Let's Play a Game - Chapter 15

The sounds of Emily's rushed footsteps echo across the cargo bay as the Merchant-looking cape turns to flee. Before she's out of sight, I immediately Observe her.

Name: Emily Dawson/Spitfire
Title: Homeless Cape
Profession: N/A
Faction: N/A
Sex: Female
Class: Blaster
Level: 8 EXP: N/A
Age: 15
Race: Parahuman

HP: 476/500 MP: N/A

STR: 9
VIT: 10
DEX: 18
INT: 15
WIS: 8
LUK: 5

Status: (Starvation) (Malnourishment) (Caffeine Withdrawal) (Depression) (Minor Contusions) (Exhaustion)

Starvation? Depression? What?

Biography: Emily Dawson grew up with a very jovial father and a strict perfectionist mother. Her father, a stay-at-home parent, focused on the well-being of his family over himself, always making sure his daughter took her vaccines and went to the doctor every year while making sure his wife kept up with her pills. Through his efforts, the family had a healthy and loving relationship with one another. He passed away when Emily was eight of a heart attack.

Emily's mother was not crushed by depression. She instead went cold and numb. The one person that had brought some light into her life was gone. The warmth died with her husband, and she couldn't help but blame him for abandoning her. Every time she saw her daughter she couldn't help but think of her husband. But there was no comfort there for her, only a painful reminder of the past. Eventually, she began to emotionally abuse her daughter.

Emily was put through impossible standards. She had to do a household's worth of chores, make straight As, and excel in her forced extra-curriculars. Emily tried to grin and bear it. She tried to emulate her father and be that person who no matter the occasion was always nice, but it didn't help her. No matter how hard she tried she slipped: A B on a test, a lost volleyball game, not enough hours spent volunteering at the local hospice. All of these "failures" and "shortcomings" ended with her enduring her mother's hour long tirades on how she has a horrible worthless daughter who can't do anything right. Emily never talked back. She held it all in because she knew her mother was in pain. She couldn't yell back to the person who's more broken than she was. But the abuse took its toll: Emily started to crack.

In one of the worst tirades after Emily failed a test, Emily panicked. She tried to run away. Her mother interdicted her and stood between her and the front door, all the while screaming at her. Emily reached a limit she did not know she had, and exploded. Emily for the first time yelled back at her mother… but words didn't come out of her mouth, liquid fire did. In her horror, Emily ran away from home, leaving her mother behind: her screams of beratement transformed into ones of agony.

Oh my god…

Emily has been on her own ever since, making do with sleeping in whatever hidden place she can find. She chose a ship in the boat graveyard as her most recent abode, planning on using her power to keep the chill of winter away. Waking up from a noise coming from the bowels of the ship and despite her best judgement, she decided to investigate in case someone was in trouble. She is currently regretting that choice and running away, afraid of a Cape she believes to be a new member of the ABB and even more afraid of getting into a fight and using her power on someone else once again.

Emotions: Terror. Anxiety. Guilt. Sadness. Shame.

I have to do something, now. I have to help her! I leave the cargo bay behind me, quickly grab my flashlight from my inventory, and race down the tight metal corridor after her. I turn the corner, and as soon as I see her again I yell. "Stop!" Oh, my voice is different again. I shake my head. "Come back! I'm not part of a gang!" I didn't really know what to say after reading someone's horrible life story like that, but I have to do something to get her to stop running and diffuse this whole situation.

Emily simply turns, the Zorro-like ribbon doing nothing to hide her freckled face full of fear and disbelief. She opens her mouth, a glow of orange light sparks at the back of her throat. She looks down at the floor between us, and a spray of glowing orange liquid spews out of her mouth like an open fire hydrant. Flame spontaneously ignites around the torrent as it flies through the air! As soon as it contacts the floor, the space between us is filled with fire!

I immediately stop sprinting as a wave of heat slams into me. While I can't make out Emily, I can barely see the floating letters of her name and level through the wall of fire. They stay in the same place for a few seconds, before quickly zooming away from me down the corridor, like a bizarre real-life version of the opening crawl of a movie scrolling away from the viewer.

I stare at the obstacle in front of me. The metal around the roaring flames begins to glow a dull red. It changes to a brighter orange, and then an angry white before melting! I shake my head as I focus on how to go after her. I could go around it by making my way to the opposite side of the ship, try to find another way out with my map, and hope Sprint will allow me to chase her down once I get outside… but without a quest marker it's not like I'll be able to know where she is.

Besides, even if I catch up to her, she can just start another fire. Hell, going by her intelligence, she's smart. She's probably already working on blocking off the other hallways right now! All she has to do is spare a few seconds to spew more fire. No, if I can just get past this directly, I'll be able to catch up to her in no time at all, and make sure future fires aren't as much of an obstacle.

She… she really needs my help, specifically with food. I have plenty in my inventory from that huge breakfast I made. The faster I can get to her, the faster I can help… Hopefully, I don't frighten her enough to the point that she sprays me with what I think is napalm…

Hmm… I look into the flames, and try to Observe the fluid at the heart of it.

Unknown Hyper-Exothermic Fluid

I blink as I scan the screen. Holy crap, that's a lot of question marks. I skip past all of them down to the only part with text.

Description: A complex luminescent chemical fluid, unknown to man, that ignites with air shortly after being mixed with trace amounts of unknown unique organic compounds found within Emily's spit. It is very similar to Thermite, Napalm, and ancient Greek Fire in function, but it is much more efficient per gram and can also reach higher temperatures. Do not touch.

