5.06
An Imago of Rust and Crimson
Chapter 5.06
I let the two cold fires wash over me. Glory Girl was a pillar of brilliant white, shedding world-scarring embers wherever she went. But her light was enveloped by countless glowing yellow arms that coiled and squirmed like snakes. Each arm was tipped by a six-fingered hand, and each hand was grasping something rotten and decaying that absorbed a little of its beauty.
When I managed to force myself to look away from the mesmerising sight, there were handprints all over the debris that had been thrown into the room. Then came more beautiful arms, creeping their way into the room to latch back onto their handprints and pulling the rotten junk back into the cloud of arms.
Fumbling blindly in the dirt, one of my hands brushed against the red hot nail of my pain – and that was enough to break the captivating sight of two parahumans at once. Gasping, I surfaced from the Other Place. For once, reality was far uglier. Through the holes in two broken inner walls I could see the kitchen. The dust-laden air was filled with floating debris, held in the hands that only I could see.
Tash's telekinetic power had turned the air into a cutting tornado of whatever she could grab. She'd thrown the contents of an entire wall-mounted cupboard at Victoria and when she'd missed, the projectiles had kept on travelling. I really hoped that meant her telekinetic control got weaker the further it was from her body. There was a room full of trash here that she could have used against the good guys. But no, that didn't seem to be happening.
There wasn't time to wonder why, though, as the fridge moved and I realised that Glory Girl had picked it up bodily and was carrying it as a shield. Its front had been broken away by the barrage of missiles, and there were knives and broken plates sticking out of the sides. Just looking at it made me feel uncomfortably aware of how many sharp things were spinning in that area. Glory Girl was super-tough and super-strong, just like Alexandria, and she felt she had to protect herself with a whole fridge. I was a squishy bag of meat and organs who'd caught a glancing blow from one of the projectiles and the pain from that had floored me.
Some of the blades were whistling as they spun through the air. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end just from listening to that high-pitched whine. It'd be a literal death sentence for me to go in. God, what had happened to the skinheads in there? Had Natasha just… killed them? They certainly weren't Glory Girl-tough. No, I'd got memories from the guy I'd taken down of Natasha ordering them out. That must have been why - and why she hadn't retaliated against Victoria immediately. She'd at least known how destructive things were when she cut loose.
Megumi made a grunting noise as she finished cutting the tape with my penknife. She didn't give it back. I should get her out first, I decided. All of this would be for nothing if she got hit by any of the whirling metal.
"Where to?" she whispered over the noise of the whirling debris, before breaking out into coughing.
"This way." She certainly wasn't a coward. She did what I said, even though she could barely see out of one eye and tears were painting dark streaks down her dirty cheeks. The air was thick with dust, which spun in strange circles, drifting this way and that. I went to grab her arm with my right hand, but it didn't do what I wanted. I led her towards the rear of the house where the back exit was. Which I'd forgotten was blocked by junk. Fuck. There was no way she'd be able to get out the way I'd got in. I wasn't sure that I could do it myself. My right arm wasn't hurting, but it felt weak and I didn't think I could grip anything properly.
I took a deep breath. The door was locked and painted shut and there was trash piled in front of it. She could probably squeeze through if the door wasn't there. Therefore I just had to get rid of it.
"Cover your eyes and ears!" I ordered her. "I'm going to blow the door!"
"What?!"
"Hands over your ears and close your eyes!" I didn't want her seeing what I did. For one, the Grey Men might talk to her and what she didn't know she couldn't tell. But there was also the fact that I wasn't exactly sure what I was about to do was going to work.
Megumi obeyed, and I eased myself out past the junk, putting my left hand on the door. Calm. Still. Ignore the noise of the fight behind me. Screwing my eyes shut, I could feel the Other Place's chill, a hair's breadth away from me. I needed the door to not be here anymore. It didn't matter where it was. It just had to be gone.
"Angel," I breathed out, feeling the heavy thickness seeping out of my mouth, welling up to pour from the filters of my gas mask. My scars ached, and I knew I was pushing my body too hard. "Take it away."
An oppressive feeling built and build, and the scent of rust and blood grew thicker and thicker. I opened my eyes just in time to see the door jump a foot forwards, toppling down the back stairs. The trash had been leaning against it shifted, falling through the empty doorway and clearing the way through.
Collapsing back against the wall, I gasped for breath. Stars spun before my eyes, and it was an effort just to break the world down into comprehensible chunks. Door gone. Get her out of here. Then help Glory Girl. "Get to street level," I told her, shaking Megumi with my good hand. She looked up, squinting through her one good eye out at the afternoon light. "I'll be back. For you. Hide down there. Don't let anyone catch you."
She muttered something in Japanese. "Thank you," she said to me, leaning against the wall. She didn't seem to care that it was crumbling under her touch. "And—"
I didn't get what she was about to say, because we both flinched at the crash from behind us in the house. "I need to help my partner, but I will come back, I promise," I said. That was all the time I could spare for her. Hopefully the noise wasn't bad news.
It was. Of course it was. I could immediately tell, because of the new fridge-shaped hole in the walls. Even as I watched, it came springing back, the dust in the air swirling in its wake. It was like a wrecking ball swung around on an invisible telekinetic chain. Except even that wasn't quite right. There wasn't the same feeling of momentum that a wrecking ball had. It just moved when it had to and stopped dead in the air when stillness was required. The motion didn't look quite real, like something from a movie with bad special effects.
Blinking, I snapped out of it. Now wasn't the time. Victoria had lost the thing she'd been using as a shield. Somehow Tash had managed to get control over it, which meant that no matter what Vicky tried to use as a shield, Tash could grab it off her and use it as a weapon.
"Glory Girl, report," I ordered, sending a cherub to her. "How are y—"
Something black came flying through the drywall, and impacted hard against one of the solid exterior walls. I flinched away, and nearly slipped on debris. The black shape groaned. Exhaling butterflies, I threw a cloud of Isolation around both of us and hurried over to her.
