Hindsight Bias (Worm)

[FinalPyre]

A Thinker Taylor.

Index:
1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, 1.6, 1.x
2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 2.5

Spoiler: Taylor's Power summary (if you need a refresher, or don't want to read the first few chapters to find out)

Taylor's power allows her to see a few seconds into the future. She can use this power several (on the order of dozens) times a day.

Her power is improving slowly but surely. When she got it, she could see only about 3.5 seconds into the future at a time. By the start of the story (about 2.5 months later), each use lets her see over 6 seconds.

The amount of times she can use her power in a 'day' before she gets a Thinker headache have increased more noticeably, but are much harder to keep track of solid progress (because they don't hard reset each day). She estimates she started with somewhere around 2 dozen uses, and now sports at least 5 dozen.

Her power works by intent, so if she changes what she plans to do, and uses her power, it will show her on that alternate path.

Her power gives her perfect memory of what she sees during its use, if she tries to focus on something she saw/heard/did during that time.

Yes, her power is somewhat similar from the power in the movie Next. No, I had absolutely no idea that Next was a thing prior to writing this. Any similarities between this story and Next are purely coincidental and unintentional. I still have no intentions to watch Next.


Feel welcome to post any corrections, suggestions, or criticisms you have on any aspect of my writing. Feedback helps me improve.

Sketch of Glimpse's outfit as of the end of arc/chapter/thing.

Omake:
Glimpse Walks Really Fast, aka Image Story Time!

Omake's are now indexed via threadmarks. If you want to read omake's and not be in danger of spoilers, follow the story through the threadmarks.

 

[FinalPyre]

1.1

In just over two seconds, he would fire, the bullet piercing my right thigh. One- two steps forward, and quick sidestep to the left.

The bullet narrowly missed, so close that I could swear I felt the hot air as it passed by. Fuck. The whole reason I'd been using the Merchants as targets was because they weren't supposed to have guns, except maybe in their main stashes. I kept rapid-firing my power.

He wasn't used to the recoil. It would be at least five more seconds before he'd pull off his next shot. His two buddies had both taken a few steps back as soon as the gun came out – right after I'd put down their scumbag friend with the bat. I'd be okay if I could take him down quickly.

I half-walked half-ran the last five meters separating us. If I reached directly for his gun, he'd jerk back and up to keep it just out of my grasp. If I reached forwards and slightly up, I'd grab his gun, then I could punch his hand- no, then he'd fire in panic, which would shock his friends back into action...

Found it.

Reach out and up to grab the gun, use my other hand to peel his fingers off of the grip, and to hold his trigger finger down. Wrench the gun back towards him, painfully bending his index finger after slipping it behind the trigger. Quick pull to the side, and the gun was mine. I flipped the gun around into a proper one-handed grip – using my power once to make sure I wouldn't fumble it like an idiot – slammed the back into his nose, then stepped my right leg behind his left and gave him a heavy shove. He went crashing onto his rear, holding his face. A step with my left, then a solid kick to his side with my right. Two down, two to go. One step at a time.

In three seconds, something heavy would impact my back, sending me to the ground. I started to turn around, used my power, then continued forward. Ah, not two down; the bat goon was back in the game. Three checks with my power to get the angle right and adjust for recoil. Without turning, I pointed my new gun behind me and fired towards the ground. I immediately repeated my earlier process: start to turn around, use my power, continue forward without turning. He would yelp as the bullet went through his foot, and fall to the ground hard, just barely managing to hit me with the bat as he did so. What a hero.

I took a swift step forward, and heard the metallic sound of the bat hitting the concrete as I felt the rush of air pass by my legs. I kept moving towards the remaining threats.

The two goons passed conflicted looks between each other. They both wanted to run away, of course, but neither of them wanted to be the first one to abandon their friends. Too late. I was too close, now.

The first one committed to a punch. Two checks with my power. Step in close, parry his now-awkward punch with my left hand, pistol-whip to his face, step into a gut punch with my left fist, and kick his shin as he staggered back, toppling him over. I stepped around him and gave an extra kick to the gut, which would hopefully keep this drug dealer down the first time I sent him to the ground. Turning my runners into makeshift steel-toed boots had been an awesome idea.

A check with my power showed that none of them were going to get back up just yet. I felt the first twinge of pain as a dull headache started to set in. I needed to finish this fast, or scram if it got any more complicated.

The last one looked like a deer in the headlights, his pupils a bit too wide even for the dim alley. Probably shooting up a bit before he got off the “job”. I pointed the gun at him, then the ground. Thankfully, he took the hint. He quickly sat down and put his arms behind his back; perhaps he had his fair share of being arrested.

I used my power to make sure he wouldn't fight, then zip-tied his hands behind his back, and his legs together. I repeated the process with the others. The worst needed a firm stepping-on to earn his compliance.

Another use of my power to check on the guy's foot I shot, which looked okay for now. There wasn't much blood, and it looked like I'd just barely clipped the side of his foot. Pretty lucky, actually. I hadn't shot a gun before, but I remembered reading that unlike movies would have you believe, getting shot in non-vital places could still be dangerous, and even fatal. It certainly wouldn't put me in the PRT's good books if I hurt them too badly, but a bit of force was expected. Still, I made a mental note to be a bit more careful in the future.

'Careful to check just who the hell you're taking down first too,' I thought. Better to not end up in another gunfight, anytime soon.

Then I patted them down for weapons while I took some twine from the pouch on my back and started tying them all together, and finally around some external air ducts belonging to the run-down grocery store they were dealing behind. A bit excessive, maybe, but I wasn't planning on sticking around, and I didn't want them to run off the second I left.

They just had a few knives, nothing too serious, but one was better than my current one – a solid handle and sheath instead of a pocket knife – so I pocketed that and threw the rest to the side. They all had a few kinds drugs – I could never really tell them apart – which I left on their person for when the police took them in. I took the small cash bag they had from dealing the first part of the night, until I scared off their last customer by waltzing up and beating up bat-boy.

I never felt great about taking money, since it felt a lot like stealing, but I had to fund myself somehow. Surely if anything, stealing profits from drug dealers was okay. Or at least passable. I didn't take wallets, and it seemed to be a general consensus on Parahumans Online that taking obvious spoils was okay, but it didn't stop me from still feeling a bit bad about it. Apparently thirty some years was still a short enough time that there was still a lot of grey area when it came to parahuman law. Either that or many of the more prominent members of PHO were just pretending to be law-savvy because they liked reading news about vigilantes. Hard to say. When I'd join the Protectorate, I wouldn't have to worry about stuff like that anymore.

Using one of their phones, I paused before dialling the Brockton Bay police. Absurdly enough, this was the part of heroing that made me the most nervous. Even with my budding headache, I started to use my power as soon as the operator answered in hopes to find a way to end the conversation quickly.

“Hello, BBPD, how can I help you?” A gruff and down to business voice answered. It sounded like someone who wished they were in bed, and fuelled their night shift with more than one pot of coffee.

“Four Merchants dealers, in the alley behind the Hanson's on Wilson Street, after Wesmere. I have them tied up and disarmed,” I stopped before the operator would interrupt me. Annoying, because he would interrupt me even if I told him exactly what he wanted to know next.'I hate these phone calls.'

“Please slow down, Miss. We've gotten a call just a moment ago about gunshots in the area. Do you or anyone there need medical attention?” he asked, with a bit more urgency than before.

Right, a lot of people would have heard that. I started to walk away from the alley as I used my power once to practice my answer. I didn't want to be around when the police showed up, and I really didn't want to start stammering while talking to them. Besides, I already had a headache, I didn't need to deal with that kind of mess right now. After the first time, I decided that taking down a few gang members was easier than talking to the authorities. That had landed me with a screaming headache that lasted me through the weekend, and all it accomplished was that I practically ran away from the police. They just let me go, which I took as a good sign. Hopefully when I joined the Protectorate they wouldn't recognize me. Or maybe I should move to another city before trying. God that was embarrassing.

“Nothing major, but one guy got shot in the foot. He seems to be doing okay, but should probably get that looked at. One of the other guys might have a broken nose, but that's the worst of it. I threw their knives and a bat into the corner near the dumpster, and I'm taking their gun away with me.” I had quickly learned that it was best if I told them straight what I wanted to do like it was a done deal. That tended to get a reasonably good response, even if they might not be happy I was doing it. Of course, even with using my power, my experience was pretty limited at this point.

“Away with you? Miss, please wait for the police response to arrive. They're already on the way, it will only be a few minutes. Are you a parahuman?” He was probably just trying to keep me on the phone, at this point. Speaking through my mask did alter my voice a bit, but it didn't change the fact that I had the voice of a fifteen-year-old girl. Fifteen-year-old girls don't take down small groups of drug dealers with guns without being parahuman.

I couldn't think of much to say, and my headache was starting to get pretty annoying at this point, so ended the call with “I've already left. Goodbye,” and hung up on him. I dropped the phone onto a nearby bench, managed to squeeze the pistol into my back pouch, and started jogging home.

***​

When I was close to home, I ducked into another alley behind a convenience store and an old house to change. Using my power twice while I changed to run around and make sure nobody was watching, I took off my outfit and put on the hoodie I had stashed behind an electrical box. The brief chill of the late-night, early Spring air encouraging me to change as quickly as possible.