Okay, worse than Napalm… that's bad. But if I can get past this bit of it here, and talk her down from spewing more at or near me… I can hopefully help her. She needs it. Just from learning how her mom treated her after her dad died… The comparison isn't hard to make. If Dad did that to me after Mom… I…

I shove the distracting and horrible thoughts away. I have to hurry, but sprinting and jumping through the fire like I'm some eighties action hero is obviously dumb. If that fluid and fire is hot enough to be worse than napalm… well, even if I have the body of a video game character, I don't want to test if that applies to breathing in superheated air any time soon. Even now the air around me is getting a bit too warm for my tastes…

Okay, what about extinguishing it? I look in my inventory and peer over to the water bottles I have, all eight of them. I look back to the wall of flames licking the ceiling. Yeah, that's not going to work. It's so hot the water would probably explode into steam immediately on impact anyways…

None of my new mana-based skills will work here. Shooting at it won't do anything and blowing an Energy Bomb on top of it could just make things worse by splattering it everywhere. Even if it does somehow disperse it enough to get through, it might frighten Emily to the point that she starts melting the whole ship…

No, I need something else… something new. I think back to my earlier train of thought about emulating some of New Wave's powers with my mana. Shielder! If I could just put a shield over it or myself…

I back away from the flames and the oppressive heat, and check my mana bar.

MP: 885/960

I nod to myself, noticing my mana tick up by one roughly every three seconds or so. I have plenty of mana to play with right now. I focus on it and pull out a bit of the blue energy inside me, forming it into a small sphere in my cupped hand, roughly the size of a gumball. Might as well start small before I have the skill so I don't waste too much energy.

I think about how New Wave's shields look, generally in the shape of concave circles, and try to make my mana be the same. I begin with flattening the orb, the sphere starting to squash down into a circle. The blue glow of energy dims as it's spread, becoming fully transparent right about the same time I can't squash it down anymore. The flat blue circle in my hand is kind of similar to my boxes. Which haven't popped up yet… This isn't a skill yet...

Sighing, I slowly make the circle larger, pouring more and more mana into it. By the time it's larger than a dinner plate, I slowly twist my arm and swivel my hand from palm-up to palm-out, the floating energy circle going along with it. As I pump more of my blue bar into this creation, the flaming metal corridor in front of me starts to get tinted blue.

As more energy flows into it, I begin warping its shape. The edges curl towards me, the center pushes out, and the circle morphs into a concave shape. Now I'm holding a very large bowl of blue transparent energy, something very similar to what Shielder has made in the past.

But, still, no skill box pops up telling me I've created an Energy Shield.

I frown. I look at the inferno in front of me and focus back to the energy construct I have floating in between me and it. I need to get through this fire now. If I waste anymore time, Emily could get away. I take a deep breath and hold it. Worst comes to worst, and I catch on fire, I'll just dump points into vitality.

I Sprint forward with my impromptu shield in front of me, and leap right before I hit the flames! I wave my hand down, the disc of energy following my movements, the protective barrier now under me to better shield me from the fire! The smoke and flame parts around the bowl, the burst of heat around me gives me a painful jolt… And then I'm through, the oppressive heat now to my back!

I stop holding my breath, and take in the slightly warm, but breathable air. I can't help the quick smile that adorns my face. And then there's a strange bell like noise underneath me, wiping the expression off of it just as quickly. I look down and notice that gravity has kicked in, as the blue glowing object I'm using as a shield has just slammed into the ground beneath me! Then it's my turn. I fall onto the bowl of energy under me. My feet find no purchase at all on the arcane substance, and I immediately slip and fall! With my legs now firmly in the air, the only thing under me, my butt, slams painfully down with a resounding thud. My eyes shut as I grit my teeth in pain for a hot second, then relax as the pain quickly disappears.

That wasn't completely terrible. ...Why is there a breeze? I open my eyes, seeing the walls of the metal hallway rush past me. Oh no. My shield has become a sled. How? Why? Shit! How do I stop? I need brakes. How do I brake? How do I make brakes?! That line of thought immediately halts as I notice the wall at the end of the hallway fast approaching. My mind blanks before immediately switching gears from slowing down to protecting myself. I slam my left hand forward, fist gripped tight, and create another shield as fast as I can, a new glowing disc of energy blooming into existence between me and the wall!

For a brief moment, a box appears in front of me. Before I can even register the words even with my reading speed, the glowing circle in front of me immediately cracks as it meets the wall head on, another odd bell-like tone sounding out, and then I slam into the shield… and the wall right behind it. First, my fist hits. There's a loud crack and my vision goes red as agony rips through my arm. Then, my face hits, and another crack sounds out as my nose becomes another center of fiery pain. And then the pain immediately leaves me, and I sigh in relief.

I peel myself away from the cracked shield, now sprinkled a bit with my blood… and nearly trip on the shield-turned-sled that brought me here. Once I catch my balance, I kick the damn thing down the hall back where I came… and watch as it amusingly slides back towards the fire with speed. Slippery little bastard…

I return attention to myself, and raise a hand to my nose… which is very crooked and oozing blood. I grit my teeth and grip it and then yank it back into place. There's another cracking noise… but this time there's surprisingly zero pain. Then there's the glowing box.

Your "Physical Endurance" skill has increased by 1!

