1.11
They're dying...dying too fast.
I don't want to join the fight. Don't want to tip my hand. The Endbringers might play the role of mindless monsters but there is a cruel, wicked intelligence there. A knowledge of tactics and the ability to adapt.
Leviathan did not have the raw power of Behemoth or the cunning of the Simurgh.
But he was powerful in his own right. If we wanted to win, we would need every advantage we could get.
But the trap would be useless if the capes all died before it was sprung.
I don't want to join the fight...but it seems I'd have to.
I can fight him. I can draw all his attention to me. Keep the others alive...then overwhelm him.
I open my mind.
They're like fireflies. Fireflies flickering in the night. Little pinpricks of light. Slivers of glass. Pieces of a greater whole.
I've never been around so many before. Never felt so many. And even this, I can tell, is just the smallest thread in a far, far greater tapestry.
All at my fingertips.
Its a kaleidoscope of lights, of functions.
And they are all mine.
I've never found a limit. Never discovered if there was a set number of powers I could hold. The most I've ever utilized was eight. And even then it was because I'd run out of capes not because I'd run out of powers.
Time to see if there is a limit.
The first power I draw is obvious.
I take to the air, a hand going to my wrist band highest priority, "Alexandria."
"Is it time!?" I hear her shout roaring as she dives into the fray, slamming into Leviathan's back like a meteor as Lung grapples with it, claws cutting and teeth biting, thousands of pounds of metal and muscle struggling with the monster that could level landmasses.
"No." I answer, shaking my head, "Bakuda isn't done. But pull them all back."
"What? Are you insane?"
"Do it. Or more are about to die."
If she answers, I don't hear her. Or better to say, I ignore it.
I start picking my powers.
Flight is the first. The most obvious. I choose someone that can survive if they were already flying and suddenly find themselves falling out of the sky. Alexandria package. Brute.
They are all here. All laid bare before me.
Super-speed, telportation, Brute strength, invulnerability. The Blasters are easily the most destructive. I recognize Purity's power. I take it, my hands glowing stark white. I look for more. She's not enough.
Lightning, fire, kinetics.
In the span of a second, I am now the most powerful parahuman on this battlefield barring, perhaps, Eidolon himself.
I take more.
Thinkers, Strikers, Breakers. These powers so few ever consider in these battles but were now open to synergy.
I take everything I can. My body is thrumming with energy, coruscating with raw power. My mind feels like it would collapse without the four regenerative healing powers I just took.
...I'm at my limit...
Fourty-seven capes...
Fourty-seven seperate powers.
...One more.
The last one...
"L-Lung" I breathe, my eyes closing as the rain pelts my face. My heart hammering under my ribs like it wants to punch right out of my chest. I feel worn...stretched thin. Like a rubber-band pulled to the point of breaking.
It's a familiar power. One I've borrowed before.
Like an old friend. A sibling even.
It takes no effort to break it open and find the inner workings.
Five aspects:
Enhanced senses
Strength
Pyromancy
Regeneration
and lastly-
Escalation.
The one that made it all but impossible to defeat him.
The power that enhanced all his powers simultaneously.
That is what I take.
And just like that, the power of fourty-seven capes I took for myself escalated just the same, slowly but surely beginning to break their natural limits. A flood of information poured into my mind, raw power flooded my body. So much. So much it actually hurt.
I dive.
Flight and speed drive me down with more force in this single blow than Alexandria has managed to throw around for the whole fight.
I slam down over the top of Leviathan's head and sending the monster smashing down into the street.
The tail whips through the air with imperceptible speed, faster than he's moved this whole fight. It hits like a train, sends me smashing into the next building
I swerve to the left, deftly avoiding the razor thin tail before I thrust my hand downward and a Blast of raw energy punches straight down.
Lightning, fire, superheated plasma, raw kinetic force. I can see the whole city ripple with the shockwave. I can hear the beating of wings at my back. Lung pulling away while he can still fly. Other attacks join mine from above.
It leaps straight up. The rain water. The rain water suddenly comes down with impossible speed. Impossible force. They hit like bullets, punching straight through flesh and bone. Legend is run through a half dozen times. Stormtiger is next. Armsmaster and Dragon's suit, even with its tinker-tech alloys, is ripped through by a thousand little drops of water..
I bring one hand up, the other stretched down, the power of the blast that I only now realize had charred my skin and shattered the bones in my hand, vanished, allowing the regenerative powers to fully repair the damage.
Too much power. My body can't fully handle this many alien functions. All the aspects and nuances of the original wielders that let them use these things safely, I am missing.
But there's no time to think on that. For now the regen and the Brute ratings would have to compensate.
Leviathan leaps, and the blades come from everywhere, out of the street, the building walls, street lamps and cars.massive slabs of steel. The power I've taken from Kaiser. A hundred metal barriers for it to slam its body against that send it smashing back into the ground as they rise up and over like a canopy of metal leaves.
I make more blades appear, these punch straight downward, looking to pin him there as I turn my focus above. Here I make barriers of hard light. They appear from thin air overhead like an umbrella as the deadly rain slams into it, shattering it over and over again as I keep making more and more to keep the fliers safe.
I hear the blades of Kaiser's power shatter down below me. I try to search, try to find where he'll go before he tries to escape. But I can't...And I realize then that I've only seen my own fate, and that of the others around me. I can't see him.
Even with the Escalation bolstering and pushing these powers past their limits, the Endbringer is still beyond my foresight.
The rain stops. A distraction, nothing more. But it doesn't take me long to find it. I can see it, perfect vision borrowed from Legend allowing me to locate him even as he moved under the water.
I rush forward, a combination of super-speed and flight carrying me fast enough to damn near break the sound barrier before I'm slamming into the monster with the pure force to shove it into a building. I hear it screech. A sound of surprise? Or pain? Or just irritation?
The building is shorn open, claws raking as it scrambles for purchase. I push straight through, dust and debris pelting my invulnerable body as I fly up. Punching through ceiling after ceiling after ceiling until I finally punch through the roof and rise above the collapsing building to feel the cold of the rain over my head. Washing away the dust and material before more blades splinter and fork out of the ground like a blooming steel fly-trap to ensnare the monster..
It picks itself up, throwing off the remains of the building. Its face has practically been cleaved open, only one of its eyes still seems to be attached to its head, the other three are bloody ruins. Its chest is a charred mess, its hands and forearms oozing black ichorous blood.
It turns its head and...looks at me.
I can't help but wonder if it recognizes me...remembersme.
I remember you.
The glint of steel catches my eye and I look down towards my forearm where steel scales are sprouting from my wrist and crawling upwards, a thin metal line trailing from wrist to elbow where soon more would grow.
Hey! Miss Special!
Bakuda...
"Are you finished?" I ask.
Yeah its done. Give me ten more minutes for us to get out of range of this crap.
"Do it fast."
"From what I hear you're the second coming of Jesus right now. Suck it up and let me work! We got one shot at this."
"Get it done Bakuda."
The warning comes in my mind long before I hear it.
"Tidal Wave incoming"
I see it. I see it, but I'm powerless to stop it, all I can do is shout a warning into the comms. "Alexandria move! Move everyone now! The wall's gonna break!"
"Where?"
"Everywhere!"
The wall of water crashes into the barricades. An unstoppable force meeting a very movable surface. The wall of stone, steel, ice and light that should have had the strength to endure at least two more waves, is suddenly under a siege from an enemy who's no longer willing to play the little games of these mortals.
The wall cracks like porcelain and the water floods into the whole city, surging forward like a living, thinking animal set loose to attack.
I can hear their names, feel the flickering flames snuffed out, the threads of the tapestry in my head coming undone.
Too many. Way too many!
I turn and the beast leers at me with that single eye. A beady, glowing orb in a black pit.
They're all going to die.
I give it up.
All of them, as many as I can spare. As many as would be safe to get rid of.
