Amelia, Worm AU [Complete]

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 184- Victoria


"Suckiest part about my powers is I can't even play in any sports," Zach complained. "Sure, I take a gym class and it's the easiest credit in the world, but I'm not allowed to join anything because unfair advantage." He emphasized the last words in the most sarcastic way possible.


"I know!" I exclaimed. "Sorry, you can benchpress a small car, therefor we can't let you play goalie on a soccer team," I added my own mocking voice. I don't even have my powers anymore, I added silently. And I'm still forbidden from any sports.


"Know what would be great?" he laughed. "All parahuman team. Then no one can bitch about anything."


"Where are we going to find a ball that could survive that?" I asked.


"I heard something about people using decapitated heads on battlefields," he started.


"That's disgusting," I interrupted.


"Yeah, but we can use Endbringer heads," he suggested. "Most badass sport ever, of all time. Admit it."


"That would be pretty badass," I admitted. I looked at the clock. Almost six thirty. "So, think Amy's up and ready?" I asked. It had been a few days since I'd spoken to her. She always had something else to worry about these days.


"Sorry," Zach replied. "She's probably still asleep. Today it'll be the morning meeting as always, then a ten minute makeout session with Taylor, then chatting with R-ey and the rest of the nerd herd. Then she'll probably have to have a phone call with the Mayor or the Commissioner or the Director or whomever. I doubt she'll be free until this evening."


I frowned. "Doesn't anyone else do any of that?" I asked. "Isn't that Minerva's job? Isn't Taylor suppose to share half the workload?" There's three of them, I wanted to add. I be she finds time to just hang out with her girlfriend and replacement sister.


"Not really," Zach answered. "Minerva's doing her thing with Dinah and the new recruits from Boston." Meaning the fucking supervillains that my sister spends so much of her time with. "And Taylor's got something to do with city planning. Everyone's busy. Except for us mooks who just show up to do the fighting. For most of us, it's boring as fuck. I can tell Amy that you called, though."


"You don't have to, I understand that she's busy," I lied. "Hey, since you have so much spare time, we should stick around after school and have a one on one game. I haven't played a game in forever, and I'm afraid I'll lose my skills if I don't get to some practice."


"No way!" he exclaimed. "You've got a literally perfect body. You'd kick my ass. You'd kick anyone's ass."


"And you can literally never get tired," I countered. "Sure, I'll score a lot more in the early game. But I'll start to slow down eventually, and if we keep going for an hour or so, you have a good chance of coming out ahead. All you have to do is wear me out, and then you can beat me easy."


"You do know how that sounds, don't you?" he teased. Boys.


"Yes," I deadpanned. "Now are you gonna be there or not? Or would you rather miss out on seeing my, as you just put it, 'perfect body' sweaty and panting?"


"Well, when you put it that way, how could I possibly say no?" he laughed.


"I thought you'd see it my way," I teased. "See you after school." Then I hung up and started getting dressed for school.


Zach was a good guy, smartass or not. I should talk to Theo and the others about doing something nice for him as a group. The winged bitch had ruined his birthday by showing up a week before it happened, and as much as he pretended it didn't matter to him, I didn't believe that for a second. Clarice got a surprise birthday in the wrong month, so why not Zach?


Yeah, I smiled. I'll talk to Trevor at lunch and let have him help with the planning. He could even help me pick out a birthday gift. Zach was into video games, and I didn't know jack about them, so that was perfect. Of course, then I'd have to do something to thank Trevor. Hmm... Mandy's single, maybe she'd be interested. She was kinda a bookworm type, reminded me a lot of Amy, back before everything changed so drastically. Then they could live happily ever after and make tons of nerdling babies.


....


"Are you feeling okay?" I asked as I stood in the doorway of the living room and talked to Dad. I hesitated to approach him. He didn't like to be bothered, on his bad days. He was never mean to me, and I never for a second was afraid of him. Mom would rip him in half if he did anything that would have hurt me or Amy physically. I could have dealt with that. What really hurt was how he didn't seem to care about me, or anything else for that matter.


He just... ignored me. There were days, sometimes even weeks, where he would barely even look at us. He sometimes didn't have the energy to go out and patrol. He use to love that, and would come back with all the exciting stories of how he punched one of Allfather's goons or blew up a Merchant drug stash. Then he'd play with me and Amy and let us pretend to be superheroes and he would pretend to be a bad guy. We'd play wrestle until it was time for dinner.


That almost never happened, anymore. Most days, he couldn't even pull up the energy needed to smile at me. He'd just mope about, or watch television, or spend twelve hours sleeping. Then he'd have insomnia that night and be too tired to pay attention to me or Amy in the morning. I did my best to remember what Mom told us. That he was sick, that it wasn't anything I did wrong. And I prayed each night that he'd get better, but he never did.