Well at least getting hurt wasn't for nothing. Continuing my lookover, I look down at my arm. I pull back the sleeve of my hoodie, flash my light over it, and wince at the swollen purple mass my middle forearm has become. Yup, that's broken. Thankfully it's a closed fracture, not an open one. I set my flashlight in my inventory for a second, and put my hand on the injury, gritting my teeth expecting more pain, but… nothing happens. I blink in surprise. It feels hot to the touch, like a normal injury, but there's no pain and no feeling of soreness either. I poke at it first softly… then progressively harder and harder, before I just grip the swollen purple flesh and squeeze tightly.

Nothing. No pain. There's this horrible disconnect in there between what should be one bone, and a tiny bit of stuff that feels like the consistency of gravel, but… no pain. Huh. Throughout my examination, already the swelling is very slowly decreasing and my arm is returning to a more normal color. I can even feel the small slivers of bone start to stick together and move back into place…

I check my status and wince. A whole one hundred and fifty-two HP is missing, leaving me at six hundred and eight health, but thankfully I see that every three seconds my health is going up by one point. My regeneration is already kicking in, and I should be back to full health in ten minutes.

Nice. Kind of creepy, yet undeniably cool. I glance over from my broken but healing arm to the floating glowing cracked shield and give it an Observe.

Energy Construct : Circle

Size: Under 1 cubic meter
HP: 270/575

Wow, it took a bigger hit than I did. Quickly, I look over to the new skill box.

[Energy Construct (active) Lv 1 EXP 00.00%]
A skill using solidified mana to create magical
constructs. With more mastery, larger and
more complicated constructs can be created.
Intelligence increases construct health and
duration.

Cost: 100 MP per cubic meter
Timespan: 250 sec
Health: 575 HP ≤ 1 cubic meter
Range/Max Size: 1 cubic meter

Huh. Well, I'd say that's worth the broken arm. Not exactly what I thought I would get, but… I'll take it! I wonder what else I can… Wait. Shit. Emily. Person in need first, power testing later.

I quickly grab my flashlight from my inventory once more, open up my map, and look around my surroundings. I just need to reach the stairwell, climb up to the top, and then Sprint towards the exit to the weather deck. If I'm lucky, I'll catch up in no time. As I start rushing towards the stairs, I then notice my cracked shield is still floating with me. Well, if there's another fire to jump through, better to have this then waste more mana making a new one. In fact… I can still feel the mana flowing between it and my core. Maybe I could restore it by pumping more mana into it, the same way I charge my bombs?

Bounding up the stairwell, I pour my mana into the shield, its cracks slowly disappearing as its now visible health bar fills back up. Neat. As I make my way up the last three decks, the cracks almost completely disappear, and I've only used up ten points of mana… I'll definitely need to do some math on this later, but restoring a partially broken shield is definitely more efficient than making a whole new one. I turn away from my construct to the doorway at the top of the stairwell. It leads to the last stretch of hallway before the ship's exit, and already I can see a familiar orange glow through it.

As I enter the hallway proper, I'm once again hit with a wave of overwhelming heat… but the fire isn't where I'm expecting. There's a fire immediately to my right, and a few further ahead to the exit on the left but not in the corridor itself. Emily's fires aren't blocking my way forward, but to other parts of the ship. I check my map briefly and notice those metal-melting infernos are blocking off the areas of the ship I could have used as a detour earlier. I guess she didn't think about doubling up in case I got past one.

I take advantage of my good fortune, and Sprint down the hallway towards the exit, being careful to almost hug the left wall and bring up my shield whenever I get close to the flames blocking off-branching corridors. Soon enough, I'm at the entrance to the top deck, and I can see fresh footprints in the snow that aren't mine.

I rush out into the cold winter air, and finally see Emily with a trash bag on her back quickly making her way to the dock steps. Looks like I caught up, just barely. A quick Observe tells me the bag is full of her current and only belongings, which are mostly just taken from garbage diving… I can't help but frown.

The noise of my thunderous Sprint powered steps alert her, and she turns to me with frightful eyes. Before her mouth can start to glow, I immediately stop in my tracks and blurt out the first thing to come to mind. "I'm sorry!" I blink at the sound. It's odd having a different voice coming out of your mouth…

Her frightful look turns bewildered. We stay like that for several seconds, staring at each other, before she sharply asks "What?" Her eyes dart panically around, checking if we're alone, before going back to me. "You're sorry?"

I lick my lips and taste iron, probably because they are still coated from my bloody nose. Not much I can do about that under my scarf. I focus back on Emily, and raise my free hand up. "I said, I'm sorry. Obviously, I spooked you and I didn't mean to. I thought no one was out here."

Emily freezes, fear back on her face as she stares at my open palm. Why is she… "Oh shit!" I immediately pull my hand behind my back, the palm that she obviously saw shoot energy blasts earlier now pointed away from her. I look back at her face which is now a bit more calm. "Sorry! Again! I'm not used to this. In fact, here." I quickly cut the connection to my shield, grab it with my hand now that it's under gravity's tender mercies, and chuck it like a frisbee overboard. Both of us watch it bound away into the night before turning our attention back to each other, this time with both of my hands firmly behind my back. "See? No powers. No pew pew." Pew pew? I shake my head vigorously in frustration. "You know what I mean."

