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

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.
There has in fact been a lawsuit filed by a nutjob and her publisher over exactly this, and despite all of the lawyers involved getting constantly distracted by completely irrelevant details, the lawsuit failed completely. Themes, styles, and viewpoints are not subject to plagiarism (or as it's legally called, copyright violation) - the closest they would come is patents or trademarks, which despite big industry's attempts to conflate the three, are totally different from copyright in every way possible.

There's a two hour video by Lindsay Ellis dissecting the lawsuit in question, but since it involves fiction that would get anyone banned for posting here, those who just have to see it will have to search for the link for themselves. The lawyer who did a guest spot ended his section with "I cannot believe I just talked about [bleep] for [bleep bleeeeeeep bleeeeeeeeeeeep!]".

Also, I'm fairly certain that the protagonists of this fic would fully approve of Baughn writing whatever style and theme felt right.
 
24

24

Contains body horror, body joy, and Nazi shit


The negotiations go so poorly that the bomb going off is an improvement.

Lisa sees it first. Not because she's using her power, focused as she is on the Director and Dragon. And even if she did, what would she see? The officer doesn't know what's been slipped into his pack, and Lisa doesn't know enough about his gear to notice any difference in weight distribution or volume. No, it's because of the whispers, or the words, as four letters slam themselves into her vision, block text in the air screaming silently in her face and amplifying her own instinctive scream:

"BOMB!"

When the Thinker screams and throws herself under a table, you don't tend to second guess her.

Unfortunately for everyone, hitting the deck does them no good. The blast that goes off a full second later isn't a wave of pressure but a weaponization of space itself, an explosion of twisting reality that washes out at something like the speed of light. It takes less than a millisecond for the device to do its infernal work and tear itself apart.

The officer that unknowingly carried the bomb is reduced to twisting pink strands the consistency of taffy, a fine red mist exploding around him as the pressures involved wring his remains dry before they hit the ground.

The entire room warps and twists, the air shaking in subtle ways. But the effect is focused on people. Bones warp and break, muscles fray, nerves snap. The officer nearest him convulses and collapses, her body pulling in a hundred directions that cause a hundred fractures and then a hundred more for good measure. Another seems to explode inside his armor, flesh flowing out through every crack and joint in a hazy, undefined mass, choking and burbling the only sounds audible from within.

The Director bites straight through her teeth as her body comes apart under the stress, organs stretched to the breaking point and bruising covering her body as blood vessels burst. Above her, the Dragonsuit trying to shield her twists and warps, affected by the bomb through some odd combination of interactions - the mechanical beast sparking and grinding, its insides dragged out, silicon and metal anatomy that bleeds lubricant and fuel.

Across the negotiating table, Carol is a rock, a sphere of invincible light at the speed of thought. But she can still feel the pull of the bomb as it twists the world out from under her, trying to tear those wounds apart that had been so painstakingly shut.

Lisa's mouth tears open, her smile turned slit as blood spills from her jaws. Her eyes threaten to burst out of their sockets, out of her convulsing body, and the words spill out too, strangled croaks that might be screams, the whispers raging around her in an avalanche of speech that even the rest of us can hear, crashing down around her and battering the already ruined terrain.

The wave of twisting space washes over Amy and mangles her bodies beyond recognition. She screams in torture for a second, and then screams a little more before realizing that nothing hurts, even if she's several times the women she was a second ago.

Rachel tries to shield her dogs, despite their panic - to no avail. The blast goes straight through her, after all. The smallest one at least dies instantly from a snapped neck. The rest retch and stumble, their organs twisted like the Director's, yowls of pain muffled by warped lungs.

Neptune barely seems to notice, the water wrapped around her girlfriends and trying to shield them - again, to little effect. Venus screams a brilliant cry, her body twisted at angles too sharp even for her. Jupiter's hands writhe, misshapen and swollen, a million injuries that could only happen to her spread across her countless limbs.

Even Riley grunts as her malleable form warps and twists, bent out of her chosen shape, forcing her to spend precious seconds pulling herself back together.

In some ways, the worst victim is the building itself. The horrible sound of splintering wood echoes, branches screaming as their forms twist. Clay stretches, strains, and snaps. The radio lets out a final electronic wail as it overloads, ears ringing with the sound of the devil herself burning with her children, before it finally falls silent.

Silence, then eruption. Eden is unused to being the literal target of a bombing, so we can forgive the girls of Group West for fucking screaming their heads off (or in Neptune's case mostly cursing and yelling insults at the sky), even as Riley tries to get them on track. Carol is instantly looking for more attackers, grabbing at her phone to make a call, any call. Emily can't speak, and every movement is agony, but she still reaches for her radio to make her own calls, input her own codes. Rachel stares at the twisted form of Lisa, then at her burbling, choking dogs, and ends up grabbing one in each hand, shoving them at the mass of Amy.

"Heal!" she demands, and much to her own surprise, Amy finds that she doesn't disagree with the notion. But there are so many people to heal. Who needs to be treated now, while they still have a chance, and who's destined for the grave no matter how hard she tries? She's familiar with the concept of triage.

She fucking hates it too, and decides then and there that just this once she's going to save everyone.

"Shut up! I'll fucking heal them, okay?!" Amy yells back in triplicate, surprising both Rachel and herself with the ferocity of her voice as she spills across the shattered plaza, surrounding the fallen in desperate embraces as she pours herself and her power - no, they're one and the same now. She pours herself into the dogs. Into Lisa. Into Jupiter, Venus. Rachel. The PRT officers, at the other end of the room. The Director. Even Carol, despite her mother's protests that she's fine. Which she mostly is, but Amy's not going to have her emotional catharsis taken away from her on the same fucking day she reconciles, so no one can stop her from worrying a little too much.

Neptune waves her off. "I'll be fine, just, HRK, let me - " she coughs up what can only be described as a hairball of twisted space, and Amy rolls sixteen eyes and moves on. Riley, for her part, is already pulling and setting Venus's wings back into place with three hands and injecting Satan-knows-what-kind-of healing clay into Jupiter with seven more.

Even with the power of the devil, Amy can't quite save everyone. Miracles can only go so far. But she saves everyone who isn't already dead, and that alone is a miracle and a half.

And not a moment too soon - it's just as the Director wrenches herself from Amy's healing grasp and pulls up her radio for real this time that a star rockets into view and a twisting helix of force and light slams into the roof of the once-mall, sending a huge mass of clay and concrete down into the floor slab, a few pieces nearly splattering the newly healed into so much paste before being caught by Jupiter's still-twitching hands.

"FUCK OFF!" someone screams. Amy blinks, realizes that it's her, and decides that she's better off making every insulting gesture she can think of. Uses several dozen hands.

All she gets for her trouble is Purity firing another beam, and this one is accompanied by the sound of gunfire and a roaring mob, the director's radio crackling while Jupiter shoves blocks and pillars and brick and anything she can think of to try and support the crumbling Eden, weaving her hands past a cascade of terrified dogs as they flee the rooftop garden and race towards their mistress, who struggles to calm them all down.

"The remaining capes of the Empire are all here," Emily says, her voice ringing over the din with an energy born of Amy's 'enthusiastic' healing. "And probably every fascist they could find on short notice."

