8.E Wheel
5th of October, 2013
The world Emma knew when she was younger was gone, and she had the feeling that it had left her behind at some point.
She knew why intellectually. She had spent a little over two years and a half living with the motive force behind this change. And for a time, she'd thought that she could handle it. Then what her therapist had been telling to her started to make sense and–
And it turned out she couldn't, not really.
Her modelling career had taken off shortly after Angelfall, but even the fame-by-proxy she'd gotten to enjoy from living in Jacky's vicinity had eventually faded once the younger girl stopped regularly making the headlines by taking Earth Bet's toughest customers one at a time again and again.
Being known for her looks and for being related to the most famous Tinker in the world had gotten stale at some point. Probably because she now knew what true strength looked like, and it apparently enjoyed quietly painting in its room when not spending time with its friend – or more recently, fooling around with its girlfriend, Emma could tell.
Her cousin had never attached any importance to her fame; she just did things because she could and someone had to do it or otherwise they were all fucked. She played ball with the other heroes because it was easier this way and she had some genuinely good relationships with some of them, but despite all of her power, she'd rather just be Jacky than Nictimène.
To someone like Emma, it had been as impressive as it was maddening at first.
Until she finally got it.
Jacky just wanted to live her own life, as opposed to the one other people would've wanted for her.
Meanwhile, she didn't even know what that looked like for herself.
And, well, the realization that someone younger than her had her shits more put together than she did had thrown her off for a long while. She'd quickly abandoned her budding career afterward, and had chosen to focus back on her studies. Anne found herself after only a couple months worth of college, so she'd figured that it'd be the same thing for her now that getting constantly harassed by paparazzi had fully turned into a chore rather than a subject of pride.
Alas, one month into freshman year at BBU, and she can't really lie to herself anymore. She still has no idea why she's studying or what she wants from it, and has been going through the motions because it had been expected of her. Study. Get good grades. Land a high-paying job. Maybe find a boyfriend who sees her for herself instead of just Nictimène's cousin…
Those aren't her dreams, not anymore. When she pictures herself living the same type of quiet life her parents have, she feels cold and numb.
Maybe that's why she had knocked on Jacky's door after dinner this evening, and maybe that's why she just asked the question she had never dared to ask over the past two years and a half.
Either that, or she's looking for a reason to live.
"Of course I can Tinker powers. I mean, have you taken a good look at me recently?" Jacky says with a puzzled air as her mismatched eyes lock with hers, her free hand – sporting the usual paint smudges – gesturing at herself.
Her cousin had grown over the last two years. At fifteen, she's taller than even Taylor had been at her age, now pushing five foot nine. Except that compared to her old childhood friend, the puberty fairy had gone all in and blessed her with curves that would've seen the Emma of three years ago green with envy.
The one of today knows better, and is in fact perfectly aware that the only reason her cousin has yet to develop back problems is her Brute rating. Doesn't stop her from regularly grumbling about 'stupid fairy tale' when she gets reminded of her cup size, whatever that means. Emma isn't clear if her cousin realizes that her assets draw the attention away from everything else.
From the unnaturally thin waistline, or the slight… otherness Jackie started giving off at some point.
"I know you biotinkered yourself," Emma replies, her focus wavering between the younger girl's eyes – one iris warm brown, the other matte gold, and infinitely less creepy than the previous Egyptian-themed version, "But that didn't–" she pauses while taking a short breath, "That doesn't mean you can do it to other people."
A heavy pause falls on the bedroom as Jacky tilts her head slightly to the side while facing her fully, her easel temporarily forgotten.
"Well, I can," she admits easily while crossing her arms under her chest, "Now, what brought this on exactly?"
Emma remains silent for a beat, not really knowing how she should articulate her thoughts, her palms feeling particularly sweaty all of a sudden.
"...I don't have a corona polentia," she slowly starts as she crosses the few meters separating her from the bed to sit at its edge, "I'll never become a cape the usual way, I know that. And I know that you keep an eye on the family and your friends, but…" her fists tighten on her knees, "I'm tired of being a burden. On you, on others, and on myself."
She pauses, then adds.
"I-I don't know what I'd do if I had a power, but I'd like to find out for myself," she admits softly, her eyes dipping to her feet and getting lost in the fluffy carpet, "College is…" she barks a humorless laugh, "Not what I expected, exactly."
"Uncle Alan is going to be pissed if you drop out," Jacky calmly remarks.
"I know," Emma answers, "But it's like I'm on a road, and I have no clue where it's leading me, and I guess I want to broaden my options?" she purses her lips, still looking down, "Not asking you if you could do something would've felt like a failure."
"I see…" her cousin mumbles before falling silent.
