Mother Loves You (Worm/Marvel)

Everyone has a mother. Sometimes your mother is a man, and also a Norse god, but that's not your fault. Sometimes your mother is Loki, and that is a problem.

Luckily, it's also the solution.

Now not only on SB!

Index__
One
Two
Three

-

Chapter 1: in which Taylor has a mother.

My eyes were burning. They weren’t actually on fire, no matter how much they felt like it. I comforted myself with the knowledge that my tormentors probably hadn’t meant for the pepper to fall out of the sabotaged pepper shaker at the same time someone on the other side of the room opened the window. A sudden burst of wind had blown the ground red peppers into my eyes and I’d been escorted, temporarily blinded by pain and tears, to the nurse’s office by the soft-spoken woman. She hadn’t done anything other than offer me a container of eyedrops and hover nervously near my shoulder.

Without my sight “I’m fine.” I waved my hand without moving my arm overmuch to shoo the nurse away. “I just need to cry this out.”

“Do you need anything else?”

I thought school nurses were supposed to be medical professionals? Did I need anything else? That was something she was supposed to know.

But I didn’t say that, instead just shaking my head.

The hovering woman took the excuse, and left me alone. It was better than having her standing over my shoulder, not actually offering any help but still being a an unseen presence nearby. My hands clenched tight around my face, and I rested my head on the palm of my hands, careful not to actually try to lean over. With how weakly built the school’s chairs were, I might break the arm rests with my elbows.

Stupid powers.

What use was super strength when I had to slow down every movement out of fear I’d break something, or hurt someone?

Why would I want super toughness, when the things that actually hurt were words?

And what could I do that a hundred, a thousand real capes couldn’t do already? I was just one more knockoff Alexandria package, not good for anything much. My powers didn’t even have the decency to come with flight! At best, I’d just be a body filling in the roster until I got killed fighting something with useful powers. I didn’t even know why I bothered coming to school any more.

And now I was crying again. Good going, Taylor.

“God, I wish I’d never gotten these powers.” I whispered.

“Strictly speaking, you never ‘got’ anything.” A man spoke from behind me, and I jerked in surprise, the movement joined by the sound of squealing metal as I hit the chair’s arm and bent it back.

“I- uh, don’t suppose you’d forget that happened?” I stammered, and rubbed furiously at my eyes. If only I could see who that was.

“No, that is quite beyond me, forgetting.” The man said, and touched my head lightly. I jerked back, and the chair’s back gave some.

“Don’t tell anyone, please.” I said, and licked my suddenly dry lips. “I- I don’t want. . .” I didn’t know that voice, so it wasn’t any of my teachers or classmates, but that still left the teachers and students of tenth through twelfth grades, any one of whom now knew that I had powers, that I was a parahuman. My blood pounded in my ears, and I didn’t dare move without knowing where everything else was first- I could hurt him, so I let his fingers gently rest on my hair.

“Shh. I understand the need for secrets.” He said slowly and, dare I hope, kindly. “Hold still.”

“What are you-” I started to ask, but then the fingers trailing atop my head crackled and the hairs on the back of my neck raised up as a feeling like static electricity raced down my spine. My eyes snapped open, and I saw him.

The man was tall, taller even than I was. He wore a green robe with a vest made of hundreds of overlapping, golden metal scales, and an open-face helmet topped by swept back horns.

“You healed me?” I said incredulously, and touched my eyes. “No, you took out the pepper, didn’t you?”

“. . . I want to lie to you, but I suppose that you deserve honesty from me, if nothing else.” The man said, his face long. His He sat, and as he did so a bench flowed up from the tile below him. He patted the spot beside him. “Come, sit.”

I glared at him.

“Who are you? You aren’t any cape I recognize, and you aren’t wearing a mask either.” I asked, and took a step back. I glanced to the door the nurse had closed behind her when she left, and I concentrated on not letting any of the fear I felt creep into my voice. Whoever this guy was, he knew I had powers. He could ruin any future I could set up for myself, lead criminal recruiters to my house, my dad. I could run, but I wouldn’t know if I was safe.

“I can tell that you’re upset, but I have a very good reason for what I did. Several, in fact.” He held up his hands. “I’m not lying.”

“Who are you?” I snapped, this time angrier. “Who are you and what do you want?”

