Half a millennium between full inheritors. There were also a handful of partial cases of Six Eyes without Limitless. They were treated like cattle, not subjects of study.
I turned a corner. The van stayed put, but I could feel the whisper of a drone somewhere behind me, a tiny electric whine at the edge of my perception. I ignored it.
The Six Eyes were a blindspot in my own vision, too, so I couldn't just… look at them and analyze what they were made of. I could see my own cursed energy, the neural pathways feeding into the optic nerves, the blood vessels, the bone. And yet, the physical manifestation of the Six Eyes, the thing that made them different, just didn't resolve. It was like pointing a microscope at its own lens. All I got was a blur and a headache.
Best Eyes in the world, but I was going in blind.
I kicked a loose pebble and watched it skitter into a storm drain.
…Maybe it was my fault. Maybe the neural architecture a Gojo inherited wasn't present in Taylor's brain, and our fusion was failing in ways not even I could notice. Maybe I was still calibrating and I could do nothing but wait.
Still, it was frustrating. Capes didn't seem to struggle like this. Even the ones who turned into big scary monsters did it smoothly, but I knew for a fact the guiding principle behind their powers wasn't jujutsu. I'd seen pictures of Lung mutating into some kind of monster on PHO and he was back to normal a week later. There was a self-regulating mechanism there, somewhere, but I couldn't see it working on me.
So, was I a cape? A sorcerer? Something in between? Were the rules of jujutsu and powers clashing inside me? I got the gist from skimming Piggot's books. Something about powers skewing physics and having a hard limit between biological and inert matter. But it was just a prettier way of saying 'we don't know shit'.
I paused at an intersection, waiting for a car to pass. The driver glanced at me and drove on, uninterested.
A lightbulb went on inside my head.
No. If I were fundamentally incompatible with these powers, I'd be dead already. Limitless doesn't do 'halfway'. You either use it or you get a stroke. A functioning technique means the important stuff's working… but I'm missing something here. What, though? I can't just keep losing days staring at a wall.
I stopped walking. I was at the edge of a park, a strip of dead grass and bare trees that gave me a clear sightline toward the downtown towers. The buildings rose in the distance, glass and steel, a cluster of high-rises I'd visited exactly once before, three days ago, when Dad had driven me past.
I licked my lips. Then I looked down at my hands.
Meditation helped, but not enough. I needed a different approach.
…The 'Satoru' way, then.
I lifted my hands and clasped them together, interlocking my fingers. I spread my feet just enough they aligned with my shoulders.
If the problem is that my brain and the Six Eyes aren't talking to each other properly… I'll just set them up on a blind date.
I tilted my head, nudged my sunglasses down my nose with a sharp nod, and fixed my bare Eyes on the distant skyline.
Compressing space into itself with Blue wasn't too hard. Vacuum collapse leads to destruction, and that's about it. But, scale it differently, compress the distance between two points instead of crushing the point through itself… and you get displacement.
The problem here was the blueprint, though. At this range, Blue needed exact coordinates only the Six Eyes could provide. The texture of the air, the precise angle of a windowsill, the way light bends around a particular corner, all those mattered, and without a clear view of the finishing line, it was hard to start.
Taylor's memories were useless. They were static images, not spatial data. I needed something my body had physically occupied, and fortunately enough, I had the perfect 3D model of Downtown Brockton Bay from three days ago stored inside my brain. It wasn't enough to do it with my Eyes closed, but it was a coordinate anchored in experienced space all the same.
One street might be enough if I aimed high. In the rare case I overshot, I'd end up on a rooftop, not inside a wall.
Or a person.
I angled my gaze upward. I expanded my bubble of sensation.
Two miles. I used to feel up to three clearly, back when I had my full powers. The edges were getting fuzzier past one-point-eight miles, the finer details dissolving. I could choose a destination within this radius…
…The Medhall building.
Top floors. One of those windows was real. I could feel the faint shimmer of glass, the temperature differential between the heated interior and the January air, the way the wind wrapped around the southeast corner.
Enough to build a tunnel.
Cursed energy flowed upward into the brain and Eyes.
Back then, I didn't need the full incantation. But the words were a crutch now. They would give this body a rhythm to follow, an image to conjure.
Okay. Let's do this. Pavlov the nervous system until it remembers the trick on its own.
"Cicada Shell." A translucent husk. The cast-off skin of something that no longer occupied the space it left. I visualized my own form as a hollow imprint, a negative shape standing on the sidewalk.
"Shrinking Earth." The sage who crosses a thousand miles in a single stride. The journey, reduced to a second.
"Void Crossing." Between here and there… nothing. Zero distance. No obstacles. There was only the endpoint.
A buzz thrummed behind my Eyes, sharp and resonant, like a tuning fork pressed to the inside of my skull. The point I was staring at seemed to pinch inward, as if an invisible hand were folding the world like a piece of paper. A flicker of azure light, impossibly far and yet immediate, winked at the end of that path.
I clasped my hands tighter.
