Ratmor

Sidestory: Severe Cases of Out Of Character

Not as much severe as they can be, really. So, beware, that's a sidestory, that implies sexual relationship between two teenagers and they are talking about having sex and kisses.
Well, have a nice read.
What would've been with my ShadowStalker SI fanfiction if I wrote OOC all around, but they are not as severe as they can be, so you'll probably recognize them all not only by names.
BEWARE
Language, sex themes, kisses, accidents that make the plot. MAYBE EVEN SPOILERS WHO THE HELL KNOWS

---

Hellhound, Skitter, Regent, Tattletale, Grue and, apparently, his quite successfully triggered sister were surrounding me with all the ill intentions they were able to accumulate. They got me taped to the chair and there was electricity around me. Not the first time I really hated my rash decisions, but I tried to believe it wasn’t for nothing. I could’ve avoided it because there are some other ways to do what they wanted to accomplish.

“You know that I’m not working alone, don’t you?” - I decided to clarify what they knew about my involvement with any fractions. - “You do know who I’m working with, don’t you?”

“Yeah, your partner, what’s his name? The Hound? He’s not here.” - Grue coughed. - “Skitter?”

She shook her head and stayed silent, watching me like she wanted me to suffer. Perhaps she did, even if I had nothing to do with her trigger. It’s kinda obvious, because I was getting cured from severe radiation poisoning after what Behemoth did with that city, and that’s how I started to hang out with Panacea out of costume, really. When I came back, I had one sexual partner more and one, kinda, friend less. I gathered, they were able to do all this shit with tampons and blood without any intervention or help from me. Truly, people don’t need powers to fuck someone up. One thing made me happier - Mads didn’t even know about their plans. She was so fucking stuck on thinking that’s her fault as well, I had to revitalise our connection, so the number of sexual partners at once was two for the first time in my not so long life.

So, about all this situation I’m in right now… I wasn’t in the Wards this time around, but I did have affiliation with the PRT because Piggot knew her needs and she clearly needed someone like me. So, I had some minor access and all that. That’s why this Under-villains could use me. I was sure when I was scheduled to patrol with Flechette and we did the whole patrol thing quite successfully until I got the message from my Stalker about the Nazi-gathering, if today I run into Skitter, I’d run into them all, and I went with it anyways.

Chased her, silently and methodically, seeing red and feeling the need to finally make it somehow more honest. Well, my Stalker told me what happened to me in that story as he remembered it. I knew what would happen after Leviathan if Taylor saw my face in the hospital. I knew this would happen, because he knew it as one of those things that made the plot of the story he told me. And the thing was - apparently, Taylor becoming Khepri was one of those points that Contessa needed to happen when her Shard knew that it will make Scion fail.

It’s still too hard to grasp, but I’m living it, I’m changing it in little things, but it feels like it doesn’t work. But I try, no, We try, and the day he told me that I should go and find something good in all the shit around me, was the day I first went to play sax for public. Also the first day I met her. The runaway blonde girl in worn out clothes, who basically accused me of playing on the stolen instrument after asking me about the meaning of the engraving on it. Talkative, smart, pretty. Last one I was ready to admit without any doubt when she used my bathtub.

She told me then, her name’s Liv.

Me and my Stalker didn’t even get that’s Tattletale, until I heard her talking with Grue one day. Not whispering, not shouting in the fight, but talking.

I was angry that day. I shot Grue, a lot, that day. He lived, I got scolded by my Stalker and, well, it seemed not right to end things with her leaving me. And I was feeling used and a bit more broken than before, as my accidental helper said the day I was slobbering in that same bathtub. The day I thought, that it was all lies, and even if I never told her about being parahuman, she never said she’s ace. I didn’t even care she said nothing about her own parahuman abilities, but we had sex! I never wanted to force anything on her. I would’ve never even tried to do anything more than kiss her, if I knew she doesn’t like it.

That’s why I couldn’t believe she’s Tattletale at first. It seemed so real.

“It’s you,” - I choked it out, biting my cheek from the inside, and they, all of them, stared in the eyes of my hound-mask. - “It’s you, Liv. I heard you talking. And you smile right now. You smiled and talked a lot, even if I know now…” - now I choked on the fuckin’ lump in my throat but I’m not going to let her hear that. - “You weren’t fuckin’ real!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Tattletale’s smile looked strained, but I knew she doesn’t care for real, well, she didn’t when we were an item, so why would she start now?

She just turned her face to Skitter, Taylor I mean, who was a bit startled when I accused her teammate of being someone I know. Well, that’s just awesome. I can’t really say that I know her as well, can I? She’d just get her creepy crawlies into my mouth and I end up like the alternate version of Alexandria, really. I’m a nutjob, as my Stalker loves to remind me, but it’s the life that makes us like that, not the… well, powers too, but the life was doing it to people even when Zion wasn’t in the picture. So, logically thinking…

“Did you hit her too hard?” - Tattletale asked without any hint of worry in her features or voice, interrupting my thought process, so it caused me to speak again.

I wasn’t really paying attention to whatever bullshit she was spitting out. I just said what I needed to say for so long. I was going to open this abscess up.

“Well, then, that just means that’s not your name and you’re going to pretend you don’t know me. Why’s that? What I did to you to deserve this shit?”

She didn’t answer. She nodded to Regent and he sat down. Others were going to leave us alone, but I didn’t want this to end like that. Her eyes were empty, she wanted nothing to do with me and I didn’t know why. We were alright. She could’ve just talked to me and wouldn’t be that stuck on her. And I’m not that Sophia whom my Stalker despised and pitied both. With his inability to move out of my body for the first time he had to take care of me when he deemed it necessary. That’s how he made me understand why I should care.

It’s easier when someone cares back.

So, I started humming, and they stopped their movements, looking at me like I grew the second head. What? I’m playing sax, music’s in my veins because of my Stalker, so, what did they want from me? Shouting? Pointless and not good for the voice, especially after the electrocution they put me through. Regent even joked again, and it was even funny somehow.

“You’re not the Canary, Stalker,” - he snickered. - “Not your power, really. You’ve seen your files, right?”

Tattletale’s eyes were wide and green and she locked them with mine. She remembered.

“Hail,” - I started, hoarsely. - “What’s the matter with your head? Ye-yeah! Hail, what’s the matter with your mind and your sign! Oh-oh, Hail, nothing the matter with your head, baby, find it, come on and find it, Ha-a-ail, with it baby ‘cause you're fine and you’re mine, look so divine! Come and get your lo-o-ve…Come and get your lo-o-ove!”

Regent used his scepter on me again and it wouldn’t be pleasant if he used taser, but he just hit me with it like it was a baton. I was quite used to it, so I din’t even flinch, but unfazed, while being unmoving, and he started swinging it again.

“Stop!” - I heard what I wanted to hear. - “Stop this.”

“Tell me why,” - I asked her almost solemnly. - “We were good. What happened?”

“It’s not me,” - she hissed, and I saw her crying like if she cared, but it said nothing if it weren’t words, loud and clear. - “It’s you.”

“What does she mean, Tattletale? Why does she… Knows whatever she knows?”

Grue was nervous but he wasn’t raising his voice. I didn’t like the guy, mostly because I felt we were almost alike, when my Stalker told me his story. And this dude never even thought to act like a hero. Or maybe he thought, but he didn’t act, so it doesn’t count, because of whatever was happening in his life, I don’t really want to know.

First, I thought that’s her thing, she just left me for that guy. And that’s actually why I start shooting before I think it through - if I don’t think at all and let myself get as cold as I can, as numb as I need. Not good, he always said. And I know why it isn’t good now, it lacks real control over the situation.

“You see...”

I started saying it very much patiently, controlling my anger and trying to settle with the thought that the wish to make things right with Liv… Tattletale, or whatever she’s calling herself now, wasn’t the best idea, when I knew how it ended in the story where I never played music and never told Emma to go fuck herself after my first Endbringer fight.

“I don’t think she has something good to say,” - this blonde bitch interrupted me and her eyes were flashing, but I didn’t know with what, I’m not a fuckin’ Gallant. - “She’s just messing with our heads.”

