Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

September 2013, Eden City

The wind was cold. 

Taylor Hebert, eighteen, kept her eyes narrowed against the winter cold and particles of Ether that struck her face as she continued her grim march back home. 

After a full day of work, her muscles ached, but walking kept her warm during the long journey back from the factory. It was a walk of a few miles, but she knew it like the back of her hand after working there for two years. 

She was out of the wastes now, away from the sea of tree stumps.

Up ahead rose buildings of varying design and safety, some of them little more than ramshackle huts, others with brick, mortar, and even concrete in some places. Everything here had been built in a rush with whatever there was to hand at the time. The sea of tree stumps beyond the city's bounds, the irradiated, dead remains of White Mountain National Forest, had provided a lot of it.

Formal construction had occurred much later once the world realised that there was just one place that was safe from the fallout and climate change brought about by the response to the Titan threat.

She entered the furthest bounds of the city proper. Along the street were little stalls and shops selling various things, ranging from knick-knacks scavenged or looted from the abandoned cities, to places making and selling food. The air was filled with smells and sounds, the ramshackle huts and buildings busy and overcrowded, all struggling to fall within the zone of safety.

She steadfastly ignored them all as she continued her journey home.

Eden City. 

What a cruel name, to name it after a paradise with two notable trees. 

Was it an act of spite from those who had managed to escape this fate?

The 'Last City'... built and living on the corpse of the thing that brought about the end of mankind on Earth Bet. 

This, the one place where trees still grew healthy... even if they were grey and strange. The only place where some semblance of life could remain as it once was. Across the world the great forests had died or struggled to keep some semblance of health, the oceans were fetid with rot... 

High overhead, the World Trees stretched above her, their vast canopies reaching into the stratosphere. Any notion of physics, weight, and material strength meant nothing to them. It was only the countless trillions of leaves upon them that facilitated life, producing pure air.

The very thing that doomed the world, a life support machine for its orphans.

Eden City had been built upon the cosmic corpse of the being that brought about the end of the world. 

Like some manner of tiered rice farm, the buildings, both ramshackle and more sturdy, had been constructed in levels upon the body and roots of this place.

... Taylor should consider herself lucky, really. 

It was their relative proximity, in Brockton Bay, that had allowed the Heberts to uproot and hurry to claim some small bit of land on the upper bounds of the great corpse. The journey had been hard, but they had made it... 

Even if the city was cramped and squalid... it was better than a slow, agonising death from Ether poisoning. 

Even as she reflected on it, a solitary speck of the material landed on her face, and she brushed it away irritably. 

What with the evacuation of the world following the events of the Angel Fall, with the death of the forests and grasslands and farms... there had barely been anyone around to handle a lot of the world’s various energy facilities. How many of them had gone critical, how many nuclear stations had failed and spewed their fallout into the atmosphere? 

How many nuclear weapons had been deployed in an attempt, successful or not, to destroy the Titans, further polluting the atmosphere?

That had been the only real solution to the problem of their emergence.

Cape responses barely did anything, a solitary Titan was just too dangerous, too powerful. 

Even the Triumvirate could only do so much. Taylor had once heard that the CUI managed to fight back effectively in some way... but for a lot of nations, there was no solution. 

One nuclear weapon here, another there, always justified by the threat that a Titan could destroy a city, or worse... The only problem being the consequences of using such weapons.

Taylor's work carried her beyond the safe bounds of the clear air of the World Trees, within minutes of crossing the boundaries she was plunged into air so cold, almost freezing. The term Nuclear Winter was quite appropriate, really. 

She had not seen a full summer since the Angel Fall.

Still. 

She made it to the halfway point of her journey, Central Square. 

Its name was a misnomer, of course, there was nothing central about it.

The actual centre point of the city rested between the two World Trees, the Angel's Hill... nobody dared to build anything there. 

Central Square was actually on the south side, an attempt to create an open space in the rapidly building city, although half the time it looked more like a refugee camp. The needy and the desperate mostly lived on Eden's outskirts, near the various factories and growing facilities, but any open space within the safe zone was more valuable than a week’s worth of food here. 

The upper portions of the corpse were where the better quality, high-rise buildings had been constructed for the well-to-do, those who still had some resources in this wretched world... 

Didn't matter much if they were still trapped here, not allowed to escape through the portals. 

She reached up and touched the collar on her neck, a heavy, chunky thing that had been around her throat for over three years now.

Warm metal. 

Unyielding... If the Corona Pollentia in her brain ever triggered, if she ever became a cape, then the collar would detonate and kill her before Titanification could occur, which it probably would eventually. Most Parahumans who triggered nowadays instantly began the process, the strain too much and robbing them of their agency. They would mutate, their bodies becoming capable of ravaging a city if they were not handled, and with far less Parahumans to help deal with them... prevention was better than dealing with the consequences.

Taylor's eyes dragged over a nearby billboard, which bore the faded line that had dominated those early days when the collars first appeared;

'Better to die a human than live as a Titan' 

Although that implied choice; you either accepted the collar or got left to die. Land of freedom her ass, the moment things went to shit all notions of such were out the window, none of them could leave this horrible dying earth.

Lucky bastards, abandoning them.

She glanced around.

Almost everyone in Central Square had one, the Collared made up over ninety percent of the population now, only the chosen ones who lacked a Corona Pollentia were allowed to leave to start a new life on the other Earths.

Heh... the governments of Earth Aleph and such could call it what they wanted, but everyone knew the truth; Earth Bet was just a prison for them to die on.

Taylor pushed on, weaving through the irregular paths in the sea of tents and people to the only point in Central Square that really had a wide berth, the central statue of a man. 

She looked up at the Scion memorial, which paid homage to the greatest hero of humanity, the one who fought against the World Trees for the good of all mankind, and fell in battle to slay it. A number of weak and sickly looking flowers had been laid at the statue's feet, no doubt by some local children.

Nobody moved them, it was only the occasional breeze that shifted the wilting blooms. 

As she did every day, Taylor reached out and touched the base of the statue, the stone under her fingertips was cold. 

Why did she bother?

Perhaps it was just the routine. Every day, she went to work to earn some money to buy food to support herself, her dad, and Emma. Every day on the way to the factory and back, she would reach up to touch the plinth, to remember humanity's finest. 

It grounded her, it was the beginning and end of her workday. 

She had seen the moment Scion died, had watched his battle and the brave, desperate struggle against the overwhelming odds to bring down the threat to humanity. Without him... what would the world look like now? Would they even be here at all?

"Taylor!"

It was a child, no, a gaggle of children; she recognised them, of course. 

Annie, Marie, and Jack. 

Each of them bore a collar that gleamed in the weak light that made it through the mass of grey clouds and branches far above them. 

The trio were small and thinner than they should be for their age; they would have only been a year or two old at the time of the Angel Fall, and unlike those raised before it, they had lived a much harder life. It was to be expected that they would be more weak and frail. The child mortality rates had skyrocketed since that time, natural selection was once more a major influence on humanity, compared to that golden age before the end. 

“Hey, kids,” she said, forcing an energy that she did not feel as she leant down. “How are you all today?”

In truth, Taylor already knew what was about to come. 

“Can you tell us the story again!” Jack demanded.

"Pleeeeease, you tell it the best, Taylor!” begged Marie, clapping her hands together in prayer. 

Well, of course she told it the best; her account was the foundational one about what happened during the Angel Fall, supporting the various images and clips taken from much further away. When the Angels ceased to be born and the military first arrived, supported by what little Parahuman element remained and had not been warped, they had found her beside that thing. 

She had been in a state of shock, had been subject to a dozen interviews afterwards. 

Her account was in dozens of books and reports about the death of Scion and the momentous event that changed Earth Bet forever. No doubt it had been poured over in different dimensions and studied by all sorts of individuals from their comfortable, safe chairs whilst she suffered in this wretched place.

What a horrible form of fame, to be the girl who watched the humanities hope die. 

Taylor took a deep breath, ready to turn down the children.

She should be getting home, she really did not have the energy for this---

"Taylor," spoke a weedy voice. 

It was Annie's mother, a stick-thin woman who looked like she might not make another winter, one of the next wave of bodies that would probably be found in the snow. Little Annie would be just another street orphan, one of the thousands already in the city. 

"Here," the woman stretched out a hand, in which a single coin sat. Payment for telling the tale, it was not much... but it would be enough to buy a single meal for her father, perhaps.

He did not eat so much nowadays, despite her best efforts. 

A pang of guilt ran through her

The woman had probably worked hard to earn that coin, or perhaps she had been selling her body again to earn enough money for herself and Annie? 

But she took the money, nonetheless. It was joined by another coin that a dour father pushed into her hand, payment to entertain his brood. In this world, you did what you had to if you wanted to survive. 

Her factory job barely paid enough to keep her alive, acting as a public storyteller was barely more lucrative, but it was enough. Sometimes folks paid her in leftovers, a single mouthful of food between multiple people was a meal she did not need to purchase.

Yet even with that additional income, she could not match what Emma earned for their family, she was the real breadwinner and if not for her...

But they would be fine with her being just a little late, if it brought back a few more coins, right?

"... Okay, make yourselves comfortable you lot," Taylor called, raising her voice so that it would carry. Other children were hurrying to join the little group sitting down on the cold, hard stone of the square, shoulder to shoulder and looking up at her expectantly. Eyes that were innocent and yet shadowed by the horrors that they had seen in their brief lives stared back at her with anticipation.

Taylor took up her normal position with the statue to her back as if to illustrate the nobility, the might, and tragic end of the great man whose tale she was about to tell.

The children fell silent as she cleared her throat dramatically, and she began the tale of Scion the Hero.

Chapter Text

It was late by the time she got back home.

The extra coins in her pocket felt disproportionately heavy and clinked unpleasantly as she opened the door and stepped across the threshold.

The house was small, smaller than the one she had grown up in when Brockton Bay was still inhabitable, but despite being small, the land it was on was infinitely more valuable by comparison.

One would not guess by looking at it. 

The structure was perched perilously on the third tier of housing in Eden City. If one were to step out the front door and take more than five paces forward, one would be at a fence overlooking the rest of the city. At first, the tiers had developed out of practicality to maximise the space, but soon enough it became social. At the very top were the governmental buildings, surrounded by the abodes of the rich and powerful.

It was a gross parody of the human society that had existed before the Angel Fall. 

Perhaps that was why some uncollared people did not leave, actually? Better to be a big fish in a small pond than a small fish in a big one, right?

Hell, the only reason that she and her father got to keep this small, precious parcel of land was because---

“You're late,” said a voice.

Emma. 

The young woman stood in the small entrance room of the home with arms crossed, long red hair as ever immaculately groomed despite having been at work today. That pale, swan-like neck stood out in the weak light, unmarred by a metal collar.

After her parents and sister died from Ether poisoning, there had only been one place for Emma to go, the Hebert's. Quite how it had all happened, Taylor could not remember. Those months after the Angel Fall were a mess of panic and fear as everyone rushed to adjust to the new normal, desperately trying to get through the portals to Earth Aleph or Chiet.

Emma had joined Taylor and her father, and they had been together since then.

“Did some storytelling down at Central for the kids,” she said, by way of explanation. 

Emma nodded; she was used to the justification now, even if she frowned.

A hand extended, palm up.

Wordlessly, Taylor reached into her pocket and retrieved the pay for her day's work, before placing it in Emma's hand. 

Emma had a nice, cushy job up in the first tier, some manner of administration role. It was nothing fancy, but it still paid more than Taylor earned, and through some unspoken decision, Emma had put herself in charge of the house’s finances. This little ritual repeated every day, day after day. 

It was for the best; Emma had a better social status compared to Taylor and her father, money in her hands went further.

“... Oh, they actually gave you coins today?”

“Um-hm,” Taylor hummed, removing her worn, fraying shoes and setting them carefully beside Emma's. 

She straightened, stepped forward and hugged Emma's smaller form, their lips met for a few seconds. 

It had started out of frustration and a desperate need to just... have somebody there, somehow it turned into them sharing a bed permanently, even if they were somewhat on again, off again in their relationship. Were they even a formal couple, or was it just convenience, a feeling of safety and comfort in this grim, grim world? Taylor did not really know. 

She did not trust any of her work colleagues or anyone else to be a partner.

Emma knew what Taylor liked, and Taylor knew what Emma liked, and somehow it worked. 

Wordlessly, they broke apart and moved through into the kitchen. 

Her father was slowly working on dinner.

His bald head moved to and fro, blotched in places... she had seen those blotches growing with time, had seen his deterioration and efforts to continue and stay strong. Ether poisoning was cruel, it culled the old, the infirm and the weak and left only the young or the unlucky too strong to die.

Like some manner of medieval sickness or plague, it was a scythe that reaped the harvest of human vitality. 

Even without working in the First Tier, Taylor knew that the demographics of Eden City were absolutely fucked. The skew of age in the population had warped utterly, the formerly ageing population structure of society had been neatly set back a few centuries. 

They sat down to dinner, conversation was light for the most part, and the first topic was rather innocuous. 

“... There's a letter for you, Taylor,” her father said as he doled out food.

A letter?

She glanced over to the side of the table, where a small white rectangle sat that she hadn't noticed before. It had her name in tight-set print that looked very official. 

Great, letters always meant something bad in this day and age. What was it, a new law designed to further limit the freedoms of the collared, perhaps? The last time she got a letter it was a request for information, for an interview about the Angel Fall. 

As if she hadn't told them enough times before.

Running a finger along the join between the folds of the envelope, she worked her finger into the small gap in the corner and ripped a line along the seam. The paper inside looked so clean and white, virgin paper that had never been recycled or mixed with other materials to pad it out. It even had two handwritten signatures at the bottom.

Dear Taylor Hebert

Following a recent review of records on the part of the Department of Medicine, you have been shortlisted as a candidate to take part in an exciting new initiative; Project LINER.

This shortlist comes as a result of your high tolerance and rapid metabolism of Ether and Ether-based elements during a series of medicinal trials performed on the 21/03/2013. Further details cannot be discussed in this letter due to the sensitive nature of the Project.

Please come and visit the Department of Science at your earliest convenience before the 27th/03.

As an indication of both goodwill and the seriousness of this letter, we have enclosed a payment, the other half of which shall be made available following your attendance to discuss this exciting opportunity.

 

Director of Science, Dr. Adam Andino

𝓐𝓭𝓪𝓶 𝓐𝓷𝓭𝓲𝓷𝓸

 

Central Council Coordinator, Dragon

𝒟𝓇𝒶𝑔𝑜𝓃

Within the letter was enough money to cover their food costs for a month. 

Her eyes practically boggled at the amount, and wasn't that a damning indication of her place in the world?

“What is it? Another interview request?” Emma asked idly.

“Don't know why they keep asking for them, but if they are paying, then it's probably worth it,” her father shrugged. 

The last time, Taylor had demanded to be paid for going up, and not just a few pittances either, much to the displeasure of the one she spoke to. But fuck them, trying to get her to do it for free 'for the sake of complete reports'.

“... Letter from the Department of Science, they want me to take part in some sort of clinical trial, sent a down payment for me going to speak with them,” she explained. Emma's hand extended, she passed the letter over for her to read.

“... Holy shit, it's signed by Dragon? That's big, you know,” Emma commented.

Everyone knew about Dragon of course, the genius Tinker whose various creations were now one of the few defences against those rogue Titans that came from the wastes to besiege Eden. She was one of the few Capes left on Earth Bet, having not chosen to abandon them as the others had and instead having chosen to try and save what remained of humanity here. 

It was her hydroponic facilities on the north side of the city that provided the vegetables and other things that went into the somewhat watery stew that they were eating right now.

Yet despite her capabilities, people still slaved away in the factories just to produce what they all needed... and for export.

Perhaps it was her disproportionate impact on Eden that had granted Dragon a position in city's Central Council... unelected and unilaterally. It really said enough about the state of democracy and its paper-thin notions in this world... 

As was the fact that she still called herself a Hero. 

Taylor supposed somebody had to, given that all the others calling themself such had all fled to other worlds rather than remain on Bet. 

“And this Andino guy?” Taylor prompted.

“Heard he's got some big projects that folk are putting a lot of stock in, not heard much about him... he's the one who created the Ether-Purging tablets, though,” Emma said, frowning at the spidery signature of the man, which was more spidery than that of Dragon. "I once heard he's pretty odd, could just be gossip though."

Most of the time when it came to discussing work, Emma would bitch and complain about various people in her department and how useless they were. But Taylor had little doubt that she made sure to take it relatively easy, certainly when compared to Taylor in the factory with its quotas and demands. 

Either way, it seemed like quite an opportunity. 

Taylor counted the funds provided once again.

“... It is a lot of money, Taylor, do you think it is worth taking a day off work to go and see them?” her father asked. His lined face looked torn. “I won't lie, I don't like the idea of them running any tests, but things have been tough recently...”

It would be the most money Taylor had earned in one go in years. 

It would be great to have a little extra to put aside in case of future emergencies. 

Taylor glanced at her father as he turned back to his food, watched his thin hand slowly lifting another forkful to his mouth, a mouth framed by pinched, faintly sunken cheeks.

A bit of extra money could probably buy some better-quality food for him, right? Or maybe some of those really expensive tablets that this Andino guy made. They would not undo the damage already done, but they might help her father recover somewhat...

Emma set the letter back down on the table silently and took a mouthful of her own food, saying nothing more on the matter.

The matter of whether she would go up to speak with them went undiscussed, perhaps the other two were already assuming that she would go ahead and do so? That assumption that she would do whatever was needed for the family, when she was already walking miles every day, working herself ragged and struggling---

Beyond the kitchen window the night was dark, the nature of the tiers meant that there was no sea of lights of distant illumination, just darkness.

That night, as she crawled into bed beside Emma, the sound of her father's rattling cough audible between the thin walls, she closed her eyes. 

Tomorrow would be the same routine as always. 

Taylor would wake up before the sun rose to begin her long walk down to the factory, followed by a day of tedium handling the various products on the line. For hours she would work her fingers to the bone assembling whatever the current product that the Central Council deemed was essential to Eden's survival. And once she was done she would trudge back, through the wind and Ether, back to this house where Emma would take her earnings and she would watch her father struggle to put on a brave face. 

Her body was all tense just thinking about it. 

A hand reached over her, warm against her side. The hand placed itself against her arm. 

Taylor could feel Emma's exhalations against the nape of her neck as the red-head pulled her closer until their bodies met. Warm, comforting... the embrace that motivated her throughout the day, the thought of this brief moment of comfort that helped make it all okay.

“It's okay, Tay.”

Taylor sighed, letting some small bit of the tension dissipate, and tried to go to sleep.

Chapter Text

Another day. 

Taylor sat, hands working away in a steady rhythm. 

She didn't know what they were making today, the factory tended to produce various things as ordained by those above, and she had been put onto this production line for the next fortnight. Her task was simple, she screwed one thing into this part of a metal board, and then soldered a piece of metal onto another section, before passing it down the line.

Again and again and again. 

She had already done it a few hundred times this morning, her hands were used to it. The sounds of machines could be heard from other parts of the huge building.

Why they didn't just use machines to mass produce these things that she was currently working on, she had no idea. But at the same time, so long as this work existed, she was being paid. 

With so many systems collapsed and society struggling to keep going, it was not like any of her childhood dreams about becoming a teacher like her mother could come true. She never even got to finish a formal education, and even though Eden had its own schools and a small combined college-university, it was hardly as if she could complete that education. No, Taylor had to work to help support the three of them... Emma maybe could get a scholarship by virtue of her government position, but Taylor? No chance. 

Across the room, a new kid was struggling to keep up the pace and complaining about something. 

Most of them had long since gotten used to the whims and fancies of the various supervisors and their demands, by now Taylor had gotten very good at drowning it all out. 

And yet, right now, her thoughts wandered to the letter she got last night. 

Objectively, she should go to this meeting to discuss the 'exciting opportunity' mentioned. The down payment provided as an incentive was a nice cash injection for the family... And if it only represented half of the total amount, then she would have earned more in a day just by going for a talk than weeks of her job in this miserable dump. 

It was just that she really, really hated going to the upper portions of the city.

What was this 'project LINER' even about?

She hadn't heard anything about it, and she was constantly surrounded by all sorts of gossip. 

Maybe a clinical trial for some manner of drug? There were rumours of a new version of the Ether-Purging pills... But then again, the letter had spoken about her own resilience to the material, so it would be pointless to test them on her. Unless they would saturate her body with the stuff beforehand and then see the effects of it. 

The city had already seen a few experimental methods, yet in the end it was the filtering capacity of the World Trees that really did the heavy lifting to keep them safe. 

Even if those same trees made daily attempts to kill the population in other ways...

Through a rift in the clouds---

Taylor violently shook her head.

Don't think about it, don't think about that event. 

She could think about Scion and the doom of the planet, she could relate the tale of the golden hero fighting for all mankind a hundred times... but she could not bear to think about that fallen leaf.

“How many cities do you reckon there still are?”

It took her a moment to respond, so distracted was she.

“No clue,” Taylor shrugged, not glancing at the woman sat beside her, a newer hire by the name of Penny who liked to fill her time working with idle chatter and conversation. The woman was an Aleph native, and had been sent to Eden when a scan revealed she had developed a Corona Pollentia. 

Perhaps this conversation was Penny's way of distracting herself from the fact she had been exiled from her home? 

It must be rough... but you did what you had to if you wanted to survive.

“After that enclave in Los Angeles fell I think we're the last proper city left in the US, but it's been a while since I asked about... might be other settlements, just not big enough to count as a city.”

“Los Angeles had a dome, didn't they?”

“Yeah, Quarantine Site tech I think... and some woman called Court-something who made all the buildings, grew them from seeds or something like that...”

Penny nodded slowly. 

The dome that had covered and protected Los Angeles had been cast down and ruined in just a few nights by a trio of Titans working in unison. For what purpose? What did they gain out of it?

Fucked if Taylor knew. 

“There's definitely one or two cities left in Europe, apparently they get most of their food and resources from a portal to another Earth, Chiet or something like that, but there's lots of Ether storm's there after all the nukes,” Taylor added.

“Ether storm?” Penny asked, voice concerned and pausing a moment (and falling behind) before rushing to catch up, cursing under her breath. Taylor nodded to the question, moving to solder a part quickly into place. 

“Big dust storm, catches up a shitload of Ether and then rips apart the soil and destroys pretty much anything that isn't nailed down...” she explained. The Hebert's had been caught in four of them in her life, and each time they'd been forced to hunker down for days at a time... Fortunately, the World Tree's mostly protected Eden from the destructive events.

But in other places, an entire year's harvest, sickly as it may be, could be utterly destroyed by one.

Amazing how much human civilisation is built upon the back of grain. 

“Oh, and there are a few cities in China as well, right?” Penny asked.

“Unfortunately.”

Somehow, despite everything, the CUI still inhabited territory and had even laid claim to a huge portion of Asia... If only because there was almost nobody left to resist them doing so. 

Nobody beyond the rogue Titans, of course.

What a horrible, horrible world. 

But better to rule over nothing, than not rule at all. Or something like that. 

In this world, musing on such led nowhere.

A commotion, the new kid from before was being shouted at for messing up... would he even make it to the end of the week? 

Penny made to rush, intimidated by the example being made of the young man across the room.

“Don't rush, just keep up a steady pace, Penny,” she warned, and the young woman nodded after a moment. 

New people always raced to do as much work as possible and burned themselves out, got tired and made mistakes that could get them caught in machines or collapsing from exhaustion. It was better to just work at a steady pace, put in your daily hours no more and no less, and get paid for it.

As the day came to an end, Taylor approached her manager.

“Boss.”

“What is it, Hebert?”

“I've been asked to go for an interview for a health thing up in tier one,” she said simply, and watched as his eyes narrowed in suspicion. Honestly, she had worked here for how long, and his default reaction was suspicion? 

It said a lot about the man, this tin tyrant, secure in his tiny factory empire in which he was king.

She presented the letter wordlessly, having gotten Emma to make a copy in case he ripped it up. He'd used all sorts of under-handed tactics on people before, and Taylor trusted the piggy little bastard as far as she could throw him (which, based on his waistline, would not be far). Amazing how some people could still be so corpulent even when food is more difficult to come by, isn't it? 

Maybe he was fucking somebody from the hydroponic facilities?

Christ, what a mental image. If he was, then she felt sorry for whatever woman suffered his tender ministrations. According to Sharon, sex with him was like a wardrobe falling on top of her...

A wardrobe with a tiny key.

Taylor missed Sharon, she was one of the better, more personable people to have worked with them in the last year, but folk came and went. It was kind of amazing that she had lasted so long, considering.

The factory owner finally reached the end of the letter and glanced up at her. 

“... Eh? This is from Dragon...”

“It is.”

She watched the tiny cogs and gears in that head to eventually grind into place. He spent a moment thinking it over before he reached some manner of resolution.

“How much did they give you as this down payment?”

The greedy bastard probably wanted a cut, to 'compensate him for time lost'.

“No idea, someone opened the letter before it got to me and stole the money... still, I need to take tomorrow off for it,” she lied easily. His beady eyes searched her face, and he fell for her lie. 

“Fine, take tomorrow off, but don't expect to be paid!”

Oh, she never expected him to pay her for a day she didn't work, hell, he wouldn't pay for a lost second.

She really, really hoped the bastard got Ether poisoning, but it was only the people who deserved it least that ever suffered. No good deed goes unpunished, and the wheels of karma rarely found the ruts in the road. 

Taylor clocked out, not spending a moment longer than necessary in the building, and made her way to the entrance, wrapping a ratty but loyal headscarf around her upper and lower face. It would only do so much to shield her from the wind and Ether particles, but it was something at least. 

Her father had bought it for her, so it was the least that she could do in the end, right?

In the distance, the vast profile of Eden City rose above the dead, dusty hills. The clear air that surrounded the World Tree's allowed sunbeams to fall through its branches, a solitary oasis of light amidst the steel gray sky.

Her feet began carrying her over the dust of this plain that once was a national park.

To think that those distant hills and mountains were once green and verdant, that she had sat on top of one of those same hills and watched the end of the world. 

