Chapter Text
I tapped my foot as Gladly spoke, the bell couldn’t come soon enough.
“Now.” His voice was smarmy, like a used car salesman, he looked a bit like one too. “I know this isn’t as exciting as capes but this stuff will be on the test, it’s important to understand how the Endbringers have affected the world.”
I let his words wash over me like an annoyingly boring wave, soon enough I realized that I completely zoned out and missed about a minute of his dumb lecture.
A soft impact hit the back of my head and it snapped back in an instant, my eyes met Emma Barnes, who just smirked as she wadded up another ball of paper.
She was a pretty girl, the kind that turned heads when she walked by, with long dyed blonde hair and a more mature figure, it was no surprise that she was a model. There were a few things that detracted from how pretty she was though, mostly the ugly expression on her face and the friends she liked to hang around.
The only thing that kept me from getting up and breaking her nose was my parole and the utter irony of the situation. I still remembered her face, the scared, weak little girl that I’d saved from a group of ABB gangbangers.
Now there wasn’t much left of that weakness, sure, she wasn’t physically strong but she had half of the skinheads in the school wrapped around her finger. In all honesty I should have seen that coming, a pretty white girl gets cornered by some scum that had a skin tone darker than mayonnaise and she groups up with the Nazis.
At least that was how it worked in Brockton Bay, my blood boiled at that. In the past I’d take out some of my aggression by pinning one of those racist assholes to a building but now I’d have to settle with sparing Carlos or something.
I took deep breaths, that was what the counselor that Piggy gave me for all of a month said to do when my temper started to get the best of me. I turned back to Gladly and tried to focus back onto what he was saying.
I could feel Emma’s eye burning into the back of my head, ever since I stepped in when she was berating some girl she’d had it out for me. Thankfully all the times she sent her skinhead goons after me it had been a pretty clear cut story, even with her fancy lawyer dad there wasn’t much that could be done to get me in trouble when a gang of white boys covered in Nazi symbols cornered me, a singular black girl.
I was strong, it was better me than someone else who couldn’t protect themselves.
The tapping of my foot got faster as Gladly droned on about shipping lanes and I glanced up to the clock, there were still a few minutes left before class was over.
A second wad of paper hit me in the back of the head and I tried to keep a cool head, trying didn’t keep me from snapping the pencil that I had in my hands in half. I tried all the dumb anger management techniques I knew but none of them were working at all.
Gladly stopped to look at me for a moment like the useless piece of shit he was, there was a smattering of laughter from the other kids as I reached into my backpack and brought out another pencil. I just had to endure this, if I had to suffer so someone weaker than me didn’t need to then so be it.
Blood was starting to rush in my ears as I ground my teeth, even the threat of having to explain to Piggy why I decided to beat in Emma’s face was starting to be less and less concerning.
“The monkey’s probably roided out of her mind.” Emma was leaning over to whisper to one of her lackeys and that was it.
I stood up, fast enough to push my desk over and faced to turn the bitch, even if I knew I was playing right into her game I couldn’t let that stand.
“You-”
I could see it, it was massive.
Somehow I could tell that I wasn’t looking at the whole thing, that even a fraction of a fraction was enough to be so big that I felt suffocated. It was like a massive kaleidoscope of something, I couldn’t place what exactly, parts of it moved and stayed still at the same time, parts of it grew and shrank simultaneously but somehow it didn’t feel wrong. It was a mass of contradictions that was so much bigger than anything I ever knew, like something awe inducing that also made me feel like throwing up.
And it felt alive, like a writhing, living mass of something that was moving faster than anything possibly should have. I couldn’t even put into words how I knew that, I just did. It was fragmented but connected, separate but whole and out of the corner of my eye, or whatever I was seeing the thing with, I noticed something.
The edges of it, not that I could explain exactly how they were edges, were fraying, little pieces of it were coming undone and leaving the thing as it sped through nothingness. There were thousands of them, fragments of the whole that were shedding off the main mass.
But strangely enough it felt familiar, like a dream I’d already had hundreds of times already, I felt like I knew what was coming next without actually knowing.
One of the uncountable slivers of the thing started to fall towards me, it was wispy, like the fragment wasn’t all there. It grew bigger and bigger but it didn’t feel like a threat, it felt like it belonged.
As it landed feelings hit me, fear so strong it felt like my heart was in my throat. I could swear I could see Steven leaning closer and closer to me, that self-assured grin plastered on his face as he reached out to touch me.
“-ophia! Sophia!”
My eyes flickered open to Gladly’s face hovering above me, instinctually I recoiled, he was too close, he pulled back as I started to feel panic well up in my chest. What I’d seen already started feeling like a dream, I could remember it but it felt far away, like I’d forget it soon.
“Phew, you had me scared for a second.” Gladly gave me a hand and pulled me up from the ground. “You okay Sophia?”
“Yeah… yeah, just give me a sec.” I reached into my backpack and brought out a notebook, before it escaped me I scribbled down what I had seen, it was important, I knew that much was true.
Gladly did that little chuckle thing he always did when he was nervous. “You sure? You seem a bit out of it, do you need to see the nurse?”
“I’m fine Mr. G, just got up too fast, gotta drink some water.” To really make my point I got the bottle I kept in my bag out and took a swig, the cold water did wonders in getting me to snap back to reality.
The rest of the classroom was empty, I glanced at the clock, thankfully I’d only been out for a minute or two. Gladly backed off enough to give me space to breathe but he still seemed worried, not that he’d even care if he didn’t know about my extracurriculars. “Alright, if you say so…”
I picked my backpack up and slung it over my shoulder, I couldn’t be late for my next class again, Piggy’d have my head if I started slacking off in school again. Gladly tried to go after me but with a sneer I scared him off, I really didn’t have the energy to deal with his bootlicking right now.
As I started walking down the hall I noticed something, there really wasn’t that many Empire thugs hanging around, usually I had to glare at at least one of them on my way to biology class.
I soon noticed why, there was a whole blob of them standing around the hallway, led by the skinhead queen Emma herself. From inside one of the lockers there was a pounding sound and muffled screaming.
Hell no, I wasn’t going to let that stand.
I was strong, I could stop this.
“The fuck is this?” I walked forward, pushing a meathead out of the way as I got closer to the commotion. There was a metallic scent in the air, not just the smell of a school but somewhat more intense.
Emma turned to me, the nasty smirk on her face just grew. “Look at this, the monkey’s up from her nap. Sorry, we only have room for Hebert, maybe come back tomorrow.” She really enunciated the slur in the name, all the losers around her chuckled at it.
Right, Taylor Hebert, the only other girl Emma went after as much as me. She’d taken a similar approach but Taylor was weaker than me, where I got angry she rolled over and let it happen. I’d heard a bit of gossip that they used to be best friends, I didn’t put too much stock in them. There was no way a girl could pull that much of a one-eighty, even if she joined up with the Empire she wouldn’t have gone after Taylor just for being somewhat Jewish looking.
“The fuck did you do to her?” I was strong, I could fix this, I had to fix this. As I stepped forward I realized what that weird smell had been, it was blood.
Emma laughed, the bitch had the audacity to laugh. “Just teaching Hebert a lesson, I know it’s hard for you but try to put two and two together, okay?”
“You bitch!” I stepped forward and drew back my arm to start beating the shit out of Emma, I didn’t care about Piggy anymore, Emma deserved it.
The only thing that stopped me was Gladly’s voice. “What’s going on here?”
Cue the crocodile tears from Emma. “It’s Sophia Mr. G, she was going to attack me!” Thankfully I had the bootlicker firmly on my side, being a superhero had to have some perks.
He looked at me and I started to give my side of the story. “Emma and her skinheads locked Hebert in her locker, pissed me off.”
He gave Emma what he probably thought was a disapproving stare, he looked like a kid trying to do one. “Is this true Emma?”
“I didn’t do anything Mr. G, she’s lying!” Emma was still fake crying, thankfully it was kind of hard for her to look like the innocent party when she was standing next to the locker that someone was pounding against from the inside.
Gladly walked forward, covering his nose as he got closer to the locker that Taylor was in but one of the bigger Nazi grunts stepped up to get in his way. “Liam, please step aside, I need to make sure Taylor’s okay.”
“No can do Mr. G.”
My hands curled into fists, things were starting to look like they’d get nasty. Gladly frowned, he tried to push by Liam but the boy shoved back. “That’s it, detention.”
“Oh no, what’ll I do?” Liam and the rest of Emma’s cronies laughed, it was almost like nobody took Gladly seriously at all, who knew?
For a second nothing big happened, I could see skinheads taking knives from pockets and my own fists tightened even further. Gladly may have been annoying but he was weak, I was strong, if things got ugly I needed to act.
“What’re all you kids doing ‘round here, scram!”
That was the janitor, an older man that was built like a brick shithouse with a row of scars across his face and a deep southern accent. Nobody actually knew exactly who he was but he was scary enough that most kids were happy to stay out of his way. Now that an adult that wasn’t as pathetic as Gladly was present Emma and her Nazis scrammed, the hallway was empty soon enough, the only commotion was the slamming on the locker door and the raw yells from inside it.
Gladly glanced at the janitor, a stupid little grin grew on his face. “Thanks for that, could you get the locker open?”
The thrashing inside the locker started to fade, the screams had already begun to go away. Taylor must have been losing consciousness or something. I barely kept myself from shouting at them to hurry up, I knew it wouldn’t help but they were being so useless.
An annoying thing I’d learned from life, people almost never did what I wanted them to when I wanted them to, almost everything was a waiting game. Even if I wanted to get Taylor out I couldn’t do it without completely blowing my cover as a Ward, it was a last resort if for whatever reason the idiot adults couldn’t get the job done.
The janitor grumbled before digging through his pocket and pulling out a key, as he got closer to the locker he had to cover his nose. “Damn, shit smells rancid.”
“Um…” Gladly glanced at me and I swear he was about to tell the janitor to watch his language before he thought better of it.
The bigger man put the key into the padlock keeping Taylor trapped and tugged it open. Almost immediately the girl’s body fell out of the locker and onto the ground alongside a goddamn landslide of bloody pads and shit, it was disgusting.
Taylor was what I could best describe as willowy, about as tall as me but less lean and more skinny, she was always kind of awkward, hunched over instead of standing tall. Her hair, black, long and curly, was matted and covered in garbage, I couldn’t help but wincing at that, I knew from experience that it would take forever for her to clean it.
“I think I’m gonna be sick.” Gladly actually ran off like a coward, leaving me and the janitor alone with an unresponsive Taylor.
I did what I had been trained to do, I checked for a pulse first, she could have had a heart attack or something, I didn’t know. The smell was terrible but I pushed through it, I was strong, I could do this.
Thankfully she still had a heartbeat, next I gave her a once over, she had a few scrapes but nothing that looked life threatening or anything. The only thing that was out of the usual were her eyes, it almost looked like they were shaking or something. If I had to guess I’d say she was in shock.
Once I’d made sure that she wasn’t dying I looked up at the janitor. “Call a fucking ambulance, I think she needs a hospital!”
“Shit, you’re right.” He grabbed a phone from his pocket and dialed the number, he put it up to his ear and I could hear the murmur of the operator responding to the call. “Fuck, I work at Winslow. I’ve got a girl here, she was trapped inside a locker full of bloody shit and isn’t moving… I think she’s fine, she’s got a pulse, right?”
He directed that last question at me, I nodded and he continued. “Yeah, tampons and stuff, the kids who did it are gone.”
I couldn’t keep my foot from tapping again, in a perfect world I’d have pinned Emma Barnes to a wall but I couldn’t do that, I needed to be a good Ward for Piggy or else it was juvie for me.
“Nah, I aint a doctor but she don’t look like she’s hurt too bad. Just real shaken up, not moving at all.” He paused for a second as the operator spoke. “Right then, thanks.”
Then he hung up, for a moment we just stood there, neither of us talking before I snapped at the janitor. “So? What’d they say?”
“They’ve got an ambulance coming, should be here in nine minutes or so.” He sounded much less worried now, like he thought that his whole part in the situation was over.
I guess in a way it was kind of, there wasn’t much that we could do now that the medics were coming. It was still kind of weird to be standing over Taylor’s body, her eyes were still spasming but other than that she was stock still.
I did the only thing I could do to make things better, I knelt down next to Taylor and started to talk. “It’s gonna be okay, you’re gonna be okay…”
I was never the best at giving people support, Dean would probably blow a fuse at how I was handling it but I was trying.
I could only hope that would be enough.