Side Story: Madison's School Days 2

The office wasn’t like Dr. Mattis’ office. There were no bars on the windows. Madison waited until the psychologist, Dr. Cheng, gestured for her to sit.

“So, I take it the locker triggered a bit of a memory?” he asked.

Madison ducked her head and nodded.

“These things happen,” he replied, sounding… nice. “Rome wasn’t built in a day, and people don’t accept that they’ve changed in a day… or longer.”

“I—Am I going to be suspended?”

“For that? Not at all.”

“I know that I had the meeting on bullying, because—“

“Madison, everyone has that meeting, and in your case… it was also for bullying against you.”

Madison blinked. Sure, they’d said that, but everyone knew she wa—“Me?”

“You. You are immensely strong, even in your current shape and a certain category of student may feel that they could gain points by bullying you. And of course, then turn around and blame you.”

“But—if I lost my temper!”

Dr. Cheng shook his head. “If every teen thought about every consequence, my days would be somewhat more boring. Think about the talk, and how you were told to come to a teacher immediately. Whatever you may think, whatever others may think about your past actions, our expectations do not include allowing someone to abuse you via words or actions.”

“Oh.” Madison was silent for a moment. “I didn’t want to come… I’m dangerous…”

“You mean your ratings are close to Leviathan’s.” Dr. Cheng nodded. “Madison, I have a high clearance with the PRT, so I’ll tell you a little secret. You are not the most dangerous ward in the Bay. Vista stopped a tidal wave—she could also make a tidal wave. Kid Win once submitted an idea for an “A-class” rifle that fired laser-triggered micro-fusion weapons. Even if they are not possessed of such… wide-ranging power, if Gallent or Aegis got angry at a student, it would go only one way, and of course, Clockblocker managed to impale an endbringer. We’re all dangerous. I’m dangerous.” 

“You?”

“Students come into my office every day, sharing secrets. Coming to me for advice when they are vulnerable. You don’t always need powers to be dangerous.”

Madison nodded. She knew that.  She hadn’t had powers, after all, not when she’d gathered the tampons and then, with Emma and Sophia, pushed Taylor into…

She took a deep breath. Dr. Cheng watched and then nodded. “You were thinking about it.”

“I can’t not. I thought I could, but I’m here at school and Taylor’s here and she thought she was finally safe when we…” Madison bit her lip. “I don’t know why…”

“Because this is the first time you’ve been at school. Everything is the same, and things remind you.”

“Yes. I don’t know what I’ll do…” Her voice trailed off.

“If you see Taylor in the hallways?  Well for a time that’s not a concern, she has suffered a medical issue.”

Madison supposed it was good that Dr. Cheng was sticking with that story, even if PHO and everyone else knew the truth. Taylor had walked into a room with Kaiser and the Twins… and now the E88 was no more.

“But here’s the thing. Are you afraid you’ll fall back into bad habits?”

Madison nodded.

“Or perhaps that nobody will ever accept you, even if you did change?”

Madison nodded.

“Or perhaps Taylor won’t forgive you?”

Taylor had sort of spoke to her, but that was right after Leviathan, what if she changed her mind…

“Can you both not be forgiven, even if you’ve changed, and fall back into bad habits?”

Madison… blinked. “No…”

“No. Because those can’t happen at the same time. Madison, I think one thing you need to consider is that thinking about how everything can go bad puts you in, unavoidably, in the position of thinking about mutually contradictory things, and even if they aren’t, you can’t know they happen until they happen. Do you understand?”

“I…sort of?”

“So why waste time worrying about the future—what will be, will be, the only thing letting the possibility dominate you will do is leave  you exhausted—or worse yet, unwilling to accept that things have gotten better.”

“I…”

“And if you want, I can assign you a cubbyhole in the office, so you don’t need to deal with a locker.”

Madison looked up and then nodded. “Yes, please.”

“Good.”

“I um, probably should go.”

“Very well, Madison, remember one thing. We make mistakes. We do bad things. I won’t insult you by telling you what you did was a small thing. But we also grow past them—if we let ourselves do that.”

Can we? Madison didn’t say.

****

When Madison got back to class, nobody looked at her. She got into her little seat in the corner, happy that right now, her weight was normal. Rosita gave her a thumbs up. The day both crawled and went fast. Crawled when she was in the corridors, students passing her by, giving her a wide berth, and moving fast in the classes.

Finally, it was time for lunch. Madison thought about eating in a corner, but Rosita shook her head. “Nah, you’re coming with me.” She gestured behind her at Glory Girl. “You didn’t get formally introduced, so I’m told.”

Oh God, yes, I smacked her through a building.

“Hi, I’m Vicky,” Glory Girl said. “I’m sorry, I thought you were… Well, I didn’t realize you were bringing Rosita to the hospital.”

“And I was too busy freaking because my insides were on my outsides to ask for an autograph,” Rosita said.

“You and she know each other?” Madison asked.

“Yeah, met in homeroom,” Rosita replied. “Really different from Juvie, no knives.” Then she dropped her voice. “You wouldn’t believe the rumor mill here.”

“Oh?” Vicky asked.