The quiet of the room stretches, heavy and solemn.
"I'll do it–" Jacky starts saying.
Emma's head has never moved this fast as she gives the younger girl a wide-eyed look.
"–Under some conditions," the pair of mismatched eyes look sternly back at her, the golden iris softly glowing, "And only because you managed to pull your head out of your ass over the last year."
Emma does not wince, but it is a near thing. It had taken her honestly way too long to acknowledge that maybe Miss Marlow was making some good points about how she approached life. Between that and the constant public scrutiny, the worst of her attitude had been… sanded down.
She could've done without the confidence issues which came crawling back in the aftermath, but beggars cannot be choosers.
"...What would those be?" Emma asks cautiously.
She's not completely dumb, she knows that she's asking for something big here, and has very little to offer in exchange.
"Firstly, if you ever go villain, I'll be taking those back, and I won't be gentle about it," Jacky replies, a stern frown carved on her face, "I handed the pseudo-god masquerading as the strongest cape in the world his ass on a silver platter two years and some change ago, and it's not because I'm not prancing around in the SNOW OWL as often as before that I've stopped upgrading since. If you misstep, you won't have to worry about the PRT. I will be coming for your ass, and you will not like what happens next. Are we clear?"
"Crystal," Emma nods while trying her hardest not to gulp in apprehension.
She already knew that she wouldn't exactly be able to use her potential power willy-nilly so it's not exactly a big surprise, but the intensity of the delivery still unsettled her a smidgen.
"Secondly, this is not à la carte," Jacky carries on, stern attitude still firmly in place, "You don't get to choose which power you get, I do. You'll have to contend yourself with the fact that it doesn't come with the usual boatload of trauma. Don't worry, I'm not going to shortchange or even prank you with this, and I promise you it'll be suitably impressive."
Emma slowly nods at that, not entirely happy with the condition, but not completely adverse to it either. After all, Jacky is right that parahumans don't get to choose, so she can deal.
Maybe. She's not sure. She supposes she'll have to see.
"Lastly," Jacky leans forward, mouth set in a line, "You've improved. A lot. But you still got a right to wrong."
Emma blinks, then her blood runs cold in realization.
"I see that you get it, so I'm not going to pontificate at you any longer than I should," her cousin leans back on her stool before making a dismissive gesture, "Go apologize to tall, skinny, and self-righteous. One that you mean. I don't give a crap if she accepts it or not, that's your commitment and character that I'm evaluating here."
Without another word, Jacky turns back toward her easel, leaving Emma to her own thoughts.
***
6th of October, 2013
Even after all those years, the road to the Hebert household had been a familiar one, except this time Emma hadn't needed one of her parents to drive her to her childhood friend's home. It had left her with a feeling of bittersweet nostalgia that had yet to fully vanish, even after being given dirty looks by no less than three different people in the span of ten minutes.
To say that 'Uncle Danny' hadn't exactly been sparkling with joy when he found her ringing his doorbell shortly after midday on a Sunday afternoon would be putting things mildly. Yet he had still let her in once she calmly explained that all she wanted to do was to apologize in person to Taylor for the hell she had put her through years ago before going on her way.
Naively, Emma had thought that convincing Taylor's dad would be the hardest part.
She'd been wrong.
Being silently stared at by Taylor and her blonde friend – who had yet to introduce herself – from the other side of the kitchen table easily took the cake.
'Dad said you wanted to apologize. Go on, then.'
Two sentences, delivered in a tone just barely warmer than a Chicago winter.
Emma had figured that she wouldn't get a better invitation, so she started talking.
She spoke about the alley, giving a short version of exactly what happened that day and how she met Sophia for the first time.
She spoke about the sleepless nights that followed, and how the other girl had somehow managed to track her down.
She spoke of how her hero at the time had fed her lines and a vision which had helped make her sense of the world after what she nearly went through; a worldview that forbade weakness if you wanted to stand on top.
She spoke of how she felt the first time she saw Taylor after she came back from camp, and why she had felt the need to abruptly cut ties, so certain that she knew how the world worked now.
She spoke of Winslow, and how she'd clung to what little strength she could ascertain, mostly of the social type, and how positioning herself as the freshman's Queen Bee had reassured her.
She spoke of Sophia's needling, of how she had told her that she needed to do more, and how she'd so easily targeted her childhood friend to prove herself.
She spoke of hushed talks going well into the light, of how she had felt proud and powerful to have the ears and trust of a cape.
She spoke of Shadow Stalker's arrest, and how her dad had helped his daughter's friend and savior, and how Sophia's mood had gotten even more acerbic after joining the PRT.
She spoke of how she'd tried to be meaner, tougher, just to be able to reach her ankle, and how she doubled-down on everything she'd been already doing.
