Fortuna (Worm alt!power)

Finally, Taylor had the privacy of the bathroom to eat her lunch. She’d only siphoned a little off of a lot of people over the day so she could pull off getting here without getting caught by the Trio. It was fine, Taylor justified to herself, because no one would notice what they’d lost.

Then someone pushed against the stall door. “Is someone in there?”

“Occupied!” Taylor warned.

“Oh my god, she is here! Come on, let’s do it!”

Taylor scrambled to get off the toilet seat, and pushed against the stall door, but whoever was holding it closed, probably Sophia, was just too strong.

“Come on, this juice isn’t gonna be cold enough to make her scream forever!”

So...that’s what they were doing. Something so stupid as pouring juice on her? But this wasn’t a prank to laugh at; Taylor’s art project was in her backpack, and if juice got on it the project would be ruined, and Taylor would fail this assignment. She couldn’t let this happen.

But Taylor had been stuck in introspection for too long, and the juice came over the stall, getting all over her face and hair, and getting on her backpack. She inadvertently gave out a shriek, to the Trio’s laughter.

“Okay, now the rest!”

No.

This was bullshit. The other girls had been bullying her for the better part of two years, and no one did anything about it. Why bother having powers if she wasn’t going to use them? Taylor’s power tugged at her, like an overeager dog on its leash. With a shiver, Taylor let the impulse win, just this once. She could feel the warmth of the girls’ luck around them, and pulled it into herself until their abnormally good luck was gone, then took some more. The girls’ auras grew cold and turned blue.

Taylor made another attempt at pushing the door open, and at that exact moment, Sophia sneezed violently, banging her head against the door as it opened, knocking the dazed track star to the floor. Emma recoiled at the sight of Sophia being overpowered, and Madison bumped into her, spilling the grape juice she was holding all over her friend. Emma shrieked and dropped her juice, which Taylor kicked on impulse. The bottle hit Emma’s shoulder, spinning her around with her hand outstretched in a vain attempt to catch the bottle, just as a teacher walked in. The bottle smacked the woman in the face, spilling its contents on her freshly washed outfit. She focused on Emma immediately.

“So, you did this!”

Emma looked behind her, and pointed at herself. The woman nodded.

“Me? No, I didn’t do it! Taylor did!”

The teacher looked at the drenched Taylor and raised an eyebrow. “Tell it to the principal during detention.”

“But I didn’t do it!” Emma complained as the teacher grabbed her wrist and dragged her to the principal’s office.

Madison looked back and forth between Taylor and Sophia before sprinting away. Taylor grinned and stepped on Sophia as she went back to the stall to pick up her backpack. Taylor stopped by the art room to drop her project off, then headed home for a change of clothes and to take the rest of the day off.

She’d spent months avoiding taking too much luck at a time, but maybe it wasn’t as dangerous as she’d originally assumed. After all, what’s the worst that could happen? A few people get what they deserve? As long as she didn’t take it too far, there was nothing wrong with that.

On her way home, Taylor found a $100 bill on the ground.

She could get used to this.

 

“So how was school today?” Danny asked Taylor.

Taylor ate another spoonful of Danny’s finest microwave mac and cheese. “It was pretty good. Some girls tried to be mean to me, but I don’t think they’re going to try again,” she lied.

Taylor fully expected Emma and Sophia to try something again, and was kind of looking forward to it. The prospect of getting to make them embarrass themselves again was exciting. As long as they were the ones who attacked her first, there was nothing wrong with it.

“How was work?” Taylor gave the canned response to keep the conversation going.

Danny visibly lightened up. “Oh, I think I’m going to catch my big break soon! I managed to contact the mayor today, and he said he’d have time to talk to me tonight! I might be able to convince him to put some budget put towards clearing out the boat graveyard. This could revolutionize the shipping industry in Brockton Bay, and fix our economy!”

Taylor smiled at her dad getting so excited about something for once. She couldn’t remember seeing him this happy in months. The last time Danny acted like this was a few months ago when he thought he was going to get to talk to the mayor about this exact same issue. Of course, Danny hadn’t actually gotten to meet with Christner. Something about urgent responsibilities and unforeseen events, told to him by an intern two hours after the mayor was supposed to meet him.

A thought occurred to Taylor. “When are you meeting him?”

“I have to leave at 7:45. We can watch a movie until then if you’d like.”

