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Worst Girl(s) (Worm/We Know the Devil)

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Darksilver said:
I'm considering this silly line of reasoning because I think Riley's kill order is still in effect and so the normal crime of attempted murder doesn't apply. Piggot was willing to consider removing it in the future, partially based on the results of Amy's investigation, but I'm fairly sure she hasn't yet.
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While I can't comment on what Brandish will or will not do, I can comment on the legalities/logistics? As of the end of chapter 13, either A: Bonesaw's kill order is 'suspended pending review', or B: the PRT is committed to the legal fiction that Riley of the Devils is not Bonesaw of the Slaughterhouse Nine and is acting as such. Or both. Given the effort they'd have to go to to make sure that nobody decided to take the matter into their own hands, it might well be both.
 
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    The music stops.

    Riley doesn't exactly deny it. "I was," she admits; one pair of arms crosses, fidgeting with her elbows, nerves playing over a half-dozen eyes. "I've changed a lot, but…"

    Burning, wicked light dances in Carol's clenched fists. "They didn't tell us," she growls, staring at the little doctor, or maybe past her, anger raging in her eyes. "They sent us to a Slaughterhouse member and they told us nothing."

    "Former Slaughterhouse member," Venus corrects, only for Jupiter to shush her, a hand over her lips.

    "No, she's right. The PRT should have told them. We should have told them. You can't make a good decision if you don't have the facts." Jupiter shifted, uncomfortably pressing hands into herself. "We're lying to everyone, aren't we? Conveniently leaving out who Riley used to be…"

    "And the truth would have gotten everyone hurt," Venus counters. "Kill orders and all that. Besides, the past only has as much power as you allow it to have, right? Remember that old woman who told us that beginnings are false? She was neat."

    "She was neat," Jupiter agrees, idly running hands over her daughter's shoulders.

    Slowly, Carol unclenches her fists, letting the force between her fingers dissipate. "Well. If you're keeping her out of trouble, and if the PRT is allowing this, I suppose I'll allow it as well. They know, don't they? They can't not know."

    "They know," Venus says. "Submitting to examination was one of Director Piggot's requirements for… uh, not hitting us with the kill order, I guess."

    Carol sighs. "Fine, then. As upset as I am, I'll let this stand for the moment. Don't make me regret it, Riley."

    Amy stares at the woman who calls herself her mother.

    Riley, not Bonesaw.

    Her body frays at the seams, overfilled with bitterness.

    "So promises are good enough for Bonesaw, but not for me, huh?"

    Carol blinks, whirling around to face her. "What? I don't know what you're talking about, Amy-"

    "You know damn well what I'm talking about, Carol. When we're out, it's always Panacea this, Panacea that. Never Amy. Victoria gets her name, Bonesaw gets her name, but me, no, I'm just fucking Panacea. You're only doing it now because of them!" she shouts, jabbing her finger wildly towards the devils.

    A hundred eyes widen in unison. Venus sees where this is going. "Amy-"

    "'Beginnings are false'," she cuts off. "What a nice fucking sentiment. Really sweet of you, taking care of a cute little mass murderer. Where the hell was that sentiment when I needed it, huh?!"

    "Listen, I know things are fucked up, but lashing out doesn't-"

    Amy steamrolls Jupiter's words into a fine paste. "Shut up! You don't get to talk! I can't stand you, you know that?! You go out there with your handholding and your mercy and you have no fucking idea what everyone else is going through! You haven't seen what's left of people when Hookwolf goes through them, and I bet you haven't seen the shit your precious Riley has gotten up to, either! All that kumbaya shit is really nice, but in the real world, flipping Nazis off gets people killed, for fuck's sake!"

    "Amy, please, calm down-"

    "Calm down?" she yells, turning to glare bloody murder at her 'mother' once again.

    When she gestures, she leaves behind an extra arm, awkwardly twitching. There's an eye in her shoulder, and something growing out of her back.

    She knows, just as the rest of them do, that something is horribly wrong.

    She can't bring herself to care.

    "I am so far beyond calm, you have no fucking idea. And why would you have any idea? You don't pay attention to me, you don't listen to me, you barely even use my name. You're supposed to be my fucking mother, would it kill you to act like it? But no! Everything nice you have, you give to Victoria. Every ounce of kindness in your body is for her. Never for me, not when I'm crying, not when I'm suffering, never. And you know what? You know what?! I've had it! I'm done!"

    A needle slips into Amy's stomach. She blinks, looks down, feels the sedative trying to work its way through her body.

    It makes her so fucking mad.

    Amy yanks it out with her fifth hand and lets out a wordless, primal scream, feeling her body explode outwards, flesh spilling out of flesh and flooding the atrium.

    "Amy-!"

    She shoves Riley aside with the sheer force of her growth, a brief pulse of her power enough to paralyze the Biotinker for a moment as she rushes across the tile.

    Carol backs up against the wall, burning sabers of light and force in her hands, warding off the flood of flesh, horror and fear dancing in her eyes. "Please, don't make me hurt-"

    "You've already hurt me more than enough!" Amy screams, tears falling from a dozen lids. "Just shut up! Shut up and love me, damn it!"
     
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    The curve of a shoulder into an arm. The smooth features of legs, delicate hands. An oh-so-sweet neck, a bountiful bosom.

    Again and again and again, stacked and curved and twisted, spilling out across the ground, growing.

    Inside her is a seed, or a spore.

    The seed became a garden.

    The spore became a plague.

    We feel the flesh against our skin and recoil. It wants something from us, a lot of things, maybe everything.

    The devil is lonely. We kicked out the devil and it must miss us. It keeps begging to be let back, for us to let it in.

    And Amy did.

    She reaches out for us, a sea of flesh and humanity, a garden of desire. Thousands of fingers, hundreds of lips, pulling, demanding, taking.

    No one can escape this infection.

    Jupiter won't. She's the devil, too. She reaches out with a hundred hands saying I know how you feel.

    But a chorus of silently screaming lips responds Then you know what I have to do.

    Venus won't. She's the devil, too. She reaches out with a flurry of warm wings saying Don't worry, I can see you.

    But a hundred beautiful eyes say That isn't enough for me.

    Riley won't. She's the devil, too. She reaches out with a kind gaze and a forgiving smile saying simply It's okay.

    But a hundred and fifty angry gestures say I don't believe you.

    We are the devil, but we don't have what Amy wants.

    And Carol does.

    Amy reaches for her, and she recoils in fear until she has nowhere to hide but a ball of indestructible light. The garden of flesh crashes against her, reaching and sobbing and begging, let me in, please love me.

    There is nowhere to run. The flesh consumes her, envelops her in wailing need.

    Her concentration slips, or maybe Amy finds a way in through the armor somehow. It doesn't matter. Desperate hands find human flesh again, pull her so very very close until they can't be separated, so that she can never escape, so that she'll always be there to love Amy, so that-

    The words fall from her lips without her consent.

    "I'm sorry."

    Everything stops, even the sound of her own heartbeat. The garden is stilled.

    The only sound is her own sniffling, buried in the mass of Amy, frozen in place around her.

    She'd wipe the tears away, but her hands aren't exactly free.

    "I'm sorry I couldn't love you."

    Amy says nothing. She can't say anything. A million expressions war across countless faces, yet she can't move.

    Jupiter brings the hands, gliding across aching sculptures, saying Are you sure this is what you want?

    No    , the lips murmur.

    Venus brings the light, healing the broken skin of the plague, saying You're not the only one who's hurting, can't you see?

    Yes,     the eyes admit.

    Riley brings a scalpel with which to carve away the sickness, saying It can be okay. I promise. Trust me.

    There is silence.

    Then a long exhale from dozens upon dozens of lungs.

    Okay.

    Amy pulls away, and Jupiter helps. Venus helps too, her light warming and soothing as Riley cuts out the disease and rot, saws off the feverish desire threatening to consume everyone she loves.

    We free Carol from the garden. So much of her flesh is no longer her own, but she's still herself.

    She meets Amy's eyes through two layers of tears.

    "I'm so, so sorry."

    I'm sorry, too.

    The devil's still a little lonely. But it's at peace for now.

    Maybe they can finally begin to heal.
     
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    Amy could heal what she did to Carol, easily.

    But neither of them trust her, and both hate themselves for it.

    Riley does most of the work instead, rambling about tissue rejection and biocompatibility as she scrapes off the remnants of a thousand needy hands, smooths out the surface of Carol's skin.

    She feels the handprints that remain in her body, the ever so slightly discolored flesh. Amy's, not Carol's.

    Riley says her brain hasn't changed, but she tests her power anyways, and finds it welling up from under her skin, a pillar of light growing out of the bone of her hands, settling into a little spear.

    Like his power.