“I thought that’s your thing, Tats,” - Regent cracked a joke, but I saw him play with his electrified skepter with more nervousness than before. - “Is she…”

“I fucked her and she fucked me up,” - I said it without any preamble, as if we needed more. - “We were together since she came into this city and saw me playing my sax on the Boardwalk, and that was late November, so she looked cold. I let her stay in my apartment because she seemed okay and I don’t have any valuables there anyways. At first it was an awkward friendship, but I made it clear that I don’t want to be friendzoned when I like someone as much as I liked her.”

“You play saxophone,” - whispered Taylor, forgetting that she supposed to talk with the help of her little friends.

She might’ve heard me playing, after all, sax is pretty loud and I was practising almost all the lunchtime and sometimes on the rooftop of the old building of our school. No one ever cared, except those who were in the repetition group. How are they, I wonder?

I was hanging a lot around Emma those days, so showing this lanky girl how things work in real life, or whatever I thought about our extracurricular activities, were part of my routine, but I wasn’t much into it when my time was possessed by making money for emancipation and finding fun and relaxation with saxophone or piano. Or visiting Grandmother, when she was inclined to accept my help and attention. Anyways, all this shit wasn’t about Taylor, and I’m not even afraid to butterfly anything, because I haven’t succeeded even after all these months of doing all kinds of things I would’ve never done in the timeline my Stalker knew.

“Well, you get that my identity is hardly a secret amongst your friends, Skitter. So, I decided to start with the beginning. Don’t you see it’s better?”

“Better than what, exactly?” - asked Grue and crossed his hands on his chest.

“Better than just tell you all something like, hullo, guys, there’s high probability I almost killed Grue because I was jealous of Tattletale, who is my ex. And I thought her being dead or whatever for more than two months, or something. And she obviously lied to me, used me even if she didn’t need to, and it’s not the fucking end of it! She didn’t even try to tell me that she’s gone for good and won’t be coming back! Thank you very much, you fucking stupid little bitch who couldn’t even think that it’s not fucking good to withdraw the information of your goddamn health especially in this shithole of the city! I was worried!”

“Shut your mouth! I don’t like to be called stupid! You’re...”

“Thank you fucking very much for putting my mask off my face! I so don’t like to be unable to look into your lying green eyes and ask just. One. Fucking! Thing!” - I was shouting right now and it was pretty much teenage drama I never really liked. - “Why the fuck didn’t you just write me a note? I wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for this suspense!”

“Whad’da ya mean you wouldn’t be here?” - the girl, Grue’s sister, asked. - “Did you know it’s a trap?”

“Of-fuckin-course I knew it’s a trap! Not a crappy one, but I wanted to be here, so I’m here.”

“You do understand, that I’m a master, right?” - asked Regent, frowning. - “And you knew it when you came here.”

“You know, it really bothers me when you try to electrocute me. You see, my powers don’t let me feel everything like others. Can’t feel pain like a normie, it’s like sensory neuropathy or something, but power-induced. That’s what Amy said, anyways. Something with brain, too, but she doesn’t touch brain. I suspect, it’s partially empathy and all that kind of shit, because really, Liv, or whatever your real name is, all the time we were together I was thinking you’re okay with how things proceed. ”

“All the time… All the time you were lying to me, Sophia. And I wasn’t even interested in the relationship with you at first, really. You just made it seem so easy and…”

“I lied to you only in those things that were connected to cape shit,” - I shrugged and it hurt my wrists somehow, I don’t even know how exactly. - “You didn’t tell me your story too. I’ve been… burnt once. She was not the best person to know my identity, really. Ended up being mental...”

“You were in a relationship while being with me,” - she said it so tiredly, like it was obvious, but I couldn’t even fathom in what she said, but she continued, It wasn’t over then? - “You were telling me it’s your first time and my power was telling me that you know what you’re doing, and you’ve been doing it before many times. You were saying that you like my smile, so my power provided me with the fact that it reminds you of the person you truly despise. The only thing that was okay was sex, because your breaker power somehow changed my perception of your body, or I don’t know. It doesn’t work when you touch me.”

“You’re crimson,” - I smiled, satisfied, but she scoffed and others were clearly nervous, not knowing what to do with whatever their plans are. - “And I didn’t lie. Let me uncover you a little cape secret of mine. I work with Toybox, Liv, and I had access to the memory tinker because I’m that cool of a hero and, well, I was in the group that birdcaged Acidbath, you know that right? I had some cash those days.

“You weren’t just in the group, Shadow Stalker,” - Tattletale gasped and her tears were almost gone already. - “You… you put it together? Why?”

“Do you remember my dream you laughed that much about?”

“Oh, yeah. I laughed because that lie was at least funny, Sophia. You always lied, I told you already…”

“I didn’t.”

“Oh.”

“What’s the dream, huh? And why Tat’s face is that pale?” - Regent was bored out of his ass, but he at least tried.

“I dream of having picnic on the grave of Heartbreaker while drinking my coffee from the skull of Jack Slash. ”

“And for that, she said, she needed to befriend Bonesaw.”

“Well, that part was a lie. Panacea can do too, really.”

Regent was laughing like a madman and I joined him but he poked me with his stick and I didn’t appreciate it.

“Oi, what for! Why did you hit me? I’m cooperating here!”

“He’d master you, idiot.”

“That’s why I needed Bonesaw, you see, the girl is awesome with nervous system control, she could’ve probably made the unmastering device and get rid of Jack Slash indoctrination.”

“She believes that Bonesaw is misunderstood. And Jack Slash is a secret master of the whole Slaughterhouse, so if you kill Jack others would try to kill each other,” - explained Tattletale. - “She’s like that, okay, don’t look at me, guys! My power didn’t work when I touched her, so I used it for having an experience…”

“Awesome one,” - I was smug because the main worry of her not being satisfied or even interested but still having sex with me was evaporated. That’s the worst thing! - “It was the awesome experience, I have to add. And he can’t master me.”

“Why not?” - Tattletale clenched her fists. - “And how’s that you haven’t lied to me all those times? You were in that relationship, and you weren’t honest with me! I can’t be mistaken…”

“Well, my only continuous relationship except you was the girl who knew my identity because I got some kind of childhood crush on her while saving her. And we weren’t fucking, god bless me from that shit. I’m pretty sure she’s straight or too closeted for anyone’s liking. Now I’m kinda having it with Amy, I mean, Panacea because we were hanging around for some time. I got too much radiation on the last Behemoth attack, you see. She needed to relax and I gathered, the best method is to fuck it out.”

“You… you attended.” - Tattletale was close to me now, was touching my face now. - “You fucking attended. How… Oh, yes, you’re emancipated, yes.”

“And I’m quite suicidal. Uh-huh. Heroic, I mean. It’s okay, you either save people, or save yourself if you can’t save people. My power is quite useless in use on other people if I’m not trying to attack them, but if I have a tinker tech medkit and some means to communicate. And, er… What’s wrong with Skitter?”

The bugs were buzzing and skittering around but they were kinda chaotic. I didn’t like the view, like, at all.

“The last attack of Behemoth was just before my trigger.” - she managed to squeeze it out of her creepers and I almost gulped.

“Well, okay, and? Are you… connected?”

“You were… in the hospital those days?” - she didn’t answer on my question, but she asked her own. And I didn’t get why at first.

“All my Christmas and New Year, yes. The best New Year was with you, though, - I looked at Tattletale. - “You remember the song, so you had some good feelings as well.”

“You’re kind of… innocent?” - Taylor neither stated, nor asked.

“Hm, I’m… I’ve killed people? That helps? And innocent in what?”

She started to do something weird with her mask and I heard a short “fuck” from Grue.

Whatever. I already knew it’s Taylor when I chased her, so when her hair fell down on her cheeks I looked at Tattletale and asked.

“Now tell me if I’m lying. I had a guess that’s Taylor the first time I saw Skitter in action.”

“You are. Fuck you and your bitch of a power,” - Tattletale smiled and I saw something warm blossoming in her eyes, so I angled my face and tried to reach her face in a caring peck.

I wished to do that since the day she fuckin’ left without any warning.

