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Just InCommunityForumMoreAn Essence of Silver and Steel by James D. Fawkes Books » Worm Rated: M, English, Supernatural & Fantasy, Skitter, Tattletale, Panacea, Words: 636k+, Favs: 5k+, Follows: 5k+, Published: Jun 3, 2017 Updated: Jun 5, 2021 4,277Chapter 10: Disillusion 2-1

Disillusion 2.1

[The four cardinal gates close.]

One of the first things I'd tested my power on was my bed.

The actual first was a pencil, which I'd turned into a multi-function utensil whose tip never dulled and whose eraser undid mistakes by literally undoing them. Even now, one of my classmates had in his possession a pencil that would last him his entire life, provided he didn't snap it in half at any point. The guy probably had no idea that he'd picked up my first ever experiment, and likely, he never would. Even if I knew where that pencil had gotten off to, I certainly wasn't about to tell him.

Later on, after trying a few different ideas on other innocuous, everyday items (including an unfortunate run-in with our toaster), I'd gotten around to changing my bed. It wasn't a rocket ship or anything — even if I'd gotten a handle on what I could do, those were still the early days, after all, when I hadn't quite figured out my limits — but I had managed to enhance it based upon its intended function.

In other words, sleep.

I was incredibly grateful for my foresight when I woke up the day after my encounter with Lung, feeling well-rested and as refreshed as though I'd gotten a full, uninterrupted eight hours of sleep. That was the effect I'd placed on my bed, you see: though I hadn't bothered to test it to find out the exact number, it healed and rejuvenated the body and mind the same as a full night's sleep with just a few hours. I thought it was probably three, because my various caster types tended to agree that three was an important number.

So, as I slung my arm over and shut off my alarm clock, I had to smile into my pillow. Not only had I woken up feeling like I'd slept in on a Saturday, but the giddy sense of pride was still tickling at the insides of my stomach. If I'd been the girl I was five years ago, I might've giggled and laughed and shouted.

But that girl had been killed and buried by her best friend.

"Ah, geez, Taylor," I groaned. "You just had to bring the mood down, didn't you?"

Today was a Monday. Monday meant school. School meant my own personal trio of tormentors, headed by my former best friend, backed by a mousy sycophant, and enforced by the Track star who gave even the most stereotypical of jocks a bad name.

Friday was juice all over me and my bag. What would they dream up this time?

"No," I told myself quietly. I forced myself to sit up, letting my blankets fall from my shoulders, and gave myself a stiff slap to the face. "No. You beat Lung. You took down the scariest villain in the city. The Trio is nothing compared to that."

It was enough to rally me, and with a little of the pride and confidence last night had instilled in me, I rolled out of bed and slid into a pair of sweats. Then, I made my way down to the kitchen, grabbing my shoes along the way, and took a seat at the table. I was halfway through pulling them on when Dad came downstairs in his bathrobe and a set of worn, old slippers — I rarely saw them, so it took me a moment to remember that they were the last present Mom had ever gotten him for Christmas.

"Good morning, kiddo," he greeted me as he entered. On his way past me, he leaned down and pressed a kiss to my head.

For one panicked second, I was afraid he'd smell the burnt asphalt or something, but when he went on his way without comment, I silently released the breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding.

"Morning, Dad."

"You sound like you're in a good mood," he said. "That excited to go on your run?"

"Just…slept really well, last night," I replied. It was even true. "Had a good dream, too. I was beating up Lung."

Dad let out a startled laugh as he was putting the bacon on, and I had to smother my own grin. Dad hadn't laughed much, ever since Mom died. If I was honest, I hadn't, either, but that had as much to do with Emma's betrayal as it did with the big Mom-shaped hole in my life.

"What?"

"Old school knight style," I told him. When he turned to me, I held out one hand as though I was wielding a sword. "Have at thee, foul dragon!"

I made some exaggerated motions with my wrist that, even without Siegfried in my head, I knew were all flash and no substance. It still evoked the image of stabbing and slashing, though.

"Did you beat him?" Dad asked, grinning.

"Like a cheap drum." I couldn't stop some of the pride I was feeling from entering my voice.

"Good for you," he said, turning back to breakfast.

I ached to tell him. Not for the first time, I thought about it. Really considered it. Just…put it out there. Hey, Dad, I have powers.

But I bit my tongue. I was used to hiding things from Dad, and this was just one more thing that I absolutely couldn't tell him. He worried enough about me going on my runs, about the fact that I didn't seem to have any friends (and I didn't), about how terrible things were for the Dockworkers, about our financial difficulties, and I just didn't want to worry him with my powers. At the end of the day, it was the same reason I hadn't told him that the bullying had never stopped: it was just more to pile onto his already full plate.

"Could you get the OJ?"

"Sure," I said.

