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Summoner - Chapter 4 - SomeoneYouWontRemember - Parahumans Series

Chapter 4

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

They ate breakfast at a gas station restaurant just outside New York.

She didn't even know that that was a thing.

She munched on a sandwich as she heard her dad rant about how there are apparently no airports close enough to Brockton Bay to be worth a flight rather than just continuing to travel by car.

He talked a lot about car-dependent infrastructure, how this was done on purpose, how trains and any and all other methods of transportation get killed by bribed politicians, how car and fuel companies stamp out any attempts at modernization, how if it wasn't for those assholes, they'd already be home on a comfortable train.

She idly listened, and eventually, began to pay attention. Because it gave her a couple ideas.

Namely, financial crimes, of the "turn into a demon, find horrible rich people, and brainfuck them into being my willing slaves" kind.

It was rather immoral, but then again, that didn't really have much impact anymore.

She had memories from some inhumanly horrible creatures and people, to the point where just thinking of their actions would have made her puke a few months ago. She was rather desensitized to moral alarm.

The idle chatter of morning goers was a pleasant background hum to her thoughts, and she seriously began to consider it.

She had two demons in her arsenal.

One of them could do exactly what she wanted. It was not out of the realm of possibilities.

Problem was, she had no idea where to look, who to look for, how to get there, when to get there, and how exactly to use these people's assets to help America, and maybe eventually the wider world.

Sure, she might be able to reach a billionaire and slowly get him working on… doing what exactly? Spending his money on disaster relief? Making trains? 

The world of Runeterra did not have the same problems as Earth Bet. Turning to the legends' memories didn't help her at all. And frankly, she had no idea how to solve the big, wider, more all-encompassing issues.

It would be far more practical to find some asshole with enough money to live comfortably on for the next thousand years which he won't even live long enough to enjoy, and get him to give her his money instead.

She wasn't sure what exactly she was going to do with the money, but she could already name a lot of things.

Maybe she could move that damn boat out of the bay. Or actually start some businesses to employ people, try to peacefully reduce the number of people turning to crime to feed themselves, before killing the rest of the people who were in it just because they were shitty greedy people rather than actually desperate.

It was all too tempting, but too far reaching for her right now.

So she quietly ate her sandwich.

Bite.

Chew.

Bite again.

"I signed you up for the Brockton Bay Wards."

Inhale bite-

She choked and jerked forward to spit the bite back onto her plate, coughing the breadcrumbs out of her windpipe with great, throat-burning coughs.

Nearly thirty seconds later, she lifted her teary eyes to glare at her dad, who looked back at her with confusion.

"Whu-" cough "What?" She forced out in a growly hiss after a painful swallow, pushing the plate aside to plant her elbows onto the table and lean forward.

Danny blinked at her, putting his fork down.

"I uhm, I signed you up for the local Wards?" He half said, half asked, genuinely sounding confused as to why she reacted the way she did, and she felt her brows furrow into an incredulous look.

"Okay, and I guess my opinion on that can just go fuck itself then?" She hissed, glancing to the side to make sure nobody could overhear them, before jerking her eyes back to her dad with a glare.

She could see and feel his hackles rise as he looked at her with heightened confusion.

Why was he so confused? Why was he getting tense?

"I- first of all, since when do you talk like that? And, Taylor, you busted through a wall. Dozens of people saw that- that thing. The PRT came to me and told me that they could make the kids sign a million NDAs and every gang in the city would still know exactly who you were by the time the week ended, and I thought they were being generous with how much time we'd have. So… yeah, Wards. There was no real alternative." He finished, and she opened her mouth, closed it.

No real alternative to keep you safe was the unspoken bit.

"Did the gangs harass you?" She asked, and he didn't have to answer to know that they did. That slight widening of his eyes, that mild pause as she said something completely unexpected but true.

"I mean… harassing is a strong word, but let's just say I've had to dig into a savings account and get a concealed carry license. Lots of shady people stalking around our house, it uh, it took almost two months for them to give up. And once you're back and people notice, which they will, I mean… there was no other choice." He calmly said with a helpless shrug, and she took a deep breath, leaning back to tap her fingers onto the table with clear agitation.

Was he wrong?

Honestly, she wasn't even all that opposed to being in the Wards, beyond the grating collar made of steel they'd clamp around her neck. And even more so, the fact that she'd have to endure the constant condescension of being talked down to and treated like a goddamn child.

The bigger problem was the Runes, and what she was in general.

Most changes that would strengthen her required killing. The Wards wouldn't even let her break a couple legs, most likely. And could she trust any of them to know how many options she had?

But on the other end…

Well, really, what other choices were there for her?

She had been planning to save these thoughts and problems for when she got to them, but the early kickstart she'd been given by her dad forced her to jump to action now, if it would even do anything.