We kissed like I wasn’t taped to the chair and that wasn’t making my hands hurt.

“It’s not love,” - she said without any doubt.

“It’s not love,” - I confirmed half-heartedly.

“You’re lying.”

“You’re wrong.”

The kiss was good, and Taylor was standing there, blushing and trying to avert her eyes.

2.3 Ice-cream on the Boardwalk

Or Something new about mind-merging and something old about bullies

Everything was much worse than I expected.

The USA is totally ruined for me now, really. It's like if you start your russian touristic experience not from Saint-Petersburg or Moscow but from Magnitogorsk. The place where Europe and Asia meet, indeed, but you don't go there to make a first impression of Russia. They make steel there, not good impression on tourist hordes. And lots of air pollution, really.

Well, Brockton Bay is the cape capital for tourists, so if not for the cape scene it would've been a really sorrowful sight. The flying Rig of the Protectorate seemed not so far from the Boardwalk, but I knew it would take more than an hour if we decided to travel there. And the damn ferry would've been nice, because the Boardwalk and the Downtown must be connected with something more than roads.

The amount of traffic happening here is awful, I gathered that much when we ended up staying on the same corner of the same street in a bus, filled like there no other transport at all. Not squeezed but that would be a possibility if it wasn't a weekend morning. And the amount of city transport is awful as well, not only the human mass inside of it.

The problem is fools and roads, as always… Why does it smell like home? And why the hell those bureaucrats don't approve Danny Hebert idea to reopen the ferry is definitely beyond my imagination.

"We'll need to look into it. It might be the Empire. Or others."

Hess stated it like it was something beyond any arguments. First I thought that she's talking to someone else - I wasn't paying attention while she was feeding the ice cream to the kid. This little girl was as adorable as any child could be, and I was looking where Sophia was looking and that was little Lori's face.

She wasn't talking about Laura's face, was she?

"Sopi, gimme moar!"

Little one was demanding and pretty much talkative for a two year old.

While we took the bus from home and then walked her to the cafe, I've gathered one quite important thing. Laura adored Scooby Doo, so she was considered another one kindred spirit in the Hess family.

The first one was hurting-nazis Sophia, even if I don't think I could've done the same in my own reality. Don't know about this one, it's pretty gruesome, and I'm not a fan of guns, violence and all that shit I would've known a lot about if I was fit for the Army. Funny thing about that, I've scheduled my eyes surgery two days after my 27th birthday. No reason to hold onto something that made me unfit if they were able to make me join only if it's for some war so they'd have to mobilize everyone. Anti-militarist approach won't get me anywhere in the world like this one, I bet.

Nazis make all the difference, really.

It reminded me of Russian nationalists. Those were easily provoked by gastarbeiter part of non-russian society in the Federation, but it was never as bad as here. And they seemed to be the unnecessary evil some of the government figures were ready to support for making the political move of divide et impera, to rule them all by letting them burn their steam in the wrong direction. I wonder, if it was the same shit here when they just started… Better they hurt each other for stupid reasons than they unite in one fist and fuck the acting authority with that same fist.

"Thoughtful much." - murmured Sophia and I felt her eyes lose focus, and her fingers squeeze the spoon with ice cream and I felt those fingers. - "I went deeper than I thought. Your thoughts are stupid!"

"I don't think so. And we're not letting the kid to come in vicinity of some real Great Dane dogs, are we? Even if she asks, just don't do it without proper guidance. Those are pretty scary until you outgrow them. My neighbour had one when I was kindergarten, name's Oscar. I love dogs, I really do, but not the big ones, even if the idea seemed good just before I met Oscar. No, it was like Oscar's the one who met me, and I was shitting my pants trying to ignore him out of fear."

"Gimme!"

The girl was so happy and unaware, I was… or maybe Sophia was, I don't quite get the difference right now, very much jealous. Lori wasn't aware of her sister's creepy crap in the head but, well, I was here too, so it wasn't crap anymore.

"Little tyrant you are," - Sophia giggled and obeyed her sister.

"The one and only superior force you have upon you until you slip. Again."

"Shut it," - she exhaled and stopped smiling.

"Why should I? You genuinely seem to think that bully Taylor is as good option as any and even better - you won't have to lose your chewing toy. You can't be sure that whatever your little pack would think of won't make her trigger wrong and go Carrie on every-fuckin-one. It's Queen Administrator we're talking about, not your fucking dog of a power. We need to go to the PRT and…"

"That would put me on their leash!" - she hissed. - "And you do understand that I'm talking to myself instead of simply thinking whatever you need to know of my opinion. And it feels like you would hear all my thoughts only if we merge. You want it as much as I do. And I really don't. Like, at all."

"We can't help it, Sophia. It's already butterflied. It's unnecessary for you, inefficient even, to proceed with whatever Emma thinks right. Relax a bit. Study. Have fun. I can even help you with algebra and studying music instruments for fuck's sake! We all might die the next day because someone would say something wrong to that golden offspring. And just get on with it! Just stop yourself when you have that urge to enjoy someone's weakness. You know that's not the only thing to enjoy in life…"

"I don't really care about Hebert. But I really care about my own well-being. And you didn't tell me I'd die. You told me about Alexandria and Eidolon. That info is as important as the info about my probable death. You would've told me, right?"

She managed to say it very slow and controlled, but I felt that she's doing it for her sister's sake. Her anger might frighten the kid. Not only anger? But fear.

"What did you think I was saying?" - I asked because I felt it was somehow uncalled for. She had the same level of fear when I told her about the Triumvirate.

"You said, we might die. Why did that thought even come to your mind if not for some reason…"

"The Slaughterhouse Nine would be in the city after Leviathan hits. And Leviathan hits because there are those guys who come into the city because of Coil who wants to use them and those guys have one girl on a team… Clone spawning fucking eldritch horror and power error girl. Smurfed clone spawning fucking eldritch horror power error girl, if I might add."

"And by smurfed you mean…"

"Just like the guy who controls Siberian and the Mannequin, whose dream of tinker-heaven on the Moon was destroyed by Simmy and then he was fucked in the head…"

She started coughing out her sprite - such a wrong move to accidentally drink anything while mindfully listening to the voice in your head, who's uncovering the best conspiracy ever.

"Guy who… cough… Siberian? What the fu… gly."

She looked at her sister who was eating by herself now… meh, she was trying to at least. Sophia scoffed and started to wipe Lori's face with clean paper tissue.

"Forget about bugging Hebert..."

I would've laughed if I could when I understood that it was her method of hiding the "fuck" word not some knowledge of Taylor's future powers. It wasn't quite a laughing matter when she continued and I grasped what she said.

"How do we kill Eidolon?"
2.4 Balancing carrots and sticks

Or
When surprises never end

"Well, apparently, we can manage it, despite whatever I said about… Well, it being just a mere fantasy."

"What do you mean by…"

She stopped in her tracks, seemed taken aback. She's seen it already, but somehow she was too wrapped in her mind to let it appear more important than her thoughts. I pointed it out, so not only I would be as freaked out as I am now, but she as well.

"What's that box doing here? It wasn't here when we left the room!"

"Don't even think of calling PRT. You did for a moment here. What's wrong with your spirit of adventure, kid? The box is for saxophone and I think I know who did it."

How could I not get the message, I wonder? It's quite easy to put two and two together, when there was a clear memorabilia of who put it on Sophia's bed.

"It's a hat."

Shadow Stalker pointed her slightly trembling finger at the black fedora. This case was actually quite worn and common. Why did Contessa bother herself with delivering someone's old sax just to make us feel intimidated, I think, I'll never know, but I did feel what she wanted me to, and so did Sophia.

"It's Contessa's fedora, and I think that's our carrot and stick both. But… I don't get one thing."

"What don't you get, it's a fucking threat, what's not to get here?! That Contessa you were thinking about, she's a teleporter, or what? Why saxophone? Why did she leave nothing but a hat and this case? Answer my goddamn questions! My brother was home all the time. He could've…"

"Her power is the Path to Victory. Always winning, never having fun. Duh, you can't have fun if you know that you gonna win. Just joking, because I'm fucking frightened, really. And, Sophia, you do understand that anytime I'm telling you that something might happen, that probably just means the thing I told you won't happen the way it happened."

