They had lied. They had told Taylor that after the questions she could rest. They kept asking questions. She didn't think they believed her. She had barely started on what ADAM was when Ms. Militia started nodding along like she was Rosie showing them a severed hand she saw as a toy. She wasn't really listening. Just humoring her. Like she had given the wrong answer but it was entertaining. Taylor gritted her teeth and gave a liar's smile and acted like it didn't bother her.
By the time they uncuffed her, her head was pulsing. The lights were still too bright. They promised to turn them off but even then the headache didn't vanish. Taylor's mother had stayed with the pair for a while longer asking simple questions about hobbies and favorite colors while Rosie hide under the bed. Despite Taylor's attempts, Rosie was unwilling to show herself to her mother other than peeking.
A nurse had brought Rosie crayons and paper to draw on and she had happily shared with Taylor who joined in, though her eyes would linger on any movement she saw. Sticking her tongue out as she concentrated on a part of her drawing of a set of fish. Truthfully she didn't want to draw fish, but she was trying to seem good. She knew people didn't like seeing angels or corpses. They recoiled at the sight of her and big daddies. So she was trying her best to act like she thought they would act. She didn't mention anything truly horrible. Just the good memories she had.
Those had gotten odd looks though. "Mama you should have seen it when Mr.- my protector threw me in the air. I must have gone all the way to the roof! It hurt when I hit it but I was laughing when I landed on top of him." She said at the time doing her best to leave out that she had broken a leg landing on him and her hair had gotten blood all in it from her hitting the thick steel pipe. Yet still her mother had bitten her lip and gone slightly pale as she described the protector with his steel body, one giant eye and two tiny eyes on the side of his head, and a tabard of orange.
She was proud of knowing that word, tabard. It sounded like some fish.
Rosie had laughed though and asked her to throw her some but Taylor, trying to act like a grown up would, said the ceilings were too low.
She thought back to her big daddy with the fireworks he'd throw. She bit her lip and continued drawing the sea life. Rosie was drawing an image of her and Taylor and had yet to warm up to Taylor's mom.
Finally Rosie began to yawn and she blinked long and slowly like Taylor did when she was being trained with her friends. Taylor, exhausted herself from a multi day trek through Rapture and the surface with bullets in her, was more than happy to oblige. "Could she sleep in her?" She asked, wanting the answer to be yes.
Annette shook her head. "Sorry but not tonight. I'll talk to one of the nurses and see if we can't get you transferred to a joint room. I'll stay here with you for the night and she's one room away so if she needs you, you can be there in a flash." With that Taylor led her Little Sister to the next room to the great round tumor of bedding that had been piled in a corner.
"Look! The vents here aren't round! I never knew Rapture had vents like this!" Rosie said showing her the vent she had pressed much of the bedding around for an easy escape. Taylor grinned and sat down with Rosie for a time before leaving her.
"You promise to be good?" She asked, taking a brush and combing the girl's hair. Her curly hair made it a burden to get it straight but Little Sisters wore their hair in a flat ponytail. And those were the Rules.
"I will, Big Sister. But… are you sure this place is okay? Everything is too bright and there aren't any angels." She said offering her pinky as proof of the promise. Taylor took it with her own little finger.
"The… the angels are just being shy. And it will get dark soon. We are with mama now and she'll be like a new Mr. Bubbles but better." Taylor said unsure how to explain to Rosie a number of things. Least of all what the duty of a mother was. Mama Tenenbaum had been nice but she wasn't her real mother and she had disappeared.
Taylor knew a mama was supposed to help and be really nice and protect their child. But, and this was a thought she didn't like thinking about, she wasn't sure how her mother could. Taylor was strong and fast. She could kill any splicer who tried to hurt Rosie. Her mother wasn't. How would she protect them? She couldn't leap from buildings or burn a man alive. She was really nice though so Taylor was willing to put her trust in her for now.
When she left Rosie, the girl was dozing and only small slits of yellow marked her eyes in the dark room.
It hurt to do so. Physically. It always hurt to be away from Rosie. Once during those early weeks when Taylor had yet to find a name for Rosie, the girl had gotten lost in a section of rapture. It took hours to find her. Taylor had thought her head would pop like a balloon or a splicers head, it hurt so bad. Her stomach heaved and her limbs convulsed. It had been a relief to find Rosie at one of the shrines the liars had made, happily giggling and playing with a doll of Mr. Bubbles.
The short walk back to her room felt horrible. The way the splicers… no, the people stared at her. The way they watched her legs bend and move and stared at her skin. The way they looked so odd with how they stood compared to her and the clothes they wore. Even with the odd protectors, for that's what Taylor had decided the armored people were, watching. She hated the stares. She hated the lack of her weapons and suit. The way she couldn't sprint through the halls and shriek until her lungs burned rankled her.