She could be a rogue.

But that still brought up the problem of her identity being known to all the wrong people. Crooks and scum would go for her dad the moment people realized she was back and unprotected. It made sense to, it was what she would have done as someone who had lived life through the eyes of a crime lord and a pirate captain both. If you can't negotiate or persuade someone, look for their ties, and yank at them until they're dancing to your tune like a puppet.

The problem in her mind simplified.

Danny Hebert was a tie to her old self, one that would only drag her down.

How she would deal with it was the issue however.

She had no particular distaste for the gangs in Brockton Bay, beyond the fact that they were nuisances and leeches that were slowly killing the city. But even if she decided to turn to villainy, who would she even go to?

It wasn't like she was spoiled for choice. She didn't even know the names of all the gangs in the city, as she'd kept very firmly away from anyone associating with them or their activities, but she knew that they were all focused around either race, or degeneracy.

Things changed, crime did not. She knew what gangs were like in Runeterra, and she doubted they were much different here.

Beyond leading one of her own, maybe, she had no interest in approaching that whole ecosystem.

So her options boiled down to 'join a gang', which she was not going to do, 'join the wards', which would forever cripple and stunt her potential with how they handled things, all the way up to The Protectorate, so she was not willing to do that either. Or she could become an independent. Which was perfect.

The only problem with that, and sort of in general, was her civilian identity.

If people saw her going back to Winslow or even Arcadia or wherever else she might end up, she would be putting both herself and her dad in danger. She had no doubt the gangs would pounce on her instantly, as long as she was alone, or just without the protection of a gang, or the PRT. The nazi guys especially.

If the only problem was her civilian identity, she just had to discard it. Or make new one.

She wasn't particularly attached to it anyway.

She leaned back in her chair, closing her eyes to reduce stimuli and focus even more on her half-drafted plan, feeling all her anger evaporate.

Instead of discarding her civilian identity immediately however, she could work with the Wards for a bit. Just a month, maybe two. Learn how things worked, how they operated, what their procedures were like. One must know one's enemy and so on and so forth. Not that she planned to be their enemy, but she was working with the assumption that everyone would be her enemy. Experience told her that that way would save her a lot of pain and grief later down the line.

Back to her work with the Wards... So long as she didn't go anywhere near schools or gang territories with her face uncovered so that people would start paying attention to her dad, it would be fine. She'd have to skip school for a whole two months, which would inevitably spark an argument or something, but that was no longer a daunting thing.

Establishing somewhat friendly connections to future heroes would be nice too, could be useful.

She could also do the same thing with a gang, but she didn't want to be doing any 'initiations' on innocent people just for an inside look.

And during those few months she could work with the Wards, she would also be able to make full use of their resources. Gyms, combat training to build the lacking muscle memory and reflexes she might need when she didn't have a legend equipped so she could hold her ground without outing herself, and… didn't the Wards get paid a bit? She could throw that money to the side for when she cut ties.

It wasn't a terrible choice, at least temporarily. Even if it would grate on her.

And to not waste time without stacking the Runes' effects, she could always just pick a stealth legend and go kill some gangsters on her off-time. As long as she didn't use Runes openly, nobody would connect her to a completely different person with completely different powers.

"Taylor?" Her dad asked, and she opened her eyes to look at him, calm.

He tensed again, and she noticed his discomfort seemed to stem from eye contact as his eyes flit around her face and the table. Either that or he was preparing for a lie.

"Sorry. I overreacted. You're right. The Wards are good. When do they want me to start?" She asked, and he gave her another befuddled look.

"Uh, they agreed to let you readjust for a week, but then they want you to go with them and begin the… whole… hero business. I'm not sure what they do exactly. Due to the…" He waved his hand vaguely with a grimace. "Incident, they also agreed to transfer you to Arcadia. I was just… not sure how to tell you, kiddo. You've had this look in your eye since you got in the car, like… I don't know. Hard to approach. Well, harder. Sorry I left it until we were pretty much right outside New York." He said, rather subdued, then tried for a smile.

Too little too late, wasn't it?

She shrugged, leaning back and slumping as she crossed her arms, the picture of relaxation.

"Okay. And because I know you want to make this something like a trip or something, or some kind of bonding experience, I guess, I'll just have to ask right now that we make a beeline for Brockton. I just wanna go home." She said.

She didn't want to make this last longer or be a bonding experience. The further away she drifted from him, the easier it would be when she cut ties, for both of them.

He gave her another look, one that seemed like he was trying to readjust two conflicting images in his head.

"I- are you sure? Don't you want to go for a bit of light tourism or anything, maybe meet or at least see Lege-"

"I don't." She cut him off with a fake, reassuring smile that was far too convincing for him to notice.

