Parousia 15.1
From her living throne atop the beating Heart of the Labyrinth, Amy did her best to focus in spite of the distracting mess of apprehension and frustration churning in her gut.
More than anything, though, she was just… resigned.
Of course the Nine would decide to fuck with her right before Taylor was supposed to come back. Of course they would decide to ruin what little bit of happiness she'd managed to cultivate for herself. The universe clearly hated her. Why had she expected anything less than the most prolific group of parahuman serial killers in the country to show up at her front door?
It was a bit surprising that another Endbringer hadn't broken the cycle and attacked just to fuck up her day.
Knock on wood.
Most regular people were only vaguely aware of the Nine's atrocities, in the same way that they were aware of Endbringer attacks and natural disasters. It was horrible, but ultimately someone else's problem.
Amy never had that luxury. Growing up with Carol and Aunt Sarah, she and Vicky were told the truth from the beginning. For better or worse.
It may not be today, or tomorrow, or this year, but eventually… there was a good chance they'd have to fight people like the Nine. It was part of being a hero. Not even just a hero, but a cape in general. Everyone banded together to fight monsters like the Nine. It was either that, or die with everyone else.
Amy may not be a hero anymore, but even she wouldn't stand idly by with the Nine on her doorstep.
The Hunt would take their pound of flesh.
It was what Taylor would do.
Now, if her girlfriend could just go ahead and come back from the dead already, that would be fucking swell.
The thought made her chest hurt in a strange way, but she quashed that feeling as well. She had bigger things to worry about than her fucked up love life.
Instead of dwelling on the hopefully approaching end to her nights alone in the Workshop, Amy closed her eyes and forced her awareness away from her actual body. The Heart of the Labyrinth was the first and single largest organism she had ever created, and its body and mind were like an ocean in the unknowable perceptions of her power's biosenses.
Scanning just one individual human body at a time to determine how to put them back together felt so… small, by comparison. Six months ago, she wouldn't have been able to imagine something like this. What was one human circulatory system, compared to hundreds of miles of pulsing vessels? What was one human mind, when she could feel the fireworks within the nerve clusters of millions of Messengers?
When she'd just focused on healing, she had never used her biosenses for anything other than diagnosis and monitoring. Now, she knew better.
It definitely wasn't the same as seeing out of her actual eyes, but the electrical signals sparking through the enormous nervous system of the massive interconnected network painted a picture to her power. In the last week of the Heart's expansion while remaining constantly connected to it, Amy had gotten so used to seeing the whole city that she almost forgot about it.
Now, she put her full focus on the ocean of stars, to support the Hunt on multiple fronts as best she could.
Unlike when she'd monitored the Hunt's actions against the remnants of the gangs, she had to actively participate, and she couldn't afford to miss anything important. Too much was on the line.
Amy watched through countless eyes as Tattletale organized the mercenaries and did her best to manage the tens of thousands of people now trapped in the infinite Labyrinth. The ranks of her unpowered agents had grown exponentially in the last week as the result of Danny's connections and Emma's cult, but trying to house that many people for even a few hours was a trainwreck. Not to mention that hundreds of them were injured from Shatterbird's song, and Amy didn't have time to heal them.
All of their blood vials had shattered along with the rest of the city. Without Taylor, they couldn't exactly make more.
She didn't have a solution for that, easy or otherwise. Amy tried to reach out with the vessels of the Labyrinth to stem the bleeding where she could, but she couldn't heal them through her creations. She could only influence organisms touching her actual body, and she couldn't manipulate herself. If she integrated herself fully into the Heart, she would lose the ability to manipulate the Heart itself, and that would be… bad. With a capital B.
Despite her promises, people would inevitably die in the Labyrinth. Sometimes, there was nothing she could do. There would always be more pain. Amy closed her heart off to their suffering, and looked elsewhere.
She wasn't actually a god, or a prophet, or whatever the Blood thought she was. For better or worse.
She'd probably be a shitty god anyway.
Amy cast her eyes outward, away from the thousands of lost souls trapped in her… attic? Basement? Walls? Whatever.
The Commercial District south of Downtown was on fire. Whether or not this was an improvement over its previous state was up for debate. It was a bit difficult to see what was happening, since she had to keep constantly regenerating her Messengers and Hands as they burned.
At least Alec seemed like he was having a good time.
He raced over the collapsing buildings with all of the unnatural finesse that the combination of Taylor's blood and Amy's enhancements allowed, casually spinning his cane to deflect one of Mannequin's blades as he leapt from the burning rooftop. Through the smoke and the haze, Amy saw him reach out to tug on his puppet's nerves and pull himself in a wide arc to where the beast tried in vain to corner Burnscar.
The puppets were just fake people, close enough to human that Alec's power didn't differentiate, but enhanced as far as they could go before his nervous system control stopped working. She didn't know why only one arm could be buff and hairy. It didn't seem to follow any rhyme or reason.
"There's a joke here about this party being lit, but I'll have you know that I've grown past such mundane banter," Alec called, landing lightly on the street in front of the flaming woman in a red dress.
Burnscar disappeared just as the puppet's massive claw smashed through the wall of another building, reappearing behind Alec and throwing a great gout of flame to envelop him. The Hunt's enhancements were potent, though, and he stepped deftly sideways out of the line of fire.
Mannequin lunged from the gap in the wreckage created by Alec's monster, but Amy caught him in one of her hands and smashed his ceramic body into the melting asphalt. It didn't stop him from whipping one of his chained blades out from his torso, cutting clean through the wrist of her hand and slicing forward parallel to the ground.
