I had been released from the hospital Dad had taken me to as soon as he got home four days after the locker incident. After that, I had another week of counseling and psychologist appointments before I had to return to that wretched school. But the horror of it was tempered by the fact that I am undeniably a cape! I hadn't been able to test my powers too much at the hospital for fear of being caught, but a covert use of Touch of Fatigue hadn't seemed to do anything to the nurse I tried it on. Then again, nurses were probably used to keeping their exhaustion from showing. On the other hand, Mending had been able to repair my hospital gown after I had ripped it, and I was looking forward to testing how much exactly I could fix. Each ability required hand motions and words that had suddenly entered my head in the locker, but I was able to whisper them and still get away with it.

I was able to test my abilities much better once I got out of the hospital. My repertoire of, well, there wasn't really anything better to call them than "spells", included Ghost Sound, which could make as much noise as several people. Oddly enough, I could tell it was fake sometimes, but not all of the time. As far as I could tell, it lasted for 25 feet and could be moved around. Next on my mental list was something called Disrupt Undead, which I guessed would only be useful if I encountered a cape who could produce zombies or something. Mending could fix one object up to 1 lb. in weight (yes, I weighed it. Yes, I am a geek.) I could completely repair wood or ceramic, but only one break in metal would be fixed.

Ghost Sound, Touch of Fatigue, and Mending seemed to belong to one group of spells, and I could use spells from that group as many times as I wanted. Mount and Magic Missile were in the other group, members of which I could only use 3 times daily. Magic Missile blasted magical energy 110 feet (I had to sneak off to the ship graveyard to test one day, under the guise of going for a run.) I never missed something as long as it was visible to me, but I never did any damage to any objects I hit. I had been able to kill a rat, though, so I guessed it was only useful against living creatures. Trying it against larger and larger animals had led me to conclude it was somewhat weak, since I couldn't even kill a stray cat in one hit when I tried. (A fact which I was glad about, actually. I hadn't wanted to kill it.)

Mount summoned a small horse or a pony out of nothingness for me to ride, a fact which totally astounded me, as did its disappearance after 2 hours. I couldn't really practice riding in the city, but I was able to convince my dad to take me into the country and learn to ride horses whenever they got the chance. I felt guilty, since we didn't really have the money for it, but my dad was happy to oblige, seeing it as the first positive hobby I'd had in a long time. Riding a horse was an oddly freeing experience, and I had to admit that it did help my cope with my awful school life.

I also had two other abilities that felt subtly different than spells called Rime Spell and Point Blank Shot. Despite the name, Rime Spell wasn't actually a spell. I thought it might be a modifier for an existing spell-maybe it could make a frosty horse or something?-but it didn't do anything when I tried saying "Rime Mount" and "Rime Magic Missile." Point Blank Shot seemed similarly useless. It sounded like it would be useful for aiming at things nearby, but Magic Missile always hit the target anyway. Maybe it would improve my accuracy with a gun? Maybe these two abilities would eventually be useful, but for now I just had the spells. They added up to a really weak cape, but a cape nonetheless. I estimated I would be ranked a Blaster 1 (for the Magic Missile), Stranger 1 (for the Ghost Sound), and Shaker 1 (for the Mount and Mending), with an effective Mover 0 for being able to summon a horse. All in all, not too great, but I was determined to become a hero anyway.

One thing that took a while for me to get the chance to do was use the Summon Familiar ritual I had the knowledge of, somehow. Research in the library told me what familiars were in the stories of witches, so I had some idea what to expect. The biggest problem I had was that I needed 24 hours to myself. Eventually, I decided to deal with lying and told my dad that I was going to sleep over at Emma's. Leaving early in the morning one day, I snuck into a secluded space in one of the old wrecks in the ship graveyard to perform the ritual.

After 24 hours, some arcane ritualistic stuff that I was still rather surprised that I knew, and the offering up of some money to a fire, a raven flew into the ship. Out of all of the animals that had felt like they would be right for familiars, a raven would seem one of the most natural to be hanging out near me, and I figured it was less likely to spook the horses. "Hi there. I guess you're my familiar now," I said as the raven flew up to me. I extended my arm, and it landed.

"Hello."

I shrieked. "You can talk!"

"Well apparently," the bird said.

"But that doesn't make any sense! You don't even have lips!"

"Didn't you just spend a day summoning me with magic, and you're complaining that I can talk?"

"Well, good point, I guess. By the way, I'm Taylor Hebert."

