19 Interlude: The Protagonist Appears!

Downtown, Winslow High

November 2nd, 13:15

///

Walking into her World Issues class with Mr Gladly, Taylor can only silently lament that at least she doesn't have Math with Mrs Scanlan. Mr Gladly is the kind of 'cool' teacher, young enough to be mistaken as an upperclassman. He's the kind of teacher to assign group work so people can interact with their friends.

That's part of why she's growing to dislike him. He's the kind of guy that peaked in high school and became a teacher because he's afraid of leaving that familiar environment where people at least pretended to like him. And the 'popular' kids indulge him, chatting with him like they're friends.

Taylor doesn't get how he hasn't realised that they only talk to him so they don't have to do any work. Or maybe he has realised, and is just that desperate for affirmation.

Either way, Taylor doesn't like him.

Which is why, when she enters his classroom, being the last to enter as always, she doesn't so much as glance at him, simply rushing her seat right away. She sits in the closest seat to the door, same as always, so that she can be the first out of the class when the bell rings.

However, before she can sit down, she notices half a stick of glue smeared on her chair.

Upon seeing it, she turns her gaze further down the room, to the back of the class where a gaggle of girls are giggling in her direction, with Madison Clements seeming to find the most amusement.

Madison Clements is a short, 'cutesy' girl with brown hair held out of her face by two blue clips and dimpled cheeks, wearing a one-piece dress that makes her seem even more petite, without actually making her look more like a child.

She's also one third the reason why Taylor is growing to hate Mr Gladly. After all, he constantly gives out group work, but thanks to Madison, as well as the jock bitch Sophia Hess and her traitorous best friend Emma Barnes...Taylor has no friends.

Ignoring the mocking giggles and the oblivious teacher, Taylor shrugs one shoulder out of her bag's straps and then lets it fall to the ground by her desk. Then she simply pulls a packet of tissues out of one of her pockets and wipes the biggest chunks of glue off of her seat, giving it a good couple of scrubs, before sitting down.

She sticks the tissues to the underside of her desk, not feeling bothered enough to walk to the bin at the front of class. It would only make Madison happier, she'd consider it a walk of shame or something equally inane.

Suitable of her social status, Taylor's table is not filled with friends like all the others, but rather with outcasts like herself. Opposite her there's Greg Veder, a small, geeky, bowl-cut blond boy with a severe case of ADHD and an even more severe case of terminal social stupidity.

Taylor can freely admit that she is not a shining example of a social savant, but at least she can tell when people are mocking her, and when to shut the fuck up. Greg doesn't have that understanding, and if it wasn't for how annoying he is, she might feel bad about how easily he is strung along by vicious teenage girls.

Then, sitting next to Greg is Spike. She doesn't think Spike is actually his name, but that's all anyone knows him as, on account of his spiky brown hair. He's the kind of kid that you would see and immediately assume that he's either a stoner or a drummer, when in fact, he is both. He doesn't really do much of anything, and Taylor's not sure she's even heard him speak a word. He just sort of lies his head on the table through every class, using his crossed arms as pillows.

Finally, there is the boy who sits next to her, Suzuya Rei. Or Rei Suzuya, she doesn't remember which way round it's supposed to be, but she knows he prefers to be called Suzuya, or just Suzu.

He's a small boy, not like Greg who is a pathetic, mousey kind of small. Suzuya is just incredibly lithe and short enough that he seems her own age. He has short black hair, and features that are honestly more feminine than a lot of girls'. He dresses oddly, for Winslow at least, wearing black slacks with a pair of psychedelic straps reaching over his shoulders and a white dress shirt.

He's also incredibly energetic, and even more aloof. Taylor doesn't think he's even realised that he's being ostracised. 

Not that he doesn't have any friends like her, but he's a year older, so all his friends are upper years. Apparently he got held back a year since he started failing all of his classes after getting transferred in at the start of this school year. 

She can believe it too, since she ends up sitting with these three in most classes, and knows exactly how much he struggles with subjects like Math. Not that he really bothers with the classes, as he tends to just blatantly spend all lesson on his phone.

She helps him, sometimes, but just because they sit next to each other, that doesn't make them friends. In fact, if she were any less pretty, she'd probably be jealous of his feminine features and dislike him because of it.

Luckily, that's never been a problem for her. She was born with hair a shade between blonde and ginger, settling on an almost pinkish-blonde, and a conventionally attractive face. Good symmetry, pretty nose captivating blue eyes. And as she has grown, so too has her beauty, as well, perhaps, as her vanity.

