Special thanks to @Magery for fixing my messes
Awakening 1.04
The plan that I had put together had been elegant in its simplicity, meant to take into account as many things as it could. The first: I had Miss Militia's number, providing me a means of getting help quickly. The second: I could at least count upon the E88 not escalating into violence immediately, because it wouldn't benefit them in the slightest. The third: I had a way to not put myself at risk.
As a result, I had quickly run back up the stairs to my room, grabbing the card Miss Militia had left me before running back down. As I came to the stop, I closed my eyes and focused, sending a command to the majority of paper bugs I had out there to return and begin forming a clone.
But where?
I stopped, realizing exactly how to draw this all out. I would have the clone form itself on the roof – that way it would draw the attention of the E88 away from the
inside of the house. I could also use it as my proxy in the event that they did chose to escalate while I got my father out through the back.
That out of the way, I quickly picked up the phone, and began dialing. The phone only rang twice before it was picked up.
"Miss Militia," came the succinct answer. I was grateful that she answered immediately. If not, I would have had to try and call the PRT directly, which would have likely delayed any sort of response.
"Miss Militia, it's Taylor Hebert," I started, adding just a hint of panic into my tone while a part of me watched through the eyes of a few of my bugs. I didn't want the E88 getting any closer to my house than they were already. "I need your help. Victor and Othala are outside my home."
"Stay calm, Taylor," came the swift reply, "are you okay?"
"I am right now; I just sent a clone out to talk with them, but I don't know if they will go or not if—"
"Taylor, what's going on?" my head snapped to my dad, who was drowsily standing in the entranceway.
"Dad, Victor and Othala are outside, I'm trying to solve this," I said, still focused on Miss Militia, "please, can you send someone?"
"Just stay on the phone. Armsmaster is on his way and should be there in a few minutes, Velocity is right behind him. Now, tell me what you are doing."
"Taylor—"
"Not now Dad," I snapped, my attention splitting between myself and my clone, watching as it approached the villain duo. If things went south fast, I needed to know.
"My clone is approaching them," I said. I closed my eyes, trying to focus further, I was with my clone, yet at the same time, I was here. It was difficult, Konan didn't do a lot of this—she used her clones more like automatons than true extensions of her mind—so I was managing it by the seat of my pants. "They just seem to want to talk right now."
"That's good," Miss Militia responded, "can you tell me what they're saying?"
It was a jumble, being me, channeling Konan through my clone, all the while trying to handle two different conversations at once.
"I told them I wasn't interested," I finally said, "and now we're talking about gangs."
"Are they threatening you?"
"No," I responded, "I… may have said some things you'd probably take offense to."
"Don't worry about it Taylor, I know it's stressful. Armsmaster should be there in just a few more moments."
"I don't want to fight," I blurted, "I don't want to send a message that I'm willing to fight anywhere, let alone outside my
home."
"That's fine. What are they doing now?"
"I just asked them to leave, and—" I could feel
my head turn with my clone at the shout of '
Armsmaster!' by one of the E88, "Armsmaster is here."
Everything was coming together nicely. Armsmaster had arrived. Victor and Othala were going to have to stand down and leave. I wouldn't have to do anything.
So why did I feel so on edge?
I focused on my clone, Miss Militia fading away from my focus as I watched Armsmaster—
"No.
No."
I spoke through my clone, eyes widening as I realized what was about to happen. It was plain as day: Armsmaster's jaw tensed, indicative of intense focus as he brought up his halberd, Victor and Othala were lowering their body profile, and the armed gangsters were all bringing their weapons to bear upon Armsmaster.
"
Victor and Othala, you are under arrest, surrender quiet—"
"Taylor—"
My head snapped towards my dad, who was now peering—
"Dad," I panicked, "get away—"
Idly, my mind registered Victor's shout of "No!", not in defiance but command, right
after one of the E88 gunmen who had come with them opened fire. The muzzle flash was almost surreal. This couldn't be reality. The first few rounds sparked off Armsmaster as he raised the butt end of the halberd, pointing it in the direction of the E88's van. A muffled 'thump' reached my clone's ears.
Then he started to run. To Konan—to me—he wasn't fast. To the gangsters? He was on them in a couple of seconds. Even as my mind began registering the fact that my dad was in a completely unprotected position, I could see through my clone's eyes that Victor and Othala were already running. Armsmaster had already dropped the first gunman, the one who had opened fire first, brutally knocking him aside with the shaft of his halberd as rounds continue to deflect off his armour.
It was as he slammed a fourth gunman down several moments later that his head turned, and I could see, clear as day, his lips drawing back to reveal teeth clenched in anger. He was looking at Victor and Othala as they ran.
I knew exactly what he was thinking, and my mind was already processing—
"Dad," I shouted, running towards my father as he turned towards me.
In my clone's eyes, Armsmaster had already started sprinting towards Victor and Othala. He passed straight across the front of my house. The remaining two armed gangsters tracked their fire.
