Company Girl 1.2

Legend departed shortly after Lady leaving our small group in silent contemplation. My thoughts spun round and round in circles of what if, and why. The Black Company is a mercenary group, renowned for killing more major threats than even the Guild. The problem was they still took contracts in addition to their bounty hunting. In some cases that was considered universally beneficial, but usually it was much less clear cut.

From what little I knew most of their extended mercenary contracts took them to small countries in Africa or the Middle East where they would fight either for an established period of time or until they stopped getting paid. Often those wars were fought between rival war lords, where neither side could truly be classified as 'good'. Still something about Lady nagged at me until I finally gave up on puzzling it out myself.

"Tattletale, Lady went by a code name, but she didn't wear a mask. Why is that?"

Lisa sucked in tired breath. "It's not just her. Everyone in the company is like that even the non-capes. It's a statement. The Black Company is made up of people who left their old lives behind. No family and no friends outside of the Company. When everyone you care about is part of a group that the Protectorate and most governments try not to piss off you don't really need to worry about hiding your identity to keep them safe, and everyone from their past life they leave behind, either dead, an enemy, or just left behind. They change their names to escape the past, and they show their faces because there isn't anyone for their enemies to go after for leverage." Lisa said. Her tone was strange. It spoke of a certain amount of respect, but also fear and sadness. Through it all there was a faraway look in her eyes, one that spoke of plots in the making and liberal use of her power. No doubt her headache would be record breaking after all the use it had seen today.

The words took some time to sink in. What Lisa was describing was such a foreign concept, but it held a strange sort of appeal. The idea of leaving the past behind me and starting fresh as part of a group where I could be myself, be Taylor and Skitter at the same time and not give a damn about what anyone thought of that… It was enticing.

Brian cleared his throat, bringing me back to the here and now. "This is a lot to take in. We have a good thing going here but with the city in the shape it's in… we may not be able to keep it going. Hell they might just decide to write the city off for all we know." Brian gave me a sidelong glance. I wished I could tell what he was thinking behind his motorcycle helmet. "We've all had a long day, and we've learned a lot that we need time to process. Skitter and I have family to check on, Bitch has Dogs to look after." That reminder that she still had Dogs in her care that would need to be checked on seemed to shock Rachel out of her funk, if only slightly. "Lisa you need to report to the boss let him know were all alive, beyond that he doesn't need to know anything, not yet. Alec, go check on the base and make sure it's still there, if it isn't talk to the boss, I'm sure he'll be able to set something up. We'll decide where we go from here in a few days when everything has had a chance to settle down."

His piece said Brian left, Bitch following right behind him. With a shrug and a glance over his shoulder Alec followed them out of the room. Lisa came up and squeezed my shoulder giving me a sympathetic smile before reaching for her cell phone and heading out the door.

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I stared at the front door with trepidation. I had sworn to myself today in the hospital that I was done hiding the truth, that I was sick and tired of it coming back to bite me in the ass. Well this was the only thing left standing between me and my promise. Still I knew my Dad, he wouldn't take this well. Swallowing a lump in my throat I walked up the steps and opened the door.

"Dad, I'm home."

"Taylor!" Dad bolted out of the kitchen and into the hallway sweeping me up into a hug. "Taylor, I was so worried, are you alright?" Dad voice was almost panicked as he leaned back to look me over checking for any injuries.

"I'm ok Dad, really, but we need to talk." I say while fidgeting nervously both at the prospect of the conversation to come and at Dad's inspection.

I gently guide Dad back to the kitchen before putting on a pot of water for tea. Dad sits at the table looking concerned and confused. When the water boils I pour a bit into our old tea pot and swirl it around heating the pot. I'm not really sure if it makes much of a difference in the quality of the tea. Mom always said it was the correct way to go about making a pot of tea though, and who am I to argue with tradition? Dumping out the water I used to heat the tea pot, I fill it to the brim with hot water and add the tea bags while I set out a pair of coffee mugs for Dad and I.

Finally after taking my first sip of the strong black tea. I hunch forward in my chair and stare contemplatively at the table. There is no good way to go about this, of that I am sure, but I'm not doing myself any favors putting this off either. With a final sigh I begin to speak.

"Dad, what do you know about how capes get their powers?"

My father seems startled by the unexpected question but he recovers quickly enough. "Not very much, why?"