Along the same road she walked to the factor, she returned, pushing against the strong gusts of wind laden with Ether, inhaling whenever there was a lapse and holding her breath when it was not. Would doing so really keep the radioactive particles out of her lungs? She could not really know, but she hoped so. It had worked this long, she was lucky enough to almost never suffer from the effects of Ether... 

How fortunate for her. 

Okay, now she was just being catty. 

She had resolved to go to this meeting now; what was a day missed from work anyway if she would be getting paid for it?

As with every day, she returned via Central Square, placed her hand upon the plinth of the statue of Scion and took a moment to look up at its face. The artist had made a mockery of it, really... that full depth of mournfulness was not present, instead it was an expression of determination, of heroic perseverance. 

She did not tell any stories today, leaving the children disappointed, and continued her way home. 

Emma looked stressed upon her return. She kissed Taylor just a few moments longer and more assertively than normal... she would probably need some relief tonight, and even if she was tired, Taylor would provide as she always did. 

It was some sort of pie for dinner. 

Her father was best with simple meals, but he had put in the effort, and she could appreciate that. Quite where he got some of the ingredients, she did not ask... she was pretty sure that he had a few contacts in strange places to get what they required. The black market ran deep in desperate places, and it was not so hidden either when everybody was engaging in it. 

She left not a single crumb behind. 

That night, as she cuddled with Emma, Taylor stared into the darkness and tried to ignore the painful scratches that had been left down her back left in their passion. 

“... Why haven't you left for Aleph or Chiet?”

“... Not this again, Tay,” Emma murmured, tired. 

'You could get away and live a better life,' she wanted to say. 

Perhaps Emma knew what she was thinking, because she exhaled sharply against Taylor's collar bone like an irritable bull, a warning not to press the issue further. 

... She needed Emma in her life. 

Taylor and her father could not survive without the redhead's status and job, but she needed her lover on a deeper level than just that. 

Had Emma stayed because Taylor and Danny were all that she had in this world? Because despite how shit this world was, they still had one another?

She would rather not dwell upon it anymore... she would just go around in circles all night.

Taylor closed her eyes, squeezed Emma and tried to get some sleep.

She had a busy day tomorrow, after all.

Chapter Text

The next day, early in the morning under a rare yet wonderful blue sky, Taylor made her way up one of the many stairways between the second and first tier of the city. 

The steps were clean, and wonderfully clear of human beings.

There was no stepping over people using them to sleep or anything like that.

To see such a clean and pleasant place when she was so much more used to seeing the conditions of the collared who lived below…

Of course, this was not her first time doing this journey, far from it, but it surprised her every time to see the contrast between how those at the top lived. Being right at the top of Eden, along the back and shoulder of the great corpse, it had a good deal of space to utilise, and used it so very wastefully. At the top of the great stair was a plaza, ringed with pleasant buildings in an architectural style she did not really understand. 

It was nice, there were trees growing with grey trunks and equally grey leaves because even in this place life could not persist in the same form as before.

That right was reserved for the greatest treasure of the first tier, the pride of all its inhabitants, the Angel's Hill.

The highest point in Eden, located between the World Trees, the Angel's Hill was covered in verdant green grass and wildflowers, a tiny capsule of the world that was. A small pathway went through it, several people were walking towards it, soaking up the beauty. The Angel's Hill was surrounded by the imposing form of the city hall; yet even the large building of concrete and glass was a minute speck compared to the trunks of the trees stretching into the stratosphere itself. 

She took a moment to stare upwards at the vast canopy, at the trillions of leaves, any of which could fall at any moment.

The air was so wonderfully clear up here, free of specks of Ether. It was like the world used to be. 

The Central Council buildings comprised four structures surrounding Angel's Hill. Each of its four sections constituted a quarter of a circle connected by a covered, arched walkway, with a path below to allow access to the Hill. Perhaps it would have been easier to build one huge structure somewhere... but even in this cynical, dying world, nobody could bring themselves to build upon the last place where flowers bloomed as they once did.

“Mummy---”

“Don't stare, darling.”

Hairs went up the back of her neck, suddenly Taylor was very aware of the weight of the collar, as if it had turned at once into solid tungsten. 

She tore her eyes away from Angel's Hill and instead focused on a nearby mother and child, the former hurrying the latter along. But Taylor could feel the gazes on her back. The citizens up here were mostly of one type, their necks proudly unadorned by collars, as if in defiance of fate and the struggles of those below.

Even if all of them had to be scanned once a week to see whether they had developed a Corona Pollentia, it was a worthy trade-off. 

... It rather made her wonder what happened to those who did develop one, did they get ousted and forced to leave? Were they abandoned by their families? 

Not her problem. 

She needed to look out for herself and her family, not random people lucky enough to live up here, in the fresh air and the beauty of the first tier. Whatever their daily struggles were, they were not her business.

She continued on her journey, and soon was at her destination, the Department of Health building.

Wordlessly she presented the letter to the guard at the door, who looked at it, then nodded. 

“See reception, they'll see you to the right place.”

Wonderful advice; 'take ten steps forward and speak to them instead of me.' She almost admired the level of not-work the guy was putting in, truly she felt as if her safety was assured with such a bastion of a man manning the gate. Not. 

She was shown through to a room that looked a lot like a doctor's office, and took a seat on the frankly rather uncomfortable chair in front of the desk. One side of the room was dominated by filing cabinets and bookshelves stuffed full, precious knowledge on all manner of topics bound up and protected. The collection would undoubtedly be precious, especially now that trees barely grew and most paper had to be recycled or imported from Aleph.

How many people in Eden could claim to have such a selection of books? 

Idly, she tilted her head to read the various titles:

The Harvard Medical Journal Compilation XXXVI

The Fundamentals of Cell and Systems Biology, seventh edition

The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales

For a few minutes she looked them over, and then for another five she stood beside the shelves and took out books to examine, enjoying the comforting weight and smell of the paper. It took her back to when her mother would put her in her lap and read to her…

The handle of the door turned and opened, and Taylor was left standing there, a copy of The Faerie Queene in hand.

The man in the doorway paused just a moment, and then broke out in an amused smile at the sight of her perusing his collection. 

He was tall, with frizzy brown hair and dressed rather casually for somebody with such a supposedly vaunted position. He had a laboratory coat on, of all things, and strode in with his hands in his pockets and absolutely no concern for any sort of formality. Honey-brown eyes looked at her and the man smiled... but it was one feature of his that caught her eye more than anything else, the collar around his neck.

“Sup, you must be Ms. Hebert, at least I hope so, or else I’ll have to show you the door.”

'Sup?'

She really was not sure what to say to somebody so casual, so she settled with raising a hand in greeting.

“... Hey, you're Mr. Andino, right?”

“Dr. Andino,” he corrected, “but just call me Adam, it’s easier---” 

A young woman followed him in, holding a number of papers and some manner of data slab to her chest. She had glasses, which she pushed back up her nose upon seeing Taylor, and which did little to hide the fact that she was really rather pretty. But the half-scowl on her face didn't complement her features, she was the sort of woman who looked perpetually irritated at something (or someone).

She looked Taylor up and down, and then at the back Dr. Andino's head, as if questioning his judgement. 

His subordinate? She seemed so very strict and almost out of place beside him and his relaxed manner… well, if he was a head of department, he would need somebody to assist him, right?

Evidently feeling her gaze boring into the back of his head, Adam gestured to her without even looking back.

“---And this is my assistant and lovely wife, Justina.”

“Good morning, Ms. Hebert.”

Her voice was blunt and hard, with an accent that for the life of her Taylor could not place.

“Now then, would you like to take a seat? Just leave the book to the side, I am sure you can peruse it later… not many people would pick that one out, you know,” he commented, taking a seat on the swivel chair.

Justina moved to stand behind him, beside the window that overlooking Angel's Hill.

“My mother used to teach about it.”

“She had good taste,” he commented. There was no ‘she has,’ did he already know that she was dead, or did he simply assume? Taylor placed the book back from where she took it, sliding it back into place carefully, and took a seat.

“Now then, hopefully you have no idea what this is all about, Ms. Hebert, at least, unless somebody has blabbed ahead of time.”

“… Yeah, I don’t have a clue,” she tried not to get her hackles up too much this early. But it was hard not to at this point in her life when it felt like almost everyone beyond her father and Emma had something against her, when the entire world had gone to utter crap in just a space of a few short years.

“Good... hm... man, I’ve been trying to think of the best way to explain this for ages, yet it all just went out of my head, poof,” Adam said, pausing a moment and then shrugging with a grin.

His wife was staring at him with an utterly deadpan expression as he did so.

“Eh, I'll just be blunt… well, as I am sure you know Ms. Hebert, Ether is a poison that is slowly killing us all,” he began with a statement that was like a sledgehammer, even if delivered with a strange, nonchalant shrug. “Whether it kills us directly or through co-morbidities is irrelevant, all of us are merely living off borrowed time and those bastards from Aleph and Chiet are just waiting for us all to die from it.”

Justina glanced down at him disapprovingly.

“But in the course of my research I’ve been looking for a way to help folks… the Ether purification tablets were my first big success, even if producing them is a major tax on my time and effort, but it’s helped out a lot---”

… Taylor was suddenly seeing why he was head of department.

“---but that’s meaningless if I die. So I'm seeking a much more permanent solution… altering living creatures to be able to consume, process and make use of Ether without being poisoned, able to grow and feed off it, a modification unique to Earth Bet to let us all live here without fear of Ether poisoning. My power gives me a unique ability to make that a real possibility.”

“… You’re a Cape,” she said, tensing just a little.

He paused, and reached up to tug at his own collar.

“Guilty, as charged.”

She swallowed, glancing between them both.

This was much, much more than she had expected, and she could see the direction in which it was going as well---

“You have a tolerance for Ether in the top one-percent of Eden's population, Ms. Hebert… in effect, you are a perfect candidate to be in the first attempt to apply my findings to a human being, as part of project LINER.”

“You want to do severe human experimentation.”

“Yup.”

“Yup’, is that it?”

She… did not even know whether she was angry, disgusted, or mystified right now.

“Don’t get me wrong, Ms. Hebert… what I am proposing would get me kicked out by the ethics board for any scientific society or university in the world pre-Angel Fall,” he admitted. “… But the thing is, my research might just be able to save the human race on Earth Bet, and frankly… that’s enough for the Central Council.”

“Why would I want to even take that risk, what if something goes wrong?” she asked. She almost wanted to stand up and just walk out, this was far more than she had expected...

The money flashed before her eyes, the second part of the payment for speaking with Adam. 

They were just speaking, nothing more.

She would sit tight and hear him out… if nothing else.

“Good question, why should this interest you, beyond furthering the cause of science, of course,” he said that part flippantly, evidently knowing that she could probably care less for it. “Well, let's just slam out the benefits; you won’t be able to be poisoned by Ether, hell, you’ll be able to draw energy from the stuff and even if you’ll need a diet containing some amount of it… easier to add a bit more than take it out,” he began, raising a finger.

Really not winning her over yet… Ether poisoning was horrible, and as he said it was slowly killing them all, but it was hardly worth---

“You'll also be immune to titanification,” the man's eyes fell to the metal collar, his lip quirked.

What?

“How?”

Immunity to titanification?

The weight around her neck felt heavier suddenly.

Adam hummed, leaning back in his chair. She hated that she had given him a hook.

“Without getting into the nitty-gritty… the process would be a fundamental restructuring of the human body in-situ on both a macroscopic and microscopic level. As part of the process the Corona Pollentia is repurposed into part of the endocrine system to regulate the use of Ether within the body through the release of novel hormones---”

“Darling.”

A solitary word from Justina, and Adam paused, then sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck.

“What he means is that the Corona Pollentia won’t work normally, so you can't develop Parahuman powers,” she explained in layman's terms.

“Yes, quite right, dear… but yes, and giving functional immunity to Titanification as result.”

“But all of this is only theoretical?”

“Yes. The actual process is a collaboration with Dragon, she’ll be monitoring your vitals, making sure nothing goes wrong---”

How do you stop restructuring a person’s body and all this technobabble halfway through if something goes wrong! She was just thinking of more and more questions by the second, questions she wanted, nay, demanded answers to!

“---and if successful, then you will be eligible for housing up in tiers one or two. If you show exceptional suitability, then you might even be able to utilise Ether in more… unorthodox ways. It's a very potent substance. A number of samples in the animal tests were drastically stronger and faster than before… we call those that are enhanced ‘Ethered’.”

… Why did that seem like such a loaded statement, as if inviting her to take the bait? She did not give him the satisfaction, instead she simply stared back for a few moments, until his smile faded just a little.

“You just want me to be a test subject for this unproven research, without knowing how well it will work,” she accused.

For a few moments, Dr. Andino was silent.

“… Yeah, pretty much.”

“And if it all works, I’ll come out immune to Ether poisoning and titanification, maybe even… what was it you called them? ‘Ethered’?

“Yup-p,” he popped the last letter in a way that made Taylor want to reach out and throttle him. “If things go well then we’ll be seeing if we can roll it out en-masse… there’s a lot of people in the lower levels scared and suffering after all... if some humans do show the Ethered enhancements, then I imagine they would be a valuable asset for our safety as well. They're pretty intense.”

She did not know whether he was actually concerned or not by that last part.

It felt strange, to see somebody so highly placed in the world giving a shit about their lowers, years of living in Eden had rather enforced the notion that the world did not work that way, and she could not reconcile it.

Perhaps it was the fact he was collared?

Maybe he had empathy…

Or it was just a show for her benefit, that was more likely.

For a few moments both sides were silent, Adam watched her and she stared back, there was so much she wanted to ask, but could not think of the way to do so, she wanted to call the man out. And yet, some damnable part of her liked his ideas, desired the idea of not having to worry about Ether and its poison, about the daily threat of titanification if she got too stressed. 

Evidently, her heart was worn on her sleeve. 

“Think about it,” he reached over and passed something over, another white envelope. It took Taylor a moment to realise what it was, just in time for him to explain; “there’s the other half to go with the first payment and a little bit of information to go with it… if you say yes, then we'll be paying you a retainer for the course of the project and a few weeks beyond, to make up for time off from work. Please let me know your decision, even if it’s a no. Any questions, you know where I am... can't guarantee that I'll always be about, admittedly, I'm a busy man.”

She took it and left, mind racing.

Chapter Text

Taylor barely took notice of her route as she left the building, too busy thinking about everything that had just happened. 

When she emerged from the building she paused a few moments in the clean air of the first tier, wondering what to do with herself. 

It was strange, knowing that she had the rest of the day ahead of her. A day off from work and with enough money in her pocket to have easily justified coming to speak with that madman.

Her feet carried her without really thinking about it to a small local place, a coffee shop named Café Roman. She had not had a real luxury or moment to herself for ages, but she knew that Emma came to this small café from time to time on lunch breaks.

Once, when she had a rare day off, Taylor had come up and seen the redhead enjoying a cup of tea here, sitting outside in the sunshine radiant and relaxed. She had not noticed Taylor. It had brought a sort of smile to her face all the same. 

But now Taylor could actually afford a cup of tea and a moment of peace and quiet to herself. 

This delusion lasted until she had stepped through, until the smell of the imported tea and coffee hit her nostrils and she was told the price of her drink. 

Her eyes moved to the board and its options.

Yup, the price was lower there compared to what the woman had just said. She looked back.

“But on the board it's----”

“Those prices are outdated.”

Those prices are for uncollared.

It was not that much of an increase, really, but it was enough to send the message and make it clear that she was unwelcome.

She stepped to the side, the person following her placed their order.

“I'll have the same.”

The price the man behind her was asked for was the one on the board.

The feeling that she was not supposed to be here only grew stronger as she took a seat in a corner, feeling eyes upon her the entire way. All of them were hypocrites, unwilling to leave the city for other Earths because they had it better here, most of these people were nothing before the Angel Fall, and yet they presumed to look down on her? 

Better to rule in hell than serve in heaven or whatever that quote was, to be privileged in a shithole than a refugee in a better one.

What a fucking joke. 

Her drink came and was put down on the table with more force than needed, spilling some of its liquid over the rim.

She enjoyed it, no matter the looks she was sent.

It was the first real luxury she had enjoyed in months, even if she felt like she did not belong. She could imagine the comments at the tips of their tongues, remarking on her presence, on the way she drank the simple cup of tea.

Was it so much to ask to just have a little peace?

Taylor did not rush her drink, but neither did she indulge too long; the feeling of being unwelcome only grew with time. New customers glanced her way warily, as if any moment she would transform into a monster and begin to destroy the city. 

Did people really believe Titanification was a process that struck at the most opportunistic moment within the narratives of their egocentric existences?

Honestly, if Taylor were to trigger, if the collar did not go off, perhaps there was no better place for it to happen than up here? In this place among the ivory tower's she could pop the safe little bubble of these people’s existence---

It was petty, oh so petty.

She raised what remained of her cup to her lips, inhaled the scent deeply, and then exhaled. 

A sadistic daydream.

She would probably die to the collar someday; a moment of stress and she would begin to black out... and then it would be all over. The real tragedy of it all was that they were technology that had been adapted from Dragon’s armbands, the ones used back in the days when the Endbringers were the biggest threat to humanity... Hah, back when there were only three seemingly unstoppable death machines in the world rather than dozens!

Ironic, wasn't it? 

A technology once destined to save, now a shackle around the neck of the majority of what remained of North America's human population.

She left the cup on the table and walked out without looking towards the staff, she would let them clear up her mess and hold her head high as she departed. 

Fuck them all, if they were going to treat people like her as they did. 

Her feet carried her through the lovely, clean streets to Angel's Hill, where she walked through the meadow of wildflowers along the solitary path. 

It was all so fresh and green... in the meadow’s centre was a small patch that had been mown very short for people to sit, and Taylor did so. There was not a single other person here yet, there would be later during the lunch break no doubt, though.

In her somewhat worn clothes, she cared not if she got some dirt or grass stains on them, putting her legs to one side and watching as a nearby butterfly flapped erratically too and fro.

This was the only habitat left in the world for it in which it could thrive; this meadow was to this butterfly as Eden was to humanity.

The trunks of the World Trees loomed up on either side of the meadow, a pair of vast pillars as wide as a city block stretching into the stratosphere. They blocked out the sunlight save for dappled beams of sunlight... it was a cloudless day for once, beautiful, and infinitely precious. A breeze carried a single particle of Ether against her face, the first she had seen in her time up here. 

She lifted the rice grain-sized piece of radioactive material in the palm of her hand, by now used to its presence.

The process Adam described; this LINER project, would make her immune to this stuff. 

Now that she had a moment of genuine peace, without the judgemental eyes of others... she allowed her thoughts to wander. 

What the Parahuman had proposed was nothing short of madness, it made her think of a documentary she watched as a kid about a Nazi doctor in the second world war who did all sorts of experiments on people. But in this wretched world, such a thing was being proposed as a solution to save mankind, and didn't that put things in perspective? 

Rebuilding a human body... how was it he put it, 'fundamental restructuring', incorporating Ether into bones and other tissues? It was such mad science that Taylor had no doubt that it could only come from a Cape.

... Why was he still here?

So many of the Parahumans who survived the Angel Fall, whether they were heroes or villains, had fled to the other Earths. No doubt they all now bore collars, or hid among the populace, but they were probably so useful to society and for fighting the emergent Titans that they couldn't be disposed of. Taylor had heard a rumour that Earth Shin was even run by Parahumans and one of the strongest bastions against the titans... they had some sort of super powerful leader Cape, or something like that. 

To imagine it... 

And the enhancements, the 'Ethers', was this just part of a super soldier project? 

More to the point... did she take part? 

Her gut reaction was to refuse, to continue this long slog to the grave that was her safe, miserable existence. 

That cycle of waking up, trudging to the factory, and returning once her fingers had gone numb... Broken up by stopping by in Central Square to take the money and food of the desperate in return for telling stories to children that either were, or would soon be, orphans. 

Or did she take a risk?

Taylor allowed gravity to claim her and fell backwards, back hitting the grass and staring listlessly upwards, the grass stems tickled the back of her neck.

In this position, Taylor could pick out the form of a number of Dragon's mechs racing up into the sky.

There were streaks of light, trails of fire and smoke marring the canopy.

The tree still produced those 'leaves', just in far smaller amounts, and far weaker than during the Angel Fall, in which just one of them could rip apart several Parahumans in the span of ten seconds. 

What a wonderful irony, that those worthies of the first and second tier would take such pride in living up here, closest to the threat that killed so many. Perhaps someday all the leaves would fall, a great wave of billions, perhaps tens of billions, that would wash humanity away in one last judgement day?

What was that one painting, with all the circles of angels gazing down on humanity? 

Something like that, but far more hostile, alien and eldritch.

It was unclear to her how long she lay there, lost in a dense, detachable kind of bliss as she gazed up into the canopy.

How... beautiful...

Through a rift in the clouds--- 

She jammed her eyes shut with all her might, blocking out that mental image.

Not now, not right now.

She released a shuddering breath, and kept her eyes shut. 

For just a moment she would just... exist.

“So, how did it go?”

Such a loaded question, and one that Taylor was not even sure that she could answer properly. 

Taylor had ended up spending most of the day on Angel's Hill, even when it turned chilly, she did not budge, she was used to being cold anyway at this point. The winters were harsh in Eden, so what was a bit of a breeze? 

When the time had come, she had waited outside of Emma's workplace, hoping that she had got it right and caught her on the way out. 

It had been a surprise, the redhead's brows had raised upon seeing her, but there was also happiness there even as she had hurried to Taylor's side. 

“It was strange, that Adam guy's a cape.”

“Huh... I thought most of them that could left?”

“I guess not... not sure what is keeping him here unless he is not allowed to leave, but he had a collar, it was kind of strange to see. I imagined that everyone on the Council would be uncollared, apart from Dragon, of course.”

“The more you know,” Emma shrugged. "I know the Anti-Titan cannons on the fourth tier were designed by somebody called Kaleida or something like that, so there's got to be a few about still."

Taylor nodded, strolling and offering to take Emma's bag for her, even if her lover simply smiled and insisted she could carry it.

“How was work?” Taylor asked.

“The usual, they are doing a big audit of tier six to try to work out how many people are there... it's impossible, but they still expect some sort of result or number to work off in the future,” she said, rolling her eyes. Taylor knew that her lover was hardly an analyst, she mostly took care of paperwork for people above her as a sort of secretary and pencil pusher, but evidently, she had been swept up in this latest initiative. 

“Shannon causing problems again?”

“That bitch needs a good slap,” Emma muttered, and despite herself, Taylor laughed. 

Evidently, the sound was infectious because after a moment Emma began chuckling as well. 

They continued to make their way down the long stair, the same that Taylor had ascended in the morning.

“So, what was the big idea by this Adam guy, then?”

Taylor paused, wondering how to put it into words.

“It's hard to describe,” she said, slowly. “They have this scheme to make people immune to Ether poisoning and titanification,” was the blunt way that she put it. That was the easiest way to put it, right? Come straight out with the main perks of the project. 

“... Holy shit, really?” Emma asked, turning her head to stare at Taylor, those bright-green eyes wide. The implications evidently did not pass her by. 

“Yeah.”

“That's amazing!”

“... It, errr... I am not exactly sure how the process works, but I would be a test subject for it, like... one of the prototype batch.”

Emma paused.

“... Ah... and if things are going to go wrong---”

“Then it would happen to the prototypes, yeah... and I kind of don't like the idea of being one of the first, you know? I don't know Em's, it's kind of...”

Emma nodded, evidently deep in thought as she returned to looking ahead. 

They reached the top of the next stair downwards, this one had a rather fantastic view over the south of the city and the desolate wastes beyond. The sea of exposed brown soil and dust was only punctuated by the ugly forms of factories, which looked like ships sailing a stormy sea. 

The sun was setting, casting a red glow over everything, so that it all looked rather like those old pictures from the surface of Mars. 

A Dragon mech was flying over their heads and away, hundreds of feet up... what was its purpose? Perhaps it was just flying to have a look around.

“... What does it involve?” Emma asked, softly.

“I don't really know, as I said... that Adam guy was throwing around a lot of technical terms before his wife interrupted.”

“Why was she there?”

“She's his assistant.”

“Good ol' nepotism.”

“Can't beat it.”

Smiles between them... this was nice, just spending time together in a new setting, walking through Eden back home... Gods how Taylor wished she could do this every evening, rather than trudging back along the road from the factory through the Ether-laden wind.

Taylor reached out to try and take Emma's hand, Emma moved it away when their fingers brushed. 

“Not in public, you never know what freaks are about, especially after last time.”

Dejected but trying not to show it, Taylor forced a smile she did not feel.

“Ah, my bad...” 

When they got back home, her father was making dinner, languorously moving about like that butterfly Taylor had watched earlier. 

He turned and, upon seeing them, walked over to give them both a squeeze around the shoulders and ask about how their days had been. All at once, the same daily ritual took place, with Emma setting down her messenger bag over the spur of the chair. 

Talk turned briefly to the problems of work. 

Taylor described, for the second time, the conversation between herself and Adam, the matters of the program and her concerns. Her father listened intently, brows furrowed and deep in thought. She could see the way his mind warred over the matter, the safety from Ether poisoning and titanification versus the risks. 

“What do you think, dad?”

“... I want you to be safe, but if it could mean that you won't be able to get sick and won't need the collar anymore... you could get a much better job, maybe even work with Emma?” he trailed off. 

That was something she had not thought about, without the risk of titanification she could probably get a much better job, and that discrimination she had suffered just earlier in the day would no longer be a factor. Even if everyone said that better positions were not closed to the collared, the fact that almost nobody she had seen today in the upper levels had one said enough. 

Just because it is not excluded does not mean it is not selected against...

“Okay, thanks dad.”

The eternal economic factor... working up in the first or second tier would be so much nicer than the factory, and would earn more as well...

Outside the home, the wind had picked up. With the amount of Ether in the air today it looked as if it was snowing, but you would not want to be out in it of course. 

