- Location
- Oregon
You say that like she (and everyone else), wasn't already at least a little gay for Legend.
(And no, it doesn't have to make sense. He's Legend.)
Avatar Taylor (Worm/A:TLA)
- Thread starter Dalxein
- Start date
- Crossover Archive
(And no, it doesn't have to make sense. He's Legend.)
Crazael
Rehydrated Demon King
- Location
- Lost to the vagaries of time.
It's right there in his name, for god's sake!
deathofrats0808
Don’t think of it as dying; just as leaving early
- Location
- Earth
First, just read the thread. Will shortly go back and like many posts. It's been really enjoyable.
Second, because I am an obsessive goddamn nerd,
I'm the kind of person that enjoys hunting this sort of thing down, but I fear the original is lost to time. The earliest I could find was here in 2012, but that's explicitly a recreation and also lacks the blue background.
Second, because I am an obsessive goddamn nerd,
I'm the kind of person that enjoys hunting this sort of thing down, but I fear the original is lost to time. The earliest I could find was here in 2012, but that's explicitly a recreation and also lacks the blue background.
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Why did tatttletale's shard said taylor has no power?
deathofrats0808
Don’t think of it as dying; just as leaving early
- Location
- Earth
Because the shard is believing what Queen Administrator says. And QA keeps telling all the shards that Taylor has no power.
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Right, QA became sapient. Thanks.
Queenie became a Lion-Turtle.
Rajvik_wolfboy
Wolf amongst the stars.
- Location
- Florida
oh gods, just binged this and love it, can't wait for the next post
Chapter 2.25 (Amasia)
- Location
- Oregon
Oh, hey. Been a while.
Hey, you know what? Since it's already been so long, maybe I should wait a couple more weeks to post this?
I can call it a Christmas present, and we can be all jolly about it, and-
Hey, what are you doing? What's with the tor- oh wow that's a lot of pitchforks. Guys? Guys?
Seriously, what are you doi-
SAT MAR 5
Helping Cass settle in took most of the day. The tour was quick, but we also had to make plans for what to do if someone came over, or if we wanted to keep the windows open to show the neighbors or anyone checking in that nothing weird was going on some days, planning out times to shower where Dad or I could run interference if she couldn't hear the door... a lot went into keeping a secret houseguest.
It was not sufficient excuse to get out of work study with Gram, however. That was an hour of lecturing on the value of my life and discretion as valor, followed by two hours of actual lecture and study in balancing checkbooks and account portfolios with an eye for tax filing later. The sort of stuff high school should be teaching along with basic math, but don't because classism.
I was a little surprised after my alarm went off, that a bleary-eyed Cass met me in the hallway. "What're you doing up?"
"Fucking conditioning." She slurred. I stared at her for about three seconds, until she realized I was waiting for her to elaborate. "De-, eh, fuck it, Victor wakes me up every morning to work out. Enough to keep fit, anyway."
"So you don't get flabby riding things everywhere with your powers?" Her answer was to flip me off and start for the kitchen. "Why not just do sports?"
"Because then it'd be workouts and sports, and Kaiser hates it when people block up their schedule for something besides sucking his dick." That was... probably a euphemism. It still had me pause in shock momentarily, and was enough to curtail the conversation. I shook myself and went to getting a quick meal while she plunked herself at the table.
I popped some bread in the toaster, grabbed the jam and my tub of yogurt from the fridge, and the bag of bulk store granola chunks from the top of it where we kept our cereals. I added a generous dollop of yogurt to a couple plates, sprinkled it with oats, and added a couple half-slices of toast. One of which was set in front of her with a spoon, before I started demolishing the other.
"Well, uh... working out is why I'm up early. Have a mat and some weights in the basement. You want to...?"
"Might as well." She grumbled.
We went down, warmed up, and swapped off regimens. I did my weights run while she took the mat, then we drastically reduced the weights while I spotted for her much shorter run with them. Then we headed back upstairs for second-breakfast.
That was when I checked my phone, and found messages from Vicky. She was trying to wrangle Amy awake and come over to pick me up for the team meeting. I gave Cass a side-glance and grimaced.
Well, it had to happen eventually.
I told her to come over as soon as Amy wouldn't gnaw off her wrist to get back to bed, and resigned myself to an interesting morning. Then I made scrambled eggs with bacon bits in. Cass took the news well enough, dropping her head to the table and groaning. The meal was dreary and silent for entirely different reasons than earlier.
I hopped to my feet when I felt a car slowing down our street, and had the door open before they finished pulling into the driveway next to the truck. I beckoned energetically, and they got out and trudged up.
"What?" Amy groused.
"We have a guest. I didn't want to leave a trail in texts. Come on." They gave each other wary glances, but acquiesced. I shut the door quickly and hopped out in front of them. "In here."
"You." They hissed, when they caught sight of her.
"Yaaaay." Cass droned.
I cleared my throat. "She ran away, and she's staying with me for now. I just thought everyone should be on the same page before we left."
"So glad I get to deal with the 'every villain is Hitler' brigade." Cassie muttered loudly.
"Na-Zi." Vicky growled, punctuating both syllables with a shake of her flat hands.
"I can see how you'd ignore the point there."
"Hey! Stop it!" I interjected, stepping between them. "Cass, what's the problem?"
She settled down to a simmer, glowering past me. "I just thought they'd have gotten over the whole 'hating people for their mistakes' thing by now. I mean, they knew about me, right?" I nodded. "So they've had their chance to have a problem with me. I just don't want to put up with their bullshit."
"Our bullshit? You're the murderer!"
"Oh, like you've never fucked up." Cass spat back.
I was worried things were about to explode and I'd have to start physically separating people, but help came from an unexpected corner. "Vicky..."
She turned back to her sister, voice low and nearly dangerous. "Ames..."
"Think, Vicky." She hissed, causing Vicky to pause and then wince. "I've... already had this argument with Taylor. I don't want to have it again. She gets one chance... agreed?"
It took a few moments, and a couple glances between everyone, but she nodded. "Fine. One chance."
Cass chuckled. "You know, I was expecting both of you to have sticks so far up your asses you'd be choking on 'em. Pleasantly surprised." Both sisters glared and flipped her off. "Now, now... ooh, that's a thought. Might even have a chance at the ol' 'we're not so different, after all'..."
"No." Victoria stated frigidly.
Cass held her hands out placatingly, the motion not at all matching her shit-eating grin. "Hear me out. We're both pretty blonde girls born into very white families with histories of having powers, fed 'we're the heroes' juice right from the bottle. Not gonna' say my family turned out anywhere close to as right about it as yours, but..." The smile faltered, and she started rubbing her arms. "Everyone likes thinking they're the good guys, or at least never really thinks they're the bad guys... and most people would do anything, convince themselves of anything, if it meant not admitting they were evil the whole time. Anyone calling you the bad guy has to be just another villain, right?"
"Because it's true." Victoria ground out.
"Which is exactly what my cousins would say. What I would have said more than.. five, six months ago. And nothing is ever going to convince any of you that you're wrong. It's too deeply ingrained in who you and they are." Vicky just continued to stand there, arms folded imperiously, and scowling at her. Amy stood slightly behind, blank and seemingly unconvinced. "Fine, I know I'm never going to convince you you're wrong about yourselves, but just take some time to think about what it'd take to actually change your mind, and think about how hard that can be for other people. No one actually thinks they're evil."
Amy coughed out something like 'slaughterhouse'.
"No one sane thinks they're evil. Ugh." She waved them off and slumped back into her seat. "Even Kaiser, Lung, and those Merchant fucks never struck me as the type to think they're the bad guys. More they think 'good' and 'bad' people are just narrative lies, so they might as well be king of the shitlords. Tycoon dictators; so long as they have power and the numbers keep going up, their dicks stay hard."
That had Amy choking back a chuckle, while her sister gave an unimpressed, "Riiight..."
Seeing things were stalling out, I stepped in. "So, any questions for each other? About, I dunno, something less caustic... powers, maybe?"
Halfway-thoughtful looks all around. "Hey, it true you got shot once?" Cass asked Vicky. "Like, not shot at, there's a rumor Glory Girl went down a couple years back." When no answer was forthcoming in a moment of silence, she continued. "With all the ducking and weaving you do, everyone's pretty convinced there's some trick to your 'invincible girl' shtick, but no one can agree on what it is."
Vicky visibly waffled on whether or not to answer. "Yeah. Why?"
Cass rolled her eyes. "Because if you don't dodge, with my powers I could set up instant cage-matches with anyone you want to pick off. Thing is, I need to know if that's a fucking shit idea before I start making plans on working with you."
"Yeah, that's... a pretty shit idea." She acceded. "What about your powers? How does the 'rune' thing work? Why the name Rune, anyway?"
She got a gimlet half-glare for her obvious subject shift. "It fit the Norse theme." Cass ground out. She took a moment to weigh her words, before continuing in a much more subdued tone. "Othala's my cousin. She wanted to match. It's... hard to say no, when she gets excited about something."
"Pushy?" Vicky asked. I could feel she was intrigued, but refused to outwardly show it.
"Nah, just... she's a happy little housewife when she's not being Othala. The sort you just... want her to be happy. Stay happy." The Dallons looked a little ill. "Just because someone believes in really stupid ideals, doesn't make them not a person. If you took away everyone that's different, the Nazis would find reasons to hate the other whites. But people like my cousin? She'd just be happy Victor's home more often." She leaned forward, rubbing her eyes. "I'd like to think I'd be... well, I dunno. That's not me, anymore."
