Brockton's Celestial Forge

by Lord Roustabout

The Celestial Forge is the greatest combination of crafting powers in Jumpchain, meaning it is the greatest combination of crafting abilities in all of fiction. In Brockton Bay a forgotten side character's trigger event ends with him linked to the Celestial Forge rather than his intended shard. His expanding collection of tinker abilities drag him into the city's cape conflicts.

176. 113-1 Interlude Taylor

113.1 Interlude Taylor

Taylor blinked away the last of the emotion that had been surging up, threatening to overwhelm her. She pushed those feelings away, taking solace in the stability of her swarm and the awareness it granted her. It was easier, had been easier since she had received that healing technology.

Nanotech. She could barely comprehend how bad something like that could be. Only that tinkers messing with it always seemed to lead to disaster. Pictures on the news, horrible messes of metal and flesh, or the Machine Army. That S-Class threat that only wasn't considered an S-Class threat because it was contained. Had been contained, but if there was one single mistake…

It wasn't something people liked to talk about. She hadn't really looked into the subject of nanotechnology much, but that was because the response to the question of tinkers trying to work with it was just that they shouldn't. She probably wouldn't have even known that much if she hadn't been concerned about what Joe had been… could have been making.

But Joe had nanotech. She had his nanotech. Nanotech that he'd had since an impossibly early point in his career. Two days after making those knives he had been casually healing people with one of the most dangerous types of technology on the planet.

But that was because of his team. The team that explained so much and yet raised so many additional questions. Even if Joe hadn't been able to develop safe nanotech healing at that point, the Matrix had, and apparently specialized in it. Or was it good enough with that technology that Joe was happy to attribute it to him?

She still didn't know about his team, where they had come from or what their presence met. The insistence that she could just talk to them fell flat. That was hard enough with Joe. Cold calling any of a half dozen other capes on a similar level… no. Just no. Not when she was dealing with so much. Not when she was so close.

The gangs were moving. Not in the major clashes she had expected, but with the Butcher involved that caution was understandable. With Joe's team having stepped in for the last two fights they would be even more careful about their next move, but when it happened the Undersiders would be involved.

That hadn't been explicitly spelled out, but it was where things were headed, which meant that she was very close to seeing things through to the end. After the current clashes had been dealt with they would be able to meet the boss. The person behind the Undersiders. At that point she could take action, and finally bring her mission to a close.

That thought left an empty feeling in her gut, largely because of the number of unknowns involved. She didn't know who the boss was or how powerful he might be, only that Joe's power had warned him about the situation. It didn't seem like anything could directly threaten Joe's team, but she knew there were more complex and subtle powers out there that had to be handled carefully. Even if the boss wasn't the kind of cape who could wipe cities off the map, there were a hundred other ways they could be the kind of threat that Joe had warned her about.

That wasn't exactly comforting. With Joe's help she was ready for a direct confrontation, especially now, but she didn't know how she'd do against a more abstract threat. Something insidious or subtle, the kind of thing she couldn't just slice apart or swarm with bugs. In all likelihood she'd need to fall back once she knew what she was dealing with. Regroup with Joe and come up with a plan to counter whatever the threat actually was.

She didn't like that. Didn't like the idea that she wouldn't be able to handle it on her own, or on her own with the tools Joe had made for her. The entire situation was uncomfortable and anxious, which wasn't what she needed right now.

Because she had been dwelling on that problem to put off having to deal with the situation at school for just a little longer, but she had just run into the same kind of anxiety and uncertainty. She had become a cape, become a hero, to get away from that kind of thing, but it had ended up following her anyway.

…hadn't Joe said something about that kind of thing the last time they talked? It was barely a week ago, but so much had happened that it was hard to keep track.

She took a breath, but mostly for the comforting sensation. The fact that she no longer had to breathe was going to take some getting used to. There were a lot of things that were going to take some getting used to, and she wasn't sure where to start. Well, as much as she would have preferred to put things off even more, as they stood she needed to explain what happened with Emma. At least she needed to if she didn't want Joe to learn about it from news reports or online discussions.

"This isn't something I want to talk about." She admitted, looking across the kitchen table at Joe.

"Believe me, I understand." He said. Joe was focusing on her in a way that was less… energetic than he'd been earlier. That had been concerning, but also somehow engrossing.

The fact that Joe could get more powers, could get more powerful, it wasn't anything like a secret at this point. The thing was, the general impression around that was some level or caution or concern. Contemplation and evaluation, like he was carefully considering how he was going to move forward.

This had been different. There was nothing careful or reserved about the latest powerup. Joe hadn't carefully considered things and restrained his reaction. No, he had embraced it. The difference was subtle, but it was also striking. Captivating. It was like the excitement that he held for whatever just happened was bleeding off him and drawing in everything around him.

Without that, she doubted he would have just handed out FLIGHT the way he had. Maybe if she had brought it up and presented a case they could have worked through exactly what she needed and the parameters of what could be made and incorporated into her equipment. There would have been a back and forth and eventually some carefully measured item might have been made and delivered the following day.

Instead an idle thought had spun out into the creation of something she could only guess at. The tiny square of silk had been slipped into her pocket, but even in that compressed form she could feel the power there. Joe had said it was intuitive and she didn't doubt it. Not that, or any of the other claims he had made.

She could fly. Would be able to fly, just like a proper cape. Probably fly well, even if it was wings rather than the traditional image of an Alexandria package. Actually, the wings might be better in some respects, especially if she could weave threads into them. It changed everything, and yet was such a small gesture.

And that was what worried her. Such a small effort from Joe could cause massive waves that overturned everything. That was the scale he was working at. The ripples from his actions were tsunamis for everyone else. Just the situation at school was enough to show that.

What had he actually done there? Call the police and leak a video? It felt like there was more going on, but at the same time there wasn't anything she could be sure of. That was frustrating. Like there was this shadow over her life that could influence things to a terrifying degree, but without her being able to see the mechanism behind it.

All she knew was that things were different. This wasn't the tired indifference from the aftermath of the locker. The constant impression that everyone she spoke to just wanted the situation to go away as quickly as possible, like they resented her for making them have to deal with what had happened.

Things should have been even worse now. What happened was less serious and the city was in a critical state. There shouldn't have been time or resources to spare for a case like hers, but somehow she was getting more attention than when she had ended up delirious in the hospital. Suddenly it was like they actually cared. Like they were seeing her as a person, rather than a problem that they needed to make go away.

"This must be a lot to deal with." Joe said sympathetically, pulling Taylor out of her thoughts.

Taylor nodded as she took another unnecessary breath. At least she would be dealing with this mess in whatever state of perfect health Joe's healing technology could create. And hopefully without any of that compromised decision making that had happened when he healed everyone in the aftermath of the fight at the storage yard.

She really should have asked about that before she accepted the nanites.

"Um, yeah." She said, "I mean, this is a lot, but not just this." Joe raised an eyebrow at her. "The cape side of things as well."

"Ah." Joe said. "The Lady Khepri reactions?" He asked, and Taylor managed to avoid wincing.

"Yeah." She said, "I haven't even been out in costume since the summit, but that hasn't stopped anyone."

There had only been a sliver of footage from the people who had apparently been staking out the bar. Pictures and video of the team entering and leaving. Appearing from and vanishing into Grue's darkness. Considering that Joe's team had also made their appearance, and was somehow able to appear perfectly posed in every shot she had assumed that things might die down for her.

They hadn't. Part of that was Joe's work. The new costumes for the rest of the team and the armor that had been added to her own costume. Of course people were going to talk about that, but it went further than that. It had always gone further, right from the start.

"I know the stuff people are saying online shouldn't matter, and it doesn't have anything to do with things at school, but still, it's frustrating." She said, "Not just the… assumptions. Just the way everyone assumes I'm actually some kind of dancer or actress or model." She paused and looked up at Joe's expression. "Um, what?"

"I mean, wasn't that what you were going for?" He asked.

"What?" She exclaimed. "No. Of course not. What made you think that?"

"Sorry, it's just… you do know you walk differently when you're in costume? Carry yourself differently?" He asked.

"Um, yeah?" She said. Obviously she wasn't shuffling around and trying to avoid attention the way she did at school. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Well, I don't know if you've noticed…" Joe said, and Taylor was pretty sure he did know she hadn't noticed. "But you've been walking like a model."

"…I've been what?" She asked.

