Steelheart 2 (Patreon)

“Good morning,” Twink Boy said as Amy walked into homeroom class. She just grunted, sending a less than polite gesture his way. Fucking morning people, they could all go and get a rusty anchor shoved up their ass.

Amy paused, staring at the cup some motherfucking, cocksucking, spring heeled, dickweasel left on her desk. She made an amendment to her previous thought. Forget the anchor, that was too good for them. One of Behemoth’s spikes wasn’t quite sufficient, but it was the best thing she could think of. Taking a deep breath to keep from creating a new version of the bubonic plague from the shit she touched every day, Amy grabbed the cup to throw it away, only to pause.

What the shit? She was the only person in the class named Amy. Either someone was fucking with her, despite the… no, no, someone was fucking with her. That was the only possible explanation. Taking the lid off, Amy stuck a finger to see if her power found anything weird. A crap ton of essence of coffee bean, but that was it. Putting the lid back on, she took a sip. Espresso.

Taking another look at the name on the cup, Amy decided that if she ever found out who left their crap on her desk, she;d let them live this time. Next time would be another matter. Less than two minutes later, the espresso was drained, and Amy was staring at the board, waiting for the caffeine to kick in. There was something important that she was forgetting, something she’d been told yesterday but couldn’t remember, because her coffee machine at home broke the other day.

It was only as homeroom ended and the caffeine finally started to kick in that she remembered what the thing was. Twink Boy’s transfer was ‘unexpected’ so Arcadia was running around like a headless chicken and only now had picked someone to give him a tour of the school. And of course, for some asinine, brain dead, mouth breathing retarded reason, they picked her to be the one to give the tour.

The ‘tour’ was basic bitch stuff, bathrooms, library, gym, class organization. It was all the more annoying for his continual stupid smile and sparkly eyes. Didn’t anyone ever tell him that the dopey, eternally cheerful and happy thing only works when it’s done by puppies? Fuck her sideways, even that thought pissed her off. She needed more coffee.

All things considered, Amy thought she was extraordinarily patient with Twink Boy. It was lunchtime, and she’d managed to keep herself from calling him that to his face. He was asking her if she wanted to eat with him, and the only reason she accepted was the fact that if she were to be in close proximity to Dean, with his stupid saccharine sympathy and pity, after the day she'd had, she would end up giving someone chicken pox on their genitals.

“Fine, Twink Boy,” Amy said, causing him to blink. Inwardly, Amy cringed at calling him her mental nickname, but pushed past that and powered on, “So long as we’re not sitting by them.”

He looked to where she pointed, where Dean and the rest of them were sitting. Twink Boy gave her a nod, heading towards an empty table as she went to the front to get something to eat for herself. Carol couldn’t cook worth a damn, Amy was too busy with all the time she spent at the hospital, and Mark was so deep in his depression now that if he was aware enough to tell Amy ‘good morning’ it was a good day.

Grabbing a trap and loading it with a so-called baked potato and a loaf-shaped meat substitute, she made her way over to the table that Twink Boy was sitting at. Sitting down, Amy reached into her bag and pulled out a bottle that had a number of peeling stickers that read ‘TOXIC WASTE’ on the front. Letting out an annoyed breath from her nose, Amy placed the bottom of it against her hand, her hoodie between them to give her a better grip, and grit her teeth as she twisted.

She hated trying to open this thing, but it was the only means she had to make the cafeteria food palatable. It had felt nearly impossible to open these last few weeks, her homemade condiment causing the lid to stick to the bottle like a glue.

“Let me try,” Twink Boy said, reaching over and holding out a hand.

Chauvinistic, pretty boy, effeminate dickweasel, Amy thought to herself as she shoved the bottle into the offered hand, a lot harder than she needed to, but he deserved it. To her supreme aggravation, there was a pop of air as he easily opened the bottle. To her satisfaction, he immediately gagged, his eyes shooting open and beginning to water as the fumes hit him in the face.

“What kind of caustic fucking hellbrew is that?” he asked, all but throwing the bottle at Amy.

Amy snorted, a mix of nostalgia and pain filling her at his reaction. It was the exact same response that Vicky had made when Amy first started bringing it to school. Still, she answered him as she began to drown her lunch in it, “It’s equal parts ketchup and ground horseradish.”

“So like I said, hellbrew,” he shot back, covering his nose with his hand while leaning away from her plate. “Those stickers are well deserved, why would you even consider making such a thing?”

Amy shrugged, taking a bite of the meatloaf, closing her eyes as the fumes from the horseradish hit her sinuses, her power telling her the precise chemical and biological reactions causing the burning sensation. Deep in her mind, from memories that were too old for her to really remember, feelings of safety, comfort, and warmth flowed into her.

After she’d gotten about halfway through her meatloaf, Amy turned to look at her lunchmate, “Sorry about the twink thing.”

He glanced up, swallowing a mouthful of some kind of sandwich, before saying, “You think that’s the worst I’ve been called? That was positively tame, and I’m well aware of what I look like, it’s no big deal.”