Taylor had a test tomorrow, and knew she should spend her night studying - but Danny hadn’t offered to do something like this with her in a long time, and she wanted to cherish it.

*******

They ended up deciding on an Aleph movie about a cape romance. Taylor and Danny both wanted to decide on something that the other wanted to watch, and so ended up watching something neither of them wanted, but believed the other did. They ate popcorn and made brief statements on the movie after it was over. They watched the credits roll by until Danny stood up.

“Well, it looks like it’s time for me to get ready and go. Wish me luck.”

“Good luck dad,” Taylor said as she pulled him into a hug. As she touched him, she could feel his aura more clearly, manipulate it better. It was like putting on glasses, in a way.

Taylor knew her dad would need a lot of luck, especially since she had a suspicion that the mayor actively didn’t want to fix the boat graveyard. She had never given her own luck to someone else before, but she knew she could. She let the gold of her own aura seep into Danny’s, and watched as his grew bigger, more vibrant, brighter. Meanwhile, hers got colder, and quickly went from the neutral gray to the blue of bad luck. She kept on giving him more, until she was about a third of the way to her limit. She knew she shouldn’t give him so much of her luck, but without being able to test her power very extensively, she wasn’t sure if any amount of luck could actually change a person’s reaction to a situation. She could make people trip and bump into each other, but she didn’t know if that had anything to do with some kind of Master element to her power or if it just made the girls more likely to bump into each other earlier that day. Either way, she figured she had to give Danny a lot of luck if he had any chance at convincing Christner to fund the boat graveyard cleanup. And it shouldn’t matter much if she had bad luck tonight, as long as she stayed inside.

“Good luck,” she whispered.

*******​

“And so then she said-” was all the quirky talk show host was able to say before the TV erupted into static. Taylor groaned and stood up from the couch, bumping the bowl of popcorn with her elbow in the process and sending it to the floor. Upside down. No piece of popcorn was left untouched by the ground.

Taylor groaned but decided to pick it up after she fixed the TV. She messed with the antennas to no effect. This must mean that the satellite dish on the roof was responsible for the interference. Taylor walked to the front door, and just as she touched the handle, a bolt of lightning struck the street not 20 feet away. Taylor’s fingers uncurled from the handle and she backed away slowly. Maybe she’d just read a book.

Thumbing through her bookshelf, she found a book she hadn’t quite finished yet, about a girl with powers trying to fit in at school. Taylor took it to the couch, then remembered the popcorn. Sighing, she went to the kitchen for the broom and dustpan. To her surprise, nothing went wrong, and the popcorn wasn’t suddenly infested with ants or something as she swept it into the trash can.

Of course, about three pages through the story, lightning struck again, and the power went out. She threw the book to the other end of the couch and felt her way to the breaker box. Trying the switches did nothing, which meant Taylor would have to wait for the electric company to fix it on their own. She wasn’t going to risk lighting a candle to read her book, so Taylor rummaged around the cleaning supplies until she found a flashlight, unknowingly knocking over a container of aerosol spray, putting it in the exact position for its cap to be pressed, and the highly flammable chemical continuously sprayed itself into the air.

Taylor lied back on the couch and flicked on the flashlight. It sufficed for a page, then flickered and died. Taylor forced herself to be calm and put the book down carefully, and walked back to the storage cabinet. Unbeknownst to her, pressing against the couch had given her a static charge, and as she touched the metal cabinet handle, the spark ignited the aerosol, singing her hair and clothes.

Taylor screamed and fell backwards, patting out her clothes to smother the flames. She noticed her hair was on fire too, and ran to the bathroom, stubbing her toe on a chair leg as she went. She twisted on the shower faucet, and after a few incredibly tense moments of nothing, the bath faucet flew off. Groaning again, Taylor lifted the toilet seat and dunked her head in. The water fizzed and the fire went out, and Taylor stumbled over to the sink and held her hair under the faucet to clean it. After a few moments to process this information, she realized she could have used the sink instead of the toilet.

After washing her hair with liberal amounts of hand soap (and getting some in her eyes), Taylor dragged her feet back to the living room, planning to just pass out on the couch. But on her way there, she couldn’t help but notice that the wooden cabinet was on fire, and the blaze had somehow spread to the kitchen table. Taylor ran to the wall phone, but of course it didn’t work, since the power was out.

