1.3
She was crying.
The memories... If they were memories? It wasn't just like watching someone else because she remembered how she'd felt, how she'd thought. The echoes of each experience twisting uncomfortably against her thoughts as she saw herself make mistake after mistake, missing every opportunity that hindsight and distance pointed out one after another as she found herself lamenting what could have been instead.
It was excruciating seeing herself from the outside, everything feeling so real and present but not being able to interfere. Having to watch herself fail and break every moral code she'd thought she had because she was too weak to do anything else.
She'd had to watch as Taylor went through everything. Saw the way the thing with the flute had almost gone, and, and...
She thought it was going to stop then, crying and confused within her own mind as she waited to wake up. But it hadn't, she thought that would have been it, a glimpse of 'what if' as her own memory jarred against what she was seeing like an imperfect copy. She thought she'd understood then what her power was showing her, how close she'd come to the point of no return and how much she had to do better by Taylor just to start.
But then to her horror and confusion the memories had kept going.
She'd seen...the future? She didn't doubt her power was a thinker type, but she hadn't really thought she was a precognitive. If that's what it really was.
The memories still felt real though. Everything the other her had done, what she'd said, it was everything she could imagine of herself if her power hadn't already stepped in and stopped her cold.
But the things that the other Madison had done... When her power had talked about monsters she'd thought she'd understood, but she hadn't, not really, not until then.
She didn't remember getting out of bed and staggering to the bathroom, it felt like she'd been under for hours but it wasn't as dark as she thought it'd be as she'd hugged the toilet bowel, dry retching until at some point she'd stopped. Slowly pulling herself together, becoming more aware of the world outside her head again.
It wasn't a difficult choice to have a shower after that, she wasn't soiled with sweat thankfully, but the memories of what she... No what other Madison had done was enough to make her turn up the heat until steam was filling the bathroom and scrubbed herself until she didn't feel as dirty anymore.
Was it the future? Was that what she would have become if she'd just...continued? Was that what was still going to happen even without her involvement?
"Well screw that" she croaked as she marched back into her room, grabbing the glass from her desk that was probably about eight hours old at that point and relishing the freezing cold liquid cutting down her throat.
That Madison didn't happen, wouldn't happen if she had anything to say about it and she'd be damned if she let any of that shit happen to Taylor after what she's seen.
"Okay power, that was probably the worst thing that I've ever experienced and if you wanted to make a point, consider it made." She declared to her empty room, slumping back to sit on the bed as she nursed the glass in both hands.
Her power seemed to be in agreement though as the notification window popped up again in front of her.
.
[Quest: Path of the Hero]
Madison Clements has confronted the darkness within h̸͙̒͛̀e̶̵ͫr̷̈́š̷̟̤̣̂ẻ̵͎̈l̶̙͛ͧ͘f̷͙ and emerged scarred, but victorious.
Aware of the potential for cruelty in all people she has vowed to do better so that what she saw could në̙̺͚̃ͤ̓v̹̈̈́̑e̳̫͗r̢͖ͭͤͣ come to pass.
So armed with a newfound resolve Madison Clements must right the wrongs of her past if she is ever to be a Hero in the present.
[Objective: Do the right thing] [Ongoing]
Rewards: ?, ?
[OK]
.
Well at least her power agreed with her Madison mused as she wondered why a couple of the words seemed sort of glitchy. It wasn't as bad as when she'd tried to look at the info for the 'Memories' item when it had been in her Inventory, but it was still pretty disconcerting to see that it wasn't a one off.
With a sigh she pushed the thought away, it wasn't like she knew what it meant, if it meant anything anyway and wasn't just her power being weird. It wasn't like she could do anything about it either and besides that her new objective was already giving her a headache to think about.
"Could you be any more vague power?"
Sure she had like a dozen ideas right off the bat, first and foremost getting on her hands and knees in front of Taylor and begging for forgiveness, but was it too much to ask for a little direction!
Well probably she mused, she was the one who had to do the right thing, it wasn't exactly her power's job. That was apparently to kick her in the emotions until she knew where she'd gone wrong. Actually fixing things was going to be up to her.
Frowning, she tried to think how best to actually start. Madison knew she'd been a terrible person, that couldn't have been made more obvious to her than if her parents had summoned her downstairs for a chat about how disappointed they were with everything she'd done.