She said nothing about the locker.
But she spoke about Jacky, and how she barged into the carefully curated lie that had been her life, and proceeded to casually upend it.
Of Sophia ending up biting more that she could chew against Nightflyer at the time.
Of how a stolen phone – Jacky did come clean to her about it at some point last year – had triggered a chain of events that saw her hero sent to garrison Eagleton.
Of how she'd blamed her cousin for failing said hero, blowing a gasket in such a way that the truth got exposed to her mother, who had known nothing about the alley all along.
Of how she had resented therapy at first, and how it took her years to admit to herself that she did have issues.
Of suspicion and paranoia regarding her too successful cousin while her parents remained willfully oblivious to her weirdness.
Of how the Fallen attack had rattled her worldview once again, and her time at Clarendon, a Queen Bee no more.
Of how Jacky blew up at her in front of her parents the day after the Somerset Incident.
Of her cousin framing her a picture of a battered and bloodied Lung and how it remains on her bedside table after all this time.
Of what it means to live in the same house as the Endkiller herself, while knowing that you could never hope to compete.
Only then did Emma fall quiet, letting the silence in the room stretch for a moment while wetting her lips.
"I went through something nobody should experience in an ideal world," she softly concludes, "And it broke me in such a way that I was blind to it for years. I know it's far too late and you probably can't care less, but I wanted," she pauses, shakes her head, and corrects herself, "No, I needed to apologize to you for what you went through. I was a horrible person back then, and you didn't deserve the crap I put you through because I was feeling shitty about myself."
She pauses, distractedly rubbing her thumb against her knuckles for a moment.
"...Honestly, I don't even know why I told you all of that," she frowns, "But I figure you deserved some context at the very least."
Privately, Emma realizes that this completely one-sided heart to heart had become less about satisfying Jacky's condition and more about making peace with her past at some point.
Knowing her, that was probably the point all along, she quietly muses to herself.
A pregnant pause falls over the room, one that stretches uncomfortably to the point that it feels almost unending. All the while, Taylor remains perfectly still, like a statue carved in sharp edges, in vivd contrast to the blonde girl seated next to her, who constantly looks two seconds away from opening her mouth, and only refrains herself from doing so out of respect for a battle that isn't her own.
Then–
"I don't forgive you," the verdict falls out of Taylor's lips like a guillotine's blade, sharp, cold, and emotionless, "We're past that. Both of us."
A pause.
"All the same," she adds, lips pinched thinly, "Thank you for the explanation."
Silence returns, and Emma slowly nods.
"I'll see myself out," she says while standing up, distractedly reaching for her purse as she does so, gives one last look at the friend she threw aside all those years ago, and whispers, "Goodbye, Taylor."
She barely makes it five meters out of the house that the door bangs open behind her back.
"Hey!" blonde girl calls, and Emma looks at her over her shoulder, "You don't get to feel good about yourself for your lame apology!"
Emma blinks, and leans back on her heels in consideration for a second.
"...But I'm not?" she replies, feeling nonplussed, "It just… needed to be done."
"Oh yeah? For what?" blonde girl shoots back, arms crossed over her chest.
"For Taylor. For myself. So that we can all move forward without constantly looking back." Emma says, before turning away one last time.
***
Emma comes awake with a gasp, her entire body matted with sweat and her heart thundering in her ears.
"–used eldritch deep sea slug juice as a catalyst. That's why the reaction went that fast, otherwise the gene therapy wouldn't be this effective. Though stabilizing it was a pain in the–," in the distance, she barely makes out Jacky's voice as her eyes dart all over the unfamiliar surroundings, coldly sterile, and smelling strongly of antiseptic.
For a moment, Emma feels confused, then she remembers.
She remembers coming back from Taylor's house to her dorm, feeling simultaneously relieved and wistful.
She remembers Jacky teleporting in not even a moment later, before shoving her through a portal while muttering something about 'Riri not getting mad at her this time'.
She remembers getting introduced with a wide-eyed blonde Jacky's age, before getting stabbed in the arm with the biggest, most ominous-looking syringe she's ever seen.
She remembers the pain. So, so much pain.
"See? Told you she was awake!" her cousin steps into view, and Emma's eyes lock with hers.
"That's just–" Jacky's friend quickly follows, an awed expression as her eyes dart between her cousin and her, "It took less than ten minutes! Tops!"
"ADAM is bullshit like that," the younger redhead casually shrugs, before grinning impishly, "Just a bit finicky to work with if you want to do away with the laundry list of side effects."
"Jacky," Emma's voice cuts throught the Tinker talk – it's obvious the blonde is one too, if only because of the excitement practically radiating off her – as she glares at her cousin, "What the fuck was that?!"