Glory Girl wasn't staying down. She was trying to get up, even though her clothes were covered in dust and her mask was cracked; blood oozed from shallow cuts to her forearms that had torn the leather. "Fucking ow," she muttered, her voice warped by the synthesiser.
"Stay down," I said softly. "I'm hiding you for now." There was a thump as Tash smashed something else and more debris fell from the ceiling. The helicopter noise of the spinning debris died down, but from the clatter she hadn't let go of the objects.
"Jesus, what the hell?" Glory Girl said, one hand clutched to her ribs. Even her superhuman toughness hadn't been enough against that constant barrage of debris. Then again, I'd seen how fast that fridge was moving. It would have turned me into raspberry jam. "They have a supervillain? Who's that blonde? I never heard of a telekinetic skinhead."
"I didn't know what her powers were," I admitted. "Just wait for a chance and see if you can take her off guard. I'm going to try to distract her."
"I nearly had her. Goddamnit. If I'd just known to go after her first—"
"Fight me, you fucking coward!" Tash shouted. "Stop hiding!" The dust in the air swirled madly; my glasses and the lenses of my gas mask were fogged up. Through the hole in the wall, a cloud of things you might find in a kitchen advanced, held up to form a wall. There were knives; there were plates; half a table floated like a riot shield.
"Wait here," I told Victoria, and darted off through the door, keeping low. The piles of beer cans in the corners had been scattered like a child's toy blocks, while the ceiling and walls were pockmarked with impacts and shedding paint like scabs. Tash had climbed through the holes in the wall into the room next door to the place where they'd been keeping Megumi, so I could flank her.
The kitchen was a warzone. Water sprayed from broken pipes, pooling on the ground. Every bit of furniture had been torn from the walls. Fragments were scattered here and there, but most of it was in Tash's orbital cloud. I could see her back when I peeked around the corner. Her hair was windblown and she was so covered in dust she looked like a ghost. Her hair was matted with blood, and she clutched her left arm to her chest. Glory Girl had probably gotten at least a few hits in, or maybe Tash just couldn't control her own projectiles properly.
And the air smelled strongly of gas. She must have ruptured a gas main when she was tearing the place apart. Crap. I'd been planning to flash-bang her in the hope that'd make her drop all her telekinetic things, but no way was I doing that now. It had set that old abandoned house in Boston on fire. I didn't want anyone to die. I needed a solution, and quickly.
I sunk into the Other Place, and immersed myself in beauty. But under the euphoric light, I could see anger burning brightly on the objects Tash touched. It rusted and corroded everything it touched. It wasn't just anger, though; she was also wrapped in a corona of fear.
I couldn't get close to her. I remembered how Ryo's hands had been feeling around. My breath hitched in my chest and I could almost feel his cold hands inside my body again. No. For all I knew, she could use those telekinetic limbs on people, and I was nowhere near as tough as Glory Girl.
So how could I stop her without getting torn apart? I… I didn't know how I'd managed to do that thing to Ryo. It had been pure terrified impulse, and it had left him half-dead on the floor. I wasn't scared enough. And who knew what would happen if I did that now? I could feel Victoria's warmth, so close to me. One parahuman had been good. Imagine what two would be like…
No. She was a hero. That wasn't a hero thing. I couldn't betray her.
Goddamnit, think, Taylor. Think. What else could my powers do? My mind tricks weren't strong enough - they were nudging people and I wasn't going to put them against flying knives. If I could get close enough, I might be able to force something into her head, but I'd have to be basically touching her for that and I couldn't get past her debris cloud. What about… what about...
Kirsty had said that we were angels wrapped in human flesh.
Oh. I could avoid the debris if I went physically into the Other Place. If it worked. It probably would. I went through the Other Place when I travelled through corridors or had an angel carry me. I didn't know for sure, but I had to hope.
I couldn't believe that I was seriously considering relying on Kirsty's logic. She was literally crazy. But there was no time to think of a better plan.
This time when I breathed out, I didn't just release my fear or my curiosity or even the bad bits of me. I let out everything. I straightened up, and behind me something collapsed.
I still cannot describe the profound feeling of nakedness and vulnerability that struck me that instant. How do you describe the feeling of being far more exposed than you've ever been before?
I opened my eyes. My fingers were filthy; my nails rusty iron. The fingernail marks in my pale, bloodless skin exposed only metal under a thin layer of skin. Something had happened to my clothes. I was naked in the Other Place, and my legs were smeared up to the knee in blood and worse things.
And I could feel my butterfly-like wings behind me, unfurling to their full extent. They were rust-red, and woven from barbed wire. I shivered in the cold of the Other Place, and they buzzed behind me, sounding like aluminium foil flapping in the breeze. I tensed muscles in my back I hadn't known I had before, and they twitched into life.
Turning around, I saw my body behind me, collapsed down like a puppet with its strings cut. It was the grey of the walls of the Other Place. It was the grey of the Grey Men. A body without a person in it.
What the fuck. My stomach churned with fear, but was that even my stomach if I was like this and I was naked and I was a monstrous angel-thing and... I clamped down on my fear before it could control me, feeling the nails sink into my brain with a sigh of relief.
Something clanked, and I saw that I had a chain coming out of my navel. It led all the way back into my body's open mouth. I pulled on the chain, and more links emerged. Bending down beside it - her, me - I saw that the body was breathing, slowly and calmly.
I probably hadn't killed my body doing this. Thank God. I… I hoped I could get back in it.
Okay, okay, okay, part of my mind babbled, so I clearly had some kind of parahuman power that let me project an image and I couldn't control my body at the same time and I hadn't just walked out of my skin. But that part of me was probably wrong. I'd learned a lot from the Other Place. Kirsty called us 'sisters of the angels', but what I knew was that we were in some ways creatures of this hellish otherworld. When I made angels and other constructs, I was breathing bits of myself out. This was just the next step. This time I'd breathed all of me out.
Time to test things.