Darkness had fallen, the weak lights of the home cast a homely glow over things and after dinner Emma and Taylor cuddled on the old, sunken sofa in companionable silence. 

That night, as she lay awake unable to sleep and listening to the sounds of her father's rattling breaths in the other room, Taylor made her decision.

Chapter Text

“Miss Hebert? Well, I wasn't expecting to see you again so quickly.”

“I've made my decision.”

“Oh? Well, shall we take tea in my office, or is this just a flying visit?”

“... I'll take tea, but I want to go through it all.”

“Wonderful, well then, I better break out the better stuff.”

Eden City had a college. 

Compared to similar institutions pre-Angel Fall it was certainly small, squeezed in on the edge of the east side of the great corpse’s first and second tier. Much of the city had been built quickly by scavenging and pilfering resources from elsewhere, brought in on trucks or brought along by people who had grabbed everything they could. Most of the windows in the upper levels of Eden had been sourced from skyscrapers in New York after the city's abandonment following the emergence of the Meteoroite Titan, for example.

As Taylor walked down the street, the stones of which were far too smooth to be new, she wondered just where in the East Coast they had been ripped up from. 

Eden College had a far more coherent style than most of the city, it even had a small avenue of trees under which a number of students were reading or hanging out. Were it not for the fact that the leaves of the trees were gray and the grass at their base struggling for life, then it would almost be idyllic.

Quite how many students this place saw was something Taylor had wondered for the longest time; there was so much poverty around, but somehow this city had the time and space for a small college campus?

Ah, but there would always be a need for smart people, especially in an age of technology, to keep this place just about struggling along.

Still. Today was the day. 

It had been a week since she had first spoken with Dr. Andino and now here she was, the day of truth. Emma and her father had been fretting, Taylor had promised that she would be fine... but Danny Hebert had made a rare trip out of the house, to come up and speak with Adam himself. 

That must have been an interesting conversation... apparently the Cape 'took it with good humour' and even explained a number of things and concerns. 

So that had soothed her father, and Emma as well.

Just last night her lover had asked, once the lights went out, if she was sure about what she was doing, and when Taylor tried to push it aside she doggedly pursued.

“How long is it going to take?”

“A day or two.”

“If it takes any longer, then I'm coming up.”

The earnestness made her smile; the mental image of Emma forcing her way up to beat the shit out of the Parahuman made her chuckle. 

The biology department of the College was a solitary building, and rather small. It was a far cry from the grander structures pre-Angel Fall, possessing at best a single lecture hall and a dozen offices. 

Taylor had to be escorted to the right place by a tired, Ether-sickened, and collared woman who looked to be having a much worse day than most of the people she had seen around the Campus. Still, not a bad job, safe, secure and mundane in nature. 

Taylor would kill to have that job for herself.

The bright fluorescent lights of the empty hallway that led to the basement hurt her eyes, their footsteps echoed off the walls. 

It was like walking down a brightly lit cave.

Wordlessly, the other woman indicated to a door with a hand, and Taylor stepped through.

The room beyond was rather small and rectangular. 

She had rather expected some grand, state-of-the-art setting with clean white walls without decoration, utilitarian down to the core, but she was disappointed. 

There were wires everywhere, haphazardly pinned to the walls with loops of plastic and feeding into all sorts of machines and devices. Taking up much of the room were several bathtub-like contraptions, each no more than a foot or two away from the other, squeezed into this already limited space. Actually, with their lids they looked more like those big freezers people used to keep in garages or basements, thinking about it. 

“Ah, you're early, Miss Hebert.”

“I did not want to miss the fun,” she replied, unable to fake enthusiasm. 

Adam glanced at her from his seat across the room, smiling a wry, damnable smile. He was sitting at a monitor, typing on the mechanical keyboard without even looking at his hands with a sound like gunfire. 

“Honesty is the best policy, I appreciate it,” he said, then glanced back at the screen. 

Beside him, the familiar Justina stood. Upon Taylor's entry, the woman had lifted a page from her clipboard and ticked something off, as if she were a stern teacher taking attendance. 

There was another young woman present as well, evidently she was not the first. She was blonde and bi-racial, although she struggled to pick up exactly what races... but it was not like it really mattered in the greater scheme of things. 

They exchanged a brief nod with one another, Taylor's presence seemed to soothe her just a little, the arms crossed over her chest released and fell to her sides. 

Taylor moved closer to glance into one of the tubs, a damnable curiosity overtaking her. 

The tub was half-filled with some manner of liquid that looked a bit like those energy drinks you used to be able to make with that gross looking blue powder. The inner surface of the tub looked distinctly... slimy, and it was pulsating as well.

Fucking Tinkers.

She stepped back, wincing. 

She received a knowing look from the other girl, and despite herself, Taylor managed to share just a small, short-lived smile with her. Over the next ten minutes, the other candidates for this experiment arrived, making for four of them. When the last arrived and was settled in, the blonde beside her dared to ask the question that had been on her mind since she arrived.

“So... remind me about the procedure for this bit?"

“You'll strip down most of the way and lie in the tub, then a biological IV will be connected to ensure your health and unconsciousness throughout the process,” the ever-verbose Justina explained while her husband continued to look over a screen full of numbers and options, it looked like some manner of old DOS interface.

“Dragon will be looking over your vitals and making sure that you are all right throughout,” Adam added, not looking away but evidently listening in. 

“Do we have to strip?”

“To improve contact with the solution, it is essential you maximise the surface area of skin available,” Justina replied.

“How will we breathe?”

The woman frowned, as if in irritation for asking such a reasonable question.

“... The biological aspect of the tub functions as an artificial womb that will sustain you throughout the process. Upon your entry, the IV will connect to sustain you with oxygen and other resources for the process.”

Did she reaaally have to use the term womb, of all things? 

A number of Taylor's fellows also seemed squicked out at the word, but if Justina noticed or cared about the discomfort that she had caused them, she gave no indication of such. 

One of the other test subjects was looking pale, gripping her elbow and evidently having second thoughts... in truth, none of them looked particularly comfortable with the description. But if they were here now, then they all had a good reason for it, they were the people desperate enough to take part in this 'fundamental restructuring' of their bodies. 

It all felt so surreal. 

All of them were collared; Taylor knew that people like them made up over ninety percent of the population on Earth Bet, but still, it felt like they were an expendable resource for this entire project... even if each of them had a high 'Ether absorption metric'. 

“You are the second run, the first was completely successful and we had no problems at all,” Adam spoke up, looking away from the screen and spinning around in his chair. “Everyone was completely fine and are just getting over a bit of residual wooziness from the sedatives, but of course, we could hardly ask you young ladies to take part at the same time as the guys,” he added.

Well, that much Taylor could be thankful for.

Out of twenty people approached, only nine were going through with it, five men, four women. 

“Did any of them get the enhancements?” 

“Nope, none at all. It occurred less than one percent of the time during the animal trials, so there is a very low chance for any of you, don't worry.” 

Finishing with her papers, Justina sent him a glance, and after a moment, Adam nodded to her. 

“Anyway, I shall leave the four of you in Justina's capable hands, I wouldn't want any of you getting embarrassed dressing down with me present,” he was already halfway out of the room as he said that, pausing at the door. “Once it begins, and the lids are down I'll be coming back in to supervise everything from the computer.”

When the door shut behind him, and Justina began pointing. 

“Miss Bakshi, tub one. Ms. Hebert, tub two---” Justina began herding them towards the particular device that they would be in for this process. Taylor stepped over to the one indicated, looking into the strange liquid and its pulsating walls. Taylor really was not feeling enthused by all this... if ever there was a time for second thoughts---

“I can't do this!” 

The nervous girl from earlier had broken, she was shaking a little as she bit her lip.

Justina's head turned smoothly to look at her.

“If you do not wish to take part, then the door is over there,” Justina said blandly. “Make sure to let Dr. Andino know, and he shall remove your candidacy. You will not be getting the financial support of the after-program of course, but it is your choice.”

The young woman's lip biting intensified, digging her nails deep into the flesh of her arm in a display of stress and tension that was almost painful to watch.

Most folk couldn't afford to turn down the several weeks or even months of being paid by the Department of Health for this experiment, it was not an insignificant amount of money.

Looking over at the other girls, Taylor could see the lack of flesh on some of their bones, hard times stripping away any baby fat that may have once been there. They were all made lean and strong by the conditions of the world... but that money would make a hell of a difference to each of them. 

It was one of the reasons she was doing this, and she was not so proud as to claim otherwise. 

The young woman wavered; Justina stared at her unblinkingly. 

Taylor busied herself with removing her top. 

She had resolved herself to do this. There was no stopping now and she would not allow herself to entertain the notion otherwise. She had chosen this; it was for the best of everyone she cared about. 

No more worrying about Ether or triggering and being killed by the collar. 

A chance to have a better job to support her family with. Maybe she would even be able to afford some of the pills Adam made to flush the residual Ether from her father’s system?

She was here. She was doing this.

The girl next to her, an Indian girl with beautiful eyes, was doing the same, and the two shared a glance and a brief nod, evidently she was just as deep into this as Taylor was. 

“... What will it be, Miss Lyndhurst?” Justina asked of the nervous girl, still with that bland tone of voice.

“I'll stay... sorry, I just---” Taylor did not hear the rest. It did not matter to her why the others were taking part, only that she got to benefit from this all. 

She could be the only person involved in this entire process for all she cared.

Taylor raised a foot and placed it in the tub. 

The liquid was warm, not enough as to be unpleasant but not sufficiently cold as to be uncomfortable... there was probably some scientifically calculated optimal temperature for a human to be immersed in, right? The bottom of the tub was... less pleasant, it had the same smooth, fleshy texture as the inside of a person's cheek, slimy as well... this was an experience she would never forget, she just knew it... 

“Once you are comfortable, say and I will close the lids,” Justina added. “You will all feel the umbilical cord automatically locate and connect to you in the next few minutes; do not fight it, even when it hurts. It is a short-lived process and will be keeping you alive and unconscious, if you do not let it do its work, then you will be having a very unpleasant time.”

This bitch really needed to work on her professional manner. 

“I'm good,” Taylor called out. 

Get this over with and knock her the fuck out. 

Justina appeared above her, glanced down for a moment, and met Taylor's eyes. 

Up close, Justina had rather beautiful eyes that captured her attention at once in the way they were faintly luminescent---

The woman looked away and closed the lid without comment. Faint blue lights lit up on the underside, strong enough to faintly illuminate the coffin-like machine. It was dark enough that she could probably fall asleep in this... she supposed that that was the point. 

So, any moment now the umbilical---

Something moved in the darkness, a something vaguely serpentine.

She tensed up, but remained still even as a sensation like being bitten struck and the area around where it had begun to pulse unpleasantly.

Her eyes were closing, as if a great weight was pressing down on them. 

Was the liquid in the tank deeper now? 

It felt so, she could feel it up to her neck, submerging her, what if she drowned? Any momentary panic was being drowned out by the sudden wave of unconsciousness, as the process began.

Fucking Capes and their Tinkertech... 

Chapter Text

A new message appeared on Dragon's systems, one of dozens she received hourly. 

She was part way through cross-referencing the projected shortfalls in resources across the fifth tier of Eden whilst attempting to back trace a number of missing deliveries. She would need to push aside the matter for the moment; the hydroponics facilities on the city's north-side had seen a severe drop in water pressure just a few minutes ago, was somebody attempting to siphon it away again? 

Only once she had made adjustments to the critical infrastructure and sent a security team to inspect the line, could she focus on the new message she had been sent a few seconds previously.

“The latest shipment from Aleph has finished coming through, Dragon. We're just starting to unpack it all.”

Chapter Text

Within the palm of her hand was an abomination. 

It looked like the half shell of a walnut, and on the other side of her hand was its corresponding half. The surface was hard like stone but glossy like polished wood, protruding half a centimetre from the skin on the palm and back of her hand. 

And yet...

She could move her fingers perfectly well, could grip as before. The hard shell of the strange anomaly was no obstacle to the function of her hand, despite how it should be agonising or obstructive. 

The water of the shower cascaded down onto her head, washing away the Ether-saturated solution in which she had slept for a day or more. She was groggy with the drugs, and yet her mind raced with hormones and adrenaline as Taylor stared without pause at the thing in her palm.

Ether Liner. 

That was the term that had been used. 

Despite all possibilities, she was the solitary person within the clinical trial to have shown the drastic enhancements that had been found within less than one percent of the non-human trials. It was just her luck to have come out of this as the one freak in the group.

And now, there would be tests, they would be further experiments... and her hand was disfigured by this... thing that had grown within its centre, between and surrounding the third and fourth metacarpal bone.

What would she tell her father and Emma?

'Hey guys, so I survived the experiment and somehow came out as a superhuman... no not that sort of superhuman, another sort. Also, I now have a parasitic nut growing in my hand.'

She closed her eyes and leant her forehead against the cold porcelain tiles of the shower wall.

She was alone in here; the other test subjects had all emerged from their tubs first, showered off and been sent on their way to whatever accommodation had been prepared for them. It was only her anomalous results that had kept her back so that they could give her the gentle explanation of what had happened. 

Adam had been mystified, but unable to disguise his excitement... she was taking a good long shower to spite him, to let him wait for her to be good and done.

And also because hot water was not very common, and this was the first properly warm power shower that she had enjoyed in weeks. Emma usually used up most of it before she had the opportunity.

Fucking scientists...

Fucking Capes!

“Ugh...” she could not help the exclamation, even if there was nobody else around to hear it, and she could have simply kept it to herself and in her thoughts, it felt just a little relaxing to vent everything she felt to the air.

The door to the shower room opened. 

She opened her eyes and turned her head to stare at Justina, who was in the doorway, still in her lab coat. 

“You'll want to get as much of the solution out of your hair as you can. I can help if you need,” she was offering a paddle brush. It might have been a pleasant offer, were it not for the woman’s utter lack of facial expression. 

Never had Taylor seen somebody with a 'resting neutral face', but if such a thing existed, then it was possessed by Justina Andino.

“No, thanks, I'll do it myself.”

She took the brush, not bothering to cover herself as she did so, and then turned away to begin the work of brushing her wet hair... this was going to suck. The brush pulled at a knot, and she took the time and care to work it carefully through. Her hair was one of her few treasures, a feature of hers that she shared with her mother, and she took care of it to the best of her damned ability. 

Vanity was a rather useless thing in this world... but she could not let go of it either. 

By the time she was done, Taylor was rather sure that a good half of tier two's hot water supply had been used up in the course of her shower. 

She emerged from the steam filled room, changed back into her clothes, and stared into a mirror for a few moments.

She looked no different to normal. 

Taylor had half expected a completely different person to be reflected in the mirror, after all, they had supposedly 'rebuilt her from the ground up' with this entire ordeal. But instead it had been the same old Taylor Hebert, beyond the thing in her hand, of course. The same face, even if the marks of tiredness and exhaustion had been lessened by the amount of time she had been unconscious. 

She barely felt different, but there was something there, something that was not the same as before, she just struggled to describe it. 

Perhaps it was all mental?

Liner.

Ether Liner.

It was a strange name, she would much rather have it be that they just used a term like 'enhanced' or 'Ether resistant' to be honest. 

Still, it was better than 'collared.'

She splashed cool water on her face, dried it and left the room. 

Adam was waiting to speak with her in one of the seemingly infinite number of offices in this damned building. After this entire rigmarole and, by the looks of it, sleeping somewhat rough, the man was surprisingly chipper. 

He indicated for her to take a seat... Taylor noted that there was not one left out for Justina, although the woman broached no complaint about such and moved to stand to the side of her husband’s chair. 

“Good to see you looking refreshed, Miss Hebert, we've got a lot to discuss,” Adam began the conversation without too much prevarication. A lot to discuss, indeed. 

Like the ramifications for her future now that she was supposedly enhanced... 

She nodded, waiting for Adam to get on with it. 

He glanced towards a monitor, on which an image of a human face was visible, a woman.

“Miss Hebert, this is Dragon, she's popped by to say hello and be part of this meeting.”

“Oh.” She was not expecting that. “Hi?”

“Hello, Miss Hebert, how are you feeling?” came a voice. It was not quite what she had been expecting, with the woman’s position in Eden she had almost expected something more... lordly. Something more fitting for the person who was keeping this shithole running for the most part.

“I'm... fine. Still getting used to everything, to be honest.”

“Understandable.” The face on the screen smiled back.

It was a nice smile. 

“Wonderful, now we've all said hello to one another, first things first, would you kindly release the lock on Miss Hebert's collar, Dragon?”

Adam reached forward, smiling good-naturedly and after a second, there was a loud sound that was somewhere between a click and a crunch, and then---

Fresh air, the disappearance of the familiar weight around her neck. The Cape pulled back, collar in hand, which had hinged open. It was strange to feel it gone, after two or so years of wearing it continuously... was this how people felt taking off their wedding rings after many years of marriage? In a way, it was a great weight off her shoulders, but at the same time, watching the band of metal be taken away...

“There we go, no more of that for you, Miss Hebert---” Adam idly handed the collar off to Justina.

“Wait!”

Adam paused, mouth open, having been about to say something. She felt just a little foolish for speaking up, but after a moment, managed to articulate what she wanted to try and say. 

“... Can you deactivate the bomb inside so I can keep it?”

“The collar is better being recycled and put to use around somebody else's neck,” came the cold, utilitarian logic of Justina.

“... It's just...” she was not quite sure how to phrase what she wanted to say, despite herself, she faltered, half reaching out for the collar. “... Even if I'm now different because of the Liner stuff, I still don't want to forget where I came from.”

It was strange, to feel an attachment to the mechanism, but not keeping it almost felt as if she would be betraying all the people that she had lived and worked around for the longest time. Even if she just kept it at home like a trophy, a reminder of what had once been... was she suffering some manner of strange Stockholm syndrome for an inanimate object whose entire purpose was to kill her? 

Justina frowned. 

It was like she could not comprehend the notion of what Taylor was saying.

Glances were exchanged, and then a voice came through the speaker of a nearby computer.

“If you leave it with me, Taylor, I am sure that I can get the explosive diffused and removed,” Dragon said, the speaker buzzing a little as she did so. Her voice had changed just a little, softer, did she understand where Taylor was coming from on this? 

“... Very well,” Justina said, placing the collar to one side and continuing to regard Taylor with that same expression of mild puzzlement. Seeing as it was the only emotion beyond mild disapproval she had observed in the woman thus far, she would take that as a victory. 

“Now then, Miss Hebert. Seeing the somewhat unusual circumstances, I hope you will not mind if we progress as before with a series of physical tests in the coming days, to see how you have reacted to the treatment?” Adam began. “Things like reactions, strength, blood tests and some scans were planned for everyone who went through the project to establish a baseline average for future comparison, but your own results will not be able to be included in this considering that you have rather gone a step beyond what the others will be capable of.”

Well, she would have been poked and prodded anyway, it was part of the contract she signed when she agreed to be part of all this. 

So she nodded.

“Wonderful!” He clapped his hands together. “I've sent a message to your father and housemate to let them know that you are awake and well, you mentioned your concerns before about letting them know. We have a room set aside for you for the next few weeks until we can be sure that you know your own strength and the tests are done.”

Again, she nodded.

Much as she wanted to be back in the small house with her father and Emma, enjoying some home cooking... But if something went wrong or there was residual Ether contaminating her then she would never forgive herself. It only made sense that she stay a bit longer until she got the all clear. 

What was a few days compared to the health of the people she loved?

“Can I message them as well?”

“Of course... we'll have a phone sent to your room with the appropriate contacts,” Dragon supplied at once.

From there, the conversation deviated into tiresome minutiae that she struggled to pick up on. Dates and times, ideas and even a theory or two were mused upon by Adam and Justina before Dragon brought them back to the matter at hand. 

Fortunately, the entire thing did not last too long, despite having been unconscious for well over a day Taylor felt strangely tired, mentally rather than physically. Was it merely the remnant of wooziness? The effects of whatever anaesthetic had been used on them when they went under. 

Physically, she had abundant energy, she felt like she could run a marathon right now. 

Fortunately, the meeting concluded, and Taylor was shown to one of the many rooms of the university, hastily rearranged and with a bed put in for the purpose of her rest, alongside a desk. There was a small little journal and pen atop the latter, with a note that if anything came to mind, or she noticed anything strange, to make a note of it. 

She took a seat on the bed, beside the window, leaning her forehead against it and watching as, below, the small student population of Eden went this way and that. 

They lived enchanted lives, a far cry from what she was used to. 

A solitary flake of Ether floated past and landed on the windowsill, melting away as the pure air of the World Tree's eroded it away.

It wasn't dangerous for her anymore, right? 

Taylor was half tempted to open the window to grip it, to crush the small flake and look at the smear it would leave behind on her fingers. 

She looked away from it, she had better things to focus on at the moment, namely letting her father and Emma know she was okay. 

The phone Dragon provided her looked so sleek and shiny, so much better than the crappy old models she was used to seeing.

It had five contacts, but she was only interested in two of them. 

T.Hebert: Hey guys, Adam said he let you know but I'm okay

T.Hebert: Just got to the room they're providing until they know I am safe to be around

T.Hebert: Kind of had an unexpected result

Hopefully the Cape gave them both the lowdown on what had happened, he would probably do a better job of explaining and phrasing it than her. 

She only had to wait a half-minute before she got a response from her father. Had he been sat at the kitchen table, anxiously waiting for this message?

D.Hebert: Are you okay Taylor?

D.Hebert: Adam said something about enhancements you mentioned, are you safe?

T.Hebert: Yeah, I am safe. Room's not very big, got a lot of energy but also tired

E.Barnes: So long as you're safe

E.Barnes: That's all I care about, not big sciency words.

E.Barnes: What are the enhancements like?

T.Hebert: Not sure yet, I... kind of have this weird thing in my palm now.

T.Hebert: Apparently it is some sort of weapon?

She found herself sighing out of the blue, balancing the phone on her knee and glancing into her palm again. The strange, walnut-like surface protruding from either side of her hand was still there, just as it had been earlier. It certainly looked like nothing notable if it was supposed to be a weapon, unless she was going to try and slap or backhand somebody to death? 

Well, if she pointed her palm at somebody and it fired a laser, she would be far more concerned.

For now, she just had this ugly thing marring her hand. 

Maybe she could wear a glove from now on. Nobody would ask too many questions about a random person wearing a glove, right? They would assume some unpleasant skin condition or a side effect of Ether poisoning, maybe?

E.Barnes: Picture?

T.Hebert: [Image]

E.Barnes: That's weird, does it hurt?

Emma, ever with the gentle delivery... and people said that Taylor was blunt? It was a good thing she was not in public, Taylor's stomach dropped upon reading the second word.

T.Hebert: No, not really. 

E.Barnes: So long as you're okay 

E.Barnes: Miss you

E.Barnes: Come home soon

D.Hebert: I suppose the experiment just knew Taylor was special. 

It was such a silly, sappy response from her father that it made her chuckle despite herself, a violent exhalation before she could stop it. 

T.Hebert: I'm gonna get some sleep. 

E.Barnes: Luv u

D.Hebert: Sleep well Taylor

At least she had those two, even if the world was fucked. 

She let herself flop backwards. 

The pillow was so soft that she would not have been surprised if it had been stuffed with the feathers of an angel.

Chapter Text

23.73 miles.

That was how far she had run, according to the display in front of her, steadily ticking up. 

Taylor didn't feel tired. 

Her lungs were busy pulling in air to fuel her movement, her muscles were hard at work as she ran and ran and ran, but she felt great as she did so, rather than exhausted and wearied. She hadn't run like this in years, hell, if ever, really. 

Eden was too cramped and, frankly, crowded to do things like fun run... and to do so would just be a taste of calories. There weren't many fat people in Eden at all, for obvious reasons. 

Underneath her, the treadmills speed had been pushed to the max, and even then, she was more jogging than anything else. Her body could reach speeds now that were impossible for a human being. 

The first time they had gotten her on the machine, she had almost run into the wall because she accelerated too quickly for the machine. They had faced a similar problem with the various weights; she had put all her effort into lifting a big heavy barbell thinking that it would be too much, and promptly thrown herself off balance with the ease of doing so.

Everything was so much easier now physically. 

She was faster, stronger... and now they were attempting to quantify the amount by which she stood above other people.

Frankly, she would much rather keep normal human capabilities.

Now, Taylor needed to exercise care to crack glasses in her hand, or slam doors when she pushed them shut.

When she reunited with her family, how much more cautious would she need to be when hugging her father or making love with Emma? Superpowers of any sort did not need to be convenient, but now that she was so much more than other people, how much more difficult would the rest of her life become?

There was no point worrying about it because there was no going back. 

She'd committed to this, and been the one-goddamn percent that had come through the process fundamentally altered in some way.

This was the end of the first week of tests, and man had they been running her ragged. 

All the other Liner candidates were being kept busy, of course. Indeed, a lot of the time Taylor was exercising or going through tests alongside them... but they all had to drop out in the high intensity stuff. Even the pair of strapping young men who looked like they should be able to keep up with her eventually had to throw in the towel.

It sounded arrogant for her to admit, but it was a simple fact that her physical abilities were just better than theirs.

Now, it was just Taylor and Adam left in the lab that had been converted into a gymnasium and testing centre. 

Justina had herded the other Liners away back to their rooms or some other test, like a perfectly efficient mother hen with its chicks.

“What's after this?” she asked aloud. 

It wasn't difficult to talk whilst running at this speed, and she glanced at Adam as she did so. 

“We'll be doing a few scans; the results of your altered bone structure were very interesting, and we need to investigate further. The integration and mineralisation of Ether into their structure is fascinating,” he said, before pausing.

“Aha, my apologies, I know I sound a right ass when I put it like that... do you need a break? I appreciate I've been running you rather hard today,” he said, lips moving into an apologetic smile.

“It's fine.”

His concern was appreciated... even if it was sporadic, like something he occasionally remembered was something he needed to do. 

Evidently, he was a man easily drawn into his work, and forgetting the impact of such on others was a consequence of such. 

But for the amount of money she was being provided for all of this, she supposed it was her job to keep going until she dropped. 

