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Chapter 22: Trust 3-5

Trust 3.5

The moment stretched interminably. Those solemn words lent a certain finality to the whole situation, an air of certainty. They were a promise and a curse in equal measure, an unbreakable bond that could not be strained by time or distance, an unalterable truth that could not be cast off or ignored.

That was what I'd wanted, after all. A simple vow, a promise without this weight, was worth about as much as the air wasted to say it. The only thing that gave something like that value was trust, and right now, I could not trust Lisa. I couldn't trust that she was being entirely honest, that she wasn't trying to pull the wool over my eyes.

I still wasn't sure if the past few days had ever been real, if Lisa really had been my friend, or if it had all been a ruse. I wanted to believe it. I wanted to believe that it hadn't all been a lie, that my first friend in nearly two years hadn't been using me and playing me like a cheap violin. I wanted to trust her.

But I couldn't.

Like with a lot of things, the myths I'd been researching had an answer for that. If I couldn't trust her on my own, if I couldn't trust that she'd been telling the truth about everything, then I could bind her to an oath that made her trustworthy. In exchange for that trust and the vow to keep it, I would help her to escape from the supervillain who had recruited her at gunpoint, Coil.

On that particular subject, at least, she'd been telling the truth. A geis could not bind itself on a lie — I could not save her from Coil unless she was indeed in need of saving. Since the geis had settled and wound itself around my heart, that part must be true after all. So — even if it was only for that one part — she'd been telling me the truth.

The rest of it, I'd figure out later.

An empty office in the middle of a bank robbery wasn't exactly the best place to be having an argument with your…with your best friend.

God, I hated her for that.

God, why did I still love her for it?

After an eternity, I let go of her hand, and almost hesitantly, hers returned to her side. She was looking at me, something strange in her green eyes, and it seemed like there was something she wanted to ask me. Maybe about how the geis had actually worked. Maybe about whether or not I was okay.

(I wasn't.)

Either way, she didn't get the chance. At that moment —

CRASH

A great noise cut through the air, and Lisa and I both startled and looked to the door. Whatever it was had come from outside, but it sounded like someone had just dropped a heavy wooden table off the roof of a skyscraper.

"What — ?"

"Shit," Lisa hissed. I looked back at her to find she'd turned her attention to the computer again. The keys clacked under her fingers as she typed rapidfire, moving like one of those hackers from the movies. Somehow, it looked more frantic and less graceful in real life. "Fuck. I thought I had more time."

There was another crash, followed by a meaty thud, and then what would have been a furious bark — if it had come from King Kong, that was. There was no way a dog had vocal cords deep enough to make a bark like that.

"Lisa," I started again, "what — ?"

"Fuck," she said again, ignoring me. I watched her bite her bottom lip, and her eyes raced back and forth almost manically. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."

She stopped and closed her eyes, pressing one hand to her forehead, then let out an abrupt sigh through her nostrils. Her hand came back down and she gave a few rapid shakes of her head.

"Damnit." She opened her eyes and looked back to the computer screen. "Guess this'll just have to do."

She started to type again, then suddenly stopped and reached back to yank the power cord out. The hum of the fan that I hadn't even noticed before cut out.

"The Wards are here," she said by way of explanation. "I thought we'd have at least five more minutes than this, but I guess I must've made a mistake somewhere."

She said the last bit sourly, like she didn't want to admit it, and then she was walking briskly around the desk and to the door — she snatched up the pistol she'd been carrying almost as an afterthought.

As she reached for the doorknob, she glanced back at me and told me, "You might want to stay here."

Then, she wrenched the door open and was gone. I was standing there, alone, for barely a second before I felt the tug on the inside of my chest — of course, I thought, and I started after her. She'd said Coil had men or spies in the PRT, influence of some kind, at least; if she got caught, if I let her get caught, I'd be breaking my vow less than ten minutes after making it.

Geis or no geis, angry or not, I didn't have it in me to let that happen.

I managed to catch up with her before she'd even made it all the way down the hallway, and she didn't say anything as I came up behind her. Instead, she just kept running, and I couldn't see her face to tell anything about what she thought about that. Like that, we raced towards the bank's main concourse, where I could hear a great commotion — those barks from before, the meaty thumps of something large and living racing across the marble floors, voices shouting and people screaming.

It sounded like a battle.

I didn't have any idea what I was going to do. My vow made it so that I couldn't let Lisa get captured, but would that mean that I had to fight the Wards? Would that mean I had to transform and use my powers to help her escape?

A part of me, the part of me that was still angry about Sophia, wanted to. I didn't listen to it and I knew the consequences of it would go against everything I'd managed to accomplish by taking down Lung, but even still, that tiny part of me burned eagerly.

