2D

2.10

It took until Wednesday to have any real free time. Spending it on the Boardwalk would not have been my idea, but there was a good reason to be here.

"All that in a few days? I knew your powers were impressive, but this is just amazing."

Amy's praise certainly made it worth being here. She had just asked what I'd been doing since the last time we met. The usual question, mostly a formality - but she'd actually listened with interest when I told her about my week. She asked a lot of follow-up questions when I told her about the dog shelter I was setting up for Rachel. Of course, some of them were about the dogs, and who didn't like cute animals. But others were about my actual work and she didn't seem to mind too much when I started rambling about paperwork.

Of course, I had opened our meeting with the same question and she had not said much more than 'school and hospital'. Maybe another question could allow her to talk about herself a bit?

"So, do you like it here?" She looked up quickly, seemingly surprised. "I mean, you picked it. Do you come here for fun sometimes?"

"Uh, I'm here with Vicky sometimes. My sister. She just drags me through the shops, but I like spending time with her."

"Oh, so you just went here out of habit? But you like spending time with me too, right?"

"Uh, well. No the time with Vicky is nice, and so are you. I mean, it is nice here. I think. I just wanted to take you some place nice."

Oh dear, I had never seen somebody quite as flustered as that.

"You wanted to spend time with me, but didn't have any idea where to meet?"

She just nodded, then changed the topic.

"So, what other plans do you have? That you want to talk about anyway?"

And I went on to tell her about some of what I was doing with Concordia.

Hu Dai had opened the Dojo, but we wanted to do more than just offer some martial arts training. So we were looking for social workers and counselors, but those were pretty hard to come by. Amy shared my outrage about the low pay they usually got, I hoped that our finances would be stable enough to offer them substantially higher salaries.

Of course, the whole thing would officially run through the mayors office and would just be funded by "generous private donations". He was already trying to wrestle for control of the project, and even without that we would not get anywhere near as much public perception from it as I'd have liked. It sounded vain, but we could use more prayer.

"You know, if you want a nice place to meet?" Amy signaled me to go on.

"You remember that place from your dreams? The teahouse? If you want, you could visit it. The real thing I mean, not just when you're asleep."

"I guess?" She seemed a bit taken aback by the suggestion, but it wasn't negative. It was more...had she never had a friend outside of her family? "I've…um," she blushed, heavily, "never really been given an invitation like that." It came out all in a rush, and she looked up carefully, as if worried that she'd offended me.

A week later, I stood in costume near the Dallon household as Amy gaped at the portal Tu Yu had just opened for us. He had insisted that we show her into my Sanctum this way, rather than using one of the static entrances.

I took her hand and nudged her forward. Her gaping didn't stop once we were through and in the entrance hall of my Sanctum.

"You...how did you build all of this?"

"Oh, I didn't. It's kind of an expression of my powers? Bureaucracy needs a fancy office, I guess." I still couldn't believe it sometimes, but a casual reaction was easier than explaining all about my sanctum.

The hall had gotten a lot busier since I had been here the first time. The amount of robot spiders had at least tripled, the amount of files had grown even more. Any time I checked on any Bureaucracy, reports about it were automatically generated. Since I did so several times per day just to check how the city was doing, there were a lot of them. They were very basic, to have any details I had to write them myself. Writing down all the information my power could give me took forever though, I was very glad I didn't have to do it.

"Greetings, Mistress. I see you have brought a visitor, do you want me to provide any assistance?"

"Amy, this is Lotus. Lotus, this is Amy. If she needs anything, please take care of her. But we're just on our way to the Lake, so I think we're fine for now."

"I see, Mistress. I shall give you two privacy then."

Amy flushed again. Was Lotus that weird?

"Lotus is my housekeeper." I explained. "She's not really sentient, just a program that learns based on my needs."

I called a door to the Lake area and lead Amy through. We emerged on the shores of the lake, the mountain slopes behind us.

"It's real."

"Of course it is, Amy." It hurt a bit to hear her surprise, had she thought I was making this up?

"Oh, sorry. I didn't doubt you, but...this is huge!"

"Yes, it's pretty big. I'm not sure why, actually.".

"No. I mean, yes. But that you have something like this. Just as a side effect of your powers? Taylor, that's incredible."

Oh right. Lisa had said something similar. But I didn't want to spend all my time with Amy talking about this, explaining things. I just wanted to relax with her.

"You're right. But I am really grateful for it. Would you like some tea?"

Amy nodded, and I called a boat for the short trip to the tea house. I took off my veil on the way there as well, while it barely hindered my vision it probably felt quite awkward for Amy to talk to me with it in the way.

"Oh, so you are finally getting that cleared up? Why didn't anyone do that before anyway?"

I had just mentioned that my Dad was working for the Dockworkers Association, and that we were trying to get outside capital to clear up the boat graveyard.

"Well, one issue is money. There is actually some to be made from all that scrap, but breaking it up takes a lot of heavy equipment. Which nobody really has here in the city, it's pretty specialized. Which is also why buying it wouldn't be worth it."

"That makes sense. So, are you buying the equipment now?"

"Heh. I wish we had that kind of money. No, I'm working on handling all the legal issues around it. There's a russian company who asked to handle it., but they need visas to get their specialists into the country, and waivers for environmental regulations and permits to set up heavy equipment in the city and so on. It's a total mess, and don't even get me started on the taxes!"

We shared a laugh at that. I explained about a few other options, and Amy seemed to enjoy it.

Sadly, the mood soured when I asked about her family. Talking about it clearly hurt her. I didn't press the issue, this was supposed to be a nice get-together. But Amy needed comforting, and I had no real idea what to do.

Before I could think of something, Lisa's voice sounded next to me.

"Hey Taylor. I just had another idea what to do with the other Undersiders. Do you have time?"

Darn, I had forgotten to ask Lotus to turn off her Intercom function.

"Not now. I have a visitor. We can talk about this later."

"Fiiine. Enjoy your date!"

I blinked. Did she really think this was a date? I looked at Amy, who had been slightly surprised at the sudden conversation but now looked curious.

"The Undersiders? Never heard of them, who are they?"

"Oh, they were a minor villain gang. That was Tattletale, she used to be a member. We've been trying to help the others become legal, and she's constantly coming up with new ideas."

She edged back. Her expression shifted from mild curiosity to the one she had when we first met. When she had thought me a villain, one that had just tried to brainwash her.

"Amy? What's wrong?"

Her body language became more hostile.

"You're working with villains? I trusted you, why would you drag me into something like that?"

I tried to to sound calming, but it felt like I was failing miserably.

"Amy, I have no idea what you are talking about. I'm not dragging you into anything, and Lisa is not a bad person. The others aren't either."

Amy didn't calm down. Her voice gained an edge of panic and she started glancing around, as if she was looking for a direction to run. "Taylor, I want to get out of here. Please let me go home."

The pain from her was horrible, and I had no idea what to do. Resignation washed over me, and I walked to the other end of the room, trying to give her some room until Tu Yu could create a portal to the exit nearest to Amy's home. Whilst he was doing that, I wracked my mind, trying to work out what I'd done wrong, and even got angry about - once again - being treated badly for no reason. But by the time he'd returned, the anger had burnt itself out. And I cried.

I couldn't get a hold of Amy, not even over the weekend. Work was barely distracting enough, so I asked Hu Dai for all-out sparring sessions. She scolded me for being too reckless, I actually got hurt pretty bad a few times due to neglecting my defense. I didn't care, I was too scared of losing another friend.

It took all my willpower to not show any of my distress when interacting with the outside world. Worse, we had job interviews for several social workers scheduled on Friday. If any of them had picked up on it, would they still work for me?

At least the mayor finally agreed to let me improve the city bureaucracy. Two of his staff had volunteered to get a direct blessing from me pretty soon after our first meeting, and had checked out clear for any master effects. His legal team had also assured him that the subtle effects of my Divine Guidance would not require the consent of every single employee or citizen affected by them. The precedents they pulled out were somewhat shaky, I would be doing much more than a Tinker-enhanced computer system or even creating an assistant AI. But the mayor seemed convinced, and even if somebody sued the fallout should not be too bad.

I almost got buried under a stack of papers when I came back to my office. I had only blessed City Hall and I had yet to get permission to do the same for the police, the courts or any other city institutions. They all needed it, pretty much the only thing that ran properly was the library.

On Tuesday my phone rang. I almost didn't pick it up, I'd had so many calls. But when I saw the caller, I was very glad I hadn't left it. Amy. My heart lifted with sudden hope. If she was calling me, surely that was a good thing.

"Amy? I'm really sorry for what happened during your visit. " The words came quickly, I was struggling to not sound desperate. "Are you alright?"

"Hi, Victoria here. Amy's sister. You're Taylor, right? Listen, she's very sorry for what happened, but too embarrassed to call you herself. So anyway, we'd like to have you over for dinner on Thursday. She'd really like to see you again."

I was stunned. After last time, meeting her family was the last thing I'd imagined Amy to want.

"Uh, with her family? Your family, sorry. Yes, sure, I'd love to!"

"Great! See you at five on Thursday then."

I was nervous. I had met Amy's mother before, but not at her home. I had not met anyone else of her family yet, though. But the worst fear was about Amy's reaction. I had already lost a friend for no reason, and even though I knew it was not my fault the fear was still gnawing at the back of my mind.

