Progenitor (Amelia Hebert AU)

[Metaldragon868]

Progenitor

Chapter 5​

A/n: Sorry for the delay

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My Dearest Amelia

If you ever decide to follow in my footsteps, or even forge your own path as a cape, know that I will always be proud of you.

However, before you lock yourself into any one route, you must prepare. You must be sure of the path you are embarking upon. Time is an unyielding god. Once you do something, you will never be able to take it back.

Either commit to something with all your being, and never look back with regrets, or you pick your battles very carefully. In each case, there is something vitally important you must do for yourself.

A Code of Conduct, Rules of Engagement, Laws of Honor. Whatever you may call them, you need to put them in place to govern yourself.

Most civilized society is composed of implicit rules. It exists because humanity, as a collective, has agreed that certain things are improper and unacceptable. When one becomes a parahuman, however, the "rules" change.

There is some ineffable aspect about becoming a parahuman that sets them apart from most humans. Perhaps it is the stress and trauma that comes from triggering in the first place? A crucible that forges our souls into more impulsive reflections of our former selves? Or maybe it is the power we have tied to our very minds, the ability to have something completely unique to us, something pushing us beyond the limits of humanity?

Whatever the case, before a trigger, you are one person. Afterwards, a different being emerges. One not so constrained by the limits of human nicesties or common sense. For good or for ill, parahumans will consider the meager laws of man as guidelines, mere stepping stones in their bids for power and glory. Rare is the parahuman who can keep themselves from diving into the murky waters of cape culture.

I am far from the exception in this, and in writing these journals, I look back and consider it my downfall. I cannot say I truly regret what I've done, the lives I've taken and families I've ruined, but neither do I relish them.

I have lasted as long as I have because I do not allow myself to fall into a net of false security. I have power, yes, but even for all my individual strength, I am nothing but a pebble in the ocean of humanity. If I step too far, make too many waves, I shall be crushed on all sides. I have picked my battles and carved out what little corner of happiness I can.

The seduction of greater wealth and power sings to me. It would be so easy. Delving into the trades of flesh and pleasure would surely provide me with riches and influence beyond compare. But that invites greater challenge, greater risk to all I care about. And to what end? At what cost?

Your mother, your birth mother believes in laws beyond that of man, commandments from God himself that supersede anything our flawed minds can come up with. While I don't quite agree with her on all things spiritual, I must admit that there are rules, edicts etched into our very nature as humans. These things go beyond simple things judged in a court of law.

Many have tried to tried to quantify them, to write them down as hard rules that can be properly organized and structured. And yet, they always seem to fall short of what we feel as men.

I have attempted to craft my own code of honor. Axioms by which I've constructed the masquerade known as Marquis. It is my burden and my foundation. Without my honor, I would be lost, adrift in a sea of meaningless violence and sadism. Drifting from conflict to conflict, only chasing the next high, the next level of power. With each power grab, I would only seek more, never to be satisfied.

Instead, I made anchors, things to hold my way. My honor, my code, was one such anchor. Another, your mother. Soon, you too became an anchor in my life.

I plead to you, my dearest Amelia, create these anchors. Find or create pillars to tie your desires down. As a great man once said, "If you don't stand for something, you will fall for anything".

It is for that reason, among others, that I have attempted to leave in the care of Annette Hebert. While we do not see eye to eye on everything, even most things, there is a measure of respect between us. She is a woman of honorable principals, someone who stands for something noble, and damn anyone who stands in her way.

For once in my life, I pray. I pray that you are safely in her care. I pray that she can raise you to be the woman I know you have the potential to be. I pray that she can succeed where this old fool has failed.

Because, my dearest Amelia, for all that I will hold onto my honor unto my dying breath, I know that it will lead me to an early grave. For that, I only hope you can forgive me.

Your father, Batholemew Lavare.

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There was a knock on the door.

"Amy?" My dad's voice slurred through the door, "You in there?"

"It's open, Dad." I called out, forcing my throat back to normal. I wiped the tear streaking down my face away and restructured the cells in my face to wipe away any sign of them. I folded up my father's journal and put it back on the dresser.

By the time I was done, Dad opened the door wearing an exhausted face, one hand clutched around the doorknob, the other a large mug of black mud so hot I could feel the heat from here. He walked in, closed the door behind him, looked up at me, and stopped.

"...Why?" he comments dryly as he stares at me.

My heart skipped a beat. For a second I thought he was talking about the journal, that his distaste of my Father was deep enough that he disapproved of me even reading his journals. Then I noticed the way his eyes flitted to me. Well…

Both of me.

I looked at him and offered a sheepish smile. As did the other me.

I was standing in front of the dresser of my room, wearing a long simple and clean black dress of knitted silk. The bottom of the skirt came down to my ankles, while the top came up to a turtleneck along with long sleeves reaching my wrists.

And on top of the dresser, staring back at me, was another, smaller, Amelia Hebert wearing a mirror of my own apparel. An Amelia Hebert who was also me, though physically aged to about seven. Since I was also her, I saw was staring at both dad and me, and also me, at the same time.

"It's better than a mirror?" I offered from the older me.

"So you made a mini-me...to have a mirror?" He questioned.

"And I can adjust my the fit and stuff from another perspective?" The younger me offered. "And, I mean, we're both me."

"Technically," Older me added, "I'm more me than she is, since I have most of the biomass in me, but she's still got enough in her to be a sentient me in her own right."

The more I tried to explain all of this to Dad, the more I felt like it wasn't making any sense. But it was just so hard to put into human terms. How was I supposed to explain that I was the same 275 Trillion cells he'd talked to last night, just..divided into a bigger and smaller form. How was I supposed to explain being both? How did you explain to your father that, if you really wanted, you could be a dozen smaller you's that were all still the same individual you?

"But we're both still me so-" I tried to explain from the younger me.

"You know what," Dad cut me/us off with a raised hand and a strained smile "I'm too tired to care."

He gestured his mug in my direction with that same smile, "How'd the list go?"

"...Good?" I said, slightly worried about the mental health of my dad. Then felt guilty because that probably wasn't helped by that fact that I was kind of talking to him with another younger version of me I'd made out of spare biomass.

I gave him another sheepish smile while the younger me hopped off the dresser and started cleaning up the room.

"So…?"

"So I have the list!" I perked up, holding out an open hand, which the younger me placed a notebook in.

His eyes narrowed as he scrutinized the two of us. "...How often do you do this?"

"Well, I mean, normally I just make, like, a mouse or something," I admitted, "But then I did the thing with Clank, and I was like, 'Why not another me?'. But then I didn't want an equal division, because then which one would be me, right?"

"...I'm tempted to add this to the list," He said before taking another long sip of coffee.

"It's not that bad, right?" The older me pouted.

"Please daddy?" Younger me pleaded.

"That" He gestured to younger me, "is not helping. Kinda disturbing."

"How is this disturbing?" I asked through the younger me innocently, while also twisting the vocal cords and air cavity inside her to produce a deep, distorted, and inhuman voice.

Dad stopped, his mug an inch from his lips, and just stared at the younger me with wide eyes.

I had to suppress the smiles on both of our faces.

"Not again" I heard him whisper under his breath.

"Dad?" Older me inquired.

"Right...right," He blinked, finally taking a sip from the mug at his mouth. "So that list?"

"Well, one of the things my Father mentioned in his journals about revenge was there were several ways to go about it. One of those ways was to instill as much fear and horror in possible as quickly as possible in the people who wronged you so that they might know to never do it again." I explained.

"Hmm…" Dad's face twisted into a frown, "Sounds like you're missing some important factors there."

"Heh, yeah…" The older me rubbed the back of my head nervously. "I uh, forgot to account for the fact that you kinda of need a reputation to pull it off well. People need to know what they did and who they crossed, but you also need a big enough reputation and record for people to not just consider you an upstart that needs to be crushed."

I paused. Even with roughly four times the brain mass+ as a normal human at the moment, it still felt like I had to take an eternity to figure out the right words to say, and even then, they always seemed to come out wrong.

"One of the things he mentioned was that fear was a double-edged blade," I said, "And that...it could take civilized people and turn them into rabid dogs if you weren't careful."

"And I…" I allowed myself a contrite wince, one I genuinely felt, "...haven't exactly been careful, have I?"

"No." Dad took a sip from his mug, "No you have not."

The both of me looked at our feet in shame. Over the night it had dawned on me how close I'd come to absolute disaster. If Dad hadn't stopped me when he did, I'd still be doing this, and in a few weeks, I could have been dead.

I wasn't really sure what to say next.

Dad looked at young me with a curious look for a second, "Hey, can she stay when you head out?"

"That's not how my power works, Dad," I sighed in the older version of me. I had the younger me palm her/my face.

"Once I leave her range," Younger me gestured with a free hand to the older me, "I turn back into inert goo."

To accentuate my point, I had the smaller me's hand melt into said goo. A transparent mass of inert me fell onto the floor. It wasn't 100% accurate since it was still in my range, and as such still me, but given the way Dad nodded, I'm assuming he got the point.

"Still haven't found a workaround for that," Older me admitted as I had the younger me hop down from the dresser and dip her/my stump in the goo. On contact I had the cells in the pile reorganize back into the structures they'd just been. In seconds, she/I had a hand again.

The whole time, Older me continued unhindered. It was only the managing of cells, after all. "It's kind of frustrating. I mean, I could do so many things if I could just exist outside of my range."

"Can't you just...cut it off? Make it not you?" Dad offered, "I mean, if you could do that, you could do amazing work healing people."

I waved the idea off, "Not how it works. Cutting off a piece of me and making it not me would be like you deciding that your hand isn't you anymore."

"You can't just will a part of you to stop being you," I explained with younger me as I had her flop belly first on the bed, "And even if you did cut it off physically, it'd just lay there and die, not be its own thing. That's kind of what happens when I leave my range."

"And anything made of cells or biomass is me," Older me continued, "I can't make biological materials that aren't me."

"Hmm," Dad sipped his coffee again, "And I suppose it would be pretty bad to give someone a new heart, only for it to melt into goo on them if they get too far from you."

"Yeah, and my range is pretty shit," Older me grumbled, "I've got nothing on Mom's range."

