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Amelia, Ch 164

We were magnificent. We could not appreciate it, but we were magnificent. A mere moment of our cosmic dance would require centuries to express to a human mind, and all its glory meant nothing to us.

I fell to my knees, rocked with the vision. It was the first time I could remember seeing them. Breaking the Taboo meant I kept new memories, it offered nothing to allow me to restore ones I'd lost before. More than just that, I'd seen me. Correction: It. My Passenger at work. My human mind couldn't truly handle it. It was so complete, so significant, so connected into an incomprehensibly beautiful whole.

And yet it felt so meaningless and alone. Even here, grieving over Taylor. Even losing Victoria, both times. Even at my worst day, I still felt like I was more than my Passenger. At least I was. Just that. Was. Am. Its sense of self could be compared to that of a cheap gas station lighter, and that might be an insult to the lighter.

I shuddered as I pulled my mind back to the awareness of my own body, and my power as it expressed itself. I was connected to a world, a tiny world that compared to an Entity the way a golf ball compares to a human. There were less than ten people on this world, and yet that made it more meaningful than the Entities and their singular, rapacious, purpose could ever be. I was never so certain of what needed to be done, even if I was less certain of how to achieve that goal than ever before.

There was laughter behind me, a hysterical, pained sound. I turned to see Lisa, on her back and holding her hands over her face.

I wasn't sturdy enough to climb to my feet, so at a thought the Yggdrasil rose and swelled, pushing me to my feet. Still unsteady, I walked over to her. "Did you see that? Do you remember it?"

She calmed herself, and removed her hands to look at me. "I remember it," she confirmed, and I was relieved at that news. She is past the Taboo. She slowly sat up. "I remember every. Fucking. Thing."

I didn't know what to say, but her behavior was starting to frighten me.

"You just saw a Second Trigger," Lisa laughed darkly. "And probably a Third as well. Was it as as wonderful for you as it was for me?"

I cringed at the memories. None of them were good, although they certainly inspired a lot of wonder. "Terrific," I answered dryly. I meant that in every sense of the word, especially the archaic. I trusted Lisa would be smart enough to get the meaning. Good god, she triggered over this.

I knew triggers were harsh. Mine was ugly. Victoria's was, too, even if she liked to laugh it off and pretend it was less of a deal than it really was. And I knew second triggers were even worse. The fact that I didn't get one when I saw Victoria's... body... left me dreading what it would take to push me over. And Lisa just had one over Taylor's death. I didn't even know how to react.

"Riley's going to be fucking thrilled," Lisa continued. "Imagine all that data she'll have. Parahuman brain scan, then three hours later a Trigger. She'll forget all about how Atropos shot Missy and Theo, and we'll have to use a spatula to peel her off my backup recording."

"Wait, back up," I said. "Lily shot them? Why?"

"Stupidity," Lisa answered. "Remember how she was all 'grr, you hide things from me' and we were 'sorry, won't happen again' and it happened again and she was royally pissed and I thought 'hey, let's put her in charge of something that doesn't really matter so she feels important'?"

"Yeah," I prompted her to continue.

"Well, turns out she cracks under pressure," Lisa answered. "Okay, that's not entirely fair to her. She was under the influence of mind altering powers coupled with a scary spider monster that she believed was quite literally eating her girlfriend's face."

"Fuck," I muttered. "Wait, how do you know that?"

"That's my new power at work," she answered, the hysterical rambling energy slowly draining from her voice. "I can tell you what happened to this planet. Or make a guess, at least. My money's on giant fucking solar flare. I'm actually watching the sky burn right now, as we speak. It'd be beautiful if it wasn't a planet on fire around me."

I reached my hand out to help her up. She looked at me, probably judging intentions. She reached out and took it, allowing me to pull her up, while I melded our armors so that I could make actual contact, assessing her condition. It wasn't quite what I had with Taylor, but I could still pick out emotions this way. The colors of grief, in all its stages, ran through her.

"Aren't you suppose to ask permission before you pull something like that?" she asked. It wasn't a friendly comment, but it lacked any real conviction of anger. Mostly she just felt tired. The blend of denial, depression and acceptance that comes from someone who has given up entirely.

"Sorry," I said, still peeking around inside her. I stopped to look at her brain, the patterns of her gemma and pollentia. The changes weren't subtle, they did outright damage to the portions of the brain around them. Swelling and bruising, but patterned and clearly artificial. Done with a purpose. Rerouting additional bloodflow into the Coronas. Compensating the rest of the brain by altering it in bits and pieces throughout. I've seen this before, I realized. Taylor's brain was altered the same way. Grue's, too, but his was altered in a bunch of ways, thanks to Crawler's power. And Riley's.

