Taylor thinks she's in good hands~
Special thanks to my lovely co-author and wife,
@hellgodsrus, without whom I would never would have been able to take part in creating half my fics. Prime Betas
@Tamahori and
@32nd_freeze for being betas and feeding me validation and feedback between updates.
Leviticus
4.1
-.-.-
So it turned out Amy
could drive after all. Abby wanted to come but Amy warned her off in a surprisingly non-bitchy way, saying that, given the situation, bringing a civilian into an intense cape talk didn't make sense. She accepted being the backup place to spend the night if the rest of New Wave got too intense for me, but it still hurt seeing her go.
Not as much as it hurt my sanity and emotional wellbeing being in the car, but - still hurt. I was shaking
again by the time we got home. Home. I was actually starting to think of it as home, and that - that
also hurt
. I'd barely been there a week. Not even a week, actually, and that was counting the time spent unconscious.
I could also hear Victoria's voice from outside. Indistinct and loud.
Amy hunched her shoulders and walked up the garden path. I followed behind her as she pushed open the door with a huff. "We're back."
"Ames! Taylor!" The golden blur hit us
both and suddenly it was like we were all flying t[]gether again - again? But we hadn't -
"Victoria." Brandish was just behind her, mouth pursed tight, fist knocking steadily between her thigh and the partition wall between the living room and the kitchen. "Careful."
She spun round, still mostly just a vague image of gold and blue - wearing a blue top maybe? - "Just because you're already saying I'm being reckless - I know how to control my own strength enough to
hug someone, Mom."
Brandish rolled her eyes, but before she could respond, I managed to say, "Mm - much as I like being stuck between a couple of cute girls - " I ignored Amy's protest - "Can't breathe."
Victoria looked betrayed as she let go of me and slunk back a few steps, like a rebuked dog. Brandish's eyes narrowed in satisfaction. Which made me feel guilty. Thankfully, I had a solution to that. Sorta.
"Whew. Amy, your bony elbows are right at rib-height, you know?"
Have to try and defuse this, doesn't matter how stressed I am it's - they shouldn't fight like Annette and I did. I don't want this place to be like that.
She elbowed me in the ribs again, gave my mostly forced smile a classic Amy glare. "I'm going upstairs."
"No, stay!" Victoria smiled and it was - too wide, pleading, almost manic. "C'mon. Please?"
Amy's scowl deepened. "...fine."
"Since my daughter seems not to have asked…" Brandish's voice softened from acerbic. "Taylor. Are you alright?"
My daughter? As if Amy isn't? Unless she's talking about Amy and assuming she didn't in the car ride - bah, I don't know any more. "I'm - coping. I think. Getting there." Deep breath. "Feels like it's my fault - I was the one who put the idea of a beast fighting ring in her head…"
"It's not your fault." Brandish and Victoria spoke at once, their different tones overlapping and blurring any emotion.
After a brief pause, Amy added, "Yeah, what they said."
"I feel like I know that, intellectually, but emotionally, I'm lagging a bit." I ducked around to go to the kitchen and get some water. My throat felt so dry all of a sudden.
"Well it's
not your fault. Whatever - whatever evil scheme she's doing we'll
stop it and we'll get you out. We know where she is now from the ticket sales thing for that arena, so we can hit it with
everyone we can, breach all areas, get Taylor's other body out - "
"Because her lab will obviously be in the same place as a public location she'll be clearly expecting an attack in." The sound of Brandish settling into one of the chairs.
"I don't think she'd open this if she didn't think she could defend it. When I lived with her, paranoia was the mood of the day every day. Risks - risks weren't a thing we were
allowed to take." I gulped down the ice water and winced at the brain freeze. Wait. I could feel that? Weird. "So she's probably going to make it either a bad idea to attack for legal reasons, or a bad idea to attack for combat reasons. Probably both. Who knows how many monsters she's made since they don't need to support a mind?"
