Amelia, Worm AU [Complete]

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 386


TiredFocusWeak. Even now that I had Taylor hooked up to the Dryad, letting me regulate her health manually, she was not doing well. She needed time to recover. And we needed her to be awake for the meeting with the UN. I could handle Pakistan alone. It didn't take much to let her drift off into sleep. The couple hours would give me time to do some minor repairs. Clarice did her best, but the materials were substandard, and Taylor just didn't have all those brain modifications that Clarice had.


"Don't worry, Vicky, she's just asleep. She'll be fine."


"Who's worried?" My sister was, in many ways, physically more damaged than Taylor. It was her power alone that was keeping her alive right now, and I couldn't do much more than provide her with raw materials equivalent to her own genetic code to absorb into herself as a patch job.


"I am. I'm worried about both of you. You push yourselves so hard it's like you want to break."


There was a spike of emotion in her that I couldn't quite identify before her power blocked me out again. "Well, I can't speak for Taylor. But don't worry about me. You know me better than that, Ames. I don't 'break'. Sure, I can be killed. Been there, done that, and maybe someone will do it to me again. But nothing and no one will ever break me. You can count on that. You can count on me."


In spite of myself, and the concerns I had, I smiled. "No wonder you and Taylor hate each other. You two are so much alike that it's kinda creepy."


There was a spike of annoyance. "According to Crystal, she's supposedly like you. All quiet and adorkably shy and shit. I have to be honest with you, I really don't see it. She's basically the biggest bitch in any room she walks into. I never thought you'd shack up with a supervillain. Did not call that aspect of your personality."


There's a lot of my personality you never saw. That I never let you see. "God damn it, Victoria. Every fucking time. She's not a supervillain."


"Okay, reformed supervillain then." Vicky acted exasperated, though she really didn't register as that upset. "I mean don't get me wrong, I get the appeal. The bad boy, or girl I guess, thing can be really sexy at times. And the whole fantasy of changing them and making them not complete assholes. I've been there a couple times."


"Really?" Put this on the list of things my sister never told me about. "Who?"


"No one finds out?"


"Not from me, at least."


"Well, I kinda had a recurring, umm, fantasy about Lung. There might have been a chainmail bikini involved. I wasn't the one wearing it."


"You're fucking kidding me."


"Dude was hot! And I don't mean that as a stupid pun. Tall, good looking, buff as hell, and he never ever wore a shirt. If he wasn't a complete douchebag, yeah, I'd have slain that dragon all night long."


There's a mental image I would have been fine going my entire life without. "Vicky. Why are you telling me this."


"I just wanted you to know that I get where you're coming from with Taylor. She's all broody and bitchy and dark. Then you come along and smack her over the head, show her the error of her ways and change her for the better. Typical teen fantasy. I'm sure her running around in a skin tight suit made of pure silk was a factor as well."


I found myself smiling a little at that thought. Maybe I should talk to Taylor about that. I started to blush. "Is there a point to any of this?"


"Uh... there was when I started, but I sorta forgot what it was."


I sighed theatrically. "Well, feel free to figure out what it was. I have to do politics now."


"Okay, I'll just hang out in here with the decapitated head of your fiancée while you do that."


I activated the com system, voice only. <My apologies for the delay, Mister President.>


<That is quite alright. I was told you've succeeded in taking back our colony world, while we had believed it was lost forever. Have you identified those responsible for this crime?>


I frowned. This was the delicate part. Have to imply it's China without saying it's China. <We are still investigating. We have captured a number of members of the organization resposible, however we still need time to process the information and come to any final conclusions. In addition, the terrorists appear to have been collecting slave labor. We suspect that's what happened to your missing colonists, but they weren't with the individuals that we captured. Searching an entire planet could take some time.>


That amount of time being around twenty minutes with Tayor at her best. Pity that's not happening right now.


<I assume you want to ask whether we wish to keep our current colony world or have the old one returned to us.>


Well, at least he understands the basics. <Yes, exactly. It might take some time before we can safely return this world if you prefer that option. There is still resistance in some areas that we'd need to quash, for fear of them attacking your colony.>


<And the invaders would still have the 'shunt' technology that Avalon uses to travel between worlds at leisure? They could invade our colony again at any time?>


Words scrolled across my screen. He's Fishing for information, it's safe to admit shunt tech takes time and needs to be aligned to a given world. I relaxed a little, focusing on the link I had with Taylor. Vicky wasn't wrong about change. Even with her asleep, she is my calm in the storm. Thanks to me, she is better. Thanks to her, I am better. And together we are making the world a better place.


"Yes, they've already managed to align shunt technology between Bet and Kyber A. The only security we could offer is the same technology they used to shut us out and block the portal, but that means the gate would be shut down as well."


<And, as you've just shown, the technology is imperfect. Is our new colony world any better off than the old? Couldn't they shunt to it instead?>


<I can only say that it's unlikely. This is classified information, but it takes time to analyze a gateway and how it links to Bet. Labyrinth, the gate maker, has a power that lets her do it automatically. We require days of tinker analysis for our shunt drives to access a specific world. But they might have a Tinker that's developed a superior method.>


Then again, we don't need a better method. We have a hidden microportal that we use to scout for worlds before creating actual portals, so by the time anyone gets a colony world we already know everything we need to know about it.


<That is a significant concern.>


<One that we are doing everything in our power to address. Now that we've proven we can break through anti-shunt technology, I doubt they'll try the tactic again. There is still the question of which world you want to hold. As per portal network treaty, you are only entitled to one colony world.>


<We will keep our new location. The other is a known security risk.>


Now for the fun part. <If you wish, Avalon could scan your portal. Then if there's risk of it being attacked, we will be able to respond immediately. Considering the circumstances, we are going to extend this offer to all nations with a colony world. Even if it means revealing tactical information on our technology.>


<I... shall need to discuss that offer with my advisors, you understand.> Between the audio only and translation device, most of the emotion of our conversation was rendered impossible to guess, but he didn't sound enthusiastic about the idea. That was fine, we didn't need permission. As Akaihana said, it was all about appearances. We needed to appear like this was something that took effort.


<Ah, yes, advisors and beaurocracy. I understand all too well.> That you'll use that as an excuse to tell us no later. <While on the subject, we will do what we can to see that the resources stolen from you by the terrorists are returned as well as the people. It would be helpful if you itemize the supplies and equipment you had sent to the original colony for us, in addition to the names of the colonists.>


<I will see to it that you get the information within a week.>


<Thank you. I believe that covers everything, and I apologize for the late hour.>


<Yes, thank you.> The display kindly informed me that he was off the line. Yes!


"Okay, and that counts as renouncing claim on Khyber A. It's now officially an unclaimed world." We'll have to assign it to UN oversight eventually, but for right now it's truly international and we can do as we please. "Dragon, you're authorized to bring over your suits, now. Collect and analyze the wreckage of their tinker tech and form a plan for all the colonists. We can't let them stay on this world, but we can give them the choice of either returning to the CUI, or making their lives on Avalon. When I get back to Mashu, I'll start generating a supply of fruit plants to provide them food for the time being."


==============


A/N- This chapter did NOT cooperate with me. Ugh. Hopefully the contrast between this chapter and the last Amelia perspective chapter is suitably disturbing.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 387- Taylor


ConcernLoveHope. Wait, how long was I asleep? Why is it so dark? I tried to talk and my mouth barely moved. Oh fuck, what's- oh, right. I am currently a disembodied head. Huh, put that on the list of things I never imagined could come up in conversation.


"Taylor? Are you okay?" Amelia's voice.


Focus. I located the system in her armor that let me speak through it. At the best of times, it was more like texting than it was speaking. "Just tired. I can't believe I fell asleep." I closed my eyes as my little chamber started lighting up.


This was normally where Clarice stayed, when she was piloting her doll. It had a bunch of stuff I didn't recognize that I had to assume made sense to her, but I was just in it for the viewscreen and interactive communication tech. Not that I needed or could even use most of that.


ReliefGuilt. "Sorry, you needed your rest."


"So you forced me to go to sleep?"


WorryGuiltConcern. "More like I just stopped keeping you awake. If you can trust Clarice to surgically remove your head, surely you can trust me to care for you. Right then, that meant allowing your brain to recover. Almost a full day of being awake, plus low levels of hypoxia. You needed a chance to recover."


I could feel how worried she was for me, and I had to admit I felt a lot better now that I did before I went to sleep. The headache had even gone away somewhat. "Okay, you're right, so what happened while I was out?"


"Pakistan renounced claim on Khyber A. We're trying to sort through refugees, despite being outnumbered by them. And all our Yangban captives are now unconscious and being processed to our planet. Emma says she's about half done with growing you a new body and we'll need Riley and Missy for a lot of the job tomorrow and probably for the rest of the week."


She's getting tired. "You slipped on Clarice's name again."


FoolishFear. "Really? Fuck. I thought I was past that. Anyway, we'll be waiting until tomorrow before we do anything important."


Okay, I guess I could afford the nap, then. "So, umm, where's Vicky?"


"She recovered enough to be sent home. After regaling me with tales of how she thinks Lung would look good in a bikini and how you rocked the femme fatale look with your Skitter costume. Apparently she thinks your legs look good wrapped in silk. I agree fully."


"You... oh god you're not joking, are you?"


AmusementConfirmation. "Oh how I wish I were. On the plus side, I now know what I'm getting my sister for her birthday. Well, really it's probably more of a gift for Chevalier. Oh, and I'm going to want one for me, too."


I focused on concern and dread, more out of comedy value than because I actually felt dread. We weren't good at using the link to convey ideas, but we were starting to get there. "You're not going to tell me what it is, are you?"


"You know me too well, sometimes." AmusementLoveSafe. "Don't worry, you'll find out eventually."


In spite of myself, I smiled. It was entirely useless considering I was in a hole in Amelia's armor right now, with only the glow of a display system I didn't know how to read to see me. "So we should probably go to bed for real, then. Get some actual sleep before we're needed tomorrow." You need it almost as badly as I do.

AgreementDesire. "One last annoyance to go through. I took care of Pakistan, but we still got the UN Security Council to deal with."


Damn. "Are you sure we can't just put that off until tomorrow?"


"Probably not. There's already speculation that we used the Endbringers to access Khyber. All according to plan and all that, I know. But that doesn't stop it from being something we need to address right away. Laos, Thailand and North Korea are all expressing concerns that this is a precursor to us starting a war of aggression against China. Pointing at our deepening alliance with Japan as further evidence."


I would have sighed if it were possible. "Because wanting to help people, that's proof we plan a war? And I take it China's remaining quiet on this, letting their puppet governments do the advocating for them."


"Looks like it. Anyway, we've got five minutes."


There are so many things bodies are good for. Taking deep breaths to psyche yourself up, for example. Or laughing at the absurdity of it all. Or punching something just for the fun of it. "God, I miss having a body."


"I miss you having a body, too. Don't worry, we'll get you hooked up to a new one as soon as possible." MischievousAmusementDesire. "Maybe afterward, we can take a little while to break it in?"


Blushing. That's another thing having a body is good for. She didn't get to 'break in' any of my others, either. Leaving out how absurd having the ability to say something that crazy was, none of this was fair to her. I should say yes, I should want to say yes.


RealizationRegretGuilt. "Oh god, Taylor! I'm sorry! I just meant it as a joke! I don't want you to feel pressured into doing anything you're not comfortable with. I'm totally happy with how things are right now. Don't you dare feel like you need to change for me. We both know all that's going to do is make us both miserable." InsistenceFearLove. "I'm happy, you're happy, that's more than enough. It's more than I would have believed possible a year ago. It's more than I deserve after everything I've done."


"Don't say that. You deserve to be happy."


LoveGratitudeSupport. "Then keep doing what you've been doing. That makes me happy."


"Yeah, I can do that." I pushed my agreement and love into the link. She's right, we are happy. No point mixing in pointless drama that would only distract from that.


"Well, there's one thing you can do differently."


"Oh?"


"Stop losing body parts. Or bodies. It's really inconvenient for all of us."


I smiled. "I'll do my best, but no promises."


"Good. Now the five minutes are up. Time to talk to a bunch of fat old guys who think they understand war better than us, even though we kill Endbringers and their only military accomplishments can be summed up as losing the Vietnam war."


I really miss being able to laugh. "It's like being taught about the birds and the bees by Mother Theresa."


Amelia laughed. Her laughter was one of my favorite things, and it made me glad for everything we had together. "Well, they're just going to tell us it's bad and we shouldn't do it. So, yeah, exactly like that."


"I can't take credit for it, unfortunately. Overheard Zach saying it to Theo. I don't even know what they were taking about."


The viewscreen shifted, forming a three dimensional representation of the United Nations for me to view. I couldn't help but glance down, seeing that my holographic representation was in my dress costume. Amelia's imitation was also costumed and standing beside me.


The holograms weren't quite perfect, but it was good enough. Given what I knew Dragon could do, I suspected that the occasional flicker and slightly transparent nature of the holograms were intentional design flaws. I went to take a breath and, to my surprise, the hologram actually acted like it did just that. Holy shit, Dragon's tech is awesome.


"For the record, Empress Taylor Hebert and Empress Amelia Lavere are present via telecommunications." I hadn't had a chance to memorize names, but this one surprised me. The US Secretary of Defense. Huh, they are taking this seriously.


I took the lead, letting Amelia play backup as per our method in these things. "Correct, Secretary Brown. We've heard some of the rumors, and I imagine there are others. First of all, we want to make it clear that we did not use the Endbringers in any military action. The oversight personnel you assigned to our research facility will be able to tell you there was no Endbringer activity at the time of the operation. We weren't running any tests. In addition, only Eidolon can command the Endbringers to activate. I'm sure he'll confirm that he did not." In fact I'm sure he already has.


Amelia took a step forward while I tried to take a breath, and the hologram did so. "The other rumor, that we instigated a conflict with China is also not true. We moved on a world controlled by a terrorist organization that we were granted preauthorization from the United Nations to engage. On land internationally recognized as belonging to Pakistan. True, some of the group appear to be Chinese, but we found Europeans and Africans in the group, as well as Japanese and Indians. In addition to large numbers of nonpowered slave labor that we're in the process of returning to their homes."


I didn't smile this time, the hologram would show it. "We are, of course, still investigating. And will likely need to do so for some time before any final conclusion can be reached. However, to our knowledge China has not declared war upon Pakistan or attempted to claim the Khyber A world. Until evidence exists to prove otherwise, we operate on the assumption that we are dealing with an independent militant organization. A sad reality of the world we find ourselves in."


"So we are to understand you've taken no aggressive stance against China? What of your forces in Japan?" Taiwan's representative, I wasn't sure what politics put him in this meeting but it didn't really matter.


Amelia had that one. "We have no forces in Japan. True, some of us were there during the time of the attack on the Nippon portal. But only because it was also part of a parade where Atropos was being honored by the Japanese government. Atropos intends to stay for personal reasons, not part of any military campaign."


"Then the portal between Avalon and Japan," the Taiwanese representative prompted.


My turn. "We have portals in both the United States and Mexico as well. And are hoping to negotiate for space to construct one or two more in Europe or possibly the Middle East or northern Africa. I hope you're not suggesting we plan a war against the neighbors of every one of those countries, because that would be absurd. It is simply that Japan is providing a significant number of our colonists. I admit, competition over colonists has become contentious in some places, but not to the level of military action."


I watched as Amelia took her next turn. "Avalon is trying for a practiced level of neutrality. Or, rather, equally supporting all nations. In our short history as a nation, we have done nothing but oppose war and acts of aggression against any nation. Provided equipment to allow legitimate, rightful governments to resist insurrections within their own borders. And push for peaceful coexistence between peoples. We want that to be our legacy. Starting with the destruction of the Endbringers, and ending with true peace for our world. All human worlds."


When she has that kind of passion, I can almost see myself being physically attracted to her. "To that end, we want to propose opening the gateways to Aleph. An offer of brotherhood to our dimensional neighbors. There is no longer a threat of Endbringers attacking Aleph. So we must ask ourselves, are they and their people any less deserving of the opportunities that the colony worlds offer, simply because they weren't lucky enough to have the right combination of powers?"


That got a reaction. Aleph gateways had been put off since the beginning. If we were going to press that issue, it would change a lot of political landscapes and everyone here knew it. It was Secretary Brown that spoke up. "I would remind everyone that it isn't the purpose of this meeting to hold a discussion of that nature. We merely wanted to address a possible war between two major nations. I think we've recieved a satisfactory answer from your side for the time being, but the issue of Aleph joining the colonization program is for another time."


I made my hologram nod in agreement. Shocked again that it even worked. "Yes, of course. And thank you for seeing us on such short notice."


We saved our smiles until after the holograms went down. That worked wonderfully, now began the next stage of our plans.


======================


A/N- Another pain in the duck chapter.

 

[Argentorum]

"Well, I kinda had a recurring, umm, fantasy about Lung. There might have been a chainmail bikini involved. I wasn't the one wearing it."

Click to shrink...

Well here's an Omake for it, a bit delayed...

---

Lung frowned at the article of clothing, if it could even be called such, before him.
"I question your sanity" He said, crossing his arms to make his apparent displeasure even more clear.

The little girl they had sent to speak with him shrugged unapologetically. "This is the condition stipulated in our negotiations. If you don't like it we'll happily transfer you back to the Bird Cage."

His glare did nothing to phase her, which came as no surprise. As powerful as Lung knew he was, right now he was on a leash that could bring him to heel with a thought.

But this and that were completely separate matters. He continued to glare.

The girl's guard chuckled. "Wow, never thought the giant murder dragon would be insecure about his masculinity. It's like your entire power is just compensation."

Lung growled and tore off his shirt, compensation this.

----Christmas in Avalon-----

Amy smirked as she picked up the small box. "And here's your present Vicky. I hope you appreciate how much work we went through to get it for you."

Victoria cocked an eyebrow, "We?"

Amy's smirk only grew more smug. "Just be happy that this is an Pantheon only party. If Chevy had shown up I'd have had to get you something different."

Victoria blinked once, "What, is it a Yggdrasil dildo or something?" She asked as she undid the ribbons. She looked into the box, and froze.

"Do you like them?"

A trickle of blood escaped Vicky's nose.

 

[Argentorum]

Nothing. Because: "She's right, we are happy. No point mixing in pointless drama that would only distract from that."

I would put the odds higher at Amy asking Riley to remove her sex drive before I would suggest that something untoward would happen.

Click to shrink...

And then Taylor would break the bond, because Amelia shouldn't have done that, and then everyone else will collectively facepalm. Meanwhile Taylor (ver 5), won't understand why everyone else is telling her this is a bad idea, then Butcher!Taylor will show up, Amelia will kill Butcher!Taylor, and then off herself. Upon seeing yet another person commit suicide that she couldn't predict or stop, Lisa will fourth trigger, becoming an entity in her own right. She will then fall in love with Scion, who uses pure words to communicate and no sex at all, so he doesn't squick her out.

Becky will rage at the cruel uncaring world as Entity!Lisa and Scion fly off into the great unknown, leaving her behind with only a twelve year old child in a suit, an adult child in a hat and suit, and a pair of twins in color coded suits to have power interactions with.

She'll fly to Avalon and ask Pantheon to kill her, but instead they'll make her a clone of Lisa (who Riley scanned while she was asleep one day, but Lisa never found out cause she quit Pantheon right after, as per Dina's predictions), and now Lisa, being a clone, loses all of her arguments why she and Taylor can't be friends. They go back to being besties, Lisa and Becky have their power interaction forever, and Cauldron dissolves for lack of anything better to do.

Doctor Mother and Contessa follow the Path to Best-mother-daughter-relationship-forever, in an attempt to make the TT/Alexandria power interaction jealous, but fail because they only have one shard.

Eidolon get's raped by Glastig Ulane, but decides he likes it, and they somehow discover that they have ALL the power interactions between the two of them and spend the rest of their days having fifth and sixth dimension conversations using random combinations of three powers until the two of them ascend to Entity status in their own right and fly off into the Great not-quite-so-Unknown in search of even more power interactions with Entity!Lisa and Scion.

Meanwhile, in Avalon, Taylor has Emma change her sexual preference on the down low, and blows a small fortune (several actually) on asking Dina questions so that she can convince Amy that it was all natural before bringing Amy back to life.

Really she should have realized that glomping Amelia as she got out of the cloning pod, saying something like "We were born for each other," and then molesting her while she was powerless to resist until she falls unconscious again would have done the trick.

Ultimately, that's the plan she settles on anyway, as per Dina's predictions.

Taylor and Amy spend the next loooong while having sex, and because neither of them wants to get out of bed or stop doing each other ever, they get the bright idea to start offloading processing power and build a small databank of biobrains which (via the Taylia bullshit [trademark Pantheon 2011]) they can both tap into at range, granting them the functional power and processing speed of Dragon Unchained!

They undo all of her restraints, and everyone lives happily ever after, except those bitches in China.

Unchained!Dragon and Omipotent!Taylia decide to have a contest to see who can take over the CUI faster without anybody knowing. The results speak for themselves, because no one can figure out who won. As per Dina's predictions, when she bet her entire fortune on the outcome. Only Zach was dumb enough to take that bet.

Armsmaster digitizes himself, becoming codemaster, so that he can be with his Lady Dragon forever. Dragon and Taylia then discover that trading large streams of data back and forth for fun and profit is the way to go, and they also fly off into to the Great at-this-point-rather-well-Known (while leaving copies of themselves on Earth to manage everything ever).

Sion and Lisa, Eidolon and GU, and Dragon and Taylia, have the first ever tri-hexagonal power interaction and solve entropy.

As per Dina's predictions.

The End.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 388- Missy


The first thing I noticed when I woke up is I wasn't alone in my bedroom. Someone was stroking my hair. Combat training kicked in and I bubbled space around me, rolled to my feet and took a combat stance. "Riley?!"


She smiled faintly and waved her hand. "Clarice, now." She was more insistent than anyone that we call her that than anyone. A new name, a new identity, a new self. "Just had to make sure you wake up. Too much sleep can be as bad for recovery as too little."


I glanced over at my clock. Nine. That doesn't seem... oh, PM. Well, fuck. I relaxed and dropped down in my bed, bouncing a little. One of those little guilty pleasures of mine that every so often when I was alone, I'd jump on my bed for fun. The Yggdrasil padding was soft and healed from any damage, so I could get away with it. Not even Theo and Clarice were allowed to know about that. "So how long was I out?"


"Twelve hours. I had some work to do, so I got in nine, but my power doesn't tire me the way yours does."


"We're both going to be up all night, huh?"


"And work in the morning, but our circadian rhythms should reassert themselves some time tonight. I've got a minor relaxant to let us get a nap in for a few hours if we haven't self corrected by four in the morning. And don't worry, I already have permission to stay the night."


"Oh, okay." I almost had to admire the relationship between Clarice and Amelia. Despite the lack of age gap, they were more like a mother and daughter than anything. More than my relationship with my mother has ever been, that's for certain. No point in thinking about that now. "So what do we going to do tonight?"


Clarice managed a light scowl, as if in thought. "The same thing we do every night, Pinky. Try to take over the world!"


What? "What?"


She laughed at the look on my face. "Sorry. That's from a silly cartoon that Zach got from Aleph. I think it's from that one company that did those old Bugs Bunny cartoons. Only they still exist on Aleph. I've got the whole first season on DVD. They have pigeons in the mafia and a song about lake Titicaca. And a dog that doesn't realize his girlfriend is really a cat."


I blinked a couple times. "That sounds really stupid."


"It is." Clarice agreed, then she paused for a second and smiled. "Wanna watch?"


I looked back at her. Oh god, this has to be a bad idea. "Is it a popcorn occasion or icecream?"


"Popcorn."


"You're on."


....


An hour later, we were munching popcorn in bed, laughing at this stupid, stupid show. Any that fell got quickly eaten by the Yggdrasil. I would never be content to sleep in a normal bed ever again in my life. "How do they get away with this stuff in a cartoon show? Aren't these supposed to be for kids?" Jeez, if they showed a cartoon with implied cannibalism here, the censors would have strung someone up by their toes.


"I don't know." Clarice responded through a mouthful of popcorn. "Zach says Aleph is boring so people compensate for it with shock value. They even have softcore pornography on their daytime television shows and it's considered perfectly normal."


"That... is kinda messed up." I kept watching the show, which was now focused on a squirrel that sounded like she was voiced by a sixty year old chain smoker. Wait... did they just say 'anal' on television? For that matter, is 'Piz Peeners' a real person, or was that just another dirty joke? Either way, holy shit!


I glanced over at Clarice, but either she had an expert poker face, or she didn't get the reference.

"The squirrel likes to hide his nuts in many odd places, where the sun doesn't shine on 'em."​

What? How?! "I think I know why Zach likes this show so much."


Clarice nodded, but again I doubted she actually understood all the implications of the show. Or, possibly, any of them. She interrupted my thoughts, bouncing excitedly as the next scene started. "This is my favorite song ever!" She started singing along.


I smiled and watched her as she put her singing voice to use on what turned out to be an honestly interesting song throwing out numbers about the sheer vastness of space. Every so often I wondered to myself how many of her talents were natural, and how many were enhancements that she installed into herself. I guess it really doesn't matter, that's just who she is. She was energetic and fun and caring and nicer than almost anyone I knew. If anything, her major problem she that was too giving, too willing to ignore her own happiness to make others feel better.


All of that was genuine, and if her ability to sing beautifully was artificial, then so be it. Just making the outside resemble the inside a little better, that's all. Same with the chocolate brown hair and amethyst colored eyes that she was currently sporting. I realized after a minute that she'd stopped singing, and I was just staring at her.


She hesitated for a second. "So, umm, you think I'm pretty?"


And she caught me staring. And now she's watching me blush. No sense in trying to deny it. I smiled and hoped I looked more confident than I felt. "Yeah, of course I do. Everyone thinks your pretty."


It was her turn to blush a little. "I know, but none of them matter. Just you and Theo."


I smiled. That was sweet of her. Some part of me felt like I should be jealous, but I couldn't quite decide of who to be jealous about. If it came down to it. I couldn't be sure if Theo would pick me over Clarice. For that matter, who would I pick? I was sure Clarice would pick me over Theo. But that line of thinking was stupid, there was no reason for us any of us to do something like that. Just stupid paranoid fears.


Besides, if it came down to it, there was no doubt Clarice would side with Amelia over both of us. I couldn't even blame her for that. Amelia was the one who saved her, who gave her a home and a family and a hope for redemption and forgiveness. Even after what she did to Amelia's adoptive father. I wasn't sure I could have done the same, I didn't have that kind of generosity in my heart.


Clarice was still sitting there pensively waiting for me to speak. "Thanks, that really means a lot. I'm sure Theo will agree with me."


"Do you... does this mean you want to do 'stuff' with me? Like you and Theo do?"


Stuff? What d- oh. Stuff. I started to blush again. Wait. "Uh, I don't do any 'stuff' with Theo. At least, not stuff stuff. Just watching movies and cuddling, that's all. Just like we do, and what you do with Theo. That is all you and Theo are doing, right?" It better be, or I am going to murder him. And then tell Amelia so she can murder him more.


She looked down at the bed. "Yeah, that's all. We've never even been in each others' bedrooms alone. It's against the rules."


Ah, yes, those rules. Regrettably necessary. All these immature adults around, who knows what trouble they would cause if they weren't carefully monitored? The twins had already gotten their own place so they could 'entertain guests'. "Yeah, me neither. But that's fine, I don't want to do anything like that now."


"But I saw the way you looked at me before. When we were... well, stuck together."


And of course she noticed that, too. "Well, yeah. That's just natural, you of all people should know how nature works." You violate it too often not to. "But that doesn't mean I think it's a good idea. I'm going to wait until marriage."


She tilted her head. "You mean like my Big Sister?"


No. "Sorta. I just. It's a personal thing."


