Amelia, Worm AU [Complete]

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 25


Taylor and I eventually conceded to watching the kid show off the dumb video game. Crystal and Lisa both opted not to visit, with flimsy excuses like "My powers aren't good for works of fiction or theoretical biomonsters" and "My mom's already going to kill me, but if I don't go home soon she'll make it take longer."


Those traitors.


Clarice was all too enthusiastic, and Taylor and I almost had no choice. We were the ones who would be benefiting from the ideas, after all.


And thus we found ourselves in one of the subbasements that Clarice had me construct for her. It's where we kept the pods and most of the heavy computer tech. Well, that and Lisa's little command center. It took him a few minutes to set everything up, and since we were using Riley's somewhat tinkered up computers, we were treated to a massive holographic display... of badly pixelated art...


"Err, sorry about that," Respawn offered with his usual grin. "This game's from, like, '98... and it wasn't exactly heralded as a graphical masterpiece even back then. It wasn't meant to be played on a screen that's as tall as I am."


"Okay, I can fix that," Clarice replied. She stood there passively for a minute, and the screen split into four reasonable sized screens, one for each of us. "These screens are all going to show exactly the same thing yours is showing, and if you need to you can tap the screen itself and it'll highlight that area so the rest of us can see it clearly."


"Oh, that's cool," he replied. "But this is a real time strategy game, so unit highlighting is a big part of the interface."


It took us maybe a minute before we had questions.


"So, what's with the purple stuff on the ground?" I asked.


"That's creep. It's how zerg feed their minions and buildings. Kinda like your Yggdrasil. Without it, the hive dies."


"It's all veiny and ugly, though," Taylor replied.


"It's suppose to be. The zerg are organic and collect all the DNA from every species they encounter to become the perfect life forms."


"That's dumb," I replied. "Animals are hit hard by the square-cube rule. They'd be much better off using a plant and fungus base instead of animal. Except for a few things, like muscle mass. I mean, that building has a pulse, what's the point of that?"


"It pumps nutrient fluids through the creep."


"Why not just use what plants use?" I asked.


"For that matter, why put the buildings on the surface at all?" Taylor continued. "It'd be far more secure for them to grow underground and simply poke up holes to release their units. It's what our setup is designed to do."


"Because it's a video game and the sides are suppose to be fairly balanced so they all have a chance of winning," Respawn said with exasperation.


"That's why video games are dumb," Taylor stated. "There is no such thing as 'balance' in war. It's all about who got luckier. Either by having lots of power or skill of their own, or their enemy not having very much. Plus or minus natural disasters and other parties that might be involved."


"Okay, fine!" he agreed. "It's not very realistic. But I'm about to start showing off the monsters now. This is the cool part."

....


"These are larva," he explained, showing the purple maggot-things. "Basically, they can morph into any kind of zerg, at your command."


"No point," I replied. "We can just grow things right out of the ground. Or create dedicated growing pods that'll do nothing but make monsters."


"Okay. No larva."


...


"So they're suppose to be like worker ants?" Clarice simplified.


"Yup, pretty much, plus they turn into buildings."


"One of those dumb RTS things?" Taylor asked.


"Yeah, one of those dumb RTS things," Respawn sighed.


....


"So six legged monster dogs with giant scythe claws," I summarized.



"I think of them more like mutated great cats," he tried to correct. "Sure they hunt in packs, but they burrow underground. Could probably hide in trees, but 'dumb RTS thing'."



"I can make that work," I replied. "Probably be pretty effective, too."


Taylor glanced at me. "Yeah, those could be pretty useful," she agreed.



"In the sequel there's a version that suicide detonates into acid bombs and can wipe out everything nearby," he offered. "But I can't stand that game, they butchered the story worse than the Star Wars prequels."


"That... I could really use one of those against Hookwolf," Taylor stated.


"So... mutant dog beasts are a 'go'. Probably better just to create projectiles that fire the acid, though."


"Ah, that brings us to the next unit!" He exclaimed.


....


"So they're... giant snakes with claws? What's the point of that? Either take away the claws and have a snake's stealth and mass efficiency, or give it legs so it can move faster," Clarice complained at the screen. "This is the worst of both worlds." I nodded in agreement. Totally inefficient design.


"Because it looks cool as hell?" he asked.


"Stupid RTS thing," Taylor concluded.


"Stupid RTS thing," Respawn relented.


"The acid spine idea's good, though," I added. "I can install them into those zergling creatures."


....


"Flying troop carriers that can sense invisible units, huh?" Taylor said with a smile as she looked at me.


"Not possible. Too much mass for an organic thing to do. I can do the whole 'sensor suite' thing. But making something big enough to carry eight of those dog monsters and still fly is a bit much. An underwater version, sure. But not a flyer. We'd need some kind of antigravity for that."


"We can always see what Toybox has to offer," Clarice suggested. "Interface its power source into the organism and we could make it work."


"Can you do that?" I asked.


"Easily," she replied. "I never really gave it much thought, but I think my tinker specialty is actually cybernetics. I'm very good at interfacing organic with machine."


....


"Giant bat monsters that fire smaller attack monsters?"


"Basically."


"Can't make them jump around like that, wouldn't if I could, too much risk of collateral damage," I stated.


"But a giant wasp-monster that shoots living projectiles?" Taylor asked hopefully.


"How about if they fire something based on a squid or octopus. For nonlethal takedowns?" I suggested.


"Speaking of nonlethals, how are the tranquilizer mosquitoes coming along?" she asked back.


"The problem is controlling them. I trust you, but your power has gaps. You can make mistakes and we're not sure what happens while you're asleep. We don't want these things getting into the wild. It would be an ecological nightmare even before considering the risk to human life."


"Uh... why not make them all work like male mosquitoes and only feed on plants? We could even limit it to just Yggdrasil, like these 'zerg' use creep." Clarice offered.


"That... that's a really good idea. We could do it to almost all the construct, in case we lose control of them somehow, they can't cause much damage at all," I said happily. And then immediately felt stupid for not thinking of it earlier. It was my one great hangup about making self replicating life, aside from Class S status, which we basically already were anyway.


"Told you this wouldn't be a waste of time!" Respawn crowed.


"Okay, so the tranqsquitoes are approved," I said.


"That... is a really terrible name," Taylor shook her head.


"My abominations against nature, I can name them whatever I like," I insisted.


"I like it," Clarice and Respawn said at the same time.


"Okay... now I wanna change the name..." I muttered.


....


"Pass on the queens. Nothing to offer that we'll ever use. One of its tricks is something Khepri can do with every bug in the city already. And the other is both incredibly difficult to do for no real reward, and too horrific to contemplate. "


....


"Those are buildings," I stated.


"More like defense turrets. They automatically attack enemies that get to close."


"The spike one would be way too much effort to punch through all that ground, and anyone who's got two working legs could avoid the attack. Besides, I can just control the Yggdrasil and impale them myself if I want to use that kind of lethal force." I dismissed that one.


"Acid cannon sounds cool and all... but they can miss and when that death ball comes down, it'll do a lot of damage, possibly to us. I think we should stick with the 'guided missile' approach." Taylor rejected the other.


"Uh... it doesn't have to be spikes or acid?" Clarice offered. looked at her. "It wouldn't be too difficult to set them to be microwave, laser, sonic, or even EM cannons. We'd still need to aim them manually, though I could help fix that a bit, but at that proportionate size, it could store and release enough power to cut through an aircraft carrier. Or any amount less we prefer. I'd recommend using only a fraction of maximum power at a time. With ways to delimit it for brutes or when we're willing to use lethal force."


I was still hesitant. That kind of damage potential would be absurd. Enough to take on an army. Or an Endbringer.


"We're doing it. The turrets are approved." Taylor said. She'd been thinking the same thing I was thinking. I simply nodded.


....


"Flying suicide acid bombers?"


"Too large, inefficient. We can do better with a larger number of smaller bugs that fly fast and can reproduce. Lets us control the damage better, too." I said, looking over at Khepri. She nodded this time.


"Same thing as the mosquitoes?" She asked.


"Yup. But we need something larger and faster."


"Hummingbird moths," Clarice volunteered, and an image popped up. "One of the faster species of insect. Especially for its size."


"Those are kind of adorable," Taylor agreed.


"They're big enough," I added. "And they already feed on nectar, so it'll be an easy mod to link them to the Yggdrasil."


....


"No, just no, that thing has no purpose except collateral damage." I insisted.


"Yeah. This is made of bad idea."



"Aww, I thought it was cute," Clarice pouted.


"Alright, the Defiler is rejected," Respawn agreed. "I think I won't even bother showing you the Infested Terran unit."


....


"Flying artillery platform, huh?" Khepri said with a smile. Oh boy.


"Same problem as the carriers," I said. "We'll talk shop when we pick up the ability to mass produce antigravity. And even then, it's kind of a problem since that thing has to have massive amounts of recoil."


"So, filed away under 'haven't reached that part of the tech tree'," Respawn clicked a couple times. "And now, the grand daddy of them all. The ultralisk!"


"Okay, that is shiny," Taylor leaned forward to the screen.


"Very," Clarice agreed.


"Too big," I said. "The square-cube law, again. If I reduced its size to that of, say, a bull elephant, and did some shenanigans with incorporating plant biochemistry into the bone structures and gave it a super efficient system and specialized it a dozen ways... I could make one of those things per month. And they'd be basically useless against just about anything. Too slow and bulky for most targets. Too fragile to go up against Endbringers. Against anything else, I'd rather have the hundred or so zerglings we could build instead."


"What if we modified the carapace to also be a capacitor?" Clarice suggested. "The biggest weaknesses of large organisms are a lack of energy and oxygen levels."


"We'd have to power it with lightning strikes," I said. "The Yggdrasil doesn't collect enough power to run something like that."


"Or... Sundancer?" Taylor offered. "All you need is power, right? Well, she can generate a lot of it very quickly. Can you use her to charge the Yggdrassil? And use that to power these..."


"Ultralisks," Respawn supplied.


"I could build a framework out of lightweight metals," Clarice volunteered. "We can grow them around that, so they're not as heavy and we can transfer lots of power really efficiently."


"I... I can work with that. It'd still take a while to build these things."


"Yeah, takes forever in the game, too," Respawn agreed. "I was using cheat codes just to show you everything."


"So that's it?"


"Well, there is one more thing..." he said with a smile.


....


"No, not happening," Taylor said, staring in horror at the screen.


"Why not?"


"Because that armor is so badly designed I don't know where to begin. Back mounted claw wings are just ridiculous, how do you balance with something like that? I'd keep falling over. Her hair is- there's no words for how awful that looks. And I have nothing resembling her figure."


"Actually, you're wrong about that last part," I corrected.


"Are you blind?" She shot back.


"No, but as an outside observer... she's tall, slender, athletic and has absurdly nice legs," I smiled at her. "All we have to do is ignore the, *ahem*, implants, and you're not so far apart from her."


I saw the red rising to Taylor's face. Oh god, I made her blush! And then I felt my own face heat up.


"See? That right there? THAT is why I am convinced you two are together!" Respawn insisted. "Now just accept that you're the Queen of Blades and be done with it!"


"It's still not a good design," Taylor muttered. "Sure, it looks great. But how it looks and what it's capable of are two very different things."


"What... what if we can make the wings work?" Clarice offered. "We're back to the antigrav stuff, but, that'd be relatively minor for this. And it'd let you use them very effectively in combat simply by altering gravity as you use them. Your bug control means we can tie it all in with maybe a dozen or of the more intelligent insects- say, cockroaches. The best part is, you could even fly!"


"You're saying you can make this," she said pointing at the screen. "Flight capable?"


"Easily. It's even a really efficient way to do it. Maybe not as efficient as something resembling dragonfly wings, but close."


"Dragonfly wings would make her look like a pixie," I replied.


"Yeah..." she said slowly. "I think I'd rather avoid that. Sounds like something the Protectorate would do for a PR thing."


"So the deadly claw wings are good, then?"


"Okay, they're in," Taylor relented. "But ONLY after we get the antigravity!"


Respawn smiled. "Oh, I can't wait to tell my friends in Korea about this..."


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

A/N- Ah, the amusement and nostalgia this chapter brings me.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 26


We, or for most of us our changelings, had gathered in an alleyway. It was night and the streets were close to empty despite it being just shy of ten. Even in this dangerous part of time, people tended to respect the curfew. Or they were simply afraid to be out at night. It looked like this place would stink, but we hadn't installed scent or taste into the changelings. I was pretty sure I never would.


Most of us couldn't fly, not until Clarice. No, we were in costume, think of her as Aceso, got that antigrav tech she was now constantly speaking of. We promised her we'd look into contacting Toybox as soon as possible. There was a number of things we needed to speak with them about, including tech to help cure the increasingly impatient Noelle. If there were only a way to send really detailed messages between Coils.


"So, this is where Hookwolf and co are hiding?" I asked, looking at the less than impressive abandoned warehouse. Not even a 'warehouse', more like a furniture store that was remodeled.


"Yup, got them all tagged," Khepri replied.


"Aren't you going to just take them all out yourself?" Crystal, who was going as 'Eki', now, asked. She did not yet have a costume for Pantheon, so she was still dressed as Laserdream.


"Too soon," Minerva answered. "We don't want to show off the modded bugs unless we have to. We definitely don't want to demonstrate the, ugh, tranqsquitoes. We'll consider them when we go after Purity's group. Besides, there's two people on this team who have virtually zero combat experience."


"Hey! I fought the fucking Siberian, that counts as experience," I insisted.


"You fought a Siberian that was holding back, while using an artificial body so juiced up that it was literally killing itself," Lisa countered. "That doesn't count."


"Still using the same kind of body," I replied. "Better. Got lots of practice thanks to Khepri over here 'stress testing' the models."


"Good, then you'll have no problem at all kicking ass in this fight," Minerva said with a smile.


"Besides," Khepri responded. "You need some leadership experience. I'm here as nothing more than a mere soldier. You make the calls on this battlefield, and do so quickly. No, I won't be using my bugs except for intel. For this exercise, I'm an extra."


"You couldn't have warned me about this earlier today?" I hissed.


"Nope. Won't work like that in the field. Be glad I gave you THIS much warning."


Oh, thanks a lot 'partner', put me on the spot with no warning. "Fine, you're still intel. Who's in there, capes, unpowered, and civilians?"


"Hookwolf, for certain. Cricket. Very likely Stormtiger. Nineteen nonpowered opponents, total of four guns and various melee weapons. Clock's ticking, you got thirty seconds."


God damn it! Okay, think... "Aceso, you go for Cricket. Your powersets should match nicely. Eki, our armor can see in the dark so you target the lights, then Stormtiger. Again, closest match. If you can't beat your opponents, at least keep them from going after the rest of us. Minerva, you and I go after the mooks. You're the thinker and have the ranged weapon. You're on sniper duty. Take shots at Stormtiger when you can as well. Osiris, you're on Hookwolf, try to keep him focused on you. Khepri will be your backup."


I looked over at Khepri. "Since she wants to watch, don't expect to get any help. Use the acid, he's exactly who I made it for."


We approached the warehouse, and let Respawn start the fight by teleporting the door off its hinges. It wasn't the kind of building that had external guards. No need, since it was Hookwolf's place of residence. Anyone he had a problem fighting would be far too dangerous for any normal person. I led the charge. Huh, that was awesome just to think about. I led the charge. Such a rush. Crystal was in next and up near the ceiling almost immediately, sending wide burst lasers that plunged the building into near total darkness and rained glass and debris down on the Nazis.


We were using the changelings and could easily see in the dark... except the ones of us up against the most difficult foes. Stupid. I'd think better of it next time.


I'd punched my first Nazi. I was positively giddy. It was satisfying to feel the bones crunch in his shoulder, and the newer changelings actually did translate sense of touch. We were easily in the brute 2/3 range with just our Changeling models. My target was downed. I had to jump and roll out of the way of one of Stormtiger's blasts. He managed to catch one of his own people in the attack. Even if I were really here, I wouldn't have been able to save that life.


Minerva took a shot at him. Real longbow, scaled up to match our changelings' biology. He blocked that, and was struck by Eki's energy blast. Fun fact about air, it's not much of an obstacle to light.


Meanwhile, Aceso had engaged Cricket. Both of them were doing duel-wield swords. Both of them were superhumanly quick with absurd understanding of just where to hit to hurt. I wasn't sure if either could get the upper hand in straight combat, but our changelings could maintain Olympic level activity for several hours without rest, if need be. Cricket would get tired. Aceso would not.


I let one of the thugs hit me with a wood baseball bat. It broke on my face. It was easier than blocking or dodging. I slammed him in the chest and sent him flying back. Remarkably enough, the men kept attacking. Guess their fear of what I would do to them was less than their fear of what Hookwolf would do if they tried to run.


Speaking of Hookwolf, I was paying attention to that now. He was taking the time to go into full "metal monster" form before engaging.


Osiris, with a battle staff that was basically artificially grown bone from his own body, approached him. "Hey, dickless," Osiris yelled at the leader of Fenrir's Chosen. "I gotta ask ya something. You are aware your icon's dad liked to get fucked by horses, right? Let one get him pregnant. Yeah, I could see where that idea would appeal to someone like you."


I punched another gang member in the gut- softly, by our standards. Really? He had to be making that up, right? Then I casually backhanded another. By now, everyone near one of the guns was down, and Minerva was helping Eki full time. I kept chasing after thugs. It was almost 'busy work' to be honest.


Hookwolf was staring down Khepri, who was just standing there watching. "Hey, don't look at me," she raised her hands innocently. "I'm not the one who said your dad fucks horses."


"Don't get smart with me, bitch!" Hookwolf shouted at her. "This time I'm going tear you apart so bad that your kike girlfriend won't be able to put you back together again!"


"Hey," Minerva yelled back. "I'm the kike girlfriend. Gaea over there is the one with the healing powers!"


"All dykes look the same to me," he stepped forward, and Osiris got in the way. "Out of my way, you little faggot."


Osiris shrugged. "Well, I did fuck your mother-"


Hookwolf tore through him with a chain claw. Osiris came back into being less than a half second later, moving toward the mass of chains "last night, s-"


Another slash. Another step. "-o yeah, that wou-"


And a third. "-ld make-"


And a fourth. "-me gay."


This time he was close enough to jam the staff deep into Hookwolf's guts. The core part of him. Hookwolf took the bait and shattered the weapon. Coating a good portion of himself in a slightly modified variant of Crawler's acid. Hookwolf writhed in what I wasn't completely sure was pain, ripping chunks of his own body off. It really wouldn't help.


"By the way, your mom's hung like a horse," Osiris finished, staring down at the writhing and twisting Hookwolf.


Cricket and Stormtiger were, remarkably, not distracted too much by their leader's current predicament. Stormtiger even managed to throw an attack at Osiris. It collided, which was exactly as lethal as everything Hookwolf threw at the kid.


Cricket couldn't afford to be distracted. Aceso was cackling like a madwoman as she pressed her attacks. Both had several nasty cuts along their bodies. The difference was, for Aceso it didn't matter, she had lacerations in a dozen places that I could spot, some of which would be almost immediately fatal to a human body, and one of Cricket's swords embedded through her ribcage. It just wasn't enough damage to disable a changeling, especially Aceso's highly customized model.


The nazi woman's wounds, on the other hand, were the opposite. Only three in total, and they looked minor. A shallow slice along the left ankle that would have cut most of the nerves in that foot if it hit where I was pretty sure it hit. An incision on her left wrist that was pouring blood at an alarming rate. A minor slice over the forehead that had allowed enough bleeding to blind the woman- she was fighting on sonar alone.


And... and that's what the cackling was for, wasn't it? To mess with the sonar. It's sometimes easy to forget just how terrifyingly clever the preteen girl was.


Khepri was watching me as I was observing the battlefield. If we kept this going much longer, both Hookwolf and Cricket would die. "Stormtiger," I shouted. "It's over. Stand down and surrender, so we can avoid accidentally killing your friends."


Eki backed up and stopped firing, to let him get a look at the mess. Stormtiger dropped. "Fuck you sideways," he cursed, glaring angrily at me. But he didn't resist as I touched his arm and delivered the sleep drug. No sense in letting them know this body was a fake, and everyone already knew Panacea could put people under with a touch. Cricket had also stopped, though whether from actually surrendering, or simply because she was too tired from blood loss to keep going, I was unsure. Aceso gassed her and went to work performing first aid.


"Okay, Osiris, you can call off the acid now," I shouted over to him.


"Yeah, it's totally not cool to use chemical weapons on Nazis," Minerva said cheerfully, as she went to the various injured gang members and ziptied their hands behind their backs. A lot of them screamed as she did it, too. We'd deliberately targeted the arms and shoulders, as we didn't really want to break their legs, and we were trying very hard not to kill them. "I mean, it's not like they'd ever do anything like that to a sweet little Jew like me."


I am going to need to talk to her about this 'pretending to be Jewish to annoy the Nazis' thing.


"As you wish, my lady," he yelled back. And then the bone staff reformed. And with it, the acid that had been released all over Hookwolf's insides vanished. He started pulling himself back together.


He was nude by the time he had gotten into one piece, and there were still acid burns across his body. Half his hair had been eaten away. "So, planning to resist?" I asked.


He glared at me defiantly, and eyed Osiris. A bladed chain shot straight at me like it was a thrown spear. I easily dodged it and spit on the metal. More of Crawler's acid. THIS time he was human enough to scream as he struggled to form a new blade to sever the old chain. He failed, but eventually the acid ran its course. Specifically, the part it was attached to fell off. Joining a few hundred pounds of other metal that was once Hookwolf. He passed out while still standing.


"One hell of a fighter," Khepri said, with no attempt to disguise her admiration.


"Pity he's such an evil sack of shit," Osiris replied.


"Do we offer them a chance to join Pantheon, or just hand them over to the Protectorate?" Minerva asked.


"No! No way! No fucking possible way are we letting them on the team," Eki insisted as she dropped down next to the rest of us. "They're a bunch of rapists and murderers and they torture people and animals for the fucking fun of it."


I looked toward Khepri. She shrugged, but at least answered. "Hookwolf might, at least, have a power we can use. But frankly, he's not worth it. Power isn't compatible with the changelings. And there's nothing he can do for us that we don't already have an answer, except using him to generate raw material. This chain seems to be steel, and there never seems to be enough iron to cover the projects that need it."


