A Comedy of Ferrous [Worm/Mistborn]

[therewolf]

A Comedy of Ferrous

Spoiler: Introduction

The setting is Worm, with only the magic from Mistborn clumsily tacked on through powers.
It's also kind of a homebrew version of that, but the additions should quickly be obvious to anyone familiar with it.

Most things are explained in-story, but basic knowledge of the books/system would help it all make more sense.
You will miss some jokes and hints otherwise, if nothing else, and a few things might seem to come out of nowhere.

It is already finished—so hopefully nobody points out any too-glaring plot holes—and my plan is to post a chapter a week, mostly.
The chapters do get smaller, though, so that might change depending on feedback.

Also, feedback would be appreciated.
I'm curious to hear how soon people work out where this is headed, because some parts surprised me as I was writing them.

Take this however you want, but I got a lot of search engine referrals to mental health support hotlines while looking up stuff for this.
I promise there's a happy ending!

Allomancy metals chart, for reference.

Chapter 1: Lurcher

[Prelude]

—with a sudden snap, I was myself again, climbing unsteadily to my feet.

Okay.
The capes wouldn't help. Villain, or hero, or whatever the difference was supposed to be. I wasn't sure why I had expected anything else.
How could I do this? I might be strong enough to shift it around the engine block, maybe? Could only try.
Taking advantage of a sudden lull, I staggered across to the other side, kneeling down.
Where had all this blood come from? Was there someone inside when it got thrown? I couldn't worry about them, too.
"Be ready to move when there's room, okay?" I instructed.
Blue lightning was starting to dance all over the place, and who the fuck was doing that? Dauntless? We had to get out of here.
Bracing my legs, I pushed. The car finally moved, almost before I'd even touched it, more than I had expected. Ignore that—not important.
My gaze dropped.
"Emma?"
Things were really flying around now.
"Em—" I forced out, and I felt something come rushing at me from behind.

[Lurcher 1.1]

"—ma," I whispered, something thick and heavy filling my mouth.

I could hear, somewhere close, someone screaming.
Screaming abuse, screaming apologies, screaming for help—at theirself, to their mother, to their father, who I thought might all have been long lost to them in this moment.

It had been a little while, it turned out.

A nurse found me awake pretty quickly at the next check-in, explained where I was, explained he'd already explained this, and went to fetch other people.
I must have drifted away again then, before they got back.

I wasn't very aware of events for some more time after that, which I know is something I should be grateful for.
There are fragments, but they're not worth remembering, let alone sharing.
I was very fortunate in general. I heard that one a lot, too. Everyone seemed to have their own spin on it.

The next moment I clearly recall, I was babbling to another nurse—I think another, I'm not certain—about how I was fine actually and was ready to go home now.
When I realized this was happening, it was so surprising that I stopped talking and was left listening to the unfamiliar radio that I knew I hated.
Almost immediately I started back up again, saying much the same thing in much the same way but hopefully more convincingly.

Following a few more sessions of me arguing with various people that yes, I was awake, and had no intention of 'resting,' Dad came rushing in. He must have been informed sometime, I guess.
When I saw him, I gave a faint half-smile and felt so relieved—knowing at least he would believe me—that I immediately fell back asleep, which probably didn't help my case any.

After waking in the more usual way, however much later that was, I smiled at him again—it felt off with everything still attached, but he didn't seem to care—and then it was pretty much all over bar the paperwork.

[Lurcher 1.2]

Dad stayed while someone made arrangements to have all the monitors and such disconnected but, at my quiet request, left for most of the actual process of them doing it.

One nurse kept a surprisingly hot hand on my shoulder when they were removing the feeding tube, which left my nose and throat feeling dry, burnt, scratched, and oddly empty.
My mouth tasted disgusting. My tongue still didn't seem normal. Eating would feel a little funny at first.
They promised that would all go away soon.
When everything was out, I was just glad to be able to curl up and pull the thin sheets over my head until Dad got back.

A series of nurses stopped in to say that they hoped I recovered completely soon. They wished all the best for me.
I didn't recognize any of them, but some of them felt vaguely trustworthy and likeable anyway.
It was strange and a little unsettling. Like my body had been making friends with people without my involvement.

"Shouldn't scar too badly at all if you keep up the aftercare," I was told as I poked at my face in the mirror.
I felt numb where I didn't feel dead.
"Great. So they won't interfere with my shaving?" I asked weakly.
The nurse looked pityingly at me, which was at least a small piece of normality.
Emma looked at me just the same way when I made jokes.

A doctor gestured happily at my shoulder.
"—some shards stuck in your upper back here, but don't worry, we got all those—"
"—body did most of the hard work for you while—"
"—not too much worse now than some bad cat scratches—"
"—see a fair number of Hookwolf injuries here, and—"
"—optimistic outcome, and with some rest—"
I sat there silently until she stopped speaking.

[Lurcher 1.3]

Dad was—being supportive. Being there for me when I wanted him. Which was not right then.
I felt weirdly hurt that he seemed to be coping so well. I had thought he considered Emma another daughter, the same way I once considered her my only sister.
He'd had more time, or more conscious time, to process things, I knew, but really. Would he have been able to behave this normally if I'd been the one he lost?
A part of me almost wanted to ask, and an even more shameful part almost wanted to test it.

I knew he was staying strong for me, and I knew how hard that was for him. He hadn't managed it for a while after Mom died.
Maybe the secret was simple experience. Wasn't that most of what being an adult was?
Maybe he had just got great at acting. Maybe his world had never actually gone back to feeling real, like mine didn't now.

Ever since I woke up, I had been plagued by visions.
Sometimes blue lines overlaid the world in random patterns, like I was sitting in the center of an LSD-fueled spider's web, all of it vanishing with my next eyeblink.
Sometimes lights flickered in Dad's head when he was watching me eat meals with him, but died away again almost immediately. That was relatable, at least.
Sometimes there would be a day between them, and in the hospital they could occasionally come in fits.
Either I had a superpower, maybe the worst one never recorded, or I was going mad. I wasn't sure which would be less welcome.
I didn't want to investigate if it was either, or neither, or both, only leave it as uncertain and undetermined as the rest of me.

This numbness was going to drive me insane, if I wasn't already.
Pain was your body's way of telling you something was wrong, wasn't it? I'd been taught that, and it had always seemed reliable enough before.
Something this wrong, extending this long, with no response from systems I'd never before had to question—? It made me wonder what else in me was failing, all unknown.

I was just so exhausted, constantly. I recognized the symptoms, of course, remembered how Dad behaved after we lost Mom.
Was that a crazy comparison to draw? I couldn't find the motivation to care about that, either.
I had no appetite, no desire to do anything. Sleeping felt like it took up all my time, and after waking I was still tired.

[Lurcher 1.4]

It took place on a weekend. I'd lost track of the exact day by that point, but I know they had arranged it that way so everyone could attend.
I think they might have been putting it off, hoping I would be able to—should I be grateful?
Dad dealt with my outfit somehow. I'd outgrown the one I wore to Mom's by about a foot.
Madison and Julia said something appropriate to me that I didn't quite catch. Anne had come back into town to be there for her parents. Dad and I stood with her and the rest of the family.
It's mostly all a blur to me now. Or maybe it was all a blur at the time and I'm remembering it perfectly. I'm not sure.
I don't recall anything of the actual service. The casket wasn't open, obviously, which I hadn't realized I was worried about.

