Amelia, Worm AU [Complete]

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 167- Lisa


Missy arrived with Emma and an incredibly concerned looking Riley and Theo in tow. I could tell Theo was injured, probably fairly badly. He's going to be in a lot of pain without Amelia's help, I realized. And our need to keep Taylor's death a secret means he'll be going a while without that help. I felt bad, but there wasn't much choice.


I looked at Missy, extending my new power to her, first. I paid enough for it, may as well play a bit. Bits and pieces of data filtered in. Images in the form of concept more than something audio or visual. Argument with her mother before coming, too faded to pick up details. Her injury, but very little surrounding the event. Those didn't stick out as much as her date with Theo last week. A kiss on the cheek? I could see the moment when she quit the Wards so clearly that it was like it happened then and there. I smiled as Piggot's fat rolled while she tumbled to the ground. There's an image I am going to cherish for a long time.


Missy's trigger event, which I chose not to actually look at, stood out like an inferno. Why? I wondered, then turned my original power on the question. Postcognition is extension of usual inference powerset. Postcognition locates and refines data based upon interactions with the environment. Senses events of significant emotional impact. Correction, significant formative impact. Greater impacts leave longer and clearer data trails.


I accepted that that made sense. I could see the death of this world, despite it being millions of years ago, because it was the death of a world. Trigger events, too, would be huge details. My power accidentally gives me the ability to detect parahumans, I realized. Not accidental. Second trigger relates to a need to correct flaw in power resulting in emotional reaction identical to primary trigger. Primary trigger related to helplessness at losing brother to suicide.


Current stress related to parahumans and parahuman abilities, primarily the 'Taylia' link. Power refined to respond to parahuman threats. Trump ability. Trump abilities common in second triggers. Trump abilities result from trigger events caused by parahumans. Second trigger resultant from Taylor's suicide and need to understand the reasons. Second trigger cause identical to primary trigger cause in all cases.


I was floored. My power just gave me direct insight into how the Passengers operated. A lot of insight, actually. Things that, in retrospect, should have been obvious. Things that must have triggered Taboo, before. I actually smiled. Even as I started to cry, I was smiling. Congratulations, Taylor, you'd probably consider this final proof that you did the right thing by killing yourself.


"Are you okay?" Riley asked. I did NOT point my new power at Riley. That was something I don't think my mind could handle, seeing Riley 'at work'. I thanked every star that I had to deliberately look to use my postcognition. The fact that it was pushing me toward a tinker headache after mere minutes worth of actual use made me a little less happy, but I could live with that.


"I'll cope," I replied to Riley's question. I turned my usual power on the new one again. Range limitation exists. Manton Effect. Large population of living variables greatly diminishes power's range and detail. Likely to be limited to days on Bet, save for trigger events. "The mission didn't go quite as well as we hoped. We'll need to send Emma back to base as soon as possible, then we can go back "


"Was someone else hurt?" Missy asked.


"Not seriously," I lied, willing Riley to keep the secret. I could beat the standard suit lie detection, but I doubted I could fool Riley. Fortunately she didn't say anything about it. I knew she'd ask later. "We had a few complications involving the Butcher and could use her skills. I've extended my apologies to Director Calvert about us abandoning Boston after the fight. They were understanding of our need to deal with Butcher and the... less than successful mission in New York."


My power shared all four of their opinions on how badly Atropos fucked up. There was a damn good chance Riley might do something about it, and likely only Theo would try to talk her out of it. "I'm going to review all the recordings to figure out what happened, of course," I informed them. That wasn't strictly true, in that I probably didn't need to. Postcog worked faster. But I might have to, I had maybe a single dip into it for the day. I probably overtaxed it, already, all considered. I still needed my normal power, and they both ran off the same battery.


"Good," Missy responded. "So, need a trip back to New York?"


"Yes, please," I replied. "After getting Emma where she needs to go."


....


"I fucked up," Lily stated as soon as I walked into the room. She looked exhausted, miserable even. Well, that makes things enormously easier. She and Sabah were in their civilian clothing and sitting together, on a couch, although they rose immediately after Lily spoke up.


"Pretty badly, yeah," I agreed. Sugar coating things wasn't something I was good at. Maybe if I were, then Taylor... no. No. That was not a helpful road to go down. We won a fucking victory here, a lot of victories. Taylor didn't sacrifice her life, she sacrificed a week of memories. That's virtually nothing, in the grand scheme of things. Especially for a girl whose girlfriend can just keep adding new decades whenever she feels like it. "You'll understand if we don't put you in charge of any more missions, won't you?"


She closed her eyes. "No, that's fine," she agreed. Sabah held her, offering comfort. "I'm not cut out for leadership. I don't think there are many people on the team that would volunteer to be on a team I led, anyway. Just point me in the right direction and let me wreck some faces."


"We'll keep the worst of it quiet," I offered. "You can be forgiven for the shot that... wounded Theo and Missy. Your behavior around Shaman, on the other hand. That's the sort of thing I'd expect Zach to do." Except not, because Zach's actually shockingly good at being an idiot without be stupid about it.


"I know," she agreed. "Can... can we just go home now? I really don't want to be here anymore."


"Yeah," I agreed. "Our job's almost done here. The failure to remove one out of three major Teeth holdings in New York isn't a huge black mark on our organization. Butcher's been removed, and that's all the news is going to focus on. The remainders will need to face both the Adepts and Protectorate, both of whom are equipped with our armor suits. They could be difficult, but nothing the locals can't handle. Get some rest for a couple hours while I hammer out the various political garbage.

....


"You know what happened better than I do right now," Taylor mumbled through her partially paralyzed mouth. "Did she change so much in just a week? Do you believe she was attempting suicide?" 'She'. Is distinguishing between herself and the Taylor who died to stop the Butcher. Confused. Afraid. Worried we're angry. Taylor really did change a lot in that week where Taylia was removed. Almost as completely as she had in the the first week where Taylia was activated. To call her a different person was not an understatement. Worried about my opinion. Worried about our friendship. Still friends.


I extended my new power to her. Reaching for her past. That week was missing, of course, but I didn't need it. I'd been in Taylor's room. I'd examined her week. Punishing herself physically and mentally. Even paralyzed, this Taylor in front of me was more alive than that one had been. I looked further. Into the Taylor I had known amongst the Undersiders. Fuck, I couldn't even lie to myself and pretend Taylor had ever been happy, even for a moment, as part of our gang. We gave her goals, a sense of purpose, something to accomplish. All things that she craved. I could even rest assured that she saw us, or most of us at least, as friends that she could trust. Regent being an unsurprising exception. She was not, however, happy. At any point.


Still, even like this she was my friend. And she wanted to remain my friend, which was far better for me than her 'other' self had been. "No, I guess not," I lied, or as close as I was willing to lie to her. "Okay, she's cleared. You're safe to come out now."


Amelia opened her passage and stepped out, looking timid. Afraid to be disappointed like I had been disappointed. Taylor was overjoyed to see her. She hadn't looked at me like that when I talked to her. I don't know if anyone ever had, or ever would, look at me like that. I didn't use my power to find out. Neither of them noticed as I left the room. Not especially surprising, either.


....


I made my usual call to Dinah. She already got the report. The flaws our Butcher mission revealed in her powers. I had to tell her about our cloning tech and alternate dimension access, simply because it was the only way to prevent this kind of travesty from happening again. We'd still need clones in the future. At the very least, there were still Endbringers, who Dinah could not read in any significant fashion. But I wanted to prevent us from needing them any time soon.


"How do you like your gryffon?" I asked the girl.


"Typha is more than satisfactory," she answered. Tired, physically exhausted, physically sore. Spends several hours a day playing with or riding the creature. Sacrificing sleep. I smiled.


"Glad to hear it," I said. "Usual first question."


"Point zero four percent chance there is a credible attempt on the life of a member of Pantheon or its priority allies in the next twenty four hours, point zero six percent chance of a credible attempt on the life of a member of Pantheon or its priority allies in the next week."


"That's good," I answered. "Chances the latest attack model on the Fallen in Houston and the surrounding region will prove successful."


"Ninety four point four percent chance of total victory, ninety nine point seven percent chance of acceptable levels of mission failure. Zero percent chance of significant harm to Pantheon members during mission."


That was the change to the question, 'significant harm' covered anything that took more than a day to recover from, including our powers as a factor. That wouldn't have stopped Missy's injury, but still, it would have caught Taylor's suicide. No surprise that no harm came in that mission, it amounted to 'everyone has lunch while Taylor cuts loose on the people who planned the murder of her children'.


"Eighty seven point four four percent chance of unacceptable long term fallout," Dinah concluded. Okay, back to the drawing board on that one, I marked on the notes. About a five percent improvement from last time. The poblem with Houston's Fallen is they had a couple of the most powerful parahumans on their team, including the low powered biokinetic/stranger, brute and mover calling himself Baal. He could have been a direct relative of the old Slaughterhouse Nine member known as 'King'. Touching people and turning them into a biological armor suit surrounding his body. A lot like Amelia's Dryad, but made from still living human flesh. More, he could use the material on his own body, healing injuries and boosting his physical and mental abilities temporarily.


Deploying anyone else put them in serious danger of fighting him. Putting everything on Taylor's shoulders resulted in huge casualties as Baal subsumed people en masse to fuel his power's need for biomass. I'd thrown a few ideas at the problem, but he was just too damn durable and versatile for an easy victory. That and his girlfriend Lilith was a precog didn't help matters in the slightest. Weaker than Dinah by far, but too strong to just sneak up on. Her powerset was a lot like what we pretended Aceso's powerset was. Either way, that continued to be a bust.


"How about the Tennessee Fallen?"


"Ninety eight percent chance of success, twelve percent chance of long term fallout, no risk," Dinah answered. That one was worth attempting, through the safety net that was Coil's power. I marked that down.


"Chances that Dragon's latest Ellisburg quarantine features prevent the post-Nilbog cataclysm?"


"Twenty seven thousand casualties within seventy two hours of any successful mission to eliminate Nilbog," Dinah stated. Nilbog was something of a weird case as well. Killing him was easy. So was subduing him and throwing him in a prison world. Honesty, even our plan to just send in a small army of M6s was nothing less than 90% successful. The problem was that within days of his removal, people started dying in huge numbers, and we weren't quite sure why. Whatever it was, every plan failed. Including the one where we buried the city in Yggdrasil and had Amelia just sit on it consuming every living thing it touched until the whole city was gone.


"So that's still a bust," I sighed. "Pity, we could really have used that one."


"Umm," Dinah spoke. "Far be it from me to question your ideas... but have you thought of maybe asking him to leave nicely?"


I blinked "What?"


"Well, yeah," she continued. "He hasn't left Ellisburg in, like, ten years. Maybe if you just offer to give him somewhere for him and his monsters to play, he'll want to leave. Voluntarily."


I closed my eyes. "A wager," I muttered. "If this idea of yours works, I'll pay you double. If not, it's a free question."


"Triple," she replied. "And you have to mean it when you ask the question, no planning to throw on purpose."


"Fine," I agreed. "Odds of being able to remove Nilbog form Ellisburg by offering him a suitable chunk of land in another dimension, assume all plans involve no attempt at harming him. Include any sudden rise in deaths from his removal next. No plan right now, just wide spectrum idea."


"Seventy seven point three five percent chance of success, zero percent chance of increases in deaths within seventy two hour after mission, regardless of success. So long as mission does not include violence."


"Sounds like we have ourselves a winner," I stated. It would take some more time, some more planning, and some more questions. Of course it would require all those things. But it was an amazing opportunity to consider.


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


A/N- Dinah needed more screen time.

Also, Lisa needs hugs. All the hugs. Ever.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 168- Taylor


Everyone was so tired and glum when I got back, it was like none of them had even slept in that week I was gone. Lisa had retreated to her office before Amelia and I ever left the pocket prison. Wherever the portal was built, the actual prison was in Brockton Bay, or that dimension's geoanalogue. I found myself on our front lawn when we shunted over. No one was there to greet me, which suited me better than a crowd.


"I'm going to get dressed in real clothes," I informed Amelia. "And a shower. And something to eat. I'm starving." Makes sense, I decided. This new body hasn't ever eaten any actual food.


LonelyWorried. "Okay," she forced a smile. "You should talk to Riley or Emma before the food, you'll probably need some specific care for a little while."


I smiled. She was always the thoughtful one. I leaned in and kissed her cheek. "Thanks," I replied. JoyDesireGuilt. I walked to my room, more carried by Matriarch than under the power of my own limbs. I was still having trouble walking, though far less now than before. I stepped into my room and slipped out of Matriarch. A sudden draft informed me that I came out entirely naked. My armor ate my makeshift Yggdrasil hospital gown. Oh well, I wasn't planning to keep it.


Showering was difficult, with my lack of coordination, but somehow I managed to not stab myself in the eye with my fingers or my comb. Hmm, my clothes feel uncomfortable. Too tight in... wait a second... I sighed. Well, I needed to talk to Emma anyway.


I slipped back into Matriarch, solely because at this point I still couldn't quite move correctly.


I entered the lab. Emma was there alone. "Hey Taylor," she said with a level of cheer that I couldn't decide was a result of being genuinely happy to see me, a forced energy to hide her actual feelings, or being the result of spending too long picking up habits from Riley.


"So," I smiled back. "I'm told I may need some dietary advice."


"Oh, right," she said. "The growing system negates much of the problem, adding proper intestinal flora is built right in. I'd advise eating a good amount of yogurt and to avoid eating large amounts of meat for the next few days at least. Just to help things even out. You'll be back to your old self in no time."


"Speaking of," I said dryly. "Is there a reason that none of my bras fit, anymore?"


"Oh, that," Emma smiled. "The system may have accidentally put a little bit too much in when it was emulating the new body's puberty growth cycle. It's a very complicated process, reading your DNA and extrapolating patterns. All very involved tinker stuff that we'd be spending hours talking about. It's not really that surprising that something went a teensy bit wrong, right?" She continued smiling the whole time, and then she winked. "We've already fixed the error, but it was too late to undo the growth process without causing all kinds of other problems. We couldn't fix it, but Amelia certainly can."


Uh huh. Mistake. Sure, Emma, whatever you say. "So, any other surprises I need to worry about?"


"Shouldn't be," she replied. "The growth process is keyed to make you pretty much a match for Olympic level athletes in every physical way, and better in most, but if you don't train, then that it'll go away pretty quickly. So enjoy it while it lasts. You may have insomnia for a bit as your body reworks its circadian rhythm, and don't be surprised if you dislike salty or strongly flavored foods for a while. Your taste buds are brand new, after all."


"I meant about everything else," I responded. "Everyone's been acting weird around me. What happened?"


"Oh, that," she looked down. "Well, for starters, the only people who know you died were either there when you woke up, or Zach and Crystal, everyone else just has their own problems to worry about right now. Kinda hiding that whole 'death' thing from the public. And the team, I guess. The Butcher fight... it went pretty bad for everyone. Crystal almost became the Butcher after being hit by that rage power. You apparently activated the suit override and killed her first."


"Why didn't I just shunt Crystal out?" I asked.


"Too soon, hadn't recharged," Emma replied. I frowned. Crystal's suit had Crystal herself as a battery charger, but it was also the armor with the most energy intensive systems. It recharged in whatever order Crystal told it to, just by default. If all she cared about was killing the Butcher... well, that was a stupid question to ask.


"Okay," I agreed. "What about everyone else?"


"Lisa blames herself for asking Dinah the wrong questions," Emma continued. "Crystal's upset thanks to the whole nearly-being-possessed thing, and how you sacrificed yourself to save her. Everyone in New York blames Lily for fucking up her mission. Missy was killed, but Riley fixed that. Riley now hates Lily. Missy and Theo aren't fans, either, but Missy's too professional and Theo's too nice to let it show. And basically everything's fucked."


Well, god damn it. "And normally this is the stuff Lisa would handle, but she's upset too, right?" I asked. Crystal probably blames herself, too. Fuck my life. Or past life. Whatever.


"Pretty much," Emma agreed. "I'd try to do something, but, well, I come with baggage and no one wants to be near me, much less listen to my advice. You and Riley are the closest things I have to actual friends. Which puts a certain perspective on my life that I'm not all that pleased with."


"And what about the rest of the week?" I asked. "Lisa and Amelia are on eggshells around me, and I don't know why."


She looked away. "Are you sure you want to know?"


"Yeah," I responded. "Of course."


"Your past self preferred not to update for a reason," Emma continued. "You, she, knew that she'd be happier losing that part forever. You and Amelia got into a big blowout, and both of you were miserable, and it made other people miserable. You've been given a chance to undo that. I can't lie, I'm kinda jealous. I wish I had that option, I really do."


"I doubt your past self would appreciate the mess you left her with," I replied. A fight between me and Amelia? That explains a lot, but not why we had the fight. I had chosen to get the update before altering my sexuality, for a number of reasons. But if it didn't work out and upset Amelia that I made the change, I had expected to just use the old pattern to replace the new one. A simple enough fix, all considered.


"Guess I'm still a selfish bitch like that," she smiled sadly. "I know I keep saying this, but for what it's worth, I'm sorry."


Damn it. I stepped forward and put my arms around her, pulling into as tight a hug as I could without activating Matriarch's strength boosters. Her hair was cool on my face. That's right, part of her Case 53 traits means she doesn't generate body heat. "For what it's worth, it means more that you're trying to make up for it than if you had simply erased you memories of it in order to play innocent."


"Thanks," she mumbled into my shoulder.


....


I walked into Lisa's office. "How are you holding up?"


She jumped. "Oh, jeez, how do you move that quietly?"


"Antigrav system," I answered. "Still getting used to the new legs and all."


"Do you need something?" she asked, sliding back into her position in front of her computer.


"Just wanted to talk to you," I replied.


"About?"


"You," I answered. "I just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate everything you do. I don't say it nearly often enough, but I really do."


She closed her eyes. "I know," she answered. "My power at work, it's hard for anyone to hide what they think of me."


"Still, you deserve to hear it said more often," I insisted. "Not just from me, for that matter."


She shrugged. "I don't exactly make it easy for people," she pointed out. "You're only here because you're under the emotional influence of a psychic link and a post-death experience. And that's fine, I don't like all that mushy stuff to begin with. Just be sure and praise my brilliance to the masses. You know how much I love that."


"I'll keep that in mind," I replied. "But you're not getting out of this that easily." I walked/glided over to her.


"Dammit, Taylor," she muttered, but she stood anyway, allowing me to hug her without anything more than her complaints to stop me. "You're completely ruining both of our images as a badass warrior goddess right now. I hope you realize that."


"Doesn't matter," I dismissed. "You'll just write up some crazy new scheme and next week we'll stomp some psychopath's face until we're back to being the scariest girls on the planet yet again."


"Speaking of, I have ideas for our next mission," she added. "And there's absolutely nothing that can go wrong with this one. I'll explain it at the morning meeting. But I've got a couple speeches to write, and some outlines to run past Dinah."


"I'll be there," I agreed, leaving her to her work.


I headed straight for Amelia's room after leaving Lisa. RecognitionJoy.


I paused and looked at her. I considered asking her what happened last week. Whatever it was, my other self decided it wasn't worth keeping. I also considered Emma's advice. Other-Me chose this, having a week erased. A week that might have become months, had it come down to it. Endbringer battles are generally the only time it was likely for us to die. Honestly, now that we could carry my power across dimensions, we no longer had a reason to be near them in order to fight them. She couldn't have been hoping for someone to kill her, she had to know it might take years for something to succeed. Right?


ConcernWorry. "Taylor, are you okay?"


"Still decompressing," I answered. That is certainly true. "Everyone's acting so differently, and I just found out I was dead. It's going to take a little time to get used to, is all. I'm also still trying to figure out what happened this week."


FearLonelinessGuilt. "I... I can fill you in," she offered as I started to work my way out of the armor. She stood and moved behind me to keep me steady so I didn't accidentally fall. I stumbled back, only partially on purpose, into her arms.


"Maybe later," I answered. "I've decided it doesn't matter right now. Maybe later I'll want to know more, but for right now? I'm happy just being happy. Or I will be when I don't feel like I'm trying to walk on stilts all the time, at least." ReliefConcern.


"Okay," she agreed. "I'll be here whenever you need."


I turned and hugged her tight.


SafeRealizationShockDesire. "Umm... Taylor... you're not wearing a bra."


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

A/N- So, apparently being dead for a few days makes you all mushy.

And man, on rereading this chapter... Taylor's kind of a hypocrite with absolutely no self awareness. I think that means I caught her character perfectly.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 169


"Clarice, Zach and Theo have no other guardians?" Principal Howell asked.


"I'm afraid not," my mother responded. "While Theo does have a living step mother, she is currently on the run from the law. The courts have acknowledged his legal emancipation, on condition that he continues to prove he is able to conduct himself responsibly."


AnnoyanceConcernAppreciation. And that would be Taylor, spending time with her father. Their lunch date to talk about her problems. Problems Taylor didn't even remember. I pushed what peaceful emotions that I could through the link. CalmWarmthLove.


"Which includes remaining in school," Howell concluded. "And, Theo, is Pantheon providing for you?"


"No, ma'am," he replied. Not technically true- he did live in our fortress full time, after all, but from a legal standpoint he was able to provide for himself. "My family has money. It's in a trust, Mrs. Dallon can explain it better."


My mom nodded. "I am on retainer as his advocate, and one of my senior associates specializes in corporate law, and serves his interests there. He has a trust and a monthly allowace to live on."


"I see," the principal agreed. "What of Clarice and Zach?"


"They have no immediate relatives capable of caring for them," my mom answered. "Clarice lost her family to the Slaughterhouse Nine."


Clarice hugged me. "I have my Big Sister!" she insisted.


"... and has connected emotionally to my daughter," she finished. "While she is technically considered a ward of the state at this point, I don't need to explain to you that the current conditions of Brockton Bay are still straining the child welfare systems. The city has no objection to her remaining in Pantheon's custody, although the final legalities are not yet finalized. Amelia will assume legal guardianship when she turns eighteen in two months."


"I presume Zachariah is much the same?"


"His mother and father also died to the S9," mom replied. "Other relatives were lost during Leviathan or the chaos afterward. His only adult relative is obviously unfit to care for a minor..."


"Translation," Zach interrupted. "My uncle hasn't been sober since the mid eighties."


Howell looked through the paperwork. "This seems to be in order," she concluded, then looked at me. "Is that everything?"


"Almost," mom responded. "There are two other students that are attending here that Pantheon will be paying tuition for, despite not being their legal guardians."


"The former Wards, I presume," Principal Howell asked.


"Yes," I nodded as I handed over the small stack of checks. "That should cover everything."


"Thank you," she responded. I got up, leaving with the three 'kids'. Mom remained behind to make one last arrangement.


....


I met up with Taylor and Mister Hebert after the meeting. The others went to do their own thing- we were only a mile or so away from home, after all. Clarice, thanks to the miracle of public identities, had Bella with her. I didn't worry too much about who went where, and walked the short couple blocks to one of the new outdoor diners being set up in this area. A chill reminded me that it would be winter soon. I was glad I had the Yggdrasil fully integrated to the version on the other side of our doorway. Trying to keep plants alive in winter, especially ones of the scale as mine, was damn near impossible. But this one had access to massive amounts of raw material and a uniquely warm sun.


"Hello, Mister Hebert," I said with a smile as I sat next to Taylor. A waitress got there at almost the same moment, with one of those giant pizza slices. "Are you sure you don't have a power for perfect timing?" I asked Taylor as I sat down to my lunch. AmusementPride. Taylor had opted for a vegetable soup, about as mild a dish as possible.


"I'm contractually obligated to not admit to any high end thinker powers," Taylor responded. "On grounds that it'd make Lisa cry if she had any competition."


"How did everything go during admissions?" Mister Hebert asked.


"School's been sorted out," I informed him. "Ms. Howell was really understanding about everything, and mom helped."


"I still think you girls should be going as well," he added.


AnnoyanceExasperation. "Dad, you know why we can't."


"The world isn't your responsibility, Taylor," he insisted. "You should let the adults deal with things while you get your education and a good foundation for your future careers. The world and all its problems will still be here for you when you graduate."


"Like the adults handled Lung and E88 and Butcher?" Taylor asked. "How about we ask the Simurgh what she thinks?"


"You have a point," her dad sighed. "I just want to make sure my little girl lives up to her potential. You're so smart, you should stay in school and take advantage of that mind of yours. You can easily be anything you want."


"I want to kill a couple more Endbringers and then retire to a quiet, peaceful life somewhere that no one knows who I am," Taylor responded. "That's not really an option for me, dad. Even if I wanted to, I can't ignore my responsibilities. And school just gets in the way of that. It was nice to go back, to prove I was good enough, that I was stronger than the trio. I did that, already. Now I need to prove to the Simurgh that people are stronger than her, by keeping everything from falling apart."


I reached over and put my hand on Taylor's leg, giving a squeeze and offering my emotional support. GratitudeSafePride. "Everything that she just said," I added. "Hopefully she recorded all of that so I can show it to my mom."


"There are others who can do that," Danny insisted. "The Triumvirate, for example. Let them fight this fight. That's their job, and they're good at it."


"They need help," I told him. "There's too much going on, and they can't be everywhere at once. Pantheon, on the other hand... thanks to Taylor's power, we really can be everywhere. And because of my powers, we can do it safely. I promise I'll keep her safe." From now on, at least, I added in my head. I will never allow myself to lose her again.


The answer didn't seem to make him any happier. He simply sighed. "Teenagers sure have changed since my day."


AmusementAnticipation. "Hey, look at it this way," she said with a smile that somehow managed to chill my spine and warm my heart at the same time. "At least we're not dropping out because of an unexpected pregnancy."


....


"Are you sure it worked?" I asked.


"Absolutely," Emma responded. "There's going to be a bit of difficulty at first, but yes."


I nodded, my hand trembling as I reached over and gripping Taylor's. She squeezed back. SupportLove.


"Okay, let's do this," I said, as I put my hand on the pod and finished the last step to allow her back to awareness.


Her eyes fluttered open. "Amy?" she asked, after focusing on my face. "Wha... what's going on here?"


I had to imagine I looked a lot different than the last time she saw me. Looking at her, I felt she looked a lot different, too. She was still beautiful, but she wasn't the icon, the living goddess, of my dreams and memories. She was frightened and confused. She was human and vulnerable. But, more important than all of that, she was alive.


"Hey," I said smiling, the tears running freely down my face. "It's a long story, Vicky."


=========


A/N- See. Other than Danny experiencing a nearly fatal heart attack, which Amelia quickly healed, no one suffered in this episode. I didn't write that part in because it isn't important due to how easily fixed it was. Also because it didn't actually happen.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 170


"What's with the audience?" Victoria asked, her bright blue darting between Emma and Taylor. No one else was in the room with us, for various reasons ranging from 'why would they be' to 'worst idea ever, of all time'. The only other person on the team who had a reason would be Crystal, who was currently with my parents and Rey, him being an actual doctor and all put him in position to help explain things to them better than the rest of us might.


"That's Emma," I introduced the one that would take the least amount of explaining. "She's a tinker that made much of the tech we used to restore you."


"What?" Victoria asked, eying the girl warily. "You mean you're a biotinker like Bonesaw or Blasto."


"Not exactly," I replied. They're not far away, though. "I've kinda started my own hero team. Emma's one of them. This is another." I stepped to the side and gestured to Taylor, knowing I was radiating a nervousness that my partner was kind enough to pretended not to notice. "Taylor, my partner."


Victoria sized up the tall girl to my right. "Huh, guess I'm a little woozy," she smiled a little. "When you said 'partner' I coulda swore you meant..."


"She did," Taylor answered. ProtectiveTerritorial. She gripped my hand. "We work together, and I'm also her fiancée."


"Well, that explains why you were never interested in any of the guys I set up up with," Victoria joked. AnnoyedConcerned. Taylor gripped my hand tighter. Victoria doesn't understand what she was saying, I tried to mentally remind Taylor. And myself. "Why didn't you tell me? You know I wouldn't have a problem with it, right? I dated that one guy for three months, or at least pretended to, until he finally worked up the courage to come out to his folks."


I froze, how the hell was I suppose to answer that question? 'No, Victoria, I don't think you would have been okay with your sister having a bizarre incestuous fixation on you that is entirely your power's fault' didn't seem like such a great conversation idea. Taylor came to my rescue. "She just hadn't found the right person," she volunteered. "You know how much trouble Amelia has with people. We only got to know each other through being part of the same team."


"Amelia?" Vicky asked, her eyes focused on me.


"I... felt it was time for a change," I replied. "Amy sounds so childish."


"Christ, Ames..." she paused. "Using your full name, and an engagement? How long was I out?"


"About three months," I answered.


"You got engaged after only three months?" She asked. "Are you sure that's such a good idea, Amy?" PrideProtective.


"Never been more certain about anything," I answered. Victoria just looked at me like I had grown a second head. I suppose I had, actually. In a way that was just shy of being literal. Note to self, never let Riley hear that figure of speech.


"Usually your healing power doesn't take this much getting used to," Victoria offered a brave smile, slowly sitting up. I was grateful that she chose to drop the subject. I could tell it would be a source of disagreement in the future. More when she realized Taylor was Skitter. I really did not want to deal with that headache, ever. I knew that putting it off probably wasn't the best plan, either, but maybe with a little time for her to get used to things and see how happy Taylor and I were together, she would be able to accept it.


