Chapter Text
March 1926, Tiegenhoff, the Empire, Unclassified Earth
Tanya gritted her teeth as she careened at full tilt toward the war-torn city. Her ears were ringing from the thunderous crack of an explosion, an explosion that had gone off nearby when she had been floating high in the sky, an explosion that she couldn’t remember what had caused. Not that she could remember much else either, her mind processed little more than a jumble of stray thoughts and emotions, her inner monologue dissolved into wordless thoughts as she fell.
Despite her mental state however, she still had enough presence of mind to remember the root of all her issues. Even there, her thoughts couldn’t stray too far from the self-proclaimed god who had forced her into a second life of war and violence. And even there she still had enough control to spit out a curse for the bastard’s benefit.
That small act of defiance didn’t help much in clearing her mind, but she didn’t need a clear mind to fly anyway. It took short seconds for instincts attained throughout the war to override her conscious decision-making. On reflex, she drew on her mana through her computation orb, with the unconscious intention to propel herself perpendicular to the ground. The move succeeded at first, the rapidly growing half-collapsed buildings shrinking back in her vision. A split-second later however, the city rotated out of her view.
Tanya swore again as she realized she had somehow miscalculated. Her addled mind failed to understand her mistake as her vision swam and blurred, the sight of the city spinning into and out of vision in disorienting repeating motions, dismantling all sense of direction.
It took her precious seconds to reassert her will, with each moment, the vague sense of impending doom mounting. When she finally did arrest her spiraling motion, an involuntary downward look was enough to see that her body's new trajectory was still on a direct collision course with the ground, and that the ground was far too close. Hot liquid spattered her in the face but Tanya paid no heed as asphalt zoomed dangerously close.
An instant before the collision, she applied a barrier below herself, making barely a difference as she impacted the earth with all the force of a crashing aircraft, shattering the newly-formed shield and the asphalt beneath in the process.
Dust and debris rose into the sky, clouding the view. Tanya coughed, or at least she tried to. She tried to raise her head or move a hand but her mental requests simply didn’t register. She tried again with the other hand, then her feet but even though she felt the pain -however muted- all throughout her body, any actual movement was beyond her. Eventually, after long seconds of fruitless struggle, she stopped trying to move, having depleted all of her energy.
The dust slowly settled back as Tanya lay motionless, wheezing for breaths, this time just struggling to keep her eyes open. Unwantedly, her brain turned to try to piece together what had just happened to her. Moments of a long and arduous fight flashed in her mind but no definitive detail came to her.
She lay in relative silence as battle raged in the distance. The sky was filled with black smoke, but even there, just looking up, she could see some of the ruined landscape in the periphery of her vision. She thought she could hear the screams of dying soldiers, all sacrificing themselves for a senseless, meaningless struggle. It was only her imagination of course, her mind hallucinating things, somehow she knew she was too far away from any actual fight and she knew the scream of soldiers rarely registered amid all the gunfire.
As darkness encroached on her vision, paradoxically, she felt a jolt of clarity. She realized detachedly that she was probably going to die. She was going to be one of those soldiers in her hallucinations, giving her life for an empire she felt no allegiance to. Ironic. She would be honored by them, she hoped. She had done enough to earn that and more.
Any other time she wouldn’t let anybody question her place in the world. But there and then, she hoped that after this they would finally have the decency to not send a child -even if only in body- to war. Maybe if they were fast enough to save her, she could finally have a chance at a normal second life. Even while thinking that though, a part of her knew with that she was too far gone to be saved.
'I could always pray for it.'
She smiled at the thought, sending a spike of pain through her face. If anybody could save her it would be that arrogant bastard. And of course, as she thought about being saved, her mind turned to her time in the army, to the acquaintances she had made, to Viktoriya. Maybe they could've been friends at a time of peace, in a better world. Possibly coworkers. She might've been a great accountant. Tanya would never know. They would never see each other again at this rate. It was tempting, so very tempting to pray and beg to be saved. She wanted to live. She really did. She wanted an ordinary life, she wanted that safe and cushy job she had worked so hard to get. Maybe the army hadn't been the right path. Those higher-up bastards had only put her in more and more dangerous situations. But she didn't truly blame them in the end. After all, there was only one being to blame for all her misfortunes.
'Fuck you, Being X.'
There. Now she could die in peace.
No response came at the thought, time did not freeze, no ephemeral voice assaulted her mind. Tanya could only guess that the ‘god’ had seen the fruitlessness of his endeavor and decided to give up. That suited her just fine. She stopped resisting and closed her eyes, resolving to keep her smile on her face as she died to the lullaby of warfare.