    The girl grumbles something about not interrupting her work, but Carol can hardly bring herself to acknowledge it. The spear breaks off, leaving behind a cauterized incision in her palm as she closes her fingers around the weapon, testing its heft with a twirl, crackling force and lightning and heat pushing Riley away from her.

    "Seriously, I'm working. No playing with your power when you're being healed. Doctor's orders!"

    "This is important."

    She can still feel it, in a way that she never felt it before. As if it's a part of her. As if it'll hurt when she breaks it.

    Carol glances at Amy, on the other side of the room, still slowly pulling herself together, back into human form, Devils guiding her as she pulls in stray limbs and heads, each one shivering, pain fluttering on a dozen lips, thirty eyes; hands and fingers still aching with longing so strong that she can feel it from here.

    She's all too aware of how real that longing is.

    For all that Amy had violated her very sense of self, Carol still wonders. Who's the victim, and who's the monster?

    Maybe this is the Devil's real power: turning feelings into metaphors into beautiful, terrible physicalities. Forcing them to face what they'd tried to ignore.

    The monster might have been magical, but the loneliness was genuine, the hurt in Amy's eyes, the need...

    She told Sarah that she couldn't take the child, all those years ago.

    It seems like she was right all along.

    Vindication tastes like sickness on the tip of her tongue.

    Or maybe that's just the vomit. Riley gets a bucket from somewhere, or makes it out of clay. Carol's simply grateful that the rest of her family isn't here to see her like this.

    The spear in her hand dissipates into scar tissue and pain along with her focus as she empties her stomach, together with copious amounts of blood and what Riley says are fragments of cancerous tumors.

    "It looks worse than it is," the biotinker insists.

    Carol has enough strength to roll her eyes at that.

    "It looks like she's literally going to die," a new voice comments. It's one she recognizes. Neptune's voice.

    "Nuh uh. I won't let her."

    Between not wanting to die and the sheer conviction in those words, Carol can just about believe it.

    She wipes her face with an awkward, twitchy hand. She sits up, and only a moment later feels the sharp pain ringing at the base of her spine, forcing a grunt out of her.

    "Easy, easy!" Riley fusses. "Your tendons and ligaments are messed up from being like, half-Amyfied. Connections are weakened, all that jazz. This is hard enough without you tearing it more!"

    Carol largely ignores her, and ignores the dull ache that's spread all across her body.

    She looks at Amy again. Three heads and seven arms and nine legs and somehow the most human thing Carol has ever seen.

    "Amy."

    Her daugh- Amy doesn't hear her.

    She breathes in, ignoring Riley's grumble about not overexerting herself.

    "Amy."

    This time, Amy hears her. Eyes that had been consciously ignoring Carol finally meet her gaze. Pain swims in those lenses, but Amy is paying attention now. She says something to Jupiter and Venus that Carol can't make out, and then pushes herself forward, towards her.

    Amy stumbles, spills across the tile. Eyes screw shut in focus. She has too many legs, too much body, too much everything. She grows towards Carol as much as she walks, and it's all Carol can do not to flinch, seeing that mass struggle towards her.

    Venus tries to calm and soothe Amy with a clear light, while Jupiter pushes stray body parts back into the girl. Even then, she collapses halfway, legs tangled up in each other while she pants from a half-dozen lungs like she's run a marathon.

    But she looks up, meets Carol's eyes again. Guilt and shame and misery flashes across her entire being, brilliantly visible in quaking lips and unshed tears.

    "Mom," she says in five different voices.

    The word cuts into Carol like a knife through her heart. This time she does recoil, though Riley is there to catch her before she moves more than an inch.

    Amy's eyes widen.

    "D-don't take it wrong," Carol manages, nearly tripping over her words. "It's not you, it's… I don't, I don't deserve to call myself your mother-"

    "You raised me," Amy says, bitter hurt dripping from her voice like a toxin. "Like it or not, and I don't especially like it, you are my mother."

    "I… no, you're right. That was selfish of me." She stares down, unable to meet her daughter's eyes. "Still. If you wanted to leave, I… I wouldn't stop you. You could go to Sarah, or someone in the Protectorate, or… anyone. Or no one."

    Amy blinks, like she didn't even consider the possibility before, as if a whole new world is opening itself to her.

    Carol waits, watches the emotions process on Amy's faces.

    Riley tries to get her to lay back down while she's waiting. She refuses.

    Finally, Carol's daughter gathers herself, closing eyes, closing in on herself, as if she's trying to concentrate her very being into a single point, that point being the words she's about to say.

    "No. If it were just you and Dad, maybe, but…"

    She stills. It's as if she's about to utter her own death sentence.

    "Victoria means too much to me."

    Someone who didn't know Amy might think that she means 'as a sister' or 'as a friend.'

    Carol knows better, and the implication could have disgusted her, enraged her, on any other day.

    But this is not any other day. Her eyes widen, but only fractionally.

    "Oh," she murmurs.

    "Yeah. Fucking oh," Amy snaps.

    Carol nods dumbly. "I… I think you should talk to her. Just… please don't hurt her."

    She's already felt what it's like being on the receiving end of Amy's desperate love. She hopes Victoria never has to go through that.

    At the reminder of what she's done, or perhaps what she would have done to Victoria had things gone only a little differently, her daughter sags like a puppet with its strings cut. Unable to sink through solid tile, she merely splays outwards and collapses upon herself, hiding her tears in her own flesh. There are no widened eyes, no wails of grief. Just silent sobbing.

    Carol sighs. "I'm sorry."

    She isn't sure Amy is listening anymore. Jupiter and Venus crowd around her daughter again, murmuring reassurances as they try one more time to coax Amy back into a shell she understands how to use.

    Carol tries to push herself to her feet, to give Amy the aid she's so desperately owed, but Riley is having none of it. "I told you not to strain yourself! I'm still clearing out like half of your body!"

    Indeed, the tender ache where handprints meet her own flesh is a universal constant, background noise she's slowly learning to tune out.

    "Well, excuse me for wanting to comfort my daughter," Carol growls. Bone-lights emerge from her palms once more, shoving the yelping Tinker aside with heat and force. Her continued protests land on deaf ears.

    Carol pulls herself forward. It's not easy; her vision sways, and every muscle in her body protests, and she feels her skin trying to tear itself apart. She pushes out force in ways she's never even tried before, wrapping herself in ribs of energy to hold together patches of skin. Her legs are utterly limp, nerves broken somewhere along the way, so she shapes burning radiance into crutches, a crude exoskeleton around her legs, enough to limp ahead. Towards her daughter.

    Would her power have been physical enough for this before? To be used as a tool, rather than a weapon? She doesn't know, and she doesn't care.

    Riley keeps yelling at her, but she doesn't mind. There are hands now, carefully caressing her, offering her support where they can touch her without burning.

    Amy looks up.

    Carol meets her daughter's eyes, wide beneath a curtain of tears.

    Her power finally gives out, and she collapses again, a bed of downy wings appearing just in time to catch her and let her down gently, right next to Amy.

    She steels herself for a moment, gathering her courage to take the final step, to cross the point of no return.

    Then she reaches out and takes Amy's hand.

    Her daughter bursts out sobbing, but Carol feels the happiness beneath all the guilt.

    After everything, Amy's flesh is just that. Flesh. Human. It doesn't spill into her, try to overwrite her, try to consume her.

    It's just Amy's body.

    It's just her daughter.

    Maybe she can live with that.
     
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    • What a lovely, weird, heartbreaking chapter. I sincerely hope the tone of the game is similar, because this is def the part that convinced me I'll be buying it.
     
    wargonzola said:
    What a lovely, weird, heartbreaking chapter. I sincerely hope the tone of the game is similar, because this is def the part that convinced me I'll be buying it.
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    One of the best parts of this fic is how well Twei matches the various... modes that WKTD goes through. From quietly snark to bittersweet heartbreak to profound self exploration. All we're really missing is the bleak loneliness of realizing that the adorable woobies on screen think they're monsters because people have told them all their lives how evil they were for being born and...

    Oh hi there Amy. Sure am looking forward to your undoubtably objective assessment of what just happened.
     
    I've just finished chapter 9 and what the fuck is this
    and why is it so compelling
    i've never seen anything pull off this tone before, but then, I haven't played WKTD before either so that probably does too.

    Edit: Finished chapter 20 and how did you do this it's so good
     
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    This is massively underappreciated.
    It feels like the Devil is thriving on the chaos of the world that is Earth Bet, manages to make it workable.
    Amy and Carol hit me really hard in the feels. I love it.
     
    21 (Victoria)
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    In which the wound fades, but the pain remains.


    Seriously. Groceries.

    Ugh.

    Victoria sighed, dropping bags of FEMA-issued rations in front of the pantry.