"That's because it was our healing tinker tech that did the work," Emma explained to Victoria for me. "Your injuries were... beyond what Amelia was capable of working with. Tell me, what is the last thing you can recall? A date or major event?"


"Umm..." she closed her eyes, thinking. "I remember Leviathan. Neil and Eric's funeral. After that it's all bits and pieces. How bad was I hurt?"


I didn't want to upset her too much more, so I answered in a way she would be able to work with. "You got into a boxing match with Crawler," I informed her, almost cavalierly. "You were doing okay for a while, but he cheats."


She smiled. "Well, good to know I didn't go down like a punk." She paused and a worried frown started. "Wait. Crawler? You mean the Slaughterhouse Fucking Nine were here?"


"Yeah," Taylor answered. "Amelia here was so upset that she hunted down and killed Jack Slash. It was, sorta kinda our first date." ChagrinConcern. Oh, I must have reacted to that. I didn't like thinking about my fight with Jack. I didn't really want Victoria to think about my powers like that. HesitationConcernSupport. Taylor gave my hand a squeeze. "She recruited me after I killed the Siberian, to go after the rest of the group."


"Really?" Victoria asked, returning to her assessment of Taylor. "You killed the Siberian? Amy fought the S9?" Dammit Taylor, what are you doing?


"All that and more," Taylor continued. "The whole group is dead. Amelia got Jack and Bonesaw. The others were killed one or two at a time by a bunch of people. You can look it up later if you don't believe me, but they really weren't that tough once you figured out how to hit them."


"Bullshit," Victoria replied, slowly and unsteadily working herself to a standing position.


"Oh, that's not even the half of it," Taylor responded. ConfidentConfrontational. "Then next week we got bored, so we stomped all over E88. I'm not exaggerating, it wasn't even close to a fair fight. That was our second and third date, though I don't think either of us really figured that out at that point."


Victoria stared at Taylor.


"Their engagement party was suppose to be the Behemoth attack, in case you're wondering," Emma joined in, feeding the fire that Taylor had started. "But then the Simurgh had to be an attention whore and crash the party. So we killed that bitch."


Victoria just gaped. "You're fucking with me," she muttered.


"No, that's what really happened," I admitted. "It was a lot harder than they make it sound. We put lots of planning into all those missions. Thinker backup, including possibly the single most powerful precog in the entire world. Tinkertech weaponry. Days of prep work leading up to merely a few minutes of actual combat. Months of work for the Endbringer battle."


"What? And you had me in a coma all this time?" Victoria asked.


"It was... a little more than that," I answered. "Would you like like to see mom and dad now? They're waiting outside with Crystal and one of the doctors."


She looked at me warily. "Sure... umm, can I have actual clothes, first? Hospital gown isn't exactly the fashion statement I wanna make."


I pulsed my thoughts through the Yggdrasil, encasing her in the material before she even had a chance to react. "What the fuck!" she shouted, and then the mass pulled away, leaving her in her new clothing. Which, while admittedly looking like something you'd wear to a construction job, were both fully functional and comfortable.


"Uh... sorry, didn't think about how that might frighten you," I answered. "I've been practicing with my powers."


"I can tell," Victoria muttered, lifting her arm. "This outfit doesn't even have seams, but you really need to work on your fashion sense."


"Oh god, you have absolutely no idea," Emma remarked. "You should see the amount of effort Crystal and Lisa put into making sure these two wear something nice. If it were up to these two, there'd be no way for people be sure they're not amorphous blobs."


"Really?" Victoria smirked. "They needed Crystal for that? She doesn't know the difference between Gucci and Walmart."


"I heard that," Crystal said from behind us.


"I know," Victoria answered. "I, unlike you, am not blind."


"Stop teasing your cousin," Carol replied, sounding far less stern than her words may have implied.


"Hey, mom," Vicky smiled. "Dad. How are things?"


"Pretty good, firecracker," he answered, moving around us. "She's not going to break if we touch her or anything, is she?"


"She's fine," Emma answered. "Yum Kaax told you the basics. You don't have to worry about hurting her."


Dad moved in first, hugging her, and mom followed quickly after, hugging their daughter that had been dead for three months. I started moving forward, to join in the group hug that was quickly forming, when Vicky spoke.


"You're crushing me," she gasped, as much in surprise as pain. "Oh god, I don't have my powers!"


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


A/N- Territorial Taylor is best Taylor.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 171- Victoria


"Sorry, Victoria," Amelia said, her voice full of concern. Mom and dad didn't stop holding onto me. "It was a risk of the process."


"The fuck was the 'process', Ames?" I asked. "I know how powers work. What did you have to do to me? Brain surgery?"


"We had to construct a new body," the yellow colored girl with red hair answered. I forgot her name already. "We didn't have your exact DNA, so we got as close as we possibly could, using the resources we had at our disposal."


My eyes narrowed. "New body?"


Mom interrupted. "We were going to wait until you recovered some, first. Let you have a chance to rest," she said, putting her hand on my cheek and turning my head, gently, toward her. "Vicky, you weren't unconscious. You died."


"Show me," I demanded.


....


My corpse really is beautiful, in a horrifying way, I decided as I gazed at the contorted figure. The glass was pristine, a statue of impossible detail and complexity. It would take a sculptor years simply to get the detail of my hand. It also depicted something out of a nightmare. Flesh melted away, half my skull exposed to air. I could believe that my damaged memories were just from me not wanting to remember what going through that was like.


"Are you sure this is a good idea?" mom asked, but I ignored her as I stepped up to the crystalline statue that was my... remains. My costume had almost completely melted off, and my modesty was spared solely because my skin and most of my flesh were missing as well. Half my face, one of my arms, completely skeletal. My hair had clearly chipped and broken in pieces after being reduced to glass, or whatever material I was made out of. I brushed my hand over a portion that had somehow survived this long. It splintered easily. Traces of crimson were left behind, where the sharp edges had cut my fingers. I can bleed, now. That's when the reality of my lack of powers really hit me.


My parents couldn't even bring themselves to look at the body. I didn't have that problem. Maybe it was the same way you could faint looking at someone else's blood, but be perfectly fine seeing your own. Not that I have to worry about my own very often. Had, I corrected myself. Past tense. Now I'm as vulnerable as anyone else.


The damage extended everywhere, I could see where large patches of my belly were missing.. "Crawler had acid powers," Amy spoke up softly. "He covered you, and then hit you hard enough to get through your forcefield. The only reason you could be brought back was because you were turned into... that..."


"Without getting too technical, It's a form of silicate allotrope," the yellow girl volunteered as I caressed my own mutilated face. "Like you take coal or graphite and turn it to diamond, but this starts with sand, glass or quartz and gets something that can't exist according to molecular physics as we understand the science. Because of its properties, it flash-froze your mind. Inorganic cryogenics. Just extract the data and transfer it back over."


"We had to build you a new body, Vicky," Amy insisted. "We couldn't figure out a way to do that and still be sure you'd get your powers back. There was a chance you would, but there was a greater chance you wouldn't. I'm sorry."


"N-no," I sighed, finally pulling my eyes away from the body. "Don't be sorry. You did everything you could. You saved my life."


....


"Why's dad driving in a different car?" I asked my mother on my way home.


"He... doesn't stay in our house, anymore," she answered reluctantly.


What? "What?"


"Things have been stressed after... well, after Leviathan," she added. "You know how you and Crystal were talking about joining the Wards full time, and even your aunt Sarah was considering it?"


I concentrated, trying to find the details. Memories after Leviathan were blurry, and got worse as we got closer to... to my death. "Yeah, I recall," I lied. Then I added the part that I knew would sell it. "You kinda flipped your shit over that."


"Language," mom chastised me. The lie was believed, even though it was just minor deduction. I was pretty sure my mom would have poisoned us in our sleep before letting us join the Protectorate. "It seems your father agreed with you and Crystal. He signed up with them a couple weeks ago. He's still in Brockton Bay for now, but they'll transfer him sooner or later."


"Transfer?" I asked. "Why would he need to be transfered?"


"The city's changed, Victoria," mom sighed, stopping at a red light. "Your sister and her friends have incredible powers. Imagine what it would be like if the whole Triumvirate just decided one day that it'd be fun to vacation in Brockton Bay for a weekend, and started smacking Nazis around for fun. There's nothing left here for the Protectorate to do."


"Are you saying Pantheon is equal to the Triumvirate?" I asked, incredulously. I mean, sure, Amy had shown off some impressive stuff, but nothing I'd say let her compare to Legend, even. Much less Alexandria or Eidolon.


"Equal?" she laughed. "No, Pantheon's not equal to the Triumvirate. They make the Triumvirate look like a joke by comparison. They've taken the whole 'war on crime' crime thing to a whole new level. Even convinced the Adepts and Ambassadors that it was easier to switch sides than risk pissing them off."


"Aren't those in other cities?" I asked, a little confused. Maybe they tried to take territory in Brockton Bay after E88 was removed?


"They are," mom acknowledged. "Pantheon's been moving on other cities every week or so. They already cleared out everything in Brockton bay. And I do mean everything. Taylor's power lets her find all drugs and violent crimes from anywhere in the city. And Amy can make almost anything." She took her foot off the brake and started driving again.


"Like that weird tree thing," I volunteered. "That igg-whatever."


"Yggdrasil," mom supplied.


"Yeah, that," I agreed. "Wait... what's Taylor's power?"


"She telepathically controls and can see and hear and smell through bugs," mom answered. "Her power also works on whatever weird monsters Amy makes out of bugs."


Oh god, I froze as the realization hit me. Taylor is Skitter. "My sister's dating that cunt!?" I shouted.


"Victoria!"


....


"I still don't know how mom got me registered for school while I was dead," I complained to Amy over my cell phone. "No, seriously, something about that seems really, really off. I know she's a lawyer and all, but still. How does that even make sense?"


"Don't ask me," she answered. "Powers kicking physics in the nuts, that's a thing that makes sense to me. What mom does to the legal system? I'm hopeless."


"Why aren't you here?" I asked.


"Summer classes," she answered. "I graduated." Oh, right, I reminded myself. She didn't stop living just because I did.


"This is going to suck," I muttered.


"Can't be that bad," she replied. "You've only got to complete a single semester. You'll be out by Christmas."


"I know, but..." I didn't know how to explain it to her. "Now I know I'm stuck here. I know I won't be getting any alerts to run off and smack around some assholes robbing a bank." I wouldn't call my reminder subtle, but I still didn't get how my sister was dating a fucking supervillain. 'Reformed' or 'undercover' or whatever bullshit was being sold this week.


She was fighting crime, and not just the playing around crime fighting. Amy was on the national stage. International, even. Her engagement was talked about constantly. VS. speculations pit her up against Eidolon, and aside from some diehard fans, most people couldn't decide. Usually splitting it up and calling Eidolon the more powerful cape, but Amy the more versatile and creative one.


What almost no one had any doubt about was that Pantheon as a team could go up against the Triumvirate and their teams, and win every time. The Triumvirate had fought the Endbringers dozens of times and called the clusterfuck known as Brocton Bay a 'victory'. Pantheon goes out and kills the fucking Simurgh on their first fight. Apparently, people had called their kill of the Slaughterhouse Nine 'getting lucky' or 'they only did part of it'. But the Simurgh? That was all them and everyone knew it.


"Hey, are you still there?" Amy asked.


"Yeah," I confirmed. "Sorry, must have lost the signal for a second." That was a lie. I just didn't want to listen to her defend Taylor's former career as a bank robber. "I'm almost at Arcadia, so I should probably go now."


"Okay," she agreed. "Hey, what do you say about me picking you up after school. We can hang out, I'll even let you take me shopping for clothes."


"Sure, that could be fun," I agreed.


A boy approached me as I walked in. I, subtly of course, checked him out. Kinda short, a little shorter than me actually, but clearly young enough that he hadn't had that final growth spurt than boys get before becoming men. Other than that, he was hot. Sandy brown hair, decently tanned skin, green eyes, and in really good shape. Can't fault people for their height, but a body like that only comes to those who work for it.


"You're Victoria, right? Dallon?" He smiled. Perfect teeth, too.


"Y-yeah," I replied, smiling right back. Powers or not, I still had a rep, and I still have a great figure of my own. Really, I had an absurdly good body right now. Probably classed as a Brute one or two, on merit of the clone body alone. "Sorry, you kinda surprised me. I didn't expect to be recognized so soon."


"I'll keep it quiet, if you like," he offered. "I know how much of a pain those public identities can be." He offered his hand. I took it. Very strong hand. "I'm Zach. Osiris, in costume. I work for your sister."


God dammit, I thought. Oh well, I can still work with that. Hopefully this one doesn't turn out to be gay.


A girl on crutches came up. "Are you going to introduce me to your friend?" she asked.


"Oh, yeah," he smiled at her. "Erica, this is Victoria. She's not really a friend. I haven't actually met her before today. She's my boss's sister. Victoria, this is Erica, my girlfriend."


"It's a pleasure to meet you both," I said cheerfully as I extended my hand to her. God fucking dammit.


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


A/N- Yes. Yes I did just do that. Feed me your delicious speculation. And/or hate. That's tasty, too.


Reread A/N: Oh the fucking foreshadowing.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 172- Victoria


I quickly decided that it was painfully awkward at school. There were others in the same boat as I, who only needed to complete a single semester to graduate, or at least be bumped up to the next grade level. Most of the underclassmen were simply given a denser schedule that'd let them catch up to their peers who had gotten into the summer classes. I imagined it was an expensive project for the school, but, money was being thrown at the problem.


I had taken a class or two on economics, and Brockton Bay's taxes hadn't changed while millions of dollars weren't being spent on stuff like the sewers and waste management, thanks to Pantheon's work. Part of that, at the very least, was going into the school system.


So I spent my day around a bunch of people who were the grade below mine. With only two other students, neither of which I was friends with, from my own year.


There was a time when I had been a celebrity in this school, and it was much the same for me now now, but Pantheon were more than celebrities... they were icons. Like the gods they named themselves after, it wouldn't be a stretch to say they were worshiped. Maybe not in a religious sense, but it was eerily similar. It made for an uncomfortable lunch line, being asked all these questions about things I didn't know. Like Pantheon's next big mission, or what denomination Minerva was.


"Hey," a voice said. "Wanna come sit with us?" I turned to see Zach there, along with that girl. Erica.


"Depends," I replied. "Are you sure I wouldn't be intruding?"


"Don't worry," Erica responded. "You won't be a third wheel. Theo and, uh... I think his name's Trevor? He's really more Zach's friend."


"I really don't know him that well, either," Zach admitted. "He's kinda a techy type. Still fun to hang around if you keep the conversation away from cars and planes. But you really gotta work at keeping it far, far away from there."


I let myself be led along by them. I didn't want to intrude on their alone time, but if there was already going to be a group of people, then that was fine.


"This is Theo," Zach said, introducing him to me. Theo, it turns out, was another hottie, if again younger. This time of the blond hair blue eyed variety. "Theo, meet Gaea's sister, Victoria."


"Hello, ma'am," Theo said politely. He glanced at Erica, as if confused about something.


Zach may be cute, but he's not very subtle, I thought. He may as well just announce to the world that Theo is part of the team. Which probably meant Trevor was as well. I forgave him, however. Just because a cape... a former cape, I reminded myself... figured it out, doesn't mean normal people would.


"And this is Trevor," Zach introduced the other boy. Trevor was darker toned, with black hair. Obviously hispanic. One of the skinny geeky types that wore the status on his sleeve, a lot like Kid Win did. I wondered, and not for the first time, if that was just a tinker thing. But then there were examples like Armsmaster. He may have been a bigger tool than his overcompensation rod, but he was focused on things that mattered, like kicking bad guy butt.


"Hello, guys," I said, sitting down near them, opposite to Zach and Erica. Something about her was strange, and I could not put my finger on what it was. "Don't let me ruin your conversation."


"So, Theo," Erica started. "I saw Clarice chatting with a couple guys in her class about a date. Aren't you two an item?"


Theo frowned, looking away. "No, I'm seeing Missy." The way he said that made me worry. Relationship issues there. "The two are pretty close friends, though. Maybe you got them confused."


"That must be it," she smiled. No, no it's not, you bitch. You knew exactly what you were doing before you sat down at the table.


"So, how long have you and Missy been dating?" I asked. I know it's not what Erica was going for, so I may as well toss the wrench in. Besides, I was pretty sure I knew who 'Missy' was. Vista and I weren't what one would call close, but I liked the kid. Even if she had such a painfully obvious crush on my boyfriend. I didn't exactly feel guilty about that, but I did sorta feel bad for her. She found someone, and I was happy for her. That and I really wanted to feed Erica her own teeth.


"A couple months, now," Theo answered. "Kind of. We met at a dance. I don't know when we became 'official' or anything."


"I know how that goes," I said with a smile. "Relationships are complicated. I've found that, ultimately, it's all about communication. Y'know, talking to each other. Especially if there's something wrong."


Theo nodded. "Thanks for the advice, ma'am." Good, I thought. That's a step in the right direction, like I had with Dean. Sure, an outsider might think our relationship was just constant arguing. They'd even be right. But that's how we communicated, and so we would always be together in the end. Or would have. Fuck you, Leviathan. Can't wait for Amy to cut you into pieces.


"Please don't call me ma'am," I replied. Makes me feel old.


"So how about you two?" I smiled, looking at Zach and Erica.


"A couple days," Zach answered, at the same time Erica answered "Years."


She paused. "Oh, umm, we've known each other for years. Only started dating a little while ago."


"Oh, one of those childhood friendships things?"


"Yeah," she agreed. "I suppose it's not an uncommon story."


"Why haven't you asked for Amy to fix your legs?" I asked. She fidgeted. Because you haven't been here long enough to get a chance.


"I... didn't want to impose," she said. "She probably has people pestering her for stuff like that all the time."


"No imposition, I assure you," I said. "In fact, I'll talk to her after school and see what she thinks. Get you patched up tomorrow, if that's okay."


"Umm... sure, if you insist," she smiled.


"I do," I smiled broadly. "Now I'd better get going. Want to clean up before class. See you later, guys."


They said their goodbyes as I walked away. "So, bug girl, did you catch all that?" I asked a nearby garbage can. It's where the bugs would be, right? A ladybug landed on the back of my hand. "That girl creeps the hell outa me. Point whatever master/stranger shit you've got at her. You used it to take down Heartbreaker, right?" The bug flew away. She didn't say anything, but I had my answer.


Teach that bimbo to underestimate me.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 173


I landed on the roof of Arcadia, where Victoria was already waiting. She looked at my costume, clearly not terribly happy with it. "I thought you meant for a normal ride. Or, maybe, walking."


"I did, at first," I answered cheerfully. "Then I decided this would be more fun. I've kinda always wanted to do this." It was true, too. Ever since Victoria got her powers, I'd wished, fantasized even, about being the one carrying her in my arms. The romantic desire might not be there anymore, but this was still something I wanted to be able to do.


She hesitated as I held out my arms. Or my armor's arms, as redundant as that sounds. My own actual limbs were inside the core of the body. She cooperated, allowing me to pick her up and carry her bridal style, and I took off. She squealed and gripped hard around the suit.


"You act like this is your first time flying," I teased.


"I'm not flying!" she cried. "I'm being carried around by someone wearing a suit made out of vines!"


"Oh, stop being a baby," I laughed. More fun than I ever imagined! AmusementCuriousity. I decided that I'd have to tell Taylor about this one. She promised not to peak in on my conversations with Victoria, but it did make her upset. I would have to find some way to make it up to her. "Now I know why you carried me around all the time. This is hilarious."


"If you drop me, I swear I'll trigger as a ghost and haunt you forever!" She yelled over the wind rushing past us. She didn't have to, the suit's armor could hear her just fine. "This is not flying! This is falling in the wrong direction!"


Somehow, she managed to not have a heart attack on the trip. We touched down, safely, only about five minutes after we took flight. "See, was that so bad?" I asked as I watched her catch her breath. I then shed my armor, sending most of the mass into the sewer system. The armor would be transported back to base using automated systems. I was left with only the bracer. Victoria simply stood there gawking at me, and I became a little self-conscious. "What?" I asked.


"I don't even know," she admitted. "I mean, I remember having trouble convincing you to do anything but fix up a few cuts and bruises, and now here you are showing powers I didn't even know were possible."


"Things have changed," I said softly. "A lot of things."


"Like your supervillain girlfriend?" Oh god damn it Victoria.


"Do we really have to have this conversation?" I fought back the urge to yell. ConcernSupport. I took a deep breath, taking comfort from the link. "I just want to have a nice day at the mall with my sister. Eat junk food, pretend everything's normal for a change. Could you please not get on my case over my girlfriend?"


She frowned. "I seem to remember a few guys you encouraged me to leave and never look back."


I froze. Fuck. I had no way to respond to that. SupportLoveAnxiety. I sighed, I would need to do so much explaining to Taylor after this was over. "I know," I finally spoke. "I know, and I was wrong. You have every right to be pissed about every time I did that. I'm sorry."


She blinked. "Actually, I was going to use it as an example of how you should listen to me," she elaborated. "Y'know... I was being an idiot and you tried to help. Now you're being an idiot and I'm trying to help."


"Is it too much to ask that you accept that I'm happy? Because I am. Taylor makes me happy. Let's just drop it there."


"You never dropped it when you had a problem with what I was doing," she insisted. "Your girlfriend threatened you with deadly spiders," she insisted. "And shot me. And fed me to bees."


"You hurt people too, Victoria," I met her eyes, drawing on all the tips I'd learned about at least pretending to be confident. SupportConfidencePride. I didn't know what Taylor was getting off my side, not for certain, but it was good to know she was there. "She also nearly died fighting Leviathan, and stood beside me during the worst period of my life. She's sorry for all the bad things she's done. You don't have to accept her, or her apology. I wish you would, but you don't have to. You do have to accept that I have."


She just looked right back at me.


"Please, Vicky?"


She sighed. "Fine, but I'm going to call this in next time you don't like something I do."


I frowned. "That's really not how that sorta thing is suppose to work."


"Too bad," she smiled. "I'm supposed to be the irresponsible sister. Deal with it."


"Fiiine," I rolled my eyes. "I forgot what a colossal pain in the ass you are at times."


We spent much some time shopping. She needed new outfits, and so did I. She was more than happy to find out I was footing the bill, and as weird as it sounds, I'd stopped caring about money. Maybe this was what Dean felt like, when Vicky always talked him into buying everything. Didn't matter to him, and made her happy. And she seemed happy enough, flitting about. Apparently a few months is enough time for the fashion world to reshape itself into an alien landscape, to hear her talk about it. Meanwhile, I simply browsed for a few things and let her talk me into buying whatever.


"So," I asked when looking at a dark blue coat I recognized. "Would it be creepy of me to buy a coat, if my girlfriend already has one just like it?"


Vicky paused. "Probably?" she answered. "I've never had to ask that question before. I don't think it's your color, though. You need something brighter. Like this."


"Vicky, I'm not wearing pink," I said dryly.


"It's not pink, it's watermelon red."


"Which is the same color as pink."


"Whatever, we both know you're going to buy something green by the end of this argument, anyway," she countered. She's probably right, I decided.


....


"So, Dad's got a bit of time," Victoria said after putting away her cell. "We should talk to him. He's been acting really weird lately."


"Mom says he's been acting weird ever since..." I rebuilt his brain under duress from Bonesaw. "He was healed."


"Kinda reminds of when we were kids," Vicky replied. "Kinda goofy. Which was nice when we were six or seven, but it's really hard to know what to do with considering we're not little anymore."


"I know," I agreed. I was kinda avoiding him for that reason. I followed along as she led me out, to find him waiting in his car.


"Did you girls walk here?" He asked, as we got in. Victoria took the front seat, as usual.


"Amy flew us over," Vicky replied, sounding less than enthused about that. "She's terrible. I fear for the roads if she drives even half that bad."


"Hey!" I argued. "At least I've never run into a flock of seagulls."


"It was dark," Victoria countered. "And I was in a hurry."


Dad laughed. "I remember that one. You came home dripping with blood and mom almost had a heart attack when she saw you."


"Then when she found out it wasn't mine, she made me wash off in the back yard with a watering hose," Vicky muttered. "Ruined my dress, too. Worst junior prom ever."


"Not so bad," he said. "Gulls are the blind pedestrians of the skies. You had to have made at least five hundred points up there."


Vicky offered a light chuckle as Dad joked at her expense. That was something that hadn't happened in years, and we both probably felt that same blend of discomfort and happiness. He didn't act like his usual self, but he seemed happy. Despite no longer being with Mom. Then again, if I was being honest with myself, I was only happy after moving out, myself. So maybe it was just being around her. Just because I'd managed to reconcile with her, didn't mean I forgot what an unpleasant person she was to be around.


"So, Dad," Vicky started. "How long has it been since you last talked to Mom?"


"The other day, when we got you back," he answered.


"I don't think that counts," she replied. "I mean when have you actually talked to her."


"Oh... a while, I guess." About a month, I supplied in my head. Their last conversation would have been... the day of the Simurgh battle, if I recalled correctly. "What for?"


"I was thinking we should get together for a family thing," Vicky offered. "The whole family, just to catch up. It'd be nice."


"That sounds great," Dad replied. "Amelia, you should bring Taylor."


"I don-"


"And we should have Danny and Sarah come, too." He continued, interrupting me.


"Umm... who's Danny?" Victoria asked. Oh, fuck. I knew we forgot to tell her something.


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


A/N- Still love the chapters with Vicky in them.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 174- Riley


"So, how do you like the first day back?" Missy smiled as we left the school. "As if I even need to ask."


"It's awesome!" I exclaimed. "Even better than before. I have to bring my scarf tomorrow, all the boys want to play our game again!"


"Of course they do," Missy sighed. "They're trying to get you to be their girlfriend."


"Really?" I asked. "Boys are weird."


Missy just looked at me. Or my changeling, at least. "Yes. Yes they are," she agreed. "Speaking of, I see Theo."


I glanced over at him. He was with Zach and some girl I didn't recognize. She looks a little old to be a highschool student. Clarice's analysis system instantly scanned her, identifying wounds to her knee and shin, fixed with rather inefficient medical knowledge. My own tinker knowledge filled in the blanks. Approximately thirty years old, female, scars and damage from a number of injuries over the course of years. Bullet and knife wounds included. Two pregnancies, second ended in miscarriage or abortion.


"Who's your friend?" I asked them as they approach. Another alert flared- the really expensive one that I kept in the most insulated portion of the Clarice system. Rapture's master/stranger system. Although to call it that was a misnomer. It worked on a number of other things, including many illusion powers. And it failed to work on a lot of master or stranger powers- such as Taylor's or Clarice's. It was working this time, however, alerting me to the altered dynamics.


"This is Erica," Zach replied. "She's my girlfriend. Erica, this is Clarice and Missy."


"I remember," Missy replied. The personality profile alerted me to what I already knew, she was being influenced. Rapture's tech started profiling details, and I told it to detect and tell me how to respond to the influence. It was a 'soft' effect, meaning it wouldn't alter my personality. It would simply make me believe I could trust this girl, and attempt to use the brain's naturally unreliable memory structures to fill in blanks.


"Oh, right," I said. "Zach mentioned you a couple times. It's good to meet you."


"I've heard a lot about you, too," the woman said with a less than healthy smile. Obvious smoker, I noted. Other drug use as well. "You're pretty famous in school. Did you really use an invisibility power to walk around the cafeteria in nothing but your socks?"


"Sorta," I answered. "It was really a rapid shifting camouflage. My powers give me internal and external shapeshifting." A number of notices flared, as I was warned that my friends were about to tell her I lied. They knew Clarice was a fake and thus had no real powers. Drat! "Or that's the simple answer. It's really far more complex than that," I quickly added. Then I started talking 'tinker'. They wouldn't be able to call me a liar if they had absolutely no idea what I was saying.


I activated the com system in my outfit. "Taylor, I need you to do something important," I started. I knew she'd hear me, she didn't have a choice in the matter. An exploitable weakness, if you were smart enough to harness it. "Could you get a blood sample from that girl with Zach?"


"You mean Erica?" she asked. "Why would I do that?" Her, too? Darn it!


I hesitated. Big Sister wouldn't want me to lie, especially to Taylor. But she wouldn't want a Stranger hurting people. "My instruments think she might be sick, and I want to make sure without scaring her." I lied smoothly and easily.


"Oh, okay," Taylor responded. I could rely on a sample in fifteen minutes or so. Until then, I would buy time.


"Wow, that's really something," Erica said, unsure of how to approach the situation. The alerts let me know what she knew she couldn't reach me with her power. I wasn't behaving close enough to what was expected, and this model of Clarice didn't have an imitation human brain to trick thinkers.


"It is," I agreed. "But we have to rush, Zach. Minerva needs to talk to us at the base. The three of you will have to stay here."


"Really?" she asked. "What about?" There was a spike of apprehension and fear, more at the mention of the base than anything. She was afraid of something there, though I couldn't be certain of what exactly. More importantly, it was clear she knew Missy and Theo were parahumans. Secondary power? Did Zach tell her? Was it simple deduction? I had no way of knowing that, either.


