As a Parahuman fan, Taylor Hebert knew all there was about the 'Cape Scene,' or so she'd tell herself anyways. That included that nobody could prove conclusive evidence as to where a Parahuman's powers came from. So when one of her fellow summer camp goers started talking nonsense about summoning a wish granting demon using some Voodoo ritual her stole from her Romanian grandparents, Taylor was skeptical. For one, Voodoo didn't involve demons...

...right?

Then again, in a world where people clearly defied physics, she couldn't brush it off as impossible. If Parahuman abilities were supernatural in nature, that might have explained why nobody could reverse engineer them.

She wasn't expecting the 'Demon' to look like a normal girl, speak Japanese (as she would later find out), and enough French that she could recognize that said demon was absolute shit at it, nor be willing to grant the powers of darkness to someone in return for learning English. She expected that anyone wanting anything from the demon would have to offer their soul or first born to the demon, or kill a bunch of people or spread their legs for it. But nope, this demon just wanted to learn English.

The same language her mother basically drilled into her head.

'Thank you, mom; because of your brutal teaching regimen, I can live out my fantasies of being a superhero!' were her thoughts at the time.

The demon, "Alice Margatroid the Seven Colored Puppeteer Girl Who Plays With People's Shapes," was surprisingly straight forward as well; no tricks or anything during what should have been an hours long bartering session.

Taylor didn't find out why until it was too late, however; it was one of those "I'll make life suck for you because you got what you wanted" sort of things. She was only given the minimal means of using and cultivating magical power, her poor skills as an English teacher bit her in the ass when Alice left her a poorly written guide to further Taylor's progress as a magician, and Alice wasn't even a soul eating demon to begin with like Taylor assumed.

"Technically, I'm a post-human youkai magician where 'youkai' refers to any sentient non-human/non-animal, especially but not strictly those of the non-divine and non-posthumous nature. I could be a demon, if we define demon as 'Whatever living thing Shinki created' but that would also include animals and plants," was what Alice said once her English was good enough.

Alice knew some amount of French and seemed fluent in Japanese and a language Taylor didn't recognize, nor could find anything resembling it in her internet searches. If "Shinki" was supposed to be Japanese, that meant that Alice saw her creator as a deity, or enough of one to not challenge her creator's claims at being one.

Still, it seemed odd; and not just the idea of there being a god who was specifically the god of demons. Why did the term 'S-Class Threat' come to mind?

'Whatever.'

The devil was in the details though, as not even her cool (if useless) magical powers could stop her best friend from betraying her for seemingly no reason. And Taylor really wanted to impress Emma with them too, which made Emma's words and her new best friend's actions sting all the more. This was already bad since Taylor had the option of skipping a grade before she went to Summer Camp and would have done so if she didn't want to stay behind a grade for Emma.

But Taylor wouldn't give up, she would practice her skills and cultivate her power in private until she was ready to follow her dreams of becoming the next Alexandria (in spirit; her powers were more like Legend's or Eidolon's mechanically).

...

November, over a year later.

Yes, she improved; but being able to cast a handful of basic spells a day on top of remote control over a single 8" tall wooden doll hardly seemed like it was worth the effort. Her wood carving and sewing skills have been perfected though, nothing else. But what was she supposed to do, be a rogue like that Parian girl?

'I want to be a super hero, not a glorified puppet show owner!'

Worse, she didn't know how much was to blame on Alice (and by extension herself) for being shit at reading and writing English and how much she could blame on Emma ruining her life. She didn't know if it would have been worse had it been something like her mother's flute instead of her first successful doll that was stolen, broken and vandalized.

Well, she didn't know for certain that it was Emma who stole her doll. However, nobody should have known that the doll was where it was, it disappeared, and Emma was the first person to bring it up in conversation.

Logically, Emma either had skills as a lock picker, a hacker, or had connections to someone who did. Not that it would matter since nobody would side with her over anything brought to the authorities at the school.

On the upside, Winter Break was coming soon and Emma and her cronies were becoming seemingly apathetic over the last month. It may have been a calm before the storm, but perhaps she would have enough freedom from her tormentors to focus on becoming a superhero?