The person who opened the door was the most impressive person I had ever met. At least that was my first impression, but it faded almost instantly. What remained was a tall teenage girl with long blond hair. She was very pretty, but not much more than some of the girls I'd seen at school.

"Oh hi Taylor! Glad you came. Come on in, dad says dinner should be ready soon."

As soon as I was inside, she nudged me towards the living room. Amy waited inside, alone.

"Hello Amy. Is it alright if I come in?"

Amy stood up and took a few steps towards me.

"Taylor. I'm sorry. I...I shouldn't have reacted like that. I was just scared that you were working with villains. That…" She paused and took a deep breath. "Vicky snapped me out of it. Reminded me that...well that I already know some reformed villains. I'm sorry I was scared of you."

She had been scared of me. I had seen it, but I had told myself that I had just misread her. Hearing her say it hurt all over again, but I still liked her enough to try again.

"It's okay. I'm sorry you were scared. Do you still want to be friends?"

She nodded, but still looked hurt. I took the advice Hu Dai had given me and gave her a long hug.

After clearing things up with Amy, meeting her family wasn't scary anymore.

Over dinner, the conversation inevitably led into the many problems in the city. Victoria and Crystal talked a lot about fighting the gangs, but Amy's mother seemed very interested in Concordia's plan to take them on.

"So, Taylor. Do you need any legal aid for Concordia? Establishing something like that can't be easy. I'd be glad to help you, and so would others in my law firm."

The offer was unexpected. Fortunately the food provided an excuse to think about my answer.

"Thank you for the offer, Miss Dallon. I, well, handled all of that myself so far. Part of my powers makes legal issues very easy to understand."

The way she looked at me made it very hard to resist the urge to turn immaterial and vanish into thin air. Then she smiled.

"Oh, I figured! But even if you understand things, you are still not a lawyer. I'm afraid people won't respect you without the title, and that's where I could come in. So just keep the offer in mind, if you need it. And you can call me Carol, if you want. And don't worry, I won't hold your powers against you!"

That had honestly never occurred to me so far. It just felt natural to handle things myself. However, the thought was very quickly derailed as I noticed Amy's reaction. She hadn't changed outwardly, but it felt like she had just dropped out of existence beside me. Or was trying to, at least.

A shrill tone emerged from a nearby room. Carol excused herself, and I took the opportunity to nudge Amy. "What's wrong?"

Most of the colour had drained from the face that looked back at me, and I recognized a deep fear in her eyes. I tried a faint smile to encourage her to talk, but before she got a chance Carol burst back into the room.

"We have to go. The Simurgh is attacking Canberra."

Last

2.A - Interlude: Aisha

That had been fucking scary. And awesome. Equally fucking awesome. But still scary.

I had come here to work off some frustration. Some strict teacher who yelled at everyone who wasn't perfect, like dad did. Then burn off my anger at them with lots of exercise Maybe even some sparring where I could get some violence out of my system.

And then Watchwoman hadn't done any of that.

"Aisha, if you turn your leg more like this, you won't slip as easily."

Dammit, I've been doing this for ages now! Fuck this was getting boring.

"Come on, show us what you can really do! That's what we are all here for anyway, some real action!"

She laughed. What the hell? No teacher ever laughed at being interrupted like that.

Then she looked at me. Oh god that look. She was fucking enjoying this.

"Oh my. You're pretty eager, aren't you? Well, do you want to fight me Aisha?"

She was joking. Or not and she'd humiliate me. But I was so not backing out of this!

"Uh, sure. I'm ready, let's go!"

Here it comes. My arms were in the position I had drilled for an hour before I knew it. This is gonna hurt…

And then she had fought that other cape-chick. Holy shit I had no idea anyone could do that. Watchwoman must have used her powers, but they said the other cape hadn't. Fuck if I knew, but I would sure as hell keep coming here. Just watching this had been awesome. Oh and after scaring me like that I just had to play some pranks on Watchwoman.

Mom had a new boyfriend. Again. It had to be the third or fourth one this year - but then she complained that I was dressing slutty! Time to crash at Brians place, she wouldn't even notice that I wasn't there.

"Aisha. You're here again?"

Damn, caught by my brother. And I'd tried to be extra-sneaky and get the drop on him too.

"I'm glad to see you, but you know we'll get into trouble if you are here too often, right? I don't have custody yet."

"Yeesh, I know. So, wanna hang out?"

"You know, I am kinda busy here. But, sure, okay. So, what did you do today?"

"Made two capes beat each other up".

He whipped his head around. Ha, gotcha bro."You did what? How in…"

"Oh relax. I just tricked them into sparring. You know those Concordia-gals? Turns out one of them teaches her fancy martial arts. Went to her class, you can't be around to defend me every time."

"Aisha, I..." Crap. That had hurt him. How to fix, how to fix…

"Hey, I know you're trying to help me. With the whole adoption thing. And standing up for me. And it's really awesome! Watchwoman said as much when I told her, so don't you dare feel down."

He blinked. "You told her about me?"

"Oh relax bro. I didn't tell the heroes on you having powers. Or any of your villain-friends. But she's cool and I had to vent somewhere about mom and such."

"Right. So, what did you learn?"

"Lots! Wanna see?"

I dragged him up before he could answer. Bleh, we had only learned how to defend yet, I had no idea how to throw the first strike. Well I didn't want to hurt him anyway, this should do.

"Ow. Aisha, quit it!"

I threw another strike at his arms. "Come on big bro, you wanted to see what I can do."

"Ow. I said quit it! If that's what they're teaching you you won't go there anymore."

"Hey, you don't have custody yet! And we haven't even learned how to hit somebody properly yet."

"Fine, you've asked for it."

And he threw a right punch at me. My right arm swept under it and threw it aside. Throw my left arm forward and...damn, he had caught it.

Brian blinked as we blocked both our attacks.

"Huh, looks like they thought you something. Want to try that again? Without just hitting me without asking this time."

"Sure!" We both slipped into our stances. He took an upright boxing stance, both fists ready to block or throw a punch at the same time. I had seem him practice it many times. I turned my torso sideways, legs much further apart than in his stance. My arms weren't in front of my torso either, the left got placed between him and me while my right arm was kept back where I could move it into the sweeping counters we had learned.

Brian snorted. "That looks pretty ridiculous. How will you block me when I do this?"

And he threw another right punch. This time I moved my left arm into it and tried to grab him at the elbow. Before I got a grip, his left fist hit me gently in the torso. Dammit!

"I could have blocked that!"

"Sure you could have. I'm actually impressed how you did it the first time. Come on, lets try it again."

We practiced for another hour. I got the hang of blocking both strikes eventually, but as soon as I did he threw me off by changing tactics. Damn I wish I knew how to make one of those leg sweeps Watchwoman had used. The one time I tried Brian just moved away and I landed on my ass. At least his punches were pretty fast so blocking them was actually a feat.

"Stop, Aisha. It's getting late and I am getting hungry. Want to order some food and stay overnight?"

"Of course! But I get to pick a movie to watch."

"Okay, but no blaming me if you have nightmares from watching a horror movie. Which you aren't even supposed to watch yet anyway."

He was wrong, I didn't have any nightmares. After a day full of martial arts stuff, of course I dreamt of that. It was weird that I remembered it, but certainly better than the usual shreds of misery I dreamed of.

Whatever brain-dead paper-shoveler had decided that mixing middle and high school was a good idea to save cost clearly had never been to either. Probably got home-tutored and never had to be as bored as I was right now.

At least it had gotten easier to dodge the gangs. In a way I was lucky that I was neither white nor asian, because age was certainly no reason for them not to recruit you. Of course, that just meant I got harassed by both gangs, but they didn't dare to pull the severe stuff anymore.

"Mr. G., you told us you'd break your lesson plan if we had an current topic."

He smiled as I used the nickname.

"Sure Aisha. Go ahead, it's always great when students are encouraged."

Ha! He fell for it, maybe now this class would stop being a snoozefest.

"Concordia. That's a current topic, right?"

He was silent for about a minute.

"Well, uh...I don't have anything prepared on them, and just giving my own opinion would hardly be objective."

Another student cut in "What was it like to be affected by Aedile's power Mr. G?"

"You really want to talk about this?" He paused again while most of the class gestured for him to go on. "Okay. Hmm. Well, I didn't really notice at the time. Its, well. Have you ever looked back on a time where you were stressed? Maybe sad or angry. And then tried to understand why you thought that way? I'm afraid it's pretty hard to explain."

"You mean you don't think all of those punished were bullies, they just made you think that?"

"Yes! Oh of course some were, all that business with the gangs and such. But others were good kids and I would have preferred to just sit down and talk with them."

The class broke into chatter after that. Some agreed with Mr. Gladly's statement, others didn't. Most however were glad about the crackdown on the gangs and didn't care much about other bullies and just talked about Concordia in general.

"My dad said the Protectorate should arrest them."

"Well my dad changed his mind on that. Said they didn't do anything villainous after that press conference."

"Dude, did you listen to Mr. G? That's brainwashing!"

"Oh that's rubbish, how is that -"

"He said that he didn't notice it, and that it just made him act differently. How is that not brainwashing?"

"But she said that she hadn't meant to-"

"Exactly. She says. How are we meant to know if she's telling the truth?"