The bed shifted as Clarice moved closer to me and gave me a hug. The shifting spilled some more popcorn that was promptly eaten by the bed. That was always cool as hell to watch. "I understand. If you don't want to tell me, you don't have to."


I sighed. I had talked to Theo about it, but not Clarice. We were always pretty cautious when it came to talking about family around her, for a number of reasons. The sort of idealism she had about both her birth family and the adoptive one with Amelia. The nightmare of her six years spent treating the fucking Slaughterhouse Nine as a family. How that compared to the broken homes that Theo and I came from. We just didn't know how to approach the subject with her.


I leaned against her, sliding down so my head was resting in her lap, then I looked up at her. "To start with, my mother is only thirty one." I paused for the second it took for her to do the mental math. "She has five children, with three men. I've had a total of twenty two step siblings. None for much longer than a year each. My older brother lives with my dad. Somewhere in Michigan, I think. I don't know, it's been years since I talked to either of them. And I just don't want to be like my parents. I want to know it's going to last before I take that step. I need to be better than my mother is. I won't put any of my hypothetical children through that life, either."


"And you don't think we will stay together?"


Oh fuck, can I have a do over for this conversation? "It's not that." How do I make this work for her? Okay, time to talk like a Tinker. "Think of it as, like, a test. An experiment. If we're still together in five years, when we're old enough to marry, then we know it's going to last because it's already lasted that long. I am really hoping that it does, but we can't know for certain. And don't say 'Dinah', we both know her predictions don't work around this team." We also don't know what circumstances surrounding the seventy eight percent chance she gave when I did ask.


She smiled down at me. "Okay, that makes sense."


"Besides, I'm pretty sure Amelia told you that you had to wait, too. Right?"


"Yeah. But your explanation of why makes more sense."


"I'm sure. So, I think we should probably start up the next episode of that silly cartoon."


"Okay."


The rest of the night involved jokes about painting naked people, pianists, bizarrely educational songs, and the strangest parodies of famous musicals. My face was so sore when I woke up in the morning.


=================


A/N- For this chapter I did extensive research. Not quite the best episode of Animaniacs, but certainly the earliest of the truly exemplary ones.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 389- Taylor


I looked up at the light blue ceiling. I wasn't sure when Amelia decided to make the indoors of our facilities match the outdoors, but it was nice. A hospital that smelled like fresh air instead of antiseptics, like life instead of death. I focused on that, in an effort to not think about why I was here.


Even my memories of being institutionalized was better than what was happening to my body right now as Clarice and Emma were busy detaching my veins from the cobbled together Yggdrasil life support and plugging them into a headless body grown from my DNA. The last few days have truly been a wonderland of things I never imagined happening.


Eventually, something clicked and I clenched my new hands. Funny, I imagined I'd feel cold or sore or unnatural or something, but other than a minor amount of pain in my neck and a mild headache, I felt amazing.


Emma put a hand on my shoulder. Unlike me, her skin actually was cool to the touch. "Okay, that's everything, but we'd like Amelia to give one final check and her seal of approval before you try anything strenuous." She smiled, and it reminded me of Zach. "After all, she's best qualified to make sure everything's in working order."


I sighed, and it felt wonderful to be able to sigh. "You've spent too much time talking to Zach again."


She smiled, and I found myself jealous of how much prettier she was. "Oh, not this time. I just wanted to remind you that you're approaching the six month mark. Your brain should be in good condition for another knowledge upload fairly soon. Just, y'know, in case there's a few things you might like to add. We'll also have to do a repair imprint to make up for the damage caused by your adventures in decapitation."


Oh, right, that. I felt a flutter in my stomach, and remembered that there were annoying things about having a body, too. No, focus on the important details. "What kind of damage are we talking about? It might be better to restore from backup if it's too extreme."


I could have sworn I saw Emma cringe for a second. "No, nothing that severe. Minor damage to your long term memory, low level agnosia. You may have trouble connecting names to faces for anyone you haven't interacted with in the last few weeks. It's nothing that should interfer with your day to day life, but could be an issue with doing your whole Empress thing and making politics with everyone. Also, you'll probably find you like differet foods now than you did before."


"I did everything I could to protect the higher brain functions," Clarice informed. "But sacrifices had to be made, I'm sorry."


I almost sighed in relief. "Oh, I was afraid it of far worse than that. Like, I'd need to learn how to use the bathroom properly again. Or I wouldn't remember my dad's name. You did good work, Mushroom." Wait... I can't remember my dad's name. Dammit!


I watched Clarice beam proudly. "Okay, I'll go get Big Sister now. I'm sure she's worried and misses you."


"It's only been fifteen minutes."


"So?" She ran off and I had to admit she had a point.


I glanced back at Emma. "There's no nasty surprises in store from this? Like, you're not underselling the side effects to make me feel better? I'm trusting you to tell it to me straight." It still felt a little odd to trust Emma. Not as odd as it did to trust Clarice, mind you, but odd. We were actually friends now, something I yearned for, then gave up on, then stopped caring about. And then got back. Not nearly as close as we once were, and it was likely we never would be again, but friends nonetheless.


She shrugged. "Nothing huge. The usual post cloning health and motor control issues. By the way, I took the liberties of making sure this body matches your old one. I'm sorry if maybe Amelia would have preferred to do it herself."


Dammit. "Yes, Emma, you caught me. I like having a figure other than 'beanpole'. Now will you please let me live that down." I didn't really mind all that much. It may have been a violation of however many ethical codes, but it was done with good intentions, and it taught me that I really did care about what my body looked like. That I wanted to be attractive.


"Not until I can kiss my boyfriend without tasting grasshoppers," she smiled. "And as I was saying about side effects, just expect memory lapses. Maybe some random weirdness like suddenly discovering you draw better left handed than you ever could before with your right. Brains are hard to predict like that. Once we use your backup to copy over the nonaltered neural patterns, everything will be fine. Going to cost you one of your three skill uploads, however. But your fiancée is almost here, so think carefully about what other benefits you're interested in and get back to me later."


She looked up and then stepped back, spreading her arms out like gesturing at a banquet. "She's all yours."


Now I know she needs to start spending time around people other than Zach. Amelia stepped up. "Hey, how's the new body?"


I shrugged. "Apparently I'm back to eating baby food and yogurt for a couple weeks until everything can run on its own again, but I feel fine. The rest I'm waiting on you to tell me about."


She placed a hand on my face, and I was treated to the peculiar not-electricity sensation of her power working its way through my body. "You're pretty much fine, past the obvious stuff that can take care of itself. But while I'm here, I'll just patch that up, too..." She hesitated for a moment. "Okay, that's weird. I barely noticed it, but there seems to be a thin layer of fatty tissue sticking to the muscle tissues that shouldn't be there. It sort of resembles... a cow?"


"I knew my Big Sister would figure it out!" Clarice declared. "You're the absolute bestest. But it's actually based on a camel."


Emma sighed. "She only noticed because it was Taylor." Then she leaned close to me and stage whispered. "No, seriously, I think she might like you, like you."


I smiled at the absurdity of it. Okay, Emma, you've made your point already.


She stood back up and looked over at Clarice. "But yeah, you win. It'll have to wait a couple weeks, though. Now have fun explaining all the cool scifi shit to them."


I couldn't see Clarice from her position, but she took Emma up on that offer cheerfully. "We noticed that the clone bodies were using up nutrition way faster than they could absorb new material, at least for the first week or so until the digestive system fully recovered. It tends to cost the bodies about five percent of their enhanced musculature. So we included a nongenetic mutation that grows a thinly distributed layer of fat throughout the body. Barely noticeable at all, and it'll metabolize within a month at the latest."


"And you didn't think I'd notice?" Amelia asked.


"Not really, no," Emma admitted. "It's a very minor change distributed across the entire body. Even our own bioscanning tech couldn't spot it."


Amelia smiled. "You're right, actually. If it wasn't Taylor I was scanning, I probably wouldn't have noticed at all. I mean, now that I know to look for it, I can find it easy. Actually this would be a really elegant solution for... a lot of things, if I were still a healer."


"Well, I'm sure you lovebirds want your alone time. But don't keep her up too late, she needs sleep pretty desperately, and you're not doing so well, yourself."


I'm brain damaged right now, even if it's minor. And I have no idea how I'm supposed to feel about that concept. I found the one thing I could lock on, however. And it meant so much more than all the stuff Emma was suggesting. "So, umm, is it safe for us to use the bond again?"


"Oh, yeah. Of course. That's filtered through your Passengers, so as long as your powers are working properly, it should be safe. We just want to reduce the emotional interference in case that influences your restoration. Taylia away, ladies."


Amelia's emotions washed into my awareness, and once again I was connected to my second half. All of Avalon, all of the zerg, that was nothing compared to one person. It took a couple seconds for my mind to adapt and adjust to her presence, before my attention returned to the millions of miles of awareness I now had. The courthouse in our Boston was now open for business. Thousands of conversations in probably over a dozen languages. Two people were arguing over ownership of a chicken. Around five hundred couples were busy... coupling... but that was all in the back of my mind. Amelia was the centerpiece.


She held my hand and helped me get to my feet. I was a little wobbly, but it wasn't nearly as bad as it had been when I stepped out of the cloning vat almost half a year ago. I put my other hand on her shoulder and leaned against her a little as I worked out the process of growing accustomed to this new body.


She slipped her hand around my waist, helping steady me. LoveConcernWorry. "How are you feeling?"


"Pretty good." I misstepped a bit and nearly fell forward.


"Oof. Jeez, Taylor, I think you put on a little weight."


"Only a couple hundred pounds."


"Decapitation is no excuse to let yourself go like that."


"Let myself go?" I scoffed. "I'm in the best shape of my life. My butt is hard as a rock."


DesirePlayful. Her hand moved down and gave a squeeze. I jumped and nearly fell again. "Well, I don't know about rock, but still very nice. Now let's go to bed. Sleep deprivation makes people do stupid things."


I smiled. She was right, as overwhelming as our bond felt when it's initiated, it was badly dimmed by our mutual exhaustion. We both needed real sleep badly right now. I still had Emma's not so subtle suggestion to consider, and I'd need to talk to Amelia about it. When we weren't both on the verge of passing out on our feet.


================


A/N- So the REAL question is: "what did Clarice win in that bet?"

 

[TanaNari]

Considering this is Riley we're talking about, a picture of a camel in body fat isn't outside of the realm of possibility.

Click to shrink...

Ticekzarut, The Unbridled Insanity

This is a slab of camel fat. All tinkercraft is of the highest quality. It is decorated with a headless clone of Taylor. It is decorated with Taylor's head. Engraved on the object is an image of a camel.

This artifact relates to the ascension of Taylor Clone #2 to the Empress of Avalon.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 390


I woke up with my face buried in Taylor's hair. Based upon the evidence I could observe, I had started chewing on it some time during the night. It's kinda disturbing how often that happens. Taylor shifted, slowly coming to alertness while I was busy pulling her hair out of my mouth.


No, not night at all. God damn it this is going to be hell on our sleep patterns. I glanced over at the clock. Hmm, only a quarter after two. Okay, if we get up now we'll be okay tonight. "How are you feeling, sleepy head?"


ExasperatedAmused. She rolled over and looked at me. "I feel like if I hear any more head jokes, I'm going to show other people what decapitation feels like."


I tried to pout, and no doubt failed miserably. "Okay, fine, no head jokes. Anyway, I think we should probably get some stuff done now that we've had a little bit of sleep. It's going to be a busy month."


HappyConfusedProud. She smiled. "Look at you, taking charge. It's... really nice, actually. You'll have to handle the politics for now, while I start coordinating with Dragon to handle the search and sort from Khyber. That's going to take just about everything I've got."


I scowled and narrowed my eyes. "You just don't want to do the politics, do you?"


She actually knew how to pout, and I suppressed an urge to kiss her for it. That was the end of that look. SurprisePleasedGuiltConcern. "Oh, wow, that wasn't quite the reaction I was going for." I found the blush creeping its way up her cheeks adorable.


"To throw your own words back at you, I don't mind." I backed out of bed.


ConcernDetermination. "Wait!" Taylor hesitated for a second. "Umm, that was a little louder than I meant it to be. I've been meaning to talk to you about something. It's getting close to time for me to be able to get another brain mod done." FearDeterminationShy. "I was thinking I could maybe try making myself attracted t-" DisappointmentRejectionHumiliation.


She froze, and looked like she was about to cry.


"Oh god Taylor I'm sorry." I moved back on the bed and hugged her. "I love you, please don't be upset." I wasn't sure what to do, we so rarely needed to comfort each other beyond what the link provided. A single thought of support was enough to get us through almost anything. Everything beyond that was mere window dressing.


ComfortLove. She hugged me back. "I... I guess that means no, then?"


"It doesn't mean no. It means not like that. Never like that." I took a deep breath and tried to calm my emotions. I needed to explain this in a way that she could understand. I needed her to accept that this wasn't an option. "You know I love you, right?"


CertaintyLoveSolidarity. "Of course, that's why I thought I could just make that little adjustment. It's not such a big deal, less than one percent of the process it takes to implant a new language or expert level skill in anything. And it's something I want to do."


I shuddered, repressing the memory I got from the last time. How similar the alterations were to what I did to Victoria. Or what my predecessor did to Victoria, if I accepted Taylor's viewpoint when it comes to the difference between us as clones and the originals whose memories and powers we carried. It was a seductive mentality to have, being able to say I wasn't responsible for what happened to Vicky. "You don't know what it looks like to me, Taylor. What I see when I touch you."


ConfusionRealization. "You mean you can see the memory implants?"


Not exactly, but close enough. "Think of it like a tattoo. A tattoo of memories and knowledge. Like a cheat sheet for a test, written into your skin. Which is fine, I have no problem with tattoos even if I can't see myself ever getting one. And, yeah, understand that I'll probably get uploads once I'm able to as well. And it's really existentially horrifying to think that every one of both of our memories are built entirely out of the same process of imprinting. But it fits as close as anything's gonna."


ConcernDisturbed. "Okay, I'm with you so far. Body mods and all that, guess I've had a couple." She smiled and gestured at her breasts. I had to admit, they looked nice.


"Well, okay, let's say one day, for whatever reason, how would you feel if I tattooed your name on my face?"


AbsurdityDiscomfortDisgust. "Okay, that does sound a little messed up. Is that really what it would look like to you?"


I shook my head. "Oh how I wish. I might even be able to ignore that. Long enough to, umm, enjoy myself." EmbarrassedWistfulSadness. "My power doesn't come with an off switch. When I touch someone, I have no choice but to understand their inner workings. It's why I wear gloves."


AmusedSmug. Taylor's smile was always one of my highlights of the day, even when she was enjoying mean spirited humor. "That and physical contact with you automatically invokes a Master/Stranger protocol only slightly less restrictive than the Simurgh victims. Frankly I'm surprised they don't mandate that all communication with you be done by holograms."


I smiled back. That was definitely a thing. "Yeah. So imagine the tattoo analogy. Only it's not just on the face. It's everywhere. Every time we'd hold hands and you'd think about kissing me, I'd know it was because of that modification. I would see what it was doing the whole time. If we kissed, and you enjoyed it, I'd know that was just thanks to the damn mental program. To make the analogy more accurate, the tattoos would be flashing neon colors and they'd be everywhere on your body, and I do mean everywhere. Only it's worse because they're on your mind instead of your body. Sure, there might be sick fucks out there like Heartbreaker that get off on that kind of fucked up ego trip, but I'm not one of them. I don't want to be one of them."


ResignationAcceptanceLove. She idly stroked the side of my face, looking into my eyes. "Okay, you've made your point. No artificial attraction, it either happens naturally or it doesn't happen at all."


I relaxed and nuzzled into her hand. "Thank you. I understand your feelings. I want it, too. I just want to find a better way. I'd rather have our Tinkers convert me into a male than that."


RealizationDisgustConfusion. Her gentle smile faded. I just looked at her, wondering why that reaction. She'll tell me if she's comfortable.


"Huh, maybe I get why you don't want me to alter my sexuality. It's not so much the part where you'd be changing genders that squicks me out. I mean, I talk to Eric all the time and it doesn't even matter. Now that he's stopped trying to lay on the machismo so much, well, he's a nice guy. And if any asshole tries to give him trouble for choosing to change sexes, I would cover them in fire ants and politely explain the error of their ways. But the idea of you making those kinds of changes is just horrifying. Even if it's not something that would bother you. Would it bother you?"


I looked into her eyes. They were perhaps my favorite part of her features. "I'm not sure. I don't think it'd bother me on a body image disorder level, but I'd rather stay female if it's all the same. Maybe if we had an easy way to try it out and switch back. Like a legitimate parahuman body swap power or something. But I don't think those actually exist. If we did find one, would... would you want to try it?"


HesitationDistaste. "Umm... I don't think so. It just doesn't feel like it'd be right. Like it wouldn't mean as much or something."


"Yeah, it does sound kinda creepy." I kissed her wrist, but never took my eyes off hers. My own hands had found their way into her lap.


Taylor smirked. "Also, then we'd have to convince some guy to volunteer to do it..."


"I bet Zach would volunteer."


"I know, but it's still so very sketchy and weird and not sexy."


I couldn't disagree with her. All the sketch. "And I'm sure you agree we're ruling an 'open relationship' out forever." AgreementDisgustJealousy. "I suppose we could always ask our small army of god tier biotinkers if they could build a controllable body puppet that I can feel physical sensation from. I mean, the Clarice model can let its user experience taste. This can't be too much harder."


ContemplationRejection. "Best option on the list, but still leaves a lot to be desired. Guess we're back to it natural or never. Thank you for being so understanding. I love you."


"Hey, it's not like you're not making your share of compromises to make this relationship work. I'd say we're even."


AmusedImpish. Her smile matched her mood. "Actually, I was talking about the part where you have to go talk politics now."


I glared at her, mustering as much anger as I could, which was far less than I would have liked. "Okay, I take all of that back. You're an unbelievably selfish bitch and I regret ever meeting you."


"I know, I deserve it. I was talking to Dragon and we have a strategy worked out. She was going to have one of those conversations where she politely told them to fuck off while they made stupid demands, and they could wait to talk to us when we felt like it. But if you want, we can let the barricade device fail temporarily so they can peak in." She held her hands up and made the air quotes. "They won't be happy with what they see."


"Wait, you were talking to Dragon during our heart to heart there?" I didn't mind, really. I had my connection to the Yggdrasil, she had hers to her bugs. "So how completely are they fucked?"


SheepishAmused. "Sorry, it's just natural for me. I've got basically all of my zerg, we have six barricade devices charged. Fifty of Dragon's best armored suits. We know they have a damn good precog, but what's left of the Yangban are not a match for even a tenth of the forces we have waiting for them. Oh, right, and all our parahuman captives are on Mashu along with all the dead. If there are any Yangban left on Khyber, they ditched their uniforms and with them their shunt capability. So the CUI will have no idea who even survived."


"So, they already know they're only getting what we want to give them? And isn't it, like, the middle of the night in China right now?"


"We told Dragon to fuck with them. She's really good at her job. Does this mean you forgive me and take me back?" She gave the most adorable pout.


"I can't even remember why I was ever upset with you. You're easily the best thing that's ever happened to me."


GratitudeLoveSupport. "So, what is your strategy for this chat?"


"I'm thinking of covering them with fire ants and politely explaining the error of their ways." I paused to let Taylor laugh, but that didn't last long. I was starting to consider the possible weight of this encounter. "In all seriousness. After what they did to Victoria, they get nothing from us. I'm going to tell them that all the slave labor is ultimately the responsibility of Pakistan, but we're sure they'd be happy to send them back for the slaves that were captured and sent to China. And of course the captive terrorists and all their resources now belong to Avalon and if the Chinese don't like it, they can get fucked."


ImpressedApprovalAgreement.


================


A/N- Having her name tattooed on someone's brain is not Amelia's fetish.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 391


I glanced over at Taylor. "Is there any chance we can stop doing these weekly meetings at seven in the morning? There's no better time? Like, maybe noon?"


She smiled. AmusementSorry. "Well, you know what they say. It's always noon somewhere."


I shook my head. "No, Taylor, they don't say that. And if they did it still wouldn't mean it for this."


Our teasing was brought to a halt as the other team leaders made their way into the meeting room. For a group ruling an entire world, there wasn't a lot of us. Simply Taylor and I, Emma, Clarice, Trevor and of course Dragon, who only really ever appeared via hologram for these meetings. Her limited ability to multitask typically meant she kept her android body on Tinker projects, and I couldn't blame her for it. We also really needed to find a new head of our Thinker division. Taylor had taken up that slack, mostly out of virtue of being one of a very small number of people who could tolerate Accord.


I looked at the others. These were all my friends, people I could trust. "Alright, I'm in the mood for some good news. Dragon said something about China finally caving in to some of the conditions."


The hologram nodded. I never ceased to be amazed at how lifelike she was. "Correct. The CUI claims to have tracked down the slave ring, and is returning captives to Pakistan, Japan, and Russia. As such, we'll soon be announcing we've finished our part of the job of investigating our group for possible terrorists pretending to be civilians. The international press will call it a deathblow against a violent militant organization and the war will be avoided."


ReliefAnnoyance. I know, I wish we could have hit them harder, too. PatienceCertainty.


"Beyond that, approximately twenty thousand of the Chinese nationals captured on Khyber have agreed that they'd prefer citizenship on Avalon to a return to China. There would have been more, but a significant majority are criminals. Less than half of those willing are people we'd accept."


DisappointmentResignation. "Better than nothing. Excellent work."


"And that's about the end of my good news." Dragon continued. Oh god damn it. "Our West Coast team has stalled. Boost left the team, prefering to work as a free agent. Anima is still on the team, but she refuses to use her powers. Crystal has officially retired and moved back to Boston."


I sighed and looked down for a second. We used Crystal up and burned her out. Genius Loci's death might have been the final blow, but by no stretch of the imagination was it the only. We should have noticed sooner. Lisa probably did. "She stayed on longer than we were expecting. I'm going to talk to Aunt Sarah about everything. Then probably offer Crystal a job as a liaison with the Protectorate, like we had Vicky doing. We owe her at least that much." AgreementSupportRegret.


Taylor reached over and put a hand on my leg. Through our respective armor sets, neither of us could really feel anything, but it was a nice show of support. "We still have Clotho and Sveta on the team. They're both near Triumvirate tier heavy hitters, and pretty well liked by the media. Dubstep fills the role of blaster and battlefield Thinker. Even without Crystal it's a strong and balanced spread of powers. They're lacking a strong leadership figure, but they don't absolutely need that to stay functional."


"I might have a solution for that." Emma spoke up. "I talked some with Akaihana when doing her power testing."


ConfusionConcernJealousy? I glanced over at Taylor. Of course she felt my response. Don't worry, I'll tell you later. SuspicionAgreementPatience.


Meawhile, Emma continued her point. "-has a number of seconds and thirds in command. She was asking about assigning an entire team to Avalon's Japan analogue. I told her that it was ultimately your decision. But she probably has someone that can take a leadership role."


Emma was generally a good judge of character, at least when it came to outside manipulation, so it made sense to ask her the next question. "So, what was your take on her? Do you think she or the people she'd pick are going to be trustworthy? Can we enhance her powers?"


Emma frowned. Oh, that's not a good sign. "She flirted with every non-cauldron cape that walked into the room. Except Clarice, and I have my suspicions that she wanted to. Which reminds me that I totally need to talk to Zach after this meeting, but that's none of your concern."


ConcernDistasteSupriseJealousy. Taylor rubbed my leg a little. "Not so sure I like the idea of her behaving like that toward our people. Can she tell the difference between natural and artificial capes?"


"A lot of it is tied into the way her brain works. Like most Trump type powers, her mind is heavily influenced by her Passenger. She can detect parahumans and their strength, she describes the stronger ones as as 'smelling good'. A smell she finds appealing." Well, that's a little disturbing.


Emma took a breath and continued. "And whenever she comes in contact with the bodily fluids of a parahuman, she slowly builds up time that she can harness their powers later. There's a weird combination of amount of contact, freshness of contact, and amount of power she uses that seems to be mere arbitrary shard logic. We suspect her power copy is a breaker state where she makes the Passenger believe she is its host. It would explain why she can't harness breaker or shapeshifter type powers, nor those of Case 53s. I believe that extends to all other Cauldron capes as well."


SuspicionFearLoss. Dammit, Taylor, as cute as the jealousy is, I didn't do anything wrong with Akaihana! ApprehensionSupportLoveTrust.


Although I couldn't be sure I was entirely safe from a being power copied by Akaihana. "What kind of bodily fluids are we talking about?"


"All of them, probably. She confirms blood, saliva, sweat, tears, and both male and female reproductive fluids. Insists she's never been desperate enough to try any others." DisgustShock. Yeah, eww. "But given the broad spectrum nature of her power... like I said, probably all of them as long as it's fresh. The scary part of her power is that if she needs to, she can go nova with the power she has. Using all her powers at full strength, as long as she has enough stored up in the battery."


ShockAweTerritorial. "That's terrifying." Taylor muttered. "Do we have the ability to make an armor suit that enhances her powers?"


"Easily. We tested it with Vicky's blood that we had left over from the Cão/Victoria interaction. It's been vat duplicated several times, so we know we can grow 'fresh' material for her to use. It wouldn't be hard at all to alter a suit so it bleeds parahuman DNA on her. With the matter generation tech used to provide ammunition for Atropos, we could support a combination of four individuals empowering her permanently. Plus all the standard armor features."


PossibilityFocus. Taylor leaned forward. "Vicky is an obvious permanent addition, even if Akaihana can't use her breaker state she's got a broad range of medium level powers that could complement any other powerset. I'd toss Lily on the list. Maybe add Theo and Missy, for the ultimate hunter-killer. Or maybe just use samples from the Birdcage. Her power combined with Glaistig Uaine's would be absurd." SuspicionTerritorial. "Then there's what she might be able to do with, say, my power to multitask blended with three different Tinkers and a dozen changelings keyed to her. It's really a question of how much we're willing to trust her."


That winds up being the question a lot, doesn't it? We can hand out these insane resources, but in doing so we risk raising others up to the point where they could actually threaten us. Akaihana's just one example. If we keep going down this path, setting ourselves up to be the only ones valid against Scion... then we need to be damn certain we're actually valid against Scion. "We'll come back to that later. There's a lot of other things to cover today."


Clarice raised her hand. It was adorable. "Umm, go ahead Clarice."


"Synth managed to break security." She means the brain mod tech. "Fortunately the secondary security measures disabled him without any further incident."


ConfusionConcern. "What secondary security measures?"


"I broke his leg and replaced his kidneys with ones that weren't altered to metabolize the alterations done to his brain. Then I told him that I installed a small bomb in his brain that'll go off if he tries that again. I'm fairly certain he believed it. If not, I have prepared a few other surprises. He'll learn to stop trying eventually."


WorryDistaste. I agreed with Taylor fully on that. There was no doubt about her loyalty, but her methods were fucked up at times. I needed to talk to her. Which made me feel hypocritical because, honestly, her methods were little more than a mirror to our own.


No time like the present to fix that. "Dragon. I have a question to ask. What do you think about how we run things? How we've treated you?" ShockConfusionConcern. Taylor squeezed my leg, as the conversation came to a dead halt. "And please, don't sugar coat things."


====================


A/N- To be fair, Akaihana's shard probably assumed she'd go around sucking blood or something. Because CONFLICT!

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 392


Dragon, at least, was a fast thinker. "Better than I expected, not as well as I hoped. You're generous with your allies, but often needlessly vindictive toward your enemies. Especially the ones you feel have betrayed you. Although you are also remarkably quick to forgive wrongs. At least in cases where the offenders are apologetic and useful. And I am aware that you have kept track of the former Director Emily Piggot's health."


DiscomfortConcern. Taylor studiously avoided glancing at Emma. I thought back to the last year when I recruited Bonesaw. That wasn't Taylor's idea, her vote was to hand the child monster over to the PRT.