I lifted my foot… and exhaled.
"Blue."
Whoosh.
There was a sound like air rushing past me.
For a fraction of a second, there was no ground under me. My instincts shrieked falling and Infinity snapped on without conscious command, preventing a fall between my feet and the void. I hung there, suspended… and gravity returned.
I was standing. Not on a sidewalk, or a rooftop, but on the air itself.
In front of me, a window. A very specific window, floor-to-ceiling, polished to a mirror sheen. Behind that window, a spacious office. Computer, desk, a golden little statuette of an eagle, an old painting depicting the death of Baldur…
…And staring at me, two sky-blue eyes.
I blinked.
The man behind the window blinked back, strangely composed. He was tall, handsome, with sharp eyes and high cheekbones, wearing the crispest suit I'd seen in a while. He also had a strong jaw. His blond hair was finely cut into something that screamed 'professional'. Maybe the CEO? Or maybe just one of Medhall's businessmen.
I looked down. The cars on the streets were tiny from this height.
I looked back up at the man. I offered an awkward smile as I adjusted my sunglasses and, very slowly, very awkwardly, reduced Infinity to go down.
"Sorry, sorry~" I said. "Wrong floooooooor~"
I felt the man wave at me slowly before I yanked myself somewhere safer with Blue.
"Scream and you're dead, bitch."
Infinity caught the shape of a knife trying to poke my back. It was serrated, three-and a-quarter inches long, something I could probably fish out of my own kitchen. The kid holding it couldn't have been older than thirteen. His hand trembled, but he stood close, and there were enough people around that asking for help would've been awkward. If I'd needed it.
His free hand swiped toward my pocket and Infinity blocked him. He tried again, frustrated, fingers clutching at empty air. I watched the traffic light tick to red.
"Man, you just had to find the worst person to rob." I yawned, not turning.
"Shut it!" he hissed. His hand kept swiping at nothing, never closer to stealing my wallet. "Why can't I…!"
"Zeno's Paradox," I said. "Ever heard of it?"
"The fuck?" He finally looked at me instead of the wallet he couldn't reach. "What the hell are you—"
"Yeah, I thought so."
I elbowed him in the nose, not hard enough to break, just enough to make it sting. He doubled over with a curse, knife clattering to the ground. I crossed the street without looking back.
A patrol car sat half a block ahead. I considered it for a moment, then walked over. The two officers inside were debating whether Alexandria or Narwhal had the better ass. I knocked on the glass. One of them rolled the window down with a grimace.
"Need something, citizen?"
I smiled. "Yeah. Hey, there's this guy who just tried to rob me at knifepoint, and—"
"Get in line, Lennon," the one at the driver seat said. "You look fine from where I'm sitting."
"...A'ight." I raised an eyebrow. "Quick question. Ain'tcha ashamed to be a fucking parasite? My dad works his ass off so the government can pay your wages and this is how you behave? I'm fifteen and nearly got robbed."
The officer put a hand over his holstered gun. "Keep walking."
I raised my hands, still smiling, and did exactly that.
Brockton Bay's finest, ladies and gents!
I walked on.
Downtown announced itself in reflective glass and curated wealth. I scanned them. The high-rises glittered, but at street level the grime climbed the stone in layers, dark stains I could read like tree rings. A Mercedes idled at the curb, fresh wax, the driver's shoes worth more than most people's rent.
A PRT van rumbled past me, third one I'd seen since I'd set foot on the ground. The patrol frequency was higher than I remembered. It didn't feel like safety. More like… a wounded animal puffing itself up, all noise and bulk, hoping the predators wouldn't notice the limp. I heard no sirens so Piggot probably had a day off from problems. Good for her!
The Boardwalk opened up ahead minutes later, a long stretch of shops clinging to the coastline with the kind of bright, anxious cheer that came right before a panic attack.
I drifted past a food stand, something Korean-themed. The proprietor flashed me a smile that didn't reach his endocrine system, cortisol humming, pupils shrinking. I decided to be nice, flashed my debit card at him, and got me a couple warm Hotteok for the trouble.
A gust rolled in from the harbor as I ate. Brine, diesel, and underneath both, something metallic. Rust. The Six Eyes ran the simulation without asking: one bad storm, a twelve-foot swell, and these shops would be drinking seawater.
I stopped at the railing, rested my elbows on it, and let the view assemble itself. The Protectorate headquarters sat out on the oil rig, a tinkertech jewel wrapped in its forcefield bubble. From here it looked permanent, maybe even inspiring. I ran a quick calculation on how much reinforcement my fist would need to punch through the shell. Then I wondered if symbolism was just cheaper than armor.
A gull landed on the rail three feet to my left. It gave me a hard look, decided I wasn't a source of food, then looked at my half-eaten Hotteok, and decided it wasn't worth the trouble, so it flew off.
Good bird.
After a couple more sweet bites, I thought about Dad.
