The gangster is still listening to Lung when Taylor drops from the roof and tears out his throat with a knife. It's a quick, clean kill; there's barely a drop of blood on the blade. By the time he hits the ground, she's killed another three. She moves like lightning, all speed and sharp, vicious edges. There's a pistol in her hand now, snatched from one of the corpses she's left behind. It feels like home; like there's something deep within her bones telling her that this is how it should be. A gun, a knife, and nothing to do but kill.
Lung roars, but she ignores him. His flames follow her like a shadow, but she is faster. Bullets skim her skin, but she does not feel them. One man dies to the knife that sprouts through his chest when she is suddenly there, crossing the few metres that separate them with all the sudden viciousness of a thunderbolt . Another takes three bullets to the stomach and a fourth to the head. They are running, now - whether to get away from her, or the steadily-growing Lung, she does not know. It does not matter.
They seek to escape her? It is an affront to a pride she did not know she had. Within her hand, something coalesces, a storm compressed to the size of a fist. She throws it even as she leaps, hurling herself through space and time to close the distance in a way they cannot expect. When it lands, so too does lighting; it arcs out between the fleeing members of the ABB, and they scream in agony even as their skin burns and their hearts stutter to a stop. One survives, but Taylor is already behind him, and it is already too late.
She withdraws the knife, flicking away a few, stray crimson drops. There is something beautiful in the way they fall.
Lung is behind her, a half-second away from smashing her to the floor. But a half-second is all she needs; the world warps as Taylor throws herself backward, disappearing and reappearing so she is behind him in turn. She calls it blinking, because that is how long it takes. Lung spins, too fast for something that big, and she smiles. There is violence in that smile. It is as sharp as a knife.
Each kill has only made her stronger, and now she feels invincible. Power crackles beneath her skin, little sparks of electricity snapping from every one of her non-existent curves. A corona of fire surrounds Lung as he charges her, but Taylor's only response is to launch herself at him, discarding the gun.
It seems stupid. It seems suicidal.
And then the world erupts into lightning.
It shrouds Taylor like a cloak, until she is less a woman and more a storm. Her knife is no longer a blade but a thunderbolt, and she wields it like the physical impossibility doesn't even matter. Lung hasn't even closed half the distance when Taylor slashes upward, and a wave of electricity turns his charge into a stumble as his muscles seize up. It is the smallest possible opening against a regenerator of Lung's caliber, but all she needs is the time it takes him to blink.
She slips through reality until she is directly in front of him, and even though he cannot react physically, suddenly everything Taylor knows is fire. It detonates around him like a solar flare, hot and bright and burning. Before, the agony would have been inconceivable.
Before, it would have killed her.
Now, she carves through it with a knife. The flames split around it, and so do Lung's scales. Taylor attacks with the fury of a hurricane and the violence of death, carving deep, vicious chunks in his flesh. Each strike paralyses and rends in equal measure; he loses a hand to one slash, an arm to two, and soon he is without limbs entirely. It will not keep him down for long. But it will keep him down for long enough.
Her energy is fading, now, but Taylor still has enough strength to punch her knife into his throat, and tear.
Lung's body slumps one way, and his head falls the other.
The last of her power fizzles out, and she is left standing there, surrounded by nothing but corpses and scorch-marks.
This is where Armsmaster finds her.
"Hero or villain?" he asks. It seems like a stupid question to ask a woman standing over a field of bodies, but he has probably recognised that the dead are only ABB and Lung himself. There have been heroes born from greater horrors than this.
"Hero," she says quickly, the fading exhilaration of the hunt making the words almost breathless.
"Then why did you kill them all?" She does not miss the way he does not relax in the slightest at her answer.
"They were going to kill kids."
"Then you should have put them down, but not like this." He seems to believe her, at least. It's a start.
"It was kill them, or let them go. I don't have non-lethal. My powers don't let me," Taylor says, shrugging. "I can slaughter a man in six different ways with a kitchen knife, but I don't know how to throw a punch. And when the fight began... I lost myself."
Taylor blinks, then shakes her head.
"No, that's not right. I found myself."
"You're not doing a very good job of convincing me that you're a hero." Paradoxically, Armsmaster seems less worried now than he was when he first arrived. It's like he knows she's telling the truth.