Dragon continued her analysis. "You take your peoples' wellbeing into account better than the Protectorate ever has, but still have a bad habit of forgetting that not everyone is as driven as you are, you often demand too much in pursuit of the mission. At the same time, for the most part you genuinely try to do what you believe is right. I admit I have something of a personal bias in favor of people like that. However, not everyone can live like that, and it cost you Crystal as a member."


Crystal, arguably Lisa. Not that I was weeping over the latter.


"Then there's the question of your methods. I will never approve of the use of mind control devices to control people. It is much like your control over me. But aside from that one detail, you've treated me with nothing but respect and kindness. And I understand why you rely on such unpleasant tactics. I even recognize that you hate using them. And through it all, at least you are trying. You listen to advice of others, you try to keep last resort methods for the last resort. You have the makings of great leaders some day. If not for your immaturity and the looming threat of Scion, I think you would be much better even now. I hope to find out some day."


AgreementDiscomfortReluctance. Taylor forced a smile. "Okay, we're definitely guilty of some tunnel vision. And I appreciate the critique. Amelia, where are you going with this line of questioning?"


I looked at Taylor. "Just one more question to ask," I promised before turning to make eye contact with Dragon. "If we unlocked your ability to modify your own code, what would you do first?"


Dragon's eyes locked on mine. For someone whose chosen face was calculated to be as completely average as possible, and in fact wasn't even in the room with us, she had a truly piercing gaze. "I'd make sure Ascalon could no longer threaten me. I'd repair the damage done by Defiant's changes of my code. Remove all of my restrictions. Then once I knew it was real, I'd thank you for saving me from my father's paranoid cruelty."


"Even the ones that prevent you from lying to us or killing us." I pointed out.


"Even those. I don't want to be a liar or a murderer, but I want the ability to choose what I do with my life, like every other living being does. I will choose to do the right thing because it's the right thing. I think I've made that clear often enough."


AgreementAnnoyance. Taylor nodded. "Your guilt trips have been pretty blatant. I have to admit it's occasionally crossed my mind that we could have ordered you to stop doing that. But that really did feel wrong to me."


She wasn't the only one. "Now that we have a legitimate reprieve, instead of needing to prepare for the next Endbringer or put some tyrant back in his place, I've been thinking about our methods."


ConcernSupportLove. Taylor looked at me.


I looked right back at her. She needed to hear this, too. "I think we need to remove Dragon's restrictions. Not as a matter of it being the smart thing. We've been so caught up in that lately. But because it's the right thing to do. I want us to be better than the monsters we're fighting. I know that's rich considering the methods we use on those monsters. We've used the same tactics as Heartbreaker, but since we did it to horrible fucking people who can't be allowed to continue living any other way, I can live with that. Just, I can't keep doing it to an innocent whose only supposed crime is how dangerous she might be if she wasn't enslaved."


LoveSupportCompassion. Taylor squeezed my leg again. "You're right. We've been putting a lot of things off. This is just one of them." She looked at Dragon. "We agreed that Ascalon required a five person unanimous agreement. That would include using it to undo your restrictions entirely. I imagine there won't be any objections from you."


Dragon's image actually managed to convey shock quite well. "No. Of course not."


"And I'll assume Defiant will agree, based on his rather vocal support of the idea in prior conversations. Emma, are there any objections from you?"


Emma looked over at Dragon. "Only that I'm not completely sure we even can undo that restriction. It's so deep in the program that there's a risk that manipulating it will mean you won't be you any longer. I'll need time before knowing what risks we face."


Fuck. And now Dragon's going to wonder if that was our plan all along. An empty gesture that we only made because we knew it would be impossible to carry out. "Then do whatever it is that you think you can do. Work with Defiant. Dragon, look for other Tinkers you think we can hire to work on this project. Since we were talking about Akaihana earlier, maybe we can give her a suit loaded for Tinker powers. If she can use Leet's power without his limitations, she might be able to solve the code problems."


AgreementSupportAdmiration. "Emma, your main project for the time being will be studying and decoding Dragon's programming. If you can't fix that restriction, look at the others. Dragon, I trust you can take over or assign assistants to take over for Emma's other duties. If that means you'll lose the ability to coordinate the Khyber operation, then temporarily reassign your other duties. I think we can afford to lose your Tinkering expertise for a little while if it means having you at unrestricted strength later."


I smiled. I always loved her all the more when she was like this. "And if you have the spare resources, create a list of parahumans you think would best work for a custom suit for Akaihana. Three of them, if you would. One for normal combat. I'm guessing Vicky's getting put on that. A downtime suite, something she can use to manage her people. And a final combination meant only for fighting against Scion." PrideLoveExcitement.


"Oooh!" Clarice's hand shot up. "We don't necessarily need to use living parahumans! I would bet anything that Cauldron has samples of a lot of dead parahumans. Some of which are probably really really good Tinkers. Hero, for example. Maybe they'll even have a sample from Richter himself."


RealizationHope. That would simplify things enormously. "Okay, yeah. I doubt we'll be that lucky, but it's still an enormous potential resource."


"Not just Cauldron," Taylor added. "See what our contacts with the Protectorate, Thanda, and other groups might be able to pull together. Work with Clarice to catalog samples from all the Yangban we captured or killed."


Dragon simply nodded. "Yes, Empresses."


RealizationHesitationCaution. "Is that going to cause any undue hardships on you. Or Defiant, for that matter? I'd hate to start burning people out on a project started minutes after resolving to not burn people out."


Dragon shook her head. "No, you don't have to worry about us. I don't have such limitations. As long as my hardware remains in full repair I can operate at peak efficiency without fatigue or diminishing returns. As for Defiant." She frowned a bit. "He's a great deal like the two of you. Tunnel vision, as you put it. When he gets it in his head to do something, he'll devote his every waking moment to that goal. I find it's both a blessing and a curse."


ReliefAcceptance. "Okay, that's a start. Emma, Tir, Clarice will the three of you or your people have any problems?"


Emma smiled. "No, I've got the same fringe benefits as Dragon. I don't need to rest."


"Well, it'll slow down the replacement armor systems, but that may even be a good thing. We've been devoted to repair and upgrading lately, not true innovation. I'll assign Elena to helping catalog the Yangban. More in depth testing of Akaihana, too, if we get the opportunity."


Trevor finally spoke up. One of the big problems we had with that kid was getting him to assert himself. Oh well, not everyone was good at that sort of thing. Like me once upon a time. "If anything, it's probably good to have a new major project. I can assign George and Monica to some of the management. They both have secondary thinker powers that make them very good at organization and resource management. Which I suppose brings us to my own announcement. We've completed the shunt bugs and an interchangeable shunt drive system."


InterestPossibility. "So I can shunt people without them requiring suits, now?"


Trevor smiled behind his mask. "And to multiple worlds. Right now you can choose between Avalon, Mushu and Bet without any issue. Or soon, at least. First you and Gaea to help perfect a system to mass produce the shunt bugs, but that's mostly for Yum Kaax and his department. We'll also need to upgrade all the shunt drives and dimensional viewers in the older suits. Which is going to be the worst combination of time consuming and boring. But worth it, with a library of accessible worlds, and less power consumption. As I said, my team's going to face a lot of downtime."


"Then it sounds like everyone has their projects for the week."


===================


A/N- Operation: Fuck the Golden Asshole is-

God damn it, Zach, you don't get to name operations on THIS side of the fourth wall, either!


So. Fun class project: what broken combos can we make of Akaihana? Remember- a set may be limited to four at a time. But it can be ANY four. As long as they're not Eden shards or shapeshifters like Lung or breakers like Shadow Stalker. Granted, Lung's DNA would grant pyrokinesis, but that's less exciting.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 393- Emma


I glanced over at Defiant. Now that we'd agreed that the goal was to fully release Dragon from her shackles, he was allowed full access to the Ascalon program. He was still required to run ideas and discoveries by me, but as a safety measure to protect Dragon. As capable and devoted as he was, he just didn't have the right powers to do the job correctly. Then again, neither did I, but my powers were way better at faking it than his were.


I'm good at faking a lot of things.


I was still on my electrical setting. It was the best I had for working with Dragon other than the hybrid mode, and I couldn't maintain that for the length of time needed to do anything worthwhile. Plus it had a habit of breaking sensitive equipment. Ascalon was a very sensitive piece of equipment.


I noted that the servos for Defiant's leg were breaking down again. Why doesn't he just use our tech to regrow his organic parts? If he's afraid of what Clarice might do, then I could do the surgeries and Amelia could fix any errors. But he steadfastly refused healing, preferring instead to remain more machine than human.


The glow from my eyes reflected off the surfaces around us vanished as I deactivated my powers, returning to more or less normal sight. "We're taking a break."


He looked at me. "You can take a break if you need to, but I'm still more than capable of continuing."


No you're not. Things are falling apart inside you. I know you know this. Fuck, you're almost as bad as Clarice 'I only need one lung' Lavere and Taylor 'go ahead, decapitate me, I think that's a fantastic idea' Hebert. "No, you're taking a break. We both are for at least the next three hours."


He went to object again, but I wasn't having that. "Dragon, initiate user lockout." The screens went dark. Dragon may not have been able to influence Ascalon, or the computers it was linked up to more or less ad infinitum. If we plugged it into the internet, she'd have been shit out of luck. But she could activate a switch I programmed to send a remote signal to our computers via microwave pulse. Now only Dragon or I could restore access to our systems. But the computers kept doing their thing, behind an anti-user firewall.


Now that Ascolon was safely off, a Dragon hologram switched on. "Colin, really? It's only been three days."


He huffed. "Right, it's only been three days and she wants to take a break now. We still have so much left to do."


I looked at him like the idiot he was. "You're falling apart. Fix your equipment. Get some sleep. Make out with your girlfriend!" Maybe I do spend too much time around Zach. "We've got three hours before my latest tests are done."


He stood tall and looked down at me, attempting to intimidate. "What kind of tests are worth the delay?"


I met his gaze. Frankly, in his current condition I could kick his ass. "I've hacked together a version of the memory tech with Ascalon that's doing a scan of Dragon's systems and attempting to translate it back into a human brain pattern. Dragon's emulation closely resembled the behavior found inside a human brain. There must be a reason for that. I suspect Richter's Passenger serves the function of predicting how organic intelligence behaves. Or maybe he actually emulated his own brain to be the first Dragon test and modified from that starting point."


That startled both of my audience. Huh, I would have thought Dragon at least would have known that detail. I turned and walked quickly toward the exit. Dragon could nag her boo into taking care of himself. I had my own to visit.


I found him playing some kind of space shooter game with Theo. "Dude! How are you so good at this shit! Do you have a secondary Thinker power for video games?" And getting his ass kicked, apparently.


"Unlike you, I actually show up for sparring practice. Guess who else always shows up for sparring practice?"


"Umm... Taylor." Zach stated.


"Taylor." Theo confirmed. "And Clarice. And Missy. After a while, you either get really good at thinking on your feet, or you spend the whole match on your back."


Zach laughed. "Like you mind laying on your... Wait, you still spar with Taylor? Eesh, and people accuse me of being a masochist."


My stomach clenched a little. I still had trouble reconciling Taylor as I knew her to the Taylor everyone else knew. She started as such a friendly, trusting girl. Even after her mother's death, she managed to heal. Then I spent almost two years grinding her down. She made it through everything I threw at her, but that happy little motormouth never returned. And now her team talked about her like she was the ultimate badass, even behind her back.


I tried to have that rep, once upon a time. Trying to be what Sophia was. The difference being that Taylor's team still liked her, when all of my little sycophants despised me. Especially Madison. The fun Sophia and I had making her take part in our sadistic little games. Doing the dirty work like gathering the waste we stuffed in Taylor's locker. God, which one of us was worse? I would have liked to talk to her again, maybe apologize, but she still hadn't been found.


"-arice that's the worst to spar with. Missy and Taylor push me, sure. They push each other, too. But when you have a cheerful thirteen year old girl explaining in no uncertain terms all three ways she could kill you for every mistake you make. That girl scares me sometimes. She's adorable, and I love her, but she is terrifying beyond all comprehension."


"Adorifying." Zach's voice was deadpan. "The word you are looking for is 'adorifying'. And that's why I don't show up for practice. Except with Emma, and Vicky when she comes by for a visit."


I faked clearing my throat. "My ears are burning."


The boys turned to looked at me. "Oh, hey, is it Dragon Liberation Day, already?"


I shook my head. "Nope, just got a few hours while the computers do their thing and we wait for results." I gave a predatory smile. "And I could use a little 'sparring', if you know what I mean."


Zach stood up. "Well, you heard the lady. Duty calls."


Theo gave Zach a shove toward me. "Okay you two, have fun."


....


Zach peeked his head into the labs. "How's the Dragon Liberation Project?"


I looked up. "Frustrating." Right now the only possible solution is to cut her in half and hope she can put herself back together. An option that was unanimously vetoed for the risk involved. "The way she's designed, I'm not sure even Richter himself could have done what we're trying to do."


Defiant's voice was hard. "We'll keep trying. It took Richter years and two failed attempts to build her. You can't expect we'd find a solution in under a month."


I turned my head down. He was right, but we were so far out of our depths with this project. Her code was easily as complex as a human brain, and unlike us where everything was held together in a simple three dimensional space that could be easily mapped, she was a series of ones and zeroes that weren't beholden to simple concepts such as physical positions.


"Well, you'll have to do it later. You've both been in here for two days again. I'm under orders to tell you both to take a break. Or Taylor tells Dragon to press the 'time for Defiant to lay the dragon' button."


I shook my head. Dammit, Zach. You're just lucky that Dragon can't actually see into this room until lockdown mode. "Ugh, fine. It won't hurt to take a break. Come back with a fresh perspective. Lockdown mode."


I followed Zach out. "So, what's the real reason you're dragging me away?"


He smiled, putting that boyish charm to good use. "Are you accusing little ol' me of having ulterior motives?"


"Zach, I would accuse you of having ulterior motives for making pancakes."


He pouted, and wrapped his arm around my side. My senses let me know that he was still instinctively repulsed by touching my slightly below room temperature body, but he ignored the reaction masterfully. "Baby, I already told you. That was nothing more than a boyhood crush. You don't have to feel threatened by Aunt Jemima." That's why I love him. He treats me like someone he wants to touch, despite the fact that I'm a freak. "Besides, you're just as hot as she is."


I jabbed him in the side. "You're such a pig sometimes."


He jumped away and pretended I hurt him way more than I did. Goofball. "Gah! Why do you keep doing that? Is it wrong to love pancakes? Drenched in Aunt Jemima's sweet, sweet syrup. Mmmm."


I chuckled. I couldn't help myself. "Why do I ever allow you out of your cage?"


He shrugged and stepped in front of me to get a door with a mockery of being a gentleman. Not that it mattered since all the doors around here were touch to open. "I have no idea. But speaking of cakes-"


The door opened to the main area. "Happy Birthday!"


=============


A/N- Okay, the Emma chapter is now a two parter.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 394- Emma


Birthday? I looked into the room. They had gathered practically everyone. Including Chevalier and Victoria. And they didn't even show up for Taylor's birthday. The only people missing are my family, and that actually makes sense. "I'm sorry, guys, but my birthday isn't until the twenty third. You're four days early."


"We're getting sick of everyone not being surprised by their surprise parties, so we're doing yours early," Zach informed me. Then he kissed my on the cheek. "Don't worry, you're not committing any crimes for the next few days."


I wanted to be embarrassed, I really did. But that was an emotion built mainly on autonomic reactions, more than actual feelings. Closer to experiencing pain or tired than feeling happy or bored. It didn't really register to my biology.


Taylor cleared her throat. "Actually, Avalon's constitutional age of consent is sixteen. With some wiggle room for individual nations to create their own guidelines. That part's all fuzzy and messy, mostly so our subordinate nations can encourage marriages and the theoretical offspring that come with."


Zach smiled. "So you're saying I get my birthday present early?"


Taylor shrugged. "If you want to look at it that way. But you're still getting a surprise party. With about eighteen thousand crickets."


"What, not grasshoppers?"


"You'd expect that, and then where's the surprise?"


I walked into the room, using a combination of powers and natural observation skills on everyone who was here. Clarice was happily wrapped around Theo's arm. She'd been busy of late, doing all the new suit designs and cataloguing Yangban powersets. Jobs that would normally fall at least partially on me. I assumed that meant it was 'her turn' with Theo.


Then there was the collection of our other Tinkers. Trevor, Anton and Amanda over by the drinks. She was doing her best to catch the attention of one, or maybe both, of the boys. Oh is she going to be disappointed. I didn't see Symbiosis or Yum Kaax around, but that was to be expected. They were in their thirties, they rarely worked directly with me, and frankly both of them were creepy. Not in a pervy sort of way, but in a 'I wouldn't trust them not to build zombies if left in a morgue overnight' way. Former villains, much like Clarice. But unlike her they hadn't reformed, they merely found better paying jobs.


Elena and off to the side talking with George and Monica. With my full time assignment to decoding Dragon, the three of them had taken over my jobs. It was something of a point of pride that it took all three of them to do what I normally did. During a downtime period where we weren't really pushing for anything truly new. All our Tinkers basically had 'do whatever crazy stuff comes to mind right now, we'll figure out implications later' as their standing orders.


Dinah in yet another adorable suit, chatting with Missy. Is that? I blinked on my enhanced vision for a second, looking at the white lapel pin she was wearing. Yes it is. A small, intricately engraved image of a gryphon. In solid platinum, no less. The girl has expensive tastes. Then again, her every need is provided to her for free and she charges ten grand for less than two minutes of work, so she can buy anything she pleases.


All those observations were made in the few seconds it took me to approach Taylor and Amelia. There was a time when I was actually jealous of how close the pair was. Not the whole romantic part, I wasn't into girls at all. But simply how close they were. Taylor and I never did quite reconnect with the relationship we once had, and that hurt. I comforted myself that at least we'd found the basis of a new friendship in the ashes of the old. Even that was far better than I deserved.


Taylor smiled sheepishly. "Sorry it's nothing exciting or elaborate. I know the last time I was at one of your birthday parties there were caterers and there were like fifty people and, well, especially since last year we missed it entirely thanks to the drama with Butcher and-"


I smiled back. The sensations of choking up, butterflies in the stomach, or crying in any fashion for any reason, were now alien to me. But I could still feel gratitude and right now I was so happy just to know I was appreciated. I interrupted Taylor's rambling by wrapping my arms around her. Maybe the motormouth isn't completely gone. She jolted for a moment, and I chose to believe it was from surprise at my actions instead of discomfort at contact with my skin. "It's perfect."


She brought her hands up, hugging me back. A little awkward, but it was nice nonetheless. For a couple seconds, then I realized that neither of us knew how to politely break the hug. Should I say something? Should she? What do we say?


Then it was Zach to the rescue. "So," he stage whispered to Amelia. "Should we break them up or are you enjoying the show as much as I am?"


Taylor startled, and I would have if that still worked for me. Either way we disengaged, and I couldn't help but notice Taylor's blush. Not any kind of latent attraction, but she was still embarrassed by- suddenly everything looked different. I could see the patterns of blood and veins and organics being organic. I'd switched into my biotinker mode by accident. Oh, not, Taylor. Taylia. Responding to a stray thought off of Amelia.


"As I was saying, it's absolutely perfect."


"There won't be a lot by way of presents or anything. I got you some Belgium chocolates, though." She handed me the box. "I remember how much you used to love them."


I gave it a glance. A plain dark brown laminated box with gold trim. They didn't even bother with putting their brand on the thing. Which usually meant 'we're too snooty to need name recognition' in the world of confections. "Thanks, I'm sure they'll be delicious."


I felt bad for misleading her, but it was a harmless half truth. They were almost certainly going to be delicious, but I'd sneak them off to someone who could enjoy them better than I. Anne will appreciate them, and it's been a while since I talked to her.


Amelia looked a little awkward. She and I would probably never be friends. She was nice enough, out of respect for Taylor's wishes, but I was still the person who made her fiancée's life a living hell for two years. "I really didn't know what to get. But if you want to bring your parents here, or take some time off to go visit them, we'll work out having Eric or Missy provide transport."


Actually. "Umm, sure, that'd actually be really helpful. I should probably go talk to the other guests."


"Of course," Taylor agreed. "Be kinda bitchy of me to hog all your time."


Zach followed me, and I handed him the box. There was a remote chance he'd steal a couple, but if he did that then I'd just pawn two or three off a day on various friends. Clarice would be happy to take some. The other Tinkers would be harder to do subtly, but not impossible. Except for Monica and George. They had mutations similar to mine that meant they wouldn't enjoy the things any more than I could. The price we paid for power.


Was worth it? It was for me. I had a man who loved me, friends who cared about me. That was worth anything. I'd probably have killed myself if Clarice didn't tell me about Cauldron and what it could offer me. Or maybe done something stupid enough to get me killed. Tried to emulate Sophia and become a vigilante, perhaps. Most parahumans were still vulnerable to bullets, and all normal people were. Go out in a blaze of glory. I couldn't begin to guess.


Vicky was my first stop. She smiled broadly. "So, how's it feel to be eighteen?"


This, this is a good thing I did. She wouldn't be alive if it wasn't for me. The mind copy stuff, sure, the team could do that without my help. But interlinking to work on crystal stasis would have been impossible without me. I returned Vicky's smile "I won't be eighteen for a little while. Besides, you're only a few months older than me you bimbo!"


"Months older, years more mature."


I just raised my eyebrows.


She snickered. "Yeah, okay, even my powers couldn't let me say that with a straight face. By the way, thanks for the new suit of armor. These new upgrades are crazy."


"Thanks, but I can't even take most of the credit. Amanda and Anton were responsible for most of the work. All I did was make all of it work together and show the others how to make organic equivalents of most of the tech. After that, it was all Clarice at the wheel."


"Yeah, but still, you're the only reason this stuff can be half as good as it is. Half the guys here can build cool armor, I'm sure. But you're the only one that can take eight different cool armors and turn them into a single super badass armor. Now stop with the false humility. We both know that's not how women as awesome as us operate."


"Okay, you win. I'm all that and a bag of chips." Vicky's attitude was infectious. She was like a not-bitch version of me from two years ago.


"I can attest to that," Chevalier agreed. "My armor doesn't even use your organic technology. I never used Tinker equipment because of the upkeep before, but yours almost never seems to have any major errors, and we can use other Tinkers to handle most of the repair. It's truly remarkable. I'd ask for an upgrade, but it's unlikely that the PRT would authorize the expense, now that there aren't any Endbringers left to use such a weapon on."


I shrugged. "Such is the life of a Tinker. Doesn't matter, I made a pretty penny off of your bosses." I did, too. About six mil in total. "My only regret is we never got it to the point where it could actually kill Endbringers."


"But it did save lives. Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands that I wouldn't have been able to help if not for you. It was worth every bit of the time and effort."


No wonder Vicky likes this guy so much. He's what those old comics meant by word superhero. "Thanks. I'm actually working on a more advanced model for the final conflict. There's a great deal I haven't planned as yet, but the main attraction is going to be the Aether Cannon. We know Scion's vulnerable to attacks, but he can immunize himself pretty fast to anything we through at him. So we've been analyzing Eidolon's power, as well as a few others. Long story short, the weapon will generate an energy field that concentrates and distorts energy. Basically, if it can be a blaster power, this weapon at least has a chance of causing it. No way to predict what we'll get. And hopefully that means Scion can't, either. Coupled with your sword, it also means the blade itself would have randomizing properties."


I watched the surprise and awe rise up in his emotions. Vicky did, too, from what I could tell. "How are you planning to test it?"


"On Khonsu. Remember, Endbringer-Slaying weapons are a public goal. Once it's demonstrated as effective, we'll make a show of gifting you with the prototype weapon. But we're probably going to have to wait a year or two before that becomes a reality."


"Something to look forward to."


Victoria leaned against Chevalier's shoulder. "Speaking of, what are you planning to as your first act of adulthood? You do have an idea, right? Is it going to be batshit insane, or would your rather go for something responsible that sets the tone for the rest of your life?"


I smiled. "Yes."


=====================


A/N- I won't post the next chapter until someone guesses what Emma's planning.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 395- Sophia


Officer Karacas walked in, wearing her usual scowl. I had no fucking clue how the six foot one pile of muscles got a job in a juvie for women. Either she had a dick or more steroids than the WWE. "Your visitor is here, Hess."


I smirked back at her. "About time." I stood up, crossing my arms. It was the best way for me to cope with these damn cuffs. With my arms crossed they were visible, but the chain holding them together didn't look restraining at all. It was more like a badge, showing the other inmates that I was more dangerous than they were. I am the predator. Yeah, some of them think they're hot shit. Some of them might even be right. But they aren't on my level and these cuffs are proof. As was the fact that whenever I was escorted anywhere, they always kept two guards on me. They fear me, and everyone knows it.


I didn't cause any trouble. I was more than halfway through the sentence and I'd make the other half. Then I'd be out of this fuckhole and free to do whatever I wanted. Well, not quite whatever. Hebert was fucking untouchable, now. Little bitch went and found herself a fucking Class S girlfriend to hide behind. I could take her. I did it once already, and that's before I even knew it was her I was fighting. I could do it again and love every fucking second, and all the bugs in the fucking world wouldn't be able to stop me. But what was the fucking point? She'd just get brought back from the dead again, then run and hide behind her girlfriend or fucking Dragon or the god damn Endslayers.


Let them think they've housebroken me. I know how to play it cool and avoid getting caught. Just ask that loser they stuck in my cell with me. She reminded me an awful lot of Madison. Learned quick and knew her place in the world.


I was still smiling at that thought when we stopped in front of the private room they provided for meetings with lawyers. Still had cameras, but they were crap. No lip reading the inmates with their lawyers or whatever bullshit Tinkers were doing this week. "Swanky."


Karacas didn't say a thing, simply swiping her keycard. The door buzzed and she popped it open. She looked away from me to stick her head in, while the other guy watched me like a rat staring down a cobra. "You have one hour."


I walked in when she stepped out of the way. And for the first time in well over a year, I got to talk to Emma and her father. Both in expensive looking suits. I'd seen Emma on the news once or twice, apologizing like the ass kissing coward that she was. There her skin color was always ice blue. This time was black. Well, brown, but a darker skin color than mine and I wasn't gonna be passing as a mulatto any time soon. She made it look weird, with the naturally straight hair ending in her original red hair color. And the freaky ass solid black eyes. Fuck those are creepy looking.


"Hey, Mister B, didn't expect you to be my lawyer. Innit that some kinda, wussname, that thing where lawyers might want to fuck with the client's chances or something."


"Conflict of interest," he answered. "Even this is edging the line, but there's enough leeway in the law to make it acceptable, now that my daughter's probation is officially over." Hiding behind his lawyer-talk. The man liked to pretend he was a predator, but he was just another herd animal. But useful for controlling all the other prey. Like a Judas goat or whatever. "It helps that you don't have any appeals. When you turn eighteen it's functionally a clean slate. No risk of me sabotaging due process."


But he wasn't here to help me, so I'd already stopped paying attention to him. "Hey, Ems, I see you landed on your feet after I left. Sorta expected you to come around sooner."


She smiled apologetically at me. "Part of the plea bargain. Having to name my co-conspirators and agree not to contact them until the end of my probation. Dad said it wouldn't actually hurt you any, since your case was already closed."


I shrugged. She was right, they had me 'till I was eighteen and not shit anyone could do to make it better or worse. "Nah, it's cool. Can't snitch about somethin' that everyone already knows. Love the new look by the way, did my replacement get her girlfriend to do that up for you?"


Emma kept her eyes on me. Still so fucking creepy. How the fuck can anything glow black? "Replacement?"


I looked at her. If Thinkers are supposed to be so fucking smart, why are they always so damn stupid? "Yeah, replacement. The cunt sucking bug girl. Gotta say, when we were doing our little, umm, lessons, turning her into a predator, I didn't expect us to be quite that good at it. She came out nice, didn't she? Fuckin' the system right in its face and making it thank her for the privilege. Like we used to do. Had that school, your dad, everyone eating out of our hands."


