Theater, the Inverted 1 (Patreon)

A/N: in which Taylor escalates. 

Did I mention that I was getting sucked into Project Moon-verse? I listened to SAIKAI and Hero at least a hundred times each last week.

Tags: Worm, Earth Bet, Taylor Hebert, Project Moon, Limbus Company

-VB-

Theater, The Inverted

Chapter 1

-VB-

Taylor stared at the woman in front of her. 

The Asian woman, dressed in a clean cut dress suit and jacket with a long sword slung over her shoulder and a lit cigarette smoldering at the end between her lips, stared right back.

“W-Who are you?”

“You don’t remember?” ***** asked. 

Taylor winced. 

The woman raised an eyebrow. “Hnn. I only did what you should have done from the start.”

“... What?”

“Take a look.”

Taylor opened her eyes.

---

Squelch.

She froze and looked down. 

Blood. 

A small puddle of blood. Sprayed blood. Blood everywhere. 

Clunk.

She froze again and looked to her right. 

Her eyes widened at the giant sword she had a tight grip over. And its blade was red. 

And then she finally heard it.

The screams. The gurgles. The crying. 

She slowly looked up.

Taylor Hebert saw her school corridor not as it should but as it was: red and filled with screaming students trying to get out. 

But there were three who weren’t moving away. 

Madison laid curled up in a ball while sobbing. She didn’t look hurt at all. 

Emma gasped and whined as she clutched at her sides. She bled. 

And then there was Sophia Hess.

She stood across from Taylor, eyes wide and trembling. She was in a fighting stance that Taylor didn’t recognize but it was clear from how much she trembled, how pale she looked, and the blood dripping all over from her that she looked ready to pass out. 

Trembling in fear, a weak heart, the Asian woman’s voice was back. 

Sophia gritted her teeth, yelled, and came swinging.

Sloppy footwork, pathetically weak mind.

And Taylor moved even before she realized she was. 

Instead of her right, her left arm moved first. It came swinging around like it was dragging something… and it was. Because held in her left hand was a scabbard that was longer and thicker than the sword. It was beautiful. Black and wrapped at the end with a long red stripe of cloth and Japanese or Chinese etched in white closer to the top. 

And it was heavy. 

Taylor found herself surprised by how smoothly and effortlessly she swung it. 

Sophia hissed as she ducked underneath the strike and jumped forward. 

Taylor gracefully twisted her entire body while tilting and jumping away.

That made the blade come swinging around, effortlessly slicing through the lockers, the walls, ceiling, glass windows, and came swinging at Sophia. 

Sophia scrambled back.

And Taylor continued to spin. She touched down and stepped forward. The slight step forward with the scabbard coming back around with its longer reach was just enough.

The scabbard blurred as it came around not from the side but from above. 

Sophia saw it coming but she was slower than her! Somehow! 

But Sophia wasn’t slow by any means. She took off on her feet in a last ditch effort to dodge. 

Not enough.

The tip of the scabbard came down hard on her shoulder. Something popped and cracked. But the strike didn’t end there. It slipped off the shoulder and struck Sophia’s thigh. Hard.

Sophia screamed as she tumbled away. 

Taylor stood there. Not entranced. Just … disbelieving. 

She felt herself straightening… and then began walking toward Sophia. Sophia tried to pull away but she was in too much pain.

“... I don’t know what motivates you three children,” Taylor felt her lips move and speak without her input. But she wasn’t resisting. No, this felt different. Like this was her speaking. And meaning each word she spoke. “But I believe this will be the end of this … childishness.”

“Y-You -!” Sophia hissed out. “How did you hit me?!” 

“Hmm? You mean after you turned into that shadow thing?” 

Shadow thing? 

… And then Taylor remembered. 

How she got kicked into the locker. 

And how she broke out with Arayashiki already drawn and in hand.

How the black girl had panicked and turned to shadow but she struck her successfully anyway.

Sophia glared up at her while still panting and trembling in pain.

