A Hard Day's Night [IC]

[alderwitch]

Taylor laughed at that, it was quiet, but a genuine chuckle none the less. She pushed back the sleeves of the sweatshirt. It was too big. That's why it had remained with its tags in the pocket, of course, she'd always meant to return it, "I don't mind the fights. Sometimes, I think I actually enjoy the thrill a little too much. Its when I have to return someone to a world they'd give anything not to have to go back to..."

Her voice trailed off as she watched Gene Wilder's classic comedic performance although her thoughts obviously somewhere else. After a moment, she tilted her head up to look at him with curiosity. "A super-hooker? Was that before or after the hockey mask?"

[Avenger Assembled]

"After. I've always gone out wearing the hockey mask as Avenger. Makes for a more iconic look and keeps people from looking too closely at me." And when I get so excited I pop fang, no one can tell behind the masks. Yeah, I'll just keep that to myself. Besides, that hasn't happened in a while now. "I don't know." He shrugged a little, calling back to that odd first night. "Takes all kinds, I guess. It was out in the Fens. I've always done pretty well there, though they've picked up new protectors lately. I try not to step on anyone's toes."

[alderwitch]

Taylor nodded and tucked her legs up under her, covering a small yawn with the pillow hugged to her chest. Letting her head rest against his shoulder, she gave Jack most of her attention although her eyes remained on the screen. "I never get the territory thing, really, but my patrol is so wide. Worlds wide, really. I can be in Hong Kong in three seconds. Or Erde. Or Anti Earth. Or Hell."

She smiled and glanced up at him, "I keep telling myself that someday I'll use it to spend a week lying on a beach somewhere. Never actually going to happen but it's a nice fantasy."

[Avenger Assembled]

"Do you ever meet yourself?" he asked her curiously. "The chosen of Heshem of the dimension over, trying to keep her dimensional boundaries in line? If there are enough dimensions," he said, hazarding a big guess, "surely there's another one of you out there with the same job. Or just someone else in the same position." He shrugged, and admitted, "Not that I actually know anything about it."

[alderwitch]

Taylor shook her head as she said quietly, "I'm not this dimension's guardian. I'm the guardian for all of the dimensions. There are other Taylor Chuns. There is no other Phantom. When I, well, became what I am now, I was ripped from the fabric of Earth Prime. This is no more my home than any other world, not in a cosmic sense at least."

Shaking off the slight sorrow that tinged her tone, she gave a very brief over-view of the cosmic order, "The guardian of Prime is its master magus, empowered by the Modorus. Heshem's one of that trinity and She hand picked me to run between the worlds and set things the way they're meant to be. Sometimes its moving things, sometimes its moving people. I could exist anywhere, really. I choose to live here."

[Avenger Assembled]

"Oh, okay," said Jack after a moment's pause. "That sounds very difficult." He put his hand on hers, his arm still around her. "I guess I never thought of you having to go through something like that, even with losing all that time with your family. There's nothing worse than being separated from the ones you love like that. At least you've got them back now, though, right?"

[alderwitch]

Taylor went quiet as she cuddled back into him, no longer really seeing the movie. Instead her thoughts went back to her time training with the various mystics and wisemen summoned by Heshem and the endless, endless days.

"They never told me," she said finally, "I don't know how long it took in the void for Heshem to rework the very fabric of my being. I don't know how long I spent after that learning. Long enough that my anger faded but not long enough for the despair to. I asked to go home. I begged. When it didn't work, I swore I'd never beg again. Am I grateful for the time that I have now? Very much so."

Taylor threaded her fingers through his and her hand tightened on his, "I also know how keenly it will hurt to lose them again."

[Avenger Assembled]

"Just be grateful for them. For every hug, every kind word, every moment of love. And anger, too, when that happens, because it always happens with family." He squeezed her hand. "And for everything else, too. I didn't understand the value of that until I had real friends in my life. People I really cared about." He sighed a little, his hand cool in hers. "Oh, um, I guess I should tell you something. Scarab knows. And Dark Star knows. Wesley knows I'm not a man, but not the specifics."

[alderwitch]

Taylor nodded, processing that. She was grateful to move off the topic of family. She'd already cried once tonight and once was more than enough, really. It was clear from the way Jack spoke about his, that his was gone. "No one else does? No one else from the Knights is aware of it?"

She didn't have the emotional energy to dredge up any temper over the subject. "Anything else I should know?"

[Avenger Assembled]

"No one else. I told Scarab because I thought she'd be able to figure it out on her own, and Wesley _did_ figure it out on his own...and Dark Star found me, and helped me once, when there was no hiding my true nature." He smiled thinly. "Is there anything else you want to know?" he asked her, looking at her honestly. "You know what I am, and what I'm capable of. And what I don't do."

[alderwitch]

Taylor tipped her head back to look at him. Giving up on the movie, she shifted her legs accross his lap so that she could see his face better. After a moment to gather her thoughts, she realized that she had a lot of questions, actually, "Were you ever going to tell me?"

Finding out in the heat of the moment she really didn't think had been a planned action, "You do set off my sixth sense as something magical but I never tried to divine what you were. I have to cast spells to get anything specific."

[Avenger Assembled]

"I don't know," Jack answered after a while, his face hard to read as he looked down at her. "I can't...I can't answer that," he admitted. "I'm used to it being death to say that to anyone. Death." He stroked her hair softly, gently. "The vampires of Freedom City live in a place where gods can fly down and tear us apart at will to the cheers of the masses. We live because we don't talk."

[alderwitch]

Taylor's eyes closed but she didn't pull away from the gentle touch. That hurt but she gave him points for not providing some pretty lies. If she had him in an honest mood, she might as well ask.

