With Great Power: Hard Lessons

The next day, Taylor was sitting bored in class, staring at the front of the classroom and wishing that she was anywhere but there. Her boredom mostly stemmed from the empty seat beside her. Since Emma had so many new toys to play with, she'd managed to talk her family out of going to school today, playing the sick disabled girl and leaving Taylor to stomach the modern education system without anyone to keep her company.

Taylor had a feeling this was retaliation for letting Trainwreck take all of that cool junk they found. Granted, Emma probably would have done it anyway so she could tinker in peace, but Taylor couldn't help but feel like there was a certain deliberate aspect that had been tacked on thanks to their argument, if you could even call it that. Emma wasn't happy, and she was making sure that Taylor could feel it in the prettiest way possible 

Taylor tapped her pencil against the back of her hand. Clearly, this relationship has grown abusive. I should get a new best friend. 

As Taylor debated the pros and cons of abandoning Emma like she herself had been abandoned to this cruel fate, the classroom door whispered open, admitting a late arrival to the lesson. Taylor's pencil clattered to the floor as she locked eyes with the new arrival with a dropped jaw.

“Oh, Miss Hess. How nice of you to join us.” Sophia grunted at the teacher's side remark, ignoring him almost entirely as she trudged in. The girl seemed much more disheveled than the last time Taylor saw her. Her dark skin was flushed and she looked absolutely exhausted, the kind of tired that would make even Taylor wonder if it was worth going to school or staying home to catch forty winks. What happened to her?

Sophia caught Taylor’s eyes and held them for a moment before finally turning to look at their teacher. “I fell asleep in the library last block and nobody woke me up.”

The woman accepted her explanation without question, marking something down on her desk. “You made it just in time. I was just about to mark you absent for the block. Now that you’re here, feel free to grab a seat.”

Of course, instead of moving towards her usual seat, Sophia decided to beeline straight to the desk that Emma normally sat in. She threw her stuff on the floor and sat heavily, sighing with one hand rubbing her tired eyes. Taylor stared at her like she’d lost her mind. Why in the world would she want to sit next to her? Given how their last meeting went, Taylor thought she made it clear that she wanted nothing to do with the other ‘hero’.

Despite sitting next to her, Sophia seemed content to ignore her for the majority of the class, focusing on the lesson while simultaneously trying not to doze off. This close, Taylor could see just how bad Sophia looked. On top of the tired expression, she was also sporting a bruise along the right side of her jaw and a rough scrape along her hairline. One of her hands – the one not holding her pencil – sported bandages that wrapped around her pinky and ring finger.

What happened to her? Taylor wondered, unable to resist glancing at the girl for the tenth time that hour. This time, Sophia actually turned to meet her eyes. They stared at each other for a long moment before a small smirk split the athlete’s lips. She pulled a strip of paper out of her notebook and quickly wrote something down on it before sliding it over onto Taylor’s desk when the teacher wasn’t paying attention.

Taylor looked down, heart quickening as she saw what was written on the sheet.

Bathroom. After class.

Those three words sent Taylor’s mind whirling and she looked back up at Sophia but the girl staunchly refused to look at her again. It seemed this was the only communication she was willing to provide unless Taylor followed along.

Left with no other choice, Taylor folded the paper and put it in her pocket. The sound of crinkling paper was quiet, but she could have sworn she saw Sophia smile when she did it.

When the bell rang an hour later, Taylor didn’t exactly rush out of the classroom, but she didn’t dawdle either. She watched Sophia shoulder her bag and march out the door without a second glance and waited a minute before following after her, easily keeping track of her through the throng of students.

Sophia led the way up to the second floor, right to the same bathroom as before. The meeting was some kind of twisted mirror of what happened back then. The moment the door swung shut behind them and they were sure that they were completely alone, Taylor locked the door and turned towards Sophia who was already waiting with her arms crossed.

“Long time no see.” Taylor said humorlessly as she leaned up against the sink. “You look awful. Did karma finally catch up with you?”

Sophia snorted like the notion amused her. “Not karma, but those self-righteous assholes probably like to think they are. Nah, I ran into a little trouble with the law and had to lay low for a while until they fucked off.”

Taylor raised an eyebrow. “So they finally decided that pinning people to walls with crossbow bolts was taking it too far, huh? Or did you finally mess up and actually let someone die this time?”

Sophia’s expression darkened slightly. “I don’t let anyone die. I just give them a chance to live.”

“Yeah, Emma’s living real well, paralyzed from the waist down.” Taylor shot right back. She wondered if Sophia would be so casual about her messed up worldview if she knew she was partially responsible for Emma’s trigger event. Then again, she was also responsible for Taylor’s and she didn’t seem to give a shit so probably not.