My clearest memory from that day is of a gravestone.
The first date on it had been a constant in my life, for almost as much of my life as I could remember. When we were younger, I considered it one of the major holidays. It didn't belong there.
The second date—it should never have meant anything to me. It should have been just another Tuesday that I forgot nearly before it finished, only maybe momentarily remarkable for being the first day back at school.
Seeing them paired together—hurt. Like the second was tainting the first. Poisoning it. Bleeding the life away.
I don't know how long and how still I must have stood for it to have registered so clearly, but I felt like they were both carved into me too, now.

[Lurcher 1.5]

We settled into a routine.

Dad had got me out of school indefinitely while I was in hospital. I think he used the old excuse that I'd been in a coma and the doctors had no idea when I would finish waking up properly. They bought it, the chumps.
He didn't push me to go back. I spent the free time watching TV on mute with my eyes closed. I told him the sound hurt my head, which wasn't even a lie. Everything seemed to.

I changed my clothes when Dad asked me to and washed my body when he insisted, quietly disconnected from the process.
Sometimes I would start to do something but feel weirdly off-kilter, like I had too few limbs.

"Taylor, time for dinner."
"Didn't we just eat?" I asked, reaching for the memory. "Macaroni?"
"That was Thursday, I think. Come get this while it's hot."

People had called at the house after I was released, but I'd told Dad I was tired, and he'd turned them away for me. I don't know who it was, but I couldn't deal with them right then.
My phone I powered off and left in my bedside table. Dad knew he could contact me with the landline.

Dad had been spending most evenings out with Uncle Alan. To make certain he was only drinking enough to cope, I think, or something else adult and responsible.
I was glad he could be there for him, that he could be there for someone, when neither of us had any idea how he could be here for me.

It was getting late into the afternoon.
I thought I should probably eat something so I could tell Dad that dinner wasn't the first thing I'd had today when he got home and made it.
I stood up—and the world lurched around me.

I sat right back down again, groggily, very aware of the pulse thudding angrily in my temples.
I knew this feeling, didn't I? I hadn't felt it in years, not since Mom had that talk with me not long after I first started my monthlies, but—
After a minute I stood up again, less quickly, and made my way to the medicine chest on top of the refrigerator.

Two pills and a half-glass of water later, I felt a small bead of energy unravel inside me.
I blinked, slowly. It couldn't be that simple, could it?
I looked at the blue lines stretching out strongly all around me, then re-read past the fine net shining through the box.

Iron.

[Lurcher 1.6]

I did eat in the end. Just a tuna sandwich while I gathered my thoughts together.

There were blue lines, of varying width, streaming out from somewhere around my breastbone—thousands of them, it looked like—in every direction around me.
One leading to the fridge was maybe a pinkyfingerswidth. A couple dozen thin threads from my charm bracelet, the charms themselves slightly thicker. Some spiderweb strands were even coming from my sandwich if I held it close, which was putting me off it just a little.

A lot of them wove their way through walls and travelled out I had no idea how far.
Or, wait, no, that wasn't true—I could feel exactly how distant any one of them was if I concentrated.
It felt like the butter knife in my real hand was being gripped by another one at the end of its line, and I was as aware of how far it ran as I was of the length of my actual arm. It was just another part of me.
If I gave it a mental command, I felt like I could also—and the knife damn near broke my wrist trying to fly towards my chest.
I could also kill myself any time I wanted, I suppose, which wasn't nothing.

Much more hesitantly, going around to the other side of the kitchen island first to be safe, I tried the same thing with the thickest line coming from the oven.
With a tiny twist of my mind, I was pulled suddenly towards it—and it juddered its way towards me too, if much less so.
Well.

After pushing the oven back into place—considerably more work with physical arms—I looked to the pool of power I could feel sitting comfortably in my stomach and, with another little brain-flex, completely tamped out the burning feeling that was slowly consuming it.
Suddenly the lines were all gone, and I blinked at how dull the world seemed without them.

On, off, on, off, on.
The lines were leading to everything metal around me, as far as I could tell.
Bigger objects seemed to have thicker lines, and I guess that matched up to a phantom feeling of heft to some of them that I hadn't quite been able to place before.
Moving closer to the source made a line brighten, and moving away made it fainten until it eventually vanished, which happened more quickly for the thinner ones.
There was one line per thing—usually roughly in the middle of the metal, but with an effort that point could be shifted.

Focusing on something a great deal weightier, out in the street somewhere, I gave another—much weaker, but more sustained—pull and felt my socks slowly slipping along the floor towards it.
The position of whatever this thing was didn't seem to change.

I looked out of the window, thinking, then turned it off again and started putting together dinner for myself and Dad.
It had been a little while since we'd had anything that took much time to prep.

[Lurcher 1.7]

Dad's relief at seeing me standing up and doing something when he got in was almost visible, but he didn't seem to want to jinx it by talking too close to the subject.
Instead, he told me about an E88 bust Silhouette had participated in that day with some full members of the Protectorate. It was an historic precedent of some kind, apparently, but I tuned out all the bureaucratic reasoning Dad seemed to think was so important.
I supposed I was happy someone was fighting them, if there had to be fights. I didn't feel any of it in me right then. I nodded along with him anyway.

That night, after everyone sensible was safely insensible, I willingly went outside for the first time in what felt like forever.
The only sounds were of the occasional piece of distant, fleeting traffic and the hum of the lamp standing over me.
I looked around. Was this too much of a risk?

I pulled softly on the top of the lamp post and felt myself rise from the ground for a second, shoes scuffing along the pavement a little until I was perfectly underneath it.
Held it again, longer, carefully not pulling in all the way, and I was hovering in place off the ground, head back and framed like an enhaloed angel.
I couldn't stop myself from letting out a sudden quick laugh, and then I dropped back down to earth.
Was I going to be able to—?

After a moment of hesitation, I took off at a run and started giving tiny, weak pulls up to metal posts and signs to get air, and parked cars and buildings well in front of me to build up forward momentum.
I fell into the rhythm of it surprisingly quickly, and once it evened out, I was skipping down the street like an expertly cast stone on water.
Worry stopped me from pulling too high up off the ground, about both how I'd land safely and the idea of making even more of a spectacle of myself than this, but it still felt like I was playing around in a better dream than any I'd actually had recently.
I trailed to a halt after a few minutes or a few hours, a surprising distance from home, to pant for air, which quickly turned into laughter.
My mind started racing, faster than I'd just been running. I had a power. Couldn't I find some way to use this, some way to help—

Suddenly I recognized where my feet had led me, and all the heat left my body.
Hadn't I seen what happened when capes tried to 'help?'

I took a deep breath in, held it until my lungs were creaking, then slowly breathed out.
No.

I might not be able to control everything, I might not be able to control them, but I could control myself.
Also—I didn't have just 'a' power, did I? These blue lines weren't the only strange thing I'd noticed.
What else could I do?

[Lurcher 1.8]

In the morning I told Dad I was going shopping, hoping to clear my head. Not an untruth. It was possible some superhuman ability I found would manage that.
He pressed some money on me, along with a kiss and a hug, and told me to remember my phone.
At this I rolled my eyes, informed him I was a teenage girl and didn't need any reminders about that from a very, very old man, then went to find wherever it had ended up.
I still wasn't completely used to carrying the thing, honestly. It didn't feel like any time at all since Emma had put all that effort into making him reconsider his issues with them.