The barrier capes go first, they're the highest priority: They can protect the others. The Brutes next.
I see them in the distance, bubbles of light, the shaking of rising earth or freezing water. I even catch the glint of steel from Kaiser from what must have been over a mile away.
The water hits them, crashes over them.
The Kailedoscope dims and fades, the plethora of colors becomes noticeably dimmer. The powers available to me disappear one after another.
There are still many, but these are not as strong. Not as complete.
I am not as powerful now. I can't even see the futures anymore. The wielder of that power is dead.
And suddenly...I'm vulnerable.
I move back, rushing to slip between the buildings to get out of reach. If I fly up he'll hit me with that tail. Or worse, he'll pull off that trick with the rain.
Then. Leviathan moves.
They've always said that Leviathan is the fastest of the Endbringers. Submerged in water, this monster's speed has been likened to teleportation more than actual movement.
He proves it right now.
He's fast, unbelievably fast. I was over a block away, moving so fast through the air I couldn't even breathe with the wind rushing past my face so quickly, and he still makes it look easy to catch up to me. The wide expanse of his palm suddenly rushing down to crush me before I can even blink.
I pull the first power I can think of. One as familiar as Lung's.
I teleport.
My feet hit the ground of an apartment, my back slamming into the wall as my heart pounds in my chest.
My mind whirls through the powers available as I give up Lee's Teleportation. The last thing I needed was for him to die because he couldn't move out of the way of something fast enough.
I don't draw on the Brutes. Who knew if that was the only thing keeping them alive with the massive tidal wave. The tides were still surging. I can't take the barriers powers from them without risking the barriers collapsing and drowning them. Without regeneration to repair my body I can't use all the blaster powers I had before.
Think Taylor! Think!
I hear the crash a split second before the whole room is collapsing and I'm jumping out of the window, moving with foreign agility as I parkour my skinny self across the thin expanse of an alley to hit the fire-escape of another building before diving into another apartment.
Four seconds, maybe less before Leviathan was tearing through this place too!
Then the building is shaking. A piece of the roof falls and slams right down ontop of me. And the only thing I can owe my survival to is the metal scales that now cover my whole back, shoulders and legs, scales that are now crawling up the top of my skull and the side of my face. A plethora of powers swimming before my eyes-
Then there's a flash of green in my sight, arms around my waist, and I'm moving- being moved- surging through the air, Eidolon's green robe whipping in the harsh wind, his arms holding me up.
"Are you alright!?"
I nod, breathing hard. My heart is thundering in my chest, adrenaline making my fingers shake and my eyes twitch. A rush of fear and a fueled euphoria surging through my veins.
Its been a very long time since I'd been pushed.
I wonder how much of that sentiment is Kenta's influence...
"We pulled the other capes back to give you as much room as possible. When all the powers came back we thought you were dead." He explained.
"Keep them away..." I demand. "I'll take them back I just...I just need to-"
The answer hits me, a power I'd overlooked in my haste. Or that my own power had overlooked for some reason. Or maybe it had just slipped into my range just now...
This is exactly what I needed.
19.8 percent chance this person will die if I use his power-
And just like that, the floodgates are open and I'm no longer fumbling in the dark, wondering who will die and who wont.
I pull their powers too me again. The Brutes. The Thinkers, the Blasters, Movers, Shakers and Breakers.
Its all mine again.
There's a crackle in my ear, a sharp sting of static before I hear Bakuda's voice.
"We're ready!"
"Where are you?"
Yeah. Slight problem. You need to Bring Leviathan to us.
"What?"
"Look bitch I made this thing in less than a goddamn hour! Unless you wanna give me two, bring this motherfucker to me because I for damn sure aint gonna be able to bring it to him. It has a three minute charge up time where it has to be stationary! You think you can hold him in a three block radius for three minutes!? Either I-"
I growl, the sound is inhuman in my throat as I rip the radio out of my ear with metal claws that have replaced my fingers now. Unwilling to hear her bitching.
How can I succeed? How can I win? The percentages move and twist through my mind. A whole new Kailedoscope that I sift through.
The numbers are not good. They're not what I need.
0.14%
7.32%
4.83%
9.87%
It was telling me I couldn't win. Couldn't do it. That there was only a miniscule chance of success.
But a chance means its not impossible.
I just have to find it.
I focus...I look and search. The endless processing power. The same Thinker abilities that let me sift through over a hundred powers at once to find the ones I needed or that would help the most, lets me look through this tangled mess of futures. Images. Possibilities. I look through each and every single one.
Millions of possibilities. Millions of tiny little decisions layered on top of one another over and over again where the smallest changed detail could change the entire outcome. Future upon future upon future stacked over eachother one after the other.
I look, peruse and find them. The futures where we succeed. Like a thin string of spun silk I follow the gossamer thread back. Back to the source. Watching a film in reverse, extrapolating what happened...
I don't notice I'm falling until Eidolon catches me. Don't feel the pain lancing through my skull until I taste blood in my mouth and smell its metal sting in my nose. Eyes bleeding and body convulsing the regenerative powers I've all but stolen, even enhanced with Kenta's escalation are barely able to repair the damage.
Somewhere I realize...I'm killing myself.
But I find it. I find my answer...
"F-five..."
I point, my voice failing me, coming out as a half drowned gargle as I choke on my own blood.
Eidolon seems to catch the message though.
He flies.
Five hundred feet later, the power falls into the envelope of mine. Its there. Almost waiting for me.
I take it. I take it, enhance it with Lung's, its limitations shatter. Its suddenly greater than what it was before.
-------------------
"You think she can do it?" Kid asks, eyes staring out towards the Bay. It's completely pitch black. So dark they could barely even see eachother five feet apart. The only reason they can see the fight is because Lung joined the fray again with a surge of fire a while ago. The Blasters, Tinkers all following his lead into the attack, their blasts and tinker-tech shots lighting up the night enough for them to see bits and pieces of it.
"Dunno." Chariot answered. "Kinda doubt it. Making Leviathan move anywhere you want him to is damn near impossible. He's like a snake covered in soap. You aint never gonna get-"
Then, before anything more could be said, space, quite literally warped right before their eyes. All laws of common physics breaking in a split second as suddenly, Leviathan and god knows what else had been around him is simply...there. Transported over god only knows how many city blocks to bodily slam into the side of the PRT building itself. Lung right ontop of him, roaring down into its face as Leviathan's claws tore at his chest.
Buildings through half the Bay were shorn right open as Space reasserted itself. A hundred signs of damage simply appearing as the folded layers of space went back to their proper location.
"Fuck!"
"Holy shit! Holy shit! Oh my go-"
"Boom bitch!"
Bakuda pressed the trigger.
Then, three square blocks of city plus Endbringer is just...gone.
-------------------
I use my borrowed power to check before Eidolon speaks. Use it to see if it worked long before he told me.
He's flying now...flying the wrong way. Trying to get me back to the med tent.
I choke on my own blood as I try to tell him they'll need him. He should just go. Someone else will pick me up.
Stop flying...if you don't stop I'll slip out of range...
I have to see more, the fight's not done yet...even now our chances of killing it aren't even in the ten percents...
I have to see...I have to see how we can kill it.
We can kill it. Its not impossible...I just...I just need to see it.
I push.
I can't see it all. There's no time. Not enough. The power slips out of my range before I can see the end. I know their names now though...Their names...the powers I needed to have to win. To kill them.
Dinah...Lilly.
Lilly was here too...she was here...she's still alive. Keep her alive. We need her alive. Chances of killing it become almost non-existent without her...
But there's... one thing...one thing I can say to hurt Leviathan now...maybe kill him...win. Eidolon?...Was it to Eidolon I had to say it to?
"Move!" I hear him shout, all but shoving others out of the way as he hits the ground in a sprint.