"Were you telling me the truth when you asked me out? Was it for the reasons you told me?" Taylor asked, her voice perhaps a little husky with emotion but the dark eyes she lifted to his face were blessedly dry. "What is this, to you?"

[Avenger Assembled]

"Not everything I do is some misguided attempt to cling to the fading embers of humanity," said Jack, looking down at her seriously. "I like you, Taylor. I asked you out because I like you. You're basically a normal person doing a huge job and that's...something I can identify with." He thought for a minute, then added, "Our relationship means knowing there's someone out there I can depend on, and who I know can depend on me. And, as long as we're being honest, I really like the way your costume shows off your legs."

[alderwitch]

That startled a laugh out of Taylor even as she blushed, "Its not the most practical of outfits but its all I can summon. Unless I've stuck a change of clothes in the void, its all I've got to work with. Its self cleaning and repairing at least."

She placed her other hand over his, waming his fingertips between her palms. "I'd rather have asked than have wondered. It's a lot to take in and I'm not exactly firing on all cylinders."

After a moment she asked curiously, "Just how old are you?"

[Avenger Assembled]

"Twenty-seven. No, twenty-eight. I don't keep track of birthdays much these days." He caught her look and added, "I...died about four years ago. Precocious little scamp, ain't I?" His mouth quirked in a half-smile. "Powerful bloodline. Or so I've been told, anyway. I've never met anyone higher up the food chain than my dam, Claudia. And she told me a lot of lies."

[alderwitch]

Taylor smiled reluctantly, "I forgot my own birthday last year. Thankfully Jackson warned me about the surprise party before I walked into it. This year I wrote it on the calendar."

She looked up, curiously, "Are you close to her?"

[Avenger Assembled]

Jack made a small noise; one that might have been a laugh. "Claudia likes her men pretty, young, and not terribly bright. I was perfect for her. She said so, and said we'd make a great pair." He shook his head. "But when I had autonomy again, and could take care of myself, I wasn't so attractive. And after we broke up, I was with other people, developed a reputation as a sissy...and then I assassinated Melinda and took control. I know she didn't go with me when all that happened."

[alderwitch]

"But she survived the whole power struggle." That much she could inferl. Considering that vampire politics usually involved a great deal of bloodshed, that was somewhat surprising. Taylor frowned slightly, trying to follow his explanation, "A reputation as a sissy? Among them you mean?"

[Eviscerus]

Back at Ev Prep, Zealot lay on his bed. Soaking in the bruises, the pain, letting it become part of him. Too many people tried to distance themselves from their pain, especially when it came at the result of another, but not Victor. To truly overcome it, you had to make it part of you. Victor remembered a quote from Nietzche... "Amor Fati."... Love fate. Whatever happened to you, you had to fall in love with it. To make it your own, and be one with it. Then you have power over it, and it is not your master, but you, it's.

Victor smiled to himself and reached up onto the dresser, and slowly pulled before him a picture. A picture he'd stolen, a peice, he knew, of the person he'd kidnapped. The tainted harlot's picture in his hands, with her smiling face, reminded Victor of his failure. Reminded him of the score he had to settle with the abomination and his mistress.

"Soon, I will have you again, foul harlot," Zealot whispered to the smiling face in the photograph. "Soon I will make you give yourself to me. I saw your weakness in your eyes. I saw what you truly fear. I will make that fear my own. I will take your fear inside me, and in doing so, become your fear. You will know true pain, my tainted one. You will know true fear. And I will show it to you." With wild thoughts racing through his mind, and pain lacing his body, Victor fell asleep. A small, ugly smile crept across his face as he dreamed dreams only lunatics could guess at.

[Avenger Assembled]

"Killing is neither approved of nor frowned on among vampires," said Jack quietly, as if he was talking about different people. "It's just something you do. Melinda's policy was total freedom, so long as you didn't bring the superheroes down on your heads. Actually announcing that you won't kill, though, that's something different. I had a...reputation for a while."

[alderwitch]

"I'm not sure that's such a bad reputation to have," Taylor said consideringly as she played with the fringe on the throw pillow with her fingertips, smoothing the strands out so they lay flat against her leg, "If nothing else, you were underestimated. That can be handy."

Taylor smiled wryly, "It's not a problem I have with Phantom. I mean, if nothing else I know how to project confidence that I don't always feel. But as just, you know, me. No one ever thinks anything of me like this. Even after breaking my boss's nose, he doesn't think I could take him in a 'real' fight."

[Avenger Assembled]

"I don't underestimate you," said Jack reassuringly. "I've seen you fight. You've blasted your way through gods and monsters without batting an eye. I certainly wouldn't want to get blasted by you." He shrugged a little. "You don't want to seperate your identities like that. Trust me. It gives you a conflict." He grinned wryly. "Phantom is as tough as Taylor."

[alderwitch]

Taylor gave an uncomfortable little shrug and admitted, "It's hard not to think of them as seperate people. I mean, I talk differently, I walk differently. I have to tell myself not to phase, not to cast. It just feels like one more mask so often."

She let her cheek rest against his shoulder and said quietly, "Only somedays I'm not sure which one's really me. If any of them are."

[Avenger Assembled]

He leaned against her, reaching down to take her hand. "Avenger and Phantom can't do this, so I certainly hope you're Taylor, not Phantom." He leaned close and kissed her, softly on the cheek. "And they certainly can't do that. Not without being really cold, anyway. They're not people, Taylor, they're just masks we put on so we can do the superhero thing. The power is what's inside you."