My costume was still a simple thing: a black jacket that, while rather tight-fitting, still allowed me full-range of movement, and some fingerless, padded biker gloves; both found in second-hand stores. Finally, I unclasped the strap around the back of my head and removed my mask. When I brought it down from my face, I found that, once again, the foam on the inside had gripped onto my glasses just a little too tightly, and pulled them off too. As I gently wiggled them out and put them back on, the metallic surface of my mask glinted in the dim glow of one of the inside lights the convenience store kept on at night to deter robbers, just barely shining around the corner into the dark alley.

At first, I had no idea what I had wanted to do for a mask. After a bit of thought, I had decided to shoot for something simple and stylish. I made it out of a sturdy backpack strap, a few pieces of foam for the inside to rest it against my face and make room for my glasses, and a thin sheet of metal I worked into the rough shape of an oval face. The shaping I mostly did with some basic tools in the basement while my dad wasn't around. It wasn't super smooth, but I thought I did a decent job for my first go at it.

Making the cuts was the hard part. After watching dozens of beginner's “how to” videos, it took most of a week of my spare time trying to find a way to get access to what I needed to cut the metal in secret. In the end, I kind of broke into a public workshop – some kind of local wood and metalworking club – to get the job done. Another thing I didn't feel great about doing, but it was open to the public, I just didn't go during regular hours. Either way, I was confident I'd done it in a way that they'd never even notice anyone had been there, so no harm done. After I cut the whole thing into a basic oval, I made two circles for the eyes, since that was a nice and easy shape to do and gave me good visibility. As cool as I thought it would look without a mouth, I still needed to breathe, so I opted for a simple oval that let me breathe through both my nose and mouth. I thought the eyes and mouth gave the mask a bit of a cute “oh!” expression.

I finished it off with some black spray-paint, and a bit of clear lacquer to make it smoother, especially around the edges. I was hoping to try again sometime soon to see if I could make a better one, but honestly I was pretty proud of it, as simple as it was. Eventually I wanted to see if I could make more light armor, maybe by fitting thin sheets of metal through my coat and pants, but that probably wasn't going to happen any time soon.

As I put my mask and gloves into my coat and started rolling it up, I ran into another problem. The gun in the zipper pocket I'd sewn onto the back of my jacket. Why had I even taken the gun? I vaguely remembered not wanting to leave it by the gang members, but I could probably have just hid it and told the police where it was. Part of me knew I liked the assurance of having something to fall back on, but I wasn't sure if having it was a good idea. People who had guns tended to get shot more than those who didn't, but tonight had shown me that parahumans might be an exception.

I pushed those thoughts away as I left the alley and walked the last stretch back to my house.'Just one more thing to hide in my closet for now, I guess.'

When I arrived at the back door, I did my usual check. Bracing myself for a quick dash, my hand on the door handle, I used my power to bolt through the house and check on my dad. As usual, he blearily sat up in bed in confused alarm when I threw his door open. Good.

As quietly as possible, I slowly edged the backdoor open just enough to squeeze through, and closed it behind me, tiptoeing upstairs to my room. I hid my costume in the back of my closet, then went to the bathroom to grab a wet cloth and clean myself up a bit before going to bed. Sleeping in sweat was disgusting. My headache was starting to get pretty bad – I'd overused my power a bit. Not nearly as bad as the worst times, but it would bug me tomorrow. That was okay, I didn't have anywhere to go on Saturdays, just like my Friday nights were spent off by myself.

This weekend, like several others, would see my dad going in to the Dockworker's Union. I was pretty sure he didn't even clock the overtime, but never asked him about it. Conveniently for me, it meant that weekends he did so saw him to bed a bit early on Fridays, so he could be leaving mid-morning on Saturdays, making my outings a lot easier to pull off. He probably thought I was just sleeping in a bit on the weekend, rather than staying in bed until two in the afternoon.

I put on some pyjamas and crawled into bed. The adrenaline was finally completely purged from my system, and I was ready to crash hard. Thinking about the events of the night as I drifted off to sleep, I couldn't help but smile. Four less drug dealers on the street, thanks to me. One small step at a time, making the city a little better, a little safer. I fell asleep with a warm feeling in my chest.

I'm Taylor Hebert, and I'm a Hero.

 

[FinalPyre]

1.2

When I woke up it was long bright outside, already early afternoon. I headed downstairs. Dad left a note on the kitchen table, like usual. He expected to be back sometime before dinner, which gave me a couple hours to myself.

I hadn't slept quite as well as I'd hoped. Guns were scary. I resolved to take my gun with me for now, maybe add a loop to my pants I could slip it into. If anything, I could use it with my power to find crime faster, or to tell right away if a group was too dangerous to mess with.

Thus, I still felt a bit tired, with a couple of aches, along with the dull throb of a headache. I'd take it easy today, and I could get back to testing some things tomorrow.

'I wonder if I could use my power to get better at aiming a gun?' I thought as I climbed into the shower, the hot water feeling great on my sore muscles. It wouldn't help with muscle memory, but it might help me get the hang of aiming.

I ate a quick breakfast before remembering I needed to finish cleaning up from last night. I took the metal linings out of my running shoes, made from the larger scraps I'd cut off while making my mask glued to some leftover foam, and put took them with me to my room. They made my shoes a little on the snug side, but they had been bought with growing room in mind. It had been tricky to figure out how to fit them in so that they carried some of the force of my kicks.

As I went to my room, the thought suddenly crossed my mind that I hadn't turned on the safety on the gun. Guns were supposed to have those, right? I didn't know much about guns, but I was still able to find the latch and flick it back. A bit of fiddling and I got the bullets out of the gun too. I didn't know if there would still be a bullet in the chamber or not – I really didn't want to mess around with it too much – so I put the gun and cartridge back and resolved to read up a bit on handguns later, retrieving the money from my coat pouch to count it.

Almost three hundred dollars. Not bad at all! I opened the box of baby shoes I had in the back of the top shelf of my closet, took out the shoes and the packing paper underneath, and added it to what was already there. The only other outing I had come across a dealer with a 'transaction bag' was my first one, and now I had a total of four hundred and twenty-five dollars in what I liked to call my “hero account”. Now more than I had in my bank account.

I'd only used my heroing profits so far to purchase the coat, gloves, and the metal and foam sheets for my mask, to upgrade from just wrapping a bandanna around my face with my hood up. Part of why my first outing was so easy was probably due to how the thug initially thought I was a new customer. Useful, but I didn't want people seeing me and thinking I was just another druggie.

The afternoon went by quickly enough with me sitting on the couch, reading through some more “how to” books, this time on sewing. I'd started taking lots of different informational books out of the library soon after I got my power, when I realized how useful knowing how to do some of this stuff would be.

This wasn't the first book about sewing I'd gotten. At first I had learned just enough to make a few simple modifications to my coat, like the pouch in the back, adding a few pockets to the inside, adding a bit of material to the arms for more motion, and changing the style of the collar. Eventually I wanted to make a new costume from scratch, so it could look and fit exactly how I wanted it.

It was also nice that I could let my dad know about it, unlike my sneaking out at night. Dad thought it was great that I was picking up a constructive hobby. So far I had been using what I learned to alter some of my old clothes, or make new clothes out of various pieces. Only minor things, many of which were failures.

To make school a bit easier, I had a little game where I tried to spin negative things into positives: someone ruins my clothes at school? I try to make something new out of the good parts. I didn't have anything I would wear out of the house yet, but I didn't have many places to go anyways, other than the library and my hellhole of a school. And now heroing, of course. So I spent a lot of my time reading. Reading and practising various things, especially any new tricks I thought I might be able to pull off with my power, or any knowledge I thought might come in handy in a pinch.

The book was good, but I'd need to actually go buy some cloth to try things with if I wanted to learn much more from it. A bit of the time I spent just lying there with my eyes closed, to see if I could doze off for a bit in the warm sunlight coming in through the window. Sleeping tended to be the best fix for my headaches, and while this one wasn't too bad, it still made concentrating a little difficult.

The first time – well, really the second, but I only figured that out later – that I had started getting a headache, and then finally clued in that it was getting worse the more I used my power, I was worried I'd accidentally fucked up my power or something. Some half-panicked searching on our old computer had assuaged me that “Thinker headaches” were a pretty common thing for the designation. Apparently, people whose powers involved “super thinking” would often get headaches after a while, that no known medication would help with, but they would subside with rest.

Popular PHO opinion was that it was a built-in limiter to stop Thinkers from all becoming overlord masterminds. I didn't think my power was that amazing, but with some of the other powers I'd read about, I could see it happening. Some powers were ridiculously unfair.

When it was about the time I expected dad to be getting back home, I started to make some dinner.

“Hey kiddo, smells good in here,” my dad said, as he opened the front door and kicked off his shoes. He looked tired. He always looked tired these days, often like he came home from work having lost a battle. Pretty much how I felt every time I came home from school.

He wasn't bald, but definitely balding, and it was only getting worse lately. Definitely where I got most of my physique from: tall and thin, and not in a good way. Gangly to the point our proportions didn't look quite right. Also bad eyes: we both needed glasses. Especially for him, the prescription made his already large eyes look even larger. Small mercies that mine weren't as bad. My face was defined by my large eyes and too-wide, thin mouth. Just about my only feminine feature was my long, curly black hair. It was the only “girly” thing I still tried to maintain.

The slight wrinkles on his forehead gave him the appearance of always being worried about something. He probably was.