Taylor ran out the front door to look for someone who could help, and found a bucket under the spot where Danny parked his car. Assuming Danny had been washing his car, she grabbed the bucket and ran back to the fire. She was surprised when she threw the liquid onto the flames and, instead of putting out the fire, there was another explosion and the fire spread even quicker. In the darkness and rain the oil had looked like water, and she hadn’t had time to wonder why Danny would put a bucket of water under his car.

“FUCK!”

She looked around panickedly for something to put out the fire, and finding nothing, ran out of the house again. She tried to wave down an approaching car, but they just swerved and splashed her with puddle water, drenching her. The driver cackled as he drove off and threw a can out the window.

At that moment Danny’s car turned the corner and approached her. Taylor just watched helplessly as he suddenly stopped the car and got out. Danny’s mouth was wide open as he stared at the house, which was now thoroughly ablaze.

“...I kind of wish I gave you a cell phone now.”

“It probably would’ve just exploded anyway.”

“Did you call 911?”

Taylor shook her head as they both continued to watch the house burn down. “The power went out.”

“Lightning caused the fire?”
“No, that was a different thing.”

After long minutes of waiting, the fire engines finally arrived. They managed to put out the fire, but by then it was too late, and the house was irrecoverable. Danny borrowed a fireman’s cell phone, and turned to Taylor as he finished the call.

“Well, at least there’s a silver lining to tonight. I called Alan, and he told me we’re welcome to stay at his place until our house is rebuilt a few months from now.”

“Oh. Excuse me I think I left something in the house that I have to get,” Taylor said over the sound of another explosion.

 

Emma glared at Taylor from across the room as their dads talked on and on to each other without end. Taylor scowled back, then remembered Emma being dragged out of the bathroom by the teacher just earlier that day. Taylor couldn’t help but grin, despite biting her lip in an attempt not to. Emma’s glare intensified.

Emma’s luck had restored itself to near-normal levels by now. Unfortunately. Hopefully there was enough bad luck left for Taylor to get to watch Emma stub her toe.

“So what’s new? I mean, asides from the fire thing, of course.” Anne asked.

“Uh, yeah, it’s been good.” Taylor replied.

“Say, I haven’t seen you in a while. What’s that about?”

“Oh, we just, haven’t really gotten around to it.” Emma said awkwardly.

“Got caught up in other things…”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

“Well,” Anne clapped her hands together, “I hope you like our house, since you’re stuck here! Haha, I’m just kidding… even though it’s kind of true.”

Anne noticed that everyone was staring at her.

“So, can I make you anything to eat?”

“Oh actually we’re ordering pizza,” Alan called out.

“Oh. Great. I guess I’ll go back to my room then,” Anne mumbled with an undertone of feeling useless.

*******

“So, not to be rude, but I’m kind of tired...where will I be sleeping?”

Alan put the beer he’d been drinking on the ground next to the couch. “Alright Dan, I’ll be right back. Don’t let them score any goals without me, you hear?”

Danny gave a sloppy salute and grinned. “You two don’t get into any trouble, okay?”

Taylor held her elbow and shrugged.

“Okay, let’s get you to the guest room,” Alan said.

He opened the door, then slapped himself in the forehead when he realized what state the room was in. Boxes were stacked in layers of four and five, most covered in dust. “Ah, sorry Taylor, I forgot. We’ve been using this room for storage. Ah well,” he said with a shrug, “you can still sleep in Emma’s room, right?”

Taylor grinned (or was it a grimace?) and nodded. “Yeah, I’d...love that. Perfect.”

“Great! Just like the old days, huh Taylor?” Alan elbowed Taylor, who held her elbow tighter.

Alan took Taylor across the hallway to a familiar room. He knocked on the door then opened it immediately, revealing Emma stepping into her footie Legend pajamas.

“Dad! I told you not to open the door without ask-” she stopped cold then pointed at Taylor. “Wait what’s going on?”

“Emma, Taylor will have to sleep in your room until we get the guest room cleared out. That’s okay, right?”

Emma looked like she was about to argue, but let out her breath in a sigh. “Yeah, it’s great.”

“Great! You two don’t stay up too late now, you hear me?”

They both muttered incoherently as Alan closed the door.

Several minutes passed without anything happening, besides a few uncomfortable coughs. Taylor noticed there was only one bed, and she was tired from surviving the fire.

“Do you mind if I-”

“Don’t even try it,” Emma cut her off.