I didn't need to breathe out. I was already immersed in the Other Place, and this nightmare body was mind without flesh. I just closed my eyes, and imagined myself another way. When I opened them, the hell around me had formed into a dirty white dress that hung loose around me. I'd imagined a clean one, but the Other Place wouldn't let me. It didn't make me feel any less exposed, but at least I felt a bit more comfortable. If I was going to be wandering around as a monstrous projection, at least I wouldn't be a naked monstrous projection.
The filthy walls were barely real to me. They parted like mist. I stepped through the wall, and the next one, until I was in the way of Tash's advance. The chain connecting me to my body made a brushing noise as it dragged along the bare floor of the Other Place.
Tash's beautiful golden hands surrounded me, but they couldn't touch me. They were like mist. I could touch them, though. They felt velvet-soft when I brushed against them. The muck on my hands dulled the light, sinking into their substance and drained the wonder from them.
It felt wonderful. I felt alive. When I breathed them in, it was like chocolate melting in my mouth. I paused there for a moment, just inhaling and exhaling.
Somehow Tash could feel my presence. Maybe it hurt her when I touched her unseen limbs. I'd wondered how other parahumans experienced their powers, because I doubted it sucked as much for them as it did for me. Did she even know she had invisible hands holding up the things she lifted telekinetically?
Either way, she froze, looking around. "Who's there?" she asked. She was so beautiful like that, surrounded by a many-handed halo of luminescent hands.
She should have run.
My wings enveloped her. Rust-red barbs drew red blood. She saw the Other Place.
Natasha screamed.
I fell into her mind, or perhaps I dragged her mind out into my nightmares. There wasn't much of a difference at this point.
Metal slammed, echoing all around. Static-covered CRTs with dirty screens covered the distant walls, occasionally flickering images too fast for me to track. They were the only light in this dark place and they flickered on and off, their whine sounding like ten thousand whispers. The chain connecting to my navel ran off into the distance, further than I could see.
Natasha hung puppet-like from the ceiling, suspended on golden threads. Dark smoky fear surrounded her. My wings bore me aloft, until we were face to face. Her eyes flickered from left to right, like she was tracking unseen flying insects. I didn't think she was seeing me. Not quite. I took a deep breath and breathed out the butterflies in my stomach. In this place they grew to immensity, larger than a house. The childish laughter of their massive human faces echoed around both of us.
This was her head. Or something close to it, at least. Maybe it was her own Other Place, something small and closed in.
"No no no," she groaned. She wasn't looking at me. "I… no, you… is it my fault? Or is it…"
I reached out with my long-nailed hands and placed them on either side of her head. She reacted then, trying to bat at my hands with flailing arms, but she felt far weaker than I knew she must have been out in the real world. I might have been a skinny bookworm in reality, but here my grip was as strong as iron.
The grime and filth covering my hands crept off me, crawling onto her face. It spread like oil on water, covering her skin and creeping towards her eyes and ears.
"Natasha," I said softly. "I won't let you do this. Stop. Stop fighting."
"Get away! Get… stop it! Whoever you… you don't get to do this to me!"
"Stop fighting. Lie down." My words were worms creeping into her brain, writhing and squirming.
"I… no!" Her jaw was tensed. She didn't give in.
And that angered me. What gave her the fucking right to do that? All this mess was her fault. I wouldn't be caught up in this whole thing with Ryo if it hadn't been for her and her stupid gang.
Something of that escaped me and crawled into her head.
"It's not my f-fault!" she screamed in my face. Angry red flames billowed around us. My skin felt taut from the heat, I flinched. She seemed to draw some strength from that and redoubled her efforts.
It was her fault. She just didn't want to accept it. Reaching into my head, I pulled out a memory in the form of a nail, heated up by my anger. Ryo as he raved at me, detailing the campaign of abuse and bullying that these stupid petty teenage idiots had put him through. I hated bullies. And that was all she was when it came down to it.
I paused. I could drive it in. Make her remember everything he'd told me. Then I could show her Ryo's father's corpse, dangling in the utility room where he'd hung himself. I could show her the relief in Megumi's eyes when she saw that someone was coming to save her.
But I wasn't the victim here. My experiences weren't what mattered here.
Letting the nail dissipate, I floated back. I exhaled.
Behind her, a gas-masked figure took form, large enough to hold both of us in her hands. She was dressed in a sodden black coat with claw-like fingers, and the Panopticon logo I'd invented was drawn on her front in chalk.
I knew her. She was justice and she was guilt. The nightmare creature reached out. "Natasha," I said. "I found your camera. I felt that you enjoyed filming things." And I knew what to name her. "Penitence," I said, "remind her of what she did. Remind her of everything."
She screamed. She cried. And I saw it all on the CRT walls. Every thoughtless torment. The mix of apathy and petty sadism, because going after someone felt good. The 'it-was-just-a-joke'. The way that she didn't even care about Ryo, that she was mostly doing it to impress her friends - but it'd felt good to get it down on camera. It was like she was 'making a difference'. Like she was 'in control'. She wasn't alone in her bedroom. She wasn't forced to be a good girl or having to hide her power away. She didn't have to watch her parents argue.
And when it was all over, I'd made up my mind.
"This is what you're going to do, Natasha," I said. Tears traced clear paths down her messy face. "You're going to confess to everything you did to the cops. You're going to tell them you're an unregistered parahuman. You're not going to lie to them." I leaned in. "Or I'll come back. No matter where you run. No matter where you hide. I'm good at finding people. I found Ryo. I'll find you."
She whimpered.
"Do you understand me?"
"… y-y-yes."
"Do you?"
"Y-yes!"
I dreamed up Cry Baby to send her to sleep. The horse-headed infant lurked behind Penitence, a mad look in its dark eyes. It knew what it had to do. It wouldn't fight Penitence's influence. It just meant she'd dream of her guilt and the things she did until I released her, or until my constructs came apart.
And with that said, I grasped the chain that ran from my navel firmly, and took a deep breath. I felt a strong sucking feeling behind my eyes that forced my eyes shut. I opened my eyes again to pain.