    At least that was over with. She'd only had to stand in line for an hour, or maybe two hours, God she had no fucking idea. Being a cape didn't give her priority, which was either the best idea anyone had ever come up with or by far the worst idea anyone had ever come up with. Sure, no one gave her shit about standing in line with the rest of the normals, so that was nice. On the other hand, she couldn't reach Dean -- probably doing Wards stuff -- which meant she didn't have anything to do but listen to everyone's anxious mumbling. And then she actually got to the end of the line and was promptly guilted into carrying stuff around when one of the relief workers recognized her and mentioned that they needed supplies moved from the staging areas. Being a glorified delivery service… actually felt kinda nice when she saw people looking up at her and cheering while she brought in pallets of bottled water and food. But still! It was literally glorified delivery work! They didn't need a superhero to do it, not when there were still convoys that needed to be protected and patrols to be made and so many better things she could be doing.

    Hell, she could have even been taking Amy to Weymouth, if not for her sister's weird freakout about it. And seriously, what on Earth was that about? Amy liked Victoria much, much more than she liked Carol. That wasn't even remotely in dispute. Why would she suddenly decide that mom had to come along?

    Honestly, she was still a little worried about it. Wasn't like Amy at all. And yeah, her sister's normal behavior wasn't exactly happy, so maybe a little weirdness was a good thing? But this didn't strike Victoria as a good thing.

    While she was wondering what the hell to do, her phone buzzed.

    Ah. She was wondering where Mom and Amy were. Shouldn't they have been home by now?

    Parental Unit 1:​
    Come to Weymouth Mall​
    We need to talk​
    ​
    Wait what the fuck.
    ​
    Me:​
    What's going on?​
    ​
    Parental Unit 1:​
    Something big happened​
    Don't want details leaking until we decide how to handle it​
    Make sure no one follows you​
    ​
    Me:​
    Seriously, what's going on?​

    Moments later, her phone rang.

    "Victoria," her mother murmured, her voice slow and a little pained. The sound of flowing water swirled around her in the background.

    "Mom, what the hell is going on?"

    "I'm okay," Carol insisted.

    "You don't sound even remotely okay."

    There was silence for a moment. Her mother coughed, as if to emphasize the point. Then a long, troubled sigh.

    "Alright. There was an… accident, I think. Amy and I were hurt. Riley says I'm recovering well, and I believe her for the moment, though I'm less sure about your sister." She paused, listening to a faint voice in the background. "Ah. They say she's 'almost back in her skin for now', whatever that means, exactly. Seems like a good thing."

    Victoria's heart beat like a drum. "Mom... Carol, what exactly happened?"

    "A lot of things. It's… I told you I don't want to leak details. But we do need to talk about it. Come here as soon as you're able. I love you."

    Victoria barely got out a reflexive "Love you too" before her mother hung up.

    This was suspicious and scary and it'd be a bad idea to run in there to rescue her family, but damn if she had any other idea. It'd take hours for the Protectorate to respond, with how thinly stretched they were right now. Gallant and the Pelhams were both presumably on patrol or doing some other Important Superhero Thing.

    That just left her.

    Carol had sounded stressed, but not like she was being held at gunpoint, or powers-point, or something. But with Master powers, you never really knew. The Devils - no, wait, weren't they calling themselves Eden now? - probably weren't Masters, but there were always other possibilities, Tinkertech or hidden powers or other capes altogether.

    Still, if she was being genuine, and Victoria was starting to think that was more likely than not, then enlisting random people to help would just increase the chance of something getting out and hurting the family somehow.

    Wait a minute…

    Victoria's eyes widened, and she mentally kicked herself before flying straight up the stairs.

    Her father was in the bedroom, as was not uncommon. Mark's eyes stared out the window, out into the rows of too-similar houses behind white picket fences, out towards the wall that protected their little gated community from 'undesirable elements'.

    Victoria carefully made her way to his side. He barely seemed to acknowledge her existence.

    "Dad?"

    Slowly, his eyes turned to her.

    "I need you," she insisted. "Mom and Amy might be in trouble."

    He blinked. A major expression for him, on one of his worst days.

    "I was going to try and see what the hell was going on, but I couldn't reach Aunt Sarah, and the Protectorate was too busy. But I need backup."

    "And you want me," he whispered.

    Victoria nodded.

    Flashbang stared at her in silence for a little while longer.

    Then he pushed his hands under his body and lifted himself up.

    "Then let's go."


    Her dad gradually grew more animated as she explained the situation. Victoria supposed that was a silver lining. Mark wasn't a capital-T Thinker, but he'd always been a thinker, and she'd long since come to realize that the closest thing to a reliable way to get him out of a funk was to give him an intellectual problem, give him something to do with his head.

    How to get two open capes into another open cape team's semi-known base without being followed or recognized definitely qualified as an intellectual problem.

    They decided to put on some generic, concealing costumes. Victoria found a box of masks in the coat closet, and a vaguely-sky-colored hoodie from maybe six months ago. Mark pulled out an old grey bodysuit from the walk-in, and thankfully didn't need her help putting it on. At his insistence, she tied a few colorful bands around her sleeves, the better to at least pretend it was an actual costume. She got him back with wayward splashes of color over each side of the bodysuit, a half-hearted tie-dye effect that'd simply have to do if they didn't want to be here until tomorrow.

    They even agreed on fake cape names in case they ran into anyone (and wasn't that funny? False false identities!): she was Vega and he was Lightshow and they were new indie heroes checking out the neighborhood.

    Mark went so far as to draw up an elaborate plan to throw off the scent, with switchbacks and costume changes and alternating between walking and flying along the route. Worthy of Accord, she said, even if all Victoria really remembered about the man was that he was a major villain in Boston and a Thinker with a penchant for convoluted plans. (She would readily confess to being a cape nerd, but there were a lot of capes out there, and even her nerdery had its limits!)

    It was almost a shame that no one tried to follow them. Nobody Victoria noticed, anyways. They slipped out the back door in silence, climbed over three mostly intact fences and four not-so-intact fences, got spotted by a very startled woman who apparently lived in that particular house, flew off before said very confused woman could call the police on them (or worse, see through their half-assed disguises), circled around in arbitrary directions for a few minutes, stopped in at a ruined building and walked maybe half a mile, flew off again and did a few more zigs and zags, and finally, after all of that, came up on Weymouth Mall.

    Victoria didn't even have to use their fake cape names. What a damn shame.

    It was easy to recognize the building that Eden had converted into their base. Maybe not so much from the ground, but from any decent vantage point, the tree growing out of the middle of the mall was hard to miss.

    She carefully set her dad down on a stable-looking piece of roof, letting him stretch his legs for a moment. "Did you want to come down with me, or stay up here…?"

    "Bring me down fast," he answered. "I can't support you from up here, and I don't trust this roof any more than you do. But I'm afraid your arms aren't a tactically advantageous firing position, either."

    She couldn't help but chuckle, but she nodded all the same.

    Victoria looped her arms around her father one more time, carefully lifting him into a perfect bridal carry. The absurdity of carrying Mark like this had been funny the first time, but by now she was almost used to it. And it was by far the most comfortable position to be carried in.

    Still, he offered her a little smile, just for a moment before she took off.

    Then Victoria was in the air, the wind pushing Mark into her arms. The edge of the broken ceiling came up before her, the massive tree peeking up over the lip. This close, she could make out the texture of the bark, terracotta veins molded across the branches, glowing sap oozing down the trunk in rivers of life, strange fruit swaying below the leaves.

    She dove.

    "Ah! Victoria!"

    Venus's airy voice greeted her before she could get a word out. She blinked, turning to face the girl, finding her practically on the opposite side of where she'd been looking. The angel of light fluttered in an archway of curving metal, her wings and eyes spread wide, not relaxed but watchful, widening as they took in Victoria's presence.

    "...and Mark?" the girl added, after a moment.

    Glory Girl narrowed her eyes. "Where are they?" she demanded, drawing all the height and presence she could summon, looming over the little ball of wings for all of her scale. (That she was still cradling Mark did slightly ruin the effect, admittedly.)

    Venus let out a little eep, almost adorable if not for the context, and swam backwards through the air like some kind of reverse flying fish. "T-they're right here!" the Devil stammered, gesturing frantically behind her.

    Victoria met her gaze, searching those countless eyes for any trace of deception. She was no empath, but she saw only fear and guilt.

    She settled for a vaguely threatening, wordless snarl, a sort of 'you'd better behave if you know what's good for you' noise that drew another little squeak from Venus. Glory Girl ignored her, and barely remembered to set her father down on his feet before she rushed through the archway…

    ...and stopped cold.

    "...oh."

