So she needs to start building resources and recruiting. Make her own group.
Grow. Make some money, then invest it in infrastructure and recruit help. Use it to make more money, reinvest, and expand.
That's how groups that make change are made.
Hybrid Hive: Eat Shard? (Worm/MGLN) (Complete)
- Thread starter CmptrWz
- Start date
- Crossover
Grow. Make some money, then invest it in infrastructure and recruit help. Use it to make more money, reinvest, and expand.
That's how groups that make change are made.
Chapter 64 - June 3, 2011
Friday morning started early for Taylor, with a quick trip to the Mana Inn well ahead of anyone else arriving for exercising. Hive had removed the devices hidden in the bedroom walls before they left and a quick test to ensure that communication was still functioning was done first. That went perfectly, and Hive prepared all of the construction drones while Taylor deployed a mixture of testing and combat drones. She didn't think scrying was ever going to happen in simulation but didn't think that it would be a good idea to work on things tomorrow. She'd go light on it while at tutoring, at least.
Minutes after the homeless person who had spent the night in the warehouse had left there were flashes of light, the construction drones appearing on the transport device one after another. The surveillance drone vanished just before the transport device did, and then the construction drones started their work. Beginning with tearing down the warehouse and excavating the entire lot.
The last thing Taylor did before they headed back home was to collect the transport device sitting on the beach. It didn't need to be there now that they had the Inn as an arrival and departure point. Another test had been done once they'd returned home, Hive ensuring that the relays were working from the other end before Taylor grabbed a drink and remotely started running through her ideas for scrying. Currently most of those were actually just 'monitor a predetermined area remotely', possibly from another dimension or the dimensional sea itself but she figured that doing so from elsewhere in the same dimension would work too. The real key was to not have anything showing that you were monitoring the area in the area.
Missy frowned as she ate her breakfast. She'd planned on going to train with Taylor this afternoon, but plans had been changed on her. Apparently she had to go to City Hall to fill out some paperwork for the internship thing. Sherie had given her a line about it being important to learn how to properly fill out paperwork, something that was important going forward in life, only to get a look from Missy since the paperwork didn't have to be completed at City Hall.
Sadly, Sherie had been able to counter that particular argument with the other reasons that Missy had to go. First off was meeting the Mayor ahead of the internship so that he'd recognize her. She'd never actually met the man while she was outside of costume when she'd been a Ward, so he couldn't be expected to recognize her. Still annoying if that was it, as she could do that her first day, but the other reason was that part of the paperwork included getting her photo taken so that they could have an ID badge printed.
This wouldn't be nearly as annoying if not for the news that Taylor was going to be unavailable most of the following day.
"So", Sherie said as she finished her own breakfast. "I'll pick you up at school and bring you to City Hall. It shouldn't take more than an hour or two."
Missy nodded, using the fact that her mouth was full to avoid speaking. She was less likely to show her annoyance with her tone of voice that way, at least.
Taylor sighed as she waited for her last tutor of the day, and her last tutoring session for that matter. Next week she'd be taking tests instead, after all. At the same time, she was using the break to lightly check the testing drones that she'd left running through things. She'd spent lunch going over the morning results and switching gears from 'scan for things' to 'detect that someone else is scanning'.
It turned out that over half of their scanning tricks were being hobbled by being done from within the dimension that they were scanning. Just pointing them at a nearby dimension both hid the visual effects and made them three to fifty times more effective. This was apparently a side effect of most shard sensory techniques having been optimized for working across dimensional boundaries in the first place. Access techniques varied, some using an anchor point that then did things locally and others directly reaching across dimensional boundaries, but the sensory techniques had all, so far, been optimized for cross-dimensional use.
And then Hive had adapted those sensory techniques for local use and not realized just how good they were across dimensional boundaries, in part because her mana-based sensory hardware wasn't optimized for that. Hive had set the relay systems up at the Inn because the access techniques for them worked better when crossing dimensional boundaries, at least when not originating from inside of a device's dimensional folding, but hadn't noticed the benefits of the shard-originating sensory techniques operating in a similar way.
Dedicated scanning systems were going to need to be installed in the Inn, that was for sure.
That discovery had led to the other aspect of things that Taylor was now focusing on. She wanted to cast sensor spells and possibly build some kind of lens effect for shard techniques to apply them through the dimensional sea. The hope was that any visual effects, such as the flashes of light from casting, happened at the origin point while getting the advantages of working from 'outside' of the dimension even if you were in it. She wasn't having an insane amount of luck with that yet, but she was going to ask Hive for help once the warehouse was done being rebuilt.
The arrival of her tutor had her pulling most of her attention back to her lessons, leaving the testing drones to run through the test patterns that she'd set them to go through. She paid attention to the final bit of review, but was distracted again when she was packing up at the end of the lesson by Vicky landing outside with Amy. Why the two had landed outside and sat down on the bench there was a mystery, but not one that was likely to take long to figure out.
Taylor accepted the good luck on her exams the following week before heading out. She raised an eyebrow when Amy and Vicky both got up and moved towards the door as she was heading down the stairs to it. There shouldn't have been any real way for them to know that she was on her way down at that moment, especially as her tutor was still up in the room with the lights on and thus they wouldn't have been able to notice the lights being turned off.
"Hi Taylor," Vicky greeted Taylor as she stepped outside.
"Hello," Taylor replied. "Do I want to know why you two are standing here at the door as though waiting for me to come out from my tutoring session?"
"Because we were waiting for you to come out from your tutoring session. But now you're out, so we're no longer waiting."
Vicky ignored Taylor's look at that, instead it was Amy who sighed and elaborated. A little. "We have a couple of things to talk to you about, but probably shouldn't do it here. Would you be okay with us heading home with you so that we can talk in private?"
Taylor looked at Amy. "I'm curious as to what kinds of things you don't want to talk about in public."
"Phantom organ things."
Well, that was interesting. "Okay. I guess. Are you prepared to jog with me, or is Vicky going to carry you while I'm on foot?"
That took Vicky by surprise. "What are you talking about?"
Amy rolled her eyes. "Taylor seems to have taken to running everywhere unless someone else forces her to take a vehicle."
"Oh."
"And I probably won't be able to keep up, given how rarely I exercise like that, so Vicky here carrying me is probably our best bet."
Vicky looked between the two of them. "Can we try to keep up with her? I'm curious as to how well we match up to her."
Amy glared at Vicky for that one, the older girl not seeming to care one bit.
Taylor unlocked the front door of the house, not feeling winded or sweaty in the least.
"You suck," Amy groaned as she did her best to not collapse on the steps. "How the hell can you do that every day?"
"It gets easier," Taylor replied. "Also, that was one of the short routes. I've been taking longer ones lately." She then looked over at Vicky. Who had flown a third of the way and still hadn't properly caught her breath. "Though you did better than she did."