He definitely had his fair share of stress at work – he was in charge of handing out jobs in the Dockworker's Union, but these days, there were no jobs – but the thing was, he could have gotten a better job if he wanted too. He had the experience, and I'm pretty sure he even got an offer more than once, but he wanted to help the dockworker's more than he wanted to advance his career, and he was completely obstinate about reinstating the ferry.

If we could only get the ferry running, he would often tell me, we could breathe life back into the mostly-abandoned Docks, and get the economy going again. But it was pointless, a waste of time; the mayor wasn't going to fund it. Dad asked every year, with a proposal and everything, and got shot down every time. They didn't want to put money into the ferry, and for it to be effective they would have to clear out the ship graveyard, which was way too expensive.

I could respect that he wanted to follow his dream, but I felt a bit betrayed that he opted not to improve our not-so-great financial situation. If he had moved up the ranks, we could have afforded to send me to a better school when things started going bad.

“Just some of the lasagna we had in the freezer, and I made a salad,” I replied, as he gave me a one-armed hug, briefcase still in his other hand.

“Sounds great. Thanks, Taylor. I'm just going to go change into something more comfortable,” he said as he headed off to his room.

“Sure, it still needs another five minutes or so.”

When he got back, dinner passed in relative silence. Neither of us were all that good at the small talk game. A while ago, I had tried using my power to be a bit more spontaneous, but it wasn't long before I stopped bothering – we just weren't cut out for it. It also felt like lying, or cheating, like I would make our relationship a farce. Thinking about my power reminded me of my headache, which must have shown on my face. Dad was looking right at me with a grimace when I looked up from my plate.

“You okay, Taylor?” he asked, his worry a bit more accented than usual.

“Yeah, woke up with a headache. It's not too bad. It'll probably be gone soon.”

Mostly true. It was still there when I woke up, after all.

“Again? You've been having a lot of those lately. Maybe we need to get you checked up sometime...” he trailed off.

“Naw, it'll be fine,” I said. We must have had this conversation half a dozen times in the last two months, since I'd gotten my power. Going to a doctor probably wouldn't be a problem for me, unless the Protectorate taught them to look out for Thinkers, but I wouldn't have to worry about that anyways. It wasn't like we had the money for it, if they weren't killing me.

“If you're sure... If you ever want to talk about anything, or need some help, you know I'm here for you, right?” he said with bit of a sad look.

“Yeah dad, I know. I'm fine, really,” I tried to give a reassuring smile, but it felt tight on my face. He'd already tried to help me once with school, when it all went to hell. All it earned us was some hush money – enough for my hospital bills and a bit extra – and nothing changed. Even if he knew it didn't actually get better, he wouldn't be able to do anything. We were nobodies, while my opposition distinctly wasn't. It would just be one more thing for him to worry about.

He looked for a moment like he wanted to ask something else, but instead gave a small nod and thankfully dropped it. It had been a while since he'd last asked, I was honestly confused why he brought it up again, now.

The rest of the meal was quiet, and we went to do our separate things for the rest of the evening. Dad normally watched TV, or did some paperwork, while I did some reading, or worked on sewing something.

Fortunately I slept a lot better that night. When Sunday rolled around, I was awake at my regular 6:28, two minutes before my weekday alarm, and felt fine again. I went for my morning jog, to keep in the habit, and had a nice hot shower when I came home. It felt heavenly.

Then it was time for my weekly ritual. Back in my room and closing my door. I got my cheap stopwatch, and my powers-journal, opening it to the familiar page. Just a bunch of numbers and disconnected thoughts to anyone who didn't know the admittedly weak cipher. Hopefully it'd just look like a journal used as a memo-pad if anyone found it. Last week I had averaged about 6.10, and the week before that 5.98.

I grabbed the stopwatch, readied to start it, and used my power. Six point four zero. A few more tries got an average of about 6.41 seconds. One of the good weeks. Nice.

When I first got my power, using it allowed me somewhere around three and a half seconds glimpse into the future. Now, a bit over two and a half months later, and I was getting close to doubling that time, and better than that for uses. At the start I could only use it maybe two dozen times per day, and I'd start to get a light headache. Now, I could easily use it about four or five dozen times before I'd start to feel anything.

As soon as I realized my power was getting better, I'd started to time myself. I could begin to start the stopwatch, activate my power, and then effectively see how far in the future I could get by what the last number I could remember seeing on the stopwatch was. The amount of improvement changed from week to week, and I speculated that it had something to do with how often I was using my power. Most weeks since I started keeping track saw about a one hundred to one-fifty millisecond improvement. A few times, I'd get a week like this with over three hundred.

I had started making notes on when I had headaches, and so far it suggested that I might get slightly better increases from pushing myself to the limit. It was painful enough and a small enough gain that I didn't think it was worth it, though. I also noticed that all my heroing weeks had seen better improvements, too, but I wasn't sure if that was because I was flexing my powers a bit more, or because I used them a lot the day or so before timing myself again.

My biggest increase had been my first outing, when I stayed for the cops. The headache was absolutely terrible, and I could hardly do anything all weekend but lie in bed with the blinds drawn, but it earned me just about half a second. It almost seemed worth it. Almost.

Figuring out how uses was improving was a bit more difficult, because my power didn't just 'reset' when I went to bed for the day. If I used it a lot the previous day, I couldn't get quite as many uses out of it the next, and so on. Especially so if I pushed it into headache territory. I settled for just trying to keep a vague mental tally every now and then for how much I used it at school and at home.

Longer and more often, by the time I was ready to join the Protectorate, if I kept practising and improving like this, my power could become pretty impressive. At my current state, taking on a few gang members wasn't a problem. Down the line I might feel confident enough to take on other parahumans, too. Or I might get good enough at crowd control that I could take on whole groups of gang members. I was staying clear of groups larger than three or four, as I was now.

I headed down to a fabric shop to buy a few cheap sheets of material, and spent the rest of the day trying a few simple things I'd learned from my reading the day before. I was pretty confident I had a decent handle on sleeves, now, which seemed like one of the harder parts to get right.

Then came Monday, and with it, school.

 

[FinalPyre]

1.3

Fridays were always the worst.

I could feel my apprehension building as I sat in my homeroom. My days always started with the best part – computer class – and tended to degrade from there. Not only did I excel with computers – we'd had one since I was old enough to use one – but being a “geek class” meant that none of the Trio were in it. Sure, a few of their hangers-on were, but Mrs. Knott was strict enough that nobody tried anything past a few nasty remarks before class started. Not that they had much reason to: if the trio weren't watching it wasn't going to help them get an in with the “popular girls”.

Mrs. Knott was my favourite teacher. Compared to the rest, that wasn't saying a whole lot, but she at least seemed to honestly try to do a good job. She was taller than I was, which made her quite a bit taller than the average woman. Slightly on the heavy side, with long blonde hair. Despite her broad shoulders and strong jawline, she dressed overtly feminine, like she was trying to make up for her more masculine features. The end result made her look kind of like a transvestite doing a good job.

She had split the class into two different sections: about three quarters of the class were either borderline or completely computer illiterate, and then there were those of us that had grown up with them – even if my current home computer was at least half my age by now. She would generally focus on the majority of the class teaching word processing or typing lessons, and give the advanced stream a simple coding assignment to work on by ourselves. That was fine by me, as it normally gave me a good amount of time to browse the internet on a decent connection. Being in the advanced stream also helped to keep people from harassing me, since we were in a different part of the computer lab.

Once again, we got a simple assignment I could program in less than fifteen minutes. It took a dictionary and made a binary search tree with a program we had written last class, and now used that to open a text file and list which words were spelled incorrectly, and how many. Mrs. Knott liked to give us assignments that let us build on a program for several classes, so that we'd have something neat after a while.

That taken care of, I opened a web browser and went to PHO. It was a good place to find all kinds of recent cape information, which was especially useful for figuring out which areas I needed to avoid. The reason I had been going a bit out of my way to get to Merchant territory was because I found out that much of the Docks, much closer to where I lived, had ABB influence. Lung was a cape that everyone avoided, and running into Oni Lee, a psychopathic murderer that could teleport and leave short-lived, autonomous clones of himself, would spell certain doom for me. Thus I normally took a late bus, or walked a few miles across town to get to more seedy areas that I could handle myself in.

I looked for any new threads about a new cape in Brockton Bay, and once again didn't find any. It was always a little bit disappointing, after taking some guys in, that I wasn't getting any attention. I still hadn’t thought of a good name to call myself and give to police though, so that was another problem all by itself. Once I could think of a cape name, and made a few more waves, I'd start to get more attention. Probably.

Thinking of a name was actually a lot harder than I had expected. It wasn't the type of problem I had thought I'd face, when I became a cape. I wanted something that at least tangentially related to my powers or costume, without being too clear about what exactly my powers were – I wanted to make sure to retain a bit of an edge. What made it worse was that many of the good names I'd looked up had already been taken. Hell, some of the bad name ideas had also been taken. Sightseer? Really?

Single, vague words seemed to work well, so I was considering calling myself something like Glance or Glimpse, which could work with my powers without spelling it out.

All in all, there wasn't much new information going around PHO about Brockton Bay the last few days. It had been a few weeks since I'd seen something that might have been related to me, when I saw someone post a brief news article about the BBPD arresting some Merchant dealers. Hard to tell, since the article was so short – the scale I was working at was only news-worthy on slow days, especially if I wasn't making appearances.

Class ended, and the shit began. Lugging my book-laden bag between classes – I hadn't used my locker since getting my powers, no matter how much the school administration assured me it had been cleaned out and that nothing like that would happen again – and prepared myself for dealing with the Trio. Madison; Sophia; Emma.