I headed into the fridge and pulled out the orange juice, grabbing a tiny carton of applesauce while I was there — one of those small, single-serve things supermarkets sold by the half-dozen. Dad had already moved onto the French toast by the time I got back to the table and procured a spoon for myself. The sweet smell of cinnamon and the heady scent of hickory-smoked bacon tickled my nose.

"You remember Gerry?" Dad asked over his shoulder.

"Not really," I said as I tore open my applesauce.

"You met him once or twice while you were visiting me at work. Big guy, burly, Black Irish?"

"Doesn't ring a bell," I answered around my spoon.

If I was being completely honest, I couldn't really remember anyone from Dad's work except Kurt and Lacey. For one thing, it'd been a while since I'd been anywhere near the Dockworkers HQ, or even my Dad's office, and for another, I hadn't really known any of them that well to begin with. There was no way to avoid empathizing with their employment difficulties — my dad was head of hiring, after all, and it was basically his job to tell everyone that there were no jobs to be had, in this economy — but I couldn't really put a face to any of the names he mentioned whenever he started talking about them.

"Huh. Well, anyway, there's a rumor going around that he's found work. Take a guess who with."

"I give up. Who?"

"He's signed up as one of Über and Leet's henchmen."

I snorted. "What, really?"

"That's the scuttlebutt," Dad said.

"I guess they'll make him wear some crazy uniform? Like Tron or Zelda or something?"

Dad chuckled. "Probably. Could you imagine a guy that big in a dress?"

I couldn't — or at least, not Gerry specifically — but the image of a big, heavy black man stuffed into a bright pink dress was still ridiculous enough to make me laugh as I helped myself to the first batch of French toast.

Dad sat down at the table a few moments later, carrying with him the rest of the French toast and the bacon, and for a couple of minutes, we just ate in companionable silence. A father and his daughter eating breakfast together — not quite the way it should be, because there was still one person missing, but it was closer than it had been for a while.

When I was done, I stood up and took my plate over to the sink to be washed, grabbing a slice of bacon on my way. I felt more than saw Dad's head swivel around to follow me.

"You…going on your run, then?"

"Yeah."

"Ah." Dad had never been particularly happy about my morning routine, but aside some token resistance, he never actually tried to stop me, either. "You, uh, got the, uh…"

"I've got my pepper spray, yeah," I said.

What I didn't tell him was that I'd long since upgraded it to disrupt the retinal function of any idiot who actually wound up on the other end of it. It might make him feel a bit better, but then I'd have to explain how.

Dad gave me a nod of acknowledgement, as though satisfied, but I was his daughter, and even if we hadn't been as close as we were before Mom died, I still knew him well enough to catch the undercurrent of anxiety he tried to hide.

I gave him a quick hug on my way back, felt him relax a little, then left out the side door and took off.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

There was a tight feeling in my belly as I made my way to homeroom, that morning. I felt unprepared, blindsided, to handle school and everything that came with it after having fought and beaten Lung just a few short hours before. It probably said something that I was less sure of myself and felt so much weaker in a school filled with dumb, petty teenagers than I did in a life or death battle against one of the most powerful parahumans in the Bay.

None of it good, of course.

As I got into homeroom, however, and Mrs. Knott looked up and gave me a tight smile, I remembered that I had skipped out on the last two classes of the day on Friday. Sure, I'd turned in my midterm project, and sure, I'd written a note explaining my absence, but if kids could do that and get away with it, a lot more of my classmates would be absent a lot more often. Someone would probably be coming down from the office with a notice or a note from the principal or something, single me out in front of the entire class, and then, the cycle embarrassment would come full circle and be complete.

Something hot and angry and indignant burned suddenly inside of me, and for a moment, I wanted someone to come down from the office, calling me to see Blackwell, so that I could unload on her all of the problems and the reasons why I had felt it necessary to leave in the middle of the day on Friday. I wanted to stand up for myself, to give everyone who looked down on me a tongue-lashing for standing there and offering platitudes rather than doing something about the bullying.

But I forced myself to swallow that vitriol and take my seat at my computer. Fortunately, neither my homeroom nor my first class of the day had any of the Trio in it, and though it did have a few of their hangers-on, none of them cared enough to do anything to me when Emma, Sophia, and Madison weren't around to watch and laugh.

So, I sat down and booted up the ancient desktop, watching as it cycled through the OS logo and a loading screen or two. It said something about Winslow, too, that these desktops were probably fifteen years out of date and painfully slow.

Once it had gotten through the startup process, though, the first thing I did was complete the project for the day, just to have it done. It took all of about fifteen minutes, tops, and then I had the rest of the time until class ended to do whatever I wanted while Mrs. Knott managed the computer illiterates that made up most of the rest of the class.

With that project done, though, I turned my focus onto something I'd been anxiously wondering about and logged onto Parahumans Online — PHO — to check out the News subsection and see if I'd made the headlines.

LUNG CAPTURED! was the name of the first thread in the section. NEWBIE HERO SHUTS HIM DOWN!

