Amelia, Worm AU [Complete]

[dasstan]

You fools. This is all either Taylor's dying hallucination as she chokes on her own vomit in the locker, or Amelia's dying hallucination as Cherish drives past the bounds of sanity.

Or in some weird Interstellar timewarpy bullshit, it's both.

 

[GiftofLove]

Theo's stomach dropped when he saw Riley's grim expression. She had gotten a small lab coat somewhere, he noticed. Under different circumstances it would have been cute.

"What's wrong with her?" He asked anxiously.

Riley sighed, reaching up to wash her face with her hands. "I'm not going to sugarcoat it. It's pretty serious." She warned him, muffled through her cupped palms. When she removed her hands there was a different look to her eyes. A weight.

Theo's hands clenched into fists at his side. Anything that gave Riley trouble was bad news. "Tell me."

Riley lead him over to the healing pod that Missy was occupying. She stopped in front of it and just spent a good moment studying her best friend's sleeping face.

"I'm afraid Missy has a bad case of Repressed Teenage Drama," Riley spoke at last. "It's the worst case I've ever seen. She's been holding it in, trying to prove a point by being more reasonable and 'adult' than the actual adults on our team, but it's been taking its toll. The human body isn't made to bottle up that much rebellion, not at such a young age. The build up has put a massive amount of stress on her body. The fight against Leviathan finally pushed her over the edge, and this is the result."

Riley took a breath.

"There's nothing I can do. The only thing I - we can do is wait and hope. It's in her hands now."

 

[Peanuckle]

"I'm afraid Missy has a bad case of Repressed Teenage Drama,"

Click to shrink...

Poor Missy. When the authority figures are letting you do everything you want and set loose guidelines, how do you rebel?

 

[Slayer Anderson]

Poor Missy. When the authority figures are letting you do everything you want and set loose guidelines, how do you rebel?

Click to shrink...

In Missy's case, it's pretty easy.

Just stage a coup while Amelia and Taylor are on the honeymoon.

 

[pepperjack]

I was wondering if anyone would spot that.

Click to shrink...

...really? You practically hung a neon sign from every instrument of a seven-nation big brass band (whose marching orders take them between each reader and his or her respective monitor)* proclaiming that they were up to no good. It reminded me of Taylor meeting the danged S9 after they released the brain mist.

How little faith in your readers do you actually have?


*The sheet music is just "pay attention to these guys, they're bad news" in beautifully arranged Morse code. Also, the drum major is yelling that constantly.

 

[doomlord9]

...really? You practically hung a neon sign from every instrument of a seven-nation big brass band (whose marching orders take them between each reader and his or her respective monitor)* proclaiming that they were up to no good. It reminded me of Taylor meeting the danged S9 after they released the brain mist.

How little faith in your readers do you actually have?


*The sheet music is just "pay attention to these guys, they're bad news" in beautifully arranged Morse code. Also, the drum major is yelling that constantly.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, I didn't bother mentioning it either because it was just too obvious. Exactly like the S9 thing, the quote at the end of that chapter with Bonesaw telling Skitter not to swear was almost excessive foreshadowing to the point of being blindingly blatant.

I mean seriously, a group of people in an unstable building bitching when a hero comes in and saves them and then one of the heroes 'mysteriously' falls unconscious shortly afterwards? I love it when little things that aren't obvious until later are snuck in but subtle that was not.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 301- Missy


Fuck my head hurts. My vision was blurry. I can't move. And... and... I can't feel my power!


A sudden burst of cool air heralded the opening of the pod. "Did... did I die again?" I asked, on the off chance someone would hear. It didn't feel like this last time, but I didn't have a lot to compare it to. Maybe the process didn't go right?


"Nope," Emma answered, and her voice made my head hurt that much more. "But you're going to feel like you did for a while."


"What happened?" I asked.


"Oh, a few things," she responded. "But let's get the rest of the team in here. They'd like to have a word with you."


"My head hurts," I complained. In fact, my everywhere hurts. My skin is hot and itchy, everything smells wrong. I'm pretty sure at some point my armor had to use its auto-clean features. "Can't it just wait."


"Good," Emma responded, her voice hard. "And no, this gets dealt with it now."


I started to protest, or maybe just try to ask why Emma was so mad at me, I didn't have the chance.