"But, if I remember correctly, you can go wake your sister up before it gets too late and she gets mad at both of us for letting her sleep the morning away," Dad suggested. "And all while you stick around to talk to your dear old dad."

I had older me tsk and scowl in a way that felt appropriate. Younger me, however, was free to whine pitifully asI embraced my inner child.

Still, I complied.

Dad smiled at the leaving me and pointed out, "This way you can keep your sister occupied so she doesn't listen."

I had to admit, that was a good reason. God only knows when she's actually wake up, but if Murphy had anything to say about it it would be at exactly the wrong moment.

"So, back to the List," Dad turned back to the me still in the room. "You went through it?"

"Yeah," I said. I moved to put the notebook on the desk to show him, but then realized that I wasn't currently tall enough to see over it that well.

I cursed my short-sightedness.

Dad snickered, "Problems,"

"Shut up," I mumbled under my breath, moving to the bed instead.

"Ok," I began, unfolding the notebook. Folded up inside the first page and tucked between it and the cover was the list. I took it out and unfolded into a long sheet of paper. "This list has a lot of rules...especially weird ones."

I gave him a bemused look, " Like, 'Don't eat yourself. What's up with that?"

"Oh…" Dad's eyes gained a faraway look as he recalled some distant memory. "That…"

"Yes...that…" I repeated with eager eyes.

"Well," He pursed his lips, "Like many of these rules, the story starts with 'one day your mom was bored and had an idea.'"

"What kind of idea?"

He gave me a kind of exaggerated shrug, "She wanted to know what it would feel like to eat one of the bugs she was focusing on."

"Wait, how's that eating herself?"

"Because she can feel everything the bug feels. So she could feel herself eating another instance of herself."

My eyes widened. My jaw went slack.

"I should do tha-"

"No," He cut me off sharply with a finger

"But Dad, hear me out," I held up my hands.

"Amy, no,"

"I could make myself taste like anything. Like beef, or frogs, or" I gasped as a new thought struck my mind, "I could make myself taste like something new! I-I could experiment! I could be a chef! I-"

I flinched as something wet with a sharp and familiar smell of honey hit my face. I looked up to see dad with mom's little bottle of perfume and half annoyed, half amused, look on his face. "No! bad Amy. I stopped your mom before she swallowed a live cockroach 'for science', I'm not going through this whole thing again."

I...could see his point.

"Sorry?"

"Mhm," He gave me a skeptical look, but put the bottle back in his pocket.

"Are you just gonna carry that around all the time?" I asked.

"It pays to be prepared," he pointed out with a shrug.

"I guess…" I frowned.

"So, what did you get as the theme from the rules?" Dad said, changing topics with a deep breath.

"Don't escalate." I said, "Didn't I say that earlier?"

"And I said you were wrong."

"Right, yeah…"

"So…?"

"Umm…" I looked at the long list of rules, restrictions, and exceptions. I tried to think about everything I knew. Then I remembered the journal I'd just been reading from my father.

"It's about being a better person?" I said in a questioning voice.

"This isn't Jeopardy," He quipped with another sip, "Please, do not phrase your answers in the form of a question."

I rolled my eyes, but restructured my explanation.

"Ok, so parahumans, as a rule, tend to be more...chaotic, than your average person." I began, "But not inhumanly so. They just tend to be the types more likely to act on their desires."

Dad rocked his from side to side, rolling the thought around in his head like liquor in his mouth to judge the depths of its flavors. "Not how I'd put it, but I can see what you're saying."

"And having a proper code of conduct in place is important, because without it there's nothing holding you back. There's nothing keeping you human." I explained, "Without rules, we're just animals, wild beasts with no honor. Having rules by which we conduct ourselves keeps civilization alive, and without them, we are no better than those we fight against."

"If I go out and fight without constraint, without law or honor, only to hurt those who offend me, that makes me no better than the Nine."

"Well," Dad took another sip, "Technically the Nine have rules. Or, at least, they did when they swung by here."

He pinched his face in consideration, "Though, I suppose they were less stringent rules for how to conduct themselves, and more like rules for a game so it would actually be fun."

"Regardless," he waved it off, "I think I get what you're saying."

I breathed a sigh of relief. I really wasn't great at communication in general, speeches, essay, all of it. I prefer doing over saying any day.

"Still, another thing to consider is The Show." He pointed out.

I frowned, "The what?"

"The Show," he said, placing his mug on a terrarium with a clack. The tarantula inside flinched, rearing up at dad, but he didn't so much as blink at the dinner plate sized spider. "It's a term used to describe the, uh, …'pizzazz' of being a cape. I mean, you think your mom put on a silk bodysuit for fun?"

"Well...yeah?" I shrugged helplessly.

Dad just sighed, slouching in defeat.

I snorted.

He shot me a look and straightened up. "Still, the Show is, essentially, cape culture as a whole. Heroes, Villains, all of its a performance."

My face scrunched up in confusion, "Uh...I think all the victims have something to say about that."

"Yeah," He shrugged, "That's the Job. The actual things they do. The Show is the performance the capes put on to play to an audience. Gangs and police have existed for a long time, as have notorious and famous people on both sides, but it's only recently from the emergence of parahumans that Heroes and Villains have happened outside of a comic book."

"Do you know why?"

I think my father had mentioned something about that.

"...so people don't freak out?" I ventured.

"So people don't freak out," he repeated with a nod and a sip from his cup.

"You see, a person is smart, but people on the whole are dumb panicky animals. You give some people powers that defy nature as we knew it, and everyone will freak out. Now you've got dumb panicky animals with superpowers, and dumb panicky animals with guns."

"Wait, but can't parahumans use guns too?" I questioned.

"You gonna let me finish?" Dad raised a challenging brow.

I groaned loudly, letting my inner child out again. "Fine."

"Right, so, the Show is all about being flashy and making people forget that each cape is a human with a laundry list of chips on their shoulder and have at least on fundamental aspect of themselves that is better than any human could hope to be. Get the right trigger, and you get a walking WMD with a grudge like Nilbog or Archon."

"But people don't think about that, they think about the icons. The Heroes and Villains. They think about the Show."

"Honestly," He shrugged, "We're lucky that parahumans aren't being rounded up in camps or cutting the nation up into their own little fiefdoms like Africa."

I allowed myself to wince at the metaphors.

Dad looked sheepish, "Ah, right, sorry."

"No, no, you made your point." I sighed. "And I'm guessing my 'Show' wasn't exactly convincing people that I don't need to be put in a camp?"

He gave me another strained smile, "No, no it was not."

"Ugh," I groaned, flopping back on my bed. "How the hell did Mom get away with that? How did Father?"

"Well," Dad said, the bed creaking ever so slightly as he sat down beside me, "Technically he didn't. He did a lot better than he could, and possibly should have, given his propensity for turning people into bone trees, but there's a reason he's not with us today."

"And Mom?"

"Annette died the way she lived, saving people without any regard for hew own life," Dad shrugged, "Part of me wants to punch in the face for dying like that, but hell if I could do anything to stop her."

A pit opened in my stomach as a lump the size of a mountain found its way into my throat. An enormous wave of guilt hit me, and I had to look away from Dad. I felt ashamed, like a coward, but I couldn't look him in the face.

He shook his head, "That's in the past now."

"Let's see what you came up with while I was asleep," he said, trying to switch topics, if a bit inelegantly. I wasn't really sure what to say to him about that, not with my own feelings on the matter. So instead I just handed the notebook I'd written in to him silently and laid back on my bed.

At the same time, in another part of the house, the Older me was walking up to my little sister's room as I tried to bury the guilt and depressed feelings as far down as I could shove them. I'd gotten some buttered toast, apple slices, and milk from downstairs since she was always hungry when she got up.

I stopped in front of her door, waiting for a moment as I strained to hear inside. Her heat and breath rates were slow and steady. I could hear her doing that little oh so cute snoring of hers when she slept soundly.

I opened the door, and there she was. Laying in under her covers on her belly, like a bug under a rug. One arm outstretched, fingers brushing against the crumpled pages of her book, the other crooked against her titled head.

I walked over to her bedside, gently placing the breakfast on the table to not wake her. Part of me wanted to scream in her ear, to do something suddenly to jolt her awake.

But I didn't.

She was so peaceful. Not crying, not panicking, not rambling, not manic. Just...sleeping. Just at peace. I carefully sat down on the bed without so much as a creak, shifting biomass inside me to balance everything out. I reached out and picked up her book.

Taylor would throw a fit if she saw what she'd done to this book I thought with a small smile I allowed myself to have. A few of the pages were crinkled by her tired hand smushing them together. But she doesn't need to know.

I smoothed the pages out with a gentle grin and closed the book, putting it on her nightstand so she'd think that she'd put it away. I even slid a bookmark into the last page she'd been on.

Turning back to my sister, I just took a moment to enjoy the serenity. I loved Taylor to bits, but normally she was a whirlwind of activity and emotion. It was so sweet but so draining. Like this, however, I could enjoy a quiet moment with my sister. Just being here with her, cherishing time together, it made that pit of guilt and pain ebb away. I don't know if it was really healing, or just smothering the pain in something else, but it helped.

I moved around carefully, in some places letting the cells of my body flow and become more like a liquid, all so I could place her head in my lap without waking her. As I moved her, she mumbled something under her breath and shifted around into a more comfortable position. I stifled a giggle at the sight.

I didn't know what it was, since I didn't normally go for what most people considered cute, but something about my little sister made me just want to squeal and hug her until the sun died. I settled for humming a tune as I stroked the beautiful midnight locks she'd gotten from Mom, patiently waiting for her to wake peacefully.

I'd done it before, and I knew it worked. She'd wake up slowly, but happily. No stuttering heartbeat or panicked brainwaves. She'd be at peace, just like she was meant to be.

As I touched her hair and scalp, I could sense her entire cellular structure again. Her DNA wound and unwound itself in my mind's eye. Her entire physiology like an open book before me.

No new viruses or infections. No new injuries. No signs of nightmares in her brain. The potential for mild soreness in the arm she slept on, but nothing significant. She'd probably want to go to the bathroom when she got up, though. And to round out the checkup, I took a very close look at her brain.

And breathed a sigh of relief.

Still only a Corona.

Dad, in my room, looked at the younger me with a strange expression.