The two Dallons collapsed into chairs in the kitchen, gratefully accepting the drinks Taylor offered them. After a few minutes they'd essentially recovered.
"That was harder than it should've been," Vicky grumbled. before pointing accusingly at Taylor. "And it just shows that whatever the hell you've got is bullshit."
Taylor blinked at that. "What?"
Amy was the one who blushed in response to that. "I, er, can mostly tell where your phantom organ is at a distance now. Which means that I can tell when you're out as Minerva, and that your necklace is Lilia. I don't know how that works, but I figure it can't just be that the phantom organs are another expression of normal parahuman powers as they don't seem to be linked only to parahumans or non-parahumans. Then there's the fact that I can also feel when you do big things now, like when I think you scanned the entire planet. Which was both bigger and smaller than when you apparently scanned the entire star system, though I don't know if the bigger was because it was closer or something else. And then there was when you left Lilia at home, only for her to jump across town and apparently take Missy's powers away while making her phantom organ stand out like yours does, meaning that whatever is going on is likely repeatable..."
Hive took Amy trailing off as an invitation to switch to her Unison form, though in a t-shirt and jeans instead of Knight Armor, causing Vicky to jump and float in the air in shock. Amy just looked at her as she started to speak. "Lord, I suspect that Amy is either a natural sensor type or inadvertently trained herself to be a sensor type while trying to figure out the 'phantom organs' she was seeing, meaning that hiding from her is currently not an option."
"Holy shit," Vicky said after a moment, ignoring that Taylor was facepalming. "You're actually a little person that can turn into a necklace?"
"From a causality standpoint, I'm more of a necklace that can turn into a little person. Especially as the functionality of this form is still incomplete."
"What?"
Taylor sighed as she rolled her eyes. "She was built by another civilization, nearly destroyed in an event that she doesn't remember, recovered upon finding me but only as a necklace, then later added the little human-like form. Oh, and she still isn't fully repaired yet."
"Oh." Vicky didn't look like she fully comprehended that. Taylor didn't care.
"Though now I'm curious as to why you two decided to approach me after tutoring like this. Or I suppose after school for you two."
"Vicky made me," Amy grumbled. "After I accidentally blabbed to her while examining my plants and she realized that I didn't want to confront you."
"Examining your plants? How does that have anything to do with it?"
Amy blushed, but Vicky finally landed again and spoke up on something she apparently did understand. "Because she's trying to grow plants with phantom organs based on common DNA patterns in those that she's found have them, which I'm thinking is primarily your own DNA. Half of them would probably be dead by now if she wasn't fixing them up every day. Though I'm not sure how having one of the not-quite-there organs makes you drive off an Endbringer awesome."
"There are other considerations," Hive answered. "Augmentations due to the low mana in the area, training with spellcasting, and a lot of research and spell design."
"Spellcasting? Spell design?"
Taylor shrugged. "Apparently magic can, but doesn't have to be, cast with incredibly complicated math."
Amy's eye twitched at that. "Are you saying that you're literally a magical girl?"
"Sort of?"
"Is Missy going to be running around as one soon too?"
"Missy?" Vicky asked. "Oh, wait, you said that Lilia did something to her, right?" It took another moment for the girl to put that together, at which point her eyes went wide. She then turned to look at Taylor. "Is that what happened to Vista? Is she anywhere near as powerful as you?" Turning to Hive, she continued without waiting for answers. "Can you do that to anyone? How long would it take me to learn enough to fight if you did it to me?"
"Hold up," Taylor interrupted. "We can't answer if you keep asking questions like that."
"As for answers," Hive said. "Yes, that's what happened to Missy, she isn't as powerful as my Lord but some of that is not completing her training. I can remove powers from those you know as parahumans, but not everyone has the potential to be a mage. You, in particular, do not have the potential. Also, even if I do remove powers, I don't need to augment those who do have the potential, even if I've generally been doing so."
Vicky nodded, frowning for a moment before getting a look in her eyes. "The phantom organ thing, right? That's the potential needed, presumably the bit that makes you magic instead of just a normal person. Me not having one makes sense, since thinking back I recall Amy mentioning that nobody else in New Wave has one. But she does, so she could become a...mage, you said?"
"Yes, though at the moment it would include the cost of her current powers being removed for several reasons."
"After which she'd be able to keep up with Taylor's exercise routine, on top of all the other awesome things that Minerva has been seen doing?"
Taylor snorted at that. "No, she wouldn't be able to keep up with my exercise routine just because she became a mage. Just like anyone else working out, you keep at it and you get better. Missy still can't keep up with me if I go all out, though she's getting better."
"Oh. So magic doesn't just, well, magically make you more fit?"
"I imagine that if it did then it would be a temporary boost, but being more fit makes it easier to fight with magic."
Hive nodded. "I've considered various ways to boost my Lord's strength and reaction times, but integrating the spells with living tissue without causing damage is difficult."
Vicky nodded, looking thoughtful. "I guess that makes sense, since being a parahuman obviously doesn't just make you more fit by default either. Though why do you keep calling Taylor your Lord? Shouldn't she at least be your Lady?"
"I use it as a gender-neutral title, as my coding requires."
"So," Amy said as Vicky absorbed that detail. "I take it that Missy approached you about trading her powers for becoming a mage, and based on what was found out about her home life you accepted?"
"Yeah," Taylor agreed. "Well, mostly. There were other details."
"Would you be willing to do the same for me if I decide I want to go that route?"
Vicky spun to stare at Amy in shock, but it was Taylor who got the response in. "What?"
Amy just looked down and fiddled with her glass, leaving Vicky to groan. "Dean was right about you being over-stressed, wasn't he? And trying to figure out the phantom organ thing hasn't helped, given that I noticed that something was up because of it and ended up talking to him about things. Of course, if mom finds out about your plants she'll explode, which isn't going to help either."
"Better to lose my powers than to go to prison for something that I can't undo," Amy muttered.
Taylor sighed at that. "Is every parahuman who figures out that I'm Minerva going to have issues that seem like they can at least be partially solved by removing their powers?"
"Of course," Vicky said, causing the others to look at her. "Don't look at me that way. All parahumans are broken in some way, myself included. Powers warp people, some just get hit worse than others. Personally speaking, I'm currently acknowledging that I'm arrogant and overconfident, but probably won't in a few months because I don't learn my lessons well. That's part of why I keep fighting with Dean. His problems with..."
"VICKY," Amy yelled, causing Vicky to jump again. Once it was obvious that the older girl had stopped talking she continued more quietly. "Your boyfriend's secrets are his own. Don't just blab them."
Vicky winced at that. "Right. Wasn't thinking."
"That was obvious, yes. Though I'm wondering why Taylor's original question was limited to parahumans."