He smiled, and my heart jumped. "Sure," he said. "Come have a seat," He patted his knee. I happily ran in and sat on his leg. This is one of his good days. "So, what has you in such a tizzy?" he asked, laughing at my barely contained excitement.


"We made the championships!" I exclaimed.


"That's wonderful!" he declared.


"You'll be at the game right, Daddy?" I asked. I knew I was too old to be acting so childish, but I was really excited, and if that meant playing up the cute card to get him to show up and watch, then I was okay with that. I always was a daddy's girl. And when my own was too tired, I'd often spend time with Uncle Neil. "It's the championship game. You have to be there to cheer for me."
"Of course, firecracker," he smiled. "I'll be there."


I ran off to tell mom the news.


....


My phone beeped with a text. Not a lot of people had this number, so despite a rather disapproving look from my World History teacher, Mister Sloan, I pulled it out and read it. Zach had sent me the message.


'EB, ?loc'.


Fuck. I stood up and collected my books.


"Where are you going?" the teacher asked.


"Class is canceled," I told him as I rushed out the door. I didn't bother explaining. An Endbringer? Now? It's way too soon for that, I thought. They killed Simurgh in mid August, and it was now only late September. A month and a half too early.


I was almost to the front door when the principal made the announcement. A lot of the students would stay in school. Arcadia was well equipped enough to have televisions in the classrooms. Mostly for video presentations, but they could receive outside channels. The teachers would be watching the news, along with the many kids whose parents couldn't come for them. School may have been canceled, but that didn't mean all jobs were. Although the ones that stayed open probably wouldn't get much business done.


I didn't see any of the Pantheon kids leave through the front door, and there was no cell response. They already left without me. I turned and walked to my new sports car. Not nearly as fun as flying, but at least dad bought me a nice ride.


With the signing bonus he got for leaving us, I reminded myself. Suddenly, I liked my car an awful lot less.

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

A/N- Chapter got way away from me. Is now a two parter.

 

[Dreadis]

Hmm. Based on the flashback we can kinda see where her old emotion powers come from. Kind of a way to fight against her fathers depression.

 

[Slayer Anderson]

This...is looking more and more like a very non-conventional setup for Victoria's new powers. I mean, unless something...violent happens in the next part or two, it looks like the primary impetus for her powers is going to be loneliness and a large problem in her life that she can't solve.

Those tend to be triggers for Master, Thinker, or Tinker powers...not the 'flying brick' she used to be.

I'm very interested TanaNari.

 

[Alterego9]

This...is looking more and more like a very non-conventional setup for Victoria's new powers. I mean, unless something...violent happens in the next part or two, it looks like the primary impetus for her powers is going to be loneliness and a large problem in her life that she can't solve.

Those tend to be triggers for Master, Thinker, or Tinker powers...not the 'flying brick' she used to be.

I'm very interested TanaNari.

Click to shrink...

Wasn't it a big plot point in canon that ultimately connecting triggers to power types is a dead end, because all powers require loneliness, or at least a sense of isolation from the world?

 

[GorgonEyed]

Wasn't it a big plot point in canon that ultimately connecting triggers to power types is a dead end, because all powers require loneliness, or at least a sense of isolation from the world?

Click to shrink...

They are connected, just not always in ways that make sense to humans.

Shard Mien reaches a host. It then travels to a new, younger, host, developmentally disabled Eric Stodt. It locks on, it gets a grasp on who the host is, and it summarily lets that part of itself die off, burning out to form the corona pollentia. Sit dormant for some time, if the arrival of shard to host didn't coincide with the trigger time. The trigger event happens, the shard recognizes the event from the state of the host and from context, the flood of stress responses, and so on. A now-twenty year old Eric is in the lake, his father shouting at him to swim, refusing to let him climb the ladder back up onto the dock. Eric is screaming incoherently, panicking, and every time his father pries his fingers off the ladder, he really thinks he's going to die. His father isn't even recognizable at this point, in the anger and midst of the danger.

The trigger reads Eric. Who is he? How does he generally respond to situations?
The trigger reads the situation. What form does the danger take? It's partially environmental, it's driven by a desire to escape, his life is threatened by a distinct enemy.

The shard then discards everything it doesn't need, distilling things down to one efficient task, suited to Eric. Where it wasn't already programmed with inherent safeties (Manton effect) and limitations, it uses Eric's stored knowledge to generate a kind of grasp of what it needs to do.

Eric becomes a breaker, transitioning between two forms. Because of the nature of the problem and of Eric himself, he doesn't get a form that returns him entirely to normal. He has one form where he's essentially a living artillery platform, unable to move, but capable of devastating firepower, and one form where he flies at stunning speeds, capable of turning on a dime, durable. A living bullet.