"Right," she blinks, "Knew I was forgetting something. Probably should've started with that. Say, take a deep, deep breath, and tell me how you feel."
Emma throws an irritated look her way before closing her eyes to comply.
Following one of her therapist's advice, she takes a breath, holds it, then slowly lets it go.
She feels…
Like death warmed over and on top of the world at the same time, and also like she got handed two blank checks she can cash in at any time.
In short, she feels weird as fuck. And sticky to boot. In fact, she'd really, really like it if she could stop feeling so–
The weirdest shiver ever runs along her spine, and the next thing she knows, her clothes and skin are dry.
Her eyes shoots open.
"Wha–" she boggles in Jacky's general direction.
"You fulfilled condition three, and since I was visiting Riri," she tips her head toward the blonde, whose cheeks color a little for some reason, "I figured we'd get it over with today. She got upset the last time I gave power to someone and wasn't here to see it."
"Of course I did. Playing with powers is my shtick," the blonde petulantly frowns her cousin's way.
"Not anymore," her cousin grins the blonde's way, before turning back to Emma, who finally managed to process what just happened, "Congrats, ye a cape, Ems'!"
"...Really?" she mumbles under her breath, her eyes dropping down toward her hands to look at them in wonder.
She pauses, then looks up.
"...What did you give me, exactly?" she asks, having a rough idea, but figuring that an explanation wouldn't exactly be amiss.
The younger redhead leans forward, a scarlet glint flashing across her exposed eye.
"Potential."
***
8th of February, 2014
By parahumans' standards, Emma's power was weird. The talks she had about Sophia's power with her and what she had observed of Jacky's own later made it rather clear; parahumans invariably get one power, and learn to wring every bit of potential out of it.
Emma's case was different, and Jacky hadn't been leading her on; her power was a potential, one that she had to continuously nurture in order to make it truly impressive.
'Look at it this way,' the younger redhead had said at the time, 'Now you have another reason to stick with College and hit the books with everything you can. And start hitting the gym too, I suppose.'
At first, she'd been annoyed. Then she'd understood that this way, she could still kill two birds with one stone by keeping to her studies. She wasn't wasting her time since she kept refining her power, and her dad couldn't get mad at her because she dropped from BBU on a whim.
She had thought that she had studied hard during her last year at Clarendon when she merely tried to secure good grades.
She'd been mistaken. Now that she had a concrete goal, one that offered continuous rewards as she kept amassing knowledge, motivation had became her middle name.
Only issue is–
"My brain feels like mush," she groans while letting herself fall into her dad's comfiest chair in the living room.
–the task looks nearly sisyphean, and she's constantly exhausted.
"That's why weekends exist," Jacky says, her voice slightly muffled, "To laze around and recharge your mental batteries for the next week of pointless drudgery."
An amused titter follows the comment, and Emma's head lolls to the side to give her cousin the full weight of her attention.
Said cousin looks remarkably peaceful with her head in her girlfriend's lap, a lazy smile on her face as the latter runs a nail along the younger redhead's pointed ear, making it occasionally twitch.
Emma squashes the spike of irritation at seeing the two doing their usual lovey-dovey shtick, letting out a short exhale as she straightens a little in her chair. Louise's presence at her house had been a semi-constant part of her life for the past two years and a half by now. The couple obviously tried to spread their time between each other's house, but the simple fact that Jacky's workshop was here made it so her home became the default.
Despite growing up a looker, Jacky's girlfriend has kept her slightly tomboyish air, but had lost her cornrows in favor of an afro cut at some point over the last year. Emma has to admit that it suits her much more, and the two make for a tooth-rotting, sickeningly cute couple.
She'd also gotten a lot sharper and insightful roughly at the same time, now that she thinks about it.
I wonder what's the story here, she thinks, weren't they having a fight for a few days before that?
"Jacky suggested that you first focus on biology," Theia's voice chimes in, "Did you?"
Emma's focus drops down toward the Coraline Shard's vessel as it sits sprawled on the ground with her head near Jacky's legs and her 'eyes' locked on the TV screen. The power-granting alien had become a fixture of her life too since Angelfall. Hell, her mom had damn near adopted her, and kept trying to include her in their house life for every possible reason. Probably because she found her oddly naive streak touching, if she had to make a guess.
Physically too, Theia had changed, though definitely for the worse in Emma's opinion. The obviously artificial skin and big expressive 'eyes' with scarlet 'X'-shaped pupils weren't jiving with her at all.
She'd asked Jacky why Theia wanted to look like that. Her cousin had rolled her eyes, told her that 'her brain roomie had taken Dell's most annoying habit for herself', and refused to elaborate afterward.