Taylor shrugged. "My father figured things out before I even made my debut, and he isn't a parahuman. Nor does he have the potential to be a mage, for that matter."
"Oh. I suppose that it would be hard to hide that kind of thing from someone you live with."
"Speaking of which, I'm going to want to talk to him before I agree here."
"Lord," Hive said, getting Taylor's attention. "Perhaps we should give them each an emergency beacon as a contact method that doesn't require use of public systems? It could also be useful for them to be able to summon aid if needed in other situations."
Taylor sighed, not being able to argue that point, and retrieved a couple of the beacons. A couple pulses of mana configured them, and she tossed them to the two Dallons. "Here. Red for emergencies, yellow for lower priority, green for all clear."
"These look similar to what Armsmaster has started handing out," Vicky noted. "I think the Wards all have one now, and I know Amy was given one by him."
"I might have the first one he made and we based these off of his."
"Because you're probably one of the biggest non-parahuman targets in the region and he doesn't know that you're probably the scariest person around. Right."
Taylor opted to not comment on how scary she was. "I think that we would also appreciate it if you could at least hold off a few days, since we're going to be busy tomorrow."
Amy nodded as she slipped the beacon into her pocket. She then sighed as she looked at the clock. "I think we need to go before others start wondering where we went off to."
"It shouldn't be too bad," Vicky said. "I might've said that I was going to take you shopping at a store that doesn't exist. The name I gave mom should be close enough to a hardware store's name across town to explain why we don't come back with a pile of bags."
"Your excuse was taking me shopping? Really?"
"Would anyone in our family question that?"
"Well, no."
"Thus it's a perfect excuse."
Taylor thought that staying out of that particular argument was probably the right thing to do.
Missy dropped into the back seat of the car, still somewhat annoyed that she wasn't getting to work with Taylor right after school. Worse, she had been given unexpected homework and was probably going to have to do that first too. Even if she would probably have all day tomorrow to do said homework while Taylor wasn't available. Because barring an emergency, schoolwork was 'more important' than heroing.
Not that Missy could really argue that, admittedly, but it was still annoying. Of course, she knew that she wasn't even ready for a proper patrol yet, needing more practice with Reason at a minimum before then. There was no way that she was going out without the weapon since it was part of the 'not Vista' image she wanted to project as a mage. After all, Vista would never use such a weapon, avoided closing in on people, and only engaged people personally if she had no other choice.
The PRT and Youth Guard could suck it, because Expanse was going to get up close and personal with idiots. Especially if she could get exploding punches working.
A bright flash of light heralded Taylor and Hive appearing at the warehouse, though since it was in the hidden basement it was unlikely that anyone other than Missy or Amy noticed their arrival. There was a lot less here than at the Inn, the most significant items being the giant electrical and mana batteries. There were also water tanks and what looked like it could be a server rack with a handful of network switches, wires running off into the rest of the building. Otherwise there was a lot of empty space and two elevator access points.
"No stairs?" Taylor noted. This wasn't exactly an impossible space that needed special access methods, after all.
"They shouldn't be needed," Hive admitted. "And would be far too easy to detect if someone is snooping."
"I suppose that makes sense."
The two went up the freight elevator to the warehouse level, though it could stop at the regular basement level as well for purposes of moving furniture in and out. In fact, that was the official reason that the freight elevator existed at all, since there was no access to it on the second floor. One side of the warehouse area was shelving, the rest was wide open with currently-closed rolling doors at the end where trucks could back up to the building.
Heading into the rest of the building required going through a locked door, one that recognized them and unlocked automatically. The elevator had done the same, for that matter. They did a quick pass of the first floor, walked up the stairs to the second, and Taylor found her eye twitching slightly when they reached her 'office'.
"Did you have to put 'Lord Minerva' on the door?" Taylor asked.
"I thought you'd appreciate it more than 'Empress Minerva'," Hive replied. "There's also a simple 'Minerva' insert sitting on the desk inside."
Taylor shook her head and entered the office, finding that it was as bare as the others they'd passed to get to it. That would probably need to change at some point, but for now there was nothing to steal if someone did make it into the building. It was, however, one of the two balcony access points. A personal one for her, compared to the more general-use one on the other end of the building.
She took a quick look at the security on that balcony's door, swapped out the insert on the door, and then they took the smaller elevator down to the non-hidden basement. There weren't stairs coming down from the first floor here, nor at the freight elevator, but instead only at the two dedicated access points for the 'living space'. A quick tour of the basement area was made, with only doors currently locked from the outside being access closets for the cleaning drones and a 'Team Mana' apartment in the corner. Not that the latter was any more furnished without using the buttons to create Knight Object furniture. It was mainly there for appearances right now.
They left through the hut at the far end of the lot, so as to get a good look at the parking lot. It was laid out differently than it had been before so that it could accommodate light poles that the original lot hadn't contained. Taylor did note that there was a sign on the hut with rules and a statement that the 'wheelchair lift' was at the entrance on the far side of the building.
"Do we need to get the wheelchair lift and elevators inspected?" Taylor asked as they walked across the parking lot.
"Only if someone from the city asks to," Hive replied. "And then they'd probably have to have the PRT look at them since they don't use much in the way of normal technology for such things."
"Ah. Tinkertech exclusions and loopholes?"
"Essentially, yes."
Coming around the building, Taylor found that the lights mounted on the underside of the balcony were a nice touch for lighting up the main entrance and mail slot but paid more attention to the door heading to the basement on the long side of the building. It had a path segment coming off of the sidewalk to it. This door had a copy of the rules that the other sign on the hut had, basically asking that nobody spend more than a couple of nights at a time unless desperate or through other agreements. Opening the door, there were stairs and the promised lift right inside of it. Not that they expected wheelchairs to be used with it, shopping carts being more likely at first.
"This all looks good to me," Taylor said. "Was there anything else that you wanted me to look at while we're here?"
"That should do it," Hive said.
"In that case, I think we should go take a look at a couple of things that I'd like your opinion on."
After dinner, Taylor worked a little with Hive on adapting all of the sensor techniques they had to scanning across dimensional boundaries, though some were far better at it than others. A couple of the mana-originating tricks did fall into the 'work better across dimensional boundaries' category once properly adjusted to do so, but the shard-originating techniques were the clear superior choice there.
Casting spells into the dimensional sea in order to scan back into the dimension with them had been trivial, but Hive was going to need a few days to figure out if shard techniques could be applied in a similar way. What they had been able to do was to open a portal between Hive's internals and the Inn, applying Insect Control through it. It wasn't entirely useful, as they had to remain stationary so as to not disrupt the portal, but it was a useful first test. That had, when targeting Taylor on Bet, resulted in an incredible headache on Taylor's part.