She pauses for several seconds, and then nods. "Yeah… pew pew…" She blinks, looks down, and then takes a step back. Then she awkwardly turns her mouth away from me, somewhat returning the gesture, but her eyes are still focused on me. "Okay. You're sorry. Alright." She looks around a bit, and then back to me with a raised eyebrow. "So, why were you chasing me?"

"I… Well... you started running and..." My mouth freezes. I can't exactly tell a stranger I read her life story without her permission and felt like I should help… I think back over those first panicked seconds, from how she was dressed to the fact I knew she had powers before I observed her. I grimace from the first thought that entered my head. I frown, not that she can notice. "Well at first I panicked. You kind of surprised me and… When I first saw you, would it be rude of me to say I… maybe... kind of… thought you were a Merchant?"

She recoils in revulsion for a second, then takes a thoughtful pause, looks down at her raggedy and scavenged clothing with a similar level of disgust, and then bobs her head from side to side in contemplation. "Yeah, it's rude." She nods. "It makes sense, and I understand why, but…" Her face scrunches up as if she wanted to retch, then shakes her head. "No, I'm not a Merchant." She then blinks. "Wait, you thought I was a Merchant. What changed your mind?"

Uh… shit. Um… Oh there's no good way to get around this, is there? Screw it. I'll just omit details. I let out a sigh. "I… have a Thinker power. Before you lit the hallway on fire, it let me know you were scared of me more than anything else. And that you were also starving." Among other things.

She looks at me with wide eyes. "Wait, you're a Thinker and a Blaster?"

"Uh, yeah." I look at her with concern. "Are you starving?"

Her face undergoes several expressions within a short time-span: fearful, angry, pained, sad, before finally settling on something subdued. She looks down at the floor and sighs. "I haven't eaten anything for several days now."

"Several days?" I ask with a frown.

She fidgets. "Closer to a week actually."

Oh god. Immediately I stuff my hand into my inventory. Before Emily can look up, my hand is in and out. I then quickly walk closer to her, my hand with its prize out to her. My quick steps immediately grab her attention. Emily looks panicky for a second at my approach, and almost begins to fall backwards, until she sees what's in my hands. Then her panic just melts entirely into confusion.

"Snickerdoodle?" I ask.

"Uh… what?" Emily asks with confusion.

I roll my eyes. "You haven't eaten in nearly a week, maybe more. I have food. So, here, have a snickerdoodle."

She looks at me in bafflement. "Do you just… carry cookies around in your pockets or something?"

"Something like that." I jab the cookie closer to her. "Take it."

"It's not… laced with anything, is it?"

Oh for the love of… I tear a portion of the cookie off, plopping it into my mouth, and with great overexaguration, chew it, before swallowing. I then just stare at Emily in exasperation. One of my screens pops up showing my health recovering by a single point, but I quickly ignore it. The starving girl is more important.

She blinks at my antics, before hesitantly taking the offered doodle. She slowly takes a bite, her eyes widen, and then she suddenly forgets all manners and begins to devour the rest with speed.

"Hey!"

Emily freezes, her eyes now staring at me with the cookie half way in her mouth.

"Eat slower." I say with sternness. "You could choke like that."

Emily's eyes look down, and she eats a bit slower.

As she finishes the cookie, I continue to speak. "Look, I want to help. I want to be a hero. That's all."

There's a moment of pause, between the two of us as Emily thinks that over while wiping her face of crumbs. She then nods. "You… wouldn't happen to have more food on you, would you?"

"I do. I can definitely get you some more if you need it."

She places a hand on her stomach. "Food… food sounds really nice right now." She then looks a bit embarrassed. "Would it… be racist if I said I thought you were ABB?"

"Why would it…" Chinese skin. I look Chinese right now, and she can probably tell from seeing my eyes. "Oh. Uh. I mean, I guess it kind of is, but honestly, if it's any consolation, I wasn't offended?" I see her frown. "Uh, you know, extenuating circumstances, matter of literal survival, and the fact we're right by their territory… You know what, don't blame yourself for it! I thought you were a Merchant, and we were both wrong. Let's just call ourselves equal and just leave it at that?"

She blinks, and then sighs in relief. "So you're not part of a gang? You're not here to make me join up or worse?" She then gets a suspicious and fearful look on her face. "Are you with the Protectorate? Some kind of new Ward? I told them I wasn't going to join up!"

I shake my head rapidly. "Neither! I'm by myself! I was actually here to do some power testing. I thought it was secluded enough I could get away with being loud and flashy but…" I laugh nervously. "...I guess not."

She relaxes a fair bit. "No. It's a good spot, generally. At least right now with it being this cold. I just thought I could…" She trails off awkwardly. "I… kind of…" She sighs. "I live here."

At that note, the ship rumbles below our feet slightly, an almost whisper of distant clanging metal reaching my ears. "What's that sound?"

Emily winces. "I think that's the sound of my power melting through the decks."

I give the boat under us an Observe, and frown. "Wow. It's sinking. The boat is actually sinking."

"What."

I turn back to Emily, her expression flat and hollow. "Uh… the boat's sinking. We're still in dock so it's not going to completely go underwater… but I'm pretty sure about half of it will be?" Closer to two-thirds. "Give or take a few hours?" Two-hours and forty-eight minutes specifically. Well, so much for coming back to that cargo-bay later…

She just looks at me for a second. "How do you know that?"

I just tap my temple. "Thinker, remember? I'm not limited to just people."