"So, she's a precog level "fuck me sideways". And now what? Even if I might be able to ambush the Triumvirate somewhere in the future with the knowledge of Eidolon being the reason of motherfuckin' Endbringers appearing out of thin air, just like you suggested, and I still think that it's stupid and we won't live it through the hole they'll put me in. Even if it's a possibility, Kabaev, that's not getting us anywhere near the reason why she decided to send a message."

Her conclusion about Contessa's rating was quite accurate but I felt that I was missing something. Also, it was quite annoying, when Sophia showed me the depth of her ability to see my thoughts like I saw her's.

"Wow, you know my surname. That's creepy." - I decided to ask why she chose my surname specifically, it was quite important for understanding the real depth of what she knows. - "And what about name?"

"Not even try to make me learn how to properly say it! I know you don't even like it yourself. It's quite traditional and hard to shorten. It'd be better if I found you an alias anyway. Would be easier to pretend that I'm not a nutjob..."

Her depth of knowledge was more annoying than ever, really. She seems to be able to do the same shit I do to her - following thoughts until she can reach what she needed at the first place. I needed some retaliation.

"You said it yourself, Sophia! You have to pretend. So you do know you're nutjob. I was so worried, Sophie. So worried."

She started swearing, calling me all the things she could think of, and I really wanted to laugh at that, oh, only if I could, and she was clearly feeling all the mirth I was feeling, it kinda worked both ways right now. When she stopped her cussing at me her speech became more structured and she finally got to think on what that meant. She wasn't quiet, but I felt she needs it.

"So, when we were fantasizing about how one might destroy Triumvirate with this Eidolon thing, one of those ideas made sense to her powers, I assume. It probably isn't the one where you suggested asking Alexandria her opinion on our information and watching the result. I don't believe she'll believe and it won't end good for my well being, as I already said. And how would that precog know what we were thinking? And… how about Simmy and the fact that she's going to attack this winter? That Madison attack that's oh so important, you said, and if it gets screwed up in a good way so be it, it can't be worse, you said! Well, it can be! We're on the radar! And the whole bullshit didn't even start!"

"Stop shouting, fucktard!" - she was too loud for these walls of paper and I don't think her family would get it right if they hear her shouting things about cape bullshit. - "Your brother is in the house! And she's not just a precog. She's kind of mastered by her power, as well as I remember all those… Let's say, in a way all of you, parahumans, are mastered by your powers, Sophie, it's in your brain, after all. Why do you think your little nagging bitch haven't bothered you yet? You feel it, don't you? You're less spiteful, more collected, logically thinking for fucks sake! Yes, like when you're on one of your hunts but… somehow better because the promise of conflict isn't required and you didn't even think of going on patrol. It's because of your power being concentrated on nagging both you and me, so I feel it's attention even if I don't know how and you're quite used to it, so it's lacking… the bite?"

"Okay, dude, that's good that you vented and I'll try to stay calm...er, but I wasn't asking you what you said! My power works just fine, and if I feel good when you don't, it's beneficial for both of us, because my survival is in my hands, not yours, thank you very much!"

Sophia sat down on the bed, watching the case like she was thinking it'll nuke the neighborhood. Then she took the fedora in her hands and started absentmindedly playing with it like she didn't know what to do with her frustration when she couldn't shout or hit something. I answered her accusations and tried to explain why I was as useless as I was.

"Well, I got carried away, you know, I'm thinking here! And I don't fucking know whatever you asked. I wasn't going to write that damned fanfiction, wasn't making any notes or memorising timelines! I just read some shit about that goddamn Choose Your Own Adventure and thought that would be funny to write the chart..."

"Boring adult you are," - she smirked, I felt this mischievous attitude on our connection, and then she repeated what she said less than two hours ago, and that was a really good pun, considering the circumstances. - "With all those charts. Got something good out of them, I gather?"

"You think you're funny, huh?" - I asked her, while feeling her self-complacent mood when she looked in the small round mirror on her table.

She put the fedora on her head, adjusted the ponytail and some loose strands of hair that were out of place. No make-up, but I don't see if she even needs it. Pretty and sporty, dark eyes with some undeniable intensity in them, like she knew she shouldn't look that wrought-up but she wasn't able to stop it.

I'll have to get used to seeing anything but my pale dark haired muzzle on any reflective surfaces. It would be quite horrible when she'll have her periods. I heard some stories... Well, in the morning we established that peeing is okay. Why won't it be? I lived with women, so there's nothing I've never seen and I can't really embarrass myself with any possible inappropriate comments, because I'm thirty, not twelve, and I know when you shut it and do not mention again.

I was for a minute in my thoughts, so when she started talking to the mirror looking right into her eyes, I felt that she spooked me and looked me in the eyes, like, for real.

"If she doesn't want me to act on your knowledge, we'd have to stick to your initial plan, Kabaev. Or maybe I should call you the Creep while I'm in costume? It'll support the cape theme, and after all, you're gonna be stalking me like a creep for any foreseeable future…"

It turns out we were thinking about the same shit. How creepy that situation is and why the whole thing feels like it should've been somehow otherwise? Like, we shouldn't be talking and bonding, and I should be feeling the body like my own, adjusting to it's oddities, thinking to myself but not to someone who's in control, writing my goddamn charts about everything I remember and, finally, not joking around with the teenager that bullied Taylor Hebert and made her life hell with help of two others?

"If you start calling me that, I'll start calling you shadow bitch. And we'll be the best team ever. Till the death parts our ways," - I finally tried to joke back but suddenly it wasn't funny and her mirth vanished like it was never present.

"What do we do now?" - she asked and her tone was serious, dark and edgy.

"I don't fucking know. I think, we should just sleep on it."

"You're useless, you know it?" - she sighed and wondered back to the case. - "At least show me how to play it."

She opened the lock and I would be really glad if I could just take over the body and laugh like I laughed when Putin changed Constitution to make the term of his rule from four-year to six-year.

It was the one that's been called "Nenibredni" in the photo-review when I saw it first time. It was the actual tenor sax of B&S brand that had two engravings on it. One was, as is obvious, nenibredni. And the second one was Ahnenerbe. Ancestral heritage if you translate it from German. And the Nazi think tank, the SchutzStaffel appendage that was covering the justification of all the shit the nazis did. Nazis did play music as well.

I don't exactly want this saxophone anymore.

"It would be too loud, Sophia. It's a tenor sax, and you cannot play yet, so you'd be just producing loud noises for the first few weeks. Leave it be."

"We're going out then."

She closed the saxophone case and got her crossbow case from under the bed.

"I have to clean and oil it after each use,"- she provided me an explanation. - "Yesterday I was too tired to do it."

Crossbows do need maintenance as much as saxophones do, I gathered. So, it's case was even better than the saxophone one. Synthetic materials, no dirt on it, no Ahnenerbe engravements on what's inside…

"I think, I need some nazis to shoot as well, Shadow Stalker. And I also can play piano, flute and clarinet. So, find me one and we'll see what you can do with them. You don't learn how to play just one instrument if you're in it since you're four years old. By the way, do you have any music schools where you can study anything fundamental? Like, local ones?"

"They ain't free, you idiot. Be glad that the lady you're so afraid of took pity on you and gifted you the saxophone for your silence. It'd better be money but…"

Sophia readjusted her bag on the shoulder. Our secondhand fedora moved onto her eyes and when she couldn't make a catch, it fell down. Sophia followed it with her eyes while started feeling annoyed,but she couldn't drop her quite costly for her finances equipment. She gripped the bag tightly when her initial response was to go for a hat while losing the case, but that won't do. Apparently, you may hit someone with it, but some parts are fragile. So, she just followed the hat with her eyes and was rewarded. Fortuna was bullshit.

The silver and black piece of paper was hidden in the inside lining of the fedora.

It wasn't money.

It was a business card.

2.2 Broken state of Shadow Stalker

Or
How I humanized the bitch and then told her about Eidolon

We ended up waiting for the kid to wake up and the big kid to come back.