"Well, it's not super noticeable, but people have picked up on it." He said. With a gesture a screen appeared floating in the air between them. Shots of the fight at the bank or Uber and Leet's stream from the storage yard played. "I mean, it's actually pretty subdued, but you can see it in the shoulders, the stride, the way you hold your head…." Joe gave her a shrug, but now that he'd pointed it out she couldn't not see it.

"I was just trying to look confident." She admitted, watching the footage. It probably hadn't helped that she'd tried to avoid as much of the Khepri 'content' online as she could manage. "I don't know where I would have-"

She suddenly fell silent as a memory shot into her mind with an almost physical force. The image of a smiling red-haired girl gushing about her first modeling job. Sharing every detail of her upcoming show as Taylor sat there with a placating smile on her face. A walk practiced for literal hours, with Taylor roped in to help her get it 'just right'.

She knew exactly where it had come from. What did it say about her that when she wanted to act confident, the first thing she did was dredge up something from EMMA. It made her feel sick, conflicted, and confused all at the same time.

"Are you alright?" Joe asked. Taylor gave him a weak nod. At least on the physical side of things she doubted she could ever be less than alright. Emotionally? Well, she would get through this, somehow.

"Yeah." She said, "Just realized… it's not important." She assured him. And knew he could probably tell a lot more about the situation than she was saying, but that wasn't going to change. Maybe if they had the conversation over a video call, but that somehow felt worse. At least face to face it was like she had some control over how this information would come out.

"So, with Emma." She began. "From that video you could probably tell she's more than just someone I knew from school." Joe nodded and let her continue. "She was my best friend, all the way from kindergarten, up until the start of high school."

Taylor could feel the weight of emotion. The tightness in her chest, the way her throat would close up when she tried to talk about this kind of thing. It was still there, but physically she was fine. Like the impact on her body was moderated or muted.

Joe's healing. The technology that could save her life from anything Joe could imagine, being used to keep her from becoming a sobbing wreck when she talked about the worst thing in her life. It felt petty, like she was somehow squandering the miracle that kind of technology represented, but at the same time she was grateful.

Joe mentioning the flute had blindsided her. She felt like she might have broken down then and there, just let everything come gushing out in a humiliating outburst of emotion. But she had kept it together. It wasn't like the nanites were forcing her to keep things together, but as long as she didn't want to break down, she wouldn't. For that, she was grateful. This was going to be hard enough without trying to explain things while barely able to speak.

"The ABB attack would have been the summer before you started high school." Joe said. "The summer after Professor Hebert died."

Taylor nodded. Tears welled in her eyes, but she had enough control to keep them there.

"Things were really bad, after Mom…" She cleared her throat without needing to and continued. "My dad was in a really bad place. I ended up spending a lot of time with Emma's family." She dropped her eyes to the table. "We'd always been close, growing up, and it helped. Had helped."

She held her now cool cup, nearly empty of tea. Joe glanced at it, then lifted the teapot towards her. She gave him a weak smile and lifted her cup. Then paused as the tea poured out steaming hot and smelling better than it had when it was fresh. She gave Joe a questioning glance, but he just shrugged as he set the teapot back on the table.

She took a sip of the tea, which was just the right temperature and definitely was better than when she had made it fresh. She had both questions and concerns about that, but this wasn't the time for them. Instead she took what comfort she could from the tea before setting the cup down and, with great reluctance, diving back into things.

"Everything changed after that summer." She said, "I went away, to camp. It was supposed to be a chance to get a break from everything. Things with Emma were different when I got back." She looked up at Joe. "I didn't know about the attack, but I think…" She took another breath. "I was talking to her on the phone when she was in the car with her dad. The call got cut off, and she stopped taking calls after that. And when I got back she didn't want to have anything to do with me. I think that was when she was attacked."

"It was." Joe said. Taylor blinked and looked at him. Some of that intense energy was back, though it seemed more restrained and focused than when he had been casually building capes that could give people flight powers.

"How do you…"

"Call records." He said. Incoming call from your camp to Emma's cell phone at the time of the attack, based on police reports."

"You can find that kind of thing?" She asked. It was good to have confirmation, but the level of intrusion… well, it was probably fairly light by Joe standards.

"I can." Joe said. "A lot of people wouldn't be able to, but if the confirmation helps?"

"Um, yeah." She said. It did, but the fact that he knew it would make a difference, once again it was another level of intrusion. Or maybe not even intrusion. Maybe Joe's reach was simply so broad that he was already there. Working with information and connections he already had. That wasn't really more comforting, but it did change the tone a bit.

"Anyway, I didn't see Emma for the rest of the summer, then when I started at Winslow she did everything she could to make my life hell." Taylor practically spat the words. She was grateful for the nanites helping her control her reactions. The anger was still bubbling up, but she was able to keep it from affecting her, at least physically.

"Why did you go to Winslow?" Joe asked. She looked up at him. "Not to intrude," Which was a bit ironic, coming from Joe. "But I remember your mother mentioning you got into Arcadia."

Taylor felt her lips quirk into a weak smile at the mention of that. Her mother had been so proud of her for getting into Arcadia, and getting in early. For about a week after they got the news she had been telling anyone who would listen, so her mentioning it to some of her students wasn't that unexpected. Actually, Taylor was probably lucky that she hadn't made an open announcement during one of her lectures.

It was a bittersweet memory, particularly with what had happened.

"After mom died I decided to go to Winslow instead." She said, "To be with Emma."

"Ah." Joe said. Taylor could just nod. "And I'm guessing transferring afterwards…?"

"Not easy." She explained. "And my grades weren't good. Not with everything Emma was doing."

"How bad was it?" Joe asked carefully. Very carefully, like he was concerned for both her reaction and his own.

"About as bad as she could make it." Taylor admitted. "It was a lot. She worked with two other girls, Sophia Hess and Madison Clements." Taylor shook her head. "After a while I started keeping a record of everything they did. I thought it might help with the teachers or something, but…" She trailed off as she shook her head again.

Joe didn't seem surprised that the teachers hadn't done anything to stop things. That could have said something about his opinion of Winslow, but he had mentioned having trouble when he was in school. It was hard to imagine, but things had changed so much since even the early days of him having power. She couldn't even imagine what things could have been like before that.

"I don't want to go into everything that happened. There's too much, and it doesn't matter now." She said.

"It does." He said. She looked up at him in surprise. "We don't get to pick and choose what matters to us. Maybe the weight of what you went through isn't relevant to the current situation, but that doesn't mean it doesn't matter." He shook his head. "I'm not saying we have to get into any of it, but you don't need to downplay the situation because you don't think it's important." He looked at her more seriously. "Or don't want it to be important."

That energy was coming back into his voice. The focus, enthusiasm, and determination that she had seen flare after his last power change. She nodded, not trusting that she could convince him that it wasn't important, and not trusting that she believed it herself. And at least he wasn't pressing her on it. They could move on, even if he wasn't going to let everything that led up to the locker be forgotten.

"Right." She said, dropping her eyes to the table again. A sip of tea helped calm her down as she continued. "Without going into details, I guess in broad strokes…" She shook her head. "There was a lot of it, and it was constant. Every single day."

She found herself gritting her teeth and forced herself to relax. The comforting presence of her swarm and the regulating effect of Joe's healing technology helped ground her. Keep her centered.

"Sophia would get violent. Push, shove, or trip me whoever she could. Sometimes try to make it look like an accident, sometimes not bother." She explained. To her surprise Joe nodded. She raised an eyebrow in confusion.

"The first time I healed you there was more damage than just what you'd taken that night." He said. "The signs of long-term low-level trauma."

She swallowed. "You knew."

He shook his head. "I thought it might have been from training. Bad breakfalls and combat practice without pads or protection. This makes more sense, but it wasn't what I assumed."

She glanced away, taking another sip of tea. That was kind of gratifying, that he hadn't seen that and thought she was being bullied, had been bullied for years. He thought she'd been training. Training badly, in a way that kept hurting herself, but the fact that he had seen that and assumed it was a cape thing, that felt good.

"Um, right." She said, "Sophia did other stuff as well, but most of the time if things got physical it was her." She took another breath. "Madison would set up pranks. Put things on my chair before class, mess with my bag or my clothes during gym, that kind of thing. And Emma…"

There was another surge of emotion and another wave of regulation before Taylor felt she was ready to continue.

"Emma would dig up stuff from when we were friends, use that against me. She also roped other people into things. Other girls, mostly."

"Like the girls around her in the video?" Joe asked. Taylor nodded, but noted there was an additional look of concern in his eyes. "But only 'mostly'?" He asked.