He spent another second digesting that, before giving a nod and a mumbled 'alright'.

She leaned back further, and stared at her sandwich.

Just one week to 'relax', huh? Or should she prepare?

She scoffed internally.

Like that was even a question.

It took another couple stops at gas stations, restaurants, and countless, mind-numbing hours of driving, during which, the most she could do was idly peruse through her Runes, their effects, and the legends in her soul, theorizing combos and the nature of how all of this worked, the specifics of it.

The Rune of Inspiration helped immensely in giving her a half-dozen different covers and possibilities to work through.

But finally, finally, they were back in Brockton Bay.

It was just as shit as she remembered it.

A police siren began its wailing in the distance as if to agree with her, and her lips twitched into a smile.

She lifted her head from where it was resting against the car window, and straightened.

"Hey dad. You work with, well, workers. Any chance you could give me the number of someone who runs some kind of machine shop, maybe a mechanic or something? One who's willing to help me learn. My power gave me some affinity for tinkering." She explained, and watched her father's face twist a little in confusion.

"I uh, I know a couple. Are you sure you have time for that though? You-"

"Yeah, I am. I'll have plenty of time." She lied, trying to theorize how much knowledge she could wring out of the man in a period of about two months. "Of course, don't actually tell him I'm your daughter. Safety and all. Just tell him someone wants his help if he asks."

He hesitated for a moment, then nodded.

"Alright."

Her first night back home was, well, nothing. She slept. They got home late.

Then the morning came, and after a shared breakfast so awkward it was nostalgic, she went to the library to get her hands on a computer, mostly to memorize where each landmark was compared to the four cardinal directions.

After digging out some of her saved allowance money, a staggering seventeen dollars, she decided to buy a black cloth facemask from a pharmacy on her way home.

Then she dug into their attic for some of mom's stuff, gathering what she could and what she couldn't into two distinct piles.

Her mom's flute, a couple photographs she knew that her dad had copies of, and a small notebook where her mom noted down what chores and business she had to do.

It took a while to do, mostly because she spent an hour and a half just reading through the notebook, smiling a wide, sad smile.

It wasn't profound, nor did it have much in it, but that glimpse into her mom's daily life, the way she always curved the question marks in a weird way when she was in an obvious hurry, even the few bored doodles she could spot, they all warmed her heart.

She moved it into the pile she would take with her.

And eventually, she found what she was looking for.

A simple sewing kit, which she dragged down to the kitchen, and proceeded to use to make the face mask more breathable. Mostly through cutting vertical lines through the spaces that would end up under her nose and over her mouth, and putting a super thin, satin-like material in the cut to keep the facemask from showing her skin, then sewing the now-triple layers of cloth back up.

She packed it all up, and quickly moved back to the attic to put everything in place, packing pretty much everything she wanted to bring with her in an old, torn backpack with one strap and covered in an ugly mix mash of paint, courtesy of The Trio. 

By the time she was done stuffing it full of clothes, a kitchen knife, a couple cannisters of pepper spray and aforementioned stuff that belonged to her mom, it was stuffed full to bursting, almost, beyond some space on the outer pockets, which is where she'd probably throw keys and stuff in the future.

Then she shoved the backpack into a corner where her dad wouldn't find it, and quickly dragged the ladder back up, closed the attic, and put her facemask on.

Now, time for the difficult part of the day.

Running.

With a hood on.

And a facemask.

…

Suffering builds character? She tried to reason with her grumbling mind, and forced herself through the back door.

Two minutes later, after a brief staring contest with what was very obviously an undercover PRT agent trying to be conspicuous, she walked back into the house, and turned into a demon.

Specifically, Evelynn, Agony's Embrace.

Unfortunately, that meant that she was left standing in her bathroom as a white haired, purple-skinned, sadistic torture demon with way too much power and basically naked besides thigh highs, arm sleeves, and the world's skimpiest underwear, all made from shadows.

And then she realized she had two velvet-like flat tentacles coming out of her shoulderblades tipped with diamond edges after they accidentally phased through the edge of the fucking sink.

She'd glue that piece back later.

For a few minutes, she couldn't help but just look at the reflection in the mirror because Evelynn wasn't just hot, she was literally just… fucking sex. It was a base form chosen on purpose to lure people to an agonizing death through the allure of sex, but still.

She could probably convince Lung to turn into a pacifist peacemonger with just a smile and a lip bite with how gorgeous she could make herself look. No, Evelynn. How gorgeous could she make Evelynn look?

Fuck, this was confusing.

And her eyes refused to leave those fucking hips. Her hips. Eve's hips. Bah .

She took the time to try for a slow hip wiggle, and felt herself inwardly drool and mentally blank, feeling distinctly like if one were to read her mind, all they would hear would be a bunch of monkey noises.

