Chapter Text
Taylor Hebert woke up slowly, like she used to on lazy Saturday mornings, before her trigger. The first thing that came back to her was her bugs; every insect within two and a half blocks was giving her sensory input, along with data about how far they were from here, and from each other bug. She woke up slowly enough that, for a few brief moments, she didn't find it strange she could control bugs again.
She shifted under the blanket, and reached up with her right hand to brush her hair from her face. Then her actions caught up with her, and she sat up suddenly, fully awake. A part of her, the part she always thought of as the Taylor she'd been pre-trigger, was panicking at her new and unfamiliar environment. The majority of her was falling into the rhythms she'd perfected over the past two years, and intensely analyzing her situation.
First off, she was alive. Her last memory was of getting shot in the back of the head by Contessa, and even that seemed blurry and unreal. She raised a hand to her forehead, but felt no scar. The second thing was that her right arm was back, somehow. She turned it this way and that in front of her face, scrutinizing it for any abnormalities. Maybe Panacea had healed it? But why? Her hair was shorter, barely coming down to her chin, but she'd honestly lost track of her injuries in the fight against Scion; it wasn't hard to believe that her hair had been yet another casualty. Her eyes flicked down to the foot of her bed, and she noticed that her eyesight was also better, clear and sharp despite her lack of glasses.
Thinking of the fight against Scion gave her a moment's pause. She hadn't let herself linger on her feelings about her actions during the fight, and immediately after the fight she'd been cast out, and then shot by Contessa. All that without taking into account the fact that, from the brain surgery onward, she'd been out of touch with her body in a pretty fundamental way. Now that she had a moment, her mind was filled with the memory of thousands of parahumans dying while under her control. The sensation of bodies being obliterated by Scion's golden blasts, or of bodies simply failing after the intense stress she'd put them through.
Belatedly, she realized that all the bugs under her control had frozen in place. She released her hold on them, and refocused on her situation. She was dressed in what seemed to be soft cotton pajamas, a loose fitting pair of white pants and a white shirt. The room she was in was all but featureless; no window, beige sheets on the mattress she was sitting on. No decorations on the walls, no furniture aside from the bed and a chair in the corner, currently empty.
The door was closed; she stood and approached it, finding it locked. So, imprisonment of some sort. Was this the decided punishment from the Protectorate and PRT? Had they just been waiting, allowing her to convalesce, and now she'd be led to a trial, put on the stand to answer for her crimes?
If that was the case, Taylor supposed she deserved it.
Having exhausted her investigation of her room, she broadened her focus outward, using the bugs nearby to examine the building her room was in. Almost instantly, her mouth curled slightly down into a frown. Her room, as far as she could tell, wasn't in a hospital, or prison, or any building that its furnishings would suggest. Instead, it was a freestanding room inside of a warehouse. The warehouse itself seemed to be near a water source; Taylor hadn't figured out how to discern smell through her bugs, but the air felt wet.
The rest of the warehouse's interior was occupied by a small set-up that was probably their tech center; lots of small monitors, presumably linked to cameras outside (bugs didn't see screens very well, so Taylor's perception of them was limited to the fact that they were, in fact, screens), and a small generator, powering the standing lights placed around the warehouse, as well as the lights in her room. This was next to two couches, which three of the personnel in the warehouse were sitting on.The rest of the warehouse's space, a solid seventy percent at least, was left empty and unused. The walls of the warehouse, however, seemed to have explosives on them, with wires leading back to the tech center. A self-destruct mechanism? What sort of wannabe-Coil ran this operation?
The warehouse was also occupied. Eight people were in the room, two of whom were approaching the door to Taylor's room. Seven of those eight were armed with a surprising spread of weaponry; three had swords of some sort, one had a whip, one a pair of machetes, and the other two had weapons she couldn't quite discern through her bugs' perception. All seven also had pistols holstered on their hips, and four had assault rifles.
