Spoiler: Lisa-o-vision"I believe the boat graveyard is traditional for such things. I'll bring lunch. Ok, see you."
I pocket my phone and return to the common room. Brian and Rachel turn towards me expectantly. They know what a private phone call usually signifies. Alec, of course, remains focused on his video game.
"New job?" Rachel asks.
"No, just a friend who wanted to have lunch together. Your new minion in fact."
Rachel's face clouds over. "She quit," she says.
Taylor would have cut ties as soon as she got what she wanted, my power informs me. I really should have figured that out on my own, and kept quiet. But the way Rachel said that...
"You miss her," I realize. Out loud. Dammit.
"Fuck you!" She reacts exactly as expected. This is why I try to keep my mouth shut around Rachel.
"Aw, the big bad Bitch is a cuddly-wuddly little softie on the inside," Alec observes.
Rachel stands up and leaves without another word. But the set of her jaw - and the way she slams the door behind her - makes it clear that she's genuinely upset, even to mundane observers.
"Don't worry, I won't tell anyone you ran off to cry," Alec calls after her. But he does it quietly enough that she won't make out the words through the door, because he doesn't want to to get mauled by dogs.
Brian glares at him. "You're not helping," he says.
"Wasn't trying to!" is his cheerful response.
I sigh. Sure, as friends go Taylor leaves a lot to be desired, but it's not as if I'm spoiled for choice.
"Dad, is it alright if I sleep in the basement?" You wring your hands and look suitably embarrassed about making such a strange request.
Your father looks suitably confused. Everyone is behaving as they should, how nice. "Why?" he asks. "It's a mess down there."
"I'll clean it! It's just..." You look down at your feet. "It would make me feel safer." Boom, right in the fatherly instincts. You suffered severe mental trauma not all that long ago, remember?
He sweeps you into a hug in response. "Taylor. Would it help if you could talk to someone? A therapist? We could afford to find one for you."
You're pretty sure that last part is a lie, actually. Dad doesn't like to talk about work much (or about anything, really), but it's glaringly obvious that it's been a bad couple of years for the Dockworker's Union.
"Dad, no. It's no big thing. I can cope. But-"
"-you'd cope better in the basement," he finishes. "Alright. There should be sleeping bags somewhere down there. Let's go find them."
You spend the next couple of hours cleaning the basement together. Much more thoroughly than would be needed just to create a sleeping space, but you both agree that you may as well do a proper job of it while you're at it. There's fond reminiscences when you uncover artifacts of your childhood, and painful silences when you come across mom's stuff. As always, it hits your dad the hardest. You remain relatively cheerful throughout: You can't help but smile whenever your gaze happens across the translucent wolf dozing in the corner.
Then you set up a makeshift bedroom: A sleeping bag on a pile of blankets, a night light and your alarm clock on a box nearby.
As soon as your dad has wished you good night and closed the basement door behind him, you call softly to Bubbles and ask him to materialize again. You initiated this whole thing because you didn't think the floor upstairs could take his weight in solid form.
You sigh happily as you cuddle up to a thousand pounds of lean muscle, sharp fangs, warm fur, unconditional love. You weren't lying. You feel super safe right now.
---
Of course you had to set your alarm extra early to make sure you would wake up and shoo Bubbles back into the spirit realm before your dad could come down and check on you, but you don't mind that at all. You take the opportunity to get breakfast started, and greet your dad with bacon, eggs, a hug and a kiss on the cheek when he comes down.
"You're up early," he notes. "Did you sleep well?"
"It was lovely down there," you assure him.
Soon enough it's time for him to leave for work, and you for school the boat graveyard. Ok, so you're lying to your dad a little bit, but soon enough your transfer will come through and you'll start going to school for real. Instead of books, your backpack contains your half-finished costume. With any luck you'll get it done today, and then you have plans. Brilliant plans.
---
The boat graveyard. A monument to Brockton's economic situation. Once things started going bad, some genius decided that blocking off the main harbor was a good form of protest. Long story short, they did it a little too well. Now the coast is a mess of rusting and half-sunken hulks, and the surrounding docks abandoned to the point that not even the gangs are interested in the territory.
According to Lisa, it's also where new capes go to test out the less subtle aspects of their powers. It offers relative privacy, and no one gets upset about property damage. You don't really care right now, one abandoned building is much like another. You find a relatively intact warehouse by the waterfront and set up shop. You notice that one of the walls has several neat holes punched out of it. Rune's telekinesis, maybe, or Skidmark's acceleration fields? Or some sort of Tinker cannon, whatever.
Bubbles claims to remember Lisa ("the girl who came with me the day we first met"), so you set him to patrol, keeping a lookout for her while you resume work on your costume.