No she had to make it up to Taylor, she was going to apologise obviously but in her shoes that wouldn't... Okay if she was in Taylor's shoes she'd be pretty desperate for a friend and would take what she could get. But this was about doing more! Taylor was already stronger than her even without a power, so she needed to do something to show she was sorry beyond the obvious crap like sticking up for Taylor which she was trying not to think about right then.
Sure she was a cape, but that didn't mean high school had just stopped being scary, especially when Emma and Sophia were going to notice her one-eighty first thing tomorrow-
"Oh shit my phone!"
Madison panickedly looked about before remembering she'd turned it off hours ago, so at least the other two would know she wasn't just ignoring them as she finally found it having fallen down the side of her bedside table. She might have felt accepted by Emma and Sophia, but she wasn't going to leave them on read if she could help it. She valued her life thanks.
Out of a sense of morbid curiosity more than anything else she turned her phone back on, grimacing as messages started to filter in and she turned off the sound so at least she wouldn't be too tempted to turn it right back off again.
She replied to Julia and the other girls who had texted her first. She could still pretend to be friends with them in a way since they were pretty much just like her, petty bitches who followed the crowd and there were only a couple of friendships she'd actually feel bad about losing when Emma inevitably turned them on her, or they turned on her themselves.
Madison shuddered, having powers definitely hadn't made her feel invincible, that was for sure.
Reluctantly, after putting it off for another few minutes of texting the others and then spending another ten minutes blow drying her hair she dredged up the will to open the group chat to see what she'd missed.
Emma: OMG Taylor's face!
Sophia: Yeah, that was great, Hebert didn't even try and get it back
Emma: Of course not, she's weak! Thx for helping tho
Sophia: Obviously, gotta teach her a lesson. Decided what you're gonna do with it yet?
Emma: Was just gonna break it, but seems weak.
Sophia: Yeah you'll think of something better. I'd just throw it in the bay or something. You got an idea Mads?
Emma: Don't think she's online? Did look abit out of it earlier.
Emma: a bit*
Sophia: Oi Mads don't be sick again, you're with Hebert tomorrow.
Emma: You know she isn't online
Sophia: Yeah but she'll see it when she looks later.
Great, demon one and demon two wanted her ideas on how destroy Taylor's flute as if what they'd done hadn't already been enough! She should just steal it back and- Wait that was a great idea!
.
[Quest: Retrieve Taylor Hebert's Flute]
Retrieve Taylor Hebert's flute from the Villain and their co-conspirator.
[Objective: Obtain a weapon/tool to break into school lockers]
[Objective: Arrive at school before 06:15]
[Objective: Search Emma's locker]
[Objective: Search Sophia's locker]
[Objective: Retrieve flute]
Rewards: Flute
[OK]
.
"Exactly!" She cheered, it was perfect! She hadn't stopped them from taking it, but she could get it back and give it to Taylor before they did something to it!
Also her power was calling Emma a villain? That was actually kind of hilarious, especially since she knew Sophia would be pissed to only be called the 'co-conspirator' in their theft.
Okay, she had a plan! Well she had the start of a plan and her power had given her the rest, so technically still her plan? Madison shook her head, the time for a deep dive on PHO and the wiki to figure out her power a bit more was for later, the time for finding something to break into a locker with was now!
.
.
Unsurprisingly in hindsight, it turned out that parents tended to ask their daughter questions when she goes from bedridden for most of the day to 'probably very suspiciously poking around the garage whilst they're having dinner'.
On the bright side it also turned out having an Inventory made it very easy to liberate a crowbar without her father figuring out just what she had been conspicuously looking about the garage for.
Victory!
.
[Quest: Retrieve Taylor Hebert's Flute]
Retrieve Taylor Hebert's flute from the Villain and their co-conspirator.
[Objective: Arrive at school before 06:15]
[Objective: Search Emma's locker]
[Objective: Search Sophia's locker]
[Objective: Retrieve flute]
Rewards: Flute
[OK]
.
Her quest had even updated itself when she was done and she'd happily dismissed the notification window when it had popped back into her vision after she'd eventually managed to extricate herself from her parents' subsequent interrogation.
It wasn't her fault she hadn't thought they'd notice and had to sit through a barrage of slightly exasperated questioning! Though answering why she had thought it had been a good idea to start poking around the garage in nothing but her pyjama top and bottoms in the middle of winter with the answer: 'I didn't actually notice I wasn't wearing that much' was apparently not the right one and she'd been sent straight back to bed with a promise not to do it again.