Hell, the day's worth of testing wasn't even as long as her shifts back at the factory, and they actually gave her proper food here for meals during this time!

“Um-hm... just say if you want to stop, my curiosity isn't worth putting yourself in pain, Miss Hebert,” Adam said. 

She appreciated that. 

She really did. 

From time to time, Adam would drag himself back, apologise and try to take care of them. It was a far cry from what she was used to in the factory.

She'd grown much too accustomed to expecting nothing from people beyond her father, Emma and one or two others. To suddenly be surrounded by people uniquely like her felt so very odd...

The test continued, she was pretty sure that soon she would have run a full marathon, but her body was still going strong. 

“You know, I am sure that Security will be interested in you, if you're considering a new employer after all this,” the scientist commented, idly. 

“Huh?” she grunted loudly, indicating for him to go on.

Andino did not pause in making whatever note was going onto his paper, indeed, the man didn't so much as look up. 

“The Head of Security, Tagg, was very invested in this project after the first animal tests revealed the Ethered individuals. He questioned me for ages about the potential for human application." 

Taylor found herself glowering. 

Eden's security forces seemed to do a lot more in terms of keeping people out of specific places than actually keeping them safe; then again, what was an average human being with a rifle going to do against a Titan? No, better to leave any encroaching Titan to Dragon and the defensive cannons.

Most of the time that Taylor had seen the security forces, it had been around key junctions within the city, or keeping order... that was to say, breaking up protestors or groups causing trouble when the food supplies got low. 

Rarely resorting to actual violence, but the promise of violence was an effective enough means to corral human beings most of the time. 

“... So when do I get press-ganged?”

Adam paused for the first time. 

“Hmm...” he actually gave it some thought, tapping the pen he held against his chin as if he were contemplating some academic matter, before, with the sly expression of one suggesting a course of action, replied. “Depends on the nature of the results, to be honest... then again, I know the nature of your previous work,” he paused, as if for effect. 

“What of it?”

He chuckled, just a little awkwardly.

“Well, from a purely objective standpoint, it would rather be a waste of your abilities to see you go back to a factory of all things,” he said. “Even if the structure in your hand doesn't function like in the animal tests, your physical enhancements would make such drudgery rather a waste.”

She was more concerned about being forced into the position, to be honest. 

So much of her life over the last few years had been out of necessity that it was something she was incredibly used to, but it was still galling. 

What had she been hoping for out of all of this?

In truth, it would have been nice to just be a normal Liner, perhaps complete her education and get a cosy office job, maybe with Emma up at the Central Council buildings?

She'd not really had the opportunity to dream, to imagine it.

Evidently, some part of her thoughts showed on her face. 

“... Hop off the treadmill. Let's put it to the test,” Adam said, knocking the end of his pen against the clipboard as if to signal the end of the exercise. 

She did so.

Adam turned off the treadmill and turned his focus back to her. 

“If you'd be so kind, attempt to make it grow or respond... I've been curious about whether it even would function, or what form it would take, and whilst we have a moment of privacy we may as well investigate it.”

“How do I do it?” she asked, bluntly, and the response was, irritatingly enough, a non-committal shrug.

“No idea, the animal tests simply make them grow,” Adam shrugged. “Let me tell you, the chimpanzee that suddenly created a club and broke containment was terrifying, beelined right for me!” he chuckled.

Taylor did not laugh at the attempt at humour, instead she focused on her hand, staring at the uneven surface of the walnut-like structure within her palm. 

It glistened back, so perfectly smooth and polished. 

In the week since it had first appeared, she had found herself rubbing the structure multiple times, it was solid, but she could still kind of feel through it, in a way? Kind of like how one could scratch or touch a nail and still have sensation via the other side, if that made sense?

The structure had not attempted to grow, or done anything the entire time... so she had mostly tried to ignore it. 

It was solid, it was present... but it did not get in the way of her day.

But now, as she focused on it, what was she supposed to do to make it do something? She just... kind of wished for it to grow, to form a weapon, to respond in some way.

But then again, did she want it to be able to do something? She would rather not be press-ganged into anything, she was hesitant for it to respond---

Sprouts.

Tendrils of glossy, glass-like crystal extended, her hand clenched automatically into a fist, gripping the rapidly forming core of crystal. But the tendrils did not stop moving, writhing and extending out from both sides of her palm. 

Adam stepped back automatically as the thing came to life, even as he watched, unblinkingly, as if to see every small detail. 

The tendrils pushed between her fingers outwards, wriggling, tipped with black spurs. There were close to a dozen of them, and they began to coil and merge as they grew further and further outwards. 

It felt wrong. 

Her hand was being rapidly encased in pure, crystallised Ether that was being exuded from her hand, forming a pair of spines---

Her heart jumped into her throat, she struggled to breathe for fear. 

The tendrils began... struggling? No, it was more as if they were hesitant or unsure, perhaps? 

She just had the strangest feeling that something was not right.

And then, the black tipped tendrils began to slow, they finished coiling around one another. She was left with a pair of large, glossy crystal spikes emerging from the top and bottom of her hand, as if she were gripping some large, double ended knife. One side was longer than the other, the 'top' as it were was close to a foot long and the 'bottom' was only a few inches. Both sides were a dark, black shade, with the glossy, glass like crystal making up the sections around her hand... like some sort of growth plate.

For a moment, there was silence between herself and Adam. 

“Fascinating...” 

Adam was leaning forward, unblinking, eyes wide as if attempting to pick out every sensory detail about the ether encasing and extending from her hand possible. His hand was a blur as he made notes without so much as looking at the clipboard below him. 

“We'll have to take samples, it looks almost pure, bar the darker parts, reinforcement? Super-saturated? Stay there, miss Hebert, I'll take pictures and samples---”

All she could do was stand, frozen in place like a statue, as the man got utterly swept away by the new development.

Her heart hammered in her ears, she swallowed thickly. She hadn't thought it would actually work on some level, that all the ether in her body could actually just... do that. 

The thing that had emerged from and encased her hand was simply an extension of her on some level, right? But presently it was just a pair of spikes, sure if she were to drive it into somebody's body it would hurt them a great deal...

... So why did she have the most damnable sense that something more should have happened there, that it was incomplete?

Samples were taken from the weapon with the assistance of a mechanical hammer. 

Adam almost lost an eye to a chunk of flying Ether before Justina returned, took one look at her husband and sighed before directing them both to the appropriate machine for the job. 

When she got back that night to her temporary room, and after thoroughly showering, she sat at the window with her phone in hand, looking out over the city.

She liked the view up here. 

The College was only one tier above her homes, so it wasn't really much higher up, but the glass of the window was much clearer and larger. The windows back home were more akin to a ships' porthole, which was glass being expensive or scavenged.

She was so fond of this view that Taylor had pulled up a chair to watch the sun set over the distant wastes. 

Her body faintly ached from the exertions of the day, her right hand was no longer encased in crystallised Ether. 

Adam had taken his samples and let her go early so that he could focus on running tests on them with some of Dragon's advanced technology.

Taylor's dinner, a meal that had been supersaturated with Ether to replace what she had lost, was eaten ravenously. And then she asked whether she could have seconds... and then thirds. 

A bone deep need to eat had come over her after creating her sword... well, all the mass for it had come from her own body, right? 

She rather pitied the college kitchen that had to keep up with her drastically increased metabolism... then again, it was what they were paid for, right?

Reaching over, she turned on the phone she had been given. 

There were nine missed messages, all received in the afternoon, one from her father, just a gentle question about how things were going and if she was okay. The other eight were from Emma.

She scanned them.

E.Barnes: Saw a cute cat at work today, I like that some people still have them. It made me think of you.

E.Barnes: [Picture]

E.Barnes: How busy are they keeping you? 

E.Barnes: You're taking ages to respond today.

E.Barnes: I don't like them making you keep it turned off for so long.

E.Barnes: Your dad's making meatloaf tonight any chance they'll let you come down to join us? 

E.Barnes: Miss you.

E.Barnes: ♥︎

She'd gone years without a phone, but now that she had one Emma was certainly very keen for her to make use of it all the time. 

It had only been a week, but Emma was getting more clingy by the day.

Then again, it wasn't like either of them really had anybody else close, it made sense for them to keep in such close contact, right? 

Perhaps Emma had tons of work friends, and she just wasn't in the mood to spend time with them today. 

Still, it would be nice if they could just... go and grab a coffee together at some point... maybe not at that café she had been to before, though. Actually, perhaps it would be a good idea to there, if only so that she could shove it in their faces that their damn rules didn't apply to her any more?

She reached up to touch at her neck. 

The bare skin that had gone so long without a collar there felt smooth, tender. 

The device that had once been a sign of her status sat on the table across the room, deactivated. 

T.Hebert: I'm okay, they've just been keeping me really busy yeah.

T.Hebert: Miss you too Ems, I'll talk to Dr. Andino and see if I can get a day off to grab coffee with you and see dad and stuff like that. 

Chapter Text

Taylor walked the streets of the first tier, the crisp, cool air of this blessed place ensured by the World Trees' purifying boughs. 

High above, that vast canopy that stretched into and replaced the clouds was eternal, from certain angles its sheer width blotted out the sky entirely.

In the distance, a trail of fire; a newborn leaf, cut down before it could fall through the air to begin its hunt?

Taylor returned her gaze to the ground. 

Nobody else had looked up to see it.

It was something she had noticed about this first tier. 

The people rarely looked up to the sky, despite the vastness and beauty of the World Trees and their canopy, and the glimpses of blue sky that could be enjoyed nowhere else... they all seemed scared. Perhaps it was the fact that each day the two vast trees disgorged lifeforms that would attack like rabid dogs, that the blessed security and pure air, the better conditions of this place were eternally at risk?

Each man and woman walking these lovely streets lived in the knowledge that their potential doom grew, fell, and had to be slain before it could reach them every hour of every day.

... She did not feel too much pity. 

Constant fear of what lay above was a worthy trade-off for security, safety and pure air. 

She saw an angel---

Thinking about that day, about what had happened at the end of the world and the way they killed it as she tried to comfort it... that same sensation as back then coursed through her. That sense of wrongness, of injustice, and despair at everything.---

Her hand clenched automatically, there was movement under the fabric of the fingerless glove she had worn over it.

Taylor forced it down, she took a shaking breath, pausing where she was walking as her heart began to beat loudly in her ears. 

Not here, not right now!

Especially not after the demonstration the other day with Adam!

After a few seconds of controlling herself, or trying to bring the damnable, accursed parasite in her palm to heel, the tendrils stopped. The horrible sensation of life and movement in her palm that was both her and not ceased as the tendrils were pulled back into her hand. 

What was it about the memory that had woken it up? Was it the nature of the event, or was it the feelings that it had elicited? 

Taylor didn't know; she didn't want to know.

Everything to do with her hand was something she didn't want to see, didn't want to acknowledge or think about. 

The downside was, she had no option except to do so. 

Every time she did anything with that hand or something was pressed against her palm, she could feel it there, like a bad colleague announcing their continued existence by messing something up in the factory. 

There was no getting away from it, short of cutting her hand off, perhaps... but would they even allow her to do so, when it was apparently something so special? The questions from the other day danced through her mind, the conversation regarding the security forces, about how wasted she was in the factory. 

She couldn't deny the latter point, but the former. 

There was a group up ahead, a half-dozen men and women in official-looking outfits, fancy suits of the sort that had been worn by high-powered businessmen and government figures before the Angel Fall. Likely, that was what they were, officials from Earth Aleph... possibly Shin, she didn't know much about that world, to be honest. 

This group was surrounded by an entire squad of Eden's security forces.

Each helmeted security force member stood out in their black body armour and outfits like a blot or stain, the darkness of their gear all the more obvious against the crisp whiteness of the first tier's whitewashed architecture. Faceless helmets stared outwards, people consciously moved around the group like water being parted by an island in a river, the guns in their hands were clearly tinkertech in nature.

Taylor recognised the figure at the front of the group as the Mayor of Eden. 

She was a woman in her mid-fifties, with pale blonde hair just starting to turn grey in that 'I am still young and vivacious, please take me seriously' style that all professional women her age had. She was slim, especially in that tailored suit, and had bright blue eyes that some would describe as piercing, and 

Taylor didn't vote for her. 

Actually, she wasn't sure anybody did. 

The Mayor was gesturing towards the Central Council building with the immense forms of the World Trees behind it, speaking with a clear tone;

“---As you can see, despite the difficulties, we've been making efforts to ensure that some part of Earth Bet's old culture is being represented and maintained here. It's slow work, what with the lack of materials, but all of your efforts have proven essential to the city continuing to survive and flourish despite the difficulties that we have faced---”

'Go down to the seventh tier you rancid little---'

Taylor turned and continued on her way. 

She could only look at that scene for so long before she would feel sick to her stomach, and she had somewhere to be. 

With how the first tier was laid out, that is to say, being a solid ring of buildings surrounding the central council buildings, one simply needed to walk along the road for a few minutes to reach any one location. 

Emma had given her the name of this place for them to meet up.

The last time she grabbed a drink in this tier, it had been Café Roman, where she had been discriminated against. 

This time it was a sort of combination of bar and coffee shop called Glitter Love, the sort of place that served tea and coffee in the day and alcohol by night. When she entered, it was to the soft sound of Golden Brown by the Stranglers, a piece of music her father liked to hum and sing to himself, playing over a speaker. 

There were only a few customers, and beside the window was the person she was looking for---

“Hey, Tay!”

Emma looked as if she had dressed up for their first meeting in two weeks. From the way the redhead had dressed and her sheer exuberance, one would have thought they had been apart for months, rather than weeks. 

Emma stood from her chair and walked over to grab Taylor in a hug. 

Arms came around her torso, the shorter woman clenched her tight, with the benefit of the heels she was wearing, Emma was almost at eye level with her.

Taylor carefully put her arms around Emma, pausing for a moment as she did so and trying to give a gentle squeeze back. It was the first real physical contact she had enjoyed with another human being, beyond the purely clinical inspections of Adam and Justina. 

“Heh, I swear you've gotten taller,” Emma said with a smile, pecking her on the cheek.

“Not according to the measurements... been awhile since I last checked,” Taylor said, allowing Emma to tug her over to the seat that her lover had been sitting at just moments ago. 

A mocha, Emma's favourite, sat on one side of the table and a small wooden board with a tea pot and all the things needed to enjoy it on the other. 

“This place seems expensive,” Taylor found herself musing, glancing over at the counter, where a trio of employees were moving about, preparing drinks. They all had their own uniforms, very fancy---

“It's been ages since we last saw each other, let me treat you,” Emma waved off.

She'd rather see that money spent on something for the house, or making sure they had food. Then again, she supposed that they hadn't been needing to pay for Taylor's food expenses of late, and all that money she had brought in would help. It was okay to be treated a little, right?

Taylor reached out and began pouring herself some tea. 

Emma leant forward on the table, putting her elbow down and pushing her chin into it, those lovely green eyes focusing on her.

Despite herself, Taylor felt heat rising up her neck. 

Automatically, she glanced to the side, to the other patrons and those beyond the window who could be glancing in. 

Nobody was paying them any mind at all... They were just a normal couple right now. 

No collar, no pressure, no doubts from people around them. No discussions or snide remarks about Emma being with her and the fact she must have taken pity on Taylor. 

They were equals right now, right?

No, they had always been. 

It was solely other people who thought otherwise.

She took her first sip of the tea; it was good. 

Better than good, it was quality tea, not the dust probably swept up from the factory floor that was the best they could normally afford. It was the best thing she had drank in ages. Her eyes closed automatically, inhaled the rich smell of the drink in her hand, it took her back in time to when the world was normal, before the Titans, the Angel Fall and even before her mother died... 

Ah... 

When she opened her eyes, Emma was watching her with a smile, as if that simple action on her part had made her day. 

“Where's dad?” Taylor asked.

“In bed, he, um, wasn't well,” Emma said, glancing away for a moment, some part of the mood evidently ruined. But rather than waiting for Taylor to inquire, she went on, knowing that she would be worried; “...He went out shopping the other day, I told him I would do it but by the time I got back he'd already gone and done it... you know how he is...” she trailed off.

Yeah... she did. 

Despite his Ether poisoning, he still insisted on trying to live normally, despite how each venture out of the house was another dose, a worsening of his various symptoms.

... She would talk to Adam. 

He made the Ether purging tablets, she could get some for her dad, right?

Taylor stirred her tea as she dwelt on it for a moment. She knew that the tablets were normally so expensive that even if she and Emma pooled their incomes together, they would struggle to afford a dose even in with a year's earnings... but maybe now...

But still.

“How're you, Emma?” she asked. 

“Eh, not bad... glad to see you, I hate the idea of you being cooped up and them poking at you,” the redhead replied, a finger running along the curved edge of her own drink. “Works the same as ever, that big project they have us working on is driving us to the funny farm because nobody thought that trying to do a comprehensive survey of Eden's population is basically impossible... but nope, gotta have numbers and results.”

“Saw the Mayor showing around some bigwigs earlier.”

“Yuuuup,” Emma dragged the word out an obscene amount, eyebrows raising and glancing away with a deep sarcasm. “Gladstone's gotta keep people on the other side happy if she wants to keep supplies coming through... I think there's like, Aleph's version of the Secretary of State visiting? And a Cardinal from Earth Chiet, so pretty bigwig stuff.”

A Cardinal? 

Chiet was the one that was, like, a global theocracy, right? Had a huge population, but still gave a lot to keep Eden running. 

She had to wonder whether the Cardinal had seen the World Trees and promptly imagined them as the tree of Life and knowledge from Genesis. Hell, given the name of the city, perhaps it was all positioned to try and siphon as much out of Chiet as possible.

“She was flaunting the architecture up here and saying that things were going well... wish she'd taken them down to the lower tiers,” Taylor grouched.

Emma gave no response, instead, she just raised her drink and took a long sip.

Conversation continued to flow between them from there, catching up, spending time with one another.

It was nice to see Emma again, even if Taylor had really wanted to see her father. Dr. Andino had been quite insistent that she not descend below the second tier of Eden, in case somebody recognised her and thought she had broken her collar. She had a special card in case somebody asked that she could present to any Security who stopped her, but still... no need to get into trouble if possible, right?

Still, inevitably, the question was asked that on some level Taylor had been dreading.

“... Can I take a look?” Emma asked, extending a hand out to Taylor.

It took her a moment to realise that she meant Taylor's hand.  

She looked away. 

Across the café, a mother was dealing with a fussy child, a young family were enjoying drinks and a croissant each. 

The seconds stretched by. 

On some level, she wondered whether she should pretend not to have heard...

“Taylor. I want to see.”

This time it came out more demanding. 

Perhaps it was just her nature; Emma had always been very good with keeping things calm and ordered around the house, whether it was with money or just making sure that they kept the house when others tried to take it from them. She had always kept a tight reign over everything.

Emma could simply grab Taylor's hand and take a look, but that had never been her lover's way. 

After a moment more hesitating, Taylor extended her right hand.

Emma took it in her own, the soft warmth of her long fingers pressing against the back of her hand, comforting enough even through the thin material of the fingerless gloves. 

A thumb pressed down on the centre of her palm, light, ghosting over the various smooth ridges and creases of the walnut-like surface protruding from her skin. A little pressure here, a bit more there, Taylor could feel Emma pressing down, testing just how hard it was. 

Throughout it, Taylor tried not to squirm, especially when Emma pulled up the hem of her glove to take a look at the thing in her palm without asking. 

Frankly, she was relieved when Emma released her hand without passing a comment about it or calling it weird. Instead, the redhead rested her fingers atop Taylor's as if she hadn't just moments ago been poking at the inhuman growth in her palm. 

The conversation moved on, they discussed all sorts of things, and when the tea pot had long grown cold, they finally prepared to leave Glitter Love.

“Hey, thanks for coming to see me. I know the time was a little awkward and you had to take time off work, and it's probably awkward whilst I am still adjusting to things,” Taylor said.

The probably rather egregious bill was paid by Emma, who had not allowed Taylor to see the final total

“Huh? Of course I'd take time to see you, you're still mine even if things went a little off plan,” Emma smiled, leaning forward to kiss her on the lips. Emma's perfume filled her nostrils, it was a sharp and somewhat harsh, but the other woman liked it despite Taylor not being fond. 

The redhead reached out and laced her fingers with Taylor's. There wasn't any of that same hesitation as before when Taylor was still collared, and they had been heckled.  

“C'mon, let's go for a walk through Angel's Hill whilst there's still plenty of light,” Emma began to lead her along towards a gap in the four sections of the Central Council building. 

Taylor allowed her to do so, just happy to have Emma by her side.

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Air rushing in her ears. 

The gray sky above her head was an ever-changing carpet of the same colour across infinite, similar textures. The air was so very cold beyond the protective bubble of the World Trees purification, the world was so much less colourful. 

Scraggly grasses struggled to grow in clumps here or there, tens of thousands of tree stumps were obstacles that she had to leap and dart over. The sea of tree stumps was all that was left of the once verdant green forest that once covered the White Mountain National Forest.

All of these trees had been killed when the World Trees arrived, when that alien being set root and drained an ever-increasing radius of life and nutrients to fuel the birth of its leaves. 

And subsequently, as Eden was being built, the dead forest was rapidly cut down for resources. 

Buildings were built and wood burned, the land had been stripped bare and never recovered. Perhaps with time, it would, as the world recovered from the radiation released by the initial response to the Titans, these hills and mountains would again be forested. But that could be decades, even centuries in the future. 

And until that promised time... there was only one place where humans could thrive. 

Eden was behind her, an increasingly distant sight as she kept running. 

Running as quickly as she had down that street towards the Titan, so quickly that each stride carried her over dozens of metres.

In the air somewhere above her a small machine kept pace, sometimes falling behind, sometimes moving ahead. The ground was not even, there were hills and dips, dry streams and stagnant pools, so between Taylor and the small Dragon mech it was a pretty even race. 

It felt good to feel her lungs burn, to have to focus each moment on where her next footfall would land, on having to avoid the countless tree stumps and other obstacles in her way. 

No room to think about people, consequences, or achievements. 

There was just a constant moment that she experienced without thoughts of the past or the future, a picture in motion through eternity.

For how long she ran, she didn't know. 

She just chose the next mountain peak or feature to reach, and aimed for it, until she came to a pause near the crest of one of them in particular. This one had a tarmac road leading to its zenith, a serpent of black tar snaking between rocks and natural features in the terrain. 

Her eyes followed it, her legs carried her onwards, less running than jogging, following the winding pathway, and when she reached its top, she forced out a humorless chuckle.

There was some old concrete nearby, a platform of what may once have been the foundations of a lodge... back then, at summer camp, the building had seemed so cosy. It had been a pleasant enough distraction from things, even if she really wished that Emma had come with her. But the great outdoors and such was not really her best friend's scene, and Emma had several modelling things to do in that time anyway. 

And at the top of the hill, near a few old stumps and fallen trees rotten away on the inside, was a log. 

What were the chances, eh?

She stared at it for a long moment, and then took a seat on the rotten tree trunk, just as she had years before. 

It was faintly squishy under her; countless tiny organisms had lived out entire lifecycles chewing through and softening the once solid piece of wood and bark. If Taylor, with her enhanced strength, pushed down on it properly, would it crumble, become that sort of reddish wood that fell apart into cubes? Or was it further gone than that, would it collapse into fine white strands as the last motes of structure fell apart?

Either way, the log held firm for the moment, this fragile piece of the world she sat on. She checked her phone, sent a few quick responses to her father and Emma, and put it away.

The little dragon mech had settled not far away from Taylor. 

It was a sleek, small thing. 

Well, small compared to the larger, better armed units, that was for sure. 

In the distance, the World Trees climbed into the stratosphere, the invisible, air purifying bubble created by those vast trunks that acted as wings. It was the one place where the sky was not steel gray, and so the canopy was suffused with light visible even from miles away... from a distance it truly looked like the last paradise on earth. 

Her home, bathed in rays of gold.

It looked so much more peaceful from a distance than it did up close, with all the messy, chaotic human beings surviving on the cosmic corpse that never died. 

“There is where it all began,” she said, for the benefit of Dragon, and then paused. “... I think. It all kind of looks the same, you know? Could be any hill with a broken cabin on it and a fallen tree trunk...”

Dragon's mech gave a sort of nodding motion.

“I've read about it.”

“You and the rest of the world,” Taylor mused, pulling up a leg to cross over her knee and resting her elbow on it to support her chin. “... I really thought I was going to die here when it happened.”

It was a strange thing to say, perhaps, but with her current mood, she did so before she had really thought about it much. 

“I thought a random beam from Scion would do it, or one of the Angels, or when it began to drain life from the forest I thought it would do the same to me.”

“You are lucky you survived, then.”

The voice came out a little tinny from the speakers.

“I always survive.”

She regretted saying it the moment it came from her lips.

Silence hung between them. 

“What do you mean by that?” 

It was gentle, encouraging. Taylor gave a shrug, and took another minute to think, during which the Dragon unit remained stock still. 

“I just always come out alright. I saw Scion die here, I got back to Brockton Bay somehow and met up with my dad and other survivors, despite those two Titans being so close. We survived everything and managed to escape and find Emma even though her family died. We got to Eden and survived there. And now I survived the Titan when I probably should have died.”

“You're a lucky girl.”

She stared at the World Trees in the distance. 

“I don't like to think of it as luck, whenever I'm lucky, it's like somebody else suffers for it in some way...” she mused aloud. “I remember back then, the first thing I saw afterwards was an angel. Just fell from the sky, it was injured I think because it was really struggling to stay up, kind of crashed right next to me, actually. I walked over to it, heh, I was such an idiot... I just sat there hugging it, it seemed...”

Hurt, angry, confused, scared?

Some alien approximation of any combination of the above?

She didn't know. 

“I held it as it died, it had these big eyes, I talked to it, but I don't think it understood, but it let me hold it. Maybe it was just too weak to try to kill me, but I think on some level, it understood what I was trying to do.”

Her voice turned a little bitter.