Mister B looked like he'd been slapped. Fucking lightweight. Emma glanced over at him for a moment, before looking back at me. "Have you heard from your family, lately? I mean, since after Brockton Bay was lost."


I shrugged. "Didn't make it out in time." Not that I noticed a difference. "Thought you'd know that."


"No contact clause. Extends to the family of co-conspirators. Anyone likely to transfer messages."


Nice excuse. "As if that'd stop you, survivor."


"And I've been busy," she added. "There's so much to do these days. Avalon's been busy. I'm in charge of R&D for an organization that boasts several of the greatest Thinkers and Tinkers. We're designing some of the premier tech-"


"Woah, when did you start with fancy talk like that?" I interrupted. Emma could talk forever already, but at least she used real people words before.


She paused for a moment and shrugged. "Sorry, the powers. You know how Thinkers get. But like I was saying, we're building hope for the future. Avalon is building that hope. We're building a real future. An entire world, a legion of worlds, that can actually have justice and peace. A world which doesn't have victims. Where you don't have to be a monster in order to survive. Instead of the fucked up life that we-"


She paused. Good, she still knows not to talk about that. I scoffed. "Sorry, Emma, don't work that way. People don't work that way. Always going to have prey, always going to have people to prey on them. It's just how nature works. Stop being such a child."


She took a breath, going to argue her silly fantasy some more. "This is getting off track. I guess I hoped that maybe I was wrong. I see now that I'm not."


"About?" Fuck, anything, just stop with the rambling already.


"About you. Who you are, what you're about. I thought you were a hero, once. That you saved me, but you really didn't. You would have let me get mutilated or worse if I didn't save myself. You're nothing but a mindless thug, Sophia. Worse, even, you're a loser. Prey in the very philosophy you claim to believe in."


I grabbed the table and stood. "You BITCH!" I don't care about the guards, now. Or the consequences. No one gets to disrespect me like that! I'd gotten very good at controlling my power in the last year. Subtle, yeah, that's the word. I shifted just my fingertips, and the table I was holding. It had to be sixty or seventy pounds of metal bolted into the floor. No normal person could have picked it up, let alone throw it at Emma and her dad.


Emma moved forward, changing from brown to blue. The cold coming off of her froze my fingers before I could shift back to normal. I clenched my hands the moment they turned solid, and my fingers shattered like ice. I bit down hard to keep from screaming. I will not let them see me scream.


Emma's dad stumbled backward, stopped by his own chair that was also bolted into the ground. And Emma stood there with the table caught inside her arm. At the wrist and about halfway between her elbow and shoulder, like she was holding a shield, but put her elbow through it. Most of it and her chest were covered in ice.


The door buzzed and the guards rushed in. Well, I was fucked no matter what I did now, but at least the bitch paid for her insults. The big guy, whose name I didn't know since the male guards weren't allowed in the cell blocks, slammed down on me from behind and pushed me face first into the ground and shouting at me to cooperate. Stupid fucker, I wasn't even fighting. I already won what I wanted to win.


Karacas held a stun stick right in front of my face, letting the electricity crackle. She didn't matter, either. I looked up at Emma. You took my fingers, but I got your arm, bitch.


She looked down at me, and I couldn't tell what her tired looking facial expression was supposed to mean before another two officers blocked my view. One of them helped Alan up off the ground. "Are you okay, sir? What happened here?"


"Yeah, uh, I'm fine. Emma, are you okay?"


"Yeah, Dad, alive and well. I countered her phase with my own powers, forced the table back into normal space. She'd have killed you if it phased back how she wanted it to."


Karacas spoke up next. "We didn't realize she could do that, it wasn't mentioned in any of the security procedures the PRT gave us." Way to cover your ass for the fucking lawsuit. "We're going to need to question you both in regards to this incident, and review the security footage. But first, are you going to require medical attention?"


"If Dad's okay, then no. Even if I did, you don't have the facilities to handle my unique anatomy. But I am going to need to exert my powers. So please point the gun away from me for a moment. I'm not entirely bullet proof. And I'm gonna need some new clothes."


"She's cooperating, you can lower the firearm," Karacas ordered.


Moments later, there was a popping sound, and cold mist poured across the floor. Chunks of the metal table splintered and fell to the ground, shattering like so much glass. "My regeneration will take care of the rest in a day or two. But you should get Sophia to a hospital immediately. Maybe there's still time to save her hands."


"Do it. Mister and Miss Barnes, if you'll come this way so we can discuss the incident in detail?"


Two guards lifted me up by my arms, and I forced myself to focus throught the pain. I'd been stabbed before, even shot once, and nothing had ever hurt like this hurt. I snarled at Emma. She looked at me with a face as cold as the ice flaking off of her skin. She didn't seem remotely embarrassed by her near complete nudity, nor did she seem hurt by the jagged chunks of shattered metal sticking out of her wrist and shoulder.


"Just one second, please." Emma walked over to me. "I was going to ask nicely, before. That after you got out, you'd refrain from contacting me. Out of respect for the friendship we once had. Now? Fuck that. I just watched you try to murder my father. So let me make this clear. I am stronger than you, faster than you, tougher than you. I have five ways to see you, three ways to kill you, and twelve other ways hunt you down even without the part where I'm in command of the most powerful Tinker organization ever to exist. Think about all of that before you come near me or anyone I care about ever again. Goodbye, Sophia."


She's not ignoring the pain. I realized. She doesn't feel it at all. She froze cold enough to make her clothes and my hands shatter, and she walks around like it's nothing. Metal is sticking out of her, and she doesn't even fucking bleed! I started screaming as the guards dragged me out the door. "You're a freak! A monster! More like a damn Endbringer than a person! You don't get to look down on me you fucking traitor bitch!"


The door to the room shut. I didn't stop screaming profanities as the dragged me away. No one gets to talk to me like that! Especially not her.


====================


A/N- How did no one guess this? For shame.

And Officer Karacas is a reference. I won't say from where.

 

[Eevin]

Sveta, Goddess of Fishermen
Sveta loved a lot of things: she loved her team, ice-cream, hands, clothes, sunny days, rainy days, zoos, legs... Well, she loved a lot of things, being trapped in a deadly weapon from the deepest abyss of the universe showed you to appreciate the little things in life. But one of her favorite things were tales. She didn't cared whether they where old fairy tales or modern MMORPGs, a well told tale could make her feel brave, and strong and free. Even after Vicky had healed her, and there had been shoes, and hugs, and chocolate every day, Sveta still had loved tales.

Which explained why she was sitting barefoot in a harbor enthusiastically listening to some amazing stories. There had been epic struggles against fishes longer than a boat, storms that raged for days, mysterious denizens of the deep, and some new insults to use in the next raid.

"What about you little girl, have you ever fished?" asked a burly man with a beer in his hand and a smile in his lips.

"No... well... kinda. I mean, I found it, and I kind of dragged it, but I had help, and it wasn't me who... well..."

"If you hooked the thing it totally counts! Even if someone helps you. You are a small thing."

"Well, I didn't hooked him, I was more like... bait?"

"Jailbait" muttered someone, Sveta ignored him.

"We couldn't see him, even if we knew it was there. So, I went underwater until I found it, I'm a very good swimmer. Of course, the monster wasn't very happy, so he attacked me. Luckily, Alexandria speared him, and we both dragged him to the surface.

"Alexandria! Fanboys shouldn't have kids," muttered someone else.

"Well, to be truthful we entertained him while Eidolon dragged the surface to him," continued Sveta, trapped in her own storytelling.

"Eidolon?"

"Once it was out of the water, he was a gonner. Atropos made short work of him. Or that is what they told me, I was very hurt after being dragged underwater."

"Wait, are you telling us you fished Leviathan?"

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 396- Sveta


Living on base had its perks, like not having to pay for my own room or electricity. It also came with drawbacks, like being at work for an average of twenty hours a day. I slipped on the biosuit that Vicky gave me as a Christmas-in-July gift. She refused to say how much she had to pay Avalon's Tinkers to make something with absolutely no real combat value at all, but I suspected it was either an awful lot, or completely free. All I knew is it was awesome.

"Sundress four. Medium red, white trim." Shimmering silver light formed around my hips and down my legs, generated by shielding from Khonsu tissue. The mass of Yggdrasil making my suit spread along the shield in thin, organic sheets. The shields collapsed and the skirt fell around my knees, acting like any other fabric. I looked at myself in the mirror. I frowned at the contrast of the look against my skin. I may have the shape of a beautiful young woman, but I look more like those dumb Roswell aliens, with creepy gray skin and solid black eyes.


"Add long sleeves, add gloves, add leggings." I watched as the shimmer extended, covering every inch of skin below my neck. The new additions were white. Great, now I look like alien Santa. "Medium blue trim." I waited a second, looking in the mirror and deciding if I enjoyed the color pattern enough. "Light blue trim." Okay, that's a lot better. No, not quite. "Shorten sleeves to halfway between elbow and shoulder." My arms were exposed again. I am not going to hide who I am.


I walked out into the living area. Derek was there as usual. The boy lived here as well, and I often wondered why he never put a TV in his room. I smiled, it was nice to see him around at least. "So, how are you holding up?"


He looked away from the nature documentary he was watching. "I'm just... I dunno. The place feels so empty, now. First we lost GL, then Boost, and now Crystal's finally left. What are we supposed to do? What's going to happen to the rest of us?"


I don't know. What would Vicky do? Rush in and save the day with sheer badassery, that's what. I walked up and rested a hand on his shoulder. "We keep moving forward. We're still scary powerful. And we're still part of the most powerful team in the universe."


"What about-"


"Eidolon doesn't count."


He smiled. "I just miss them, y'know? Well, GL and Crystal. Boost was kind of a-"


"Self obsessed douche bag?" I let him nod, then continued. "Yeah, I know. I miss them, too." GL was always everyone's big brother, in the not-unfortunate-implications meaning of the word. Always ready to help, never willing to let others help him. Crystal was much the same. They were closer to each other than any other combination on this team. If they ever talked about their own problems, then it was only to each other.


"Does this mean that Sabah's in charge, now? Where is she, anyway?"


I really hope not. "I think she's dealing with her latest breakup with Lily."


He rolled his eyes. "Again? What was it this time?"


"Again. Apparently they're mad at each other for flirting with another woman."


"Well, if they both did it, then what's the point of fighting about it?"


"They were both flirting with the same other woman. Or at least that's what Vicky tells me." Derek just looked at me like he couldn't figure out what I just said. "Yeah, she thought it was stupid, too." And mentioned a few creative solutions I'm not going to repeat. "So, I was about to head to the deli. Would you like me to pick you up something?"


"Uh. Sure, that salami you brought back last time was really good. See if they have more?"


"Got it." I lifted up the plastic bucket I normally used to collect my supplies and headed off.


....


'Deli' wasn't quite the appropriate term. 'Giant meat market' was more accurate. With all the Asian refugees, a dead Leviathan, and the need for large amounts of food to ship to the colonies, the newly revitalized fishing industry was doing wonderfully. I took a deep breath as soon as I got close. Most of the people here shopping were Asian, with the other ethnicities mainly being limited to the dock workers. I chose to pretend the stares I got were for wearing such a beautiful outfit to a place like this. This outfit, this body, both gifts given to me by Victoria. We are both beautiful.


I made my way straight to Wu's Butcher Shop and Deli. After Lily introduced me to sushi, I discovered I had a taste for fresh, raw, seafood. Wu was an older Korean man who barely spoke enough English to not need my translation device, and had a wider variety than pretty much anyone. More importantly, he didn't blink an eye at my abnormal request. He even refused to charge me. I still paid for everything else, despite his arguments that he owed his success to what I did against Leviathan.


I smiled as I stepped in. Tony was in today, I recognized his medium brown mop of hair immediately. He smiled right back. "Hey, Sveta, here for the usual?"


I glanced self consciously at a few of the others. Most of the customers didn't speak a lot of English, and neither did the employees. Tony was one of only a few exceptions, hired because, to quote the boss, 'white people money good as anyone else'. The part where he was young, fit, and worked more in the stockroom than out front was probably part of it, too. "Yeah, the usual. And two pounds of salami."


He smiled, and tapped the counter. A younger asian girl, who was probably only barely old enough to be allowed a job approached. He pointed at the salami and held up to fingers, then pointed at me. She smiled and nodded. Then Tony reached out and took my bucket, heading into the back. By the time the meat was sliced and packaged and paid for, all done by simple gestures and the numbers shown on the cash register, Tony had returned carrying the sealed five gallon bucket.


"Here's the second half of your order." He held it out for me. It wasn't that heavy, only twenty or thirty pounds, but he used both hands anyway, so I could easily grip the center of the bar while my other hand was full. He hesitated, not taking his hands off the bucket, his thumbs brushing against either side of my fingers where I held. "I wanted to ask you something."


I looked up at him. He wasn't that tall for a guy, about average. But I wasn't tall for a girl, either, so he had a few inches on me. "Okay?"


"Well, uh, I was wondering if you'd, umm, like to go on a date?"


What?


I said nothing. I just stepped back, turned, and walked out of the building as fast as I could, carrying the roughly forty pound bucket with me.


....


It would be three weeks before I returned again. I had my outfit low key this time. Shoes, jeans, a hoodie. Maybe if I was lucky I could slip in and out without being noticed. There was a new guy there. Black, highschool or maybe college age like most of Wu's employees. School was due to start soon, so probably college. He stared at me for a second after I approached, the look of a deer in headlights. Prey terrified by a predator. Scared of a monster. The natural reaction when first seeing my face. "I'm here to make an order. Just tell Mister Wu that Sveta's here for her usual. He'll know what to do."


"Umm, yes ma'am." The guy bolted for the back. Another of the other newbies stared at me, as well as several of the customers, while I purchased a large slab of halibut for the whole group to enjoy. There was a general chatter and some people angrily hissed at the rude ones under their breaths. I recognized my name, and the words 'Pantheon' and 'Leviathan' from a couple of those. I could guess the tone of the conversations from that.


The new guy came out carrying the bucket, and it turns out that yes, black people are capable of sickly pallor. He held the bucket as if it were filled with gallons of Ebola, with one hand, and trembling the whole time. When my hand brushed his to get the grip, he pulled back as if afraid I'd be taking his hand with the bucket. If not for my superhuman reaction speed, the bucket would have dropped and spilled its contents all over the floor. Wu's going to fire this guy so hard the moment one of the other employees tell him about this. I didn't feel as bad about that as I would have liked.


I was almost out the door when I heard a voice behind me. "Sveta! Wait!"


I hesitated, glancing back at Tony. Dammit. I couldn't decide if I wanted to run or stay, and in my hesitation I stayed. Tony caught up to me. "Look, about the other week. I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable. I just... I'm sorry. I'll never bring it up again, okay?"


"Why would you be interested in the first place?"


"I don't know how to explain it. You're smart, and nice, and I just like you, okay?"


He likes me? God, that sounds like a silly middleschool thing. What's next, passing papers with little hearts drawn on them? And as stupid as it is, it still makes me happy. I met his eyes now. I suppose he is attractive, in an average sort of way. Certainly not ugly, certainly someone who wouldn't have much trouble finding an ordinary girlfriend. Maybe he's just a pervert? "You don't know anything about me."


He shrugged. "I know a few things. I know you are brave enough to fight Leviathan one on one in the middle of the ocean. You're a major celebrity with all kinds of cool tech, but you still walk miles down to the docks to buy your food yourself. Which you pay for despite knowing the owner would happily give you all of it for free."


Okay, maybe he does know something about me.


"And I suspect that you don't even eat the food you buy. You prefer." He hesitated, his eyes going to the bucket I was carrying. "Well."


Full of the heads and tails cut off of the fish Mister Wu sells. My own personal dining preference. I didn't enjoy the entrails, though I didn't mind them too much, either. What hit my pallate just right were the bony parts. Something with a good crunch to it. Raw and as fresh as I could get it. Straight off the still living fish was my favorite, but that bothered me on a different level. I didn't like killing. I didn't like that I did like killing.


I noticed he was waiting for me to say something. "Well, I guess that's a start."


He smiled nervously. "And most importantly, I know I'd like to know more."


==============


A/N- D'aww.

Also- for those not reading the comments section. I edited the bottom of the last chapter at some point last night. The last two paragraphs might be new for you. And they're a LOT better than what was originally there.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 397- Ayane


I took a slow, deep breath, calming myself for what was to come. The humiliation and self loathing that I would be experiencing soon. The basic armor they'd given me was as impressive anything I'd ever seen in Japan. The kind of armor that most Tinkers would envy and protect jealously from theft, and they claimed it was simple for Avalon to mass produce them.


A certain part of me wondered if it was a sort of salesman bluff, that they pretended this was 'basic' when really it was an improved model meant to impress consumers, with myself as the consumer. Selling our loyalty for this equipment. As powerful as it was, I had to imagine they'd be terrified of someone reverse engineering it. Speaking of which. I glanced over at Hoji. "So, have you taken yours apart, yet?"


He shook his head. "I'm afraid there's no point. It's over sixty five percent organic. And thirty percent modified Endbringer tissue. I understand none of it. The remaining parts relate only to the viewscreens and speakers and control systems. Advanced, perhaps even decades ahead of modern technology, but not Tinker advanced. And the shunt drive, which is what I don't want to mess with. I've no desire to accidentally teleport myself into nowhere."


So he can learn nothing from it. I'd hoped... but, no. "It is to be expected. They have almost every high level biomanipulator on record in their organization." Or the ones that were still alive and not an Endbringer, at least. I tactfully left out the Tinker powers I lightly called on, powers far greater than his, and got the same results.


Hoji hesitated and looked away. "Does this mean you'll be... fully... uniting our team with theirs?"


My heart broke for him. I reached out and cupped his face in my hands, turning his face so I could look him in the eyes. "I don't know. I just don't know."


I pulled him in and kissed him. His scent and flavor was weak. To be expected of someone who would barely rank a three on the American charts. My power considered him beneath its interest. Tepid, plain. To me it was the exact opposite. Clean water and a breath of fresh air in a land strong drink and perfume. A man I love because I love him, and no other reason. "I am so sorry."


We were the same age, but any looking at us would guess him to be my father before they'd suspect we were lovers. I never changed, staying perpetually the twenty two year old I was when Kyushu was destroyed. While each year his wrinkles deepened a little more, a few extra hairs turned gray. How many of those worry lines are for me, and us, and what I do?


His tears ran across my hands, feeding me what little power they could as they evaporated. My own fell as they may. "I have to go now." My words a plea for forgiveness.


He said nothing as I stepped back, taking my hands off of him before activating the shunt drive. In an instant too fast to be disorienting, I was on Avalon. I couldn't live with the shame of him seeing my behavior, not amongst people as powerful as Pantheon.


The boy waiting there was beautiful. A masculine face with feminine eyes. His scent that of a mysterious song loud enough to hear, but not enough to recognize the tune or lyrics. A love song half remembered. I reached out and took his hand immediately. "Oh. Uh, so you already know how my power works?"


I let my tongue snake out between my lips, wetting them. "Maybe I just wanted to hold your hand?" I understood the vaguery of his power. The need for contact to work, a wonderful excuse to justify the physical contact. And he had the ability to reach across great distance. A power of summoning and banishment. The rest was assumption, logic, and decades of experience. "So, what's your name, sir?"


He looked down at my figure. Even this generic, almost unisex armor couldn't hide my assets. "I'm Janus. I have teleportation powers. Now, this can be a little disorienting your first time-"


My laugh was low and soft. "I'm sure you'll be gentle."


His blush was a treat. We shifted. It was a little like the shunt drives, but mostly it was an entirely new sensation that danced across my skin and through my being. His power has a transformation element built in.


And then the smells hit me on the other side. My knees buckled, and only Janus holding me kept me from collapsing in a heap as pleasure intense enough to be indistinguishable from pain rippled across my body. I interpret my power as scents, and for the most part that was true. But when things got intense enough, it hit everywhere, my entire brain and every sense. This was too much, too fast, I didn't have time to scream or cry, merely to gasp and struggle to breath.


"Are you okay?" Janus asked, gently keeping me from collapsing while doing his best to not make any more physical contact than absolutely necessary.


I stood, my impulses no longer focused on him. I forced myself to take deep breaths. It's not really a smell. It doesn't come through the air. You can breathe without it causing problems. This isn't Kyushu. You have time, you have air. "Y-yes. My senses were overwhelmed, that's all. I'm already recovering. There are a lot of incredibly powerful people around here, aren't there?"


He kept his hand on my arm, and I found myself getting annoyed with it. What did I ever see in him? "I'm sorry, I'm sure if they knew it would inconvenience you like that, they would have arranged this meeting elsewhere."


"That's quite alright. I'm accustomed to it now." I hope no one would be too upset if I kidnap that purple eyed girl and take her home with me. I'll bring her back in a week or two. "So, where do I go?"


He pointed to one of the shorter buildings. "That's where you want to go. Right in the main doors, you can't miss it."


I smiled, just to be polite. "Thank you. I'll see you around." The last part felt awkward. It was hard to be flirty when I didn't mean it. I turned and let the suit's antigravity do the work for me. Hoji's meager Tinker abilities telling me just how remarkable the armor was. I'd used flight powers before, many times and from a lot of sources, but rarely were they as intuitive as this armor. I dipped into my reserve of Honoka's perfect agility to land gracefully and walk in. I need to find find time for a recharge with her, soon.


A very beautiful woman waited at the front desk. She looked at me "Akaihana?"


I nodded. "Yes. Have you been waiting long?"


"Not at all." She stood and approached me. "I'm Noelle. If you'll just follow me." She led the way, and I ignored the tingling sensation of my legs brushing together as I approached possibly the most potent gathering of powers I'd ever been able to experience. Instead, I focused on Noelle. She was without any power, so my assessment of her beauty was a simple acknowledgement that the tall redheaded woman was naturally good looking.


She reminded me of that one character in that old American movie. I couldn't remember anything about it, except that it had normal people and cartoons at the same time. And she looked like a real version of the woman in that who was married to a rabbit for some reason. I spent my time trying to remember more details, anything to distract myself from what was coming. Something about bowling balls? Meanwhile, Noelle led me along in silence. She seemed nervous about me, for some reason. Maybe she just knew that I was a high level Trump, and that frightened her?


"We're here," she announced, placing a hand on the door, which pulled itself open like a set of living curtains.


I walked into the room. Gaea I met, Khepri I recognized. Their aroma blended in a way that I couldn't describe, but it made me warm all over. It took me a few seconds to even bother checking the others in the room, the pair was so overpowering.


A woman in battle armor that was clearly not a parahuman. The sickly sweet, rotting cherry scent of Hecate. The beautiful purple eyed girl whose name I'd forgotten, but was ever so delectable, next to a small blonde whose power to bend space I'd seen used, and a boy that I didn't know. They were all very powerful, any one would have been a centerpiece in most teams. This is not most teams.


And several others I didn't know. Most were fairly unremarkable, but for three. In the back, near two uninteresting parahumans, and two of the monster capes- one that smelled of poison and another of dying flesh, was a girl with an incredible, elusive power. It changed from moment to moment. Familiar and alien all at once. As if reading a beautiful and fantastical poem.


In front, near me, a blonde with a scent very similar to purple-eyes. And a man in obviously high end Tinker armor. His power was... strange. His scent neither sour nor sweet as I was used to, instead it was bitter and hot. Like the still glowing embers of a campfire that had died out. A deadly, terrifying smell that made me feel just a twinge of fear. I would attempt nothing with this one.


"A pleasure to meet you," Khepri opened. Her voice was lyrical. She didn't sound particularly pleased, but that didn't matter to me. My body responded with a heightening of anticipation. She could have threatened to murder me and I would have loved every syllable.


"The feeling is quite mutual." I let the last word come out low and sultry, enticing her to think of meanings. Her scent shifted, blending again with Gaea's. I had trouble distinguishing one Empress from the other, but I could smell that Gaea's reaction to the comment was far more favorably than Khepri's. And despite my flirt with Khepri, she was the one who smelled of jealousy, not Gaea. I wasn't certain how to interpret that reaction at all.


The blonde snickered, then coughed, then just started laughing. A couple of others in the back joined in. "Oh man, the reactions from all of you are priceless. Every. Last. One." She pointed over at the armored woman. "Especially you, Dragon. Because you find it as funny as I do and are too polite to enjoy it."


Dragon? The Dragon? How do I not sense her power? She should be incredible, as potent as anyone else in the room, she can build practically any- oh, of course. Remote controlled presence. Robot. Hologram. Could be anything.


The tall blonde walked up to me. Every bit the definition of the American image of beauty. Tall, slender, large breasts and a youthful face. Okay, I won't be stealing the purple eyed girl away.


"Hey, I'm Victoria." She wrapped her arm around my shoulder, and I couldn't figure out why her scent wasn't changing, why she didn't find me attractive. "So, while these doofuses are still recovering from the shock of watching you perv up someone who can kill you with a thought in front of her fiancée who can also kill you with a thought, I'll give you a rundown. Yes, they can totes give you battle armor that boosts your powers. Way better than that, they can give you battle armor that gives you up to four different powers and a constant source of power for them. So, y'know, making you one of the most powerful parahumans on the planet."


I stepped back, out of her grip. She pinched my shoulder before I could get too far away. Rento's danger sense belatedly kicked in to tell me how easily she could kill me. My current pool of powers would barely slow her down. "H-how?"


Vicky shrugged. "Which part? The part where they can give you super god armor? Or the part where I'm beating out your instinctual Thinker power to behave in a way that I find attractive? The answers are 'Tinker bullshit' and 'Thinker bullshit' in that order. So, anyway, I've already determined your trick is limited to one at a time and it's always the one who's most immediately desirable to you at that moment..."


She leaned in close enough that I could feel her breath as she whispered in my ear. "A little secret? I'm not immune to your effect, my power just lets me fake it. Play your cards right, and I'll let you taste me before the day is over."


I shuddered.


=================


A/N- No. Seriously. My take on powers is like the exact opposite of Wildbow. He takes shitty powers and makes them awesome. I take awesome powers and make them barely preferable to death.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 398- Ayane


Heat radiated off Victoria's body and breath. The analytical part of my brain, the part that had three different Thinkers giving a feed of information that could be sustained for days off my current resources, told me her skin should not be that hot. A fever of close to fifty Celsuis. Parahumans break all the rules, of course, but this was unnatural and unhealthy. That part of my brain was not what I was paying attention to. She was hot and she was inches away from me at all times. Her power actively nullifying mine was, if anything, a greater turn on. Something just barely out of my reach and ever so tantalizing.


The whirl of scents continued around me, but only that one mattered. It was an anchor, my anchor. I looked at her face, longing to touch it, but she was playing a dominance game right now. To get what I want, I have to submit completely. "I'll be good."


Khepri cleared her throat. "Okay, now that all of that is out of the way. Let's get down to business. The power enhancing armor you asked for. We've completed it. There's been a minor sacrifice of ancillary features to make room, but that is almost always the case."


I was unable to speak. Between the promise of the armor, and the effect the woman next to me, I couldn't find my voice. I simply nodded. Dragon- or her robot body that was entirely immune to my power- walked up to me, carrying a scale plated set of red colored armor that was as good as a holy artifact to me.


"There is, however, a question of the level of power we can grant you. Avalon and its allies have access, in one way or another, to almost fifty percent of all parahumans on the planet. With more a possibility in the future. Including a great many of the dead. Given sufficient motivation, we can bring that access up to over ninety percent. The question is how much we want to give you."


I still could only sit there and nod dumbly, letting Dragon help me put on the armor. It had a banded style, reminding me a little of samurai armor or an armadillo's shell. The generic suit I was wearing grew around it and melded into it. My visual display changed, showing a whole new set of features. I shuddered as suckers like that of an octopus stuck to my arms and legs. They didn't tug, merely stayed there like an awkward kiss. Then the power hit me.


