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Just InCommunityForumMoreEx Synthetica by willyolioleo Books » Worm Rated: M, English, Adventure, Skitter, Tattletale, Victoria D./Glory Girl, Panacea, Words: 334k+, Favs: 4k+, Follows: 5k+, Published: Oct 21, 2019 Updated: Mar 18, 20212,186Chapter 6: Excursion 2

Excursion 2

When Lung said he was going to kill kids, my brain immediately jumped to the idea of kids. As in, people younger than me. When I noticed a group of people and some teenage-sounding voices coming from a casino robbery nearby, I realized that they may have been other capes around my age.

When I actually got close to them, I realized I had been completely wrong. They weren't just helpless-if-misguided teenage troublemakers. I was suddenly facing three gigantic, spiky demon-dogs that had suddenly burst onto the scene so quickly my bots couldn't quite focus on them.

There were a group of professional-looking capes looking like they were getting ready to climb on top of the dogs. Nicely made costumes and everything, holding duffel bags of cash. Except one, who was just wearing a dog mask. Definitely not just your standard high school delinquents. Okay, to be fair, they were probably only a few years older than me at most. Maybe late teens. Maybe even legally adults. Hard to tell with their masks on. Maybe Lung was just being insulting, or maybe his English wasn't great, or maybe it was a combination of both.

But he was definitely going to kill them.

The dogs turned to growl at me. The cape in the dog mask looked at me and snarled, "Who the hell are you?" Didn't have to be a genius to realize that she was the one who controlled the giant dog-monsters. She seemed to be the heavy hitter of the group. Note to self, don't piss her off. Note to self number 2: she seemed like the type to get pissed off really easily.

"Came to warn you," I panted out with one hand on my knee. I pointed in the general direction that I came from. "Lung's coming to kill you guys. I overheard him."

The blond girl wearing a basic domino mask looked at me. "Thanks. But why did you...? Oh, you must be the hero type. You just happened to overhear Lung and you just had to help us. A little late, but good effort." Her patronizing tone annoyed the hell out of me. I just tried to save her life and she treated it like I was trying to sell her girl scout cookies.

Before any of us could start to run, there was a squeal of tires and the roar of an engine. A pickup truck rounded a corner, barreling down on us at full tilt. But far, far worse was the fact that there was a bright orange flaming man with a dragon mask standing in the bed. He was much bigger than when I last saw him, easily reaching seven feet tall already.

The demon dogs immediately turned to the new threat and growled, reading to tackle the vehicle like a new chew toy if they had to. Considering their size and the massive bulk of muscles underneath their spiky armour, I didn't doubt that they could win a wrestling match with a speeding car. But the pickup truck wasn't their opponent.

It screeched to a halt as the driver thought better than to drive straight into three sets of arm-length fangs. His passenger in the back, though, didn't care. Lung vaulted over the cab of the truck when it started braking. He flew through the air at full speed as the momentum carried him with a trail of fire coming off his body.

"YOU STEAL FROM ME? DIE!" he roared as he landed fist-first on the middle dog. His flaming punch drove its snout into the ground.

I was about to be caught in the middle of a fight with Lung. The one guy who could solo an entire Protectorate team. The guy who, as a matter of public record, had soloed an Endbringer. You weren't supposed to be in the same goddamn country when fights like that took place.

He was ten feet away from me as I started to sprint to safety. Luckily, I wasn't the focus of his attention as he prepared to beat down the two other dogs. His roar matched the beasts as they collided. The other two dogs tried to snap at him, but he was agile enough to avoid their mouths and showed no fear while taking on animals ten times his size. I didn't doubt his bravado. He would be able to beat all three eventually, which meant I needed to get out of here fast.

"You fucker! Don't hurt my puppies!" dog-girl yelled. She hopped off of her own mount. For a second, I thought she was crazy enough to fight him one-on-one. But it seemed like the dog she was riding on had been holding back, until she got off. The dog charged at full speed to tackle him. Lung jumped out of the way, but the other dog was ready, and managed to grab onto his arm. It clamped down hard.