"Find what you're looking for?" she asked.

"Yeah," I answered. "I know what a second trigger looks like, now. I... I might even be able to induce them on purpose. Even push them beyond. A legitimate third trigger, instead of breaking the memory blocks."

Her smile was anything but happy. "Well, lucky everyone who doesn't go through it the natural way."

"That can wait," I said. "Right now I need to make sure you're okay."

"You don't care about me," Lisa retorted. She wasn't wrong.

"You're Taylor's friend," I answered. "That's more than enough reason for me to care. Right now, we need to be strong. For her. And if that means helping each other, then you better believe we're going to help each other."

"Fine," she agreed. "Now could you please remove your hand. My power's... well, if I thought it was easy to get too much information before? I'm learning things about what you do with your hands that I already could have figured out, but now I can watch it happening."

Oh. Oh! Eww! I blushed and looked away as I pulled my hand back as fast as the fused armor systems would allow me. "Sorry."

"We will never speak of it again," Lisa insisted. "Ever."

"I can live with that," I still couldn't look at her. "What are we going to do about... about Taylor..."

"Privately? I don't know," Lisa replied. "We will have her backup to deal with. You'll have to decide how much you want to share with her. We can't keep the Butcher a secret from her, she's too smart and that's going to be all over every media until the next time we do something high profile and supposedly impossible. She'll figure out what happened, at least in a general sense."

I nodded. That was definitely true. Hiding her death from her copy would be idiotic and impossible.

"The real question is what we tell her about her personal life," Lisa continued. "How bad your fight was. The Taylia link being broken. Our suspicion that her suicide was planned and on purpose. I don't have any answers for that. You know this Taylor better than I have ever known anyone. I'm conceding that I fucked up and can't be trusted with this. It's all going to be on you from now on."

I swallowed, coating my throat with some much needed moisture. She's not admitting she was wrong, so much as saying she's given up, I realized. She's stopped caring. I couldn't bring myself to call her on that... there was still so much more to worry about. "What about what we tell everyone else?"

"Cover it up. Cover it up like Stormtiger covers up his Brazilian ancestry," she replied. "We'll even hide it from our team, where possible. Emma and Riley will need to know. If at all possible, no one else ever finds out. We use the excuse that containing Butcher took more effort than we anticipated, requiring us to spend all our efforts keeping her contained until we could imprison her properly on that so-called 'prison planet' we found. That'll buy us a few days of relative silence. We then pray that Taylor's clone doesn't inherit our mutual best friend's spare guests when she wakes up."

"And if she does?" I asked.

"Then unless your newfound brain knowledge proves useful, we do what we promised to do, and leave her there to die alone," Lisa whispered so softly that only my armor's systems let me hear the words. It was like a punch in the stomach.

"Fuck," I felt myself trying to cry, but I'd long ago run out of tears to shed. "God damn it, Taylor. Why did you do this to m... us?"

Lisa rested a hand on my shoulder, separated by two sets of bullet proof battle armor. "You will probably never know the real answer to that question," she told me. If this was Lisa trying to be comforting, then she had a worse bedside manner than I did.

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

A/N- Clearly Lisa's talking about being able to see Amelia wiping herself after going to the bathroom.Last edited: Apr 1, 2015 Reactions:TheBigMole, Darth Bayes, Eggmanstan and 85 othersTanaNariJan 10, 2015Reader mode Threadmarks Threadmarks Amelia, Ch 165 Threadmarks TanaNariVerified DickJan 10, 2015#188Amelia, Ch 165

I examined Missy's body with my power, even though it was difficult from this kind of distance. Maybe if I were in a better headspace. But after Taylor's death, and Lisa's second trigger, I just wasn't able to concentrate. She's lost a lot of blood, I realized first. And over half the blood she does have isn't even her own, it's a combination of blood substitute and a uniquely modified blood type I'd only ever seen in one person. That's how I was able to piece together the scenario. Riley is using herself as a life support machine.

I started the mending process, restoring Missy's punctured heart. Converting the material from her suit's life support layer into extra protein and raw material. Drawing upon the oxygenated blood substitute and converting it to natural, human, blood. Filtering out between her and Riley would be impossible, I'd have to trust Riley to know when things had progressed far enough for her to extract herself from whatever system she cobbled together.

