They bake pottery here," Sophia said conversationally, fiddling with a metal grill at the front. "Alway start the oven at the same time every day, so it's real easy to sneak things in before they turn it on. I've done it a few times to different shit, just to see what would happen. Glass melts, metal melts too, or warps depending what kind. Some things explode, that always pisses them off."

Taylor limped forwards, feeling like she was being pulled on invisible strings. The pain in her leg felt like it was coming from a million miles away. Her mouth was dry. No… No, please…

"They just started it, so it's still heating up. I don't know what kind of crap your flute's made of, but you should probably hurry." Sophia pulled the grating aside. Her mother's flute glowed among shelves of pots, cherry-red from heat.

Sophia said something else, but Taylor couldn't hear her. Her blood pounded in her ears, a roar of white noise drowning everything. She felt like the part of her that was actually 'Taylor' had shrunk to a tiny point just behind her eyes, floating in the sea of static that had become her body. Without thinking, she reached forward—

Her hand jerked back with a yelp, body betraying her. Taylor brought her hand to her mouth, sucking on her burnt fingertips. She felt like she was viewing the scene from far away. That couldn't possibly be her, could it? This girl staring into a furnace, hair beginning to singe, the heat drying her tears. Not a second time.

Taylor gritted her teeth, clenched them until they creaked, until she was afraid they would crack. She couldn't lose the fute, couldn't lose her again. She shut her eyes.

Pain exploded down her arm like a supernova as she reached in, every nerve ending screaming in agony. Charred meat and burnt hair filled her nostrils, she heard something sizzling and realized it was her. Bile rose in the back of her throat and she forced it back, held her breath, because if she opened her mouth she would start screaming and not stop.

She groped inside the inferno, every surface she touched another lance of white-hot agony. It wasn't working, something was wrong. It was harder and harder to feel anything but pain, numbness creeping back from her fingertips, nerves dying. In panic she scrabbled blindly, feeling for anything the right shape, not knowing if she'd even be able to tell if she touched it.

Taylor opened her eyes.

Her coat was on fire, the flames billowing up around her shoulder. Her hand was charred to a flaking black, fluid bubbling up from angry red cracks. And the flute…

It was gone, knocked from it's shelf by her random fumblings. It glowed yellow-hot where it lay on the floor of the furnace, out of reach.

No.

Something inside Taylor broke. She staggered back from the kiln, reeling. She could feel it, some vital piece shattering in a way that would never heal.

And through the cracks, something outside her reached in.

◆—❖—◆

[REQUEST FOR INFORMATION]

[ASSENT]

[TRANSMITTING…]

◆—❖—◆

Sophia had been here before.

She floated in perfect silence, watching gods dance. There were two of them, spiraling around and around each other, intertwined until it was impossible to tell where one ended and the other began. Each was a world unto itself, a thing of landscapes and horizons. They filled the sky, bigger than anything she could imagine, vast enough to swallow everything she had ever known without a ripple.

And they were falling apart. As she watched, cracks snaked inwards from the beings' edges, widening and forking. Great continent-sized chunks tore away soundlessly, scattering into the void like Autumn leaves. Making the beings lesser with each passing moment. The lost fragments streamed past her, falling into the dark.

Confusion sparked inside Sophia, buried swiftly by fury and contempt. How could they sit back and let this happen to themselves?! She knew they were alive, aware of what was happening to them. They had so much strength, they could stop this if they wanted. But they chose to let themselves dwindle to crippled shadows of their former selves. To do nothing.

Pathetic.

Sophia had no blood to boil, no fists to clench. It was like being in her shadow form, except without the sensation of air passing through her body. But rage burned inside her, all the stronger for lack of any way out. To have so much strength and throw it away was worse than being weak. More than that, it was offensive, like grinding food into the dirt in front of a starving man. She couldn't shout, couldn't call out, couldn't move. Couldn't do anything but watch and hate, impotent, as more strength than she had ever known was tossed carelessly aside.

Then, as suddenly as it began, it was over. She wasn't watching idiot gods cavort in an endless void, she was lying on her back staring up into a cloud-flecked sky just starting to tinge towards evening. The familiar sting of bruises across her back meant she was back in her body, solid once again. She had… fallen, collapsed?

Her mind whirled nauseously, trying to piece together events. What was that? She had seen… but even as she tried to think about it the specifics slipped from her grasp, leaving only a sense of boiling frustration and helplessness. Sophia growled. The last thing she could remember was Hebert actually sticking her arm in the oven, and then nothing. If that bitch had somehow done this to her, she'd make her pay for it.

Then Sophia rolled over, and all her theories died an abrupt death. Where Hebert had stood was a perfect statue of black glass, frozen in the act of stumbling back from the furnace. It's face showed an unmoving expression of pain and despair.

Shit.

Sophia launched herself to feet, scanning the nearby rooftops as adrenaline shot icy tingles down her limbs. That was definitely a parahuman ability, and not one she recognised. Someone had the drop on her, and it was only luck that they had targeted Hebert first—

There was a sound of shattering glass. Sophia's head whipped around, and her stomach dropped. The Hebert-statue was breaking apart, pieces splitting off in a way that seemed horribly, inexplicably familiar. As if she'd seen it only moments before, though she couldn't remember where. The statue broke up into a swirling cloud of fist-sized pieces, jagged blades and splinters of black crystal. They seemed to be watching her.

Then one shot forwards.

Sophia didn't even realize she'd been cut until she felt blood begin to well and drip down her cheek. More shards darted for her and she turned their targets shadow on reflex, letting them pass through harmlessly. Her mind raced. She understood what had happened now.

Sophia snarled, shifting to shadow form entirely. It was overkill, but her identity was shot anyway and she had a point to make. She stepped forward and threw her arms wide as the entire cloud —as Taylor— spiraled towards her.

So you think you can fight back now, Hebert? Just because you have a shiny new power? The whirlwind of broken glass flew through her, touching nothing. That much mass passing through hurt, but she'd grown used to that pain long ago. And it was far, far less than it took to actually force her out of her shadow form. You think you're strong now? You can't even touch me. All you've done is graduated to the next level of me kicking your ass. This is between capes now, no more kiddie gloves.

She couldn't talk as a shadow, but her opponent seemed to get the message. The inky shards froze the air, unmoving. There was a noise like a finger around the rim of glass, if the glass was broken and jagged and the person was screaming. There were no words, but Sophia didn't need them to grasp the meaning. Rage. Helplessness. Fear. Defeat.

The pieces of crystal scattered, shooting off in all directions. Fleeing. Sophia watched as the fragments of what had once been Taylor Herbert disappeared into the evening sky. This would change a lot of things, but she wasn't complaining.

Taylor had just become much more interesting prey.