The conversation went downhill from there, until Mr Gladly had to tell us to be quiet.

I hadn't heard a thing from Brian the entire week. Between school, martial arts classes and hanging out there afterwards, I only spent time at my mothers to sleep. That allowed me to avoid contact with her and her newest boyfriend.

My luck ran out on Friday. Mom was already asleep, or at least drugged enough that I couldn't tell the difference. Her boyfriend wasn't. He had been nice to me so far. But mom had been around then to keep him in check, now she wasn't.

"Oi girl. Come here!" He pushed Celia's passed out form off his lap and waved at me.

Fuck! the only retreat was into the kitchen or my room. Neither was safe. I had to play along and try to slip out the apartment door.

I slowly moved towards him. Just dash towards the door when you are close enough.

Crap.

He stood up. Pupils dilated, legs shaky. Trying to grab me.

Step in. Turn at the waist, break my arm free. Throw my other leg forward, grab his arm. Hit his collarbone. Throw him to the ground, hard.

Holy shit. That response had been entirely automatic, it'd happened before I could even think about it.

The asshole was down on the ground, groaning. Mom wasn't stirring, hadn't noticed anything. I wasn't entirely sure she would believe anything I told her.

Fuck this, I was out of here. Staying on the street couldn't be worse than this.

The asshole tried to get up. A kick between his legs dropped him again, then I ran.

It was night. I tried to reach Brian, but he didn't answer his phone. I was starting to freeze. Going back to get warmer clothes was out of the question.

Watchwoman had taught us how to contact her. It seemed pretty silly to me, but I had no idea what else I could do.

Spread out my arms, bow forward. Hook my thumbs together, spread my fingers across my chest. Focus as much as I can, put all my weight on my right foot. Lift my other leg into the air. Balance on my toes, spread my arms wide like a crane. God It looked silly, good thing it was dark.

Nothing happened. No sudden appearance, no lightning strike. No Watchwoman.

Either I had messed up, or she didn't care. Dammit! What the hell was I supposed to do now?

I kicked the next street sign. The pain kept me going, and I pretty much lost track of time. After a while, I didn't even have any idea where I was anymore.

"Aisha!" Watchwoman stood behind me. "I'm sorry it took me so long to get here. How can I help you?"

I tried to explain. My mother, her boyfriend, the fight. But I was too cold, and too exhausted, to get it out. "I ran away" I managed to blurt out.

"Oh. Did you try to contact your brother? Wait of course you did. Okay, I'll get you in touch tomorrow. Let's get you somewhere warm first."

She took me to a hotel. "Wait, this is on the Boardwalk."

"Yes, good thing you were walking this way. Oh, don't worry, I'm covering the bill."

I didn't care much about the room or how fancy it was at this point. I was just glad to get inside and out of the cold and went straight to bed.

"Aisha. Before you fall asleep, I just wanted to say: Well done. And don't worry, I'll get you to your brother tomorrow. You won't have to go back."

And she did. Right after I woke up, there was a knock on my door. Brian stood outside.

"I'm so sorry. I was busy and I didn't-"

I interrupted him. "It's okay! Nothing happened, don't worry big bro."

"No, listen, I want to explain." He paused. "Aisha, I'm getting custody. Sooner, that is. I asked Concordia for help last Saturday. Aedile agreed to help me. So I'm really busy right now, tons of appointments and paperwork. I'm sorry, I should have had more time for you, I just wanted to get this done right away."

I stared. He had accepted help, for me? "Really? But you said it'd take at least half a year, maybe longer."

"You could have moved in in March this way."

"Could have?" Oh god please don't say me running away ruined this.

He noticed my worry and smiled. "Well, we have an appointment with a social worker later. Watchwoman arranged it. I want you to move in with me today. I should even get temporary custody, if everything goes well."

My hug almost knocked him off his feet.

I had waited for this for months, and then it was over before it could even register properly.

Watchwoman reported how she had found me on the streets. With her and Brian, I was able to report what had happened. Charges would be pressed, though there was probably not enough evidence for a conviction. I didn't care, because it was enough that I could move in with my brother. Officially, without fear of ruining his chances of getting custody or causing other trouble.

We even got some money to finally buy some furniture for my room in the apartment.

"So, you've finally stopped working as a villain, huh? Bet your teammates must miss you, especially the women."

Brian sighed. "Aisha, I've told you, just because I have powers doesn't mean I'm a supervillain. I was working a normal job and-"

"S'yeah right. And that's why Concordia snatched you up. Their policy says "hire normal joes", not "get villains of the street", right? You're not fooling me bro."

"You know, fine. I give up. Just don't go around spreading that rumour, right?"

"Okay, but only if you help me paint my room."

I got used to living with my brother pretty quickly. In a way, it was the first place I'd ever looked forward to coming home to.

School went on like normal. I saw Watchwoman a few times, taking down some gangers. She had been delayed by a fight that night as well. Maybe it was an apology, but she paid a lot more attention to me in training. Even asked me to show up every day. The class grew quite a bit too, most students only went there once or twice a week yet it was almost the same amount of people each day as we had started out with. I got acquainted with most of them, if not during training then afterwards. I went there every day except sundays, and with Watchwoman's personal attention it was intense enough that I dreamt about it pretty much every night.

After two weeks, I had settled in pretty well. The only drawback was that our apartment was in Empire-territory, but so far I had managed to avoid anything more severe than some shouted insults.

"That's the nigger dyke!"

I whirled. Five skinheads, one looked familiar, possibly from school.

I ran. It wasn't too far to the apartment, maybe I could make it. But I was already pretty winded from training today. Dropping my bag helped, but they were still catching up.

I dodged into an alley. Maybe I could shake them if - fuck! Dead end.

"Fuck you!" I snapped, stopping with the wall near to my back - I wasn't going to let myself get driven totally up against it - and slipping into the stance that Watchwoman had taught us.

The first of the Nazis caught up and swung a fist at me.

Time seemed to slow down.

Fight. If you don't fight, you can't win.

I stopped shaking. All fatigue suddenly left me. I could do this.

I blocked the strike with ease. Divert his strike away from me. Strike my palm into the skinheads shoulder. Stagger him with his own momentum.

He began to topple over. Spin around and kick him in the chest. Something cracked and he flew backwards. I returned to my ready stance before I really registered what I had done.

Then I noticed how big the guy I had just taken out was. He actually looked as well-trained as Brian, now that I looked more closely. I had tried some of the techniques I had copied off Watchwoman on my brother, they had not worked on him. Had I just gotten lucky?

The other four nazis had caught up.

"Paul! We'll get you for that whore!"

Three of them charged at me. The last hung back and shouted at his comrades.

"Be careful, she might have a weapon."

The three skinheads charging at me slowed down. Damn, this alley was just wide enough that they could encircle me.

First strike from the left. I could see it coming a mile away. I just took a step back and it missed me. The perfect opening. A quick strike at the exposed elbow, just enough to make him yelp in pain.

I had to block the strike from the right. There was no way to avoid it without losing my footing.

And how did I know that anyway? I understood perfectly what was going on. I had acted on instinct and adrenaline in my last fight. This was different.

No time to think about it. They had both recovered and were attacking me again. Rapid fist strikes from the right, a hard swing from the left. I turned to swat the fists aside each time they came while I rammed my leg into the arm of the other thug.

Fuck!

I had overextended. Pain exploded across my torso. I tried to roll with the kick that had just hit me from behind. Spinning aside until both enemies were in front of me again.

It worked. And now I had enough room to hit back. The ganger who had hit me tried to block the kick I threw his way, but it landed perfectly. He toppled over and crashed into the wall.

More attacks thrown my way by the other skinhead. His right arm was slower. I grabbed it with my left, then rammed my knee into the same spot I had hit before. The first guy still lay groaning against the wall. Time to finish him.

I jumped towards the wall and rammed my foot into his head. The other got pressed against the wall and I used my momentum to launch myself back into the fight. One of the gangers swung angrily at me. The blow grazed my shoulder. I took the hit and slammed into him. We both went to ground, but I was prepared and jumped right up again.

One enemy left standing. He edged away from me until his back hit the wall.

I barely spotted the gun out of the corner of my eyes. Their leader leveled it at me from the end of the alley.

Two shots rang out. I threw myself backwards, slipped and fell to the ground. Had I been hit? No time to check, the gun was still leveled at me.

He got ready to fire. There was no time to get up, no way to dodge. I flinched and acted on instinct.

After a second, I opened my eyes again. The two remaining gangers were staring at me. And I was still alive. What the fuck had just happened? And then I noticed what I had done.

Just...what the fuck? How the hell had I ripped out a loose brick from the wall and thrown it into the path of the bullets?

No matter. I ripped out another brick and stood up slowly, eyes on the remaining two nazis.

They ran.

I got out of the alley myself. No sense hanging around until backup or police arrived, and home wasn't too far away.

"Aisha! What happened?" Brian shouted as soon as he saw me. It carried about as much anger as worry.

"Got into a fight with Nazi-Scum. And I. Kicked. Their. Asses!" I struck a pose, trying not to wince from the bruises I had.

"You what?! Aisha, if you get in trouble at school then you're putting this whole arrangement in jeopardy and-"

"Nu-Uh! Wasn't at school. Didn't fight with some kid either. Was five empire goons on my way home. Totally won with my mad kung fu skills."