"Hey, no stealing my kills," Alec complained, leaping high to avoid both the sweeping blade from below and a wall of heat from his left.
He reached out midair and grabbed Burnscar with his power, yanking her out of her flames just long enough for his puppet to smack her across the pavement like a rag doll.
Burnscar bounced once and righted herself with ease. Bonesaw's enhancements were nothing to sneeze at, even if they weren't as potent as Amy's. Wildfire pulsed around her in a blazing inferno.
Amy ground her teeth in frustration and pulled her hands back. Third and fourth degree burns took more energy and biomass to heal than most other types of injuries, and Burnscar burned hot.
Alec was fireproof. He'd be fine. Probably.
One of the Amygdala assisting Rachel and Emily in the Trainyards fell under the weight of several thousand spider bots, and Amy turned her attention north. She dissolved the dying appendage, both to preserve biomass and to keep it out of Bonesaw's hands.
The pack was… terrifying, honestly.
Given an open area and a virtually unlimited supply of disposable targets, Rachel's hounds were in their element. The night echoed with bestial barking and baying, the ripping and tearing of flesh and metal and bone.
Each of the enhanced monsters was a match for Hookwolf, and there were fifty of them. Bonesaw's army of amalgamations and spider bots didn't stand a chance.
Amy got the sneaking suspicion that this was just a distraction, though. There was no sign of the infamous child bio-tinker herself, and it put Amy on edge.
Out of all the members of the Nine, it was Bonesaw that she was most worried about. Amy knew it would be her responsibility to deal with the bio-tinker. And, between the two of them, Bonesaw had years of practice and experimentation in the worst ways imaginable.
And that wasn't even taking the Siberian into account. Without Taylor, Amy didn't have a good answer for the most dangerous Brute in the world.
Shit, is that Hatchet Face?
Apparently, Bonesaw had gotten ahold of him. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
The thing that used to be the Nine's power nullifier plowed its way over the lesser Amalgams and spider bots. Four legs sprouted from what had once been its waist like some kind of cursed centaur, each as thick as a tree trunk. It held a massive, serrated, tinker-tech cleaver in both hands, swinging it in wide arcs as it charged. The cleaver's range was longer than the dog's claws, and it managed to land a brutal blow on the closest beast, ripping its armor and muscles to shreds and throwing the beast to the side.
Amy doubted that the dog inside was actually hurt, but it was certainly an effective way to cripple them.
Rachel and Emily veered away from their current target and closed with the beast.
Amy's hands reached for the monster, only to fall inert when they got within fifty feet of it.
Right. Power nullification.
Instead, she cleared a path for Rachel and Emily.
They were prepared for this. The Hunt's best answer to Hatchet Face was either Spitfire or Bitch, and he'd walked right into both of them.
Spitfire, because she could refill her napalm tanks outside of the nullification zone.
"First, or second?" Rachel called over her shoulder as Brutus charged.
"After you," Emily replied through her gas mask.
And Bitch, because… well…
Rachel leapt from Brutus's back, duster flapping in the wind from the speed of their charge. Strangely enough, her metal flesh didn't falter under Hatchet Face's nullification zone. Amy filed that away for later.
The cleaver descended, but Rachel's blunderbuss was already raised. The shotgun blast tore the monster's hand and wrist apart in a hail of consecrated quicksilver, the beast itself reeling backwards.
Between her metal skin and enhanced bones, Rachel was heavy. The shotgun blast didn't slow her considerable momentum one bit.
The cleaver dropped from broken fingers, and Rachel buried her axe deep in the undead abomination's skull.
…Bitch was just really good at what she did.
Somehow, the thing that used to be Hatchet Face kept flailing, even with a solid slab of steel in its brain. Rachel planted her feet on its chest and, using the axe embedded in its head as leverage, drove a metal hand into its throat with all of her empowered strength. With a roar, Rachel ripped out Hatchet Face's spine by the root and leapt free from the corpse as it toppled.
Emily set the body on fire for good measure. Just in case.
She wasn't quite over her jealousy, but Amy still couldn't help but feel relieved that Rachel was on their side. Whatever Taylor did to earn her loyalty, Amy definitely wasn't going to complain now.
One down, eight to go… Although, something about Hatchet Face's state worried her. The Nine generally went recruiting when one of their members became Bonesaw's newest toy, right? Was there a new member she was missing?
"So… you just gonna sit there?" A voice in the atrium asked.
She'd already forgotten about Grue's sister. Aisha may only be a few years younger than her, but she felt like a kid to Amy.
Amy wasn't good with kids.
She shouldn't bother justifying herself. She was the goddamn Vicar.
"I don't need to-" Amy started against her better judgement.
A spider-bot looked directly at one of her Messengers, and waved at her.
Inside the Labyrinth.
Fuck.
She almost squashed it on instinct, but… if there was one, there were probably more.
"Hold that thought."
A different Messenger got Lisa's attention, and Amy saw her race in the direction of the atrium.
The Bonesaw creation was carrying a cell phone?
Amy had a bad feeling about this. Honestly, she'd had a bad feeling ever since Taylor's glasswork exploded.
Her mind raced furiously, panic curdling in her stomach. If Bonesaw released a plague or something similar in the Labyrinth, she would need to move quickly to counteract it before it could spread too far in the confined space.
She'd sealed the main entrance with a barricade of bone and iron-hard flesh. All the other doors were supposed to be hidden or closed. How had Bonesaw slipped that past her?
There were no good answers. Did she drag the robot to the atrium, and endanger the Heart? Or did she leave it out there, amongst the people, where Lisa couldn't help her navigate the conversation?