Madison Clements was the cute, popular one. Short, brown hair, and a look that said more petite or adorable than it did sexy, so she acted the part. She looked almost perpetually harmless and innocent, when she wasn't trying to get people to vandalize my things or trying to pull pranks, which I assumed was part of the reason she was able to get away with it all the time. Even her “evil sneers” tended towards cute. No teacher would think cute little Madison was causing problems.

If Madison was the cute one, Sophia Hess would be the dark and edgy one. She wasn't particularly popular, other than for being close friends with the popular girls. An athlete, with the body to show for it. She had dark skin, and was closer to me for height, though of course at fifteen years old and about five foot seven, I was still taller. She was definitely the most physical of the three, and tended more towards pushing, shoving, or tripping me when there weren't any teachers around. I honestly wasn't sure how she managed to get away with all her shit, other than her status as the school's track star.

Emma Barnes was the leader of their little gang. Almost amusing, since Winslow was already pretty much a gang school, having obvious factions of ABB – “Azn Bab Boys” – members, Empire nazis, and Merchant druggies often wearing their gang colours blatantly in the halls. Emma led the Bitch gang. She was a redhead with curves in all the right places. Good looking enough to grab the odd modelling job for local shopping catalogues. Pretty much everything I wasn't.

It had always bugged me just how easily I sometimes found myself falling into their pranks. I'd often berated myself for not being observant enough, or being just too slow on the uptake that I fell for what should have been an obvious trap. Leaving homework in my locker that I knew they'd somehow gotten into before; leaving my backpack unattended for a few minutes thinking it would be fine; not realizing I was walking too close to Sophia until I was on my ass; opening my locker after winter break, when it was so obvious something was horribly wrong...

When I'd first gotten my powers, and realized what they were, it was like another slap to the face. Mere second's glimpse into the future. Only actually useful if I used it at precisely the right time, and even then often it wasn't enough. It was like an evil genie had heard my griping, and decided to give me powers only to taunt me. Fortunately, they'd been improving, and I'd gotten better at using them. Much better at using them.

There was a trick to using my power, past it giving me a few extra seconds to think and see threats before they were coming. My power worked by intent. It had taken a while to figure out, but I eventually reasoned that since my power showed me the results of what I was currently doing, a few seconds into the future, then if I could quickly change between what I intended to do, and what I actually did in reality, I could see the results of other things that might happen. It was tricky to get used to, but I managed it. Now, I could be walking down the halls in school, suddenly decide to whirl around and charge through the hallway to look for any potential harassers, and use my power the moment I committed to action. As soon as I got my power's feedback, I would soundly decide to not go running around the halls, and instead continue on normally. I began to get pretty good at avoiding the people I wanted to avoid, even if that was just about the entire female population – and a few of the guys – in my grade.

Those tactics tended to work pretty well with Madison and Sophia, especially if I used my powers to find ways to make their pranks work, but in a way that was less harmful to me and my belongings than they intended. They still managed to ruin my clothes, on occasion.

Those tactics didn't work so well with Emma.

Walking through the halls, the stage whispers started.

“Ugh, smell some rotten garbage?”

“Yeah... oh, it's her. Does she ever shower?”

“Why does she even bother coming to school anymore?”

“Who knows, I saw Mr. Quinlan pull her aside for the last math assignment too.” They giggled at that.

“Too dumb to keep up.”

“She isn't even trying.”

“I'd say she should put a little less effort into her looks, and a bit more into not being a dropout, but, well...”

“Yeah, not trying there either. Not that she has anything to work with, but at least she could make herself less painful to look at, you know?”

“Yeah, for our sakes.”

They started snickering as I passed them, trying to keep my head down. Bitches.

It was a favourite tactic of Emma's. Madison tried it too, but she wasn't nearly as good at it. Get a bunch of girls talking as I walked by, pretending like I wasn't there. They weren't smart or clever. They weren't even consistent, as they would sometimes contradict each other, but they were wearing. Emma would often hang in the back, she would bide her time to make comments that stung.

Madison liked pranks, Sophia liked to be physical, and Emma liked words. Worse, Emma knew which words to use: up until a year and a half ago, Emma had been my best friend. We were like sisters. She had been there for me when Mom died, even when Dad hadn’t; now she used those memories to hurt me. At the start, I had tried fighting back, which only made it worse. I had long given up hope that they would stop, or that anyone would help me. They were the popular ones, and I was a nobody that the school obviously didn't deem worth the time aside from their regular gang conflicts – or the hit to their track star's reputation, whatever bullshit reasoning they subscribed to.

Now that I had powers, I had tried using them to see how they would react if I started to fight back more aggressively. If Emma had my secrets, I had her's too, after all. It was hard to tell, with only a few seconds to see the result, but I thought their reaction had been pretty clear: escalation. And even with what they had done to me, using her secrets had felt wrong, like I'd dirtied myself in some way by stooping to their level, even if it was just a theoretical future.

I'd thought about using my powers to vent, about how satisfying it would be to give Emma a broken nose, but I'd decided against it. It wouldn't be real – just showing me a thing that could happen – and I was worried it would desensitize me in the long run, slowly cause me to stop caring about other people, if I started to use my power for super-realistic revenge fantasies. A slippery slope. That wasn't what a good person would do. That wasn't what a Hero would do. That was a bully's game.

That, and a small part of me was still worried that I’d fuck up, and suddenly find out I had done something in reality without using my power. If I lashed out at one of them, they'd bury me. Emma's dad was a lawyer, and he had connections. If I hit his poor, innocent daughter? I'd be fucked.

I made it the rest of the way through the halls and into class, ducked over to my desk, and brushed the pencil shavings from my seat onto the floor. World Issues class.

World Issues was taught by Mr. Gladly, or as he insisted, Mr. G. He was short, blond, and energetic. He tried his best – too hard, in my opinion – to be one of the “cool teachers” that got along with the students. Snack prizes for quizzes, “fun” assignments, and lots of time to mingle with friends under the thin guise of group work. Needless to say, I hated his class. His style of teaching just enabled people to mess with me, and he would usually pretend that he hadn't seen what had happened, lest he endanger his relationship with the popular students, and thus most of the class. Or he was just that aloof, which was entirely possible. The sad looks he gave me every now and then said otherwise, though.

The only reprieve was that there were other unpopular people in the class, Greg and Sparky. Greg tended to be enthusiastic and outgoing, the only problem was that he was hopelessly socially inept, tending to just say absolutely everything and anything that came to mind. Short, glasses, and a little overweight, he fit the stereotypical nerd image to a tee. Sparky was the long-haired, drummer stoner. I could generally just pretend Sparky wasn't there, which suited me just fine, but Greg just wouldn't stop talking. Or bouncing his leg up and down.

Groups tended to be in fours, so I'd often end up with one of the trio's hangers-on who would act like I had personally forced them into our sad group. Still, it was better than being forced into a group full of people gleefully working towards making me look stupid. It was hard enough to keep my grades up with assignments oh so mysteriously disappearing every now and then.

Class was mostly uneventful. Some wads of paper, and one of Madison's friends managed to get another bunch of pencil shavings and dump them on the back of my shirt when Mr. Gladly wasn't looking, but I could deal. Fridays were always the worst, after all. I could use my powers throughout the week to avoid the brunt of their pranks and more physical stunts. Check rooms before walking in, choose safer routs through the school, dodge a trip or shove here and there. This meant that by Friday, they often wanted to pack in that little bit extra before the weekend.

And of course, with my luck, Fridays were the best day for me to go heroing – Dad was working Saturday again – and that meant clamping down on my power use as much as possible throughout the day. Hell, if I hadn't done so last week, I could easily have gotten a headache that much faster, and gotten myself shot. That thought sent a shiver down my spine.

It was a lot easier to keep going, knowing that I could go out and make a difference. Stop some crime, help some people, make Brockton Bay just a little bit of a better city.

I spent lunch in the third story girl's bathroom, one stall from the end. It was my new hiding spot, and it'd take a while to find me there. I'd stopped using the cafeteria about half a year ago, it just wasn't worth the hassle. Here I could eat lunch in peace, and get a little reading done. The air freshener still worked, so it didn't even smell that horrible, which was a big plus.

I'd need to change spots pretty soon. They'd find this one eventually, probably early next week. They were treating it like a casual game of hide and seek, where they desperately tried not to appear like they were searching for me by taking it slow.

***​

The rest of the day was pretty straightforward. I got some shoves in the hall, and was tripped up once, but I wasn't going to get any bruises, so it didn't matter much. I was already working on plans for what route I wanted to take on patrol tonight.

Behind that rundown grocery store seemed to be a pretty popular dealing location. I'd already seen a group down there twice before, and busted the one last week when there weren't as many guys around. It was almost to the point where I wondered if Hanson's itself was involved at all, but that seemed too organized for the Merchants, who generally bummed around any territory that nobody else bothered to secure.

Turned out, I'd completely forgotten that there was a test today in Mr. Quinlan's math class. It made sense: he always liked to have quizzes and tests on Fridays, on the hollow promise that he'd have it marked over the weekend, while it always took at least half a week. I hadn't studied at all, but hopefully that wasn't going to be a problem.

My power was marvellous for tests. While I could just use it during the test to walk around and spy at answers, I didn't cheat. Being an English professor, Mom had driven “cheating is wrong” into me as a child. Dad and I had suffered through rants whenever one of her students had thought they could get away with it. I wouldn't disappoint Mom like that, even if she wasn't around anymore.