It would be more of a surprise if she were modest really. Since her only friend growing up, Emma Barnes, is also a very beautiful girl, and has in fact been doing model work for a few years now. Yet, even standing together, people would always compliment her just as much, even more so sometimes.

Even Emma used to tell her she was beautiful, and plenty of the companies Emma was modelling for invited her to join her friend. She declined, of course. She had no problem is her friend wanted to get involved in that biz, but Taylor has no desire to get sucked into that kind of life.

"Alright class!" Mr Gladly's voice snaps Taylor out of her mind, "today, we are going to be having a look at the very hight of parahuman powers. Namely, the S-Class Threats." A series of murmurs spread through the class, as if there is any subject that can capture a teenager's attention, it's capes.

Taylor is no exception. For all she may dislike the teacher, she still enjoys the subject.

"First we must ask ourselves, 'What is an S-Class Threat?' Does anyone know?"

To Taylor's lack of surprise, it's Greg who's arm shoots up to answer, and she turns her attention to the far wall when the room's attention fall to her table, resting her chin on one hand.

"S-Class Threats are the strongest of the strongest Villains who are suuuper powerful! They're people who can destroy the world! I hear that the government-"

"Okay! Thank you Greg," Mr Gladly interrupts before Greg can start another one of his conspiracy tirades. "Indeed, S-Class Threats are the most dangerous beings on the planet. A fact that should be clear enough by the fact that the Endbringers make up three of those Threats."

A sombre wave passes over the students at the mention of the Endbringers. There's something of a cultural understanding these days that it's impolite to mention the Endbringers. Nobody wants to think about the monsters doing their level best to reduce humanity to a distant memory, after all. It's a depressing topic. 

Luckily for Mr Gladly, the only people around him are teenagers, so the sombre mood passes as quickly as it came.

"Now, for the sake of this class, we will be ignoring the Endbringers, as it's still up in the air if they even are parahumans, or just monsters of some sort. So, can you list all of the S-Class Threats, barring those three?"

Taylor finds herself interested in the answers given, as she doesn't really know much about the subject. It's not like she has a phone, and her home computer is really bad, so she doesn't bother with it most of the time. And again, she doesn't have friends. So there's not anyone to simply tell her this stuff.

She feels she learns quite a bit though. A student would give a name, and then Mr Gladly would give the details, which Taylor made sure to jot down in her notebook.

First is the oldest S-Class, and also the one that the world knows the least about; Sleeper. All anyone really knows is that he's dangerous. Apparently Sleeper single-handedly gutted a significant portion of Russia's military, both parahuman and not, before the world got the idea and left him alone.

So now he's something of a non-factor, as exemplified by his name, for all he really seems to do is keep to himself somewhere in the Russian mountains.

Then there's Qivittoq, a name she struggles to pronounce. According to Mr Gladly, his name is based on some old Greenlandic myth, and his power is fitting for someone who lives on the largest ice sheet on the planet.

He is a cryokinetic, thus holding dominion over ice. He was a relative unknown for a while, apparently people thought of him like Ash Beast's opposite, a wandering storm. Taylor doesn't know who Ash Beast is, or rather was, since apparently he was killed, even though he was apparently only not considered an S-Class Threat because he moved too slowly to be more than a nuisance.

Either way, it turns out Qivittoq is nothing like Ash Beast was. Nearly a year ago now, on the first day of the year for that matter, Qivittoq got in a fight with another S-Class Threat, the same one that later went on to kill Ash Beast, which becomes something of a theme as the class goes on.

In the fight, Qivittoq displaced so much of Greenland's ice, about a third of it, that ocean levels across the world rose by around two metres, resulting in global flooding. It was even worse for the North Atlantic coasts, as they had to deal with near tsunami-like waves for a few days after the fact.

Brockton Bay, like the rest of the world's coasts, was flooded for a good while, but they got off relatively light thanks to the late Protectorate ENE leader, Armsmaster, who modified the PHQ's forcefield dome to cover the entire bay area, keeping the flooding under control.

One singe fight between two S-Class Threat, and millions of people around the world died, with hundreds of millions being displaced. One of the greatest tragedies the world has ever seen, and it was all because two parahumans decided to duke it out without care for collateral.

