? Chapter 12
-Legion*** Taylor ***Legion-
One of the first things I did the next day was finalize the two cape persona I had come up with; the first was going to be my public, Rogue mask: Pied Piper; the second was going to be my hidden, Hero mask, Legion. Pied Piper was going to be a flashy, somewhat silly, public Rogue who did parahuman pest control. I had picked up a decent set of pan pipes a couple of weeks ago that I found tucked away on the shelf in the back of a second hand clothing store.
I didn't have any problems with learning to play a few songs, since mom had taught me to play both the recorder and the flute, before she had died. I looked on line and found some simple Celtic and German tunes for the recorder or pipes that sounded kind of haunting that I was going to use to pretend could call different types of pests to me, and into the sewers, or maybe into some sealed barrels if I could figure out how to make that work. I wanted to make it seem like I had a specifically limited power that was only good for pest control.
Legion on the other hand, was going to be an independent Hero. If I could pull it off, Legion was going to seem to be male, or at least androgynous. To that end I had started working on using my creatures to speak for me. I wanted to be able to combine the sounds of a swarm of bugs, and maybe birds, to emulate my speech. So far I had limited success, unless I had a truly scary amount of bugs working together; though adding even a couple of birds let me have a much larger variety of sounds. I also researched voice modulators, and finally settled on an inexpensive mechanical model that actually blended well with my voice swarm.
Amy's suggestion that I use ants and beetles to build a lair in my back yard was a good one, and I had already started summoning several large nests of ants, queens and all to begin construction before we even started eating dinner. The logistics of keeping all of my work force fed was a bit daunting, but I thought I could handle it. I didn't plan to bring in any Widows to spin and weave the cloth that I would use to make my costume until I had everything prepared.
Building the basic lair only took a week, but I ensured that the lair also had plenty of room for expansion so that I could have my Widows breed as soon as they settled into their individual chambers, even if it was very early for them to do so. That would hopefully provide me an immense work force, which would also allow me to create extra copies of our costumes.
I collected a couple hundred spiders while out running the next morning, using flies to carry them to me, and stored them in the empty backpack I was wearing, so that I could use them as 'proof of concept'. I actually put them in the coal cellar for now, and brought them plenty of flies and other pests for food, and had them weave me a short length of cord that could support a lot more than my weight, even though it was less than 1/8th of an inch thick. I then had them weave me a piece of cloth, about 6 inches on a side, and 4 layers thick. When I tested the final product, I could only slice through the top layer with a knife, and could barely penetrate it at all, even with my full strength, when I laid it flat on a board and stabbed straight down.
I decided to use at least 6 layers, 9 in critical areas, when I built my costume, I would also have solid armor sections to help protect critical locations like the spine, kidneys, skull, etc. As I worked out my designs, I also planned on making both a body suit and robes for Amy so that she would be better protected when she was out as Panacea. If I could weave enough cloth, I would be able to sew her some normal clothes from Widow silk, that would be comfortable, stylish and extremely protective.
I had a series of experiments set up that I hoped would help me figure out the best combinations of treatments to ensure that my silk wouldn't shrink and was water resistant once formed into costumes or clothing. I treated the experiments as if they were part of my Chemistry studies, using the scientific method to help me design the different experiments, and I kept full records of each experiment that I performed, including follow-up tests of strength and water-proofing after different elapsed times. I wanted to be sure that the treatments I came up with wouldn't have long-term weaknesses.
While I had the Widows working on my samples, I watched both of the martial arts videos I had checked out, then played them again while trying to follow along. I figured I would read the books next, then practice the video routines a couple more times before dad got home. I planned to practice the routines using multiple points of view and with bugs riding on my limbs so that I did it perfectly each time; I hoped that would be enough so that I could continue to practice on my own, as well as return the videos in a couple days, just like normally. The Tai Chi was interesting, I was doing it as a cool down routine after my normal exercise sets, at least twice a day, and I found that it was very calming, and actually helped me to expand my control range quite a ways, though as soon as I stopped doing Tai Chi, my range dropped back to normal. Once again, powers are weird.
I tried to add isometrics to my exercise routine; but found that the old Charles Atlas course was actually more effective for me, since most of the information on isometrics made it clear that it worked best in conjunction with working out with weights. Since I didn't have any yet, I had to do it a different way. I really wanted to have Amy observe me as I worked out, so she could tell me if it was working the way I thought it was, right away, instead of a couple of days later.
My intention was to have most of my cape training and preps in the basement, out of casual sight. It didn't matter if it was costume creation, physical or martial training, or weapons research and design, I was going to keep it down here, hidden from dad stumbling over it by accident, even if he came down here, which he seldom did, especially since I was now doing almost all of the house work, and was also using the basement to do my school lab experiments.
I decided to use the coal cellar as a workroom for my spiders, as it gave me a lot of room for them to spread out and dad never liked going down into the basement anyways. I moved some things around in the basement so that an old wardrobe blocked the door. The wardrobe just had some old boots and coats in it, so it was easy to move into place. The lair I had started earlier was becoming quite extensive and complex, with a multitude of various sized chambers for all of my swarm.
The only problem I foresaw was creating a decent size opening for the cloth that my spiders produced, drilling a hole through the concrete was not going to be easy. Eventually I decided to drill a 1 or 2 inch hole in the wall in one of the corners, near the floor so that the ants could connect a tunnel to it so that the spiders could pass through to do their work in the coal cellar, sort of like commuting. I spent a few hours on the internet getting some designs for stretchers and frames that my spiders could use to weave on. I was already doing some experiments with water-proofing, and eliminating shrinking of the silk fabric, but I also needed to practice with dyeing and bleaching the spider silk before I settled on my final designs and processes.
I drew up some plans using some free software, mostly just to see if I could, then drew out some of my shrinking savings to buy the lumber I would need. I also got to use my grandfather's hand tools I had found when I was cleaning out the basement. My early work was a little shaky, but with practice I did get a lot better. Aside from the work in the coal cellar, I repaired and replaced the broken front step and some of the loose railings on a nice Saturday, so that I could also repaint the whole porch and set of steps. Dad was quite surprised when he came home later that afternoon to find that the front steps had been repaired and repainted.
The weaving frames were designed to let me weave cloth a bit over 3 feet wide, and 3 layers thick. I had to manually wind the completed cloth onto a take-up reel, and reset the reel so the weight of the reel and the finished cloth would maintain a light tension. I used some silk cord and improvised weights to create a counter-balance system similar to that used in the windows in older houses. I also created a thread spinning setup along one of the walls, that allowed the Widows to create a 5-ply thread of dragline silk. They walked around the inside of a circular frame, effectively braiding the silk into a strong thread that was wound onto a wooden spool by a group of beetles.
As my spider workforce increased, I eventually needed to enter the coal cellar once a day to switch spools and adjust the weaving reel. About every third day I needed to remove the silk fabric from the take-up reel and carefully wind it onto a cardboard bolt. I was actually hopeful that I would be able build up enough of a stockpile that I could use the silk for normal clothes in addition to our costumes.
Drilling the hole in the wall turned out to be very easy when I found an old electric drill and some rusty drill bits in a drawer in the workbench. When I finally broke through the concrete into the dirt on the other side, I measured the depth of the hole and found that I had drilled through 8 inches of concrete. And I only broke three of the drill bits before I got the hole wide enough and drilled all the way through the wall.
When I brought my mom's old sewing machine down from the attic, I had also found a couple of boxes of cloth, patterns, a huge variety of thread, and a decent collection of books and magazines about sewing and knitting. After sorting through everything, I added sewing and clothes making into my study schedule, as I would definitely need these skills to make our costumes. I had originally planned on setting up in the basement, but decided it would be better to use the guest room for my sewing. I would do the weaving, dyeing and chemical treatment in the basement, but all of my sewing upstairs. As long as I ensured that the costumes were well hidden, I could use making normal clothes for dad, me and Amy as the perfect cover for making the costumes. If this worked out for us, anywhere near as well as I hoped it would, I was going to need more room for everything we were trying to do anyways.
