Moments of Victory 23 (Patreon)

“Another day in this little hellhole,” Marcus murmured even as he walked out of the school. He was counting the days until the graduation. It had been yet another day of drudgery where he had faded into the background. The heated argument between Empire and ABB thugs made it even easier.

A few weeks left, until he was free of that nonsense.

Technically, he could have just skipped school, but the last thing he wanted was to change his patterns. He was already pushing his luck enough with renting a studio, but that could be explained by some kind of money from his parents.

No, the fewer things he changed, the better.

Luckily, it wasn’t a waste of time. He had spent the whole day PHO, reading every discussion on the local heroes and villains. Their powers, their attitudes, and even their common areas of operation. The last thing he wanted was to be ambushed by one of the players with a troubling attitude. Hookwolf and Oni Lee, in particular, were firmly in the category of to be avoided.

Too bad the battle between ABB and the Empire was getting heated, making their location harder to guess. The Empire had a much more crowded roster, which wasn’t a problem when Lung was around. However, now that he was gone, Oni Lee was the one holding them back.

Through grenades. Lots and lots of grenades.

There was a reason Brockton Bay had so many capes. This town was a hellhole.

Of course, in the situation, there was an implicit invitation, asking Marcus to don a costume and join the pointless battle between many other gangs, like it would change anything. He would be just another name in the mix.

He might — just might — join the fight once he had his limit, or a situation forced him. Before that, he would stay under the radar, observe continuously, and collect powers …

“Speaking of powers. Another order had just arrived,” he chuckled as his phone buzzed. He assumed that it was an email from Taylor. Instead, it turned out to be a message from an unknown number. It turned out to be Taylor, telling him that she would be at the studio soon.

Meaning, she had just purchased a phone.

“Interesting,” he muttered. Coming from any other person, it wouldn’t be worthy of notice. But, Taylor had seemed to be determined not to buy any. He didn’t know the story, but the sudden sense of depression she felt as she said that felt rather final.

The fact that that changed merely in two days implied a major change. It wasn’t just having powers, as she had them for a while. He frowned.

“It looks like the time to put my newest power to the test,” he said, suddenly glad that he had taken the risk the last night. Vista’s power gave him the ability to zoom far better than his camera would allow. An excellent chance to do some recon without entering into Taylor’s range, which was around three blocks as far as he could see.

So, he picked a rooftop about five blocks away just to be on the safe side, and used the zoom to watch her. Taylor was sitting at the table, but even without taking the first photo, he could see that she was tense, which was different than the excitement she showed in front of the camera.

He took a photo, giving himself a glimpse of her emotions. “Alright, it was a good call,” he muttered as he analyzed her emotions. During their last encounter, she had been relaxed. However, that changed.

She wasn’t just stressed, but actually tense, with a lot of guilt mixed in. It was all Marcus needed to confirm that something was wrong.

But, what, he had no idea. He had sent a text telling her that he was having car troubles but already solved, and would be there in fifteen minutes. It was both an excuse for his absence and a bait. Taylor did nothing, but a few seconds later, a blonde girl moved from the back alley and walked to Taylor.

“Fuck,” he muttered as he took a photo, only to get a complicated sense of emotions from the nameless blonde girl. He ignored the emotional chaos easily. While impressive, it was nothing compared to the mess Taylor or Amy represented. What he cared about was a certain tenseness she had been displaying as she talked with Taylor. Clearly, she was there for a reason.

Worse, Taylor gave her no visible signal, making him suspect that she had used her bugs. Meaning, that the blonde girl also knew Taylor’s identity. That was the worst.

“No, that’s not the worst,” he corrected himself as he continued to observe them. As they talked, Taylor’s guilt and alarm had lessened significantly, and the blonde girl had started to develop some kind of headache.

 “Master or thinker?” he muttered even as he continued to observe the effects of their tasks, wishing that he wasn’t limited to visual observation. Still, it was better than nothing.

After a while, he decided that the blonde girl was a Thinker rather than a Master. Or, if she was a Master, her power was more similar to his emotional observation than give-an-order-and-forget kind. A difficult call to make, but observing their emotions in real time gave him a good idea.

The blonde girl was treating the discussion as some kind of puzzle, with frustration and satisfaction in equal measure. Also, the ways Taylor’s emotions had changed was another clue that supported his assumption. Rather than shifting at once with a flash, her emotions, changed only as she spoke, at no point feeling unreal.

“Now, a blonde young woman, famous for talking, why does it feel familiar —“ he started, only to mutter in shock. “Tattletale,” he realized, spending his whole day on PHO already paying off. They weren’t exactly established villains, more of a bunch of small-time thieves.

The kind of contact he might have loved to make if Tattletale wasn’t a thinker famous for discovering secrets that were best left undiscovered, successful enough that there were some people who believed her claims to be a physic. A proposition that scared him. He let out a shaky breath even as he realized one important thing.

If Taylor’s new phone hadn’t spooked him, his secrets would have been revealed.

“I need a variant that power,” he muttered even as he started taking Tattletale’s photos, which was a challenge. Preferably some kind of defensive version, but he would be happy to receive something else.

As he took more photos, he continued to assess their interaction, trying to get a sense of what was going on. Some of the details were not immediately beneficial, like the fact that Taylor had conflicted feelings about Tattletale.

That gave Marcus hope of extracting Taylor easily. She was clearly not happy about being a villain, but there was a lot of guilt mixed in. Unfortunately, while Taylor was stubborn to the point of bullheadedness, she was also extremely easy to manipulate. She was starved of attention.

She had no chance against a Thinker villain. She was prime material for recruitment.

Other details were more important. Like the one that was given to him by Panacea’s power. Whenever Tattletale used her power, her headache was getting worse and worse. A headache that slowly started to escalate to turn her discomfort into pain.

Mean? Certainly, but not undeserved. He timed it perfectly with her emotional fluctuations that most likely corresponded to her power feeding her information, giving her a much worse headache than she normally would.

Amusingly, with that pain, came anger and hatred, both directed at her power. Marcus could understand it. Suffering every time he used his power would have sucked.

To her credit, Tattletale proved to be stronger than he expected, sticking around despite the pain. She must have really wanted to collect information on him. Though, considering none of the heavy hitters with her, it was likely about his relationship with Vicky more than anything else — a secret that Taylor was intimately familiar with considering their last time together.

Too bad for her that, the more she stayed around, the more potential power she was granting to him. He was careful not to escalate the pain too much to prevent her from getting suspicious. In that aspect, the constant emotional connection proved to be useful.

He happily took more and more photos … until his power stopped working. A thump of panic hit him hard for a moment. He found himself breathing hard on a random rooftop, trying to keep himself from panicking.

The panic dissipated once he managed to think. First, of all, the powers he had acquired hadn’t stopped working, which hopefully meant that they were not limited. It was just his ability to acquire new powers that was gone.

“No, gone is the wrong word, depleted is a better descriptor,” he corrected himself, feeling that sensation returning merely a minute later, but it was merely a drop. It required more time to recover. How long, he had no idea.

“A problem for the future,” he muttered when he saw Tattletale finally being defeated by the headache. Only when she retreated to some distance, he went to his car, and sent Taylor another message, telling her to meet with him at the entrance of the building, already thinking about how to confront Taylor about hanging with villains without revealing his knowledge about her identity.

A tough call.