That seemed to start thawing Vicky's Nazi-hating heart. "Hey, so... what do we call you instead, then?"
Cass shrugged. "I dunno. Sigil? Scribe? It's not like I'm going out anytime soon. We have time to think of something that doesn't tie back to... ugh. But I mean, I still need to tag things with my power to make it work, that's not changing."
"And that is...?" Amy lead.
"Well... my power works by 'marking' things. Claiming them, basically. 'This is mine and I can do what I want with it' sort of thing."
"Sounds a little klepto." Amy added with a nasty smirk.
Cass glared, and I could feel her fighting a blush. "I'm...! ...haven't... done that in years... months..." She trailed off quietly. Amy was smiling and Vicky had an eyebrow raised. "I'm fine. It's not a problem anymore."
"If you're sure, it's okay." I stated. Vicky caught my eye and gave a tiny scoff. I'm sure they were planning on keeping an eye on that, now. "What about the powers? How do your marks work?"
"Right, that." Vicky turned her attention back to Cass, with a hint of excited intent in her tone.
"I just... do it." She took a second to rub a finger on the table in a vague circle, followed by a squiggle. It lifted a couple inches to hover, then set itself back down. "The mark, I mean. I still need a symbol that works. That part isn't automatic. My current... rune..." She grimaced. "...is a C shape, into an upside-down-V of an A, then an S." She took the time to draw it out, slower this time. "It doesn't matter what it is, as long as my brain's like... 'yeah that's mine, now'. A lot of my early attempts to shorten things down or make a custom symbol I could scribble would, uh... 'slip' and not work sometimes. I haven't had that problem with this one, and I have it down to like half a second after about a year and a half's practice."
"Huh." Vicky muttered, and I nearly mirrored it. I surreptitiously tried drawing it out on my thigh. Vicky wasn't nearly as subtle, and stepped over to try it on the table. I was a little faster, but we both wound up around three seconds. "That's actually kind of impressive. Your power doesn't help at all? No enhanced dexterity, or..."
"Nope. Powers start when it's tagged, not before."
Vicky hummed again, chewing her lip. "That goes against Jansen's theory for power expression. Powers give the user an instinctual knowledge of what they do, and the tools to use them."
Cass laughed. "Bullshit. It took them like a week to figure out it was Ka-Othala that made Unc-... uh. Ehh, fuck it. Uncle Archibald invincible that one raid."
"Now That's bullshit. Powers don't work like that."
"Hey, I wasn't there. I just heard the story. My powers were super obvious when I got them."
"Look at them go..." Amy said quietly after sidling up to me.
"At least they're not screaming at each other?" I asked, tone low and giving her a tired smile. Then I turned back to the others. "I didn't really know I had powers for a few days. I was pretty well out of it, and stuck in the hospital."
"Ooh, yeah." Cass winced. "That was when she had her eye out. They'd've had her on the good shit for a while..."
"Hah!" Vicky cheered.
I waved her down. "I can see how someone with a really subtle power can not know they have them. What if your only power was your aura, or something?"
She visibly pondered this for a few seconds. "Okay, maybe. Very weak Shaker, Thinker, maybe Stranger powers."
"Master, too." I added pointedly, which had her scowling at the old comparison. "Everyone suddenly agreeing with you, or things going your way, could take a while to parse out as more than luck or charisma."
"Fine, fine." Vicky conceded. "I'll have to bring this up with my Parahuman Studies class, maybe poke a few professors or scientists..."
I stepped in when she trailed off. "Make a note, then. We should probably get going soon." Then, to Cass, "Are you going to be okay here, today?"
"Yeah, not like I'm gonna' be alone." She waved upstairs, where Dad was still sleeping in. He'd had a long night, still up worrying when Cass and I turned in to sleep.
"He might have errands, or the office might need him for a couple hours." I watched her carefully while I said it.
She seemed mostly fine, but a twinge of dread started creeping in. "Yeah, no. I'll be fine, alone." She nearly hitched up at the last word, but she kept her words even.
I briefly debated pressing on, figuring out what was wrong and working out some solution to it... but Cass seemed like the sort to deflect and double down rather than admit something was wrong. It was a bit uncomfortably familiar, if I was being honest. "Alright. I'll try to be back soon."
"Take your time, I'm fine." She lied. "I'll just grab a book or something, maybe watch TV." She glanced at the closed blinds that made the house feel a bit smaller than usual. "Maybe open a window or something..." She muttered.
"...I'll be back this afternoon. Maybe early evening, then." I said, and she nodded. I needed to figure something out. I'm sure she wouldn't appreciate a sitter, even if I could find someone I trusted that had the free time. The big problem was going to be weekdays, with me at school and Dad at work, which was also when everyone else I knew was probably busy.
I grabbed the last of the stuff from the bakery on the way out. We settled into the car and got going. I cleared my throat into the silence. "So?"
"So?" Vicky echoed.
"What do you think? I'm not going to suddenly find Rune turned in to the PRT, am I? I'd be pretty mad about it, especially if it wrecked my house or told them who I am."
I watched her in the mirrors, since she was driving and I was in the back. She took a few seconds to reply. "No. She's... not what I was expecting. I'll withhold judgment, for now."
"She'll get her chance to fuck up." Amy added flippantly. "Don't worry."
Not exactly what I was going for, but I'd take it. I spent the rest of the trip asking about what I remembered of my homework and make-up work for Monday, which I'd already been called out for on family business.
I was still trying to keep the Medhall meeting as far from my mind as possible.
We sent Dinah a text to let her know we were on the way, and parked in the garage when we got there to hide the car and plate from anyone looking to snoop around. The area was rich enough that there were surely people around that could spare the time to snoop and gossip while other people made their money for them.
It wound up a little awkward, when we met up in the hallway off the garage rather than the usual front door or near there. No one was quite sure how to proceed, so I leapt to introductions before the silence could cause any problems. "Dinah, these are Amy and Vicky. Panpan, GG, this is Shatterpoint." I could tell we were the only ones here like Dinah had said the other day, so it should be safe to put everything in the open.
"What did you-"
"She's adorable!" Vicky cut in, moving past an indignant Amy to snatch up Dinah's hands and cup them in her own. "Hi, there. I'm Victoria, and you can count on me for anything you need, alright?"
"Aaaand now I have a new little sister." Amy muttered. I gave her a shy smile and she glowered at me. "Still going to get you for that nickname."
"I thought it was cute." I replied with a small pout.
She blushed and looked away. I smirked and leaned forward to keep an eye on her cheeks. I liked the contrast with her freckles, and the little smile she was trying to hide.
"Um, hi." Dinah stammered. "Is, uh, the table okay?" She pulled back, leading us to the kitchen table. I couldn't blame her, getting pinned by the high beams of an exuberant Victoria. I'd felt her aura, but it wasn't aimed at me, and didn't seem to do anything to me.
With Cass stuck at my house, and Tracy wanting to focus on tinkering, that meant the team was assembled. I set the bag of treats in the center of the table. "So, uh. Not sure how to start a team meeting, really."
"Old business, new business?" Victoria suggested.
"Right." I hummed while I thought back. "Rune's moved in with me. She'll be safe there for a little while, but we're going to need to figure out a place for her to hide there, or somewhere completely unconnected with her civilian life to keep her more permanently until the Empire can't try to take her back."
"How's that old?" Amy asked flatly.
"She was planning on leaving, had already agreed to defect. Update on old news." I replied, a little snippier than intended. I took a breath and continued more evenly. "Tracy is still working on figuring out her tinkering. Gave the okay to decide things without her, today. We also still don't have a team name, or a money structure in place for pay, insurance, and anything else. Wanted to talk to Lady Photon about how New Wave does theirs." Vicky nodded, and Amy glanced away. "I... think that's everything old?"
"Team name!" Vicky cheered. "We need a name!"
I groaned. "Well, I can't think of anything. It's all too generic, what comes to mind. Like, Protectors, Guardians, Wardens... it's all either too close to something already, like the Protectorate, or it doesn't really mean anything, or it does mean something, but it's the wrong thing..."
"You're overthinking things." She insisted. "Like, New Wave's message isn't obvious in the name, but it's still there if you go looking for it. Things like the Guild don't really match up with their name. They're like an adventurer's guild, but in practice it's more like an army reserve, putting people on-call for crises where they're needed rather than giving people jobs to do like a guild is supposed to. And the Protectorate is using the name wrong."
I snickered. "Because a protectorate is either a client state under another government's protection, or another word for 'Lord Protector' or 'the person in charge'?" Which was kind of the opposite of what they were going for.
Vicky shrugged. "I think the original Protectorate just picked something that hadn't been claimed by a comic book already, and when they lost Hero and made the big organization it was supposed to mean being Parahumans protected by the US government, but don't quote me on that."
"Makes as much sense as anything." I muttered. "Overthinking things, huh?"
"Could go with something earth-y? Y'know, on the Terraform thing. You're the leader."
I frowned at her. "I don't even know why I'm the leader."
"Well, I kinda' can't be, Tracy and Dinah seem happy to follow whatever you decide," she nodded at the girl, who'd just been following our back-and-forth. Attentive, but not speaking up. "and Amy's kinda' busy. Besides, you're the one doing everything, and pulling everyone together."