No, no he wasn’t aware, Amy thought to herself. But then again, since he’d only started here the other day, how could he? He hadn’t gotten the opportunity to realize what, or rather who, he so strongly resembled.

There was the expected pang, thinking about Vicky. But for the first time in nearly a month, the pain wasn’t quite as sharp, being reminded of her sister’s death.

[hr][/hr]

“I have to say,” I began, even as one of the four gangsters was digging through my backpack. “I’m enjoying Brockton Bay a lot more than New York.”

“We’re holding you at knifepoint and you’re one wrong move from bleeding out in a back alley, and you say you’re liking this more?” one of the other gangsters, this one holding a big bowie knife, asked incredulously.

“I mean, sure, there’s the fact that I’m being robbed by a nazi gang,” I conceded. “And there’s a not insignificant chance that I’ll be dead before I leave, but I’ll still take it over the Teeth.”

“Fucking Teeth,” the gangster to my left muttered.

“I know, right?” I asked, nodding in his direction. “I mean look at me, best case scenario they decide I’m not worth the effort and just kill me. More likely, well, I believe there’s a saying about prison and soap, I won’t be that lucky. No offense to Legend, but I don’t care for sausage that way.”

The last gangster snorted in amusement, the one who’d been going through my backpack finally speaking up, “Nothing, just basic bitch high school shit.”

I shrugged, waiting patiently as they huddled up and began talking amongst themselves. Reaching around, I started scratching at the itch on my back, the damn spot had been driving me crazy most of the day. It started during homeroom, lasted the entirety of the school day, and had stopped once school let out. Only now it was starting up again. The huddle broke up and the gangster who seemed to be in charge turned to face me.

“What part of town do you live in?” he asked, putting his knife back into its sheath.

“Despite my sense of self preservation telling me not to, I can’t help but ask why you want to know,” I drawled, leaning back against the wall of the alley.

“Relax, Funny Man, just trying to figure out which gang’s territory you’re in,” he said with a chuckle. “If it’s in Empire territory, we can put in a word for you and help keep shit like this from happening again. If it isn’t then we can put in some words with some people to keep an eye on trouble for you.”

I blinked, “That is a lot more generous than I was expecting, given my appearance and your gang’s reputation.”

There were chuckles, and the one who’d been going through my backpack said, “Hey, we hate the Teeth as much as everyone else, besides, you think we wanted to…”

What they wanted went unsaid, as the itch on my back got worse at the same time as a black cloud came down from the rooftop into the middle of the gangsters. They screamed and I gave a yelp, my control over my armor slipping.

With a tearing sound, my clothes turned to shreds as the metal plates pushed their way out from under my skin. I shot up in height, just as space went a little… wonky. Seriously, the ends of the alley looked like a dolly zoom, and the area of the fight, the black cloud having morphed into a black clad girl, hurt my eyes to look at.

Three of the four gangsters tried to run, even as the wall across from me went wonky and a green clad slip of a girl stepped into the alleyway, the fourth curling up into a heap on the ground at the feet of the girl in black (a small part of my brain noted that she had an incredible ass, but the overwhelming majority of my brain was trying not to freak out).

I held up my hands, fingers spread to let me use the clawed tips of my armor if needed, my gaze moving between the gangsters and the two capes. I hadn’t had the chance to learn who all the capes in the city were yet, so I wasn’t sure if I was going to have to fight. I’d done the stupid vigilante thing back in New York, but my one and only fight with another cape had me stumbling about half drunk from a human Master, trying to hit her but I may as well have been trying to hit the ground and missing.

The capes used zip ties on the gangsters, before the shorter one dressed in green turned to me, a bright smile on the exposed part of her face, “Hi, I’m Vista, that’s Shadow Stalker. We’re Wards, you can relax.”

“I am ninety five percent sure they were about to let me go before dark and athletic over there jumped in,” I said, the metal of my armor distorting my voice, like it was from a machine. “So forgive me if I don’t trust the two claiming to be Wards yet were the ones to start the fight.”

Greenie sent a look at Peaches (on account of her ass), her posture and body language looking annoyed, before turning back to me, “Fair enough. How about this, I’ll leave you a card, and you can call the PRT later. We’ll get these guys taken care of, then leave you be. Sound fair?”

I didn’t lower my guard, even as Greenie reached into a pouch on her belt and pulled out a business card, placing it on top of my backpack. Peaches didn’t say anything, merely leaning against the alley wall near the entrance, her white mask’s expression of an angry woman perfectly matching her body language.

I had a bad feeling about this, the gangsters knew what I looked like, they knew that I was a cape now because of these two. Something told me that this wasn’t going to end well. The only thing that prevented this from being a complete and utter disaster was the fact that I had my gym clothes in my backpack, so I didn’t have to try to go home naked. I would need to get some new shoes tomorrow though, but today was thankfully a Friday, so it could be worse.