I collapsed on top of a pile of books, and the white-hot pain surrounding my ear was so overwhelming I wasn’t entirely sure if my ear was still being held or not.  A knee pressed against my side with enough force I had little doubt that most or all of my attacker’s body weight was on top of me.  Long fingernails stabbed into my cheek, forcing the skin in between and against my teeth, as my assailant gripped the side of my jaw.

Long fingernails often implies female, though not universally.

It being Bakuda would be ridiculous. Even if she did survive the Interlude, she’s not exactly the type to break out of prison quietly. Taylor would’ve heard about it in the news.

It not only forced my mouth painfully open with the pressure of my cheek against my own teeth, but it pressed my face hard against the pile of books beneath me.   My cry of protest was reduced to an incomprehensible, muffled noise, which became a primal groan as my ear was twisted again, the opposite direction as before.

Whoever this is seems to like twisting ears as an assault tactic.

“Something you should know about me,” Sophia’s voice was dulcet, “The reason I’m such a good runner?  It’s not that I’m driven to win.  It’s that I really, really hate losing.”

Oh hey, it was her.

Well then. Mayyybe antagonizing her wasn’t the best idea after all.

But only in retrospect.

I found the Instructional section and spotted the item I’d come into the store for in one of the stacks on a lower shelf.  Dog Psychology: The Basis of Dog Training.

Oooh, that’s a good idea. Research on that ought to help massively with understanding Rachel.

With minimal experience being around dogs, I needed more information, if I was going to continue relating with Bitch.  I’d known I wanted a book on the topic of how dogs thought & related to others, and I was glad to have found it.

Knowledge is power, or in this case, social skill.

Kind of.

I tucked the book under one arm, then picked up another book on tailoring, as a possible reference for future costume design.  Flipping through it, I wasn’t too impressed.  I checked out another.

My thoughts froze as a hand touched my hair.  I belatedly remembered Brian.

Ah, right, he was going to meet up with her here once he was done.

…pretty much the opposite of what I predicted seems to have happened here – I thought she’d be too preoccupied with composing her explanation to properly focus on the books, but instead she got so preoccupied with the books that she seems to have forgotten to work on the explanation.

I tried and failed to organize my thoughts.  I’d forgotten to plan out what to say to him, and what would he be doing touching my hair?

That’s also a good question. Either he’s being particularly affectionate, or this isn’t Brian.

The latter option is a little skeevier.

I started to turn around, only for the hand to seize my ear and wrench it hard enough to make my legs buckle at the pain.

Well, shit.

Definitely not Brian.

I was shoved over and my body’s weight and momentum weren’t enough to pull my ear free from my attacker’s grip, with the skin joining my ear to my head paying the price.

Owww.

I felt like my skin was tearing, and I couldn’t even scream as my breath hitched in my throat.

😦

So, options:

– Brian. Nope.

– The shopkeeper. Not likely, as Taylor hasn’t done anything suspicious and the attacker hasn’t said anything.

– One of the Harpies. This kind of direct attack doesn’t seem like their style, and the ear grab sounds too advanced.

– An Empire Eighty-Eight member. How would they recognize Taylor? Does the Empire know her civilian identity somehow?

Hm…

The sole occupant of the store was an elderly black man that sat behind the counter, leaning back in a chair with his hands folded on his stomach.  The television played a little too loudly for the store’s old school atmosphere.  Some courtroom show.

The person behind the counter being elderly does not help to dissuade the magic book shop feel.

What he’s doing kind of does, though, just a little.

After checking out the selection of fantasy books in the middle of the store, I navigated my way to the back, keeping an eye on the signs identifying each section.  The Romance section had way too many books in it.  So did Mystery, as far as I was concerned.  Both genres tended to be a little too repetitive and samey for my tastes.

Yeah, I can’t argue there.

As I disappeared behind a row of shelves, the man at the counter called out, gruff, “Don’t be shoplifting because you think I’m not paying attention!”

Not the most trusting of people, eh? Fair enough.

