The weeks leading up to the locker had been calm, and though I'd known that Emma and Sophia would never stop tormenting me completely, I'd started to hope that the way the insults and attacks were tapering off was a sign that they'd been getting bored.

That hope had lent a certain spring to my step, though never where my tormentors could see me. There were still minor insults, still pushes and shoves, but they were no longer sabotaging my grades or destroying my homework.

And, of course, Emma was still a bitch. A betrayer. But she'd started to act as if I didn't matter, as if hurting me was below her. I didn't mind; honestly, by the time the winter holidays had come and gone, I was more than satisfied with the new status quo.

As much as I tried to ignore it, however, a part of me knew that there had to be something coming.

Emma and I had been friends for years, and even if I couldn't understand why she decided to treat me this way, in many ways I still knew her. I still knew how she thought. And Emma Barnes always liked to end things with a flourish.

The day we returned to school from winter break I knew it was coming: my tormentors weren't trying to be subtle, the way that they'd been looking at me and giggling... but when I opened the locker they'd so thoroughly defiled, my first thought (after disgust) was relief.

This was the other shoe I'd been waiting for, the attack I knew was coming. And even after one of them shoved me inside and closed the door, a part of me felt triumph.

This was it. This was the worst thing they could possibly do to me.

Shaking with sickness, nearly passed out from the stench in that horrible cramped space, it was that thought which kept me sane. If I could survive this, and I could, then there was no further way they could hurt me.

I wasn't expecting to be trapped for so long, however. It was a few hours before one of the school janitors noticed the stench and let me out. By that time I was nearly catatonic, and the school was worried enough about my lack of response that they called the paramedics.

It was nearly a week of recovery, of tests, of dealing with the minor infections that three hours breathing all that rot had resulted in, but once I walked out the door of that hospital I felt a sense of freedom. I wasn't happy, no; I was humiliated, and I still had two weeks of antibiotics to take before this raspy cough would clear up... but I was free.

All that had led me here. It was my first day back, it was lunchtime, and I was stupid enough to have decided to eat in the cafeteria. My previously empty lunch table suddenly had three unwanted occupants- Sophia, Madison, and Emma. My tormentors.

"We're so glad you're back from the hospital, Taylor," Sophia gave me a self-satisfied smile. "School just isn't the same without you."

I just hunched my shoulders and picked at my food. This was nothing. I could handle this.

"So quiet! Are you feeling alright?" Emma faked concern. "Maybe you should have stayed a little longer just in case."

"The whole school heard about what happened," Madison added. "We're all glad you weren't seriously hurt."

Not hurt. Right. This doesn't hurt. This is fine. I looked down and nodded, knowing not to speak.

Sophia reached out and knocked my drink over, causing iced tea to spill all over my food.

"Oh, you poor thing," Emma exclaimed. "It looks like you're still feeling a little shaky. You should be more careful!"

I said nothing. I didn't move. Part of me was certain I couldn't. I shouldn't have been surprised that even hospitalizing me wasn't enough to stop this, but I was.

"Please," I mumbled. "Stop."

"Let me get that for you." Sophia said as she leaned forward and used a handful of napkins to push the puddle of tea and my former lunch into my lap.

"We're just trying to help you, Taylor." Emma cooed.

"That's right." Sophia affirmed. "We're just reminding you of exactly where you belong," She gestured vaguely at me. "You should probably take that to the trash."

She wasn't talking about the pile of muck in my lap. I sat, humiliated once more, as the three sadists giggled and walked away.

Everything came crashing down on me at once, as my vague hopes for a better school year crumbled. I mechanically stood, carefully mopping up as much of the mess and leaving the cafeteria.

"Oh, look!" I heard Emma say to one of the group's hangers-on. "It looks like Taylor's wet herself!"

I managed to hold back my tears of anger and frustration until I made it to the nearby bathroom.

I wasn't free. It still hurt. They weren't going to stop. They had to stop. They weren't going to stop.

I did my best to to pull myself back together while I dried off my clothes under the hand-dryer.

My eyes settled on the side of my backpack, and I stared at the Alexandria iron-on patch. A leftover from middle school, a reminder of better times. When Emma was my friend.

They had to stop. If they didn't... no. No. An alternative formed in my mind. They weren't going to stop.

I had to make them. And I knew exactly how to do it.

For one day, just one, I was going to be a hero.

I was going to dress up in costume, and I was going to make my bullies back off.

It was a crazy idea, I knew. One of the things parents made very clear, once you reached a certain age, was that bad things happened to little boys and girls who pretended to be capes.

At one point, costume dances had been the new fad of teenagers in the big cities. Dress up as a hero, go out to a nightclub, and enjoy the masquerade. Even better was the possibility you might bump into a real cape— after all, you could never really be certain who was real and who was pretending.

"Cape dances" didn't really happen anymore. Not after that big party in New York was hit by one of the local villain gangs. They hadn't been sure who was real and who was pretending, either. They hadn't particularly cared.

Incidents like that had continued for a few years, but they'd tapered off as people got the message. By the time I was growing up it was pretty obvious. You could dress up on Halloween, or while you were very young, but as soon as someone might think you were actually a cape? That's when you stopped.

So I was well aware that what I was doing was borderline suicidal, but it also made my plan a little easier. No one of my generation would fake being a cape— they knew that wearing a costume was like wearing gang colors, and if you didn't belong then you deserved what you got.

Even still, there were complications. It wasn't enough to buy a one piece swimsuit and a cheap Halloween mask. I had to look authentic. Worse, my costume would also have to be a disguise capable of fooling girls who had made it their personal mission for almost two years to torment me. And Emma had known me far longer than that.