Emily processes that for a few seconds, and then sighs. "Perfect." She slumps. "Just perfect." In a more defeated tone she speaks quietly to herself. "Now, where am I going to sleep tonight?"

I took a moment to think. "What about the bridge?"

She gave me a flat look. "You mean the literally most exposed portion of the ship that will likely be under incredible scrutiny come morning?" She paused for several seconds. "I'll pass."

I wince at her tone. "That's a fair point." I then think for a moment. "I could help you find a new place instead?"

Emily looks at me with a questioning gaze. "What?" She blinks. "Why?"

"Well, one. I want to be a hero." I simply nod. "So, yeah. Two, this whole thing is kind of my fault, in a manner of speaking. If I didn't come here, none of this would have happened."

She scoffs. "It's not your spit melting holes through my boat."

I shift my head back and forth. "Yeah, but… if I didn't spook you, you wouldn't have done that? Look, let me take responsibility for this mess. I want to help you, so… let's start with this, okay? Then I can get you some more food?"

She looks at me suspiciously, then looks back down to the floor. She puts a hand over her stomach and shudders slightly. Finally, she sighs. "Alright."

With that, we leave the slowly sinking ship behind us and walk further into the boat graveyard…


We walk together through the abandoned port, the only light between the two of us is the flashlight in my hands. The hunt was much the same as earlier. This time instead of looking for a large place to practice like a cargo ship, I was now looking for what would be the best place for a homeless girl to sleep in for the night. A lot of the smaller ships I skipped over earlier, like the tugs and even the few sailboats trapped here, would now need a revaluation. Today was not exactly going as I pictured.

I turn to Emily to see her just quietly following my lead, before looking back to ships to Observe. "Are you sure about sleeping out here? Wouldn't a shelter make more sense?"

"A shelter isn't really an option. Believe me, I tried my luck with the shelters here already. There's a few honest ones, but…" She shakes her head. "They get too involved." She doesn't elaborate further, but I can guess the specifics easily enough.

"Okay, why out here then?"

Emily blows out a puff of cold visible air. "Because it's very cold during winter, and the wrecks out here aren't exactly the most hospitable of places. Squatters that don't have a fire out here can easily freeze to death in the middle of the night, so they mostly stay clear until we get closer to Summer. And well, making fires…" She holds out one of her hands, and spits into it. Immediately, a small fire rests in her hands. "...is my specialty."

I just stare at the flames on her hand, before looking at her. "Fireproof?"

She nods. "Would have sucked if I wasn't. Probably would have already burned to death by that point."

I look at her with wide eyes. "What do you mean by that?"

She looked down at her rags. "You know why I'm wearing this crap instead of normal clothes like you? I'm fireproof. My clothes aren't."

"You set yourself on fire?!"

She sheepishly looks away. "It was an accident."

I just shake my head at that. "So, you don't want to be around other people?"

"Yeah. The less people, the better. None at all would be ideal."

I turn to a ship on my right, and Observe it. I turn to Emily. "Full of black mold, pass?"

Hesitantly she nods, before looking at me appraisingly. "You can just see if a person is afraid or starving, or that a boat is sinking or has black mold from just a glance?"

I nod.

"Your Thinker power is kind of bullshit."

I shrug with a bit of a chuckle. "Yeah, it kind of is." And she doesn't even know half of it. My power's awesome. We move on looking for another ship. "So… what happens when it does get closer to summer?"

Emily takes a few seconds to respond. "Hopefully, I won't be homeless by then."

I sigh. That's not exactly an inspiring answer. The sad thing is I could help. I really could. I could offer her a place to stay at home, but the risks involved are just too much right now. I'd have to explain my skins to her, and how this isn't my real face. I'd have to tell Dad I'm a cape immediately rather than on my own time, and convince him that letting a stranger who's also a cape stay at home is entirely for the best. I'd also have to eventually explain just how my Thinker power works in excruciating detail, which includes me knowing not only her real name, but also the reason why she's homeless to begin with. I'd have to trust her with the details on how my power works… and expect it to not blow up in my face.

Despite having sympathy for Emily, I'm not ready to do that. Does that make me a bad person? Shouldn't a hero be better than that? I shake my head. Maybe in time I can trust her with all that… but not right now.

"So…" I turn my attention back to Emily. "...we've been talking a bit, and I don't know what your name is. I've been calling you scarf-girl in my head for a bit and that's kind of losing its luster. Do you mind giving me a better one?"

My mind goes blank for a second. "Oh. As in my cape name?"

Emily blinks at me, and nods slowly. Not slow enough to be sarcastic, but close.

"Well, the truth is... I don't really have one yet."

Emily nods understandingly. "It makes sense."

I turn to her with a confused expression.

"Well, a lot of names are generally power related. Given you can shoot laser blasts, make shields, and have a bullshit Thinker power, I guess finding a name that encapsulates all that is a bit harder than mine. That, or you'd have to come up with a theme first and make a name off of that, you know, like Mouse Protector. You could be lucky and find a more generic name, but most of those have already been nabbed by someone."

For a brief moment, I picture myself wearing a helmet with mouse ears while spouting off cheese-puns, before violently rejecting the image from my brain with a full body shudder. "I think if I come up with a theme, it won't be like Mouse Protector's. At all." I turn to a laughing Emily. "You already have a name?" I ask already knowing the answer.

"Yeah. Spitfire. Because duh." She shakes her head. "I mean, yeah, the idea did come from the World War Two fighter plane, but it fits the nail on the head perfectly. I spit fire. Thus Spitfire."