And one man in a bad situation is left standing on the beach by his family's cottage, steaming as the water is burned off his skin, having flown to freedom and obliterated his father, realizing what he's done.

If the shard hadn't left Eric's father to go to Eric, however, what might have happened? Eric's father might have triggered in another 'between a rock and a hard place' scenario, probably would have been a breaker, but might have picked up a breaker power that turned him into a living focal point capable of refocusing heat and cold over large areas (another environmental hazard the shard was tasked with facing), another form where he could manipulate gases on a similar level, and a third, clearer self identity might have left him with another form where he was more clearly human. Because the answers to the trigger question and to 'who is Mr. Stodt' is different from 'who is Eric Stodt'.

Taylor got the power she did because she was who she was, and she had a certain potential, capacity, and way of looking at the world. That potential, capacity and way of looking at the world were altered, in turn, by her shard. And so it goes. People are pushed to extremes. The highs are higher, the lows are lower.

It's a hard thing to separate.

Click to shrink...

 

[Slayer Anderson]

Wasn't it a big plot point in canon that ultimately connecting triggers to power types is a dead end, because all powers require loneliness, or at least a sense of isolation from the world?

Click to shrink...

I think the primary thing which defines what type of powers you get is what the person triggering is focusing on.

If they're focusing on that sense of isolation from the world, then it's a master power.

If they're focusing on the 'problem' that needs solving, rather than their own loneliness, then it's a thinker power.

I'm sure Lisa was extremely lonely after her brother died, but she focused on the 'why' of the situation, rather then her own isolation as a result.

Taylor was past caring 'why' Emma betrayed her, and was focusing on the fact that no one in her life was helping her, at all, hence the loneliness and master power.

Granted, this is only a general guideline for how powers manifest, and even then, sub-ratings and secondary powers have always been pretty wonky to me.

 

[Sheaman3773]

her brother Rex

Click to shrink...

I like most of your post, but

"His name was Reggie, but he got into sports in high school. They started calling him Rex, until everyone used the name.

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He used both nicknames.

FAAAAAAANON (and IC misconception).

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Other then how Victoria stated she triggered there is no actual evidence 2nd gen capes are that easy to trigger.

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Well, there is this bit from canon, which is phrased a little differently from how you seem to be interpreting it.

"But people who have parents with powers?"
"They don't need nearly as intense an event to make their powers show up. Glory Girl got her powers by getting fouled while playing basketball in gym class.

Click to shrink...

GG is just mentioned as an example, not as the sole datapoint.

But if that's not enough, this is from the WoG thread:

The entity begins splitting off, ready to find a generally young & similar host to target (piggybacking off the parent's context & experience for an easier triggering process/analysis)

Click to shrink...

So yeah, not actually fanon.


On the chapter itself--interesting, interesting...

Did the chapter get away from you? Or do you just enjoy drawing it out?

 

[nebelmann]

"Sorry," Zach replied. "She's probably still asleep. Today it'll be the morning meeting as always, then a ten minute makeout session with Taylor, then chatting with R-ey and the rest of the nerd herd.

Click to shrink...

Oh Zach... You are sooo lucky that Amelia's power didn't work on you. Or she would grow you a third foot right inside you mouth, so you can learn to shut your trap.

 

[minuseven]

Well, there is this bit from canon, which is phrased a little differently from how you seem to be interpreting it.

GG is just mentioned as an example, not as the sole datapoint.

But if that's not enough, this is from the WoG thread:

So yeah, not actually fanon.

Click to shrink...

YES, fanon. God. Urgh.

1. Tattletale, talking to Taylor, while in the phase of her plan that involved making the Undersiders more sympathetic to her. Also, talking about Glory Girl, which she does not like. OBJECTIVE POV? I don't think so. No. Nu-uh. ... Seriously. Just no. Tattletale may occasionally serve as the author's mouthpiece, but that does not mean you can take her words as gospel. At all.

2. Victoria reveals her trigger event in an interview!! ... And you think she's telling the truth? Come on. This is Worm. Life is NOT easier for anybody, no matter what Taylor (the POV) would like to believe. It makes the whole Us vs Them a looooot easier.

3. That word of God refers to the Shard. Not the bloody host, which is the one that triggers. The "experience" is the entire way the power manifests. The triggering process/analysis bit you just quoted? That's what Wildbow described on another WoG as the process of pinging the host, discovering who it is, what it is (personality) and what it needs, plus pinging the surroundings for data points. Hence why, ie Lady Photon and her children, 2 Gen powers can resemble 1 Gen powers that much. The trauma level? It's the bloody same.