She nodded. "Sometimes Emma or Sophia get guys to help them with whatever they're planning." She saw a slight flicker near Joe's eye as she continued. "Normally petty stuff, but Sophia did get some boys to chase me with duct tape after school."

Looking at Joe the best way she could describe his expression was 'restrained'. Somehow, there was an almost tangible air of restraint around him, like everything he did and said was suddenly least three layers from his actual reaction to the situation. "With duct tape?" He asked in the most deliberately level voice she had ever heard.

She nodded slowly. "I think that Sophia told them to tie me to a telephone pole, or something."

"Right." Joe said, again in an almost painfully level voice. "Or something." He swallowed and briefly closed his eyes before looking at her again. "Was that what happened in January?"

Taylor blinked. "Um, no. That was this February." She explained. "It really wasn't that bad, as that stuff goes. I mean, they've used duct tape to mess with me before, and I don't think the boys really cared. Like, not enough to run after me. I got away after a block."

Joe took a breath and nodded slowly. "The incident, in January. Was that what the flute was related to?" It sounded like he doubted it. Taylor didn't know how much he could learn from his thinker power. Well, powers. She knew he had a lot of other ways to gather information, even without getting into whatever Survey was actually capable of.

"No." Taylor said. "That was earlier. From my first year at Winslow."

She felt those controlled emotions welling up again. She didn't really want to talk about this, but it was what had dragged them back to the topic. She kind of needed to explain things. Plus, as much as she didn't want to talk about this, she wanted to talk about the locker even less. Frankly, she'd rather delve into the worst aspects of the bullying if it meant she could put off discussing the locker for just a little bit longer. It was kind of a pointless holding action, but it almost felt like if she could explain enough of what was happening, then the Locker would finally make sense.

It wouldn't. It never would. There was no natural progression from even the worst of Emma's cruelty to something like THAT. She had tried, tried so hard to make sense of things, but even knowing the stupid explanation for all of this, the inciting incident, and the reason for Emma's betrayal, it still didn't make sense. It was just so far off the map, so extreme that the idea of presenting it to someone out of context felt like the ravings of a crazy person. It was the kind of thing that didn't happen, except it had happened, to her.

She swallowed and took another breath. The motions had a familiarity to them even with her still adjusting to the new state of her body. Maybe it would have been best to wait until after this to accept Joe's healing technology, but for the moment she was grateful for what it was doing. How it was helping her hold steady through all of this.

"It was my mother's flute." She said. She watched as Joe went very still, with just a slight widening of his eyes showing he registered what she had said. "She had it from when she was a girl, and taught me how to play it."

There was a very slight nod from Joe. "I didn't know Professor Hebert played an instrument." He said very carefully.

Taylor forced herself to shrug. "She wasn't at a professional level or anything, she just liked playing it." Memories were welling up, bitter sweet. She pressed them down, helped through by focusing on her swarm, the near perfect awareness of everyone and everything in the surrounding blocks. It wasn't relevant to what she was talking about, but it provided a sense of security and control. Assurance that she wasn't going to be blindsided when she was at her most vulnerable.

"I, uh, started taking it to school with me." She admitted as she dropped her gaze to the table.

Her fingers closed around her teacup, which still felt like it was at the perfect temperature. A quick sip confirmed it somehow was, and helped her calm down and focus.

"It was near the start of… everything." She said with a sigh. "I didn't know why any of it was happening. I guess I thought having something of my mom's there would help."

"Did it?" Joe asked. There was a softness to his voice that came through the control, but also a dread for what he probably knew was coming. It was more expressive than she was used to seeing him, particularly conveyed through so little.

"At first." She said. The maelstrom of emotions was still there, but she could handle it. Wrench down on the automatic reactions of her body and lean into the awareness of her swarm to become something that couldn't be dragged down by the pain and grief of what had happened.

Well, almost. It wasn't easy. It was never going to be easy to talk about this, but she could handle it. With everything helping her she could get through this. And if she could get through this, she could handle explaining the Locker.

"What happened?" Joe asked with that same almost tangible level of control to his voice.

Taylor took a breath and tightened her grip on her teacup, enjoying the feeling of warmth on her hands. It helped with the empty feeling that the entire situation brought on.

"Someone stole it from my locker." She said, "Emma or Sophia. Probably not Madison, but…" She shook her head. "I confronted Emma about it. Tried to. She denied everything. Later…" She took another breath. "I found it. Broken and smeared with…" She didn't even want to describe the state she had found it in. "I tried to clean it, fix it, but it was…" She probably would have been shaking if not for all the effects holding her together. "I left it in the bathroom when I went to try to find something that would help. When I got back it was gone." She said solemnly. "I don't know if they took it again or someone else decided to throw it away, but I have no idea where it is now."

"It's in a waste transfer station in Exter." Joe said. Taylor's head snapped up. "Well, most of it is there, in a compacted cube of separated metal parts that haven't been shipped out yet. Part of it has been sent to the Coakley Landfill as residue from the Portsmouth waste-to-energy Incinerator. Three small pieces are under the rear dumpster of Winslow High School, in a pattern that suggests they broke off when it was subject to blunt force trauma, and nine other pieces of various sizes have been scattered along areas near waste processing routes."

Taylor nodded slowly. It was about what she suspected. After they made sure she knew what they had done to it they threw it away, making sure it was gone forever. Or someone else, some janitor or teacher, had found it in the bathroom and decided to get rid of it, rather than look into what had happened.

"So it's gone." She said softly.

"It's not gone." Joe said, causing her to look up. "I just told you exactly where it is."

The level of control was still there, but she could see shades of that burning excitement bubbling beneath the surface, and hear it in his voice. She could only imagine what it would be like if he wasn't obviously making a deliberate effort to restrain himself.

"I guess, but it's still gone." She said, "Burned, crushed, scattered, or melted. Even if you could get all the parts, it's not like you could fix it."

"Yes I can." Joe said.

Taylor looked at the determination in his eyes and shook her head. "I know you could rebuild it, but that's not the same as bringing it back. I don't want a new flute made from the pieces. This isn't something that can be fixed."

"Taylor, I'm not saying anything can make what happened to you right, but please believe me when I say this. I can fix anything." He said with a kind of confidence that had a nearly physical presence. "Anything that actually exists. I can absolutely fix your mother's flute. Not rebuild it, not refurbish it. I can fix what was done to it."

Taylor looked at Joe. At times it was easy to forget what he was. What she was dealing with. It shouldn't be, but somehow even when that strange energy was almost bleeding off him, he still was able to come across as the guy she had shared pizza with while he complained about unreasonable timeframes, not the force of nature that had the entire world on edge.

But that force of nature never really went away. You just overlooked it because you weren't used to seeing forces of nature that could act so amicable at the drop of a hat, then just as casually remind you why there were international responses primed for his team.

"This is… It isn't important." She lied, and Joe knew that she had lied. "I mean, this isn't what we're here to talk about."

"It's part of it." He said.

"Yes, but not a part that you have to deal with." She said.

He just looked at her. "It's Professor Hebert's flute." He said. "Of course I'm going to deal with it."

Taylor shut her mouth, a reply dying in the face of the unbridled sincerity she found herself faced with.

"Um, thank you." She said, "I mean, you're not going to run off now?"

He shook his head. "No, and I don't actually need to run off. I could do this through portals." Which was a terrifying concept in itself. "But we still need to talk about what happened in January."

Taylor swallowed. She still very much did not want to get into this, and the reminder of the true scale of the power she was dealing with really didn't help. But there was no way she could think of to delay things further without making the situation even worse.

It was almost funny. She had shared her 'origin story' with the Undersiders without a second thought. Back when she believed that was just what you did when you joined a group of capes. Embarrassing to say, but it was probably too many movies and bad cape dramas influencing how she thought things would go. Back when she at least partially bought into the idea that triggers were about overcoming something. Rising above a challenge and breaking limits.

Everyone else knew that triggers were serious. Joe knew that triggers were serious. He probably treated them more seriously than anyone she had ever met, which made her wonder what his could have been like. What kind of trigger caused someone to end up with powers like his?

It wasn't something she wanted to ask, just like she didn't want to share the details of her trigger. Not just because she had desperately wanted to keep Joe separate from her problems at school. Not just because of how bad it had been. No, she was worried because Joe knew about powers. He knew about triggers and what they meant. He was able to talk through different types of tinker triggers with full confidence, and that was only the tip of the iceberg for him.

