Crabs All You Need

Taylor scowled as she jogged aimlessly through Brockton Bay. Of all the powers across all the Earths, she just had to get bug control. Just the thought of bugs caused Taylor to freeze up, thanks to her stupid entomophobia. It was like whatever handed out powers had thought, 'Fuck Taylor Hebert.' And-

Taylor lost her train of thought as she felt something non-buggy entered her control. She perked up and focused on it and found that she could control- oh God damn it! Crabs! Really? What the fuck was she supposed to do with that?

Letting at an exasperated sigh, Taylor said, "Better than nothing, I guess."

…

It turned out finding people committing crimes was more difficult than Protectorate Pals made it out to be. Having spent the last week wandering around the sketchier parts of town and accomplishing nothing, she was becoming increasingly more frustrated with each consecutive day.

It didn't help that Taylor felt incredibly self-conscious in her slapdash costume, which was a hoodie and a cloth face mask. She had tried to accessorize it a little by gluing layers of crab shells to her clothes, but Taylor was dubious if they would even soften a fist to the face, let alone a knife.

To top it off, she just couldn't come up with the right hero name. Even though she'd spent most of her patrols trying, she just couldn't come up with anything crab themed and heroic that didn't want to make her die inside. Being a cape was hard, and nobody understood.

Part of her dreaded interacting with anybody in her current state, but she needed to get out and hit the streets, or she was going to explode. She'd already decided that she was going to stake all her self-worth on her hero career, and it was too late for her to come up with a healthier coping mechanism now.

Feeling defeated, Taylor considered heading home when a scream split through the air. This was it. Hurriedly looking around for the source of the scream, Taylor was reasonably sure that it had come from the alleyway just up ahead. With grim determination, Taylor adjusted the straps of her backpack, filled with crabs, and started running towards her first crime. She skidded around the corner and came face to face with her worst nightmare: teen girls.

As she stared at the gaggle of girls in dumbfound horror, one of them opened her mouth and let out the same ear rending shriek she'd heard before, causing Taylor to nearly jump out of her skin. The rest of the hell beasts bent over giggling. It was only then that Taylor noticed that several bottles of beer lay at their feet.

Were heroes supposed to stop underage drinking, and if so, how was she supposed to stop them? It felt like this was one of those situations where violence wasn't the answer. Taylor had absolutely no idea what to do.

After standing in awkward silence for a moment, one of the girls nodded towards her. "Sup."

Taylor started to panic. In all of her months of planning, she had never prepared for talking with people. "I-" she managed to choke out when another one of the girls started screaming. Taylor looked around the alley, trying to figure out why they kept doing that but found nothing. "Is there a reason you keep screaming?"

"We were, like, having a screaming contest," a girl explained condescendingly.

"Why?" Taylor asked them as much as God.

"To see which one of us is the best screamer, obviously. What are you, stupid?"

"Yeah! Stupid!" agreed a staggering teen.

Taylor resisted the urge to hunch her shoulders and instead firmly said, "Underage drinking is against the law and…" Shit. Come on, think of something. "Will you please desist before I'm forced to take action?" Oh God, could that have come out more awkwardly.

"What are you, a cop?" she replied with a sneer.

"Look-"

"Coooooooop," she jeered.

"Stop that this-"

The rest of the girls joined in shouting, "Coooooop."

'You can't just go around punching drunk people in the face, Taylor. You can't just go around punching drunk people in the face, Taylor,' she chanted to herself. 'No matter how much you want to.'

Collecting herself, Taylor tried to think of a plan. She was in too deep to give up now; the only possible path was forward. She could… she could… call the cops! They would know what to do! Sure, it was a little mortifying, but it should work. That was to say it would work if she had a phone to call them, which she didn't. She was going to have to bluff.

Taylor took a deep breath before she said, "That's right. I'm a cop. If you don't head home right now, I am going to have to call for reinforcements."

"I dare you to, pig!"

Taylor reached into her pants pocket and pulled out a hermit crab, hoping it was dark enough that they couldn't make out what it was. "Beep bop boop," she said as she pretended to punch in numbers.

