Chapter Text
It had taken you some convincing, and a demonstration of turning a handkerchief she had into a lace shawl, before she would let you work on the suit. You could barely express the honour.
Skitter’s suit lies before you on a bench of a garage you have both broken into. Taylor retreated further into the house to get some space, leaving you to work undisturbed.
You could have done something similar before gaining The Flock’s Fleece, with the memory metal of your remaining suit gauntlet turning into simple weaving tools, and the reduction in tool requirements of Backyard Handiwork making them function like something industrial, with the halved reduction in material requirements from Waste Not and the talent of Savant, you could have made something worthy of sitting in a museum. Now, you would weave raiment for a god.
Gently, lovingly, you pull the suit apart, hands blurring under the speed of Machinist. Thread untwines in great spools and chitin comes off in flakes. You pull on everything you can for this, even Tinkertechnically fudging things from behind the scenes as though you were a cloth Tinker. You pour every ounce of Decadence you can into it, working the suit into something worthy of being worn by the most important person in the world.
You weave. Thread spins under your gauntlets at a lightning pace, pouring the energy and love of the craft of Elven Enchanting. You take the chitin armour, the base material doubling in volume, and bring it to form. You weave and you craft and you enchant. Sweat drips off your face under your mask, but you don’t stop, you won’t stop.
More splendid than any Queens gown, more regal than the most lavish of Imperial wear, as humble as the work smock - anyone wearing such a suit would command the respect they were due.
The spider silk went from a stormy gray to near black, still skintight, while the chitin armour took on the stormy colour, almost silver, extending up around her head in spikes like a crown, over her shoulders and upper arms, up her shins and over her knees - the armour being just practical enough to benefit from your divine blood of Hephaestus. The silk fabric would never grow uncomfortable or dirty, never tear and never fail her.
With reverence you pick it up, cradling it, still feeling the rush of creation. You made this. You. No one could ever take that away from you.
You move through the house and present it to her. Taylor moves from where she was sitting rigidly on the couch, compulsively pulling at her new lace shawl, and stands, spindle limbed, to receive her gift. You can’t see her face, covered as it is by the shawl, but you imagine her delight.
“I think it’s good enough for now,” you hold it out to her. “This is the best I can do at the moment.”
“Oh,” she says, and doesn’t move to take it.
Was something wrong? Was it not good enough? You almost faint in relief as she steps forward to claim it after a solid half minute of appraisal. Passed muster.
“Thanks… Metatron.” She runs her hands over the fabric, no doubt admiring the softness, the quality of the weave, the splendor, the richness. “Oh, it’s light?”
“It cannot burden you. It won’t let you down.”
“Thank you,” she says again. “Um, I’ll go and put it on.”
“Of course,” you say. At that moment your stomach makes known how badly you erred in eating earlier, and you realise that after chugging so much water so quickly your bladder is fit to burst. “Excuse me for one moment, too.”
You both take your leave, and when you see her again you stand in the presence of something holy. She has draped the shawl over her shoulders, highlighting her regality just as much as the tines of the crown now armouring her head. She stands, looking every inch the most important person in the world - you have to fight the urge to kneel. You know she wouldn’t like it.
She wanted a friend, not a servant.
“It suits you.”
She turns the flat stare of her yellow lenses on you. “Are you sure you’re not Technomage? I saw your first interview.”
“I’m not him.” You have to get out of this outdated armour, bearing his colours, his design sensibilities. Mechanically, it’s fine. Aesthetically, it’s too sanitised, too corporate, too Protectorate . You realise that you would prefer something darker.
“Right.” She says and lifts her elbow in a way that sends her shawl fluttering in a lazy, elegant arc. “Okay. Well, what do we do now, Metatron?”
“I was going to leave that up to you,” you say cheerfully.
She doesn’t say anything, or move.
“Why don’t we come up with a cape name for you?” You suggest. “Something really cool.”
“I can’t think of anything.”
“Me neither.”
She continues to stare at you. You wonder why. “Let's go find crime to stop,” she eventually says.
“I would be happy to.”
Though, you would be happier if you had a better suit. You begin to imagine one now, based closer to a Gundam or a Titan than the slimmed down, and lacking nearly all functionality model you had to put up with. Something in between the industrial look of the Atlas Titan and the smooth paneling of a Unicorn Gundam. Seven feet tall, at least, with inbuilt weaponry. You would pull Greg’s armour apart, learn every one of its secrets, and put it back together better than ever.
Another day, once you’ve had the time to make some drinks of seven days rest, because you’re seriously tired. This body of flesh and bone is so, so weak. You picture a shining cyborg body, your Titan/Gundam hybrid, removing the need for sleep, giving you the freedom to focus on only crafting. You picture the endless upgrade cycle of your own self, of making a Cosmic Warehouse in your soul.
You picture Taylor sitting on the golden throne at the top of the world, worms crawling at her feet.
You shiver.
Taylor leads the way out, each step punctuated by the sheer authority the suit projects. Each step is both almost completely silent, and thunderously unable to be ignored. She was the most important person in the world and everyone would know it.
You follow, walking too. No bullet would penetrate her suit, no knife, no sword. In the sun she shone, a master of her domain. Insects are called to her, crawl on her, a lord of the flies. She, alone, of the angels of heaven would refuse to bow. Your implant dumps information into your mind during your internet search, ruining your musings. The name for her you were after was Beezelbub, but they were a bad guy in human mythology.
