Spoiler: Kid-Win-o-visionCrap. Crap. Crap. I'm screwed. I'm so screwed it's not even funny. I finish searching through my entire locker for the second time. Where is it? Did I leave it somewhere? I didn't have it with me to math class. Did I? I could have sworn I only took it out at lunch. But then again I could have sworn that I put it back, too. Oh god, Piggy is going to kill me if I left it lying around where anyone could find it.
I try to retrace my steps. Did I go to the library, or was that last week? I can't remember. I was tinkering, I don't notice things when I'm tinkering. Did I drop it somewhere? Which way did I go?
As my search refuses to bear fruit, I begin to resign myself to not finding it. The question then becomes what to do about it. Can I cover up that I lost it? Of course I can. My workshop is a mess. No one will notice. If someone asks me 'hey Kid Win, what happened to that gun you were working on?', I can just tell them that I had another idea and took it apart for spare parts. They'll believe me, because I do that all the time.
And if they ask to see the new project, I'll tell them it didn't end up working out. They'll believe that too, for the same reason.
Empty-handed, I return to search through my locker a third time, already knowing that it won't help.
Several people greet you cheerfully when you enter the bar. It's weird, now that you think about it, that the only other parahuman you've seen here is Rune, and then only to meet you. Apparently the way these people divide themselves into the 'brass' and the 'rank and file' is not just a clever turn of phrase, and you're somewhat unique in your level of... fraternization? Well, no matter. It would be nice if Krieg and Stormtiger wandered by to say hello and give you their soul prices, but you've got other things on your mind right now.
"Does anyone know where I can buy a sheep, no questions asked?" you inquire of the room.
"I didn't know you were Welsh!" some asshole - wait, you recognize him, that's Fake Swede from the other day - calls out.
"A dead sheep," you clarify, before the room can devolve into another European ancestry dick measuring competition. "Dog food," you clarify further, as you see his lips shaping the 'k' in 'kinky'.
"My cousin is a butcher," one guy offers.
"See, now that's a good, helpful answer. Take note, Fake Swede." Oops. You didn't mean to let slip your personal name for the guy, but it seems to meet with general approval.
("My name is Jonas," Fake Swede complains. "Not anymore it isn't," the guy next to him says)
"Does he deliver?" you ask. "I'm not sure he'd appreciate me coming over in work clothes."
"You kiddin' me? The crazy bitch who took down Mush in a single blow? He'd be stoked to meet'cha. C'mon."
Well. You'll try to take that comment in the spirit it was given. You think. You're not crazy, though. You just... jumped off a three-story building to get at your enemy. Ahem.
The guy ('Eric', you file his name in the circular cabinet) leads you outside to his pickup. Yeah, yeah, you know what they say about getting into cars with strange men. That advice is for people who can't sic a giant wolf on perverts. Fenrir rides in the back, intangible yet somehow deciding that his position is static relative to the truck now.
Alone with you in these less festive circumstances, Eric seems to become aware of the fact that you're not actually 'one of the lads' - there's an awkward age and gender gap that conversation will have to lunge across.
"So, uh, how's school treating you?" he asks as the silence threatens to become uncomfortable.
"Pretty fucking awesome, actually," you answer, silently marveling at how you're not lying about that.
"Not making you write essays on the horrors of the holocaust, then?" He uses a high-pitched, whiny voice for that word in particular, just in case there was any doubt about his opinion on its realness attribute.
You shake your head. "That was last year." You pause, thinking back. "And three years ago. Also, uh, five years ago, I think? But we had to make a collage then, not an essay."
He grunts the satisfied grunt of a man having his biases confirmed by facts and logic. "It's a bit funny, isn't it?"
"How so?" you ask, bracing for more Endlösung-based humor.
"When they teach you about the romans, they tell you that you can never trust contemporary historians, because the winners write the history books. Then when they get to the most recent big war, that they won, they tell you that the enemy just so happened to be the most cartoonishly evil villains in all of history."
"That is a bit funny," you agree politely.
The butcher is, as promised, stoked to meet you. "It's great to see more youngsters standing up and fighting for their people," he says as he vigorously shakes your hand. "If there were more people like you we wouldn't be in nearly the same mess."
It almost makes you feel guilty about being an infiltrator. Especially when he gives you a discount. You could almost afford to feed Fenrir twice a week at this rate (that sounds sort of bad, doesn't it?), even without taking cape fight bounties into account. Except... living hand-to-mouth is not a very good idea. And you need to save up money to hire Faultline at some point, that's still on the table. So it's purely up to your conscience how well you treat your wolf. Yay. What are the odds that you'll settle on an equilibrium that doesn't involve a certain set point of guilt?
You have whatsisname - Eric, right - load up the carcass 'to go'. His cousin was a fan, sure, but having a giant carnivore feast right outside his shop is a bit much. You have Fenrir materialize in the alley behind the bar and feed him there. Some of the patrons come out to have a look at their new mascot(s?), but only briefly. Watching him tear flesh and crunch bones is not all that pleasant. You stay, though, happy to see him happy.
When the sheep is all gone, he shows his appreciation by licking your face. Well, trying to. Your face is shielded, so he just leaves sheep juices smeared all over your mask. At which point Rune shows up.
"Wow," she says. "That's sure, uh, gonna strike fear into the hearts of your enemies, but..."
"Yeah, yeah." You've heard it all before. Blood-spattered capes are bad optics.
You get both of you cleaned up and board the rock. Rune stops and hovers at roof level, but you make no move to get off and ride.
"I told you I didn't mind elevator duty, right?" Rune asks.