"YOU MAY DEFILE OUR CHILDREN, BUT YOU WILL NEVER DEFILE OUR SPIRIT! WE WILL CLEANSE THE PREDATORS AND THOSE WHO HOST THEM FROM OUR CITY!"

"SHUT UP!"

Amy has enough lungs to match a megaphone-enhanced Purity. Neptune gives her a thumbs up, which becomes a double thumbs up when Amy starts throwing bricks and rocks.

Lisa pulls herself to her feet, patting Amy on a shoulder, as her eyes look towards the sky, and damn the blinding radiance of the white supremacist nightlight. "No, this isn't just the Empire," she hisses. "Taking a Bakuda bomb from PRT storage. Managing to slip it into your personal escort. Coil's behind this. I'm sure he'll swoop in somehow after we're all conveniently dead to take care of the fascists and 'restore order'."

"I don't intend on dying today," the Director growls, before barking a series of orders into her radio, too fast and full of jargon to follow. But we catch the words 'use of force authorization' more than once between deployment orders and demands for support from the national Protectorate.

Even Rachel gets the gist, and she can't help but grin. At least in this exhilarating, beautiful and horrible moment, everyone is working together, and the might of the American state is for once going into crushing people who need to be crushed.

But courts and cops tomorrow won't save us today if the distant screaming mob breaks through. Or if Purity manages to bring down the roof on us. Venus flits into the air, her light shielding our figures from the airborne assault, and light smashes into the glowing wings to little effect. But when Purity brushes off the counter-attack in much the same way, Lisa shakes her head.

"Purity's made of light when her power is active, or close enough to it. The light at the end of the tunnel?" She cocks her head at the whisper, before dismissing it. "Venus! Come down here! You can't hurt her!"

"But I really want to hurt her!" the wings whine.

"At least let someone else have a clear shot, then!"

This turns out to be the right call, as an officer steps up from behind Emily, her helmet shielding her from the worst of the light as she raises her handgun and unloads a magazine (or is it a clip?) towards the shining star, which jitters and jerks, unloading a wave of force a second later and sending them all scrambling for cover again - but something made of metal and plastic falls from her form.

"Hey! You got her stupid megaphone!" Amy cheers (once her ears stop bleeding), and grabs the woman's hand for a highfive, too quickly for her to respond with anything beyond vague bemusement.

"Less fooling around! Night and Fog just killed four of my best people," Emily snaps, looking up from her crackling radio.

"Night's the one who turns into a monster when she isn't being looked at, right?" Venus huffs. "Just point me where to go, and I'll look at her so hard."

"Mom, let me do it. Amy's got healing covered, and you should be here if everyone needs to fly out," Riley counters, fiddling with a radio plugged into her ears like a stethoscope. "Besides, uhm… they sound kinda like me. Or what I think I sounded like. I want to try and help them, like you helped me."

It's touching, for a moment, before another rain of force, albeit made unsteady by counter-fire, sends everyone diving for fresh cover. Emily curses, and glares at the currently redheaded Tinker girl.

"Go, then. I'll let you do whatever you want with the villains if you can keep my men alive."

She nods ever so slightly, all humor gone from her face.

"You know, you're really aiming high for your first date!" Neptune teases, and then Riley throws an empty syringe at her and leaps up through the crumbling ceiling, pushing herself off of a stray hand and quickly vanishing over the side of the roof.

"Brandish."

"Ma'am."

"Support the officers by the main entrance. Keep back the mob."

"Yes, ma'am!"

"I'll go too!" Neptune cheers. "I've always wanted to scream at a hate mob!"

The ocean washes towards the entrance before Emily can say anything to stop her, and honestly she doesn't even try. Even with her momentarily taking charge of us kids, she seems to recognize that Neptune is one girl she can't hope to control. Carol follows in her wake, weary but determined.

Emily turns to Rachel, Amy and Lisa, the only parahumans not already scrambling. Rachel meets her eyes, and a chorus of every empowered dog growls gently behind her. None of us except maybe Lisa can see the bone-deep exhaustion that growing so many dogs so fast draws out of her, despite Amy's best efforts to keep Rachel topped up (complicated by the fact that she's also scrambling to keep the dogs that aren't being empowered under control in their terror).

Once again, hostile action saves us, in the form of a green ghost hacking his way through the wall, then another, then another.

"Crusader!" Lisa shouts, despite wondering why the ghostly figures are stabbing and tearing their way through walls they should just be passing through - ah, of course. The roots. They don't pass through living things, after all.

Jupiter's hands are occupied trying to hold up and repair their cover, and she's obviously strained. Venus just flitted off into the air, trying to draw attention and fire away from her faltering girlfriend. But there's still one very clear set of massive, living attack beasts ready to go…

The Director reaches the same conclusion, and gestures towards the encroaching wave of hazy forms. "Bitch," she says, managing the uncouth cape name without a stumble. "Can your dogs take them out?"

"No fucking shit they can. Don't let anyone hurt the rest of my dogs, or my Lisa," Rachel growls, shoving the latter into Amy and ignoring both of their S-class blushes as she turns back to Crusader's approaching minions, stalking forward and whipping her head from side to side. Her finger sweeps from ghost to ghost, an angry, angry grin plastering itself onto her face.

"KILL!"

Howls echo throughout the night, as the pack descends on the ghosts. It takes a bit for them to get used to how the ghosts pass through walls, but fortunately they don't pass through the ground, at least not too far. And biting still works.

With the dogs holding off Crusader, and Venus holding off Purity, Jupiter has a second to rest, but only a second, before she starts frantically kneading and melding clay back into place, a hackjob to repair the tree of life, to restore its calming aura and its fruit of peace. Amy helps the clay flow, and throws in a few chunks of extra flesh, but neither of them can do anything for the radios, though Amy can at least patch up the delicate organs and tissues that Riley designed.

Emily pulls Lisa to her side, and promises that if Lisa doesn't reveal any state secrets, she won't be shot for knowing state secrets. If Lisa finds any state secrets, well, she doesn't say them, and the Thinker takes the offer for what it is, throwing together words and string as she listens to Emily's radio, occasionally adding her insights as to who might be a spy and who can be trusted.

Swimming through the air and fighting through Purity's blasts while occasionally throwing out her own, Venus can see everything. The mob struggling to break through waves of containment foam and batons (and one invincible sphere of light) there, while just a block over, fascists with pistols trade live rounds with PRT officers. Neptune is in both places, pushing back the crowd with waves of thick liquid, draining the exhaustion from faltering paracops and pushing them back onto their feet where she can, and of course cackling and bantering the whole way, loud enough to be heard even from up here.

(It's nice to have something to drown out Purity's increasingly unhinged rantings. Otherwise she might have to listen. Purity accidentally gendering her correctly and then furiously trying to 'correct' herself was funny once, but after about seven times or so, it's getting pretty old.)

There's Miss Militia, arriving on the scene only to trade shots with an Empire cape she doesn't recognize - some lady in a cowboy hat - with Armsmaster's distinctive blue bike not far behind. And there's Riley, hand to hand with Night and Fog, surrounded by winged eyes matching the ones growing all over the Tinker's body, and scattered urns leaking thin blue mist - the former obviously to counter Night, while the latter must be somehow neutralizing Fog. Riley seems to be holding her own against the duo, but she isn't able to get the upper hand - one of them throws a flashbang or smoke grenade whenever they're in danger, giving Night a window to transform and tear into Riley, forcing her to back off and regenerate.