“I don’t know,” Taylor/****** shrugged before she swung… with her left arm.

The scabbard came around and struck Sophia in the cheek, snapping her head to the side and knocking her out. 

She sheathed her sword into its scabbard. 

After a moment of staring, Taylor stepped over Sophia’s still but breathing body and walked out of the school… right into a confrontation with the Protectorate. 

---

“Right. That happened.”

****** stared down at her. 

“So what will you do now?” 

Taylor sat there in the wet, coppery darkness where she could only see the woman and herself.  

The shade that was struck by Arayashiki.

“Sophia Hess is Shadow Stalker.”

The woman didn’t comment on that. She didn’t even look like she cared. 

“Sophia is fucking Shadow Stalker…!” she hissed out. It didn’t feel like herself. This anger. This bubbling anger begging her to scream.

She looked up at the woman.

She met the woman’s eyes… and saw the same anger in those eyes that she felt inside her chest. 

Tears streaked down, and she couldn’t help the sob as she looked back down.

Everything… Everything was rigged from the start! 

She gritted her teeth. 

“Do you want to end it?”

She looked back up.

“What…?”

The woman looked at her intensely now. 

“Do you want to put an end to the assholes who want to keep you down? To ruin everything that you so love?” 

Taylor gasped as the anger inside her grew. 

“People who will take your parents and children away because they think they can? Because they are right while doing the most horrible things?” 

Her mind went to dad. Depressed and weak dad. But still dad. Her dad. 

Her fingers curled up underneath her hand. 

But underneath the anger was the desperate worry. 

Was this how everything ended for her? 

Her head dropped back down. 

The woman didn’t say anything for a long while. 

Not until she saw Taylor tense up.

“Well?”

Taylor slowly stood up and looked at the shorter woman right in the eyes.

“Yes.”

The woman grinned sardonically as if this was always going to be the result and extended a hand. 

“Make them regret it, then.”

---

Taylor stepped out into the front of the school and found half a dozen police cars, at least two PRT vans, and four Protectorate “heroes” standing in front of her. 

As well as bystanders taking pictures and videos.

Good.

“Unknown Parahuman, stand down -!” 

“Your Ward, Shadow Stalker, otherwise known as Sophia Hess, caused my trigger!” 

The shouted sentence dropped like a sledgehammer, striking harder at their morale than anything else she could have said. 

She was a cape groupie. Always had been before Emma turned on her. What little girl didn’t at least try to learn more about Alexandria and capes? And she knew enough to make it hurt for them. 

Trigger. 

The ultimate get out of jail free card. 

“And instead of killing her and everyone else involved… I let them go,” she snarled. “I will walk home alone without your presence. I will not place myself under your care, not after what one of your members have done to me!” 

Call my name, Ryoshu whispered.

“Or will you fight?!” she let out a roar that echoed out with a depth and weight that didn’t belong to her. It belonged to the woman.

Her statement and demand caught them blindsided. 

And whispers and shouts broke out among the bystanders further away. 

Their ears were why she had shouted. 

Taylor Hebert would not have thought of this. But with ******’s experience and Taylor’s context of her newly realized circumstances, she was able to think of this.

The woman and she were seamlessly one and yet not. 

“... You will still have to come with us!” 

Taylor glared at the blue power armored hero. Armsmaster. The leader of Brockton Bay’s Protectorate heroes. 

“So be it.”

He shot something at her without warning. 

She parried. 

Miss Militia, one of the four heroes here, also shot something. 

Taylor tilted her body down and out of the way and grabbed the hilt of Arayashiki.

“Sever!”

Armsmaster jolted. “Stop her!” he shouted.

Assault and Battery came at her. 

Too late. 

She slid Arayashiki out of its scabbard. 

“RYOSHU!”

---

Miss Militia had encountered many people in her life. 

It was simply part of her job. 

And throughout those meetings, she saw humanity in all of its forms. The wretched, the glorious, the weak, the strong, the mad, the sane, and more. 

