Once upon a time, there was a fanfic writer who promised to stick to a weekly schedule. Then things went wrong. Very, very horribly wrong.

Hey guys. Long time no see. Sorry for not posting in so long, but the procrastination bug found me anyway. Super sorries!

I tried hard to write for Taylor as the narrator in this section. She thinks similarly to Matt, but he's more likely to make assumptions about what he sees while Taylor has a more methodical thought process, so it's not quite the same. Hope you like it!

...

Chapter 2, Part 1: Classroom Politics

Tick, tock, tick, tock, goes the clock on the wall. I stare at it intensely, as if I could somehow mentally will it to move faster and finish up the last minute of class. Ms. Brenda drones on in the background about a rational functions quiz on Friday she's already reminded us about three times. I block her out, her small, tired voice becoming a fly buzzing in my ear. At the edge of my perception, an actual fly flits back and forth between the walls in the corner of the math classroom, its wings stirring the air around it.

Can't this day be over already? Even more than twelve hours later, my adrenaline is still buzzing from last night. No matter how I try, my body refuses to stop fidgeting. I squirm in my seat, hoping it doesn't attract as much attention as I imagine it might.

Tick, tock, tick, tock. Buzzing flies in the background. My own fingers, rapping a rat-a-tat-tat on the desk below my head. I adjust my glasses, trying not to suddenly jump on top of my desk and scream at the top of my lungs. Easy, Taylor, I remind myself, taking a long exhale, don't start panicking now. Just ten more seconds. Five more. Three.

The school bell blares, and I'm out of my desk, and then the classroom, backpack slung around my shoulders, in five seconds flat. Ms. Brenda's ongoing instructions fade to a whispering buzz, buzz in the back of my head, then silence. My short, timid steps flow easily into longer, more determined strides as I quicken my pace, heading to my locker halfway across the school. Normally I don't go to my locker after school, but I'd accidentally left a textbook in there earlier while rushing to a class. A smart move for Winslow High School's resident punching bag, huh?

Still, though, I resist the urge to break into a flat-out run. I pace myself- speed walking isn't necessary when I'm just going to my locker. On the other hand, I don't slow down, either. I speed past the nurse's office, than the library, get to my locker and retrieve my textbook, all in breakneck time. Turning on my heel and heading for the buses, I start to crack out in a smile as-

"Oh, look over here, girls, it's Taylor."

Not quite fast enough, apparently. I pull up short, the smile vanishing from my face in an instant as Emma Barnes, former friend turned bully, steps in to block my path, a phalanx of her fellow popular girls slash groupies following behind her. Emma's deep red hair is as immaculately styled as ever, falling over her shoulders and down her back in a scarlet cascade that's probably worth hundreds at the best stylists in Brockton Bay. I resist the urge to cringe or, alternatively, growl as her equally red lips curl into a proud sneer.

"Emma." I say, slowly, trying to keep my voice as even as possible. "Do you need something?"

"Say, girls, do you think Taylor heard what happened in the news last night?" Emma says, perfectly coordinated with a flip of her scarlet hair. She's not even listening to me.

"Heh, I doubt it. She probably spends her nights in her room with the shades drawn and the lights off, crying." That was from Madison Clements, Emma's ever-present number three, after Sophia Hess. As my gaze shifts to her, Madison flashes one of her well-known 'I didn't mean to' smiles.

Speaking of Sophia, I notice she isn't around- is she still dealing with backlash from the whole Merchants incident? The girl is a total monster and nothing but evil and cruel to me, but some part of me, deep down, still feels for Sophia, now that she's out in the open as a cape. I've read stories about what's happened to capes and their families when their identities are revealed- the results are pretty uniformly not pretty.

"Hey, tampons for brains." Emma snaps me out of my thoughts, somehow managing to make even that immature insult sound sophisticated and cruel. "Are you even listening to us? Got your little head in the clouds over some boy you'll never talk to again?"

"Wait, she's straight? I always figured she played for the other team." Some girl who I don't know and can't name says.

"Yeah, freak." Another no-namer follows up with. Juvenile, even for an airhead. I almost crack a smile as a couple of the girls near her shoot her dirty looks for coming up with such an immature remark, but suppress the urge. Smiling would only give Emma more ammunition to pound me with.

"Why exactly are you here, Emma?" I say, sounding a lot bolder than I feel. My power crackles at the limits of my range, and I can sense bugs in the nearby neighborhood start to move towards me involuntarily, but I freeze them in place- never know when they might be needed, but it's not now. "If you don't have any particularly witty insults for me today, why are you here?"