Lung screamed in anger and pain. The flames grew hotter and more silvery scales were covering his skin. He smashed the dog's snout repeatedly with his free hand. The first dog, the one smacked by Lung's flying punch, had recovered from the hit and whipped its long tail around, smacking Lung directly in the chest. He was sent flying across the street and smashed into a brick wall.

Behind the garbage can I was using to hide, I could feel the vibrations of the impact through the sidewalk. I poked my head out to spare a glance, hoping that Lung had been taken care of and that the danger had passed.

Nope. The arm that was in the dog's mouth remained there. Even so, Lung didn't seem to care as he extracted himself from the crumbling brickwork. He got up, and yelled, "YOU GONN PAY!" His mouth was longer and pointier, and I could even see his missing arm starting to regenerate.

"Boss!" Several vans and other vehicles arrived, stopping haphazardly in the middle of the street. Dozens of Asians with varying amounts of red and green clothing came out, bearing weapons. Most of them seemed to be carrying baseball bats, chains, machetes, and the like, but a few had guns.

I wasn't going to die from a lucky random bullet. On my body, I shifted all the armour bots to my front and layered extra around my head and chest. I tried to crawl to better cover, hoping nobody noticed me. A garbage can wasn't going to stop a bullet. It was arguable if a car could, either, but I would trust sheet metal more than plastic.

Across the buildings, I recalled every single bot to descend on the ABB gang members to do everything they could against the guns. Gum up the mechanisms. Cut springs. Jam the safeties. Just mess things up at random.

A single bullet punched through the car and hit me in the back. My bots held firm; the car had managed to slow the bullet down enough. Thank goodness.

The other villains hadn't been idle either. Black smoke spewed from the one in motorcycle leathers, messing up their aim. I saw one of the ABB gang members twitch as he seemed to handle his gun like a complete amateur, spraying bullets everywhere and hitting his own allies.

The darkness and several injured made them more cautious, but there were still a few bold ones taking pot shots in our general direction. Some charged forward to get out of the smoke, but Motorcycle dude was spreading out more and more smoke to cover the area while he moved. The ABB gang members often ended up tripping or going the wrong direction entirely. My bots could feel their bodies hit the ground, either through losing their balance or being struck by friendly fire.

My bots had trouble navigating through the smoke, and my control of them was dulled as well. I couldn't sense things through my bots as easily as before. Whatever the smoke was, it was more than just darkness; it seemed to dull my power slightly. But when the gangsters fell down, at least it helped my bots swarm over them more quickly. Even after they managed to get up, I could hear fewer bangs and more empty clicks as the gang members tried to figure out what was wrong with their weapons.

I was still crawling along beside the parked cars, since the smoke hadn't managed to encapsulate all the gangsters. I didn't want to make myself a visible target. The young villain group took cover behind cars near me, to my annoyance. They were just drawing the gangsters closer to where I was!

I heard even more gunfire in this direction. Broken glass rained down on me as bullets passed through the windows of the car I was hiding behind. I felt another bullet strike my bot-armour. Again, it had been slowed down by passing through the car, and it didn't hurt me.

"Get behind the engine blocks, it's the thickest part of the car!" The blonde shouted to her team. Or maybe to me. Either way, I wasn't going to turn down good advice as I shifted my hiding position slightly.

I kept up with my strategy of disabling the guns as Lung kept fighting the giant dogs. He was even bigger now, with one arm being a slightly larger stump than it was a few minutes ago, and the dogs hadn't managed to pin him down yet. In fact, he realized that the butch girl was the weak spot, and the dogs were now being defensive as he attempted to focus on her instead.

Meanwhile, Motorcycle Guy was still spewing smoke, which mostly took care of the ABB gang members carrying melee weapons. It seemed like the smoke threw off their balance as well, since most of them were stumbling even without colliding with anything. That took care of the majority of the gangsters temporarily, which let me concentrate my bots on swarming those with guns.

The sounds of gunfire and bullet impacts decreased bit by bit, until it disappeared entirely, replaced by shouts of confusion and frustration.

"Guys! She's disabled their guns! Take them down!" the blonde girl yelled.

"On it!" A guy with a scepter and 17th-century fashion jumped down and ran into the fray.

