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Goddamn Teenagers (Worm, AU/time travel)

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Taylor's reputation continues to grow at prodigious lengths, not because she isn't doing a good job of arguing against it, which she isn't anyway, but because she really deserves it as it is all factual apparently.
 
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Consultants for All Occasions, Part 7
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    • After the pleasantries, the former cabinet secretary leaned forward. "So somehow I doubt you just wanted to show off your fancy portal capabilities."

    James nodded. "What do you know about Cauldron?"

    Later

    "You know I'm going to have to give a few people a heads-up about this."

    James nodded. "I know, thats part of why we reached out through you. We sure as shit don't want any of the key players feeling ambushed by this, and for some people it's better they hear from you. Technically, I shouldn't even be here, but…"

    "It's better to have us in the room than not."

    "Will you and the others be able to stay on?" James asked seriously. It was nice being able to spread the bullshit around.

    The older man shrugged. "If we resign, then she'll just go somewhere else for advisors. Fuck." He shook his head. "Hopefully she'll protect us if they try to throw us in jail."

    "We're going to be announcing that God exists, was murdered, and that people took communion of her undead flesh." James replied dryly. "Before trying to convince them that we need to work with space aliens to save reality. If we fuck this up, jail will be the least of our problems."
    Note:

    Ah, the beauty of America. Where a fat stack of cash can buy you the very best of contacts and minions.

    Although, to be fair, considering the people involved it's likely some of Her Majesty's advisors are working for something other than simple money.
     
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    • fraa Jad said:
    I like what you're doing and I would like you to keep doing it. It's funny.
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    Thank you so much! Glad you are enjoying!

    FaerieKnight79 said:
    Eh, there's also the revelation of "the Fae Courts want me and everyone else dead for stupid reasons".
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    The Ciara stuff has a sense of, well, she was a very young child when she triggered. She wanted it all to make sense. By interpreting the information she had through the lens of faerie courts, it did, sort of. The far are mysterious and opaque in their machinations, but still pursue some agenda, even if you don't understand it.

    Then she finds out that the faerie queen is dead, and the king is, um, stupid.

    What we see with the entities reminds me in some ways of people I have known who were really good at a thing and found a lot of success doing it. So they just… did the thing. And didn't push their limits.

    So you have the entities, that are good at fighting and killing each other, wander away from their shit show of a home world and then… aren't challenged meaningfully. They fuck around and play games with arbitrary rules but they sure as shit ain't doing anything optimally.

    For Ciara, she has had to confront the fact that the "adults", or faerie king, has a really dumb plan. Like, really stupid. And suddenly, due to an accident of her shard's rank, she (or rather the weird gestalt thing she has become) is being looked up to as a leader, insofar as such thoughts can be attributed to shards.
     
    That Could Have Been Me! Part 2
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    • "Hey," said Cherie, quietly.

    "Hey, sis," replied Alec. He sat down across from her at the table in the cafeteria. Sure, she'd been on good behavior, but he wasn't about to risk meeting her 'in private'. Even if he knew they'd be watched anyway, dumb as she was she might not realize, and if there was a whole thing it would just be too much bother.

    Plus, he really wanted the suits to think Heartbreaker's children could be saved. It would be bad if they decided otherwise. Very bad.

    "I," she said hesitantly, "it was almost really bad for me, wasn't it?"

    "Oh?" Alec replied. I mean sure, she wasn't wrong, and it was so like her to only now realize it. But he was curious to see just which of the many ways she was fucked she had actually gone and noticed.

    "Yeah," she continued. "They've been having me meet with people to talk about the family, but also about other people we met. All those people who were chasing us are now free to do other things. It's a lot."

    "Yes," Alec said slowly. "Once the big names got exploded, all the busy little bees in stormtrooper uniforms have nothing better to do than go after the little fish who are left. Not sure if any of the family did try to run, don't really give a shit. But if anyone did, they won't get far."
    Note:
    One of the things I like about showing Cherie is that she straddles the line between the chunk of the cast playing 5D chess and the chunk that are being teenagers.