She opted for the latter. If she and the Heart died, the people of the quarantine zone would be worse than dead.
More complete ears and vocal chords grew on the Messenger in question. It swayed gently in front of the spider bot, its spindly hands reaching out for the device.
"Amelia. I admit, I've been looking forward to meeting you," a smooth male voice greeted.
Anytime now would be awesome, Taylor.
"Jack," Amy said coldly, although her actual mouth didn't move.
The odds of it being anyone else were slim. Internally, her panic and anxiety only increased, but she managed to sound in control. Hopefully.
"What you've accomplished here is impressive. The artistry is… immaculate," Jack said conversationally. "Bonesaw's been absolutely gushing about your work since we arrived."
A high voice interrupted him in the background, but Amy couldn't make out the words.
"Yes, yes, I'm getting to that. Patience is a virtue," Jack said placatingly. To Bonesaw, Amy assumed.
"Anyway, you've done such a marvelous job with the city, we just couldn't help but make the trip. The PRT's little cage just adds to the fun, don't you think? Keeps pesky people like the Triumvirate from sticking their noses in where they aren't wanted. I do love the idea of them sitting at their fancy desks, gnashing their teeth while they debate whether it's worth it to break their own rules and come after us," Jack continued. "They won't, of course. For all their stacked up, teetering piles of soap boxes, they don't actually care about the people in here. You're a lost cause. No longer useful. A pity. They'll build you all a nice little monument, while Bonesaw plays with you. They'll probably be happy, actually. Better you than actual people, on the outside."
None of this was new information. Amy knew exactly what the PRT was. If Jack thought he was dropping any bombs here, he obviously underestimated the depth of her cynicism.
Jack seemed to realize he was rambling.
"But, I'm not actually here for the boring, regular people of your little colony. I'm here for you. Well, you and your Hunt. I'm a greedy man, and I can't help but see such potential here," Jack said. "I'd really love the opportunity to speak face to face. Everyone's always on their phones these days, and I do miss good old fashioned communication. You can't really know a person until you look in their eyes. So why don't you come on out of your little hidey-hole, and we'll have a nice, laid-back conversation before the games begin?"
"Why would I do that?" Amy asked. She was pretty sure she knew the answer, but the more hints she could get, the better.
"Don't be obtuse, Amelia. This little guy isn't the only spy to slip past your net. I could make ominous proclamations about killing all the people in your hideout in hideously grotesque ways, but that's just so… tedious. So, instead, I think a few of them will lose the will to continue riding around on this lonely blue rock… right… about… now."
Amy saw it happen from hundreds of vantage points.
A man sitting in a gurney getting stitched up after having a sizable piece of glass removed broke down crying, grabbed the razor sharp shard, and cut his own throat before anyone could move to stop him.
He wasn't the only one.
Amy took a deep breath. It felt like her heart was lodged in her throat.
There was always more pain, and she couldn't prevent it all. Couldn't heal them all. She knew that. She just had to believe it.
"Right. Now that I'd done my due diligence as a dastardly villain, care to stop by for a chat? I've got the perfect spot in mind, for nostalgia's sake," Jack said.
Right on cue, all of the Messengers within a quarter mile of Brockton General Hospital died en masse.
Fucking Bonesaw.
It happened so quickly that Amy barely even caught the root cause in her biosenses before the rapid apoptosis destroyed her creations at a cellular level. The door in the morgue was closed, at least, so it was just the tendrils on the surface. Luckily, she didn't have an Amygdala there, anymore. She'd sent it north to support Rachel. Definitely better that way. Amy didn't want to think about what Bonesaw could cook up if she managed to get her hands on an Amygdala.
The virus tried to spread into the rest of the Heart from the epicenter of whatever device Bonesaw detonated, but Amy was quick to identify the infected tissue and purge it from the Heart's system. She also made a copy of the RNA sequence and the protein structure of the capsid, for future reference. It was incredibly intricate, more so than any natural virus Amy had ever encountered.
Artwork… like Jack said.
But, once it was inside an organism under Amy's control, it became hers. Bonesaw may have the initial advantage, but she wouldn't be ahead for long.
Amy just needed more time.
Fuck.
What else could she do but agree to meet? The longer Jack talked, the more likely it was that Taylor would return. Until then, they just had to buy time.
What is he planning?
Did Jack know he was on a ticking clock?
Probably not, but she couldn't be sure.
And, if Taylor didn't come back…
Does anything really matter, if she doesn't?
Well… if she wasn't coming back, living would be overrated, anyway.
Maybe I'll take Bonesaw down with me.
"Fine. I'll be there," Amy said.
She took a small amount of satisfaction in enveloping the spider bot in the Heart's tendrils and crushing it into scrap.
It released a very interesting little prion when she did so, contained within the closed system under Amy's power. Something that would have targeted the frontal lobe…
Bonesaw was fucking with her. The protein was designed to mimic the effects of the Simurgh's madness. Was it a backup, or just the bio-tinker's way of saying hello? Telling her that she knew more about the Afflicted than Amy did? A way to tempt her into joining, if they could figure it out together?
Ultimately, Amy made a copy for safekeeping deep in the depths of the Labyrinth and denatured the original compound. She also set up a series of cascading system failures, so that the tissues holding the virus and the prion would be destroyed if she wasn't in contact with the Heart for more than a few hours. Just in case. Keeping anything of Bonesaw's was a massive risk, but she needed all the advantages she could get.
Amy stood from her throne and lowered herself to the ground in front of Lisa. Thin, flexible tendrils flowed from the sleeves of her costume to keep her skin in contact with the Heart as she moved.
What does Taylor call it?
It was a lovely night for a walk.