“And then a Cape arrived and killed it, just... walked over and killed it even as I told him not to, didn't even give it a moment despite how it was clearly helpless and dying. And then he helped me get away and to safety, like the Angel had to die to get him to help me.”

They'd been reaching something. 

When their eyes met, when she held it, there had been something going on, in the course of minutes it had calmed, pacified and even begun to mumble as it died.

“... Those Angels killed tens of thousands of people, if not millions, Taylor,” Dragon said, and the voice sounded just a little different. 

It was sour. Hateful, even. 

It snapped her out of her reminiscence.

Dragon was just like everyone else, she couldn't understand what Taylor had experienced that day. 

It was pointless to try and explain because no matter how heartfelt or well she tried to explain it, it always came down to other facts. The Angel Fall destroyed civilisation and led to the deaths of countless people, either directly or as a consequence. 

She could understand it, why people rejected her thoughts, her accursed sentimentality and conviction.

“It was probably too hurt to kill you.”

“You were fucking stupid for even trying.”

“I hate those things, I wish we could have just nuked the fucking trees when they first arrived.”

But she knew, somewhere deep within, that there was more to it than that. She just could not convince others or articulate what she had seen in those eyes, which had stared past her eyes into her very soul.

She just didn't know what it was she had seen, what the Angel had been trying to convey. 

“But why did they come, Dragon?”

Silence.

“They only targeted Parahumans, so how did they know? And why?”

“I do not know, Taylor. I am not sure if I want to know,” Dragon admitted. The mech was looking ahead, also towards Eden. “I lost a lot of good friends and colleagues in the Angel Fall, a lot of them I'd known almost my entire life.” Dragon said, the head of the mech was still staring out towards Eden. 

After a few more seconds, Dragon added.

“To be completely honest with you, I hate the Angels more than I hated any of the gangs or villains before they arrived, even more than I hate the Titans,” she said. 

Taylor looked from the corner of her eye at the Dragon unit. 

“... How many leaves are on the World Trees, Dragon?”

“Current estimates are in the tens of billions.”

“Yeah... let's face it, if the World Trees wanted us dead, then they would do it... so why doesn't it wipe us out?”

“The current theory is that the Trees are in a state of hibernation, and only the most mature leaves separate off to attack Eden, that they are acting purely off instinct rather than being directed like during the Angel Fall.”

It was a simple, factual explanation, one that suggested that someday, all those leaves would fall and bring about their inglorious end amidst a wave of bodies, all efforts rendered useless. 

How depressing. 

“How are things looking back in Eden?” she asked, to change the subject.

Perhaps it was presumptuous of her to straight up ask things of Dragon like that; the woman had much more important things to be doing than indulging her in conversation.

“They're currently working to fill in the giant trench your sword made.”

“... Sorry for that.”

“Don't be. Cement is cheap, lives aren't.”

Why did it sound like there was something to be added there, that wasn't? 

There was always so much reading into what people said, or what they didn't say, that meant so much. Silence being worth a thousand words, or whatever that old saying was. 

For a good few minutes, both of them were silent. 

The wind occasionally struck them, small flakes of Ether landing on her skin occasionally. 

Unlike earlier in the day, the Ether was not pulled into her body. 

She reached down and plucked one up and ate it... she'd used up so much of the stuff for the fight that her bones were probably all weak and demineralised, right? 

“... What do you think I should do now? Everyone seems to have an opinion right now, before I've even had the opportunity to really consider it,” Taylor prompted. 

Dragon took a moment to consider.

“... I want to say that you should do what your heart tells you.”

“But?”

“But Eden needs everything it can get, Taylor. Your power killed a Titan. There's plenty more out there across Earth Bet, there's the big three over in Europe and Africa and plenty more across the US, and your hand is the first non-nuclear, non-cannon option we've found.”

Well, there was no point denying that. 

Dragon certainly had a very practical approach to the matter, even if it very much led in a particular direction;

“So you think I should join the Security Forces?”

“I mean, if you want my honest opinion, Taylor?” Dragon offered, and Taylor nodded in response. “I don't especially care whether you use it as part of the Security Forces or by yourself, only that you do make use of it.”

It was, frankly, what she had expected. 

Everyone in Eden would be expecting her to use the impractically massive sword from now, right? Even if another Titan ever attacked the city, the expectation would always be there, regardless of what she did... and realistically, they would want to make use of the asset, right? 

She was like one of those soldier ants, whose only purpose was to be wheeled out to defend and kill things, and earn its keep purely by doing so.

Well, she supposed such thinking could apply to anybody employed in a military capacity... 

Okay, so the comparison was flimsy at best, but still. 

“... I'd hoped that I might be able to just live a normal, uncollared life after all this, I don't want to just sacrifice all that...” she trailed off.

It was hardly a response, no, instead her comment was as much a mopey admission than anything else, and Dragon's response was swift. 

“Suck it up.” Taylor still scowled a little at that response. “I've given and sacrificed more for that damn city than I can even begin to list out. I imagine they'll bend over backwards to get you in, Taylor, ask whatever would make it worth your while, and I'm sure they'll cave.”

Well, there were certainly plenty of things she would want to ask for. 

A home in the first tier for her dad, up where the air was clear. The Ether purging tablets as well, hell, just... a better life for Emma and her father.

She disliked the principle of working for the Security Forces, but principle could only get somebody so far in this life. Unpleasant as it was to admit.

And when it came down to it, for years she had put aside one thing for the betterment of her family, she'd stuck through her crappy job at the factory or doing whatever was needed for their good. So how was any of this any different to all that? 

Perhaps it was because it had been the sensation that it was being imposed from above, by others who only cared the moment she did something incredible.

No, she'd needed time to tire herself out and then think about things, to snap out of the haze of shock-induced navel-gazing that utterly consumed her thoughts since she slew the Titan hours ago.

She stood up, feeling the rotten wood creak and crumble below her fingers. 

“Done with your run?” the mech asked, its small head craning up to look at her. 

“I think so. I'll probably do it again in the future,” she said, stretching a little. “But I need to get back and talk to somebody. Thanks for the pep talk.”

As Taylor began running back towards Eden, the mech took to the air, following her back even as she made her decision and began thinking through what she would say.

Chapter Text

Eden felt different. 

Perhaps it was because she was approaching from a different direction than usual, not walking up the familiar, well-worn path from the factory to her home. Instead, it was up a much less familiar path that her feet were carrying her today.

The Southwestern and western sides of Eden's lower tiers were especially chaotic compared to the other sides, a side effect of this being the direction from which many people first arrived in the city. 

The streets were especially crowded and narrow, around her as she walked there was chatter and rumour. She'd heard fifteen different variants of the news about what was going on in the city by the time she left the seventh tier:

“---Gladstone's speech? Load of bullshit.”

“Personally, I reckon it was a Cape who took it down, somebody who's been hiding among us, there's more than you think, you know---”

“Reckon it was just an excuse to try and bulldoze a few parts?"

Onwards and upwards. 

Out of the sixth tier, into the third, and ever onwards. 

One developed strong leg muscles and stamina when you lived a few tiers up in the city, it had to be said. The fact that the place sometimes reminded her of the painting of the Tower of Babel, with all its layers, had always struck her as rather ironic.

She made it to the first tier, and walked up to the westernmost Central Council building, where the Security Forces had their headquarters. 

Outside its doors, a pair of black-clad troopers were standing, armed and silent guardians whose mirrored visors turned the faintest degree to focus on her as she approached. 

She stopped a few steps away, before they could get too tense.

“Excuse me, I would like to speak with Commander Tagg. I'm the person who killed the titan earlier.”

Glances. 

Short, sharp things that rapidly looked her over, lingered on her uncovered hand, and then at one another. 

“... Miss Hebert?”

No anonymity, but that didn't really matter any more, did it? It was impossible to just be a normal person considering what she was now, and what she had achieved. She just needed to accept this fact and move on with it.

“That's me, yes.”

One of the troopers had reached up to their helmet, and spoke with a masculine voice;

“Front doors here. We've got Miss Hebert here. Yes sir. Back from her run, yes. No sign of the Dragon unit. Returned? Yes sir---” the Security Force trooper looked back at her and indicated for her to step through the door, and she did. On the inside, she was met by a secretary who looked as if he had just hurried from a desk near the back. 

“Miss Hebert? If you follow me, I'll show you the way.”

“Thanks.”

She'd been expecting to wait for a bit, not to be hurried along like this, but she wasn't about to question her good fortune.

Frankly, she should probably have gone home for a wash or something; there was a good amount of dust from the wastes on her clothes, but she'd just... wanted to act whilst her conviction was burning strong? Or strike whilst the iron was hot? Some variation of that.

Of the four buildings that comprised the Central Council complex, the one for the Security Forces was certainly... busy. 

A lot of it was like an office, but from time to time a group of troopers moved past. Perhaps there were gun ranges and such underneath the structure? She knew that there were a number of other structures dotted around the city that all made up part of Security's infrastructure, the three cannons alone were like small fortresses when one got close enough to see them in detail.

The office for the Commander was not, as she might have imagined, at the very top of the building. 

Actually, it was only on the second floor, and its door was as nondescript as any other. It was distinguished only by the fact that its nameplate was brass rather than one of those you could put a slip of paper into, which read:

Commander J. Tagg

It was a name that often came with an expletive beforehand when heard in the lower tiers. 

A short, sharp knock in a rather odd pattern, and a moment later---

“Enter.”

A former military man turned PRT Department Head in the world before the Angel Fall. Some would say that his list of credentials even before the world went to shit would make him a perfect fit for the role of keeping Eden safe and ensuring public order. Others would argue that it inclined the man towards certain avenues of approach. 

A very heavy-handed approach. 

Tagg was sitting behind a desk on which sat a computer, pushed to the side, and on whose walls were enough maps or reference documents to fill a filing cabinet. 

Frankly, she was surprised that the ceiling didn't have further documents on.

The man himself had dark hair dotted with silver and gray and thick eyebrows  between which were deep frown lines. He was also collared, the metal band around the man's neck looked almost painfully tight. 

She could see the marks of chafing on his skin, and felt the phantom sensation around her own neck. 

Her own deactivated collar hung around her neck; not tight but still there, a reminder of what it was once like.

“Miss Hebert.”

She'd heard his voice before, over various public information announcements, but it sounded even more like gravel in person. 

“Commander Tagg. I presume that would be the right way to address you here?”

A nod.

The man stood and extended a hand; it wrapped around hers in what was probably a tight grip, but which didn't feel like much compared to her enhanced strength and durability. 

“That's correct. Please take a seat, Miss Hebert.”

“I hope I didn't interrupt anything with this.”

She said it more to fill the air as she took a seat than anything else. 

“I was reviewing papers and reports. Nothing that can't be pushed back for this,” he said in a manner almost dismissive. Her eyes moved to the rather thick binders on the side of the desk, and had to wonder whether the lines under his eyes were from long hours, or Ether poisoning.

However, for the moment the man was focused on her, and after a moment he indicated to her. 

“Thank you very much for your efforts against the Titan. Your contribution likely saved a huge number of lives, and frankly probably did a lot more than I can actually say properly.”

'Didn't save enough of them, though.'

He went on;

“Now then, how may I help you, Miss Hebert?”

“I'm interested in joining the Security Forces,” she said, bluntly. Tagg's face barely changed, but his eyes bored into hers as he gave the very faintest of nods. “However, I have a number of... um, concessions, or things I want to happen.”

And there it was. 

She was casting aside all notions of an easy, happy life in some cushy government job alongside Emma that, on some level, she had secretly hoped for all this time.

Instead, she would sign away all that to fully lean into what the Liner process had transformed her into, accepting the thing in her palm as the path of her future and 'suck it up' as Dragon had put it. 

The man opposite her nodded.

“Very well. So long as they are not utterly unreasonable, I will make whatever you need to happen.”

She hadn't expected the easy agreement. 

It left her momentarily thrown off balance; Tagg's face was as stony as before, but evidently he could read some part of her surprise because after a moment, he added;

“I am willing to make concessions here because you are simply too valuable a potential asset to leave unsecured.”

The way he spoke about her rankled, on some level. It rather reminded her of her old factory manager, who would speak about them as if they were just inefficient machines rather than human beings toiling away to meet his precious quotas. 

She wasn't quite sure how to phrase her reaction to that, though. 

“You could at least say it in a way that doesn't make me sound like a weapon,” she said, before she could stop herself.

Tagg's lip curled. 

She could not quite work out whether it was in disdain or private agreement. 

“We have a weapon; they're called the cannons,” he countered, bluntly. “What I want is a superhuman capable of killing a Titan to be properly trained and supported with every weapon and asset that Eden has to offer, and do so willingly. And then I want to be able to take the fight to the Titans, instead of relying on them coming within range of Eden's cannons, and destroy them wherever they lurk and hide and not stop doing so until this entire planet is rid of them.”

She wasn't quite sure whether it was the approach of an embittered and entrenched soldier, or a madman.

Her eyebrows had risen the longer the man talked. 

“... That's very forward of you.”

Tagg stared at her for a long moment. 

“I don't have time for beating around the bush, Miss Hebert. I'll leave the lying and doublespeak to Gladstone and her cronies.”

Well, if that wasn't a rather pointed statement. 

Evidently, the politics of Eden was not as unified as some would like to imagine.

“... So, those concessions,” she returned the topic back to what they had been speaking about before. 

Tagg took out a pen and pulled over a pad of paper.

“Name them.”

“I want a house in the first tier for me and my family.”

A nod, rapid writing. 

“I want Ether purging tablets for my dad.”

Another nod, another note.

“And I don't want to be used to repress people in the city.”

That one got a momentary pause, Tagg's steel-gray eyes looked her over appraisingly. The fact he had not agreed as quickly as before at once set the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end.

“And if the people of Eden were on the brink of destroying themselves?” he asked.

“Then they would have been pushed that way by forces above them.”

“And if those forces above them were necessary for the city's long-term survival? Such as to keep the portal open?”

She didn't like the way he was saying that. 

“I will not help oppress the sort of person I once was,” she said, more with stubbornness than any depth of thought. She did not have an easy, convenient solution to the potential problem that he mentioned, only a principle that she was unwilling to waver on.

“You're happy to take the benefits of higher status, like a house and tablets, that normal people do not enjoy, however?”

The way he said it made it quite evident what he thought of the notion, and in the back of her mind, the notion of being a hypocrite or class-traitor of sorts hung heavy.

“I will do what I can to keep my family safe, but that doesn't mean I need to forget where I came from and remember what it was like.”

Tagg's eyes glanced down to the deactivated collar hanging around her neck.

“... No, I suppose not,” he conceded, and how she wished in that moment that she could read minds and know exactly was going through the man's head. However, just as before, he made a note. “Very well then. I will attempt to find an appropriate wording for that. Is there anything else?”

“No, not that I can think of. Oh, I'm guessing that I'll still be paid and stuff like that?”

Always important to make sure you were being paid. 

“A commensurate amount for the position, yes,” Tagg said, smoothly. Exactly what that amount would be, she had no idea... but it would probably be more than her factory job. 

... She really wasn't expecting this to be so easy. 

When Dragon had said that she could demand anything, she'd expected there to be much more discussion over the fine details, or perhaps that would come later, and this was the laying out of demands on the table stage---

“And now let me tell you my concessions, Miss Hebert,” Tagg set down the pen. 

His concessions? 

Well, she supposed that she should have expected that there would be additional demands placed on her in all this, and that she would not be able to get it entirely her own way. She braced herself for whatever he was about to say next as he considered for a moment. 

“Firstly; you're going to go through the same basic training that everyone else does, and then more on top of that. I'll put you through hell to make you the best protector for this city that I can make.”

This man had never heard of the soft-sell, had he?

Or perhaps, he was simply matching her own blunt and forward approach.

“Fine.”

What was a little more unpleasantness and toil? 

What was being pushed to her limit when she'd already endured the end of the world and collapse of society, human experimentation and all manner of other things?

“Once you've reached a point that I am satisfied with, I want you to head up a new unit. I want you to help train and guide any future 'Ether Liners' and make sure that they can do their job.”

She made to nod, but paused. 

“And if they would rather not join? If they just want to live as normal people?”

“I will offer them the same deal, one that they would be idiots not to take.”

“But they will have the same choice?”

“Yes.”

He did not sound happy about the notion; she could fully imagine the man attempting to conscript people or putting them in a situation where they could not reasonably refuse. Indeed, what was it that he had said earlier, that he was only being so accommodating here because she had demonstrated her potential and was willing to offer anything to have her on side?

“Ultimately, I'd much rather have people want to do this, I've had enough experience with people with superpowers in places they would rather not be to have learned that lesson.”

And here she was imagining that he would be the sort of man who would rely more on the iron fist than the velvet glove.

Then again... in an undemocratic government like Eden, she supposed he had a certain amount of leeway to act in such a way. Nobody ever voted Tagg into his position, nor the Mayor. They were all just there one day, assigned to their roles by some higher power that probably lived, safe and sound, on another Earth.

“Well, I'll need to get an official contract of sorts written up, which may be a few days, Miss Hebert,” Tagg said, carefully pushing the lid of his pen back on. “But I hope that all of this is quite alright with you?”

“Yes. I'll be reading it over thoroughly when I get it.”

The man's smile was a small, tight-lipped thing.

“I'd expect nothing less.”

A hand was extended. 

“Until then, shall we shake on it?”

She extended a hand, and for the second time that day, the two of them shook.

Chapter Text

As usual, events within Eden were doing their utmost to give Mary Gladstone, Mayor, an ulcer. 

Couldn't this cesspit go for one week without some manner of crisis that had to be dealt with!? 

Just a short while ago she'd been showing around notable dignitaries from Earth Aleph and Shin, and now she would need to report that a goddamn Titan had appeared in the city and caused all manner of chaos! 

Talk about egg on her face.

It would be embarrassing to admit that some number of morons had managed to deactivate or defuse their collars; the metal bands were basically a cornerstone of Eden's existence, and if word got out that they could be tampered with...

The meeting room for the Eden Central Council was one that, pre-Angel Fall, would not have aspired to such a descriptor as 'grand', but in a place like Eden the vaulted ceiling and polished stone floor was practically luxurious. The room was at the top of the Central Council building's westernmost structure, the one dedicated to the majority of civil administration, and in each of its four walls were large windows that looked outwards. 

The east window overlooked Angel's Hill, the north and south the other sides of the first tier. 

Only the west looked straight over the steep slope of the city, although one could not see most of the tiers from it, one could see the wastes beyond its outskirts.

She'd remained behind after the latest meeting, which had been detailing the damages from the Titan's rampage. 

It was going to take a not insignificant amount of resources to repair not only the city itself, resources that could be better spent in other ways. Like better securing the first tiers foundations, or perhaps improving some of the housing in the lower ones so that they wouldn't be such godawful slums, eyesores that assaulted her every day. 

As soon as various heads of the Central Council's departments had left with their lackeys, she'd laced the fingers of her hands before resting her head against them.

A sigh had escaped her lips as her shoulders sagged. 

Just five minutes...

She should have never taken that offer from the Chief-Director.

“It will entail a great degree of responsibility, but being in charge of such an important project will no doubt reflect tremendously. You were our top pick for the position, Mary.”

She scowled, although there was nobody around to see it. 

Bitch.

Talk about a poisoned chalice, and a thorough misunderstanding of the nature of the job. Well, if nothing else, she could live well enough here.

For a few minutes, she thought through and considered the long chain of events (although she might call them mistakes) that had led to her being sat here, when, quite suddenly, a trio of knocks filled the air.

Oh, what fresh hell was this?

Couldn't she go just a little while without being disturbed by every Tom, Dick, and Harry who thought that every decision about this shithole needed her authorisation! Couldn't anybody do their job properly and just... know what it was that needed doing!?

Still. Appearances and all that.

She straightened, brought her shoulders back a little and half-turned to look towards the door.

“Enter.”

The door duly opened, and somebody stepped in. 

“Mayor Gladstone?”  

“Ah, hello again, Anya.”

The woman who entered, ever with a tablet in hand, was slim and rather pretty, in that 'if she actually dressed up, she'd be stunning' sort of way, although the glasses and plain suit she wore rather detracted from such. 

Mary relaxed just a fraction. 

Anya, the head of the Public Records Office of Eden was easy enough to get along with, mostly because she didn't really ask much of Mary and just got on with her pencil pushing. She got projects done on time (and more importantly, to budget), and was a much easier personality to contend with than her various sisters, all of whom were some different breed of irritant. 

Her fifth sister, Justina, was a pain in the ass to speak with... and as for the third, Kaleida, good lord in heaven that smug bitch needed to be put in her place!

Anya stepped forward, her short heels clicking loudly against the stone in a perfectly measured, even tempo.

“I've got a few preliminary numbers for what you asked, still need a more complete sweep but, it's a start.”

Wordlessly, Mary extended a hand. 

She did not indicate for Anya to take a seat; instead, she focused on the matter at hand.

The tablet was passed over, the harsh white light of the device was split into cells with numbers and labels inside. 

A few hundred dead. 

The estimated time until repairs could be performed was a few weeks. 

A lot of the worst damage had been from the response, from the actions of the Hebert girl in creating some sort of weapon that had liquified concrete, brick and stone in the process. 

But it had killed the titan, which was all that mattered.

Her eyes looked down the various numbers provided.

“I see, how unfortunate... we'll have to have a monument made paying respect to the dead,” she said.

The list of confirmed deaths was much lower than the number of bodies found, if only because of the nature of the damage. It had only been a day, no doubt there was more rubble to search. There would be more bodies and names, even as some would be pulled free and saved thanks to the first responders. 

“I imagine that would be much appreciated, Mayor Gladstone,” Anya agreed. “Given how Central Square was damaged and close to where the Titan emerged, perhaps there? It already has the Scion statue, and it would rather fit the soul of the place.”

Privately, Mary would rather bulldoze the squalid little square and build something better; the homeless camp there was an eyesore.

But the optics of doing so would not be good, it could be worked around, but there would be backlash. 

There was a backlash to everything she did.

It was exhausting.

Every choice was a rock and a hard place because this city was a glorified prison on a dead world, and just keeping it alive was a cruelty to all involved on some level. She'd like to see any of her various rivals attempt to salvage this place, to keep up with the demands from the other Earths to both keep order and the various products of Eden's factories working.

With so many other worlds reeling from the damage left by the Angel Fall, the Titan emergence and the billions of migrants, Eden and its production facilities were a boon. A population of people trapped in one place that next to nobody else could know about or investigate, put to work for minimal cost.

And the moment Mary stopped being some sort of Colonial Governor who kept the goods flowing to other worlds would be the moment somebody would be sent to replace her.

There were so many knives in the dark, waiting for her to monumentally mess up so that somebody else could take her place.

Quite why anybody would want her position, she couldn't guess... maybe they were just as naive as she had been when she first took on the responsibility?

She snapped back to the conversation with Anya after this moment of depressing speculation.

“... That would be a good idea, thank you, Anya. I'll make a note of it and bring it up at the next meeting. Also, please send me those numbers,” Mary replied, privately hoping that this matter was all that she wanted to bring up. 

Alas, it was not to be. 

Anya took back the tablet, pressed a few buttons to send it onwards, and once she had done so, looked back up at her.

“I hope you don't mind me mentioning it, but my brother-in-law would like to speak with you. I think he is currently trying to set up an appointment.”

“Which brother-in-law?” Mary tried to keep the huff from her voice. “If it's Tagg, then let him know that I will be looking over his various requests later.”

“No, no. It's Andino,” Anya replied. 

Ah yes, the mad scientist, the maniac who had put through multiple proposals to conduct human experimentation. Were it not for his crop research and the Ether purging tablets he had devised, Mary would have probably had him sent through to Aleph ages ago; let Costa-Brown or somebody else deal with a mad wet-Tinker! 

But unfortunately, he was useful, dare she say, even essential to the city's functioning. 

“... Dare I ask?” Mary inquired, forcing her lips into a grim line. 

Anya gave her a consoling smile. 

“I believe, following the Titan being killed by the Ether Liner, that he would like to push ahead and move towards further trials and expanding the scope of the Liner Project. Only a guess, he's been quite focused on it for a while,” Anya ventured. “He is very excited about what a further enhanced example like Miss Hebert could produce.”

Ah yes, the Hebert girl, the freak result in the experiment. 

The one who came out of being dunked into a super-saturated, biology-rewriting gunk with superpowers, because seemingly nothing could happen in this world without somebody gaining abilities that made them a potential disaster! 

“... Tell him that I'll check my schedule and see if I can fit him in,” Mary conceded, although attempting to make her voice firm, decisive.

There was no point trying to refuse Andino; with the success of his creation against the Titan, public support would swing behind the project as soon as they became more aware of it. 

And in Eden, word of mouth and rumour could travel faster than anything else. 

She'd already delivered a speech for the people of Eden to make sure that the correct message went out to the masses. As soon as the people knew that there was a way to remove the threat of Titanification and Ether poisoning, it would be a case of adapting and moving with the flow of public sentiment. 

She could attempt to oppose it; Andino's proposal for the Liner project had been rejected repeatedly over the years until things became critical for a number of notable public citizens. To be honest, Mary had allowed it to go ahead more as a concession, in the hopes that it would fail. If it had done so, then it would have neatly quashed any further suggestions of experimentation, and Andino could have turned his full attention to other projects.  

Instead, it had produced exceptional results.

And now, Mary needed to make sure that her name continued to be attached to the project and its successes.

Now if only the damned Hebert girl was willing to do interviews! Her aides had attempted to secure them, but the girl had gone for a jog in the wastes! 

Andino was much too willing to risk losing the child that could kill Titans, he only sent her out with a single Dragon unit to make sure she didn't try to run away completely!

Unaware of her thoughts, Anya nodded. 

“I can pass that along for you to Adam, Madam Mayor. I'm sure he will be glad to hear.”

“That would be appreciated, Anya.”

She would blame her tiredness and general exhaustion for the fact that it took her a few seconds to think of something further to say. But as the Mayor, she needed to always appear in control, always with something to say. 

“How's Geoffrey? Any signs of improvement?” she asked. 