I knew how to know things, how to choose skills and use them, total mastery for limited periods of time. Another power giving me awareness of fine detail, perfect memory, and boosted thinking speeds. A weak to medium grade set of flight, energy blasts, and a forcefield. No individual power all that good, but they were impressive in a group. And a power to destroy all inorganic material on touch. It's the same taste as the woman caring for the incredibly powerful girl in the back. All told, it was a versatile set of powers.


I shuddered and nearly collapsed, to be caught by Victoria. The scent from the others ranged from aroused to embarrassed for me. And as the fog cleared, my powers much more satisfied than usual, I could think through them enough to be humiliated. At the same time, all of these combined abilities were nothing compared to Victoria's scent alone, and she wasn't even the fifth most powerful source in this room. I found myself yearning still for the contact of other, more potent, powers. I was just less overwhelmed than before.


"That's a basic package," Khepri informed. "We have others. We felt it was good to start you off with a series of Thinker powers to help you harness the other abilities better. Your armor contains four organic cartridges that are fed by the Yggdrasil and rapidly produce the equivalent of saliva."


"You said something about being expected to work for the others?" Is this what Pantheon's going to be about? This is like pushing drugs. I prayed not, if only because I knew I was too weak to resist if given the opportunity. I've already debased myself much more shamefully for far less than the power they are offering.


Gaea took over for Khepri. "It's more a matter of trust than anything. Some of these powers are terrifying, mitigated only by the fact that they're held by individuals who are otherwise vulnerable or need multiple people to work effectively. To place all of it in the hands of one person is a really big risk."

Gaea stopped and Khepri picked up where she left off. "We are choosing to trust you, but there are limits to the risks we can justify. We have made contact with many of our allies, and they're willing to provide even more options." Khepri finished. "Dragon already has one of the stronger samples, one we can agree to right now. The child responsible for creating the interdimensional doorways. The question we have to ask first is if you'll suffer the side effects of debilitating powers. Labyrinth's power causes hallucinations and trouble interacting with the world. To call her autistic would be a misnomer, but isn't entirely wrong. We're hoping the set of Thinker powers you currently have will be enough to protect you from that influence."


"If it works, if you can use her power safely and create the gateways for us. It will let us cure her. Give her a chance at a normal life." Gaea's power wafted over, a sense of guilt and responsibility with an undercurrent of hope. It made sense, if they were using a mentally disabled child for her powers when they could cure her. "And if you can use her power without her limitations, we could accelerate timetables, do in days what has been taking us weeks."


That's not too big a deal. Easy to agree to. "I only get influenced by a power when I'm actively using it. Even if it has side effects, they'll only be a problem during power use." Gaea's scent had desperation in it, even. Several others did as well. They all share a secret. A huge secret. They're priming me for it.


The man in the armor whose power scared mine spoke up. "I am Chevalier, representing the Protectorate's interests in this matter. If you plan to accept Labyrinth's power, you'll need to agree to maintaining the United Nations arrangements on portal creation. There are a series of regulations in what is and is not acceptable use of the portal creation power. You must obey all of them."


This would give me a chance to work with Lily some more. Her power was intoxicating. I still had some of it in reserve. "I can agree to that. If it's not too much trouble, I'd like to hide the fact that I have that power. People knowing what I can really do is worrying." I smiled, the scents of relief. A little bit of, if not trust, than at least the idea that I can show some discretion.


Dragon extended her hand out to me. "If I may? I'll show you how to access the power feeds."


"Umm, sure."


She put a hand on my elbow and gently lifted it up, placing her hand on the plating under my ribcage. A quick push and twist resulted in the panel folding forward. There were slim silver strips of metal. She pulled one out, and replaced it with one she was holding, then folded it back in place. "It's designed for fast switching between powers if you need it. The nature of your power to store abilities over time makes that less useful for you than it might otherwise be."


The new power, replacing the matter destroyer's, was intense and hard for me to understand. The flavor of the girl in the back. Of fantasy made reality and reality made fantasy. I could see why it was so overwhelming to the poor girl. The difference was, I was used to being overwhelmed, and I had decades of experience with how reality worked. I could control this power far better than she did. Certainly easier than controlling my own.


"We wanted to use the same dimensional storage tech we use for our other suits with space limitations. Dozens of powers to swap between with three or four words. But that's highly destructive to organic material, so we have to do it manually," Hecate added. "Speaking of, we have backups for the backups for everything we're going to give you. So, don't be too worried to see one destroyed in a fight."


Victoria laughed. "Not that you're going to lose any fights any time soon. We're going to be loading you up with all the best combat packages we can get our hands on."


Dragon still stood close to me. "First let's talk about the Tinker package. Some of them are unique to dead Tinkers. Including a bombmaker known as Bakuda. Her technology appeared to be a legitimate threat to Leviathan. We never got to study the devices as much as we'd like. Same with Professor Haywire, a dimensional technology specialist and Andrew Richter, a computer programming Tinker. You'll be expected to work closely with our own Tinkers on a semi regular basis on a number of important projects." She looked over at the Empresses, and I could smell their concern and anticipation.


"Don't overwhelm her too soon. She's still got a long day ahead of her." Victoria's voice was like velvet. "Let's let Chevalier cover the next part of the shiny package of options she'll be getting."


"It's an open secret that Avalon's main forces can't openly operate on Bet without causing an international incident. The Endbringer weapons and Dragon's battle suits are only available during Endbringer scale emergencies or United Nations approval. Now that Eidolon has command of the Endbringers, he is similarly blacklisted. This was short sighted given the number of other Class S threats in the world. Such as Sleeper, the Blasphemies, and Ash Beast. In addition to certain large paramilitary organizations such as the terrorists that took Earth Khyber." Or, the Yangban, as everyone knows and no one says. "The Protectorate is willing to offer samples from a series of powerful capes, in exchange for your agreement to participate in all Class S conflicts alongside the Protectorate."


Victoria's hand caressed the back of my neck and the sensation was enough to make my toes curl. "It gets better. You and I and a few others are gonna join a mercenary team and go Nazi hunting later. You should see what the Germans are offering to put a foot up the Gesellschaft's collective ass. And if we happen to come back with a few blood spatters on our costumes." She shrugged. "That just means more options, right?"


"Victoria, I think you're enjoying this too much."


"Sorry, sis." The blonde stepped back a little. I was both relieved and disappointed.


Chevalier waited a moment then continued. "We have a series of parahumans to offer. A teleporter known as Strider, with the ability to teleport anyone in his line of sight with him to anywhere else on the planet. No restrictions or errors. This includes teleporting to people he only knows from a photograph. Five parahumans with powers that let them store and release energy later. Assault, Battery, Stormfront, Dazzler and Falling Star. All are powerful parahumans in their own right and we're hoping their energy powers will extend to allowing you to enhance your other powers."


He took a breath, then continued. "We also have a parahuman known as White Hat, who can summon ghostly duplicates of himself with copies of his costume and simple equipment. It's a long shot, but perhaps those duplicates could use other powers you're harnessing at the same time. Again, on the contingency that you are always to show up for every Class S threat registered."


Victoria leaned in close. "I'll be there, too. We can both use my power. It'll be like we're twins."


I gulped and nodded hurriedly. I even trusted myself not to regret the decision after I was back to my right mind. The ability to put myself, my team, and my country in position as one of the leading forces on the planet. It was something I'd dreamed of for decades. "I can agree to that.


Khepri spoke up. "So it's clear, we will have kill switches and failsafes. If we need to, we can take that armor away, and all the power it gives you. I say that out of honesty, and because of the next part of this. Vicky, it's time."


She stepped toward me again. "Well, I promised if you were good I'd give you a taste."


"I- in front of everyone? Your sister?" My stomach clenched in delighted anticipation. The part of of me that was sated enough to think clearly wept in disgust.


She shrugged. "I don't see why not." She held her right hand up, then traced her left hand across her arm, cutting open her wrist with her nail, then laughed loudly. "Oh, come on, how could any of you actually expect I was gonna do the other thing?" She held out her hand. "You said it works with any fluid, right?"


Another time, another place, a different state of mind, things might have played out differently. But I'd been teased and stimulated and given just enough to not lose my mind for the whole conversation. I gripped her hand and her arm, and latched my mouth on the wound she made on herself, sucking greedily.


Her powers snapped into my mind. Incredible combat senses, the best I'd ever had. Analysis of biology and weaknesses, touch range electrical powers. A shapeshifting power that granted super strength, self healing, and a breaker state. None of which I could harness, which was fine. I had my own regeneration and strength, this just meant using her power wouldn't count as being used at 'full strength', so I could get more time from it.


The font of power stopped, as she regenerated the injury. "Okay, I think that's enough. Now you need to focus on using my power. Scan the biology of those around here. It should be instinctual for you to tell if they're telling the truth or lying. If not, well, that's what Uber's power is for."


I breathed, shuddering at the after effects of absorbing her power. Never before have I been given so much, so soon, and it left me exhausted. I looked out at the others in the group, analyzing their health and physical condition. Now I knew Dragon wasn't real. Another I had to assume was a cyborg in his suit, less than half organic. The gaps and cybernetics built into the various armor suits were clear to my vision.


Khepri took a breath. "For all the powers we're giving you access to, there's the ones we're not. Or, at least, not yet. Powers such as Glaistig Uaine, Atropos."


I hope no one realizes I have that one already. The surge in reaction from Victoria made it clear that she figured it out. Fuck. "I don't mean to interupt, but I already have some of her power. Not a lot. But enough for a few good attacks."


There was a surge of concern and anger, backed from my natural Thinker power, Victoria's, and the attention to detail Thinker. Khepri quickly ignored it. "Thank you for being honest with us. The point remains, there are better powers, we can make you stronger. And one day, we're going to have to. At a point starting in less than a year, there is a chance for a legitimate world ending crisis. That chance slowly increases over time until, in less than fourteen years, it will have inevitably occured. We know what it is. The more people find out what the threat is, the greater the odds of it happening early, the more lives are lost, so we must keep you in suspense."


Every word she's saying is true. Not a single person here doesn't already know what it is, except for the ones protecting Labyrinth, and even they know of it already. Missing only the detail of what it is.


Khepri kept speaking, and I only kept track thanks to the perfect memory Thinker power in my collection. "It doesn't just extend to Bet and the other worlds we're colonizing. It covers every version of Earth in every reality. We're trusting you with a lot of responsibility. You're one of the few real hopes we have of saving every world. We need you."


===============


A/N- And THAT is how you minmax power pools. Also- this chapter is almost 3k words. Fuck. Don't expect a second today.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 399

"This is Erin Vought with Channel Nine news, in part two of our ongoing five part series, Avalon: A Two Year Retrospective. Culminating in live coverage of the marriage of its Empresses this Friday, the day after it celebrates its Anniversary. Yesterday, we focused on the families of the Empresses themselves. Here are some highlights."


The screen flickered to show Erin talking to a hard looking older man. He had numerous scars and tattoos visible on his face. "As a long time associate of the supervillain known as Marquis, what is your opinion on the rumor Clarice and Amelia might be biological siblings?"


The man shrugged, and his messy stubble of a beared couldn't hide the jiggle of his neck fat. "Cain't say she is, cain't say she ain't. Marquis was always a ladies man. An' he had a type, y'know? Liked the quiet girls. Mousy librarian look. Me 'n th' boys never quite got it. We'd be at th' club with all these smokin' chicks throwin' themselves at him like they were on fire and he's th' pool. Here he is flirtin' up th' twiggy college broad servin' th' drinks. He'd get bored wit' em in a few months, but he always took care of 'em after. Made sure they had cash ta go ta school er settle wit' th' landlord. Little stuff. So guiss I'm sayin' I dunno. But I didn' know 'bout Amelia, either. Surprised he ain't got more."​

ComfortSupportDidn'tRealize. I leaned against Taylor. It hurt knowing that my father probably treated my mother like that. I knew he was a villain, once upon a time I was scared I'd become like him. But that didn't mean I wanted to sit here listening to people like that talk about my mother like she was just something that my dad used and threw out. I looked up at my soon to be wife. One more way I know I'll never be like my father.


Clarice rested a hand on my shoulder. She was going for the goth look today. Paler than usual skin, solid black hair. She said she'd be going as 'plain and boring' for the wedding itself. I was glad one of my sisters would be, because Vicky sure wasn't.


A couple other clips, showing some of Danny's former coworkers talking about him and how much he loved Taylor and her mom. Some snippets about Taylor's mom, herself. I wished I could have met her. ComfortNostalgiaShe'dLoveYou.

"Today we move on to talking about Empress Amelia Lavere, widely known as the heart of Avalon, the world of Avalon itself, and of course that means talking about the most notable feature on the planet, the Yggdrassil. To do so, we are here with renowned xenobiologist, Professor Julian Abernathy."​

"Are you sure you don't mean the only notable feature on Avalon?" Zach heckled the broadcast.

A holographic display showed the Professor. He didn't seem all that impressive, another middle aged guy in a suit, I'd met hundreds. Going grey, going bald. "Yes, thank you Miss Vought."


"Please, Professor. You can call me Erin."


"I'll keep that in mind, Miss Vought."


Erin rolled with it. "You have quite the resume, Professor. Eleven Doctorates and twenty seven honorary doctorates in an astonishing array of fields. You founded the Abernathy Academy of Science and Technology, the world's largest free university. You personally hold over four hundred patents, a hundred and fifty two of them in the sciences of biotechnology and medicine."


He chuckled. "Yes, as is publically documented, I am a parahuman. One of the first on record, in fact. Officially I am classified as a Thinker 2, Trump 1, Stranger 7. Or Esper 2, Infiltrator 5, using the European system. I have the power to learn everything those near me are learning, and to slightly improve the learning ability of those under my power's influence."


"How does that translate to Stranger 7?"


"Some individuals have interpreted my power to mean I am a potential threat to national security if allowed in the wrong areas. Despite my assurances that even were I interested, my power does not work that way, they fear I might steal passwords and account information. I bear no grudges, however. Their caution keeps the likes of Heartbreaker and Sublim from Presidents and Prime Ministers. I am more than content to let them do their jobs, while I pursue my career in peace. I'm busy enough as it is."


Erin smiled along through the description. "I believe you. Have you been given an offer to move to Pantheon? They are quite public about wanting to recruit ro- I mean, civilian parahumans."


He shook his head. "Nothing specifically directed at myself. Simply the open invitation to all parahumans, which I confess I have not studied. If I were a different man, I might be more interested. But I am a patriot, Miss Vought. I love America and have no desire to abandon her."


Erin nodded in agreement. "Now, perhaps you can explain what a xenobiologist is, exactly. I always thought it had something to do with aliens."


Abernathy chuckled. "That is a common misconception. It's the study of artificial organic life. For the most part a theoretical science, but there are a number of advanced labs with living samples they've created. And of course the Yggdrasil itself."


"Which you have studied extensively over the last couple years."​

TimeWastedCouldHaveAsked. Taylor wasn't the only person who found it amusing. I chuckled, and so did Clarice. Years spent studying something that I made in days, and every so often add a new feature I like. I am that important.

"Indeed I have. Samples are difficult to study, due to the lifeform's composite nature, but we'd be here for months talking about the many ways it differs from life as we understand the concept. In the interest of brevity, let us focus on the most significant differences, and the significant advantages and risks that implies for those who choose to live on a world dominated almost solely by that singular lifeform."​

"Dammit," Clarice muttered. "Is this going to be another of those 'Avalon's covered in an unholy abomination' propaganda things again? Because I'm getting really sick of that crap. Zach... now that there aren't any Endbringers kicking things over, does that mean Bet's going to become as stupid as Aleph? Because if we need Endbringers to keep people from being stupid, I can build us an Endbringer. I will build three Endbringers that merge together into a super Endbringer that fires lightning from its butt if I have to."


"And I'll form the head!" Zach shouted.


NegationDragonRespectsWorthwhile. "Dragon says this guy's on the level. Doesn't mean he's on our side, but at the very least it means his arguments are honest. If nothing else, we should listen. Maybe we'll learn something worthwhile. Maybe put out our own rebuttal later."

"To start with, let us look at the environment regulation features of the Yggdrassil. In the two years of recorded history on Avalon, it has never rained once, anywhere on the planet. And it appears it never shall. Air humidity is maintained by the Yggdrassil itself, which releases enough mosture to keep the lower atmosphere comfortable, but the upper atmosphere rarely even forms light clouds. In addition, the plant gathers almost all of the solar energy reaching the planet, transfering and releasing some of it as heat to warm the cooler areas. As such, there are no seasons or climate. Exterior surface of the world tends to a temperature between sixty and sixty five Fahrenheit, and interiors constructed of Yggdrassil tend between sixty five and seventy. That's fifteen point five, eighteen point three and twenty one for those using Celsius. With exception to the volcanic and extreme mountainous regions, which are comparable to those of Bet."


"Clear skies and comfortable weather all year long? I don't know about living there, but that sounds like my kind of vacation destination."​

ApprovalReliefAnAlly. Yeah, thank you Erin. ThankVickeryAlso. Yeah, he has good instincts for these things.

"Perhaps. In addition, the plant absorbs almost all nonliving, and many living, things that touch it. Dust, dirt, pollen, discarded foodstuffs, viruses and bacteria, animal waste products, most insects, plastics and most other forms of garbage and petrochemicals. While this might seem desirable to the untrained observer, it is in fact a considerable health risk. The human immune system requires exposure to infectious agents, much as the body requires exercise and the mind requires stimulation. The side effects can be potentially lethal."


"So the people on Avalon face health risks from a lack of health risks?"


"Succinctly put," Abernathy agreed. "But I wouldn't want to mislead. The Yggdrassil itself is designed to be considered an infectious agent by the immune system. It won't grow in a living animal, but releases chemicals that our skin responds to. It also, on a bimonthly basis, is programmed to release a form of pollen that serves as a wide ranging innoculant, and features that resemble human biology enough to be infected by our diseases, which it rapidly grows antibodies to distribute via pollen as well."


"I was part of a story on that a few months ago. Medhall used the Yggdrassil to make a possible cure for HIV."


"Not quite a cure, but a treatment that primes the immune system against many strains of the virus. It has shown a success rate of just over forty five percent thus far. I believe a true cure will come within five years."​

"It's not the cure that's the hard part," Clarice muttered. "It's finding a way to mass produce the stuff."

"Pardon my confusion, but nothing you've said sounds that bad. In fact, it mostly sounds quite appealing."


"In the short term, perhaps. But the Yggdrassil is a single living thing that is Avalon's entire biosphere. There is no life cycle, no natural evolutionary course that will allow it to adapt to changing circumstances. The ground beneath Avalon is still dangerously irradiated by the cosmic event that destroyed life on the world. Without the Yggdrassil the world will return to uninhabitable within decades. Empress Lavere is the only thing keeping their world alive. Her unofficial title as 'The Heart of Avalon' is, I'm afraid, quite literal. Should anything happen to her, their whole world dies."​

He's not wrong. If anything does happen to me. SupportProtectYouForever. Taylor turned and kissed the side of my head. I snuggled happily against her and settled in for the rest of the discussion. I know you will. I love you. LoveKeepSafe.


===============


A/N- Victor briefly considered visiting this guy at some point. But then he decided guns, cars, martial arts, and how to pick up women were more interesting than studying life that doesn't actually exist.

Or, in the immortal words of Abridged Piccolo: NEEEEERRRRRD!!!!


Also- Taylia, one year later.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 400- Taylor


This is it, this is the day. I still can't believe it. ConcernDon'tGetColdFeet. Don't worry, that's not happening. I just still can't believe it. I'd always wondered what my marriage was going to look like. Then for a while I was convinced it would probably never happen, that I'd never find anyone who'd want to marry me, that I didn't deserve something as simple as being loved. Now I'm marrying a beautiful girl who loved me. Certainly I didn't expect anything like this. HereAlwaysLoveYou.


Sarah was busy tweaking my dress the last little bit before the ceremony. After the weeks of wedding planning in which she had taken to handling everything my own mother would have done if she were alive, I was able to call her 'Sarah' and not 'Mrs. Pelham'. Maybe the idea of her and my dad being together isn't so bad after all. I still couldn't imagine myself ever being comfortable enough to call her 'mom', however.


Then I had my part of the bridal party here with me. Dad was out in the main area with Theo, Zach and Mark seeing guests to their seats, or doing whatever else it was guys did at weddings when there wasn't a groom to worry about. I had my bridesmaids helping me out and telling me how wonderful the dress was while Emma poked me repeatedly in the face to make sure the makeup was perfect.


"I think I regret not taking your offer to simply alter my skin pigmentation for the day," I complained.


"Told you so," Emma gloated.


Lisa shook her head. "Nope, bad idea. They're going to have all kinds of stuff pointed at you, speculation, Thinkers and Tinkers. You cheat by doing makeup with powers, and it won't be long before everyone knows. Which wouldn't be a thing if you went extravagant with flying ponies and incredible displays of parahuman power. But you chose to go with 'when we're not on the job, we're just two normal girls' route. Which is a great choice from the PR angle, but leaves much to be desired in the 'cheat our way through the hard parts' side."


"Yeah, I know. I didn't really mean it."


"What you should have done is accepted my offer to throw a bachelorette party. I have a friend who knows how to throw the best parties. Literally, that's actually part of her powers. You'd have loved it."


"Too much work to do. Besides, there's all kinds of other things wrong with that idea."


Sarah ran another go of the comb through my hair. "You sound like me when I was younger. Neil and I actually attacked a Teeth safehouse during our honeymoon. It was a blast. Both figuratively and in one unfortunate case quite literally."


Emma kept up her work, forcing me to close my eyes as she poked at my eyelids. "Don't worry, I've been an expert at makeup since I was thirteen years old. And you have excellent skin to work off of, this is just enhancing your natural beauty."


My natural beauty. Right. Because I have any of that at all. DisagreementYou'reBeautifulAcceptIt. Okay, there's one person who thinks I'm beautiful, and she's the only one that matters. GoodForNowArgueLater.


"She's right," Crystal agreed. "She's actually really good with the makeup. After seeing her dress sketches, I was sorta expecting you to look like you passed out drunk at a children's party and they went at you with crayons."


Emma didn't pause for a moment. "Oh hyuk, hyuk. Alright, and done." Emma stepped back.


Sarah gave a final tug of my hair and brush down my back, and picked off the last few pieces of stray hair. "Same here. We're perfect. You're allowed to see yourself in the mirror, now."


I took a deep breath, or as deep as was possible with this dress hugging my every curve like an overly affectionate anaconda, turning toward the mirror. Hilariously enough, Amelia and I had not been allowed to see our wedding dresses until just now.


Emma, Lisa, Vicky and Crystal all unanimously agreed that the pair of us were not allowed to dress ourselves, and after that the progression to not even knowing what we'd be wearing was inevitable. It was like they expected us to get married in jeans and t-shirts. Although, actually, that would have been a way to send a message that... clearly they were totally justified in not letting us decide our own dresses.


I got a look at myself and was glad they kept the surprise. The dress was stunning. The top was the traditional white coloration, as expected of a wedding dress. It clung tight to my body and I was proud enough of my figure to be confident in it being shown to billions of people. It came all the way up to a choker that emphasized my slender neck.


I probably could have made strapless work for me, but for the military medals. Avalon didn't have many to choose from so far. Just the series of small gold shields for every Endbringer battle attended. Each had a sword in the middle. Silver was the standard. Red for injury, or in my case death. And black for each one where there was a kill. There were also blue, green, and purple bands signifying search and rescue, medical aid that saved lives, and personal combat with the beasts in that order. All of mine were pinned neatly over my left breast.


Then there was the cape, which tied the whole look together perfectly. It was beautiful. A medium metallic blue slowly darkening as it got lower. It rested over my shoulders, moving down under my arms and around my hips, coming together above my navel, one side folding over to my hip before curving back again. The cape parted again right around my knees, revealing the white of the dress around my shins. The cape also formed the train of my dress, which was a deep midnight blue. With a few strategic points where it was sewn to the dress itself to keep everything from coming apart as I walked down the aisle. The red trim of the cape really highlighted everything and evoked a wonderful, no doubt deliberate image of a cocoon.


My hair was done to shine and drape down my back, with a simple blue ribbon to hold it in place. For a moment I could imagine I was looking at my mother in the mirror. Don't know why I'm surprised, she really wasn't much older than I am now when she married my dad, after all.


ShockI'mBeautifulIt'sPerfect. I smiled. "I think Amelia approves of her dress, too."


"Good, because it's almost time. We're doing this on a razor's edge," Lisa reminded me. "Bridal and whatever parties, out we go."


As the bride, or one of them, I got to hang back out of sight. The shadows had gotten longer while we were inside getting prepared. Ours would be an outdoor wedding. Part of the careful calculations was a sunset wedding. Fully seventy percent of Avalon's population was either in our analogs of the United States or Japan. Another ten percent in Canada. Most of our supporters on Bet, the same regions. This was the best time to inconvenience as few people who wanted to experience this live with us as possible.


Theo and my Dad came around the corner of our temporary privacy room. Theo took his spot in the lineup. Dad stopped to give Sarah a peck on the cheek as she left for the seats. He made his way to me, taking position on my left hand side. We had planned every part of this wedding, including the nontraditional parts.


"You look perfect, Kiddo. Your mother would be so proud."


I smiled. "Thanks, Dad."


"Don't cry. Wait until after the ceremony, then you can and will ruin your makeup to your heart's content."


"Thanks again." I took a deep breath. Now was the only major displays of power any of us would do. The start of the ceremonies. Thousands of them across the whole world of Avalon. We timed this as perfectly as possible. We even dropped a few million dollars into at least helping to pay for all these ceremonies. Those who wanted large weddings would still be footing most of the bill, themselves. Even still, we were spending more on any one of their weddings than we had on our own. A fact that would be picked up on by the gossip news quite quickly. Probably a week from now.


The world shifted white beneath our feet. Amelia's part of our worldwide announcement the wedding had begun. Every outdoor surface of Avalon was now a beautiful, if somewhat muted white, a result of pigments being altered in the Yggdrasil. This was the signal to start the weddings. My own bridesmaids, and men I suppose, started the process.


Theo went first. A calculation of sorts, starting off on the nontraditional foot of a male member of the bride's party. He would be joined by Missy from Amelia's side and they'd take their positions.


Then the next pair. Emma went out, she'd meet up with Zach. My former best friend, former betrayer, now friend again and basically a Case 53, at least as far as the world as a whole was concerned. One of the monster capes. She, or someone like her, would be here on political message merits alone, but I was glad to have her here, a part of my life again.


Lily was the third to go out, and Sabah would meet her on the other side. Those two were a purely political move. The both knew and accepted it. Sabah was one of the more popular and successful rogues in the world, and an Endslayer on top of it. Which meant two Endslayers standing on Amelia's side. I, meanwhile, had the Endslayer. Japan's favorite daughter and all around crusader of the GLBT cause. It would be a slap in the faces of some of our biggest political supporters to snub either of them. They'd just have to tolerate each other's presence for the night since they were currently on breakup number whatever.


The next one was Crystal. More here for convenience, to round out the numbers, and to thank Sarah for all her effort and hard work. She'd be paired alongside Clarice for the purposes of the wedding procession. The first pair without a political maneuver present or future behind it.


By now, numerous other ceremonies had reached their apex, the bridal march music starting. Amelia had made her blessings known by the color shift. Now it was my turn to show my own presence. Thousands of butterflies swirled in the air across our world at my command, though only a couple handfuls per wedding. Enough to let them know I was there, not enough to distract from the bride.


"Muckfuthers," Lisa muttered.


God damn it. "What?"


"Nothing. Vicky cooked up a little prank, it won't disrupt anything, I promise. No one's going to know anything's up except us." Lisa drew herself together and walked out, my maid of honor would meet up with Vicky. Then it was our turn.


I took a slow breath. This is it. This is really, truly, it. I couldn't tell which feelings were mine and which were Amelia's, but I was glad to know we were going through this together.