Taylor took a deep breath, calming down before she got too heated as Sophia clicked her tongue. “She lived, didn’t she? I would have stepped in before anything happened to her, even if she didn’t fight back.”

Taylor decided not to point out how Sophia literally didn’t step in until Emma had already gotten shot, pinning the girl with a stare. “I’m not talking about this again. What do you want, Sophia?”

Sophia frowned at the subject change but shrugged. “I just want to clear things up between us. Things got pretty heated last time we saw each other, but you’re still pretty cool. I don’t want there to be any misunderstandings.”

“I’m pretty sure things are very clear. There isn’t really anything else you could bring to the table that would make me think you’re not a terrible person.”

The girl raised her hands in a motion of surrender, though she seemed anything but sorry. “Look, Hebert. I'm not asking to braid each other's hair and talk about boys or whatever, but I’m not going anywhere anytime soon. Let’s just keep things cool between us, alright?”

Taylor wanted to say no, really she did. She wanted to turn Sophia into the PRT and make her actually face consequences for what she did, but something held her back.  She stared at Sophia, before slowly shaking her head. 

“Fine. We’ll call it a truce.” Taylor pushed off the sink and headed for the door. “But Sophia?”

Sophia looked at her, eyes narrowed.

"Stay away from Emma. I mean it.” She said seriously. “And if I catch you playing your little games while we’re outside of school, I’m bringing you in, no questions asked. Got it?”

Sophia didn't answer, but she didn't sneer either. Instead, she seemed to take Taylor’s threat seriously and nodded her head. Satisfied, Taylor opened the door and left her behind.

~~~

The conversation sat heavy on Taylor’s head well into that night. The city lights spread out before her like oil on a canvas, but she could hardly enjoy them through the whirling of her mind and the cold tingling on her skin.

“So she’s actually back?” Thanks to a bit of tinkering, Emma’s voice was crystal clear in Taylor’s ear despite the wind rushing past her.

“In the flesh.” Taylor confirmed with a grunt as she whipped herself around a corner. “She didn’t look good though. I don’t know what she’s been doing since the last time we saw her, but she looked like she hasn’t slept in days.”

 “If the heroes were really on her tail like that, then she probably hasn’t. Still, I guess it was too much to hope she bled out in an alley somewhere. She deserves it.”

Taylor wouldn’t go that far, but she could definitely say she was disappointed that the heroes didn’t manage to catch Sophia. Someone with that kind of worldview was dangerous to have on the street. The fact that someone had superpowers, a crossbow, and a penchant for using it, only made the whole situation worse.

Taylor wondered if she made the right decision, agreeing to that truce with her, but it was over and done with for now. She was definitely going to keep a close eye on her though, that was for sure.

A few minutes later, Taylor landed on a roof across from a dingy pawn shop on the lower side of downtown, gazing at it from across the street. The store was unassuming, the kind of place that only really existed in the background of everyday life. With barred windows, peeling paint, and a sign that simply said PAWN in faded letters that didn't even light up, Taylor doubted more than ten people stepped inside in a week.

Which made it ideal for the sort of unscrupulous activities that she came out to stop.

“Is this the place?” Emma asked, looking through the camera in Taylor's goggles. “Looks old, and like not in the good way. I'd literally never walk in there.”

“I think that's the point.” Taylor muttered. “And yeah, this is definitely the place. Theres a bar across the street and a laundromat next door, just like he said there were.”

“The E88 guy? Are you sure he wasn't just saying shit so you wouldn't lock him in that dumpster?”

“He was already talking about it before I threatened to do that.” Taylor pointed out. “And I wasn't going to lock him in. I was just gonna web him to the lid and close it. He could get out any time he wanted.”

“Hey, I'm not judging! I think it's hilarious and I'm glad I recorded it.”

“Send me the video when you get the chance.” Taylor said as she zipped across the street, landing on the pawn shop’s roof. “How's the view, by the way? Can you see anything?”

“Not really.” Emma sighed. “It's too dark. The streetlights don't reach the roof. How can you see through those goggles?”

“Just used to it, I guess.” Taylor muttered. “Want me to narrate what I'm doing?”

“Please don't.”

“Widow knew that this was the place,” Taylor's voice dropped several octaves into a false baritone that sounded almost childish as she crept forward. “The scum that she interrogated just minutes before couldn't hold up and spilled the beans, a trail of misery leading to this exact spot.”

“Oh my god.”

“He spoke of riches, offered up every pretty thing that came to mind to escape his stinky fate, and she had mercy. But if it turned out the spew coming from his lips were false, then the heroine might have to pay him another visit and remind him why spiders were so feared.”

“You're not even good at this. Like really.”

“Quick as a whip, cunning as a fox, Widow spots her entrance.” Taylor whispered dramatically as she came across a grated vent cover. She gripped the edges and grinned. “Fortuitous. The rust has aged the gates to her quarry beyond repair. It will not resist her strength.” 

Her fingers dug into the vents, pads adhering to the metal through the gloves, and popped it off with a silent shear of rusted bolts. "The path opens, swallowing our daring heroine into the belly of the beast. The air smells of regret and old tobacco."

“I actually hate you.” Emma said, but she was laughing. Taylor giggled as she slipped inside the grate.

"Okay, okay, I'm done." She said as she was swallowed by the darkness.She crawled through the ductwork, her movements silent. She soon reached a wall covering and pushed it aside, dropping soundlessly into the back office.

“Guess he wasn't lying after all.”

It was a stash house, alright. Boxes of unlabeled bricks of what she assumed was cocaine, stacks of cash, basically everything you would expect to find in a place like this littered the room. Grabbing enough cash to fill her pockets, Taylor ignored the illegal, instead rifling through the papers on the desk for anything interesting.

Lo and behold, she found something. Tucked under a ledger was a note with an address scrawled on the back in sharpie.

“Look at this.” Taylor whispered, snapping a picture with her lenses. “Dog fighting ring. It’s close.”

“Are you going to take care of it?

“Duh. It says there's a meeting tonight. There's no way I'm going to let this go.” Taylor said, pocketing the address.

She slipped out the way she came, dropping a quarter into a payphone two blocks away to call in the stash house to the BBPD. Then, she fired a web-line and swung deeper into the city, the wind whipping at her jacket.

