"Is everything okay, Taylor?" Emma asked, concerned.

Taylor didn't reply, at first, looking at her costume.

Thinking about the past.

It was much more complicated than she'd thought, then… like the world was fighting back, somehow.

"Taylor?" Emma said.

Taylor shook her head. "Sorry, Emma," she replied. "I was woolgathering."

"I really hope you don't have a sheep related power you didn't tell me about," Emma said, giggling. "Your powers are so weird that there could be one, though. What even is your rating, do you think?"

"Thinker, Striker-" Taylor began, and Emma shook her head.

"Not that," she explained. "I mean the numbers. We hear about threat ratings and stuff, but where do your powers fall there?"

Taylor began to answer, then paused, thinking about it.

She'd seen dossiers for other capes, since joining the Wards. Mostly other capes in Brockton Bay, occasionally major threats, never her own. There was a rule against it.

And she wasn't allowed to share it with Emma, either, but she could explain some of the details.

"It's to do with… what kind of response is needed, and how wary you should be, more than how powerful someone is," she began. "Or versatile. So I'm probably a high Thinker-Trump for my ability to see lies and if someone's a cape, and if I ever work out what's going on with Triumph and Gallant and Battery that makes how they look different from everyone else then maybe it'll be higher. And they're not sure if my weird resistance to some things is technically Brute or Breaker."

She knew the truth, of course. She was changing, her own body and mind rejecting impurities in the same way she could detect them in others.

"But if it's threat, uh… what about those Shaker powers you have?" Emma added. "That's got to be high Shaker, right?"

"It's not a competition, Emma," Taylor said, smiling. "Someone with a low power threat rating can still be really effective if they're creative with it, though I guess they might end up earning a higher rating from their creativity because it's about threat."

There was one thing that Taylor knew for sure, though, which was that there was no way the PRT was going to have a true assessment of her Shaker abilities.

Or whatever the correct term was. And part of that was that she, herself, didn't know how strong that ability was.

It was… connected to some of what she could do already, in a way. Warping time to speed up or slow down allies and enemies respectively. Making it unclear and indistinct exactly where she was, so she could choose to be wherever there was a greater benefit. Those were things that hinted at the nature of her true powers… but they were only hints, and they were more likely to overlook that and focus on her Shaker-Trump combination where she could try to shut down other powers nearby.

Not always successfully. Not yet… but it was getting stronger.

Her true power, though… that was something that would leave the PRT absolutely terrified if they knew about it. If they knew that she'd triggered because Sophia, Madison and Emma had been bullying her for over a year before shutting her in her own locker, and that that had been the case until about a day ago.

When she'd rescued Emma from an alleyway, without giving a hint of who she was, and gained back her friend… and, yet, everything else had gone exactly the same as before.

Sophia had still targeted her, perhaps trying to force Emma to trigger out of anxiety. There hadn't been another ringleader, no character witness for Sophia, but Sophia had still ended up in the Wards and the combined inventiveness of a dozen teenage girls had made up for the lack of Emma specifically.

"Heeey!" Emma said. "Earth Bet to Taylor! Or should I call you Aeon, huh? Would that help you pay attention?"

Taylor shook her head. "Sorry, Emma. Just… you know. Woolgathering again."

"If you ever spot the sheep, tell me," Emma joked.

Taylor nodded, and shut the door on her costume. She was going out on patrol later, keeping an eye out for crime she could stop, but the early afternoon was for relaxing and spending time together.

Maybe history was fighting back against her. Maybe she couldn't truly change anything important, or there was a current that forced time back onto the path it should take.

But she had her friend back, and that was enough.

For now.

AN:

Another Azataylor companion, this one with Aeon Taylor.