One of the girls blinked at her in confusion. "Is that a crab?"

"It's a crab phone," replied Taylor, hoping that they were drunk enough to believe it. "Standard issue."

"Shit! Let's make like a tree and get the fuck out of here!" she shouted before the lot of them ran for it.

Unsure if she should be depressed or thrilled by her first victory, Taylor trudged her way home. Being a cape was hard, and nobody understood.

…

Eight days later, she finally ran into a crime in progress where she would be allowed to unleash all of her repressed rage on her unfortunate criminal. "You're under arrest!"

The mugger turned away from his muggee and gave Taylor a wary look. "You a cape?"

"That's right," she said. Yes! She was being taken seriously; things were already going better than last time. "Surrender now, or I will be forced to unleash my powers to subdue you."

He squinted at her. "Is that bits of crab glued all over you?"

"Never mind that!" Taylor silently cursed her stupid costume.

"What's your power anyway?"

"Why does that matter?" demanded an increasingly frustrated Taylor.

"Yeah, I think you're bluffing. No self-respecting cape would go around dressed like that," the criminal argued.

"Maybe I don't respect myself that much. Have you considered that?" Taylor argued back.

There was a moment of silence as he gave her a look of pity before he sighed. "Look, kid, I'll deal with you after I'm done mugging-" He only then noticed that his would-be victim was long gone. "Hey! You distracted me, and she got away."

Taylor smirked. "Who isn't a real hero now?" Sure, that wasn't exactly how she planned on rescuing the victim, but she would take every little victory she could get.

"You're a menace; you know that, right? Stopping hard-working men from earning their rent," he complained. "Well, I guess I'll just have to settle with mugging you. You probably don't have more than five bucks judging from your costume, but I hate you."

"That's it!" Taylor pulled her backpack off her shoulders and swung it around before hurling it at him. Unfortunately, she underestimated how heavy the bag was, and it kind of plopped down a couple of feet down in front of him. Taylor winced as she felt several of her crabs get crushed. So long, Mr. Snips…

He gave her an unimpressed look. "Well, you certainly don't have backpack throwing powers." Her surviving crabs came scuttling out her bag and nipped at his feet. "The hell!" he yelped as he jumped back from the crabs.

"Now, you see what you get for underes- hey quit it!" The mugger was stomping on and kicking her crabs as he backed up away from them. "It took me hours to collect all of those! I had to spend most of my allowance feeding them as well!"

He sneered at her. "Now you know what it feels like to have your livelihood ruined. I can keep this up all day, and there is nothing you can do to stop me!"

Taylor whipped out the backup crab that she had hidden in her hair out and beaned him in the head with it, knocking him off his feet. The rest of the crabs swarmed all over him. "Ow! Fuck! That stings!" While he was scrambling back to his feet and trying to rip the crabs off him, Taylor ran up and started bludgeoning him over the head with one of her crabs.

After bonking him a few times, the mugger managed to bat the crab out of her hand and snarled, "What are you going to do nooowwwww!" His taunt quickly devolved into a scream of pain as Taylor smooshed a pepper-sprayed coated crab into his eyes. As he rolled on the ground, her crabs continued their assault, jamming themselves bodily into his mouth, ears, and nose.

Taylor picked up another crab to continue beating him when she remembered that she had bought a baton and promptly started hitting him with that instead, over and over again.

Panting and out of breath, Taylor looked down at the broken screaming wreck of a gangster lying at her feet. Maybe she went a little too far with shoving crabs in every one of his orifices and then beating him with a baton? Nah, he was a dick.

"Wow, Crab Girl, you fucked his shit up," said an approving voice behind. Jerking around, Taylor saw Glory Girl, lounging in the air, giving her a thumbs up. "Did you break both of his kneecaps?"

"Only the one," said Taylor modestly. She then looked down at the ground and realized what this looked like. "I'm a hero, by the way."

"I could tell from the beating you were giving him." The man let out a whimper. "You're a natural. It took me weeks of practice to figure out how to properly brutalize a man. They kept passing out before I was done," said Glory Girl. Taylor got a warm feeling in her stomach. This was the first time someone recognized her hard work, and a fellow heroine no less! "You got a name?"