And before people start. No, Taylor's horrible trigger event is not typical. It's a double trigger for a reason.

So why do 2/3/4... Gen triggers seem so "soft"? Because something that is traumatizing for a younger kid is not that traumatizing for an adult or just an older kid. And 2 Gen Shards bind themselves, usually, to younger host.

There. Argh. How many times am I going to have to expose this?

 

[Xaliuss]

YES, fanon. God. Urgh.

1. Tattletale, talking to Taylor, while in the phase of her plan that involved making the Undersiders more sympathetic to her. Also, talking about Glory Girl, which she does not like. OBJECTIVE POV? I don't think so. No. Nu-uh. ... Seriously. Just no. Tattletale may occasionally serve as the author's mouthpiece, but that does not mean you can take her words as gospel. At all.

2. Victoria reveals her trigger event in an interview!! ... And you think she's telling the truth? Come on. This is Worm. Life is NOT easier for anybody, no matter what Taylor (the POV) would like to believe. It makes the whole Us vs Them a looooot easier.

3. That word of God refers to the Shard. Not the bloody host, which is the one that triggers. The "experience" is the entire way the power manifests. The triggering process/analysis bit you just quoted? That's what Wildbow described on another WoG as the process of pinging the host, discovering who it is, what it is (personality) and what it needs, plus pinging the surroundings for data points. Hence why, ie Lady Photon and her children, 2 Gen powers can resemble 1 Gen powers that much. The trauma level? It's the bloody same.

And before people start. No, Taylor's horrible trigger event is not typical. It's a double trigger for a reason.

So why do 2/3/4... Gen triggers seem so "soft"? Because something that is traumatizing for a younger kid is not that traumatizing for an adult or just an older kid. And 2 Gen Shards bind themselves, usually, to younger host.

There. Argh. How many times am I going to have to expose this?

Click to shrink...

Let us look at statistics. Usually only one of five people having potential to trigger do so. All kids from New Wave have powers. So it's 0,16% chance for 4 normal triggers at most. So second generation triggers can be proved statistically (and it was said in canon).

 

[dasstan]

FAAAAAAANON (and IC misconception).

Click to shrink...

Kaaay, so. You're not defining fanon like everyone else defines fanon. Everyone else is building their assumptions from the story itself. You're just going "No! Wrong! Disregard the text because it isn't written like a research paper!"

Alec, surprisingly, was the one to break the nerve-wracking silence. "Let me put it this way. When you got your powers, were you having a good day?"
I didn't have to think long. "No."
"Would I be really off the mark if I guessed you were having the worst day of your life, when you got your powers?"
"Second worst," I replied quietly, "It's like that for everyone?"
"Just about. The only ones who get off easy are the second generation capes. The kids of people who have powers."
Lisa leaned forward, putting her elbows on the table, "So if you needed another reason to think Glory Girl is a privileged bitch, look no further."
"Why?" I asked, "Why do we go through that?"
"It's called the trigger event," Lisa answered me, "Researchers theorize that for every person with powers out there, there's one to five people with the potential for powers, who haven't met the conditions necessary for a trigger event. You need to be pushed to the edge. Fight or flight responses pushed to their limits, further than the limits, even. Then your powers start to emerge."
"Basically," Alec said, "For your powers to manifest, you're going to have to have something really shitty happen to you."
"Which may help to explain why the villains outnumber the heroes two to one," Lisa pointed out, "Or why third world countries have the highest densities of people with powers. Not capes, but a lot of people with powers."
"But people who have parents with powers?"
"They don't need nearly as intense an event to make their powers show up. Glory Girl got her powers by getting fouled while playing basketball in gym class. She mentioned it in a few interviews she gave."
"So you basically asked us to share the details on the worst moments of our lives," Alec said, before taking another bite of his burger.
"Sorry," I replied.

Click to shrink...

"I… I don't really know. It's supposed to be ten times easier to get powers if you're second generation. But we don't have research on third generations yet. It's only pretty recently that we had the first third-generation cape on record. The baby in Toronto."
"Didn't hear about that," Kayden said. She frowned. "A baby?"
Peter's eyes fell on Aster. "Oh. Wow. Is she third generation too?"
"Pay attention," Justin said.
"The… yeah. Each successive generation seems to produce younger capes, by lowering the barrier to entry, the severity of the requisite trigger event."

Click to shrink...

"Eh. It's hard to explain. He cultivated us, bred for us, went miles out of his way to get us back if a member of his 'family' was taken from him. Mounted a freaking crusade if it came down to it. But when we were around, he paid almost no attention to us kids. When he did pay attention, it was to discipline us or test us. Discipline usually meant getting a dose of paralyzing terror for not listening to him, insulting him or even looking him in the eye, sometimes. Testing happened on our birthdays or if he'd had a bad day… he'd try to set up a trigger event. Not supposed to be so hard, given that we were second generation capes, obviously, but he started when we were eight or so."

