Chapter Text
Taylor’s hand bled as she pounded again and again hopelessly on the locker door. She clawed at the narrow vents, desperate for any hint of relief from the metal coffin she was forcefully stuffed into.
“Please let me out! I-I can’t breathe!”
No one came. No one cared enough. No one ever cared enough—not about her. Sixteen months of suffering. Sixteen months of being the school punching bag. And for what? What the fuck could she have possibly done to Emma to deserve this?
“Please! Anyone!”
Was it because of Sophia? Did the chance at being friends with a parahuman seriously outweigh a decade of friendship? How damn shallow could a person possibly be?
“Let me out!”
Taylor slammed her fist into the locker door one last time, her knuckles bleeding profusely. Eyes wet, she leaned her head against it. This was useless. No one was coming. She was alone. Dead mom. Depressed dad. Betrayed by her only friend.
“Let me out…”
Gritting her teeth, Taylor cursed herself for ever letting her think she could dissuade her bullies by ignoring them. That only emboldened them to up the ante. That’s the thing about people in a position of power—about people with powers. They beat down on the weak to keep themselves on top.
“Please…”
Life just isn’t fair. That’s the simple truth of the matter, isn’t it? Who cares if you’re the bigger person if doing so keeps you forever in the dirt? In this world, there are no heroes—only those with power and those without. Fine. Fuck it. Taylor was done being weak. She was done being stepped on. It was clear now. The only person she could rely on was herself. Emma could go to hell for all she cared. Sophia could most definitely go to hell. Taylor would show them what true power looks like. She would show them all.
Taylor screamed.
“LET ME OU—!”
DESTINATION
AGREEMENT
Taylor saw stars as her eyes burned.
January 4th, 2011
Brockton Bay Memorial Hospital
A faint beeping was the first thing Taylor noticed as she slowly came to. A stinging pain behind her eyes was the next thing she noticed, along with the feeling of floating amidst a vast sea of millions of tiny lights.
Putting in the effort, she painstakingly opened her eyes and immediately regretted it when an actual beam of light hit her pupils. She blinked rapidly to clear her vision and slowly took in her surroundings. Based on what she could see through her still somewhat hazy vision, Taylor herself was situated on a raised bed. The hospital gown she wore covered her upper body, while her legs and stomach were hidden underneath a thin white sheet. Given the medical tools on a nearby table and the active health monitors, it was clear she was in the hospital.
“Taylor…?”
She looked up at the sound of her father’s voice in the doorway, a crumbled paper cup in his hand. Taylor opened her mouth to respond, but was immediately interrupted by a loud coughing fit. Her dad rushed to her side and held the cup to her lips, allowing her to take a few small gulps of water to clear her throat.
“T-Thanks, Dad,” Taylor croaked out as she tried again. “How long was I out for?”
Danny didn’t answer right away. Instead, he leaned forward and pulled her into a tight, yet gentle, embrace. Taylor sat limply in her bed as she felt her father’s entire body trembling in overwhelming emotion. “Dad?”
“I thought I lost you,” Danny whispered as he let out a shuttered breath. “When I got the call from Winslow, I imagined the worst. Then when I saw the PRT there, I thought—“
“The PRT?” Taylor interrupted. Wait, were they actually going to do something about Sophia? Taylor seriously doubted it, but a girl could hope. “Why was the PRT there?”
Danny froze and pulled back from the hug. Taylor tried to meet his eyes, feeling rather perturbed after her father flinched when they made eye contact. He looked away, “You… it doesn’t matter right now. Who put you in that locker, Taylor?”
Taylor opened and closed her mouth uselessly. She still hadn’t told him about the bullying. She hunched her shoulders and looked down, “I don’t remember. It was just a stupid prank.”
“A prank?!” Danny roared. “Do you know what we found in that locker, Taylor? I can’t stomach the idea of being in there for longer than a minute, but you were in there for over an hour! The doctors had to get Amy Dallon to purge your system for them, that’s how bad it was!”
Taylor involuntarily shrank back at his tone. Berating herself, she quickly sat back up. No more hiding. No more shrinking away. She needed to face this head-on. She sighed, “Fine. I’ve… been getting bullied at school. It’s gotten pretty bad, but I never thought they’d escalate to this degree.”
Another sharp pain echoed through the back of her head. She sucked in a breath as it felt like her attention was being split a million different ways at once. She pressed a palm to her forehead as the tiny lights from before returned to the forefront, except this time she could feel them moving in relation to one another and herself.
Danny muttered a curse under his breath as he clutched her other hand in his own, “Why didn’t you come to me about this sooner, Little Owl?”
Feeling the pain subside somewhat, Taylor shook her head, “You were still grieving. I… didn’t want to put anything else on your shoulders.” Left unsaid was the fact that Taylor herself was also still grieving the loss of her mother. Except while she had managed to stay mostly functional, her dad had essentially shut down for months on end, forcing Taylor to fend for herself. She’s not bitter about that. Who said she was bitter?
