A/N: A few folks voiced discontent with the last chapter. To be clear, when I say in the blurb that this is a Worm/Star Wars crossover, what I mean is that this is a Worm/Star Wars Crossover. It's not an alt-power fic, it's an actual crossover. Past events in the SW 'verse directly impact future events in this story, as will be shown as the story progress.
Because of my somewhat impassioned distaste for TLJ Disney movie, some reviewers also attempt to take me to task for using Disney canon, while not realizing that pretty much the entire plot, and even the star destroyers of TROS, were taken wholesale from the 1991 Dark Empire comic book series. So when I talk about ships with planet-killing lasers, I'm talking about ships similar to The Eclipse from Dark Empire. Not that it really matters, I suppose.
So, another chapter. Half is a "reaction" chapter from Yuki's POV to show what's happening as a result of Taylor's unmasking, and the second is the introduction of a familiar, important character and how her power works with Taylor's.
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Unmasked
Yuki Ishikawa sat cross legged before a table crowded with the various components of a lightsaber. The most important and valuable were the thumb-sized diamond and the equally large sapphire that Taylor made for her.
A detailed diagram showed her exactly how everything went together. The really hard part wasn't the diagrams—but putting the blade together without using her hands. A single fingerprint on the focusing crystals or the energizer coils could cause the blade to short or even explode.
According to everything Taylor told her, she needed to be calm and collected while assembling her lightsaber. It was a meticulous task, and one that was supposed to be done only when her mind was empty of everything but the Force.
Thus, sitting in her pajamas in her bedroom in the early hours of the morning, streaming tears and blowing snot into yet another tissue was definitely not the way she was supposed to approach this. The fact was, though, that she had to have something to concentrate on besides thinking about Taylor.
Though it hurt her to even imagine it, a small corner of her mind wondered if her lover would come back. It wasn't even that she feared Taylor would die fighting Leviathan. No, what bothered her the most was that Taylor left her to fight it in the first place. That she left the home they built together to go back to the city which rejected her.
Her phone lay on the edge of the table, hatefully silent. She cried herself into a fitful sleep while staring at it the previous night and woke up before dawn doing the same. She could have turned on the television for news, but the idea of seeing Taylor's name scroll across the screen with the rest of the casualties was just too much to bear.
So, when she accepted that sleep was not coming and Taylor wasn't calling, she looked for something that would take her mind off their last fight, and the gaping hole in the home that was far, far too big for Yuki alone.
Which brought her to the table, with all the components laid out for her lightsaber.
"I can do this," she assured herself. "For Taylor. She'll be so proud of me, if I can just…prove that I'm worthy of her."
For Taylor, the telekinesis of the Force came easily, like breathing. Yuki knew that was because the Force was her parahuman power, whereas her own power was a breaker state and she just happened to be Force sensitive as well. So what Taylor could do without concentration took Yuki several minutes of meditation.
But when she opened her eyes, she saw the first components of the saber floating in the air.
"For Taylor," she whispered again as she began assembling the pieces. Rather than have them all float at the same time and come together in minutes like Taylor did with both of hers, Yuki took her time and levitated only those parts she needed, when she needed them.
It took an hour, but when she was done, an intact lightsaber floated in the air before her. She reached out a hand and gripped the hilt. Taylor had designed it for her particular grip, so the handle was narrower than Taylor's, which fit more easily into Yuki's far smaller hands. Her breath caught in her throat when she thumbed the activation and a scintillating blue beam emerged.
It wasn't as long as Taylor's, but then again neither was Yuki's reach. She didn't trust in her abilities enough for an internal toggle, so she rotated the dial at the base of her saber she installed instead, turning the blade from blue to it's white training mode.
Her phone range, startling her so badly she yelped and dropped her newly completed lightsaber. Fortunately, the safety feature had it deactivate, but not before the sun blade hit the table and then bounced back to stun her bare knee before falling to the floor.
"Shit fuck!" The phone range again. "Oh God, Taylor!"
She scrambled to her feet and reached for the phone. All of Taylor's training seemed to go out the door as she clumsily sent the phone flying from the edge of the table to the floor. She rushed after it and quickly entered her code.
"Taylor! Are you okay?"