"...I didn't, no," Emma admits with a frown, "I mostly focused on physics."
"Then you're obviously not using your power at its full potential," Louise interjects, eyes locking with hers intensely, prompting her to straighten even further while her cousin lets out a tiny grunt of assent, "Biology should've been your first priority."
"And why's that?" she asks, getting a little annoyed.
"You do not have safeguards, or what you humans call a 'Manton limit'," the alien in their midst explains while looking her way, "With a thorough understanding, you could cut some time away from your mandatory rest periods, increases your knowledge retention–"
"–accelerate your recovery period between training sessions, yada yada," Louise waves the rest of apparently quite the list of things she should've thought about ages ago, "Early game, biology clearly is your king. Once you master it, you can start looking into physics, and you'd have a way easier time of it too."
"They're right," Jacky angles her head a little to speak clearly, "That's why I told you to look into bio first."
Emma flushes awkwardly.
"...I thought this was about biotinkering stuff, and got squicked out," she explains while looking away.
"Ah. Understandable," her cousin nods, "Right after dealing with Riri's enthusiasm, that'd do it. Still, it's not like you wasted your time, you know? You've built good habits in the meantime."
"Now that I think about it, Emma could probably use a good meal plan, one that takes into account shorter recovery periods and increased cognition," Louise pointedly remarks.
Jacky looks away from Emma to lock eyes with her girlfriend as the latter looks down.
A moment passes as they do this thing couples do where they communicate entire sentences with looks alone.
"Riri is better than me at this stuff," her cousin ends up saying with a frown.
"If you give me the numbers, I could do it," her girlfriend calmly remarks.
"None of that," the younger redhead rolls her eyes, before bopping the other girl's nose, "You know this isn't like that, and that she'd be delighted to help."
"I know this isn't like that, but does she?" The retort comes with a raised eyebrow, and a slightly squirming Jacky.
Emma wisely decides not to say anything about what the hell is happening.
In the corner of her eyes, she catches Theia theatrically rolling hers.
"Fiiinnneee," Louise eventually retorts, pouting slightly, "I'll let the biotinker have a go at it."
"Thanks, love." Jacky beams, and the other girl looks away with a faint blush.
And even if conversation drifted away from capestuff afterward, Emma still found a detailed meal plan at every stage of a supposed development in her inbox the day after.
***
11th of September, 2014
The chime of the treadmill snaps Emma out of her fugue state, and she slows down into a lazy jog to properly start cooling down.
Jacky had of course been right. Focusing on biology for a couple months had ended up trivializing her physical conditioning to an almost absurd degree. Feeling barely winded after running at fourteen miles per hour for forty-five minutes firmly put her in the class of Olympic athletes, and then some.
The kicker was of course that this wasn't her power, not truly, but merely a consequence of housing it. Jacky called it the 'Charles Atlas factor', and Emma could see why. Reaching the level of physical ability she had in less than a year, simply by constantly breaking past her limits, accelerating her recovery speed, and doing it again the next day was worth a cape power in itself.
The obvious downside was that her food budget had exploded. She was burning nearly six thousand calories per day due to her increased metabolism, and more often than not got the impression that she was a blackhole for foodstuff.
Finally stepping off the treadmill, her breath and heart rate still as remarkably even as before, Emma casually powers the machine down while starting a series of stretching exercises.
The feeling of looking at a stranger each time she crossed paths with a mirror was getting stronger day after day. She was all toned legs and lean muscles nowadays, a lot like Sophia had been, back when they still knew each other. Except Emma was pretty sure the other girl wouldn't have been able to deadlift two hundred fifty pounds as easily as she did while not having the shoulder width of the average dockworker.
Past-her would've been appalled to see how the curves she used to be so proud of had melted away.
Present-her really liked the fact that her body had become strong.
And her power needed a strong body anyway.
Jacky had given her potential, and she would be damned if she didn't–
"Hey," a voice calls.
Emma blinks, and looks over her shoulder while straightening from her last stretch. Her eyes quickly find the owner of the voice as he leans against a cable row machine with his arms crossed. Casually handsome, short cropped blonde hair, an easy smile, and an appreciative look.
Which, fair, if her current lifestyle hasn't robbed her of one thing, it's how good she looks in yoga pants.
"...Yes?" she says while turning to face the stranger properly.
"You're here a lot, yeah? Not the first time I've seen you around," the easy smile turns a little more winning as he gestures vaguely around, "I'm Jake. And you could say that I got a little curious."
"Curious about what?" she asks archly.
"A few things," he replies with a half-shrug, "But I'd say a name would be a good start. Can't keep calling you 'hot redhead' in my head all the time. Feels a bit disrespectful, ya know?"
