Odin shares his… distaste… for the Empire with Taylor.


Content Warning: racial slur. It's an Empire member, so…

I'm definitely taking some liberties with this particular character (since he's not an Empire member in canon), so fyi.

I definitely meant to put this chapter out last month, but time got away from me. Oops.


The one thing Taylor wasn't really expecting, after the quick fight she'd been involved with, and Mr. Truth's advice, was to have to go to school the next morning, but he'd left them a voicemail saying that due to the massive push from the Teeth, the PRT and BBPD was tying up the judges, so he'd be unable to access the issue that day and she'd have to attend school or else run up against truancy laws. It wasn't a given that she'd have to deal with issues, but given the attitudes of the local PRT branch, Mr. Truth had decided to play it safe on that front, just in case Piggot had more pull with the local system than her general uncooperativeness with law enforcement in years past had implied.

Given the fact that she'd heard about Lung engaging the Teeth and the Protectorate pushing back the Empire, she'd expected school to be canceled, especially given the level of gang involvement in Winslow's student body, despite the teachers' apathy.

"Nay, lass," said Odin once Taylor explained her thoughts to him. "It takes time to recover after a skirmish, especially one like this where significant force is deployed. They'll be licking their wounds, and those at the schools will be present to posture. Also, I'd be surprised if the school wasn't somehow under the gangs' thumbs."

Taylor frowned. "I guess that makes sense, but I never thought about it that way before."

Odin shrugged. "War is war, lass. The rules of manpower and logistics hold as true here as they did in Ragnarök, and the Crusades, and the wars of Kaiser's forebears." There was a bitter edge to his mention of the Crusades, which Taylor decided to table for later.

Taylor sighed. "I can't dispute that, although it's disheartening that we have to use a strategic view to analyze my time at school."

"That's how it is, lass," said Odin. "That's why you fight, to make it better."

"Yeah," said Taylor, quietly, resolve glimmering in her eyes. "Yeah, it is."

Danny interrupted Taylor's dramatic moment by knocking on the door. "Breakfast's ready, Taylor!"

"Coming, Dad!" Moment dead, Taylor sighed and flicked her fingers at her unmade bed. A series of golden runes flashed in the air above the pillow, forming a circle of runes around two triangles, with their points touching, and then in a burst of light, the bed was abruptly made.

"Well done, lass. Your practice with smaller effects has helped with your precision." He turned a critical eye to the bed. "Much better than when you tried this last week."

"Thanks," said Taylor, closing her rune notebook and putting it in the alcove in her closet that formerly held her bullying journal. "I figured that if I used the Runes for little things at home, I'd get better at using them and they'd tire me out less."

Odin nodded. "Smart move, lass. The best seidjarns always preferred to be using their skills as often as possible to increase their capabilities, so you should to." He offered her a sly grin, mustache twitching. "Just be sure not to fall into the habit of always doing things the easy way. You won't always be in a place where you can use the Runes without giving away your secrets, after all."

"Okay, grandpa," said Taylor flippantly, pulling the door open and descending the stairs.

"Grandpa, she says," grumbled Odin, hovering behind her, invisible to all save her. "If only she knew."

"What was that?' asked Taylor.

"Nothing, lied Odin. "Just complaining about the state of the youth these days. You haven't even had your first taste of mead yet, have you, lass?"

"Can't say that I have," chirped Taylor, walking into the dining room and the plate of eggs and toast waiting for her. "Why, is it good?"

Indignantly, Odin burned enough power to make him visible and audible to Danny. "You haven't even had her taste mead yet? You're stunting her development here, man!"

"I… what? But the alcohol… wouldn't she get drunk?" asked Danny, confused.

Dropping the facade, Odin laughed. "Nay, lad, not anymore. It'd take the good stuff, the stuff you can't get your hands on outside of Elysium or wherever Coyote's set up, to get her even tipsy now. And it's not necessary, it's just… I thought she might like a link to the origin of her abilities beyond the nosy old man she's stuck with as a chaperone." His voice turned sad at this.

"I'll… I'll see what we can't do on that front." For a moment, there was only the clinking of cutlery on plates. "Anything else she should do, to connect with your culture?"

"Kick those pretentious fakes out of the city, but Kaiser and his followers can wait until after we deal with your new friend's old friends," replied the ancient king.

"Fakes?" asked Danny, frowning. "What do you mean?"

