[Another Woman]
"Well, at least she didn't kidnap her." said Naomi in her hotel room. "She brought her back, didn't she?"
"That's not what I'm talking about. It pisses me off that you decided to just go through with your... *scheme*… on the goddamn first contract with my new protege. I mean, what the fuck? She's already still mourning Natasha, and then you decide to compound that?"
"What does her grief have to do with my ambition?"
Olivia frowned. "You know I don't want Viktoria as president, either. But fuck, it's just -- any negative trait Iris sees in you is just gonna be another ratchet back how she thinks of me. You already forced yourself into this contract without anyone asking."
Naomi sighed. "Well, I'm sorry, but you know how I've planned this. I even warned you before this was what I would do. What did... wait. Wait a minute."
"What?"
"You were the one who invited me in the first place! You asked me along and you told me you wanted me to pair up with Viktoria, so you could spend time with Iris. YOU were the one who asked for me -- I wouldn't have even know about this contract unless you told me about it."
"That's not true. That's -- no, because I..." Olivia frowned. "Oh fuck, I did ask you to come, didn't I?"
Naomi laughed. "I mean, really. What exactly did you call me for? What did you expect?"
"To have a better sense of timing."
Someone knocked at the door. Olivia answered it: it was Iris. She smiled.
"Olivia, can we go out?" said Iris.
'There's about ten lesbians ahead of you in line for that.' thought Naomi.
"Sure thing, Iris." Olivia went out with her, and as they were walking out of the hotel: "Viktoria still sleeping?"
Iris nodded. Her eyes were smudged. She had woken up early today, and was reminded of when she & Natasha would wake up early to avoid Viktoria, to work out together and to eat breakfast. She dreaded that when this delivery was over, she would have to return to her house at Urasaria; she knew that the dead hours of the evening would make Natasha seem alive again in that emptiness, and loneliness would swell from the depths of her memories, even as their exact facts and senses were always in flux. In remembrance there had been an embedding, which the slightest of triggers would excavate from her.
It frustrated her that she could not predict her own reactions. But she thought to store these inside herself and keep them uncommented upon; she still felt wary of others and Olivia.
She did not speak much but to say that Viktoria was expecting them to leave in about an hour, and that she wanted to have breakfast before she left. Olivia made talk with her, but not much, and it was not until they left the diner that-
- a set of heavy black chains wrapped around them from behind and seared their skin, dragging them down into the suddenly-liquid sidewalk beneath and dunking them within! searing sand mixed within and threatened to peel off their skin as the chains tightened, their breath free but their bodies not, and as the chains deepened -
- Iris hit a drought and all the liquid around them disappeared leaving only the lone & level sands within their pool and rounding the decay, but still they hung as the chains tightened again. She glanced right and saw Baal's maw struggling to fully open beside, but its tongue was free; it slid in-between Iris's body & the chains, levering itself against her restraints, straining as it managed to peel some space for her -
- and its slippery saliva freed Iris from their grip entirely; she launched herself up & out of the pool with a gust of wind, turning back to hook a freed Olivia into her, landing on the solid sidewalk and turning to face their foe 50 ft away.
Olivia coughed. "Don't you love it when their Revenant makes picking them out easy?"
He was a hooded, tall figure with his face & body obscured by the robes of the clergy; dark chains fell from his wide sleeves.
"Wonder if it's remote." Iris frowned as his chains shot underground, and in the next instant -
- the two swept out to the road as the entire sidewalk crumbled into liquid, but as another chain hit the road -
- the asphalt turned into tar, and into the pit sank the two as another chain shot towards them; Olivia shouted for Baal and Baal's maw vomited a glob of tar into the chain, yet it disappeared as it hit it; Iris tried her wind to divert it but couldn't budge it, forcing her to dunk herself into the deeps to avoid it sailing overhead.
