Rider Fic

        Rider stood outside the flower shop, already dreading the coming minutes as the spirits inside her began to stir.  The fact that this happened every single time that she did this didn’t help, since there was nothing worse than anticipating a pain that came as sure as the executioner’s blade.  Still, this was her duty, and pain had never made her go back on her word before and she certainly didn’t intend to start now.

        Taking a deep breath, she strode forward and pushed open the door, wincing as the flood of color and fragrance that the shop barely contained washed over her.  The reaction was instantaneous.  The murmurs of long dead heroes grew into a screeching, howling symphony; dozens, hundreds of memories came crashing against her mind.  Each flower and scent called to her, laden with meaning from a corpse’s previous life.  Her mind reeled under the onslaught, but of all of her traits, Rider valued her stubbornness and endurance the most, and she put them to good use.

        She swayed in the doorway as she fought the spirits back, her body twitching and jerking as each spirit clawed for some control, but she finally managed to push them back and focus on a single, quiet whisper.  One of the oldest that still lingered inside of her, and the only reason that she was putting herself through this.  She moved through the crowded shop quickly, knowing that every second wasted here was dangerous, and grabbed the flowers the voice asked for without hesitation.  Marigold first, then primrose, and finally a sprig of rosemary in full bloom.

        No matter her speed, though, her body was still shaking by the time that she handed her selections to the florist behind the counter.  The old woman looked at her bouquet gravely, gently stroking the blossoms as she seemed to ponder the meaning of such a grouping, before reaching to the shelves behind her and picking up a delicate glass vase.  “The vase is on the house dear, I just hope this bouquet helps whoever it’s for,” she said firmly as Rider tried to protest, and rung up the purchase before the hero could argue the point.

        The immense pressure of the spirits screaming at her finally decided the matter, and Rider nodded and quickly handed her card over, each second spent waiting a torture.  The moment that the card was back in her hand and the flowers were placed in the vase, she grabbed her purchase and staggered towards the door, her world narrowed to keeping upright and moving forward as the spirits’ voices rose up in a final, terrible crescendo.

        Rider barely heard the ring of the store’s bell as she finally made it out of the shop, and it took a few ragged breaths before the voices finally began to recede into their usual muttering.  “Every single time they do this.  It’s like we haven’t done it a thousand times before,” she said with a wan smile, the lack of pain so wonderful it was practically pleasure.

        The whisper that she had been listening to in the shop had grown stronger, the bouquet in her hands seeming to give it a focus that the years inside of her had slowly worn away.  It tugged on her mind, insistent as it pointed her to a nearby street, and she allowed it to guide her with small snatches of memories.  The duality of thought was almost comfortable as she walked, the sidewalks simultaneously completely foreign and the path towards comfort, towards home.

        The other spirits seemed to pull back as the whisper she was following grew strident and powerful.  The further she walked the stronger it grew, and the movement of her legs and her gait was rapidly slipping into that of a person long dead.  By the time that she finally caught sight of their goal she was only just keeping the soul from overpowering her own, memories, and a flurry of memories, tastes, and sounds from a life that she hadn’t lived washed through her.  She watched her body stop as the spirit came to the porch of the house that it had so desperately sought, and Rider felt her hands tighten around the slim glass vase on their own accord.

        Every year they had to do this dance, she though with an almost gentle smile.  Rider pushed the soul back with loving care, then goaded her unwilling body forward onto the porch.  The sheer adoration and longing the soul radiated quieted its brothers and sisters, and the only pain and desire she could feel was from the dead hero who had brought her here.  She had to gently turn away the urge to open the door, to enter and truly be home for the first time in decades, and instead reverently placed the vase on the porch and rung the doorbell.  The familiar heartbreak reverberated through her body as she quickly stepped off the porch and moved to get out of sight as soon as she could, but she granted the soul one last boon.

        Instead of walking away like she should have, like what would have been better for the spirit if she was honest, she walked around the side of the house and leaned heavily against its corner.  Rider allowed the dead hero to listen, to wait with bated breath as the solid clicks of locks being undone, the squeaking of hinges floated through the night; and then, as it was every year, the agonized sob from the recipient of the boquet.  The soul that had been so powerful only minutes ago fled, its voice fading again into a whisper as sweet pain burned in her chest.

        She fought against the emotions as hard as she could, but tears that weren’t her own still managed to make their way down her cheeks.  Fighting back with all of the resolve that she could, she resisted her body’s demand to bawl.  “Erika Klein, you aren’t forgotten,” she intoned to herself, resurrecting the name of a hero that the world had forgotten before walking into the night.

 

        Rider sighed as she watched the sun start to dip below the horizon.  This task had taken up her entire day off, and she wasn’t likely to get one for quite a while with all of the disasters popping up in the city of late.  Even with Shadow Man’s help, hunting this name down had taken hours.  Well, that and some fairly illegal digging through a few databases to find out what the target had changed her name to, but the less the government and the hero organization knew about that, the better.   It was a damned good thing that Shadow didn’t mind accruing favors from her with the constant work she did to bring some measure of peace to the souls that inhabited her body.