"Well, I'm sorry, Taylor." Emma says, sounding like a frustrated babysitter explaining some small rule to her pack of unruly kids. "I just wanted to tell you about what happened last night at the Docks, with the ABB."

I should know. I was there. As if I'd say that, though. "And?" I ask.

"Some bunch of rookie heroes took down Lung and Oni Lee." Emma goes on. "When the PRT got to the site, they found the two guys unconscious, with a note from somebody called…" She paused, lost in thought.

"The Paladins." Madison filled in, her Cheshire cat grin spreading even wider. "It said 'Here's a little something for the PRT, courtesy of the Paladins'."

"Thank you, Mads." Emma says, though her eyes betray the fact that she's annoyed at getting upstaged by Madison.

"Why are you telling me all this, Emma?" I ask, again forcing my bugs down as my power starts involuntarily drawing them to me a second time.

"Because my dad's a lawyer and he got us on the site." Emma informs, rolling her eyes. "He's a lot more helpful to us and to society than your deadbeat of a dad."

My fists clench, and then relax as I stare steadily at Emma's haughty face. "No. Emma. Why are you telling me this? Why here? Why now?"

"I'm hurt, Taylor." Emma's face warps itself into a hurt look that could probably fool any teacher or staff member in the school with half the effort. "I was just about to tell you that someone spray-painted love notes about the ABB all over the back wall outside the gymnasium, saying horrible things, like they'd kill whoever was responsible for the arrests, and then signed your name at the bottom."

My body turns cold. Emma was never shy about the public embarrassment, but she'd spray-painted stuff about me being obsessed with the ABB all over the school walls? "That's low, even for you." I say, my mask of being submissive finally dropping.

"Like I said, Taylor, I don't know who did it. But they didn't leave anything to clean it up with, so have fun cleaning it up!" With a haughty laugh, Emma turns on her heel and starts walking down the hallway, the rest of the girls immediately forming up behind her.

Then they stop. Wait, what? As I look over Emma and Madison's shoulders, I see a tall guy standing in front of them, his arms crossed. He's powerfully built, but not overly muscular, with a broad chest and shoulders to contrast his lanky arms and legs. He has short, messy, light brown hair and pale green eyes, which are glaring right at Emma. His skin is pale, with a light dusting of freckles around his nose and under his eyes. Most notably is his clothing, a loose-fitting t-shirt with Winslow High Track and Field emblazoned on it in the school's blue and gold colors, and jogging shorts, which sport similar colors.

Hang on a second- Matt? I hadn't seen him since last night, after he'd had an argument with Coil and flown off, but not before promising to see me in school tomorrow- by which I mean today.

I'd been hoping to have been able to thank him again after he'd saved me from Lung last night. God, my life had flashed before my eyes- that big bully had been about to squash me flat against the wall, but Matt had swooped in- literally- and saved me. I'd spent the rest of the night kicking myself about being so useless- I'd wasted all of my bugs early on in the fight, hoping I would be fast enough to overpower him this time, unlike our first go-around last week. It was embarrassing.

"Going somewhere?" Matt asks, his eyes fixed on Emma. He's not happy.

"Well, duh." Emma responds. "And aren't you on the track team or something? Shouldn't you be running around on lines in the back of the school?" A few of the girls behind her giggle.

"Turns out the coach is sick. No practice today." Matt responds. "So I managed to get here in time to say hi to you. Funny how things work out like that, huh? Like how that spray paint somehow managed to get on the back of the gym, just like that? It was pretty fancy. Looks like a bunch of guys would've had to take a lot of time out of their busy schedules to make it. Or should I say a bunch of girls." His eyes narrow into angry slits.

Emma stutters for a second, obviously trying and failing to take control of the situation. I'm laughing out loud on the inside, seeing her struggle- Emma is used to being able to bat her eyes or show a little cleavage and get guys to do whatever she wants, but it's not working here. I have to say, it's freaking hilarious.

"Like I told the loser over there," Emma finally responds, pointing to me, "I just happened to be walking by when I saw it." The sound of her making a worried swallowing sound is audible even from where I'm standing, a good twenty feet away. "I was just trying to be nice. I can be nice to you, too. If you're not going to track, you should probably be heading for your bus, right? Wouldn't want a couple of pretty girls like us to keep you waiting."

Matt just stares at Emma, not flinching. Then he nods, slowly. "Alright. I'll leave. But just let me tell you one thing: If I ever see you doing something like that again, I have no problems personally dragging you and anyone else, by your hair, to the principal's office."

