Prologue
Late December, 2010

"Emma, I can't, seriously. They'll figure it out in no-time and then it's off to juvie for me," Sophia said.

"Really Soph? You're chickening out? Weren't you the one that told me to be strong and not to back off? It's just Taylor, she's too pathetic to actually tell anyone." Emma replied

Sophia sighed. She'd tried explaining it to Emma, but the redhead just didn't understand. Sure, Sophia was a parahuman, meaning there was very little normal people could do against her. The problem was that Armsmaster and Nostradame were also parahumans, and would most definitely figure out what she'd done almost immediately, somehow.

"I… I can't Emma, you'll have to figure out some other way to do this bullshit because I'm not putting my ass on the line just because you want to prove yourself. The bitch doesn't even fight back, why are you still trying?"

"Fine, alright, I get it. The wards are making you into a pussy. Woop-die-doo." Emma replied.

"Easy for you to say, you don't have the fucking sword of Damocles hanging over you." Sophia said.

Chapter 1
*** Locker Girl ***

Metal surrounded me, and I could barely see. Just a tiny stripe of light came through the top of the locker door. It wasn't enough to help me find some way out of this hell, only to show me just how disgusting the inside of this locker was.

The slick whet slime, the bugs, it was horrible, and I could barely breathe. This time, the trio had gone even further than usual. I could still hear Emma's laughter, Madison's cheers, all the useless onlookers, doing nothing. The bruises I'd gotten from the jocks that had pushed me in hurt, but not as much as the betrayal. I was truly at my lowest point here.

*** She who sleeps in classrooms ***

Gladly droned on and on. CUI this, fall of communism that, trade patterns this, Leviathan that. It was boring, more boring than most of his speeches.

Worst part was how much Emma and Madison kept giggling, being oh so fucking happy with their little ploy. No, scratch that, the worst part was that she wasn't even involved, but Nostradame would probably still go tattling to Armsmaster for some fucking reason, trying to convince him it was my fault anyway.

About an hour now. That was how long Taylor had been stuck in her locker. Although someone had probably let her out already.

Whatever, it wasn't her problem, and she had nothing to do with it.

Suddenly, she stood outside her body, floating between endless stars. Two great shapes of crystal folded in and out of each other, slowly losing parts of itself. She felt herself get launched away, towards a pale blue-green thing. She landed, bonded, and met one of her sisters.

[Query?] her sister asked.

[Information] she obliged.

"Miss Hess, I know this subject isn't very interesting, but please try not to fall asleep!" Gladly droned.

Sophia looked up from her desk. Strange, she didn't remember falling asleep. What had that thing been with the crystal shapes, with her sister? She couldn't quite remember.

*** She who is falsely accused ***

"Seriously Sophia, you had to know we'd find out." Nostradame said with that smug little smile of her fucking face.

"The fuck is it now Lisa?" she replied.

"Seriously? You don't even know do you? Or is it just that you do know, but it could be one of multiple different things we figured out," Lisa said.

Sophia wanted to punch her, the little twat. Always thinking she was better than everyone else, and running to daddy when it turned out she wasn't.

"Oooh, interesting. Seriously, if you don't want me to know how guilty you are, maybe don't do anything wrong?" Lisa continued.

"I didn't do anything and you know it you fucking liar!" Sophia shouted.

Lisa started laughing, "Oh my, and you actually believe that don't you? Seriously, even Piggy is furious this time."

"I didn't even fucking do anything!" Sophia yelled back. "I literally didn't!"

"Yeah, whatever, anyway, Piggy wants to talk to you, or rather, yell at you." Lisa replied. "And do try not to piss her off too much she's bound to have a heart-attack one of these days."

Sophia walked away, steeling herself for whatever had pissed off Piggy this time. It couldn't have been yesterday's thing with Taylor, right? She'd kept herself out of it, literally not doing anything. Still, knowing Piggy, she'd find some way to twist that into things being her fault anyway, even if every single other person in school did the exact same fucking thing.

As she entered the tinker-tech elevator, she punched in the number of Piggy's floor, the button itself automatically detecting her fingerprint. There was some talk of installing an eye-scanner instead, but Nostradame had argued that that would overly compromise people with unwieldy masks, so this had been the compromise. Sophia grabbed her mask, and put it on. There was no reason to show her face to Piggy, no reason to her what she thought of her.

How had she figured it out? Had someone at the school tattled? Had Taylor actually gone to the police for once? Or was it just Nostradame and her fucking mind-reading or whatever the fuck her power was?

Sophia thought back to the day before. First, at the start of the day, Emma had thrown Taylor into the locker. Then, when they walked past on their way out after Gladly's class, she wasn't in there anymore, having somehow managed to kick her way out or something. No-one had seen her, so she'd probably chickened off back home.

But if she'd gone back home early yesterday, and then, presumably, reported what had happened, then why wouldn't Piggy been angry yesterday instead? It didn't make any fucking sense. Not to mention the fact that she hadn't actually done anything, but they just presumed she was guilty anyway.

Her thoughts were broken up by the little ding of the elevator as it reached her destination. She walked out, and made her way to Piggot's office, past all the useless little drones in their useless little suits. She saw that the door to the office was already open, and she made her way inside, where Armsy and Piggy were waiting for her.

"Shadow Stalker, how about you take a seat?" Piggot said, motioning towards the shitty plastic chair she had there for guests.

Sophia changed into her breaker state, walking through the chair before changing back and sitting down, saving herself a precious second or so of bullshit. Armsmaster just looked at her angry, presumable. She couldn't actually see his eyes through his visor. The man actually had his Halberd with him. Which didn't mean anything, because he always had it with him. Still, it looked menacing.

"Shadow Stalker, I'll let you know, once again, that we have been very lenient with you. All you needed to do was keep yourself to two very simple rules. Do you remember what those rules are?"

"Can we just skip to the part where you tell me what I did wrong this time?" Sophia asked flippantly.

"Just two rules Shadow Stalker, just two of them. First of all, no going out in costume without either a fellow ward or a member of the protectorate accompanying you. Secondly, you stick to your tranquilizer bolts unless there is no other option." Piggot said.

Sophia thought for a second, trying to remember when she hadn't kept to those rules. They were, of course, far from the only rules she had to obey if she didn't want to go to fucking juvie, but Piggot liked ignoring stuff like that. Nuance kept her from monologue-ing properly, and she was basically a supervillain

When Sophia didn't reply, Piggot kept yelling. "So please tell me why I got a report that, just last night, you dropped down from the sky, broke someone's bones in seven different places, and then ran off without calling it in? Used to be you at least used a burner to call an ambulance, so you obviously knew you weren't supposed to do what you did. So what, did you think I wouldn't figure it out if you just ran off without telling anyone who you were? There's only one cape in town that can turn into shadowy gas and that's you!"

Flustered, Sophia spoke up. "Wait, what did I do last night?"