Guardian
a Worm/Destiny Crossover
Chapter 10: Moving Forward
It was a curious and unwelcome thing, to have both knowledge and perspective on grief. When Taylor lost her mom, it had gutted her. The next days blended into weeks and followed into months of solitude, tears, and silence. Twelve years old and without anyone to help her through her grief. She didn't know how she made it through, how she managed to recover from the loss. It was only now, months after she'd buried Ghost in a shallow grave on a small mountain's summit, that she understood. She hadn't. She had simply become so accustomed to the onus of grief that she convinced herself it was how she had always been. It had taken another loss to show her this, and thus proved to her the existence of cosmic irony. A second grief to begin healing from the wounds of the first? She didn't think it was possible.
Yet there she was. Perhaps it was the difference. Last time she was utterly alone and convinced of it. This time she had her dad, and Sabah, and something within that refused to allow her to wallow and mope. Maybe it was the Light that ran through her, wove itself into her very being? Maybe it was the lesson, experience taught by her first encounter with grief? Or maybe, and she had her doubts and deepest, desperate hopes, it was the last gift Ghost had given her? Whatever the reasons, she found herself taking each day since the burial better than the one before it. She spent time with Sabah, her newest and only friend, letting herself be dragged around the city in a quest that varied from day to day. She trained with John and found that she was something of a prodigy when it came to combat. She didn't see as much of her dad as she'd have liked. Things were not perfect, but they were improving.
It was on the subject of improvement, in fact, that she was currently receiving a rant on. Delivered by Sabah, over the phone thankfully, Taylor listened with half as much annoyance as she displayed to her friend complain about how her costume, while nearly finished, was resisting completion with a will. "It's all done! All of it! The boots, the corset, the gloves, the cloak, it's all ready, but I just can't get the color!"
There was really only one way to reply to that. "I'm...sorry?"
A digitized sigh, a rush of static, whined in her ear. "You should be. This is your fault somehow."
Perhaps naively of her, Taylor tried to offer a solution. "Who says it has to have color at all? I mean, why not just have like...shades of gray and black?"
"Because then you immediately become, like, Shadow Stalker 2.0, and I refuse to let a creation of mine be so cruelly archetyped."
There was no restraining the snort that escaped her. Not that Taylor tried. Artists... "Okay, then, Designer Diva, what do you suggest?"
A brief pause, and then Sabah began to shout. "I don't know! That's why I called you, remember!? Also! Also! Designer Diva?! Really?! Come on, Taylor, you're better than that. You'd better come and sort this mess out now or I'm dyeing everything the brightest, ugliest shade of orange I can find!"
"All right, all right!" Her protests were rendered half-hearted by the laughter that kept bubbling over her words. "I'll be at your shop in...twenty-ish minutes. No orange dyes, you hear?"
"No promises."
Then Sabah hung up, leaving Taylor to smile at her phone until she remembered the part about the corset. Then she frowned, and got up to rush down to the Boardwalk and make sure she had misheard.
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She hadn't.
There was a corset. Well, not a corset corset, nobody was living in Victorian England anymore, and she didn't find dying of a punctured lung especially appealing, but it was tight enough – and revealing enough – that it made little pinpricks of discomfort crawl up her spine. Plus, "I don't think I can pull of a corset, Sabah."
"Pssh." Came Sabah's reponse, paired with a dismissive hand wave. "Which one of us is the fasion major, who also makes a living doing this exact thing? Trust me, you can pull it off. Plus, there's an undershirt, so don't get your tights in a knot." She went to a table, stacked with textbooks and ringed pads of drawing paper, seized one at random, and opened it. She flipped to a page then handed it over. "This is what's on the mannequin in the back. Feast your eyes."