Brian stared. Not in awe though. "Bullshit. I know you learned a lot, but without powers I would lose that fight. Now tell me what really happened."

"But I did! Look, I'll show you!" I tried to repeat the wall-jump I pulled off in the alley...and fell flat on my ass. "Ouch. Dammit I'm hurt enough already why Isn't this working."

Brian yelled some more at me, accusing me of lying. I tried to fucking explain that I wasn't, he wouldn't have any of it.

Then the doorbell rang. We barely heard it over the shouting, and Brian just glared at me as he went off to get it.

"Now what are you doing here? You've already gotten Aisha into trouble today, no matter what Concordia did for me that is not okay!"

I peeked around the corner, trying to be all sneaky to not get caught. It was Watchwoman.

"I have no idea what you're talking about Mr. Laborn. If it is about the fact that I could not fight at Aisha's side today, then I must assume that she is home and I would like to apologize to her."

"You mean that actually happened? Okay fine, but no secrets. I want to know what Aisha got into this time."

He showed Watchwoman in and she began to explain.

"Aisha, I'm sorry you had to deal with this alone. I was caught up in a fight with some villains and could not intervene in time. So instead, I sent some of my power to you. I'm glad you managed to win the fight or get away."

"Aaww, that wasn't all me being awesome? But yes I kicked their asses. So, that's another part of your powers? Damn you really lucked out."

"Well, it's complicated. But yes, I can give others improved combat skills - but only if they are already well-trained, so in a way it was still you who won the fight."

"It was? Awesome!"

2.B - Interlude: Danny

"You did WHAT?" I yelled at the self-proclaimed god sitting in front of me.

"Calm down Daniel. We could not…"

"Don't give me that shit! This is my daughter we're talking about! You should have been there for her!"

Tu Yu did not flinch as I leaned across the desk and shouted at him. He just waited until I had to catch my breath, then calmly wiped the spittle off the marble surface.

"I am as concerned about the honorable Administrator as you are, Daniel Hebert. However, what is done is done. The Administrator has talked to the Parahuman Response Team, we can only ensure that she learns from the experience."

"Don't call her that." I was still angry. At him for leaving Taylor unguarded. At her for going there alone. At myself for not being able to do anything.

"But that is what she is now, Daniel. You have to accept that if you want to help her. She wants to be seen as a hero, so the Administrator will have to deal with the Parahuman Response Team and others. On her own, if necessary."

I slumped back into the chair. "Look, I know that, okay? I just don't like it. I should have been there for her. But I didn't know what was going on. Now I do, and I still can't help her."

Tu Yu shook his head. "You can, Daniel. She values our support, and I am certain you can provide her with some insight. Think on it while I speak to the Administrator and explain the practical side of today's situation to her."

It took me a while to nod. Tu Yu went to speak to Taylor, leaving me alone to brood in his overly fancy office.

It took over two hours before I heard from Taylor. "Dad? Tu Yu said you wanted to talk to me, want to come to my place?"

I jerked. Still not used to the intercom here, it always sounded like the person talking was right next to you. "Sure kiddo. Be right there."

"Thanks Dad. You know the way, right?" God, she'd never let this go, would she? Sure, I had gotten lost in here. But only once! Okay, it was for over three hours, and I had forgotten to ask the AI for directions. I hadn't been too stubborn to ask, no matter what Hu Dai claimed! Places just didn't come with semi-sentient omnipresent guides.

Well, by now I knew better. Getting there took just a few minutes, like every other place in here if you knew the way. And Lotus opened one when I asked her to without any fuss.

'Taylors place' was right next to her office. A normal living room. Almost a copy of the one in our house - we had asked Tu Yu to build a normal room for us and he'd taken his inspiration from there. It came with one of the doorways that led out of this 'Sanctum'. If you went through it, you ended up stepping out of the closet in Taylor's room. But aside from that, and a constant supply of tea and cookies, this was a normal place.

Taylor was still in costume. She wore it most of the time these days, so I had gotten used to that at least, and she had lifted her veil.

"Hey kiddo. You're still angry, right?" A nod. "Good."

She blinked. "What?"

"Guess you didn't expect that from your old man, huh? Well, I AM glad you're still angry. You have every reason to, and suppressing it won't help anything. But." I paused for a few seconds.

"But you shouldn't let that control your behaviour. I'm glad that you don't have my temper, that you don't blow up like I do. But cold anger is still a problem. I can't count how many meetings I ruined with mine."

"Dad, they just tried to walk all over me! How am I supposed to ignore that?"

"I should say that I'm the wrong man to answer that question. Maybe I am. I'm angry at them too. But it helps if you tell yourself that you can do something. About them, about the situation."

"But I couldn't today. They just bullied me into that meeting."

"And that reminded you of Sophia? Taylor, that's exactly what I'm talking about. Don't take everything personally. The person who gave that order probably doesn't even know much about Sophia."

"Dad, she's a Ward. I'm pretty sure the Director knows about them." At least the only sign of her anger now was her sarcasm, she didn't yell at me.

"Look Taylor. I'm sure she does. But how much does she really know? Probably mostly from reports, and you know the school faked those. Look, it happens all the time that you have an important subordinate but don't really know them that well personally. And...look, that's not the point. If you let yourself get insulted, then you let yourself be controlled."

"I'm pretty sure the Director didn't piss me off on purpose to control me."

"Exactly! She didn't piss you off on purpose. She probably dealt with you like with any other teenager, because she didn't know any better because she doesn't know you."

"And I'm just supposed to ignore that she treated me like I should follow her orders?"

"You would have to, if you had joined the Wards. Don't worry, I think it's a good idea you didn't. Look, I'm just asking you to understand that none of that was meant as an insult."

"But what if it was?"

"Then it still shouldn't influence your decisions. And remind yourself that you can do something about this. It's still hard for me to believe. But you have resources. You have allies, political clout. And you have your powers. You don't have their respect yet, but you have everything you need to get it. And you're smart Taylor. So yes, you can do this."

We kept talking, and I succeeded at cheering Taylor up. In the end, she was motivated and full of energy again.

Only when I was about to go to sleep did it occur to me what I might have done.

My daughter was already taking on the gangs, and Director Piggot had been right when she pointed out the dangers of that course. If Taylor tried to take on the PRT as well…

It had not been part of her plans so far. The thought that that might change because I had encouraged her kept me up all night.

My fears didn't come true right away. After two weeks, they were still there. I approved of all the training Taylor had done with Hu Dai and was proud of how she'd handled the Undersiders. But I became certain that she was working on something she didn't tell me about. We didn't discuss all the details, but she was glad to share with me on her projects. But the nagging suspicion that she was working on something else didn't stop, and I had no idea how to confront her with it.

"Dad?" Taylor knocked on the doorframe of our living room. In our house, since I still couldn't really relax in her sanctum, no matter how similar it looked. She was not in costume for once, just a hoodie and jeans.

"Come in kiddo. It's still your house, even if you have a much fancier place now."

"Dad! It's not like that, I just wanted to be polite. So, uh, do you have time?"

"I always have time to talk to you Taylor, I promised you that."

She smiled "I know. But it's not really about me, it's about you. Well, your work. Dad, I know what to do about the boat graveyard."

I blinked. The last sentence was spoken with a lot of pride. Had she been working on that for the last two weeks? "Taylor, don't take this the wrong way, but...people have been working on that for longer than you've been alive. Are you sure you actually figured this out?"

She didn't look hurt, but her body language shifted. More aggressive, maybe more determined. "That's why I need to talk to you."

Taylor sat down and pulled out a large pile of papers out of her bag.

"First we need to make sure salvaging the wrecks is legal. I checked, and it's a pretty big mess. There are several jurisdictions involved. Federal law, admiralty law, the laws of the countries the ships are registered with."

I sighed "And that's where pretty much most people give up. You'd need an army of lawyers to get through all that."

"I know, Dad. Look." She shoved several papers in my face. "We have lots of precedent. It's completely unfair, but it works in our favor!"

I read over the papers. Court rulings on ship losses. Admiralty law, limited maritime liability.

"Taylor, what are you trying to tell me here?"

"I was trying to figure out why nobody had cleared up the boat graveyard yet. It's a mess, but there is no legal barrier at all!"

I looked sceptical, but Taylor went on before I had a chance to say anything. "Oh sure, in theory somebody could sue us for cutting up their ship. But I can handle that, any good lawyer can."

I waved at the pile of papers in front of me. "So, if its not a legal issue, then you wasted your time with this?"

"Pretty much. I got stuck on the idea that it's a legal issue. But at least now I know how to handle it. And I understand why it happened in the first place. Thanks to limited shipowners liability, they just had to pay the ships scrap-price in fines at most, if nobody else wanted to buy the thing. I'm pretty sure that some bribes were involved in that though, at least for the big ships. But that's not important right now. We have the same problem people had back then."

By now, I knew what situation I was in. Best to go with the flow of the presentation, so I just threw my daughter a questioning look, and she went on right away.

"Economics, Dad." She pulled out another stack of papers. Scrap values, market prices for salvaged parts, supply and demand. Costs for welding gear, cranes, protective clothing. Wages for workers and specialists.

