“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.

He smiled slowly, “Let’s see…”

He thumbed through the phone’s menus until he found an email option.  He verified it could send attachments.

Oh boy.

The smart phone in his other hand, he found the web browser and did a search for local high schools.

Ohh boy. Gonna send these messages to the school?

Or maybe all the schools, since you don’t know with certainty which school they go to?

“Hmmm.  What school do you go to?  Arcadia?  No.  Immaculata?  No.  Clarendon?  Nope.  Winslow?”

He felt the slightest of reactions from her.  A hitching of breath, maybe.

Or do that. That works.

And there was nothing she could do to stop it, because the reactions were hers only because they were involuntary.

Nice.

Sophia:  and we cant get in trouble for just listening to music

Emma: ya

Sophia: cant believe you were her friend.

Oof, if Emma does regret her actions, this one’s gonna sting.

I’ve been thinking the same thing for almost a year, though.

Emma: she was lame but not depressing and lame @ same time.

Who do you think made her “depressing”??

Sophia: what did you say to make her cry?  that was awesome.  blew my mind.

Oh wait, this is more recent than I thought. This is after Taylor left her bag behind in 2.4, not the first time her bag got stolen (as described in Gestation).

Emma: (SAVED MESSAGE) crying hrself to sleep for a week?  she told me she did after her mommy died

Sophia:  you r so evil

But did Emma take that as the compliment it was intended as, or did it make her feel supremely shitty?

Emma: ya ya

Sophia: can i use that one on her?  saving that one for posterity btw

Emma: won’t have same bite to it.  brilliant bit was the suprise.  that slow realization abt what i meant.

There are two ways to read this. One is Emma genuinely thinking about how to best hurt Taylor. The other is Emma trying to convince Sophia not to do what Emma regrets doing herself.

Sophia: teach me o master

Emma: lol

Emma: wont be as good but i was thinking of that day.  think i remember musc we were listening to when she got the phone call abt her mom.

Now why would you be thinking about that?

But oh cod, are you suggesting playing the same music during an attack?

Emma: we shld wait a while and then see if she cries agn if we play it in hallways or b4 class.

Whether you take pride or shame from it, Emma, you are brilliantly evil.

Some were inane, others he just didn’t understand.  Then he found one that gave him pause, that confirmed his suspicions about who Emma was.

It seems like Taylor hasn’t told them about her exact relation to Sophia, though she’s let slip that she knows Sophia’s civilian name and what that was. Mixed with how Taylor acts and talks when Sophia is involved, Regent seems to have put two and two together and figured it out for himself.

Emma: what r u doing with her bag?

Ohhh boy, we’re going way back.

And it actually kinda sounds like Emma wasn’t on board with it? Maybe?

Sophia:  am in art class atm.  was thinking i can fill it with paint when teach leaves room.  put it in lost&found.  her art midterm is inside so she might look for it and find it and

Sheesh, always with the art projects.

Sophia: be all yay i found it and then she looks inside and sees its fucked

Emma: lol.

I’m not sure to what extent Emma was on board with what Sophia was doing, but if she wasn’t, she had at least decided to humor the murderous cape whose identity she’d discovered. Given how Sophia reacted to Skitter finding out, that might’ve been a good idea, as far as self-preservation goes.

Doesn’t mean I’m forgiving Emma, but it’s starting to become more understandable.