Bang 1.11
"Goodbye hug!" Amelia demanded, her arms raised up and out like the waiting jaws of a bear-trap.
"Can't we just say goodbye normally?" Taylor asked. She wasn't sure about Amelia already, giving in to the very strange bio-tinker's hugs was just asking too much.
Amelia pouted, cheeks puffing out, eyes going wide and filling with unshed tears. "No hug?" she said. Somehow she snuck in a whine into those two words, as if someone had just kicked a dog and it wanted to know what it had done wrong.
"Just give her a fucking hug already," Taylor's older, gothier self said with what Taylor was beginning to thing was her normal level of tact.
Amelia wiggled her arms up and down like a bird that had just had a run-in with a window and lost. "C'mon! I give the best hugs!"
"You'd best not be going around and handing those out to just anyone," Old-Taylor said.
"Nu-uh, you know my hugs are for everyone," Amelia said before she started grinning from ear to ear. "But naked hugs are just for you."
"O-kay!" Taylor said as she stepped into the hug. The sooner she got this over with the sooner they would leave and the sooner her face would stop flaming. "Here, we're hugging, you can go now," she said as Amelia wrapped her arms around her and pulled her close. The older girl tsked and raised Taylor's arms up so that they were around her waist, then tugged Taylor's head down into the nook of her neck.
"There, that's proper hugging form. You really are just like my Taylor. Bag of bones that doesn't know the first thing about proper hugging procedures." Amelia tightened her grip around Taylor. Not too tight, but not loose either.
Taylor sighed and wondered how long the hug would last. Not that it was all bad. Amelia was smaller, but warm. Her hands were rubbing at her back in a way that was forcing the stress right out of her and her breasts pressed against her che-- "Okay, enough hugging!" Taylor squeaked as she pulled back.
Amelia's shit-eating grin said that she knew. She just knew. Her older self's suspicious look was no better. "Okay. We can hug more next time," Amelia said before turning towards Lisa with her arms raised.
Lisa sighed and hugged her right away. She was probably smart enough to just give up right away.
"Ciao," Old-Taylor said. She extended a closed fist to Taylor who bumped it. She was expectingher older self to do something stupid, but she just turned and grabbed Amelia by the shoulders to lead her out of Lisa's appartment. "C'mon, before you decide to spend the evening here."
"Oh, don't be that way," Amelia said as she leaned back into Old-Taylor. "Princess carry?"
"Lose some weight and I'll think about it."
They left to the sound of Amelia squawking in protest and the door thumping shut.
"Holy shit," Lisa said.
Taylor stepped backwards, used a few bugs to make sure Mr. Cuddles wasn't on the sofa, then slumped onto it. She made a noise, but it wasn't in English or any other language she knew.
"Yeah, I know," Lisa said. "I mean... shit."
Taylor wanted to cry, but it wouldn't do to start bawling while Lisa was right there.
"Okay, okay, that... that was bad, but not that bad," Lisa said as she started pacing in circles in the middle of the room. She was eyeing all the corners, the potted plants and the ceiling in equal measure. "We just need to find Mr. Cuddles. And then... I don't know."
"You don't know?" Taylor repeated. She had been hoping that Lisa would have some answers for her.
"Look, those two," Lisa said as she pointed towards the door. "They're... they're like... shit. Okay, so you know how powers can kinda fuck you up?"
"They can?" Taylor asked. That was news to her. Concerning news.
"Taylor, you don't look around yourself while walking. You let your bugs do it for you. It's weird. Not... in your face noticeable, but weird. I can't go ten minutes without poking at someone's problems. Brian likes standing in shadowy places and Alec and Rachel are Alec and Rachel."
"Okay, that's fair."
Lisa nodded and paced some more. Her eyes with on a swivel, searching all over for Mr. Cuddles. Taylor had some bugs searching too, but other than the occasional bug going missing she couldn't spot him. "Right, so those two. Holy shit. They're both seriously messed up by their powers. Worse, they're encouraging each other. It's like... Lung slash Hookwolf smut, but worse."
Taylor took a moment to pause and go over what Lisa had said, paying particular attention to the last part. She leaned over to stare at Lisa who was still looking around. "What?"
"Look, I've seen some shit online, okay?"
Taylor squirmed on the couch. "Is that something you're... into?" she asked.
"What? No. My power pretty much makes me asexual, which I'm pretty sure I was already."
"Okay but... why would you even look that up then?" Taylor asked.
Lisa stopped her pacing and glared at Taylor. "We can either keep talking about your future self and her wife. Or we can start talking about your own sexuality Miss 'This-Closet-is-Nice-and-Warm.'"
Taylor sank into the couch. "Future self, please."
Lisa huffed and began pacing once more. "Actually, there's not much more to say. They play off each other. At least that whole romance thing they have going on? That's genuine. So congratulations, your future self found true love. True love was a bio-tinker that should be put on a list, but it's true love."
"Not exactly how I imagined finding love, but, uh, okay, I guess?"
Lisa nodded. "You know Amelia's going to try to set you up with Amy, right?"
Taylor groaned and pressed her hands over her face. "No. Please no."
"It's going to be like having a parent set up a date, but a million times worse. I will relish every second of it."
"You're the worst," Taylor said.