At the drugstore I bought one of every different kind of supplement I could see and asked them if they kept any weirder ones in the back.
They did not, or maybe I just looked like a narc. I might have to hit up some of the asian places eventually, but this would do for now.
Making my way with my loot to the nearest fast food place, I ordered a BcRib and a banana shake and sat down to begin my experiments.

All the packets were spread out on the table, sorted by contents.
I put the ones marked as containing vitamin D to one side for last, because if I ate those all at once, it would probably be something like a 100x daily dose.
What was the toxicity of that? Could you even have too many vitamins?
I turned on my phone and set it to one side while it booted up.

First I repeated my test with iron, which had slowly drained down to nothing overnight, and was comforted to see my lines reaching out all around again.
Not a dream, then.

Two kinds of calcium pill were washed down with my drink to no effect.
I held my nose for the cod liver oil, and I wasn't entirely sure what to do with a powder called creatine but dumped it in my shake and stirred it meditatively with the straw.

My first fresh hit was from copper. It was exciting to see a second well of power forming, and I stupidly grabbed on and used it immediately.
What if it had turned me invisible? What if it had made my skull grow three sizes and glow in the dark?

It didn't. It didn't seem to do anything, actually.
Maybe it was making me a little calmer, but that could easily just be relief from not having accidentally outed myself as being a parahuman in the dumbest way possible.

Nothing from selenium, magnesium, any of the vitamins, or turmeric.
Hey, I think we had that in our kitchen somewhere—why did I just pay $8 for it?
Someone a few tables away was giving me a strange look.

Chromium got me another pool of possibility, but I kept the smile I wanted to beam out concealed inside my cranium and didn't touch it right then.
I was going to be so healthy after this. Though if I ever got conscripted to the Protectorate they'd have me doing brand deals for mineral supplements, there was no doubt in my mind.

The last thing I picked up there was from zinc, and it was what I'd been expecting to see this entire time.
Intricate arrangements of shifting lights appeared in the heads of everyone around me.

[Lurcher 1.9]

I ate the rest of my meal while I watched the pretty patterns and reflected on what I'd discovered.

Four metals, I was fairly sure. Was that enough to start drawing conclusions?
I should—eat metal? I should eat metal.
That felt weirdly right. Definitely more right than I knew it ought to.
Maybe that was a hint from my power?

I pulled over my phone—and could barely focus on the screen for all the bright ironlines shining from its components. Annoying.
I squinted down at it, then raised it above my head, then tried holding it a few inches away from my face.
I was getting looks again, the lights around me synchronizing their movements to match each other.
I blushed.

Turning my iron pool back off, I pulled up the periodic table. Let's see.
Calcium and magnesium did nothing, so it definitely wasn't every metal, disappointingly.
I didn't think I'd be working very far down the alkali column, although I vaguely remembered Dad having been prescribed some kind of lithium at one point. He said the side effects were awful.

The esoteric Tinker elements scattered around the chart would be well outside my price range, and I doubted anyone had even tested what happened to someone rich enough and stupid enough to ingest those.
With that thought, I looked up another version of the table that marked the elements by danger, with helpful tags in the legend like 'highly radioactive,' 'historically used as method of murder,' and 'reacts explosively with majority of human body.'
A couple of the ones I already knew as powers were marked as somewhat toxic, which was—a little concerning.

I did have a tentative sweep of the first row of transition metals, though.
My thumb ran over the others that weren't marked as being too deadly.

[Lurcher 1.10]

I walked what felt incredibly slowly, somehow already missing ironrunning.
Was this how capes felt? The urge to use your abilities openly, naturally, and the trapped feeling of knowing you couldn't?

There was a simple web of lights moving along close to the ground, about to pass by my feet.
I crouched down and pet the cat, making it butt its head into my hand and start purring, and a small grouping slowly revealed itself to me.
Hesitantly I reached out and gave a gentle pull.
That made them brighten more quickly, the purrs getting deeper and louder, and when I gripped them more confidently, it rolled over to present its belly for my attention.
It didn't suddenly seem any less happy when I let go, and the lights only slowly dimmed down again as my scratches trailed away too.
I sat there meeting its inquisitive stare for a moment, then stood up and let it be.

Catching up on my correspondence took the rest of the walk home.
Generic thank yous to the people sending generic condolences.
A more heartfelt response to Gram. I actually felt terrible for only just seeing that one. She should have called, not that I was in a great state to talk much.
Madison asking when I thought I'd make it back to school, everyone missed me. I wasn't sure I was the one everyone missed, but I found myself thinking 'soon' and was surprised to realize I meant it.
I sent her back a text saying so before I could change my mind.

[Lurcher 1.11]

Hearing the car pull in, I looked up and saw Dad's brain as he must have been walking up the porch steps.
I went to get the door for him.

"Taylor," he said with a smile when he saw me, part of his head kindling as I watched. "You're looking so much better."
I smiled back, momentarily confused by the unexpected tightness beside one eye, and the new lights got even brighter, without any influence from me.
"Walked home and got some air. The exercise did me good, I think."
"I'm glad to hear it," he said, and I could see that too.
We made our way to the kitchen, where I sat with my legs dangling off the stool.

"Oh, uh, I bought some supplements," I didn't really explain when he saw the stack on the counter. "Diet's been a little off lately. Thought I might be missing something, you know. Help yourself?"
"Well, as long as you didn't steal them," he said, holding up a bottle of molybdenum and looking at it doubtfully. "I suppose it can't hurt? Can you even have too many vitamins?"
"Yes, in fact," I said, having looked it up myself earlier. "But, uh, one of each is probably fine. And you should still have an actual meal instead of just eating your new treats."
He raised his eyebrows and looked patronizingly at me, his brain strobing (fondly?).
"Yes, dear."

"Speaking of exercise," I said as we were washing the dishes, gracelessly picking up a conversational thread abandoned hours ago. "I was actually thinking about starting to go running."

[Lurcher 1.12]

That evening I placed an order online for the more promising-sounding metals.
I'm certain it put me on a dozen Tinker watchlists, whatever claims of privacy the website made, but I wasn't knowledgeable enough to avoid that, if it even were avoidable.

Further testing alone, and some surreptitious attempts during dinner, had failed to find any obvious uses for either chromium or copper.
I made fairly large orders for those too, anyway, along with the iron and zinc I thought I would be using a lot of.
I'd work them all out eventually. It was nice to have a project.

That done and out for delivery—within 3 to 5 business days, would you like to pay just $20 to expedite?—I settled in to do some research.

Something I had wondered earlier turned out to be commonly-accepted wisdom within the cape community.
People almost always knew how to use their abilities, instinctually. If I felt a strange feeling of certainty about eating metals, I could probably trust it—within reason.

Another concern I'd had was somewhat settled by the theorycrafters.
A lot of powers gave you some immunity to any negative effects from directly using them. Pyrokinetics generally being immune to at least their own fire was the classic example, but there were a lot of other weirder ones.
I hoped mine covered something similar, because it looked like I was going to be guzzling semi-toxic substances regularly from this point on.

Narwhal was the most common argument against this, because she could hurt herself with her own shields.
I wasn't sure how relevant that really was. I suspected people on the internet just liked talking about the beautiful huge naked woman, even if she was Canadian. She came up surprisingly often in any discussion.

If nothing else, I thought, clicking through some pictures, I hope silver isn't one of my metals.
I didn't want to have to think of a way to explain to Dad why I'd turned blue and how that was normal and okay.