My mouth tasted of blood. I couldn't see well because my gas mask had slipped. My entire left side hurt, including my head. Every time I moved, it felt like a thousand pins-and-needles were pricking me. But that was nothing compared to the pain in my right shoulder where the debris had hit me. It was slicing through even the good feelings from doing things with other people's powers.
"Fuck," I hissed, curling and uncurling my arms. I couldn't even get up until I got rid of my pain. Eventually I managed to lever myself upright, trying not to move my right arm.
Ow. Important lesson there. Stepping out of your skin hurt a little bit. Coming back to your skin hurt much more, especially when you'd just let your body collapse down on the ground. Next time I did this, I'd need to lie down first.
The enormity of what I'd just done hit me, now that I was safe and snug again in my own flesh. I'd walked out of my own body. I'd walked out of my body. Why wasn't I freaking out more?
… oh yes, I'd nailed Phobia to the inside of my skull. I'd forgotten about that. I'd probably pay for that later, but now I had to get everyone out of here before the gas blew.
Natasha was out of it. Cry Baby did good work. She was curled up in the foetal position, whimpering in her sleep. Her orbital debris cloud was scattered around her. It looked like a bomb had gone off in here. Hell, I thought with a wince, a small bomb would probably have been less destructive.
Victoria drifted over to me. The way she held her body suggested that she'd be limping if she couldn't fly. Lucky for her there.
"Are you hurt?" I asked, somewhat foolishly. Of course she was hurt. "Badly, I mean."
"Nothing too bad, but I feel like I've been beaten with sticks. Holy crap, I wasn't expecting her to be a supervillain, and that power was strong. Ow. Ow. My sister oughta be good for fixing me up," she said, disabling her voice synth. "And I'm pretty sure I can stop her blabbing to my parents. I hope she doesn't. This was fun. Apart from the bit where she went full Nifestorm on me. That bit wasn't fun." Victoria was breathing deeply through clenched teeth. I was pretty sure she was toughing it out, but she didn't sound like she was badly hurt. That was good.
"It looks mostly shallow."
"Yeah." She inspected her arms. "Fuck, she tore my jacket. Can you stitch up leather? Now I get why what's-his-name with the stupid name and the skull mask wears a motorcycle helmet. My hood didn't help at all." She peered over my shoulder, hands balled into fists. "What'd you do to her? She just froze, then crumpled and dropped everything."
"I, uh, made her… well, she's experiencing guilt for everything she's done," I said awkwardly. Up close, Glory Girl's current state reminded me of how much of a fuck-up I was. I'd forgotten to tell her that Natasha might have been a parahuman. She did her part in the plan perfectly, but I'd failed her.
"Ha! That's a great power. I know someone who can do something similar, but he can't just make them crumple up like that." I was sure she was grinning under her mask. "Pow, instant karma. Does it only affect bad guys?"
"Uh, yes," I lied. I didn't want to look bad in front of her, but I knew how the Other Place thought. It showed everyone as monsters. Everyone would have things that Penitence could play off.
"Ha ha, awesome."
"We can talk later," I said quickly. "I think she damaged the gas mains. They're leaking." Sirens were approaching outside the building. The cops were here. "And you should get out of here. This was an independent operation outside the BBPD's jurisdiction, because the FBI has intel that skinhead elements have infiltrated the local cops." Shit, was that a good idea? Had I meant to say that? Oh well, I was committed now.
"Right! Got it!" Glory Girl reactivated her voice mask, and paused. "Uh, do I need to give you back that tinkertech I gave you?"
"The… oh. No, those things are one-shot devices. It'll have just enough power to get you home, and then it'll be junk," I said, exhaling Isolation as I said it. It was a good thing she'd reminded me of that. I'd protect her all the way home so no one noticed her flying off and then she could dispose of it. "Just chuck it away."
"Okay. I understand." Looking around the smashed up apartment, she stretched. "You know where to find me if we need to do this again. We make a great team."
"Yeah," I said. I felt warm and tingly when she said that. Even the chill of the Other Place a hair's breadth from reality didn't feel so cold. "Thank you for this. You were a lot of help. I couldn't have done it without you."
She was off, leaving me alone with Natasha. The cops changed my plans. I didn't want Victoria to get in trouble, so they couldn't be allowed to see her just in case someone recognised her power. That meant she couldn't just drop the unconscious body off.
But I'd been in her head. Penitence was still in there, as was Cry Baby - and she was asleep. Sleep-walking was a thing.
I knelt, and placed my gloved hand on her head. "Rise," I breathed, tasting blood.
Covered in dust and oozing blood from shallow cuts, Natasha jerkily pulled herself to her feet. Her eyes were still closed. The lights were off, the curtains were drawn, and no one was home. I wasn't sure if I could do this to someone who was awake, but she was unconscious and that meant she couldn't fight me off.
"This way," I said, speaking more metal-tasting words. I touched my other hand to her brow. "You just need to make it down the stairs, and then you can speak to the police. As soon as you confess, you'll be free of the guilt."
She muttered something, too soft for me to hear. Maybe it was agreement, but I didn't care. I didn't need her to agree. I paused, and did the same to the big guy who I'd taken down. Then I took the two of them by the hand, and led them through the debris-filled apartment and down the front stairs.
"Walk," I said softly. "When you leave by the front entrance, you can wake up."
And with that said and done, I wrapped myself in Isolation and left by the back entrance, cradling my right arm. I needed to talk to Megumi, then get home and calm Dad down from whatever worry he'd worked himself into. Megumi hadn't waited for me. She'd made a run for it. I couldn't say I exactly blamed her, because this was a skinhead neighbourhood.
Checking on her, she'd made her way away from Ormswood and had found the cash for a payphone somewhere. Good enough. I'd check on her later. I had bigger things to worry about. I was feeling faint, I couldn't move my right arm, and I needed to get back home before Dad went ballistic.
That was what the sensible, boring bit of my brain was thinking, at least. But that wasn't all of me. I had to fight down the urge to turn around and see where the cops took Natasha. As I limped home, mouth tasting of metal, I thought of beautiful golden hands and how sweet they'd be.