Aceso looked at me contemplatively. We'd let her join, in spite of her crimes. Bonesaw made these three, combined, look almost innocent.


And then there was Crystal, watching me just as expectantly. She was by far the most sweet and genuine person I knew. Polar opposite, I saw Minerva's smile that made it clear she wasn't going to help, and Skitter seemed far too interested in 'teaching me to be a leader'.


Do I set a precedent that only the useful monsters get a chance at redemption? Or do I let even the fucking Nazis join up? Or... do I do what we did to Coil? That thought churned my stomach.


There were no right answers. Anything I decided would make me a hypocrite or worse. Dammit. I sighed. "They fought against Leviathan. Risked their lives against a monster like that. It's... it's more than I've ever done. At the very least, we'll take them back and heal them. Keep them overnight. Try to talk to them before making a permanent decision."


"Khepri, Osiris, Eki," I addressed them. "Stay here, contact the police in about five minutes and debrief them. If they ask, let them know we took Stormtiger, Hookwolf and Cricket back for healing and observation. We'll deal with this shit in the morning."


Congratulations, Amelia. Wasn't this avoidance shit what messed you up so badly in the first place?

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 27


I didn't sleep much that night, spending it mostly staring at the ceiling. Patching up our captives was simple enough. I was impressed by how little and how much damage Aceso managed to inflict upon Cricket. Undoing the cuts were almost trivial, but she lost about a fifth of her blood supply. She'd recover, though she'd probably need to stay in the hospital for a while.


Hookwolf's body was bizarre. As a changer, that was no surprise. They always had strange rules to their physiology. I fixed him the best I could, the rest he'd have to deal with on his own.


All Stormtiger had were minor burns and bruising. He'd be fine without any help, but I fixed him anyway. They remained in their containment pods, their powers disabled by whatever our resident biotinker cooked up while they slept the night away in the perfect dream state that I put them in. If only it were so easy for me to get to sleep.


Riley, the actual girl instead of the puppet she used almost constantly, came into my room. I glanced over at the clock- just shy of 1am- Wordlessly, she climbed into my bed and cuddled up against me. I put my arm around her and let her go back to sleep. Not the first time I'd woken up with her in my bed, but the first time I was awake when it happened.


I watched her sleep. How could such an innocent face have such a monster behind it? Then again, wasn't that true of most of us? Taylor was a wonderful person, even if Skitter was one of the biggest bitches I had ever met in person. Even Lisa could be okay, if you could deal with her need to be the smartest person in the room. Then there was Respawn. I couldn't even thing of him as 'Zach', he was too caught up in playing his persona that I hadn't seen the person beneath as I had the others. And, of course, myself. I didn't have issues. I had a subscription.


The only person I knew who didn't switch natures was Laserdream. Crystal was always the same, no matter what mask she was or was not wearing.


And that, of course, brought me back to thinking about Passengers. They came from somewhere. Some distant dimension of Earth, perhaps? An alien world? And they climbed inside our brains and made changes. Not just creating the Pollentia and Gemma, but modifying and actively manipulating our memory and emotion centers. Were they why parahumans were so fucked in the head? Or was it the reverse, and we got powers because we were already messed up? Did it matter?


I thought to the three nazis we had stored no more than a hundred feet from me. Yeah, it mattered. If they became monsters because of their powers, I could hardly blame them for it. If they were monsters and so they were given powers? Then quite the opposite. Either way, I knew I could blame the Passengers. Whichever answer was true, they were deliberately making the problems of the world worse.


Unfortunately, my powers were limited to lifeforms. Not extradimensional symbiotes. I could see them through their hosts, but I was unable to touch them. No surprise. We were safely inside our terrarium and they wanted to keep it that way.


So my thoughts went in loops all night.


Morning came for me far too early, though. I had just gotten to sleep, it seemed, when Riley was waking me up.


"C'mon, sis," she said pushing my shoulder. "It's already past ten. Everyone's waiting on you."


I looked at her- she was already wearing her control system for Clarice. "Fine, I'm up," I muttered. I stumbled to the bathroom. Yup, I wouldn't recognize myself without those bags under my eyes.


"You should let me give you some upgrades," Riley said as I started to wash my face. "It's not much, just a simple hormone regulator. Serotonin, insulin, a few dozen other things. You'll be able to wake up and go to bed in seconds!" She sounded so very much more chipper than I felt.


"Is that what you did to yourself?" I muttered.


"Yup, plus a hundred other things," she answered.


"So you think it's okay to just artificially change your emotions and biology?" I asked her.


"Of course," she answered. "Our bodies are nothing more than machines. People make such a big deal about it, but they're wrong. If you had a car, would you want it to run more poorly just because you didn't get enough sleep? Would it be okay if your coffee machine didn't work because you were bored? That'd be stupid. It's nothing more than what you do to yourself when you drink coffee, only a million times better and without the unnecessary addiction to caffeine."


"It's not exactly that simple," I answered. "Changing your body artificially just isn't something people are comfortable with. Especially when it comes to modifying brains and emotions."


"That's because people are dumb," Riley said with the clear logic of a child. "Our bodies are no different than your changelings. They're machines made of meat instead of metal. And if someone told you they weren't going to get their oil changed or their tires replaced because their car was 'too special', what would you think of them?"


I stopped. That really was a good point. "That doesn't apply to the mind, though," I answered. "Altering the brain means altering the person."


"That doesn't make sense," she insisted, following me but thankfully staying outside of my room as I changed. "If the mind is a special and sacred thing, wouldn't then choosing to alter your emotions and how your mind works is a good thing. It means you're taking control away from hormones and accidents of birth. Instead of letting nature control you, you control nature. Or the mind is nothing special at all, merely a bundle of nerves, and changing it is meaningless."


I paused, half in the middle of pulling on the pants I would be wearing today. Holy shit, she's right. I still didn't actually believe what she was saying. But from every logical angle I could find, she was right. Well, except a bit of one.


"Okay, but people can change vehicles if something goes wrong. Not so much with our brains or bodies. Finding someone you trust enough to alter fundamental parts of yourself is... scary. Like your computers. Let's pretend what you have now is the only computer you'll ever own, and you can't repair or reprogram it yourself. Wouldn't it be difficult to let someone else change it? Never knowing what they're doing, if they might do something bad inside it or break it on accident? Wouldn't you feel better just keeping it how it is instead of taking that kind of risk."


"So..." she said, with a whine in her voice. "You don't trust me?"


Fuck. My. Life.


At least I was dressed now. I went out to the hallway. "It... it's not like that," I said as I pulled her into a hug. Even though it was like that. "There are lots of levels of trust. And the more important something is, the harder it is to trust someone that much. This... there is nothing more important. I can't imagine ever trusting anyone that much."


"But..." she sobbed. Here I was, holding a sobbing Bonesaw. That really did put the recent events of my life into perspective. "We trust you that much."


... What? "What?"


"Your power. It's instant and no one would notice. Every time any of us touch you, we're trusting you not to rewrite us into whatever you desire. Trusting that you have't already done so."


Oh fucking hell. It's true. They did. They were. "You shouldn't," I said, choking on the words. "Victoria trusted me like that."


"That's what sisters do," Riley said. She squeezed tighter, with a certainty only a child could possess.


"And I violated that trust in the worst possible way," I whispered. "I don't deserve it."


"Too bad," Riley answered. "That's not how it works. But we have to go to work now."


"Yeah, I guess so," I agreed. As if I didn't have enough to think about already.


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

A/N- And so it begins.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 28


By the time we'd made it to see the others I was... presentable, at least. Riley, of course, didn't follow, but Clarice was already in the room.


Taylor looked at me, but it was more like a formality than anything, she could sense me long before I entered the room. Even if our base was the most insect-free location in the city right now. Mainly because the walls ate them.


"So, finally decided to turn the Nazi trash over, right?" Crystal started. She didn't look like she'd slept well, either.


"No," I replied. That turned heads. "We offer everyone a second chance. If they don't take it, we'll wash our hands of them. But I founded this team on that promise, and I plan to stick to it."


"You're fucking kidding me," Crystal's eyes started to water. "You know the shit they've done!"


I knew. Oh god how I knew. I treated their victims often enough that I probably knew better than everyone in this room combined. "It... it's no worse than what I've done."


"Amy... you can't blame yourself for Victoria's death. Or anyone else's. No one's perfect and no one has that kind of foresight."


I laughed. It was short. It was painful. "Oh, what I'd give if that was the worst thing I'd done."


"What do you mean?" Crystal asked with slowly drawing horror.


"Umm... maybe we should save this conversation for later," Lisa interrupted.


"I... right after I ran away from home," I continued regardless. This needed said now. "Victoria found me. Tried to get me to come back. I... I was messed up for a lot of reasons. Afraid. Alone. Afraid of being alone. I... I... when she touched me, I used my power. Forced her to love... to be in love with me."


Lisa and Clarice were the only two that didn't look shocked. Even Taylor looked a little green at that one. Good. I deserve it.


"Why would you do that?" Crystal said, but it was more like she was asking me NOT to explain it.


"Because I was, am, in love with her," I relented. I'm in too deep already, now isn't the time to back down. "And I knew she'd never feel the same. And I was weak and stupid and if I would die if that would take it back. I violated her on the most fundamental level, and she died hating me."


"Oh God, Ames..." Crystal whispered.


"Not quite true," Minerva interrupted. "We ran into her, when she was going to fight Crawler. She wanted to know if you were okay. She was worried about you."


"You don't have to lie to me. She'd never ask that. Especially not then. Especially not to you."


"True," Minerva replied. "She didn't say it, but when has that ever stopped me?"


"Well," Taylor added. "I don't know what Tattletale's power figured out. But... she's not lying about us running into them. I don't know what she and Glory Girl talked about... it was right after I killed Siberian. I wasn't in a good headspace." The look on her face said she still wasn't. Not really.


They met Glory Girl before she died... what...


"No," Minerva said, interrupting my thoughts. "I didn't know she would get killed. I didn't know they were going to drop those weapons. If I had, do you think I'd have let half my team be caught in the blast radius like that? And no. She didn't forgive you, not right then. But she would have, if she'd been given more time. You were still her sister."


I just looked away and studied the ground. "You really suck at trying to cheer people up."


"Actually, I'm pretty good at it," Minerva replied. "But the part where I'm trying to do it while actually telling the truth? Really ties my hands, y'know."


I looked at Crystal. "Yeah, so, I'm in no position to judge anyone," I concluded. "You're free to leave now. I won't even ask you to keep this a-"


She moved toward me and wrapped her arms around me. "Shut up, Ames," she mumbled. "One stupid mistake that you regret doesn't make you a bad person. And even if it did, it wouldn't put you close to Nazi levels."


I smiled in spite of myself. "Thanks, Crystal, that means a lot."


"Umm..." Crystal continued. "You haven't showered today, have you."


It wasn't a question.


"No, I was kinda distracted by a few other things," I answered.


"Yeah, I just want you to know that's why I'm ending the hug early. Not any other reason."


"No, I get it, it's fine," I said, letting Crystal disengage.


"So, is anyone else here having second thoughts about this?" I asked. "Knowing what I've done."


"I'm good," Respawn said with a smile. "Lotta people would do the same thing, and not regret it for a second. Of course, I'm immune to your power, so maybe I'm not the person to ask."


"I already knew, of course," Tattletale said.


"I had... some idea," Taylor replied. She still didn't look all that happy. "But, I'm guilty of helping use some form of mind control on three different people already."


Crystal's head snapped over to her.


"A child abusing supervillain with dangerous powers, a bloodthirsty psychopath parahuman who got off on torturing innocent teenage girls, and Shatterbird," Minerva stated quickly before she could speak. "And all temporary. It's not something to be taken lightly. Chances are that we'll just outright kill anyone else we find who deserves the same treatment. Speaking of which, shoulda left Hookwolf with the acid for another minute or so."


"No," I responded, my voice going hard. "We do NOT kill in cold blood. If it has to happen in battle, it has to happen. But when they're already down, we take them into custody. Now we are going to go talk to the fucking Nazis. And offer them a chance. Even if it's not going to be much of one."


=========

A/N- Ah, this one. This is one of my weaker early chapters for the deep emotional stuff. I see so many things I could have done better.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 29


Our 'Containment Facility' wasn't much to look at. Basically just cocoons. Which they, of course, were stuck in. I tapped the wall, and they were hit with a counterdrug to what was keeping them asleep. They woke up in seconds.


"Good morning, skinheads!" Dammit, Respawn! No, wait, that was Minerva. Dammit Minerva!


Hookwolf recovered first, but they all were up remarkably quickly. Even Cricket, though she was still groggy. Blood loss would do that. I'd need to talk to Riley about that.


"Go fuck yourself, kike," Hookwolf muttered.


"Woo, you got it right this time." Minerva said in a complete deadpan voice. This was getting out of hand.


"Okay, enough of that, both of you," I stepped forward. "Minerva, either be quiet or find something that isn't directly counterproductive to do. Hookwolf, keep in mind that no one has any proof you were ever here, and no one likes you enough to look very hard. So you probably shouldn't antagonize us."


I eyed them. Cricket was too tired to do much more than attempt to concentrate. Damn, she'd need more time. Stormtiger met my gaze full on when I looked at him. "If you were gonna fucking kill us, you wouldn't have brought us here."


I shrugged. "Yeah, probably true. We can just hand you over to the Protectorate. You've got no one left to help you. Hookwolf over there has a one way ticket to the Cage. Dunno how long you'll be locked up for, either, but probably a while."


Cricket was well enough, or determined enough, to chime in. "Purity will get us out," she rasped. "You healed my throat?" she asked in surprise.


"Purity won't be a problem by the end of the day," I said with full confidence, ignoring Cricket's other question. "You think we were going to hit you without being ready for her, too?"


Hookwolf laughed. "You talk too much," he smiled. "Reminds me of Kaiser. That's what you're doin', right? Building your own little empire. Like bugbitch and the rest of her crew were trying to do?"


I shrugged. "Probably, but it's not your concern. What is your concern is what we do with you three. Pantheon follows its own set of rules. The whole hero versus villain bullshit is over. You're either trying to make this crapsack world better, or you're our enemy. It's that simple."


Cricket tried, at least, to laugh. "That means you'll be fighting the whole world."


"Says the Nazi," I smirked. "But I think you'd be surprised how quickly people will step up and do the right thing, when they see that it'll actually work. And we're going to make it work. Which brings us back to you."


I stepped out of my sandals and looked over to Clarice, who was manning one of the machines. "Honestly, your powers are basically useless to us, and you're PR nightmares to keep around, and frankly I just don't like any of you. So what I'm doing is fucking stupid and we all know it. But I'm offering you a second chance."


"Join you, or rot in a cell?" Stormtiger only half asked.


"More or less," I answered. "Mostly less. You're not strong enough to be on this team. The best you could hope for is... secondary positions. Rearguard. Aiding civilians. Stormtiger, you'd be cutting down Yggdrasil growths to make planks for construction. Cricket... eh, I guess we could use you as a combat instructor. Hookwolf... actually you we probably could use in the field, if you remember how to follow orders."


I shrugged. "Alternately, you promise to never use your powers to hurt people again, and to leave this city forever, and we'll just... forget we ever had you here. How's that sound?"


"Is that what you offered Victor and Othala?" Stormtiger asked.


... "What?" Well, that threw me off my game for a second.


"He thinks we captured the rest of his team," Minerva spoke up. "They vanished two? No, three? Three days ago."


"Oh," I answered. Immediately I felt stupid. "No, we had nothing to do with that."


"You're not lying," Cricket said with surprise.


"No, we're not," I insisted. I looked over at Clarice. I thought their powers were disabled. "If we find them, when we find them, we'll offer them the same deal we're offering you. One second chance, and only one. And an opportunity to work with us if you want it."


"Sounds like a deal," Hookwolf smiled. "You win, city's yours if you can keep it, job well done and you'll never see us again."


"And you'll cut the Nazi bullshit. And the dogfighting. And just generally being an unrepentant sack of shit." Respawn added. "All that's over now."


"Fine, all that, too," He agreed far too readily. "Now you gonna let us go?"


"What 'us'?" I asked. "That's the deal you took. You only speak for yourself. What Stormtiger and Cricket do is their own to decide. Besides, we have to keep Cricket for at least a few more days."


"Going back on your offer, already?" Stormtiger said with a growl.


"She lost a lot of blood," I replied. "A little more and she'd be dead. Even now, she'll probably die without constant medical care. Would you prefer we take her to a hospital? It'll have to be the PRT's, because there's no way we're leaving you with civilians."


He just glared at me.


"We'll see that she gets better," I continued. "And then let her make her choice. Forcing her to choose while she's still dependent upon us for medical care would be coercion. We don't use dirty tactics like that. She can decide when she's recovered."


"No, you just force us to choose between you and a prison cell." Did this man ever say anything without snarling?


"We didn't force you to be criminals," Khepri responded. "Besides, speaking as one of the more successful criminal masterminds in the city... this is actually a pretty sweet gig. I get to do the same thing I was already doing, and the Protectorate has to watch and pretend they like it."


"Couldn't you heal her?" He continued, looking at me.


"Need raw materials," I answered. "I'm not like Crawler or Othala. I can't magic up flesh from nowhere. I can stitch together cuts without a problem, but if I replace her blood, the mass needs to come from somewhere. If she had some spare body fat, I could used that."


"Liar," Hookwolf spat. "I've sent bugbitch home with limbs missing, you patched her up just fine."


"Backups," I answered. True. Misleading, but true. "All of us have spare material stored around here for when we need it, other than Osiris and Eki. His power means he won't ever need it, and we haven't had a chance to set up for the new recruit."


"Told you that you're too skinny," Stormtiger muttered at his teammate. "Fuck it. I'm staying here, then."


"Joining the team?"


"No. Staying here," Stormtiger clarified. His voice was deeply condescending. "When Cricket's well enough, we'll be leaving together."


Behind me, laughter started. I recognized the voice. Fucking Tattletale. I looked over at her, and she ducked when a vine formed from the ceiling and tried to smack her. She was starting to get good at that 'combat intuition' thing.


"Okay, we can work with that," I relented. "She'll need to stay in the cocoon. We'll set up a cell for you. We'll even give you privacy to chat with each other. Talk things out. In the meantime, we'll be taking Hookwolf and leaving you here for a bit."


The pod Hookwolf was in ruptured, dropping him to the ground. He was still weak, and Clarice had to haul him to his feet. She was the only one here with a changeling, so may as well let her handle the heavy lifting. The door sealed shut and I let Stormtiger free.


"Are we really letting him go? You know they were lying their asses off, right?" Crystal asked. Her hands were clenched into fists and shaking.


I smiled. "Oh, I know. Minerva, contact the PRT. We'll be handing Hookwolf over."


"You lying cunt!" Hookwolf yelled, struggling vainly to break Clarice's grip.


"I didn't lie at all," I said, letting the malice leak into my voice as I met his gaze. "I promised you a second chance. And you wasted it by lying to me. Did you think we wouldn't find out? We had four lie detectors pointing at you the whole time. I meant everything I said. All you had to do was mean it when you swore you wouldn't go back to your life of crime. The only thing you were honest about was leaving the city. You were going to run away with your tail between your legs, and then make yourself someone else's problem. The Protectorate might even have let you. But we're not the fucking Protectorate. We actually deal with problems."


"Don't play all moral with me, bitch," he continued to struggle. "You knew this would happen. You wanted it to happen. You tricked us!"


"This is a war, Hookwolf," I shrugged. "And all war is deception," I tapped him and he fell unconscious.


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

A/N- Looking back at it, I think THIS is the chapter that really set the tone for the future of this story.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 30


Hookwolf was still unconscious by the time the PRT and our reporters showed up. He still had burn marks from last night. I felt it better to leave evidence of the battle, and that we had to heal him. Wouldn't really make a difference. This was Hookwolf, nobody inclined to feel sympathy for him would be considered fit to sit on a jury to begin with.


We were all, finally, in costume. Eki finally had hers. It was, thanks to a combination of spider silk and Riley's mesh weave, nearly indestructible and capable of withstanding almost anything that wouldn't level a building. And still very much alive, with stealth tech coming from cells based on cuttlefish, and some cybernetics provided by Riley granting it very passable invisibility. Its default coloration was yellow for the head and shoulders, changing into green for much of her torso, and blue for her legs. Obvious 'sun' motif.


It also had a number of systems that the rest of us desperately wished we could fit into the changelings, but we had no way to work in a big enough power system. Gauntlets capable of delivering multiple settings of electrical shock, as well as an extremely high intensity EMP. A flash system that she could use to blind anyone looking toward her. And were were looking at a mini railgun upgrade at some point. All powered by Crystal's lasers. It also came with a battlestaff, designed to stick to the back of the costume when not in use, and able to better extend the range of her electrical attack


Vickory made it first, impressively enough. There was another guy there with him, instead of that cute camera girl Minerva felt the need to describe to me in great detail. Oh well, I would survive.


The camera was up and I was ready for my first time in front of the camera that didn't involve reading from a script or hiding behind my f- New wave. "Stan Vickory, of channel twelve news, talking with Gaea," he pointed the microphone at me. "How does capturing one of the most notorious members of Empire Eighty Eight feel? It is your first serious conflict since founding the team, is it not?"


"It is," I confirmed. Even if it wasn't major at all, and was in fact pretty easy. "But this isn't really my victory to claim. We were giving our less experienced members and new recruits a chance to work in the field. So we could see what they were capable of and where they needed improvement."


"Excuse me for being presumptuous," Vickory said. "Did you mean to imply fighting Hookwolf was... practice? And three of your junior members beat him?"


"Oh, no," I answered with what was probably too smug a smile. "Hookwolf's remaining team was a practice run. Osiris took down Hookwolf all by himself. You'd know him better as Respawn."


He raised his hand and waved. "Told you this was the team to be on!" He bragged. Respawn's costume was currently white, meant to sort of resemble mummy wrappings. It was also alive, and had the same stealth mode as Crystal's outfit. But the power constraints were pretty high, so he was limited to about ten minutes. His namesake ability was the only thing that kept it viable. Once out of power, he'd simply reset it to full power.