"What the hell happened?" Taylor asked almost an hour after Hive had shut the system down.
"We failed to apply a sanity limit," Hive responded. "Unlike when reaching out from my internals normally, the Shard hardware had no issues targeting the entire planet. Unfortunately, I don't retain enough multitasking hardware to handle that and inputs started to stack on one another."
"Are you saying that I momentarily had a connection to every compatible insect or other lifeform on the entire planet? All at once?"
"Almost, Lord. The system couldn't handle that many connections and was rapidly adjusting things, bouncing between individual targets as it adjusted to try and group them where it couldn't target individuals due to resource limitations. At the peak connection point you were probably only connected to one out of every fifty thousand target organisms at most. The longest connection to a single organism was only three milliseconds."
Taylor blanched at that. "Please tell me that you have a way to range-limit if we do that again."
"I do, though I'll need to adjust some things to ensure that it's distance from you."
"Can we make it distance from any arbitrary point instead? Being able to control insects in a spot that I'm not sounds like a great way to monitor an area discreetly. Sure, we're working on ways to do that with scanning spells, but more options can be good too."
"That should be easy enough. Especially if we have enough leftover Shard material to install some semi-permanently in the Inn. That could either be a stopgap measure for figuring out how to loop those techniques through the dimensional sea or a secondary system that you or others could use when more power is needed."
Taylor shrugged. If it worked then it worked, but they'd have to wait to see what they got from whoever it was they were dealing with tomorrow, and perhaps from Amy later if she went for it. After all, they'd just finished clearing out Hive's storage specifically to help ensure that there was plenty of room for things.
That evening, Hive would monopolize the simulation system looking at possible ways to adapt shard-style techniques. That left Taylor studying in the multitasking systems. Specifically, she was going back over all of the books she had available on playing the flute, her mother's and a bunch of others that had been collected. It was essentially a downtime task for her.
Across town, Missy was practicing to the best of her ability in her simulation systems, having been unable to meet up with Taylor at all. She was also sending occasional questions to Taylor, wanting tips on how to best use some of the control interfaces in Reason. Missy was most interested in the aim assist options for when Reason was in 'gun' form and how they could be adjusted for use with the Spatial Manipulation systems.
The answer had been very straightforward, Reason already being able to take manipulated space into account so long as it could tell that it was there. To improve that, linking Space and Reason would allow for real-time updating of what the Spatial Manipulation systems were doing to the area and improved ability for Reason to adjust targeting information. Hive had already accounted for all of that, so no tweaking had actually been needed.
Taylor had made note to ensure that Hal was able to link up properly for doing anything similar, as she suspected that Chain already could. It wouldn't do to have one of her devices hobbled because it wasn't ready for her to use the Spatial Manipulation systems in the field, after all. Especially since she was still likely to use Hal for throwing physical projectiles when needed, those being far more affected by altered space than mana projectiles would be from a targeting point of view.
Minutes after the homeless person who had spent the night in the warehouse had left there were flashes of light, the construction drones appearing on the transport device one after another. The surveillance drone vanished just before the transport device did, and then the construction drones started their work. Beginning with tearing down the warehouse and excavating the entire lot.
The last thing Taylor did before they headed back home was to collect the transport device sitting on the beach. It didn't need to be there now that they had the Inn as an arrival and departure point. Another test had been done once they'd returned home, Hive ensuring that the relays were working from the other end before Taylor grabbed a drink and remotely started running through her ideas for scrying. Currently most of those were actually just 'monitor a predetermined area remotely', possibly from another dimension or the dimensional sea itself but she figured that doing so from elsewhere in the same dimension would work too. The real key was to not have anything showing that you were monitoring the area in the area.
Missy frowned as she ate her breakfast. She'd planned on going to train with Taylor this afternoon, but plans had been changed on her. Apparently she had to go to City Hall to fill out some paperwork for the internship thing. Sherie had given her a line about it being important to learn how to properly fill out paperwork, something that was important going forward in life, only to get a look from Missy since the paperwork didn't have to be completed at City Hall.
Sadly, Sherie had been able to counter that particular argument with the other reasons that Missy had to go. First off was meeting the Mayor ahead of the internship so that he'd recognize her. She'd never actually met the man while she was outside of costume when she'd been a Ward, so he couldn't be expected to recognize her. Still annoying if that was it, as she could do that her first day, but the other reason was that part of the paperwork included getting her photo taken so that they could have an ID badge printed.
This wouldn't be nearly as annoying if not for the news that Taylor was going to be unavailable most of the following day.
"So", Sherie said as she finished her own breakfast. "I'll pick you up at school and bring you to City Hall. It shouldn't take more than an hour or two."
Missy nodded, using the fact that her mouth was full to avoid speaking. She was less likely to show her annoyance with her tone of voice that way, at least.
Taylor sighed as she waited for her last tutor of the day, and her last tutoring session for that matter. Next week she'd be taking tests instead, after all. At the same time, she was using the break to lightly check the testing drones that she'd left running through things. She'd spent lunch going over the morning results and switching gears from 'scan for things' to 'detect that someone else is scanning'.
It turned out that over half of their scanning tricks were being hobbled by being done from within the dimension that they were scanning. Just pointing them at a nearby dimension both hid the visual effects and made them three to fifty times more effective. This was apparently a side effect of most shard sensory techniques having been optimized for working across dimensional boundaries in the first place. Access techniques varied, some using an anchor point that then did things locally and others directly reaching across dimensional boundaries, but the sensory techniques had all, so far, been optimized for cross-dimensional use.
And then Hive had adapted those sensory techniques for local use and not realized just how good they were across dimensional boundaries, in part because her mana-based sensory hardware wasn't optimized for that. Hive had set the relay systems up at the Inn because the access techniques for them worked better when crossing dimensional boundaries, at least when not originating from inside of a device's dimensional folding, but hadn't noticed the benefits of the shard-originating sensory techniques operating in a similar way.
Dedicated scanning systems were going to need to be installed in the Inn, that was for sure.
That discovery had led to the other aspect of things that Taylor was now focusing on. She wanted to cast sensor spells and possibly build some kind of lens effect for shard techniques to apply them through the dimensional sea. The hope was that any visual effects, such as the flashes of light from casting, happened at the origin point while getting the advantages of working from 'outside' of the dimension even if you were in it. She wasn't having an insane amount of luck with that yet, but she was going to ask Hive for help once the warehouse was done being rebuilt.
The arrival of her tutor had her pulling most of her attention back to her lessons, leaving the testing drones to run through the test patterns that she'd set them to go through. She paid attention to the final bit of review, but was distracted again when she was packing up at the end of the lesson by Vicky landing outside with Amy. Why the two had landed outside and sat down on the bench there was a mystery, but not one that was likely to take long to figure out.