I chuckle slightly. "Yeah, mine's a lot harder to pin down."

"Hmm, I would suggest something like Sherlock, but I don't think he ever shot Moriarty with laser beams from his palms." She smiles very slightly. "I don't think the stories would be quite the same if he could."

"Oh! You've read Sherlock Holmes?" I ask with some excitement.

"Uh, no. I'm more of a TV kind of person." She looks down for a second and mutters darkly. "Or I was." Then she shakes her head. "I never really read one of the novels myself. I just watched some of the old adaptations. Dad was a…" She stops suddenly for a second, before continuing a bit more quietly. "He was a big fan of the Peter Cushing series."

It's quiet after that, the conversation coming to an abrupt end, something I was very familiar with whenever Mom came up. Even just thinking about her, I can feel that sense of loss rear its ugly head. But Gamer's Mind is quick to dull the pain. It's not gone, but it's much easier to manage. I sigh. Maybe I don't trust Emily enough to just offer her a place to stay at home, but… I could always share something else. It's a small price to pay to make someone feel a little better.

"I never was big into watching television myself." I turn over to look at Emily. She's listening, but a bit more downcast than before. "Books were always my fiction of choice. I got that from my Mom. She'd spend her days off with me from the university at the library." I couldn't help the huge smile on my face. "Between the two of us, we could knock out dozens of books a week. I've read most of the Sherlock Holmes books in that time. Not all of them, the libraries in the Bay unfortunately didn't have them all, but they had most of them, and what they did have, I enjoyed." I take a shuddering breath. "I miss her so much. Not a day goes by where I don't think of her."

Emily looks over to me abruptly, as if seeing me for the first time. She looks down for a few seconds, then nods to herself slowly, and then asks. "Do you mind if I call you Sherlock? Until you come up with something better?"

I smile. "I don't mind at all."


We both stare at the rusty tug-boat. No mold. No rats. No recently hidden illicit substances. All in all, an… adequate boat for Emily to use as temporary housing. Which is all kinds of depressing… but there aren't exactly better options she'll take. Well, there is one, as a nagging sense of guilt reminds me before I squash it down.

"So, this one's good?" Emily asks me, rousing me from my thoughts.

"Uh…" I look at Emily and then back to the rusted wreck in front of us. "I wouldn't say living in a boat like this is ever good. It's just not as bad as the other... rust buckets." I turn back to her. "Completely unrelated question, when's the last time you've had a tetanus shot?"

Emily blinks at the question. "I have no idea." Her face scrunches up for a second. "Aren't they good for like ten years?"

I nod. "Let's take a look first before we decide on anything. Just watch where you walk and keep an eye out for nails."

"Yeah, yeah." She then adopts a sly smile. "So your super duper Thinker power can't tell if I have my shots up to date, hmm?"

"That it can't." I reply in good humor. I then lean in slightly. "But it can tell me you are suffering from caffeine withdrawal." And depression, another nagging thought reminds me.

Her smile slowly drops. Then she shakes her head. "No way. You just guessed that!"

I shake away the guilt once more. "Maybe I did. Maybe I didn't." Before walking up the steps to the boat's deck. "So, tea or coffee?"

"Coffee, of course." Emily answers, following me.

"Hmm."

After a few seconds, she laughs. "Okay, tea's fine too, but I like my coffee, alright?"

On the boat proper, I shine my light around to get a better look. To the right of me is the small bridge tower, taking up most of the space on the front of the ship's top deck. The bridge itself on the top, is reachable with a staircase ahead of me. On a boat this small it looks less like a stereotypical bridge and more like a cockpit with the glass windows surrounding the one-seater compartment. Of course, the windows are for the most part broken, with pieces of glass strewn about the tower, and from here I can already tell most of the electrical components have long been ransacked.

"Be careful going up there, there's broken glass." I warn Emily, before looking for a place she can sleep in.

Straight ahead, at the very back end of the bridge tower, near the stairs leading up, is a door leading to the main living space of the ship, which I walk over to and open. On the other side is a very cramped hallway splintering off to other rooms and another set of stairs leading down. I Observe-

Your "Observe" skill has increased by 1!

Nice. I Observe the doors and stairs, and learn that the door on my right leads to the captain's cabin, the doors on the left lead to the galley and the mess room, and the stairs lead to the crew quarters and general store.

I turn to Emily behind me, and point out which room is what. She immediately makes a beeline to the cabin.

"Can I see your light?"

I simply hand it to her as she walks past. She opens the door and over her shoulder, I can tell the room has been previously ransacked. The small desk in the room that's part of the left wall has had all of its shelves taken out and they're simply missing. There's panels open on the walls where wires have been ripped out. On the left side, there's obviously what used to be a small couch like seat that was screwed into the wall, but the cushion itself has been ripped away from it, leaving only scraps of fabric and solid metal frame. There's even an odd spot on the side where someone stole an entire sink.

Across from all that, is where the bed should be. Should. It's basically just the wooden frame where there should be a mattress. I turn to Emily with a frown, about to suggest maybe we look at the crew quarters for hopefully a mattress that hasn't been looted or even look for another ship, but her actions make me pause.

Emily places my flashlight standing up on the desk, the light now splashing across the ceiling, and illuminating the room in a fluorescent glow. She digs through her trash bag, taking out some rocks, and placing them on the desk. Once she has about a dozen, she places them all throughout the room in different spots. Emily then plops a finger in her mouth. When she pulls it out, it's of course, on fire. She then puts her flaming finger on the top of each rock, leaving behind a tiny flame. Rock candles. She's making rock candles for light.