It took a while to read over it, but I spotted the problem pretty soon. "Taylor, this doesn't balance out at all. Even with all the money we have now, we couldn't afford this. We'd be broke before we're even halfway done. There's just too many costs involved."

"Exactly. We could clear maybe a fifth of the Boat Graveyard that way. I tried different approaches, but at most it's enough for forty percent. And that's with really low wages, stretched out over many years so we can supply it with more money from our funds. At some point waiting just runs into diminishing returns. And even with plenty of donations or funds from the city, we can't do it."

I had heard that many times before. It couldn't be done, not without a revitalized economy to stem the cost. Which wouldn't happen as long as the boat graveyard was still there. "Taylor, you said you had a solution. Get to the point, what is it."

"We need a miracle dad. And I know how to provide several".

Taylors real explanation took up another hour. The plan called for the creation of a god, specifically for the operation of cleaning up the boat graveyard. She had told me that she had created Tu Yu and Hu Dai, but debating the creation of an intelligent being with my teenage daughter was still incredibly weird. She claimed that it'd make everything run more smoothly, that there would be less accidents and everything would work faster.

More importantly, that way we could hire from the dockworkers union. I knew that only a part of the guys there had experience with heavy metal-working. I had seen how Hu Dai could teach her martial arts, if the same thing worked for salvaging skills we could provide jobs for everyone at the union. And any prestige we got from clearing up the cities biggest sore could be leveraged into a better bargaining position once the land was reclaimed.

"Taylor, a lot of that stuff can be done now. We can buy the equipment, it will take some time to get here anyway. And I can check whether we have experienced workers. I think we can start small-scale and then expand."

"That sounds good. It'll certainly work better if the god has something to act upon right away. Can you do it?"

I nodded. "Taylor, I can do it. Just watch me, in a week or two we'll start clearing up this city."

2.C - Interlude: Hannah

"Winslow High is gang territory, Hannah. Or it might as well be, with all the gang members going to that school. The fact that you're always carrying a weapon is one of the reasons I'm sending you."

Director Piggot's words had not put me at ease. I wasn't concerned for my safety. But I couldn't turn off my power's projection, and no matter what form it took most of the time, it could turn into a lethal weapon at a moments notice.

Ironically, that had never bothered me at other schools. Not as a child, nor when teaching at Arcadia. Most capes had to live with the fact that they were effectively armed at all times, my power was just more obvious in that regard.

But this time, it was an official assignment. Teaching at Arcadia was something I did in my civilian identity, my powers didn't figure into that. I didn't even have to pay special attention to the Wards there.

Now it was different. I would be there because I was a cape, even if I would go there in my civilian identity. I had asked the Director whether the school faculty had been informed of my identity as Miss Militia. And the moment I did, my projection stopped being a subconscious part of me and turned into a lethal weapon I would carry into a school.

"The faculty could be compromised. All they know is that you are affiliated with the PRT, probably to keep an eye on the Wards at Arcadia. To the students, you'll just be there to replace a teacher that is in hospital. To the teachers, you'll be there to observe the gang situation for us. To the principal, you will be there to supervise Shadow Stalker."

Of course, the real reason was to watch Concordia. I would still do my best to do the other three jobs, even if they were just covers.

Shortly after starting at Winslow High, it became obvious that not observing the gang activity would have been impossible anyway. The students didn't display any gang symbols openly, but a shocking percentage of them wore colours. Even if they hadn't, the way they grouped together would have given it away.

Despite being prepared for it, the first time I noticed a hidden weapon still shocked me. Seeing a fourteen-year old girl with a concealed knife in her jacket hammered home how badly off this school was. From the looks of it, she wasn't even part of any gang.

It also made me more uncomfortable about being armed myself. I knew well enough how that could escalate a conflict.

I'd never taught home room or computer sciences before, but the principal didn't seem to care. She just seemed glad that she'd found a replacement teacher on such short notice. Fortunately eidetic memory and not having the need to sleep made it easy to prepare for the classes, given that all I needed to learn were the course materials. I had plenty of experience teaching.

It took me less than a day to discover the first glimpses of how powerful the mental influence Aedile had put in place was. Not that it didn't return benefits - the ability to easily complete the endless stream of paperwork that plagued teachers everywhere was something many would cheerfully kill for, though I didn't notice it myself. But the other side of the coin was...disturbing.

Aedile had promised that she would lower her influence on the staff of Winslow and I'd planned to ask my new colleagues about that, but it turned out to be unnecessary. A Mr. Gladly was walking with me to the teachers lounge during lunch break.

"You're lucky you transferred here now. You heard about Concordia, right? Well, you're in for a surprise."

He opened the door for me. As soon as we were inside, he hurried to a table and pulled out a stack of papers. He wasn't the only one either, every teacher in here was working on reports. Of course, a lot of teachers used their breaks to do some work, but this seemed excessive. I said as much to Mr. Gladly.

"You think this is bad? Now we just have to write reports and hand them to the principal. Used to be that we had to drag a student out of class if what they did so much as looked like bullying."

I gave him a sceptical look, and he corrected himself right away.

"Oh, lots of bad stuff happens here. But really, just cracking down hard won't solve anything. I prefer to talk to my students, not punish them."

"So, now you just have to write reports? How does that work, I'm not noticing any urge to do that, not during my break."

"I'm pretty sure you'll notice soon enough. Maybe it's because you're new and haven't noticed anything yet. Once you do...well, as soon as you have any time to spare you'll really really want to write it out. Any behaviour of students who misbehaved, or who have been punished for bullying. It's like having to pee really badly, if you'll excuse the expression. Don't worry, you'll get used to it...and it's not too bad."

I'd never condone the record of bullying that the newly functional staff of Winslow seemed to have been ignoring, but the sort of influence required to make an entire school's staff suddenly start acting on the rules that they were supposed to had to be considerable. It wasn't subtle either, and as Mr. Gladly had explained most teachers had gotten used to it, just like a smoker did. It had been a month since Aedile first used her powers of the school faculty. But she had only promised to change its effects last Friday. There was no way he was already familiar with them now, on the first day they took effect. Whatever she did, it acted fast.

Yet I was teacher there now, and I hadn't felt a thing. And not because I hadn't noticed anything; during my first homeroom a boy had clearly been shunned for no reason and his reaction made it clear that that was not the first time. In other words, social harassment and therefore bullying. Of course I'd wanted to help him, and I'd made plans to do so.

That had worried me at first, but then outside of the school I'd gone over my own class records, comparing them to those of fellow staff, in particular where pupil discipline was concerned. Their reactions were far more immediate. Before Aedile changed the effect of that power, any other teacher would have called the bullies to the principal's office. Now they were less heavy-handed, but still felt urges to report on it right away. But if that was anything to go by, I wasn't being affected.

My patrol schedule had been shifted to the nights, for obvious reasons. Before it started, I had time to report to the Director.

"It's just a first impression of course. As far as I can tell now, it's just the teachers that are affected, not the students. And for some reason, I'm not being affected. I can only guess that it's because of my enhanced memory."

Emily frowned. "Or maybe it's because Aedile doesn't target you on purpose, Hannah. Which means she lied about her powers affecting an area during that press conference."

I swallowed the urge to sigh. Getting Emily Piggot to trust a parahuman took a lot of effort. She trusted me, but her distrust of other capes still stung. "Or it takes time to come into effect."

"You just told me that the teachers reacted to a new use of her power like it had been in effect for a long time."

"That could still be because they were already under the effect of her powers. It's how other Masters work. But you're right, I haven't noticed anything yet. I'll come in for Master/Stranger protocols on the weekend as planned, just in case."

"Please do. I still don't trust Aedile at all, and we need to find out more about the rest of Concordia too. But be careful, Hannah."

My first day at school had been harmless. I still didn't feel any peculiar effects on Tuesday, but towards the end of the day I ran into one of the situations that I'd been wary off since we'd started planning this whole operation.

Three students were threatening a fourth. Everyone involved was white, and it was clear that the three aggressors were members of the Empire. Right now they were just boxing him in, walking to a more secluded part of the school. I knew where this was going, even if I'd never seen it happen at Arcadia. Fights still happened, scuffles between two students. Not like this.

I stepped in. Placed myself right in their path, far enough away to avoid collision but close enough to make it clear that I was blocking their path.

"I don't think he wants to go with you."

Two of them stopped, flanking their victim. Their leader stepped close to me.

"I'm tired of you teachers messing with our business. You better step aside, if you know what's good for you."

I didn't budge. I knew addressing their victim would escalate the situation, but still did it. "They won't do anything to you now. Just leave, I'll take care of this."

Their leader didn't care for that. "Right, like you'll be able to do anything. What are you going to do, expel me? Go on, I'm not afraid of that."

We were staring at each other. His two comrades were still flanking their victim. The physical intimidation wasn't working, I had faced worse situations. But without using my powers, there seemed to be no way to get these thugs to stand down.

"Ignore that bitch, boys. Get our 'friend' here to a quiet place and have a talk."

Damn. At best they would press him into their gang, at worst he had already refused and would be beaten within an inch of his life, if not more.

I got ready to move, my cover be damned. The two flunkies turned around, grabbing their victim's arms.

Ribbons shot at them out of nowhere. One of them lost his balance and fell to the ground with a heavy thud. Their leader started to turn around. Already poised to strike, I put him into a hold the moment his back was exposed.

