Chapter 2
Tiff sat in silence, letting the seconds of the clock hanging above her bed tick slowly by. Part of her couldn’t believe that just a few hours ago, moments by her own recollection, she’d been so concerned with something as silly as locker room drama. Now she had much, much bigger fish to fry.
Though now that I think about it, am I the biggest fish?
Tiff could hardly believe that’s where her thoughts went, but they had to go somewhere. She couldn’t simply sit on the bed, mindless and unthinking. And now that she had a moment to herself, her head was starting to cool.
She was still afraid. She was scared senseless. The other part of her expected the door to the nurse’s office to bust down any moment, for a team of hit men and Heroes to come piling in and…what? Arrest her? Take her away? Make her not be a supervillain?
Tiff didn’t do anything wrong. She didn’t commit any crimes and she wasn’t at fault. All she did was wake up one day, and the System decided that it needed her to be one. She didn’t earn this affinity; it was thrust upon her.
So while the rational part of her brain was slowly growing indignant, the scared young child, not even considered an adult, was wailing in distress. Eventually, the two sides agreed to disagree, leaving her both listless and unsatisfied.
However, she was grateful to have time by herself to think. If she was forced, in the spur of the moment, to reveal everything about her Status if somebody asked, she didn’t think she could hide it. Now that she was in a calmer state of mind, she could start working on a plan and try to figure out how to fix this. There was simply too much she didn’t know, so for the time being, she had to fake it until she did.
That was exactly when something caught her attention, as if begging to be brought up. She focused on her Status and gently asked her System (because she had no idea how to address the strange thing possibly living in everyone’s head) what something meant. She wasn’t exactly expecting an answer, because it never gave her one before, but now that Tiff was fully Awakened, it responded almost immediately.
Skill: Indomitable
Passive, always on.
Cannot be disabled by normal means.
Immune to mental effects.
Quirk: Your Word Is Law.
Tiff didn’t know what to make of that. It seemed both incredibly powerful and extremely lacking in information. On one hand, she apparently had an immunity, which was overwhelmingly powerful. Tons of people had strengths and resistances, but very few people could claim to be immune. And not only did she have this immunity, but it was a passive, one that was always working and could not be taken away.
Was that why she was evil now? Because she was given an OP skill?
Everything Tiff knew about the system told her it was no-nonsense, that it didn’t mess around, but this was a little ridiculous. She needed more info. Like, what were “normal means?” And what entailed “mental effects?”
The System understood her unasked question and replied.
Indomitable can only be restricted, not removed, by skills of an equal tier. Restriction does not negate Indomitable’s immunity to Domination.
Domination: any effect that overwrites a person’s mental will. This includes mind control effects, charm effects, body control effects, and involuntary compulsions.
That still sounded cool, but Tiff didn’t fully understand. She’d have to ask somebody later to try to clarify. She turned her attention to the flavor text. From what she’d been told, Tiff understood that the System itself had different personalities, if that could be said. The cold, unmoving main “System” was literal and did not joke around. If it said something, it meant something. Period. Then there was flavor text, usually included as descriptors, and those sometimes had a bit more…play to them.
Indomitable: You’ve worked too hard to cower beneath the tyranny of others. You know no fear. You cannot be intimidated by mere shows of might or posturing. You are no simple villain. Anyone less than a Superhero is no match for your strength of will.
That was good and all, but it wasn’t giving her any more concrete information than she had before! Was she meant to assume that the only people with skills strong enough to counter hers were honest-to-goodness Superheroes? If that were the case, her skill would be extremely potent. That meant she would always be in charge of making her own decisions and never had to worry about anybody bullying her around!
…she was doing her best to ignore the exact things the System told her she was now immune to. Especially mind control. Free will was sacred. She didn’t ever want to imagine a scenario where she wasn’t in control of herself, unable to act as she wanted, powerless as someone else piloted her like a puppet.
She really needed a way to find answers, but it wasn’t like she could just go up to someone and ask. That would lead to too many other questions, such as how she knew about some of those things in the first place, which Tiff would rather keep hidden for as long as possible.
But the thought of lying, especially to her loved ones and close friends, filled her with disgust. And for a second time in the last few moments, she was drawn, inexplicably, toward her stats.
Quirk: Your Word Is Law. You cannot lie.
Tiff frowned. That was it? Once again, the System showed its tendency to provide too little information. And then the effect of the Quirk (whatever a Quirk actually was) sank in. Her face drained of color as she read the flavor text.