"She's awake!" she shouted, and my brain felt like it was trying to claw its way out of my eye sockets to escape the pain.


Riley was the first one in, followed by Theo. Both of them looked upset. What I wasn't expecting was Taylor, Amelia and Lisa. None of them looked exactly happy, either. Oh god, what's going on here?


Emma smacked her lips. "So," she drew out the word for several seconds. "Did you know that you're not suppose to take the stim drugs while pregnant?"


Pregnant?! "What?!" Theo exclaimed.


Riley squeaked, but didn't say anything.


"No!" I shouted, jolting up. Immediately I was hit with a massive throbbing pain in my skull, and waves of nausea that probably only didn't result in me getting sick by virtue of there being nothing in my stomach to lose. I covered my hands over my face. "I'm not pregnant, I swear."


"You're sure about that?" Emma asked.


"Very!" I insisted. "I haven't done anything that could get anyone pregnant. So unless Riley cooked up some kind of weird drug!"


"Nope," Riley replied. "But that sounds-"


Amelia interrupted her. "No."


"But it could solve our population problems in less than thirty years!" Riley insisted.


"Still no," Amelia responded. "I vetoed the airborn aphrodesiacs. I vetoed the subtle fertility drugs in the fruit. I vetoed Yggdrasil that makes birth control not work. What makes you think I wouldn't veto immaculate conception?"


"But this one works twice as fast as all the others combined!" Riley whined. "For less than half the effort!"


"That's not the point, Riley," Taylor sighed. "Yes, we want a population boom. But we don't want to do it by forcing people to have children they don't want. Or forcing them to want children that they don't want."


"Rule Three, I know," Riley pouted.


"Can we get back to the part about how pregnant I'm not supposed to be!" I exclaimed, perhaps a little less dignified than I would have liked. But seriously, there was no natural way I could be pregnant. Sure, with the way parahumans worked, it wasn't impossible, but I was freaking out over here while they were acting like that was only a secondary concern.


"Sure," Emma agreed. "To start with, I didn't say you were pregnant. I asked if you knew the warnings on the stim drugs included not using them if you're pregnant. Did you read those warnings?"


"Yes, of course," I answered. I'm not pregnant, that's good. Now why are they all... Oh, so that's what happened. "I didn't have any choice!" I argued. "If I didn't, people could have died. We..." I looked at the faces of everyone gathered. "I fucked up, didn't I?"


"Scale of one to ten, where one is stealing the office stationary and ten is leaving Rey unsupervised with the samples we gathered from the Simurgh? This is somewhere around a seven and a half. Seriously, what were you thinking?"


"I... I'm not strong enough on my own," I sighed. "Avalon's got too many people now. I needed to use the stims just to get the zerg to the battlefield. But you said that the drugs were okay for the Endbringer battles."


"No, not okay," Taylor replied. "A backup if you're desperate. And you're only supposed to use them once, maybe twice if you have to. To buy yourself half an hour of boosted abilities. And then you're supposed to take a day or two off to rest afterward. Sleep, read, replace Zach's porn folder with pictures of grasshoppers. Do anything other than using your powers. What you're not supposed to do is take three more doses in as many hours. Missy, you're suppose to be one of the responsible ones. This is the sort of thing I'd expect to find Rey or Riley doing."


"Not me," Riley insisted. "I helped write the warnings and instructions. I'll never use that stuff if I can avoid it."


"But I needed to," I whimpered. "Without the stimulants, I can't help with the Endbringer battles. Or to save lives afterward. It's not like I'm abusing drugs and you need to stage an intervention. I only use them to help against Endbringers. I'm willing to pay the price for that afterward. I just went a little too far this time. It won't happen again."


"Missy," Emma spoke up softly. "Those stims are serious brain altering chemicals. There's a reason they're emergency only, instead of standard issue. You've done a lot of damage to how your powers work."


That's why I can't feel my power, I realized with horror. "How long?" I asked.


"We had to put you on a drug that will block your powers for at least the next month," Riley's voice was actually timid. "I'm sorry, please don't hate me."


Ouch. "A whole month?"


"At least that long," Taylor stressed. "And even after that, your powers will be weakened for several more weeks. It's possible they'll never fully recover."


