Guardian
a Worm/Destiny Crossover
Chapter 50: The Prestige
In the years and years to come, Taylor would be asked the same question many times. The inflection would always be different. From well-intentioned pity in the eyes of the old, men and women who held themselves like she did, to the sympathy of the young; open hearts and open arms and soft, sad eyes. There was the morbid curiosity that bade motorists to stop and try to spy corpses amidst the twisted wrecks on the roadside, sick fascination on their faces, knowing they shouldn't ask but unable to stop themselves. There was outrage, loud and strident and full of fear disguised as anger, people who wanted to be assured that nothing like that could happen again and knowing they would never succeed. In short, the inflection of the question ran the gamut of humanity; good and bad and everything in between.
The question?
How long did it take to destroy a city?
Taylor would never answer, no matter the inflection, for two reasons. First, the answer was a matter of public record. If someone wanted to know, they should try there instead of bringing up bad memories for her. Second, and tying into the first; it was none of their goddamn business. They may have had every right to ask, but no right whatsoever to expect an answer.
Sometimes, when she hovered in the moments between sleep and waking, she thought about how she would answer, if she ever decided to. Would she be somber, say something like not nearly long enough? Would she be factual, say by Nilbog's hive? Two weeks. By Eidolon? A little more than eight hours. Both had the dubious benefit of being true, and both did nothing to convey the breadth of emotion she'd felt that day. In defense of her hypothetical self's choice of words, she didn't think she would ever possess the wordcraft to express it.
But that was the future. In that moment, dirty and bloody and heavy with failure, she could only grip Lisa's hand and look up at Eidolon's clean, crisp figure. At the span of his spread arms and the billow of his hooded cape. At the spiraling ropes of iridescent force swirling around him. The wind picked up as he built his power and died in the moments before he unleashed his attack.
Taylor hated him, just a little. Where was he when this all began?
=+= Chapter 50: The Prestige =+=
The worst part, she decided, was that there were too many choices for the worst part. Just...a panorama of sadness and suffering. Stretcher after stretcher of covered bodies being carried to a white, closed-off tent. Men and women carrying those too wounded to stand between them. Parahumans, once bright and glorious, now broken and despondent. Many of them held mask or helmet in hand and sat, sweat and tears dripping from their faces. Medics and healers, stained with blood, hurrying from patient to patient, knowing they were outnumbered by the dying and slowly ground down by the knowledge. Above all of that, the intermittent flare of their failure being erased. By the time it was done Eidolon would carve a crater fifty feet deep where the city once stood.
Taylor felt...she didn't know what she felt. Pain, as her injuries knit themselves back together. Pain, as the Light in her soul protested its near destruction. She'd pushed herself too far at the end.
What else could she have done?
Helplessness, from knowing that all of the people who died fighting with her died for nothing. In fact...a muscle in her cheek twitched as she felt a swell of anger. That was the worst fucking part. That everything that happened, everyone who fought so hard and did so well and died like heroes did so for nothing.
"Taylor." Lisa's voice was quiet, soft at her side. Full of sympathy she didn't want. "Baby, please look at me."
With her free hand, Taylor tore off her helmet and threw it aside. It clattered and rolled off somewhere that didn't matter. She glared down. "What."
She saw Lisa recoil from the anger in her eyes, then marshal herself. Bright green eyes, clear and oh so seeing peered right back. The knowing in them was stronger than any anger Taylor could muster. "I'm here." Lisa said it after a long moment of silence. "I don't – I don't fucking know what to say besides that. I'm here."
"I..." Taylor's nose was stuffy. She snuffled, ran the back of her hand beneath it, smearing snot and dirt across her lip. "They were joking. The soldiers with me. Saying that they had the easy job. All they – all they had to do was wait and watch me do all the work. They were laughing and alive and now they're dead. I thought...I thought, after Florida, it would get easier."
Lisa stepped in close, lifting a hand to cup Taylor's cheek and pull her forehead down. They stood like that, pressed against each other, one leaning on the other for support and for love and the other giving all she could. "I don't think it will, Taylor. Watching someone go from living and breathing to dead...empty. I don't think it will ever get easier to see." She wiped a thumb beneath Taylor's eye, scrubbing salt from her cheek. "Besides, it's not all bad. A lot of them got out because of you."
"They were there in the first place because of me."
"They were there because of him, baby. Him and his monsters. Not you."
"If I hadn't been there..."
"They all would be dead. I know it hurts. I know. Tell me how to help. Tell me, and I'll do it."
"I don't know. I don't know." The well of anger broke, letting the tears building beneath come forth. Taylor let herself fall into the arms of the woman she loved and wept.