Emma laughs, a scornful, well-prepared sound that goes up and up in pitch and volume. "Is that a threat?" She asks, her voice suddenly low and dangerous. "My dad's a lawyer."

"Not a threat. Just a fact." Matt says, shrugging. Before Emma can come up with any more witty retorts, he shoves past her, moving in my direction. The surprise of the impact knocks Emma over, sending her crashing to the ground with a yelp of pain. I stifle an urge to laugh out loud at the sight. A few of the nearby girls rush to her aid, while the rest quickly scramble to get as far out of Matt's way as possible.

At that moment, I realize that I've just been standing there, watching a bully and a kinda-sorta friend battle over me. My feelings of surprise and confusion at Matt swooping in to save me (Again) and anger at Emma's cruel prank battle for centerpiece of my emotions, with neither force gaining any ground. I'm still standing there, a little dumbfounded, when Matt reaches me, grabbing me gently by the arm, and leads me into another nearby hallway, empty save for a pair of girls chatting in a corner, both of whom barely even look our way as we enter.

"You okay?" Matt asks, breaking me out of my stupor. "I was by the track and saw that graffiti all over the wall, figured I had to find you. When I got there, you were already surrounded by all those girls…" He trails off, his face turning red, from… I don't know, embarrassment, maybe? I don't know Matt well enough to tell. "I should have done something, or said something sooner. I'm sorry."

"It's okay. I'm fine, really." I say, leaning against a wall. "The graffiti's mean and all, but on the emotional level, it's pretty tame compared to some of the stuff Emma's put me through. She's probably running low on material, what with Sophia not around and all the craziness going on from last night."

Matt nods, some of the red in his face disappearing. "Emma Barnes. That's the girl that torments you all the time? What's the story with her?"

"Believe it or not, we used to be best friends. Never needed anyone but each other. Taylor and Emma, inseparable. And then…" I answer, letting out a deep sigh as I prepare to tell one of the most heart-wrenching stories in my life. Even after two years of this, I'm still not completely over what Emma did, way back then. "It was two years ago, in the summer. I was at camp, talking to her over the phone. She hung up suddenly, and then she stopped returning my calls. After I got back, I went to see her right after I had dinner with my dad. She was with Sophia, who I'd never met or even heard about before. Sophia started bullying and taunting me, and I thought Emma was going to step in and defend me any second. Instead, completely of the blue, she started calling me weak, useless, stupid, saying she'd never wanted to be my friend in the first place- all the things you'd never expect or want to hear from a best friend. Even since then, it's been like what you just saw." My voice cracks a little bit, finishing off the story, and I force back tears- I am not going to cry about it. Not here and not now. I've already shed plenty of tears on the subject.

Abruptly, Matt pulls me into a hug, surprising me with that one action more than anything else he's already done. "I'm sorry. Really, really sorry." He says, finally letting me go after an awkwardly long time. "It must've taken a lot to talk about all of that."

"You have no idea." I respond, biting my lip. "But it feels good to talk about it with someone who'll actually listen. Thanks. One thing, though, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Shoot."

"Why did you help me?" I ask, staring at Matt right in those green eyes of his. "It's obvious that you cut track to come find me. And then you stood up to Emma Barnes, the number one girl in school."

"First of all," Matt says, crossing his arms. "I didn't cut anything. I was telling the truth about the coach being sick. I was out by the track because I was going to practice."

"But even then," I point out, "you could've just been one more face in the crowd, watching as they taunted me. Why'd you help?"

"Because we're heroes, Taylor. It's what we do- help the people who need it. And excuse me for saying so, but I've never conformed to the stereotype that standing up to mean girls with big boobs and no muscle mass is an ungentlemanly thing to do." Matt chuckles, with a sound that's completely the opposite of Emma's laugh- honest and down to earth, laughing at and appreciating the little things in life.

I laugh with him, the sound coming out of me far easier that it has in ages. "Thank you for that."

"For what?" Matt raises his eyebrows in confusion.

"For giving me a reality check. It's nice to know that, once in a while, when someone's being bullied, the whole world doesn't suddenly contract bystander syndrome." I smile widely, trying to reassure Matt that I'm thankful. He deserves it.

Matt smiles back. "We should probably go and take care of that graffiti. Someone's bound to see it eventually."

"Sounds like a good idea. After you?"

Matt nods and starts walking towards the doors leading out onto the practice field. I fall into step beside him. We're close to even in height, but he's maybe an inch or so taller than me, so I still have to look up to talk to him.

"Not sure if you heard, but apparently Coil gave us a name." I say, the thought popping into my head suddenly. "He called us- what did Madison say- the Paladins."