Filled with a kind of giddy excitement, I clicked on the thread and leaned forward to read.

[]

Topic: LUNG CAPTURED - NEWBIE HERO SHUTS HIM DOWN

In: Boards ► News ► Events ►America

Bagrat (Original Poster) (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)

Posted On Apr 12th 2011:

This just in — Brockton Bay's fire-breathing boogeyman just got his clock cleaned, and is stewing in a Protectorate holding cell.

Now, I heard this all from a buddy in the PRT, so there are some things he CAN'T say, and some might be corrected later, when he gets up from his well-deserved after-shift coma.

EDIT - like the cape's costume. Updated the description, please read carefully, and try not to make fun of the people who thought she was a Case 53. The first draft really was that bad, and my contact really was THAT tired.

Late last night, around 1 AM, Armsmaster called in transport for one parahuman prisoner. A standard escort, plus Miss Militia, showed up to find Lung's comatose torso lying on the ground, in the wreckage of what was once Mason Street. They Foamed him, threw him in the back of the truck, and rode off uneventfully.

Armsmaster isn't the one taking credit for the capture, though. That honor goes to a new cape - as in, first-night-out-ever new - by the name of Apocrypha. She's kinda tall, apparently. Teenager or young woman, so maybe we'll be getting a new Ward? Long, dark hair. Pretty good costume, too. Real professional looking. Lots of purple, especially the mask, the pants, and the vest she wears. Speaking of, apparently the vest has a pair of tails, an homage to the classical cape, maybe? Gold trim, like, everywhere. Black boots and a skintight bodysuit. For a newbie, she's seriously got her stuff together.

No word yet on exactly what her powers are, but considering what she's done - bolostomping the real-life equivalent of a Raid Boss with minimal collateral, no injuries, and zero backup - we're looking at a top-tier cape. She's been described as 'friendly' towards the PRT, again, no word on where that'll lead.

[]

If I was honest, I was impressed by his level of detail. He didn't have everything, of course, like what my powers were and how far Lung had transformed, because those were things I'd only mentioned to Armsmaster and Miss Militia, but he got a lot of things right, and the finite minutiae about my costume read like he'd dissected a photograph of me wearing it.

All things considered, I was almost surprised that he hadn't linked a grainy cellphone video of the fight, complete with me-as-Siegfried swinging around that massive sword as though it were a toy.

I scrolled down and started to read the responses.

[]

(Showing page 1 of 213)

► NamelessWalnut

Replied On Apr 12th 2011:

Bagrat, I normally trust you, but man, if this is someone's idea of a joke…

I mean, really? A newbie took down Lung? There's no way.

► Stranger_Danger

Replied On Apr 12th 2011:

Wait, so are you saying that a newbie beat Mister Big Scary Rage Dragon, with barely minimum effort?

Wow, for once, something good is happening in Brockton.

► Beachwyld

Replied On Apr 12th 2011:

Seriously? Scariest villain in Brockton Bay, and he got taken down by a complete noob?

► SilverHat

Replied On Apr 12th 2011:

You're telling me there was an epic fight against Lung where he was defeated and half the city didn't go up in flames? I call BS.

► Ossified Hippo

Replied On Apr 12th 2011:

Isn't that the guy who fought Leviathan to a standstill in Kyushu? How'd a rookie beat that?

► Bagrat (Original Poster) (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)

Replied On Apr 12th 2011:

Very badly, apparently. Nobody's talking about the how, but my guy on the inside tells me that Lung was carted away missing his arms and legs. No pictures on that, but the description I was given was, 'as though they had been burned off by a really hot flame.'

[]

For several pages, they went on and on, expressing disbelief and asking questions about how a newbie could take down someone like Lung. Once those were out of the way, though, and people had stopped doubting the possibility, the tone of the comments changed.

[]

(Showing page 7 of 215)

► King_Of_Nothing

Replied On Apr 12th 2011:

Wait wait wait, you guys are sitting here telling me that Lung, the guy who had a battle so fucking epic that it sunk an island just by happening in the vicinity, wasin a fight that had him MELTING concrete through the entire street? AND HE LOST?

I for one welcome our new Overlord, move over Eidolon.

► SiderealFantasy

Replied On Apr 12th 2011:

This girl took down Lung. If I see her in real life, I'm gonna bow down and kiss her feet.

► BlueRider

Replied On Apr 12th 2011:

2BorNot2B

An obscure, nerdy, edgy one IMO, but hey, the dear lass beat FREAKING LUNG! She can call herself Miss Boldy McDragonChewer and I am still going to build her a freaking altar!

► ChilledRoyal

Replied On Apr 12th 2011:

All hail Apocrypha, slayer of the Dragon of Brockton Bay!

► Ossified Hippo

Replied On Apr 12th 2011:

Well, hell. Slather me in butter and call me lunch. If this is legit, I'd definitely be willing to worship at that alter BlueRider is building.