"I already repaired most of the damage," Amelia spoke up. "Chances are high that you'll make a full recovery in time."


"But the brain restoration tech!" I protested. Don't cry. Don't you dare cry in front of everyone like this.


"Useless," Emma cut the argument in half with a word. "These drugs overclock your powers, and the part of your brain that uses them. We can undo the trouble on your side but the Passenger's a different subject entirely. We can't fix that. Even if we killed you and activated your backup, the damage you've done will carry over to that version of you. It's part of the reason we won't allow clones of living parahumans, squick factor notwithstanding. The results would mean weakened powers for all the copies, and possible breakdown of the powers in general. To say nothing of the clones' sanity."


"But the Endbringers," I protested.


"Aren't your problem for at least the next three or four months," Taylor spoke, sounding both angry and sad. "We'll find ways to compensate. Put more emphasis on Dragon's suits. Other transport tech. Using the old purely organic shock troops. They're not as good, but they can be made on location and we have plenty of raw material. Maybe we can find a way to hire that Thanda cape to work with us for this. We can combine him and Eric pretty effectively. Between us, the Protectorate, and Cauldron's connections, we'll be able to figure something out."


They're already planning to replace me. The thought was like a punch in the gut. I guess I can't blame them. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean for this to happen," I whimpered.


Theo hugged me. "It's okay," he insisted. "You'll be fine."


I hugged him back. How am I suppose to live without my powers?


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


A/N- As far as I can tell, no one saw that one coming. But you can't say I didn't drop plenty of hints that Missy might be abusing the stims a bit.

And this marks the fifth Riley Rule presented in canon.

 

[abyssmal_kismet]

The results would mean weakened powers for all the copies, and possible breakdown of the powers in general.

Click to shrink...

This makes no sense as anything except an untested theory; the S9K blatantly disprove it.

 

[TanaNari]

How little faith in your readers do you actually have?

Click to shrink...

Considering one of my readers is t7w? But in all seriousness, no one caught the drug abuse thing, and I thought that was pretty obvious... so... yeah.

Bonesaw telling Skitter not to swear was almost excessive foreshadowing to the point of being blindingly blatant.

Click to shrink...

That's not foreshadowing, dude. That's a wham moment. Pretty much the exact opposite of foreshadowing.

Eidolon's connection to the Endbringers. THAT was foreshadowing.

Eden: Foreshadowing.

Noelle: Foreshadowing.

Scion's the real Big Bad: Foreshadowing.

S9 in the fog: Wham moment. You can tell because it was the last line in the chapter, and with Wildbow that means it's almost always a wham moment.

EDIT: Technically, it's actually a Wham Line

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WhamLine

According to TVtropes.

I mean seriously, a group of people in an unstable building bitching when a hero comes in and saves them and then one of the heroes 'mysteriously' falls unconscious shortly afterwards?

Click to shrink...

Yay for red herrings?

Seriously, though. I'm not nearly that ham fisted.

They were there more as a character fault display moment for Theo. That boy's too trusting. And/or rejecting instincts that tell him someone's bad news because he's afraid it's his upbringing at work instead of good people sense.

No one really picked up on that, either.

I love it when little things that aren't obvious until later are snuck in but subtle that was not.

Click to shrink...

Satisfied now?

This makes no sense as anything except an untested theory; the S9K blatantly disprove it.

Click to shrink...

Actually, it makes a lot of sense. Word of God is that Echidna could have damaged the cycle by "overbudding" the shards with her clones. Y'know, if she lived that long.

And given how the S9000 were shredded like so much tissue paper, while the originals were legendary terrors? Yeah, clearly something wasn't right about them.

 

[Finbar]

I think the key thing in the latest chapter, is that Missy isnt sure she can be a person without her powers.

Her powers define who she is.

thats all shades of messed up.

Seriously! It doesnt mean Theo and Riley will care less about her. But to her, it does.

GAH! STUPID!

 

[Divabot]

Ding ding ding!
We have a winner!
I was wondering if anyone would spot that.

Click to shrink...

I was actually surprised Theo didn't make anything of their completely weird behaviour, then thought "well, rescue work is a hurry".

 

[Jiven]

Make sense.

 

[tEN]

A/N- As far as I can tell, no one saw that one coming. But you can't say I didn't drop plenty of hints that Missy might be abusing the stims a bit.

