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DUET

It was late and it was loud in the Fortress of Evening. This wasn't a surprising state of affairs, especially after a day like the one that had just passed. Just hours before, in the heart of the city, the combined forces of The Odds and their allies in the new Section P had clashed with and bested an army of sophisticated AUMs (androids-of-unknown-manufacture) that had swarmed the UN. It had been a chaotic scene, but the superteams had worked together smoothly, winning the day with no casualties and minimal property damage.

This was Consequence Burden's life now. And for the most part she really liked it.

After a prolonged, if understandable, adjustment period in which the young woman of the 19th century acclimated herself to the 21st, Quincy had not only reclaimed her role as the legendary masked vigilante The Phantom Pistoleer but, with her newfound powers of selective intangibility and extra-dimensional "side-stepping," had proven herself a valuable member of the team that had adopted her. They had all, each in their own way, supported, guided and encouraged her. Admittedly, there were aspects of their collective lifestyle that took some getting used to, especially through the lens of the much more outwardly puritanical era to which she was born, but, at the end of the day, Quincy knew these people to be good, right-minded, even noble. They were her friends. And that in itself was odd.

She had been a loner for so much of her life. After the murder of her family and her subsequent mission of vengeance as the Pistoleer, Quincy had led a simple life shared simply with just two people; her friend Clint Albright and her partner/wife Thirsty Faun at Morning. The little town of Ghostwood, Texas knew her only as their shy and unassuming music teacher; one of those hardly noticed faces on the street. One of the quiet ones.

Well, now she had found herself amidst a group of folks who were anything but. From the penthouse's "rec room" came the raucous laughter of a large number of superfolk unwinding, some with the aid of alcohol, but most just feeling the buzz of another successful call to arms. Quincy could make out the higher, more refined tones of her friend Centennia blending with the throatier cackle of her girlfriend Kate Five. The chatter of Aideen and the Blue Knight having an animated but civil discussion about Irish-English politics. The purring of BurstLion as Jung-la idly scratched behind her feline ears. Rodney and Armstrong trading quips for the amusement of Professor Madison. The massive rustle of Merv's wings as he carried Kimberly, Kate's twin sister, out of the open window for a romantic flight about the city. And, from down the hall, the muffled but clear enough sounds of the group's leader Captain Evening being shared between Katie and Jesse, respectively Ionic Angel and the Wicked Witch, none other that the teenaged daughter of one of The Odds' greatest enemies, Dr. Brain. The situation of an adult man having sex with two legal-aged but teen girls might be concerning to society at large if not for the fact that the pair had initiated the encounter and the good Captain was nothing if not accommodating.

Quincy could hear all this as she made her unassuming retreat to the study. It was on the next floor down, next to the team's official conference room and computer and research labs. It was a handsome room, paneled in dark wood and three of the four walls were floor-to-ceiling library shelves full of books covering practically any subject one could conceive. The room also, for a couple of months now, doubled as a music room. The Captain, in one of his many shows of magnanimity, had installed a beautiful black-lacquered baby grand piano expressly for Quincy's benefit.

She sat on the bench and reached out for the keys. She didn't have a particular piece in mind but wasn't surprised when her fingers began playing Beethoven of their own volition. A soft but rhythmic passage that she'd always enjoyed. It was an idle exercise, soothing and uncomplicated, but it still took a few moments to register that she had an audience of one. Without interrupting her recital, Quincy looked over to the door where the slight but athletically built Japanese woman who fought alongside The Odds under the name Battle Angel was standing.

"Why, howdy, Taki," she said with a warm smile that showcased the adorable gap in her front teeth.

Taki dipped her head in the slightest, implied bow, her face suggesting no emotion whatsoever as she spoke.

"Concerto number three," she said.

Quincy nodded, "Yup. Second movement. I'm glad there're still folks who know their Beethoven."

That was the entirety of their exchange for the next few moments as Quincy played to the end of the section. She pivoted on the stool to better converse with Taki.