Taylor did, and found a profound rightness inside her at the sight within. The forementioned undershirt was basically a turtleneck, rising up to just below the curve of her jaw and going down to about mid hand. A scrawl on the side denoted holes in the sleeves for her thumbs, to keep them from riding up. Over that went the...corset...which looked more like vest. A corvest? Vestet? Anway, hand to mid-forearm was glove, leaving her fingers exposed. "Why fingerless gloves?"
"They're cool."
"Oh."
Her pants were a modified pair of horseback-riding pants, tight fitting and comfortable – or so the note claimed. Boots, with no heel, thank God, came up to her knee. Then there was the cloak. It looked to fit over her neck like a hooded poncho, then drape down to just above her ankles with some artful fraying at the bottom. Scattered around the entirety were places for her to attach her knife and whatever other tools she managed to scrounge up. "It looks..."
"Good, right? The coolest costume you've ever ever seen?" The words were expected, but the tone was not. The apprehension, almost worry, made Taylor look up to see a flicker in Sabah's dark eyes. It had never occurred to her that Sabah might be concerned about how she reacted.
Taylor smiled widely. "It's perfect, Sabah." Then, her smile took a mischievous turn. "Well, almost. If it had color, it'd be..." she trailed off, shaking her head with as much wistfulness as she could muster.
Sabah's eyes widened, mouth opening, finger pointing indignantly at Taylor. "You! Do not try me right now. I have dye, and I'm not afraid to use it!"
"Don't. All kidding aside, it looks amazing. I think it'd be even better in real life." There. Hint dropped. Subtle? Well, that was a diferent question. Without a word, Sabah gave an exaggerated bow and arm sweep, inviting Taylor to look for herself. With a mounting sense of excitement and anticipation, she did just that.
It was even better than the sketch. And, as she looked, it came to her. "Purple."
Sabah gave the costume a critical once over, brow furrowed in thought. "You think?"
Taylor nodded. "Dark purple, and...black? Yeah, black." She turned to her more fashionably inclined friend. "That work for you?"
A long moment passed. Then, a decisive nod. "Yes."
Thus, Guardian's costume was born. And there was much rejoicing. By people named Taylor and Sabah.
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Sabah, to her credit, waited until the takeout arrived and been spread out between the two of them before diving into planning what she called 'their next move'. In the back room, under the closed door of which dye fumes drifted, Taylor's costume was having its finishing touches put to it. The scent wasn't strong enough for anyone to pick up without her senses, and it was putting her off the chicken teriyaki and fried rice she'd been craving for the past day. They'd set up on the floor, legs crossed, and were passing cartons back and forth with orders to try this, or this. "So I was thinking about what we did next?"
"We?" Taylor speared a chunk of fried and sauced chicken with a chopstick, having given up on mastering them, before eating it in one massive bite. Maybe not that put off. "I don't recall you doing much fighting." There was more to hero work than fighting, she knew, but for the purposes of messing with Sabah truth could be smudged a little.
A thrown packet of napkins was the elegant reply, followed by, "Yeah, and I don't recall you doing much costume making, so we're even. Anyway, here's what I was thinking: It's been a while since we found you something gang related to interfere with, and I got a e-mail from Armsmaster the other day asking if you were okay – well, not really, but I translated – so maybe...maybe it's time to make a reappearance?"
Taylor set aside a box of entirely too spicy noodles and, setting her chopsticks on top, turned the idea over. There had been a plan, she recalled, not too long ago, or the intention to form a plan. Whichever it had been. She remembered the intent vividly, the burning determination and yes, a little bit of outrage and indignation. Her failure to capture Mush had been salved by his concussion – a parting gift from her – making his capture a slam dunk. That had been taken from her by the news of his escape. She'd only forgotten, had more put it out of her mind, because of...well...no need to be redundant. Plus, she found that the process of moving forward went easier if she didn't force herself to think about it every half hour. Intrusive thoughts were such a pain.
"There might be an issue with that."
Sabah quirked a brow, a talent that she hadn't ever been able to pull off. "And that would be?"