Turning into bed, I checked on my father. His lights reminded me of the static on an untuned TV. He was dreaming, I guessed.

I had woken up sometime the night before with the realization, fully formed inside me, that I couldn't tell Dad about any of this.
It took a second to connect why at the time, but now especially I was glad of my impulsive secrecy.
He did love me—I knew that, even before I could view it laid out so plainly—but there must be limits.
I really wasn't sure I could handle actually seeing his fear and distrust if he started to think of me as a cape instead of a daughter.
If I lost Dad, I didn't know what would be holding me here any more, and then who would be there for him?
It was a powerfully isolating thought, and it had taken a long while to fall back to sleep with it filling my head so uncomfortably.

That night I fell asleep watching him through my eyelids, wondering what my own feelings looked like.

[Lurcher 1.13]

In. Breathe. Out.

The teachers were being very accommodating. Exactly what they were told about my absence I don't know, but they were treating me like a kicked puppy.
I had missed a little work, but in a lot of classes that just put me level with most of the other kids. I would be caught up with the rest shortly. I shouldn't stress about it.

Madison found me after fourth period, as I dispiritedly left math to go to the cafeteria.
"Taylor," she said, searching my face for something. "It's good to see you again."
"Hi, Mads," I welcomed her back hesitantly, a little thrown off by how formal she was acting. That seemed to settle something for her.
"Although," she continued, her voice raised a little for the benefit of the people staring and with flickers of calculation behind her eyes. "You look terrible. I knew Ems had secretly been dressing you every day."
Shock and embarrassment sprouted in the bystanders as they turned away, but when I laughed out loud, Madison only showed relief.
My mind probably looked the same, mixed with gratitude that she could still talk to me normally.
She bent down comically and leapt up to grab me around the neck, dragging me down a little into a hug and feeling extremely pleased with herself when I kept laughing.
"Come on, Tay," she whispered in my ear. "We're missing lunch."

In. Breathe. Out.

Testing for more powers had stalled out almost before it even began.
One of the first ones I'd tried, tin, was a success, which had set my expectations up in entirely the wrong way.

Tin was a bit of a nasty shock. Perpetually, it seemed.
It made all my senses incredibly—well, sensitive.
I could easily read in bed at night now, with no glasses and no illumination but what came through and around the closed curtains.
Counting the boy across the classroom's eyelashes was nothing, if I didn't mind charting the progress of his emerging blackheads and hearing his adenoidal wheezing too.
The real downside to this was that any loud noise or bright light or strong smell was, to somewhat understate it, overwhelming.
A weak winter's dawn was blinding, and the mild chill burned my lungs and took great, hungry bites out of my bones with every heartbeat.
My heart itself was distractingly loud. Even just the feeling of the seams and tags on clothes was unbearable after any sustained tin use.
Like with my other metals, there was some give in the amount I could burn at once, with a faster burn giving a stronger effect, but even at the lower end it was quite unpleasant.
I made the decision to keep practicing with it on my morning runs, and re-made that decision with every unexpected gunshot and backfiring car.
You could get used to almost anything with enough time.

In. Breathe. Out.

Madison seemed to be having fun making a small project out of me, which I didn't begrudge her much.
Making the rounds with her, I was touched to see how genuine most people were feeling inside, behind the awkward small talk I would have dismissed otherwise. It made it easier to accept their sympathy, with a grace that felt a little unnatural to me.
I knew I wasn't behaving completely normally, but I could also see that nobody was really expecting me to. I could see a lot of things now.
Maybe this would be an improvement?

In. Breathe. Out.

As disappointing as tin turned out to be, the lack of pretty much anything else on that front was worse.

After my parcels arrived—'girl stuff,' as far as Dad knew and was brave enough to pursue—I'd first confirmed that elemental metals worked the same as the supplements. I had a vague feeling there was some difference between them, but my power didn't seem to care.
I had slowly worked my way through all the safe ones and a great deal of the less-safe ones too by now, whenever I really needed something to distract me.
When silver did turn out to be a dud, I was almost disappointed.
I was giving serious thought to just breaking into a science museum with a fork.

In. Breathe. Out.

People, or teenagers at least, were surprisingly simple. I almost wanted to take over Emma's old role in our friend group.
'Oh please, Dionne, of course he likes you. Just watch the way his hypothalamus acts whenever he looks your way, he's embarrassingly obvious. Now pull yourself together and go talk to the boy, or do I need to work your motor cortex for you?'
I laughed at myself. No. Taylor Hebert suddenly displaying social competence would probably get her sent straight to the Birdcage.

In—no. Couldn't swallow. Spasming too hard. Spit.
That was my sign I was done for a while.

I knew I was drawing this out more than I had to.
I had a strong feeling about one metal that would work, though, and didn't think I was ready for what it would take to get it.
I'd just keep taking safe little nibbles out of the periodic table for the time being. There was no rush.

[Lurcher 1.14]

Seeing the loveglows in Dad's head always cheered me up. All I had to do was smile or reach out to touch him and he would brighten.
This wasn't even a power, really, I thought, or if it was, then it was one everyone was supposed to have. How much better would the world be?
"How's the running going?" he asked. "Caught anything yet?"
"Ha ha. It's going good, I think." The ironpulls were very natural-looking by this point. I was even comfortable enough to risk doing it along the Boardwalk, like I had originally almost-promised. "Relaxing. Maybe you should come some time. Futilely try to ward off the gray hairs a little longer."
He winced.
"I'm planning for my eyesight to get so bad I just can't see them. Getting there! And before you say anything else, you know full well that I need this gut to keep me from flying away on windy days." He looked at my plate. "Not hungry?"
"Sore throat. I'll get something later."

[Lurcher 1.15]

I knocked at the door like I was a stranger.

Emma and I had got our ears pierced together in early middle school.
We put together a complicated scheme, probably based on some TV show she'd seen, where I tried to convince her dad mine had agreed and she tried to convince mine hers had.
The actual appointment and piercings themselves were all arranged by our mothers, who were never fooled by anything in their lives as far as either of us were aware.

"Taylor!" I was greeted. "You know just to come in, hon. Come along, let me feed you. You're looking so thin."
"Hi, Aunt Zoe," I said around her hug. "I already ate, thank you."
I cringed a little inside at the idea that she might be trying to—mother me? I wasn't certain about the patterns in her head and was scared I would accidentally do something that touched them off in the wrong way and hurt her.

I didn't have much jewelry of my own.
All—or almost all—the things of any real quality were keepsakes of my mother, and I wasn't prepared to burn Mom's wedding ring for power quite yet.

"I was wondering if I could see her room, just for a little while?"

Emma, though, had something perfect.

[Lurcher 1.16]

Aunt Zoe was sitting in the kitchen, alone, thinking only sad thoughts.
I put her aside, tried to forget where I was, and went to Emma's dresser.
Nothing had been touched.

These earrings were a gift from a relative Emma hadn't liked very much. The earrings might actually have been the cause of that—I couldn't remember right then. They were so expensive that she'd had to wear them any time they visited or whenever they were attending the same event together.
She had even begged me to take them as a gift myself, I recalled fondly, rubbing my thumb over them, sure that it was the only way her parents would let her get rid of the ugly things. I'd heard so many rants about all the outfits they didn't go with, whatever that meant.
Somewhere, she was probably glad she wasn't buried with them.