"Sounds a little lonely without an orchestra."

"You play beautifully, Quincy-san," Taki said with an assertive inflection that was rare from her and Quincy found herself as flattered by this as if Ludwig himself had given her a thumbs up.

"W-well, thank you, Taki," she stumbled, "Thank you mightily." It was more than the compliment that was throwing her. Quincy couldn't deny that she was drawn to Taki, to something behind her unusual prairie green eyes that both enticed and intimidated her. Even among the powerful and striking beauties of The Odds, all of whom seemed to be sexually and romantically bisexual and a few of whom had openly intimated that they would be willing to share their beds with Quincy, Taki was the one who fascinated her. Partially because Taki was the first Japanese person she had ever known (outside of a handful of itinerate Chinese railroad workers she had once aided in Dallas, Quincy's exposure to the Asiatic peoples was nonexistent), but mostly for far less generalized reasons. It was because of the magnetic core at the center of the woman. Taki was the stillness amongst the chaos, the one who asked for nothing and offered nothing. She was the one whose smile was a rare gift and who spoke only when words needed to be said. Just as one recognizes one's own kind, Quincy knew Taki was another of the quiet ones.

Hoping none of this undeniable fascination radiated from her, Quincy speedily picked up the conversational thread. "I find it restorative - playing music, I mean. I only got to play for Thirsty Faun a few times, since she wasn't a public part of Consequence Burden's life, but I loved watching her listen to the piano. Her people weren't familiar with white men's instruments and I'll never forget the way she responded to the sound. She called it the 'laughter of the brook.'"

"Yes," Taki nodded again, "like water over stones. I can hear that."

"Exactly. As much as I live for helpin' folks and seeing justice done, I honestly don't think I could live without music. Do you have something like that?"

"I did, once."

"Do you play any instruments, Taki?"

"I p- I used to play violin."

It was no spoken agreement, but this scene repeated over the weeks that followed. In her downtime, Quincy often found herself at the piano with Taki as audience. But the silent, serious woman no longer remained in the doorway, instead she moved into the room, gradually inching closer until she became a fixture at the piano, leaning against its black lacquered side and watching Quincy's fingers flit through their graceful motions, the smallest of smiles on her face.

And they would talk.

Some of what Taki revealed in their conversations was already known to Quincy. The fearsome warrior woman's lingering heartbreak from the unconventional loss of her great love, Kate, to trusted teammate and friend Centennia. A situation all involved regretted for its bluntness and suddenness, but it had been the external work of a demonic adversary who had made the womens' deepest desires - for each other, apparently - surface. Taki was present and had been forced to watch as the two of them came together. Literally. And that was when she realized where she truly ranked in Kate's heart. Her recovery, such as it was, was quiet and internalized, but she timidly shared with Quincy how deep the hurt ran.

There in the relative quiet of the study, she had also revealed even more intimate secrets. They both did, in a free-flowing give and take. Quincy would speak of her lonely days and grief following the murder of her family, Taki would haltingly speak in her occasionally faltering English of the terror of her childhood as first a sexual slave and then an assassin for the Yakuza. Sympathy swelled within Quincy for her friend, coupled with the respect she felt towards anyone who could survive such soul-warping horrors. But the impact of those years before Taki won her freedom in an appropriately blood-soaked fashion was revealed to Quincy as Taki spoke of the two aspects of herself that shared her brain, both Takako Yoshida, but each distinct. The one that most knew the best was The Girl In The Cage - the gentle, loving, feeling young woman sitting beside her, shyly avoiding eye contact. The one that blushed at the slightest touch of another's hand.

But then there was also the Yakuza's creation and The Girl's protector, The Killer In The Veil. That was the version of Taki that wore the Battle Angel's armor, cutting through her enemies with blade and bullet while wearing a cold, flat expression like the visage of a statue of some harsh, judgmental goddess. Quincy had seen The Killer in action and, though she was a battle-hardened woman herself, she felt a chill at Battle Angel's emotionless ferocity. Taki explained that she knew that both The Girl and The Killer were one and the same, two sides of herself, but she understood it to be an unhealthy state of being. Especially disquieting were those times the two aspects spoke to each other inside her head.