"Why can't you?" She had points about everything else, and I was guessing she hadn't brought Cassie up as a former criminal.
"Conflict of interest. I can't be leader of one team and subordinate on another. Maybe if I was leader of both teams it'd work, but I'm not."
"The Narwhal example?" I asked.
She winced. "She's actually an example of why the two teams thing doesn't work, this time. Sure, she's leader of the Guild and the Toronto Protectorate, but that means she still answers to Legend. He's nice enough that he wouldn't give her orders that'd hurt the Guild, but in practice she kind of has to prioritize orders from him over leading the Guild, if she wants to stay head of Toronto."
That made me worry about her own priorities, but... I'd still prefer having her part-time rather than not at all, especially while the team was so small compared to the Empire's roster. I suppose the same argument also counted for Amy, until she quits. "Fine. I guess I'm the leader."
Dinah reached out to pat my shoulder. "It's okay. I believe in you."
"So. Fucking. Cute." Vicky quietly squealed. Dinah's smile twitched, and I could almost hear her screaming internally. I gave her a tired, commiserating smile. Amy ran her shoulder into Vicky's, but I'm not sure she even felt it.
"Moving on..." Amy groused.
"Right. Well..." Vicky mumbled, biting her lip and thinking for a couple seconds. "I mean, we could always find a message and work backward from that. Like, being heroes, or fighting villains... supporting the city, uh... " She scowled and grumbled. "...reforming villains..."
I stopped to think about it. Yeah, all of that was stuff I wanted us to do, but it wasn't the message I wanted to send. I wanted a place where everyone could be safe. A place for heroes, rogues, and normal people. I wanted the city to be safe... a thought came rather loudly to mind. "Unity." Coming together. Bridging gaps. "One world, coming together for everyone. A bright future."
"Huh. Like, Gaia, Terra, the world, uhh... coming together... Pangaea?" Vicky listed off. Like when the continents came together? The whole world was basically one place, then.
"Veto." Amy droned, raising her hand and dropping it in a chopping motion. "I am not dealing with the inevitable 'Panacea/Pangaea' jokes." The way she said them, there was barely any difference between the words. Vicky stuck her tongue out at her.
"I like Amasia." Dinah stated, into the brief silence.
"The... what?" I didn't know what that meant.
"It's... well... I mean." She shook herself and took a deep breath. "You know how the continents are moving, and they come together now and then?"
"Like Pangaea, and that other one..." I thought out loud.
"Gondwana?" Vicky tried.
"Gondwana and Laurasia split off from Pangaea," Dinah lectured. "I don't count those, since it's just part of the process of splitting apart into 'normal' continents again. The last 'most of the continents' before Pangaea was Rodinia."
"O...kay. And?" I wondered.
She blushed and fidgeted. "Well, supercontinents are a thing that's going to happen again. People have done studies on tectonic movement and calculated trajectories and models... One of the ones considered likely is North America continuing to travel north until Canada hits Siberia. When people aren't trying to call it some version of 'New Pangaea'," she rolled her eyes. "they take America plus Eurasia, and call it Amasia."
It... wan't terrible. I didn't hate it. "I like it!" Vicky cheered. "Get it, we're Amasia, 'cuz we'll amaze ya!"
We all stared at Vicky for several seconds. Then Amy slowly raised her hand. "Vet-"
"No!" Vicky reached over to boop her nose. "No gloomy anti-fun here. It's a good name. Dinah wouldn't have suggested it if she didn't like it, and Taylor doesn't seem to hate it." She gave me a pointed look.
I glanced briefly between the sisters. Then, to the best of my ability, abandoned ship. "I didn't know you were into that stuff." I said to Dinah. "Tectonics and continents and such. Planning to be a geologist or, whatever the specialists for that are called?"
"Oh, uh. No? And I really wasn't into it, before I got my powers. Just... looking up things like that, predictions of the future and extrapolations from the past, they've... been interesting, ever since I got my powers."
Vicky squealed, floating a bit above her chair and leaning over the table to point at the girl. "Data point!"
"Yes?" Dinah shouted back, instantly raising her hands to ward off her shock.
"Not Shatterpoint, data point!" She sat back down, waving her hands and smiling excitedly. "A lot of the capes involved in Parahuman research are convinced getting powers changes the way you think about things, even going so far as to add new interests related to their powers." She scowled. "But the normal researchers are all 'confirmation bias'," she simpered the words as she made her air quotes. "and say that because we always hear about the study first and then try to find examples that fit, we're always going to find those examples, because we want them to be there. Ames didn't want to be a doctor, and I didn't like punching people nearly so much, before we got our powers."
"Because it wasn't really an option." Amy droned.
Vicky scoffed. "Don't you 'devil's advocate' those psycho-analyzers at me, I know what I'm talking about." Amy rolled her eyes, but kept quiet. "We should totally do research things if we get the chance. There aren't nearly enough Parahumans willing to do so. Even New Wave really doesn't bother."
Ugh... do we have to? I bit back most of my gut reaction. "What would that entail?"
"Mostly just contacting them and coordinating surveys now and then."
"The Protectorate don't do anything like that? You'd think that many capes would handle the research aspects of powers."
Vicky waggled her hand. "I mean, they do, but we're going to have to wait another fifty years or so for whatever-the-hell Secrets Act to start declassifying it. I'm not that patient."
Right. Federal organization. I should have expected that. "We'll contact research groups, and try to streamline getting tests and taking surveys, but it'll be on an opt-in basis for everyone. Deal?"
"Good enough." Vicky stated. Dinah hummed affirmatively around the cookie she'd grabbed. Amy looked entirely disinterested in cape research. "What's next?"
I turned it back on her. "Anything else you wanted to bring up?"
Vicky scowled, then perked up and nudged Amy. "Ugh, fine." She de-slumped herself and leaned forward now that she'd been put on the spot. "I have a packet of things to sign in the car. Basic parahuman healer package. Assumption of responsibility in case your power gets fucky, assertion of competence, listing medical experience... mostly legal bullshit."
"You forgot in the car." Vicky mumbled. Amy rolled her eyes.
"No one gave you any trouble over it?" I asked.
She shrugged. "I mean, somebody might notice I looked them up and printed them off in the hospital's break room, but they shouldn't care."
Unless Thinkers, I couldn't help but muse to myself. A system admin could pull up a log of who'd accessed the file, and likely what login account had done so and where they'd printed them. So there were a couple ways someone could find out there's likely a new healer in Brockton Bay, but the chances of it being a problem were relatively low. Someone on a gang payroll or- again- Thinkers.
I decided not to worry about it. "So what do I do with it?"
"Fill it out and take it in whenever you want to start things rolling. They might want to run a few tests, and it'll take a while to spread around to the rest of the hospitals and clinics in the area, but you're mostly done after that. The important thing is the 'you agree patients can't sue the hospital for accepting Parahuman healing and something going wrong' form."
Well, I probably wasn't going to get around to healing this week, between everything going on and the gang stuff... then again, helping people hurt by the coming gang war could be a better use of my time than searching out gang targets... "Yeah, thanks. I'll fill them out, and we'll see from there." Amy nodded. "So then..." I went back over the earlier list in my head. "...Rune. I'm worried about her. It's possible they'll come looking at my place. By then we either need a more permanent 'base' to hide her at, or a hidden bunker under the house. I think I can manage it, I just need, y'know, a way for her to survive in an enclosed space for a day or three."
Amy scowled, but Vicky had a look of thought after a brief flash of negative emotion slurry. "Hmm... Lithium... tetroxide? No, wait a second." She grabbed her phone and we all watched her flick through it for about half a minute. "No, no. Nitrogen tetroxide is a rocket fuel oxidizer, and kind of super toxic. It's lithium hydroxide I was thinking of." She looked up, to find us all staring. "What? It's the stuff they use for the CO2 scrubbers in the space capsules and mining equipment."
"...space cadet." Amy snickered.
"How do you just know that?" I asked.
"Well..." Vicky muttered, visibly considering her words for several long moments. I could feel her emotional responses fluctuating as she considered her answer. "Before I got powers, I was super insecure about a lot of things. Back then I figured, since I wasn't getting powers, the only way to live up to the family name would be to do something amazing, so..." She flicked her hair haughtily, puffing herself up despite feeling nervous and embarrassed. "...back then, I figured I'd just restart the astronaut program and be the first woman on the moon."
Amy was failing to stifle all of her red-faced snorting.
I coughed, politely. "Well... you certainly don't aim low."
"I think it's nice." Dinah added.
"Well, if that didn't work out, I could always just be president or something." Vicky shrugged, like that was so easy for some girl from a mildly famous middle-class family with no political legacy to just do. "That's what it felt like I had to do, just to keep up."
Oh yeah. Our team needed all the therapy.
I quickly scooted out of my chair and moved around the table to wrap her shoulders in a hug. Amy leaned into her other side. "That's seriously some bullshit." I stated firmly. "That sort of pressure is absurd."
She chuckled ruefully. "It's... Everyone with famous parents has to deal with that. It's just... it's capes."
"And capes were new and big, and you were one of the only kids of an outed cape." That didn't make it okay, but I suppose I understood. It wasn't Vicky's fault at all. I had to wonder what Old Wave were thinking when they all unmasked like that. To my knowledge there wasn't a single other team in North America like that.