Your Word Is Law. It is said that words have power. Yours certainly do. While your underlings know that a slight flick of your wrist or nod of your chin is enough to set them into action, woe befall them should they not obey your spoken word. Everything you say has purpose, and there’s no room for misinterpretation. Why would you need to lie when everything you say is right?
Tiff slid down her bed and placed the pillow over her eyes. The flavor text made her sound like a megalomaniac. A real stuck-up ass. She’d been Awakened for less than a day and the System was really trying to force the whole Supervillain vibe.
…and was that true? Could she really no longer lie?
Tiff didn’t care too much for lying beforehand, but she definitely had her fair share of white lies. Were those no longer on the table? She had a rule-following personality, but this seemed a bit too much. And what about things she had no real knowledge of? What if she inadvertently told a lie? Would something magically keep her mouth from opening? This seemed suspiciously against her skill, which explicitly stated she was immune to that. Unless the System didn’t count?
She desperately needed to test these things, but there was no shot of doing it with anybody that might turn her in. Which she feared was anybody and everybody. Heroes and villains came and went, but their little corner of the greater Los Angeles area had been relatively peaceful for decades. Longer than Tiff had been alive. She was sure there were gangs and small-time dealers and things, but those were all the common sort of criminals that were routinely handled by the police. Los Angeles itself had its own dedicated Hero, but it was downtown, a good 40 miles away. Nobody cared what happened in Buena Park or Anaheim unless it happened at Disneyland or the baseball stadium.
…now that Tiff thought about it, she really wondered if Disney didn’t have a whole crew of Heroes on staff.
Tiff couldn’t keep her mind distracted any longer. It kept going back to lying, and the more she thought about trying to lie, the more distasteful it seemed. She thought about trying to say something blatantly false, like saying her hair was a different color, but the words just wouldn’t come. The thought alone was silly. Of course her hair wasn’t black. It was red. Always had been. Anything else was wrong.
She stifled a scream into her pillow, but it was drowned out by the ringing of the school bell. Not 10 seconds later, the door opened, and the nurse came striding back in.
“Miss VanDyne, I’m clearing you to leave,” she said bluntly, causing Tiff to freeze. Normally, the sudden crash of an opening door wrenching her from her thoughts might provoke some sort of reaction, like a mini jump scare, but she wasn’t fazed at all. Instead, she braced herself for some imaginary conflict where she was inevitably going to be forced into confrontation with a Hero.
Obviously, it did not happen. There were no Heroes, not even a Sidekick, lying in wait just outside their school’s tiny nurse's office. The nurse continued, oblivious to Tiff’s inner turmoil.
“I spoke with the secretaries; apparently, they got hold of your parents, and one of them is already on the way to pick you up. Go down to the pickup line and they might be there waiting for you. Are you feeling well enough to stand?”
“I’m not sure,” Tiff found herself saying, instead of giving the expected non-committal grunt for yes. She threw the pillow to the side and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Standing, she felt a little dizzy and lightheaded, but otherwise completely fine.
“I think I’ll manage,” she smiled weakly at the nurse. “Thank you.”
“Any time, Miss VanDyne. Give this note to your parents. I’ve already had an email sent, but it never hurts to be thorough.”
Tiff took the small slip of paper and noticed it was more like the nurse’s observations than anything else. What caught her interest was that she was being taken out of school for at least a day at the older woman’s recommendation. But when she looked up to clarify, the nurse was already gone. Figuring she had seen enough of the infirmary for one day, she grabbed her backpack, which was placed on the chair next to her bed, and left.
Tiff lingered in the reception area long enough that she wouldn’t immediately get overwhelmed by a stampede of students fleeing their classrooms. She had enough on her mind and didn’t think “getting trampled” needed to be added to the list. Despite being a Junior in her second-to-last year of high school, she was smaller than most Freshmen. And that wasn’t even getting to the fact that anybody on a sports team was at least twice her size. Three or more times if they were on the varsity football team.
Eventually, she squeezed her way into the halls and wormed her way toward the front of the school, where the pickup line was. Fortunately, the nurse’s office was on the first floor of the building, so she didn’t need to climb down any flights of stairs, but unlike the principal’s office and main reception, it was on the other side of the campus. She’d heard of some schools that were really tiny in floor space, so they had tons of floors, while others were all single stories set across sprawling grounds. Setma High was a middle ground. The property itself was moderately sized; if Tiff had to guess, she’d equate it to a large shopping center, or maybe like almost a full city block, or even 4 Walmart Supercenters next to each other. They had some open spaces for kids to mill about, but everything was inside one of three, 3-story buildings: one for the gymnasium, one for the sciences, and one for the arts.