Feeling like the biggest piece of shit in the world, I filed off a piece of a golden spike from one, slowly worked up some spit, and swallowed it.
A pool of power appeared inside me, like I knew it would.

I sat tailor-style on Emma's bed and burned.
Two figures, similarly seated, appeared opposite me.

[Interlude: Alan]

I didn't want to look anywhere right then, and I ended up looking everywhere instead.

My eyes landed on Taylor.
She was shockingly pale and drawn, unsteady on her feet. Lifeless. The sole color to her was from the still-fresh scars framing one side of her face, standing out lividly.
It was strange to have to use my eyes to know she was there. Normally you'd hear her first and only have to look around for—my daughter. Not far, though.

Zoe was crying openly now. I pulled her closer, gently, and laid my hand on her stomach, rubbing my thumb across it to soothe her.
She gave out a harsh sob.
Oh. My hand stilled. I used to do that when she was pregnant with Anne, and then again with—
When had I last thought of that?

She and Taylor had spent two-thirds of their lives as each other's shadows, and I was certain that ratio would only have grown. Annette used to joke that the pair of them had forgotten how to walk with only two legs.
There was a lost look in her eyes as she stared down into the grave and an unfamiliar expression in the set of her mouth as her gaze moved around the crowd too.
You both wish it was her in that coffin, a spiteful little voice whispered in my ear.
I gave her my best attempt at a smile. She was a perceptive girl, sometimes. I hoped it wasn't obvious to her.

God, but I was all over the place today. This was supposed to be one of the grieving steps, wasn't it, the laying to rest?
I didn't think it was working. Could I stop this and try again another time?
My mouth opened, about to speak, but a lowing sound I didn't recognize came out instead.

I felt like if I broke down now, I wouldn't stop breaking down. I'd have no foundation left to build back up on, and I still had my responsibilities.
Danny and I had talked about this. He understood. I didn't even resent that his daughter was the one who had come back from the dead.
Zoe leaned farther into me.

Spoiler: Note

I did not promise a happy beginning!

 

[therewolf]

Chapter 2: Augur

[Augur 2.1]

I gazed, fascinated, at the two girls in front of me.
The two—almost Taylors but not quite.

One was the me I kept being surprised not to see when I unexpectedly caught my own reflection in something. Her face was unscarred. I burned some tin and glanced over at Emma's dresser mirror, trying to ignore Aunt Zoe's crying. It was also—fuller. Happier. There was something slightly different about her eyes that I didn't think I could precisely express and hadn't noticed missing in mine until now.
The second girl was shocking in contrast. She was dressed in ratty clothes I didn't recognize. There was no life at all in her flat stare, just guarded wariness. She hunched herself in comically, so much she must surely have been in pain, an attempt to hide that only made her stand out more. It looked ridiculous next to her almost-twin.
Both of their gazes were tracking me, but with no sign of recognition. Curious and a little weirded out, I said, "Hello?" and waved my hand in front of them.
When they didn't respond, I reached across to the other side to poke the first girl's face.

All I could think was, an hour is far too long for lunch.
"—right, Tay?" Madison asked.
"Mm!" I agreed enthusiastically through a mouthful of food, not sure what to. I'd check I still had rights to my firstborn with Emma later. I looked over at her in conversation with one of the Heathers, and she looked up to give me a smile.
"That reminds me, actually," I lied brazenly after I swallowed. "What do you have planned for the WI homework? I saw a cool blog post on the Blasphemies last week, and you wouldn't believe some of the theories. It's a little sideways to the assignment, but—"

I flinched back into the pillows and screamed.
What the fuck was that? I thought, my heartbeat loud and irregular.

After I managed to take a breath to recover, I gingerly edged forward again and, before I could reconsider, made myself grab her hand.
Years' worth of a life I had so nearly but not exactly lived unspooled in my memory.

[Augur 2.2]

Emma was—fine. I was fine. I knew there'd been a big running battle between the E88 and the Protectorate near Emma's favorite mall a while ago, and was vaguely aware of some minor skirmishes since, but what did that have to do with me?
Huge, hot, heavy tears welled up in my eyes.
Was this real? I wanted to believe it was real. I wanted it to be real and this moment right now to be a bad dream someone else was having.

I'd thought I was healing, in my own head, carefully not put into words so I didn't have to admit it.
This sandpapered open every scab I had been jealously protecting, filled them with broken glass, squeezed them tight.
I couldn't think about this or I'd be sick again. I could feel it, or something, coming up.

I shuffled forward and collapsed myself on top of the second Taylor.
There was a harsh, stabbing pain all throughout my brain, and a galaxy of stars flamed to life in a void I had never realized existed.
They should have sent a poet, I thought dazedly.

[Augur 2.3]

This, I reflected, was how a power was supposed to be. There was no clumsy guesswork or grasping at hunches. Every detail of every insect in my—our—range was completely transparent to me, perfectly intuitive.
Moving them was as simple as—well, that was strange. I had perfect memories of using this, in my other life. I didn't have to travel far. They were right behind her shadow.
There was a disconnect, though, between my new/old instincts and this old/new ability. I could still feel everything in our—my—grasp, but trying to manipulate it did nothing.
If my bugs were normally an extension of my body, then this was something like—having a seizure?
Or like sleepwalking, maybe. That was closer. Like I was a passenger, only there to observe.

I lost myself in it for a time, familiarly. A thousand thousand minds, and my own just a speck among them.
Despite the lack of unifying control, there were beautiful glimpses of order in the chaos, patterns organically emerging through deeper processes I couldn't even begin to understand.
Birth and death and life, churning endlessly all around me. Everywhere underfoot, invisibly overhead, in every dark corner and every wall.
It was comforting, and humbling, and almost an honor to think that I might be the one person on earth, or on this earth, in a position to see this.
The weak, basic powers I'd secretly been getting so proud of were cast into harsh perspective, but so were a lot of other things.

"Are you okay in there, hon?" I heard through the door.
"Oh, yes!" I called back, a little hoarsely. Why was I crying? "Sorry for yelling!" I remembered to yell.

Regretfully, I saw my stolen gold was already nearly entirely gone, even burning it as slowly as possible.
Calmer now, I thought more on this other Taylor. I needed to tell them apart better. On Bug Taylor.
Taking her hand, I felt our awareness creep out across the neighborhood again.
This counted as another power, I supposed, kind of. Even if it did come with some unwelcome baggage, I thought, eyes flicking to Real Taylor.
I was amazed at the effortless facility she had with her abilities, and at all the different skills she'd picked up relating to it.
My mind traced its way over the research she'd done, the costume's false starts and design iterations, the breeding programs.
It was an incredible amount of work for one teen girl in a few short, what, months? How long had it been since—

[Augur 2.4]

I hugged Aunt Zoe tight. I really had missed her a lot.
"Would it be alright if I wore these for a while?"
She helped me put the earrings in. I wasn't sure if the old holes would have closed, but it turned out they were just barely there still.

We sat for hours and drank the tea I remembered so fondly and talked for what felt like the first time in years.
Trading stories about Mom with someone, with one of her best friends, was nice. Dad would probably claim he had dibs on being her very best friend, but that was only wishful thinking.
It did her good too, I think. She was looking much more put together when Uncle Alan eventually came home and I said my goodbyes.

She made me promise to come around for dinner with Dad sometime soon, which I easily agreed to.
"I will hold you both to that," Uncle Alan mock-threatened mock-sternly, a little drunk still. "I know Emma would have liked it."
Or maybe she wouldn't, I thought as I left their house, but really, what did I owe that bitch?