Taylor accepted the good luck on her exams the following week before heading out. She raised an eyebrow when Amy and Vicky both got up and moved towards the door as she was heading down the stairs to it. There shouldn't have been any real way for them to know that she was on her way down at that moment, especially as her tutor was still up in the room with the lights on and thus they wouldn't have been able to notice the lights being turned off.
"Hi Taylor," Vicky greeted Taylor as she stepped outside.
"Hello," Taylor replied. "Do I want to know why you two are standing here at the door as though waiting for me to come out from my tutoring session?"
"Because we were waiting for you to come out from your tutoring session. But now you're out, so we're no longer waiting."
Vicky ignored Taylor's look at that, instead it was Amy who sighed and elaborated. A little. "We have a couple of things to talk to you about, but probably shouldn't do it here. Would you be okay with us heading home with you so that we can talk in private?"
Taylor looked at Amy. "I'm curious as to what kinds of things you don't want to talk about in public."
"Phantom organ things."
Well, that was interesting. "Okay. I guess. Are you prepared to jog with me, or is Vicky going to carry you while I'm on foot?"
That took Vicky by surprise. "What are you talking about?"
Amy rolled her eyes. "Taylor seems to have taken to running everywhere unless someone else forces her to take a vehicle."
"Oh."
"And I probably won't be able to keep up, given how rarely I exercise like that, so Vicky here carrying me is probably our best bet."
Vicky looked between the two of them. "Can we try to keep up with her? I'm curious as to how well we match up to her."
Amy glared at Vicky for that one, the older girl not seeming to care one bit.
Taylor unlocked the front door of the house, not feeling winded or sweaty in the least.
"You suck," Amy groaned as she did her best to not collapse on the steps. "How the hell can you do that every day?"
"It gets easier," Taylor replied. "Also, that was one of the short routes. I've been taking longer ones lately." She then looked over at Vicky. Who had flown a third of the way and still hadn't properly caught her breath. "Though you did better than she did."
The two Dallons collapsed into chairs in the kitchen, gratefully accepting the drinks Taylor offered them. After a few minutes they'd essentially recovered.
"That was harder than it should've been," Vicky grumbled. before pointing accusingly at Taylor. "And it just shows that whatever the hell you've got is bullshit."
Taylor blinked at that. "What?"
Amy was the one who blushed in response to that. "I, er, can mostly tell where your phantom organ is at a distance now. Which means that I can tell when you're out as Minerva, and that your necklace is Lilia. I don't know how that works, but I figure it can't just be that the phantom organs are another expression of normal parahuman powers as they don't seem to be linked only to parahumans or non-parahumans. Then there's the fact that I can also feel when you do big things now, like when I think you scanned the entire planet. Which was both bigger and smaller than when you apparently scanned the entire star system, though I don't know if the bigger was because it was closer or something else. And then there was when you left Lilia at home, only for her to jump across town and apparently take Missy's powers away while making her phantom organ stand out like yours does, meaning that whatever is going on is likely repeatable..."
Hive took Amy trailing off as an invitation to switch to her Unison form, though in a t-shirt and jeans instead of Knight Armor, causing Vicky to jump and float in the air in shock. Amy just looked at her as she started to speak. "Lord, I suspect that Amy is either a natural sensor type or inadvertently trained herself to be a sensor type while trying to figure out the 'phantom organs' she was seeing, meaning that hiding from her is currently not an option."
"Holy shit," Vicky said after a moment, ignoring that Taylor was facepalming. "You're actually a little person that can turn into a necklace?"
"From a causality standpoint, I'm more of a necklace that can turn into a little person. Especially as the functionality of this form is still incomplete."
"What?"
Taylor sighed as she rolled her eyes. "She was built by another civilization, nearly destroyed in an event that she doesn't remember, recovered upon finding me but only as a necklace, then later added the little human-like form. Oh, and she still isn't fully repaired yet."
"Oh." Vicky didn't look like she fully comprehended that. Taylor didn't care.
"Though now I'm curious as to why you two decided to approach me after tutoring like this. Or I suppose after school for you two."
"Vicky made me," Amy grumbled. "After I accidentally blabbed to her while examining my plants and she realized that I didn't want to confront you."
"Examining your plants? How does that have anything to do with it?"
Amy blushed, but Vicky finally landed again and spoke up on something she apparently did understand. "Because she's trying to grow plants with phantom organs based on common DNA patterns in those that she's found have them, which I'm thinking is primarily your own DNA. Half of them would probably be dead by now if she wasn't fixing them up every day. Though I'm not sure how having one of the not-quite-there organs makes you drive off an Endbringer awesome."
"There are other considerations," Hive answered. "Augmentations due to the low mana in the area, training with spellcasting, and a lot of research and spell design."
"Spellcasting? Spell design?"
Taylor shrugged. "Apparently magic can, but doesn't have to be, cast with incredibly complicated math."
Amy's eye twitched at that. "Are you saying that you're literally a magical girl?"
"Sort of?"
"Is Missy going to be running around as one soon too?"
"Missy?" Vicky asked. "Oh, wait, you said that Lilia did something to her, right?" It took another moment for the girl to put that together, at which point her eyes went wide. She then turned to look at Taylor. "Is that what happened to Vista? Is she anywhere near as powerful as you?" Turning to Hive, she continued without waiting for answers. "Can you do that to anyone? How long would it take me to learn enough to fight if you did it to me?"
"Hold up," Taylor interrupted. "We can't answer if you keep asking questions like that."
"As for answers," Hive said. "Yes, that's what happened to Missy, she isn't as powerful as my Lord but some of that is not completing her training. I can remove powers from those you know as parahumans, but not everyone has the potential to be a mage. You, in particular, do not have the potential. Also, even if I do remove powers, I don't need to augment those who do have the potential, even if I've generally been doing so."
Vicky nodded, frowning for a moment before getting a look in her eyes. "The phantom organ thing, right? That's the potential needed, presumably the bit that makes you magic instead of just a normal person. Me not having one makes sense, since thinking back I recall Amy mentioning that nobody else in New Wave has one. But she does, so she could become a...mage, you said?"
"Yes, though at the moment it would include the cost of her current powers being removed for several reasons."
"After which she'd be able to keep up with Taylor's exercise routine, on top of all the other awesome things that Minerva has been seen doing?"
Taylor snorted at that. "No, she wouldn't be able to keep up with my exercise routine just because she became a mage. Just like anyone else working out, you keep at it and you get better. Missy still can't keep up with me if I go all out, though she's getting better."
"Oh. So magic doesn't just, well, magically make you more fit?"
"I imagine that if it did then it would be a temporary boost, but being more fit makes it easier to fight with magic."
Hive nodded. "I've considered various ways to boost my Lord's strength and reaction times, but integrating the spells with living tissue without causing damage is difficult."