Click to shrink...

You liked the post where I guessed this.

 

[Daunmi]

Aesco triggered.

Click to shrink...

Aceso is Riley's cape name... so that happened a while ago. Also, she wasn't there...

Click to shrink...

Actually, I've kind of been wondering for a while now whether or not any of Pantheon having a second trigger would prompt a collapse of all of them, given how linked up all their armor is, possibly propagating through shunt tech or the Taylia link or something like that.

It's be a serious set back in some respects if they hadn't thought of it, but at the same time it'd result in any of them second triggering with a ping off every other Pantheon member.

A/N- As far as I can tell, no one saw that one coming. But you can't say I didn't drop plenty of hints that Missy might be abusing the stims a bit.

Click to shrink...

I knew I should have had a guess. I knew I should have had a guess. Collapsed and not responding didn't sound like pregnancy or anything else I could think of, but I figured she might have overdone the stimulants to help rescue people (not quite what happened, but close).

But, of course, I figured that you were just being a jerk and making it look like that was what was happening. So that couldn't possibly be the case.

My paranoia has come full circle.

 

[Twilight666]

Interesting development. I wonder how Missy will cope now that the thing that she uses to define herself (her power), and her position of importance in Avalon is taken away from her.

I really hope that even with the inevitable drama that will ensue with Theo and Riley the relationship will endure unlike the Sabah/Lilly. Because while that one was bad, unequal and doomed to fail, the Theo/Missy/Riley relationship is great and everything they do is adorable.

PS. TanaNari chapters 300 and 301 have not been added to the TOC at the first page and 301 has not been threadmarked

 

[Izicata]

Actually, it makes a lot of sense. Word of God is that Echidna could have damaged the cycle by "overbudding" the shards with her clones. Y'know, if she lived that long.

And given how the S9000 were shredded like so much tissue paper, while the originals were legendary terrors? Yeah, clearly something wasn't right about them.

Click to shrink...

There's no reason to think that "overbudding" would damage the passengers themselves. The cycle, yes, through producing tons and tons of junk data, but not the passengers.

The S9000's powers worked just as well as their original counterparts. They weren't all there mentally, and they didn't have any combat experience, but their powers worked fine.

 

[Leonidas333]

Considering one of my readers is t7w? But in all seriousness, no one caught the drug abuse thing, and I thought that was pretty obvious... so... yeah.

Click to shrink...

I can honestly say that I am so completely oblivious I sometimes have real life lag moments, so that's my excuse. But that's another story.
Anyways, the drug abuse seems very much in character with what Missy would do, and plays on her wanting to be an adult so much. Its good that they're hopeful for a full recovery, but losing her power from a month or more is going to be nasty. Hopefully they can get a deal with the Thanda, or maybe even do a partial integration. I'm not certain if Phir Se or his non-manton teleporter are still around given the giant explosion, but they would be excellent additions to the lineup. Phir has actual time travel on him, if they can boost that, hell, even use it for command and control, they'll get a crazy force multiplier. Plus, a suit helping the teleporter could be very nice, especially if he can teleport into endbringers.

 

[Daunmi]

There's no reason to think that "overbudding" would damage the passengers themselves. The cycle, yes, through producing tons and tons of junk data, but not the passengers.

Click to shrink...

Since the shards have to use up energy for every action, having 10 people using, for example, Lisa's power at the same time would use it up up to 10 times as fast. Less time to use it would result in exposure to less situations, so it would run out of energy and receive less data.

If the cycle has been set up to last X amount of time (I think I read somewhere that it goes for about 300 years if all goes to plan?) then the shard would die out before it would be time to harvest it.

The S9000's powers worked just as well as their original counterparts. They weren't all there mentally, and they didn't have any combat experience, but their powers worked fine.

Click to shrink...

Ehhh, yes and no. The longer you have your powers and the more you use them the better your connection to them becomes. It's not exactly a comparable situation, because the Harbinger clones didn't have the same connection to the shard that the Number Man himself had, so he was able to use the shard better/more naturally then them.

 

[The Shadowmind]

The S9000 clones were also a collection of mis-massed memories based on the stories that Jack told Riley, instead having coherent training and experience.