"Judge me by what I do, then, not how I do it." She pauses. "Sorry, that didn't come out right. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I killed sixteen gangbangers and Lung himself because they were going to murder children. That's a victory. If I was a villain, it would be sixteen PRT officers and Glory Girl because they were stopping me from robbing a bank."
For a moment, Armsmaster is silent. "What should I call you, then?"
"Bladedancer." It slips out before she realises what she's saying. Taylor had barely considered a name before now, but she can't take it back. It's a good choice, anyway; the right mix between description and misdirection.
"I'm going to have to ask you to come with me, Bladedancer," he says. "I respect your reasons, and what they say about your morals, but you killed sixteen people and one of the strongest parahumans in the city. As an officer of the Protectorate, and the law, I cannot simply allow you to roam free. You are not under arrest at the moment, but you will be if you resist."
"Where would I be going with you, if I wasn't under arrest?"
"To meet Director Piggot. I expect she would be interested in recruiting you."
"I'm not sure I'm interested in being recruited," Taylor says quietly. "I doubt I'd be treated fairly."
"You do not have a choice." Armsmaster's words are blunt. They fit the man himself. "Either you come with me peacefully, and have a civil discussion with the Director, or I will be forced to arrest you, where you will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. No charge will stick for what you did to Lung, but everything else will. That's sixteen counts of murder, and you have already admitted your guilt directly to me."
Armsmaster sighs.
"Look, I don't like this any more than you do. I agree with you - it is a victory. But I have people I answer to, and a job to do. Don't make me do it."
"If I came with you, and agreed to join the Wards," Taylor says, and there's a flicker of surprise from Armsmaster; maybe he thought she was older, "would you make me a gun?"
"What?"
"I dream of weapons I don't understand. Things I can't replicate. I'm not a Tinker. But I feel like I should be wielding something better than some punk's handgun. Like my hands were made for something mightier. You could even give it non-lethal ammunition; as long as it's a gun, I can use as well as I can use anything. The same goes for a knife.
"So, how about it? I don't resist you, and you make me something that means next time I don't have to kill."
There's something intoxicating about her power. It's the only way Taylor can explain where her boldness comes from. Even against Lung, when he bore down on her like a comet, she felt nothing but excitement. Adrenaline. Like there was nothing in this world she should fear but holding back.
The strangest thing is that Armsmaster seems to be considering her request.
"It would be possible," he muses. "I would have to run it by the Director, but if you are as correct as you believe you are about your power giving you no non-lethal options... there is precedent for a Tinker equipping their teammates. That said, the task could fall to Kid Win instead of me, unless you make a good case. My time is valuable."
Taylor shrugs. "I don't mind. I don't want to fight you, and I don't want to be arrested for murder. What I want is to be a hero. I have nothing against killing, but I don't enjoy it either. It just feels like... something I do, I guess. Like that's what my power is for: killing bad people. If you can give me a way to take them down without having to slip a knife into their throats or put a bullet through their eyes, I'm fine with that."
"I think we can do that," Armsmaster says. "Do you have some way of getting to the Protectorate's headquarters, or do you need a ride?"
"I need a ride," Taylor says, almost too quickly. It's not even entirely from the excitement of getting a ride with Armsmaster. There's something in her that sings when it sees his bike. It feels like a half-forgotten dream. All she can remember is freedom. Freedom and speed.
"Good," he says. "I would have had to escort you anyway."
He mounts his bike, and the part behind the seat folds and unfolds in a flickering blur, until there's another half-seat in its place. Taylor approaches, almost cautiously, and jumps on. This close, she can see that there are handholds on either side, and she grabs them. The metal creaks ever-so-slightly under her grip.
"Hold on tightly," Armsmaster says. "We will be moving quickly."
"Good."
The bike accelerates, speeding through the streets so quickly that most of the scenery is nothing but a flickering blur. Taylor can't help her laughter. It's wild, and free, and filled with joy. Maybe Armsmaster will think she's a little crazy, but she doesn't care.
Something about this feels right, like she was born to be in motion.
Director Piggot is the largest woman Taylor has ever seen in person. This is not an insult, nor a judgement: merely truth. But she holds herself like a warrior, and Taylor will respect her for that. There are few prisons worse than your own body. She stares Taylor down with eyes that have lost too much, and though Taylor is not intimidated, she can see where anyone else might be. Twenty years ago, this would have been a woman to fear. Even now, the memory of that strength lends a weight to her words.
