¿No fucking pasarán, né?
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Beta'd by Firstselector, SpytheEngineer, and Kinsfire.
Content warning: Nazis. It's Alabaster talking shit, this time.
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Taylor was ready for a nice, calm week.
Not that she was complaining about having the opportunity to contribute to her city so much, and to see an Endbringer dead on the floor, of course, but even for someone with more-than-human endurance, fighting off an Endbringer before rebuilding a sizeable portion of the city as well as having multiple extremely emotionally intensive conversations and punching out Hookwolf was exhausting. Even taking the natural assumption that he wasn't intending to come barreling into her house and that being in a running battle with Squealer was the reason that he was intruding, and thus not choosing to pursue any kind of retribution, it was still a fraught weekend, the kind that tested even divine stamina.
So, she could be forgiven when, upon sitting down for dinner, she didn't immediately recognize that the stir-fry that Danny had made for lunch had been poisoned.
She could be further forgiven, upon realizing that, for missing the gas diffuser full of chloroform replacing the salt shaker, and the "sonic subdual system" built into the hastily-replaced chairs, although the dart full of sedatives that bounced off of her neck, tip bent into uselessness, was something that caught her notice.
Kaunaz flared to life above her forehead as all of the poisons burned themselves into nothingness, and a frantic invocation of Gebo made sure that the combination of toxins and sonic attack didn't kill her father.
At that point, though, she had larger problems to handle, with Hookwolf exploding through the front door, this time entirely on purpose, so she left the two runes to hover in the air, burning merrily, in favor of handling their uninvited guests.
"Bring in the gasoline," he snarled with a voice like a silverware drawer in a spin cycle, Cricket already swinging towards the dining room for Taylor by the time that the first of the Empire's rabble masquerading as foot soldiers entered the house, gas cans in hand.
The instant that she had a clear line of effect to Cricket, Taylor struck, a bolt of lightning crackling out from her clenched fist and slamming the scarred cape into the wall across the dining room, twitching and smoking.
"Get," she said, lone eye burning with fury, "out of my house."
Spooked, one of the Empire gangers threw his can of gasoline at Taylor, the red plastic of the container contrasting jarringly with both the decor and the hate crime-encrusted clothes of the Nazis in its cheery warning.
Kaunaz flashed above her head once again, and in one massive plume of flame, the container exploded, hurling chunks of plastic all over the room that somehow didn't damage anything that was supposed to be there.
"I'm going to give you one more chance," said Taylor, armor shimmering into existence between one slow, menacing step and the next. "Get," she continued, cracking her knuckles, "the fuck out of my house."
The unpowered gang members broke and ran, abandoning their gas cans all over the entryway and living room. Hookwolf, as well as Cricket once she struggled back to her feet, back covered in bruises-to-be and still smoking, both glared at Taylor. "We have orders to bring you in for the betterment of this city, and the world."
"Nuremburg wasn't enough of a threat to cow you fools into at least pretending to be respectable, then?" asked Taylor, glaring at the two fools who dared to encroach upon her home. "Very well, allow me to educate you."
Taylor walked forwards with deliberate slowness, drawing energy into herself with each step.
In contrast, both Hookwolf and Cricket launched themselves forwards, Hookwolf churning like the world's angriest sink disposal drain and Cricket stiffly, still feeling the effects of being electrocuted and hurled into a wall.
Hookwolf, naturally, hit her first, blades blunting themselves on her armor as he deformed around her unyielding form like water splashing. She had the chance to throw one punch at Cricket, which clipped the woman's blades before she managed to twist the rest of herself out of the way, before Hookwolf flowed up over her eye and forced her to close it or find out whether the durability of her flesh extended to her squishier parts.
An invocation of raido sent lightning crackling all over her body, grounding out in Hookwolf's fleshy center rather than the floor thanks to Taylor's will, and with a sound like a keening dog crossed with overstressed industrial machinery, he sloughed off of her.
Taylor took the chance to leap clear, clearing the couch in one bound, before returning in for another exchange as he dragged himself back into a lupine form.