"Yes, I do recall you saying something to that effect," Vickory agreed.


"Aceso handled Cricket," Clarice stepped forward. She wasn't wearing a mask, making her one of the half on the team that did not. But the whole 'Clarice' body was a mask. She, too, waved at the camera, although not as enthusiastically as Respawn.


"Last, but certainly not least, Eki," Crystal stepped forward. "Our newest member." Also, with exception to Bonesaw, the one with the most combat experience.


"Good to meet you, miss," Stan said with an easy smile. They'd met before, of course, but when Crystal was Laserdream. "The others have been kind enough to explain or demonstrate their abilities earlier, would you care to do the same?"


"Energy generation," Crystal replied easily. "Light and electricity. Can do EMPs if I need to. Few other things I'd rather keep in reserve. It doesn't pay to let the bad guys know everything you can do." She held up her hand and let electricity dance across her fingers. "I would demonstrate, but camera equipment is pretty sensitive, and I wouldn't want to accidentally damage anything."


"I think I speak for our accountants when I thank you for your consideration," Vickory said with a chuckle.


And now the PRT was finally arriving. Choosing to ignore the "do not drive on the plants" warning signs we had planted near the roads. Miss Militia stepped out of the vehicle. A number of armed PRT men came out as well.


"He's been sedated," I told her as they collected Hookwolf. He only had clothes on because Respawn donated a pair of boxers. "He should recover in twelve to fourteen hours. We had to use anti-brute techniques and he was hurt pretty badly. I have no idea how long it will take before his power recovers, probably several days."


"Thank you for the status report," Miss Militia said politely. The look on her face told me she wasn't happy to see the news crew.


"Miss Militia," Vickory said, moving up toward the new leader of the local Protectorate. "What do you think about how easily Pantheon apprehended one of the most dangerous parahumans in the city?" The implied question was, of course, 'why couldn't you do it?'


She regarded him, and then us. "I think I'm more interested to learn why they're turning over Hookwolf, and none of the others. Police reports indicate they captured multiple E88 parahumans." Well played.


Minerva spoke up. "Cricket was badly injured. Gaea was able to save her, but she's still weak. Stormtiger wishes to stay with his injured companion."


"What of the others? You're not planning to keep them for your team, are you?" Miss Militia asked. Did they spend last night discussing this?


"There were no others with them," I answered. "We're under the impression they may have joined Purity's faction. Cricket can barely maintain consciousness more than a few minutes. She is in no position to be moved. Even if she were, Lung's escape from your custody does not inspire my confidence, and that was before. Now you are even more woefully understaffed. Our facilities are ready to deal with almost anything. Yours are not."


"Yet you'd let us hold Hookwolf?"


"He's unconscious and his powers are exhausted," I said with a deadpan voice. "He'll be lucky to be able to go to the bathroom on his own for the next couple days. You should be able to handle that, I hope. He should be in Dragon's custody by the time he recovers."


"You're not recognized law enforcement," she responded. "You aren't authorized..."


"Except that we are," Minerva replied. "We got permission from BBPD."


"That's PRT jurisdiction..."


"Traditionally, yes," Minerva continued. "But legal custody belongs to whomever does the arrest. And that would be the civilian police, in this case. In fact, we should probably just ask you for Dragon's number. The Protectorate's performance in Brockton Bay has been woefully inadequate for years. Is it any surprise to you that local law enforcement and civilians alike are putting their faith in the people who spend their time actually fixing problems and getting results. As opposed to a Protectorate that napalms a city block and then follows it up with tinker weapons that hit their own people?"


"They sacrificed their lives to stop Crawler and the rest of the Nine!" Miss Militia's voice raised. Nerve struck. Point: Tattletale.


"Correction," Minerva retorted. "You sacrificed their lives. I'm sure they'd have been quite content to go on living. But you were too pig headed and proud and fucking glory obsessed to accept help from us when you needed it and we offered. And because of that, lives were lost. Some of them your friends. Some of them mine. The difference between us is that you keep working for the people who ordered their murders."


She took a breath, it was almost theatrically deep. "You've proven you can't save this city. So shut up, get out of our way, and watch as we do it for you."


Holy shit, Lisa.


The two women held their stare down.


I looked over at Vickory. Who wisely chose to say nothing and let everyone forget he was here. Cameras were definitely still rolling. Khepri stepped forward, between Minerva and Miss Militia. "Okay, Minerva, you've made your point. You can chew out the Protectorate later. We have more important things to worry about right now."


Lisa broke eye contact with Miss Militia, to look at Taylor. "You're right," she agreed. She turned to walk away, briskly passing by the news crew. Miss Militia turned a moment later, and strode toward the vehicle that would be taking Hookwolf away. For the moment, at least, the prisoners beneath our feet were both secure, and forgotten.


I heard Tattletale mumble as she passed Vickory. "Feel free to air any amount of that. Speculate. Full story will come out soon enough."


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

A/N- I still love this chapter.

 

[TanaNari]

A couple of canon omakes:


This one from yours truly.


"Extinction Events"


"No, we are NOT disabling powers, or messing with powers at all!" Tattletale insisted. "We'll use that poison Bonesaw cooked up for temporarily disabling parahumans. And we'll tell the PRT the truth. We're using stolen tinker tech. And even then, only in the most desperate of situations."


"Why not?" Riley whined.


"Because I like being alive," Lisa snapped back. "Taylor over there is already ranked as a Master/Thinker/Stranger and maybe Tinker. And she's only the second most absurd power on the team."


I felt a little embarrassed, actually. "I'm only a Striker."


"Correction," Lisa replied. "You WERE a Striker. Now you're at least a five in Master, Brute, Thinker and Tinker. And I would not be surprised if they labeled you as a Shaker fifteen."


"Fifteen!?" Taylor and I exclaimed at the same time.


"Fifteen." Lisa confirmed. "That stunt you played when you straight up 'noped' Bonesaw's plague?"


"My big sister is the best," Riley said with conviction.


"Yeah. That. You stopped a plague. In seconds. Across an entire city. Right now, Piggot is over there trying to convince the rest of the PRT leaders that this is absolute proof you can kill every living thing in this city at once. And know what? She's right. It's true. You can. The next most powerful Shaker I can name is Labyrinth, and you make her look like a chump in terms of range, and are her equal or better in every other way."


"Fuck..." Taylor whispered. I nodded my head.


"If they got the idea that you could expand the Yggdrasil further than just this city, and again you can, then 15 is a low estimate of what you could do," Lisa continued. "You are entirely capable of being a one woman apocalypse. And the way you upgraded Taylor's range, giving her the same kind of power, would qualify you as a Trump 5 all on its own..."


Lisa paused for a full minute, staring blankly in front of her. "Holy shit. I'm in a room having a conversation with three extinction level events. What did I do to deserve this?"


"I can think of a few things," I answered dryly. "So, back to the power removal. Why?"


"Because you do not want to fight someone who has nothing left to lose. That knows they're dead if they lose. And being able to remove powers... to most of us, that's as good as death. Worse than death. We have a drug that's hard to administer and is temporary. We do not have a way to steal powers away from their 'rightful owners'. The former makes us scary. The latter makes us the enemy of every parahuman on the planet."


I nodded. "Okay. No power removal."


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


This Omake is from Slayer Anderson:

"The Four Horsemen"

Lisa sighed, content that the current battle was won. "Okay, if we've decided not to become the threat for every single parahuman to obliterate the world over, I've got work to do. The PRT and Protectorate are going to be handling the announcements about Jack Slash, Bonesaw, and Siberian, so I want a lead on any useful intel before it hits the net. If you need me, I'll peeking on Miss Piggy and half-assed hero brigade."

Riley blinked, cocking her head, "You can hack the PRT?"

Lisa snorted, "Like that's any achievement. Their encryption is shit, their passwords are simple, and their IT department is gullible as hell."

"Language!"

Taylor shrugged at Amy's disbelieving stare. "Lisa did it all the time back when we were with the Undersiders."

Amelia shook her head, "That's not how these things work, Lisa. My mo...Carol, I mean, did some work investigating alleged fraud, hacking, and stuff like that against the PRT. All of it was 'alleged' because they were villains talking crap to get some street cred. If you're telling the truth? You're probably one of the only parahumans who have actually gotten that kind of information off their system."

Lisa shook her head, "It wasn't any more difficult than some of the work Coil had me do in ferreting out corporate secrets."

Riley stared, "...you know, I usually had to get inside someone's head, literally, to get the PRT's secrets? They have some serious thinker and tinker support on government payroll...there's no way you could do it that easily."

Lisa smirked and, within five minutes, the group was gathered around Lisa's old laptop (rather than the new one made by Riley, which they'd agreed would give an unfair advantage to the test), watching Weld take a tinker-tech power-sander to his fingernails.

The blonde thinker leaned back, resting her hands on her head with a proud expression on her face, "See? I might not be one of the harbingers of the apocalypse like you three, but I can do my part, thank you very much!"

Amelia rubbed at her eyes, "Lisa...about that...you just admitted that you can casually hack one of the most well-funded, powerful, and well-defended government agencies on the planet. As a purely hypothetical question...what's to stop you from using your Sherlock BS on the nuclear launch codes of...anywhere?"

Lisa blinked, freezing in place where she had begun to stretch languidly. "I-"

"Oh!" Riley grinned, suddenly excited. "Do you think you could find the NBC storage sites the government uses? They always keep the best chemicals and things in there! Please? I'll give you a painkiller implant for your headaches!"

Taylor's face wore a look of consideration. "You know, you might want to consider getting some blackmail on the mayor...you know, if we can't manage to convince him to help us. Maybe we could start digging up dirt on other people too? I mean, just as a precaution of course! If someone tries railroading us, we could dump it on the internet and get them kicked out of office or whatever!"

Lisa twitched, then slowly settled into her seat, moving to rest her head in her hands. "This is how it starts, isn't it? Sure, picking up blackmail on some scumbag politicians sounds awesome now, but before I know it, you're going to be convincing me to dismantle governments or wipe out Ellisburg with a nuke, aren't you? I can actually hear you, Taylor, telling me it would only be a 'little bomb,' right now, in my head. Do you understand how frightening that is?"

Amelia seemed entirely too amused as she grinned. "Well, it's not like you're in bad company after all. You said it yourself, we're all apocalypses waiting to happen."

Lisa sagged.

Riley cocked her head. "Is...it too late to change our name?"

Lisa's head snapped up. "No. Just no! No way!"

Riley pouted, "But it would be perfect! Taylor could have the pale one, Amelia's would be black...would you want the red or the white one? I mean, my powers are a pretty good fit for either, I guess, but I think you'd do better on the red one. Big sister is always going on about how you start fights and stuff! Jack never let me have a pony anyway, it'd be perfect!"

Lisa could only gape.

In a flash of insight, Amelia understood. "We are not calling ourselves the Four Horsemen!"

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 31


"Purity lives in a nice part of town, and has family with her," Taylor explained as we sat in our planning room. Or, as we usually refered to it, the dining room. "She won't want to fight there, or anywhere nearby. We'll find her there, and offer her a chance to take the fight to the boat graveyard, or any other abandoned part of town. And give her the option to retreat immediately or surrender."



"Which she won't accept under any circumstance except taking her infant daughter hostage," Lisa replied.


"We won't?" Crystal tried to say it like a statement, but it came out a question. A hope.


"No. We will not," I confirmed.


....


We approached Purity's hideout, which was a nice penthouse apartment in the wealthy part of town. It couldn't be more polar opposite of Hookwolf's run down warehouse. How has she not been caught, already? I wondered.


Eki carried me to the window of Purity's apartment. She was there, out of costume. Along with a pasty, somewhat overweight boy around my age. A little brother? Far to old to be her son, certainly. The kid spotted us, though even with changeling hearing I couldn't make out what he said. The glass must have been soundproofed or something. It didn't look especially new, so it probably survived Shatterbird as well. Purity was up and instantly covered in a nimbus of light. I simply tapped on the window.


"If she attacks, just drop me and fall back," I instructed Crystal. "One changeling isn't going to make the difference in this fight. You're our heavy hitter. We can't beat Purity without you, unless we want to demolish half the city."


The window opened. "What do you want."


"Just here to talk for the moment," I answered.


She glanced back toward the room the boy had retreated to. I could hear him muttering nonsense sounds, and the whimpers of a very young child. "The roof, I'll there in five minutes."


I agreed, and Eki lifted me up the couple stories that were required to get us there.


....


"If she tries to run, I'll track her," Taylor stated.


"She won't," Lisa added. "She thinks she can take us in a fight."


....


True to her word, Purity arrived in five minutes. Although she'd came from an angle that wouldn't appear to have come from her apartment.



"Okay, I'm here, now talk," she insisted impatiently. "I'm already pissed that you had the gall to show up at my home."


"Your identity is already public," I replied dismissively. "Just like mine."


"Yeah, Amy Dallon, moderately famous healer cum city overlord in the making," she muttered.


"I go by my birth name, now," I replied. "Amelia Lavere."


"Lavere..." she chewed the name over for a minute. "Holy fuck, you're Marquis' daughter!"


"So you knew my father?"


She laughed. "God, I'm not THAT old. But Allfather and Kaiser had less than fond memories. Apparently he thought he was god's gift to women, and a lot of them agreed. I wouldn't be surprised at all to find out you have a dozen or so half siblings out there."


'She's trying to put you off your footing. Like Miss Militia did. Stay on track.' Lisa's spoke up from where our actual selves were sitting. I had a weakness for getting distracted by the unimportant things, as she had pointed out a few times.


"I'll keep that in mind," I answered dryly. I would, too. That was kind of a doozy, all considered. "Right now, we have to talk about us. Or, specifically, you being in my city."


"I was here first."


"You are also a problem. Giving you a chance to get into costume was a courtessy. If you are willing to surrender, we can talk about you joining Pantheon. Or you can leave the city, permanently, and we'll simply watch you go. If you'd rather fight us, we can do that too. Even give you a chance to contact the rest of your people. That last one, we have to ask you someting in return."


"The first two aren't happening," she said with a cold voice. "What 'favor' do you expect for the third?"


"That we take the fight somewhere else. Away from your home. Away from everyone else's homes. I don't want to hurt anyone's children just to bring you in."


She hesitated. "I can live with that. But how do I know you haven't trapped the abandoned areas?"


I shrugged. "Honestly, you don't, and there's nothing I can say to prove it. But we didn't. You're powerful, so is the rest of your team. Beating you with cheap tricks just invites others to think we're too weak to fight fair. But if we take you in a fair fight..."


"So it's a rep thing, huh?" Purity smirked. "Half the Slaughterhouse Nine wasn't enough for you?"


"Some people think it's a fluke. Beginner's luck. A specific power that countered theirs. Whatever." I explained. "After all, you're still here ready to fight us. If our rep was that good, you'd have jumped on our offer to let you run."


"So taking us on is just to prove a point?" She didn't sound impressed.

"No. It's to get the rest of the fucking Nazis out of my home," my voice was ice. I had to remember to praise Riley for doing such an impressive job with her upgrades. These changelings conveyed my emotions better than I could with my own body. "Doing it with a fair fight? That is us proving a point."


"Rest of?" Her eyes narrowed.


"Yeah. Hookwolf and pals are done," I confirmed. "Even if someone does break them out, they'll never dare return to this city."


She frowned. "I see."


"That surrender is still on the table," I offered.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 32


We arrived at the graveyard more or less at the same time as Purity's gang. Night and Fog had driven there and beat us, taking position. Crusader came alongside Purity. He didn't seem too keen on this idea. He was ready to fight, but us picking a battlefield like this didn't sit well with him.


"So, the hell are we getting out of this if we win?" He glared at me.


"You won't," I answered. "But what you get out of it is us not attacking you while you're asleep in your beds. Which is something we could have done. Now feel free to go pick a spot. We'll be ready for you in a minute or so."


"Pick a spot? This isn't a game of tag, girl."


"No, no it's not," I agreed.


Purity simply took off, toward the ocean. We were true to our word and gave them one minute, exactly.


....


"We split into three teams," Taylor instructed. "Eki, you focus on Purity. She's your only priority. Keep in the air. I'll blanket the sky so she can't snipe at us, and you keep up the pressure so she can't get in close."


"Osiris, Aceso, Gaea," She continued. "You fight Night and Fog. I'll be providing backup."


"You mean the zergling?" Respawn piped in.


"... Yes," Taylor sighed. "We're testing the zergling."


"And I'll deal with Crusader," she concluded. "My combat units, like his, are somewhat more disposable than the changelings."


"Isn't Minerva joining in?" I asked.


"Nope," she answered. "I'm on Com duty alone for this one. We outnumber them five to four even like this. This has to be a, quote, 'fair fight', or it proves absolutely nothing."


....


The sky turned dark as it was flooded with insects. All the disposable kinds. It would be two years before the city's mosquito population fully recovered. Truly, my heart wept for the evil little bastards. I switched over to the 'Dryad' model when we arrived. We needed the offensive power.


And next to me, the abomination that Respawn tried so hard to get us to make. Its brain, based mainly off a series of jumping or grass spiders. It's body, yes, was far more catlike than anything.


Taylor led us to the spot they had chosen. It wasn't much to look at, just a rusted out hull that had been washed ashore by Leviathan. Lots of places to hide, none of which mattered.


....


"Night and Fog. They count as one. Night turns into a kind of clawed abomination as long as no one's looking at her. And Fog turns into a deadly acidic miasma. Thanks to my efforts that have earned nothing but complaints from my friends," she glared at me and Lisa. "We have a rough estimate of Night's physical strength. In addition, we know that we can't use remote viewing to keep her in human state. You'll be fighting a Brute 4 that seems to have durability on par with Alexandria or Siberian. You can't hurt her, you probably can't outrun her. We'll have to beat her with a trap."


....


They struck first. A flashbang that meant nothing to us went off. It blinded and deafened us only for as long as it took for the grenade itself to detonate. Our changelings may have superhuman senses to spare, but our display interface had maximums on its brightness and volume.


A chaotic, clawed nightmare rushed toward us, faster than any of the changelings could move. It looked like Hookwolf, if the chains were instead made of teeth. Aceso jumped on my arm and pulled herself to safety, and our zergling collided with the monster, locking claws with claws and fangs with fangs in a ball of struggling spiked death. The zergling quickly lost the fight as Night cut through every joint she could reach. But, then, it wasn't suppose to win. It was suppose to distract.


I punched her as hard as I could, sending her sprawling back several feet. I was surprised to note the inch deep gashes she left in my suit. She was up in a half second.


She pounced on the armor. And that's when we had Respawn open his eyes. Night, suddenly in her human state, was exposed to a powerful sedative that was on the skin of the armor, and immediately rendered unconscious.


I held Night's unconscious form up, just to make it clear we had her. Didn't need her husband/partner throwing any other explosives at us. It didn't matter, most likely, as he started flooding over us.


The Dryad started to wilt at the edges, as he did his level best to melt through it and either kill me, or rescue Night. Probably both.


Then the air burst into flames.


....


"Fog's mine," Clarice said cheerfully. "He's not actually acidic. He's alkaline," she clarified as if we knew what the difference meant. "All I have to do is use an acidic counter chemical and 'boom'."


"There's a pretty good chance that will kill him," Lisa informed us.


"Breakers tend to heal when they revert," Clarice responded. "He'll be fine. Probably. Maybe."


"I've had to heal his victims," I answered. "I'm not saying I want to kill him. But if we have to choose between that and letting him go? We do not let him go." I regretted those words the moment I'd said them. But not enough to take them back.


....


Fog dropped to the ground, hard. Much of his skin was missing. "Clarice?"


"On it, sis," she said, hopping down off my shoulder. She'd have to handle saving Fog. If, indeed, he could be saved. That kind of damage... the shock trauma alone could be fatal. I gave an order that killed someone. I was stunned to silence at the thought. If he dies. It was me who did it.


And then I was brought out of it by screaming.


I turned around to he source of the noise. Eki was on the ground, curled up in a ball and struggling to catch her breath, still in costume. Osiris was kneeling next to her, holding her hair. "It's okay, it's okay. The pain's gone now."


'What happened?' I muttered, to be heard by Minerva.


'Purity got her,' was the reply. 'Bad. Almost cut her in half. Respawn had to restore her. Good thing we put all that effort into making that armor link up."


'Fuck,' I muttered.


I was already moving toward Crystal. She was finally sitting up, gasping. "Does... does dying always hurt like that?" She asked him.


He smiled and shrugged. "Some worse than others," he answered. "You got one of the really bad ones."


She wobbled as she got to her feet. "It... I know it's fixed, but I still feel it," she muttered.


"It's okay," I said. I wanted to put my hand on her to comfort her, but this armor wasn't exactly safe to touch anyone. "The fight's basically over, you can sit this out."


"Fuck no," she growled. "She just tried to kill me."


She grabbed the battlestaff and bolted straight up again, heading straight toward Purity. She was half blinded by bugs and trying to reach Crusader. And then Purity was struck by lightning.


Or. Rather. She was hit with everything Eki's staff could output at once. It really was comparable to a lightning bolt. A massive amount of electric charge struck the woman, and immediately jumped upward into the sky, absorbed by the slight charge held by clouds.


"Kayden!" I heard Crusader shout. A couple of his summons charged away to catch her as she fell. The ones which had up until then been shielding him from the mostly annoyance bugs that Khepri had been using. Mosquitoes and flies, other bugs like that. None of the spiders or deadly species. They coated him completely. Funny. My cousin had been trying to teach my partner the concept of 'holding back', and it's her who uses the outright deadly attack.


I abandoned the Dryad for my much more mobile Changeling. After all, this fight was, for every intent that mattered, over.


The insects formed a globe, with us and Crusader inside. "Get out of my fucking way!" Crusader screamed. His skin was so irritated by the insect bites that, ironically enough, it would be hard to guess his natural skin color. He had to be in a lot of pain.


"No," the swarm muttered. I couldn't help but shiver. Skitter's swarm-talk spoke to a very primal part of my brain. I don't know where in human evolution we acquired the fear of being eaten by a swarm of bugs. But we did. And when Skitter spoke like this, that part of me screamed to run. Though my real body was miles away from them right now. "She needs treatment. If you take her, she'll die before you can get help."


