“Yeah!” Aisha added.  Brian gave her an annoyed look.

Oh cod, and her too. Forgot about that detail. I doubt Brian’s gonna like having to let his sister know about that awkward situation.

I looked at him, then looked down at the ground, feeling heat spread across my face.  The flush in my cheeks made the side of my face throb.  I hated feeling humiliated, felt way too many ugly emotions rising in a long-conditioned response, a spark of anger at the forefront of them.

Uh-oh.

Somehow I think Taylor would agree with those of my friends who despise cringe humor.

Stiffly, I replied, “I… let Brian know I was interested in him.  Romantically.  It was the truth.”

“Ahhhh,” Alec responded.

How long do you reckon it’ll take before Alec lets either of them live that down?

Though he does seem to be taking it a bit more maturely than I was expecting for now.

…how about Aisha?

“I knew it!  Totally knew it from the second I saw you at his apartment!”  Aisha cackled.

Pfffahahaha

I stole a glance at Brian and saw his expression hadn’t changed in the least.  When he spoke, he did it with a small shake of his head, “You could have been doing that to get me to let my guard down.”

I mean… just look at how red Taylor is right now. She’s either telling the truth or a fantastic actor.

“I can vouch-” Lisa started to speak.

“Taylor can answer for herself,” Brian cut her off.

Well, there went that way out.

I floundered for an answer.  I got the distinct impression that they wouldn’t be satisfied if I couldn’t provide one.  A knot of ugly emotions gathered in my stomach, building as I felt the condemnation of these people I’d been so close to, not so long ago.

Yeeah, fighting with former friends is not exactly a nice feeling.

Realizing that much gave me an idea.  It wasn’t much, though.

I turned to Brian, “You remember when we were on the way to your apartment, what happened?”

“Which?  That thing with the bully, or-”

After that… Hm. I suppose that could be a pretty good thing to prove the genuineness of her change of heart, as long as it doesn’t get Brian thinking that Taylor was trying to abuse his trust even more.

Bit of a double-edged sword, I suppose.

“After that.  The, um, awkward conversation.”

“Hey, dork,” Alec cut in, “He’s not the only one you have to convince.  You can’t omit details and leave us in the dark here.”

Welp, looks like this is about to get a little awkward… they didn’t tell Alec and Rachel (or Lisa, maybe, but I assume she knows anyway) about what happened at the mall, huh? Which means they’re gonna have to do that now of all times.

He folded his arms, “Is that all you came to say?”

I drew in a deep breath, then sighed, “And I’d like to be back on the team if you’ll have me.  Please.”

I think he might want an apology, Taylor.

I wouldn’t fault him for that.

His eyebrows rose, “I seem to recall you leaving in a huff after our last conversation with Coil.  What’s changed?”

“You have to understand, I was angry at myself as much… more than I was angry at you guys.  For letting that thing with the little girl happen, for not connecting the dots.  But I’ve thought about it, talked to Lisa, and I’m open to talking about it if you’re willing.”

Sometimes we make rash decisions while angry, even if that anger isn’t directed at those it’s taken out on.

“And why should we believe you, in all this?” he challenged me.

Aaand there’s the hard part.

Lisa, you got anything? A voucher for the change of heart?

Barring Lisa and Aisha, every set of eyes on me was glaring.  I climbed to my feet, flinched a little as Bitch shifted position, fearing another attack.  My cheek was radiating pain, like someone was driving a nail into it.  My shoulder didn’t hurt half as much, but it wasn’t exactly fun, either.

“I-I changed my mind after we raided the fundraiser and talked to Coil.  I went home, and when I started thinking about sending that email to the Protectorate, I realized I couldn’t.  It would have meant explaining things to my dad and leaving you guys.  I couldn’t do either.”

Good. Put every card on the table. Face up.

No more secrets.

“That wasn’t all that long ago, and it sounds pretty thin to me.”

I raised my arms, in a bit of a helpless gesture, then let them flop back to my sides.  “It’s the truth.  I’m not good at this, at talking to people or convincing them.  All I can do is tell you how things were from my perspective and hope you’ll see I’m sincere.”

Yeah, I mean, it happening recently is kind of just… a coincidence.

He leveled a serious look at me, “Lisa said you were, and when it comes down to the two of you, I’m going to choose her.  What Armsmaster said made too much sense, and a few of the little things about you suddenly made a lot of sense.”

Ah, yeah, I suppose the reveal would (re)contextualize a lot for you.

“No, I- I mean, I was going to betray you-”

Pfft, Taylor! You really need to collect your thoughts before you get ripped to pieces by the dogs.

“I’m going to fucking kick her teeth in!” Bitch shouted.

“Past tense!” I raised my voice, “I changed my mind!”

I think that was technically the future-in-the-past tense with imperfective aspect. (Apparently, in spite of having “pluperfect” for past-in-the-past, English doesn’t have a better word for future-in-the-past. Seriously, “future-in-the-past” is the term I got off Wikipedia.)

Now let’s see how the Undersiders take this.

Bitch made a deeper noise, low in her throat.  Aisha and Alec approached, which contributed to the loose half-circle of people and animals  around Lisa and me.  Tension hung heavy in the air.

I wonder how in-the-loop Aisha actually is on this whole situation.

“You changed your mind,” Brian didn’t sound as though he believed me.

I guess he doesn’t really have reason to.

“Dealing with Armsmaster?  Realizing what an asshole he was?  It was kind of a wake up call.  I’d already begun to think of you guys as my friends.  And what we were doing, it wasn’t so bad.  Most of our fights were against Lung’s gang…”

I guess that makes 3.4 one of the major starting points for the process leading up to the Decision. Though I suppose she might be talking about 6.6, which is far closer to when it was finalized, she had already started swaying before that.