“Ah, no... he's still very sick,” Anya said, her lips forming a small, somewhat grim smile. “... I'm hoping that maybe Andino's project can save him, but as he currently is, I don't think he'd even survive the process.”

Mary nodded sympathetically. 

The man had been one of the first recipients of Andino's Ether purging tablets; he must have been in a truly dire state when he first arrived in the city. Mary had only had the pleasure of meeting him once, a veritable shell of a man wasting away but still stubbornly clinging onto life. 

That meeting had been a year ago.

“If there's ever anything I can help to organise, just let me know.”

“Thank you, Mary, I really do appreciate it.”

Normally, she much preferred to be referred to with her title, but she supposed that she could forgive it, considering the nature of the conversation.

“Ah, but I should get going, sorry for having interrupted, I'll see you at the next meeting,” Anya excused herself, and Mary let her, watching as the woman departed. 

Only when the door had shut with a click did she allow her shoulders to sag. Tempting as it would be to put her head on her arms and catch some rest, she instead pushed out her chair and stepped over to the room's eastern window, overlooking Angel's Hill. 

It was a little past midday arrived, and lances of light fell through gaps in the canopy of the World Tree's high above, creating columns that seemed to rise from the meadow of grass and flowers below. Looking over the last pocket of wildflowers and meadow in the world always helped to sooth her soul. 

Maybe she'd organise a nice society party, just the right sorts of people, expensive food and drink, that sort of thing, to take her mind off things... she relied on such events to make it through the day. 

So much to do, and all of it so pointless in the grand scheme of things.

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

In Eden, there were very few events that were cause for work to stop. The city was always a mass of people going about their lives, crammed into far too small a space for how many of them survived there. A good number of holidays from before the Angel Fall had been given up on, or just was not celebrated any more because everyone was working so hard to survive. 

But there were some things that caused the majority of the population to stay at home, just not for good reasons. 

Taylor sat at the edge of the first tier, on a balcony overlooking the rest of the city, sat on a bench dedicated to somebody she had never heard of. 

Not far away was the long series of steps that she and Emma had walked down together after her first meeting with Adam Andino.

The various tiers of Eden were quiet, abandoned, barely anybody was out on the streets if they could avoid it.

Taylor stared from her position on the bench, watching the hurricane force winds driving supercharged Ether particles and dust against the purified air of Eden.

An Ether storm had struck Eden, and the city had gone into lockdown. Nobody could go out to the factories, stepping outside of the city right now was nothing less than certain death for any human being or animal. And when the storm cleared, the land for tens of miles would be left blanketed in Ether, the ground beyond the wastes would temporarily become an ashen plain where venturing without protection could lead to you inhaling a dangerous dose of the radioactive material in minutes.

She should be inside the apartment; the new home that she shared with Emma and her father. 

They'd moved in just a few weeks ago (had it really been two months since she killed that Titan?) and Emma would probably be worried sick about her; she'd said she was going out for a brief walk as she stepped out, but she'd been unable to resist sitting down to watch the spectacle. 

It was like being in the middle of the most intense meteor shower of one's life; countless tiny white streaks filled the air as particles of Ether struck the pure air and collapsed, were dissolved or degraded in the span of a moment. All the energy in those particles was released in the course of seconds, creating millions, if not billions, of streaks of light blinking in and out of existence by the second.

It was as beautiful as it was horrible. 

A solitary Ether storm like this had basically obliterated a good portion of Southeast Asia; a category five cyclone picking up vast amounts of Ether and driving right up the Bay of Bengal.

Across the United States plenty of small towns had been blown away or buried under such events, and in Europe entire countries had been blanketed and their farmland ruined.

It was as if nature had created a new category of disaster purely to spite mankind.

Ether Storms were also a part of the reason why there was such a hard limit to the amount of space available in Eden; you could definitely build beyond the protective air and boughs of the World Trees, but if you did, you had no protection at all from Ether or storms of the stuff. 

She looked down from the storm wall. 

Taylor could not see the lower tiers in these conditions, just the streaking Ether and darkness, but she'd been through enough Ether storms to know what it was like, huddling in a house clutching onto loved ones waiting for the disaster to pass over. Their old house had rattled desperately during storms, but always remained standing...even if more than a few bits would always need to be patched up afterwards with whatever junk they could find. 

"Guess I should go back."

It felt a little nonchalant to say, her voice was picked up by the winds and probably carried back.

She got up and rolled her neck on her shoulders, ignoring the way her hair whipped around. 

Even if Eden's branches and the bubble it created took the brunt of the storm, the winds around here were still as storm force. It just didn't trouble her, being enhanced as she was. 

Their new home was at the top floor of one of the first tiers outer ring of buildings; the sort normally reserved for the big wig officials and such. 

Taylor wondered just who Tagg had pushed out or pulled strings with to get them an abode that was no less than a palace in comparison to their old home. As she walked up the steps that led to the place, feet pushing against soft carpet imported from Earth Aleph and taking in the walls covered with even, consistent paint, she found herself wondering about it all. 

It had been one of her demands, of course... but she had basically abandoned her roots on some level. 

She reached up, touched the old collar around her neck and its linked chain, and continued.

The door to their apartment was a fine thing, but Taylor had barely pushed her key into the lock when the door was flung open.

"Where have you been!"

Emma was not in a good mood.

"I went for a quick walk," Taylor said, stepping forward towards the living room, only for Emma's palm to hold her back.

"You're not stepping any further in until you shower, I'm not having you walk Ether all over the place!" the redhead declared. The tips of her hair looked a little damp; she'd been chewing it again. 

"That was my plan anyway, I don't want it getting near dad," Taylor said, even though her body was probably absorbing and metabolising whatever mote of the material had landed on her anyway. But she complied, removing her shoes and allowing Emma to half-escort, half-frogmarch her towards the bathroom of their home. 

Said bathroom was the size of the kitchen and sitting room of their old home. 

"Plus, I've only been gone for fifteen minutes---"

"Fifteen minutes in an Ether storm, Taylor!"

"Emma, I'm enhanced, it's not so much of a risk for me."

Emma's jaw tensed just a little, just like whenever they used to discuss finances and she could get that funny look on her face and dig in her heels. 

"You didn't even tell me where you were going! I just stepped away for a second and then you shouted you were going!"

This was their first Ether storm since they had moved, and the events had always brought out the worst in her. 

Normally during such an event the two of them would cuddle somewhere safe for hours, if not days at a time, until it passed. The fear, the uncertainty, all things that Emma did not deal well with... Taylor had rather imagined that in their new, much more secure home, her lover would feel safe to spend some time on her own with just her father for company. 

Evidently, Taylor had been wrong in this assessment, and that old anxieties remained. 

"No, I didn't want to worry you."

"Well, congrats, you just made me really worried!"

In truth, Taylor had just needed a little time to herself. The storm had been going on for two days now and in that time she'd done little but comfort Emma, exercise with her weights and read a little. Her father had done his best to keep spirits up, but with Emma being how she was, Taylor had just needed a moment to herself. 

"I'm sorry, Em's, I just needed a moment and didn't want to scare you."

A loud 'hmph!' was the response she got for her apology, a tortured pause, and then;

"I don't like not knowing where you are."

The comment was petulant and just a little waspish.

Taylor leant forward and kissed Emma on the cheek; for all her complaints she didn't pull back or reject the gesture, and then Taylor stepped through to the bathroom. 

Life had changed so quickly, yet in so many ways it stayed the same. 

At least the water here was fresher. 

Taylor opened her mouth just to taste it, even if it was warm; compared to what she'd spent the last few years drinking in the third layer, it was so clean. She spent just a few minutes in the shower, she'd gotten so used to taking them quickly that spending any longer than necessary felt like a pointless and decadent luxury. 

The towel was warm and fluffy, compared to the near rags of before.

She spent a minute drying off and looking in the mirror. 

Same old Taylor. 

Well, she was beginning to see the results of her efforts and work with the Security Forces now, the exercise regimen imposed by Tagg the Tyrannical was brutal but efficient. The man had not been joking when he said that he would run her ragged. 

Hunkering down for an Ether storm was basically time off for her, enough that her muscles had stopped passively screaming at her for a brief, glorious while. 

She emerged and stepped through into the sitting room. 

Emma was not present, perhaps in their bedroom or the kitchen. Instead she found her father where she had left him earlier, sat on a comfortable chair, staring out of the window into the darkness of night. 

Whilst the view of the Ether storm was not as good in here as it was from outside, it was still quite stark. He observed the event without any concern or fear at all, unlike Emma. 

As she approached, he glanced at her and smiled faintly. 

He was looking better by the day; Andino's tablets had gone a long way but her father was still too thin and pale... maybe she would do the cooking tonight and make him something special? 

"There's my princess. Back from braving the storm?"

"Yup, it's pretty out there," she said, walking over to him. 

"Hah, I wish I could go out and take a look like you can," he smiled, before gesturing towards one of the large windows in the sitting room. Beyond, some part of the storm was visibly, the constant streaks of light could be appreciated from this side. The windows on the opposite side looked out towards the street and the Central Council buildings.

"Someday, I'm sure you'll be able to," she said, leaning down and giving him a quick squeeze around the shoulders. 

He chuckled and sent her a slightly wan, knowing smile. He did not need to point out the truth, of course. 

When she brought him up to meet with Adam Andino on the topic of the Ether Purging tablets, the Parahuman had been quite blunt on the topic. 

"The tablets will help," Andino had said, glancing over a sheet of results from a quick test he had run. "But you're not in good enough health for more drastic procedures like your daughter has experienced... some time in the first tier will probably help though, you seem unusually susceptible to the effects of Ether, I'm afraid."

In all likelihood, with the damage already done to his body, her father would never be able to go through the Liner process. 

But she could make sure he had plenty of food and good conditions to recover in and hope and pray that someday, he would have nothing to fear.

Emma returned from the kitchen and wordlessly grabbed Taylor's arm to drag her to the couch, where they settled under a blanket. 

"C'mon then, my knight," Emma grumbled. 

Knight-Commander, was the correct title. 

Taylor thought that it was a little extravagant. 

Tagg evidently had a hidden flair for the dramatic; the fact that the unit she was to (hopefully) guide and even lead someday would be called 'Knights' seemed quite antiquated. But then again, her weapon was a sword, so perhaps it made a certain amount of sense?

Knight-Commander Hebert didn't quite sound like it fit her, though. 

Still, Emma liked to use the title from time to time to... actually, she wasn't really sure why. Maybe it fit into some manner of secret fantasy of hers? Emma had always liked to be surrounded in her embrace as they rested, maybe it was a protection thing. Or perhaps she simply liked to poke fun at Taylor with it?

The redhead could be so contradictory at times, especially in recent days since they had moved to the first tier. 

And despite her moodiness at Taylor going for a walk, Emma waited for Taylor to sit on the sofa before she lay down, settling back against Taylor's chest. She did not say a word even as she did so, silently demanding a return to the same comforting, intimate status quo as before. 

Taylor wrapped an arm around her as usual and squeezed until Emma's tense body finally relaxed, and then went back to reading a book from earlier. 

By the looks of it, she was still on the same page she had been on when Taylor left for her walk earlier... perhaps she'd been something of an ass earlier, but she really had just needed a few moments to herself. 

There was only so much she could apologise... they'd be fine, they'd had worse disagreements.

As Emma read, Taylor took the data tablet that she'd been given for her job, entered the password and continued her own reading. 

For her new role as the Knight-Commander of Tagg's envisioned unit of Ether Liners, there was much to read and learn. Both the mundane and the not so. 

A lot of it was written in an incredibly dense, military language that was the reading equivalent of chewing toffee.

Still, this was important. 

She opened up the files she had been reading before, about the big three Titans of Earth Bet, which had been deemed the greatest threats to the continued survival of humanity on Earth Bet. 

There were far more than just three Titans, of course, dozens, hundreds or thousands, each of which was a threat to the city to be warded off mostly with the threat of the city's three cannons... but there were several in particular that had been identified as especially dangerous worldwide, and which she had been reading about. 

The Apophis Titan in Africa, suspected to have been the former warlord called Morad Nag. 

The Factory Titan, also in Africa, suspected to have been the former warlord Ogun. 

Fortunately, the Apophis and Factory Titan had been more focused on one another for the last few years than they had been with anything else, tearing apart the African continent in their escalating conflict. 

And the third and final... and the Titan that had the greatest concern noted in its file; the Sleeping Titan in Russia.

In a time before the Angel Fall, sitting reading about S-Class threats would be a somewhat morbid and grim way of passing the time, not unlike watching documentaries about serial killers. 

It was... well, rather unnerving to imagine that even among Titans, there were individuals that stood head and shoulders above the rest in terms of danger. 

There were notes about other Titans, of course, both on Earth Bet and beyond, such as the quite extensive file on the Ophanim Titan of Chiet, which was leading its own theological schism and holy war. 

As the three of them read or passed the time in their own way, Taylor made her way through the reports. 

Even as the wind howled beyond the windows and Eden was battered by Ether, she enjoyed the strange serenity of her time off amidst the natural disaster that was the Ether storm just a small distance away. She'd spent so long existing in close proximity to danger that it was the most relaxation she'd had in weeks.

Later that, just before she settled down to sleep and Emma cuddled close, a message came through on the tablet. 

A.Andino: "The latest group of Liners has produced another Ether Liner. I was wondering whether you would like to meet him and perhaps provide a little guidance?"

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

Dr. Andino was in entirely too good a mood when Taylor managed to track him down.

After hours showing around Christoph and doing her best to be a good host, seeing the Tinker grinning to himself immediately put her on edge to some degree. She had long since grown used to that particular expression indicating some new batch of tests or experiments designed to push her body to her drastically enhanced limits. 

She was really not in the mood for the man's theatrics.

However, not indulging him would probably only make the problem worse.

“Dr. Andino,” she greeted as she knocked on the door, glancing around the room for Justina.

The man's wife was not present. 

That in itself felt like such an oddity, it was like being unable to find the moon in a midnight sky unobscured by clouds.

He glanced her way, that grin only widened.

“Ah, Taylor... come in, come in!” he said, gesturing for her to approach.

She did so, glancing around the room as she did so. 

It was one of many nondescript rooms underground Eden College's biological sciences building, small, cramped and full of junk.

In the time before the Angel Fall all this stuff was probably useless, outdated crap, but now that so much had been lost everything in here was infinitely more precious. There were machines she did not recognise, scientific equipment from manufacturers that had long since ceased to exist in this dimension. 

On the far wall was a bookshelf of old books, old scientific texts that were probably hideously outdated now. But now they were a precious resource now that there was only a single portal acting as an umbilical cord to other worlds. If that umbilical cord between worlds were to be cut tomorrow, some of these books would become the foundation of the future of Eden's scientific understanding. 

At least in Biology, for certain. 

It was a rather horrifying thing to think, actually. 

“How are things going?” she asked, trying to sound casual. 

A shrug. 

“Not bad, tired, been burning the candle on both ends,” he joked, and now that she looked, the bags under the man's eyes were quite pronounced indeed. 

“You need more sleep.”

Her comment earned a laugh.

“I'll sleep when there's less to do. Now that we've got a dozen new Liner's a week, I'm swept off my feet!” 

“... But you've still found time to make me something?” she asked, a hint of scepticism in her voice as she raised her brows.

“What can I say, my muse demanded something special for our first Ether Liner, and the idea wouldn't leave my head,” Andino said with a shrug, shoving his hands into his pockets. “C'mon, it's not here but it's close. I might as well show you in person and make sure it fits.”

Her concern only grew at that, but she fell into step beside him as he led her out of the room and down the hallway. 

They passed the room in which she had entered the sarcophagus and transformed from human to superhuman, and for a moment, she paused. Her enhanced hearing could pick up the whirring of the machines beyond the door, the typing of somebody at a computer.

“Six more, all girls this time,” Adam said, not so much as looking at her but correctly guessing the train of her thoughts. “Justina's watching over them.”

She returned to his side.

“How'd Christoph take things?” he asked as they wandered.

“Not bad,” she ventured, before adding. “He's certainly dedicated, and his sword is certainly... quite fancy.”

A hum as Adam nodded.

“It cut through everything we could find to test it on; concrete, bronze, steel... flesh. Quite fascinating, I might use the first one to make some unbreakable scalpels, it would probably help Dragon's production lines.”

“... Well, I suppose that's another benefit of it,” she said. 

“You don't agree?”

“I mean, it sounds useful. Just quite utilitarian.”

His attention turned to glance her way, his head still facing ahead but staring from the corners of his eyes. 

“Any advantage that Eden can produce is something we need to make use of.”

She wasn't so sure that she agreed. 

Then again, hadn't she offered up her body and humanity purely to provide money for her family and to escape the ever suspended sword of Damocles that was potential triggering and titanification? She'd allowed herself to become a weapon to be employed for the safety and security of the city.  She'd 'sucked it up' as Dragon had said and put aside her hopes of a cushy job beside Emma in favour of the greater good.

But that had been after a long while agonising over the matter, the realisation that it was the best way she could contribute... and for the sake of her family. 

Not just immediately seeking the best way to exploit it.

She didn't reply to Andino's statement, but she could feel his sidewise glance. 

They continued on further; the underground corridor and its various rooms were not extensive, but it was still labyrinthine in its own way. Once or twice, the wall was some part of Eden's exposed roots, with the walls built into or around it, creating a strange, organic structure.

Well, Eden's tiers were built on the sloped surfaces of vast roots and lower trunks... It only made sense that in places, structures would literally incorporate the vast alien trees into their foundations.

Eventually, Andino opened one of the many blank doors and held it open for her. 

Beyond, the space was mostly empty, beyond a few pieces of spare junk... and in the small room's centre was something under a cloth.

Something tall and vaguely humanoid. 

She stopped not far from the concealed object, and glanced back at Andino as he joined her. 

“I've made you a suit of armour.”

“What.”

The Tinker grinned at her, either ignoring or amused at her one word response.

“I've taken the remains of the sword you used to kill the Titan and used it to make you a suit. Fascinating stuff, actually. The darker portions of the blade are made of a layered Ether that is incredibly resilient, right pain in the ass to work with. I was tempted to name it 'adamantine', but Justina whacked me with a clipboard and told me to be serious.”

Taylor could certainly imagine the woman doing so. 

He reached out, fingers gripping the cloth and glanced at her with a grin, before dramatically pulling the covering off.

The armour was archaic in design; a suit of what could only be described as akin to that of a medieval knight made of the blackened, super-dense Ether that made up the blade of her sword, now repurposed. There were aspects of the design that immediately struck her as Tinkertech in nature, and not of Andino's design.

“So you just... broke apart the old sword and made a suit of armour out of it?” she asked. 

Did this man just not sleep or something? Where did he find the time between putting more people through the Liner process and running tests to casually make a suit of armour!

Then again, judging by the bags under his eyes, she suspected that the answer was 'by ignoring his health.'

Not that it took any pep out of his step.

“Indeed. Better to recycle the stuff and put it to use then just leave it lying around to be ogled at... I've also worked out an agreement with Dragon so that she knows how to shape and manufacture more of it, for when I'm not around.”

He said that last part with a strange shrug.

“And here I was imagining it would end up as a monument or in a museum... or dumped outside of Eden.”

Honestly, what else were you to do with several tonnes of solidified Ether? The stuff was so poisonous to normal creatures that it was a giant public health risk! 

The statement earned a grimace. 

“I'd rather put it to use than have it left to waste; anything that gives humanity an advantage is better than a decoration... plus, it's not like normal people could even wear armour made of it, too poisonous.”

Well, that was a fair point. 

It was rather imposing. 

"... It looks like something from medieval times," she commented, slowly walking around it.

“Commander Tagg made requests for the design.”

“... He's really insistent on that Knight angle, isn't he?” Taylor sighed.

“Yup. Not sure why, maybe he is just secretly in love with the aesthetic? Or maybe he's trying to rebrand? You know... heroic knights protecting the city rather than faceless, gun wielding troopers?” he said, his tone lowering into something akin to sarcasm at the end. “Then again, people need heroes in times like this.”

“I'm not a hero,” she said, automatically.

She got a long side eye at that.

“The Department of Public Information would disagree, judging by all those press statements of late.”

“I just did what we needed,” she said, and tried not to sound petulant about it. On some level, she just... could not accept the label, it seemed almost wrong. Especially after so many so-called heroes had been so quick to abandon Earth Bet to its fate following the Angel Fall.

She had to wonder, on that topic... before the Angel Fall, had Andino been a hero, or a villain? 

Then again, did such a label really matter now that he was the one driving the humanity of Eden into a strange new future? 

In response to her statement, Andino was silent, watching as she circled the suit of armour he had made for her. His hands returning to his lab coat pockets, and whilst she focused on the details of the armour, the little gaps here and there where she could see through to the underlining of some dark cloth.

“What makes a hero, then?”

She thought of the statue of Scion, all noble grace and defiant purpose, and then she thought about images of the man, of the aura of sadness about him. But the truth of the man's feelings had not stopped him from fighting with his all against the World Tree's when they descended.

She couldn't vocalise her thoughts on the matter, words failed her.

Adam gave her a few moments, and then rolled his head on his neck in a way that made it click. 

He reached up for a moment and touched his collar, as if to make sure it was still there, and moved on. 

“Not in a talkative mood today, eh?” he ventured. 

“My social battery is mostly exhausted,” she admitted. “... I suppose it's much better to have some amount of protection than just rely on moving fast or not being in the way,” she added because if nothing else, Andino had clearly put a lot of effort into the armour. 

“There's another reason for it beyond the defensive.”

“Image?” she ventured.

Her comment earned a chuckle.  

“Nah, I'll leave that to others.” 

He reached out and ran a finger along the polished black Ether. 

She rather wondered if he should, considering how poisonous it was to an unenhanced man like him. 

“With how much Ether your body needs to metabolise to make your sword, at least for the full-size version, it made sense to make your armour out of the stuff, that way you can hopefully use the Ether in it first before you start draining your own body or ruining more of the city.”

“It's not like I knew that would happen,” she muttered, waspishly.

“Of course not; no amount of testing would have found it,” Adam laughed. “But medicine is as much about prevention as it is response.”

Well, she supposed it made sense. 

Carrying around a giant store of Ether to grow her sword with made more sense than depleting her own body of the stuff or assimilating portions of the city. They only completed the last of the repairs a few days ago. 

“Next time you make a big sword, we'll probably use it to make a suit of armour for Christoph as well,” Andino said. “Anyway, if you want to try it on, it should be rather straightforward; it opens up at the back and you can practically step into it as needed and it'll close around you. I'd try it on with clothes first, it might make it a bit tight, but you can strip down a bit to make it easier or we can make adjustments... I'll step outside whilst you give it a go.”

He gave her a pat on the shoulder as he stepped away.

“Hey,” she called out.

“Hm?”

“Thanks.”

The corner of Adam's lips curled, somehow the expression just made him look more tired.

“You're welcome, Taylor. Let me know how it feels.”

With that, the door closed behind him. 

The armour did indeed open up at the back, although she had to give it a command to do so. It did so with a series of clicks, whatever internal mechanisms regulated it must have been of Dragon's design. 

Stepping into it was... odd, and as Adam had said, a little uncomfortable with what she was wearing. The belt of her pants dug into her flesh, the blackened Ether unyielding and contoured perfectly for her body in a way that made her rather suspicious of quite how Andino had her measurements. 

But the suit also felt right, in a way. 

She took a step in it and felt the hard surface of her armoured boot crunch against the bare concrete of the floor, raised a hand and flexed it as naturally as if it were a second skin. 

Perhaps this was how Christoph's Ether coated hand felt? 

She supposed that the suit was crafted from Ether drawn in large part from her body, so it was only right that it felt so natural.

She would have to thank Andino more properly once he stepped back through.

For the moment, she simply explored the sensation of her new armour. 

She caught her reflection in the polished, faintly green screen of a nearby machine. A stranger stared back, a tall and imposing knight in blackened steel and poisonous crystal, and for the first time she did not feel disconnected from the image she beheld.

For the first time, she could imagine being Taylor Hebert the Titan slayer, rather than the survivor.

Chapter Text

A monument to those lost in the Titan's rampage was being erected. 

Taylor thought that it was rather a waste, to be honest. A utilitarian voice in the back of her head (one that sounded disturbingly like Dr. Andino) kept nagging at her about how much of Central Square's limited space the ugly dedication occupied. And in the end, within a few days people would once more be camping around it, children would probably be clambering over it... 

"Commander, you're frowning." 

Christoph's voice broke her out of her musings. 

The young man and her only fellow Ether Liner had accompanied her down today as part of the opening ceremony, having been granted leave from their training to be part of this event.  

She made a sound somewhere between a grunt and a hum. 

"I've spent the last four minutes trying to work out how the design is related to what happened, but I still haven't worked it out," she commented.

Said monument was of a complex geometric design that gave no real indication of the horrors and nature of the event. It blended curves and sharp angles, but unlike the much larger, grander and more poignant statue of Scion the Hero in the square's centre, this one was... vapid.

Meaningless. 

Christoph glanced at it.

In the distance, Mayor Gladstone was droning on about the importance of recognising loss, but also victory, rebuilding, and honouring the fallen. 

On the memorial's front was a metal plaque with a list of names, those who had been confirmed dead at the Titan's hands. But of course, right now, the memorial was little more than a reason for a politician to give a speech, one preaching the need for unity and working together for a better tomorrow. 

"... It is very abstract."

Christoph's assessment was made in a very neutral tone of voice, concealing any deeper thought. 

Abstract was a good way to put it.

As they stood there, commentary on the memorial aside, Taylor only half-listened to the torrent of platitudes spilling forth from Gladstone's mouth.

Privately, Taylor rather thought that the woman should come down to the lower tiers more often if she wanted to see the very things she was preaching. 

But a lot of people in the crowd seemed fine to swallow the empty calories of her words today; that or they were not willing to speak up with the black-clad Security Force members in attendance to keep things civil. If the troopers were not here, would the crowd actually speak up and complain, or would they just listen to the speech, clap politely and curse the mayor behind her back?

