Maybe World

"Hang on," Pao-lin says, and leaps onto the roof of a passing car like it's no different than stepping onto a bus.

So Kaede stays — she doesn't stay put, she runs off after Pao-lin, but she stays on the sidewalk, watching her friend jump from car to car till she gets to the one that actually pulled the hit-and-run. Fortunately for everybody, it slams on the brakes when Pao-lin lands on the roof, so there's no need to break a window or anything. Which is good, because Kaede's not sure Pao-lin could without her staff.

Kaede's determined to keep her cool. She's Wild Tiger's daughter, she's a NEXT in her own right, and she's the one who saved all the heroes' lives two years ago. So while she may squeal "That was awesome!" when Pao-lin rejoins her, she doesn't actually recap the entire experience, complete with sound effects and sweeping arm gestures and descriptions of the make and model of each car Pao-lin landed on, even though she really wants to.

She saves that till she goes home and tells her dad and Barnaby what she did that day.

Dad, who is a giant hypocrite and also clearly wasn't paying attention, tells her to be careful and not get into any trouble, like any part of the story she just told involved her being in trouble. Barnaby just smiles and says that Kotetsu's influence is spreading, and then Dad kind of gives him a look, so Barnaby doesn't explain right away. But eventually he tells her that her dad will just whip on his mask and do exactly that kind of thing whenever he sees somebody in trouble, which just proves what a hypocrite he is, if he does that kind of thing and doesn't want her to.

Kaede decides she needs a mask.

A mask and a staff. "You can't just shoot lightning like Blue Rose does ice," Pao-lin explains. "That's why I have my staff, as a conductor. It's a lot more powerful when I've got it or direct contact with the target."

Kaede thinks of baseball bats, and makes a note to find out if aluminum can conduct electricity. "You should have a telescoping staff," she says. "For times like that hit-and-run."

"That was just random, though! You can't plan for that kind of thing."

"But you can be prepared for anything, right?"

"You're plotting something, aren't you?" Pao-lin doesn't sound like she's going to stop her. She sounds a little gleeful.

"Maybe a little?"

Masks for both of them. Not so much because they actually work — Kaede can't believe it took her so long to connect her dad to Wild Tiger, though granted she was basically ignoring Wild Tiger in all the pictures, because he was so old, like her dad's age, plus until that time she got trapped in the shrine she didn't even know he was a NEXT — as for plausible deniability. How do you know that was me? It could be anybody!

"Anybody exactly your height and build who owns those same clothes as you're wearing," Pao-lin points out, when Kaede explains her line of reasoning.

"So I'll get a special outfit!"

"At that point you're basically a freelancer."

"So?"

Pao-lin sighs. "I'm going to have to go along with this just to keep you out of trouble, huh?"

That's the idea, but Kaede knows better than to say that.

"What about the Hero Academy?" Pao-lin asks one night when they're on the train.  Being with a hero is the one exception to Kaede's new Stern Bild curfew, and people seem more likely to mug each other late at night, so she's lucky Pao-lin seems to like hanging out with her.

"Dad doesn't want me to go." Kaede hadn't originally been all that enthusiastic about the idea of being a hero, but Dad's resistance is making it look a lot better. "He thinks my powers are too unpredictable."

"He might have a point," Pao-lin says. "I mean, NEXT powers can be really weird. What if you're about to start flying when somebody whose power is seeing five minutes into the future bumps into you? Or you take over somebody's powers and can't control them?"

"That hasn't happened in a long time!" It's been weeks.

"Or remember that time with the sneezing?"

"We don't know that's how it worked." Kaede had copied somebody's powers on the monorail — which they'd been avoiding ever since — and had started teleporting around the car every time she sneezed, which was a lot, because she seemed to be allergic to somebody's perfume or something. "I mean, maybe I could have teleported without sneezing! You didn't give me a chance to find out."

"What if you'd teleported outside the car? That's why I think Tiger worries."

"I think he worries because he's my dad." And possibly also because when she first got her powers, the first thing he saw was her falling on her butt.

"That too."

Most of the time, though, she uses Pao-lin's powers, because they're good for what she wants to do, and she knows how to use them. She doesn't get too many chances, alone or with Pao-lin; one time on the train home from school she stops a guy from harassing some woman for her phone number, another time she catches someone who swiped some money from a busker's guitar case. She doesn't even remember to put on her mask either time, and she doesn't even use her powers on the thief. Or more like if she does use powers she doesn't notice and they don't help, since she accidentally copied super-hearing off somebody.