[]

On and on, they went. It seemed like everyone and their grandmother had come out of the woodwork to say something, from expressing disbelief, to fear about retaliation, to congratulating me, and even to make fun of Lung for losing to a "little girl."

And each post singing my praises was like a jolt to my ego; every one of them sent that feeling of tickling pride in my stomach aflutter, and within five minutes, my cheeks were hurting from where I'd had to bite down on them to keep from smiling. Maybe I wasn't on Cloud Nine, but I was definitely pretty damn close.

Validation, after nearly two years without it. Each time I read one of those posts congratulating Apocrypha, congratulating me, I was back there, standing beside Armsmaster and Miss Militia, and they were smiling at me and telling me that I'd done a good job. I was a hero, and I had something now that Emma and her two cronies could never take away from me.

It wasn't all nice, of course. Some people were looking at it and coming up with all sorts of theories about me and my motivations.

[]

(Showing page 97 of 221)

► SilverHat

Replied On Apr 12th 2011:

TheConjurer

I agree that a simple Brute wouldn't last against Lung, but I think you're going in the wrong direction here. Lung went against an Endbringer and survived, you can't best him with brute strength. So I am betting he was mastered into hurting himself, if he was defeated at all. This could as easily be a sham to hide something else.

► YellowDeath

Replied On Apr 12th 2011:

Silverhat

Hell, how do we know this chick isn't an Empire recruit playing nice with the heroes? Maybe she's a plant they're trying to get into the Wards? More likely than her beating Lung on her own, at least.

► RedRonin 708

Replied On Apr 12th 2011:

Stranger_Danger

IDK man this is Brockton Bay were talking about, even with Lung gone things are still gonna go bad. I mean have any of you actually thought about what this could actually do to the gang situation. Without Lung ABB is gonna be under a lot of pressure. This is really gonna suck for those of us who are Asian and live in ABB territory. I mean don't get me wrong hated paying those assholes protection money, but I'd rather deal with them then those Neo-Nazi fuckers or the goddamn Merchants.

YellowDeath

God, I hope she isn't. Speaking of the PRT and the Wards if does decide to join them I just hope they finally get off their asses and do something!

King_Of_Nothing

You do realize that this city is essentially the Nazi movement capital for the entire east coast right? That brings up another thought if she doesn't join PRT the new cape is gonna have to be really careful. I mean she could probably take care of herself, but forced recruitment is still a thing. Just hope she doesn't get picked up by a group like the 9.

SaladDancer

Just you wait. New cape, new problems. I'm just thankful that the city is still here for now.

► King_Of_Nothing

Replied On Apr 12th 2011:

YellowDeath

Try not to be such a conspiracy nut mate, have some hope that not everything is nazis.

► TimeWolf

Replied On Apr 12th 2011:

I find it really hard to believe that some new cape managed to take out Lung while he had grown that much, let alone on their first night out. Capes that powerful are rare and those powerful enough to take out Lung while he was that powerful with minimal experience are rarer still. While it could really be a new cape, I find it much more likely that this is simply a more experienced cape trying to rebrand or something. Does anybody know of any capes who could have done this who disappeared recently?

Also, does anybody have any ideas on how Lung got that powerful and then was defeated? It seems unlikely that someone would suddenly become more capable of defeating him after he grew. My best guess is that someone else engaged him first, and then Apocrypha showed up. Does anyone have any better ideas?

► RedRonin 708

Replied On Apr 12th 2011:

Stranger_Danger

Hmm I think I know him. Not irl, but did he write that one slash-fic about Armsmaster and Dauntless in the back of a PRT van?

Time Wolf

I heard rumors that Lung was with a bunch of his soldiers before Apocrypha showed up. Apparently, they were taken out by a pretty large group then Apocrypha threw down with Lung. Could be this Apocrypha isn't really a new hero, but a new gang leader.

(Showing page 120 of 230)

► Antigone

Replied On Apr 12th 2011:

Everyone seems to be missing a key fact - she soloed LUNG.

It doesn't even matter how bad things get. As soon as she shows up, everyone else has to run for the hills.

Hey, Villains of the Bay? GG, guys. You had a good run.

And now it's time to go.

[]

It was a good feeling, having so much support from so many total strangers. I got so caught up in all the praise and adulation that I lost track of time, and when the bell rang signaling the end of class, I had to hurry up and log off so I could make it on time to my next one. As I ran along, my mind cycling between those comments and the scene from the night before, I thought that there was no way the Trio could possibly ruin this day for me.

They proved me wrong in less than an hour.

Mister Gladly's World Affairs class was one I shared with Madison Clements, Unrepentant Bitch Number Three, and she was already there and in her seat by the time I arrived. A pair of girls whose names I didn't know — most of the hangers-on were so interchangeable that I had never bothered to learn them all — were huddled around her desk, and the three of them glanced at me and broke out into giggles the moment they saw me.