Click to shrink...

Now, unless you're going to claim that everyone is in on the plan to trick Taylor into thinking second gen triggers are easier...

He could even help me pick out a birthday gift. Zach was into video games,

Click to shrink...

So, when I was reading that I mentally inserted a "the" before "video games" and had to stop and mentally reset because it ended up coloring my view of Victoria as some sort of 80 year old grandmother talking about "the FaceSpace" and the "tweetbird."

Fun times. Also, digging the Victoriach vibe. It's nice to read a version of her that jokes around and has more personality type than "Cheerleader Smash!"

 

[minuseven]

Kaaay, so. You're not defining fanon like everyone else defines fanon. Everyone else is building their assumptions from the story itself. You're just going "No! Wrong! Disregard the text because it isn't written like a research paper!"

Now, unless you're going to claim that everyone is in on the plan to trick Taylor into thinking second gen triggers are easier...

So, when I was reading that I mentally inserted a "the" before "video games" and had to stop and mentally reset because it ended up coloring my view of Victoria as some sort of 80 year old grandmother talking about "the FaceSpace" and the "tweetbird."

Fun times. Also, digging the Victoriach vibe. It's nice to read a version of her that jokes around and has more personality type than "Cheerleader Smash!"

Click to shrink...

First example is Tattletale, in which yes, she is trying to get Taylor on her side.
Second and third examples all use the word "suppose". It's supposed to, but read what you've quoted. in your first example and compare to what I've said.
"Each successive generation seems to produce younger capes, by lowering the barrier to entry, the severity of the requisite trigger event.""
It's a matter of perspective. Younger triggers seem less harsh, because adults have gone through more and have more experience. A kid getting lost in a supermarket is terrible for the kid. He doesn't know what to do, everything is not okay and where are his parent!? But for a teenager, just a slightly older kid really, it'd be pretty chill. All he has to do is head to the registers and ask to call for his parents. Is the first situatioin traumatizing? Yes. Yet it's the same as the second situation. The trauma is still there, IT IS NOT EASIER. In the same reasoning, Nilbog's losing his job trigger seems trivial to anybody who has struggled with employment already, yet for somebody fresh into the working market it's a rather scary story of how bosses can screw you up.


And if I wanted to debate semantics of "canon" and "fanon" I'd say I'm in the right, because you're saying that it's canon. Which it isn't. But yes, my interpretation could just as easily be classified as fanon. Sure, okay. I'm not Wildbow. Just don't say "2nd Gen trigger events are easier, it's canon". Because that's false.

 

[Helpless Kitten]

The flash back was just a little confusing at first, but I got what was happening after a couple lines. My first thought was to suggest putting the year it happened at the top of the section, but I think I see where you're going with this. You're going to have the two situations start differently and come closer together until they're synchronized and she triggers, right? In that case, it's probably fine, if just a bit jarring at first. But that could just be the whole point.

 

[Sheaman3773]

Just don't say "2nd Gen trigger events are easier, it's canon". Because that's false.

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For now I'm going to bypass the fact that you're saying that other people shouldn't give their interpretations, because it's wrong, they should use your interpretation, because it's right, despite the fact that your interpretation is not the obvious one.

Are you saying that there's no difference in the triggering process for successive generations of shard buds, on the part of the host? None at all?

Because then I have to ask, why is there a demonstrable trend of second-gen and so on triggering younger and younger?

I get what you're saying, something is more traumatic to younger children rather than teenagers. But those first-gen triggers were children before too. So why didn't they trigger when they were younger?

 

[dasstan]

And if I wanted to debate semantics of "canon" and "fanon" I'd say I'm in the right, because you're saying that it's canon. Which it isn't. But yes, my interpretation could just as easily be classified as fanon. Sure, okay. I'm not Wildbow. Just don't say "2nd Gen trigger events are easier, it's canon". Because that's false.

Click to shrink...

We have people in the text who make a study of capes, powers, etc. These people subscribe to the "Each successive generation seems to produce younger capes, by lowering the barrier to entry, the severity of the requisite trigger event." theory.

We have a Word of God that says buds/second generation shards have an easier triggering process.

To say 'Just don't say "2nd Gen trigger events are easier, it's canon". Because that's false.' is disingenuous. By all objective measurements, it is easier. I don't disagree that there is trauma, but the degree of trauma is what's different. Compare the kidnapping and attempted murder of Brandish to the situation Victoria is subjected to. Victoria's One Bad Day is objectively less traumatic than Brandish's One Bad Day.

