Chapter 1: What a cape needs

Keep your head down, I thought as I walked down the hallway, slouching purposefully to make myself look smaller. Not that it would hide me from them for long, but every little bit helped. It had to help. I'd look around once in awhile to see if I'd been spotted. Mostly though, I kept my eyes glued to the floor. Just because I didn't look up often doesn't me I didn't see what was going on.

A few skinheads were hanging out by the corner of the hallway, talking animatedly. One of them made a thrusting motion repeatedly, as if holding an imaginary knife. The others around him laughed. The Nazis were probably talking about mugging someone or, as I've heard them call it, the ethnic solution.

One of them eyed me and smiled, even going as far as to nod in my general direction. The Empire Eighty Eight were thugs and gangbangers, but they didn't prey on white people. And, as racist as it may sound, I was "white enough" for them. Small blessings really.

If I continued to walk down the hall, I'd reach a stairwell where a mix of Asians liked to hang around. It was an odd group, because the Japanese hated the Koreans, the Thais hated the Cambodians, the Vietnamese hated the Vietnamese and everyone hated the Chinese. Somehow, they stuck together. They still hated each other, they just hated the Empire that much more.

Brockton Bay was getting worse by the day as the Empire and the Azn Bad Boys clashed openly in the streets. The police couldn't do much when facing off against parahumans like Lung or Kaiser and the Protectorate...well, they did the best they could. Just last week they managed to apprehend a villain during a bank robbery. I think his name - his cape name, that is - was Regent. He was part of a small time villain crew called the Undersiders.

It was a small step in the right direction. Too bad they had to run a marathon. Even counting New Wave and the Wards, the heroes had one cape to every two the gangs could call on.

Bad as they were, I wasn't hiding from the gangs. It was something much worse.

"Back so soon, Taylor?" Emma said in a sickeningly sweet tone as she walked past me. "Enjoy the new locker!"

I kept myself from flinching at the word. That was Emma being nice on a good day. Five months and she was still bringing that up.

I stopped before my locker. Yes, as Emma loved to remind me, my new locker, again. One of the few concessions Dad managed to wrangle out of the school after threatening to sue, a new locker every time one of them fails. I'd rather he just let me drop out from this shithole altogether, but Mom had been an educator. Dad liked to think school was her legacy to me.

I flung the locker open. A book fell to the floor, torn pages flying about, half of it soaked in some sticky fluid that smelled far too sweet. I closed my eyes. "Fuck!" I punched the locker next to mine, ignoring the flash of pain and the redness of my knuckles.

This was the fourth time in five months and Emma was getting good at breaking locks. It had barely taken a month this time. I emptied out my locker into my bag before picking up the damaged book.

The bell rang.

I took a deep breathe. "Eight hours, Taylor. You can do this." I lifted my bag, feeling the weight pulling uncomfortably on my shoulders.

It was a Friday today. Eight more hours and I'd be free.

-Resonance-

"Taylor!" Mr. Gladly said, happily surprised. "Glad you could join us." He turned to the class. "Would anyone kindly let Taylor join their group." The class stared at me like I was an alien. Greg tried to raise his hand but one of the girls in his group slapped it down before Mr. Gladly saw it. To be honest, I was relieved he hadn't. Greg was nice enough, I guess, but difficult to work with. He always kept going into tangents.

"No one? Really?" He asked, frowning. "How about-"

"I'm fine being in a group by myself, Mr. Gladly," I said.

His frown deepened, probably because I called him by his name instead of Mr. G. "This is supposed to be a group work. Plus, you haven't been around the last few days."

"I'll manage somehow, sir."

"'Sir'? You make me sound so old, Taylor," he said, chuckling a little. "You understand I'll have to grade your output same as the rest?"

I nodded. It would be better this way.

"Well, if you're sure, I guess I can allow it this one time," he said. The only free seat was at the back of the room, next to Emma's group. The four of them eyed me as I approached and, as if on cue, laughed.

"Yesterday, we ended our discussion with how society has changed with the emergence of capes," Mr. Gladly said. "I'd like to explore one issue in particular: public safety. The case of Paige Mcabee, better known as Canary, has been in the public's eye for some time now as the court decides on a verdict. As a group, I'd like you to decide what punishment, if any, is appropriate for Ms. Mcabee." Mr. Gladly took a seat and fiddled with his laptop.