Emma blinks once again, feeling taken aback.
"...That has to be the corniest and lamest pick up line I've ever heard," she replies, "Has it ever worked for you?"
"Well, you'd be the first," he concedes, the easy smile turning into a winning grin, "Which would be fine, since this'd be the first time I tried it. Perfect record, yeah?"
Emma can't help it, she snorts a laugh.
"And if it got a laugh out of you, then it can't be that bad," he quips.
"No, no it was that bad. My baby cousin had more game at thirteen than you at…," she trails off.
"Twenty, and ouch! That hurt, right here!" Jake mock-winces while clutching at his heart.
Rolling her eyes, Emma decides to take some pity on the guy.
"Emma," she says.
"Nice to meet you, Emma," the boy smiles.
A pause.
"Say, wanna grab a bite together someday?" he presses right as she was about to leave.
Emma purses her lips while leaning back on her heels with her arms crossed over her chest.
Easy enough on the eyes, solid eight out of ten, could probably do worse to waste an hour when I feel like it, she mentally pauses, then drily adds, or if he gets a little too insistent and needs to be gently let down.
"One day, maybe," she says.
"Nice," Jake's eyes seem to sparkle for a moment, "Well, I'm not going to press my luck, so, see you around, I suppose?"
Emma lets out another snort, shaking her head slightly as she turns away toward the showers.
"See you around, Jake." She replies over her shoulder as a parting shot.
***
23rd of January, 2015
Alright, so, Emma muses while walking down the Bay's streets with a little pep in her step under the artificial lighting of the streetlamps, maybe lame pickup lines had been my weakness all along.
She mentally pauses at that.
Jacky can never know about it, or she's never going to let me live it down, she bemoans.
After three months of semi-regular contacts at the gym she frequented, and faced with the dogged patience of a man her age who apparently knew what he wanted when he saw it, Emma had eventually caved in and went on a date with Jake.
Then a second.
Then a third.
And gods above, the guy kept proving, again and again, that he had absolutely zero game. Zilch. Nada. Sure, he was good looking and had a nice smile and set of arms, but he couldn't flirt to save his life.
But he was training to be a firefighter, and was bluntly genuine in a way that softened her edges.
He wanted to do some good in his life, and Emma…
Emma hoped that she one day could, too. And maybe that's why they had clicked.
Still, the two of them were–
The deflagration takes her off-guard, and she freezes as light blooms in the distance.
In fact, it takes her so off-guard that for a moment, she doesn't know what to do, her flight-or-fight instinct settling on 'deer in a headlight' mode.
Then–
Then she mentally kicks herself in the rear, and wrenches her purse open with a scowl.
It's been over a year since she got her powers, and she did nothing but train with them. If she can't find it in herself to at least go check what the hell just happened – though she has a pretty good idea as to what did – then she might just as well give up right now.
She wanted to see what the grass truly looked like on the other side of the fence. It's high time to put her money where her mouth is!
Five seconds later, she has a bandana wrapped around the lower half of her face and her pair of Rayban firmly tucked on her nose.
She takes a breath, then slowly lets it go as she mentally cashes in one of her blank checks on reality, thinking of vectors, mass, and acceleration–
One - My grip on the ground is absolute.
–then cashes the second while picturing in her mind the internal structure of her inner ear.
Two - I'm hyper aware of my sense of balance.
She takes off in a dash, a punishing clip for someone traipsing around in high heels on streets still slick with melted snow.
There's no stumble, no missteps, as she weaves a blistering pace among the rubberneckers already assembling to see what just happened in perfect Brocktonite fashion. She doesn't bother yelling and asking them to make her way, merely keeping an eye on their path to try to avoid bowling someone over.
When she finally turns in the right street, she finds herself completely unsurprised by what she finds.
Flames are already devouring the third floor of a five story building, hungrily licking at its facade, most of its windows shattered.
Shit, she curses in her mind, at this time of the day, no way the upper floors are empty.
A quick look confirms that the lights are on, and her pace doubles.
She miscalculates a little, and nearly collides with a man running for his life out of the building, a couple of briefcases tightly clutched in his arms.
"You!" she clamps a hand on his shoulder, bringing him to a halt, "Are there any people that you know of trapped in here?"
The man gives her a look mixing fear and confusion that quickly turns into recognition when he sees her makeshift mask.
"Y-Yes," he stammers, "The Doyles and McArty live up, a-and," he swallows, "R-Robertson. The fire– his apartment. Oh god…"
Under her mask, Emma winces.
"Emergency staircase?" she asks quickly.
"The landlord–" he starts saying.