"Bladedancer. Tell me why I shouldn't have you arrested and locked away for murder."
Armsmaster had briefed the Director about the situation during the ride to the Protectorate HQ, or so he'd said, so the question does not come as a surprise to Taylor. Nor does the tone; this is a hard woman, with a voice to match.
"I want to be a hero." Start with the truth. Everything else will build from there. That is what Annette Hebert taught her daughter, and it is a lesson she remembers well. "My power doesn't give me non-lethal options. It taught me how to use a knife, and a gun. Nothing else. I'm stronger and faster than normal, but not enough to win a fist-fight with a man twice my size and then take down the rest of his friends. All I can do is stab them, shoot them, or electrocute them. My lightning's lowest setting is 'fatal nine times out of ten', and its highest is 'carve Lung to pieces'. He said he was going to kill children. If I had to choose between potentially going to jail, and not saving them... well, you already know what I chose."
"You have the drive if nothing else," Piggot says. Taylor isn't quite sure whether it's meant to be a compliment or not. "The Protectorate and the PRT exist in part because of capes like you, Bladedancer. People who can't help killing because it's all they're capable of. I'm not going to compare you to someone like Grey Boy, or the Siberian, because you're right - you had two terrible choices, and you took the lesser evil. But it's an evil you could have avoided entirely. If you can kill Lung and sixteen of his gangsters, you could have called the Protectorate and held him off until help arrived. If you want to be a hero, your first instinct can't be violence. You have to do everything you can to avoid it."
She... is right. She is right. Though something within Taylor rebels at the thought (at what part, she isn't sure), she could have done better. She'd used her invisibility to sneak up on the gathering; she could have used it to lead the gangsters in circles. With her knife and a gun, she could have ripped into Lung to enrage him without killing him. Drawn him into a chase. It would have been easy; her power makes her as slippery as a shadow. She wouldn't have needed to throw her arcbolt or call her arcblade. But Taylor let the fight come before anything else, and even if she walked away with her enemies dead and her wounds already healing, that isn't the point.
Killing Lung and his soldiers was a good thing. There was no denying that. But it could have been a great thing, and if Taylor knows nothing else, it is that her power feels like it is meant to be great. It is in the way it hums through her bones and arcs through her veins; the way it fills her chest with something like hope.
"You're right," Taylor says, once she's finished thinking it through, and for a moment Piggot almost looks surprised. "I made a mistake. I don't regret what I did, but if I could go back and change it, I probably would. I could blame it on my power, but it's not guns that kill people, right? It's whoever uses them. Just because all it gives me are tools for violence doesn't mean I have to use them that way. I should know that; I asked Armsmaster about whether or not joining the Wards would mean he could make me a weapon that was non-lethal."
"You can only use guns and knives, is that what you said?" Piggot asks, though Taylor feels like it isn't really a question. More the Director's way of gathering her thoughts. "I assume you've tested that, to be so certain about it."
"Yes. Anything from a butter knife to those Bowie knives they sell in the hunting store, I can use like I've been doing it my whole life. Then I went into an antique store and pretended to be inspecting one of their swords - when I picked it up, all it felt was old. The thing about guns is only an assumption. I went through four handguns and one shotgun in that fight, and I'd never held anything like them before that. But I'm pretty sure I'm right; it's a gut feeling, I suppose."
The Director nods. "If I were to allow you into the Wards, yes, we could arm you so you could fight without killing. We'd probably be obligated to."
Taylor notes the 'if'. There is something more Piggot wants from her, it seems, than just an admission that she could have done better. But what?
When in doubt, go for the throat. It's the same instinct that governs her in battle, that tells her the only way to lose is never to fight. It's not something she should listen to, not after the previous conversation, but Taylor rebels against the thought of backing down. She's been backing down for a year and a half. No more.
"With all due respect, Director, you need me. We need each other. I don't want to go to jail, and you don't want the gangs to win. I'm strong. Not the strongest, but I took down Lung. How many people can say that? The Empire Eighty-Eight outnumber the Protectorate and the Wards by themselves. I've probably killed more people than some of their capes, but I guarantee I've hurt far fewer. I just want to help. All you have to do is let me."