The word still sat strange in my mind. I'd stress-tested the love. It held against my cynicism. That wasn't the question. The question was what you did with love in a city that treated it like a liability, where the cops told you to get in line, where a thirteen-year-old with a gunked-up knife thought your wallet was worth more than his safety, and where the ocean was just waiting for permission to swallow the pretty parts.
Is this the place I want for someone I love?
I mussed about that as I walked in another direction.
A wrong turn too far northwest and the omnipresent graffiti shifted tone. Less 'art', more 'ownership'.
I came across crooked swastikas, the paint drips indicating an unsteady right hand and a lack of artistic commitment. There were charming phrases about racial purity written by people who probably couldn't define the word, and a couple ungrammatical slogans. 'We was here first and we was supreme'. Nice penmanship, Hans. Really selling the Master Race right there.
Another block, another direction, and the tags swapped to red and green. I found Japanese characters, some Mandarin, and a splash of Korean. The ABB's territorial pissings. No racial supremacy here; that would've been the funniest joke of the century. They weren't stupid enough to claim purity while being a demographic fondue.
The colors could change. The aesthetic may've shifted a bit. The cancer was the same.
Stupid, desperate people playing gangster. Make-believe gangsters forcing innocent people into becoming gangsters. Pieces of shit making gangsters kill and die for them for the sake of profit.
…If curses had existed in this world, Brockton Bay would be a disaster zone.
In Japan, containment was achievable. I knew the structure of the Japanese zeitgeist, I could predict the type of emotions festering in the public, and I had an idea of the shape curses could take. I'd cut them down by the dozens. Even then, a full purge was inefficient. Clear the board at night, and it resets by midday.
America was a different beast. I'd never thought about it much growing up, but now, with an adult's perspective, the contrast hit much harder. Violence here wasn't a Freudian nightmare, but background radiation. Economic instability, generalized anger, chronic apathy… it was the kind of environment that, in my previous life, would've produced something interesting to exorcise.
The real issue was that Brockton Bay wasn't even the worst-case scenario. It was the average.
There was the Elite on the West Coast playing villain Monopoly and running circles around the government. There was the Slaughterhouse Nine, of which I'd shared horror stories with Emma once, because it was better to turn them into scary what-ifs than acknowledging that the real versions were infinitely worse. There was Nilbog in Ellisburg, and Heartbreaker up in Canada, and…
…None of those were curses. They were people. And they were all over the planet.
I could probably go on a global cleanup, given time. But without allies, I'd just be playing whack-a-mole with the worst people on Earth. And I'm not at full power. Lung might be manageable. The Slaughterhouse Nine? Maybe. Eidolon, if he happens to dislike me? Genuinely not sure.
The thoughts spiraled. I mean, hell, I was fifteen, even if I felt three decades older. At some point the logistics felt slightly overwhelming. Infinity and Blue could go a long way in destroying problems, but not solving them.
And yet… I had been the Strongest.
It was a cool title, sure, but it was also the job description. And in my professional opinion, you didn't just get to retire because the rules changed. I had to do something, never mind Piggot's orders to stay away from parahumans.
So, instead of fixing the world, why not fix the neighborhood?
Where do I apply pressure first, though?
The ABB was the obvious candidate. Their very existence offended me personally. Watching someone from my side of the pond turn teens into a racist's caricature of the Yakuza irritated me at a level that wasn't purely logical anymore. Culling them would provide local relief, a visible impact.
But Empire Eighty-Eight was bigger. They had more capes, more territory, a unified ideology no matter how shitty, and—I'd bet my debit card on this one—friends in the government. Piggot didn't strike me as a fascist, but the PRT had to be riddled with moles. Hunting them down would mean systemic disruption, higher resistance… and better long-term gains.
"Choices, choices…" I mumbled to myself, flexing my fingers inside my pockets.
ABB first, and the Empire fills the vacuum. Empire first, and Lung rushes in to take a bite out of the chaos. Maybe a little blitzkrieg against both? It's tempting, but I'm still one body. If I pit them all against me so quickly… might be messy. The PRT's not gonna help me here, either. And I don't have a costume.
I hummed.
"...Do I even want a costume?"
Nobody said it was a requirement to be a cape. The risk was obvious, though: no secret identity, no insurance Dad wouldn't get caught up in the trouble.
I weighed my options.
Then, a sharp cry cut through my thoughts.
I turned my head towards the source like a compass needle. Female, young, pitch suggesting either fear or pain, originating approximately two blocks southwest. The echo off the brick suggested an alley or a recessed doorway.
I finished the last of my Hotteok and pocketed the tissue wrappings in my back pocket.
…Well. I let a slow grin pull at the corner of my mouth. Someone just volunteered to help me make up my mind.
I clasped my hands together, fingers interlocking with a snap.
I didn't need a mental model for this. A city block was just a series of straight lines if I didn't care much about elegance.