Victoria waved a hand as I returned from the kitchen. "But with Protectorate and PRT support, and covering enough angles - if we strike late in the day, with Eric and I going in through the roof - I looked up the map of the building, so this
isn't me being reckless, Mom, this is me
planning - "
"This
is you being reckless. Just after you finished being reprimanded for it once already."
"Um - how would you know which room to bust through the roof to get to?" I huddled up on the couch with half the pillows turned into a fort around me. Just - soft pillow pile Taylor. Yay.
"We clear room by room - and we'll have Shadow Stalker there with her scan for wires visor thing, and Kid Win - not as combatants but recon, letting us know where power supplies likely are, which'll let us find the tanks, which'll let us find
you."
"Or, we could simply see this for what it is. Desperation." Brandish's hand was still knocking on her thigh. "The rogue laws are very strict, and binding herself to them was a mistake we can exploit - that is, unless we give her public sympathy by attacking her out of nowhere."
"She's a criminal! She fucked with Taylor's brain and hurt me and - "
"Hurting you was self defence. Changing Taylor's brain, while criminal, is impossible to prove currently without making both their identities very public. Not to mention the lack of real evidence. A full on assault is how she wins."
Victoria's mouth set into a purse akin to her mother's. "Hard for her to win if her jaw's broken."
"Look, I get that she's done some fucked up things, but this
is still my mother you're talking about." I scowled. "And, as far as I'm aware, the
only person other than Amy who can keep me from
dying due to the sheer fact I'm a tinkertech monster in a tank. And given I'm in a
new body now, and haven't been near a mirror, I still have no idea what I look like."
"
Fine, hard for her to win if she's in cuffs in the back of a PRT van up to her neck in containment foam and awaiting a
closed trial where Taylor's identity can be mentioned without it becoming a nationwide press release. Come
on, Mom, we fight - we fight criminals you can't just be thinking of letting her walk free just because - "
"I am
not saying we let her walk free which you'd
know if you were paying attention!" Brandish took a deep breath and settled back into the chair, fist resuming its drumroll on her leg.
Amy slumped down on the couch next to me, head leaning back in that limp pose of defeat I knew so well. I offered her a cushion.
"I bet Dad would agree with me."
"He's resting and no, he wouldn't."
"We should put it to a proper New Wave vote."
"Your idea is foolhardy and idiotic, so no, we won't be doing that. Also, you're still
grounded, which means that your proposals have to be approved before the team discusses them. And I do not grant approval."
Victoria's face was growing redder and redder and she opened her mouth - then closed it. "Fine! Whatever. I guess we'll let her sit there just like we let the Empire sit there and the ABB
s3t `t up - sit there too."
I blinked and shook my head sharply. That - she said something? Set it up? Sit there? No, I needed to - focus. Say something. "It's only been a few hours, hasn't it?" I tried, weakly. "Maybe - maybe they're just in the middle of organising a response. I - sort of based the idea on the dogfighting rings I know Hookwolf runs s-so he'll probably be pissed."
"And since she's decided this is a legal business we can use an avenue which we can't with those, namely animal rights lawyers." Brandish's lip twitched into an almost smirk. "At the very least they'll keep her busy."
"I'm not sure her creations have minds." I blinked. "I saw - I saw some that were bigger than I was, and - I know this um. This body doesn't have a mind, her tech doesn't
need it for - for control."
"She'll still have to prove that to them, and that lacking a mind means it doesn't deserve humane treatment - which blood sports decidedly
aren't."
"Isn't it - totally okay to kill the clones of that guy in the Teeth? Does he have a kill order?" I looked to Amy because - I didn't really want to look at Vicky or Brandish right now.
"Spree? His clones die off on their own in like ten minutes. Doesn't matter." It was still Victoria who answered. "And all this does is give her more time to ramp up and make stuff." A heavy sigh. "Taylor? Which… which approach do you think is better?"
I winced and shrunk down. "Promise you won't get upset at me?"
"Never!"