The noise slowly fell away as the world around her grew cold. The smell of gunpowder dissipated. Her vision darkened even more behind her eyelids. The muted pain faded away. All sensation vanished.
There was nothing else, it was over and Tanya had accepted it.
Oblivion approached.
Tanya waited…
And waited…
And waited…
She frowned. This was taking way too long. Was this normal? She expected that people would stay conscious a short time after their body died but how long did it usually last? She felt a spike of alarm. Was there even a time limit? What if time dilated for a dying person and they experienced their death for a subjective eternity? Or—
Was this her punishment for not bowing to that pretentious incompetent asshole? That cheating bastard! He couldn't have done this, right? What—
Her eyes snapped open at her panicking mind, she was still lying in the same place as before. Some of the dust still floated around her, and a distance above her, Imperial aerial mages were frozen in place. The world around her held a strange blue tint.
'Oh no. You aren't doing this again, you unimaginative bastard!'
Then the space above her rippled and a hole ripped straight through reality. Through the hole, a blonde boy in a black t-shirt and a pair of jeans walked out, horizontally, sideways, disregarding gravity to position himself as if him and Tanya were standing on the same imaginary surface.
'Well, that's certainly a new look.' Tanya thought, resigned to whatever new fate the bastard had devised for her.
The boy flashed her a wide smile.
"I'm afraid I am not who you think I am." he said after he stood two steps away from her.
January 2011, Brockton Bay, United States of America, Earth Bet
Al walked through the hallways of the decrepit American high school. He disliked this city. He disliked this country. He disliked this planet. In fact, he disliked this entire subcluster of realities. He didn't understand the motivations of—
His mind turned to find the appropriate information.
—He didn't understand Her motivations for tolerating the mere existence of this place. There was too much pain here, too much suffering. If it was his choice, he would put all these miserable people out of their misery. But it wasn't his place to make that decision. It was only Her choices that truly mattered, and he never had a particularly good understanding of Her decision-making process, or of Her generally, if he was being honest with himself.
He knew that She was powerful beyond measure. He knew that She had a mission, a critical mission of overriding importance. He probably just hadn't been deemed important enough to be told what it was.
But this entire thing wasn’t too out of character for her either. He had seen Her seeming impulsivity as well, he knew that She had a penchant for needless theatricality, his mere existence was enough proof of that. He also knew that She wasn't above needless cruelty. He was more than familiar with what She considered entertainment. He was also aware that She had instilled in him the ability to feel empathy -maybe even too much of it- and he was certain that She knew he would hate Her for what She did and hate himself at the same time for being powerless to fight Her.
He walked up to the row of lockers, one of them had been forced open. A thin black-haired girl lay on the ground, a group of paramedics surrounded her. They stared at the girl's dead body -and she was dead even if they didn't know yet- frozen in place as he walked between space and time.
The Algorithm had broadcasted the girl's location to him -In truth, he himself was part of the Algorithm, more accurately he was the Algorithm, but that was how She called him. He found it dehumanizing, so in the privacy of his mind, he separated his identities- and he had a job to do here and he would accomplish it.
This wasn't something he liked to do, but at the same time it wasn’t something he was willing to rebel over. He had gone against Her before and She had been gracious enough -or perhaps had been amused enough- to not undo his efforts to help people, but this wasn't worth the punishment that would follow. He only hoped that the girl suited Her tastes if only for his selfish desire to feel less guilty over dragging her into Her realm like this.
Unknown time, Unknown place
Taylor felt uneven ground against her back but it didn’t cause her any discomfort, far from it, it was the most comfortable surface she had ever laid on. She could feel no cover, no blanket, instead she felt the mild brush of wind against her body, but it wasn’t too cold or too warm, it was just the right temperature to be pleasant, soft and calming alongside the sound of chirping birds, singing just out of reach, and something else, perhaps the sound of rushing water from a long distance away.
She smiled to herself before opening her eyes. Her vision was blurry but she could identify vague patches of light piercing the gaps between drooping leaves as they found their way to her eyes.
She frowned, feeling slightly bewildered, her happy mood dampening a bit.
A head poked into the corner of her vision.
"Mom?" Taylor asked. Information rapidly rushed into her brain and she flushed, of course it wasn't Mom, Mom had been dead for a few years now.
She raised a hand and rubbed her eyes before blinking a few times to clear her vision. The person standing above her was obstructing her view of the leaves. She was a beautiful woman who didn’t look more than a few years older than Taylor, but she had white hair. She smiled at Taylor. Her smile was warm and strangely comforting, just like what she remembered of her mom.
"Hey Taylor." the woman said before extending a hand. Taylor blinked and silently accepted the gesture, letting the woman drag her upright.