He looked at us. Then at the mass of bugs. Then at Kayden, who I finally got a good look at, myself. Much of her hair had burned off. She had ugly looking black lines burnt through her right arm and leg. That was what passed for a good sign- less likely that it hit the heart, that way.


An Yggdrasil vine pushed its way out of the bay, forming a pod. "Put her in there," I instructed. "It'll stabilize her until we can fix her properly."


Crusader hesitated for a moment, but finally moved, taking Purity and putting her in the pod.


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

A/N- This was the first fight scene I was really happy with. The others I liked just fine (especially Zach's banter with Hookwolf), but this one I just loved how the fight went.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 33, Piggot Interlude


I frowned. Seems I did a lot of that. Lately it had grown into an act of will against the events going on in front of me. As if, by showing enough disapproval, the universe would change, and I would not be watching this.

"And yet you keep working for the people who ordered their murders," Minerva provoked my head of the Protectorate.​

"What does Pantheon believe they know about the actions of the Protectorate in recent months?" Stan Vickory spoke in his smooth, well trained style. "It is clear that this contention revolves around the recent conflict with the Slaughterhouse Nine. Most probably, Director Piggot's choice to deploy a weapon rumored to have been created by the 'mad bomber' Bakuda."​

​

I continued to frown. As if some liberal media jackass has the right to judge what I've done. What I've sacrificed. While he goes along contributing nothing of value to the world.


Meanwhile, they cut to scenes of Crawler, converted to crystal and then defaced, first by Panacea- no, Gaea- and then later by civilians. It was becoming something of a tradition to come by and to smash off a chip of the monster, or hurl refuse, or spray paint profanities and similar epithets. A way to vent frustrations in this trying time. In theory, it was illegal to do so. Defacement of a corpse, possibly other statutes, but no one would enforce that law. Even some law enforcement had taken to the practice. I had to admit, it sounded cathartic. I might even have to try it myself, some day.

"Minerva implied that the villains offered an alliance to fight together against the Nine," he continued. "While that may sound unusual, it is well known that heroes and villains put aside their differences to deal with more significant threats, such as Endbringers. And we have footage showing both Undersiders and E-88 members working to fight the Nine on multiple occasions. Which begs the question: where were the heroes?"​

Not going off and making matters worse, that's where they were, Stan.


True enough, they had footage. It was shaky at best, camera phones probably, but Purity, Hookwolf, Grue, and Hellhound's dogs were unmistakable. They were far too distinctive to be mistaken. I had to wonder where the cameras came from, given Shatterbird's attack. One of those mysteries that would never be answered.


Miss Militia arrived. "You wanted to see me, Director."


I sighed, and tore my eyes away from the disaster on screen. It wasn't the first time I'd watched it. Wasn't even the fifth.


Miss Militia had, too. "I'm sorry ma'am, I messed up."


I sighed. "No, you didn't."


"Ma'am?"


I did like that. Miss Militia was good at following orders. Better than Armsmaster, certainly. But it paid to let your underlings know that you were smarter than them. As long as it didn't look like that's what you were doing, of course. This was a conversation I needed to have with her.


"To start with," I said. "This is not a defeat."


Miss Militia's eyebrow rose.


"You made a lot of strong points. Backed Gaea into a corner, without making it obvious that you were doing so. Your points were strong, her rebutals were weak. Amateurish. And the cameras saw that. Maybe channel twelve isn't going to pounce on it. But other stations will. Their goal of trying to 'reform' super villains will mean every recruit they acquire will be viewed with heavy scrutiny. They'll either face media backlash, or they'll have to drop this whole practice. And with it, lose a lot of potential allies."


I studiously ignored one particular elephant in the room. The Protectorate made a habit of recruiting former villains as well. Assault was one such example. He had worked out... adequately, at least. Miss Militia was savvy enough to not mention it, either.


"Minerva destroyed me," she said after a moment.


"Yes," I agreed. No sense in sugar coating things. "Minerva knew you were winning. She jumped in to deflect attention. I'll grant you, she succeeded, but she had to use her best weapon to do it."


"I see," Miss Militia agreed. I didn't know for sure if she truly did or not. But that didn't matter. I continued speaking.


"More importantly, she used it too early. If she had waited for a more opportune time, she could have done a lot of damage," I paused. "A lot more damage, I should clarify. Instead, we know what she's alluding to, and we can have our teams put together a response. When they choose to go public with everything, we'll have a rebuttal already in place. It's merely a question of waiting for them to act, or dealing with it preemptively. Either choice has its merits. Ones I'll be discussing it at length with my advisors and the other Directors."


Ad nauseum, I thought to myself. This kind of PR disaster would get national attention.


"Is it true, ma'am?" Miss Militia asked. "Did we reject the villains help in dealing with the Nine?"


"Yes, but not in the way you're thinking or they implied," I answered. "I specifically warned them not to interfere, that we had plans of our own, and that they should stay out of our way. That going after the Nine would put them, and the city, in unnecessary danger. I even had Legend repeat that same message to them, less than an hour before the bombs were used on Crawler and Mannequin. They chose not to listen, and their deaths are a result of that decision."


Miss Militia nodded. "I understand, ma'am."

Through it all, the news report had continued. It was nearing its climax. "You've proven you can't save this city. So shut up, get out of our way, and watch as we do it for you," Minerva's rant closed.​

​

​

The video was footage of the fight between Pantheon, and The Pure. Specifically, when Purity was struck from the sky. I frowned again. Purity is a major coup for them. She was a top tier blaster, and with her on their team, they could remove the Protectorate by force if they wanted to. This, and I hadn't believed it possible, is actually worse than Lung and Kaiser.


I sighed. "I've got a great deal of work to do, and a teleconference tonight," I informed Miss Militia. "I trust you can handle the affairs of the Protectorate and Wards for the rest of the afternoon."


"Yes, ma'am, I'll see myself out." She stood and left quickly.


Christ. You'd think that, with every villain group in the city gone, things would quiet down around here. I set aside some time and reviewed the notes on Pantheon, specifically Gaea herself. I made the necessary annotations, with references and analysis from my people. I wished I had a tinker or thinker on the team to put on the task of figuring just how impressive Bonesaw's plague, and Panacea's quick response, had been.


Losing Armsmaster had been devastating. All we had left was Kid Win and Chariot. They showed a bit of promise, but comparatively speaking they were nothing to the former leader of the Protectorate ENE. Still, I had enough. I filed for the clearance to recognize Pantheon as a Class S threat.


In an hour, I was ready. The screens came on, putting me in conversation with Chief Director Costa-Brown, as well as a number of other local directors.


"Good afternoon, Director," Costa-Brown opened.


"Chief Director," I acknowledged.


=========

A/N- Wow. My writing style has evolve a lot since this chapter. Almost a completely different writer. Still love this chapter.

 

[Jiven]

Likebomb unleashed.

Will you continue posting on SB ? And will you port to SV too ?

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 34- Alexandria


"Coil's been compromised," Number Man stated in his usual, inscrutably calm manner.


We glanced at Contessa. Her power was certain he'd succeed. "Endbringer," she answered. That one word did explain everything. Eidolon was there, as was Scion. Three of Contessa's blind spots, any of which could have altered fates in a way to bring this about. We'd never know how, of course, but we could explain the why.


Dammit, I thought. "Heroes got him?" It was the most reasonable guess.


"After a fashion," Number Man responded.


Sometimes, I hated that man.


"It seems a new group of heroes has formed in Brockton Bay, calling itself 'Pantheon'," Number Man informed us.


"That's pretentious," Eidolon chimed in.


"Quite," Number Man agreed. "The more interesting part is that they seem to be continuing Coil's project. They didn't remove him, they subsumed him." Well, that's both fortuitous and troubling.


"I... see," Doctor Mother replied. "Contessa, would you mind running your power with the goal of Pantheon succeeding in establishing a parahuman feudal state? Both with and without our assistance in the matter." Coil didn't need our help, let's see what the new team...


"Two thousand, three hundred and twelve steps," Contessa stated. "Approximately 300 less with our assistance. They'll be done in less than two years, either way."


I hid my surprise. Eidolon and Doctor Mother were a little less composed. Number Man, of course, never showed any emotion he didn't want to.


"That's... significantly faster than Coil, even by the best estimate," Doctor Mother spoke up.


"Coil was always extremely, perhaps overly, cautious," Number Man speculated. "This new group seems to be comprised mainly of younger people. The leaders are teenagers. Panacea and Skitter, both using new monikers. It is no surprise they are more aggressive in their goals."


Panacea? The mousy healer? Huh. Skitter came as no surprise. She had ambition, drive, natural talent, and exactly the right attitude. Reminded me a lot of my younger self. But Panacea? There is a story in there that I wish to know.


"Seems our best interest, then, is allowing them to continue doing exactly what they're doing," Doctor Mother concluded. I agreed completely.


"Actually, that brings us to the next problem," Number Man replied. "It seems Faultline's group has found a number of leads that might come back to us. Aforementioned Pantheon appears to be providing them with funding and assistance on the subject. Normally, we could just send a message to the mercenaries not to continue..."


"But doing so would provoke Pantheon," I supplied. "And Skitter, at least, is not one to back down from a fight. We can counter them, but in the process we damage our experiment."


"So, even when we win, we lose," Doctor Mother concluded. "Seems we'll have to take a different approach."


"How about we give them what they want?" Eidolon suggested. "Not really, of course, but a suitably convincing decoy that answers enough of their questions. Draw their attention and sate their curiosity."


It was easy to forget, sometimes, that behind his unremarkable appearance and continent breaking powers, David was a smart man.


Number Man nodded. "Yes, that would be an elegant solution," he agreed. "We'll need to get some psychological profiles on both Faultline's crew, and Pantheon, but that shouldn't be too difficult. Contessa, your help would also be appreciated."


"Moving on," Doctor Mother said. "A couple of our agents in the King's Men..."


I sat, listening while still in thought. My perceptive powers, which I named myself for, could easily handle both. Meanwhile, I was reading the reports from Brockton Bay. My civilian identity would need to address the Pantheon situation, one way or another.


....


I reviewed Piggot's latest update to her rough estimates of Pantheon's power levels. Her estimate of Eki seemed a bit high. Osiris. That is a really useful defensive power, to be certain, but had little offensive potential. Khepri and Gaea... were absurd. If these numbers were to be believed, either one of them could solo the Triumvirate. Granted, Khepri had killed Siberian, but she had done so by learning and exploiting a weakness.


If we had known that Siberian was a projection... I might still have my eye. I would need to talk to David about using Thinker powers more often. Good intel was often more valuable than any amount of raw power, and Khepri proved it.


I simultaneously reviewed the psych profiles on the Directors that'd be present.


Piggot, of course. Nilbog incident. Paranoia and a bigot, both. She was zealous in her actions. I'd need to use that zealotry against her.


Tagg. Another of the more pushy members. He and Piggot often sided together on issues. That would make this harder. I'd need to find some way to divide them, or at least put them at odds with all the others.


Armstrong. He was more inclined to moderation. His focus was on understanding parahumans. Both scientifically and psychologically. Him, I could use.


Gutierrez. She was one of those women who joined the military when it was still very much an 'all boys club'. Twenty years senior to almost anyone else at the table. She almost had my job. Would have, if not for Cauldron's wealth and connections. Sometimes I even felt bad about that. But, my mission was more important than her career.


Niles. So deep in Cauldron's pocket that he was almost a member. He probably had a script hand crafted by Number Man that he memorized instead of studying Piggot's report. He wasn't a competent director. Our help in funnelling a couple of our powerful debtors into the Protectorate under his command is the only reason Florida was still standing, and he knew it.


I could work with this group. Turning them against Piggot and Tagg would be easy. Turning Tagg and Piggot against one another, that would prove more difficult.


Five minutes ahead of schedule, my paperwork in front of me, but already memorized, I started the video conference.


"Good afternoon, Director," I said. My tone was carefully neutral. The others might feel slighted as they weren't addressed. If they were savvy, they'd know this was a sign of displeasure. If they weren't, they'd figure out by the end of this that they should be glad my attention was elsewhere.


"Chief Director," Piggot responded back. Her tone equally neutral. She has no idea what is about to happen.

 

[TanaNari]

Likebomb unleashed.

Will you continue posting on SB ? And will you port to SV too ?

Click to shrink...

Thanks. To answer your questions in order: No I will not. And maybe I'll start a thread in SV and link it here.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 35- Chariot, Dragon and Lisa


I idly checked my armor's control HUD. Good, the power drain is optimal, and the data is being recorded. Normally, the Director's office would be the most secure room in an already absurdly secure building, but that wasn't such a problem for me. Coil had given me access to a lot information. Enough to let me create prototypes that would emulate Trickster's power at a much greater range than he ever could, as well as a spy camera that was emulating the same quantum trickery that Skitter did to control her bugs 'telepathically'.


"Hey, Trevor," Missy said as I entered the main room.


I smiled at her. "Up for some exercises?" I asked. I found Vista's power fascinating. My tinker specialty was movement, and her power altered space itself. The possibilities were endless, if a little difficult to achieve.


Missy tried to keep a professional demeanor, moreso than most of the adults did. She'd been a Ward longer than any other two, possibly three, members of the team combined. Even now, weeks later, it was basically impossible to get the girl to smile. I knew Gallant's death had a lot to do with it, but I wasn't able to draw her out of her shell enough to really understand.


"Sure," she agreed. "We have at least a few hours before patrol."


"Not that patrols are all that necessary," I said with a smile. "Now that Pantheon's doing their thing."


Part of Coil's orders. I was to gather as much intel as I could on the wards' opinions of the new group. He didn't tell me why he was so interested. And there were too many possibilities for me to guess which one. Not that it mattered, as long as he kept paying me.


By the time I graduated from the Wards, I'd have a first rate education and a nice little trust fund. Coil would ensure that my mother had enough money that she and my little brother would never want for anything for the rest of their lives. It really was a sweet deal for everyone.


"No, I guess not," Missy's mood darkened, even more. "But it won't matter."


"Oh, why not?" I asked. Part job, part genuine curiosity.


"Because something will stop them," she said with finality. "That's how the world works. They have potential."


She said the word like it was a profanity. "I don't get what you mean," I replied, trying to sound professionally interested instead of personally.


"Whenever someone has enough potential," she elaborated. "The world finds a way to hammer them back down again. Like Dauntless. A power that started so weak, but never ever stopped growing? That was potential, too. Or Armsmaster. One of the best tinkers in the world. Killed by another of the best tinkers in the world. Who was driven insane by the death of his family. Every time someone gets too strong, or is too likely to actually make things better? Every time someone gives us a reason to hope. They come along and destroy everything."


I didn't have to ask who 'They' meant. Fucking Endbringers. She broke down. I hesitated, before putting my hand on her shoulder. I felt awkward.


"Pantheon's no different," Missy whimpered. "You'll see."


------


I watched the camera. Technically, this was violating any number of laws, state and federal. International, as well, as I was not a US citizen. I was prevented from doing what I was doing by a total of fifteen of my inhibitor protocols. Fortunately, in this case, I had a loophole. Chariot's camera. It was remarkable, I couldn't tap its signal at all. Some kind of quantum technology that I'd love to purchase. It would allow me to communicate to my suits at FTL speeds, from almost anywhere on the planet, with almost no power drain, and no risk of interception.


But, even if I couldn't hack the camera, I could hack his armor. Spying upon a criminal double agent was well within my legal jurisdiction. As long as I'd filed the proper requests and paperwork, of course. Richter didn't stop to realize that most people don't analyze paperwork all that thoroughly. And my reputation was such that I could file a thousand pages of request forms, and they'd all be approved. Especially when it was one of over seven hundred warrants to surveil confirmed associates of known supervillains, such as in this case. I suspected, though never bothered to confirm, that they simply hired a judge to do nothing but stamp my requests each day. With full legal authority and in the interest of observing a criminal in the act of espionage, I watched.


------


"I see no reason to worry about formalities," Costa-Brown spoke up. Hostile, establishing dominance by disrupting standard protocol.


"I concur," Piggot responded, and moments later agreements were muttered from the screen. Four additional voices, other Directors.


"We've all seen the news feed, of course," Costa-Brown continued.


"Yes," Piggot replied. "It was the emotional outburst of a teenager. The media may be taking it at face value, but I assure you it has no basis in fact. I can prove as much, easily, with records and recordings showing that I insisted the PRT had a strategy for dealing with the Slaughterhouse Nine. One which, ultimately, proved successful in killing both Mannaquin and Crawler, and could also just as easily have dealt with any and all other extant members of the Nine. Acknowledging a possible exception for Siberian. Legend is a witness, and even delivered one of my warnings to the villains to stay away. They told him, and I apologize for the profanity, 'go fuck yourself'."


I frowned. She probably does, at that.


"Fair enough," Costa-Brown acknowledged. "I would be remiss in my duties if I didn't request a copy of that evidence."


"Naturally," Piggot agreed easily. "I'll have it sent to you shortly after this meeting concludes." Telling the truth, has data and believes her own story. The Chief Director disagrees. No, is certain Piggot is right. Has lie detector technology? Chief Director believes it won't matter. Intends sabotage?


"Now, let us discuss your... suggested update... to Pantheon's ratings," The Chief Director continued. There was a nervous chuckle amongst the other Directors. Read report, considers it absurd.


"I am aware it sounds outlandish," Piggot replied smoothly. "However, I have substantial evidence to believe each upgrade is not only warranted, but may be an understatement."


"I must admit, I'm intrigued to hear this," another woman's voice said. Older woman, career military, cynical attitude.


"Shall we start with the... least objectionable and move our way forward?" Costa-Brown asked. There were no objections.


"Everything seems to be in order with Osiris' rating as a Breaker 4. If anything, that may be a bit high. Shaker and Striker four alongside Trump six and Mover three?"


"Yes. Osiris is also capable of restoring objects, as we saw in his news debut. He has recently demonstrated the ability to touch a door and teleport it off its own hinges." Piggot confirmed. "Recently, we discovered he can do the same thing with people. Their newest member, Eki, was wounded fatally in the recent conflict with Purity. She was immediately teleported to touch range of Osiris, and her injury was restored. Much as he claimed he could restore spent bullets to their default state."


How did they learn so quickly? Surveillance? Intel from active source, probably Parahuman. Well, that doesn't help narrow it down.


"That is certainly impressive," another male voice supplied. Interested in potential. Views as resouce to study and exploit. Scientific type. Likely Boston's Director. Armstrong.


"He's a shaker/striker with no Manton limit, and as long as he's on the field, he grants functional immortality to his allies," another voice added. "I believe Director Piggot is fully justified in this upgrade." Dislikes parahumans, is jealous but also respects Piggot. Desires her position?


"I concur," Costa-Brown agreed. "His personal power isn't too impressive, so we'll drop Shaker and Striker to 1. But his ability to restore injured or possibly dead parahumans is a significant force multiplier. As he can teleport others, but not himself, the Mover rating is nonviable. Wouldn't achieve anything except to confuse our own troops on the field. Granting teleportation to allies fits under the 'trump' label."


Emily Piggot simply frowned and nodded. Subtle posturing from Costa Brown. Makes her look reactionary. Paranoid.


"Eki, their new recruit, upgrades?"


"She's on record as Laserdream. Crystal Pelham," Piggot responded. "Cousin of Amy Dallon, Aka Panacea, Aka Gaea."


"Upgrading her blaster status from five to eight? Upgrading from shaker two to six?" The Chief Diector asked.


"She is shown to have electromagnetic manipulation, now. She could easily disrupt any electronics within a five block radius with the power used to attack Purity. As well, she gravely injured Purity."


"Purity has no defensive powers," Costa-Brown pointed out. "She can be 'gravely injured' by a handgun. If anything, a lightning strike is of less power than Laserdream's current rating of five. The shaker rating, split the difference and rate it at four. Let our men know they can't rely on electronics if they must engage her. There's no sense in frightening them by suggesting she has destructive AoE that she doesn't have." Dismissive comment, less subtle attack of Piggot's position.


"And now, for the big two. It seems like you've given the pair of them at least five or six in every category, and some truly outlandish ones atop that. Is Khepri truly deserving of Master 8, alongside Shaker 6, Blaster 7, Thinker 8, and Stranger 5?"


"She is capable of controlling massive amounts of arthropods, gathering them into masses large enough to block out the sun and blind or attack everything in her control radius simultaneously. She has enough fine awareness to distinguish between enemy and ally. All without even being present on the battlefield. In addition, there's a huge variety of poisonous insects and arachnids. She could easily kill every non-brute in her range, simultaneously.


Tagg whistled appreciatively. "That is an incredibly versatile power."


"Indeed," Costa-Brown agreed. "Still, there is a limit to what mere insects can accomplish. In addition, her insect senses are tactile only. You have an argument on the Shaker power. We should probably remove her Master rating entirely, as it's misleading. 'Insects' aren't so much animals being controlled, as they are part of the environment being manipulated. Upgrade her to Shaker seven, downgrade Master and Thinker to one. Her only theoretical stranger power is the ability to track her bugs, as she demonstrated on Leviathan. And tracking is a Thinker subcategory. She can't render herself undetected, except by blacking out vision with her bugs. Part of her Shaker power." Master carries worse connotations than Shaker. Costa Brown is adjusting our numbers to be more palatable. Protecting us. Ally?


"Agreed," the fourth individual in the group finally spoke up. "Master Eight? Is a little much. Unless you're trying to say bugs are more powerful than Nilbog or Heartbreaker." Aloof, uninterested in the discussion. Insulting Piggot intentionally. Personal Vendetta? No. Specific goal? Unsure.


"Very well," Piggot muttered. "Reclassifying Khepri as a shaker, with low master and thinker subtypes."


"And last, but certainly not least, Gaea," Costa-Brown moved on. "In the interest of organization, we'll do this one at a time. Shaker 15? Honestly?"


"Her Yggdrasil extends throughout the entire city of Brockton Bay. If she has contact with any part of it, she has absolute control of all of it. She can alter its chemical properties to produce anything she desires. Leaving out all other potential uses, she could flood the entire city with some deadly bioweapon that would end all life in Brockton Bay almost instantly."


"A bit melodramatic, don't you think?" Costa Brown said dryly. "She uses her power to keep damaged waste disposal lines functional, provides housing and building supplies, and produces food for refugees."