As Lisa rounded the corner, with me just behind her, I saw it. Not the whole thing, at first. My brain hadn't fully registered everything. It was just the movement I saw first, and then immediately afterwards, I recognized the bright red of a fire extinguisher, heading towards Lisa's face from the side.

She didn't even see it coming.

My body acted before I had any time to think about what I was doing. There was no consideration about who was on the other end, no weighing of the consequences, no judging about whether or not it was something I should do. All I knew was that someone was swinging a fire extinguisher at my friend's face; everything else was for later.

My arm came up on its own, slapping the extinguisher off course and to the side — my knuckles erupted with pain, but I paid it no mind. My other hand reached out and grabbed the wrist of the person holding it — slim, feminine, in the back of my head, I recognized the other person as a girl — then I was twisting, forcing her to drop it as she let out a pained squeal. The fire extinguisher fell and hit the ground with a thunderous clang; it just barely missed my left foot.

I wasn't done, though. The ancient Celtic martial arts did have a submission hold or two, but mostly not, because their techniques were designed for killing. What I did next was a bastardized attempt at something I'd seen in a few kung fu movies over the years: I used her arm as leverage and pulled her around, trapping her wrist against her back. If I pulled up high enough, I'd twist it right out of the socket.

It was only when it had all finished and I had a moment to think about what was happening that I realized who I had in my arms.

"Amy?" I said, startled.

Amy's head whirled around as much as she was able to look back at me.

"Taylor?" she asked, sounding just as incredulous.

"Oh, fuck me," I vaguely heard Lisa mumble. "Panacea. How the fuck did I miss that?"

"I…" I began. "What were you doing with a fire extinguisher?"

"I was trying to stop a bank robber," Amy said defensively. "Why did you stop me?"

"Oh. I, uh…"

No, I wasn't about to explain the geis to Amy. This was not the time or the place, and I'd learned my lesson about trusting so easily.

"I, um, guess I… My body just kinda…moved on its own."

Taylor, you are terrible at this.

Amy grunted. "Right. Sure. Can you let me go, now?"

I blinked and realized that I was still holding her like that, arm pinned to her lower back. It couldn't have been very comfortable.

"Oh," I said. "Right. Yeah. Sorry. I just —"

"LET GO OF MY SISTER, YOU BITCH!"

A car. I was hit by a car.

That was what it felt like as something slammed into me at what had to be thirty miles an hour, lifting me up off of my feet and throwing me across the floor. The tiles beneath me squealed as I slid ten, twenty, thirty feet back down the hall, and I came to a stop, ironically, not far outside of the office where Lisa and I had just left a minute ago.

For a moment, I was dazed. My ribs felt as though someone had taken a bat to them, and my head swam from conking it against the floor when I landed. As I managed to gather my wits, I closed my eyes and pressed a hand to my forehead, and then, carefully, I tried to stand back up. My ribs flared up and protested immediately, but a deeper feeling tugged at the inside of my chest, next to my heart, and I knew I couldn't afford to stay down.

I got to my feet a little shakily, and I had to force the stars from my vision as I opened my eyes. The world was tilted a little, off balance, but a few blinks cleared it up enough that I could get a good enough look at my assailant.

Platinum blonde hair, tiara on the top, white-on-white, a skirt, a cape. She was beautiful in a way that I would never be, and next to her, even someone like Lisa could seem rather plain and unremarkable. It would be easy, with her flawless appearance and her almost all-white color scheme, to imagine her as an avenging angel come down from heaven to smite the unjust, and with her powers, it wasn't a completely inaccurate image.

A wave of sudden fear washed over me, and my knees threatened to give out. I just wanted to run, to run as far and as fast as my legs would carry me, if I didn't just collapse to the ground, first. At that moment, I would have given anything not to be in front of her, anything not to be under the gaze of that wrathful goddess.

And she was coming my way.

"VICKY, NO!"

But Glory Girl paid her sister no mind, and she zoomed at me, racing across the hallway without her feet ever touching the ground.

"You shoulda stayed down, bitch!"

She swung at me again with a fist that could shatter concrete. It was reflex more than intention that moved my body, and I ducked under her blow; she zipped overhead without even skimming me. Then, as I straightened to face her, she stopped just as suddenly as she started and turned back around to face me, too.

The expression on her face was livid.

The inexplicable terror sharpened and grew, and I felt a cold sweat break out on my brow. I had no idea what my face looked like, if it reflected the fear inside of me, but with a supreme effort of will, I shoved that fear away. I had faced Lung, after all. I couldn't let myself be intimidated by Glory Girl. I couldn't let myself be cowed by her. I couldn't let myself roll over and let her do as she pleased.

The feeling tugging on the inside of my chest told me that I wasn't allowed to run away.