I got pretty good at finding used furniture and tools in the newspaper and online, that I could get even cheaper than at second hand stores or thrift shops. Brockton Bay's depressed economy seems to have created a thriving economy for used goods that I took full advantage of. I had tracked down several sets of salt-water aquariums, 2 twenty gallon tanks and 2 fifty gallon tanks, with all of the filters, pumps, hoses and miscellaneous equipment. They came from 3 different sources, two of whom would deliver, when I explained that I didn't have a car. My only problem would be the twenty gallon tanks, the seller didn't have a car, but was willing to wait until I could get my dad to take me to pick them up. All told, I would be able to get them very cheap, since I was paying cash for them. A total of $120 for all of them.
Once I had them set up, I was planning on growing coral in them, as well as any exotic fish that we could get our hands on, or make, I wasn't picky. These would be setup down in the basement, possibly in front of the coal cellar door, once I figured out the best way for me to get in and out, without disturbing the tanks. Well time would tell.
When dad was finally able to get me some free weights I was ecstatic, I had almost forgotten that I had asked for them, so was pleased to be able to start lifting weights at last. I realized, to my amazement that using a standard bench press I could lift just over 200 lbs, and that a standing lift over my head maxed me out at 285 lbs, and I think I could do more than that with practice. The set I had, could put a maximum of 365 lbs on the main bar, but I couldn't lift that much. Yet. I put finding additional weights on my someday todo list, though I wasn't going to ask dad for more if I could avoid it. I figured that if I couldn't lift more weights, I would lift more times. Or maybe figure out how to do the same exercises with only one hand, effectively doubling my lifting limit.
Amy had been right about how my muscles would develop too; even though I was clearly getting stronger, I wasn't bulking up like a body builder. My muscles were getting denser, and I was putting on weight, but I was starting to look more like a swimmer or gymnast than a weight lifter. Because I checked my stats every week, I knew that I was 5' 8" tall, and currently weighed 143 lbs, though if you went by appearances only, I looked as if I only weighed about 120–123 lbs. In addition to my working out, the extra food I was eating and the healthy weight I had put on had triggered a growth spurt; I was starting to actually develop a feminine figure; my legs and hips were no longer straight sticks, having developed some curves from my increased muscle mass, and my breasts were no longer flat and boyish, but had developed all the way up to an A cup. It may not sound like much, but I had long since despaired of ever looking like a woman, which had done horrible things for my self-image and self-esteem, even before I was mutilated in the locker.
I returned both my martial arts videos and books, though I had copied the DVD's on to my computer, and scanned the kata pages and most helpful hints and notes as well first, and got some new ones. One of the books had a few chapters on related martial arts skills, like thrown weapons, using the environment for movement and evasion, and building training aids. This led me to parkour and knife-throwing videos, as well as using my wood working skills to build a knife target, a striking board and a wooden karate dummy. My martial arts training aids were designed to be hidden away when not using them, except for the dummy which I turned around and put in the empty space under the stairs. Again, out of sight, out of mind.
While I was still experimenting with developing effective treatments for my silk before creating my silk costume, I put together a generic, black and gray costume out of normal cloth, that while it was unarmored it was still good at keeping me unseen at night. It covered me from head to toe, and let me sneak out of the house late at night, after dad was well asleep, so that I could really work on my running and climbing skills.
I did have to do some work on my sewing machine before I could use it, but I was able to download a user and maintenance manual for that model sewing machine and that made it easy to disassemble it, clean it out and then lubricate and adjust it so that it worked just like it was supposed to, all of which only took me about two hours to complete. It definitely helped that in one of the drawers of the cabinet was a small toolkit, just for the sewing machine.
I washed some of the old fabric from the attic, dried it carefully and ironed it smooth; then used that to make dad three hand-made shirts, that fit him nicely, looked really good and only cost about $3 for the notions I needed but didn't have. It took me about six hours of work, since I had only watched mom do this a few times, and I used fabric that was just going to waste, and followed one of the patterns she had left me. The books described the general process, and I watched some Youtube videos as well; you could find almost anything you needed there, it was really useful to be able to watch people making different kinds of clothes.
He seemed quite impressed when I gave them to him after supper, especially since I hadn't measured him, but measured some of his other shirts. Or so he thought; I did take the initial measurements that way, but I actually used the measurements I got when I had some tiny spiders walk all over him while he was deeply asleep. Turns out that although using the spiders was far more accurate, the measurements from the shirts made allowance for movement and proper drape that the spiders didn't. Who knew? Not me, that's for sure.
On the physical training side, I also used a book on parkour I had ordered from the library and a bunch of youtube videos to begin teaching myself parkour. Although free running looked like it was a lot of fun; the focus on speed and efficiency of parkour was really appealing. My interim costume was designed to allow me to move and flex freely as I practiced running and tried to teach myself parkour.
I modified my daily routine to include an hour of weights in the morning and an hour of martial arts in the afternoon. Working on our costumes was during the hour or so right after lunch, although the Widows worked in shifts, around the clock, except when I was going to be out of the house. During those periods, they were blocked into their sleeping chambers with a captured fly or beetle for them to eat. I had to shift some of my study time into the evening after dinner, but I made a point of still spending a lot of time with my dad.
I could only spend a little time after school on Wednesdays with Amy, so I started to meet her right outside of Arcadia and we would walk downtown together. This allowed us to talk together and have a bite to eat before she went to work at Brockton Bay General at six o'clock. Sunday was still our big day together, with Amy spending most of the day at my house, from before lunch until after dinner. Sometimes dad stayed home, and sometimes he visited friends or worked extra hours at the union. It seemed like he was trying to both chaperone us, as well as giving us space and privacy. Parents can be weird sometimes.
I got the aquariums setup in the basement, next to the old workbench, instead of in front of the coal cellar, simply because I couldn't figure out a way to move them safely once the tanks had been filled with sea water. All of the supplies that I had ordered came in and I setup the tanks as mini-coral farms, and planted the coral 'seeds' in each of the tanks. I had different species of coral, so I kept them in separate tanks. I couldn't wait to see Amy on Sunday, since it looked like I would have a lot to show her, and I hoped to please her with my progress, and maybe amaze her.
I was right, too.
-Legion*** Taylor ***Legion-
Sunday morning Amy came by on an early bus, getting to the bus stop at 10:15, and we walked back to my house, with her trying to get me to tell her what the surprise was, and I was refusing to tell her, but I would also keep giving her these little hints, just to tease her.
When we came in the back door, dad was sitting in his recliner reading the Sunday paper and sipping tea. When he saw Amy was with me, he checked the clock and raised an eyebrow at me, then asked, "So, you told me Amy was going to be coming by early, but I wasn't expecting it to be this early. What's up?"
I rolled my eyes at him and said, "I know I told you we were going to make a nice brunch this morning, and while I will admit that I'm good, but I still can't be we, all by myself."
This actually caught Amy by surprise, and she started giggling and had to hide her face in my side to keep from letting the cat out of the bag, so to speak.
Dad just smiled at her antics, and said, "Well, I guess you two have it under control then, so I'll just go back to reading my paper in peace, while you and the giggle monster there can get started on brunch." With that he shook his paper out and went back to reading, while I practically had to carry Amy into the kitchen, because she was pretty much helpless from holding her laughter in.
I set Amy down in what had become 'her' chair, so she could recover at her own pace, and I got started on our Sunday brunch. The first thing I did was put the breakfast casserole in the oven to bake, along with a sheet of bacon, while I started pan frying some sausages. As the sausages cooked, I diced up some potatoes, green peppers and onions for hash browned potatoes. By the time I had the potatoes diced, Amy had recovered enough to safely mix up the pancake batter, including whipping some egg whites into a nice fluffy meringue, which she folded into the batter to ensure the pancakes were nice and airy.
I used the bacon and sausage grease to fry out the hash browns, and turned down the oven to WARM, to keep the breakfast casserole, bacon, and sausages warm, and cleared the stove enough for Amy to start on the pancakes. The plan was to have some plain, some with blue berries, and some with strawberries, unfortunately they were still out of season, so they were too expensive to make whole batches of them, but we could use a few to spice up some of the pancakes.
While we were cooking, Amy and I were talking about the perfect kitchen we wanted when we had our own place and of course, if we could afford it. So we decided that money was no object, sort of like if we had won a huge lottery prize. The first thing I wanted was a six burner gas stove with an open grill in the center that I could cover with a huge griddle. Amy insisted on double wall mounted ovens, with TWO warming drawers to go with them; I countered with a full-size freezer right next to a huge refrigerator, maybe one with the freezer on the bottom. Amy then wanted a long island counter, with a double sink, and a six place breakfast bar on the other side, so we could make sure the kids had a proper breakfast before school. And lots and lots of drawers and cupboards to store all of the pots and pans and utensils we would need to cook in a kitchen that good. I wanted granite countertops and hardwood floors, and a walk-in pantry for storage so I didn't have to leave the kitchen to get anything.