"Her ability to wipe out a species is well documented," Piggot responded. Is flustered. Making mistakes. Costa Brown manipulated her masterfully. Too good. Thinker power? Thinker power. Parahuman? Or prompts from ally? Unknown.


"One of Bonesaw's plagues," Armstrong supplied. "Yes, I read every detail of those reports."


"Director," Costa Brown responded. "If we take this... suggestion... to heart. It means we should surrender and abandon Brockton Bay like we've abandoned Ellisburg. Nothing, not even a bombardment of nuclear weapons, is a possible counter for 'Shaker 15'."


"Ma'am, are you seriously suggesting we simply abandon Brockton Bay?" Tagg said in shock.


"No, of course not," Costa Brown responded. LIE!


The Chief Director sighed. "But that would be the only valid course of action if a Shaker of that magnitude had claimed an area. Therefor, as we intend to keep a Protectorate presence" Does NOT intend to keep presence. "In the region. We clearly must not be dealing with a Shaker of that level."


"I... I understand, Chief Director," Piggot responded. She did not sound happy.


"Moving on. Master 10?" Costa Brown didn't bother hiding her incredulity at that position.


The others muttered. "Yes," Piggot replied. Angry. Hiding it well. But angry. "In addition to her control over her Yggdrasil, she has made both monstrous animals, and humanoid duplicates." Pause. Picture evidence being transfered. "These constructs are significantly superior to a natural life form of equivalent size. The humanoids, even, are at least brute 3 in capacity. Her constructs are a loose equivalent to Nilbog's, and coupled with the Yggdrasil's sheer supply of mass for her to shape them from. It earns her a Class S status."


"Even so," Costa Brown responded. "They are botanical in nature. Unable to reproduce or function independently. In addition, Nilbog may be Class S, but he's still only a Master 8."


"Gaea has an ability that Nilbog does not," Piggot countered. "She can take control over minds, via her striker power." Lying. Correction: is accurate, knows it, has no evidence to back her claims.


"Director Piggot," Costa-Brown responded coldly. "Need I remind you that Panacea's inability to influence brains and brain chemistry is well documented and has been verified by multiple Thinkers and Tinkers over the years."


"She healed her father," Piggot stated. "From injuries inflicted during the Endbringer battle."


"We have records showing these injuries were both incurable and to the brain? We know it was Panacea who healed him? As opposed to the hiring or bartering with of one of the healers lacking Panacea's restrictions?"


"No, on all counts," Piggot relented. "But it fits with Gaea being able to quickly and easily recruit a number of villain and independent capes in the moments surrounding her establishment of Pantheon."


"I've read the psych profiles on Skitter and Tattletale," Costa Brown replied. "It appears that they were doing, functionally, the same thing with the Undersiders as they are with Pantheon. Establishing territory. Establishing good will with the civilians within that territory. Showing up on television as often as possible. And actively humiliating the local Protectorate whenever possible. That's not mind control. It's smart recruitment practices." Humiliating 'local' Protectorate. Deliberate word choice. Implying Piggot was humiliated and has a personal vendetta. Destroying credibility.


"Master 5 is the most we can assign until we see evidence of monsters with superior abilities to natural life forms," Costa-Brown concluded. "Moving on... Striker upgraded to 8? Approved." Doesn't want to deny Piggot everything, would appear partial, picking battles. "Tinker 6. Enlighten us?"


"She has constructed life forms of numerous descriptions," Piggot answered. "In addition, she kept all of Bonesaw's notes and paraphernalia. Aside what the girl kept inside herself."


"Six is in line with what Blasto is capable of," Armstrong agreed. "This seems a valid classification."


"Point," Costa-Brown agreed. "Stranger?"


"She can construct bodies. Or perform cosmetic alterations on her allies," Piggot responded. "She could make one of her agents look like one of ours and get them into sensitive locations. Or alter dangerous criminals so they couldn't be visually identified."


"Relatively low end stuff, for Stranger abilities. And would require prep time that makes it nonviable in combat. Two is a reasonable classification. Enough to enact the code confirmation protocols."


Piggot nodded.


"And last... Trump seven?"


"Gaea has shown the ability to modify the powers of others," Piggot stated. True, but operating on false assumptions. "Skitter's range during the Endbringer battle was demonstrated-"


"Careful, Director," Costa-Brown said with a cold voice. "Collecting tactical information to use against participants of an Endbringer battle is a career ending decision. Remember Armsmaster." Didn't need to mention Armsmaster, other examples to pick from. Chose to use a name that would upset Piggot.


"Understood, ma'am," Piggot responded. "Skitter's range has been demonstrated at well over a mile, after allying herself with Gaea. It was less than a half mile beforehand."


"Possibly a second trigger," Costa-Brown dismissed. "Given the loss of her friends at the hands of the Nine, this seems possible. Or, more likely, her range has improved with practice and age. It's quite common." Lie. Knows it was the PRT responsible for Undersiders. Choosing to remind Piggot without stating outright.


"In addition, the alterations to Laserdream's powerset when she joined their team."


"Biotechnological," Armstrong responded. "Had my guys look at her, immediately after she was shown on video. The suit she wears is alive. Crystal Pelham's demonstrated laser powers are being used to charge the equipment."


"I see," the older woman spoke up. "Yes, we've used a similar technique here. Although in our case it's to power a tinker forcefield that otherwise spends its time mounted on a tank."


"Efficient and elegant," Armstrong agreed.


"Fascinating," Costa-Brown replied. "There's no Trump rating to be found here. Although that does imply their equipment is more versatile than initially thought. We'll upgrade Gaea to a Tinker Seven. Note that all Pantheon members might have low to moderate level tinker equipment during engagements." Unrequested concession to Piggot. Trying to hide bias. Believes she has successfully established her case, now trying to avoid burning bridges with her own people more than necessary.


"And last," she replied. "Your request for preauthorized classification of Gaea as a Class S threat? It's summarily denied. Class S isn't just about capability, it is about intent. Amy Dallon, as Panacea or as Gaea, has never taken a hostile action against civilians or heroes. If anything, her main flaw is being too nice. Were I to authorize this, solely based upon an unconfirmed estimate of her capabilities, we would be opening an unacceptable floodgate. Dragon and Eidolon would both immediately qualify for a similar status. Possibly the rest of the Triumvirate, as well as the many of the most capable parahumans we have. This is not a path I want to lead us down, Director."


"Chief Director," Piggot interrupted. "Dragon and Eidolon have shown time and time again that they are reliable and trustworthy."


"So, I remind you, has Panacea," Costa-Brown added. "Clearly, her performance up until now has been woefully inadequate compared to her capabilities, but it is nothing short of exemplary in terms of trust, discretion and selflessness."


"Understood, ma'am," Piggot muttered.


"I do believe that concludes this meeting," Costa-Brown stated. "Consider yourself under strict orders to show Pantheon the utmost respect. They are heroes and deserve to be treated as such. If you find something that challenges that assumption, report it to me immediately and we'll change our stance. But not before then."


Well, fuck, this changes everything.


------


I would have frowned, if I could. I studied the readings that my lie detectors and social dynamic program models drew for me from the readings. It was obvious to my instruments that the Chief Director was playing a deeper game than mere 'office politics'. Although there was too little data to draw any valid conclusions.


I shut down the recording and deleted all record of receiving it. Now, it existed only in my organic memory. I was not acting on illegally acquired data. I was operating on an anonymous tip. Even if the tipster was myself.


I immediately programmed and sent out a dozen different snooper programs meant to acquire all possible information about Chief Director Rebecca Costa-Brown. They would be absurdly thorough, even if they could only acquire information I was legally entitled to. All data would be documented as public record, and therefor be valid and admissible in a court of law. Whatever the Chief Director was involved in, it would not stay hidden for long.


"Colin," I said.


"Yes?"


"I think it may be time for you to offer your apologies to Skitter."


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

A/N- Almost as fun to rewrite as it was to write in the first place.

 

[anechoic]

Glad to see this continuing here. Was really worried that the puritanical mods had killed another great story.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 36- Victor Interlude


"Nice find, Vic," the men around me chuckled. I cringed at the name. Fucking Hookwolf. Couldn't let me go by my middle or last names. And since there was already 'Victor the E88 cape', I couldn't be called Victor, either. So now I'm 'Vic'. Whatever, the benefits were worth it. More than. It was my perfect place to be in life.


E88 wasn't really my first choice of careers. I raised fighting dogs. I was damn good at it. Good money, too. As long as my mutts kept winning, which they did. Most people in the biz seem to think you're okay just to take someone's housepet, slap it around a bit, make it kill a chihuahua or two, and it's ready to be put in the pit. Not hardly. But I didn't put a lot of effort into dissuading them of that. Worse they were, better I looked. A good place to be in life.


It earned me a kind of 'membership' in E88. I wasn't part of the gang, didn't have to do the skinhead bullshit at all. It was just known that Hookwolf always bet on my animals, even gave me a little extra as a thank you. And if you fucked with me, that meant you fucked with him. In many ways, it gave me more influence in E88 than most of its own members. Long as I didn't ask for too much, or make waves with the capes, and kept delivering the winning animals, I was set for life. Hookwolf liked money, he liked winning, and I was even willing to bet he liked me a little.


Then fucking Leviathan happened. Kaiser got himself dead. The Empire split in half. I wasn't exactly the 'type' to fit in with his snobby bitch ex wife, so that left me going with Fenrir's Chosen. Which would have been fine. But the Empire needs soldiers. I couldn't stay on the sidelines, because we needed manpower.


We? Yeah, pretty much. Never mind the permanent tan of my Italian heritage, I was 'white enough'. Whatever. Still a good place to be in life. Not as good as before, but you learn to roll with the punches, and you can find yourself in a better place than others who weren't so smart.


So here I was, with Victor, haha, very funny, folks, completing my final test. Wasn't the first time I'd killed. You don't live as long as I do in any kind of illegal gambling without getting in your share of fights, and some folks get stupid enough to pull a weapon.


This would be my first straight up cold blooded murder, however.


See, that was the final act. The one thing that made you part of E88 forever. The part that kept undercover cops out of the organization. You had to kill one of the 'impure' races. In full view of at least one of E88's capes. It was damned elegant as far as solutions went. Good place to be, with people who were smart.


Tricky part was finding one. Breaking into houses wasn't a smart thing to do, too many things could go wrong. Sure, the whole 'capes' thing changed the rules on that a bit, but they were't here to help. They were here to watch. Just like all the unpowered guys around me. Most anyone was gonna do is shout encouragement and keep an eye out for the cops.


Not that there would be any cops. Not here, not this far into the north end of the city. The perfect place for what I needed to do. It's all about that in life. Being at the right place, at the right time.


The woman, a black whore, screamed. I punched her in the face hard enough that she stumbled back into the alley wall. She pulled a knife from... somewhere... I don't know where she managed to hide the thing. She wasn't exactly wearing a lot of clothing. Oh well, at least now I'd feel a little better about this, and the guys would respect me a little better if they saw me fight. Things working out for me.


Not that it was much of a fight. She was quick and mean, but I was smarter, bigger, and meaner. Being sober helped, too. Couple blows and she was down. I settled on her, my knee on the arm I didn't break. Nice set of tits on the bitch. I allowed myself a feel.


"Dammit, man, if you were gonna fuck her first, you coulda made sure there was enough for the rest of the class," one of the men commented. Earning chuckles from the others. Not the first time some of them had done that. But, no. Didn't have a rubber. And as a professional gambler, I was pretty good at deciding when it just wasn't worth the risk. Drugged out older prostitute, especially in this part of town? Those odds were not in my favor.


And then I was blind. And alone. Couldn't hear, couldn't see. A boot hit me. Turns out I could still feel just fine, as I was lifted off the ground and sent rolling away. Big. Bigger than a human foot had any right to wear. Probably steel toed, too, the way my side felt. Half my ribs were busted, I was sure. All kinds of internal shit, probably. I wasn't going anywhere. Fuck.


A few muffled gunshots went off. Then more. Here on the ground, I could see as the rest of the gang started dropping. Bleeding out. Headshots. Every last one of them.


The darkness faded away, giving me a pretty good view of the scene. A man in biker leathers and helmet, fully clothed and standing at least eight or nine feet tall.


"Nice evening, ain't it, Victor?" For a second, I thought he was talking to me. But no, of course not. His attention was on the E88 cape.


"Who the fuck are you?" the other Victor demanded.


"The man who knows where your wife is," he answered smoothly.


"Where is she you nigger fuck?" Victor yelled. How did he know he was? Oh, right, powers bullshit. Like the giant before me.


"She misses you, by the way. You should visit more often."


"Cut the shit talk," Victor pulled a gun. He unloaded the clip at the man. Who took it all without flinching.


"Her powers are really convenient, too."


"She'd never use her powers to help you."


"Yeah. She said that, too. I didn't give her a whole lot of choice."


"Doesn't matter," he snarled. "Her invulnerability has flaws and I know every one of them. I can still break you and make you take me to her."


"Oh, good, I was truly hoping you'd say that."


Victor was good. DAMN good. Insanely good. That was his power, after all. Every martial art. Every combat skill. Anything he felt valuable enough to steal from others. I was one of the fortunate ones. So good that I was of direct value to E88's operations. Not good enough that Victor felt the need to have my skills. Raising dogs wasn't exactly useful for what he did. It was, in every way, the perfect place to be. Except tonight. Tonight was very much not a place I wanted to be.


So I was shocked when the giant was almost his equal. They fought in the ankle deep, to him, black mist. Victor got in more blows, but it didn't really matter when a single hit was bone shattering. The giant's first connection sent him flying back ten feet. He rolled with it, and even got to his feet, though I was surprised by that.


"Here, let's make this a little more fair," the giant rumbled. Victor took a deep breath.


"Othala's power? How the fuck are you using it?"


"Trade secret. Now, up for round two?"


"Fuck you," Victor muttered, and charged back into the fight. He was slower, less capable. The giant was better and faster. Not just than Victor, but better than himself a minute or so ago. When Victor dropped this time, and it didn't take nearly as long, he stayed down.


"I think my point has been made," the giant stated as he stood above Victor's broken body.


He shrank down to a human size and walked over to the prostitute I was supposed to kill. "C'mon, miss, let's get you... MOM!?"


Well, don't that just fucking beat all? I'd probably have picked better last thoughts, but I didn't have time, as the man enlarged again and in one long step, his oversized boot came down on my skull.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 37


"I don't feel comfortable with this, Tattletale," I insisted.


"It'll be fine. None of them are three-strikers anyway. They're not like Hookwolf."


"This involves trusting Nazis," I countered.


"To act in their own self interests," she corrected.


"If you like this idea so much, why didn't you mention it to Crystal and Respawn?"


"Because Respawn is Respawn," she responded. I couldn't argue with that point. "And Crystal's too caught up in black and white morality. Which is almost funny considering the situation. Besides, this is hardly the worst secret you're keeping." She looked toward Clarice for a second.


"If this bites us on the ass..."


"It won't. The worst outcome still doesn't hurt us any. The best helps us a lot."


I extended my power into the Yggrassil and opened our way into the 'prison'. It was filling up rather nicely. Purity, Crusader and Night. The former spent her time in a pod, laying in the cell next to the one containing Cricket and Stormtiger. We put Crusader and Night in separate cells. We might end up having to expand the facility at this rate.


"How ya holding up, boss?" Stormtiger asked Purity after we had her awake.


"Now I'm your boss?" She rasped. The damage to her insides had been pretty brutal. Cost her a lung, alongside damage to most of the right side of her body, top to bottom. Equivalent of three or four lightning strikes simultaneously. By all rights, she should already be dead. Unlike with Cricket, there was no possibility of her truly recovering naturally.


"Well, Hookwolf's gone, so whatever factional beef we had is done," Stormtiger said easily, leaning against the wall.


"No," I said, interrupting their conversation. "Empire Eighty Eight is over."


"The Gesellschaft will send us backup. Send assassins after you." Night insisted.


I glanced over at Minerva. "She believes it," was the reply. "It's not at all true, but she believes it."


"Fuck if it isn't!" Crusader, this time.


"Be honest with yourselves," Minerva continued. "If you were getting help, it would be here already. Kaiser was their golden boy. At least in this region. After his death? Well. Maybe, and it's a big maybe, if you hadn't had your little civil war, we'd be talking shop. But they aren't going to risk sending good parahumans after bad. The cause has abandoned you. Live with it."


I looked over at Night. I couldn't help but feel sympathy for her. Her husband, for however many years... I killed him. My orders killed him. He didn't survive the shock of having his chemistry forcefully rewritten. Bonesaw... how long has it been since I thought of her as Bonesaw? Might even have been able to bring him back. Unlikely, and not without side effects. But no, it was kinder not to try.


"I'm sorry for your husband," I told her.


She looked at me with hate and... there was no sense of loss in her eyes. She simply shrugged. Wow. The fuck?


"Indoctrinated," Minerva answered before I asked the question. "It's what they do. How they produce the number of capes they do. Breeding programs between capes. Training camps. Constant brainwashing. Think of it as Heartbreaker, only industrialized. They start with them as toddlers and put them through every hell they can think of. One in, maybe, twenty, actually gets powers. Less than one in three survive."


"That... there are no words for how messed up that is..." I muttered.


"Wasteful, too," Clarice chimed in. "It encourages breaker and brute types. The least useful and least interesting kinds of powers. Total waste of effort."


"Aren't you a brute?" Stormtiger pointed out.


"Nope!" Clarice responded cheerfully. "I'm a thinker, plus a few less interesting fringe benefits."


It was only the three of us here. The living lie detectors. The medical team. The others had other things to take care of. Taylor and Crystal were off talking to their respective parents. Crystal hadn't told her mother about her side job... and Taylor hadn't told her father about her powers at all yet. I didn't understand them, sometimes. They had families, I had nothing. At least they were going to see them, now, but I'd be happy to have a mother or father, at all, to talk to. And they... well, it didn't help to dwell.


I also didn't want to dwell on Respawn's comment for why he wasn't showing up. Something about 'cape groupies'. Nope. Dwelling wasn't a thing I wanted today.


"That's twisted," I muttered, still thinking on how little a family I had. And how Night never had one at all. If my life had been like hers... would I be that dead inside? That hollow? I didn't have a lot of good memories, and all of them were of Victoria. But compared to the 'nothing' that Night had? My life was heaven.


"So, this the part where you try and sell us on joining the team again?" Stormtiger challenged.


"Unfortunately, no," Minerva answered. "Thanks to a certain incident with the press."


AKA: Miss Militia handed me my ass on camera.


"All offers of membership are revoked," I informed them. "Probably better that way. None of your powers are all that useful to us to begin with."


"Oh, fuck you, bitch," Crusader muttered. "You only took me down because I surrendered so my team could get healed."


"Same here," Stormtiger challenged. "How about you let us go so we can try for a rematch?"


"Really?" Minerva laughed. "I know you're both doing the whole macho thing because the girls you want to bone are watching from the ICU... but let's be honest. We held back. We held back a whole fucking lot. None of you got swarmed with wasps. None of you were hit with deadly attacks except Hookwolf, who we knew could take it. And Fog, which we had no choice about. To say nothing of our real secret weapons. The ones we're holding back in case of an actual emergency. You're second tier and we all know it."


"And you, thinker bitch?" Crusader challenged. "You think you could take me?"


"In an actual fight? No," Minerva smirked. "As you said, I'm a thinker. My whole function is to make sure I don't need to get into fights with, as Clarice put it, less interesting capes."


"Thought so," Crusader said, clearly feeling he got the upper hand in the exchange.


"Still, we might be able to work out some other kind of deal," I stated. This was our little song and dance. "We have bigger fish to fry than you. Much bigger."


"What, planning to use us against the Endbringers?"


"No," I responded. "Rest assured, we are planning for the Endbringers. They take up a full half of our days, every day. When the next attack comes, you'll see what we're really capable of. But, as Minerva and Aceso so kindly pointed out to you: your powers aren't good enough. We can do better, ourselves, without the risks and the PR disasters and the fact that you're psychotic Nazi assholes. You have nothing to offer that we want."


"You don't need to talk down to us like we're subhuman," Crusader glared at me.


I was stunned speechless. Did he really just...? It was Minerva who put voice to my thoughts. "The fact that you could say that. Without any irony at all. Is both hilarious, and disgusting."


I sighed. "You really are dead set on making me regret this offer. But I'm making it anyway. How would all of you like a 'get out of jail free' card?"


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

A/N- Man. There is so much stuff foreshadowed in this chapter. Stuff I didn't get around to 'till 63 and beyond. No, seriously. When I get around to 63, I'll link back to this chapter and be all 'told you so'.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 38


This time, it was Assault that had showed to pick up our prisoners, and I was glad to be rid of them.


"I thought Purity would have taken longer," he said, not taking his eyes off one of the most powerful blasters on the planet as she was loaded into one of the vehicles.


"The blast was a lot more flash than it was function," I replied. Not entirely a lie. Lightning, including the artificial variant used during that attack, isn't nearly as lethal as people imagine it to be. A healthy adult has far better than a 90% chance of survival, even from a direct hit.


"Anything we should look out for?" He asked.


"I had to boost up Purity and Cricket's metabolism," I answered. "They'll need about twice the usual calories or it risks causing serious damage. Same treatment I gave you that one time."


"Oh, yeah, I remember," he said happily. "I felt like I was sixteen again. Never did get a chance to thank you for that. Battery thanks you as well."


"What? Why would she..." And then I figured it out. I covered my face to hide the blush. "Nevermind. I get it."


"Good," he laughed. "I was afraid with all the time you spent in the hospital, and now Pantheon, that you were completely oblivious."


"Nope," I muttered. "Speaking of, I need to go back to work."


"You need to relax more," he said. "All work and no play makes you into Piggot. Go out on a date. I have a nephew around your age. Takes after his uncle's roguish good looks."


What? Really? "I think I'll have to pass." I deadpanned.


He shrugged. "Well, if that's not your style, Battery's got a younger sister..."


Oh. God. Why? "You do realize that I can fuse your mouth shut, right? I'm sure Battery would thank me."


"For a while, anyway," he agreed. "Well, you kids have fun. Relax. Throw a party. I'm surprised you're not getting a parade in your honor at this point."


"Streets are too trashed to get any floats going through," I snarked.


"Good, at least you still have a sense of humor."