The man shifted. Colors blurred and stretched as contours reshaped themselves. When the effect was over, a woman with long, rebelliously curly black hair and a prominent face looked back at me. She was wearing a green and gold sweater that I’d seen every week until a few years ago.

My legs shook, and I fell back against the wall.

“Your father always did like this form the best.” She smiled wistfully, and I recognized that smile as well. “Do you still have my flute?”

My eyes were burning again, and my face was hot. “. . . Mom?” I whispered, then shook my head to clear it. “Say something only she’d know. I’m warning you, if this is some kind of sick joke-”

She replied simply. “I never told your father that you ruined his best shirt trying to iron it.”

It was her.

“Mom.” I rushed forwards and slammed into her with all my might, rocking her gently backwards as I clamped my arms around her and cried.

And she held me, and for a moment or a minute, all was right.

At last I spoke. “I lost your flute.”

“What!? That is to say you- It was only a flute.” She corrected herself. “I’m just glad that I’ve seen you again. I wish I could stay.”

“You can!” I said. “We’ll go home and wait for dad, he’ll be off work in a few hours. We can go get dinner and, and, that’s not going to happen is it?” I asked, but as I’d spoken the grip of her arms around me had loosened. “You’re not going to leave again, are you?” I asked. “Have you talked to dad, does he know you’re alive?”

“I tried letting him know I’m alive, Taylor, but for a man like Danny not knowing is a mercy. I’ll leave it at that. Trust me?” My mother said with a frown.

“I don’t suppose I can just tell him, can I?”

“No, that wouldn’t do anything, my witty, canny little girl. Taylor, I mentioned that you didn’t get anything, do you remember?”

I did. “So I, what, always had superpowers?” I asked.

She nodded. “Not exactly, but a well enough understanding. You could say that it runs in the family. I understand that you do not enjoy having them, though, and that worries me. Why?”

“Because I have to be so careful.” I struggled to put the feelings into words, and I thought I succeeded. “You saw how scared I was when I thought you were some stranger. There are some things that heroes and villains don’t do, like attack families, but . . . dad.”

Mom understood. “Ah, was there anything else?”

I ducked my head, it was embarrassing. “. . . I’ve got lame powers.”

“You’re strong, very strong. From my own experience there won’t be many able to match you when you finish growing up, blow for blow.”

Months of frustration simmered inside me, about to boil over. “But that’s it! Just strong- there are hundreds of powers out there that render strength completely irrelevant! There’s a girl in the Wards who warps space, Panacea can control biology by touching flesh, Assault does something like controlling friction forces. What’s just being strong compared to things like that?”

“They’ve powers that diverse?” My mother held me by my shoulders and looked me in the eye. A smirk played around her mouth. “My brother once told a man that he was not the god of reason and understanding, but of thunder and lightning. Most who knew him thought the thunderclaps were the blows of his hammer, the lightning the sparks it struck off his foes’ armor, and they were right for the most part. I was the one who knew the meanings of the words, who could walk as all creatures walk, in their skins and in their lands.

“Reason and understanding, Taylor, are perhaps the greatest forces in any world. Withhold them, and you can create a great chaos, and if you’re strong enough then you can shape that chaos to your will.”

“So you’re saying I need to think of new ways to use my powers?” I asked. “Like throwing things instead of punching people.”

“That’s a start, but I mentioned that power ran in families, did I not?” She nodded, and as she did so her long curled hair, the mirror to my own, bound itself up in a braid that wrapped around her head like a crown, and golden leaves sprouted from it.

“Shapeshifting?”

“I did mention walking in the skins of all things, did I not?” She raised an eyebrow. “I’ve sown greater mischief walking in the shapes of others than I have with any sword, daughter of mine. Magic, not might, is the cornerstone of victory.”

“Magic isn’t real.” I said reflexively, then blushed. “Isn’t it?”

“It’s the reason I’m able to talk to you now.” My mother reprimanded, but not unkindly.

“So I’ll be able to learn how to use magic to change shapes?”

“Eventually. It’s rather difficult, but if you’re a fast enough study you could learn a few forms in less than a month. There are other kinds, to balance luck, fire bursts of power, move to far away places instantly, telekinesis, and more, but the first thing any good sorcerer needs to do is to make herself as hard to kill as possible.” She shook me slightly. “That is of vitalimportance. Do you understand?”

I did. “Yes, of course.”

“Good.” She released me. “Now that I have spoken to you again you’re going to come into yourself, Taylor. There are a few basic skills that I have hidden in your mind for when you need them, and I have taken the time to arrange a guide for you, to aid you in your growth.”