“Alright!” I called back, feeling silly as I said it.  I wasn’t sure how else to respond.

Hehe.

Plot twist: The rest of Worm follows Taylor as she reads The Neverending Story.

In short, as much as I liked his company, liked him, I was glad for the break and the chance to calm down and get my thoughts sorted, so I could handle it when the conversation happened.

Good luck.

The used bookstore wasn’t organized in the slightest.

None of the organization. None of it.

I actually kinda like it being phrased like this instead of “disorganized”. It really paints a vivid picture – “disorganized” implies it’s not very organized, but “not organized in the slightest” is on a whole other level of disorganization.

There was a heavy musty smell, and the racks were organized haphazardly.  There were fantasy books and science fiction both classified under ‘fantasy’, which irked me, and non fiction was one broad category that took up an entire wall.

This store is a librarian’s nightmare.

If there was a system to sort the books, I couldn’t see it, and many of the shelves had books on their sides, stacked atop one another, sometimes two or three layers deep.  Some of the fuller shelves had books stacked on the ground in front of them, requiring careful steps to avoid knocking anything over or stepping on a stray book.

You might want to avoid buying something here, Taylor. This feels like one of those dusty little bookstores that always just so happen to contain at least one or two magical books, for better or worse.

“It does cross a line, yeah.  We’ll have to see how that works out.”

I saw the bookstore to my left, “I guess this is where we part ways?”

“Sure.  I’ll meet you in a couple of minutes.”

Time for some alone time.

…

What if she runs into Sophia again? I feel like Taylor would’ve noted it if she got off the bus in the same spot, but it’s possible she didn’t see it.

Being around Brian was tense, in a way.  I found most social situations awkward, and the only way I could cope was by planning out what I’d say, considering and anticipating everything in advance.  Around Brian, though, I got so flustered and distracted that I couldn’t do that.

Yeah, that’s a bit troublesome, isn’t it.

At least it usually seems to work out alright, even if it doesn’t feel like it to Taylor in the moment.

That led to me feeling like I sounded dumb, created awkward pauses.  It only got worse as I became aware of any of it.  That was where the kiss had been so nice, settling my thoughts and giving me a sense of tranquility for that all too brief moment.

Ah, yes, there it goes – her thoughts are wandering back to that tender moment.

Except things were worse now, and Brian and I had a discussion looming.  Worse, I’d been so focused on not screwing up the dialogue now, in the present, that I hadn’t had time to think about what I’d say in the immediate future.

Oh boy. Yeah, better make good use of this brief alone time, then.

“Word’s out,” Brian spoke to me, quiet.  “If they didn’t know about this already, they do now.”

I nodded without turning away from the screen.  The broadcast changed to show Armsmaster and Miss Militia with a man in a suit and tie, addressing a crowd of reporters.

This is gonna be interesting. The Protectorate now has the information they need to seek out E88 members in their civilian lives, but what will they say about it? Will they use it? Can they use it, legally, not knowing the source of the information?

“We’re probably not going to see anything new here,” Brian whispered to me, “And we can’t hear anything through the window.  We’ll text Lisa, let her know it’s on the news, and she can handle the information side of things.”

Sounds like a good plan.

I nodded and joined Brian in walking away.

“It’s clever,” I murmured, glancing around to ensure nobody was in immediate earshot, “I don’t know if I agree with how the boss went about it, I think it sort of crosses a line, but I can see the reasoning.  Controlled chaos, keeping everyone that matters busy and off-balance so he can advance his own agenda.”

Yeah, that’s true. On top of weakening the Empire, he might be getting the Protectorate to focus on the Empire, and thus the Empire on the defensive on that front too.

Oh hey, it didn’t even occur to me that that last paragraph contained a bunch of new names! Let’s take a look.

Kaiser, Purity, Fenja, Menja, Hookwolf, Krieg, Night and Fog are familiar.

Stormtiger… I mean, their power could involve weather, but I feel like it’s more likely to have to do with the SA, Sturmabteiling. Exactly which power would be involved, I don’t know. Tiger animagus?

