In Which Taylor Goes Home

"She alright?" Taylor asked.

Lisa was on the ground, eyes closed and breathing even while three excited dogs sniffed at her. Rachel let out a high-pitched whistle and called them off the girl. She bent over and shifted Lisa's head to make sure her airway was clear, then pressed a pair of rough fingers against the side of her throat. "She's breathing and her heart's fine," Rachel announced a few seconds later.

"Should we call for an ambulance, or, I guess there's no service. Maybe we should bring her somewhere?"

Then Lisa blinked rapidly before pressed her hands over her eyes. "My head," she groaned.

"Oh darn, did you knock your head? Do you have a concussion?"

Lisa shook her head, then winced as she instantly regretted her answer. "Just a headache. I'm uh, one of Rachel's friends."

Taylor blinked at the non-sequitur. "Okay."

The girl on the floor sighed, then noticed the hand Rachel was holding out for her. "Thanks," she muttered as she got back to her feet. "I'm on Rachel's team. I'm a Thinker. Thinker headache." She waved towards Leviathan and Taylor. "Too much."

Taylor's brow scrunched up in concern and she shifted on the spot, that was until Lisa looked at her and her eyes widened in shock and horror. "What? Are you okay? I mean, no, it's pretty clear that you're not, but, I mean-- oh, maybe Mr. Fish can help?"

"You, you were just thinking about using Leviathan's Hydrokinesis to fix my headache!"

"That's so cool! It's like you can read minds." Taylor clapped. "Do you think it would work?"

Lisa started waving her arms in denial. "No!"

"Oh, okay. Also, that's not Leviathan, it's Mr. Fish."

Lisa fainted again.

A few moments later Lisa groaned, this time clutching at her head with both hands as she twisted and squirmed on the ground. "Scion spinning on a stick, my head hurts."

"Ah, sorry," Taylor said. She turned towards Rachel. "Should we bring her back to the shelter?"

"No!" Lisa said before bolting upright only to sag in Rachel's side. "No, I won't let you just... wander around with your pet Endbringer. I live in this city too, dammit. Rachel, help me onto Judas, I'm following the pair of you."

"Stupid. You're hurt. Go back inside," Rachel said.

"Hell no. Anyway, the boss wants us to keep on eye on her, so that's what we'll do, alright." Lisa wobbled over to one of the smaller dogs and tried to climb up.

"Why'd you tell her, she heard you," Rachel said as she pointed a thumb Taylor's way.

With a heave, Lisa managed to grab onto one of the bigger spikes and fumbled her way onto the dog's back. "It's not spying if she knows you're doing it."

Taylor could only nod and accept that logic as she climbed back onto Leviathan's shoulder with just a bit of help from the Endbringer himself. "Well, if she insists. But if you need to take a break or something don't be afraid to ask, okay?"

Lisa just gave her a thumbs up, then flopped forwards to hug the beast she was riding. She closed her eyes and pressed her face into the dog's back with a groan. Rachel gave her friend one last concerned look before hopping onto the biggest dog. "Where're we going now?" she asked Taylor.

Taylor wasn't sure what to do with or about Lisa. The girl really did seem to be in pain, but she was being very melodramatic about it. Then again, she was a Thinker, and Rachel's friend. Maybe she was just stranger. With a nod, she decided that that must be it. Lisa was just a very strange girl. "That way!" Taylor said while pointing off and away from the docks.

The path home was both familiar and jarring. Sure, she recognized every building on the way, and it wasn't as if the roads had changed places, but the shops were all closed down, some of those familiar buildings bore holes and cracks along their sides, if they weren't torn down completely, and while she was used to not seeing tons of people, there had always been a few folks going about their business. Now the roads were deserted.

Then she turned a corner and saw home. It was still standing, a little rougher than she remembered, and there was trash piled up by the steps and it looked like maybe one of the windows had been broken by a branch but it was home. Taylor pulled on Leviathan's leash and made a gesture for him to stop.

The three dogs did the same behind her, and watched as she clambered down the Endbringer's side. "Hey, Unit-02. You listen to Lisa and Rachel until I return, alright?"

{New Secondary Directive from Host-Queen_Administrator: Obey Host-Inqusitive_Negotiator and Host-Biomass_Sculpter until Host-Queen_Administrator returns to present location. Directive Accepted.}

Taylor tossed the chain towards Lisa who fumbled with it, then stared up at the Endbringer. Leviathan looked at her with what might have been attentive curiosity. She started hyperventilating.