Swimming slow within the pit, she felt the heat of chains fishing for above; random pockets of air tried to pull her in as she continued to swim with the strength of a host. She mused to herself that Baal's appetite would keep Olivia safe, giving herself another injection of air as she kept her legs moving.
She felt more chains fishing around her, and she felt an enormous pile of heat 10ft above her; she dived left and shot herself further with a gust of wind -
- and hit a chain head-on; it curled instantly around her, yanking her up & out of the pit, right to her foe 10ft away as the searing metal tightened around her neck. She saw now the source of the heat; he had melted a car into molten metal to trick her, and as another searing chain wrapped around her leg -
- her snow formed internally and the cold kept the heat away, but she couldn't keep it away for long. Her free palm swept towards him and a bolt of white lightning came out that shuddered his grip; a gust of wind blasted herself back & away, and as she shot another geyser of lava towards him -
- a chain blocked it and the lava disappeared. She landed on the road and 30ft away, still seeing vague movements in the tar behind him; more chains wrapped around the cars nearby and melted them into molten metal, and as the chains burrowed underground to fish for Olivia once more -
" - Meteorology!" shouted Iris, sweeping her hands forward; a super-chilled wind came out that froze the molten metal solid, and as another chain shot towards her -
- another gust of wind swept her to the left yet kept her feet on the road; the chain hit a truck behind her and she hit it with another wind to chill it.
Ahead, Olivia shot out of the tar & 5ft behind him; Baal's tongue shot around his neck as a glob of metal vomit hit his skull, encasing it as it readied to pull him into the gaping maw; Iris launched herself forward with her green lightning readied -
- but an enormous fist slammed into her right and sent her flying into the shop at her left, smashing clear through the entrance and sliding in her landing, a few wounds as she staggered up confused. An enormous golem of wax was rapidly forming ahead of the store, as tall as three lesbians; two arms hung from its hulking, bent figure, no discernible legs but one base as it slithered to just outside the entrance to the store. A few minute chains seemed to keep its form taut; she knew it was the same Revenant, and as it curled its enormous fist underneath the store's entrance, it uppercut the ceiling and sent chunks of debris flying towards her -
- but her wind blasted it back to sender and into the golem went the debris; it staggered for a moment and shook its lack-of-head.
'People'll learn eventually not to use projectiles against us.' She rubbed her heart some and tried not to worry about Olivia; she tried to attempt not to see her as a person and pretended she did not know her well enough for that. 'Lava won't work; it'll set it alight.'
Ahead, the golem's fist was planted in the roof. She knew a rain of wax was soon to come as the ceiling cracked above. A tsunami wouldn't work due to the risk of hot wax splatter, so as drops of wax began dripping from the ceiling -
- an avalanche of snow shot over them and shoved them all back up to the roof; Iris had one hand raised and a constant jet of snow exiting her palm, but ahead, the golem planted its remaining fist into the floor -
- and she jumped once with her other hand pointed down; another avalanche of snow shoved the foul invaders back to their home. Still, the room was shrinking, both above & below, a constant carpet & ceiling of snow, the vision narrowing of her foe ahead. Carefully, she trudged forward and kept her path frozen to ice, though she felt even that begin to crack as she moved.
Two chained eyes formed in the golem ahead and stared her down; she now had only a few feet of space in each vertical direction, and in the next instant -
- the golem's form thinned and heavy jets of wax shot towards her in her own trap -
- Iris smirked. "Thanks for thinning yourself."
The next scene was instant. Hooks of wind pulled the rest of the golem in the store with her; a jet of lava cleared her escape tunnel up above and she shot herself up there, glancing down in midair just at the edge of her range with the golem trapped below -
- and the twin avalanches collapsed it under millions of pounds of pressure and snow, her own pressure system forming to add into the mix; out above the store now, she launched herself over to another street and soon landed there, shops & cars & roads in their eternal position (known to any reader by now).