Taylor glared at her. Who was she to decide what Taylor was and wasn’t allowed to do? Sure, it was Emma’s bed, but Taylor didn’t exactly have one right now. If Taylor was willing to share a bed, why shouldn’t Emma?

Taylor was fed up with Emma’s attitude towards her for the past year and a half. Taylor strutted up to the bed and lied down.

“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?” Emma demanded.

“Are you stupid or something? I’m sleeping in your bed.”

“The hell you are! Get out, now!”

“Fuck you! I tolerated your bullying bullshit for almost two years, you can share a bed!”

Emma shoved Taylor by the shoulders. Taylor’s back impacted with the bedpost painfully, and she winced. Emma grabbed Taylor’s arms and tried to force her off the bed, but Taylor resisted. She could have drained Emma’s luck, even more so that they were touching, but she wanted to win this fight on her own, and so she threw her body weight into a shove to the left, and threw herself on Emma, pushing Emma onto her back on the bed. Emma managed to get a handhold on the edge of the mattress and flip Taylor over, pinning her to the bed. Taylor tried to slide off the bed, making her shirt ride up, exposing her belly.

It was at that moment that there was a knock at the door and Zoe, Emma’s mom, walked in. Everyone froze and looked at each other.

Zoe put a hand to her mouth. “Oh my. I see, I didn’t mean to interrupt you two. “

“No no no, it’s not like that!” Emma said.

Zoe smirked. “Oh, I see. Well if you don’t want to continue, come here you two, I have to give you ‘the talk’.”

“What.”

“What.”

“You heard me, come here.” Zoe sat down on a spare chair and patted the floor next to her. Not knowing what to do, Emma got off of Taylor and went where her mom said to go, and Taylor followed suit.

Once the girls were seated, Zoe began her talk. “Now, the talk I’m going to be giving you two isn’t the same as it usually is, that is, assuming that your kids are straight. You don’t need to wear condoms because, well,” Zoe made a ring with each hand using her thumb and index fingers, then mashed them together a few times. Emma blushed. “Of course, you should use condoms if you have a guy do something with you, which may or may not be where you came from, sweetie.”

“What?!” Emma asked.

“When Annette, Danny and I did it together. Honestly, try to keep up. But yes, if it’s just you two you won’t need a condom, although I’ve heard the flavored ones can spice the bedroom up a lot. Except the spicy ones, don’t use those.”

“Wait, are we sisters?!” Emma asked.

Zoe rolled her eyes. “It doesn’t really matter dear. We're not sure if you two are half-siblings or not but since neither of you can get the other pregnant the usual concerns about incest don't apply so don't worry about it."

“What do you mean don’t worry about it?! Of course I’ll worry about that, who doesn’t!?”

Zoe gave a knowing grin. “Why are you worrying if you weren’t just getting it on?”

Taylor self-consciously rolled her shirt down to cover her belly.

“I thought so. Well you two have fun and be young. I remember back when I was your age…” Zoe left the room, chuckling to herself and shaking her head. “And make sure to lock the door, okay? You can just pretend you were getting dressed from being in pajamas or something if someone tries to check on you. I’ve used that excuse many times, and no one’s called me out on the obvious lesbian sex I was having with your mom, Taylor.”

Taylor groaned and let her forehead hit the floor.

A minute of silence passed.

“Do you think Zoe was messing with us?”

“I really hope so.”

Taylor got up and tried to use Emma’s stunned state to steal the bed, but Emma grabbed her leg before she could get far. “I’m still not letting you use my bed.”

“Ugh, fine. Can I at least use a set of your pajamas? Considering that the rest of my clothes burned in the fire that destroyed my entire house.”

“Yeah, sure, whatever. But no taking my bed,” Emma compromised as she took her spot back on her bed.

The only pajamas that seemed to be tall enough for Taylor was an oversized set of Alexandria footie pajamas.Taylor shrugged her shirt off, and of course that was the moment when Anne popped in.

“If you two need any water, I-OH! I guess what mom said was true, I, um. I assumed she was messing with me…” Anne’s voice trailed off to a whisper, and left.

Emma groaned. “Why am I so fucking unlucky today?”

It was at that moment that the obvious clicked together for Taylor. “Oh god fucking damnit.”

 

Taylor woke up when she hit the floor with a thump. This happened because Emma had woken up to Taylor having snuck onto her bed, and pushed her off.