"What's up?" he asked. From his perspective, I just suddenly seemed happy out of nowhere.

"Taylor still hasn't triggered," Younger me smiled up at him, "I'd been worried that maybe all the stress from Emma might have gotten to her, but she's still got just the Corona Pollentia."

He frowned, "Corona Pollentia...that's the brain thing that gives parahumans their powers, right?"

I nodded, letting the feeling of contentment from snuggling with my adorable little sister wash over all forms of me, "Yeah, people who can trigger have just the Corona, people who have triggered have a Corona and a Gemma."

"Dunno the specifics of it," I shrugged on my bed, "haven't been doing a scan while someone triggers. No idea how it works, really."

"Don't you get a nice blueprint of everything?" He questioned.

"Most everything," I answered, "The Gemma is a...weird spot. Everything else, I can figure out by watching it work or reading a textbook. Those two anomalies? Fucked if I know" I shrugged, "They don't exactly follow the laws of physics, and most of the time I can't make heads or tails of 'em."

"You can't do anything with it?"

"I think I can, but it kinda feels like poking your eyeball," I explained.

Dad gave me a puzzled look.

"It's not a great metaphor, but it's the best I got," I shrugged, "Sure, I can technically do it, but I really don't want to, and I have a very bad feeling that nothing good would come of it. Kinda like if a normal human tried to, say, dig out their own eyeball and eat it."

"I...guess that's one way to put it," He said with a raised brow as he stared at me.

I shrugged again, "I don't know what to tell you,"

"You could tell me why half this stuff includes being an edgelord." He asked.

"Dad," I groaned.

"What?" He shrugged, "Taylor told me what that means. She says you're turning into one."

He glanced back at the notebook I'd given him. "...I'm starting to agree with her."

"It's not that bad, right?" I ventured.

"Most of this is about being as scary as possible to the criminal populace, without being labeled a psycho. Or being caught." He gave me a look with a raised brow, one loaded with questions. "One of them is called, 'The Thing'."

I winced.

"Another, 'the blob'."

I cringed.

"Can't forget, 'Blade Worm'. Or 'Night Slayer'."

"Ok ok, ok," I groaned.

"Oh, wait, I'm just getting to the best," He ignored me, looking at the notebook intently. He jammed his finger at a specific line in on the page. "The Infestation"

He shot me a look with both brows raised to his hairline, "the Infestation? Really?"

I want to die

The sheer embarrassment borne from the look caused my face to heat up, regardless of my ability to suppress it. Saying it out loud made it sound so incredibly stupid. I just wanted to melt into the floor.

So I did.

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A/n: Sorry for the delay.

To be honest, I'm still not completely happy with this chapter. I feel like I do a lot of talking around the point, but I'm not actually getting to it, nor am I advancing time properly.

Even worse, this was originally much longer, but I cut the chapter in half when I looked up and realized I had about 7.5K. I'd rewritten this whole thing numerous times, and each time it only got longer.

If I had any sense, and more time, I'd just cut this whole thing out and start from scratch at a different angle. But I'm 7.5K deep and one week late, so fuck it, I'm going in.

If I'm lucky, then I'll actually be able to give myself some breathing room for next week, but fuck if I know if that'll work out. Normally I'd at least consider cutting that part off, but that chapter has basically everything I liked in it. Maybe I should have cut this part out? Ugh, I don't have time for regrets like those.

Doesn't really help that both my betas are gone so I can't get their advice on all this. I've read over and re-written this thing so many times that it's just a wall of meaningless symbols to me right now.

Whatever, I hope you guys enjoy this. See you in a week.

 

[Timerider]

More edgy names for Amy!
The Flood.
Blacklight.
Venom.
Anyone have something original? I've got nothing.

 

[Darth.]

you think your mom put on a silk bodysuit for fun?

Click to shrink...

Well...not just for fun...

I just wanted to melt into the floor.

So I did.

Click to shrink...

Here drips Amelia Hebert. She was the best infestation anyone could have asked for.

 

[Unilateral]

"You could tell me why half this stuff includes being an edgelord." He asked.

"Dad," I groaned.

"What?" He shrugged, "Taylor told me what that means. She says you're turning into one."

Click to shrink...

Historically, a marquis, or marquess, was a lord in charge of a border territory. In otherwords, a literal "edge lord".

 

[RichardWhereat]

Wow. Hadn't even occured to me that Annette could have been a hero with Skitters power.

So, does the Edge Lord have a name yet, or is she going to go by her mums name and scare the heroes as well as the villains?

 

[earthboy]

- Toxikill

- Bloodshatter

- Hateblade Moonsuffer

- Mürdour de Crownoir

- Shadowdark Shwartznoir

- Adoré la Mortess de Abattoir

- Skullsoul Murderknight

 

[Miri]

I can't remember, but does Taylor know that Amelia is a parahuman or is she hiding that fact from her adorable little sister?

 

[Dark Mage]

I can't remember, but does Taylor know that Amelia is a parahuman or is she hiding that fact from her adorable little sister?

Click to shrink...

Well, I think Amy is hiding it because of this:

Amy rolled her eyes. Taylor crossed her arms in response with an adamant frown. Amy smirked, then swallowed the swollen mass of ground food and mush in one revoltingly massive gulp. Taylor shivered at the disgusting large bulge traveling down Amy's throat and the pleased grin on her sister's face as she did it.

Taylor didn't think that could possibly be comfortable, she wasn't even sure how Amy did it without choking on it. Every time she saw her sister do it she got little nightmarish ideas of the bulge bursting out of her sister's throat or some kind of creature tearing it's way out.

Click to shrink...

I get the impression that Taylor does not know that Amy is a parahuman.

 

[Roaming_Guardian]

So this means that Taylor is a second gen user of QA if and when she triggers. We've seen QA bud but not a second gen.

 

[Metaldragon868]

Chapter 7

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"The Infestation, really?"

Dad gave me a wry smile.

In sheer shame and embarrassment, I let the younger me in my room melt into a puddle of sentient goo. I flowed off the sheets, onto the floor, and under the bed where I could let that partition of me burn in shame in peace.

Instead, I distracted myself by focusing on the instance of me in Taylor's room. My little sister let out the cutest mewling sound as she stretched out all her limbs.

I let out a small coo, unable to help myself with her adorable cat-like mannerisms, and scratched her behind the ears.

"Mmph, stop it," She swatted at my hand, eyes still closed.

"No such luck, munchkin," I grinned down at her.

Finally, her eyes opened, though only to glare up at me, "I'm not a munchkin." She pouted. "You're just freakishly tall."

Well, that was true. I'd looked at my original genome and I'd found that I actually had a disposition for being more on average with most women, or even on the shorter side. Compared to Taylor and Mom's genes, I'd have been the munchkin.

But how can Taylor be my adorable little sister if I'm the short one?

We just can't have that. I smiled to myself.

Compared to everything else in my repertoire, making myself 5'11" at 16 was trivial. Given how much Taylor was likely to grow, I'd probably need to end up at least 6'2" in order to forever keep my big sister status.

I had the errant thought of letting myself get to 9ft, if only for one night, just to mess with Taylor's head, but quickly discarded it with a chuckle.

Taylor's pout deepened at the way I dismissed her claims.

"I'm sorry, Tay," I said insincerely as massaged the kink I knew she was going to have in her shoulder. "My baby sister is just so cute when she's sleep, I just couldn't help it."

Taylor turned her head away from me in defiance, a fearsome blush on her cheeks, though she made no move to get away from me.

"I'm not a baby," She grumbled under her breath.

"A girl can dream," I smiled. Part of me hoped Taylor never grew up, that she'd be a tween forever. Hell, part of me dreamed she was a kid again, free of the toils and worries of real life. I'd bare all the pain for her a thousand times if it meant she could be innocent and blissful for another year.

"I made you toast!" I said with a perky smile, switching topics as I could sense the way her mind was shifting from thinking about me babying her to thinking about how incredibly hungry she was.

Taylor's eyes flashed over to the plate on the nightstand, the scent of buttered hot bread and exposed and crispy, juicy, apples. She bit her lips, and I could see the way her mind turned through all the thoughts she'd tell herself as she tried not to think about how tempting it all was. She didn't want to give in.

I couldn't normally tell a person's thoughts so easily from scanning their body. Brains are very very complicated, and even with the Repository inside me storing all the scans and memories I'd ever had, it wasn't easy to put together the way one's brain lit up with what they were actually thinking. Reading the hundred billion neurons in someone's brain at anything close to real-time and translating the tangled mess into coherent thought and words just wasn't feasible for me. From what I could tell, people barely ever even thought in words in the first place, usually, it was a disjointed series of images, concepts, and senses. Even that was born from steadily pouring over the same scans over and over again.

So instead, I usually just looked at what areas of the brain were lighting up in what patterns in response to what stimulus. It wasn't perfect, and I couldn't get details like names or specific locations, but sometimes I could get a general idea of what someone's thought process was.

For Dad and Taylor, this worked the best because I knew them. I knew the type of person they were and the way their brains worked. When I saw their brains lighting up in certain patterns, I could guess that it meant they were thinking and how they got their. I barely even needed to read Taylor's brain, especially. Unlike Dad, she didn't have a poker face carved from stone.

A large part of me felt guilty about it. I was, after all, pretty literally reading their brain. At the same time, I couldn't really not look at it if I had skin contact with them. The brain was the most active part of the human body by far. The whole body moved and worked as a unit, and it was beautiful, but only the brain was alight with such an incredible fire of activity. Ignoring it and other physiological cues while I had skin contact would be like trying to talk to someone while ignoring their facial features and tone of voice.

It was the reason why I wore so many layers all the time. It felt more...polite… to not constantly be reading people like that. Plus, I didn't really want to constantly be reading people like that, Beyond it seeming rude, it was just a hassle to know every detail about a person on a cellular level every time I bumped into them, especially considering I'd never forget those details.

I was pulled from my thoughts by Taylor shifting around on my lap.

"Are you coming in with me today?" I asked, turning my thoughts back to the immediate present.

Taylor just grumbled something unintelligible. Which meant that she didn't really want to go and leave her comfy bed yet, but she also didn't want to tell me no, and she also didn't really want to sleep all day.

Which meant I'd have to poke and prod her awake.