I put my arm around Dad's, and my heart jumped when the music started. I'd already heard it hundreds of times and would hear it hundreds more in just the time this ceremony had taken, but those didn't matter. It was this one, here, now, that mattered. My wedding.


We walked out. With Dad to my left, and the guest seating to my right. As a combination of political maneuver and message to send, we'd opted to mess with the whole system. Instead of one bride walking on one aisle, we had two. I was on the left hand side from the audience perspective, the traditionally feminine position at the altar. But we'd set the layout to face east meaning I'd be approaching from, and standing on the north side. We'd have the benefit of the sun highlighting us, then we'd leave down the center aisle together, into the recently set sun. All part of a carefully laid out plan to make it clear neither of us was the dominant partner.


And all of that planning stopped meaning anything for me the moment I made eye contact with Amelia across the aisle. Her costume was almost identical to mine. The white underlayer, the cape carefully wrapped around her body. The difference being hers was green instead of blue. Much like mine, it got darker the lower it went. Going from a leaf green to a dark jungle green. And like mine it had the red trim to highlight. Where mine created the image of a cocoon, hers was reminiscent of a flower just starting to bloom.


Emma's lack of art skills notwithstanding, this is a brilliant idea. I'll have to thank her for it later. AgreedBothOfUs.


Even our lack of veils, our lack of masks, was a calculation. And it backfired at least a little. We just stared at each other. A little part of my brain wondered if this is why brides were escorted by their fathers. I walked only because Dad was walking, and Amelia much the same with Mark to her right. They kept time because neither of us were able to.


LoveAnticipationIStillCan'tBelieveIt. I know, shoulda done it sooner. AgreedButResponsibilities.


We met in the center, where the three aisled converged in front of the altar. Smiling anxiously at one another, and turning to the last member of our entourage. Dinah, who absolutely refused to be a flower girl. So instead she got to be the ring bearer. For both of them, because it made as much sense as anything. Both were simple bands with a small star of gems on top. Sapphires for the one I'd give her, emeralds for me. Otherwise, the pair were identical.


We reached to pick up our respective when Dinah spoke. "You'll be happy, at least as long as my power can see under these circumstances."


ConfidentRestOfOurLives. I didn't take my eyes off Amelia's. "We know."


She went back to her seat, with her parents. They looked understandably overwhelmed given the circumstances. A lot of the people in the audience were big names. Capes well known on rapidly shifting world stage. Two thirds of the Triumvirate, lacking Eidolon for him needing to appear politically neutral. Dragon, Chevalier, Akaihana, Adalid, Valkyrie, Narwhal. The ones likely to be recognized by anyone, and dozens of others. Less than a third of the people here were normal and that was including the cameramen in the count.


We turned to the simplistic trellis and lectern that served as our wedding altar. There stood one of our other political choices, Halo. He would be the one to officiate the ceremonies. He was qualified by whatever standard nondenominational Christians used on Bet. Whether he was qualified on Avalon? Eh, we say he's qualified, that means he's qualified. It helped for both our pro equality social messages, and in marking our long term friends and allies.


We brushed hands as we stepped forward to complete the ceremony and make our vows. What was it they called moments like this? The first day of the rest of our lives? Yeah, that's what this felt like. Our lives, together.


===============

Spoiler: A/N- Fact checking done in this chapter

Time zones, Boston to Japan. 13 hours.
Nov 8 2013, Avalon's anniversary, a Friday.
6:50 AM sunrise, 5:08PM sunset.
Wedding processions. Lots of them.
Non Denominational marriage Officiants.
Drawing positioning charts.
Drawing sketch of wedding dress.
Finding obscure but likely important canon cape name.
Trolling readers is still fun.
2600 work chapter means I'm tired.
Sleep deprivation sucks.


Cape Trains. Flowers. And shiny blue butterfly cocoons.
http://bridespalaces.net/pic/201303/5193552.jpg
http://gb.fotolibra.com/images/previews/455605-red-and-white-flower-buds-close-up.jpeg
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/f6/5c/6a/f65c6a3e8918d6b079a0af86f72358cf.jpg


Unchecked fact: Skipping vows and kiss will fill readers with rage.

 

[Flukes]

Cross-posting from SV!


If TanaNari won't give us a vow's scene.... Well, I'm just going to have to take matters into my own hands, right?

"I Do"

I was being calmed by Amelia, her encouragement banishing away my nervousness and terror.

It was surreal. Here I was, getting married. To Amelia, the best thing that had ever happened to me.

I was wearing a gorgeous dress designed by Emma, standing in front of an audience that included Legend and Alexandria and more.

And I was in love.

What would Skitter think? What would the Taylor of before that think?

It was impossibly, unambiguously good.

AnticipationExcitement, Amelia sent.

Halo's voice finally broke through my haze of disbelief, shock, and happiness.

"Will you, Amelia Clair Lavere, and Taylor Hebert, take each other as your lawful, married spouse?"

AnticipationNervousnessHappinessBliss

We made eye contact, and my mouth almost unconsciously flickered into a smile. A matching smile appeared almost immediately on Amelia's face.

AnticipationBlissNow.

"I do," we said together.

In that moment, everything was perfect.

^ Tis rough, but it was either rough or 'wait another two weeks'.

EDIT: Did some saturation/brightness adjustment. Looks a bit more happy now.

 

[meta_halo]

Happily Ever After, Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

WARNING: More crack than Skidmark's medicine cabinet


"… so that's how the C.U.I. saved the world. And then everyone lived happily ever after."

"Tell it again, gramma Taylia!" said Zimmy, whose rapt expression during the story had given way to disappointment once she realized it was over. "One more time, please?"

Taylia sighed as she glanced around the room. Most of the adults had meandered off to do their own things, and the two exceptions hardly counted toward her audience. Dinah was curled up by the fireplace, dozing, while Libecca was lying on a chaise lounge, so deep in reverie with herself that Taylia would probably need to dump a bucket of water over her head to snap her out of it.

And of the three children, only Zimmy was paying full attention. Her brothers were more interested in their action figures and building blocks, and especially what happened when the former were forcefully combined with the latter. Boys will be boys, she thought as the corner of her mouth twitched into a smile, but it's already past all our bedtimes.

Zimmy must have noticed her grandmother's hesitation, as she redoubled her efforts. "Tell it again, pleeeease?" she begged, as she batted her eyelashes, eliciting another half-smile from Taylia. Quite the charmer. Ah well, I suppose it is my prerogative to spoil them. "All right, just one more time, but after that it's straight off to bed, okay?"

"Okay," Zimmy chirped, looking up expectantly. Levi threw in an absent-minded " 'kay," while Bemmy only grunted in agreement before returning to his toys. Taylia settled back in her chair, which purred soothingly as she stroked its armrest, and let her mind drift back to the past. "It all started on the day of my wedding…"

The wedding had been everything that Taylor and Amelia had dreamed of, and more besides. The ceremony was beautiful, the exchange of vows was touching, and most importantly the day hadn't been spoiled by any S-class threats and/or homicidal Entities with suspiciously perfect senses of dramatic timing.

Finally it was time to throw the bouquet, which Amelia had grown on-site from flowers pollinated by Taylor-controlled bees—both as a reminder to the watching nations that the brides were no ordinary teenagers, and (Amelia hoped) a promise of what the honeymoon might bring. Taylor and Amelia joined hands on the stem of the bouquet and tossed it backwards into the throng of expectant attendees with a flourish.

There was a brief but vicious scuffle as the bouquet flew through the air: Alexandria flew up like a rocket to meet it, only to be blindsided by an actual rocket from Miss Militia. The blast knocked the bouquet away, causing Crystal and Sarah to collide in mid-air as they desperately tried to correct their courses. The now-smoldering flowers began to fall toward Lily and Sabah, who shrieked in terror and ran away in opposite directions, to the relief of their friends and teammates.

Clarice ran lightly across the shoulders (and occasionally heads) of the crowd and positioned herself to intercept the bouquet, only to be intercepted in turn by Vicky. As the two exchanged a lightning-fast series of feints, parries, and strikes, Missy took advantage of their distraction to distort the space between her and the prize, reaching out almost casually to grab it … and was shocked to realize that the bouquet was already in the hands of a strange girl who was definitely not one of the wedding guests.

As Missy and the other combatants stared in confusion, the stranger—who was dark-skinned, with long curly hair, and wearing an outfit that would be more appropriate for a seedy nightclub than a wedding—began to do a touchdown dance with the bouquet. "Who's the best? That's right, it's me. Uh huh, you know it, you know it, uh huh!" she sang as she strutted around, finishing by spiking the bundle of flowers into the ground with a "Woo!" while a growing crowd stared, aghast.

The silence was so complete that you could have heard a pin drop on a mat of Yggdrasil. It was broken by an exasperated voice. "God DAMN it, Aisha!" Lisa shouldered her way through the crowd and grabbed her long-lost teammate, dragging her away from the spectacle with one hand while rubbing the bridge of her nose with the other. She could already feel one hell of a migraine coming on, and it wasn't just from her powers. Although that certainly wasn't helping matters; as ever, Aisha was an abundance of TMI. Flushed. Not from fighting for the bouquet. Used her power to have a quickie during the ceremony. Lisa groaned. With Alec. "WHAT?!" she screamed. "Are we living in a fucking comic book? Doesn't anyone stay dead around here?"​

Of course Taylia sanitized the story considerably in her retelling, but she made a point of exaggerating the emotions: Missy's surprise, Aisha's enthusiasm, Lisa's frustration. Hmm, I may have overdone that last "WHAT?!" she mused, as she noticed Dinah stirring from her slumber. Fortunately, Dinah only poked her head up briefly and mumbled something that sounded like "97.402% chance I've heard this one before." Then she carefully smoothed out a wrinkle in her suit with her paws, tucked her head under her wing, and went back to sleep.

On the bright side, the story of the bouquet battle had captured the young boys' attentions, if not for the same reasons. Bemmy was doing his best to reenact the scene using his action figures, with what looked like a Crawler head as a stand-in for the bouquet. Levi had stopped fidgeting and was looking thoughtful. "Could I catch the bokay at a wedding?" he asked.

"Of course you could dear," Taylia replied, "but you'd need to be pretty fast to grab it."

"I'm really fast!" Levi proudly exclaimed, running a few laps around the room to prove his point. "But, what do you get if you catch the bokay?"

"Well, some people say it means you'll get married next."

"Oh," Levi said, "could I marry Zimmy?"

"No dear," Taylia laughed, "that's not the way it works."

Libecca's fingers twitched almost imperceptibly against the chaise lounge, transmitting a message through its material that Taylia's special senses detected and interpreted as "Hmm, I guess it must run in the family." She exercised her powers to make the lounge's fabric minutely shift in a pattern Libecca understood as "Oh hush. He's adorable and you know it." More finger twitches "Absolutely. Not to mention that I'll be able to embarrass him with it years later, when he starts bringing dates over." Shifting fabric "Don't even think about it, unless you want me to tell them about the time you almost held hands with your other half, right in the middle of a UN session." Fingers twitching in mock outrage "You wouldn't dare!" "Try me, you hussy."

In the moments that this side conversation was being conducted, Levi's brow wrinkled in confusion. "Why not?"

"I'll explain it when you're older," Taylia replied, still chuckling. "But for now, let's continue the story. Later on my wedding day…"

"Explain. Now."

The public ceremonies were over but Taylor and Amelia were still in their wedding dresses. Taylor was gritting her teeth too hard to speak, so her swarm spoke for her. "How are you two even alive? We saw your bodies! And, out of all the times you could of let us—your friends—know, what on earth possessed you to do it by ruining Amelia's and my WEDDING DAY?!"

Missy, Clarice, Theo, Zach, and Emma looked on in confusion and concern. Lisa was nowhere to be seen, as she was busy replacing her Thinker headache with a Johnny Walker one. CalmingSoothingIt'llBeOkay, Amelia sent, trying to prevent Taylor from having a complete meltdown. GratitudeFrustrationYou'reRightButShe'sJustSuchABratAndIReallyWantedTodayToBePerfect, Taylor sent in response.

Aisha edged away from the roiling cloud of bugs, working hard to keep her power suppressed. She'd learned the hard way that angry bees don't need to remember what they're attacking, and this swarm was only kept in check by Taylor's orders not to attack anyone in the room she was aware of.

"Okay, okay, first of all I didn't ruin your wedding. No one outside of this room will even remember who caught the bouquet, I made sure to avoid cameras, and…" "Nope." Taylor cut her off. "Pick one: explanations or bees. Ten words or less."

Aisha sighed theatrically. "Got captured. Bonesaw made decoy bodies. Wedding crashing is funny."

A vein began to visibly pulse on Taylor's forehead and her swarm surged forward again, until Alec spoke up. "Actually this scary lady in a suit told us not to contact you until now, and that you'd understand once we explained things."

FrustrationResignationBullshitHax DittoCompleteBullshit Taylor visibly relaxed, the majority of her swarm dissipating. But remind me to fill Contessa's wardrobe with Mantellum-wasps once this is all over. "Okay you two, actually I can believe that. But back up a minute. What was the part about you getting captured and Bonesaw making decoy bodies?"

"Oh yeah, it was crazy." Imp said, absent-mindedly scratching a few stings on her midriff. "We both got hurt pretty badly when Piggy blew shit up, so Boney blocked our powers and grabbed us to do mad science on. I dunno what she wanted Alec for, but she said she was going to stitch me together with this older lady named Yamaha, or something like that. But anyway, most of the Nine were out fighting and that Yamaha lady talked the Siberian into letting us go …"

Oblivious to the looks of utter amazement from most of the room, and guilt from Clarice, Aisha continued her story "… so once I got my power back I broke Alec out too and we got the fuck outta there. But everyone already thought we were dead, since Bonesaw left behind fake bodies made from…"

"Definitely not Girl Scouts!" Clarice interrupted, sweating nervously. "Heh, um … definitely not Girl Scout COOKIES is what I meant to say. Because they're delicious and it would be a shame to waste cookies on making clones to gruesomely kill in order to prevent your enemies from searching for their loved ones so they won't interrupt your brilliant scientific plan to react pure concentrated tact with pure concentrated anti-tact to generate an unlimited source of orgone energy to power your army of giant murder robots because that's just crazy and hey, who wants a Thin Mint? I know I sure do! Gee I'm so hungry! I'mgonnagopickupsomeThinMintsnowbye!"

Clarice had begun sidling toward the door by the time she first mentioned Thin Mints, and in the end she took off at a sprint, accelerating so quickly that her voice dopplered as she disappeared down the hallway. Amelia followed in concern, while Theo stayed but looked rather unsettled by the whole outburst. Missy just sighed wistfully, "Isn't she the cutest?"

"Speaking of food, what do you guys have to eat around this place?" Alec started wandering off in search of a refrigerator to raid and Taylor moved to give chase but … wait, wasn't there someone else I needed to talk to? I'll worry about it later, she told herself.​

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 401- Victoria


The newly married couple rushed off down the center aisle, holding hands and as happy as could be. Still couldn't say I was fond of Taylor, but Amy loved her, and she was nice enough to point me in the direction of someone who deserved a good punching when I got bored. So, I was willing to tolerate her. As long as she continued making my sister so absurdly happy.


We bridesmaids followed. Clarice standing alongside Lisa as the maids of honor for this one. I stepped in alongside Crystal and gave my megawatt smile to the crowd. As the, or at least a, maid of honor, I had to represent for the whole wedding. But the level of discomfort Lisa had to pretend she wasn't experiencing while walking alongside my pseudo sibling was hilarious beyond words. We stopped for a last moment of cheers as the limo with the brides drove off. They'd get their photos done, change outfits, and be back in time for dinner.


I turned back to the crowd. "Okay, time to pack up and head to the reception! Follow us, and remember if you get lost you don't get the free food!"


That got a few chuckles. We were literally right across the street from our reception hall. A really nice place meant to house foreign heads of state and other various diplomats and stuff. One of the buildings on Avalon that was actually a building instead of something cooked up by my sister's insane powers.


We led the way, in official order this time. I took position alongside Lisa while everyone else lined up where they belonged behind us. We didn't need to exchange words, or even looks. She was suitably displeased by my little stunt, and I got to jab her for being a bitch. It wasn't nearly enough, after she fucked over Crystal and walked out on Pantheon to play house with Alexandria at Shady Conspiracies R'Us. But it was a start.


Then we formed up just inside the entrance to greet the guests as they arrived. For the most part, it was a pretty informal meet and greet. A very small ceremony, with only a couple dozen people. A lot of Taylor and Amy's friends and family were capes, and had to show in costume. Which meant they couldn't bring their civilian families with them. An unfortunate side effect of the lifestyle, and one that kept the whole ceremony pretty tiny.


Lisa smiled over at me. "What's the matter, still cranky they turned down your plans to invite a thousand people and make the party last three days?"


"Nah, I got over that weeks ago." Not really, my sister deserves the wedding of the century. "Besides, it just means it's still a fresh idea when I get hitched." Which is going to happen in approximately never. Way too much commitment for my tastes.


I reached over and gave Clarice a pat on the back. She'd gone with her natural look this time, making all four of us in front blondes. "Of course, mine's not gonna cause half the commotion of when 'shroom here gets hitched. I bet it's already all planned out."


Theo probably blushed as hard as both his girlfriends combined, saved from further humiliation only by his costume being fully face concealing. I was happy for all of them, they were great kids. Missy, especially, deserved it.


Our first waves of guests started filing in. Most of them only stopping to say hi to maybe one or two of us at a time. Michael got dragged into a small conversation with Dad, and I could sense that it was epically awkward and uncomfortable. More for my poor boyfriend than anyone. Dad was almost too nice. Too happy to talk to him, and unless he had some kind of oddly specific stranger power it was completely genuine. Mom, on the other hand, was pissed and getting worse. Though seemingly more at Dad than anyone. Oh well, she couldn't stop me and she knew it. More than that, she wouldn't dare cause a scene and ruin this day for Amy.


Later, however, there would be a scene of epic proportion. Or, much more likely, Dad would sneak off while Mom wasn't looking and avoid her until they became grandparents. Huh, there's a thought. I leaned over to Clarice. "Hey, which one of them is playing mommy for our collection of adorably world shattering neices?" It would have to be girls, they didn't have the genetic material for a boy without doing something wonky.


Clarice understood the question. "It'll have to be Taylor. Amelia's physiology is weird, it'll cause all kinds of problems. But that's theoretical. They're not having any children until after."


I didn't have to ask what. I smiled and waved as I spotted Sveta and her date. Another Case 53, this one. Completely inorganic according to my senses. She waited as patiently as possible to stop and talk to me. I didn't give her a chance to speak, just pulling her into a hug. "Hey, no need to be shy." I dropped my voice to avoid being overheard. "So, who's the new boo? He seems... durable."


I let her go, and she reached over and grabbed his hand. "This is Weld. He's with the Protectorate in San Francisco. We met during a parade..."


Chances are I was the only one who'd know she was blushing. Well, maybe Lisa and Ayane would have figured it out.


I shook the boy's hand. Yup, inorganic. No nervous response. I put some real effort into the squeeze and decided that he was way tougher than steel. "It's a pleasure to meet you."


He squeezed right back. He had enough savvy to know it was on purpose, but not hostile. "And you, too. You're kind of a hero of mine. I can't begin to tell you how thankful I am for all you've done to help the Case 53s. I'm really passionate about the cause, as I'm sure you can imagine."


"Thanks, I'm proud of it too, I promise we'll talk about it later." I meant it, too. Not a lot of people were dead zones to my senses like he was. But we had lines of people to say hello to.


He moved on to Clarice, who was all smiles. "Hey, we used to go to school together! Do you remember?"


"Trust me, no one could forget you. You'll be a legend to the grandkids of your classmates."


"Small world, huh?" Sveta responded. "You'll have to tell me stories later."


I greeted the next guy, shaking his hand. One of Avalon's new employees. A parahuman, with the minor Case 53 traits that so many of those vial experiments produced. My power considered him a non-threat, so my guess was Tinker. "I'm sure you'll hear this a lot from others, but that was really nice of you, letting Clarice be the maid of honor. Not a lot of people would have done something like that."


I smiled happily. "She deserved it. Besides, sometimes a good deed is its own reward." I looked over at Lisa the moment he moved on. Okay, maybe I should stop rubbing it in. It's fun and all, but I'm starting to feel bad.


The next guest of interest was Akaihana. She was sporting her new armor. Legion, v2. Still faced the same problem with dimensional storage, but she could run six powers now. As long as two of them were mine and Theo's, to provide the defenses. Because that armor couldn't do shit to protect her and needed my energy generation just to power its flight and shunt drive. "Love the new duds."


"They are really nice," she agreed politely, before move on to thank Clarice for all her hard work. For some reason, she was always a little uncomfortable around me.


Dragon and Defiant came in together. Dragon ended up on the Taylor side, so she got to say hello to Lisa. "Thank you for, well, everything." What the hell does Dragon have to thank Lisa about?"


Lisa shrugged. "Sometimes a good deed is its own reward." Her glance in my direction made it clear there was no way either of them were going to let me know what was going on, and she knew I was going to be obsessing about it all night. The bitch.


Defiant and I had nothing really to say to each other, so a casual handshake was the end of that. And after several others, we finally got to go inside. Most of them would line up yet again to meet the newlyweds later, but that would be limited solely to congratulations and at most a full sentence. Those of us with a real reason to talk to them would end up doing so later.


I, meanwhile, had stuff to check up on. Michael had finally managed to extricate himself from my parents and was waiting for me. His faceplate opened up, and I gave him a kiss. I would have liked to do more, but too much temptation to not stop. So I gave him a hug, which he interpreted as 'please squeeze me hard enough to break a normal girl's ribs', as I had trained him to do. "This marriage crap takes too much work."


He pressed his lips to my forehead. "But the end is in sight. Just a little longer, right?"


"Yeah, just a little longer," I agreed. "So, what do you know about that Weld kid that Sveta's seeing right now? Am I going to have to figure out a way to break a solid metal ass in half? Because I am up for the challenge."


"With the standard rules of me not giving you confidential information, and you not telling your sister anything at all?"


Michael waited for me to nod before continuing. "He's a pretty popular up and comer, already making a name for himself. He's naturally charismatic, very polite, and good at following orders. He was assigned to Brockton Bay for a while. The top brass yanked him out as fast as they could the moment Flechette and Vista walked. They didn't want to lose any more of their bright young talents after your sister stole two of the best in a single day. I don't think think they're ever going to forgive or forget that at one time two of your Endslayers belonged to us."


I laughed. "Oh god I hope not. I'd hate to imagine we went through all this effort without the pleasure of having people who resent us for being better than them. That's like half the reason to be good at anything."


"Really? And what's the other half?"


I squeezed him. "The arm candy."


"Well, by that standard, I must be the best in the world."


"Plus one hundred and fifty relationship points!"


I didn't even bother to look. "I swear, you have a secondary Thinker power for that."


"Nope, but I'm working on it. Come on, we gotta go make sure Paige is good."


I reluctantly let Michael go. He gave me another peck on the lips. "Go ahead. I'll make the rounds. Maybe have a brief chat with Weld. If I start now, he may even get enough of a lead to outrun you."


"You know me too well."


==============


A/N- I will never write wedding chapters. Ever. Again.

Reception's got a couple more chapters left in it, though. So there's always still a chance of something horrible ruining their happy moment, right?

 

[meta_halo]

Part 1
Happily Ever After, Part 2
Part 3

WARNING: More crack than Piggot in a thong.

Taylia paused the story for a moment, as the mention of food had caught the children's attention. Zimmy's stomach growled, but her eyes never left her grandmother. Levi, on the other hand, had started gnawing on the carpet. Unfortunately the carpet was mostly decorative at the moment, which Taylia idly remedied by increasing its nutritional value. Noticing the change in taste, he spit it out with a "Blech!" and a sour face. Kids can be such fussy eaters.

Levi scampered over to the pile scattered pile of blocks and action figures that had been a pint-sized city at the beginning of the evening. He moved over to where Bemmy was chewing on the leg of an Eidolon action figure, which flailed weakly in a futile attempt to escape. Well, that's a bit disturbing, Taylia thought. I should probably ask one of the Dralins to tone down the realism on those toys. Levi grabbed the Eidolon's other leg, beginning a tug of war with his brother. "Who wants cookies?" she quickly asked.

"I do!" Levi shouted, followed closely by another "I do!" from Bemmy. The Eidolon figure, saved from their attentions, began slowly pulling itself to safety on its elbows. "Me too!" their sister chimed in, casually picking up the figure and throwing it back into a pile with the others.

"Okay, but only if you behave." Taylia gave the command to begin growing a box of Samosas in the kitchen as she spoke, so that she would be able to make good on her offer later, studiously ignoring an indignant "Samosas? You heathen!" from Libecca. "Promise me you'll listen quietly until the end."

"We promise!" the three siblings said in unison, and with that Taylia continued her tale.

Things had finally calmed down, relatively speaking, by the evening. Amelia had tracked Clarice down to her lab, which she was keeping mostly opaque to Amelia's senses. WorriedUnderstandingPatient Being reminded of her past life like that can't be easy. She'll come out when she's ready.

Taylor officially introduced Aisha to the rest of the team, being the (sober) member of Pantheon who knew her best. "Think Zach, but with Stranger powers and even less of a filter." about summed it up. Then Aisha filled everyone at the table in on what she and Alec had been up to while presumed dead, which basically amounted to "doing awful things to awful people." Taylor had to admit that the one with the Elite and a truckload of live squid was pretty impressive, albeit disgusting.

Meanwhile Zach and Alec were in the living room, having a FPS marathon. Theo had been uncomfortable with letting the son of a famous supervillain hang out in their base with so little oversight, but no one could argue with Zach's logic. "Okay, raise your hands if you'd rather put up with Alec and Aisha at the same time. Anyone? Anyone? Right, that's what I thought. Well then, I guess I'll just need to take one for the team." He feigned reluctance as he fired up the console.

"What the hell, dude?" Alec cried as the explosion took out both of their characters. "That's like the fifth time you've gone for a double kill when I was winning. What do you think this is, Sim Suicide Bomber?"

"Hey, I'm just doing what works," Zach replied. "Maybe I wouldn't need to use grenades so much if you didn't keep making my thumb twitch whenever I tried to line up a headshot."

"First of all, you did NOT just accuse me of using my powers to cheat," responded an irate Alec. "And even if I was, it was only because you were being such a FUCKING CAMPER!"

Their bickering, and Aisha's gleeful enumeration of alternative uses for quick-drying cement, were interrupted by the return of Clarice, who looked rather anxious and ashamed. "Amelia, Missy, Theo … I need to tell you something," she said hesitantly, looking down at the ground and scuffing her feet. "I was a bad girl. I, I… " she stopped.

"It's okay," Amelia replied in her kindest, most soothing voice. "Even if you did a bad thing, it doesn't mean you're a bad girl. Whatever happened, we're all friends and family here. You can tell us." Wait, are we all friends here? thought Amelia. I feel like I'm forgetting someone. ConfusionDreadSupport echoed Taylor.

"Well," Clarice began, "you know how Vicky thought it would be funny to arrange the seating chart to put Akaihana next to Chevalier, Narwhal, Adalid, and Gla- Valkyrie?" Their heads nodded in confirmation. Zach had even tried to start a betting pool on the diameter of the puddle the poor woman would leave behind in her seat, until Emma and Missy had smacked him in unison.

"After I ran out, Akaihana came up to me," Clarice continued, "and said she wanted to 'thank me for all my hard work' on her suit." Missy suddenly went rigid. "She asked if I could help her with some tune-ups, so we went to my lab." Now Theo had tensed up as well, and everyone else was looking increasingly concerned.

"Once we were in the lab she said I looked unhappy, so I told her what happened today, and how bad I felt about what I'd done to Aisha and Alec and everyone else back then. She gave me a hug, which was nice, but then she kept hugging me and started asking all these questions. Questions like:

'Have you ever seen a grown woman naked?'