No, my power was niftier than that. Using my power let me instantly know what would happen if I carried out my current course of action over the next few seconds. That wouldn’t be helpful if I couldn't process it fast enough, I was guessing, so my power covered that gap by giving me instant, vivid recollection of almost every detail – like a very clear memory of something done just moments ago.

Better yet, it would continue to remain as a near-perfect memory whenever I tried to recall it. After I'd discovered this I'd spent some evenings, and weekends when I wasn't going out, reading through my textbooks and course notes. It took a while to get through most of the material, but if I read it through, made my own notes on what was important, and then read those with my power, I had near-perfect recall of all the important parts of a course. I even worked ahead; it didn't matter if I couldn't understand it all yet, I could just re-read it in my mind whenever I wanted, or learn it in class and still have it for review. And the best part: I didn't need to use my power for recall. No headaches.

Thus, with a bit of work tests had become really easy, and bullies couldn't mess with my tests like they could assignments. I was using them in an attempt to bring my marks back up. Before going into high school, I'd had good enough grades to get into Arcadia, the public school with it's reputation for hosting the Wards – or their secret identities anyways. New Wave, the somewhat-failed movement for full-disclosure capes, also sent their kids there, whose identities were public knowledge just like all of their members. It was about as close as you could get to a “superhero school”, which meant a better budget and that bullying wasn't tolerated.

Sadly enough, I'd made the initial decision to choose the shit hole Winslow over the shining Arcadia because my best friend Emma was going there, herself not having the grades for Arcadia. Another bad decision, in hindsight. Hopefully if I could keep scoring high on tests, and not do too terribly on assignments, I could get my grades back up and get a transfer. Their waiting list for transfers was apparently really long, but hopefully having good grades would bump me up the list.

And the test was easy. Lots of the problems I could solve just from my regular studying, and having perfectly memorized example problems in my head made the rest trivial. The only errors I would make would be simple writing or calculation errors. Ninety percent at least.

Mr. Quinlan let us leave when we were done, being the last class of the day. I tried not to finish too early – it was really hard to tell what the right level of paranoia was, but with my academic history, hopefully it would just look like I had a few bad semesters before getting my head back into the game. I waited until five or so others had handed their tests in, and then went up myself. I could still leave before anyone else could try to set up a last trap before the weekend, this way.

The stout balding man took it with a curious look, which was a departure from his usual severe expression. It made me a bit nervous, but he gave me one of his curt nods and motioned that it was fine for me to leave, so I grabbed my bag and headed home with a spring in my step. Tonight would be fun.

***​

I ran around the corner. There were three guys, Merchant colours, all talking together at the back of the grocer: same one as last week. I ran towards them, and yelled “Hey!” as soon as they saw me. They jumped into action, grabbing their weapons and backing up to make a getaway... no. They were making room for something behind them. A bright light blinded me as some kind of motorcycle revved to life with a resounding boom-​

Holy crap. That was Squealer. Something was definitely going on with the Merchants and Hanson's. Really good thing I hadn't just run in there. I was also trying out making a lot of noise when I probed areas with my power, in hopes that I could see just what kind of trouble I might be dealing with before I committed. If it saved me from running right in front of Squealer, Skidmark's right-hand woman, it was probably a good strategy. Yelling was still kind of embarrassing though, even if nobody other than me knew that I did it. Maybe I'd try clapping? Or I could get an air horn sometime.

I used my power again to sneak around the corner and get another look. From what I could tell, they were just standing there chatting. Dealing like normal? Or maybe it was a hand off. Either way, I was pretty sure I wasn't up to fighting another parahuman, even if Squealer was kind of low-tier. Tinker powers involved creating crazy sci-fi tech to bring them above the average human. I'd imagine it was difficult to do, stoned half the time.

Squealer was known for making large, loud, and crappy-looking vehicles for getaways and showy fights. Still, she was a Tinker, and Tinkers could pull off all kinds of crazy stuff with their tech, and I'd even heard of Squealer pulling off something really crazy every now and then. I didn't want to run in only to find out that she had a motorcycle-mounted cannon.

Or for it just to explode and kill us all.

I decided it was best to leave them alone, at least for now. They weren't hurting anyone directly, and if they really did have something going on with Hanson's, there might be more guys inside, if one of their leaders was around. Too bad I couldn't call in Protectorate backup. No payphones around this part of town. I really needed to buy a cheap cellphone sometime soon, but since I never had one before – Dad blamed Mom's car accident on her cellphone – I had no idea how to set up a plan. Could I even do it anonymously? No idea.

I quietly moved on to some of the other locations I'd been to in the past. Most were empty, but I heard some people talking when I got to one of the alleys I'd had success at before.

I ran around the corner. Two grungy-looking people in Merchant colours. The guy was slowly bouncing a bag of something against his leg. Either merchandise or money. They slowly turned to look at me as I dashed forwards. I clapped my hands together loudly a few times to see about startling them. The guy immediately help up a tire iron, while the other frantically fished in her pocket. The hilt of a knife came-​

Looked good. I was happy with a safer bust than last week. I'd stop these guys, then get home early so I could have plenty of time to go buy some more sheet metal to sew into my coat tomorrow. I made sure the knife I'd acquired last week was within easy reach on a loop of my coat just in case – I'd decided against bringing the gun until I had practice shooting it – and ran my fingers across the knuckles of my fingerless gloves, now both sporting thin strips of metal sewn across the top, made from the last of the scraps of sheet metal and foam from making my mask.

I strode around the corner, trying to use my full height to look as imposing as possible. I didn't want to rush them, but I still went fast enough that they wouldn't have much gain on me if they decided to run. 'Long, confident strides,' I told myself.

They saw me coming, jolted a bit, and then grabbed their weapons, though more slowly than before. Looked like they wanted a fight. That was fine with me.

They took a few steps towards me too as I closed the distance, moving into the lone light of the alley: a small incandescent bulb lighting the back doors of some corner store. They looked worried, but were smirking at me. That was pretty usual for people willing to fight. Then one started chuckling, and purposefully looked over my shoulder, like he had some kind of hilarious secret. That gave me pause.

'What's there?'

I used my power, but it was too late. A door opened behind me as I turned around.

'Oh.'

'Oh no.'

 

[FinalPyre]

1.4

“We got ya, you fucking little shit-stain!” Skidmark called as he sauntered out from the old corner store door behind me. There were four more thugs behind him, with a crow bar, what looked like a steel bat, a length of chain, and one with a knife. They fanned out behind me into the alley.

Skidmark himself wasn't armed, but then again, he didn't need to be. Skidmark was the leader of the Merchants. Not terribly much was known about him, other than he controlled the drugs, relocated them frequently to avoid detection, and that he normally used his power to escape from trouble rather than fight.

He wore a skintight, mostly full body suit. I knew it was dark blue, but it looked black in the dim lighting. I could just barely make out his mouth and eyes, the few parts of his face his dark-blue mask didn't cover. His rotting teeth still managed to glisten, becoming sparse, yellowish specks of light from a face otherwise shrouded by darkness.

I realized that I was just standing there, letting what I had already seen with my power reenact behind me. 'Fuck fuck fuck fuck! Need to focus! I need to focus or I'm fucking dead!' My mind was a blur, yet felt slow, like I had to slog through my thoughts. I could feel the adrenaline start roaring through my veins, pumping up far beyond what I'd already had going into the alley.

I needed to act, and I needed to act fast.

I quickly stepped forwards, using my power multiple times. I moved into range of the two dealers I had originally come to arrest. There was no time to be nice or elegant, I needed to take them down as fast as possible.

As soon as I got close enough, the guy with the tire iron swung to my left. He held it by the long section, using the curved end like a hammer, aiming for my chest.

Long stride in with my right, to get up close to guy, inside his swing. Grab the tire iron with both my hands mid swing. Turn sharply, wrenching it out of his hands and pulling him over the side of my back while moving my right foot again as I turned, using his own weight to trip him so that he face-planted onto the pavement. Using the imparted momentum, spin and slam the tire iron into the girl's chest, moments before her knife could connect with my back.

Done in less than two seconds.

The girl bounced off the side of the corner store, dropping her knife and grabbing her chest gasping. I must have knocked the air out of her.

No longer between two groups, I had a chance at escape. I used my power.

I ran down the alley as fast as I could go. Faster than I'd ever ran before. Like I'd feared, it was pointless. As soon as I'd started to run, a wave of colour shimmered through the air past me, and onto the ground.

“Trying to run, you fucking pussy?” yelled Skidmark from behind me.

My running slowed. It felt like I was running against a strong headwind, or through water, and the feeling slowly mounted as I desperately tried to push past it. The blue stain that coated the ground around me continued to get darker, until I finally tumbled backwards. My head smacked the pavement, and I yelped as I rolled backwards, scraping my fingers on bits of gravel and glass.

I turned around and looked up. The guy I had hit to the ground was slowly getting back up, cradling his face in his hands, with blood leaking between his fingers. The girl was still on the ground wheezing, but giving me a vicious smile.

Skidmark was sauntering up to me, the light from above casting shadows that made him look bigger, and his face more rigid, meaner. I could see his crooked, rotting teeth as he smiled down at me.