It looks like this is going to be a long, exhausting siege.

Then Venus spots something. A form concealed by baggy clothes, walking towards one of the few parts of the PRT perimeter not actively being encircled. They pull their hood off. A white boy with a chubby face and neat blonde hair, raising his hands as guns lift to point at his feet. Still swirling around Purity's attacks, Venus nonetheless strains to see and hear the odd encounter.

Stop right there! This is a restricted area!

I know, sir. But I need to speak with Purity. Sir.

Speak with - who the hell are you?

I'm her stepson, sir. Theo Anders. I believe that I can talk her down, sir.

… what the hell. You got an ID, kid?

Yes sir.

Show it to Corporal Shields, here.


Venus flutters closer, pulling on her portable radio and listening close to the crystal diode. She can just about make out the boy's soul in the waveform, and he seems pretty genuine, more than most anyone around her -

A helix of force smashes into her from behind, tearing through wings and eyes with contemptuous ease in stark contrast to how she had so easily absorbed Purity's light before. Venus shrieks in pain, thrown downwards as her body bleeds and sizzles - sent into a tailspin and spiraling to Earth like Lucifer falling from heaven.

She crashes directly on top of the PRT's blockade, sprawling across an armored car with an undignified squawk.

Purity hovers in the air, gathering force to finish the job even as guns train themselves skyward - and then, she catches the eyes of one Theo Anders, stepping between her and her victims.

If she has any doubt as to the boy standing in her way, it disappears when he shouts upwards to her, a wavering but grimly determined voice.

"Kayden!"

The monster that happens to be a human being becomes a human being that happens to be a monster in real time. She drops, not quite to street level but close enough that he can look up at her without straining his neck. The light this close is blinding, but he stares at her anyways.

"Theo," she murmurs, so soft that Venus can barely hear it.

"Kayden. Stop. Please," he insists. His eyes squeeze shut. He looks utterly terrified.

"You know that I can't stop. That I'm doing this for Aster."

"Stop, or… or y-you'll never see her again."

Purity falls to the street like a puppet with her strings cut. The light goes out, revealing a face - painfully ordinary above the white bodysuit. She's not even blonde.

"What? I don't… w-what? She…. y-you…" She stammers for a moment, before regaining her composure, and a hint of her killing intent. "You're lying! You couldn't, you wouldn't…"

"I did it as… as soon as you left. I had to." His face creases, brows furrowed, and then his voice raises. Theo builds up energy, glaring right at her with all of his might, however meager and human. "I should have done it sooner, Kayden!"

"Theo! Theo?! What on earth are you saying, Theo? This is a lie, this is a trick, this has to be…"

"Kayden." He closes his eyes again, breathes in hard. "You said you were going to be a hero. For a while, I at least thought you were trying. Then - when our identities were leaked. How many people did you kill just to keep Aster?"

His eyes open.

"They were taking her away, yes. Away from Kaiser, from capes, from violence. Away from monsters like you. And don't tell me she wouldn't have been safe. She's not safe here, because you kept her here."

Purity just stares, tears clouding her eyes. Theo keeps talking, his own face going through a million warring emotions.

The troopers surround them, but don't shoot. It's quite polite of them.

"If you really cared about her, maybe you'd be willing to become a better person for her, Kayden. But you haven't. You've gotten worse! Running right back to Kaiser. Working with the Empire. And now this ridiculous war of yours. This is who you want her mother to be? This is how you want her to grow up? Do you really care about her at all, Kayden?"

"You don't believe that," Purity insists. One wonders who she's trying to convince.

"I do. You've had so many chances to change, and you've taken none of them. So… surrender, please. You and Aster are the only family I have left. Surrender and… and I'll try to help you, Kayden, for whatever that's worth."

Purity stares into the silence, her lips working silently. Theo stares back, resignation and sadness on his face, but still managing to keep eye contact with her.

"...okay," she finally breathes out, a tiny, defeated voice.

Theo gingerly approaches her, and offers her his hand. She takes it, and instantly bursts out sobbing.

The officers surround them.

Venus watches the family drama from the side of the car that had been her crash point. A trooper - not a full combat medic, but Venus insists she doesn't need one - is listening if not watching, his gaze more focused on delicately wrapping bleeding wings and eyes with gauze, glowing clots welling up behind the fabric.

"He seems like a good kid," he murmurs.

She nods. The officer doesn't realize half of what those two words mean to her, but Venus appreciates the gesture for what it is.

And you know what? Theo does seem like a good kid, for better and for worse. Not much like any of the good kids she's known, but then, none of the good kids she's known have been the heirs to a fascist street gang. She would have noticed.

With its figurehead gone, the mob loses steam. A gaggle of green ghosts try to take Purity back, but Venus manages to stare them into submission; Crusader flees into the city moments later. Neptune casually knocks huge swathes of the crowd off their feet with roaring waves, leaving them easy pickings for the PRT officers; others peel away in small groups or as individuals. Venus flutters back into the air, and sees Riley with Night and Fog… having tea? It's an absurd sight, made terrifying by the sheer number of guns pointed at the three of them, and the fact that Night has a flashbang in her palm, Fog is barely solid enough to hold a teacup, and Riley currently has enough spikes on her to look more porcupine than girl. But somehow, whatever she's doing works well enough that none of the guns go off.

Armsmaster and Miss Militia finally close in on the cowboy hat lady, only for said lady to point her revolver at her own head, scream "You'll never take me alive!" and fire before anyone can stop her. But instead of blowing her brains out, she simply disappears, with the gun itself clattering to the ground in her wake. A moment later, Venus spots a figure in a familiar cowboy hat, falling out of the sky a good few miles away.

How absolutely bizarre.

We meet up again, this time in one of Eden's side rooms colonized by the PRT and Emily's orders into a temporary command center. It's much less roomy than the main plaza, but now that we're not all about to start throwing powers at each other, it does just fine. Besides, it has intact chairs and tables.

Not that it's any less chaotic when Venus returns there. Lisa is in the center of the room, scrawling on anything she can get her hands on, drawing a conspiracy board of glass and wire with the help of a few stray hands. Who can be trusted, and who's under the influence of the serpent? The whispers roll over her ears and spill across her eyes, letters dancing in her vision. If she lets herself go, she might become one of them, a specter of screaming secrets. Secrets to hurt and secrets to kill.

Amy has healed everyone she can heal, and doesn't feel like turning them into monsters of meat and mayhem, or creating monsters of meat and mayhem. Not even if they'd asked, which they don't. But after that attack? She's worked up a great desire to hit someone. To fight. Throwing insults and rocks at Purity just wasn't enough, especially when she couldn't hit her with any of them.

Victoria takes down criminals all the time and she seems to have her shit together.

Amy wants some of that. This Coil guy tried to kill the damn PRT director, that means he's fair game, right? She's familiar with the unwritten rules and how much they're worth, of course, and right now it seems like they're worth very very little, for better and for worse. Someone tried to kill her, her family, the strange devils that had turned her life upside down, even the Undersiders of all people. Tattletale - Lisa - can probably find that someone, point Amy like a gun, let her angry desire take care of the rest. And for once, she doesn't want to hold back. To focus her anger, maybe, to deliver it precisely. But to stop it? Absolutely not.