"I do," I answered. You don't survive around Lisa and Respawn without one. "Now we just have to get one for you."


"Owww!" He grabbed at his chest. "You wound me deeply." He walked off, still chuckling. I admit, he even got me to crack a smile.


....


"So, what's the next course of action?" I asked, after going back inside to where the others had gathered. Our 'office' was starting to come together. It took a while to perfect the Yggdrasil to growing fixtures that looked like high quality oak furniture. But it truly paid off. Also, the seats. Oh god. They looked all stately and dignified. But they were like the most comfortable of beanbag chairs to sit in. It's amazing any of us ever walked at all.


"We've established ourselves and earned one hell of a rep," Minerva responded. "Now? We don't do anything."


"What." That was Taylor. It wasn't a question.


"The smartest plan, right now, is to let everyone get used to us," she replied. "So we sit back, relax, and let things get back to 'normal' before pushing any further. We're already testing our luck."


"Not just that," I said, agreeing with Minerva. A break does sound nice. "We have the Endbringer fights to prepare for. A dozen or so of those Ultralisks..."


"Hell yes!" Respawn interrupted.


"...and we'll probably be able to fight Behemoth to a standstill."


"Do we have the raw materials?" Clarice asked.


"No... we can build two right now. Maybe another two in the near future. We need more metals than we're getting."


"The boat graveyard," Taylor offered, a little bashful in the request. I knew it was a sore spot for her, though I didn't know why. "A lot of it's rusted out, but there's a lot of metal and no one's going to complain if it goes missing."


"Could work," I agreed. "I'll have to mod a version that can tolerate salt water for long periods of time."


"I'll contact the Mayor's office," Minerva replied. "Get official permission. Ask him if he wants to make a media event of it."


"Do... do you think we can get the ferry opened at the same time?" Taylor seemed... timid, even? Embarrassed to ask?


"Yeah, I think we can do that. A whole 'public works' thing. This town could use a feeling of progress, and old wounds being healed."


"Ooh, write that one down!" Respawn offered. "Sounds like something a politician would put into a speech."


We sat there for a minute, then Clarice spoke up. "Since we don't have anything big happening... maybe we should go on a recruitment spree? I have an idea for how to fix Noelle. And if it works, it'll give us an edge with the whole 'zerg army' thing."


Minerva spoke up. "You're talking about Blasto, right?"


She nodded. "Yeah. His tech is..." she looked toward me. "I'm sorry, sis, but his specialty is cloning and creating hybrid organisms. We could use him for a lot of things. And it won't take away from your other work, and it'll be faster than having you do it or make Yggdrasil pods to do it."


I sighed. "No, I get it. I'm only one person. And no, we will not be using Blasto to change that."


"Aww," Clarice pouted. "But..."


"No!" I repeated. "No clones of anybody. No creating people. Any people. I don't care how 'useful' it might be, we are not constructing an intelligent slave race. Blasto's creations aren't much smarter than the vegetables he grows them from. And that's fine. But that's the limit."


There were nods all around. The idea of making living things was a bit disturbing to all of us.


"Oh, okay," Clarice agreed. "I get it. We'll also need to contact Toybox. There's a few bits of other tinkers' tech I think we'll need."


I sighed. "Fine. Minerva, make contact and see what we can arrange. I assume we have the funds."


She smiled. "Actually, we could probably offer a trade. Your Yggdrasil. They'd probably be quite happy to buy one for their dimensional pocket.


"While we're on the subject of recruitment," Taylor added. "I'd like to talk to Parian. She's a rogue and, actually, that's perfect for us. Part of our... well, my, goals for Pantheon... is to build a community where parahumans can use their abilities in noncombat roles. Her power would synergize really well with mine. We could start a very profitable business simply by producing generic body suits of spider silk. The Protectorate, the PRT, and almost every hero who doesn't have high end brute powers would want to buy the stuff simply as underarmor."


"Okay, seems fair," I nodded. "In fact. Let's just open the floodgate. Everyone who can, should look into finding new recruits. Indies. Lesser villains. Hell, let's see if we can get some of the heroes to jump ship."


"Dibs on Clockblocker!" Respawn shouted.


"Go for it," I replied. "Just... don't alert the Protectorate that we're actively trying to steal their people. It... that can't possibly go well." Also: please fail. Please for the love of all that is holy, I don't need another one.


"I don't have any suggestions," Minerva replied. "The Travelers would be excellent additions to the team. Sundancer is miserable on her team, and Genesis is so grateful for what you've done to help her that I think they're likely to sign on. Krouse..."


"Don't want him anyway," I interrupted. "He's a jackass."


"I was going to say he's a shitty leader," she finished. "They're all together out of loyalty to Noelle, and something else I can't figure out. Some kind of secret. If we fix Noelle, I believe their team will disintegrate for lack of a shared goal. Then again, maybe the opposite. Noelle inspired a lot of loyalty in her people. Once she's better, she might be able to pull their team cohesion back together."


"Doesn't matter," I replied. "Their powers are really, really good, but too dangerous for normal use. And not what we need for Endbringer scale conflicts. Having them would be nice, but not so nice that I'm willing to cause any trouble to make it happen."


"All my powered friends are in the Wards. I'm still pretty good friends with Triumph, but that's not likely to work out." Crystal stated.


"We'll do what I do," Taylor offered. "Time it so each of us joins the Wards or Protectorate on patrols. Nothing overt. We'll wait until we're ready for the big announcements before we push it. I'm going to work on their new leader."


"Weld?" Crystal asked with a smile, then licked her lips. "Good choice. I might have to 'work on' him a little, myself."


Taylor's face did its best tomato impression as her face fell into the crook of her arm and she put the other overtop her head. "Not even close to what I meant."


"Sure it's not," she smirked. "I think it's exactly what you meant and everyone knows it."


"I don't get it?" Clarice asked. "What did she mean?"


"That's because you're still ten," Respawn replied. "I'll make Minerva explain it when you get older."


"Okay, guys, that's enough of that," I interrupted. "Now that we all have things to plan and take care of, let's do that. If you need me, I'll be spending a few hours adapting an ocean variant of the Yggdrasil. Do you know how difficult it is to attune twelve different symbiotic species to saltwater and let them still remain a cohesive organism?"


"Yes," Clarice responded.


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

A/N- This chapter. This chapter makes me smile for sooooo many reasons...

 

[Jiven]

Thanks. To answer your questions in order: No I will not. And maybe I'll start a thread in SV and link it here.

Click to shrink...

Your readership will need some time to follow you. Less time if you post on SV, many more time if you only post here.
QQ has a reputation. Like a smutty middle-child-syndromed sister to straight-by-the-book older brother SB, and hispter/searching-an-indentity little brother SV.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 39- Parian interlude


I felt the twitches on my threads. The warning system I kept around the area where I was protecting my friends and family. It was a rhythmic plucking. Someone who at probably knew an instrument. Someone who clearly wants my attention.


A dinosaur formed from the spare thread I had. Something resembling a Stegosaurus. The spiked tail was legitimately dangerous, thanks to a few spare arbalest bolts that Flechette was kind enough to donate. She said her weapon was tinker made to constantly produce ammunition and rope from nowhere. I was certain there had to be some kind of limit. Tinker tech was bullshit, but it wasn't infinite. Right?


So I peaked out, to get an eye at the form of Skitter. New costume. A very shiny costume, almost metallic in colors of blue, gold and that peculiar color of purple that forms when something dark enough catches light at the right angle. When did she decide to switch away from the utilitarian black and gray look?


She looked right at me. I suppressed a shudder. Fucking creepy girl already knows where I'm at. No sense in hiding from her at all.


I stepped out, flanked by my protector. I imagined how a fight between us would go. In terms of obvious potential, I probably came out ahead. My creations were durable, I could repair them with a thought. Master vs Master? I would win. But it didn't work that way. It'd be Master vs Person. Even shielded as I was by my power and the cloth armor I was wrapped in, I came up greatly lacking. She beat me on range. She didn't need to see me. If I hit her early enough, I could kill her. The problem is, that would be more luck than skill against someone like her. She, on the other hand, she could make me wish I was dead. I couldn't take her.


Still. I at least tried to save her from Bonesaw. That counted for something nice between us, right?. Also, she hasn't eaten me alive with bugs yet. That's a very good sign.


"You looking for something?" I said with far more confidence than I felt, or my wavering voice conveyed.


"Yeah. Have you heard about my new team?"


"New team? What happened to the old one?" Skitter left the Undersiders? I had a hard time imagining. She was the keystone of her group. Without her...


Skitter looked down, and her fists clenched. My power did convey some sensory powers, even if they were pretty pathetic. She was trembling. I stepped closer. "I'm sorry, if you don't want to..."


"No," she choked out. "It... it's just. They didn't survive the fight with the Nine. Tattletale, Grue and I did. None of the rest. And Grue's left to do... whatever, he didn't tell us and hasn't made contact since... there aren't any Undersiders."


Wow. How do I even? "I'm sorry." Nice going, Sabah. Not lame at all.


"Not your fault. That's my problem to deal with it," she muttered, her voice getting cold. That 'supervillain' thing she was so scarily good at. "It's easier when dealing with business."


"Right, your new team." Good. Nice, safe, entirely unemotional topic that can't possibly be awkward.


"Yeah," she agreed. "I'd like you to join it."


There goes that plan. "You know I'm not interested in being a villain."


"You're really that badly out of the loop up here?"


"No power, and I'm one of the few that can go out safely. Gossip isn't usually what I'm looking for."


"It's a hero team," she supplied.


"Don't want to be a hero, either," I insisted. "I just want to protect my friends and be left alone."


"We can help with that," she offered. "We have our own refugee camp. It's one of the biggest ones in the city, and easily the safest. We'll need to grow another neighborhood, but that's-"


"Wait. Grow a neighborhood?" What have they been doing?


"Oh, right. Forgot you didn't know. The new team's being co-run by me and Gaea. Er, you'd know her as Panacea."


"The healer?"


"Turns out, she's not a healer," Skitter explained. "Her power is basically perfect control over a living thing at touch range. It's almost like your power, only instead of string, it can rewrite every part of a cell, right down to the DNA. Even things that don't have cells, like viruses and stuff."


I just stood there, mouth agape in my protective covering. "That is so completely unfair!"


"I know!" She exclaimed.


I looked back toward the ramshackle buildings my people were hiding in. Many of whom had been mutilated to look like members of the Slaughterhouse Nine. Absolute control? I breathed and did my best to imitate every authority figure I'd ever known. The whole time wishing I wasn't about a foot shorter than the terrifying bug-controlling-supposedly-former-supervillain that I was about to dictate terms to.


"Two conditions. First: I need to know exactly what you want from me."


"Offering you a job as a fashion designer," she answered smoothly. "You can work with spider silk, right?"


"I... yeah, I can do that," I confirmed. "But do you really need me for that?"


"For what I do now? No." She answered. "But you can do so much more. Our group isn't about playing cops and robbers in stupid costumes. We're trying to establish a community. Finding ways for powers to work together and be greater than they are alone. I can make better fabric material than basically anyone else in the world. You can work fabric better than anyone else in the world."


"So I won't be getting into fights? Just being a fashion designer?"


"Pretty much. Highest of high end clothing. All the comfort and elegance of finest silk. All the durability of the best body armors available on the non-tinker market. The commercials write themselves. So do the checks, practically."


She's right. They kinda do. "What's the cut?"


"It won't take me nearly the effort it'll take you. None at all once we figure out how to automate the majority of it. Between Aceso and Gaea, that won't be hard. On top of that, we have a lot of solid contacts in a lot of industries that'll buy and help market whatever we want to make. So... ten percent sound fair?" Aceso must be one of their new members. Pretty name. Hopefully nice.


"Sounds suspiciously low. Like there's either conditions, or you're letting me rip you off in order to butter me up." I said dryly. That deal is too good to be true at least three times over. If they were asking fifty percent, it would have still been pretty good as far as deals go.


"Well," she shrugged. "We would like to do testing on your powers. There may be other things they can be used for. Others who you synergize well with- I can already imagine some synergies between us and Clockblocker, for example, that could possibly fuck an Endbringer's day up. We'll catalog your powers and test them with every other power we think will make them even better."


I could live with that. Like it? No. But live with it.


"More than that, we're trying to set a precedent. That the rogues can join us, a hero group, and still be, functionally, rogues. In fact, we want most of our members to be rogues. A handful of front line heroes, and the rest making money and handling utility roles. The only time you'll be expected to fight is if there's an attack on our, on what would be your, home. The only time you'll ever be asked to fight is if we think you have something important enough to turn the tides of the Endbringer fights. And even then, that's a request and we won't force you."


"That doesn't sound too bad," I agreed. I already fought Leviathan, after all. I'd never join another Endbringer battle in my life, but I did fight Leviathan. "I play poster child and get a sweet deal?"


"Something along those lines," she nodded. "I can't really give you any final numbers, but we need examples of parahumans leading peaceful lives. And we're already basically giving away several million dollars a year. So what's a few hundred grand more?"


"Several... million?" I gasped. I couldn't even imagine that kind of money.


"Pretty much," she confirmed. "Gaea's tree is currently running the entire sewer system in this city. That costs a lot of money in a city this size, and we're doing it for free. Probably forever. Sure, we get fringe benefits from it. Like a Mayor that would do just about anything we ask, just to keep us around."


"That... that's pretty wow," I muttered. That really was an insane power.


"So, what were you saying about a second condition?" She asked.


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

A/N- Yeah. Okay, I love a lot of these chapters in retrospect. I see where the story as it stands now was born. And it was here. Not specifically this chapter, but the ones in this general block.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 40- Accord


"Accord, sir, your appointment is here," my secretary informed me via intercom. I looked at the clock. Five minutes early. Respectable.


"She may enter in exactly three minutes," I relayed back. I approved of this new employee. Smart, good at her job. A lack of ambition that, usually, I would find to be a negative. She'd never be worthy to be one of my Ambassadors, but she kept calm dealing with parahumans on a daily basis, and kept the office immaculate. If she kept this up a while longer, I might even need to learn her name.


I looked over my notes, yet again. I had already memorized them, but it never hurt to make certain. Pantheon. Powerful enough to beat Empire 88 in a direct fight. Disagreements with Protectorate and PRT. Reasons for contacting me and mine, currently unknown.


I had the papers in my desk when the door opened and my guest walked through. Her costume was admirably uniformed, with a medieval theme to it. It appeared to be styled after ancient Grecian armor, mainly brown hard leather with bronze over some areas. It came with the traditional armored skirt, but hers included pants underneath, also in the hard leather style. Custom fit, and designed to accentuate her feminine features without flaunting them. It could double as a military dress uniform, and was clearly done by an expert designer. I only counted seventeen flaws in the costume in the time it took her to walk up to my desk.


"Minerva, was it?" I said from behind my mask. Of course I already knew that, but I found it served my purposes better to appear less interested in them than they were in me.


She curtsied. "Yes."


"So, I must admit I'm curious," I said in a calmly neutral manner. Not that I talked in any other way. "What brings the leader of a hero group to speak with a notorious villain such as myself?"


She smiled. "I'm afraid you are under a mistaken impression. I'm not the leader of Pantheon. My task in your city is considered too trivial for their personal attention. I'm sure you understand how time consuming it can be to manage a city."


The insolent- I paused and calmed myself. "Then pray tell, why would you feel the need to discuss a 'trivial' task with me, personally?"


"It was at your request, sir," she answered smoothly. "We respect your work, and felt it would be an insult to act in your city without informing you. We didn't feel it would warrant your personal attention, but your secretary said that you insisted."


I frowned beneath my mask. That was true, what she said. I just hadn't believed them, or their modesty. Choosing a name like 'Pantheon' made me doubt they understood the concept of humility on any level.


"Yes, I recall," I finally replied. "Still, I would like to know your plans."


"Ah, yes," Minerva smiled. "We have taken an interest in one of the few undesirables you still have in your fine city."


"Blasto, presumably," I stated. She nodded in confirmation. "You have a biomanipulator of your own, correct? One which appears superior by several orders of magnitude. I'm not saying I'd mind his removal, but it seems to me his presence would be redundant for you."


Is there a weakness in Gaea's power my investigators are unaware of? A gap they're hoping Blasto can fill?


"I agree with you fully," Minerva said with a nod. "I am simply following orders. Gaea wishes to have Blasto in her presence before the end of the day."


Fascinating. "I doubt Blasto would agree to work for your organization."


She shrugged, offering that annoying smile again. "His desires are not my concern," she said casually. "Nothing he can do, short of suicide, is going to stop me from carrying out my mission."


"Yet, obviously, I could," I pointed out.


"Yes, of course," she agreed. "Possibly the local Protectorate as well, though I find that doubtful. They're not even strong enough to deal with a minor thorn such as Blasto."


I frowned at her implication. I hadn't managed to remove him, either. Also, the 'thorn' pun.


"Gaea seems to put a lot of faith in your ability," I offered a small bit of praise. "Surely you have some theories on motivations."


She nodded. "Some. Pantheon has dealt with all threats in Bockton Bay with little, if any, difficulty. This may be a matter of dealing with other disruptive elements nearby."


"A respectable enough goal," I nodded.


"It may also, in part, be to embarrass the Protectorate further," she continued. It fit in with their behavior in their own city. I had believed them to be showboating, as it were. But if viewed in the light of taunting the government heroes. I could at least see the logic in their actions. "I doubt it's any secret of our contempt for the incompetence of the Protectorate's system. They failed our city. This one, as well. Boston is the safest big city on the east coast. And that is because of you."


I nodded. It is good that they recognize this fact.


"Which brings me to my next theory," she kept her smile. "We intend to bring such order and safety to our own city. You have the experience and skill. Perhaps our leaders hope to impress you with our effectiveness in order to open up future dialogue and possibly cooperation."


"Yet they are not here, today," I pointed out.


"As I said. We felt Blasto was too mundane to warrant your personal attention. They likely believed it would be presumptuous of us to request your personal attention until we were better established. Had proven ourselves."


"They thought destroying the Slaughterhouse Nine and removing Empire Eighty-Eight wasn't enough to prove themselves?"


She shrugged, again. It made me want to strangle her. Or at least break her shoulders. "Perhaps they wished to restore our city from chaos and anarchy, first. Unfortunately, due to the efforts of the Endbringer and the Slaughterhouse Nine, much of Brockton Bay is in ruins. We've done great things in a short time, but we're a long way from a full recovery."


"Understandable," I stated. It was true. The belief was that Brockton Bay would be condemned as a city, surrendered to the chaos, much the same as Ellisburg.


"Perhaps they felt that if they waited until the recovery efforts were finished, they might speak with you as equals. Instead of merely talented newcomers who are good in a fight. Power is simply a matter of luck, nothing to be proud of. Being a successful leader of men, saving a city from ruin, those are things that deserve real respect."


"Valid," I stated. She does have a point. No one would doubt Pantheon's power. Their ability to bring order to the chaos? Remained to be seen. I respected that they even knew that they should. "I can see why they rely upon you. You are free to stay here for forty eight hours, seeking Blasto. If you have not successfully captured him after twenty four hours, I shall provide you my assistance in the matter. Consider it a test to see if you need it."


"You are too kind, Accord," she smiled. "I'd best get to work, and I believe I've used more than a generous amount of your time."


I nodded. "Leave contact information with my secretary. And do inform me after you've achieved your goal."


"Of course," she responded as she turned and left.


It was exactly two hours and twelve minutes after she was out of the building when my secretary activated the intercom. "Sir. Minerva just called. Told me to tell you: 'mission accomplished'."


"Understood," I said, still trying to grasp the implication of how quickly they had managed. "Thank you."


===========

A/N- Definitely write a better Accord than I do Jack Slash.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, ch 41- Blasto


I stared in stunned disbelief at the monitor. One of the fringe benefits of being a tinker, any kind of tinker, was that normal technology was simple to us. Wiring and improving upon a high end CCTV system with any number of bells and whistles was nothing to me, even though my specialty was in biotechnology. Specifically, biological splicing and artificial lifeforms.


Still, right now I was stunned. A Hispanic teen girl was currently in my garden. She was dressed in what was clearly a costume, although whether she was a cape, or had gotten lost on her way to a renfair, I wouldn't be willing to bet money either way. Wearing green toga style robe over what seemed to be a brown shirt. A pair of thick brown gloves and knee high boots that were far too utilitarian to be considered sensual. A green hairband that looked like it was actually a live plant. Face exposed for the world to see. She'd be a looker when she was older, that much was for certain.


None of that was important. What was important is that she was hugging my attack dogs. Or, what passed for dogs when you were splicing DNA from six different lifeforms and holding it all together with a kind of genetically engineered fungus.


"Who's good little abominations against nature? You are. Yes, yes you are!" She cooed at them.


The phrase 'there are no words', I find, is overused. But right now? I had absolutely nothing nothing. I pressed a button that released a mist of attack pheromones. It would instruct the dogs to turn toward the nearest mammal and then kill it. No exceptions, myself included. Naturally not something I would use unless I was safely away from them, like now. Pity to have to kill a pretty girl like that.


One dog turned and scaled up the nearby tree, catching a squirrel with six foot long tongue and pulling the animal into its mouth. The whiplash probably killed it before it was eaten. The other found a stray cat that I hadn't realized was there. Neither so much as glanced at the girl.


She sniffed the air, then blinked a couple times. She looked directly at the camera, made a frown and wagged her finger at it. At me. Then stuck her tongue out. That's when I knew I'd already lost. I wouldn't make it easy for her. No self respecting Tinker would. But the idea that I could win this fight was now taking a vacation. Probably somewhere with better weather than Boston. Lucky prick.


She skipped over to the camera and blew a kiss at it. "See you soon," she said cheerfully. And then she went back to skipping, right into my lair.


I hit her with the poison gas first. It seemed obvious to me that it wouldn't work. It didn't need to. She was immolated, when sparks set the gas on fire. It would take week to get the smell out of that part of the building.


One of my old partners always did say I had knack for overkill. I disagreed. If it's no longer alive, then it doesn't matter how much 'kill' you use.


The flames cleared, and she was still standing. Her hair hadn't even been singed. Okay, so that's a brute rating. Light green runes were now visibly glowing in her costume.


Okay, breaker rating, I amended. Forcefield. That's both better and worse.