"Well..." Taylor cleared her throat, took a drink of soda, and picked up her carton again. "I freely admit I'm no expert, but it's been a while since I hit the Merchants, and I lost any um...surprise? Momentum?...when I didn't follow up for a while. I think they'll be ready for me if I try anything now, or at least more prepared. Am I making sense?"
"More or less. I just have two questions. First, why does it have to be the Merchants you go after and two, what makes you say that?" Sabah stole one of her eggrolls, tore it in half, and dragged it through her duck-sauced brown rice. Taylor retaliated by curling her legs under her and leaning back on the palms of her hands. She rocked her head back and forth, trying to nail down where this idea was coming from. Too much TV? A half-remembered snippet from a history text? Some part of the Guardian/Hunter instinct package? Whatever the source, and she found the last to be likeliest, the more she considered it, the more sense it made.
"To the first...because they're the bottom of the pole, criminally speaking. The cream of the crap. Perfect to cut my teeth on. And...I guess also because I started with them, and I don't much care for leaving things undone. As for where all that came from?" She shrugged. "Instinct, or something."
Sabah rolled her eyes, and dragged her backpack over, fishing inside for what turned out to be her laptop. It made a faint tone as she opened it and click-clacked her password in. "You should really be more vague, Taylor. Nobody likes getting the answer they asked for. Anyway, since you're all fixated and crap on taking down the Merchants, let's see if they've been up to anything."
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In short...no. They hadn't. Which was weird, given that not too long ago they were raiding ABB cash houses and staging high-risk, middle-of-the-day breakouts. They had been mobile, agile, and hostile, as the saying went, and to Taylor that meant they'd been gearing up to something greater. A territory grab, or assassination on a high level member of an opposing gang, or whatever it was that gangs fought each other over. Maybe it was at least partially because they wanted to. The kind of reckless violence that came from an overinflated opinion of themselves and an enormous amount of drug use. Reasons aside, they had gone from leading up to something to just kind of...not. It didn't make sense.
She wasn't the only one to think so, either. Sabah's frown had deepened as they searched forums, new sites, independent blogs – anywhere that might have useful information – and found jack-all. "This is deeply weird, Taylor. Gangs just don't give up when they were on a roll like that."
Taylor hummed her agreement, turning thoughts and ideas over in her mind. "Well, they didn't disappear, so...something is up. They're planning something." She drum-rolled her fingertips on the floor, chewing on her bottom lip. "They're definitely planning something."
"Probably. But what?"
"That," Taylor drew the word out, pensieve. "is the million dollar question. I think it's time we phone a friend."
Sabah nodded her agreement until the end, when she paused. Then frowned, groaning. "You mean Armsmaster, don't you?"
"Yep." Taylor was given a look demanding more than a one-word answer, and who was she to decline? "He's the only cape I've met that I didn't punch into concussion land and given our good behavior he's more likely to cooperate with us. Right?"
Sabah chewed her lower lip, before shaking her head. "I'm not sure. When I told you that I'd never seen him act that human, I was only kind of joking. Man's a stickler for the rules, and if the PRT is sitting on something confidential, he can't give it to us. Even if he wanted to, which he wouldn't."
"So...you're saying it's a bad idea?"
"That is what I'm saying."
Taylor nodded. "Okay. Let's do it anyway. Either he gives us something to work with, in which case yay, or he doesn't, and we're right back here."
Dark eyes gave her a gimlet look. "I told you I don't like it when you ruin stuff with logic, Taylor." Then a sigh. "Fine, I'll send him an e-mail."
"Not a phone call?"
"Nope." Sabah's fingers danced over the keyboard as she answered. "He never answers his phone unless it's Dragon, the Triumvirate, the Director, or God Himself. E-mails, he gets piped into his helmet. He'll answer, and soon."