I take another deep breath. "They event which causes a cape to get their powers is called a trigger event, it's generally agreed to be the worst day of that person's life. It can be all sorts of things; a physical attack, accumulated mental stress, betrayal, whatever but the point is they are always traumatic…. Dad, I triggered in the locker."

Silence hangs in the air like a lead weight bearing down on top of me.

"You're a cape?" There is something in Dad's voice, not fear or anger or sadness. The closest emotion to what I'm hearing from him would be dread.

I nod mutely still unable to make myself look him in the eye I raise up a hand and through the open window fly a dozen moths of various sizes I have the insects fly around my head in a circle giving the impression of a living grey halo. Heh, and isn't that a fitting metaphor for everything that's happened. My intentions were always good, but between the actions I took while trying to achieve my goals and how I had ended up losing sight of my original goal in exchange for the relationship I had developed with the Undersiders… I truly was something in between good and evil, not an Angel or a devil, but something in between, a grayscale to the black and white that so many professed to be the only truth.

With a thought I dispersed the moths and directed them back out the way they had come in. "I control bugs, people call me Skitter." I murmur.

"You're a villain?" Dad sounds incredulous, his voice thick with emotion and pain. I can feel my eyes starting to cloud with tears. I nod mutely not trusting my voice. I simply stare blankly into my tea waiting for Dad to say something anything, just so long as it will end the silence.

"Why?" Dad finally asks. "You always wanted to be a hero growing up, why would go and become a villain Taylor? Taylor, how could you?" Dad's voice grew louder with every word until he was yelling. I shook like a leaf. I had asked myself that sort of question countless times recently, but to hear the same things coming from Dad was… crushing.

"It's a long story Dad." I say, my voice resonating with defeat and exhaustion. "I, I always wanted to do good, but things never quite went right, and before I even realized what was happening everything spiraled out of control…"

I trailed off I didn't want to tell the whole story from start to finish again I had already done this once today. Between that and the Endbringer battle I was emotionally exhausted already. But this couldn't wait. If I put it off now I would never tell him. So I started from the beginning I walked him through everything from my first night out up until the end of the Endbringer fight. The whole time I watched a mosaic of emotions flow across his face, fear, pride, guilt, shock. For now I didn't tell Dad about what had happened after Panacea healed me, what was I supposed to say? Revealing Shadow Stalkers Identity could land us both in serious trouble, not to mention what happened with Armsmaster. Dad wouldn't be able to understand that at all. I might be able to make him understand but right now I was simply too wrung out to do so.

For a long time Dad says nothing and I am content to let everything I've told him sink in while I sip my tea.

"Is it possible for you to… to just stop being a villain, and become a hero?" Dad asks.

"I… yes, it is possible."

"How?"

"I… I got… a couple of offers today, from two very powerful people." I answer carefully. "If I were to accept either of their offers it would mean no longer being a villain." I fidget uncomfortably

Dad shot up from his slumped position. "That's great!" I couldn't help but cringe at the excitement in Dad's voice.

"It… it's not that simple Dad accepting either offer comes with consequences. Both have serious downsides, I'm… I'm honestly not sure what would be worse; staying a villain or accepting one of the offers."

I couldn't bring myself to look him in the eye. What I said was true, but I doubted Dad would be able to understand it not without another long exhausting conversation. Dad seemed to take that in for a moment and consider the implications. No doubt he was trying to understand what could be worse than staying a villain.

"Taylor, what aren't you telling me? What sort of offers did these people make, and who are they?"

Another deep breath, this would be the moment of truth I supposed.

"I got a pair of job offers Dad, from two different cape groups… as for who made the offers, well I think you've heard of both of them, Lady and Legend, they both tried to recruit me." Watching Dad's mouth drop open was priceless. Even as tired as I was that look of shock wrung a small smile out of me.

"Lady the Tinker from the Black Company and Legend leader of the Protectorate both offered you a job!"

I started to laugh. I couldn't help it. The whole day had been an emotional roller coaster, and here was Dad his eyes bugging out of his head over what to me felt like the smallest of my currently long list of problems. Never mind that the Undersiders and I were still on rocky footing, or that one of my bullies was a Ward, or that fucking Armsmaster had tried to kill me with Leviathan. No the job offers were nowhere near the top of my list and here was Dad freaking out over them. As my laughter settled down into small chuckles almost a minute later Dad finally seemed to pull himself together.

"Well that settles it then you're joining the Wards, end of discussion."