    Also, Alex might be apathetic and jaded but he is not stupid.
     
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    • Important Life Lessons, Part 2
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    • Missy was excited to resume what she thought of the Lessons in Badassery. Dr. Weaver carefully made everything sound nice and boring, but she could read between the lines!

    "First," Dr. Weaver said, "after speaking at length with our friends in Youth Guard, it has been conceded that the Bay being what it is, it is reasonable to be concerned that a young woman might have to defend herself or others in a scenario where the only tools available are those close at hand. Accordingly, we will in the coming weeks be bringing in a few guest instructors to discuss what we will be broadly calling 'self-defense in a domestic setting'."

    Fuck, yeah! Broken bottles, kitchen knives, and school supplies! Still, Missy made sure to maintain an appropriately serious expression as Dr. Weaver looked around the room, meeting each person's eyes in turn.

    "I don't want to hear," she continued, "any unnecessarily provocative discussions. This is a serious topic, and if someone starts describing it as if it's something from an action movie people might get the wrong idea."

    Missy nodded. This was just the sort of thing her parents would take the wrong way!
    Note: Remember that this Missy didn't watch her home get wrecked by Leviathan. She didn't experience the sudden and unexpected death of teammates. She is in a much better headspace than canon Missy.
     
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    • Consultants for All Occasions, Part 8
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    • "Chief Director," James said, "you need to make time for this. We have—"

    She cut in, "I put you, Armstrong, and now Piggot into that group so you could solve problems, not cause them. If you haven't noticed, things are very volatile at the moment and I am fully occupied dealing on the political side."

    James stared at the speaker phone incredulously. "She actually hung up on us." Gathered were himself, Armstrong, Piggot, Dr. Weaver, Doctor Mother, and Kurt. Accord and certain of his staff, Dragon, and certain of Valkyrie's advisors were participating remotely.

    "She won't engage with us either," said the Chief Director's former press officer. "And I know she's cut out Glenn as well."

    "Contessa?" Accord's voice asked.

    "She's said she didn't need to be here, and was content with the proposal." Doctor Mother still looked profoundly uncomfortable in a domino mask. "I think she's simply happy to take direction from people able to help her better manage her power."

    "And fundamentally it doesn't matter," said the former Secretary of State. "Our client had not previously focused on Cauldron, but now that she has…"

    "She is determined to do well by the legacy of both her peoples, be they human, otherwise or something in between," said the former head of the British civil service. "Decisions are being taken, and if the Chief Director chooses to excuse herself from proceedings that regrettable development while most unfortunate will not delay our principal's planned course of action."
    Note:
    For those keeping score, Ciara's hired suits have now been shown to include: former head of Rebecca's press team, former SecState, former Attorney General, and the former head of the British civil service.

    Also, don't be too hard on Rebecca. She is doing a thing that I've done IRL where you get so deep in a problem you don't realize that the only way you are to solve it is to back up and shift the paradigm. Her brain is
    stuck in teenager mode, and like Taylor she didn't so much get over her issues but develop coping and masking strategies. Which largely boil down to down to "Contessa will tell me if I'm being dumb." Except, here Contessa is fine to take a weight off her shoulders.

    Recall as well that she has decades of experience that whenever someone new gets brought in to the conspiracy they will inevitably betray her, or get Ziz'd, etc.
     
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    • Wrong on the Internet
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    • PHO Private Messages

    XxVoid_CowboyxX: GSG said u wer woried about me. Ok now so don't need be worried.

    CleverKit: Glad to hear it!

    XxVoid_CowboyxX: So hey I don't know if you saw but my latest post before it came down but all the villain takedowns were totally Cauldron and I have proof, if you can handle it?

    Lisa started to type a impolite refusal. Then paused, and started to type a polite refusal. Then paused again. Knowing what the nutters were saying about Cauldron was, in fact, now potentially relevant to Lisa's life. Sighing, she took two aspirin and responded.

    CleverKit: You know what, yes! I would love to see everything you have on Cauldron.

    Later

    "Yo, Lisa?" Aisha asked, slowly opening the door to Lisa's apartment. "You decent? We going gyming or what?" Alec peeked his head in behind her.