"Our next mission," I answered, then glanced around to make sure no one else was in earshot. "We're planning to eliminating Nilbog," I whispered. It was a safe enough thing to admit. What's the worse she could do with that? Tell Nilbog? Even if she were to report this to some unknown leader, it was of minimum value. What really worried me was how she managed to work past Dinah's powers. Then again, her power worked on Taylor through her bugs, so apparently it carried over sensory powers.


"That's... wow..." Erica smiled. "Can you tell me what you're planning?"


Zach was about to speak up, but I interrupted again. Keeping the conversation between me and Stranger-girl. "Not sure," I answered. "That's why we need the meeting. Minerva's a really powerful Thinker and has been talking to a bunch of other powerful Thinkers. It's a really big operation, kinda like the one where we stopped Butcher." Bingo, I caught the response. She's attached to Butcher, somehow. "You can come with if you like," I offered, knowing full well she'd refuse.


"No, that's okay," she said. "I need to get home anyway. Us non-parahumans don't get homework passes. Call me after the meeting, okay?" she kissed Zach, and they held their moment of PDA for a few seconds. It gave me a chance to read more of her body language. It seemed to mold itself into the role she was playing, though Rapture's tech said the mind disagreed. Her power was rather disquieting. If she hadn't activated the power when approaching us, I wouldn't have known it existed.


I, meanwhile, called Lisa. "We have a Master/Stranger problem," I told her. "One I'm pretty sure has influenced Dinah and Taylor. It might hit you, too, if you use your powers the wrong way."


"Fuck!" Lisa exclaimed, and I sighed internally. So immature. "What do you have?"


"Already got the blood sample, anti-master drug will be released shortly. I need you to hold a meeting about the Nilbog plan, for Zach and my benefit. Missy and Theo will probably be there as well. Don't tell them anything you're worried will go public."


"Riley, I don't have enough to make a meeting out of that," she replied.


"Then make up another reason!" I exclaimed. "Buy an hour or two."


"Okay," she answered. "I can put together something."


....


The anti-master drug had been refined since its early days. No longer leaving any sign that could be detected. It was invisible and odorless. Even Amelia wouldn't know it was released. It didn't require her help, anymore. I did everything on my own. No one except Lisa even realized it had occurred, and in her case only because I told her. And then I snuck out of the lab, wearing one of Emma's new power systems and my stealth tech.


Tracking 'Erica' was easy enough. She was on the phone talking to Zach.It appeared she used her powers on the actual residents of an apartment to convince her they belonged there. They were easy enough to render unconscious. The woman seemed only mildly surprised. "Umm... I've gotta go. The 'rents are uptight about the homework. Love you too."


"Hello, Dream Girl," I growled.


"Who are you?" she asked.


"The real body behind Clarice," I answered. I knew she already knew. "And you should know that you're the second person in my life that's ever actually managed to make me angry. You hurt my friends, and for that you have to pay."


"Is that so?" she smirked. "You should know my power-"


"Works by influencing the subconscious, forcefully associating yourself with the subconscious emotions of the victim. Making you into whatever female person the victim longs to see the most. Someone they miss. For lack of a better term, a 'nostalgia' effect." That took the smile off her face in a hurry. "Complete with low level Thinker and Stranger powers to achieve a more perfect imitation."


"You're not immune to my power," she stammered. "No one is."


"No, I'm not," I answered. "And right now, I'm giving you permission to use your power on me in full. Go ahead, I'll even give you the minutes you need to make it work in its entirety."


My internal alarms went off as she accessed my mind and memories. Her eyes widened, and her lips quivered as her power caught a mental association to Siberian. It was strange. I could still tell the difference between this girl's appearance, and what I knew for a fact Siberian looked like. But I still believed she was, in fact, the same person, despite every insulation between the truth and this lie. Including knowing it was a lie.


"Now you know," I said. "Tell me, how do you reverse your power? Our anti-master drug doesn't work. And don't lie, I have equipment that will know."


"It doesn't reverse," she stuttered. "Alterations are permanent."


I knew she was telling the truth. "That makes it more difficult," I replied as I moved toward her. She collapsed, paralized by the influences of the drugs in the air. "But there are still ways to coax a specific result."


The mental association changed, replacing her with a face I thought I'd forgotten. Or maybe I had forgotten, and her power, or perhaps simple retroactive interference, filled in the blanks. "No!" she exclaimed. "Riley, you can't! You're a good girl!"


"No I'm not."


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


A/N- Damn this is a dark chapter.

Also. Foreshadowed like a hundred and fifty chapters ago. See the Cherish Interlude.

 

[Slayer Anderson]

This is a compilation of non-canon omake which I wrote and posted back on SB for the Worm fanfic Amelia. As it has moved to QQ now, I'm reposting them so I can get more likes so readers can enjoy as much content as possible from the old thread.

Man of the Cloth:
*~*~*~*​

When Greg Vader was a child, his mother had told him something important.

She had said everyone was good at something. Some people got lucky and were good at a lot of things, but everyone had at least one thing they could be really good at.

Greg had just never found his 'one thing.'

Well, that wasn't quite true, he had to admit. He was 'good' at games, mostly. It just wasn't the kind of good that would win him an award or anything, sadly. So he had his doubts that games were his 'one thing.'

But, to be honest, self-examination was the last thing on his mind at this point. Or, well, that specific avenue of self-examination was certainly far from his thoughts. Greg was certainly thinking about himself, but it was more related to the not-so-distant past that now seemed ages and ages ago.

Before the Slaughterhouse Nine.

Before Leviathan.

Before the ABB rampage.

He remembered making some of the first speculative posts on the newest member of the Undersiders, especially after the big bank job they'd pulled. Which was kind of, holy shit he knew a bankrobber! So, yeah, the fact that Taylor Hebert, one of his fellow outcasts, had been such a scary supervillain, who was actually an even scarier superhero, who had been undercover and fought Mannequin one-on-one until he ran away, killed the Siberian, and jammed Armsmaster's halberd and torn-off hand up Leviathan's ass!

So, yeah, the past few days had overfilled his HSQ by a bit.

He'd even gotten to be on the news, which was something he'd never thought he'd be able to boast about.

He'd especially thought he'd never be able to brag that he'd lied on national television.

Well, no, not 'lied,' really. He'd been honest when he'd talked about Taylor, and how he'd hoped they'd end up together. He'd just fibbed a bit about thinking it would ever actually happen. After all, Taylor Hebert was nice, pretty, smart, and even if he knew she didn't really like him, she was one of the only people who didn't look like he was some bastardized cross between a carnival monkey and an especially smelly Case 53. So, yeah, he'd had a bit of a crush, but he also knew when a girl was out of his league, which was why he'd never made a move on her.

Well, that, and Taylor was a bit of a bitch, sometimes.

"Not that I blame her," Greg muttered, move around another unit on his computer, shifting his strategy in Space Opera, an online game he'd been into for a while. It was taking a lot of effort to catch up after the two months he'd spent without electricity. "What Emma, Sophia, and Madison did was all kinds of fucked up."

...and what was more fucked up? Emma had powers now.

Emma "Backstabber" Barnes was the newest parahuman on Pantheon's lineup.

There'd been this whole media...'thing' about it just the other day, but the nice reporter lady hadn't shown up again, so he'd surfed the net for the cliff notes version. Anyway, if there was one thing he was proud of himself for in this whole weirdness, it was that he'd decided not to had over Taylor's notebooks to the press.

...now he just needed to figure out what to do with them. Ideally, he'd get them back to her, given what they contained, but, well...one does not just "Walk Into Mordor" as the saying went. He didn't think he'd be able to just walk up to Pantheon's giant treehouse and ask to see Taylor to give her back her journals, and he wasn't gong to be able to trust anyone else with them, either, given what they contained. He'd hadn't really been thinking when he and Taylor had passed each other that day, after the bombings, when she'd taken the blow to the head and punched Emma, but he'd seen how upset she was, even with her father trying to calm her down. Then, she'd just chucked the notebooks she'd been carrying in the trash and, well, he'd just reached in and picked them up.

Was that creepy? He wondered.

...probably not, but he might be wrong. Maybe just tell Taylor he 'found' them. Yeah, that'd be best.

...and, of course, it was probably not a good idea to let Taylor know he'd read them, just out of curiosity, though.

Still, he'd decided not to give them to the reporters because Taylor probably didn't want the press to have them. That was how famous people were, right? They all had those deep dark secrets that no one could find out or they'd start using drugs and have to go into rehab and finally recover before the Simurgh showed up while they were doing one of their concerts. Brittney just hadn't been the same after that...it was a shame, too, because he'd really liked her music.

Where was he? Oh, right, Space Opera.

"New user requesting to join my guild?" He frowned. It always paid to be careful with newbs. You never knew when one of them would turn out to just tank the fun all of you were having with a game. It was best to check their profile pages, too, for weird stuff like a shitstorm of quotes that sounded cool, but didn't mean anything. As Greg clicked on the link, he saw his worst fears were proven. There were even a bunch of those bullshit feel-good stories that asked you to repost them to fight bigotry or cancer or something stupid like that. It was a hallmark of someone who took life waaaay too seriously and would talk his and his guildmates' ears off about some book they were reading or tv show they were obsessed with...

Huh, as he was skimming them, one of the quotes actually looked...well, relevant. It reminded him of what Taylor had done with Emma, 'turning the other cheek' and offering it to be slapped.

Greg shook his head and tried to banish the errant thought, though it stuck with him as he finally shut his browser down hours later and slid into bed.

...

The next day, a Saturday, saw Greg Vader awake and about earlier than he had been in sometime, especially since he'd had trouble sleeping the night before. Maybe, he mused, it had been because of his restlessness that he was awake just after the sun had risen. His dreams had been...weird, full of images of Taylor and giant trees and...

Almost against his will, he found himself opening a text document, then reaching for one of Taylor's journals.

For a long moment, his eyes rested, unsure on the blinking cursor, before flickering back to the open journal.

He nodded, it seemed right, didn't it? Taylor and her girlfriend had saved the city from the Nine, and were feeding so many people with their Yggdrasil, and they'd even put off getting married until they could stop the Endbringers...they were like really real goddesses and gods that came down from their magic tree to help lowly humans and stuff. Yeah, even if he'd never had a chance with Taylor, this was the least he could do. He'd show everyone how awesome Khepri and Gaea really were! That they weren't just normal heroes!

His face firmed as his fingers reached for the keys.

Pantheism:

The Book of Khepri​

Taylor Heberts best friend betrayed her and-

Greg scowled. That wasn't how these things were suppose to sound. Books about gods and goddesses always sounded so...so...epic.

Deleting his first line, he started over.

And lo, in the days before Her ascension, She was as you and I. The Daughter of Hebert, born unto-

Uh...what were, oh, right! Internet!

-Daniel and Annette Hebert, who themselves were possessed of strong heart and great spirit, imparted wisdom and temperance unto Her. In the days before the Loss occurred, Her life was good. Before the Shadow, before the Sister became the Betrayer, before the False Innocent, the sun shone upon She-Who-Would-Be-Khepri.

Greg blinked and leaned back, looking at his monitor. That...that sounded, kinda cool, actually...and it jived with what he remembered about Taylor from middle school, before her mom had died.

Huh, maybe he'd finally found his 'thing.' At least his mom would finally get off his back about finding a job.

...now, where could he find some robes?

---

I'm not going to lie, I think I'm most proud of Man of the Cloth, at least in terms of non-canon omake in this story. Greg is fun when applied properly.

---

Green Eyed Monster:​

I didn't need my power to know who was standing outside my door for the last five minutes, but it definitely helped fill in the blanks as to why she hadn't come in yet.

Maybe it was a bit spiteful of me, but I wasn't going to invite her in. If she wanted to hash out what was on her mind, she'd have to take the first step, otherwise she had Amelia to run to if things got rough.

Yeah, that was a bit spiteful.

"Lisa?"

I sighed. Of course Taylor wouldn't be able to back down and leave sleeping dogs lie. I ignored the flash of pain at the errant though and called out, "Taylor! What a surprise, come on in! You have questions about Flechette's power I'm guessing?"

She gave me that delightfully combative stare that told me I wasn't fooling her. My grin dropped a bit as I leaned back in my throne-like chair. Say what you would about Amelia's ad-hoc architecture, but some things there just weren't substitutes for. Granted, we still needed electrical outlets (or a tinker-tech alternative) for me to make use of the massage function.

"No," Taylor shook her head, her expression still the slightest bit stunned. "I'm going to need time to understand that. It's kind of 'Holy Fuck,' right? That we might have something Siberian-tier, something that might, possibly be able to hurt an Endbringer on our team."

"No," she repeated, "I...just wanted to say something. I'm sorry."

My focus snapped back as I raised an eyebrow at Taylor's more subdued body language. The string of information fed to me by my power pulsed as I picked up what she really meant.

Referring to emotion-link with Amelia. Not sorry. Stubborn. Will not be dissuaded. Fixated? Influenced. Dependent on Amelia. Amelia dependent on Taylor-

I cut off that line and tried a different avenue of attack.

Regrets decision's consequences. Knows you disapprove, counseled against action. Needs affirmation of relationship with you, bothered by losing you as a friend. Perceives disapproval as power-play against Amelia for affections, resents pity for suicidal tendencies. Perceives knowledge of previous emotional state and planned betrayal as having power over her, further differentiates relationship with Amelia to be 'Equal Partners.'

Well, shit.

I closed the valve on my power down to the constant low-level trickle of background noise and rubbed the heels of my hands into my eyes. You'd think being a 'goddess' would have made my life simpler, but no...

Taylor shifted from foot to foot awkwardly, reminding me of her earlier days as Skitter, before things got complicated.

"No, you're not." I sighed, and Taylor opened her mouth to respond. "You're not, don't bullshit me. This is who you are, Taylor. You see something you think is 'right,' and you fight for it. You won't stop because I'm telling you otherwise, so let's just lay that out there."

There was a flash of incongruous emotion on her face and I fought down the urge to break something in frustration. Her face settled a moment later and I pinched the bridge of my nose. "You think I'm being an asshole about this whole thing because I don't like you getting close to Amelia."

"Something like that," Taylor shrugged and dropped onto one of the organic-construct couches 'my room' had been outfitted with. "Amelia said you didn't think it was healthy, that we're addicted to each other. I don't really know why you teased us so much if you weren't expecting something like this."

I groaned. "Fine! I wanted you two to have a relationship, I admit it! Both you and Amelia needed emotional support! What was I supposed to do when you were so set on playing magical princess goddess with your new friend? Maybe I didn't want you dating, but I wanted you two to be there for each other in your own repressed passive-aggressive way."

Taylor flinched as if I'd struck her and I winced.

"Sorry, that came out wrong," I muttered, dropping my head in my hands. "This is just...you and Amelia are being intimate in a way neither of you really understand, probably aren't ready for, and are almost certainly being...pressured into, if you get my drift."

Taylor hunched into herself. "I just don't want to be alone anymore, you can understand that, can't you Lisa? I just...can't go back to that."

I swallowed back my own memories of loneliness. Of a year on the street verbally flaying people alive to get food and clothes. Of living in that house with those people who wanted to twist me and use me. Of wandering into my brother's room and finding-

God Damnit.

"Yeah," I choked out wetly. "Yeah, I understand." Idly, I wondered if I'd been able to connect with some on the level Taylor and Amelia were connecting with each other, if I'd been able to have that after Rex...could I have given it up?

"Thank you," Taylor breathed and stood to leave.

"Just-" I started, making her pause at my door. "Just promise you'll listen to me if I think you start getting too deep? You don't have to break the link or anything, but...just listen to any concerns I have? As a friend?"

"I...sure," Taylor nodded, a slight smile on her face.

"Thanks," I smiled and calculated my next words carefully. "I'd hate to see my hero go crazy just because she wouldn't listen to me."

Taylor started just as she was about to turn to leave. "H-hero? What?"

Successful blindside, now time to drive the point home. As strong as Taylor was, she still thought other people saw her as weak. If I ever saw that catty bitch Emma again...I grinned, "Taylor...you don't think enough of yourself. You think that you're my pity case, I know; the little girl I took in to keep from suicide by dragon. You're not. You're probably the closest thing I have to a real hero, someone I look up to."

Taylor rolled her eyes and turned away, but I could still see the pleased flush on her cheeks.

"When you protected those people from Leviathan, did you pity them?" I asked remorselessly. "How about when you learned what Coil had done to Dinah? Did you pity her? Or me, when I explained how he forced me into life as a villain?"

I grinned wider at Taylor's sputtered denials. "You saved me from a fate worse than death, a life as Coil's plaything, his pet." I put as much disgust as possible in the word. "Even after everything that's happened, you're still trying to do the right thing, even after I tried to get you to give up and leave town after the...after Crawler was killed. You don't understand how amazing that is, that you were able to get back up and keep going, do you?"

Unable to take my blunt praise, Taylor shifted uneasily. "I'm not-I didn't, Amelia was the one-"

"-who made the Yggdrasil, yeah, but that'd be just an impressive tree without you. Amelia said it herself, you're Pantheon's General. The leader of it's capes on the battlefield."

"...maybe," Taylor shrugged. "Lisa...if you didn't pity me, if you didn't...look down on me, why did you and the Undersiders save me that night? It was because you told Brian to do it, wasn't it?"

I stilled a moment, indecision catching me off-guard. Should I...? Could I really? I...could I really expect Taylor to come to me if I didn't do the same? Besides, Coil was off our back now, there wasn't an emergent crisis to deal with (beyond what Taylor and Amelia were doing to themselves), and...talking about it was supposed to help, wasn't it?

...and I hadn't talked about it. To anyone. Ever. I just wasn't a touchy-feely person. I didn't dig my dirty laundry up to show my friends the old stains and rips in my soul-

God, I was getting Emo now, wasn't I? Shit.

As preoccupied as my thoughts were, it shouldn't have come as a surprise when my control slipped just a little.

-jealous. Wants to connect, wants human connection on the same level they have, is afraid to connect, fears rejection, fears being pitied-

...and that was why I never turned my power on myself. Fucking Hell. Firming my resolve, I gestured back to the couch.

"I guess, it all started with my brother. His name was Rex."

---

If Green Eyed Monster sounds familiar, it's because it was originally set between chapters 80 and 81. I think TanaNari used a few ideas from this version for a later chapter, but I'm still convinced his was better, so I'm glad the omake did a good job inspiring him, at least.

---

The Three Scariest Words:​

Doctor Mother: "So, to summarize, we know that Pantheon is in possession of a cape, or several capes, whose powers used either separately or in conjunction, can kill an Endbringer. Due to Number Man's calculations, we know that the 'combat-thinker, brute' known as Aceso, is actually Bonesaw, formerly of the Slaughterhouse Nine, who is now working in, presumably willing-"

Number Man: "98% Probability."

Doctor Mother: "-thank you, presumably willing cooperation with Pantheon. Furthermore, we now have confirmation that they are constructing virtual armies of semi-autonomous insectoid creatures that make Nilbog look like a rank amatuer in size, scale, scope, versatility, and specialization. All of these are seemingly controllable by Kephri, who can extend her range to an apparently limitless extent in conjunction with Gaea's Yggdrasil. Also, they know of Cauldron's existence and have only tenuously decided that we are apparently a 'necessary evil.' Have I summed the situation up properly?"

Alexandria: "There's no need for such a disagreeable approach to the problem. Pantheon is an experiment, one which is by every measure a complete success. They've managed to solidify control of the Brockton Bay area with only minimal Cauldron aid, they've played a willing and essential role in bringing down the Simurgh. Although we can't yet know for sure if they're able to ensure the stability of the ENE region, I think the results speak for themselves."

Eidolon: "True enough, but this kind of power consolidation is far beyond even our wildest expectations. I think it's past time to ensure that they'll cooperate with Cauldron on the matter of further Endbringer battles, with or without the politicians' approval."

Doctor Mother: "I agree. Regardless of the continuation of the experiment, they've proven themselves far too valuable to be allowed such free reign. So, what are our options?"

All eyes turned to Contessa, as they always did.

The woman in the suit frowned for a moment, feeling out the specific phrasing to her inquiry before putting the question to her power.

As the silence crept on, Alexandria's scowl grew more pronounced: "Well, Contessa?"

Contessa swallowed dryly: "I...I don't know."

Every one of the room's occupant's stiffened in shock.

Contessa: "I...don't know. My power is refusing to settle on a plan. It's a different type of interference than the Endbringers or David, but I keep getting different results, ranging from hundreds to millions of steps, and then the path just blanks out, as if I'm trying to focus on...Scion."

~*~*~*

With Pantheon:

Missy: "I'm telling you, the suit keeps hanging up when I try to put it on. I'm pretty sure the latch is broken."

Emma: "It's a seal, not a latch...and it might be a bit of damage from the last Endbringer battle. I'll need to give it a full check. Can you put it on and take it off one more time?"

Missy: <Sigh> "Fine, fine."​

---

This one was short, relatively funny little piece that was inspired by me imagining Contessa's "Oh Shit" face.

Do note that the jury is still out on how/how well PtV works around Taylia and Vista's bullshit spatial warping super-suit.​

---

...and that's it for actual omake. Do note that there are probably a lot of two/three line blurbs that I posted that I'm not really going to dig out to repost here, as they're not actually full-fledged omake.

TanaNari has reposted the three Canon Omake I've written, which were The Four Horsemen, The Devil You Know, and The Heartbroken. Unless something changes, all of these are archived on SB in their original format.​

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 175- Riley


I sighed. Dream Girl was right. Her power, depending on how you looked at it, either did not work, or could not be turned off. It wasn't mind control, it wasn't a memory rewrite. Or, at least, her primary power worked that way. The secondary powers that detected or exploited those emotional bonds were far more active. I could break that part. I couldn't break the long term influence. She exploited feelings and emotions that already existed. Bringing them to the forefront. It was, as I said to her, a 'nostalgia' power. Lost loves, memories of happier times. Only reversible with a hard rewrite of their brain chemistry.


I doubted my friends would appreciate that plan.


They would have to recover naturally.


I would have to recover naturally.


The alterations I made to her brain were far more overt. Easier to undo, easier to detect, but far more powerful in their ability to influence the victim. I watched from a rooftop six blocks away as she casually strolled into the ocean from a deserted stretch of beach and rubble. Tracking tech confirmed everything. The hypoxia would eliminate any evidence of my manipulations. I turned off my emotions, this one time. "Goodbye mommy," I said with artificial cheer. Then I returned to my home. To a family I choose, and friends that loved me. Friends who needed my help now more than ever. Friends that I needed.


Lisa's eyes narrowed when I arrived home. I smiled, artificially. Her eyes closed. "Fuck," she muttered.


"You'd have done it differently?" I asked. There was no way to hide secrets from her anymore. I might be able to beat her 'perfect guesses' power, but there was no possible nonviolent defense against her new ability. It was easier just to work with her, instead. As my Big Sister and her fiancée put it: 'don't fight, accept and push through'. They were so smart, even if they were dumb sometimes.


"I don't know," she replied, shivering. "Had to stop looking. You're sure?"


"Completely," I answered. I had her monitored until death, then encouraged some of the scavengers to find her early. She's quite literally fish food.


Lisa read my body language. I wanted her to, which made it easier.


"Good," she said with a hard voice.


"Now what?" I asked.


She sighed. "We pick up the pieces. The power wears off naturally. Time healing wounds, and all that utter tripe. Dinah and Taylor weren't influenced enough for it to matter. No emotional investment, no notable impact. So it's the four of you. How are you holding up?"


"Not even the worst thing I've done in the last six months," I answered with absolute honesty. "Worry about the others."


"Okay," she agreed. "Theo and Zach are the big ones. Zach... tries to ignore problems. He'll pretend he's immune and do everything possible to make us believe it. We should find a suitable distraction. I'm thinking we throw Emma at him. She'll love it, and he's not gonna be feeling terribly picky."


I frowned. "That doesn't seem..."


"Don't worry," she interrupted. "I can handle that part. You are going to have to worry about Missy and Theo. Invite them somewhere after school. In person... Clarice isn't the person they should be talking to for this."


"Okay," I agreed.


....


School went by slowly, but I had let both Theo and Missy know that we needed to talk after school before it was out. Specifically, that I needed to in person. Naturally, they had my company on the way to the base, through Clarice, but I refused to say anything about it.


"Okay, Riley, you're starting to worry me," Missy said as she entered my bedroom. I set Fluffy aside, and he scuttled back to where he belonged as my pillow. Missy took it in stride- she's the one who has a flying horse made of pretty much the same material, after all.


"We need to talk about the mission in New York," I replied. Both of them fidgeted. We didn't really talk about New York. We'd been assured that we'd no longer be put on missions with Atropos, and that she wouldn't be in charge of any missions any time soon. Beyond that, we'd have to trust the judgment of others. Of course, I knew my Big Sister would do what was best. "I learned a few things about the Stranger that Theo encountered."


"Really?" Theo asked.


"Yes," I answered. "She decided to imitate Zach's dead friend."


"She was Erica, wasn't she?" Missy asked. "That's why she wasn't at school."


I nodded. "She's been caught and won't be an issue any longer."


"Did... did you develop an anti-master cure?" Theo asked eagerly.


"Sorry," I looked away. "Her power alters neural connections manually. If you have the drug already in your system, you're immune, but you can't undo what's been done without rewiring the brain. It would take Amelia's power, and knowledge of what your brain was like before."


"Theo..." Missy asked. "What's wrong?"


He sighed. "Her power... it's weird... it made me have... feelings... for Clarice."


My heart jumped in my chest. Really?


"You mean Riley?" Missy asked, sounding more worried by the second.


"No," he answered. "Clarice, specifically. I can look at Riley and it doesn't do anything like that at all." And just like that, my stomach clenched. The warm feeling had died.


"That... is really strange," Missy replied. "Sorry, that sounded worse than I meant it to. I just mean..."


"Her power works on feelings toward people we've lost," I volunteered. "Fond emotions and memories that aren't attached to anyone."


Theo offered a half smile. "Guess that explains it. I did have a kinda crush on Clarice, before finding out what she was. Before knowing about you at all, Riley. I was a little disappointed when I found out that Clarice wasn't real. But I got over it. I didn't think it was that intense."


"That's understandable," Missy said, reluctantly. "I mean... Clarice is kinda designed to be the perfect girl. And don't you dare try to pretend otherwise, Riley. She's fit, well proportioned, I'm pretty sure her face is some kind of perfect blend of human features that you spent a weeks designing. And your doll has the voice of a goddess."


"Four and a half months," I admitted. "And I... may have used recordings of Canary to mode her vocal cords. It doesn't convey any of her powers, of course, but I did pick her because I like her voice. I wish I had a chance to talk to her before she got in trouble." I really did, too.


"See?" Missy answered. "And then you got mind whammied by that bitch. It's not your fault. Any more than it was those children's fault that Valefor used them as suicide bombers. That was his fault, and I'll punch anyone who says otherwise. This is her fault. You don't have to feel bad about it."


"Thanks," Theo smiled softly at her, and I suppressed a need to whimper. "You're the best." He gave her a quick peck on the cheek.


"I know," Missy replied with a bright smile. "You just be sure to let everyone know it."


"I can do that," Theo agreed. Then he paused for a second. "So, uh... she also messed with Zach. Like... way worse than me."


"Yeah," I confirmed. "She used his dead childhood friend on him."


"I now regret letting her live after the first time," Theo replied darkly. "What are we going to do about this."


"Lisa said something about 'throwing' Emma at him," I answered.


"What?" Missy gasped. "That's awful!" Good, I thought. I'm not the only person who thinks so.


"I'm gonna go talk to Zach. Y'know, guy stuff. Maybe a good boxing match or something," Theo said to us, standing. "I'm sorry, I know I promised, but..." He is so good to his friends, I sighed inwardly.


"No," Missy insisted. "You're absolutely right. This is more important. You do that. I'm going to have a talk with Tattletale. There might be some boxing involved. It's going to be incredibly one sided. Riley, do you mind?"


"No, it's fine," I answered. "I have stuff to keep me busy."


I watched them leave, and then issued the low whistle that brought Fluffy to me. The dog sized spider shaped living stuffed animal crawled right back and wrapped itself around me. Four pairs of limbs for four times the hugging power. It was even internally heated. I flopped down on my bed, held by the delightfully comfortable pet. It purred happily at the movement and pressure as I squeezed back.


Should have added more arms, I decided as I stared at the ceiling.


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

A/N- I think the saddest part of the move from SB is that I can't mock all of them for failing to see this twist coming.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 176


"No, I'm absolutely serious," I insisted to Vicky on the phone. "I was. Even got the dumbass to waive all their stupid 'tests'. And then I became their leader like five minutes later."


"You? Really?" Vicky laughed.


"Didn't really matter since they were all dead by then," I added. I felt a little bad, lying to her about Riley, but as much as I loved my sister I couldn't imagine her taking the news that I had quasi-adopted Bonesaw well. "But I earned leadership the official way."


"I'm so putting that in my autobiography," she teased.


FrustrationDisdain. I blinked and looked over at Taylor. Is she still jealous?


"Lisa's being a bitch again," she sighed.