There was a knock on the wall from Emma’s parents’ bedroom. “Try not to be so loud if you’re gonna be rough, okay?” came Zoe’s voice.

Emma and Taylor groaned in sync. Taylor got up and went to Emma’s dresser. “You don’t mind if I borrow some of your clothes? You know, considering how all of mine were burned in the fire and my only clothes I still have smell like smoke?”

Emma grumbled something like agreement and rolled over. Taylor nodded and, after a little thought of how annoying all the bad luck she’d been experiencing lately and how she deserved some good luck, stole a bit of luck from Emma while changing.

“Breakfast is ready!” Danny shouted from the kitchen. Emma slowly sat up and rubbed her eyes. She tried to get off the bed, but got tangled in her blanket and fell on her face. Taylor covered her mouth to hide her giggle before leaving for the kitchen. She could feel Emma’s scowl on the back of her head.

*******

“Mmh. Thanks for making breakfast for us Danny!” Zoe said between bites of bacon.

“Oh, it’s the least I can do after you were gracious enough to let us stay here.”

“Oh it’s no trouble, no trouble at all!”

“So,” Alan clapped his hands together, “How’d your meeting with the mayor go yesterday?”

Danny put down his fork. “Oh right, I didn’t get a chance to tell you all! Well the mayor decided to hear me out this time, and when I told him my numbers on how renovating the docks could boost the economy! He agreed that it could really help, just like ‘the dot com’ boosted the economy in the 2000’s!”

“The dot com?” Emma asked.

“Oh, he meant personal computers. But you know these government folks, and they try their best, usually. Anyway, he gave the Dockworkers enough funding for us to remove those old heaps of metal from the graveyard! That alone will bring back jobs just for the construction, or should I say deconstruction!”

A cricket chirped.

“And Ralph at the union told me that if I could get this funding, he had a list of likely people who would love to help with the construction and…” he continued on like this for a while, and Taylor started tuning him out at this point.

Emma leaned over and whispered in Taylor’s ear, “Hey, wanna get out of here? We can pretend we have a group assignment we have to do instead of being stuck here.”

“God yes.”

So they both got up. Zoe raised an eyebrow at them. “And where are you two going?”

“We have a group assignment for history we have to finish that’s due tomorrow.”

Zoe smiled. “Oh, I see. You have to get changed into your pajamas too, don’t you?”

Emma blushed. “I told you it’s not like that!”

Anne choked on her water.

Taylor followed Emma into her room, shutting the door quietly behind them.

“We actually do have a history assignment due tomorrow, you know.”

Emma stopped dead. “What?”

“Yeah, didn’t you hear? 2000 words.”

“Shit! Whatever, I’ll just make something up.”

Taylor shrugged. “Your loss.”

Half an hour passed as Emma panickedly typed on her computer, hunting for each key with two fingers. Taylor was focusing on devouring Emma’s books she suspected had never been read. Then Emma’s phone rang playing Avril Lavigne’s “Girlfriend”. Emma scrambled to grab the phone, falling to the ground in the process. Finally she opened the flip phone.

“Hello?” she said loudly to drown out Taylor’s giggling. Conveniently for Taylor, the phone was loud enough for her to hear the other end of the conversation.
“Hey, Emma? Mom’s being a total drag today, so I’m gonna hang out at your place, kay? Kay thanks, be there in five minutes,” came Sophia Hess’s voice before hanging up.

“I...shit. Hey Taylor, I need you to hide. I can’t let Sophia think we’re friends.”

Taylor sauntered up to the dumbfounded Emma with a cocky grin on her face. “Oh really? Well maybe I’ll just stay here.”

Emma’s eyes widened. “No, you can’t!”

Taylor crossed her arms and her grin widened further.

“Come on, she’ll stop being friends with me if I’m friends with someone like you!”

Taylor tapped her chin a few times. “Hmm...If you want me to hide from Sophia, you’ll have to...give me the bed for three nights.”

“Three nights?!”

“You’re welcome to share if you want, but I’m not sleeping on the floor.”

Emma looked around panickedly. “Fine, fine, just get in the closet!” Emma urged as she pushed Taylor into the closet just as Sophia opened the door. Emma leaned against the door with her foot pressed against it in the tensely casual way people do, as if she were about to explode at any moment from the pressure of how relaxed she was.

“Hey Soph, what’s up?”

Sophia tilted her head. “You’ve never called me Soph before.”