It wasn't Taylor. "Yurei, this is Entourage. I need you to turn on the television. It's important."
Frowning in frustration, Yuki did as she was asked. They only had local channels, but with the antenna Taylor set up the signal was perfectly clear, and the morning hour meant all the networks were on the morning news shows. And those new programs seemed to be featuring Taylor's face dead center in the screen as if she were only a few feet away. Yuki felt her heart skip when she saw blood flowing from Taylor's mouth, nose and ears. Her hair was plastered away from her forehead by water and her eyes closed and badly bruised. A large, armored man with one arm holding a weird spear stood over her, shouting something.
"…Hebert. For more, we go to correspondent, Deborah Karr. Deborah?"
"Thank you, Dean. Yes, the revelation at the end of yesterday's dramatic Enbringer fight in Brockton Bay, New Hampshire, that Taylor Hebert, the so called 'Winslow Simurgh' was not only living freely in Seattle, but in fact received a PRT-issued healing license under the cape name 'Quintessence' has spawned questions from several lawmakers.
Chuck Blumenthal, Chairman of the Joint Parahuman Affairs Committee, summoned Chief Director Rebecca Costa-Brown to Testify before the committee on what the Seattle PRT knew regarding Hebert's presence in Seattle, and just how much of a danger she presented to the citizens there."
Click.
"…just receiving word that Taylor Hebert is now considered the primary suspect in what local authorities have called the Industrial West Massacre. Warning, the following footage may include graphic images."
An attractive Asian woman walked along a cracked, broken cement shelf next to a mass of almost unidentifiable, crushed metal. "This piece of twisted steel is the only remaining sign of the carnage that occurred here nearly four months ago…"
Yuki completely forgot about the phone and almost dropped it when Entourage called. "Yuki, are you there?"
It took effort for her to speak. "Yeah."
"Okay, listen. I don't know how, but somehow the Elite governors discovered the truth about Bastard Son. I've been summoned before the governors. I don't think they're going to kill me, but…it's going to be bad. Yuki, Estrella is going to have to drop you and Taylor as clients."
"What…what does that mean?"
"It means you need to grab as much cash as you can and get out. Go to the Protectorate for shelter."
"But my house…Taylor…"
"Yurei, do you remember Obsidian? He's on his way. If he catches you there, he's going to have to kill you. He's on his way right now, Yuki."
"Do you…do you know where Taylor is?"
"My sources say she disappeared from Protectorate custody. I don't think she escaped, I think another group snatched her. She's probably still in Brockton Bay. Hurry, Yuki. You don't have much time."
The line went dead. Yuki stared at the phone for a long moment before everything hit her.
"Oh fuck!"
She spun around and ran toward their closet. She dressed with shaking hands in normal clothes, though she made to pull on her Yurei tights just in case. She stuffed two of her costumes into the bug-out bag Taylor insisted they keep ready. She paused only long enough to place her hand to the safe for the biometric reading and say the passcode.
"Taylor Tastes Sweet."
The safe popped open and she took the rest of their cash out and put it in the backpack as well. It was one of their original backpacks and held plenty.
She was out the door toward the stairs when she cursed, ran back in to grab the phone she'd dropped on the floor. A second later she ran back in again and stared at the lightsaber, which rested right where she dropped it. She took a deep breath, held out her hand, and with concentration it flew into her palm.
Their new home was so big! Yuki ran down the stairs for the third time as fast as she could, darting through the open kitchen and living area toward the garage. She paused only long enough to shut everything down, even the furnaces which powered the home, before she ran into the garage. She hit the garage door opener, but then stared when it didn't work.
Right, she turned off the power.
She put the backpack in the car then ran to open the door manually. It slid up, and there was Obsidian. She only had a moment to scream before a massive, muscular hand gripped her throat and lifted her easily off the ground.
"Sorry 'bout this," the massive brute cape said. "Blue Blood said if I didn't kill you, he'd kill my dad. I gotta, you know?"
The worse thing about it was that Yuki believed him. He sounded more than just upset, he sounded anguished. She went ghost.
Obsidian had never seen her use her breaker state and stared in confusion when she dropped through his hand to the floor. Her outer clothes fluttered to the ground around her as she scrambled back to the car.