=+= Chapter 50: The Prestige =+=
Taylor sat, elbows on knees, head bowed. Lisa had gone off to find her some water and something to eat. She didn't see why. Her stomach was a sour, twisted knot in her gut. The idea of food hurt. She wasn't really paying attention to the world around her, letting the drumming of feet and the rumble of engines and the murmur of voices blend into white noise. She could lose herself in it. She wanted to, but before she did a pair of boots appeared in the dirt in front of her.
"Hey." said a woman's voice. It was hoarse and rough and familiar. She looked up, recognizing its owner as the woman who'd held them and the portal together long enough to get out. Her face was bruised and streaked with grime. Her arms were bandaged to the elbow, and a splint held her left leg steady. She looked terrible, gaunt and hunched, but her eyes – they were clear. "You look terrible, kid."
Taylor huffed, a sound absent all humor. "It's going around." She stood up, backing around the chair and gesturing at the vacant seat. "Here."
Instead of protesting, the woman grunted thanks and sat gingerly. "Ah. Better. Walking with a cracked rib is always a bitch." A thoughtful dip of her head followed. "Sitting's not much better, either. You ever bust a rib?"
"Yeah. A few times. But uh, I heal."
The woman rolled her eyes. "Course you do. Lucky bi – er, punk. Can't be the career military girl who gets healing powers. Gotta be the kid in the cape."
A distant, quiet part of herself, where the Hunter lived, was mildly outraged. "It's a cloak."
The woman started to lift her arm, as if she meant to wave it at something, before wincing and changing her mind. "It's also pretty wrecked."
"Fits the rest of me."
A low sigh. "Shitty day, huh?"
"Yeah."
A minute or two of silence passed, neither companionable nor awkward. It was, Taylor supposed, the silence of two people far too tired to put any kind of emotion into being quiet. "Hey kid."
"Yeah?"
"Thanks. You let me bring my boys home."
Tears burned at Taylor's eyes. "I – don't thank me."
The woman nodded. "I bet you feel real guilty right now. Hell, you think I don't? I'm their commander, their leader. It's my job to get them through the shi – the stuff and out the other side alive and I failed my job today. Thing about guilt is, it'll eat you alive if you let it. Find something else to focus on."
"Like what?"
"The ones who made it is what I usually think about." The woman offered. Her shirt said Reeves, M. "Every phone call I don't have to make, every house I don't have to visit, every little kid I don't have to tell their parent isn't coming home. It's not much comfort, but it works for me. You gotta find what works for you."
Lisa came back while Taylor was thinking about it. She wet a corner of her shirt and started cleaning Taylor's face and hands while running a stream of quiet complaints about the quality of the food. "...not even a dog would eat an MRE, seriously. They smell like feet. Spicy feet..."
=+= Chapter 50: The Prestige =+=
General McKnight stood at a podium. The shadows beneath his eyes were deep and his skin was pale, gray around the edges. He looked like he'd aged a decade in an hour. The assembled forces of the Containment Wall – those who could still stand under their own power – sat in rows of chairs before him. Before it was the site of this, this had been a parking lot. Taylor's chair straddled a concrete beam, pitted and stained with rubber scrapings. After a moment's silence, he began to speak.
"I'm not even going to pretend we didn't get our goddamn teeth kicked in today. We did everything right, didn't we? We had the plans, we had the people, and we had enough ordnance to turn Lake Erie into a fucking sauna. We did all of it right, from start to finish, and we still got our asses beat. I'm not gonna stand up here and tell you how to feel. I don't have the words to turn this around, make all of you feel like we won when we didn't.
I can tell you how I feel. I feel a lot of stuff right now, but most of all I'm angry. I'm angry as hell. I'm hiding it behind my girlish fucking demeanor, but I'm angry enough to chew iron and spit nails. Who does this asshole think he is? Where does he get off, attacking his own country, his own people like this? Danny, you say, he's a nutjob, he doesn't have to make sense. I don't fucking care. I don't. Any right to empathy, to sympathy, that he had? He gave it up a long goddamn time ago.
I'm not gonna tell you what to do. I'm not. You wanna walk away, here and now? You've more'n done your duty. Take your honorable discharge and go home. But I'm asking you not to. You see, I'm going to Ellisburg, and I'm gonna need some pissed off motherfuckers. The baddest asses, the hardest hitting, sharpest shooting, foulest cursing soldiers ever produced by this country! We are going to take all of our wrath, all of our hate, and we are going to bring down on that shitty little kingdom like the wrath of Almighty God! I'm going to Ellisburg, and I am going to bring the mightiest, bravest warriors mankind has ever produced with me!
You fellas know where I can find me some people like that?"
The entire parking lot stood as one. Roars of anger, of defiance, of grief poured from the throats of the people in attendance. Taylor stood with them, hearing the words of Reeves, M. once more. You gotta find what works for you. She drew Howl and set it alight, solar flame pouring down the blade in a swirling corona of white-gold. She stood on her chair and held the brand aloft.
She'd go with wrath.
=+= Chapter 50: The Prestige =+=