"You go left, I'll take the right!" said the Motorcycle Man. The cloud of darkness retracted from the left side slightly, exposing only one or two members. Renaissance Boy went up to one of them and jabbed them with his scepter. I heard some zapping sounds, and some of my bots detected an influx of electricity. I guess the scepter was also a taser. Those he hit spasmed and fell to the ground, either completely unconscious or groaning in too much pain to fight onwards.

On the other side of the black cloud, Mr. Motorcycle rushed straight into the darkness. There was a whole lot of thumping and pounding. I couldn't see through the smoke, and neither could my bots, but it seemed like he was doing pretty well in there.

I was glad that this team knew how to work together, at least. The gang members seemed to be going down quickly, but Lung definitely was not. The battle with the dogs was still ongoing. His arm had mostly regenerated, though it was still clearly smaller than the other arm. He'd grown even taller, and less human. I think he was close to seven feet now, and almost completely covered in silver scales. At this point, he was holding one of the dog's jaws open with one good arm and one foot. He spat a fireball straight down the dog's throat, causing it to rear back and choke.

"Angelica!" the dog-girl screamed, running to the downed beast.

Lung didn't care. The flames coming off his body were liquefying the asphalt, and now the other demon dogs were wary of getting too close. He charged at the second dog, deliberately initiating a wrestling match with it. I could see all four of its legs straining to hold back Lung as its claws attempted to catch on the asphalt. The third dog tried to snatch up Lung in its teeth, but he was agile enough to leap out of the way. The dogs crashed into each other, and Lung leaped onto their backs and started pounding down.

"Bitch! We're leaving!" the one in the black skull shouted. He spread the dark cloud to completely surround Lung.

"Not without Angelica!" Bitch replied. She seemed angry, but ran towards the downed animal while the other two continued to fight. All of them started to run except Bitch. I decided it was best to follow.

"NO RUN!" Lung roared as he stumbled out of the dark cloud, facing the wrong way. His half-human, half-dragon face made it harder for him to speak, but there was no mistaking his meaning. He grabbed one of the dog's tails and pulled, whipping the dog into the same building he had been thrown at before. He ran and slid underneath the other dog, narrowly evading its jaws as well. He jumped up with an uppercut right under the dog's belly, sending it flipping through the air. Then he looked at us, and began to run.

Crap.

He definitely wanted to kill us.

Mr. Motorcycle Helmet was still releasing plenty of darkness, but the street was wide open. It was still pretty obvious what direction we were going, even if he would have trouble seeing us precisely. There weren't many places for us to hide behind, and Lung was catching up fast. Regent did something with his powers and caused Lung to stumble, buying us some time, but he definitely wasn't going to taze Lung to keep him down. Not that a taser would stop him at this point.

More and more darkness spewed out into the street, covering Lung again. "This way!" The blonde pointed as we turned a corner. The dark cloud managed to cover the entire intersection. As we ran, I could hear the sound of Lung stumbling, but still moving fast. Unlike the other ABB members, when he tripped and crashed against a car, the car was the first thing to give way. Lucky for us, the cloud was interfering with his hearing and other senses, and he ran through the intersection we had just passed.

Unfortunately, it seemed that Motorcycle Man wasn't able to project his smoke far enough, because it only took a few seconds for Lung to turn around. The move had bought us a few seconds, but he would catch up very quickly.

Thankfully, Bitch's dogs were just as fast, if not faster, than Lung. She quickly managed to catch up with her two remaining dogs, and she was holding one normal-sized, injured dog in her hands.

"Alright, let's go! New girl, you too!" Blondie shouted. They all started to climb onto the massive dogs.

"She ain't touching my dogs," Bitch growled. I paused to glare at her. Really?

"Bitch, this ain't the time to argue. She fought, she helped save our lives. She's coming with us," Motorcycle Man said. To me, he said firmly, "Get on. We'll get you out of here."

I quickly climbed on to the dog that Bitch wasn't riding, squeezing in behind Blondie and Renaissance Boy.

