The Weaving Force: Chapter 17 (Patreon)

Chapter 17:

Vicky:

Vicky remembered, rather distantly right then, a time when Amy had to breathe into a paper bag, hyperventilating after the first few times using her power and suddenly being privy to everything physical whenever she touched someone.

Right now, Vicky wasn’t subject to the horrors of seeing someone’s insides and bodily functions in excruciating detail, nor was she witness to the terrors of tissue necrosis or some asshole asking for her to fix his erectile dysfunction, but she was fairly sure her “freaking out” was a little warranted right now. Maybe enough to warrant a paper bag.

Did they have paper bags in the temple?

They should.

Cause she could really use one right now.

“My power is alive?” She would like to claim her voice didn’t squeak, but it absolutely did.

Her power was alive. It was in her head. And it was apparently, at least according to Master Yoda, very attached to her…

She did not even want to begin unwrapping the implications of that statement.

“Are all powers alive!?” she blabbered, wide eyes looking at each of the Masters before swiveling her head around to look at Taylor.

The quiet girl flinched, stepping back as if she’d been struck before she mastered herself, planting her feet, fists clenched.

Vicky’s eyes went wide. “You knew about this!” She wasn’t sure if she was angry, but her voice, shrill as it was, cracked under the weight of… whatever she was feeling right now.

Taylor didn’t answer, but her face said it all.

“You did!” she gasped, pointing at the girl. “Why- How long have you known powers are alive!? Is that why you didn’t want them to check you!? Or did you just want me to volunteer to have a fucking laug-”

*Whack*

“OW! Goddamnit!” She pulled her hand back, rubbing at the back of her knuckles as she snarled at Yoda.

The little green Jedi stared back at her, stern and unflinching in the face of her rapidly mounting anger.

“Fearful, you are. Distressed, you are. Panic, this is. In anger and careless words, you now express these things,” Hhe chastised, his stick returning to its place across his knees as he sat on his little floaty chair.

Vicky breathed, opening her mouth-

“Calm you must be, Miss Dallon.” Mrs. Yoda’s little claw went to Vicky’s other arm, startling her. “Distressing to the Fragile One, your emotions are.”

“Oh, gee. It’s distressed!” She threw up her hands. “Yeah. Sure. Why the hell not!?” Her giggle tinged at the edges of either hysteria or tears. She wasn’t sure which. And, all at once, she saw several of the Masters in the room, as well as Taylor, flinch before Vicky rapidly yanked back as hard as possible on the tether she kept on her aura. She yanked on it as hard as she ever had before.

Mrs. Yoda floated in front of her, little claws taking Vicky’s hands in them. “Calm, you must be,” she insisted.

“I am calm!” Vicky tried not to shout, she really did. “I just found out I have something living in my head! It’s been there since freakin’ forever, I might not have a way home, and someone keeps hitting me with a stupid goddamn stick that shouldn’t work! So, given everything, I am the absolute picture of peace and mother-f-ing-harmony! I’m allowed to have a bitch-fit for ten freakin’ seconds!” she protested before tossing her head back. Looking skyward towards the roof of the Council Chambers, she sucked down shaking breaths and did her absolute best to quell the raging tempest of emotions in her chest.

It was just… the violation of it all. Something there, in your head watching every embarrassing second, every private moment, maybe even reading every selfish thought or shameful secret?

…

Maybe she was being too harsh, it was her power after all. Sometimes she felt it was the best thing about her.

Except that was another problem now, wasn’t it?

It wasn’t hers… not anymore. It was its own… thing. With its own wants and plans and-

What the hell was she, if not Glory Girl?

Her shoulders shook ever so slightly as she fought down a shudder.

To the Masters’ credit, they did allow her a “moment”, lingering in silence around her as she gathered herself.

“Okay…” she finally said after one last deep breath. “Okay… I’m… I’m good now.”

She wasn’t, not really. Not until she had some time to fully wrap her head around this, but she could at least sit through the rest of the goddamn meeting.

“Come here, child,” Ms. Nu called, extending a hand to escort Vicky back to her seat

Planting herself quietly beside Taylor, Vicky watched as the rest of the Council members retook their own seats.

“Masters,” it was the snakeman who spoke, “now that you have communed with this… Fragile One, what else can be discerned?”

“Frightened of us, it was,” Mrs. Yoda said.

“Hmmm.” Yoda himself nodded. “Hesitant. Unsure. Much like the Younglings in the temple creches when newly arrived to the Temple, it was.”

“While its emotional state certainly felt… nascent,” Master Windu hedged, “Its presence was… vast, almost overwhelming.”

Mrs. Yoda nodded. “Strange it was. But not Dark. Not Evil. Different.”

“One thing was very clear, however,” Master Windu leaned back in his seat, fixing his stare on Vicky. “Even from a brief glimpse into its state in the Force, the Fragile One, as it titles itself, is devoted to you.”

