Amelia, Worm AU [Complete]

[evildice]

I can start copy pasting t7W's original posts from the thread over on SB if you're really jonesing for it?

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I bet they'd be equally applicable to the current story.

Rapture is going to need many hugs after this.

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Rey will ask to borrow the grotto for an evening.

 

[Navrin]

Frankly, I'd be surprised if regular ol' gangs even bother to fight when Pantheon rolls around.

These are the folks who iced the Simurgh without a single casualty on their roster.

The Fallen get a pass for being insane jackasses, but everybody else should probably be running by now.

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Pretty sure there were multiple casualties among the deities of Pantheon during the Simurgh fight. What they avoided were fatalities. Mostly taken down from combat capability due to mental trauma than anything else, but still.

 

[evildice]

Pretty sure there were multiple casualties among the deities of Pantheon during the Simurgh fight. What they avoided were fatalities. Mostly taken down from combat capability due to mental trauma than anything else, but still.

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Technically, Crystal did die.

It's just that she got better before anyone outside Pantheon noticed.

 

[Prince Charon]

Technically, Crystal did die.

It's just that she got better before anyone outside Pantheon noticed.

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That would just make them scarier, if anyone knew.

 

[pheonix89]

Frankly, I'd be surprised if regular ol' gangs even bother to fight when Pantheon rolls around.

These are the folks who iced the Simurgh without a single casualty on their roster.

The Fallen get a pass for being insane jackasses, but everybody else should probably be running by now.

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Let's not forget what happened to the one group to score anything vaguely resembling a victory. A sub-group of the Teeth fights off one force? Pantheon manages to kill off the butcher permanently AND one of the capes involved in the group that fought off the pantheon force suddenly completely vanishes.

 

[rick1497]

Pantheon facts: Pantheon survived the Simurgh's bomb: India did not.
Behemoth has been at war with Earth for years, taking down some of it's strongest capes. Behemoth took one look at Pantheon and ran away.
Pantheon is actually a group of rouges, Hades is paying them a lot to collect the souls of the damned.
Taylor has two jobs on her resume: warlord, goddess.

 

[Alterego9]

I'm still upset about Taylor you know.
She dies and because she has a twin everyone is suddenly 'meh, replacement goldfish'.

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It probably helps that Taylor is one of the people who think that way.

If she would be thinking of herself as merely Taylor's twin, then everyone else would appear cold for ignoring that. But when we keep reading chapters from the POV of someone who considers herself Taylor, it's hard to keep caring too deeply about the anti-transhumanist interpretation of existence according to which they are wrong.

 

[Navrin]

She's Taylor Hebert just as much as the first Taylor was Taylor Hebert. However, they weren't the SAME Taylor Hebert at any point. The instant the second Taylor Hebert was "born" she diverged from the first one's memory upload.

Sort of like Dragon; every iteration has equal claim to being Dragon. However, each iteration was a unique individual and each of their deaths a tragedy.

Personally, I think preemptive cloning would be better for everything except maintaining their deceptive house of cards which I don't think they should be doing anyway. It's a weakness that can be exploited by revealing it at a bad time by anybody who has figured it out, it's unethical in the first place to deceive the people cloned and the people close to them, and it closes down some very important options like having multiple iterations of a person active at the same time. It's also probably a lot more emotionally healthy.

 

[Jiven]

I quit reading all of Martin's works after I realized he bores me to tears. Ugh.

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YES! YES! Thank you so much, I am surrounded by Game of Thrones' fans, I can't take it anymore!

 

[Nigel Burnelli Isaacs]

Well nice update, so Vicky notices Taylor getting upset at the sight of bones that should tell her something bout how she is not some kind of monster. The Fallen as shown here were rather interesting and dangerous Parahumans by normal standards, it is no wonder Haven and the Local heroes has difficulties with them especially if you count that on the top of the parahumans featured here they also had the likes of Valefor and Eligos on their roster. As for them doing the whole reeding program thing well it is not that surprising, in fact I believe there is even a WoG saying that the fallen were made up of different families so it fits in some way.