She wiped some snow off of her neck, still hearing the vague sound of violence in the distance. "Shouldn't be much-"
- a knife of wax formed on her cheek and sliced her ear clear off -
" - FUCK!" she shouted, grabbing the straggling wax off from her and blasting it with a geyser of lava -
- but only setting it alight -
- she threw it off from her and a rocket of wind shot it into the stratosphere; she was still cursing as she hit the sidewalk, corner that led left up ahead; she crossed the street and kept her run going, green electricity covering her to purge anything foreign and ice plugging up her wound.
"God damnit, I should've -- God damnit." she grunted. She had been harsher upon herself lately; she felt that Meteorology's bacteria deserved the best host she could be.
Coming up on another corner, she glanced left and saw the road was the tar pit where this had began: she heard many screams in the distance. Still she ran across more streets, buildings at her left and sidewalk ahead as she ran.
"Should've… God damnit, I need to check if that lightning actually works on these..." she muttered. Her Revenant continued to supply her enjoyment of violence, sadism and increased reactions; she felt a powerful menace about her, stronger than she had ever before with Phantom, her electricity & wind & pressure particularly far greater. She wondered if it was what Natasha had felt.
She came up to another corner and peeked left at the next street; she saw a variety of wax & humanoid figures dotting the road, seemingly searching.
'Olivia went underground.' she thought.
Many melted cars were sitting in the road, and she realized fully the Revenant now; wax necromancy and these purifying chains; he had purified the cars back into their constituent elements, taking the plastic from them and purifying them further into wax. No time to waste, she rushed up the road to meet these draff soldiers; she stopped once 20ft separated them and they began to slither towards her. They had no legs and were about her height, yet their arms were pointed & sharp.
Moe slashed their way out of the nearby stores to meet her, and soon she was surrounded. She realized now that they needed to kill him before he accrued too many of these soldiers; else they would need to find a way to permanently decay them.
Dozens of soldiers surrounded her in every direction, their blade-arms drawn and sharp, now slithering towards her; she braced her green electric fists as a circle of them came 5ft within range -
- and a gust of wind launched herself up & over them, landing outside of the circle completely and rushing up the same road, snickering to herself (and perhaps at you for expecting otherwise) as she ran. She glanced back and saw a car still standing, so she blasted it back into the horde of draff and bolt of green lightning lit the fuse for an explosion that claimed the entire swarm -
- but she sighed as their wax splattered everywhere, already beginning to form new brethren out of their dead as she ran up the road. 'Electricity might still work. Could reverse time and revert them into- no, that's Phantom- gotta get my mind out of that habit. Lava, they'll resist the melt and grow hotter.'
She turned the corner left and was rushing up the next sidewalk, stores at her left when in the next instant -
- Baal's tongue shot out from the left and yanked her into a jewelry store; she landed beside Olivia in the middle of the store, turning to request that she please not surprise her again -
- but her lips shut as she saw Olivia's wounds. She had been cut up and random globs of metal were strewn across the floor. No customers nor employees were left in the store, and a few miniscule pieces of wax still shuddered in the corner as Olivia checked Iris over for wounds; a reversal she thought odd but accepted.
"You know you're missing an ear?"
"What?!" shouted Iris and Olivia giggled.
"We'll patch it after. Just don't lose a limb." Baal's maw was chewing on a few diamonds, its tongue with a few cuts from trying to eat the wax. "Diamond-coated metal vomit -- it's sharp enough to slice through the wax, but I was waiting for you before -"
- they heard the sound of drilling coming from the metallic debris, and in the next instant -
- drills of wax escaped their prison and shot towards Olivia; Iris swept in front of her to take the hit, slowing them with a hand of snow before they struck her and blasting them away with her wind as they hit her. She backed away with Olivia to the back of the store, and in the next instant -
- an enormous waxblade sliced through the entire back wall and nearly bisected both of them; Iris turned and grabbed Olivia as the back of the store collapsed, revealing a wax golem hulking over them, the height of 20 lesbians & the width of 10 (or 2 in Florida), and as its gargantuan blade swept down again -
- Baal's full tongue unfurled & unfurled from its maw, diamonds coating its saliva as it swept up to meet the blade -
- and the two met 10ft above the two; craning, grunting with heavy exertion, Olivia shouted once more to Baal and its tongue swept back down -
- and its next slice up lopped the blade clear off; Iris knew she had no time to waste. She launched both herself & Olivia up and to the beast's midsection; Baal's tongue wildly slashed as the wind carried them higher, and higher, and higher again, slicing the beast into several pieces -
- but streams of wax shot out from its shoulders and grabbed them both in midair, top quickly for Iris to counter as it halted their advance; she winced as the streams tightened, glancing over to Baal and expecting some reprieve... but wax covered its maw and bad it wrenched tightly shut, its mouth still raging against its restraints as they hung 50ft in the air. Chains swung at them from below but did not yet land, the streams attempting to dunk them further down, but a pressure system halted them from the cacophonous black below.
More wax slithered in to tighten their restraints...
"T-Tablet." gasped Olivia. "N-Naomi and V-Viktoria." (She said the latter name like it would summon turds in her mouth.) "C-Can you reach?"
Streams of igneous rock surrounded the gripping arms and a blade of blackened stone tried to slice through, but more wax constantly formed; she could keep them only from intruding past their wrists, Baal's maw still engaged at her side. Blood seeped from their wrists as the wax sliced from her, and Iris felt again that shift in herself as snow formed to prevent them from invading her deepening wounds.
Olivia's tablet was covered in wax; she needed first to free Baal. A drill of igneous rock formed at the wax holding Baal shut; a swift wind set it spinning and churning, but the wax overpowered it; it slowed its advance and only embedded the drill further as the grip of wax taxed at their bones. Their blood soaked into the white, and Iris tried again to summon that durability she had against Salvatore... another shift occured and she sensed now what it meant, the why for later.
She tried to search for where she could not manipulate: she felt his Revenant only in the wax which moved, not the whole of its unliving mass. Something latched upon her back but could not leave her body; it made no attempt to pull nor harm her as she felt the power of her pressure system grow below, and in the next instant -
- the igneous drill hyper-accelerated and blasted through every single layer of wax upon Baal's maw, churning & spitting out wax at a ferocious pace; its teeth had just barely opened when Iris shouted for Olivia to accept the next Revenant she felt -
- and when Baal chewed its teeth gnashed as a thousand times their normal speed, ripping & tearing & destroy through whatever wax remained on its fetid lips, then ripping clear through all the restraints still holding the two -
- and a hyper-accelerated jet of wind blasted them straight to the center of the golem; Baal's maw ripped a clear hole through it and they exited out the other end, Baal still enjoying its newfound accelerated appetite as they hit the ground softly in a nearby parking lot, Olivia turning as they landed and asking quick: "What the fuck was that?"
Iris saw a few ethereal strands caught in Baal's teeth but could not know what this meant; she recognized their source but felt nervous at what it implied. "I-I - it's mine."
Olivia glanced quizzically at her but saved it for later; she turned her eyes to the storefront ahead and saw two golems guarding it, the size of two small shops. She saw their hooded foe standing within but did not see the store's merchandise (if there were any left). No time to waste, she pat Iris on the back and began her rush forward with her; 50ft separated them from the entrance to the store as the golems eyed them, and as they came 30ft within range -
- their fists bore down upon the two and readied to slam; Baal's maw readied, but midway down, searing chains stabbed through the beasts and set them entirely alight, grabbing two nearby cars and throwing them towards the two as the vehicles exploded -
- but an ethereal strand reverted them back to their owners and the re-created explosion sent their wax splattering in several directions; Iris shouted for Meteorology as she felt his Revenant leave the rain of wax -
- and the wax reverted back into the oil from which it had been processed; Baal caught a few on its tongue as they kept their rush going to the store, and with a mighty gurgle, vomited a glob of oil that hyper-accelerated into the store -
- hitting their foe torso-on; he bursts into flames and shrieked as he staggered in agony, his hooded figure baptized in fire as they rushed only 10ft away from the store now. Beside & above, the corpses of the golems reformed into two blades, sweeping to block the entrance of the store; one blade swept into the two -
- but a hyper-accelerated & vomited diamond-cutter slashed right through it -
- and when it hit their foe hiding behind, it lopped his right arm clear off and sent it sailing into the back of the store. Olivia & Iris rushed into the store, seeing him staggering up ahead -
" - oh, *that's* why." sighed Olivia, relevantly, stopping as candles rushed rapidly into their path; the store's merchandise revealed. A wall of wax formed rapidly behind them and another up ahead, blocking them from their foe as he tried to flee - but for the next instant scene.
All of the walls of wax reverted back into oil and Iris felt again that dominance over another living Revenant; to return it again to the ether and overpower it; her foe revealed again, she swept her right hand out and shouted for Meteorology: a tornado burst out and shot across the store at him, grabbing all of the oil and wrapping it tightly around him, his screams growing and enjoyed as bolts of green lightning erupted from her hands -
- and blasted him into charred pieces across the store, only a barely-beating heart remaining of his form.
The wax dulled, and was unliving once more. Olivia crouched down to scan, then quickly turned to Iris.
[Bishop Glimmer: Wax necromancy; purification through its holy chains.]
"Iris, what's going on?" She went over to Iris and put her hand on her shoulder, then seemed genuinely startled as Iris felt a presence.
An enormous spider, the size of Iris's torso, was latched upon her back. Its legs and spinneret eternally weaved ethereal strands, and it had one million eyes. As Iris mentally crawled it from her back and to her chest, she saw that swirling around its strands were miniature rains, drops of snow that heated into bursts of lava and other weather.
Her spider's return did not comfort her; instead she felt more nervous than before. "I-I don't know, this i-isn't... I-I had Meteorology transferred to me, but I don't -- it's not like we don't already have similar a-abilities, I just -- I don't know why I wouldn't have Meteorology, or if something damaged her Revenant w-when I was..." Her face tightened, and Olivia rubbed her shoulder.
"It's called Phantom, right? Your spider?"
"Y-Yes, it was."
"Can you create ash with Phantom?"
"No, but that's not something Meteorology can do, either."
"Try it."
Iris set her mind out and a geyser of volcanic ash erupted ahead; she was surprised, as Natasha had never used this in front of her. She was relieved yet confused as she looked to Olivia to thank her, and it seemed that seeing the ability had put her deep in the serendipity of time. There seemed something serene and perfect to her dolor, that if Iris were to disturb she would crumble into tears.
Iris thought of the times when she had asked for Natasha's help training at Urasaria's gym. It was an absurd sight compared to civilian gyms, given hosts are estimated at 5-10x the physical strength of civilians. Natasha had warned her this absurd strength was mostly useless for fights and only students & men really found it attractive.
On a typical Tuesday, Natasha would put away sets of 800lb overhead presses. Her training regiment included many reps of this, and a Revenant-assisted static hold at the end. She was close to maxing out with 1000lbs.
Here, Iris realized that she had never seen Viktoria smile, for whenever Natasha would bring up this milestone she had never reacted. But Natasha was gaining strength, and her callused hands could soon heft 975lbs and resist its downward pull for a minute or so more. And a few weeks before she died, Iris had watched her put 1000lbs overhead and hold it above her head for nearly sixty seconds.
Natasha had told Viktoria of this accomplishment when they ran into her again, but there was still not a smile, not an anticipation of one, or a return of the one Natasha herself beamed, which to Iris's mind had soon dissipated as her fingers had around her phone. She loved Natasha, but she realized now that it had been a difficult thing to respect in her: the dim, unceasing grip of her mentor.
Time folded over itself, then thinned as Olivia sighed.
"I'm sorry, Iris. We'll have Hirogane check on it when we're back at Urasaria, okay? But you have Meteorology. You couldn't do any of that in the fight without it. Not the igneous drill, not the wind. Okay?"
Iris nodded.
Despite that Olivia had not shown grief as Iris had, Iris thought of her as accommodating; she had told Iris her wariness for counters in fights and had now tried to reassure her about Meteorology, worries Iris subtly had yet could not fully name, for identification was not a skill Iris generally possessed towards herself.
They went back to their hotel. Viktoria was waiting outside of their room and seemed bemused by Olivia as they walked up. "There you are, Iris. Come, we have another few hours of driving ahead of us."
Viktoria tried to lead her off and Iris pulled away. "I still need to put some patches on, god damnit. You see my ear? We just came back from a fight. You didn't see the entire city turning to goddamn wax?"
"Of course. And you dealt with it. I told you we would be leaving as soon as possible. Apply them on the way there. I would prefer to spend as little time in the Midwest as possible."
"Iris, you know you don't have to go with her, right?" said Olivia. "Unless you actually like all her Puritan shit."
"Of course to you a functioning morality is Puritan." said Viktoria. "It shouldn't be surprising, given how selfishly you treated Natasha. You fooled around with her for your pleasure, and then when you had enough, you wanted to sweep her under the rug. Deep down you know you kid yourself with any notion you have of grief for her; yet now you try to extend that same bit of fraudulent sympathy and expect to reap her protege as your reward instead."
Olivia shrugged. "Guess so. Got anything else?"
Viktoria sneered. "I have nothing left to say to you but this: God took the wrong one."
Baal's maw opened and vomited on Viktoria's face. She stumbled back and cursed, wiping her expression off.
"I should fucking smack you." said Olivia. "But I won't, because Iris is here."
Viktoria looked to Iris for sympathy, yet there seemed a petulant intentionality to how she gazed. Iris saw that Viktoria had been attempting to infect her with the same beast that inhabited herself; her cruel propriety and how she had made Natasha's death a distinct unit of narrative for herself, for her mind to pull and play apart; that she could arrange and use to set askew the conceptions of others.
"Viktoria, get the hell out of my sight." said Iris.
Viktoria was shocked. "Iris, what do you think you are-"
"GET OUT! GET THE FUCK OUT!"
Viktoria's face tensed; she was starting or attempting to cry, almost disappointedly at Iris. But she no longer had to pretend hope for her, so she left the hall and her.
Olivia watched this all, but took no pleasure in it. "Would've been nice if I could've smacked her instead."
"I'll do it myself next time I see her. God damnit. The way she uses Natasha pisses me right off. I don't know why I ever thought that she might've..." She let Olivia lead her back into their room and sat on her bed. She turned away and was starting to cry. "…g-god damnit, I've just been on the defensive this entire trip. I haven't slept well. I-I'm so goddamn tired of having to obey my life and not control it. Maybe I was able to rid myself of Viktoria, but my parents and mentor are still d-dead, s-something's wrong with her Revenant, I-I haven't talked to Amelie in weeks, a-and my uncle is still drinking a-at home."
Olivia sat down beside her. Iris tried to leave, but an old reserve held her for now. "I'm sorry, Iris."
"Why? It's n-not your fault. All my life I-I've tried to invest myself into a universe that does nothing to persuade me to stay in it."
"No, but I'm guessing Viktoria isn't the only one putting you on the defensive." Olivia sighed. "I know Naomi doesn't care about you. She might pretend otherwise, but she told me before we left Urasaria that she was planning on killing Viktoria. I had an argument with her this morning about it."
Some other time this might have been a revelation to Iris, but she did not really care now. She had not been naive enough to believe otherwise. "I thought she was your mentor."