"Come on, Taylor," I smile, poking her cheek with an apple slice. "If you don't want to sleep the day away, you need to get up and give me an answer."

She grumbled again, flipping over and burying her face in my stomach.

I tapped the wet apple slice inside of her ear.

She jerked over, slapping her hand over her ear and shooting me an offended slack-jawed look like she couldn't believe I'd done that.

I gave her my best innocent, "Oh, whatever do you mean?", smile.

"You're so mean," She tried to scowl. Without her glasses, her face was framed a little differently. Her eyes appear smaller on her face and the black plastic rims no longer breaking up facial features. Up close like this, she didn't need her glasses anyways, being nearsighted.

"Call it tough love," I said, poking her with the apple slice again.

She slapped it away with a grimace, "I don't want that, it's been in my ear!"

"Just the outside," I shrugged, "And, I mean, if you can't eat yourself, what can you eat?"

Taylor curled her tongue and opened her mouth in a gagging motion, and for a moment I was tempted to snap out and poke her tongue with the apple slice. I knew that'd probably earn me a slap, and be a bit too far, so I settled for twisting around and throwing the apple slice in the trash.

"There, happy?" I said, shooting her a wry smile.

"No," She pouted, "I'm sleepy."

"Some cold water could fix that," I offered, holding up a glass.

The scowl my little sister sent me made me laugh, but I pulled it back together to ask her the question again. "So, are you coming in with me today?"

She thought about it, biting the inside of her lip as her eyes turned up and to the left in thought. I could see her brain lighting up in all the tiny arguments going on in her head. I decided to help her out.

"Well…" I drawled, "If you stay here, you can sleep in. If you come with me, I can just swing around to Emma's when we're done."

I shrugged, "It's up to you."

She moved onto chewing her bottom lip. "I…"

I could tell by the way she was tensing up and picking her words that she was trying not to hurt my feelings.

As if such a thing could ever wound me.

"I think I'll stay home." She said eventually. "I'm just still tired, a-and I need to pack, a-and-"

"Okay," I cut her off with a smile. I let her know it was all ok by brushing my hand through her hair. "It's fine, Taylor, it really is."

She relaxed, sagging onto my lap and leaning into my hand. All the tension bled out of her, and for a while, we just sat there. Her steady breathing and heartbeat a peaceful metronome for my mind. There were no words, there was no need for them. Just me and my sister at peace, as we always should be.

After seven and a half objective minutes, Taylor broke the silence.

"Feed me," Taylor finally said, opening her eyes so she could stare up at me.

"Oh?" I raised a brow, "I thought you weren't a baby?"

"I'm not," She nodded imperiously, "I'm a queen. And as my loyal servant, I command you to feed me."

I chuckled, I couldn't help myself. "I think you're more of a princess, myself."

"A princess?" Taylor pouted, pursing her lips and furrowing her brow.

"Yep," I grinned, resisting the urge to pinch and prod her cheeks. I had some weird, almost irresistible, urge to pull and stretch her adorable face. "I'm sure you can agree that Mom was the regal queen?"

I saw the series of blips in Taylor's head and the way her face twitched at the mention of Mom. All the little flickers of pain. I feel a spike of guilt at reminding her. I feel a little better when she bounces back with a nod.

"Ok," She admits, almost grudgingly seeing my point, "I'm the princess, mom was the queen."

I allow myself to snort at the fact I've actually successfully roped my sister into this. I can tell she's not completely awake yet, so she's still a little...imaginative and pliable.

"Yep," Taylor folded her arms under her blanket. "A noble and beloved princess"

"Well then," I smiled, picking up an apple slice with my free hand, "Since you are such a noble and adorable princess of our kingdom" I continued, holding it over her mouth.

"Then I shall be your Knight in shining armor."

/-|-\
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"And here we are, Milady,"

The car jerked slightly as it came to a full stop. There was a ratcheting sound as I put it in park and looked over to my sister with a smirk upon my face.

"I have brought you to your destination on my trusty steed. Though it might not be as regal as the roya-"

Taylor slapped my shoulder, "Shut up!" She whined.

"Ah!," I gasped, recoiled in exaggerated pain, "The princess commands silence! I must swear an oath of-"

"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!" She punctuated each repetition with another slap on my shoulder. Still, through it all, I could see her failing to hide her grin.

"The princess?" Repeated a voice from the back.

We turned around to see a girl with long chestnut brown hair in a simple white dress with a pleated skirt that came to her ankles. Her eyes focused on Taylor with an accusing look and a wry grin. The girl was shorter than both of us and already far curvier than mom ever was. It provided an interesting kind of contrast to the tall and slim figure of my little sister.

Of all of us, Taylor was the only one not in some kind of dress or skirt. She wore a basic light blue tee shirt and some lose cargo pants. That said, if their job to cheer Emma up worked, then I had little doubt that she'd be coerced into a dress of some kind by the end of the day.

"Oh yes," I grinned, "You see, Charlotte, on this early morn, my dearest sister and I came to the accord that she is a princess,"

I gestured my hand in Taylor's direction, "And as such, I am her Knight in Shining Armor, with one of my many duties being the delivery of her and her friends."

"I was lazy and tired," Taylor explained with a huff. "I made Amy get me food."

"Ah, of course." Charlotte nodded in understanding.

Taylor sagged in relief with a pleasant smile.

"Your Highness" Charlotte added.

Taylor's face fell into a look of tortured betrayal.

Charlotte shot me a glance. An understanding passed between us.

"Well, off you go," I said, shooing them out of the car, "The two of you have a royal appointment that I couldn't possibly allow you to be late for."

The more I fell into character the more I brought up a faux posh British accent.

"Ugh, you're so mean," Taylor groaned, opening the door and getting out.

I gripped my chest in feigned agony, "oof," I moaned, "The princess's barbs, they strike so deep! How can I endure such cutting quips?"

"Oh, Milady, how can you be so cruel to your kind and stalwart Knight?" Charlotte teased as she got out from the back seats.

Taylor slammed the door shut as she whined, "Why? Why is my life suffering?"

So caught up in said suffering, was she, that she left without her bags.

"Milady!" I called out when she was halfway up the steps to the Barne's house, still grinning from ear to ear, "You cannot forget your bag."

Taylor stopped, looked up to the sky, and huffed.

"Come now, princess Taylor, we can't forget our gifts." Charlotte giggled as she leaned against the car waiting for her, her own bookbag already slung over her shoulder. My sister turned around and marched back to the car. She yanked open the door Charlotte was standing next to and pulled out her bookbag.

"Hate you," Taylor muttered as she threw the bag over her shoulder, "Hate you both."

"Have fun Milady!" I waved as the two walked up the steps again. I could see the Barne's door open and Aunt Zoe looking down at us with a perplexed, but amused, smile, our commotion no doubt alerting her to us.

"Princess Taylor?" Zoe repeated in askance.

I snickered. Charlotte doubled over. Taylor screamed.

"WHY?!"

/-|-\
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/\-/_|_\-/\
\-|-/​

Here we are.

I looked down at my phone, at the texts dad had sent me before he'd gone back to bed. Work was so physically and mentally draining for him that by the time the weekend came, he usually only felt like sleeping on Saturday. As such, him communicating through texts like this was hardly a surprise or in any way new.

"Amy, sorry I wasn't up to see you come back home, but while you're out, why not drive by Sanctuary on your way home? You might be grounded, but you ARE going to be working their soon, and it might give you some ideas about what you want to do going forward.

Night"

I snorted. Wordy as ever, Dad.

Still, he had a decent idea, even if it was in code. Couldn't exactly talk about cape stuff on something as insecure as a phone, especially in this day and age.

As such, here I was, standing on the sidewalk in a city square. I was in the downtown area, where there'd been a lot of urban renewal recently in the wake of the devastation that was really only now fading from people's minds.

It was a superblock, one of the few in the city, and I rather liked it. The nine normal city blocks merged together in a way forced people to actually walk and interact inside their confines, but from the outside was easily accessible by car. Normally, such a redesign would be difficult, but when half the city is leveled and burned down, you get some room to work with. In the ensuing rebuilding, a lot of superblocks had been made and sponsored by major groups already invested in the bay such as Medhall, or those looking to move in, like Ladon or Tycho.

The one I was standing in, however, was different. It had been funded by donations, fundraisers, nonprofits, government aid, and a half dozen other groups that actually felt even a half a degree of love toward Brockton Bay. Anyone who wanted to see this city thrive, happy and healthy, had chipped in at least some spare change. Given why it'd even come about in the first place, it was no surprise.

Most of the exterior was devoted to local small businesses. Mom and Pop shops that had been here in one form or another for decades, startups from people trying to make a name for themselves, and everything in between. All mixed with apartments, garages, and even a school. It was like a small scale city, combined with all the other superblocks in the area, and in the middle of it all was the jewel.

A small park, a carefully cultivated section of cherished nature, nestled in the middle of the bustling city. Trees dotted the expanse, both in clusters and alone, providing shade to all who stayed here. Near one such small grove stood a playground that looked like it'd been fashioned in the aesthetic of a treehouse. In many places looking like it was made from plants, like trees that had grown into the shape of a jungle gym and massive leaves curving into a slide.

In another corner of the small park was an area dotted with rocks positioned in such a way to create a basic soccer field, surrounded by trees to provide shade. Benches, tables, and various sculptures filled the space, all of them either made from plants or rocks, not a one fashioned with metal or plastic. At the edge between the park proper and the businesses on the outside were little open-air areas to eat and chat. Places on the pavement with a table, an umbrella, and a few chairs. Nothing fancy, but enough to be inviting whatever the day.

The place was alive, too. Families filled the park, children running around, screaming and hollering with smiles on their faces. Their parents sitting around in the shade, trading small talk, stories, and snacks. Eight kids of mixed race and gender between the ages of roughly nine and twelve ren around the soccer field, playing a simple game.

A young black girl with her hair in braids scored a goal and started cheering loudly, taunting the Hispanic kid she'd scored on. A black boy, around my age I supposed, shook his head at her as he fought a grin from his place sitting on the shaded sidelines.

