***Anyone even remember this plot-thread? I sure didn't.***
"Well, that was a mess," Victoria said, sipping a rainbow colored liquid in what was supposed to be a coffee cup.
"You mean the Birdcage breakout, the whole thing with the new shadow stalker, the massive protests all over the city, the part where we turned Marquis's new gang into a bunch of sexy ladies, the part where Rune bombed us with burning trucks, or the part where someone just tore down the Medhall building?" Amy asked her sister.
"All of it?" Vicky suggested, shrugging.
"Yeah, guess that's true," Amy admitted.
Meeting her father hadn't been anything like she'd expected it to be. The man was intense, action-driven, and a supervillain through and through.
In a way, it reassured her that she was absolutely nothing like him. Nurture over nature, perhaps.
"Hey, Dallons!" A voice called out, and Amy turned in surprise.
Nostradame and Gallant, in full costume, were waving at them down the street.
"Gallant!" Vicky yelled out, launching herself forwards in their direction, flying straight at her boyfriend like nothing had happened. Amy followed, trotting along like she always did, eyes on the ground, and envious of the emotion-manipulating asshole that had stolen her sister away from her.
She was taken by surprise as a hand moved her costume's hood down, and then in one movement cupped the back of her head, a thin layer of cloth separating their skin. Looking up in surprise, she barely had the time to notice that Nostradame had removed her mask before the freckled blonde pressed her lips against Amy's.
Taken almost completely by surprise, Amy felt her power explore the girl's body, from the perfect hip-to-waist ratio to the needle-scars on her arm. She was stressed out, tired, and had a head-splitting head-ache. Power-induced and in the brain, so there was nothing Amy could do about it except for feeling sorry for the girl.
In the meantime, Nostradame was taking advantage of her surprise to try and get in some tongue on tongue action.
Why the hell was she doing this!? Wouldn't her power mean she knew better? That it was Vicky she wanted, and not some random Thinker that spend her time hiding behind her father's powered armor.
Except Vicky was with Gallant, and even if they broke up, she'd never think of her sister as a viable dating partner. She was going to spend her entire life pining after someone she would never be able to get, never finding herself an actual partner. It was safe, in a way, but it was also kind of cowardly. There was an beautiful, intelligent girl trying to kiss her right now, and she was going to ignore that in favor of something she would never be able to get.
Damnit she thought as she gave in to Nostradame's kiss. Had Nostradame planned her entire internal dialogue? Was she that good? Did it even matter?
Amy kissed, relishing the physical contact, which for once was far removed from the atmosphere of sterile hospital rooms.
Then, out of breath, she took a step back, still in the blonde's embrace, but with some distance between them.
"Lisa," the girl said with a sly smile on her face.
"Amy, but you already knew that," she replied, leaning back against Lisa's arms.
Was she really doing this? Kissing a girl she barely knew and starting a relationship? This really wasn't her. Then again, being her hadn't exactly worked out well over the years.
"You know, this worked out better than I expected!" Lisa chippered.
"… What do you mean?" Amy asked.
"That kiss? Mostly cause of a promise I made to your cousin," Lisa admitted, her green eyes staring straight at Amy's heart. "Given the results though-" Amy interrupted her. With her mouth, but not exactly with words.
*** Maybe I should learn to write romance that's not just two people kissing all the time and being sickly sweet to each other, but why change a winning team? ***
Vicky retched again, the projectile vomit assisted by the fact that she was floating.
"Really honey? You of all people?" Dean asked her, Gallant as ever in his armor.
"Look, it's just… They barely know each other!"
"Trust me, it's been five minutes. Nostradame knows everything she needs to know about Amy, and your sister's had plenty of time to inspect her in return," Gallant said.
"Still though… All the kissing sounds, it's just nauseating," Vicky said.
"Trust me, I've heard that complaint about a thousand times by now. It's just… Aegis never vomits."
"Well, girls have delicate sensibilities!" Vicky protested.
"Shadow Stalker didn't," Gallant said.
"I said delicate Gallant, that disqualifies her automatically!"
"Well, Nostradame doesn't… No, wait, she makes sure to be somewhere else whenever you drop by. I'm guessing she actually does get disgusted by people kissing."
Two dozen feet away, Amy and Lisa took a short break, all so that Lisa could shout at them: "Do you know how many germs you two keep exchanging? Because I do! It's why I picked an anti-septic girlfriend!"
"I'm… I'm not your girlfriend," Amy protested.
"Girl, we've been hugging and kissing for about an hour now, and I bet you didn't even notice the part where Alexandria and Lung had a city-block destroying fight."
"They destroyed a city-block?" Amy said, completely exasperated.
"More than just the one," Lisa said. "But it's alright, Lexy brought some of her people over to make sure no-one got caught up the chaos. Trust me, you don't have to get worried, it's handled."
"Okay…" Amy said, visibly relieved.
"Also, is that your cuz flying over there?"
Gallant looked where Lisa was pointing, spotting two flying capes, one of them carrying a third cape. Laserdream, Lighthuntress and… Purity?
The three of them landed nearby, Crystal dropping her new girlfriend on the ground.
"Lisa? Why the fuck are you hugging Panacea?" Lighthuntress asked.
"Long story short? Shadow Stalker has a shitty sense of humor," Lisa replied. "Also, no names in front of the Nazi."
"Wait… how's that work?" Gallant asked.
"Stalker's girlfriend does a thing, she feels the trigger, Dragon stops homeschooling me, her mom escapes prison, she needs something to cheer her up, you're already dating Vicky and I'm not inflicting Clocky on her, Eric's too old, Grue was already pretending to date his sister as some sort of weird cover story, Cryst didn't want to go to the library and I've been busy shitting my brains out now that Thinker 9 that doesn't understand how architecture works is in town. So yeah, this was the earliest moment I could get started."
"Nos… I know you think you're explaining, but…"
"Nah, actually pretty clear," Vicky answered. "Except for the architecture part."
"Library of, but then she has a lighthouse on her chest? Seriously that's just pandering to the lowest common denominator."
"You know, now that you say that…" Gallant said, thinking about the problem. That… yeah that made no fucking sense at all. Was she double-dipping or something? Trying to refer to both at once?
"So, anyway, now that we're all here, I know what we should do!" Lisa said.
"You… you don't even know why we're here!" Purity said, feeling the odd one out with all of her being a responsible adult.
"Of course I do ya dummy. You're here to find mister Hebert, either to yell at him or to get into his pants."
"Well, I never!" Purity responded, acting all insulted.
"Of course not, I bet you always do it with the light's off little miss flashlight," Lisa snapped back. "I'm not stupid okay, I can tell when people blow up a building just to get their boytoy back."
"Can we get back to finding my dad?" Huntress asked.
"Sure," Lisa said, ignoring the flashlight almost instantly. "Close your nose though, I'm pretty sure he's in the sewers with his wife."