10

My day, it was so normal.

Until I came home.

When I got in range of the house, I felt the gnawing.

I made the bugs stop. Kept them away, but I could feel their little minds.

There was food, right there. Why can't I eat it?

I couldn't stop the decay, there were things far smaller that didn't care that I didn't want them to touch what was left of them.

Dad was home earlier than normal and in a really good mood. Quite a productive day. A new buyer was looking to invest in some businesses, and Dad managed to snag some good jobs for some of the more hard up boys.

Brockton Bay was just a little better than it was yesterday.

I helped with supper and I kept the bugs away from nibbling.

I washed up and kept them from feeding.

I did my homework and kept them at bay.

I watched a little TV, hugged my Dad, which surprised him, and then I went to bed.

I figured out I could put an order into the bugs watching the hands. Eat anything that tries to eat the hands.

Only then I went to sleep.

---===---​

I woke up and found that it was mostly successful. They had indeed killed anything that attempted to eat the hands.

But laying eggs on them was another story.

I had them sweep the eggs away and eat them, before instituting new rules. Keep anything from touching the hands. Eat those that try.

I went for a jog, far enough to see if they'd keep the effects even after I left their range.

Fifteen minutes later I re-entered the limits of how far I could see and found it working well enough.

A morning shower followed, then breakfast, then school.

And it was so normal.

Until...

---===---​

| Taylor Herbert, please come down to the office, Taylor Herbert, report to Principal Blackwell. |

"It's Hebert." I groaned weakly as the kids around me muttered and glanced my way.

"All right Taylor. Leave your books here, and head on down there." Mr. Gadly said as he didn't look up from his teacher's manual. Making sure his chalkwork was legible to all the cool kids in the back of the room was far more important.

Away I went.

The office was nearly unchanged really since I had last been here, with my dad screaming at an indifferent wall of incompetence, but there were new posters, new bugs in the walls and-

Where was everyone? Poor as we were, we did have two secretaries, didn't we?

There was only one here, head nearly obscured by his monitor, cheap gray suit on as he busily typed away.

No police though, or anyone waiting to shoot me or arrest me or anything, so that's a plus. Probably something stupid that Blackwell wanted to lay on me for.

The Trio probably did it before they...

Still making hell for me even when they're dead.

"Hello? Where is everyone?" I asked.

"Bad Chinese food laid them all up. I'm a temp." The man said, eyes glued to his screen as he typed. "Are you Taylor Herbert?"

"Hebert, He-bert. And yes."

"Ah good. I shall see you in. He is waiting for you."

Silly temp didn't even know the principal was a woman. A Rotten Bitch counted as female didn't it? Purebred of course.

The man stood up and looked at me. Probably Chinese or Japanese, there were a lot of them coming over the ocean since Japan lost a portion of its landmass. Dad was always grumping about how they were taking away the jobs from the qualified union personnel, but we both knew it was because the jobs weren't there, not that they were being unduly taken.

He smiled, one that I knew was fake and gestured for me to lead the way.

Right, he might not know where her office is.

We went down the hall, took a left and then a right.

He leaned past me, getting very into my personal space, and opened the door.

"Inside." he grunted flatly.

Nonplussed I stepped in.

Inside the Principal's chair was spun away from me.

"You wanted to see me?" I asked.

"Yes," Rumbled a voice from my nightmares. "I did."

Only then did I hear the trapped animal like whimpering of the Principal curled up in the corner behind the desk.

A hand pushed me forward.

The door shut behind me.

The chair spun.

"Hello again little one." Lung smiled at me as he slowly placed his elbows on the desk, a folder to the side of him. "Let us talk."

---===---​

"Please, have a seat." He gestured to the chair placed close to the desk. "We have much to discuss."

I felt the man behind me prod my spine with something sharp.

I walked forward and sat.

"Did you not enjoy your school?" he asked me. "Now that I have had... a hand in it?"