"Jack has someone in the Labyrinth. I don't know who, and I don't know how. He wants to meet with me. Find the mole so I can kill him," Amy summarized.
Aisha looked between them with wide eyes, but thankfully didn't comment. Amy didn't think she had the patience for Brian's kid sister right now.
"Oh, is that all?" Lisa asked with faux levity. "I think it goes without saying that this is the world's stupidest Hail Mary. When you die, your hands aren't going to like, eat us, or anything, right?"
"No."
"Good, good. You're aware that you're emotionally compromised and possibly suicidal?"
"Yes."
"Cool. Just making sure," Lisa said. "I'll make up nice things to say about you at your funeral."
"Thanks," Amy replied dryly as she walked.
"Anytime. You could, and this is going to sound radical, not do what the crazy serial killer says."
"He wants something from me. I doubt he'll kill me just for shits and giggles," Amy reasoned.
"You might wish he did by the time they're done."
"You think I don't know that? I can take care of myself."
"Just saying," Lisa shrugged. "I've put up with a lot of drama to keep you alive and mostly intact for the last week, despite your best judgement. It'd be a shame if Taylor came back and you were already dismantled like a Lego set."
That actually made Amy pause for a moment. And not because of the Lego set thing.
Hadn't she said that she just wanted to run away with Taylor, before the Simurgh attack? It wasn't like she cared about these people. What had changed? Why was she so willing to stick her neck out, when she could just… leave?
Because it's what Taylor would do.
What Victoria would do.
And, apparently, what she would do, now.
The rest of the heroes were gone. It was just her, alone in the Workshop with her experiments and her cold mattress and her hot chocolate. There wasn't anyone else.
Had she stumbled so far into being a villain that she'd accidentally circled all the way back around to being an actual hero? Or was she just pretending?
Maybe. It didn't matter, though.
"A little faith goes a long way," Amy said quietly.
"Oh, God dammit," Lisa groaned. "You really are made for each other. Fine! Go play Russian roulette with Jack and I'll… try to find the serial killer hiding in our basement, I guess."
Amy nodded, handed Lisa the lantern, and turned away from her reluctant lieutenant. She didn't really have anything else to say.
It occurred to her that she should probably say thank you, or something, but… she was still fucking Tattletale. Even if she was nicer than Amy originally thought, she still tried to kill Victoria. She was tolerable, but Amy wasn't about to start getting mushy.
Amy stopped in front of a familiar door.
It was fitting.
This was where she first kissed Taylor, a month ago. Where she first broke her rules and changed her. The start of so many wonderful and terrible things.
"You can't die. You aren't allowed to do that to me. You can't just run off and ruin everything."
And now here she was, about to pull the same stupid shit. Without an immortality parachute.
Taylor would forgive her for being a hypocrite. Taylor always forgave her. Unless she died, in which case… Well, she didn't know what Taylor would do, but she wouldn't be around to see it.
Amy opened the door, and stepped into the Brockton General morgue.
All morgues were creepy by definition, but she kind of expected something… worse? Bonesaw abominations, flickering lights, something.
Instead, the basement of Brockton General was pitch dark. No power. The backup generator must have run out since the Simurgh attack.
Amy took a deep breath and used her biosenses to scan the airborne particles that landed on her tongue. Whatever virus Bonesaw had engineered, it wasn't airborne. Or, at least, it wasn't still here. That was convenient.
Jack wanted to talk. If he wanted anything else, she wasn't going to make it easy for him.
The Heart's tendrils flowed from the open door behind her in a wave of undulating flesh.
A protective lattice of bone enveloped Amy's true body like a cursed brain coral. Or an egg.
She didn't like that imagery, though.
A new Amygdala ripped its way free of the Brockton General basement, the building complex imploding in on itself as the monstrosity rose from the crumbling dust. Dozens of skeletal hands flexed experimentally.
In hindsight, Amy could have just made a fake body for herself and piloted it out here.
Well… hindsight is always 20/20.
Her protective shell dissolved under her power, and she stepped onto the waiting palm of her creation. The flesh molded around her feet to keep her in place and constantly in contact with the monster, tendrils running up her back to keep her real body steady as she rose from the remains of her old hospital.
The moon is bright, tonight.
Without the usual light pollution from the city, stars filled the open sky.
"See! See, Jack, she's perfect! Ahh!" A shrill voice yelled.
Amy turned her eyes away from the calming silver light and refocused.
Arrayed in the wide parking lot in front of what used to be Brockton General, she finally found them. The missing pieces of the puzzle.
Shatterbird floated ominously overhead in her personal cyclone of glass.
The Siberian stood eerily still and silent. Naked except for her black and white stripes, the unstoppable monster who killed Hero and maimed Alexandria stared up at her with unflinching, unblinking eyes. The air of menace around her was palpable.
Bonesaw was the opposite. No one knew exactly how old she was, but she looked for all the world like an adorable child. She'd been the same age for longer than she should, artificially adjusting her growth. She fidgeted behind the Siberian in her blue and white dress, flecked all over with droplets of gore.
And, of course, Jack Slash himself.
"Bravo, Amelia. You know, Bonesaw and I had so many wonderful plans to push you out of your comfort zone, only to realize that we'll have to scrap the entire testing battery and start fresh, because you've exceeded our expectations by a landslide. It's my favorite kind of recruitment hiccup. Forces us to get creative," Jack called up to her.
Keep him talking.
Luckily, Jack obviously liked to talk.
"Recruitment?" Amy asked in the voice of the Amygdala. There was something satisfying about speaking through her creations, standing aloof and silent while her words echoed through them. It made it easier to play a role, to put forward confidence that she didn't quite feel.