“Like a book?”

“A book would take entirely too much time to write.” She corrected me. “Someone will get in contact with you, and explain things.”

“Things like what? What things can’t you just tell me about now?”

“If I told you enough to satisfy you I’d have to stay for hours, and I’m needed elsewhere. Plots to plot, irons to keep in the fire.”

I take a step back away from her, and rub my sleeve on my face to soak up the tears. “I’ll see you again, right?”

My mother looked down at me, halfway through doffing the horned helmet of golden metal from earlier, and her face softened. “. . . I suppose half an hour won’t get anyone too important killed.” She said, and sat back down on the bench. She held her arm out, and I sat beside her, leaning into her warmth. “What do you want to talk about?”

I wanted to know so many things, but settled for just one. “What have you been doing? You were gone for years.”

“Ah. . . I hope you won’t think too badly of me. I haven’t exactly been the kind of person most approve of.” She frowned a little. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather hear about some magic?”

“I want to know.”

She sighed. “Well, I suppose a warning is in order. The reason I never mentioned my side of the family is because they’re all as stupid as a bunch of monkeys, and I’ve been putting up with them for a very long time. And I suppose I haven’t told you what they call me, have I?“

“No, you haven’t. You don’t have to if you’d rather not.” I wanted to know, but didn’t want to risk ruining what I had right then.

“Loki, child.”

“Like the god?”

Mother laughed.

3 : )

Lisa Wilborne woke up to a fresh new day and smiled. Her old boss wasn’t going to be a problem for much longer, her new boss was immune to her power (which was a little worrying, but also refreshing), and all she had to do to change from boss A to boss B was help boss B’s daughter get a handle on her powers. Then she’d be free, so gloriously free!

True, she’d probably keep doing the same thing as she’d been doing until now. The Undersiders were a pretty sweet gig, after all, but as soon as she was away from the psychotic creep with delusions of grandeur it was going to feel so much better.

 

Mother Loves You [2]

“. . .And when I left, there were dozens of giant pink robots swarming the Baxter Building, shouting for Doctor Doom to give them the child. Of course he said no, and he turned his not informidable magical might on them, letting me slip away and take advantage of the confusion to meet you here!” She finished with a chuckle, and I couldn’t help but join in.

I knew that my mom had pretty much just confessed to being a supervillain on some alternate Earth, but couldn’t find it in me to really care. She was alive, and anything else was insignificant compared to having her back, however temporarily.

“I missed you.” I told her.

The arm she had around my shoulders squeezed me tightly. “I missed you too.”

“But. . . “

“You’ve got to go. Are you sure they were able to save the city without you?” I asked. From what she’d said, it sounded like my mother’s New York had a fairly good chance of being leveled in the battle between hundreds of killer robots and the massed capes of the city. I felt a vague sensation of guilt for dragging her away from that, but squashed it thoroughly. I was entitled to this, at least. Not even an hour.

I deserved more.

“Oh, my idiot brother was there.” She smirked. “And though I’m loathe to admit it, he’s even better than most of the heroes I’ve. . . encountered.”

She disentangled herself from me and stood back up, reverting the room to its previous benchless state with a wave of her hand, which glowed green with what I’d begun to recognize as magical light. “I’ll be in touch, but I truly do need to return home.”

“I understand.” I said, and my smile faded some, turned wistful. “Will I see you again soon?”

“From your point of view it might be very soon, or it may be a long time.” She said after a pause. “I. . . Do you want to go anywhere, perhaps to meet the guide I promised you?”

“What about school?” Missing classes after what had happened earlier today? It would look like I was giving into the bullies, like they were winning.

“Taylor.” My mother touched my cheek, and I refocused on her. “I recognize that expression. Is there someone you need to face here, that would think you were running from them if you did not appear in the remainder of your classes?”

I flushed, and turned my gaze away. “No, but-”

“If you plan on lying to me, daughter, I suggest you practice first.” My mother said. “There is no shame in running away from a situation where you cannot win.”

“I’m not going to lose to them!” I snapped. “It isn’t about beating them, it’s about not letting them win.”

She regarded me for a moment, then nodded. “I wish that I had more time with you today, so that I could try to persuade you otherwise, but bear this in mind.” She held out her softly glowing hand, and touched my own with it. “You have awakened, and as time goes on you shall become something greater and more magnificent than most anyone on this planet can ever hope to become. This will take time, but it has already begun, and it will not stop, child. Do you understand that?”