Over seeing herself wiggle her butt.

This was getting way too weird.

Before she could dwell on the question of how deeply her 'trigger vision' fucked with her sexuality, especially considering how horrifically Evelynn treated her toys, she focused on her form, a sensation not unlike having tactile feeling of every inch of her body.

Then, after a moment of fiddling with Evelynn's ability to turn invisible, then her ability to turn into smoke, then combining the both to turn into invisible smoke in her own bathroom, she spent about six minutes being completely distracted with just how fucking bizarre it was to be a cloud of invisible smoke that she couldn't even spot in the bathroom mirror.

She could feel her smoke, could elongate and press it into shapes or flare out wide, but her viewpoint was steady, like someone put a single eye with a very wide point of view inside the smoke.

She could wiggle it around her body and reposition it, but it was mercifully simple, in truth.

Then she swept out of the bathroom window, and flew straight up until she had a bird's eye view.

And she couldn't help but inwardly smile.

She could fly now. No limitations, invisible, as high as she wanted. She could squeeze herself under doors, she could go and be anywhere.

Unfortunately, she still hadn't run, so after about an hour of testing just how fast she could fly, which was about a little faster than a car in Brocktons streets, and realizing how fucking fun it was to feel the air pull and whip at her smoky form, she found an empty alley near The Boardwalk, and materialized back into physical form, before pushing Evelynn back into her core, her body shifting in a fraction of a second to turn back into herself, clothes and all.

Convenient.

She was grinning like a lunatic.

Both at the realization that things felt so much more exciting and real when she was the one experiencing them rather than the legends, and that she had been worrying for… not nothing, but it wasn't as bad as she thought it might be. It was still worth it to live life.

It was still worth it to feel, because she felt so much more when she was here.

With a happy smile that the mask covered, she hummed herself a song and sauntered out into The Boardwalk.

To her surprise, she lasted about three times as long as she thought she would.

Instead of ten to fifteen minutes of jogging, she made it to about forty five or fifty minutes before she had to stop, gasping for air through her facemask and blinking sweat out of her eyes.

What, did her power actually give her a Brute 0 rating or something? She should have passed out by now.

She punched the concrete base of a giant metal lamp post to find out, as hard as she could.

After hissing in pain and jerking her hand around while pacing in a tight circle and grumbling curses at herself, ignoring the people giving her strange looks, she lifted her hand and checked her knuckles.

Other than the fact that her delicate skin wasn't even scuffed, it still hurt like hell.

Brute 0…

She couldn't fucking wait to get started on the Qi stuff.

She staggered back into a similar alley, and after confirming that nobody was around, turned back into Evelynn.

Now, time to do the most dastardly of devilish deeds.

Petty theft from rich people. Or gangsters if she could find them, but she had doubts about that and it… wasn't…

She loved the Rune of Inspiration.

Because she just got another six or so ideas.

Instead of going to steal from the suburbs, she flew back to the library.

People could rag on PHO all they liked, and it had plenty of merit.

The simple fact of the matter was however, that the guys on that website knew far more than she did about all of this cape stuff. And it was free information. Really, the amount of effort people put into innocuous questions just to outdo some other random idiot on the internet that might be slightly wrong was staggering. Someone made a map with little colors and stuff. For Boston, but still.

So she made an account, and after a bit of social finagling, managed to make a gang-awareness thread for Brockton Bay where people could tell each other where the gangs roughly were. To avoid them, of course. Or steal from them.

A woman stared at her shark-like grin from the side, and quickly turned away when she turned around to glance at her. Then she went back to prowling PHO to find out how capes worked. And making lots of question threads. Even if one were to suspect something, she'd just look like some kiddo with a newfound interest in capes and everything about them. And just to cross reference, she began to dig through even the old posts.

Like, two thousand and six old.

Her seeds planted, she logged out, closed the computer, and went to the library bathroom.

Halfway back home, she gave into temptation and started theorizing how she could steal from people. It was quite simple, actually. Go into a house, locate wallet. Turn into physical form, still invisible. Take money, find a corner, turn into Taylor, stuff money in pocket, then turn back into Evelynn and dip. A process she could do in about a second.

Turning into legends was nigh instantaneous from her experience, even though they seemed to grow outwardly from her heart as if a projection. So she turned to the land of white picket fences, and went to start stealing a little bit from everyone.

She'd honestly feel bad taking a lot from one house, because even the "rich people" area of Brockton Bay was basically just "a bit above middle class" by comparison to the rest of America.

Then she realized that most adults were at work right now, and mentally groaned, resolving to look around for jewelry and stuff.

Just one or two per block, she didn't want to alert people enough to make anyone suspect parahuman shenanigans.

Notes:

taylor commits a mild amount of tomfoolery