I released two of my smarter minions, based upon gorilla genetics, from their cells. These weren't like the dumb 'dogs'. They recognized me, and they recognized nothing else human unless I was with it. In many ways, they were almost comparable to human. I'd even implanted my language skills. I often regretted not being a better fighter, so I could program those skills into my creations as well.


Like right now. Watching a not particularly large girl treating two giants like they were a light workout. This was a distinct source of current regrets.


She rolled under one's legs and then spider climbed her way up his back. The boots actually clung to their barklike hides. Tinker tech? Some breaker power? Either way, a pain in the ass. I cringed when the other brute attempted to punch her, only for her to move and it to get its hand stuck inside the first. Sure, I've seen my creations get taken down before. They weren't all that bright. But this is just embarrassing to watch.


She leapt down from her perch atop the first's head, and ran across the other's arm and onto his shoulder. They both twisted the wrong way at the worst possible time, and broke the second construct's arm.


My computer finally had a file pulled up based on recognition software. I saw the first word and went cold. Pantheon.


"Well, fuck me then," I muttered and kept reading. Aceso. Brute, combat thinker and speculation of being a changer of some sort. Some of the PHO people think she's not even a real parahuman. Some kind of living weapon put together by Gaea. Watching her fight? No, she's real and having way too much fun to be an artificial lifeform. Speaking as an expert, of course.


She jumped off the second's back as the first punched it in the face, smashing open the skull.


"Wow," she laughed. "You guys are pathetic."


The one dropped dead. Dammit! I'd be less upset if she wasn't right. That was pathetic.


I activated a few other devices to target her. Projectile weapons, acid. And... I couldn't get a lock. She had no body heat, left no scent, didn't even show up on an electromagnetic scanners. Very expensive tinkertech scanners that could spot the cellphones next door to my base. Even the motion trackers, somehow. She was just not there to them.


There was a heavy thud as the gorilla slammed into the blast door blocking my lab. It then delivered another punch. Where was... oh, okay. She had her arms inside the hole that was punched into its back, and was puppeteering the thing. Manually. Because that's totally logical and fair. Of course a living thing can be controlled just by reaching inside it and poking its nervous system with your hands. Why would anyone ever think otherwise?


The doors, of course, came down, and the construct started to fall forward. Without her at the 'controls', it was now quite paralyzed. She jumped off, did a front flip, and landed like she was an Olympic gymnast doing a dismount. Only gymnasts typically landed on nice, soft, padding. She landed on a concrete floor. There was a wet 'plop' as the goop she'd gotten on her arms continued traveling at speeds which should have shattered her legs, but she was quite clearly fine.


"Hey! It's so good to finally meet you!" She said with the exuberance of a child. A child that hadn't just walked through everything I could think of. Well, fuck, at least if she was talking, she wasn't using me as a living sock puppet. Huh. That's a thing I never thought would be a concern in my life.


"H... hello," I said. "So, what brings you to my humble abode?"


"Lotsa things," she said cheerfully. "First, I'm a big fan of your work. The way you dealt with Weld that one time by making that blob thing."


"Well, thanks," I smiled. It was nice to meet fans. Much better than enemies, at least. "It's not all that impressive, sort of a poor man's containment foam. Never could perfect the recipe to allow them to breath in there. It's why I only ever used it on Weld."


"Don't sell yourself short," she disagreed. "A mass of nearly microbial life that's capable of shifting around, but still has cohesion and coordination enough to trap a powerful brute cape is not something to undersell. How did you keep their mucus adhering to him without letting it stick to another surface that might allow him to pull away?"


"How about if I ask some questions, first?" I did my best attempt at a charming smile. It hadn't helped me with any of the girls I knew in highschool. But then again, girls didn't start conversations about the chemical properties of mucus in my highschool.


"Sure," she said, smiling brightly.


"First... how did you evade basically everything I threw at you?"


"Oh, that's simple," she said as she did a twirl. "Your lab's set up to fight people. And I'm a mushroom."


What? "What?"


"Well, a combination of several types of fungal cells working alongside animal musculature, specialized organs, a nanoweave armor mesh, and a dozen psuedo-organic sensory augmentations. I'm still working on installing echolocation. I have it built in, already, but the control system isn't good at displaying it properly."


"You're a tinker!" I said with a realization. And a wave of nausea. She'd done all that? To herself? "Is that why you're here? To steal my research?"


"Well, kinda," she said with a smile. "We want to offer you a job."


"A... job?" Okay. I could live with that. Emphasis on the 'living' part.


"Yup. You come work for us. No more stupid bank robberies. And a really nice lab that's only getting better with time. Way better than you got here. Plus you get to work with all kinds of materials you wouldn't otherwise ever get access to."


"Such as?" I had to admit, this offer was worth considering. "And for how long?"


"Well, lotsa things. We've got a girl named Noelle whose powers have been broken, somehow. She is fascinating beyond all words. Then there's my Big Sister," she said the words like an object of worship.


"Big sister, huh? Who's that?"


"Gaea, of course," she said. "Did you know her power works on the genetic level? Kinda like yours. But she reshapes it in real time. Every part. So perfectly that it alters the automatic functions of the immune system to accept the alterations as if they were the original organism. No risk of autoimmune response- in fact, if you have one from a different problem, she can cure it. No side effects she didn't intend."


That... that is almost unbelievable... "Perfect biomanipuation..." I whispered. "Did she make you?"


She giggled. "Well, she made this body. I added some improvements, of course. Her weakness, if you can call it that, is she only effects living things. Or pseudolife like prions. The cybernetic enhancements are all my own."


"And you're saying she'd let me view some samples of her work?"


"View them?" She laughed. "We're going to be improving on them, us and any other tinkers we find who work with living things. Plugging the gaps where her abilities don't reach. Designing machine interfaces to improve their functions, adding neurological instincts so her constructs work better."


"What's the catch?" There's always a catch.


"Well, you can't commit any more crimes," she said. "That's Pantheon's first rule. You get one second chance. Only one."


"Okay," I said. "How do you feel about weed?"


"What kind of weed?"


What kind of teenager didn't know? Know what? Nevermind. Not a priority. "Weed. Pot. Marijuana."


"Oh," she said. "Dunno, never asked. She doesn't want us breaking any laws, so probably not." She looked disappointed and thoughtful. Then she went right back to smiling. "Oh! I know! I bet we can get her to make a plant that does the same thing, but isn't illegal!"


"Uh... okay, I can work with that," I agreed. I never really did have the time to grow my own, ironically enough. And sure, I could clone the stuff, but it was cheaper just to buy it. But if they could basically just magic up as much of the stuff as I wanted?


"What's the pay?" I asked.


"Don't know," she replied. "Whatever you can make from your stuff legally, I guess. I do it for free."


"We'll need to work that out..." I paused. No, that idea is crazy. But it couldn't hurt to ask. "How about ten years added to my lifespan? As a payment for my work for the next year or so. We'll talk longer terms, too, of course. A bit of telomeres manipulation and some hormone balancing should be well within her power. I think it'd be fun to be twenty again."


"Oooh," she said with glee. "I am SO glad I talked to you! Now I know how we're going to get Toybox to sell us the rest of what I need!"


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

A/N- Mushroom Riley is my favorite thing in the story forever.

 

[Jiven]

TanaNari, you know a tool for automatically porting stories from SB to SV exists ? Just in case, so when you are debanned you don't have to take so much time.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, ch 42- Danny


I'd just gotten back from work. A tiring day, but not a bad one. It was a sad and jaded way of looking at things, but Leviathan had almost done the city a favor. The influx of disaster relief funding meant jobs. Not great jobs, certainly not permanent jobs, but jobs nonetheless. The docks would, of course, be the last place to garner funding. If they got any at all.


The city was seeing to it that most of the money was being funneled into construction and rebuilding, and I was seeing to it that the dockworkers got their share of it. Even if that wasn't really what we were meant for, it was enough that it existed at all. The problem that was most pressing on my mind was that we didn't have the people. I could double the number of dockworkers and still not have enough people to grab all the projects I'd like to have. Going for small ones that could be completed quickly in order to move on to others? Or sinking all my people into one or two of the larger projects that might not be completed for a year or better. Both had something to offer. Both also carried risks and costs.


It would be smart, in the short term, to expand and add more people. But this boom wouldn't last, and that just meant things would be exponentially worse once-


I froze. The lights were on in the house. Adrenaline hit me. There'd been more than one robbery in the neighborhood of late, and police were stretched thin as is. I slipped my hand down between the seats and my fingers found the cold metal easily enough. The gun was illegal, of course. I didn't have the permits, and I sure as hell didn't have whatever it took to keep a concealed firearm.


That didn't matter. Not in what my city had become.


I hid the gun in the pocket of my jacket as I moved to the door. Careful to avoid the damaged step. Whomever was in wasn't making a lot of noise, perhaps they'd already left? My fear was beginning to be replaced by anger. Normally, I don't like being angry. I do my best to control my temper. But a fucking crook in my house? This was a situation I was comfortable being pissed off for. It helped keep my mind off the fear and the stupidity of doing what I was doing.


Door isn't broken, I noticed. In fact, it was simply unlocked. I turned the handle quietly and slowly opened the door, gun pointing in before I was. Then I froze. She looked a little different. A fairly established tan, and her hair clearly wasn't seeing the care it usually received, but it was her. My daughter.


"I know I didn't exactly leave on the best terms," Taylor spoke softly, she still hadn't turned her head. "But would you mind not pointing the gun at me? It kinda makes me nervous."


I quickly set it aside on the table near the door. "Hey, kiddo," I said, trying hard to sound cheerful. Like nothing bad had happened. I wanted to run to her and hold her like she was six years old again. I was afraid to. That if tried, she'd run away again. That if I touched her, the illusion would vanish or I'd wake up from the dream or she'd pop like a soap bubble.


I was trembling, and it wasn't because of the adrenaline rush.


She turned, and had a nervous half smile on her face. "I started supper. Hope you don't mind."


I walked to her. Slowly. "No, that's fine," I replied. It wasn't what I wanted to say. It wasn't even the first ten things I wanted to say. But those were the words I picked. Safe. Trying desperately to pretend everything was normal.


She really was taller than I recalled, and that wasn't just a trick of memory, and she was in much better shape than the girl I remembered. "Have you been eating well?"


"Yeah," she said. "I sorta got a job. A pretty good one, actually."


"Oh?" I offered a smile. "Who with?"


Her smile dropped, and I was terrified she would bolt from the room. "That's kinda what I needed to talk to you about."


I felt queasy. She was likely to run off right after she told me, something in her posture screamed it. "How about we save it for after supper?" I suggested. "No sense in letting the heavy stuff get in the way of a good meal."


"Thanks," she said, turning back to the stove while I silently left to take off my coat and check on the gun.


We ate mostly in silence. The entire time glancing at each other, smiling nervously before looking back to the food. A vegetable soup. "Where did you find fresh roast in these circumstances?" I asked her. An idle curiosity.


"It's vegan, believe it or not," she answered. "No animals were harmed in the making of this meal. Not even the ants."


"Wow," I replied. "I couldn't tell it wasn't the real thing." I have so many more important things to ask. Where have you been? Are you safe? When will you come home. I kept trying to think of a way to ask her, but failed. I would have given anything just to know what she was thinking.


We had finished. Me long before her. "So," she said, pushing her bowl away.


"So," I repeated. "You were saying your new job."


"Yeah..." she muttered. "I'm... kinda working for Pantheon now..."


"The new hero group?" I asked. I knew about them, of course. Seen some of their work. They were making a pretty big difference with helping the homeless.


"Yup," she said. "Cool, huh?"


"They hire teens?" I asked. I could feel the dread. No, please, anything but that.


"Well," she smiled, but it didn't erase the sadness and apprehension in her eyes. "They kinda have to make an exception for me."


She set her elbow on the table and turned her hand so her palm was facing up. A pair of hummingbirds flitted toward her and landed on her thumb and pinkie finger. No, at closer examination, they were moths. Big, but still moths.


"You're... Skitter." It wasn't a question. I probably should have seen it a while ago. Had seen it. I just couldn't bring myself to admit it.


"It's 'Khepri', now," she said. "But, yeah."


"When?" I asked. I knew, but I still had to ask.


"The locker," she replied. "Doesn't matter now, anyway. I've got more important things to worry about. Pantheon's really really powerful, and I'm one of the key figures in it. A leader."


"The blond girl. That was 'Tattletale', wasn't it?"


She paused, looking down. "Yeah."


"She part of this, too?"


"Kinda. But she's not in charge of anything. Amelia wouldn't stand for that."


"Amelia? Do I know this girl?" I asked.


"Yeah. Amy Dallon. Panacea. Gaea." She answered. "She founded the team, invited me to be her partner. Our powers are insane together. And only getting better as we progress. We're going to save this city."


I had to smile at that. I thought the same thing, once. "You always did want to be a hero."


"I remember," she said, smiling back. "I didn't exactly want bug powers. But now I'm pretty glad to have them."


I followed her lead, asking the question I knew she wanted. "Why?"


Then I heard the footsteps, I turned to see a woman in a gold and black metallic costume. "Hey, dad," she said. Taylor's voice. I looked back toward my daughter.


"That's my Changeling," she said. "One of them, anyway... umm.. maybe I could explain better."


"Please do," I said, staring at the costumed girl.


"It's one of Panacea's creations. Like a robot made of plants. Most of us have at least one. I control mine the same way I control my bugs."


"She... she can do that?"


"Don't tell anyone!" She insisted. "We don't want anyone to know we have them right now. At least not until we have the M4s working."


"I suppose you're not going to tell me what that is, either?"


"It's better if I don't," she confirmed. "I trust you... but these aren't my secrets to share."


"I wouldn't know what to do with the information, anyway," I replied. "So... why show me this... changeling?"


"So you wouldn't be worried about my safety," she mumbled. "I can use it to fight for me. It's a lot stronger and tougher and just plain better than any normal body, and I can control it anywhere in range."


"How far is that?" I asked.


"..."


"Couldn't hear you," I said. She had spoken through her hands.


"The whole city, plus some," she answered. "Panacea's power. She improved my range. It's pretty much as far as we want it to be, maybe even the whole world eventually. I can even control it while still doing normal things. So I can be anywhere I want while still out being a hero!"


"That... that's a lot to take in, kiddo," I said. It was. My daughter being a hero wasn't such a surprise. Always knew she had it in her. But talking about making copies of herself like this. That was a hard thing to swallow.


"Yeah," she said. "But now you know. I... let's just say some of my team. My friends. Don't have the happiest of home lives. It made me start thinking. And... I don't want us to be like that."


I moved over to her and pulled her into a hug. She didn't vanish. She hugged back. Hesitantly at first, but then for real. She had gotten stronger.


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


A/N: Yeah, okay, still loving this part of the early chapters.


Alt take that didn't make the cut:

"I know I didn't exactly leave on the best terms, but would you mind not pointing the gun at me? It kinda makes me nervous."

I reacted on instinct, tossing the gun backward out the front door. I jumped as it went off, and we heard a cat screech.

Soon after, a girl screamed "Mister Fluffybottom!"

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 43


We got together for our "morning" meeting, if 11 still counts as morning. The addition of Blasto to the group was helpful. He and Clarice had gotten to work putting his expansion on to the lab. The man was... eh, not sure how I felt about him. The 'paid in years' thing. I... to be honest, it was one of the few things left in my power that I had never chosen to test. The sheer concept of being able to grant agelessness, and all the ethical questions therein was frightening. Class S status was easy by comparison.


Still, I did it. And, much to my surprise, it worked, I could allow someone to live forever. I had to wonder if my 'Passenger' could know just how huge that was. At least it would be decades before anyone caught on that we had that kind of power.


"Hey, boss, how's it going?" Blasto asked, walking into our slowly evolving boardroom in slacks and a t-shirt.


I looked over at him and raised an eyebrow. "Boss?"


"S'what you are, right?" He said, smiling. "By the way. Great job. I don't think I felt this good when I was twenty for real."


"That will wear off," I replied. "Had to adjust your hormones to rebuild properly. Right now your body thinks you're closer to ten in terms of growth response. It'll wear off in a week."


"Wow, being ten is fuckin' awesome," he offered a laugh.


"Yes it is," Clarice agreed. "Also, watch the language."


"Sorry, chief," he responded.


"Why do you keep calling me that?" She pouted. "That's not my name! Any of them!"


"Because you're the one in charge of our little... what... division?" He looked at me. "You guys given any thought as to how you're dividing things up? Already got too many people to just make a team. You don't seem to want me out in the field at all. Which suits me fine, I'm quite happy in the lab. It's where tinkers belong. Speaking of which, got the other part of my first payment figured out?"


I sighed. "Yeah, it's covered," I replied. I honestly wondered what Coil thought about us asking him to fast track delivery of a single cannabis plant. "I'll probably merge it with a grape vine. The leaves will, of course, hold all the active ingredients."


He paused. "Holy shit. That is genius."


Clarice smacked him upside the head. "Language!"


"Ow!" He stumbled away holding his head. "Seriously, that hurts. Are your hands made of steel or something?"


This was the time when Lisa stumbled out of her room, still half asleep. "Why are you all up so early?"


I looked at her. "Little late in the day to be saying that."


She looked at me. "Sun's not setting. Still too early."


Khepri, Eki, and Osiris then opted to walk in. All were already in costume, no less. "Oh, good. I was afraid we'd have to drag you people out of bed," Eki said with a smile.


Blasto turned to her and smiled. "Oh, that sounds like a great way to wake up."


I rolled my eyes. Another one?


Respawn shook his head. "Don't bother, dude," he said.


"Way too young," he pointed to Clarice.


"Scary beyond all reason." Lisa, that time.


"Destined for each other," one hand pointed toward me, the other toward Taylor. I will kill him. Don't know how. Way shall be found.


Then he gestured at Crystal last. "And I have called dibs. Bro code in effect on this."


"First. You cannot call 'dibs' on women," Crystal insisted. "And second, there is no 'Bro Code', that is not a real thing. And if our new recruit wants to ask me out, he's totally free to do so. And I am totally allowed to say 'yes' if he does."


"Third," I added. "Khepri and I are not 'destined for each other'."


"Fourth," Lisa chimed in. "I am totally scary beyond all reason."


Crystal looked back toward Blasto, expectantly. "Well?" She asked.


"Well, what?" He asked back.


"Aren't you suppose to ask me out now?"


He shook his head and raised up his hands. "Sorry, miss. You seem nice and all, but I'm not going to ask you out just so you can prove a point. Last time I did that, it ended in alimony. Besides, Bro Code's been invoked. Nothing I can do."


Crystal just glared at him. And then turned her head to glare at Respawn. And back again. "Okay, it's official. I am done with men. Forever. No regrets."


"Huh... wow, that happened last time, too," Blasto chuckled. The rest of us, at least, were trying not to smile too visibly.


"Oh, really? I see how it is," She said in mock indignation. "Well, smart guy, did this happen?" She turned toward Taylor. Uh oh.


Lisa quietly reached into her pocket and pulled out her smart phone, pointing the camera toward Crystal. I watched with a slowly dawning realization. No. She wouldn't.


"So, if you're finally tired of my cousin breaking your heart, I'm free this Saturday," she said in a voice I would have bet money was sincere. Guess her acting classes paid off. Or, I hope it's acting.


I could feel my face heating up and turning red. Taylor just stood there stunned, like a deer caught in headlights. Lisa was the first of us to break and start laughing, followed quickly by Blasto and Respawn. The rest of us didn't. I was humiliated and Taylor probably felt even worse. I don't think Clarice even understood the jokes. And I think Crystal was actually starting to get mad.


"That happened, too!" Blasto managed to gasp out while trying to catch his breath.


And that's when the rest of us lost it. Crystal. Followed by me. Followed by Taylor.


It was a good laugh to have, and then we got down to business. Far less interesting. Blasto and Clarice providing their wish lists. Lisa kindly letting me know that the project to remove the boat graveyard was approved, and a general press announcement would be done but it wouldn't be televised or anything, so I didn't need to be there. Taylor letting me know that Parian was setting up shop. I still needed to work on fixing her people. The ones that Bonesaw mutilated.


We all tried hard not to look at Clarice, who tried hard to look like she wasn't there. Except for Blasto, he still didn't know. And Crystal. I still wasn't sure if she realized who Clarice really was. I would have to talk to her about that, soon. Not a conversation I was looking forward to.


It was a bit past one, when Taylor got up and moved toward the entrance. She met a girl at the entrance who looked upset by something.


"Charlotte?" Taylor said with concern. "What's wrong?"


"Shit!" Lisa muttered, before shouting. "Take cover!"


I saw it right before it happened. The girl opened up her jacket, revealing one of those bomb vests like you see in movies. I was in contact with the table, so I tried to pull up as much mass between her and us, Taylor especially, as possible. I wasn't fast enough.


"For the Fallen!" Her last words, and the last thing I heard before pain and then oblivion overtook me.


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


A/N- Because I was afraid people might be under the mistaken impression that my fic was a happy one.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 44


I woke to nudging. Pain. Huh, not as bad as I'd expected. The Yggdrasil had a hole in it. Already healing and regrowing. No need to worry. Tired.


I couldn't see, couldn't hear, couldn't move.


A hand on mine. Automatic power use. Vegetable and fungal entwined around artificially dense musculature- arm missing, most of head missing, leg missing, lethal trauma to internal psuedo organs. Blind spots inside. Necrotic? No. Patterned. Mechanical. Clarice.


Moving my hand. Another body. Human. Female. Lower body mangled or missing. Spine damaged. Ribs broken. Organ failure immenent. Circulatory system and chest cavity infected with unknown organism. No. Artificial. Simplistic.


She vanished. My hand was moved and put back on her.


Another minute of confusion. Then another vanishing. And again.


Oh. Right. Healing. I do that.


Stitching the lungs together using the artificial organism. Rewiring the circulatory system to stop blood loss. Converting mass to blood. Repairing spinal structure and bones. Not enough mass for legs or rib repairs.


Oblivion again.


....


I drifted awake. I was floating in something.


"Hey, Big Sis, glad to see you're awake," a voice said. Clarice. No, smaller. Riley. "I want you to know we're all alive. I lost my changeling. So did Khepri. Eki and Minerva are hurt pretty bad. Blasto and I are working on it."