“I do.”

She drew her hand away, and the green glow condensed into a thin green and gold band around my wrist. “For protection.” She said, and then she was gone, leaving only three words to echo through the room. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” I whispered into the empty room, and sat back down in the metal folding chair I’d been sitting in before my mother had come back into my life, bringing with her promises of magic and stories from another world, filled with high adventure.

She’d even fixed the chair when I hadn’t been looking. That was just like her.

The nurse opened the door. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah.” I stood up. “I’m ready to go back to class. I’ve got a lot to learn.”

I was late to basic computing, but the teacher just pointed me towards my usual seat. Today’s lesson was something about XHTML formatting, but I breezed through it on instinct, completing the online workshop before anyone else and using the rest of the class period to run searches on Loki.

The only results I got were factual articles about the old Norse god. He was a trickster, brother to the king of the gods by oath, who at times worked at cross purposes with his adoptive family. He was a shapeshifter, which was probably why my mother chose that name. Though given the way she’d described a few of her adventures, she’d also picked it because she tended not to pick actual sides in fights, instead playing both sides off the other in turn.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.

The bell rang, and I collected my books and binders, then proceeded to my last class of the day, english.

I was halfway there, in the middle of a crowded hallway, when someone bumped into me from the side, jostling my arm. “Sorry.” I said on reflex, and glanced behind me to see who it was. Madison, the least of my problems. But where she was, the other two were surely not too far behind.

“Oh, no problem.” The slight girl said with a grin so fake and insincere it was a wonder it didn’t fall off her face. “I was just wondering where you got that bracelet from.”

I thought fast, and told a half truth. A full truth, really. “It was my mother’s.”

When she bumped into me she touched my arm, my wrist.

“Because I know you can’t afford things that nice, and I thought, Madison, why does Taylor have such a nice golden bracelet, because I know what actual gold looks like.” She put one finger to her chin in a whimsical thinking posture.

My wrist, where the bracelet my mother gave me was.

“And I thought that I’d better take it to the front office, so they could give it back to whoever lost it!” Madison chirped.

Where it. . . where it was, because now Madison was holding it.

The hallway was nearly empty save for she and I, and I could feel my legs tense, the hairs on my neck rise as a heat flowed through me.

How dare she.

“I mean,” She continued. “This has to be at least worth a thousand dollars, easy, and I know jewelry stores. You wouldn’t know what to do in one with a week’s worth of shopping trips, so you’ve got to have gotten this from someone else- sorry, I meant somewhere else.”

Without the weight of the bracelet on my wrist the memory of my time with my mother was already feeling less and less real, more like something my pain-ridden mind had dreamed up to escape the capsaicin in the pepper burning into my eyes.

How dare she?

She smiled again. “I know you were going to take it there eventually, but I’ve only got social studies, and I can miss a few minutes. I’m doing you a favor, now that I think about it, now you won’t have to miss any of those classes you’re struggling so. . . hard. . .”

How dare she!

“Give it back.” I said, and closed the distance between us. Madison’s face was tinted green as I loomed over her. My pulse bubbled inside my ears, hot and ready. It moved inside me like a word I could barely hear.

“Baby’s grown a spine, has sheawhoa!” A hand grabbed my shoulder and pulled, but Sophia only succeeded in pulling herself forward, and into my view.

I reached out, and Madison’s wide blue eyes stayed locked on mine. Her hand didn’t move as I plucked the gold and green ring of metal from it. “Thank you.” I slid it back on my arm, and clenched that hand into a fist so that it couldn’t come off again. As if reacting to my thought, the bracelet was suddenly snug against my skin. Magic.

I turned to leave, prepared for Sophia to do something, say something, but she didn’t. Instead I felt her eyes on my back as I walked out the front door of Winslow High.

I had a guide to meet.

 

Mother Loves You [3]: in which Taylor makes a friend

The school fell away behind me as I walked down the street, books in hand. Nobody tried to stop me. Nobody even noticed me. The air was chill with a northern breeze, but somehow I didn’t mind the cold. I remembered taking long walks in the winter before my mother had her accident, no, before she had to leave.

The sky was clear and bright, without a cloud to be seen. If it had been an overcast day perhaps some of the previous week’s warmth would have stayed, and there would have been more people on the streets, but nobody was out and about at half past one in the afternoon, not in the residential area my school was in. I was alone.