"Hey, Hebert; are you free this Saturday?" the familiar voice of the nerdiest of nerds asked.

...

That Saturday...

"And if she's home after 7:00pm, I'm finding you and kicking your ass, boy!" the balding, ragged man who was Taylor's father shouted from the house as Greg and Taylor left the Hebert residence. Given the secretive lives of parahumans, it made sense to keep the real reason for their outing to remain a secret, although Taylor didn't like the idea one bit. If Emma hadn't sabotaged social life, she could do so much better than Greg. To make the whole situation worse, only now was her father acting like a parent.

'Where was this man a year ago? A year and a half ago?'

"So, not to be ungrateful, but you never told me why you believed me when I said I wanted to get free superpowers and wanted you to come with me," Greg said. Taylor already had an opinion of the situation that fell in Greg's favor, but hearing him act suspicious like this wasn't helping his image in her head.

"Well, a long story short..."

...And like that, they were at the Lord Street Market...

"So wait, some cape believing she was a witch tried a hokey demon summoning ritual thing and abducted a cape from another world?" Greg Veder asked.

"How did you get that out of what I just said?" Taylor asked, annoyed at how he seemed determined to rationalize the esoteric explanation she gave him. If she had the money, she'd wager that he was into Science Fiction and shunned Fantasy.

Or maybe he's just an overly cautious skeptic, but given that he was a high school boy whose favorite pass time was playing online games...

"So this cape called herself the Seven Colored Puppeteer, and she granted you powers, so you think the two might be the same."

"Yes," Taylor answered.

They entered Fugly Bob's... Although...

'What were we looking for? Were we supposed to look for someone with a specific appearance or form of dress? Damn it, Greg, you're supposed to ask these questions before meeting-'

Taylor's train of thought stopped when she saw her.

The blond hair and blue eyes weren't that abnormal; in fact one might think they were common in Brockton Bay with the Neo Nazis running around. The outfit was different, but it kept to the same basic theme; blue skirt and shirt with a white shawl and looking like it belonged on a doll rather than someone walking through Brockton Bay.

But the woman was as Taylor remembered her face wise, as if she hadn't aged a day since they last saw each other.

"So.." Greg asked, "Do you think she's the Seven Colored Puppeteer?"

"One of you must be 'XX Void Cowboy XX' then?" she asked... Which felt odd; when I first met her, she seemed to have a chip on her shoulder and perpetually angry. This woman looked like Alice Margatroid, but Alice didn't conduct herself in a calm, friendly manner... Did something happen since then?

That was a silly thought; Emma becoming a bitch for no reason, but Alice becoming nicer for no reason.

"That's me," Greg quickly said.

"Well then, please sit; we have much to discuss regarding making you an effective magic user."

"Wait," Taylor interjected. "The book you gave me a year and a half ago had a bunch of grammar and spelling errors in it, I couldn't learn anything beyond making the 8" doll and controlling it."

"So sorry," Alice said, her hand raised to her mouth like she was surprised. "I only had few days to work and you were the one teaching me to read and write. If my reading and writing still needed work, I'd gladly rectify my mistake if you were to rectify yours."

'Fuck, she got me there!'

"I'm... going to go order myself some food," Taylor said in a defeated manner.

...

Alice and Greg's discussion on how she could turn him into a magician was long and dull. While she did talk about some of the basics like she did with Taylor, there was no training as we were in a restaurant. They also discussed what sort of power Greg Veder wanted.

'Oh, so he gets to choose what power he wants but I'm stuck with making and controlling dolls? Bitch.'

She did show some of her magical powers off to him, but they were simple displays, and even then they got some of the other patrons of Fugly Bob's attention. We quickly left after that.

"But with what you said that you wanted, we would need materials to work with," Alice said as the three of us walked down the sidewalk. "And I'm currently working with a limited budget."

"What about the ship graveyard?" Greg asked. "People loot that place all the time yet nobody gets in trouble with the government for it."

"Sounds good, I guess," Alice said. "Which way is it?"

Greg paused for a moment before answering "I actually don't know."

"Is that so?" Alice asked before looking to Taylor, "Taylor, I believe I can still help you with practicing puppeteering magic. Can you take us to the ship graveyard?"