By the time we got to this point in our planning, everything was ready and was either in the oven to keep warm for when we had seconds and thirds, or was on the table ready to eat. I made more hot tea, while Amy served up orange juice for everyone, but milk for just me and her, since dad almost never drank milk, just his tea and juice.
When I turned to get dad to come eat, I found that he was leaning against the wall just outside the kitchen, with his arms crossed and a big smile on his face.
"Well, I have to admit that when you said you two were going to make a big Sunday brunch, you really meant it. Although I didn't think that little Miss Giggle-Monster was ever going to stop laughing enough to help you." Which just made Amy blush bright red, cover her face and start giggling again. At least this time she was sitting in her seat already, so I just started filling her plate, before filling dad's and then mine. Eventually Amy calmed down enough to begin eating her breakfast, even if she would occasionally giggle whenever dad would make the most outrageous comments, especially designed just to make her giggle again.
Dad did get serious a couple of times, mostly to compliment us on how good everything was. I knew he meant it too, because he actually had a complete second plate, and thirds of a few things. I didn't notice it at the time, but later on I realized that of all the things dad teased Amy about, our dream kitchen wasn't one of them. And it wasn't until I was on my way back from taking her home that I actually figured out why; we had both been talking as if it was our kitchen, and our children that we were feeding, and we didn't even know it. Sometimes my dad can be pretty smart; and really, really kind.
But that was much later. After we had all had eaten our fill, even dad and Amy, because everyone expected me to be a bit of a pig, what with my boosted metabolism, dad kicked us out of the kitchen, saying that we had cooked, so it was only right that he do the cleanup and take care of the left-overs, not that there were many of them. We really did eat a lot of the brunch.
I took Amy upstairs to the guest room, and showed her some of the things I had been making, like shirts and pants for dad, and skirts and blouses for me… and for Amy. I had made her a light spring dress, and two professional looking pant suits, one gray and one navy, that I thought would be comfortable to wear when she was working at the hospital, out of costume, which she did occasionally. Unless it was a cape emergency that she had been called in for, she didn't always wear her costume at the hospital for her routine healing visits; she usually did, but not always, sometimes she would just wear regular clothes with a lab coat over them.
"These are beautiful, Taylor. Where did you get my sizes? Never mind, come on, I want to try these on in your room, I know that your dad won't walk in there by accident." She was almost gushing as she ran her hands over the dress, both inside and out, before doing the same with the pant suits. Picking them up, she grabbed my hand and pulled me out of my sewing room and into my bedroom.
Closing the door, she carefully laid out the clothes on the end of the bed, pointed at the head of the bed and said, "Have a seat, I'm going to model all of them for you." As I sat down on my bed, and scooted back to lean against the wall, she kicked off her shoes, casually removed her blouse and slacks, leaving her standing there in her underwear, which rather stunned me, as it was obvious that she had been working out hard, with great results. She had slimmed down a bit and put on a fair amount of muscle at the same time.
She picked up the dress, and dropped it over her head and wriggled it down into place. Reaching behind herself, she buttoned it part way up the back, before walking up to me, turned around and asked, "Could you please finish my buttons for me, I can't quite reach them?"
I swallowed and took my first breath since she had so innocently stripped off her clothes in front of me, and reached out my shaking hands and carefully buttoned up the last three buttons. When I had finished I said in a soft and slightly trembling voice, "All done now, Amy. There's a full length mirror on the inside of my closet door, if you would like to see yourself?"
She looked at me over her shoulder and said, "Thanks," as she opened the closet door and stepped back to see how the dress looked on her. "Wow," she said softly, "I knew it looked good when I first saw this, but… this makes me look almost pretty."
At that I snapped out of my daze and scooted forward and stood up from the bed. I placed my hands on her shoulders and said, "Amy, I'm glad that you like the dress, but in my opinion it doesn't make you look almost pretty; you are ALWAYS pretty, but when you relax, like you are now, you are stunningly beautiful. With or without the dress, you are beautiful. Please believe me, and believe in yourself." I had been looking at her in the mirror, while gently holding her shoulders, so I could see her eyes as she realized that I was speaking the plain, honest truth, at least as I saw it.
She slowly nodded, and said, "Alright, for you, I'll try, but now I think I want to try the pant suits, so take your seat and let me model them for you."
I nodded at her and took my seat on the bed again and then watched as she gave me a short, impromptu show by walking back and forth and spinning both slowly and quickly, showing me just how well the dress fit her and how well it worked as she moved around. When she was done, I applauded for her, as she had shown off the both the dress and herself wonderfully. When I had finished applauding, she curtseyed very nicely, then calmly removed the dress and began putting on the first pant suit. It came with both a matching blouse and knee high stockings. Once the blouse was on, she removed her plain socks and put on the stockings, taking her time to smooth them down. She slipped on the slacks and put her shoes back on, even though they didn't really match. At all.
As before, she carefully checked herself out in the mirror first, then gave me a short show. She walked back and forth, so that I could see her from every angle, then she took off her jacket and did it again. As she was slowly spinning in front of me, I thought, Amy, I don't know why you think that you aren't pretty, but you really are. Maybe I was right and it's just a matter of getting you to relax.
-Legion*** Amy ***Legion-
As she turned around one last time, Amy looked at Taylor, and smiled a little satisfied smile, as she saw the stunned look on her face, with her eyes shocked wide open, and her mouth frozen partially open. Well, I'd have to say that this little modeling show worked. And I still have one more outfit to go. Walking to the foot of the bed, she first took off her shoes, then removed her slacks while standing at the foot of the bed, while keeping an eye on Taylor in the mirror. She carefully folded up the slacks, picked up the next pair and then slowly put them on. When she bent over to pick up her shoes to put them on, she heard a soft sound, almost a groan come from Taylor; when she checked the mirror, Taylor was a little pale, and slightly shaking.
I decided to finish the fashion show, but that I had better not push Taylor as hard as I had been, because if I did, either Taylor was going to pass out, or we were not going to leave this room virginal. Which might not be so bad, but I really didn't want my first time to be with my girlfriend's father right downstairs. Especially since I hadn't asked Taylor to be my girlfriend yet, and couldn't until I could fix my issue with Vicky's aura. That would not be right, as well as kind of putting the cart before the horse, as it were. So I carefully put the suit jacket on, checked the fit with both my hands and in the mirror. Once I was sure everything was just right, I gave Taylor her last show, just as thoroughly as the other two, but this time I didn't remove my jacket, or tease her quite as much, which let Taylor slowly get herself back under control.
Leaving the pant suit on for the moment, I sat down next to Taylor and asked, "Would I be right in assuming that you have a few outfits for yourself that you could model for me? And would it be okay if I put the dress back on, because of the three outfits, I think that that one is my favorite."
Taylor slowly nodded and said, "Yes, I do have some outfits that I wanted to show you. And of course you may put the dress back on, it's yours after all." With that, she carefully got up, went to the door and left saying, "I'll be right back, I just need to grab the outfits I wanted to show you."
I carefully put the Navy pant suit that I had modeled first back on the hangers, and took off my shoes and stockings in preparation of changing back into the dress once Taylor was back and the door latched. As I removed my stockings, Taylor returned with several outfits on hangers, closed and locked the door, hung her outfits up in the closet and started to remove her clothes.
At the same time I took off the Gray pant suit, hung it up and carefully dropped my new dress over my head. As my head came through the collar, i saw that Taylor had stopped moving and was staring at my now covered breasts, and her face was bright red. I very carefully didn't notice where she was looking, and just started buttoning up my dress.
After a moment, Taylor shook herself and finished removing her clothes, at which point the tables were turned and I found myself frozen, blushing and staring at her breasts. They weren't nearly as big as mine, but in my opinion, they were just perfect. Even so, it still took me a moment to realize that Taylor had been sitting across from me all during breakfast, braless, and I had never noticed.
I abruptly sat down on the bed, my legs too weak and shaky to support me, as Taylor finished removing all of her clothes except her panties, put a low-cut bra on, and then put on a light-weight dress similar to mine, though in a different color and pattern, which matched her colors better than my dress would have. It was also clearly designed for an A cup instead of for a C cup, like mine had been.