"Director," Armsmaster says, speaking for the first time since they arrived, "I believe Bladedancer could be an asset. She is less volatile than some we have recruited, even considering her demonstrated capacity for violence. Between strict restrictions and guidance, she's right - we can use her."
Piggot's lips are thin, but her tone is even. "Your opinion is noted, Armsmaster."
She steeples her fingers together, and looks at Taylor. There is something heavy about the way her gaze rests on Taylor's face, even through the scarf-and-bandanna 'mask' she is yet to remove.
"How old are you?"
"I turn sixteen this year."
"Then here is what will happen. You will join the Wards on probation, under a specific set of conditions I will decide upon shortly. Breaking any one of them will result in your immediate arrest and subsequent prosecution for the murders of sixteen people. Your probation will last until you turn eighteen and join the Protectorate. Is that understood?"
"Yes, Director," Taylor replies. What else is there to say? She does not like bending to authority that is not her own - it feels like wrongness, deep within her bones. But every action has its consequences, and if this is the price she has to pay for being a hero, then she will pay it.
"Good. For now, you can leave. Armsmaster will escort you from the building, but you will return here tomorrow morning at nine o'clock, with your parents or guardians. Consider that the first condition of your probation. When you arrive, tell whoever is on the reception desk that you're here for a private tour with Hannah. They will understand. We will finish the paperwork and everything else at that time, and then you can meet your new teammates."
Oh.
Suddenly going to jail was looking a little more tempting than having to tell her father that not only did she have powers, but her first night out trying to be a hero led to the deaths of sixteen gangsters, Lung himself, and her being subpoenaed into the Wards.
"My Dad doesn't know I have powers. Does he have to?" The words slip out before she can control them.
"Yes," the Director says. "We cannot recruit a Ward without parental permission, as much as it would make our job easier."
Taylor is not looking forward to that conversation. She would rather fight an Endbringer, she thinks. At least that way her death would be glorious.
She sighs. "I'll be there."
"I will hold you to that. Goodbye, Bladedancer."
"Goodbye, Director."
Armsmaster turns to open the door, and Taylor follows him. She loses most of the walk out of the Protectorate HQ to her thoughts; to her fear of how Danny will react to what she is and what she's done. She bids Armsmaster farewell without really noticing anything he says, only realising after he's gone that she should have probably asked for a ride back out into the city. Oh well. The journey will give her time to think, and she can move far more quickly now than in her civilian guise.
The rooftops blur as Taylor covers them in an alternating sequence of run-blink-run. It would be exhausting if she could get tired any more.
Taylor slips through the window of her room, dropping to the floor with a dull thump. A few seconds later, her invisibility fades, and she straightens, pulling off the scarf-and-bandana combination that serves as her mask. Her father isn't awake; she can't hear the television, and the silence feels tired. About the only thing that doesn't is Taylor herself, really. Danny Hebert works harder than his body can endure, all for a life that does nothing but beat him down, a house that's falling apart, and a daughter who doesn't deserve it.
No. That's not true. She refuses to allow Emma to get to her. Or Madison. Or Sophia. Just because they've spent a year and a half trying to screw her over in every possible way doesn't mean she'll let them win. She is Taylor Hebert, and her existence is worthy. It's a statement whose truth she feels all the way to the marrow in her bones. It might be her power talking—she's slowly losing track, at times, of where the separation ends—but she can't help but believe it anyway.
She walks out of her bedroom, the knife she doesn't remember drawing spinning through her fingers. It's a nervous tic she's picked up without knowing why, but she doesn't mind right now. It's a reminder that not everything her powers have given her has to be used for killing. Even if it's something as simple as making a blade whirl a figure-eight through her hands without once scratching her skin.
The knife is still in her grip when she reaches her father's bedroom. Probably not a good look. She sheathes it with a flourish as beautiful as it is unnecessary, and opens the door, flicking the light on as soon as she can reach the switch.
"Dad?" she asks. "Are you awake?"
His answer sounds like the cross between a zombie's death-rattle and a vacuum cleaner. So not yet. She gives him a couple more seconds, and asks again. This time, his reply is at least in English.
"Huh? Taylor?"
"I need to talk to you. It's important. And urgent."
He rolls over to look at the clock. "At this hour?"
"It can't wait."
"Okay," he says, and his tone is understandably wary. "Just give me a couple of minutes to get up. We can talk in the living room."
"Alright," she replies. "I'll see you there."