There's lights, the biting cold of the rain vanishes...where are we?
'She's going into shock' Its a woman's voice...is that a nurse? Where am I...
'What has happened!'
That voice...I know that voice...
My eyes don't want to open. But I make them. I need to see.
My eyes close. I smile.
Hi Lee...
Why are you out of costume? Eidolon'll recognize you...
'Not sure. One second she's fine the next she's falling out of the damn sky, having a fit...There. Got it. Her brain. She's overtaxed it with all of the powers! Too much too fast with not nearly enough regenerative or healing skills to offset the damage. She'll be dead in three minutes!
There's shouting...voices, footsteps, the clatter of metal. Of tools...
Everyone shut up...I need to think...
'Do you not posses healer skills?!'
'They're taking too damn long to charge! Just need a little longer!'
I feel hands against my face. Warm. Soft. A surgeon's hands...
'Sumi! Sumi! Taylor!
I open my eyes sucking down air through a mouth filled with blood, choking on it...I...I can't breathe.
I see Lee...Lee. Surgeon hands.
His hands move...reach down and pull my mask off.
Distantly, I hear a something crash to the ground.
I need my mask Lee...
How many people are gonna see my face...I need my mask.
Eidolon!
Alexandria. That was her voice right?.
"We need you here now! We'll never get a better chance at killing Leviathan! Where are you!"
He's here with me' I think but can't say. 'Here with me...he should be finishing this'
Oh...wait...that's why you're here.
You need for me to say something...you're waiting on that...
There was something I had to say. Something...you could use to win.
There...there was something I had to say? What was-
Ahh...
"Fl-"
"Don't waste your strength. Don't talk!"
I have to. We can win Lee...
We can kill the bastard.
I force the air out of lungs that are starved for air. Shouting out a wheeze that sends my body into its last convulsions!
"Flechette!"
"She's seizing!"
Somewhere...I hear a scream.Last edited: Jul 24, 2015548Ld1449May 30, 2015View discussionThreadmarks 1.12 View contentLd1449To the last, Kill them allJul 22, 2015#2331.12
She's screaming.
She's screaming and her hands pull at her hair, nails like claws. A thousand emotions rise up from her stomach to choke her. She can barely stand
She knows this face. She sees it every day, stares into it every night before she sleeps, sees this, her precious little girl, with her waking eyes...
She can't breathe. Her chest clenches like a vice, breath stolen from lungs that burn.
The nurses rush through the tent with medication, equipment, needles.
She sees Lee...Lee who's hovering over her. Lee who knows her, whose face is frantic with a worry she hasn't seen from him this entire night.
He's...he's screaming out her name.
"Taylor! TAYLOR!"
Then...the sound...the sound that opens her stomach into a void.
A single, unbroken tone. A sound that grows louder and louder by the second until it's all she can hear, swallowing up her entire world.
A flatline.
Taylor...this is her Taylor. Her precious little girl finally come back to her somehow.
And she's dying...dying all over again...leaving again.
She shakes her head, bile at her throat, a crushing pain ripping through her chest...
She wants to leave. To deny the living nightmare of her little girl dying. But her legs are rooted in place, unwilling to move.
How can she leave? How could she leave her little girl?
She can't leave...she won't leave.
She grips a metal gurney, her full weight resting on the arm she's using to hold herself up as her legs shake, her tears blind her and her breath fails...
The heart monitor drones on.
It hasn't changed.
The mass in her throat chokes her.
Not again...she can't go through this again...
Then there's someone there, someone pulling her away, escorting her out, taking her away from this place, from her little girl.
No!
She's not sure if she says it aloud. All she knows is she can't leave.
She can't leave her here!
She plants her feet and refuses to move. Refuses to let herself be moved, be taken away.
Taylor...Taylor is...right here!!!
She's not sure what happens, how she's taken away. But she knows that it takes someone else, someone other than the nurse, someone vastly stronger than her or anyone she's ever known to pull her away from that medical tent.
In the end, she's standing over some wet stretch of mud, gripping the man by the long sleeves of his costume, her hands like claws, trying to push him away as he holds her up on failing legs while the rain pelts them like rocks from above.
She cries.
She cries like she hasn't cried in nearly a decade.
He doesn't let go. Even as she does something she's never done before.
She begs.
She begs him to let her go. Let her go back to her little girl.
But he doesn't...he doesn't let her go, he holds her until she collapses, knees falling into the muddy earth as she cries, all fight draining out of her body.
Then a doctor's there, and the cape is holding her in place, keeping her still for the needle that sends her to oblivion.
When she wakes it's to thoughts of Taylor.
Her mind is in a haze, every thought is swimming through mud.
Was it a dream?
The thought alone brings tears to her eyes, makes her stomach churn with nausea.
She can't imagine a more cruel delusion.
She pulls herself off the ground where she's been placed on a cot that would barely qualify as a Yoga mat. She's surrounded by wounded men and women, a bustle of nurses and doctors still moving between patients and hauling off medical equipment. Droning voices competing to overcome each other brought a pounding headache to the dead middle of her forehead.
She stands, her hands pressing down on her ears as she half walks, half falls toward the nearest exit.
She feels like she's in a drunken stupor, every thought in her mind swimming through molasses, sluggish and barely even registering.
She slams into someone as she stumbles out, nearly falling before she catches herself. She hears him say something, doesn't care enough to listen to what.
The rain pelts her again. It's like knives of ice, the cold cutting down to the bone.
Someone else walks into her, their shoulders hitting each other with enough force to make her step back.
Was it all a dream?
She has to stop. Has to stop herself in order to breatheagain...
The tears come back, fingers rising to grip at her scalp.
Keep it together...keep it together...
She's said those words to herself before. Used them to pull through the worst times of her life. The times where she lay alone in her cold, empty house, a picture in one hand and a gun within reach.
It's never been harder, and easier, to listen to them now.
She's not sure how long she's standing there, repeating the words in her head, as if it were both a prayer and a mantra.
"Ms. Hebert."
(X)(X)(X)
He can't see her eyes now. They're closed.
He wants her to open her eyes again...look at him. Recognize him.
The heart monitor is erratic, the spikes of blood pressure too high, the valleys too long, or sometimes too short.
She bleeds from her eyes, from her nose, her mouth...
She's dying, dying right in front of him.
And there is nothing he can do to stop it.
He pumps the oxygen mask, holding it over her face with hands stained with her blood.
Then...he hears the flatline.
That single, monotone drone of sound that seems to swallow the whole room...
It's the single most terrifying thing he's ever heard in his life.
He's screaming, shouting, calling for her. He barely recognizes what he's saying. Uncaring for who hears her name, who might see that he knows her.
His hands release the oxygen pump and push down on her diaphragm, screaming for the defibrillator that's taking too long to get here with so many patients that he genuinely couldn't care less for.
Then, finally, the Eidolon is there, shoving him away, his hands glowing with a gold energy that pushes away the bone deep weariness and fills him with energy with the mere brush of his fingertips.
But it's not himself he's worried for. It's her.
The girl he's known for the better part of a decade who's lying on the table, bleeding from her eyes, her nose, her ears, shaking with convulsions and spasms, choking on her own blood.
Eidolon's glowing hands fall over her. The brightness nearly blinds him but he doesn't dare look away.
She has to survive...she has to,they've come too far, done too much, survived too much for anything different.
Wake up Taylor. Wake up!
The harsh sound of thunder snaps him out of the memory, one hand rising to grip the bridge of his nose as he sucks down a deep breath.
He walks over to a nearby faucet, plastic tubing standing out in stark contrast to the dull, drab fabric that makes up the whole tent.
He washes his face, hands rubbing the ice cold water over his cheeks and eyes as he takes another deep, shuddering breath.
He hisses as he rubs his eyes, his shoulder length hair hanging down around the sides of his face.
"Doctor?"