    She struggled to take in the scene before her eyes in all of its macabre glory. Whatever the room had been before, it was occupied now by a broad, shallow basin, almost-picture-perfect swimming pool tile stained by black tears and the vines that crawled across the walls and shadowed the floor. It wasn't like any hospital room she'd seen before, but it was obvious what it was being used for right now.

    After all, it had patients.

    Her mother rested on one side of the pond, up to her waist in clear water. From the neck down, Carol was a mess of discolored handprints and raw-red flesh, her chest moving with heavy, labored breaths. Victoria was vaguely aware of Riley scraping away broken skin and Neptune swirling dead tissue off of Carol's body. She was far more aware of her mother's eyes as they rose to meet her, tired and pained and angry and determined and so, so sad.

    Her sister was on the other side, and somehow she was even worse. It was like someone had been given a half-dozen sets of human body parts and told to put them together, without any idea how they were supposed to combine or even that they were meant to be part of separate people. Arms pressed against legs pressed against necks pressed against hips without rhyme or reason. A tangle of limbs and bodies rose up from the pool, in spite of Jupiter surrounding the pile of flesh and attempting to keep it in check. And it was all recognizably Amy, down to the loneliness in three pairs of eyes.

    And down to the ache that ran across Amy's every feature as she caught sight of Victoria, a dozen arms and hands instantly erupting from beneath the water, grasping instinctively for her sister even as the rest of the pile seemed to be attempting to recoil, to push itself away.

    "Vicky," Amy sobbed, and it shattered what was left of Victoria's heart.

    "Ames," she whispered, her voice catching in her throat. "Mom."

    Her father stepped past her, his head slowly panning from her mother to her sister in quiet horror. "What… what is this?" Mark mumbled, and Victoria didn't know who he was talking to, his gaze slowly fading into the middle distance. "Darling… Amy…"

    Devils glanced at each other for explanations, direction. It was just a momentary pause, and Venus opened her mouth to speak, but Carol beat her to it.

    "They're-" she began, only to cut herself off with a thick, hacking cough. Concerned eyes turned towards her, Victoria's the least among them. Riley rubbed Carol's back with one hand and offered her a mug with another. Shaking hands cradled the thick cup and lifted it to her lips, taking an uneasy sip to clear her throat of blockage.

    Carol swallowed, waited a moment, and tried again. "They're contagious," she finally answered.

    Victoria blinked, and stared. An angel of light stared uneasily back at her, and a swirling storm of hands, and a living lake, and a golem of clay and paint.

    And a wretch of limb on limb, flesh on flesh, arm on leg on shoulder on torso on neck on head on hand on foot on every terrible, grotesque combination.

    Finally she understood the truth, in all of its impossibility, all of its terrible majesty.

    Victoria narrowed her eyes. "What the fuck, Eden."

    "We didn't do anything!" Venus protested. "The Devil is something inside you, not-"

    Carol's tortured sigh silenced her. "You… you knew it could happen. You carried on anyway."

    "Been hearing that a lot, lately," Neptune murmured, her eyes slowly lowering to stare into the pool, to gaze into the depths of her own waters, thickened with flesh and regrets.

    Jupiter, for her part, rolled her hands onto Venus's body, wrapped her fellow Devils up in that cloud of hands, pressing into Riley's forehead and Neptune's side and Venus's face, a firm touch with just a hint of reproach. "She's… she's right, Ve. We fucked up. Come on, we've already had this conversation. You're better than this, don't blind yourself to it."

    Venus stilled, closed her eyes, and slowly inhaled, before breathing out. "No, I… no, you're right. I'm sorry. I've… forgotten what it feels like to make a mistake."

    "It sucks," Riley confirmed. "But it sucks for someone else even more."

    Victoria didn't feel reassured. "So you're calling all of this a 'mistake'?"

    The angel rallied herself. "Things were said that needed to be said," she insisted. "The Devil's not a mistake-"

    "Not like this," Carol croaked, and Venus's wings fell to the ground, her eyes weighed heavily.

    "...not like this," she admitted.

    "Fine," Victoria growled. "Fine. So it was an accident, or a mistake, or whatever. How, exactly, did this happen?"

    "I-it's my fault," Amy mumbled, her voice overlapping with itself as it spilled out of myriad mouths, nearly swallowed up by unshed tears from six sets of eyes.

    Just looking at her took the wind out of Victoria's sails. Sitting there in the water, broken, folded on herself, begging someone to save her from herself…

    "Oh, Amy…"

    Victoria floated through the hands, brushing Jupiter aside and dipping into the water until she was level with a face streaked with sorrow, a wide-eyed gaze meeting her own.

    "Talk to me, Amy," she whispered.

    "I-" Amy sniffled, ducked her head as she wiped a tear from her cheek. Slowly, she raised a hand, a pointing finger. Victoria followed it with her eyes until she found herself staring at Riley.

    "S-she's… she was Bonesaw th-the whole time. And Caro- then Mom called her R-riley and I was just… I just got so mad, I don't know…"

    The little girl just nodded sadly.

    Victoria… had suspected something, to be honest. But right now, she couldn't think about it, or to get mad at the girl, not when Amy was right there, bawling her eyes out.

    She reached up to put a hand on one of her sister's shoulders, but before Victoria could reach her, she recoiled, her eyes widening to impossible sizes, a cacophony of shrieks erupting from the mass of lips and flesh, from deep within a half-dozen lungs.

    "Don't fucking touch me!"

    "Amy? Amy, what the fuck?"

    Arms spilled out of her body as she wailed. "You shouldn't touch me! First Mom and Jupiter and now you! Just stop, just leave me alone! I wasn't born good, okay?! Just look at me! Look at what I did! I'm a monster, aren't I? A-aren't I? You can't deny it, can you?"

    "No," Carol called, straining her voice to speak and whipping Amy's frantic eyes away from Victoria.

    Their mother accepted a glass of water from Riley, took a couple of sips, then cleared her throat. "You're… no worse than me."

    Amy just stared at her, as if she couldn't believe what she was hearing. Victoria took this opportunity to test a hand against her side, and when she didn't thrash in response, Victoria's arms followed, wrapping Amy in a firm hug.

    "I… I…" Her eyes fell, her body slowly sinking into Victoria's touch. "...I don't know. A-and… and you wouldn't be touching me, Vicky, you'd h-hate me if you knew… if you really knew how awful I was…"

    "Amy," she murmured, rolling her fingers into soft skin, "what could possibly make me hate you?"

    Silence, hesitation, doubt, trepidation.

    Then Amy leaned into her ear, and told her.

    Victoria didn't say anything for a long time. She stepped back, tried to process, but she didn't dare move away.

    Finally, she spoke.

    "Okay."

    "O-okay?" Amy repeated.

    Victoria nodded, feeling the tiniest of smiles come over her face. "Inappropriate crushes are a fact of life. Remember when I was convinced I was going to marry Aunt Sarah for some reason?"

    At that, Amy burst out sobbing again.

    But these tears, at least, were tears of relief.

    Victoria could live with that.
     
  • Threadmarks
    • Twei, you have no idea how relieved I am that you didn't split this chapter in two and leave us a cliff hanger. I'm still quite excited to see how this story goes.
     
    22 (Lisa)
  • Threadmarks
    • surprise I ain't dead

    22​

    In which Lisa has a bad morning, moves into a new home, and meets the neighbors.


    Lisa woke up with a hell of a lot on her mind, and whispers that were quiet yet incessant, like the voices in her head were watching and waiting.

    She heard distant barking, dogs chattering happily over Rachel's soft greetings as her teammate tended to her pack.

    Lisa opened her eyes, and promptly shielded them with an arm as light bit into her sockets.

    Ugh, how long had she been asleep?

    She groaned, pushed herself off the couch and slowly to her feet. She had an actual bedroom, and she'd thought she'd fallen asleep there…? Grah. Whatever.

    Lisa stumbled forward, out of the living room and into the kitchen, where the familiar sight of a broken refrigerator and disconnected stovetop greeted her.

    The pantry, of course, held the usual suspects. Cereal again for her today.

    Lisa flopped into her seat, bowl of unappetizing grain in one hand and tasteless protein bar in another.

    (They were only here to begin with because Brian swore by the things. Unlike things with actual flavor, they kept forever.)

    The motions of breakfast consumed her body, mindlessly spooning dry cereal and biting off chunks of what was supposedly chocolate. It left her mind free to wander, to ponder.

    And she really did have a lot to think about. Most of all, though, it was Coil.

    He went from demanding no contact with the Devils to demanding she investigate them in three days. Something had to have him spooked.

    Given that he'd given the order last night and she'd woken up in the morning? This probably wasn't a throwaway timeline. Existential questions aside, it meant he was very serious about figuring the Devils out.

    Was Coil planning to take them out? It'd make sense. The Devils had too much power and were creating too much change for him to ignore, but his normal hooks wouldn't work on them: too headstrong for threats, too self-sufficient for offers of support.