So Amy pulls on her fuzzy awareness of her own bodies, sculpts herself for war. She'd probably ask Riley for advice, but miss golem bio-Tinker is still occupied with her little pet project Nazis, forcibly talking them through a tea party which she refuses to allow to end. If that monster can rehabilitate those monsters, more power to her, but Amy's not touching that with a fifteen-foot pole. Instead she experiments on her own. The human clay of the renovated mall yields to her touch, and she twists it alongside her own skin and muscle and fat, trying different combinations of development pathways, heat and pressure and epigenetic impulses.

Venus, for her part, ends up drawn into a conversation across the room. Armsmaster - Colin, though we don't know that - stares at a pile of broken robot parts, and occasionally glances at the bothersome Neptune next to him playing with a hairball of broken space. The Tinker was definitely charismatic before, but right now he seems to emit a baseline level of sullenness. Which is understandable, given what happened during the battle with Leviathan and the consequences he received, though only the PRT and maybe the Undersiders know the details. Right now, though, a mix of worry and fascination has swept him up and out of his funk.

"-you're sure the bomb didn't have a conventional component that did this?"

"Clear as crystal, halberd guy!"

"I felt the transmission," Venus offers, flitting over as she stares at Armsmaster's complex armor and the remains of Dragon's mecha all in one wingbeat. "The… signal of the bomb, if you could call it that. It was tuned for living things, or the space they were in. It wasn't… it wasn't tuned for meat, I don't think. This machine wasn't meat, but it was definitely alive, you know? Which… would mean that we are looking at a corpse."

He frowns at the thought. Colin's not sure how much of her analysis he believes - he's already gotten a sense of how much the devils talk in metaphor and abstraction - but the implications are still troubling.

The central display of the control center, however, has to be Emily herself, arguing animatedly with Rachel. Well, Rachel is certainly animated, as is Jupiter, representing the devils in this. Miss Militia - Hannah, though again we don't know that - is there as well, her weapon a knife by her side, her eyes alert above the flag-patterned scarf, but she says little, not wanting to contradict her boss. Emily, by contrast, doesn't seem to quite fit into her newly healed body, her movements and face a bit too stiff for a frame that's clearly built for physical exertion.

"He hurt my team. He dies," Rachel growls, staring the Director dead in the eye. "Don't make it more complicated than it has to be."

Director Piggot's answering glare betrays little. "You need supervision. You need rules of engagement. You need a plan. You want to, what, take on a powerful Thinker in his own base, with access to a solid team of parahumans - suspected to be related to forty disappearances in New York, let's not forget that - along with dozens of trained mercenaries with Tinkertech armaments and an unknown number of independents?"

Lisa takes that moment to barge into the frame. "Don't forget Dinah Alcott! Wait, did I forget to tell you about Dinah Alcott? Kidnapped parahuman, sees future as percentages, drugged and coerced to use her power for Coil?" Her grin slips off her face for a moment as she glances to the side, listening to the whispers about a young eye, a prize - a prize put there by who? - and the thought starts to pound in her head -

"Lisa!" Rachel snaps, and it sounds almost like she's about to say 'Heel!', but Lisa snaps back to her, grins again (a bit more shakily) and carries on before Rachel can say anything too mortifying.

"So! So the longer we wait, the more likely it is that he'll see us coming. He might not even know his attack failed yet, for all we know. Unless any of you can block precognition?"

Armsmaster is sure he could figure something out, given time. Venus, in particular, is extra sure she could figure something out.

But they don't get a word in. Jupiter speaks up, crushing bricks into dust as her hands writhe with fury at the thought.

"We've never needed a plan before. Emotions and intimacy, they got us through Jack freakin' Slash, didn't they?"

"I prefer helping people myself, but we're pretty good at murder too when there's a need for it," Venus adds.

A lot of people stare.

Venus stares back, her eyes lifting in a brightening smile, daring anyone to call her out. Neptune whistles approvingly.

The Director resists the urge to palm her face, but barely.

"You're not lying to me. You're lying to yourselves, which is worse."

"We've got plenty of information and strong powers," Tattletale insists. "You have a leaky organization, an anti-parahuman complex, and way too much red tape to do this at the speed it needs in order to catch Coil off guard."

Emily smiles at that, catching Lisa off guard. "That is where you're wrong. I can send Miss Militia or Armsmaster there at any time. All I need to wait on is an actual plan. Which, I would note, you have still not offered."

There's no room to speak the exact plan on screen anyways - that would doom it to failure. But Lisa finally relents enough to actually do the planning. Coil has not so much one base as a sprawling complex of bases, bunkers disguised as canceled Endbringer shelters, tunnels connecting to various points within and between artificial caverns, safehouses branching off from Brockton's sewer system. A lot of that collapsed after Leviathan - but Lisa is pretty sure she knows where Dinah is being kept, along with the Travelers and his other key assets, centralized in a single secure location. There's a self-destruct, of course, but he won't use it if he can't escape the effects. Sure, he can try it in one timeline and discard it if he can't get out, but that ties up his power.

The point is, his base is surprisingly OSHA compliant, at least as far as means of egress are concerned. They have enough overwhelming force that they can probably take anything he throws in a straight fight - the concern is not that they can't take him, but that they can't stop him from fleeing, or from unveiling some complication.

So, they need to split up, surround the entrances. Lisa proposes pairing off, but the devils refuse any group smaller than three, on philosophical grounds. Two is a bad number for the devil, you see. It doesn't take too much convincing to go to three, though.

First, they'll pick up the rest of the Undersiders. Rachel is confident they'll assist, or she'll make them assist. Besides, they need to assure Taylor's safety. They're pretty sure that Brian, Aisha and Alex are at the hospital with Taylor right now. Neptune happens to know how to get there fast, so she'll just bring the other devils and Amy there, put up some kind of temporary protection, and take off towards the designated entrance points.

Also, Amy is involved, we forgot to mention. And cheerfully talking about how she can put Taylor into a chrysalis, a cocoon, to keep her protected until Riley or Amy have a chance to give her the attention she needs. Fitting for Skitter the bug girl, and she's pretty sure she can make it safe from anything short of another Bakuda bomb and who has those just lying around, anyway?

Carol stares blankly at her daughter. "Are you… sure?"

"Never surer! I don't want to mess with her head anyways. She went down as a hero," Amy rumbles.

And it is absolutely a rumble, because Amy has changed herself for war. The mass of humanity has gathered, compressed on itself, bulked up. The sprawling garden of flesh is contained within a shell of hard ceramic, an immense snail - bigger than an SUV but smaller than a box truck. Rather than a slithering foot below, however, the shell has wrapped around the bottom, giving the impression of a round-keeled sailing vessel, a ship of the line of porcelain armor, with a cute little fleshy tail sticking out the back for a rudder. Gunports on the side pop open occasionally, lifted by grasping hands to reveal the squirming mass of Amy at the warform's core, little portholes pushed apart to let through tentacles. Some of the hatches are meant for people to climb inside and be healed. Two pairs near the top let out two sets of long, fleshy wings, stretched skin like a bat, painted black so as not to appear quite as gruesome. Though the wings are mostly cosmetic, as Amy floats on her own desire with the wings folded upright into dark sails for the moment. Not all of her is biology anymore, after all, and she's quickly learning to make the most of it.