But she wanted to be good. To show her mama that she was still her daughter. That she was a good girl. So she would walk and not snarl. Not slash at any who walked to close. She could do it. And once Rosie warmed up to Taylor's mom they could be a happy family.
The thought got her through the short jaunt and she was soon back in her room.
Once back in she pulled her body into the bed and stared at her mother for a time before she spoke. "Mama… could you tell me a bedtime story?" She asked, having not been told one for years and feeling a jealous pang that Mr Bub- her big daddy, hadn't told her stories like how she told Rosie stories.
Her mother jumped slightly and nodded. "I'd be happy to Taylor."
She did. And it was nice. Taylor didn't feel safe, she hadn't in years. But she felt… content. This had been a good day.
OoO
The morning sun helped keep George awake. With his shift finally at its end he was ready to get home and crash into his bed, and spent some heavenly hours numb to the entire world. He could already picture how cold his sheets would be and how good the texture of his overstuffed pillow would feel.
But he had a few more patients to check in on first. Yawning he picked up the file from the desk and glanced toward the door with the patient within. Marta, the cute nurse currently at reception, gave him a sympathetic look as he looked it over. The pair had flirted a few times in the past and he hoped to invite her to dinner sometime. He gave a smile to her as he did trying to seem like he wasn't tired.
Ah.
The poor biotinker victim. The small one. Not the one who glared at anyone who so much as glanced at her and had limbs like a stick figure. He shook his head wondering who could do such a thing to a child. Actually he didn't want to think about that because he could think of several monsters who would.
Shamefully when he had seen the pair he had thought a pair of zombies had been brought here.
He gave a last smile to Marta who gave him a thumbs up and a stuffed dog. "To make things easier for the tyke." She said and he moved his muscled arm from the file to grab the dog.
The dog was tiny in his hands. In part due to how he spent many an hour working out when off the clock. He liked the burn on his muscles and the way he felt so alive doing so. He had boxed back in college and still held a good amount of the muscle from it.
Heading to the door he passed the protectorate guard and gave a nod to them showing his ID badge. God he couldn't wait for them to be gone. He felt nothing but compassion, and admittedly a bit of creeps, for the two girls but the Protectorate could fuck right off.
'Oh we have super heroes so proper PPE isn't needed. Oh we are bothering the other patients? Not our problem.' Jackasses.
Inside the room the blinds had been drawn to hide the rising sun. Still that couldn't hide the pillow fort the girl had made and promptly disappeared in. He hummed to himself and turned the lights on. The sound of blankets rustling gave him the sign she was awake.
"Good morning Ms. Rosie, I hope you slept well." He said trying not to jump as he saw the pair of horrible sickly yellow lights staring from the pile of bedding.
He grabbed a needle from one of the medical supply boxes in the room. "Now I know they stink but we have to get you a shot so we can make sure you aren't sick." He said approaching the pile of blankets and pillows and lifting the roof of it up.
"Go away!" The little girl said her voice twisting and warping and giving it an after echo. Poor kid.
"I know, I know. But it won't hurt bad at all. If you're good I'll get you a sucker from reception." He said trying to hide how tired he was and how he really just wanted to be done with this. Or how the candies at reception were the type grandparents gave to children out of some misplaced sense that the child wanted a brick not a candy.
He held up the stuffed dog and placed it in front of her fort. "And I think this little guy might want you to be brave."
The gambit paid off and the girl crawled out. Christ she was small. She grabbed the doll and stared up at him and gave a toothy smile.
He smiled back and leaned in to take her blood.
The smile vanished and she darted back into the fort. He really hoped she didn't go back into the ducts. He had heard she had earlier and that was not something he wanted to deal with.
"Come on Ms. Rosie. It will only hurt a sec." He said blinking, his eyes felt gummy and dry.
"No! No! No!" The girl said, throwing her hands and feet at the walls of the fort. Christ she was throwing a fucking tantrum. This is why he didn't have kids.
He leaned in and lifted her sleeve and held her arm as gently as possible. Raising the needle she yelled out another, "NO!"
Within seconds the door behind him was kicked down.
oOo
Rosie's yell woke her. In an instant all thought was gone. Instinct honed by a thousand nights acted. Her feet hit the ground in moments. Her body was already in motion. The door was in the way. So she ripped it out of her way. ADAM swelled through her body to her hand as she, in a rushed flick of her hand, sent it out into the hallway with a great rush of air and with a mighty crack it planted itself into the wall in two pieces.