Sophia cleaned her plate like she was starving to death and I was feeling whatever she did, so my mood gradually upped and she felt less tired and more inclined to talk about her brother. Well, I better never asked about him, that made her moderately angry.

The guy was a big kid as I already said, but that was obvious. I wasn’t going to say shit like “at his age I was already...” because of different circumstances, worlds and all that. I’m not a stupid ass, I’m quite a smart ass, and if you don’t praise yourself, who’d do that instead? So, yes, I’m an ass but smart one and I really wanted some action so I started with asking Stalker what she wanted to do after she feeds the little one.

I was all for visiting Downtown and Boardwalk, but she didn’t see any reason for her to disrupt her initial training regimen and doingnothingness after it's done. No Emma or other friends for today.

The kid’s pretty antisocial deep inside, so she doesn’t like all her weekend invaded by someone else’s whims and wills. And Emma’s exactly like that - somehow pretty and adorably cunning invader who likes things that Sophia just tolerates at best. But she's popular and wealthy and indebted. So, it's safe. Cold blooded and calculated but I expected nothing else...

I should stop reading her mind, really.

She doesn’t see Emma wrong and I do, but I don’t know a girl for real, so I have to make my own opinion without flashes of Sophia’s quite dulled care about that girl. Not as sociopathic as I thought her be, then.

All that arguing was basically about me getting to know the city and her unwillingnes to sate my curiosity. I was pretty much restless and she definitely had nothing to do today so why not?

It grew into a heated argument because I really ached for some action as her power nagged me, and then nagged me again and again. Sophia stopped disturbing the airflow in the room with her complaints when she understood that she’s arguing with that same air around her and can’t hit me in the face. Her fists were clenching and unclenching, jaw tight, so I gathered she seemed to think of violence.

Well, she fumed but couldn’t do anything with me being very much interested in the most famous places of Brockton Bay. We’d have to survive here, even try to prosper while it's still possible, and I don’t have all the access to her life and I don’t think I want this access at all. Apparently, it causes merging with her on some deep level and it would be great if I could avoid it as long as I’m able to. Forever, if I have any say in what’s gonna happen.

Don’t want to get into that shit, better just watch, really. Not my adventure, like, at all. Golden shit might hit the fan anytime if we butterfly anything, and there’s no Khepri yet.

The Universe apparently has no tankreds to endure the Scion, and Taylor Hebert right now is everything but her own canonical Tankred. Or Skitter for that matter.

Oh, well, these people are probably unaware of Warhammer 40k and I should refrain from even thinking of gods of Chaos. After all, I’m here in the Wormverse, for fucks sake. If it exists, I gather all the fiction shit might exist as well. So, no way I’m gonna say any sayings like “Blood for the blood God” even if it’s quite familiar for me to joke around that oldfag thingy. All that shit might end up in those ears whose owner no one ever want to notice nearby. I mean, who in their right mind ever wants Khorn to hear’em? Eh, I might know one dude out there who really needs that kind of audience, name’s Scion, but I doubt the aftermath would be better than the original Golden Morning.

Somehow I felt the deja vu feeling when I was thinking about Warhammer.

"Alright then."

I decided to tone it down and stop the argument.

"Are you eager to face the apocalypse unprepared, Sophia?"

"No?"

It was the right answer but it wasn't the right tone.

"Say it like you mean it! Why do you think they treat Empire 88 or other villainous groups that aren't moral at all with kids gloves? They think it will help them when the golden Apocalypse hits. Well, it will actually help but at what cost?"

"They will be the one to survive, those who are stronger are always..."

"They'll just get lucky. The golden boy misses them when he strikes and so they are lucky not strong. You cannot be stronger than the first hero."
I said it with sarcasm and would've airquoted it if I could.

"He is the source of powers."

"Fuck it sideways, why me!"

She groaned and put her face on her fists on the table.

"Why the fuck it's me who gets her ass blasted with that impossible info?! I can't believe it! I don't really think I can prove it without shitting on any survival instincts I still have enabled!"

"Everything screams you to run. You want to. But you can't. It's knowledge, not Lung. You are unable to run from knowledge."

"I still want to forget it, whatever you say."

She sighed and thought of her dear brother Terry who'd be the best in delivering any death sentences, so they come when you're already old and tired of living.

The little one has to wake up to make things move faster. That's her exact thought.

"What that means by the way? Are you going to..."

"I'm gonna do what you said, show you Brockton and all that..."

She felt tired again but that was somehow harsher than before.

"It's pretty much depressing to know I have to, as you say it, bully someone just to make them trigger right. I see it as showing her where's her real place in that world, educational really."

She snorted and shrugged.

"I never even hit her properly. It feels like she’s to thin to survive it. Not that I don't believe you, I might've come up with that bullying campaign you're thinking when you told me about Hebert triggering, but I really have better things to do than plan whatever that was… is… would've been."

"So… you don't think I'm accurate or what? I told you what I've read!"

She didn’t answer my question, but she didn’t need to. She thought it wasn’t what might have happened, and I thought that it could’ve happened if she had no other things to do and nowhere to burn off her steam. And, well, she was that same bitch who didn't feel bad about "showing someone their place".

"So, what if I say I'm going on a tour with you and in exchange you tell me everything you know about what might happen. You'll do it very fuckin’ slow and detailed, and I'm gonna write it down so I know what the actual fuck is happening!"

"I have a better idea. We'll make a really huge chart and you'll need a program for it… or A1 sheet of paper. Why's that you or your family never needed a PC before?"

"Boring adult you are, with your charts and programs" - she scoffed and answered my question about PC. - "It's not that common and not that cheap."

"No kongo almost slaves, I got it."

And, well, I really got it but she didn't. So, I felt a spike of rage in her chest and I cursed my wording. She was angry because of cultural misunderstanding.

"Meaning what, you fucker, what slaves?!"

"Whoah, calm down! It's about that shit you need for making some parts of computer or tablet or cell! I'm kinda fond of reading business and financial analytics journals, that's very useful for analysing whatever happens around or in the news on the other side of the world. News manipulate us and all that, and I don't like to be manipulated so I really feel better if I gather data and get to the answer myself. Masochistic, but my brain loves the exercise. So, Sophie, you do understand that cheap labor is profitable and all the corporations that need it don't mind using it. Especially when the production is corrupting the ecology, so their own people would reap their throats out for poisoning their children. Not literally, but that's not the point. So we usually joke around the slave theme when it comes up in the conversation, nothing special really. Cheap labour is almost like slavery, and we have nothing to do with what happened in the past because most of us are descendants of those slaves or slavers or both and it doesn't matter because of the USSR. Believe it or not, I had no real knowledge of Martin Luther King movement until I was your age and we touched the subject on history class. So I never thought I have to bear any hard feelings on that matter and I really didn't think that anything I say might be offensive."

"It didn't sound like referring to whatever economical shenanigans…"

"It's called globalisation." - I joked but apparently there was no word for that process here and she didn't get it.

"Okay, it wasn't that for me. I saw it as you were referring to some black people in Kongo as almost slaves. That's what I call nazi bullshit and you never do it again."

"I'm kinda thinking here, remember?! I don't think I would've told you anything like that with, you know, my own tongue, mouth and all."

She was ready to have my ass handed to me, or to attempt to, but the arrival of her long gone brother stopped her in her tracks and she suddenly remembered that she can't hand my ass to anyone.

Her thought processes are funny and I definitely can see her bullying Taylor because no one she had any reason to respect ever told her that's unacceptable and not only told her, but made her stop once, thrice, and had any care about her's or Taylor's wellbeing.

It's hardly a secret that not only the bullied suffers personally from the process of bullying but all the bullies as well even those who just stand by and let it happen. Teenagers only look like young adults but their brains and psyche aren't.

I was teacher for one and half year. The student I knew as the guy who had horrible memory with dates but he was never shy to answer what he knew and was quite positive at it, ended up being bullied. I gathered that much when I stumbled upon other kids beating shit out of him.

Apparently, that kid thought if his parents won't care why would teachers, almost strangers, care? His father told him just to man up and hit back and, well, that's the time when the boy did hit back.

Bullying works like real life sometimes.