“Yeah, one freshman thought I was in Juvie ‘cause I failed my initiation with the Nine.”

Madison blinked. “That’s…” She couldn’t quite come up with the word for how stupid that was.

“Rumor mills are fun, but don’t worry, you two have an advantage—Everyone’s talking about Orb Weaver.” Vicky grinned. “Did I tell you he showed up to bitch at a student for cheating?”

“You’ve kidding, The Bay’s Endbringer?”  Rosita suddenly giggled. “Oh God, ‘I have destroyed the Empire, I stride the earth… did you finish your homework, Ms. Jensen?’  The demon teacher of the Bay!”  Then she was tugging Madison after her, chatting with Vicky.

It was strange. In a way like Emma and Sophia—Madison flinched—but not really. Now that she thought about it, she remembered Emma’s cutting remarks, Sophia’s contempt… And her.

But Vicky and Rosita were jabbering a mile a minute, and they didn’t… cut people down.

Madison followed them into the lunchroom, which was a lot cleaner than Winslow’s.

And there was a familiar group of people. The Wards.

Wait, aren’t they supposed to… They got their food and Madison shook her head as Rosita gestured for her to sit down.

“So,” Dennis said, glancing at Rosita. “How is working for Renick?”  He paused. “Not that I, obviously ordinary person, would know anything about that.”

“I’m…” Rosita shrugged. “Just doing paperwork, you know, copying. They say I can’t start real work until they have a Master/Stranger profile?”

“Yeah,” Carlos said. He glanced around. “Victor.”

Madison shivered.

“Orb Weaver handled him,” Vicky said. “And if I hear anyone talk about ‘oh, Orb Weaver was too violent,’ I’m gonna chuck ‘em into the Bay.”

“He’s not so much violent as just that amorphous cloud of hatred and terror that lives in our nightmares,” Dennis replied. “Rune tried to use Beardmaster as a climbing tree when she saw a bug, and she and Othala are telling everything they know, down to that time they ripped the tags off of their mattresses. Nobody has even seen Hookwolf and his gang, but… Yeah, amorphous cloud of hatred and terror that evidently considers Nazis a food group.”

“I’m happy.” Madison looked at them. “I mean… Mom and Dad, ever since I remember, warned me where not to go, that the Empire might be there…” She waited for someone to mention she deserved it, but Vicky nodded.

“You got that right. But how is, um, the ordinary student Taylor?” 

“Almost dead,” Amy said as she joined them. Vicky’s sister looked annoyed.  “She dosed herself with neurotoxin to stay on her feet!”

“You think they’re gonna force her to join the Wards?”  Dean asked. “It’d keep her safer, at least.”

Amy snorted. “Safe?  She distracted Leviathan, and got into a fight with Kaiser. What do you think the Wards would do?”

“I—“ suddenly, there was an announcement asking several students to come to the office. Including them.

“Wonder what’s happening?” Carlos said.

“Couldn’t be super important or they’d use our phones,”  Chris said.

Madison nodded. Officially, they didn’t have any phones that could break through the school’s Faraday cage. But she had a feeling everyone knew. Rosita waved as they left. A few minutes later they were heading outback to where a PRT van was, one of the unmarked ones.

Velocity was out there with it.

“Get geared up, we’re grabbing Vista, Krewe, and Tenebrae on the way.”

“Where were Krewe and Tenebrae?”  Dennis asked.

“Dentist.” Velocity said. “Now that Krewe’s got more stable arrangements, time to deal with all the stuff she didn’t get earlier.”

“And Tenebrae?”

“To hold Krewe down. Glory Girl? You have permission from your mother, Panacea, you also, but only in support.”

“Gotcha.”

“What’s the problem sir?”

“Juvenile parahuman gang, hit a gas station in Harrisburg. They came from California and they’ve done a lot of smash and grabs, getting more violent. Thinker support was tracking them, and we’ve got a high probability that they’re going to try and set up in the Bay.”

“Why us?” Chris asked. “I mean, this seems pretty—“

“The Protectorate will be standing by,” Velocity said. “And I’ll be in overall command, but…” he glanced at them. “This happens every time a major criminal group gets smashed—others move in. It’s true the Protectorate could smash this group, but there are others waiting. Director Piggot trusts you, and this is to send a message that we don’t need the Protectorate to handle a gang of young parahumans with delusions of grandeur. Ideally, it’ll discourage anyone else from trying.”

“So if we fail, we’re to blame for the new Brockton Games,” Dennis said. “And the family thought I’d never be famous.”

Madison gulped. “Um, sir?”

“There’s nobody there with a brute rating that calls for you, Madison. You’ll be strictly on search and rescue. They have four parahumans, I’ll give you full data on the way, but no ratings over a four.” Velocity smiled. “C’mon everyone, we can’t let it be said that we let Orb Weaver do all of our dirty work, now can we?”

“True, but we could say that we’re saving some poor unfortunate souls from meeting Orb Weaver,” Vicky replied.

Everyone chuckled, and then the truck was rumbling down the road. Madison huddled in her seat.

Just search and rescue. She could do that.