At the table of an Italian restaurant sat a couple, one woman with short blonde hair wearing a light jean jacket over a red shirt and black pants sitting across from a man with short brown hair wearing a blue shirt and cargo khakis. The man had a beaming expression on his face as he held up a fork of pasta, trying to feed it to the woman, who wasn't trying very hard to push it away while unsuccessfully trying to keep a straight face.

At another table in front of a cafe sat a woman in a black light jacket, jeans, and a grey shirt with short brown hair and a scarred face that almost twisted her flat expression into a sneer. She was reading a book with a cup of what smelled like black coffee and a plate of half-eaten apple pie she was slowly working through.

Looking at it all was easy, my eyes shifting into something more similar to a falcon's, and it brought me, if not joy, a feeling of contentment. That things weren't all doom and gloom. That not every part of the city was a shithole. Brockton Bay was in a remarkably better place than it was in '80s, is one of the faster-growing cities in the US and nearly doubling its population in spite of trouble like the dock work drying up and the bay getting wrecked. For all the shit that had happened to it in recent years, the people were still here. They could still smile, still be at peace.

Mom would be proud.

Speaking of...

I came to a stop, my destination before me. Looking at it brought a bittersweet smile to my face.

Hey, Mom

In front of me stood a statue of marble. No, more than a statue, it was a scene, 20 ft tall and 60 ft wide. A woman in segmented plates of smooth armor over a darker bodysuit and with a long and regal mantle hung from her shoulders. She sat upon a throne made of marble carved to look like ancient wood. In her hands, was a book, opened wide and resting on a knee. Children of all ages, ranging from an older teen in the back to a young toddler on her other knee, crowded around her, all either trying to read the book, or enraptured by the woman as she read to them. Frozen in stone were hundreds of insects such as butterflies and bumblebees flying around them all, like fairies in a whirlwind. The artist had even captured the iconic twin bugs on either shoulder, with eight legs, four wings, two large eyes, a crown of thorns, and enlarged thorax's.

Where most everything on her was a stark white marble, the eyes and crown of the full mask on her face was the iconic gold. A garden had been strategically placed on and around her and the children, a tangle of vines and roses down the cape and hair, trees, flowers, and bushes placed around the base to give shade and frame the whole scene. And in memory of her, some tinker had included a device that helped attract and pacify bugs.

Bees, butterflies, and insects of all stripes and colors all flew in and around the scene. A rainbow of color and sound filled the square from them all, but even the few hornets around were all too pacified by the device to ever dare sting a soul. You could pick up and crush a black widow in your hand, here, and it wouldn't do a thing. It made it a feeding ground for a lot of other larger predators that ate them, but considering the massive population of bugs in the city and the way Matriarch's legacy continued to cultivate them, no one was worried about their numbers.

A plaque at the base of the scene read, "The Matriarch Memorial Center of Sanctuary."

Behind it, a three story building in the middle of the park. Part glass and steel, part wood and leave, it was a marvel of economic engineering. Combined with everything else, I knew Mom would have been proud. Aunt Grace wouldn't accept anything less.

I forced a smile. It was a beautiful monument, but that didn't really take away the pain of losing her in the first place.

"I'm thinking of following in your footsteps," I said as I looked at my mother's mask. "I just...I just hope I can do you proud."

As I said it, a Hercules beetle crawling on the rendition of my mother's mask turned to look in my direction with its horn. I wanted to think that it was a sign from her, a wink from heaven.

I swallowed the lump that I'd allow to form in my throat.

"Well, I guess I'll-"

I was cut off by the sound of an explosion behind me.

I whirled around, my blood surging in both panic and fury. Time slowed to a crawl as I dumped normally unsafe levels of adrenalin into my body. My brains worked on overdrive, disposing of unnecessary biomass to grow larger and hone themselves to the work of processing my surroundings. Judging it objectively was difficult in the best of times, but like this, I could easily perceive reality ten times faster than the average human.

One of those mom and pop stores on the other side of the block, a Greek restaurant owned by a couple I'd visited several times coming by here, was on fire. Billowing flames erupted from the windows on the superblock's interior. My eyes narrowed, photoreceptors shifting and pupils narrowing as I focused on the building.

The only part of the store was on fire, but it was still in danger of getting out of control. More alarming was the two men running out of the door. Both hats, sunglasses, and a bandanna hanging around their mouth. One wore a trench coat and a cap, the other a heavier jacket and a beanie. In spite of their meager disguises, I could tell each was a young Caucasian man, in their early twenties at the latest.

At first, nothing seemed particularly special about them, other than their generally suspicious activity. Then I heard something in the distance. I strengthened my hearing by tweaking the auditory processing abilities of my brain, the structure and size of my eardrum inside my skull, as well as growing additional ear-like organs throughout my body under my dress.

From the direction of the two men, I could hear sirens, the sound of people shouting.

"They're moving into the Sanctuary Superblock!"

"Corner them! Encircle the whole block!"

"Isn't that where the captain hangs out?"

"You are resisting ar-"

The last one was cut off as the one in the trench coat spun around, facing the building they'd just come from.

"Pull back!"

Flames burst from his hands, engulfing the side of the building. Screams of pain and fear erupted from the restaurant. My nose began to pick up the scents of burning wood, scorched stone, and the oh so familiar odor of charred human flesh.

The trench coat man, the one who'd just roasted a building full of people alive, laughed at his work and elbowed his friend.

"Haha, you see that man?"

"Yeah, fresh bacon, my favorite," The other said, holding his middle finger up to the building, "Take that ya fucking pigs."

"Eh, bro, we better bolt before the pin us down." Trench Coat said.

"Pft, like those fucking normies can do anything to us," His companion boasted, but started jogging towards the other side of the superblock regardless.

"Halt!" A voice shouted from one of the adjoining building in the superblock. A handful of PRT soldiers clad in the blues and blacks of their riot gear stood in front of a shoe store. "You are under arrest for-"

He didn't get far before Trench coat lobbed a fireball at them. Most took cover behind overturned tables, but a few shouldered their PRT shields with a white boar emblazoned on its black face and hunkered down in front of the few civilians still frozen in fear. The fire washed over them, and a couple soldiers pulled out guns and started taking pot shots at the two with rubber bullets.

The one in the heavy jacket moved in front of the Trench Coat and held up his arms. The bullets stopped about a foot in front of him, a hexagonal plate of white and black appearing. It held for a fraction of a second, before pulsing. Suddenly, all the bullets were sent shooting back in the direction they'd been shot, their momentum reversed. While everyone took cover from the hail of rubber, Trench Coat turned around and lobbed a fireball at a nearby cafe instead, causing it to burst into flames. More screams, more of that pungent smell of cooked meat.

A PRT soldier, the leader possibly, shot the two a harsh glare, before directing his men to help the civilians inside the burning building.

Everyone inside the clearing, once happy and at peace, was caught off guard by the chaos suddenly brought to them. For what felt like an eternity, no one seemed to know what to do, how to react to such a thing. A few screamed, a few ran, but most just stood there.

Trench Coat laughed and threw a fireball at another building that PRT had been starting to exit. The two ran through the shops, staying in the middle of the panicked crowd to have a steady supply of human shields and victims to distract the authorities.

My blood boiled, my muscles writhed, and my breath stopped. These two animals dared intrude on this peace? They'd come here and burn this place down just to satisfy their own selfish desires? Hurt and kill innocents just so that they'd have a chance to get away?

And they'd do it HERE?!

I took a breath and pulled a trick I'd learned from Mom. She hadn't taught it to me directly, she...hadn't had the chance. But it was a classic from her past, something seen in nearly every video of her. Something I could actually pull of better than she ever could.

I sneered at the two capes who dared ruin my mother's peace, and I dissolved into a swarm of butterflies.

I'm sure dad will understand.

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​

A/n:

Well, the next chapter is going alright. Still, need to tweak some stuff, but we'll see how it goes.

Keep in mind, this chapter was supposed to be part of the last one. it's just that they became so fucking huge I decided to split it.

Also, the more...cuddly bits with Taylor are brought to you by my Cat. I've never had siblings, so the best measuring stick I've got for cuddling cute things is my cat. Dunno how much that stands up with reality.

Anyways, the next chap should be out by next week.

There might also be some formatting and grammar issues. I still don't have a beta anymore, so it's just me looking this shit over repeatedly, and I don't exactly have a lot of time to fiddle. Not if I want to get content out at anything approaching a regular speed.

So I apologize for the lack of good polish. Hopefully it's good enough to satisfy all of you.

That's really all I can think of at the moment, though I will note that the next chapter should include a few more details about how AU this AU is.

 

[Timerider]

"Why? Why is my life suffering?"

Click to shrink...

COSMIC IRONY HAS ACHIVED SIGNULARITY STATUS.

 

[Roaming_Guardian]

...When Taylor finally gets powers I expect her to live up to that legacy. You cant give us a backstory for Annette the Hero that awesome and NOT give us Weaver following in her footsteps.

 

[Eckert]

...When Taylor finally gets powers I expect her to live up to that legacy. You cant give us a backstory for Annette the Hero that awesome and NOT give us Weaver following in her footsteps.

Click to shrink...

And since this is Worm, she will probably end up being the main hero going after Amy when she inevitably goes too far.

 

[Tnoz]

That was great.

It's really interesting having Amy describe what it's like to see people and their brains functioning on a much deeper level than everyone else sees, and having that be normalized into how she experiences life and interacts with people daily.

Taylor is adorable. That is all.

Nice memorial for Annette. I wonder what she did to deserve this from BB, and how she's regarded in general by the city's citizens and capes alike? Is she still talked about on PHO?

And now Amy has gone swarm mode. God biokinesis is always a fun power to mess around with. Guaranteed to never get boring. (except in one Quest I remember where it devolved into full-eldritch teeth and tentacles everywhere for every fight. Great on occasion, but gets tedious if it's the default when the power is so versatile in my opinion.)

Also, with how she changed her senses, I wonder if Amy ever tried to recreate the Mantis Shrimp's eyes with 12 to 16 photoreceptors, as well as other crazy interesting senses found in the animal kingdom. Probably not its claws though, since size likely changeshow well it functions, unless she uses it to make her finger flicks have to force of gunshots. *finger guns*

Great chapter.

 

[DualEquinox]

And since this is Worm, she will probably end up being the main hero going after Amy when she inevitably goes too far.

Click to shrink...