Taki would reveal such things about herself and then meet Quincy's eyes, as if checking to see if she had confessed one thing too many, but each time she would find Quincy still beside her, eyes brimming with empathy.

Certainly, Quincy couldn't match the darkness and degradation of Taki's past, but she knew this was no competition. What she could do, what she did, was relate to life of bloodshed, loss and divided self. As the Phantom Pistoleer, Consequence Burden had effectively remolded herself as a figure of blazing purpose and hyper-competence - a male figure. It was what she had to do, what the time demanded, but she amazed herself at how capably she could shift between the demure music teacher and the ghostly rider of the plains. As for which role she felt most represented her true self - well, she had never come to a solid answer to that question. But it was thanks to that vagueness that she could empathize with Taki's bifurcated soul and she hoped her friend might still find some peace within such an existence. Quincy found herself praying to her father's God and the many spirits of her wife's people for such a peace to come to Takako Yoshida.

The steady deepening of their friendship was cause for both joy and concern within Quincy. While she felt close with her teammates, specifically with Centennia who was very much like a sister to her, Quincy had not experienced anything akin to the pull she felt towards Taki in a very long time. Not since Thirsty Faun, her wife, who may have been dead to the world for nearly seventy years, but who lived on in Quincy's heart and mind as a fresh memory. That memory provided an unwelcome note of conflict and unreasoning guilt into this burgeoning relationship. For, unplanned and unbidden, that's what this was becoming: a relationship.

In the spaces between tumult and clash, in the quieter corners of a masked man's penthouse headquarters, these two women from two very different places and times were gradually finding a common song, something unique to the combination of their vulnerabilities and strengths, two lines sung in an unlikely harmony.

To be continued...

Description
body div#devskin0 hr { }

DUET

It was late and it was loud in the Fortress of Evening. This wasn't a surprising state of affairs, especially after a day like the one that had just passed. Just hours before, in the heart of the city, the combined forces of The Odds and their allies in the new Section P had clashed with and bested an army of sophisticated AUMs (androids-of-unknown-manufacture) that had swarmed the UN. It had been a chaotic scene, but the superteams had worked together smoothly, winning the day with no casualties and minimal property damage.

This was Consequence Burden's life now. And for the most part she really liked it.

After a prolonged, if understandable, adjustment period in which the young woman of the 19th century acclimated herself to the 21st, Quincy had not only reclaimed her role as the legendary masked vigilante The Phantom Pistoleer but, with her newfound powers of selective intangibility and extra-dimensional "side-stepping," had proven herself a valuable member of the team that had adopted her. They had all, each in their own way, supported, guided and encouraged her. Admittedly, there were aspects of their collective lifestyle that took some getting used to, especially through the lens of the much more outwardly puritanical era to which she was born, but, at the end of the day, Quincy knew these people to be good, right-minded, even noble. They were her friends. And that in itself was odd.

She had been a loner for so much of her life. After the murder of her family and her subsequent mission of vengeance as the Pistoleer, Quincy had led a simple life shared simply with just two people; her friend Clint Albright and her partner/wife Thirsty Faun at Morning. The little town of Ghostwood, Texas knew her only as their shy and unassuming music teacher; one of those hardly noticed faces on the street. One of the quiet ones.