Glory Girl rocketed towards me, again, and I braced my legs, one forward, one back, and waited for her to come close. It was going to take expert timing, because there wasn't much room for error, here, but I was finally putting these skills to use.

At what felt like the last possible moment, I leapt upwards, tucking my legs into my chest, and passed over her arm, missing her by about two inches. Like a gymnast, I stuck the landing on the balls of my feet.

Leaping Over a Blow.

I squashed the curl of excitement that whirled in my belly. I was doing it. I was using Aife's martial arts for the first time in an actual fight, and they were working.

"Damn it!" Glory Girl spun around again and came after me without stopping. "Stay still and let me hit you!"

From behind her, I met Lisa's eyes briefly. It was only a scant second, a fleeting moment, passing so quickly that I doubted anyone saw it, except Lisa herself. I hoped that I'd managed to convey my thoughts to her.

What are you waiting for? Get out of here!

I had to keep fighting. For as long as it took to make good her escape, I had to keep Glory Girl distracted and busy. Yes, because it would be a betrayal of my oath to let her get caught when Coil had influence in the PRT. I held onto that thought: I couldn't run away, I had to fight, at least until Lisa escaped.

I kicked the ground. One step became twelve feet, and though I hadn't mastered it, the Vantage of Swiftness carried me towards my opponent. I dropped and let myself slide; the toe of one of Glory Girl's shoes nearly brushed my nose as I skidded across the floor beneath her.

I came up with what felt like an expert pivot of my ankle, and Glory Girl was already turning, fist raised, looking even angrier than before.

In spite of myself, I felt almost like bantering. Maybe if I'd been more like the heroes were on the cartoons, I would've done it, too.

Unlike the last few times, however, Glory Girl didn't rush me. Instead, her lips pulled into a tight line, and she dropped to the floor, like she actually meant to get up close and personal. I had no idea what she was doing or what she was planning, but I readied myself anyway.

She was almost too fast.

Suddenly, she was flying again, low and just off of the ground, and she accelerated from zero to speeding car almost instantly — I had no time to build up the momentum for either of the other feats I'd already used.

But I'd already mastered all of the basic stuff. The Thunder Feat and the other, more complicated skills, they were still beyond me, still stuff I had to learn. The basics, though, were completely mine.

I leapt straight up, curling myself into a ball so I didn't hit my head on the ceiling. As I flipped around in midair, I felt my toes brush up against the top of the hallway, and my hair whipped about my head so that all I could see were the dark locks I'd inherited from my mother.

Hero's Salmon Leap.

I landed back on the balls of my feet, and I felt more than heard Glory Girl's fist coming back around for me. Continuing with the motion of my landing, I let myself fold in half so that the blow passed over the back of my head. I could feel the wind moving in the wake of her hand.

Folding of the Noble Chariot Fighter.

I felt invincible.

Glory Girl was so ridiculously out of my league, normally. Getting into a fist fight with a girl who could bench press a cement mixer wasn't a very good idea, and if she could hit me, she'd probably hit like a truck. Come to think of it, she was probably the one behind that crash that had brought Lisa and I out of that office — maybe she'd thrown one of Bitch's dogs into a table or something? I didn't know.

But even if she could hurt me pretty badly, she had to actually hit me first, didn't she?

I put one foot forward, spun on my heel, and stepped out of Glory Girl's reach, so that I was facing her again. She had an odd expression, somewhere between frustration and grudging respect.

"Fuck," she said. "What are you, a ballerina?"

"Vicky!" Amy shouted. "Stop!"

"Stay out of this, Ames!" Glory Girl hollered back. She turned to me again with that glare. "So, what's your deal? You with them?"

She tossed her head in the direction of the black fog, but never took her eyes off of me. I glanced in the same direction, but Lisa had long since vanished. I doubted she'd escaped yet, though. The fog would disappear when she and her team left, because I couldn't imagine whoever was making it had the range to keep it up until they made it all the way back to their base in the Docks.

"No," I said simply.

Glory Girl snarled and stomped forward with one foot. I thought I might have seen a few cracks spread from the point of impact. "Then why were you manhandling my sister?"

"I just saw the fire extinguisher," I said, "not who was swinging it."

"So…what? Are you trying to tell me you reacted without thinking?"

"Basically, yeah."

Glory Girl grunted. For a moment, I thought she might actually stop fighting me, and I had no idea what I was supposed to do if she did leave me to go after Lisa's team. Did I get in her way and invalidate everything I just said? Could I not, if it would mean betraying my oath?

She took the decision out of my hands.

"See, there's just one problem with that." She raced forward in a passable imitation of my own technique. "I don't believe you!"

She led with her right fist. I spun around the side, whirling out of the way, ironically, like a ballerina. I ducked beneath it in another Folding, stepping under her arm and back around her. She spun and swiped at me like she was swatting a fly; I leaned backwards, then stepped out of range, again.