"So cool!" Bonesaw's meticulous blonde curls bounced with her from behind the towering form of the Siberian. Shatterbird scoffed.
"Hush, Little B," Jack grinned over at his pet psycho before turning back to Amy. "Yes, recruitment. The name of the game. We find ourselves short a member after Hatchet Face's untimely demise, and we decided one of the Hunt would be the perfect fit. So! It's time for… what do the kids call it these days? Battle Royale?"
Amy knew that it was in her best interest to let him keep talking, but seriously. What a fucking asshole.
"Each of the Nine have nominated a candidate, and they'll each have the chance to test them…"
Jack really had spent a long time planning this out. Amy resisted the urge to tap her foot while she waited. Or play the jeopardy theme through the Amygdala's faux vocal chords.
"...and once half the candidates have been discarded, Siberian takes her turn. I'm sure you'll enjoy that immensely, since she likes to hunt…"
This was actually… kind of pathetic.
A lot pathetic.
The Siberian was an unstoppable force that Amy had no answer for. Bonesaw created artwork that strained her biomanipulation to its limits. Shatterbird was… well, she could probably kill Shatterbird without significant difficulty, actually.
But Jack…
Well, he was only threatening with the others to back him up. Amy doubted that his knives could even cut her rune-enhanced skin. Any of the hunters could slaughter him in a heartbeat.
"...as for me, I like to get creative with my tests. Never quite go for the same pattern, keeps things interesting-"
A door in the side of the rubble opened.
"I demand a refund! This fucker doesn't even have any blood!" Alec stepped out of the wall and chucked the broken remains of Mannequin unceremoniously onto the cracked pavement. His top hat was half gone and his suit was a bit charred, but other than that he looked unscathed.
Amy laughed. She couldn't help it.
Jack looked genuinely taken aback. Apparently, people didn't normally interrupt him.
"Burnscar?" Amy asked in Regent's direction.
He shook his head.
"She's a slippery one. Couldn't nail her down. I think she left, though."
Living darkness poured between the buildings, and Grue reformed next to Regent.
What the fuck are they doing here?
"Every time I think I should be more humble, I manage to surprise myself," Lisa stepped out of a new door, holding the lantern in one hand and a corpse in the other. "Regent, I got you a present. I'm still stealing her power, though."
"Cherie! Long time no see," Alec exclaimed. "Finders keepers, I suppose."
Jack was starting to look seriously pissed. It was kind of funny.
"Well, now that you're all present and accounted for, we can finally begin," Jack did his best to reinstate his control of the situation. They still didn't have a good way to counter the Siberian, and he knew it. "For your first test…"
The night around them warped ever so slightly, and Amy couldn't help but smile.
The moon seemed just a little bit brighter. The air, a bit warmer. She could feel the faintest echo of the choir singing in her bones.
A knot of tension she hadn't even been consciously aware of finally, finally loosened.
Taylor's coming back.
The rest of the Hunt must have felt it, too, because none of them bothered to interrupt Jack's ongoing monologue. They just glanced up at the stars, and smiled.
Soon.
…
If Taylor had a nickel for every time she'd woken up in a pool of blood at the foot of her own gravestone, she'd have two nickels. Which wasn't a lot, but it was weird that it'd happened twice.
No snow this time, though. Had it really only been two months?
It felt like longer. A lifetime, from one perspective.
She pulled herself slowly to her feet, taking a moment to enjoy the feeling of having a true body again. It wasn't quite the same, in the Dream.
The blood-soaked hoodie clung to her lanky frame, uncomfortably damp in the warm night. Taylor peeled it off in short order, along with the ruined t-shirt underneath. She looked down at herself, pale skin exposed under her black tank top and old jeans.
No more scars.
She wasn't sure how she felt about that.
Her old body had been a tapestry of events, a timeline of her transformation from the girl in the locker into the Hunter. She'd built herself from the ground up, scars and blood and runes marking her progression in her flesh.
Losing that physical evidence felt like losing a key part of herself.
Still…
This body was new, but not necessarily bad. More… cohesive. More like the original, from before, somehow.
Yes. That was the feeling. By the end, her old body had been a patchwork quilt, a symphony of discordant notes, a variety of crystalized facets and metal pieces welded haphazardly together. Now, she was forged into a single alloy, an unbroken melody, under the moon's gentle light.
She even had both feet back. That was neat.
Her bones were as strong as ever, retaining all of Amy's augmentations. The vials she had created and imbibed sang in her veins, now woven together to unlock the true power of her insight and bestial might. Her runes strengthened and enhanced her, now fully integrated into her physical Self.
Taylor understood now, far better than she ever had before.
On some fundamental level, the specific, individual aspects of her stolen powers were all in her head. At the end of the day, it was her own insight that defined them, the stars in her blood and her connection to Flora that fueled them.
And now, reborn anew, they were all part of her in truth, rather than just cobbled together pieces of broken glass.
Cohesive. Gestalt. Singular.
Victor's skills sharpened her mind.
Sophia's shadow and Oni Lee's ash, freeing her from her prison of flesh and bone.
Lung's rage and the Valkyries' strength, now threaded deep into her enhanced muscles and tendons.
Cricket's song, to empower her words.
Purity's stars and Crusader's phantasm, allowing her to touch the light of the Beyond.
They were all one, within the new form that Flora created for her. An existence both of and outside the waking world.
Taylor looked up towards the full moon and let her hair fall away from her face. The silver isle caressed her gently as she closed her physical eyes, and opened her mind once more.