"The Paladins." Matt says thoughtfully. He's still looking ahead as we walk, but it's obvious, even to me, that he's turning it over in his head. "Probably better than anything I can come up with. I'm terrible with names."

"You're telling me." I say, chuckling. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to come up with a good name for a superhero that controls bugs? They're not exactly threatening. What would I call myself that isn't lame or campy? Hive? Queen? Swarm? I thought I had decided on Black Widow for a little while, but I'm definitely stealing that from somewhere, I can just tell."

We come up to the doors as I finish my monologue, Matt pushing one door open as he talks back to me from over his shoulder. "Making a cool name for speedsters isn't much easier, you know. Not because there aren't any good names, but because all of them are taken." As we walk out of the building, he points over to the right side of the gymnasium, which doesn't really face anything other than a few run-down apartments. Winslow High isn't exactly in the best part of town. "It's over on that side."

As we walk, our feet tapping lightly on the pavement of the sidewalk that runs around the side of the building, I think about what Matt just said about speedster names. "Velocity, Dash, Strider, Blur…" I mumble to myself, thinking out loud.

"Huh?" Matt asks, overhearing me.

"Just work shopping codenames in my head." I respond, trying to think of more, only for my mind to stall on Blur. "Say," I start, prompting Matt to look over at me, curious. "Your costume's mostly black, right? What about Black Blur?"

Matt's face starts to break out in a happy smile, with my own spirits rising as he does. It only lasts about half a second, though- then he bursts out laughing. "I'm sorry," He chokes out between wracks of hoarse laughing, "but I can't lie to you. That was terrible. Maybe we can get Coil to decide on our individual codenames as well, if any of our own ideas are gonna be this sucky." He breaks off into another fit of laughter.

"It wasn't that terrible." I mutter under my breath, trying to think of a witty comeback. But before we can think of anything, we round the corner, and my brain stalls again at the sight of Emma's latest prank.

Emma's spared no expense with this particular gesture- The graffiti prank is enormous. It covers the entire wall, from corner to corner, and stretches at least seven feet high. It must've taken an entire gang of girls half the day to make this thing. The wall is plastered with rainbows of green and red, the ABB's gang colors, as well as their various gang symbols and Lung and Oni Lee's names sprayed on in stylized, flowery writing. Covering all of that are lines of notes, supposedly from me, since all of them are signed with my name. Some detail me swearing to kill the heroes who put my favorite villains in jail, while others proclaim my endless love for the ABB, especially Lung, and all the slaughter and chaos he and his underlings cause. Surrounding the notes are crude pictures of what I assume to be me, some depicting me standing on top of piles of the corpses of the local Brockton heroes and others having me in… rather intimate positions with one or another of the ABB leadership. I can feel my stomach turn as my eyes pass over a chibi version of myself doing something I'd rather not describe in detail with Bakuda.

"Holy crap." I say breathlessly, for lack of a better sentence to describe the horrid, macabre masterpiece standing on the wall before me. If not for all the morbid descriptions and images, some might actually consider this art. "I take back what I said about Emma running out of material."

"What are we going to do with it?" Matt asks, running a hand through his messy brown hair. "I'm not exactly experienced with the art of cleaning up pranks. Especially not like this." His head goes up and down, surveying the graffiti and re-reading all of the notes.

"The janitor's office has an exterior door on the back side of the building. We could get some sponges and soap from there." I suggest.

Matt nods, and we start walking towards the office. My mind boggles at the amount of work there is to be done- even with Matt around, it's going to take ages to clean off all that graffiti. My bugs aren't very handy when it comes to soap and water, since all the wet would just bog them down.

We arrive at the janitor's door, and Matt tries the door, only for the doorknob to not budge an inch. "Locked." He mutters, then knocks firmly with his right knuckle, rap, rap, rap, three times on the door. After a minute of waiting, no one comes. Matt turns to me. "I wouldn't be proud of it, or like it, but I could break the door down. It'd be pretty easy, and it doesn't look like anyone's home, anyway."

I shake my head. "It's fine. I have a way in that involves a lot less property damage." Reaching out with my power across the sports field, my awareness searches into the small thicket behind the school, centering itself on the small pond. Or, rather, what's next to the pond- an old, rotting tree trunk, swarming with termites. I grab every last termite with my power and start calling them to me, sending their little legs rushing out of the woods and onto the sports field. Even so, it'd take a long time for them to cross, so I grab dragonflies trolling the pond for prey and add them to my swarm, sending them to scoop up the termites and carry the airborne insects to me. I add a couple of butterflies and other winged insects to grab the termites the dragonflies can't carry.