Wait, what?!

"Dad, you don't understand, I can't join the Wards. It's just not… it can't work."

Dad frowned at me. "Taylor you're joining the Wards, you can't stay a villain and there is no way I'm going to allow you to become some hired gun who travels the world killing for whoever pays the most." Dad wasn't quite shouting but his voice had taken on a harder edge.

Damn it all, I knew he wouldn't understand. I would just have to make him see reason. Deep breath Taylor, the best way to approach this is to stay calm and make a sound, logical argument. If I let my emotions get the best of me he won't hear a word I say.

"Dad, there is more going on here than you understand… I'll tell you, but only if you swear, swear on Mom's grave that what I tell you never leaves this room." That sentence hangs in the air. I'm asking him a lot. Asking Dad to swear on Mom's grave is… I don't know if I'm crossing a line but he needs to understand the gravity of the situation. If he spilled the beans it could wreck the Endbringer truce or give the Protectorate enough leverage to throw me in jail, he needed to understand the seriousness now before I explained things.

Dad was visibly nervous at such a request; never the less he eventually nodded. "Alright Taylor, if it's that serious. I swear on Annette's grave, whatever it is you're about to tell me stays between us."

"OK then, OK." I took a deep breath before facing Dad again. "The reason you can't tell anyone what I'm going to tell you is because one of the topics could get both of us thrown in jail, in my case potentially the birdcage if I'm unlucky." Dad looked horror stricken at the thought of me being sent to the cage. "The other topic… Dad if it were to get out it would mean the end of the Endbringer truce. That means when the Endbringers show up the villains wouldn't fight with the hero's because they would no longer trust the hero's not to stab them in the back. Dad if that happened… the heroes will take more losses than ever, and the villains will still be completely intact in the aftermath of attacks. If that happens everything will fall apart in a matter of years, maybe less. Do you understand Dad? What I'm going to tell you can NOT get out. Not just for me or you, but for everyone."

Dad swallowed nervously, good.

"I already I told you I fought today, even managed to hurt that monster some, drew him away from a shelter." Dad nodded. "What I brushed over was how badly I got hurt doing that. Leviathan broke my spine, among other things. If it wasn't for Panacea… Thing is she mislead me on purpose to get some little bit of revenge for what Tattletale and I did at the bank. She made me think they were going to arrest me in spite of the Endbringer truce. So I used my bugs to get the keys to my handcuffs and try to escape. I ran into another patient's room by accident, a Wards room." I took a deep breath. "Shadow Stalkers room, I recognized her. Dad, she was one of the girls that shoved me in the locker." Dad seemed to freeze up so I pushed on before he could interrupt or explode. "Armsmaster caught me in there, dragged me out. That's when Legend showed up. He offered me three options, jail, the wards or trust my civilian ID with Stalker."

Dad stayed silent a frown marring his face the only indication that he understood what I was telling him.

"That's when Tattletale and the Undersiders stepped in to help me, they didn't even have to Dad, they just decided that it was what they wanted to do. Tattletale black mailed Legend with the security of the Endbringer truce. See Armsmaster decided that I was too much of an embarrassment to him, so he decided to set me up to be killed by Leviathan, along with a bunch of other villains. He set us up to be killed so that he could have a one on one fight with Leviathan, he honestly thought he could kill it, and that with so many of the city's major villains dead he could fix the city in the aftermath."

"He was wrong, his weapon couldn't kill leviathan and he messed up because I lived. Tattletale pieced it all together in the aftermath and threatened to tell everyone what he did if they didn't leave me alone… So Armsmaster told the Undersiders what I'd been planning, before I had my change of heart. Then Lady stepped in. She convinced me to go back and own up to everything, explain myself to my team and to Legend. Legend tried to convince me that Shadow Stalker wouldn't get away with what she had done to me, told me they would have to investigate, but he couldn't look me in the eye and tell me that she wouldn't still get away with it. That's when Lady offered me a place in the company."

For ten long silent minutes Dad remained silent. He stared vacantly into his cup of tea, while I fidgeted nervously in my seat. Finally Dad spoke.

"You're joining the Wards." Dad spoke with finality. "You're not going to run off and become some mercenary soldier, and you sure as hell are not going to stay a villain. We'll bring all the evidence you have with us to the PRT when we get you signed up. We will make them do something about Shadow Stalker, they'll have to."