A massive woman emerges from the front of the shell, a single huge Amy who'd easily stand ten feet tall if she wasn't all snailing ship below the waist. Porcelain plates whorl around her head in a massive, ornate helmet, and more of the plates roll over her flesh, overlapping scales of protection on a… shall we say, generous body. She grins beneath the bony protection, two smaller, modest arms crossed over her midsection or what passes for it while her massive main arms flex, showing off the vicious talons at the end, claws of bone and ceramic.

Victoria would love the helmet, Amy thinks, imagining herself with an immense sword, the picture of some monstrous knight. It's a surprisingly nice thought, considering the context. It makes her feel less like an unattainable paragon to desperately desire and more like a person. A friend, a family member, just someone who she can appreciate in her life. Thinking about her in the context of complaining about how 'chainmail' is a totally ahistoric and made up term - and don't get her started on 'scale mail' or 'plate mail'! - feels grounding, in a sense. Amy really needs that.

Besides, if she wants carnal pleasure, she's just found someone who definitely wants to fuck her, or at least kiss her. Sure, Rachel is a villain, but the sheer blandness with which she brought it up makes that feel almost irrelevant. Transactional, but in a good way - no attachments, no mess.

All that said, the image guides Amy a bit, and as Carol looks her over, Amy thickens the fibers between the plates, shores up the vulnerable points with soft armor. She still doesn't make a sword - she wouldn't know how to use it! - but she does make something else knightly. Vines grow off her body and twist into ropes and cords before unraveling into fibers, winding back together into cloth and fabric. A white tabard rolls over her armor of plate and scale and shell and muscle, neatly belted in place and adorned with a familiar red cross.

She never did like it that much, did she? Amy thinks on it for a moment, then focuses, drawing out the pigments. The simple cross becomes asymmetric, with the three top points flowering outwards while the bottom point draws downwards, pulled into a long, sharp point. It could easily be a sword with an ornate crossguard and pommel, or perhaps just a more ornate cross you might find on a piece of heraldry. Besides being slightly kinder to the Geneva convention, it feels right. More martial.

Carol watches this all in silence, and then finally speaks. "That's not what I'm worried about, Amy. Healing is one thing, but going out to fight?"

The healer-turned crusader pauses, midway through unfurling flags over her shell (not unlike the ones Riley had unfurled over her spider, come to think of it).

She bites her lip, but then nods firmly.

Though she knows what she wants, she's not sure how to actually say it for a good long moment.

"...A hot girl offered to have sex with me and I can't let her get herself killed before I can take her up on that," Amy finally manages. The nuclear blush appears for a moment, but she grins stupidly all the same. "I'll figure it out one way or another."

Rachel glares in affront, but doesn't tell Amy off. Carol laughs, awkwardly but not unkindly. A few others offer little smiles.

But back to our plan. Take care of Taylor, pick up the other three Undersiders, then converge on Coil's complex, in four groups. Rachel, Lisa, Amy. Jupiter, Venus, Neptune. Brian, Aisha, Alex. And ideally, Riley, Armsmaster, and Miss Militia.

(Incidentally, Riley has freed herself from her tea party, clearly by drugging the two Nazis somehow given they're passed out cold. This seems pretty reasonable, given that they are Nazis.

Riley's suggestion to resurrect the 'corpse' of Dragon's mech sounds much less reasonable, even though she could probably do it. The philosophical implications of such an action would be a headache unto themselves. We have enough headaches already.)

The Director can provide others as backup if needed, but none of the girls are eager for more minders.

Four groups, four directions of attack. An encirclement. But they need to be able to communicate, to respond rapidly - if Coil draws his forces together, three won't be enough to stop a breakout. PRT comms are almost certainly compromised. Venus offers a solution - not the girl's old radios, but a new set, twelve personal communication devices. Entangled, bound together by a shared origin - the bones of a saint.

What?

She gestures to the remains of Dragon.

Oh. Fair enough.

Venus extracts twelve pieces of metal and circuitry as delicately as if she really were handling the body of a saint. Armsmaster helps, but makes the mistake of commenting that it all seems a bit like magic.

She smiles, a little too smug for comfort. "Aren't you just using a different kind of magic? Your powers hardly follow the laws of physics either."

"It could be sufficiently advanced technology!" Riley pipes up. "But like, even if it is, knowing how a gun works doesn't tell you how to fight a war, right? Though that's not a good metaphor, passengers are more like soldiers than guns, they've got their own agency and clearly can change what power they give to fit the situation-"

Riley's theories about powers as living things are, admittedly, interesting, but they'd still imply a certain science, rules about biology or sociology or psychology rather than physics. When Venus talks about pieces of Dragon's mech as 'the bones of a saint', it's hard to see that as anything but mysticism.

Then again, if they've gotten this far with mysticism, it clearly works for them. Maybe he should try it himself sometime?

While the Tinkers tinker, and the planners plan, Neptune works on her own magic, her own ritual. Though it's a lot less mystical than Venus's work. No double bubble toil and trouble for all that her handle is RestingWitchFace, no bones of steel and circuitry. There's still symbolism, of course, but most of it is emotional, wrapped up in her mind and body. The feeling of movement, the weight of rushing water. A current, carrying things from here to there. A whirlpool gathers below her as she closes her eyes, focuses. Bearing burdens and poisons is something that comes easily to her, taking the slings and arrows of the world. Bearing herself from place to place, even splitting, everywhere like the all-consuming ocean? Very doable. Bearing people, now that's trickier. She's done it like a dozen times, but usually under duress. Calling it on command, it takes focus. Concentration.

Dancing in circles and chanting helps too, but that's more a mnemonic than anything. Neptune stays still and focuses on her interiority.

A painful hour passes, maybe two. Rachel argues with everyone about where her dogs will go. Director Piggot needs to be escorted somewhere safe. Riley can drop the dogs that aren't fighting off at a shelter on the way, or maybe hide them within Labby until the mission is done. As for the Director, the PRT HQ is hardly safe, but it has the Wards in it, or what's left of them, and Carol can bring the remainder of New Wave there for the occasion. (Emily doesn't tell them about Shadow Stalker ignoring her calls. Lisa notices the absence, but has bigger things to worry about for once.)

Venus passes out nine sacred ribs, pendants hanging tight around the neck with a curling earpiece on one side and a long, coiling antenna on another. They won't last forever, but they'll be good enough for this fight. She wants to return them to Dragon whenever the hero calls back in, anyway.

Neptune builds her tunnel of water until it feels like holding back a tidal wave, and reflects that she may have overdone it.

But at least, they break. At last, five of them gather around the whirlpool.

Rachel, her grin one of anger and promised violence, stroking and soothing a dog beside her. Her chance to kill the bastard who hurt her dogs, who hurt her friends. She wouldn't miss it for the world.

Lisa, vibrating with energy, listening to whispers and her power, worried, scared, but putting on a brave face. For so long she's been under the serpent's boot. Is this a chance to finally be free?

Amy, pulsating with desire, a heady mixture of anxiety and excitement and rage and hope that leaves her head spinning and her heart pounding - only the need to help contain the pent up violence in almost a dozen dogs brimming with Rachel's power in potential beneath the skin keeps her grounded. She's looking forward to hitting something.