Vicky nodded, looking thoughtful. "I guess that makes sense, since being a parahuman obviously doesn't just make you more fit by default either. Though why do you keep calling Taylor your Lord? Shouldn't she at least be your Lady?"
"I use it as a gender-neutral title, as my coding requires."
"So," Amy said as Vicky absorbed that detail. "I take it that Missy approached you about trading her powers for becoming a mage, and based on what was found out about her home life you accepted?"
"Yeah," Taylor agreed. "Well, mostly. There were other details."
"Would you be willing to do the same for me if I decide I want to go that route?"
Vicky spun to stare at Amy in shock, but it was Taylor who got the response in. "What?"
Amy just looked down and fiddled with her glass, leaving Vicky to groan. "Dean was right about you being over-stressed, wasn't he? And trying to figure out the phantom organ thing hasn't helped, given that I noticed that something was up because of it and ended up talking to him about things. Of course, if mom finds out about your plants she'll explode, which isn't going to help either."
"Better to lose my powers than to go to prison for something that I can't undo," Amy muttered.
Taylor sighed at that. "Is every parahuman who figures out that I'm Minerva going to have issues that seem like they can at least be partially solved by removing their powers?"
"Of course," Vicky said, causing the others to look at her. "Don't look at me that way. All parahumans are broken in some way, myself included. Powers warp people, some just get hit worse than others. Personally speaking, I'm currently acknowledging that I'm arrogant and overconfident, but probably won't in a few months because I don't learn my lessons well. That's part of why I keep fighting with Dean. His problems with..."
"VICKY," Amy yelled, causing Vicky to jump again. Once it was obvious that the older girl had stopped talking she continued more quietly. "Your boyfriend's secrets are his own. Don't just blab them."
Vicky winced at that. "Right. Wasn't thinking."
"That was obvious, yes. Though I'm wondering why Taylor's original question was limited to parahumans."
Taylor shrugged. "My father figured things out before I even made my debut, and he isn't a parahuman. Nor does he have the potential to be a mage, for that matter."
"Oh. I suppose that it would be hard to hide that kind of thing from someone you live with."
"Speaking of which, I'm going to want to talk to him before I agree here."
"Lord," Hive said, getting Taylor's attention. "Perhaps we should give them each an emergency beacon as a contact method that doesn't require use of public systems? It could also be useful for them to be able to summon aid if needed in other situations."
Taylor sighed, not being able to argue that point, and retrieved a couple of the beacons. A couple pulses of mana configured them, and she tossed them to the two Dallons. "Here. Red for emergencies, yellow for lower priority, green for all clear."
"These look similar to what Armsmaster has started handing out," Vicky noted. "I think the Wards all have one now, and I know Amy was given one by him."
"I might have the first one he made and we based these off of his."
"Because you're probably one of the biggest non-parahuman targets in the region and he doesn't know that you're probably the scariest person around. Right."
Taylor opted to not comment on how scary she was. "I think that we would also appreciate it if you could at least hold off a few days, since we're going to be busy tomorrow."
Amy nodded as she slipped the beacon into her pocket. She then sighed as she looked at the clock. "I think we need to go before others start wondering where we went off to."
"It shouldn't be too bad," Vicky said. "I might've said that I was going to take you shopping at a store that doesn't exist. The name I gave mom should be close enough to a hardware store's name across town to explain why we don't come back with a pile of bags."
"Your excuse was taking me shopping? Really?"
"Would anyone in our family question that?"
"Well, no."
"Thus it's a perfect excuse."
Taylor thought that staying out of that particular argument was probably the right thing to do.
Missy dropped into the back seat of the car, still somewhat annoyed that she wasn't getting to work with Taylor right after school. Worse, she had been given unexpected homework and was probably going to have to do that first too. Even if she would probably have all day tomorrow to do said homework while Taylor wasn't available. Because barring an emergency, schoolwork was 'more important' than heroing.
Not that Missy could really argue that, admittedly, but it was still annoying. Of course, she knew that she wasn't even ready for a proper patrol yet, needing more practice with Reason at a minimum before then. There was no way that she was going out without the weapon since it was part of the 'not Vista' image she wanted to project as a mage. After all, Vista would never use such a weapon, avoided closing in on people, and only engaged people personally if she had no other choice.
The PRT and Youth Guard could suck it, because Expanse was going to get up close and personal with idiots. Especially if she could get exploding punches working.
A bright flash of light heralded Taylor and Hive appearing at the warehouse, though since it was in the hidden basement it was unlikely that anyone other than Missy or Amy noticed their arrival. There was a lot less here than at the Inn, the most significant items being the giant electrical and mana batteries. There were also water tanks and what looked like it could be a server rack with a handful of network switches, wires running off into the rest of the building. Otherwise there was a lot of empty space and two elevator access points.
"No stairs?" Taylor noted. This wasn't exactly an impossible space that needed special access methods, after all.
"They shouldn't be needed," Hive admitted. "And would be far too easy to detect if someone is snooping."
"I suppose that makes sense."
The two went up the freight elevator to the warehouse level, though it could stop at the regular basement level as well for purposes of moving furniture in and out. In fact, that was the official reason that the freight elevator existed at all, since there was no access to it on the second floor. One side of the warehouse area was shelving, the rest was wide open with currently-closed rolling doors at the end where trucks could back up to the building.
Heading into the rest of the building required going through a locked door, one that recognized them and unlocked automatically. The elevator had done the same, for that matter. They did a quick pass of the first floor, walked up the stairs to the second, and Taylor found her eye twitching slightly when they reached her 'office'.
"Did you have to put 'Lord Minerva' on the door?" Taylor asked.
"I thought you'd appreciate it more than 'Empress Minerva'," Hive replied. "There's also a simple 'Minerva' insert sitting on the desk inside."
Taylor shook her head and entered the office, finding that it was as bare as the others they'd passed to get to it. That would probably need to change at some point, but for now there was nothing to steal if someone did make it into the building. It was, however, one of the two balcony access points. A personal one for her, compared to the more general-use one on the other end of the building.
She took a quick look at the security on that balcony's door, swapped out the insert on the door, and then they took the smaller elevator down to the non-hidden basement. There weren't stairs coming down from the first floor here, nor at the freight elevator, but instead only at the two dedicated access points for the 'living space'. A quick tour of the basement area was made, with only doors currently locked from the outside being access closets for the cleaning drones and a 'Team Mana' apartment in the corner. Not that the latter was any more furnished without using the buttons to create Knight Object furniture. It was mainly there for appearances right now.
They left through the hut at the far end of the lot, so as to get a good look at the parking lot. It was laid out differently than it had been before so that it could accommodate light poles that the original lot hadn't contained. Taylor did note that there was a sign on the hut with rules and a statement that the 'wheelchair lift' was at the entrance on the far side of the building.