Dust crunches under your boots as you walk on. “Which villain do you want to fight first?”
Austere, Taylor turns to you. “Sorry?”
“You want to stop villains, you said. I can probably find one to save us some walking around.”
Taylor considers the question deeply. “What villains are there?”
You take a breath. “Kaiser, Purity, Night, Fog, Hookwolf, Kreig, Crusader, Cricket, Stormtiger, Rune, Fenja, Menja, Lung, Oni Lee, Bakuda, Skidmark, Mush, Squealer, Trainwreck, Coil, Uber, Leet, Trickster, Sundancer, Ballistic, Genesis, Echidna, Director Piggot, Armsmaster-”
“Uh,” Taylor interrupts me. “I don’t know who most of those people are, but, Armsmaster? He’s the head of the Protectorate.”
“He would let you die for his glory. The Protectorate is a gang with a coat of good paint.”
Taylor reached up and traced the waspoidial jaw guard of her mask with one long, slender finger. “Is that true?”
“You will understand when you find out how corrupt they are at every level, how every decision filters down from the rot at the top, by design, to keep the world spinning in a desperate spiral, to produce a life so horrible that they seem like the better choice.”
Still fiddling with her mask, Taylor continued. “I thought America was the most stable country in the world.”
“By design,” you stress. “You look at the world in a country by country basis, and America is the most stable - the Protectorate looks like it’s working miracles. You have to picture it as a conspiracy the likes of which can barely be imagined pulling the strings of every country to keep this effect going, drawing all stability to the center of their empire. It’s all a PR game for the shadow cabal to retain power. The Protectorate, the PRT, even the Police? None of them are working for your safety, I think you could do a better job.”
The swarm of bugs around us pulsated, coiling, writhing in columns through the air as Taylor stood, motionless, regarding your words carefully, the pitch of the insects wings keening ever higher. She regarded them carefully for a long time before finally speaking. “Oh.”
You know she understands.
“Why?”
“Why what?” You ask.
“Why would I do a better job?”
Taylor stands there, the most important person in the world, and the most humble. To her, no doubt, no matter how large she loomed in the minds of everyone else she would still be so small in the end.
“You’re special. You have integrity unmatched by anyone else in the world. You see an injustice, a tyrant’s clenched fist, and you won’t rest until you’ve stopped them, until you’ve won. It may not seem like it now, but you have that power, and you’re the one who’s going to save the world.”
“Huh. Ok. Metatron…” Taylor turned her gaze to the cloud of dust still hanging in the air, glowing orange in the dawn sun, the oppressive reminder of what the Simurgh had done. She turns to you. “I believe you.”
“Thank you,” you say with feel. “I think-”
The Forge turns, the great galaxial arm of the wheel locking into place with the force of it chipping off another burning shard of potential. Eternal Artistic Edifice. Memories of a far flung future sear into your mind, memories of something human - yet more. There is war, endless bloody war. By cycles you win and lose, killing and killing again, creating works that grow more beautiful and enduring by each turn.
Everything you make is already beautiful, now it will last forever in the darker aesthetic you were musing over earlier. Everything must be redone - everything . You would have to redo it all. You look at Taylor’s suit, now so, so lacking and-
“Are you ok? You kind of just drifted off there.”
“Sorry,” you say. “I was, I mean, I have to remake my armour. Look at it, it’s too bright. But - but it would take too much time, we already have to go fight villains, and I need to make some drinks of seven days rest. I haven’t slept.”
Just saying it drains your energy.
“I’m so tired, but we have so much to do.”
“We could stop and rest,” Taylor suggested. She was too kind. “I haven’t slept either.”
You shake your head. “That can be easily fixed. I just need a few hours to cook and neither of us will ever have to sleep again.”
Taylor, once again, takes a while to respond. “I’m not a big fan of drugs.”
“It’s not drugs,” you say quickly. “It’s a magic potion, or close enough to. Ancient Egyptian alchemy. The potions I can make heal you as well as removing the need for rest.”
“Doesn’t Technomage make tinkertech medicine tablets? There was something in the paper about him healing sick kids.”
He did, did he? There were worse things he could have been doing, but your mouth twists bitterly all the same for the trouble he’s causing you, for the weight of his identity you have to shoulder, carrying all his goods and ills. “This isn’t the same. That would have been Chinese medicinal pills. I promise it will make everything better, and then once I’m fully set up I can get started on projects for you. I can genetically modify insects, I can create wonders. We can save the world.”
Your mouth is dry and you’re panting. Your eyes feel like they’re full of grit, scratching with every blink. Your stomach rebels against its master, still offended by the massive amounts of protein bar you fed it. You can feel cold, putrid sweat under your armpits. In your latest memories you were something like human, but greater. Modified, less burdened by the weight of your flesh. The flashes of what could have been taunt you with their sweetness.
You were born base. If only to be pure.
It feels like madness, your fleeting freedom leading only to the most wretched death. The sin of Greg’s flesh a new plague with each turn, each time a greater lock placed on the fate of the world by ignorant hands. No masters, no kings, the world would know that Taylor Hebert was the most important person. By will of the Celestial Forge it would be done.
Taylor looks at you, then back to the cloud of dust burning rosy in the dawn's light.
“I guess I don’t have a choice.”