I moved on to the other, incidental, damage. There was minor oxygen loss to the brain, but nothing likely to be dangerous. Especially given our neural repair technology, and the memory backups. If she woke up any time soon, it would be with a truly legendary headache, but otherwise fine. Then there were a number of other dents and injuries to worry about. Some old enough that I had to wonder why she never had me fix them before. The girl was virtually covered in scars and old injuries. I chose not to undo those, but I'd have to ask her why she never asked me to fix them.

It was during this that Zach and Crystal shunted back over.

Lisa had retired to sitting, waiting for news from the other fronts. Theo was still running the rescue mission, and that made theirs the last that was still running ongoing.

Crystal simply plopped down on the Yggdrasil, making no attempt to talk. It was comfortable enough to use as a bed, and clean enough, too. She looked exhausted, and since it was my power telling me this, I trusted its judgment. Even Zach looked tired.

"So," Zach started. "Mind telling us what the fuck just happened? Crystal was freaking out so hard about how she thought she was going to go insane that I thought she was about to go insane. And you didn't even notice that our systems were damaged by that attack that killed the Butcher."

I cringed. It was true, we forgot all about them. "Sorry," I said with absolutely no feeling.

Zach reached into the container pouch and pulled out a burnt human leg. I probably should have been upset by that, but I'd just watched by best friend explode. "I brought the body," he continued. "There was more, but I got hungry while waiting. Apparently Taylor did, too, because she got to everything else, including the bones."

I smiled at that. Taylor had the funniest ways of being being thoughtful, and making sure no one could find Butcher's body when none of the rest of us were even thinking about such things was insanely helpful. "Taylor's dead."

"Fuck me," Zach swore. "What happened?"

"She overrode my suit," Crystal finally spoke. "I was too messed up to notice, but she did, didn't she? That's why I didn't become the Butcher, because she did it first. She sacrificed herself for me."

I couldn't think of what to say to that. Fuck, that has to be... "No," I finally spoke. "Taylor had her own reasons for doing what she did. She wasn't really thinking about you when she did it." She wasn't thinking about anyone other than me.

Crystal didn't say anything. I doubted she was convinced.

"She had her backup, right?" Zach asked. "She'll back up and running as her usual self in no time. We'll just have to wake her up tell her that she shared a room with me for a night, and a brain with a bunch of psychopaths for a few minutes. Like a wild night of binge drinking. Just with a lower chance of STDs."

"A week," Lisa corrected. "She apparently decided that she wasn't going to update her copy since she was so upset with how last week had gone for her, so she's missed out on the last week."

"Okay," Zach hesitated. "Well, what happened this week? She missed out on her ex boyfriend being a fucktard."

"Not an ex," I corrected instinctively. Defensively. "They never dated, which means he can't be her ex." I didn't need Lisa to tell me why I felt I had to correct him of that. And only part of it was my feelings for her. I saw what he had become. The less we had in common, the happier I was.

"Fair enough," he responded. "And... we killed the Butcher. You made a really sexy grotto, but that's fine since you haven't broken it in yet so she didn't miss out on anything fun. Was this before or after she decided to be all friendly with Emma? Because if it was before... she's gonna think we're punking the shit out of her. All in all, not a big deal. Hey, we should totally make weird shit up that she won't believe. Maybe wear monkey costumes and pretend humans are our slaves."

I didn't say anything. Zach was ignoring the important parts, and both of us knew it. Just that conversation we had the other day alone was huge and left completely unsaid. Probably better that way. I simply nodded. Zach had just told me that he wouldn't say anything important about what happened over this week to Taylor, without actually saying anything. I'd have to find a way to thank him.

He sat down next to Crystal. "So... now what?"

"Lachesis got injured, so we won't be relying on space warping to get us around," Lisa answered. "We could ask Dragon to give us a ride, or we could take a more traditional mode of transit. Not a whole lot for us to do, really."

"Probably gonna have to shunt back over and chat with the locals," I sighed. "We're trying to keep Taylor's death a secret. Don't need the media hearing about it. Should probably keep it from the rest of the team, too. Story is, she and I are keeping Butcher contained for now."

"Which isn't completely untrue," Lisa added.

"We can buy a couple more days just by, well, me not being seen much," I added. "Let people draw the obvious conclusions."

"You two do have a pattern of vanishing from the public eye for a few days every time we have an important success," Crystal volunteered. "PHO has a meme or two hundred implying that your idea of romance involves violent conflicts. They phrase it a little differently, however."