I started to reply, when I heard the whimpering break out into sobs.

Lung looked slightly annoyed. "Rise Principal, you have done as I have asked."

"You mean it?" Slowly a hand gripped the top of the desk and pulled the rest of her up.

"You'll let me go." She looked even worse as a gibbering wreck.

"As I said, I will not harm you."

She looked at the door hungrily. A gesture from Lung and Lee stepped away and opened the door.

Slowly she took a step. When nothing happened to her she took another, and another.

"Before you go," Lung rumbled and she froze, "I have four questions for you, Principal Blackwell." His voice was so low and rumbling I almost missed the sarcasm. "Do you know why I've asked you to bring Taylor Hebert here?"

"N-No?"

"Do you care what will happen to her now that she is here? Be honest now."

"No..."

"Even that I might cut her, or burn her, or rape her? You know that I can do all these things."

"No."

"Would you care if it was any other student?"

"Please..."

"Answer."

She slumped. "I don't want to die. No."

With a final glare at her, Lung shrugged. "Let it never be said that Lung does not keep his word. I will not harm you, nor will I keep you from leaving."

She bolted.

"But Oni Lee, on the other hand, made no such promises."

She got three steps out the door before he had tackled her. Half a shriek from between his fingers before they both collapsed into ash.

---===---​

In the parking lot, in the visitor spot, a van thumped as weight suddenly fell within it.

It thrashed for a few seconds and then was still.

Moments later, a man known and feared throughout the city came out, armed to the gills, leering demon mask affixed.

---===---​

"So ends another lesson." Lung mused. "And now for another."

He looked at me from behind his stylized metal glasses. "Extend your hand."

"But-"

"Now." He extended his own.

I could run, but to where, he knew where I lived. Who would help me?

I gulped and extended my own.

His hand gripped mine. Hot, almost burning.

And then my bugs stopped moving.

"As I thought. You are indeed worthy to become my Pearl." He looked at me and smiled, slow and toothy. "Trying to spell 'Call 911' with bugs, despite the fact that it would oust you as a cape, all to save lives."

I froze. How-

"You have exceeded my expectations. Ready to burn yourself to win, stymied only because the Principal finally paid to have the vents sprayed with pesticide this last weekend to impress the Superintendant."

He did not let go. So I had no choice but to ask. "Pearl?"

"Compatible." He nodded to my hand. "Synchronicity. In mind and ethos."

Was this a Cape thing I didn't know about? Was I like... him?

"There is a reason why some Parahumans instantly are hostile with others, and why teams form as they do." He shrugged, which I felt in my hand. "You will learn about it more as you begin your new life. My life."

"What are you doing here?" I asked, just above a whisper.

"Is it not obvious?" His chuckle was like an engine, his eyes burning like embers. "This is a place of learning. I am educating my student."

I had nothing to say back to him.

---===---​

Lee entered as we talked, in costume. "Did you get anything on the suit?"

He froze, thought about it, and shook his head. I smiled. "Good, it is a rental after all."

I looked at the girl in front of me. Powers suppressed, trembling, and yet she wouldn't break from this.

She is like an ingot of metal, ready to be hammered into a sword.

<Try not to enjoy this too much. It's still me after all.>

I have not forgotten. Tell me, how is your grip on her powers?

<It's strange, like remembering how to knit after you haven't done it in ages. But I didn't feel anything from Lee, so I'm not sure why.>

As I recall you had a range of seven feet or so at the end. Is it still so?

<No, this needed touch.>

I let my tail slowly snake under the desk until it was touching the side of her shoe.

Can you feel the connection through it?

<Yes. It's even stronger with it.>

When I let go of her hand, relax your control, but keep an eye on the bugs.

"All right Taylor, I'm going to let go of your hand, if," I stressed the word. "If you promise not to use them in any way. Try to alert someone, try to use your powers to make them dial a number, or press a keyboard's buttons, and I will have to put my hand back on yours." I looked at her seriously. "I will not be gentle if I do. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"Good." And I let go of her.