Lung had gotten his bearings again and was going to catch up soon. The dogs we were riding took off so quickly that I nearly fell off. Even so, Lung was sprinting towards us faster than an Olympian.

We had to put more distance between us, but he was getting bigger, faster, and stronger by the minute. And probably angrier, too. Every part of his body was already covered in scales, getting more dragon-like. I wouldn't be surprised if at some point he grew wings. There was no way to take down Lung at this stage without massive amounts of firepower, and he was already a match for the team's heaviest hitter. Running was our only option. He was getting wise to the black smoke power, too. I wanted to hit him somewhere to make him pause, but every place on him had armour. Even his balls, probably.

Well, except for one place. His eyes didn't have armour.

I ordered my bots to swarm ahead of him. They couldn't crawl towards him along the ground, as my bots would get incinerated at the slow speeds that they could move. Trying to get up his leg was downright impossible, as if they even had time to latch on to him, given how quickly he moved. Instead, I balled up my bots into little grape-sized lumps and used other bots to launch them at him. My accuracy was terrible, but what I lacked in skill or quality, I made up for in quantity.

Thousands of bundles of bots pelted him from several directions at once. A few managed to actually make it to his face. It would take several thousand scratching at his eyes to truly distract or stop him, but his flaming body would destroy my bots in droves. Every bot I had, except for the ones I kept on my body for personal protection, was sent against him. Many landed on his body and were melted or vaporized in his flames. He was incinerating days, even weeks of my work in seconds.

The few that made it to his eyes did manage to make it itch, at the very least. I saw him wipe his eyes with a flaming arm. All the bots on his face were instantly wiped out. Another million happened to land on the bridge of his nose and swarmed in. Between his regeneration abilities and flames, my bots would only give two seconds' worth of distraction at best.

"Grue! Cover both sides of that alley! Regent, get ready!" the blonde shouted.

Biker Leathers guy, or Grue apparently, nodded. The alley ahead branched off, and he covered the entire intersection with darkness. As we entered the cloud, I heard a muffled "RIGHT!" came from Tattletale. We veered right. Regent did his thing, causing Lung to stumble again. The dragon-man brought his hands in front of him to stop his fall, it left his eyes open and much closer to the ground.

It made it much easier to hit his face. I swarmed his eyes with all the bots I could spare at once. Far more bots managed to get at his face than my last few attempts. Every one of them used their diamond-tipped blades to slice and tear at his eyes. Against any normal person or even most parahumans, that would have been excessive force. Against Lung, who had recently finished regrowing an entire arm, it only blinded him temporarily. We ran into the darkness as he had to pause.

I heard the sound of sirens, and an especially loud motorbike. So, I guess her plan had been to lead Lung towards the official authorities and let them deal with it? I didn't want Lung to kill a whole bunch of regular police officers or heroes, though. But I didn't have the choice.

In one last-ditch effort, or possibly out of plain old rage, Lung ran into the middle of the smoky intersection and threw fireballs in every direction. One came flying down in our direction. The dogs couldn't quite dodge, and one of the fireballs struck the dog I was riding on. The dog's spiky armour absorbed most of the blow, but some of the flames even reached me. Even the indirect strike from the fireball was hot enough to damage and superheat metallic armour bots on my back. Most of them flaked off as they were damaged, but the heat was so intense it partly melted some of the metal. Some of the bots got stuck as the heat seared into my back. I screamed as I fell, the metal sizzling against my skin.

The pain was overwhelming. It smelled a bit like pork chop, I thought, as I passed out.

"Wakey-wakey, princess!" I vaguely recognized the voice. It was that blonde girl. I was laying face-down. Not my favourite sleeping position. My body was half-aching, half-numb. I tried to roll over and was instantly greeted with intense pain on my back.

"Whoa! Don't do that, you got some pretty bad burns."

I sat up and gingerly attempted to prevent anything from touching my back. Most of my bots were gone. I didn't recognize where I was. I looked around. The first thing I noticed was Bitch, who now had three regular-sized dogs. Huh. They were actually pretty cute. Grue was sitting facing me. And the blonde girl was sitting at the end of the couch, where I had been laying.

"Hi. I'm Tattletale. We didn't know where to take you, so we took you to our lair."