"If you're gonna lie, make it believable!" she said.

"It wasn't a lie," I replied, for lack of anything better to say.

She swung again, I sidestepped into her guard. She tried to wrap her arms around me and pin me, I ducked under them and stepped back again.

"I saw you come back out here with that blonde bitch!" said Glory Girl. "If you think I'm gonna let one of their accomplices escape just because you're in civvies, you're delusional!"

She flew up and tried to tackle me again; I threw myself out of the way. She turned on a dime and came back around.

"New Wave is about accountability!" she told me. "That means I take villains down, mask or no mask!"

You can try.

I knew better than to say that, but I found myself smiling a little all the same. For all her talk, she still hadn't landed a hit on me. All of those lessons, all of that practice, all of those weekends coming home drenched in sweat and with arms and legs that felt like noodles, it was all paying off. I'd started this fight just intending to stall for as much time as I could, but could it actually be that I could win?

Was this enough to push me up to B-Rank? I didn't know. I'd never checked my progress outside of tracking it with Aife's Noble Phantasm Included, so I didn't know how quickly I'd reach mastery if I employed them without her Include. Hell, I didn't know if using them in an actual fight made me progress faster than just practicing all by my lonesome.

But it felt like it must have. The kind of flawless execution I was doing here was mind-boggling. I'd even managed to pull off the starting stages of the Vantage of Swiftness.

I Folded under another punch.

Then…was I finally ready? Could I start now on the harder parts, on the skills and Feats that were so incredible and so difficult that they couldn't be learned until you were B-Rank or higher?

Hell yes.

At the very least, I was ready to try.

As Glory Girl whirled back around and came zooming for me again, I didn't try to dodge. Instead, I wound my fist back and gathered all of my strength to it. Cuchulainn performed this with a sling and a heavy stone in the myth, but the purest form was that of a punch.

Glory Girl's fist came around. I swung my fist forward to meet it.

Thunder Feat.

CRACK

For a moment, I didn't know what happened. Our fists met, and then…

My arm isn't supposed to bend like that.

The force of the blow threw me backwards and onto the floor, wrenching my arm so far that it was nearly pulled out of the socket. I landed, stunned, on my back, still not sure what had happened and what had gone wrong.

Then, the pain hit me.

"Guh!" I gasped and my mouth flapped. I might have screamed, if my lungs hadn't seized from the shock of it.

I tried to move, to sit up, but shoots of liquid fire raced up and down my arm. My hand felt as though someone had taken a sledgehammer to it.

"Nnnnng!"

My teeth clenched. They clenched so hard I was afraid I might shatter them, too. Hot tears poured out of the corners of my eyes.

Oh. My arm was broken.

"Kuh! Haaaaa!"

It hurt. It hurt bad. I couldn't remember ever being in this much pain. It was like someone had taken a thousand red-hot knives and stabbed them into my arm. It was like someone had cut open my arm and dipped acid inside. It was like every bone in my arm had been reduced to tiny splinters, all sawing into everything else with every faint twitch.

"Idiot," said Glory Girl. "That was stupid."

"Enough!"

Feet clattered against the tile floor, echoing, and a shadow cast itself over me. I blinked through the pain and the tears to see Amy, standing protectively in front of me with her arms thrown wide.

"Enough, Vicky!" she said again.

"Get out of the way, Ames," Glory Girl said. "I'm capturing a villain."

"She's not a villain!" Amy shouted. "She's just a girl who was in the wrong place at the wrong time!"

"She was with that blonde bitch!" Glory Girl snarled.

"She was taken back there at gunpoint!"

"She hurt you!"

"That was a misunderstanding!"

"She was fighting me!"

"You didn't give her much of a choice!" Amy yelled. "Besides!"

Amy gestured out to the open floor, and I followed her hand to see that the black fog had been cleared. Lisa and her team, the Undersiders, were nowhere to be seen. The hostages had all evacuated somewhere along the line, leaving behind not even the zip ties that had bound some of them. Vicky, Amy, and I were the only people left still inside the bank.

"If she was working with them, don't you think they would've at least tried to come back for her?"

I felt some of the tension in me release, and I sagged against the floor, even as my arm continued to burn with shoots of agony. The insistent tugging inside of my chest had disappeared at some point, and if that wasn't a confirmation that Lisa had escaped, I wasn't sure what else would be.

I'd done it. Okay, so maybe it hadn't gone as smoothly as I would have liked and maybe my oath had been tested a little sooner than I would have preferred, but in the end, I'd done it. I'd managed, somehow, to buy her enough time. Lisa had escaped.

If only this actually felt like a job well done.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

Amy gets to be a hero (kinda), Vicky jumps to conclusions (what else is new), and Taylor overestimates herself.

Up next, two interludes.

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