"Wait, you electrocuted a guy for harassing someone on a train?" Pao-lin asks. They're eating dim sum, a place Pao-lin picked out, because when you ask Pao-lin what she wants to do she starts talking about restaurants.

"That's totally fair," Karina says. "I wish I could do that!"

"It just seems kind of excessive..."

"It was more like a static electricity shock," Kaede says. "I mean, he jumped, but I didn't knock him out or anything." It's not like she has no control. She has a lot when she's able to practice. The problem is that she can't help picking up new powers. That's what she needs to work on if she's going to convince her father.

"It'd be nice if you could fly," Karina says. "That's how Sky High patrols."

"Does he ever catch anybody?"

"I'm not sure..."

Kaede vows to ask him, but she doesn't see Sky High very often. And if she asks her dad or Barnaby to ask him, they might guess what she's up to in between school and figure skating practice. She hasn't dropped that; she's signed up with a really good coach, probably because of Barnaby pulling some strings, but she doesn't care.

In the end, it's not patrolling, or even hanging around with Pao-lin in sketchy areas late at night, that gives her a shot at heroism. They're walking through the Medaille area in the middle of the day, eating ice cream, when they hear something Kaede is ninety percent sure has to be a gunshot.

And so is Pao-lin, because she more or less unhinges her jaw to get an entire scoop of ice cream into her mouth at once. Kaede's almost too awed to follow suit, but then Pao-lin devours the rest of the cone in two bites and Kaede remembers why she's doing that. "Put on your mask," she says, then, "You're going to have an ice cream headache!" Then she tries to cram her entire cone into her mouth as well despite that. And yes, ow, ice cream headache. Where's her mask? Pao-lin's already running for the bank. Dammit! Kaede chucks her cone into a trash can, regretfully, and takes off after her. Why did she stop sticking a baseball bat into her backpack? This is her chance!

So they burst through the door (as much as you can burst through a revolving door) masked and sparking — Kaede has her hands behind her, Pao-lin's are together, electricity arcing between them — to find a guy with a baseball cap pulled down so low over his face he probably can't really see, and with his gun pointed at the ceiling. "Stop right there!" Kaede yells, feeling so awesome she might explode at any moment, and that's when Pao-lin leaps forward. Lightning arcs from her hands, hits his gun, and he yells and drops it. It happens so fast it takes Kaede a second to react, and then she's running, bound and determined not to just hang back and watch while Pao-lin handles this.

And she gets her chance to contribute when she runs full-tilt into the only other person in the bank who's not down on the floor, hears him curse, and reflexively electrocutes him. Something hits her foot as he collapses, and she's actually blurting out "Sorry!" when she realizes the thing he dropped on her foot is a gun.

Once they've seen the two men handcuffed, Pao-lin fishes a business card out of her pocket, hands it to one of the cops, and grabs Kaede by the wrist. Kaede's too wired to go quietly or think why Pao-lin might want to, but too stunned to put up much of a struggle, so instead she's babbling as Pao-lin drags her away from the crowd outside the bank.

"Did you see that, oh my god, I didn't even realize he had a gun, do you think it had the safety on? Do you think I got shot in the foot and didn't notice? You looked so cool back there! Did I do okay? We actually stopped a bank robbery! Do you think it'll be on the news?"

"Let's hope not!" Pao-lin says. "Hold still." Kaede holds still, at least until Pao-lin tries to scoop her up into a princess carry like she's a tiny female Barnaby, and Kaede yelps and stiffens and it doesn't work. "It looks easier when Barnaby does it," Pao-lin says mournfully.

"If you tell me what you're doing—" Kaede says, so they try again, this time with Kaede looping an arm around Pao-lin's neck, and Pao-lin, who is apparently made entirely out of steel springs, leaps up a fire escape carrying Kaede.

"Oh my god," Kaede exclaims, up on the roof.

"Did you see how many of those people were taking pictures?" Pao-lin retorts. At least she seems a little winded. Kaede is starting to think she needs to be jogging in place every moment she's awake if she wants to keep up.

"No," Kaede admits. It was all kind of a blur, really. "I thought you couldn't shoot lightning!"

Pao-lin actually laughs and scratches the back of her head exactly the way Kaede's dad does when he's owning up to something or caught making things up. Maybe Barnaby's right about influences. "Okay, so maybe you can," Pao-lin says, sounding sheepish. "But you want to be careful about it. You didn't get shot in the foot, by the way."