        She glanced at a fairly upscale looking store as she strode down the street and made a mental note to stop by it on the way back home.  There was sure to be some fancy candy or some kind of interesting treat that she could pay off her partner in crime with, and she was fairly certain she was going to need a strong bottle of something to be able to fall asleep tonight once this mission was done.  The voices of the slain began to mutter and snarl as she caught sight of the location that Shadow Man had provided, a large apartment block that towered over the surrounding buildings, though she did her best to ignore them as she focused on one soul in particular.  He was a fairly new one that hadn’t quite lost his personality yet, and she was doing this for him.

        Rider felt the nervousness radiating off the spirit as she walked closer to the apartments in the tightness of her legs and the shortness of her breath.  The fear made the other souls perk up and start clamoring for revenge, which she crushed with ruthless efficiency.  She wouldn’t ruin this moment for him, even if she had to pay for it later.  Her eyes were drawn to a small playground in front of the building, specifically to a group of children who were playing what looked to be an intense game of tag.  Her eyes skimmed over the adults who were watching over the kids, the soul she was working with not recognizing any of the tired faces, but it felt like a hammer had just slammed into her chest when she saw a shock of black hair amongst the crowd of children.

        The dead hero immediately urged her forward, and Rider noted with a wry smile that her hands were clammy with nervousness.  She wasn’t sure whether to call her powers a blessing or a curse, but they never ceased to amaze her.  The game of tag ground to a halt as she drew closer, most of the kid’s jaws dropping as they recognized her armor and the flames that danced around her.  It was one face in particular that kept drawing her eyes though, the child with an unruly shock of black hair.  She couldn’t look away as she recalled holding him in arms that weren’t her own after he was born, of raising him, of watching him leave with his mother after the divorce.

        She managed to keep her stoic expression only from years of dealing with tortured souls screaming for vengeance, but it was a close thing to resist rushing forward and sweeping the child into her arms as she strode towards the group.   One of the older girls, practically shaking from excitement, asked, “Whoa, are you really Rider?  I never thought I’d get to see and S-Class in real life!”

        The other kids, shaken out of their shock by the girl’s voice, began to shout out questions as well, anything ranging from which villains she had defeated today to what her favorite ice cream was.  The tide of enthusiasm was as overwhelming as her souls on a bad day, which was made all the worse by the fact that she had no idea what to do with kids, and it was only a flash of inspiration from the soul she had been working with that saved her.  “Um, yes, I am Rider, and I’m here on an important mission.  I need to talk to…Jeremy about something that could save the city,” she said, letting the hero in her head supply her target’s name.

        A space immediately cleared around Jeremy, and his friends looked at his as if he had simultaneously won the lottery, a trip to the international space station, and a rainbow-farting unicorn.  To be fair, Jeremy himself had an expression that closely resembled a fish out of water, but he followed after Rider when she walked towards a patch of grass that was a distance from the playground.  “I-I’m a really big fan,” he said quietly as they walked, “You always worked with my dad a lot, so I’d see you when you guys fought together.  It always looked really cool.”

        Rider awkwardly nodded, not entirely sure what to say to the child of a hero that she had failed to protect.  Once they had gone far enough that they wouldn’t be overheard, she dropped the heavy duffel bag she had been carrying to the ground and pulled a pair of baseball gloves before tossing one to the boy.  “Your…your father was a good man.  I enjoyed serving with him,” she said stiffly, before slipping the unfamiliar glove onto her hand, “He asked if I could do this for him in case the worst happened.”

        Jeremy stared at her, clinging to his glove as if it would keep him safe from the feelings roaring across his face.  To Rider’s horror, tears began leaking from the corners of his eyes.  Fuck, this is why she hated talking to kids, she always messed it up, she thought desperately.  The other souls began to jeer at her pitiful attempts to make things right, but the soul of the boy’s father roared until they were silent.  He then turned and applied a gentle pressure to her mind.  “It’s okay, I can take it from here,” she felt her mouth whisper, and it was almost with a giddy sense of relief that she let him take over.

        Her body stood shakily, and her lips pulled into a lopsided grin as the soul said, “Want to throw the ball around a bit?  It’d make me feel better.”

        The voice was certainly hers, but the cadence was all wrong.  It managed to get through to Jeremy though, and the boy fiercely nodded before wiping the tears and snot from his face.  Rider felt unspeakably clumsy as she threw the ball for the first time, her body completely unused to the motion, though it finally gave the kid a reason to smile at least.  The dead hero that was sharing her skull seemed to take pity on her and guided her arms and legs, and she and Jeremy were soon sending the ball sailing to each other by the light of the setting sun.

        It was only when the flaming disk had fully sunk below the horizon that the spell was broken, the fading of the light seemingly making Jeremy realize how late it was.  He hesitated for a moment, glancing sadly at the apartment block before rushing in and throwing himself into Rider’s arms.  “I-I’ve got to go, my mom’s going to be back soon, and she wants me inside,” he murmured softly, “Thanks for doing that for dad.”