"Ah, no," muttered Taylor, feeling embarrassed. "I can't think of a good one."

"How about Justiciar? You seem like a Justiciar to me."

"I'll, uh, take that into consideration," Taylor lied.

Glory Girl floated down next to Taylor before looking her up and down. "So, this is your first time out then?"

Taylor really needed to get a better costume. "I wish," she grumbled mulishly. "I've been doing this for two weeks, and it's been rough. Nobody is taking me seriously; my powers suck, and Mr. Snips is dead."

Glory Girl gave her a sympathetic pat on the back. "Being a hero can be hard. My mom makes me launder all the bloodstains out of my costumes. Apparently, it's supposed to help teach me restraint or something." Glory Girl rolled her eyes as she said 'restraint.'

Taylor looked down at the blood on her costume with a grimace. "Got any tips for getting this out."

"Plenty, I've been doing this for years now." Glory Girl's eyes suddenly widened. "Hey, I could be your cape coach and show you the ropes if you want?"

Taylor's first instinct was to say no. Something about Glory Girl reminded her of Emma… but Taylor didn't know if she could handle another couple of weeks on her own with the way things were going. "Sure," she said, trying not to sound too eager

"Great!" Glory Girl's face broke into such a radiant smile that Taylor felt butterflies in her stomach for some reason. Before she had time to think about that, Glory Girl started talking again, "No offense, but we should really work on your identity. I can't just call you Crab Girl forever while we are out in the field, and your costume… well, it could use improvement."

"That makes sense," agreed Taylor. The current situation was mortifying, so the faster they got it fixed, the better. "But as I said, I can't really come up with any good crab names that don't sound ridiculous."

Nodding, Glory Girl, gave her a thoughtful look. "Yeah, I can see how that would be a problem. But maybe you should lean into that. Play it up. Make your cape persona so silly that villains underestimate you. You could make terrible crab puns."

"I'm not doing that," Taylor said firmly.

"C'mon. You could yell things like 'I am the Claw!' or 'I'm going to beat the shell out of you!'"

"Those were terrible," groaned Taylor.

"Don't be so shellconscious, Crab Girl; the public will love it."

"Why."

Glory Girl threw her arm over Taylor's shoulder and, with a smirk that made Taylor's heart skip a beat, said, "I can already tell that this is going to be a start of a beautiful friendship."

…

The last two weeks were the best of Taylor's life. She and Victoria went on a justice spree across Brockton Bay, leaving in their wake howling and shattered criminals. She was even starting to make a name for herself on the one and only source of news on Earth Bet, PHO, as Hermit. As crab names went, it was probably the least goofy one the pair of them had come up with.

And with her new name came a new costume: a dark red suit with a backpack stylized like a seashell. A little cheesy? Yes, but she no longer wanted to die of embarrassment when people looked at her, so things were looking up.

Victoria, as a cape coach, turned out to be a gold mine. She taught Taylor all sorts of useful things, like how to throw a punch properly—

…

Holding the thrashing E88 gangster in a full nelson, Victoria said, "Okay, Hermit, remember how to do the kidney punch I showed you. Come on! My mom hits me harder than that! You want him pissing blood, so he regrets ever meeting you."

…

How to fight tactically—

…

"See how I broke his jaw and knocked out most of his teeth? Now he can't call out for reinforcements, and so we can take our time and release all our repressed trauma on him at our leisure," lectured Victoria.

While that did sound appealing, Taylor had some niggling questions. "Are we supposed to be venting our issues onto people like this? It seems like it might be unhealthy… and maybe illegal?"

"My parents always said that therapy is a huge waste of time and money when you can work through your issues by working over people," explained Victoria sagely.

While that did seem fiscally responsible, Taylor still had her doubts. "Would you describe your family as well adjusted?"

Victoria developed a thousand-yard stare for a moment before she visibly shook herself. "Well, no, but it's either this or talking about your feelings."

Without thinking about it, Taylor started kicking the human trafficker mercilessly.