Within moments, the swarm arrives, a small cloud of flapping wings and snapping mandibles. Immediately, I drop the termite swarm and set them to work eating away at the door, aiming around the doorknob. I direct the termites to bite off and drop the wood chips, rather than eating them, to make the process go a little faster. After about a minute of watching the little bugs work, there's a sizable enough tunnel in the door for me to stick my hand through and grab the doorknob on the other side. Fortunately, it's one of those locks that opens on the inside whether you have the key or not, and the door swings open.

I turn to Matt, a small smile on my face. "That way they won't have to replace the entire doorframe, just the door itself. And who knows, maybe they'll just put a piece of tarp over the hole and be done with it." I notice what looks like a creeped-out expression on his face. "What?"

"Nothing." He responds, a little too quickly, shaking his head back and forth. "It's just… your power creeps me out a little bit. I've never been fond of bugs, especially as a kid, and the way you can control whole swarms of them without even batting an eye… It's weird. And a little spooky."

"I'd argue with you and say it wasn't, but that would be a lie." I say, shrugging my shoulders. "My power doesn't come with a lack of fear of bugs. It still sometimes makes me feel uneasy when I've got a big swarm of the more gross kinds of bugs around. If it makes you feel better, I'll get rid of them." As my insects disperse and head out in separate directions, I see Matt visibly relax. I make sure to send the termites back to their home in the woods, since it wouldn't do any good to have them getting into the walls of the school.

As we walk into the janitor's office, I try to ignore the fact that Matt and I are technically committing a felony right now. After all, I reason with myself, it's either this or have the entire school know about the graffiti by fifth period tomorrow.

"What now?" Matt asks, looking around the office. It's dusty and a little run-down, like the janitor has been neglecting his own room in favor of the rest of the school. Rather than answering him, I find what I'm looking for- a bucket filled with cleaning supplies, including sponges and a spray-bottle of wall cleaner.

"This now." I answer, holding up the bucket. Matt shoots me a thumbs-up, and we head back out on the field, closing the door behind us. A brief spell of walking later, we're standing back in front of the graffiti.

"Alright," I say, "let's figure out how to do this, shall we? If we start at opposite ends, we can probably get it done faster, though we're probably going to need water if we really want to get it off, and I'm not finding any hoses with my bugs anywhere, and-"

"There's a lot easier of a way to settle this." Matt says, cutting me off. Rustling around in the bucket, he pulls out the wall cleaner spray and the sponges. Working methodically, he sprays and rubs off every spot where my name is spray-painted. Within a few minutes, the wall's completely clean from any association with me.

"There," Matt says, putting the cleaning supplies back in the bucket, "Now you don't have to worry about it, any you didn't even clean the whole wall. No one will ever assume you did it."

"That's probably not going to cut it." I say, a new pit forming in my stomach to replace the old one. "Even if no one will think that I did it, someone in charge of something is going to see this eventually. The principal won't tolerate it, there'll be a manhunt to figure out who. At which point Emma can waltz into his office with a gaggle of her loyal groupies and tell him that they all saw me doing it, laughing my head off, but were too scared to say anything up until now." I swallow hard, the entire scenario playing out in my head without any input from me.

Matt chuckles, though not with a whole lot of humor. "Like the principal going to believe that without proof."

"That's the thing. He won't need proof. He'll be looking for a scapegoat to discourage other people from pulling stunts like this in the future. If anything, being told by someone else would be even worse than him finding out about it firsthand. And Emma's very good at getting what she wants. If the principal doesn't believe her at first, she'll bring in even more girls to back up her claim, maybe even make some fake story about me threatening to hurt her if she said anything."

"So I'll vouch for you." Matt responds, crossing his arms. "Even if she brings in the entire student body to back her up, having even just one person on your side is going to give the principal doubts. Besides, what pull does Emma really have? Is she going to sic her 'upstanding citizen' lawyer daddy on you?" He rolls his eyes at that last part.

"That's another thing." I point out. "You knocking over Emma in the hallway is going to make a big scene. If she has even the slightest bruise anywhere, she can go crying to someone with some pull in the school, saying you hurt her. She might even get her dad to threaten to sue you."

"There you go again." Matt says. "I think you're thinking too much about this. You should just take it one day at a time, not thinking too hard worrying about how what you do one day will affect you two weeks from now. There's no reason, Taylor, that this one prank should be making you lose so much sleep."