        The sudden stab of pain in her heart was expected, but none the better for the anticipation.  She let the dead hero hug his child for one last time before gently taking control of her body once more.  Her mouth was the last thing that she claimed though, and the spirit gently said to Jeremy, “Keep strong, kiddo.  Your mom needs you more than ever now.  Don’t worry about your dad though, he’s happy where he is, and so, so proud of you.”

        Jeremy turned and rushed towards his home, obviously trying to hide his tears, and Rider watched him flee with a strange mixture of love and melancholy as the spirit of his father faded back to his place with the other voices.  She almost hated doing this for the spirits, these little acts of love only seemed to bring pain.  It was closure of a kind though, and it was the least she could do when she couldn’t avenge their deaths properly.

        She watched until the boy disappeared into the apartment before wearily turning to head back home.  The store could wait until some other time, she was just so damned tired right now.  “Daniel Bolender, you are not forgotten,” she murmured, desperately hoping that Jeremy looked back on this memory as a good one.

 

        Rider had always hated the countryside.  It reminded her of how much had been lost in those crazy years, and the quiet always got to her.  When there was no one else around, the voices were always more strident, more demanding.  She could hear each individual scream for vengeance and closure that they had been denied.  Still, just because she disliked nature, she wouldn’t let that get in the way of her duty.

        She had started out fairly early, but it had still taken her ages to walk out this far, and she was just starting to hit the ragged buildings and ruins that made up the edge of this part of the city when it was starting to move into late afternoon.  Her pace wasn’t lagging though, she was nearing the spot she had been hunting for, and the pain and exertion gave her something to focus on other than the constant sniping from the souls that shared her body.

        A few faded signs passed by, the shattered concrete of an old gas station, and then the familiar copse of trees that she had been searching for.  She pushed her way through the dense foliage, tripping more than once on the closely packed roots, before finally breaking into a clearing.  The beauty of the view struck her as it did every time.  She was in a clearing on a small cliff overlooking a valley, and the descending sun painted the rises and folds in the land in gold and shadow.  

        Two voices pushed forward at once, and she smiled as her body took a few tentative steps.  It was always a pleasure to watch this pair work.  Her body began to grow more graceful and sure as it stepped through an intricate form, her arms and legs weaving lashing out with blows that were almost elegant in their perfection.  With a surety that spoke of years of practice that she didn’t have, she switched the style of her form subtly into a response of the first form.

        She felt the pangs of incompleteness from both of the spirits that guided her with a sympathy that she didn’t usually allow herself.  The form was a two person one, and she could switch between the roles effortlessly, but not without a pang of regret, an ache at the absence of a partner to do it with.  Rider did her best to keep these feelings at bay as the couple worked through their forms though, not wanting to burden them with regret or the worst of their memories.

        They had fought so hard and so long in their lives, it was the least she could do to give them this little bit of happiness.  She wouldn’t ruin this for them.  Holding back the other spirits was relatively easy, but her brow furrowed as she took the impact of a memory from two different perspectives.  Claws ripped into her flesh, her ribs splintering under the blow and tearing into her lungs like jagged spears.  She was simultaneously wrapped in someone’s arms and cradling a precious burden to her chest.  The blood leaked out of her slowly, the wounds too severe to even think of staunching the flow.  And finally her screaming over her own corpse, knowing that it was too late, that she was powerless without the love of her life, but not caring.  Better to die with her than flee and be alone.

        The glimpses of happy memories kept her going through the pain of their deaths, them meeting as rivals, the first heated kiss so full of fear of rejection, the life they built amongst all of the danger.  Most importantly though, she felt their love for this small clearing.  This was their refuge from the noise and hassle of the city, where the two of them could spar and struggle against each other or practice in perfect unison with no interruption.  Where the only thing that mattered was the other person’s breathing, and the simple joy of a worthy opponent and partner.

        After a seeming eternity of fighting back emotional attacks from all sides, Rider finally noticed that the form was coming to a close.  She could already feel her body complaining, especially since it was unaccustomed to such exertions, but the sheer joy radiating off the two souls more than made up for some mere physical pain.  The only sour note was that the spirits weren’t able to finish their exercise with a kiss as they used to do years ago.

        They made do, though.  Rider watched as her hands gently came together, her fingers interlacing with almost painful intimacy as the two savored the contact that they had been denied by death.  This entire trip hadn’t given them much, but the pair seemed content as they sunk back into the other spirits, their energies utterly and hopelessly entwined.  The voices started back up again, as they always did, but they never rose above a mutter rather than their usual screaming.

        In that moment of relative peace, she looked out over the beautiful landscape and truly realized how alone she was.  She had never had something like the pair, and it had been ages since she had even hugged someone.  All she had were her spirits, trying to keep them in check and maybe giving them peace someday.  Rider wearily sat on a fallen tree and clung as hard as she could to the memories of two women that had been lost to the ages.  “Eva Linstead, Helen Chontos, you are not forgotten.”