Sophia couldn't decide if the worst thing was the noise, or the sound.
The noise would have been fine, but there was far too much of it. There wasn't anything she could focus on, no way to wall it all off. There was no rhythm and there were no pauses, just a constant, endless drone, overwhelming all of her senses, down to even taste.
The sounds, on the other hand, were things that she could not help but focus on, and that made them all the worse. They were sounds of pain, of every variety. Helplessness, unnaturally-warping limbs, degradation, addiction, fear, being burned alive, abandonment, a knife through the throat, betrayal-
Her head struck against the concrete of the roof, and she grabbed onto that burst of pain, latching onto it with all her will. It wasn't ideal, but it was something real, something that she could use to reorient herself. She opened her eyes, even though she didn't remember letting them fall shut, and struggled to her feet.
"Hebert. What the fuck was that? I swear, if you're just torturing me for the jollies-"
"Then you would accept it and be grateful that I'm not tearing down your entire life." Taylor interrupted. "Except this isn't something nearly so righteous."
"Righteous."
"Yes, righteous. Instead, this is my… gift to you." The bitch had the audacity to look pleased with herself.
"Your gift?" Just as Sophia began to process just how ludicrous what Taylor just said was, her head's dull agony began to fade, leaving her without defenses yet again.
"Don't mimic people: it's rude." Taylor remarked absentmindedly, looking down at Sophia's prone form. When had she fallen over?
"Typically… gifts don't make you feel like someone's lungs are being ripped out." Sophia managed to eke out. Every instinct of hers was screaming to ditch the psycho here and now, but she couldn't even muster the focus to activate her power, let alone move on her own.
"To be fair, that's only the case because Lung is being broken out of prison right now." Taylor mused. "But I digress. That sound that you hear? That pain you feel? That is life, that is this city, with the hearts of all its people laid bare to see. But more than that, it is power. Embrace it, endure it, and you will find yourself able to seize control of that power — power enough to destroy all who would oppose you. Face the pain. Do not run away."
To Sophia, Taylor's words rung true. Running away wasn't an option. She'd never have a moment of joy if she refused to fight. She reached out and grabbed the echoes by the throat, drawing them into herself. She made the screams her strength just as she had the hit to her head, and stood once again. Strangely, once she had them under her control, the pain was more bearable. It was still there, to be sure, but it was much more manageable. That was when she heard the clapping.
"Congratulations, my Knight. You've taken your first steps on a path few tread upon. We'll promote you in no time."
"Only pawns can promote. Your metaphor doesn't work." Seriously, did Hebert just not know how that part of chess worked?
"True, only pawns can. It is for that reason that it does work."
Was Hebert deliberately trying to provoke her? Sophia couldn't think of any other explanation. Frankly, she was sick of the whole arrangement, but she knew that she couldn't defeat Hebert in direct combat. Still, that just meant that she needed to be smarter, get stronger, until she could free herself from service to a random loser who had lucked out and gotten powers. But first…
"So, sensing 'the city's heart' or whatever is power? That's incredibly vague. Care to share?"
"It's the core of what I do, and if my hunch is correct, what you will be able to do." Taylor took a small stone out of her pocket and tossed it onto the ground between them. "Try lifting that with telekinesis."
Well, if this was the basis of Taylor's powers, then Sophia could definitely understand how she'd benefit from them. And while the entire situation raised far more questions than it did answers, she wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. At least until she'd confirmed that it actually was a horse and not a frog.
Shaking that image out of her head, Sophia closed her eyes, picturing the uncertainty, dread and loss that she held by the throat, and imagined it reaching out, closing around the pebble, and lifting it upwards.
When she opened her eyes, the rock was exactly where it had been prior.
Taylor sighed. "It doesn't work if you're merely directing it. You have to channel your anger, your unfettered will, into molding the world as you see fit."
Well, if the best way for Sophia to get Hebert to leave her alone for at least a little bit was to use her anger, then she was more than happy to oblige. With a gritting of the teeth and a flicker of concentration, the rock shot up, angling straight towards Hebert's dumb face.
Somewhat unsurprisingly, it froze in midair.
"Just like that." Taylor congratulated, heady self-satisfaction evident in her voice. "That should be enough for now."
Sophia kept pushing. If she was correct, this power, this Force would allow her to, if nothing else, wipe that grin off the toad's mouth. She poured her frustration, rage, and-
The "power" she held slipped out of her grasp, like water through a closed fist, causing the pebble to drop lamely on the roof. She reached out for it, only to feel a quiet, rhythmic pulse, similar in character to the Force that she had held just moments earlier, but reduced, distant, and more… placid, somehow.
"Control yourself, my Knight. Just as the power I wield is fueled by emotion, so too does it fuel our emotions in turn. There is a time and a place for such actions, and that was not it." Taylor's voice carried the tone of a lecture. "The only things that saved you from a great deal of grief were my strength and my pragmatism. Had I lacked the former, then your life would have been destroyed by my contingencies, and had I lacked the latter, your voltage tolerance would be undergoing testing at this very moment. Do you understand how much you could have ruined?"
"Not really, no." Sophia admitted, before cutting Taylor off. "And that's not an invitation to give me another lecture. It's as you said: my emotions were being influenced by the power, and I lost control. It won't happen again."
"That'll suffice, I suppose." Taylor mused. "Still, you have a long way to go before you will be able to use that power on your own in any significant way: you'll need to learn how to connect to it without my help." And with that, the older one among them opened a rooftop access door that Sophia was pretty sure was supposed to be locked, and left.
So that's what she did. Sophia realized. That's why it slipped from me so easily.
As she made her own exit, she listened to the faint sound, and wondered how she had missed it before.
AN: Wasn't really getting that far on the later parts of this chapter, so I decided to post the scene that I already had written, so that I could help reinvigorate my muse for this.