Flora's presence was muted, here, but she could still feel it. The choir sang to her, comforting and supportive.
"We really need to talk logistics at some point, Flora," Taylor muttered to both herself and to the voices in her head. "Coming back in the same clothes I wore in the locker is inconvenient. You made me a new body, but couldn't give me a new hat?"
Flora didn't answer.
With a soft sigh, Taylor shook off the momentary frustration and refocused on more important matters.
The waking world was much less malleable than her Dream, but it was not completely immune to the weight of her insight.
Taylor opened her eyes, and rolled her shoulders. The surrounding tapestry moved with her, warping slightly under the conceptual pressure of her observation.
It's good to be back.
She took a moment to let her mind wander. Turmoil and violence saturated the air, a cloying odor of fire and death. What had happened to her city, in her absence?
Quite a lot, it seemed.
Amy's certainly been busy.
And…
There was something. Something she couldn't quite put her finger on. Something new, that hadn't been here when she'd left.
Something that itched in the back of her mind.
Taylor strained her eyes to peer through the facade that hid the underlying truth of existence. She was more than this shell of matter and energy, and she would not be constrained by what her physical sensory organs could perceive.
Her mind was expanded, and her insight was deep. She had left her mortal body behind in the locker and then again in her Nightmare, and she'd Dreamed of things that most couldn't begin to imagine.
There was something watching her from the dark… reaching out to nudge her, attempting to tug at her strings. Even now, it tried to divert her sight.
Whatever it was, it clearly didn't know that it needed to be careful when gazing into the abyss.
Something might just stare back.
Taylor allowed Flora's unshackled power to saturate her expanded mind, and followed the threads of manipulation back to their source.
Well. Isn't that interesting.
Taylor smiled.
Jack thought he was clever.
It was fitting, that she would return on the night of the Hunt. They really had to learn not to fuck with her when the moon was full.
This did raise a potentially problematic question, though.
Did every parahuman have something like Flora watching over them from beyond the veil?
It seemed unlikely that she and Jack were special. Jack may have the first other alien presence aside from her own that she was able to perceive, but that didn't necessarily mean they weren't out there, hiding beyond the sight of those who didn't have enough eyes. Why could she see his, but not the others?
A conundrum that could wait until morning. For now, she had things to do.
Step one: Kill Jack Slash.
Step two: Kiss Amy.
She'd figure out the rest as she went.
Taylor centered herself, eyes closed and yet wide open simultaneously.
She had no weapons. She had no blood vials. She didn't even have her hat.
But she didn't need them. Not tonight, not while the moon hung low and Flora walked beside her.
She was a living weapon; Flora's champion in the waking world.
The implications were concerning, but Taylor couldn't bring herself to distrust the moon presence. Flora had brought her this far, had given her the tools to free herself from the chains of her own self-doubt and insecurities. She recognized now that her power was never truly hers. It was a gift, a privilege bestowed onto her by something much greater. It was a weapon that Flora was trusting her to wield.
For posterity.
Taylor breathed, and the still air of the graveyard stirred.
Silver light gathered to her, inside her, the power of the phantasm and her sea of stars shining within.
Strength flooded her indestructible bones, sang in the chorded iron of her restructured muscles. Her heart beat an unstoppable metronome in its cage of steel.
Her hurricane howled a ghostly wail between the graves. The trees at the edge of the cemetery creaked and protested, bending sideways under the strain. Her hair whipped wildly around her face, but she didn't care.
Tonight, the First Hunter enters the fray once more.
Taylor launched herself into the sky on the crest of a thundering storm, rocketing up and away from her headstone towards the beckoning call of the moon's light.
And they will know that Death walks among them.
…
Amy was definitely getting impatient.
How did the rest of the Nine put up with this all day?
"...now, Amelia here is obviously Bonesaw's candidate. She's so excited for a big sister to collaborate with. Cherish nominated Jean-Paul, and I have to say I had my doubts, but anyone who can dispose of Alan must be a solid pick. Posthumous kudos to you, Cherie. Siberian took a shine to Rachel over there; so delightfully ruthless," Jack continued on undeterred.
He really did have a high opinion of himself. How the hell was he still alive?
The wind picked up, ruffling the edges of Amy's half-cape. Thunder rumbled low and deep in the distance.
"It's been a long time since we've had such stellar candidates! Alan nominated Armsmaster, but I suppose we'll have to count him out given the circumstances, along with Crawler. I have a sneaking suspicion that Ned's not coming back. Burnscar chose Spitfire and Shatterbird chose Grue, although I think that was just because there weren't all that many options left. They just don't get as excited about the games as the rest of us-"
The heel of Taylor's boot hit Jack's forehead, then the pavement between his feet immediately after. Everything in between was reduced to a fine, high-velocity paste.
Amy almost blinked and missed it. Luckily, she had lots of eyes.
The force of the impact buckled the parking lot and shook the earth under their feet. Bits of Jack arced high overhead and began their slow descent back to earth.
In the center of the new crater, Taylor straightened and cracked her neck.
Such a show off.
Her trademark hat and coat were missing, along with her weapons. She looked like she was just finishing up a normal afternoon in her forge, with her black tank top and jeans. Her midnight curls were damp with blood and her pale, unblemished skin shone in the moonlight as what was left of Jack rained down around her.
I guess we won't be getting his blood.
Taylor glanced back and her eyes found Amy's. Perfect black onyx crinkled at the corners as she smiled that same stupid, overconfident grin. Like she was about to go rob the PHQ rather than murder the Slaughterhouse Nine.
"What do you want to be, to me? You can be whatever you want."
"Everything."
Amy hadn't quite realized just how much she'd missed her. Her chest felt like it might burst.
I love her so fucking much.
She didn't say that, though.
"You took your sweet fucking time!" Amy yelled. With her actual mouth instead of the Amygdala.
Taylor's smile softened.
"I missed you, too."
The world unfroze around them.
"Jack!" Bonesaw screamed. She sounded genuinely distraught.
Shatterbird's song filled the air.
The Siberian lunged towards Taylor faster than even Amy's many eyes could follow. Her ragged claws descended, ready to rip and tear at Taylor the same way she had Alexandria and so many others.
Taylor reached up and caught the Siberian's wrist in one hand.
Amy almost laughed. Would have, if there'd been time.
The black and white woman looked just as surprised as everyone else.
"Your eyes are yet to open," Taylor's smile turned feral. "You'll need more, in order to end me."
Then she drove her other hand forward, and ripped out the Siberian's still-beating heart.
Fuck.
Strangely enough, the Siberian shattered like glass instead of leaving a normal body behind. Weird.
Amy didn't have time to think about it, though.
The Siberian reformed behind Taylor, good as new.
"Amy," Taylor called. "Bonesaw."
Right.
The Amygdala reached for the murderous child, but Bonesaw was already moving.
She leapt backwards with rapid, unnatural movements as the hands closed in on her, multiple metal appendages exploding from her spine. One hand of the Amygdala managed to make it into range, but a steel limb stabbed forward and injected it with an unknown compound.
"No! No, he isn't gone. He's not! Not, not, not!" Bonesaw yelled.
Amy wasn't even sure if she was talking to anyone in particular.
The hand swelled with horrific boils that would have been painful, if the Amygdala could feel pain. Amy threw herself into her biosenses, tracking the poison and growing a new organ to synthesize an antidote.
Bonesaw scuttled sideways on her artificial limbs, like a living mockery of her own spider bots. Or the Amygdala, actually.
Out of the corner of her eye, Amy saw Shatterbird twitch and tumble through the air as Regent pulled on her nerves. The movement sent her straight into Grue's cloud of living darkness, and the haunting notes of her song cut off abruptly.
She'd honestly forgotten that Grue's power affected sound. If anyone asked, she totally knew that when she sent him out to hunt Shatterbird down in the first place. Definitely intentional.
The Siberian reappeared again, she and Taylor continuing their deadly dance across the slanted rooftops of the broken hospital. While they both moved with impossible speed and precision, it was clear that the Siberian wasn't used to fighting an enemy that could match her strength. Unfortunately, she also seemed to be able to reform with impunity, and none of the damage Taylor inflicted remained when she did.
"...bring him back, put him back together again-"
Bonesaw dove for the crater that held what was left of Jack.
There really wasn't much. And most of that had leaked through the cracks in the pavement.
"...all the king's horses and all the king's men…
The Amygdala continued to give chase, but Amy diverted her attention elsewhere. She still had lots of biomass in reserve.
From multiple nearby doors, the Heart's tendrils raced towards Bonesaw.
"...not, not, not…"
It was a bit sad, actually.
Bonesaw screamed in frustration as she was forced to turn away from the crater, releasing a cloud of white mist from somewhere in her body. Amy threw a tendril forward and grew several new membranes to catch a sample.
Luckily, it was just more of the apoptosis virus, in aerosol form. Amy synthesized an antivirus and grew a set of massive lungs in the Labyrinth, running several new trachea down her arms. She grew enormous muscles anchored into the walls of the infinite Hospital and inhaled deeply to pull the mist out of the air like a living vacuum.
Dennis probably would've made a joke about sucking the chrome off a bumper, but Amy was better than that.
One of her hands finally caught the elusive child just before she could dive away.
"...no kings, no horses, no men, just Bonesaw, all alone…"
Bonesaw didn't hesitate to release a new plague, but Amy was ready this time. She took a sample and began exhaling an airborne antibiotic from her new lungs, mingling and deconstructing the bacteria faster than they could multiply.
At the same time, Amy also began to grow a terrarium of flesh, fifty feet wide, to contain the bio-tinker menace. Pillars of bone drove deep into the pavement and membranes of translucent skin began to spin between them like spiderwebs as Amy continued to redistribute the mass from her storage areas deep in the depths of the Labyrinth.
It was a good thing she did.
A moment later, Bonesaw shed her skin like a fucking lizard and slid out of Amy's grasp, multiple robotic limbs sprouting from a prehensile spine as she made a run for it. A fleshy sack that must have contained emergency copies of her necessary organs hung under what was left of her.
"...not, not, not…"
She also released three more viruses, a prion, and a new type of fungal spore that each could have ended all life on the eastern seaboard, but the wide enclosure of flesh was already airtight and Amy continued to produce customized antigens as fast as her enemy could release new plagues.
Amy didn't have time to think. She twisted and wrenched her power on instinct, rapidly generating organs and compounds to counteract anything and everything leaking out of Bonesaw's body. She lost herself momentarily in the ocean of stars, nothing but changing and evolving life within the Heart that was her masterpiece.
"You're ruining everything! We were supposed to be a family," Bonesaw was… actually crying? "You're supposed to be a good big sister! Why are you so mean?"
Amy had no idea how to feel about that, so she decided to ignore it.
Another grasping hand managed to snag Bonesaw by the spine. A needle shot out in between the vertebrae and injected it with a new, interesting poison. The hand rotted so quickly it looked like a time-lapse, and Bonesaw slipped away again.
Amy made an antidote and brought more hands down to join the party, all the while growing more flesh to thicken and strengthen the enclosure.