With a halting gait, Taylor started walking home. She paused every dozen or so steps, looking over her shoulder towards Leviathan who was even now staring at a panicking Lisa while Rachel tried to reassure her friend. Maybe she should go back? But no, she had to know.

Biting her lip until it bled, Taylor closed her eyes, balled up her fists, and stomped up the steps. One of them creaked under her weight and that comforting sound was almost enough to set her to crying, but she held firm.

The door was locked, so she fished in her pockets for her keys and fumbled at the lock until they fit in. She needn't have bothered. Almost as soon as she fit the key in the door was torn open from the inside and she found herself face to face with her dad.

Her looked, in a word, like crap. His hair was dishevelled and there was a nasty bruise on one cheek. His button up shirt was missing a few buttons and his jeans had stains all the way up to his knees.

Taylor's vision went blurry with tears and she wrapped equally-dirty arms around her father. His own wrapped around her shoulders and she was pressed up against a chest that smelled of salt water and sweat and home.

"Shh, it's okay, it's okay," her dad whispered into her hair. "You're home, you're safe."

She started sobbing in earnest.

***

It took an hour, a bath using a bucket of lukewarm water, a change of clothes and two cups of tea for Taylor to really calm down. She was in the living room, aware that time was passing but willing to ignore it for now. Her dad was safe. Her home was still there. Oh, sure, there was no power and the water was cut, but it was still standing.

"Now what?" Taylor asked before taking another sip of Earl Grey, her mom's favourite.

"I don't know, really. I got in touch with a few of the boys from the Union. There's a lot of work to do, clearing up the streets and picking things up. Not to mention rebuilding after. You could help us," he offered.

She smiled, then brought her knees up to her chest. "I, um, I have an appointment later. But after that, I wouldn't mind."

"An appointment?"

She nodded. "With the Protectorate."

Her dad was many things, but a fool he was not. "Oh."

"Yeah."

"Okay then. Did you want me to go with you?" He seemed ready to jump off the couch and go right then and there. She smiled at him.

"No, it's okay."

He winced. "The roads aren't safe."

"I can take care of myself, dad."

His return smile was a little watery, a little uncertain. "I guess you can. Your mom would be proud, you know."

Taylor had to swallow hard to keep from crying again. "I hope so." She looked at the wall-mounted clock atop the television. "I should go."

"You'll be back?"

"Promise." She stood up, the effort far outweighing the simplicity of the motion. "Oh, and dad, you remember how you didn't want me to get a dog?"

Danny Hebert might not have been the best father, but he could sense a trap when his daughter laid one. "Yes?"

"About that..."

***

"Okay! I'm clean, got new-ish clothes and I'm ready to go!" She came upon Lisa scowling up at Leviathan and Rachel lounging against the side of one of her dogs that had laid down to sleep in the middle of the road. "I hope you two weren't too bored?"

"Nah, Lisa tried to make Leviathan kill someone but it wouldn't listen," Rachel said.

"Lisa!" Taylor shouted. "You can't just do that."

With one eye closed and her face scrunched up in pain, the girl turned towards Taylor. "Well, I know that now. Some sort of restriction? Asimov's Three Laws? Damn, there should be a way around that."

{Host-Queen_Administrator has returned. Secondary Directive Accomplished.} Leviathan added.

"Well hello to you too," she shot back. "Lisa, stop trying to get Mr. Fish to do mean things. And now I need to go and visit the Protectorate to register as an independent. You two wanna come with? Maybe they'll be nicer if they see us all together."

"Uh, raincheck on that," Lisa said. "My head hasn't hurt this hard since... in a while. Rachel, would you drop me off at the shelter?" The dog-masked girl gave a grunt of acknowledgement. "Thanks. Oh, and Taylor, you need a costume."

Taylor blinked at the non-sequitur. "I do?"

Lisa nodded. "Look, all this cape stuff, the fighting the patrolling, it's all part of a game, of sorts. The exception are the S-class things. So, when someone sees a parahuman dressed in," she paused, then took in the jeans and hoodie Taylor was wearing. "Normal clothes, it tells them that that cape might not be playing by the rules."

"The rules?"

"The unwritten rules. It's like a code of conduct. If you break them all the others will band against you. Respect the secret identities of other parahumans, try not to use lethal force, no widespread attacks against civilians, and no sexual assault of any kind. It's all common decency stuff. The people who don't follow them are folks like the S9 or Heartbreaker. And they don't go around in costume. So the costume is more than just a way to hide your identity, it's a sign that you'll play fair."

Taylor nodded, taking it all in. "So, if I had a costume I'd look less threatening?"