At the scale that the entities operate at, the Shard should be powerful enough to turn Earth into a pretzel if it had a reason to. But that isn't the level of power that parahuman get access to, since that would destroy the point of the cycle.

Damaging the Shard, I don't buy. Damaging the connection between the Shard and Missy make more sense.

 

[Chulup]

Even if Missy's lost her powers she always could ask for improved body from Riley and/or perform mix of Victoria/Emma power gaining: New body without powers and vial with lots of ping targets.

 

[Izicata]

Since the shards have to use up energy for every action, having 10 people using, for example, Lisa's power at the same time would use it up up to 10 times as fast. Less time to use it would result in exposure to less situations, so it would run out of energy and receive less data.

If the cycle has been set up to last X amount of time (I think I read somewhere that it goes for about 300 years if all goes to plan?) then the shard would die out before it would be time to harvest it.

Click to shrink...

IIRC, only the "dead" Eden-shards have problems with running out of power. "Live" Zion-shards don't.

Ehhh, yes and no. The longer you have your powers and the more you use them the better your connection to them becomes. It's not exactly a comparable situation, because the Harbinger clones didn't have the same connection to the shard that the Number Man himself had, so he was able to use the shard better/more naturally then them.

Click to shrink...

That too. The S9000 weren't all there mentally, they didn't have any combat experience, and they weren't as in-tune with their shards. The point of my thrust is that the S9000 were cut down like wheat for reasons other than that the planet-occupying space whales were having troubles powering more than one host.

 

[DasNiveau]

Well my thought about the subject.

 

[GiftofLove]

Well, there's a reason powers come with limits. I think it might have been interesting if the stimulate overuse tricked the power into releasing some of them, permanently increasing Missy's ability, but causing massive brain damage if used for more than quick bursts. Like a Thinker headache on steroids.

Give her what she wants in the worst possible way.

 

[Daunmi]

IIRC, only the "dead" Eden-shards have problems with running out of power. "Live" Zion-shards don't.

Click to shrink...

This can't be right.

I don't care if it came up in story. I don't care if Wildbow said it. The entities are trying to find a way to get around the heat death of the universe. If their various shards never run out of power, then they've already gotten what they want.

Maybe the 'live' ones can draw power from other sources, maybe the sun or the planet they're left on. Either way, there has to be some limit to how much they could soak up. A huge planetary organism/organ/thing has to use a lot of energy (PtV was a more energy efficient version compared to what they had, which was considered a major thing). Scion's PtV shard used more then a thousand years worth of its lifespan to work out something, Taylor's connection to bugs is a constant stream of communication, as is Amelia's always on biological control/understanding.

There has to be a limit, otherwise what the entities are doing doesn't make sense and the story starts to fall apart (although this is something Worm is good at...).

 

[GiftofLove]

He said 'problems' with running out of power. Because the dead shards can't refill themselves by drawing power from the sun or what have you. Zion shards can.

And we're talking massive amounts of power being drawn in, because most shards start at 'continent' and just go up from there.

 

[Ack]

Well, there's a reason powers come with limits. I think it might have been interesting if the stimulate overuse tricked the power into releasing some of them, permanently increasing Missy's ability, but causing massive brain damage if used for more than quick bursts. Like a Thinker headache on steroids.

Give her what she wants in the worst possible way.

Click to shrink...

Note that this merely underlines what a lot of people don't seem to realise.

Powers are not there for the benefit of the people who get them.

 

[Diller]

Since when were you under the impression that this isn't all a precog simulation by Abbadon?

Click to shrink...

FTFY

 

[powerofvoid]

The entities are trying to find a way to get around the heat death of the universe.

Click to shrink...

I don't recall this being canon, although I do recall something about Scion PtV eating up his lifespan.

 

[Diller]

I don't recall this being canon, although I do recall something about Scion PtV eating up his lifespan.

Click to shrink...

Its a time limit for them. The Entities are reproducing with no end as the concept of birth control is completely foreign to them. Entities are doing to Wormverse what they did to their original planent. And they will eventually run out of space like what happened on their orignal planent. unless they somehow figure out a way to expand infitely however they're also time constrained by the eventual heat death of the universe.

 

[SirKaid]

The goal is "find a method of continuing breeding and expanding without running into the original problem of cannibalization and running out of space". Solving entropy is just one of the required steps.