What would Joe be able to learn from her trigger event? She didn't know. Odds were it wouldn't be more than he already knew, but it was another level of exposure for something that was already excessively personal.

Still, unless she wanted him to learn about it from someone else, she didn't have a choice here. She steeled herself and nodded to Joe.

"Right." She said, glancing down at her teacup, wondering when she had managed to empty it. Joe picked up the teapot again and swirled it. It sounded like there was much more water in it than there should be and when he filled her cup it was once again piping hot and smelled even better than before. She gave him a questioning look but he just shrugged and set the teapot back down. "Right." She repeated herself as she took a sip of truly excellent tea.

Joe thankfully gave her time to collect herself. Despite the level of intensity, there was no sense that he was rushing or pressing her. She took a breath, set her cup down, then looked up at Joe.

"Things, um, they didn't get better in my second year." She said, "Actually, pretty much everything was worse. Emma, Sophia, and Madison just kept escalating, finding ways to make everything worse, involving more people." She let out a breath. "The teachers wouldn't do anything. Wouldn't believe me most of the time, or downplayed it. I… I stopped trying to get help. Just focused on making it through."

Joe nodded while keeping his expression level. The control he was exerting was reassuring, in a way, but it was also concerning. Concerning that he felt he had to exert this kind of control, and before she had even explained about the locker. She swallowed nervously before continuing.

"The incident, the one I've asked you not to look into, it happened at the start of January, after I got back from Christmas vacation." She explained as she shifted her teacup in her hands. "Before Christmas things had started to calm down. They were doing stuff less often and it wasn't as bad as it had been. There were days when they didn't even try, and then it stopped." She remembered that, the tension mixed with hope that she couldn't quite bring herself to believe. "One of the girls who hung out with them, helped with the bullying, she apologized to me. Started spending time with me and asked if I wanted to hang out."

"Uh-huh." Joe said in a tone that suggested he trusted that about as much as she had.

"Right." Taylor said, rotating the cup in her hands again. "I didn't trust it, not really, but it was nice being able to talk with someone, to eat lunch without being bothered." She placed the cup down on the table. "In the last two weeks of November and December before the break things were… okay. Nothing happened and I almost believed that they had just gotten tired of messing with me and given up."

Joe gave her a look that rather effectively conveyed his thoughts on the likelihood of that. She gave a small nod before continuing.

"When I came back in January, on the first day of class, I knew things had changed. There was a feeling, like everyone was waiting for my reaction to what was going to happen." She explained. Joe nodded and gestured for her to continue.

She took a breath and pressed on. "It was my locker."

She saw Joe raise an eyebrow, like that registered something. She didn't know if it was his power or if he had heard something from back when it happened, but she couldn't stop to ask. It felt like if she did she would never make it through. "

They had broken into my locker and filled it nearly to the top with used pads and tampons. They must have taken them from every sanitary bin in the school. From the smell that must have done it before the break. Just left everything in there for weeks."

Joe looked down on her and there was once again the sense of immense restraint, like some colossal power was being leveraged to contain an unfathomable force. "How did they open the school with something like that happening?" He asked. She gave him a confused look. "Weeks of rot from a hazard of that level, it should have shut down the entire building."

She shook her head. "It was mostly contained. Sealed in my locker. I didn't even really notice it until I was right next to it."

She remembered the smell. Just the first hint of the true rot that hit her when she opened it. Her stomach gave a phantom sensation of nausea, but her nanites stopped any physical effect it might have on her. That was reassuring, that she could make it through this without being overwhelmed.

"They had messed with my locker before." She continued. "Put paint or garbage or rotten food in it. I tried to get a better lock, but it never helped." There was another slight movement from Joe, one that was probably only noticeable because of how much he was working to control his reactions. He gave her another small nod and she continued. "I thought it was something like that. Just another prank. It wasn't until I opened my locker that I realized how bad it was."

"That wasn't the end of it." Joe said with complete certainty.

She swallowed and nodded. She didn't know where his knowledge came from, but that didn't change the situation.

"The smell, when it hit me, and when I saw what was inside, I threw up. Doubled over in the hallway." She said, reaching down for her teacup again. "That was when someone grabbed me by the hair and…" She swallowed again and dropped her eyes to the table. "I never saw who it was, but they shoved me into the locker. Closed the door behind me. I was trapped in there, struggling, trying to get out." She took a breath without looking up. "That's how I triggered. Getting powers like that, I didn't know what was happening. Suddenly I was connected to bugs all around me. Someone got me out part way through first period, I don't know exactly when. I was still struggling, fighting, trying to figure out what was happening. I don't remember much after the paramedics came and took me to the hospital."

Silence fell over the kitchen as Taylor gripped her teacup tightly. The bright day, the comfortable and safe surroundings, they seemed like they should have been able to help, to buffer her from that horrible moment, but they didn't. It was exactly as fresh in her mind as the moment it had happened.

"They tried to murder you."

The words drew Taylor's eyes back to Joe and she felt her breath catch in her throat. There was… something. That nearly tangible sense of restraint she'd seen earlier wasn't 'nearly' tangible anymore. She didn't know exactly why she was looking at, but it was like the conflict of forces around Joe had leaked into the physical world, creating an impression that she couldn't quite describe. It was like she was looking at Joe the person, and also something bigger, something angry and monstrous that was layered over him, or maybe the impression of the boy sitting in her kitchen was the impression and that monstrous shadow was the truth of what she was looking at.

Joe looked at her expression and seemed to come back to himself. He somehow both tensed and relaxed at the same time and suddenly that impression was gone. Except she knew it wasn't. It was just restrained, or hidden. Concealed behind iron control that was being exerted on her behalf.

Taylor suddenly realized she had been holding her breath. The nanites had meant she hadn't even noticed, but that didn't change the intensity of what had just happened. That, it had been like watching someone take an exploding bomb and manually forced the blast back into the casing. All the destructive potential was still there, you just couldn't see it, or be sure of what would cause it to ultimately be released.

"Um, what?" Taylor said, trying to wrestle between what she had just seen, or not seen, and what Joe had said. "No, they…" It had been horrible. The worst experience of her life, but she had never thought of it as murder.

Joe looked down at her and began to speak in a controlled voice, practically a monotone. "There is a very good reason blood based medical waste is treated as carefully as it is. Even if the school hadn't been heated and the material was collected immediately prior to the winter break, it would have putrefied tremendously. More likely it would have needed to be collected over an extended period to amass that volume of waste, meaning it would already have been highly dangerous when it was placed in the locker. Forcing an individual into a confined metal space could easily result in lacerations or abrasions, which would almost be guaranteed to result in serious infection, as would struggles to free yourself. Even setting that aside, there are significant health risks to being contained with that type of hazardous material. Even the lowest estimates of the amount of time involved would have presented tremendous risk."

Taylor listened to what he was saying, and it made sense, but still, she found herself shaking her head. "I don't think they were trying to kill me." She said. That was true. Mostly because if they wanted her dead there would have been simpler ways. Less painful and drawn-out ways. Strangely, her confidence came from the fact that a murder attempt was more direct than the extended cruelties she'd had inflicted on her.

"Assessment of their intentions are largely immaterial. It is entirely possible that forcing you into the locker was not planned in advance and was taken as a target of opportunity, but that does not diminish the severity of the act or the dangers that you were subjected to." Joe continued. It was like hearing analysis reports read back to her rather than the conversational tones from earlier.

"But I was fine." She said, then bit her tongue, which didn't actually hurt now, another slightly distracting element of Joe's healing. She couldn't believe she was trying to downplay things. She hadn't been fine. She'd been about as far from fine as possible. She'd wanted revenge, justice, some form of retribution, but in the face of what Joe was saying she was trying to talk him down.

Because she'd seen what was lying under the surface. Because she knew what Joe, what Apeiron was capable of. Because she was worried that if she didn't phrase this just the right way, if she couldn't explain herself, then Apeiron was going to kill someone.

Kill someone again. Because Joe, Joe had already killed. It was hard to think of it like that, which was largely why she hadn't. Taking down Lung at that point had been like stopping a natural disaster or turning back a hurricane. Yes, Joe had deliberately decided to end Lung's life, but with everything that had been happening, the impact of that decision had been lost.

It almost felt like it didn't matter. At the scale that Joe and his team operated, a death like that was barely worth noting. You could see that in how things were being reported. The fact that he used lethal force, something that was normally a major issue for capes wasn't even brought up. Not when he was deploying 'strategic weapons' right outside the city.