The first Blue appeared in the air a street away from me. I stepped into it and it slingshotted me across. The second manifested as soon as my sneakers kissed the pavement, hurling me into the next waypoint. I had to aim the third to avoid a pedestrian cluster. Some people noticed me, but by the time their eyes reached me, I was already somewhere else. No panic, no phones, no attention… excellent.
By the fourth Blue, I was at the mouth of an alley that smelled like an ashtray had a baby with a dumpster. I detected more graffiti, fast-food wrappers on concrete, and the distinct iron-tang of blood. It was fresh, maybe two minutes old, volume small enough to be a split lip. I saw a discarded backpack that looked too new to be abandoned.
I rolled my shoulders and cracked my knuckles.
"Okay," I said. "Time to be a hero."
I took one stop forward… and stopped.
"...I've never made a heroic entrance."
Sorcerers didn't give speeches. They just showed up and killed curses. Maybe… copy Alexandria? No, too silent, too statuesque. I didn't have the jawline for it yet, and besides, it was a bit boring. I needed a gimmick. Something simple to kickstart my legend.
A memory flickered as an answer: Emma, six years old, wrapping a towel around my shoulders like a cape. 'You be the brave knight, Taylor! I'll be the princess!' I'd hammed it up then, all chivalric declarations and plastic-sword bravado. It was ridiculous, but, hey, it was a start.
I nodded to myself. Then, I cleared my throat, rolled my shoulders back, and stepped into the alley, one fist on my hip, jabbing a finger towards the alley's depths.
"IN THE NAME OF SUGAR AND ANIME, STOP RIGHT THERE!"
Nailed it.
The alley's geometry unfurled before me: three heat signatures clustered on one side, a fourth crumpled low against the wall, heart rate elevated to one hundred and forty beats per minute.
The three standing were… a pure sample of the Empire's recruitment pool. Black leather jackets, bad ink, the specific flavor of swastika that gets drawn by someone who learned it from a photocopy.
One was the Aryan ideal come to life: blond, blue-eyed, his face a constellation of cheap piercings that made him look less 'master race' and more 'got into a fight with a stapler'. The second was bald, built like a refrigerator, probably menacing until you noticed he had a bit of a lazy eye. The third was a woman with short black hair, cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass. She had a face that might've been dignified in another life, but here it looked like she peaked in high school and never got over it.
My Eyes glanced at the fourth figure, slumping against the wall.
A girl, maybe my age. She was wearing a turtleneck sweater and jeans, long dark hair half-covering a face that was trying very hard to be brave. I saw the red of blood on her lip, and a bruise blooming on her cheek. Her eyes, grey-blue, snapped towards me with a sort of desperate hope.
I pursed my lips, slid my hands into my pockets, and sauntered forward.
"Stop right there, dudes, and dudette!" I pitched my voice into a mock-authoritative register, the one I'd used to tease Nanami about his tie. "Stop doing… whatever it is yer doing! Or I'll get really mad!"
The cardboard Nazis turned to me. Baldie's eyes went wide, and he elbowed Blondie. "Yo, check it out! My man Adonis escaped outta the museum."
The woman scoffed, crossing her arms. "Adonis, he says."
Baldie spread his arms. "Well, watchu call him then?"
"Use your eyes you twat." She jabbed two fingers toward her own face. "Adonis here is a gal. Unless she's really confused about what she is. Then we have a different issue."
I giggled and dabbed at my hair.
"Now, now, meine dudes! Don't let my sunny disposition and short hair fool ya. A trip to the hospital 'n' a date with a razor leave anyone like this. I'm a girls, yeah?"
My body is a girl's, technically speaking. Everything else is… imported. And complicated. And really weird. Wait, am I girl? A man? A girl-man? A man-girl? No... a were-man-girl, heh.
Blondie stepped closer. His fingers drifted toward my hair like I was a zoo exhibit. I inched back just enough for his hand to pass through empty hair.
"That dyed?" he asked before he snapped his fingers. "No, wait, wait… Albino?"
The woman hummed. "She's a mutant, then."
"A snowgirl, a snowgirl!" Baldie chimed in, grinning with teeth in dire need of a dentist. "Melts under the sun. Literally."
I had a strong feeling 'mutant' was completely unrelated to parahumans. And I had a stronger feeling they weren't really complimenting me.
After considering, I tilted my sunglasses down with a finger. That gave them a clear view of the Six Eyes.
"How far're you guys in biology?" I asked. "Albinos don't come with these."
The reaction was immediate. There were whistles, and a muttered "damn" from the woman. Blondie fumbled for his phone, his expression shifting from thuggish to almost boyish.
"Pretty cool. Take the glasses off," he ordered more than asked. "I wanna see 'em better. We should take a picture too."
"Send it to me later!" Baldie added as he got closer.
The woman laughed softly as she strutted to my side. "Make a funny face, freak."
I blinked once, then twice.
…Okay, I'm in an alleyway with three Nazis and they wanna take a picture with me. Can't say this is the weirdest that's happened to me.
I shrugged and smiled.
"S-Sure, help yourself, I guess."