She got the impression the man was waiting for some kind of answer, or an explanation. Vicky just shrugged.  “I don’t know what to tell you. As of three minutes ago my power was this neat little thing that let me do special things; I didn’t know it was a groupie.”

Her own snark made her blanch, not because of her tone, per se, but because of the actual thought that got stuck in her head like an angry thorn.

Oh god. My power is a groupie!?

Mace’s lips pursed, displeased.

“We must have further contact with the creature if we are to make an informed decision,” Master Tower-head said.

“I concur with Master Mundi,” the masked alien followed up with a nod. “This… Fragile One. I could only sense it second hand through Masters Yoda, Yaddle and Windu, but its nature is… vastly alien to anything I’ve ever sensed. We need a greater understanding… if it is willing to cooperate.”

“Before you all get too chummy with this thing in my head… can this help get us home?” Vicky asked, too tired, too high-strung, too drained to argue or gainsay what they might be gearing up for. The thought of becoming a lab rat wasn’t exactly appealing, but she wanted answers too.

Her eyes darted to the side, teeth gnawing on her lower lip as she tried not to start another argument with Taylor right here in the Council Chambers.

“It might,” Ms. Nu answered beside her. “I myself will have to delve deeply into the archives for any scrap of information, though, in truth, I’ve never heard of anything like this. If they are within our records, it is an obscure record indeed.”

Fantastic.

“Weary, you are,” Yoda noted, dragging her eyes to him as she listened to his voice. He wasn’t smiling, but his expression still seemed kind. “Rest, you should. Discuss this further, the Council will. Reconvene tomorrow we may, if wish it, you do.”

She didn’t. She wanted answers now. But at the same time, she wanted to get the fuck out of this room. She needed air.

The jerk of her head could barely be called a nod, but no sooner had she given it than Tay stood up beside her. Vicky got to her feet a moment later to leave.

(X)(X)(X)

Mace:

Mace watched the two young women leave. Padawan Keto, having waited at the door, escorted them back to their rooms.

The door shut behind them, and the suffocating roil of emotions in both young women diminished almost immediately. The tension that had turned Master Koth and Master Galia rigid in their seats relaxing ever so slightly.

“Disturbing,” Master Tiin mumbled quietly in his seat.

“In what way?” Master Plo-Koon asked, fingers forming a cage in front of his breathing mask.

Master Piell, for the first time since the meeting began, uttered a sound, a scoff. “Feh! It might be simpler to name what isn’t disturbing! The girl, Taylor. We all felt it when Master Yoda offered to commune with her. She’s hiding something.”

“She was frightened,” Master Galia noted.

“Of discovery,” Master Piell pressed.

“No,” Master Plo-Koon cut in. “She was not afraid in the way a spy is at being caught. She was terrified. Whatever her power is – whatever knowledge she has of it – has scared her deeply. More than any of us could frighten her.”

“Say that’s true-” the diminutive Lannik groused, “-you don’t find that disturbing? Just what exactly is it that we’re dealing with here? All we’ve sensed so far has been from this, “Fragile One”; IT might not be of the Dark Side but what if the other creature is? What then?”

Master Tiin nodded. “Indeed. If Master Piell’s concerns prove true, how could we contend with such a thing? Never in all our collective knowledge and experience have any of us encountered such an entity. Should it prove Dark....”

“We are Jedi,” Billaba, his own Padawan once upon a time cut in. “Are we to act on unfounded fears, Masters?” She raised an eyebrow, hands folding over her lap. “These are still only possibilities. Until either Ms. Hebert or Ms. Dallon – or their respective… entities – are proven to be a credible threat, we should simply treat them as they’ve presented themselves. Two young women who need our assistance.”

“We must, of course, strive to help these visitors, but we must not stumble blindly either,” Master Mundi cut in. “It is one thing to act as the Jedi Code teaches: with knowledge, not ignorance. But it is wholly another to indulge one child’s secrecy for the sake of it. We have a responsibility towards all our charges here at the temple to protect them as well. As such we cannot act further until Ms. Hebert allows us to ascertain the nature of her entity as we did this Fragile One. We must know that it is not of the Dark, and that it is as benign as its counterpart.”

“You would subject her to this procedure that she is clearly fearful of? Against her will?” Master Plo-Koon’s voice was low and its undertones too complex for Mace to identify accurately.

“Jedi do not allow fears to dictate their actions.”

“She is no Jedi, Master Mundi, and we are the ignorant party here. If she is so deathly afraid of her entity, the reason for such may very well be valid.”

“Which is why we must verify-”

“And at what point does zeal for verification translate into us acting upon our fears?” Master Galia, the youngest Master asked sharply.

“Enough!” Mace cut in, feeling the quiet presence of Yoda, silent now, beside him. His Master’s judgment over them all weighed heavy on his shoulders.