I sighed. "You're not kidding, are you?"

"Well, to be fair, the story does sorta write itself," Zach added. "Normal romance: start a conversation while waiting in a bank. Pantheon romance: start a conversation while robbing a bank. Normal first date: going to a movie with friends. Pantheon first date: going to an Endbringer with friends."

"There's dozens of them," Crystal confirmed. "More if you include the ones about New Delhi that keep getting banned. You can thank Clarice for that little 'kill Endbringers, then get married' blurb to the press. It's been translated into almost as many languages as the bible. Mostly after we proved we could actually back up the words with results."

"Why does she get all the credit?" Zach pouted. "I was the one who posted a six page article culminating in mathematical proof that for their fifth wedding anniversary, they would conquer Russia in the middle of December. A lot of work went into that!"

What? I determined that my method of thanking Zach for earlier would be by not dissolving his armor and forcing him to walk back to Brockton Bay. And even that might be overly generous. "Okay," I said dryly. "So while all of that that is both convenient and horrible. One of us should really talk to the authorities. This is kind of a big deal and all."

"I'm not up for it," Crystal sighed. "Does Butcher's mind power have any long term side effects?"

I really wasn't ready to talk to the public, either, even without my convenient excuse of needing to stay hidden for now. And I knew for a certainty that Lisa wasn't.

"I can do it," Zach volunteered.

"It can wait," Lisa muttered. "Calvert will be more than happy to play spokesperson and brag about whatever. In fact, the more limelight we give to the PRT and politicos, the happier all of them will be. I'll let them think we're doing them a 'personal favor' and play on it for some future considerations. Meanwhile, we can play on Pantheon's rep for being elusive and mysterious. Win-win for all involved."

God knows we could use more of those, I thought.Last edited: Apr 1, 2015 Reactions:TheBigMole, Darth Bayes, Eggmanstan and 85 othersTanaNariJan 10, 2015Reader mode Threadmarks Threadmarks Amelia, Ch 166 Threadmarks TanaNariVerified DickJan 10, 2015#189Amelia, Ch 166

The plan was always for us to stay behind after the battles, to meet with the heroes and our assimilated villain-cum-hero allies. The plan always implied it was likely I wouldn't be part of the group that did those visits. Keeping the Butcher disabled before pickup was something no one could object to, and almost no one other than I could achieve. And so, gratefully, I stayed behind. With my thoughts. On an almost literally empty world. Our world, now. Legally.

Shunting Butcher off to a prison dimension was a secret part of the plan that only a few knew about: Costa-Brown, Dragon, and a handful of heads of state. Not even the other Directors, all they knew was we had a plan to neutralize her powers and keep her contained. But now our inter-dimensional travel secret was, at least unofficially, out of the bag. We'd soon have to debate what to do with our portal tech, how to petition off worlds to the various nations that might need it. Namely, all of them. The initial agreements included two things: a single new world, with hundreds of portals, which would acknowledge the same legal boundaries as our own planet. And that we would never open gates to worlds with humans without unanimous agreement.

There would be debates, of course. Negotiations. Treaties. Bribes and backstabbing. Possibly even wars of the literally inter-dimensional variety. Lisa had assured me that Pantheon's world being acknowledged as its own sovereign nation would be approved. Especially since that was, functionally, all that we asked. It meant we could claim other worlds during all future arrangements, as well.

Crystal, at least, stayed with me. She was also my 'flight home', after all. Boston wasn't that far away from Brockton Bay, we didn't really need Missy for that. Of course, now I had armor that could fly on its own, which was beyond awesome, but I didn't have Crystal's speed. Very few of us did, and my armor needed a lot of disposable mass associated with it to really exploit my powers, so she had a hand gripped onto my back and was, functionally, pushing me along.

Or, really, guiding my fall. Antigravity is a weird flight system.

"How are you holding up?" she asked me as we started along.

"Badly," I admited. "We're going home to replace my dead sorta-ex sorta-girlfriend with a copy of her made when we were still together, sorta. I am not prepared to deal with this kind of weirdness. No one is. Except maybe Zach."

"That kid reads the strangest stuff," Crystal agreed. "He got me hooked on this one asian comic that has a guy who turns into a girl whenever he's splashed with cold water. And his dad's a panda, and that's actually the least strange part of the story."

"Some weird cape story?" I asked. I'd heard of a few crazy ones, but like most parahumans I hated reading them. They were just mind numbingly stupid and clearly written by people who did't even ask a cape what things are really like.

