Goddamn Teenagers (Worm, AU/time travel)

[dc2008]

"I don't understand what's so important," said Lisa, as Aisha pulled her toward the Dallon girls.

"I told you, we need someone who knows Brian!"

"But that doesn't tell me anything!" She knows.Power offered, pointlessly. Lisa clamped down on Power before it could wander off on a tangent about Aisha's gait or hairstyle or whatever.

"But it doesn't say where they are!" Vicky said as they approached. "How will you protect yourself!"

"I'm sure it will be fine," said Amy skeptically.

"Hey, Vicky!" Aisha called out. "She's friends with Brian, ask her!"

Vicky turned her full attention to Lisa, and smiled. "Great! So Aisha says her brother is all noble and won't tell her what he wants in a girlfriend!"

Lisa snorted. "You realize that after with his job and having finally gotten custody, he probably isn't in the headspace for a full-up relationship?" Lisa asked, being uncommonly considerate.

Aisha rolled her eyes. "It's fine if he just wants a hook-up, that's cool! Bro is awesome and deserves nice things! And most high school boys are awful and Vicky's friends deserve better! He just needs to meet the right person! Or persons!"

"Look, if he won't tell you what he wants, just pay more attention to what types of girls he notices when you are out doing things?"

Vicky nodded. "That's on the right track, but I have an even better idea…"

---

Note: Lisa tried to do good!

 

[dc2008]

Brian walked into his father's gym, took one look around, and walked back out. He wasn't stupid enough to think he'd gone unnoticed, but he absolutely did not want to have this discussion in front of the patrons or worse, his father.

Shortly thereafter, Dr. Weaver came out. She nodded to Brian, and left.

Brian immediately went inside to talk to his father.

Later

"Aisha," Brian called, toweling his hair off from the shower. "Have you seen my phone?" He could have sworn he'd left it by the bed but it wasn't there.

"Uh, by the TV?"

"Thanks!"

Picking up the phone, Brian stepped into his room, shut the door, and dialed Lisa.

"Hello?" Lisa answered, confused.

"Why is my father helping Dr. Weaver find people to teach you all to fight dirty? I have never seen that man so excited to talk to a cop."

Lisa laughed. "Hun, I wish I was that good. Good luck!"

<click>

Well, he thought, now I know how she felt.

 

[dc2008]

"Where are we going again?" Taylor asked.

"Puppies and kitties!" Cassie replied, vibrating in her seat.

"I was promised coffee," Amy grumbled.

"Cupholder," said Dr. Weaver.

"Hmm?" Amy suddenly perked up. "Coooooffffffeeeeee!"

Shortly Thereafter

"No, Namor," the monitor said, as she carefully extracted a small kitten from Taylor's hair.

"Now remember," said Cassie, "they are very young and we are just supposed to socialize them, so we can't stay too long or they'll get tired."

"Mreow!" Squeaked a kitten, as she rubbed against Taylor's leg.

"How is that going to work?" Taylor asked, gesturing at the kitties that had decided she was delightful for climbing.

"Aren't you the most perfect apex predator," Amy mumbled as she caressed a particularly floofy black cat. "Those eyes! And ears! And claws! I cant believe someone would abandon you!"

---

Note: Yes, there do exist places where you can help socialize adorable little kitties.

 

[dc2008]

Note: This happens before the last chapter.

---

"They're villains!"

"What did they do, exactly?"

"Villain things!"

"They roughed up gang members and took their stuff. Is that alone villainous behavior?"

Victoria opened her mouth and the closed it, before continuing, "Hellhound killed someone!"

"Hellhound's case was badly mismanaged by the PRT and the death, while tragic, occurred in connection with her trigger event and was outside her control."

Victoria frowned. "Still, I don't like it!"

Dr. Weaver nodded. "That's fine. Keep in mind that they are teenagers, caught in bad situations, and whatever else happens they will have less chance to do harm going forward."

Victoria wandered off, looking pensive.

 

[dc2008]

"Remember what I said," Dr. Weaver said as the vehicle pulled to a stop.

The girls nodded, and got out of the SUV.

As they approached, a stocky girl came out to greet them. She was accompanied by three dogs.

Later

"The dogs are very well cared for," said Amy, after completing her inspection. "But it's clear they were hurt before. What happened?"

Happy barks and laughter sounded in the background, as Cassie and Taylor played fetch with the dogs.

Rachel gave Amy an indecipherable look. "Hookwolf."

"That fucker," said Amy with feeling. "Do you want me to come back later and fix it?"

Rachel nodded.

Amy looked apologetic. "I'd do it now but I haven't done animals much so the PRT will need to watch."

Rachel snorted. "Cops are stupid."

Amy barked out a laugh. "Yeah, they are."

Later

"What do you think?" Dr. Weaver asked Rachel.

"Not stupid."

"Ok if they come back sometimes?"

Rachel pondered briefly, then nodded.

---

Note:
Rachel uptime is one of Taylor's closest friends. And while Taylor figures that worst case, young!Lisa could mostly muddle through on her own if needed, Taylor definitely wants to intervene hard and fast to get young!Rachel in a better position ASAP.

(Taylor a long time ago got in the habit of living her life like she was on borrowed time, and the mental habits are very deeply ingrained.)

 

[dc2008]

"Finally," said the intel officer, "the Winslow situation is now being referenced in Empire messaging. It is what you would expect, statements attributing the problem to lesser races, and so forth."

"Have they identified anyone specific?" Emily asked. Whatever she thought about Hess, Emily was not going to sit idly by while the girl's family was targeted.