---
Bubbles predictably returns to report success around lunchtime, and you carefully stow your costume and equipment before you go to meet your friend. Rather than getting used to it, your fingers are cramping up even worse than yesterday. But you're almost done.
Lisa is carrying a plastic bag, presumably containing the promised lunch. As soon as she sees you, her power goes into action. There's something you're hiding, check. You mastered someone, check. Something you did to that person-
"There's something more important you really should be focusing on," you say, derailing her.
Her eyes instantly fasten on the patch of empty air that only you can see contains a giant wolf. "We're not alone here," she says. "Invisibility?"
You whisper "come forth" and Bubbles appears, tail wagging and eager to greet a new friend. Turns out that fending off a friendly dog that wants to lick your face is pretty difficult when it's taller than you are.
You smile at the antics, but eventually take pity on your friend. Also, Lisa's power was telling her something there, but a magic wolf was blocking your view so you couldn't make out what it was. "Bubbles. Lie down, roll over, and the nice lady will give you belly rubs."
Bubbles obeys instantly, but Lisa takes a while to stop sputtering and wiping at her face. "If she doesn't come through with the belly rubs, you are allowed to resume licking her," you add.
Lisa shoots you a dirty look, but kneels down and fulfills her part of bargain. Once more giving you an unobstructed view to read out what her power is telling her. Things such as...
"He understands English. You created a human-level intelligence!"
"I know, right? He's awesome." Bubbles' tail speeds up even more at the praise, kicking up dirt as it sweeps back and forth along the ground. The way Lisa is using her power to give a better belly rub isn't hurting either.
"Well, more or less human-level," she amends. "He's not exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer, is he?"
"Hey!" Is she badmouthing your magic wolf? "Enjoying a good belly rub has nothing to do with intelligence or lack thereof. Bubbles, demonstrate."
"What are you- no, stop!" Bubbles rolls back to his feet and springs up, knocking Lisa over in the process. He then proceeds to nuzzle the everloving shit out of her stomach, eliciting a storm of shrieks and giggles. "Don't- aah, tickles! Bad wolf! Eeeee! No, stop! Bad touch, bad touch! I'm sorry, ok? I'm sorry I- ahahaha- I'm sorry I called you stupid!"
Bubbles stops and looks back at you questioningly, and you motion for him to back off. Lisa gets to her feet, red-faced and panting.
"Holy shit," she gasps, "he's terrifying. And he turns invisible- wait, intangible too? Fuck me."
"The phasing is strictly limited," you protest. "Besides, don't you Undersiders ride around on monster dogs all the time? You should be used to it."
"Yeah, but I never truly appreciated how scary they would be when you're on the receiving end." She shakes her head. "And this guy can use his definitely 100% human-level intelligence to plan ambushes, and leap at you out of nowhere when you least expect it? Trust me, terrifying.
"Well, except maybe the name," she adds. She holds up her hands placatingly when Bubbles huffs and starts advancing on her. "It's a perfectly good name! Just not very scary, you know."
"I've got a new name in mind for him," you say. "But I can't tell you what it is right now, because then you'd figure out all my plans."
Then she figures out all you plans anyway, because Thinkers.
---
Lunch turns out to be takeout Chinese. And one can of dog food.
"Sorry Bubbles," Lisa says, "I expected you to be able to shrink down like Rachel's dogs."
"Oh, Bubbles doesn't need to eat anymore," you say. One of several inconvenient biological functions that ghost wolves no longer have to worry about, you established last night.
"Need, no. Enjoy, yes," she responds. And her power backs her up on it. You feel a lump forming in your stomach. When you asked him if he needed to eat and he just shook his head, he must have heard the worry in your voice. He was being a Good Dog.
You jump up and hug him. "I'm so sorry," you whisper. "I'll make it up to- uh..." Shit, shit, shit! "Actually I'm super broke right now, but as soon as I have some money you'll feast like a king, I promise! Ok?"
He gently shakes you off and backs up a bit, and for a moment you are terrified that he's rejecting you. But then he licks your face and everything is alright with the world.
---
"There's one thing I don't understand," you say.
"Only one?" Lisa counters instantly. "Sorry, reflex. Ask away."
"Cape fights."
"What about 'em?"
"How do they even exist? With the huge range of power levels, and the fact that most capes are glass cannons, and, you know..." You make vague hand gestures to indicate your confusion. "The odds of any given confrontation not being over instantly is tiny!"
"One on one, sure, it's often quick and unfair. It's when you have big teams facing off against each other that things get interesting," she says. "Defensive powers, offensive powers, odd power interactions. That's when you get a proper fight, and cleverness can turn the tide. And believe me, everyone is trying to be clever. When you put on a silly costume and go out looking for a fight, you are admitting that you want to be the protagonist in your own comic book."