<So far so good, no bugs are doing anything, but she's trying to see how I am doing it.>

Alert me if this changes.

"Rule One: Your Personal Word is the most important thing that you have. If you ever give it you had better follow through, no matter the cost. Your reputation is a cornerstone of who you are in people's eyes. If you don't have your word, you don't have anything." I intoned grimly. "Another lesson. So many to teach."

"Principal Blackwell had your word. And-"

"Now she has a date with a woodchipper, like the three before her."

Ah, that look, like a virgin on her bed. "Yes Taylor, they are dead and their remains will not be found without serious help from a parahuman source." One that can extract DNA from the fish perhaps?

I looked at her squarely. Eye to burning eye. "Corollary to Rule One: Choose your exact words carefully. For those who have your favor, follow the spirit of the words. For your enemies, follow the letter, nothing more."

She was silent, digesting my words.

"I didn't give you their hands out of malicious glee," Much. "That was your first lesson."

"How was that a lesson?" She was calm. Abnormally quickly.

<She's pushing her emotions into the bugs. I can feel them. Fear, anger, despair.>

That explained it.

"How did the world change after they died? How did your life change?"

"It was..." She trailed off, thinking.

"Peaceful?" I offered. "Like the world didn't care?"

"Yes, but I-"

"It doesn't." I overrode her. I was very good at doing that. "The world I mean, it doesn't care. Not one bit. Not about you, or them, or Principal Blackwell, or even me."

"I cared." She pushed forward despite me talking.

"Indeed, you did care. But should you? Listen." I cocked an ear towards the door. "Do you hear it?"

She strained her ears but hear nothing. "I don't hear anything but the ventilation."

"People are dying. All around the world. Hunger, thirst, bullets, age, Endbringers. But you cannot hear them, so you go about your day. You don't feel bad about this fact, nor should you." I paused for a second. "My senses are sharper than most, but even from here I can barely hear them anymore. And from my home country, now a third-world country of squalor and decay, I hear only the faintest of whispers."

"My first lesson to you in your bedroom was as thus: Life is strength. As you live you affect your uncaring world. The stronger you are, the more you can affect."

I watched her as she stared past me, but not at me. Looking at her life.

"Strength comes in many forms. Power can be influence, wealth, connections, weapons, muscles, or anything brought to bear, even pity. Those girls had strength of a sort, and used it to affect their world, and it included you and your suffering."

I shrugged. "And now they are dead. Their bodies will never be found, their families will grieve, well, some of them shall, and they will fade from the world." I tapped the desk slightly, hearing it creak. "And so will it happen to you, to me, and to Lee. It happened to Hero, though such was his strength that keeps the echoes going, and eventually, even Scion. And the world does not care."

"Everything dies." she said quietly.

"Yes. And the only thing you can do about it, is do what you can, what you want, and what you must. Death is eternal. Entropy always wins."

I had to break the grim air somehow. Now, what would work?

<Well...>

"And I did it, by giving you a hand. Three to be exact." I smiled at my pun, and she looked at me like I was some sort of alien. "With luck, my other lessons won't need props."

"Use a whiteboard next time." Was that a joke?

"Perhaps I will."

"What now?" she asked me.

"You wanted to be a Hero, and I understand why you do." I continued without preamble. "You wanted to change things, make the world better. And, after all, that's what they do. Right?"

She nodded firmly. "I will be a Hero."

"So did I, when I was young." I nodded fondly. I liked the blue ranger, and I remembered my mother rolling her eyes as she watched me prance and pose in front of the television.

"A pity, really, that Heroes can't change anything."

Her eyes met mine in a fierce challenge, and I could hear the faint buzzing of the insects in the vents.

She didn't speak, waiting for me to continue.