I found out why not thirty seconds later: Madison had poured orange juice on my chair.

Bitch.

I wanted to throw a glare her way to let her know exactly how unimpressed I was by her, but I forced my focus away from her and found myself an empty seat a couple back from my usual spot. No matter how good it might have felt to send her that glare, in the end, it would just come back to bite me.

Just ignore them, Taylor, I told myself. You're a hero. Nothing they do can touch you, now.

Mister Gladly came in a few minutes after the second bell rang, then spent another few minutes trying to get class started. That was the problem with trying to be the popular teacher, and one of the reasons I thought he was kind of pathetic and useless: when you were the guy everyone liked and you tried to always be that guy, your teenage students had no respect for you. I couldn't even remember when the last time was that I'd seen him give a detention.

Once he'd gotten everything under control, or at least the illusion thereof, the next thing he did was order us to break off into groups of four and share our homework with each other. Then, later on, each group was to share their work with the rest of the class, and the group that won would get the prize he had mentioned at the end of last week: treats from the vending machines.

I didn't even bother trying to find a good group; most of them consisted of friends and cliques huddling together, and I wasn't welcome in any of them, if I'd ever been so inclined to try. Instead, I meandered over to Sparky and Greg, the leftovers who no one had wanted to team up with. In this class, at least, they and I had worked together before, if only because no one else was willing to let us into their groups. Greg started talking almost the moment I sat down, but I mostly just ignored him.

I grabbed my share of the homework out of my new backpack — actually my old one, just cleaned with magic and the color altered so that none of the Trio suspected anything amiss — without a word. Everything was written in ink, using the pen I had improved similarly to that pencil, so that if it got stolen, none of Madison's flunkies could just erase my name and claim it was theirs.

I'd wanted to include a trap, something that made fun of someone trying to tamper with it, like that map in the Harry Potter books, but that would have been too blatant and outed me. Petty revenge just wasn't worth the hassle it'd bring.

"— distracted by this new game," Greg was saying. "It's called Space Opera —"

I tuned him out again. Greg wasn't a bad guy, I had to admit, but he didn't seem to have any filter between his brain and his mouth, and his social skills seemed even more stunted than mine were. That stereotype, about guys not being able to take a hint? Greg embodied it.

"— hey, Julia!"

I blinked and turned to look at where Greg was waving (with way too much enthusiasm; I was embarrassed, just sitting next to him), and there was one of Madison's flunkies, Julia, coming into class late.

Mister Gladly, of course, didn't give her anything than a kindly worded warning. Nevermind that she was stepping into class almost fifteen minutes after it started. Of course not — as long as he never actually punished anyone, he could keep being the cool teacher.

"Can I be in Madison's group?" she asked him.

"That wouldn't be fair," Mister Gladly said. "Greg's group only has three people. Go join them."

I almost expected her to argue or whine — Mister Gladly was flimsier than wet bread — but she came over to where my group and I were sitting without complaint and made a face, like she'd smelled something particularly disgusting. Before she sat down, she muttered, "Ew," just loud enough for us to hear.

The feeling's mutual, Julia.

Of course, that was the beginning of the end. I could smell the disaster coming a mile away, even if I didn't know what it would be, because Madison's group decided to move and sit down right next to ours, which let Julia chat it up with them while still technically being part of ours. It put all of the popular and attractive girls in the class within spitting distance.

That only made Greg worse. Instead of prattling on about his video games to me, he kept trying to join in on their conversation, no matter how many times those girls ignored him or told him to butt out. Maybe I didn't really have room to talk, considering I was a social pariah and all, but it was really kind of pathetic.

So saying, my grade was already abysmal and suffering from the Trio's sabotage. If I could help it, I shouldn't let this sort of thing bring it down even further.

"Greg," I said, attempting to grab his attention, "here's what I did over the weekend. What do you think?"

I handed him all of my work, and in hindsight, that was a terrible idea. At the very least, though, he did actually read it, when someone else might have just glanced through it and offered an empty platitude. When he was done, he looked back at me with a smile he probably thought was charming.

"This is really good, Taylor," he said sincerely.

"Let me see," said Julia, and before I could stop him, Greg handed all of my hard work over to her without a second's thought or hesitation. I watched as she skimmed through it, already knowing what was going to happen, and then she tossed it over to Madison's table, where a couple of the girls broke out into giggles.

Something burned inside me. Idiot, I wanted to shout at Greg. Idiot, I wanted to shout at myself, for letting it happen.

"Give that back," I said, trying to keep my tone level and even.

Letting them know how much they'd pissed me off would just give them more fuel.

"Give what back?" Julia asked with sugary innocence.

"Madison," I spat her name like a curse, ignoring Julia entirely, "give it back."

Madison turned to me, face twisting into an expression of such disdain that it could have curdled milk all on its own, and in a condescending tone that would have reduced a Miss America winner or an Olympic gold medalist to tears, said, "Nobody's talking to you, Taylor."