    Maybe he could have blackmailed them with Riley's identity, which Lisa was absolutely sure he knew because he wasn't stupid. That could be a thing.

    Either way, he wanted more information. That made sense. But what did it mean for her? He'd wanted her away from them earlier, but…

    Lisa opened up the lid on her power, but instead a whisper rose to the surface, low and smoky and sweet and loving. "Does it matter, darling? You already knew what he was going to do, one way or another."

    She blinked.

    He didn't want to expose you to excess contamination; he sees it as an obstacle to controlling you, her power belatedly added. Now he has a plan, and he's willing to take that risk to execute it. He will kill you if he deems it expedient.

    ...to be fair, she was pretty sure that last part had always been true.

    Be useful or be dead. Probably both, if the asshole had his way.

    Her spoon clinked against the bottom of the bowl.

    Lisa looked down at the empty bowl, at the remains of her protein bar, and allowed herself a little sigh.

    Said remains quickly disappeared into her mouth, before she had even finished standing.

    She pushed the bowl into the sink, ran a little water, and dragged herself out the door.

    Light and sound assaulted her, sharp pain stabbing into her forehead as Lisa stumbled outside into the realm of the burning sun and of Rachel's yapping dogs.

    She heard herself let out an awful sound, nearly drowned out in the general excitement associated with her teammate's dogs as they sprinted across the sidewalk in chase of a bright red ball bouncing merrily away.

    Rachel spared Lisa only the slightest glance.

    Probably disappointed she wasn't up earlier.

    Lisa squinted a bit, rubbed up to clear her eyes, and opened her lips.

    "Coil's going to try to kill me, if I don't give him what he wants."

    "Fuck that. Kill him first."

    She had to admit that her teammate was nothing if not practical.

    "I don't think I can get there in the next couple of days, Rachel."

    Bitch grunted one of her usual enigmatic grunts. "You gonna run with your tail between your legs, then?"

    Lisa pursed her lips. "Dunno where to go. For all I know, he'll drag me into his basement the moment I step out of line."

    "The cops?"

    "What? He has people in the PRT-"

    "I'm not fucking stupid," Rachel snarled. "Cops. Fuzz. Feds. Eff bee eye."

    Lisa blinked. "I'm… sorry?"

    "Never seen a fed who didn't hate the PRT's guts. And asshole capes who think they're smart always write 'em off."

    That… actually kind of made sense? A jurisdictional clusterfuck might put her out of reach of Coil, at least for a little while. She didn't trust the local departments to be free of Coil's influence, but maybe if she could get down to the FBI field office in Boston…

    "Coward," someone whispered. It sounded a bit like her.

    "What are you gonna do, then?"

    "He comes after my pack," Rachel growled, "he deserves what he gets. Same as always."

    Lisa hummed.

    "...if I was going to kill him, would you help? Hypothetically."

    "You gonna keep helping the dogs?"

    "Of course."

    "Then fuck him. He's a creep."

    Again: Nothing if not practical.

    At that moment, something seemed to stir in the air. Maybe just for Lisa, but she heard distant voices all the same, a trio of familiar sounds echoing into her ear as if from somewhere - or somewhen - far away.

    "There is nothing to fear when it is two against the devil."

    "But we can't wait to see what they'll do against the three worst girls since Eve."

    She shivered.

    Rachel definitely noticed, but said nothing.

    Lisa breathed in, tried to clear her mind for a second.

    "...you wanna get the Devils and fuck up Coil with them?" Of course, Coil wanted her with the Devils to gather info anyways, but Lisa doubted that would inure Rachel to the idea.

    "Don't trust 'em," Rachel grumbled.

    "They're not creeps."

    "Mmm," she conceded.

    "Worst they're gonna ask is to be allowed to play with the dogs."

    "Hrmg."

    "Also, Coil has a drug-addicted child in his basement and that's kind of fucked up?"

    "Mnnnnnnn."

    "...Taylor would want us to deal with him?"

    That last one triggered an immediate response, as Rachel suddenly turned away from her dogs and whirled to glare straight at Lisa.

    Somehow, she managed to meet her gaze for a full ten seconds without blinking.

    "...fine."

    Lisa couldn't help her exhale as Rachel lowered her eyes.

    "We should take our stuff too. The other Undersiders aren't coming back here anytime soon, and your dogs would be safer somewhere Coil doesn't have his eyes on."

    "You're getting the car."

    "...that's fair."


    Getting there by car was a pain. Getting the car was the easy part.

    Still, less of a pain than dragging everything on foot.

    The first thing she spotted was the shape flying away from it, two figures in colorful, baggy costumes with the smaller one cradling the larger in their arms.

    Silhouettes suggest teenage girl and adult man, her power chimed as she turned her head to track their flight. Rune wouldn't come here. Girl is Glory Girl. Postures suggest familiarity. Passenger is a family member. Passenger is Flashbang.

    Huh. Well, as long as they didn't come down here, it wasn't her problem. But why had they been here in the first place?

    She threw the groaning old pickup into neutral, letting the sputtering engine rest as it coasted on through the remains of a parking lot and rolled to a halt by the mall's main entrance. In her defense, the brakes on this thing either barely worked or didn't work at all, she still couldn't tell which.

    Rachel kicked open the door and jumped to the ground before the truck had stopped (which was fair, it was a shitty truck). A chorus of barks and excitement immediately went up from the bed, and a dozen dogs were jumping all over her before she'd so much as lowered the tailgate (which, surprisingly, was still attached to the truck).

    Lisa turned off the engine, hopefully for the last time, and got the hell out of the stupid shitty truck. Above her, Weymouth Mall loomed.

    It was certainly more than yesterday. She remembered a relatively basic lattice across the front facade, wires and glass filling in for broken windows and sliding doors. Now the entranceway had, for lack of a better word, bloomed, layers of steel vines and brass flowers crawling up in sinuous, intricate patterns all up the height of the wall. Lisa could even make out Hebrew script scrawled through the metalwork, though of course she had no idea what it meant.

    ("And you shall write them upon the doorposts of your house and upon your gates," someone whispered, and Lisa honestly wasn't sure who it was. Venus, maybe?)

    Rachel left behind all the stuff packed into the truck for now, instead striding through the open archway with her excited crowd of canines in hot pursuit. Lisa felt a little sheepish as she fell in with the pack behind Rachel's confident gait.

    An empty mall was always an awkward space, and even a handful of capes couldn't make the long, barren hallways feel quite natural. The jungle of clay and ironwork growing around the tree of life was definitely a start, though. No Signal today, but the soft electronic ambiance did a lot to warm the atmosphere, too.

    Neptune laid against a wall, casually dripping as she clicked away at a phone, cool as a cucumber.

    Relaxed, amused. Is enjoying her texting. Is paying attention to Venus.

    Venus was more lively. Nervous, too, if that jittering was anything to go by, wings glancing this way and that.

    She sees with her wings and flies with her eyes. Watching. Watching for trouble. Neptune is looking to her for cues. Venus is keeping watch and Neptune is here to guard. They could take you.

    Guard what, exactly?

    Before Lisa could zero in on that thought, Venus made eye contact with Rachel. Surprisingly, the Devil brightened.

    "You're back!" she called, an innocent little smile pushing aside some of the tension.

    Rachel, of course, was having none of it. "We're moving in," she announced. "Where do we put our shit?"

    Venus blinked.

    Neptune flipped her phone shut, craned her head away from the wall. "Y'know, we have a strict no-villainy policy here at Eden Acres," she drawled, the usual smirk rising to her face.

    "Fuck off," Rachel growled, fixing her eyes on the dribbling Devil.

    Neptune went on as though she hadn't spoken. "Fortunately, I don't see any villains here, so that shouldn't be a problem. Just try not to rob any banks while you're here, 'mkay?"

    Their eyes stayed fixed, Rachel glaring and Neptune deliberately casual, for a good long few seconds.

    "Um, we have some apartments ready on the second floor? Take the ramp on your right," Venus helpfully added, gesturing with her wings towards the corridor in question, ramp receding into the distance before curling around and out of sight. (Wait, how did that even fit? More eldritch geometry?) "We don't really have a kennel or anything like that, but I'm sure I can put something together!"

    At that, Rachel finally bit out a grunt and stalked off. With a whistled command, a pack of yapping dogs followed, racing past Lisa and leaving her in awkward silence with the two Devils.

    She cracked a smile. "So what's behind the door?"

    "I have no idea what you're talking about," Neptune purred, fixing Lisa with that smirk of hers in return.

    "You're hiding a Dallon family reunion in there," she guessed.

    Judging by the way Neptune coughed, Lisa was dead on the money.

    "Hey!"