That meant everything had to change. My voice, my hair, my stature, even my mannerisms. I couldn't afford to make any mistakes.

As if that wasn't enough, there was the biggest complication. No matter how good my disguise, I couldn't just show up out of nowhere and expect to garner any fear or respect. It wasn't going to be enough to look like a hero. I had to be a hero.

All the thinking I'd done on that problem had narrowed things down to two solutions.

Option one was that I could go out and fight crime for a few nights, targeting regular gang members and risking my life every time, until I'd built up enough reputation as an independent hero that my bullies would pay attention when told to stop.

That option wasn't just dangerous- it was pretty much guaranteed to get me killed. It might have been possible if I'd woken up one day with superpowers, but I'd done some research and I'm pretty certain that if I was ever going to trigger, the locker would have been reason enough.

I'd almost have been willing to try, anyways, if it weren't for one thing. Even if I did manage to survive the first few fights I'd need to build up my reputation, and I got Emma and friends to back off... it still wouldn't be enough. I'd have to keep fighting, keep being a hero, otherwise I'd be right back where I'd started. Without my cape self around as a persistent reminder the threat would wear off— they'd figure I'd died, or moved away, and I'd be right back where I started.

I spent the next week enduring the torment as best I could, trying not to sink into despair, before I finally struck upon option two.

I didn't actually have to fight gangs and die a pointless death bleeding in an alley somewhere while trying to build up reputation. If I was going to pretend I was a cape, why not pretend to be a specific cape? Capes like Alexandria and Miss Militia instantly garnered respect, and I was certain that if one of those heroes spoke up in my defense, my bullies would have to stop.

Unfortunately, that plan wasn't without problems either. A big name cape like Alexandria would garner respect, certainly, but it would also gather attention.

Even if I could pull off a disguise that would make my rail-thin teenaged self match Alexandria's distinguished frame (something I was by no means confident of), a visit from a member of the Triumvirate would be suspicious. Even if I was careful to approach my bullies alone... no. Just no.

I didn't have flight, or super strength, so it was unlikely they'd believe my disguise. And if by some miracle they did, I'd be even more screwed, because there was no way Emma and Sophia wouldn't talk about meeting "me". If I was unlucky, and they managed to snap a photo or something? Someone would come to investigate an Alexandria sighting, especially one she wasn't actually present for.

Dressing as Miss Militia was more viable in a lot of ways, not least of which that she had an actual reason to be here, and her powers were considerably easier to fake. A knife, a carefully painted squirt gun, and a little flash of light— if I did it right, I could probably pull it off. But it was problematic for much the same reasons as Alexandria was, and Miss Militia tended to use her power frequently. Videos and interviews tended to show that green flash of her weapon changing several times a minute, almost subconscious. I was pretty sure I could fake it once, but more than that? And again, like Alexandria, Miss Militia was older. No.

The best bet would be someone my own age, someone who had a reason to be seen in Brockton Bay. That basically meant one of the Wards or New Wave, unless I was willing to spread out into villaindom (I wasn't). I'd also need someone who had an easy to fake ability, preferably one that I would only need to demonstrate once.

Glory Girl might have been a good match, but everyone who knew of her spoke of her aura- I couldn't think of a way to fake that.

Panacea was better, as I wouldn't really need to fake her power, but she didn't patrol and I couldn't think of a reason she might happen to be nearby. I was also worried that the famed pacifist wouldn't be enough of a threat.

Laserdream and Shielder, the other two teens in New Wave, might have worked... but I eventually discarded the idea. New Wave didn't have secret identities, and so was approachable in a way that the wards weren't. I wouldn't put it past Emma to try to fake penitence as a way to get an in with them and somehow bolster her own popularity.

Other wards were crossed off for various reasons: Vista's power was impossible to fake, and she was a fair bit shorter than I was. Clockblocker's power was less flashy, and I could probably intimidate my bullies without having to demonstrate it, but I didn't even know where to start on building an animated costume. Aegis might have worked, but he was much too tall and muscular, and I was a bit wary about disguising myself as the wrong gender, especially considering all those muscles.

Someone like Kid Win would be perfect. He was about my size, the outfit would be concealing, and his gear changed often enough that any reasonable approximation would pass as a new version. I wasn't confident I could fake that much tinker-tech, and even getting smooth metallic plates shaped right would be difficult... but it had advantages.

If I did manage to put together an armor, even just an LED-strewn version of what a medieval knight might wear, it would provide protection. I was still afraid of being caught up in a cape fight by mistake, because there was no way I could handle the kind of trouble an actual ward could. I'd feel a lot more comfortable if I were wearing armor.

That's what led me to settle upon the obvious choice. A ward, my age, with an easily faked power, and some form of protection in case I needed to get out of a fight? Shadow Stalker was about my size, though I'd have to fill out my disguise with padding in a few places. She wore body armor and carried a crossbow, which would provide more than enough dissuasion in the case of an actual fight... and with luck a few smoke pellets plus some quick thinking might let me fake her ability in a pinch.

It wouldn't be perfect, but if I practiced some sleight of hand I could probably do a fairly convincing approximation, and the smoke pellets would help me make a quick getaway in case something went really wrong.

So that was the plan, but I wasn't going to rush things. It'd take time to put together a costume, time to learn to realistically fake her power, and time to study her mannerisms. I was going to be as careful as possible; I wouldn't feel ready until I thought I could fool one of her fellow wards, at least from a distance.

I had a lot of practice ahead of me, but just having a plan made me feel much better. I could put up with Emma and Sophia's renewed bullying campaign, because I had a goal, an endgame to look forward to. I'd convince them to stop soon. It was only a matter of time.