Vindication

Chapter One

Vin pushed herself to her hands and knees in the pouring rain, coughing up dirty water.

Where am I?

Her mind felt muddled as she stared down at her hands, and she burned tin to bring her senses into sharp focus. She squinted through the bright light that she knew hadn't been there a minute ago.

It's daytime. How? The last thing she remembered was soaring through the mists, practicing Allomancy on her own, and now ...

She jumped to her feet, feeling unsteady despite her pewter, and looked around.

She wasn't in Luthadel anymore. Square buildings shot up around her, without even a hint of ash staining their red brick walls. No storm, no matter how great, could wash that away. Not Luthadel, not the Central Dominance either. Lord Ruler, was she even still in the Final Empire?

A crash like an earthquake sounded in the distance, and Vin heard screams over the falling rain. A storm and an earthquake? She moved out of the alley she was in toward a wider street, only to see a thing made out of blades and hooks get hurled past her, tearing out chunks of the pavement as it landed. Then it rose to its four feet and, ignoring bits of itself that had been ripped off, charged back the way it had come.

What?

Above her, Vin saw a woman standing naked in the air except for a sheen of translucent, crystalline scales that covered her from head to toe, forming a long horn that jutted out from her forehead. The woman waved an arm and a hundred discs of the same substance formed around her, then shot out at something Vin couldn't see.

That wasn't any form of Allomancy Kelsier had taught her, that was for sure. She burned bronze as a final attempt to make sense of it all, only to hear pulses from all around her. She dropped a coin and burned steel to shoot herself up into the air, only to find herself surrounded by metal. Blue lines emanated from her chest, connecting her to a skeleton of steel that laced the insides of the surrounding buildings. Up above it all, she saw madness all around her. Giants, people flying through the air shooting beams of light, people appearing out of nowhere only to vanish just as quickly, and they all seemed pointed toward a massive figure behind a building that Vin couldn't wholly make out. Whatever it was, it was emanating the strongest pulse of all.

Impossible, she thought.

Oh? Vin could almost hear the polite amusement in Sazed's voice. A Mistborn for two months and already you know all that is possible in the world?

That was fair. Regardless, the last thing she wanted was to get involved with ... with whatever the hell was going on over there. She turned away and shot off in the opposite direction, her mistcloak heavy with rain water. She soared over the buildings, seeing in the distance a vast sea.

The sea rose up like a mountain.

It crashed into the city in a thick white froth, filling in the gaps between buildings, covering them, crushing them, rushing toward her with the inevitability of a landslide.

I want to go home.

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Vin rubbed her stinging cheek and looked away.

"We can't! Don't you get it, Vin? We can't!"

She didn't. She didn't understand anything. Just that she was cold and wet and covered in ...

"You've had it good for too long, but that's over now. Whenever anything good happens, it's always going to disappear, and it's going to tear off a piece of you on its way out. So get used to it. We'll have to go underground. I have some money, enough to get us out of the city. Or enough to get a knife in my back. Lord Ruler, this is a mess."

Vin looked back, but their home was already covered by the mists. She had never gone out in the mists before. They seemed to be watching her, forming shapes and figures. She could almost see Mother in those mists, with her crooked smile and glassy-eyed stare, ready to welcome her back with bloodied hands.

Vin hugged herself, because she had no one else who would.

"But first you're going to need to wash some of that blood off of you. That will draw attention, even in the skaa underground. Get rid of what you can and cover the rest with ash. And hurry. If you can't keep up, I'm leaving you behind."

Vin nodded and scooped up a handful of dirty water from a puddle to—

"Aaaaahhh!"

A scream woke her from her dream, and that scream withered into a sob. Vin tried to get up on instinct, only to find her arms manacled to her bed.

She was in a bed, surrounded by curtains. Above her a section of the ceiling was glowing with an unnatural light, and the rest of the ceiling was an endless pattern of squares.

Another pained scream. Where was she, a dungeon? Were people being tortured around her?