Dinah was fidgeting in her seat. "C'mere." I offered with a little wave of my freer hand, tugging at Vicky to get her to back away from the table and make room. She scrambled a little to close the circle on our group hug.
"Heh, thanks guys." Vicky mumbled, pulling us tighter. We stayed like that for a bit, until she sniffed and started shaking herself loose. "So, what were we talking about?"
"Oh, bunkers and bases, I think." I said, slowly wandering back to my seat. "I can dig them out easy enough, and can probably make building walls and floors and such easier." I had some experience with it, after all. "I just don't know where to look for a base, or how to solve the 'air and food' issue for a bunker at my house. Uhh... how hard is it to get that stuff you were talking about?"
"I mean, it's deep mining safety equipment. No idea how much it costs, but suppliers exist." She plopped back into her chair, leaning her head on one of her hands. "If you wanted something like an oxygen candle you might be out of luck. Military submarine and aerospace stuff. Should be fine with an O2 tank and a CO2 scrubber though, as long as you've got power, food, and water."
That made sense, but... "I really should just build a secret base in the city instead of a secret bunker under my house..."
"Captain's hill?" Amy hummed. "Entrances around the park and the other side past the McMansions could be good, cover a bunch of the city."
"Isn't that mostly dirt, though? Would make digging harder." Vicky wondered.
"Not as big a problem for me, I can pack dirt into sedimentary-type rock."
She hummed. "Well, still. Might as well go where it's all rock anyway, right? I think the hills around Silverton are mostly rock. We've got some hills out of town just past the interstate that would probably work, too. And mountains a bit past that."
Amy scoffed. "Base outside the city? Really?"
"Base next to the highway. We could deploy to other cities faster that way."
"Short-term we're worried about Brockton Bay, though." I cut in, and Vicky wilted a little. "It's a good idea, but not before we actually clean up our own backyard."
"Nothing says we can't have half a dozen secret bases." Amy added.
"Besides funding and staffing them." I stated, shaking my head. "We're not going to be able to afford to build the first couple of them off-the grid, so we're going to need to commit to paying services like electricity and water. We might manage in the future, but only if we pull in a lot of investors or hit a really big bounty, or something like that. Even if we steal a lot of the Empire or ABB's cash, a lot of that is going to pay for cleaning up the rest of their gangs."
"How do you figure?" Vicky asked.
"Well, we're going to start paying our capes for one. It'll probably boost recruitment. Besides that, we'll be paying damages for things messed up in cape fights, right? And we don't have normal minions to hold territory for us. So we're going to have to either bolster the police or PRT numbers to handle it, or hire our own guys to keep gang violence down while we stamp them out." Everyone was staring at me. "...what? Gram's been talking money at me lately, and sometimes problems really are things you can throw money at and make them go away."
"That's... gonna cost a lot."
"Like how much the gangs probably have on hand, if we can find it all?" I smirked.
Vicky snorted. "Maybe."
"21% chance that'll work for the two big gangs separately. 97% if we can secure all the gang assets in the city." We all looked at Dinah, and she gave a shy chuckle. "Maybe... someone's rich... or something?"
"Probably." I mused, wondering if Medhall counted as a 'gang asset' to that prediction. A company like that could definitely fund a few mercenary teams, but wasn't the sort of thing we could claim as spoils of war.
"It can't be that easy." Amy muttered.
"I doubt we're getting everything, and it's not going to be some quick coup de grace. The ABB only had a couple capes, and the lieutenants are going to splinter and run with whatever they can, if we show we can actually hold Lung." I stated. "The good news is that each of these smaller gangs will be easier to pick off than the ABB were." I hoped, anyway. The police were already harassing the ABB more than the Empire because reasons, but with Lung and Lee gone, they were more free to act. The Rules didn't seem to care at all about cop-killers, just cape-killers. "That's all long-term, anyway. If we focus on the ABB right now, we're just helping the Empire and any of the little gangs looking to move up in the world."
Vicky nodded seriously. "Capes need to take down capes."
No one seemed willing to argue with her on that. "Okay, so I need to look for good base locations soon. We also need to talk to the city about utilities for it, but that needs to come after announcing the team. At least privately, which means setting up the core of it. Is your aunt still willing to talk?"
Amy was flinching less each time I brought it up, but she still did. "Yeah." Vicky answered. "Might need to cut things a little shorter to get back to patrols to keep the gangs down."
"I have that meeting with the indie capes later that day anyway. Maybe I can get in a patrol or two between. And we really need to get in some practice fighting together... but that might have to wait until anyone new joins up, and the need to patrol so heavily dies down."
After that, we started talking about training strategies. It was mostly Vicky explaining some of the tactics New Wave had drilled in the past, the differences between highground snipers like most of her family and mobile anvils like herself, and how they focused on mobility and opportunity to gang up on villains in the midst of group fights. A lot of it likely wasn't going to be useful for us, since we couldn't trust we'd wind up with a majority-Mover team, but it was interesting to hear and some of it was surely going to be useful. We didn't have time for more than general descriptions, anyway.
I checked in with Dinah, making sure that she was still doing well in her classes. We gave the Dallons a more detailed run-down of her abilities. Though a lot of what Vicky took away from it was how inconvenient getting ambushed with questions was. We even told her about Dinah's power changing, which got a similar reaction to Amy's. 'Powers do not change', not unless something huge happened, like the suspected-but-unconfirmed 'second trigger' or serious disfigurement.
When asked for more details on second triggers, she sadly couldn't help much. A grand total of three studied cases wasn't enough to suffuse it into the literature, for some unknown reason. Disfigurement was better studied. Brain damage could change powers, and it was suspected that removing the means of a power working- like losing your eyes for a line-of-sight power- would force the power to change. There were similarly few proven cases of this, and no one sane wanted to intentionally maim a cape to see what their power would do.
Eventually we had to call an end to the meeting. Amy and Vicky had to go back to preparing with their family, after all. While we were heading back to my place, I checked my phone. I had a few messages, but the ones that stood out were from Sally, asking to use my Terraform name as an excuse for where some of the information that Sue's kids were flooding the police and PRT was coming from, about the gangs.
The other was from Rika, asking if that offer was still on the table.
...fuck.
Hey, you know what? Since it's already been so long, maybe I should wait a couple more weeks to post this?
I can call it a Christmas present, and we can be all jolly about it, and-
Hey, what are you doing? What's with the tor- oh wow that's a lot of pitchforks. Guys? Guys?
Seriously, what are you doi-
SAT MAR 5
Helping Cass settle in took most of the day. The tour was quick, but we also had to make plans for what to do if someone came over, or if we wanted to keep the windows open to show the neighbors or anyone checking in that nothing weird was going on some days, planning out times to shower where Dad or I could run interference if she couldn't hear the door... a lot went into keeping a secret houseguest.
It was not sufficient excuse to get out of work study with Gram, however. That was an hour of lecturing on the value of my life and discretion as valor, followed by two hours of actual lecture and study in balancing checkbooks and account portfolios with an eye for tax filing later. The sort of stuff high school should be teaching along with basic math, but don't because classism.
I was a little surprised after my alarm went off, that a bleary-eyed Cass met me in the hallway. "What're you doing up?"
"Fucking conditioning." She slurred. I stared at her for about three seconds, until she realized I was waiting for her to elaborate. "De-, eh, fuck it, Victor wakes me up every morning to work out. Enough to keep fit, anyway."
"So you don't get flabby riding things everywhere with your powers?" Her answer was to flip me off and start for the kitchen. "Why not just do sports?"
"Because then it'd be workouts and sports, and Kaiser hates it when people block up their schedule for something besides sucking his dick." That was... probably a euphemism. It still had me pause in shock momentarily, and was enough to curtail the conversation. I shook myself and went to getting a quick meal while she plunked herself at the table.
I popped some bread in the toaster, grabbed the jam and my tub of yogurt from the fridge, and the bag of bulk store granola chunks from the top of it where we kept our cereals. I added a generous dollop of yogurt to a couple plates, sprinkled it with oats, and added a couple half-slices of toast. One of which was set in front of her with a spoon, before I started demolishing the other.
"Well, uh... working out is why I'm up early. Have a mat and some weights in the basement. You want to...?"
"Might as well." She grumbled.
We went down, warmed up, and swapped off regimens. I did my weights run while she took the mat, then we drastically reduced the weights while I spotted for her much shorter run with them. Then we headed back upstairs for second-breakfast.
That was when I checked my phone, and found messages from Vicky. She was trying to wrangle Amy awake and come over to pick me up for the team meeting. I gave Cass a side-glance and grimaced.
Well, it had to happen eventually.
I told her to come over as soon as Amy wouldn't gnaw off her wrist to get back to bed, and resigned myself to an interesting morning. Then I made scrambled eggs with bacon bits in. Cass took the news well enough, dropping her head to the table and groaning. The meal was dreary and silent for entirely different reasons than earlier.
I hopped to my feet when I felt a car slowing down our street, and had the door open before they finished pulling into the driveway next to the truck. I beckoned energetically, and they got out and trudged up.
"What?" Amy groused.
"We have a guest. I didn't want to leave a trail in texts. Come on." They gave each other wary glances, but acquiesced. I shut the door quickly and hopped out in front of them. "In here."
"You." They hissed, when they caught sight of her.
"Yaaaay." Cass droned.
I cleared my throat. "She ran away, and she's staying with me for now. I just thought everyone should be on the same page before we left."