Oh, of course she is. "Sorry, Vicky, can I have a sec?" I asked.


"Uh, sure," she responded.


"What is she doing this time?" I asked Taylor.


"Remember how they chased off that one Stranger? Dream Girl?"


"Yeah..." I recalled. It was terrifying to think that there was a stranger out there that could slip past both Taylor and Dinah, as well as Zach's natural defense against all things mind and body altering. Except possibly the Simurgh, he didn't respond by disintegrating when hit with her song. Then again, maybe she never bothered trying to target him. Fortunately we destroyed her before the time limit anyway.


"Turns out, Lisa's plan for making Zach feel better is, and I quote 'throw Emma at him'," she sighed. "And, apparently, Missy just found out."
I cringed. "Sorry, Victoria, I have to go. I'll talk to you tomorrow."


"Oh, okay," she sighed. "I should do my homework, anyway."


"Bye," I said, and turned off the phone, then sat up from my position laying on my bed. "Okay, let's go."


Missy looked pissed when we got to the living area. Taylor's modified bugs, the ones that don't get eaten by Yggdrasil, had taking position between her and Lisa.


"Alright, what the hell?" I asked.


"Lisa's being a bitch again," Missy started.


"What?" Lisa insisted. "It's a good idea. Emma won't mind in the slightest, and Zach will appreciate it, too. It's a win for everyone."


"It's toying with people's hearts," Missy growled. "It's not right to use people like that." I found myself agreeing with Missy on this one, and judging by the emotions in Taylor, she was on my side with that assessment.


"Lisa," Taylor sighed. "There are lines, and this crosses them. Zach's been through enough manipulative bullshit, and I know Emma's not exactly my favorite person, but seriously... she doesn't deserve to be treated like little more than a prostitute."


"Come on," Lisa insisted. "It's a perfect plan! They get back together, she stops moping about like a lost puppy, he stops desperately overcompensating for his feelings by pretending to be a complete fucking idiot, and we go back to worrying about things that actually matter."


"Maybe if you squinted, it would hold up for fifteen minutes, but in the end it'd just wind up hurting Emma," RealizationIncredulity. Taylor didn't elaborate, but I'm pretty sure Lisa and I, at least, figured out her surprise.


"They broke up for a reason," Missy countered. "If they get back together, then fine. But Zach's my friend and I won't let you treat him like this."


"Lisa... maybe you should just get a boyfriend," I finally suggested. Everyone stopped and looked at me.


"Doesn't work like that," Lisa replied. "Asexual, remember?"


"Then go hook up with another asexual," I suggested. "Weld's still in Boston, and he's a great guy. Bonus points for you since he's about as clean as anyone can possibly be. I'm sure he can be convinced. As long as you tone down the 'bitch' around him."


"I'm not interested in romance," Lisa insisted.


"Then why do all of your ideas lead in that direction?" I asked. "Your idea for helping Taylor? First you tried to hook her up with Brian." NostalgiaDisgustAnger. "And when that didn't work, you tried to hook her up with me."


"I did not try to hook the two of you up," Lisa insisted. "I recognized that the two of you were a lot alike, and encouraged you to be friends. That's all I ever thought would happen. I never intended for it to become romantic. I sure as fuck didn't intend for you to create an empathic link! How was I suppose to know that was even possible? A link that's the only reason you ever got romantically involved in the first place."


"And me and Theo," Missy added. We all looked toward her. WorryRegret. "What? I'm not stupid and I'm not a child," the thirteen year old insisted. "I knew what you were trying to pull the moment Aceso showed up with the flying horse. After that, I just rolled my eyes and played along."


"Sorry about that," I said sheepishly.


"Don't be," she replied. "I got an awesome best friend and an amazing boyfriend and I'm on a team that values my input. I got to kill an Endbriner. I got battle armor that's too badass to be described in words. Plus I have yet to be forced to go to some public event to be gawked at by people I wish I was allowed to punch. If you had just come out and offered that last line as your main selling point, I probably would have taken you up on the deal. That and being able to tell Miss Piggy to go to hell. I wanted to do that for years."


"See, it worked out great," Lisa insisted. "And this will, too."


"How about, instead, we support our friends the old fashioned way?" Taylor asked. "I mean this as a friend, Lisa, but you can't keep doing this. I know neither of them are really your friends. Really, past me and maybe-kinda Crystal, you don't have any friends here."


"I prefer keeping things professional," Lisa answered. "It's easier that way."


AnnoyanceRegret. "Yeah, I thought that way once," she sighed. "Lisa, maybe this started like that... but we're friends here. Most of us are, one way or another, a family. I have Amelia, and you, right?"


"Of course!" Lisa insisted. "Don't you dare doubt that."


"And Amelia has me and Crystal and Riley," she continued. "Crystal's a bit standoffish, and even she's pretty close to Zach and you. Which is weird, because you two are easily the hardest people in this group to get along with."


"She has years of experience dealing with me and Victoria," I reminded. "Plus Aunt Sarah's awesome with people, and Crystal takes after her mom."


"Then Riley's got Missy and Emma and even Theo and Zach a bit," Taylor continued. "Theo gets along pretty well with Zach despite them seeming almost nothing like each other at all."


"I have Theo and Riley, of course," Missy added. "And Chariot. Trevor's a great guy, if a bit of a loner. But that's how Tinkers are, y'know. He'll probably be a 'less a-hole' version of Armsmaster. Not the highest bar in the world to set, of course."


"The list goes on. Rey's the only one who's not really 'close' to any of us," Taylor concluded. "He treats this whole thing as a job. Which is fine, I'm not sure that there can be a non-creepy way for the thirty year old pothead to be friends with a bunch of teenagers. He's not causing any drama and has his own life outside of work to worry about. You, on the other hand... I know you've been in a slump, lately. I'd like to help you out of it, we all would."


"Umm..." Lisa frowned. "Are you holding an intervention, now?"


ShockAmusement. "Well, it didn't start that way, but I guess so," she agreed. "We just want you to start concerning yourself with how your actions actually impact people. We're more than cogs in a machine here, Lisa. And so are you. Please remember that."


She sighed. "You're right," she finally admitted.


"The 'Emma' plan wouldn't work anyway," another voice spoke up. Everyone except Taylor looked. Emma was standing in the doorway. "Don't get me wrong, I wish it would. But it won't. Thanks for looking out for my feelings, Missy." She smiled at Missy. "And thanks for the alert, Taylor."


Taylor shrugged. PleasedSad.


"What we need," I suggested. "Is a party. A group get together that has nothing to do with work. At all. Just having fun together. Last time we did anything like that was the fourth of July, and that doesn't count because it was a public gathering."


"That actually sounds like a really good idea," Taylor agreed. Everyone else looked around. "Now we just need an excuse. Something relatively innocent."


"I may have a suggestion," Emma volunteered.


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

A/N- And Missy didn't even get to punch anyone.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 177


"Alright," Missy instructed. "Everyone quiet."


We waited in silence as Riley walked in. A quick mental instruction, and the walls unfurled. "Surprise!" we shouted in unison, causing the girl to jump like a bomb went off. "Happy birthday!"


"But it's not my birthday!" she exclaimed, both confused and smiling.


"Makes it easier to surprise you, doesn't it?" Missy pointed out, having warped around behind her friend, causing her to jump again.


Emma spoke next. "I remember you saying you don't remember your actual birthday, so we decided to pick one for you. Because we can do that kinda thing. Plus we have to do it before it gets too cold to properly appreciate ice cream."


"Plus nine, nine sounded like as good a number as any," Zach added. "Now let's all get fat on icecream. Except me, I have a power related exemption to obesity. The rest of you are just going to have to live with it."


"Okay, Clarice," I said, glancing over at Vicky. Lucky us, she really had no idea of what Bonesaw looked like. Clarice was a 'known' low level shapeshifter, after all, so the black haired girl could easily be the same person, no questions asked.


Of course, all the 'kids' of our group, Zach and Theo and Missy and Trevor, were here. And the 'adults', meaning the other core members. Except Rey, Sabah and Lily. There was no reason to involve them in this. The former had found an exciting new idea for his evolution project, and the others really didn't interact well with Riley. "So it's up to you. Food first, or cake?"


Riley was all smiles. "What's the food?"


"Pizza," I answered.


"Pizza," Riley agreed.


"My poor figure," Vicky moaned in mock grief.


....


The various cliques formed up as expected. Emma and Trevor managed to trip across some kind of Tinker topic, and suddenly the rest of the party didn't exist to them. Taylor and I managed to back ourselves out of the center of attention, and somehow Lisa was chatting with Vicky and Crystal. I, meanwhile, thanked every star that Vicky had no idea she was talking to the girl formerly known as Tattletale.


"Oh god damn it," Taylor sighed. AnnoyanceAmusement. "Remember when you said we needed to get Lisa laid? And then we forgot to do it?"


A sense of dread hit me. "What is she trying to do this time?"


"Let's put it this way... how would you like to have an immortal brother in law?"


"You cannot possibly be serious," I groaned. "Honestly? Has Crystal mentioned how Zach keeps hitting on her?"


"If I didn't know better, I'd swear she was in on it with Lisa," Taylor elaborated. "Come to think of it, I actually don't know better. Do you think your cousin would hook Zach up with your sister?"
"Yes, I totally see that happening," I acknowledged, rubbing my hand over my eyes. "I am going to kill them both. Then I am going to have Riley raise them from the dead. Then I am going to turn them into cows and feed them to Dinah's griffon."


"Don't you have a mass limitation? Pretty sure they're significantly smaller than a cow," Taylor joked.


Then I'll turn them both into a single small cow," I corrected. "Happy now?"


"I'll get the steak sauce," she offered. AmusedMischievous. "And maybe some chocolate sauce for later," she added in a low voice. I blushed, and then leaned against her.


"You're a horrible tease," I informed her yet again.


....


"Time for the cake!" Zach announced, carrying the tray it was on. What he set down was, amusingly enough, shaped like a mushroom. Some red toadstool looking thing with large black dots for eyes on the stem.


"You are such a geek," Missy informed him.


"Guilty," he agreed. "And it took me forever to find a bakery that could figure out what I was talking about. So show proper gratitude."


"I love it!" Riley declared, smiling broadly. "I've never had a custom cake before!"



CompassionPitySad. I glanced over at Taylor. She was right, it was sad. The poor girl had lived with a group of traveling monsters. If they even cared about her birthday, it was as a sick game by Jack. Riley was so happy every time she go to do something that was normal to the point of boring. And I was still thinking about that while singing her birthday song, and feeling sorry that we couldn't use her real name for it. Not for the first time, I wished I had made Jack's death take longer.


"Blow out the candles and make a birthday wish," Missy instructed. Riley, smiling, did as instructed and took out all twelve candles in a single blow, to the cheers of everyone present. Some were probably more about being polite than anything, but it made her happy.


Lisa stayed away from the cake, though she did grab some chocolate ice cream. I opted to approach her then, when she was alone for a minute. "Y'know, if you keep putting all this effort into getting Zach laid," I started. "I'm going to start to suspect you have a crush on him."


She looked at me. "And if I deny it, you're just going to claim I'm in denial, huh?"


"You did the same thing to me and Taylor for weeks, even knowing there was nothing at all between us," I pointed out.


"Yep," she said with a 'pop' sound on the 'p'. "And that's why I'm not going to fall for the trap."


"You do realize that I can create a disease that only works on you, right?" I asked. "That's my sister."


"She thinks Zach's hot," Lisa informed my dismissive. "That's not my fault."


"You don't have to encourage it," I insisted.


"All I did was point out that he's surprisingly insightful for a moron," she insisted. "Crystal's the one who did most of the work."


I just stood there, letting the skepticism drip from my stance.


"... after I prompted her," Lisa admitted. "Besides, tell me your sister doesn't need someone with a sense of humor. Or, for that matter, the ability to actually understand other people. Something that seems genetically impossible for your family and everyone they're romantically interested in."


"Don't see her going after a younger guy," I countered. I didn't bother arguing the second part of that. It was, after all, painfully true.


"Only a bit over a year, there," Lisa corrected. "Less if you subtract the three months for not existing."


"Well, at least he's an improvement over Dean," I finally conceded. "Do you have any idea how an empath could be so damn dense when it comes to people?"


"As often as you've dealt with Lisa doing basically the same dumb things," Crystal spoke up from where she'd come up behind me. "You'd think you'd have figured it out by now. Thinkers are actually stupid."


"Oh, fuck you, too," Lisa replied.


....


"And now the most important part," I said. "Gifts!"


Riley was, of course, still having the time of her life. It was something of a pity there weren't more kids around her age available for this. Not that she had a real lack of options.


"Mine first," I handed her a package. Riley tore into it. "New backpack," I told her.


"Love Bug!" she exclaimed, showing the picture on the pack. I kinda worried about her dealing with kids making fun of her for such obviously childish loves, but Clarice was already weird enough that a little more would only help her persona.


Taylor handed hers over next. "Sort of a matching set," she said as Riley pulled out her brand new coat, same show theme. Granted, Clarice didn't need it and I was pretty sure Riley had added cybernetics that meant she didn't need it, either. "Hard to find one in a size that'd fit, but you've got it."


Riley quickly put it on, despite it not being nearly cold enough for that yet. "It's perfect, thank you!"


"We all had to pitch in on this one," Missy handed over hers. Riley opened it, pulling out a red and white outfit that was too small to be for her. It had extra arms, too. "We had Clotho put together a Christmas outfit for Snowball."


"We were originally thinking a Halloween costume, but then we thought he doesn't need help for that," Theo spoke up.


"I voted for Valentine's Day, myself," Zach added. "But I was overruled."


"We'll have to show off mine later," Emma replied. "It isn't here yet."


"Okay, I'm next," Victoria stated. I didn't even know she brought a gift. She waited for Riley to pull the wrapping off. Another outfit. "It's an equestrian outfit. For when you ride Bella."
"Cool!" Riley pulled out the dark blue jacket.


"It's from both of us," Crystal added.


"My idea," Victoria claimed.


"You didn't even know her size," Crystal argued back. "Plus I bought the boots, which are the best part."


"Whatever," Victoria replied.


"And I'm last," Lisa spoke up, handing over hers. "I figured everyone else would do clothes. I got you a book. Complete works of Edgar Allen Poe. I was gonna get you some Lovecraft, but then I decided that my sanity has suffered enough, already."


=========

A/N- A Waff chapter. I figured we were due for one.

I'll get around to Moar Suffering! later.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 178- Taylor


"That was a nice thing you did for Riley," I said to Emma. It still bothered me, talking to her. Remembering our first few years of our life together. Then remembering the last few. Still, I had to admit she'd done everything possible to help the team. To help me. And I did promise her to at least try to be friends again.


"Thanks," she responded. "She deserved it, after everything she's done for the team."


I frowned. Riley was not what I would call my favorite person. For all she tried to make up for everything, she was still Bonesaw. She still vivisected Brian, which at least partially led to... to everything he'd done to his captives. I read the mission summary: parahuman batteries, deliberate Crawler based mutations. Over a dozen confirmed homocides.


Emma realized her mistake quickly enough. She always did know how to read me, I reminded myself. "Sorry, sometimes it's really easy to forget. Or hard to remember that she's the one who did... everything else she's done."


"I know," I replied. It really, really was.


"It is kinda... I don't know... encouraging?" Emma continued. "If someone like her can find forgiveness, and even friends and happiness. Do something good with her life. That means there's hope for almost everyone, doesn't it?"


"Maybe," I offered. I wasn't sure I believed it, but the idea was comforting.


....


AmusementWorry. "Jeez, Taylor, you weren't half this nervous when we were waiting for the Endbringer," Amelia teased.


"Endbringers are easy," I defended myself. "See it, and either run from it or do everything you can to kill it. Either you succeed or you fail, then end. This, on the other hand... I'm about to meet my future mother and father and sister in laws..."


"You're assuming I'm still going to accept your proposal," Amelia teased.


"MY proposal," I mock-scoffed. "You're the one who keeps checking out my backside. And my rack, now that I have one. Still don't know if I should thank Emma for that, or punch her in the face a third time."


"I could always fix that for you," Amelia pointed out. "Speaking of, I've yet to see you in that bikini."


"Oh, as if it would fit now," I countered.


AmusementDesire. "That is a selling point, actually" she replied in a rather sultry voice. I blushed.


"And then there's everyone else at this get together," I pointed out to her. "I get to meet my future aunt-in-law slash potential future step mother and future cousin-in-law slash teammate slash potential step sister. I still don't know how to process that."


"Crystal said she's pretty sure Sarah's never gonna get remarried," Amelia informed me. I shrugged. I didn't think dad would ever remarry, either.


"So, yeah, no matter how you look at this," I continued. "Definitely harder to handle than Enbringers. With them, the rules are simple- you win or they kill you." ConcernDismay. "Err... sorry, I keep forgetting that I, uh..." I didn't know what to say. Or at least, not how to say it. I died, I reminded myself again. Or she died and I'm the backup. It wasn't a thing either of us wanted to talk about. Easier for us to ignore that it happened.


She hugged me from behind, and I pushed back against her. "It's okay," she insisted, pushing her feelings into the link. "I love you." My heart jumped. NervousConcern. "Taylor? Are you okay? I shouldn't have said that, should I?"


"No!" I replied, turning to face her. "No. It was just a bit of a shock. I mean, I already knew. The link and all. It's just the first time you've actually said it." ApprehensionWorry. I blinked. Oh. "It... it's not, is it?" I asked.


"No, it's not," she reluctantly admitted.


I pulled her tight against me. "Well, that's fine," I told her. "In case you had any doubts, I love you, too."


"I know", she agreed. I thought about repeating the sexuality alteration... but, no. It didn't go well last time, and I didn't want to bring it up. My own notes left for me by my other self didn't say much on the subject, simply that it was 'a bad plan, don't do it'. That part of my life was quite literally over, and it was best simply to allow it to stay that way. I am happy like this.


....


Amelia and I arrived at the restaurant, driven by my dad.


"Thanks, Danny," Amelia said as we arrived.


"Not a problem, girls," my father said cheerfully. He had dressed in an actual suit for this. At some point, someone had decided to make this a particularly fancy get together, complete with getting a private room at a high end restaurant. The kind of place that we'd probably have to sign up on a waiting list for, normally. Luckily, we didn't have that problem. I preferred to imagine it had more to do with the owner being a long term friend of Carol's than anything else.


The greeter was all smiles, and led us to our section.


Carol and Vicky were already here, as well as Sarah and Crystal. Vicky gave me a rather unhappy look. Amelia glanced between us and simply sighed. AnnoyanceDismay. I put my hand on the small of her back and gave a slight rub. Despite the sheer irrationality of it, on any number of levels, I was still jealous of Victoria. She had looks on her side, and she was Amelia's first crush. It didn't help that she was flat out hostile toward me, not that I could fault her for it. What I did to her was pretty unforgivable.


Danny followed in behind us, and glanced across the room. "Hello, Carol," he said with a practiced neutrality that he'd been forced to use an awful lot of late, having to deal with the Mayor and other political types. He often complained that he spent more time talking to those assholes than his own people, these days.


"Good to see you again, Danny," she offered a winning smile. Amy's family has absurdly good genes, I decided for not the first time. "I'm afraid I probably made a poor impression the last time we spoke."


"It's fine," he answered. "I know what it's like to be in a difficult place."


"Hopefully I'll do better this time around," she offered.


Sarah was visibly relieved, as she walked forward to wrap her arm around Dad's. This wasn't the first time I'd seen them together, but it was the first time during an 'official' date. ConcernComfort, Amelia transmitted to me. I smiled, just letting myself be happy that Dad was happy.


"So, this is the famous and elusive Taylor," a man spoke cheerfully from behind me.


I knew he was coming, of course, and made the guess that it was Mark. I turned toward him. "Mister Dallon, I presume?"


"Please, don't call me that," he smiled broadly. "Makes me feel old. Besides, you're engaged to my daughter. You can call me Mark, or even Dad, whichever you prefer."


I don't know who was made least comfortable by that suggestion, but it probably wasn't me. ShockEmbarrassmentConcern. "I'll keep that in mind, Mark," I said after a moment. If Amelia's Dad noticed any of our discomfort, he pretended not to, instead opting to give Amelia a hug and then make his way over to Victoria. The rest of us simply looked at each other awkwardly.


....


The meal went well enough, and fortunately or no it was Mark that made things both more and less awkward. More by encouraging all of us to be more familiar with each other than most of us were willing to be, and less by at least breaking the ice. Eventually, it got the adults sharing stories about how the city 'use to be', back when the other half of us were in grade school. They made it sound a lot nicer than I believed possible.


This allowed Crystal and Victoria to talk with each other about their lives. Meanwhile, Amelia and I got to eat quietly, being the wallflowers that we naturally preferred to be. Sure, we were stronger now, and with the benefits of our bond to give us confidence, we could handle the spotlight. But we didn't like it the way most of the others in this room did. We chose to let the others have their fun.


'Taylor?' Lisa's voice spoke into her armor. 'Sorry to interrupt. Grue was broken out of containment, along with a handful of other captives.'


'Anything that we can do about it now?' I asked. Dammit, I thought. I knew that even, especially, those who are destined for the Birdcage needed a trial... but it left way too many chances for the criminal to escape. You're going to have a kill order next time we find you, aren't you Brian? I didn't know if I could handle killing someone I loved, once. Or thought I loved, at least. It was a childish crush with someone who wouldn't have been interested to begin with. Like Amelia and Victoria, I added. That made me feel a little better.


'Afraid not,' she answered. 'I'll probably go there tomorrow to help investigate some. We don't know that it was even Brian they were after, but he's one of the escapees.'


"Taylor?" Amelia asked. "Is something wrong?" I noted that the others had noticed that I'd gotten tense.


'Do you think he'll come back here?" I asked Lisa.


"Uh, sorta," I replied. "Work related, but nothing we have to worry about right now. Better to just not let it ruin dinner."


'Probably not,' Lisa answered. 'He has a specific vendetta against those he holds responsible for Aisha's death. We didn't cause that. Calvert might still be a target, but I highly doubt he'll try that again any time soon.'


'Understood,' I transmitted. Dammit, Brian. At least I already ate most of my food, because my appetite was ruined for the night.


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

A/N- Because , that's why. I did go out of my way to make it more clear about what Taylor would know from her lost week.

... And, yes, the next chapter is the start of the next Endbringer arc.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 179


"By the way," Crystal said as she walked in. "Mom says thank you for the armor. And I say go to hell, I had to spend all freakin' yesterday teaching her how to use the equipment. You're not planning to recruit her, are you?"


"Not really," I responded. "All we really did was give her one of your hand-me-downs. Do you think she'd accept if we offered her a spot on the team?"


"Probably," Crystal responded. "I don't think she'd last long. Basement Bonesaws... I know I'm almost nineteen and could just move in here, but she'd still find a way to ground me for the rest of my life. Then there's all the other horrible stuff we do. If she found out the Nilbog plan, we-"


Our phones' emergency alert went off simultaneously. Crystal, in her armor already, could read it through that interface before I could get to mine. She only had one word to say. "Endbringer."


"A month early?" I asked. FearConfusionDetermination.


"That or Dragon's tech is broken," Crystal defended.


I had gotten up already and was running to my room. I needed my armor. Taylor had hers at home. I held still as the biosuit worked its way over my body, sealing itself. I'd need my second layer, of course, but I was now wearing the indispensable systems, at least.


I didn't bother with stairs, simply forcing the floor of my bedroom to open, so I could drop into the next layer. "Everything important ready?" I asked Emma as I levitated down. Of course I knew not everything was ready. The early attack screwed up our plans.


"Everything essential," Emma answered. "A lot of the Raptors are underdeveloped right now. They'll do what Taylor needs them to do, but they won't be as good. We also have to leave a lot of the new zerglings behind." Of course, since she and I were both suited, Taylor would hear every word we spoke.


"Fuck," I muttered. "Will it be enough?" I found my Dryad, now upgraded with tinker tech to get a 'v3' tacked on. Still wasn't as good as any of the other named suits, but it was designed specifically with me in mind.


"Twice the numbers we had last time," Emma informed. "Half of what we wanted. At least all the new armor systems are fully operational?" she offered.


"That'll do," I replied.


Riley rushed in, wearing her own set of bioarmor. Wasn't even close to the same capability as the rest of our, but it was meant for sensory tech and medical function, not a combat model. Clarice v16 was her combat model. Both designs were Emma's present to Riley, a joint project between her and Defiant. "The school knows," she announced. "I'm going to use Clarice fourteen to shunt everyone over. Faster that way, I can fix her later."


Part of the standard protocol for Endbringer battles is that all schools were canceled during attacks, nationwide. It was good policy, for Wards to be able to participate, and also fairly redundant, since what were the possible odds that anyone would do anything productive anyway? I slipped into the pilot position of my armor. It wasn't a match for most of the other suits, but it was still my suit.


"Got the newsfeeds," Taylor informed us over the communications. "Mexico City. Recent parahuman civil war seems to be the lure." One of the many, I thought darkly. "No prediction on which."


"Makes sense," Crystal spoke. "After what happened in New Delhi, they probably don't trust the prediction software. "


"I'm not so certain," Lisa replied.


Riley, meanwhile, had rushed over to the armor storage bays, and had shunted over Singularity and the other armor systems for Zach and Theo, as well as her combat variant of Clarice. Then she climbed into my Dryad, into the compartment that was actually built for her this time.


Most of our members had assembled on the other side of our personal world already. The zerg armies had assembled, pulling themselves out of their burrowed hibernation. Many were older models- we had functionally infinite raw material, so there was no need to recycle anything unless it was a failure to begin with.


Taylor was the last one to arrive physically, looking splendid in her armor. Missy didn't ask, and we watched as space folded and bent before us. Not for the first time, I wished we had a way to shunt things without the hassle of containment fields. We could draw Endbringers here and kill them on our terms.


Missy didn't wait for permission, she simply stepped forward. Her own power, plus all the tech in her suit, let her pinpoint exactly where we needed to go without outside help. Space bent and twisted itself to her whims, creating a distortion of light. The formation was so vast that electricity danced around the corners due to the stresses the air was being pushed through. Relatively minor, our sensors didn't even register it as a threat. Not that it mattered, the Gargants went through first, collecting as much power as they could and clearing the energy.


We walked through, followed by the zergling armies.


Chariot pulled out a device and planted it in the mass of Yggdrasil. Several teleports later, using the tech that Kid Win originally created, the area had its own control platform. We had learned our lesson from last time. If at all possible, we would stay on this side of the dimensional barrier. Riley sent over Clarice with our Shadowcats, for search and rescue.


We were there ahead of schedule, if only by a few minutes. It was all locals. Zerg started shunting through, taking their positions. Capes were startled at first, but our reputations proceeded us, making it possible to warn them. Lisa's changeling shunted over to their control center. Taylor's shunted in with the flyers. Zach shunted in his brand new suicide-bomber Raptor. Supposedly, it was the most destructive weapon ever made by human hands. Our tinkers were stationed in the portable control system.


The scenery around us flickered and shifted, providing the ghostly impression of a city abandoned by normal men. Only parahumans, and our biomonsters, existed here. It was illusory, a visual illusion created for our benefit, that we could see what was happening on Bet from the comfort and safety of our alternate dimension. The rest of us, waited and watched.


"Behemoth, probably," Rey spoke to Emma. She probably asked about the Endbringer, I decided. "Way too far from the shore to be Leviathan."


"I'll bet you money it's not Behemoth," Lisa responded.


"What makes you think Leviathan would come here?" Rey asked.


"I don't," Lisa answered. "I think we're about to see a fourth Endbringer." ApprehensionRealization. "Taylor, fan the Zerg out to as many locations as possible. I've started issuing commands to the locals to avoid engaging the Endbringer. When this fight starts, we're going to be relying upon you alone. Force the new Endbringer to show as many of its tricks as possible before committing actual people to the battle."


CertaintyAnticipation. "I can do that," she agreed.


A sonic boom announced the first Dragon battle suit arriving. Others, the bulkier and slower ones, would arrive eventually. Many carrying parahuman reinforcements. None would be in time to coordinate with the local. The Endbringer picked that moment to arrive. It came from nowhere, without warning or fanfare, one moment there was nothing and the next it stood in the midst of the defensive line.


It was only about twelve feet tall, significantly shorter than the nearest Gargant. It was, however, the biggest Endbringer in total mass, as it was a quadruped. The beast was black, not merely a dark color, but a total absence of light. It was impossible to determine features, but it could have been a wolf, in the same way Behemoth was a parody of a body builder, and Simurgh a parody of a woman. Nine long, almost swordlike spines extended from its back and shoulders. Three tails extended from it, each possessing a nasty, scythelike blade at the end.


A gargant slammed into its size, taking heavy damage as it impaled itself on a shoulder spike. The new Endbringer's scythe-tales wrapped around the gargant and flensed it, peeling flesh and external armor plating from Taylor's weapon. FocusDeterminationAnger.


"Well, we know it has a nasty close range weapon. All the others have had something that let them hurt outside a close range kill radius, what should we expect from this one?"


"Whatever features it has, it's likely to be safe from the weapons we used to destroy the Simurgh," Lisa spoke as we watched the holographic representation of the clash. Wow, that looks incredibly lifelike, I thought to myself.


