Chapter Four - When in Doubt, Look it Up

Emily’s first class, an introduction to Literature 101, had gone... well.

She’d only gotten to class with fifteen minutes to spare, but there were still plenty of seats left at the very back of the room. She set her bag down, placed her laptop onto the little desk mounted on one of the armrests of her seat, and hoped that the screen could serve as a sort of barrier between her and the rest of the world.

The professor was talking to a young man that she assumed to be a teacher’s assistant. Soon, that young man called out to her and asked for her name. It was all she could do to stutter through ‘Emily Wright.’ He didn’t comment other than noting it down before moving to the door to take people’s names as they entered.

She hoped that that was as much talking as she would need to do in that class.

Opening a word-processor to take notes was easy enough, which left her with some free time.

Somehow she ended up on the front page of Writeit and, instead of gravitating to pictures of nice animals doing nice animal things, she was staring at a thread that had been bumped to the very top.

You’re A Mask, Now What?

Biting her lower lip, she clicked on the link. There was no harm in looking. The thread had thousands of comments already and it wasn’t like her poking at it would be too strange. She wasn’t being suspicious at all. At least, she hoped.

Most of the post was about contacting the government for help and such, but that sounded a little suspicious to her. There was some good advice though.

Your power will make choices for you. You don’t know what you’ll get, and generally it will be very weak at first. It will also push you towards a certain kind of morality. You might not be a hero when you first get your power. There are a lot more levels or morality than you might think. Most people don’t start at the extremes, but somewhere near the middle of the scale. By doing good quests, you can improve your station.

The list goes something like:

Saviour

Super Hero

Hero

Do-Gooder

Anti-Hero

Grey

Emily bit her lip. The rest of the information wasn’t all that helpful, but it seemed to point her towards something she could actually do.

Good deeds would help her move away from villain and towards... grey and so on. She could do that. She had never committed a crime in her entire life. Never cheated, never jaywalked, she even felt guilty when she couldn’t donate a dollar to charity when buying things at the grocers. Doing perfectly natural things in the privacy of her own room even made her feel bad.

Her mother, a life-long volunteer at every soup-kitchen in the community and a big advocate for helping people, had always taught her to look out for others, so Emily figured it would be... doable, to not be a villain. She just had to be a bit proactive about it.

Before she knew it, class was in session and she blissfully let herself forget about her villainous woes.

Most of the lesson was more about credits, having books, when and how to hand in essays and homework and other orientations things. The professor did give a nice speech though, and Emily couldn’t say that she didn’t enjoy it.

There were going to be some modules later in the year where people would be working in small groups, but she figured she could handle that. She had made it through group projects in high school, and now her partners would be adults which made everything a bit better. She hoped.

And then the bell rang and class was over.

Emily waited until the big rush was out of the class before packing up her laptop and things into her bag. If this was how every class went, then she thought she might enjoy her time here. Maybe she would even make a friend.

Or maybe she was getting ahead of herself.

The building where Literature 101 was held was an old thing, one of the original stone edifices that had withstood the test of time. It was near to the centre of the campus along with most of the others stately houses of learning. For all that they were old, they had a sort of timeless elegance to them. She could imagine gentlemen with tophats walking down the same hallowed halls as her.

Stepping out into the bright late-afternoon sun was nice. There were a lot of people around, but they were all busy with their own things. Emily kept her head down, didn’t meet anyone’s eyes, and just enjoyed the fresh air and sunshine as she started to make her way back home.

“Heya Boss.”

Emily startled, then turned around to see the person who had addressed her.

Part of her knew who it was even before she locked onto the short chubby form of Teddy, standing in the middle of the path in her shorts and t-shirt and with poorly tied boots on as if she had every right to be there.

“W-what are you doing here?” Emily said. She slapped a hand over her mouth. Had anyone heard her?

She felt herself sinking as a few looks turned her way. She had to get out of the entryway, or off campus entirely. What if someone noticed Teddy’s ears? They didn’t stick out that much, and they might be confused for some sort of toy, but Emily couldn’t afford the risk.

She grabbed the girl’s hand and started to pull her along while stifling the blush that burned itself onto her cheeks. She felt like a mother pulling her kid along, or maybe a big sister. She hoped people thought it was the latter.

“We, we need to talk. Right now... as soon as we get back to the dorms.”

“But Boss ,” Teddy said. “I’m hungry.”

Emily swallowed. Had... had she been neglecting a child? Forget the villain quests she’d been rejecting all morning, that truly made her a bad person. “Then... then food first.”

Teddy’s grin had Emily’s stomach twisting up. It reminded her a bit of the rare times her dad would smile at her for doing something he approved of, but with much bigger canines.

She held onto the girl and led her along towards the end of the campus. There was a little Im Orton’s there run by a school club. She’d stopped there with her mom when they visited the place for the first time.

Everything had been far more expensive than it should have been, but she could splurge a little bit once in a while. And she really needed a coffee.

“S-so, um,” Emily began, then ended up not adding much to that. She didn’t know where to start.

One of the things she’d read earlier about powers was that, generally, powers were helpful to their owner, regardless of their alignment. Someone who could control fire wouldn’t be burnt by their own flames, and minion-creators wouldn’t be harmed by their minions, at least not purposefully.

Was Teddy a minion? She looked... normal.

“What is it, Boss?” Teddy asked.

“You shouldn’t call me that,” Emily said.

“Can’t call you Emily,” Teddy said. “What if we’re robbing a bank and someone hears your name?”

Emily felt a little faint. “No, no robbing banks, please. We, we don’t do bad things, okay?”

Teddy frowned. “What about getting points and doing quests?”

“Only good quests, quests that don’t hurt people,” Emily said.

“Does mugging hurt people?” Teddy asked.

Emily had a bad feeling. “Yes Teddy, mugging hurts people a lot.”

“Oh. Shouldn’t have mugged that guy then.”

Emily stopped. A quick look around revealed a nice little alleyway between two buildings which she was easily able to tug Teddy into. “W-what did you do?” she asked.

Teddy was smiling, but there was a bit of confusion marring her eyes. “Got a quest to hurt people, but I was hungry, so I didn’t take it. So I got a quest to mug people. Only got to the one though. Made one point.” She nodded proudly.

Emily shook.

“Want me to spend my point?”

“No!” Emily said. “No Teddy, that’s no.”

“Did I do bad?” Teddy asked.

Emily nodded. “Mugging is, it’s bad Teddy, really bad.”

“Should have just taken the first quest then,” Teddy muttered.

Emily felt as if someone had just turned off gravity, and maybe dialed down common sense while they were at it. “Oh, Teddy,” she said.

She wanted to be angry, but that wasn’t in her nature. Worse, Teddy looked like she'd been proud, the same look Emily wore when she had ‘helped’ her mother with the laundry and had turned all of her dad’s shirts pink.

“It’s... okay?” Emily said. “No, wait, it’s not okay, but, but it’s not your fault. I... Let’s grab something to eat at the dorm, and then I can explain things, okay?”

“Alright Boss ,” Teddy said.

At least her mood seemed easy to lift with the promise of food.

***