You don't hit neonazi scum when they are together, you hit em when they're alone…

Oops, I did it again. That's her shadowing out of me, and I don't really want that to happen.

Well, the girl is funny and has a head on her shoulders at least about money and her early emancipation and whatever she does on cape scene didn't make her crippled yet. That's what I would've done with the money if I wanted my family as far from the cape scene as possible. As far from me as possible, too.

Sophia was cold-bloodied in one thing and hot-headed in other - pretty much human and even understandable. I mean, her power is a nagging piece of crap, and I have the pleasure to feel it on my virtual spiritual skin all the time I'm here.

So, the only thing I must admit about myself and all the changes in my opinion on the matter, I got achievement unlocked - the huge bitch, who made Taylor's life hell, that huge bitch - successfully humanized.

***

The TV was on, and it was the morning show.

I thought they usually talk about health and children on weekend morning shows, but this one was about how capes must work with hero organisations instead of being rogues. I know nothing about the USA television broadcast but that seems a bit harsh to talk about when it's a sunny Saturday morning. As sunny as it can be in Brockton Bay, really.

“Well, Sophie, that’s something straight out of cat’s life, apparently.”

I just had to comment their opinion. Almost everyone was saying the same thing but differently. Go to Protectorate for help, don't be pendejos.

“What do ya mean, cats?”

She muttered that question under her nose because her brother might hear her, he was putting scrambled eggs on his plate. She poured cherry coke into the glass. Where did she get it? The answer is - someone is adorable and that was unexpected.

When her brother came back he knew that she'd be angry for him wasting more than hour on buying milk. He knew that even before he came back, that's why he didn't even put his jacket off when he already handed her the bottle while saying "you're grumpy today, so cherry up." Sophia felt warmth then and smiled at him, even if her initial wish was to hit his shoulder and tell him he's an idiot. That made me choke on whatever witty thing I wanted to say - her brother was kinda awesome and she thought just that. I never had one, so I thought the same.

Terry thanked her for food and went to his room with his plate. That made me free to talk again and make it a dialogue not a monologue. The first thing she asked was something very much trivial and no less frightening.

“I don’t really drink from glasses. Why did I even decide to pull it out and drink out of it?”

“Well, that’s my fault, I guess. If I have a cup to drink from, I’ll use it. Even if it’s fuckin’ Redbull, really. “

“What the hell is Redbull… oh, okay, we don’t have that one here. Many others caffeine drinks at our service, no reason to worry really. How do you think I'm still alive?“

“It’s sugar that does the deed, not caffeine. Even coke looks up on Redbull if we talking about sugar. And it’s austrian, so I suppose when…For that matter just let me make a citation of my favourite man Roger Zelazny out of his Trumps of Doom I reread just before I appeared in your walnut-sized brain. When the most recent fecal missile met the rotating blades… I mean, when the fallen angel arrived in Switzerland, countries nearby were apparently a little bit butterflied.“

“Fecal missile, huh,” - she mirthlessly chuckled and got back to her previous question. - “So, what’s with cats?”

“They tend to shove their shit under the rug and pretend it doesn’t stink. That’s what cats do. That’s what empowered people in your country do. I don’t mean anything when I say it about your country, so don’t even start on me being russian and shitting on democracy here, okay?”

“I didn’t…”

“So then, don’t. American high horse fuckin’ disturbs me in any world my consciousness is, so sorry if I stumbled upon your thought process and caught you thinking I don’t like your country because I’m russian.”

“You do understand that I know about your country two things for sure. Their mafia have the child slave trafficking in Anchorage. That was on the news, one of the operations of the local Protectorate that went good. And the second thing is they apparently don’t fight each other if they are criminals, or whatever. I was interested in cape scene when I triggered. You know the Internet, one leads to another and so on...”

“Oh, I know, and it’s even worse when you have your own laptop. So, I’ve read about the last one when I got to reading the wiki on Wormverse, that's how we call it. I remember nothing about what really matters, but damn it’s hard to forget how that guy who wrote the thing, McCrae or Wildbow, captured what any sane person would’ve done for making real use of parahumans while not being one and not letting them band up into something as powerful as Protectorate is. Fuck it, Alexandria herself is a chief-director of PRT, how’s that good? Well, it is good for her and the power she has over everyone, but really I prefer honest to god criminal code for criminals and elimination of all threats to society by all parahumans involved than all that brainwashing with heroics you get here. One more thing, could you even imagine that Eidolon is the one who created Endbringers because he needed worthy opponents and was fucking bored out of his ass?”

She wasn’t speaking and her thoughts went numb. How to undone what I said? My monologue was too overwhelming, I see.

I think I broke her.

Figures.

She didn't even gulp her coke down.

1. Charts are our everything
or A little bit about how Someone Chose Not My Own Adventure


I was peacefully scratching my nose let's say from the inside, and not scratching but picking, but who cares, really. There was no one but me in the apartment and I got this itch, so why not.

I was also staring my laptop down, trying to decipher Choose Your Own Adventure for Worm, and in my head I was like "How can you be that bored To hang out in the ending world", yep, russian Skittles 2007 commercial was that creepy you might consider it good for citation while thinking on Worm CYOA. All those memes about hangings on the rainbow...

As always, I made a decision to kill two bunnies with one stone, or whatever you say when you try to make two charts on one and only sheet of paper. Even if I'd never use that writer's crutch for my own fanfiction, I was somehow curious about writing down the initial plot of my future fanfic in the boundaries of that system. And the second chart on the list was all about me, if I did the real insertion of my own mind into that mad realm full of destruction. I always thought you should have some pity for your main character, but not too much, or the adventures won't be interesting to read.

Finally I put finishing touches on the last chart, something about time of insertion, and set the CYOA devoted sheet of paper aside, taking the other one sheet of paper, much more useful, the disposable napkin for snot, sweat and slobber, that is.

I sniffed pretty loud and reached for spray but it downed on me that I used it's magic couple of hours ago and it never went away. And it's a week I'm struggling with it, so it's something a bit more serious than flu, I suppose. And the body temp got that high I'm not even feeling it. That kinda rings some bells. There's high probability I need a doctor.

"Sinusit, I'm lovin' it", - I started singing McDonaldz commercial tune because if I start remembering old commercials it gets out of my subconscious as well.

The next thing I did was trying to show the "para-pa-pa-pa" part with my body because the voice stopped working. That was such a perfect timing.

My ridiculously uplifting but very much stupid moves were interrupted by Timmy Trumpet and his Freaks calling for me, and that meant one of my friends assaulting me with their bullshit, high probability of pettiness of that bullshit, as always. That wasn't Mom, she got Star Wars Imperial March as her personal ringtone, so I cursed the noisy thing and ignored the assault.

My next move was walking barefoot to the bathroom for my mysterious medical cache. I really hate taking meds for no reason, consider it a slippery slope from self-heal to eventual self-harm. Though, I knew what to do with sinusitis, recall it vividly, and had those sinupret pills in my medkit.

That's why it's mysterious, you never know what you'll find there.

It might save me time with therapist and other doctors she might assign me to visit. The fastest way is a private clinic but my last appointment there, well, escalated quickly. The orthopedic surgeon told me I should undergo operation that I don't really need and that cost about ten thousand Euros, but the outcome had those riscs I might just as well lie down and have my fun in the coffin, not really but I didn't care at the time. That day I simply made a circular motion with index finger near my head and told the guy I'd better listen to the free foot doctor in the common clinic. The free one simply told me to take care of traumatized limb from the outside and make appointments each month to see the progress and reschedule the operation if it would seem necessary. I did my homework and got healthy leg as an outcome, and that surgeon dude can throw away his wet dreams of making operations when they aren't needed. There should be some boundaries in this kind of shit!

I took my meds and my cell to kitchen, gulped down the pills and finally answered the call.

That was the last thing I remember.

I woke up under an Unfamiliar Ceiling.

Well, if you consider waking up when it wasn’t you who did the thing. The body I was in felt like a cage, and the only thing available was watching the ceiling. Apparently, that certain someone wanted to laze a bit.