As I sat there on the bed, wondering just when I had lost control of the little game I had been playing, Taylor stepped up to me and turned around, asking, "Could you please finish my buttons for me? Then I will finish you."
I shook for a moment at the image in my head from Taylor's comment, thinking, Get your mind out of the gutter girl!, but I still managed to carefully button up her dress. When I finished, Taylor turned around and grabbed my hands and gently pulled me to my feet and turned me around. Once I was standing, more or less steadily, Taylor finished buttoning my dress for me, and then just as gently moved me to the head of the bed and sat me down leaning against the wall for support, just where she had sat earlier.
-Legion*** Taylor ***Legion-
After I sat her down, I began to give Amy her own, private fashion show, just like the one she had given me, this time with commentary. As I twirled around, I explained what I had been doing, using the making of the different outfits as practice for when I could make our costumes out of Black Widow spider silk. At this point, I stopped and walked back to my closet, saying over my shoulder, "Just a minute, I need to change into my next outfit."
Taking an odd looking stick from the top shelf of my closet, I used it to quickly un-button the top five buttons of my dress, once again thanking the nurses who had shown me all the little tricks for compensating for my disabilities, before hanging it on the knob of my closet door and lifted the dress up and over my head. I took a few moments to carefully hang it up, teasing Amy just like she had teased me.
A moment later, I was dressed again, this time in a short, but still modest skirt and a sleeveless top that buttoned down the front this time. I gave her another show with commentary, only this time rather than explaining how I had made this outfit, I was describing just how I was going to make her new Panacea costume.
Amy tried to protest, explaining, "But, Taylor, I have a perfectly good costume to use, I really don't need another…"
I interrupted her at that point, softly but firmly stating, "Your current costume is simply cloth, which I find completely unacceptable. Your new costumes will be at least as good as the best Kevlar body armor, if not better. It will also have a silk body suit to go under it, to provide additional protection."
When Amy tried to explain that she wasn't a combat cape, and that she always stayed well back from the fighting, just acting to heal those who had been injured and so she didn't need an armored costume, I dropped to my knees in front of her, and took both of her hands in mine.
"Amy, I know just how many crazies are out there, people who from either drugs, insanity or simple choice; don't ever think about consequences, about what will happen to them after they do something like shoot you in the back or attack you with a knife." I stopped and squeezed my eyes shut for a moment, before opening them and continuing, "If someone hurt you like that, I would probably go crazy myself, and go on a killing spree to destroy everyone who had anything to do with your death, including those people who decided that the best healer in the world, the one who CAN'T heal herself, only needed a cloth costume. And, and if you died, I truly don't think I could live without you, because if you were gone, I think, no, I know that my crazy would be back and that the best thing for everyone would be if I just died with you."
I let go of her hands, and wrapped my arms around her waist, and placed my head in her lap as I started to cry at the thought of Amy being hurt, or god forbid, killed. Amy started rubbing my back and shoulders, and then began running her fingers through my hair. I have to admit that I liked the feel of her fingers in my hair, and had been doing that to her as well. As she did so, I could feel my tears starting to soak through the thin fabric of her dress.
-Legion*** Amy ***Legion-
I couldn't really understand what she was saying through both her tears and my lap, but it seemed to be apologies for not being strong enough or maybe good enough to be my friend.
"Taylor, you are one of the strongest and best people I have ever known. Having you as my friend may not be easy, but it has certainly been wonderful and worthwhile. You are smart, strong, compassionate, and have shown me how to be a friend by your example, not just with cold words."
"I know I've told you this before, and I haven't and won't change my mind. I will never leave you. You are my best and only friend; I am never going to abandon you like that bitch did."
Taylor pulled one of her hands from behind my back and rubbed my leg and said, "Thank you. I guess then, we'll just have to figure out a way to make sure that we can stay together, forever, so neither one of us ever has to be alone."
She lifted her face from my lap and I could see for the first time, the ravages of her tears, that I had felt as she cried. "I want to show you one last outfit than put my dress again, is that okay?" she asked me.
"Of course it's okay, and once your dress is on, we can get washed up and fix our faces, before we go downstairs and show your dad the dresses that you made, alright?"
She just nodded and pushed herself up, her hand running along my leg in an unintentional caress, a caress that made me shiver as she turned away to the closet. Again I got to watch her from behind as she carefully removed her clothes and pulled out another outfit, this one mostly skin-tight and dark gray and black. As she dressed herself, I saw that it was only appeared to be skin-tight but was actually loose enough to still be very flexible, as she demonstrated for me, by doing a quick set of exercises, gymnastic moves and stretches, before saying, "This outfit is what I use to go out at night and let myself really cut loose. Running, jumping, practicing parkour, really anything I can't do here, and can't afford to be identified doing. I don't plan on doing anything dangerous or cape related, I just wear this for my night time training, that's all."
She removed this outfit, but instead of hanging it up, she knelt down and folded it up and put it in the bottom of a small gym bag, that she pushed to the back of her closet. Standing up, she took her new dress off of its hanger and put it on, facing me this time. Yep, just as lovely from the front as from the back, I thought to myself. I stood up and approached her and as she lowered the dress over her head, I placed my hands on her shoulders and gently turned her around, and slowly buttoned her dress from the bottom all the way to the top. I at least had the satisfaction of seeing that she was just as affected by my touch as I was by hers.
Sitting back down on her bed, I said, "Taylor, one of my big problems is because of Vicky; every time I get close to her, her aura makes me lust after her, again."
Taylor could obviously see the disgust on my face at the knowledge that just being near Vicky forced me to lust after her, when I had no desire to feel that way for my sister. Continuing on, I said, "Until we can figure out how to block at least her aura, I can't really relax at home or school, really anywhere that Vicky might show up.
Taylor nodded her agreement and said, "Thank you Amy, for explaining that. What do you know about Vicky's aura, how it works on people, or at least how it works on you? I can overpower her aura if I need to, with my own Master power, but unless I am there with you, you won't to be able to protect yourself."
I nodded, and said, "As far as I can tell, you were right; her aura is actually a form of a Shaker ability that changes the brain chemistry of everyone within her range. I've been watching and checking everyone that I can as soon as they come under the effect of her Aura, as well as after they are free of its power."
"The specific effect seems to be variable, depending on 1. Her emotional state, 2. Her target's emotional state, 3. How she feels about the target; positive, negative or neutral, 4. How her target feels about Vicky; positive, negative or neutral. Normally the effect only lasts while she is actively projecting her aura, resetting back to normal after a short period of time. However the longer and more often the target is exposed, the longer the effects last. In my case, until you broke her thrall, I had been effectively under her aura constantly. With long term consequences that include being extremely vulnerable to re-exposure, as well as some others that are common with addiction, such as withdrawal and cravings."
Taylor nodded, and said, "I can see at least one possible solution; it will probably need to be adjusted on a daily basis until we get it just right. You can create a monitor in my brain that can detect when her Shaker effect hits, and then monitor for any changes to my brain chemistry that are externally imposed. If it has a recorder function as well, you can cross-check between us whenever we are both around your sister."
"Once you are as confident as you can be, at least without having Vicky right here to hit me with her aura over and over again, that you are sure you can counter-act each change, then you install it in your own brain, using our 'echo' effect. You and I will need to meet after school each day, so that you can double-check the recorder and make any necessary updates to our monitors. Once we have that type of Mastering covered, we can then start working on my type of Mastering. Do you think that might work?"
My heart leapt at the thought of being free of Vicky's aura at last. Even if it took a week or two, it would be totally worth waiting for. "Yes, yes. Oh my god, yes. Thank you so much Taylor. Please can we start on this right away?"
"Sure, just take your time and try to anticipate all of the possible variations of her power." Taylor said
with a little smile on her face.
-Legion*** Taylor ***Legion-
When we came back downstairs, about 30 minutes later, we were both demurely dressed in our new dresses, stockings and sandals that even sort of matched either our dress or our hair color. I had grabbed the box of mom's shoes and sandals from dad's closet and we had searched through them, as well as my sparse collection to find a pair that would work.
And unknown to everyone but us, we each had a prototype, automatic defense to any Shaker-style Master effect.
We stopped off in the living room to show off our new dresses and invite dad to see the coral tanks and watch Amy work with them and speed up their growth, but he declined to come with them.