Odin growled. "The Nazis are already a group I hated, even before they gained power, both for what they hate and whose culture they claimed, enough to kill my brother just for what he was, but this group in specific is… They claim the power that animates the universe, binds it together, as their own, they name themselves after the Runes, and stand unopposed. They must be taught the error of their ways, and of those left of the Old Gods in the city, it is our responsibility to teach them that error, as Keepers of the Runes."

"Your brother… Loki?" asked Taylor. "Loki the Liesmith?"

"Aye, the very same." At the two Brocktonites' incredulous looks, Odin continued. "As much of a force for chaos and destruction as he was, he was still my brother, and I loved him for it nonetheless. More importantly, according to them, is that he didn't follow their convenient gender binary, and thus needed to die. Had they the chance, the Thules would have slain him."

"...oh." The awkward silence lasted until breakfast was adjourned.

"We'll get them, don't worry," said Taylor.

"I have no doubt. Your might continues to grow, and one day, you'll be ready for the Golden Man." Odin pressed his hand on Taylor's shoulder. "I'm proud of you, lass, and I can't wait to see what you grow into."

Tears glimmered in the corner of Taylor's eyes. "Thank you," she said.

"Of course. Now let's get a move on. School won't attend itself, now," said Odin gently.


The start of the school day actually went fairly well, in Taylor's opinion. Computers with Mrs. Knott was always a relatively good class, and since the Runes almost acted like little chunks of computer code sometimes, she'd improved in the class just from working on her power. Beyond that, she found that using her bugs to write and model the code she had in mind meant that she was only really limited by her ability type, in terms of the speed at which she could complete her assignment.

Math with Mr. Quinlan was… honestly, about as usual. Julia would play little pranks, but she never went much further than that, and Taylor was honestly kind of glad for it, since Mr. Quinlan had a particular talent for putting his students to sleep.

World Issues was… not great.

Madison and Julia were both in the class, and they sat relatively close to Taylor, so they got the chance to see Taylor's displeasure at finding a seat covered in orange juice. Fortunately, Taylor had thought ahead, and using a rune made up of a vertical line with a short line at an angle through the middle, pulled a roll of paper towels out of her backpack that hadn't been there ten seconds earlier. She proceeded to wipe the juice off the seat, and while it was a little sticky, the hard plastic of the seats did its job admirably in that it absorbed very little of the liquid.

Taylor allowed herself a small amount of triumph at ruining Madison's "prank", despite knowing that it would probably bite her in the butt later on, as she threw out the soaked paper towels and sat back down in a dry seat.

Gladly stood from behind his desk, an assessing eye on her, before he turned back into the vapid-eyed, clout-chasing Mr. G, seeking to get in good with the popular girls half his age.

Every time she saw it, the coal of anger burning behind her breastbone got just that much hotter.

"Hey there, kiddies," said the man, in his infuriatingly chipper voice, "welcome back to class. Time to turn in the homework, come at me single file, now."

Taylor slipped her sheet from her backpack, a short essay on the implications of NEPEA-5 on parahumans- or at least, the trap version- and set it on her desk, hands next to it palms-down. Just as she expected, Madison stole it from between her hands, barely glancing at it long enough to erase Taylor's name from the top and replace it with her own before flouncing up to hand it to Gladly, making sure to give him an eyeful as she did so.

She stuck her tongue out at Taylor as she returned to her desk until she saw what was in her hands: another sheet of paper, with just as much writing on it.

"Is this some kind of joke, miss Clements?" asked Gladly, holding up the paper. "It says that this paper was written by Taylor Hebert, and yet here it is, with your name on it."

Madison glared at Taylor for a moment, then turned back to Gladly with a quavering lower lip and tears in her eyes. "I- I'm sorry, Mr. G! She took my homework out of my bag! I thought she gave it back, but she must have switched it with hers! She's trying to get me in trouble again!"

Mr. Gladly gave Taylor a level look. "What do you have there, Taylor?"

"My homework! She stole my homework!" screeched Madison.

"It's as mine as that one is," said Taylor with the certainty of a king proclaiming his authority.

"Show me."

She did, walking up from her seat with the paper held in steady, dry hands. When prompted, she gave Gladly the paper and waited, watching his eyes scan back and forth between the two papers. Then: "Madison, since this is your first time trying to cheat like this," he lied, "I'm letting you off with a warning. Don't do it again. Taylor, you can go back to your seat, but talk with me after class."

The rest of class seemed to pass by in a blur, not even Madison's petty pranks dampening the feeling of hope, as futile as it was probably doomed to be, from swelling up in her chest.