We posed. Blondie threw an arm that I let hover just shy of my shoulders, Infinity maintaining a subtle but definitive gap. The woman leaned in, throwing a peace sign that clashed magnificently with her Iron Cross pendant. Baldie's grin stretched wide enough to crack. Meanwhile, the girl on the ground was glaring at me, hope curdling into betrayal, or maybe just exhaustion.
I caught her eye and winked.
After a few selfies, I stepped away from them.
"So, what's the sitch? What's going on?"
Blondie shrugged, pocketing his phone. "Nothing, actually. We were just having a smoke. Chilling. And then this fucking kike came here—"
He lashed out with a kick at the girl, aiming for her shin. He missed but she let out a tiny whimper anyway.
"—And she gave us lip," he continued. "'Oh, no, you can't say this or that, how dare you, it's wrong.' Butting into a private conversation is one thing. Forcing her fucking opinions on us like we care is the line."
He spat on the ground near the girl.
"But I guess they just don't teach these things some manners."
"It's not like we said anything bad. We were just doing math," the woman added, her tone dripping with faux-innocence. "Two dead niggers is better than one. At least there are capes removing the rot where it's actually at, I'd say."
I felt my Eyes twitch.
"Whoa, whoa, okay…" I said, raising my hands. "...Lemme get this straight. You guys are these, watchamacallit, uh… White Nationalists? White pride, white glory, white everything?"
They exchanged glances, a silent conference of smirks, then nodded in unison. "Uh-huh."
"Uh-huh," I echoed. "So that means that, in a sense, you don't like the color black, yeah?"
They stared at me for longer. They laughed, low and oily.
"You could say that," Blondie replied, grinning. "It's more nuanced than that, but yeah."
I tried not to snort. I took a deep breath before speaking.
"...Got it. So, quick question for ya, guys. What's your favorite color? You can choose only one!"
Even more laughter. Sensing they were in some sort of joke, they humored me.
"White. Only correct answer," Blondie declared.
"Yeah, it's a no-brainer," the woman purred. "White."
Baldie's grin didn't waver. "Not tryna be boring here, but… white."
I clapped, the sound sharp in the alley's close air.
"Sweet! Now, my favorite color! That would be, hmmm… Blue."
I raised my hand toward the sky.
The air warped and all three of them left the ground. There was a distortion, a sound like the world inhaling sharp, and then there was screaming. Three voices, three bodies, flailing against an invisible pull that hauled them skyward. Their insults shifted into shrieks, and I caught one or two pleas for mercy. I lowered my hand, but kept Blue going in the background so they wouldn't drop.
Yet.
The girl on the ground stared up, mouth open, eyes wide as dinner plates. She slapped both hands over her mouth, muffling what might've been a laugh or a gasp or both.
"Hoo boy," I mumbled. "Alright, der gang! Ze Nazis have been dealt wiz."
I turned to the girl on the ground.
The Six Eyes swept over her automatically. Microtremors in the hands, shallow breathing, uneven pulse, localized swelling along the cheekbone, minor laceration on the lip. Nothing immediately life-threatening. That was good.
But…
…There was something else.
I rifled through Taylor's memories, pulling up faces from Winslow, from the bus, from the neighborhood. Had I seen her somewhere? The brain was prone to false positives, especially with facial recognition.
I tipped my sunglasses down and gave her my best disarming smile.
"Heeeeeeey," I started, finger guns deployed. "Are you okay, uh… Rebecca! Beckieeeeee! Didja think I'd just leave you for the wolves, Beckie? C'mon, we go way back, you and I~"
The girl stared at me from where she was, one hand cupping her cheek like she could hold the pain in place. Her eyebrow lifted. She drew her knees close against her chest.
"M-My… My name is Charlotte."
"CHARLIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" I threw my arms wide. "Char-char, Carla, my good ol' friend Charlemagne! Didja think I'd leave you to the wolves, Charlie? Hehehe, look at your face, there, I was just pullin' yer leg. I'd never forget my best buddy's name~"
I dropped beside her without asking. Charlotte flinched at the proximity, a two-inch recoil, but held her ground.
"You're… you're a cape? A hero?" Her tongue darted across the split in her lip. "I thought you were with the Empire."
"That's so racist, Charlie." I pressed a hand to my chest. "Just 'cause I'm white doesn't mean I'm a Nazi! Have you no shame? I'll have you know that's called stereotyping. Do I look like a stereotype to ya?"
I opened my arms wide as if presenting myself. Charlotte eyed me suspiciously.
"...Honestly, you just look like you escaped a psychiatric ward."
"A psych—! How rude! And I just saved ya!" I leaned back dramatically. "Fine! Next time the Hitlerjugend wanna redecorate the alley with your organs, I'll just walk on by! Humor is dead. Society has fallen…"
I crossed my arms and made a show of huffing, my lower lip jutting in a theatrical pout. I flicked a glance at her and saw her smiling faintly. I let my own grin break through the act.