~~~ 

The address led to a rough patch of the city, a neighborhood firmly in Empire control, to the point that Taylor spied at least five different skinheads on her way over. The location turned out to be an isolated house surrounded by the husks of several abandoned buildings. She imagined that was the point; no one would hear the noise.

And there was noise. Even from a block away, perched on a busted streetlight, Taylor could hear the thumping bass of music and the roar of a crowd. Light spilled from the basement windows, showing that the ‘party’ wasn't just upstairs.

“There's too many of them.” Taylor said, her voice tight. She counted the cars. “Fifteen, maybe twenty people inside. Plus the dogs.”

“At the low end.” Emma agreed. “Police response time is garbage out here, but if we tip them off now, they might get here in twenty minutes. You can't take that many people by yourself.”

“I know.” Taylor said, shifting her weight. “Give them a call. I'll keep an eye out and… wait.”

It angered her to just sit by and do nothing, but if she rushed in there right now, there chance she'd be able to take care of everyone quietly. The dogs might get hurt, and she couldn't afford that.

Just then, a rusted van screeched to a halt in front of the house. The side door slid open, and a heavy-set man jumped out, dragging a wire cage and a six pack of beer. Inside the cage was a standard poodle. It wasn't a fighting dog. It looked manicured, terrified, shaking so violently the cage rattled. It wasn't there to fight, it was bait.

Taylor’s stomach dropped. A cold fury replaced her earlier decision. “I can't wait.”

“Taylor, no.” Emma barked. “That's a suicide run without backup. Wait for the cops.”

“Look at the dog, Emma! They’re going to tear it apart. I'm going in.”

“Taylor–!”

Taylor pulled out her earbuds, silencing Emma's voice. She knew she was going to catch hell for that later, but she couldn't work with someone screaming in her ear. Taking a deep breath, Taylor launched herself from the streetlight, soaring through the air in a silent arc.

She landed behind the man with the cage just as he hoisted it up. He didn't even hear her. She tapped him on the shoulder and when he turned to look at her, a ball of compressed webbing slammed into his mouth, silencing his shout. A swift sweeping of the legs and another dose of webs, and he wasn't going anywhere.

She made sure he wasn't in view of the house before moving to the dog. It shied away from her in its cage, and her heart squeezed at the sight of its malnourished body. 

“It's okay.” she whispered to the terrified animal. “You're safe now. Stay quiet, and I'll be right back.”

She moved to the house. She didn't use the door. She scaled the siding, fingers finding purchase on the rotting wood, and slipped in through a second-story window.

Inside, the house smelled of beer, cigarettes, and stale pee. Taylor stuck to the ceiling, crawling into the shadows of the hallway, and only a few feet later, a door opened underneath her.

A skinhead stepped out of a bathroom, zipping his fly. He looked up, right at her and seemed confused by her appearance, as if his brain couldn't process the image of a person clinging to the ceiling like an insect. Or an arachnid.

