Chapter Text
[Taylor]
The post-Leviathan meeting broke up quickly after my father and T left to grab Arsenal's armor. Both Alec and Brian left before he was back with Arsenal’s suit, and dad didn’t stay long after we moved the armor (and the van, actually) back inside, just long enough to make sure I was ok. Rachel and her dogs stayed in the corner for a while before she made her way out, leaving me with only Sveta and Lisa. T had gone with dad to make sure everything was fine at home.
“Well, I’m gonna hit the tinkering bench,” I said as soon as the area below me faded, proof that T had built her own. I inclined my head toward my workshop as I did so. “Anything else you need to discuss beforehand?”
Lisa shook her head. “Taylor, you’re a bad liar. I’m not gonna leave you alone to deal with that,” she said gesturing towards the mangled armor, before obviously being struck by a new train of thought. “At least, not unless you order me out, oh fearless leader." I could easily hear the teasing in her voice.
“What?! I’m… I’m not lying!” I backpedaled.
“So you’re not going to open Arsenal’s armor, and see if it can be fixed?”
I sighed and hung my head. “I can’t hide anything from you, can I?”
I had indeed been planning on opening Arsenal’s armor, and trying to see if anything could be salvaged, however unpleasant it would be to deal with - my - remains. I’d learned some time ago from a TV show that dead material got more difficult to remove as time went on, so I planned on dealing with the issue as soon as possible.
I wasn’t going to say I was looking forward to it, though.
Sveta reached forward and gave me a one-armed hug. “You don’t have to deal with this alone, you know?”
“And I already know what’s inside, anyway,” Lisa pointed out while trying not to look queasy. “Seeing through objects does have its disadvantages.”
A quick check revealed that, yes, I was missing Perception. T must have given it to Lisa, which made sense considering the situation.
And it’s not like I had room to take it back right now, anyway.
I tried to dissuade Sveta, since Lisa already had seen the contents of my armor. “You don’t need to see that, Sveta. It won’t be pretty, I’m sure.”
The girl shook her head. “It can’t be worse than looking in the mirror was before I met you.”
I cringed, and then nodded. I’d forgotten about Sveta’s old body, and couldn’t disagree that it was quite probably worse than anything we’d find. “Ok,” I finally acquiesced. “If you’re sure.”
“I am,” she said with a firm nod. “How are we gonna do this?”
Based on what little I know, I didn’t want to open it here. Whatever smell was released might linger for weeks. “Let me grab a few tools, then I’ll move you both, ok?” I asked while heading into my workshop for my tools. I added a lamp to my mental list of necessities, because I doubted the lights would have survived the Leviathan's tidal waves.
Less than a minute later we were a mile away in an underground parking garage. The place looked like either Leviathan crashed into it, or one of his waves pushed something through. Broken ceilings, dripping water and a few sections which had collapsed in on themselves entirely meant the site was sufficiently structurally unsound that it'd likely ward off any gawkers. The fact that one of the cars was still honking and flashing its lights due to its alarm going off would help cover any noise we might make, the debris and overturned vehicles would make it harder to spot us, and the area was more than large enough for the three of us and the armor.
“I’m burning these clothes afterwards,” Lisa pointed out as she remanifested, but didn’t take her eyes off Arsenal’s suit. A waft of the stench from an overflowing sewer close-by made me suspect I'd want to do the same.
The armor wasn’t made to be removed from the outside, so it took a few minutes before I was able to gain access. The smell hit first, mixing with the odors of overflowing sewer water, spilled car oil and gasoline. Not decay, luckily, but sea salt mixed with blood, along with other things best left unmentioned. I grimaced, as did Lisa, though Sveta seemed unaffected.
Then I had the front plate off, and got a good look at myself.
I was pale.
So pale.
I wasn’t very tanned naturally, but my corpse was several shades lighter, especially when compared with my own hand. Worse was its face, stuck in a rictus of… something I couldn’t describe. I stood there, shocked at the expression, while Lisa reached forward and closed its eyes and mouth. A part of me couldn’t help but realize rigor mortis hadn’t set in as she did that. Sveta simply hugged me, and I focused on that, trying to push back the creeping horror of my last moments in the armor.
Compared to that, the red tinted water now pouring out of the armor wasn’t enough to have an impact.
Sveta was the one who removed my corpse from the suit, pulling it out with her enhanced strength, carefully avoiding to tear it or leave pieces of flesh behind. The back was where most of the wounds were, pieces of the armor having twisted inward, often with sharp edges. The biggest of those had made a three inch wide slash just above my pelvis, probably the reason I hadn’t been able to feel my legs.
She dropped the body right beside me, and I gulped as I realized what the next step would have to be.
I was going to have to cremate my own corpse.
I forced the bile threatening to come up back down, and reached for my most powerful tool, the plasma blowtorch I’d made - what seemed like so long ago - for the bank robbery. It was powerful enough that it would leave nothing behind, no trace that could identify me.
Taking a deep breath, I brought the torch to life, the foot long blade shining far brighter than the lamp in the darkness of the garage. Inch by inch I lowered the blade toward my corpse’s extended arm, deciding to start with the extremities.
Then the blade finally touched dead skin and ash exploded everywhere.
The hand vaporized instantly, burnt particles going every which way. I had some in my clothes and in my hair and, given my eyes were tearing up, clearly some had gotten there too. I forced myself to continue despite my watering eyes, pushing the blade closer to the elbow, when I realized I suddenly couldn’t feel anything.
Why couldn’t I feel anything?
