Edge 4.1
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Hyperactive Scatterbrain
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Edge 4.1
Edge - A poker player's advantage over other players, usually referring to skill.
I'd never been able to fully decompress from my battle with Lung, but the past few days had been dedicated to far more mundane stressors instead. At the very least, school had been canceled for the remainder of the week; several of the school buildings had been turned to cinders, and from what I heard, the city was still figuring out how they'd manage that so close to the end of the year.
Once I'd been checked out of the hospital, Dad and I had taken the few belongings he'd saved from the fire, consisting of clothes and a few family photos, and moved them to the Dallon household in boxes. (There hadn't been enough of them for us to need a storage locker, which was both relieving and sad at the same time.) We'd spent a few days getting settled on the specifics of what joining New Wave would mean: with Brandish being a lawyer, you could bet she'd made sure all her bases were covered. From there, we'd gone out a few times to help clean up the city and tried to settle back into a routine.
While I hadn't gone on an actual patrol yet, I'd at least been introduced to the rest of the team, including the other recruit they'd picked up in the wake of Lung's attack. We hadn't really spoken even while we'd been helping sift through the rubble together, but while she'd seemed even more withdrawn than I'd been, at least I hadn't gotten any overtly unpleasant vibes from her.
The day that routine changed once more was a Saturday. As before, the Dallons and I met in the living room, where we were given our in-costume objectives for the day. Dad waited off to the side so he could listen in. This time, however, I was given a rudimentary map of Brockton Bay with a single section shaded in. While I hadn't gotten this before and therefore had an idea of why I'd need it, I figured I might as well ask. "More cleanup designations, or…"
"I wouldn't say the city's recovered yet, there's still some areas that are virtually uninhabitable at the moment," Victoria said. "However, the bulk of the recovery work is done, and I'm sure everyone would like to try and get back in the groove, including me. We'll do some cleanup in the process, but tonight will look more like our usual patrol."
I'd felt good just helping the citizens of Brockton Bay clear out the rubble that Lung had left behind; even if it wasn't much, I was doing something to help, which was better than a lot of people could say. However, I was ready to hit the streets again. Going back to helping people in ways ordinary citizens couldn't promised to make the warm feeling in my chest swell tenfold.
"In that case," I said, "where am I headed?"
"For now, Mom's just going to have you stick with me outside Captain's Hill so I can help you ease into things while she reworks everyone's patrol routes to accommodate two more people," Victoria said, showing me her version of the map, which was identical to mine. "She's very particular about how we handle those, and I can't say I blame her."
"Well, I don't want to mess up her system," I said. "If everyone's ready, let's get going."
The two of us retreated to our rooms to get in costume. As we prepared for our patrols, Victoria went into some detail on Brandish's patrol planning, which honestly felt quite impressive given the circumstances. Each New Wave hero covered a section of Brockton Bay during each patrol, each one having one or fewer Protectorate hero/Ward in the area. The shapes of those sections and who covered them changed on a day-by-day basis, following no obvious pattern, so enterprising villains wouldn't know who'd arrive first in the event they tried something. Furthermore, each New Wave member carried a walkie-talkie to get in touch with the rest of the members in case they either needed backup or healing. It even had a second channel to get the Protectorate on the line; nine times out of ten, the Ward or other Protectorate hero in the area would make that call first, but no one wanted things to go south during that other ten percent.
All of us congregated in the living room in costume for a brief minute, then dispersed onto the front lawn before we started going our separate ways. Perhaps because Glory Girl wasn't used to someone tagging along with her, we were the last to leave.
Glory Girl smiled at me. "So, are you ready for your first patrol?"
I nodded. "As ready as I'm getting, I suppose." I left out that this was technically my third patrol, or that both of my first two had nearly ended in disaster. Chances were third time was the charm; I'd eventually have to make it through at least one patrol without anything crazy happening. "Well, in the twenty minutes it'll take us to get there, anyway."
"I can get us there faster if you're okay with me carrying you," Glory Girl said. "Want to take the express route?"
I nodded so hard, it was a wonder my head didn't fall off. How could I possibly say no to an opportunity that incredible? "Why wouldn't I?"