"Hey…"
Taylor dragged her eyes away from the woman to survey her surroundings as she stood. The place was filled with trees -some of them impossibly tall- which clustered in different patches. She was in the middle of a small clearing. Her eyes turned back to the woman beside her, she wore a long black dress. Now that she paid more attention, she looked nothing like her mom. Still, she had to argue with herself a bit to convince herself. The woman had white hair and black eyes and even if by some miracle her mom was still alive and had assumed a different look, this woman looked far too young to be her mother. Although her posture, her general aura and more than anything her piercing pure black eyes didn’t give the impression of youth and inexperience.
Taylor shook her head. "Do I know you? Where are we?" she blurted out.
The woman’s smile widened minutely. She let go of Taylor’s hand and shook her head.
"No, you don't know me, and as for this place…" she paused, looking around "Let's walk, shall we?" and then she pointed a finger to a trail between the trees that Taylor could swear hadn't been there before.
Taylor frowned, feeling a bit weird, but something pushed her to nod, a vague sense of promised knowledge, as if the universe itself was telling her to go, everything will become clear.
She approached the woman as she turned to face the path. The woman waited until Taylor stepped beside her then she walked and Taylor walked alongside her in silence. Taylor remained silent as they walked together alongside the narrow trail. The woman was shorter than Taylor but that didn’t subtract from the air of authority about her. They passed trees, some of them strange-looking, twisting in weird patterns, almost otherworldly.
It was a beautiful place. Taylor had the strange feeling that she could feel the life moving around her in the canopy and in the leaves, it was as if she was somehow connected to this place. Questions bubbled up in her mind but she didn't utter a word as they walked.
They walked until the trees slowly thinned out. Eventually they reached a violently moving wide stream, maybe more accurately described as a narrow river. Water rushing forward with urgency from outside into the jungle. The woman approached a large boulder beside the path, dragged herself up with a push of her hands and sat there, face toward the river. A moment later, she turned and invited Taylor to sit beside her with a pat of her hand beside herself.
Taylor walked forward and did the same as the woman, sitting beside her, watching the roaring water as she waited for the woman to speak.
A long moment passed, the woman finally turned to face her and began to speak with a rueful smile.
"You died, Taylor." she proclaimed quietly, and Taylor heard it despite the thunderous noise of the river.
"Oh." The news didn't startle Taylor even though she knew it should have. She didn't question the fact. For whatever reason she knew from the bottom of her heart that this stranger was telling the truth.
"How…?" the question came unbidden out of her mouth.
The woman regarded her for a moment before turning back to the river. She stayed silent for a long moment.
Eventually she sighed. "Come closer." she said, opening her arm. Taylor paused for a moment before complying. The woman put her arm around her and hugged her one-handedly.
Then she leaned in and put her head onto Taylor's shoulder. She remembered then, the bullies, the locker.
"Oh." she repeated uselessly as she understood, the memories weren't painful, they didn't hurt, they just were. Cold, harsh truth.
"Yeah." the woman whispered.
They returned to silence as they watched the river rush forward in its path, unthinking, unfeeling as it roared to the world.
"You know," the woman started quietly after a moment, "this is where you could wash everything away, walk into that river and you forget everything. You're reborn in a different place and you'll have another chance at life."
Taylor considered that as she listened to the river, the sound was oddly calming to her senses. All sense of unfamiliarity vaporized as she sat there, thinking. Suddenly everything made sense.
"And if I don't?" she whispered back.
The woman raised her head off Taylor's shoulder. "Well," Taylor could hear the smile in her voice "then we'll have to judge your soul."
Taylor turned to look the woman in the face, "So I will go to heaven or hell? Or something?"
"Or something." the woman replied with a small smile, "I can't tell you what would happen unless you choose not to walk into the river."
Taylor nodded and turned back to the river. She stayed silent for a while, contemplating things. She felt utterly serene here, her mind clearer than ever before as she thought things through.
"So," she started "what. Are you God or something?"
The woman chuckled, "Or something."
Taylor turned to give her a dirty look. The woman chuckled again and shook her head. "No, I wouldn't be so arrogant. Think of me as a sort of… manager, a supervisor."
"Huh." Taylor turned back to look at the river. She thought about everything, about her life, all of it. Time passed and it did not. She thought for a minute and for a year.
"No," she finally said.
She paused as she searched for a way to articulate her thoughts, the woman waited patiently.
Taylor turned to her again "I… yes, I have painful memories but I don't want to forget everything."
The woman simply nodded and assumed a serious expression, "Well then," she let go of Taylor to push herself off the boulder, "get up."
Taylor also pushed herself off the boulder and stood, facing the woman. The woman raised a hand and snapped her fingers. The surroundings changed abruptly, the sound of the river vanished, and a white pristine room appeared around them.