The smell of seawater hit, and I found I couldn’t move, couldn’t feel my body. The darkness was total, I could barely breathe and I could feel water in my lungs and the pain in my head and…
“Taylor! Snap out of it!” Lisa yelled. Her voice seemed so far away.
I snapped back instantly, and realized I had somehow fallen in Sveta’s arms. The torch was out of my hand, and it had burnt a gouge in the floor before deactivating.
“That...” Lisa said softly, and I realized just then her hand was on my shoulder while she moved in front of me. “That was what I was afraid of.”
“What… What happened?” I forced out. My voice was slurred and everything seemed a little dark around the edges.
“You… you just went completely limp,” Sveta replied, breathing hard. “I managed to push your torch away before it fell on your leg, and it did a number on the floor.”
“You had a flashback, Taylor,” Lisa added, completely serious.
Really? I was just…
I spent a moment just sitting there breathing, getting the unnecessary shaking under control. When did I start shaking, actually?
That done, I twisted my head to shoot a quick look back toward my corpse, and I couldn’t stop the dry heave this time. I spat what little I brought up on the ground, as far from Sveta as I could manage.
Then I took a deep breath, sputtering for a moment as I accidentally breathed in more ash. I grit my teeth, as this had already taken much too long, before reaching for the blowtorch once more.
Lisa stopped me, grabbing my arm. “No.”
“I can’t… leave things like this,” I forced out. “If someone finds it, there’s gonna be lots of questions, and I can’t...”
The Thinker shook her head. “I mean ‘no, not that way’,” she specified. “Isn’t there some kind of grenade or something similar you could use? Bakuda had dozens of grenade types, and I’m sure at least a few of them would be perfect in this situation.”
“I’m not like Bakuda, I'm…” But words Lisa had said interrupted my train of thought, possible methods flashing through my mind. Most weren’t viable in the current situation, but some…
I turned back toward the suit, and started working my way into its guts. I’d already decided that I’d be making a new one, since this level of damage wasn’t gonna be easy to fix, so ripping out a few parts here and there wouldn’t set me back that much.
With the power supply out (and repaired), it was easy to make something that wouldn’t leave anything behind. Just channel the power system into an easily destabilized energy containment unit, add a triggering module…
Using the components I had access to, I had the device built in less than thirty minutes.
I made sure the three of us and the remains of my suit were on the other side of the garage, behind an abandoned car, and that I had Sveta’s approval before I triggered the explosion.
What followed was an intense flash as a sphere of light and heat bloomed in the parking lot for an instant, the air cackling in answer, only to be gone the next.
There was now a three meter wide crater where my body used to be, and nothing but dust in the air remained. The floor was still smoldering, but given the dampness I doubted it would be an issue for long.
Lisa whistled in appreciation at the damage done.
“I didn’t think it would be that easy. Thanks for the idea, Lisa,” I said once everything was done.
“My pleasure,” she replied. “Much better than getting all that ash everywhere in my hair.” Beside her, Sveta simply nodded.
I shivered at the reminder. I would need a shower after that, for sure. The two then put their hands on my shoulders while I grabbed the armor, and we were back to base within moments.
“Taylor, you said that powers change depending on the person, and you’re clearly not Bakuda,” Lisa said, looking straight into my eyes. “So spill, how were you able to build a bomb like that?”
Even Sveta looked like she wanted an answer.
“I can make Tinkertech energy generators, right? Well, I just tweaked the one I had on hand so it would fail explosively. I… hadn’t actually realized I could do that.” I’d be a lot more careful building power supplies in the future, that’s for certain.
The toughest part was done, at least.
Lisa started preparing to leave, then stopped. “I'm going to hit my own place,” she said, looking back at me. “Want to come with me and borrow my shower?”
“I'll be fine,” I replied. I had a lot of work to do.
Lisa then looked at Sveta, who slowly nodded. “Then, I'm gonna wash away all that sea water. Toodles!”
I waved in answer, then I shadow-dragged the remains of Arsenal’s armor to the workshop, built a power zone to free up T, and started working. I saw Sveta sit down in the corner of the room, but focused elsewhere.
It would be easy to dive directly into making a new suit of armor, but I quickly realized there were other devices I needed more urgently.
Like communications.
I’d tried calling home to gain an idea of what the state of the house was, only to get an out of service warning. Given that T and I would have to trade areas for the foreseeable future, that was a priority.
I thought about dropping some powers instead, but couldn’t find a way to go about it. I doubted one of my combined sparks would mesh well with Sveta, Brian or Lisa, which meant only two possibilities remained among my social circle. Rachel was already going to be a hard sell about changing her power, so dropping a spark in that direction without extensive testing backed by analysis enhanced by dad's power wasn't recommended, and a single open slot wouldn’t fix the fact that T and I needed an active Area just to counter the headaches anyway.
So communication tools it was.
It actually went easier than expected. It took but fifteen minutes before I had an acceptable blueprint; the first three ideas I'd gotten were either too invasive, too unwieldy, or too expensive in terms of resources. The model I selected was easily made, and while simple it had enough security that hacking wasn’t going to be an immediate issue.
The first one took the longest, at a couple of hours, but once the coding, prototype and testing were done the rest took twenty minutes apiece. Before the sun went down I had enough for the entire team with some to spare, with Sveta in the corner already having hers.
Then I started planning for version two of Arsenal’s armor. If it wasn’t for Sveta bringing lunch and coffee, along with T interrupting me at eleven, I might have worked through the entire night without noticing.
But I felt much better now, so I counted that as a win. At least, after I finally got my shower.