"Just wanted to make sure you're not afraid of heights or something," Glory Girl said. I supposed that was understandable. She instructed me on how to get into a position where she could hold me securely, picked me up like I weighed nothing once I got in that position, and then we were off in a rush of adrenaline.
As we soared, I wondered if I could try and replicate the experience with a large number of flying insects, given that they were often stronger than they looked. It'd be a watered-down experience, the flight slower and less dynamic, but anything to recreate even a fraction of what I was feeling now without help would be incredible, and could even prove useful for hero work, such as saving someone in a tall building from a fire. I put that to the back of my mind for now: I'd probably be better off testing that in the summer, when there'd be more insects to pull from.
We weren't in the air for too long, maybe five minutes maximum. From there, she flew in a helix to lose momentum, then gently set both of us on the ground. After taking a moment to stretch and loosen my joints after the flight, the two of us began walking together as we monitored our little portion of Brockton Bay.
My first sanctioned patrol started on a rather depressing note. This section of the city frankly didn't have that much left to patrol; each building was a coin toss on whether or not it was standing, and another coin toss regarding whether it was occupied. A handful of rough-looking individuals wandered the street, but for a long time, we were neither stopped for autographs nor dispatched to handle any criminals.
Our first interruption, while not anywhere near as horrific as what had happened just a few short days ago, still displayed the signs of trouble to come. It got the drop on us before we were ready: we turned a corner and found a woman standing on the sidewalk thirty feet in front of us, wielding a crowbar and an expression that could freeze lava.
She might have still been pretty if her outfit hadn't set off every red flag possible. The Empire Eighty-Eight had forced every Brockton Bay citizen to learn about Nazi dogwhistles if they wanted to avoid getting jumped, but she'd skipped straight past that step into full-on Nazi Germany cosplay: she was wearing what looked like an intact Wermacht uniform, of all things. Someone that far gone probably had some nasty tattoos her outfit covered up, but for now, I decided not to think about that.
"You do realize these streets are off-limits for dykes like you," the woman said. "Turn back around, and I'll leave you alone. Otherwise, you're here at your own risk."
Glory Girl stopped dead in her tracks, sighed, and took a deep breath. I understood where she was coming from; I didn't appreciate being insulted by Nazis either, even if this felt less personal than anything Emma had thrown at me.
When we began walking towards her once more, the neo-Nazi's snarl somehow deepened. "You were warned."
As she launched into a tirade of threats and insults, I leaned in to whisper to Glory Girl without being overheard. "Are we taking her in?"
"What she's doing is fucking disgusting, but I'm not sure if she's crossed the line into sufficiently illegal yet," Glory Girl said. "She lays a hand on either of us, I'll start singing a different tune, though."
"Then let's move on," I said. "Maybe if we don't give her a reaction, she'll go away."
Admittedly, I was being optimistic to the point of naivete there: that'd never worked on the Trio, all that did was cause them to escalate further. However, the scenario was a bit different here, so I had some hope. Unless the woman tried to physically attack us or called in backup, there was only so much she could actually do to escalate things, and in both cases, we could call for outside help if needed, something I'd never had access to at Winslow.
We got moving again to try and lose our heckler, but either she was a cape or just worked out a lot, because she kept up with us without too much issue despite her clunky, ugly uniform, spewing hatred and insults all the while. While we couldn't necessarily tune her out, we no longer rose to the bait, either. All the woman's shouting did was attract attention from the few other people in the area, most of it rather unpleasant. Someone even chucked a half-full beer bottle at her from a second-story window, which she had to be quick on her feet to dodge.
This continued until we approached a line of half-full dumpsters that were surrounded by a cloud of flies. Here, Glory Girl stopped, beginning to rummage through one of the dumpsters without caring that her arms were swiftly getting filthy and the flies had begun congregating on her head even as I worked to keep the worst of them away from her. At first, I wondered if she was looking for another potential assailant hiding under the trash, but then the neo-Nazi spoke again, and the true intent behind what Glory Girl had been doing became clear. "What's the matter? Looking for your next meal in there? It's better than you alphabet freaks deserve."
"No, silly," Glory Girl said, her smile turning blinding. "I thought that was where you belonged, so I was trying to make it more comfortable."