Taylor makes her way to the living room, seating herself on one side of the table. She lays her knife on the desk next to her; it hasn't been cleaned yet, so the blade is stained with crimson. Looking at it fills her with a sense of fierce satisfaction. It shouldn't. But it does anyway. She wasn't lying when she told Armsmaster her power felt like it was meant for killing bad guys.
When Danny Hebert enters, he notices the knife before anything else. Taylor can see it in the way his eyes widen and his body tenses, ever-so-slightly. But she cannot allow him to say anything; this is a conversation that will happen on her own terms, or not at all. She won't be able to get through it any other way.
"Dad," she says, and her voice is as sharp as steel. "I'm going to tell you a lot of things tonight. A lot of things you won't like. But please, please, let me finish before you say anything. I don't think I'll be able to otherwise."
"You sound just like your mother," he says. It's the first time he's directly mentioned Anette Hebert in five months. "Right before she told me about Lustrum."
He doesn't say anything else, and Taylor takes it as an invitation. So she starts to speak. She tells him about the bullying, about Emma, about the truth of the locker. She tells him about her powers - calls lightning to her fist and turns invisible in her chair.
Then comes Lung. It's surprisingly easy to talk about; Taylor has always loved to read, loved the English language, and it serves her well. She describes how it felt when the wind was at her back and she was streaking across the rooftops, like she was the crest of some great, inevitable wave. She punctuates the fight with gestures, even using her knife to demonstrate a particularly tricky kill before she realises what she's doing.
By the time she talks about fighting Lung directly, her voice is filled with pride. He had been a mighty foe, even with how one-sided the battle had actually been. She'd won only because she'd spiked her power higher than he could match. Given a minute or two more, and she would have needed her arcblade and the strength it gave her just to survive long enough to escape.
It was as she'd told Director Piggot. Just because she'd go back and change what happened if she could didn't mean she regretted what she'd done.
That pride falls away when it's time to tell her father about Armsmaster, about Piggot, and about the fact she has to join the Wards or spend the rest of her life locked away for sixteen counts of murder. Danny Hebert is a Dockworker, and a lifetime of that combined with the continued obstinacy of the Mayor means he isn't the biggest fan of 'the Man'. Though she suspects any distaste he might have for what was being forced upon her pales in comparison to his opinion on what she'd done to deserve it.
"So, uh, yeah," she finishes awkwardly, "we need to be at the Protectorate HQ by nine o'clock in the morning tomorrow, well, today actually, so I can sign up properly and become a Ward."
"I… I can't deal with this right now," he says. His tone is a mixture of incomprehension and anger and a hundred other things. It's the voice of a man who has suddenly been thrust into a world he no longer understands. "I need time to think."
"Okay." There's not much else to say. "I'll see you in the morning?"
Her father doesn't reply.
She didn't expect him to.
Taylor returns to her room, and it's only when she flops down on the bed does she realise she was still holding her knife. It thunks into her mattress, and she notes idly that it took more effort to stab into the foam than it did to cut a man's throat. There's something wrong with that, she thinks, but she's not sure what.
She pulls the blade out, and drops it on her bedside table, right next to the pair of glasses she hasn't had to use in months, before rolling over to stare at the ceiling. Her body isn't tired in the slightest—she's not sure if it can be—but her mind is exhausted. It feels like it's been weeks since she just sat down. It's a stupid feeling, because five minutes ago she was sitting in a chair, but the sentiment remains. It has been a very long day.
Taylor closes her eyes, and within a couple of minutes, she is asleep.
When she dreams, it is of shrieks in the dark, and a brave woman's last laugh.
Hello, friends. It's been a while since I posted something that wasn't a one-shot, but here we are. So! Hello and welcome to A Memory of Light, a story whose title, as it happens, I did not simply rip blatantly off the Wheel of Time. Hopefully, you won't find out why until later. Unless you're the sort of person who can guess a plot twist within the first thirty words, in which case, teach me.
This story is also available-primarily so, in fact-on the SpaceBattles Creative Writing forum (my username over there is the same as it is here), where you can find the second and third chapter, as well as a couple of omake, and a few pages of discussion. I will be posting a new chapter here every time I upload the latest chapter to the A Memory of Light thread.
Anyway - I hope you found this first chapter mildly interesting, and that you'll stick around for the rest!