She went solid long enough to summon the blade to her hand before igniting it. The white blade lit the garage and immediately drew Obsidian's eyes.
"There you are. Don't make this hard, girl. I promise I'll make it quick."
"I won't."
He lunged toward her. Yuki drew heavily on Taylor's training and rolled under his grasping hand, emerging into a kneeling position from which she swiped the back of his knee.
She saw a hint of red glow just under the fabric of his slacks, but otherwise it didn't even bend his leg. He, on the other hand, swung a fist awkwardly down toward her. She ducked her head and raised her shoulder, which probably saved her life. The blow lifted her screaming off the ground and sent her flying out of the garage onto the driveway of their home.
She rolled to her feet, only to kneel back down as she lost feeling in her right shoulder so badly she almost dropped her saber. She switched to her left, not quite as sure but thankful for the fact that Taylor trained her with both hands, and toggled it from white to blue.
"Please, let me just leave!" Her voice cracked with fear. Taylor would have been so disappointed in her. "Please!"
"I can't," Obsidian said. He lunged toward her again—huge steps carrying his huge frame with a huge set of hands.
Screaming, Yuki swung her lightsaber as hard as she could, only to come up short.
He'd caught the blade. She'd seen Taylor cut through almost anything with sabers, but somehow Obsidian caught it in his bare hand. It was affecting him, though. His normally pitch-black skin took on a reddish glow in the hand which held the blade.
The glow spread quickly up his arms, across his shoulders and up over his bald scalp, until even his eyes took on a red glow.
"Bad idea," he said. His deep voice took on an electrical tingle.
Yuki wasn't as attuned to the Force as Taylor, but in that instant she knew she was about to die.
She squeezed her eyes shut as she felt a horrid heat blast so close to her head her hair burned. A heartbeat later her blade turned off and fell to the ground from numb fingers. She opened her eyes and saw Obsidian staring down at her, his face suddenly blank.
She turned over her left shoulder and saw a deep, smoking gouge in the pavement Agnes Court made for them. When she looked back, the massive brute stumbled back to the car and leaned against the hood. She noticed how the compact dropped under his weight.
Wincing at the pain in her shoulder, Yuki picked her saber back up until she stood in front of him.
"Why?"
When he returned her gaze, she saw a tear running down his cheek. "Nonpareil did the same fucking thing to my dad, when I was a kid. Younger than you. Made him choose. Me, or mom. He chose." He shook his head. "Fuck that shit. I'm not gonna fucking murder a girl to protect my old man. They shouldn'a even asked that shit. They can fucking kill me, I don't…"
With her one good arm, she threw herself onto him, wrapping her arm around his thick neck and her legs around his waist to kiss him on the lips. They were hard and strong, completely unlike Taylor's. He was so big, at least two feet taller than her. She slid back away and wiped her eyes.
"Thank you. I'm gonna go save Quintessence now. And when we get back we'll save you too, if we have to."
"I'm a Brute 8," Obsidian said. "I don't need saving."
"Everyone does," Yuki assured him with a sad smile. She leaned over to pick up her discarded clothes, and then she ran into the car.
He didn't say anything else as she climbed in and drove away. She avoided the deep gouge in her driveway. The last she saw of him, he was closing the garage door.
~~Quintessence~~
~~Quintessence~~
Yuki was young, but she had money and a car. More importantly, she had the will. She drove throughout the day, stopping only when the previous night's lack of sleep and fifteen hours of driving made it hard for her to focus. She found a depressing little motel in a tiny town in Montana. The clerk didn't even bat an eye when she put the hundred dollar bill on the counter.
She took a much-needed shower, not even thinking twice about the gritty water and the little sand particles the water left in the tub. She threw on one of Taylor's shirts, which hung easily to her thighs, and sat in the cramped little hotel room on a bed that smelled strongly of dust and cigarette smoke.
The one saving grace was that the hotel had cable. Which meant news networks.
Which meant that Yuki sat on her bed eating bad Chinese take-out made by a Mexican kid her age while drinking soda and watching everything she could about her lover, and everything else around it.