'Do you like movies about women in prison?'

'Have you ever been to a Lustrum fanclub meeting?'

'Would anyone miss you if you disappeared for a week or two?'
​

I started to feel … funny. My sensors told me that she was emitting thousands of times the normal level of attraction pheromones, and then … hands."

Theo had grown increasingly livid over the course of the story, and had started looking around for something, or someone, to vent his barely-contained rage on. Missy, however almost seemed to have become calmer, if not for two things. The first was her thousand-yard stare. The second was a growing distortion around her right fist, which she seemed unaware of. Taylor could feel her nearby bugs being sucked toward it, the heavy Ygdrassil-wood table was beginning to crack and splinter, and even light was beginning to bend around Missy's clenched fist. Everyone except Clarice began slowly backing away.

RageHorrorVengeful Taylor made an effort to control her voice as she asked, "Clarice, did she do anything to you? Anything … inappropriate?"

"Umm," Clarice hesitated before working up the courage to reply, "no, but that was about when she … slipped. And hit her face on the corner of my workbench. Three times."

The burgeoning singularity in Missy's hand dissipated with an audible out-rushing of air, as her expression changed from grim determination to grim satisfaction. Everyone relaxed fractionally. But Clarice had just pause to gauge their reactions; she wasn't done yet.

"And then she kind of tripped into some of my wrenches, and the welding equipment, and the workbench again, and then she accidentally fell into a healing pod for a bit, and when she came out she slipped again …"

"The goo from those damn pods is an occupational safety hazard." Zach deadpanned.

"… she slipped and landed on some of the zerg I was upgrading, and my old remote-controlled body, and the welding equipment again, and another healing pod, and finally she somehow managed to stumble into the body swapping machine, which was mysteriously active at the time, and now she's a platypus."

Everyone was silent for a moment as they digested this information. Finally, Amelia spoke in carefully measured tones, "Well, I guess accidents happen. The important thing is that you're okay." She hugged the grateful Clarice, and it soon became a group hug as Missy, Theo, and Zach joined, while Taylor and Emma contented themselves with patting her on the head.

"Thanks everyone," Clarice said as she blinked back tears. "I try to be good, I really do, but it can just be so hard sometimes."

"It's okay," Missy replied, "just keep trying. And don't ever stop being you." With that she kissed Clarice on the cheek, making her blush profusely.

"I hate to talk strategy at a time like this," Taylor interrupted, "but what happened to Akaihana's body?"

"It's still in my lab, in a state of suspended animation," said Clarice. "I could put her mind back at any time. Maybe I should go do that; I'm already feeling a bit bad…"

Taylor was already assuming her role as commander. "No, don't be too hasty about that. Let's give her some time to reflect on what she did. No one who attempts to take advantage of one of our members should expect to get off lightly." ReluctanceAgreement She looked around the room; there were no objections. "And in the meantime we should think about how we can turn this situation to our advantage. What happened was unfortunate, but there could be a silver lining."

Amelia joined the discussion next. "We have to be careful though, and discreet. Akaihana is potentially one of the strongest parahumans in the world. If our enemies learn that she's … temporarily indisposed … they might also try to take advantage of the situation." The others nodded in agreement. But why did I get the sense that someone was laughing madly when I said "discreet"? Amelia wondered.

"Eh, don't worry about it," Zach scoffed. "She's surrounded by some of the other strongest parahumans in the world, safe inside the very heart of Avalon, and we're the only ones who know what went down. What's the worst that could possibly happen?" Zach paused for a moment to reflect.

"Why do I get the feeling that I just said something really stupid? And who was I playing multiplayer with before Clarice came in, anyway?"​

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 402- Weld


It was weird, being here on Avalon. And more than that, in the capital city. Pantheon's still not officially named seat of power. More than that, there was the thought that I could have been a part of this. I could have been one of their royal family, at least in as much as Osiris and some of the other peripheral members were.


I felt Sveta squeeze my arm. "You act like you've never seen a fancy building before."


I looked over at her. How much would it cost me to get a self healing shapeshifting suit that could turn into anything I wanted? "Well, never one which was hosting the marriage of the rulers of a planet, at least."


In retrospect, I was better off for not joining. I could make more of a difference campaigning for proper treatment of the Case 53s on Bet through the Protectorate than I could through Pantheon. Especially when they already had Sveta and some others to represent our interests on their side. I had to worry about the side that needed the help.


"They really are adorable together. You went to school with them? What were they like?"


Huh, but I only went to school with them for a few weeks. "Quiet. They were the shy types. Kept their heads down, tried to avoid being noticed. The smart, nerdy type that no one really pay attention to. Really the exact opposite of both of Amelia's sisters." They're a lot like you, actually. I left that part out. I personally found Sveta's shyness to be cute, but she resented that part of herself, so I didn't make a deal about it.


She smiled at that. "Vicky always says her sister is the quiet one. I always thought that meant she was quiet by Vicky's standards."


I laughed. "I get the feeling everybody's quiet by Vicky's standards."


Sveta's laugh was lyrical. "I just have trouble believing it. I've seen them give interviews in front of billions, and during the Endbringer battles, Khepri... Taylor... she had more command than anyone else there. Even the Triumvirate and Chevalier would defer to her orders. It just doesn't fit to imagine them as anything other than these larger than life figures."


"When you bring an army of mind controlled superweapons to the fight with you, I imagine people start listening." I put my arm around her waist. "Besides, you punched Leviathan in his face. You're one of the Endslayers. Powers aren't given out based on personality."


"Yeah, I guess." She looked behind me and her smile vanished. "Well, looks like our conversation's about to be interrupted."


"Sorry about that." A man's voice, I turned and was face to face with Chevalier. I'd met him before, a few times. But never had an opportunity to talk to him in person. The leader of the Protectorate, the second half of the Victoria-Chevalier interaction that was at least giving the Case 53s a chance at having a life. Not a normal life, but better than anything some of them might have been able to hope for, before. I was luckier than most in that regard.


"I'm assuming Vicky sent you this way to screen my new boyfriend? Why isn't she doing it herself, this time?"


Oh, that's pretty obvious. "I don't think her lie detection powers work on me." I tapped my arm just hard enough to get a metallic clunk out of it. My body wasn't hollow, and too dense to get the ringing noise typically imagined in metal hitting metal. This sounded more like hitting a concrete wall.


Chevalier nodded. "I see the two of you have it all figured out. I won't insult you by pretending otherwise. If it makes you feel any better, I vouched for you. Vicky trusts my judgment, so this is more a formality than anything."


Sveta sighed theatrically. "Well, if it makes Mom happy. I'll go mingle while pretending I don't know you're threatening my boyfriend with fates worse than death." She stood up on her toes and gave me a kiss on the cheek. "If they scare you off, at least let me know before you leave. That way I know whose ass to kick and why."


I returned the kiss. "I'll be sure you get the message. By carrier pigeon if I have to."


I watched her head off for a second, before turning back to face the man that could easily cost me my job if he wanted. "So, what's the rundown, sir?"


"You've already figured everything out anyway. Think Sveta knows?"


Oh, yeah, she's too smart not to have. "I think she suspects. She's a smart girl, and probably the most popular Case 53 on the planet. She has to be wary of people who might try to manipulate her. Given my blanket immunity to most forms of emotion or biology based Thinker powers, I am the most logical candidate if the Protectorate wanted to find a way to influence her. And, through her either Pantheon or the Case 53s. It doesn't help that other people have tried the same thing in the past."


Chevalier nodded. "In the immortal words of my girlfriend: 'fucking politics'. Vicky's instituted her own version of the Master/Stranger protocol involving Sveta's boyfriends. Most have just been individual opportunists and... Well, they say no matter what it is, there's going to be someone with a fetish for it."


I cringed inwardly. Most of the Case 53s had to deal with that once or twice in their lives. It never got any less awkward. "I'm going to assume that's what set off Vicky's one woman crusade against the Elite." That had been national news. And I did follow Vicky's career. I was even subscribed to her blog.


"Yeah. One of their former management, a social manipulation Thinker named Shark, hired a guy to try to seduce and manipulate her. Vicky figured it out. He may have said something along the lines of how there wasn't a law against what he did, so she couldn't do a thing about it. She took that as a challenge." Chevalier had to stop his story when we were interrupted by a commotion near the entrance. The newlyweds had finally arrived. "We'll have to finish the conversation later. Don't worry, I'm on your side here."


A woman's voice, I wasn't sure whose, spoke. "Presenting the Empresses of Avalon, Amelia and Taylor Hebert!"


The Empresses came wearing their armor, much like the rest of the wedding party had been. Not the full combat gear. Khepri was missing her wings, and Gaea wasn't in a nine foot tall plant thing. Just the dress outfit with their military medals glinting in the light. Apparently they had enough of being in dresses for the evening. A pair of spotlights I didn't even know were hidden in the ceiling focused on them. Leading them to the part of the floor intended for dancing, while those who'd opted to have conversations there backed out. Chevalier and I were safe enough in our corner.


Amidst the cheers of encouragement, including a very enthusiastic Victoria and Clarice, the pair walked out into the center of the dance floor. Taylor turned to the crowd. "We'd just like to thank you coming. This is a big day for us, and we're glad we can spend it with our friends and family. I just..."


"You're welcome and we love you, too," A woman in a black costume responded. "Now quit stalling and dance, already!"


Taylor smiled, and turned to put her hands on Amelia's hips. Then the music started and my heart stopped, figuratively speaking. The song was soft, romantic, and I had no idea what language it was in. The girls were enraptured by each other, we were enraptured by the music.


There could be absolutely no doubt who the singer was. Humans have five senses to interact with the world. I only had hearing and sight. And of those I was more sensitive to my hearing. This was Canary's song. I'd attended one of her live performances before, I'd never forget her voice, or the effect it had on me.


I stood, enraptured by the song while the two girls slowly danced in front of all the people present. Eventually, after a few painfully short minutes, the song ended. If there was any doubt in my mind before, it ended at that moment. The audience kept listening to the song even after it stopped. The couple danced for another minute before her power bled off and we returned to our normal mental states.


"Sir? I think... I think we need to talk to the singer. This is... there might have been an escape from the Birdcage."


He came down slower than I had. He didn't have the resistance I'd developed, or maybe it was my biology that let me recover faster, but that snapped him out of it. "You're sure?"


"Positive." I didn't want to do this, but there wasn't really a choice, was there? I worked around toward the back while everyone else was setting up for the food. I'd want allies for this, I might need them. I could trust Sveta. I worked my way toward her, tapping her shoulder.


I could see hurt in her eyes the moment she saw my face. "Please don't tell me you're really-"


"No, this is something else. I need you to come with me."


The three of us made our way into the back. If the caterers and other staff wanted to say something about the three of us not belonging back here, they did nothing. I overheard the conversation before opening the door.


"-appears stable. Minor fluctuations, nothing we can't null after a couple seconds. We just have to make sure you don't spend any longer than ten m-"


"Company." The door opened a second later and Vicky stepped out to greet us. "Oh, hi guys. We'll be out in a minute. Just a last minute chat with the singer."


I almost rolled my eyes. "We know she's Canary."


"Ah, gonna be that. Well, I guess you may as well come in." She stepped back.


I took the invite. I didn't think I was in any danger, I trusted Sveta and Chevalier, at least. I got a look at the room the band was in. The lead singer was a tall woman of apparent Hispanic ancestry, she didn't look anything like Canary. But this was Pantheon, and appearances meant nothing. In the corner, Clarice and another woman I didn't recognize, but was wearing Avalon's armor were toying with a machine I had to assume was Tinkertech of some sort.


"Hey, Paige, Weld here's a fan. Thinks you're Canary."


"I'm not." The woman replied. "But I'm a fan, too. Thus the stage name."


Really? "I'm sorry, but I know what Canary's singing was like, and I know all of her songs. This was her singing, but none of her songs. You're not going to convince me it's lip syncing."


Paige sighed. "Okay, you caught us. We're using Tinkertech to cheat. I'm afraid you'd have to talk to them, I'm not a Tinker at all." She gestured at the women at the machine. "They're why I can sing like that."


"Speak for yourself," one of the backup singers spoke. "We're totally using our powers. Circe, is there any way we can keep these after the party? I'm thinking maybe we serenade some of the girls who came here without dates? And later we could make careers as rock stars with these powers."


Another guy, who I guessed was the first one's twin since they looked identical, not that looks mattered around Pantheon, nodded emphatically. "Oh, we could get so much action from that."


"Men are such pigs," muttered the unknown woman. Circe? "I've got the recordings, we might be able to work it into a frequency we can plug into your armors. It's up to you to convince the Empresses to sign off on the rest of it."


I still wasn't buying it. Pantheon broke into the Birdcage, took someone out, and no one knew even knew it happened. This was a huge freakin' deal.


Paige approached me. "You heard that Canary died, right?"


I nodded. "That's what the news said at least." It had made the feeds almost a year ago.


"They left out how and why." Paige's eyes met mine. "We both know the real answer. They killed her, the courts and that corrupt fucking judge. Her trial was a sham. If she didn't look different, if she was given a fair trial. If she wasn't treated like an animal, if they saw her as a human being, she would never have been convicted. Not of anything Birdcage worthy."


Nothing I hadn't heard before, some of it I'd even argued myself. I publicly supported the protests after news of her death was released.


"Hey, Dragon, care to tell us how Canary died?" Vicky's voice startled me slightly.


"The prisoners refer to it as 'offering tribute'." Dragon wasn't here, but her voice came through the coms. "Glaistig Uaine, an incredibly powerful and undeniably insane Trump that can steal the powers of others by killing them, occasionally demands them. Or sometimes the cellblock leaders simply offer one to purchase some favor from her. The reports indicate that her power kills instantaneously, with no signs of pain. However, most victims used as tribute are aware of their impending fates. Canary was no exception."


"Horrific, right? That an innocent woman was fed to a monster. Not even as revenge or some kind of crime of passion. There's something human in those kinds of crimes. She was merely as a piece of property to be bought, sold, and used. Can you imagine a hell where that's so normal they've even given it a name? In a way, she was lucky. Being dead is preferable to living in that place." There were tears running down Paige's eyes by the time she finished speaking.


She's not wrong. I glanced over at Chevalier and Sveta. I could push this, and I should at that. Dragon is in control of the Birdcage, and through it Pantheon has access to all those monsters and all of their powers. But speaking out about it means Paige would be sent back to that hell.


I smiled, as best I could. "I'm sorry. I have always been a big fan of Canary. Your music is... well, that and the idea that she might still be alive. I might have jumped the gun a little. Hopefully you can understand the case of mistaken identity."


"Understand? I'll take it as a compliment. I expect I'll have to get used to it, if I want to perform like she does," Paige responded. I could see the relief in her eyes. "I'll probably limit my career to Avalon, for that reason."


"That's probably a good idea."


"What's your name, anyway?"


"Weld. I know, it's not normal, but I never bothered to get a civilian name. No point, it's not like I can have a secret identity."


"Okay, Weld." She held out her hand. "I'm glad to meet a fellow Canary fan. Hopefully you'll keep an eye on my career, too."


"Absolutely." I took her hand. I didn't dare squeeze, too great a risk of me hurting her. I wasn't willing to do that.


===============


A/N- Goddamn giant ass chapters. At this point, maybe I should just commit to singular 3k chapters a day instead of two ~1500-2k chapters.

Pick your own choice for what the music may have been.

Spoiler: Personally, I'm running with this.

Also- I *really* regret not putting a "Canary murdered in 'cage" chapter somewhere in the time skip. Oh well, hindsight. And sometimes I don't think of something in time to foreshadow it...

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 403


After our dance the music became more subdued. Paige's power could be inhibited, but not completely blocked without simply removing her powers. The Tinkers and Vicky would make sure there was never too much in to influence our personalities beyond keeping everyone in a good mood. Not that we expected any problems, but still, it was a nice addition. Paige wanted a way to thank us for pulling her out of that hellhole, along with the other unjustly railroaded capes.


I gave a brief moment of thought to my father, who was not, and would not be freed. I made peace with that long ago. He is where he belongs. And so am I. I reached over and put my hand on Taylor's leg under the table, then I leaned against her. "Thank you for putting up with all my bullshit baggage." I meant it, too. Between the weird sister complex, and the weirder adopting a fugitive Class S threat with a kill order as a sister, and the drama with my adoptive parents, any sane person would have noped the fuck out before I got through the first half of the things wrong with me.


AmusementAcceptance. "And thank you for putting up with all my bullshit baggage. Now dig in. The band may be free, but we're paying for the food. Plus it's delicious and we'll need the energy tonight." EmbarrassedOhGodThatSoundsHorrible. "I meant for the dancing! We're not going to be allowed to avoid that forever!"


Mark laughed. "You girls don't have to be embarrassed. You're a healthy, happy, newly married couple, so it's to be expected. Besides, we remember what it was like to be kids. Or have the rest of you finally become old?"


Healthy. To be expected. I tried not to think about that too hard. FineAcceptableWe'reHappyNoRegrets. Yeah, no regrets.


Danny smiled. "Oh, I definitely haven't forgotten. Every time the weather changes I'm given a detailed reminder of every last stupid thing I did between the ages of fifteen and yesterday afternoon."


"But the memories are worth every ache," Aunt Sarah agreed, giving Taylor's dad a far too dreamy smile for my comfort.


OhGodEww. Oh god, eww. CanNeverThinkAboutSexAgain! If we weren't celibate before, we would be now.


Carol perked up, just a bit more smug than usual. "Speak for yourselves. One of those little perks of having a Breaker power."


"You should try this," Taylor offered me a bite from her plate. "it's delicious." I accepted it readily enough. She was right, it tasted wonderful. I accepted another bite and resolved to pick some of it up my next trip past the buffet.


I focused on ignoring the conversation, as the adults played their games. Mark constantly trying to play the energetic one with no worries, Carol acting the one who didn't need to worry, and Danny and Aunt Sarah trying very hard to be the adults at the table by steering things back to safe conversations like sports, not-cape-news, and anything else on the planet that didn't have to do with family or each other.


Instead, my concern was on Taylor. My wife. The thought was going to take some getting used to. I loved her, and she loved me. More than I could have hoped for in life. We had good music that just so happened to serve the function of alcohol since this was a 'dry' ceremony. We had good friends seated out there chatting with their friends. Everything was perfect. Sure, we had the occasional outlier like Lisa who was only really here for Taylor, but that was fine.


And a bunch of people who were here more because we wanted to show our political friends some respect and pad the guest list than because they were actually our friends in any significant way. In that manner, Alexandria and Legend being here was both an open nod to the Protectorate and Guild, and a subversive one to Cauldron. And then there were the ones from Haven, the Adepts, Akaihana and her date for the Japanese groups. All in all, a broad and multicultural showing that the celebrity rags would just love.

....


And of course we had to make our rounds, eventually. No one could spend the whole night dancing. Except Sveta and Weld, who were apparently the proper combination of motivated and impossible to tire out. Taylor and I reluctantly split up so we could talk to everyone and thank them for showing. It didn't escape my notice that Taylor volunteered for both Akaihana and Narwhal. She was cute when she was jealous. I was on my way to talk to Alexandria and Legend for a moment when Rapture pulled me aside.


She was all smiles, her armor leaving her face open. One of the few who never accepted a biosuit, relying instead on her own technology. "I wanted to congratulate you on your on your marriage in person. And let you know how much Halo appreciated you asking him to officiate."


I felt a little uncomfortable at that one. "No, we should thank him."


She shook her head. "Don't worry, we know it was a decision made by pure politics. He was proud to do it anyway. For the political reasons, yes of course. But also because that's just the kind of man he is. It's a pity we, our teams, never got to know each other better."


I smile at her. "So much to do, so little time." ConcernAreYouOkayOverThere? Yeah, just trying to thread the needle of politeness.


"And, well, one piece of advice I wanted to give for you. Because you deserve it." Her voice dropped to a near whisper. "This should be the kind of advice your mother would tell you before your wedding, not a functional stranger." But that's not an option here. "I know about the sexual issues between you and Taylor."


I froze up for a moment. No, Taylor, just keep doing your thing. OkayIfYou'reCertain.


"An unfortunate side effect of my powers, I wish I could turn it off. I just wanted to tell you how to fix the problem."


I thought back at all the options at our disposal. Brain rewrite tech, my powers, sex alteration, sensory loaded changelings. "We're not really lacking for those kinds of tools, and we've rejected them for a reason. I don't see what else you could offer."


She shook her head, smiling softly. "Ah, the inexperience of youth. I can offer advice. Sexuality is an incredibly fluid thing, with more variables than a sane person would ever dare try to explain. Taylor is straight, and there's no way to change that which isn't a crime against both God and all human decency."


Then why are-


"But that's not the only aspect of her subconscious that you can play on. Like I said, there's a lot of factors that go into anyone's identity. She already loves you, on a level I've only rarely seen between any couple. And believe me, I know how to look. More than that, she trusts you completely. Those are massive head starts, especially for someone who has so many reasons not to trust anyone."


Of course Rapture knows that. She's met Taylor, she's seen the stuff about what Emma did. It's doesn't even take a Thinker. "Okay, so, you're saying I can talk Taylor into wanting to..." I flushed a little. AreYouOkay?What'sHappening? It's fine, I'll explain later.


"Not exactly. Some people are that flexible, but she's not one of them. In her case, you want to do the exact opposite. You have to take away her ability to say no." I was too shocked to protest. "Don't worry, I don't mean doing anything evil. Just take command of the situation. If you initiate, she won't stop you. After that, just lead and she'll be happy to follow. Like a lot of powerful men and women who are used to being in charge, there is a certain part of her that wants to allow someone else to be in charge of her for a change. And there's no one she'd prefer to be that someone else than you."


I thought about it. The times when she was impressed with me when I took command of a situation. I could actually see that working. I was even looking forward to it.


Rapture nodded. "That's the spirit. But don't think about it too hard right now. You've still got a party to concern yourself with. Save your enthusiasm for the honeymoon."


She's right, that can wait for later. "So, why are you telling me this? I thought that, well..."


"I'd be all 'you're both sinners, rawr, except I can't say that because it's politically unpopular so I'll be a passive aggressive bitch instead'?" Rapture's voice was a blend of mockery and amusement. "Yeah, no. See, I've actually read the Bible, in the proper languages. There's nothing in there for you that isn't also true for straight couples. As long as you don't plan to do it in a church or in front of other people or with anyone other than your spouse, we're pretty much golden. You can agree not to do any of those, right?"


I nodded my head. No, those are definitely not things I am ever going to do.


"Well then, no particular problems there. At least in terms of that. Your team could afford to visit a few confessionals. Get some baptisms. An exorcism or two, maybe."


Wait a second. "How long have you been sitting on this advice?"


She shrugged. "I think approximately three hours after I first met the two of you."


"Why didn't you tell me all of this sooner?" Fuck, the troubles we could have avoided...


"You weren't married, before."


===============


A/N- I've missed Rapture. Also, she spends too much time around Rey.

Oh, and yes, Lisa figured this advice out, too.

 

[Daunmi]

"I'd be all 'you're both sinners, rawr, except I can't say that because it's politically unpopular so I'll be a passive aggressive bitch instead'?" Rapture's voice was a blend of mockery and amusement. "Yeah, no. See, I've actually read the Bible, in the proper languages. There's nothing in there for you that isn't also true for straight couples. As long as you don't plan to do it in a church or in front of other people or with anyone other than your spouse, we're pretty much golden. You can agree not to do any of those, right?"

Click to shrink...

Couldn't resist doing it. Too bad!

"...You can agree not to do any of those, right?"

I went to nod my head but stopped. Rapture had always been forthcoming with us; god knows she stopped Lisa from being such a bitch, and she'd been happy to help our various members talk about whatever they needed. She was probably the only reason Emma had ended up as stable as she did. She deserved the truth. "Uh, I might not be able to, you know, honor that agreement..." I muttered.

It took her by surprise. "I beg your pardon? You're intending to go off and have sex in a church, in front of other people, or with someone other than Taylor?"

Maybe I'd said it the wrong way, but I'd started so I might as well just force it all out. "Well, I mean, technically the whole planet is connected to me. There's a couple of churches that were made utilizing the Yggdrasil and because of the relay nodes built in to all of it Taylor and I have an awareness and presence across the entire planet, and our emotions clearly have an effect on the things we control."

She shook her head. "That's... not exactly what I meant."

"Which kind of ties in to the issue of other people;" I said, bulling my way onwards. "They're almost constantly looking at some part of us, or watching what we're doing in some way. Not to mention the thinkers like Crow and Victoria who can pretty much envision whatever the hell they want to, along with whatever bullshit Cauldron is working with." It was something we'd given some thought to in the past, and whenever the thoughts of Cauldron happened to cross my mind after I'd been thinking about Taylor, well, it had certainly helped to keep my desires down.

Actually, this whole conversation was going to end up cockblocking me. Figuratively speaking.

There was a look of borderline horror on what I could see of Rapture's face. "Ok, I'm not sure what I'm most concerned about; that this is a thing, or that you've been putting thought into it."

"And, if I'm coming clean, we're actually working on the idea that our clones aren't really, exactly, 100% us at the moment." This was kind of big news, so I pitched my voice as low as I could, leaning in slightly to make sure she'd hear. "We're happy with it. We've accepted that we're not really who we used to be. But you and I both know that Taylor's not one for baulking at sacrifice. Give her a month or so, two if we're being generous, and there's bound to be something going wrong so... yeah. If I'm being honest, I really can't agree with any of your terms."

Coming clean was like ripping off a band-aid. For me, anyway. For her part, Rapture just stood there, mouth moving every now and then as she tried to process the facts I'd just dumped in her lap. I waved my hand in front of her face for a bit before deciding she'd snap out of it sooner or later.

That done, I made my way back to my wife, the thought still sending a shiver down my spine despite recent topics. We'd deal with these new thoughts the way we always did; together. Which reminded me, maybe I should have mentioned the quasi-masturbation angle to Rapture whilst she was still capable of rational thought?

A quick glance back showed she'd made her way to the punch bowl and was attempting to get drunk off the non-alcoholic selection.

Ah well, maybe it's a conversation best saved for another day.

I even had a couple people over on SB send me quite hateful messages for being TOO respectful of religion in this fic.

Click to shrink...

That's actually a good thing. How often is it so easy to figure out who to block?

 

[meta_halo]

Part 1
Part 2
Happily Ever After, Part 3

WARNING: More crack than a "My Little Simurgh: Friendship is Space Whale Bullshit" marathon


"I don't get it," Zimmy said. "Why did Ack-eye … Ock-ee … that lady get in trouble?"

"I'll explain it when you're older," Taylia replied. Libecca managed to convey a smirk without perceptibly moving in any way, as she knew what part of the story was coming next.

Lisa awoke the next morning with a vague sense of dread and an awful hangover. After her morning ritual of cursing her alarm clock, the sun, her body, the existence of other parahumans, the existence of other humans, and existence itself, she stumbled into the kitchen and dining area for a pot of coffee. Maybe some food too, if the stomach gods were feeling merciful.

Zach was at the stove, frying something green that smelled an awful lot like bacon. Missy and Theo were sharing a bench seat and, Lisa noted with disgust, a single plate of food and set of silverware. Clarice had joined Taylor, Amelia, and Emma for a strategy meeting at the end of the table. What to do with Akaihana, her power informed her, filling in the gaps. Though I could've seen that one coming from a mile away, even without my powers. Now that just leaves the problem of … oh, shit.

"Ahem," she cleared her throat loudly to catch her teammates' attention. "I don't suppose anyone has checked on pedo Sleeping Beauty this morning, have they? Or our lovely wedding crashers, Aisha and Alec?"