    A growl of frustration was the response.

    Alec laughed. "She's fine, but now I'm curious!"

    "Someone is wrong on the internet!" Lisa acerbically elaborated. "But not as wrong as they should be!"
    Note: Greg typos are intentional
     
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    • Power Gaming
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    • Amy and Vicky were meeting with Dr. Weaver, and the topic made Amy distinctly nervous.

    "Powers have limits." Dr. Weaver continued. "The Manton Limit," she nodded to Amy, "the blood-brain barrier."

    Amy tried to suppress a shudder.

    Dr. Weaver pretended not to notice. "They can be like training wheels. They avert accidents, but with time and training you can move past them."

    Dr. Weaver's turned deadly serious, and she looked at first Amy, then Victoria. "And you better be damn careful when you do. Because the consequences can be much worse than a skinned knee."

    Fortunately her sister, bless her hyper-focused heart, was on hand to play distraction.

    "So…" Victoria began, "what do you think that might mean for my power?"

    Later

    "Oh, snap," Victoria said as they got home. "I forgot to ask her about ideas on how to make money!"
    Note:
    A: Neeeeerd
    V: You're just jealous your power doesn't give you full body hugs!
     
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    • Consultants for All Occasions, Part 9
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    • "Right," said James. He turned to Dr. Weaver, who was paging through the briefing materials with a thoughtful expression. The meeting had broken up, semi-pointless as it had been, leaving just himself, Emily, and Dr. Weaver. At this point, The Fairy Queen was going to do what she was going to do, and the ability of anyone else to change that was dubious at best.

    "What is your take?" James asked the temporal refugee, who had been unusually quiet in the meeting.

    She shrugged. "Better than we managed?"

    Piggot snorted. "I refuse to believe you didn't have a plan for this."

    "I did." Dr. Weaver replied guilelessly. "It was to fob it off on you."

    "Mreow" added the cat under the table.
    Note: Rebecca feels a need for the appearance of control (I say appearance because she generally does what Contessa suggests). Jaded!Taylor, in contrast, will settle for visibility and influence.
     
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    • Work It Out
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    • "Taylor!" Aisha said from what she thought was Taylor's blind spot.

    "Yes, Aisha," Taylor replied evenly, continuing to rack weights.

    "One of these days I'll get you! Anyway, can you spot me until Bro gets back?"

    Shortly thereafter

    "Hey, Aisha," Aisha's very fit brother said as he walked up.

    "And twenty! Hey Bro!"

    "And, Taylor, was it?"

    "Afternoon," Taylor replied politely, as she appreciated the view. Not with her eyes, of course, that would be rude.

    "Sorry," Aisha said, getting up, "lost track of time. Taylor, keep him out of trouble while I get changed, maybe ask him about the talk thing, I think you'd like it."
    Note: Aisha has a complicated relationship with plausible deniability.
     
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    • Domestic Matters, Part 4
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    • "Vista, Insight," Weld said patiently to the two preteens who were doing… something to a spoon to make it twitch ominously. "What are you doing."

    "Metal fatigue!" Vista replied, still concentrating intently on the spoon.

    Weld then noticed the brightly colored cans on the table. "What are you drinking?"

    "It'sthisnewenergydrinkanditssogood!" Insight said excitedly.

    Weld took a moment to parse that before responding. "How much have you had?"

    Insight giggled. "MomsaidIcanonlyhavetwosodasperday! Butthesearesmall! Thatmeansmore!"

    Elsewhere

    Amy: U around?
    Alec: Signs point to yes
    Amy: wanna game? Done w hw early
    Alec: sure come by

    Laterr

    "Amy, you get on pretty good with your sister right?" Alec asked while swapping discs.

    "Sure?"

    "Got any tips? We're trying to be nice and shit, but we don't really know how since growing up dad and the moms didn't make it easy."

    …

    "The fuck are you laughing for, I'm trying to have a moment!"