"You're not going anywhere."

Watchwoman and I spoke at once. After a short, amused pause, she moved to secure her captives. I let go of the leader carefully, in case he tried anything. In light of an opposing parahuman however, his bluster was gone. All he managed was a snarl at me that I would pay for this as Watchwoman stepped forward to wrap him up as well.

"Oh I doubt that. Somebody already called the police, they'll know what was going on here. It's not the teachers who are in trouble here."

After she was done, she turned to me.

"Could you bring Mike to the nurse's office? I'll watch those thugs until the police arrives."

The boy in question was clearly in shock, leaving him here was out of the question.

"Sure, but I'd like to talk to you later, if at all possible."

Mr. Gladly joined us as I guided Mike around the corner towards the infirmary, but none of us spoke until we got there. We got Mike onto one of the beds, asked him if he was ok. He nodded, but it was still best to wait for the school nurse. He arrived after only a short wait, thanked us for making sure Mike was brought here, then told us we were free to head back to our duties.

Neither of us had classes to go to yet, so we headed for the staffroom. Mr. Gladly began to look more and more ashamed as we walked. I had seen that before, shame at not being able to do more.

"So, you called the police? Thank you. And don't worry about not stepping in, it wouldn't have helped."

Thomas still looked ashamed. "You were brave enough to do it. And you probably saved Mike, too."

"Only because Watchwoman arrived. And from the looks of it. she would have saved him either way." That I could have done it myself in other circumstances went unsaid.

He seemed to relax a bit. "I'm glad to hear that. Honestly, I had no idea what else to do."

"Calling the police was exactly the right thing. Delaying criminals like I did can be pretty dangerous, we're lucky it didn't escalate."

"No, I mean in general. I missed the "how to deal with attacks by gangers" part of teacher training. But then, I've been here a few years now and still don't know how."

Stopping the gangs wasn't easy. At least I could arrest people, but as a teacher his authority was much more limited. Then again, even arrests could only do so much. "I guess at that stage, it's too late to do anything more than what you did."

He sighed. "I know. I try to talk to them, you know. The kids you can still talk to. Get them to talk to those who won't listen to a teacher anymore."

"Do you think that works?"

His face gave away the answer before he spoke. "Honestly? Sometimes I think I might just be playing favorites with the popular kids. That it doesn't make a difference."

The man was ready to pour out his heart. Fishing for information now was cold, but I had to do it, even if I felt bad about it.

"You just made a difference. Watchwoman did too. But I doubt everything Concordia does works either."

"You're right. At least I'm trying. So does Watchwoman, I'm glad she's here. I'm not sure about that other cape."

Darn, if he didn't even use her name, he had likely had no first-hand experience "You mean Aedile? What about her?"

"You mean aside from forcing her powers on us? I try not to think about it too much, it's just creepy. What if she decides to take away our ability to choose again? Or worse?"

At least I could get a first-hand report on what Aedile could do. "It was that bad?"

He nodded firmly. "It was. The first time it happened, I dragged three students to the principal without even thinking about it. Right out of class, too. Two of them already had some problems with authority. They're used to being leaders. What I did there - what if they decide to stop listening to me? Or to authority figures in general? Aedile has no idea how to be a teacher, what gives her the right to make such a decision?"

He was pretty angry now. I normally wouldn't pry further, but couldn't pass up this opportunity. "What did those students do? Did they get violent, or bully someone in class? Sorry, I'm just curious why Aedile made you do that."

"There's some bad blood between one of them and another student. I don't really know what happened, both sides tell different stories. Anyway, they verbally attacked her during a presentation in class. That's all. Honestly, I'd have just talked to them after class, that would have been enough."

He wasn't serious, was he? Even at Arcadia, just a talk would hardly suffice to stop bullying. "Well, I am sure you would have. I guess Aedile doesn't think that's enough." There, nice and non-committal. I probably wasn't going to get anything else out of him.

"Oh, here you are." Watchwoman turned the corner and waved at us. Thank god, a way out of this conversation. If she had been looking for me, starting a conversation with her should be easy. "I've been looking for you. You're new here, right? Yet you're very interested in my student's safety. I wanted to thank you."

My students. An interesting choice of words, given that she had no official position at all here at Winslow. "I just reacted. I didn't think this through or anything, I never did anything like that before."

She laughed out. "Heh. All the better then. Listen, I have to go now, but you were great. I hope we see each other again."

Before I could get another word out, she bowed and was gone. At least I'd learned that she could indeed teleport.

I heard from her on Thursday morning. After my latest report to Director Piggot, she had decided to call in Aedile directly. That had not gone well, so my expectations were not very good when I found a message from Watchwoman. Then again, if she had found out my identity she probably wouldn't be sending me elaborate scrolls. Actually, I couldn't figure out why she'd use a scroll in the first place.

'Dearest Hannah,

I am sorry I had to leave you so quickly the last time we saw each other. I fondly recall your heroism, and cannot possibly express my admiration for you.

If it would be at all possible, I would love to see you again. This weekend, I will attempt to tutor some students in the arts of self defense. Your heart is clearly devoted to their protection, and I beg you to attend. Surely your presence will greatly benefit this endeavour, but I must confess that your presence would also comfort me.

I sincerely hope that you will grant me this wish.

Yours,

Watchwoman'

The letter was also signed with a set of elaborate symbols I couldn't decipher.

Getting permission from the Director to attend Watchwoman's class was easier than figuring out her motivations for that letter. I had no idea why she would write it in such a manner. The obvious explanation was that she had some sort of crush on me, but I was sure that wasn't the case.

And of course, there was the question of why she wanted me to attend. Officially, she had asked for a teacher to act as her liaison, just like the deal Director Piggot had worked out with Aedile demanded. She clearly sent me the letter to get me to volunteer for that, but was it because she knew of my cape persona or for some other reason?

In the end, I decided such speculation was pointless. I'd just go, see how it went and ask her if I felt it was necessary.

Aedile was also at Watchwoman's martial arts class. In light of the recent debacle with the PRT-interview, I decided to hang back. We had already made Aedile suspicious, pressuring either of them with questions now would only make it worse. I stopped just watching and joined in after a while though.

Watchwoman managed to impress her students, and if she really had been teaching Aedile there was no reason for her to worry about her ability to teach. I congratulated her, but with Aedile around I wasn't going to ask too many questions. However, when Watchwoman left to fetch one of her business cards for me, Aedile left as well.

Watchwoman tapped me on the shoulder while I was waiting for her.

"Now it's just us two here, alone. I'm glad you enjoyed my class, can you stay around a bit longer?" I nodded. Now that Aedile was gone, I had the chance to pick her brains right away. "Great! So, my letter did get your attention after all."

Oh dear. At least her face was easy to read, she was clearly amused. She had just been teasing me, no reason to read more into it. "I did. It was certainly...unique."

She smiled. "Oh good, it was supposed to be. But I'm afraid I overdid it." At least she recognized that. Not even love-sick Wards wrote that badly. Well, not always. "You see, I forgot to transcribe my real name into english when I signed it. I guess I just like how elaborate it looks when written properly."

"Wait, you signed the letter with your real name? I always thought capes were more careful with their identities." Careful now, don't reveal too much.

"Well, I won't be giving it to everyone for now. Just you, because I trust you. So please, call me Hu Dai."

Was she really trusting me that much? I had no means of checking her name right now, but what would be the point of using a fake name? What was the point of telling me her name anyway?

"Hello Hu Dai. I'm Hannah, nice to meet you." I extended my hand, and she took it. Separate greetings for separate identities."

She kept smiling as we stopped shaking hands. "Oh, and next time you want to talk to Aedile, please just ask, okay? She's been bullied enough."

Crap. Had she seen through my cover?. "Excuse me? I haven't spoken to her, what are you…"

"Oh, stop it. I knew right away that the PRT had sent someone to my school. After today, I know who you are too, Miss Militia."

She must have sensed my tension skyrocketing, because she took a step back and held up her hands. "Sorry, that was too harsh. Hannah, I don't really care about that. You are who you are, and you had no bad intentions. Just be honest with me, please?"

I blinked. I officially had no idea what she was trying to accomplish here. "You're serious? Okay, but then you have to be honest to me too. Why are you telling me this anyway?"

"As I said before, you're interesting. You're smart and brave and you care. I don't want us to fight, Hannah, just the opposite."

Now it was my turn to smile. "I think we can do that. Would it be okay if I ask you a few questions about Aedile? I won't get the rest of the Protectorate to trust you without some answers, never mind the PRT."

"Sorry, I can't do that. She trusts me, and as I said she has been hurt enough. But if you won't press the issue, I won't tell her about your identity either."

I would have to get the director's approval for this, but it seemed fine to me. Hu Dai wasn't a bad person as far as I could tell. "Sure. For what it's worth, I do feel sorry about how the Director treated her. But there really are a lot of ways for a new cape to mess up."

"She knows that. That's why she has me. And this city really does need fixing, and to be honest I don't think what the PRT is doing works very well. At least as far as I can tell from this school, and other parts of the city I have seen."

"I agree. But that doesn't solve our problem. If we push too far, the gangs will push back. And they can push harder than we can."