He turns. It's a nurse. She stands there, an operating mask over her face, her scrubs speckled with blood. There are bags under her eyes, he notices a slight tremble in her fingers. Caffeine.
"Sir, we need your help over in Trauma one."
He turns away, back to the faucet to wash his hands."You will have to find someone else to help you." The shouting and emotion has made his voice raspy and with his heavy accent he wonders if the woman even understood him.
"What?"
He finishes washing his hands, drying them with a white towel that's been lain out beside the sink before he turns and begins to march past her. "Find someone else."
She seems startled, jerking in place. "What...but...but si-"
"Find someone else." He says for the third time, raising his voice just enough to speak over her protest "I was here for one patient. Your others could not be less important to me."
"Sir please, you're the only surgeon I can find right now that isn't busy-"
"Look harder." He answers flatly, ignoring the rest of the calls at his back as he pushes the tent flap open.
The rain hits his scalp like rocks, falling in sheets as he marches into the cacophonous chaos of the medical camp.
He spies another three tents being set up to his left, further down the hill on ground that was slightly less than flat, but beggars could not be choosers or so it was said. Each one could house another hundred patients. It wasn't just heroes now. Civilians, injured in the shelters or that hadn't evacuated to the shelters in time were pouring in now as well.
The medical center is filling to capacity. More tents would be needed and the makeshift utilities wouldn't be sufficient much longer. They would need help brought in from other states. The first building that would be reopened would be the hospital, he knows. As it currently stood, three electricity based capes, working in shifts were fueling the electrical needs of the medical staff now that the generators were running out of fuel.
Nurses collapse wherever they can, doctors are surviving on coffee and energy drinks. Snippets of rest in between allow them to function just that little bit longer, help just one extra person.
As it stood even Othala, the only local cape that could grant regeneration, was all but ready to collapse from sheer exhaustion and she didn't need to spend more than a handful of seconds with her patients.
Even Eidolon hasn't been called away to join the second attack gathering right now. He's still here, sifting through the camp as the only one that had the power for multiple touch based healing abilities.
Without him, a great many more would die
Lee walks across the camp, the cold of the rain, the brush of rushing bodies. It's all irrelevant to him now. He doesn't try to run on the slick muck that passed for solid ground.
Finally, he makes it to the tent...the only tent where there is nothing...nothing but a sepulchral silence within.
He opens the tent flap, stepping inside to a stillness that makes his heart clench.
He moves forward, and his eyes pan over the pale face and curls of dark hair.
He looks to the heart monitor, the one now showing a clean, clear pulse, silent to allow her as undisturbed a rest as possible.
They'd almost lost her.
Almost.
But death didn't claim her before. It didn't claim her now.
A part of him wants to take her from here, or to call a greater group for her protection. But it could not be. Not anymore.
Even so...he wishes for it, even as his rational mind tells him all the reasons it's unnecessary. The truce is still in effect, and the pretense of ignorance is just that...a pretense. There's probably not one person in this camp that doesn't know who is laying in this tent. Over a dozen eyes, not the least of which is the thinker girl-child of the one that called himself Marquis are keeping their eyes right here, ready to interfere or send others to interfere if anyone even breathed incorrectly near this place.
In the span of an hour, she had become the most treasured life along the entire eastern seaboard.
He checks the medical equipment, again looking over the lines for breaches, the heart monitor's calibrations and fittings, the file to re-check the dosages given to her, making certain it was optimized for her weight and height, the pressure of her oxygen tank.
It's unnecessary. It's the third time he'd done this.
He straightens.
She doesn't need him here.
She doesn't need him to keep his eyes and attentions on her.
She needs something else from him right now.
It's difficult, nearly a test of will in and of itself before he turns, marching again out into the cold.
He doesn't know where they took her. At the time, he couldn't bring himself to tear his attentions away from Taylor.
Now he searches. He moves with mechanical tenacity, planning his search in advance, already knowing the layout of the camp. He moves from tent to tent, bed to bed, his eyes search over the faces and everyone. He questions the nurses, the doctors and the capes that are still conscious.
When he finds her though, it's not in a tent. He finds her in the dark, in the shadow of the emergency lights, her dark hair matted to her head and face with the cold rainwater. She's shivering, crying, her hair in her hands as she mutters to herself, looking for all intents as if the world is crumbling around her.
He pushes through the people, closer, calling out her name as he stands barely an arm's length behind her.
"Ms. Hebert."
She turns, rounds on him, a wild look in her eye, like a feral animal with no recognition of those around it.
"Lee..." Her voice is breathy, nearly lost in the overpowering hiss of the rain. "Lee..."
She steps forward her hands reaching for him before pulling away, as though hesitant to touch him.
"Where is she? Lee I..." He sees her eyes now, red, and the water that trails down her face is not just rain. "I'm not crazy Lee...I'm not...where is she!"
He grabs her arm. "Come with me."
She grabs him by the front of his pale blue scrubs, holding him in place. "Lee just...just talk...tell me anything, please!"
He leans closer, all but whispering in her ear. "Come...I will take you to her."
Her eyes open wide, and he sees a fear in her gaze. Once more like an animal, fight or flight instincts coming to the fore.
She's terrified.
He holds onto her, his own worry on Taylor's behalf spiking further.
Were her fears of rejection so well founded?
Then...what he sees is familiar...her eyes harden, her shoulders squaring themselves ever so slightly as the fear is pushed away, thrown to a place where it has no control over her.
Its almost enough to make him smile.
He holds her arm as they march forward, moving through the crowd.
Once more he reaches the tent that's been reserved and steps inside.
She stops, his hand slipping free of where he's gripped her arm.
Lee turns, looking at her.
But she doesn't see him...doesn't even look at him.
She's staring at Taylor, only at Taylor...
Her legs are shaking as she moves forward on weak knees. Her whole body is wracked with shakes that aren't caused by the cold of early winter and the freezing rain.
She moves past him and reaches the bed. Her hands are trembling, hovering over Taylor's face.
He hears her sob; a shudder wracking her whole body and Lee is afraid she's about to collapse.
Then her fingertips finally reach down.
Her touch is full of soft, fearful caution. As though she was terrified the illusion would shatter in an instant if she reached for it too forcefully.
Her fingers brush across hair that's so much like hers and he can almost see it...the moment that is simultaneously euphoric and immeasurably agonizing as it rips right through her.
He hears her shuddering breaths, can imagine her face as she tries to speak, to find words that elude her.
Finally, she turns, her eyes clouded, almost glassy...sightless.
"I...my..."
She stops, and Lee allows her the time to think. To gather herself.
"Sophia." She finally says... "I...I have to find Sophia."
She looks back to Taylor, as though suddenly realizing that, in order to do that she has to leave her side.
Lee's heart has long since turned to stone. But he is not nearly so heartless, no matter if he wants to stay.
"I will find her."
(X)(X)(X)
She barely hears his words, hardly even notices it when he leaves. Her mind doesn't even really process it before she's turning back to this dream made real...
Taylor is lying here...right here in front of her...
Her baby is right here...
Her baby girl is alive...alive and right here!
She wants to reach down, reach down and pull her into a hug, never let her go again.
But she doesn't...she can't.
Her face is pale, her body so thin, her breathing a thin wheeze with an oxygen mask over her mouth, tubes in her arms. Bloodstains over her silk blue clothes.
Did she come all this way just to die now?
That thought...she's been shot before and it doesn't even compare.
She feels her fingers brushing through Taylor's hair. Wavy dark brown locks that are just like her own.
The feeling is unchanged. Exactly like she remembers in that memory that she's burned into her mind. All those years ago, the morning they left, she hugged her, fingers tangled in this hair just like now as she placed a kiss on Taylor's perfect forehead.
Taylor hugged her back, arms around her neck. Squeezing tight.
