Capes and Magic Hats: Chapter 3

I focused intently on my hand, the limb hovering just above the frayed edge of a tear in the sleeve of my hoodie. It had been forever since I had first gotten the thing and it had had so many tears in it that I couldn’t even remember where I had gotten most of them at this point, but I didn’t have to worry about that any more.

My lips moved silently as I muttered a simple phrase underneath my breath, at the same time sliding my fingers over the tear as I concentrated on my internal energy just like the book had instructed me to.

My hand glowed brightly as I gently caressed the tear, sliding my fingers over the damaged fabric. As I did so, the tear began to close behind them, loose threads mingling back together and repairing themselves underneath the influence of my magic until I was finally left with a hoodie sleeve that looked like it had never been damaged in the first place.

I pulled my hand back, looking over my work with a satisfied smile. That was the seventh time or so that I had used that spell on my hoodie, repairing the various bits of damage that had appeared over its long lifespan, and now it looked practically brand new.

“That’s probably enough practice with that one.” I said to myself as the glow faded from my fingers I inspected my work, finding no flaw in any of my repairs, and I nodded in satisfaction, “Yeah, that’s good. If I need to. I can just practice on some stuff at home.”

That made three things that I had managed to learn while here, and I was feeling pretty satisfied with myself. Prestidigitation wasn't that hard to learn, and neither was figuring out how to manage my newly acquired aura thanks to the book instructing me on how to do it. Mending was just probably the hardest skill to learn and I had managed that too. I was on a roll!

I pulled the hoodie on, rolling my shoulders to get more comfortable as I filled it out a bit more than I used to thanks to the changes in my body. It wasn’t uncomfortable in the slightest though, Mending alongside Prestidigitation made it cleaner than a dozen cycles in the washing machine at home and it practically felt brand new now, softer and smoother than ever before.

I patted clothes down happily, “This is gonna be super useful. And now I don’t have to worry about the Trio ruining my clothes ever again!”

I smiled to myself, imagining how Emma would react if she tried her usual bs and covered me in juice or milk or something, and I was walking around a few minutes later fresh as a daisy, not a stain on me. She’d probably lose her mind.

It was too bad doing something like that would out me immediately. It would have been cathartic and absolutely hilarious watching them try to figure out how I did it, but if I wanted to keep a secret identity, I’d have to hold off on using my powers to fuck with the Trio.

The thought of those three almost immediately caused my smile to fall as I realized I would have to go back to school soon. I didn’t know how long I had been in here exactly, but it was at least a few hours. I doubted my dad was going to be happy when he found out I had basically ditched school.

Speaking of which…

“I should probably go back before someone comes looking for me or something.” I said to myself as I grabbed my backpack from where I had placed it and stood up from the table I was sitting at, “I don't even know how much time has passed but it's been at least a few hours. School's probably over by now.”

That was assuming time even passed while I was in here. I had no idea of things were different here relative to the real world, but there was only one way to find out

So that begged the question. How did I get out?

“I'm not even sure how I got here in the first place.” I said idly, sliding on my bag as I made my way out of the room, “I was just wishing that I was far away from Emma or whoever came into the bathroom and then I was here.”

Maybe that was how it worked? Focusing on just being somewhere else?

“Only one way to find out.” I said, closing my eyes. I concentrated on leaving the Archive, imagining myself disappearing from here and appearing in the real world again.

Almost instantly, the very air around me changed, becoming less comforting and much more stifling. The warmth that I had been feeling became cold and unsettlingly familiar, and I slowly opened her eyes to find myself standing in the same bathroom stall I had been in before.

“Well, that was easier than I thought it would be.” I said as I looked around at the dark walls of the bathroom stall. I couldn't help but frown as the peace and tranquility that I had been feeling inside of the Archive completely faded, leaving behind the normal anxiety that had constantly filled me for years, “Oh yeah. I forgot how much it sucks here. Fantastic.”

I sighed, unlocking the door and cautiously stepping out of the stall. Nobody was in here, not Emma or even another student. It was completely empty.

“That's one good thing, I guess.” I said as I began to make my way towards the door, “Not sure what I would do if I came out and she was still here.”

Considering that I was a great deal stronger than before thanks to my aura, probably nothing good for her.

