You arrive at school half an hour early and find Emma waiting for you at the doors, looking nervous. The hallways are deserted, and no one spots you transferring the contents of her locker to yours. She then hurries off to intercept her various friends and orbiters as they arrive, presumably to spin them some tale of increased scrutiny since the locker incident. 'Good thing I got the tipoff, better go easy on Taylor for a while,' etc.
Isn't friendship great? It's amazing how one person can be the difference between hell on earth and a normal everyday...
---
...unspeakably boring school experience. This time last week you were discovering things that would leave Manton himself staring in awe, playing with the power of the gods, etching words of power into the firmament with letters of golden fire.
Algebra just doesn't measure up.
---
Well, here's a pretty puzzle to distract you. Sophia, aka Your Remaining Problem, showed up to administer your daily dose of abuse. You expected that, but the strange part is Emma, next to her, currently describing how you're so ugly that you have to wear a paper bag over your head whenever you go out to sell blowjobs, which is frequently. You could have sworn you fixed this last night.
Well, Lisa did say that resisting would be hard, not impossible, and apparently Emma feels passionately enough about the challenges you face as a part-time prostitute to fight back against your power.
She doesn't seem very sure of herself, though. When you meet her eyes and smile, she falters and quickly wraps up her narration. You'll have to do some more research tonight.
---
The way Emma keeps glancing about indicates a certain apprehension, but the way she didn't change her route home tells you she is resigned to the inevitable. She still lets out a small scream when you reveal yourself, but she is not truly surprised. She still botches the landing when you push her down, though.
"I'm confused, friend," you say.
"I didn't want to do it! I had no choice!"
"There is always a choice, friend."
"Sophia said, she wanted us to- I can't stand up to her, Taylor, I just can't."
"Ah. And since your despicable cowardice can't be helped, you shouldn't be punished for betraying me? Is that what you're saying?"
"N-no. No, I deserve it. For being weak."
You hesitate. It's not that you disagree with her conclusions (though your reasoning differs slightly). You just don't know how to do this part. 'Nothing that leaves any marks' is a cliche of a hundred gritty police dramas, but the camera generally cuts away to muffled screams from behind a locked door at that point. You never bothered to research the exact mechanics. Is that even what you want?
Various scenarios flit through your imagination, from the childish to the sickening. You could pull her hair. Make her kiss your feet. Grind her face into the dirt. Cut her. Break her arm. Pull out her fingernails. You don't know what you want. Repaying in kind one hundredth of the grief she has caused you over the years shouldn't be this hard.
But... this isn't even your enemy any more. You fixed that. This is your minion, and it disgusts you. It's not working properly, and what you really want is for it to never have been born.
For a moment there you almost forgot that the universe hates happiness. Like an idiot, you thought you could have a taste of victory without it turning into ashes in your mouth.
You have to do something. Emma is staring at you. "Taylor? Are you-"
You scream in frustration and kick her in the ribs. When she whispers "thank you", it's all you can do to keep yourself from running away right then and there. Instead you bend down and help her to her feet. You have to get back in character.
"Much of the fault is mine, friend," you tell her as you help brush the dirt from her jacket. "I should have realized what would happen."
A quick check with sorcerer's sight shows that her Loyalty is a bit battered, but essentially intact. That's good. A more worrying thought occurs to you, though. Her Loyalty is contingent on you meeting her soul's price, and there were two parts to that. You're fighting back plenty, but you've sort of been neglecting the 'friends' part. If you're not careful it might just wink out of existence completely, and then...
To be honest you have no idea what would happen then, because you don't know what mixture of unnatural servitude and all-natural bugfuck nuts is resulting in her current behavior. But better safe than sorry.
"Wanna hang out?" you ask with a smile. A much friendlier smile than the ones you've been using so far.
"What?"
"It's what friends do, isn't it?"
Emma cautiously essays a small chuckle. Meeting no retaliation, she tries a smile as well. "Yeah, it is. Let's."
---
You adjourn to her house. Her mom is happy to see you, at least. Oh Taylor, is that you, it's been so long since you were around, how tall you have grown, etc, etc. She is adorably innocent, in every sense of the word.
The rest of the evening not exactly easy or comfortable. You used to be best friends, then you were worst enemies. Now you're sort of both, but the other way around? Relationship status: It's complicated. There's a whole lot of unexplored social territory here, is what you're trying to say, that may or may not contain dragons and sea monsters.