Honestly? I think it would be much more fun if you reversed that order, with Taylor going villain cause Armsmaster is a selfish dick like in Canon and Amy feeling all sorts of fucked up as she desperately tries to live up to Annette's legacy despite knowing/finding out that often the heroes are often no better than the villains. Screw with her world view a bit, y'know? Have Amy zigzag between protecting her sister and wanting the heroes to go fuck themselves for screwing over her sister like they did, desperately wanting to live up to true heroic ideals and trying not to go too far with her power, somewhat hypocritically trying to capture her sister as an independent before she goes too far and trying to be her sisters' morality chain despite being just as fucked up on that front if not worse. It. Would. Be. Glorious.

 

[DoubleThought]

but you ARE going to be working their there soon

Click to shrink...

Huh, I hadn't thought that Amelia could turn into a swarm of insects. Too disconnected.

I wonder, will she be mistaken for her mom, especially if she pulls off the swarm vanishing thing?

 

[Lord Sia]

Huh, I hadn't thought that Amelia could turn into a swarm of insects. Too disconnected.

I wonder, will she be mistaken for her mom, especially if she pulls off the swarm vanishing thing?

Click to shrink...

"The Matriarch Lives! And She will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger, those who would burn and torment Her people. And you will know Her name is the Law, when She lays down Her vengeance upon thee."

 

[Metaldragon868]

...When Taylor finally gets powers I expect her to live up to that legacy. You cant give us a backstory for Annette the Hero that awesome and NOT give us Weaver following in her footsteps.

Click to shrink...

I don't worry, I have plans for this. Very very fun plans.

And since this is Worm, she will probably end up being the main hero going after Amy when she inevitably goes too far.

Click to shrink...

I'm actually going to be aiming more for a sisterly team up against the horrors of the world, or....

Honestly? I think it would be much more fun if you reversed that order, with Taylor going villain cause Armsmaster is a selfish dick like in Canon and Amy feeling all sorts of fucked up as she desperately tries to live up to Annette's legacy despite knowing/finding out that often the heroes are often no better than the villains. Screw with her world view a bit, y'know? Have Amy zigzag between protecting her sister and wanting the heroes to go fuck themselves for screwing over her sister like they did, desperately wanting to live up to true heroic ideals and trying not to go too far with her power, somewhat hypocritically trying to capture her sister as an independent before she goes too far and trying to be her sisters' morality chain despite being just as fucked up on that front if not worse. It. Would. Be. Glorious.

Click to shrink...

That.

I actually have a short for that idea which I've done a little bit with and it amuses me. It's also plan C for where the story goes. Plans B involves a pretty public trigger, and plan A involves...well, if all goes well you'll see for yourself.

That was great.

It's really interesting having Amy describe what it's like to see people and their brains functioning on a much deeper level than everyone else sees, and having that be normalized into how she experiences life and interacts with people daily.

Taylor is adorable. That is all.

Nice memorial for Annette. I wonder what she did to deserve this from BB, and how she's regarded in general by the city's citizens and capes alike? Is she still talked about on PHO?

And now Amy has gone swarm mode. God biokinesis is always a fun power to mess around with. Guaranteed to never get boring. (except in one Quest I remember where it devolved into full-eldritch teeth and tentacles everywhere for every fight. Great on occasion, but gets tedious if it's the default when the power is so versatile in my opinion.)

Also, with how she changed her senses, I wonder if Amy ever tried to recreate the Mantis Shrimp's eyes with 12 to 16 photoreceptors, as well as other crazy interesting senses found in the animal kingdom. Probably not its claws though, since size likely changeshow well it functions, unless she uses it to make her finger flicks have to force of gunshots. *finger guns*

Great chapter.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, one of the reasons I wanted autobiokinetic Amy with everything else is because I like working with characters that have unusual perspectives and challenge(or afirm) the definition of humanity. And while I like Prototype, I feel like it criminally underutilizes autobiokinesis. Half the time someone can do it, all the person ends up doing is becoming flesh taffy tentcle monster. Shoggoth form is pretty scary, and it does have it's place, but that place isn't being a fucking hammer.

And, yes, Amy has seen the world through various inhuman perspectives. Putting it in human terms, let alone english, is difficult, to say the least. How do you describe a color no human has ever seen? For example, she just turned into a swarm of butterflies, which can see ultraviolet and polarized light. Something humans can't directly perceive.

Another thing she'll do is that on the hunting trip Danny mentioned(whenever the fuck I get to that), she'll try creating a crossbow-like thing in her arm made out of bone, muscle, and tendon. It doesn't work and she doesn't figure it out immediately, but she gets the idea for it, which leads to tinkering. The big alien thing she turned into earlier wasn't a preset option or anything, it was her mixing around different bits of different animals she'd encountered to make a thing. She's sort of a biotinker specialized on her own body, but she can change it on the fly and she doesn't get ideas coming to her ex nihilo.

Huh, I hadn't thought that Amelia could turn into a swarm of insects. Too disconnected.

I wonder, will she be mistaken for her mom, especially if she pulls off the swarm vanishing thing?

Click to shrink...

I hinted at her being able to do this earlier, both with the detached hand trick, and her being able to have two instances of her running around the house at the same time with 0 disconnect. As long as her cells exist within her range, which at times like this expresses itself as being the furthest distance any two cells can possibly be, then she is those cells.

That said, the following events should be interesting.

"The Matriarch Lives! And She will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger, those who would burn and torment Her people. And you will know Her name is the Law, when She lays down Her vengeance upon thee."

Click to shrink...

Very interesting.

 

[DoubleThought]

I hinted at her being able to do this earlier, both with the detached hand trick, and her being able to have two instances of her running around the house at the same time with 0 disconnect.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, I remember that now...

When is she going to try bridging the distance using bushes, grass, tentacles, and other convenient appendages?

 

[The Destroyer]

- Toxikill

- Bloodshatter

- Hateblade Moonsuffer

- Mürdour de Crownoir

- Shadowdark Shwartznoir

- Adoré la Mortess de Abattoir

- Skullsoul Murderknight

Click to shrink...

Congrats you made me laugh. Some of these may find there way into that D&D oneshot I've been meaning to inflict on others run when I have the time.

Edit: Honestly that entire princess section was both hilarious and should certainly form the basis for Amy's cape persona. After all she's so good at it, wouldn't it be fun to play up being the invincible knight. Just don't push the wrong buttons or suddenly bodyhorror monstrosity...it still has the accent though and you're not sure if that makes it better or worse.

Kidding aside it's actually a relatively unique persona if she can make biological armor that looks enough like metal to pull it off. Biological blades or weapons means she only has to touch most opponents to have them if the blade just melts on them. The added pomp and cheese gives her a public persona that isn't horror show driven, and once it happens the ability to turn from a knight in shining armor into a necromorph monstrosity means that she won't be taken lightly or laughed off as a joke. People are more likely to at least play along if they know what the alternative is. And hey if she never reveals how far she can go in her range thats a few trump cards waiting to happen.
(Also I just really like the idea of a secretly horrifying ham and cheese hero, a lot more than edgy Amy and focusing on the act might help keep herself constrained.)

Edit 2: Dark souls, that was what I was thinking of. As for the end of the chapter, usually I dislike the "bad guys out of nowhere" thing in fanfiction. Also those two must be new because they arent strong enough to last long causing that much collateral. Assuming the BB protectorate still has a similar line up they're birdcage bound even if Amy wasn't there unless theyre part of a large gang. Even then the Nazi's try to keep their destruction out of downtown and the ABB is still asian so I doubt they're members. But back to bad guys out of nowhere its excusable once as a plot point but if it keeps happening then it becomes a problem. Amy might be a montrosity but she isn't quite on the level of Alucard and his "walks" for attracting trouble.

I do question how miss super hearing didn't notice them sooner, a full PRT squad is not a subtle thing, should have cape support nearby and likely has armored vehicles trundling after them. Oven mitts doesnt seem like the most subtle cape either, ya know roasting stores and all (really though how has he lasted this long, even Lung knows better than to fight downtown too often).

 

[MaskedCritic]

I've put off reading this for a while now, due to the Body Horror tag, because that tag is usually equivalent to waving a flag that says "Behold my grimderp, and despair!"

I am VERY happy to find out I was wrong! This fic is adorable so far.

So, since I just read the whole thing in one go, some questions:

Will we get to hear how Taylor feels about Matriarch in-story soon? It seemed like you were hinting that she hates or is scared of her, which would be really sad, what with Matriarch being her MOM and all...
Will we get to find out when and how Amy triggered?
Will we have to deal with the super-grimderp of the impending end of the world in all universes? That one always hangs like a cloud, or a bad smell, over Worm stories...
Did Emma get attacked by Merchants in the territory they recently took from the ABB? Why would she have been out there in the first place?

I hope you end up going the hero route for both Amy and Taylor! Heroes are just more fun, honestly,

 

[Metaldragon868]

Progenitor

Chapter 8

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The pungent scent of charred flesh and smoke filled the air.

The crack of gunshots mixed with the panicked screams of dozens of people.

It was a mess. It was a travesty.

It was unacceptable.

I glared at them all from a million eyes hidden in the trees. I'd dispersed myself into a swarm of butterflies, though I couldn't spread them out far. They all had to stay relatively close to each other, lest I lose cohesion and dissolve. In addition, since I was a swarm of butterflies, I had to do some tricks to get the information I needed.

Butterflies didn't perceive the world the way humans did. Individually, they were practically blind compared to the average human. Everything was much less sharp, and their long-range eyesight was garbage. That said, they could see in the ultraviolet range and interpret colors humans couldn't dream of. It was beautiful to see through a butterfly's eyes with a butterfly's brain. Beautiful, but not terribly useful when it came to seeing the action happening on the complete opposite side of the superblock.

But that's only if I used them all as individuals. Each butterfly wasn't it's own separate being under my control, each insect was me. Just like your brain links a human's two eyes together and creates a composite image, I used the processing power of hundreds of billions of neurons to combine the raw data I got from each instance's senses. I blended and processed it all, burning through adenosine triphosphate by the millions as I performed quadrillions of calculations each second.

All to paint a picture from over 100 yards away.