Deep breath. "Okay. I'm a bit biased about it because - it was originally my idea for the arena, and part of me wants to see it succeed. Because monster fights without people getting hurt is
fucking awesome, and the better it goes, then - hopefully the less intense Annette gets to the point where… where maybe she'll let me go." I looked down at my knees. "And - Victoria, you do have a bit of a reputation when it comes to collateral damage. Bursting in through the roof, I don't - I don't want people to get hurt by debris, and until we know which Beast is me, you're liable to get hurt because you don't know if the one approaching is me outside my tank or someone else controlling one to fight you off, and I don't know how much more damage than a natural creature a controlled one can take before it's impossible to move anymore. They don't have to worry about organ failure due to going into shock, or anything, I think. We just don't know."
Victoria bowed her head and nodded slowly. "... okay. That's fair. If… if I come up with a good. Plan though. Can I run it by you? To make sure it's okay with you?"
"You can run whatever plans you like by me but - I'm not an experienced cape. Or, hell, even a cape at all. I can't convince your mom for you." I shrunk down further.
"And I won't be convinced. Direct assault is not the way to beat this villain." Brandish huffed out a breath. "I believe you… mean well, Victoria. But you have to understand - "
The soft sound of the doorbell.
I startled. "Holy shit, you guys have a doorbell? I thought everyone knocked -"
"It can be an issue when some people have super-strength." Amy gave Victoria a look, who nodded sheepishly.
"
One time." Victoria hurried off to answer the door. "One time and nobody lets you forget it."
"And then we got the doorbell." Amy smirked.
"Battery! Hi! Um - I guess you're here because of the whole Eden thing too, huh…"
There was a blanket over the back of the couch. Despite Brandish's
look of motherly displeasure for ruining the aesthetic of her lounge, I draped the blanket over myself and my fort.
Worst fucking night to not wear a hoodie ever.
"The Protectorate's arrived," Victoria announced, strolling back into the lounge with Battery on her heels. From my fort, I got a… comfortably chest-height view of the hero and her incredibly skin-tight costume. Was that for power reasons? She moved pretty quickly, I think, so - air resistance? I felt bad for ogling at her - bad because I felt like I shouldn't be thinking about things like that right now and bad because ogling was rude. She was covered in glowing tron lines, little waves of force shimmering up them - well, they sort of flickered when she stood still. Her power was something about staying still to charge up like a battery, right? That must have been it. She
did seem almost unnaturally still when she stopped moving. Must have been muscle memory. If I had a power like that, I'd certainly start being extra-still on reflex.
"Hey." Battery waved at me and I blushed hard, pulling the blanket down over my head.
"H-hi."
"To what do we owe the pleasure, Battery?" Brandish still had the little
thumpthumpthump of her knuckles against her thigh going.
"Checking on the situation, obviously. Making sure that… Taylor, is it? That Taylor is coping with the recent developments. Asking if you're planning any sort of action against Lilith at this time."
"We're not." Brandish confirmed. "No direct action at least. We have some legal routes we were planning to investigate - "
"I've been told to advise you to hold off on
any action for now. Including legal action. Until we determine if her business is legal, any attempt to treat it as such may legitimise it."
"So - what
can we do?" I asked, peeking out worriedly.
"For now,
not what Assault did, which was buy a family season pass at the first opportunity he could." There were chuckles from the New Wave members at that, so this wasn't entirely unexpected - maybe she was trying to break the ice?
Shame I don't know anything about capes or the people involved so it does nothing for me. Battery folded her arms with a very unimpressed look. "I eventually managed to persuade him to get a refund. All scouting of the situation is being handled by PRT teams for now to minimise funding Lilith."
That - made me think. "... do you reckon I might get a discount for being Lilith's daughter?"
"Don't even think about that, Taylor." Amy reached over to smack me upside the head with surprising gentleness.