"So glad I get to deal with the 'every villain is Hitler' brigade." Cassie muttered loudly.
"Na-Zi." Vicky growled, punctuating both syllables with a shake of her flat hands.
"I can see how you'd ignore the point there."
"Hey! Stop it!" I interjected, stepping between them. "Cass, what's the problem?"
She settled down to a simmer, glowering past me. "I just thought they'd have gotten over the whole 'hating people for their mistakes' thing by now. I mean, they knew about me, right?" I nodded. "So they've had their chance to have a problem with me. I just don't want to put up with their bullshit."
"Our bullshit? You're the murderer!"
"Oh, like you've never fucked up." Cass spat back.
I was worried things were about to explode and I'd have to start physically separating people, but help came from an unexpected corner. "Vicky..."
She turned back to her sister, voice low and nearly dangerous. "Ames..."
"Think, Vicky." She hissed, causing Vicky to pause and then wince. "I've... already had this argument with Taylor. I don't want to have it again. She gets one chance... agreed?"
It took a few moments, and a couple glances between everyone, but she nodded. "Fine. One chance."
Cass chuckled. "You know, I was expecting both of you to have sticks so far up your asses you'd be choking on 'em. Pleasantly surprised." Both sisters glared and flipped her off. "Now, now... ooh, that's a thought. Might even have a chance at the ol' 'we're not so different, after all'..."
"No." Victoria stated frigidly.
Cass held her hands out placatingly, the motion not at all matching her shit-eating grin. "Hear me out. We're both pretty blonde girls born into very white families with histories of having powers, fed 'we're the heroes' juice right from the bottle. Not gonna' say my family turned out anywhere close to as right about it as yours, but..." The smile faltered, and she started rubbing her arms. "Everyone likes thinking they're the good guys, or at least never really thinks they're the bad guys... and most people would do anything, convince themselves of anything, if it meant not admitting they were evil the whole time. Anyone calling you the bad guy has to be just another villain, right?"
"Because it's true." Victoria ground out.
"Which is exactly what my cousins would say. What I would have said more than.. five, six months ago. And nothing is ever going to convince any of you that you're wrong. It's too deeply ingrained in who you and they are." Vicky just continued to stand there, arms folded imperiously, and scowling at her. Amy stood slightly behind, blank and seemingly unconvinced. "Fine, I know I'm never going to convince you you're wrong about yourselves, but just take some time to think about what it'd take to actually change your mind, and think about how hard that can be for other people. No one actually thinks they're evil."
Amy coughed out something like 'slaughterhouse'.
"No one sane thinks they're evil. Ugh." She waved them off and slumped back into her seat. "Even Kaiser, Lung, and those Merchant fucks never struck me as the type to think they're the bad guys. More they think 'good' and 'bad' people are just narrative lies, so they might as well be king of the shitlords. Tycoon dictators; so long as they have power and the numbers keep going up, their dicks stay hard."
That had Amy choking back a chuckle, while her sister gave an unimpressed, "Riiight..."
Seeing things were stalling out, I stepped in. "So, any questions for each other? About, I dunno, something less caustic... powers, maybe?"
Halfway-thoughtful looks all around. "Hey, it true you got shot once?" Cass asked Vicky. "Like, not shot at, there's a rumor Glory Girl went down a couple years back." When no answer was forthcoming in a moment of silence, she continued. "With all the ducking and weaving you do, everyone's pretty convinced there's some trick to your 'invincible girl' shtick, but no one can agree on what it is."
Vicky visibly waffled on whether or not to answer. "Yeah. Why?"
Cass rolled her eyes. "Because if you don't dodge, with my powers I could set up instant cage-matches with anyone you want to pick off. Thing is, I need to know if that's a fucking shit idea before I start making plans on working with you."
"Yeah, that's... a pretty shit idea." She acceded. "What about your powers? How does the 'rune' thing work? Why the name Rune, anyway?"
She got a gimlet half-glare for her obvious subject shift. "It fit the Norse theme." Cass ground out. She took a moment to weigh her words, before continuing in a much more subdued tone. "Othala's my cousin. She wanted to match. It's... hard to say no, when she gets excited about something."
"Pushy?" Vicky asked. I could feel she was intrigued, but refused to outwardly show it.
"Nah, just... she's a happy little housewife when she's not being Othala. The sort you just... want her to be happy. Stay happy." The Dallons looked a little ill. "Just because someone believes in really stupid ideals, doesn't make them not a person. If you took away everyone that's different, the Nazis would find reasons to hate the other whites. But people like my cousin? She'd just be happy Victor's home more often." She leaned forward, rubbing her eyes. "I'd like to think I'd be... well, I dunno. That's not me, anymore."
That seemed to start thawing Vicky's Nazi-hating heart. "Hey, so... what do we call you instead, then?"
Cass shrugged. "I dunno. Sigil? Scribe? It's not like I'm going out anytime soon. We have time to think of something that doesn't tie back to... ugh. But I mean, I still need to tag things with my power to make it work, that's not changing."
"And that is...?" Amy lead.
"Well... my power works by 'marking' things. Claiming them, basically. 'This is mine and I can do what I want with it' sort of thing."
"Sounds a little klepto." Amy added with a nasty smirk.
Cass glared, and I could feel her fighting a blush. "I'm...! ...haven't... done that in years... months..." She trailed off quietly. Amy was smiling and Vicky had an eyebrow raised. "I'm fine. It's not a problem anymore."
"If you're sure, it's okay." I stated. Vicky caught my eye and gave a tiny scoff. I'm sure they were planning on keeping an eye on that, now. "What about the powers? How do your marks work?"
"Right, that." Vicky turned her attention back to Cass, with a hint of excited intent in her tone.
"I just... do it." She took a second to rub a finger on the table in a vague circle, followed by a squiggle. It lifted a couple inches to hover, then set itself back down. "The mark, I mean. I still need a symbol that works. That part isn't automatic. My current... rune..." She grimaced. "...is a C shape, into an upside-down-V of an A, then an S." She took the time to draw it out, slower this time. "It doesn't matter what it is, as long as my brain's like... 'yeah that's mine, now'. A lot of my early attempts to shorten things down or make a custom symbol I could scribble would, uh... 'slip' and not work sometimes. I haven't had that problem with this one, and I have it down to like half a second after about a year and a half's practice."
"Huh." Vicky muttered, and I nearly mirrored it. I surreptitiously tried drawing it out on my thigh. Vicky wasn't nearly as subtle, and stepped over to try it on the table. I was a little faster, but we both wound up around three seconds. "That's actually kind of impressive. Your power doesn't help at all? No enhanced dexterity, or..."
"Nope. Powers start when it's tagged, not before."
Vicky hummed again, chewing her lip. "That goes against Jansen's theory for power expression. Powers give the user an instinctual knowledge of what they do, and the tools to use them."
Cass laughed. "Bullshit. It took them like a week to figure out it was Ka-Othala that made Unc-... uh. Ehh, fuck it. Uncle Archibald invincible that one raid."
"Now That's bullshit. Powers don't work like that."
"Hey, I wasn't there. I just heard the story. My powers were super obvious when I got them."
"Look at them go..." Amy said quietly after sidling up to me.
"At least they're not screaming at each other?" I asked, tone low and giving her a tired smile. Then I turned back to the others. "I didn't really know I had powers for a few days. I was pretty well out of it, and stuck in the hospital."
"Ooh, yeah." Cass winced. "That was when she had her eye out. They'd've had her on the good shit for a while..."
"Hah!" Vicky cheered.
I waved her down. "I can see how someone with a really subtle power can not know they have them. What if your only power was your aura, or something?"
She visibly pondered this for a few seconds. "Okay, maybe. Very weak Shaker, Thinker, maybe Stranger powers."
"Master, too." I added pointedly, which had her scowling at the old comparison. "Everyone suddenly agreeing with you, or things going your way, could take a while to parse out as more than luck or charisma."
"Fine, fine." Vicky conceded. "I'll have to bring this up with my Parahuman Studies class, maybe poke a few professors or scientists..."
I stepped in when she trailed off. "Make a note, then. We should probably get going soon." Then, to Cass, "Are you going to be okay here, today?"
"Yeah, not like I'm gonna' be alone." She waved upstairs, where Dad was still sleeping in. He'd had a long night, still up worrying when Cass and I turned in to sleep.
"He might have errands, or the office might need him for a couple hours." I watched her carefully while I said it.
She seemed mostly fine, but a twinge of dread started creeping in. "Yeah, no. I'll be fine, alone." She nearly hitched up at the last word, but she kept her words even.
I briefly debated pressing on, figuring out what was wrong and working out some solution to it... but Cass seemed like the sort to deflect and double down rather than admit something was wrong. It was a bit uncomfortably familiar, if I was being honest. "Alright. I'll try to be back soon."
"Take your time, I'm fine." She lied. "I'll just grab a book or something, maybe watch TV." She glanced at the closed blinds that made the house feel a bit smaller than usual. "Maybe open a window or something..." She muttered.
"...I'll be back this afternoon. Maybe early evening, then." I said, and she nodded. I needed to figure something out. I'm sure she wouldn't appreciate a sitter, even if I could find someone I trusted that had the free time. The big problem was going to be weekdays, with me at school and Dad at work, which was also when everyone else I knew was probably busy.