"Do we need to get the wheelchair lift and elevators inspected?" Taylor asked as they walked across the parking lot.
"Only if someone from the city asks to," Hive replied. "And then they'd probably have to have the PRT look at them since they don't use much in the way of normal technology for such things."
"Ah. Tinkertech exclusions and loopholes?"
"Essentially, yes."
Coming around the building, Taylor found that the lights mounted on the underside of the balcony were a nice touch for lighting up the main entrance and mail slot but paid more attention to the door heading to the basement on the long side of the building. It had a path segment coming off of the sidewalk to it. This door had a copy of the rules that the other sign on the hut had, basically asking that nobody spend more than a couple of nights at a time unless desperate or through other agreements. Opening the door, there were stairs and the promised lift right inside of it. Not that they expected wheelchairs to be used with it, shopping carts being more likely at first.
"This all looks good to me," Taylor said. "Was there anything else that you wanted me to look at while we're here?"
"That should do it," Hive said.
"In that case, I think we should go take a look at a couple of things that I'd like your opinion on."
After dinner, Taylor worked a little with Hive on adapting all of the sensor techniques they had to scanning across dimensional boundaries, though some were far better at it than others. A couple of the mana-originating tricks did fall into the 'work better across dimensional boundaries' category once properly adjusted to do so, but the shard-originating techniques were the clear superior choice there.
Casting spells into the dimensional sea in order to scan back into the dimension with them had been trivial, but Hive was going to need a few days to figure out if shard techniques could be applied in a similar way. What they had been able to do was to open a portal between Hive's internals and the Inn, applying Insect Control through it. It wasn't entirely useful, as they had to remain stationary so as to not disrupt the portal, but it was a useful first test. That had, when targeting Taylor on Bet, resulted in an incredible headache on Taylor's part.
"What the hell happened?" Taylor asked almost an hour after Hive had shut the system down.
"We failed to apply a sanity limit," Hive responded. "Unlike when reaching out from my internals normally, the Shard hardware had no issues targeting the entire planet. Unfortunately, I don't retain enough multitasking hardware to handle that and inputs started to stack on one another."
"Are you saying that I momentarily had a connection to every compatible insect or other lifeform on the entire planet? All at once?"
"Almost, Lord. The system couldn't handle that many connections and was rapidly adjusting things, bouncing between individual targets as it adjusted to try and group them where it couldn't target individuals due to resource limitations. At the peak connection point you were probably only connected to one out of every fifty thousand target organisms at most. The longest connection to a single organism was only three milliseconds."
Taylor blanched at that. "Please tell me that you have a way to range-limit if we do that again."
"I do, though I'll need to adjust some things to ensure that it's distance from you."
"Can we make it distance from any arbitrary point instead? Being able to control insects in a spot that I'm not sounds like a great way to monitor an area discreetly. Sure, we're working on ways to do that with scanning spells, but more options can be good too."
"That should be easy enough. Especially if we have enough leftover Shard material to install some semi-permanently in the Inn. That could either be a stopgap measure for figuring out how to loop those techniques through the dimensional sea or a secondary system that you or others could use when more power is needed."
Taylor shrugged. If it worked then it worked, but they'd have to wait to see what they got from whoever it was they were dealing with tomorrow, and perhaps from Amy later if she went for it. After all, they'd just finished clearing out Hive's storage specifically to help ensure that there was plenty of room for things.
That evening, Hive would monopolize the simulation system looking at possible ways to adapt shard-style techniques. That left Taylor studying in the multitasking systems. Specifically, she was going back over all of the books she had available on playing the flute, her mother's and a bunch of others that had been collected. It was essentially a downtime task for her.
Across town, Missy was practicing to the best of her ability in her simulation systems, having been unable to meet up with Taylor at all. She was also sending occasional questions to Taylor, wanting tips on how to best use some of the control interfaces in Reason. Missy was most interested in the aim assist options for when Reason was in 'gun' form and how they could be adjusted for use with the Spatial Manipulation systems.
The answer had been very straightforward, Reason already being able to take manipulated space into account so long as it could tell that it was there. To improve that, linking Space and Reason would allow for real-time updating of what the Spatial Manipulation systems were doing to the area and improved ability for Reason to adjust targeting information. Hive had already accounted for all of that, so no tweaking had actually been needed.
Taylor had made note to ensure that Hal was able to link up properly for doing anything similar, as she suspected that Chain already could. It wouldn't do to have one of her devices hobbled because it wasn't ready for her to use the Spatial Manipulation systems in the field, after all. Especially since she was still likely to use Hal for throwing physical projectiles when needed, those being far more affected by altered space than mana projectiles would be from a targeting point of view.
Nuew
“Mankind, be vigilant. We loved you.”—Julius Fučík
- Location
- hiding in ∅
- Pronouns
- She/They
Thanks for the chapter!
Also, I don't think she'd mention her fears of snapping in-front of anyone else without them already knowing about their issues.
With their resources, it'd be possible and quite effective to just give unhoused people small hotel-style rooms until they can manage to afford their own place. There's research that shows giving people homes works really well in solving homelessness
. Anyways, not a criticism, just something that vaguely relates to some activism I've done in the past that I needed to share.
For some reason I feel like Amy is subtly out-of-character somewhere around here? Even though she hates them, I'm not sure if she'd be so enthusiastic to lose her powers, with how she's built her life around the duty to do good with them and such. That could be me misreading her though.
Also, I don't think she'd mention her fears of snapping in-front of anyone else without them already knowing about their issues.
I wish they had done something novel with this instead of just making another homeless shelter (I imagine they'll have to get it licensed too, which probably requires hiring a minder/a social worker or something, depending on state law.
With their resources, it'd be possible and quite effective to just give unhoused people small hotel-style rooms until they can manage to afford their own place. There's research that shows giving people homes works really well in solving homelessness
. Anyways, not a criticism, just something that vaguely relates to some activism I've done in the past that I needed to share.
Ralyx
Seeking Balance
- Location
- The Realm Between
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Come to think of it, Shaper would be the first shard Hive might absorb that is connected to more than one host. I wonder what would happen to Marquis in that case, especially since Hive specifically has to directly intervene to prevent brain damage during disconnection.
Not unless "resources" includes "hiring lawyers to make the rooms compliant with the building and zoning codes", or unless they give them offworld houses.
- Location
- Askew to the British Isles
Amy finally cracked and confronted Taylor in her abilities. At least she didn't have a mental breakdown on her shard abilities. It's interesting to see that Vicky is aware of (some/most of) her personal issues.
