The school showers were just as run down as the rest of the school. But at least they would allow her to get most of the mess off herself.

With some effort Taylor scraped a lot of the stuff off her clothes, they now looked dirty but not as if she had taken them straight out of a dumpster. Not going to enjoy putting them back on. Taylors thoughts of having to put them back on did not fill her with happiness, but she resolved that it would still beat trying to make her way home naked.

The water was ice cold, no heating as it was the night and the boilers were off, but she barely noticed. So many cuts, how do I hide them from dad I really don't want him to worry. Taylor had barely had time to think of the cuts before realizing that she could heal them. A tiny bit of focus and a faint golden light flowed over her with the cuts closing in moments.

Feeling a lot better and being a hell of a lot cleaner she headed for home.

Only once walking past the lockers towards the only door that she knew did not have a working lock, did she realize that there was a light coming from her eyes. They looked so unusual, her normal eye color was not even visible through the light shining from her eyes.

That shine should make me basically blind, yet I can only really see it in the reflection, with it not hindering my sight at all. This will out me as a parahuman without me even having a chance to do anything. As soon as she had thought of it, knowledge on how to tune the raging inferno of light flowing through herself, to allow it to be hidden flooded her mind. Yet knowing clearly that using any larger amounts of it would bring the glow straight back.

One problem solved she finally made it out of school. The night was dark yet the city had worried looking people going around, and more than a few gang members visible in the streets around her as she hurried home.

To her own amazement and happiness Taylor was able to jog the whole way, not even feeling out of breath. This is amazing! Im feeling as if i'm barely trying while going at a pace that would have left me gasping for breath just yesterday. The temptation to try just how fast she could go was there but tempered by not wanting to draw attention.

Arriving at home, the lights were still on.

After taking a deep breath desperately trying to think of what to say to put her father at ease. She stepped in.

“Taylor your ok. I was so worried! What happened?” her father's voice was frantic as he rushed up to pull her in a hug.

“I'm ok it was just a stupid prank at school” said Taylor, resolving yet again to not tell her dad about how bad it was as there was nothing he could do. The school would just deny anything having ever happened, and Emma's father was a lawyer they would have no chance in court either, even if her dad could afford it.

“A prank that left you unable to get home till 3 in the morning?” Asked Danny, the outrage in his voice at the very idea that it was just a innocent little prank.

“I just got locked in a classroom, i'm fine” The lie came easily with a practiced ease, “I just want to go to bed now it's been a long day.” Listening to Taylor it was easily visible that he did not really belive her, but at the same time he was unwilling to really push to try and get her to tell him what was really going on.

The next day after checking on her to make sure she was fine, Danny headed off to work. Once more working on the weekend as well. The dockworkers union had been struggling for a long time. Not many companies felt safe shipping things overseas with the Leviathan prowling around. It was weird to think it used to be sailors telling tall tales about monsters in the sea and now, there was a actual monster in the sea. After the first attack the military had tried to destroy him, but the whole fleet was destroyed in minutes.

After eating breakfast, that to her own shock consisted of a whole stale loaf of bread made into toast, yet it still left her feeling hungry. Taylor decided that some effort in figuring out what exactly she could now do was warranted.

She already knew that she could heal. Her instincts telling her that it would work on others as well.

A few simple tests to figure out how strong and fast she was proved that trying it in her house was a bad idea. One of the legs of her bed was now bent with a imprint of her hand in it. Lifting the bed from just one corner was easy enough. Not breaking it in the process was apparently not.

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Some time spent awkwardly hopping around with even attempts at flapping, in hopes of having the ability to fly. No luck there, no flying powers making a sudden appearance today, though she did find she could jump high enough to smash her head in to the ceiling, while in the process discovering that her head was harder than the ceiling proved by the cracks in her bedroom ceiling and none on her head.

After a bit more thinking and some grumbling over the fact that it would be so much easier if they could afford a computer and internet. She headed over to the library to get some ideas.

After some searching and reading on the public computers and lots of clicking through the PHO forums, the ParaHuman Online being the main forum for all parahuman related topics, for things to try, although some of the suggestions were clearly done with malicious intent. Suggesting someone jumps off a building to see if they can fly, definitely not a suggestion given with anyones good health in mind.

But some good ideas were indeed found. Some were amusing like a suggestion to try and summon a hammer from the sky. Just imagining that made her smile for a moment thinking how silly that would look until she suddenly found herself with a perfect understanding on how to summon a hammer and matching anvil out of light for making things.

She even got some ideas on where to go to try things out.

The docks were full of warehouses that had been abandoned as businesses had moved away or died.