That earned Glory Girl a glare from the neo-Nazi and a smile from me. Still, the neo-Nazi wasn't done yet. "I was thinking the same for you. I'm a paragon of the white race, not filth like you; you'd be better off with the rest of this trash."
"Although, we might need more dumpsters if we keep this up," Glory Girl added, ignoring what the neo-Nazi had just said and adopting a dreamy look. "I mean, given that all of them are human trash, the entire Empire Eighty-Eight needs to fit in there, so…"
Given that the neo-Nazi's face turned a color so red that she probably would have screamed something about commies had she seen it anywhere else, Glory Girl must have struck a nerve. She broke from her position in our peripheral vision to charge us outright, armed with a crowbar that had at least one suspicious splatter on it.
Fortunately for everyone except the neo-Nazi, things went just as expected: the crowbar bounced off of Glory Girl with no effect, while Glory Girl's subsequent kick didn't. Even though I could tell she'd been holding back, the neo-Nazi still tumbled a solid six feet backward, clutching at their sternum and moaning. Why she'd thought she could land a hit on Glory Girl without any powers whatsoever, I didn't know, but no one ever accused neo-Nazis of being smart.
"Thanks for doing that," Glory Girl said to the neo-Nazi once it became clear she wasn't getting back up. "That was really fucking cathartic."
I couldn't say I disagreed. The number of times I'd wanted to do something like that to some combination of Emma, Madison, and Sophia was safely in the triple digits.
Glory Girl got her walkie-talkie out and got Brandish on the line. "Would you mind dispatching the BBPD to our current location? Someone thought it'd be a good idea to come at me with a crowbar."
"Roger," Brandish said, the conversation ending there. I didn't know if they were already in the area or just jumped at catching a glimpse of Glory Girl (though those two weren't mutually exclusive), but a squad car pulled up to us less than three minutes later, the neo-Nazi still on the ground and groaning. Thankfully, it didn't take much effort for Glory Girl to help maneuver the woman into the back of their squad car.
Once the neo-Nazi had been taken away, I asked the obvious question. "With the ABB gone, the Empire has to be our next priority to dismantle, right?"
"That's the plan, but Director Piggot doesn't want to rush things," Victoria said. "Once we get a clearer picture of what their plans are, then we start moving. We don't want to let them get too established, but we don't want to fall into any traps they've set up, either." Then she shuddered. "We don't want another Fleur."
Instantly, I felt terrible for bringing up the idea. Fleur's death was fairly recent and common knowledge; I should have known better than to push on the issue for now. "My apologies, should have been more cautious about that."
"No need," Glory Girl said. "Trust me, we want the Empire gone as much as or more than anyone. It just wasn't practical for the longest time, and arguably it still isn't; competitors or no competitors, they still have a lot of capes. If we wanted to truly eradicate them and not just beat them down, we'd probably need outside help again, and we just got the Triumvirate involved."
Admittedly, I knew less about the politics of the cape scene outside of Brockton Bay than I probably should have, but I assumed that, barring S-Class threats like the Slaughterhouse Nine, each branch of the Protectorate was expected to be able to fend for itself in some capacity. Maybe needing outside help multiple times in a short period, barring those scenarios, was poor form or reflected badly on the Director or something.
We broke off our conversation there, as we needed to focus once more. After we signed a few autographs from people who'd approached us after our incident with the neo-Nazi, the rest of our patrol cycle came with no interruptions, Nazi-related or otherwise. Glory Girl offered to take me home the same way she'd taken me there, and of course I accepted: the rush had been exhilarating the first time, and the second time was no different.
Once we neared the Dallons' house, though, something made my heart skip a beat that wasn't the ridiculous fear of plummeting to my death. Someone who looked like another girl our age was walking up the driveway, every step measured and with purpose. Given the information I currently had, I'd already pinned down a likely suspect as to who that was, but when she turned around after we landed, it became impossible for her to be literally anyone else.
Were Yumeko a cape, maybe her power had something to do with impeccable timing: this was the second time in a row she'd known where I'd be and when I'd get there without me telling her anything. Admittedly, this one had better odds of being a coincidence since I'd become a public-facing hero, but it was still unsettling.
"There you are," Yumeko said. "I've been looking for you."
The look Glory Girl gave Yumeko reminded me that, because Glory Girl went to Arcadia and Yumeko hadn't come with us during Lung's attack, the two of them had never met. "Taylor, who's this?"
