As soon as I realized that I had apparently time-travelled, I decided to go see Dad. I didn't even consider staying in school till the end of the day—I hadn't gone for months, and I had no reason to stay now. Particularly when I needed to figure out what was going on.

But when I got to Dad's office, he wasn't there. I went inside and asked his coworker—I couldn't remember his name—where he had gone, and he told me Dad wasn't feeling well and had decided to take the day off. So my next move was obvious: Go home. Find Dad. Figure out what the hell is going on later.

As always, I gathered a swarm as I went, keeping it as inconspicuous as I could and using it to maintain an awareness of the area. Thus, as soon as my home was in range, I noticed Dad was not alone. I quickly, but cautiously, pulled enough bugs into the corners and dark regions of the room that I could hear and see what was going on without being noticed. What's Lisa doing there? I immediately checked the surrounding area for the other Undersiders. I had been running at a comfortable jog, but I upped my pace a little to get more of the surroundings of my house in my range. If this was somehow the past, I knew Lisa had been working for Coil, so I checked the surroundings for anyone who seemed suspiciously like one of his gunmen. It was harder than usual to check everyone—my city had been improving dramatically lately, but it still had nothing like the population density from before Leviathan's attack. On top of that, bugs were much more conspicuous in this pre-disaster city, but I made do. It wasn't like I had been unable to scout with bugs before Leviathan the first time around.

Anyway, as far as I could tell, Lisa had come on her own. She was armed, with a handgun hidden under her waistband, so I had my bugs start preparing silk threads I could use to stop her if she turned out to be hostile. Nothing is going to happen to Dad this time. Fortunately, Lisa got up and went into the backyard as I was nearing the house. That made things easier—if she was a threat, I could deal with her without Dad being in any danger. I made my way up the front steps, being sure to skip the rotten step, while at the same time questioning Lisa. I gathered a swarm together densely enough to speak, remembering at the last minute not to give away that this was my house. Lisa would probably figure it out anyway if she didn't already know, but there was no reason to make things easier for a possible opponent. "Lisa, what are you doing in someone's backyard?"

"Hi, Taylor! I was just visiting your dad." So she does know who I am. Lisa from this time has no reason to know me. She must want my dad as leverage.

I opened the door and asked, "Dad? What are you doing home?"

"I'm wondering the same thing myself." It's really him. I dropped my backpack, ran forward, and hugged Dad tightly. I'm never letting him go.

Outside, I warned Lisa, "Anyone who threatens my father will only do so once." She looked suitably worried by the threat. Good, she knows I'm serious.

"No, no, nothing like that! Your dad and I both time travelled as well, I was just helping him figure things out." Well, that could change things. I guess I should invite her inside.

"Come inside and let's talk." Inside, I finally pulled away from Dad and said, "Lisa tells me you time travelled as well. I suspect we have a lot to talk about."

….

I was right, we did have a lot to talk about. I tentatively decided to trust Lisa—I couldn't imagine why she would be lying about her story, and she'd always been straight with me back in my own timeline. As for Dad—I should have trusted him immediately, right? He's my own father, of course I should trust him. But I caught myself evaluating him as a threat or possible asset—it would be really great to have another Tinker on my side, particularly one who could potentially have any Tinker power. And when he said he had become a villain, part of me didn't believe him, but a bigger part of me just started preparing countermeasures in case he turned on me. Even worse, I didn't feel bad about it. I know I should feel bad, but I just don't. Dad's been dead for so long, I don't remember how to interact with him anymore. I wanted him to be proud of my efforts at cleaning up the city in his honor, but he just seemed to be worried about me. Doesn't he realize I could handle it?

He was happy to see me, and he loves me. I love him, and I'm happy to have him back. I just need to remember that.

….

I was trying to make Dad understand why I had to cut out my eyes to stop Valefor when Dad noticed a cape coming. My first thought was that this meant he might outrange me, so I probably couldn't sneak up on him. Damnit, I did it again. Dad's not a threat! I focused a little more intently on the bugs to the north-northeast. The approaching cape was Amy. "I don't know if you can hear through insects yet." "If you can, please respond. I am Amel... Amy Dallon. Panacea. If you don't know who that is, you can look it up. We need to talk." I told the others about her, and we agreed to invite her into our discussion. I verified that Amy had come from an alternate reality as well, and told her that we were from different realities or timelines as her so she would be on the same page when she arrived.

There was almost a problem when Amy entered the house. As soon as she saw Lisa, Amy recoiled. "Why is she here?"

"I asked her to come here to help me out," Dad defended her. "I've known her for months, and she's been nothing but helpful. Do you have a problem with her?"