Taylor settled back against Sabah's backpack, shifting her hips to try and find a more comfortable position. Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw Sabah following her movements with more than a passing curiosity, but dismissed it. Social interaction, while she'd come a long way, was still really not her thing. She took up a now-cool egg roll and tore it in half. "Good. This floor isn't exactly comfy."
"This is a fabric store, not a furniture shop, Taylor. A pretty dress or cool costume, I can do. A super-comfy sofa, you'll want that furniture Tinker in Des Moines."
"There is not a furniture Tinker anywhere, let alone Iowa."
Sabah scoffed. "Shows what you know."
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"So...um..." The waiting silence, which had until then been a companionable sort of thing, each lost in their own thoughts, turned tense and awkward. Sabah, the change's source, chewed on a fingernail, before blurting her question out. "How are you...doing? With uh...you know."
It was far from the first time that question had been asked. Though the origin of the question varied between Sabah and her dad, Taylor had gotten rather tired of hearing the various forms of 'how are you dealing?'. She couldn't really hold it against them, though. They asked because they cared, and that was a nice change from last time, when she had no one in her corner at all. Well...not no one, but...Taylor didn't think of her as a person anymore. Which was besides the point, that having people care about how she felt both heartened and annoyed her. Until this time, that is. Normally she either gave a non-commital grunt or the lie of 'I'm fine', and did so because the sharp pain in her chest every time someone reminded her of her loss. This time, she was able to actually answer. "Better, I think." She shrugged. "There are days when I barely think about him at all, and days where every time I have a question I look over my shoulder and he isn't there and it just...tears me apart, a little bit. But I keep busy, and don't hide from you or dad, so...it's better."
"I know..." Sabah visibly struggled for words momentarily. "I know that I have no right to tell you how to mourn, but...I lost my dad a few years ago, and my mom not long after, so if anyone can relate, it's probably me. This is –" she cleared her throat. "This is me telling you that I'm here if you ever need me. I've said it before, but...it bears repeating."
Not for the first time did Taylor curse her generally awkward nature. It made finding the right words in a normal situation hard. In a time like this, with warmth and affection rushing through her and the slightest sting of tears in her eyes? Forget it. Still, she didn't need any words to hug Sabah, and that was what she did. As strong a one-armed hug as she could manage, tucking her head against the other girl's shoulder for a moment. After a few moments, she managed a tiny, "Thanks, Sabah."
"Anytime, Taylor." Sabah's laptop pinged gently. They both sat up, putting the heavy, sensitive moment behind them. "Well, he certainly took his time. Let's see what the party line is, shall we?" She tapped a few keys, clicked an icon or two, and cleared her throat. She angled the screen so the two of them could read and Taylor, given her history with and fondness for the written word, finished first.
It took her a moment to digest the message. "Did Armsmaster just invite us to take part in a city-wide strike against the Merchants?"
Sabah nodded. "It seems that way. Did you catch that bit about them getting another member?"
"Yeah, something about a...chemical oriented Tinker? Calls himself...did that really say Roofie?"
A snort. "The height of class, these people. Think he's the reason they're all gung-ho lately? If he's giving them all the best looney drugs, it'd explain a lot."
Taylor hummed, lip worried between her teeth as she turned the idea over. "It would make a heck of a lot of sense, that's for sure." She turned a devious look on Sabah. "Really only one way to find out."
"No."
"And that's to suit up –"
"Taylor, no."
"And go ask them!"
"I am not getting into a fight with the Merchants and that...is final!" There had to a be a reason beyond drama for Sabah's pause in her words, but Taylor didn't know what. "Besides, even I wanted to, I can't."
She gave Sabah a look that articulated her doubt.
"No, really. One, I have class in like, thirty minutes and two, the fabric I made your costume out of is super sensitive to dyes, and I need to make sure not it doesn't get overdone." She patted Taylor on the shoulder, bursting with false-sympathy. "You'll just have to soldier on without me, ace."
Taylor huffed, smiling. "Be that way. Where's the meeting point?"
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