    "Sorry, it's just," Amy said as she tried to stop laughing. "Oh my god, the idea that my family would be a good role model, I don't even. But Vicky, yeah, she's great. So, let's see…"

    …

    "Ok, got it, you love your sister and think she is amazing and want to have her babies, but how does that work and why are you blushing oh fuck I said something didn't I…"
    Note:

    Alec: I'm used to making people awkward and embarrassed on purpose, not on accident!
     
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    • Domestic Matters, Part 5
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    • "You sure you're OK?" Alec said. "I'm sorry I made a joke about teen preggers and incest babies, that was insensitive and inappropriate—wait aren't you adopted? How does that work? Would your parents be happy because they liked the in-laws and would have you for every holiday? Would they split you up so each could give one of you a shovel talk? Would your dad take it in turns? Would your mom have to get in fights with herself over the wedding planning and baby names? No, bad Alec, I'm—"

    Amy, still clearly mortified, couldn't help but snort out a burst of laughter.

    "Oh thank god." Alec said, clearly relieved. "I was worried I'd have to get Aisha or Lisa in here to fix this and they would never let me forget it. Plus they'd probably just help you in whatever revenge plan you came up with."

    "Huh," Amy said, confused. "Usually it's Vicky people are scared of."

    Alec looked at her seriously. "You are the most white mage white mage in, like, the entire world. Your costume is white mage. Your power is white mage. I have played enough games to know exactly what sort of unlocks white mages get as they level, and most importantly of all that you never, never, never fuck with the white mage."

    He leaned back, and continued conversationally. "See, Vicky is strong and shit but she can only kill me once. You, you can make it so that I don't die for a very, very, very long time. And since you are the white mage, no one will come to rescue me, because lo, the wrath of the white mage is a terrible thing, and only a fool dares risk attracting it upon their own head. And besides, if they look the other way you'll heal their gout, or crabs, or whatever."

    Amy smiled evilly. "I know what you can do to make it up to me."

    Alex put on his attentive face.

    Amy gestured to Alec's game collection. "I wish to learn more about this white mage you speak of…"

    Elsewhere

    "Heart palpitations." Emily said, unamused. She didn't enjoy dealing with the little shits but she didn't want one to die on her.

    "Thank God Weld recognized the warning signs and had her go to medical." Phil replied.

    "Were we able to at least get rid of that shit?"

    Phil sighed. "We aren't providing it, they are. It is not illegal for them to have, and after that incident last year in Phoenix…"

    Emily but back a curse. Some damn fool had tried to use withholding food as a punishment without remembering that one of the Wards lived on base and had dietary restrictions that meant they had to eat in the Wards area.
    Note: Alec: Shit shit shit inappropriate jokes don't fail me now!
     
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    • Consultants for All Occasions, Part 10
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    • Rebecca stared, gobsmacked, at the message that had just been handed to her by a former colleague. The calligraphy was beautiful. The paper, no, vellum was beautiful. The decorative fringe was beautiful. She could, no doubt, sell this as is to a collector for a substantial sum, particularly given the identity of the person on whose behalf it was produced.

    It was just the contents that were insane.

    "The official announcement, of course," her former colleague said, "need not be exactly the same. We are open to your thoughts on exact wording, timing, and so forth. However the basic message is as presented."

    Rebecca re-read the early draft, informal, non-binding and unofficial statement from The Fairy Queen:

    A rogue Fae, using as their instrument the human organization that called itself Cauldron, conspired to bring about the deaths of the Fae God-King-Father and God-Queen-Mother. Her majesty Valkyrie I, on behalf of herself and both her peoples, expresses gratitude to be free of the tyranny of the gods. However, Cauldron's grave crimes cannot be ignored, especially the desecration of their God-Queen-Mother's corpse using forbidden necromantic rituals.

    Upon threat of war, Cauldron and the rogue Fae behind it have surrendered unconditionally to Valkyrie I. In accordance with the traditions of their people, Valkyrie has subsumed into her own demesne Cauldron in its entirely, including its worlds and the right henceforth to call upon the knowledge and skills of its constituents.