"What makes you think that?" Rey asked.


"Because it's what I would do," she replied.

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

A/N- *Looks at the likes in the most recent chapters.

*Looks at the likes in the older chapters.

You jerks are holding out on me.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 180


After shredding the Gargant, the beast vanished. ConfusionWorry. We didn't have long to wait, alerted by screaming. The buildings not-exactly-around-us exploded into rubble that rained down, and the monster appeared again in the ranks of the defensive line, its tails lashing out and killing nine capes.


"Destructive Teleporter?" Taylor asked.


"Space warper," Trevor responded. "It travels through the space between where it disappears and reappears."


"It's using my power," Missy concluded. "Only different. No Manton limit, to begin with."


"Not just yours," Lisa added. "All three of the Moirai. Its powerset is a combination. The tails are, functionally, the ribbon weapon we made for the cannon. It can use space warping to attack at any possible range. I bet it sees the way Lachesis can see through her power."


DoubtDetermination. "Then you'll just have to tell us how to beat your power," Taylor replied to Missy.


"Let me go in," Lily replied. "We know my power bypasses hers. I can fight that fucker in direct combat."


"Not yet," Lisa commanded. "It still has at least one more trick it hasn't revealed. If you go in now, it will kill you. Missy, help Zach. We'll see if that weapon works first. Taylor, same theory with the Razorbats." Lisa took flight, getting above the holographic battlefield.


Meanwhile, the creature had moved again, leaving another swath of destruction, and another nine dead.


The Razorbats were a nasty new weapon that I really wished we had time to build more of, and they started shunting through, near the creature. "Surround the area," Missy instructed. "Space them two feet apart and have them all detonate the moment it vanishes."


"Got it," Taylor replied, ignoring the dozen more that were slaughtered. I couldn't help but stare. There are no wounding strikes, I realized. Every attack is precise, each resulting in the decapitation of the victim. Not a single exception.


The creature vanished, and the Razorbats blossomed into a gray mist of nanothorns, disintegrating much of the area around them. I watched the cloud distort and part, leaving a disruptive imprint. The newest Endbringer manifested again, this time covered in rents, visible only in profile. Its insides were as dark as its skin layer. ExcitementSatisfaction. It then slaughtered another nine nearby capes.


The defenders had manage to orient themselves, and a dozen streams of energy caught the monster. There was no explosion, no reaction at all from the beast. All the energy vanished into nowhere.


The attackers didn't let up, as a pair of Gargants got into attack range, slamming into it from both sides with enough force that their nanofiber tusks sank into its flesh. Thankfully held in place, that left an opening, and Dragon's new anti-Endbringer artillery ship fired its Gatling cannons down on the trapped monster. Each had a short nanothorn explosion built in. They decimated the area, as the monster twisted to avoid them and break its grip. Both Gargants were chewed to pieces by the fire, but that was acceptable. They were disposable.


Freed of the Gargants, the Endbringer jumped again. It reappeared, this time missing one of its tails. With the remaining pair it lashed out and claimed six more capes the exact same way. RealizationHorrorDisgust.


"That telefragging fuck!" Zach cursed.


"Let me in this fight," Lily insisted. "My backup is only ten hours old, I'm not afraid of to play test dummy here."


"Not yet," Lisa insisted. "Trust me."


"Alexandria present," Dragon's com announced. We didn't have armbands, but we did have our mobile command center.


"Alexandria," Lisa spoke into her system. "It waits just slightly more than half a minute between jumps, you have about six seconds. Wait for its jump. Hit it immediately after Osiris. Osiris, sending coordinates. I want you there, expect it to appear almost right below you."


"Got it," Zach answered


They moved into position, and Lisa proved correct. Six more names came across the the announcements. I tried not to think too hard about the loss of lives, and how Lisa didn't warn the victims of their coming fate. Zach collided into the creature, releasing the single most powerful Nanothorn weapon ever designed. Reluctantly loaned to us by Defiant, after we demonstrated that we, at least, could use it more than once. A cyllander of grey mist thirty feet wide formed instantly vanished. The monster fell downward into the hundred foot deep hole left behind. It can't fly, good to know.


Alexandria plunged into the hole, holding her spear and trailed by a fifty foot long ivory colored rope. One of the weapons we'd built for her, using her own genetic material. A chain made of her own, cloned, bone tissue. Formed into a chain thin enough to be used for jewelry, and every bit as indestructible as she was. As long as she was holding it, at least. Once no longer in contact with her skin, it was as frail as anyone else's would have been.


Fortunately, we built her a system that let her grow as many of them as she needed, and hooked her up with the same kind of tech that Crystal had for her weapon summoning. It wasn't the best weapons we'd ever built, but it was the only real way we had to improve on Alexandria.


I couldn't see what happened inside the pit, but I was still holding my breath when she came out tugging on the chain several seconds later, the other end wrapped around this new Endbringer and the spear plunged deep into its throat. We could watch as the monster regenerated, where the white bone rope was being covered by newly generated solid black Endbringer tissue.


"Four seconds until it jumps again," Lisa announced. A stream of lasers hit the Endbringer, to no effect. Legend had arrived. The beast moved again, and Alexandria found herself dragged along with it. Six more died.


There was a brief glow around Alexandria and she skyrocketed into the air, carrying the Endbringer with her. What kind of power was that? Zach took the hint and followed, again detonating against the creature. We had, however, cut as deep as that weapon could allow. After a certain point, Endbringers became tougher than Alexandria, and we had confirmed that her weapons weren't damageable by the thorns.


Alexandria kept flying straight upward, pulling the monster as far above the city as possible. It was one of our agreed upon strategies for use of the chain, simply dragging the creatures from the battlefield.


"Can I go, yet?" Lily asked eagerly.


"No," Lisa answered. "The fucker is still holding back its trump card. Wait until it needs to jump again."


ConfusionConcern. "Needs to?" Taylor asked.


"It always jumps at the same moment, each time. It claims a set number of lives. What happens when that's impossible? What will it do?"


I blinked. Good question, I realized. I looked upward at the captive Endbringer above us. We'll find out soon.


Blue lightning launched from the monster, dancing across the sky and trailing up the bone chain. Legend Deceased. Alexandria Deceased, Dragon's system announced. The bone weaponry shattered, and the monster claimed three more lives.


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

A/N- Endbringers: "because fuck you".

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 181


"Fuck me," Lily muttered. "Well, we've seen its fucking secret weapon, are you happy now?"


"No, there's still more," Lisa answered.


"How the fuck can there be more!?" Lily asked. "It just killed Legend and Alexandria!"


"Alexandria's not dead," Lisa replied. "Not yet, at least. Aceso, you'll have to clear a bit of ice out of her lungs, but she's alive, as long as you can get to her quickly."


"On it," Riley answered. "Khepri, I need you to help with a couple of the shadowcats."


"Thus far, this one's only been targeting capes," she continued. "It's not doing the kind of overall damage an Endbringer tends to do. It also proves a few things I've suspected about the Endbringers for a while now. Don't worry, I'll fill you in later."


Meanwhile the Endbringer had again been swarmed by the zerg. Taylor had stopped any semblance of holding back, throwing everything she had at it just to bury it under disposable bodies. It didn't appear to be working all that well, as the waves of frustration off Taylor indicated. It was easily fast enough to outrun any of the monsters we had available, and was powerful enough to kill them with relative ease, even down to one tail.

It vanished again, reappearing to kill three more capes. "Oh fucking christ no," Lisa muttered. She forgot to turn off our com before switching on the other. "Everyone! Fall back, take cover!" she shouted through the changeling. "Khepri, activate all the energy shunts!" DreadDetermination.


The various anti-Behemoth systems, which had largely gone to waste in New Delhi, were deployed, blanketing the area with fans and sails and strings. The Endbringer then burst into a pulse of destructive energy, unleashing fire and electricity and sonic energy across the battlefield. Our hologram flickered out.


"Clarice is still functional," Riley announced to us. "Collecting all kinds of data. Heavy on the light spectrum, some other exotic energy effects. And a high power sonic effect that I'm having touble interpreting.


"Transfer your feed," Emma instructed. "Let me have a look."


"The Endbringer appears to be gone," Taylor informed us. "It's hard to be certain, given its powers, but I think it retreated."


"Not a retreat," Lisa answered. "It did exactly what it came here to do. That's how this one will function every time. A battle lasting exactly five minutes and thirty three seconds. Fifty four capes decapitated. And then a fuck you bomb right at the end. It was following a script so obvious that everyone watching could figure it out. It's letting us know that they leave when they choose to leave, not because of anything we have done to force them to.


HorrorDisgust. I didn't say a thing. I couldn't think of any words to say.


....


Hundreds of gallons of Yggdrasil mass were shunted into the city, designed to squelch fires and reinforce streets. The city was damaged, but this wasn't like New Delhi. This could be rebuilt. A lot of capes were wounded, but not as many as one might have expected. The Protectorate hadn't even managed to deploy most of its forces, much less got them here on time. Dragon's personal ship hadn't even arrived, only a couple of her fast response drones.


"I remember during the Brockton Bay fight," Taylor spoke. "When they called Leviathan a 'good day' against an Endbringer. By that standard, this was the best Endbringer battle in history. Not enough people even managed to arrive here for the explosion to be really bad."


Eidolon arrived as we finally started shunting across.


Lisa looked at him. "You chose to sit this one out?" she asked.


"I... decided on a different course," he sighed. "Limited power, remember? I have to apply it where I can do the most actual good. Not knowing what this new Endbringer could do, I couldn't trust to select the right types of powers to fight it. Instead, I found one for the aftermath," he took to the sky as a bright blue green aura surrounded him. His arms outstretch, he waited until he was brighter then the sun, then clapped his hands together. The light burst washed over the city.


I felt the sudden presence of life amongst the people that my Yggdrasil had covered. "Holy fuck... he just brought back the dead," I informed the others. "All of them, as far as I can tell. Everyone the new Endbringer just killed."


JoyRelief. Taylor smiled for the first time since the battle started. "Then we can consider this one a real victory," she declared.


"In more ways than one," Lisa agreed.


"You figured something out, didn't you?" I asked.


"A few things," Lisa answered. "But I'd really prefer to not have to repeat myself. Let's wait for Dragon and the others."


....


We had managed, eventually, to gather the more directly important forces. Alexandria and the rest of the Triumvirate. Chevalier, who was the new head of the Protectorate. I wasn't sure what his powers were, but he carried an impressive as looking sword and armor of pristine white. And of course Dragon, Defiant and Narwhal from the Guild. It was staggering to imagine the kind of influence and power we were hosting right now.


"Impressive," Alexandria declared, looking across the area. "And am I wrong to believe that you've completely covered this world in Yggdrasil? No other forms of life on the entire planet but that which you've created for it?"


I felt a little self conscious at the clear S-class grade power that I had demonstrated. "It was a dead world when we found it," I offered lamely.


"You don't have to pretend you're surprised," Lisa replied. "We know you've spied on our planet before, maybe even crossed over into it. Right now, I suspect we're not the only groups on the planet truly capable of interdimensional travel, but we are both capable of it."


Alexandria nodded "Very well, I won't insult you by pretending otherwise," she agreed. "You were saying you determined something valuable about the Endbringers?"


"I can confirm they're controlled by a human intelligence," Lisa answered. HorrorAnger. "Maybe not in the literal sense. Probably more similar to Dragon's droneships than to our own bioconstructs."


"And you know this because?" Alexandria asked.


"I trust Eidolon's shared what he learned from us?" Lisa asked.


"About what you are calling Passengers, right?" Alexandria answered. Dragon shared a glance toward Defiant and then Narwhal.


"What 'Passengers'?" Chevalier asked.


"They are the source of all powers," Lisa answered. "Every parahuman has a Passenger."


"The Protectorate's researchers call them Agents," Alexandria added. "Although our understanding of them seems to differ from Pantheon's, we have come to a number of the same conclusions. Unfortunately, the information we do have is functionally useless."


"Is that what I see when I look at parahumans?" he asked. "These Passengers?"


ShockCuriousity. "Wait, you can see our powers?"


"Not exactly," he replied. "It's a... like visual symbolism. An abstract of what the power can achieve, in a humanoid representation and left for me to try to interpret."


"What does my power look like?" I blurted out, before stopping to think.


"... Distracting..." he answered, looking away. "Yours and hers," he gestured at Taylor. "I'm not sure what my power is trying to tell me about your powers, but I can tell you that I'm trying very hard not to look." MortificationWorryPride.


"I'd really like to study your power," Emma spoke up. The fact that Clarice was standing next to her prodding at her may have had something to do with it. "We're doing our best to learn more about how the Passengers function, and your ability would probably help a great deal."


"My power sight is, technically, classified," he answered. "I mentioned it only because you already seem to know more on the subject than I do."


"I'll bring the matter up with the Directors," Alexandria spoke. "I have some leverage. There may be some negotiations, but I suspect they'll demand that you share every scrap of information you learn on this matter with them. Now, let us move on to what you believe about the Endbringers."


"Initially I suspected that the Endbringers were Passengers as well. We know they're not human and do not think like humans. They can't comprehend most ideas that are instinctual to us. Although, to be fair, I doubt we could grasp the ebbs and flows of reality and dimensions, or all the insane complexities that our powers can perform. Different doesn't necessarily mean worse, and in this case probably means far superior."


"But it does mean that behaviors would change," Alexandria agreed. "It's the 'Rule of Three' that made you certain, wasn't it?"


"Of course," Lisa answered. "The thing waited exactly thirty three and a third seconds between its jump attacks. Killing three people per tail per jump. Shedding a tail after every third jump, detonating after the ninth. The total length of the battle was exactly three hundred and thirty three seconds. That's hardly a coincidence. In addition, the Endbringer prediction software. If they were truly alien, if they came from the source of powers, it couldn't work on them."


"Makes sense," Dragon replied. "It might also explain why Rapture's technology was so valuable in improving our predictive software."


"In addition, they're still currently active," she responded. "They watched our battle with the Simurgh. I might even suspect they were there during the battle, given the obvious Rule of Three pattern, and how the killing weapon was powered by three parahumans. But it's more likely they were watching through some remote viewing technology built into the Simurgh."


"Do you have any suspects on who the Endbringers' creator or creators might be?" Alexandria asked. "Or what they're trying to accomplish?"


"Not as such, no," Lisa admitted.

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

A/N- Yay! Chevalier! And one step closer to solving all the mysteries.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 182


"So now that that's out of the way," Dragon responded. "We have to ask ourselves another set of questions. Namely: do we keep killing Endbringers? Clearly, when one dies, another is born to take its place. It poses a risk, to destroy one and risk that the next be even more deadly."


ConcernDreadDetermination. "We keep killing them," Taylor spoke with certainty. "Whatever force made them must have limits. The first two came a few years from each other, then the next a few more years later. This one almost a decade after that. They keep building them, we'll keep breaking them until they run out of whatever it is they need to build more."


"I am inclined to agree," Alexandria responded. "Even discounting the possibility of an endless stream of the creatures, this new Endbringer follows the trend of each being less destructive than the last. If the new Endbringers continue in that direction, it benefits all of humanity."


"The politicians won't see it that way," Lisa pointed out.


"Fuck them," Narwhal responded, speaking for the first time. I didn't know a lot about the giant of a woman, clothed only in her forcefields, but she seemed content to let Chevalier and Dragon speak for her. "If politicians want to complain, they can come out here and fight those monsters for themselves. Until then, they don't have the right to tell us what to do.


AgreementCertainty.


"We run a risk of an even more deadly Endbringer than the ones we've faced before, however," Chevalier pointed out.


"Then we destroy that one," Taylor countered. "We keep the weaker ones alive for now. Go after Behemoth and Leviathan. Leave... what are we calling this monster, anyway? It probably needs a name."


"A cursory internet search suggests the most suitable designations would be Fenrir or Barghest," Dragon responded. "Fenrir is a Norse myth, a giant wolf that was fated to slay Odin and be instrumental in their apocalypse mythology."


"I'd rather not give the Neo-Nazis the satisfaction of having one of their favorite naming sources validated with an Endbringer," I responded. Sure, we destroyed E88's largest chapter in the states, but the bastards were still out there with dozens of other teams and names. At least they opted to lay low after New Delhi, for the most part. "I'm voting for Barghest, and I don't even know what it is."


"I believe our PR guys would agree with you," Alexandria added. "I'd suggest we avoid any names of beings that succeed in destroying the world."


"Sometimes called the Black Hound, devil dog, and hellhound," Dragon informed us. "It's a spirit, known to hunt travelers and, much like ravens in North American lore, is strongly associated with death, both past and future."


"Appropriate," Alexandria agreed. There weren't any other suggestions offered, so we unofficially, at least, had our name.


"And now I have two questions," Lisa replied. "First... Eidolon's newfound power to raise the dead. What is it capable of?"


"I was inspired by Osiris' ability, for what I am sure are obvious reasons," he answered. "Naturally, I looked to see if I had something that might prove similar. I found one, and it's remarkably low energy considering what it's capable of."


"It has usage limits, I presume?"


"Yes," he admitted. "I have to 'tag' the people I wish to save ahead of time, though there doesn't seem to be an upper limit on how many I can select as long as they're all parahumans. It won't work on normal people, for whatever reason. Once I've selected the first target, the power waits exactly eight minutes, then instantly restores everyone I've tagged to the state they were in when I tagged them. After that, I lose grip on the power and have to wait for it to recharge. It's good exactly once per day."


"You can access it more than once?" Lisa asked.


"Yes," he replied. "It's not one of my high energy cost powers, and your tech is keeping it charged just enough that I won't lose access as long as it's dedicated to that power alone. This is one ability I don't intend to ever let go of, now that I have it."


"That's good to know," Lisa replied. InterestApproval. "Now, the next question is for Chevalier. Why is your sword made out of Simurgh parts?"


"How did you know that?" Chevalier asked.


"I didn't for sure until I asked," Lisa replied. "But it's immune to sensory powers, which limits it to Endbringers, and a number of parahumans I could count on one hand. Given its solid white coloration, and how none of the rest of you is immune, I made the most obvious guess."


"It's the strongest material known to exist," Chevalier answered. "Of course we'd make use of it."


"But how did you talk someone into letting you?" she replied.


"Classified," Chevalier replied.


"It's nothing she won't figure out on her own, if she hasn't already," Alexandria informed Chevalier, before turning back toward Lisa. "The Protectorate is learning from you. This concept of power synergies and customized tech to augment powers may be a novel one, I'll grant you. But now that we know it's possible, we've dedicated a fair amount of resources to achieving similar results on our own. With fewer capes and greater pressures than ever before, we either adapt or die."


"Well, they do say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery," Lisa smiled. "Of course, this implies Chevalier's power interacts with Endbringer tissue. In addition to his power-sight. Making him, to my knowledge, the only parahuman on the planet that can do that." RealizationExcitementHope. I glanced over at Taylor.


"EEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeee."


"Riley," I whispered into my suit's com. "Could you please stop squeeing?"


"Err... sorry..." she responded.


"What, exactly, is your power?" Lisa continued to talk to Chevalier as I dealt with Riley's imitation of a teakettle.


"I can overlay properties of one object onto another," he answered. "Giving it the size of one, the strength of another, the weight of a third and the shape of a fourth. I can also subtly adjust those properties to anywhere between the three," he lifted his sword, which was more decorative than practical, with a gun built into the hilt. Then it shimmered, growing in mass, though he seemed to have no trouble holding it up. "Some things take more effort than others, made easier the more similar the objects are. I have an easier time using a fifty foot long sword and my rapier than I would trying to cross, say, a fork and a hammer. In addition, it only seems to apply to solid nonliving tissue."


"And Endbringers," Lisa interrupted.


"Pardon?" Chevalier replied.


"And Endbringers," she repeated. "All evidence prior indicated they followed the normal rules of the Manton Effect, except they were treated as both living and nonliving, whichever was more beneficial to them. In addition, they have a large number of other immunities to shield them from certain powers. Like precognition, and any effects that might alter their bodies or powers. probably means our pipe dream of being able to teleport them to another dimension could never work. Not that we're going to stop trying, of course. You, somehow, have a power that bypasses something we had believed to be absolute."


"I... hadn't thought of it like that before..." Chevalier eventually spoke.


At some point during the conversation, Lisa locked eyes with Alexandria. Pulling a Taylia, wasn't that what they called it? "I trust you recognize the importance of Chevalier's power," Lisa spoke.


"Yes, I do," Alexandria replied. "I'll do everything in my power to see that you get approval to run your tests."


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

A/N- No. Seriously. Chevalier's power is the only canon power shown to work directly on Endbringers. It also straight up lolnope'd one of Scion's attacks.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 183


"Only lost a total of fifty units," Taylor informed as as she started lining her forces back up. "Most of them directly against Barghest. The rest were the shunting units, a lot of which burned out during the attack. If it wasn't for the fact that they're the hardest ones to replace, I'd call this a net gain. Oh, and I'm almost done dragging all the corpses back. I should be able to use the remaining zerg to carry back the dead."


"Good," I replied. "Regrowing them enough 'muscle' that they can haul themselves back to base is a pain," I answered. It really was, too. I wouldn't even be doing this, except that a lot of their insides were tinkertech alloys. Stuff that I had been assured was really expensive and slow to make. Especially since there was no way to build an organic device to do it for us. The purely organic parts could be made easily and with no effort. But without the tinkertech, they weren't even fit to call decoy targets in a battle against an Endbringer.


"I got readings off of Clarice," Emma informed us, as she worked with Rey, Chariot and Clarice to pack up the mobile command center. The tinkers didn't want the rest of us touching their 'sensitive equipment', so we were mostly limited to watching. "That detonation was loosely ten kilotons. If we hadn't insulated the region, it would have been as destructive as a small atom bomb."


"Fucking christ," Lily muttered. "And every time that thing shows up, it's going to do the same thing? Kill fifty four people and drop a nuke in the middle of a city? All in five and a half minutes after its arrival?"


"That's the gist of it," Lisa agreed.


"And this is the one we're considering allowing it to live for fear that the next one will be worse?"


"I'm afraid so," Lisa answered. "Don't get me wrong, we're going to do our best to kill it. But that kill can't be done by any of the Moirai." WorryConfusion.


"Why? How is it suppose to stop me?" Lily asked.


"I don't know," Lisa admitted. "But this one was designed with you and your powers specifically in mind. Its design sacrificed a lot of other potential offensive abilities, making it the most apparently weak Endbringer. Solely so it could have a method to protect itself from your power. Knowing how Endbringers tend to function, that secret weapon would guarantee that if you were present on the battlefield, a lot of people would die. We know your power easily nullifies Zach's, and I'm fairly certain it would work equally well against Eidolon's resurrection. We cannot allow Barghast to get anywhere near you, for fear of what might happen."


Lily fell silent at that, and leaned into Sabah, who had rested an armored hand on her shoulder. I wasn't sure I could imagine how huge that was. The idea that an Endbringer may have been created with the sole purpose of being a counter to her.


....


"So, how long until you announce the engagement?" I asked Lisa as we started making our way back.


"What?" Crystal asked, and it earned the attention of everyone else.


Lisa just sighed. "Really?" she asked. "Nevermind, of course you would."


"Would what?" Missy asked.


Lisa turned toward the girl. "Amelia is implying that, because Alexandria and I can use our thinker powers to communicate rapidly with one another in a way that appears, in the most superficial of visual manners, to be similar to the Taylia bond, that that means I am somehow destined to become romantically involved with the woman," she explained in a dismissive tone. "Despite the fact that all possible logical thought disagrees."


Crystal laughed. "Actually, that sounds about perfect for you."


"It really doesn't," Lisa replied.


"No, it totally does," Crystal insisted. "She's possibly the only person on the planet that could out smug you. Or is that the reason you can't be with her? Because you're afraid of having a relationship with someone who might actually be smarter than you think you are?"


"She's not smarter than me," Lisa insisted. "She just has a really unfair power that gives her the advantage."


AmusementDismissal. "Hey, Riley," Taylor spoke up. "Tell me something. Do you still have some of that anti-power drug?"


"I can make some more really easy," she answered. "We just haven't had much reason to use it. It doesn't even really work against people with the powers that are any kind of problem for our team to fight."


"I'm just thinking we give Lisa a dose, and see how smart she really is on a fair playing field," Taylor continued. I could hear the smile in her voice.


"Not that I'd mind," Riley responded. "But that's not a good idea. The drug can cause permanent damage that interfers with power use."


"She wasn't really going to do it anyway," Lisa informed us.


AmusedAnnoyed. "I might change my mind," Taylor suggested. "Still, I think you and Alexandria would be an adorable couple. You could just stand there and stare at each other for a couple minutes, then go back to your day smug in the knowledge that you just had a romantic moment worthy of an epic poem using nothing but body language so subtle that no one else on earth would know anything even happened. Truly a love story for the ages."


"Speaking of epic love stories," Lisa's smile broadened. "Did you notice Amelia checking out Narwhal?"


"I did not!" I insisted.


IrritationCertainty. "She didn't," Taylor supported me immediately. "And we all know I would have known if she had. Now stop trying to deflect attention away from yourself. Or at least try to do it in a less obvious and insulting way."


"Exactly," Lisa answered happily. "Your confirmed lesbian girlfriend was in the presence of a seven foot tall naked woman with the figure of an actual goddess, and she didn't even think to take good look at her? Out of the thirteen of us, only five can honestly say they didn't try for as much of an eyeful as they could possibly get away with. Incidentally, a few of you should be aware that I'm probably going to blackmail the piss out of you later. Just for fun."


RealizationLoveHappiness. I smiled, and fidgeted uncomfortably at the attention. "I... guess you have a point," I admitted. I looked over at Taylor and did allow myself to, as Lisa put it, 'get an eyeful'. PleasedConfident.


"Fifty bonus relationship points to my big sister."


"Riley, I can hear you on the com," I told her. "Who are you talking to?" Zach started laughing, followed quickly by Theo and Emma. Missy held out the longest, but she started laughing as well.


"Nevermind, I think I figured it out," I sighed.


The trip itself was both subjectively short and uneventful, merely slow. At least our conversation distracted us long enough for Taylor to send all her zerg through Missy's space warp to our base. There, the damaged ones would feed on Yggdrasil and regrow, while the ones that had been destroyed- whether temporarily or permanently- would be recycled and rebuilt. Possibly with improvements in mind. An additional Endbringer, and the potential threat of more meant we'd need to be even more battle ready than ever before.


....


ConfusionConcern. I looked over at Taylor. "What's wrong?"


"Nothing, I think," she answered. "I think your sister wants to have a chat with you, however. She's waiting in the lounge."


I frowned. I have neglected her, lately, I admitted to myself. "Well, we had planned for the fight and cleanup to take a few hours. I suppose I could spend the extra time with Victoria. You don't mind, do you?"


ConfidencePeace. "No, it's fine," she smiled. "I'll call Epoch and tell him how things went. He's probably as confused as everyone else who was hoping for a major show of force against the Endbringers."


"The Adepts really have been hoping to show off the full capabilities of their new armor systems, haven't they?" I smiled.


"I'm thinking we see if they want to cut loose against the Teeth," Taylor added as we approached the entrance to our base. I opened the direct path that would allow us enter the labs without bothering with the normal pathways. "It might even be better that way, showing that Pantheon and its allies are more than just a ceasefire arrangement. That we trust them to handle trouble on their own. Yeah, that sounds good."


We all stopped in the labs to take our armors off, and put the changelings back where they belonged. Some needed repairs, but every system needed stored away. Except Lily and Sabah, who just took theirs home with them.


Freed of the armor suits, Taylor gave me a peck on the cheek, and I headed up to talk to Victoria. By the time I got there, Zach, Theo and Missy had made it first and were talking to her. The four of them, along with Trevor and Clarice, had gotten to know each other pretty well at school. Not well enough to share Clarice's true identity, of course. But it was something. I paused when I saw Victoria. She was wearing her Glory Girl costume. CuriousConcern.


"Hey, sis," Victoria smiled. "Guess what I can do!" she started to glow.


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

A/N- The plot twist that literally no one didn't see coming.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 184- Victoria


"Suckiest part about my powers is I can't even play in any sports," Zach complained. "Sure, I take a gym class and it's the easiest credit in the world, but I'm not allowed to join anything because unfair advantage." He emphasized the last words in the most sarcastic way possible.


"I know!" I exclaimed. "Sorry, you can benchpress a small car, therefor we can't let you play goalie on a soccer team," I added my own mocking voice. I don't even have my powers anymore, I added silently. And I'm still forbidden from any sports.


"Know what would be great?" he laughed. "All parahuman team. Then no one can bitch about anything."


"Where are we going to find a ball that could survive that?" I asked.


"I heard something about people using decapitated heads on battlefields," he started.


"That's disgusting," I interrupted.


"Yeah, but we can use Endbringer heads," he suggested. "Most badass sport ever, of all time. Admit it."


"That would be pretty badass," I admitted. I looked at the clock. Almost six thirty. "So, think Amy's up and ready?" I asked. It had been a few days since I'd spoken to her. She always had something else to worry about these days.


"Sorry," Zach replied. "She's probably still asleep. Today it'll be the morning meeting as always, then a ten minute makeout session with Taylor, then chatting with R-ey and the rest of the nerd herd. Then she'll probably have to have a phone call with the Mayor or the Commissioner or the Director or whomever. I doubt she'll be free until this evening."


