Fandango 1.1

It was a day like any other. Wake up in the morning, stretch, jog. Listen to some music in the shower, sing along a little as I did my hair. Put on my jeans, my plain shirt, my hoodie, my backpack. Catch a bus to school, earbuds in my ears, tuning out the world.

Arrive. Straight to class, weave through the crowd. Sophia was waiting around the corner; I could tell, her body was fairly distinctive. Give her a wide berth, act like I didn't notice her. Drop my book just so, to avoid her foot, listen to some more Queen. Ignore –

She tore out my earbuds. "Morning, Hebert. Have a nice weekend?"

I gave her a look, then reached for my earbuds where they lay on the floor. I could still faintly hear the song coming from them. She grabbed my hand. I looked back up at her.

"Let go."

"I don't think I will. I asked you a question." She began to tighten her grip. "Did. You have. A nice. Weekend. Hebert?" By the end, the grip had gone past firm, into painful.

I could have fought back, made a fool of her in front of everybody, but it wasn't worth it.

Instead, I yelled at her. "Let me go!"

She bore down harder, then pushed me away, arm aching, books spilled on the floor. People continued past, occasionally stepping on my books and papers. Sophia laughed, and left me to try and retrieve my stuff.

I put my earbuds back in. The song finished its last few seconds, shuffled away. Sweet Home Alabama played in its place. I gathered the remainder of my stuff as the stampede petered out, brushed some dirt off my homework for World Issues, and headed on to Computer class.

Mrs. Knott was a great teacher, the kind who is helpful about classwork, but didn't pry into your personal life, and had no favorites. She'd done what she could to help me, but since no bullying took place in her classroom, she didn't see much go on.

Today's assignment was simple, just an extension of a 'hello world' program.

I had it finished in a few minutes, then moved on to PHO.

I paused at the top post on the front page. Paige Mcabee, Canary, was making news nationwide, and not in a good way. I normally didn't follow stuff like this, but her trial in particular was rather important to me.

Birds of a feather, and all.

The trial was a farce, a sham. She wasn't allowed to defend herself, unable to even type out a defense, her lawyer was shit (I knew my lawyers- my former best friend had a lawyer for a dad), and was quickly being railroaded into supermax or worse. To be fair, what she had done was scary; but it was no worse than what some Merchants or ABB would do sometimes, to people even more innocent than her victim, and her assault was accidental.

I honestly wasn't surprised, though; Masters got a really bad deal, and it wasn't like the system had ever done me any favors, so why would it help her? Canary was a lesson; if you trip and fall, they'll kick you while you're down.

One thing was certain; joining the Wards was just not a good idea. Not with my power.

I'd originally started checking PHO after my Trigger, intending to get information on local capes, but quickly got derailed by the FAQ section after seeing the power classifications mentioned in a few threads. I'd found out just how carefully I'd have to step, what the boundaries were for safe(ish) cape interaction, how easily a power like mine could cross those boundaries.

I'd resolved to wait until I was fully prepared, and interact with the authorities as little as possible once I did go out. I wanted to be a hero, but the system might not like that idea.

I scrolled onward, checking other current events. Disaster relief in Canberra was finally slowing down; the Simurgh had been relatively kind to the city, destruction-wise, and most of the obvious aftereffects had been identified, according to various Thinkers. African warlords were fighting, as always; Uber and Leet had done a rather silly caper as Banjo and Kazooie, and made fools of themselves.

As shitty as the world was, it was moving, day by day.

I looped the video of them riding piggyback and faceplanting a few times, stifling a laugh. I'd seriously considered joining them at one point; they were villains, but save a few lapses in judgement, they were mostly just lovable idiots. I'd dropped that idea after a while, though; I really didn't know enough about gamer culture, they got caught too often, and last thing I wanted was to dress up and be silly.

I moved off of PHO, and fired up Looptopia, spending the rest of the period making music.

Fucking hell. Juice all over my stuff, only half my lunch eaten. I'd probably need a few new textbooks, which would of course cost me full price even if they were in terrible condition, and if the bus didn't hurry, I might have a permanent stain on my bra and shirt.

Just… fuck those bitches. They had no idea how hard it was to resist using my powers on them. I essentially had the perfect power to humiliate them in front of the entire school, but to use them would be to flirt with the Birdcage.

I was a Master, after all. Even if it was a fairly harmless kind of control, it was control nonetheless.

It made me feel really, really stupid, considering what I was thinking of doing tonight.

Fuck, it was still dripping. I might lose the art project and panties, too.

I got on the bus, ignoring the looks.

Tonight, after I cleaned up, I was going to go out in costume.

See, the way I figured, Canary's main problem had been twofold; one, she had no secret identity; and two, she'd been careless with her power. I was going to be careful; no sexual harassment, no mutilation, definitely no lethal force, and no spying on people in their personal lives.

Plus, I thought wryly, nobody would ever expect me to be a cape, so I was covered on the identity side of things.

I already had a costume, too. Likely as close to bulletproof I would ever have, not that I ever wanted to test that. Only step left was a name.

The best part about thinking of plans is how well it distracts you from the present. Sitting on a city bus, coated in juice, listening to music and tapping along, I painted a fairly odd picture. When my stop came up, I quickly got off, jogging towards my house.

Ugh. Sensing people gets awkward when you can feel neighbors getting it on. Keep jogging, you can't see anything. Remember that they're nice people.

I got home, quickly stripping out of my sticky clothes, and dumping out my backpack, then tossing everything in the wash before getting a shower. Washing my hair again was a pain; it was my one good feature, but it sure was difficult to keep nice, especially when it's sticky and clumped up.

While that was going on, I refreshed my control over the spiders and wasps residing in the basement, humming a little as I did so. It wouldn't do to have them revert to normal behavior; nothing screamed 'I'm a cape!' quite like an incredibly dense infestation of hornets and black widows.

I dried off, donned some basic clothing, and went downstairs to move the laundry.

Dad got home around 6. Balding, skinny, dressed in a loose button-up shirt and some brown slacks. He was pretty high up in the Dockworker's Union, an organization of blue-collar workers with no functioning docks to work. Rather unfortunate, since he was basically the guy in charge of finding them work.

He waved tiredly at my form where it lay prone on the couch, headphones tuned into a classical station as I watched some crime shows.

"Sorry Taylor, had a call, kept me out late."

"No problem."

"How was school?"

Should I tell him? "Fine." No, it'd just make him worry.

He moved on, the ritual complete.

New ritual. "What do you want for dinner?"

I had no idea what was in our fridge. "I don't know, I'll eat anything."

He poked his head around the corner. "Anything? You might regret that. We have brussels sprouts, after all."

Ugh. "Maybe not anything, but anything good. Maybe something with chicken?"

"Sure."

Ritual complete. 20 xp gained.

I could feel him working in the kitchen, moving the pots and pans around, digging out the meat and veggies and stuff. He worked fast, and within the hour, we had a delicious meal of chicken marsala and mushrooms on the table.

He looked up from his plate. "So, you remember Frank?"

Sure, I totally remembered Frank. There were three Franks at his work, maybe four. "Yeah?"

He gestured with his fork. "You'll never believe it. He joined Uber and Leet as a henchman last week. I heard they made him carry around a big jigsaw puzzle piece."

I snorted into my drink.

"What's so funny?"

"I saw their last 'caper'." So he was that henchman they had carrying their jiggies.

He smiled. "Tell me about it?"

I did, and we shared a laugh.

After dinner, we went our separate ways, each to their own bedroom. I lay awake, waiting for him to settle down, listening to the sweet dulcet tones of the local jazz station.