Finally, after a frustrating game of cat and mouse, the trap grew too small for Bonesaw to evade her effectively. The scuttling head and spinal column made one last ditch attempt to dissolve the side of the living cage with acid, but Amy neutralized the corrosive agent as soon as it made contact with the wall. The momentary distraction was enough to catch Bonesaw's head in one hand, while her spine, mechanical legs, and multitude of syringes were enclosed in another. Amy heaved with as much force as the Amygdala's massive limbs could bring to bear.
Bonesaw's head popped free of her spine.
"Aw, rats," Bonesaw's head sighed.
Amy blinked.
Bonesaw blinked back.
What the fuck.
"I knew I should have quit while I was ahead," Bonesaw's head said sadly.
Taylor could deal with… that… later.
Amy pulled her focus out of her biosenses enough to look around with her physical body for the first time in… well, she wasn't sure how long, actually.
She still stood on her Amygdala's outstretched palm, thirty feet off the ground. Tendrils were wrapped tightly around her legs and waist to hold her upright while she was otherwise occupied.
Amy hadn't realized just how… extensive… her flesh garden had become. The parking lot was a forest of limbs and strange growths, alien organs with functions she only intuitively understood. The massive, living terrarium dominated the field of cracked concrete and twisted, fleshy appendages.
The rest of the Hunt, minus Taylor, just stared.
The Siberian appeared out of thin air right next to her, and Amy couldn't help but scream.
A black and white hand reached to crush her.
Taylor caught it, again.
With brutal, lightning-fast movements, Taylor braced her foot against the Siberian's back and ripped her arms off at the shoulders.
"Enough!" Taylor roared.
Amy couldn't do anything but watch as her girlfriend grabbed the Siberian roughly by the hair and wrenched her head back until the monster was staring up into Taylor's face from less than a foot away, bent backwards with one of Taylor's feet still braced against her spine.
"Look into my eyes, hollow shell."
Taylor's voice didn't sound human. It scraped against Amy's mind like nails on a chalkboard. Goosebumps shot up her spine and across the back of her neck.
Something dark and twisted stared out of Taylor's black eyes.
"You've overstayed your welcome in the waking world."
The Siberian froze. Perfectly, unnaturally still, like someone hit pause on a recording.
Taylor smiled.
"Hello, William."
Then the Siberian just… disappeared.
What the hell, Taylor?
And just like that, the night was eerily quiet.
Taylor stared down at her, standing on the hand of her own creation.
Amy looked back, adrenaline still pounding in her veins.
The air hung still, and silent.
"Sorry to keep you waiting," Taylor said with a tired smile. "Coming back from the dead is a tedious business."
Amy wanted to kiss her.
She wanted to punch her.
She wanted to laugh.
She wanted to scream.
She wanted to sleep.
She wanted to curl up in a ball and die.
Any one of those things would have been better than what her body decided to do, of its own accord, with no input or consultation from her useless brain.
Which was to burst into tears.
Fuck, shit, fuck.
She couldn't stop.
Why can't I stop?
Long, familiar arms encircled her gently, bones of steel and muscles of iron pulling her into Taylor's chest.
Amy hated herself. She was better than this, she was the fucking Vicar… but she just clutched at Taylor's tank top and sobbed incoherently into her collarbone. Tears and snot ran down Taylor's indestructible skin and soaked into the fabric below. The blinding galaxy of stars in Taylor's blood was as beautiful as ever, but it wasn't enough to dull the hysterics right now. If anything, it just made it worse.
Why am I like this?
Thin fingers threaded through her matted hair in careful, comforting patterns. It felt wonderful, and, of course, just made her cry harder.
I ruin everything.
It took her a while to realize Taylor was speaking in low, soothing tones, just over her left ear.
"...thing's okay, I love you, I missed you, I came back as fast as I could, I promise, you did such a good job…"
Fuck.
Amy took a deep, shuddering breath, and managed to stem the tide. Mostly. For now.
There was something important. Something she was forgetting. Something…
She pressed her face harder into the damp, burning skin of Taylor's chest.
"Love you, too," Amy whispered.
It came out watery and muffled, but Taylor would get it. She'd enhanced her senses to a ridiculous degree. What was all that bullshit good for, if not this?
After a few more calming breaths, Amy reluctantly un-stuck her face from Taylor's skin. She refused to look at or think about the disgusting mess she'd made. Or what her face probably looked like right now.
Taylor wouldn't care.
Black eyes traced over her face, and Taylor's wide smile lit up the night.
Her girlfriend reached up and ran a gentle hand down Amy's flushed, swollen cheek, uncaring about the tears and sweat and soot and blood and who knows what else.
And Amy couldn't help but smile, too. She tumbled into warm pools of obsidian, basking in their little bubble of solitude, finally back in force. The rest of the world fell away, and she was burning and frozen and tense and relaxed and flying all at once, and it was somehow wonderful and exhausting at the same time.
Taylor leaned in and kissed her, soft and gentle, short and sweet. Amy almost started crying again.
"I'll take it from here, if that's okay?" Taylor asked quietly.
Amy let out a watery chuckle and nodded.
"Please."
…
A/N: I was rereading the bit of canon with Jack in the parking garage and it struck me just how... annoying he was, without the inherent threat. When his audience isn't terrified, he quickly becomes pathetic. So, he got stomped. Ha. I know S9 arcs can be polarizing, but we'll move on quickly here. We'll check in with Colin next time, and its time for Taylor to get her house in order. Comments, feedback, and criticism are welcome and encouraged. I don't own Worm or Bloodborne. Do not offer to let the Old Blood crash on your couch, even when it makes pointed comments about living in its car.