Images began projecting onto the whiteboard. One of them was a protester with a sign that read "Set free, Mcabee".

"Here are the facts as we know them…"

I grabbed my notebook from my bag and began writing down what Mr. Gladly said. Mcabee was a rogue, a parahuman that was neither villain nor hero and one of the few famous ones out there. According to Parahumans Online, her power made her a great singer, but also made people listening to her extremely susceptible to her suggestions. She had told an ex-boyfriend of hers to "go fuck himself", and he'd taken it literally, tearing off his dick and sticking it up his ass. I mean, the guy probably deserved it, but that didn't make Canary's power any less scary. The PRT agreed with me, assigning her a threat rating of Master 8.

"Who wants to start us off?" Mr. Gladly asked. A hand went up almost immediately. "Sophia? This is a pleasant surprise. Go ahead."

"Sending Paige Mcabee to the Birdcage is a mockery of justice. Just in Brockton Bay we have murderers and drug pushers like the Merchants who continuously get sent to normal prisons that they break out of every other week. Yet, when someone like Mcabee, a rogue, whose first offense is basically justifiable assault, we're willing to treat her like a mass-murderer? That's fucked up!"

"Excellent point, Sophia. Does anyone have a counterpoint?" Nobody was going to argue against Hess, the track star and Emma's best friend. She was too popular.

Naturally, the task fell to me. "Her powers are dangerous though, much more than your average cape. She's rated a Master 8." Hess turned to glare at me, but I'd faced worse from her.

"But she's isn't a threat," Sophia insisted. "She's a rogue with no previous criminal history."

"She nearly killed somebody with it. I don't like the idea of sending her to the Birdcage when we have plenty of villains getting lenient treatment, but the fact is we can't contain a threat like her, a cape, in a normal prison. Just look at the statistics for cape breakouts every year," I said.

Sophia crossed her arms. "She lost control over her powers once in how many years? And in her situation, the asshole deserved it. Why do we demand capes show more emotional restraint than normal people?"

I huffed. "It's exactly because she's a cape that we demand it. Look, when a normal person loses it, they punch someone. When a cape loses it, cities die!"

"That's a good observation, Taylor," Mr. Gladly said, smiling. "'With great power comes great responsibility'." Was he quoting someone? Maybe a movie. Who knows.

"That's an exaggeration," Sophia said.

"Nilbog." I raised a hand and began ticking it off. "Slaughterhouse Nine. Ash Beast. Sleeper. Moord Nag. Need I go on?"

"You can't compare Mcabee to S-Class threats! That's like saying all white people are gangbanging Nazis and those people are fucking psychos! Mcabee just had a bad day." The only skinhead in the class glared at her. She either didn't notice or didn't care. "If she were a normal, any judge would've thrown out the case," Sophia continued.

"Yes, that's a good point Sophia," Mr. Gladly said. "It isn't fair to generalize all capes by the most extreme elements."

"But she isn't, so they didn't," I said. "She's a precedent setting case. If we let Canary walk away, we send villains everywhere the wrong message! 'Nearly killed someone? Just claim it was an accident!'"

"I'm glad you brought that up," Gladly interjected again. "That's exactly why this case has featured prominently in the national discourse. How this case is handled will affect America for a very long time."

"What does that say about parahumans? That we consider them less than human because they happened to trigger?" Sophia asked.

"Well, maybe she should have joined the Protectorate instead of going rogue!" I said. "Maybe then she'd have the training she needed to control her powers!"

"You don't know what you're talking about, Hebert. You think the Protectorate can give a cape training?" she spat out. "They're run by the PRT, by normals."

"Capes need oversight!"

"Oversight? Oversight? You want to know why thugs like Hookwolf are still running around? It's because of fucking 'oversight' from the fucking bureaucrats! They don't understand the unwrit-" She stopped.

Gladly took advantage of the pause. "I think-"

"Normals don't understand cape culture!" Sophia shouted. "How would you know what a cape needs?"

"How would you?" I grinned smugly. Small victories really.

I could hear Sophia breathing heavily, her hands clenched into fists.