"We're the Undersiders," Grue said. "I'm not asking you to join us, but you did try to save our lives. So we couldn't just abandon you."

"Yeah, thanks for that," another voice came from further away. I was too tired to look at who it was.

"You also helped us get away just before Armsmaster arrived. Right in the nick of time, too."

"Uh-huh. What happened again?" I felt thirsty as hell. I managed to "find" some more of my bots, my mind reconnecting with them. I gathered the ones near me to inspect my back more closely. I also sensed the ones I left at home, which meant I wasn't too far away. Interesting.

"Well, the burns happened when you took one of Lung's fireballs to your back. We thought you were dead, but that armour of yours did its job. You won't be using it again though; it took us a while to pick out the metal bits that fused with your skin. We've applied some basic antiseptic and dressings, and some light painkillers."

Holy crap. It only just hit me what had actually happened. I had nearly died. Lung himself had nearly incinerated me. And those gangsters, they were shooting at me. Not just firing in my general direction, they were actually, deliberately, trying to kill me. Oh god, what would my father think? I couldn't tell him. Definitely not. I'd have to keep this to myself. Maybe it was time to quit while I was still ahead...

"Hey, stay with me now. Look, I know it was scary, but you survived. You want to go to the hospital? Just to warn you, Panacea's not going to be there for a few days. Endbringer in South America," Tattletale told me.

I shook my head. Hospitals meant records. Even if Panacea happened to be there and could heal me perfectly, they would still have it on record that I got severe burns. And they'd pretty much be obligated to call dad. And I wouldn't have a solid excuse for why I was hanging around gangsters in the middle of the night.

"Water. Antiseptic." It hurt to talk, but I got the point across. They offered it up to me. I used my bots to clean my wounds more thoroughly, getting rid of debris and other things far better than anyone with a pair of tweezers could manage. The others turned away, not wanting to look at the wound. Tattletale, though, seemed fascinated.

"So, no to a hospital. Huh. You want to keep this whole thing a secret. Tonight was your first night out… no, first night in real action. You've been out before." Tattletale squinted at me like she knew everything about me. She continued to rattle on while I worked. "So you're trying to keep your civilian life away from your cape life. Trying to protect someone at home. Sibling? No, parent. Father. Interesting. You want to be a hero, but you don't have the means to do it. Money's the issue. Well, as thanks for saving my life, I can help with that."

How the hell was she doing that? Was she psychic? I was coming to realize what it meant to be inside villain group's lair. Sure, they had been friendly so far, but I might have to fight my way out. How many bots did I still have? I started out the night with nearly a billion. There were a bunch still at home, only a few thousand though. Most of the ones on my body had been destroyed. Almost all the armor-bots were gone, and only a few thousand workers remained. I'd have to rebuild. Buy more material and start producing more. She was right. I wasn't ready for the big leagues yet.

Tattletale grinned. "So you wanted to be a hero. But you didn't want to join the Wards. Why not? Your father… he'd have reservations, but in the end he would have supported you. That wasn't the reason. You don't trust the Protectorate. They've done something to you. Not the organization, but one of their members. But the organization enabled it. They…" her eyes widened in shock.

I was glaring at her. Every thing she was saying was not something I wanted to share. That hurt even more than my back right now, and I couldn't help but show it on my face. I could barely talk right now, but if she was reading me so well, she should be able to tell that I was on the verge of murdering her if she went any further.

"I'm sorry. I didn't realize it was that bad. The PRT basically caused your trigger. Holy shit. Okay, good reason. Look, I'm sorry for revealing all your secrets. When my power shows me stuff, sometimes I can't help but blurt it out. Hence the name," Tattletale said sheepishly. "Look, I'm sorry. I definitely still owe you, you know? And it can be really hard for an independent cape out there. If you ever need any advice, just look for me. Or if you need to borrow some money. Maybe post a message on Parahumans Online. Something vague, don't give anything away. I'll be able to figure it out."

Grue nodded. "She's our master planner. Trust me, she gives good advice. Most of the time."

"Thanks for the help," I groaned. "But I have to get going. Dad… can't know."