Finding one that looked completely abandoned in a area with others empty as well was easy enough. Though on the way she saw plenty of ones repurposed for use by the gangs in the town.

Getting into the building also proved easier than expected, the door only had one rusted padlock holding it closed. And her strength was now more than enough to tear it apart with little effort.

The earlier brainstorming had given her plenty of ideas on how to try things, a few tests for each of the categories that PRT, the official government Parahuman Response Team had for their ranking.

Trying to run around as fast as she could was exhilarating feeling almost no strain from running back and forth in the warehouse. Rough estimation put her at being able to match and outpace an average car in city traffic with ease. Some less silly jumping proved Taylor able to jump high enough to touch the ceiling of the warehouse with ease, and even the rusted car got included as a test weight to lift and with a bit of effort it came off the ground. However balancing and finding leverage to not just fall over turned out to be harder than actually lifting it.

Running between the crates also brought some discoveries. Cool my powers come with built in parkour knowledge. Taylor greatly enjoyed the discovery that running from box to box and maneuvering up and down them at full speed was amazingly easy.

The very random seeming hammer and anvil turned out to be amazing too at making things in ways that defied logic. A piece of rusty metal got turned into a shiny clean looking plate in minutes without any of the effort it should have needed. Guiding power into patterns that seemed ingrained into her very muscle memory and a few minutes later you have whatever you were trying to make.

The list her power provided perfect blueprints for was long and detailed. And to her great annoyance mostly filled with plans that required materials that did not exist. For instance, Mithril a supernaturally strong metal that channeled mana easily, that apparently only existed in mana rich areas. What even were mana rich areas. She could not help but wonder. And was promptly aware that her world was completely manaless with near no magic and the only possible source of those materials were worlds she had never even heard of.

She now had the ‘how’ part of making a costume, even if she had no clear idea of exactly what to make. Even carrying it around and hiding it was going to be easy as she could make a tiny bag that could hold 16 individual items regardless of size as long as she could pick it up. Even if the arbitrary limit of only ever being able to have one of those without having a skilled crafter making her actual bags of holding. Her one bag that could be crafted with a small amount of cloth and to defiance of logic her hammer and anvil. The bag itself was apparently not even the important part for holding as just remaking it would instantly give her access to the same contents as the old bag had.

“A bag tied to my very soul that apparently is taught as basic exercise in mana usage for children.” Taylor could not help but say out loud as it seemed so hilarious while being so fantastical.

So if I focus on wanting to use magic powers to do something I'll remember how to do it if it's possible. That's so amazingly useful, I wonder if I can use it for schoolwork. Some attempts at prompting her power showed that she could access skills and knowledge the mysterious woman had.

Focusing on knowledge of technology proved that the woman apparently knew quite little of technology, there was knowledge of a teleporter but it was magic not technology and required a huge list of materials the whole world lacked.

Focusing on math and physics showed a lot of real world knowledge but the theoretical knowledge was less than Taylor herself knew as no new revelations of understanding made themselves known.

Ranged attack ideas provided her with a magical shield throw that would throw a disk of light that bounces up to five times onto things she wanted it to hit. It did come with a unusual limiter that she needed to have and use a shield to start it. Though apparently the definition of shield was quite flexible.

The door off the rusted car counted. And made a door shaped imprint in concrete. Some planks tied together with cloth had far less of a damaging impact giving some ideas of trying to make a shield with a soft covering that could be taken off for a non lethal option.

Scarily enough most of the uses for her new excessively shiny magical abilities were also excessively lethal, forcing her to figure out ways to make them less lethal.

She wanted to be a hero not a killer.

The evening at home was quiet, her dad seemed unsure of what to say to her so it was more awkward silences than talking, though there was some wonderment at the amount of food she ate, until Taylor retreated to her room to read and draw.

And draw she did! Spending most of the night drawing different combinations of armors she now knew how to make. The best she could make while only really having materials for a small section of the huge blueprint library that now resided in her head.

The next day as always her dad headed off to work. Taylor on the other hand went back to the warehouse after grabbing some materials she knew she would need. A few older clothes for cloth her dads old leather jacket from a box in the basement, and a few other items from the house that she knew her dad would not notice was missing.

The base material of the armor ended up being the rusty car, that her new logic defying blacksmithing allowed to transform into high quality pieces of armor, while leaving piles of rust on the ground.

The evening passed slowly with some smalltalk between her and her dad and a pizza as dinner. Waiting for her dad to fall asleep so she could go out to patrol, stop crime and be a hero.

Finally after confirming that her dad was asleep Taylor used her own tiny bag of holding attached to her belt to equip her full set of armor and headed out the window into the town.

Not knowing what the night would have in store for her.