She doesn't need to hear anymore than that. She grew up in the Bay, she knows how that sentence ends.
"Clear the front of the building, and call 911," she clips, "I'm going in."
She barely dodges a family of three as she enters the place proper, her mind thinking furiously about how she's going to solve the fire issue. Too brute of a solution, and she could end up doing more damage than if she had left the fire plays out.
I should've read more about structural integrity, she grouses while reclaiming her checks.
Thinking of combustion, heat, oxygen consumption and oxidation, she cashes in her first check–
One – I am a touch-based pyrokinetic.
–and focus on another aspect of her hearing for the second.
Two – I am hyper aware of my sense of audition.
As she climbs the stairs two by two, the heat stops being an issue altogether.
Won't do shit for the air, gotta have to act quick, she notes while keeping a very attentive ear for any suspicious groan of the building.
Soon enough, she nears the third floor, and mentally pats herself on the back for having practiced what is soon to follow.
'You'll be able to catch lasers with your bare hands' she said, Emma grumbles while going against what her hindbrain tells her is a supremely bad idea and jamming her right hand smack dab in the middle of the flames, and what about my sense of self-preservation, did you think of that, you insufferable gremlin?!
At her touch, the flames still.
Good, now, to pull everything back and away, she reasons while stepping on the staircase once again.
Emma has to admit, seeing the yellow-red stream getting gently coaxed toward her hand as she keeps ascending is a hell of a lightshow.
Coincidentally, hell is an apt descriptive for what she steps into on the third floor.
It takes her less than ten seconds to gather everything back into a neat little ball of raging flames in the palm of her hand.
She can't help but stare at it in quiet wonder for a second, before ruthlessly extinguishing it.
Alright, she nods to herself as she sees a blown open window, the air should be good shortly and–
"You! Are you a hero?!" someone calls from above, and Emma's head snaps toward where she can see a head peeking through the staircase leading to the fourth floor.
For a moment, the urge to cuss the teenager protecting his mouth with a wet rag is very strong; does he have any idea how stupidly dangerous keeping an eye on the ongoing brazier had been?!
"I am," she answers in a clipped tone, "Everyone alright up there?"
"More scared than hurt," he retorts glibly.
"Good. Get them all out of here. The stairs are safe now," she answers while eyeing the lone blown open door of the floor, "I'm going to check for survivors."
She doesn't even slow as she rips the half-hanging door free, her strength plenty enough for the job–
–and mentally falters when she sees what lies beyond, still smouldering.
"Fuck," she swears aloud, "Don't tell me he's a hoarder."
Mountains of trash litter the ground, spread everywhere the eye can see. The air smells of burnt plastic and refuse, and her eyes water behind her sunglasses.
He totally is a hoarder, she bemoans.
Judging the fire dealt with for now, she reclaims her first check, and promptly starts thinking about her relationship with gravity.
One – I'm subject to lunar gravity.
Not the most well-practiced of her tricks – though she did have some fun with it occasionally – but it should help her deal with the hazardous terrain well enough.
Alright, now, where are you? she pays attention to her sharpened hearing once again, and more importantly, are you still alive?
She doesn't hear anything at first.
Then–
A faint cough, deeper in the hoarder's apartment.
"I'm going to hate this, aren't I?" she sighs, before crouching slightly.
The jump that follows sends her far, and a little bit too wide for her taste. She narrowly avoid faceplanting into a pile of 'whateverthefuck', merely stepping into something 'yuck' instead.
Two more jumps and a lot of internal swearing later, she finds herself in what she supposes is the living room – the broken TV is a pretty big clue – her eyes quickly landing on a mass of broken limbs peeking from under a sofa.
Her mouth thins, and she looks back the way she came.
I don't know what it's condition is, but there's no way the first responders are going to be able to reach in time through all of that, she grimly realizes.
Emma steps closer to the victim, her head on a swivel, and quickly finds the nearest window, half-boarded up behind towers of trash because of course it is.
"Fuck this," she says, and reclaims her first check.
She thinks of the air, of the multiple gases composing it, of how it behaves under pressure, everything she can think of. She thinks of how her body moves, the way her muscles shifts, her ligaments moves, and the bones anchoring everything.
And as she swipes her hands across the air in front of her–
One – The air becomes an extension of my body and mimics my every move.
–a titan blossoms at her back.
Well, an awkwardly crouched titan, but still!
"Let's make some way," she grunts to herself, and starts excavating a way out toward the window.
It's awkward. She lacks practice with what admittedly is her strongest move, but also her less conspicuous one. Yet, her 'echo' does the job, and soon enough only the window remains.
Emma purses her lips, and jab a finger forward.
The window, who had so far remained pristine despite the explosion, shatters.