Perhaps it was saying something that the front office and administration were in the arts building while the infirmary was in the science wing, but whatever that was, Tiff didn’t have a clue.
All things told, it was only a couple of minutes' walk across campus, and that included dodging people and snaking through halls. She eventually found herself joining the mass of students loitering on the perfectly manicured artificial turf the groundskeepers toiled moderately over, watching the slowly moving line of cars inch forward, pick up kids, and inch away.
Tiff couldn’t see over the heads of anybody in front of her, and she wasn’t in any sort of mood to try and squeeze her way to her front, but she didn’t mind. She had her phone on her, and, depending on which parent was picking her up, she would know immediately. She made her way next to a couple of people she was familiar with from her math and science classes and started chatting idly about some of their more recent lessons. Only a few weeks in, and they were lamenting the travesty of homework and tests.
All around her, the crowd began making a bit of noise as something approaching caused a commotion, and she couldn’t help but smirk. She put her phone away; she had her answer.
“Whoa. Look at the size of that thing!”
“It’s huge!”
“Holy crap….”
“Who do you think drives it?”
“I bet you it’s some really short guy.”
“Yeah, bet they’re compensating for something.”
“Whatchu mean?”
“I bet they have a tiny weiner.”
Tiff couldn’t stop the giggle bubbling on her lips. She knew exactly which vehicle the crowd was talking about, even without looking. It was a huge, white diesel pickup truck, chugging along with massive tires that reached up to her chest and a bed that routinely carried several tons of freight.
“No, they aren’t compensating for anything,” Tiff finally said to those nearby as she pushed her way through the students milling about. “They don’t need to.”
“Whatchu mean?” Asked that one kid again, pointing it toward her this time. All Tiff did was shrug and point.
“Look.”
“Tiffy, my baby girl!”
Tiff smothered the cringe that died to a huge smile as the door to the truck opened and out stepped an honest-to-goodness giant. The woman had wild, untamable red hair like an explosion, joyful blue eyes, and was 7 feet 8 inches tall. She wore a simple white blouse and blue jeans, but nobody cared about that because of all the rippling muscle that was egregiously stuffed into them, making them look several sizes too small, stretched to the limit to contain the bulging mass. The woman stood to her full height and stretched. Tiff heard several deep gulps and a couple of sighs.
“A goddess has appeared,” one of her friends murmured.
“Step on me,” said another, now ex-friend.
“Don’t be weird,” Tiff sighed, as she lifted an arm to wave. “Besides, if she did, you’d probably die. She weighs, like, almost 450 pounds. Mom! Over here!”
People parted like the Red Sea, but Tiff’s mom was no Moses. As soon as a valley appeared between the giantess and Tiff, she felt herself shrink back slightly. Suddenly, every eye was on her, and a brief moment of clarity warned her of her impending doom.
Tiff barely had a second to blink as her eyes grew to the size of saucers, her eyebrows vanished into her hairline, and her mother moved.
“Oh crap, wait Mo-”
“My baby girl, I missed you so much!”
“-mmmmohgodimgonnadie! I’m legit gonna die!”
She didn’t even get to blink before she found her face smashed into her mom’s chest, all air forcefully squeezed out of her in a crushing hug, her legs dangling uselessly several feet off the ground.
Melissa VanDyne was not a Speedster, but as a Strength-based Meta, her legs could propel her places faster than most people could react. Especially if they weren’t waiting for it. Combined with the fact that her Might rating was A for both durability and exertion? It was like a piece of sentient heavy machinery decided Tiff was its new teddy bear.
Tiff floundered weakly and began slapping her mom earnestly, all embarrassment forgotten in her bid for survival.
“Rip, Tiff,” she heard one of her classmates give their condolences.
“Man, now who am I gonna steal notes from?”
“You still want her to step on you?”
“…I’ll take my chances.”
Tiff didn’t have the luxury to trade banter, but fortunately for her, Melissa was exquisitely aware of her own capabilities as well as her daughter’s lack thereof. She didn’t set her daughter down, but carried her bodily, backpack and all, back to her truck, where she clamped the small girl under one armpit while she used her now free arm to open up the door. She tossed Tiff up onto the seat the poor girl wouldn’t have been able to climb into on her own, like a small sack of groceries, before climbing in herself. To those observing from outside, the moment she climbed into the truck, it instantly sank down a few inches, but nobody would ever dare comment on that out loud.