"I have to agree with Panacea." Battery crouched down next to me. "I… can't imagine how hard this must be. But until we know more about this situation - our best advice is to stay put, stay safe, and follow the directives we've put in place. We'll be having a Protectorate hero or Ward swing by every day to make sure you're safe and well. If you have another one of your episodes in your other body, we're currently advising you not to engage with anyone. Verbally or otherwise. Is that okay, Taylor?"
"I guess I can try." I hugged my knees tight to my chest. "Sometimes they talk to me." Like Sherrel.
Bitch.
"I think Armsmaster already told you to report whatever they say to us. That goes double now. It might not be true, but it's important we know what they're saying, regardless. Alright?"
"Okay." I nodded. My hands were shaking when I relaxed my grip on my legs. I had to put some fingers to my neck just to make sure I didn't have gills -
it's okay, I'm here. I'm here and not - not in the tank.
Part of me felt disappointed that I wasn't going to get to see the fights. Most of me was relieved I wouldn't be in the ring. Mom wouldn't do that to me, would she?
"I think it's best if I speak to the New Wave members alone for now - "
"Active members only would just be me, I'm afraid." Brandish shifted in the chair. "Victoria, Amelia, take Taylor upstairs. Maybe get her some water as well."
"We can still help -"
"Argue the point once we've got Taylor upstairs." Amy cut Victoria off by tossing part of my pillow fort at her. "Come on."
"It was nice meeting you." I gave Battery a little wave as I stood up.
"Good to see you too. Hang in there. We'll sort this out."
Slowly, the three of us made our way up the stairs. "Guess I'll - turn in early and call Abby or something."
"Is that still going okay?" Victoria ducked her head a bit. "Did the - I know it kind of, um. Got eclipsed by this but. Was the meeting alright?"
I paused and tried to shift mental gears. "Uh. I didn't know what to expect, but - it's pretty depressing that half the meeting was taken up by what was more or less a war table session with a map of the Bay and places it was safe for us to go." Depressing thoughts, but - better than Eden. I could talk about this.
Victoria winced. "Still. Important information?"
"I have to treat a lot of people who get the shit kicked out of them by the Empire," Amy said abruptly. "So. Yeah, pretty important. Issue is it's not completely accurate or entirely concrete."
"Nazis can roam just as much as we can." I drooped. "I guess, on the topic of atrocities against humanity, Al ordered tuna, pineapple, and pepperoni on the pizzas." Haha, a fun topic.
Amy made a face. "Gross."
"I think it sounds okay." Victoria shrugged. "I should. Call Dean though. And just - yeah. I'm glad that things with Abby are alright though. Cling tight to that."
"Oh." I paused. "I think I figured out I'm poly?"
"Cool." She smiled just a tad. "Anyway. Off to my room before I go from just sad-grumpy back to regular grumpy."
The door closed behind her. Just Amy and me in the upstairs hallway.
"So…"
"Yep." Amy nodded to herself. "Well, have fun or whatever. Might be worth having a soak in the bath if you need to relax."
"I honestly can't remember the last time I had one."
"Just don't hog the bathroom for three hours." Amy's lips curled and she retreated to her own room.
What was it with her and the ability to make everything sound unhappy?
I went into my room -
guest bedroom - and shut the door behind me before just stripping down and flomping nakedly onto the bed. What a fucking day. Couldn't find Chris at break, joining the Society, fucking
Eden and Annette
. I couldn't - she was still my mom but I hated her - she'd taken something that I'd come up with as part of - part of when I'd trusted her and she'd -
I rolled over and buried my face in the pillow.
One of these days.
Reaching down, I took my phone out of my discarded pants pocket, and stared at the alerts. Could I go
one fucking day without someone texting me a - a hundred times, or whatever?! Not that many but - I really needed to make my text alert something I
noticed. Or at least take it off silent outside school hours.
This time, the majority were from Emma.
<
I saw the news
<
fuck
<
fuckfuckfuck
<
taylor please talk to me you've been avoiding me all week
<
it's like she's still controlling you
Wait -
still?