“You squeal like a whore. We can't have you leaving the party-”​

I quickly turned around and used my power to look for any other escape routs. The only door close by on the corner store was the one Skidmark and friends had come out of. The other side of the alley was the back of a run-down apartment building – just a solid wall on the ground level, save for one back door that didn't even have a handle on the outside. Higher up there were windows – some were even open – and a fire-escape staircase, but they were all too high for me to reach.

No, running away wasn't an option. Fuck me, I'd have to fight Skidmark, plus four thugs. Hopefully I could at least go down giving him a black eye, or something.

A traitorous voice in the back of my mind reminded me that they didn't have any guns – the Merchants didn't have many, and even for them it was a dumb idea to shoot with their people on both sides of the fight. If I'd brought my gun, I could have gotten out of this in seconds. I was going to die, or worse, because I'd thought I needed practice before shooting the gun, and decided not to bring it along at all. Fuck.

There was no running away, so I had to go forward. I quickly walked past the girl, and gave the guy on the ground a quick kick to the ribs as I moved past, towards the remaining group.

“Are you even a cape, or are those piss-drinkers just that big of pussies?” Skidmark jeered. He was still slowly walking towards me, with big exaggerated steps and his hands in his pockets. The four backup thugs looked a lot more tense, hiding a bit in the back. Good. “Not saying nothing? The quiet type? Don't worry, I'll make sure you squeal like a bitch. You a Thinker? Your power showing us beating your skinny ass into tomorrow? You fuck with us, we put your ass down.”

It clicked. Squealer in the other alley: 'They were looking for me.' Even though what I was doing was minor, I'd hurt their pocket or their members one too many times, so they decided to get rid of me.

I knew I needed to keep moving. Staying in one place would allow Skidmark to build up his power, making things more difficult, and with their boss acting so confident, the other thugs were starting to get over their initial skittishness. I kept walking towards him at an even pace.

Suddenly, maybe bored of talking to himself, Skidmark stopped and reached out in front of him with both hands. The one was creating a layer of purple in front of me, and I could already feel myself having to work harder to maintain my pace. A use of my power showed me that the blue aura warping through the air from his other hand was creating a similar field to the one he had made in my aborted escape attempt.

A box. Two buildings on either side, and fields behind and in front of me. If he finished it, I was done. There'd be nothing I could do. I wasn't even sure what the limits of his powers were. Could he crush me between the fields? I had to get out, somehow, or stop him.

I quickly started using my power. Turned out, the effect I was going for was a lot harder than it looked in movies, and even though I'd read up on how to do it, that apparently only went so far. I'd wasted well over a dozen uses, and moved maybe half a step in real-time, before I got a result that would work well enough.

A quick flick of my wrist unsheathed my knife from it's spot on my belt, almost silently, and another flick sent it flying towards Skidmark. It flashed white through the air as it spun, catching on the light for a brief moment, before hitting Skidmark in the side and glancing off of him to clatter down the alleyway towards a dumpster on the residential side.

Skidmark cried out and grabbed his side. When he pulled his hand away, it was glistening with blood – there wasn't a lot, but it had been enough to cut him. It probably said more about the knife's quality than it did my throw. His fields hadn't dissipated yet, but they'd stopped getting stronger, which was the advantage I needed.

When Skidmark looked back up, I was almost on top of him. He jolted, and then jumped back, using his power to slide backwards along the pavement with a streak of colour that quickly faded, stopping slightly behind the recruits he'd brought with him.

“The cock-sucker fucking stabbed me! Beat the shit out of him!” Skidmark yelled, now in a rage.

For some reason, my mind chose that moment to be offended that after the work I had done trying to make my costume look more on the feminine side, he still thought I was a guy. I really didn't have a whole lot to work with, damn it!

The four thugs, now a little more psyched up, started moving closer as I continued my advance. Crowbar was in the front, closely backed up by Steel Bat and Chain... Guy. Knife was holding back a bit, looking more wary than the others.

I still had quite a few uses of my powers left, but I didn't want to waste them. I needed to make sure I could keep up the pressure to stop Skidmark from trying to box me in again. I waited until Crowbar was less than a dozen good strides away before I started checking with my power.

'Fuck!' I hammered on my power as hard as I could. Half a second that felt like forever before I realized that it was too late: I'd have to take a hit.

The thug in front yelled, charging forwards a few steps before whipping his crowbar at me as hard as he could. I managed to move slightly to my right and parry with my left arm, using the spin of the crowbar to lessen the blow.

It still hurt like a bitch. I clenched my jaw to keep from screaming as I felt a wave of pain shock through my entire arm, rattling my bones. It felt like hitting my elbow but everywhere on my arm at once. Of course I had been waiting for the end of my patrol before putting metal plates in my coat. I was pretty sure nothing broke or cracked, but that would be a hell of a bruise tomorrow, if I lasted that long.

At least it was better than the alternative – I could have lunged to the side to dodge, but then I would be on the ground, with four guys above me. I didn't think my odds of getting back up would be very good.

My arm felt like it was on fire, and my blood felt like shards of glass mixed with adrenaline. I quickly closed the last few steps between myself and the group. After that mistake I was using my powers more liberally. If I was going down, I was going to make it hurt them to do it.

I swung for his face with my left, he tried to block, and my good arm came under his guard in an uppercut. I felt his nose crunch under my fist and he staggered back, while I took a half step to my left to narrowly miss an incoming swing from the chain.

“Code blue cock-garglers!” Skidmark was a ways down the alley now, closer to the residential building. I saw a long, very solid blue streak on the ground extending from beside him, aiming at me. As he spoke, he quickly extended it backwards, so that it included the dumpster behind him.

It shot off like a bullet. His men must have had some practice, or at least a vague idea of what he was doing, because even Crowbar, clutching his face, dove off to the side.

I could use this. I kept firing my power.

Quick grab with my right hand to catch the chain before the thug could move back. A quick step to the right, just enough to clear the dumpster, and a quick spin and pull to the left on the chain. The chain guy couldn't let go fast enough, and was jerked back from his escape attempt. He staggered back, clipped the side of the dumpster as it flew past, and was sent flying to the ground behind me on my left.

I let go of the chain, and leaned back as the dumpster flew past my face, bracing myself so that the blast of air didn't knock me down. It hit the ground and flipped over, crashing loudly into the corner store wall, sending fragments of brick and garbage scattering around the alley. I spared a quick check with my power to confirm that the first two thugs had retreated much further down the alley earlier, and hadn't become dumpster pancakes.

I'd seen the brief flash in many of my power uses, so I flicked my left arm out – stifling another hiss of pain – to catch my knife again as it flew by half a second behind the dumpster. 'Huh. Handy.'

Steel Bat was slowly backing up now, and Knife looked positively spooked, shaking and quickly backing towards his boss, who was cursing up a storm. I was burning through my power really fast with these stunts, but I needed to take what I could get.

I pressed my advantage and continued striding towards them. Chain Guy was sprawled on the ground behind me, no longer with his chain, and wasn't an immediate problem. Crowbar had started getting back up, and was closest, so I shifted my path slightly towards him, delivering a kick to his side and a quick swipe with my reclaimed knife to his thigh, sending him falling over back to the ground, now holding his leg.

“Just leave him fucking alone man!” Steel Bat yelled, and he rushed forward. His eyes were wide in a manic way, and I wasn't sure if it was more from fear or drugs as he made a desperate swing at me.

I was able to parry it close to the handle with my right, which hurt, but wasn't anywhere near the now constant throbbing in my left arm. A flick with my left gave him a matching shallow cut to his thigh, and a quick step and pull sent him tumbling behind me onto his friend.

“Fuck this shit, man!” Knife turned and ran back down the alley. Skidmark cussed at him, and threw up a field to trip him up on his way out, but he got back up and kept running, yelling apologies to his boss over his shoulder.

A sudden pulling sensation had my attention firmly back on Skidmark. I stepped a bit to the side to avoid the worst of the orange field as he extended it and made it stronger. He rushed in, holding a length of pipe he got from who-knows-where – maybe the dumpster before he threw it? – speeding himself up on his own patch of green pavement.

He swung, and I leaned and stepped to the left to let it narrowly pass in front of me, switching my knife to my better arm.

In close quarters, handling Skidmark's power was still pretty tricky. He'd try to back off a bit, then use a field to rush in and accelerate his next swing. While that telegraphed his next attack, he tried to mess me up by shifting fields around my feet just enough that I would stagger if I wasn't ready for it. I could dodge, but he was always able to move back fast enough that my knife couldn't quite hit him, and I couldn't keep this up for long: my headache was starting to get worse.

I needed another advantage. Something he wouldn't see coming. He was obviously getting frustrated that I wasn't staggering, and that his first swing missed, if his litany of barely-coherent swears was anything to go by, but some of his guys would be back up in moments, I was sure.

I made a split second decision – well, a few dozen seconds if you counted my power – and grabbed his pipe with my right hand when he came in for his second swing at me. It stung, and I could feel a sharp tingling sensation running down my arm, but I held it tight and pulled back as he tried to zip away again on another field, causing him to lose his footing and fall over. I let go of the pipe so I wouldn't fall with him – Skidmark was pretty thin, probably slowly wasting away on meth but he was still stronger than I was – and stepped so I was over him, putting him in the situation I had been worried about getting into myself with Crowbar's stunt.

My headache started to settle in at a slow burn. Not knowing what else to do, I started repeatedly kicking him in the side, and aiming for his hands so he would drop the pipe. It was hard to dodge or block everything while attacking him, and he managed to kick me a few times and hit me with his pipe on the legs, but without room for a windup it didn't hurt much.