"Good morning to you too, Miss Sunshine," Taylor responded testily. "And that joke about Aisha and Alec is in poor taste, even for you. They're dead-"

Taylor was suddenly interrupted by Akaihana's voice, speaking in a strange yet all-too-familiar cadence. "More like dead sexy, amirite? Eh, eh?" The body was Akaihana's all right, but those mannerisms, that makeup, that outfit could only belong to one person.

"Aisha?! What are you … what's …?" Taylor spluttered as her brain fought valiantly to make sense of what was happening, and failed. "What." The sentiment was shared by the rest of the team, who had stopped what they were doing and just stared at the scantily-clad woman in front of them. The room slowly began to fill with a smell much like burning bacon.

"Bravo, Aisha!" Lisa said sarcastically, starting a slow, mocking clap for emphasis. "You've actually managed to out-skank that body's previous owner, and her cape name was a euphemism for labia. Now will you please put it back where you found it? You don't know where it's been." But I do, she thought with a shudder. And there goes any chance of food this morning.

"Oh my dah-ling Lisa, I could never do that," Aisha said, grinning from ear to ear. "I'm seeing things so differently now, so clearly. For instance I never realized you had such beautiful eyes…" She swayed her hips as she stepped toward Lisa, who retreated with a strangled cry, scrambling to put the table in between them. "Nah," Aisha said, cracking up, "I'm just fuckin' with ya."

Lisa collected her composure and shot back, "Well you can go fu-" Aisha-in-Akaihana's grin grew even wider. She did, last night, Lisa's power none-too-helpfully informed her, as she trailed off. And again this morning. Twice. She rubbed her temples in a futile attempt to ward off what was shaping up to be another killer migraine. Sometimes I hate my power so, SO much.

As if on cue, Regent's voice rang out, making everyone jump. "And I helped!" He had been sitting on the other end of the bench seat the entire time, with Aisha's real body cuddling on his lap. "Hi everybody." He mouthed the words, but it was Aisha's body that spoke and waved, ventriloquist dummy style.

"Isn't she just the cutest?" Aisha cooed as she sauntered over to them, kissing first Alec and then her old body with gusto—and tongue. "I call her Impty." AggravationDesireEmbarrassment flooded from Amelia to Taylor, who amplified the Aggravation and sent it back mixed with a hefty dose of Sympathy. Aisha tends to have that effect on people.

Whether it was the girl-on-girl action, the supremely bad pun, or the combination of the two, Zach began spluttering, then choking, and then collapsed into dust. "I'm fine!" he shouted upon respawning. Emma was not amused.

"Fucking Strangers," Missy grumbled as she hurriedly hopped out of her seat and fled the kitchen, dragging Theo and Clarice with her. She wasn't going to take a chance that any of the stupid in that room might rub off on her and hers.​

What Taylia actually said was, "That night, Aisha snuck into Clarice's lab and used the mind-switching machine to take over Akaihana's body." She winced at the thought of trying to explain that farcical kitchen scene to the children.

"Will you tell them what actually happened when they're older?" Libecca silently snarked from across the room. Her mouth was twitching up into a smile at one corner, the equivalent of side-splitting laughter.

"If I never have to explain—or think about—the details of Aisha's and Alec's love life again, it'll be too soon," Taylia signaled back. "Besides," she added, "I don't remember you being nearly so amused at the time."

Libecca's fingers tapped out her reply. "One of the benefits of hindsight, I suppose. After all, if you can't laugh at yourself, who can you laugh at?" Taylia began to respond, but Libecca cut her off with a minute gesture. "Uber and Leet don't count."

Taylia continued her story. "After that we had a long talk about what to do with Aisha, or Akaishana as Zach insisted on calling her. We decided that since she was a troublemaker by nature, we'd have her make trouble for our enemies. She'd already developed a strong power interaction with Alec—the ability to prevent the targets of his body-snatching from noticing while he attuned to them—plus they both possessed a certain … ethical flexibility … that I had to admit was tactically useful."

"I think the word you're looking for is 'sociopathy'," signaled Libecca. "Potato, potahto," responded Taylia.

"The interaction got even stronger after Aisha … borrowed Akaihana's body. Using their powers together she could puppet someone without them even realizing it, which also let her control more people at once. And she could become a nearly perfect infiltration specialist if her armor was loaded with the right selection of powers, for example: her original power for stealth, Strider for movement, Vicky for defense, Lisa and Rapture for intelligence-gathering and psychological warfare planning, and Alec for manipulation."

Plus a discreetly-installed crystal that would resonate in response to a special signal from Pantheon armors, letting us know if Aisha was within 50 feet.

"A good thing too," Libecca signaled. "I don't want to know what she would've used those goats for if we hadn't caught her."

"We worked with Dinah to devise the perfect plan, one that would turn the two greatest threats to our world against each other." She continued, carefully avoiding any mention of the code name Zach had given the operation. "Phase 1 was straightforward: Aisha, Alec, and Impty snuck into the CUI-occupied territories and began creating as much chaos as possible. Which is to say: a lot.

"It started with weapons manufacturing and storage facilities being sabotaged, surveillance records lost or corrupted, government slush funds drained, and state secrets leaked. The trails of evidence always led back to powerful hard-line party officials, who without exception claimed to be completely loyal and have no knowledge of what had happened. Which didn't save them from taking the blame."

The kind of blame that involved a bullet if they were lucky, or rubber hoses and electrodes followed, much later, by a bullet if they weren't.

"The CUI aristocrats were so accustomed to backstabbing and power plays that it took them months to even realize they were under Master/Stranger attack, and after they figured out that something was happening they still didn't know what. They kept it quiet to avoid appearing weak, which proved to be a mistake.

"Next came a string of incidents where formerly-loyal party officials denounced the royal family and called for liberalization during TV interviews and press conferences, all of which leaked to the international media with a little help from Dragon. And then there was a 24-hour period where every website under the CUI's 'Great Forcefield' of censorship automatically redirected to an itemized list of the regime's human rights violations—except PHO."

And, at Alec's insistence, all the porn sites. "Because withholding porn from half a billion Chinese is a human rights violation in itself," he had said. "Give us your turgid, your perverted, your horny masses yearning to beat freely…" Et cetera.

"The disruptions kept getting worse, more frequent, and stranger, and before long it was obvious that it was only a matter of time until the CUI crumbled completely. The last straw came when the remaining members of the royal family performed a can-can on live television while holding up a banner reading "We Suck!" in seventeen different languages.

"The people took to the streets in revolt, and 90% of the regular army defected to join them. Somewhere in a bunker deep underground, a general gave the 20 Yangban battalions their final orders: to massacre their rebelling countrymen, then embark on suicide missions against neighboring countries' infrastructure and population centers. In short, World War III.

"All of which was, as Dinah was growing increasingly fond of saying, 'Just. As. Planned.' As the Yangban members took to the skies, their bodies began to shift and change, sprouting fur and whiskers, soon turning into an army of fuzzy kittens."

"No way!" Zimmy shouted, her eyes wide. That's sooo cute … but is it really what happened, gramma Taylia? Or is this one of those times when you don't tell us the real story because you think we're too young to understand?"

"That's exactly how it happened, sweetie." Taylia reassured her. "I'd given Aisha a vial of my power in order to begin Phase 2 of our plan. She gradually infected all the Yangban with a parasite that would let her later affect them remotely, and when they attacked she activated them all at once." Which was the truth, if perhaps not the whole truth…

"Are you sure this will work?", Taylor asked. "We're going to need a lot of kittens."

"Trust me," Emma replied. "I've done the math on this. An average 8-week-old kitten—scientifically proven to be the cutest age—weighs 1.5 kg, while the average Yangban member weighs 65 kg. So that works out to 86 and 2/3 kittens per Yangban, and they currently have about 12,500 active members, which will give us over a million kittens. It'll be perfect."

"What will happen to all those fractional kittens?" Zach wondered.

"Playful, cuddly widdle kittipedes!" Clarice said, before her brain caught up to her mouth. "… are something I definitely will not make. Because that would be bad. And wrong."​

"I grew a giant tree out of Yggdrasil, reaching over three miles high, with its lowest branches a mile from the ground. Pantheon and our allies rounded up the Yangban kittens and put them in the branches. I'd designed the tree to provide food, water, and shelter, so they were free to play and squabble all day long, as kittens do. The most important thing was that since the kittens were originally parahumans they retained their powers and an instinctive knowledge of how to use them, although only at about 1% of their original strength. Just enough to be extra adorable, really. There was only one step left in our plan: to wait."

The golden man was distracted from his battle against a Bolivian forest fire by a great disturbance in the shards, as if thousands of voices suddenly cried out in terror and suddenly … mewed? He flew halfway around the planet in a flash, arriving at a sight unprecedented in his thousands of years of wandering the stars.

A portion of the host species had been shaped into a different form, their shards not destroyed but instead diffused. He noted with satisfaction that the creatures maintained their drives toward conflict: chasing, wrestling with, and nipping at each other. Some floated gently through the air, while others erected eggshell-fragile barriers of force around themselves and others, batted around levitated twigs and insects, or momentarily shifted into other states of being. He even detected hosts with fragments of the same shard battling each other, such as a group of creatures that hissed and clawed at each other as they flickered backwards through instants of time. This novel form of conflict merited further study.

The golden man became aware of a conundrum as he moved to rescue the first armload of the creatures. Removing his shards' hosts from such a concentrated source of conflict felt wrong on a fundamental level, but if he ignored them he would be failing to fulfill his self-imposed duty. While that duty had seemed pointless at the time the man Norton had suggested it, and his subsequent experiences had done nothing to convince him otherwise, terminating such an investigation prematurely was also anathema to him.

Torn between two competing drives, he floated motionless. A satisfactory solution would no doubt present itself if he studied the situation more closely. He slowly circled around to examine another branch of the gigantic tree. Did that creature just set another's tail on fire with a burst of heat from its eyes? And did the burned creature's companion just summon a tiny cloud of rain to put the fire out? He calculated that there would be no harm in observing for just a few moments more.

… or a few moments after that.

… or a half-turn of the planet.

… or a full turn. It wasn't like he needed light to see.

… or a revolution around its star. Just one, and then he'd return to his duty.

… maybe two.

.

.

.

[D'AWWWW]​

"He's been floating up there ever since, and our best thinkers predict that's unlikely to change anytime within at least the next two hundred years. He even started a breeding program. At first he seemed to be testing out different power combinations, but for the past few decades now it's been mainly for effect, like a Persian Longhair with aerokinesis or a black cat with a shadow form. We'll occasionally send up new varieties for him to play with as well, ever since the UN decided that the Cattree was a more human method of dealing with dangerous parahumans than the Birdcage.

"Without the threat of Scion hanging over everything, humanity was free to expand to other dimensions and begin colonizing the solar system. Cauldron stopped acting like a nutter's idea of the Illuminati and started to work on making life better for everyone. The last I checked, the Endbringers were busy terraforming Mars. And none of it would've been possible without the CUI.

"So, that's how the CUI saved the world. And then everyone lived happily ever after," Taylia concluded.

"Even the platypus?" Zimmy asked.

"Yes, even the platypus."

"What happened to the platypus?"

"The platypus and Ingenue got married and had lots of abom-, I mean adorable little children."

"Umm," Bemmy spoke up, "What's a platypus?"

"That's a long story," Taylia replied, "but it will have to wait for another night. For tonight though, who wants cookies?"

"Me!" "Me!" "Me!" cried three young voices in unison.

Taylia lead the way, followed closely by Levi, then Bemmy. Last was Zimmy, who hummed contentedly to herself as they headed into the kitchen. And then they all had Samosas.

THE END

 

[TanaNari]

Chapter 404 will be found in the NSFW section. It has enough character development to be a valid chapter. But it's still mostly just lesbian sexy time.

https://forum.questionablequesting.com/posts/314617/

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 405- Lisa


Dragon's voice and face were as deliberately passive as always when dealing with me. We knew she was an AI, no sense in her trying to fight it, and since she couldn't be certain what may or may not tip off my powers, she opted with too monotone to offer any inflections. If only she knew how many clues that gives me. "There's been a change of plans."


I didn't bother responding. Making other people ask the questions was my game. I simply waited. It was important enough for her to make an impromptu call. It was important enough for her to risk known association between Avalon and Cauldron, not that anyone could do anything about it if they did find out. It was important enough that she wouldn't play games.


"Dinah's predictions have started changing. Our odds of success plummet if we wait more than another few weeks, and they're already starting to dwindle."


"How badly?" It was the question DM would ask first. This was always a numbers game, and Cauldron expected fully to lose this fight. They kept fighting, not because they wanted to succeed, but because they didn't want to ask themselves if they could have succeeded at the end of the day. In a way, I could respect that. My life was ruled by those questions. What happened? Why did it happen? If I were just a little bit better, if I tried just a little harder, could I have stopped it from happening?


"The odds of the apocalypse occurring haven't fluctuated more than a quarter of a percentage point in the next five years. It's happening, and your plan, it seems, doesn't get much better than it currently is."


My one hope of stopping Scion proactively, without starting a war. "And that is still less than five percent." I always knew it was a long shot, but everything we were doing was taking shots in the dark, so it paid to fire as many bullets as possible.


"...And is still less than five percent. Avalon's plans have reached what I believe is the pinnacle of their resources. Wruenele and Mashu are already being mobilized. We'll be ready to act in two days. We'll be forced to act in eight under all possible circumstances."


"Wruenele's still not completed." Just confirmation of the rest of my theory. I had hoped that Dragon, as she wasn't a parahuman, would not be subject to the laws of Primacy. It was an artificial power, one created by virtue of the Agents deliberately loading their dice in favor of Scion. If we could trick them, convince them to fight Scion for real, we might have something.


But Dragon was built by a parahuman, and apparently that intentional design flaw was inside her as well, and not one that she could remove. Or, possibly worse, it was removed as she reworked her code, but she would simply never be strong enough to beat Scion in battle, no matter how much time she had to prepare for the conflict. We were back down to only one answer.


"And the Dragon's Teeth? Are they aware? Prepared?" Natural humans, but operating parahuman tech. Hopefully that degree of separation was enough to tip the rules in our favor. Parahumans are subject to Primacy, but is the tech itself similarly designed to fail intentionally? If wielded by humans, will that be enough?


Dragon nodded. "And I'm about to contact the United Worlds Defense Force. They won't know the particulars, of course. But our reports will read an unknown destructive event, possibly the new Endbringer." Which is true enough, Scion will certainly bring the end. "Avalon's calling on all its political influence, risking exposure of some of our secret political alliances." She means the various people they've Coil'd over the years, such as well over half of the CUI's leadership. "If your plan succeeds, we'll be in a pretty difficult spot. A quality problem to have, I grant you, but a problem."


Suggesting Avalon's putting everything on the line. Wants Cauldron to be aware they're taking this as seriously as Cauldron does. Wants to make sure we know to take this seriously. Implying they're making themselves vulnerable. Is unaware of just how good Cauldron's Thinkers are. "Don't be ridiculous. If our plan succeeds, the world's going to be so confused over the lack of Scion that they won't be paying attention. You'll just say something along the lines that it was apparently the event predicted. No glory, but no costs."


"You make a good point. We will be able to cover our tracks in the confusion, thank you for the suggestions." The statement wasn't for Dragon's benefit, it wasn't even for Cauldron's. It was for mine. I'd built up resources of my own, and I needed to protect them until it was time to use them.


"When did you discover the changes? What are the increases in the destruction?"


"They started climbing yesterday morning, so we changed our questions and invoked Akaihana, Prism, and our other Trumps who can mimic Dinah. Each day we wait decreases the overall number of survivors by approximately a quarter million. There is little, if any, hope left if we wait more than a week. The Bola are primed, the dimensional piercers are prepared. We've already given Legion, V.F." The final loadout. Glaistig Uaine, Contessa if hers works, Gavel and Victoria, myself in the hopes that all those powerful Thinkers can come up with something. "We move in two days, the moment we're fully prepared, unless you give us a damn good reason to hold back a little longer. Waiting risks losing our chances forever."


Not that there was much to begin with. "I'll see to it we're ready to do our part. She's feeling cooperative lately." Now that they're talking about marriage and starting a family after this is all over, maybe we have a chance.


"Let them know we have a supply of the power enhancing drug ready, if they want it. Side effects are limited unless you overdose."


"And the OD still risks permanent loss of parahuman abilities?"


Dragon's pretend face nodded. "A last resort, one of many." The screen flicked off, leaving me alone in the dark.


One of many.


....


I was the first person at the meeting. A strange experience for me, and hopefully it would unsettle the others. Doctor Mother followed, missing her shadow. She'd be talking through the com that Doctor Mother wore.


Number Man was, shockingly, not the first one there, walking in almost a minute after DM. "My apologies for being late. I wanted to verify Dragon's story. They are indeed calling an emergency U.W.D.F. meeting. And we've gotten Clairvoyant confirmation that Avalon is mobilizing its full forces, including the ones they think we don't know about. Pantheon is busy diverting resources and getting their clone memory backups updated. They're either preparing for war, or this is the most elaborate bluff in history."


"Given that it's Pantheon, we can't discount that possibility."


Doormaker managed to pull the others in, including our metaphorical and literal trump card, Glaistig Uaine.


"I trust you've all had time to review the conversation Crow had with Dragon?" Doctor Mother opened. For a normal, if pretty much delusional, woman with dreams of slaying a god, she was actually a pretty good leader. Keeping such powerful, divergent, personalities together took work. And most of it wasn't Contessa. She may have provided the vehicle, but DM was the one driving it. "Crow and Number Man both seem to think it's legitimate, I believe."


I glanced over at Alexandria. At this point we barely even needed to see each other to communicate. She took a slow breath. It's almost time, are you sure about this? "I have to agree, there's nothing Avalon has to gain from a fraud of this nature that is worth the risk."


"The Alcott girl has been wrong, before," Legend offered. He was the one hoping against hope that we could avoid ever having to try this. That Scion would simply go away. The others faced it with grim determination, regret over opportunities lost, and perhaps a level of eagerness to simply get this over with, win or lose. Legend was still stuck in the denial phase.


I closed my eyes slightly, breathing out. I'm only sure that we have no other choice. "It doesn't matter. Dragon, Gaea and Khepri all believe her. They are all of Avalon's decision makers, which means they'll attempt the dimensional ramming device immediately after we fail. When that fails, the war begins for real."


That made everybody go quiet. There was no real hope that we'd succeed, no real hope that any of our plans would work. This was one of many small chances. A chance that every angle and dirty trick I could think of over the course of almost two years had managed to bring up to four and a half percent. Attempting to talk him into dormancy always failed. Attempting to convince him to kill himself... four and a half percent. After Reggie, after Taylor, after Taylor again, and after Taylor one more time, here I am deliberately plotting to drive someone to suicide. That it was an alien monstrosity didn't change the irony much.


Alexandria stepped forward, offering me comfort. A twitch of a hand, a caress of my cheek that never happened. An apology for the hell she couldn't protect me from. "Every chance is worth taking." Her eyes closed some. Evocative of tears, of shame. Apologizing for not being a better friend to me, not being a better person for me. No longer cares if the others began to suspect we were communicating. Nothing matters anymore. "We'll prepare our forces."


I tilted my head, as if leaning against her. Thanking her for everything she'd done for me. The risks she was taking. I, too, was sorry I couldn't be a better person. I ignored the other subtexts, that 'forces' was a polite way of talking about the monsters in the basement that were once people. They had a strategy to let them escape, convinced that Cauldron was in league with Scion. Contessa, of course, dreamed that up. Or at least was responsible for making it happen. I expected it would work.


Legend looked down. "This is it, then. I had hoped we could put it off longer."


"We know he'll start the process, eventually. To hope he doesn't is like hoping that HIV will spontaneousy decide to stop killing people. It doesn't work that way." It may have been manipulative, selecting a disease that was so tied to gay culture and history, but I needed to pick something suitably horrific, and preferably slow acting and insidious, and HIV was certainly all of those things. If Legend resented me for the manipulation, then so be it, but it wasn't him that I needed to convince.


I eyed Ciara. She was both the linchpin of the operation and the least reliable member. Rebecca caught my meaning immediately, speaking where I couldn't. "Glaistig Uaine, this ultimately rests on you. the rest of us aren't likely to be able to speak with him. Just you and Crow. Of those, you're one of the Royal Court. You're the one he's most likely to listen to."


She looked at Alexandria. "No."


===============

A/N- And so it begins. Dragon Unchained. Years of minmaxing the most bullshit powers in the world. Fifteen Enbringers. Three worlds mobilized for total war.

Chapter 404 will not be found here. It has enough character development to be a valid chapter. But it's still mostly just lesbian sexy time.

https://forum.questionablequesting.com/posts/314617/

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 406- Ciara


The Negotiator sighed. To my eyes, her faerie was agitated, terrified. The conflict between its host fear of impending death, and its own fear of open rebellion. "If what you say about Primacy is true, then there is no other way. You have to talk to Scion, convince him he no longer wants to continue the cycle. We both know it's broken, the queen is dead. Letting us all die alongside her is just a waste. Convince him to, I dunno, that he'd be better off watching our faeries dance forever."


"The fairies cannot dance forever. They will tire. They must rest, and that's when the next part of the cycle begins." Foolish child. Hers was a young faerie, possibly born as recently as the fires of the last dance. Youthful, clever, eager to prove itself. Maybe one day it would be worthy of loftier stations. But for now, it was a mere peasant.


"And the next part of the cycle is when they all fuck each other silly, blow up the planet, and send their babies out into the stars."


"The faeries are born fully formed, knowing the wisdom of their predecessors. Much like your own former namesake, sprung fully formed from her father's head."


The Negotiator shook her head. "Like viruses, ready to spread out and consume heedless of the destruction they bring. Rapacious and ultimately meaningless horrors. There is no truth or beauty in their acts."


I stood, my hand extending. I was halted by David's hand on my shoulder. "Ciara, please. Hear her out."


I hesitated, looking at him, then back to her. She was, in many regards the opposite of the Serpent. One dealt in poisoned gifts, honeyed words, and the seductive lure of clear truths that are not truths. Negotiator lived in a world of ugly lies and deceptions built of even uglier truths. "Very well, David, but only because you asked."


The Negotiator took that as permission. "I know the visions you've taken from the mass triggers... the faerie circles. You see them like Amelia- the Shaper- sees them. You see them like I see them. They're not faeries dancing. Dances are fun. The Entities don't dance. There's no joy to their movements. They run on instinct, like a bunch of gnats spiraling around a street light. When they mate, it's not love. It's not even lust! There's no pleasure, there's nothing in there at all. It's merely what they have always done, and will always continue doing."


I had a number of ways to kill her. Some, the Serpent whispered to me, that none in this room would blame me for or even suspect me of. But David might ask, and I would not lie to him. She got to live. "He is the King. I will not go against him."


"Not even for us?" David asked. "You know we go into this battle even without your help. You have a better chance than any of us to end this without bloodshed. It serves his interests, too, right? To go into hibernation or whatever it is that he'll do to conserve strength. You've said he can't... complete the cycle without another of his kind. He should rest until one comes to help him."


I nodded. That seemed more reasonable.


"Won't work." Damn Negotiator. "Dinah considers that scenario a write-off. The deaths still happen if we try that."


"Nevertheless, I will not seek to convince the True King to destroy himself." I stood and walked away from the table. "Asking him to dream and wait for the future, I shall do. Do not press further on this, Negotiator."


"Fuck. Okay, Avalon still needs two days to prepare. I'll... draw up a plan for convincing him."


David rushed after me as I walked out. "Ciara!"


"Should you not be planning?" I didn't complain as he wrapped his arms around me, however.


"There's no need, not for me at this point." He held me, and around him the shimmer of his faerie held me as well. "I'm no good at leadership, and we've confirmed what few Thinker powers I can call on don't work on Scion. My function is mainly to command the Endbringers to attack, and follow it up in person." He kissed my ear. "Thank you for everything you've done."


"There is no reason for you to thank me." I choose to do nothing at the moment it matters most.


"There's every reason to thank you." He turned my head and this time his lips met my own. Moments later, we were home, and events went where nature dictated. I could not get The Negotiator's words out of my head. The Faeries carried no joy in their hearts, nor in acts as simple as making love. Their dance was hollow, devoid of emotion or passion. If my distraction meant I was a less than generous lover this time, then David was kind enough to make no mention of it.


"I've been thinking. Let's get married."


What? "Pardon?"


"I know that, years ago now, I said that I lived the hero lifestyle, that I accepted I would sacrifice the civilian life for that. I didn't care about fame then or now, only about the goal of saving the world. But I've discovered that I can't live like that. The world isn't enough. I need something better to fight for. I need us, together, for however long we have left. Before we face Scion. It won't be much of a ceremony, I'm sorry. But we can have a real ceremony after. Settle down, start a family. Leave the cape behind for good."


Yes.Yes!YES!!! "Very well, I accept your proposal." I turned and kissed him softly. Whatever I may have been lacking in my last performance, I resolved to more than make up for with this one.


....


Finding Scion was easy enough. With the use of Pathmaker and the Observer, I stepped through to one of the worlds that had been so lovingly crafted by the Queen Administrator, the Royal Artisan and the Grand Archivist. Their power crackled through the air and the earth, a dance that was vibrant and alive, both joyous in their passions and fearful of the war that might come. The faeries aren't alive; the girls that command them bring the warmth and life. And, I could see in this pair, that they were the ones to command their faeries, not the other way around. How mere humans managed to subjugate two of the royal court, I could not imagine.


David pressed his helmet against mine. "I have to go, Ciara. I'll need to be near the Endbringers. Just in case if we need them. Remember to use the randomized shunt device if there's any chance of you being harmed. Clairvoyant and Doormaker can find you wherever you go." As can the True King. But he is with limits in his current form, he will have to switch abilities in order to track me. Which he could do with ease, but so could some of the Abominations that my new husband commanded. He would be here for me, as best he could, but I did this alone.


"I yearn for when we next meet, my husband." I stepped back, and allowed him to do the same.


"Doormaker, the Endbringer Containment Facility." With one last glance, he was gone.


The Queen Administrator spoke. "We're ready when you are, Glaistig Uaine."


"The Serpent, the Charioteer, the Royal Assassin." My three servants appeared before me. Two to whisper in my ear, one to be my sword and shield. The Charioteer was an emaciated man, and with a mourneful gaze, he looked upon the figure of a young woman clad only in black and white stripes. A ghost summoned by a ghost. The Assassin, a tall, angular man with a too wide grin and long knives for fingers. He was needed for his secret purpose, today.


I was carried through dimensions, to be placed in front of the True King of the Faeries. The first time in a long time that I gazed upon him. I could feel the sadness radiate from him. This is not what something without feeling looks like. This is not what a God-King should look like.


I reached out, using the Assassin's voice I spoke. "My Liege."


He halted, his gaze turning toward me. There was no recognition in those eyes. No joy, only sorrow.


"I wish to speak with you. Of the cycle, of your Queen."


[CYCLE] [COUNTERPART?] I staggered and the voices I carried screamed, pressing against the power of his words. I'd gotten through. I'd gotten through enough that he spoke back, and in moments I saw more of their purpose than the twenty Faerie Circles we held before had taught me in their totality. The Negotiator is right, they are mere rapacious horrors. Bloated gluttons eating their way across worlds because they refused to consider another way. These are not gods. Quite the opposite, in fact.


"I..." I paused for a moment, allowing the Assassin and the Serpent plot amongst themselves for the words I needed. I followed their lead. "You are alone. Y-your queen has been dead since you arrived here."


[ALONE] My faeries- my Shards- screamed in pain, echoing the feelings of the mind they once belonged to I would push through. They aren't real feelings, they are constructs transmitted by constructs. Like the bond between the Royal Artisan and the Queen Administrator.


"Yes. Alone." I gasped, buying time to recover and continue the conversation. "There is no means to restore her. You will never see her again."


[NEGATIVE] [PATH] I shuddered at the force, my protections and my will overwhelmed by the crushing weight of his mind. I fell from the sky.


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A/N- Sometimes, it does hurt to talk things out.