Taylor couldn't know, and she didn't really want to either. 

It wasn't like it mattered. 

The ribbon was cut, there was polite clapping. It reminded Taylor of one of those mall openings from before the Angel Fall, for which so much money would be spent and wasted on something that did not matter at all. 

She was being paid well to be here, paid by the hour... but surely there was a better use for her time?

She cast her eye towards the crowd; rather than watching the backslapping congratulations, she focused on the common people who had come to see the event. There were plenty who looked at the memorial with neutral faces, there were some frowns and plenty of quiet conversations... a few of the attendees had definitely lost relatives or friends in the Titan's rampage, there were a number of people she had noticed weeping before. 

As she looked, a hand waved enthusiastically.

"Tayloooor!" 

A small group that had managed to squeeze its way through the crowd towards the front, and one of them had called out to her. 

It was jack, swiftly joined by Marie and other children from their little gang.

Her heart dropped a little when, after a moment, she realised that of course there would be no Annie to join them. A part of her still expected to see her there.

Just thinking about Annie rather brought down her mood, of course, but it was the duty of the living was to strive to continue on where the dead could not. There was no bringing back that bubbly, happy little girl, but she could do her best to make sure that the others were taken care of. 

If nothing else, the name of Annie Lynnfrey and her mother was on the memorial. 

Taylor had made sure of such with Dragon when she first heard about it all.

The orphan boy from before was still here, stood just a small distance away. The other kids all surrounded and flowed around him, evidently used to his presence by now... was he helping to take care of them, or just accompanying them?

She waved back.

"The children, they know you?" Christoph asked from beside her, eyes following hers. 

"Yeah, I used to come down to tell them stories, about the Angel Fall and Scion," she explained. "I used to do it to earn money on the side of my factory job... good kids, energetic."

"I see. They are all quite young."

"Jack's five."

Her fellow Ether Liner squinted.

"...He's small for a five-year-old."

"He's been an orphan since he was four," she said, by way of explanation, as she glanced around. 

The Mayor was schmoozing with a number of citizens who had been vetted to come forward to the trooper cordon, it was all smiles and forced laughs. Other notables from the Central Council who had deigned to descend from their Ivory Towers were talking with people as well, she supposed that this must be like a day trip. Or perhaps more accurately, like when gap-year students used to go to poor countries to see what real poverty looked like, and then return home all enlightened and with a broadened perspective. 

With that in mind, what would it matter if she went to speak with the kids?

"I'm going to go chat to them," she declared.

"Are you sure?"

"We weren't told to do anything at all but attend the celebration and to not make the Security Force look bad," she said, recalling the orders from on high they'd been given earlier. "I imagine a bit of public outreach won't hurt."

And so she stepped forward, leaving Christoph behind.

People moved out of her way to let her past, quickly making a path as she strode towards the gaggle of children, who only waved and called out more enthusiastically as she did so. When she did reach them, both Jack and Marie reached out to poke or try to hug the armour around her leg. 

"Hey, be careful, it's made from Ether," she warned. 

They backed off, and she knelt down to be closer to their level. Her armour fit like a glove, she'd given up wearing proper clothes under it, but the sensation of her armoured knee grinding against the cobbles and stone was a little uncomfortable. 

"Taylor, where have you been!" Jack demanded, stamping his foot. 

It had been over a month since she had last been able to see the kids, so busy had she been with her own training, and then helping Christoph to adjust as well.

"I've been training, I'm part of the Security Forces now," she said, trying to think of the best way to explain it. "Have you all seen the posters?"

"Yeah!"

"You look so cool! I bet you're the strongest person in the world if you could kill a Titan!" 

Heh... it was sweet, but if any of the kids had been forced to stand around posing for as long as she had, perhaps they would not be so quick to say that. Eden's public image group was so fussy. 

"Maybe, but I imagine there are other people stronger than me."

She supposed that she could kill somebody like Adam with a single punch, but the man's impact was more impressive than her own and would have a bigger impact on the future of humanity. Or hell, Tagg could have her gunned down in a moment... strength didn't matter too much again massed Tinkertech weapons, right?

But to a small child who saw things in terms of who could beat who in a one-on-one fight, she supposed she could well be the strongest. 

Actually, Christoph was probably stronger. He was naturally better built, muscular and his sword seemed to cut nearly everything, which made sparring a little difficult at times.

"Are you gonna kill more Titans, then, Taylor?"

That was certainly Tagg's ultimate aim... how long it would be until he actually tried to deploy Taylor and Christoph against them was another matter. 

Would he wait until there were more Ether Liners? Just a few day's ago, Adam had finally gotten the go ahead and the space to begin producing more of the conversion coffins. Soon there would be an entire warehouse of them, turning people into Liner's and, very occasionally, into Ether Liners. 

Trying to transform Eden's population in batches of five at a time was too inefficient... soon it would be a hundred a day, perhaps even more than that?

In the month since the Titan slaying and the Liner Project had gotten the go ahead to continue, an additional one-hundred and forty-nine Liners had joined the population, with Christoph as the outlier. 

She rather imagined that they were both the freak outside incidences, seeing how Adam had mentioned that only one in ten-thousand of the animal test subjects produced truly viable weapons, with a larger percentage able to make half formed ones. 

Still, a matter for later consideration.

"Yeah, if any more Titans turn up, I'll kick their butts for you," she promised, trying to keep it light-hearted. In truth... what was the likelihood that she would die in battle, now? 

Her weapon had been the perfect counter at the time, but she had signed up for a lifetime of putting herself at risk, even if she had this enhanced body and armour to cover it.

There was no point dwelling on it. 

The chances were no different now compared to how it had always been; a stray Ether storm, poisoning, malnutrition, it could have been any number of factors in this dying world.

"Really?"

"Yes, no matter how big or scary it is, I'll be there as soon as I can," she promised, reaching out to tussle Jack's hair then pausing, her gauntleted hand just a few inches away. 

Instead, she gave him a quick pat on the head. 

It was so easy in the moment to make a promise like that, but she meant it. After all, if this new mantle was her new duty and purpose in life, then it was people like these kids that she wanted to protect the most, beyond Emma and her father, of course. 

There were nods and grins, happy expressions on little faces that deserved to smile so much more often than they did.

For a few more minutes she spoke with the kids, she spoke about her training routines, about Christoph and even about how, someday, maybe some of them would be able to become Ether Liners as well. 

It was a distant dream, but everyone needed aspirations beyond survival... as she had learned the hard way. 

"I'm gonna be a knight!"

"Yeah, well, I'm going to be a better knight!"

"I want to be as big and strong as Taylor!"

The short and energetic reunion was interrupted by a shadow falling to her side as reality returned to the fore. 

"Knight-Commander Hebert."

Taylor glanced over her shoulder to look towards the speaker, and found the Mayor stood there with the rest of her entourage of suits. The Security Force troopers surrounded them, like a black-clad barrier to separate them from the real world.

Up close like this, the woman's face makeup could only do so much to hide the obvious. 

When Taylor worked in the factory, she had become very used to recognising the signs that somebody was pushing themselve to the limit. It normally followed one of several patterns, sometimes they would manage to pull away at the last second, would take some time to recover or find a way to rest... others would not. Those who tried to push through would work themselves to the bone, and when they could take it no more they would either not come back or would get sloppy, make a mistake and end up in a machine. 

Still.

"We're going back to the Central Council building." 

Gladstone evidently expected that Taylor would accompany them, just as she had escorted them down here.

Commander Tagg hadn't given her any orders for after this big PR stunt was complete, and for a moment, Taylor wondered exactly what she should do next. 

It probably was not a wise idea to say no to the mayor... but at the same time, the temptation to tell the woman no was strong. Gladstone already had a damn guard detachment with her who could handle any problems short of a Titan. 

Taylor wasn't so delusional as to think that she was anything more than a decoration for the woman right now, a mark of status. 

"I see," Taylor replied to the mayor, and then turned back to the kids. "I'll come and visit soon, remember to all play nicely, you lot," she said, pushing herself up and off her knee to stand. 

She went from being on their level to looming over them in her black armour, and a few shuffled away automatically to give her space, necks craning to watch her straighten. 

But they were all still smiling at her, ignoring the figure of the Mayor. 

When Taylor departed with the mayor and the bigwigs, the kids waved after her.

They made their way up the multiple long staircases back up to the first tier, pausing occasionally for the less fit members of the group to recover themselves. 

Even before the enhancements, Taylor had walked miles every day to reach her workplace and could have done the trip without a break. But for those used to living on the first and second tier, she supposed exercise was less necessary to survival. 

As the uncollared bureaucrats pant away, Taylor watched a strange serenity as occasional flakes of Ether floated past. 

The bureaucrats and dignitaries wiped their brows and did their best to avoid the poisonous flakes as if they were venomous snakes that would bite the moment they touched it. Taylor reached out and gripped one, crushing it between her fingers and looking at the resulting powdery smudge. 

What would become of people like them when the rest of the collared became Liners, and they were the disadvantaged ones in this world?

Chapter Text

It was mid-afternoon when Taylor got the summons to see her superior.

At this point, she had gotten used to being summoned at near random to come and speak to the man, so she had barely blinked an eye when the message had come through. 

“You wanted to see me, Sir?”

“At ease, Knight-Commander,” Tagg said. 

The man was not sat at his desk, instead he was stood beside the left wall of his office, which was mostly taken up by a map of the world, and another of the North American continent beside it. On both maps were pins, dozens of them in various colours ranging from yellow to bright red, and three that were purple. 

She had seen the maps before, of course; she'd been in here often enough in the last few months since she took on her new position. 

Yellow, orange, and red pins corresponded to C, B and A-ranked titans.

The three purple pins were for the 'big three' S-Class Titans; the Apophis, Factory and Sleeping Titan. 

Tagg glanced at her, tearing his eyes away from his maps to instead focus on her.

“How is the unit?”

Calling it a unit was not quite correct, as it still consisted of just her and Christoph. 

Despite there now being over a thousand Liners in Eden, it was still just the two of them. There had been a few hopefuls, a few who could create some manner of small spike of Ether... but never enough to actually create some manner of weapon that could go up against a Titan. 

She had to wonder how much this fact was annoying some of the top brass, which she supposed, on some level, she was now included in. 

“Normal, sir. Christoph is running through exercises, he's trying to hit a new personal best on a few scores. Apart from that, all normal.”

“Good. Keep on top of it,” he said, automatically, and then, with the pleasantries over, he got right to the real reason she had been called up. Quite honestly, she was surprised he had bothered at all. “Gladstone wants something to celebrate for the anniversary,” Tagg said, glancing back to the map and reaching up to correct a pin, which had been pushed in at an angle. 

Ah, yes.

The anniversary of Eden's foundation... such as it was. 

It was one of the few days of the year that normal people in the factories did not need to work, that they could spend time with family and were still compensated for. Her old factory manager had always been so begrudging about that fact, because he was a caricature of a man more fitting for a Dickensian novel than a human being. 

In previous years, Taylor hadn't really bothered with going out and about on the anniversaries, she would stay home with Emma and her father.

Probably because she'd never felt particularly festive at the time, and instead more as if she were mourning the state of her life and the world. But now, of course, the wheels of politics were turning. 

“To celebrate, sir?” she ventured. 

Tagg glanced at her, and she could faintly see the vein in his temple pulsing. 

“She's demanded a Titan be killed, something that she can discuss in a big speech.”

Just... like that?

Taylor remained silent a moment. 

In terms of the hierarchy here, she did not really have any power to complain or refuse. It was an order, if she were told that there would be an operation to kill a Titan, then of course she would be part of it... but just the thought of it made her heart begin to beat faster.

“Just like that?”

Tagg gave her a long look; she could see the disdain for the notion. 

“Unfortunately, yes. She is still the Mayor, and I do not want to risk calls of treason or calling for outside help to keep the Security Forces in line.”

Yes, the notion of somebody like Alexandria or whatever Parahumans remained on other Earths returning to Bet purely to put down an uprising.

“I had rather hoped to have more Ether Liners available before your first proper deployment against a Titan, but we're going to have to move forward with the assumption that it'll just be you, Christoph and whatever support we can get hold of for you.”

So this was really happening. 

She'd always known that it could be possible, of course. 

Like, naturally it would happen that someday Tagg's goal of hunting down Titans would be put into practice, but despite months having passed since the day she made her choice, it felt too soon.

“... Did Gladstone have one in mind?” Taylor asked, raising her brows at the map. 

With the dozens upon dozens of pins on it, many of them with codes and dates, she supposed that Tagg had no shortage of available targets to pick from.

There was no point trying to change the man's mind, he did not have a choice in the matter, but he could make the choice, right?

Tagg reached up and indicated for a particular pin on the map of North America, one of a number clustered in their area. 

The pin was orange.

Specifically, New York City.

“The Meteoroite Titan,” he said, simply.

“... Are you sure, sir?”

“It is not a matter of being sure, Knight-Commander; it is the one we have been ordered to try and deal with.”

His tone was so clipped that it could probably moonlight as a barber; despite all attempts to disguise whatever he thought of the situation, subtlety was evidently not in his current repertoire. 

“With how many people came from New York and were forced to flee by it, destroying it would be a major morale boost for the city and allow expedition groups to begin extracting resources from it that we've been unable to before... even if it's been a few years, there's a lot that could be reclaimed from the city.”

That could be looted, more like.

But Eden was built from looted and reclaimed materials, after all.

“Do you imagine that when there are more Liners, the city might be inhabitable?” she asked. 

It was outside the scope of the operation to come, and perhaps it was improper to ask, but Tagg rolled with the question.

“Possibly. Well, in terms of the biology, I suppose it's a given. But the place is a mess, the Meteoroite killed three other Titans and most of the city Protectorate forces to claim the city, after all,” he said. 

A rather grim thing to hear, it had to be said. 

She made to reply, only to be interrupted by a knock at the door. 

Taylor glanced over her shoulder as, without prompting, the door opened to reveal the source of the sound. 

It was a woman holding a plain brown folder. 

“The file you requested, Commander,” she spoke as she took a step into the room as if it were her office, rather than Tagg's. Page three has the updated energy signature analysis. Dragon's initial assessment was off by a decimal point. I've corrected it."

The woman's heels clicked against the ground, they were so impractically high that they seemed more fitting for a catwalk rather than everyday work in an office setting. Not that the impracticality of her footwear seemed to slow her down whatsoever. The woman seemed more to float through the air than walk, head at a perfectly even height the entire time. 

She only glanced at Taylor for a moment, but something about her eyes instantly made the hairs on the back of Taylor's neck stand on end.

Why did she feel like she had seen them before, just for a moment?

“Thank you, Kaleida,” Tagg took the folder from her, only giving it a brief glance over, opening, flicking a few pages, and then closing it with a nod. 

The folder was handed over to her, and she took it automatically. 

 On the front, in simple typeset, were the words 'METEOROITE TITAN ASSESSMENT FILE'

“Read it by tomorrow, Hebert.”

Automatically, she nodded in response. 

In the momentary pause that followed, the woman, Kaleida, spoke up, eyes moving from Tagg to Taylor. 

“Is there anything else, Commander?”

She really didn't like that small smile on the other woman's face, as if there was some in-joke or aspect of her that the woman found amusing. She could very well just be reading into it, but everything about the woman was rubbing her the wrong way right now. 

Taylor noticed, from the corner of her eye, the way Tagg twitched at the question.

“No, you may leave, Kaleida,” he dismissed.

Without a word, she did so, turning on the spot and stepping away with that same strange grace as before and pulling the door closed behind her. 

She wanted to ask who, exactly, the woman was. 

Taylor could swear that she had heard the name before... was it Emma who had mentioned her? Something to do with the city's cannons? She rather reminded her of Justina, the whole strange presence and weird eyes---

“Is there something you would like to say, Knight-Commander?” Tagg said, gravelly voice just a hint smoother. It posed the question in a manner that indicated she did not, in fact, have something to ask.

After a moment, she shook her head.

“No sir. I was just reflecting on the mission.”

“Good. Dismissed.”

She left, holding the folder close, and returned to the barracks just in time to see Christoph bench press a new personal best with a victorious holler.  

A bit of exercise would do her some good as well, to parse through her thoughts on various matters...

Glitter Love was busy tonight. 

There was barely a seat unoccupied. People were standing at the bar buying expensive drinks and celebrating the end of the working week and looking forward to their day off tomorrow. 

A number of them were people who, previously, could not have afforded to come to such a location, enjoying the new-found freedom. Around their necks, the tan-lines and other marks of having been wearing collars were obvious, even in the muted light, the marks of symbolic chains removed.

It was... strange, to see them.

To see the sort of giddy happiness evident on their faces, the way these people were not just celebrating the end of the week, but the very fact they were up here, enjoying themselves.

She also noticed the way that other customers, ones without any collar marks at all, fell into two categories; those who came up to speak to them normally, and those who rather pointedly avoided doing so and kept company only with others like them. How many of them were silently disapproving of their presence, she wondered.

They would not be able to avoid the truth forever, the inevitability of what was happening in Eden, be it at a rate of ten people a day or a hundred---

“Say ahhh, Tay!” 

She turned her head just in time to see a fork with a piece of freshly made brownie swaying seductively up and down. Behind it, Emma was grinning as she leaned over the table to offer her a bite of the confection. 

It was a little childish and indulgent... but then again---

Taylor leant forward and took the offered piece of food and chewed. 

In front of Taylor no less than three small plates sat, with only a single pastry left undevoured. Keeping on top of her Ether Liner metabolism was something of a challenge, 

“What'd you think?” her lover asked, expectantly, watching her face. 

“It's nice,” Taylor said, “not so fond of the caramel though.”

“You can't let that one bad experience when we were eight ruin salted caramel for you forever!” Emma said, her laugh perhaps just a little too loud. 

With the eyes that were on them right now, the occasional whispers that could be heard over the music, perhaps she was just a little nervous, or putting on something of a performance of the loving girlfriend? 

Their little dates to Glitter Love had become rather well known, once or twice a week after work they would meet up to have something to drink and some food together, and with time word had spread. Now, people came to try and get a look at Taylor for some reason, as if she were something to ogle from afar. 

Personally, she rather imagined that Emma was the nicer thing to see... but she was a sort of local celebrity, she supposed.

She found she wasn't liking the experience, the constant paranoia about being watched, the whispers... the comments.

“You didn't have to eat it, Em's... I swear that they must have put some drops of water from the Dead Sea into that sundae,” Taylor replied, keeping her own tone light. 

When they were kids, for Emma's eighth birthday, they had gone out and gotten gigantic chocolate sundaes with Taylor's family joining the Barnes' for a special celebration. Emma's was perfect, but somehow, all the salted caramel in Taylor's had sunk to the bottom, creating half an inch of sludge containing enough salt to kill a family of slugs.

In the end, she'd had to abandon said sundae and help Emma finish off her own.

It had remained an in-joke ever since. 

Emma's eyes narrowed a little, not in suspicion, as she smiled. 

They continued to enjoy their date, discussing all manner of silly things, making jokes and recalling fond old memories from a different time. They would head back home soon, perhaps cuddle on the couch and read books together... she still needed to read that file on the Meteoroite Titan, after all. 

Actually, thinking about that...

“Hey, do you know about a person called Kaleida?” she asked, a thought coming to mind.

“Hm?”

“Are you really talking about work on our date night?” Emma asked. 

“Just wanted to ask what you know, I briefly met her today and I think you mentioned her before,” Taylor excused. 

Emma took another bite of her brownie, cutting into it carefully and chewing as she frowned a little. 

“I know she's behind the canons in some way, and she's the sister of my boss. Big family as well, there's like, five or six of them in total. Guess the parents were rolling the lottery a lot and getting increasingly impossible odds.”

“Guess it can happen,” Taylor shrugged as she took a large bite from what remained of her final pastry. 

“She's Anya's sister, then?” she asked. 

She'd never met Emma's boss, at any work function in the past Taylor had always either been too tired from her time in the factory, or otherwise engaged. But Emma always spoke highly enough about her, if not about her other colleagues.

“Yeah... high-powered family, eh? I know she's married to Commander Tagg, not that you'd know unless you looked into the records or saw them together at an event...”

“Next you're going to tell me Anya is married to the Mayor,” Taylor joked.

It got a snort of derision out of Emma.

“No, she's married to some random guy, he's not very well, though. Really bad Ether Poisoning and cancer, I think.”

Well, she supposed it was rather admirable, in a way, for somebody so powerful in terms of role to stick with a partner in such a bad situation. After all, how many sick spouses had been cast aside after the Angel Fall for fear that they would drag a family down? How many unmarked graves were strewn over the Earth... hell, how many were never buried?

“Anyway! I was thinking, I saw this cosy little lamp whilst out the other day at a store, I thought it might be nice for the sitting room, you know?” 

Emma turned the conversation away from work and colleague related things. 

In the last few months, their apartment had increasingly been decorated and adapted; the old, pokey and creaky home of before was a thing of the past. Their home now was warm, clean, their combined incomes in the first tier, especially Taylor's, went a long way to provide such an improved quality of life. 

Even her father was looking better and healthier now, even if he still had flare-ups and bad days. 

They discussed the practicality of the lamp for a little while, finished their food, and then, it was time to go.

“I've got this,” Emma rushed to say, lifting her purse.

“You got last time---” Taylor objected as she reached for her own wallet. 

Emma's warm hand grabbed hers, clenching it with a grip that was perhaps a little too tight, although it did not hurt her at all thanks to her enhancements.

“It's okay, I said, I got this,” Emma spoke over her, smile just a little more forced, tone a little strained. 

Was she feeling guilty? Or perhaps it was because she'd asked Taylor to purchase that expensive full-length mirror the other week, and she was trying to balance things out?

She relented, and Emma paid for their food. 

As they left Glitter Love to echoes of thanks from the staff, Taylor reached out and took her lover's hand. 

For a moment, Emma stiffened; before, she had pulled her hand free in public, not wanting to attract the wrong sort of attention for their relationship. 

The redhead glanced from the corner of her eye when she thought Taylor wouldn't notice, not so much seeming concerned for who might notice, as it looked as if she were weighing something up in her mind. 

And then, her hand relaxed, and she gave it a little squeeze back, she pulled closer to Taylor until she was almost against Taylor's side and their arms were so entwined it would be difficult to pull them apart.    

Taylor smiled.

It was good to see her finally starting to relax and feel secure in things, even if Emma's grip still felt a little too strong to be truly relaxed. It reminded her of how a child would grip the string of a balloon they were scared may fly away. 

She squeezed back as they made their way home.

Chapter Text

• Titan: Meteoroite 
• Titan Class: Orange
• History: Titan has been confirmed to have originated as the Protectorate hero Astrologer. Astrologer is suspected of having undergone a Second Trigger event during the Battle of Manhattan (reference file NYC-IC-12) following the coordinated rampage of three Titans (reference files; Titan: Heliodor, Titan: Hymn, and Titan: Questing) that emerged during post-Angel Fall riots. The Second trigger event is suspected to be related to the loss of teammates to violence. Following emergence, engaged other Titans within the city and caused large scale collateral damage through indiscriminate bombardment. Attempts to respond by Protectorate forces failed with significant losses (reference file NYC-IC-15) leading to large-scale retreat and evacuation of the City---

Taylor looked up from the file she was reading and clicked her neck, releasing a sigh as she did so. 

The file on the Titan that she and Christoph were soon to face read like a litany of failure. It was nineteen pages of grim, monotone assessment and history; the section she was casting her eyes over now was just the summary page at the back that neatly brought the whole thing together into one incredibly unpleasant package. 

She'd already read the entire thing cover to cover about five times, and on each occasion she had been left with the impression that there was so much missing from it. 

Oh sure, there was the recounting of the battle against the Titan when it first appeared and its destruction of three other Titans. Sure, there was information on its behaviour and power assessment in succinct, clinical terms that even an idiot could understand.

But there was precious little else, no indications of the why behind it all. 

Nineteen pages, entirely cold and sterile. 

She should expect it at this point. Her job was to fight against Titans like the Meteoroite, and to help reclaim the planet from the very things that had ended the dominance of humanity over the world. 

Hell, the power to do so was literally ingrained in her bones, and just the thought made the thing in her right palm twitch.

... But if there was one thing Taylor had yet to find in the report she had been given on the Meteoroite Titan, it was information about the person behind the monster: Astrologer.

The being described in the file was entirely the Titan, its history, appearance, its powers, with no notes at all about the person that it had once been. 

She certainly knew that if her collar had failed, and she had Titanified, she would want somebody to remember the person she was, on some level. 

She took out her phone and began typing.

T. Hebert: Hey, Dragon, are you free for a moment?

Sometimes she would reply, other times she would not. 

She almost felt bad for troubling her, but Dragon was one of the few Parahumans in the city and seemed to know just about everything.

Dragon: Yes, Knight-Commander?

Bleh. 

Dragon used to call her Taylor... then again, she also once told her to suck up her feelings and do her duty.

T.Hebert: Mind me asking you a question? If you're busy, it's fine

Dragon: Sure... What is it?

T.Hebert: Can you tell me more about Astrologer?

There was a pause there, although when the response came through, there were no wavering dots or anything like that. It was as if the response were typed out and sent in the span of a moment.

Dragon: Her name was Ashley Jukes, a member of the New York Protectorate. Everything else in your data packet is an apt summary.

T.Hebert: Did you know her?

Dragon: Only vaguely; she had only graduated from the Wards shortly before the Angel Fall. She was part of the city's 'Hammer' team that focused on heavy firepower. There was never any reason for us to cross paths.

Taylor hummed. 

Well, it made sense. 

Dragon, even before the Angel Fall, had probably been a very busy woman. You didn't hold a title like 'the greatest Tinker in Earth Bet' for nothing, right? The New York Protectorate team had most likely been really big as well, it would be impossible for one person to know literally everyone, no matter how important you were. 

T.Hebert: I see. I wanted to know more about her.

Dragon: Everything of note is in the file, Knight-Commander

T.Hebert: I meant as a person, not as a Parahuman.

Three dots appeared, seemingly requiring a moment of actual typing rather than the near instantaneous responses from before. 