"Ahem," Gladly started. "Well, Sophia and Taylor's, ah, spirited conversation have brought up plenty of excellent points. Parahuman rights versus public safety, the evolution of cape culture in America and whether dealing with potential S-Class threats preemptively is moral. I'd like to expound more on the last one. Consequentialist ethics tells us that results ought to dictate what is and isn't right, and this reasoning is often used when arguing for kill orders on potential S-Class threats. On the other hand…"

-Resonance-

Ding-dong, the school bell chimed, and I was out the door at a speed that would've made Olympic power walkers proud. A for effort. It wasn't quite a run though. I didn't want to give Sophia the satisfaction of thinking I was scared of her. I headed up the stairwell to the third floor and made my way to the girl's washroom.

No one was there yet, thankfully. I let myself in one of the cleaner stalls and locked the door behind me. I leaned against the wall and exhaled slowly. Sophia would be coming after me with a vengeance for today. Well, more than usual at least. I glanced at my watch, noting that I had about twenty minutes left of "lunch hour". Why did they call it that anyway? We didn't even get a full hour to eat.

I sat on the lid of the toilet and got my brown bag lunch to begin eating. This was my life now.

I didn't want to deal with all the stares and whispers if I ate outside, not to mention how there was always someone who'd tell Emma where I was to get into her good graces. So everyday, I'd choose a random washroom to hide in, if I bothered showing up for school that is. It made it that much harder for Emma and Sophia to find me.

The door of the washroom banged open.

I froze, still as a statue and kept my ears open. If I moved, the brown bag on my lap would rustle and alert the girls outside to my presence.

I couldn't hear much, the voices obscured by giggling and the sound of water from the sinks. One of the girls knocked on the stall and I ignored it. There were plenty of free stalls in the washroom right now.

She knocked again. And again.

"Occupied," I called out, hesitantly.

"Hebert," said the unmistakeable voice of Sophia. There was more giggling and I barely heard one of them say, "Yeah, do it."

I stood abruptly, letting the paper bag fall to the tiled floor, looking up at the stalls to either side of me wearily. I rushed towards the door, popped open the lock and pushed. It didn't budge. There was more giggling and the sound of the other stall doors rustling open.

I pressed against the door again, leveraging all of my weight against it. The door opened and I was barreling out of the stall.

Straight into Hess.

She sidestepped me gracefully, bringing an arm up to catch my neck and my throat contracted, choking me. And suddenly I was staring at the ceiling, head throbbing to the beat of my heart.

I thrashed my arms and legs around wildly, trying to get up, trying to hit someone, anyone.

"Stay the fuck down Hebert!" Pain erupted in my ankle. The bitch stomped on my foot! I wasn't in a position to fight back.

"You're weak, Herbert," Hess said, sounding, not angry, but disgusted. "A victim. A loser." The hell did the bitch want from me?

My eyes were getting bleary, but I could've sworn the ceiling was moving. No, Hess was just dragging me back into the stall, I realized, as my eyes fluttered shut.

Someone was shaking me again. I opened my eyes, watching the lines of the ceiling sway back and forth, waiting for them to refocus. Then more lines started appearing. My eyes must be really fucked up because they weren't even straight-

I wasn't shaking. The world was.

I pushed myself up, the ground and the sharp pain in my ankle working against me. It felt sprained, so I tried not to put too much weight on it. The middle of an earthquake was not the best time to practice balancing on one foot.

As if the day couldn't get any worse, Hess had done something to jam the stall's lock. I glanced at the ceiling uncertainly, larger cracks forming now. Weren't earthquakes supposed to be under a minute? I banged my fists on the door. "Help! Someone get me out of here!"

Oh god. Oh god! I was going to die here!

A slab of concrete fell, crushing the toilet. "Sophia! Emma! Help me!" The shaking got worse, dragging me back down to the floor. "I'll do anything! Fuck! Emma! Don't leave me here!" My voice sounded hoarse to me now.

There was no one out there. The thought made my skin go cold. I heard a deep, booming sound in the distance, a building collapsing under its own weight. Maybe the gym. Maybe a part of Winslow falling to pieces. More cracks, more and more and more cracks spreading, branching across ceiling and floor, like a hand squeezing an egg.

I survived my mom. I survived the goddamn locker. I didn't want to die here. Because that meant Hess was right. That was letting Hess win.

Hess was going to win!

Fuck her! Fuck that!

Then the world just…stopped. It was too silent, too still to be real. No desperation, anger, discontent. Nothing except them.