Subjectively, they are both the worst day of their lives, but the objective, baseline, actual stress needs to be considerably worse for a first generation cape to trigger. That's canon.

 

[klassekatze]

Now I'm wondering what Dinah's trigger event was. Did canon cover that?

 

[Alterego9]

Compare the kidnapping and attempted murder of Brandish to the situation Victoria is subjected to. Victoria's One Bad Day is objectively less traumatic than Brandish's One Bad Day.

Click to shrink...

We still don't know what Victoria's bad day was about.

 

[Deltawaves1]

While I may not like it, this does seem to be building towards a soft trigger. Hopefully it will be more entertaining then her cannon trigger of a foul in basketball

 

[akitsu91]

The flashback was a bit confusing. Give it an indent or italics? I didn't realise it was a flashback.

 

[evildice]

The flashback was a bit confusing. Give it an indent or italics? I didn't realise it was a flashback.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, this could have been done better.

One suggestion: just lay the whole thing out chronologically. Canon Worm does this a bunch with interludes, and it works pretty well.

Other suggestion: put the date at the top of each segment.

 

[dasstan]

We still don't know what Victoria's bad day was about.

Click to shrink...

Assuming she isn't a lying liar who lies, and judging by the flashback in this chapter, it's probably an emotional issue that culminated in being fouled during a game of basketball. Straw the broke the camel's back style.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 185- Victoria


"Aunt Sarah, what are you wearing?" I asked as I walked into the living room and saw her. She was in costume. Not even her own costume, but one that started yellow around her shoulders, shifted to light blue and and slowly transitioned to dark green by the time it reached her feet.


"Like it?" she asked. "It's one of Crystal's old suits, with a bit of a refit."


"Are you joining Pantheon, now?" I asked.


She laughed. "No, I don't think so. They don't need an old hag like me slowing them down. They just asked me to keep an eye out, in case someone tried to start trouble while they were gone."


"You could always try it on for size," Khepri's father suggested. "I even thought of a name for you." He leaned in close and whispered something. She laughed and then gave him a friendly slap across the chest with the back of her hand. I frowned. Uncle Neil was always my favorite. The one who'd been there for me when my own father couldn't. He's gone, and Aunt Sarah had already replaced him. More than that, the father of the girl who had stolen my sister from me.


I moved into the living room, to see my Mom and Dad sitting together on the couch. It was almost a happy moment, until I realized the pair of them were seated at opposite ends of a piece of furniture meant to hold five.


"Shouldn't you be going to the fight?" I asked Dad as I sat in the couch between the two. Does this mean he changed his mind about the Protectorate? I dared to hope.


"They're instituting new policies," he answered. "After New Delhi, well, the rules are changing. They're only sending the top tier capes, like the Triumvirate, to this one. Pantheon can build their disposable shock troops, and then let them die by the hundreds without blinking. Unless you rate a seven or eight, chances are they're not taking you. Your old man's barely a five. So I have to stay home and watch the fight on the news."


"When did they start showing Endbringer battles fights on the news?" I asked as I sat down between them.


"When your sister proved they can die," Dad answered with pride. I fought back the tears. I remember when he talked about me like that.


The cameras were high quality, but not well positioned.

An announcer spoke while we watched various giant monsters appear across the battlefield. Amy's creations, I recognized. Controlled in full by her girlfriend's power. "Channel Nine would like the audience to be aware that the images you are about to witness are likely to be extremely violent and disturbing to all audiences. Due to the nature of the footage, we will be unable to edit or censor any details. Viewer discretion is strongly advised.​

"They're really covering their asses on this one, aren't they?" Dad laughed.


"Given the number of lawsuits there were last time?" Aunt Sarah replied. "Seems like the only person who's not suing is Pantheon."


"I'm surprised they were even willing to do it at all," Mom added. "Don't get me wrong, I am glad they're doing it, but I'm surprised. Most of the lawsuits were frivolous, but they were still funded and backed by government action. The PRT was blatantly punishing news organizations for showing the footage. Bullying them for showing what really happens, instead of cooperating with whatever garbage the bureaucrats wanted to sell people today."


Not subtle, Mom, I thought as I glanced over at Dad. He pretended not to notice. Or maybe he really didn't notice, I couldn't tell.


The television announcer was going on and on about how the zerg resembled, and how they differed from, the ones New Delhi fight. Mostly focused on how there were so many more this time than last. Then the Endbringer appeared.


"We have spotted an unknown creature on the field," the anchor spoke excitedly. "We are unsure what it is, but-". The monster vanished, reappearing near the camera. I watched as several people fell, their heads separated from their bodies. The anchorwoman shrieked in surprise.


Mom gasped, and Dad sat up, leaning toward the screen. "Sarah, Danny, it's started."