There was no one watching me, waiting for me to slip up and let some emotion out for them to pounce on. There was nobody to steal my things, to ruin what I had left to remind me of better times, to give me hope that more good times would be coming.

It was glorious.

I stopped and sat on a bench by a small playground, and leaned my head back, closing my eyes as the Sun warmed my face. There was nothing but me and the things I felt, and I felt like a weight on my shoulders had finally fallen off them.

It was that I didn’t care any more. There were certainly other things that would hurt me, but what Madison, Sophia, and Emma said? There wasn’t anything that could make me feel bad after meeting my mother again.

“So you’re her.” A girl spoke from behind me. “His daughter.”

“Who?” I asked.

A weight settled on the bench next to me and I opened my eyes, adjusted my glasses.

Shorter than me, with straight blonde hair that was also shorter than mine. Freckles dusted her cheeks, and she had blue eyes. “Meeting your parent for the first time in ages must suck majorly, huh?”

I turned my head back away from her and closed my eyes again.

“. . . Or it may not have sucked, sorry.”

“It’s okay.” I said. Someone about my age just showed up by me in an area where there wasn’t anyone else? “You must be the guide my mom mentioned.”

“Mom huh? He was a guy when he talked to me. Very manly, if you know what I mean, big horns.” She chuckled, and I shifted slightly away from her, putting some more space between us.

“She gave birth to me. That makes her my mother, whatever she looked like when she talked to you.”

“Fair’s fair. It doesn’t really matter. My name’s Lisa.”

“I’m Taylor, but you knew that already, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, I suppose I did.”

We sat for a little while before she spoke again. “So. . . your mother lives in a different dimension and she asked me to use my power to help you figure out how to use something people from where she is can do, and also asked me to introduce you to my friends. Do you have anything else to add to that?”

I thought for a little while, then mentioned the most important thing. “She called it magic.”

“She told me it was sufficiently advanced technology used to interact with higher and lower planes full of different types of energy, manipulating macro amounts of matter and energy at the micro scale, and pushing energy into predetermined patterns that warp spacetime in observably consistent ways. Then she said it might just be magic.”

I opened my eyes and looked at Lisa. Lisa looked back.

“You call it what you want, but I’ve seen that green stuff, and I tell you that I can figure out how it works. There’s no such thing.” She said with stubborn authority, “as magic that happens ‘just because’, there are reasons behind everything, and part of what I’m getting out of this is figuring out what those reasons are.”

I. . . didn’t know how to respond to that. No matter what you called it, as long as it worked and I could use it, I didn’t care what she thought about magic. “Do you have somewhere you want to meet?” I asked to change the subject. “And what about a schedule?”

“Whenever’s convenient for you, Taylor.” Lisa said, and stood up. “I’ve got a place where some friends and I are staying. Want to come check it out?”


I thought about it, a kind of wistfulness stirring inside me. I felt like I had when I’d first started high school, ninth grade looming over me. This was a chance to make new first impressions on people I’d never met before, and this time there weren’t any bullies lurking in the wings. Mom wouldn’t have set me up with Lisa as my advisor if her friends were any danger to me, I was sure. I stood up with her, and smiled. “I’d like that.”

Lisa smiled back. “Well then, follow me.”

We walked a while, her leading me deeper into the old docks district, full of large buildings and warehouses that lay abandoned. There used to be a booming shipping business out of an into Brockton Bay, my dad said, but like the ferry, it had eventually shut down. Between the spectre of Leviathan making investors abandon sea-based markets and Brockton Bay’s shift towards high-tech industry and management services, the sea trade had left. A vast stretch of the northernmost part of the city lay almost abandoned, save for squatters and the poor, just minutes from the tourist-friendly boardwalk by car.

It took what I guessed was fifteen minutes of walking until we stopped in front of what looked like an old storehouse made of red bricks. “Here it is.” Lisa said with an excited grin. “Home away from home.”

Somehow I got the idea that Lisa didn’t care about things like zoning restrictions. On consideration, I couldn’t find it in me to care either. Was that how I’d begin my descent into supervillainry? I wondered as I followed Lisa up a flight of stairs at the back of the dusty floor. Would I one day lose sight of my principles and roam around the city streets, using my magical powers to alter buildings so they didn’t fit zoning restrictions?