The only question is how Taylor will remove Amy's abilities without an uproar. Being a world famous healer if she suddenly lost her powers Minerva would be treated with at least suspicion if not fear and mistrust. On the other hand I don't see Carol hiding/covering up the change given her distrust of Amy through her linage and New Wave stance on openness. Taylor is going to need to tread carefully less she reveals more than she intends about her abilities.
Magic girl Amy is something I am looking forward to seeing as it gives her a more open way to fight without relying on her bio-kinetic powers that most seam to fear.
Speaking of bio-tinker fears, will we be hear for Riley any time soon?
The only question is how Taylor will remove Amy's abilities without an uproar. Being a world famous healer if she suddenly lost her powers Minerva would be treated with at least suspicion if not fear and mistrust. On the other hand I don't see Carol hiding/covering up the change given her distrust of Amy through her linage and New Wave stance on openness. Taylor is going to need to tread carefully less she reveals more than she intends about her abilities.
Magic girl Amy is something I am looking forward to seeing as it gives her a more open way to fight without relying on her bio-kinetic powers that most seam to fear.
Speaking of bio-tinker fears, will we be hear for Riley any time soon?
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- Location
- Wonderland
I think that's more "coping mechanism for living with Brandish" than "her life". Specifically, volunteering at a hospital gets her out of the house.
FaerieKnight79
Verified Pixie
- Location
- The Internet
If Amy makes a public announcement that she is choosing to give up her powers and why, then I bet Carol wouldn't have a leg to stand on. Which isn't to say the woman wouldn't spaz out, thinking it's a sign that Amy has (finally) shown her true villainous colors. Depending on things, this could be the kick in the pants to finally get Carol to take a good hard look at her own actions. Or it could sent her sailing off into the Paranoia Lagoon.
- Location
- Florida
Honestly I hope she doesn't join team Mana. I have to admit that I get tired of Amy as a character because most of the Worm fandom likes viewing her as a Woobie and in doing so remove most of what makes her interesting as a character. For instance I agree with a previous poster that Amy is out of character, she is honestly not a nice person in Worm judgmental and kind of a Jerk. Also I agree with another person that I don't see Amy giving up her powers willingly even if it would be good for her. She is a wierd mix of hating her powers, proud of them, and terrified of them.
Also Amy in Worm apparently isn't world famous just being famous in Brockton Bay according to Wildbow's WOG since apparently their are other parahumans that can heal.
Also Amy in Worm apparently isn't world famous just being famous in Brockton Bay according to Wildbow's WOG since apparently their are other parahumans that can heal.
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TortugaGreen
Constantly out of the loop
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Do you mean woobie? I'm pretty sure nobody's claimed Amy to be a member of the IWW.
While I enjoy the story, I feel like your dialogues could use some work. Honestly, all your characters feel more or less the same to me. They speak in the same calm and logical way and it kinda seems like they lack emotions at times. I don't think I've ever seen anyone in this fic express what they are feeling through their dialogues.
OverReactionGuy
Verified Sanity
Actually, I think she more built her life out of fear for them than doing good. So getting rid of them would severely help her mental state. But that's just my 2 cents.
- Location
- Deep in the Badlands of Equestria
Good point. If Marquis keels over in the Birdcage and Ciara can't get his Fairy, she's going to be a bit upset, I sispect.
- Location
- Sea of Quanta
Things are going a bit too well... For some reason I'm starting to think that during next EB battle Yuuno will show up and mess things up somehow (probably by attacking Minerva, since paranoia from BoD).
Also, Amy is a weird character to deal with. On one side - she's actually way worse then Lisa as a person which makes it hard to like her, but on the other side - she can also be a reason for rather big butterflies if given proper support. It'll be interesting to see in which direction you will take her(if she won't just disappear into background).
Also, Amy is a weird character to deal with. On one side - she's actually way worse then Lisa as a person which makes it hard to like her, but on the other side - she can also be a reason for rather big butterflies if given proper support. It'll be interesting to see in which direction you will take her(if she won't just disappear into background).
Nuew
“Mankind, be vigilant. We loved you.”—Julius Fučík
- Location
- hiding in ∅
- Pronouns
- She/They
You're already going to need lawyers to set up a homeless shelter, and Hive said a previous construction (the Inn?) was built to code anyways. Especially given the internet access and absurd multitasking, I have no trouble believing that Hive would be able to quickly read all relevant statues, regulations, and precedent such to be a competent enough lawyer. Zoning would be horrendous for both cases regardless, because homeless shelters are generally harshly opposed by nearby neighbors out of fear of an increase in crime. Being in an industrial/warehouse zoned area would likely make that easier, but it wouldn't make it trivial.
Prince Charon
Just zis guy, you know?
Yeah, her ability to create giant insects if given enough biomass is well-established, and doing that with butterflies might relax her.
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
This is just my opinion on this, but I don't think being a Woobie and being a jerk are mutually exclusive states; as far as I can tell, the thing that makes Amy a jerk is the circumstances that make her a Woobie in the first place.
And, I'm not sure how this changes things, but Amy is at least globally known by her own admission (Interlude 3, she mentions that she received international attention as one of the consequences of gaining her power; that certainly implies at least a bit a fame on a global scale. Considering this is a scene where Gallant is trying his best to help Amy feel less stressed and she outright admits to hating the attention she received due to her power and he doesn't mention anything about the fame thing, kind of leads me to believe that Amy isn't exaggerating when she speaks of how well-known she is.).
In this case, I can kind of see this Amy going for it, as her Shard appears to be more overt in getting Amy to do stuff other than healing. And, unless this is just fanon, one of the things Amy fears is doing anything other than healing with her power.
So, the fact that she has a plant that she's altered to be something not quite a plant, could be the motivating factor in Amy wanting to be rid of her power, as she might see it as a sign of the slippery slope into not being a hero.
- Location
- Outside of the Omniverse slowly breaking in
I mean when she gets her power removed her device is going to have the same abilities just without the huge compulsion to do anything with it. So she is more likely to use it when she gets to do it on an earth without any people on it.
Yuuno isn't the attacker type. His forte is shield's and barriers, plus some healing on the side. He might (try to) yank Minerva out of the battle with a Dimension-Shift Barrier, but he wouldn't outright attack her without provocation. He'd leave that to Nanoha.
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
I was going to mention that, but as far as I know; Amy doesn't know that she'll still have access to the ability to heal. Which, is something Amy is likely to view as a bit of a mixed bag.
- Location
- Omniverse #1345
I believe it happened offscreen.
It's possibly worse (or maybe better?) than that; Amy will still be able to manipulate biology, but so will Taylor and Missy...
Or, possibly, arbitrarily re-arrange matter, with access to a database of previously encountered living tissues and perhaps a simulation system to test for viability.
Or, possibly, arbitrarily re-arrange matter, with access to a database of previously encountered living tissues and perhaps a simulation system to test for viability.