Tock

When I arrived at the house of Taylor and Danny Hebert I was greeted by an empty home. I really hadn't thought this through. Opening the lock on the highest window I slipped inside and found myself in a room that screamed depressed teenager, seriously even the clothes seemed depressed in all their bland and washed out glory. If I hadn't known that someone lived here I would have thought this to be a modern art museum piece about the colors of depression or something like that. I didn't want to spend any more time here, but apparently, Taylor Hebert was a teenager that didn't own a laptop, or even a phone, how was I going to leave behind this information. I would just have to print it onto paper with light. Luckily I found a notebook in Taylors room and leaving a quick note that read: 'Hi, found this today, thought you should know, was investigating for a cop, Number: 078564782823, sorry for snooping, Desu, No. 1 slither', before using the light to imprint the information in black letters onto the notebook. I used every empty page and printed every scrap the choker AI could find about her, her tormentors, the blackmail the Principal had collected and every source of evidence for her bullying I could find, filling the notebook to the brim.

I sent a short 'thanks' to the Captain and teleported out. Leaving 3 stolen phones from the boardwalk stack, containing all the information I had gathered after the choker AI had transferred it for the Captain to find I collected a dossier and a memory chip from the drop box and teleported back to my room.

'Done, exchange successful, expect call from Locker victim' was my affirmation message to the Captain that everything had gone well. There was no point in waiting for an answer, I had gotten the information, it would depend on him an Taylor now to use it.

I asked the choker AI to keep an eye out for any news about Winslow and decided to really test my newest power, I mean I had already understood Spiritual Energy and just what it was that made it special and arrays where just another form of enchantment, but that had not been all I had gained. Cultivation, I had gained the ability to absorb and contain Spiritual Energy. The same spiritual energy which allowed humans to reach the peak of their physical bodies and even surpass it. I had already surpassed my limit once and reached an higher realm. I was faster, more durable and had a greater control over every aspect of myself, it was an all-around improvement and I knew I could go further. If I followed this path to the end I would have to go step by slow step but in exchange there would be no limit, not just no limit in the sense that I couldn't make out a limit, but in theory every stage would allow me access to a new way of condensing and refining Spiritual Energy until I was strong enough to refine more aggressive and destructive types of energy. There was no end to this path, as long as energy existed, there would be a way for it to be used to strengthen myself.

The potential of this power was unlimited, but it took to long, I didn't have years of time, I had maybe weeks, possibly months, but years, I couldn't even guarantee to still be alive by the time I reached the next stage in cultivation. If my choker AI was right then this world itself, civilization didn't have the years necessary to reach a high enough realm. This path was great, it just wasn't mine.

I spend the rest of the day making more ranger snakes and finally looking trough the school supplies Ms. Norberg had left behind the last time. The supplies would probably be enough for a few weeks, nothing fancy, but enough bens, a ruler and eraser, a set of binders and even more notebooks.

After an early dinner I spent the evening simply listening to the world outside, the steady rain, the sirens in the distance and the quiet trickling of the waves of spiritual energy passing trough. I didn't try to absorb it, just watched as it spun and danced its way through the building.

The next day I was woken up early by Ms. Norberg, it was barely 6 am and she was already making a ruckus in front of my door. Apparently I should have been introduced to the principal of my new school the day before, but because of the bank robbery schedules had had to be changed and now I had an appointment with Principal Hunter at 7.15 am. When I asked why no one had told me earlier I only got the snide response, that I should have spent more time downstairs, the people sent to pass the message hadn't been able to find me yesterday. I could feel Ms. Nordberg's smugness and knew that this had been a power play by her, she still hadn't forgotten how I had treated her last time. If she continued like this, I would start being childish as well and then she wouldn't get anything done, they needed me to appease my sister and win her for their cause, I didn't need them. In an emergency I could simply go and live in my castle, which reminded me, I needed to make time to take a look at my new property.

After freshening up I followed Ms. Norberg to her car outside, a beaten truck with impressive scars, either Ms. Norberg often got into heated car chases and gun fights, or she just wasn't a good driver. The question was answered seconds later when she nearly hit a passing car while trying to reverse out of the parking spot. Whoever had given Ms. Norberg her drivers license had either been drunk or so afraid of having to sit in the same car with her again that they had just given her the thing. It was truly an inspiring experience. I had jumped of buildings and felt safer than during the short 10 minute car ride. When she gave me the choice of staying after the interview, waiting for the start of school or returning with her I might have turned a little green in the face and refused a little to enthusiastically.