“Yeah, well. I just felt like it’s the right thing to do. Feels natural, you know?”

Sophia approached the redhead, eyes narrowed suspiciously. “What’s wrong with you? You’re tense.”

“Tense? Me? No, no no no….I’m not tense.”

Sophia laughed and turned around with a flick of her hair. “You’re such a bad liar Emma.”

Sophia spun around and flopped backwards on Emma’s bed. “Ugh, so last night I was on patr-”

“Patricia’s diet!? Oh man, yeah I heard about how brutal Patricia’s diet is!” Emma interrupted. This attempted cover-up caught Taylor’s interest, and she swore she could feel her ears perk up.

“Diet? What are you talking about? I don’t even know a Patricia. I was talking about patrol.”

“Petroleum?! British petroleum, yeah I heard about that oil spill too, like what, last year on Aleph?”

“Emma I’m going to have to call a doctor or something if you keep acting so weird. What’s up?”

Emma’s sweat was visible even through the slants of the closet. “Nothing. Nothing at all,” she conceded, knowing Sophia’s reaction to Taylor being here at this point would be much worse than if she’d discovered her at first. Taylor must already have heard the word patrol, so it couldn’t be long until she pieced together the clues. Emma grimaced inwardly and let this turn of events take its course.

“Yeah, so like I was saying. I was stuck patrolling for five hours last night because one of Kid’s inventions exploded, and it like sent a bunch of asbestos in the walls everywhere. I wasn’t about to go home right after getting there, so they sent me on patrol with Clock.”

“Oh. Yes, that’s interesting,” Emma said tensely.

“What’s wrong with you?”

“Oh, uh, nothing. It’s just that Taylor’s dad is living in my house because Taylor burned her own house down, which makes things awkward.”

“Oh my god, of course she did that!” Sophia slapped a knee. “That’s brilliant! ...wait, so where’s Taylor now?”

“She’s upstate with her grandma! Yeah, like, her grandma hates her dad, so her dad stayed here,” Emma explained, hoping to god that Sophia would accept her explanation.

“Okay. So yeah, there I was on patrol, when all of a sudden some guy tries to attack me with a knife.”

“Don’t you stick to the rooftops?”

“Yeah, he threw the knife at me. He was actually a decent shot, but he still missed.”

“Oh. Yeah, okay.”

“And so then…” and Sophia kept talking about relatively mundane things about her patrol, like how the guy reacted when she jumped to the ground on one knee in a superhero pose, or how long it took waiting for Clockblocker to catch up to her. Taylor ate up the information like it was her bread and butter.

As Taylor watched Sophia drone on and on, she considered the implications of Sophia being a Ward. Sophia couldn’t be Vista, so she must be Shadow Stalker. She didn’t know much about the Wards, but she vaguely recalled Shadow Stalker being on probation. She wasn’t sure what this meant for a Ward, but if it had anything to do with the normal definition, this meant Sophia could get in a lot of trouble fairly easily.

Taylor flexed her power and watched the two girls’ auras come into sharper focus. They were still in range, but barely. Taylor felt Sophia’s aura bend to her will. Right now she had fairly average luck, maybe slightly above average. What would be the harm in stealing some luck, really? Didn’t Sophia deserve to get some taken? After all, she’d stolen Taylor’s good grades by ruining every major project she could. And if Sophia was a bad enough person to get probation, all stealing her luck would really do would be to give her the karma she deserves.

Having come to a decision, Taylor drained Sophia’s good luck, turning it neutral quickly, then kept on draining it. She wouldn’t take as much as she’d given Danny, knowing that it might get Sophia killed, but she still got to take a lot. Her limit at range was much less than her limit when touching someone, so Taylor felt free to take a third of her limit again, knowing this time it wouldn't be enough to burn Sophia’s house down. Probably. And really, Taylor deserved the good luck more than Sophia did.

She ended up getting a good amount of luck - good enough to consider going out as a hero today. She’d been wanting to fight some crime for a while, but never had enough luck to consider herself safe from any supervillians. But now... now she might have enough. This might keep her safe, but she wasn’t confident it would let her actually win any fights against a villain. She would need to take some luck from Emma to be good at crime-fighting. Yes, that seemed like a good reason to take her luck. It was for the good of the law-abiding citizens of Brockton Bay, after all.

Taylor closed her eyes as she felt Emma’s luck add itself to her aura. Now she was ready.