I love you mommy
The sound of her own voice startles her as she cries, the hand at Taylor's hair now rising to cover her mouth as she feels her lip and chin quivering beneath her fingertips, her eyes clenching tightly shut as tears leak from their edge to trail down her face.
Her other hand reaches down, and before she realizes it her fingers find Taylor's.
She looks down, the index finger is gripped by a heart sensor, its bulky shape completely out of place in her daughter's thin, delicate hand.
She grabs hold of it, gripping the palm and fingers with a barely there touch, as though afraid it would shatter.
She didn't believe in God. The paths of her life had long since removed what little faith she held in a benevolent higher power.
But right now...right now she prayed. She prayed to anyone that would listen, anyone that would answer.
Open your eyes Taylor. Please open your eyes...let me see you again...please baby girl...just open your eyes
(X)(X)(X)
For Sophia...the worst is the smell.
She can deal with the noise. It's little different than a high school hallway, or the city at night. Background audio. White noise even. She can tune it out, ignore it. When the injured scream, or cry from a ways away it's a little harder, but only because her instincts identify it with something else. Something that she can move to fight, to hurt. She doesn't register it as someone in a medical tent...
She doesn't let herself register it as someone in a medical tent.
Even the lack of privacy doesn't bother her overmuch. She knows it's not permanent, knows that in comparison to most...she's going to be getting off easy, knows that she'll be out here in a few more hours after Othala's regen finishes its job, and complaining about not having a divider screen when people are still out there, fighting and dying would be beyond petty.
But it's the smell that gets to her.
The stink of industrial grade antiseptic, blood, loosed bowels, medication, chemicals, wet grass and mulched earth, gasoline exhaust from the generators, the cloying scent of oily water down the hill and rapidly stiffening corpses. Its a heavy, thick musk.
She feels like it's seeping into her clothes.
She will burn them when she leaves. Costume or not.
Just laying here makes her wish for a shower.
Most of all though...she wants Ms. H.
Its stupid...childish even, but...She wants her here with her, to know that she's alright. For Ms. H. to know that she's alright. For her to say that they'll be going home, or to Emma's place. Or somewhere that isn't here and that this will all be over soon.
Just like she did the day she promised to get her out of that fucking house and actually kept her word.
She takes a deep breath of the putrid stink, willing herself to calm down.
It'll be a while before Ms. H. finds her. She didn't even know that she was injured, much less which of the dozen tents she was wheeled into.
She's in this for the long one it seemed.
After a few more minutes Sophia released a breath, sighing through her nostrils.
...How did they keep doing it?
This was her first Endbringer fight and frankly, she hoped it was her last. If she had to choose to be in one again she wasn't sure if she could muster the courage, or the patience for dealing with the logistical nightmare of the aftermath.
For people like Alexandria, Legend and Eidolon...She didn't know how they could do it. And this was the weakest of the Endbringers.
"Stalker?"
She turns, blinking in surprise.
"Blackout?"
The Protectorate's Darkness based cape nods. "Yup. Just checking in on this tent. How're you feelin? Think you need Othala or one of the others to come by?"
She blinks. "Seriously? You do realize I'm black right? Doesn't that Nazi have a 'No two doses for colored people' or something policy?"
Blackout offers a wry chuckle. "She's got a special today." He said. "So how're you feelin?"
She shrugs. "I'm not gonna say no. It'll free up a bed for you guys the faster I get out of here."
He nods. "Can't promise anything since you're not dead or dying. The fight's not done yet."
That...makes her stop. "What? What do you mean it's not done?"
She turns and looks out to the far wall, where she knows the city to be just past the dull green fabric. All she can hear is the hiss of the rain.
"The fight's moved." He said. "Don't ask me how, thought they were immune to shit like that. Some kind of Tinker bomb or something. That girl in blue moved the fight somewhere inland. No more tidal waves or a flooded city for that son of a bitch."
"Where?" Her mouth asks on its own, her brain still feeling like it was trying to get into first gear.
"No idea. Somewhere deep inland. With the phones and long range radios out we don't know where. Alexandria and Legend know though. Alexandria already took the heavy hitters to attack, Legend is organizing everyone else that's still standing that can run support and Eidolon's getting more people back on their feet. I even heard they're calling in capes from other countries to help. Can't say I blame em. This is the best shot we've ever had of doing some real damage."
Her mouth opens behind her mask, closing after a moment, a dread crawls up her stomach, tasting like acid at the back of her throat.
They were still fighting?
"I'll see about getting Othala to come back around. No promises though."
Without another word, Blackout moves past her, moving to the cape at her side as her thoughts struggle to process the proverbial bitch slap she feels like she just got.
No problem. She wants to say.
Frankly, if they're still fighting, her problems can wait.
She let her head fall back against the pillow with a sharp exhale.
Her eyes close, trying to will herself to sleep.
Maybe when she wakes up...this'll all be over.
In the end, when she opens her eyes again, it's to something she didn't expect...at all
Her heart drops into a pit as they land on a face she thought she'd never see again.
It's the doctor, the one that had been with Pjama Girl almost a week ago.
"What the-"
He holds out a strip of a page for her.
Hesitant and cautious, with eyes that stare at him like the potentially dangerous stranger he is, she takes it in her hands, unfolding it.
The truce is still in effect.
This is not meant as a threat of any kind.
Move your head to answer.
Do you know Annette Hebert?
Her eyes turn to him, wide, with an immediate desire to shoot this bastard in the face. She wasn't too injured for that.
Before she can do anything though, his index finger presses against his lips, asking for silence.
"Your face speaks for you."He says
"Where the hell is she? Did you do something? So help me, if-"
"No." He answers, holding his hands up in a gesture that's asking her to keep her voice down as others are turning towards them now.
"She asked me to help find you. I will go now and tell her where you are."
"Take me to-" Her move to sit up was cut abruptly short as the previously absent, rolling pain of her broken ribs decided to reacquaint itself with her, knocking the wind from her chest.
Lee's hands are suddenly on her shoulders, pressing her back to the bed. "You are in no condition. I will tell her, she will come here as soon as she is able I am sure."
She glares at him, sucking down a breath through grit teeth.
"I would not have come here to only lie to you." He insists.
She breathes slow, forcing herself to relax, trying to think of what game he could be playing with this and coming up with a blank.
She lets herself fall back into the bed, promising herself that if Ms. H. wasn't here in ten more minutes she was gonna go looking, broken ribs and twisted ankle or not.
And if she doesn't find her she's gonna go see just how genuine Marquis was with his earlier offer of help.
But it's not needed in the end. Minutes later, just as she's about to test her resolve (and her pain threshold) the tent flap is pushed open and Annette walks through.
Immediately, Sophia's worry spikes.
Annette's crying.
It not obvious, and with how drenched she is from the rain-water outside she doubs people who didn't know her would ever think she was in tears.
But Sophia does know her.
She sits up as the woman comes closer, sucking down a sharp breath as the pain makes itself known again. "Ms. H, what's wrong?"
Annette walked up to the side of her bed, sitting on it.
"What's-" Her question is cut off as Annette leans forward, silent as she wraps her arms around Sophia's head and neck, pulling her close to her chest. Her nose and mouth are pressed into the crown of Sophia's hair.
The girl stiffens, freezing for a moment, before hesitantly returning the embrace.
Annette's arms tightened their hold around her, holding her close with an almost desperate tightness.
Sophia had never been soft spoken, but as her question emerged, it came out as just that, a soft spoken plea for an explanation, a reassurance.
Annette is the strongest, best woman she knows...and here she is...looking and feeling as though she's about to fall to pieces.
"What happened Ms. H?"
After a long moment, she answers. Her voice comes out so broken, so choked up Sophia can't understand her.
"What?"
"It's Taylor" The whisper is as much a sob as an answer. Her shoulders and chest shake against Sophia's body.