"I…" I start before pulling back, taking a deep breath and breathing out before answering Matt. "Fine. I won't worry about it right now. You're right. This one thing shouldn't be grinding at me so much. But if you think Emma wouldn't go that far, or stoop that low, just to get at me, you have another thing coming. She's a monster." The insult feels foreign in my mouth, describing my former best friend like that. On the other hand, it also feels appropriate.

Matt nods, then turns his neck in the direction of the bus parking lot, as the sounds of the last school bus leaving the lot echo through the air. "Well, we're not getting home that way." He says. "How far away from the school do you live?"

"Two, maybe two and a half miles." I answer, counting the distance in my head. "But I have to walk through some rough neighborhoods to get there."

Matt pauses before answering me, his forehead creasing like he's deep in thought. "Well, I live a little more than a mile away. My parents are at work until late in the evening, usually, but my sister Michaela should be home, and she has her car. I can walk you to my house, and she can drive you the rest of the way while I come back here to practice."

"Seems like a long walk just to get me home." I say, biting my lip unconsciously. "You sure you're okay heading a mile there and a mile back? Wouldn't that come out of your practice time?"

"Not if I jog. So you can jog with me." Matt smiles a knowing grin. "And don't say you can't jog a little mile. I know a runner's build when I see one."

"I run every morning. And sometimes in the afternoons, too, to clear my head." I admit, which is all true. It had started a couple months ago, to be prepared if Emma and co. ever decided to try something on me that required me to run away, and had gradually snowballed into a combination of staying fit and keeping from getting depressed. My dad wasn't hugely thrilled that I was running in a city that was less than safe in the hours with not a lot of daylight, but that was when the pepper spray I always carried in my pocket came in handy. It had been a gift from him, something incredibly mundane and cheap to purchase that I still treasured regardless.

Matt nods in approval at my running habits. "Shouldn't be too hard for you to keep up with me, then. I'm just going to head into the locker room and change into my school clothes, and get my backpack. I don't feel comfortable leaving my stuff here. Wait for me by the inside doors to the boys' locker room, check?"

"Check." I say, and he jogs around the corner of the school, disappearing into a side door that I presume leads into the boys' locker room. Rather than taking the bucket of cleaning supplies back to the janitor's office, I leave it where it sits on the ground- the janitor's going to need it when he finds this mess. Giving one last look at the disturbing wall of graffiti and gang propaganda, I round the corner myself, heading back into the school through the same doors I went out through before.

Walking down the deserted hallway, I find the wooden, closed door that reads 'Boys' Locker Room' on it in faded blue lettering without too much trouble. Sliding to the ground next to the door, I take off my backpack and set it on the floor next to me. It's a new backpack, but the same make and model as my old one, after last week's juice incident with the terrible trio. I'd managed to replace all my books and binders, though I'm still working on transcribing all of my ruined notes- especially the journal I'd been keeping on my secret cape identity- onto fresh paper.

Sitting on the ground, my mind wanders. Even after he saved me last night, I still can't help but think that Matt has some kind of ulterior motive for helping me out. After all, no one else has ever helped me before, even after nearly two years. All of them bribed or seduced or threatened into compliance and becoming a bystander by Emma, Sophia, Madison, or a combination of the three. Why is Matt different? Why him? Why now?

A minute passes, maybe two. I look up from my seat on the floor as the doors leading out onto the sports field open again. I expect to see Matt walking through them, but instead see a tall guy in gym clothes with a close-shaved head of blonde hair. He has a runner's build, similar, to Matt's, with a broad chest and long limbs, but he's more muscular than Matt. Wiping the sweat from his brow, it takes a moment for him to notice me. "Who are you?" He asks, his judging gaze skewering me. "Waiting to get a look at some buff studs in the locker room or something?"

I'm saved from having to answer that question, as Matt walks through the locker room door not a moment later, wearing a black t-shirt and jeans, with a backpack slung over his shoulder. It takes less than half a second for his face to contort into an annoyed glare upon seeing the blonde guy. "Hey, Aron." He says, his voice just barely holding onto any shreds of civility.

"Woah, Tilmitt." Aron, says, holding up his arms in mock surprise. "I didn't know you had a girlfriend. Must be a lucky guy, landing a freaky, gawky nerd girl like her."

I'm so used to hearing things like that from the trio that the juvenile insults barely even faze me, but Matt quickly fires back. "One, Aron, she's not my girlfriend. Two, you probably think you're cool with your hard-worked jogger look, but you and I both know that I'll still run faster than you no matter how hard you run or how much you play buddy-buddy with the coach."