Her eyes burned and boiled with red as she sprinted out. A splicer in seaweed green clothes yelled at her. The hall was full of them. She needed to kill them all. But first the present threat.
The door to Rosie's room was ajar. Digging into her throat she let out a scream that caused the splicers around her to drop to the ground and clutch their ears. Sparks from machines flew and the lights overhead dimmed their hateful white. Her feet slammed onto the ground cracking tiles and ripping her muscles and she was in the room as the door was slammed open.
A splicer in white, Holding a small syringe near Rosie. The Big Sister bared her teeth and in a flash of red she was on top of him. Grabbing him by the shoulder she gripped and slung him across the room into a wall. The sound of the weak wall cracking was like a lullaby. She didn't hesitate and pressed the advantage.
Her blade was gone. Her syringe was gone.
She'd use her hands and teeth.
And use them she did. Over and over her hands crashed into his body. Her nails clawed his face and her fists broke his bones over and over and over she did her duty. Screams of splicers were heard but she heard none of it. Her Little Sister was in danger. Nothing mattered except her safety. When he raised a feeble hand to strike her with some plasmid she raised her own.
Fire burned across her palm in a beautiful agony of reds and oranges. The fire burned across his hand and sleeve turning it into a black charred thing. He was too stunned to even scream.
She lifted him up once more to throw him out the window into the sea. Let him drown or be crushed by the pressure. She'd escape with her Little sister through the same route.
Something struck her in the back. Two metal prongs. She let out a scream as her body was frozen as lightning raced through her veins and bones. Nerves sang in a singular opera as they all shouted to be heard.
"Taylor, Drop him now!" The splicer shouted. Filth, how dare it use her name, how dare the liars try to lie again. Taylor tried to press her fingers together to kill, to maim, to free the ADAM from the angel. But even as she twitched them to do so another tsunami of pain from the lightning struck her. Dropping the splicer she turned and bared her teeth. The false protectors and the splicer with the flag on her face stared her down.
One fired a firework from his gun. It whirled forward to burn her to hurt her, but she wasn't there when it landed. She was behind him. All that remained when the firework hit and expanded into a yellow abscess was a flash of fading crimson.
She backhanded the one who used the fire work. He flew into the wall and landed in a crumpled lump and cried out. she'd snap his neck after she finished. The green splicer was next. Then she'd kill the last one and flee.
Her hand fell down like a drill head onto splicer flesh. It should have caved the face in. Instead the splicer threw herself back and raised a new weapon. It fired and Rosie screamed again. Taylor was slammed back as a round from a shotgun made contact with her directly on the head, Her head snapped back and she felt the bruises rising and fading in an instant. Her eyes swam and drowned under the red but she didn't wait for a second attack. Her eyes darted over to the bed in the center of the room.
Flipping her way onto the wall she raised a hand and using the powers of a parasite she flung the bed at the woman splicer and remaining protector.
The bed landed with a sickening thud on the false big daddy and splicer. The protector screamed as his leg bent at an angle that looked like an art piece. The splicer was pinned under the bed. Taylor flipped over the bed to Rosie.
Rosie had to be safe. She had to. The tumor of bedding was ripped away in a flash and there was her Little Sister. Safe and sound. The syringe had taken only a drop of her blood.
Taylor pulled the girl into her arms and aimed her body to the window. Something struck her in the back, once, twice, thrice. She ignored them all as she began to take the three steps needed to clear the room.
By the first step her head swam. By the second her eyes were closing. By the third she slammed face first into the window, lacking the speed to break it. She fell to the ground, twisting around to ensure the Little Sister wouldn't be harmed in the fall, seeing three ugly tiny feathered rivets in her back… no not rivets. Darts.
She hissed as she yanked them out and shielded her Little Sister with her body. Her eyes closed as she was forced into dreams of Angels. .
oOo
Ms. Militia was panting as she pulled the bed off of her. "Christ." She muttered looking at the destroyed room. The nurse in the corner was unconscious, poor bastard would be in a world of pain when he woke up. Had she been a second later he'd be dead. The officers with her were battered and in pain.
Seeing the unconscious girl and her 'Little Sister' Militia threw a confoam grenade at the pair. She had no idea how long the three bull tranquilizers would last. There was no way in hell was she dealing with that again. A teleporting, telekinetic, fire slinging, brute grab bag is not what she had figured when she saw Taylor the first time.
"Console, need some backup here. One of the biotinker victims is a powerful cape who just went on a rampage. She's pacified but we're going to need a better place to hold them." She said as the mother of the rampager, stared from the open door in horror as nurses and doctors rushed in.
Ms. Militia forced herself up and walked to her. "Did you know she could do that?" Annette shook her head.