Venus, nervous excitement, fiddling with the holy bones of steel. A fidget, more than a Tinkering. The depths of an underground base don't suit her at all, but she trusts her loved ones to make it safe for her, or at least bearable.

Jupiter, clenching and unclenching, her hands imagining all the things that this Coil has done to Dinah Alcott and to Lisa, all the things he would do to them and their friends. She's not much of a killer, but against this monster? She's starting to see the appeal.

And of course in the middle is Neptune, wiping off a smear of ink as she stands atop the maelstrom, a conductor and a magician at once bowing before her audience.

"Neptune Limited Lines, at your service! Six passengers (plus many dogs) to Brockton General Hospital, in comfort and quality, faster than you can blink!"

Venus smiles. "You're totally lying. Right?"

"Too late now!" she cackles. "Down we go, ladies!"

Venus and Jupiter descend into the swirling pool without a second thought. Lisa is ready to go, but she looks to Rachel for confirmation - and really seeing it, Rachel suddenly has second thoughts. Bad memories.

"I'm not gonna fuckin' drown my dogs in there. We can walk."

"This is the fastest way to get to Taylor," Lisa quietly murmurs.

"... I can take care of them?" Amy offers quietly. "Put them inside my shell, keep them warm and dry. It won't be that different from when you use your power on them."

Rachel glares at Lisa, but quickly turns her eyes to Amy, instead. Amy, to her credit, holds her gaze.

"...Fine. Do it. Don't make me regret it."

Amy does as ordered, ever so gently leading the dogs into the shell with scratches and pets and little happy noises, marveling at the simple joy of their brains, before sealing them up in a cocoon of what might best be described as snuggling flesh. Deep breaths to pressurize and oxygenate the cocoon, plates and skin to seal it against the waves which might be gentle or might crush them.

Then she sails on into the storm, without hesitation. Rachel glances at Lisa, grabs her, and dives in after.

Neptune laughs, and pours herself through the whirlpool a moment later.


A/N: Good heavens, look at the time! So, uh. Have a chapter. I promise we're in the home stretch, and my plan is to have the story finished by the new year.
 
Oh sweet! Glad to see this back.

Nice mix of Nazi-fighting, some good talking, and more awkward girls lol. Time for a re-read as well I suppose.
 
Praise the Devil! A beloved story has returned.

Amy's war form sounds incredibly cool.
 
I am fucking delighted to see this story return. Solid chapter. There was enough context included that my fading memories of story details were renewed without rereading the rest of the story. I appreciated the hell out of that, I had no time to savor a full read today. I loved quite a few of the narrative flourishes throughout - it feels like this style (I gather it's similar to the game?) really suits you. If it doesn't suit you, extra kudos, because you made it work. Amy's war form description has a nice nebulous-yet-detailed quality to it that meshes nicely with the other devil forms.
 
Exceptional as always. It scratches all those hard-to-reach itches in ways few other stories can.

I wonder if Alex is going to be transformed by this upcoming fight. No one likes to compare themselves to Coil, but the full scope of that snake's manipulations are about to see the light. Introspection is painful, but can allow one to heal.
 
25 (all)

25


Brockton Bay General Hospital is - or was, depending on how you look at it - not quite a riot of activity. Riots of activity were the days, maybe the week after Leviathan, when Brockton Bay was hanging on by a thread. This is more of a low simmer of activity, a new normal just shy of being an ongoing crisis.

Unless the malaria outbreak gets much worse. There's maybe one mosquito net for every four people who need them, and with the sheer amount of flooding, the damn bugs are everywhere. If only there was a bug controlling cape who could exterminate them, right?

Danny Hebert is much too busy to think about the irony. There's only so much energy he can expend on hospital and PRT bureaucracy, but if he stops acting now, he feels like he might collapse and never be able to get back up. So he racks up phone bills calling around the Dockworkers, Kurt and Lacey and all the rest. Most of the people he knows he at least knows where they are, right now, so he's moved on to calling friends of friends, family from out of state, anyone he can beg or cajole to send support. Even Congressmen, for all the good it'll do.

While he scurries around behind the scenes, Aisha Laborn is making herself visible. She doesn't want to stray too far from her self-appointed task of watching over Taylor while Lisa and Rachel get themselves into trouble, not while Coil is up to no good. But at the same time, she can't really just hover in front of her room. Alex and Brian are already taking care of that, she'd just draw attention. And besides, there are enough cops around that one of them might possibly stop something bad if it happened. Maybe.
So she installs herself in the lobby. A central place, to watch comings and goings. Besides, it lets her try something. Aisha levers herself up in the air, sets her own body still with an exertion of will. Decorated in scavenged clothing and a few stitches of her metallic hair to clean things up, she becomes the very picture of a medical witch, sitting side-saddle atop a… what's it called, the staff with the snakes? That thing. Dressed at the intersection of 'actual nurse uniform' and 'sexy nurse costume', complete with a classic nurse cap set at a jaunty angle and framing her playful smile.

Sitting in the air, she draws attention, draws notice, occasionally lets herself move just enough to scare the shit out of people who get too handsy, and does her best to radiate the power of the Monument outwards. Remember helpful things, forget hurtful things. Good vibes? She tries to project good vibes. She has no idea if it works, but it can't hurt.

Then a problem shows up.

The athletic, dark-skinned girl looks done as hell with this shit, but is still practically dragging along the red-headed white girl, who looks like she's seen a ghost and is currently being dragged towards said ghost.

Their eyes meet Aisha's. Well, the black girl's eyes meet Aisha's. The redhead is looking elsewhere.

These two feel familiar. Not her memory, but someone else's. A bad, bad memory. Aisha doesn't know all the details, but she knows the outline of it.

Her eyes narrow a fraction. To her credit, the other black girl meets her gaze without backing down.

Sophia Hess is mostly too done with this shit to be scared of an upjumped statue, even if said statue happens to be an infectious Breaker. She's already a Breaker, what, is she going to become a double Breaker? That's not a fucking thing. Besides, this is her best idea for getting Emma to shut the fuck up and get over herself after Sophia unwisely informed her what had happened to Hebert.

So the girl triggered. So what! Lots of people trigger and lots of people don't. What matters is how you handle it. And Taylor apparently handled it by becoming a goddamn crazy bitch throwing herself at Leviathan with a spidersilk suit and a bunch of bugs. Good for her. Why Emma's making such a big deal of it, Sophia can't say. The girl's obviously not alright, but what the hell is Sophia supposed to do about it? Therapy's never worked for her anyway. This is her best bet. Maybe if Emma sees Taylor in the bed, she'll chill out. Or at least stop screaming about how Taylor can't be Skitter.

So, uh, Sophia just drags Emma right past Aisha after a long moment of awkward silence. Since there are PRT goons on the elevators, Sophia takes Emma up the stairs instead. This does involve a lot of bulling her way past people, but… Sophia isn't awful at that, honestly. She's visiting a friend. Why the stairs? Emma needs the exercise, which is true. At least she doesn't have to drag Emma once they start climbing to the sixth floor.