"She's Yumeko, my friend from Winslow," I said. I decided to stop there, because I wasn't sure how Glory Girl could or would react if she knew the whole truth.
Glory Girl relaxed a bit. "If you two are friends, I'll leave you alone: I'm going to go change out of my costume. If you need me, just holler."
She did just that, meaning whatever Yumeko had to say would likely be heard by our ears alone. Regardless of what Yumeko was here for, I decided to try and take the initiative this time. "Hello, Yumeko. How'd you find me?"
"I heard the news and made my own deductions from there," Yumeko said, though I had to admit figuring that out came nowhere close to what she was capable of. "Since it looks like you're done for today, do you mind if we talk for a bit?"
There was no such thing as a light conversation with Yumeko: every chat I'd had with her had been about as stressful as my recent conversations with Dad. Furthermore, if Yumeko had gone out of her way to find me in person instead of just calling (although, admittedly, she might not have known the Dallons' house number and our landline had been turned to ashes), it could easily mean she worried whatever she had to say would be intercepted by bad actors otherwise.
Those two facts gave this conversation a degree of seriousness far beyond what I wanted to handle right now. Nothing good would come from delaying this any longer, though: as with her initial recruitment pitch, it was best to just handle this now. "Sure, why not? Where would you like to do that?"
"Here's fine, I don't want to burden you any further," Yumeko said. "Let's just keep it down and make sure no one's eavesdropping. This is rather important, after all."
Any hope I had for a peaceful night slipped away then and there.
My last two chapters were a bit shorter than average, so apparently my muse decided to compensate this time.
Edge - A poker player's advantage over other players, usually referring to skill.
I'd never been able to fully decompress from my battle with Lung, but the past few days had been dedicated to far more mundane stressors instead. At the very least, school had been canceled for the remainder of the week; several of the school buildings had been turned to cinders, and from what I heard, the city was still figuring out how they'd manage that so close to the end of the year.
Once I'd been checked out of the hospital, Dad and I had taken the few belongings he'd saved from the fire, consisting of clothes and a few family photos, and moved them to the Dallon household in boxes. (There hadn't been enough of them for us to need a storage locker, which was both relieving and sad at the same time.) We'd spent a few days getting settled on the specifics of what joining New Wave would mean: with Brandish being a lawyer, you could bet she'd made sure all her bases were covered. From there, we'd gone out a few times to help clean up the city and tried to settle back into a routine.
While I hadn't gone on an actual patrol yet, I'd at least been introduced to the rest of the team, including the other recruit they'd picked up in the wake of Lung's attack. We hadn't really spoken even while we'd been helping sift through the rubble together, but while she'd seemed even more withdrawn than I'd been, at least I hadn't gotten any overtly unpleasant vibes from her.
The day that routine changed once more was a Saturday. As before, the Dallons and I met in the living room, where we were given our in-costume objectives for the day. Dad waited off to the side so he could listen in. This time, however, I was given a rudimentary map of Brockton Bay with a single section shaded in. While I hadn't gotten this before and therefore had an idea of why I'd need it, I figured I might as well ask. "More cleanup designations, or…"
"I wouldn't say the city's recovered yet, there's still some areas that are virtually uninhabitable at the moment," Victoria said. "However, the bulk of the recovery work is done, and I'm sure everyone would like to try and get back in the groove, including me. We'll do some cleanup in the process, but tonight will look more like our usual patrol."
I'd felt good just helping the citizens of Brockton Bay clear out the rubble that Lung had left behind; even if it wasn't much, I was doing something to help, which was better than a lot of people could say. However, I was ready to hit the streets again. Going back to helping people in ways ordinary citizens couldn't promised to make the warm feeling in my chest swell tenfold.
"In that case," I said, "where am I headed?"
"For now, Mom's just going to have you stick with me outside Captain's Hill so I can help you ease into things while she reworks everyone's patrol routes to accommodate two more people," Victoria said, showing me her version of the map, which was identical to mine. "She's very particular about how we handle those, and I can't say I blame her."
"Well, I don't want to mess up her system," I said. "If everyone's ready, let's get going."