This punch was substantially stronger than the one she'd hit him with the day before, and sent metal shrapnel hurtling every which way, skittering off of her flesh and not puncturing anything that couldn't be repaired or replaced. More importantly, it left Hookwolf greatly diminished in size, hulking form reduced to something more along the lines of a full-grown husky than a horse-sized wolf, although misshapen thanks to the veritable explosion it had been forced into.
Opening her hand, Taylor speared through the metallic puddle that remained, closing around the fleshy orb that the burning ansuz on her eye patch guided her to, and yanked. Immediately, the shifting metal collapsed into a puddle of sharp steel, scratching up the floor, and after a moment the orb expanded with a sound like a water balloon being filled into a blonde man, heavily muscled and with a snarling wolf's mask failing to conceal the fear in his eyes as he felt her hand around his neck.
"Now then," said Taylor, not bothering to hold back the fury in her voice- this man had decided to attack her in her home, Helheim was going to have its due sooner rather than later- "I would suggest you explain what made you think it was a smart idea to do… this."
Before he could reply, a strangled yelp came from the kitchen, and a moment later, a battered Cricket shoved Danny out, curved blade ready and waiting at his neck to spill his blood all over his front.
"Put him down," she rasped, "or I put yours down."
It was a tremendous application of will to keep from letting the spasm of her fingers crush Hookwolf's throat like so much dry spaghetti. The motion instead went into tossing the man like a sack of flour, although thankfully not one that burst on the metal fragments that covered the floor. "Now you."
"No," came the reply. "You're going along with us, if you don't want me to end him."
The still-flickering kaunaz in the kitchen guttered out, leaving ash behind. "You don't want to do that." Taylor's voice was soft, deceptively so.
"Not particularly," coughed Hookwolf, joints creaking as he pulled himself back to his feet. "If you play along, he lives. Otherwise, he dies."
"Your funeral."
There was no transition between life and death- one moment, Cricket was holding her blades to Danny's throat, the next, she was ash blowing away in the wind, all the way to Helheim.
"Now then," said Taylor, looming over Hookwolf with the glow of her power shining out from her good eye, the kind of gold that Scion used to scour flesh from the Endbringers. "Where were we?"
Hookwolf kept his mouth shut, despite the fear she could all but smell on him- disintegrating Cricket like that must have rattled him even more than she already had.
"You want to keep your secrets to yourself, then? Admirable, I suppose, but you came into my house and tried to kill both me and my dad. The sooner you tell me, the sooner you can be… free. The longer you hold out, the more… unpleasant things get for you." Despite the lightning crackling along her fingers, Taylor knew very well that torture was useless as a means of extracting information even if she bent the Runes to tell truth from falsehood, even if she had been willing to perform the acts. That was clear to anyone who could think about it rationally.
Hookwolf could not think about it rationally.
She had just beaten him out of his power and then, with as much seeming effort as it took him to swat a fly, killed Cricket. Taylor was more than willing to roll the dice on him being afraid enough to fold before calling her bluff- comparing him to some of the warriors in Odin's memories, he was nothing special, and far less fear had broken them before. Even through the fury choking her vision, she could force the pragmatic action over the impulsive one, so she fixed the Nazi with all the glare her lone eye could muster up and waited.
"Clausewitz insisted that we had to remove you from the board before you took reprisal for yesterday, he wanted to take you and send you off to Gesellschaft for reconditioning to make you a useful asset. The gasoline was to make it seem like you were dead- we have enough sway in the police force and PRT to make any investigation disappear." Taylor looked at the man for a moment after he spoke, but saw nothing more than a broken spirit- he was resigned to his death, one way or another, and was showing his figurative belly to Taylor.
"So be it." Kaunaz flickered into existence again, briefly, and once the black shape scattered into ash, so did Hookwolf.
After a moment of silence, Danny spoke up. "So… what now?"
Taylor closed her fist, armor appearing between one heartbeat and the next. "I disabuse them of any notion of controlling me they may have. That might take some doing, so, uh…" She frowned, brain flickering through options. "Do you have anywhere you can crash on a couch for a couple of days? I wouldn't want you to be here when they try and come back for me and me to be gone."