I grabbed the last of the stuff from the bakery on the way out. We settled into the car and got going. I cleared my throat into the silence. "So?"
"So?" Vicky echoed.
"What do you think? I'm not going to suddenly find Rune turned in to the PRT, am I? I'd be pretty mad about it, especially if it wrecked my house or told them who I am."
I watched her in the mirrors, since she was driving and I was in the back. She took a few seconds to reply. "No. She's... not what I was expecting. I'll withhold judgment, for now."
"She'll get her chance to fuck up." Amy added flippantly. "Don't worry."
Not exactly what I was going for, but I'd take it. I spent the rest of the trip asking about what I remembered of my homework and make-up work for Monday, which I'd already been called out for on family business.
I was still trying to keep the Medhall meeting as far from my mind as possible.
We sent Dinah a text to let her know we were on the way, and parked in the garage when we got there to hide the car and plate from anyone looking to snoop around. The area was rich enough that there were surely people around that could spare the time to snoop and gossip while other people made their money for them.
It wound up a little awkward, when we met up in the hallway off the garage rather than the usual front door or near there. No one was quite sure how to proceed, so I leapt to introductions before the silence could cause any problems. "Dinah, these are Amy and Vicky. Panpan, GG, this is Shatterpoint." I could tell we were the only ones here like Dinah had said the other day, so it should be safe to put everything in the open.
"What did you-"
"She's adorable!" Vicky cut in, moving past an indignant Amy to snatch up Dinah's hands and cup them in her own. "Hi, there. I'm Victoria, and you can count on me for anything you need, alright?"
"Aaaand now I have a new little sister." Amy muttered. I gave her a shy smile and she glowered at me. "Still going to get you for that nickname."
"I thought it was cute." I replied with a small pout.
She blushed and looked away. I smirked and leaned forward to keep an eye on her cheeks. I liked the contrast with her freckles, and the little smile she was trying to hide.
"Um, hi." Dinah stammered. "Is, uh, the table okay?" She pulled back, leading us to the kitchen table. I couldn't blame her, getting pinned by the high beams of an exuberant Victoria. I'd felt her aura, but it wasn't aimed at me, and didn't seem to do anything to me.
With Cass stuck at my house, and Tracy wanting to focus on tinkering, that meant the team was assembled. I set the bag of treats in the center of the table. "So, uh. Not sure how to start a team meeting, really."
"Old business, new business?" Victoria suggested.
"Right." I hummed while I thought back. "Rune's moved in with me. She'll be safe there for a little while, but we're going to need to figure out a place for her to hide there, or somewhere completely unconnected with her civilian life to keep her more permanently until the Empire can't try to take her back."
"How's that old?" Amy asked flatly.
"She was planning on leaving, had already agreed to defect. Update on old news." I replied, a little snippier than intended. I took a breath and continued more evenly. "Tracy is still working on figuring out her tinkering. Gave the okay to decide things without her, today. We also still don't have a team name, or a money structure in place for pay, insurance, and anything else. Wanted to talk to Lady Photon about how New Wave does theirs." Vicky nodded, and Amy glanced away. "I... think that's everything old?"
"Team name!" Vicky cheered. "We need a name!"
I groaned. "Well, I can't think of anything. It's all too generic, what comes to mind. Like, Protectors, Guardians, Wardens... it's all either too close to something already, like the Protectorate, or it doesn't really mean anything, or it does mean something, but it's the wrong thing..."
"You're overthinking things." She insisted. "Like, New Wave's message isn't obvious in the name, but it's still there if you go looking for it. Things like the Guild don't really match up with their name. They're like an adventurer's guild, but in practice it's more like an army reserve, putting people on-call for crises where they're needed rather than giving people jobs to do like a guild is supposed to. And the Protectorate is using the name wrong."
I snickered. "Because a protectorate is either a client state under another government's protection, or another word for 'Lord Protector' or 'the person in charge'?" Which was kind of the opposite of what they were going for.
Vicky shrugged. "I think the original Protectorate just picked something that hadn't been claimed by a comic book already, and when they lost Hero and made the big organization it was supposed to mean being Parahumans protected by the US government, but don't quote me on that."
"Makes as much sense as anything." I muttered. "Overthinking things, huh?"
"Could go with something earth-y? Y'know, on the Terraform thing. You're the leader."
I frowned at her. "I don't even know why I'm the leader."
"Well, I kinda' can't be, Tracy and Dinah seem happy to follow whatever you decide," she nodded at the girl, who'd just been following our back-and-forth. Attentive, but not speaking up. "and Amy's kinda' busy. Besides, you're the one doing everything, and pulling everyone together."
"Why can't you?" She had points about everything else, and I was guessing she hadn't brought Cassie up as a former criminal.
"Conflict of interest. I can't be leader of one team and subordinate on another. Maybe if I was leader of both teams it'd work, but I'm not."
"The Narwhal example?" I asked.
She winced. "She's actually an example of why the two teams thing doesn't work, this time. Sure, she's leader of the Guild and the Toronto Protectorate, but that means she still answers to Legend. He's nice enough that he wouldn't give her orders that'd hurt the Guild, but in practice she kind of has to prioritize orders from him over leading the Guild, if she wants to stay head of Toronto."
That made me worry about her own priorities, but... I'd still prefer having her part-time rather than not at all, especially while the team was so small compared to the Empire's roster. I suppose the same argument also counted for Amy, until she quits. "Fine. I guess I'm the leader."
Dinah reached out to pat my shoulder. "It's okay. I believe in you."
"So. Fucking. Cute." Vicky quietly squealed. Dinah's smile twitched, and I could almost hear her screaming internally. I gave her a tired, commiserating smile. Amy ran her shoulder into Vicky's, but I'm not sure she even felt it.
"Moving on..." Amy groused.
"Right. Well..." Vicky mumbled, biting her lip and thinking for a couple seconds. "I mean, we could always find a message and work backward from that. Like, being heroes, or fighting villains... supporting the city, uh... " She scowled and grumbled. "...reforming villains..."
I stopped to think about it. Yeah, all of that was stuff I wanted us to do, but it wasn't the message I wanted to send. I wanted a place where everyone could be safe. A place for heroes, rogues, and normal people. I wanted the city to be safe... a thought came rather loudly to mind. "Unity." Coming together. Bridging gaps. "One world, coming together for everyone. A bright future."
"Huh. Like, Gaia, Terra, the world, uhh... coming together... Pangaea?" Vicky listed off. Like when the continents came together? The whole world was basically one place, then.
"Veto." Amy droned, raising her hand and dropping it in a chopping motion. "I am not dealing with the inevitable 'Panacea/Pangaea' jokes." The way she said them, there was barely any difference between the words. Vicky stuck her tongue out at her.
"I like Amasia." Dinah stated, into the brief silence.
"The... what?" I didn't know what that meant.
"It's... well... I mean." She shook herself and took a deep breath. "You know how the continents are moving, and they come together now and then?"
"Like Pangaea, and that other one..." I thought out loud.
"Gondwana?" Vicky tried.
"Gondwana and Laurasia split off from Pangaea," Dinah lectured. "I don't count those, since it's just part of the process of splitting apart into 'normal' continents again. The last 'most of the continents' before Pangaea was Rodinia."
"O...kay. And?" I wondered.
She blushed and fidgeted. "Well, supercontinents are a thing that's going to happen again. People have done studies on tectonic movement and calculated trajectories and models... One of the ones considered likely is North America continuing to travel north until Canada hits Siberia. When people aren't trying to call it some version of 'New Pangaea'," she rolled her eyes. "they take America plus Eurasia, and call it Amasia."
It... wan't terrible. I didn't hate it. "I like it!" Vicky cheered. "Get it, we're Amasia, 'cuz we'll amaze ya!"
We all stared at Vicky for several seconds. Then Amy slowly raised her hand. "Vet-"
"No!" Vicky reached over to boop her nose. "No gloomy anti-fun here. It's a good name. Dinah wouldn't have suggested it if she didn't like it, and Taylor doesn't seem to hate it." She gave me a pointed look.
I glanced briefly between the sisters. Then, to the best of my ability, abandoned ship. "I didn't know you were into that stuff." I said to Dinah. "Tectonics and continents and such. Planning to be a geologist or, whatever the specialists for that are called?"
"Oh, uh. No? And I really wasn't into it, before I got my powers. Just... looking up things like that, predictions of the future and extrapolations from the past, they've... been interesting, ever since I got my powers."
Vicky squealed, floating a bit above her chair and leaning over the table to point at the girl. "Data point!"
"Yes?" Dinah shouted back, instantly raising her hands to ward off her shock.
"Not Shatterpoint, data point!" She sat back down, waving her hands and smiling excitedly. "A lot of the capes involved in Parahuman research are convinced getting powers changes the way you think about things, even going so far as to add new interests related to their powers." She scowled. "But the normal researchers are all 'confirmation bias'," she simpered the words as she made her air quotes. "and say that because we always hear about the study first and then try to find examples that fit, we're always going to find those examples, because we want them to be there. Ames didn't want to be a doctor, and I didn't like punching people nearly so much, before we got our powers."
"Because it wasn't really an option." Amy droned.
Vicky scoffed. "Don't you 'devil's advocate' those psycho-analyzers at me, I know what I'm talking about." Amy rolled her eyes, but kept quiet. "We should totally do research things if we get the chance. There aren't nearly enough Parahumans willing to do so. Even New Wave really doesn't bother."