"The hell is that?" Khepri's father asked.


"It's a new Endbringer," I answered. How could he be so dense? "They killed the Simurgh, this is her replacement."


"-unknown creature," the reporter spoke. "Given the circumstances, it seems likely that this is a new, never before witnessed Endbringer. Its powers are currently unknown, but appear to include teleportation and superhuman reaction speed."


I watched as the Ultralisks collided into the sides of the monster, which seemed to do much less damage to the monster than it did to the zerg. I gripped the cushion I was sitting on. I should be out there. I should be helping them. It vanished again, and there was more death.


"It's the fastest Endbringer," Sarah volunteered. "I thought Leviathan was fast, but I think this one's truly built to be a speedster."


"They all have some kind of mover powers," Carol added. "But this one does seem dedicated to it."


No one spoke until the gray mist bomb went off.


"What was that?" Dad asked. I smiled, I know what that is, at least.


"It's one of their new weapons," Khepri's father spoke before I had a chance. "Something they cooked up working with Dragon."


I kept quiet. I guess it didn't surprise me that she was telling her dad what they were up to.


We watched as it kept teleporting, and kept killing. Then the cameras exploded into fire.


"Fuck!" Mom exclaimed. This is the first time I can remember hearing her curse like that, I realized. "It's New Delhi all over again!"


My eyes went wide. If that happened in Mexico City, the devastation could hit a large chunk of the United States.


"They made it through last time," Aunt Sara spoke, her voice trembling. "They can do it again."


"That's right," Dad agreed. "They'll be fine."


The news went immediately to satellite images after the loss of the camera feed, showing the city from above. Not even close to as bad as New Delhi, I realized with relief. So did the news reporters, who were now speculating on an EMP weapon being part of the new Endbringer's arsenal.


Aunt Sarah's phone rang, and she answered it right away. "Yeah," she said after a moment, smiling broadly. "Yeah, they're all here. I'll make sure they know what happened. Okay, so you'll be home in a couple hours? Yeah, I'll tell them. Love you too."


She closed her phone and looked at us. "That was Crystal," she informed us. "The fight's already over."


"Already?" Dad cheered, and patted Khepri's father on the back. "That's our girls. Endbringer shows up for breakfast, and they kill it by lunchtime." Yeah, I thought. That's my sister out there, living the ultimate dream.


"Everyone got through it safely, right?" Mom asked.


"They're all fine," Sarah told us. "They're having an after battle conversation with a few of the bigwigs, probably about how the fight turned out, and what they can do better next time. New enemies, new strategies needed."


"As long as they stop making promises so readily," Mom complained. "Sometimes I feel like I'm going to have to carve 'we need to consult with our lawyer first' on the inside of their eyelids."


Khepri's dad chuckled. "That's my daughter, alright. I could go on for hours, but I'm afraid they'd bore you."


"Nonsense," Dad answered back. "You should hear some of the stuff Victoria's done. We should get together for a beer sometime and swap war stories."


Done, not does, I thought while watching the screen. Has done. Has been. I'm nothing, now. I don't matter. Dad has a new favorite, Uncle Neil's gone, Aunt Sarah has a new man. My family's either dead, or has moved on and left me behind. They don't care about me. Why should they? I'm worthless. I'm already dead.


....


"Get your head in the game, Dallon!" Becky shouted at me. I looked away from the stands. He's not here, I told myself. Dad's not coming.


I had to work extra hard to compete, being a freshman on the varsity team. In a school with a lot of competition. I was taller than a lot of the junior girls, and I trained harder and was in better shape than almost all of them. Of course I was. I was training for when I got my powers, and my competition was only training to be good at a sport.


We had gotten this far on so much hard work, I had gotten this far. And Dad couldn't even bother to show up for the championship game. It didn't help that it was an away game. It didn't help that the school we were up against was twice our size, and so could afford to be twice as picky over who they could put on their team. Almost all of them were seniors, and I suspected a couple of them were held back a year. We were holding on, just barely. I tried to smile, it would be one hell of an underdog story, wouldn't it? I could do this.


The ball passed to me, and I managed dribble past one of the older girls on the other team. The next girl up to guard me was one I'd dealt with before. Not the most effective player, I was confident I could get past her..


Then she stepped into me, deliberately. Her shoulder catching me hard in the jaw. I dropped hard. "Watch it, shrimp," the girl mocked me as I sat there on the floor. I glanced over to the refs, but they didn't call the foul. Of course not, they're on the other team's side. There wasn't enough time on the clock I glanced back at the audience. They not on my side, either. Dad wasn't there for me, and he would never be. There's no reason to keep fighting.


....


The world collapsed around me. Them. A trail of impossibly beautiful gemstones, dancing in the void. I've seen them before. I know them. I know... what did I know?