The two of us retreated to our rooms to get in costume. As we prepared for our patrols, Victoria went into some detail on Brandish's patrol planning, which honestly felt quite impressive given the circumstances. Each New Wave hero covered a section of Brockton Bay during each patrol, each one having one or fewer Protectorate hero/Ward in the area. The shapes of those sections and who covered them changed on a day-by-day basis, following no obvious pattern, so enterprising villains wouldn't know who'd arrive first in the event they tried something. Furthermore, each New Wave member carried a walkie-talkie to get in touch with the rest of the members in case they either needed backup or healing. It even had a second channel to get the Protectorate on the line; nine times out of ten, the Ward or other Protectorate hero in the area would make that call first, but no one wanted things to go south during that other ten percent.
All of us congregated in the living room in costume for a brief minute, then dispersed onto the front lawn before we started going our separate ways. Perhaps because Glory Girl wasn't used to someone tagging along with her, we were the last to leave.
Glory Girl smiled at me. "So, are you ready for your first patrol?"
I nodded. "As ready as I'm getting, I suppose." I left out that this was technically my third patrol, or that both of my first two had nearly ended in disaster. Chances were third time was the charm; I'd eventually have to make it through at least one patrol without anything crazy happening. "Well, in the twenty minutes it'll take us to get there, anyway."
"I can get us there faster if you're okay with me carrying you," Glory Girl said. "Want to take the express route?"
I nodded so hard, it was a wonder my head didn't fall off. How could I possibly say no to an opportunity that incredible? "Why wouldn't I?"
"Just wanted to make sure you're not afraid of heights or something," Glory Girl said. I supposed that was understandable. She instructed me on how to get into a position where she could hold me securely, picked me up like I weighed nothing once I got in that position, and then we were off in a rush of adrenaline.
As we soared, I wondered if I could try and replicate the experience with a large number of flying insects, given that they were often stronger than they looked. It'd be a watered-down experience, the flight slower and less dynamic, but anything to recreate even a fraction of what I was feeling now without help would be incredible, and could even prove useful for hero work, such as saving someone in a tall building from a fire. I put that to the back of my mind for now: I'd probably be better off testing that in the summer, when there'd be more insects to pull from.
We weren't in the air for too long, maybe five minutes maximum. From there, she flew in a helix to lose momentum, then gently set both of us on the ground. After taking a moment to stretch and loosen my joints after the flight, the two of us began walking together as we monitored our little portion of Brockton Bay.
My first sanctioned patrol started on a rather depressing note. This section of the city frankly didn't have that much left to patrol; each building was a coin toss on whether or not it was standing, and another coin toss regarding whether it was occupied. A handful of rough-looking individuals wandered the street, but for a long time, we were neither stopped for autographs nor dispatched to handle any criminals.
Our first interruption, while not anywhere near as horrific as what had happened just a few short days ago, still displayed the signs of trouble to come. It got the drop on us before we were ready: we turned a corner and found a woman standing on the sidewalk thirty feet in front of us, wielding a crowbar and an expression that could freeze lava.
She might have still been pretty if her outfit hadn't set off every red flag possible. The Empire Eighty-Eight had forced every Brockton Bay citizen to learn about Nazi dogwhistles if they wanted to avoid getting jumped, but she'd skipped straight past that step into full-on Nazi Germany cosplay: she was wearing what looked like an intact Wermacht uniform, of all things. Someone that far gone probably had some nasty tattoos her outfit covered up, but for now, I decided not to think about that.
"You do realize these streets are off-limits for dykes like you," the woman said. "Turn back around, and I'll leave you alone. Otherwise, you're here at your own risk."
Glory Girl stopped dead in her tracks, sighed, and took a deep breath. I understood where she was coming from; I didn't appreciate being insulted by Nazis either, even if this felt less personal than anything Emma had thrown at me.
When we began walking towards her once more, the neo-Nazi's snarl somehow deepened. "You were warned."
As she launched into a tirade of threats and insults, I leaned in to whisper to Glory Girl without being overheard. "Are we taking her in?"
"What she's doing is fucking disgusting, but I'm not sure if she's crossed the line into sufficiently illegal yet," Glory Girl said. "She lays a hand on either of us, I'll start singing a different tune, though."
