Amelia, Ch 307- Glen
"Hey, GL, morning status report?" Crystal asked. I liked Crystal, she treated me more like the reality of what I was than the others. Where they acted like I was a normal person they just couldn't see, she didn't. She just treated me like I was an extension of the environment. Or, more, the environment was an extension of me. It made me feel more respected that way.
"Nothing big," I responded. "Sabah brought a couple girls in last night."
"Two?" Crystal asked. "Well, that's a new one. They stayed out of the secure areas, I trust."
"Yeah," I confirmed. "Y'know, one of these lady friends of hers is going to plaster her identity all over the newspapers one of these days."
"I don't think she cares," Crystal responded. "But I'll talk to her about this behavior. I get the post breakup fling thing. Been there, done that, felt like a slut afterwards, never doing it again. But this is taking it a little further than it really needs to go. Actually, I'll probably consult Rapture about it, first. My shitty pop psych senses are tingling, and I think this needs a more delicate touch than Lisa's."
Her eyes didn't twitch around trying to find the invisible source of my voice, instead casually focussing on the report she had in hand. It had taken me four months to figure out how to speak to people again, how to force the air in my controlled territory to rub against itself in a semblance of a human voice. Over the course of a year, I'd gotten good enough at it that I could make people swear it came from an actual set of lungs, not a delicate process of mixing together artificial wind in an extremely complex fashion.
"Why do you treat me like that?" I asked.
"Like what?" Now she looked up.
"Like I'm on the phone or something, instead of in the room with you," I prompted. "It's weird, no one else does that."
"Umm, sorry," she responded. "I've spent a lot of time working with someone who has a power a lot like yours. Taylor's power, I know everyone thinks of it as her controlling swarms of bugs, but it's really quite a bit more than that. She doesn't command her swarm, she is the swarm. Her feelings are their feelings, her thoughts are their thoughts. It's just easier to think of her as already being everywhere, and that habit kinda extended to you."
"Except she has a range measured in city blocks, instead of just a small building," I muttered. "Even without her fiancée extending her power across an entire planet. Those two kinda makes me feel inadequate."
"There's always someone stronger," Crystal agreed. "That's how I feel fighting alongside Legend and Eidolon. Legend's all my powers only way better. And Eidolon is, well, good luck competing with that."
And then there's Scion, I added in my head. "So you don't look for me because you're used to working with Taylor," I changed the subject back.
"Pretty much," she agreed. "That and I'm used to talking to her. She almost never looks at the person she's talking to. She doesn't need to, she has her power and can see better through it than through her eyes. It's creepy as hell, if we're being honest. I can try to break the habit if you like."
"Nah, it's cool," I responded. "Honestly, I think I kinda like it. Like what I am is normal, instead of being freaked out about it."
"Well, if there's one benefit to living with Amy, Taylor and," she hesitated a couple seconds. "The others. It's that eventually there's not much left in the world that can freak you out. As long as you stay respectful of our privacy, I'm good."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence, chief," I muttered. Honestly, I'd played peeping tom a handful of times, especially in the first year or two I had my memories. Just because I wouldn't do it now didn't make me innocent.
....
Wow, Boost was so completely right, I decided. This Hecate chick is a total babe. Dubstep did his best to avoid looking at her too intently. The guy was chronically shy, probably the source of his Trigger, although he didn't tell and we didn't ask.
"Thanks for seeing us," I spoke. I had to imagine Boost tried to get in her pants the dumbest way imaginable. Because it was impossible to imagine he tried any other way. So I resolved myself to be extra polite today. "You really think you'll be able to enhance our powers?"
"Harnessing your power," the other girl, Aceso, corrected. "Enhancing powers is possible, but dangerous. Like any other drug, if you want to receive the high, you'll have to suffer the crash that comes after. What we're doing here is building equipment that will respond to your powers better than you can get just by improvising with what the environment gives you. Think of it as the difference between using PCP, and using a baseball bat."
I'd seen the occasional violent drug reaction, and I wasn't sure if a baseball bat would be enough to beat someone on that stuff. But the analogy made sense. "So you can harness our power, then?" I asked.
"Dubstep's power, with ease," Hecate answered. "He amplifies and manipulates sonic energy. At bare minimum, we can give him an armor similar to Radiant or Predator that exploits his power as a fuel source for various high end weapons. Hopefully his power follows more unique mechanics that we can use to do some really interesting stuff. Possibly even anti-Endbringer grade amplification."
"I've already named it Echo," Aceso informed cheerfully.
There is something really strange about her, I realized. I reached out with my power, touching her armor. I felt... I could get closer. The Manton Effect that kept me from direct contact with living things more advanced than a plant simply wasn't there. "You're a robot," I spoke, and immediately regretted it.
"Changeling," Aceso responded. "A lot like the M7s the PRT is starting to use. How could you tell?"
"No Manton Effect," I answered. At least she didn't seem upset that I figured it out.
"But that's impossible!" Hecate declared. "She has a Manton effect, because she was built using Endbringer... material... holy fuck, your power's like Chevalier's... you can directly effect Endbringers."
Aceso started giggling, and even clapped her hands together. "Oh, this is going to be so much fun!" She declared happily. "I've gotta call up Rey. He's going to love you so much that he'll want to marry you."
"Yeah, after making him dress up in a Simmie Suit," Hecate laughed.
"I... don't think I want to do that," I cut in. The fuck is a Simmie Suit? All I know is I'm terrified and slightly disgusted right now.
"Don't worry, we can do a lot better than that," Aceso dismissed. "Your powerset is much more valuable working with cloned material from Khonsu. How would you like the full Alexandria package plus shapeshifting plus forcefields plus a potential Endslayer combination?"
"Endslayer combination?" Yeah, okay, that would be fucking badass as hell. "You can do that?"
"It's theoretically possible," Hecate agreed. "Unlikely, but possible. You could use your armor to get physical contact with the Endbringer, and then take possession of its body. I have to imagine they're shielded against that some way, but maybe not. The new ones, especially, are specializing in defending against attackers like Atropos. In the process, they're sacrificing a lot of their offensive firepower and leaving themselves vulnerable in other areas. I bet if we use you in conjunction with Shaman and Rosary, we'd at least be able to subdue an Endbringer long enough to kill them some other way. Maybe use you to expose the core so it can be destroyed more easily."
"We're going to call it Fractal and it's going to be beautiful and I bet if I tried I can even get it to generate the Taboo effect and be immune to precogs," Aceso rambled on excitedly.
This is her idea of giving my power a baseball bat? Christ, what would the drug be like? "Is she always like that?" I quietly asked Hecate.
"It's a Tinker thing," she responded. "This is actually pretty mild, comparatively."
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A/N- GL gets a chapter. Also: Other Stuff.