Taylor hated Emma. She hated Sophia and hated Madison. She hated them for what they had done to her and the stupid, meaningless reason behind all of it. And she hated that she felt she had to defend them, to downplay what they had done in order to keep Joe from unleashing what was possibly a literal hell upon them. And possibly not just them.

"You survived. You were not fine." Joe said, somehow perfectly echoing her own thoughts. He continued in that same flat tone. "There are cases where trigger events involve a restorative effect independent of the powers granted by the event in question. Additionally, you would have received broad spectrum antibiotic treatments upon being admitted to the hospital. The fact that disaster was averted does nothing to absolve the responsibility of those involved or diminish the severity of their actions." He looked down at her. "If they elected to push you off a cliff, your survival would not negate the criminality of their actions, only the severity of the charges."

Taylor fell silent. She didn't know what to do here, what she should do. Her main concern had been how the news would reflect on her. She knew Joe would react, but had been thinking about it in terms of how it would impact his impression of her or her situation.

Up to now it had been impossible to actually do anything about what had happened to her. She had to fight to be believed, and the people who would accept her story weren't in a position to do anything. She might get sympathy, or tolerance, but that was it.

She hadn't come into this conversation ready for a planning session on what to do about the locker incident. That was probably foolishness on her part, but after everything that had happened, all the struggle and dismissals, she had given up on ever getting justice. It seemed impossible that Emma or Sophia would face any consequences for their actions.

But of course, Joe had a different definition of impossible.

"I am guessing there were no legal charges filed?" Joe asked. "Or no significant ones?"

The question meant he still hadn't looked into the situation himself. That he was still letting her explain rather than diving into it with his own information gathering powers. That helped calm her down a little bit. It meant she still had some control over the situation. That it hadn't completely spun away from her. Of course, she doubted anything she had to say would help on that front.

"No." She admitted. "No charges. I didn't see who pushed me in, and no one else would come forward."

There was a twitch of Joe's eye that caused a ripple to pulse through the kitchen, creating a sensation that Taylor could feel in her teeth.

"And the teachers?" Joe asked. Taylor could just shake her head.

"They never took me seriously before, and I didn't have anything that led to Sophia, Emma, or Madison. Nothing concrete that they would accept. And afterwards…" She swallowed. "I was out of it for a while. Psychological ward in the hospital, then home for the rest of the month. My dad tried, but the school was more worried about protecting themselves. Avoiding liability."

"Did they?" Joe asked sharply.

Taylor looked up at him with concern. The last people she wanted to protect were the facility of Winslow High, but the image she had glimpsed before still hung in her mind. From all appearances, she was talking with a perfectly normal if slightly tense college student. The reality couldn't have been further from that impression, and she was worried about what she might be able to unleash. Or might have already unleashed.

"Partially." She said, "They made a deal to pay for medical expenses and to deal with the situation at school."

"Which they didn't." Jos said plainly.

Taylor nodded reluctantly. "As far as they were concerned, the bullying wasn't happening. They had no problem promising to stop something that, from their perspective, hadn't been a problem and never would be."

She watched Joe's reaction closely, braced for another display of impossible perspectives of shifting energies. Instead he briefly lowered his head, then looked up at her.

"Excuse me." He said, standing up and sliding his chair back into the table. There was the slightest pop, then he was gone from the kitchen.

Suddenly Taylor started to breathe again. She hadn't realized that had stopped, and it hadn't been a problem that it had, but when Joe left he took a kind of intangible pressure with him, one that had built so gradually that she had barely noticed it. She could tell that without the effect of the healing and her connection to her swarm it would have been so much worse.

The relief at the lack of pressure was undermined by the concern of where that pressure had been directed. She found herself listening for possible warning sirens and wondering if she should check for emergency alerts. Joe had vanished and, for all she knew, he could be wiping Winslow off the face of the map.

Well, probably not. Hopefully not. Earlier she would have said there'd be no chance. Earlier she'd clearly been overconfident about her ability to explain the situation. And she might have been right, if not for that latest change in Joe's powers.

The same effect that had been exciting and dynamic to watch play out was terrifying when framed this way. And worse, she didn't know what it was or what it had done, only that it would have made Joe's best work, something that was basically as good as immortality handed out in a yellow ball, much easier for him to accomplish.

And now that was loose and directed who knew where. While she was sitting in her kitchen, drinking tea. Very good tea. She finished her cup, then reached for the teapot. The weight surprised her, but frankly Joe somehow making more tea inside the teapot without adding water was the least remarkable thing that had happened during his visit. She poured another cup, once again at the perfect temperature, and took a sip.

Okay, maybe it wasn't that unremarkable. Still, drinking very good tea while for all she knew Apeiron could be raging through the city felt like she was being negligent. But what was she supposed to do? Get her costume and use the flying cape to search for any disaster areas? Use her watch to coordinate with her team to head off anything that might be about to happen?

…or use her watch to call Joe and ask what was happening. The idea hadn't even occurred to her, which made her question a lot about her approach to the entire situation. The obvious solution was sitting right in front of her while she planned for dealing with a city-wide crusade. Just as she was about to reach for her watch, there was an almost inaudible popping sound and Joe appeared back in the kitchen, exactly from where he had left.

"Sorry about that." He said, pulling his chair out and sitting back at the table like nothing had happened.

Looking closer, Joe at least seemed less agitated than he had before. She watched as he picked up the teapot in both hands and poured himself another cup. The tension from earlier was still there, there was no doubt when she could feel that invisible pressure reassert itself, but it seemed more controlled and directed. The image that jumped to mind was that, rather than a spring being held down with trembling muscles, she was looking at a gun that was cocked and ready to go off. Something that was less likely to break out haphazardly, but that energy that had been barely contained was now sitting, ready to be directed at something. Or someone.

"What was that?" She asked. "Why did you have to leave?"

"I had to deal with a situation." He said. His tone was more natural, without the forced control from before., "Well, had to defuse two situations while essentially priming eight more, but believe me, that is an improvement."

Taylor furrowed her brow. Joe was raising fewer concerns than he had when he left, it wasn't like anything had been resolved. She could still remember that barely contained force. This wasn't the kind of situation where she'd want to provoke him. Actually, most people wouldn't want to risk provoking him at all, but his response, that irreverent half answer, was the kind of thing that ate away at her. That dismissed her from the problems of her own life, for them to be suffered or endured or trivialized.

"What does that mean?" She demanded, leaning forward slightly. "What exactly did you need to deal with?"

She braced herself for his reaction. Not out of fear that he might be dangerous to her, but he was dangerous. She knew more of what he was capable of than most people, and knew even that was just scratching the surface. She wasn't worried for herself, but she was worried. Very worried.

Fortunately, Joe seemed to recognize that. He had before, which kept raising questions about how much he knew and what he could detect. Still, she watched his expression soften slightly as he nodded to her.

"Sorry." He said. "Two of my team wanted to do something. We're about to do something. It wasn't a good idea, but other circumstances already had them wound up. I dealt with that, but now there are eight members of my team who are waiting to do something."

She blinked. "I didn't think you had eight other members of your team." She admitted as she processed the rest of what he had said.

"Some of them count as more than one person." He said.

Taylor blinked. "What?"

Joe shrugged. "Members of my team have complex existences. It's complicated, but single individuals can count as multiple people."

"What, like duplication powers?" She asked. They weren't that common, but you saw them from a few capes.

"Like that or like other effects." He said. "I can't explain more without revealing details about them that it's not my place to share."

And that was basically that. Joe respecting privacy wasn't something she could fault him on, even though it chaffed. And technically she could still call any of his team and ask, but she was having a hard enough time only dealing with Joe.

That is, if she was actually only dealing with Joe.

"Does the rest of your team know about this?" She asked. "What I'm telling you?"

"Most of them knew already." He said. Taylor gave him a surprised look. "I've avoided details, but that wasn't easy. Some of them knew before the incident yesterday, some picked it up as soon as details started circulating. And some of them wouldn't have paid any attention until I found out."

It spoke to a dynamic between his team that seemed strange to Taylor, like it was simultaneously the most powerful and coordinated parahuman organization on the planet while also being less organized than the Undersiders had been when she'd first met them.

"That's why they want to do something? Because you know?" She asked.

Joe gave her a level look. "Taylor, I'm pretty sure they wanted to do something from the moment they found out. Anyone would."

"Not anyone." She said bitterly.

