He walked her through the front door, felt rising anger and worry from his host.

That anger and worry peaked when a young man, nineteen or twenty, stepped from the living room to the front hall, heading towards the kitchen, and saw her.  The man stopped and stared.

Boyfriend, perhaps? One who is unaware of Shadow Stalker’s cape identity, maybe?

“Mom!”  He shouted.

A tired looking middle-aged woman entered from the kitchen, holding a four-year old girl in her arms.  Regent had grown up around lots of kids.  He liked to think he was a good judge of ages.

Or maybe he’s Sophia’s brother?

That said, it seems a bit unlikely that Sophia’s parents don’t know she’s a Ward… though unlike someone like Dennis, Sophia didn’t start out as a hero. Maybe she refused to let the PRT inform her parents?

The woman stared at Shadow Stalker, then turned, “Terry, take your sister upstairs.”

“But-”

“Now!” the woman barked.

Whatever the case is, these people don’t seem to be very happy about seeing Shadow Stalker. Maybe it’s because of her reputation, or maybe there’s more to it.

But also, Terry was one of the people on Sophia’s contact list, so there’s clearly some relation.

Thirty-five, thirty-four, thirty-three.  It was a residential area.  The houses here weren’t in the best shape, and a lot of houses had trash or belongings in the yard.  Thirty-three Stonemast avenue had a toddler’s toys sitting on the front lawn.  The hedges between the property and the neighbors was overgrown, and the tree at the front of the property looked dead.

Not the best-looking of places, huh.

It might have seemed deserted, but someone had taken up the effort of picking up the detritus the tidal wave had brought in and piling it at the front corner of the lawn, by the driveway.

Never mind, it looks wonderful!

Her movements were more awkward, now.  Her reflexes were slower, her balance worse.  Activating her power was becoming a chore, a slower, harder process.  Above all, it required more of his attention.  He had his Regent-self put his headphones in and turn on some music.

I guess they’re done at Brian’s place.

It was an excuse to ignore the others, and to have his attention elsewhere.  They weren’t at their destination yet.

Ah, fair.

Shadow Stalker reached Stonemast avenue before Regent, Tattletale, Skitter, Imp and Grue got to Coil.

Well, at least we know where we are on the timeline.

It was funny, but with the route they were taking, if the timing was a little different, the group could have theoretically crossed paths with Shadow Stalker.

Hah, yeah. That would’ve been something.

At least his control was improving as the gap between them closed.

That’s helpful.

He hopped down from the railing as he reached the end of the bridge.  He commented,  “Don’t think she bought it.”

If it turns out Sophia is ambivalent about that…

Sophia tried to respond, and for the first time, she almost succeeded.  The distance between Alec and Shadow Stalker was too wide, now.  It would only get worse.  He could feel it in his other body, too.

Ah, right.

“Let’s see,” he grinned, raising the smart phone.  Her hand shook as she held it.  “Ooh, maps.”

Oh boy, what can he do with those…

The map application still showed the last route Shadow Stalker had requested from it, detailing directions from a point in the south end of the Docks to a place downtown.

“Thirty-three Stonemast avenue.”

Again, that slight reaction from her that told him he’d found something.

So what about that location? Is that the start of the route, possibly Sophia’s home?

“That got your attention.  Let’s go pay a visit.”

He set the phone to display directions from their current location to Stonemast avenue, and then he ran once more.

Welp, time to go fuck up someone else’s impression of Shadow Stalker, I guess.

“I needed to talk to someone,” he spoke.

“…Are you hurt?  What happened?”

“Nothing.  There was this brawl at the headquarters, Dragon showed up, but that isn’t what I wanted to talk about.”

Yeah, chances are decent that Emma might hear about that through other means, so might be worth acknowledging it.

Regent held his breath, waited.

“Seriously, you’ve got me worried.  You’re making it sound like this important thing, and you woke me up at ten past three in the morning, so it had better be important.  Dish.  Explain.”

On top of the time of the call, Regent is being a little too polite and sensitive-sounding, since he doesn’t know how Emma and Sophia usually talk when they’re not texting. It ends up sounding just slightly out of character to Emma – not enough that Emma goes “oh, this isn’t Sophia”, but enough that warning bells go off. OOC is serious business, as they say over in trope land.

“I’m lonely.”

Emma’s voice rose in pitch, irritated, “Seriously?  That‘s your issue!?”

Maybe Regent is doing it on purpose, though. Trying to break down Emma’s (apparent) image of Sophia as this cool person who gives no fucks.

He resumed his whistling as he hopped up onto the railing of a bridge and walked atop it.  He dialed Emma, felt a mild reaction from his host: Annoyance with a note of anxiety.

Ah, there we go. Time to fuck things up for Sophia a little more.

Emma picked up on the fourth ring.  “What the fuck soph… what the fuck!?  It’s three AM!”

Ahaha, I forgot how late it was.

“Terribly sorry,” Regent tried to sound convincing, but it came out sounding sarcastic.

Yeah, that’s not something I can imagine Sophia saying unless it’s incredibly sarcastic.

“You said you’d call me hours ago, to give me a recap.”

Well, the patrol… ran a little long.

“I’m sorry,” Regent didn’t trust himself to pull off a sincere apology, so he lowered her voice to a hush instead.

“What’s going on?”

Yeah, what’s up, Regent Stalker?

So here’s a theory:

Whatever is giving people powers is doing it in order to equip them to fight whatever force is coming up, hastened by Jack Slash. Something knows that a deadly metaphorical storm of global proportions is coming, and while that something can’t fight this thing itself, it started preparing humanity for it by empowering them to fight it.

When he’d added that email to the list, he added another line:

contacting police to make sure something is done

Damn.

Just try to get out of this one, Sophia!

He sent the email.

He felt an explosion of rage from within Shadow Stalker’s body.  Her hands even shook with it.  He laughed, and her anger mixed with his amusement to create something that sounded unhinged.

Wow, yeah, that’s one hell of a combination.

Probably was, when he thought about it.  She had multiple personalities, in a way.

On top of each other.

He stepped from the roof, and waited until the last second to use her power.  Her body exploded into a cloud of shadows.  As she pulled back together, he felt a strong discomfort.  Not quite pain.  In seconds, she had condensed back to her normal form.  The pain his hosts felt was something distant.  It didn’t bother him half as much. He couldn’t be sure if it was because he instinctually prevented it or if it was something else.

I mean, it makes sense that it’d be like that if the power is meant for combat.

Hm, that gives me an idea.

“Awesome.”  He searched for the web site for Winslow High School, and whistled tunelessly to annoy Shadow Stalker as he found the teacher’s emails.  He began painstakingly entering them into the recipient field.

On the civilian phone, right? The one that probably still has numpad typing? That was such a pain, I don’t miss it at all.

When he’d done that, he began the process of attaching the texts to the email.  It would have been mind-numbingly dull if it wasn’t for that gradually building sense of trepidation he was experiencing from his gracious host.

mwahaha >:)

He typed out a message for the email itself:

found phone.  stuff inside is concerning.  thought u should see what ur students r doing.

Nice, that gets around the issue of the teachers wondering why Sophia would send this.

Her thumb hovered over the button that would send the email.

“Nah,” he decided.  He felt a wave of relief from his host.

oh my cod regent

And then he presses it, once the relief sinks in a bit?

That relief swiftly faded as he turned her eyes to the smart phone and searched for Brockton Bay’s police force.

Oh boy.