Just like the bathroom, the hallway was completely empty as I stepped out into it, not a single person in sight in either direction. Looking around, I quickly spotted what I was looking for, a clock hanging above the lockers several feet away.

I squinted at it, trying my best to read the tiny numbers from so far away, “Five-thirteen, huh? Guess I was right. It sure didn't feel like that long, though.” I said out loud as I made my way down the hall towards the stairs.

School was obviously over, but I also couldn't hear the sounds of teachers or students anywhere nearby. They must just not be in the part of the school or maybe they had just gone home already.

“I don't really know if that's a good thing or not.” I said as I reached the ground floor and made my way to the double doors at the end of the hall, “Hopefully they didn’t put out a missing person’s case for me or something.”

Though, it was probably a good thing that half of the cameras in this school didn’t even work. I wasn’t sure how I’d explain myself disappearing into the bathroom for five or six hours and coming out with a brand new hoodie.

As I pushed open the doors, I winced slightly as I was immediately hit with the temperature difference between in here and out there, before stepping out into the chill evening air.

As I made my way off of school grounds, making sure to keep an eye out for anybody who might see me, I wondered what to do next.

Hmm… Dad didn’t usually come home for a little bit. That meant I had quite a bit of time to myself which I could use pretty much however I'd like.

With that thought in mind, as I reached the sidewalk outside of the school, I turned away from the direction that would have taken me back home and instead turned in a different one, making a split-second decision about what I should do. My power let me learn things faster, and what was a better place to learn new things than the library? I had enough time to go over there and grab some things to study.

Winslow was around a half-hour walk from the nearest library. Normally I wouldn’t really feel like walking that far, not after a day of dealing with the Trio and especially not around this time when the temperature was just beginning to drop, but today had been a good one so far, all things considered, and more importantly, this would be the perfect test for my power. I wanted to see just how much my stamina had improved.

I adjusted my backpack, tightening the straps so that it wouldn’t smack me in the back while I moved. I then pulled my hood up, tucking my long hair back and letting it fall down into the back of my hoodie so that it would stay out of my face.

After all of that was taken care of, I got down into a relaxed running stance, feeling only slightly foolish as I did so, before taking off down the empty street.

I could almost immediately tell the difference compared to all of the other times that I had run before. My arms and legs adjusted themselves instinctively, pumping in tandem and keeping me perfectly balanced as the ground flew under my sneakers faster than I had ever experienced before, and I actually had to hold back a bit to keep my speed at a believable human pace.

Even so, I withheld an ecstatic laugh as I reached the corner of the block, having run dozens of feet in just a few seconds. On top of that, thanks to my aura or maybe even just my body tune-up, I wasn’t even winded yet!