Amy seemed to pause, taken aback. Then, in a much smaller voice, she said, "No, I was just surprised she was here." Addressing Lisa, she asked, "How do you know Danny?"

"How do you know Lisa?" Dad asked.

Lisa answered both of them. "Coil pressganged Danny into working for him when he found out he was a Tinker. And in Amy's…no, that's not right, is it? What do you go by now?"

Apparently-not-Amy grimaced slightly. "Amelia. It's my birth name."

"Right. In Amelia's timeline, alternate me was in some sort of parahuman group with Taylor and Amelia. Although by the way you seem to hate me, your Lisa must have betrayed the group."

"You wouldn't do that!" Dad protested yet again.

"Well, she did. Will. Whatever. The point is I don't trust her, but she's useful, and we'll do a lot better if we work together, so let's just forget it for now," Amelia said.

"Sounds like a good idea to me," I spoke up.

….

After that tiny snag, we had Amelia tell us about herself for a while, then went one room over so Lisa could give us her opinion of Amelia's trustworthiness. "She's hiding a lot. Even more than what she said she wasn't willing to tell us yet, but I don't think any of it means we shouldn't trust her. She and her Taylor are not just business partners—they're more like extremely close friends, at least, and I think that the differences between you and her Taylor are throwing her off." At least? "But on the whole, she's on the up-and-up." Dad seemed willing to bring her into our little group, and although it was weird working with a group at all, I didn't mind expanding it by a member.

We spent the next several hours sharing stories from our own timelines, trying to match things up to find what facts remained consistent and what changed. Amelia had made no more progress than me on my list of world-ending threats. She had killed Jack Slash, but so had I. She had never even heard of whatever Harbinger retired from the Slaughterhouse 9 to do, although for some reason she was really confident that someone would have taken care of him by now if it was really bad. In terms of good news, at least there was no sign of whatever things Lisa apparently had to deal with.

Once we had firmly established what had happened in each of our respective timelines, we moved on to setting goals and planning for the future. Dad pulled out a rolling whiteboard that he sometimes used when people came over on work business, and we started brainstorming. That was when things got heated.

….

"No, I'm not going to make self-replicating mutant bugs that make you omnipresent over Earth Bet!"

"Why not? You said your Taylor was omnipresent on Avalon!" In other circumstances, and with anyone else speaking, that might have sounded petulant or even whiny. But I was using my bugs to talk to Amelia as she washed up in the bathroom. I had a feeling that Dad wouldn't approve of this plan either.

"I didn't then either! Taylor's power was extended through power repeaters in the Yggdrasil, not self-replicating bugs!"

"If the self-replication is the problem, just make them so they can't breed unless I make them."

Amelia sighed. "Look, you seem really pragmatic, so I'm hoping you won't get too offended, but I don't trust you. You're not Taylor—I mean, obviously you're Taylor, but you're not my Taylor, and even if you're telling the truth about everything you've done, I don't think you should be trusted with that kind of power." Hmm. So I guess my most important move now is to get Amelia to trust me. "Even ifyou somehow get me to trust you, it's still too dangerous. If most of the world found out, they'd want to kill you immediately."
"I told you, I've gotten really good at being careful to hide in the shadows and let nobody know who's actually doing things. We can do this subtly. And even if anyone finds out about me, we can probably take them. I've got my bugs, your power is ridiculously good for making an invincible home base, who knows what kind of bullshit tricks Dad can Tinker up, we have Lisa for Thinker support, and if we can get any of the other capes you suggested we recruit we'll be even more unstoppable."
"I don't think you understand what you'd be up against! The entire Protectorate would want to stop you! The Triumvirate could beat us immediately! And there are Thinkers and Strangers powerful enough that they would absolutely figure out what you were trying and take you out!" I made sure to offload my frustration to the elements of my swarm that weren't visible to Dad or Lisa in the room where we were having a different conversation. It really wouldn't do for them to learn about it.

"You also tried something ridiculous with your Avalon plan, and you said you were able to handle everyone who came your way."

"There were people who didn't care about what we did who would absolutely care about what you want to do! It's one thing modifying a dead Earth to be able to support life—it's another thing entirely to take over the world we live in!"

"Speaking of which, you obviously had the power to do this back in your own world. Why didn't you? You fixed up Brockton Bay, and sponsored several teams of superheroes cleaning up America, but you could have done so much more!"

"You don't understand, the world is more complicated than that. Once we founded a sovereign nation we couldn't interfere on U.S. soil in anything more than a limited capacity when it wasn't an emergency." If spitting in disgust would have meant anything for my bugs to do, I would have done it. Instead, they just got even more agitated.