"Just kidding, just kidding. Soooo, hey, wazzup? Why are you in an alley beefing with white supremacists? I mean, sure, I understand the impulse. You see 'em Nazis dolling themselves up, putting on their cute little jackets and their cute little studs and their shiny chains and skulls and… well, you just wanna make 'em explode to see all the glitters flying about! They're like piñatas if the piñata had a funny moustache."
I pressed two fingers above my lip, thrust my chin out, and snapped a salute so crisp it would've gotten me court-martialed in any timeline. Charlotte laughed, louder this time, almost surprised with herself. She shook her head, still dabbing at her eyes with the back of her hand.
"…When you put it like that, yeah," she sniffed. "I kinda got myself into this."
She pulled in a shuddery breath.
"I was heading back from school," she continued. "Took a detour, saw them, and… I knew they meant bad business. People like that don't need a reason to beat you up, you know? A wrong look's enough."
I nodded, stretching my legs out, hands resting on my thighs.
"But then I heard what they were saying. About Mallory Renshaw. And her kid." Her jaw tightened. "And I just… snapped. Said some things I shouldn't have. Nearly got in deep until you came along. Thanks, by the way."
I tapped my fingers against my thigh.
"Yer welcome," I said. "Who's Mallory Renshaw?"
Charlotte's head swiveled toward me.
"Are you for real?"
I gave her a guilty grin and a shrug that I hoped read as 'oops' rather than 'I've been dissociating in my bedroom for a week'.
"Mallory Renshaw!" she repeated, as if volume could bridge the gap.
"I dunno who that is."
"She died!" Charlotte's voice spiked, the words tearing out of her like they'd been waiting. "It happened last week! Those Empire animals killed her!"
Oh.
"Alright, okay, I see what's going on." I raised my hands, palms out. "I was in a coma last week."
"Stop with the jokes, it's not funny!"
"N-No, no, word, I was in a literal coma." I leaned toward her. "Cross my heart. I woke up and I had powers. Now I'm here."
Charlotte leaned back, arms crossing.
"How can you not know?"
"Yeah, heh, I'm gonna be honest…" I let myself shrink a little. "This is the first day I walk outta home on my own. The city's kinda big, there's too many details and my brain's still buffering, so… I really didn't notice. What's the story? Promise I won't joke 'round."
Charlotte glared at me for a long moment. I held her gaze without blinking. After a bit, she deflated, the tension draining out of her shoulders in a wave that left her looking smaller and infinitely more tired.
"There was a fight between the ABB and the Empire last week. I guess it was about territory, or maybe it was about one gang raiding another's drug warehouse. Doesn't matter. There were capes, explosions, the whole circus…"
Her jaw tightened, the muscles bunching visibly beneath her skin. Her hands clenched into fists, knuckles going pale.
"...A pregnant woman was caught in the crossfire. That was Mallory. They just… split her in half, all over the street. A classmate showed me some pictures. Now I can't unsee it. It's just so…"
She shuddered, a full-body tremor, and wrapped her arms around herself. A second later, she jabbed a finger at the sky where the skinheads were still flailing.
"Did you hear what those bastards said? 'Two dead niggers is better than one'." She bit her lip. "How do you even think like that? She was a mother. To them, she was… a thing. And now she's just dead and so is her baby."
Charlotte swallowed, shivering.
"I hate violence," she admitted. "But I couldn't just do nothing while they said those things. I could've been killed if I were at the wrong place at the wrong time. So I snapped and they… punched me, and dragged me by the hair a whole two streets. Not my smartest move."
She huffed, the sound hollow, and stared down at the ground. "But, what would you know? You're a cape. You have powers. I'm sure it's nice to feel all-powerful. Not being the one who gets hurt."
I didn't answer right away.
I… wasn't good at this. The comfort thing.
Mom died and I learned to stop talking about it because Dad didn't know what to say. Satoru was even worse. His playbook for tragedy had exactly one page: crack a joke, find the curse responsible, and delete it.
And that was utterly useless right now.
Charlotte wasn't looking for a curse to exorcise. She wasn't even looking for vengeance. She was just thinking about a dead woman she never met and a baby that never got to be born, trying to figure out why things like that could happen. I didn't have to explain to my students why evil existed or why some enemies deserved no mercy. As Taylor, I never had the time or energy to think about it.
Still. I could at least try.
I took a deep breath, feeling my ribs expand, the cold air moving through me like a slow river.
"Look, Charlie… Charlotte," I corrected. "I get it. Being treated like an object. I may not look like it right now, but I've been stepped on by people I trusted."
Charlotte raised her head. Her eyes found mine, and I met them without flinching
"You don't treat someone like garbage unless something's already broken upstairs," I continued, tapping my temple. "At some point, hurting people stops feeling like a line you can cross and starts feeling normal. Especially if you don't mind being on the receiving end yourself."
I leaned back slightly, keeping my tone easy.