But you've endured a lot worse (and whose fault was that?). If life insists on giving you ashes, you're going to make some goddamn ashonade. And you're going to choke down that bitter brew no matter what happens, out of sheer spite if nothing else. You hear that, uncaring forces of a materialistic universe that somehow have it out for you in particular? Fuck you!
---
Of course you didn't actually solve anything, and the very next day Emma is back to insulting you with Sophia at her side. Sophia must be really dense not to pick up on Emma's fear and unhappiness, but you guess she just doesn't know her the way you do. Aside from these obvious tells, with sorcerer's sight you're also able to see her Loyalty fraying in real time as she fights against it. At this rate it might last another week, but certainly not two.
You really, really need to come up with a permanent solution to your remaining problem. But it remains true what you said, you don't want to kill her. Well, mostly true. Kinda. You want to not want to kill her. So you won't!
You are distracted from your dark thoughts by your new phone informing you of a text message. Yes! Lisa will save you from this unbearable high school drama.
< meet @ old market aftr school
After school, she says. You shake your head. At no point did you give her any indication that you would be going back to school. Fucking Thinkers.
You let that last word bounce around in your head for a bit. Thinker. Right. You don't think her power is good enough to figure out how you met Panacea just from looking at you. Are you healthier than normal now, after she worked you over? In a noticeable-to-Sherlock-Holmes way? But, you realize with a sinking feeling, that won't even matter. Lisa clearly doesn't think you can take care of yourself (the fact that she's at least partially right really sticks in your craw), and she'd clearly disapprove of your methods.
And she'll easily spot that you know that you did something she'd disapprove of, and then she'll have opinions.
Well, there's your enthusiasm curbed, that's for sure.
---
You call Emma's house while she's still on her way home.
"Miss Barnes? It's Taylor. Is Emma home yet? Could you give her message? Tell her I know she expected us to hang out again tonight, but something important came up. I'll come by tomorrow night instead, if that's all right with you."
Yeah, you could tell that she expected you to 'hang out' again after your encounter today. At least leaving Emma stewing in dread overnight is cheering you up a little bit, you guess.
---
The old market is crowded, but spotting a parahuman in a crowd is not a problem for you. You beeline straight for the glow.
"Taylor. Good to see you again. Sorry about the delay."
You wave away her apology. "Think nothing of it. I managed to keep busy."
Lisa shakes your hand, does not go for the hug. An astute observer would probably read something into that. A very astute observer would wonder about the quick little expressions flashing across her face as she approached and greeted you.
You don't wonder. You have magic eyes, and you've studied her power enough to build your own bootleg version from scratch. You can not only see it activate, but read off each conclusion as it's presented to her. Never mind her face, her mind is an open book to you.
That curiosity is where she sees that you have something to hide. A flash of concern: She does figure out how you went about acquiring Panacea's soul price, impressive. Brief sadness as she finds out that no, you'd see an invitation to join the Undersiders for the obvious attempt to 'save you from yourself' that it would be. But thanks for being so quick to label you unsound of mind and in need of a caretaker, no really, thanks a whole fucking lot.
Now that juicy wince is when she realizes that you're getting all this, probably clued in by your own facial tics. Yeah, two can play at this game. Are we going to pretend that none of that happened? Because you'd be down with that. We are! Excellent.
Lisa leads you off towards the less scenic parts of town. Excellent lair territory, you note, since the recession has left plenty of abandoned industrial properties and workshop/studio apartments for the aspiring villain.
"There are some things you should keep in mind," Lisa tells you as you walk. "Rachel is willing to deal, she could use some help around the lair-"
"Rachel?" you interrupt. "Rachel Lindt?"
"Yeah, that's her."
"Hm," you say.
You remember her from your cape research. Rachel is a homeless person with superpowers. Well, not homeless anymore since she's apparently got a lair now, but yeah. Her villain 'career' has consisted of wandering from city to city, sleeping in the streets, stealing food and fighting off anyone who tried to bother and/or arrest her with her giant mutant dogs.
Oh and also, the reason she was homeless in the first place? She killed her foster mother. Probably some abuse going on there, trigger events don't happen on their own after all. But still. In order to keep you safe, Lisa decided to introduce you to a literal murder hobo? That's interesting.
When you think about it like that, you begin to suspect that you are in fact going to be perfectly safe - that Lisa picked Rachel, the girl with a spicy hint of dangerous psychopath, over one of her more well-groomed villain friends precisely to counteract your obvious resentment at being coddled.