…

How to spot criminal safehouses—

…

"Come on, Hermit, we need to sea" —she winked— "more of the inside of the warehouse to make sure. I think there might be something lurking under the surface."

"Those aren't even crab puns," Taylor complained.

With a glint in Victoria's eyes, she said, "Oh, I thought you didn't like my crab puns. I'll make sure to do more of them."

"Kill me now."

…

Helping brainstorm ideas on different ways to use her powers—

…

"It's a real shame Amy refused to help us create those crab/wolf hybrids," said Taylor sadly. Panacea had protested that they were crimes against nature. With them, she could have had her new babies sniff out the drug labs and take a bite out of crime.

"She can be prickly about the weirdest things," agreed Victoria. "I thought for sure she would agree to make the taser crabs. I guess we could just glue some stun guns to your crabs."

…

How to interrogate suspects—

…

"Alright, the first thing you are going to need is a dumpster."

…

And the importance of having a healer on speed dial to cover up your botched interrogations of suspects.

…

"The two of you are menaces," said Amy with a scowl.

"In my defense," said Victoria. "How was I supposed to know that a dumpster would break all of his bones."

As Amy pinched the bridge of her nose and muttered to herself darkly, as she often did, Taylor sidled up to her. "Hey, Amy, while you're here, do you think you could turn Mr. Snips VII into a mobile crab fortress so I can better crush crime," asked Taylor eagerly. "Oh! You could make cannons out his carapace that shoot containment foam and-"

"No," Amy interrupted with a death glare. "I'm not going to help enable the two of you even more than I already have. Especially you."

For some reason, Taylor's attempts to befriend Amy always fell apart; she just seemed bound and determined to hate Taylor. Taylor couldn't fathom why, even after she'd given Amy so many opportunities to use her powers and all sorts of creative suggestions. One would think she would be grateful.

Taylor decided to take another crack at winning her over, maybe if she appealed to her need to help people? "Come on, think about all the people that I could save. Don't be shellfish, Amy." Fuck. Victoria was spitting out puns so often, now Taylor was doing it as well.

"Die in a fire."

…

Today, Taylor had gotten a head start on busting crime without her partner of justice. Victoria had some kind of appointment she had to meet. After only a couple of hours, Taylor found and burned down a Merchant drug house with her Molotov crabs. A new record!

As Taylor was roughing up the still conscious thugs, Victoria came floating up and started fidgeting. "Hey, you okay?" asked Taylor.

Victoria gave a jerky nod before she started rambling, "Uh yeah. Well, kind of not really. I mean, I made the right decision, and it was for the best, but it was awkward as fuck. If you know what I mean?"

"Not even slightly," said Taylor.

Victoria let out an uncomfortable laugh and said, "Right. So… I broke up with Dean."

Taylor looked up in shock. "What!?" she exclaimed; she was so caught off guard she missed kicking the perp in the face. "What happened?"

"Please… have… mercy…" groaned the Merchant on the ground.

"Well…" said Victoria nervously as she started assisting Taylor in kicking the man. "It turns I'm gay.

"Like super gay," she said as stared Taylor directly in the eyes with a burning intensity. She had the most beautiful eyes, and sometimes if Taylor wasn't paying attention, she would get lost in them.

"Hermit? You there?" asked Victoria, sounding worried. "Are we cool?"

"Sorry, I got lost looking into your eyes," Taylor replied without thinking.

"What?" asked Victoria with a blush.

"What?" Taylor repeated back dumbly.

Victoria gave her a long considering look before she shrugged and said, "So we're cool, right?"

"Of course, we are!" exclaimed Taylor. "You're my best friend, and I support you a hundred percent."

"Cool cool," said Victoria. Was it Taylor's imagination, or did she sound slightly disappointed? Maybe she was still feeling down about her breakup?

"Do you want to go out for ice cream?" offered Taylor. That's what friends did to cheer each other up, right? Taylor wasn't sure, since it had been years since she had done the 'friend' thing, but judging by how pleased Victoria looked, she thought she made the right call.