Chapter 5.06
I let the two cold fires wash over me. Glory Girl was a pillar of brilliant white, shedding world-scarring embers wherever she went. But her light was enveloped by countless glowing yellow arms that coiled and squirmed like snakes. Each arm was tipped by a six-fingered hand, and each hand was grasping something rotten and decaying that absorbed a little of its beauty.
When I managed to force myself to look away from the mesmerising sight, there were handprints all over the debris that had been thrown into the room. Then came more beautiful arms, creeping their way into the room to latch back onto their handprints and pulling the rotten junk back into the cloud of arms.
Fumbling blindly in the dirt, one of my hands brushed against the red hot nail of my pain – and that was enough to break the captivating sight of two parahumans at once. Gasping, I surfaced from the Other Place. For once, reality was far uglier. Through the holes in two broken inner walls I could see the kitchen. The dust-laden air was filled with floating debris, held in the hands that only I could see.
Tash's telekinetic power had turned the air into a cutting tornado of whatever she could grab. She'd thrown the contents of an entire wall-mounted cupboard at Victoria and when she'd missed, the projectiles had kept on travelling. I really hoped that meant her telekinetic control got weaker the further it was from her body. There was a room full of trash here that she could have used against the good guys. But no, that didn't seem to be happening.
There wasn't time to wonder why, though, as the fridge moved and I realised that Glory Girl had picked it up bodily and was carrying it as a shield. Its front had been broken away by the barrage of missiles, and there were knives and broken plates sticking out of the sides. Just looking at it made me feel uncomfortably aware of how many sharp things were spinning in that area. Glory Girl was super-tough and super-strong, just like Alexandria, and she felt she had to protect herself with a whole fridge. I was a squishy bag of meat and organs who'd caught a glancing blow from one of the projectiles and the pain from that had floored me.
Some of the blades were whistling as they spun through the air. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end just from listening to that high-pitched whine. It'd be a literal death sentence for me to go in. God, what had happened to the skinheads in there? Had Natasha just… killed them? They certainly weren't Glory Girl-tough. No, I'd got memories from the guy I'd taken down of Natasha ordering them out. That must have been why - and why she hadn't retaliated against Victoria immediately. She'd at least known how destructive things were when she cut loose.
Megumi made a grunting noise as she finished cutting the tape with my penknife. She didn't give it back. I should get her out first, I decided. All of this would be for nothing if she got hit by any of the whirling metal.
"Where to?" she whispered over the noise of the whirling debris, before breaking out into coughing.
"This way." She certainly wasn't a coward. She did what I said, even though she could barely see out of one eye and tears were painting dark streaks down her dirty cheeks. The air was thick with dust, which spun in strange circles, drifting this way and that. I went to grab her arm with my right hand, but it didn't do what I wanted. I led her towards the rear of the house where the back exit was. Which I'd forgotten was blocked by junk. Fuck. There was no way she'd be able to get out the way I'd got in. I wasn't sure that I could do it myself. My right arm wasn't hurting, but it felt weak and I didn't think I could grip anything properly.
I took a deep breath. The door was locked and painted shut and there was trash piled in front of it. She could probably squeeze through if the door wasn't there. Therefore I just had to get rid of it.
"Cover your eyes and ears!" I ordered her. "I'm going to blow the door!"
"What?!"
"Hands over your ears and close your eyes!" I didn't want her seeing what I did. For one, the Grey Men might talk to her and what she didn't know she couldn't tell. But there was also the fact that I wasn't exactly sure what I was about to do was going to work.
Megumi obeyed, and I eased myself out past the junk, putting my left hand on the door. Calm. Still. Ignore the noise of the fight behind me. Screwing my eyes shut, I could feel the Other Place's chill, a hair's breadth away from me. I needed the door to not be here anymore. It didn't matter where it was. It just had to be gone.
"Angel," I breathed out, feeling the heavy thickness seeping out of my mouth, welling up to pour from the filters of my gas mask. My scars ached, and I knew I was pushing my body too hard. "Take it away."
An oppressive feeling built and build, and the scent of rust and blood grew thicker and thicker. I opened my eyes just in time to see the door jump a foot forwards, toppling down the back stairs. The trash had been leaning against it shifted, falling through the empty doorway and clearing the way through.
Collapsing back against the wall, I gasped for breath. Stars spun before my eyes, and it was an effort just to break the world down into comprehensible chunks. Door gone. Get her out of here. Then help Glory Girl. "Get to street level," I told her, shaking Megumi with my good hand. She looked up, squinting through her one good eye out at the afternoon light. "I'll be back. For you. Hide down there. Don't let anyone catch you."
She muttered something in Japanese. "Thank you," she said to me, leaning against the wall. She didn't seem to care that it was crumbling under her touch. "And—"
I didn't get what she was about to say, because we both flinched at the crash from behind us in the house. "I need to help my partner, but I will come back, I promise," I said. That was all the time I could spare for her. Hopefully the noise wasn't bad news.
It was. Of course it was. I could immediately tell, because of the new fridge-shaped hole in the walls. Even as I watched, it came springing back, the dust in the air swirling in its wake. It was like a wrecking ball swung around on an invisible telekinetic chain. Except even that wasn't quite right. There wasn't the same feeling of momentum that a wrecking ball had. It just moved when it had to and stopped dead in the air when stillness was required. The motion didn't look quite real, like something from a movie with bad special effects.
Blinking, I snapped out of it. Now wasn't the time. Victoria had lost the thing she'd been using as a shield. Somehow Tash had managed to get control over it, which meant that no matter what Vicky tried to use as a shield, Tash could grab it off her and use it as a weapon.
"Glory Girl, report," I ordered, sending a cherub to her. "How are y—"
Something black came flying through the drywall, and impacted hard against one of the solid exterior walls. I flinched away, and nearly slipped on debris. The black shape groaned. Exhaling butterflies, I threw a cloud of Isolation around both of us and hurried over to her.