Either Taylor was about to be sent a Homeric Epic of a response, or the Parahuman was actually putting some thought into the reply. 

Dragon: From what little I know, she liked music a lot. She went to a lot of concerts for multiple types of music, and she could be a bit frivolous with her money. She liked to collect cut-glass animal figurines made by Swarovski and took pictures of them in comedic settings. Then she would put those images online for people to enjoy. I've sent one or two that I found. 

A picture loaded on her phone. 

It depicted a glass duck, all faceted edges and sides, sitting on a rock overlooking a forested valley. Presumably it had been taken on some manner of hiking trip? It was odd to see so many green trees again, it took her back...

It was sweet. 

An utterly pointless and human thing to do. 

It made her smile. 

Dragon: Why do you want to know what she was like? 

T.Hebert: If I'm going to have to kill her, then I should probably know what sort of person she was.  

T.Hebert: You know?

Dragon: A lot of people would say that's the opposite of what you should know and that it may distract you.

It wasn't asked harshly, or at least, Taylor was not convinced that it was. But it still felt like some sort of admonishment from the other woman... then again, with what Taylor knew about Dragon, was that how she kept going? By not getting too attached to people?

If so, then why had the woman taken such care of her and seemed so guilty right after she became an Ether Liner?

Taylor reached out and took her cup of tea, long grown tepid, and took a sip. 

T.Hebert: Maybe.

T.Hebert: I don't like the idea that if I had become a Titan, nobody would remember that I used to be human.

Maybe she was just too soft.

Not a single person had ever taken her story about the dying angel seriously or had any mote of pity for the creature that lay in her arms dying. She'd learned to stop opening up about that story because each time she was treated as if she had been well and truly mad for her choice. 

Dragon had just been the latest in that long line. 

In the last few years, she'd seen more than enough people meet their end and be forgotten about; people dying from Ether poisoning or pulled into machines in the factory.

And she'd tried to remember as many of them as possible.

Not always successfully. 

Wilfully forgetting people seemed like an insult when so many of them had already died. 

But thinking about all of this would not help the practicalities of the situation, that soon enough she would be sent off to go to New York. And whilst there, she would do her best to kill what remained of Ashley Jukes, a girl who collected glass sculptures of animals and posted pictures of them online. 

Dragon: I can understand that.

Dragon: Can I help you with anything else, Taylor?

T.Hebert: No, thank you for your time, Dragon. Sorry for wasting it with silly questions.

~~~~~

If Taylor had been asked to imagine what a meeting of the Central Council would be like, she would not have expected the reality. 

At her most cynical, she might have suggested that it would be a meeting of shadowy, hooded figures sitting around a brightly lit table. Something similar to a meeting of supervillains in a kid's cartoon. 

Alternatively, at her most hopeful and naive, perhaps Taylor would have instead imagined several people working hard for the best, pushing themselves to the limit to do all they could for the sake of Eden and its people.

Instead, she watched various Department Heads discuss frankly trivial issues for half an hour when people were on the streets struggling for food was utterly infuriating. The tangents into unimportant things as well, the lack of focus... 

It was only by pressing her hands together until the knuckles turned white that she avoided speaking up to ask whether she was hallucinating.

Beside her, Tagg was sitting as still as a stone and had barely said five words as the bureaucrats bickered

Quite why she had been invited today, she wasn't sure, until the topic of the operation against the Titan was brought up. 

“---additional resources are going to be transferred to the Security Forces to support it. Dragon will be entirely focused on coordinating and supporting them, so she will not be available for requests or assistance with any other work--- "

Why, exactly, was she here for this meeting?

She really wasn't sure. 

Maybe just so that she could be put on display for everyone?

Across the room, a woman sent her an understanding smile. 

Taylor recognised her.

Anya, Emma's boss. 

She'd always struck Taylor as odd in a way. Too soft and gentle for the position of a Head of Department for the Central Council. 

But then again, they had only met once, when she and Emma had gone for a walk one evening to try and get some fresh air. After a twelve-hour workday, Taylor had been exhausted and walked slowly, but they had made it to the first tier and taken a moment to appreciate Angel's Hill. 

And there, they had chanced upon Anya.

The woman had offered Taylor a drink from a bottle of water, recognizing the fact that she was exhausted.

The random woman who was her lover's superior had shown more concern for her than the floor manager of the factory. 

In truth, the fact that Emma had such a nice boss had sparked a nasty jealousy for a little bit.

But that got swept away by the realities of life, and the memory of Anya had disappeared into just being a name that was sometimes mentioned whenever Emma talked about work. 

But right now, Anya sent her a soft smile, and then turned back to her reports.

Soon enough, Taylor was addressed for the first time in the conversation;

“Knight-Commander Hebert, it's quite essential that you defeat the Titan as swiftly as possible,” she was told, like a child being told the importance of not running off.

“I wasn't planning on hanging around too long in the middle of an active combat zone,” Taylor replied, bluntly, because it was such a silly thing to say. 

Honestly, did these people think she would waste time showboating when city-block-levelling projectiles were falling from the sky?

The speaker plastered on a smile that seemed rather forced.

“Of course, of course, well, we really are hoping for a good result from all of this, the Chief-Director has been very interested in the programme.”

Chief-Director?

“Oh?” she raised her brows, unable to help herself. 

A shuffling of paper.

“The Chief-Director has indicated that if you can achieve similar results to before, then there might be some scope for your deployment against a number of threats on other Earths,” the man said, pausing a moment. “Whilst they've handled a few of their own Titan issues, it's mostly required extensive loss of life, and seeing how new Parahumans are rather difficult to come by...”

He glanced around for a moment, and Taylor had the distinct impression that, perhaps, he was going a bit far and mentioning something that had only been behind closed doors beforehand. 

Well, it only made sense. 

If Parahumans were a resource, then they were rather difficult to replenish when a person becoming one could also become a Titan. Currently, it was much safer to kill a potential Titan than attempt to replenish lost Parahumans, right?

“... Aha, and of course, she indicated that if that was the case, there would be room for negotiation. We're still in discussions, though,” the man added, glancing quickly towards Gladstone.

Negotiation and discussion on the topic of deploying her on other worlds...

Things made a bit more sense now.

It wasn't just a case of destroying a major Titan in time for the anniversary, or reclaiming New York City and opening up opportunities to scavenge materials.  No, it was a further proof of concept, making sure it wasn't a fluke. If Eden had an asset capable of killing a Titan without using massed nuclear weapons or significant loss of Parahumans, then it only made sense that they would want to use it for leverage. 

So this was both for public image, destroying a titan, securing resources and securing a future. 

... What an incredible number of things to combine into one task, how many avenues could potentially be opened up by this?

And yet---

“So that's your game then. I'd rather have liked to have been informed of this,” Tagg said, low voice rumbling through the air. 

He was looking towards Anya with raised brows for a moment, rather than focusing on Gladstone.  

Quite why, Taylor wasn't sure.

She was only the head of Public Records, so why would he focus on her?

Anya simply gave one of those gentle smiles of hers. 

“Actually, it was Aadhya who has been focusing on it, and who has been opening up those avenues for us,” Anya replied.

“... I see.”

Taylor glanced from the corner of her eye at Tagg.

It was... certainly not the response she had expected from the man. 

Rather than push the issue, he relented, sitting back in his chair and steepling his fingers and brows pulling together in thought. 

What was going through that man's head? 

Just the other day, she'd seen the man berate some hapless kid in the Security Force's information wing for 'insufficient reporting' on a matter far less important than this, but now he was just going to accept that half-assed explanation!?

“Are we sure that we can trust her predictions? Aadhya is a Parahuman---” somebody, a bureaucrat from the Department of Public Image, asked. 

“I will trust her insights on the matter," Tagg interrupted, silencing the speaker with an irritable wave of the hand.

Taylor could probably cut through the air with a steak tenderiser following that comment, and for a good few seconds it was as if nobody wanted to so much as breath. Then, with all the grace of a steamroller crushing a car, Gladstone cleared her throat, expression pinched as she loudly straightened her various papers against the table. 

“I think we've gotten rather off-topic,” she said. “Let's get off this tangent, we're already running over time as it is.”

And so they did. 

Taylor didn't say anything further, in truth she rather felt as if she was here more for show than anything else. But in the last few months, she'd gotten good at sitting through meetings and not causing a fuss. 

Even if she wanted to ask a lot of questions right now, Tagg's solitary glance her way told her to hold them for another time.

Chapter Text

On the morning of the operation, Taylor found her father sitting at the window, looking out over the world as the sun rose. 

It was a tradition the man had created for himself ever since they moved in. Most mornings, when she got up early enough, she would find him in the leather armchair beside the windows on the apartments west side, looking out over the city and the wastes beyond. 

Like father, like daughter, she supposed.

The chair was something she had bought him with her improved salary, imported all the way from Aleph, an upgrade from the rickety, near-collapsing piece of furniture they had before. 

And now here he was, chin pushed into his palm, watching the orange sun illuminating the world beyond the window. His eyes blinked slowly, as if tired, but he looked contented enough with what he saw. 

She moved to his side, and he looked up at her.

His smile made his face crease up a little. 

“Morning, pumpkin, all ready to go?” he asked. 

“Ready as I'll ever be,” she admitted.

She had to wonder, and often did, whether he was proud of her.

Considering the life they had previously lived, did he ever look at her and see the sort of person that the three of them had once sat around the creaky table complaining about? The sellouts and the people who lived it up in the Ivory Towers above everyone else?

It was a gnawing question that she never quite had the confidence to speak up and ask.

“The weather's nice,” he said, raising his fingers to vaguely gesture towards the windows. “You'll have a nice, safe flight.”

She looked beyond the window. 

It did indeed look like it would be a better day in terms of weather, but even from this far away she could pick out the streams of dust carried on the wind. They writhed and danced like coiling serpents or worms. 

Closer to the city, she could see a line of dots slowly making its way to various buildings on Eden's outskirts, the factories.

“I certainly hope so, I'm sure Dragon will take good care of us.”

“Just take care of yourself, that's all I care about,” he replied, reaching out to give her exposed hand a pat. 

There was no extended conversation about what to look out for, no tears or anything like that. It was like he already knew that everything would be okay no matter what. That same calm certainty that had always gone such a long way to reassure her when she was small and scraped her knee or when she got scared by something on the TV.  

Silence fell between them, and for a minute or two they both stared out over the wastes, before Taylor spoke up again.

“What are you doing today then, dad?”

“I'm going to take Emma out shopping, I think,” he said after a moment's consideration.

“Oh?”

“Yeah, a nice circuit of the tier and maybe a walk through Angel's Hill. Maybe a meander down to the second tier.”

Out for that long? Even in the cleaner air of the upper tiers, her father still suffered from Ether Poisoning so easily. Whatever genetics or natural resilience made her such a natural candidate for the Liner Program had bypassed her father so utterly that the man was especially vulnerable. 

“... Are you sure?”

“I've been feeling especially chipper of late, stronger every day!” 

He was indeed miles better than he used to be. 

Those cheeks, once faintly sunken and skin left pale, had gained life and fullness again. His eyes had a new spark to them that had been struggling before. The fact that he could now leave the house more properly, could actually go for walks and wasn't trapped in that dingy, rickety little plot of land no doubt helped.

... Seeing him so much better made any amount of ridiculous exercises or impositions from the Security Force worth it. 

“Plus... well, I want to make sure Emma doesn't worry herself sick whilst you're gone,” he added, lowering his voice a little.  

Yeah... to be honest, with how nervy Emma got with Ether Storm's, she could only imagine what she would be like with Taylor going out to kill a Titan---

A sound of a door slamming filled the air. Taylor could feel the vibration of the impact through the very floor from the force of it. There may well now be a door handle shaped dent in the plaster somewhere in the apartment.

“Tay!”

Speak of the devil, and she shall appear. 

Emma was dishevelled, in that messy-haired, pyjama-wearing manner that Taylor had come to find pretty adorable. Despite not being a morning person, Emma looked wide awake, blinking away the light of the living room as she emerged from the darkness of their shared bedroom. 

“Oh, thank god, I thought you'd left before I could say goodbye,” she said. 

“You know I wouldn't do that.”

“Yeah, well, I woke up and you weren't there...” it sounded like a recrimination, but to be honest, that was the usual state of things. 

Taylor had always had to get up earlier than her girlfriend to be ready for the long walk down to the factory, or for her work with the Security Forces... She'd grown used to pulling free from the warm, comforting, and somewhat octopus-like embrace of Emma and standing up in the cold. 

The redhead had always been a deep sleeper, and was less of a morning person in general. 

But now, she marched up to Taylor and in a moment Emma was all over her, fiddling with her collar even though it had been perfectly fine before. It was a rather pointless gesture; when she got to base, she would change into a bodysuit that better fit inside her armour, and her official looking uniform would be folded and pressed somewhere safe for her return.

As Emma zealously preened her, she didn't stop talking. 

“You stay safe out there, don't do anything stupid, and don't let them push you around. You're more valuable than all of them, and don't you even think about some sort of big heroic sacrifice---”

Emma didn't know the first thing about the realities of being near a Titan or what she was going into... Well, Taylor's memories from the first time were still hardly the most reliable. Even with several months having passed, it was a scrambled mess, a rush of instincts and desperation that, in retrospect, had seemed utterly insane and illogical. 

But hopefully this time, it would be better. 

It was organised, there was support behind them. They had transport, they had Dragon providing logistical and armed support... the two of them, Taylor and Christoph, would be able to do this, right?

“Emma,” her father spoke up, the first time he had addressed her this morning. She looked at him distractedly, momentarily pausing in trying to remove microscopic lint from her jacket. 

“What?”

“Breathe.”

It was kind of impressive how just two words could both catch Emma's attention and force her to utterly freeze up. She frowned a moment, and then actually took the advice, taking a deep breath in that seemed just a little forced.  

The hands fiddling with Taylor's outfit trembled a little, then let go.

In their place, Taylor pulled her into a hug. 

“I'll be fine, Ems, do you think I would do anything less than careful?” she asked, trying to keep her tone light even as she reached up to flatten some of her lover's errant bed hair. 

“Yeah... I just, you know...”

Worry. 

Yeah, she could fully understand that. 

In truth, she was scared.

It was impossible not to be scared on some level when you knew what you would be fighting soon. 

But she couldn't let Emma and her father worry about that, she needed to look strong so that neither of them would worry. A part of Taylor wished she was in her armour right now, the angled visor of her armour would be a barrier between them that would hide any sign of concern, fear, or reluctance. But she didn't have it on, and she would rather be able to place a kiss on Emma's head before she went than anything else.

So she did so.

“I hope you have a nice day, you two. Hopefully, I'll be back in time for dinner.”

She had no idea whether her attempt to be lighthearted landed, in the moment of silence that followed she was left to wonder so many things, before Emma gave her a squeeze. 

“You better.”

She left the two of them watching from the doorway to the apartments, Emma still in pyjamas, when normally she would never dare appear with a hair out of place. She gave them a final wave and a smile as she turned the corner, putting her all into trying to look as confident as possible.

Empty wastes and clouds of dust.

From this high up, the world really was rather depressing... she was used to looking out over the blasted form of the Earth from the upper tiers of Eden, but to see it from the air itself was another matter. 

No matter how far Taylor looked, it was desolate. 

Ruined buildings, hamlets towns, and cities once filled with life now empty, the spiderweb of roads and highways between them were devoid of moving vehicles, like a lifeless circulatory system.

There were patches of trees, all leafless and their trunks stained with some strange red colouration.

These lonely sentinels of the earth's biosphere were lucky to have not been cut down for resources, or perhaps they were simply too radioactive to be worth the effort and the risk? Either way, they stood in clumps here or there, like islands amidst a sea of dust. 

Around them, the Dragon-designed craft shot through the air, and various other machines would be accompanying them in this. 

Beside her, Christoph sat, elbows on his knees and hands clasped together, the metal chain of the cross that normally sat around his neck emerged from between his fingers. His head was lowered, paying no heed to the world beyond the window or anything beyond the present moment and whatever prayers he was directing to a higher power that Taylor was sure had long ago abandoned this planet. 

Andino had made him a suit of armour from what offcuts remained from what had been used to make hers... it wasn't quite as complete, but it rather suited the whole 'noble knight' image. Christoph's suit used more of the clear crystal from the base of her sword rather than the super-hardened Ether from the blade itself. 

It was better than nothing, though.

“We will be within visual range of Manhattan in three minutes.”

The voice of Dragon came through the speakers integrated into her helmet, despite the voice being practically in her ears, it still was somewhat muffled by the roar of the engines.

“The Meteoroite Titan has remained in the same location in Central Park and is making no indications of having noticed us yet,” the Tinker added. 

Christoph said nothing, still focusing on his prayers.

“Well, that's good... how close do you think you can get us?” Taylor asked. Even after hours of discussions of this operation, covering the minutiae and every possible aspect, she felt obliged to ask. 

“If possible, I'd rather drop you as close as possible.”

“What are the chances?”

A moment's pause there. 

“Low. I've got an advanced early-warning and response system, but even then, I am likely going to have to land you near the outsides of the city so you can get in as quickly as possible. We'll be within the Titan's range soon. Make sure to have a good grip on something before I start performing evasive manoeuvres.”

Automatically, her gauntleted hand clenched around a nearby handle, leaving the imprints of her fingers in the metal. 

Those three minutes were some of the longest of Taylor's life, each second was dragged out into a strange infinity, the anticipation... no. Breathe, use those exercises she had been taught, remain focused and ready. Any moment, something could happen, and then she would need all her wits about her. 

Beside her, Christoph straightened up, the tarnished cross went back around his neck, clinking faintly against his amour. She was pretty sure that it was against some sort of regulation to have jewellery out like that... but then again, who the fuck cared?

“Ready?” she asked. 

“Yes.” Curt, abrupt. And then, after a moment more, he added, “As I will ever be, at least.”

She could understand that. 

Was it kinder, that her fellow Ether Liner had been granted more time to prepare for his first fight against a Titan than she had? Or was it a cruelty that he had time to think about it more... 

In the distance, she could begin to see the ruined city they were flying towards. 

A broken skyline that once upon a time could be found on postcards around the world was growing closer and closer by the moment, the uneven, jagged form of shattered roofs like a maw full of broken teeth. From all the way up here, the gray, deadened expanse of the Atlantic Ocean was visible beyond it.

One shape rose taller than all the others, above the remnants of the Empire State Building that, once, had served as architectural ambassador for the United States. It was a tower of ashen-flesh, the proportions were too stretched out and tall to quite be right, misshapen just enough that, perhaps, it could be mistaken from afar as a strange geological formation.

There could be no doubt what it was. 

The ground was increasingly pockmarked with craters, ranging from the size of a car to a city block---

The aircraft lurched to the side suddenly, were it not for the belt keeping her in place than Taylor would have been sent to the floor, the same for Christoph, who swore loudly. 

There was a 'fwomph' of air being displaced as something shot through the space where the plane had been just moments ago, a projectile falling from the sky at hundreds of miles an hour.

Chapter Text

Streaks in the air accompanied the roar of engines as Dragon's machines surged further into the city. 

The air was rent with the booms of projectiles slamming into the ground. Some of them broke apart and dissipated before hitting the ground. Others, large and tactically placed, became increasingly difficult to avoid as a pattern swiftly developed.

The plane jerked to the side again to avoid another incoming projectile, almost throwing Taylor into Christoph before it recovered itself.

“Prepare to jump out when I get you closer!” Dragon's voice filled their ears.  

Dragon's other machines were facing ahead towards Central Park, and their transporter seemed determined to land at the edge of Manhattan, somewhere on the north-west side. 

It would be better to land closer, but until this level of fire---

They just about made it, Taylor sprung from the vehicle and had taken no more than a couple of strides before something smashed into it at speed. There was a brutal staccato of 'krrrr-unch' as the metal vehicle was pummelled and rent apart by projectiles that streaked down from the sky to smash into it. 

The vehicle was destroyed within just ten seconds of their landing; but all that mattered was that they were both on the ground safely.

And so they began to run. 

There was no order to do so, no agreement between them, they simply began to sprint in the direction they knew to go. 

Being out in the open was not safe, if they knew the various subway tunnels better than perhaps they could get below ground and then try to navigate closer, but they would lose all communications if they did and might emerge completely unsupported as well. 

So instead, they were blitzing forward, down the streets of Manhattan towards the park that contained the Titan. 

Overhead, the stragglers of Dragon's machines shot forward, distracting and buying them time. 

Although that was not to say that the route was safe by any means. 

Like most cities across Earth Bet, Manhattan was in disarray. Cars and other vehicles were left to rust in the streets, there were damaged and collapsed buildings in their way. All this detritus of societal collapse was something they needed to navigate at speed. 

Each second that passed was one in which they lost some small part of whatever advantage they had, dammit, why couldn't Dragon have at least gotten them a little closer---

Something struck her dead in the chest. 

One moment she was upright, the next she was rolling on the ground as though she had been hit by a moving car, the projectile that had smashed into her from the sky having hit her straight and true.

It was stunning, more than anything, her head rang. 

No time to stop.

“Taylor---!”

She forced herself back up, rolling in place and back on her feet. 

“C'mon,” she forced one leg before the other, wobbling in place for a moment as she glanced down. 

Her breastplate had a hell of a dent on it. In the blackened Ether, hairline fractures that were only visible when the light hit at the right angle radiated outwards, the armour unbroken but damaged. 

She supposed it was either a miracle, or testament to the strength of the material, that it had survived at all.

"I'm fine, keep an eye on the sky," she said, already pushing off again.

And so, they ran. 

It was utterly insane, really. 

Fuck Gladstone and all her cronies sitting nice and comfortable at the top, sending them out for this!

There was no real time to curse them, though. Just get through the next moment, the next footstep closer. Get to the Titan and kill it. 

Thinking about anything else was a distraction she could not afford. She needed to be in the same headspace as when she killed that first Titan, that all consuming drive onwards to just get in range...

Down ruined streets they moved, moving around or over abandoned vehicles and through structures collapsed and damaged by both the ravages of the Angel Fall and the Titans. In some places, there would be patches of eerie emptiness, as if everyone just up and disappeared at once, leaving everything behind... the next street might have an entire collapsed building that they needed to navigate. 

She supposed that many people did just disappear and get evacuated, the countless portals that had appeared in the thin air during the Angel Fall had managed to carry billions to safety. What had remained either moved to Eden, perished or took one of the later portals, leaving behind ruined ghost cities like Manhattan. 

But still, the marks of humanity remained even now, an abandoned, rotten teddy bear in a gutter, stylised graffiti she did not have time to read left behind by teenagers. 

Explosions in the distance. 

“Ether Liners, report,” came a voice over her helmet, Tagg, back in Eden.

“Making our way down one-hundred and tenth street,” Taylor said, jumping to the side of a car and trying to keep up her momentum.

“Resistance?”

“Not too much so far, took a hit, armour damaged but whole---”

 Taylor only saw the streak of fire from the corner of her eye. There was a blur of movement from Christoph, a flash of crystal before he was obscured by dust. 

“Christoph!?” she called out, interrupting her response to Tagg.

Her fellow Ether Liner burst out the other side of the cloud of dust. 

The man was fine, his Ether great sword gleamed in the weak light.  

“I cut as it came in,” he said, as if that explained things, and the two craters at his feet were merely a byproduct of some natural course of action. He sounded almost as surprised as she felt.

She---they didn't have time to examine the insanity of that statement. 

Accept it and move on, each second counted---

“Knight-Commander, report, what is Christoph's condition!?” 

“He's fine! Cut the meteor as it came in,” she shouted back, because right now she really wanted to focus on their mission more than replying to Tagg. But, she reminded herself, she was the one in charge of herself and Christoph... even if that team was just two individuals. 

Christoph didn't discard the blade now that he had formed it; even with the additional Ether contained in his armour, was he worried that he wouldn't have enough to reform it if needed? Or was he too caught up in the moment to think about throwing it away?

They really were on a time limit here. 

In the end, all they had to do was keep advancing towards Central Park. 

An explosion reached her ears. 

“I'm down to just two units,” Dragon explained. “I've got more coming in, but it will be a few minutes before they can arrive.”

Vaulting a car and finding a brief, mercifully clear stretch of road, Taylor grunted. Any brief, open path was better, the sheer amount of debris in their way was the real limiting factor on their movement. Had the streets been left empty and abandoned, the two of them would have been able to run at their best and close the distance in just a minute or less... 

She was pushing off so hard that she was pretty sure that her boots were leaving imprints in the tarmac, with each stride the world to her side blurred.

They made it to the end of the street, a broken memorial stood at the centre of a circular road, what in Europe may be called a roundabout, and they were finally at the north-western tip of Central Park. 

She skidded to a brief pause, just long enough to assess what lay ahead of them. 

The famous park was huge, but it was impossible to miss the looming form of the Meteorite Titan in its centre at the place that, once upon a time, had been called the Great Lawn. The vast thing that had once been a human being reached into the sky, like a vast tower reaching into the very heavens. 

Where they were currently, in the forested section that had once been called the North Woods, the trees were lifeless and dead. 

“Good?” she asked Christoph. 

“Good.”

No more than that. 

Just onwards, ever onwards. 

The steel gray clouds surrounding the Titan were filled with brief streaks of light, the air surrounding the Titan was an unceasing deluge of falling stars. It would be beautiful if it weren't for the constant tremors as they slammed into the ground. 

It was much easier to run in the ruined forest; without cars in the way and able to duck and weave around the tree stumps, they could run all the faster. 

Far ahead, she could pick out the faint form of an explosion on the Titan's side from a rocket barrage.

A huge arm swung out like the cumbersome arm of a construction crane and crashed into a speck in the air.

“I'm down to my last unit.”

Soon the Titan's undivided attention would be on the two of them, and even now, as they got closer and closer, the barrage from the sky was only intensifying. 

To her side the earth exploded, soil sprayed in all directions, the resulting tremor was worse than any of the others. Was the Titan calling larger and larger projectiles down? Or was it related to how close they were?

The real question...

How close would they need to get?