"Politics." This is one of the best things about working with Accord. He doesn't worry what society will think of him. He just gets things done. I almost launched into a rant about how it was unacceptable to let people die because of political concerns, but my thought about Accord made me realize I had been approaching this conversation the wrong way. After hearing about the lengths Amelia had gone to in her own world, I had started to think of her as an ally. Clearly I should be treating this more like a negotiation. And the first rule of negotiating was not to make things worse for yourself. Amelia obviously thought I was unfit for the power, and if she disagreed with my reasons, just stating them some more would not make her change her mind—even though they were completely correct. I would have to table the conversation for now until I could plan it out a bit better, since unlike my conversations with Accord, nobody was in danger of being murdered if I didn't solve the problem immediately. Well, except for all the people dying of violent crimes around the world that I could have stopped if Amelia had gone for the plan, but there was nothing I could do about that now. And at any rate, Amelia did have a point—it would probably be safer to build up our power base first before trying any moves as dramatic as I was thinking. I'd just have to be careful to reveal as little of myself to the public as possible so that when we did make our move, nobody would associate Taylor Hebert, or even "that bug-controlling cape from Brockton Bay," with the omnipresent justice dealer I hoped to become.

"I still think we could handle anyone who finds out about us, but in any event, you are right that we have better things to be thinking about right now. Besides, Dad and Lisa are probably wondering where you got off to by now. I'll concede the point for the moment."

….

That conversation was just one of a number of ways we didn't all see eye-to-eye. It turned out Amelia's biggest priority was to get her old team back together and find a way to "undo this messed up timeline", but the rest of us ABSOLUTELY did not want that to happen. Lisa's timeline had been in constant danger of being destroyed by eldritch monsters—that was actually our leading theory for how our timelines had gotten messed up in the first place. And besides that, Lisa had had to deal with a monster within her mind for as long as she was there. I was perfectly happy to have my dad back and to have a second chance to fix Brockton Bay without screwing everything up, and Dad was just happy to have a better chance of getting out from under Coil's thumb, although I could tell he wasn't comfortable that I was so involved in cape stuff.

Fortunately, Amelia's plan for getting back to her old timeline involved forming a hero group and fixing things to build a power base, so we didn't think we'd have any problems working together. Well, except for her unwillingness to use the more direct measures I proposed. Still, she opened up a ton of options for my powers specifically—acid bugs, relay bugs, a flying mount she called an Atlas, doglike monsters, tranquilizer and/or botulinum delivery bugs, and fireflies that actually caught fire. With some luck, I'd be able to take down far more serious opponents at range than I ever had before.

We all had our own ideas for plans, both overall and for the immediate future. I was going to drive the gangs from the city and kill Coil, preferably without letting people know a bug-controlling cape had done it. I wanted to preserve my options. Dad just wanted us to stay safe, which was of course a prerequisite for my plan. I hoped he wouldn't be too overbearing about worrying, though. Amelia planned to recruit Chariot (a movement-based Tinker I hadn't encountered, Blasto, Bonesaw, Flechette, Parian, Dinah, and Vista, and to get the Flechette-Labyrinth interaction going so she could build up her power base in Avalon. After making a quick phone call (and yes, I actually gave her privacy when she called), Lisa told us that Grue was going to stop being a villain immediately, and she was pretty sure that she'd be able to get the rest of the Undersiders to work with us, or at least stop being villains, with a little bit of the influence and leverage we were expecting to get pretty soon.

With our goals set, we next had to talk about methods. Some research and staring at calendars let us figure out that I had originally fought Lung the upcoming Sunday night when he went after the Undersiders. Grue being a time traveler was sure to change the Undersiders' dynamic, but it wouldn't stop Lung from going after them, so we'd have to deal with that somehow. Fortunately, with Amelia on my side, I should finally have enough firepower to take Lung out. In the meantime, I was more worried about Bakuda. Lung's capture had set off her bombing spree the first time, so it would be safest if we could take her out before Lung was captured. Fortunately, Amelia was willing to help out with this, so she started to make a number of short-lived relay bugs for me to search with while we continued to plan. We took a short digression to consider whether anyone in the city would notice my bugs, but we were pretty sure Tattletale and maybe Armsmaster were the only ones who would, so using the bugs cautiously to gather intelligence should be pretty safe.