Glory Girl wasn't staying down. She was trying to get up, even though her clothes were covered in dust and her mask was cracked; blood oozed from shallow cuts to her forearms that had torn the leather. "Fucking ow," she muttered, her voice warped by the synthesiser.
"Stay down," I said softly. "I'm hiding you for now." There was a thump as Tash smashed something else and more debris fell from the ceiling. The helicopter noise of the spinning debris died down, but from the clatter she hadn't let go of the objects.
"Jesus, what the hell?" Glory Girl said, one hand clutched to her ribs. Even her superhuman toughness hadn't been enough against that constant barrage of debris. Then again, I'd seen how fast that fridge was moving. It would have turned me into raspberry jam. "They have a supervillain? Who's that blonde? I never heard of a telekinetic skinhead."
"I didn't know what her powers were," I admitted. "Just wait for a chance and see if you can take her off guard. I'm going to try to distract her."
"I nearly had her. Goddamnit. If I'd just known to go after her first—"
"Fight me, you fucking coward!" Tash shouted. "Stop hiding!" The dust in the air swirled madly; my glasses and the lenses of my gas mask were fogged up. Through the hole in the wall, a cloud of things you might find in a kitchen advanced, held up to form a wall. There were knives; there were plates; half a table floated like a riot shield.
"Wait here," I told Victoria, and darted off through the door, keeping low. The piles of beer cans in the corners had been scattered like a child's toy blocks, while the ceiling and walls were pockmarked with impacts and shedding paint like scabs. Tash had climbed through the holes in the wall into the room next door to the place where they'd been keeping Megumi, so I could flank her.
The kitchen was a warzone. Water sprayed from broken pipes, pooling on the ground. Every bit of furniture had been torn from the walls. Fragments were scattered here and there, but most of it was in Tash's orbital cloud. I could see her back when I peeked around the corner. Her hair was windblown and she was so covered in dust she looked like a ghost. Her hair was matted with blood, and she clutched her left arm to her chest. Glory Girl had probably gotten at least a few hits in, or maybe Tash just couldn't control her own projectiles properly.
And the air smelled strongly of gas. She must have ruptured a gas main when she was tearing the place apart. Crap. I'd been planning to flash-bang her in the hope that'd make her drop all her telekinetic things, but no way was I doing that now. It had set that old abandoned house in Boston on fire. I didn't want anyone to die. I needed a solution, and quickly.
I sunk into the Other Place, and immersed myself in beauty. But under the euphoric light, I could see anger burning brightly on the objects Tash touched. It rusted and corroded everything it touched. It wasn't just anger, though; she was also wrapped in a corona of fear.
I couldn't get close to her. I remembered how Ryo's hands had been feeling around. My breath hitched in my chest and I could almost feel his cold hands inside my body again. No. For all I knew, she could use those telekinetic limbs on people, and I was nowhere near as tough as Glory Girl.
So how could I stop her without getting torn apart? I… I didn't know how I'd managed to do that thing to Ryo. It had been pure terrified impulse, and it had left him half-dead on the floor. I wasn't scared enough. And who knew what would happen if I did that now? I could feel Victoria's warmth, so close to me. One parahuman had been good. Imagine what two would be like…
No. She was a hero. That wasn't a hero thing. I couldn't betray her.
Goddamnit, think, Taylor. Think. What else could my powers do? My mind tricks weren't strong enough - they were nudging people and I wasn't going to put them against flying knives. If I could get close enough, I might be able to force something into her head, but I'd have to be basically touching her for that and I couldn't get past her debris cloud. What about… what about...
Kirsty had said that we were angels wrapped in human flesh.
Oh. I could avoid the debris if I went physically into the Other Place. If it worked. It probably would. I went through the Other Place when I travelled through corridors or had an angel carry me. I didn't know for sure, but I had to hope.
I couldn't believe that I was seriously considering relying on Kirsty's logic. She was literally crazy. But there was no time to think of a better plan.
This time when I breathed out, I didn't just release my fear or my curiosity or even the bad bits of me. I let out everything. I straightened up, and behind me something collapsed.
I still cannot describe the profound feeling of nakedness and vulnerability that struck me that instant. How do you describe the feeling of being far more exposed than you've ever been before?
I opened my eyes. My fingers were filthy; my nails rusty iron. The fingernail marks in my pale, bloodless skin exposed only metal under a thin layer of skin. Something had happened to my clothes. I was naked in the Other Place, and my legs were smeared up to the knee in blood and worse things.
And I could feel my butterfly-like wings behind me, unfurling to their full extent. They were rust-red, and woven from barbed wire. I shivered in the cold of the Other Place, and they buzzed behind me, sounding like aluminium foil flapping in the breeze. I tensed muscles in my back I hadn't known I had before, and they twitched into life.
Turning around, I saw my body behind me, collapsed down like a puppet with its strings cut. It was the grey of the walls of the Other Place. It was the grey of the Grey Men. A body without a person in it.
What the fuck. My stomach churned with fear, but was that even my stomach if I was like this and I was naked and I was a monstrous angel-thing and... I clamped down on my fear before it could control me, feeling the nails sink into my brain with a sigh of relief.
Something clanked, and I saw that I had a chain coming out of my navel. It led all the way back into my body's open mouth. I pulled on the chain, and more links emerged. Bending down beside it - her, me - I saw that the body was breathing, slowly and calmly.
I probably hadn't killed my body doing this. Thank God. I… I hoped I could get back in it.
Okay, okay, okay, part of my mind babbled, so I clearly had some kind of parahuman power that let me project an image and I couldn't control my body at the same time and I hadn't just walked out of my skin. But that part of me was probably wrong. I'd learned a lot from the Other Place. Kirsty called us 'sisters of the angels', but what I knew was that we were in some ways creatures of this hellish otherworld. When I made angels and other constructs, I was breathing bits of myself out. This was just the next step. This time I'd breathed all of me out.
Time to test things.