By the end Emma's too out of breath to babble. Sophia's not exactly winded, but she moves on quickly enough that she doesn't notice the statue following them up the stairs. Not that she would have turned back if Piggot herself was… okay, maybe if the Director was following her. But anything short of that, she wouldn't care. She's come this far, might as well see it through.

The two move quickly and purposefully, or at least Sophia does, since she knows where they're keeping Skitter. Emma is still shaking a little, but she's not babbling, and she keeps up, the pair weaving through the typical movements of nurses and orderlies, looking for all the world like they belong. Turns out that if you look like you have somewhere to be and don't take any shit, you can get pretty far.

Far enough that she steps up to the door, the number jotted down in her memory, and throws the door open.

"See, Emma? She's right fucking here, so-"

Sophia freezes.

Taylor Hebert is unconscious in the bed, that's not surprising. But there's a handsome boy sitting in a chair next to her, still holding her hand as his head whips to face her. And some pasty twink-ass fucker in a skirt next to him, but Sophia doesn't really give a shit about them.

Because she recognizes this boy. The fucking boyfriend. The kiss, that rat's smug little smile-

"You," Sophia growls.

"You," he rumbles in return. "Get out."

Emma stares into the open door, and starts to sob. For fuck's sake!

"You're the psycho bitch, right?" skirtfuck casually asks, looking vaguely amused, but more bored than anything. "Your girlfriend isn't looking too hot, there. Gonna bite her tears off?"

"She's not my-" Sophia starts, then clamps herself down. Starting a fight in a hospital would be a stupid fucking idea. It's hard to remember that when she's so steaming mad, though.

The boy stands up suddenly, making his way towards the door. Suddenly he looks less like the useless piece of man meat being shown off by the rat and more like a thug in his own right - probably one of the Undersiders, she recognizes belatedly. No, almost certainly. This has to be Grue, it doesn't fit any of the others, and the thought pisses her off even more, though she can't quite hold it in her head - the villain who took a crossbow bolt from her and still wouldn't fuck off is the same trophy boy Hebert was parading around?

Sophia steps in front of Emma, the redhead latching onto her as if on instinct. "Don't touch her," she warns.

She's a bit caught off guard when girlyboy bursts out laughing.

Then Grue slams the door in her face.

Sophia blinks for a moment at the solid wood slab, then turns around. Emma is still there, brushing against her skin. Unfortunately, it seems like half the hospital has noticed their fight. A lot of people are staring at them… including one upjumped statue.

"What are you doing fucking with my brother, weirdo? Get the hell out," Aisha huffs, glaring at the bitch who she just about remembers fucking with them.

"None of your business, statue freak," Sophia growls, pulling Emma back from the brink as the redhead stares, listless. What's in that girl's head? She can only guess now.

(she's a cape? Taylor can't be a cape. She can't be, she's supposed to be weak, the victim, the one I'm stronger than)

Aisha can practically feel the memory as she glances at the girl beside Sophia. Nose. Eye. Mouth… What the hell? She hasn't felt someone else's memory quite so vividly before. Is that why the redhead is so… everything she is right now?

For fuck's sake, the girl is still crying. Quietly, but she's still crying.

"Didn't I hear something about your girlfriend? You really should take care of her. She looks like shit," Aisha deadpans.

Sophia opens her mouth to make a familiar retort, realizes it's familiar, and closes her mouth, settling for glaring death at Aisha. Emma pushes deeper into her arms, and Sophia looks a little awkward with the whole thing, but she doesn't resist.

Aisha can at least respect that this girl doesn't take any shit, even if she's clearly also an asshole.

They glare at each other for a few more seconds before a commotion draws them away. A flood of water rushes out of the nearest bathroom, slipping under the closed door and rolling across the hospital tile before forming a whirlpool in the center of the hallway, a liquid portal to somewhere else. Somebody starts yelling. Several somebodies start yelling, in fact.

Before anyone can do anything major, though, a flurry of wings and eyes bursts out of the vortex, a storm of hands emerging moments later. "Excuse us! Coming through! Slippery when wet!" Venus hollers, eyes laughing but kind as she rolls away from the whirlpool, shakes herself dry like a dog.

The atmosphere in the hospital calms, but doesn't exactly relax - probably because the two Devils don't look exactly relaxed either, even if they're known quantities. Sophia takes the opportunity to pull Emma away a bit, now that everyone is distracted. She gets distracted herself, however, as the next figure emerges from the whirlpool. At first it looks like some kind of cartoon pirate ship, maybe the size of a car and way too short for its width compared to what she's seen in her history books and with an oversized… whatever the thing at the front is called. Figurehead! That's right, figurehead. The tits on it definitely look like they were designed by sailors, though the four arms are weird and wait a minute that's not a statue that's a person. The shelled person-thing glances beneath her gigantic helmet-thing, taking a second to dry off the white cloth with the ornate red cross that passes for clothing - thankfully there seems to be armor made of more shell-bits underneath it protecting the naughty bits, that'd just be annoying otherwise.

"Whew. Don't mind me, it's just Amy. You all know me, right?" she says, and the familiar voice coming from an unfamiliar body strikes a chord. Aisha's the first one to actually voice a response, though. Which is funny, because she's not any more familiar with Panacea than Sophia is. Less familiar, all things considered. But Aisha cheats, drawing the memory from the collective unconscious, or something like that. Obviously you remember a celebrity, right?

"Damn, Dallon, you got a hella makeover," Aisha marvels. Sophia has to agree - it's one hell of a look, made even more impressive when she recognizes the dark, messy hair and freckles and confirms to her satisfaction that it really is Panacea of all people. Sure she always seemed kind of like a bitch, not that Sophia could blame her, but she also always seemed kind of like a pushover, especially compared to her sister. This Amy is also a bitch, but definitely less of a pushover, and contributes to Sophia's decision to get out - there's enough Devil bullshit going on already, more capes are not going to help.

"Yeah, yeah, soak it up. Talk to you in a second. The rest of you, don't get too excited. I'm just passing through, alright? Maybe I'll leave a bit of me behind, I don't hate all of you, believe it or not. Except for you, Holly. Yeah! You! Get fucked! You're always annoying and your taste in music is shit!"

Sophia almost gets to the stairs with Emma in tow, too, while Amy yells about whatever she's yelling about. Then she glances back, and someone meets her gaze. A blonde behind Amy, looking like she's coming apart at the seams, with whispers swirling around bottle-green eyes that meet hers. A hungry smile flashes onto her face for a second, but it falters under the sheer weight of words that even Sophia can see spinning around her.

(Not that she can hear or read them from this distance, but they say things like Violence is honest, or Uncomfortable with accusations of romantic affection. Wishes they were correct? or Two broken birds wrapped around each other, each breaking the other further with every kindness, or Distressed about a possibility; brought here to confirm a possibility; confirmation has not helped, or This is Emma Barnes and Sophia Hess. Emma is distressed that Taylor Hebert is a cape)

Then a rough voice barks "Heel!" and the whispers blank out, and Sophia glances to the woman behind the blonde, butch and blocky and snarling and for fuck's sake that's Hellhound. Hellhound recognizes her recognizing her, probably, and glares right at Sophia, her lips pulled tight. "Are you gonna try to fuck with us?"

"I'm just leaving," Sophia huffs, creeping towards the stairs. "You got a problem with that?"