You catch Lisa's power informing her of your line of thought, but she keeps her face impassive. You don't know if you guessed right or not, because your own brand of mind reading only works on things she didn't already know.
"Is it going to be a problem?" Lisa asks ambiguously.
You shrug. It's a combat power, a missing link in virtually all of your infiltration plans. You're not going to complain.
"What kind of help?" you ask instead.
"Regular manual labour, not enough for a full-time henching gig. Taking care of her dogs. She's willing to give power demonstrations in exchange. It's up to you to discuss the exact terms. There's room for negotiation, but if you push too hard she's likely to call the whole thing off.
"If you end up working for her, don't complain or argue about any task she gives you. She'll set her dogs on you if you do. But don't let her push you around on anything outside the agreement, either. She'll try, just to see how you react. Always speak plainly, don't try to be funny or clever. Oh, and don't make eye contact, she doesn't like that."
There's the spicy hint of danger, all right.
"How are you friends with this girl, again?" you ask.
Lisa grimaces slightly. "With some difficulty," she admits.
---
Rachel's 'lair' is impressively shitty. A half-finished building, open to the elements. The floor, such as it is, has of patches of bare concrete here and there, but consists mostly of dirt and scraggly grass. There are maybe a dozen dogs wandering around freely. Does she live here? You see plenty of places for dogs to sleep, but nothing resembling a human bed.
Rachel herself is, well, even further from being pretty than you are. Even without the weathering from years of hard living, there's just no helping that bone structure. If she can be said to be making a statement with her choice of clothes, that statement is 'I can sleep in the street without freezing to death'. You see a mask poking out of a coat pocket. You guess masks are just the done thing, even for someone whose identity is public knowledge.
Lisa greets her with a wave when you step inside, which she doesn't acknowledge. She stares and you, and you remember not to meet her eyes.
"Well?" she asks.
It takes you a moment to realize that she's waiting for you to offer terms. How much should you be asking for? You have no idea about the villain favor economy or common henchman wages.
Crap. Now that you consider it, you can't actually think of any deal that you'd both agree to. Rachel wouldn't go for one-for-one on time spent working versus demonstrating, she'd be no better off than doing the work herself. You wouldn't go for two-for-one, it would take weeks to get her power that way. Maybe a whole month, since you're wasting time on going to school again. Compromise? Rachel would still have very little to gain, and she doesn't strike you as person who'd appreciate more complicated fractions anyway.
Maybe... "Can you show me your power?"
Rachel crosses her arms. "If you work."
"I need to see the merchandise before I buy." That's how professional criminals do it, right? At least in the movies.
It seems to work, at any rate. Rachel calls one of her dogs over and lays her hand on its head. Spines of bone erupt from underneath its fur, then a layer of leathery flesh grows to partially cover the bone, then more bone, etc.
It's fascinating. The dog isn't really growing. The extra flesh and bone is just covering it, like some sort of biological power amor. The dog itself is cradled inside, somehow hooked up to the nervous system(?) and bloodstream(?) of the mutant beast growing around it. This is going to take so much study, you love it.
Rachel removes her hand and it stops growing. Her power doesn't maintain any sort of connection to the dog, so she's not a Master in the sense of controlling anything. But just like you hoped, the dog itself is still thrumming with power. You can tell that it's already fading, though, and will need regular topping up from Rachel. You can work with this.
"I'll work for free as long as you keep a couple of them empowered at all times," you say. How's that for an offer you can't refuse?
Rachel grunts. "Why'd you want to stare at my dogs anyway? You some kind of weird pervert?"
Good thing Lisa coached beforehand, or you would have flubbed this interview question. "None of your fucking business," you reply.
"Fine, you're hired. But if I catch you touching yourself I'll kick your ass. Come on."
Rachel wants a friend who she can understand.
Soul's price is reflexive for you at this point. Interact with parahuman, get price. And look at that, underneath her gruff exterior Rachel is just a big softie who wants a friend who underst- wait, who she can understand? Right, mental issues, of course. Not uncommon in the homeless.
You give Lisa a wry smile and a wave goodbye before you follow your new employer. You note that the Thinker hasn't said a single word since she entered the building. Which is probably her secret trick for maintaining their unlikely friendship.
When you catch up to Rachel she hands you a small shovel and a plastic bag.
"There's shit in the grass," she says.
"Empower your dogs."
She grumbles a bit, but complies. You start shoveling shit. You'd do worse things for a power like hers.
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