I had some choice words for her, but they wouldn't have done anything, so I held them back. Maybe, in another, better school, I could have gone to the teacher about it, but this was Winslow, hive of scum and villainy, where all the poor kids, stupid kids, and gangsters went to school. Telling the teacher wouldn't have solved anything — would have made it worse, actually.

And as much as I wanted to, I couldn't Install Medea and turn Madison into a toad.

That was about the time that Greg realized how badly he screwed up, and though I made a few attempts to salvage the mess he'd made, I had to give it up as a bad job, because every time he opened his mouth, it was to either make an apology or beg Madison's group to give my work back. All he accomplished was to annoy me and waste away the rest of our time.

When it came time to present, Mister Gladly started picking out people from each of the groups to stand up and go over their work. As was my luck, when it was our group's turn, he picked Greg, and Greg wasn't really all that good at public speaking. He messed up so badly that Mister Gladly actually asked him to sit down before he finished.

As for why Mister Gladly had picked Greg in the first place, I had no idea. It wasn't like Greg had done much better with our other group work the previous times.

Then, of course, I had to sit there and stew as Madison got up and recited my much more impressive list of ways capes had affected the world. She went over it all — fashion, economics, technology, media — and the only part she really flubbed on was law enforcement.

In the end, another group was chosen as the winners, if only for the sheer number of things they'd listed off in their presentation. The worst part, though, was having to listen as Mister Gladly praised Madison's group and assured them that it had been a very near thing, just based upon the quality.

My work, that Madison had stolen and taken credit for. Who gave a damn about the vending machine treats? What had me steamed was that all of that hard work had been basically for nothing, and Madison got to claim it as hers.

It was almost impossible to focus on Mister Gladly as he lectured. The anger boiling inside of me made my head swim, and as though they had been called, all of those berserkers that had offered themselves up on Friday offered themselves again. They were as tempting now as they were then, but damn it, I was a hero. I'd beaten Lung. I wasn't going to let a bunch of pubescent girls ruin that.

To get my mind off of it, I called up some of my other heroes — ones that had been on my list, but who I hadn't taken the time to inspect in detail, yet — and I spent the rest of class examining them and their legends. I got so deep into that, before I knew it, the bell was ringing, and I blinked as it jerked me out of my thoughts.

Everyone else had already packed up, so I was one of the last to put my things away, and as I was shoving my books into my backpack, Mister Gladly approached me and quietly told me, "I'd like you to stick around for a few minutes, please."

I was still a little angry, so I wanted to tell him where he could shove it, but I just swallowed any retorts and gave him a nod to show I understood.

I was left to wait, hanging around awkwardly in the middle of the classroom as Mister Gladly negotiated with the winners of his little contest. I felt a little flash of resentment at them — irrational and misplaced, maybe, but I was probably going to be sore about my stolen work for the rest of the afternoon.

When it was finally just me and him left in the classroom, he cleared his throat a little and said, "I'm not stupid, you know."

"O…kay…"

I wasn't sure how to respond to that.

"I'm not blind to everything that goes on in my classroom," he went on. The acidic retort on the tip of my tongue came very close to telling him exactly how wrong he was. "I don't know exactly who, but I know some people are giving you a pretty hard time."

"Sure," I replied blandly, for lack of anything else to say.

"I saw the mess left on your usual seat today." Then why didn't you do anything about it? I wanted to ask. In Arcadia, class probably wouldn't have started until the teacher got the culprit to confess. "I remember a few weeks back when glue was smeared all over your desk and chair. There was also that incident that happened at the start of the year. All of your teachers had a meeting about that."

A fat lot of good that did me, I couldn't help thinking. I yearned to say it, to just put it out there, but I held my tongue. Holding my tongue was always easier in the long run.

"And I'm guessing there's more that I don't know about?"

I thought about the juice thing on Friday. About the little shoves in the hallways, about Emma's barbs, veiled as gossip and explained away as, "Oh, of course we weren't talking about Taylor!" About the stolen assignments, the sabotaged projects, and the flute that had been snatched right out of my locker.

"Yeah."

Some part of me dared to hope, dared to believe that it could all stop, right here. But the rest of me already knew how this story ended, and it wasn't with Mister Gladly saving the day.

"I asked you after the glue incident. I'm asking you again. Would you be willing to go to the office with me, talk to the principal and vice principal?"

"What would happen?" I asked shrewdly.

Because in Winslow, good didn't triumph over evil. The bad guy wasn't defeated. The hero didn't ride off into the sunset on a white horse.

"We'd have a discussion about what's been going on," he told me. "You would name the person or people you believe responsible, and each of them would be called in to talk to the principal, in turn."

"And they'd get expelled?"

The answer was no, of course. Emma, Sophia, and Madison were too slippery to be beaten like that.