The room fell into stillness.

“We must all consider everything we’ve learned here, clearly,” he finally said. “We will not be pressuring Ms. Hebert or Ms. Dallon into conducting further communions with their entities. We will ask, and should they accept, we will oblige. Until then, our primary objective must be finding them their way home, first and foremost. The entities are, for now, merely a curiosity. A secondary one.”

Master Yaddle nodded beside him, and Mace felt as though he’d made the right call. Master’s Yaddle and Yoda were typically of one mind most days.

He leaned back in his seat. “Now, before we proceed, I feel it appropriate to inform this council that, as of yesterday evening, Master Yan Dooku has officially returned from Sereno.”

A murmur went through the Masters at that. “Permanently?” Master Plo-Koon asked.

“No.” Windu shook his head. “Master Dooku has only returned to oversee the final stages of Obi-Wan’s training and the initial lessons for young Skywalker.”

“Knight Kenobi is no longer a Padawan.” Piell argued.

“Beyond the need for learning he is?” Master Yoda muttered softly? “Learn, I still do, every day. Knighthood, mastery it is not. Mastery, all knowing it is not.”

“Is that wise?” Master Koth questioned. The Zabrak’s gentle voice brought all eyes to him. “While Master Dooku is certainly venerable and respectable, it has been many years since he left the temple, and young Skywalker is such a… unique case. It will already be difficult to mold such an older pupil into a proper Jedi; this might further derail that.”

“Unique circumstances call for unique solutions,” Master Plo-Koon argued. “While I do hold some concerns, given Master Dooku’s strict methodologies, I’ve also always held concerns regarding this Council’s decision to allow Obi-Wan to be the boy’s teacher. It was a decision made in grief and haste, by a young man barely knighted - and certainly unbalanced from his master’s passing - when he made it.”

“Such feelings should have been released into the Force,” Master Tiin replied. “Young Obi-Wan knows this.”

“Heartless, Jedi are not,” Yaddle argued. “Grief and pain we may feel, as all things do. Expecting him to feel nothing…” The Master shook her head, lament clear in the tone of her voice and the droop of her shoulders. “Too much did we expect; too little did we care. Concerns, I have, of Master Dooku as well; but glad I am that a Master has stepped in where we should have.”

The rebuke was clear, and sharp, as bold as Yaddle ever was, and it was enough to send a knife of shame through his chest, cutting deep.

In truth… he had advocated for the Council to step back. Perhaps he had been angry then. At Qui-gon. At his death. At his foolish belief in the chosen one prophecy.

Perhaps he’d hoped, somewhere, that Obi-Wan would balk at the thought of becoming a Master so soon and send Anakin elsewhere. To serve Senator Amidala, or to the Service Corps.

…

…

“Master Dooku was and is a respected Master,” he finally said. “Until he gives us a reason to question him, I have full faith in him, and unless there are any formal objections by the members of this Council, I will reinstate him as Master within our ranks and recognize his role as such in training Obi-Wan and Anakin Skywalker.”

None moved. There were concerns, displeased frowns, but no formal movements to act against this.

He understood.

Perhaps they all held a few regrets.

He looked to Master Plo-Koon. “Now… Master Koon; you stated earlier there was a matter you wished to bring to the floor.

The Kel-Door stood, bowing ever so slightly. “Yes Master Windu. I would like us to revisit our decision regarding Padawan Tachi and her mission…”

Windu did not miss the warm glow of gratitude that suffused Master Galia for barely a moment before she mastered herself.

(X)(X)(X)

Vicky:

The walk back to their rooms was a tense, frigid thing. The Padawan escorting them must have picked up on it because the girl was stiff as a board as she walked, almost cringing in their presence.

If all Jedi could sense emotions, Vicky wasn’t sure just how badly the girl was getting walloped in the face with hers.

By the time they reached their rooms, the girl barely offered a courtesy ‘goodbye’ before she practically ranaway.

Taylor marched in first, Vicky right after her.

The door hissed shut behind her, and before it had even fully sealed, Vicky already felt her lips curling back to bare her teeth in a sneering snarl as she glowered at Taylor’s back.

Taylor, for her part, had gone still in the center of the room, utterly, eerily still.

“Why?” Vicky hissed. “Was this fun for you? Funny somehow?”

What burned through her chest wasn’t just anger. Not really.

This knowledge was groundbreaking in several ways, everything humans knew about Parahumans was thrown out the goddamn window and Tay just sat on it. And if she could do that, then-

“What else are you hiding, huh?” she demanded accusingly. “You already said you weren’t gonna tell me about what messed with our heads. Now this is something I didn’t need to know about either? Are there more secrets!? Got Leviathan in your back pocket or something?”

There was a silence in the room, Taylor’s hand opened and closed, clenching and unclenching into a fist.