"…of course Estrella didn't know who she was," Gabriella Vargas said in answer to a question posted to her. The beautiful young CEO stood in front of a microphone, while behind her the Estrella logo, with a star shooting over a flat horizon, gave the impression of a formal news room. She looked thinner and…haunted? "Quintessence came to us for startup money because she wanted to heal—to help rather than fight. And since the dehumanizing NEPEA-5 was amended under the Stansfield Parahuman Commerce Act, we had a means to help her accomplish her dream."
"Ms. Vargas, Chad Dennings Atlanta News Network. What is your reaction to the news from the Elite that Quintessence is the lead suspect in the Bastard Son murder?"
"I'd say one doesn't 'murder' a cape like Bastard Son. If he died, he did so while in the act of earning his name. Make no mistake, if Quintessence killed him, then she must have had good reason. And given the fact that Bastard Son has over a hundred murders and three times as many sexual assaults to his name, it shouldn't be hard to imagine what that cause could be."
"You're defending her?"
"I know her, Chad. She only wanted to help people. Of course, Estrella cannot maintain our relationship with her, and I think that's a tragedy. But she was not a cold-blooded killer. If she killed Bastard Son, I promise you she had cause. But only time and evidence will show for sure."
Yuki thumbed the remote. Click.
Chief Director Rebecca Costa-Brown looked regal and unruffled in her striped pant suit and matching jacket as members of the Joint Committee on Parahuman Affairs took turns lambasting the PRT for its failure to capture Taylor Hebert, and for placing the people of Seattle in danger. They might as well have been yelling at drying paint for all the impact their words had on the iconic woman.
"…killed over a hundred and twenty people now! Students from Winslow High school are still undergoing counseling. And yet your organization let this…monster walk around free in an American city as if she were a hero? What do you have to say for yourself!" the Chairman finally shouted, having finished what must have been an impressive monologue.
Costa-Brown took a calm sip of water, then moved her microphone slightly closer so that she would not have to lean. "Adele Farooqi."
The Chairman, having worked with Costa-Brown for years, should have known better. "Excuse me?"
"Katrina Spasik. Adrianne Haney. Regina Nguyen. Alexandria Antolovic. Angela Gutierrez. Elaine Lemieux…."
"Director, I'm almost afraid to ask, but what are you doing?" the Chairman demanded.
"These, Chairmen, are the names of some of the ninety-seven teenagers Taylor Hebert saved when she committed your so-called Industrial West massacre. What the reports were silent on, at the request of both the Justice and State departments, was that all of the people Ms. Hebert killed were Russian special forces working under a known Russian parahuman gang engaged in sexual slavery on American soil against American citizens.
"This gang managed to abduct Ms. Hebert, who, in case I need to remind anyone, is fifteen. She engaged both the Saltykoya Bravta and almost a hundred of their soldiers. By doing so, she saved over a hundred American teenagers from a life worse than hell. In fact, we have reason to believe every death at her hands after her escape was an act of self-defense or otherwise justified."
Blumenthal stared at her, mouth agape. "Justified? You call what she did at Winslow justified? Are you justifying the cold-blooded murder of Miss Militia?"
"Winslow was a trigger event, Senator. It is highly unlikely that Ms. Hebert was even aware of what was happening at the time. And it is even more unlikely she was in her right mind when she killed Miss Militia. I believe that once all the facts that the Brockton Bay PRT director failed to release are made public, you might agree. This is especially pertinent when you consider that rather than using her considerable power to do further harm to her fellow citizens, she chose instead to heal."
"Do I understand this right?" The Chairman cleared his throat. "Are you actually defending this…this murderer? Might I remind you, Director, that you personally approved her incarceration into the Baumann Parahuman Detention Center?"
"Mr. Chairmen, ladies and gentlemen of the committee, let me be clear. I and the other PRT directors who work under me are often forced to make snap decisions based on the information, facts and circumstances available at the time. Based on the facts and circumstances that were presented to me on January 10th of this year, I approved the order permanently incarcerating a 15-year-old girl to what can honestly be described as a lifetime of hell. It was a decision I hated to make, as everyone involved hated it as well. The Brockton Bay PRT director was so upset over having to make the recommendation she resigned shortly after.
"However, when Hebert was sighted in Seattle, I ordered an internal investigation by my own team that revealed a great deal that was not presented to me. Based on those additional facts and circumstances available to me now, I would most definitely not make that same decision."