"Oh, and I had to cut your hair. Some of it got singed. Just to warn you, have an excuse ready. Keep the clothes, they're a gift," Tattletale said.

Fuck. My hair was ruined, too.

"I'm trusting that you'll keep this place a secret. We won't give away your identity, either. We still owe you one. Truce?" Grue held out a hand. I shook it weakly.

Their lair actually wasn't too far from my house. As I wandered the early morning's empty streets, I had to re-prioritize. I had gotten too cocky. I'd gotten used to the stupid, tweaked-out Merchants. My success against them meant nothing against the ABB, and especially Lung. Being a solo hero and taking on the villains was definitely not something I should be doing.

I suddenly understood why dad was constantly fretting about what I was doing with my powers, until I thought it crossed the line from concern to annoyance. But maybe it turned out he was right. I had gotten greedy.

I learned the hard way, and thank goodness I hadn't earned myself a Darwin Award. I needed to learn some first aid, and probably study more biology. Make more camouflage bots to hide my wounds, while having others clean the burns area and change the dressings at the cellular level. Hopefully with their help my wounds would heal faster. And no more cape stuff until I'd figured everything out.

One thing was for certain, though. I still wasn't joining the Wards. But what else could I do?

I was thankful I had the cash from that last haul against the Merchants. I immediately spent a chunk of it and worked like mad to create even tinier bots – they needed to be especially small to clean the damaged cells on my back, pick out the last few bits of metal without causing more damage. I had to look up on the internet how to best treat second and third degree burns, and it seemed like the main problem was keeping the whole thing clean while it healed. Smaller bots, working constantly to clean the wound and precisely delivering antiseptics would help it heal far better than anything a regular doctor could do.

I also had to repurpose my camouflage/armour bots again – this time, they had to help me stand up. My back was weak, some of the muscles were damaged. While they healed, I needed my bots to help me stand up straight and pretend everything was fine around dad. I only had one more day before school started again.

The haircut was explained as a spur-of-the-moment decision. Tattletale had actually done a decent job of it. I told my dad that I just wanted to restart school after my suspension with a fresh look. Thank goodness he hadn't been awake when I got home; I just stashed Tattletale's clothes in the back of my closet.

Unfortunately for me, even rebuilding my swarm of robots at maximum pace, I couldn't save my own skin. Literally. Scar tissue had begun to build up, so I would have a permanent scar on my back. I could cover it with bots to hide it, but that wouldn't hold up well, especially under close scrutiny.

I was actually dreading going back to school again. Not that they would see the scar, but the hair was an easy target for my bullies.

That is, until I saw Emma wearing a wig. What? It was a high quality wig, probably something from her modelling gig, but it was obviously not her real hair. Sophia... she had a wig too. Did Emma give that to her? I didn't see Madison yet, but I realized what had happened.

I had actually forgotten that I had ordered my bots to do that. I hadn't really been concentrating on Friday when I showed up to the library; I just went through my daily routine. Sit down, read a book, send bots to snip away at my bullies' hair. I had been so hyped after the massive haul against the Merchants on Thursday night that I didn't realize how quickly I had been cutting. I hadn't kept enough bots on them to actually see how much I had been cutting. I was concentrating on keeping the numbers low just in case Sophia went running to the PRT; there hadn't been enough for me to form a coherent image. I was only vaguely aware that my bots had been finding less hair to cut towards the end of the day.

Some teachers really enforced the no-hats rule in their classes, exposing me to exactly how far my bots had gone, on Madison, at least. She hadn't been given a wig from Emma; she was just wearing a hat. Which she had to remove.

G.I. Jane would be the nice way of putting it. She must have shaved the rest of it off, because I was certain there must have been at least a few uneven clumps of hair remaining by the end of Friday. Even though Emma and Sophia seemed mostly unscathed with their wigs, people had noticed the difference. They could infer what had happened through Madison. People were laughing at someone other than me.

"Hey look, it's the Skinhead trio!"

"Did you forget the E88 doesn't take blacks, Hess?"

"I heard they were playing rock-paper-scissors, and they all lost to scissors."