"You both look lovely in those dresses. Taylor, did you make those? I had no idea you were so talented as a seamstress, those are very nice designs." He complimented them both.
I nodded and corrected him, "Actually, I just chose the pattern that I liked for the most part, I'm not really a designer; you had it right the first time, I'm a seamstress, I just followed the pattern."
"Would you like to come downstairs and see my coral tanks, dad? Amy hasn't seen them yet and if you'd like I can show them off to you at the same time."
He shook his head, "No, I think that I'll take a rain check on that, instead I'll just relax and sleep off that amazing brunch you and the Giggle Monster made."
"Daaad, are you ever going to stop teasing her about that?" I asked him, as Amy blushed and giggled again.
"Hmmmm, no probably not. Not unless I can come up with a better nickname for her."
I shook my head and pulled Amy by her hand towards the basement door, calling back over my shoulder, "Well, enjoy your nap, we are going to go downstairs and have fun instead."
He just laughed and said, "Watching coral grow, that sounds a lot like watching paint dry to me."
I responded in a most mature manner by sticking my tongue out at him as I lead the way down the stairs, making sure to turn on all the lights as I went down. The first thing I did was point out the coral tanks, which were each labled with the type of coral that I had seeded in them. I had also taped a color picture of what each type of coral looked like when it was full sized for comparison purposes.
The tanks were arranged with the larger, 50 gallon tanks on low shelves and the 20 gallon tanks on shelves above them. The pumps and filters were stacked neatly between the tanks, with the hoses running behind the tanks and out of sight.
After studying them for about 5 minutes, Amy asked, "Is it okay if I touch them?"
"Sure, just roll up your sleeves and let me get some towels and a stool for you." I replied, walking over to the dryer and bringing back two folded towels and old garden kneeling stool for her to use. As I put the stool down in front of tank #1 she finished rolling her sleeves all the way up.
She stepped up on the stool and helped me remove the top of the smaller tank and while I set it aside, she reached in and touched one of the coral seeds. It was amazing, it looked just like time-lapse photography, as the small coral seed simply blossomed and grew. She worked her way through the tank, accelerating the growth of all the coral, and I would swear that she also improved both the shape and coloration of the coral as it grew.
Turning to me, she said, "That should do it for now, but I think I should increase the nutrients in this tank before we close it up, and the others as well when I work on them. Could you please bring me some insects that I can convert?"
I walked over to the other side of the basement and opened one of the windows so that I could bring some of my swarm inside; as soon as it was open, a column of insects flew over to the other side of basement, and slowly fed themselves into the tank, right where her hands were waiting in the water, disappearing, both visually and from my senses; with no pain or panic or anything at all; just gone, turned into the nutrients that the coral needed to survive, when she finally said, "This should do for now, I will probably only need to do this once a week, unless we are crafting a lot of items at once. Continue to use the nutrients that you already have, but only about a quarter of the recommended amount. That should cover any minerals that I missed when converting the insects."
Amy stepped down from the stool, and accepted the towel I offered her, so I replaced the tank top and removed the other 20 gallon tank top. Once again, she performed her magic in the tank, but this time I had the insects ready for her without even being asked.
When she was finished with that tank, I removed the lid from the first of the two 50 gallon tanks so that she could work on it, but when she knelt on the stool and started to reach into the water she paused and stepped back, her brow furrowed in thought.
"Taylor, is there any chance that your dad will be coming down here soon?"
I shook my head, "He rarely comes down here at all, and," checking with some flies to be sure, "besides he's asleep in his recliner. Why?"
"Good, because I don't want to wreck my pretty new dress." As she finished speaking, she started unbuttoning the back of her dress and turned her back to me and asked, "Could you help me please?"
I froze for a moment, then put the towels down and started unbuttoning her dress from the bottom, working my way towards where her fingers were working down. Our fingers met just above the middle button and froze for a moment before she pulled her hands away to let me finish. When the last button was undone, she lifted her hands above her head and I carefully lifted her dress over her head and folded it neatly over my arm.
Giving me a quick grin, she took the dry towel and laid it on the stool to protect her knees and knelt down so she could reach all the way into the tank. Once again, I watched her perform her magic, growing the coral so quickly and smoothly, even as I fed her the insects that she was using to fuel the amazing growth. The second tank was finished just as fast.
When she stood up, I led her over to the sinks so that she could wash all of the salt water off her arms, to prevent it from drying on her skin and getting sticky and itchy. After she was clean and dry, I helped her put her dress back on so that I could show her the next surprise.
I took her by the hand and led her to back of the staircase, and pulled open the plain curtain; inside were several martial arts training aides; a striking dummy, a knife target, and some wooden weapons.
After she had examined them, I closed the curtain and carefully slid the wardrobe away from the coal cellar door, the casters I had installed on the bottom making it not only easy, but very quiet. Opening the door revealed a series of wooden frames and racks, as well as an old dressmaker's dummy; but it also revealed over 500 Black Widow spiders spinning silk thread made of multiple twisted strands, that was being wound onto wooden spools or industriously weaving their silk into multiple layer cloth that would soon be treated and turned into our costumes
"Oh my god, this is so beautiful!" Amy was practically gushing and squeezing my hand tightly as she examined the Widows closely, showing no fear or revulsion at being so close to so many deadly spiders, even reaching in and stroking a couple of them gently.
"This is just so wonderful, you've got them working full out, but I can tell that none of them are being overworked. And the way you have those beetles winding the thread onto the spools is really clever. And you have the next shift resting and eating so they will be ready to take over soon, right? While the ants and beetles are digging even more chambers, aren't they?"
I nodded and said, "I have about 1.500 Widows right now, and I will be collecting more of them each night. The ones I currently have I've bred, and hope that the new eggs will be hatching in a couple of weeks. I hope to have about 10,000 of them by the end of the week, so that I can finish up our costumes soon. To get the total numbers that I expect to need I will need all of them to breed, but even that will be kept under strict control. No free breeding, just enough to reach and maintain the work force levels I need."
"Do you think it would be okay if we did some brainstorming on the weapons we want to design upstairs, or do we need to go to your room?"
"Dad is pretty much out of it, so as long as we don't get too loud, we should be okay. I have some designs in one of my notebooks that I want you to look over with me anyways. I'll get my notebook and we can sit on the sofa, and I'll know if he starts to wake up, so we can change the subject."
Amy led the way upstairs, while I replaced the wardrobe and turned off the lights on my way up the stairs. We stopped in the kitchen and filled a plate with a variety of cookies and snacks, grabbed a cup for each of us and took the pitcher of strawberry-apple juice as we headed for the living room sofa.
Amy organized our snacks and got comfortable on the sofa while I fetched my notebook with some of my design ideas written and drawn out so that we could do some brainstorming.
Opening the notebook to a tabbed page, I pointed out two different designs for a collapsing baton. "Amy, assuming that you can use the coral as a base material, do you think that you could create a pair of batons, like these, only matte black, that I can open and close with just a flick. I have one I got at a surplus store if you need it as an example."
Amy interrupted me, "Sure, I'll take a look at it, but Miss Militia actually showed me how to use one of these a while ago, so I should be able to craft a working copy out of coral. The only issue is that I want to play with the details so that I can make it stronger and harder than basic coral, something that can really standup to the forces that I expect you, or even I to be able to apply. And that's going to take some time, as I try out different options."
"Okay," I said, "But what about this one, the one I hoped would let you extend your power range?" As I spoke, I pointed to the other baton, which also had a cut-away view showing some coiled tendrils, that I hoped would let her have physical contact through living material.
"Hmm…instead of coiled tendrils, I think that I'll have channels of living tissue, similar to bone marrow inside the inner walls of the different tubes that will touch whether they are extended or collapsed. That should be stronger and less failure-prone, like a double tube of bamboo," Amy said as she traced her finger along the drawings.
As she seemed to be done with the batons, I turned the page to show her some drawings of several different knives; I had copied 3 different throwing knives that were each double-edged, had simple shapes and had no protruding pommel or guard; in addition I had faithfully copied both the Fairbairn-Sykes and the Baby F-S fighting knives. The full sized Fairbairn-Sykes had a 7½" blade and the Baby F-S had a smaller, 4½" blade, more suited to hiding than all-up fighting.
