Disclaimers:

1) This story is set in the Wormverse, which is owned by Wildbow. Thanks for letting me use it.

2) I will follow canon as closely as I can. However it's been a long time since I've read Worm, don't hesitate to correct me.

3) This disclaimer is shamelessly plagiarized from ack1308. Literally nothing here is original. Really.

I've just listened to an entire Muse album. It didn't help me write. I don't get why people say it does.

I-I-I-I

Amy Dallon's diary, April 18th 2009

It's been two weeks since my shifts have started at the hospital. I have been recording my studying efficiency for the past ten days. I record the time it takes for me to write a thousand words essay, the time it takes me to make a series of random multiplications mentally, and the number of pages of "Brain and spinal cord plasticity" I can understand in an hour.

I then contrast the result I get the morning before a shift at the hospital, and the morning after a shift at the hospital (had to wake up at five to do that).

Dataset :

4 evening shifts, 3 regular school days

Temporary results : after a hospital shift :

- Short mental calculus : slightly slower (Hypothesis H1 : more tired after a shift)

- Essay (English class) : about the same (very variable, need more data)

- Brain study : systematically faster (H2: power inhibits my learning when it has not been activated for a while) (alternative hypothesis H3: power facilitates my study after use)

Conclusion :

- I need more data to fully confirm H1 and (H2 or H3)

- I need another other experiment to select H2 vs H3 (intuition in favor of H2)

I-I-I-I

"Come here little spider," Amy whispered as she brought her finger closer to the spider. She couldn't catch it without risking crushing it. She needed the thing to get on her finger on its own (ew).

The chair tilted dangerously under her feet.

"Come on, hurry!" She hissed. She didn't want to get caught capturing spiders (way to look creepy, Ames), and she didn't want to chicken out. Turns out, the ability to alter spiders didn't make her any fonder of the tiny creatures with too many legs.

"Yes! got you!"

She quickly got down from the chair and observed her little passenger..

"Now, how to stop you from moving… Ah ! That should do it"

She locked the spiders articulation in place. It started spasming. She yelped and threw it away from her, and then crushed her under her feet.

"God damn it! Now I have to get another! Get a grip on yourself, stupid girl!"

After a few more tries, she finally got a spider immobilized on her finger. The need to hurry finally gone, she took a deep breath and calmed down. She sat down on the floor, cross legged, and closed her eyes. The spider wouldn't escape, and no one suddenly barging in would notice it.

She started to really examine the spider's body. Unbidden, thoughts of improvements and modifications rushed through her head, as if her power had sensed the opportunity. She ruthlessly squashed them, even as she felt a painful and foreign pressure growing in her mind. She did not yield, and after a while she was finally capable of examining the spider calmly.

She did have the beginnings of a migraine, however. Someone is eager, she thought, and I doubt it's the spider. Something else to watch out for, she supposed, and another reason to use her power carefully.

She tried to memorize the anatomy of the spider, to understand it, and compare it to the human one and to what she had retained from her foray into other fields of biology.

Once again, knowledge that she shouldn't have came to her, for instance information about the resistance of its thread or the strength of its muscles. And how to improve those. But it was too advanced for her current self, it was useless to her. She refused to make modifications that she didn't understand! She refused to be goaded into letting her ability do the heavy lifting. It was the principle of the matter.

Her headache intensified, but she didn't let up. She directed her mind toward the improvement of the strength of a single leg muscle. Schematics came to her instantly. She didn't let her power take over however,, but she started to quiz herself on what to improve specifically to get the same result. She would have to start with upgrading the muscle fiber resistance as a first step, she supposed.

Almost grudgingly, an image of how to achieve that came to her, and she could suddenly clearly spot it in the broader schematics that she had previously received.

"Now we're getting somewhere!" Amy whispered. "Unfortunately, I don't really understand how that modification would preserve a sufficient oxygen supply… You wouldn't have an idea about that, would you?"

Her headache spiked. She remained silent as she got up, fetched a glass of water and an painkiller, and sat back down on the floor. Immobile. Expectantly.

Slowly, very slowly, another image formed in her mind. She grinned.

Amy : 1 / Power : 0

I-I-I-I

It had been a month and a half since she had started her shifts at the hospital. She had settled into a comfortable routine.

Every morning she woke up as early as five am. She sneaked downstairs to make herself a cup of coffee, and then got started on her usual timed exercises : mental calculus, essay writing, and biology studies.

Primarily, it was a way to acquire data to examine the impact of her powers on her state of mind. She already had a strong case to confirm that neglecting her ability caused her to be less analytical, and more easily distracted. She had started to probe whether indulging her power too much had the same effect.

Of course, those exercises had the added benefit of helping her make great strides in her studies. She was getting ever faster at mental calculus, and her short term memories had started to hit record performances. She used the History and English syllabus to find themes for her essays, and she had even managed to turn some of them in to get better marks in her regular classes. And in a mere month, she had learned enough about the brain that she felt she might start helping neuronal tissues recover from obvious damage.

At around 7.30, she had breakfast with the rest of the family. Surprisingly, Carol had made an effort to be more civil to her, attempting to greet her somewhat warmly, by having a cup of coffee ready for her, for instance. Amy had decided to stop trying to understand what went through the woman's head, and just enjoyed the lack of hostility.

Then classes began. As she had acquired a reputation among the teachers, first as an undercover genius, then as a miraculous healer, she was mostly left to her own devices as long as she got good grades and didn't disturb the rest of the class.