She then turns to me with a beaming smile and hands me my flashlight. "This is great!"

At a loss, I just stare at her. "Spitfire? There's no bed, and the room is a looted mess."

She raises an eyebrow. "Really, Sherlock? Were you actually expecting to find a mattress here?"

"Well... maybe!" I say with a flushing face.

She simply just looks at me for a second, before shaking her head. "These boats have been around for years, Sherlock. The idea of any of them having anything of value besides the metal in the walls is just fantasy." She walks over to the metal frame that used to be a couch while talking. "The only reason things like this are left behind is because scavengers with power tools tend to go after the big stuff first, like pieces of the engine and whatnot." She brushes through the ripped fabric for a second, and then sits down on the metal support, and then sighs with a smile. "I have an actual chair again…"

I just keep frowning at her behind my scarf, as she turns her smile towards the empty bed frame. "And this!" She gets up with a perky jump, and opens up her trash bag of belongings. Rummaging through it, she takes out a ratty beach towel and a small badly stained pillow. Not one of those you'd sleep with on a bed, but the decorative kind you'd have on a couch. A quick Observe tells me she fished both out of dumpsters a few weeks ago. She places the towel down and the pillow on the bed frame, before quickly laying on it herself. "This here is a lot comfier than sleeping on a steel floor. It's definitely not as cold, and isn't as dirty either." She settles for a second before looking at me with a smile. "Thank you for helping me find such a great place to sleep!"

I simply look at the girl. "Spitfire, how long have you been homeless?"

She looks at me, her smile slowly falling into something a bit more sad. She sits up, facing me, with her legs over the side of the bed frame. "Just for a while now."

"How long?"

She shakes her head. "Only a short time, really."

I just stare at her.

She fidgets, her hands now in her lap, her feet begin to tap on the ground. "I mean, what does it matter?"

"Spitfire, please."

She lets out a bit of a sigh. "I think it's been about three months now. Give or take a week. The days kind of just… blend together."

I stay silent for a little while after that. Already I'm picturing Emily going from dumpster to dumpster, making do with whatever she scavenges. Maybe at first she made do with shelters, but the honest ones probably try to get in touch with foster services and because of her home life… Emily would rather starve herself on the streets then go back to her mother. That's why the Wards aren't an option either. Her mother is still her legal guardian, and the Protectorate would send her right back home, wouldn't they?

"You can't go home." I simply state, tired of tip-toeing around what I know.

Emily looks at me with a startled expression. "What?"

"You won't stay at a shelter because they get too 'involved.' You've said the Protectorate has already approached you and that you told them you won't join up with the Wards. Ergo, you can't go home. Because something happened there. That's why you're homeless isn't it?"

She simply looks at me with a pained expression, before looking away.

"Okay." I say with a soft voice. "What's the plan?"

She looks back at me, still pained, but curious. "What?"

"What's the plan? I don't think you want to be homeless."

She rolls her eyes and says with a bit of heat. "Of course not."

"So, how do you plan not to be?"

"I…" She looks down, with a more guilty look on her face. "My biggest concern was food, and since I have no money, I was thinking of…"

"Stealing?" I wager a guess.

She winces at the accusation. "Yeah."

I sigh. "Waffles or pancakes?"

Her face blanks before she just looks at me befuddled once more. "What?"

"I said waffles…" I stick my right hand into my inventory, Emily's eyes going wide as my hand disappears in mid-air. I grab the tupperware container of waffles and pull it out of my small personal dimensional pocket before passing it to my left hand. My right hand goes back in for the next tupperware container and pulls it out. "...or pancakes?"

Emily just looks between the two and then back to me.

"I also have scrambled eggs, hash browns, some omelets, bacon, some sausage biscuits, and some other stuff too."

With complete seriousness, she just stares at me and asks. "You have the power to make breakfast food out of thin air?"

"No. I just have a small pocket dimension I can store all my stuff in."

She blinks at that. "Huh." She looks back at me. "How… how many powers do you have, Sherlock?"

I shrug. "A few."

"A few?"

"A few."

She pauses on that for several seconds before uttering one word. "Waffles."

"Okay then."


"Feel better?"

"Mhm."

Emily had eaten the waffles, some scrambled eggs, and a sausage biscuit before I cut her off. She looked hurt at that, but I reminded her, if she ate too much too fast, she could easily get sick, especially after not having such a rich meal after so long. If she threw up, that wouldn't exactly do her any good.

I gave her a few water bottles as well, but in good news, she let me know that she at least had been making use of some nearby bathrooms when she could to drink what water she could there. So that explains why she wasn't dehydrated.

With her fed and sheltered, it was sadly time for me to leave. At almost four AM, it is way too close to morning for comfort, and I need to get back home ASAP before Dad wakes up.

I look at Emily, who's looking tired with a very content expression on her face. I look at the wreck of a room we're in for a moment, and then turn my attention back to her. I can't let her just stay here… After I tell Dad about my powers… I'll tell him about Emily, and… We'll go from there.

"Spitfire?"

"Hmm?"

"I need to go."

That seems to startle her. "You… do?"

"Yeah, I've got to go home."

She frowns. "Oh."