After some meaningless search of some meaning of what’s happening, I wasn’t even feeling astonished. This is it. I’m either unhappily dreaming on the floor of my apartment, or I have a memory loss affecting the moments of this transferal.

The only thing that made the situation better was the freedom of my thoughts to go anywhere they liked, so I let them and it made me freak out.

I was in the body of Sophia Hess and last night Shadow Stalker got her first kill. Her thoughts were restless and even if they weren’t mine, I felt some kindred spirit here, because the guy was Empire Eighty Eight and as an anarcho-communist I had just one thing to say. Good job, go, Shadow Stalker, go.

Would be better if she wasn’t straw nihilist, really.

All these prey talks seem like Rodion Raskolnikov went the wrong road, and I’d really have to make the girl read something, like, at all. That’s if I’m not dreaming and really am here in her brain. She seemed too breachy for any good read, in her memories, that is. Pity.

Well, if the glass is empty it gets filled with bullshit, and her glass, I mean, mind is full of that petty crap. So, about that eighty eight guy, vigilantism was basically approved for capes, double standards and all, but it won’t be easy on her if they trace the murder to Shadow Stalker.

At that moment it was obviously sick but sickeningly pleasing, she seemed to think of it as if it was a great outcome for her hunt. She already non-lethally shot down two mates of that freak, and the freak was her chase of the week.

That guy attacked the girl of Sophia’s age on the streets while Stalker was watching on the closest roof and seeking for reaction. The girl was squirming and shrieking but his weight was too much for her to handle, and he was fiddling with her knees already, so Stalker shot the guy. She missed. Something made Stalker’s hand slip, so the man got away. I didn’t get what exactly, that was just a memory and I felt no emotions connected to it, my ability to go down her chain of memories didn’t go that far.

She used victim’s phone to call for ambulance and made a promise to finish the hunt. Got herself in trouble in the end, because the Empire goons she crippled along with the dead guy will undoubtedly be a problem. If there’s anything I’m sure of, that the nazi group would’ve never been that successful if it had no connections in local everything, the PRT included. So that’s just the matter of time she gets busted on one of her cape-nights. And now she’s thinking of laying low. And she’s feeling something awkward…

Not what she expected to feel?

Hess was experiencing lack of her overwhelming aggression, the one that requires self-control of terrific power she never had. That’s my fault, I guess. Something was nagging me like a dog that wants the pat on the head and puts its nose everywhere to get it. That’s her power, I guess. And she’s panicking now. Really? Reaching for her cell to do the thing we’d both regret, there’s no doubt to it.

“Stop!”

She froze and without any second thoughts she turned around with those kind of reflexes I never had in my life. Judo was good for staying in shape, as was ice skating I enjoyed to engage in when I moved to Moscow, but I never had the need to be good in any of those activities. She was an overachiever when it came to sports, it seems. Or maybe I was that lazy in everything that endangered my fat reserves.

Obviously, the girl saw no one in her room, that might become a surprise for me as well, that's why she got angrier, being on the verge of using her powers. That fucking power dog felt much more excited now. I had to say something.

“I’m in your head. And I seem to be a buffer zone between your conscious and your power, Sophia Hess. Good morning, I’m from the other world. “

“I’m definitely calling PRT,” - she stated and I had to talk her out of it because I don't think I could've stopped her physically.

“Stop! You do know of multiverse, don’t you?”

“That’s why I’m calling PRT!” - she almost croaked that and was shaking in fear mixed with anger.

I didn’t get why at first. Then I heard her thoughts about Simurgh, Heartbreaker and other masters that manifested their power over human beings.

Well then, here it goes. Some Serious Shit Time. I'm going to nuke her with that knowledge, I think, but she's a big girl, she'll handle it.

“You and your stupid friends are going to trigger Taylor Hebert. Oh, I feel some recognition. You already know who I’m talking about. No, she won’t go Carrie on you. I know, unbelievable, but in the future I know, she won’t.”

“You know?” - she said it out loud but her thoughts were similar to what she was saying.

She really wanted to know how the fuck I know it, quote.

“Well, I’m no precog, if that’s what you’re thinking. Oh, no, you’re not thinking. You don’t have that ability. You live in the world full of dangerous capes and you experienced trigger yourself, so why the hell you thought it would be alright to bully... No, not going there, I heard that’s traumatising, and I’m not seeing it from your point of view even if you pleadingly ask me to.”

“What the fuck!” - she cursed. - “You can see my memories?”

“I don’t think I want to. The only thing I did was chasing thought after thought after thought and I must want to do it for it to happen. And I didn’t like the experience. If I was able I would’ve throw up. That was my first gutted man, you see.”

“That was my feelings, you dumbass. That was MY first gutted man and I felt sick and pleased both.”

“So, that’s another reason for not to rehearse your trigger event.”

“No shit.”

“So, you’re going to listen to me? Are you calling PRT with a death wish or maybe I might enlighten you on Ragnarok waiting to happen?”

“Ragnarok, really?” - she snickered. - “Are you one of those?”

“Nah, that’s just I watched Thor Ragnarok movie again before I got here, so I’m stuck with it.”

“Superhero movie?”

She seemed somehow thoughtful. Wow, that might make the evening news, be careful with it, girl, being thoughtful might make you less dumb, and that only can change the survival chances of the whole Universe. No joke.

“Yes, how do you know?” - I started asking but she neverminded me back and I just had to shut it. - “Well, you see, back to Taylor Hebert, she’s going to cripple Lung of all capes the first night she’s out there as a cape.”

“Huh.”

“Silence is golden, but I feel you want to say something.”

“Ahem… Well, fuck?”

“Never stop yourself when you want to curse, if you're all alone, it eases the anger and let you blow off steam.”

“But your mother was a snob and never let you say anything rude at home, she never said that she liked what you did and always let your psychotic father reprimand you… physically. You was happy when you got free of him and you felt shame for it, because your accomplishments weren’t ever good for both of them. That’s why you think you can understand me, because you was a problem kid with anger issues and you got over it with time. You can’t. Understand, I mean. My... mother’s new husband harassed me, you don’t even want to see the thing, and why? Oh, you are afraid that you’d feel too sorry for me because I did what?”

“What the…”

“I did… Filled locker with toxic waste… tampons and… and then pushed her into. And left her there to rot.”

She shut her mouth with a clank of her teeth and I stopped seeing anything because she put her hands on her eyes. She started talking again and her voice wasn’t weak or sour. She spoke like she believed it.

“She must’ve deserved it somehow.”

“They deserve it when you shoot them… You really think yourself some vigilante hero. Like some fucking homemade Batman. It’s not her who did something wrong for you to harass her, it’s you and your powers and Emma fuckin Barnes.”

“All of them are like that." - her breath hitched. - "Escalation. It’s not just me. And I still think that Hebert is a weak piece of shit. She mistook pity for friendship, and wasn't even aware of it, just accepted it and thought that would last til death parts them, or whatever she imagined in her stupid little head... Oh, no, you don’t get to say that! I'm not less full of crap than you are. You almost killed a guy when you were my age, that's an ultimate bullying move to kill someone, you know it. Not my age? My age when Hebert’s trigger occured? That’s better. ”

She was smug like she got Tattletale powers, but she just used my trick on me.

That was scary as shit, but had some potential. She did have humiliating algebra grades and I couldn’t care more for what she said. There are other problems, like I am on Earth-Bet and Taylor Hebert might never trigger because Sophia knows and she has me in her head. Scion is scarier than kid's smugness. How do I even know about her grades? That’s not the point, the point is - she needs her inner Tattletale euthanized.

“Stop braggin’ with this face like you own me.”

“You started it! And how’d you know what face I make?”

“I’m inside, how wouldn’t I? It’s getting comfy here, I can feel more. Apparently, that’s your doing. I did nothing.”

“Oh shit.”

“I know no shit about this situation as well, but it seems we’re getting along well. Wanna continue reading my mind, Shadow Stalker?"

“Oh motherfukin shit.”

“Let it go, come on, curse like you never cursed! I want it so much but I can’t feel like I used to, so I need you to feel this for me, kid!”

“Fuck you fukin!” - she started shouting like we both wanted to, but got interrupted by the loud knocking.