Well, now she had found herself amidst a group of folks who were anything but. From the penthouse's "rec room" came the raucous laughter of a large number of superfolk unwinding, some with the aid of alcohol, but most just feeling the buzz of another successful call to arms. Quincy could make out the higher, more refined tones of her friend Centennia blending with the throatier cackle of her girlfriend Kate Five. The chatter of Aideen and the Blue Knight having an animated but civil discussion about Irish-English politics. The purring of BurstLion as Jung-la idly scratched behind her feline ears. Rodney and Armstrong trading quips for the amusement of Professor Madison. The massive rustle of Merv's wings as he carried Kimberly, Kate's twin sister, out of the open window for a romantic flight about the city. And, from down the hall, the muffled but clear enough sounds of the group's leader Captain Evening being shared between Katie and Jesse, respectively Ionic Angel and the Wicked Witch, none other that the teenaged daughter of one of The Odds' greatest enemies, Dr. Brain. The situation of an adult man having sex with two legal-aged but teen girls might be concerning to society at large if not for the fact that the pair had initiated the encounter and the good Captain was nothing if not accommodating.

Quincy could hear all this as she made her unassuming retreat to the study. It was on the next floor down, next to the team's official conference room and computer and research labs. It was a handsome room, paneled in dark wood and three of the four walls were floor-to-ceiling library shelves full of books covering practically any subject one could conceive. The room also, for a couple of months now, doubled as a music room. The Captain, in one of his many shows of magnanimity, had installed a beautiful black-lacquered baby grand piano expressly for Quincy's benefit.

She sat on the bench and reached out for the keys. She didn't have a particular piece in mind but wasn't surprised when her fingers began playing Beethoven of their own volition. A soft but rhythmic passage that she'd always enjoyed. It was an idle exercise, soothing and uncomplicated, but it still took a few moments to register that she had an audience of one. Without interrupting her recital, Quincy looked over to the door where the slight but athletically built Japanese woman who fought alongside The Odds under the name Battle Angel was standing.

"Why, howdy, Taki," she said with a warm smile that showcased the adorable gap in her front teeth.

Taki dipped her head in the slightest, implied bow, her face suggesting no emotion whatsoever as she spoke.

"Concerto number three," she said.

Quincy nodded, "Yup. Second movement. I'm glad there're still folks who know their Beethoven."

That was the entirety of their exchange for the next few moments as Quincy played to the end of the section. She pivoted on the stool to better converse with Taki.

"Sounds a little lonely without an orchestra."

"You play beautifully, Quincy-san," Taki said with an assertive inflection that was rare from her and Quincy found herself as flattered by this as if Ludwig himself had given her a thumbs up.

"W-well, thank you, Taki," she stumbled, "Thank you mightily." It was more than the compliment that was throwing her. Quincy couldn't deny that she was drawn to Taki, to something behind her unusual prairie green eyes that both enticed and intimidated her. Even among the powerful and striking beauties of The Odds, all of whom seemed to be sexually and romantically bisexual and a few of whom had openly intimated that they would be willing to share their beds with Quincy, Taki was the one who fascinated her. Partially because Taki was the first Japanese person she had ever known (outside of a handful of itinerate Chinese railroad workers she had once aided in Dallas, Quincy's exposure to the Asiatic peoples was nonexistent), but mostly for far less generalized reasons. It was because of the magnetic core at the center of the woman. Taki was the stillness amongst the chaos, the one who asked for nothing and offered nothing. She was the one whose smile was a rare gift and who spoke only when words needed to be said. Just as one recognizes one's own kind, Quincy knew Taki was another of the quiet ones.

Hoping none of this undeniable fascination radiated from her, Quincy speedily picked up the conversational thread. "I find it restorative - playing music, I mean. I only got to play for Thirsty Faun a few times, since she wasn't a public part of Consequence Burden's life, but I loved watching her listen to the piano. Her people weren't familiar with white men's instruments and I'll never forget the way she responded to the sound. She called it the 'laughter of the brook.'"

"Yes," Taki nodded again, "like water over stones. I can hear that."

"Exactly. As much as I live for helpin' folks and seeing justice done, I honestly don't think I could live without music. Do you have something like that?"

"I did, once."

"Do you play any instruments, Taki?"

"I p- I used to play violin."