"At least I don't go around checking every girl I meet's ass," Lisa said as she bent over to look under her coffee table. She turned to see where Taylor was looking with a knowing grin.
Taylor snapped her head around to look the other way. "I don't," she said.
"To be fair, you also spent a long, long time making sure Brian's butt was seared into your memories forever," Lisa said as she came back up with a remote. "You're an equal opportunity lover Taylor. You can be rejected by twice as many people."
"I don't check out anyone's butt," she lied. She couldn't even convince herself with that one.
"Taylor, I'm pretty sure you have a butt ranking going on in the back of your head and I'm insulted that I'm third in the Undersiders. Third. At least I have the nicest boobs in the group."
Taylor grabbed a cushion from the couch, fully intending to smother herself or Lisa to death or at least try. Instead she let out a yelp as Mr. Cuddles scrambled out from under the cushion and shot across the room. Three bounces off opposite walls later and it disappeared again. "Shit," Taylor swore.
"I... won't be sleeping here tonight," Lisa said. "I know it will follow me home, but if I try really, really hard not to think about it, then maybe I can pretend that it got lost along the way. Anyway, television! The world's greatest distraction!"
With a flick, the flatscreen in the corner came on, already tuned to a twenty-four-hour news channel that was playing some ads.
Lisa slumped onto the couch next to Taylor and began rubbing her back. "Don't worry. I'm sure things will work out. More or less. Probably less than more, really."
"Thank you," Taylor snarked back. "You're really a great friend."
"See, the problem with you being sarcastic like that is that I can tell that you actually mean it deep down," Lisa said. "Don't play word games with me, Taylor, I always win."
Taylor proceeded with the suicide by cushion attempt with a groan.
She stopped a moment later when she heard Lisa's muttered "Oh fuck me."
Lowering the cushion, she stared at the television. Her bugs already told her that the room was otherwise clear, but they couldn't see the TV's screen properly. She, on the other hand, could, though she really, really wished she couldn't.
The screen captured a scene right out of a horror movie. PRT troopers were fighting a running battle against a swarm of small critters, each about the size of a cat, if cats had no fur and horns and extra limbs that ended in scythe-like claws.
Behind the cat-things were bigger monstrosities, four legged spider things that bore an eerie similarity to Mr. Cuddles if he were the size of a car and lizard-like chameleon things that were appearing and disappearing in time to shoot out long barbs that thudded into the armour of the Troopers.
The red form of Velocity was zipping around and beating on some of the monsters for a moment before his feet caught in some sort of goo and he crashed to a halt.
And before it all, right in the centre of the the screen, a pale-faced newscaster that was holding onto her microphone. "B-breaking news in the industrial sector of Brockton Bay where, ah, where an unknown group of monsters is fighting with the PRT and local Protectorate. And, oh god, oh god!"
The rather unprofessional scream came a moment after Assault punched one of the bigger monsters and it burst into a huge splatter of gore. The hero regretted it a moment later when he started screaming and rolling on the ground.
"Acid blood," Lisa confirmed Taylor's suspicions.
"Um, that's..."
"Your not so mini-me and her wife, yeah. Or, well, their babies. Congratulations, you're an aunt, if you squint."
"I don't want to be," Taylor said. "What are the chances this goes wrong?"
"Fifty-fifty odd the director pulls the Endbringer alarms. Piggot has a history with biotinkers, she's really paranoid about them."
"Paranoid?" Taylor asked. She pointed at the screen where the newscaster squeaked as a monster ran past and completely ignored her. "It's not paranoia if that's happening."
Lisa winced. "That's a... fair point. I just hope that your older self and her waifu know what they're doing."
***
"What in the name of all the dark gods is going on?" Taylor asked as she looked down the street.
The little industria park was currently on fire. Not all of it, of course. Merely select parts. A car here, a building there, a still-moving PRT van over yonder. Enough that it was noticeable. There were people around, most of them dressed in homeless-chique and all staring at the commotion at the far end of the long street.
All the heroes, or at least a bunch of them, were fighting a horde of Amelia's babies. There were Tinker tech guns going off, normal guns rattling off round after round and the occasional blast of lightning from the sky followed by the boom of thunder as a flying cape laid down some artillery fire.
"Oh, shucks, I forgot to make fliers," Amelia said as she looked at the Protectorate's air cover.
"Yes Amelia, because that's the biggest issue in all of this," Taylor said.
"Oh, don't be such a sour-puss," Amelia said. She rooted around in her pockets for a bit and pulled out a small egg-shaped thing. A little whistling later and it unfolded like a Transformer toy made for baby Chuthulu's into a small bird-like creature. "Hey there little guy," she told the bird. "Go get me a status report. And tell the big babies that it's time to retreat and activate the Sewer Land protocols." She bopped the little bird on the head and smiled as it flew off humming-bird quick.
"Going all out so soon?" Taylor asked.
Amelia hooked her arm in Taylors and leaned her head against the taller girl's shoulder. "You're the one that taught me everything I know about escalating, dearest. Now, let's go back to young me's place and watch the news. I want to see the news depict me as an evil neckbeard tyrant."
Taylor rolled her eyes, but she couldn't say no.
***
Commission Spent!
Feels weird to return to this one after so, so long. But not weird in a bad way. I had to re-read this to remember the broad strokes.
lol:lol