Taylor was thankfully saved from having to continue the conversation by a knock on the open hospital door. She looked up and spotted a nurse standing in the doorway alongside a man in a tight suit. The nurse quickly walked into the room and began checking Taylor’s vitals.
“You should’ve told me she was awake,” the nurse admonished Danny as she fussed with the machine at Taylor’s bedside. “I trust Ms. Dallon’s work, but considering the condition she came here in, I’d rather be safe than sorry. Plus, there’s no telling what kind of power she might have triggered with.“
Taylor stared at the woman for a moment in confusion, “Triggered? Huh?”
Danny winced as the nurse shot him a look, “You didn’t tell her yet?”
“Tell me what? Ow, fuck!” Taylor shouted as another wave of pain crashed through her skull. She squeezed her eyes shut as she clutched her head, trying to ease the incessant throbbing. The tiny lights were constant now, their sheer numbers creating a topographical map of her surroundings in her mind’s eye. She tried to mentally push the ones that were closest to her away and was surprised when they actually listened.
“I think it’s about time you took a look at your reflection, Miss Hebert.”
Squinting her eyes back open, Taylor watched as the man in the suit walked into the room and stood near the foot of her bed. He pulled out a small collapsible mirror from his breast pocket and held it out to her. She carefully reached out a hand and took the small object, glancing at her dad’s conflicted expression once before flipping it open.
Taylor’s mouth parted in shock. She could barely form the thoughts, let alone the words, to express her reaction to her own reflection. It was still the same face she knew and hated—too wide a mouth, perpetual eye bags, and her long black curls were all sorts of tangled. What shocked her, however, were her eyes. Her sclera were now pitch black, and her pupils were a clear white. Her irises, too, were inverted, now boasting a deep purple coloration rather than her usual green.
“How…?”
“You triggered, Miss Hebert,” the man explained as though he’d done this a million times before. “Congratulations. You are a parahuman.”
Taylor looked up at him as the lights in her head started to make a whole lot more sense. “I… I have powers.” She didn’t phrase it as a question.
The man straightened his suit jacket, “Indeed you do. Allow me to introduce myself. I am PRT Agent Howard Kingsley, your temporary transitional case officer and supervisor for the duration of your three-week adjustment period.”
Taylor stared at Kingsley for several seconds as she tried her absolute best to process the utter insanity that had just been thrown in her face. She triggered in the locker. She’s now a parahuman. She has powers. Her eyes are inverted. And there’s a PRT agent in front of her currently waiting for a response. “I, uh, it’s nice to meet you?”
“Noted,” Kingsley nodded, not even looking at Taylor anymore as he tapped away on his phone. “Now, what can you tell me about your power?”
“Hold on just a moment,” Danny butted in. “My daughter just woke up after an extremely traumatic experience—a trigger event no less! Give her some time to recover, and then I’ll decide if you can interrogate her.”
Kingsley’s mouth twisted into a displeased frown as he turned his attention, “This is standard procedure, Mr. Hebert. She has already been added to the National Parahuman Registry. I am just trying to gain a preliminary understanding of her abilities so I can report her threat level back to my superiors.”
“Taylor’s not a threat!” Danny immediately argued back.
“All parahumans are a potential threat, Mr. Hebert—your daughter included.” Kingsley started counting off on his fingers, “Rachel Lindt, Bradley Meadows, Lung. You know exactly what happens when a parahuman goes unchecked in this city.”
Danny bristled, “Taylor’s not a criminal either.”
Kingsley stayed silent for a moment, “No, she is not. And it’s my job to keep it that way.” He turned back toward Taylor and pulled out a notepad. “Now, tell me about your power. I don’t need to know everything; more power testing will come later. I just need to know the basics. What are we dealing with here?”
Uncomfortable at having this much attention placed on her at once, Taylor squirmed slightly in her hospital bed, “I’m not sure yet. I… I can feel a bunch of tiny lights all around me? I can control them, but it hurts to focus on one individually.”
“How many are we talking about? 10? 20?”
Taylor felt even more out of her depth as she answered. “Um, more like millions…?” Wait, how did she know that? Better question: how the hell could her mind even handle that? Powers really are bullshit!
Kingsley paused in his note-taking and stared at her. “Across how big a range?”
Taylor closed her eyes and took note of the topographic map that had formed in her mind, “About 8 city blocks in each direction. I can feel everything moving all around me.” It was kind of beautiful in a way.
She jumped as the nurse moved to her side and directed her to stare at a penlight to test her eye dilation. Taylor obliged, blinking to clear her vision again after the nurse pulled away. Kingsley had a somewhat uneasy expression on his face, “Are these lights of yours invisible? Could you direct one into the room?”
“There’s actually one on the ceiling already. Here, let me just…” Taylor trailed off as she directed the light to lower itself to eye level over her hospital bed. As she told Kingsley, it was a bit strenuous to focus on only one at a time and ignore the rest, but she managed well enough.