"No," she replied. "No capes, just magic. Pretty much pretends parahumans don't exist. Also pretends police officers don't exist. And, for that matter, all laws of both man and nature. Or the very idea of consequences for your actions. It's really god awful by any and all literary standards, but it's fucking addictive both as a comedy and a will-they/won't-they romance. Just as long as you don't allow yourself to think about it."

"Sounds like something Victoria would read religiously," I tried to smile.

"Yeah... are you guys really going to be able to bring her back?" Crystal asked.

"Got permission from mom and dad to at least try a few days ago," I confirmed. "There's still legal mumbo jumbo, with the whole exhuming thing. Normally that would take months to work out. But it's being fast tracked by the PRT and Protectorate. They are really hoping this works. Some of their own are glassed, too. Plus others who've been transformed by other means. If this works, there will be a couple dozen others to bring back."

"Makes sense," Crystal agreed.

"And it implies we'll be able to make our resurrection tech available to others," I added. "Which is its own fucking ethical nightmare. We literally cannot do this for everyone, so how do we decide who deserves it and who doesn't? Heroes are one thing, sounds easy enough. What of the villains who fight to do something noble despite being horrible? Like Kaiser? He was there for Leviathan. Would we have extended the backup tech to him, if we had it then? Then we move to civilians. Billionaires and Heads of State with serial immortality? Is that the world we're going to create?"

"Fuck," Crystal muttered. "That's terrifying. This technology really does change everything, doesn't it? At least we won't have to ask ourself about giving it to sickos like Jack Slash and Genoscythe the Eye Raper, right? They can fucking remain in hell."

"That's better than nothing, I guess," I sighed. "So... how about you? Are you okay?"

"Not really," she admitted. "Butcher really scared me. The pain was insane, but that wasn't really the bad part. Nothing I haven't been through before. I've never been so angry before in my life. I've never been so afraid. I knew what I was doing, the whole time. That I was killing her, and what would happen when I succeeded. But I just couldn't bring myself to care about it. If... if I didn't have her there as a target, I would have found and killed someone with my bare hands and loved every second of it."

Fuck. "Fuck," I replied. "That..." I had no words.

"Yeah, I know I'm 'backed up' and all," Crystal continued. "But I keep asking myself questions. What if something went wrong? What if what comes out isn't right? Fuck, even if everything is correct, I can't really think of that copy as 'me', y'know?"

"I know," I agreed. Crystal must have heard the worry in my voice.

"Fuck!" she muttered. "That was beyond insensitive. I'm sure she'll be..."

"Don't worry about it," I interrupted. "We all knew there was a risk, even if it was a small one thanks to Dinah. If it wasn't now, there's next time. Or the time after. If nothing else, there are still more Endbringers. Simurgh made it pretty fucking clear we're not immortal."

"Y... yeah," Crystal mumbled.

"And now I'm being beyond insensitive," I apologized. "It's easy to forget there are emotional consequences, even if we make it out physically."

"I remember when this used to be fun," Crystal sighed. "Go out, zap Hookwolf in the face a few times, he runs off, day is saved. Even if you lose, he's not going to do anything more than talk shit to his skinhead buddies and let you limp away with your bruises and cuts. It was... like a game, y'know? I know it sounds stupid when you say it like that, but it really was. Now? We have an 'undo death' option, and weapons that put us in the same conversations as the Triumvirate. But I've never been this fucking terrified in a fight before."

"The Unwritten Rules," I suggested. "Lisa could explain it better, but basically heroes and villains had their fights, but they're all pretty minor. Everyone pulls their punches. Except for a few rare psychos like the Slaughterhouse Nine, no one wants to rock the boat for fear of sinking the whole ship and ruining things for everyone. Sounded so goddamn naive and trite when she said it. I just dismissed it at her trying to justify being a supervillain like it didn't really make her a criminal."

"I could really go for some of that right about now," Crystal sighed. "What happened? When did it all change? When did our lives become so fucked up that I'd rather be fighting Hookwolf in my underwear, than even going out in costume wearing an armor that gives me all the functional powers of a god? Even Leviathan wasn't this frightening. I knew I would be there and do my job, but I wasn't important enough to honestly matter in that battle. No expectations that I could make the difference."