Aron opens his mouth to respond, closes it, and opens it again, in a continuous cycle, seemingly mollified by Matt's insult. Before he can manage to put together a legitimate response, Matt whirls and stocks down the hallway, speed-walking away from the blonde kid. I quickly follow in his footsteps, running a little to keep up with the track athlete. By the time I manage to successfully catch up to him and he's slowed to a walking pace, we're practically already out of the front door. "You want to explain to me the history between you two?" I ask, panting a little bit from the sudden exercise. I hope I haven't winded myself too much already, if Matt's still planning on jogging the way to his house.

"There's not a whole lot to tell." He responds. "Aron's from Arcadia, thinks he's the hottest set of running legs on the planet. I've made it my personal mission to prove him wrong."

I nod, only somewhat satisfied with his answer. Is there something he's not telling me? But I decide to shelve it for later. "Are we still running?" I ask. I'm not terribly looking forward to it, but it should be some decent exercise, and if it makes Matt happy, all the better for me.

Matt's sullen expression immediately melts into a warm smile at the mention of running. "Yeah," He says, his footsteps picking up into a light jog, "let's run."

I quickly fall into step beside him, our sneakers pounding out a steady rhythm on the sidewalk. We leave the school grounds, heading down the sidewalk into the residential part of South Brockton Bay. I stay slightly behind Matt, letting him guide the way, being careful not to crash into him. In return, he sets a good pace, not quite running while still a good deal faster and more straining than walking. If this is how he usually does this, he'd be a good running partner, I think to myself.

As we stop to catch our breath at a traffic light, I ask Matt a question that's been bouncing around in the back of my head since he mentioned something before. "So, your older sister, Michaela, right?" Earning a nod from that, I press on. "Is she like… well, us? Is she a parahuman?"

Matt snorts quietly, though his face takes on a bit of a dreamy quality. "No. She doesn't have powers. And even if she did, I'd know. We tell each other everything."

"Aside from the fact that you have powers?" I ask, reading the expression on his face. "Your parents don't know about your powers or your alter-ego, do they?"

"Do yours?" Matt asks, turning his head from watching the road to staring at me. "Sorry. That probably came out as mean. I'm just trying to point out that everyone has something they keep from everyone else.

"True." I say, nodding. "No bad feelings. How far is it to your house from here?"

"About twelve blocks, that away." He says, pointing across the intersection. Just then, the traffic light turns green, going in our direction, and we resume the jog.

With our feet pounding the pavement once more, my concentration temporarily gets thrown off as my bugs pick up something, just at the limits of my roughly five-block range. I find a woman, whose features could place her age anywhere from seventeen to thirty-five, walking down the street, with the gentle breeze in the air stirring the brown overcoat she's wearing. There isn't particularly anything wrong with a woman taking a walk, but so few people do in Brockton's residential areas, since there really isn't much to see. She suddenly quickens her pace, a lackadaisical stroll transitioning into a light jog, at much the same pace that Matt and I are going. My bugs are unable to get a handle on that coat of hers for too long- every time they manage to latch on, after a moment or so, she twists her body in exactly the right way that throws them off. I try insects in sets of two, and then three, but nothing's doing. She just keeps shaking them off. It's the strangest thing.

As Matt and I make our way down the street, the woman stays at the limit of my range, slipping in and out of the extremities of my power's radius, effortlessly evading any attempts by the small swarm of bugs I have tailing her to get a good bead on her for more than a moment or so. I refrain from telling Matt at the moment- if I can't manage to keep a good tail on a normal jogging woman, how exactly am I supposed to be helpful against supervillains like Lung and Bakuda? My faces flushes involuntarily at the memories of how useless I was last night.

As we get closer to Matt's house, maybe six or seven blocks, the woman suddenly makes a turn inward, running on a diagonal that has her getting closer and closer to Matt and I, but somehow managing to easily stay on sidewalks, crossing through side streets and back alleys to make up the extra time. I try to get a heavier bug to cling to her coat, but she shakes that off too. Despite my best efforts, I'm unable to slow her down, the woman moving with an unearthly grace and fluidness of movement that seems vaguely familiar and yet completely unknown.

At that point, I decide to tell Matt. This woman is obviously following us, despite the fact that she shouldn't be able to know where we are, judging by how far she is from us now. Does she have powers of some sort? Is she maybe someone sent by Coil to tail us? Or maybe something else entirely?

"We need to stop." I say to Matt, who pulls out of his jog and turns around, looking at me with a raised eyebrow. "There's someone following us. Don't bother looking around," I say quickly, pre-emptively guessing his reaction to look behind and around us, "I can see them with my bugs. It's a woman, somewhere in the neighborhood. Don't ask me how, but she's somehow keeping my bugs from staying on her. I can only find her for brief flashes of time. But she's coming this way."