"It's Taylor, Sophia."Last edited: Jul 24, 2015516Ld1449Jul 22, 2015View discussionThreadmarks 1.13 View contentLd1449To the last, Kill them allJul 22, 2015#2341.13
When she opened her eyes, it was to sunlight streaming in through the hospital window, shivering with an ache in her back and neck where she sat on a hospital chair.
And to a stranger in the room.
Annette straightens, stiffening where she sits when she finally recognizes him.
Six foot six with a dragon tattoo. No one could really forget him.
"Kenta."
The man sat in another chair, leaning forward, his clothes were clean but he smelled of smoke and metal.
"Hebert." He answered back, his eyes never trailing from their fixed position on Taylor's unmoving body.
Annette wiped eyes that were crusty with tears and sleep. The question of why he was here died in her throat as she thought of it, her mind catching up to it all, giving her the answer before even needing to ask.
"It was her…" She whispered. His words, his little smiles and internal jokes in their previous meeting, inconsequential at the time, now stood out like stark, neon bright signs.
"She's the girl you saved...and...I'm the one she was scared of seeing."
The man didn't twitch, didn't even move or look her way.
She licked at dry lips, grimacing at the taste of her own mouth.
After a moment, she opened her mouth to speak when his deep, nearly booming voice made her stop.
"We won."
She paused, blinking, genuinely clueless. "What?"
"The beast. Leviathan. We won." He used a quick jerk of his chin to gesture to Taylor. "She gave us a place to fight him, saved enough to attack him, and pointed us to a weapon that could defeat him. She handed us her victory."
It was unbelievable to Annette...just how little she cared about Leviathan right now.
"Where have you been?" She asked. "You and Taylor I mean...all these years?"
Kenta took a deep breath, leaning back in his seat. "This is a conversation you should have with her."
"I don't…" She took a breath, composing herself before she started crying again. She'd done enough crying.
She had her daughter back, the whole world could collapse around her and she should still be able to call herself happy.
"I don't know the first thing about my daughter Kenta...at the very least tell me what kept her away from me all this time."
The massive man looked at her, his dark eyes holding an intense calculation in them.
"We spent five weeks within the Japanese mainland. Communication to other countries was tightly controlled by the government. We were however set to leave to the United States when…"
The man paused, his eyes turning away from hers, down to the floor.
"What happened?" She pressed, insisting.
"Have you heard of the Yang-Ban?"
She blinked. "Of course. They're the Chinese government sponsored cape organization. Like the Protectorate here in the US."
Kenta grinned, a gleaming set of white teeth on display. "Do you wonder why you've heard nothing further from them?"
He offered a single, humorless chuckle that she didn't share before he continued.
"After Kyuushu, the Japanese needed funds. For a price, they agreed to allow the Yangban to operate within their borders. I was their target. It did not take them long to discover Sumi's abilities however. Hmmm." He paused, closing his eyes as if he were seeing a memory behind them.
"It took us...a long time to escape." He said after a moment. "After we did Sumi wished to make certain they'd never follow us again. I was of like mind."
"Sumi?" She asked.
"Watatsumi." He explained. "A dragon that rose from the sea." His grin, the same one she'd seen in her office, the cruel twist of lips, returned to his face. "Frankly, your 'Taylor' is too meek a name for this girl."
There was something there, something unsaid. Another of his jokes.
She looked at him, at the cruel tug of his smile, the eyes that gleamed with a note of cruelty and found it.
Taylor is too meek for his girl.
She wanted to be angry, wanted to hurt him.
But how could she?
He saved her...took care of her all these years.
Taylor was more his than hers.
His 'private' joke/taunt over his smile dropped and he continued. "After we were done, we left China and wandered, making certain nothing else would be sent to capture us again. Either the survivors knew better...or we left no survivors. Choose whichever you like more." He laughed.
The silence settled between them, with Kenta content to turn his gaze back to Taylor, and her needing the time to absorb what was said, to wrap her head around the thought that her little girl had killed people.
"What will you do now?"
The question startled her. "What?"
"What will you do-" He drawled, voice low, dragging out the last word. "-now that she has returned?"
"What do you mean?" She asked. "She's my daughter. I'm taking her home." She said, as if the answer should be obvious.
He opened his mouth, ready to speak when the door opened.
It was Legend.
The leader of the Protectorate stood there, stepping inside with something she'd label as hesitation, or even shyness.
Kenta stood up from his chair, rounding on the blue clad hero. She couldn't see his face, but if it was as thunderous as his voice she felt bad for the hero.
"Leave." The asian all but snarled
"Lung-" The man began. "We have to-"
"Now is not the time." He stepped up, and Legend seemed so tiny next to him it wasn't even funny. "Leave. I will deal with you and yours later."
She blinked, stupefied as she watched this man talk to Legend like he was talking to the hotel busboy or something.
Legend took a breath. Looked to Kenta, then to Taylor, something in his face changing before he nodded. "I understand."
Then he turned and marched out the door again.
Kenta watched him leave, waiting for the door to close before he allowed himself to relax ever so slightly. When he turned back to the chair and planted himself on it he didn't say another word for a long time.
(X)(X)(X)
"What!?" Emma's voice was a shrill shriek, a high pitched assault on all their senses that made Sophia wince.
She was smiling, her green eyes wide and hopeful. "Are you-Dad...Taylor?"
Alan Barnes smiled nodding at his daughter. "Yeah. Annette told me herself when I got Sophia."
Emma let out a cry, something between a sob and a scream as she launched herself forward and hugged her father tight.
Sophia watched, slightly behind Alan, out of costume, quiet.
"I have to go see her!" The redhead finally concluded, pulling away and looking at her father with the request on her face.
"Honey we can't right now." He said. "The roads are still broken up and flooded. They've got parahuman help to clear some of the roads to the hospital but it's full to bursting. They didn't even let me go up to see her. One injured, one visitor that's it. And Annette won't let anyone take their place even for five minutes."
She couldn't have been happy about that, but the smile on her face didn't even twitch. She looked to Sophia marching forward and offering another hug. "Hey Soph." She paused, looking her up and down. "Why're you wearing scrubs?"
Because I wasn't gonna walk out of the hospital in front of a hundred people or meet your dad with my costume on.
"My clothes were soaked. Had to change before I caught pneumonia or some shit." She half lied.
Alan pulled away marching up the rise towards their house. "So what was the damage?" He asked, trying to keep his tone light but the heroine could hear the dread in his tone.
Finally, the smile fell from Emma's face. "Power's gone… the water is coming from the faucet weak and practically black."
"We can still flush the toilets. And power's out for everywhere hun." Alan commented. "Be glad that's our only issue. I heard the looting already started over on the west side."
Sophia couldn't help but agree.
If missing lights and shitty tap water was the only real problem Emma needed to be very, very grateful.
------
Hours later, as they finished helping Alan and Ms. Barnes haul up water from the Oasis the PRT had set up a couple blocks away, Emma asked her a question.
"Hey Soph, what's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong" Came the quick, almost automatic response.
"Oh don't gimme that you've been brooding in the corner all day." She glared, poking her with her big toe as she lay on the couch and Sophia sat at the other end.
She swatted the offending limb away. "Quit it. I'm fine Ems."
Emma lay still, and Sophia, for the first time since they heard Leviathan was on his way, wished desperately for a working television set. Something to distract her friend, draw her attention to...anything but her right now.
"Soph...come on." Emma sat up, crossing her legs to sit on the couch rather than lay on it. "What's up? Does this have to do with Leviathan?" She paused. Looking around, making sure her parents and sister weren't in earshot before she leaned forward, whispering. "You were there right?"
"I was." She admitted.
"What...uhh...what was that like?"
Sophia turned and glared at her, as if saying:
What do you think it was like?
Her friend all but wilted under the heat of her glare.
"I'm sorry!" She squeaked, having never quite seen Sophia looking at her… like… whatever this was.