"Sarah?" Khepri's dad asked, helping my Aunt, who had fallen in the excitement. Dizzy spell brought on by... something... no long term risk. "Sarah, are you okay? What happened?"


I looked around. Mom and Dad shook their heads. Mom's been overworking herself, I realized. Probably not sleeping much. Dad's in okay shape. Aunt Sarah... eww, I didn't need to know about that. I'd never be able to look her in the eyes again in my life.


Wait? How the fuck did I know all that? Oh, I realized. It happened again.


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

A/N- And there you have it. "Fouled in basketball" resulting in a "Shaker" powerset (two of them, actually- both the aura and the forcefield that sources all her other powers), and shakers are, according to WoG, "Environmental danger, ambient danger, often nonhuman or only abstractly human."

Debating over second gens aside, WoG makes it obvious there was more to Vicky's story than a Basketball foul- THAT would be a brute, striker, or maybe blaster power.

 

[minuseven]

/le sigh

... I guess that, in the end, regardless of what I think is canon (I still don't agree), what I want is: People not underestimating the impact a trigger event has on a parahuman, whatever generation they are. Because, when this arguments comes up, and it does so many times, it's usually a variation of "second generations have it easy". Then it can, and does but not so often, develop into bashing territory. And it's... against everything that trigger events are.

It doesn't feel right to me to undersell when bad things happen to people. It's the "deal with it", "I've gone through worst" and "you don't have the right to say anything".

Are we done now? (because my opinion isn't changing, and neither are yours so there)

EDIT: Oh look, a chapter. So it's a thinker power? Anyway, this was a trigger event right in front of her whole family.

 

[Dreadis]

*squints* did she get a bud off Lisa?

 

[EnderofWorlds]

/le sigh

... I guess that, in the end, regardless of what I think is canon (I still don't agree), what I want is: People not underestimating the impact a trigger event has on a parahuman, whatever generation they are. Because, when this arguments comes up, and it does so many times, it's usually a variation of "second generations have it easy". Then it can, and does but not so often, develop into bashing territory. And it's... against everything that trigger events are.

It doesn't feel right to me to undersell when bad things happen to people. It's the "deal with it", "I've gone through worst" and "you don't have the right to say anything".

Are we done now? (because my opinion isn't changing, and neither are yours so there)

Click to shrink...

They don't have it easy, no; but we have plenty of in story and WoG confirmation that it is easier for them. A trigger event shouldn't be undersold, but the fact that it's not to the same degree does matter and should be noted; even if it's only for the reasons you've stated that are bad and wrong. Because those are sources of conflict and hey, guess what the magic space whales are looking for?

*squints* did she get a bud off Lisa?

Click to shrink...

Maybe; on the one hand the power fits, but on the other hand Lisa already had a second trigger and those are basically repurposed buds to upgrade the original. On the thrid tentacle is the fact that shards themselves have multiple expressions of what they can be and WoG that no to powers really work the same way, even if they have the same result.

 

[dasstan]

That's certainly interesting. A thinker power and she also glows. Does she have a breaker state related superpower similar to Emma, or is the glow an unrelated thing?

Could be a thinker expression of Riley's shard. Her inference powers seem to be focused on the body/health.

 

[Slayer Anderson]

I'm guessing some form of diagnostic vision, likely a ping/bud off of Amy. The glow...I'm not so sure of. However, if Vicky actually thought she was 'worthless' that self-loathing might mean a Changer power...

 

[Prince Charon]

(please note I don't think Vicky's stupid, but omg did she use wisdom as a dump stat..)

Click to shrink...

To be fair to Vicky, not only is she a teenager, but it's Worm: It would be easier to list the people who didn't use Wisdom as a dump stat.

 

[Alterego9]

*squints* did she get a bud off Lisa?

Click to shrink...

The smuggening! Oh, the smuggening!

Also, the inevitable second trigger as she proceeds to gain insight about Bonesaw, aboutTattletale, and about Amy's former crush.

 

[Izicata]

Maybe; on the one hand the power fits, but on the other hand Lisa already had a second trigger and those are basically repurposed buds to upgrade the original.

Click to shrink...

I am 100% sure that's incorrect. Taylor triggered twice in the locker, one right after the first. That's not possible if second triggers are repurposed buds; QA wouldn't have generated any buds at all in the short period of time between the first and second trigger. Second triggers are the passenger removing restrictions, such as arbitrary Manton Limits, or allowing the host access to more of the passenger's powers, such as Grue gaining power-copying or Lisa gaining post-cognition. A host-second triggering does not "consume" a bud, so Lisa second-triggering does not prevent Victoria's new power from being a bud of Inference Engine.