You nod. Thus the sandbagging, too. So you can reveal your true power level and save the day when dramatically appropriate.
"Ok, but how are the losers not wiped out, regardless? There's lasers and explosions and people getting punched through walls and, and huge monster dogs biting people, and stuff. Lethal stuff."
"Ah." She nods sagely. "The old 'why doesn't Hookwolf just kill everyone' question. To answer that, you need to answer another question: Why don't you kill people? You could get your hands on a gun, with some effort."
"Not an amoral psychopath?"
"And?"
"And... I don't want to get shot by the police," you say slowly, realization dawning. "Just like Hookwolf wants to avoid PRT airstrikes."
"Yeah. Hookwolf actually has a pretty inconvenient power, because he has to be so careful when not fighting high-level Brutes. Don't get me wrong, he's racked up quite the body count over the years. But he doesn't kill people indiscriminately-"
"-you can tell by how there are still some left," you finish for her.
"Right. He's careful enough that the heroes are still trying to capture him and send him to the Birdcage. No kill order."
"So the best power for winning fights would actually be something less lethal, like... farting knockout gas?"
"Well, kind of. But once Roland the Farter makes a name for himself, everyone is going to wear hazmat suits when they go to fight him. And then he really wants to be friends with Hookwolf, who can carefully cut their suits open, and we're back to team fights and synergies.
"But anyway, everyone pulls their punches, and retreats early if things start to go bad." She grimaces. "Less so in Brockton Bay than elsewhere, because the heroes have Panacea, the Empire has Othala, and the ABB is Lung, so injuries are usually a lot less lethal or career-ending here. Which is not super great for those of us who are not heroes, nazis or dragons."
You shake your head. "People still die though, as you said. On both sides. Accidents, carelessness, deliberate malice, whatever. But the heroes still play along?" You pause and consider the words that just came out of your mouth. "No, never mind the heroes, heroes are assholes. What about the police? Politicians? The military?"
"Two reasons for that. No, three. First off, consider our fair city. Famously cape-heavy, notoriously villain-dense. But run the numbers and you end up with roughly one villain per ten thousand people." She leans back and gestures grandly. "The forces of law and order love us. Our effect on the overall crime rate is negligible, but we're celebrities. And when they catch a celebrity criminal they look really good to the public, completely out of proportion to the effect they're actually having."
Ok, yes, you knew heroes were assholes. But, um. Yeah. You're going with 'um'. Lisa kindly waits for your worldview to stop spinning before she continues.
"You know pre-Scion comic books?" she asks.
"Not very well."
"Well, they basically predicted the current situation almost perfectly. And a lot of nerds criticized that. They claimed that it was ridiculous, that you couldn't possibly give so many people random superpowers and have society remain the same except for a light sprinkling of people occasionally dressing up and shooting lasers at each other. Super unrealistic." She grins at you.
You snort. "Boy were they wrong."
"No," Lisa says, all traces of mirth suddenly gone. "They weren't. It is ridiculous. But when powers started appearing for real, well. The people in charge, the real movers and shakers, they didn't like it. If the world changed too much, why, they might end up not being in charge anymore. Luckily for them there was a model for how things could stay more or less the same, already embedded in the public consciousness. A self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts.
"You would not believe the effort that goes into maintaining the status quo," she continues, stabbing the air with her chopsticks to emphasize her point. "Parahumans that decide to commit flashy crimes are subtly encouraged by lax law enforcement and insecure prisons, and parahumans that try to go into politics or business are brazenly shut down by blatant legislative and judicial corruption. The whole hero versus villain thing is a charade, designed to prop up a society based on the notion that all men are born equal in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary."
Once again you take a moment to process things. Sure, it sounds like a crazy conspiracy theory. But. Only a very few people are born with the potential to become parahuman. This is well known and apparently uncontroversial in the scientific community, yet you've never seen it mentioned in any form of media or school book. You yourself only know because you went looking for cape facts in the weird corners of the internet.
Hell, you read most of a 150-page thread on PHO speculating on the source of powers. It had all sorts of theories that would be instantly debunked by this one simple fact, and it was never brought up once. It was like watching a bunch Flat-Earthers discussing the best way to launch a satellite. There is clearly some heavy-duty social engineering going on somewhere.
"What's the third reason?" you ask with some trepidation.
"It's worth keeping us around just on the chance that we help out against the really bad stuff. Can't fight S-class threats if you're in prison, you know? We get to live in a comic book, as long as we die in an Endbringer fight."