"Oh you have plenty of problems," Tattletale starts, before wincing and shaking her head. "But we're too busy to talk about them. Get a good therapist or something."

"Sure, whatever," Sophia deflects, having no intention of getting a therapist when they've always been shit. And Emma refused them before, after all. She ducks into the stairwell before Tattletale can call her out on her insincerity, and takes a moment to breathe, letting herself rest on the wall, Emma staring at her with listless and tear-stained eyes.
Shit, maybe she does need therapy. It's not like anything else has worked. But if Emma won't talk to Sophia, how the fuck is she going to get her to talk to some shrink? Double shit. This fucking sucks.

While Sophia does that, the Undersiders and Devils pile into Taylor's room. It's not really big enough for all of them; Jupiter has to stretch it out a little. The atmosphere's still a little strained, and not just because of the size. Brian can't help but look at Amy with a hint of resentment. Amy doesn't blame him, but she still remembers all the shit the Undersiders have done to her and Victoria, and that's not something that goes away just like that. She's just been focusing on other things. Rachel just wants it all gotten over with.

Before the simmering tension can ignite, Venus passes three earpieces into three hands. Aisha takes hers without complaint, the circuitry nicely complementing her metal accents- there's just a hint of the memory of where they came from, and it leaves her feeling intrigued and more than a little humbled. Alex stares at theirs bemusedly, not quite sure what's going on here. Brian holds it for a moment, then looks up at her, demanding an explanation.

Venus isn't bad at explanations. "This Coil person wants to kill you, and us. Mostly us, I think. So we're going to take him down and you're going to help! If you want, that is. This is a communicator, have fun with it. It can't do everything our radios can, but it'll work. Oh! We gave one to Armsmaster and Miss Militia. If you want more privacy, you can limit it to just the three of you, I think it should be pretty intuitive. A prayer might help!"
Okay, so maybe she rambles. Rachel looks unimpressed, as does Brian. Aisha laughs, not unkindly. Lisa takes some pity on the angel and fills the three Undersiders in on the plan, such as it is, sparing Venus from further awkwardness.

Alex knows they should be happy, getting rid of an asshole like Coil, even if he's not as big an asshole as dear old dad. And they are, kind of. It's a little spark of a feeling, but they focus on it, nurture it. Today Coil, tomorrow the world? Hmm. Maybe next week. They've changed a lot, but they're still not eager to throw themselves into mortal danger all the time.

Brian doesn't quite like it, but he recognizes that he doesn't really have a choice. Besides, is he just going to let Aisha wade into there on her own? Absolutely not; the least he can do is put his own neck on the line.

Aisha doesn't need to think about it too much. She's heard plenty about Dinah, and fuck Coil. Besides, he's like the last big villain in the city right now, right? Rendering the city effectively villain-free has got to be worth mucho cred. Wait, who the fuck says that? She must be getting memory leakage or something. Maybe it's the redhead's fault. Annoying, but also, compared to all the other things she's remembered that definitely weren't her memories, it's really not a big deal.

That just leaves the elephant, or rather snail-of-the-line in the room.

Amy explains the whole deal. There's not much to explain. Brains are complicated and she doesn't think she can heal Taylor tonight even if she wanted to, there isn't enough time. Is Coil going to blow up the hospital or something to kill Taylor specifically? Possible, at this point. So, no taking chances. She'll make a nice impenetrable cocoon for the bug girl, real quick. Normally it'd be tough to make, but she's got infiniteish material to work with from her own body. And a similarly infinite amount of energy.

Alex in particular finds themself morbidly fascinated as Amy's oh so carefully sculpted warform overflows with bodies and limbs, a sea of flesh delicately cradling Taylor as she lays a massive hand oh so delicately on the girl's head.

And her narration starts with a frown.

She'd been looking away from the brain before, and now that she looks at it, it is absolutely not normal. The coronas, the extra brain structures that govern power use, are often hard to find. Taylor's coronas are not hard to find because hers has tangled itself up with maybe half her brain and Amy swears, if she looks hard enough, that she can see it growing in real time. Or… trying to grow? Maybe she's imagining it, but that little piece of neural matter seems to be alive, and to have some very strong feelings.

You know what? Fuck it, everything else is weird enough already, she'll bite. The vibe she gets is frustration. Frustrated desire. There's something there, and it wants to grow and change. And it can't, because Taylor won't wake up. The signals are firing, but they're not getting through.

Amy's heard about second triggers, but she's never seen someone who's had one, as far as she knows. Maybe this is what one would look like? The corona gemma, reconfiguring and swelling across the brain to handle altered powers. Except it's frozen because of Taylor's coma, and whatever is responsible for it is getting impatient. More and more energy is being poured in, energy primed to do something, presumably to make more extreme changes to Taylor's power the second she wakes up?

Or so Amy thinks, so Amy finds herself babbling.

Lisa practically overflows with whispers just hearing about it, shards and queens and things she doesn't understand and some things she's not allowed to understand and some that she knows she's not allowed to understand. Everyone else has their own opinions, their own fears and wonders and theories.

Rachel of all people decides to take it into her hands. Rachel, who isn't sure when she decided that Lisa and Taylor were hers, as surely as any of her dogs. Rachel, who just wants to connect with people, who needs a human pack as surely as any dog needs a canine pack. Rachel, who doesn't need her body to change because her body is fine, and whose power isn't so bad, though she sometimes wishes she could fight instead of her dogs. Rachel, who definitely can buy that powers have their own wants and needs - they're way too specific to just be some natural thing, though she's never worried about it too much because what's the point?
Rachel, who grabbed Lisa's whispers and brought them to heel, marches up to Taylor and gently pries off Amy's massive claw, before digging her fingers into the dark-haired girl's scalp, staring deeply at the comatose form of the one who had tried so hard to connect with her.

"Stop fucking with my Taylor. Wait until we fix her."

She stares into Taylor's brain until her power gets it. And much to Amy's surprise, Taylor's power seems to get it. Or maybe it's all in Amy's head, but still, it feels like the power calms down.

It's good enough for Amy. She gives Rachel a nod, and once the girl is out of the danger zone, Amy's bodies swarm onto Taylor, and begin to congeal, flesh pulling itself tight against flesh until muscle and fat becomes bone becomes a layer of mineralized shell, swirling patterns of arms and legs crystalized in shining white, with organs tucked in there to keep the girl in the cocoon healthy and well. That should last her… more than a few days. Probably a week. And she should be possible to extract even if Amy can't get her out for some reason.

She turns away from the cocoon, and Jupiter takes a moment to scribble out some signage on the door, and on the surface of the cocoon. Then Amy nods.

"Right, that's over with. Who's up to beat the shit out of people?"



A/N: Oops. Work has started back up, so things are going to be a lot slower than I'd hoped - but still, we're at the home stretch!
 
It looks like Rachel would be a devil but she's already comfortable enough as Rachel, and in a setting like this, there's a hell of a lot of power in that.
Which is handy, because she's entirely done with everything right now.
 
It looks like Rachel would be a devil but she's already comfortable enough as Rachel, and in a setting like this, there's a hell of a lot of power in that.
Which is handy, because she's entirely done with everything right now.
Yeah.

Rachel knows exactly who she is, makes no bones about it, and anyone who wants her to not be herself risks getting used as a chew toy by a dog the size of a minivan.
 
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