The chairman stared long and hard.
"Which makes that point rather academic, Chief Director, given that Ms. Hebert has chosen to flee. No matter how you spin it, Taylor Hebert is a murderer. She is a threat to this country. And the fact that you refuse to see it makes me question your fitness for your role. Rest assured, even if it is the last thing I do, I will make sure Taylor Hebert pays for her crimes!"
Yuki spilled some of her Sesame Chicken on the bed's duvet when her phone rang. "Damn it." She looked before sighing.
"Yeah?"
"How are you?" Entourage sounded as tired as Yuki felt.
"Fine. You looked really pretty on television."
"Thank you. It was all staged, the camera never panned down to show I was in a wheelchair."
"Wheelchair?"
"There was a price to pay, Yuki. Broken kneecaps are better than a broken neck. Those reporters were ours. We have to get out in front of this before it runs us over. I was calling with two things. I told Agnes what happened. Everything. And I told her…that I was the one who urged Taylor not to let Bastard Son live."
"But Obsidian…
"Chose not to hurt you, even if it meant his dad's life. That's courage, Yuki. The Elite has an internal policy for conflicts like these, even for deaths. I agreed to cover the penalties for Bastard Son and Nonpareil for you, Taylor and Obsidian. Plus, my own penalties. But they also recognized that we were right—if Bastard Son recovered, he would have killed you. The Elite might technically be villains, but even villains believe in self-defense. They won't go after you or Taylor."
"Why does that matter?"
"Because I know who has her. I have a contact in the Protectorate. The same one that told me about Taylor in the first place. Taylor's still in Brockton Bay. She's being held captive by a cape named Coil."
"Will this contact help me?"
"No. None of us can really help you, because we don't know for sure where Taylor is. But you can find her, can't you?"
"I will," Yuki promised.
"Good. I'm so sorry for all of this, Yuki. I've done all I can for you, I hope you understand."
"I do. And I'll tell Taylor what all you did and sacrificed for us. If you see Obsidian…tell him thank you."
The line ended.
Yuki finished her dinner, turned the television off, and set her phone to wake her early. She was determined to make Chicago by the next day, and Brockton bay the day after.
"I'm coming, Taylor," she promised.
~~Quintessence~~
~~Quintessence~~
The Coruscanti sky burned. The Unified Galactic Republic had fallen.
Taylor ran as fast as she could, her torn and shredded robes flapping in the wind of her passage, as she fled the death of the Bendu Temple.
The sound of the frigate's passage was like a deep, visceral rumbling.
"Master!"
Taylor slowed as one of the padawans cried out for help. The older apprentices had been carrying the younglings, but one fell. Around them, the last vestiges of the Republic's military formed ranks to hold off the angry, terrified mobs.
Coruscant had fallen, but not just to the Leviathans.
Forty years of pogroms to try and stop the Leviathans had failed. A thousand worlds had been burned into rubble, and still the monsters spread. The only way the Republic could kill them was when they became planet-bound and began their reproductive cycles. In space, they were simply unstoppable.
More importantly, the infected worlds stopped accepting their deaths as inevitable. Desperate for any type of life, no matter how short or violent, infected worlds started resisting the ever-weakening Republic forces. The great world-killing dreadnaughts had fallen, one after the other, and civil war now preceded the arrival of every leviathan.
The elevated plaza shook with the approach of the burning frigate.
"Shields!" the soldiers shouted.
Desperate men and women threw portable shield units across the plaza. It was too late to keep running. Force-trained or not, the younglings and padawans screamed in terror as the massive frigate slammed into the temple, piling through the unshielded structures.
Taylor rushed back to the younglings, grabbing several and bracing all in the Force.
The sound was beyond deafening. The plaza shook so violently that soldiers and Bendu alike were tossed in the air. Beyond, the temple that had stood in one form or another for 20,000 years ceased to exist in a cloud of shattered permacrete and paristeel. The frigate continued further down, blasting through the temple at an oblique angle that took it further into the underlayers of the city. A hull built to withstand energies that could crack continents in half did not even bend before the temple.
But when it struck the true surface…
The clouds of permacrete dust billowed against and then over the portable shield wall.
"We have to flee!" Taylor shouted. She wielded the Force to ensure all could hear. "Come!"