Sophia looked away, forcing herself to calm down.
It wasn't her fault...anyone would have been curious about it. Hell, before last night she'd been curious about it…
"Hope you never get powers." She said by way of answer after a long moment of silence.
The silence stretched on, and when Emma chose to break it, it was with the previous subject.
"But...then what's bothering you? Does it...does it have to do with Aunt Annette? Taylor?"
Sophia kept quiet but, with so many years of wearing a mask, she wasn't used to controlling her own expressions. Her sadness...her guilt could be seen in the glass of her eye and the lines of her face.
Emma leaned forward. "What's wrong Soph?"
She said nothing for a moment before offering a quick, mirthless laugh.
"I'm a bitch." She concluded. "Aren't you supposed to be happy for someone when this kind of thing happens?"
"Yeah. Because clearly I'm an expert on what should happen when dead people come back to life after…" She paused, thinking. "Eight years."
Sophia turned and glared at her again. This time Emma offered a hesitant smile in reply.
Sophia looked away. "I should be happy for Ms. H. I should be smiling...but…"
"Buuuut?" Emma prodded.
"All I could think about when I heard it was 'What happens with me now?'"
"What do you mean?"
"You know what I mean. Do you think Ms. H would even know me, that you would even know me if Taylor was still...well she was alive I guess, but...if she was here? Hell, would we be friends? I mean-" She bit her lip and for the first time in her whole life Emma could see tears brimming at her friend's eyes.
"Would any of the good things that happened in my life even happened if Taylor hadn't disappeared? And now that she's back is it gonna be over? Just like that?" She snapped her fingers for emphasis and she quickly looked away, pretending that she wasn't wiping away the tears she didn't let fall.
Emma stared at her friend, feeling empathy tugging at her emotions.
"Soph...come on." She stressed, scooting forward a bit. She opened her mouth, then closed it, thinking of her next words, considering them.
"Taylor's back." She finally began. "Yeah, and I'm sure Aunt Annette is over the moon, happy with that but just because Taylor's back doesn't mean she doesn't still love you. That she's gonna shut those things off and throw you out. You know that."
"Yeah." She mumbled, more to herself than Emma, as though she was trying to convince herself of Emma's words as much as she was trying to reinforce her own knowledge of Annette.
"That's right. You're bein' an idiot just for thinking that. Instead of looking at it like Taylor's shown up to take your place or whatever, look at it this way, you just got another friend." Emma grinned "Your social life is just sad so god decided to gift wrap you a whole new buddy."
Sophia smacked her on the shoulder. "Screw you."
Emma laughed even as she rubbed her arm.
Sophia didn't know her own strength.
She didn't laugh but she did smile.
And though the fear...the...reservations...she had weren't gone...they were alleviated just a bit.
If she let herself hope...she could see it somehow, a future where she Taylor could be her friend, and Annette could stay as hers...both of theirs she guessed…
She wasn't sure how it would work, or if it even could but she would definitely try everything she could to make it work, if not for herself then...at least for Annette.
That's what you did for the people you loved right?
Even if you couldn't be happy, you do your best to make them happy. Right?
And who knows, maybe in the end she could be happy with it too.
(X)(X)(X)
The sun was beginning its descent in the sky when Lung finally moved from his place, standing up.
"What's wrong?" Annette asked, blinking up at him.
"Nothing" He said before turning his dark eyes onto her, his expression neutral. "She will wake soon."
She straightened, looking at Tayor now with a sense of desperate urgency in her posture and expression.
Lung reached into his jacket, pulling free a folded page.
"Here." He said, moving to hand it to her.
She looked at him, as though her brain was trying to pull her free of her fixation on Taylor to recognize what he was offering and take it in her hands.
She did so, unfolding the piece of paper.
It was in Japanese.
"What does it say."
"That…" He drawled. "Is for her, not you."
Her confusion as to why he was giving it to her was cleared up when he flatly turned, offering his back as he marched towards the door.
Annette stared at his back, mouth falling open in surprise. "Wait- where are you going?"
Lung paused as he gripped the doorknob.
"Atarashii mono wo sukuru tame, saisho wa mae no koto subete suteru."
"What does that even mean?" She hissed, frustrated.
"It is no longer my place." He said by way of answer.
Annette felt her mouth fall open in surprise again.
Then she heard a groan.
Her eyes snapped from Lung to Taylor, not moving back until she heard the door snap shut, Lung nowhere to be seen.
-----
Just outside the room Lung took a deep breath through his nostrils, opening his eyes, he found Lee, Oni-Lee, standing in the hallway directly across from him.
"You would leave without saying your goodbyes?" Lee drawled.
"It is no longer my place." He repeated, turning away from his long time friend and beginning to march towards the elevators, the nurses and doctors opening the way for him in the same way they would for Kaiser, or Marquis.
"Lung...what is it that you have chosen to do?" Lee asked, walking slightly behind him.
He made it to the elevator, pressing the button and turned to look at Lee
"Anoko no koufuku na no wa Ore no gimu da. Sumi wo hirotta hi wa, ore ga sou eranda."
He saw Lee straighten, almost reeling truth be told.
Then...he nodded. "I...understand."
Nothing else needed to be said between them. When the elevator came Kenta walked in. Lee did not follow.
When he made it down below he found the PRT agents waiting for him, nervous and fidgeting.
He glared at them, and both men looked as though they wished for the earth to swallow them whole.
Pathetic.
"Lung."
He turned, and Legend once more was the one there, waiting for him.
He turned to the man, a sneer, or something near enough such as to not make a difference, curled his lip.
Legend didn't comment on his expression. He didn't seem angry or offended.
"Just tell me one thing." The man finally said. "Everyone knows you hate us. The Protectorate. Everyone knows how much you value your independence and freedom...so why? Why join us now."
Lung turned, looking at the two PRT agents. "Leave."
They practically ran.
Lung looked back to Legend, the cavernous lobby was big enough to provide them with a semblance of privacy by sheer space. He looked the Protectorate leader in the eye in the eye. "Before I answer your question. You will answer mine." Was his flat demand.
Hesitantly, Legend nodded.
"Do you have a child?"
Again, Legend slowly nodded.
"Then what would you do in my place?"
The silence between them was thick, pregnant even.
Then, Legend nodded for a third time and extended his hand.
"Let me be the first to welcome you then."
(X)(X)(X)
Five stories above them, Taylor Rose Hebert finally opened her eyes to the sight of her mother.
"Muh?" Her mouth felt like it was stuffed with cotton balls, her voice coming out of her lips like a drunken slur as she tried to say Mom.
Annette opened her mouth, fishing for words, her lips trembled.
Finally, her words failed her. She closed her mouth and leaned down, pressing her lips to Taylor's forehead, her tears trailing down her face to land on her daughter's dark mass of hair
She felt her eyes growing droopy, the fugue of drugs threatening to draw her back to sleep.
She reached out, finding now, like she did all those years ago when she lay in a bootleg clinic in the Japanese mainland, Lung's power.
She felt the weariness ebb away, the haze of drugs pushed back from her mind.
"Don't cry mom." She mumbled, her voice scratchy with sleep.
Annette hovered over her, fingers brushing through her hair before she leaned down, her hands curling around Taylor to hug her tight.
It had been...Taylor couldn't even remember the last time she was hugged…
She reached up with numb, weak arms, returning the embrace as best she could, feeling her mother shaking in her arms.
"Didn't want you to find out like this." She said, talking into the folds of Annette's shirt.
"Why didn't you come to me sooner?" She breathed and Taylor could hear her sniffing."You've been here for months...why?"
She sounded so sad...hurt even. Taylor wished she could return the embrace better.
"I'm sorry." She mumbled.
"You don't have to be sorry." Annette cried into her hair, "You don't ever have to be sorry baby…"
"Scared." She said by way of explanation the drugs beginning to overpower her exhausted body despite the power she pulled from Lung.