Not that she needed to with her quest confirming she'd obtained the perfect tool for the job. Her dad probably wouldn't notice anyway, at least until the weekend at the earliest and she was pretty sure she'd be the last person he'd think of. Okay, she admitted to herself that she'd be the last person he'd think of if he hadn't caught her roaming around the garage in her pyjamas after being off sick from school. But as long as she left the crowbar in her inventory when she wasn't committing crimes in the name of justice she'd be fine!
Dismissing her Inventory again as she sat down Madison was surprised to have the Inventory tutorial window pop back up, belatedly realising she'd never actually dismissed it since she'd spent what felt like several hours earlier just trying to intuit how the various parts of it worked. Leaving it open had seemed like a good idea at the time, she still had no idea if she could access some kind of archive for all the quest and tutorial windows she'd gotten, so leaving it up for reference just in case had been the obvious call.
She gave it a quick skim one last time just in case anything jumped out at her and then dismissed it too, turning away-
.
[Tutorial Quest: Your Inventory and You] [Part 2]
Items stored in your Inventory will be represented by an image of the item and can be rotated by selecting the item and stating 'Rotate' or issuing the equivalent mental command.
Physical items can be retrieved by stating 'Retrieve', issuing the equivalent mental command or through your command menu.
Non-Physical items may not be able to be retrieved through any 'Retrieve' commands. In these cases you should utilise the command menu and select 'Use' or issue the equivalent mental command.
To add an item to your Inventory, make physical contact with the item and state 'Store', issue the equivalent mental command or pass the item through an enclosed space Inventory opening.
NOTE: When adding an item to the Inventory through an enclosed space Inventory opening, the item must not exceed the diameters of the enclosed space Inventory opening.
[OK]
.
She gaped.
"Motherfucker!"
.
.
Madison wasn't annoyed, that would be petty. Just like she wasn't thinking about how she'd wasted all that time trying to access her quest item when everything she'd needed was on page two of the Scion damned tutorial!
Letting her head meet desk with a thump she let out a small groan. Apparently today was just going to be her learning very obvious life lessons over and over again until they stuck.
On the up side, until she got some kind of archive tutorial her notepads were filling out nicely. She'd ended up getting a second one when it became obvious she was going to be doing a lot of writing by hand in the near future, because there was no way in hell she was going to digitise anything.
Notepad one was for writing down all the mechanics of her power, including copying all of her tutorial quests verbatim and then notepad two, which she'd copied over from the first one was for all her thoughts and questions about her power. Needless to say the latter was far more filled out.
With a small frown of concentration she double checked she'd copied everything correctly and dismissed the second tutorial window, sitting back in her chair and waiting for-
"And there it is" she groaned theatrically when part three popped silently into existence a few seconds later.
.
[Tutorial Quest: Your Inventory and You] [Part 3]
Your Inventory is split into four distinct sections: Inventory, [LOCKED, [LOCKED] and [LOCKED].
Your Inventory will display all current stored items that are not part of [LOCKED] or otherwise [LOCKED].
[LOCKED]
[LOCKED]
[LOCKED]
The command menu is a contextual menu which provides the following context dependent actions for a stored item: Use, Info, Retrieve, Displace, ?
Use - For physical items, this action functions identically to the 'Retrieve' function. For non-physical items this will action the item.
Info - Provides known information about the item.
Retrieve - Equips the selected item by default. If an equivalent is already equipped, the items will be swapped.
Displace - Item remains in a phased stated, but is removed from the Inventory. ACTION CANNOT BE UNDONE.
? - ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
NOTE: Any items displaced and not immediately recovered should be considered lost and/or destroyed.
[OK]
.
Any of her remaining annoyance that she'd been sitting on a goldmine of information without realising it quickly disappeared and she felt her curiosity heighten as she read through the text.
"Huh" was all she managed when she reached the end, a dozen different thoughts competing for her attention as tried to decide what to focus on first.
What was the difference between 'locked' and a bunch of question marks? Why were parts of her power locked off in the first place? Just what did 'phased state' actually mean? That was the second time she remembered seeing it and it was like her power had just expected her to know.
And boy did 'displace' feel uncomfortably close to the word 'disintegrate', especially with the two separate warnings for it.
She opened her Inventory again, selecting the crowbar and then 'Info'.
.
[Crowbar (Item)]
A single black 'Ox Trade' brand crowbar.