I didn't need to breathe out. I was already immersed in the Other Place, and this nightmare body was mind without flesh. I just closed my eyes, and imagined myself another way. When I opened them, the hell around me had formed into a dirty white dress that hung loose around me. I'd imagined a clean one, but the Other Place wouldn't let me. It didn't make me feel any less exposed, but at least I felt a bit more comfortable. If I was going to be wandering around as a monstrous projection, at least I wouldn't be a naked monstrous projection.
The filthy walls were barely real to me. They parted like mist. I stepped through the wall, and the next one, until I was in the way of Tash's advance. The chain connecting me to my body made a brushing noise as it dragged along the bare floor of the Other Place.
Tash's beautiful golden hands surrounded me, but they couldn't touch me. They were like mist. I could touch them, though. They felt velvet-soft when I brushed against them. The muck on my hands dulled the light, sinking into their substance and drained the wonder from them.
It felt wonderful. I felt alive. When I breathed them in, it was like chocolate melting in my mouth. I paused there for a moment, just inhaling and exhaling.
Somehow Tash could feel my presence. Maybe it hurt her when I touched her unseen limbs. I'd wondered how other parahumans experienced their powers, because I doubted it sucked as much for them as it did for me. Did she even know she had invisible hands holding up the things she lifted telekinetically?
Either way, she froze, looking around. "Who's there?" she asked. She was so beautiful like that, surrounded by a many-handed halo of luminescent hands.
She should have run.
My wings enveloped her. Rust-red barbs drew red blood. She saw the Other Place.
Natasha screamed.
I fell into her mind, or perhaps I dragged her mind out into my nightmares. There wasn't much of a difference at this point.
Metal slammed, echoing all around. Static-covered CRTs with dirty screens covered the distant walls, occasionally flickering images too fast for me to track. They were the only light in this dark place and they flickered on and off, their whine sounding like ten thousand whispers. The chain connecting to my navel ran off into the distance, further than I could see.
Natasha hung puppet-like from the ceiling, suspended on golden threads. Dark smoky fear surrounded her. My wings bore me aloft, until we were face to face. Her eyes flickered from left to right, like she was tracking unseen flying insects. I didn't think she was seeing me. Not quite. I took a deep breath and breathed out the butterflies in my stomach. In this place they grew to immensity, larger than a house. The childish laughter of their massive human faces echoed around both of us.
This was her head. Or something close to it, at least. Maybe it was her own Other Place, something small and closed in.
"No no no," she groaned. She wasn't looking at me. "I… no, you… is it my fault? Or is it…"
I reached out with my long-nailed hands and placed them on either side of her head. She reacted then, trying to bat at my hands with flailing arms, but she felt far weaker than I knew she must have been out in the real world. I might have been a skinny bookworm in reality, but here my grip was as strong as iron.
The grime and filth covering my hands crept off me, crawling onto her face. It spread like oil on water, covering her skin and creeping towards her eyes and ears.
"Natasha," I said softly. "I won't let you do this. Stop. Stop fighting."
"Get away! Get… stop it! Whoever you… you don't get to do this to me!"
"Stop fighting. Lie down." My words were worms creeping into her brain, writhing and squirming.
"I… no!" Her jaw was tensed. She didn't give in.
And that angered me. What gave her the fucking right to do that? All this mess was her fault. I wouldn't be caught up in this whole thing with Ryo if it hadn't been for her and her stupid gang.
Something of that escaped me and crawled into her head.
"It's not my f-fault!" she screamed in my face. Angry red flames billowed around us. My skin felt taut from the heat, I flinched. She seemed to draw some strength from that and redoubled her efforts.
It was her fault. She just didn't want to accept it. Reaching into my head, I pulled out a memory in the form of a nail, heated up by my anger. Ryo as he raved at me, detailing the campaign of abuse and bullying that these stupid petty teenage idiots had put him through. I hated bullies. And that was all she was when it came down to it.
I paused. I could drive it in. Make her remember everything he'd told me. Then I could show her Ryo's father's corpse, dangling in the utility room where he'd hung himself. I could show her the relief in Megumi's eyes when she saw that someone was coming to save her.
But I wasn't the victim here. My experiences weren't what mattered here.
Letting the nail dissipate, I floated back. I exhaled.
Behind her, a gas-masked figure took form, large enough to hold both of us in her hands. She was dressed in a sodden black coat with claw-like fingers, and the Panopticon logo I'd invented was drawn on her front in chalk.
I knew her. She was justice and she was guilt. The nightmare creature reached out. "Natasha," I said. "I found your camera. I felt that you enjoyed filming things." And I knew what to name her. "Penitence," I said, "remind her of what she did. Remind her of everything."
She screamed. She cried. And I saw it all on the CRT walls. Every thoughtless torment. The mix of apathy and petty sadism, because going after someone felt good. The 'it-was-just-a-joke'. The way that she didn't even care about Ryo, that she was mostly doing it to impress her friends - but it'd felt good to get it down on camera. It was like she was 'making a difference'. Like she was 'in control'. She wasn't alone in her bedroom. She wasn't forced to be a good girl or having to hide her power away. She didn't have to watch her parents argue.
And when it was all over, I'd made up my mind.
"This is what you're going to do, Natasha," I said. Tears traced clear paths down her messy face. "You're going to confess to everything you did to the cops. You're going to tell them you're an unregistered parahuman. You're not going to lie to them." I leaned in. "Or I'll come back. No matter where you run. No matter where you hide. I'm good at finding people. I found Ryo. I'll find you."
She whimpered.
"Do you understand me?"
"… y-y-yes."
"Do you?"
"Y-yes!"
I dreamed up Cry Baby to send her to sleep. The horse-headed infant lurked behind Penitence, a mad look in its dark eyes. It knew what it had to do. It wouldn't fight Penitence's influence. It just meant she'd dream of her guilt and the things she did until I released her, or until my constructs came apart.
And with that said, I grasped the chain that ran from my navel firmly, and took a deep breath. I felt a strong sucking feeling behind my eyes that forced my eyes shut. I opened my eyes again to pain.