The last Bendu transport perched precariously on a landing pad that remained in the air only because of independent repulsors. Rebel forces took pot-shots at the transport's shielding from buildings across the vast city canyons.
She grabbed one of the younger initiates not yet of Padawan age in her arm and ran, trusting the rest to follow. She was the last master on the planet, and their lives hung on her shoulders. She heard soldiers shouting behind her, and the sound of blaster bolts being fired, but dared not look back. More soldiers in the white and blue armor of the Republic motioned them into the transport.
Only when she reached the ramp did Taylor turn to see what pursued.
Three infected had reached the plaza—one who could fly and shoot beams of light from her eyes, and two who were absorbing the blaster bolts of the soldiers as if they were nothing.
Taylor put the initiate down. "Go!" she urged.
"But…where are we?" The Padawan appeared frightened and confused. "This isn't Brockton Bay."
Taylor stumbled, confused herself. She looked down and where before was a young Echani youngling in an initiate's tunic, now stood a thin, pale human girl with shadowed eyes and limp dark hair. She wore a plain white sleeping gown and stood barefoot as she looked around the plaza.
"Where is this place?" she asked. "Are those really space ships? Who are you?"
All around, time slowed. The billowing cloud of dust moved in a crawl. Taylor could see a streak of laser light emerging from the flying infected's eyes, zeroing in one a hapless soldier. And behind, she could just the hint of shockwave where the frigate hit the true surface of the planet. The explosion would be catastrophic.
"This is Coruscant," Taylor explained, as confused as the girl. "The heart of the galaxy. It's falling, though. We have to run."
The girl shook her head. "It's not real. It's just a memory. It's already happened. A long time ago."
"But it's now. It's real. I'm real."
The girl took her hand. "What's your name, then?"
"I'm Bendu Master Ouria Whiteriver." Taylor Hebert.
"No, that's not right. My name is Ouria!" Taylor!
"This is a memory. But it's not yours. This isn't what's happening." The girl took Taylor's hand, and something impossible happened. The girl, she realized, was infected. And yet somehow her Leviathan-granted power merged into her own Force presence.
Suddenly they were somewhere else entirely. It was a place utterly different from Coruscant, and yet oddly similar in the amount of destruction they saw. Crumpled buildings ringed a vast area of rubble and mud.
Overhead, the sky shimmered like a serpent composed of a trillion mirrors under a darkly-red light. A naked, golden man hung down from the sky, connected by writhing masses of tentacles that slithered out from the back of his head. All around, the infected of the city appeared to be reaching toward the false golden glow that surrounded him like a halo, as if they could not tell the sun from the false light above.
"This is what's happening now," the girl said. She whimpered a little, staring about her in fright. "The numbers kept getting worse."
"Where is this?" Taylor asked, confused. "Who are you?"
"This is Brockton Bay. I'm Dinah Alcott. You're Taylor Hebert. The numbers said you would come. But you have to wake up, now. You can't save me until you save yourself. And you can't save yourself until you wake up."
Brockton Bay. Taylor knew, then. Her mother. Her father. Dead.
Capes. The Protectorate. All infected.
And Scion…
The vision came with color and smells and a deep, visceral sense of danger. The scent of dying flowers and raw sewage and the coppery tang of blood fought for attention against the sounds of people screaming in the distance, crying out for help.
Scion. The most powerful being in the world. .
Scion was doing to destroy the world, and there was nothing Taylor could do about it. She didn't have a fleet of Republic warships to fight him, and even if she did, the great republic of that lost galaxy wasn't ever able to save the worlds, only destroy the leviathans when the world died. It was why they lost, at the end.
"I'm scared," Dinah said.
"I am too."
Scion turned his head toward them. The whole sky spun around with the movement, as if they were the center of a giant record spinning around them. The momentum of the sky made Taylor's stomach churn, while beside her Dinah's hand clutched hers harder and the girl whimpered.
Empty golden eyes stared. The bearded visage of the false god opened in a silent scream. A single arm, muscled and perfect, raised a hand which pointed at the two of them. Below, writhing like worms in mud, the parahumans of Brockton Bay started coming for them.
"Don't let them get me, Taylor! Please, save me!"