"Point is, don't fry your brain trying to reverse-engineer idiots," I said. "You're frustrated, right? That's because your idea of the world still includes things like 'people matter.' Congratulations. You're ahead of the curve. Oh, and—"
I pointed a finger at her.
"—I'm not gonna feed you that 'don't stoop to their level' garbage," I added. "Sometimes? Yeah. Violence happens. Sometimes it's even necessary. What matters is why you're violent. Lose that, and you're not protecting people anymore. You're just… picking targets. I guess even these Nazis would lose their mind if their pregnant sister was killed."
She studied me again, longer this time. The Six Eyes studied her back, catching the dilation of her pupils, the skepticism lingering.
"...That's easy for you to say," Charlotte remarked. "You threw them into the sky like… like they were toys. I couldn't do anything. I just stayed here and took it all until you came along. And I'm supposed to smile and say 'teehee thank you'? I am thankful, but, damn, I'm also really fucking scared. And angry. And I don't think I can spend time thinking how to be a better person than a Nazi while also trying not to die to them."
I licked my lips as I considered my next words.
"Yeah. There are people who're stronger than you. Loads of 'em," I said. "I'm not telling ya to take it lying down. I'm just saying strength isn't all there is to it. Sure, you don't have powers, but you could make a difference some other way. You could be smarter. You could, I dunno, not pick fights with fascists on the street. Can't make the world a better place if yer dead. My two cents."
Charlotte flinched a bit at that, but stayed silent. I hummed.
"Yer frustrated with the way things are? Yer scared because nobody's gonna fix it?" I asked, slowly. "What if someone does? You could pick up the pace when things are quieter."
She leveled me with another frustrated glare. Her hand did a sweep of the alleyway like showing me something.
"In case you haven't noticed, I nearly got pulped," she said. "Brockton Bay's got heroes. They're fine, maybe, but… not enough."
"Then how about someone else?"
She raised an eyebrow. "Who?"
I pointed a finger at myself and smiled. Charlotte groaned, shaking her head.
"Sure," she muttered. "Leave the city to a nutcase who makes dumb jokes. I feel saved already."
I shrugged, huffing. "Tough crowd. I'm serious, though. Leave 'em to me and I'll have 'em running by yesterday. Wanna bet? Let's bet! I bet you a fiver I'll make the Nazis look like the victims on the news~"
She kept staring at me with a dry expression that steadily turned into cautious acceptance, then something like relief. A shy smile broke through the bruise.
"...I guess some hope is better than none," she said. "Sorry for snapping at you. And, thank you, uh…"
"Taylor," I supplied, easy grin back in place.
Her expression flickered. A gulp. Her eyes narrowed, and I caught the spark of recognition before she could fully smother it down.
"O-Oh… you're… I didn't…"
I smirked and leaned closer, letting a little of the cartoon energy seep back in. "Aha! So you do know me! Spill the beans, now, Charlie~"
But she didn't rise to the bait. She shook her head. Her gaze snagged on my sunglasses, then down, in a particular way that reminded me of… a kicked puppy, or a scolded child, maybe. Something like shame.
"…N-No. Never mind," she muttered. "Got you mixed up with someone else."
A lie, obviously. But I didn't need to confront her about it right now.
"There, there~" I said, patting her shoulder gently. "Go home. Someone's probably freaking out wondering where you are."
I jerked a thumb toward the street.
"Want an escort, or you good?"
"I can do it," she said, standing slowly. Her smile was steadier now. "I'll just… avoid starting fights with Nazis on the way home. Thanks again, Taylor. I'll… see you around, I guess."
I watched her go, tracked her jog down the alley, the way she burst out onto the sidewalk, picked her dropped backpack and merged with the thin afternoon crowd, her heart rate dropping to baseline as she put distance between herself and this place. I kept my Eyes on her for two blocks, three, until she turned onto a street with enough witnesses that nobody would try anything.
I exhaled and tilted my head back toward the clouded sky.
Pay my dad's bills, and I'll give you a city worth living in.
I did promise Piggot that.
…Well. No better time to start earning my keep.
I got to my feet, dusting alley grit from my jeans with two sharp slaps. Then I raised my hand and yanked, Blue responding with a downward tug, reeling the three skinheads back from the sky. They tumbled into the alley, limbs tangled, faces bleached of color. The screaming had stopped sometime during my conversation with Charlotte, replaced by a wet, shivering silence.
I marched toward them, hands in my pockets, pace unhurried. They flinched when I stopped.
"Okay!" I clapped once, cheerful. "My good neo-Nazi associates… it's time for a team meeting!"
I raised my hand.
Blue gathered in my palm. It hummed a dangerous sound.
All three flinched in sync again.
"I'm gonna need names," I said brightly. "Addresses. Affiliations. Social clubs. Favorite coffee orders if you're feeling thorough. Anything that might make my job a lil' easier."
I tilted my head, smile widening just enough to show teeth.
"And if you're particularly smart," I added, "you'll consider a full aesthetic rebrand effective immediately."
I took another step closer. My voice dropped half a degree.