"Alright, the soft pitch is off the table. These two clearly need training, assuming Rosie has the same powers. It's clear Taylor is not stable." Part of her felt off saying the cape's civilian name. But Taylor was nearly seven feet tall and looked like a nightmare. It would be all but impossible for her to blend in at the best of times.
"We are moving her to our medical wing in the PRT HQ. She will be going through a mandatory trial period with the wards, though I doubt she'll be seeing action until she doesn't try to kill a man at the slightest provocation. The… destruction here will be paid for by us." Ms. Militia had seen her armor. The blade and syringe on both wrists. She'd have fileted that man like a fish with those.
"No." Annette said, her eyes going cold. "I'll pay for this. You won't hold the damages over my head. My child has been gone for a damn decade. She has gone through God knows what. If you think I'm going to let you play child soldier with her you have another thing coming. You think this isn't horrifying to me? But if you think for a moment I'm letting her be used by a government agency run by spandex clad quacks you've got your bandana tied too tight."
Ms. Militia raised her hands in mock surrender. "No one is going to play child soldier with your daughter. But you need to face facts. Right now she's shown she's a danger to others. She needs to be moved to a medical area where she won't harm innocents." Annette opened her mouth again but Ms. Militia cut her off. "Once she's been to one of our therapists and has her powers under control from her trial period, then we can talk about removing her from the program. But right now, it's that or a cell. I know you don't want that and neither do I." Her eyes pleaded with Mrs. Hebert. "Work with me please. Just take the deal and we can help.``
Annette looked at her like she wanted to steal her child. Her face warred between grief, horror, shock, guilt, and a thousand other emotions. Finally she gave a nod.
oOo
"If it wasn't for your report and the surveillance cameras I'd never guess she was that deadly." Armsmaster said to Ms. Militia as they watched the two sisters on the monitor.
The pair were wrapped in a number of blankets with the youngest on the older one's lap as they watched some cartoon. They both seemed seemingly entranced by it and were giving little regard to the outside world.
"Before she attacked she seemed positively docile. The 'threat' to Rosie seems like it triggered it." Ms. Militia said watching the monitor and wincing as she saw Taylor casually take her own hand and wrench a broken finger back into place without reacting. She must have broken that when she was beating that nurse senseless.
Said nurse would likely be in physical therapy for months.
"Seems likely. Dragon any luck with the blood samples to determine who Rosie's next of kin are?" Armsmaster asked the second monitor showing the reclusive hero's face. The third showed Annette Hebert arguing with the therapist in the room outside of the pair of biothinker victims. She had said a number of unkind words about the local hero roster, their mothers, the government, and where they could stick their oversight.
"Currently no. It's more of an effort to even identify her blood. The fact that it glows is the least interesting part. You said Ms. Hebert had three vials of blood on her armor?"
"Correct, samples have been sent to you and a few other capes and trusted government organizations l to see how it's been changed." He said, drumming his fingers on the desk.
"She called it ADAM." Ms. Militia said. "At the time I thought she was trying to explain her powers from a limited amount of information but now I think it may be something real. That plus her saying the year was in the 60's had made me think she was in a cult like environment."
"We'll ask her some more questions then once the pair see the psychologist." Armsmaster said, watching at the two girls in pajamas as they laughed at a mouse hitting a cat with a hammer. Taylor's were already ripped and stretched revealing bits of skin at her mid riff and barely covering her arms or shins, partly due to the fact no clothes were in her size. Several of the scars on those areas were visible as a result.
"Speaking of them, Collin, did you see the report I sent on the object a mile out of the bay?" Dragon asked, looking off screen at something.
"I was able to talk Dauntless into going and picking it up. The pictures you took of it have it looking similar in theme to Ms. Hebert's armor. Might have some clue on where they escaped from." He personally didn't think it was how the pair escaped. A mile to swim? With a child? That required an insane amount of endurance. Let alone keeping the child from drowning. And done in the modified diving armor and braces…. Still perhaps when they escaped, they triggered the object to be knocked loose.
A sense of shame rolled over him. A biotinker. Less than a mile from him. Who had been operating for at least a decade and had done…this, to children. Armsmaster hoped this Atlas was still alive so he could personally throw him into the darkest dankest cell he could find.
If not… He'd be more than happy to spit on his corpse.
"Speaking of the object. Dragon could you run a search on any similar biotinker victims or children stolen within the last decade? Pair it with murders similar to how Danny Hebert was killed."
/\\\
AN: Thanks again BigBadBen for all the help!
Next chapter will be up soon. Also any suggestions on how to make Taylor's armor "PR Approved" and a costume for Rosie would be great!