Maybe, but ... she looked down at her belt. She still had her glass daggers with her. She even had her vials in the pockets of her damp mistcloak. If she was in a dungeon, she was in a brightly lit one with armed prisoners and no bars.

She tried to remember how she had gotten here, but her head throbbed with a dull pain that made it hard to think. She remembered a storm and a flood and ... and people with powers that she couldn't understand.

She burned pewter to fill her body with strength and warmth, and she burned tin to bring the world around her into sharp focus. She heard footsteps from people moving back and forth just beyond the curtain, speaking in brisk tones. Behind her ... Vin twisted her body as much as her manacles would allow, and saw a window.

Could she escape through that? If she could unchain herself, maybe.

What kind of prison is this? None of this makes sense.

She focused on her manacles. Pewter made her stronger, but not strong enough to break free, not quietly. She didn't have anything to pick the lock with either, unless ... Could she pick it with Allomancy, Pushing and Pulling on the tumblers, opening it from the inside?

Before she could try, a figure stepped through the curtain to her side, dressed in black. She was tall and thin with long black hair and an ornate mask. A guard? No, the girl looked as surprised as Vin was. Besides, wouldn't a guard come in through the front curtain instead of slinking in through the side?

Another prisoner trying to escape?

She could hope.

Burning brass and zinc, Vin Pushed on the girl's cruelty and suspicion, Pulled on her compassion, and asked for help.

WWW

Taylor moved through the hospital enclosures, passing by unconscious capes and empty, bloodstained cots. She didn't know how much time she had before Armsmaster noticed she was missing, and she didn't want to wait around to find out.

So far, the Endbringer Truce had left her beyond disappointed. It had started out well enough, with heroes and villains working together and a motivational speech from Legend himself. But the second she had been taken out of the fight, she had been given the premier villain treatment, chained up by her broken arm and subjected to the "care" of people who hated her. So Armsmaster wanted to have a talk with her? Yeah, no thanks. She didn't care to listen to what he had to say. The next enclosure had a window. Could she climb out of it?

The enclosure also had a cape in it, wide awake and staring at her as Taylor entered. Taylor stopped dead in her tracks, knowing that all it would take was a scream and nurses, PRT troopers, and heroes would be rushing in. She ...

She stopped, suddenly feeling sorry for the other girl. She was, what, Taylor's age, give or take a few years? And she looked afraid, chained to her bed, as if she wasn't sure if the next person to come through a curtain would help her or abuse her.

Taylor knew that feeling. A few minutes ago she had been drowning in it.

"Help me?" the girl whispered, nearly mouthing the words.

Taylor nodded and stepped closer to the girl, putting a finger to her lips with one hand and pulling out a stolen set of keys with the other.

The girl ... didn't exactly relax, but she seemed to accept that Taylor was trying to help. Had Taylor seen her during the fight? She had no mask so either it had gotten lost in the fight or she went without one like New Wave. She wore black pants and a shirt that was probably once white in a vaguely Renaissance style like Regent, though less ornate. The only part of her costume that really stood out was her dark gray cloak, which was tattered in a way that looked more by design than by use.

With her hands free the girl sat up and gave her a nervous smile, as though she wasn't yet sure that she wasn't going to get hurt, but she was starting to hope for the best. In that moment, Taylor felt warm despite her soaked costume, she felt good for the first time since she'd heard the Endbringer sirens. Everything she had went though had been worth it for this one—

A hand clamped down on her shoulder and spun her around, and suddenly Armsmaster was in her face. "What are you doing here?" he growled.

Taylor didn't say anything, dazed by the emotional whiplash. Not that Armsmaster waited for her to respond.

"You, stay there," he said to the girl Taylor had freed. "And you," he said to Taylor, still holding her with his one remaining arm, "come with me." He half walked, half dragged Taylor out through the front curtain.

The girl sprang up out of her bed and grabbed Taylor by the arm, and then everything happened at once.

Armsmaster shot forward like a bullet, knocking over the curtain and rolling past nurses before coming to a stop in the middle of the hospital floor. The window exploded outwards, frame and all. A lot of people started screaming.