Lisa snorted and shook her head. "No, there's no way for you to look any less threatening, I'm sorry. But having a costume would tell them that you're willing to play by the rules."

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

She winced. "I don't have a fixed hour for my appointment, but I don't want to keep them waiting either. Still, that only leaves me with a few hours to get a costume together."

"Ah hah! No worries Taylor, that's where the wonderful and illustrious Tattletale sweeps in to save the day. I happen to know people." She made a 'wait a minute' gesture, then pulled out a receipt from one pocket and a pen from another. In no time she had an address scrawled onto the bit of paper. "Don't tell her I sent you."

Taylor took in the address--not too far from the Boardwalk, or the PRT headquarters, it wouldn't be much of a detour--and the name written beneath it. "Parian?"

"Brockton Bay's own fashionista rogue. Just be polite and try not to scare her too much." Lisa tried a smug grin but it soon faded as her head started pounding again. "Okay, I need to chow down on a handful of Tylenol and sleep for about a week. Rachel, you read to go?"

Rachel nodded, then helped Lisa climb onto one of her dogs. Before jumping onto another, she turned towards Taylor. "You coming back later?"

"To the dog shelter? Um, no, I think I'll stay with my dad. But I might pass by to help." She stepped up to give Rachel a hand, but the girl just brushed her off and hopped onto the back of her biggest dog as though she'd done it a thousand times.

"See you 'round," Rachel said as she started walking off. Lis and her other dog followed after with little fuss, the Thinker bent forwards with her eyes closed the entire time.

"Well, that was fun, wasn't it?" she asked Leviathan.

{Affirmative.} he replied.

***

Sabah lifted a bolt of cloth that had fallen by one end, then let it fall. It was probably salvagable, the bit that hadn't soaked in murky waters. She sighed and moved towards her workbench nestled at the far end of the room. Her scissors and needles were spread across the floor like a minefield of caltrops. She had to take careful steps to avoid the worst of the damage. Part of the ceiling had collapsed, but it was mostly in the storefront.

The worse was the water, still pooled across the floor at ankle-height. Her shop was recessed a little, while the storefront was on street level, so all the water was pooling in the back. Her stock was going to smell like fetid water for days.

She might have lost a mannequin or two our front, and some completed projects, but those she could replace. Then there was her inventory. Admittedly not too much of it. Being a rogue was finally starting to pay off and her sales had cleared out a good bit of it before the Endbringer hit.

To think that a few days ago her biggest worry was designing fast enough to overcome demand and make enough to cover the power bill. Now there was no power on the entire street and she would be lucky if her insurances covered a fifth of the damages.

She grabbed a dress from where it had been left abandoned on a desk, then balled her hands into a fist, scrunching the cloth up. It was stained, and damaged. Ruined.

With a wordless, whinny yell, she flung it across the room. It didn't even make it halfway.

Sabah found one of the little stools she used when fitting a client, righted it, then flopped down upon it. Her arms wrapped around the frilly lace of her costume and she allowed herself to shiver in the darkness of her shop.

She soon calmed herself. Her mother had raised her better than that. She just had to look at it from a more utilitarian point of view, use the scientific method. She almost snorted as she looked around. Her in-depth research revealed that her dream was fucked.

She jumped to her feet, stool clattering down behind her. If she had to abandon her dream then so be it. She had a family--no, families--to keep safe, and unless a client walked in right then and there, there was little she could do to get her shop back in shape.

"Um, hello?" came a voice from the front. Young, female. "Is anyone in here? Um, the door was open. I'm pretty sure you're not in business right now-now, but I wanted to chat. Maybe?"

Her first thought was that one of the gangs had sent someone to harass her. But she gave up on the idea soon enough. Too innocent, not nearly threatening enough. "We're closed!" she shouted to the front, remembering at the last moment to change her accent to the one she associated with 'Parian.'

"Yeah, I kinda figured. I'm sorry. A friend of mine told me that this was the place to go for costumes and stuff. I guess that won't be happened. Well, dang it all to heck."

Sabah paused. "Dang it all... to heck?" She took a few steps closer to the door leading to the storefront, if only to see the angry twelve-year old waiting there. She paused again when the rest registered. A costume. The girl was a cape.

"Ah, I'm trying not to say bad words. You know. Wouldn't be very hero-like. Uh, not that I'm a hero yet. I'm supposed to go meet them later, but a friend of mine told me not to do that without a costume already or else they'd think I'm threatening."