The two men who dared be here ran through the crowded section of the shops bordering the park. Unfortunately, they weren't dumb enough to run into the wide open sections of it or try to cut through the trees, and were instead using the panicked shop goers filling the Saturday afternoon markets as human shields against the PRT. The man in a trench coat would throw fireballs behind him, forcing the chasing PRT soldiers to hunker down in cover and protect civilians.

One soldier held up a bulkier rifle with a thicker tube and revolving chamber. He yelled out something and the weapon thumped. Time moved at a crawl to me as I saw a cylinder fly up and arc through the air, before falling towards the two capes.

The man with the bulkier jacket raised up his hands, and the grenade crashed into a field of transparent white and black hexagons in front of them. It detonated, erupting into a cloud of the PRT's containment foam. It slid off the field, which either expanded as the foam grew, or became more visible as it came into contact with something solid. The two men kept running, leaving the foam behind as another barrier for the soldiers to deal with.

I was angry at all of them. The capes for disrupting the peace in the first place. For being such violent, cruel, and self-centered savages. The PRT for allowing them to come here.

While I was like this, nothing escaped my gaze. Everything was a data point analyzed and processed millions of times in a mere sliver of a second. For every patch of empty data I had more than enough context and processing power to fill in the blanks. With all the perspectives my swarm brought me, it gave me an almost omniscient understanding of everything happening inside my area of focus.

Still, it paled in comparison to what Mom could accomplish when she put her mind to it. She might not have the raw processing power, but she could access a vastly larger pool of data and perspectives. It was good enough for my purposes, though.

I watched as most of the PRT were forced to waste their foam grenades on the fires that Trench Coat had been starting. It was snuffing them out easily enough, and they could use it indiscriminately because it wouldn't harm anyone encased in it. But for every fire they put out, Trench Coat started three more.

Thousands of wings vibrated in anger.

I shifted, changing from the very visible butterflies into a typical housefly as I took to the air. No sooner had I rose, than did I descend to the ground. My black bodies weaved through the grass as I moved closer. Like this, there wasn't much chance of them seeing me until it was too late.

The kids that had been playing in the grove were another story.

The black girl I'd seen earlier, by the soccer field, had been hiding in a tree, peeking out from around the edge to see the cape fight with eager eyes. When she slipped on a weak limp that had snapped and fell down, Trench Coat noticed. He reacted on instinct upon seeing a human figure suddenly appear, and threw a fireball in her direction. Fortunately, he was a terrible shot, and it exploded on the tree next her instead. Unfortunately, the embers fell around her and caught on her shirt igniting it and the surrounding grass.

She screamed as the fires licked at her dark skin. I think I spotted Trench Coat wince at the sight. That didn't stop him from running away and leaving the girl to burn. I was about to do the same, to leave the girl behind in the name of revenge. The fires of rage had been stoked once again in my soul, and I felt a burning need to quench them.

Then I caught her scent. A whiff of rose kissed honey swept across my swarm with a gust of wind, and memories of Mom came to the fore. The way she'd always be out helping people, even at the expense of her own health. How she saved me when she should have saved herself.

"Those in need are those the most deserving of our love" I remembered. "Love your neighbor…"

I thought about what Mom would want, about what God would want. I felt the eyes of her statue boring into the back of my swarm's head. Were they looking down from heaven now? Judging me?

It didn't matter if they did, I supposed. Even if no one else would ever know that I could have done something, I would.

Without witness...

I turned into a cloud of dragonflies, speeding through the grove at the speed of a street car. In mere seconds, I was upon her. The flames engulfed her and the trees around her, the girl's screams sounding far too much like my sister's. I collected over her flailing form, a dense cloud of insects. Then I dissolved into a mass of goo.

I could feel myself die by the millions, but the fire was snuffed out, starved of oxygen. The girl froze, no doubt trying to come to terms with the fact that she went from being burned alive to being covered in cold liquid me, not that she knew the last part. Covering her, I got a glimpse of her biology. She would live, not too much smoke inhalation, some second degree burns over her back and arm but I'd gotten to her quickly.

She was also in shock, the kind that wasn't from dangerously low blood pressure. I could see her mind firing on all cylinders, trying to figure out what the hell was happening and what to do next. At least, I assumed that was what was going through her head, she could have been thinking about the beauty of fire. Normally, this wouldn't be too dangerous on it's own, but given the surrounding flames and toxic fumes, she didn't have time to sit around and wait.

Already, I could detect the toxins sitting in her lungs. Before I could really think about it, I acted, collecting the drops of me still clinging to her face and forcing myself down her nose, flowing down her throat and collecting in her lungs. I filled them with a clean oxygen nitrogen mixture at the same time I collected all the heavier elements that'd damage her in the long run. She started gagging, not used to having liquid fill her lungs, but I flowed out of her before she could cough more than twice.

She was still coming to terms with her situation when I felt the vibrations of what I assumed was someone calling out her name, given the way certain parts of her mind clicked in her brain each time the vibrations hit her. I couldn't tell what anyone was saying, since I didn't have any ears at the moment, but I figured someone was looking for her and she couldn't stay here.

I tried to poke her with the goo, but she didn't respond to that. I, briefly, considered turning back into myself and telling her to run, but I did have an identity to preserve, even if I was doing a shit job at everything else. I could have turned into a different human, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to do that here. I still didn't know what "Show" I wanted to portray, and Dad said that imitating the Thing probably wasn't the best idea. So I took a page from mom's book.

"Are you okay?" I said through millions of coordinated vibrations.

I'd pulled all my goo back and shaped it into the form of more insects. The ones on the girl were small, mostly just fleas, but the ones in the grass were large enough to make sound. Sound I organized and pooled together to replicate human speech.

Mom's classic Swarm Voice.

The girl shook, her mind misfiring from the mass of new inputs.

"Are you okay?" I repeated. I had a beetle instance of me land on her arm and nip the unblemished skin on it.

She yelped, the fresh source of pain jolting her back into the real world.

"Yeah, yeah!" She said with wide eyes.

"Good" I said with ten thousand voices, "Then Run."

She blinked. "I..wha?"

"RUN!" I repeated with urgency, directing tendrils of myself, my swarm, to fly down the path of grove and grass that wasn't on fire.

She took the hint and sprinted away, screaming someone's name.

Determining what, exactly, she was saying difficult. Mostly because there were a lot of names that could have filled in the right blanks. I figured it was something between Brian and Brittany.

I moved the swarm of me around, getting a few thousand eyes on the two capes running away with the PRT on their tails. I also saw all the people affected by the damage they'd done. Some trapped by fire, some frozen as fire encroached. Then I looked up at my mother's statue. I knew what I wanted, I wanted to take these men down and grind them into the dirt for what they'd done.

But what would Mom want? What would God want?

That was an easy question to answer, even if I didn't like it.

I guess I'm following in your footsteps after all.

I turned back into a swarm of dragonflies, and sped towards the sound of screaming.

I spared a few hundred of the swarm of me to look back at the two capes. They were reaching the other end of the superblock when another group of PRT troopers came out of the building in front of them. Trench coat skidded to a stop and prepped a fireball in his hand. Two of the troopers held up grenade launchers, aiming at the pair, while two more held shields at the ready. A fifth man behind them all stood out to me. He wore the same black flack jacket over dark blue clothes, but instead of a riot helmet he just wore a dark blue cap with PRT in white on the bill, revealing his eastern asian features to my sharp eyes. He was gesturing around and tell the others what to do, so I assumed he was the leader.

I heard the leader yelling about something that sounded like "airburst", and patting both the grenadiers on the shoulder as the two with riot shields stepped back.

The man in the beanie ran in front of his friend and held up his black and white field of hexagonal panes, ready to block anything coming their way.

Are they really going to try this again? I thought cynically. It was easy enough to partition off a part of my mind to worry about being jaded and cranky while most of me focused on actually helping people not die.

More than a few kids, and a couple adults, were trying to record the cape fight inside a burning forests and shops. Something I dealt with by stinging their hands holding the recording as a bee, and then having a swarm of insects whisper in their ear to run. That was usually enough to convince them to be somewhere else.

I heard the Thump Thump of the two grenadiers firing rounds, saw them fly through the air, and saw shield flicker back to life ready to block the shots.

Then I saw a blinding white light and a loud pop.

I saw that my eyes and ears had been overloaded, and quickly refreshed the senses of all instances of me I'd been using to watch the carnage. The whole process took a fraction of a second for my accelerated perception, which gave me just enough time to see the two capes dazed, covering their eyes and cursing. The one in the beanie still had his hands up, but I couldn't tell if the shield was active or not. It also let me see the grenade the flew right above them

It detonated in a cloud of smoke that quickly descended on them, enveloping them in a shroud of off-white gas. Seconds later, the two capes came stumbling out of the smoke into the field, coughing and gagging, tears escaping their screwed shut eyes.

The grenadiers fired two more rounds without missing a beat. Before they impacted. Trench Coat threw up a blind wall of fire, shielding them from view. I heard a whump whump of the two grenades going off behind the fire. When the flames died down, the man in the beanie had a rough sphere of hardened foam clumped around the right half of his body, encasing both legs and an arm. Trench coat, however, was making a break for it.

He ran towards a nearby cafe missing his hat and bandana, throwing the PRT off for a moment.. Gone was the arrogance, gone was his friend, all he had left was a wild look in his eye and fire in his hands. I saw him look at a mother and child huddled together with hungry eyes, and knew I had to move.

I fell away from the most recent person I'd helped recover to safety and flew to him, but I wasn't fast enough. I turned into a swarm of dragonflies and hawkmoths, zipping across the field inches above the ground, weaving through the grass.

I saw him reach out for them. The mother opened her mouth to scream. Time moved at a crawl, twenties times slower than normal.

I need to go faster I thought as parts of me saw the glowing embers of fire in his hand through the grass.

I shifted mass around, becoming dart-like insect with eight wings, all moving in biomechanical rhythm to push me through the air like a bullet. It still wasn't fast enough.

I still was yards away when I saw it. The fire flickering in the mother's horrified eyes. The young boy, too young to understand what was happening. The way the man's lips curled up, splitting apart to reveal yellow teeth.

It was all hidden when a large white table cloth was thrown over him.

"What?" He said, muffled by the cloth. He stumbled back in surprise, and the cloth started to burn up from his fire.