"Then let's move on," I said. "Maybe if we don't give her a reaction, she'll go away."
Admittedly, I was being optimistic to the point of naivete there: that'd never worked on the Trio, all that did was cause them to escalate further. However, the scenario was a bit different here, so I had some hope. Unless the woman tried to physically attack us or called in backup, there was only so much she could actually do to escalate things, and in both cases, we could call for outside help if needed, something I'd never had access to at Winslow.
We got moving again to try and lose our heckler, but either she was a cape or just worked out a lot, because she kept up with us without too much issue despite her clunky, ugly uniform, spewing hatred and insults all the while. While we couldn't necessarily tune her out, we no longer rose to the bait, either. All the woman's shouting did was attract attention from the few other people in the area, most of it rather unpleasant. Someone even chucked a half-full beer bottle at her from a second-story window, which she had to be quick on her feet to dodge.
This continued until we approached a line of half-full dumpsters that were surrounded by a cloud of flies. Here, Glory Girl stopped, beginning to rummage through one of the dumpsters without caring that her arms were swiftly getting filthy and the flies had begun congregating on her head even as I worked to keep the worst of them away from her. At first, I wondered if she was looking for another potential assailant hiding under the trash, but then the neo-Nazi spoke again, and the true intent behind what Glory Girl had been doing became clear. "What's the matter? Looking for your next meal in there? It's better than you alphabet freaks deserve."
"No, silly," Glory Girl said, her smile turning blinding. "I thought that was where you belonged, so I was trying to make it more comfortable."
That earned Glory Girl a glare from the neo-Nazi and a smile from me. Still, the neo-Nazi wasn't done yet. "I was thinking the same for you. I'm a paragon of the white race, not filth like you; you'd be better off with the rest of this trash."
"Although, we might need more dumpsters if we keep this up," Glory Girl added, ignoring what the neo-Nazi had just said and adopting a dreamy look. "I mean, given that all of them are human trash, the entire Empire Eighty-Eight needs to fit in there, so…"
Given that the neo-Nazi's face turned a color so red that she probably would have screamed something about commies had she seen it anywhere else, Glory Girl must have struck a nerve. She broke from her position in our peripheral vision to charge us outright, armed with a crowbar that had at least one suspicious splatter on it.
Fortunately for everyone except the neo-Nazi, things went just as expected: the crowbar bounced off of Glory Girl with no effect, while Glory Girl's subsequent kick didn't. Even though I could tell she'd been holding back, the neo-Nazi still tumbled a solid six feet backward, clutching at their sternum and moaning. Why she'd thought she could land a hit on Glory Girl without any powers whatsoever, I didn't know, but no one ever accused neo-Nazis of being smart.
"Thanks for doing that," Glory Girl said to the neo-Nazi once it became clear she wasn't getting back up. "That was really fucking cathartic."
I couldn't say I disagreed. The number of times I'd wanted to do something like that to some combination of Emma, Madison, and Sophia was safely in the triple digits.
Glory Girl got her walkie-talkie out and got Brandish on the line. "Would you mind dispatching the BBPD to our current location? Someone thought it'd be a good idea to come at me with a crowbar."
"Roger," Brandish said, the conversation ending there. I didn't know if they were already in the area or just jumped at catching a glimpse of Glory Girl (though those two weren't mutually exclusive), but a squad car pulled up to us less than three minutes later, the neo-Nazi still on the ground and groaning. Thankfully, it didn't take much effort for Glory Girl to help maneuver the woman into the back of their squad car.
Once the neo-Nazi had been taken away, I asked the obvious question. "With the ABB gone, the Empire has to be our next priority to dismantle, right?"
"That's the plan, but Director Piggot doesn't want to rush things," Victoria said. "Once we get a clearer picture of what their plans are, then we start moving. We don't want to let them get too established, but we don't want to fall into any traps they've set up, either." Then she shuddered. "We don't want another Fleur."
Instantly, I felt terrible for bringing up the idea. Fleur's death was fairly recent and common knowledge; I should have known better than to push on the issue for now. "My apologies, should have been more cautious about that."
"No need," Glory Girl said. "Trust me, we want the Empire gone as much as or more than anyone. It just wasn't practical for the longest time, and arguably it still isn't; competitors or no competitors, they still have a lot of capes. If we wanted to truly eradicate them and not just beat them down, we'd probably need outside help again, and we just got the Triumvirate involved."