Ugh... do we have to? I bit back most of my gut reaction. "What would that entail?"
"Mostly just contacting them and coordinating surveys now and then."
"The Protectorate don't do anything like that? You'd think that many capes would handle the research aspects of powers."
Vicky waggled her hand. "I mean, they do, but we're going to have to wait another fifty years or so for whatever-the-hell Secrets Act to start declassifying it. I'm not that patient."
Right. Federal organization. I should have expected that. "We'll contact research groups, and try to streamline getting tests and taking surveys, but it'll be on an opt-in basis for everyone. Deal?"
"Good enough." Vicky stated. Dinah hummed affirmatively around the cookie she'd grabbed. Amy looked entirely disinterested in cape research. "What's next?"
I turned it back on her. "Anything else you wanted to bring up?"
Vicky scowled, then perked up and nudged Amy. "Ugh, fine." She de-slumped herself and leaned forward now that she'd been put on the spot. "I have a packet of things to sign in the car. Basic parahuman healer package. Assumption of responsibility in case your power gets fucky, assertion of competence, listing medical experience... mostly legal bullshit."
"You forgot in the car." Vicky mumbled. Amy rolled her eyes.
"No one gave you any trouble over it?" I asked.
She shrugged. "I mean, somebody might notice I looked them up and printed them off in the hospital's break room, but they shouldn't care."
Unless Thinkers, I couldn't help but muse to myself. A system admin could pull up a log of who'd accessed the file, and likely what login account had done so and where they'd printed them. So there were a couple ways someone could find out there's likely a new healer in Brockton Bay, but the chances of it being a problem were relatively low. Someone on a gang payroll or- again- Thinkers.
I decided not to worry about it. "So what do I do with it?"
"Fill it out and take it in whenever you want to start things rolling. They might want to run a few tests, and it'll take a while to spread around to the rest of the hospitals and clinics in the area, but you're mostly done after that. The important thing is the 'you agree patients can't sue the hospital for accepting Parahuman healing and something going wrong' form."
Well, I probably wasn't going to get around to healing this week, between everything going on and the gang stuff... then again, helping people hurt by the coming gang war could be a better use of my time than searching out gang targets... "Yeah, thanks. I'll fill them out, and we'll see from there." Amy nodded. "So then..." I went back over the earlier list in my head. "...Rune. I'm worried about her. It's possible they'll come looking at my place. By then we either need a more permanent 'base' to hide her at, or a hidden bunker under the house. I think I can manage it, I just need, y'know, a way for her to survive in an enclosed space for a day or three."
Amy scowled, but Vicky had a look of thought after a brief flash of negative emotion slurry. "Hmm... Lithium... tetroxide? No, wait a second." She grabbed her phone and we all watched her flick through it for about half a minute. "No, no. Nitrogen tetroxide is a rocket fuel oxidizer, and kind of super toxic. It's lithium hydroxide I was thinking of." She looked up, to find us all staring. "What? It's the stuff they use for the CO2 scrubbers in the space capsules and mining equipment."
"...space cadet." Amy snickered.
"How do you just know that?" I asked.
"Well..." Vicky muttered, visibly considering her words for several long moments. I could feel her emotional responses fluctuating as she considered her answer. "Before I got powers, I was super insecure about a lot of things. Back then I figured, since I wasn't getting powers, the only way to live up to the family name would be to do something amazing, so..." She flicked her hair haughtily, puffing herself up despite feeling nervous and embarrassed. "...back then, I figured I'd just restart the astronaut program and be the first woman on the moon."
Amy was failing to stifle all of her red-faced snorting.
I coughed, politely. "Well... you certainly don't aim low."
"I think it's nice." Dinah added.
"Well, if that didn't work out, I could always just be president or something." Vicky shrugged, like that was so easy for some girl from a mildly famous middle-class family with no political legacy to just do. "That's what it felt like I had to do, just to keep up."
Oh yeah. Our team needed all the therapy.
I quickly scooted out of my chair and moved around the table to wrap her shoulders in a hug. Amy leaned into her other side. "That's seriously some bullshit." I stated firmly. "That sort of pressure is absurd."
She chuckled ruefully. "It's... Everyone with famous parents has to deal with that. It's just... it's capes."
"And capes were new and big, and you were one of the only kids of an outed cape." That didn't make it okay, but I suppose I understood. It wasn't Vicky's fault at all. I had to wonder what Old Wave were thinking when they all unmasked like that. To my knowledge there wasn't a single other team in North America like that.
Dinah was fidgeting in her seat. "C'mere." I offered with a little wave of my freer hand, tugging at Vicky to get her to back away from the table and make room. She scrambled a little to close the circle on our group hug.
"Heh, thanks guys." Vicky mumbled, pulling us tighter. We stayed like that for a bit, until she sniffed and started shaking herself loose. "So, what were we talking about?"
"Oh, bunkers and bases, I think." I said, slowly wandering back to my seat. "I can dig them out easy enough, and can probably make building walls and floors and such easier." I had some experience with it, after all. "I just don't know where to look for a base, or how to solve the 'air and food' issue for a bunker at my house. Uhh... how hard is it to get that stuff you were talking about?"
"I mean, it's deep mining safety equipment. No idea how much it costs, but suppliers exist." She plopped back into her chair, leaning her head on one of her hands. "If you wanted something like an oxygen candle you might be out of luck. Military submarine and aerospace stuff. Should be fine with an O2 tank and a CO2 scrubber though, as long as you've got power, food, and water."
That made sense, but... "I really should just build a secret base in the city instead of a secret bunker under my house..."
"Captain's hill?" Amy hummed. "Entrances around the park and the other side past the McMansions could be good, cover a bunch of the city."
"Isn't that mostly dirt, though? Would make digging harder." Vicky wondered.
"Not as big a problem for me, I can pack dirt into sedimentary-type rock."
She hummed. "Well, still. Might as well go where it's all rock anyway, right? I think the hills around Silverton are mostly rock. We've got some hills out of town just past the interstate that would probably work, too. And mountains a bit past that."
Amy scoffed. "Base outside the city? Really?"
"Base next to the highway. We could deploy to other cities faster that way."
"Short-term we're worried about Brockton Bay, though." I cut in, and Vicky wilted a little. "It's a good idea, but not before we actually clean up our own backyard."
"Nothing says we can't have half a dozen secret bases." Amy added.
"Besides funding and staffing them." I stated, shaking my head. "We're not going to be able to afford to build the first couple of them off-the grid, so we're going to need to commit to paying services like electricity and water. We might manage in the future, but only if we pull in a lot of investors or hit a really big bounty, or something like that. Even if we steal a lot of the Empire or ABB's cash, a lot of that is going to pay for cleaning up the rest of their gangs."
"How do you figure?" Vicky asked.
"Well, we're going to start paying our capes for one. It'll probably boost recruitment. Besides that, we'll be paying damages for things messed up in cape fights, right? And we don't have normal minions to hold territory for us. So we're going to have to either bolster the police or PRT numbers to handle it, or hire our own guys to keep gang violence down while we stamp them out." Everyone was staring at me. "...what? Gram's been talking money at me lately, and sometimes problems really are things you can throw money at and make them go away."
"That's... gonna cost a lot."
"Like how much the gangs probably have on hand, if we can find it all?" I smirked.
Vicky snorted. "Maybe."
"21% chance that'll work for the two big gangs separately. 97% if we can secure all the gang assets in the city." We all looked at Dinah, and she gave a shy chuckle. "Maybe... someone's rich... or something?"
"Probably." I mused, wondering if Medhall counted as a 'gang asset' to that prediction. A company like that could definitely fund a few mercenary teams, but wasn't the sort of thing we could claim as spoils of war.
"It can't be that easy." Amy muttered.
"I doubt we're getting everything, and it's not going to be some quick coup de grace. The ABB only had a couple capes, and the lieutenants are going to splinter and run with whatever they can, if we show we can actually hold Lung." I stated. "The good news is that each of these smaller gangs will be easier to pick off than the ABB were." I hoped, anyway. The police were already harassing the ABB more than the Empire because reasons, but with Lung and Lee gone, they were more free to act. The Rules didn't seem to care at all about cop-killers, just cape-killers. "That's all long-term, anyway. If we focus on the ABB right now, we're just helping the Empire and any of the little gangs looking to move up in the world."
Vicky nodded seriously. "Capes need to take down capes."
No one seemed willing to argue with her on that. "Okay, so I need to look for good base locations soon. We also need to talk to the city about utilities for it, but that needs to come after announcing the team. At least privately, which means setting up the core of it. Is your aunt still willing to talk?"
Amy was flinching less each time I brought it up, but she still did. "Yeah." Vicky answered. "Might need to cut things a little shorter to get back to patrols to keep the gangs down."
"I have that meeting with the indie capes later that day anyway. Maybe I can get in a patrol or two between. And we really need to get in some practice fighting together... but that might have to wait until anyone new joins up, and the need to patrol so heavily dies down."
After that, we started talking about training strategies. It was mostly Vicky explaining some of the tactics New Wave had drilled in the past, the differences between highground snipers like most of her family and mobile anvils like herself, and how they focused on mobility and opportunity to gang up on villains in the midst of group fights. A lot of it likely wasn't going to be useful for us, since we couldn't trust we'd wind up with a majority-Mover team, but it was interesting to hear and some of it was surely going to be useful. We didn't have time for more than general descriptions, anyway.