I frowned. "Doesn't anyone else do any of that?" I asked. "Isn't that Minerva's job? Isn't Taylor suppose to share half the workload?" There's three of them, I wanted to add. I be she finds time to just hang out with her girlfriend and replacement sister.


"Not really," Zach answered. "Minerva's doing her thing with Dinah and the new recruits from Boston." Meaning the fucking supervillains that my sister spends so much of her time with. "And Taylor's got something to do with city planning. Everyone's busy. Except for us mooks who just show up to do the fighting. For most of us, it's boring as fuck. I can tell Amy that you called, though."


"You don't have to, I understand that she's busy," I lied. "Hey, since you have so much spare time, we should stick around after school and have a one on one game. I haven't played a game in forever, and I'm afraid I'll lose my skills if I don't get to some practice."


"No way!" he exclaimed. "You've got a literally perfect body. You'd kick my ass. You'd kick anyone's ass."


"And you can literally never get tired," I countered. "Sure, I'll score a lot more in the early game. But I'll start to slow down eventually, and if we keep going for an hour or so, you have a good chance of coming out ahead. All you have to do is wear me out, and then you can beat me easy."


"You do know how that sounds, don't you?" he teased. Boys.


"Yes," I deadpanned. "Now are you gonna be there or not? Or would you rather miss out on seeing my, as you just put it, 'perfect body' sweaty and panting?"


"Well, when you put it that way, how could I possibly say no?" he laughed.


"I thought you'd see it my way," I teased. "See you after school." Then I hung up and started getting dressed for school.


Zach was a good guy, smartass or not. I should talk to Theo and the others about doing something nice for him as a group. The winged bitch had ruined his birthday by showing up a week before it happened, and as much as he pretended it didn't matter to him, I didn't believe that for a second. Clarice got a surprise birthday in the wrong month, so why not Zach?


Yeah, I smiled. I'll talk to Trevor at lunch and let have him help with the planning. He could even help me pick out a birthday gift. Zach was into video games, and I didn't know jack about them, so that was perfect. Of course, then I'd have to do something to thank Trevor. Hmm... Mandy's single, maybe she'd be interested. She was kinda a bookworm type, reminded me a lot of Amy, back before everything changed so drastically. Then they could live happily ever after and make tons of nerdling babies.


....


"Are you feeling okay?" I asked as I stood in the doorway of the living room and talked to Dad. I hesitated to approach him. He didn't like to be bothered, on his bad days. He was never mean to me, and I never for a second was afraid of him. Mom would rip him in half if he did anything that would have hurt me or Amy physically. I could have dealt with that. What really hurt was how he didn't seem to care about me, or anything else for that matter.


He just... ignored me. There were days, sometimes even weeks, where he would barely even look at us. He sometimes didn't have the energy to go out and patrol. He use to love that, and would come back with all the exciting stories of how he punched one of Allfather's goons or blew up a Merchant drug stash. Then he'd play with me and Amy and let us pretend to be superheroes and he would pretend to be a bad guy. We'd play wrestle until it was time for dinner.


That almost never happened, anymore. Most days, he couldn't even pull up the energy needed to smile at me. He'd just mope about, or watch television, or spend twelve hours sleeping. Then he'd have insomnia that night and be too tired to pay attention to me or Amy in the morning. I did my best to remember what Mom told us. That he was sick, that it wasn't anything I did wrong. And I prayed each night that he'd get better, but he never did.


He smiled, and my heart jumped. "Sure," he said. "Come have a seat," He patted his knee. I happily ran in and sat on his leg. This is one of his good days. "So, what has you in such a tizzy?" he asked, laughing at my barely contained excitement.


"We made the championships!" I exclaimed.


"That's wonderful!" he declared.


"You'll be at the game right, Daddy?" I asked. I knew I was too old to be acting so childish, but I was really excited, and if that meant playing up the cute card to get him to show up and watch, then I was okay with that. I always was a daddy's girl. And when my own was too tired, I'd often spend time with Uncle Neil. "It's the championship game. You have to be there to cheer for me."
"Of course, firecracker," he smiled. "I'll be there."


I ran off to tell mom the news.


....


My phone beeped with a text. Not a lot of people had this number, so despite a rather disapproving look from my World History teacher, Mister Sloan, I pulled it out and read it. Zach had sent me the message.


'EB, ?loc'.


Fuck. I stood up and collected my books.


"Where are you going?" the teacher asked.


"Class is canceled," I told him as I rushed out the door. I didn't bother explaining. An Endbringer? Now? It's way too soon for that, I thought. They killed Simurgh in mid August, and it was now only late September. A month and a half too early.


I was almost to the front door when the principal made the announcement. A lot of the students would stay in school. Arcadia was well equipped enough to have televisions in the classrooms. Mostly for video presentations, but they could receive outside channels. The teachers would be watching the news, along with the many kids whose parents couldn't come for them. School may have been canceled, but that didn't mean all jobs were. Although the ones that stayed open probably wouldn't get much business done.


I didn't see any of the Pantheon kids leave through the front door, and there was no cell response. They already left without me. I turned and walked to my new sports car. Not nearly as fun as flying, but at least dad bought me a nice ride.


With the signing bonus he got for leaving us, I reminded myself. Suddenly, I liked my car an awful lot less.

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

A/N- Chapter got way away from me. Is now a two parter.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 185- Victoria


"Aunt Sarah, what are you wearing?" I asked as I walked into the living room and saw her. She was in costume. Not even her own costume, but one that started yellow around her shoulders, shifted to light blue and and slowly transitioned to dark green by the time it reached her feet.


"Like it?" she asked. "It's one of Crystal's old suits, with a bit of a refit."


"Are you joining Pantheon, now?" I asked.


She laughed. "No, I don't think so. They don't need an old hag like me slowing them down. They just asked me to keep an eye out, in case someone tried to start trouble while they were gone."


"You could always try it on for size," Khepri's father suggested. "I even thought of a name for you." He leaned in close and whispered something. She laughed and then gave him a friendly slap across the chest with the back of her hand. I frowned. Uncle Neil was always my favorite. The one who'd been there for me when my own father couldn't. He's gone, and Aunt Sarah had already replaced him. More than that, the father of the girl who had stolen my sister from me.


I moved into the living room, to see my Mom and Dad sitting together on the couch. It was almost a happy moment, until I realized the pair of them were seated at opposite ends of a piece of furniture meant to hold five.


"Shouldn't you be going to the fight?" I asked Dad as I sat in the couch between the two. Does this mean he changed his mind about the Protectorate? I dared to hope.


"They're instituting new policies," he answered. "After New Delhi, well, the rules are changing. They're only sending the top tier capes, like the Triumvirate, to this one. Pantheon can build their disposable shock troops, and then let them die by the hundreds without blinking. Unless you rate a seven or eight, chances are they're not taking you. Your old man's barely a five. So I have to stay home and watch the fight on the news."


"When did they start showing Endbringer battles fights on the news?" I asked as I sat down between them.


"When your sister proved they can die," Dad answered with pride. I fought back the tears. I remember when he talked about me like that.


The cameras were high quality, but not well positioned.

An announcer spoke while we watched various giant monsters appear across the battlefield. Amy's creations, I recognized. Controlled in full by her girlfriend's power. "Channel Nine would like the audience to be aware that the images you are about to witness are likely to be extremely violent and disturbing to all audiences. Due to the nature of the footage, we will be unable to edit or censor any details. Viewer discretion is strongly advised.​

"They're really covering their asses on this one, aren't they?" Dad laughed.


"Given the number of lawsuits there were last time?" Aunt Sarah replied. "Seems like the only person who's not suing is Pantheon."


"I'm surprised they were even willing to do it at all," Mom added. "Don't get me wrong, I am glad they're doing it, but I'm surprised. Most of the lawsuits were frivolous, but they were still funded and backed by government action. The PRT was blatantly punishing news organizations for showing the footage. Bullying them for showing what really happens, instead of cooperating with whatever garbage the bureaucrats wanted to sell people today."


Not subtle, Mom, I thought as I glanced over at Dad. He pretended not to notice. Or maybe he really didn't notice, I couldn't tell.


The television announcer was going on and on about how the zerg resembled, and how they differed from, the ones New Delhi fight. Mostly focused on how there were so many more this time than last. Then the Endbringer appeared.


"We have spotted an unknown creature on the field," the anchor spoke excitedly. "We are unsure what it is, but-". The monster vanished, reappearing near the camera. I watched as several people fell, their heads separated from their bodies. The anchorwoman shrieked in surprise.


Mom gasped, and Dad sat up, leaning toward the screen. "Sarah, Danny, it's started."


"The hell is that?" Khepri's father asked.


"It's a new Endbringer," I answered. How could he be so dense? "They killed the Simurgh, this is her replacement."


"-unknown creature," the reporter spoke. "Given the circumstances, it seems likely that this is a new, never before witnessed Endbringer. Its powers are currently unknown, but appear to include teleportation and superhuman reaction speed."


I watched as the Ultralisks collided into the sides of the monster, which seemed to do much less damage to the monster than it did to the zerg. I gripped the cushion I was sitting on. I should be out there. I should be helping them. It vanished again, and there was more death.


"It's the fastest Endbringer," Sarah volunteered. "I thought Leviathan was fast, but I think this one's truly built to be a speedster."


"They all have some kind of mover powers," Carol added. "But this one does seem dedicated to it."


No one spoke until the gray mist bomb went off.


"What was that?" Dad asked. I smiled, I know what that is, at least.


"It's one of their new weapons," Khepri's father spoke before I had a chance. "Something they cooked up working with Dragon."


I kept quiet. I guess it didn't surprise me that she was telling her dad what they were up to.


We watched as it kept teleporting, and kept killing. Then the cameras exploded into fire.


"Fuck!" Mom exclaimed. This is the first time I can remember hearing her curse like that, I realized. "It's New Delhi all over again!"


My eyes went wide. If that happened in Mexico City, the devastation could hit a large chunk of the United States.


"They made it through last time," Aunt Sara spoke, her voice trembling. "They can do it again."


"That's right," Dad agreed. "They'll be fine."


The news went immediately to satellite images after the loss of the camera feed, showing the city from above. Not even close to as bad as New Delhi, I realized with relief. So did the news reporters, who were now speculating on an EMP weapon being part of the new Endbringer's arsenal.


Aunt Sarah's phone rang, and she answered it right away. "Yeah," she said after a moment, smiling broadly. "Yeah, they're all here. I'll make sure they know what happened. Okay, so you'll be home in a couple hours? Yeah, I'll tell them. Love you too."


She closed her phone and looked at us. "That was Crystal," she informed us. "The fight's already over."


"Already?" Dad cheered, and patted Khepri's father on the back. "That's our girls. Endbringer shows up for breakfast, and they kill it by lunchtime." Yeah, I thought. That's my sister out there, living the ultimate dream.


"Everyone got through it safely, right?" Mom asked.


"They're all fine," Sarah told us. "They're having an after battle conversation with a few of the bigwigs, probably about how the fight turned out, and what they can do better next time. New enemies, new strategies needed."


"As long as they stop making promises so readily," Mom complained. "Sometimes I feel like I'm going to have to carve 'we need to consult with our lawyer first' on the inside of their eyelids."


Khepri's dad chuckled. "That's my daughter, alright. I could go on for hours, but I'm afraid they'd bore you."


"Nonsense," Dad answered back. "You should hear some of the stuff Victoria's done. We should get together for a beer sometime and swap war stories."


Done, not does, I thought while watching the screen. Has done. Has been. I'm nothing, now. I don't matter. Dad has a new favorite, Uncle Neil's gone, Aunt Sarah has a new man. My family's either dead, or has moved on and left me behind. They don't care about me. Why should they? I'm worthless. I'm already dead.


....


"Get your head in the game, Dallon!" Becky shouted at me. I looked away from the stands. He's not here, I told myself. Dad's not coming.


I had to work extra hard to compete, being a freshman on the varsity team. In a school with a lot of competition. I was taller than a lot of the junior girls, and I trained harder and was in better shape than almost all of them. Of course I was. I was training for when I got my powers, and my competition was only training to be good at a sport.


We had gotten this far on so much hard work, I had gotten this far. And Dad couldn't even bother to show up for the championship game. It didn't help that it was an away game. It didn't help that the school we were up against was twice our size, and so could afford to be twice as picky over who they could put on their team. Almost all of them were seniors, and I suspected a couple of them were held back a year. We were holding on, just barely. I tried to smile, it would be one hell of an underdog story, wouldn't it? I could do this.


The ball passed to me, and I managed dribble past one of the older girls on the other team. The next girl up to guard me was one I'd dealt with before. Not the most effective player, I was confident I could get past her..


Then she stepped into me, deliberately. Her shoulder catching me hard in the jaw. I dropped hard. "Watch it, shrimp," the girl mocked me as I sat there on the floor. I glanced over to the refs, but they didn't call the foul. Of course not, they're on the other team's side. There wasn't enough time on the clock I glanced back at the audience. They not on my side, either. Dad wasn't there for me, and he would never be. There's no reason to keep fighting.


....


The world collapsed around me. Them. A trail of impossibly beautiful gemstones, dancing in the void. I've seen them before. I know them. I know... what did I know?


"Sarah?" Khepri's dad asked, helping my Aunt, who had fallen in the excitement. Dizzy spell brought on by... something... no long term risk. "Sarah, are you okay? What happened?"


I looked around. Mom and Dad shook their heads. Mom's been overworking herself, I realized. Probably not sleeping much. Dad's in okay shape. Aunt Sarah... eww, I didn't need to know about that. I'd never be able to look her in the eyes again in my life.


Wait? How the fuck did I know all that? Oh, I realized. It happened again.


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

A/N- And there you have it. "Fouled in basketball" resulting in a "Shaker" powerset (two of them, actually- both the aura and the forcefield that sources all her other powers), and shakers are, according to WoG, "Environmental danger, ambient danger, often nonhuman or only abstractly human."

Debating over second gens aside, WoG makes it obvious there was more to Vicky's story than a Basketball foul- THAT would be a brute, striker, or maybe blaster power.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 186


ShockConcernProtective. I simply stood, mouth agape, as my sister was consumed in light. "You got your powers back?" I asked.


"Well, not Glory Girl's powers, no," she corrected as the light faded away. Her hair had changed colors to something more resembling a sunset, with yellows and oranges blending into blues and purples. "But yeah, Victoria is back and better than ever. I'll need a new name and probably a new costume and theme. The old one was nice and all, but... uh... Ames? Were you cut in half recently? Because it really looks like you were cut in half, and it's distracting me."


"Uh... blown up, actually," I admitted.


"Well, never let it be said we live in boring times," Vicky said cheerfully. "So where's your testing facility? I can't fly anymore, but I think I'm faster on foot now than I ever was in the air. We should totally find out."


"Uh... right this way," I answered, leading her to our gym area. It wasn't really a testing facility, but Clarice was pretty much a mobile analysis system. We'd just have to give her a place to work with.


"This is really neat," Clarice started. "So what are your powers?"


"Let's wait until L- Minerva's here to listen," I insisted. "She's our primary thinker, after all."


"I'm here," Lisa answered, coming into the room. She wasn't in costume. "Let's hear it."


"Combat thinker and war form," she answered happily. "I can sense weakpoints and I'm pretty sure I have short range precognition and some kind of echolocation, because I ran here with my eyes closed, and even dodged some traffic. And that was in my normal state."


Lisa's eyes narrowed. "Okay, nevermind the standard tests. Clarice, we're going to have a sparring match."


"This is going to be fun!" Clarice declared.


....


A half hour later, and the pair of them were still going at it. More than that, Victoria clearly had the upper hand. To the point that it was a joke. Faster, stronger, and an overall better fighter. Eventually, Clarice simply froze and collapsed.


"I think I win," Vicky informed us smugly, standing on the collapsed changeling.


"So, umm, who did she get her power from?" Taylor asked.


Lisa frowned. "This is gonna sound insane, but, she got her powers from Clarice."


"You're right," Taylor answered. "That does sound insane. Clarice is," ConcernSecrecy. Taylor glanced at Vicky.


"Oh, don't worry," Vicky replied. "I knew she was fake the moment I saw her with my new eyes. Oh, by the way, I can hear you from over here. I also know you're fucking terrified of telling me who Clarice really is. I promise not to flip out. Seriously, Ames, you're already engaged to the bitch who fed me to bees," IrritationRegret. "And working alongside the even bigger bitch who shot me so the other one could feed me to bees. It can't possibly get any worse than... oh... fuck, it can get worse than that? How the fuck does it get worse than that?"


"I'd... really... Vicky, could you please not force me to answer?" I asked.


"It's better if you don't find out," Missy stepped up to defend me.


"Happened after my death," Victoria smirked. Her eyes were locked on Lisa's. "After the Slaughterhouse Nine. Connected to the Nine. Don't bother telling me when I figure it out, because I'm pretty sure my power works better than your power. Let's see, was already told Clarice was orphaned by the Nine. Okay, so that story happens to be true, but there's more to it than that."


"Bonesaw," Lisa sighed. "Clarice is a biomechanical puppet piloted by Bonesaw so she can interact with the world safely. The girl was kidnapped by the S9 when she was only six years old, and hadn't ever been able to experience what it's like to just live a normal life."


"Aww, and I was having so much fun doing the same thing to you that you did to me and Amy," Vicky pouted. "You remember that, don't you? Because I'm going to bet it hasn't sucked as much for you to be on the receiving end as it did for me."


"You might be surprised," Lisa retorted, looking down.


"Really?" Vicky's eyes widened in surprise before narrowing. "Good." She paused for a full thirty seconds. "Did you say Bonesaw?"


"Yes," Riley spoke up, walking into the room. "Hi, Vicky, it's nice to see you in person. I'd really prefer to be called Riley by the friends close enough to know who I really am. Hopefully you can be one of those friends?"


Vicky just stood there, staring at the girl. "Know what?" she laughed a little. "I think I just felt all the cares I have die simultaneously. Alderaan style. This is officially the weirdest possible thing in the universe, and the part of me that can be bothered by that has gone on vacation." She walked up to Riley and extended her hand. "It's good to meet you, Riley. Thank you for giving me my new powers."


"My pleasure," Riley responded and shook Vicky's hand like it was a perfectly normal business meeting.


"Okay, now what's this about her getting Clarice's powers, instead of, y'know, Riley's like would make logical sense?" Emma asked.


"I don't suppose any of you have heard of Acquired Characteristics theory?" she looked around, but none of us spoke up. "Figured. Basically, it was the theory of evolution before Darwin. The idea that an animal would do things. Like, say, a proto-giraffe reaching for leaves. And because of that, its offspring would inherit slightly longer necks for better reaching. Now, we've learned that doesn't work in normal earth life, because we run on genetics. But it's how Passengers evolve. They're shown how to do something by their hosts, then they reproduce and the offspring does something different. Incorporates those new ideas."


"That makes a lot of sense!" Emma declared excitedly. "Riley's Passenger is a biotinker... it knows how to be a biotinker. But thanks to Clarice, it was taught how to be a shapeshifting supersensory powered brute. So when it bred, the new Passenger was selected from those traits, to test the new evolutionary path."


"But don't Passengers choose people close to the original host?" Crystal asked. "Like family. Riley hasn't spent any time near Vicky."


"You need to redefine 'close'," Lisa smiled. "These things jump between dimensions like we change channels on the TV. They can reach to the other side of the world with no apparent effort while their real bodies remain hidden a thousand realities away from us. Do you really think physical proximity means anything to them? No, when they breed, they select a host that's close to the origin host on a mental level. So that they can protect and incubate their offspring directly. Riley's Passenger selected the living human that Riley paid the most attention to, cared the most about, that wasn't already a parahuman. Isn't that right, Riley?"


"Wasn't my power from Oni Lee?" Zach interrupted. "I'm pretty sure I never spent any time making friends with asian psychopaths."


"What Passengers do when a host dies is different," Lisa answered. "Then they just move on to a new one. This is about what happens when they breed. A baby Passenger set up to be guarded until it matures properly."


"It's true," Riley admitted. "She's my Big Sister's sister, after all. And Zach's friend. And my friend. And she's funny. Of course I am ready to protect her from harm. Plus I spent an awful lot of time figuring out all the details of her genetics from scratch. A tinker has to take pride in her work."


"Exactly," Lisa responded. "Now, her powers include a massive suite of sensory powers, including a few that you only include in some models because their energy and space requirements are too high to use together, and all the best of everything else you've ever packed into a Clarice body. Only better, because it's a Passenger doing the work instead of technology.


"What about her other power?" I asked. "The glow that accompanies her transformations?"


"Probably got it from one of the other Passengers. Whichever one, or ones, that Riley's selected as a 'mate'. Could be Zach's, he has a breaker state. Then there's her parents, Brandish and Flashbang are both are breakers as well. I'd put Brandish as the most likely. She transforms her body into energy. Victoria infuses her body with energy and uses that to manipulate and adjust details at will."


"So... I'm like if my mom had a baby with Bonesaw?" Vicky asked. "Know what? I lied. Now there is no way this day can get any weirder."


"This is awesome," Riley declared, smiling bright. She then glomped Victoria, hugging her hard as she could. "I always wanted to be a mommy!"


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

A/N- Riley will never stop being adorable.

Also- Tattletale isn't always right. Remember that, kids.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 187


The 'kids' and the tinkers were distracting Vicky with all kinds of questions and plans. Which left us 'adults', minus Crystal and Rey, to compare notes.


"We can't keep her," Lisa said the moment were were sure we were out of earshot.


AgreementRelief. I gave an unhappy glance at Taylor. SheepishConcerned. And then locked my eyes back on Lisa. "Why the fuck not? She already knows the thing we need to be most afraid of getting out. That's how Emma got a pass. Or are you saying my own sister is less acceptable than Emma?"


Lisa smiled a lopsided grin. "Really? I think there's one more secret she has yet to ferret out. I also think it's the biggest one on the list, or I think Victoria will think that it is."

RealizationDread. "Yeah, that's the one," Lisa confirmed. "She has a cool power, sure. One that'd make her top tier on most teams. But it's not one we can really augment wih our tech, and it's not good enough to be valid against Endbringers on its own. We can't use her, and she might decide to kill us someday."


I sighed. "Fuck," I muttered. Taylor put her hand on my shoulder. "We can't just tell her no," I argued. "You don't know my sister. She needs to be a hero. She'll fall apart without it. And that's without considering the whole Passenger mind fuckery."


"Then let her join the Protectorate," Lisa countered. "She's only got a few more months before she's eighteen, she can probably skip being a Ward entirely. They'd cry with joy to have her in New York or Chicago, even if the Teeth have been eliminated and the Adepts are nominally on their side now. Your dad's moving to Philadelphia, right? She can go with him. She's not good enough to be valid in the kind of wars that we fight, I don't care if she's basically Clarice on steroids, she's not good enough for this team."


I looked at Taylor. ConcernDread. "Taylor, please, she's my sister and she needs this."


"She's a security risk," Taylor said softly. "Plus she'll be an even bigger discipline nightmare than Lily. She hates me, she hates Lisa more. Maybe. She now has a thinker power and we all know how much of a pain in the ass thinkers can be when they think they're right. She remembers how you two use to be, and that means she may love you, but she sure as hell doesn't respect you. If we're lucky, she'll listen to Crystal. If we're lucky.


I sighed. "You're right," I admitted. ReliefSupport. "She's not going to be that effective. Plus, well, we don't do a lot of the kind of superhero stuff she likes. She's smarter than she pretends she is, but she's not what one would call a 'planner' in the field. We're all about spending days or weeks planning, and then a few minutes of fighting. I doubt she'd be happy with how we do things."


"Guys!" Riley spoke up through my com. "Vicky's power is awesome!"


ExasperationConcern. "Okay, what did you find out?" Taylor spoke


"She's a regenerative shapeshifter," she informed us. "Like Crawler, without all the icky bits. She's not quite on Crawler's level, but it makes her really really hard to kill. "


"And, more importantly," Emma added. "Her thinker power is 'easiest way to kill things', which is even more cool than it sounds since it applies to our bioconstructs. Seriously, she's pointing out so many weaknesses in our gear to be fixed. Especially since we also have Barghest to worry about. Proper reinforcement might make us better equipped for unit survival against it, and other Endbringers."


"And she can do the living battery thing, like Crystal," Riley interrupted. "Apparently she got my electrical attack mods, and they don't drain her batteries. But I can think of so many things we can use her for. You can totally put her on my team. Pleasepleaseplease." AnnoyanceResignation.


"No promises," I responded. I looked at the other two. "So... I don't think they're gonna give us much choice, are they?"


"Probably not," Lisa admitted. "Zach's hard to read, and Missy has finally started getting used to the idea of being more than just a child soldier. They both like Vicky a lot. Riley wouldn't push the issue, but Theo might, if prompted by the others. We know Crystal's going to argue on their side."


"Lily and Sabah are going to want to hear the reason we don't take her," Taylor added. "We could have used the discipline issue. I know they can spot how much Vicky doesn't like me, although I have to wonder if they wouldn't agree with her. After finding out about Bonesaw and Coil, well... we're going to have a hard enough time selling them on the Nilbog plan. And you know we don't have a choice but to tell them. If it were just the two of them, and if we could claim that Victoria's power wasn't good enough for us to use, we could get away with it. But strong power and we have enough members to break us up into teams and keep her away from our direct command."


"We really should consider creating dedicated teams," I agreed.


"So what do we do about your, uh, secret?" Taylor asked.


"Nothing, for now," Lisa sighed. "I think Taylia interferes with Vicky's new power. Maybe not the 'how to kill it' part, but the emotion reading side effect. She wasn't cold reading the two of you, she was reading me. Although that might have been to prove she could, quote, beat me at my own game, I'm not certain. If she starts to suspect anything, well, we can improvise. Keep it a secret as long as possible, then tell her about how her aura fucked everything up. After that, she'll probably pretend nothing is wrong and never touch the subject again. The way she's doing for both of her trigger events."


That's right, I realized. She just had a trigger, with all the trauma that comes with it.


"Fuck," Taylor muttered. "She might be even better at compartmentalizing than I am."


When you live with my family, you kinda have to be. I didn't say anything.


....


"So, you girls have fun talking about me?" Vicky asked when we walked back in. "I know I'm not quite on par with the Endslayers or the Triumvirate or anything, but put me in the field and I can beat pretty much anything else."


"Yeah," I sighed. "Kinda talking about what team to put you on. You're probably going to be with Atropos and Clotho most of the time. You don't mind taking orders from Crystal, do you?"


"Hey, wait a second," Crystal responded. "When did I agree to be a team leader? Also, when did we start creating teams?"


"I thought I'd be on the team with Zach and Missy and the rest," Vicky argued.


"Clarice has about the same powers that you do," Taylor pointed out. "It would be redundant. And given their history, there's no way in hell we can put them on the same squad together. Having a thinker that can help make our blasters more effective on the field is incredibly valuable. Plus, you're the third member on the team that has a power that can let you double as a healer. Not nearly on Riley's level, but better than most."


"I don't have blaster powers," Vicky argued. "I can't even fly."


"Armor will take care of that," I pointed out. "You'll have a custom set pretty soon, I'm sure. Right, Riley?"


"I have sooo many ideas!" Riley practically sang. "We can give you a set of Radiant's weapons, but since you don't use a forcefield and have combat intuition, we can use that space to improve your speed and stealth features. I bet if I talk to Defiant I could find a way to miniaturize the shunt tech a little, and you could have two shunt drives for quick cross dimensional attacks. Maybe include a few extra melee features. We could use more up close fighters."


"Why can't I work with my friends?" she pouted.


Because that's why, I thought. "We have to plan for effectiveness. I'm sure there will be plenty of missions where we put you together with one or more of your friends, but they can already do everything you can do. You're stronger with Crystal's team."


"When did I get a team?" Crystal asked again. "I thought Lisa was suppose to handle those two."


"Since we started getting more recruits," Lisa answered. "We have too many people to coordinate as a single unit. So now we have three. Four, if you include our tech team. We have the thinker group that stays back and coordinates. Then we have the blaster group. Then we have the frontline group. With a few people, like Riley and Taylor who do double or triple duty."


"And I get stuck with the group that can't be trusted to take care of themselves?" Crystal complained.


"Would you prefer to be the one in charge of the neurotic college kids, or the one in charge of the neurotic highschoolers?" Lisa asked.


"I'd rather not have to deal with being in charge at all," Crystal countered.


"It's cool, cuz," Vicky insisted. "You can let me handle everything and just say you're in charge. How's that sound?"


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

A/N- Vicky: I'm halping!

Everyone else: know what? Fuck it. We don't even care anymore.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 188- Victoria


"You're the one with the combat precog, what kind of melee weapons do you think you'd be best with?" Riley asked cheerfully. "You can ribbon fighting like I do, or maybe something with an ax. No one use axes." Missy and Trevor had begged off a couple hours ago, insisting that they needed to get home before their respective parents went insane. Crystal said pretty much the same, going to deliver news of the Barghest fight to our family.