…

Taylor let out a growl of frustration as the renaissance wannabe motherfucker caused her carefully aimed stun crab toss to go wild. "Guys, I think we might be in trouble. They are sending their A-listers after us now," he said with faux-horror.

Taylor couldn't believe her weird luck. After going on patrols for weeks, the first time she'd run into villains was when she and Victoria were in the middle of their ice cream date. They had just come out of the shop when the Undersiders came riding past them, knocking the ice cream out of their hands. As things often went with capes, it descended into a brawl in seconds.

This was Taylor's first cape fight, and like usual, things were going just. Fucking. Swell. She had face-planted at least four times so far and lost Victoria somewhere in Grue's darkness. The last time she'd seen Victoria, she had been fighting four super dogs at once.

Taylor hoped that she was okay. She hadn't caught sight of or heard Victoria in what felt like hours. 'What if Victoria was seriously hurt, bleeding out on the ground,' Taylor wondered in panic. She didn't know what she would do without Victoria in her life. 'No. Don't think like that.' Victoria was fine, and- Taylor's leg flipped out, and she lost her balance.

Letting out a feral growl as she face-planted again, for the fifth time, Taylor tried to come up with a way around this annoying ass power. It wasn't even a good power, but he was still beating her. In the background, Tattletale was pointing and laughing at her.

Taylor scrambled to her feet and managed to stay upright this time when her leg jerked violently to the right. She considered throwing herself at him and beating the shell out of him before he had a chance to knock her off her feet again when Victoria let out a yelp of pain.

Glancing around frantically, Taylor spotted Victoria flying outside of the darkness, trying to shake a giant mutant dog off her arm. "Ow! Bad dog! Get off!" yelled Victoria as she started slamming the dog into the ground and trying to knock it loose. It was then she noticed that Victoria was bleeding before a different dog tackled her back into darkness. Taylor saw red.

With all of her strength, Taylor hurled her heaviest crab at Regent, but this time, aiming off to the side, planning on him jerking her back on track. Right before Mr. Snips XXXIV left her hand, her entire arm spasmed, sending her crab missile flying towards him.

Regent's eyes widened in surprise, and the crab missed him by a solid foot. "God fucking damn it," shrieked Taylor. Another peal of laughter escaped Tattletale's lips before the errant crab slammed into her face. Tattletale pinwheeled through the air, and the crab bounced off, flying into the darkness.

Taylor could feel Mr. Snips the XXXIV crash into something before expiring, and a second later, the darkness dropped, revealing Grue's fallen form. Completely baffled, Taylor watched as the corpse of the crab soared through the air and took out Hellhound. It finally ricocheted off her and into the back of Regent's head, causing him to slam face-first in the ground.

Taylor stood there in dumbfounded silence before she blurted out, "I meant to do that!"

"Bullshit!" groaned a prone Tattletale. As Taylor quickly buried the downed Undersiders in crabs before they got a chance to recover, Victoria suplexed the last remaining dog monster into unconsciousness.

Taylor hurried over to Victoria and winced as she took in all the injuries covering her. "Are you okay?" asked Taylor, trying and failing not to sound frantic.

"You know it, Babe, I'm invincible," Victoria said with a smirk and wink before wincing. Taylor pushed several crabs out of the way in her pack, pulled out her medical kit, and started fussing over Victoria. Victoria rolled her eyes while giving Taylor a fond smile that Taylor couldn't help returning.

"Did we just lose to the Crab Girl and Glory Hole?!" came a furious voice from under the mound of crabs burying Tattletale.

"Tattletale, not now," answered Grue with a sigh. "I think I have a concussion."

"No, fuck you," exclaimed Tattletale. "I'm doing this. If we are all going to prison, it's going to get Festivus up in this bitch because I got grievances I got to air."

Usually, this would be the part where Taylor would be brutalizing the perps, but it seemed rude to interrupt Tattletale's rant. Heroes were supposed to let villains monologue. Taylor was pretty sure those were the rules — she couldn't know for sure since she couldn't find them written down anywhere.

