Taylor had another half day today and because her father and Hannah had unilaterally decided to change her coworking agreement from HARP to the Wards she was now having to head into the PRT for the afternoon.
She got down to the Wards base and found Triumph hanging around doing paperwork. He was due to graduate to the Protectorate any week now. She hadn't really asked for the specifics.
"Hey Taylor!" he said with a small wave.
"Hey Rory," she said back, trying to not let her bad attitude sneak in. It wasn't his fault she was in this situation.
"Militia said she would be down in a bit to take you to your self defense training." He explained.
Taylor just rolled her eyes at this. Maybe, just maybe this would work out. Somehow, someway, she would get out of this hellish class. It wasn't even that she was opposed to the concept of the class. If the trainer was someone who would help her hone her skills, push her, and teach her the occasional new things. Hell if the class was just sparing and keeping her skills fresh, she could accept that. What she couldn't accept was some idiot dumbing it down and wasting her time.
Taylor changed into her exercise clothes and plopped down onto the couch to read a book. Dante's Inferno due to some combination of morbid curiosity of it compared to the real world, and she considered it a sort of tangential background research.
About five minutes later Miss Militia came into the room. She nodded at Taylor, who got up and followed the woman.
They headed up to the training gym that had been blocked off for her sessions. Inside Fitzgerald was waiting.
"Okay, I'm going to sit here in the corner to begin with. Teach the class as you normally do." Militia stated before taking a seat.
"Alright, since your so frustrated about learning to fall, for now we will move to the next step. Throwing basic punches. You have to get the basics down before you can move onto the advanced stuff like they show in the movies." Fitzgerald instructed.
Taylor rolled her eyes. Fitzgerald saw and made a face at Militia, something to say 'see look at what an insolent brat she is'. Militia just ignored the antics from the pair of them.
After about ten minutes of doing basic punch drills Militia stood. "Okay, I don't think this is working. Lets see where you actually are, Taylor spar me."
Taylor got into the stance that Layla had taught her. Giving it a light bounce on the balls of her feet. Militia assumed a similar but different stance across from her.
Taylor threw a few test jabs to see how Militia would respond. Her opponent either knocked them out of the way, or twisted her body a bit to dodge them.
Good this looked like it would be a fun fight. She feinted a punch and followed it up with a kick. Militia didn't fall for the punch but knocked the kick aside.
Taylor went for a leg sweep and Militia jumped over the kick. Then Militia followed it up with several kicks of her own. Each one Taylor expertly dodged or deflected herself.
Militia's fighting style was very different from Layla. Not as skilled, but different, and Taylor honestly didn't have as good of a read on it. If for nothing else she would lose this fight. She knew she would lose the fight anyways because no matter how quickly you learned, a month of martial arts training couldn't equal the years that Militia had. Still she was having fun, pushing her boundaries and learning. That was what mattered, that was what she needed.
They kept exchanging punches and kicks, neither really getting a bead on the other. Until Militia decided to stop playing around. She managed to get a grip onto Taylor's wrist and yank twisting it up and around behind Taylor's back. She then used her foot to sweep under Taylor's legs at almost the same time. Taylor fell to the ground like a sack of potatoes.
"See!" Fitzgerald cried. "She thinks she is a lot better than she is."
"What? Think I could beat Militia? No, I had no doubt I'd lose to her, but I got more out of those two minutes of sparring than I have in multiple sessions I've spent with you."
"Paladin, decorum!" Militia scolded, although her heart didn't seem to be in it. The older woman thought for a moment before she said, "Paladin you're dismissed for the day. Go get cleaned up and then you have a meeting with Mr. Ellis. I need to have a talk with Fitzgerald."
Taylor couldn't help herself a smug grin crept onto her face.
Freshly washed and dressed in street clothes and her facemask and goggles she headed up to the fifth floor for her meeting with PR. She knocked on the door and waited to be summoned in.
"Paladin, before anything else please let me apologise, I really didn't mean to insinuate what I did." Johnathan Ellis said.
Taylor just nodded. Today was truly going better than any of her previous days at the PRT, now to just wait for the other shoe to drop.
"Thank you for the apology. I'm sorry I stormed out, it was…" she thought for a moment. "Immature of me, all I can say is that I was already in a pretty foul mood that day."
"Its okay, we are all human." Johnathan said.
He pulled out another leather folio and started flipping through pages they had previously debated.
"I set the team to revisit your costume and these are the top designs they came up with the new remit." He said presenting the folder for her consideration.
Taylor said with a laugh, "You sure we can't revisit the whole trenchcoat and a fedora look. I'm told it is iconic."
"Yes, I'm sure. Hard to market, and comes across like a bomb on the PR side, everyone starts accusing you of working for three letter agencies." Ironic considering the PRT was also a three letter agency and all.
Taylor looked down and started flipping through the top designs. They were all much more to her liking. They all tended towards an armored knight look, something she could definitely get down with. She flipped past several that she mostly liked, until she settled on one that she really liked. Oh the colors were wrong she thought, but the basic design was good.