"Anyone not invested in downplaying the situation in order to protect themselves and their interests, and anyone with the ability to make a difference." He said. "And something has to be done."

Hearing that should have been a relief. Finally, the assurance that something would happen. That things would be made right. That the Trio would be held accountable. But it wasn't a relief. For some reason she couldn't understand, Apeiron's promise only filled her with dread. She had wished and hoped for so long for some way to make the bullies stop. For someone to help her.

If someone had told her that help would come in the form of a super powerful tinker and his team of beyond Triumvirate level capes she would have dismissed it as a meaningless fantasy. Not a real solution, just the kind of thing children dream about when they don't have any other options.

"It doesn't have to be." She said, "Not now. Not with everything else going on. And not by you."

That was it, really. The core of it. This was Apeiron, The Enigmatic Artificer. The strongest tinker on the planet. Possibly the strongest cape on the planet, and one of the rare times that statement could be made without qualifiers to exclude people like Scion, Sleeper, or the Endbringers. It felt like a criminal waste to even mention this kind of thing to him. To waste his time on something so petty as her school issues.

She had no doubt that Joe could 'deal' with this problem. Between him and his team they probably had a million terrifying ways to deal with this problem. But asking him to spend even a single additional second dealing with the Trio felt worse than a waste. It was like she was aggrandizing them. Suggesting that they were actually worth this kind of effort. This kind of attention.

She hated that. Hated the idea that even now, even when she had power and connections and a mission important enough to be one of Apeiron's priorities, that Emma, Sophia, and Madison were still dragging her down. Hated that their petty cruelty had somehow propelled them into this level of relevance.

"Taylor, I understand how you feel." Joe said.

Taylor felt a spike of irritation. "Do you?" Her response burst out before she could recalibrate for who she was dealing with.

"Yes." Joe said. There was no offence or condescension in his tone, but also no compromise.

"And you're still going to do something?" She asked. "You or one of your team?"

"Yes." He said again. "Because they tried to kill you."

"They-"

"They escalated, continuously, through increasing levels of harassment and assault, with no restraint or moderation beyond what I'm guessing were superficial attempts to avoid culpability. They engaged multiple others in their actions, implicating them and ultimately creating a situation where a substantial number of people were willing to overlook a potentially lethal attack. An attack that you were fortunate to escape without a debilitating injury. And they haven't stopped."

"They haven't." Taylor admitted. "But they haven't tried anything like the locker."

"The duct tape?" Joe asked.

Taylor shook her head. "I got away from that. It wasn't that bad."

"No, it wasn't." Joe said, and it sounded like he had more he wanted to say, but he stopped there. Once again, that restraint was becoming evident. The coiled spring that was being held back through continuous effort.

She dropped her eyes to the table. "I don't want you to have to deal with this." She admitted. "I didn't even want to tell you about this. It's not something that has anything to do with you, or what you're trying to accomplish, or the real problems in the city."

"This isn't a real problem?" Joe asked.

Taylor bit her lip. "Not compared to the Teeth, or the gangs, or everything else you talked about." She shook her head. Possibly the worst part of all of this was the vile feeling that she was defending the Trio. That she was forced to advocate for them against someone who could reduce them to atoms, or worse. "This is just a problem for me. Just me."

Joe looked down at her. "What about their other victims?" He asked.

"What?" Taylor asked. "What other victims?"

"Patterns of behavior tend to repeat themselves." He explained. "Do you believe that Emma would suddenly become a good person if you weren't involved, or is it likely that she repeats the traits she's demonstrated in other situations?"

"That's different." Taylor said. She hadn't thought about anyone else that Emma might have targeted. Mostly because it wouldn't have been close to what she went through, but also the idea of Emma going after someone without the advantage she had with Taylor just didn't make sense. "And it wouldn't be as bad."

"They have escalated to murder attempts. That's about as bad as it gets, and not the kind of thing that can be ignored."

"I am not saying to ignore it." She said firmly. "Just, not now. Not when things are so important."

Joe looked at her. "Do you really want to leave this, or do you just not want me to be the one to deal with it?" He asked directly.

She looked at his expression and the denial she had prepared died in her throat. "I… I don't know."" She dropped her head. "Does it matter? I know they have to be dealt with. I want them to be dealt with." She said with complete sincerity. "But not like this. Not from this."

"I can understand wanting to deal with this yourself, particularly after everything you've gone through, but that's not always possible, and waiting for the perfect moment, if it even comes, will this let them do more damage."

"To me." Taylor said, looking up at him. "And I can deal with that. I've been dealing with that. I know you're worried, about me and in general, but it can wait. It's not like they've actually killed anyone."

Instead of responding Joe just looked at her with a neutral expression. A very careful neutral expression. "Um, Joe?" She asked. The expression didn't change. A seed of concern began to grow in her stomach. "Joe, did they… Do you know something?"

Joe looked down at her for a long moment before he spoke.

"I'm not going to lie to you."

And then he fell silent. Taylor felt like the earth was spinning beneath her. Only the absolute certainty of her swarm kept her grounded. Joe wasn't saying anything, but he specifically wasn't saying anything. Wasn't making the reassuring denial that she had been expecting. Which only meant one thing.

She could barely believe it, but Joe wouldn't throw something like that out if it wasn't true. "How do you know?" She asked. "If you could know?"

Joe took a breath. "Survey's powers are very comprehensive, and capable of some rather abstract applications."

"She can tell if someone is a… murderer?" Taylor asked, but Joe didn't offer a response.

He hadn't said murder. Killed someone. There were a lot of ways that could be true without it being actual murder. Or intentional murder. As much as she didn't want to think about it, Joe was right about the risks from the locker. It had been impossibly hard to deal with that even at the most basic level. Thinking about additional implications, particularly when no one else had been in a hurry to make them, had been beyond her.

Which of them had it been? Or was it all of them? What had happened? Some other prank that went wrong? A target of opportunity that they impulsively took? Or just their typical abuse that went that one step too far.

There had been enough times when Taylor had narrowly avoided plummeting down a flight of stairs or hitting her head when Sophia shoved or tripped her. Any of those times, if things had gone wrong in just the right way, that could have been it. She could have been the one Joe was talking about.

Or not talking about. Why wasn't he coming out and saying it? She knew Joe valued personal privacy, but there had to be something here beyond just that. Something with the victim, or the circumstances?

She wanted to know, wanted to push and demand answers, but suddenly this was beyond her. Literally beyond her. She had always looked at this as her versus the Trio. It was her fight, her struggle, her burden to bear.

Except it wasn't. Other people had been impacted by their actions, horribly impacted, in the worst way possible. She didn't know the details. She didn't know if she should know the details, but that wasn't the point.

She felt the last threads of control she had over the situation slip away from her. When it had just been her it felt like it had been her decision. Her call on how to handle things, but it wasn't. It couldn't be, not unless she wanted to be exactly the kind of person she despised so much, someone putting off justice for someone else because they didn't find the situation palatable or convenient. The kind of person who let her own situation become as bad as it had.

"Fuck." She muttered. She saw Joe give her a small nod.

"Yeah." He said. "Pretty much sums this up."

"I can't believe I was even arguing against this." She spat. "Like I was defending them." She shook her head. "That was bad enough when it was just me but…" She looked up at Joe. "You're sure? About that?" There was no response, not even a hint of a reaction. "Right. Of course you're sure."

She sighed and took a frustrated sip of her tea. Somehow the fact that it was still fresh, delicious, and the perfect temperature seemed slightly offensive. At this point in the conversation with this level of frustration she should have cold and bitter tea, as befitted her mood. It felt like the warm beverage was insincerely trying to console her.

It didn't help that it was succeeding.

"I hate this." She admitted. "I hate that after everything I had to advocate for THEM." She looked up at Joe. "I really did want to deal with this. It's just…"

"You couldn't." Joe said. "Not in that situation. Not with the resources available to you."

She nodded. "I can't tell you how many times I thought about cutting loose. Just going Carrie on the entire school." She paused and looked up at him. "It's an old movie about-"

"I know it." He said.

"Right. Right." She dropped her eyes to her tea again and took another sip of the traitorous beverage that didn't even have the good grace to know when it shouldn't be delicious and calming. "I didn't. I mean, obviously. Doing something like that, it felt like letting them win." She let out a breath. "And somehow this feels like letting them win."

"Trust me, they're not going to win." Joe said sternly. "Not them, and not anyone involved in this."

She looked up at his expression and shifted slightly in her seat. "I know." She said, "It's just, after everything over the last two years, everything I've gone through, this is seriously the end?"