“Stop cursing, young lady!” - Sophia’s mother was already in the doorway, she opened the door without any hesitation or warning and seemed very irritated, standing there crossing arms over her chest. - “Get up and help me with food. You’re being too loud, your siblings are sleeping.”

“But I don’t want to!” - Sophia got angry but this time her power didn’t nag her, it nagged me, stupid dog. So it went nowhere and Stalker was surprised that much, she even stood up and started walking to her Mom.

“Such a tiredly looking woman… No, I don’t want a pass on memory lane and see her shouting on you for nothing, thank you, Shadow Stalker. Fuck you too. People fuck up their relationship with parents, there’s nothing new.”

“I’m up, Mom,” - Sophia seemed unnerved but wasn’t suspicious.

After all, teenagers don't seem suspicious when they’re always up to something, do they?
2.1. Slice of Grumpiness
Or Welcome to the family, you, asshole.


The sun was mercilessly peeking through the windows of the kitchen, flashing tired Sophia right in the left eye. I didn't like her apparent unwillingness to close that damn eye or turn her head. Fuckin' masochist, she is.

Her mother wasn’t impressed by her almost somnambulistic daughter, which was my fault basically, but I wasn’t impressed by that dear lady as well. Weekend morning is worth being polite with your family. You probably have plans you don’t wanna ruin with your pissed off attitude, Sophia's Mom. So why are you so grumpy? That I'd really like to know. Well, I just have to admit, this girl is quite irritating and irritable, but her mother is fleeing the house like it’s on fire, not even pecking her kid on a cheek. I saw lack of good mood in the family and I didn't ask questions, because I always had some sort of that cold shoulder in mine as well, but it’s the weekend, you're not that grumpy at the weekend. I didn’t get why she wasn’t spending Saturday at home and I didn’t want to initiate the merging of thoughts with Shadow Stalker for something like that.

“She isn’t…” - apparently, it’s already hard for her not to peek into my process of thinking, that's why Sophia murmured her answer under her nose. - “She has two jobs, you dumbass. And I know how to feed the little one, she's two and a half years old, not months, so Mom doesn’t stick around for breakfast if she’s in hurry.”

I should have guessed so myself. Shame on me.

“Oh. I guess, I missed that it’s not my republic where your party might never end if you know people, like to walk around the town with people and know how to talk business during those parties for the sake of making money. I’m sorry, I jumped to conclusions because for me weekend is a sacred time I spend with people I love or appreciate, or both. And I haven't agreed to work on the weekend in the morning since I graduated University. I’m not that desperate. Is she that desperate?”

“She has three children in Brockton Bay and she never went to College or University, so her paycheck isn't that great," - she could barely continue talking with the same volume, and it downed on me, I said something very wrong. - "What do you think, is she desperate? And you're an ass, you know that?”

“Well, I’m not, that’s just my thoughts that are based on my knowledge and logical conclusions, not feelings I might’ve experienced while being in my body. There’s high probability I would’ve never told you that thing about being desperate aloud. I wouldn’t even think it.”

“And what’s wrong with not going anywhere on weekends?” - she shook her head and whispered. - “You see, I’m not really a fan of people...”

“Well, bonding always has success around food and drinks… And it’s good for any business.”

Her mom was already gone when Sophia poke into the fridge and cursed, because the milk expired and she didn’t want to spend her own cash on household needs.

"Why’s that exactly?"

“No one’s gonna give me more money if I spend what I already have,” - she explained. - “And my vigilante cache is for my emancipation, not for everyday life. It’s as simple as that."

"What exactly do you mean by vigilante cache is for emancipation? How do you even get that much? Your memories say that it’s already more than ten grand!"

"It’s so fucking disturbing when you read my mind," - she sighed and got some eggs out of the fridge. - "Why did you even do that? It definitely makes things awkward for both of us… You yourself didn’t like how it felt when I did it."

“And it would be much more awkward than that if you and I end up merging with each other. I doubt it would make any of us saner. I understand we both want our minds separate, but sometimes I just...”

“What? Why’s that important for you how much money I saved?”

“That wasn’t actually about how much. That was about how.”

“I’m not a marauder for fucks sake! I don't know why you're that biased against me, but I'm not! I clean their caches if I find money, but if I stop a drug deal, how the fuck do you think it’s a drug deal in the eyes of the police if there’s no money and only drugs on those fuckers? They won’t really go to jail after I put them in hospital if I take the money I found on them. It's called evidence, you dumbass”

“Okay, but I'm as dumb as you are, because you're saving money for emancipation and evading the whole situation, while you should've told your Mom about your trigger event at the first place and she wouldn't be that offended by your lack of support of her relationship with that bastard. I think she loves you, but for some women it's quite important to have a man in their life. Never understood the notion, but how could I? Oh, I just followed the thought about your little sister and it came to why your mom's that bitchy to you, no offence, I'm sorry, but I consider it really stupid..."

"You don't understand," - Sophia was cutting cheese and before that she oiled the pan. - "She would've wanted me in the Wards, she doesn't want problems, and they aren't helping, and I'm not a tinker to be valuable enough. They won't pay me real cash, you know it as well as I do. And that bastard is helping his daughter with money, even if I threatened to cut his dick off if he ever comes by while I'm here, so it's easier for her not to know."

"Got it. We'll continue it later, but now, Shadow Stalker, I think we’re not alone,” - I warned her because I noticed the staircase creeper before she did, she was busy with breaking eggs. My heads-up made her lazily turn around to the doorframe of the kitchen.

“Terry,” - she smiled viciously and that wasn’t a smile you give your favourite brother. - “You’re buying milk, Terry, and that's not negotiable. I don’t even drink it.”

Well, I finally got to see him - he was as grumpy as anyone could be Saturday morning in that family. And I have to admit, I’m really not used to any faces that aren’t european or asian, I might even guess right the nationality if we’re talking about asians, but people of darker colours are a bit hard for me. I cursed the day I’ve decided to go to India, really, they were kind of very much similar to me, and I’ve never been to african countries or America, so my experience is clearly lacking. And it seems like this boy resembles any black guy I’ve ever seen in my life. Tall, funny hair, sporty… Apparently, I should feel ashamed, because it sounded like what those russians say about caucasus people, that they are all one and the same, really. I know they say it when they specifically want to offend, but I never thought I’d catch myself musing about someone’s stereotypical appearance.

“It’s for the kid!” - he stopped his sneaky advances and answered properly. - "I don't drink it as well!"

“Yes, you do! And she needs it fresh, doesn’t she? That’s why you are going to go outside and buy the fucking thing!”

“You know, Sophie, you won’t get a boyfriend with such an attitude,” - he scoffed and added a nail to his coffin, apparently, because Sophia felt enraged. - "Bossy bitch."

"Have any suggestions?" - she hold the knife more tight and, well, I know that feeling when you really wanna hurt the idiot with anything you hold in your hand. She refrained from harming him, so gods bless her patience. She did have a nagging beast inside her, so her own anger wasn't as bad as usual. - "No? Well, you aren't in bed already, I'm cooking you eggs, and you just have to go and fucking get some milk. For your other little sister, not even for me," - she mockingly taunted him. - "You'd feel like your sisters' hero, dear brother, just get your lazy ass out and buy some milk!"

He continued scoffing but had no reason not to agree.

"Okay, I go. But first I'm gonna go brush my teeth."

He strolled off and Sophia cursed.

"Shit. I felt I forgot something. That's all your fault."

"Oh, I think not. Little pig." - I snickered and she cursed again.

Our scrambled eggs were almost ready and she threw cheese in, so we both felt really hungry and weren't inclined to argue more.

"What's his story, kid? I doubt he's gonna tell me anything, so that's kinda your call."

She started murmuring under her nose again, that was the only way I could hear her and not initiate the merging at the same time.

"He graduated last year and started working in the rotting Docks you must've known of. Apparently he's trying to study online in the process. Not really helping the family. Lazy piece of... Well, he's smart enough not to do hard drugs, though."

"Be glad that he is," - I would've shrugged if I could.

The hard drugs problem transcends space and time, really.