Victoria showed how dangerous she was in a fight when dealing with the fallen, but we also got showed that her power is not always an autowin and it was nice to see that there are things it cannot crack like Theo's armor. Also Victoria worked her frustrations out on Baal by choosing to kill the guy(not that he didn't deserve) which is a slippery slope for her and doesn't resolve ll the issues this mission brought up, issues that needs to be adressed before Victoria goes to a deep end.

 

[Alterego9]

She's Taylor Hebert just as much as the first Taylor was Taylor Hebert. However, they weren't the SAME Taylor Hebert at any point. The instant the second Taylor Hebert was "born" she diverged from the first one's memory upload.

Sort of like Dragon; every iteration has equal claim to being Dragon. However, each iteration was a unique individual and each of their deaths a tragedy.

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Also, sort of like everyone else, whose brain has ever diverged from a state that it was in previously. You are not the same Navrin that you were a minute ago, and diverged even more over a year or a decade. You would also be different after a brain trauma ereased a week of your memories, or a drug changed your mood. This is still not treated as a tragic example of constant death, as long as you are thought of as the same person.

This discussion is old hat. The point is exactly that a person's continued existence could be whatever we consider to be that.

It's as hard to mourn Taylor's death when she is running around, as it is mourning your death based on how you are not the same person as in your childhood. Not because both of these objectively count as survival, but because either of them being counted as survival is arbitrary.

 

[Alterego9]

Well nice update, so Vicky notices Taylor getting upset at the sight of bones that should tell her something bout how she is not some kind of monster.

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That Taylor gave the command for suspending the scouting mission and saving the girl, probably helped even more.

To Vicky, this is basically bonding experience.

 

[Nigel Burnelli Isaacs]

That Taylor gave the command for suspending the scouting mission and saving the girl, probably helped even more.

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I was thinking that too...at first but then I thought about the previous updates, most notably when Victoria pointed out she could end Slitter, as she still calls her, and that the latter couldn't do anything to stop her and that Amelia would not be able to put her back together, hence Taylor ordering to nix the mission to save the girl could be perceived by Victoria and her warped logic as her doing so knowing she would NOT be able to stop her from doing it anyway, while Taylor's rection to the bones was involuntary and thus not something Victoria could shrug off as her trying to manipulate her or something.

 

[dasstan]

Does Vicky still think of Amy as Panacea in the same way she thinks of Taylor as Skitter?

 

[Alterego9]

Does Vicky still think of Amy as Panacea in the same way she thinks of Taylor as Skitter?

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I don't think she ever thought of her as Panacea.

She is using whatever names she is the most used to. She didn't know Taylor on a first name basis, and she never learned about Pantheon's Khepri from the outside, so Skitter it is.

In Amelia's case, the same principle is showed by still calling her Amy instead of Amelia, but she was always her sister, cape name irrelevant.

 

[Snake/Eater]

Vicky still has a mental problem and Taylor may have been trying to have her killed off.from Taylor's point of view it was a win or win situation.get rid of the annoying mentally ill mind rapist rival/sister of my fiance or rid the world of a mentally ill murdering rapist cult leader.After all... they would just grow a new Vicky.

 

[tkioz]

Well technically Vicky acted impulsive, but you need to be one cold bastard not to intervene when a child is about to be raped, ready for the fight or not.

I cackled merrily every time she took a shot at Bael's junk, perfect way to put a dude off his game, of course its also poetic justice.

 

[Snake/Eater]

When Taylor is on the job,nothing gets in the way....

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 193


Vicky and Taylor shunted over together, on the helipad of the Houston PRT office where I was waiting. "Where are the others?" I asked.


"Horus has business to take care of," Taylor informed me. "Aceso, Lachesis and Osiris opted to stay with him." Oh, he must have found Purity during the cleanup. Of course they'd want to talk while they had the chance. Purity's new identity may have been squeaky clean, but she hadn't been able to make real contact with Theo for whatever reasons that seemed overly paranoid in my opinion. It was good to give them a chance to catch up.


"I guess that's okay," I replied, trying to sound disinterested in the situation. "They're not necessary for the debriefing, after all. You're still monitoring them in case of unexpected trouble, of course?"


"Of course," she agreed. All part of the act.


"Umm... Vicky, how are you holding up?" I asked. There was a lot of things between us right now.


"Shoulder's sore," was her answer. "I think Lilith did something that's keeping me from regenerating properly. It can wait until after the meeting."