He nodded without much hesitation. "I can ask Alexander or maybe Kurt to lend me a spare room."
Taylor nodded. "Wait ten minutes, then drive over. I should have handled the riffraff by then."
"Okay." Danny turned to go up the stairs, then paused. "Be safe, Taylor, please?"
She could see the unsaid words on his tongue, unable to make it across the newly-smaller distance between them.
"One way or another, I'm making it home alive," she said, making eye contact with him and dipping her head into a brief nod.
He sighed. "That's the best I'm going to get. Good hunting." He trudged upstairs, and Taylor stayed in place until he was out of view.
Then, she turned and strode out of the house, handily disrupting the Nazis' efforts to whip themselves into a frenzy and charge back in.
"I believe the common term is 'get off my lawn.'"
They did not, charging in to try and swing weapons or fists at Taylor, and she bared her teeth.
This would be over quickly.
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Hades was not one to spend time in the world of the living.
Aside from his hobby, providing legal aid for lucky mortals, he had much
better more important things to do in his domain, so he tended to remain in the underworld where he was needed when he wasn't actively trying to escape from his duties.
An omen from the spirits of Pythia, still bearing his departed nephew's blessing all these centuries later, was more than enough for him to make an exception.
At first, he was not sure where he should go, manifesting himself in the law firm he'd helped Odin's heir in out of habit as much as anything else. He strode out onto the street, casting about for some reason that would justify his presence in the city with senses both mundane and mystic, finding nothing save for the specter of Thanatos' mark, hovering over the city, and the traces of the nascent Protogenoi's workings. For most, bending the universe's raw nature to one's will was foolhardy at best and suicidal at worst, but evidently the girl had the universe's favor, just as Thoth had, and it showed in the unnatural improvements she was making- to the point where, had he not been seeking it out, he would have missed the traces for the improvements in precision and efficiency she'd achieved.
Hades found himself impressed, at least a little.
Then, he found himself staring into the barrel of a massive handgun, his other eye showing a man the kind of white that he would have expected from some of the lesser offenders serving sentences within his domain, the denizens of Asphodel. More importantly, the man bore Thanatos' mark many dozens of times over, far more than any he could remember.
"Young man," said Hades, pausing briefly to ensure he was not cut off by a not-so-distant explosion and roar as a dragon bellowed its challenge to a doomed emperor and his chained light. "What do you intend to accomplish by this?"
"You stand for the deviant, the inferior, and all kinds of degenerates," snarled the boy. "That's all the reason I need to remove you in the name of the Empire, Mr. Truth." His name was said with the kind of disdain that he associated with Sisyphus' feelings towards Xenia.
"Ah. I see." Hades nodded in faux understanding. "You seek to make yourself known to the people of your city, in the hopes of being remembered beyond the fall of your empire."
"No, you arrogant bastard," he spat. "I'm here in its service!"
"Then you shall die for your doomed cause." Hades' hand rose to brush the boy's gun away from his face, pushing the barrel up to face the building behind him, before he tore the life from his body. Then, when something tried to flood the collapsing body with life anew, swimming against the flow of time, he tore the life from that too, although not all of it as it severed its connection with the boy before he could fully claim it for his own.
No matter.
"You have my gratitude," said Thanatos, bowing from the waist. "He was… frustrating my efforts to collect him.
"I see why. His unnatural life was… beyond your power to end, but not beyond mine." Hades turned to face the dragon, then back to the reaper of men. "I release you back to your duties. Tarry not- the false emperor's judgment awaits both of us."
Both of them vanished, leaving behind a body that would not- could not- rot and a growing crowd.
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Elsewhere, a child-that-wasn't stopped mid-conversation, fear flashing in her eyes before something dark swelled into being behind them.
"The little raven wants to perch in my domain, then? No, we can't have that, no we can't, dear Ciara."
A cloak of black feathers swelled into existence on the girl's shoulders before she vanished, leaving the man who had covered himself in bone as she changed behind.
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And that's that!
Nazi death toll: 3 confirmed.
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