"Heroes preserve what is, Villains force change," I explained carefully. "The words you were about to say, 'I can make this world better', implies you know how the world ought to be, if only it would obey you. If only you had the power to make it change. A quality I have, as a matter of fact."

My hands clasped together, fingers interlaced, hiding my mouth and letting only my eyes gleaming behind my glasses bore into her. "No one believes that they are evil, barring perhaps those in the Slaughterhouse Nine. Not the neo-nazis in Empire88, not the Merchants, not I." My voice rumbled as I tried to project sternness. It was a bit of a hit or miss for me. "It all boils down to what you want, and how you can get it from an uncaring world."

"It's wrong."

"And you know why each and every person does something?" I countered. "A skinhead selling drugs is bad, so you'll stop him. That is what a Hero does. You beat the man, break his bones, destroy his drugs, and tie the man up to be arrested. Right?"

She nodded.

"You pose for the camera and leave. And then his children starve."

She froze mid-nod.

"Or they get taken away, placed in foster homes. Many get molested or beaten, or simply neglected. A child grows up, often with poor grades, filled with hatred for the uncaring world. And what does such a child do with few job prospects, a poor education, and nothing but the camaraderie of friends of his father, who maybe buy him shoes when he needs it, or food when he is forgotten? Why he joins the gang and the cycle repeats."

The fierceness in her eyes began to die.

"Imagine you are a Warlord." I continued. "You own a piece of the city, call your gang the TGG or 'Taylor's Good Girlz'. Tell me, do you allow people in your area of control to come to harm? Those who would follow you and do as you said?"

She said nothing.

"Would you protect them, feed them, care for them, lead them?"

Still nothing.

"Suppose the Teeth showed up, or the Slaughterhouse Nine. Would you stand idly by and let them be killed?"

Nothing at all.

"What would you do to protect what was yours?"

"Time." Lee said, checking his watch.

---===---​

And like that the magic was broken. Taylor blinked and became herself once more.

"Pity. But any longer and there may be gossip or questions asked." I sighed, letting out a bit of steam as I did. "And so I must leave you here."

I rose from the desk, and carefully brushed off my suit.

"That's it?" She asked. "You're just going to leave? After all this?" She gestured to the dead Principal's office.

"Yes." I nodded. "And you are going to go back to your classroom. We shall talk later." I started to turn to Lee.

"I could go to the PRT, I could tell them everything!" She was frantic now. "I could-"

"Tell them about how three girls, who literally tortured you into becoming a parahuman, are dead?" I finished for her.

"Tell them about the hands in your garden?" I'd checked before I came.

"Tell them how you are a Cape, thus putting your father at risk? Even if they believed you, they would use him to keep you in line ." I'd seen families become chains.

No one had believed her. No one on this side of the law had. Not until the Heroes did worse than she. And by then 'Hero' and 'Villain' had dissolved into chaos.

I watched her droop. Defeated.

"Go. I will leave in fifteen minutes." I gestured to Lee, and he produced a cell phone for her. "I shall call you soon."

She hesitated, then snatched it and ran.

She will understand.

<I hope so.>

---===---​

We trashed the office, making it look like we were looking for something in the paperwork.

Then we went to their filing cabinets and did the same there.

We went towards the front door, a large man in a suit, a man dressed as a demon loaded with weapons.

Ten minutes to lunch. Normally, I hated being up this early, but the sleep I had gotten had done me well.

A Villain could be noble, could save lives, could force change to happen. Marquis was respected despite the lives he took. AllFather, evil as he was, was a symbol to many.

Lung had been a dragon, battling a monster to save his land. Lung could be a dragon, bringing fire and death to the city. Lung was a dragon, sleeping on his hoard.

What else could Lung be?

I stepped outside and blinked as the light shone down on me.

"Freeze!"

Assault and Battery had just left their PRT vehicle and spotted Oni Lee. And the man in front of him.

I sighed, rolling my eyes to the heavens.

"There goes my rental."