The woman walked to the center of the room where a table and two chairs on both sides of it sprang into existence as she approached.
"Sit down please." the woman commanded as she sat in the chair opposite where Taylor stood. Taylor walked the small distance and sat in the offered seat. She looked at the woman again, suddenly nervous.
"What happens now?" she asked the mystery woman.
"Now, I will assess your soul and based on that, I will offer you a set of paths to choose from." She smiled warmly, putting Taylor at ease again.
"Okay." Taylor replied.
The white-haired woman nodded and extended a hand toward her face. Taylor blacked out for a moment as she felt something being ripped out of her. When she could see again, there was a strange transparent shape floating between her and the woman, it morphed and moved in front of her, not assuming a static shape. As she squinted her eyes, she could see that it was composed of a very large set of dots floating in the air, each dot connecting via a thin line to a large portion of other dots.
She looked up at the woman who looked deep in thought as she regarded the amorphous object.
"This is my soul?" she asked the woman.
"In a manner of speaking." the woman replied without taking her eyes off the thing.
Taylor's eyes slid back to the object, this was the thing that supposedly encompassed her entire being, she stared, mesmerized by its random movements. It turned and morphed in front of her eyes.
They sat wordlessly for a long while as they both inspected her soul, in different fashions.
"Okay." the woman prompted. Taylor looked up at her. A wide smile adorned the woman's beautiful face. She took the floating formless shape with a hand, and pushed it back toward Taylor. She blacked out again for an instant, when she came back, she felt as if some very deep hole she hadn’t even been aware of had been filled.
"Congratulations! You," the woman pointed a finger in her direction "get the chance to go back to your old life!"
"What?" Taylor asked, dumbfounded.
"If you want, of course. You go back, you wake up in the hospital, you barely remember this ever happening, you continue your life uninterrupted." the woman continued as she pushed her seat back and stood.
"But—" Taylor swallowed, pausing as she reciprocated, standing from her seat, "what happens if I don't accept?"
The woman arched her eyebrows. "That would be telling." she replied with that now-infuriating smile of hers. Taylor stared at her. The woman stared back uncompromisingly.
Taylor sighed "Can I think about it?"
"Of course," the woman replied with a wave of her hand, "you have all the time in the world here."
They both stood in place as an eternity passed, unmoving as Taylor thought.
She nodded in the end, "Yes," she licked her lips "I would appreciate that."
"Excellent!" the woman exclaimed with a clap of her hands.
"Tell you what," she continued in a conspiratorial voice, "Would you like to…" she paused dramatically "wake up with superpowers?"
Taylor felt her eyes widen. "You—" she paused. "Really?"
Taylor woke up in a hospital bed, feeling strangely calm and composed.
"Taylor?"
It was her dad's voice, she turned to look in the direction of the voice. She noticed through the motion that he was holding her hand.
"You're awake. Thank God."
He looked disheveled and sad. His eyes were red as if he had been crying.
She smiled what she hoped was a comforting smile. "Hello, Dad."
He squeezed her hand in response.
"It's okay, you're gonna be okay Taylor." he said, giving her a weak smile, as if his words were meant more to reassure himself than her.
"Sure." Taylor yawned. She felt fresh and clean and tired at the same time.
As she finished her yawn, she noticed that a nurse had entered the room and stood frozen at the sight of her. The nurse smiled when she noticed Taylor's stare and ran out the door.
He was talking about something but Taylor didn’t hear much. A while later, a doctor stepped into the room, interrupting her dad’s speech. He asked him to step aside so that he could examine her. He complied with obvious reluctance.
"Well, miss Hebert," the doctor began after a minute, "As far as I can see, you're perfectly fine. I would advise that you spend another night here but otherwise, you have fully recovered."
Taylor nodded sleepily.
The doctor asked her dad to step outside so they could talk about her medication or something. Taylor didn't care, she turned in her bed to sleep on her side.
Her eyes snapped wide open as she saw a small figure standing beside her bed. It was a short girl leaning on the wall, scowling in the direction of the exiting doctor. Taylor hadn’t noticed her entering the room. Had she been standing there all this time?
"Hello?" she said to the blonde girl. The girl visibly startled. She turned to glance at Taylor and frowned as she saw Taylor looking at her. She turned to look behind herself, coming face to face with a wall. Then she turned back again and glared at Taylor.
"Um." Taylor said uselessly.
A split-second later the girl's eyes widened.
"You can see me?" she said in a strange accent.
Al watched the white-haired avatar of the goddess smile her predatory smile. "Well, this should be interesting." she said, turning to face him. Her smile grew even more disturbing than before, "Don't you think, my dear?"