"I meant-" You finding out about my attraction. Me trapping you in your own armor. What happened between you and Taylor. What you saw in that compound that horrified even Taylor. "You've never had to kill anyone before," I finally settled on the safest of all the things I wanted to say. ConcernSupport.


"I still haven't," she said dismissively. "That sack of shit wasn't human." AgreementDisgust. Oh god, Taylor and Vicky agree on something.


I frowned. This was just like Vicky. If she couldn't hit the problem, or yell at it until she got her way, she'd pretend it wasn't a problem at all. Like Dad's depression, and Mom's general bitchiness, and her make up to break up relationship with Dean. Now that I think about it, she hasn't even mentioned Dean since she was brought back from the dead. Maybe she was more like Zach than I realized.


We made our way to the meeting relatively silently, led by a couple PRT troopers, who politely left us to our silent contemplation with nothing more than a "Please follow us, ma'ams."


We walked into a rather spacious office. Houston was a big city, big enough to field three Protectorate teams, plus six of the Haven capes, and still remain understaffed. And that was before New Delhi. This base was understandably massive for those reasons. Already present was Halo and Prophet. We didn't know his powerset, but it was likely some type of precognition or high end thinker, based on the name.


Then there was Ranger, one of the 'makes others better' trumps, gifting superhuman accuracy and timing. He was the new head of the Houston Protectorate after Eidolon's pseudo-retirement to dedicate himself to the anti Endbringer efforts. Then of course the Director Lane, a middle aged man who reminded me of a significantly less obese, and slightly less masculine, Piggot.


"This was intended to be a scouting mission," the Director said with an attempt at neutrality that didn't match the accusatory language. We hadn't even had a chance to find our seats. He looked toward Victoria. "You're the one who killed Baal?"


"Ye-" Vicky started, but was cut off.


"It was my command," Taylor interrupted. "She informed me that she was confident her power trumped Baal's, but only if she was authorized to use lethal force. I authorized lethal force."


"And what gave you the authority to murder a suspect during a scouting mission?" he, again, kept calm. "You are not authorized law enforcement, and even if you were, you have no jurisdiction in this state."


"The fucker was going to rape a child!" Vicky shouted.


"Miss Dallon," he sighed theatrically. "If you can't restrain your temper, either leave or be escorted out."


"As if you could make me do anything," Vicky smirked.


"Vicky," I looked at her. "Please. For me?"


"Fine," she muttered.


"He's hostile for political leverage," Lisa informed us over the coms. "Afraid our alliance with Haven will do in Houston what we did in Brockton Bay, and our alliances in Boston and New York are doing there. Wants to make us look bad to Halo so he isn't willing to be too closely associated with us. Frankly, he probably doesn't need a lot of convincing. Our team name doesn't exactly inspire him to love us. Be apologetic about this, but not so much that it looks like weakness, that would be even worse than being proud of it. Couldn't hurt to imply that Lane would have left that girl to be abused. Buy me a few, I'm gonna make some phone calls."


"It was regrettable," I started. "But our only alternative would have been to let Baal rape and impregnate a fourteen year old girl. Khepri made the right decision."


"What are your powers?" Prophet asked, looking at Victoria.


"Brute, mover, striker, and combat thinker," Vicky answered without hesitation. "I can sense you using your power on me, by the way. My power's telling me that the longer I let you do that, the harder it will be for me to fight you in the future. Power detector? Analyzer? Wow, glad you're on our side."


"I would have liked to keep that a secret," he sighed. "Ironic, I guess. And your power is what made you believe you had to kill Baal to beat him?"


"He could have recovered from anything less," she answered. "My power said no to using containment foam on them, and ruled out all our other disabling options. It insisted that my options were kill, or let him go."


"Which fits with intel from other fights against them, as well as what we could learn from our own thinkers," Taylor added quickly. "Baal's escaped from foam before, and we now know that Lilith generates some kind of disintegration field through her skin."


"And that's why you dismembered Lilith?"


"She did that to herself," Taylor answered. "She attacked Lachesis, whose specialized armor is designed to use dimensional warping to disable attacks. You'd have to talk to our tinkers for details, but you have records on Vista and her power. Singularity was custom built to harness that. It even includes an anti-precog effect that likely explains why Lilith didn't know better."