[Augur 2.5]

I was glad it was the weekend. I needed time to get my thoughts in order.
That was a much bigger proposition than it had been yesterday.

'Stick-insect freak.' My feet thudding along the asphalt. 'I would kill for your legs, Taylor. Seriously, point me at your target!'
'Crack whore.' Pulling more and more lines in front of me, speeding up faster than I'd ever dared during daylight before. 'Are you ever even going to talk to a boy? Come on, Tay, you must like one—'
'Looking good, Taylor.' Releasing the lines, trying to maintain the pace with only my body. 'Looking good, Taylor.'

I weakly grabbed a swathe of lines behind and to the sides of me and trailed to a stop, falling to my hands and taking deep, gasping, uncontrolled breaths.
Bug Taylor had been enjoying running recently too. A jarring similarity with someone I didn't want to admit any similarity to.
I threw up discreetly at the side of the path and wiped my mouth on the inside of my t-shirt.

[Augur 2.6]

The rest of the elements I had left stashed did nothing.
Fine.

At the afternoon market I bought anything that looked like an interesting or unique flavor, or that had an ironline that appealed to me.
After filing off a few shavings of everything into water and gulping it down, I discovered three fresh powers to focus on.
All burning them seemed to do was give me a migraine and make me vomit. That was fine. I'd been planning to anyway.

Further testing found they were coming from:
— an antique coin some quick research determined should be steel, though it was pretty discolored
— another version of the coin made of bronze
— the frame of a small painting of a marsh that I was pretty sure was also bronze
— a shiny new brass spigot someone had breezily given me just for asking

None of them actually worked, but that was fine too. I had a hunch that they were correct alloys but not the right dosage of alloy, or however you expressed that.
I ordered a wide range of one, to start with, and expedited it. There was a calming amount of even common ones.

[Augur 2.7]

A life where everything was normal, and a life where everything was so deeply unnormal I could hardly recognize myself any more.
How far along that axis was my own? And what direction was I traveling?

I found aluminum when I expanded my search barely the tiniest bit. I felt like I almost knew why it'd never called to me. It was an extremely weird—metal?
It didn't show up as a metal line, at all. Looking at the roll of it in our kitchen drawer, which claimed to be 99% purity, was like looking at a stick of wood but moreso. Was I allowed to submit corrections to science?
Even regular ironlines disappeared if they were wrapped with the stuff, I discovered after an accident and a little experimentation. Like there was nothing there. Very strange, but not something I was likely to run into often. I might need to watch out for some kinds of cars, but those must not be common around here or I'd have noticed them by now.

I only crumpled a scrap up and ate it to be exhaustive, in the end, but I was surprised to see that it did register as a power.
The power to—remove all my other powers. Seriously. When I burned it, all my other pools vanished, and it sat there on its own, mockingly. Instead of not doing anything, this actively did nothing. After this long dry spell it felt like a taunt.
I didn't even know if it was physically removing the metals from my body or just my access to them, so I still had to get rid of the failed alloys myself to be safe and healthy. The headaches were getting easier to deal with, though.

[Augur 2.8]

The school had called Dad and asked where I'd been the last few days.
He confronted me about it, when I got home late that evening after my run, and I grumpily agreed to go back tomorrow.

I grabbed a hoodie from the bottom of my closet but slowly returned it. No. I wasn't the me who wore that.
Had to look normal. I'd put too much effort into that recently to lose it over something so minor.

Madison was waiting for me at the school gate.
When she zeroed in on me I flinched, and she seemed startled, not stopping me as I walked past.
I stopped myself, though, once I saw the lockers.

Emma shamelessly fluttering her eyelashes at a boy so she could swap with him and be neighbors with me. Giggling together just yesterday about the mirror and emergency hair-and-makeup kit she kept permanently installed in hers.

Sophia shoving me inside my own and holding me there as she forced the door closed. Squishing against and sinking into things I was desperately trying to avoid recognizing. The smell like I was flaring tin in an abattoir. Hearing the sounds of the morning crowd continue completely uninterrupted except for Emma's deliberately loud laugh.

[Augur 2.9]

When I came back to my, this, self, people were whispering. I burned my metals instinctively.
"—been doing so well! We thought she was getting better!" I heard a small hive of distressed lights say from across the room, almost crying.
"Yes, ma'am," from a bored voice. "It was right as she saw the Barnes' girl's locker."

I opened my eyes blearily to look.
Madison glared spitefully back at me from where she was talking on her mobile.
No. Madison looked at me concernedly, tears in her eyes. She'd obviously been crying already.
I felt dizzy.

"How are you feeling, Tay?" she asked//, faux-sweetly, playing up to the still-watching nurse//.
"I don't think I feel very well," I thought.
"Me neither," she said frankly, frowning.
What?
"Have you been sleeping// with Empire recruiters again//?"
I looked at her strangely. My brain was zapping as if I was chain-burning bad alloys.
"I must be giving them quite the firework show," I mused. I double-checked, though, and, yes, "I only ate the good metals today."
"Of course I've been sleeping," I lied slowly. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

[Augur 2.10]

I was on enforced bed rest. It was humiliating.
I was learning humility, I told myself. Soon I would be a lowly worm, and Bug Taylor could finish taking control of me.

I did make efforts of my own.
The tests stopped for now, mostly, to let me recover. The alloys were slow going anyway, and I seemed to be having trouble keeping track of which metals stashes I'd already used besides.
I set up timers and alarms on my phone to remember to have snacks and hydrate, which my body begrudgingly learned to accept. I hadn't been sure it would. It was more stubborn than me, sometimes.
Dad thought it was a good idea to keep getting some fresh air, but I limited my running to maybe only a few miles a day before turning back home.

Emma had tried to persuade me to go clothes shopping with her, but I'd managed to cleverly duck out of it. Moron.
I was slightly smug about my skillful maneuvering. I hated myself.
Maybe I should start on that new Maggie Holt book this afternoon, while she wasn't around to make fun of it. Maybe you should choke.
Hot pricks of envy stung at my eyes. Lying there on the bed, beside myselves with grief, I wished I could be burned away with just a little aluminum.
I gripped my hand through hers again, and ignored whoever was thinking those thoughts.

[Augur 2.11]

Dad was steeling himself to do something. I think I knew it before he did. I watched him calmly over the course of breakfast.
He was patterned with love, determination, and incandescent spots of fear and anticipation. All I had to do was wait for those to outshine his reluctance, which didn't take long once he put his mind to it, and—
"I was thinking it might be a good idea for us to see a therapist," he said mildly.
I considered it seriously for a second. Most of my problems came from powers, really. Could I trust a stranger with that? No. I was less and less certain I could trust myself.

And, wait, us? I felt a laugh building, inappropriately. I wasn't sure he knew what he was proposing. Bug Taylor's wouldn't be cheap.
Could Dad's medical insurance cover three separate therapists for three different Taylors, I wondered, my shoulders starting to shudder, or would it be more economical to arrange multiple appointments with the same one?
Dad's brainlights were spasming frantically somewhere above my head. I got myself under control.
"I'll think about it," I said, completely honestly, smiling and looking him in the eyes.
It didn't get the usual reaction.
"I'm tired, Dad," I said quietly, suddenly actually tired. "I'm going to skip my run and head to bed now, okay?"