Othala… nope, I have no idea.

Cricket, first name Jiminy. Possibly a permanently physically altered parahuman like Newter and Gregor? Or maybe a transformer, like Lung.

Rune. This is actually a completely normal men’s name in Norway, though we say “roon-eh”. I don’t think that’s directly what Wildbow was going for, but the meaning is the same, and I do think this name being in use for a Nazi is related to how the Nazis saw us Scandinavians as part of the Aryan race. As for powers, it’s probably tied to symbols and writing.

Victor… well, that’s a normal men’s name even in English. Doesn’t tell me much, and I’ve already used up my jokes about the “power to win”.

Alabaster is one of those words that I know exist but the meaning of which doesn’t really stick. At least it should be safe to look up, especially if I go straight to Wiktionary instead of googling. Let’s see… huh, it’s a material. Okay? I really don’t know how to parse that with respect to a parahuman power. Alabaster is soft and often used for carving, so maybe their power involves shaping something? Maybe minerals, maybe themself…

The Crusader… sounds like a particularly religious case, and also a soldier archetype. Maybe they look something like this?

…hang on. Well then, here I was pointing out,

in an ask response right before starting this chapter, that the Simurgh was still the only parahuman(?) we knew of with a definite article in the name. Huh, guess that streak’s broken now.

Anyway, powerwise, the Crusader might be able to empower themself (or others?) through faith or something like that.

That might have been the point we went our separate ways, but the grocery store and bookstores were in the same direction.  We walked together, in awkward silence, until we saw a crowd outside a store.

Heh. That awkwardness when you officially split up and then end up walking the same way.

…a crowd, huh? Is it the good kind of crowd, or…?

It was an electronics store, with computers and TVs in the window.  The number of people had reached critical mass and was drawing more onlookers, to the point where it was hard to find an angle where we could see the screens.  At least, where I could see the screens – Brian was tall enough to see over the average person.

Ah, I guess the news outlets are going through with the reveal at the moment. Either that, or they already have and Kaiser’s response is swift and newsworthy.

The images displayed on the screen were the same as the ones I had seen in the email, earlier.  Max Anders and Kaiser.  Kayden Anders and Purity.  The blondes as Fenja and Menja.  The broadcast flickered through all of them: Hookwolf, Krieg, Night, Fog, Stormtiger, Othala, Cricket, Rune, Victor, Alabaster, the Crusader… the list went on.

rip secret identities

The screen shifted to two news broadcasters.  In the top right corner of the screen, there was the usual story of the moment image, showing Max Anders sitting at a table at some event, with a swastika followed by a question mark hovering above him.

Yup.

We’d gotten off the bus at a mall I’d never been to.  It wasn’t one of the ones with any major chains or stores in it, but it wasn’t small enough to deserve the label of ‘strip mall’ either.

Huh, so a decent-sized mall made out of small shops. Sounds nice.

There were more people milling around than I thought there might be, given that it was still mid afternoon; high school students and nine to five employees wouldn’t be out yet.  I realized there were more than a few people in their late teens or early twenties with backpacks and bags.  College students.

I guess this might be on or next to campus, possibly for the same college Brian takes online classes from.

“Next bus going by my place should come in half an hour, but we can stay longer, if you want,” Brian told me.

“What did you want to get?” I asked him.

“Bus tickets and some stuff for breakfast.  This is the closest spot to my apartment that has both.”

Nice.

“Okay.”

“You need anything?”

“Toothbrush, toothpaste, and I was thinking about grabbing a book.”

Sounds like a good idea.

Hm, I don’t remember if Triumvirate was a school book or something Taylor was reading on the side simply out of interest. Either way, this made me think of that book.

“Don’t worry about the toothbrush or toothpaste, I have extra stuff set aside for Aisha when she comes, and replacing that before then is easy.

Ah, nice.

Want to go to the bookstore, and I’ll meet you there when I’ve got what I need?”

“Sure.”

Some time to herself… will she be able to pick a book, or will she be too distracted by thoughts of a certain favor? 😉