I stifled a laugh at the thought. I’d have to be completely insane.

“So a word of warning,” She held up a finger before opening the door at the top of the stairs. “Not all my friends are that good with people. If you don’t get along with them, we can meet somewhere else.”

“I’m sure there’s nothing they’ll do that’ll be a problem.” I gave her the benefit of the doubt, but the euphoric high I’d been riding for hours wasn’t entirely faded.

Lisa opened the door, but didn’t step inside. “Rachel! Dammit, I thought you said you were going to walk your dogs?”

“Just got back.” A gruff voice replied. “Somebody new with you?”

I slid past Lisa and looked around. There were two guys, one younger than me and one older looking, sitting in front of a television bigger than any I’d seen outside a magazine cover. The room was big, and I realized that it was the loft over the main room on the first floor. The roof was insulated to keep out the cold, but the insulation was only separated from the room itself by sheets of plastic.

All in all, it looked exactly like what I thought a secret hangout would look like, if teenagers were the only ones who ever visited, except for one thing.

A muscular girl who seemed to be my age was sitting down next to a trio of truly massive dogs. Their jaws were big enough that they could probably bite through my thigh in two goes, and spurs of bone protruded from their skin in key locations.

I wish I’d replied with dignity, possibly even respectful awareness.

Instead the next thing I was aware of was leaning over the largest of the bunch, rubbing one behind its shoulder spurs and cooing in its ear. “Oh I bet you’re the biggest, meanest thing in this city, aren’t you boy?”

The dog licked my face, and then I was covered in slobber.

 

Dignity, or puppy.

One of them had to go- Good thing it was the worthless thing that bit it.

 

I have no real idea on how things are gonna go with Taylor learning magic, but I suppose that's part of the charm of the idea. Even moreso the whole 'Norse god family' shenanigans, so I hope despite the different dimension that comes firmly into play. I loved Loki and Taylor's reaction to him/her.

A great start so far, and I'll definitely be watching this.

 

Welp, looks like Taylor's just pissed Rachel off. She doesn't like other people touching her dogs, if they don't have her permission to do it first.

 

However, Rachel's dogs seem to like Taylor, given the licking.

That's probably gonna earn her points in Rachel's book.

 

I liek puppies.

 

Taylor reads as the same kind of thing doing the reading, and animals even get appropriate undertones.

 

Is it wrong that this was my favorite part?

 

It's certainly what drew my attention beyond the cursory new-thing check.

 

I wonder if Taylor will ever meet her extended family?

"So, I guess you're my brother?"

*Whinny*

"I, uh... I always liked horses. Would you mind if... I mean, could I ride you? Oh god no not like that I'm not like that, I mean, can I ride you like a horse!"

*Snuff*

"Oh god, I'm shutting up now. Just forget what I said, please."

---

I love this fic. There's something about it that just warms my heart.

 

My my, what delicious Hora indeed.
What about Fenrir?
"Oh, um...nice doggie?"

 

Hey Bitch!

I set you up on a blind date with my brother Fenrir....

Be yourself

 

I wonder what sort of monster Taylor is? Afterall, even in the Marvel universe Loki's a Jotun. And his other kids are still Hela, Jordmungand, and Fenrir... That means Taylor's not necessarily half-Asgardian, but also half-frost giant (it's the same half though so I guess that means 3 halves). Should be interesting.

 

I laughed and rubbed harder. “Oh that’s a good. . .” I glanced at the underside of the oversized dog, only to find a curious lack of anything recognizable. “Girl? I guessed, then looked over at the thicker girl with the short, lank hair and asked, “What’s her name?”

“She’s Angelica.” The girl squinted at me. Her shoulders were tense as she motioned to the other two dogs. “That’s Brutus, and that’s Judas.”

“And she’s a real beauty.” I said, running my fingers around where one ear had been. She was missing an eye on the same side as well, which was a real shame.

“I’m Taylor.” I said to the girl with the other two dogs. Suddenly remembering what I’d just done, I shrank in on myself. “Sorry, I should have asked before coming over here and petting your dog.”

Her look softened some, and her shoulders lost their tension. “Rachel. You’re fine. Just don’t fuck up.” Then she clicked her tongue, and the other two dogs rushed me, knocking me over on my ass and standing over me, greeting me with big, deep whoofs of breathe and curious sniffing that quickly turned into friendly licks.