Admittedly, I knew less about the politics of the cape scene outside of Brockton Bay than I probably should have, but I assumed that, barring S-Class threats like the Slaughterhouse Nine, each branch of the Protectorate was expected to be able to fend for itself in some capacity. Maybe needing outside help multiple times in a short period, barring those scenarios, was poor form or reflected badly on the Director or something.
We broke off our conversation there, as we needed to focus once more. After we signed a few autographs from people who'd approached us after our incident with the neo-Nazi, the rest of our patrol cycle came with no interruptions, Nazi-related or otherwise. Glory Girl offered to take me home the same way she'd taken me there, and of course I accepted: the rush had been exhilarating the first time, and the second time was no different.
Once we neared the Dallons' house, though, something made my heart skip a beat that wasn't the ridiculous fear of plummeting to my death. Someone who looked like another girl our age was walking up the driveway, every step measured and with purpose. Given the information I currently had, I'd already pinned down a likely suspect as to who that was, but when she turned around after we landed, it became impossible for her to be literally anyone else.
Were Yumeko a cape, maybe her power had something to do with impeccable timing: this was the second time in a row she'd known where I'd be and when I'd get there without me telling her anything. Admittedly, this one had better odds of being a coincidence since I'd become a public-facing hero, but it was still unsettling.
"There you are," Yumeko said. "I've been looking for you."
The look Glory Girl gave Yumeko reminded me that, because Glory Girl went to Arcadia and Yumeko hadn't come with us during Lung's attack, the two of them had never met. "Taylor, who's this?"
"She's Yumeko, my friend from Winslow," I said. I decided to stop there, because I wasn't sure how Glory Girl could or would react if she knew the whole truth.
Glory Girl relaxed a bit. "If you two are friends, I'll leave you alone: I'm going to go change out of my costume. If you need me, just holler."
She did just that, meaning whatever Yumeko had to say would likely be heard by our ears alone. Regardless of what Yumeko was here for, I decided to try and take the initiative this time. "Hello, Yumeko. How'd you find me?"
"I heard the news and made my own deductions from there," Yumeko said, though I had to admit figuring that out came nowhere close to what she was capable of. "Since it looks like you're done for today, do you mind if we talk for a bit?"
There was no such thing as a light conversation with Yumeko: every chat I'd had with her had been about as stressful as my recent conversations with Dad. Furthermore, if Yumeko had gone out of her way to find me in person instead of just calling (although, admittedly, she might not have known the Dallons' house number and our landline had been turned to ashes), it could easily mean she worried whatever she had to say would be intercepted by bad actors otherwise.
Those two facts gave this conversation a degree of seriousness far beyond what I wanted to handle right now. Nothing good would come from delaying this any longer, though: as with her initial recruitment pitch, it was best to just handle this now. "Sure, why not? Where would you like to do that?"
"Here's fine, I don't want to burden you any further," Yumeko said. "Let's just keep it down and make sure no one's eavesdropping. This is rather important, after all."
Any hope I had for a peaceful night slipped away then and there.
My last two chapters were a bit shorter than average, so apparently my muse decided to compensate this time.
In case it's not obvious, I'm attempting to use cape names when the characters are in costume and real names when they're not, at least in narration. If I mess something up on that front, please let me know.
I don't really have much else to say here, other than that I hope you enjoyed the chapter. (Also, I'm going to try and revive Shuffle and Play (a Worm/Yu-Gi-Oh TCG one-shot collection I started last year) after a long hiatus if you're interested in that: I'll see if I can update that every Friday until I run out of ideas. It'll be on my AO3 and Spacebattles for now, and I may or may not migrate it here.)
That's all from me. I hope to see you next week!
I don't really have much else to say here, other than that I hope you enjoyed the chapter. (Also, I'm going to try and revive Shuffle and Play (a Worm/Yu-Gi-Oh TCG one-shot collection I started last year) after a long hiatus if you're interested in that: I'll see if I can update that every Friday until I run out of ideas. It'll be on my AO3 and Spacebattles for now, and I may or may not migrate it here.)
That's all from me. I hope to see you next week!
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