I felt them hit me, you know? The bullets. Both my clone and myself. It was a strange, discomforting feeling as they passed through me. Like I had something in my eye and I blinked it straight out, except I had six eyes across two bodies and they'd all been on my chest. It didn't make any sense.
And then, just like that, the realization of what had just transpired came crashing back. If the bullets had gone straight through me, then they—
"Dad," I breathed, even as I knew what I was going to see. Konan knew ballistics, and I wasn't an idiot. There was was only one direction they could have gone. I turned my head to see my father, his eyes wide with shock as his legs began to give out beneath him.
I immediately fell to his side, my hands splaying out over his chest, where blood was already seeping through his clothes at three separate points. I was as desperate as if I'd been the one bleeding, gasping,
dying as I tried to pull something—
anything from Konan's memories to try and help him.
It was to no avail. Konan only ever saved by killing.
How long I was there by his side, I didn't know. It might have only been a few seconds. It might have been for the rest of my life. I didn't care. All I knew was that I was completely powerless as I saw the realization on my father's face. He tried to say something, and I—
All I could do was stare mutely, unable—no, unwilling to process anything.
I can't do this. Make it all go away. I don't want to be a cape.
I just want—
I heard a scream. A loud, piercing, shrieking
scream; the sort you would imagine from someone who had lost everything and simply could not take it anymore.
It was only as things went dark that I realized the screaming was mine.
-----------------
It was a credit to their ex-military backgrounds—part of the reason why they'd been hand-selected by Victor—that the moment the gangsters realized they had been firing into the Hebert household, they'd stopped. By the time they had reacquired Armsmaster, the angles were too poor that they only begged for additional rounds to go into either their principals or other residences.
Instead, while one man went to work seeing if he could lift another vehicle and use it for their getaway, the other provided cover for the four men who were in various states of injury thanks to Armsmaster.
It was at this point that the last man, who went by the name 'Rocky', had found his rifle trained upon Taylor Hebert. She was the only visual threat at the time. Slowly approaching with his rifle trained upon her, he found that could see
through her in several places where the rounds had found purchase in her form. And yet she stood there, completely silent. She might as well have been a paper statue; he could see the sheets of paper bracketing the holes. It was like there was nothing human left inside her.
The sound of a scream caused him to train his rifle on the house and from where the scream had come from. His attention completely focused upon the scream, he never noticed "Taylor's" eyes as orange started consuming green.
The only warning that something had changed was when his gun was cut completely in half, metal and plastic giving away equally without resistance. He found himself staring into burnt orange void of emotion before a hand pressed itself into his face. Weightlessness. Impact.
Darkness.
'Taylor' stood over his body for a second, staring at him, and then at her surroundings. Scanning done, she broke completely apart, paper taking off at high speed as another cloud of paper suddenly joined it from inside the house. The other gangster, fresh off hotwiring a car and helping his fellows into it, pulled up to the scene. The paper attacked. It moved like a swarm of locusts, punching through the windshield and cocooning the man like it was being directed by some great, disembodied spider. The other four injured gunmen received the same treatment, and then the cloud took off at high speed.
Taylor reappeared amidst the cloud as wings formed around her, sheets of paper floating around her body like shoals of fish.
When she caught up to Armsmaster, Victor, and Othala, it was just as Othala had used her abilities to give Victor a boost of speed to escape from Armsmaster. The woman had turned to fight him, in the same way a kitten might fight a lion. None of them had any warning; not even Victor's speed saved him as Taylor descended upon all of them from on high, wrapping them up in paper and leaving only Armsmaster's and Victor's heads uncovered.
"Hebert, what are you—" whatever else Armsmaster was going to say was lost as the paper crawled up to cover his mouth, and Victor's shortly after. Taylor slowly rose from the paper attached to them, only half her body visible each time. There she rested, staring straight at them. Her expression was inscrutable, but her eyes burned with fury like dying stars.
She could feel Armsmaster trying to fight her, but it was no use. His armour made him strong – but so were shinobi, and they could not escape her either. Victor was struggling too, and Othala, but only briefly. Perhaps they realised the futility. Their chances of escape were far below Armsmaster's, and he had none at all.
It left her with a question: what should she do now?
Fortunately, or unfortunately, that choice was taken away from her with the arrival of a red-clad hero, Velocity, who just stared at her for a moment, processing the scene before him. It was only afterwards that he spoke, first softly into his radio where she could not hear, and then louder, to her.
"Miss Hebert, please release Armsmaster. Now."
She rotated around, like something from the Exorcist, paper rustling against paper before she rose out from it entirely; two waist-up halves bled together into a single, full-bodied whole as she stepped away from Armsmaster and towards Velocity.
"Why? I am detaining the men responsible for initiating the shootout at my home," she said, her voice a dull monotone, "the men responsible for my father's death."
"I'm going to insist that you release—"
"I wish to speak with Miss Militia," she interrupted, her head turning slightly at the sight of a PRT response van arriving in the distance, several men and women dispersing from the back. Her eyes narrowed as paper began peeling off her form, floating up and around her, "preferably without further violence."