It was a metal cuirass that had a symbol of a sword with wings on the chest. The cut was still feminine without looking like boob plate. It had a blue full body undersuit that almost looked like a tunic considering the rest of the armor. On her the wrists were quite long gauntlets, with flares that came up around the elbow. It looked like there was plenty enough space to maneuver.
Around the waist it a metallic skirt tied, that went around three quarters of the body. The skirt then extended down to mid calve and had small tassels around the bottom. The legs were mostly covered in thigh high metallic boots. With the thighs covered by blue pants that matched the tunic on the top.
To protect her face there was a more futuristic helmet than she expected but she liked it. It was a full face helmet that looked like something out of Starwars. It had a black visor cut into it that appeared to be a one way window.
She wasn't a fan of the blue and gold coloring. It just didn't match what she wanted.
Johnathan saw her looking at it for a lot longer than the other costumes. "Take the helmet as a token of my apology. We normally like to stick with something that humanizes you, shows a bit of the eyes or the mouth, but I figured a little more protection and we could continue to play up the knight in shining armor look."
"Thank you." Taylor said still fascinated by what she saw. She could work with this. "Could we get this, but change out the gold metal for a white? Then change the blue tunic for a red?"
Johnathan thought about it for a minute. "The only problem there is again Haven. You would be getting awfully close to their colors and look overtly Christian. Any other color combinations you can think of?"
That was disappointing. She liked the look of red on white, but she could understand the concerns. "Do you think we could pull off the bronze metal with purple accents and under suit?"
Johnathan once again thought about it. "Probably. Let me get something mocked up. We will likely need to run it through some focus groups also. There is the chance that people might associate it with Rome which could make you look full of yourself, or bring the wrong kinds of attention. Depends how they read it. As for bronze, yea we can probably make it match your sword."
Taylor was a bit amazed at the amount of thought they put into something as simple as the color. She had been thinking mostly about what would look good, but there were all sorts of other layers to it apparently.
"Thank you Johnathan, and again I'm sorry for my behavior last time."
"Me as well," he said before shaking her hand and saying goodbye.
Taylor got back down to the Wards area in a much better mood than she had been when she got here. Things were significantly looking up. Now to just hope the investigation into HARP could get wrapped up so she could talk to Layla again and maybe get some answers about the whole 'Angel' thing. It had been burning a hole in her mind, but everything she could find online was not helpful. Bits of mythology, lots of video games, and fiction. Ugh the fiction, dark mysterious angels romancing poor innocent girls.
Still to know that there were others out there like her. That experienced the Symphony, that could sing songs to impact reality. People she could learn from, people who could tell her more about herself so everything wasn't her guessing her way through. She still didn't know exactly what her 'thinker sense' was. She knew it let her see something about people. Things they were proud of she thought, but she wasn't entirely sure that was it, sometimes that didn't match up.
Triumph must have headed out because no one was around. A quick check of the console booth showed that Vista was on console today, but Taylor didn't feel like interrupting. Miss Militia then entered the room.
"Good, I was just looking for you." Miss Militia said.
Taylor took a deep breath. She was happier with Militia, but still had reservations and frustrations. Like the fact that she was making eyes at her dad. Ugh the thought grossed her out. All the worse being that it was her de facto boss. That just sounded like a nightmare. She could imagine going home from work and running into her boss at home. Yes, shudders went down her back.
Taylor nodded her assent and followed the woman to her office. She took her seat and waited for the heroine to take her seat as well.
"How are you feeling?" Miss Militia asked.
Taylor thought about how to answer. "Okay. The meeting with Mr. Ellis was productive. I'm still pretty pissed about Fitzgerald."
"Understandable, I didn't realise it was that bad. I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to look into it sooner." Militia said.
Taylor just nodded her head. She had enjoyed sparing with the gun toting bad ass, even if she lost in the end. Any chance to go up against more skilled opponents and walk away having improved.
"Thank you for looking into it at all." Taylor finally settled on, deciding to take the high road. "Is there any progress on HARP?"
"Well we found Blackwell and she is a mess. Definite signs of being a victim of a master, but not one like what we have seen before."
Taylor sat up at that. "Oh, how so?"
"I don't know the specifics, but it sounds like she was in a haze but slowly being pushed to commit more and more horrific acts. Definite signs of her having in turn been manipulating Winslow to increase strife, set groups against each other, things like that."
Taylor nodded, this matched with what she had heard. "Where does that leave us?"
"Scared." Miss Militia said. "Learning that there is a secret vigilante organisation that is hunting down masters. That we had no clue about it. That is leaving us terrified."
That was unfortunate Taylor decided. How much would this set her back? "Is that being spread around?"
"Only at the highest levels of the PRT and Watchdog." Miss Militia said. Watchdog was the slang term for WEDGDG. A think tank that operated out of Washington DC. They contained most of the high powered Thinkers in the government's employee and were in charge of a multitude of duties, from protecting the stock market, to acting as intelligence analysts for the PRT.
Taylor nodded, and prayed she hadn't gotten Layla in trouble with her their superior. God that was weird to think of. That she had a superior that she hadn't known anything about just a few days prior.
"Have they come back with anything." Taylor asked.
"Ideally they want you going undercover for them, but I said that you would likely have significant issues with betraying their trust like that."