I happened, I thought. The Entities didn't want us destroying ourselves, it doesn't give them enough time to gather results. The plan was a slow burning cold war. I got past their controls, went forward without thinking about consequences, found a partner like Taylor with a similar inability to consider consequences, and by the time anyone knew what we were doing, we were too strong to put down. Now we're in freefall and there's nowhere left to go but forward. None of that was anything I could say to my cousin.

"I think this is what the Simurgh planned as the result of New Delhi," I suggested. Not untrue, really. "The Rules no longer apply and this country is heading face first into a parahuman civil war on a scale that threatens to end the United States as a nation."

"Sounds like the Simurgh," Crystal agreed. "Who else would think they could destroy the United States by setting India on fire?"

"We have to run damage control," I continued. "We might not be able to stop the war, but at the very least we keep things from getting so bad that they collapse entirely. And to do that, we have to keep breaking those rules. Hitting so hard that no one dares fuck with us."

"Is this what they mean by 'peacekeeping' in the military?" Crystal sighed. "Do you think Alexandria thinks about shit like this?"

I shrugged. "Probably," I admitted.

"She's been doing this for like twenty years, now," Crystal muttered. "No wonder she's such an irritable uptight bitch."

I hadn't thought about it that way, before. "I guess Taylor and I are the same way," I agreed. "Doing what we have to do, no matter how much damage we cause in the process. Fuck, look at New Delhi. Even when we thought each Endbringer was a continental suicide bomb waiting to go off, we were still thinking about killing the other two. A couple billion or so more lives, half our planet pretty much destroyed. That... that we could even contemplate such an act."

"You wouldn't have done it," Crystal insisted. "We'd have found another way, like pushing them through to already dead worlds and killing them there. Or just closing the doorway and leaving them trapped there."

"Maybe," I said. But if we didn't have a solution by the time the next one came around, if the portals didn't work on Endbringers the way almost nothing seemed to work on them. We would have gone through with killing them the normal way. "What about Scion?"

"Can't you do the same thing?" she asked.

"No," I sighed. "He's like Eidolon, but without limitations. Any power he wants, as long as it exists. Including a few that are so unbelievably dangerous that he would never give them to us. It's likely any battle with him is going to cost us multiple worlds. Dinah says we'll lose billions."

"Dinah also said we'd walk away with the Butcher trapped in another dimension, and all our friends alive and well," Crystal reminded me. "I'm pretty sure none of that worked out, either."

"Didn't it?" I asked. "We got Butcher removed from our dimension. Missy's death was easily reversed. Taylor's death is... to us, she loses the last week of her life and everything that implies about our breakup and possible makeup. To her she wakes up from a dream to a bunch of people who have memories of things she never did and never will do... to us, that makes her dead. To Dinah, she's incapacitated for a day or two at the most."

"This is all so fucked up," Crystal concluded.

"We might be able to stop," I added. "There is the chance that Dragon or Cauldron piece together the winning resources. Or someone else. Dinah's predictions say there are five possible contestants at the end with strength enough to be the ones that end the threat that is Scion. We can back out and trust the others."

"No we can't," Crystal corrected. "It may be physically possible. But you and Taylor aren't the types that can let others be responsible for anything. This is the fate of the world, of every world, at stake. The whole fucking universe if what you know about their lifecycle is true. It makes you some of the most important people in the fucking multiverse just being on the list of people that might find a way to stop it. People like me, we can't handle that kind of pressure. People like the two of you can't handle anything less."Last edited: Apr 1, 2015 Reactions:TheBigMole, Darth Bayes, Eggmanstan and 81 othersTanaNariJan 10, 2015Reader mode Threadmarks Threadmarks Amelia, Ch 167- Lisa Threadmarks TanaNariVerified DickJan 10, 2015#190Amelia, Ch 167- Lisa

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Was someone else hurt?" Missy asked.

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

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

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

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

....

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

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

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

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

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

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

....

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

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

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

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

....

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"How about the Tennessee Fallen?"

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

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

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

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

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

I blinked "What?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A/N- Dinah needed more screen time.

Also, Lisa needs hugs. All the hugs. Ever.Last edited: Apr 1, 2015 Reactions:TheBigMole, Darth Bayes, Eggmanstan and 94 othersTanaNariJan 10, 2015Reader mode Threadmarks Threadmarks Amelia, Ch 168- Taylor Threadmarks TanaNariVerified DickJan 10, 2015#191Amelia, Ch 168- Taylor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Thanks," she mumbled into my shoulder.

....

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

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

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

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

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

"About?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ConcernWorry. "Taylor, are you okay?"

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

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

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

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

I turned and hugged her tight.

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

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