Whenever he tried to use a field to slide away or make me fall over, I would stomp down on his chest, or kick him hard with my steel-toed shoes to get him to roll over and out of the effect. It seemed like if he couldn't concentrate on it, they were small and faded quickly.

Soon he slowed down enough that I was able to turn him over, grab his wrists, and zip-tie them together.

I winced as I used my power to look back over the alley. The guy hit by the dumpster – which was now warped, and partially wedged into the brick of the wall – was still sprawled on the ground, not moving. I didn't see any blood, so maybe he was unconscious. Crowbar was still on the ground, clutching his leg which had a small red stain on it, and Steel Bat was slowly standing back up, favouring his right leg, looking at Crowbar.

I didn't stop moving. I left the alley and started jogging down the street, towards a busier part of the city. Once I was pretty sure I was safe, I spotted a payphone and popped in a quarter. I was halfway through entering in the BBPD's phone number when I realized that I'd actually fought a parahuman, which meant I needed to call the Parahuman Response Team instead. I dialled the PRT, and waited a moment before they picked up. I was trying to think of what to say: street names, parties involved, and injuries, but my headache was bad enough that coupled with the adrenaline my thoughts were muddled and difficult to piece together.

“PRT, what's your emergency?” a surprisingly chipper female voice greeted me. It made a strange disconnect with my pounding heartbeat, aching muscles, and low-burning headache. I took a second to get my breathing under control before responding.

“I fought Skidmark and... six other Merchant members down an alley on Canton Avenue, by Glendale. Between an apartment and a corner store.” I was trying to get all my facts straight, and using my power to give me time to think it through was quickly fading as an option.

“Wow. Righto. I'm contacting Dauntless and sending a truck down to pick them up right away. Dauntless should be there in a few minutes. I'm getting that you're on a public payphone here. Are you okay, and should Dauntless be prepared for a fight?” she asked, if anything a bit more energetic than before.

Huh, she seemed kind of nonchalant about this. I wonder if it happened all the time, or if she was just that kind of person. I guess she was used to getting calls from capes, whereas it was my first time ever being so close to another one. Not really how I'd hoped to meet one either.

“I'll be okay, and maybe? I zip-tied Skidmark, and beat up the others a bit, but some of them left already. Squealer was around, so maybe they went to get her? Skidmark hit one of the guys with a dumpster, and I think he's unconscious, but I couldn't check how bad it was...” I trailed off. I was pretty sure that was everything important. Most of the others just had bloody noses at worst, I thought.

“Ha!” I jolted, her loud bark catching me off guard and sending a ringing pain through my head. “That sounds like Skidmark all right! I hope you gave him a good punch for me! I let Dauntless know to be careful. There will be a medical professional with the truck, so he can check on the others, so don't worry about it. Would you be willing to come in for a debriefing?”

'Not like this,' I thought. I knew it would be a good idea to go in and establish good relations with the Protectorate members, even if it meant I'd have to suffer through a Wards pitch, but I didn't want their first impression of me to be "battered and barely coherent". I wanted them to know that I could handle myself on my own. With how I was feeling, I was hardly going to be useful for a debriefing anyways.

“Sorry,” I answered, “I don't think I'll be up for it.”

“You're sure you're doing okay?” she asked, a bit of concern tinging her voice.

“Yeah, just tired,” I said.

“Okay, that's fair. If you want, it'd be great if you called in sometime in the next few days to schedule a debriefing, but you don't have to if you don't want to. We won't bite,” she said, chuckling a bit.

“Okay, I'll think about it,” I said.

“Thanks, that's great. Can I get a name, Miss?”

I almost instinctively blurted out “Taylor Hebert”, before stopping myself and realizing she was asking for my cape name: my Hero identity.

I still hadn't decided on one yet, but if I was going to start calling myself something, now seemed as good a time as any. I hoped I wouldn't regret my decision, or that some idiot on PHO wouldn't think of some obvious innuendo that I'd missed. In my searches I'd seen some cape in Connecticut with a spatial awareness power that called himself “looker”... that hadn't gone too well for him.

“Call me Glimpse,” I said.

“Nice talking to you Glimpse. Can I help you with anything else tonight?”

“No, thanks. Bye.”

“Bye, have a good night!” she said, and hung up.

Huh. That was possibly the most pleasant, normal phone call I'd had with the police so far, or full conversation with them at all, really. Thinking about it, it was probably the most normal – and maybe even longest? – conversation I'd had with anyone any time recently. That was weird to think about.

I kept as brisk a pace as I could manage on my way back home. When I got to where I'd stored my regular clothes, I took off my jacket and tried to examine my arms. They hurt, my left much worse than my right. Slowly feeling down them, it looked like nothing was broken, but like I expected, there was already some nasty bruising forming. I had actually bled a bit where the crowbar hit me, but it had scabbed over already. It was a good thing I normally wore long sleeves, or it would be nearly impossible to hide.

A quick check on my right leg, which was significantly more sore than my left, revealed a few welts, but nothing too bad.

All in a rush, it finally hit me: I'd fought Skidmark. I'd fought Skidmark – another parahuman, who had been around for years – and I'd won. I felt a giddy excitement overtake me, and it took a good deal of willpower, aided by a reminder from my headache, to stop myself from breaking down giggling and jumping around the alley.

It was more excitement than I'd wanted, and boy if I wasn't paying for it with battle scars, but that was awesome. It was really too bad that I couldn't stick around to meet the Heroes, and that I hadn't been able to get the transaction bag this time, but I'd done something that mattered! Skidmark was the crime boss of the Merchants, for crying out loud! Well, maybe that was playing them up a bit. From what I'd read, even the other gangs thought the Merchants were pathetic, but still.

I walked the remainder of the way to my house with what I'm pretty sure was a big goofy grin on my face, albeit between winces. When I got back, I braced myself, and used my power to check on Dad. Sleeping like a log. Good.

When I opened the door, both with my power and for real, there was a faint cracking sound. It was a bit quieter now, or maybe just seemed that way now that I'd been outside – it had startled me a bit when I left. A small reminder that our house was getting old, I guess. I sometimes wondered if there was any way I could help with the bills without Dad finding out. Still, after I finally managed to work my way out of my street clothes, clean myself off a bit, and worm into my pyjamas, I felt like things were going to slowly get better. I could deal with school as long as I had something to look forwards to outside of it.

Easing into my bed, it didn't take me long to fall asleep, with pleasant dreams.

 

[FinalPyre]

Trying to write Skidmark was a strange adventure. I feel like any time I try to make him say swear words it comes across as horribly awkward.

Also trying to have him be reasonably competent, his thugs act reasonably close to human beings with thought processes, and still have them lose was a little tricky. Skidmark is a druggie, but he's been at it for years. He should at least have a decent trick or two, even if he avoids most fights. Most of Taylor's advantage is due to them not knowing what her power is, which I hope came through a bit.

 

[Gammoregan]

Woo, this has a thread now! And the fight was good, although I honestly expected more of Skidmark. Dude's been leader of a BB gang for years, so I think it's kinda OOC for him to lose like that. But it was still very enjoyable. Can't wait for more.

 

[FinalPyre]

Woo, this has a thread now! And the fight was good, although I honestly expected more of Skidmark. Dude's been leader of a BB gang for years, so I think it's kinda OOC for him to lose like that. But it was still very enjoyable. Can't wait for more.

Click to shrink...

Ahh, I was worried about that (see above). Most of it's that he keeps trying stuff, but it's not working because he doesn't know what the hell Guy With the Mask's power is (such as trying to trip Taylor on different fields, but she's able to adjust before he even has them on the ground). It also might not be clear until later, but the fight is also extremely short. I'd guess it's about a minute from Skidmark and gang filing out of the door, to Skidmark being on the ground.

Nevertheless, I'd love any ideas for how to make him seem more competent, and how to make fights more exciting. Also would like to know if people have a clear idea of what is happening or not. Not sure how much I'd go back to fix this fight in particular, but I'd definitely appreciate the knowledge on how to make future fights better.


Also another thing: these chapters are all edited versions of the ones posted in the discussions thread. Nothing major was changed, so it shouldn't be an issue. The biggest thing I can think of is I slightly altered how Taylor dealt with the guy she shot in the first chapter.

 

[Gammoregan]

I honestly have no idea how to make him properly competent without Taylor losing. I think he's probably fought Uber or Alexander before, or both (but not at the same time), and they likely fight similarly to Taylor so... Yeah, I'm just having a hard time imagining her beating him at this point. Well, other than blitzing him, but he was ambushing her so that doesn't seem likely here. The duration of the fight being around a minute definitely helps her though. Oh, and Cricket probably fights in a similar manner to Taylor as well, maybe even more than the other two. But yeah, if you put in something after the fight about it lasting under a minute or whatnot, that would help make it more understandable.

 

[FinalPyre]

I honestly have no idea how to make him properly competent without Taylor losing. I think he's probably fought Uber or Alexander before, or both (but not at the same time), and they likely fight similarly to Taylor so... Yeah, I'm just having a hard time imagining her beating him at this point. Well, other than blitzing him, but he was ambushing her so that doesn't seem likely here. The duration of the fight being around a minute definitely helps her though. Oh, and Cricket probably fights in a similar manner to Taylor as well, maybe even more than the other two. But yeah, if you put in something after the fight about it lasting under a minute or whatnot, that would help make it more understandable.

Click to shrink...