Principal Hunter was a man in his late fifties and build like tank, he was twice the size of Ms. Norberg and he could ace crushed Mr. Rodriguez with his muscles alone. When his gaze landed on me I felt him seizing me up, not with malice or suspicion, but with the gaze of an educator evaluating a student and his voice when he greeted us was such a stark contrast to his appearance that it took me a moment to reply. His voice was soft, well educated and spoke of years of public speaking, it was the kind of voice that could turn a exciting audiobook into a fantastic experience, I admit I was an immediate fan. The first few minutes I spent simply appreciating the sound of Principal Hunter while Ms. Norberg presented him with my evaluation results and the necessary documents, after that they discussed my sister and I got to know that she would yet allowed to go to school, but worksheets and assignments would be provided for her. My corresponding groan attracted the attention of Principal Hunter and the corresponding inquiry lead to me giving him the same explanation about her not being a book learner I had already given Ms. Johansen. Ms. Norberg only nodded, so the information had been passed onto her, she just hadn't thought it necessary to tell the school.

Principal Hunter was very understanding and promised to talk with the teachers to tailor the assignments in a way fitting for students who learned by examples and repetition. He also assured me that this wouldn't be a problem, after all Arcadia was a school that specializes in tailoring schedules and assignments to the individual student. My choker AI, which was currently invisible to the eyes of others send me a telepathic message that the almost three quarters of the school hat some seriously modified schedules, which wouldn't work at all in a normal school but was quite successful her, even the Wards went to this school, other than Shadow Stalker of course. I didn't see a need to research deeper, but I ordered the choker AI to keep a lookout for things like what we had found in Winslow, I hoped the school was clear and Captain hadn't asked me to gather information, but I wasn't ready to trust that easily, better safe than sorry after all.

When the talks about my classes and schedule where over and done with and the principal asked me if I had any other questions I couldn't help myself and asked if he had ever worked as a voice artist. He only laughed, showing he got that question quite often and told me that on the Arcadia website there was a special section where I could find a lot of old lectures from different universities he had worked for previously and that each year at the end of the year he was asked to read aloud an essay written by the best graduating student. Those videos could be found online as well.

I decided that I really liked Principal Hunter, he seemed like a trustworthy educator, focused more on the well being and advancement of his student than his own career, which now that I think of it was probably the reason he was the principal of Arcadia, the school with the most freedom and individual development options in the Bay, if he had wanted to prove himself he could have chosen Winslow or Immaculate, either fighting back against the gangs or gaining connections with the richest people in town. His care for his students, the safety measures and the individual schedules were probably the reasons why most Wards went to school here. I spent my time waiting for the first lessons reading through the curriculum, obtained by my currently invisible choker AI. Passing information mind to mind was much faster than text or speech, but it still astounded me that it only took half an hour to get through the entirety of all high school math courses, only to realize that I could do the entire thing in my sleep. The same went for all other sciences, if I could change and shape aura, a fundamental force of the universe I could easily pass high school level math and science courses, I would only have to memorize the misconceptions and errors in the current understanding of the world to pass with perfect grades, or I could revolutionize the entire scientific community, maybe when I retired one day I could become like on of those old martial arts senseis and teach the 'young ones' the way of the world.

When school started I wasn't nervous or anything, just a little bothered by the idea of being forced to introduce myself so many times to people I just didn't care about. Luckily introductions went much better than I expected, most teachers didn't force me to do much except state my name and age, I was apparently treated like a little genius for starting high school that young, which I tried to turn to my advantage by solving every problem in my math and physics classes easily. I was trying to show myself as a geek and a bit of a teachers pet, but I must have overdone it, because by the end of my first day there were a lot of rumors of me being a Ward, either Thinker or Tinker, that would be introduced to the public soon. I have to admit, I really enjoyed having the choker AI reading those to me and helping feed the rumor mill by creating multiple junk accounts to post conspiracies about myself. My aim was to distance my public persona as far as possible from my cape persona and nothing was better for that than people thinking I was a completely different cape. Through why people thought me to be Tattletale I didn't understand at all. What was even more interesting was the discovery of another cape, I hadn't even heard of, Coil was apparently a small time crime lord, with mercenaries armed with tinker tech at his disposal. There wasn't much I could find about him and my choker AI wasn't as useful if there was nothing to find on public forums. I didn't know how I should feel about having names my first creation after a villain, much less such an unimportant and minor one.

On an unrelated note, I meet Luna and Stella, Mr. Rodriguez daughters during lunch and they had introduced me to the people at their table, I hadn't remembered any of their names, but I would if I meet them more often or they did something interesting. I didn't have the time for high school politics and teenage drama, if I could I would stay out of it as far as possible.