Hooking her finger, she quickly widens it with her echo's help before stepping in front of the opening to better look down.
Her eyes quickly find the ambulance, and she doesn't hesitate with what follows next.
While delicately scooping the poor sod from where he still lays under the sofa with her echo, she reclaims her second check, and thinks of gravity once again–
Two – I'm subject to lunar gravity.
–before stepping off the opening, to a chorus of concerned gasps down below.
There's no reason to, since she slowly comes down with her echo still at her back, the injured man gently cradled in its hand.
"I've got an injured here!" she calls out, and the frozen EMT giving her a wide-eyed look finally shakes his stupor off.
A pause.
Then the crowd of onlookers and sooth-stained residents burst in applause.
Emma doesn't know what to feel about that.
She settles on good for the time being.
***
"Hey, first night out there?" someone calls, and Emma pauses the explanation she had been giving to a thoroughly puzzled firefighter – luckily for her, not Jake! – who just learned that his patrol's presence wasn't exactly needed anymore to look at the speaker.
She blinks in surprise.
Arachne and Insight, the two raising stars of the local Protectorate. Well, until Missy graduates in any case, since she has the two firmly beat in term of raw power.
That said, i'd rather pick a fight with Missy than with Miss All-The-Bugs-Every-Day, she drily comments to herself, sure, I owe her one for the Fallen, but fuck me if her power isn't terrifying.
She could render her skin completely impervious to insect bites, but it wouldn't make the experience any more unpleasant.
"You could say that," she ends up saying after shaking the idle thought away, "I was nearby, heard the explosion, and…"
She pauses.
"And I guess I had to do something about it…" she explains a bit lamely.
"Well, from the looks of it, you did a fine job," Insight hums while letting her eyes roam over the surroundings, "So, you got a name picked already?"
Behind her sunglasses, Emma blinks.
***
"Touch-based reality editing, you'll be able to impose two conditions on everything in range as long as you truly understand it. It's gotta take some work, but eventually, you could even catch lasers with your bare hands before throwing those back at the sender in a kamehameha," Jacky explains with a grin, "So I suggest you start hitting the books, stat."
Emma slowly nods, her mind running miles a minute.
"What is it called?" she asks with a frown.
"Mhh?" the younger redhead tilts her head.
"This power, what is it called?" she elaborates.
"...Well, Cathleen Bate called it New Order," Jacky explains with a shrug, "Since you come up with rules to impose on reality and stuff. Granted, she probably came up with the name when she was four, sooo…"
***
"New Order," she blurts out, freezes, then smiles slightly under her bandana, "You can call me New Order."
***
"Bold choice for a name," a very familiar voice echoes at her back right as Emma closes the door of her dorm, making her yelp in surprise.
"Jacky!" she whirls on her heels to glare at her cousin, who leans against the wall with a lazy grin, "Don't do that! You're going to give me a heart attack!"
"Learn to turn part of your blood into Panacea, you'll get over it," she quips back, tilting her head slightly, her hair parting a little to give a hint at the vantablack bindi throning on her forehead.
Emma asked about it, once. She still has no clue what the younger girl meant by 'redefining unasked for godhood through self-actualization'. She's pretty sure she doesn't want to know; all she cares about is that Jacky has stopped feeling so alien since she started wearing it.
"So, how's the grass on the other side of the fence?" the younger redhead asks lightly.
Emma takes a moment to ponder the same question that has been running through her mind since she walked away from the PRT and other assorted emergency responders.
"I don't know," she admits as she leans against the wall, her eyes lost in the distance, "But I guess I'll find out eventually."
A pause.
"No stopping soon, I take it?"
"Bitch, I just started."
Jacky chuckles, and Emma grins slightly.
"Here," the younger girl throws a giftwrapped box her way, "Take this."
"Alright?" she replies confusedly while quickly shredding the paper after turning her nails into metaphorical razor blades–
–and finds herself slightly puzzled as to why she's holding a new pair of Rayban.
"My 'welcome to the cape scene' gift," Jacky explains lightly, "I liked the sunglass aesthetic enough that you're going to get stuck with it for a long time. I packed some of my scanners and a dumb VI into it so you can refine your rulemaking."
"...Thank you," Emma says softly while carefully putting the glasses away.
"Bah, don't thank me yet, heroing is a thankless job," the younger redhead scoffs, before looking away, "Don't make me regret this though."
"I won't," she swears.
"See that you do," Jacky hip-checks the wall, "And good luck out there, New Order."
In a silent flash of black lightning, her cousin is gone.
And in the solitude of her dorm room, Emma smiles.
I don't know if I found my place yet, she looks at Jacky's gift, but I'll do my best to make it work.