"First, I want to thank you, Grue, for insisting I come out in the field to do jobs. It's not like a body cam, and a headset would have allowed you to utilize my talents! No, I just had to come with you for the punch outs despite the fact I couldn't beat a toddler in a fistfight. Bravo, great leadership decisions, big guy."

Could Taylor beat a toddler in a fistfight? Maybe she should carry a gun just in case. You know, for safety.

"Also, while we're on the subject of you, develop a god damn personality, you emotionally stunted cardboard cutout! Holding a conversation with you at the best of times is so painfully boring, all you ever do is talk about your sister! Get a hobby!."

Taylor exchanged a glance with Victoria. "This is getting kind of awkward. Should we be here for this?" Victoria gave a noncommittal shrug.

"Next, Regent. You are the world's biggest piece of shit. You never do any of the chores. All you do is sit around, failing to draw anything of value since you lack the emotional capacity to understand art, and you're just bad at video games. You threw all of our dishes in the garbage when it was your turn to do them. I know it's you that leaves all of the prank calls on my answering machine."

Regent let out a snort of laughter. "Man, those were great."

"No, they weren't! One of them was you just farting for ten minutes! That wasn't even a joke!"

"Wait, you listened for the whole ten minutes?" asked a baffled Regent. "Why?"

"Spite. I listen to all your fucking stupid messages so that in the brief moments I begin to like you even a little bit; I can remember those moments."

Wow, things were getting heated. Should Taylor step in before things get out of hand? "Hey, why don't we all clam down before you guys try to krill each other," said Taylor, only realizing what she said after the words came out.

If anything, Tattletale seemed even more enraged. Sneering, she replied, "Oh? Do you want a turn, Hermit? We can all see you're an insecure wreck that takes her self-hatred out on others. The fact that people call you a hero is the biggest miscarriage of justice in Brockton Bay, and we have Nazis. Also, your costume is stupid, and you look like a puffed-up frog."

'Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will always leave emotional scars that will forever hurt me,' thought Taylor mournfully.

"Hey," said Victoria as she hugged Taylor. "Don't listen to her; she's full of shit."

Taylor let out a snort of bitter laughter. "Please, I do look like a frog."

"Well, I guess that it is pretty convenient that I find frogs sexy," replied Victoria with half-lidded eyes.

"…you do you, Victoria," said Taylor as she patted her friend on the shoulder.

"Fuck, that sounded better in my head," groaned Victoria.

"Get a room!" shouted Tattletale. "Now, where was I?! Oh, right. Bitch!"

"What?" growled out Hellhound, her voice filled with the promise of murder.

There was a long pause before Tattletale continued, "You're perfect. Never change. Back to you, Regent."

"Oh, come on!" protested Regent.

As the PRT vans drove up, Victoria picked Taylor up into a bridal carry. "Water do you say, let's get some more ice cream?."

Taylor gave her a dreamy smile. "Shore."

…

Taylor shuffled in front of the door of Dallons' household in indecision. Was it weird that she showed up in costume? Was it considered rude? Sure, Victoria had invited her over despite the fact Taylor still hadn't unmasked yet, but maybe Victoria expected to come in civvies? It hadn't occurred to Taylor to ask until right this moment.

Wait, did Victoria tell the rest of her family that she was coming over? Amy knew about Hermit, but did Victoria's parents? What if they thought Taylor was there to attack them? Didn't one of them get killed out of costume in their home? This was a mistak-

The door in front of Taylor suddenly swung open, revealing a woman who was probably Victoria's mom. Oh wow, if that was what Victoria was going to look like when she was older, whoever married her would be a lucky woman. "Can I help you," asked Mrs. Dallon with a raised eyebrow.

Flustered by the sudden presence of another human being, Taylor managed to mumble, "I'm friends with Glory Girl? Oh, uh, my name is Hermit?"

Mrs. Dallon coolly replied, "Is that a question or statement?"

If Taylor had known that becoming a hero would mean she would constantly be forced to have social interactions with people, she would have never gotten out of bed. "A statement."