    Valkyrie I recognizes that many human people have also suffered harms at the hands of Cauldron, including most especially those non-consensually subjected to necromantic and medical experiments. In recognition of this suffering, in honor of her human heritage, and in the hopes of furthering the cause of peace between humans and the Fae, Valkyrie I has directed trusted advisors liaise with appropriate human representatives in identifying and assisting these victims.

    The disposition of certain persons whose services were co-opted by Cauldron will be similarly be discussed with appropriate representatives. Valkyrie I recognizes that their actions, however horrifying, were performed under malign influence, that their victims include humans as well as Fae, and that they were in their own way victims as well as perpetrators.
    Note:
    RCB: Why didn't you tell me?
    DM: We tried? You hung up on us?
     
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    • dc2008 said:
    Rebecca stared, gobsmacked, at the message that had just been handed to her by a former colleague. The calligraphy was beautiful. The paper, no, vellum was beautiful. The decorative fringe was beautiful. She could, no doubt, sell this as is to a collector for a substantial sub, particularly given the identity of the person on whose behalf it was produced.
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    Sorry, it's a bit nitpicky, but I think you mean "substantial sum", not "substantial sub". Unless I am mistaken.
     
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    Connections, Part 2
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    • Sabah was exhausted, but excited. The event had gone well! Really well! It was a lot of work, but she was making it!

    "Parian?" An unexpected voice said from behind her.

    Sabah startled and instinctively grabbing control of her "props" and their hidden defensive accoutrements. Turning warily, she was surprised to see… Glory Girl? Hovering just behind her, a few inches off the ground?

    "Woh woh sorry didn't mean to scare you!" The blonde said, backing up.

    "It's OK," Sabah said, trying to calm her breathing. "It's OK," Sabah repeated with more confidence. "How can I help?"

    "So I was thinking," the blonde said confidently, "and you are, like, the rogue success story in town. And, well, I'm trying to figure out to make money? As a rogue, well, not as a rogue but still a hero but still…"

    Right. Despite the girl's minor celebrity, she was still a teenager. A good contact to cultivate, but a teen nonetheless. Best start with the basics.

    "Might I ask why you need the money? And how much? And how quickly? You don't need to be precise, but a general idea would be helpful?"

    Later

    "… my god," Sabah muttered. "I knew the statistics were bad, but I didn't realize they were that bad!"

    "Yeah," said Glory Girl seriously, "it's not as bad as it sounds, there is a bias there since by the time the PRT take official notice of a rogue or villain something has usually already gone wrong for them somewhere."

    Parian shuffled awkwardly. "I would really like to talk about this more, in a less public place."

    "I'll give you my cape phone and PHO deets, you can message me and we'll find a time."
    Note: Yay! I figured out something to do with Sabah!
     
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    • Fashionably Foxy
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    • "Ok, the tour group will be here in about ten minutes," Aegis said with forced cheer. "Lilac, I know you haven't done this before, but don't worry, I checked and it's a bunch of middle school kids so it should be fine.

    "Got it," Lilac said with a confident smile.

    "Uh," Chariot asked, "aren't you going to get into costume?"

    "I am in costume," Lilac replied with a wider grin, gesturing to her fashionable and color-coordinated jeans and sweater ensemble. "Just need my mask."

    A few minutes later

    "How come they get armor and you don't?" The small girl peered at Lilac curiously.

    "They have armor because they go on patrol and it can be dangerous." Lilac replied with a grin. "My power though is a thinker power, so I stay at base and do research."

    Lilac leaned in conspiratorially. "Also, my name is a color, so I get to wear comfortable clothes as long as it's the color of my name. They have to wear the heavy and uncomfortable stuff all. The. Time."

    The girl's eyes widened.

    A few minutes later.

    "OK, good job everyone." Aegis said. "We've got about an hour until to the next batch. Feel free to take off some of the armor and cool off."

    As the boys partially dissembled their heavy, uncomfortable protective gear, Lisa smugly leaned back in her chair.
    Note: The only reason this works at all is because Lilac doesn't really have a public persona. For the others, they need to wear their costumes (or at least a facsimile thereof) because the kiddies are expecting to see The Real Wards(TM)!
     
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