The following pages had a variety of tools, ranging from a small sharp-toothed saw, to a collapsing crowbar, to simple hand tools that could be used to work with both wood or metal, I even had a scale drawing of the basic handcuff key. All of my drawings included dimensions and other important spec's.
After paging through the hand tools and weapons, she turned back to the first page of knives than asked me a question, "Taylor, have you ever read a book called 'Sten'?"
I blinked at that question, coming seemingly out of nowhere, but then said. "Not that I'm aware of. Why?"
"The book was written back in the 80's I believe, but what brought it to mind is that the hero was able to create a very small blade, made of an exotic crystal that had an edge that was so sharp and strong, that it could cut almost anything. This blade was hidden in a surgically implanted sheath, sort of as a weapon of last result."
I looked at her, then at the pages of drawings, and then said, "Okay, but how do you think that applies here? I mean, having a hidden blade is nice and all, but with your techniques, we could do that anyways, and not have an implanted sheath that could be detected, right?"
Amy smiled and said, "Oh, sure. But the point I wanted to make, is that if I take my time and experiment, I may be able to come up with a material that is almost as strong and hard as the crystal in Sten. Which, since it is still organic and growing, means that I can shape it into any form that we want. Batons that are unbreakable, thus able to hit MUCH harder, knives with edges that, while maybe not mono-molecular, could still be far sharper and stronger than anything else out there. Except maybe TinkerTech, but I bet I could come pretty close. Unbreakable lockpicks. Collapsable crowbars that are stronger than the much larger and heavier ones available of sale."
I nodded enthusiastically and turned the notebook to another tabbed page, "That would also help with some of my ranged weapon ideas. For example, I have a few ideas for non-lethal weapons, like this stun gun, or this taser, both of which would use an electric eel's organic battery, possibly with an organic capacitor to store even more power. For lethal or possibly-lethal weapons I came up with dart throwers, both pistol and rifle style. Each of these can fire darts with a variety of payloads; paralytic, sleep, stun/pain/incapacitating, and…if necessary, even lethal payloads like Widow venom or even something worse."
Amy frowned when I mentioned the last option, but nodded at the realization that as much as she didn't like the idea, there were circumstances when it might be needed. And if not for us, perhaps for someone who did not have a Parahuman ability to depend on.
"All right, I think that I want to start with a baton for each of us and maybe the throwing knives, two of each type so that you can decide which one is your favorite style." She sighed and started to get up, when I took her hand and pulled her back down to the sofa. "Hey! I need to go and work on the coral, remember?" she protested.
"Of course you do, and since today is all about experimenting, let's try a new experiment," I answered her with a little grin. "Follow my links down into the tanks and see if you can 'echo' in that direction, to touch the coral, since it is a living creature. If you can, then try to use your BioKinesis to make the changes you want as well as to use your Thinker power to observe the changes as you make them so that you can adjust as necessary."
Amy looked at me for a moment, then asked, almost tentatively, "Do, do you really think that could work? To let me heal at range?"
I nodded and said, "Yes, I really think so. Although I suspect it will take time and practice before you can heal as easily at range as you do now at a touch. And in any case it may be that because of my limitations, for mass and brain complexity, that you will never be able to heal humans at range. Which doesn't mean that the ability would be useless, because you are capable of much more than just healing. Even if we don't let the general public know that."
-Legion*** Amy ***Legion-
Taking a deep slow breath, I set to work, first connecting to Taylor, then following her linkages outward, specifically out and down towards the coral tanks. Once I found the correct linkages, which took a lot longer that I had expected, since the coral was so primitive, the linkage and echoes were both very faint, I began trying to force a coral budding along the base of the tank, approximately 8 inches long and 3 inches in diameter. This would hopefully become the cradle or incubator for the first throwing knife; I paused here long enough to ask Taylor for the dimensions we would need for the knives, as well as the approximate weight for each knife; studying the tank and the material I had to work with, I told her that I was only going to work on one knife per tank, partially to keep it hidden from casual view, but mostly to ensure that doing this wouldn't damage the rest of the coral in the tank.
Once the two cradles in the 20 gallon tanks were finished, I took a break and returned my attention to the living room, where I found that Danny was still napping and Taylor had rearranged herself so that she was curled up with her head in my lap and her hand wrapped around my knee, while she was taking a nap just like her dad. As cute as it was, I was actually getting hungry, so I decided to steal a page from her own book; first I set the notebook aside, then I carefully took a lock of her hair and used the tip to slowly tickle her, just like she did to me a while back. Alas, unlike me, she didn't make any cute noises or puppy growls, she just slowly opened her eyes and looked at me, with a soft, beautiful smile that was enough to almost make me cry. "Hey beautiful, think we could find some food to eat? Working remotely is hard work, and I'm getting pretty hungry now."
Taylor blinked at that, and said, "Wow, you're actually hungry? I'll definitely have to feed you. I was beginning to think that it was only my powers that need food when I pushed them." As she sat up and stretched, she asked, "Do you have any preferences, or should I just surprise you?"
I thought for a moment, and then said, "Surprise me, please."
Taylor nodded and reached down with both hands to pull me up and took me to the kitchen. As I took my normal seat, she turned the oven on and pulled out one of the cookie sheets to set on the stovetop. Pulling a large bag of steak fries from the freezer, she spread them across the pan, then sprayed them lightly with some olive oil, and seasoned them with salt, pepper, garlic and chili powder and popped them in the oven to start baking. The next step was to pull a big package of thawed ground beef from the fridge, dump it into a large mixing bowl, then she started getting together the other ingredients she wanted.
Taylor mixed a bunch of finely chopped ingredients together and then carefully added them to the ground beef and worked them together.
She began forming and pressing the ground beef into nice, big hamburger patties, each of them just under a ½ lb. When they were finished, she had 10 big burgers, more than enough for lunch today, even with all three of us eating. While she had been preparing the burgers, I had found and organized all of the condiments that anyone could possibly want, and sliced up two big tomatoes and washed some leaf lettuce and put it all on a small platter.
She started the first three burgers on the griddle as I was looking through the fridge, and I turned back to her with 4 or 5 different types of cheese. "Okay, who likes what cheese on their burger? American, cheddar, muenster, provolone or cojack? What's cojack?"
She laughed at me and said, "Cojack is Colby-Monterey Jack. I usually use it on Mexican food like tacos or enchiladas, stuff like that, but it is quite good. Anyways, I tend to like either American or CoJack on my burgers, dad likes Muenster, and you like…?"
I just giggled and said, "I'm spoiled for choices here, I don't think I've ever had anything except American cheese on a burger before. Sooo, I think that I'll try CoJack today, how does that sound to you?
Taylor's dad spoke up from right behind me and said, "Well, that sounds pretty good for a Little Miss Giggle Monster, on a Sunday afternoon."
At the sound of his voice, I eeeped and jumped away from the fridge, and then turned and waved my handful of cheese at him, "And just what is the meaning of that, startling poor innocent young ladies who are just trying to figure out what to do with all of these different types of cheeses?"
He put on his best 'who me?' face and said, "I was just following the wonderful smells and silly sounds of the local Giggle Monster to see what was going on. And lo and behold, lunch is going on. So you see, I'm perfectly innocent here."
I looked suspiciously back and forth between Taylor and her dad, then put the cheeses down on the kitchen table and asked Taylor, "And just how is it that you didn't notice him sneaking up behind me, hmmm?"
She started to giggle, but I could see her trying to hold it in as she said, "But Amy, I was all busy making the burgers and stuff, and well dad is really sneaky and I guess he just used his super sneaky powers to sneak right up behind you, being so sneaky and everything. Right?"
I took one slow step towards Taylor, who was starting to look a little worried, and then said, "And you didn't even notice him sneaking up behind me, so sneaky and quiet like. Even though you were facing the living room…did you?"
By this time, her dad had one hand stuffed in his mouth to keep from laughing out loud as Taylor put the spatula down and took a short side step towards the door. "Now Amy, surely you can't blame me for dad being all sneaking and aaaaak!"
As she squawked, Taylor spun and ran for the back door, barely getting it open before I caught up to her.
-Legion*** Danny ***Legion-
I picked up the spatula to keep an eye on the burgers, but also so I could watch the girls running around the back yard, Taylor's longer legs not helping much because of all of the turns and evasions she had to make to keep Amy at a distance.