Mister Gladly shook his head. "If there was enough proof, they would be suspended for a few days, unless they've done something very serious." Like the Locker? "Further offenses could lead to longer suspensions or expulsion."

I felt my lips pull into a mirthless grin. The cynical side of me crowed its victory. "Great. So if I can actually prove they did anything at all, they might miss a couple of days of school, which they'll use to plan whatever revenge they can cook up to punish me for tattling."

Because that was totally what I wanted: a short reprieve followed by more escalation.

No thank you.

"If you want things to get better, Taylor, you have to start somewhere," he told me somberly.

"That's not a starting point, that's shooting myself in the foot right before the race."

I slung my backpack over my shoulder, and when Mister Gladly didn't say anything else, I turned and left the classroom, feeling even more frustrated than before because of his half-hearted attempts to "help" me.

And, of course, by the time I got out and into the hall, Madison had been joined by Emma, Sophia, and about half a dozen other girls, and they were standing there, waiting for me.

I tried to push past them, escape before things even got started, but they'd gotten trapping me down to an art form. It would almost have been impressive, how quickly and easily they herded me into a corner and against the window, if I hadn't been the one they were doing it to. Instead, all it managed to do was send a sharp jolt to the frustration that Mister Gladly had just gotten done stoking.

"Nobody likes her. Nobody wants her here," said Julia, starting them off.

"Such a loser. I hear she's failing all of her classes," Sophia chimed in.

"If she's not going to try, then why is she even coming to school?"

It was all standard fare. More of the same. This was actually the sort of thing they did most; pranks like the juice on Friday were less common than a shove in the hallway or this…this that they were doing, now. It had actually gotten kind of boring and stupid — save for a rare few things that actually hurt, most of their comments were either old material, recycled and reformatted, or else so contradictory that they were almost funny.

The part that had me waiting, the part that had me just a little worried, was that Emma was the only one staying quiet. She was just standing there, the slightest of smiles curling at the corner of her lips, like she was waiting for the opportune moment to slip in and deliver the finishing blow. It was Emma, my ex-best friend, so it was absolutely going to be devastating.

No, I told myself, mustering an iron-willed determination. I'm a hero, now. Nothing she says can take that away.

"Ugliest girl in our grade," one of them said. It just washed off of me, like that knowledge, that surety that I had something they could never tarnish, was a set of armor that shielded me. Even the comments that might have hurt fell uselessly against it.

"What does she use to wash her face? A Brillo pad?"

"She should! She'd look better!"

"Never talks to anybody. Maybe she knows she sounds like a retard and keeps her mouth shut."

"No, she's not that smart."

Behind them, I caught sight of Mister Gladly leaving his classroom. None of the girls seemed to notice, so their spiel continued on as I watched him tuck a stack of folders under his arm and lock the door.

"If I were her, I'd kill myself," one of the girls announced.

Mister Gladly turned around, and there was no doubt he could hear what they were saying, and his eyes met mine.

"So glad we don't have gym with her. Can you imagine having to look at her in the locker room? Gag me with a spoon."

In a better world, in a better school, that would have been the moment when I was saved. But this was Winslow, and I was the quiet, unpopular girl being bullied by the top bitch in our grade and her gaggle of friends. Less than five minutes ago, Mister Gladly had been trying to get me to tell the principal about the very bullying that was happening before his eyes, and now, he just gave me a sad, resigned look, adjusted the folders in his hands, then turned and walked away.

I wanted to be surprised. I wanted to be shocked that he'd just abandoned me like that. How could there be such a poor excuse for a teacher when I'd met a genuine hero last night? Not even just one, but two. In a city with Armsmaster and Miss Militia, how could there be someone so unwilling to do the right thing?

I wasn't surprised, though. No one had done anything about the Locker, except bribe my dad and I with hospital bills and pay lip service to the promise nothing like it would happen again. Why would now be different?

"You should have seen her group fail in class just now. It was painful to watch."

That hit a bit of a nerve, but I just reinforced my fortitude with more assurances of my worth. I was a hero. They couldn't take that away.

"And she smells," said one girl. It lacked the oomph any of the others might have had.

"Like expired grape and orange juice," Madison added, laughing a little.

Finally, though, it seemed like they were winding down. I breathed an internal sigh of relief; it wouldn't be long before they gave it up and left, and then I could go eat in peace.

Now, however, as though she had noticed the assault begin to wither and die, Emma stepped forward, and the group parted around her like she was some messiah come to deliver them.

"What's the matter, Taylor?" Emma asked. "You look upset."

It felt weak. It had no punch to it, no pizzazz, none of the sting and barb her usual insults and comments had. It felt like there was another shoe that had to drop, but I wasn't about to let her have it, if I could stop her, so I opened my mouth to tell her exactly where she could shove it.

Emma's delivery was practiced, though. She managed to get her zing out before I could start on the first syllable.

"So upset you're going to cry yourself to sleep for a straight week?"