My mouth tasted of blood. I couldn't see well because my gas mask had slipped. My entire left side hurt, including my head. Every time I moved, it felt like a thousand pins-and-needles were pricking me. But that was nothing compared to the pain in my right shoulder where the debris had hit me. It was slicing through even the good feelings from doing things with other people's powers.
"Fuck," I hissed, curling and uncurling my arms. I couldn't even get up until I got rid of my pain. Eventually I managed to lever myself upright, trying not to move my right arm.
Ow. Important lesson there. Stepping out of your skin hurt a little bit. Coming back to your skin hurt much more, especially when you'd just let your body collapse down on the ground. Next time I did this, I'd need to lie down first.
The enormity of what I'd just done hit me, now that I was safe and snug again in my own flesh. I'd walked out of my own body. I'd walked out of my body. Why wasn't I freaking out more?
… oh yes, I'd nailed Phobia to the inside of my skull. I'd forgotten about that. I'd probably pay for that later, but now I had to get everyone out of here before the gas blew.
Natasha was out of it. Cry Baby did good work. She was curled up in the foetal position, whimpering in her sleep. Her orbital debris cloud was scattered around her. It looked like a bomb had gone off in here. Hell, I thought with a wince, a small bomb would probably have been less destructive.
Victoria drifted over to me. The way she held her body suggested that she'd be limping if she couldn't fly. Lucky for her there.
"Are you hurt?" I asked, somewhat foolishly. Of course she was hurt. "Badly, I mean."
"Nothing too bad, but I feel like I've been beaten with sticks. Holy crap, I wasn't expecting her to be a supervillain, and that power was strong. Ow. Ow. My sister oughta be good for fixing me up," she said, disabling her voice synth. "And I'm pretty sure I can stop her blabbing to my parents. I hope she doesn't. This was fun. Apart from the bit where she went full Nifestorm on me. That bit wasn't fun." Victoria was breathing deeply through clenched teeth. I was pretty sure she was toughing it out, but she didn't sound like she was badly hurt. That was good.
"It looks mostly shallow."
"Yeah." She inspected her arms. "Fuck, she tore my jacket. Can you stitch up leather? Now I get why what's-his-name with the stupid name and the skull mask wears a motorcycle helmet. My hood didn't help at all." She peered over my shoulder, hands balled into fists. "What'd you do to her? She just froze, then crumpled and dropped everything."
"I, uh, made her… well, she's experiencing guilt for everything she's done," I said awkwardly. Up close, Glory Girl's current state reminded me of how much of a fuck-up I was. I'd forgotten to tell her that Natasha might have been a parahuman. She did her part in the plan perfectly, but I'd failed her.
"Ha! That's a great power. I know someone who can do something similar, but he can't just make them crumple up like that." I was sure she was grinning under her mask. "Pow, instant karma. Does it only affect bad guys?"
"Uh, yes," I lied. I didn't want to look bad in front of her, but I knew how the Other Place thought. It showed everyone as monsters. Everyone would have things that Penitence could play off.
"Ha ha, awesome."
"We can talk later," I said quickly. "I think she damaged the gas mains. They're leaking." Sirens were approaching outside the building. The cops were here. "And you should get out of here. This was an independent operation outside the BBPD's jurisdiction, because the FBI has intel that skinhead elements have infiltrated the local cops." Shit, was that a good idea? Had I meant to say that? Oh well, I was committed now.
"Right! Got it!" Glory Girl reactivated her voice mask, and paused. "Uh, do I need to give you back that tinkertech I gave you?"
"The… oh. No, those things are one-shot devices. It'll have just enough power to get you home, and then it'll be junk," I said, exhaling Isolation as I said it. It was a good thing she'd reminded me of that. I'd protect her all the way home so no one noticed her flying off and then she could dispose of it. "Just chuck it away."
"Okay. I understand." Looking around the smashed up apartment, she stretched. "You know where to find me if we need to do this again. We make a great team."
"Yeah," I said. I felt warm and tingly when she said that. Even the chill of the Other Place a hair's breadth from reality didn't feel so cold. "Thank you for this. You were a lot of help. I couldn't have done it without you."
She was off, leaving me alone with Natasha. The cops changed my plans. I didn't want Victoria to get in trouble, so they couldn't be allowed to see her just in case someone recognised her power. That meant she couldn't just drop the unconscious body off.
But I'd been in her head. Penitence was still in there, as was Cry Baby - and she was asleep. Sleep-walking was a thing.
I knelt, and placed my gloved hand on her head. "Rise," I breathed, tasting blood.
Covered in dust and oozing blood from shallow cuts, Natasha jerkily pulled herself to her feet. Her eyes were still closed. The lights were off, the curtains were drawn, and no one was home. I wasn't sure if I could do this to someone who was awake, but she was unconscious and that meant she couldn't fight me off.
"This way," I said, speaking more metal-tasting words. I touched my other hand to her brow. "You just need to make it down the stairs, and then you can speak to the police. As soon as you confess, you'll be free of the guilt."
She muttered something, too soft for me to hear. Maybe it was agreement, but I didn't care. I didn't need her to agree. I paused, and did the same to the big guy who I'd taken down. Then I took the two of them by the hand, and led them through the debris-filled apartment and down the front stairs.
"Walk," I said softly. "When you leave by the front entrance, you can wake up."
And with that said and done, I wrapped myself in Isolation and left by the back entrance, cradling my right arm. I needed to talk to Megumi, then get home and calm Dad down from whatever worry he'd worked himself into. Megumi hadn't waited for me. She'd made a run for it. I couldn't say I exactly blamed her, because this was a skinhead neighbourhood.
Checking on her, she'd made her way away from Ormswood and had found the cash for a payphone somewhere. Good enough. I'd check on her later. I had bigger things to worry about. I was feeling faint, I couldn't move my right arm, and I needed to get back home before Dad went ballistic.
That was what the sensible, boring bit of my brain was thinking, at least. But that wasn't all of me. I had to fight down the urge to turn around and see where the cops took Natasha. As I limped home, mouth tasting of metal, I thought of beautiful golden hands and how sweet they'd be.
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