Against my will, I set myself to thinking about Bug Taylor's relationship with (sigh) Bug Dad.
It was a mess, even if she couldn't admit it to me. To herself. I didn't want ours to fall apart that much, and I worried we were on the path to it.
Essentially, I thought, it was the same situation, just further along. I'd lost Emma, one way or the other, and the cleaving had exposed some natural, fragile flaw in me. I was slowly being undermined through a route I'd never had to guard before. Eventually there wouldn't be enough of me left to be there for him.

The main difference, I suddenly realized, was that I knew why I had lost my Emma. I knew the capes responsible, and I had spent entire nights watching and rewatching the excuses they'd made, reconstructing the events. It was senseless, but I could see the sense of it.
What was consuming me—both of me—was why her Emma had disappeared one day and came back a changeling, and what secrets the answer to that might turn out to hold about mine.
For that, I knew exactly what question to ask.

Who was Sophia Hess?

[Augur 2.12]

Dad was in the room with me and Principal Blackwell.

"Your father and I talked this through more extensively earlier this year," she was saying, "but we had, of course, hoped it would end up not being necessary."
It was weird to see her brain. She really didn't hate me. She just honestly didn't give much of a shit either way. I wished I could tell myself that.
"We thought a change of environment might be a good idea. We think," Dad corrected himself. "There are a lot of memories here you're—struggling with, obviously."
Obviously, I thought.
"Your teachers are all happy to speak for you, and your coursework speaks for itself."
They were talking about moving me to Arcadia.
"The introductory tests will barely be a formality," she briefly paused her litany of complete disinterest. "With a little rest, I'm sure. They're always looking for bright students."
Immaculata was also an option if I did flunk testing in. Uncle Alan had offered to help cover the fees, apparently, and they at least weren't too picky.

It was impressive how quickly things seemed to be taking place. I'd scarcely mentioned the thought to Dad and the process began happening almost the next day.
Maybe my reaction the other time I'd tried to make myself go back helped, but I had the vague idea he and Uncle Alan were pulling strings on my behalf as well.
Could Bug Taylor's problems be solved so easily if she would only communicate with the people in her life? It was something to keep in mind in future, for anything else that was safe to talk about.
I moved to speak, and had to swallow a couple of times first. My mouth had been very dry lately.

"Do you know if Sophia Hess still goes there?"
I knew she didn't go to my Winslow. I couldn't quite bring myself to go back to being Bug Taylor, either, but I'd thoroughly searched two other sets of almost-matching memories for a hint of her and found nothing.
On hearing the name, though, Blackwell's skull started sparking all over.
"Who's that?"
I raised my head and focused my eyes on the woman at this.
"A friend of Emma's from middle school," I lied casually. "I thought I heard she went there, but maybe I'm misremembering?"
I gave a sharp tug to the newly-glowing parts of her, not sure what it would do to a person.
"I'm not familiar with the girl," she said, but her emotions said otherwise. "And I really can't discuss other students. But perhaps you'll run into one another."

[Augur 2.13]

My placement tests went fine in the end. For all that the place got hyped up, they still taught mostly-regular teenagers. There was a limit to how much of a shit you could expect them to give about schoolwork, and I guessed it wasn't such a hard shit to match.

I did some primitive divination the morning I actually started at Arcadia.
First I spread out all my remaining samples, carefully attached to the cards identifying the mix ratios.
Then I closed my eyes, flared my ironlines, and for good measure flexed my tin and lightly ran my fingers across them, trying to pick the one that felt 'friendliest.'
I didn't think there was really any difference, but, as it happened, the mix I picked turned out to be functional. My first alloyed metal.
Maybe it would end up not being exactly perfect, but I took this as the positive omen I wanted it to be, put off experimenting until later, and resolved to leave that bad habit behind me for a while—along with a couple of others.
For now, six solid-ish powers resting comfortably within me (I'm pretty much two Eidolons, I thought dully), I could let myself live in my self, physically and temporally.

That settled so anticlimactically, and my mood firmly buoyed, I put in an effort to talk about nothing important with Dad as he drove me there.
I'd had to promise to get the bus here and back in future, which was going be an exercise in patience after the freedom of running everywhere all day, but he'd insisted on dropping me off himself at this fresh start.
The drive into the Faraday cage was interesting, like traveling inside and through a loosely-stitched out-turned sock of blue light, until the lines attenuated enough to fade from my perception.
He made sure to remind me to re-enable cell service, once I was on my way home again and could re-connect. The introductory pamphlet had warned that most phones' batteries drained very quickly if it was just left on.

It honestly was a lot easier that it was all new. None of my lives had ever even visited here before, and I couldn't think of any reason they ever would.
Original memories, novel experiences, tying me to myself. This might actually work.
I told Dad so, in slightly different words, to calm down his roiling emotions, and gave a small, soothing pull on the embers of his hopes when I hugged him goodbye.

[Augur 2.14]

I couldn't quite face the dining hall yet, so I wended my way about the rest of the school instead, enjoying the feeling of only being lost physically, ignoring the unwelcome echoes from someone else's thoughts.
There were metal mechanisms hidden in the edges of all the windows, I observed, presumably part of some kind of emergency shutters.
A stark absence of gang tags, even in the most disreputable areas of the building I could find.
I nearly interrupted other students a couple of times, staying out of the main press like me for whatever reason, but I saw their headlights flashing well before mine ever registered to them and detoured myself smoothly around, unnoticed.

My sightseeing led me to the student mural of the (supposed, but it was no real secret) attending Wards, which occupied maybe half the wall outside the art studio. It must have been a long-running project, because Triumph and even Battery still stood waiting to meet my eyes threateningly.
Also staring back at me were Aegis, Kid Win, Silhouette, Gallant, and Clockblocker (possibly the one person in the city more lame than me, even Emma—used to be able to admit).
Almost all, I noted with amusement, had full-face helmets or were obscured by shadow. If I could scratch the paint off just a little, would I see the blush there from knowing they had to pass themselves every day?

[Augur 2.15]

Lunch, packed by Dad, was eventually eaten on the roof, as I gazed out over the nicer side of town.
He'd put together a spinach salad ('rich in iron :]' he'd written on the tub—I laughed, picturing myself dressed up as Popeye for a commercial) and included some of Emma's favorite cookies that we'd kept an emergency stock of at our house for as long as I could remember in every life I had ever lived.

I used my tin to ground myself and wash away the still slightly bitter aftertaste of those recollections, and left it on strong while I enjoyed everything in the bag.
If I concentrated, I thought I could also taste the love and affection, and I imagined burning that too, and letting it empower some part of me only I could have seen.

[Augur 2.16]

After everyone else had escaped the bus and I was the last passenger, making my way farther towards the Docks than any of my peers, I opened myself up to burning bronze.
Again, it was an odd one that didn't seem immediately useful, which I had almost come to expect by this point.
From everywhere around, for what felt like a vast distance to a sense I'd just now discovered, I heard strange, discordant noises.
With a little focus, and flaring it as hard as I could, I could find regular patterns in some of it.

I sat there, alone, listening to music only I might ever hear.
It was like an orchestra where nine-tenths of the instruments and another nine-tenths of the musicians were misplaced, or phasing in and out of existence. The conductor was missing or mad or both.
It reminded me of the night when I had been Bug Taylor and felt on the cusp of great understandings about—something.
I listened to it all the way home, and ordered more.