Something snapped inside of me.

There wasn't really a better way to put it, and I couldn't say why this one thing, terrible but so much less horrible on its own than all of the other things I'd had to endure put together, frayed the last thread of my self-control. Maybe it was just this last betrayal that had finally strained everything past the point of breaking. Maybe I'd just been relying too much on the Witch of Colchis, and her vindictiveness had seeped into me a little too deeply. If, if, if, maybe, maybe, maybe — I didn't really know for sure, one way or the other.

I did know, however, that it was Medea's acid that flooded through my veins in that moment. I did know that I had reached out for her, almost on instinct, and pulled her into myself, just enough to feel her influence, not enough to channel her power. Later, I realized that I had discovered a new facet of my powers in that moment, but right then, the only thing about my powers on my mind was the desperate need to keep them from bursting out of control and outing me in front of my worst enemies.

It was a close thing. A lot of my other heroes were too noble to allow themselves to strike at people so much weaker than them in anger, but Medea was not a hero, not in the strictest sense. She had been hurt and punished and betrayed, she had been forced to do terrible things, to kill her own brother in front of her loving father for the sake of a man she had been brainwashed into loving, and when she was no longer needed, when Jason had no longer needed her to steal and swindle kings out of their countries or treasures, she was discarded with no more care than a used up tissue.

Medea was not a hero, she was a victim like myself, a victim who'd been treated even worse than I had, and she did not restrain herself from tearing her enemies apart or taking revenge upon those who wronged her.

"Oh?" The words came out deceptively soft; silk, soaked in venom. "I knew you'd sunk pretty low, Emma, but making fun of me for crying when my mother died? Spilling secrets told to you in the strictest of confidences? Do your friends here realize how heartless you are? Do they know you'll turn on them the minute you've 'outgrown' them, the way you did me?"

Emma and her hangers-on, who had all started laughing at me, suddenly stopped, some of them looking at Emma with surprise, like they hadn't known why, exactly, that line was supposed to be so effective. I barely heard it over the thundering of blood in my ears.

"Would you cry, too, if your mom died?" I asked with a viciousness that felt like it didn't belong to me. It still felt good. "Or your dad? Or maybe you only care about your dad as long as he can get you out of trouble, and if he can't do that for you, he may as well just —"

But Sophia stepped forward, snarling, and came so close to me that I had to take a step back. I could have counted the pores on her nose, if I'd been so inclined. The look in her eyes promised violence as surely as her curled fists.

"A little weakling like you should know better than to talk back to your betters."

A cruel laugh bubbled up in my chest, and I felt my lips part around it as it escaped from my mouth.

"You're right, Sophia, you've just got it the wrong way around. An ignorant thug like you should know better than to think you can talk down to your superiors."

Her eyes flashed dangerously, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw one hand begin to lift. Medea knew what to say to that.

"What are you going to do, Sophia? Punch me? Hit me until I'm black and blue? Put me in the hospital again? You get away with a lot, but do you really think you can claim you were defending yourself or whatever if the only part of you that's bloodied is your knuckles? You really think your posse of pet sociopaths would just sit by and watch, knowing that they could get thrown in jail for it, or that it would only take one bad day, just one bad day, before you beat them up, too? You think the teachers could really ignore something like that happening right in front of them? Then go ahead, Sophia. Do it."

For several long seconds, she looked like she was considering it, like she really, desperately wanted to, but for all of the disparaging comments I might have uttered before about her intelligence, if only in my own head, she wasn't stupid. If she punched me, then all she did was prove me right.

"You see, Sophia, at the end of the day, you're just a high school bully. You and Emma will never be more powerful or more important than you are right now. The height of your life will be whatever trophies you win as a Track star. After that, out in the real world? You'll either be flipping burgers at Fugly Bob's or spreading your legs for the highest bidder."

In the stunned silence that followed, all I could hear was my own heart, pounding away. Some of the posse was gaping, others looked disturbed, and a few even seemed impressed in spite of themselves. I took that moment, with all of them standing there, wide-eyed and shocked, to push past the gaggle of girls and make good my escape. Nobody, not even Sophia, tried to stop me.

I didn't stop at the bottom of the stairs. I didn't stop in the bathroom or an empty classroom. I didn't even stop at the front doors. I just kept going and going, and I didn't stop until Winslow was far behind me and I was safe, safe from them and their retaliation, safe from Emma's words and Sophia's fists, safe from Madison's little pranks.

Then, out there in the open, with my bag slipping from my shoulder and onto the ground, I started laughing. Helplessly, unable to stop, unable to force myself to calm down, I laughed and laughed and laughed. I laughed until I cried, and then I laughed between sobs and sobbed between laughs. I must have looked mad to anyone who saw me.

And underneath all of the hurt and the anger and the fear, a tiny little flame flickered in my stomach and gave me warmth.

So, this was what victory tasted like.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —