Guardian
a Worm/Destiny Crossover
Chapter 8: Learn to Throw a Punch
Today was the third day since being made a Guardian. Sunday. Two days since she made her debut, and not yet one day since she had intentionally sought out conflict. Three days in which a good many things had changed, or perhaps that went without saying. Perhaps it was because so many things had changed that this had slipped through the net. Or perhaps it was something else; some sort of deliberate misdirection on her Ghost or father's part, because she couldn't fathom a reason that she'd gone three days without noticing she hadn't been wearing glasses. She'd only been wearing them for close to ten years, after all.
She sounded ungrateful, even to herself, and that couldn't be further from the truth. It wasn't that she'd exactly minded wearing them. That being said, she wouldn't miss them, and even took a sort of glee in relegating the dark, square frames to the very back of the bottom desk drawer. She closed it with a certain finality and did a happy little spin on her office chair, turning it into three on account of misjudging her own strength. Which, now that she thought about it, was something she couldn't keep doing. Through instinct, some integral part of being a Guardian, or blind luck she'd been able to muddle through the fight at the convenience store without killing anyone. She hurt, maimed, and seriously injured, but killed? No.
Looking back, a lot of her fights had been longer and more painful for all parties involved because she'd either held back too much or had a very small idea of what she was doing. According to her Ghost, being made a Guardian came with certain instincts and innate skills. In a way, being a Hunter dictated how those skills and instincts came to the fore. It accounted for her newfound speed and skill in stealth, not to mention her knife and everything related to it. By all measurements, that was a good start, but she needed – no, wanted – more. She wanted to become more skilled. She wanted to know how to fight, how to shoot, how to Hunt. To get what she wanted, she would need to find something. A teacher, a trainer, a master, sifu, sensei, whatever they chose to call themselves, she needed one.
In this age, the marvels of technology meant that finding one would be relatively easy. Finding a good one, on the other hand, probably wouldn't be. Either way, she needed to borrow her dad's computer. Outdated and chunky as it was, it had held up well over the years and would more than serve in her search. She sat up from her slump as an idea occurred to her. One that meant she wouldn't have to pester her dad while he worked. "Hey, Ghost. I need to ask you something."
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The sign out front claimed the place was John's, and it looked nothing like she'd expected. Weren't places like this supposed to have a wall of floor to ceiling windows to draw the eye of people walking past? This place didn't have that, instead having a cheap, if clean whitewashed exterior wall and exactly four windows. They didn't look all that different than the one she'd slipped through the night before. The front door was solid wood, with metal strips screwed into it and a repeat of the sign's claim of ownership. In short, it didn't look like the sort of place that the best trainer in the city called home. Her Ghost hadn't steered her wrong thus far, so...She took a deep breath, ignored the slight tension in her shoulders, and made her way inside.
Inside continued to violate her expectations. No mirrors, very little equipment, and no weirdly bouncy floor to practice on. The room was a wide, wooden-floored square arrangement. A heavy bag hung in one corner, black and battered and mended with X's of electrical tape. There was a clear plastic box across the room from that, in which lay a variety of gloves and pads that smelled old and worn to her nose. The floor itself was scuffed and sanded smooth, lacking polish or varnish or wax. It was exactly as it appeared to be; a floor in which someone taught how to fight.
"You need something?" The voice came from behind her, and sounded like rocks sliding against each other. Her heart jumped and she spun around, hair whipping in front of her face and she very carefully did not reach for her knife. Her first thought was that no man that large should be able to sneak up on anyone. He was huge, well over six feet, with a face hewn from stone and dark, tired eyes. Black hair tinted with gray hung around his face, and he was so wide and packed with muscle it made Armsmaster look tiny. This, she supposed, was John.
"Um. Yes." After hearing how meek she sounded, she made an effort to put some spine back into her voice. Whether or not it worked was for the birds. "I was hoping you could teach me to fight."
John grunted. He gave her a slow, assessing once over from tip to toe, spending an extra second near her middle, before grunting again. She got the impression he didn't talk much. "Why?"
She coughed. She couldn't help it. He was huge and quiet and intimidating in a way that Strongman hadn't been. The mad German had been tall and muscled, true, and insane to boot, but John had a presence that Strongman had lacked. "Because I want to."
His jaw worked. He sniffed, snorted, then walked out the center of the floor. "Better reason than most have, I guess. Let's see what you got, then I'll see if I can help you."
She took a slow, deep breath, and stepped out onto the floor. He was on her almost immediately.
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This. This was the reason she had wanted training. John had, from the very beginning, outclassed her. She had supernatural strength, speed, reflexes, and a wickedly sharp knife and it had done her no good whatsoever. Well, maybe some good, but from where she was slumped in a folding chair, holding a hand to her chest and panting like an excitable dog, it didn't seem like much. What she had just gone through had rather neatly illustrated the difference between instinct and training. Between a Merchant and an Empire member. Between her and many of the people she'd be putting herself up against. The sound of rusted metal squeaking and a solid thud preluded John's sitting across from her. By contrast, he didn't look winded. He rumbled his question that sounded more like a statement. "You're a parahuman."
She ran her tongue over her teeth and suppressed the well of panic. She hadn't tried to hide it, exactly, and was doing so more because it was expected of her than any inability to protect her and hers, but it still provoked a reaction. Took a long moment to decide how, or if, to respond. "Not...exactly."
He shrugged. "Wouldn't be the first to come looking for help. More'n likely won't be the last." He paused, and flexed the muscles in his jaw while a contemplative look – as far as she could tell – passed across his face. "Think I can help you. Teach you what you want to know. 'Fore you say yes, I got two rules. First, don't hold back. Makes a bad habit. Second, and most important, is that whatever you do with what I teach, make sure it's for something good. There's enough shit in this world without you adding to it. Sound good?"
Taylor nodded. "Sounds good." Then, because she'd watched too many movies and couldn't help herself. "Do I call you sensei?"
Something that could, with the right light and circumstance, be called a smile flitted across John's face. "John'll do, I think. Or sir, if you insist. Now get, I gotta think about your training. Be back here day after tomorrow, 1300 hours." He stood, picking up the chair in one hand and kneeing it closed. She made to get the one she'd been using, but he waved her away. "I'll get it."
She insisted. "You're going to teach me to fight. The least I can do is help out a little."
He grumbled, but let her follow him to the supply room and put the chairs away. She left with an ache in her chest, sweat sticking in her hair, and the notion that this might not have been a terrible idea after all.
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She got a very strange look from her dad when she got home. It might have something to do with how she had left, in the middle of a cold-ish spring day, with a jacket and without a sweaty face and came back with the inverse. She just smiled at him and said hello, going into the kitchen to find something to satisfy a sudden fruit craving that had become self-aware about a block from the house. From the living room drifted her dad's question. "So how'd it go? With the trainer, I mean."
An orange called to her craving, so she snatched it from the fridge and made her way back to the living room, dropping onto the couch hard enough to bounce a few times. This jostled the fan of paperwork her dad had spread across his lap and the adjacent cushion, and earned her a not-at-all pleased look. She winced, projecting sheepishness from every feature. "Sorry. It went well, I think. I'm not real sure, he didn't talk much, but he did tell me to come back day after tomorrow, so that's...something."
"And the reason you're all sweaty is...?"
Taylor offered a disingenuous, "I got hot?", which didn't go over at all. In fact, based on the slowly rising eyebrow her dad was displaying, it might have even made things worse. "Okay, well, that wasn't a lie. The trainer...wanted to know if he could teach me. So we sparred. And I lost handily."
Her dad chewed on his pen in a contemplative manner, a nasty habit she had tried to break him of and failed for years. "You think he might be a parahuman?"
Orange rind got stuck in her fingernails as she peeled the skin away. "No, but he knows I am. More or less."
The pen fell out of his mouth. "You're awfully calm about that."
She waved a piece of orange in a demonstrative manner. "It's not like I'd have been able to hide it! Not easily, and I certainly wouldn't have been able to learn anything of value if I did! So yeah, more or less I'm okay with it."
Her dad held up a finger, as if about to make a point, then let it fall. "I could make a thing out of this, but I was up until three this morning waiting for you to get back and woke up at six because someone was sawing logs like it was her job. So instead I'm going to trust that my brilliant, beautiful daughter knows what she's doing. Even if she's sweaty and gross."
Taylor rolled her eyes, feeling annoyed and pleased at his statement. It was nice to be trusted. Really, really nice. But she could have gone without the teasing. So she got back at him by giving him a big, tight hug and making sure to rub her forehead on his shirt. He grumbled and threatened bodily harm, disowning, and beatings – the usual – but made no real effort to stop her.
Even so, he had a point, so after she finished her orange she disposed of the rind and went to luxuriate in one of the modern world's greatest inventions. The shower.
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There wasn't much time left in the day, and that was something to be grateful for. She had packed as much into the past day than most people did in three, and frankly, she was ready for a night off. She held out hope, but was expecting something to do as it usually did and make her tentative plans go away. Was it Murpy's Law that covered that particular quirk of the universe, or some other one? So many of them were knocking around and describing so many different situations that she had given up trying to keep them straight. Since she couldn't, it was Murphy and his Law that might keep her from a good night's sleep.
Her dad had an armchair. Every dad had one, or so she believed, and they were all fiercely protective of them. It would, she mused, be an effective and low-key test of her Hunter skills to snag it. Her clothes weren't suitable for stealth, or armchair thievery, but she would triumph over this obstacle and prevail. She paused just above the last step down into the living room, which squeaked occassionally, and let the sounds of her dad's evening routine drift through the air. The TV, thankfully not displaying the news, went on about a period in history so far back as to have very few concrete facts about it. Paper rustled as he turned a page in a book, and he stifled a cough. It wouldn't be long now, and he would get up to get something to drink, and then...she would steal his chair.
She waited, patient and still, for the perfect moment.
Now!
Quick and quiet as a cat, she padded across the living room and sank into the chair with painstaking slowness. In the kitchen, she heard liquid splashing into a glass and the fridge opening and closing. Milk, then, or perhaps a beer. Regardless, victory was hers. Comfort was sweeter when it was stolen. She put on her most innocent expression as he came back into the room. "Taylor. You're in my chair."
"It's comfy."
He hummed his agreement. "That's why I bought it. For me to use."
"Didn't you tell me that sharing was important? Every day for six years of my life?"
A nod. "I did. And since I'm not a hypocrite, I'm gonna share my chair with you."
Then he sat on her. Daniel Hebert sat on his daughter. She shrieked and flailed, adding to the image the two created of a strange turtle on its back, while he calmly watched television and sipped his drink. Then there was a sound that made them both stop, coming from the air above the coffee table. It was a sound neither of them had ever heard before. It was synthetic, burred, and pleasant to hear. It was the sound, Taylor realized, of her Ghost laughing itself silly.
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"Sabah came by earlier." Her dad had finally released her from her punishment and let her relocate to the couch, where she had sprawled out across its length. The odd glare she had sent his way every few seconds slid off his back like they never existed. His expression was that of deep interest in his book and an equally deep smug. Pleased with himself was closer to the truth, but Taylor wasn't in the most charitable of moods. Being sat on does that to a person.
It was why she grunted instead of saying anything. She wasn't sulking. The outside observer could be forgiven for thinking she was, though. It wouldn't last much longer, she was already getting tired of it, but she intended for it to last as long as she could manage.
"She dropped something off for you, said it was a sketch of what your costume is probably going to look like. She also said that you could sew it your-damn-self if you had any complaints."
Just like that, her bad mood was gone. Excitement shot through her, and she vaulted the back of the couch to skid, sock-footed, into the kitchen, following the direction of her dad's pointed finger. There on the counter was a folded, slightly crumpled piece of drawing paper – the thick, creamy kind that came from an expensive sketchbook. It still had the remains of the eyelets, where the wire would have gone, dangling from one side. She snatched it up and unfolded it, devouring the image within with eager eyes.
Her first thought? Sabah had a gift for drawing. Her immediate following thought was that she didn't look anything like how she was represented on the paper. The boots were long, covering her from foot to knee, and lightly armored from the top of her foot up. The pants wouldn't look out of place at a horse park, tight and clinging to her legs in a way she wasn't sure she was comfortable with. Her chest piece resembled a Kevlar vest, and underneath was a turtleneck that covered her from neck to wrist, with a hole for her thumbs to keep the sleeves from riding up. From elbow to mid-finger on each hand was a smooth gauntlet, for some reason leaving the tips of her fingers exposed. A bandanna would serve the purpose her scarf did now. Tinted aviator goggles, or something close to that, would hide her eyes when she so chose.
All of that was second, of course, to the fact that Sabah had not forgotten the most important part. The cloak. Its neck was tucked into her chest armor, with a deep hood curving over her head and letting her hair spill out around it. The rest of it fell behind her, dropping to swirl around the tops of her ankles. It looked... "It's perfect." It wasn't quite an awed whisper, but it was close. The rippling sound of her Ghost becoming visible had her showing off the sketch. "What do you think?"
Her Ghost hummed, moving to see it from different angles. Taylor found herself waiting for approval or, and she would admit to herself to fearing, disapproval. Agonizing only to her, seconds dragged out. Then, "Sabah does good work, Guardian. I suggest we don't tell her that. The gloating might be unbearable."
Warmth flooded through her, followed closely by the idea that maybe the little droid was onto something. She may have only known Sabah for a couple of days, but some things were obvious.
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The phone rang. Taylor groaned. She most emphatically did not want anything else to crop up today. There was a limit, a limit, people, and she was very close indeed to reaching it. There was no telling what would happen if she did, but the highest odds were on pillow forts, ear plugs, and ice cream. It wouldn't be pretty to anyone bearing witness, she herself would have a wild time. It was sort of odd, how she was already fed up with the wacky circumstances of hero work despite this being her first day. If memory served, it had been her idea in the first place to go out and look for trouble in the first place. That being said, it remained her right to be inconsistent, and right now she was fed up.
From her place on the living room couch, in her comfiest baggy T-shirt and pajama pants, she couldn't see her dad coming her way, phone in hand, but she could hear him. Her hand snaked over the back of the couch to point. "No. No. I'm not here, or – or I'm dead, or on the Moon. Whoever's calling –"
"Sabah." Her dad thought he was being helpful by ignoring her and dropping the handset onto her stomach. A breath of air whuffed out at the impact, and she scrambled to snatch it up before the hold tone could start blaring. She found the button and brought it up just in time to catch the first atonal reminder right in her ear.
"Gah!"
"Hello to you, too, sunshine. How was your day?" Sabah sounded tired, the kind of bone-deep weariness that came primarily from a hard day's work and not from running a clothing store. Or so Taylor thought, but perhaps she was being uncharitable. "Let me tell you, mine was great. Up 'til three, then up at seven, running a shop all day, it was just...just the greatest."
"I liked your drawing." Taylor offered this up in the hopes of cutting off the diatribe before it could really get going. Sabah hummed happily into her ears, a little sound of celebration.
"You did? Oh, I knew it. I knew it! It's a rough concept, I know, it doesn't even have color choices, for God's sake, but the basics are there and... I'm really glad you like it." There was a pause, and a slurping sound. "Ahh. So, seriously, you do anything nice and relaxing after your busy morning?"
Taylor didn't answer. This seemed to be answer enough, for the next thing she heard was a resigned sigh.
"Taylor..."
The need to defend herself had driven her voice up a tad. "What? I was going to relax, then I had an idea, and...well, I have a trainer now, at least." She paused. "Well, I think he's going to be my trainer. I'm supposed to go back day after tomorrow and know for sure." Silence. Longer than she'd ever heard from her new friend. "Sabah? You there?"
"Do you have the news on?"
All kinds of things were wrong with Sabah's tone. Tight, too even, too calm. Weariness gone, amusement gone. It caused her to sit up and fish for the remote even as the question fell from her lips. "Should I?"
"Yeah." A low rush of static as Sabah gusted out a breath. "Yeah, I think you should."
Taylor didn't respond directly, found the remote jammed in between two seat cushions, and learned that the last channel either she or her dad had watched was the news. It was the second helicopter-based coverage of a cape event she'd seen that day. The camera showed the ruins of a transport van on the inner-city highway. Scorch marks riddled the road, thick and wide and smoking. Impact craters were everywhere; in the road, the surrounding buildings, the grassy little hill that served as a median. The shattered remnants of a half-dozen other cars were spread around the place, around which stepped members of the PRT and the BBPD.
There was a voiceover announcer, different from the orange man this morning, speaking with a practiced calm. "...that's right, an unprecedented show of force from the Archer's Bridge Merchants. Not ten minutes ago a group of men numbering between fifteen and thirty five, supported by the parahumans Skidmark and Squealer, attacked the Protectorate van carrying Mush to a more secure prison facility. No casualties have been reported, though there were a large number of injuries incurred. The parahuman known as Mush has escaped."
The announcer continued on, speculating and fudging facts to create a more interesting story, but Taylor was rather focused on the storm brewing inside her. Light boiled within, responding to the tide of emotion threatening to overwhelm her. Sabah, she supposed, had probably expected this to scare her, or warn her. The knowledge that someone she had worked very hard indeed to capture had gotten away, and now in all likelihood bore a grudge, probably should have scared her. It did not. She was blindingly, incandescently, apocalyptically furious.
"Taylor, you seeing this?"
It was her turn to have a voice too calm and flat to be anything but worrisome. "I am."
"We gonna do something?"
"Oh, yes."
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