"You're the only one making this worse, Miss Hebert."
"I didn't ask for you to come and turn my home into a warzone," she snapped, turning to face him again as the paper that had been floating froze. Velocity tensed, watching as her eyes closed. "I didn't ask for my father to die."
Her eyes opened again, as bright and orange as the dawn. The paper began to peel from Armsmaster behind her, falling around her body like a funeral shroud. "Then again, it doesn't matter, does it? I should be used to this by now. We fight, civilians suffer, and the world keeps turning."
She turned away and walked towards the Hebert household as the last sheets slipped from Armsmaster's form.
-----------------
It had taken almost an hour before they were able to clean up the mess left behind by Crusader and Hookwolf's foray into ABB territory, a move now pretty much confirmed to have been a diversion to draw the Protectorate away from their true objective. As the cleanup had finished, Hannah's attention had been focused upon the reports of what had transpired at the Hebert household.
On one hand, she could understand what Colin had been attempting to do: capturing Othala and denying the E88 their healer would have been the singlest greatest blow anyone had struck against them in years. But, on the other hand, she cursed him for being so damn foolish with his assumptions. Sure, Othala had been captured, but the cost certainly wasn't worth it. Not to Taylor Hebert.
As she brought her vehicle to a stop in the street outside of the Hebert household, she reviewed just a few things that were now becoming apparent about Taylor. The core of it was the acknowledgement was that she was a lot more dangerous than first appearances. And second appearances, for that matter.
It wasn't just the clones, or the ability to blend in – now it was her ability to use her paper to capture and subdue targets. If the evidence was true, and she honestly believed it, Taylor could cut through weapons as well.
Skin was a lot softer than a gun.
And Taylor was likely never to work with the Protectorate after today.
"Velocity," she greeted the red-clad hero as he stood idly beside one of the now several PRT vans that had stationed themselves around the house. An ambulance had taken up position further down the street, but the paramedics seemed to be waiting for them before they went in, which was honestly a smart choice considering the situation.
"Miss Militia," he greeted back, uncrossing his arms.
"Is it as bad as I'm hearing?" she asked, looking to the front of the house where Taylor Hebert now stood, her closed expression giving all the indication necessary of how tense the situation had become. Hannah had seen expressions like that before – back when she was a child.
"Worse," Velocity said with a sigh, shaking his head, "I'm pretty sure we have one fatality in the Hebert household, but she's not letting us get any closer to confirm. I also have one critically injured E88 gang member who had the back of his head caved in by the road, compliments of Miss Hebert. PHO is lighting up right now with videos from some of the neighbors, Armsmaster has been recalled back to the Rig, and the Director is on the verge of a coronary."
"I wouldn't doubt it," she murmured. "Is that her or—"
"We're pretty sure it's a clone," Velocity said, walking over behind the PRT van he had been leaning against, returning with something in his hand, "I read your report on your previous encounter with Miss Hebert, and I wanted to test something."
He then held out a scope to her, and she looked at him in askance, recognizing it as a handheld FLIR scope.
"Just humor me."
Taking it, she brought it up to her and looked towards the Hebert household, eye narrowing behind the scope at what she was seeing.
"When you noted that she had created a clone from paper, I wondered if there would be any way we can detect whether she was a clone or not," Velocity continued. "It appears that her clones cannot mimic body temperature."
"I see," she returned, noting the truth in Velocity's statement as she stared at the clone for a few more moments before handing back the scope. While it wasn't a lot, at least they'd learned something. "Is she still in there?"
"Well, you know as well as I that FLIR can't really see through walls. She could be gone, but the fact that she demanded to talk to you, well..."
It's doubtful, she agreed, before nodding in acknowledgment and offering a thanks to Velocity. That done, she solemnly strode towards the house, intent on at least talking with Taylor Hebert to get her side of things.
Knowing what she did, however, she simply walked by the clone, whose only acknowledgement of her as she approached was a slight turn of the head before it returned to watching the PRT and Velocity. She opened the door and stepped inside, freezing immediately.
There, on her knees, her father's head upon her lap, was Taylor Hebert.
"You know, it's ironic," Taylor spoke dully as silent tears slid down her cheeks, her hand brushing her father's hair, "I agreed with Victor that the Protectorate was no better than any other gang, in that it was selfish in its interests."
"Tay—"
"Tell me, Miss Militia," Taylor cut her off, not even bothering to look to her, "is this what it means to be a hero?"
"It shouldn't have to be." What else was there to say?
That simple statement seemed to have an effect upon Taylor. She began shaking, the tears falling faster now.
"He didn't have to do it," Taylor rasped, looking up at her with emerald eyes. Hannah cautiously crept forward. "All he had to do was to get them to leave, and none of this would have happened. They came here to
ask! To ask!"
As Hannah placed her hand on her shoulder, the dam broke completely.
Taylor wept like she'd never cry again.
, I'd have expected her to know a couple at least, even if minor, healing Jutsu. I mean, Nagato was on struggle street for years and she looked after him by herself.