That makes sense. The duration will come up later. Probably the next chapter, and then briefly again the one after that (which will be an interlude). My impression of Skidmark and the Merchants is that they normally don't fight, but run, which is why they have territory that nobody wants: they don't try to protect their territory against the big threats. So Skidmark might have run into those people, but he'd promptly run away.

So yeah, maybe he loses some competency points here.

For a more fun direction: what kind of cool tricks would you pull in a fight with mostly surface-based, directional manipulation?

 

[Hunter 1]

For a more fun direction: what kind of cool tricks would you pull in a fight with mostly surface-based, directional manipulation?

Click to shrink...

Pinball. Bonus points if the "ball" is a kinetic projectile of some kind (like a bullet or railgun/coilgun round).

 

[Condor12]

Huh... Cool. Watched

 

[Bladestar123]

That makes sense. The duration will come up later. Probably the next chapter, and then briefly again the one after that (which will be an interlude). My impression of Skidmark and the Merchants is that they normally don't fight, but run, which is why they have territory that nobody wants: they don't try to protect their territory against the big threats. So Skidmark might have run into those people, but he'd promptly run away.

So yeah, maybe he loses some competency points here.

For a more fun direction: what kind of cool tricks would you pull in a fight with mostly surface-based, directional manipulation?

Click to shrink...

If you don't mind me cutting in...?

It would make sense, since it was him and Taylor basically standing one-to-one, for him to put a field between them, like a line, any swing he makes is accelerated, any attack back is drastically reduced. Then, when she stumbles, to put a field behind her so she trips.

I dunno, best I could think of right now...

 

[Condor12]

I didn't lose as much SoD on Skidmarks competency here. He doesn't really actively compete with or oppose E88 or ABB and mostly just gets by by not being a big deal to them, maybe he would have fought the likes of Cricket or Uber at some point but there's no saying he won these theoretical fights on his own or at all. He actually was pretty competent here, using his power in some half decently clever ways and Skidmark not being massively smart at using his own powers is canon last I checked. Him getting caught off guard by an initially underwhelming pre-cog spammer is believable to me especially since he was under the impression that he was playing around with some punk kid who didn't seem to have anything special for at least the first bit. I can also see him being more prepared if he runs into her again of course.

 

[BF110C4]

It would make sense, since it was him and Taylor basically standing one-to-one, for him to put a field between them, like a line, any swing he makes is accelerated, any attack back is drastically reduced.

Click to shrink...

I can see him doing that trick once, just for Über (or another cape, or even common human that knows Aikido, Judo or similar Soft Martial Arts) to grab his hand and pull, and with the increased speed sending him flying into a dumpster.

 

[Bladestar123]

I can see him doing that trick once, just for Über (or another cape, or even common human that knows Aikido, Judo or similar Soft Martial Arts) to grab his hand and pull, and with the increased speed sending him flying into a dumpster.

Click to shrink...

Point, but he wasn't using his hands, and Taylor was.
Just making her have to reach him already gives him an advantage. Or so he thinks.

 

[BF110C4]

Point, but he wasn't using his hands, and Taylor was.
Just making her have to reach him already gives him an advantage. Or so he thinks.

Click to shrink...

Good point. I just think that it was less of a deliberate tactic and more like something learned through trial and error... with lots of hilarious errors of course.

 

[Idoneior]

Excellent action scenes; comes across as very believable to me, for similar reasons to Condor12.

I get the idea that Taylor triggered with something like Coil's shard (a Scion version), but with differently configured powers. It carries the same basic function of previewing/simulating her personal experience of the immediate future, except this version gives the results at the beginning rather than in real time, has a very limited duration, causes headaches with frequent use, and (most importantly) lets Taylor use it as much as she wants until she gets a future she wants to keep, rather than limiting her to two options.

This is probably less powerful than Coil's ability overall, but that's to be expected: he has the broken Cauldron version that probably ended up less restricted than natural triggers are supposed to.

 

[FinalPyre]

If you don't mind me cutting in...?
It would make sense, since it was him and Taylor basically standing one-to-one, for him to put a field between them, like a line, any swing he makes is accelerated, any attack back is drastically reduced. Then, when she stumbles, to put a field behind her so she trips.
I dunno, best I could think of right now...

Click to shrink...

I can see him doing that trick once, just for Über (or another cape, or even common human that knows Aikido, Judo or similar Soft Martial Arts) to grab his hand and pull, and with the increased speed sending him flying into a dumpster.

Click to shrink...

Hmm. Maybe I didn't make that very clear. He was doing a minor version of that.

He would speed himself up to come in for a swing (then do the reverse to avoid her counter), and at the same time was trying to lay fields down to make Taylor stumble. The problem was that she knew where he was going to put the fields down, and what direction they'd be, so she never did stumble. It gets a bit murky because of all the precog, but Skidmark only actually swings at her twice, and in between the second time she's trying variations for how to stop him (I'm pretty sure that part at least is reasonably clear in the writing, since I looked it over a few times).

 

[Condor12]

I get the idea that Taylor triggered with something like Coil's shard (a Scion version)

Click to shrink...

It's looking like that yeah though to be honest I didn't make the connection until she considered doing what Coil does with her own powers (attack, torture, whatever people in a throwaway thing for catharsis) and actively chose not to because she was worried that it would make her into the sociopath Coil is. Which made me smile by the way.

 

[Bladestar123]

Hmm. Maybe I didn't make that very clear. He was doing a minor version of that.

He would speed himself up to come in for a swing (then do the reverse to avoid her counter), and at the same time was trying to lay fields down to make Taylor stumble. The problem was that she knew where he was going to put the fields down, and what direction they'd be, so she never did stumble. It gets a bit murky because of all the precog, but Skidmark only actually swings at her twice, and in between the second time she's trying variations for how to stop him (I'm pretty sure that part at least is reasonably clear in the writing, since I looked it over a few times).

Click to shrink...

No, it was clear. I meant that he should just put one big one between them, making it so there aren't any 'options' for her to handle.

 

[Condor12]

No, it was clear. I meant that he should just put one big one between them, making it so there aren't any 'options' for her to handle.

Click to shrink...

That would kinda make it hard for him to retract his hits though I suppose he could just throw stuff through it.

 

[FinalPyre]

It's looking like that yeah though to be honest I didn't make the connection until she considered doing what Coil does with her own powers (attack, torture, whatever people in a throwaway thing for catharsis) and actively chose not to because she was worried that it would make her into the sociopath Coil is. Which made me smile by the way.

Click to shrink...

Glad it did. I decided to make the parallel early on. Plus I realized that if I had that power I would totally be paranoid about doing something and then suddenly realizing I'd done it for real.

No, it was clear. I meant that he should just put one big one between them, making it so there aren't any 'options' for her to handle.

Click to shrink...

Ah. That could help. He didn't have much for ammo, but if he is able to make the field strong enough, kicking up glass and gravel would work. However, in that case I think he'd just try to box her in again. I couldn't really make it clear from Taylor's perspective, but he saw she had the knife again, and already demonstrated her knife throwing (there was a good chance she couldn't do it again, but he doesn't know that), so he wanted to just rush up and hit her down as fast as possible, trying to trip up whatever power she was using with his fields.

It's also still not clear to them whether she's a low brute, too. For all appearances, she casually knocks aside metal bats and crowbars.


Edit: I went to bed for like 20 seconds, and realized I made a continuity error. I don't think anyone caught it (or that it was an error, anyways) so... *ninja edits*

 

[OverReactionGuy]

Honestly, this Taylor is really underwhelming. I know you wanted to avoid having an OP Taylor or whatever, but you basically gave Taylor a very limited power that would more than likely get her killed in the long run. Its amazing that she even lasted this long. Basically, without a boost, this power is only suited to stopping street level crime which that would get parahumans on her ass and get her killed. Either way, Taylor needs to learn how to fight without relying on her mostly useless precog power then she may become something better. She also needs to invest in some none lethal measures like a taser.

Actually its amazing she could even handle normal thugs right now, I know having a bit of precog gives her a slight advantage but her body is still the body of a 15 year old nerdy teenage girl. She could be easily overwhelmed. It only worked in canon because Taylor got bugs and a thinker ability of infinite multitasking. Here she only has her weak body and what ever tool she could use. Also I think Taylor knows how to set up a burner phone at least or would have figured it out by now.

Btw, why is Taylor so against joining the wards right now? They could at least give her better gear and more options to take out punks. Or at least give her training until she is old enough to join the Protectorate, if her power increases anyway. It would be a hell of a lot safer then attacking random street thugs and hoping for the best while she makes a target out of herself. Even if she would more than likely be limited to manning the mission control terminal.

To be honest, I highly doubt that an entity would have limited her shard to such a degree without her having some other grab back powers. Maybe enhanced reflexes, minor regeneration so she doesn't tire out long, things like this.

Otherwise this is an interesting story, and I honestly hope her power gets better so this story wont be about her stopping street crime when she can. Then dying when she becomes the target of a competent parahuman. She got lucky with Skidmark. At least with her power she can learn how to dodge. Which is the most important thing to ever learn.

 

[SolipsistSerpent]

. Either way, Taylor needs to learn how to fight without relying on her mostly useless precog power then she may become something better. She also needs to invest in some none lethal measures like a taser.

Click to shrink...

This is one of those powers where I feel like some hand to hand, marksmanship, and similar training would drastically increase the utility, cutting down on the number of "glimpses" she needs to take to do anything.