“She was going to fuck us over!” Bitch shouted.

She absolutely was, yes.

I wonder, has Lisa told them anything about her own awareness of it from the start? Probably not. So what did she tell Brian when he inevitably asked why she didn’t Know and/or tell them about it earlier?

I shook my head, but Bitch and Lisa’s movements left me unsure if Brian had seen.  I called out, “No!  I wasn’t!”

Well, fair enough, not after a certain point.

Brian stepped forward and put a hand on Bitch’s arm.  She scowled but lowered her improvised weapon.

Brian’s got every right to be upset, but I think most of all he just wants to know the truth, and he hasn’t heard Taylor’s perspective on this before, only Armsmaster’s and – to whatever extent – Lisa’s.

He can be harsh, but he’s also fair enough to give the accused an opportunity to make her case.

Besides, she’s being defended by the main “witness” despite that witness saying she was guilty, so there’s gotta be something more to it, right?

Alright, timeout, let’s talk about Imp for a second.

This all recontextualizes Taylor’s comment about meeting Imp three days ago – they didn’t recruit Imp three days ago, they had already done that and rerecruited Taylor three days ago.

Also, if Imp really is Aisha, then that adds a layer of identity disassociation to the comment, in that Taylor actually met her a while back but was specifically talking about meeting her cape identity.

Another implication of the two being the same person is that Imp had her trigger event recently, likely during the Endbringer attack. This fits with the attack also triggering other people and thus giving them multiple powers (as it’s been indicated Imp has). Given that Aisha knew about Grue and the Undersiders, she probably went straight to him when she discovered her power, explaining how she got in touch with the Undersiders and why Grue is okay with her being here along with the team.

Bitch delivered a swift kick to my shoulder, making me grunt and fall flat onto my back.  “Deserved that too.”

Fair enough.

“Point made,” Lisa told her. “Stop.”

“Fuck you,” Bitch snarled.  She pointed at Brian.  “It’s irritating enough that he wants to start giving orders and calling himself our leader, I’m not putting up with it from you, too.  I do what I want, and what I want is to beat her face in.”

I suggest you don’t tell Rachel whose idea it was for Brian to make himself official leader.

Bitch turned, strode to the pile of furniture, and then lifted one of the loose shelves that had been removed from the bookcase.  It was  a piece of wood chipboard about three feet long and a foot deep.  Lisa moved to put herself between Bitch and me and stave off Bitch’s attack.  She turned to Brian, “Hey, a little help, here?”

Yeah, no, Brian has just as much reason to be upset with Taylor as Rachel does. Maybe even more so, what with the romantic shenanigans between them during what as far as Brian knows was Taylor’s plot to betray them all. He rejected her, but her trying at all might make him feel even more that she abused his trust.

Brian frowned, “Why did you bring her here?”

“To talk,” Lisa said.  When Bitch tried to move around to her left, Lisa shifted her position to stay in her way.  I sat up, used my legs and hands to put some distance between Bitch and I.

I wonder if what helped / is about to help Brian agree to take Taylor back in might’ve been / might be about to be (coddamn flashback tenses…) her telling him that she had decided not to betray them by the time of Buzz.

If that was true, I was really glad I hadn’t tensed up.  She was sturdily built and she didn’t hold back in the slightest.  She kicked down the dog gate, and an instant later, her fist connected with my cheekbone to send me sprawling to the ground, my tailbone absorbing most of the impact.

Welp, here we go.

I’d been knocked around by Lung, Glory Girl, Bakuda and even Leviathan.  Some of those guys hit magnitudes harder than Bitch did, but it still hurt like hell.

Yeeah, a hard punch is a hard punch, even if some people punch even harder.

It spoke volumes that while Lisa stepped forward so she could defend me, Grue and Alec didn’t.

About what I had expected, yeah.

The dogs tentatively passed through the open gate, but hung back in deference to their master.

“I-” I broke off mid-sentence – opening my mouth to speak had caused the pain in the right side of my face to come to bear, full force.  “I deserved that.”

Probably the best she can say right now. Good Taylor.

His little sister?  Here?

…ah yeah, I forgot to comment on that.

Shit, she doesn’t happen to be Imp?

Either, it seems Brian has found out about Aisha’s awareness of his powered antics.

Alec was sitting cross-legged on a pile of furniture, a bowl of colorful cereal balanced on one knee.  A long cut ran from just beneath his ear to his shoulder, beneath his shirt.  He was watching a TV that was plugged into an extension cord that hung from the ceiling.

Howdy.

He’d turned my way at the barking of the dogs, and I almost missed him uttering the words, “You gotta be kidding.”

Honestly, this is an entirely fair response. Even if he didn’t have reason to be pissed at Taylor and surprised to see Lisa bringing her back to their place, everything about the way she left the hospital and didn’t come back to them over the next few weeks would’ve suggested to him that it was unlikely she’d never come back, yet here she is.

One of the dogs apparently recognized me, because it stopped at the gate and wagged its tail.  A part of me took that as a good sign.  Then Bitch appeared, immediately wheeling on me, water flying from her damp hair.

Ah, uh, hi there.

Let’s not have round two of 2.8, alright?

She’d probably just come from the shower – she wore loose fitting army pants and a black tank top that had darker spots where beads of water had soaked into it.  A towel hung around her shoulders.  As she saw me, emotion hardened the lines of her face.  Her hands clenched as she strode toward me.  I saw the aggression in her body language, squeezed my eyes shut and tried to relax.  I remembered what Brian had said during our sparring, about how tensing up would only make you more vulnerable.

Taylor is entirely prepared for the fact that Rachel might attack her right now.

I’m not sure the others would be quite as inclined to help stop her this time.