    Venus drew Lisa's gaze away. Her arms were crossed, her face set in a fierce frown. "If you're just here to needle us, we can and will throw you out. If you want to know something, you can ask, like a normal person!"

    Lisa blinked, took a step back.

    Ah, right, this feeling. Guilt. How she didn't miss it.

    She threw up her hands. "Sorry. I just… sorry. Habit."

    "Better unlearn those habits if you want to hang out here, darling," Neptune advised. Unlike Venus, she didn't sound too mad. She was understanding, even, though Lisa wouldn't go so far as to call it kind. "Why do you want to move in? Obviously everyone wants to hang out with us, but I want to hear it from you."

    Asking for vulnerability. Vulnerability leads to trust. Sincerity leads to compassion.

    Lisa gulped, gathered her thoughts.

    "... My boss wants dirt on you. If I don't deliver, he'll throw me in a cell. And… he might do that anyways after I give him what he wants. I wouldn't put it past him."

    This, at least, softened Venus's anger, and even Neptune seemed a little more sympathetic.

    "No shit, sister? That's some bullshit right there," she mused.

    "Do you know what he wants?" Venus asked, gentler this time.

    "To get rid of you, one way or another. The boss has big plans about controlling the underworld in this city, and you get in the way of that. You disrupt the status quo, you act unpredictably, and he just can't have that."

    Neptune rolled her eyes. "Goddddddd he sounds like a prick."

    Lisa smiled faintly. "You don't know the half of it."

    "I can believe it. So this guy is gonna try and fuck with us, huh?" she drawled, though the conversationally snarky tone was in stark contrast to the seriousness burning in her eyes.

    "One way or another," Lisa agreed, "though I'm not sure exactly what his plans are. He's still got a handful of capes on his payroll, sure, and a sizable contingent of mercenaries, but it's his intel and influence that makes him really dangerous. Maybe he'd create a situation that forces the PRT to run you out of town? His power's just the icing on the cake, really."

    Neptune blinked, then grinned, leaning in close in a manner that found Lisa scooting back just a little. "Oh, I've gotta hear this. They keep coming up with more and more bullshit capes, so I bet this'll be real good. Spill, Leese."

    It was all she could do not to interrogate the many, many things wrong with what Neptune just said.

    "Uh. Okay, so Coil's power, as I understand it, is that he perceives two separate realities, two timelines, whatever. He can make different choices, leading to different outcomes. At any time, he can pick one of those timelines to be the one that actually happened, and the other one just never happened- but he still has any knowledge he gained from the dropped timeline. It's got scary amounts of utility, if we're being honest."

    Neptune hid her grin behind a hand. "Oh my satan that is so ridiculous. Like, I fought the Siberian, and this is more ridiculous than the Siberian, which was on a whole level of ridiculousness up there with Eidolon or Ziz, which-"

    "Wait, back up, you fought the Siberian?"

    "What can I say, sister? If you want to make a Riley omelet, you gotta break some Slaughterhouse Nine eggs."

    "Um, Siberian was weird, but this Coil guy raises much more interesting questions?" Venus piped up. (She even raised a hand like she was in a classroom, though she didn't really wait to speak or anything.) "Like, he creates and destroys realities or something. There are so many existential implications to that! Even God can't create universes on the fly!"

    "I don't know if it's all that," Lisa hedged. "If he was actually creating universes, you'd think he'd be able to do more with that than just change his personal choices?"

    Neptune chuckled. "So what's this fucker actually doing with his power, hotshot?"

    That, Lisa thought, is a question I've wasted far too many nights on.

    "My best guess? Precognition is a thing, even if nobody really knows how it works. Maybe he sees both 'timelines' with subconscious precognition and picks one before they're even created. It could be some kind of Manton-effect limitation to keep his brain from overloading, I guess? Best I have right now, at least."

    "Soooo about where we started. No choice but to throw it on the 'superpowers are bullshit' pile and drink to forget." Neptune made an exaggerated shrugging motion. "So, you gonna help us with whatever bullshit this Coil guy is going to try and pull?"

    Lisa nodded, because the alternative would have made her feel like even more of a heel than before. And it wasn't like she had anywhere to run.

    "Lemme talk to the guests, then. See if they're cool with you poking around."

    And with that, Neptune spun on the spot, a whirl of water splashing over Lisa's face as the Devil strutted through one of the ex-storefronts with her head held high.

    Lisa coughed up a few stray drops, squinted at the retreating figure.

    Guests are recent, guests have reason to be concerned about strangers, about you in particular-

    A flash of light stabbed into her eyes, ruining her sight and leaving her seeing spots. Venus, off to her side, going off like a professional grade camera.

    "Hey-"

    Venus cut her off with a giggle. "I know that look. No staring at Nep's butt without my permission!"

    "I, buh, what."

    Lisa's face burned.

    Venus rested her cheeks in her palms, a cherubic little smile of mischief painted on her face.

    "I-i wasn't looking at her ass, I was just… uh…"

    Trying to snoop with her power. Oops.

    "You really are nosy," Venus teased. "But if it ends up like this every time, I don't mind. You're cute when you're flustered."

    Lisa should have known better than to show a reaction, but whatever Venus saw on her face only encouraged her. Grah.

    She glanced aside, breaking eye contact with the myriad gaze. In doing so, her vision naturally swept over the mall again, the warm rivers of life pushing up beneath the floor tiles, the vines of living clay tangled with swirling ironwork, the little cozy rooms with gently glowing floors and not-quite-Euclidean dimensions.

    "You put a lot of work into this place," she observed, if only to redirect the conversation from the previous awkwardness.

    Venus smiled, a slightly less teasing smile when Lisa cared to look back at it. "I did. Riley and Jupes helped a bunch, but still! There's still a lot I'm figuring out. I've made shelters before, played with space and angles too, but something like this is new to me, you know? But that makes it more exciting!"

    Lisa nodded. "What are you trying to do here, then? It's obviously bigger than just a place to live…"

    "It'd be a shame to waste all this space, right? That's why I wanted this place to begin with, when we decided we ought to have a place to live if we were going to stay here longer than a couple of days. Well, Jupiter was fine with whatever was comfortable and didn't displace other people, and Neptune had scoped out what used to be a police station before Leviathan, because, and I quote, 'fuck the police.'"

    Even Lisa couldn't help but smile at that.

    "When I looked here, I saw potential, you know? Not just for us, but for anyone else who was willing to come. Building a better world where the old world had fallen…"

    Venus drifted off, eyes slowly turning to the open ceiling and the sun shining down.

    "...I hope it goes well," Lisa offered.

    "I appreciate it," Venus murmured. "Feel free to pitch in, you know? We could always use another pair of hands."

    Lisa allowed herself a tiny smirk. "Are you saying Jupiter doesn't have enough hands for everything?"

    Venus flushed. "Yes. No. Maybe. Don't tell her I said that, okay?"

    "I won't." After all, that would remove her ability to tease Venus with the possibility.

    Any further conversation was occluded as Neptune took that moment to emerge from the archway, fixing Lisa with the most serious look she could muster. It wasn't very serious. Definitely a bit of a smirk there.

    "You're clear, Lisa. Amy and Carol and Riley and Jupiter are there, go talk to 'em. Just remember, no needling. I told Jupes to punch you right in the kisser if you start talking shit."

    "W-well then."

    She had never in her life felt so called out as she felt right now.


    As it turned out, Amy and Carol were indeed Amy and Carol Dallon.

    Lisa had figured as much, but that didn't make it more comfortable when she saw what had happened to them.

    Carol Dallon, Brandish, looked tired. Maybe it was the stitches scrawled across her body, or the discolored patches of flesh all over, or the hastily cobbled together clothing of silk and leaves that made a valiant attempt to resemble her costume while actually being basically a casual dress. Or maybe it was just the weight in her eyes as she regarded Lisa, cool and calm and professional but so very, very weary.

    Injuries healed by Bonesaw. Artificial flesh created from her body. Something big has happened to her, something she's still coming to terms with-

    Panacea, Amy, was a completely different story. She didn't have clothes at all, save for her own body - or bodies, rather. The brunette was sitting across from her mother, but it would be more accurate to say she was sitting in a pile of her own bodies. Hands covering her modesty, hands holding her up at the rear, bodies sprawled around her in abstract compositions, all of them flowing together, all of them connected. A half-dozen eyes glared weakly at Lisa, though it softened quickly as their gazes held.

    "The garden of flesh," the whispers suggested. "The garden of desire."

    Riley was there too, sitting with them, while Jupiter half-stood, half-floated nearby. All four of them had little earthenware mugs, Lisa noted. Riley fidgeted with hers. Carol's mug sat at the table in front of her, gently steaming into the air. Jupiter's floated somewhere in the storm of hands, warming her face. Amy sipped at hers with a spare mouth when she thought Lisa wasn't looking, promptly flushing and hiding it away when she realized Lisa was looking.