In that second of hesitation, Taylor dropped. She slammed a fist into his solar plexus, knocking the wind out of him to keep him from screaming, before webbing him to the floorboards before the air could reenter his lungs. Webbing his mouth shut, she did him the courtesy of tilting his head to the side to keep his airway clear, then shot back up to the ceiling to continue her hunt.

Room by room, Taylor moved like a phantom, taking out men wherever she went. The music pumping through the floor worked in her favor, as did the amount of alcohol coursing through these mens’ systems. Half of them were barely conscious, and the other half were so plastered they couldn't even tell what was going on.

It wasn't long until she made her way to the bottom floor, and by then, she was feeling pretty confident in her abilities. This whole operation had gone much more smoothly than she expected, and it was shaping up to another slam dunk. 

She dealt with two more skinheads in the living room downstairs before reaching the door leading to the basement. The noise downstairs was deafening – cheering, barking, whimpering, all topped off by the smell of blood wafting up from the stairs just behind the rotten wood. Taylor just managed to keep her composure long enough to empty out the upper floor of the house, before stepping in front of that door to put a stop to this once and for all.

Only before she could even move, the door handle turned and Taylor froze. The door flew open, and she was left staring into a masked face that seemed as surprised as she was. 

The owner was a woman, tall, lithe, and wearing a rugged jacket and with a tanktop underneath. The bottom half of her face was covered by a cage and just underneath it, her neck was a mess of scar tissue, as if someone tried to tear out her throat with their bare hands. She looked surprised to see Taylor standing there, but she didn’t jump or flinch despite their sudden and close proximity.

The two capes stared at each other for a heartbeat that seemed to last an eternity before Taylor offered a nervous smile. “Uhh, pizza delivery?”

Taylor was thankful her muscles were already tense as she sprung backwards just in time to dodge the small, curved sickle that sliced through the air where she had been just a microsecond before. 

The blade nicked the front of her jacket but she thankfully escaped unharmed, soaring across the room to land on the back of a ratty couch, surfing it down to the ground as the other cape stepped fully out of the basement, staring at her with murderous eyes.

Taylor had never met the woman in person before but there weren’t really that many capes who used weapons to fight, much less kamas like those. This had to be Cricket, one of the E88’s capes, which made sense considering this whole operation was run by them in the first place.

Cricket kicked the basement door shut behind her, gazing around the livingroom, clearly looking for her men. She seemed surprised as she caught sight of the two that Taylor had webbed to the ceiling but she rallied quickly, turning to give Taylor a severe look. She held one hand up to her throat, clutching a small black device.

“You made a mistake, coming here.” Taylor almost jumped at the electronic voice that emerged from the device, a distorted semblance of normal speech that almost hurt to listen to. Cricket put the device away and drew a second kama from her belt, holding both weapons loosely as she eyed Taylor.

For once, Taylor was silent as she stood up. Her danger sense was buzzing like a hive of angry hornets in the back of her skull, and she swallowed This was a real villain. Cricket wasn’t like Uber and Leet or any of the grunts she had fought before; she was dangerous. And Taylor was facing her alone.

The young heroine swallowed, plastering a shaky smile on her face. “So you didn’t order a pizza? Cause if not, I’ve gotta take all of these back and let me tell you, my boss is gonna let me have it if I fail another delivery."

Cricket didn't smile at the lame attempt of a joke. She lunged, and Taylor was forced to react as she closed the distance in an instant.

Ducking a kama aimed at her face, Taylor came up in an uppercut that was easily dodged by her opponent. Taylor jumped with the movement, leaping up to the ceiling and immediately pushing off again to pursue the woman as she danced backwards. Cricket sidestepped her tackle and aimed a strike at her back but Taylor’s danger sense warned her in time and she sprang backwards, flipping over Cricket and reversing their positions.

Now behind the woman, Taylor slung a web towards her open back but her jaw dropped as Cricket once again stepped to the side, dodging the web as if she had eyes in the back of her head. “What the–?”

Cricket smirked as she stepped towards Taylor, kamas streaking towards her neck, and Taylor dodged low to avoid a grisly fate. She rolled backwards, popping up a few feet away and eying the woman much more warily. Cricket seemed content to watch her, twirling her weapons theatrically, like she was putting on a show for a crowd. She seemed confident, and that ball of worry in Taylor’s gut grew just a bit bigger.

From there, the fight was a blur of motion. Cricket was fast and almost unnaturally aware, dancing around her attacks and returning her efforts just as quickly. Every time Taylor shot a web, Cricket was already out of its path. Every time Taylor punched, she hit empty air. Cricket flowed around her attacks like water, her sickles flashing in the dim light, and it was only thanks to her danger sense that Taylor wasn’t already dead.