The eighth, a woman, had a pistol but no other visible weapons. Taylor held her breath as she and her companion crossed over the invisible sixteen-and-two-thirds feet radius from Taylor, but they both continued to act under their own influence, and Taylor didn't suddenly feel two more minds available for her to control. They reached Taylor's door and, surprisingly, the woman knocked three times. Taylor briefly considered remaining silent, but whoever these people were they obviously knew she was here, and staying locked inside a room forever wasn't a very promising future. She cleared her throat. "Come in."
The door was unlocked, and the woman stepped inside; her guard, the one with two machetes and a pistol, remained outside the door, facing away. The woman had long, dark hair, and if pressed Taylor would have guessed her ethnicity to be somewhere in the Middle East. She had gold studs in one ear, the other covered by her hair, and a thin gold chain draped itself around her neck. Like the rest of the people in the warehouse, she was wearing combat boots and what looked to be tactical pants. Some sort of paramilitary organization, apparently.
"Welcome to Gotham, my lady." The woman inclined her head towards Taylor, whose weak grasp on the situation loosened even further. "Bringing you here was the work of countless hours, filled with rituals and scrying. Through their actions we were ready when we brought you into our world, immediately taking your body to a Lazarus Pit, which repaired the damage you had sustained and brought you back to life. My name is Talia al Ghul, and it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance."
There was a lot to unpack in that greeting, but Taylor didn't feel like addressing any of it yet. "Where am I?" She'd start there, and then hopefully with a firmer grasp of her situation she could figure out how to get away from these people who'd locked her in a room, without running straight into Dragon, or Defiant, or anyone else who wanted to kill her. While the mention of a different world had thrown her, Taylor was pretty sure this was just one of the many worlds that had been connected to Earth Bet through the portal, just one she'd never looked into. The people here were speaking English, at least; how different could this place be?
"You are currently in a warehouse, on the edge of Gotham City. I had you brought here after your recovery as it was a convenient location where my father would not become aware of my actions."
Taylor shifted where she was sitting on the bed. This conversation wasn't making any more sense the longer it went on, which meant it probably wouldn't be ending soon. She had a few bugs on everyone in the warehouse, and was bringing other bugs inside to hover in the darkness of the ceiling; while that happened she could try harder to figure out what the hell was going on.
"Gotham City? Where is that? What Earth are we on? Where's the nearest PRT building?" Through a few small flies placed on Talia's back and shoulders, Taylor noticed the woman's brief moment of stillness as she asked about the PRT. Truly one of Taylor's favorite things spreading her awareness through her bugs gave her. Taylor decided to press, try to keep this Talia on the back foot. "Also, can I have some shoes?"
At the more easily answered request, Talia snapped her fingers, and the guard at the door walked towards the couches, which upon further inspection had a few duffel bags piled behind them.
"Gotham City is north of Metropolis, and just south of New York City. As for what Earth we are on, I am afraid the only answer I can give is 'this one', which must be an unsatisfying answer indeed. As for the location of the nearest PRT building, I can only say that that while I am unfamiliar with the acronym, I am fairly confident that there is not a building that could be referred to as such in Gotham."
Taylor hummed in thought, nodding. So she was in some version of the United States, probably, if New York City existed and was north of here. That was something, at least. No knowledge of other dimensions, or of the PRT, was more worrying. Had this Earth gone unaffected by the Scion fight? If so, why had Taylor been brought here? She let Talia stew in silence as the guard returned to the room, carrying a pair of shoes and socks. On the one hand it was a bit creepy that they were in Taylor's size, but on the other hand these people had, apparently, summoned her across dimensions and brought her back to life. Knowledge of her shoe size seemed less abnormal when compared to that.
Taylor started pulling the socks onto her feet, humming slightly. "Ok. South of New York. So, I'm very grateful that you saved my life, but I'm not entirely sure why you did it." Talia's face twisted momentarily in displeasure, before returning to the polite mask she'd been wearing their entire conversation. Apparently she wasn't used to people not treating her with respect.
"My father, Ras al Ghul, is the head of an organization called the League of Assassins. I have been trying for years now to take control of the organization from him. To do so I require the assistance of an outside factor, presumably one he is unaware of. I set my sages to the task, and they eventually honed in on you, a great and terrible Queen hailing from a different world. I recruited more magicians, and spared no expense in bringing you across the barrier between our worlds."