"Beats my combat precognition, too," Vicky added. "Seriously, her power is so unfair. She is one of the Endslayers for a reason."


"And Seire?" the Director reminded us.


"Didn't have much choice," Vicky answered dismissively. "I hit him as hard as I had to to keep him from teleporting away, or we would never have found him. Ames will patch him up. Right, sis?"


"Of course," I frowned. This reminds me an awful lot of the E88 thugs before Leviathan.


SurpriseConfidence. "Umm, this may sound like a non sequitur, but what do you think of the Railroad Bandits?"


"Bunch of second rate thugs and vandals," the Director told us dismissively. "Not worth bringing up at this meeting."


"They play up a sort of noble thieves image," Halo added. "It's right there in their name, romanticizing tales of the Wild West and emphasizing anti big business and big government sentiment. In the interest of avoiding a long winded history lesson, it's easiest just to call it a southwestern version of the Robin Hood mythology. The Director's right when he says they're unimportant. Mostly guilty of nuisance crimes, and only against companies or groups that are politically unpopular. Certain vocal minorities even call them heroes. Why do you ask?"


"They found out we were in town," Taylor informed. "And have decided to preemptively surrender and offer join up. Apparently they smoked out one of the Fallen's drug dens and came away with a couple of the capes we hadn't found yet. Something about handing them over as a welcoming party gift. Minerva and our own public policy says we accept both of their offers. You can arrange the legal steps needed, right?"


Director Lane's skin changed to a lovely shade of scarlet. "You can't be serious!" he exclaimed.


"Hey, don't look at me," Taylor shrugged. "All we came here for was the Fallen. Seems our reputation preceded us." SmugHappyAmused. I smiled. We put a lot of work into that rep, it's nice to see it pay off.


"Is there anything else, Director?" I asked.


"We still haven't settled the matter of your subordinate," he emphasized the word, and I could imagine Vicky's response would be ugly. "And her premeditated execution of a man. A criminal, I'll grant you, but we don't take kindly to vigilante justice."


ConfidentCertainty. "Actually, Director Lane, we've taken the liberty of presenting our findings to Chief Director Costa-Brown," Taylor spoke up. "You should be receiving a call in three... two..."


A phone rang. Not taking his eyes off of us, Lane answered. "Yes?" "Yes Ma'am." "No, Ma'am." "I understand." "Sorry for the inconvenience." "Thank you, Ma'am." He hung up, and still hadn't stopped looking at us, though his expression had gotten even more unhappy as he listened to the woman on the other side of the conversation. "It seems the Chief Director has, after receiving and confirming evidence of a forced parahuman breeding program, issued a kill order on Baal, retroactively." He informed us. Somehow, he made it sound like he had just given Hitler the Congressional Medal of Honor.


"Awesome!" Vicky said happily. "So, I have a feeling you guys have a lot to talk about. Since I'm not needed anymore, can I go scout out the eateries? I promise to bring you back something delicious. I hear great things about ribs around here."


"That's probably a good idea," Taylor agreed. "You're dismissed."


"Thanks!" Vicky exclaimed, and then simply vanished from the room.


"Little sisters," I offered apologetically.


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

A/N- Apparently 3k words in one day wasn't enough, so here's another 1600.

 

[Nigel Burnelli Isaacs]

This was suppose to be a scouting mission

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I think that would be supposed to.

Now interesting update, with Amelia analysing Victoria's attitued towards problems in general and her reacting to Victoria behaving like in the"good ol' days"when they were in BB chasing E88 thugs, truly something has to be done about this. Now it was nice to see that Taylor took Victoria's defense as she acted like a leader should by presenting a united front and taking responsibility for her subordinate, now wether it was genuine or just for show is up to debate. but I would say vicky still needs some boundaries before it is too late for her to learn.

It was also nice to see that Theo will have some time with Kayden and perhaps Aster and that his friends opted to stay with him. Now about the Railroad bandit I think there might be a trap in their offer: The Fallen had a high powered Master in the person of Valefor, and we know that powers tend to run in families, so it is quite posssible that said team got taken over by one of Valefor's hypothetic relative and that they will be used to strike at the pantheon when they have their guard down.