Not a single person even bothered to comment on my own involuntary haircut.

I'd brought them down from their uppity throne, and it felt good. It felt powerful. It felt… conflicting.

Was this why they picked on me before? Because seeing someone below them made themselves feel better? Crap. Was I as bad as they were? Crap crap crap. Maybe I'd gone too far. But I couldn't confess to it. And I couldn't exactly grow their hair back for them.

What had I gotten myself into? The best I could do was deny, deny, deny. Just like what they did.

The trio was glaring daggers at me. I mean, they weren't wrong if they were accusing me. But they had literally no evidence against me, which was far less than the amount of evidence I had presented against them. And even if they threatened to reveal that I was a cape, that would be suicide in itself. Capes, even the gangsters, respected secret identities. The Undersiders were pretty respectful of mine even when I was unconscious inside their base. At the very least, Empire 88 members would probably shield and recruit me since I was white, but I didn't want to hide behind Nazis. We were basically at a stalemate.

I decided that, as long as they didn't escalate further, I wouldn't either. I suffered one and a half years of this bullying. I'm sure their hair would grow back in less than that time. All I would do is just avoid them, evade them for now. Keep spreading my bots around the school to keep watch. Throughout the day, they were really trying hard to corner me.

"Taylor Hebert, Sophia Hess, Emma Barnes, please report to the principal's office."

I partly wondered what they were trying to pull. Weird, they usually teamed up and presented a united front when they did that. As I walked into Principal Blackwell's office, I saw Madison waiting. Sophia and Emma arrived afterwards.

"What is it this time?" I asked with the most uncaring and bored expression I could manage.

"Miss Hebert, Miss Clements says you assaulted her and forcibly cut her hair. Miss Hess and Miss Barnes can corroborate."

I couldn't believe they would even try this. I looked around. No Armsmaster? No Miss Militia? This wasn't the PRT coming down on me. As far as they could accuse me, I was just Taylor Hebert, ordinary high school girl. They couldn't accuse me of being a cape.

Funny, I caught Sophia giving Madison a look. Seems like they hadn't rehearsed this. Maybe Madison couldn't take the bullying? Figured that those who dished it out couldn't take the heat themselves. She probably panicked and made up a story; now the other two had to play catch-up.

Besides, I was beyond caring at this point. "She's said a lot of things. They said they didn't push me into that dumpster in January. How is it relevant?"

"Miss Hebert, this is a serious accusation..."

"Really? And I accused them of sending me to the hospital. How serious was that?" I glared at Emma. "Didn't know a haircut required hospitalization these days."

"Miss Hebert, that matter was settled legally last month." Oh yeah. Settled. What a fine word. It meant that as long as my dad was too poor to pay for my hospital bills, the bullies AND the school could get away scot-free. What a wonderful world.

"Legal? Sure. But there's four of us in this room who know what happened."

Blackwell slammed her fist on her desk. "That matter is behind us! Today, Miss Hebert, you've been accused of violently attacking another student!"

I just looked at her incredulously. "Why don't you just tell her what you always tell me? There's not enough evidence. I wasn't even at school last week. You're the one who suspended me, remember?"

"Shut it, Hebert. You attacked Madison," Sophia started.

"Really. If that was true, what were you doing, just standing there watching? You're a real friend, aren't you?" I could tell that comment really dug into Sophia. She was ready to throw a punch. Principal Blackwell's presence was barely keeping her rage in check. I was getting a better idea of why she was always picking on me. She was a weakling who picked on who she saw as the weakest person in the school to make herself feel stronger.

My back was still aching. The burns weren't even close to being healed. I may have been physically weak, but I drew strength from it. I'd saved people's lives against Lung. Sophia was a weakling who picked on those who were weaker. I stood against Lung. Sophia would shit her pants in fear against him. I didn't need to back down. I was stronger than her.

"Are you admitting to attacking Miss Clements, Miss Hebert?" Blackwell said sternly. Was she really this dumb? No, there had to be more to it. She always took Sophia's side. And now I knew that Sophia was Shadow Stalker. Was she getting paid to cover for her? If not her, then the school?