“Hahaha! Stop that!” I tried to get back to my feet, but one of them sat on my stomach.

“That’s Brutus, and the other’s Judas.” Rachel said.

Brutus shifted off me, and I rolled out from under the dog pile, then looked up. The two boys that I’d seen on the couch were standing over me. One was short and slim, with a thin, almost feminine face framed by curling black hair. The other was tall and sculpted, his hair cut short and professionally. He offered me a hand, and I took it. “I’m Brian.”

“Alec.” The shorter one said.

“And you know me, of course.” Lisa said, sweeping in to ferry me to the couches in front of the television. “I imagine the boys are going to go hit each other to show off how manly they are for a little while, aren’t they?”

Brian shrugged, and Alec did something I couldn’t make out with the fingers of one hand. It was probably obscene, but he followed the older teen into a partitioned area opposite the kitchen regardless. Rachel stood up and walked out the door we’d come in through earlier, her dogs following. “Going to take a walk.” She said. “Be back . . . six? Yeah.”

“I thought you said. . . never mind, see you later!” Lisa replied. As the door closed she turned to me. “Do you want anything to drink? We’ve got pretty much whatever.”

“No, I’m good.” I said.

While she rummaged around in the fridge she talked. “So that’s about the best anyone’s ever gotten along with Rachel. I’m impressed.”

I liked dogs. “She just wanted to make sure her dogs were all right.” I said. “Does she hang out here a lot?”

“Her, Alec, and Brian, yeah. Brian has his own place, but the rest of us sleep here. Normally I’d be worried about how a new person would get along, but now? I think you’ll fit in just fine.” Lisa settled down on the other side of the couch with a coke and gave me a speculative look. “I bet you’re wondering why your parent’s arranged for me to help you out, aren’t you?”

“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t.” I remarked and fought back a frown in anticipation. People didn’t do things like this, didn’t come out of the blue to help strangers.

As if reading my mind, Lisa smiled. Well, it’s like I said earlier. I’m not doing this out of the goodness of my heart.”

I tried to think of what my mother could have tempted Lisa with to get her to do this. Learning how to use my power, my magic, would probably take a very long time, and nobody had mentioned anything like a time limit so far. “If you don’t mind me asking,” I cleared my throat. “What, exactly, are you getting out of this?”

“I’ve got a problem with my current employer. He’s got me over a bit of a barrel, to be honest. Well, had me over a barrel. ” Lisa smiled, and no matter how pretty it was, part of me knew from long experience that whoever she was talking about was going to regret knowing Lisa.

More than a little unsettled by the way Lisa had suddenly shifted moods, I wracked my brain for a safer topic to talk about. “So about when we’re going to meet, you said any time’s good with you?”

“Except at night.” Lisa clarified. “But otherwise, sure. What time were you thinking of?”

“After school. From four to six, if I can convince my dad.”

Lisa nodded. “That’s fine, so what days are you thinking of?”

I paused for a moment, deliberating. I wanted to do this. I felt the need to learn how to control this power, now that I had access to something so versatile. “Every day.”

“Every day?” Lisa’s smile dimmed a fraction. “What about the weekends?”

“All day Saturday.” I decided. “From noon until whenever. This is important.”

“Are you sure you can keep that up?” She asked.

I pursed my lips and looked at the fridge to hide my irritation, where a string of magnetic letters spelled out insulting messages about local parahuman groups, the ABB, Wards, and Empire Eighty-Eight. I needed this, this practise time. Mother told me that Lisa would be my guide, so should she be available to guide me when I wanted help? “You said whenever.”

“I know, but that’s a lot of time, especially if- wow.”

“Wow?”

“Wow’s right.” Lisa said, and my irritation fled as I looked at her, really looked at her. Lisa’s eyes were wide and out of focus, like she was looking at things that weren’t really there. “Can you do that thing again? They thing with your eyes?”

I looked into the mirrored finish on the chrome refrigerator, but couldn’t make any details out. “What are you talking about, what thing?”

“The thing.” Lisa said, then stopped and closed her eyes, noticeably drawing herself up as she searched for words. When she looked at me again her vision was intent. “You did something with your eyes, Taylor. They didn’t change color, but there was something very off about them, and I felt . . . weird. Not a bad weird, but weird.”

“I don’t know what I did.” I said, flustered by the way she was looking at me, like I was a can of soup, and she wanted to know what ‘natural flavors’ meant. “Or how I did it.” God, I wish this power came with an instruction manual. It was like I was getting the hang of my strength all over again.