"Nice to meet you. I'm…well, I guess you're going to have to name me."

"Are you a boy or a girl?"

"Girl."

"Hmm…I think I'll call you Annie, after my mother, Annette."

"Annie. I like it." And indeed, I could feel the raven's satisfaction.

"Huh, that's pretty neat. I can tell you like it." We spent about an hour becoming more acquainted before we walked back to my house, Annie flying nearby so as not to be suspicious.

.

Unfortunately, school that Monday was the same old mess of bullying. I found myself sorely tempted to use my three Magic Missiles against my three bullies, but I knew it would only make them angry, and more to the point, it would out me as a cape. Still, I decided to try something. After Sophia tripped me at recess, I grabbed her ankle and whispered "Touch of Fatigue." As usual, nothing seemed to happen. Sophia kicked me in the head, and I saw stars. I managed to drag myself to my feet and run away.

"Hebert!" Sophia thundered. "You should know by now, you can't outrun me!" But as she tried to run after me, she looked like she was too exhausted to run. "What the hell? When did I get so out of shape?" Sophia muttered. I looked back in amazement, but six seconds later, Sophia suddenly got a new burst of speed and ran after me again. I turned and ran outside onto the playground. Sophia had almost caught me when Annie flew by and crapped in her face. "Gah! Stupid bird!" I snuck off while Sophia was cleaning her face.

During lunch, I retreated to the bathroom as I always did to eat lunch in peace when I felt frustration over my bond with Annie and heard tapping on the window. I quietly got up and let her in, bringing her back to the stall with me. "Thanks for earlier," I said.

"Of course. I could feel you were in trouble, so I had to help out."

"Still, you can't do it again for a while. I don't want the others getting suspicious."

"Okay. Are you sure you can't use any spells against them?"

"Well, Touch of Fatigue might work. It kept Sophia from running for six seconds after I used it, so it should be able to give me a head start. I'm not sure what else I could use without giving myself away."

"What about Ghost Sound? What if they heard teachers talking about busting them?"

"That just might work."

.

The next day in Mr. Gladly's class, Emma, Madison, and Sophia started throwing their usual taunts at me. "Damn. They'd never believe Mr. Gladly would suddenly care now. He's obviously been turning a blind eye to the bullying," I thought. But after thinking a bit, I had a different idea.

"Can you believe they're always tormenting that poor girl? That's so lame," one voice said.

"You'd think they have something to prove," another voice said.

"Hey, you! Leave her alone," a third voice demanded. Sophia whirled around.

"Who said that?" The girls nearby cringed back, frightened. I felt a little pity, but not much; these girls would harass me as soon as the main three were done.

"I swear, I didn't say anything," the girl said.

"Yes, you did!" said another voice.

"Okay, cut this out!" Emma said, raising her voice a little. The volume of people and illusionary voices talking had finally grown enough that Mr. Gladly had to step in.

"Girls, quiet down and return to your seats!" he demanded. The three bullies grudgingly sat down. Sophia gave me a wary glance.

"Uh, oh. Does she suspect?" I wondered. But my worrying was cut off by a wonderful feeling of victory. I basked in it for five minutes before realizing it came with new knowledge. I knew another spell!

Author's Notes:

I fully expect this to be one of my worst stories, since I'm writing it entirely while procrastinating and thus can't be bothered to try very hard. I spent a while describing all the spells, and I'm sorry if that isn't your cup of tea. On the mechanics of Taylor's power: I don't know enough to bother with a lot of character creation stuff, and I'm still debating whether to include metamagic. If this bothers you, just say that since Taylor's power didn't come with a D&D guidebook, she just doesn't realize what options she has. Also, I'm not calculating experience or rolling any dice, and nobody has a set hit point total. That said, I'm trying to make it slightly reasonable, for instance more important enemies will be harder to take out than random street thugs and will be required to level up at higher levels. If anyone actually cares enough to correct something, comment and it's possible I'll eventually get around to fixing it.

Taylor is a Pathfinder sorcerer with the Arcane Bloodline, mostly because it makes her a much more viable cape than just a bog-standard 3.5e sorcerer. Infinite cantrips will help, as will the guaranteed bonus spells, which mean that despite my random spell selection for her, she'll still get at least a few good ones. I'm keeping the number of spells per day from non-Pathfinder, though, since it's more spells and will give her a better chance. (And I have no plans of actually going to an endgame scenario, but if I did, Wish would be extremely important for letting Taylor have a fighting chance.)