Fluff Chapter Four - When in Doubt, Look it Up

Chapter Four - When in Doubt, Look it UpEmily’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 assud to be a teacher’s assistant. Soon, that young man called out to her and asked for her na. It was all she could do to stutter through ‘Emily Wright.’ He didn’t comnt other than noting it down before moving to the door to take people’s nas 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 so free ti.Sohow 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 comnts 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 governnt for help and such, but that sounded a little suspicious to her. There was so 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 extres, but sowhere near the middle of the scale. By doing good quests, you can improve your station. The list goes sothing like:SaviourSuper HeroHeroDo-GooderAnti-HeroGreyEmily bit her lip. The rest of the information wasn’t all that helpful, but it seed to point her towards sothing 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 cri 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 howork 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 so 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 ti 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 ti. 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 tiless elegance to them. She could imagine gentlen with tophats walking down the sa 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 et anyone’s eyes, and just enjoyed the fresh air and sunshine as she started to make her way back ho. The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringent.“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 soone noticed Teddy’s ears? They didn’t stick out that much, and they might be confused for so 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 tis her dad would smile at her for doing sothing 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 ti. 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 alignnt. Soone who could control fire wouldn’t be burnt by their own flas, and minion-creators wouldn’t be hard by their minions, at least not purposefully.Was Teddy a minion? She looked... normal.“What is it, Boss?” Teddy asked.“You shouldn’t call that,” Emily said.“Can’t call you Emily,” Teddy said. “What if we’re robbing a bank and soone hears your na?”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 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 soone 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 sa 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 sothing to eat at the dorm, and then I can explain things, okay?”“Alright Boss ,” Teddy said.At least her mood seed easy to lift with the promise of food.

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