It was wonderful watching them play, since it had been so long since Taylor had been able to just relax and play. Her pleas for mercy and claims of innocence were so over the top, that no one would have ever believed them, but they went well with her laughter and Amy's giggles.
It took almost 5 minutes but Amy finally managed to trap her next to my hammock, and when she tried to climb over it, Amy just jumped on top of her and started tickling her. I don't know if Amy was just better at it then me, or if she knew better tickle spots, but she had my poor daughter practically in tears of laughter and promising pretty much anything and everything if only she would stop.
Deciding to have mercy on my daughter, I called out, "Lunch is ready, come and get it or I'll throw it to the pigs." That seemed to stop the tickling, but they were both still out of breath, so they just lay in the hammock for a few minutes until they could safely get up and come in through the back door.
As they trooped in, they lifted their hands and said, "Wash first, eat second dad. Be right back." With that, the two of them ran upstairs, still laughing and giggling as they ran to the bathroom to wash their faces and hands.
While we ate our burgers and fries, the girls were talking all over each other to describe what Amy had done with the coral seeds, growing them much larger and giving them what sounded like very beautiful colors. Clearly I would need to take a look at some point to see just what they had accomplished.
As we were cleaning up from our lunch, I realized that even with all of the running around and horseplay, neither of their dresses were so much as mussed, much less stained or soiled. I guess they knew their limits when it came to playing around.
After we had picked up and put away everything from lunch, I asked them what they wanted to do now?
"So girls, what's next? Would you like to do some shopping, or maybe catch a movie?"
The two of them exchanged a couple of looks, complete with raised eyebrows and tiny shrugs, then they both looked at me and Amy said, "If it's alright with you, could we just stay here and watch a movie? A comedy or something like that?"
"Sure, I'm not quite sure what we have here at home, but if it's here then you can watch it," before I had even finished speaking, the two of them were going through the shelves and boxes of movies, setting aside a movie occasionally for their short list. Eventually, they settled on 'The Princess Bride' and a movie from Earth-Aleph called 'Avatar: The Last Air-Bender, so they trooped upstairs and returned with just about every spare pillow and half a dozen quilts and blankets, so they could make a giant nest to watch their movies from.
-Legion*** ***Legion-
Even as they watched their movies, they were also working on their tools and weapons that were growing downstairs in the basement coral tanks. These were their first attempts at two sets of throwing knives and two different batons.
When the first movie finished, they took a break so they could make some popcorn, use the bathroom, and check the progress of the batons and throwing knives. The batons worked smoothly and easily, the color and shading were just as planned and Amy's seemed to allow her to extend her 'touch' range out to the full extension of the baton. The knives in appearance seemed to meet the standards that Taylor had wanted, but clearly further testing would be needed. After dad went to work on Monday.
It was only the work of moments to feed more insects into the tanks, for Amy to convert to needed nutrients, as well as to add the extra minerals needed for the next set of tests. All of the completed weapons were hidden in the wardrobe, for now, as nothing more was really needed. Not yet anyways.
Trooping back upstairs, they collected the popcorn, juice and cookies for the next movie. Danny had mostly worked on paperwork during Avatar: The Last Airbender, but he found that the next one was too funny to just ignore, so he ended up spending more of his time splitting his attention between the movie and the two girls. The more he watched them, the more he thought that they were becoming very good friends. And though he didn't know much about Amy Dallon's personal life, he did know a lot about his Taylor's, and so far, it looked like they were really good for each other; Amy had already saved Taylor's life, which earned her a huge amount of credit, but more importantly, she seemed to be able to help Taylor relax and just have fun being a young girl. No stupid teenage drama games, just friendship and fun. Something that he had thought that Emma Barnes had managed to kill off completely.
When the second movie ended, it was almost 8pm, and that gave him the perfect excuse to drive Amy home; of course Taylor would be sitting next to her, he wasn't an idiot, he could see how that wind blew. Still, it would hopefully let me introduce myself to at least one of her parents in a fairly casual way. God knows it couldn't be worse than when I met Annette-Rose's parents, now there was a disaster. But in the end it worked out okay.
"All right girls, time to clean up this mess. Kiddo, you take the pillows and put them where they belong. Amy and I will start on cleaning up the snacks and drinks and we can all work on putting the blankets and quilts away together." I clapped my hands sharply and said, "Let's go, hop to it."
Other than a moments shared glance, the girls did just as I asked, separating and completing their tasks just as quickly as I could have wanted, in fact the way they were zipping around the rooms was actually making me feel tired. When everything seemed to be finished I spoke up again, "Alright girls, get Amy's new outfits together, and if you have them, cover them up with some of the dry-cleaning bags to keep them clean on the ride home. Amy, if you could give me your address, and directions as needed I'll give you two a ride there. Much better than trying to take the bus with a bunch of dry-cleaning. Trust me I've done that before; using a car works a lot better. Okay?" Again, they exchanged a split second look, then Amy said, "If it's not a problem for you Mr. Hebert, I'd greatly appreciate it."
"Ahht! None of that Mr. Hebert nonsense, it's Danny to you, alright?"
She slowly smiled back at me and said, "Alright then, Danny. Thank you very much for having me over today, as well as for the ride home."
"Ha! Having you over is hardly a chore, with the way you and Tay can cook together, you're welcome over here anytime. Anyways, get your stuff together and load up in the car."
Running up the stairs, Taylor stepped into the guest room/sewing room and picked up a few dry-cleaning bags and the two of them carefully double covered her new outfits so they would stay neat and clean on the trip home.
As they covered the second outfit, Taylor asked Amy, "Would you like to borrow a sweater for the trip home? Or to install the climate control mod, instead."
Amy stopped what she was doing, glancing out the door and then said, "Mod, please," she reached her hand out to take Taylor's, only to realize that both of her hands and arms were full of outfits, purses, and a backpack. Giggling, she simply placed her right hand on Taylor's cheek and began to echo back and construct the entire climate control modification system, which would allow her to be comfortable at any temperature from about 85 degrees C, all the way down to minus 65 degrees C.
As she stood there, her hand holding Taylor's cheek, both of them closed their eyes, simply enjoying the combined use of their powers as much as they enjoyed simply touching each other; neither of them really noticing when Danny came upstairs to fetch his car keys, or that he actually stopped to watch them just for a moment before smiling and leaving to finish his errand.
Less than 10 minutes later, the three of them were on their way, with Amy's new outfits hanging neatly from the rear seat passenger door, while Amy and Taylor chatted about the movies that they had just finished watching. Other than a few directions at the very end, the trip was mostly quiet and easy, and over far too soon.
When they pulled into the driveway, Taylor got out first, and helped Amy collect everything and get it all organized. "Amy, do you need me to unlock the door, or should I knock or…?"
She grinned back at her and said, "Come on, I'm not sure who's home right now, but my keys are in my purse, so if you wouldn't mind getting them for me?"
Pulling the keys out of her purse, she held up what looked like the house key and raised her eyebrow in question.
At Amy's nod, she used the key to unlock the door, and pushed it open so that Amy could enter the house first, and she called out, "Mom, dad, Vicky? Anyone home?"
"Hey Amy-girl, your home early, everything okay?" A man's voice, presumably her dad, answered from another room. He stepped into the living room carrying a cup of coffee and a magazine, stopping short as he looked over Amy, the outfits she was carrying and the tall slender girl standing next to her.
"Well, Amy, do you think you could introduce us?"
"Of course, dad. Mark Dallon, I am pleased to introduce to you my very dear friend Taylor Hebert; Taylor, this is my dad, Mark Dallon, AKA Flashbang."
"Well, I'm very glad to meet you Miss Hebert, I've heard a bit about you from Vicky and Amy's conversations, but it is much better to meet you in person, and if you don't mind my asking, what's with the new outfits, Amy? I thought you had all the clothes you needed for now?"
"These are gifts from Taylor; she has been teaching herself to sew, and so her dad, herself, and I have been benefiting from her efforts."
He nodded again, then stepped closer and inspected both of the dresses that they were wearing. "Well, if the other outfits look anything as good as these dresses, I'd have to say you have quite a talent there, Miss Hebert."
Taylor softly cleared her throat, "Please sir, just Taylor is fine."
He chuckled and said, "That's fine Taylor, and you can feel free to call me Mark, alright?"
"Yes, sir…I mean Mr. … I mean Mark." Taylor stumbled, trying to figure out the proper way to address Amy's dad. Of course Amy's giggles didn't help.