"It will be." Joe assured her.

She took a breath. A breath she didn't need. "Good." She said.

The word felt hollow. Hollow because after all this time, after everything, this was it. She was trusting someone else to deal with the problem, after not being able to trust anyone for so long. And she knew it wasn't misplaced trust. If anything, it was excessive.

She was still adjusting to the idea that Emma might actually face consequences for some of what she had done. Not everything, but just the idea that she couldn't lie her way out of things, it seemed insane.

But it wasn't insane. Insane was the fact that it had happened in the first place. That it had gone on for so long and gotten so bad without anyone doing anything. Until suddenly they were. Suddenly people were acting like what had happened to her wasn't normal, like it was wrong and something needed to be done about it.

It was a relief, but also somehow it was almost offensive, like the entire situation had never been alright. Never been normal. Exactly what she had felt, had tried to fight for, before failure after failure piled up and all she could do was take it. All she could do was…

"I endured all of this, and now it's going to end?" She said, "I know I should be happy. Be glad it's over, and I am, but it's like it's not real." She said to the strongest cape in the world who was sitting at her kitchen table drinking tea. Not real was right.

"I understand." He said. She raised an eyebrow at him. "Trust me, I do." He took a breath. "When we can't change our circumstances the only thing we can do is endure. When you endure for long enough it becomes part of who you are. Almost something you can be proud of. An accomplishment from what would otherwise be a dark time. Sometimes the only accomplishment you have." He looked down at her. "Someone just fixing things, easily fixing them, it's like they're saying that what you went through didn't matter. That the 'accomplishment' of being able to endure was actually a failure, because you couldn't fix the problem."

Taylor let out a long breath and sank into her seat. She didn't respond, didn't want to respond. To acknowledge how right that sounded.

"Taylor, it's easy to look back on situations with the skills or knowledge or capabilities you gain later in life and think that you should have done things differently, could have done things differently, but the reality is we do the best we can at the time." Joe explained. "Being angry about not fixing a fixable situation doesn't mean that it was a situation we could have dealt with at the time."

Taylor gave him a weak nod. "I don't know if this was fixable for me. I mean, by me." She shook her head. "Even now, if I didn't have a super tinker to throw at the problem, I don't think anything would have a hope of changing. Emma might get in trouble for attacking me, but not for the locker, and probably not for any of the other things she and the others did."

Joe smiled at her. "Well, then it's a good thing you have a super tinker to throw at your problem, along with his team."

"It still feels like a waste of your time." She said.

"It's not." He assured her. "Something like this, on this scale, it would have warranted intervention on its own. Even if I'd never met you. Even if I hadn't known your mother."

She nodded. "Thank you, for helping, and for not running off right away." She smiled at him. "With how you reacted earlier, I didn't expect you to be so calm when you got back."

An amused look crossed Joe's face. "Taylor, I'm not calm. I'm apoplectic."

She froze, looking at the good-natured expression on the man's face. "What?"

He smiled wider and now she could see an edge behind the friendliness. "Right now I am a seething mass of fury and borderline madness that is just barely able to be channeled towards a constructive purpose." He explained in a congenial tone. "The actions that were taken against you, the desecration of your mother's memory, and the complete disregard for your safety and life enraged me to the point where I effectively had to pilot my body through a mental construct just to exert some level of control. Then, after having to resolve two similar issues that had progressed to an even more dangerous level, I was able to look into the rest of the situation." His smile widened as he continued. "Every additional detail only served to make things so much worse on such a scale that serious consideration was given to addressing matters on a systemic level." He leaned towards her. "I'm sorry, but I am not calm." He said calmly.

"You're not?" She asked cautiously. Joe leaned back and shook his head.

"Sorry." He said with a shrug.

"Then why don't you seem…" She gestured at him.

He smiled wider. "Well, fun fact there. I have a power that ensures that no matter how bad things get or how enraged people are, I'll always have a chance for a dialogue before things go to hell."

Taylor raised an eyebrow. "Seriously?" She asked. He nodded.

"That's right. It's only come up a couple of times, but it's quite useful." He explained.

"And you're using it now?" She asked. "Have been using it? For this long?"

He nodded. "Normally it wouldn't activate for something like this, and would only last for a few moments, just enough for a brief dialogue, but…" He smiled. "You remember what I told you about modifying powers through related items?"

She nodded slowly. The topic that brought up her mother's flute, and started all this. "Like Dauntless." She said, "But you need something related to the power, right?" Joe nodded. "Something related to… talking over problems?" She furrowed her brow. Joe hadn't been carrying anything when he came back. Certainly nothing that would explain the kind of thing he was talking about, but he was acting like the answer was right in front of her.

She looked up as Joe lifted the teapot towards her. She smiled weakly and raised her cup. Then, as Joe was pouring another cup of that improbably excellent tea, it hit her like lightning.

"Ah!" She exclaimed, flinching backwards and pulling her cup away from the pot. And watching as the motion sent the tea flying upwards, then landing back in the cup without a single stray drop, the splash somehow having aerated and cooled the tea into what seemed like a completely new blend.

She carefully put the cup down at the side of the table and pulled back her hands before turning back to Joe. "Teapot? The TEAPOT?" She gasped.

Joe shrugged and set it back in the center of the table. "It's thematically appropriate for a conversation. My apologies for modifying it without asking. It's not as good as it would be if I made it myself, but it did the trick. I thought it was important to get through this conversation."

"This…" Taylor shook her head. "This makes you calm? Able to talk through things?" She looked up at him. "Was it making me calm? Was any of this actually me?"

"Of course it was." He assured her. "It wouldn't be a significant dialogue if it was false or manipulative. You were you and I was me."

"And you had to do this? Use this?" She asked.

"With where things were headed? Definitely." He said. "It was important to work though this while I still had a way to do so calmly, and to deal with it before people start interrogating neural clones of the major actors. Or decide to rob the sun."

"Rob the sun?" Taylor asked, feeling less certain of herself by the second.

Joe just made a dismissive gesture. "I was very, very angry and there was an idea for a device that will definitely probably not be used on anyone involved in this case." He said, as if that explained anything rather than just raising more concerns.

Taylor placed her hands on the table and took a breath. "So, you're still as angry as you were before." Joe looked like he was going to say something. "Or angrier?" There was a slight nod. "And that will all kick in once we finish talking?" Another small nod. "When that happens, what are you going to do? How are you going to deal with something like this?"

"Almost nothing, and with great difficulty." He said.

"Nothing?" Taylor asked. "You're going to do… nothing?"

"Well, comparatively nothing, by my standards." He explained.

"Alright." She said, "And that will be difficult?"

"Sort of." He continued. "This isn't the kind of problem you can solve by unleashing a fiery wrath upon the world. That just compounds the original problem and makes a bunch of new ones."

Taylor nodded. It was good to know that he wasn't going to 'Go Carrie', though given the circumstances it was still a bit concerning.

"And you're sure about that?" She asked. "Even with what's going to happen?"

With what WAS going to happen. Suddenly every word of their conversation felt like the timer of a bomb slowly ticking down to zero. When would it go off? Were they running out of time? Out of tea? She glanced at the teapot in concern and wondered if having another cup would help delay that countdown or would accelerate it.

"I'm sure." He said. "This isn't the kind of anger that's mindlessly destructive. It can be mindfully destructive, but I'm actually more capable of handling complex problems when I'm worked up."

"That's because of your latest power, isn't it?" She asked. "The one you got when we were talking?"

"It is." He confirmed.

She let out a breath. "So you didn't know any of this would happen. That any of this was even possible." He nodded. "How… How do you even deal with that?"

"As well as I can." He said. "And at the very least, I know that if I do end up in a nearly blind rage I'll still have a chance to speak with someone rationally before the wrath of the gods is unleashed."

Taylor nodded slowly. It sounded insane, but the chaotic, nearly random powers were helping to keep the chaotic nearly random powers in check. It was easy to see why everyone was so concerned about Apeiron. Even if Joe was confident in himself, there was no one else who could share that level of certainty.

"And you're not going to attack anyone?" She asked.

"That would be a little counterproductive." Joe said. "And I already promised Lisa that I wouldn't burn down the city when I found out what happened to you."

Taylor cringed slightly, but was glad that Lisa had tried to take some precautions.

"I'm not going to attack anyone, and I'm fairly certain I can stop everyone else." He explained.

"What, you mean your team?" She asked. Joe nodded. "Why do they care about this?"