Zach and Theo remained here, of course. Talking about my new abilities and finding potential power synergies. Along with Emma, who I had never met before today. I'd seen her in pictures about Pantheon before, but we'd never been in the same room with each other. A Case 53 tinker, She was... distracting. Her physiology was a freakin' mess, and everything my power knew was telling me there was no way she should be alive, yet here she was, analyzing my power output and lifesigns while Riley discussed features for my armor.


Theo yawned loudly. "Sorry, guys," he said sheepishly. "But some of us actually need sleep. Riley, you should go to bed, too. Clarice acts weird... well, even more weird... when you pull an all nighter."


"Awww..." Riley whined. "But this is so cool! I almost never get to build new suits for my friends."


"I'll be here tomorrow," I smiled, giving her a pat on the head. The fuck? I am patting Bonesaw. When did this become my life? "But I need to go to bed, too," I lied. "I'm going to spend a few minutes with Amy and see about finding a bed somewhere. Then I'll see you at school tomorrow."


"Okay," she agreed, sounding childishly unhappy about it.


I hopped off the chair they had me in for the testing, and headed for the exit. "So, uh, someone want to tell me where Amy's room is?"


"I got it," Zach volunteered. I smiled, and while my new sight wasn't telepathy or anything like that, I knew he wasn't entirely thinking with the head on top of his shoulders. No surprise there. We spent a lot of time together talking, and I knew I was a looker. My sight flickered back to Emma as she watched him rush to help me out. Oh, that's something I didn't expect.


"So, what's the story between you and Emma?" I asked the moment the door sealed. I watched his heartrate jump and the subtle release of natural drugs into his system.


"We dated for a week or two, but it turned out she's a horrible bitch so I dumped her," he said, and for the first time since I met him, he didn't have a smile on his face. Even after Dream Girl, I remembered, he managed to force a smile. "End of story."


"If you insist," I replied, following him. "She's really pretty," I added, measuring his emotional reactions.


"So are most of the girls on this team," Zach countered. "Besides, you were a total babe before you got shapeshifting powers. And now you have shapeshifting powers. You have no need to be jealous over anyone."


Wait, he thinks I'm jealous? Cute. Vaguely insulting. But cute. "Who said I was jealous?" I smirked. "Maybe my sister and I have more in common than you realized?"


He coughed a couple times, and then dusted. Reforming a heartbeat later. "That was a really dirty trick," he insisted. "Even if Emma was into girls, you'd be better off with just about anyone else."


"Shapeshifter, remember? She doesn't need to be into girls," I teased. "Now why do you have such a problem with Emma?"


"Here's Amelia's room," he changed the subject. "Now if you need me, I'll be playing video games all night." He left quickly, taking his conflicting emotions with him. There was a lot of story going on there. Victoria Dallon, super sleuth, would be on that job later.


The door opened before I even tapped on it. Taylor was there sitting with her on the bed. "I didn't interrupt anything, I hope?" My senses confirmed that, if I did, it was only a conversation. None of the obvious tells were present.


"Not at all," Taylor answered, hints of aggressive chemicals hit her bloodstream as she prepared for a confrontation against me. And then they stopped seemingly for no reason. That's not how humans work, I thought. Maybe it has something to do with how her body's been altered to superhuman fitness levels. "I was about to go home, actually."


"I thought you lived here?" I asked.


"Seems like it, sometimes," she answered. "But I still live with my dad. It makes him happy to have me around to take care of once in a while."


"See you tomorrow," Amy kissed Taylor on the cheek. Awfully chaste for people who are engaged, I decided. I stepped aside as Taylor left the room. She's nervous about something. Hiding something. So is Amy.


"So, wanna tell me what's up with Emma and Zach?" I asked. I registered Amy's relief at the question. And then an entirely different form of apprehension. Christ, Amy, I thought you quit doing hospitals to reduce the stress in your life.


"Why do you want to know?" Amy asked suspiciously.


"I'm not allowed to worry about the wellbeing of the rest of my team?" I asked defensively. "I bet if you won't tell me, then Crystal would be happy to." Amy's emotions jumped. She was annoyed by something. I win. I also needed a better word than 'I win'. Checkmate, maybe? That sounds way too pretentious, I decided almost immediately. "Why are you afraid to tell me?"


"Seriously, Vicky," Amy sighed. "I just... we have enough drama around here. Could you please just leave it alone?"


"You know I can't," I replied. "Just tell me. What did Emma do to Zach?"


"Nothing," she answered. She's telling the truth.


"Buuuut," I prompted.


"But he hates her because of what she did to Taylor," Amy admitted. She looked at me. "Oh, you didn't hear about that before? Emma was Taylor's childhood friend. Then, for reasons I doubt anyone will ever be able to explain to me... well, Emma decided to bully and torture Taylor until she had a trigger event. Two trigger events, actually."


"Two?" I blinked. "How does that even work?"


"It happens," Amy answered. "I can tell the difference between people who've only had one trigger, and those who've had two. Taylor's had two, and since she didn't even realize it, they must have happened almost back to back. Double triggers. Probably a lot more common than second triggers."


"And you're working alongside her?" I asked. "Taylor didn't seem like Emma's biggest fan, but fuck, if it were me... I'd have gone Carrie all over Emma's face and then buried her in a corn field somewhere in Indiana."


"She had some time getting used to Riley first," Amy explained. "Compared to that, Emma's pretty small time. And Taylor's been trying to be more forgiving. She feels pretty guilty over what she did as Skitter. And Emma's been bending over backwards to prove she's sorry and should be forgiven. It... well, we've all done some pretty bad things."

Amy's emotions spiked. Guilt, something that she regrets enough to border on the suicidal. She won't tell me if I ask, I realized.


"I guess," I agreed. "And Zach isn't exactly the forgiving type, is he?"


"Not about this," Amy added. "He doesn't really like to talk about his own feelings much"


Something we have in common, I guess. "Good to know. Aren't you going to do anything to fix that mess?"


"Not my business," Amy dismissed. "They're both doing their jobs. Emma's more worried about being friends with Riley and Taylor, and even Taylor's at least willing to try to work it out," Huh, is that why Taylor seemed so... disinterested... in Amy? Does she have feelings for Emma? I will punt that bitch into the middle of the ocean if she's leading my sister on like that. "Zach's moved on to hitting on Crystal..."


"Really?" I interrupted. "And here she seemed so eager to send him my way."


"The only girls on the team he hasn't hit on at least once are Missy, who's dating his best bud. Lily, who's a lesbian with a power we're pretty certain can kill him for real. And Sabah, who's dating Lily," Amy explained. "Crystal probably wants someone a bit more, well, not a jackass."


"Her loss then," I smiled.


"What?" Amy exclaimed. "You can't seriously be interested in-"


The door opened, and a tired looking Riley walked in. "The dreams are back," was her only explanation as she climbed into Amy's bed.


"We'll talk about this later," Amy insisted as she reached over and rubbed the girl's shoulder.


"Sure," I lied before leaving the room. I wandered into the living area, where Zach was playing some kind of fighting game.


"How'd the chat go?" he asked, as one of the characters on the screen bloodily decapitated another.


"Pretty good," I answered as I walked over and plopped down next to him. "She gave me some idea of the history between you and Emma. Thinks there's some secret of your past that makes you hate her a disproportionate amount."


He sighed. "You're not going to let this go, are you? Well, talk all you want, I don't have to answer any question you ask."


"I was thinking of beating it out of you," I added just a hint of tease to my voice.


"That won't really work, either," he countered.


"We'll have a duel on it," I offered. "Any competition you want to have. The loser has to do anything the winner wants. For an hour. No complaining, no resisting, no stalling. No matter what it is."


He looked at me. "I dunno, I can think of a lot of 'anythings' to do in an hour."


I smiled and licked my lips slowly. "Hit me with your best shot."


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

A/N- Time for a canon omake in the NSFW section?

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 189- Theo


I glanced over at the clock. 5:22 in the morning. Well, guess I wake up a little early today.


I took the time to clean up in the shower and shave. It was actually nice having a private shower. Not that I ever had to worry about sharing bathrooms with anyone, considering my family's wealth. But I heard stories from Missy about the nightmare that was only having one bathroom for a family of five. Definitely one of those things I was glad I never had to worry about. Having cleaned up, I got dressed and walked out into the hall. Maybe I could kill a little time with Zach before school.


He wasn't in the lounge area. Strange, he's almost always- I paused as I overheard voices in one of the halls.


"-I let you talk me into that," Emma panted softly, even though her tone of voice said she was happy. "I've been under so much stress lately with my work that I totally forgot about taking care of myself."


"Told you you'd love it," Vicky declared. "Now just accept that I'm always right. Makes things easier that way."


Zach's voice followed the two girls. "It was only meant to be an hour!"


"Quit bitching, you loved it at least as much as she did," Vicky crowed. I blinked. What?


"Yeah, seriously," Emma agreed. "Don't act like it was some kind of chore. You may have been able to argue that if you quit after the hour was up, but the next five hours, you stayed in it like a champ." What?


"With the two of you there to mock me for not being able to keep it up?" Zach accused. "We'd all die of old age before you got done teasing me." I felt a little uncomfortable. Is this something I shouldn't be listening to?


"What's the matter, big boy?" Emma teased. "Did us girls wear you out?"


"The hell are you talking about?" Zach retorted. "You needed my help to deal with her!" he gestured at Victoria.


"Hey, not my fault I didn't get superhuman stamina," Emma defended. "Yeah, maybe I'm tougher than most because I can regenerate. But I'm nothing compared to the two of you. It's not fair to expect me to keep up."


"Don't sell yourself short," Victoia replied. "You have some great moves. You definitely done that before, I don't care what you claimed earlier."


"You don't spend as much time around Sophia as I did without picking up a few tricks," Emma admitted. "But compared to you? Well, you'd have eaten her alive. You took the both of us on like it was nothing."


"The advantage of experience," Vicky argued. "You two make a great team. If we didn't have our powers, I wouldn't be able to walk right now. We should totally do it again tonight. I promise I'll make it worth your while."


"No!" Emma declared. "Not tonight. Please, I'm so sore already."


"I understand," Vicky shrugged. "Give it a few weeks and your body will get accustomed to it. The two of you have lots of potential, though. Maybe you should practice on each other when I'm not able to stay over? Give you something to do in the middle of the night other than video games and lab tests."


"I don't really stay here every night, either," Emma pointed out. "Just... after the Endbringer fight, there's so much new stuff to study."


"Well, how about if I give the two of you pointers, then give you a chance to try it out?" She suggested. "Then, like, on the weekend we can all get together and you can show me how much you've managed to improve. How's that sound?"


Emma glanced at Zach and smiled. Wasn't hard to tell her opinion on the subject. Zach hesitated for a moment before smiling. "You know what?" he finally replied. "That actually sounds really fun."


"I knew you'd like that idea," Vicky bragged. "Now I'm going to hit the shower before school. Let the others know I can take them to school, Zach?"


"Sure," Zach agreed, then he spotted me. He smiled and brushed some of his messy hair out of his face. Maybe I should considered growing out my hair. My father always insisted I keep my hair military regulation short. I should ask Missy what she'd prefer. "Hey, Theo, could you let Riley know we'll be going with Vicky? I know I'm not suppose to get tired. But I'm actually tired. Best bet I've ever lost."


"She crashed in Amy's room," Victoria informed me.


"Fuck," Emma muttered. "She'd been getting so much better about that, too."


I frowned. I didn't know a lot about Riley's nightmares, only pieces from overheard conversations. As much as I liked Riley, I mean I quite literally owed her my life and so did Missy. Of course I considered her my friend, but she was still very much Missy's bestie more than especially close to me. We just didn't have a great deal in common beyond Missy and work. Given her history, maybe I didn't want to know more about them. Still, I worried for her, especially if she was having nightmares again. I'd tell Missy about it first class we had together.


....


Zach and Clarice occupied the back seat of Vicky's sports car, while I rode in the passenger side. I concentrated on not looking back at Clarice. Even with everything out in the open, and Missy's more than understanding stance on the subject, I didn't feel right having the... feelings... that I did toward the construct that Riley piloted. Made me feel like I was a pervert. Then again, if I was, I shared the status with a solid half of the school.


It also made me feel like I was doing something wrong. Unfair to Missy. Not for the first time, I considered asking Riley to go in and manually fixing whatever it was that Dream Girl did to me. Along with my personal promise that if she ever returned, I'd kill her myself.


I pulled my mind away from that line of thought, and looked over at Vicky. She seemed more than a little unnerved for some reason. Maybe it had something to do with what she did with Zach and Emma? I couldn't imagine what else she could have done since then. "Are... are you okay? Did something happen?"


"I... why didn't anyone warn me about the shower in the lab?" Vicky whimpered. Oh. Oh god.


"You used the lab!?" Zach exclaimed. "Why!"


"Because I remembered Riley mentioning it having a shower, and I didn't know where anything else was!" Vicky cried.


"Isn't it wonderful?" Clarice asked happily. "It's like being massaged by thousands of adorable kitty tongues."


"That's because it is being massaged by thousands of kitty tongues!" Vicky exclaimed.


"They're not really," Clarice argued. "They're imitations made from Yggdrasil. I did my best to get everything exactly right, but there's all kinds of flaws. They don't have proper body temperature distribution, for one."


"I couldn't tell the difference," Victoria informed us. "I have superhuman senses, and I couldn't tell the difference between that so-called shower, and being covered in thousands of moving, disembodied, kitten tongues."


"Thank you!" Clarice replied. "I worked really really hard on that."


"She did, too," Zach informed us. "You have to admit she did an incredible job on that thing."


"I have never felt more clean in my life," Victoria whimpered.


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

A/N- At first glance, this chapter offers no story substance whatsoever. At second glance, it offers some significant plot points.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 190- Taylor


"Seems like an awful large force for a scouting mission," Victoria spoke up, leaning against the wall. "Especially with the dimension jumping tech."


"We're trying to impress on Haven that we're serious about this," Lisa sighed. "Smoking out the occasional drug or prostitution den has kept them from being too annoyed with us, but they want a legitimate win, here. The Fallen are stronger than ever, and the longer we put this off, the more likely they are to think we don't give a damn about them. What's the point in being allies with someone who won't back you up when it matters, right?"


"Still seems like a big force," Victoria argued. "I get Skitter," Amy flushed with irritation through our bond. "And Missy is kinda our chauffeur. But do we really need all three Endslayers, half our Tinkers, and thirty zerglings."


"Shadowcats," Amelia corrected. AnnoyanceImpatience. I nodded and stepped a little closer to her. Useful powers or not, her sister was a pain in the ass. She got along well enough with the others. Even Riley, strangely enough. She was one of the few people on the team who did get along with Lily. But she was still a fucking headache, and it was starting to bother Amelia. I placed my hand on my partner's back.


"Okay, fine," Lisa sighed. "This is a scouting mission, but we're still unloading a force for future engagements. And we're all freakin' bored as hell right now. You're having fun with your new powers and new gear, but in case you hadn't noticed, most of the team is getting restless. And we don't need a bunch of triumvirate tier parahumans getting bored right now. New York's finally stable, so it's time to move on to the next project."


"It's true," Lily agreed, talking to Vicky. To my surprise, Lily had mellowed out lately. Still wasn't friendly with any of us, but New York had an impact on her. "It's nice playing with you, but I need a real fight or I'm gonna go nuts. I'll settle for scouting and going after peripherals if I have to"


Sabah frowned. She was one of the ones that didn't like the violence and conflict, but went along with it because her girlfriend loved it. Maybe she was a factor in Lily's slightly less abrasive attitude of late.


"Fairly good odds you'll be able to pick off a few of their parahuman support. Baal and Lilith are still off the table, but if you have a target more than a couple miles away that you think you can take without much fuss, you're pre authorized," Lisa informed the girl that was our only real weapon against the Endbringers.


"I could use a trip to the beach, anyway," Zach replied. "Think we can stop by Miami after we're done?"


"It's October, Zach," Theo pointed out.


"And?" he asked. "Florida should still be nice, right? That's like five feet away to Missy."


Amy leaned in on my shoulder and whispered. "I still have to see you in that bikini," she whispered. I blushed, in spite of myself. AmusementDesire. I signaled back with a combination of embarrassment and happiness.


....


"Just you and I, huh?" Victoria spoke up as we approached Baal's suspected lair. He was one of the scary ones, much like Lung had been in Brocton Bay, that you tried not to fight. Maybe alone he wouldn't have been such a problem, but his partner Lilith was a precog and they pretty much never left each others' sides. She was suspected to have other powers, as well, but no one had ever gotten through Baal and forced her to use them.


"Yes," I answered. TrepidationProtective. Amelia was listening in on this conversation.


"I need to know the story of what's going on between you and Amy," she insisted.


"Talk to her about that," I just kept walking forward. Really? She had to do this now? Why couldn't she have just pulled me aside when I was walking home or something? Then again, it was probably better for me that it happened here.


"We both know that if I do, you'll be listening to every word," she accused.


"Not if Amelia asks me not to," I countered. IrritationSupport.


"Amy might believe that, but she always was too trusting," she argued.


"I would never betray her trust," I finally turned toward Victoria. ConcernCaution. "But if you're going to be so pig headed about this, fine. What is it that's more important than dealing with these sick fucks?"


"First, you're not gay," she pointed out.


"Oh, is that all?" I scoffed. "Amelia knows about that. Fuck, almost everyone knows about that. She insists that it doesn't matter and she's okay with it."


"You expect me to buy that?" she smirked.


"Some relationships are built on more than mere attraction," my tone darkened. "But, since you're that concerned... the subject's come up. We do have the tech needed to alter sexuality. Right there in the databanks along with the medical training, martial arts, Spanish, Hindi, Japanese, Korean and English as known by native speakers, military and police procedure, and a code language that Riley and Lisa are cooking up for us to use. We can change my inclinations with ease. We choose not to." FearSupportLove.


"That makes no fucking sense!" Victoria declared.


"You're the one with the lie detector powers," I pointed out. "You know I'm telling the truth on this."


"That brings up another thing," she exclaimed. "The fuck is up with the two of you? I get why Emma's so damn hard to read. Riley, too, but she had tech to do that. You and Amy confuse the hell out of my power. Your emotions change for no reason all the time."


"That would be Taylia," I answered, starting to smile. It was one more validation of our bond, how well it protected us from thinker powers. "It's... uh... let's just say Amelia's power and mine are really friendly with each other. We can, for lack of a better term, share our emotions directly. It's kind of impossible to describe. But I wouldn't give it up for the world, and neither would Amelia." CertaintySupportPride.


Victoria paused for a second, and I realized that I might have made a mistake telling her about the bond. Even though she could have asked almost anyone about it and known already. "Wait... so you're saying you have a psychic link where you can force my sister to feel things?"


"It cuts both ways," I insisted. "She can influence me just as much. And she's the one whose power created the link. She can undo it just as easily." ConcernGuilt. Why does she feel guilt over that? I wondered. Probably feels bad that she has the advantage in this relationship. It wasn't the first time she'd blamed herself for things that couldn't possibly be her fault.


"I don't like the idea of you being able to fuck with my sister's feelings," Victoria growled.


I resisted the urge to say anything. Considering what she'd done as Glory Girl? Fuck! She can read that. The thoughts were quashed quickly, but not quickly enough.


Her eyes narrowed. "What was that?"


"Nothing you want to know about," I answered, turning away.


She appeared in front of me almost too fast for me to realize she had moved in the first place. "No, I really think I do."


"Ask Crystal," I sighed, falling back on old habits. "Fuck, this is why I wanted you on her team. You're not going to listen to any of the rest of us. Riley and Emma may have their issues, but at least they're able to obey fucking orders. We have a job to do here, don't fuck it up just because this is the first time you and I have been alone together and you want to start a fight."


"Fine, I'm gone," She turned around.


What? "What?"


"You don't want me here, and we both know you never did," she pointed out. "Amy might, but it's putting all kinds of stress on the rest of you. I can go home, right now. You can go back to whatever you had going on. I've got great new powers and a completely badass armor. Thank you for magicking me back to life, lemme know what the bill for all this shit is. I'm sure I'll find someone willing to pay it to have me on the team."


"You're bluffing," I insisted. FearLoss.


"I am," she admitted. "But I'm also a stubborn bitch. I will follow through out of spite, and you know it."


"Can you just trust me on this one thing?" I asked. "I know we're not friends. I doubt we'll ever be friends, but this is not something you want me telling you about."


"You know something fucking huge," she asserted, turning and stepping right up to my face. PanicProtective. I pushed calming emotions into the link. She didn't need to step in, not like this. "Something you're more afraid of than me finding out about you having Bonesaw in your basement. Even more than that crazy plan with fucking Nilbog. So, yeah, I am not just taking your word on this. Or are you gonna say you wouldn't do the same if the positions were reversed?"


She met my gaze, and I looked right back. Then I relented. "Know what? Fuck it. You've made your point. I won't stop you from leaving."


She gripped my armor and brought up her fist. "I can do a lot of damage to you and leave you in a condition that Amy can bring back," she threatened. "Do you think you can stop me?"


"Not really," I answered. DisappointmentAngerCertainty. "But, then, I really don't have to."


She let go and stepped back, wrapping her arms around herself. "What the fuck!" she shouted.


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

A/N- Vicky just needed a hug.

... What? You were maybe expecting a bondage joke?

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 191- Victoria


I struggled against the armor, even as it tightened its restraints against me. I activated my combat senses, trying to find a way to break out, but this suit had been designed for me. Able to absorb the energy I unleashed, to power its batteries. Able to withstand my superhuman strength. I reshaped my fingers into claws to dig my way out, but the armor regenerated faster than I could cut through.


"Vicky, how could you?" a voice, Amy's voice, asked me.


My eyes focused on Skitter for a second. A combination of fear and hesitation. Secrets she's afraid I've discovered. "Amy," I started. "You have to listen to me. She's controlling you. Some kind of emotion manipulation."


There was a hesitation. "Is that what you think's going on?"


"Think about it, Amy," I said gently. "Remember how you were so afraid to use your powers? Right after you got them, you made Aunt Sarah's cat glow. And that was the only time you ever did anything. From then on you refused to be anything more than a healer."


"I was afraid of being seen as the next Nilbog," she argued.


"I know, I know," I agreed. "But then you just change your mind one day. Not only that, but you did it in such a spectacular way. You built a super tree and living weapons to fight the Slaughterhouse Nine with."


"They needed to be stopped," she argued.


"Then you started working with the two people you hated most in the world," I continued. "Plus fucking Bonesaw."


"Who's been nothing but helpful and cooperative, if a bit weird," Amy countered.


"Riley's so nice it'd be creepy even if she wasn't guilty of crimes against humanity," I agreed. "Which should be a hint, Ames. You have freakin' Bonesaw on the team. And Missy, who was all 'serious business child soldier', and the son of Kaiser, and whatever the fuck the story is with Emma. Sure, they're all nice kids, but it's pretty fucking suspicious."


"Your group has some seriously scary brain rewriting tech. You can't trust your memories here, so think about it logically. You're engaged to a hetero girl and seem to be okay with that for no apparent reason. You're chained up to her with some weird emotion manipulation power. You have to see how they might have done something to your mind, right? You have to trust me. Let me go so I can help you."


"Vicky, if they were going to do that, why didn't they do it to you?"


"They probably figured that since I wasn't going to have powers, they wouldn't need to," I pointed out. "You told me that even the best precogs can't see trigger events, and thanks to my new powers I don't think they can rewrite my brain. Your girlfriend has been hostile toward me from the beginning."


"She'd probably be a bit nicer if you weren't constantly calling her a supervillain all the time," Amy argued.


"Because she is!" I shouted. "Dammit, Ames, listen to me. It's a lot more than her just not liking me. I can see her emotions, and she's... fuck, she's afraid of me on a level thats more than some worry I might punch her. She's... there's even some jealousy in there, like she needs to protect you from me. She's hiding one hell of a fucking secret, and this fits all the evidence. You're being controlled by them. Just let me go, and I can get you away from her influence. I can save you. Please."


"Vicky, she's not controlling me," Amy sighed.


"Then why would she be so afraid of having me around you?" I argued. "She refuses to say because she knows I can tell if she's lying."


"Fine," Amy snapped. "You really want to know what we've been trying to keep from you? Fine. Vicky, remember how you had that fucking emotion manipulation aura?"


"I remember it," I confirmed. Then I ran through my memories from after being awoken, just in case they did plant something in my mind. Yeah, it was a thing.


"And how we thought I was immune?" she added.


"You were exposed enough times to be resistant," I agreed. "Just like mom and dad. Even Aunt Sarah and Uncle Neil were able to ignore it after a few seconds."


"We weren't," she corrected. "Your aura has a residual effect. Depending on how much we'd been exposed. The reason we were able to function around your power is because it never wore off for us. For mom, it's part of why she was able to be nice to you, even though she was so cold to everyone else. Dad, well, I don't suppose you would have noticed that he only ever smiled when you were there. And me? I went through puberty with your power constantly telling me to love you."


Oh fuck, I realized with slowly dawning disgust and fear.


"You're not wrong about Taylor being jealous," Amy continued. "It's for the perfectly normal reasons that anyone should feel like that. She's afraid I might still be influenced by... those feelings."


"You mean..." please tell me I'm understanding her wrong.


"Yeah, she's afraid I might still be in love with you."


"And... and are you?" I had to ask. I didn't want to, but I had to.


"I'm trying not to be," she admitted. "It's a lot easier to ignore than it was before, with your aura active. But four years of power enforced unrequited love doesn't just go away in a few months. Taylor knows that, and has been more understanding than I could have hoped, and that's just one of the reasons I love her. I can't say she's been all that accepting toward you, but under the circumstances, can you blame her?"


"So... fuck... all that time?" I asked, hesitantly. "Why didn't you tell me?"


"Tell you what?" she scoffed. "Hey, sis, I just had my first wet dream. Guess what you were doing in it! Yeah, that would have gone over wonderfully. Carol would have triggered with the ability to go back in time and undo ever adopting me in the first place."


"Well, as far as pickup lines go, it's not even close to the worst I've ever heard," I attempted to add a little humor to the situation. "Now if I promise to play nice, will you please release your control over my armor? I'm not a fan of being tied up like this."


"Are you going to apologize to Taylor?" she asked.


"Hey, she could have just told me what I asked the first time," I insisted. "She's a supervillain with mind control tech who's engaged to my sister. The burden is on her to prove she's not using it to take advantage of you."


"She's not taking advantage of me," Amy insisted yet again. "We can prove it, if you like."


"How?" I asked, suspiciously.


"That bond between us can be turned off," she informed. "We like it being on, for all kinds of reasons. Not the least of which is because it fucks with thinkers like you and Lisa. It even works on precogs like Dinah. You can talk to her, without the bond."


"Okay," I reluctantly agreed. I felt the suit relax. I looked toward Skitter. "Okay, Ames said something about you coming clean," I told her.


"Yeah, I overheard the conversation," she said without any shame at spying on something that should have been private. Although now I could see her emotions for what they were, instead of filtered through that bond. 'Taylia', they called it. She was angry, jealous and insecure. I wasn't a mind reader, I only knew what they were feeling, I had to guess the why. Although in that case it seemed pretty obvious.


"Amelia and I joined forces to kill the last of the Nine and get revenge for the death of half my team, and you. Riley was her idea. Yes, we have used the mind altering tech, more than once. Never on Amelia. I love her, and if you dare imply otherwise again, I'll kick you off this team just so she doesn't have to. Is that good enough for your lie detection power? Can we get back to the actual mission? Or do we need to have a conversation about the residual effects of your love-me-field and all the relationship issues it's causing between me and my fiancee?"


"No," I conceded. She's telling the truth. I watched her relax and her turmultuous angry feelings broke and dissolved into a much happier, though still guarded, state. That's what Taylia's capable of? I asked myself. No fucking wonder I can't read them. "So what now?" I asked.


"Now we pretend this never happened," she commanded. "And go use your power to figure out a way to stop one of the biggest assholes on the continent that isn't currently in the birdcage. That's what we do."


"Uh... yeah," I agreed. "I can do that."


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

A/N- Fridge Horror: there's no way you can be sure Vicky's wrong about all this.

Bonus Fridge Horror: Vicky actually HAS heard worse pickup lines.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 192- Victoria


Skitter turned and didn't speak another word as she walked into the holographic simulation of Baal's lair. It wasn't really a hologram so much as a ghost imprint involving something to do with allowing light to cross dimensions or something like that. Trevor and Emma tried to explain it to me a couple times, but despite who I apparently inherited my power from, I still had to sum up the whole conversation as 'tinker bullshit' and be done with it.


What I wouldn't give for them trying to explain it again, so I could ignore the news I just got. Amy was in love with me. My old power forced it to happen. I had no words for how fucked up that was. No wonder they didn't want to talk about it. Well, that made the next part simple: we wouldn't talk about it. Now I just needed a way to not have to think about it. Smashing the faces of a bunch of Endbringer worshiping psychopaths would be an excellent way to do that.


"Holy shit," Skitter growled as we passed through the wall and into the side of their compound. There were bones hanging from the walls, and it didn't take my powers to identify them as human. "Are those fake?" she asked, sounding unnerved for the first time since I met her.


"No," I replied. "Very real."