She carefully laid everything on one of chairs, then wrapped her arms around Taylor and squeezed her tight, softly saying, "Shhh, it's okay Taylor, you can call him whatever makes you comfortable. You know it took me almost three weeks before I could call your dad Danny, just relax and take your time, it'll be fine." As she spoke, she could feel the tension easing from Taylor's muscles and back. Rubbing her back for a moment, eased out of the hug, but kept a hold of her hand and turned to face her dad.
"Dad, I'll show you what she made me later, all right. Maybe when Vicky and mom get home, if it's not too late."
Mark nodded and said, "Well it's been nice to meet you Taylor, and I expect that we'll meet again soon. Amy, don't forget that you have school tomorrow, so you'll need to say goodbye and let Taylor head for home, all right?"
Amy nodded, and still holding her hand, walked her back out the front door and half-way to the car, when she stopped and pulled her into another hug. "It's still hard for you to meet new people, isn't it, sweetie? I'm sorry for that, but I promise, you don't have to meet them on your own. I'll always be there for you, I promise."
Taylor nodded jerkily, but didn't say anything for a moment, before she said, "Thank you, Amy. Sometimes it catches me by surprise, and then I don't know what to do. But you hold me and remind me that it will be okay, even if I don't know how, yet."
Amy smiled up at her, and stroked her cheek for a moment, "Time for you to go now. I'll send an email after Vicky gets home to let you know if it worked the way we hoped. If so I may want you to meet me after school, if that's possible?"
"Of course it's possible. You know that if you need me there, I'll be there as soon as school lets out," Taylor exclaimed.
"All right, I'll send you an email later, now scoot. Take your dad home and relax or something, okay?"
Taylor nodded at Amy and walked back to the car, keeping an eye on Amy as she did, not even bothering to use any of her creatures to do so. Amy, herself waited at the front door until their car turned out of sight, before she re-entered the house.
-Legion*** Taylor ***Legion-
The ride home was quiet, an easy quiet that lasted all the way home. When we pulled into the driveway, I followed dad into the house and thought seriously about just going to bed, but in the end decided to start tomorrow's dinner in the crockpot before emailing Amy to let her know that dad and I had gotten home safe and that I would see her tomorrow after school got out.
Starting dinner in the crockpot only took a few minutes, then I booted up my computer and logged into my email. As usual, the dialup connection took a couple of minutes to connect, but I was still able to email Amy before 9 o'clock. I let her know that I was home safe, and thanked her for coming over and told her that I had a wonderful time with her. She emailed me back almost immediately, just one of the advantages of an email enabled cell phone I guess, and asked me to meet her after school for a few minutes, which I knew meant that we needed to make some adjustments to our anti-master monitor, which was no more than I had expected. This was not going to be an easy mod, and we hadn't even started on the other part of it yet.
Taking one of the novels I had gotten from the library, I lay down on the sofa to read while dad watched some tv before we both headed to bed around 10 o'clock. I did set my phone for 2:30, just in case I wasn't awake already.
As I had expected, I woke up before my phone had a chance to go off, so I quietly got up and changed into my night running outfit. Before I left, I went downstairs and took two of the batons and both of the throwing knives. I put both knives and one baton, along with my pepper spray, into the pouch I had built into the back of my belt and put the other baton into the belt holster that I had bought for my metal baton. As I got back to my bedroom, I settled everything so that they rode comfortably and wouldn't make any noise while I ran.
After double-checking that dad was sleeping quietly, I carefully and quietly opened my bed room window, slipped outside and closed it most of the way before dropping to the ground. Straightening up, I let most of my swarm stay where they were, only taking a few cats and dogs to flank me and a couple of owls to keep an eye out overhead. While I was still close to home, I stayed in the shadows and away from the streets, mostly crossing peoples' backyards at a pace that would be considered a sprint for normal people, but felt like a slow jog to me. Once I was about a half mile from home I started working a bit harder.
The first thing I did was practice consciously reaching ahead for new creatures, and dropping them behind me. I was trying to push my range further ahead, while reducing it behind me, hoping that I could sort of shift my circle so that it wasn't centered on me, but rather was pushed off-center. It didn't seem to be working, but I kept at it anyways, figuring that even if I couldn't push it off center, I would still be working to increase my range.
The second thing I did was practice my running on top of the fences, to improve my balance and speed. I had actually gotten the idea from a cartoon I had watched last week, the main character seemed to make big thing out of turning everything he did into 'training', I wasn't sure how well it would work, but it seemed like a good idea to me. It didn't take very long before I could maintain my balance easily, so of course I started speeding up. As I did so, I found that I needed to relearn my balance, because running fast while staying quiet was totally different from just walking. Oh well, at least I got lots of practice with falling, just like the martial arts books and videos recommended.
After about half an hour, I was far enough from home that I moved out to the streets, well sidewalks whenever possible, and really built up speed. I practiced sprinting, and when I started to get winded, I would slow down to a pace that felt like I could maintain indefinitely, at least until I caught my breath and then would sprint again. For tonight I was less concerned with how fast or how far I was going, and more with establishing what it felt like to do the two different types of runs.
When I reached the outskirts of the docks, I began my parkour practice, moving through the alleys and between the warehouses, using the dumpsters and other things as obstacles. I was also able to practice my wall running and climbing without disturbing anyone, well anyone important. As I ran through one alley, that had a high fence blocking it about half way down, I tried combining wall running with vaulting to get over the fence and landed right in the middle of a mugging. At 3:30 in the morning!
Three men had either cornered or pulled into the alley a nicely dressed couple and were threatening them with knives and demanding their wallets. Not having my armored costume, I decided to work fast, so I pulled out my baton and disarmed the three men by smashing the knives out of their hands by hitting their wrists. Because I wasn't sure how hard to hit them with the baton so that I could knock them out without killing them, I used some basic grappling techniques to bounce their heads off the alley walls. All told it took a bit less than a minute to have all three unconscious and on the ground.
Once the immediate threat was over, I checked on the victims. Even though I wasn't using my swarm, I still had the mechanical voice changer so I felt comfortable talking to them.
"Are the two of you alright?" I asked, and I could see that the distorted, almost mechanical voice had freaked them out. Maybe even more than the mugging had.
The man, who was at least 3 inches over 6 feet, was quite pale and had to clear his voice a couple of times before he could answer, "Ah, that is, um, yes thank you, we're both fine. Umm, are…are you a cape?" he finally asked.
I shook my head and said, "No, it's just easier, and generally safer to practice my parkour late at night. Fewer people on the streets to run into and usually a lot fewer gang members are out and about."
Looking at the knocked out thugs, I asked, "Do you want to call the cops and press charges? Just so you know, I don't plan on waiting around for them, so you'll be on your own if you do. Personally, I wouldn't bother; they'll probably be out on bail by tomorrow anyways. You'd be better off just getting to your car and getting out of here, but it's your choice."
The man didn't even hesitate, he grabbed his girlfriend's hand and took off running, yelling, "Thanks again," over his shoulder as he did.
I laughed as they ran down the alley and turned up the street, then looked down at the thugs I had knocked out. "Well, that was a lot easier than I had expected, but what the hell do I do now?" Not wanting to use my cell phone, I walked over to the nearest thug and started going through his pockets; I found another knife, a baggie of what I assumed was drugs and his wallet, but no phone. Dropping it all back on the man, I checked the other two. Again I found an assortment of drugs and weapons, but also two cell phones. As I started to dial 911, I stopped and looked at the wallets thoughtfully, then decided against it, I may have needed the money, but taking it from them would have been no better than mugging them, just like they had tried mugging that couple.
"Emergency services, what is your emergency, please?"
"Hi, this is a concerned citizen. Three young men attempted to mug a couple of people and got knocked out. You might want to send some cops and EMT's to come take care of them. They are in the alley just off of Jefferson, between the Morgenstein Shipping warehouse and the abandoned factory. I think they used to make AC's or something. Anyways, send someone to pick 'em up ok?"
"Will you wait for the police, please?"
"Yeah, lemme think about that, umm. Nah, places to go, people to see. Oh, I left their drugs and weapons and stuff on top of them, so if you hurry, you can probably bust 'em for possession. See ya!"
With that I turned off the phone and dropped it back on top of the owner, and took off running, wanting to get at least another hour's worth of running in before heading back home.