She turned around, but she didn’t look at Vicky, instead her eyes were fixed on her clenching and unclenching hand.

“I didn’t know for su-”

“Bullshit!” Vicky barked, the aura flaring outwards, and this time she did far far less to restrain it. “I saw you in there! You knew damn well what they were gonna find when they looked at our powers!”

Now, Taylor looked at her, face impassive even as a storm brewed behind her eyes.

“I wanted to be wrong!” The last word was a screech, out of a million wings and scratching feet.

But Vicky was beyond being intimidated, she was beyond her last shred of patience. “FUCKING WHY!?” she screamed. “GIVE ME SOME STRAIGHT ANSWERS FOR ONCE! WE’RE THE ONLY ONES HERE!”

She felt tears of frustration and anger burning at the back of her eyes, refusing to let them fall as she grit her teeth, baring them in a snarl instead.

Taylor held her silence, and after a moment Vicky let out a disgusted scoff.

“Whatever. Fuck you too then, I guess,” she dismissed, turning sharply to head to her room.

Her fingers brushed over the access pad-

“Do you want to know what Khepri is?”

Vicky paused, fingers hesitating over the button.

“Khepri… is what was left. And towards the end even she was wasting away.”

She took a breath, head leaning back to toss a despairing look towards the ceiling. “What was left of what, Hebert?” She asked, exasperated. Why couldn’t she just give a straight fucking ans-

“Me…”

…

“She was all that was left of me. The Endbringer I all but became”

The words were a whisper, even when spoken through a thousand chittering bodies, the air itself seemed to go still, as if so much as a breath would shatter its stillness.

“I don’t understand,” Vicky answered, turning around.

Tay’s eyes were on her hand, still, staring at her palm as if she were verifying that it was there.

“My power-” she began, remaining still even as the air trembled around the two of them, giving the whole room, a single crawling effect. “... I needed more. I needed-” she trailed off. “I… forced things. My power answered…” Her other hand reached up, grasping at her wrist, fingers brushing along her forearm to her elbow. “I lost myself, Vicky. My Past. The people I cared about. My own name- There was nothing left. And I didn’t even care by the end.”

Now Taylor turned to look at her, fingers squeezing so tightly at her limb Vicky could see the blood flow actively being disrupted by the tight hold, discoloration visible in the skin.

“Can you imagine that? A world where you become nothing but a meat puppet? Where everything you’ve fought for, everything you’ve pushed for, matters less than the ants you step on underfoot? Places. People. Friends… Family.”

Vicky tried, she did; tried to wrap her head around it, the thought of Amy, her mom, her dad, Cousin Crystal Aunt Sarah, Uncle Neil, Dean, everyone just… not mattering anymore?

“So yes… It was easier. Not telling you. Not talking about it. Because if I told you… that would make it real. And I didn’t want it to be real. I wanted to be wrong. I wanted for Khepri to stay as the thing of my nightmares.” Taylor’s gaze broke from hers, casting her eyes downwards. “Because if she’s not real… then what I’ve seen… what I did. That can’t be real either.”

Vicky took a breath…

It wasn’t… she wanted to be angry. Because being angry was easier than the alternative. Than the uncertainty. Than the sadness and despair but… It was an explanation. It was a reason at the very least.

“Is she why you don’t talk?” Vicky asked. “I know you can,” she pressed.

Taylor opened her mouth, and Vicky was sure she was about to speak using her own voice when her lips closed, her face going blank even as tears percolated within unblinking eyes.

“I’m scared.”

“Scared to talk with your own voice?” Vicky asked.

The girl nodded.

“Why?”

Silence.

Vicky stepped forward, trying to appear non aggressive, trying not to push in a way that would drive her away, that would be too much.

She was answering… which is more than she had before.

Vicky decided to push her luck- just a bit.

“Why are you scared to use your voice, Tay?”

Taylor turned, walking away a few steps towards the large, wide window of the living room, seemingly using  the view of the city beyond to escape the tight confines of their room.

Vicky wasn’t sure she’d answer. In fact, she was almost certain she wouldn't, that Taylor turning her back signaled the end of the conversation.

Then…

“When it happened… it happened gradually. By inches. My voice was the first thing to go. It didn’t matter when it happened.”

Vicky’s features scrunched up. “So… wait, you’re trying to say you’re retracing your steps or something?”

“No…” the insects hissed softly. “I’m saying I’d rather not realize it’s starting again until its too late.”

That startled her! “What the fu- Why!?”

Taylor’s next words sent a very real chill crawling down Vicky’s spine, and the heroine could only stare at the back of Taylor’s dark head of hair in horrified silence.

“Because Yoda was right… It’s easier to not know.”

“Easier-” the bugs chittered and hissed, scratching softly at the walls around them, “- to just… die oblivious; than have to watch the train coming.”