"When did it even happen?" I glared at the three of them. Madison started to lean into the other two. Emma looked to Sophia for guidance, while Sophia glared at Madison.

"...weekend," Madison said meekly. Funny, she wasn't nearly as good at playing the cute innocent girl without the innocent look. Everyone had seen their short hair around school during class. She couldn't pretend it happened at lunch or after school. It was still a weak answer, one I could easily capitalize on.

"So, let's get your story straight. Me, all by myself, managed to pin down Madison, and cut her hair, while the rest of you watched. How long did that take? Three minutes? Five? All that time, I guess I was so strong that none of you yelled for help or ran away? You're saying I held Madison down while you two were too weak to pull me off her. Or you were so scared that you couldn't call for help. Is that right, Sophia?"

"F... shut up, Hebert. You had help."

"Who? My boyfriend from Canada who had to drive back across the border right away?"

"You don't have a boyfriend, Taylor. You never will," Emma said bitterly.

"She joined the Empire 88," Madison said. "The other members attacked us.

"That's a hell of an accusation. Got any names?" I shot back.

All of them were quiet for a second before randomly mumbling different names. Thank goodness Madison had panicked. She was more of a spur-of-the-moment bully, like when she spilled drinks or threw pencil shavings at me. She wasn't as good at the long-term planning and plausible deniability; she mainly took advantage of Emma and Sophia's immunity from the staff. The other two must have had a discussion about this over the weekend, and maybe they even forgot about Madison. They had been the original bullies; Madison had joined in the middle of last year. Obviously she wasn't privy to all their scheming.

"Can't even get your stories straight. Why don't you go find all these mysterious other participants first, then tell me what happened?"

"They... they don't go to this school. They were older. Bigger."

"Uh-huh. And you're still saying it was Empire 88. But they attacked you instead of Sophia," I said, pointing out the obvious difference in their skin.

"You had your goons hold us down, one by one! She was going to be next!" Madison continued to spin her story.

I looked over at Sophia and Emma's arms. "But they didn't hold hard enough to give you any bruises. It's like you didn't fight back. Didn't know you two gave up so easily." I pointed out Emma's flawless skin, since it was easier to see bruises on her.

"Shut up! I'm a fighter. I'm a survivor!" Emma shouted back angrily.

"Oh, and I bet there's zero police reports. A gang assault that would land me in jail if you told the real authorities, but you only come running to Blackwell to get me detention," I said. I couldn't believe I was winning. I didn't care about Blackwell any more. This was their weakness. The trio bullied me to make themselves think they were strong. Calling them weak was their sore point.

"Shut up! You had a mask on! We didn't realize it was you until after we got together at school..."

Their excuses were still too flimsy. They were definitely panicking. I watched Principal Blackwell struggle internally. The story that Sophia was spinning was such obvious bullshit. But she obviously had to side with Sophia for some reason. She was grinding her teeth down, trying to find a way to talk her way out of it without sounding like a complete hypocrite. Too bad it was difficult to do when you actually were one, through and through. "We won't be doing anything today, but keep in mind that I will inform the teachers to watch you closely."

Sophia looked especially furious. It was like she was expecting the principal to just roll over and give her everything she wanted. It had always worked in the past. "This isn't over, Hebert," she muttered quietly so that the principal couldn't hear. She seemed more angry at Madison than she was at me, though.

I rolled my eyes as I turned around and faced Blackwell. "If the teachers had ever paid any attention, they would have taken my side a long time ago. Once they find out they're lying again, you'll just tell them to look away instead and pretend nothing happened." As I walked out the door, Blackwell yelled at me some more, probably something to do with detention. I didn't care. Whether Blackwell was just personally favouring Sophia or if she was under orders to do it, either way she was an enemy.

No doubt, Blackwell wouldn't punish Madison for falsely accusing me of something. I couldn't think of many people who could strong-arm her... other than the Protectorate. It made sense. Sophia Hess was a Ward. A Ward committing crimes? Being arrested for bullying? That made the Protectorate look bad, and they couldn't have that happening. The Protectorate was all about PR. I was more certain than ever that avoiding them was the best choice.

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