Next on the list: Coil. The Undersiders' boss, and apparently also a time-traveler, although he fortunately was from Lisa's timeline and would be equally clueless about the rest of us as she had been. He had to be taken out before he could take Dinah or find out my dad was a Tinker. I suggested that I saturate the city with relay bugs and take him out tonight—his power to split timelines wouldn't save him if I could attack both of his locations at once, and he wouldn't be a security leak if he was dead. But before I could convince Dad that killing Coil was necessary, Amelia brought up how useful he would be as an asset, and she couldn't make the mind-control device she'd used in her timeline without Bonesaw, or Dad after absorbing sufficient biotinker powers. We still had to capture him, but it would be a lot harder, so I settled for just scouting. There was an additional complication: Coil had ordered Lisa to find out whether I could still destroy the world. We debated telling him yes so he would steer clear of me, but we were afraid he would see through the ruse, so we eventually decided it would be simpler to just lie and say that neither I nor my dad was a cape in this reality.

The discussion about Coil brought up another important point: we didn't know who else had come from alternate timelines. In addition to the four of us, Coil, and Grue, apparently Glory Girl, Brandish, and two of the Wards had also time traveled. So one of our priorities would have to be gathering as much information as possible to see if any of our enemies in the city gave themselves away. This, too, was my job, and Lisa promised to help with her power as much as she could.

Information would be key in the upcoming fight, so it was essential that we secure the aid of the most powerful precog any of us had encountered. That was why I sent another tendril of my awareness off towards Dinah Alcott's house, where I found that she was lying in bed, asleep. Well, I guess it is starting to get late, and younger kids usually have earlier bedtimes. Plus, she might be trying to sleep off a Thinker headache. We decided that I would go talk to her tomorrow. We didn't want her to hate us, and nothing was urgent enough for us to wake her up tonight, particularly if she did have a Thinker headache. We decided I should talk to her since I was still a relative unknown, unlike Amelia. Lisa had her own people to take care of, and Dad was nowhere near as experienced a cape as the rest of us. In the meantime, I kept watch over her house with my bugs, although I wasn't too worried: nobody should be gunning for her yet, so it would probably be safe for me to leave her unguarded when I eventually went to sleep.

Amelia also had me looking for Chariot's secret identity so she could give him the recruitment pitch the next day. I eventually found him, and I found Bakuda's lab, although she wasn't in it; just a bunch of ordinary members of the ABB. By that time, it was getting really late, so Lisa headed back to the Undersiders' base (with me providing bug escorts, just in case). Amelia asked if she could stay at our house. I was immediately suspicious—with her touch-range power, it would be extremely simple for her to overpower us once we had fallen asleep—but I reminded myself that Lisa seemed sure Amelia was on our side, at least for now, so I allowed it.

Just as we were about to go to bed, Amelia smiled sheepishly and said, "Ah, I almost forgot. Could we take a side trip to Arcadia High? I need to use your bugs to grow more grass."

A/N: I originally had Amelia bring up Eidolon and Cauldron as reasons why Taylor would never get away with taking over the world, but TanaNari says that Amelia doesn't trust them enough to mention the Endbringer battles, Cauldron, and Scion.

Memorials!Taylor isn't very fun to write not in a battle. She's just so…I don't want to say boring, but she's not a normal person, and it's really hard for me to get into her head, so I hope it came out okay. Her emotions tend to be really subdued in places I feel strongly (trust, love, comfort) and super strong in areas I'm not so great at (anger, determination).

I know this is still a ton of planning and not much action, but there is a decent amount of character interaction, so I hope you're not bored. Also, I figured I could invoke the inverse of the Unspoken Plan Guarantee on some of their plans. Sure, they'll inevitably get messed up, but you readers won't know that unless you know what the plans were in the first place.

Also—I can already tell some of you are going to complain about this being a "Taylor & Amelia stomp everything" fic. Well, yeah, they are kind of ridiculous, and it wouldn't be true to the source material if they weren't really powerful. On the other hand, I hope to keep a good balance of challenges. In particular, there's going to be a lot of inter-character conflict, and the story is going to focus on other characters just as much as them. Plus, they're not the only ones with knowledge of the future, and everyone's plans should end up disrupting each other nicely.

On a different topic, can people think of any minor divergences (not the obvious ones) from canon that showed up in the fanfics I'm using? I'm going to keep this story as close to canon (including WOG) as possible, but the characters from other stories keep the interpretations from those stories. So far I have:

Glory Girl's shield has a much longer recharge time in MoaSV.

Krieg has straight telekinesis in Cenotaph instead of his more complicated WOG power.

Rune went to school in Atonement (I think?) but had a public identity in WOG.

Browbeat was different in Cenotaph than in the WOG.

The Travelers (particularly Noelle) were already in Coil's base in Cenotaph when they wouldn't have been there yet in canon. In particular, I'm pretty sure Coil's base was more complete in Cenotaph than in canon, where it wasn't even done yet by the time of the Leviathan fight (if I remember correctly).