    "Hey, bank robber," she grumbled.

    "Tattletale," Carol murmured, crisp and professional.

    Lisa swallowed, then nodded. "That's me. I assume Neptune got you up to speed?"

    Carol folded her hands. "You raised concerns that your employer would somehow manipulate the PRT into aggressive action. What resources would he have to accomplish this?"

    "He has people within the PRT. Director Piggot's safe, and I want to say that the heroes themselves are clean. But he's got a lot of people in the squads who he can burn in a pinch. And a scary amount of information; I think he might actually work for the PRT himself in some capacity?"

    "You think he could manufacture an incident."

    "Absolutely."

    Carol shook her head. "Things are tense enough here already. Director Piggot, personally, asked for Amy to go over Riley's work, and…"

    "Hey, about that, maybe we can stop with this weird relaying-things-through-you arrangement? Y'know, when we get out of here," Amy cut in.

    Carol blinked as she turned to her. "That… yes, yes we can do that," she murmured, almost sounding surprised by her own response. "I'll make sure you have all the contact information you need. Just… please still talk to me about anything big, okay? For your mother's sake."'

    Their eyes didn't quite meet, but something still passed between them before Amy replied.

    "I guess I can live with that."

    Lisa took that moment to raise the obvious question. "So, you're a… devil now?"

    "Fuck if I know," Amy grumbled. "That's what they tell me. I don't really feel it myself. I just feel like… like me, I guess? And that's way scarier than any theological bullshit anyway."

    Lisa nodded.

    Yeah. It was.

    "Well, as fascinating as this is, I assume you didn't invite me here just to gawk."

    Carol cleared her throat. "I was hoping you could help us plan. The PRT will be sending a representative in about two hours."

    "Two hours twenty-two minutes," Riley helpfully clarified.

    "About two hours," Carol repeated. "And I would rather like a third perspective on how to convey the gravity of the situation without my daughter ending up in solitary confinement. Not to mention that Eden," she nodded to Jupiter, who nodded back, "obviously have their own interests to consider."

    "Brandish, I'm psychic, not Accord."

    "Tattletale," Carol said dryly, "if you were psychic, you wouldn't be robbing banks like a common criminal."

    Lisa winced. Amy smirked.

    Carol ignored them both. "Here's what I had in mind…"


    A/N: I just want to address real life for a moment. It's a little belated, but hey, this is still going on, and for a lot of people it's been going on for decades, if not centuries. The world, and certainly the United States where I live, is in rough shape now. And really, it has been for a while. Nonetheless, a lot of things in this fanfic have become much more relevant to our current moment than I'd like. If you've read this far, I'm assuming you don't mind some Overt Politics, so here we go:

    Accepting that our differences don't make us monsters is just one part of liberation. The next part is realizing how much we have in common, that we all need food and water and shelter and love and care and dignity. The next part is realizing who and what denies those things when we need them most. (hint: they have a lot of money and they're not the Jews, I will sic a Golem on you I swear to god.)

    Also all cops are bastards, black lives matter, this story was probably written on stolen land but I don't actually know, no justice no peace, fascism is bad actually, et cetera.

    And also got me thinking again: is Neptune black? Probably not, right? but her portraits do have notably darker skin than those of Jupiter and Venus and I feel like that still plays into her character or internal arc where the world gets pissy at her for not letting it walk over her, and so she gets mad at the world and spits out bile… or maybe she's just tanned, who knows, call me out if this is racist bullshit. Also feel free to provide your thoughts as long as they aren't racist bullshit.
     
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    • Twei said:
    Accepting that our differences don't make us monsters is just one part of liberation. The next part is realizing how much we have in common, that we all need food and water and shelter and love and care and dignity.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    We are all roughly the same vaguely disgusting fleshsacks, filled with oddly coloured squishy bits, and piloted by roughly 3 pounds of neurotic tapioca and bacon grease in a very large world that is inimical to our continuing to do stuff. We definitely don't need to keep making things harder on ourselves.

    As a great man once said: LOVE AND PEACE.
    But louder, and in red.
     
    23
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    • 23​


    Amy Dallon doesn't feel like the Devil.

    She doesn't feel like Panacea, either. She just feels like Amy. It's the most terrifying and thrilling thing she's ever felt.

    Even Tattletale pointing out that people might start asking her to give them powers barely qualifies as a distant second, right now.

    She blooms as much as moves, wilts as much as walks. Flesh growing and shrinking, her body flowing from one position into the next.

    There's no clear boundary; she's there one moment, here the next. The border of her skin barely feels real, and a dim awareness of her own body down to individual strands of muscle flashes through her mind with every step. The separation between Amy and not-Amy is tenuous, at best.

    "Sorry for killing the mood," Riley mumbles.

    Carol waves it away, Lisa raises an eyebrow, Jupiter offers a shoulder rub, and Amy… Amy can't bring herself to care.

    She's still trying to work through being told that having fucked-up desires is perfectly normal. That her actions define her, not her desires or her parentage or any of that. Compared to that, anything Bonesaw-related is basically just a sideshow.

    "It's no big deal," Lisa agrees, intentionally or otherwise.

    Amy is more than happy to change the subject. She's had enough of the mortifying ordeal of being known for one day.

    Amy is happy enough that Carol is listening to her, really.

    "I should probably check on Rachel. Wasn't Venus doing something with her?"

    Rachel? Oh, right. Bitch. Giant terrormonster dogs. Not a great memory, all things considered. Not great memories, plural.

    On the other hand, she's out of cider. And she's getting real sore sitting in one place for this long.

    "Hey, mom. You good to walk?"

    "I believe so. Jupiter, could you give me a hand?"

    Neptune rolls her eyes. Jupiter, obviously, has no shortage of hands.

    Riley excuses herself to work on growing something or other. That leaves the four of them to shamble out of the room and into the atrium.

    "They're on the second floor," Jupiter helpfully points out. "Take the ramp to your left."

    Lisa glances up, along the trunk of the tree of life.

    Amy hears the muffled coos and little yaps, echoing down from above.

    Can she just…?

    She can.

    Amy reaches up, and grows, and grows, until she can see over the railing, and roots herself in the second floor instead.

    "That works too," Jupiter muses.

    "Who's a good boy? Who's a good boy?"

    Venus lays amidst a crowd of canines, reaching up to a particular dog's forehead and giving him a thorough scruffing. The rest of them swarm around her, yapping and wagging their tails, some of them nuzzling into Venus's feathers while others gleefully chase wiggling wings and darting eyes.

    Bitch - Rachel? - stands amidst the pile, staring at Venus in what can only be described as bewilderment. She's very butch, muscled and lean. Blocky face, dirty hair. Shirtless. A rolled-up sleeping bag held over her shoulder as she stares.

    Amy stares at them both.

    Finally, Bitch speaks, almost haltingly. "You're spoiling them."

    "Oh."

    Venus blinks, retreating her wings and slowly pulling herself up with an apologetic gaze towards her canine companions, who for their part take it with only a handful of whines and grumbles as they nuzzle into her retreating form.

    Then Bitch turns her attention to the flesh garden at the edge of the corridor.

    She squints.

    Amy backs up, just a little.

    Bitch glares. "The hell you want?"

    She manages not to stutter.

    Even after everything, Rachel's still kind of scary. We're all a little scared of Rachel. We probably shouldn't be, so that's on us.

    "Your teammate wanted to check on you. I took a shortcut."

    "Who are you again?"

    "Amy Dallon. Your teammate held me at knifepoint, remember? It was kind of a big deal."

    Her eyes narrow, but when she sees no signs of lies, she relaxes a bit.

    "Don't fuck with my dogs."

    "I wasn't planning on it."

    At that moment, Lisa pops her head around the corner. Jupiter and Carol follow shortly thereafter, carefully making their way along together.

    This only seems to make Rachel more annoyed. "I don't need more people getting in the way. Venus said she'd make a kennel or whatever and she's been playing with my dogs instead and that's bad enough."

    Though her face softens when she glances back at Venus, smiling sheepishly even as the crowd of dogs slowly lose interest and begin to wander around to the other people, bumping into Jupiter's eager hands, sniffing curiously at Amy and Carol, some of them shyly slinking back to their master.

    "Sorry. You said I could, if they didn't mind."

    Rachel glances aside, unable to quite meet her earnest eyes. "Guess I did," she finally mumbles. "Can you do the thing now?"

    "Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I can." Venus nods, more to herself than anyone else. "I could use some help, though. We should bring this up to the roof, if you're all okay with that?"