So she spent her time studying medicine and engineering, maths and biology, physics and ethics. Yes, she did say ethics. If she was right, she would need all the help she could get in that area, as her power was a direct gateway to trans-humanism as well as bio tinkering of all kind. She figured that at some point, her current policy of "Human healing – No brain – Experiment on spiders only" would be too restrictive. She might have to ditch it in times of crisis, and she wanted a better fall back position than "Use power : yes".

In the evening, she either studied more, or went for a two hours shift at the hospital depending on the day. Then she had dinner with Dad and Vicky (Carol got home later), and afterwards she made sure to spend time with Vicky, chatting and gossiping. She would have kept studying, but she felt it might have been unhealthy. She had plans to take up a hobby fully unrelated to her work. A way to clear her mind and find some perspective. Music, perhaps ?

Right before getting to bed, she often worked on her spiders. It was a painful and laborious process, yet infinitely rewarding. She consolidated all of her knowledge in those sessions. It even helped her apply her physics and math skills, calculating volumes with integrals, or mechanical stress on the spider legs, and then checking the correct answer with her power.

She had still not managed to entirely understand the muscle upgrade her power had suggested, but she was getting there, and it served as a guide for what college books she would study next. She knew that she would be a lot faster on her next project, so she didn't feel impatient. It usually left her with a debilitating headache, but those got a lot less virulent every time. She figured either her, or her power was starting to get used to those exercises.

Late in the night, as she lied in her bed, staring at the luminescent plastic star stuck to the ceiling, basking in the aura of her sister in the room right next to her, she dreamed of fighting end-bringers and saving the world.

She usually fell asleep with as smile.

I-I-I-I

"So, healing people is not all you can do?" Crystal asked. She entered the next room and cheered "Oh! Look, that's a pretty pink one!"

Her cousins and brother trailed in after her into the tropical exhibit of the Brockton Aquarium. Eric rolled his eye at her enthusiasm, presumably feeling that admiring aquatic life was not manly enough. The kid was probably secretly enjoying it below all that grumbling, she thought as she ruffled his hair fondly. He used to love that sort of stuff, but apparently being thirteen was too old to appreciate it anymore...

Amy would not let him skip the weekly outing anyway. Although they had somewhat drifted away in the recent years, the overly serious girl had decided about two months ago that the four of them had to meet a lot more regularly.

New New Wave, Vicky called it, even though they were actually trying to stay away from anything cape related during those reunions.

Frankly, it was quite nice. She was two years older than Vicky and almost four years older than Vicky and Eric, and yet she was having a lot of fun on those small excursions. They even had additional allowance dedicated to it, as their parents fully approved of their increased closeness. Everybody benefited from it.

Eric had an opportunity to chat excitedly with Vicky about whatever TV show he had watched recently. Vicky was kind, full of life, and a lot smarter than people gave her credit for. Amy tended to be a lot more serious and prone to dry humor, but she made visible efforts to stay positive and avoid talking or even thinking about her studies. She made for a clever conversation partner despite her youth.

Of course, they sometime broached some graver subjects. They were no quite at the point of fully sharing their feelings and insecurities with each other, but they were getting there. Amy had taken a significant step into that direction as she had thrown an information bomb at them earlier. Something she was quite sure none of their parents were aware of.

"Yup. More like bio tinkering. When I heal I'm actually only using a fragment of my power. Also, I could heal brains, but I've decided to stay away from it for now. Because bio tinkering!" Amy answered nonchalantly. Her blasé attitude didn't fool them. They could feel the uncertainty radiating from her.

"Do Mom and Dad know?" Vicky queried anxiously.

"No. I'm afraid Carol might not be very understanding."

Crystal winced at that. In the previous outings, Amy had somewhat opened up about her relationship with their aunt, and it sounded far from perfect. That she called her Carol and not Mom should have tipped them off long ago, though.

"It's not ideal," Eric concurred, "What with Blasto leaving the Bay a few days ago to settle in Boston, and the PRT director being an Ellisburg survivor..."

Everyone stared at him blankly.

"What?" he justified, cheeks coloring, "I like to stay informed! I browse parahumans online. Sue me!"

"Never mind," Crystal took over. "We get your reservations and we'll keep it a secret if your really want to. But you have to tell us everything, alright?

Amy's shoulders sagged in relief.

"Thanks guys, I mean it. Really. And I'll catch you up on what I've been doing. I'm not about to go Nilbog on you, I promise."

"Oh come on," Vicky chided her. "You though we'd let you down? You have to know better, sis! Come on here!"

She drew her into a hug despite her protests.

"Vicky, let me go!" she spluttered. "We're in public!"

"There is no wrong place for sisterly display of affection!" her sister answer dramatically, as Crystal chuckled at the sight of her usually stoic cousin acting all flustered.

"I have a question," Eric began as they finally moved on to the next room. "Can you also use your power on yourself or was that limitation true?"

"No, unfortunately, I can't see myself at all. It's very annoying!" Amy answered. "If only ..."

She trailed off, staring at the circular water tank in front of them. In it, a massive jellyfish was floating above a small replica of a coral reef. The rest of them were also in awe of the deadly looking creature, but there was an additional spark of enlightenment in the healer's eye.

"I wonder..." she muttered as her gaze followed the lines of the jellyfish's filaments intertwining with the maze of coral in the tank. Suddenly she grinned. "Scratch that. I may have an idea. Stay cool. It might sound slightly disturbing."

Crystal had a hunch about what idea the exhibit had just given her young cousin. She really, really hoped that she was wrong about it.