I checked in with Dinah, making sure that she was still doing well in her classes. We gave the Dallons a more detailed run-down of her abilities. Though a lot of what Vicky took away from it was how inconvenient getting ambushed with questions was. We even told her about Dinah's power changing, which got a similar reaction to Amy's. 'Powers do not change', not unless something huge happened, like the suspected-but-unconfirmed 'second trigger' or serious disfigurement.
When asked for more details on second triggers, she sadly couldn't help much. A grand total of three studied cases wasn't enough to suffuse it into the literature, for some unknown reason. Disfigurement was better studied. Brain damage could change powers, and it was suspected that removing the means of a power working- like losing your eyes for a line-of-sight power- would force the power to change. There were similarly few proven cases of this, and no one sane wanted to intentionally maim a cape to see what their power would do.
Eventually we had to call an end to the meeting. Amy and Vicky had to go back to preparing with their family, after all. While we were heading back to my place, I checked my phone. I had a few messages, but the ones that stood out were from Sally, asking to use my Terraform name as an excuse for where some of the information that Sue's kids were flooding the police and PRT was coming from, about the gangs.
The other was from Rika, asking if that offer was still on the table.
...fuck.
I spent a lot of time worrying over the Cass VS Dallons interaction. Had to try and get it perfect, so that it would seem realistic but not explode. Not sure I pulled it off, but... y'know, words happening.
Vicky is a neeerd.
And denies the 'not so different' speech entirely. I sometimes wonder how often I'd get 'trope subverted' if this actually had a tropes page. This is a thought that comes to mind while writing scenes where I recognize tropes far more often than they should.
Cassie has problems being alone.
...you know, that's a thought. I wonder if reality programs like Alone are a thing on Bet, and if anyone's ever triggered on them. Like, those handful of times a contestant was all "That was super dumb I shouldn't have forgotten my emergency beacon back at camp I almost died, fuck."
Dinah is also a neeerd.
But yeah, now we finally have the team named! Like a year after we voted on it! Yaaaaaay!!
Bluh. I take too long to write things.
Anyway, I'm happy I managed to finagle it into being Dinah who proposed the name. Feels apropos or poetic or what have you.
Writing the skeleton for this scene like two days after the team name vote is what had me thinking 'oh no, Vicky is the team Sokka' which people seemed to dislike as a comparison. Sure, she has powers, but outside of a fight she's the quirky ideaguy girl.
Vicky is also, as previously stated, a neeeeeeerd.
Remember that vote we had, saying we were going to get the ball rolling on healing with Panacea?
I almost didn't, either. But, here we go.
I think it was when I was trying to touch up my Worm/Danny Phantom idea between bits of AT that the astronaut thing came to mind. Vicky's thoughts on the subject rather closely mirror that AU's Danny's views on it.
Taylor will be investigating all of these base options over the coming week, and then we'll have a vote on which one to start on. Lisa might also pop in with a suggestion or two before that, but spoilers (and another scene skeleton I've been looking forward to for over a year).
Dinah's Shard: "Oh, yeah, sure. Take over all of Coil's shit and you could buy half the city before running out of cash."
Remember that time Taylor half-jokingly offered to break a girl's hip and then heal it after she was excused from Winslow for a month or so?
Pepperidge Farm remembers.
(The votes are going to decide what happens there, but Taylor is going to talk to Amy and Vicky about it to start off Part 46, and get their input. She is absolutely going to try to avoid actually hurting Rika if she can)
I vaguely recall a vote where we were going to decide whether Amy (and maybe Vicky) showed up to the indie meeting. But I could only find one about whether Amy would help with lie detection, which didn't go through. It's possible that I'm remembering repeatedly planning for a vote to that effect. With the city in the state it's in though, I feel like neither would be able to get away from obligations on their team / at the hospital for the duration of current operations. So Taylor's going alone there.
Vicky is a neeerd.
And denies the 'not so different' speech entirely. I sometimes wonder how often I'd get 'trope subverted' if this actually had a tropes page. This is a thought that comes to mind while writing scenes where I recognize tropes far more often than they should.
Cassie has problems being alone.
...you know, that's a thought. I wonder if reality programs like Alone are a thing on Bet, and if anyone's ever triggered on them. Like, those handful of times a contestant was all "That was super dumb I shouldn't have forgotten my emergency beacon back at camp I almost died, fuck."
Dinah is also a neeerd.
But yeah, now we finally have the team named! Like a year after we voted on it! Yaaaaaay!!
Bluh. I take too long to write things.
Anyway, I'm happy I managed to finagle it into being Dinah who proposed the name. Feels apropos or poetic or what have you.
Writing the skeleton for this scene like two days after the team name vote is what had me thinking 'oh no, Vicky is the team Sokka' which people seemed to dislike as a comparison. Sure, she has powers, but outside of a fight she's the quirky idea
Vicky is also, as previously stated, a neeeeeeerd.
Remember that vote we had, saying we were going to get the ball rolling on healing with Panacea?
I almost didn't, either. But, here we go.
I think it was when I was trying to touch up my Worm/Danny Phantom idea between bits of AT that the astronaut thing came to mind. Vicky's thoughts on the subject rather closely mirror that AU's Danny's views on it.
Taylor will be investigating all of these base options over the coming week, and then we'll have a vote on which one to start on. Lisa might also pop in with a suggestion or two before that, but spoilers (and another scene skeleton I've been looking forward to for over a year).
Dinah's Shard: "Oh, yeah, sure. Take over all of Coil's shit and you could buy half the city before running out of cash."
Remember that time Taylor half-jokingly offered to break a girl's hip and then heal it after she was excused from Winslow for a month or so?
Pepperidge Farm remembers.
(The votes are going to decide what happens there, but Taylor is going to talk to Amy and Vicky about it to start off Part 46, and get their input. She is absolutely going to try to avoid actually hurting Rika if she can)
I vaguely recall a vote where we were going to decide whether Amy (and maybe Vicky) showed up to the indie meeting. But I could only find one about whether Amy would help with lie detection, which didn't go through. It's possible that I'm remembering repeatedly planning for a vote to that effect. With the city in the state it's in though, I feel like neither would be able to get away from obligations on their team / at the hospital for the duration of current operations. So Taylor's going alone there.
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- Location
- Oregon
Taylor's offer back in 2.17 (Digging) that she didn't expect to ever be taken up on.
To injure Rika sufficiently to be excused from going to Winslow for a while, then heal her once she had the doctor's approval to miss school.
- Location
- Louisville, KY
We break her hip, so she gets excused from Winslow for a month then heal it.
Edit: Imp'd by author.
"Hey Vicky, need your help breaking a girl's hip and need Amy to supervise healing."
Amy & Vicky: this feels familiar but less Nazi then normal.
Oh hell yeah, this is back
Balrog
not Durin's Bane
- Location
- The Mines of Moria
Hey don't worry we would never go the pitch fork and torches route. *kicks angry mob kit under bed* Some times the ol' muse takes a year or two off.
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MultipleChoice
(Verified Unverified)
For the indie meeting, I recall that Taylor asked Dinah and got better %s if she brought the sisters.
Just started reading, so forgive me if it's been corrected later, but...
What the heck? Baqua and Tai Chi are kung fu! Shouldn't Sue, a skilled practitioner of Tai Chi and someone who lectures Taylor on cultural differences know that? Why isn't she asking about the specific style of kung fu instead? Given the known influences in the bending styles, she might even be able to call out that Taylor's earthbending forms are a variant of Hung Ga kung fu!
What the heck? Baqua and Tai Chi are kung fu! Shouldn't Sue, a skilled practitioner of Tai Chi and someone who lectures Taylor on cultural differences know that? Why isn't she asking about the specific style of kung fu instead? Given the known influences in the bending styles, she might even be able to call out that Taylor's earthbending forms are a variant of Hung Ga kung fu!
- Location
- Oregon
Dunno what to tell you there. I'm not a martial arts person, and only remember reading in my research that Earth and Fire bending were both based on different styles of kung fu. It then continued that Airbending was Baguazi, and Waterbending was Tai Chi, as if those were not kung fu.
I, personally, don't really care all that much if I made a dumb assumption based on that. Not a field I'm familiar with.
I'm less annoyed by the misunderstanding than I am of the fact that it seems out of character for Sue. She seems like a lady who knows what she's talking about and is willing to sharply correct you when you're wrong. It's just strange that she'd be willing to allow that inaccuracy when it doesn't benefit her.
As I arrive at Interlude 1 (Gram), that impression has only strengthened.
Dude. Expecting the author to be perfect is... insulting at best.
I'm really not. But you still make a good point. I did come across as insulting, didn't I?
OP, sorry if I offended you. Just saw something that bugged me a bit and thoughtlessly thought I'd comment on it. I'll try to make any criticisms I have more constructive in the future.
- Location
- Oregon
The first one was fine, but it seemed like the second was responding to my 'it didn't come up in my research' with 'that doesn't matter, the character should have gotten it right anyway'.
Which is why I didn't bother replying to it, honestly.
I see. That's... not what I intended, but that is indeed what I effectively said. Sorry again.
I think I know which assumption of mine it stemmed from, and will get on curbing that.
Cudos for being able to admit you made a mistake. The most important thing I've learned in my life is how to say, "Dude. I fucked up."
I respect you for that.