A few seconds later, the entire room watched as a regular house spider lowered itself into view. Taylor stared at it in awe for a moment and reached out a hand to catch it. She held the arachnid for a moment, her eyes seeing a spider while her mind saw a pawn of light she could direct. Mentally ordering it to crawl onto her finger, she watched in amazement as the spider did just that. That’s the moment when it truly hit her. Taylor was a parahuman. She had powers. She wasn’t weak anymore.
“Bug control,” Kingsley stated simply as he took note of the interaction. “Not overly powerful on its own, but sheer numbers could make it incredibly deadly. I’ll give it a preliminary Master 5 rating until further testing can be conducted.”
Taylor glanced up from her minion as she remembered her situation, “Oh, is that… bad?”
“Depends on your perspective,” Kingsley admitted. “It’s manageable with the proper precautions, but dangerous if you lose control. That’s what the Wards program is for.”
Taylor felt her face drop. Right… the Wards program. She knew Sophia was an unwilling participant in it due to some sort of court order. She’d overheard enough of her bitching about it to Emma to get the general idea that it wasn’t really meant to help parahuman youth control their abilities. Rather, it more so operated as a means for the PRT to monitor and control when and how they used them. Not exactly an enticing offer, especially if Sophia would be there with her.
“I’ll consider it,” Taylor replied as neutrally as possible.
Kingsley eyed her for a moment before putting away his notepad. The next thing that came out of his mouth was something she knew was coming, but was not at all prepared for how much she would instantly dislike the very idea of it. “Well, I believe that should suffice for your initial interview. All that’s left is to outfit you with a Seeker and I can be on my way.”
Taylor felt her shoulders instantly tense. She’d done research into parahumans before and the laws surrounding them back when she still thought she could get one over on Sophia. The Seekers were… an invasion of privacy to put it lightly—permanent, Tinker-made, metallic tracking bracelets that only the PRT could remove. All parahumans on the National Registry who didn’t want to be labeled as criminals had to have one. Even before triggering as a parahuman herself, Taylor thought it was an extreme violation of personal liberty. It was far, far too invasive for her liking.
“Now, the PRT understands there is a psychological need for parahumans to use their powers,” Kingsley explained, oblivious to Taylor’s internal strife. “You are permitted to use your abilities as you see fit, so long as no laws are broken while doing so. Assuming you follow the rules, the Seeker will merely be a way to prove your innocence should there be a parahuman crime somewhere in the city.”
Danny leaned forward in his seat, “You can’t seriously expect us to agree to that. I understand the need to keep the public safe, but don’t you think this is a step too far?”
“It’s the law, Mr. Hebert,” Kingsley grunted, seemingly annoyed at his blatant disregard for the rules. “Per Section 12-A of the Parahuman Protection Act, any triggered parahuman found without a Seeker, or if a previously issued Seeker is found to have been removed or tampered with, a PRT unit will immediately be dispatched to address the situation.”
In other words, a group of PRT officers would come to arrest her. Of course, even with powers, Taylor is still guilty until proven innocent. Why wasn’t she surprised? She sighed and tilted her head back against the raised hospital bed, staring at the ceiling, “It’s fine, Dad. Let’s just… get it over with.”
Kingsley, apparently, also didn’t like wasting time. He pulled out a thick stack of legal papers from his briefcase and handed them to Danny to read over. Taylor could physically see the moment her father realized he was out of his depth as he read through the documents. Even for the head of hiring for the Dockworkers Association, it was far too much legal nonsense to parse out what the contract was actually saying. He argued that he wasn’t going to sign anything he didn’t fully understand.
In the end, however, her dad caved to Kingsley’s intense pressure campaign and signed on the last page as instructed. The fat stack was then brought over to Taylor’s bedside and Kingsley kindly pointed out where her signature was required—the dick. Inverted eyes staring straight back at him, Taylor slowly picked up the pen and scrawled her excuse for a signature on the indicated line.
Kingsley took the papers with a nod of approval and carefully placed them back into his briefcase, exchanging them for the Seeker. The dreaded piece of metal was surprisingly thin. It was mostly black and silver, with blue LED lights on its sides. Reluctantly, Taylor offered up her right arm.
The Tinker-made elements of the device came to life as soon as the Seeker made contact with her skin. The metal morphed around her wrist, hugging her skin as closely as possible without cutting off her range of motion. In seconds, the thin metallic band had wrapped itself seamlessly around her wrist with no visible lock to even suggest it could be taken off. She looked up at Kingsley as he did something on a separate device to calibrate it. After a moment, he put the other piece of technology away and gave her a once-over.
“That should be all, Miss Hebert,” he stated professionally. “Thank you for your cooperation. I look forward to seeing you again at the PRT building for power testing once you have recovered from the hospital.”
Without waiting for a response, the government agent turned around and calmly walked out of the room, brushing past the nurse as she attempted to take Taylor’s blood pressure. She absentmindedly kept track of the man through her bugs as he ever so slowly made his way out of her range.
“So… bug control, huh?” Danny said in an awkward attempt to start a conversation. “What’s that feel like?”
Taylor peered down at the Seeker attached to her wrist, “It feels like I’m about to start hating the government a whole lot more than the school administration.”