"Start talking, Hans."
"What is the meaning of this?"
Max's voice came out lower than intended, dulled by the steel of his helmet. It carried anyway. Hookwolf's grunt answered him, gesturing ahead. Muscles shifted across his bare back, taut and defined even in the thin wash of moonlight. Silver gleamed along the edges of his wolf mask, catching on strands of long blond hair.
"Asked myself the same question," Hookwolf replied. "First I thought it was Lung and I called reinforcements, in case he wanted a round two. But this isn't how he moves. And unless he was fighting someone else…" He nudged a chunk of broken masonry with his foot. "...Nothing's burnt. Not a scorch mark anywhere."
Max nodded slowly and stepped forward, gravel and powdered brick crunching beneath his boots.
"Could be a Brute's work," he considered. "Fenja, Menja… have you come across anyone, not a hero, who could do this? Someone with a recent grudge? Or perhaps Coil might have hired some muscle. If it were the Protectorate they would've set up a perimeter already."
Two sets of footsteps fell into rhythm behind him.
"No, Kaiser," Menja said, her voice calm but tight.
"We would know if there was someone this strong," Fenja added, an edge of unease slipping through.
A scoff cut in from the side.
"I've got an idea." Stormtiger's voice carried a low, irritated edge. Bare-chested like Hookwolf, his tiger mask turned toward the ruin. "It was someone who knew where our warehouses were. Someone with a bright idea who wanted to make a statement."
"Simmer down, Tiger," Krieg muttered, adjusting the collar of his coat. "Purity had nothing to do with this. She may not run with us anymore… but she's not against us. She wouldn't gain anything with this either."
Stormtiger huffed, something halfway to a laugh. "Right. Then what? The Undersiders?"
Hookwolf hummed a low, metallic sound. "Bitch could've managed it. Her mutts pack a punch…"
Max raised a hand, and the speculation died. Without turning, he spoke into the quiet.
"Cricket. Do you sense anything unusual nearby? Anyone lying in wait? Perhaps they've set up an ambush."
A few feet away, Cricket let the silence stretch. Her eyes slid shut beneath the metal cage of her mask, head tilting as if listening for something only she could hear.
A moment passed. She shook her head.
"Nothing, Kaiser. It's just us."
Max nodded and let his gaze settle on the scene before them.
One of their warehouses… obliterated. Not simply broken into; the entire wall where the entrance had been was torn away, leaving a cavernous wound in the structure. Powdered brick drifted in small dunes across the ground. Inside, crates that had held firearms were splintered, the weapons inside twisted into chunks of useless, knotted alloy. Elsewhere, sealed containers of product had been flung aside, their contents scattered in heaps, or simply reduced to debris.
Not a fight. Just… destruction.
Purposeless destruction, a naive mind would've thought, but Max was not naive.
The Empire's small, liminal corner of the south Docks had always carried a certain brine-and-rust smell, but here it mixed with dust and the faint, sour tang of spilled chemicals. The scent was as much of a clue as the scene itself. Someone set this up. They did not take anything. So, a message, possibly.
His gaze swept the area once more. Then he looked up.
The night was vast and cloudless, the moon riding high in its first quarter, half light and half shadow.
He squinted against the dark, and for a fleeting second thought he caught a tiny blot of movement high above. A dark speck, far too high to make out. It was gone as soon as he spotted it.
Max considered for a moment. A second later, he gestured for the others to follow and walked into the shell of the warehouse.
One surviving light buzzed erratically, flickering on and off and carving the destruction in brief, jagged flashes. More weapons ruined. More product trashed. It could have been the aftermath of a brawl, but there were no scorch marks, no bullet holes, no signs of struggle. The ruin was absolute.
He stopped somewhere in the middle, the others drawing close.
Then, a metallic screech.
Heads snapped left, right, seeking the offending sound. The capes stood at ready.
Max felt it before he saw it, his power prickling through the building's steel frame, brushing against something other.
He looked up.
The ceiling groaned at its center, once, twice. Then it folded. As if a giant's hand had seized the metal and was crushing it smaller and smaller, crimping girders like tinfoil. The remaining walls shuddered. Bolts sheared with sharp pops. Steel and corrugated panels tore free and spiraled upward, collapsing into a tight, shrieking point.
The structure screamed under the strain, and the ceiling blasted open.
The night sky spilled in yet again. And there, standing above them all…
Max blinked.
The image refused to settle. It didn't match what he'd glimpsed outside of his office window earlier in the morning even though he knew, with spine-chilling certainty, that it was the exact same person.
A white t-shirt over a black long-sleeve. Jeans, slightly scuffed at the knees. Pale skin, short hair the color of fresh snow, and round sunglasses dark as ink. The figure tilted their head, angling their face toward the group below.
Luminous blue eyes locked onto Max from behind the lenses.
The figure, the kid, smiled at them, teeth on full display.
"You guys," her voice echoed down, light and razor-sharp, "are gonna have the worst night of your lives~"