Then it was put out when a pitcher of water was dumped on his head. The soaked cloth refused to burn in his hands. His muffled outrage was cut off when someone wrapped a black jacket around the middle of his torso and kicked the back of his legs in. He fell to the ground, banging his head on nearby table and collapsing to the ground, groaning in pain. Standing above him was the scared woman I'd seen at the cafe earlier.

She was tying up the arms of the jacket she'd wrapped around his torso, the jacket she'd been wearing earlier, revealing the gray shirt with the Brockton Bay PRT emblem of a black boar with a golden arrow in its snout on it, with the tag, "Brockton Bay Boars" under it.

"PRT," She said in a loud and articulate voice, her scarred lips giving the appearance of a sneer, "You're under arrest for disturbing the peace, assault with parahuman abilities, attempted murder, and murder."

The man struggled under her grip, screaming profanities at her. "I'll fucking kill you! You pig! You're fucking dead!"

The woman glanced at the fires tickling the bottom of the cloth, where it was drier. She finished tying her jacket in a knot and stood up. She grabbed a nearby pitcher of creamer, and dumped it on the rest of the burning cloth. The man cursed loudly, prompting the woman to kick him in the side lightly.

She looked at the mother and child still standing in the cafe, frozen in confusion and fear. The mother looked between the scared woman and the man she'd tied up. The woman rolled her eyes and pulled out a PRT badge from her pocket and showed it to the mother, causing her to instantly sag in relief.

The man thrashed on the ground more, the smell of burning cloth rising from his bundle. The scared woman moved to a nearby trash can, pulled something out, and poked the man in the back with it.

He froze.

"You feel that?" She asked.

He nodded vigorously.

"That's my gun."

It was an empty beer bottle.

"You struggle too much, and I put a hole in your gut. Take it from me, that's a bad way to go." She whispered in his ear.

"B-b-but" The man sputtered with a muffled voice. "You-"

"I can do whatever I want." She shrugged, "Who's gonna care about some random new cape on the streets who decided to tear up Matriarch Memorial? You already burned half the place down. I shoot you like this, I'll just say you were about to kill someone and I had to put you down. They won't even bother taking the time to look into it."

The man stopped, his whole body drooping. After a moment, I could hear him softly sobbing.

The scared woman stood up and grunted. She looked around and saw two sets of troopers running towards them, another two squads dealing with the man encased in foam. In the set running towards them was the man in the cap I'd seen earlier who looked to be the leader.

"Foam grenade!" She shouted with an outstretched hand at him.

The leader slowed and gave her a puzzled look, but held his rifle at a low ready. A trooper beside him, however, didn't miss a beat. They tore off a cylinder from their belt and tossed it over to the woman.

She caught it, pulled the pin, and set the fizzing device on top of the bundled up man. In a few moments he was covered in hardened foam. She looked up at the approaching trooper and said, "You're late."

The four lines of angry red skin moving vertically from chin to the crown of her head, like scars from four blades in parallel.

"I'm...sorry?" The trooper said.

Another trooper, one carrying a shield in one hand a submachine gun in another spoke up, "Sorry ma'am."

Their leader shot him a look.

"Is he the new guy?" The scarred woman asked the shield bearing one.

He nodded, "We were going on a touring patrol of the city, just to show him the ropes, when these two started making trouble." He gestured his shield at the man foamed on the ground.

The leader jerked his head at the man beside him, then the scared woman in front of him.

"Wait...you're the commander?" He said, incredulously.

She gave him a humorless look halfway between a smile and a sneer. "A pleasure."

"Oh!" Suddenly, all sense of authority flew from the man's posture, "I, uh, sorry ma'am. I just, I didn't know, and, uh, still figuring this place out. Is, uh, do I call you Atlanta or Commander Pi-?"

She cut him off with a sharp chop of her hand, "Lieutenant MacNeal, right? Where you from, son?"

"Um, uh, Wilmington, ma'am"

"Wilmington," She nodded, "I have an...acquaintance from there. He says it's a nice little city, relatively quiet, right?"

"Yeah?"

She slapped a hand on his shoulder with a grim smile, "I guess you're gonna enjoy some new experiences on the front lines with the rest of us, Lieutenant."

MacNeal swallowed nervously.

As she walked off, she said, "The rest of the week we're gonna start doing joint training exercises with the Protectorate. It's clear we need a refresher course on how to minimize collateral damage with capes, seeing as how you all made me get up on my day off."

Groans and curses echoed from all around, followed by a low, "Yes ma'am" from all the troopers.

Curiosity taking the better of me, I placed a bee on her hand. In a flash, her entire biology enfolded in my mind.

She wasn't a parahuman. I was actually mildly surprised by that, considering all the rumors about the PRT Commanders. Sure, the official PRT party line was that none of them were parahumans, but I wouldn't have put it past them to have that as mere propaganda in the face of rising fears about parahuman dominance.

That said, she had a lot of cybernetics, something that would make my stomach churn if I had one at the moment. The idea of putting machines inside me just felt...wrong. I'll give her a pass though, most of them were devoted to keeping her from not falling over dead. I had to admit that Ladon did good work if they could manage to keep a patchwork mess like this woman alive and healthy.

She looked like she'd been thrown into a meat grinder, spat out, patched together, then went back in screaming for seconds. Which...made sense, given who she was.

Still, I thought, looking at the areas of null space dotting her neck and spine, I wonder what this-

I was pulled from thinking about it when there was a shout, followed by a sharp crack.

The man with the shields, the one wearing the beanie, exploded out of the hardened foam. He scrambled to his feet and ran towards the shrove, lumps of foam still clinging to his clothes. He pumped his legs and arms as he ran as fast as possible. Most of the troopers were still slow on the uptake, but the scared woman ripped a grenade launcher from one dumbstruck soldiers hands and fired a grenade at the man.

The cape threw up a barrier behind him and the grenade harmlessly exploded into foam a foot away from his hand, expanding into a small boulder of off-white. She fired two more shots that flew past and detonated in the air in front of him. He kept a barrier up in front of him, so they just slid off the field of hexagonal plates again. He was a few yards from the trees, almost about to start losing them inside the maze of wood, when a bee stung him in the face.

He tripped, rolling to the ground and cursing in pain. He touched his cheek, rubbing the now swelling spot. He looked around with wild eyes for the bee that dared hurt him. Instead, he heard something.

All the gunfire stopped. The screaming, the fires, the sirens, it all fell away to nothing. Not because it didn't exist, but because it was being drowned out.

Buzzing. A thunderous rumbling that shook every man woman and child in the block to their core. And orchestra of retribution echoed from every tree in the grove. A black tide descended from the branches, hundreds, thousands of bees all vibrating with furious energy.

The pacification field was very good, and very strong. But it didn't beat out the extraordinary amount of attack pheromones I'd tagged the man with, nor the sub-audible counter-wave of sound I was emitting to eliminate the dull hum of the Pacification field.

The bees swarmed the man, attacking every inch they could find. He curled into a ball, and they all started stinging his exposed hands, his ears, every scrap of bare skin. His screams were drowned out by the droning of the swarm. His figure was obscured from view, hidden by the swirling black mass of shifting figures, all taking their pound of flesh.

The scared woman approached, slowly, with her grenade launcher in a low ready. As she moved closer to the man, I stopped emitting the counter field and replaced the attack pheromones with calming ones. The swarm of bees peeled off, dispersing back into the forest, leaving a sobbing wreck of a man alone with the Captain.

She looked at him, then turned to the bee on her hand. She gave me a suspicious look, and I flew off before she could do anything rash. She continued eyeing me until I was a speck in the distance, and turned back to the cape in the fetal position.

"Get this man a medic. I want to make sure he's not gonna die on me." She said to the rest of the troopers following behind her.

She huffed, handing her rifle back to the trooper she'd taken it from, and placing her hands on her hips.

"Just one day," She muttered, "Just one fucking day off is all I ask."

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I closed the door behind me carefully, making sure it didn't so much as click. I strained my ears, listening for any hint of dad being awake.

I heard his heartbeat in his room, slow and calm. He was asleep.

I let out a breath of relief and walked into the living room. I didn't really need his cutting wit commenting about my activities today. If I was lucky, I could time the rest of my travels today with him being awake so I never got to see him. Heck, I could go to sleep myself. I didn't need sleep, but it was a nice enough thing to experience from time to time.

It might even help to process my feelings about today. I'd actually saved people. I'd also gotten revenge. It felt...good to get revenge.

Whoever said revenge feels hollow is a damned liar, I thought as I flopped on the couch, Because that felt great.

Watching the man writhe in agony, hearing both of them crumble into crying forms had been music to my ears. The man who'd been burning people alive got off light, in my opinion, but getting to tear down his companion myself made up for it. Part of me realized that it likely wasn't a healthy opinion, but denying that I felt it wouldn't help anyone.

I'd also saved people. That felt...nice. I felt better about that side of things. It was like eating ice cream as opposed to an apple. Both were good, and while the ice cream tasted much better than the apple, I actually felt like a better person for having eaten the apple.

Or, well, the old human me would, anyways. These days I liked apples more, mostly because I could assimilate the still-living cells.

And then I saw the piece of paper taped to the TV.

I picked it up and groaned.

"Dear Amy

Not even one day

Wow

Love Dad"

"Dammit Dad," I muttered.

I glanced at the pantry.

"I need whiskey for this."

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A/n: Merry Christmas from me to you.

Hope you enjoy this chapter. No promises on a Christmas special.

This chapter is also the point of no return for the more major AU aspects of this fic. Before, I could have explained away stuff with more minor changes, but I'm officially going in balls deep.

Ain't no coming back from that.

Hopefully, it's all up to snuff. I'm certainly having fun writing the AU, I just hope you guys will enjoy it and everything pays off the way I want it to.

I'm sure I'll soon find out all the errors I failed to correct soon enough as well.

Also, fuck if I know police procedure.

Anyways, happy holidays and what have you, I'm tired so I'm going to bed.

 

[earthboy]

"Dear Amy

Not even one day

Wow"

Click to shrink...

This is the best Danny.

 

[AtomicStryker]

You probably mean "scarred" woman not "scared", if her badassery is any indication

 

[Roaming_Guardian]

Super soldier Piggot is a thing that needs to happen more often