Hu Dai nodded. "I think you are too pessimistic. But we'll be careful, okay? And if you have any advice or criticism, don't be afraid to just tell me, okay?"

If only Aedile were that reasonable as well. "I can do that. Now, I really do have other things to do today, and I believe you wanted to give me your number?"

"Right, of course. Talking to you almost made me forget that, you're pretty distracting." She winked at me and fished an elaborate card out of the folds of her dress. At least the fancy material, the same she had used for the letter, was appropriate for a business card.

"Thank you. I have to go write my report now, I hope you understand. By the way, is it alright if I give this to the director of the PRT? Just for emergencies?"

"Of course, that's your job. Go ahead and include it in your report. Now, do you want to drive or shall I give you a lift?"

"I actually took the bus. I'm just a poor substitute teacher after all, I don't have enough money to buy a car. But you can walk me there while I think about it, okay?"

It was hardly a long walk to the bus station, but after school and in this part of the city, the busses didn't come that often. After about ten minutes of waiting and chatting with Hu Dai, I decided to take her up on her offer. "Okay fine, I guess I'll take that lift. Go ahead and show off."

"Ha, I knew it! Not just interesting, but curious too. Come here, it works best if we're close." She took my arm and pulled me into a hug. A shock went through my entire body, and for a second I felt as hot as the sun. I fell, but landed in a soft embrace. It took a few seconds until I had my orientation back. I was sitting on a cloud. Or at least it looked like one. The partially transparent vapors could not possibly hold my weight, so some form of force field had to be involved here. Or maybe telekinesis, or some other form of power.

Hu Dai stood over me, smiling and laughing softly. "Sorry, you said you wanted to be impressed, so I took the scenic route. I'll send us down once you're back on your feet."

I had no idea how high up we were exactly, but I recognized Brockton Bay down below. Certainly a view to be enjoyed, but right now getting back down to the ground sounded like a good idea. I scrambled to my feet, not trusting the surface I was standing on entirely. Hu Dai took hold of me again, and the same intense feeling washed over me. This time, I was ready and didn't lose my footing. We had arrived two streets away from the PRT-building, apparently the reports of lightning strikes when Watchwoman appeared had been correct. I knew we could use the cameras here to check.

She accompanied me to the entrance of the building, and I went straight to Director Piggot to report.

"So what is your opinion on them, Hannah? I know you've only been at Winslow for a week, but is there any sign that there is more going on than they claim?"

I was hesitant to answer. The Directors bias towards parahumans was well-known and had been well-justified over the course of her career. "They seem like good people. As far as I can tell at least, ma'am. But…"

Director Piggot tolerated my long pause, but motioned me to go on eventually. "Sorry, ma'am. All I can say is that whatever their plans are, I don't see an imminent danger to the school or the city. But there is more going on than they tell us. There are just too many things that don't match up. Watchwoman was friendly, and I do like her. But she's not telling me everything either, so I can't honestly say that she doesn't have anything hidden."

"Thank you, Hannah. It's good to know that we won't have to act against them immediately, public opinion is too much on their side. After mastering a whole school, who knows how the public can overlook that. But I want you to keep observing them. Get closer to Watchwoman. We can't let Concordia out of our sights. And if you find anything compromising, tell me. I need something to move against them."

"With all due respect Ma'am, should we really arrest them over this? We usually don't do that with new capes unless they've hurt someone, even if their powers cause a public disturbance."

She frowned at my choice of words. "Public disturbance? Anyway, we don't have to arrest them. We just need to apply enough pressure that they reveal their backers. We need to know what we're up against. And if we can put pressure on them, we might be able to recruit them. Or at least force them to work under our observation."

I sighed. With more trust from our side, Concordia would probably trust us more as well. Then again, it was Emily's job to be cautious, so I agreed to look for dirt on Concordia.

Over the next few weeks, Hu Dai and I saw each other several times per week during her martial arts classes. As far as I could tell, all her students were making excellent progress. I got used to her peculiar style as well, when I participated in the lessons.

We fought together several times. Mostly she teleported right into the fight, which almost got her attacked due to confusion the first few times. Afterwards, she took care to not just appear in the middle of an ongoing battle. I even managed to convince her to join me on my patrols a few times.

And yet, despite all of that, I still hadn't expected her to show up when we gathered to fight an Endbringer in Canberra.

2.D - Interlude: Tattletale

I'd heard about portals before - anyone who knew anything about parahumans knew about Toybox. But knowing about them and finding yourself standing in front of one were two very different experiences.

I'd never seen anything like it in my life, and part of me was suddenly very uncertain. I knew that I'd pledged myself (the term fit) to Concordia, but I had nothing but their word that it did indeed lead somewhere safe. Did I really trust them this much? Yet in the end, I didn't have much of a choice. I'd given myself, and I didn't want to take that back - not even when confronted with something like this.

So instead of gibbering like part of me wanted to, I looked around, taking in one last look at the place that had been been my home for the last few months, nodded once to Brian - I was pretty sure we'd see each other again - then hefted the small carryall that held all of my meager physical possessions and walked through the portal.

Extra-li-voi-nexpow-to- Sanctum. Alive.

"Gyaah!" I barely heard my own cry of pain as I fell to my knees, hands flying to my head in a futile attempt to calm my mind after the spike of pure agony that had lanced through it. Dear god that had hurt. I hadn't had a reaction like it since...ever. I did my best to shut out my power. My walls were all the way up, and part of me realised immediately that I was going to have to be very careful looking around in here. So for now, at least, I prevented myself from doing so, closing my eyes to blot out the gleaming metal below me with soothing darkness. I'm pretty sure that that was the only reason I heard Aedile's voice.

"Tattletale, are you all right?" But even then, just barely. The question seemed to come from a great distance, and I found myself quite incapable of forming a reply. I managed to shake my head and heard the blurred noise of voices, but the words were so very far away. What had my power been trying to tell me? Extra...li...link maybe? This had to be an extradimensional space of some sort, so that might have been the first part.

The rest I just couldn't find. The context points that had given my power them weren't there anymore now that I was through the portal. Or at least I couldn't find them, not with my having completely locked down every avenue for perception points I had. Ok then...rebuild. I'd done this before.

Slowly, carefully, I started working through my senses, taking the time to rebuild a safe perception point flow. Unsurprisingly, touch came first. The floor under my hands was cool to the touch, and smooth in a way very unlike metal. It was almost like a stone, but… I pressed down hard with one hand before tapping a nail on the surface. No give, and the sound was wrong for stone. The colour had been wrong to- no. Don't jump all the way to sight, leave it for now. We'll get to that. But not stone. What then…

Metal. Unlike reality.

That...wasn't much to work with. Alright, yes, I wasn't giving my power much to work with either, but come on. Extradimensional space. Of course it was going to be unlike reality. Ok, it didn't matter. I had that on a safety. Next sense.

Smell.

The air was clean, far purer than that of the Bay, where pollution found its way into everything, but with a faint scent of...something. Wood? No. Close, it was very similar.

Paper and parchment. Well kept. Air is dry and still, enough to keep it intact.

Were we in a library? Why would Concordia's entrance hall be a library of all things. Wait, no. Her power worked with information… but did she really rely on paper? Why would she do that? There had to be some sort of reason, but I filed away that question for later. There were more important things right now. Anything else? Perfume - that had to be Watchwoman; reasonably light, floral, what you'd expect given her aesthetics. Seemed a bit much in terms of attention to detail though.

Ok, next one. Hearing...what was...no, I didn't care about what Watchwoman and Aedile were saying. There were other things, things about this place, the words would just distract me. A faint hum, I had felt it through my fingers, almost below human perception. The sound of a generator perhaps? I'd find out, no doubt. Screen it out for now.

Tick-tak.

What was that.

Tak-tick-tick-tak.

Metal...metal on wood, and-

Tick-tak-tick.

Movement. It was coming closer. Footsteps, if you could call them that. What the hell was it? Grouped, moving along...it wasn't on the ground, off to the side, on the wall maybe. And the way those 'steps' were grouped, like an insect. Or…

Like a spider.

Why did Aedile have...what would those even be, robotic spiders? She wasn't a Tinker damnit, and extradimensional spaces weren't even related to a speciality that would be able to build them. Were there more than just the three? No way to tell for now.

Well...only one way to find out. Final sense of note; sight. Time to open those eyes again.

Silver. No...no way that was actually silver. Had to be something else. There were faint etchings in the metal now that I was looking at it properly, but I couldn't read them. Later. Move up. I pushed myself up onto my knees, looking around carefully. It must have looked very strange, kneeling like this with them around me.

"Lisa, are you alright? Are you with us?" Female voice, deeply concerned, that would be Aedile. "Wha...what happened to you?" And what to say to that? A selection of half-truths and misdirections flashed through my head, instinct really. Don't let them see it, don't let it show. Weakness or even the perception of it could mean death. But...she was concerned. And not for my powers - what little she could be aware of - for me. Not what I could do. And I'd given a pledge.

"My power," I couldn't believe I was doing this. "It works off perception points, it's kinda like super intuition." I felt more than saw the looks being passed over my head, and perverse amusement bubbled somewhere inside. So they hadn't known. That was nice, I guess. "You might say I'm the main reason for Grue's - I mean Brian's - 'fucking Thinkers' complex." That won an involuntary chuckle.