They were vast, incomprehensibly vast, larger than anything. In twos and threes they floated together, soaring through the void at impossible speeds. Away. Further and further from-

And I was back in the stall, staring at the door, feeling the rhythm and rumble of the earth.

My hand moved of its own volition, palm touching the door. Something inside me stirred. Something primal and raw that I didn't know existed.

The door shattered like glass.

A snarl erupted from my throat, a beastial noise and I didn't know I was capable of, like a wolf celebrating victory. I dragged myself out of the stall as another piece of the roof broke down. Somehow, I knew the building was close to complete breakdown and the pain in my leg hadn't gone away. No way I could walk my way out of here in time.

The ground started opening, forming an ever growing chasm between me and the washroom door, forcing me back and back and back until I had no more room to go back. I swear, whatever god out there better fix his karmic scale because I was getting tired of this bullshit.

Then my body started to shake uncontrollably. Too fast to be a result of the earthquake, to be anything human really.

Then there was room behind me. And I was falling out of the building.

Fuck my life.

I held out a hand in front of me and-

Why wasn't I dead?

"Are you alright, Miss?" someone asked.

I lifted my head from the ground to see a man with a red 'v' on his chest. No, not a man. A cape. Velocity, my mind instantly supplied.

"Uh, I-I t-think so?" I stuttered. "S-sprained my a-ankle."

"Right," he said, lifting me up. "Hold on, I'm getting you out of here."

Our surroundings blurred a little as Velocity took off. He was a manipulator of some sort, capable of changing states so that time and physics worked differently for him.

There was a loud roar in the distance. The earthquake grew stronger, strong enough to break the Richter scale, my mind said. I turned my eyes to where it was all coming from, to the epicenter and I-

There it was. Ten feet long, over forty-five feet tall, made of gray leather and cooled magma, of obsidian and death. Endbringer. The First Endbringer.

Behemoth.

Streaks of light were flying just outside of Behemoth's kill radius. The Hero-Killer was notorious for his superlative control over energy. All of it, from kinetic to magnetic to radiation. What was worse, he bypassed the Manton limitation completely. Get close enough to him and he cooked you instantaneously from the inside-out.

I spotted the distinct form of Legend among them, noticeable even in the midst of the colors, the very essence of the Protectorate. He was the brightest thing in the air. Eidolon and Alexandria would be here too. The Triumvirate were always the first responders in an Endbringer fight, but there were too few capes here, I realized, my heart sinking. They wouldn't be able to do enough damage until there wasn't a city worth mentioning.

Leviathan would drown cities. Simurgh would turn people against the world. But Behemoth? Behemoth was an unstoppable force of death and destruction. There was a reason they called him Hero-Killer.

After hours and hours of fighting where one in every two capes died, he'd end with turning cities into irradiated wastelands. Even now, he was cooking Brockton Bay slowly, like stew.

He didn't need Leviathan's speed or Simurgh's cunning. He was just really, really tough. Dropping the sun on him probably wouldn't hurt him. I think he'd even enjoy it even.

There was a bright flash. A glowing golden man appeared before the Endbringer, his lack of fear apparent even in the distance. No, the Golden Man.

Scion was here.

Ironic really, that the first cape called himself Scion. Or maybe it was humility? A reminder of sorts?

Beams of golden light shot out from his hand, each unerring, each actually hurting the Behemoth, vaporizing chunks of flesh large enough for a car to fit in. The holes were only growing larger, wider, deeper by the second.

Behemoth roared again, not in defiance, not in challenge, but in pain. Hurt you son of a bitch.

He roared again and I felt a ripple in the air. A wave of high frequency vibrations. No. A pulse.

An electromagnetic pulse.

Then Behemoth disappeared beneath the earth and Scion disappeared in a flash of light.

On the bright side, no more school. Literally.

AN: As a story, this will take place almost exclusively within Brockton Bay. Don't expect to see a save the world plotline here.

Thanks to NuScorpii, my beta reader and the guy that makes sure my characters don't accidentally suffer from multiple personality disorder. Thanks to VereorNox, my other beta reader who brainstorms ideas with me, makes sure my ideas are canon consistent...or as consistent as it can be with an AU story, and is my go-to guy for esoteric worm-verse facts.

I would be remiss in not mentioning three authors and works in particular which inspired me to write for this fandom. Notes' Cenotaph series, ThinkerSix's Weaver Nine and Helian05's Nursing a Grudge.