Once the bell had rung, releasing the other students for lunch, Taylor made her way up to Gladly's desk, reaching into her pocket to turn her phone's voice recording feature on as she did so.

"Taylor, I'm not blind," he said, almost too gently. "I can see you're getting bullied. If you'd just come to us for help, we could-"

"You could what?" spat Taylor, rage roiling in her gut. "You could ignore me getting put into a coma for nine days? You could ignore a year and a half of bullying? Yeah, no thanks. I tried all that before this."

"You could turn to your peers, they could help you," said Gladly calmly.

"What peers? Emma got me considered a pariah within a week of both of us coming here, who'd risk going against her for me? The Empire?"

Gladly stayed tellingly silent.

"Fuck!" Taylor slammed her fist down on his desk, leaving a crack in the cheap laminate wood and making Gladly flinch before attracting his eyes. "I'm not going to stoop to fucking Nazis! Fuck you! You have a responsibility to all of your students to care for them, regardless of popularity, and you failed!"

"Others had it worse, Taylor. You can't expect us to drop everything to help a nobody, not when there are so many fine, upstanding citizens in this school being assaulted and worse by the druggies and slants and we can't even afford to do anything about them! If you had joined up, you might have had help, but as it stands we couldn't even-"

"Shut up!" Taylor screamed as a rune looking like an angle bracket, point pointed left, appeared over Gladly's forehead for an instant. Then, she turned and ran out the door, practically crying.

"What's the matter, Taylor?" asked Emma, frowning at her from a semicircle of her friends. "Upset that Gladly won't let you trade yourself for better grades? Gonna make like when your mom died and cry for a week?"

Something cold overcame Taylor, rage condensed into true fury as Emma crossed one line too many.

"Auntie Anne would have been so disappointed in you," said Taylor, though she could barely hear her own voice over the blood in her ears. "You stabbed the person you were closest to in the back because she's… what do you think I am, Emma, that could make you do this?" Taylor looked up and made eye contact with Sophia. "You know, if Emma spilled all my secrets, and I was her best friend and all but sister for years… what's preventing her from going after yours once she decides you're too weak for her tastes?"

With the circle thrown into turmoil, Taylor made her escape, heart pounding.

Odin nodded beside her, hovering as fast as she ran. "Well done, lass."

"It doesn't feel like I won," said Taylor bitterly. "It feels like ash in my mouth."

"Not every victory feels that way," said Odin. "But sometimes, it's what we need."

Taylor couldn't argue with that.


"So," said the Butcher. "Tell me why you don't have that traitorous bitch here with you."

"We ran into the Oni," said Hemorrhagia, frustration bleeding into her voice. "He had a bunch of ABB soldiers with him, and he stalled us, plus Vista and some new indie fought both of us off."

"How did some new hero fight you off?" snarled the Butcher, fist slamming into the table they were seated at.

"She had some kinda Shaker or Blaster power," said Vex, a few fragments of not-glass hovering around her. "Lightning bolts, bugs, and he put all of both our and the ABB grunts to sleep somehow."

The Butcher frowned. "Some new indie and Vista, huh? Looks like Quarrel's trying to replace us. She's trying to replace her family, you know? And what happens to people who try to replace us?"

Hemorrhagia bared her teeth. "They fuckin' get what they earn, boss. You want all three of 'em dead?"

The Butcher nodded. "No survivors."

"Whoa, whoa whoa, hold up. Isn't killing a Ward gonna bring the Triumvirate down on us?" asked Vex, hands up palms out.

The Butcher scoffed. "What the fuck are they gonna do? They can't stop us, not if they don't wanna be one of us next!" Then, they teleported away.

Vex whirled on Hemorrhagia. "What the fuck is going on here? You know that Vista's her cousin, and I know there's more to what's going on with Quarrel than the Butcher's line."

Hemorrhagia smiled. It wasn't a nice expression. "I'm finally getting to put that uppity bitch in her place. You'd best watch where you step, little girl, if you don't want to run afoul of the new most dangerous cape in the Teeth." She turned and sashayed away, leaving a trail of blood behind her.

Vex blinked. "What the fuck is she on?"

"Some Tinker shit we stole from Blasto," said Spree, passing by.

"That just figures," sighed the Shaker.


And that's that!

Hey, I've got a new oneshot that's a take on a SI insertion situation that I haven't seen before, check out Promise of Dawn.

That's about it, so read, review, enjoy, and have a nice day!