 

[Snake/Eater]

.Now it was nice to see that Taylor took Victoria's defense as she acted like a leader should by presenting a united front and taking responsibility for her subordinate, now wether it was genuine or just for show is up to debate.

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It could be guilt for setting her up to get killed or because Vicky saved her conscience from letting a young girl get raped in front of her.only four people will know what was going through Taylor's mind,Taylor,God,Lisa and TanaNari.

 

[Inverness]

Isn't Eidolon headquartered in Houston?

 

[SirKaid]

I thought Eidolon was the head of the Houston Protectorate. Am I misremembering?

Imped by Inverness.

 

[TanaNari]

Isn't Eidolon headquartered in Houston?

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(total lies) Umm... Butterflies! Yeah. David's conserving power, so he isn't doing heroing. Yeah. That's it!


(the truth) *Repeated head desks* Research. Failure. Fuck. My. Life.

Editing.

I don't think she ever thought of her as Panacea.

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Exactly. Note that she doesn't say "Amelia", either. To her, it'll always be Amy or Ames. Because yup.

She didn't know Taylor on a first name basis, and she never learned about Pantheon's Khepri from the outside, so Skitter it is.

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No. She's quite aware of Skitter's new identity as Khepri. The difference between 'knows' and 'cares' is an important one here.

 

[Inverness]

It's totally a good thing. The more Eidolon interacts with Pantheon, the sooner they'll discover he made the Endbringers and shit hits the fan.

 

[alanek]

It's totally a good thing. The more Eidolon interacts with Pantheon, the sooner they'll discover he made the Endbringers and shit hits the fan.

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Feels like it's going to be more of a brick hitting the fan. you know. Lots of shrapnel.

 

[Nigel Burnelli Isaacs]

On a completly unrelated note: you know what the scariest thing about Victoria's trigger is ? It is that it implies that all of the pantheon shards love their combat systems so much that they use them as a template for their buds: Imagine what Crystal's or Theo and the Moira's bud would be...Oh and isn't Theo visiting Aster soon ?

 

[Slayer Anderson]

"He's hostile for political leverage," Lisa informed us over the coms. "Afraid our alliance with Haven will do in Houston what we did in Brockton Bay, and our alliances in Boston and New York are doing there. Wants to make us look bad to Halo so he isn't willing to be too closely associated with us. Frankly, he probably doesn't need a lot of convincing. Our team name doesn't exactly inspire him to love us. Be apologetic about this, but not so much that it looks like weakness, that would be even worse than being proud of it. Couldn't hurt to imply that Lane would have left that girl to be abused. Buy me a few, I'm gonna make some phone calls."
...
ConfidentCertainty. "Actually, Director Lane, we've taken the liberty of presenting our findings to Chief Director Costa-Brown," Taylor spoke up. "You should be receiving a call in three... two..."

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Isn't it nice how Lisa can just call up Costa-Brown and have a heart-to-heart chat? They probably spend late nights whispering sweet nothing to each other and giggling like schoolgirls.

Or scheduling covert meet-ups to stare deeply into each others' smoldering gazes...

 

[Peanuckle]

Or scheduling covert meet-ups to stare deeply into each others' smoldering gazes...

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She knows I know

She knows I know she knows

She knows I know she knows I know

She knows I know she... "Oh just kiss me already!"

 

[Inverness]

Feels like it's going to be more of a brick hitting the fan. you know. Lots of shrapnel.

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Bricks and shit are not mutually exclusive.

Isn't it nice how Lisa can just call up Costa-Brown and have a heart-to-heart chat? They probably spend late nights whispering sweet nothing to each other and giggling like schoolgirls.

Or scheduling covert meet-ups to stare deeply into each others' smoldering gazes...

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Now I imagine them sitting down a table for a meeting. They would sit on opposite ends, both doing the Gendou pose. Just before things get too awkward for the audience they both stand up, shake hands, and conclude the meeting.

On a semi-related note, whatever makeup and behavior Costa-Brown uses to appear older must be pretty good. I wonder if she's ever done the opposite and disguised herself as a typical teenager. She probably could.

I'm trying to imagine the look on Lisa face if they met like that.

Now the Mysterious Transfer Student trope comes to mind. If this was Atonement you'd have Ms. Fortune thrown into the mix. It would be the most surreal thing ever.

...

My mind is going strange places it seems.