"No. However, the rhetoric is suspiciously strong, and it is coupled with a general increase in focus on M/S concerns by the Empire. We received an under the table message from the Empire emphasizing that they will not interfere with ordinary M/S efforts at schools. In addition, they forwarded an assortment of M/S "tips" for various schools, which are of course suspect but must nevertheless be investigated."

"What are they doing?" asked Phil, putting voice to what they were all no doubt thinking.

Meanwhile, Assault was furiously flipping through his briefing packet. "Are we sure these sighting reports are accurate?" Assault asked, looking up.

"As sure as we ever are," the briefer responded, confused.

"Huh. I wonder if Rune went to Winslow. She hasn't been seen, at all recently."

"It would explain the observed behavior," said Miss Militia.

"Dig into it," Emily ordered. "The usual caveats apply to civilian IDs, but if there is a master targeting Empire capes we need to know."

---

Note: Oh noes!

 

[dc2008]

Uptime!Taylor is benevolent but I'm not sure I'd call her "nice". She got Sophia flagged as a possible master in a way that makes it very hard for her to get herself cleared, and it's not like she has any remaining goodwill at all with the relevant authorities.

The "trigger M/S flags at Winslow" strategy worked. It was fast, effective, and solved young!Taylor's immediate problems with great finality. It similarly ensured that the people uptime!Taylor viewed as at-fault got absolutely hammered.

However, this approach definitely was not narrowly targeted. You've got a lot of students, parents and staff who are worrying a lot about possible M/S effects, and it's a huge deployment if PRT resources.

Of course, at some point in this mess, jaded!Taylor realizes that Sophia really might have a Master and/or Stranger ability. People are not always conscious of all of the effects of their power, and it's not like Sophia would be honest about it. And a lot of people who really should have known better really were complicit in her nonsense.

 

[dc2008]

Lisa looked down at her phone.

Lil' Gremlin: How find recent picz on PC?

Lisa responded with the URL of a search engine.

Lil' Gremlin: thx

A few minutes later

Lil' Gremlin: huh wow how make search history go away?

A truly noble endeavor. For variety, Lisa sent the URL of a different search engine.

A few minutes later

Lil' Gremlin: Ok but hdu see if itz gone gone fur rlz?

Lisa sent a different URL

A few minutes later

Lil' Gremlin: ??? This is in martian or greek or smthng???
Lisa: Rght sry don't dl from there, I'll send you exe, you'd've needed remove the key log in terminal anyway

Lisa sent the file, then paused. Wait, what is she even doing?

Lisa: Since when do you have PC anyway?
Lil' Gremlin: lul itz bros PC

A few minutes later

Lisa opened her door, to find Aisha, in PJs and slippers, holding an open laptop.

"Hey I still can't find his porn, it's really well hidden so it must be super naughty! I need to find it so I know who to set him up with!"

Lisa just stared, before slowly shutting the door.

"Rude!"

---

Note: We are a little over half way through the backlog of chapters previously posted elsewhere.

I may have underestimated how long it would take to get this thread up to date. (The work being done mostly on my commute)

 

[dc2008]

"This is awesome," said Chris. "When can you come in so we can play split screen?"

"Tell her about the toast!" Insight said, dragging Vista across the room. "Vicky!"

"Eh," said the teen boy on the other end of the voice chat. "Headshot, fuck yeah! I got mind-whammied pretty bad by a master. Suits are pretty sure I'm OK? I mean I'm not in the asylum or anything, but they want to be sure."

"Wow," Dennis said with feeling. "That really, really sucks. You hear about that shit, but the Winslow thing really brought it home."

"Wait did you go to Winslow?" Chris asked.

The other boy laughed. "No comment."

Dennis laughed. "Vicky will be thrilled."

"You WHAT!!!" Vicky's shout cut across the room.

"I know it's awesome!" Insight shouted, to the accompaniment of laughs from purple girl.

"But maybe wait a bit?" Chris added tentatively.

The other boy laughed. "Holy shit, I heard that from here!"

---

Note: Ayep, that be Alec

Insight is Dinah. Purple girl is Lisa.

Lisa might, possibly, maybe, be in an unnecessarily long pissing match with Branding and jaded!Taylor about her name. Lisa is taking the entirely reasonable position that her name should be AWESOME, while the adults are being stupid and unreasonable and saying some nonsense about picking a name that won't make you embarrassed when you are older *cough* Glory Girl *cough* Kid Win *cough* Clockblocker.

 

[dc2008]

"Finally," the infuriating woman said, "you will in the near future be receiving reports of Armsmaster's latest breakthrough. In short, in certain circumstances and with less than perfect reliability, he can detect our use of the cross-dimensional phenomenon we refer to as 'doors'."

"… that is both quite significant and highly inconvenient," Rebecca said after a brief pause.

"Indeed, in my timeline he never made this breakthrough, I suppose due to Cauldron's relatively hands-off approach to the Bay before, well," she gestured vaguely, "and the fact that after Gold Morning, Valkyrie, er, that's the rebranded Fairy Queen, used doors more sparingly than Cauldron ever did, and in any event he was very preoccupied with other concerns…"

Rebecca coughed, politely.

The older woman started. "Ahem, well, even he has not yet realized the full implications. Certainly this breakthrough opens the possibility of studying and perhaps duplicating previously incomprehensible advanced mover techniques, Haywire's included, but that's just the start…"

Kurt leaned forward in excitement, as Rebecca forced an expression of interest. Yes, it was on some level fascinating to hear about how later research in the woman's worldline had revealed signs that "dimensional fuckery" may be involved in many if not most power expressions, what the fuck. But did she have to be such a condescending know-it-all about it?

---

Note: Rebecca, too, is in denial about just how similar she and that woman are.