"Of what?"
She shook her head, her face pressed into Annette's body. "I'm not...a good daughter. Not a good person Mom."
She felt a kiss at the top of her head, the arms tightening around her.
"It's ok honey…" She whispered, and Taylor felt herself being rocked back and forth. "Good daughter, bad daughter...I don't care sweetie...no matter what it is we can work it out. I promise we can work it out." She felt another kiss to her head. "You don't ever have to be scared Little Owl."
Little Owl…
How long had it been?
She smiled.
"Gotta sleep...tired."
"Go to sleep Honey." Annette answered, still rocking her. "I promise...I'll be right here when you wake up."
Taylor let herself rest, for the first time in years, lulled to sleep in her mother's embrace.Last edited: Jul 24, 2015588Ld1449Jul 22, 2015View discussionThreadmarks Epilogue View contentLd1449To the last, Kill them allJul 31, 2015#286It is...strange, this life he has submitted himself to.
Gone are his simple freedoms. The days where he could do as he pleased, whenever he pleased, be it with his money, his property, or his might. Now there are rules, responsibilities, people that he must respond to, or who must respond to him.
He has been transferred, relocated.
The west coast is different, humid. It reminds him of the stifling heat of southern China.
The heroes, the villains. They are not so familiar to him. But he is not unfamiliar to them. They've heard of him, know of him.
Some fool suggested they change his name, change his image, make him more...approachable.
That was one less imbecile they'd ever allow within arms reach of him.
His days are relegated to a routine, a schedule. He wakes, exercises with these others who would be his teammates. Takes the work that the director, a mouse of a man who sits in place for the true head of this office, offers him. Then, when it's finished, he gathers the letters and correspondence that have reached him on a given day, and returns to his rooms.
Day after Day.
The boredom gnaws at his bones, biting deep into the marrow. Too few challenges existed here, with Alexandria standing as the first line of defense.
There is even less now that word of his presence has reached the villains.
He wishes to leave this place. Transfer somewhere else. A place with something worthwhile to devote his time to. A challenge worth his attentions.
A place with enemies of enough quantity to offer some entertainment.
He's already made the request.
But he expected what he receives.
The woman, Alexandria, runs this place like the best criminals run their business.
She has responded as he expected. He would answer no different in her place.
No.
She wishes him brought to heel in spirit, not just by choice.
There is only one person that could ever make him do something he doesn't want to do.
In comparison- this Triumvirate...this...Alexandria can't even stand in her shadow.
That night, when he made it to his rooms, his letter is there, waiting for him. Unsealed as usual.
They read it, he knows. It is in Japanese, in code, more out of spite than any sense of privacy. A Thinker could find out what it said, and probably did.
Even so. It didn't matter.
They knew his terms. And they knew the price of breaking those terms, even slightly.
They would respect them.
He would accept no excuses or platitudes if he learned otherwise.
But... it is a curious thing.
Today... there are two.
He steps forward, reaching down to the first, finding Oni-Lee's sharp, angular handwriting, reporting...speaking of Taylor today, like he did every single day. His eyes were sharp, and he was discreet when he wished to be.
He never spoke of himself. He focused on her. Only on her, and even then, never of what they said of her. Never of the words that now travel from ear to ear across the country. What they call her, how they label her.
It doesn't matter.
Instead, he spoke of her recovery, spoke of her moving into the Hebert woman's home, told him when they began to repair it, as she adjusted...as she eased her way into a life...a new life that wasn't new...just the same as it wasn't old.
He spoke of her friends, of the tearful reunions with a family. The Barnes, if he wasn't mistaken. Told him of how the Hebert woman was enrolling her in school again, of how Taylor was consolidating her money, the things she owned from her life with him. Selling those that didn't matter, keeping those that did.
Slowly...she forged a new life for herself, carving out her place in this...her family.
As it should be,
Ultimately though...Lee told him nothing...
He told him nothing because...none of it surprised him...
How could he be surprised to hear that she would thrive?
He would never expect otherwise.
To do anything less would be a disappointment.
And she never disappointed him.
He folded Lee's letter, pulled open a drawer and placed it within, next to all the others.
He looked to the other. The envelope said nothing. Merely his address, not even a return address.
He opened it.
He recognized her handwriting instantly.
Her Kanji was soft, as perfect as he'd ever seen it.
He smiled. He could practically picture how many splattered pages and ink stains she covered herself in to get these characters as perfect as she had.
She never did enjoy her calligraphy lessons...
Perhaps he should not have sat down with her for so many hours every day to teach her during those early months.
He looked at the page, unfolding it.
A soft smile tugged at his lips.
If there would ever have been any doubts. Any reservations on the persistent question of whether this was the right path...
They were laid to rest.
(X)(X)(X)
The next day, when one of the heroes came to find him, they were surprised to find a frame on his desk. Seemingly blank except for the delicate string of Japanese characters in the center.
"What does it say?" They would each ask the first time they saw it.
Each time, he wouldn't answer.
The words were not for them.
These words were his.
有難う 御座います お父様
Spoiler: Hope you all enjoyed itLast edited: Aug 2, 2015516Ld1449Jul 31, 2015View discussionThreadmarks Alternate ending/Epilogue View contentLd1449To the last, Kill them allAug 23, 2016#326Bonus scene/Alternate ending:
The mop made a wet, sloshing sound as it hit the tiled floors, moving this way and that way as he swept it with calloused, worn hands.
Night was already beginning to set, the fiery orange blaze blanketed the sky as the faculty left and others came to speak to him.
Not many, just a select, hand-chosen few. Those who could be trusted to be his eyes in this, his new life by choice.
He was invisible here, unseen, unobstructive, as it should be. But never far away.
When they told him nothing, he was pleased, even though they were fearful of their lack of information for him.
Every time he listened, never speaking, never saying a word until they were finished, merely replying with a 'thank you' when they were done, and a clear indicator that they were to report to him again tomorrow, or the following week.
This was his routine. Worn hands that were once of a surgeon sweeping the floors of a school, listening to the chronicle's of a young woman's life within its walls.
Today… was to be a little different.
He heard her footsteps before she spoke, recognized her gait before he faced her.
"Hello Lee."
Her voice was soft, almost hesitant, though he could hear the faintest trace of something else. Anger? Contentment?
"Ms. Hebert." He greeted, her name still thick and off with his accent.
He turned around, finding her dressed with a suit and pants befitting a principal. She smiled softly at him.
"It was… always strange… how the night shift janitor always seemed to arrive exactly after I left… and how he booked his interview when I wasn't available. Most employees try to meet with the principle once at the very least."
His hands continued the motions, gliding the mop across the floor. "You have other focuses now."
"You don't." This time, she did smile. "Your focus is still her."
"As it should be."
His reply was given without hesitation, without even a moment's thought.
"She is yours now, as it should be." He stressed. "But that does not mean we have ceased caring."
"And I appreciate that more than I can ever express." She sounded sincere. "She would like to see you. Both of you again."
His hands stopped moving.
"She doesn't say it… She's happy, or at least… I hope she is and she's not just acting. She and Sophia seem to be getting along but… it was a big change. And she does miss you."
"It isn't our place." He answered.
She did not seem to know how to respond to that.
There was silence for a moment, broken when he continued his work.
Soon, she left.
There was nothing left to say.
Until she returned the following day.
Then… they spoke further. About Taylor, about her life at home, an additional informant to add to the information he received of her life within the school.
She returned again, the day after, and the day after that.
She returned every day. Until one day… he dismissed his informants without further instructions. He needed only listen to her.
"Taylor told me you were a surgeon once…" She commented, weeks after their first meeting.
"I was." He said. "Many years ago now."
"Do you ever want to go back to it?"
"No." He answered, again, without hesitation or thought.
His place here was greater.
"I am content."