It was only about six months later that the sea levels were returned to normal, as Qivittoq apparently re-froze the chunk of Greenland he threw into the ocean and put it back. The idea of a single man treating an entire landmass as large as Greenland like a piece of Lego is a subtle kind of terror.

Just the fact that a clash between just two people could have such global ramifications is terrifying. And yet Qivittoq is still considered a lesser threat than the Endbringers.

The next Threat is actually a trio, grouped together and treated as one.

The Three Blasphemies.

Apparently there used to be a debate on what exactly they are. Either they were three parahumans who synergise perfectly, or they were one parahuman split into three bodies, or they were actually Tinker-tech constructs.

That debate was ended when they earned their S-Class rating, as that fight saw two of them getting ripped to pieces, exposing the machinery beneath their skin.

Wither way, the ruby lipped, alabaster-white skinned and haired 'sisters' were only considered to be potential S-Class Threats, until of course, they met with another S-Class, the same one who fought Qivittoq.

They fought in some city in Romania who's name Taylor immediately forgot after hearing it, and apparently the Blasphemies didn't put up as much as a fight as Qivittoq, but still enough to be considered S-Class.

They are considered the weakest of the Threats, they did get the rating only after being ripped apart by another S-Class after all. Though that still puts them above almost the entire planet.

Unlike the other S-Classes, the Blasphemies' powers are rather well documented, not to mention numerous.

The most notable is that they are semi-immortal. As long as one 'sister' still lives, the others will come back eventually. Though, it seems to be exponential in how long it takes, as the only time two of them died was two weeks after Qivittoq's fight, and they still haven't shown back up since then.

Other than that, they have five 'powers'. They can unleash intense sonic blasts, strong enough to knock over entire buildings and pop heads like meat balloons. They also have access to beams of plasma that can, and have, shoot basketball-sized holes through entire cities. Then there's the 'rain' they can make. By creating a ball of energy in the sky, they can rain down diamond shards like knives.

Finally, they can reflect kinetic energy and generate a fog around themselves that decays anything it touches, and can be extended for multiple city blocks, reducing everything to ash.

And they are the weakest.

Then there's the most broad S-Class Threat, which is The Clowns, who are considered as a whole to be S-Class. They are the second group to collectively be classified as S-Class, with the first one being a roaming band of serial killers called Slaughterhouse Nine.

However, the Nine were wiped out by the founder of The Clowns, and an unknown number of them got absorbed into the new group. The Clowns got their collective S-Class rating after an incident in Germany that resulted in a whole mountain range being levelled. 

There's estimated to be about two dozen Clowns, with at least a couple of them being strong enough to be A-Class Threats by themselves, hence why the rank gets bumped up for the group as a whole.

The Clowns are collectively an S-Class threat, all of them added together, except for one.

The Final S-Class Threat.

The First Clown; her power surpassing all other Clowns combined.

The Cannibal of Columbus.

Slaughterer of The Nine.

The Fake Endbringer; Lusia Abel.

Her deeds are many, and very public.

She killed Ash Beast, potential S-Class Threat.

She killed Nilbog, former S-Class Threat.

She killed the Nine, former S-Class Threat.

She fought Qivittoq, forcing the world to acknowledge him as an S-Class Threat.

She fought The Blasphemies, forcing the world to acknowledge them as an S-Class Threat.

She founded The Clowns, and turned them into an S-Class Threat.

She is Tear; The Strongest Villain.

Her power is said to be even greater than Glaistig Uaine; The Faerie Queen, who was an S-Class Threat before S-Class was a thing. Which is why she doesn't appear on the list, because she was secured in The Birdcage before the ranking system was even put in place.

Thankfully, like The Faerie Queen before her, Tear disappeared from the world after facing down the same kind of force reserved for Endbringers, hence her title of Fake Endbringer. Gained after the world witnessed her final act.

The Oakland Incident.

Once there was a city, now there is not. That is all that needs to be said on the matter.

"Very good, class," Mr Gladly's voice brings Taylor out of her morose thoughts, "now I'd like you to split into groups and come up with a presentation on what kind of impact your chosen S-Class Threat has made to the world at large."

Group work? What a shocker.

Taylor struggles to resist rolling her eyes.

Instead, her eyes move around her 'group'.

Spike is doing Spike things, which is to say, not much of anything.

Greg is being used as amusement by a couple of girls behind him.

Suzuya is on his phone and doesn't seem to have heard anything Mr Gladly said.

Sighing, Taylor resigns herself to doing all the work in yet another group project.