These powers were amazing!

~~~

I reached the library faster than I would have if I had ridden a bike there and thanks to my aura, I wasn't tired at all as I reached the building a mere ten minutes later. After taking a moment to calm down from my pseudo-runner’s high, I pushed open the door and made my way inside.

Barely anybody was present as I entered, with only two other people in view as they perused the shelves for something to read. I ignored them as I pulled my hood down, shaking my hair out of it and letting it fall back to its natural place as I began to make my way towards an area of the library that I rarely ever visited.

Normally when I came here it was to find something new to read in my spare time. Fantasy, sci-fi, even comedy sometimes, whatever I felt like I would enjoy the most at the time. Right now though, I was here for something else. Something that I could actually use.

That was why I soon found myself in the nonfiction section of the library, surrounded by thick textbooks and autobiographies of people I didn’t know the name of. I turned away from the stuff meant for entertainment and instead turned my focus to what I had come here for, a veritable wall of thick textbooks on dozens of different subjects. I looked over them, searching for the ones that would meet my specific criteria.

What would help me most in my cape career?

While I was in the Archive, the calming atmosphere had allowed me to gain a bit more perspective on what I wanted to do in the future. I had come to the swift conclusion that there was no way I was ever going to stay out of the cape scene with powers like mine. My original assumption that my only powers were some stronger muscles and increased reflexes couldn’t have been further from the truth, and now I was much more comfortable with the possibility of conflict in the future.

That didn’t mean I was going to immediately seek it out, though. Unlike most capes who went out the moment they could scrounge a costume together, I wanted to actually be prepared for what I knew was coming. If I was going to do this, I was going to do it right. Though I didn’t really agree with many of the choices that the other Taylor would make, the fact that she had actually spent time preparing for her career as a cape was one thing that I could give her props for. It hadn’t really helped much of course, but hey, at least she tried. And I would too.

After browsing for a bit, I eventually decided to start with four books that I could see being the most helpful in the near future. One on sewing, one on metal working, an introduction to basic mechanics, and finally, a text on basic first aid. The first three were self explanatory. If I was going to make a costume, I wanted to make it a good one, not just some slapped together outfit that wouldn’t stand up to a fall on the concrete, much less another parahuman trying to kill me.

The first aid textbook on the other hand, may have been useless compared to some of the things I saw when I visited the Necromancy section of the Archive, but it would be good to have some actual knowledge on how the human body worked, and even some techniques that I could use in the extremely rare cases where my power might not be available to me. Being prepared never hurt, after all.

Carrying that many books at once wasn’t difficult thanks to my aura, but it was a bit difficult to keep them all balanced on top of one another as I made my way towards the front desk. A bored-looking teenager was standing behind the counter, staring down at her phone and not paying any attention to me or anyone else in the library.

She finally looked up as I placed my books down on the counter, the heavy texts making a thud as I sat them down in front of her. She didn’t look surprised to see me, but she raised an eyebrow as she took in the stack of thick books, looking down at them and then back up at me.

“Umm, you do realize that our return window is only two months, right?” She asked in a slightly snooty tone that reminded me of Madison. It was not a nice comparison.

It was as she spoke that I realized how suspicious this probably looked. I had been so preoccupied with my new abilities that I hadn’t thought about how suspicious it would look for me to try and check out so many books on extremely different subjects. It wouldn’t take much. If anyone had a sufficient online presence and knew what to look for, they’d take a look at what I was doing and come to one conclusion, Thinker.

Hoping that this girl wasn’t one of those people, I gave her a smile that was only slightly-nervous and shrugged in a half-hearted manner, “I kind of forgot about that, to be honest. Don’t worry though, I’m a fast reader and honestly, I’m not even sure I want to pick most of this stuff up yet. I just figured I’d try a bit of everything and see what clicks, you know.”

The girl looked about as disinterested as someone could be in anything, “Right. I’m just letting you know that if you don’t return these within the allotted time, you’re going to get hit with some pretty big late fees. These books are pretty expensive so not returning them on time carries higher penalties.”

Relieved that she clearly didn’t care enough to try and grill me on what I was doing, I gave her a nod, “I’ll make sure to bring them back in time. I promise.”

“Please make sure you do.” She said, reaching forward to grab the first book off of the stack, “Now, may I see your library card?”

A few minutes later, I made my way out of the library with the smaller two of my new books stuffed in my backpack and the others in my arms. I looked up at the sky, noticing that the sun was now skimming the edges of the buildings downtown, before glancing down at my arms which weren’t struggling at all to carry the thick textbooks. Aura was really useful.

“Dad will probably be home in an hour or two.” I said to myself as I began to make my way home, “That should give me enough time to get through a bit of one of these books.”

More importantly though, it would be just enough time for me to figure out what I was going to tell him when he asked me why I technically ditched school today.

~~~

A couple of hours later, I had changed into comfier clothes and was sitting at my kitchen table, the book on basic mechanics spread open in front of me. My eyes ran over the page, absorbing the information just as easily as it had earlier in the Archive. By now, I had nearly finished the second chapter, blazing a path through the thick text at a pace that would leave most jealous. Most importantly though, I could tell that I was actually retaining the information that I had read, despite how dull it was.

Because it was dull. The book itself wasn’t interesting in the slightest, the furthest thing from it really, with a bunch of dry terms and explanations on what said terms meant somehow worded in the most boring way possible.

Even though I was learning as I went though, I already understood some of it which made it a bit easier to bear. The memories implanted into my head included a whole other life, complete with college level education on several subjects such as math, science, physics, chemistry, and even coding. Several of those subjects shared terms and phrases with what I had seen so far in the book, making the whole thing go by just a bit quicker.