[Interlude: Lisa]

I hopped onto the bus, smiled at the driver, and made my way to the back.
The only other passenger was a girl sitting slumped, maybe three-quarters of the way to the end, close to my usual seat, which I claimed.
//would have sat in back for preference//
//rear seats occupied when boarding//
Amazing stuff, power. I worked on extricating my phone from my bag.
She was beating out an irregular tattoo on her seat's handle. Very amateur drummer? Very gifted drummer, suffering from terrible motor skills after unfortunate smelting accident?
//engrossed in listening to experimental music//
Jesus, what a nerd.
//no earbud in ear closest to you//
//careful to maintain situational awareness//
Well that was just common sense. Marquis might have made the trains run on time and kept the blood stains off the bus routes, but this was still the Bay. You never knew what danger you'd stumble into.

No new threads on the Brockton PHO subforum. No stickied or unusually active threads in general.
A spate of updates to the discussion thread for Bitch, irritatingly. Had she beaten up another labradoodle owner? I clicked my tongue, clicked the link, and waited for it to load, actively flexing my power to consider how to deal with whatever this situation was.
I realized the tapping had tapered off.

A quick glance up showed drummer girl staring me straight in the soul through the dark of the window, wild-eyed. What in the Green Christ?
//music unexpectedly disrupted//
Wait, I could see her other ear now that she'd sat up. There was—
//no earbud in either ear//
Then—
//not listening to music//
Yes, thank you so fucking much.
//time of disruption same as your power use//
Ah.
//cause of disruption was your power use//
Well, shit.
//girl can detect capes//
Fuck.
//at great range//
I was trapped in a metal coffin with a Trump.
//girl has detected y—//

A fucking power nullifier Trump, too, of all the fucking luck, and it seems like we'd accidentally outed ourselves to each other.
Was this bitch a cape assassin? Her powers seemed made for it. I couldn't tell whether she had any weapons or what her intentions were, but from the look in her eyes I thought she might jump over and start chewing off my face if I said the wrong thing here.
I slowly moved to raise my hands. She flinched. I stopped.
A fucking jumpy power nullifier Trump, who looked extremely unwell and more than a little unhinged now that I was belatedly paying attention to her myself instead of relying on whatever information my power decided to kill and drop at my feet.
'Calm down, miss, this is all a misunderstanding. Truce rules?' was what I tried to say, but she just up and ran to the front of the bus as soon as I started the first word.
I stayed very still and attempted to communicate with my eyes that I wasn't a threat to anyone. She kept her eyes on me, twitchily, and if I came across anything like her then I was failing miserably.
Almost against my will, hoping I wasn't being too obvious, I made some mental notes for later.

— relatively tall and gaunt for a girl
— moderate scarring partially covering one side of face, somewhat recent
— decent quality clothes, not incredibly expensive but cared for like they were
— truly awful earrings—possibly a gag gift, worn ironically? did not go with her outfit at all
— puffy cheeks not accounted for in makeup style
— heavy eye bags inexpertly concealed

We pulled over between stops, what felt like a couple of hours later, and she hopped out almost before it came to a halt, throwing back a thank you to the driver in a tight, panicked voice, then walked quickly away.

— unconcerned about debarking at an unmarked location
— familiar with the area in general, not reliant on a specific bus route

As soon as she was safely turned away, I took a quick picture of her in the glow of a street light then sat there and tried to get my heart under control.
I got off myself at the next stop and cut immediately across a park before power walking in the opposite direction of its destination. Capehunter had exclusive dibs on wherever the fuck she was headed, as far as I was concerned.
Starting to circle back to the loft, I almost cried with relief when my power told me a crosswalk signal had fecal matter smeared on the button. I ignored it. Those things were placebo anyway.

//power was not nullified//
Huh.
//power was not nullified//
//girl was not valid target//
//blind spot// it added helpfully, like it thought I was a moron.
Well—okay. I suppose I was a little more focused on the threat to my life than the thread count of the seats. Your pedantry is noted and unappreciated.
I brought up the picture of her on my phone and recalled her mean-mugging me from the front of the bus.
//girl is not valid target//
Still? What the fuck was her range? Why was she ever one?
//—//
Ugh.

Rachel stomped her way inside the loft, trailed by Judas and a limping Anjelica, trying to ingrain mud into the carpet like she was imagining it was my face.
How could anyone resist joining this team? I wondered. She'd been different since we lost Brutus to Lung. Angrier, impressively.
She still felt most emotions, I knew that much, even if she expressed them through inconsistent and frequently imparsable grunts and violence. I tried to be supportive, not that she appreciated it. She was just—
//grieving//
Yes. Oh. But that fit, didn't it?
I pictured bus cape again, going over my thoughts from earlier.

A local girl, grieving for her recently lost—sister? No. The clothes and jewelry were cherished gifts, but across disparate income levels. Close friend or girlfriend, or maybe a cousin or half-sister.
Definitely a girl, though. Likely similar in age. She styled herself on the girl, or only styled herself at her request and following her instructions. Her makeup hadn't been updated for recent changes in appearance because she didn't really know how to.
Isolated, at a guess. The lost girl was her closest or only friend? She clearly wasn't talking to any other girls who felt comfortable enough to tell her she currently looked like roadkill. In fairness, that I could hardly blame them for.

Looking at it from an alternate, slightly more calm angle, it was as if she had no idea how to interact with another cape. A recent trigger?
She lost someone to capes and triggered as a Trump. Was presumably present herself, given what I vaguely remembered about the trigger criteria for that kind of powerset, and that would fit with her injuries.
She wasn't doing whatever it was to block my power until now, and, I checked, that hadn't dropped yet. It's possible this was literally the first time she discovered she even could do it.
So a very recent trigger. Possibly her first encounter with a cape since it happened?

Counter-cape Trumps were often extremely hostile to any other capes they identified.
Notable examples, I recalled again, light-headedly, included Hatchet Face of the Slaughterhouse Nine and Glaistig Uaine of every cape's fucking nightmares.
I felt sweat begin to bead up on my palms.

Well.
It was a start for searching. Exceedingly discreet searching. Information never hurt anyone.
If nothing else, I'd rest easier knowing how to avoid her in future, if we were sharing a suddenly-too-small-seeming city.

I had to tell the others, obviously. I imagined it.

"Did you talk to her?" Alec asks.
"No."
"Lisa," he says sternly.
//trying to set up a bad joke//
I roll my eyes.
"Maybe half a word."
He hangs his head in his hands.
"We're doomed," he pronounces.
Rachel makes her agreeing face.
"Lisa, we haven't done anything to upset anybody like that," Brian reasons reasonably. "She was definitely white, right?"

I sighed. I'd tell them sometime. I deserved a night off from the circus.

Spoiler: Note

That bronze coin is meant to be a 1943 Lincoln Wheat Penny, a misstamping of the steel one I was looking for originally, which is apparently worth millions of dollars. I like the idea of her just gnawing on the thing.

I'm not sure if some of the medical stuff in the last chapter came through properly, but after her trigger Taylor had a brain injury followed by some post-traumatic amnesia (issues creating new memories). She also started work on developing an eating disorder based around and on her power, which you've seen more of here.
I only realized afterwards that maybe not everyone is familiar enough with this kind of thing to pick up hints towards it, which is totally my bad. A different interlude that explained some of this stuff would maybe be more useful, depending on what wasn't clear.
This does turn around a little eventually, honest. I'm regretting how front-loaded all the miserable stuff is now that I'm editing and rereading it from a different perspective.