“Well what were you thinking of?” Lisa asked.

I thought about it, and made a connection. Hadn’t something happened earlier in the day, something I hadn’t questioned at the time, but that didn’t make much sense? I ran my fingers along my mother’s bracelet, and the green and silver metal flared, despite the light not changing. “Earlier today- the same thing happened, I think.” Slowly, haltingly, I put things together. “Someone took my bracelet and I got upset. I got angry.”

“That’s it.” Lisa said suddenly. “Something happened and you hit a certain emotional state, some powers work that way. Something wasn’t supposed to happen the way it was, and you wanted to change it.”

“So that’s how I use this?” I asked, unsure. “I just. . . want it to happen?” That didn’t seem that difficult, but there had to be something else to it, or else I wouldn’t have needed a guide to learn it. And how exactly was Lisa supposed to help anyway?

“Did my mom tell you anything?” Or are you just guessing? The other half of the question went unsaid.

Lisa shrugged noncommittally, and took another sip of coke. “I know things. It’s my power, pretty cool one too, right?”

Knowing things? Just- knowing things?

Already I could think of half a dozen uses for a power like that. What was someone with a Thinker power as broad as that sounded was living in a run-down old factory in the bad part of town, and not living the high life with any one of a dozen groups? She could probably make a fortune just off reverse-engineering Tinkertech alone!

“Yeah, that’s about the right reaction.”

I flushed when I realized that Lisa had caught me spacing out. “Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it, I can hardly fault you for knowing how cool my power is.” She smirked. “So you’ve got an emotional trigger- no, you’ve got a willpower threshold you’ve got to get over before it kicks in, that’s useful. No accidentally turning tables into tapirs, then. There’s something else past that to worry about, though.”

“Magic words?” I half joked, and Lisa frowned. “You’re joking.”

“I’m not. You need to say the magic words.”

“Like abracadabra?” I asked.

“More Old Norse than Aramaic, but sure.” Lisa’s smile had settled down into a thin, curved line, and as she nursed her soda she continued. “Let’s start you with something simple, like moving things. That’s Bregð.” She said the word with an odd ‘th’ sound at the end. “Go on.”

I stared at the small table, concentrated on regaining the focus I remembered from the hallway, from a few minutes before, but without any success.

Lisa got up and walked behind me. I tensed when she put her hands on my shoulders; didn’t she know how dangerous touching me like that could be? “Don’t worry. Relax, and just focus. This is a big step, you know. Actually tapping this power, using it, is going to be the first thing you’ll need to do, all the time. This kind of power? People aren’t going to leave you alone.”

I swallowed at the thought.

“Gangs, not just the Protectorate. Empire Eighty-Eight would love to get to you. Did you know that most of their capes didn’t want to join at first? The Empire has a lot of capes, and the second someone hears you use your power, this ‘magic’? You’ll be on their list. You can’t fight them all and win, and they won’t take no for an answer.”

I swallowed.

“Then there’s the ABB,” Lisa continued, her voice softer, but just as hard. “You think they’re not as bad as the Empire because they only have two capes, right? Wrong. Oni Lee is a ghost, you won’t even hear him appear before he slits your throat, or shoved a bomb into your hands. Lung. . . Lung is Lung.”

I stared at the table, my stomach starting to twist in my gut at the images Lisa was drawing in my head. Alone, surrounded and beaten down to be dragged before Kaiser, or ripped in half by a rampaging dragon or explosive.

“You’ll never make it unless you can do this on command, without thought, without hesitation.” Lisa said, this time so soft I barely heard her. Her voice and the table, that was all I was aware of, my world had narrowed. Suddenly she barked. “Say it!”

“Bregð!” I spat out, and the hot pressure building inside me flared bright- green light spat from my fingertips and hit the table, and it slammed backwards into the concrete wall! The wooden table broke in two with the force of the impact, and the sound broke my concentration.

The light cut out, and the pressure faded, leaving me empty, and cold.

Lisa rubbed my shoulders and said, “Now we do it again. Faster.”

 

So, Coil is gone. Like for good?

 

Well an Asgardian had a free hour and unlimited scanning. So I guess so.

 

SO the reason Taylor is so flat is because her mother was a man?

 

She just hasn't learned how to shapeshift yet.

Give her a couple years, and she too will be the Deviant-Cup.