It was very rare, however, for her to encounter someone who sent shivers down her spine not for their cape power but for the intensity of the look in their eyes. 

A clear-sighted wrath.

This was a girl with fully intent control of herself, her mind, body, and power. 

This was one of the worst ways for the Protectorate to encounter a new parahuman cape. 

“SEVER!” the girl shouted as she grabbed the hilt of her long sword. 

The word sent an even deeper shiver down her spine accompanied by a sinking gut feeling. It had nothing to do with what might happen and everything to do with the feeling of doom. 

Their doom, not the girl’s.

“RYOSHU!” 

The girl drew her sword as Assault and Battery rushed forward. 

It was a mistake. 

White streaks - like blade cuts in the air - sliced out from the girl in all directions. 

Not wanting to know what happens if she didn’t dodge, she rolled out of the way of one that came close to her. 

The police officer closest to her hadn’t dodged quickly enough. The white streak passed through them, and they … collapsed. 

Not dead or cut. Just unconscious.

---

“You won’t be able to fight like I could at my peak,” Ryoshu grunted. 

“Then what do I do to win?” Taylor asked.

Ryoshu hummed. “Keep their allies between you and them. Never allow yourself to be backed into a corner. Strike once and hard to incapacitate. Keep moving.”

She felt that Ryoshu wanted something else but was taking her into account. She looked like she wanted to say kill, not incapacitate. 

So she did as Ryoshu said. 

---

Taylor sped forward, and from the reaction of the police officers, most of them couldn’t keep track of her. 

She came to a skidding stop behind Armsmaster. He was already turning with his halberd out.

She lashed out first. Arayashiki whistled as it cut through the air and slammed into the bottom of the halberd’s shaft before Armsmaster could fully raise it up. 

Armsmaster finally looked at her in full. 

“You need to stop,” he hissed out. 

“What should have stopped was Shadow Stalker bullying me for over a year,” she snarled before she pulled back and came striking with her scabbard. 

Armsmaster daftly parried the first attack but had to jump away when her sword came next. 

Then Miss Militia shot at her. 

Taylor winced even as she dodged, feeling at least one rubber bullet striking at her ribs. 

It hurt but she didn’t curl up into a ball immediately like she would have before. Ryoshu was with her now, and a single hit like that wasn’t enough to take her down.

It just made her angrier. 

She growled.

Use the E.G.O.

It took her a moment for her to understand what Ryoshu meant. 

But when she did, she narrowed her eyes.

RED EYES.

And immediately, she felt it.

Her trenchcoat blossomed with blood and black threads. And eyes opened up.

She ignored how the blood splattered everything around her, and struck Armsmaster. 

Armsmaster blocked… and then fell to one knee.

“W-What- ?” he hissed out. 

But she was moving already. 

She sped around and got behind Miss Militia, but the bandana’ed hero was turning to meet her. 

Too slow, still. 

She struck with her scabbard and got the woman on her waist. 

There was a crack and the hero tumbled away. When her tumble came to a stop and she tried to get up, she struggled to her own confusion. 

Taylor now turned to the last two heroes still standing. 

“You can help your friends or you can stop,” she hissed out. “See how I didn’t strike to kill?”

The eyes on her coat convulsed, and she held in the wince. 

The eyes whispered. It wanted more. More blood. More fight. 

She suppressed it tightly just as Ryoshu whispered how to do it.

“Well?” she asked when they didn’t move. 

Assault and Battery looked at each other before Assault huffed and raised his hands up.

BANG.

Taylor’s head snapped forward as a bullet struck the back of her head. 

She slowly pulled her head back up and looked over her shoulder. 

One of the police officers had shot her from behind.

… It was a very shitty feeling. 

And she had to vent.

She moved.

She struck.

---

Despite the fighting, Assault knew what the girl was like in front of him. 

She was angry. She was lashing out. 

She wasn’t wrong to fight. 

But then -.

BANG.

Oh no. That wasn’t a rubber bullet discharge. That was an actual bullet being fired. 

The girl’s head snapped forward and then slowly rose back up.