She gave an approving nod. "You need to be firm when talking to people when you're in costume. If you show hesitation, then people will think you don't know what you are doing and won't acknowledge your authority," she lectured. "This is important in emergency situations becua-"

"Hey, Hermit." Victoria suddenly popped into the doorway and gave Taylor an apologetic look. "Sorry to interrupt, Mom, but we need to talk about important hero things."

"It was nice meeting you," Taylor said to Mrs. Dallon as she followed Victoria.

"We'll talk later," replied Mrs. Dallon, making it sound like a threat.

"Is she always like that?" muttered Taylor when she was sure they were out of Mrs. Dallon's hearing.

Victoria let out a little laugh. "That was her being friendly. You should see her when she doesn't like you." Taylor shivered. Well, it was good that Mrs. Dallon apparently liked her. It would be hard to be partners with their daughter if Victoria's parents didn't like her.

Settling on Victoria's bed with her, Taylor wracked her brain for things to do. Taylor couldn't remember the last time she'd hung out at a friend's house. Taylor looked around Victoria's room.

Unsurprisingly, her room was filled to the brim with cape merchandise. On her desk were several stacks of cards from Heroes of Bet. Taylor idly wondered if they had made a Hermit card yet. On second thought, she didn't want to know what stats they gave her. Off to the side of the desk were boxes upon boxes marked 'PRT Anomalous Case Files.''

"Are any of those interesting?" Taylor asked as she pointed at the stacks of boxes.

Victoria brightened and started chatting animatedly. "This morning, I was rereading case number 12, the Old Man. I've read his file almost a dozen times; he is so cool. He was one of the first parahumans ever to trigger and is probably the oldest living parahuman in existence."

"How old is he?" asked Taylor.

"Probably around his early sixties! Most parahumans are long dead before they reach his age."

"Well, that's depressing. So, what does he do?"

"He is a reverse cannibal. He feeds people bits of himself and absorbs their memories over time."

"Gross."

"Hush your mouth. The man is a national treasure. Here, I even made a list of bullet points explaining why."

Taylor half-listened to Victoria's rant and let the soothing sound of her voice wash over. 'This is nice.' But the longer she was hung out at Victoria's house in costume, the more self-conscious she felt. When Victoria paused to breathe, Taylor cut in, "Hey, Victoria. I have been thinking about us."

"Us?" she asked, suddenly looking at Taylor intensely.

"Yeah, we're friends, and I've been holding back, which isn't fair of me. I mean, you came out to me, so I should return the favor, right?"

"That sounds great," said Victoria breathlessly.

Taking off her facemask, she said, "My name is Taylor. Nice to meet you."

"Oh… that's what you meant," said Victoria, disappointed before she visibly shook herself. "Wait, sorry that came out wrong. It means a lot that you would unmask to me."

Taylor blinked in confusion, "Wait, what did you think I meant?"

With a red face, Victoria started rambling, "Look… you send a lot of mixed signals all the time, and half the time, I'm sure you're…" With a groan, Victoria leaned back and slammed the back of her head against the wall, punching straight through it.

As Victoria flailed around trying to pull herself out, Taylor tried to puzzle out what signals she was giving off. And why would they fluster Victoria so much? "Mom is going to kill me," muttered Victoria as she extracted her head from the hole.

Still confused, Taylor decided just to ask, "What signals?"

When she finished spitting bits of drywall out of her mouth, Victoria took a deep breath and said, "You, uh, give the impression that you like me. A lot." After a moment of silence, she added, "I feel the same way about you."

"I do like you. A lot. You're my best friend," reassured Taylor. "It is nice to know you feel the same."

Victoria facepalmed and blurted out, "For fuck's sake. Taylor, I want to kiss your stupid dense face."

Blushing, Taylor opened and closed her mouth silently for a moment before she found her voice, "I want to kiss you too." She did? She did. Taylor leaned in to kiss Victoria. Their lips were about to brush when Taylor accidentally slammed her forehead into Victoria's. "I'm so bad at this," moaned Taylor as she flopped bonelessly back on the bed.

Rubbing her forehead, Victoria gave her grin, "Don't worry, Babe, I got you." She leaned in, and her lips met Taylor's. She tasted like drywall.