Tiff’s mom started the truck and they both sat in silence as they pulled out of the school’s driveway. The crunching of asphalt under the tires melted into the low rumble of the engine.
“So,” Melissa eventually started, “How was your day?”
It was a bit loaded and awkward, but the conversation needed to start somewhere. Tiff didn’t know exactly what her mom had been told by the school, and she was still…distraught from learning what the System dumped her with. She had been devastated, so she figured this was an improvement, but there was no chance she would volunteer any excess information.
How would that even work? She stressed and fidgeted. Hey, Mom, guess what happened to me today? I got smashed in the face with a dodgeball! Oh, and I’m a Supervillain now, too, I guess.
But she had to say something. Both surprisingly and not, honesty rolled out.
“I’ve had a crappy day.”
Tiff seemed surprised at first until she remembered her new Quirk. In the past, she wouldn’t have lied, not exactly, but she might have grumbled a non-answer and left things distinctly vague.
Melissa’s eyebrows rose slightly as she focused on the road in front of them, stealing a worried glance or two at her small and vulnerable daughter.
“I got a call from your dad earlier,” she began slowly, and Tiff’s breathing hitched. She knew her mom was trying, but subtlety and tact were not her strong suits.
“And he got a call from the school.”
Tiff closed her eyes, waiting.
“He told me the nurse said you took a nasty fall in PE.”
“Yeah,” Tiff grimaced.
“That you got hit hard by a ball.”
“Yeah…,”
“In the face.”
Tiff spluttered at her mom’s deep, offended growl, as if the ball, the kid, and the world at large had offended her. Tiff wanted to laugh. She was so concerned with something nobody else could possibly know about that she forgot entirely about the incident at PE…or how her giant guard-puppy of a mother might react to it! She had a terrifying presence like a force of nature, and if truly angered, she could devastate everything around her, but it took a lot to push her that far. She was a gentle giant, closer to one of those huge fluffy dogs people sometimes took selfies with, taking up entire couches while being like four times the size of their owners.
“Do we need to go back and have some words with that coach of yours?” she ground out.
“No!” Tiff actually laughed. “Ah, no. It was an accident. I’m fine.”
“You can be honest with me, my baby. Are you really?”
Oh, if you only knew, Mom, Tiff sighed, her momentary humor once again doused.
“Honestly, I am.”
Tiff thought about it for a moment and shrugged.
“Well, no, I am sore, my head hurts, and I have a headache. I’m tired, and I want to take a nap, and I’m a bit dizzy.”
She could feel her mother tense from across the cab.
“But that’s fine!” she added quickly. “The nurse said that’s normal. I got a note and everything.”
Tiff hastily held up the papers she received like evidence before a judge. Her mom’s eyes narrowed, but the tension eased. Even the seats groaned in relief.
“I…had my Awakening today,” Tiff threw out there delicately to test the waters. Her mom tensed again, but instead of promising violence and destruction, Tiff felt excitement.
“I…did hear something like that, yes,” her mom tried to play it off, but couldn’t mask how happy she was. Tiff couldn’t blame her. Awakening was like coming of age. She wasn’t actually an adult yet, as far as drinking and voting and stuff like that was concerned, but by most metrics, this was considered the time when kids stopped being “children” and became “young adults”. She, herself, had been anxiously awaiting it herself, barely able to contain her excitement. At least until yesterday. This morning. She had fantasized about what they would do when she finally did, spending long hours daydreaming about parties, dinners, and celebrations.
Now all she wanted to do was hide away from the world.
“I…,” Tiff steeled herself, a brief flicker of worry sparking through her mind for what words might come out next.
“…don’t want to talk about it.”
She could feel the disappointment radiating off her mother’s side of the truck as she understood her mom knew exactly how much she’d been looking forward to this. But she didn’t say anything. She simply snaked a massive, strong, and comforting hand toward her and caressed the top of her head.
Tiff’s frown melted into a sad smile. She knew she would have to explain eventually, but for now, she was content to accept her mother’s love and concern.
She was also pleasantly surprised to find that her Quirk did not compel her to say things she didn’t want to. So far, it did exactly what it said on the tin: so far, Tiff had not been able to lie. But it wasn’t malicious and it wasn’t anything Tiff didn’t want to say. If anything, it was like losing an inhibition. Now she was free to tell the truth.
She’d just have to see how long that would last.