Taylor nodded, she would.
"Watchdog is running some more scenarios for safety. Hopefully it will be resolved soon and you can go back to working there part time."
Taylor felt relieved hearing that. That she might actually get to go back to someplace that had come to mean a lot to her in such a short time.
"Good. I'm glad to hear that," she finally said.
The conversation just stalled out there. Neither knowing what to say next.
"When am I good to start patrolling again." Taylor finally said trying to end the silence.
"When the PR team gets back with your costume most likely, I'm signing off on your basic self defense certification." Miss Militia explained. "You will still be required to work with a trainer, a different trainer, to keep sharp and to continue to develop, but you obviously know enough to pass the basics."
Taylor wanted to jump for joy. She just wanted to help people and so far her time in the Wards had been anything but. With being able to get back out there, maybe she could start doing some good again.
Now she just had her self defense course at the rec center in a few hours.
T: I'm being unbenched (soon). Better look out :-p
L: oh no, wll kp an i out
T: Really it wouldn't kill you to spell out words.
L: ys it wld. Trgc dth, rmeo and jllt lvl
T: God, kill me now.
L: sprsd u dnt sgn u msgs. "Sincerely Taylor Lastname"
L: als y ds syng gd bthr u?
T: Gasp you can spell! I was starting to think you were physically incapable.
Taylor ignored the question about god. The less said the better. How was she supposed to explain her newfound divinity, that knowledge that god was real (assuming there was any truth in the mythology of angels at all.)
That was a good point. She pulled out her hero notebooks. Popped the cap off the pen and was about to start writing. Hmm, maybe…
She pulled out a new notebook. It was probably better to keep things she might need to show the PRT separate from things she wanted kept as far away as possible from the PRT. After a moment she put the copy of the Hobbit that she used for her Hero notebook aside and grabbed her copy of Dante's Inferno. That would be an ironic code to use as the basis for her book cipher.
She jotted down the question. "If… angels… are… real… what… does… that… mean… for… god…?" she muttered aloud as she translated it through her cipher. What other questions did she have. What were Malakim? What was her thinker sense? What did Zadkiel expect of her?
Taylor still had very mixed feelings about the whole suddenly having a superior thing. Her thoughts were cut off by a ding coming from her burner phone.
L: lol slly TayTay, y spl whn u knw wht i mn
T: You are just torturing me at this point.
L: of crs slly
Why was she being friends with this crazy girl? It had definitely started on the advice of the police woman. Who she now knew was her superior, she bristled a bit at the thought. Was that some kind of mystical order that she had received? Or had she really believed the woman's words, that she should be trying to help Lisa?
L: u bng slw tdy. Wht n u mnd?
T: Nothing I can talk about.
L: oooh, smthng bg! leans in close tll me!
T: Nope! Can't do, promised not to.
L: oh! no fn!
Taylor just rolled her eyes at the annoying girl. Still somehow something resembling friendship seemed to be growing between the two. Was this what Zadkiel had intended? Was this manipulation or was this just natural spending time with someone? It had been so long since she had any relationship with someone like this, she really couldn't tell what was natural and what wasn't at this point.
She jotted down a few relevant questions to the current train of thought. She really needed to talk to Layla and learn some more about what all this meant. Hopefully soon Miss Militia and her dad would settle down and ease the current restrictions. If nothing else she missed her mentor.
Author's Note:
I've gone back and done some minor editing of the last chapter. There have been some valid criticisms of it. Both for how Danny reacted, and Taylor for immediately spilling the beans. As far as Danny goes, originally Layla lied to him, but that made no sense as to why she would do that out of the blue. So I changed it to what you all have seen. I tried to soften Danny's frustration with HARP, but obviously didn't do that sufficently to match the change in narative.
As far as Taylor telling them. I wasn't clear in the scene where she promised Layla that she wouldn't tell. The not telling was supposed to be about Angels and Demons. I've gone back and expanded the converstation with Danny and Hannah so she talks with Layla briefly about what she can tell, and gets permission to talk about Blackwell. I also changed black-ops to vigilante as that would be more of the guess that Militia would make.
Now as far as the descriptions in this chapter. I'm not the best at describing complicated outfits. Think of something that is a mix between Edelgard's post-timeskip armor, and blue Sabre's outift, just in bronze and purple. Sabre, Edelgard. For the helmet think of something along the lines of the Mandalorian Stalker Helmet.
I've commissioned some art, that is visible on Ao3, SpaceBattles and Sufficent Velocity. All three are posted under the same username. That means if you are reading this on FFN you will have to search and find the other listings to see the art.
The commissioned art is far from perfect. For example her hair shouldn't be visible as she should be wearing a full face helmet. Additionally the entire blade should be made of fire, not a metal blade surrounded by fire.
Final update of this already massive Author's note. My writing has been slowing down. A combination of work picking back up, the story getting more complicated, and I've started reading Pact (yay more Wildbow!). So I'm probably going to be slowing my posting schedule a bit. I'm thinking Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I still have a good 30k words in reserve to post, but I want to keep a good backlog, makes it easier for me to go back and change the direction as I get further in the story.