There were a number of people here, all armed to the teeth. "Where the hell did they get military guns?" I asked. I wasn't really a firearms expert, but living in Brockton Bay, you pick up at least a general idea of most weapons.


"There are ways," Skitter answered. "All it takes is money and knowing the right people. These fuckers have a lot of money."


We kept moving through the halls, sticking our heads through walls to find more information where we could, the Zerglings taking flanking positions around us for reasons I was fairly certain were subconscious on her part. They didn't have dimension jumping, after all. I found a large storehouse full of munitions. "They've got enough explosives in here to destroy the whole compound," I exclaimed.


"I could shunt over a Razorbat and set them off," Skitter suggested. Not to me, I realized. I could tell by her reaction that she didn't like the response she got from whomever was at mission control this time. Probably Tattletale. "Fuck, they have captives."


Of course they do, I sighed inwardly.


"It's just a scouting mission, anyway," she reminded me. "We're only here to gather info and see if your power knows a way to beat them. Dinah's power only tells us the odds, and Lisa's only comes up with ideas."


We worked our way through the ghostly imitation of the compound. It was fairly large, all considered, and built almost entirely out of concrete. A fortress capable of withstanding almost anything short of a military assault, or parahumans. "Can't you use your freaky bug powers to find who we're looking for?" I asked.


"Not without alerting them," she answered. "Minerva's tried that angle, and she's pretty sure Lilith's power would detect it if I tried. The other most likely possibility is that there's a third parahuman in the compound that would spot it. Same with using a mapping scanner. We're not certain why watching from here doesn't set them off. Probably because their thinker can't reach across dimensional layers or something. Dinah says we're safe, the rest is just guesswork."


"Split up?" I suggested. "Lots of space to cover, and I can go a lot faster if I don't have to stay near you."


"Fine, but I expect you to report back to me if you find anything," she insisted.


"Yeah, sure," I turned and bolted, trusting my boosted senses to keep me informed despite my moving at over sixty miles an hour. Most of the compound was boring. There was a good amount of farmland outside the first building we entered, surprisingly enough. I didn't recognize the crops in question, but I did recognize slave labor when I saw it. There wasn't any other reason to have men armed with assault rifles threatening the workers. Pity sound didn't carry over to the side we were viewing. There's an idea. I hit the com system. "Hey, Riley?" I started. "Could you get lip reading into those knowledge upgrades?"


"That's a really smart idea!" Riley exclaimed happily. "How's the mission going?"


I was already moving to what appeared to be the largest building in this fortress. "Nothing we didn't know already," I answered. "Still looking."


"Okay, should I tell the others to go ahead with their missions?" she asked.


"Probably better to wait," I replied. No sense in letting them know we were coming early. I entered the large building. It was a warehouse of some sort, containing large bags full of what I was pretty sure was drugs. I watched as people walked to and fro. A man dressed up in an outfit of solid black, with three long ropes coming off his shoulders stood there. They're already imitating Barghest? I thought. It's only been a week and a half.


"Unknown parahuman, male, late twenties to early thirties," I informed over the coms, adding Tattletale and Emma to the conversation. I let my power go. Offensive strategy: attack from behind, punch him in the back of the head, he dies. "No special defense against surprise attacks, not a high end regenerator." Defensive strategy: avoid ropes, stay out of range of ropes, stay out of line of sight. "Blaster or shaker of some kind. His costume is built to be a weapon or improve his power somehow, I think. He needs line of sight on his powers. Maybe mover, my power doesn't want me staying still for long near him."


"Never heard of him," Emma replied. "Too generic a power description, and the picture makes me believe he changed costumes."


"See if there's any Simurgh imitators that might fit," Tattletale suggested.


"Only a couple dozen," Emma retorted.


The man in black touched a crate and then vanished, taking the crate with him. "Fuck!" I exclaimed. "Teleporter. Powerful one."


"Seire," Emma replied almost immediately. "Touch range telekinetic, not too different than your old power. Teleportation of up to five hundred miles, confirmed. Likely more. Can use it rapidly enough to be effective in combat. Manton limited, but uses his power to strengthen his costume. Likes to mutilate his victims without killing them. Shouldn't be able to get through our battle armor, though."


"My power thinks he can get through mine," I informed.


"Sending Horus as backup. He should be a hard counter," Tattletale added.


I smiled. Yeah, that would work. My power's strategy for getting through Theo's armor was 'no'.


"Found them," Skitter said over the com. Her voice fluctuated in a way that let me know she was incredibly upset. I turned and bolted back that direction. Seire might come back, but I needed a look at the bosses.


I arrived at a tunnel in the Yggdrasil, and a swarm of insects pointing at the hole. I followed it down, and the scenery changed. In the dark, it was easier to see the other world. I arrived in what was, for all intents and purposes, a throne room out of a depiction of hell. Complete with bone furniture. That, at least, was fake. Although many decorations on the wall were not. I continued following the tunnel into a side area. A large bedroom. Baal and Lilith were there. She does not have the body to be wearing something like that, I decided immediately. A Simurgh-themed 'chainmail bikini' costume didn't belong on a 5'6, 250 pound, 40 year old woman.


Baal, on the other hand, looked like something out of a barbarian movie. Muscular to the point of near absurdity, and covered in a dark red armor with bits of brownish bone plating. His armor is the real thing. And, if my power was any indicator, it's still alive. Reading his physiology convinced me that guessing his age would be impossible.


There were two other men, guards, one leading a girl out of the room, and another bringing a new girl in. Lilith gazed at her. "This one in ready, m'lord," she said with an attempt at a sultry voice that she couldn't pull off well, either. My stomach dropped.


"Ready for what," I asked Skitter hesitantly. The hormone and physiology information already told me the answer.


"Breeding," she answered angrily. "It's a breeding program. Like Heartbreaker."


"She's barely fourteen years old!" I exclaimed.


"I know..."


"I'm going in," I said.


"Wait!" she shouted. "This is a scouting mission."


"I'm not going to watch a child get raped," I growled.


"Can you disable them?" she asked.


"Her? Yes," I answered. "Him, I'll have to kill."


Lilith's head turned toward us even as Skitter gave the command. "Do it."


I shunted before she had a chance to speak. She dodged a burst of laser light with a shocking swiftness considering her age and physique, but she wasn't the one I was concerned about. At the same moment, my leg came up as hard as my strength would allow, right between Baal's legs. There was a wet crunch, as my armored foot sank into his flesh. I almost laughed at him, after my power was kind enough to tell me that, while such an injury would be temporary for him, he still had the ability to feel pain.


I dropped to the ground and rolled backward as Lilith fired a shot from some kind of tinker weapon. I didn't know the details, but my power made it clear I didn't want to take a hit from it. A splash of gore dropped from the hole my foot had left in Baal.


Meanwhile, I was listening to shouting and assault rifle fire from across the compound. They had, if my guess was correct, about fifty guards. We had thirty zerglings and countless modified insects. I took a couple more pot shots at Lilith, who evaded them almost casually. She's a better precog than I am, I realized as I struggled to avoid a couple more shots from her gun. I was only doing this well because I had superhuman speed backing me up.


Baal, meanwhile, had regenerated. I swapped out to the ice lance, and shot him in the crotch again. Sadly, that attack didn't leave a lot of nerves behind. He screamed, however, as his power started to undo the tissue damage. My power kindly informed me that I still had almost six and a half tons worth of human biomass to destroy before I would actually be able to do lasting damage to him. More importantly, I had to keep him fighting that whole time. If he decided to retreat, he could escape me. Or my power believed he could.


I dodged a couple more of Lilith's shots, then swapped to sonic and fired a wide burst toward her. The guards had started firing on me as well, but my armor was entirely bulletproof. It was, however, a distraction and one of Lilith's shots caught me in the shoulder. Fuck, I didn't want to do this so soon. I activated my war form. The breaker state undid my injury and adjusted my physiology. It even infused into my armor, which the tinkers had somehow bullshitted my power into thinking was a part of me. I mended the damage, moved forward and punched Baal in the head, sending him flying back. I fired a laser shot into his genitals. They caught fire.


I might be having too much fun with that, I thought. Then I flipped back to avoid another stream of energy from Lilith's gun. I swapped to EMP setting and activated the burst. Lilith, the guards, and the poor girl that was still in the room all screamed in pain. Contrary to popular imagination, EMPs fucking hurt. Other people.


She gasped as I closed in for a hit, and then my power warned me, so I moved back. My power was afraid to touch her, even through the armor. I wasn't sure why, but I would rather not find out.


"Fuck," she spat as she struggled to her feet. "You're a precog, too?"


"Guilty as charged," I quipped, my eyes glancing over to Baal. I resisted the urge to smirk as he had put multiple extra layers of his bioarmor over his crotch. "Of course, you're better at it," I admitted. Hopefully you're stupid about it, too.


She pulled a sword out from her position behind the bed, then rushed me. She was unnervingly fast for her size, but I was fast for anyone. I avoided her easily, only to be forced to duck and roll when Baal nearly got me with a spined tendril made from his armor. Lilith followed up by swiping at my shoulder, the one she'd shot before. The blade got through the weakened armor and sank into my flesh. She let the weapon go. Fuck.


I gripped the blade and shunted it out. Then, ignoring the injury, I twisted sideways and kicked outward, breaking Baal's knee. Thanks to the additional armor he used to protect the family jewels, he was a lot slower than he should have been with his powers. Slow enough for me to keep up with, as was the plan all along. Lilith pulled another sword from another hiding place. How paranoid do you have to be to hide all these weapons in your bedroom? I wondered briefly. Then I swapped for my sonic blaster again.


Lilith stepped to the side and pointed the blade at the teenage girl's throat. "You know I can kill her before you can stop me," she warned. It was true, of course. I hesitated as Baal got to his feet. Fuck. The girl just sat there in wide eyed horror. And then Seire appeared in the bedroom. Well, fuck me then.


Missy shunted in, near the door. Along with Theo. Zach appeared right in front of Lilith, who slapped him. He disintegrated. From just a slap? She has to have a scary touch power. The child vanished into dust a half second later, as Theo bull-rushed Seire, using gravity manipulation to help. Baal's legs exploded from underneath him, and I took a couple more shots at Lilith.


She moved toward Missy, and space warped around. It wouldn't work. Lilith's power let her follow the warp perfectly, getting her in touch range, where she grabbed Missy's arm. Lilith's arm started sinking into Missy's costume. Not in the usual sense of it, but more like when Lily uses her power to phase an object through another. Then Lilith screamed and stumbled back. Her arm was missing up to the shoulder.


I shunted out, moved a few feet, and shunted back in behind Seire. Cost me both of my jumps, but that was fine. I brought my claws into the man's back, using the cryo effect to weaken his armor and let me cut through. He vanished. I turned and clotheslined him as he reappeared. I definitely preferred fighting non-precogs. I also liked knowing we had healers, because I was pretty sure I just put the asshole into a coma he wouldn't come out of without parahuman help.


I turned back toward Baal. "So, want to surrender?"


"Fck ff," he muttered from through his altered jaw.


"Oh, thank you so much for saying that," I smiled, and moved. I shunted Lilith's sword back into this reality, dipped low, and shoved the thing up into his crotch yet again. Although, with the angle I used, it really did more damage to the intestines than anywhere else. Then I hit the weapon with the full extent of my electrical generation. He screamed as best he could while the metal heated to the point where it melted inside of him. Not a very high quality blade, I decided.


But, he recovered quickly nonetheless, even as everyone else retreated from the room. Missy took the teenager, while Theo carried the badly bleeding Lilith and Zach dragged Seire. Wonder who gave that command? Oh well, I was fine here with Baal.

I stepped back and grabbed the other sword. Nope, these are all replicas, I realized. I fired another sonic blast, this time at full concentration. The back wall cracked as he slammed into it. I shunted out and returned standing on the ceiling above him. I jumped off of it and used all that force to send the second sword down his throat, followed by yet another electrical surge. He dropped. My power told me that he was almost out of power.


I swapped to the ice lance, and aimed right for his heart, waiting for him to recover just enough to be aware of what was coming. His insides were reduced to near absolute zero. His eyes just stared at me in shock, and I watched as his power used the remainder of the stolen biomass of other human beings to recover. He was beaten, completely. He could recover, but would take years for him to restore his strength enough to be much of a threat. I guess I can take him in alive, I realized.


Fuck that noise. I kicked him in the chest, and he shattered to pieces.


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

A/N- I updated the timeline.

Also- this chapter is as big as two of my usual chapters, and I got other shit to do today, so there probably won't be a second today. Enjoy.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 193


Vicky and Taylor shunted over together, on the helipad of the Houston PRT office where I was waiting. "Where are the others?" I asked.


"Horus has business to take care of," Taylor informed me. "Aceso, Lachesis and Osiris opted to stay with him." Oh, he must have found Purity during the cleanup. Of course they'd want to talk while they had the chance. Purity's new identity may have been squeaky clean, but she hadn't been able to make real contact with Theo for whatever reasons that seemed overly paranoid in my opinion. It was good to give them a chance to catch up.


"I guess that's okay," I replied, trying to sound disinterested in the situation. "They're not necessary for the debriefing, after all. You're still monitoring them in case of unexpected trouble, of course?"


"Of course," she agreed. All part of the act.


"Umm... Vicky, how are you holding up?" I asked. There was a lot of things between us right now.


"Shoulder's sore," was her answer. "I think Lilith did something that's keeping me from regenerating properly. It can wait until after the meeting."


"I meant-" You finding out about my attraction. Me trapping you in your own armor. What happened between you and Taylor. What you saw in that compound that horrified even Taylor. "You've never had to kill anyone before," I finally settled on the safest of all the things I wanted to say. ConcernSupport.


"I still haven't," she said dismissively. "That sack of shit wasn't human." AgreementDisgust. Oh god, Taylor and Vicky agree on something.


I frowned. This was just like Vicky. If she couldn't hit the problem, or yell at it until she got her way, she'd pretend it wasn't a problem at all. Like Dad's depression, and Mom's general bitchiness, and her make up to break up relationship with Dean. Now that I think about it, she hasn't even mentioned Dean since she was brought back from the dead. Maybe she was more like Zach than I realized.


We made our way to the meeting relatively silently, led by a couple PRT troopers, who politely left us to our silent contemplation with nothing more than a "Please follow us, ma'ams."


We walked into a rather spacious office. Houston was a big city, big enough to field three Protectorate teams, plus six of the Haven capes, and still remain understaffed. And that was before New Delhi. This base was understandably massive for those reasons. Already present was Halo and Prophet. We didn't know his powerset, but it was likely some type of precognition or high end thinker, based on the name.


Then there was Ranger, one of the 'makes others better' trumps, gifting superhuman accuracy and timing. He was the new head of the Houston Protectorate after Eidolon's pseudo-retirement to dedicate himself to the anti Endbringer efforts. Then of course the Director Lane, a middle aged man who reminded me of a significantly less obese, and slightly less masculine, Piggot.


"This was intended to be a scouting mission," the Director said with an attempt at neutrality that didn't match the accusatory language. We hadn't even had a chance to find our seats. He looked toward Victoria. "You're the one who killed Baal?"


"Ye-" Vicky started, but was cut off.


"It was my command," Taylor interrupted. "She informed me that she was confident her power trumped Baal's, but only if she was authorized to use lethal force. I authorized lethal force."


"And what gave you the authority to murder a suspect during a scouting mission?" he, again, kept calm. "You are not authorized law enforcement, and even if you were, you have no jurisdiction in this state."


"The fucker was going to rape a child!" Vicky shouted.


"Miss Dallon," he sighed theatrically. "If you can't restrain your temper, either leave or be escorted out."


"As if you could make me do anything," Vicky smirked.


"Vicky," I looked at her. "Please. For me?"


"Fine," she muttered.


"He's hostile for political leverage," Lisa informed us over the coms. "Afraid our alliance with Haven will do in Houston what we did in Brockton Bay, and our alliances in Boston and New York are doing there. Wants to make us look bad to Halo so he isn't willing to be too closely associated with us. Frankly, he probably doesn't need a lot of convincing. Our team name doesn't exactly inspire him to love us. Be apologetic about this, but not so much that it looks like weakness, that would be even worse than being proud of it. Couldn't hurt to imply that Lane would have left that girl to be abused. Buy me a few, I'm gonna make some phone calls."


"It was regrettable," I started. "But our only alternative would have been to let Baal rape and impregnate a fourteen year old girl. Khepri made the right decision."


"What are your powers?" Prophet asked, looking at Victoria.


"Brute, mover, striker, and combat thinker," Vicky answered without hesitation. "I can sense you using your power on me, by the way. My power's telling me that the longer I let you do that, the harder it will be for me to fight you in the future. Power detector? Analyzer? Wow, glad you're on our side."


"I would have liked to keep that a secret," he sighed. "Ironic, I guess. And your power is what made you believe you had to kill Baal to beat him?"


"He could have recovered from anything less," she answered. "My power said no to using containment foam on them, and ruled out all our other disabling options. It insisted that my options were kill, or let him go."


"Which fits with intel from other fights against them, as well as what we could learn from our own thinkers," Taylor added quickly. "Baal's escaped from foam before, and we now know that Lilith generates some kind of disintegration field through her skin."


"And that's why you dismembered Lilith?"


"She did that to herself," Taylor answered. "She attacked Lachesis, whose specialized armor is designed to use dimensional warping to disable attacks. You'd have to talk to our tinkers for details, but you have records on Vista and her power. Singularity was custom built to harness that. It even includes an anti-precog effect that likely explains why Lilith didn't know better."


"Beats my combat precognition, too," Vicky added. "Seriously, her power is so unfair. She is one of the Endslayers for a reason."


"And Seire?" the Director reminded us.


"Didn't have much choice," Vicky answered dismissively. "I hit him as hard as I had to to keep him from teleporting away, or we would never have found him. Ames will patch him up. Right, sis?"


"Of course," I frowned. This reminds me an awful lot of the E88 thugs before Leviathan.


SurpriseConfidence. "Umm, this may sound like a non sequitur, but what do you think of the Railroad Bandits?"


"Bunch of second rate thugs and vandals," the Director told us dismissively. "Not worth bringing up at this meeting."


"They play up a sort of noble thieves image," Halo added. "It's right there in their name, romanticizing tales of the Wild West and emphasizing anti big business and big government sentiment. In the interest of avoiding a long winded history lesson, it's easiest just to call it a southwestern version of the Robin Hood mythology. The Director's right when he says they're unimportant. Mostly guilty of nuisance crimes, and only against companies or groups that are politically unpopular. Certain vocal minorities even call them heroes. Why do you ask?"


"They found out we were in town," Taylor informed. "And have decided to preemptively surrender and offer join up. Apparently they smoked out one of the Fallen's drug dens and came away with a couple of the capes we hadn't found yet. Something about handing them over as a welcoming party gift. Minerva and our own public policy says we accept both of their offers. You can arrange the legal steps needed, right?"


Director Lane's skin changed to a lovely shade of scarlet. "You can't be serious!" he exclaimed.


"Hey, don't look at me," Taylor shrugged. "All we came here for was the Fallen. Seems our reputation preceded us." SmugHappyAmused. I smiled. We put a lot of work into that rep, it's nice to see it pay off.


"Is there anything else, Director?" I asked.


"We still haven't settled the matter of your subordinate," he emphasized the word, and I could imagine Vicky's response would be ugly. "And her premeditated execution of a man. A criminal, I'll grant you, but we don't take kindly to vigilante justice."


ConfidentCertainty. "Actually, Director Lane, we've taken the liberty of presenting our findings to Chief Director Costa-Brown," Taylor spoke up. "You should be receiving a call in three... two..."


A phone rang. Not taking his eyes off of us, Lane answered. "Yes?" "Yes Ma'am." "No, Ma'am." "I understand." "Sorry for the inconvenience." "Thank you, Ma'am." He hung up, and still hadn't stopped looking at us, though his expression had gotten even more unhappy as he listened to the woman on the other side of the conversation. "It seems the Chief Director has, after receiving and confirming evidence of a forced parahuman breeding program, issued a kill order on Baal, retroactively." He informed us. Somehow, he made it sound like he had just given Hitler the Congressional Medal of Honor.


"Awesome!" Vicky said happily. "So, I have a feeling you guys have a lot to talk about. Since I'm not needed anymore, can I go scout out the eateries? I promise to bring you back something delicious. I hear great things about ribs around here."


"That's probably a good idea," Taylor agreed. "You're dismissed."


"Thanks!" Vicky exclaimed, and then simply vanished from the room.


"Little sisters," I offered apologetically.


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

A/N- Apparently 3k words in one day wasn't enough, so here's another 1600.

 

[Helpless Kitten]

(Almost mistyped "shipping spree." Would be equally funny).

Click to shrink...

The meeting between Pantheon and the Triumverate was winding down. All of the important matters had been discussed and people began breaking down to individual conversations. Lisa and Alexandria were busy staring at each other, Taylor and Amelia were getting tips on having an enlightening discussion about having a relationship in the public eye from Legend and Eidolon was in the corner, sulking about being relegated to merely being Super Jesus, as opposed to Mega Ultra Kung-fu-Action Jesus.

Then Alexandria yelled in panic, "Not the face! I'll be good!" And the room went silent.

"What." Taylor could not quite get it out as a question. More of an accusation directed at Lisa, really.

"I don't know! I just suggested that we use our powers to get Eidolon a girlfriend or something!" Lisa protested. Legend and Eidolon burst out laughing. Alexandria hid her face in shame.

"Back when we first started out," Legend began, "Rebecca had this obsession with getting people hooked up. It got so bad that Hero created a dimensionally shunted water bottle that squirts her in the face with sea water whenever she triggers its 'meddling' sensor."

Alexandria grimaced. "Fucking Tinkers..."

"That's awful!" Taylor exclaimed. "Hilarious, but still awful."

"You know," Lisa said, speculatively, "We could probably get at that water bottle. We do have dimensional shunting tech..." Legend and Eidolon stopped dead.

"No, you fool!" Eidolon exclaimed. But it was too late. A giggle escaped Alexandria. A giggle became a chuckle and the chuckle became a mad laugh.

"Soon!" She cried. "Soon I shall be free from Pavlovian terror and my shipping will spread across the globe! Mwuhahahahaha!" Everyone stared.

"Ahem. I mean, yes. That would be very helpful indeed."

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 194


"Now there's the next issue," Taylor added after Victoria left. "How are you planning to contain Seire and Lilith? They can't be held by anything resembling a conventional prison. In fact, it's likely they could escape even from the Birdcage."


The Director frowned. "We developed a method," he answered. "You'll have to speak to the Chief Director again, if you want the details."


"Say exactly what I say," Lisa spoke into my com. I knew through the link that she wasn't speaking to Taylor. I nodded slightly and started reciting.


"You've found a new master cape," I repeated. "One of Heartbreaker's kids."


ShockDisgust. "Fuck," Taylor muttered.


"Not someone like Cherish or Hijack," I kept on script. "Emotion control powers have limits, this is hard mind control that doesn't require the parahuman who inflicts it to be involved after the fact. Or much at all, past the control process."


Halo was the one who broke silence. "It's as ethical as we can possibly make it," he insisted.


ConfrontationAnger. "What, exactly, are you doing?" Taylor insisted.


The Director sighed. "One of the Vasil children has a power that forces a form of OCD behavior. The victims of the power must complete a ritual before being able to take a given action. Prior uses involved being forced to recite poems before crossing any doorway, and counting before taking a bite of food. Once inflicted, it can't be changed except by applying the anti-master drug to the victim."


WaryRelief. "That sounds fairly benign so far," Taylor admitted.


"The other half is somewhat worse," Halo admitted. "They'll be fitted with a device. A twenty digit code they must enter while speaking aloud thanks to the compulsion, in order to access their power. Every button press involves a progressively more painful reaction. If they can make it to the tenth, which is highly improbable, it then exposes them to a number of tinker derived drugs that renders them unconscious. The fifteenth button, if they make it that far, is lethal. It shouldn't be able to get that far, since activating any part of the code instantly alerts the guards."


"We've tested the effect on volunteers, both normal and parahuman," the Director offered. "The only thing that lets them bypass the command, even temporarily, is if they are under the influnce of yet another master's power."


"At which point, you have something far more serious to be concerned with," Taylor volunteered. "I must admit, I really don't like hearing about it this way, but it's as elegant a solution as one could hope for under the circumstances."


Our allies are going behind our backs, I thought to myself. I can't imagine why I'd be surprised by that. "Will this become a common type of punishment?" I asked.


"That you will need the Chief Director to answer," Director Lane replied. "After she gets done talking to the President, Congress, and the Surpreme Court. Frankly, I doubt it. Voter backlash. Too many 'slippery slope' arguments to be made against it."


I nodded. "I understand."


We were hesitant to reveal our knowledge implant tech for similar reasons. Our nerve damage regenerating technology even managed to ruffle the feathers of some groups. Not enough to stop us, of course, but I was surprised by the number of death threats we got for it. A lot of them from the Deaf community after finding out we could heal a number of them through this equipment. Pity it was still a few years away from legal approval to use. Even if Carol assured me that it was being heavily fast tracked compared to most experimental treatments.


"Now we just confirm the final arrangements," Taylor added. "Pantheon will publically take credit, or blame if you prefer, for the attack on the Fallen's main compound, and the injuries resultant from it. It was my orders that turned this from a harassment and scout mission with a vague hope for an ambush opportunity into a full scale assault, after all. Haven and the PRT can take credit for the peripheral targets. We give the Railroad Bandits credit for their part as well, of course."


"We can accept that," Lane agreed. Of course he did. That was a lot more generous than our prior arrangement, and they knew it.


Where before it would have been called a joint operation across the board, which probably would have benefited us more than them, this made it look like they deserved full credit for the dozen other attacks that happened across the city, regardless of how much of that was handled by our team as well. Especially our thinkers and tinkers. Oh well, Baal was to Houston what Lung was to Brockton Bay and Heartbreaker was to Montreal. Everyone wanted him gone, but removing him would have caused more damage than ignoring him.


ShockSurpriseConfidence. "The last part, of course, is Haven's association with Pantheon," Taylor replied. "I believe it serves us both well to make our alliance official."


That's bold, I thought. What did Taylor just find out?


"Your conditions?" Halo asked.


"Same as all our core allies," Taylor responded. "We test your members' powers, allowing us to to discover potential power synergies. Much like what Gaea and I possess, and the combination we discovered between the Endslayers. We suspect a potential interaction between Rosary and one of the Adepts, known as Shaman. If it works coupled with one of the devices we've developed with Dragon, it's possible we could have another Endslayer combination. Beyond that, we ask you to contact us for any A or S class threat missions. Coordinate with us for such missions."


"In exchange," I continued. It had somehow become our pattern for Taylor to give the demands while I make the offers. I don't know how or when that happened, but it worked out that way. "We can provide the generic battle armor, plus advanced variants for certain powers. It's especially likely with energy generation and telekinetic or matter manipulating powers. Then there's access to our healing technology and powers," including the ones we don't share with the public, I added mentally. "And, of course, our support in any major conflict. I believe our ability to coordinate our allies is one of our finest advantages."


"I note none of your allies are here," the Director pointed out.


"Didn't need them here," Taylor replied dismissively. "The Adepts and Ambassadors, as well as most of our own team, were sent on a series of other missions. The Teeth are losing their holdings in Tennessee, Georgia, and North Carolina. Granted, we probably won't get everything, spread as thin as we are for this mission, but the Directors of those areas have authorized their respective Protectorate and PRT forces in joint operations not unlike this one."


"I didn't hear anything about this," Lane replied in shock.


Taylor shrugged. "I'm sure most of the other Directors would ask you why you didn't tell them you were working with us on this as well. As Gaea said, coordination. And being willing to commit the resources necessary for a decisive victory with a single encounter."


"You... you planned to kill Baal from the beginning!" he accused.


"Not to kill," Taylor corrected. "We had Dinah Alcott tell us the combinations we needed to guarantee victory against Baal. I guess we forgot to specify between capture and kill. Something to keep in mind for the future."


"You're attributing his death to such an obvious oversight?" the Director asked incredulously.



"If we'd planned to kill him, Lilith would have foreseen danger. It was always meant to be a scouting mission, but our own precog changed her mind. You know how precogs jam each other." Unless that precog is trying to jam Dinah, because she's stronger than them. "That's how we managed to turn that into a victory. Speaking of, the Savannah team's just finished the mop up."


"So late?" I asked. "Isn't that the Ambassadors? Accord's going to be annoyed."


"I think he'll be inclined to be forgiving here," Taylor replied. "Apparently they ran into a drug smuggling crew offshore. Three unexpected capes they think are from Haiti. I don't know how they caught a tinker tech submarine in the ocean. Especially one that had a water manipulator, a forcefield generator, and a tinker on board, but that's exactly what they just did."


I blinked. How the fuck? "Impressive," was the only word I could come up with that didn't involve profanities.


"And that is what you get when you ally yourself with Pantheon," Taylor said as she looked back toward Halo. "You don't have to, but I believe the opportunity to be part of operations like this one, to make a real difference instead of fighting a losing battle against entropy, is worth the extra effort. Don't you?"


"Rapture did say you girls were very good at getting what you wanted," he smiled and extended his hand.


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

A/N- Because more than just Pantheon members deserve to be badasses in this story.