It was still extremely boring of course, but wasn't all work like this? It was something I had to do though. This was the jumping off point that I would use to later learn the more useful stuff. Once I actually began to put things into practice, things should hopefully pick up.

Besides, I would admit that managing to learn and retain an amount of knowledge that would take most people weeks if not months to pick up in just a few hours was kind of thrilling, if just from a scholarly point of view. With my power, I could learn more in a year than most people could in a lifetime, and I fully intended to abuse that.

With a smile on my face, I turned the page, already reading through the first paragraph that detailed information that would have been completely nonsensical to me just a few hours ago. Unfortunately, my good mood wouldn’t last very long.

I suddenly looked up from the textbook as my ears picked up the telltale sound of the creaky front step being stepped on, followed by the jingling of the keys in the front door. Dad was home.

Normally that news would bring me happy feelings as I knew that when he got home, we normally ate dinner together. Right now though, it just made my gut curl with sudden anxiety at the thought of what I was about to have to do, and the consequences that might have.

My dad and I hadn't exactly been close since my mom died and the Trio started tormenting me, but we were always there for each other at the end of the day if the other needed it. We'd have breakfast like a family and sometimes even dinner together when he managed to get off work early. Things weren't perfect, but they weren't horrible.

In my future memories though, that had changed. By the time the memories cut off, my dad and I had drifted apart to the point that we barely even spoke anymore. We were basically strangers to one another and the biggest factor that caused that was him not knowing that I was a cape, much less a villain.

I didn't want that to happen. I had already lost my mom, I wouldn't lose my dad too. Not if I could help it.

Which meant there was only one thing to do.

Gathering my courage, I left the kitchen as the front door opened and closed, footsteps making their way into the living room.

“Taylor?” My dad called, clearly expecting me to be upstairs by the volume of the shout. His voice was angrier than I had heard it in a while, making me wince slightly, “Come down here. We need to talk.”

“I'm already here, dad.” I said quietly, walking into the living room and making myself known. He turned to me, clearly surprised to see me there, before his face became serious once more.

“Would you mind telling me why I got a call saying that you skipped school?” He asked me, disappointment plain in his tone, “I know I taught you better than that, Little Owl.”

Despite having a completely normal excuse, I couldn't help but feel slightly guilty when faced with my dad's disappointed stare, “I know, dad.” I said, slightly remorseful, “but I promise, I have a good reason for it.”

He gave me a look, “Taylor, there's never a good reason to skip school like that. I told you this morning that if you weren't feeling good, that you could have the main office call mine and I would come pick you up.” He said, shaking his head, “Just… disappearing like you did does nothing but worry me. Especially when you didn't answer the home phone and I had no idea where you were. I was worried sick!”

I grimaced at the worry in his tone. I hadn't known he had called the land line, “I know dad, and I'm sorry. But I promise, just let me explain and you'll understand.” I implored, giving him a pleading expression.

He crossed his arms, and for a moment I worried that he would be unwilling to hear me out. Luckily, after a moment, his expression softened and he sighed, “Alright, Taylor. Go ahead. Tell me why you decided to ditch school and disappear to who-knows-where.”

This was it, this was my last chance to change my mind. To back down and lie and say that I had left school because I was bored or something and accept whatever punishment my dad would give me. I could do what the other Taylor had done and keep my cape career secret from him. Protect him by keeping him oblivious from what his daughter was doing, or at least planning to do.

But I wouldn't. I needed my dad. I remembered how distant we had been in my memories, barely even speaking to each other anymore, and I didn't want that.

So, as he stood there in front of me, giving me an expectant look as he waited for me to explain myself, I squared my shoulders and held up a hand, channeling my magic just as I had practiced earlier that day, “Well… I guess I should start my explanation with this.”

Confused by what I was doing, my dad opened his mouth to ask what was going on, only for his jaw to proverbially hit the floor at what he was seeing.

The living room was lit up by a rainbow of colored sparks emerging from by bare fingers. They flew high into the air, stopping just short of the ceiling, before fading into nothingness as my spell dissipated.

I gave him a nervous grin as I let my hand fall back down, somewhat scared of what his reaction would be, “I’m a cape.”