And that’s when everything changed.

The girl looked like a demon for a second as everything about her became shaded except for her eyes. They almost glowed red.

And then she was suddenly behind the police officer that had shot her. 

For a second nothing happened. 

And then the police officer … began to split open. Slowly at first. A red line appeared as blood seeped out from head to crotch.

And then the blood appeared faster and more as the police officer split open in half. 

T-Thud.

For a second, no one moved. 

But they saw. 

And the screams of civilians in the background was what broke that spell. Officers turned their guns on her -.

“STAND DOWN!” Assault shouted as loudly as his throat could manage.

She moved too quickly and struck so quickly that he hadn’t seen that sword move. If she escalated, then there was no guarantee of survival for most of the police officers and heroes on site right now.

The police officers looked at the girl hatefully but also fearfully. 

They knew she was too fast for them. Too strong for them. Too tough.

Rationally, they knew they needed to stand down.

Emotionally? She just killed one of their own. 

Everything was at a stand still.

The girl glared hatefully at nothing after she just murdered that officer… but she didn’t move. 

She didn’t strike to kill. 

“We’ll let you go if you promise not to kill anyone else,” he said slowly. He knew he was going to get shit for it once they made it back to the headquarters. Hell, the public was going to give him shit for it, but right now, his concern was preventing the girl from going off the walls and keeping everyone safe while Miss Militia and Armsmaster struggled to get back up from whatever had happened to them.

The girl slowly looked at him. That blood chilling glare was still there… but she relaxed. 

Then she turned around and walked away. 

The civilians who had been watching quickly got out of her way.

Assault watched her walk away as Battery quickly moved to help Miss Militia. 

… This was a mess.

Ugh.

He could already hear Piggot screaming at him and the mountain of paperwork waiting for him at base. 

-VB-

Taylor opened the front door and stared hollowly. 

What was it? 

The empty living room? The dust? The broken step? The fact that she killed someone?

Was it Ryoshu herself? 

Whatever it was, looking at her house … made her feel a lot of pain.

A different kind of pain from what Emma put her through, what it felt like to be shot, what it felt like to fight. 

She stood in front of the doorway of her own house as she continued to stare.

She took a deep shuddering breath in and walked in.

‘Talk to your father.’

Ryoshu’s memories played over in her mind. 

It was intrusive.

But after seeing Ryoshu’s regrets and memories unbound by the Erasure of Arayashiki, she knew why she felt the need to do so. 

The press of a body behind her that she did not recognize in her haze of madness. “I’m glad I was your daughter.”

Even though it wasn’t her memory, the feeling Ryoshu felt in rediscovering that memory rippled over to her. And even though what she felt was a quiet ripple compared to what Ryoshu felt, the feeling of the memory drove her to her knees in the middle of the living room. 

But what came forth was not just her grief but the anger, sadness, and confusion she had felt over the last year ever since Emma rejected her in front of the Barnes family home. 

So she cried in the middle of the room. She grieved. And no one was there with her - for her - except for Ryoshu. 

But as the tears dried and exhaustion set in, she managed to get up, grab the phone, and call Dad. 

She clicked the numbers in and waited.

And waited.

And waited…

Click.

“Hello?”

“Dad?” 

“Taylor?”

“Can you come home? I really need you here right now.”

It was hard to say it after so long not saying close to it. 

“What happened?” he asked, his tone taking on an edged tone. And she heard him shuffling and getting up.

“... Things got really bad at school. Blood was involved.”

“I’ll be right at home. Stay there.” And then the phone clicked shut. 

She hesitated and then set the phone down. 

Now, all she had to do was wait. 

Taylor stood in front of the phone for a long time before she finally sat down against the couch next to the phone. She didn’t sit on it, just leaned against it while on the floor and then drew up her legs up to her chest.

And she waited.

Quietly but not alone.

-VB-

miSsiON ComPLeTe!

ACquIREd: 

Ryoshu - The Spine

Red Eyes, E.G.O.