It was no spoken agreement, but this scene repeated over the weeks that followed. In her downtime, Quincy often found herself at the piano with Taki as audience. But the silent, serious woman no longer remained in the doorway, instead she moved into the room, gradually inching closer until she became a fixture at the piano, leaning against its black lacquered side and watching Quincy's fingers flit through their graceful motions, the smallest of smiles on her face.

And they would talk.

Some of what Taki revealed in their conversations was already known to Quincy. The fearsome warrior woman's lingering heartbreak from the unconventional loss of her great love, Kate, to trusted teammate and friend Centennia. A situation all involved regretted for its bluntness and suddenness, but it had been the external work of a demonic adversary who had made the womens' deepest desires - for each other, apparently - surface. Taki was present and had been forced to watch as the two of them came together. Literally. And that was when she realized where she truly ranked in Kate's heart. Her recovery, such as it was, was quiet and internalized, but she timidly shared with Quincy how deep the hurt ran.

There in the relative quiet of the study, she had also revealed even more intimate secrets. They both did, in a free-flowing give and take. Quincy would speak of her lonely days and grief following the murder of her family, Taki would haltingly speak in her occasionally faltering English of the terror of her childhood as first a sexual slave and then an assassin for the Yakuza. Sympathy swelled within Quincy for her friend, coupled with the respect she felt towards anyone who could survive such soul-warping horrors. But the impact of those years before Taki won her freedom in an appropriately blood-soaked fashion was revealed to Quincy as Taki spoke of the two aspects of herself that shared her brain, both Takako Yoshida, but each distinct. The one that most knew the best was The Girl In The Cage - the gentle, loving, feeling young woman sitting beside her, shyly avoiding eye contact. The one that blushed at the slightest touch of another's hand.

But then there was also the Yakuza's creation and The Girl's protector, The Killer In The Veil. That was the version of Taki that wore the Battle Angel's armor, cutting through her enemies with blade and bullet while wearing a cold, flat expression like the visage of a statue of some harsh, judgmental goddess. Quincy had seen The Killer in action and, though she was a battle-hardened woman herself, she felt a chill at Battle Angel's emotionless ferocity. Taki explained that she knew that both The Girl and The Killer were one and the same, two sides of herself, but she understood it to be an unhealthy state of being. Especially disquieting were those times the two aspects spoke to each other inside her head.

Taki would reveal such things about herself and then meet Quincy's eyes, as if checking to see if she had confessed one thing too many, but each time she would find Quincy still beside her, eyes brimming with empathy.

Certainly, Quincy couldn't match the darkness and degradation of Taki's past, but she knew this was no competition. What she could do, what she did, was relate to life of bloodshed, loss and divided self. As the Phantom Pistoleer, Consequence Burden had effectively remolded herself as a figure of blazing purpose and hyper-competence - a male figure. It was what she had to do, what the time demanded, but she amazed herself at how capably she could shift between the demure music teacher and the ghostly rider of the plains. As for which role she felt most represented her true self - well, she had never come to a solid answer to that question. But it was thanks to that vagueness that she could empathize with Taki's bifurcated soul and she hoped her friend might still find some peace within such an existence. Quincy found herself praying to her father's God and the many spirits of her wife's people for such a peace to come to Takako Yoshida.

The steady deepening of their friendship was cause for both joy and concern within Quincy. While she felt close with her teammates, specifically with Centennia who was very much like a sister to her, Quincy had not experienced anything akin to the pull she felt towards Taki in a very long time. Not since Thirsty Faun, her wife, who may have been dead to the world for nearly seventy years, but who lived on in Quincy's heart and mind as a fresh memory. That memory provided an unwelcome note of conflict and unreasoning guilt into this burgeoning relationship. For, unplanned and unbidden, that's what this was becoming: a relationship.

In the spaces between tumult and clash, in the quieter corners of a masked man's penthouse headquarters, these two women from two very different places and times were gradually finding a common song, something unique to the combination of their vulnerabilities and strengths, two lines sung in an unlikely harmony.

To be continued...