Sabah took a deep breath, then shook her head and gave in to her curiosity. If anything, the shop was still full of cloth, a million threads each waiting for her to ping them to life. There were few places where she could use her power to its fullest, and this was one of them. "I see, well, welcome to Parian's Boutique," she said as she walked in.

The girl was thin, swimming inside a hoodie that was a few sizes too large. Her jeans were clean, but worn, and not the right cut for someone with such long, thin legs. Her shoes were stained, worn, and one good idea away from being trashed. Her face was hidden, mostly, by a bandanna that Parian would have sworn was made of canvas of all things. All in all, not terribly impressive. She was also, Parian noted, guiltily holding a top hat in both hands.

She tilted her head to one said, a gesture that she had practiced until it conveyed just the right flavour of 'really?' and the girl put the hat back onto the mannequin that had been wearing it. "Ah, hi! I'm Queen Administrator, I'm new-ish."

"Please to meet you... Queen Administrator," Parian said. She revised her estimate of the girl's age. She was too tall to be twelve. Fourteen, maybe a late-blooming fifteen. "How can I help you?"

"I need a costume."

"You need a costume right now?"

The girl nodded. "Yeah. I know, kind of last minute. And I don't really have much money. Or any money. But I swear I can pay you back! Cross my heart and everything."

Parian giggled, the sound escaping her before she reigned it in. The gall of her. Still, she wasn't really wasting anyone's time. She would still be sulking out back if it wasn't for the distraction, and she could always return to sulking later. "A custom costume in... how much time, exactly?"

The girl, Queen Administrator, winced. "Ah, about an hour?"

Parian blinked. There were deadlines and then there were deadlines. "That's a bit much, don't you think? And even if I wanted to help you, my shops got a few inches of water all over."

"I can help with that!" Queen Administrator said, standing tall and proud. "Or, well, my friend Unit Two can." She turned and rushed towards the door. "Hey, there's water in her shop, could you... I don't know, take it out?" she asked someone outside.

Parian tensed. Another cape? She was about to question the girl when a noise not so terribly unlike a drain being pulled in a tub sounded out from behind her and a spout of twisting water flew out of the shop, through the store, and over the girl's head to splash harmlessly outside.

"Tada!" Queen Administrator said. Her bandanna had fallen a little, revealing a wide grin.

She took a step back, then peaked into her shop. It was dry. Beyond dry. There wasn't even a hint of humidity in the air, and some of the cloth that had been weighted down by water earlier were now as dry as the desert. She was rather impressed.

"That will certainly save me a few moments of work, thank you," she said. "But I'm really not sure I can help you, Miss Queen Administrator."

The girl pouted and snapped her fingers in consternation, then she brightened. "Wait, what about advertising?"

"Advertising?"

"Yeah, Unit Two is pretty big. I could put an ad for your store on his side?" She pointed over her shoulder with a thumb.

Curious, Parien stepped closer, then followed as the girl walked out into the dusty afternoon. The first thing she noticed was that the the streets were a little emptier than she remembered them being an hour ago. The second thing she noticed was Leviathan.

She would have screamed, or attacked, or ran, but her heart seized up in her chest, a moment of the purest existential horror. To have survived so much only to die right then and there.

Queen Administrator hugged Leviathan's leg.

Sabah's brain crashed.

"Whu?" she said in lieu of an actual sentence. Whatever image of serene grace she had built with Parian was gone in the light of an Endbringer standing in front of her shop.

"Ah, shucks, I keep forgetting how people react to you, big guy," Queen Administrator said to Leviathan. The beast looked down at her. "Now, be nice. Wave at the pretty lady."

Leviathan's four-eyed gaze rose like a tsunami over the horizon, green like the depths of the ocean where horror's lurked took in Sabah's motionless form. He waved.

Sabah rebooted. "That's... what?"

"Right, so like I was saying, you could put an ad on him. Well, not on-him on-him, but maybe on a cape or something? Maybe one of those sandwich boards."

Sabah visualized the panicked screams of her clients as Leviathan stood before her dream shop in New York, a giant sandwich board with her face on it covering his scaly chest. She blinked away the nightmare. "I, I... you control him?"

"Not really. I tell him what to do, and sometimes he does it." She shrugged. "I'm supposed to meet with the Protectorate later, but I don't have a costume. That's why I'm here."

"I see." Costume. She could do costumes. Cloth and colours and styles that hid symbolism. She could understand those things. They were safe. "I can help."

Queen Administrator's eyes lit up. "Really? Awesome!" Quick as a flash, the girl was right up against Sabah and squeezing her in a tight hug.

The Leviathan watched.

"Oh god," Sabah uttered under her breath.