She decides to write about Qivittoq, as she feels she has a better understanding than most about the ramifications of all the flooding he caused, thanks to her father being the Head of Hiring for the Dockworker's Association.

Besides, it's clear that most people will choose Tear, and Taylor doesn't want to just do the same as everyone else.

So she writes about the flooding. She writes about what jobs were lost, what jobs were gained. She writes about the infrastructure that was ruined and how it was all rebuilt, about the effects the whole thing had on the average working class family.

She doesn't use any real names, but she does use real life examples of how the floods changed lives. Her father knows a lot of people after all, and he's the one everyone goes to when they need help or are having troubles, so she can give a lot of examples.

It's only halfway through when she is writing about how 'natural' disasters can cause foreign investment to spike, citing how the Estrella Corporation moved into Brockton, that Suzuya suddenly starts giggling and leans over, his shoulder pressing into her own.

Not having expected the sudden physical closeness, Taylor freezes, looking at him in surprise. Only for her eyes to be drawn to Suzuya's phone when he all but shoves it in front of her face.

"Look at this!" He joyfully exclaims, eyes darting between her and the phone expectantly.

Putting her pencil aside for the moment, Taylor looks at the phone and realises that she is looking at a meme.

It's a photo of the Heroes Assault and Battery, but they've both had long beards poorly edited onto their faces, even though Battery is a woman. They've also both been given horned helmets and an axe each.

Above the photo are the words, 'Plunder & Pillage'.

Taylor's lip quirks in amusement, but even she, who has no friends to share memes with her, knows that the Assault and Battery jokes are incredibly overdone by now.

Before she can say anything, another slew of messages pop up, and as Suzuya seems to be comfortable just leaning on her and responding without moving her phone away, Taylor gets curious enough to read them.

13:33> Ma-chan: Do u get it

13:33> Ma-chan: Its like vikings

13:34> Ma-chan: Cept teh vikings didn actually hve horns on they helmets that a myth. they did use bones in thry smithing tho cuz they thought they were usin their ancestors spirits or smth to make they swords stronker but they were rlly just makin pig metal cuz the carbon in the bones was makin the metal better

13:34> Ma-chan: Suzu im so fugin bored

13:34> Ma-chan: [IMAGE]

Taylor didn't know that Vikings didn't have horns on their helmets, and she definitely didn't know that they used bones in their metalworking.

The image at the end is a picture of a lecture hall, taken from behind a pair of low-cut shoe clad feet resting crossed on a desk, presumably because 'Ma-chan' is leaning back in her seat. The picture

13:34> Gambatte machan

13:34> Did u run out of eraser

13:34> Ma-chan: yh :(

13:35> Ma-chan: wby hows ur class

13:35> Ma-chan: whi*

13:35> Ma-chan: wbi*

13:35> Ma-chan: motherfucker wbu*

Taylor finds herself smiling, only for her expression to freeze as Suzuya abruptly holds his phone out in front of them both, smiles, and then takes a selfie.

Before she can even complain or demand Suzuya delete it and not take photos of her without her permission, the boy had already sent it.

13:35> [IMAGE]

13:35> idk bout class but look at the girl next to me shes so pretty ^///^

Taylor's words die in her throat as she reads the compliment. She may have a slight vanity issue, but she also hasn't had any friends in a while, so she is caught off guard by it.

13:36> Ma-chan: she is rlly pretty ur rite but please dont send me pics of your pretty classmates if hannah or really any of the fun sucking joyless cunts foumd a bunch of pictures of pretty minors on my phone ten id be pretty ducked yknow

From that message and the lecture hall, Taylor guesses 'Ma-chan' is in college or university, and yeah, she can see how it would look bad if she was caught with photos of minors. 

13:36> Ma-chan: Fucked* ducking autocorrect

13:36> Ma-chan: I am going to kill myself

13:36> Do a flip \^o^/

13:36> Ma-chan: I never said how I was gonna do it you faggot

13:36> ^^;

13:37> Ma-chan: Kill yourself

13:37> Ma-chan: I gtg

13:37> Ma-chan: Talk 2 ur frend

13:37> Where u goin O_O

13:37> Ma-chan: To piss fuck off

13:37> :O

Despite herself, Taylor finds herself feeling jealous at the clear friendship Suzuya shares with this 'Ma-chan'. In the absence of anything else, Taylor is perfectly capable of ignoring her loneliness, but with friendship being, quite literally, shoved in her face like this.