"Naomi? Yeah. We're best friends and we share everything. But I'm not too close to her to avoid seeing when she does something and doesn't care if it fucks up my friendship with you. I don't care if Viktoria dies, but you're my protege and you're suffering. I have an obligation to help you."
Iris did not respond for a while, but she had heard this rhetoric before, of obligation and duties. Many times she thought it was foolish. Yet now, she felt that if she could adopt Olivia's mindset, perhaps there could be a mode of expression that captured her, both in the mind & the spirit; a temporary subsumption of herself into something arbitrary but deeper. "I suppose Viktoria despises me now, then. Maybe she already had."
"She seemed disappointed, to me, actually. She doesn't look at you how she does me. She disliked me from the first day she mentored me, whereas with you... I don't think she was necessarily lying when she said she was glad Meteorology went to a good host. But her seeing something in you is about as bad as her not seeing something in you."
Iris nodded. Her voice was a bit hoarse. "I noticed she treated Natasha like that. M-Maybe I thought I had to inhabit that role, in an odd way."
"You've managed to remove Viktoria from your life, though. That's something Natasha wasn't able to do."
"Was that why you seemed to have that regret when you mentioned her to me? During swap week?"
Olivia shrugged. "Well, as I said, what happened happened. I was angry at Natasha, especially after Viktoria confronted me about it. But I suppose part of the reason I was angrier at Natasha was I saw her as someone who had the ability to distance herself from Viktoria. She knew that she should have, but she was constantly pardoning Viktoria. That isn't me saying she's weak, but that she was eventually beyond my hope."
Iris nodded, as Olivia took her fingers and began stroking them. "You're still tense, Iris. I can feel it."
"I still need some patches."
Olivia took some patches out of her purse and let Iris apply them herself. Iris was not sure she wished to talk more, as she felt vaguely threatened by this sympathy; that soon another machination of the universe would remove Olivia as well.
Olivia took her fingers again. "Nope. Still tense."
"It isn't because of you." muttered Iris. "I've just felt too tense recently. I've had a difficult time relaxing."
"But I'm guessing this isn't just something recent. Is it?"
"It isn't. I just... don't think that's important."
"But it is, or otherwise you wouldn't be feeling it." said Olivia. "I can tell that there's something to the world that you're trying to avoid. And I've known you for nearly a month, Iris; enough to say that you separate your toughness and gentleness in a way you seem afraid to openly bridge."
"What are you, a therapist?"
"Well, I pick up on people's difficulties pretty well, Iris. That's why women like me." said Olivia. "That, and my huge tits."
They laughed a little.
"…I don't know." said Iris. "It isn't just a single event. An ex-girlfriend, dead parents, or a childhood bully... I remember Natasha had this joke where whenever she would fail a lift, she said it was because her parents hadn't loved her enough."
Olivia snickered. "She was legit hilarious."
"She was. I suppose it was easier to lower that separation with her, but... it's been difficult recently." Iris wiped her eyes. "…I suppose maybe there was... there was a time when I was younger, and I dated an older woman. I was 14, and she was in her early 20s. It wasn't actually the relationship part of it that bothers me. It does, now, but not at the time. She did have sex with me, and I suppose that would be rape... I don't mean to speak for any experience but my own. But when my mind rests on it, it's more something I notice than something I feel. You know?"
"I understand, Iris."
"There were these two highschool kids who would come to her work and harass her. Sometimes sexually, so she said. She said it disgusted her how young men treated and are taught to treat women. It was odd, because when I was my age, I thought that she was mature and that dating her indicated the same with myself: but now I'm closer to her age and feel further away from her than I ever had.
But with the boys, she asked me if I could help deal with them for her, and I suppose part of what made me susceptible was that she made me feel useful to her. Useful was generally not a word I knew in those months after my parents died. Soon they showed up to her work, and they were teasing her again. They followed her back to her car, but not close enough to threaten her physically. It was late, and I came out carrying two baseball bats. I hoisted them both up and pulled them around to the back of the lot. I had already been putting some electricity into them, so they knew I was a host, and I knew they were afraid."
"What did you do?"
"I took a baseball bat and I told the first one to get on his knees and say his prayers, and that if God didn't care for him then I wouldn't either. It was torturous, even if they were perverts. But instead of slamming his head apart, I gave him the first baseball bat and his friend the second one. I forced them to fight each other, and not with weak swings, either: they ended with as many bruises and broken bones as if I had done it myself. I let them call an ambulance, but with the alibi that they had fought each other themselves and the threat to kill them if they spoke of me.
Now I go back to her, and she's frightened: not from what she could hear but because she worries my student status will be threatened. A few days later, in class, I learn that the two hadn't shown up to school in a few days. Then a few weeks. Their parents might've moved: I was never quite certain. She heard of it, somehow, and I thought possibly she would become frightened of me; that I had inadvertently killed them and might kill her. But instead she seemed happier, and furthered her love for me, and I felt that I had done an ostensibly good thing by defending my girlfriend.
Years on, I still have some deep-rooted guilt over it. Torturing civilians is the work of civilian cops, and I've always hated cops. But the world certainly hadn't felt like a just one in those years, one that I would be punished for if I violated it. I viewed it almost like this great natural force, but one imbued with human emotion; that I could hurt it or bring it to an end with my Revenant or another close instrument. … I suppose that's about all I want to mention of her, so you don't think I'm odder than you already do."
"I don't think you're odd, Iris. I think it's unfortunately pretty common for gay people to have that sort of experience with a pedophile. I can't judge you for what you did when you were younger: your empathy wasn't fully developed. Even then, it isn't like you were hurting innocent people. But I guess it just sticks with me is that she wanted you to be one way, and how she forced you to go it for approval."
Iris nodded. She was not sure if she believed Olivia's phrasing that she was forced to develop as she had, yet she latched to it nonetheless. She rationalized her guilt and denied it for now, else she could not resume living.
===
Iris stayed in Olivia's room for the night (not the first lesbian student to do so) and walked out with her the next morning.
A car pulled up and the window withdrew: it was Naomi. She was wearing a shirt with a drawing of a uterus that said: 'Get one and then you can tell it what to do.'
"Have either of you seen Viktoria?"
"No, I thought she went with you." said Olivia. "Did she seriously leave?"
Iris was not surprised. Viktoria could no longer find any friendliness from anyone here; it was no wonder she had left.
Naomi shrugged. "Well, we're leaving in a few minutes if she's here or not. I need to stop for gas, though."
"Iris, can you revert it?" said Olivia.
Iris chronoshifted while Naomi was puzzled. Olivia said she'd explain it later, then: "You know, we could just never turn the contract in and keep her rank frozen."
"I'm not ahead of her right now. Kate hasn't sent me and Serena out much." said Naomi. "But I'll be ahead by the end of the year."
Iris mostly stayed to the side and pretended it was taking a while. Despite her like for Olivia, her view of Naomi was that if Natasha already had only tolerated Viktoria, her first mentor was likely even worse. Over the years she tended to try to fill Natasha's role in this way; that whoever Natasha had liked she tried to like and those she hated she tried to despise. There was an outline of Natasha that her intelligence tried to recreate, to make Natasha's impulses plain to her understanding by supplying the actions that could explain her.
She saw Olivia and Naomi talking amongst themselves. What it was she could not grasp, though it seemed private. So she simply observed. She thought especially of Olivia, and tried to think of herself in relation to another person again, a thing that had she had been scared to do recently, so stained it was by her parents and now Natasha's deaths, lingering at the edges of a young life that had been defined by rusting old buildings and rotting graffiti.
[END OF ARC: THE INSECT WOMAN]