Chapter 23

It had been thirteen days, almost two weeks, since Taylor had last seen Sophia or Emma. Two weeks of wonderful, relaxing, bully-free schooling. Two weeks of eating her food in the cafeteria, of walking through the halls without being pushed, of going the entire day without almost causing the bugpocalypse. It was... wonderful.

Somewhere, deep, deep down, Taylor felt the tiniest bit guilty at her glee. She never did get an answer on whether Sophia was Shadow Stalker; the faculty she spoke to claimed the girl had moved away, and... well she could ask Lisa if she ever really wanted to know. The ambiguity was almost comforting though. It provided a plausible, if inadequate, reason for the apathy she faced, yet still allowed her to hate the possibly dead girl.

Taylor couldn't be bothered to ask after Emma. Seriously, fuck her.

Madison, the third and most pointless member of the Trio, seemed to completely ignore Taylor's existence now that tormenting her brought in zero social currency. Taylor could work with ignored. Taylor could thrive under ignored. Her grades were climbing steadily, she was feeling calmer, less stressed, happy even.

She had won.

Now, all she needed to worry about was her cape life. It had been a good month for the heroes of Brockton Bay. Though Armsmaster, in a move that Lisa explained was almost entirely political, was transferred away, the villains had suffered far worse. The Empire was done. Kaiser's jailbreak attempt had gone disastrously wrong, as he somehow managed to blow himself up and collapse a building on top of his followers. While several Nazi capes were still unaccounted for, their powerbase was dead and gone. 

The ABB were broken, with Oni Lee and Bakuda both in PRT custody, and Lung captured by Jaya. The older girl wanted to keep the gang leader locked up to blackmail his participation in the next Endbringer fight, and Taylor struggled to find an argument that could outweigh the lives Lung might save if coerced to fight for the good guys. It wasn't right, but it made a twisted kind of sense. That being said, Jaya's idea of subdual was still absurd. She brought down Lung, sure, but she also flattened a building and temporarily deafened a dozen people.

Which is why Jaya was here, holed up in a dusty building right beside Taylor, with a grumpy look on her face. The room stank of mold and rot, the floor creaked like it might give way at any moment, and the temperature was suspiciously high considering it was well past nightfall. Still, every bit of discomfort was absolutely necessary in Taylor's mind. Ever since they started patrolling together, Jaya had helped Taylor practice different uses of her power. Well, now it was Taylor's turn to help, whether Jaya wanted it or not.

Lisa's quiet snickering in her ear wasn't helping things though.

"Alright, how many people?" Taylor gestured out the closest window towards a nearby warehouse, stoically ignoring her third teammate.

"Seven." Jaya muttered rebelliously, "I'm perfectly capable of identifying people. It's not like I've accidently blown anyone up, Weaver."

"Just buildings then?" Lisa chirped.

"Not helping." Taylor grumbled under her breath. Jaya already didn't see anything wrong with her, ah, enthusiastic take-downs. Lisa's needling would only aggravate the situation.

"We aren't leaving until you practice holding back." Taylor continued. She pointed again at their target, "Now, keep going. What else is in there?"

"Guns, drugs, dust, wood, metal, concrete, what I'm pretty sure is asbestos in the ceiling-"

"Anything explosive?" Taylor interrupted Jaya's bored cataloging, "Anything highly flammable? Anything at all that might kill someone if you just throw it carelessly around?"

"Grenades and gunpowder," Jaya replied with a shrug. She frowned in thought, "Also some... Semtex? Huh."

Taylor blinked in surprise, then sent a few centipedes scurrying into the wooden containers she felt within the warehouse. Lisa had identified the building as storage for a remnant faction of the ABB; with no powered members left, the gang had dissolved into infighting and Taylor wanted to nip any impending violence in the bud.

It was also an immensely useful training opportunity.

The layout was rather simple: the building was more of a barn than anything, with a high ceiling and a loft for extra storage. A single sloppily installed light fixture hung down from a beam, casting light across the floor filled with arguing gangsters.

Two thousand spiders slipped in through cracks in the roof of the building, nestling themselves in the shadows of the ceiling, and began to weave. Roaches followed, dragging and fusing lines of silk as they were completed, each a link in a massive chain, a cog in Taylor's machine.

"Alright, commence operation Silent Take-down." Taylor nodded sternly at Jaya as Lisa fell into hysterics over the comms.

Jaya rolled her eyes but did as Taylor asked, listing off her own actions in an unenthusiastic monotone, "The knives are now plastic, the gunpowder is salt, the doors have fused themselves shut, and I can take out the lights whenever you are ready. Also this would have been a thousand times faster if I just turned the floor into wet cement and buried them up to their necks."

"The scenario is a hostage situation on the third floor of an office building." Taylor lectured her friend, "You can't just go transmuting the floors wherever you please! They have pipes and wires and things that I know you won't bother to put back right. If we have the means to do something without property damage, then we have the responsibility to do so."

"She's not exactly wrong." Lisa agreed, her voice slightly strained from laughter, but obviously trying to impress the point, "You'll save a lot of time and red tape if you stop with all the collateral damage. We've only been spared that so far because nobody knows it was you."

"Ugh, yes yes okay, I get it, I won't level any city blocks in the future. Can we catch the bad guys now?" Jaya asked impatiently. The Asian girl's hand drummed a frantic beat against her thigh, and Taylor decided to give her restless friend a break.

The swarm came to life, rustling, buzzing, clicking, thousands of bugs rained down from the ceiling, trailed by massive silken nets. A few gangsters avoided immediate capture, reflexively diving behind cover as soon as someone shouted 'Cape!'

"Okay Catalyst, cut the lights."

The mass of bugs flowed together, merging into a horrific eldritch thing pulled straight out of a horror movie; a gnashing nightmare slowly assuming human shape, it took a single shuddering step towards the group of downed men before the lights flickered and died.

And then the screams started.

Happily, no gunfire followed.

Taylor would wait a few minutes, give the men an opportunity to wear themselves out struggling, then she'd call the BBPD and move on to the next group of bad guys. Over and over again, until there were no more thugs, no more gangsters, no more bullies in her city.

Because that's what heroes do.

"I want that Semtex Weaver."

Yep. Heroes.