"The downside is that I can get overloaded. Hurts like hell when it happens; and when I went through that portal, I did." More looks above me, shuffling feet. They were worried...why? "I didn't get much of anything, I think there were too many points in too short a time for me to lock onto one. Just a jumble of pieces." They relaxed a little. "Never had anything like that happen before." And tense again. What was up with this? I'd given, ah what the hell.

"You know, if you're worried about me working out something that you didn't want to tell me yet, don't be. But if you keep leading me, I'll work it out by accident."

Silence.

"Pardon?" Ah, the male of the trio, he'd opened the portal here. I didn't know much about him at all, although he seemed to be subordinate like Watchwoman and how he'd done things seemed to imply he shared some other qualities with her. First time I'd heard him speak on his own though. I wished that I could dig into that, but I was going to have a reaction headache tomorrow anyway and I'd rather save making it worse for more interesting things. I could do power dynamics later. But that was for the future. In the present, I sighed and started to explain.

"My power works off of perception points, intuiting from them and then propagating down the reasoning chain to a conclusion. More perception points - so long as it's not too many, which I wasn't aware until now was a thing like it apparently is - makes it go faster." I shrugged and started working my way to my feet. "The constant on-off tension you three've got going isn't doing your desire for secrecy any favours." I swayed a little as I regained my footing, apparently that had hit me a bit harder than I'd thought, and met Aedile's gaze.

"You're leading me to whatever you want hidden. You either need to stop doing so, or start explaining." She opened her mouth to reply, but I wasn't finished - still couldn't believe I was giving them all this.

"It doesn't need to be whatever you don't want to tell me yet. Just something for me to fix onto other than what you're worried about. Something about this place maybe, like," I looked around, twitching slightly at the giant metal spider sitting on one of the bookshelves, using its...mandibles...to carefully sort the scrolls the shelf was packed with. And then I looked up, and the size of the Sanctum registered.

Dear, sweet, god in heaven.

They couldn't be as new as they were trying to seem, no way. Not with a base this huge. Hadn't Toybox taken years to build?

"How the hell did you build this place?" The question came out in a whisper, one that seemed to echo in the vast gallery around us, and I realised that that wasn't the important question right now. "Sorry, scratch that. What did you make it from? There's more silver in those walls than most of the planet produces in a year. And this is just your entrance hall!"

"Um, Lisa, are you sure you're all-" oh the hell with you Aedile, misdirection that blatant wouldn't fool a damn ten year old. But I throttled my anger, she was my new employer after all, and managed to only half snap.

"I'm fine." I reigned in my emotions a bit tighter, and my next works were much calmer. "You promised answers, Aedile. This could be really important." She hesitated, torn, and I struck again in that moment. "I can't help you if you won't give me anything to work with." I winced inside, dear god that was a bad line. But it felt right.

She looked at me for a long moment, opened her mouth again, and then Watchwoman cut her off with a chuckle.

"Well, that took all of a minute flat. 'Fucking Thinkers' indeed - although I prefer some variety in my life, you know." She winked at me as Aedile stared and - I was certain - deliberately blinked in confusion. "Tell her. You know she's right about the promise you made."

Aedile shot a glare at her subordinate, doing all of absolutely nothing, then sighed and nodded.

"Ok. Tu Yu, would you be-"

"Of course, Your Eminence."

Wow. I hadn't heard capital letters like that anywhere but in old films. I settled in for a lecture.

"What you see before you is the Sanctum of the Most Honoured Administrator of the Mandate. Or Aedile, as Her Eminence chose to be addressed by Her lessers."

And apparently he meant every single one of those titles unironically. But what did he mean by lessers. Normal humans, everyone?

"It is not made from base material of the mortal world. Lesser beings might stoop to such measures, but Her Eminence has access to more than sufficient power for her office to properly reflect her status. She entrusted me with building it, and thanks to my skills in shaping Ambrosia I could shape Her Sanctum's Essence to Her satisfaction."

Ok, time to open up a little again. I was pretty sure I knew what he was saying, but I needed to make sure. Essence, Ambrosia...the first one was easy. The idea of places and people having an essence to them, something that could be used to shape them, that was old school religious. Ambrosia...yeah, no idea. All the meanings I knew didn't apply. But...dammit, what was I missin-

Her Sanctum. His skill.

Oh. Oh my. Ok, calm, calm, it might not be what you think it - and if it is? Well then I'd just have to deal with it.

"Ok then," I was rather proud that my voice stayed level. "What's Ambrosia?"

"Distilled reality, waiting to be given purpose. Those who have learned to handle it are capable of creating almost any substance or object from it. The finest clothing, medicine or artful objects, all can be crafted from it with the right skill and dedication. I can show it to you later, if you so desire. The potential of this Sanctum could be shaped in a similar manner."

Ok...so what was that then, matter manipulation outright? Now...it was specific - or at least sort of. He could make things out of this Ambrosia, shape this place with the same skill...did that mean that extradimensional spaces were distilled reality? Was it just wordplay for something we already knew? What sort of restrictions did he have on what he could make, and could what he made be shaped back int- and no. Not pushing that any further. Gods I was curious, but I couldn't afford another overload right now. And at least these perception points wouldn't go away, the entire Sanctum was full of them. Now did I want to ask the next question I'd had in mind. I nodded absently to 'Tu Yu' as I considered it, then went for it. It was important.

"How long?" He blinked at me and I swore mentally before rephrasing. "How long did it take," I gestured at the towering silver walls, "to build all of this?"

"Using my considerable experience, I labored for three entire days to build appropriate offices for the Administrator. With more time I could have built something more fitting, but alas we could not afford such luxury."

How long? That couldn't be right.

"I'm sorry, could you repeat that?" Lower walls, focus.

"Three days. To be precise, I started on a Friday night and was finished on the night to Sunday, putting on the last details not two hours before the Administrator arrived."

Truth.

Fucking hell. What sort of power was that. People called what I could do bullshit, but this was jus- and another question aborted that train of thought, coming faster that I could control how I said it.

"How old are you?" It had been meant as a broader question, I realised that quickly, but the way I said it directed it right at Tu Yu. And although it hadn't been what I'd meant to do, his reaction told me more in five seconds than the entire conversation so far. Up until now his answers had been clear, quick, and above all confident. Yet at that question…

He hesitated, and his eyes flicked to the side, towards Aedile. There was the confirmation I'd been looking for as to the final power dynamics in the group. You could spout pretty titles forever, even mean them, without being subordinate to the person they belonged to. But the eye flick was proof. You wouldn't try to get permission from a subordinate, and that meant that Aedile was the leader of this outfit. And then she showed it, albeit inelegantly, as she cut off any attempt at reply.

"Old enough, Lisa." And that was a 'and stay out' if I'd ever heard one.

"Duly noted." If she was half as clever as she'd always seemed to be, she had to know how much I'd pulled from that little interaction. Maybe that was why she'd been so repressive about shutting me down.

She's scared of you.

Oh...oops. I couldn't help a mental chuckle even as a silently berated myself. If she thought that this was bad, I wasn't sure if I wanted to imagine how she was going to react to me on top form. But I should probably do something about how she was looking at me - now that my power had pointed it out, it was obvious. How to say it..

"Aedile, I can't help the conclusions my power leads me to, and sometimes I can't stop myself from following the reasoning chain, even if that means asking another question. But I'm...sorry if that question was more than you're comfortable with answering right now."

I could actually see the tension seep out of her as she processed the apology. A part of me wondered why I was being so straight with her, and I idly considered if it was a part of her Power that no one knew about it. But that didn't seem right - she wouldn't have had to worry so much about public image if she had a power that could do this. Maybe it was her teammates, or the Sanctum itself, and yet in the back of my mind there was the mutter of...something. I couldn't work out what I was trying to tell myself, and I didn't have time to dig, as Aedile started to reply.

"Thank you. And I am sorry for being so nervous about this, but, well. The reason I'm keeping some of these things secret is that they'd freak a lot of people out. I don't want to freak you out. I'm worried about that, you running off somewhere and telling people who overreact and take drastic measures against us. I know it's not fair to you, but some of that knowledge really is pretty dangerous." She sighed. "Look, I'll tell you, okay? But you're already pretty freaked out by the Sanctum, and the other stuff is even weirder. It's probably best for all of us if we take this slow."

"Given what your portal did to me...I can do my best, ok?" I smiled slightly at her - and was pretty sure I got one in return. But I had another question - lots more really, but this was possibly the last for the night. It was...kinda big.

"Alright. You," I pointed at Tu Yu, "said that you made this place. More precisely, shaped it. But you also said that it was Aedile's power that you were shaping." I paused waiting for him to respond. It didn't take long.

"An adequate, if not wholly correct statement, yes."

"Then how does that even work? It's her power. Do all of your abilities interact in some way?"

He glanced over at Aedile again, and she replied again as well. She was nervous.

"Our powers share...similarities. We all can become intangible, for example. And we all have places like this, though the others are smaller. They're all made from the same stuff too, and we can all use Ambrosia. Well, Tu Yu is the only one who really knows how to handle it, but we all produce some of it. Does that answer your question?"

They were similar. Their powers...they had the same abilities at base, but then vastly different beyond that poi-

"Aedile?"

"Yes?"

"Don't let me fall this time."

My walls came down, and the world evaporated.