The ability to astralize was incredibly useful. It let me move faster than I could normally, and I could normally outrun cars on the freeway if I was cutting loose. Astralizing also let my phase through walls and move around undetected. Taylor didn't have a phone, and the computer in her house was an ancient fossil almost as old as I was, so I wasn't exactly thrilled at the prospect of using it. Astralization made that unnecessary.

I wanted to check around online to make sure that no one had put together exactly what happened to Coil. Since I didn't want to be seen in public, I spent the evenings after Taylor passed out from her training regimen in one of Brockton's libraries, invisible, looking over the shoulder of people scrolling through PHO.

This wasn't the best way to gather information because I was unable to search myself, instead beholden to whatever page the person in question was currently looking at, but it worked well enough.

By snooping around the library, I was able to determine that very little was known about what happened to Coil. As a matter of fact, the majority of the internet had no idea Coil was even involved with the incident that led to me killing him. There were some low-quality pictures and videos circulating about the PRT conducting some sort of operation downtown with several heroes present, but that was it. There wasn't any mention of Coil or any suspicion about him being dead.

So the public at the very least had no idea I even existed, but the PRT and Protectorate was likely a separate matter. It didn't take a genius to figure out Coil's men didn't skewer themselves, but any investigation they were conducting was currently unknown to the public.

If I wanted to learn more about their investigation, I would have to venture into the PRT building or onto the rig myself, and I wasn't inclined to do that. While I was fairly certain they wouldn't be able to detect an astralized servant, I wasn't completely sure of the limits of parahuman powers, especially Tinkers. There was a lot of room for error when I tried to make a model of what each hero should and should not be capable of. Between Armsmaster and the parahuman AI that tended to hang around him whenever she had the chance, I wasn't willing to risk wandering around the PRT building or the rig. That meant I would just have to do what I could to make sure I, and by extension Taylor, was safe.

I did some divining with my clairvoyance and didn't note any serious danger befalling Taylor in the near future, so I assumed that, for the most part, I'd gotten away with killing Coil. I would still keep an eye out and lay low, but I was feeling more confident than I was initially that Coil's death wouldn't be connected to Taylor.

I appeared at the foot of Taylor's bed. She was sprawled out on top of the covers, snoring loudly.

"Gooooood morning, master!"

Taylor jolted awake, eyes manic until they landed on me. Her expression turned to grim acceptance as she saw my bright smile.

"It's a lovely Saturday morning in the glorious cesspit that is Brockton Bay. Forecast calls for a two mile run followed by extensive martial training. Hop to it!" I vanished, astralizing and weaving my way down to the front door of the house to wait for Taylor to get ready.

A few minutes later, Taylor found her way downstairs. She still looked half-asleep, blinking the lethargy from her eyes.

"Are you ready, master?"

Taylor scolwed at me, grunting.

I shook my head disapprovingly.

"My master was quiet and moody.

The features she displayed, grumpy.

But try as she might,

To front her dislike,

Her servant knew she was happy."

She fought it, but Taylor failed to prevent the small smile from curling her lips up. "Again with the limericks?"

"Do they displease you, master?"

"Not particularly."

"Then I won't stop. Now I think that's enough stalling. Time to start running!" I spun my hand through the air, showering her clothes in runes that quickly faded from sight, though their effect was still present. They'd help her improve faster and keep her from injuring herself due to overexertion.

Taylor groaned as I astralized, but she left the house and started running towards the warehouse where I trained her. Typically, a Brockton resident, not to mention a young woman near ABB territory, wouldn't be wise to run alone this early in the morning. But Taylor knew I was right behind her. If anyone tried something, they wouldn't get two steps before I intercepted them. Taylor was probably one of the safest people in the city even while she was running alone in the morning.

Every time Taylor started to slow down, I would bark some encouragement into her ear to get her to move faster. I could tell she hated it, but I honestly felt I was being too soft on her. Scathath would shoot arrows at me or cut into my calves with her spear if I was moving too slow, and that was when she was in a forgiving mood.

By the time we got to the warehouse, Taylor was huffing and puffing, her clothes drenched in sweat.

"You were two seconds faster than yesterday, master." I said, appearing in front of her. "That means we don't have to do remedial physical training."

Taylor let out a relieved sigh at the declaration. Her breathing was starting to fall back under her control. "What are we doing today?"

"That's actually something we need to have a chat about. Go ahead and do pushups while I talk."

Taylor scowled, but lowered to the ground and started doing push ups.