    They are, in spite of everyone else's grumbling. Especially Rachel, who is not happy that they have to go up an actual flight of stairs. No reality-defying ramp this time. Venus says she'll work on it. Rachel can't argue with the need for natural light and a large outdoor area.

    The roof's seen better days, but it's seen much worse days too. It's not falling down, tree-shaped hole in the center notwithstanding..

    Amy can almost reach out and touch it from the steel-lined edge.

    So she does.

    It flows into her mind, and she flows into it just as naturally. It's part of the world, just like she is.

    "Oh, that's a great idea! Amy, could you bring that over here? Maybe grow a ramp for us and the dogs?"

    Can she? Yes. The clay practically leaps to her command, growing and warping with the eagerness of an affectionate puppy. It's full of potential, and she's full of desire. It's honestly scary how easy it is.

    Will she?

    We all watch her for a moment.

    Carol gives her a nod.

    Yes, she decides, she will.

    Leaves and branches erupt from the tree of life and swarm into the roof, wrapping around sagging columns and bolstering them with new bracing and fresh trunks. They swirl around the tree, forming a gentle slope of precarious branches and shivering tufts of green.

    Carol points out that it should probably at least meet ADA standards if it's going to be how excited dogs get up and down from the rooftop.

    We have no choice but to agree with her, for both legal and practical reasons.

    Jupiter and Venus enlist Neptune's help in widening the space so that a properly sized walkway can fit.

    The rest of us look away, except for Lisa, who stares to the point that Jupes has to put a hand over her face before her eyes start bleeding.

    She's still mumbling about how belief warps spacetime as much as gravity does, though. Venus offers to talk about it later.

    The kaleidoscope is beautiful.

    Carol helps. Her bone-lights become railings and stringers, branches and leaves twisting around the glowing spears as Jupiter wrangles them into place.

    Rachel tests the leafy footing, gingerly grabs a rail of hard light. When it doesn't burn her, she stomps down the ramp, and returns with her pack, eager and yapping.

    Amy is already growing more. She can't help herself. Making life, making growth is so instinctive, so wondrous.

    Venus catches the wind, borrows handfuls of grass seeds from the sky. Clay soil breaks down into soft dirt. Riley suggests mulch, and Amy donates a few limbs; she's already lost dozens up in the tree, and she doesn't mind. It doesn't really hurt, not when the garden grows back freely. Pasture spreads across the roof with the help of bone fertilizer and Neptune's soothing water and Venus's comforting light and Amy's own power, nudging the grass to spread and thrive, different species mingling across the concrete.

    Rachel insists that she have a place to sleep up here, the better to be with her dogs. Venus obliges. It's rougher than the mall's interior, heavy and natural and overgrown rather than airy and cultivated, but she still tries to work in the same themes, the same wonders.

    Amy pulls down a branch from the ceiling and curls it lovingly around a light source that is definitely a magical orb of Venus's light but can somehow be turned on and off with an ordinary lightswitch. Everyone approves.

    Rachel drags the last of her stuff up here, with Jupiter's help of course, and collapses in the freshly grown chair, dripping with sweat and exertion. While some of her animal companions are exploring their new homes, others are content to lavish her with affection, curled up all around her.

    She opens one eye and looks at Amy, who is definitely staring at her.

    "So do you wanna make out or not?"

    As it turns out, there is one way to make Amy shrink back into a single body: mortal embarrassment.

    "Buh?"

    "You obviously want to."

    Amy sputters. "J-just because you have nice abs that doesn't mean we should-!"

    Lisa is pretending not to laugh. Amy realizes her mom is right there, watching, and momentarily melts into a literal puddle of flesh before snapping back into shape, red as a beet.

    The rest of us choose to give them a little space.

    "People are so fucking bad at sex, always dancing around it and stuff. You're into me."

    "I-i am literally a garden of flesh though even if I'm into you there's no way you're into me?"

    Rachel fixes poor Amy with an utterly serious stare.

    "U-um????"

    "Amy, you have as many fucking lips and fingers as you want. Anyone who's not into that is a coward."

    She looks like she's about to faint on the spot. Or explode and set everything on fire. Maybe both at once.

    "UMMMMM?!?"

    Lisa smiles. "You see what I have to deal with?"

    Carol just shakes her head. "I… honestly cannot say I saw this day coming."

    "Can anyone? Could any of us?"

    Lisa gestures expansively around them, giving Amy an excuse to tear her eyes away from Rachel and towards everything else.

    Hedges line the roof, whistling in the wind, while grasses and bushes and flowers race across it, drowning what had been a dark, blank surface in curtains of green and gold. The great tree rises up before her, leaves shivering in the wind. Branches curl over and around, casting shifting shadows as they reach back into the roof to form the kennel and shelter that she's currently taken root in.

    It's so much more than a rooftop garden. It's the kind of place she's only seen in her dreams; a tiny slice of paradise.

    And… she made this happen, along with the others. It's a heady feeling.

    In the quiet, a phone buzzes.

    It's Carol's. She picks it out of her bag with a frown, while the others stand up just a little stiffer.

    "Alright. Enough fun for today." Carol stands, her expression shifting into a professional frown. "She's coming in 15 minutes."


    A/N: we now return to your regularly scheduled author's notes, all further political content will be contained to the actual story, thank you for your patience
     
  • Threadmarks
    • Good as always. Well, I didn't realize this when I was writing, but--
    "So basically," she sums up, "Your brother died. You think it's your fault. You made a deal with a demon to resurrect him? Demons can't do that, I'll have you know."

    You shake your head. You figured that might be the case.

    "So why'd you do it?" she asks.

    "No-one else can, either."

    "Oh, I see how it is."

    You look at her. "See how what is?"

    "You're like me," she says. "An idiot. We're two big fat idiots, who've joined the losing side in a war older than the universe. We're weak, we're stupid, I barely even have the motivation to stick with it. You made a deal with a demon? So did I. Tachibana Midori, at your service."

    You extend your hand. She shakes it in surprise.

    (...)

    She chuckles. "I made a deal with the devil, as they say. To undo her death. I just have to do one small thing, first. Nothing big. You did the same thing, right? You want to save your brother, who died for you... I want to save the girl who nearly killed me, but somehow I feel like you're the better person. Don't you want to know what you're getting into?"

    You nod.

    "I already told you. We just have to fight their war for them, that's all. A lot of things will change if we win. Rules like life and death won't be so hard and fast anymore. Not rules like electromagnetism, or gravity, either. But look around you." She waves, at Tokyo city. "Does it look like we're winning?"
    Some level of conceptual plagiarism, here. Not that I'm going to stop. It's too good an idea not to use, and your story is demonstrating that. Even if we have different takes on it.
     
    What wonderful timing! I just finished rereading it last night and a new chapter awaited me in the morning!

    I'm so happy Amy can find joy in creation now.
     
    Baughn said:
    Good as always. Well, I didn't realize this when I was writing, but--
    "So basically," she sums up, "Your brother died. You think it's your fault. You made a deal with a demon to resurrect him? Demons can't do that, I'll have you know."

    You shake your head. You figured that might be the case.

    "So why'd you do it?" she asks.

    "No-one else can, either."

    "Oh, I see how it is."

    You look at her. "See how what is?"

    "You're like me," she says. "An idiot. We're two big fat idiots, who've joined the losing side in a war older than the universe. We're weak, we're stupid, I barely even have the motivation to stick with it. You made a deal with a demon? So did I. Tachibana Midori, at your service."

    You extend your hand. She shakes it in surprise.

    (...)

    She chuckles. "I made a deal with the devil, as they say. To undo her death. I just have to do one small thing, first. Nothing big. You did the same thing, right? You want to save your brother, who died for you... I want to save the girl who nearly killed me, but somehow I feel like you're the better person. Don't you want to know what you're getting into?"

    You nod.

    "I already told you. We just have to fight their war for them, that's all. A lot of things will change if we win. Rules like life and death won't be so hard and fast anymore. Not rules like electromagnetism, or gravity, either. But look around you." She waves, at Tokyo city. "Does it look like we're winning?"
    Some level of conceptual plagiarism, here. Not that I'm going to stop. It's too good an idea not to use, and your story is demonstrating that. Even if we have different takes on it.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Plagiarism comes in a few forms, but I question the applicability of any of them outside of Direct Plagiarism in fictional writing, especially when it comes to fanfiction. To not be allowed to write a particular theme, style, or viewpoint in a story because another author is writing something similar seems somewhat nonsensical. In an academic setting where the written works are the result of extensive research, effort, and possibly expense on the part of the writer, the integrity of that information is a lot more critical. In an artistic setting however...you don't cry foul when a painter paints yellow flowers in a field on a sunny day just because you were painting that too.

    And on a side note...coming from a background of coding, Self Plagiarism makes absolutely no sense to me on even a conceptual level...:p
     
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