[OK]
.
Well she wasn't sure what she had expected really. She dismissed the info window and brought up the contextual menu again and then dismissed it as she had another idea and pushed herself off the bed, letting the Inventory window close by itself as she walked past it back to her desk, pulling open the top draw and grabbing a couple of pens that rolled to the front.
"Okay so" she muttered as she tried adding them both to her Inventory like she had everything else and smiled when the pens in the palm of her hand disappeared. Sitting back down on the edge of her bed she opened her Inventory again with a mental command and quickly confirmed what she'd expected to see as she saw five slots of her Inventory occupied.
She hadn't thought the pens would stack, but she was glad she had gotten a quick confirmation, even if it did make it a bit more of a puzzle that if she clipped a pen to her notepad it counted as one item as far as her Inventory was concerned.
She shrugged, it wasn't what she had grabbed them for to test anyway as she retrieved one of the pens back into her hand, fingers curling loosely around it as she looked back up to her Inventory and selected her crowbar.
"Retrieve" she murmured and even expecting it she still jumped slightly as her hand went from holding a small piece of plastic to a cold heavy block of metal, not that it stopped the grin from stealing across her face.
"So cool" she muttered to herself, happy that it had worked and then trying it again with the other items in her Inventory.
The different shapes and sizes threw her off as she went through them back and forth for several minutes. She dropped the pen when she switched to it and the notepad was immediately awkward in her grip, especially when she then switched back to the crowbar and almost dropped it on her foot. But even as she was annoyed at herself, she figured it was good to know that in the safety of her room, rather than when a goon or a pissed off Sophia Hess was coming at her with a rusty pipe in a dark alley.
Any further thoughts of practice or experimentation were abandoned when a knock at her door announced that her mom had brought up some dinner to her. Though she made the mental note to make some actual notes about her progress, since it was the sort of thing she knew she should be writing down alongside everything else.
As much as she had wanted to continue after she'd eaten, especially with trying to perfect the trick of switching between completely different items without dropping them, Madison found her exhaustion catching up to her not long after and had reluctantly started getting ready for bed.
She'd debated trying to get her mom to agree she should stay off school tomorrow as well, her power had only said she needed to arrive at the school a couple of hours early, not that she had to actually attend. But Madison knew her mom would suspect something was up if she tried that again. It made things a little trickier, but it wasn't like it would be the first time they'd missed each other in the morning so it would probably be fine.
.
.
Her alarm going off four fifteen in the morning was definitely not fine.
Madison groaned, hand snaking out of the nice warm covers to find it and finally grabbing it.
"Too briiight" she moaned, tiredly turning it off and letting it flop back down beside her pillow somewhere.
Just five more minutes, maybe ten...
BZZZT BZZZT
That was the only warning she got as her alarm started again a moment later and she grappled with it sleepily, projecting as much hatred as she could when entirely half asleep at the infernal device, blearily blinking to see what the time actually was.
04:28
"Ugh"
She had to get uuuupp... Existence was pain. Superpowers weren't worth it. Life wasn't worth it... Maybe she'd feel more human after a nice warm shower...
She was halfway out of bed when she realised the issue, no one would hear her alarms since she'd turned down the volume when she set them, but her parents would definitely notice the shower going at four in the morning.
Madison shivered, her duvet looking even more appealing to snuggle back under at that very moment. It wasn't actually that cold, at least compared to how she normally felt when she was dragging herself out of bed in the morning. But a little bit less freezing didn't compare to a nice thick winter duvet... She shook her head forcibly, bringing her free hand up to rub the grit out of her eyes. It was almost four thirty and she had to leave by five if she wanted to catch the bus she reminded herself.
With a decidedly unfeminine grunt she swung herself out of bed, bringing up her phone to check exactly how much time she had before she needed to leave.
04:47
"Kill me."
.
.
.
.
.
Author's Notes:
Thanks for reading this far, if you feel the formatting is a bit weird at times, that's simply because this website eats most of the formatting I try to apply so I'm improvising as best I can. Also this website apparently just deletes random sentences for no reason sometimes, so that was fun to discover by accident and I don't know if I caught them all, apologies in advance there if there are still some left. Honestly I'd recommend reading on AO3 or SB instead. But despite being a pain to publish on I do like this website and I understand people might prefer to read the story here, so I'll keep uploading even if it might be slower etc. Otherwise I hope you enjoy what's to come.