"What does she look like?" Matt asks.

"She's tall and slim, like me, but more… well-rounded in the chest area," I say, bringing up my own feelings of inadequacy about my relatively flat, uninteresting figure, "with short hair. Why?
Do you think you know her, maybe?"

"Where is she right now?" Matt asks, ignoring my questions.

"Two blocks up, two blocks right. She's just standing there. Stopped the same time we did." I realize the facts of those two sentences even as I say them.

Nodding, Matt does a quick 180 turn, surveying our surroundings. Then he dashes off, his form quickly vanishing down the street as he speeds towards our mystery stalker at super-speed.

"Damn it, Matt! Wait for me!" I yell, breaking into a run after him. I have no idea who this mystery girl is, but I have strong doubts she's here to throw us a party and shower us with presents. Eschewing the sidewalk, I jump onto the road, calling on my bugs to scope out the straightest line I can find without being seen towards the girl. Nearly at the same time, my bugs and my eyes find a low fence that is directly in the path towards the girl. I leap over the fence, dashing across a sparsely decorated backyard, while in the process evading a little Chihuahua that yaps at my heels but does nothing more. I jump over the back fence, landing in an alleyway between the fences on both sides. Heart pounding, I run out on the sidewalk, emerging a couple dozen feet away from the girl, who's now standing right in front of Matt.

"Don't run away like that!" I chide, running over to stand by him. I take the opportunity to warily scrutinize the woman who's been following us. She's tall and slim, like I'd thought, wearing a brown raincoat that obscures much of her body, and dark yellow boots. Her hair is pale brown, like Matt's, and cut short, around her ears. I briefly assume she might be Matt's sister before noticing the wary, annoyed look he's shooting at her.

"Let me repeat my question for Taylor. What do you want with me here?" He asks, his voice low and dangerous.

"Well, now that you're both here, I'll tell you." The woman's accent seems vaguely British, but I can't really tell, not to mention the entirely real possibility that she's faking it. She stands on her tiptoes, adding to her already considerable height, balancing in an effortless way that again seems vaguely familiar to me. I swear I've seen that before. Where have I seen that before? "My boss, who you both probably know is Coil, is holding a little bash in an hour, and you're both invited."

"Yeah, I assumed that you worked for Coil after you gave me a note signed by him yesterday." Matt says, ignoring the seeming invitation to some kind of party. "Who are you, anyway?"

"Let me see if I can remind you." In one smooth movements, the girl contorts backwards, flipping head over heels before effortlessly landing once again on her feet, now a little bit farther away from the two of us. She goes back to standing on her tiptoes, then. That effortless grace, that tendency to stand on tiptoes. Last night, tiptoes, harlequin costumes, cigarettes…

"Circus?" I ask, a little bewildered at my own discovery.

"In the flesh." Circus responds, a wide grin spreading across her face. "My real name's Mollie. Of course, don't tell anyone, otherwise I'd have to kill ya. For real." The grin spreads impossibly wider. "Sorry for confusing you before, Taylor, but it was the only way I could manage to get you two here, where's there's no chance of surveillance."

"How exactly did you know that doing that would get us to this exact spot?" I ask, bewildered.

"That's for Coil to know and us to salivate over, I'm afraid." Mollie's devilish grin transfers into an expression that looks almost melancholy.

"Well, in that case, nice to meet you, 'Mollie'." Matt asks. "So what exactly does Coil want with us? To invite us to some sort of party. Excuse me for saying so, but I'm pretty sure I never actually agreed to working with him."

"Oh, Coil is quite sure that you'll be willing to help him with this, Matt." Mollie responds, the grin returning.

"Oh, yeah? And why is that?"

"Because it involves the mayor's niece, Dinah Alcott. And if you don't get to the party soon, there's a pretty good chance she's going to die."

...

Dinah Alcott is in danger? Gasp! The plot thickens!

As an ending commentary, I've decided to share some of my author's notes on Circus. In canon, it's heavily implied that Circus is a male transvestite, but no one's sure, not even Tattletale. For this fic, I decided to mess with that by just having Circus as a girl all the times. I also gave him/her a first name. If you guys are lucky, I might even throw in a last name for free!

The next chapter brings back in the rest of the main cast and might even have an appearance by Taylor's dad, but it depends. As always, keep reviewing, following, and fav'ing!

See ya!

~Imageination (I have decided that tildes are cool and am rolling with it)