"Look, I'll be back with more food, okay? In fact," I take the containers of sausage biscuits and waffles, do some math in my head, and hand it to her. "this should last you until Sunday. You might need to put them somewhere you can pack with snow to keep it all cold, but I'll be back with more food then and hopefully with a cooler too. When I get back, we'll…" I look down and take a deep breath. "We'll figure out a way to get you off this boat and into an actual house, alright?"

She just looks at me with a strange look. "You'll be back? Really?"

"I will. I promise."

Her frown slowly shifts into a sad smile. "I'll hold you to that, Sherlock."

With that, we say our goodbyes.


It's almost a quarter to five when I get back near home. I duck into a deserted alleyway, check for any cameras or people, and carefully swap back to myself when I make sure the coast is absolutely clear. Well, me without the six pack that is.

With that out of the way, I walk the rest of the way home, now clad in another set of clothes once more. ...I'm going to have to do a lot more laundry if I keep swapping to new outfits every time I change skins. I make it to the backyard easily, and do my best to stay quiet as I approach the back door. Carefully, I take out my keys and unlock it, and then as slowly as I can, I open it. I take a step into the kitchen, and then I quietly close the door behind me.

I'm home. I'm safe. I just have to make it to my room now, as quietly as possible. I step lightly towards the stairs and put my foot on the first step… and wince as I hear the wood creak. I freeze and look up, just waiting for Dad to come down the stairs. After waiting a minute, and nothing happening, I sigh quietly in relief. Stupid old stairs. I should just take off my shoes.

I step back slightly, then open up my inventory. With a few finger presses, I take off my shoes using the interface. My shoes disappear, going directly into my inventory… and I fall half an inch to the floor. A small thump sound kills the silence in the house. I wince again. Note to self, don't swap out shoes without sitting down in the future when you want to be quiet.

I take a deep breath. I just need to move quietly up the stairs. That's it. That's all I need to do. WIth my weight mostly on my left leg, I put my right foot forward on the first step, toe first and slowly go down on my heel. Then I shift my weight from my back leg to my front very slowly... and I immediately relax when the wood fails to creak. I look up the stairs and frown. I just have to do that another eleven times…

By the time I make it halfway up, a box flashes into existence in front of my face, and nearly makes me fall over backwards.

A skill has been created through a special action!

Through careful and quiet movement with the intent to avoid detection, a skill to increase the Gamer's Stealth, "Sneak," has been created!

[Sneak (Passive) Lv 1 EXP 00.00%]
A skill using efficient movement and knowledge of where
and where not to be to move unseen and unheard. With
more mastery, you will be harder to detect! While attempting
to sneak, you will instinctively know when you are detected.

1% quieter movement.

What does that mea-

Detected.

I look past my boxes, expecting to see Dad waiting at the top of the stairs… but he's not there. I look back at the word "detected" floating in front of me without a box. No matter where I look, it is always straight ahead of me, and right above it is something that looks like a very basic depiction of an open eye.

I quietly walk up the rest of the stairs feeling a bit dazed. Once I'm up at the top, I just stare at Dad's door. There's no light coming from underneath the door, but my power hasn't led me wrong yet. He's awake. I take a quiet step into the upstairs hallway proper, and look down the hall at my door… my open door. The door I shut when I left.

I feel a pit open up in my stomach. Dad's not only awake, he knows I've been out of the house. I look back at his bedroom door.

I could talk to him now. I'd just have to knock on his door.

But I don't think I'm ready for that conversation yet.

I walk into my room, and I close my door. I stand there for several long minutes. The open eye shuts closed. I take a deep breath, and exhale.

I sit down at my desk, pull out the books I got from the library, and I start to read.


AN: Hello. 2020 sucked. Like, really sucked. My sister moved to a new state right before Covid took off and she's my best friend in the whole wide world, I got put entirely in charge of our city's Covid website back in Spring (not fun), had to deal with our town just slowly getting infected out of the wazoo while working with a bunch of folks that made fun of me for wearing a mask and refuse to this day to do so… And so on and on.

I managed a few chapters of a new story (Izuku ½. Wink wink. Nudge Nudge.) for a MHA/Ranma crossover late Spring, early Summer, but when things kicked into gear, well… here we are.

So really, whenever I had free time in the last half of 2020, my hands just did not want to spend them typing, so vegged playing video games ironically. In that time, and I'll be transparent, I've finished off Skyrim (again) with a platinum trophy run (again), did a completionist run of Hyrule Warriors (NEVER AGAIN) and Age of Calamity, played through Jedi Knight Jedi Outcast again on the PS4 after Mando season 2, finally finished Dark Cloud after all these years, did a quasi completion-run of Smash Ultimate, and finally played Super Mario Odyssey. Didn't really touch google docs or even read much fanfiction in that time. I have like two dozen tabs of ongoing fics on my phone that are just waiting for me to read them...

I'll be frank. I'm unfortunately not very consistent, and when different moods hit, I bow to them very easily. So I'm sorry if chapters don't come out in a reasonable schedule.

That said, hopefully, and I stress on the hope part, that I'll get chapters out faster now that things are much calmer on all fronts once more. I'm getting back into fanfiction again as my main hobby, so the plan is to see you sooner rather than later. As in I will try my best to get a chapter to you guys in a few weeks rather than another year gap.

Just be mindful, I don't ever really plan on getting paid for my fanfic content. I do this solely for fun, not ever profit, alright? Just keep that in mind when it comes to me writing things.