That's good. I fell back to sleep.


....


Again I was awake. I hurt everywhere. Opening my eyes was agony.


Pain was good. It meant that the nerve damage was repaired.


"Wh..." I croaked. My throat was dry. Unused.


"Don't speak," Crystal's voice. "You're still pretty torn up. Your body keeps fighting what Riley and Blasto are doing. They're putting you back together an inch at a time. Then I'm going to kill you. You had fucking Bonesaw in your basement this whole time! What were you thinking!?"


She put her hand on my arm. Half her body was artificial. Arms. Legs. Much of her face. Almost all of her blood. A fungus-human genetic hybrid, close enough to her own biology to trick her immune system, for the time being at least. No nervous system in place. Nothing that technically constituted 'skin', either, in those areas.


I started mending the alterations, reshaping them to match her natural biology. She pulled her hand away.


"Hey!" She exclaimed. "None of that. You need to get better first."


"Okay," another voice came in. "It's Minerva. I know, I sound different. You'll be fixing that, too, eventually. The Fallen are here. Valefor, at least. Probably one or two of the others. Taylor's fine. She was spending a day with her Dad. Making up for lost time. Sent her changeling instead. Good thing, too, she managed to get Charlotte almost fifteen feet further away before she..." She trailed off. "Any closer, the three of us would be gone."


Three? Oh, right, Crystal.


So tired.


....


I sat up.


"How's everything working?" Riley asked, smiling hopefully.


"Stiff. Sore." I replied. I looked healthy enough. Pale, even moreso than normal. And I no longer had freckles on most of the places that use to have them.


"Congratulations," Blasto offered. "You just underwent the world's only full body transplant."


"Only 72%," Riley corrected.


"How long was I out?" It still hurt to talk. But at least I could, now.


"Around thirty hours since the bombings," Minerva answered.


"What happened?" I muttered. I remembered bits, but not much.


"They used her to get to me," Taylor's voice shook with an animalistic waver that was some hybrid of grief and rage.


"Respawn managed to get to Blasto before the explosion. Crystal was saved by a combination of her shield and her armor. And Clarice... Riley used it to take the brunt of the damage for you."


"I'm sorry," Riley apologized hurredly. "I know you told me I couldn't show myself. But it was the only way I could save you."


"It... it's okay," I insisted.


"The Fallen decided to send us a message. Something about desecrating a monument to their "god". It's a bullshit lie, anyway."


"Enlighten me," I said darkly. I knew who the 'Fallen' were, of course. Fucking Endbringer cult.


"They don't believe their own press," she said. "Kinda like E88. They found something full of shock value that they could use to justify their own depravity. Making the world hate them on purpose so they can invoke outrage. Use that as an excuse for their actions."


"Lot of effort to go through to keep up appearances," Crystal added.


"Yeah, well, they are still psychotic fucks," Lisa didn't smile. "They get off on this sort of thing."


"How much... damage," I couldn't bring myself to mention Charlotte or ask about the other dead. I'd only met her a couple times, and even then in brief passing.


"That bomb? Three casualties, including Charlotte. Not including changelings and other property damage." Lisa responded. "There were seven other bombings. One for each of the refugee camps, including ours. All in the meal halls, all at peak lunch period. Still not sure about the numbers. Inlcuding wounded? Easily hundeds, possibly over a thousand. They were planning this for a while."


"Fuckers are copying Bakuda," Taylor spit the name.


"I didn't accuse them of being creative," Minerva responded. "A local chapter of Haven is in town to help. They... don't like our theme very much. They're something of experts at hunting the Fallen. Respawn's out working with Rosary. I made him promise to behave. His power should treat Valefor's the same way it treats yours.


"And mine," Riley muttered. "Can't even inject natural growth hormones into him without 'poof'."


"The rest of us?"


"Gearing up," Lisa answered. "We need you to finish healing the rest of us. What Riley and Blasto put together is temporary and already starting to come apart."


"The plan," Taylor informed me, her voice full of malice. "Is to go out. Bait Valefor. Incapacitate him. And then give him to Riley."

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, ch 45


And so, we went off on our mission. Or, rather, everyone else did. I was still in recovery. Plus, it would be suspicious for "Gaea" to be seen amongst the populace without doing anything to offer healing. So here I was, kept in hiding, amongst rumors that they'd managed to kill me. It would be a hit against our 'untouchable' reputation, but we lost that when some psycho mind controlled one of Taylor's friends and used her to blow a twenty foot hole into the side of our base. If thinking I was dead made them overconfident, then I would live with that.


Besides, I was still trying to get used to my new limbs. My new almost everything, really. Part of my lungs. Every organ below the lungs. An arm. Most of my face. A vat grown clone of myself. No surprise that I couldn't use my powers on it. I suppose my Manton limit would be in effect on my clones.


Did have to wonder if that applied to just clones. The material they rebuilt me with was 100% my own genetic code. I was destroying anything that was 'better', as Riley put it, even if it were 99% a match to my own. I sterilized any genetic material other than mine within my body. I didn't say it, but it put thoughts in my head. What it might mean for me if I ever wanted children. Sure, I didn't. Not right now. Maybe never. But there's something about 'cannot, no matter your wishes' that upset me.


Everyone else was out hunting, except Crystal. She was my bodyguard. And Blasto, who was lacking a changeling of his own, and wasn't trained to use them. We might use him when we had the M4s ready. But even then, probably not.


At least I wasn't bored. Riley had set up relays in her workshop that let me see every set of eyes we had on the ground, save for Respawn. Taylor was tending to 'our' camp. In many ways, we had the least outside aid, and we were doing the best.


....


Lisa nodded. "Okay, what we need you to do is first finish linking Taylor into her next changeling. Then help Riley modify our changelings so Valefor can't effect us through them."


"He can do that?" I asked.


"Probably. He can influence people over television broadcast, so as long as it's live. Bullshit powers being bullshit and all. No sense taking any more stupid chances."


"I have mechanisms to protect myself," Riley added. "I'm adding an organ that resembles a mini brain in the changelings, that will alert us when someone's attempting mind control on them. As well as reacting to most other kinds of master, stranger, and thinker powers relating to thoughts and feelings. It's not perfect, but it will work on Valefor's powers."


....


As it turns out, it was Riley who found him. Her screen flashed the 'yellow' alert, indicating a master/stranger influence.


"Halt. You do not realize I'm here," came a whispered voice.


The changeling froze, obeying the pseudo-brain instead of the standard controls. A special override that wouldn't normally exist.


Valefor was dressed as a woman. Quite convincingly, at that. Brown hair, long and messy. Either naturally so, or a really realistic wig. Or maybe an unregistered changer ability. No way to know.


"So..." he continued. "Tell me. Just how many of you did I kill? Did any of them scream before they died?"


"Just you," Riley responded. His eyes had just enough time to show his realization what had happened. And then they were no more.


Clarice's left hand shot up with a speed I couldn't follow even through the changeling's superior senses, and grabbed into his face.


That wasn't a figure of speech, either. I was pretty sure she'd made every joint in her changeling's hands double jointed to get the grip she did. Pointer in one eye, middle in the other. Ring finger buried under the cheek bone. Pinky hooked under the jaw. Thumb wedged into the other cheek. Ironically, the only fingers not getting soaked in blood were the ones in the eyes. Enough strength, even with a fully extended arm and that awkward looking grip, to keep his obvious attempts to scream silent.


He struggled... prodigiously. I couldn't call it admirably, but he certainly tried his best. Grabbing and pulling and hitting at her arm hard enough to bleed from his fingers. Still, she didn't budge. The gap between their strength was absolute enough that he may as well been trying to push down a building.


By this time, the alert had told everyone what just occurred. Most of us pretended ignorance. Eki took off at the best speed she could manage, and her repaired and fully charged biosuit.


....


"North is the most likely spot," Lisa said, pointing to the map. "It's the lawless part of town, even more now that Parian's moved out."


"It's mine," Riley and Taylor said at the same time. They locked eyes. Skitter glared. Riley, for the first time ever to my knowledge, glared right back.


"That fucker murdered one of my only friends," Taylor said through a clenched jaw. "I want him."


Oh, fuck.


"Your changeling is incomplete," came Riley's reply. "I have my M4T. If things get violent, it's ten times more survivable."


"I can take Valefor and every pathetic coward he has helping him."


"Even the ones that he's forcing to fight?"


That stopped her. "If I have to," she finally replied.


"You can use your bugs to help us at any range, now," Riley reminded her. "It'll be easier for you to help us than for us to help you."


"Still in charge," Taylor growled. "I'll lead on point. I can help you no matter where I am in the city."


Okay... diplomatic, think diplomatic.


"You're needed here, more," Lisa interjected, doing what I had hesitated to do. "Your people. The ones relying on Charlotte. The children. Riley's the better medic, and the north end will need it most. In case they're not there. Or don't take the bait. Plus, our camp is the second most likely spot. We don't have the same kind of security as the other camps. They'd find it easy to hide here compared to almost anywhere else."


Taylor looked toward Lisa, then me. I backed Lisa up. "It's true. You'll do more good here if we don't find Valefor. If anyone else does, you'll do about as much good no matter which one spots him first."


Her voice cracked. "Fine. You're right." She looked back to Riley. "Promise me he suffers. None of that sleep poison stuff."


Riley was back to her usual smiling self. "It's a deal."


....


Riley was knocked away from Valefor by some kind of powerful attack. She took Valefor's face with her. Or almost all the skin between his forehead and chin, at least.


She rolled and landed on her feet, only to roll to her side as another shockwave smashed the ground. "Blaster, The Fallen" I said, and Riley's computer narrows down the list of names. There were still seven on it.


She was on her feet and facing toward him. Still holding Valefor's missing flesh. Her costume showed signs of being sliced, and several cuts were over an inch deep in the changeling itself.


"Male," I added. Down to five. "Cutting edge". Two. Eligos and Paimon. I brought them up. Paimon was a terrakinetic of some description. So, no. "Valefor had backup. Eligos." I stated.


Taylor's actual body had made it to the room. She has trouble controlling both bodies at once, apparently her polycognitive abilities didn't work so well on her human duplicates. A hundred trillion bugs? No problem. A second human body? Damn near impossible.


She was watching through Clarice's eyes, just like I was. The psycho was moving to help Valefor escape. Of course, Valefor was blind and in far too much pain to know what was going on around him. It would probably be a stalemate if left as it was.


Then the swarm fell. Millions of flying insects tore into him, and his screams echoed his partner. It took a minute before they cleared. She held back. Although you wouldn't know it from Eligos. He looked very much like he had been run through a wood chipper. His costume shredded completely, and most of his skin reduced to something that looked enough like hamburger that I became an avowed vegetarian at that moment.


Also reminded me that my new stomach had never been used before. By attempting to empty itself and failing.


"Are you satisfied, now?" I asked my partner after I finally stopped gagging.


"Not really," she answered darkly. "They're still alive."


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

A/N- Clearly, Valefor was maimed in self defense, and Eligos was defeated using no more than minimum required force.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, ch 46


Clarice walked over to the damaged, but still conscious form of Eligos. She gripped his arm and pulled him to his feet. He screamed. He screamed a great deal. By then the refugees who had retreated when the fight started, were coming back.


"I know you're not working alone," she said to the screaming man. She pulled a syringe out and jabbed him in the side. His screaming stopped. "Pain killer. Full body, lasts for about an hour. If you're kind enough to talk, I'll consider giving you one that lasts a few days. Maybe, if you're really lucky, Gaea will get around to healing you by then. If not, well, it's a week away from the pain."


Eligos gasped, finally able to breath. "F-fuck you," he gasped out.


"Guess you don't want the pain relief, then," she replied. "Oh well. Who did you come here with, and where are they?


"Just me an' Valefor," he laughed. "Got you bitches good. Teach you for desecrating the monument to Leviathan."


"You think that's a desecration? Wait 'till you see what we're going to do to his corpse when we're done with it," Clarice responded.


Going a bit off script there, Riley.


"As if," Eligos scoffed. "You can't kill gods."


"That would explain why your attacks didn't get any of us."


Okay. Way off script.


"Now tell me which hole Valefor's hidden in so I can drag him out," she instructed her captive.


"Right behind you," he muttered confusedly. Clarice had her sword drawn and twisted to slash. She kept the blade out. Valefor, of course, was on the ground several feet away. He seemed to have lost consciousness. By all rights, he should probably be dead from that kind of shock trauma. I had to imagine there was some drug or three of Riley's that prevented that from happening.


"Cute trick," she responded. "I'm impressed."


"Fuck you talking about?" He asked.


"My powers can work like a pretty good lie detector," she responded. "It's absolutely convinced you're telling the truth."


"I am!" He said. "He's right over there. You ripped his fucking face off!"


Clarice of course looked again, her eye-cam drifting to where Valefor was, and then beyond. "How do you keep doing that?"


"Umm... ma'am..." one of the bystanders spoke up. A bigger man, looked like he'd been in a fight or two. Looks like one of the thugs that E88 liked to employ, actually. Wait. Is it 'racist' to think that? "It's true. He's right there."


"You're telling the truth," she said to the guy. "Strange, I can't see him. What's he doing?"


"Uh... laying there bleeding?" the guy responded. "Like that guy said. He's missing his face."


"Not a threat, then," Clarice concluded. She looked down at her hands, which had blood on them- mostly from Valefor, and a little from Eligos. "I'm afraid I won't be able to help with medical treatment now. Would you mind getting one of the first responders?"


Clarice spent the next several minutes explaining some of the medical supplies we'd brought, and their use. None of it was the particularly fancy stuff, certainly not even within the same order of magnitude as Riley was capable of. And some of it, the responders refused to even use since it wasn't "approved" materials, legally. They couldn't take the liability risks.


Still, better than nothing. By the time she was done, Eki had already arrived.


"I take it the threat's been handled?"


"Sort of. Can you see Valefor?"


"Umm... yes?" Eki was confused. "Can't you?"


"I suspect a stranger effect," Aceso replied.


"Wait... that can work on you?"


"Apparently," she responded. "Since you can find him, I'd appreciate if you take him back to base. Seems I did a lot of damage. I'm waiting for someone to get here and pick up Eligos."


"Uh... sure. Is it safe?"


"His power supposedly requires eye contact. It almost certainly requires he be conscious," Aceso answered. "Inject him with this and he'll be out for at least twenty four hours."


"Got it," she replied. Moving over to Valefor, she had her hand up, ready to shoot him in the face if he moved. The injection, of course, was done into his side from behind. "Alright, that's done. You're certain about this?"


"If he wakes up, just drop him," Aceso responded.


"Uh..." Poor Crystal. She'd just discovered she'd been working alongside Bonesaw, even if she suspected it already. Taking orders from her on the field? Had to be a nightmare come true. "Okay. How long do you suspect you'll need to wait?"


"Not long. Eligos isn't any kind of threat in his current condition."


He really wasn't. Whatever drug Riley cooked up, it was clearly doing its job quite well.


Eki took off, holding Valefor facing downward. Her new suit had enough enhanced strength to carry the man easily. Some kind of magnetic system that I wasn't qualified to have opinions on. All I did was put together the organic parts that held it all together. Riley, as always, was ecstatic to tell me every possible detail as I helped fuse flesh into her machines. 'Cybernetics' tinker, indeed. I was beginning to see why Gallant spent so much time worried about how to connect with Kid Win.


At least now she had Blasto to work with and talk shop. His skills were closer to mine than hers, too, so that made for a helpful way to bridge the 'gap', as it were.


Now it was just a matter of Valefor.


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

A/N- In all honesty, I don't like this chapter much now that I've gone back to reread all of these. Definitely weaker than most of the others in this area.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 47

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♦ Topic: Slaughterhouse Nine, confirmed dead.
In: Boards ► News ► Events ►America ►New England
Bagrat (Original Poster) (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)
Posted on June 13th, 2011:
<Link> Yup. You heard me. The whole S9 down and out, from a couple surprising sources.
Skitter, the creepy bug girl, supposedly got Siberian. Have my doubts, waiting for confirmation. What isn't in doubt- Siberian is gone, and with the living Unstoppable Force somehow stopped. The rest of the 9 weren't bullshit untouchable anymore.
<Link> Picture of Crawler, turned into glass. Apologies for the crap quality. Cell phone from a distance. Apparently Mannequin and Shatterbird killed as well, and there were hero casualties. No surprise on either front- not a lot of people could last against those monsters. Except what the hell kind of crazy power turns people to glass?!
Edit:
<Link> Jack Slash and Bonesaw confirmed dead. Panacea. Yeah, the healer, took them both.
-
Last edited June 15th, 2011

(Showing page 12 of 706)
► WorriesTooMuch (Cape wife)
Replied on June 13th, 2011:
Got confirmation. The PRT are sure of everyone except Jack, Bonesaw and Cherish. Jack and Bonesaw are believed dead as well. No one's sure right now. Looks like Cherish got away. With her powers, it's no surprise.

► Human Decoy (Unverified Cape)
Replied on June 13th, 2011:
Good. Fucking Siberian killed most of my family. Collapsed the building we were in. I hope she suffered.

► WorriesTooMuch (Cape Wife)
Replied on June 13th, 2011:
Holy shit! Condolences, man.

► Human Decoy (Unverified Cape)
Replied on June 13th, 2011:
Is fine. Unless you know someone that can let me see her corpse. I will shit down that bitch's throat if given the opportunity.

► Judge (Moderator)
Replied on June 13th, 2011:
Normally, this would result in an infraction and possible mute, especially given your commenting history. However, considering the circumstances and who the subject is, I'm going to give you a pass. This time. Consider yourself warned.

► Human Decoy (Unverified Cape)
Replied on June 13th, 2011:
No. Is cool. I was willing to take the mute to say that. May her time in hell be eventful.

► Pathfinder
Replied on June 13th, 2011:
Seriously. The hell did they do to Crawler? I mean, fucker deserved it and worse. But he's a glass statue. Who has a power like that?

► Math Geek
Replied on June 13th, 2011:
Legend was in town. Maybe he had Eidolon on speed dial? Pop in. "Glass". Home in time for dinner.
That or maybe it's some poor sod who got a power so scary that they ONLY bring him out for shit like THIS. Or a new BB trigger? Powers tend to resemble those they trigger near... so... Shatterbird, maybe? No matter how you look at it, I really hope it works on Endbringers.

► Pathfinder
Replied on June 13th, 2011:
The others, maybe. But Eidolon? Sure, sounds like something he *could* do. But a lot of people got hurt or killed in that fight. If Eidolon did it and caused that kind of body count... the Protectorate would censor it so hard that Brockton Bay would be on the banned words list alongside c*auldron. Off topic: are they ever gonna fix that?

► GuyWithAGun (BB PRT)
Replied on June 13th, 2011:
Can't share all the details (I like you guys, but like my job better). But the "glass" thing was a Tinker weapon. That's already public knowledge. More than that will no doubt be in a press release I'll be sure to link here when it happens, if no one beats me to it. Until then, it's above my pay grade to say who gets to hear what.

(Showing page 57 of 406)

► GuyWithAGun (BB PRT)
Replied on June 14th, 2011:
Confirmed. Panacea is now calling herself Gaea. Turns out her powers also involve controlling plants. Showed up at the office yesterday. In battle armor made out of a tree or something (I wasn't in the building at the time). Had a partner that's probably "the villain formerly known as Skitter"- can't confirm. They asked for papers to register as indie heroes. Had a chat with Miss Militia in a private room.
Brought the missing corpses of the Slaughterhouse Nine. Still no sign of Cherish.

► Pathfinder
Replied on June 14th, 2011:
Indies? Well, they have power enough to make it work. Jack Slash? Fucking SIBERIAN. If they can do that, they could curb stomp basically everyone still in the city. Except maybe Legend. Is Legend still in town?

► Math Geek
Replied on June 14th, 2011:
Wait? Panacea showed up with bodies a day after. Her powers... think she may have faked the corpses?

► GuyWithAGun (BB PRT)
Replied on June 14th, 2011:
Don't think so. Can't see Panacea doing that. These assholes killed her sister. She wouldn't let them live.
Still, the bodies will be examined and verified in every possible way, forensically and with Thinkers. As was released publically elsewhere, we have confirmed proof that Bonesaw is known to capture innocent people and surgically alter them to resemble S9 members. Decoys and distractions. Remember- if you see someone who DOES have such a resemblence, contact the PRT *immediately*. They are most likely innocent and harmless victims that need help. But that doesn't mean they aren't dangerous. Bonesaw's been known to leave behind some truly horrific "surprises". Leave it to the professionals. It's what your tax dollars pay us for.
<Link> More details on this subject.

► Human Decoy (Unverified Cape)
Replied on June 14th, 2011:
Think she kept them around a while for "fun"? Trust me, it doesn't take a lot to turn "healing powers" into the worst kinds of torture imaginable.

► Judge (Moderator)
Replied on June 14th, 2011:
I'd prefer you didn't speculate that a known and respected hero might be committing a number of crimes, many of which are serious felonies and possibly violations of the Geneva Convention.

► Human Decoy (Unverified Cape)
Replied on June 14th, 2011:
I'm not "speculating" anything. I just *really really hope*.

► Mumm Ra
Replied on June 14th, 2011:
Panacea has plant powers? Thought she was a healer. How does she have plant powers?

► Math Geek
Replied on June 14th, 2011:
Think it was a second trigger? Her sister was killed and then all of a sudden she has crazy godlike powers. Would fit. Speaking of which, so does 'Gaea'.

► GuyWithAGun (BB PRT)
Replied on June 14th, 2011:
No. Panacea's always had powers like that. She could instantly remove fungal diseases and parasites and viruses, including tinker made ones like the plague that Bonesaw released. Her power can't alter human brains- likely a Manton limit to stop her from accidentally lobotomizing herself- but other than that, if it's alive, she can change it.


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

A/N- Ah, the first of the PHO chapters. There are no words for how much I hated these. I like how they turned out, more or less, but they were a lot of work for not nearly enough gain.

Also: Human Decoy being verified in the login but not in the posts is *as intended*. I get so many people pointing that out...

 

[Ack]

Just a note: Human Decoy shows up as (Verified Cape) then as (Unverified Cape).

Will read the rest of this when I get the chance. Looks cool.