Still, she kept up hope. She may not have been winning, but she wasn’t losing either. She had the rhythm of the fight, the back and forth flow that kept them at a stalemate. All she had to do was push that flow in her favor and it would be over. Just a little faster, a little stronger. Cricket had good reflexes, but she had a cheat code. There was no way she could lose!

Taylor used her environment to her advantage. Her heart pounded in her ribcage as she bounced off the walls and ceiling, using her flexibility and awareness to create chaos as she looked for an opening. She threw whatever she could get her hands on: beer bottles, pool balls, the radio. She used everything available to her to keep the playing field even, and it was working. Slowly but surely, her unorthodox style of fighting was pushing Cricket back. She was winning.

Then, Cricket stopped moving.

And then she clicked her tongue.

It wasn't just a sound. It was more akin to a spike driven directly into the center of Taylor's brain. Her world dissolved. Her vision swam and flipped on its head as the click bounced off of the insides of her skull. Her danger sense, usually her greatest asset, was of absolutely no use as nausea hit her like a sledgehammer.

She stumbled, hands flying to her head. "Gah!"

Taylor only stopped moving for an instant, but that was all Cricket needed to get the opening she had been waiting for. Hot pain flared across her collarbone as the razor-sharp weapon sliced through her flesh just as it was designed to do. Taylor gasped as blood poured out of the wound, soaking into her jacket and ruining it in an instant. She staggered backwards, dazed and confused, and Cricket let her, watching her suffer with gleeful eyes.

“You tried, kid.” She pulled the device out again as she slowly approached Taylor. “If we were in the pit, I'd play with you a little more. But I think I'll call it here.”

Cricket raised a kama to finish Taylor off. Adrenaline surged, overriding the pain as Taylor watched her death approached. She glanced to the side and reached down, grabbing the couch in shaking fingers and slinging it towards the approaching cape.

Cricket danced to the side, as graceful as always, only to run right into Taylor who was being pulled alongside the couch via one of her webs. The woman didn't have a chance to dodge this time as Taylor tackled her at full speed, slamming them both through the nearby window and into the backyard.

They rolled apart in the dirt. Cricket came up limping, her kama lost in the tumble. She looked pissed off that Taylor managed to get the drop on her like that and Taylor's vision doubled again as another wave of subsonic pressure pulsed in her skull.

Suddenly, headlights swept across the yard. Two cars screeched across the grass, ripping up the lawn as they skidded to a halt with the duelling capes in their headlights. Four men in Empire colors poured out, guns already raised in Taylor's direction, and the crack of gunfire broke through the cool night as they let loose.

Taylor leapt into the air and zipped to the roof, ducking back as bullets pinged off of the edges, breaking tile and creating shrapnel as they sought her out. She debated on what she should do now, injured and outnumbered, her prospects weren't looking good.

Taylor swallowed heavily as she realized that there was nothing she could do. The very notion tasted like bile in her throat, but looking at Cricket, who was yelling at one of the gunmen while the rest began to head towards her, and feeling the warm trickle of blood down her chest, Taylor knew she had no choice.

Shuffling away from the edge of the roof, Taylor fired a line to the nearest rooftop and pulled herself towards it. Shouts came from behind her as they realized she was escaping, but by then she was too far away for them to do anything about it.

As she swung away into the darkness, bullets chasing her heels, two police cruisers and a SWAT van roared past underneath her, heading straight for the house.

“They're there.” Taylor panted as she put her earbuds back in. She was swinging erratically, her balance messed up from the wound in her shoulder. “You called the cops.”

“I should have called them on you, you psycho!” Emma practically screamed in her ear. Her voice was shaking, and it just occurred to Taylor that she had seen literally all of that. “I am going to fucking kill you, Taylor Hebert! Don't you ever do something like that again, do you hear me?”

“I had to do something.” Taylor defended. “And I almost saved them. If Cricket wasn't there–!”

“You almost got fucking shot is what you almost did! Get back here right now.”

Taylor landed on a quiet roof a mile away, looking back at the flashing lights. The operation was busted. The dogs would be saved and the bad guys would hopefully be arrested.

But as the adrenaline faded and the deep gash on her collarbone began to throb in earnest, Taylor didn't feel like a hero. She slumped against an AC unit, the taste of copper and failure filling her mouth. She may have helped save the dogs, but this wasn't a victory.

“Yeah.” Taylor whispered, clutching her wound as she prepared for the long journey toward the suburbs. “I'm on my way.”