Taylor finished tying her shoes, and stood. "Yeah. So, that all sounds... Well, I was going to say 'fun', but that's not true. But I'm not super interested in helping you overthrow your dad and take over something called 'The League Of Assassins'. Not quite my style. Good luck, but I'm out."
Talia's face fell into a glower, and the guard outside the door turned to step in front of the door, dropping one hand to the pistol on their hip as Talia spoke. "I am afraid I haven't been entirely clear about your situation; I have rescued you from death itself, and you will help me. I would like it to be by your choice, but I am fully prepared to ensure your cooperation through... other avenues." She produced a knife seemingly from nowhere (a sleeve? probably), and twirled it around her fingers.
Taylor drifted her bugs down from the ceiling, positioning them still out of sight but near all the guards in the warehouse. "Right. Not to sound like a cliche, but you don't know who you're dealing with. Since you apparently brought me back to life, I'll give you one more chance; let me go. I'm not interested in staying here, I'm not interested in helping you with whatever you're trying to do, and while I'm not interested in hurting you I won't hesitate to do it if you force my hand."
Talia's glower tilted into a sneer, and she slipped her knife back up her sleeve before drawing her pistol, holding it at her side. "You may be an unknown entity, but I assure you that seven assassins trained by the League are a formidable force, especially outnumbering you as we do. We are armed, you have nothing. I was hoping to establish our partnership outside of violent means, but apparently that is out of the question."
Taylor let her mouth slip into a crooked grin. "Yeah, I suppose it is." As she spoke, her bugs finished chewing through the wire leading out of the generator, causing the lights to flicker and then fall dark. She threw herself sideways, dodging the first shot from the guard outside as they stepped through the door, the bullet passing through the space her leg had been in the moment before. Talia stepped out the door, and away from the room, calling for her guards to act as she did so.
Unfortunately for her, Gotham City seemed to be an absolute hive of insects, or at least this warehouse district was. Masses of bugs had dropped simultaneously onto all the guards, stinging and biting on faces and fingers. The guard who'd entered the room had the least number of bugs on them, as they were the one Taylor was closest to. But even so, the bugs on here were distracting enough for Taylor to approach in the now pitch blackness of the warehouse and deliver a brutal hit to their throat, causing them to drop to the ground. A kick to their ribs put them firmly out of commission, and Taylor reached down to relieve her of her gun and two spare magazines.
Talia had realized, after grabbing her phone and turning on the flashlight, that the warehouse was now flooded with bugs. She ran towards the center of the warehouse, and Taylor let her; while she had a good amount of bugs, splitting them into seven (now six) seemed safer than splitting them into eight. Especially while Taylor was only wearing cotton pajamas for protection. Upon reaching the security monitors, and finding them dark Talia seemed to realize the power to the warehouse had fully gone, not just the lights. She headed towards the far exit, further away from Taylor, pulling out what seemed to be a small remote as she did so. There were still bugs biting and stinging her, but apparently her pain tolerance was higher than that of her mercenaries, as Talia's pace towards the exit remained at a swift jog.
The remote was, unfortunately, probably connected to the explosives on the warehouse walls, which meant it was time for Taylor to leave. She headed for the front door at a sprint, and threw it open upon reaching it. She crossed the road outside in an instant, and ducked into an alleyway just as her bugs felt Talia depress a button on the remote. As predicted, the warehouse Taylor had just left exploded, a fireball blossoming into the night sky (apparently it was night, good to know). Taylor paused for a moment, watching it light up the streets in a brilliant orange, before it faded, leaving a tall plume of smoke. Then, she turned and continued down the alley at a brisk pace; a stranger with no identification in a strange city, near an explosion, with a firearm she didn't have a permit for? Not a good way to introduce yourself to a police force, especially one that might not even be aware of parahumans as a concept. And so, gathering more bugs as she walked (the warehouse explosion had, unfortunately, caught the vast majority of her bugs), Taylor headed away from the warehouse, and towards... Well, towards something. Away from the smoking wreckage of the warehouse, at least.