It just reminds her of everything she doesn't have.

Perhaps that is why she doesn't push Suzuya away.

Whatever the reason is, over the course of the next twenty minutes or so, she finds herself actually having an enjoyable conversation for the first time since summer camp.

Of course, nothing good can ever last for her. Something that she is reminded of as she is suddenly bumped from behind, hard enough that her chest almost hits the desk. As if that wasn't bad enough, she feels an itchy sensation all over her hair and neck that she immediately recognises to be pencil sharpenings.

"Oh I'm so sorry." She looks up at the familiar, saccharine voice of Madison Clements and glares at the smaller girl who simply gives a smirk as she makes her way back to her seat from where she was evidently sharpening her pencil at the front of class.

Taylor doesn't bother trying to get Mr Gladly to punish her for being a bitch, she already knows from experience that it will lead to nothing.

And besides, she's far too distracted by the laughing form of Suzuya besides her.

To Taylor, it feels like every laugh from him drives a knife deeper into her heart.

She feels stupid now, getting her hopes up that she might actually have made a friend. But it seems he's just like all the others. Just another viper in a pit of snakes, pretending to be her friend just so he can have a better seat to watch her downfall.

Hands clenching, Taylor returns to her work, hoping to use it to distract her from the burning heat of hatred building in her gut.

Unfortunately, it seems Suzuya won't let her have even that small comfort.

"What's up with your face? Are you okay?" His mocking words only make her wrath burn brighter and it takes everything she has not to explode then and there. 

She's never been one to feel a lot of emotions, so is it any surprise she struggles to control them when she does?

"Am I okay?" She parrots back at him, her voice a low hiss. "Am I okay? No, Suzuya, I am not okay."

"Huh. Why not? Did something happen?" He asks, mocking her by pretending to be clueless, just like Emma does every time Taylor ties to get a teacher to just. Do. Something!

She doesn't even know why she humours his question instead of telling him to fuck off. Maybe she just really is that desperate for friendship.

"Are you blind? Did you not see Madison just cover me in pencil sharpenings?"

"Haha, yeah! It was funny! What does that have to do with anything?"

She doesn't answer this time, simply glaring at him, wondering why she ever bothered. They're all the same.

"Wait," Suzuya says, his eyes squinting at her, "was it... Not funny?"

"No. It was mean." Taylor feels like she's explaining morality to a child as she answers with half a mind, focusing more on her classwork.

"Oh. Why aren't you doing anything about it then?"

The pencil in Taylor's grasp cracks from the force she's squeezing it with at Suzuya's 'innocent' question.

"I can't do anything about it!" She answers, her voice louder than she would like it to be. Not so loud to be a shout, but enough that it gets people's attention. She does her best to reel her voice back to a quiet seething. "None of the teachers believe me over them and even if they do, even if I have fucking evidence, they never take my fucking side!"

Immediately after she finishes talking, she feels a flush of shame take over her face at losing herself so easily, and studiously faces the desk morosely, seriously contemplating just getting up and leaving.

"You're silly," Suzuya says after a short moment, a giggle in his voice, and she's halfway to rising out of her seat when he continues. "Meanies only understand meanness, that's what Ma-chan says. Look!"

Despite herself, Taylor looks over just in time to see Suzuya jump to his feet, getting the immediate attention of everyone in the class.

He then proceeds to reach behind himself, grab his chair and fucking throw it across the classroom, right into Madison's face.

The class immediately descends into a cacophony of noise, from the scraping and banging of chairs, the screams of Madison and her friends and Mr Gladly's raised voice yelling at Suzuya and trying to get the classroom in order.

All the while, Taylor can only stare between Madison and Suzuya in shock.

Suzuya turns to her after inspecting his work, and gives her a wide smile and a double thumbs up.

"Home Run!" He exclaims joyously, while Taylor herself can only formulate one thought.

What. The. Fuck.

///

A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!

The Protagonist Appears!!! (That's Taylor btw for you non-worm fans)

So, this chap was mostly exposition with some slice of life. Don't like it? Fuck you, I don't have wifi, I don't care. Fuck POPtelecom too, for not giving me wifi. Also, I'm going to my dads in 2 days, and won't have wifi for the trip for obvious reasons, so fuck trains too.

Also, the more astute among you might have noticed that my Taylor 'slightly' different to canon Taylor. I wonder what's up with that~? Teehee :D

(4)Advanced chapters on pat.reon, link in description and profile. Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses