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3% was the estimate. It was the percentage of people Niers and Lisa expected in Brockton bay to listen to the voice of the system tonight. It was a scary percentage since that would translate to three thousand people waking up tonight hearing the voice telling them they had levelled. Three thousand new not-parahumans.

The number was an estimate and very rough. Niers had greeted Lisa and immediately pulled her into his orbit. He seemed to thrive in the frantic pace of getting a plan created and executing it.

The time was nine PM. Her dad had checked up to make sure that she was sleeping, they had everything ready for the night and were ready to get out.

It was going to be a long night. Taylor got ready.

—

 

“Girls, you know what our plan is, you came up with it therefore I am not going to reiterate it. But I do have something to say even if it is just the three of us.” Niers said as he stared at the two of them getting ready to head out. He himself was petting a bee as he talked. They were in Lisa’s place as they got everything ready.

“It will be fine. I saw the panic in your eyes even as both of you came up with one brilliant idea after another. Not all three thousand of them are going to mindlessly start causing havoc. Most people will ignore it and sleep because the voice comes at the moment between sleep and awakeness. A baker will become a [Baker] and a shopkeeper will be a [Shopkeeper]. Oh, sure there will be bad apples in the bunch but that’s why what we have planned will be important. We will keep the town surviving and not let it fall into chaos, the town will show the world what has to happen when this spreads even further.”

Taylor heard him it was the same argument he had been saying since the beginning but she just couldn’t accept it. It felt wrong somehow.

“I can see neither of you believes in the good of your fellow people, understandable really. But everyone has to believe in something. If you can’t believe in others then believe in yourself. Believe in the good within both of you, and remember that after hearing of the momentous task ahead, both of you chose to be on the frontlines to help stop it. Both of you stepped up.”

Taylor wanted to. She clenched her hands and saw Lisa do too. Desperately trying to believe.

“Because that’s what going to be important, that’s what going to get us through the next few days. Belief. Now let us go” Niers finished.

—

Lisa was the only one among them who could drive, she was driving a van she owned and they were on the way to their first meeting point to meet—important people.

It was a meeting Taylor wasn’t going to since they had decided to split up. She had to trust Niers and Lisa with it. They stopped downtown and let Taylor get off the van. Downtown because of a simple reason.

“This is where we expect the largest number of people to come out and cause issues. You can handle this Taylor.” It wasn’t a question from Niers, it was a statement. He believed in her and she nodded.

“Go on then and remember, Believe.” Niers’s small hands patted her on her shoulders and then he hopped onto Lisa’s shoulders.

Then the backdoor of the van they were in opened and out from it came out every single Ashfire bee her skill had been able to create as a unit. She let them fly away under her control and cover her range.

“Those things give me the heebies.” Said Lisa as she stared at them fly away. They had an important part to play since they had better senses, were large enough to carry everything they will need and had a bunch of other cool things Niers had told her about.

Once she had stared enough at the bees flying away, Lisa turned to Taylor. “See ya, Taylor. Make sure to not leave me alone with the grumpy old man. Take care.“ Said Lisa as she drove to the important meeting.

And then Taylor was there. she stood downtown and let her senses expand to their edges, her range had gotten larger recently without her gaining a [Skill] for that.

She had a backpack on with her new costume but she was in her casual clothes. She walked into a restaurant and ordered a good meal, as her bugs searched for possible [Skill] usage.

She found the first instance, it was a man in a—costume. Taylor sighed and let the bugs create dummy bodies for her near him.

—

She looked through the first body’s multiple eyes at the first ridiculous man. He was just dressed up like a Janitor but with a terrible domino mask.

“And what are you supposed to be?” asked her dummy body from the shadows.

“What? Who?” The janitor asked as he looked around frantically. She had spoken using [Voice of the Hive]

“Holy shit! What the fuck are you?” He screamed. He must have gotten a short look at her body. She then saw him visibly catch himself. “Wait, no I am a hero now. Stay away, villain.“ he said as he brandished a mop against her.

“You are a—hero?” Taylor asked, she wasn’t expecting her first encounter to be with someone who thought of themselves as a hero but she would take what she had been given.

“That’s great news!” Taylor said as she tried to project enthusiasm through her dummy body, she winces as she saw the guy look even more afraid, maybe because the way she had moved the body didn’t look very natural even if she was in the shadows.

She was using the crimson silk to make her dummy bodies look less scary but she didn’t think it was working.

“You know, on second thought, I might not be hero material after all. Good day to you sir villain. I will be on my merry way” Said the probable first [Janitor] of earth bet as he tried to escape.

“Wait. There is—” she started but the man who was walking out of the alley they were in cut her off.

“My powers are very underwhelming. Really. I mean, I can clean dirt faster and can notice hidden dirt and that’s pretty much it. You won’t get any rep or money out of—eating me or something. I swear.” Said the [Janitor].

“I am a Hero too! And I just need your help.” spoke a frustrated Taylor. And when she saw the man stopping in him backing away she continued. “If you just stay I can even explain what’s going on with your powers.”

That made the man pay attention to her.

“Were you the one that gave m the powers? Is it too late to ask for a different power? Because I am fine with being [Janitor] and all but I really want to shoot lasers, you know—”

The man was rambling now but she at least had confirmation that he was a [Janitor]. She did what she had to, she had made him ready to hear what she had to say.

“Look I have to go, one of my other bodies needs my help but take this—” she said as she waited for what she wanted to give him.

“You have to go? I have something to admit, I haven’t even seen your face, Mis. You said you had more on what my power was. Please at least tell me your name.” pleaded the man.

“My cape name is Arachnium. And I am afraid that you will get scared if I come out of the dark.” she waited for the group of moths carrying the item to drop it between them into the light. Then she continued. “Once you are done reading the flyer, please pass the information on to others or post it on PHO.” she said as she disintegrated her current body.

The [Janitor] didn’t seem trouble, there were other places for her bugs were needed.

—

She had found three more cases of [Skill] usage in her range. One was a man who was staring at a plant and making it grow by focusing on probably a [Skill]. She had opted to just have a group of wasps drop the flyer in front of him and fly away. She assumed that he was the first [Horticulturalist].

It was the same case with the shopkeeper who was making things in his shop glow. Probably a [Skill] that let him selectively showcase what was on sale. He was playing around with the [Skill] in glee. It was the look on his face as he did so that made her think that, maybe just maybe this whole thing won’t cause an apocalypse.

She had to still give him the flyer. But the store was locked as he played with it. She decided to go there right after she finished the chicken wrap she was munching on.

Her attention had to be diverted to the third person with a class. She was probably a [Driver] or some other variant.

Taylor assumed that the lady was committing a crime, she couldn’t really tell. The extent of the woman’s crimes was limited to her speeding up in a car and stopping suddenly. Suddenly stopping as in her car would just stop entirely without any inertia no matter how fast she was going. There weren’t other cars on the road as she did it but Taylor decided that she had to stop the lady.

She formed a dummy body in front of the car and walked out into the road. The lady suddenly stopped, she opened her window and screamed at her body before she took in that a crimson mummy was the one stopping her.

“Hey, what’s the big deal—” she trailed off as she took in what was blocking her path.

But unlike the [Janitor], this woman didn’t scream or try to run away. The woman was wearing a paper mask with holes cut in.

“Look mam, you can’t do this reckless driving even if you think you are a parahuman.” She said using her dummy body.

“Says who?” Asked the woman instead of showing the tiniest bit of fear. Taylor had her body express confusion. “I asked says who? I don’t know who you are but I’ve seen Squealer do stupid shit and get away with it, now I am a parahuman. And I have his fucking great power to stop things and it’s my time to get away with it like all the other parahumans used to. Get out of my way or I will run you through red—thing.”

“Mam, please you are not a parahuman, this is a trump effect—” Taylor wanted to say that her [Skill] probably only did the specific case of stopping her car’s momentum mid-drive and wasn’t going to save her from any other problems but before she could, the lady started to interrupt her.

“Nananana….. I don’t wanna hear it. I have a power and I am going to—I don’t know, rob a bank or something. Out of my way.” She said as she started the engine.

Taylor got out of the way not because she was scared of the car running her over but because she didn’t want to make the lady feel like a murderer if she really went through with this plan. Taylor had something else she could use.

—

The lady was surprised to see the car not move after she had told it to.

“What did you do, you mummy bitch?” asked the lady as she got out of her car. “I will show you what it means to mess with Lady Stopper.”

Taylor’s dummy had been gone by the time. She had the ashfire bees pop the tires of the car.

As “Lady Stopper” looked at her popped tiers in dismay, Taylor made the flyer carrying flies drop the flyer on the woman’s car window.

She hoped dearly that the flyer would convince the woman. Knowing that she wasn’t special or really a parahuman should help with that.

In Niers’s evaluation, anyone who went out today would be a fool. A reckless fool. And fools were dangerous, but at this point, no one should have any extremely threatening [Skills].

—

Taylor had left the diner, staying there was enough for her to take in the situation around them, it wasn’t as terrible as she was expecting. She changed into her new suit, black, red (from her crimson fangs) and hastily added blue (just normal blue threads) after Lisa mentioned that black and red would make her look like an empire cape. She liked to also think that her new suit was more heroic looking than the last one.

She walked towards the shop where the man was still playing with his skill. She couldn’t really blame him though, it looked fun.

She reached the store and walked in with the flyer, the door wasn’t locked, she just couldn’t send her flyer team through any of the small entrances because the flyer wouldn’t go through.

The distracted man went stiff as she walked in. They both opened their mouth at the same time,

“Sir, please don’t press the panic button. I am not a villain, not an empire cape.” said Taylor

“Uh, you see I get new shiny candy. No powers here.” Said the Asian man over her.

They both stood there for a moment as they assessed each other’s words. She could see the panic in the other man’s eye.

“Look, I am just here to talk about your powers,” Taylor said. And then quickly added as she saw his hands move to the panic button. “And I meant that in the least threatening way possible.”

“No powers here.” Said the man and Taylor got ready for a challenging conversation.

—

Convincing the man that she had a flyer to show him was not easy but Taylor managed.

“My English reading not very good. Please explain.” The man asked reasonably.

Taylor was already solving problems with other small cases she was seeing in her periphery, namely a probable [Mortician] who was screaming [Remove Stench] while pointing at the dead bodies like a madman and a [Chauffeur] showing off a skill that made cars leave a trail of light behind as it moved to his other friends. She was getting the flyers to be dropped from the team of Ashfire bees who were carrying a bundle of those printed papers and flying around the city.

“Ok, so first of all it’s not a parahuman power,” Taylor said.

“If not parahuman power, then why I do this?” He asked as he lit up an entire stand of snacks in his convenience store.

“It’s called [Skills], you got those, right?” Taylor asked and he nodded. She wondered what language he must have heard it in.

“A lot of people are getting those, we expect everyone in Brockton Bay will get it in two more days.”

Another possible [Skill] user became known in her range. It was a kid around her age that had woken up from her sleep, the kid was speaking out loud [Print Screen] and every time she did a paper would appear in front of her with whatever was on her screen. Taylor was lucky that a moth had seen it and also lucky that her insect senses on average were getting better with her levels.

Taylor decide that the girl would also need another flyer, luckily she could send her bugs through the chimney in this case. Taylor focused back on the conversation.

“Everyone?” Asked the man and he sounded worried. She was happy to learn that it wasn’t just her with the doubts.

“Yeah, everyone, from sweet grandmas to the nazis. That’s why we want you to spread the word as much as you can. Everyone will gain a [Class] that will signify what they are. Like you got I assume a [Shopkeeper].”

“[Shop Owner].” He said with some pride.

“Ok, then [Shop Owner]. Yeah, so you will gain skills and levels when you do something remarkable, by that I mean something difficult to do or just do lots of work.” She said.

“Like?” He asked.

She had to come up with an example but it wasn’t that hard to do.

“Like, you have a very busy day or you manage to sell something really hard to sell. Then you will level up.” Taylor told him and saw him understand.

“And I get more [Skills]?” He asked for confirmation.

She was going to answer when someone else walked into the store. Taylor didn’t notice him because she was already doing seven other important tasks at the back of her mind and didn’t have many insects around.

“Hands up in the air—chink.” said the man in a robber’s getup that had come in.

Taylor calmly turned around to see

“Look, I am not an Empire cape. I am going to change my costume again. Just drop the gun before this could get worse.”

Inside the store, Taylor had a hundred eyes staring at the thug with a gun. She was fairly confident that she could dodge.

“Fucking bitch. I am a cape too. You are looking at the [Thug].”

While it was a surprise that he also had levelled what was even more surprising was that the man had used his own class name as his parahuman name. Especially such an unflattering one. Talk about uncreative.

One of Taylor's bugs picked up on the Asian man hit the panic button. Taylor ducked as the alarms started ringing and the [Thug] took his shot. She activated [Dragonhide Skin] and moved, just as the bugs in the store also started to swarm the guy.

He didn’t get a chance to make another shot before he was down. There was a small voice in Taylors' mind that told her she had to test if a bullet would hurt her with her [Dragonhide Skin] active but she told that voice to shut up.

She had him wrapped up in crimson silk in no time, she loved her [Crimson fangs] unit and always carried a few in his backpack these days.

“Don’t you know parahumans are not supposed to use guns?” Asked Taylor to the downed [Thug]. She decided to not give the guy a flyer for now. She didn’t think he was in the right mood to read not.

She again didn’t notice the next surprise that greeted her as she stood on top of the downed thug. She decided to make it a habit to have scout insects outside even if she was now dealing with—eight important flyer drops in her range simultaneously.

—

About the surprise, that was a Glory Girl smashing through the store doors. It was the first time Taylor was seeing the heroine in person and she did look as glorious as the name suggested.

The gold and white superhero looked at Taylor standing over the downed [Thug] and growled. And Taylor got an inkling of where this was going. Taylor opened her mouth to explain but before she could, an aura descended on her.

It was one of fear, Taylor felt like an insignificant worm standing under the shadow of a bright radiant hero here to punish her for her actions. She felt like—

“That’s a hero—gold girl.” Said the Asian man who was not in Glory Girl’s aura.

Taylor thanked the man for speaking up because if he hadn’t then this would have devolved into a fight she wasn’t interested in participating.

Taylor ignored the voice in her mind slightly disappointed that she wouldn’t be able to test how much punishment [Dragonhide Skin] could take.

“You are a hero? Why are you wearing those colours then? And why did you press the alert button?” Asked glory girl incredulously. Taylor decided that a complete overhaul of the costume was necessary.

“Look, it’s not just black and red, there’s blue too.” Taylor defended herself.

“So you are not an empire cape?” Asked glory girl.

“Nope, I am a Hero and this is a thug that was trying to rob the store when I was in here for—reasons. I took him down.”

“Aha.” She said with crossed arms, still not fully believing her. That was slightly hurtful.

“Just ask the store owner,” Taylor commented, glory girl looked and the owner and relaxed slightly after seeing the man nod.

The nod changed the hero’s whole demeanour she grew a smile on her face and moved closer.

“A new hero, hah. You have to get a new costume, you know that. What’s your name?” asked an enthusiastic Glory Girl.

Taylor did know that she need a new costume but this is all she had. She had thought about wearing a hoodie and the old costume’s pants since now she had her [Dragonhide Skin], but decided against it when Niers told her that [Dragonhide Skin] might have a time limit they hadn’t tested yet.

“Arachnium.”

“That’s a cool name,”

“Not a little villainous?” Taylor asked. She was happy that the man she had on the floor’s face was also webbed up with red spider silk or else she would be hearing racial slurs from him.

“It depends. You were going for some edge, right? If so it’s a good name.” Glory Girl said.

That was good to hear, Taylor was about to share a flyer with Glory Girl when it happened. The thing they had been working towards this whole night.

She was impressed that it had only taken an hour. She would have expected the PRT and the government to be a lot slower.

It was never going to be possible for Taylor, Niers or tattletale to be the ones that broke the news to the whole town.

However, they were also not willing to go to the PRT directly where they would be detained and questioned. Lisa had said that PRT was full of moles and bad actors and Niers had agreed after twisting a ring on his finger.

That’s when the flyer idea was started. It wasn’t just a flyer, of course, they had also posted the same information on PHO and other sites.

All towards one goal. A goal they had achieved.

Taylor stared at the emergency alert on the phone Lisa had given her. Of course, the alert was guaranteed once the cases started appearing. One person in her range had been on a call with PRT since he woke up. There were going to be many other cases which would have let the PRT send an alert anyway.

What they wanted to achieve with the flyers was to ensure that the right information got out and that even if PRT tried to erase some of the information, everything that was truly needed would remain.

She stared at the alert and read it with glory girl who was also reading it. The information on it was—serviceable.

Glory girl looked up from her phone and looked at her.

“Wow, that’s crazy. You think the government was—uh, hacked?” asked glory girl.

“No and you can read more about this in the flyer we created,” Taylor said as she gave glory girl a copy.

—

PRT ENE EMERGENCY ALERT:

This is an important announcement from PRT ENE. An unknown Trump power (powers that affect other powers) effect has been seen spreading around the ENE region. The effect gives the person affected with it minor parahuman powers related to your occupation. Affected people will hear a sound as they fall asleep declaring what ‘Class’ they are and associated powers in form of ‘Skills’. No Master (Mind manipulation) effect has been found within the powers so far.

Please remain calm and collected. PRT ENE will do everything to make sure that you are safe. If you hear the voice please contact PRT hotlines and share what you heard. Refrain from publicly using powers if you gain them till more information is available.

—

 

Forgotten Wings information flyers:

Have you heard a voice announcing that you have gained levels or do you know someone who has? These are not parahuman powers. You are levelling up and gaining [Classes] and [Skills].

What are [Classes]?
[Classes] are what you are. Students will hear that they have a [Student] class, and Doctors will gain the [Doctor] class and so forth. Each [Class] will offer [Skills] relevant to that class as you level up.

What are [Skills]?
[Skills] are small powers that you gain most of the time when you level up. They will be related to your class and will let you do incredible things. Your [Skill] will get more robust as you gain levels.

What do you mean by Levelling up?
You will level up whenever you do something difficult or when you do something for a long time. Levelling up in a class is what gives [Skills].

I don’t want to level up, what do I do?
You can tell no to a level-up. Just think so when the voice presents your levels to you in sleep.

I am not hearing a voice but I want to level up, what do I do?
In most cases, talking to or being in the vicinity of someone who can level will be enough.

How does this spread?
In most cases, talking to or being in the vicinity of someone who can level will be enough.

I want to know more, what do I do?
Visit here for more information:  http://www.securebin.com/p/1df90

I want to help, what can I do?
Spread this information to your friends and family, help them not panic and to get through this.

The classes themselves would not affect your minds.

—