My mouth hung open in shock. He couldn't mean that! He couldn't possibly believe that! "Dad I just told you Legend, the Legend, couldn't even guarantee me that anything would be done about Shadow Stalker. Why would you even think that the PRT would do anything about her? Not to mention I'm a criminal to them. Dad, If I walk into that base in my civilian identity and tell them that I'm Skitter and I want to join the Wards they don't even have to accept! They could just lock me up to keep what I know from getting out!" I tried; I tried so hard to keep my voice level, to not shout, to appear rational. I just couldn't do it. As I'd talked my voice had steadily rose until I was shouting at the end, hands clenched tight into fists in my lap.

"Then we'll make them do something about her."

Just like that, he thinks he can force the PRT to cave to the demands of some random dockworker and a minor villain. Did he even hear himself? He couldn't even convince the mayor to put in the money to get the ferry rebuilt and he thought he would be able to convince the PRT to give up an established Ward in exchange for a minor villain.

I laughed, cold and hard and utterly mirthless. I laughed in my father's face, it was just too funny. They would never give me a fair chance, we had nothing that we could in good conscience use to force them to, and all they had to do was lock me up and throw away the key, maybe Dad to just to make sure he didn't talk. Yet here he was acting like we could actually do something about it. After everything else it was just too damned funny.

My laughter subsiding I stared Dad in the face and told him as much. He just shook his head.

"We'll make them do something about her." Again with the same conviction and certainty as before, still calm.

"You aren't listening to me Dad. If we walk in there all that's going to happen is they lock the two of us up to keep us from blabbing what we know and ruining the Endbringer truce. It won't even be hard. They'll lock me up for what I did as Skitter and you for threatening to reveal the civilian identity of a Ward! Dad trust me everything I've seen, done, and heard tells me that there is no way I can join the Wards and not get shafted by it! And God help us if Stalker ever finds out who I am under the mask because she's enough of a psycho to try and kill me, maybe even kill you just to hurt me!" I was screaming now. Couldn't Dad understand what was happening here? Couldn't he see the obvious conclusion of what he was suggesting?

Dad went red in the face, and he yelled right back. "Trust you? Trust you?! My God Taylor, how the hell am I supposed to trust you after this! You lied to me for months! You became a super villain behind my back! And now you get an offer from the head of the Protectorate to join the Wards and you want to turn it down! And for what?! So you can stay a villain?! So you can run off and join the damned Black Company and get shot at by drugged up rebels in Africa! Clearly I can't trust your judgment, because if I could you would have done the right thing months ago!"

I felt like I'd been slapped.

Guilt over everything I'd done, over all the lies I'd told to Dad welled up inside me, but along with that guilt came anger. How dare he sit there and judge me! I knew full well that I had made mistakes, that I had screwed up. But I knew the score with the PRT and Protectorate. They didn't give a damn about me except to keep me from doing any more damage to their reputation, and they would take whatever path they felt was most likely to minimize that potential. They wouldn't care that I had tried to do the right thing in my own roundabout way, or that the system had screwed me over. No all they would see would be a villain to put behind bars.

"Tomorrow you and I are driving down to the PRT, we will sort this mess out and that is the end of it."

No. No I would not let him do this. I wouldn't go to jail simply because Dad was too damned stubborn ignorant or stupid to know what he was doing.

"No." it came out a whisper but my gaze held firm. I wasn't joining the organization that allowed my trigger to happen. No way in hell.

"Excuse me." Dad starred me down. "I am your father, and since you clearly can't be trusted to make decision like this I am telling you. Tomorrow we are signing you up for the Wards!"

"And I told you they will lock me up and throw away the key! That they don't give a damn about what's right, only about what suits their needs! And I refuse to join a group that let one of their members get away with shoving me in that locker!" I was screaming. Dad needed to understand! Why couldn't he understand!

"Taylor, I am you're father and you will respect me and my decision!"

Something inside of me snapped. I had come clean, been honest, more honest than I probably should have been. And this was what I got for it. I had my failures thrown in my face by my father, and he ignored everything I had told him and decided that he would just go out and fix everything. As if he possibly could. I wouldn't be part of it. I refused to get arrested simply because he was too bullheaded to listen to or trust his own daughter.

I left, ignoring his shouts for me to come back, and his demands that I listen to him. I stood and marched back out into the night. I had no clear destination in mind, no plan of where I would go from here, just the knowledge that If Dad couldn't be trusted, then I was better off not being home.