Finally, the girl climbed out the open window and dragged Taylor out with her.

And those people who had started screaming? Taylor joined them.

But the girl wrapped her arms around her in midair and began to fly.

Her first experience with flying had been earlier that day with Laserdream, who flew as gently as an elevator. This time felt more like Bitch's dogs had grown wings. Taylor was lurched, jerked, and bounced through the air until she felt like she was about to lose her lunch ... breakfast ... the last meal she had eaten, before she was finally dropped on blessed, solid ground.

Solid ground under two feet of water, but she'd take what she could get.

They were in an alley between two of the buildings that hadn't yet collapsed. The girl stood with her back to a wall and her eyes closed as though listening. Taylor often had the same expression when she was focusing more on what her bugs saw than what she did.

Actually that wasn't a bad idea. Armsmaster couldn't fly, but he could send fliers after them. With the rainfall reduced to a drizzle, Taylor sent her bugs into the air to keep a few compound eyes out for trouble.

A minute passed. Then another. Then five. Taylor didn't know what was going to happen to her or what she was going to do next, but ... but when the hell had she known what she was going to do next?

She thought about how she had gotten here. She had seen Scion and Eidolon fight Leviathan. She had seen Bitch's dogs die, one after another. She had heard Tattletale declared dead, or down, or, or something. She wanted to go back and find out if she was alive or dead so she could stop worrying but she couldn't because she'd get arrested for, for she still didn't know what.

And now she was hiding in an alley with a girl she didn't even know.

"Thanks," she said at last, "for getting me out of there. I'm Skitter."

The other girl didn't seem to recognize the name. Good. Taylor wasn't proud of a lot of the things she had done as Skitter and ... and she could use a fresh start.

"Vin," she said. Vin looked past Taylor down the alley into the street, staring at something. She sloshed through the water, her gray cloak trailing behind her, and looked up into the sky. The rain had stopped, and for the first time that day they could see the sun peeking out from behind the clouds.

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There had been something wrong with the sky from the start. Vin hadn't had time to focus on it as the sea towered over her, but even then the clouds had been the wrong shade of gray. And now, with the sky clearing ...

The sun was yellow, a bright, burning sphere of gold instead of red. She had heard of a yellow sun before. Kelsier, madman that he was, had been able to look at something that always was and say, "No. This isn't right. This isn't the way things should be."

Take that and turn it inside out, and there was the ability to see an impossible thing for the first time and think, "Yes. This is right." Vin closed her eyes and felt the sun on her face, bright and warm and gentle.

A hand on her shoulder interrupted her reverie. The stranger was checking on her.

"Skitter," she whispered. "Where am I?"

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A/n And there's chapter one of Vindication! A lot of times when I start a new story, I slap it together however I feel like, just wanting to have fun. Maybe I'll start taking it seriously and show it to an editor first at around chapter three or so. This one, though, went through so many changes like you wouldn't believe.

I knew from the start that I wanted Vin and Taylor working together because of how much they have in common. Originally they met during the Lung fight and decided to work together, combining Vin's street smarts with Taylor's local knowledge, but I couldn't figure out how to make that work in character. They are, after all, two skittish, paranoid introverts afraid to trust people. (In the Mists by TheSlayerofSnails got through this problem by having a post Hero of Ages Vin who, after getting married and killing two gods, was ready to settle down into the role of a mentor, but I thought it would be more fun to write not one, but two unstable teenagers with zero resolved issues and zero mature adults in sight. I don't know why I do this to myself.)

It was ultimately my esteemed editor, Exiled Immortal, who suggested starting the story at a later point, and with hundreds of unknown capes involved in the Leviathan fight, there's more than enough handwavium floating around to drag Vin into things.

Anyway, let me know what you think. And a special shoutout to my Patrons, Exiled Immortal, Prime 2.0, Sphinxes, Kelsey Bull, Hubris Prime, Apofatix, Janember, Yotam Bonneh, Svistka, Lady Charon, LordXamon, and Victoria Carey for their support.