"Yeah, but it took jumping off a roof to make you stop being a bitch about it. I'm not going to spend that goodwill all at once."
She snorts, equally amused and annoyed, and takes off without further argument.
Absolutely nothing happens for the next four hours.
You're not complaining - you're here for the powers, not the fighting - but it's not what you expected, given what happened last time.
"Is this normal?" you ask.
"Huh? Yeah. The Merchants won't act up again so soon after getting smacked down, and the japs keep to themselves, mostly."
"What about... mundane problems?" The people you're supposed to perform hate crimes on, you mean.
"It's winter," she says, her tone clearly indicating that it's an explanation. You nod, frowning beneath your mask. Is she implying that... people of African descent prefer to stay indoors when it's cold out? Yeah, okay. That makes sense, and it's far from the most racist thing you've heard since you joined.
---
Kid Win's gun is lying dematerialized next to your bed. You study it where it lies. From what you can tell it shoots the typical colorful, slow-moving concussive blasts everyone calls 'lasers'. Slow-moving, that is, as compared to regular bullets or actual laser beams, you wouldn't want to try dodging them. Still, it's nothing interesting. Concussive blasts with accompanying light-show is literally the most common superpower, not just in tinkertech but also among actual Blasters.
Considerably more interesting is the unfinished secondary system set into the grip. It looks like the gun is supposed to be able to vanish and reappear. Not dematerialize - immaterial objects still occupy a position in space - but really vanish. Go 'elsewhere', enter a state without a physical position, and as such become simultaneously adjacent to every location.
Your sorcerer's sight lets you figure all that out, and you're pretty sure you could replicate the effect with orichalcum, but you can't grasp it in a way that would let you turn it into a power.
A shame. When you realized you could see tinkertech you had entertained the idea that you would be able to drop all the stalking and infiltration and what-not and just find a Tinker to team up with to learn All The Powers. Not seriously, of course, since that would involve the universe wanting to make your life simple, but still. A shame.
---
The next morning you have a nasty fright as you almost run into Gallant again. Immediately followed by a much worse fright, as you suddenly realize that you're an idiot: Fenrir has emotions holy shit you should have thought of that earlier! Luckily he doesn't look your way this time either, but you cannot keep relying on luck here.
He may or may not be able to make out the shape of a wolf and out you as Low Key... but if all he sees is a shapeless cloud of love and obedience floating around next to you and occasionally overlapping your classmates, well... the conclusions he'd draw from that are arguably worse.
"See that guy?" you whisper to Fenrir. "You must never, ever let him see you, even when you're immaterial. Especially when you're immaterial. You can't-" You were about to say 'come to school with me any more', but Fenrir interrupts you by nodding and walking right up behind Gallant. "Jesus Christ what are you doing?" you hiss.
Fenrir sniffs Gallant carefully, starting at the back of his neck and slowly working all the way down to his feet. If he were to turn around at any point during this... but he doesn't. Fenrir looks back at you and nods again before leaping through the wall, out of sight. Okay, so he's... got the scent now, you guess, enough to smell him coming in time to make himself scarce?
"Good dog," you whisper as you sag against the wall. Is this what a heart attack feels like?
In less terrifying news, you find out that you share English class with your favorite aspiring school shooter. The class is otherwise terribly boring. Which suits you just fine, because it means Kid Win is bored enough to stop listening and start sketching plans for some sort of tinkertech. Not that you can see his notebook from where you're sitting, but the way his power lights up is a definite clue. Score!
When you go looking for Aegis at lunch, you instead happen across Glory Girl and Panacea. Right, they go to Arcadia too. You were so focused on discovering the secret identities of the Wards that you completely forgot about the public identities of New Wave.
This is the first time you've seen Panacea for real, as the last time you met you deliberately kept sorcerer's sight turned off. And what you see leaves you staring in awe. Regular capes have a steady glow suffusing them, that pulses and twists when they use their powers. Panacea sparkles.
Healer, you realize. She's killing or denaturing every single bacterium that touches her skin, causing millions of microscopic flashes of power every second.
It's the most beautiful thing you've ever seen.
It's also completely useless. As far as studying her power goes, it's like staring into a screen full of static. Pretty, pretty static.
You really should stop staring and go do something useful.
...Just a little bit longer, yeah?
Spoiler: Victoria-o-vision
What is it with parahumans and wacky misunderstandings about your sexuality? Ugh. So annoying. The most annoying part is how well it worked out for you. Glory Girl is no doubt telling her boyfriend (whose arrival you completely missed - at least Fenrir made himself scarce as instructed) all about what happened just now. And just like that, you have an alibi. Your fascination with Panacea, your intense dislike of Glory Girl (luckiest bloody second-gen cape in the world that she is), that juicy fear-of-discovery every time you catch sight of Gallant? It all has a perfectly innocent explanation now.
All you have to do is spend the rest of high school pretending to be a lesbian pretending to be straight.
It's funny, you were so focused on Gallant's power that you never got a proper look at his face. It wasn't until you saw them together that you realized that he was actually whatshisname, Glory Girl's rich boy-toy from the cover of that gossip rag. If you had, you'd have tried to avoid Glory Girl and Panacea too, and ironically been worse off right now.
You even got a soul price out of it.
Glory Girl wants her boyfriend to stop being such a dick all the time.
Makes sense. You recall hearing that they break up all the time, but invariably get back together again after a week or two. Once you get past your reflexive 'celebrities gonna celeb' response, that indicates a fundamentally unhealthy relationship.
The hero calling himself Gallant is treating his girlfriend badly. You remember when you would have found that revelation startling.
===