"Because it's horrible?" He said. "Because it's a fundamental breakdown of trust? Because it's a vile undermining of the systems that are supposed to protect people and stop this kind of thing from happening?"

That sounded… heroic. Or how heroes were supposed to sound. What they were supposed to care about. What Taylor thought they did care about until she learned otherwise first hand.

"Are they alright waiting for you?" She asked. "You said they were 'primed'?"

"They are. Very much in some cases. But they aren't waiting." He explained.

"They've started?" She asked in concern.

"What? No, nothing's started, because there's been nothing to start." He said. She gave him a confused look. "A power that lets me talk to someone before fighting would just be a liability if it left both parties exposed and occupied."

"What do you mean?" She asked.

"Check your watch." He said.

She glanced down at the elegant watch face on the thin band. It took her a moment to realize the second hand wasn't moving. The watch that was supposed to last hundreds of years… Either it had broken or…

She looked at the clock on the kitchen wall. It showed the same time with the hands also frozen. She blinked. Time wasn't moving. Time had stopped, but her perception hadn't. She could still feel her bugs, still get information on everything. The world wasn't actually frozen, but looking closer it wasn't advancing either. It was like… like… like…

"Best not to think too hard about it." Joe said as he reached over the table to steady her.

She shook her head, trying to let the information from her swarm fade into the background of her awareness. "If you can do this, if you can control it-"

"I can't." He said. "Not offensively. This is close to the limit, and if you push it, it will push back." She gave him a concerned look, but he just shrugged. "It's good at what it does, as long as you leave it to do that."

"Right. Right." She said, shaking her head again. "So, what are you actually trying to do?" She asked. "What does 'dealing with' something like this involve?"

Joe leaned back in his chair. "The same thing that anyone would want it to involve." He said. "Justice, accountability, and ensuring that this won't happen to anyone else."

"For everyone involved?" She asked.

"Absolutely." He said with a smile.

Taylor let out a breath. "That sounds like a tall order."

He grinned at her. "Well, I can reach further than you would think."

"Probably." She admitted. "You can really do this?"

"Absolutely." He said. "Maybe not all at once, but I can get everything moving, and make sure nothing is overlooked." His expression turned serious. "This can't happen again. Not to you, not to anyone. I'm going to make sure of it."

Taylor nodded, feeling the weight of his words. This was it. The end, or the beginning of the end. Not just a stop to the bullying, but a chance that Emma, Sophia, and Madison might actually face consequences. Real consequences, not halfhearted admonishments from teachers or meaningless punishments that were ignored or undermined.

"So what happens now?" She asked, looking at the teapot like it was a live bomb. Which was kind of appropriate, all things considered. "How do we stop this?"

Joe smiled at her, then reached down and took the lid off the teapot. She was expecting a burst of light or some kind of explosion, but there was nothing but the clink of porcelain and a view of the inside of a perfectly clean and empty teapot. She raised an eyebrow and looked up, then froze.

That constrained energy was back, only worse. The edges of Joe's form blurred, like she was looking at an impossible object where every slight shift revealed new angles. She could see twisting shadows, shades of red fibers, flecks of burning paper, grey light, bronze scales, clay sculptures, and a dozen other things that made her eyes hurt.

"Are you alright?" She asked as she squinted, trying to make sense of what she was seeing.

"I am spectacular!" Joe declared, climbing to his feet. "A bold future awaits, one free of the corruption and tribulations that have been inflicted upon you. Great works, subtle works, in service to a tremendous cause!"

It didn't sound like the kind of thing people said when they were dealing with systemic negligence and trying to address past grievances. It sounded like the kind of mad ranting she had been concerned about. Except it seemed to have a righteous edge, though that seemed like the kind of thing that could go just as badly.

"But you're okay?" She asked. "You're still going to be able to handle this?"

Joe looked down at her. Down further than she was used to. He was definitely taller than he had been before, but that was the least of her concerns. As he looked at her his expression flickered and focused. The energy around him restrained itself and he nodded. "Of course I can." He assured her. "Justice, accountability, and the prevention of harm." With each word more of that energy leaked back into his voice. As concerning as the display was, there was something about it that drew your attention towards it and made it hard to look away.

"All will be secured without fail, and it will be glorious!" Joe declared, raising a fist towards the ceiling. Then he paused before looking back at her. "Oh, and I will make sure to repair and return your mother's flute."

And then he was gone. She half expected a crash of thunder or some kind of burst of fire, but instead there was the same slight pop before, and he simply vanished, leaving her alone in the now very empty and very quiet kitchen.

Alone, except for the parahuman enhanced teapot, and the knowledge than a manic and seemingly empowered Joe was launching into a campaign against her bullies and the system that had facilitated them, apparently with the complete support of his team.

Taylor collapsed back into her chair, then forward onto the table. She glanced up at the cursed teapot and reached over to put the lid back on. There was a clink, then suddenly the weight of the teapot changed. And the temperature. Like it was suddenly full of tea again.

Carefully, she poured out a small amount of the possibly enhanced substance into a trial mug, confirming that it was exactly as hot and delicious as before. After testing it she cleaned and put away the cups before taking the teapot up to her room. She had to make sure her father didn't find it after what Joe did to it. Plus, if it could make tea like that it might have strategic uses. She'd have to test it to be sure.

Magic cape, magic teapot, magic nanites. Well, not magic-magic, but it felt that way, and it didn't help that Joe was evasive about the details. It was nice that he trusted her to figure out how to use the things he made for her, but it would be better if he was a little less Enigmatic.

Ha. Hilarious.

Of course, it was one thing for him to be evasive about his team or his powers, but she didn't expect that bombshell about the Trio. Or the lack of a bombshell. More of a bombshell shaped lack of information.

Someone had died because of them. At least one person because of at least one of them. That was so huge it was nearly unfathomable. She sat on her bed, holding her trial mug of tea as she tried to make sense of the situation. What sense she could make of it. It was nice that Joe was protective of personal details, but something like this, it seemed bigger than that. More important than casual concerns about privacy.

Suddenly she shot up. Joe didn't have casual concerns about privacy. He had very specific concerns about privacy. Concerns about privacy in a very specific context. It was one thing that everyone knew, that Apeiron held to the unwritten rules. He held to them more strongly than anyone else, to the point of talking himself into knots regarding her and the Undersiders, just to keep the pretense of them.

Joe wouldn't have stayed quiet if one of the Trio had killed someone by accident through a cruel prank or dangerous stunt, but he absolutely would if it involved the identity of a cape.

Her mind raced as she frantically pulled up information on her watch. Pictures, records, schedules, physical characteristics. By the time she was done there were a dozen floating screens in front of her confirming without a doubt what she had suspected.

"Fuck." She muttered to herself.

Sophia Hess was Shadow Stalker. She was a Ward, a Ward who still carried lethal ammunition, who had almost killed Brian with a broadhead crossbow bolt. Who had only joined the Wards the previous year, right around the time Sophia's behavior and schedule had shifted.

And also they were exactly the same height and build. That alone made it particularly obvious, to the point where she was a bit concerned about her own identity, especially with the amount of attention she'd gotten.

Well, she would have been if people hadn't been describing her as having a 'Khepri hairstyle', which was apparently a thing now, to the point where there were videos instructing people on how to make their hair look like hers. Because it was easier to believe that she would be aping the style of a new popular villain than entertain the idea that Lady Khepri might actually be a bullied teenager.

It was as ridiculous as imagining that Shadow Stalker was actually a high school bully. Who might have been using her powers in her bullying. No wonder none of the locks Taylor had gotten had made any difference in keeping Sophia out of her locker.

And no wonder the school had covered for her so much. Prestigious Ward or weird bullied girl? It was really no question for the administration.

And Joe had known. She felt herself tense as the implications of THAT fully hit her. When he was talking about justice and accountability, about the systems that let this happen, he hadn't been talking about the Trio or the Winslow staff or Emma's father. He had been talking about the Protectorate. The PRT. The hero departments of the country. Departments that had let this happen. That may have enabled it. Facilitated it.

That's what Joe was going after. That's what that storm of madness and fury was being directed towards. Not as an outright assault, but through some 'subtle works'. Works that the PRT, and Sophia might not even be aware of before it was too late.

The conversation had begun with her trying to explain what had happened to her in January and somehow ended with Apeiron in some kind of shadow war against the PRT. She didn't know how things had gotten out of hand like that, but she could say with absolute certainty that she truly hated this kind of escalation.