"So! You're getting faster and stronger, which is good. You're still not ready to learn to properly fight, but I think you are far enough along that we can start planning things out. Have you given any thought to a weapon?"

Taylor paused, resting on her knee as she looked up at me. "Weapon? What do you mean?"

I frowned disapprovingly at her. "I don't remember saying stop, master."

Taylor sighed, resuming her pushups.

I nodded, satisfied as I continued speaking. "By weapon, I am of course referring to what weapon you intend to specialize in. Your magic core opens up a lot of possibilities for how you'll be able to fight. I'm going to show you everything I know about runecraft, but it would be a waste for you to only use runecraft. I've given it some thought, and I think it would probably be best for you and I to try and figure out something else for you to specialize in."

"What…did you…have in mind?" Taylor said in between pushups. She was only straining a little. She'd gotten a lot better. When we started, she couldn't even do three pushups consecutively.

I rubbed my forehead. "That's the thing, I don't really have anything in mind. This whole magecraft experimentation thing isn't exactly my forte. I've always been more of a warrior than a researcher."

Taylor paused again. "Then what are we going to do?"

I shrugged. "I was thinking of taking a page out of 'ol redcoat's book and copying whatever I can think of. Feel free to continue your pushups."

A distressed sound slipped past Taylor's lips, but she kept doing pushups.

"I believe I told you already that your magic core brought to mind two people in particular – Artoria and Siegfried. I haven't had the pleasure of facing Siegfried, but I have danced with Artoria a fair few times. One trick in particular stands out. It will take some effort, but I think you should be able to learn to use Mana Burst." I crossed my legs and sat down right in front of where Taylor was doing pushups, Gae Bolg resting on my shoulder. "Doesn't that sound nice?"

Taylor grunted. "I don't…know what…that means."

"We'll go more in depth later, but it would essentially let you channel a massive amount of energy through a weapon and let you deliver a crippling blow. Combine that with a touch of reinforcement and I can see you doing some serious damage."

"Reinforcement?" Taylor asked. Her arms were shaking now. It was a struggle for her to keep pushing herself up.

"A type of magecraft that I'm going to teach you, but that can wait until later. Back to the matter at hand, what kind of weapon would you want to learn to use? Oh, and you can stop now."

Taylor's breath left her in a relieved gasp as her arms crumpled, sending her to the ground. She took several deep breaths before forcing herself into a sitting position across from me. "I…" She hesitated. "I was thinking about using a spear."

I grinned. "You have good taste, master. That makes my job a lot easier too. While I can use swords, maces, bows, whathaveyou, I'm definitely at my best with a spear in my hands. I won't have to teach myself how to use the weapon to channel a mana burst before teaching you, and that'll cut down on our training time considerably." I was pretty relieved to hear Taylor's choice. While I would have put in the work to teach her to fight at an acceptable level with a different weapon, hearing she wanted to use a spear made my job a lot easier. It was also touching that she wanted to follow in my footsteps. Was this how Scathath felt?

…No. Scathath didn't feel much aside from disappointment for the majority of the time she taught me. She only started complimenting me at the end of my training when I was 'adequate'.

"So when do I get a spear?" Taylor asked, excited.

I frowned. "That's where the problem lies. Not mentioning the fact that you aren't ready for me to teach you how to use a spear yet," I said, shooting Taylor a pointed look that had her frowning in disappointment. "I don't really know where I'll be able to get my hands on something that could survive the mana you'll be able to put through it. Any regular weapon would explode after one good attack."

"What do you mean?"

I pursed my lips, trying to think how best to explain it. "Think of the spear as a balloon and your mana as air. The more air you put in the balloon, the bigger the balloon gets. You keep putting more and more air into the balloon, and eventually the balloon is going to explode."

"So we need to find an explosion-proof balloon?"

I chuckled. "Essentially, yes. For now, I'll find you a regular spear and reinforce it as much as I can with runes, then I'll show you how to further reinforce it yourself. It isn't a permanent solution, but it'll work long enough to show you how to fight. Hopefully, I'll have thought of something by the time you're ready to fight."

"What if you don't think of anything?" Taylor was looking a little concerned.

I smiled. "Have some faith in me, master! I'll figure something out. Besides, you should be focusing on other things. Like, for instance, the fact that you should be doing sit ups right now. Chop chop!"

Taylor groaned, falling backwards to lay on the ground. She grumbled some more, but did eventually start doing sit ups.

I counted each repetition, refusing to count any time her form wasn't good enough. The rest of the day as I led Taylor through her training, the problem of how to get Taylor a proper weapon lingered at the back of my mind.